Republicans and Other Wingnuts

The Republican Party used to contain some folks with a smidgen of intelligence, kindness, common sense and patriotism.  Today Republicans so described are far and few between.  The Republican Party is the Wingnut Party, comprised of kooks, nasties, ignoramuses, contrarians, and unpatriotic SOB's.

But on occasion, Republicans make us smile.  Not because they've done anything decent or worthwhile, but because their actions make them look like idiots.


The State of Missouri has always had a reputation.  Not necessarily a good one.  Stubborn, the people of Missouri have been called, and they're proud of it.  Now we can call some of them ignoramuses and stupids.  Especially the ones elected to the state legislature.  These bright and shining numbnuts just passed a law which "nullifies all federal gun laws in their state."  This, at the same time as another shooting at Fort Hood!

The bill is, of course, against the law and the Constitution.  But some folks in Missouri never got the word they lost the Civil War and that federal law trumps state law every time!  Missouri state troopers don't like this law at all as Missouri is home to a number of ultra-crazy militia type groups who have all the smarts of dog poop, and tend to violence like a crazed polar bear.

The bill allows the good folks of Missouri to sue agents of the federal government if the latter attempt to enforce any federal gun laws.  OK, that's kind of funny.  But less funny is the fact it allows people with concealed gun permits to carry their weapons in the open even in cities witch disallow such a thing.  And now a 19-year old can get a concealed carry permit (down from 21). 

The idiot sponsoring the bill in the House is Doug Funderburk, a Republican, naturally.  He does not understand the Second Amendment and claims "This is what our founding fathers intent was ...and this is how we push back on a federal government that is running out of control."

The only group out of control in this case are the kooks in the Missouri Legislature!


Our southern states have always been on the brink of wingnuttery but some of us hoped that might change, you know, after the Civil War and the Civil Rights Act, and the move into the modern age.  But nooooooo.  Mississippi, with the most pregnant teens in the country, just got around to instituting sex education in the schools.  Of course, the definition of sex education in Mississippi leaves something to be desired.

In Oxford, Mississippi, "The new curriculum ... has teachers giving Peppermint Patties to the students, having them unwrap them, and then passing them around.  Once a piece of chocolate makes it around the classroom, students are told that when they have sex, they're like that dirty piece of candy."

Isn't that funny?  I sometimes think it would have been a good thing if the "South" had successfully seceded.  But then, they'd need all kinds of foreign aid from the United States; even more than they get now!  And lots of mental health care.


Indiana Senator Dan Coats may be be suffering from some disease or perhaps he's been a Republican too long.  He went to a hearing on Capitol Hill and sat there for an hour.  "[...] when he took his turn Wednesday afternoon, [he started] flipping papers on his lap, reading from them and commending the witness for his department's prompt response to a letter Coats had sent about a military accounting office in his home state."

But the moron was in the wrong hearing!  And he didn't realize it until one of his staffers handed him a note.  

Ha, ha, ha.


Alan West.  You may remember him.  The crazy former Congressman from Florida.  Well, he's written a book.  Hell, I didn't even know he could read!  The book is called "Guardian of the Republic."  It describes his political thinking and incorporates a bunch of quotes WHICH ARE FALSE! 

For example, he claims Thomas Jefferson said "A government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take it away."  Heh, heh.  A phony quote.  And there's more just like it.

But Alan West has never felt bounded by the truth and typical of Republicans, he just makes things up to support his neatherthandalic beliefs and bolster his ignorant stupidness!


Florida again.  If you wish to see wingnuttery in spades, come to Florida.  We've got that insane "Stand your ground" law, which allows people to murder other people (e.g., Zimmerman) without any consequences.

Now, because some media types have started digging into the background of these "Stand your ground" cases, our moronic State Legislature has passed a bill closing those files to all further access. 

Republicans claim to be defenders of freedom, but in almost every instance where freedom is an issue, they vote for the opposite!


Ha, ha, ha.  Again we're in the South.  North Carolina.  A candidate for the 6th Congressional was asked by a 6th-grader how he would defend the rights of LGBT folks.  Mr. Phil Berger, Jr., the candidate in question and the Rockingham County District Attorney, said he supported "traditional marriage," and same-sex marriage was like "a man marrying a dog."

Isn't that funny.  Oh, Mr. Berger is a Republican.  He's also a joke.


Also from North Carolina, a bastion of science education and knowledge.  I'm being sarcastic.  Charles Sutherland is retired.  He used to own a business.  He's pretty much an ignorant fool but proud of it.  Mr. Sutherland said that when it comes to climate change, "we're heading into another Ice Age, not getting warmer.  We need to prepare for that."

My god that's so funny.  Republicans are really comical. 


Paul Rosenberg, writing for Salon, wonders why fundamentalist Christians who claim to take the Bible literally, don't also believe the earth is flat and fixed, for the Bible is quite clear that is the case.  I also wonder how the Creationists deal with the fact that the "firmament" or "expanse," in Genesis is said to provide a divide in the waters where earth could exist.  The expanse above is the sky.  Above the sky is water.  


Even Creationists ought to be able to see this is not a literal description of the way things are!


This from Daily Kos.  Another funny Republican:  Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.  Last week he refused to allow a reporter cover one of his press conferences.  The reporter was from Kentucky, Ms. McConnell's home state.

Last June this strong supporter of the First Amendment told how he "spoke at the American Enterprise Institute and warned of a grave and growing threat to the First Amendment.  That threat has not let up."

Yup.  McConnell's so funny.  He's one of the threats! 


Gun Owners of America.  This is a very funny group.  They want to repeal all "gun-free" zones in the United States!  Their rationale is that if everyone is armed and someone starts shooting everybody else can pull out their weapon and kill the first shooter. 

That's why last year a very funny Texas Republican Congressmen, Steve Stockman, introduced a bill to repeal the ban on carrying firearms on military bases.  He thinks that if civilians can be armed, military personnel should be able to carry weapons on their posts.

So, the recent shooting at Fort Hood would have turned out much differently if only there were a bunch of soldiers carrying weapons when the shooter started shooting.  You could have had ten or twenty people shooting.  Maybe a hundred dead instead of three.

God, what a fun time!


Some wingnuts in Georgia want to allow people to carry guns while attending church.  Hmm...if the preacher is saying something you don't like, just plug the bastard.  In the name of Jesus, Amen.


Some good guys.  Well, actually, good girls.  Sort of.  The National Coalition of American Nuns has expressed support of the Affordable Care Act.  As part of that support the nuns have publicly backed the Obamacare mandate that insurance companies provide contraceptive devices, etc.

A wingnut, Michael Hichborn, who represents the American Life League, got all hot and bothered about these "renegade" nuns and claims they are not good Catholics.  "It remains to be seen," said the wingnut Hichborn, "how they can call themselves even Catholic, let alone nuns, considering that they support abortion, birth control, homosexuality, women's ordination.  I mean, they've filled themselves up so much with their own immoral agenda that they've left absolutely no room for Christ."

Now you've got to admit that's hilarious.  Can you find a single reference by Jesus to abortion, birth control, homosexuality or women's ordination? 

Go nuns!


Star Parker.  She'd be funny if she weren't so damn dense and so damn unChristian.  She thinks that the black Congresswoman, Barbara Lee, is so liberal she can't see that Paul Ryan is no racist when he blames black culture and idle black men for failing to be more like Paul Ryan and his Wall Street pals - you know, rich and white.

Star Parker is also black.  A female Uncle Tom.  The problem, says Ms. Parker, is not racism but liberalism.  And Mr. Ryan is not a racist, but a "real reformer."  Ryan, the one with the budget balanced on the backs of the poor! 

I wonder if Ms. Star blames the latest recession on liberals, too:  All those "liberals" on Wall Street who destroyed our economy and the 1% percent "liberals" who are destroying the middle class and the chance of most everybody to achieve the so-called "American Dream"? 

Poverty-stricken blacks, according to Ms. Parker, are in that situation became of liberalism.  Racism had nothing to do with it.  Especially in the south.  I mean those slave owners and the Strom Thurmonds always treated their blacks folks right.  Right?

And what we need right now, says Parker, is Paul Ryan, "who wants to make Americans of all backgrounds better off by giving them more freedom, more choice, more responsibility, and less government."

Just don't give them any money like the damn liberals want to do!

Star Parker really isn't funny.


Here's another really humorous guy.  He's Dr. Alex McFarland, who is connected to the Center for Chritian Worldview and Apologetics at North Greenville Univeristy.  McFarland has the answer:  The recent shooting at Fort Hood happened because we are not longer a "real" Christian nation.

After WWII, says this genius, "Christianity was the core of the community."   [I know that wasn't true because I was living then, and McFarland wasn't.]  And his statement that "the post-World War II generation" had a "Christian mental view," which meant that when people "were at the very end of their tether," they "would turn to God," is pure, unadulterated hogwash.

Pshaw.  The Fort Hood shooting happened, says Mac, because "we've told generations of public school students that there is no creator God, there's purposeless evolution - and now since 1973, we've murdered ten times more human beings than Adoph Hitler through abortion."

Of course, that's why Ivan Lopez bought a gun and began shooting folks at Fort Hood.  It's amazing.  Thank you Dr. McFarland. 

Except, as with many Christianist wingnuts, McFarland doesn't worry about truth.  The fact is, there were a number of shootings in this country in the years following WWII:  Howard Unruh, a WWII vet in Camden, New Jersey, took a German Luger and shot 13 people in 1949.  Charles Whitman, in 1966, at the University of Texas, killed 16, etc. 


Finally, back to Florida.  Remember our "Stand your Ground" law.  Well, for Florida legislators, that's not enough.  They are freaking gun crazy!  The State Legislature has passed a "warning shot bill."  That means that you can fire a warning shot at someone if you fear for your life and not be charged under the current law, which is fairly severe - from 10 years in prison to life in prison.

Can you imagine?  We'll have all kinds of crazies firing "warning" shots and most of the time these folks will shoot themselves in the foot or the head, but every once in a while they're going to shoot someone else dead.

Some large questions arise.  How much in fear for your life do you have to be?  How close does the aggressor need to get before you can fire a warning shot?  How many warning shots can you shoot?  One?  Ten?  Twenty? 

This bill now heads to the governor, Rick Scott.  He's a triple-digit wingnut and not funny at all so it is likely he'll sign the thing.

Idiots R Us - #4

At first I thought the story as to which of our States would survive a "Zombie Apocalypse" was an April Fool's joke.  But the dateline of the story was March 28, updated on March 31. 

It's doubtless a prank, but what kind of freaking world do we live in when some folks think a possible Zombie Apocalypse is worth a long article on the Huffington Post? 

The scariest part of this is that there are doubtless idiots among us who really believe in Zombies and that dead people come back to life and eat brains.

For all the stupids out there:  There are no such things as Zombies!  Dead people are called dead for a reason:  they are dead! 

For the stupids who write such articles, even in fun, Get a Life!


This is also from the Huffington Post.  "Texas Workforce Solutions in Dallas received a job application by email ... from a man who also attached a picture of a penis.

The idiot did not get the job.  He got charged "with obscene display or distribution, a misdemeanor.


Being a teenager can be difficult.  The teen years are challenging.  Many teens have not yet left their childhood behind.  They are stupid.  Some of these stupid kids are playing a game called the "Eraser Challenge." 

The "game" involves erasing your "skin while saying the alphabet and coming up with a word for each letter."  Some of the stupids have suffered "pretty severe wounds."

Sheesh!  The next thing will probably be tattoos!  Idiots!


Gun control.  The NRA's position is stupid.  Always has been stupid.  They fight every reasonable attempt to control weapons, to help stop the killing that goes on in our society.

The State of New York has gun control laws which are more strict than most other states.  Lots of people are upset about this.  These folks believe the 2nd Amendment means they have the right to bear arms, that there should be no controls whatsoever and they ought to be able to purchase any type of weapon or ammunition.

My opinion as an American historian is that the 2nd amendment does not guarantee the right to bear arms to individual citizens.  It was never intended to be interpreted in that manner!  And Donald Trump who was railing against gun control at a rally in Albany, New York, is an idiot and full of crap.

The 2nd amendment allowed the states to set up militias for their defense.  Militias, like the National Guard! 

Here's how it reads:  "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Back in the day, men might be called up at any time to form a militia.  They would need weapons at the ready.  That didn't mean that every Tom, Harry and other Dicks should walk around armed to the teeth and shoot those who they perceived to be a threat (as a Florida law allows)!

The right to bear arms had to do with being part of a State militia.

The NRA has successfully sold the American people a bill of goods.  The NRA is not a defender of freedom but an enemy of common sense and the Commonwealth.

One final comment:  Let's say that the 2nd amendment does mean that everyone can have any old weapon he or she desires.  If that were true then it's about time the 2nd amendment is changed to reflect the danger guns pose to our society!


Here we go again.  It's not the shroud this time, it's the Holy Grail, the "cup" that Jesus drank from at the Last Supper. 

"Some historians" are claiming this is the historic chalice.

Stop!  The Jesus of the Gospels is a mythical figure, created many years after his supposed life came to an end in order to give some historical bones to the "Christ" figure that Paul had seen in one of his visions! 

There was no Jesus, there was no Last Supper, there was no "cup," and if there were such a thing it wouldn't be an "onyx goblet ... now encased in a gold chalice" and it wouldn't be residing in a church in Spain.

The Roman church in particular has made millions of buckaroos and converts by claiming to possess the bones of a saint, or some other artifact dating back to the early centuries.  There have been enough bones of the crucified Christ and enough nails from his cross to build a cathedral!

If you read Paul's authentic letters in the New Testament, which, by the way, are the earliest of the New Testament books, you will note he never shows the least bit of interest in anything about the so-called "historical" Jesus.  He never mentions Jesus, except in a couple of notations which are challenged by scholars.  He's all about his Christ figure who lives in the heavens.  Even when he goes to Jerusalem, he shows no interest in seeing where Jesus was crucified or any other site of his reported life.  He shows no interest in Jesus' physical appearance or his clothing and for damn sure, he cared nothing about the "cup" used in the Last Supper. 

Isn't it interesting that nowhere in the Gospels nor in Paul's writings nor anywhere else is there a physical description of Jesus?  

At the time Jesus is said to have lived, there were many people writing of the events of the times.  The Romans also kept meticulous records of their entire empire.  Nowhere is there any mention of Jesus or of any incidents of Jesus' life as recorded in the Gospels.

Enough with shrouds and cups.  If you really believe in Jesus and what he said, go out and take care of the sick and the poor and those in prison.  


Hobby Lobby is run by a right-wing fundamentalist Christian who does not want his company's insurance program to pay for emergency contraceptives, or intrauterine devices or abortion-inducing medications for Hobby Lobby employees.  Such a thing would violate his Christian beliefs, he says.

The funny thing here is that if Hobby Lobby is successful in this case now before the U.S. Supremes, it will mean that the corporation is acting out the beliefs of an individual and therefore the corporation can no longer hide behind the artificial nonsense that it is not responsible for its actions.

Furthermore, and this gets even more humorous, today it was revealed that Hobby Lobby's retirement plan has invested millions of dollars in a variety of companies that produce the very things Hobby Lobby is railing against! 

In other words, Hobby Lobby and its owner are huge hypocrites. 

But this is not what it's all about.  It's really about opening the door for Christians to force the government to bow to their wishes and begin the creation of a theocratic system.


His name is Scott Lively.  He's running for governor of Massachusetts.  He's an active anti-gay fundamentalist Christian pastor who has said that Obama supports LBGT rights because he might be gay, who travels around the world preaching hatred of homosexuals, who claims he's at least partly responsible for Russia's anti-gay laws, who authored a book called the "Pink Swastika:  Because Academic Integrity is Overrated" - it's this idiot who said recently he'd think it would be really fine if gay folks either submit to anti-gay therapy (which has been proven time and again to be ineffective) or be put in jail.

Hallejuah.  Praise the Lord.  This son-of-a-bitch is preaching the Gospel of Jesus.  Or not.


Sister Jane Dominic Laurel is another idiot - but she's also a Roman Catholic nun.  This idiot gave a lecture on "masculinity and femininity" at a Catholic high school in North Carolina.  Here's some of what this truth-challenged nuncompoop said:

Masturbation will probably make a boy gay.  Not girls?  And boys living with a single mom will be more likely to be gay because they have no father around to show them how to be masculine.  Heh, heh.  Yes, she really said this.

She also said that gay men are promiscuous and that gay couples abuse their children. 

Once again a spokesperson for the Roman church publicly exhibits ignorance, stupidity and hatred. 

We know from various surveys that 25-50% of priests/seminarians are gay.  I wonder what is the percentage of gay nuns.  Sister Jane didn't speak to those issues.  Could she possibly be gay?


One of the biggest idiots to inhabit our Congress is a character name of Louis Gohmert who is a 
Repugnican from Texas.  Gohmert either can't read or cannot understand what he reads.  He is ignorant of history and exposes his ignorance bolstered by his stupidity over and over again in public.

We've all heard of the "wall of separation between church and state" as stated in our Constitution.  Well, Mr. Gohmert, who has a difficult time mastering the thinking process, says "the constitutional separation between church and state was meant to be a 'one-way' wall where the 'church plays a role in the state.'"

You know the old saw about leading a horse to water but being unable to make him drink.  An updated version is that you lead an old Gohmert to the facts, but you can't make him learn anything.

He's an embarrassment to Texas and to the United States. 


And finally, a sports hero idiot.  He's being hailed as another Tebow and he says that's a good thing because Tebow stands up for his faith and loves Jesus. 

Trevor Knight is a star quarterback for Oklahoma and he loves to share his Christian faith. 

Well, I've got a suggestion:  Shut the f... up!  I don't care what your religious faith is.  I don't care if you've had a personal experience with the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  I don't care if your faith lifts your arm and helps you throw the football or calms the butterflies in your stomach when you go out on a date with a pretty girl.

Because you can throw a football does not mean you're not an idiot.  Your stardom does not give credence to your admiration for mythical figures in the sky or legendary characters from a couple of millenia ago. 

Fortunately, I can turn you off with a push of a button.  But, because you're a star you've got a captive audience made up of fanatics (fans) and it's really tiresome to hear you blather on about how your faith has helped you deal with adversity. 

Just throw the damn football.


Here ends the sermon for this day!


[Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.]

Idiots R Us - #3

Money still talks.  Robert H. Richards IV is an heir to the du Pont fortune.  He's not gainfully employed.  He raped his 3-year old daughter.  He said it was an "accident."  Superior Court Judge, Jan Jurden let him off because he "will not fare well" in prison.

How the hell do you "accidentally" rape a 3-year old child?  Since when do we let people go free because the won't "fare well" in prison?  Who the hell fares well in prison?

If you're a poor person, white or black, and caught with marijuana, some states would put you in prison where you would not fare well for 20 years.

Judge Jurden should resign.  Richards should be locked up for a good long time. 

Good luck with that!


Ted Nugent's latest insult directed toward the president of these United States consisted of calling the President a "subhuman mongrel."  It is hard to fathom what goes on in the mini-mind of Mr. Nugent, who because he is a musician, thinks he can speak of the leader of this country in such a disparaging manner.

One article I read said that "everyone" is offended by this insult.  But it mentioned only Rick Perry and Rand Paul.  Perry noted Nugent's blast was not appropriate language.  When asked to comment about the fact that Greg Abbott, a Repugnican running for governor of the oil state, hangs out with Nugent and has been blessed by Nugent, Perry refused to comment. 

These hypocritical Repugnicans should be ashamed of themselves.  Ever since Mr. Obama was elected, they have reviled him in all kinds of ways, questioning his birthplace, claiming that he's destroying the country, publicly calling for his impeachment.  Others have slandered him in ways just as offensive as Nugent.

So, Nugent, bless his filthy little heart, is just following the lead of Repugnican leaders.


Paul Ryan, as the House Budget Committee Chairman, has come up with another "not-so-new" Repugnican budget plan that is tailored to "balance the budget" on the backs of the poor, the elderly and the young.  He calls this a "balanced" plan.

Ryan, a Roman Catholic who has adopted the atheist Ayn Rand as his political mentor/guru, believes that the elderly are feeding in the trough of government largess, that the poor are poor because they don't want to work - it's their culture you know, and kids today just don't have what it takes.

So, Ryan's budget, over the next ten years, would lop $5.1 trillion in federal spending.  It would cut food stamps, and several programs such as pensions for federal workers and Pell Grants for poor college students.  It would cut health care for the poor and working class.  The Huffington Post says it would "steer away from cuts to benefits for senior citizens, at least in the short term, but reprises a voucher-like Medicare program for future retirees."

Here's a suggestion:  Leave the poor, the old, and the working class the hell alone!  Tax the rich.  Make GE and Boeing and other companies pay at least some taxes.  Stop allowing companies to hide profits off-shore.  Stop gifting the oil companies huge subsidies when they're raking in billions of dollars in profit every year. 

And here's another suggestion, Mr. Ryan:  cut your own goddamn health care and your pension and leave the rest of us to live out our days in peace!

Oh, you might also try to pass some bills which would create more jobs. 


Bethlehem Community Church in Laurel, Mississippi, pranked its parishioners by implying former president Georgi Bushki would be giving a "biblical" message.  Church officials didn't mention any names, but rather spoke of a "mystery guest."

They did line the "entrance to the church with American flags," and hired men to look like secret service agents.

The "Bush" that showed up, however, was an impersonator named John Morgan, who looks and acts much like the real Georgi W. Bushki.

Just goes to show, you can't believe anything these churches say and they'll do just about anything to get you in the door and pick your pocket!


Did you hear about the Minnesota couple who scammed the assistance program of that state out of $165,000 while living large, with several million in secret bank accounts and a mansion plus yacht in Florida?

And you thought all welfare scammers were poor black single moms with lots of kids!

The truth is that neither the Minnesota couple, nor poor folks of whatever color, are a threat to our system or our financial situation.  It's the corporations who receive huge amounts of money every year as gifts from the rest of us that are scamming the system and creating our budgetary crisis. 

Some Repugs like to talk as if Social Security is going to be the financial downfall of the United States.  That's total bullshit!  Social Security is solvent and with no adjustments will continue just fine for at least 3 more decades.  And all could be well forever and ever if the rich paid in their fair share to the Social Security system and if Congress would stop "borrowing" Social Security monies to fund their pet projects.


According to an article by Joan McCarter at Daily Kos, Republican states which have failed to implement the Medicaid expansion have kept millions of children from being covered by health insurance.

"[...] in states not implementing the Medicaid expansion, children account for 75% of the uninsured eligible for Medicaid or CHIP."

Even in states which did accept the Medicaid expansion, many children have been left out because people were not informed as to the availability of health care or how to go about getting it. 

There are 14 million uninsured individuals eligible for this insurance.  5.2 million of these are children.

Way to go, GOP!!!


Ted Cruz is not known to be a funny guy.  He isn't a funny guy.  He's an unhappy, cruel and miserable SOB.  But what he did on Facebook was funny.  He asked his "friends" to answer "an informal survey on his verified senatorial Facebook page." 

Obamacare is now four years old.  Cruz wanted to know if his friends were better off now than the were before the ACA.  They were instructed to answer "Yes" or "No".

"It's probably fair to say that he didn't expect the tsunami of "YES" votes that have shown up on the page among the 47,000 that Facebooks says have been posted."

The Yes people liked not being disqualified because of pre-existing conditions; they liked (if they were young) to stay on their parent's insurance up to age 26, and they liked the lower premiums and no lifetime benefit limits.

I'm laughing. 

[The above is from The Jed Report on Daily Kos]


Daniel Lapin is an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, and represents the Orthodox Jewish answer to Christianity's prosperity gospel.  Lapin is not an idiot, but something close, clothed in religious garb but spewing nonsense nonstop.

Lapin was on Pat Robertson's 700 Club recently.  He has a new book to promote, which deals with the "ancient Jewish wisdom" of "making money."

Robertson is an idiot.  Which makes me think that Lapin must be, too, just for appearing on Robertson's show.  Robertson raised the old saw about all Jews being rich and wanted to know how they "prosper financially."

It went downhill from there.  Lapin claimed that paying a mechanic to fix his BMW or a kid to mow his lawn was "taking care of God's other children."  Really.  That's what he said!

But here's the kicker:  God doesn't want anyone to be an adolescent or to retire.  Lapin says there are no Jewish words for "adolescent" or "retire" so the obvious conclusion is that to be an adolescent or a retiree is bad.  Robertson said he thought Lapin to be right, that to retire is to violate God's law.

And finally, Lapin charged that the U.S. government has become Marxist and has made its people slaves.

I rescind my earlier statement:  Lapin IS an idiot!  Maybe there is a hell where he and Robertson can tell each other stories for all eternity. 


How to know God is real.  There are seven things.  You'll be convinced.  Or not.  These are from a Christianist by name of J. Lee Grady who writes at the fundy Charisma website. 

1.  Babies.  Yup.  Just look at that wonderful little baby and consider all the stuff in that baby's DNA and you'll be convinced that god is real.   Of course an ape has 98 percent of the same DNA and a mouse is very similar in terms of DNA to humans, but...

2.  Thunderstorms.  Really.  I'm serious.  This is what he wrote.  You'll know God is real by watching thunderstorms from your back porch; especially if you live in Florida.  Like St. Paul said, "creation was the best evidence of God's existence."  Hmmm.  Tell that to the victims of a tsunami, or a tornado, or a snowstorm, or a mudslide, or...well, I don't think thunderstorms are going to convince anyone that there is a God.  Might convince some there is no god!

3.  Flowers.  Most are not edible.  They are just to make the world look better.  It couldn't be they just evolved.  Nope, a "loving God" created "each individual shape and color scheme for our enjoyment."  "Well, except for that damn plant that clamps around you and smothers you to death or that damn Florida vine that destroyed everything around it in my back yard!  Nah, flowers aren't gonna do it.

4.  The Bible.  Oh boy.  I think if anyone reads the Bible with an open mind he or she will quickly become convinced that the god of the Bible is a horrible, mythical creature that best be forgotten.  He's the one who created millions of people in such a way that they "misbehaved," so he decided to kill them off except for one pederast by name of Noah.  Then he re-peopled the earth with the same scum he just killed.  He's the one who tells his favorite tribe to disembowel their enemies, rape their women and smash their children against the rocks.  He's the one who's going to send everyone to an eternal hell where they will be consumed by fire unless they believe that he was killed as a sacrifice to himself for the sins of the world. 

Who can suffer such crap?

5.  The global spread of Christianity.  I think this may be more of a sign of the devil than of god.  Christianity has done more damage to the world in the past 2,000 years than any other group in history! 

6.  Jesus.  You just have to believe that Jesus was the son of god who was killed in order to sate god's bloodlust.  Furthermore, there is no credible evidence of any kind that proves Jesus existed.  The evidence suggests that he also is a mythical figure.  Jesus is not a good argument for a god.  Wait, wasn't Jesus supposed to be god?  Why then would god have to have himself killed as a sacrifice for himself in order to save all the poor sinners whom he created to be poor sinners?  Something's wrong with this picture. 

7.  A personal friendship with God.  Well, that's going to go nowhere.  You might as well believe in god because of your personal friendship with Mickey Mouse.  It means absolutely nothing. 


No wonder people today are leaving religion behind.  They're finally catching on.  It's a scam.

[The cartoon courtesy of Atheist Cartoons.]











 




 

Boycott the Koch Brothers

[The following is from kathybbb at Daily Kos.]

The Koch brothers, dipping into their bottomless well of money, are a serious threat to American democracy.  They can buy and sell anyone and are using their massive funds to spread their ultra-rightwing (dare I say fascist?) political and religious views across the land, usually through front goups with innocuous sounding names.  Their pernicious influence is felt everywhere, from the smallest town council to the White House.

But we can fight back.  We can boycott Koch products.  Do your country and the world a favor by avoiding all the companies on the list and refraining from buying the products mentioned. 

Here is a list of Koch products.

Koch Brothers and Koch Industries from:

Koch Industry Gasoline:

Chevron
Union
Union 76
Conoco


Koch Industry/Invista Products:

COMFOREL® fiberfill
COOLMAX® fabric
CORDURA® fabric
DACRON® fiber
POLYSHIELD® resin
SOLARMAX® fabric
SOMERELLE® bedding products
STAINMASTER® carpet
SUPPLEX® fabric
TACTEL® fiber
TACTESSE® carpet fiber
TERATE® polyols
TERATHANE® polyether glycol
THERMOLITE® fabric
PHENREZ® resin
POLARGUARD® fiber and
LYCRA® fiber

Koch Industry/Georgia-Pacific Products:

Angel Soft toilet paper
Brawny paper towels
Dixie plates, bowls, napkins and cups
Mardi Gras napkins and towels
Quilted Northern toilet paper
Soft ‘n Gentle toilet paper
Sparkle napkins
Vanity fair napkins
Zee napkins

Georgia Pacific Building products:

Dense Armor Drywall and Decking
ToughArmor Gypsum board
Georgia pacific Plytanium Plywood
Flexrock
Densglass sheathing
G/P Industrial plasters (some products used by a lot of crafters)-
Agricultural Plaster
Arts & Crafts Plaster
Dental Plaster
General Purpose Plaster
Glass-reinforced Gypsum (GRG),etc.


There's more on Koch here.

Green Living has much more about the Koch brothers here. 

Idiots R Us #2

A show titled "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey" made its debut this month on FOX.  It is a scientific documentary which discussed, in part, the theory of evolution.

Creationists are upset.  A representative of Answers in Genesis (the same group that brought America the Creationist Museum) is demanding equal air time to present the Creationist point of view.

This would be hilarious if it weren't so sad and indicative as to how far we have fallen scientifically in this country.  The Creationists should be laughed back to the Stone Age not given equal air time to present their religious views under the pretense they are somehow related to science.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is the one behind "Cosmos" and he had the perfect rebuttal to the whiny, pea-brained creationists:  "...you don't talk about the spherical earth with NASA and then say let's give equal time to the flat-earthers."

Creationism has NOTHING to do with science no matter what Ken Ham and his cohorts believe!  Creationism is a particular religious viewpoint, held by a minority of fundamentalist Christianists who want to believe that the hoary old book of Genesis is some sort of historical document, when it is, in essence, a collection of myths perpetrated by ignorant desert nomads who lived several millennia ago and knew mostly about sheep and cattle and fighting other tribes but nothing of science or the universe or creation!


A new report from the United Nations warns that climate change is real, massive, and is already affecting all life on planet earth.  Seth Borenstein, reporting on the UN report says, "The big risks and overall effects of global warming are far more immediate and local than scientists once thought.  It's not just about melting ice, threatened animals and plants.  It's about the human problems of hunger, disease, drought, flooding, refugees and war, becoming worse."

If we are to save ourselves, we must take action now for we can no longer smooth over the issue by thinking the effects of global warming and climate change are far off in the future and that we have plenty of time to fix things. 

As Borenstein quotes from Michael Mann, a Penn State scientist, "It's not far-off in the future and it's not exotic creatures - it's us and now."


Pat Robertson again.  He cannot stop himself from making moronic and stupid remarks.  On his 700 Club a viewer expressed difficulty converting her atheistic coworker.  Robertson said he thought it possible that the atheist might believe as she does because she's possessed by demons or has been raped.

And there you have it folks:  Demon possession and rape leads to atheism.  Ergo, atheists are possessed by demons or victims of rape.


Alternet has a story about the Catholic Archdiocese in the city of Atlanta.  Joseph Mitchell, a nephew of Margaret Mitchell, author of "Gone With the Wind," gave the diocese $15 million.  The Cathedral of Christ the King chose to spend $2.2 million to renovate a priestly rectory which had been the home of an archbishop who has since moved into new digs which cost $2.2 million.

Some parishioners in the Atlanta diocese believe the money would be more properly spent on helping the poor, kinda like the Gospel Jesus taught. 

Nothing much has changed, it seems, in the thinking of the Roman church. 


A positive sign:  Conservative book sales are on the decline.  Perhaps the reason is that conservatives have enough doorstops.


The State of South Carolina has perpetually been a pain in the ass of this country.  Think Ft. Sumter, Strom Thurmond, the KKK, Nikki Haley.  Now SC is engaged in another minor, but significant debacle.  Crooks & Liars tells the story of a 3rd-grader by name of Olivia McConnell who wanted South Carolina to have a "state fossil."  Only 7 states do not have a state fossil.  Olivia likes fossils so she wrote to her state representative suggesting South Carolina adopt one. 

Seems that in 1725 slaves working on a SC plantation dug up wooly mammoth teeth in a swamp.  Olivia thought the wooly mammoth would make a great state fossil.

Two legislators agreed and filed bills in the SC House & Senate declaring "The Columbian Mammoth is designated as the official State Fossil of South Carolina."  There are some good folks in South Carolina.

But there are also lots of low-grade dimwits.  Two of these, good Christians of course, said this was not a good idea unless South Carolina also acknowledged that God "created on the Sixth Day [the mammoth] with the beasts of the field."

Senator Mark Fair is one of these dimwits.  He's the guy who compared our president with Osama Bin Laden, "helped to block funding for a rape crisis center, called climate change a hoax, and blocked evolution from the state's science standards."

Will someone explain to these two fruitcakes that these United States are not to perpetrate any religion whatsoever and that they need to get educated because their stupidity is stinking up South Carolina and we've had enough shit from "good" Christians who demand the right to impose their pagan religious beliefs on the rest of us!


This is also from Crooks & Liars:  It has to do with the liar, Chris Christie, who has mangled public education in his state and worked hard to decimate the pensions of public servants.  "Facing another year of fiscal problems, Gov. Chris Christie changed the funding formula for the state's pension contribution so that he could cancel $93.7 million in previously budgeted pension payments due in June, cut next year's pension bill by $150 million, and put $900 million less into the underfunded pension system by the end of his term."

Mr. Christie is not a nice person.  He is as lousy and dangerous as most Republicans.


Donald Rumsfeld should, in my opinion, be serving time as a war criminal.  I agree with the opinion of an Alternet writer, Janet Allon, that he is a psychopath.  He was interviewed by Greta Van Susteren recently and implied that Obama has no clue what he's doing in Afghanistan.  Then, Rumsfeld, the psychopathic war criminal, said "This administration, the White House and the State Department, have failed to get a status of forces agreement."

I'll admit I don't even know what that is.  But I think Rumsfeld is betting no one knows what that is but will think it vitally important and that Obama was stupid for not getting one. 

The corker came, though, when this psychopathic war criminal and racist said:  "A trained ape could get a status of forces agreement.  It does not take a genius."

Nope.  It takes a genius to lie us into an unnecessary war with Iraq which killed hundreds of thousands of people for no good reason whatsoever, created a massive increase in anti-American sentiment around the world, and broke our financial back! 


Whale feces is a good thing.  According to Alex Kirby of the Climate News Network, "By enriching the seas with iron expelled from their digestive systems, sperm whales are helping to slow the warming of the Antarctic" say the scientists. 


This from Daily Kos:  Sunnie Kahle is eight years old and has been attending Timberlake Christian 
School, in Forest, Virginia.  Sunnie has short hair and fancies herself as a "Tomboy."  She prefers wearing jeans and a t-shirt instead of dresses. 

Administrators at this so-called "Christian" school decided Sunnie didn't look enough like a girl.  They said "her appearance didn't line up with 'biblical standards.'"  That's when her grandparents (who are raising Sunnie) took out of the "Christian" school and enrolled her in a public school

I wonder if most of these pretend Christian assholes ever read the Bible?


In the past, when I was younger and more naive, I wondered how it was possible that so many "good" people in Germany fell in step with the Nazis.  Recent studies have indicated that support for the Nazi Party was widespread and most citizens were well aware of what was happening under the Nazis.

Most Germans were of the Lutheran (Protestant) or Roman Catholic persuasion.  Hitler was a Roman Catholic as were many of his important henchmen.  Hitler used Martin Luther's book on the Jews as the basis for implementing the "Final Solution," so it is possible that many, if not most, Germans found some rationale for going along with the Nazis. 

Religion, as we know from history, offers no defense from insanity or stupidity or corruption or ignorance.  In fact, religion down through the years has exemplified those things in spades.  Thus when right-wing Christians in this country begin to sound like their brains have been scrambled, when they defend their war on the poor and their war on women as something of which Jesus would approve, when they promote the notion that their god wants them to be rich, when they suggest that the government should be based upon their biblical interpretations, we begin to understand the very scary fact that most of us would have no problem with a dictatorship that murdered or incarcerated people who failed to live up to their standards.

For example (and there are several), there is a person named Tristan Emmanuel, who wrote a bestseller titled, "Christophobia:  The Real Reason Behind Hate Crimes Legislation."  In an article posted on the whacko Matt Barber's website, Emmanuel suggested that people like Bill Maher who mock God should be severely punished by the authorities.  And this because Maher was guilty of "slanderous crimes against God and country."

Yep, Emmanuel believes America is under the authority of his god.  And blasphemy on the part of American citizens will call his wrath down upon us all unless we follow god's law by taking Maher and his cohorts out and whip them in public.


What is really scary about this is that our country is, in places, already under the control of such people.  The sit on our school boards, town councils, county commissions, state legislatures.  The inhabit the office of governor, U.S. representative, U.S. Senator, and not a few are judges on state and federal levels.  Many more are working for the various branches of the government as it is organized around the country.

And what do we do with people who are registering as Democrats in order to enter a political race in a Democratic area but are really Teapot Crackpot Republicans?  This is happening right now.


I used to believe Americans were, in general, immune from the imprecations of the extremists and the fascists.  I realize now that is not true.  We are rather quite susceptible to becoming the antithesis of what our founders envisioned.  And when it happens you can bet your bippy that it will be cloaked in the guise of revelatory religion, mostly the paganism that is Christianity.

The Idiots R Us

One of the things you'll discover in the following paragraphs is that many of our so-called leaders or wannabe leaders really believe in the ancient religious mythologies. This is especially scary because to believe in these things means you have given up thinking rationally and have become detached from reality.

When such people get elected and put in charge of running our country, our states, our cities, we no longer have much chance of dealing viably with the problems that confront us.

Consider the problem of global warming. In spite of the deniers, every reputable scientist in the world agrees it is a fact, it is to some degree caused by humans, and it is a major threat to the continuation of civilization on earth. Or, consider how the fundamentalist/conservatives have made evolution a problem. Evolution is not a problem. It is the theory upon which all of biology and most other scientific endeavors are based upon. It is as real as the theory of gravity! Consider environmental protection which is an absolute necessity if we are to survive. But conservatives/fundamentalists don't see it as a problem because as one senator from Oklahoma said, god would never allow his creation to be undermined. I guess this gentleman forgot the mythical Biblical tale of Noah.

Reviewing various news sources over the past few days has turned up many wingnuts screwing with  our nation and the world; fools who prance about while mouthing inane and insane predictions and predilections.


Phil Jensen is one of these fools; a Republican Senator from South Dakota. He thinks it is a good thing to allow for-profit businesses to be able to deny service to LBGT persons and/or blacks. It's all about the "free market." To this dipshit, the free-market is the most important thing. But he's so unhinged that in 2011 he tried to amend South Dakota's "justifiable homicide" laws to allow for the murder of doctors who perform abortions. This is what it means to be "pro-life" in his pathetic, sick mind.


Several states, including Florida, mandate drug testing for welfare recipients. Of course, in Florida, the governor (at least originally) had ties to the company that would do the testing. Republicans in several state legislatures around the country are excited about the possibilities of drug testing in their states even though studies have shown that it is basically a waste of money. Very few people have tested positive.  Florida has tossed hundreds of thousands of tax-payer dollars down the toilet pursuing this nonsense.

If we're going to test welfare recipients, then lets test them all.  We should drug test all governors and state legislators because every single one of them depend upon the federal government for money to run their states.  Texas actually gets back more money from the feds than they send to Washington in taxes.  Governors and state legislators are big-time "welfare recipients"!


Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey, has bashed and broken the unions in his state and has crippled the state's public education system and would like nothing more than to deplete the state pension fund because public employees, everyone knows, are free-loaders who don't deserve a pension.  This is the man who knew nothing about that recent infamous bridge closure.  Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!


Forty-five percent of uninsured Republicans say they'd rather pay a fine than buy health care under the Affordable Care Act.  Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face.  But Republicans these days have reached a level of stupidity that is mind-boggling.


Since 2007, the number of homeless students in this country has increased by 72%.  As Paul Ryan would say, "No big deal.  Their parents are lazy and don't want to work."


In the past five years, the number of Republicans who believe in evolution has declined by 26%.  In other words, these Republicans deny the basic facts as to how life was created on earth in favor of some ancient mythologies devised by ignorant desert nomads 3,000 years ago!


The NSA had a "terrorist" list which involved 17,836 phone lines which were monitored daily from 2006 to 2009.  Eleven percent of those lines met the agency's "reasonable ... suspicion of terrorism."   The NSA can't even follow its own rules!  Just know that all of your emails and most of your phone calls are being scanned by Big Brother!


Ted Cruz, the religious fundamentalist ultra-conservative myth-believing moron from Texas has been in Iowa recently testing the waters for a possible presidential run in 2016.  And to think that when I first read about this guy, I thought he was such a loser that not even Texans would vote for him.


It appears Florida's governor, Rick Scott, might be fined $82 million for violating campaign finance law.  He's also under fire for a $500,000 check he received from the huge sugar company Florida Crystals.  Wait, it appears there was no such check although it was was reported in 2013.  It has gone missing from state records.   Now ain't that something?


Fourteen billion years ago the universe was formed in an explosion known as the Big Bang.  What came immediately after that has been a mystery to astronomers until now.  They have discovered evidence "that a split-second later [after the Big Bang], the expansion of the cosmos began with a powerful jump-start."

"It's just amazing," said Lawrence Krauss (a theoretical physicist) from Arizona State University.  "You can see back to the beginning of time."


Meanwhile, Ken Ham, of the Creation Museum, insists, "No, no, no.  My piddly-ass little god did it all in six days 6,000 years ago.  The answers are all in Genesis.  In fact, god got so tired creating the universe that he had to rest on the 7th day after he started!  


Much of Europe and Asia are using high-speed trains that travel about 350km an hour.  We are using trains that move at the same speed they did in 1950.  Slow.


Talk about spoiling your own nest.  Research indicates that 77% of the world's fish stocks have either disappeared or are in trouble.  More troubling, perhaps, is the fact that 90% of our large fish have been removed from the oceans.  It's not just that we're overfishing, we also waste fish.  One-quarter of our yearly marine catch is thrown overboard, dead!


CNN - Don Lemon suggested that maybe God had something to do with the missing Malaysian Airlines flight.  Which god, I wonder.  Might have been Zeus?


Wage theft at Amazon.  Amazon is increasing coming under fire for not being a very nice company.  Workers are claiming that they are forced to "work" an extra 25 minutes per day in order to go through a screening process for which they are not paid.  They've sued and the case is heading to the Supreme Court (the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the workers).  This case might end up involving some 500,000 people working in 50 Amazon warehouses.


Paul Ryan, that intellectual giant from Wisconsin, said that "inner city" men are too lazy to work.  It's the "culture," he explained - not their race.  Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!


Pat Robertson.  Just when you think this old SOB is dead, he pops up to spout more creepy nonsense.  Horror movies, says Robertson, can lead to demon possession.  What does that even mean?  What demons?  And all this, claims Pat, is because folks involved in the entertainment biz are "very susceptible to Satanic influences."

Oh, the myth of it all.   


Jim Brown.  He's running for Congress from Arizona, the state where the heat shrinks the brains of Republicans down to the size of a wrinkled little pea!  "Basically," says Brown, "slave owners took pretty good care of their slaves and livestock and this kept business rolling along."

Yeah, slavery was good for the poor blacks.  Plus even god approves of slavery.  It's in the Bible!  And if it was good for bizness, the Republicans love it. 


Austin Ruse, who headed up the conservative Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute, said that "the hard left [whatever that is], human-hating people that run modern universities, should all be taken out and shot."  What?  Yep.  I do believe he's since lost his job.  Shoot!


Eddy Lepp grew marijuana in northern California which he handed out to anyone who needed it.  He was arrested and given a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison.  He is currently serving that sentence in the federal prison in Colorado where the sale of marijuana is legal.  Oh, the irony of it all!


Israel's Supreme Court says movie theaters must close on Shabbat.  Israel is a "free" country, but it is under the thumb of the ultra -orthodox in many instances.


Billy Graham's daughter, Anne Graham Lotz (not known for her powers of perception) has possibly solved the mystery of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370.  It is, thinks Ms. Lotz, just a preview of what we might expect of the "Rapture."  Yep.  The Rapture, when millions of Christians will just disappear from the world.

There's some inconsistencies here.  Why would god make this flight disappear?  Were all the people on board fundamentalist Christians?  Oh, the mythology of it all.  Actually, it's eerie to think that there are people like Ms. Lotz out there teaching other people how to think.


Dr. Jim Garrow.  I don't know who this clown is but he is convinced that Obama plans to destroy the world before he leaves office.  It's part of Obama's muslim identify thing and is his "jihad."  Why Obama would want to destroy the world is not clear, but Garrow is certain that Obama blew up the Malaysian plane as part of his evil plan.


I've save the best for last.  Or the craziest.  Susanne Atanus.  From Illinois.  She's an Illinois congressional candidate and even though more sane Republicans were calling on her to withdraw, she won the primary!

Here's what she said in a recent interview:

"'I'm a conservative Republican and I believe in God first.'  She said she believes God controls the weather and has put tornadoes and diseases such as autism and dementia on earth as punishment for gay rights and legalized abortions.

"'God is angry.  We are provoking him with abortions and same-sex marriage and civil unions.  Same-sex activity is going to increase AIDS.  If it's in our military it will weaken our military.  We need to respect God.'"


Considering the number of fools in our political system, it's hard to know whether to laugh or cry.  But too soon, I'm afraid, we'll be on the verge of tears as these numbskulls and their god drive us further from reality and real solutions to our problems.

  

Bill Maher's take on a new movie about the Biblical character, Noah

[Note:  Photo from the Washington Times]


Bill Maher, in a video clip from his show, said this about the new Noah movie:

Although the movie has been condemned by both Christians and Muslims, so it must be doing something right.  And they say it also may lose a fortune for the studio, which would put it in hot water with the Jews too.  (audience laughter and applause)

Now, I don't know about the elephants on Noah's Ark, but the elephant in the room in 2014 is that we are now a full four centuries removed from the scientific revolution.  Four centuries after Copernicus, after the time humans realized that through science, we could actually get a real answer to almost every question about our world, like where does the sun go at night?  And why does disease spread so quickly on a cruise ship?  (audience laughter)

And speaking of cruise ships, you know I don't mind that the Noah story is impossibly childish.  OK, I do mind.  What am I saying?  I mind very much.  I mean, seriously people?  You believe a man Noah lived to be 900 years old — that's what the Bible says — and when he was 500, he decided to have three kids, just like Clint Eastwood.  (audience laughter)

And when he was 600, he and his three 100-year-old sons built a boat onto which in one day, they loaded over 3 million animals, all of which were apparently indigenous to within 5 miles of the boat. (audience laughter)

But get this.  What the Christians who are now protesting this movie are upset about is that it doesn't take the Biblical story literally enough.  They're mad because this made up story doesn't stay true to their made up story.

But the thing that's really disturbing about Noah isn't the silly.  It's that's it's immoral.  It's about a psychotic mass murderer who gets away with it, and his name is God.  Genesis says God was so angry with himself for screwing up when he made mankind so flawed — rrrrr — that he sent the flood to kill everyone!  Everyone!  Men, women, children, babies.  What kind of tyrant punishes everyone just to get back at the few he's mad at?  I mean, besides Chris Christie.  (audience laughter and applause)

Hey God, you know you're kind of a dick when you're in a movie with Russell Crowe, and you're the one with anger issues.  (audience laughter)

You know, conservatives are always going on about how Americans are losing their values and their morality.  Well, maybe it's because you worship a guy who drowns babies!    (nervous audience laughter)  And then, God's genius plan after he kills everyone is to repopulate the world with a new crop of the same assholes who pissed him off the first time!  With predictable results.  He kills millions more.

If we were a dog, and God owned us, the cops would come and take us away.

Why are we getting our morals out of this book?  Why do people follow any of it?  You know, I'm reminded as we've just started Lent that conservatives are always complaining about too much restraining regulation and how they love freedom, but they're the religious ones who voluntarily invent restrictions for themselves.

On a hot summer day, Orthodox Jews wear black wool.  On a cold winter night, Mormons can't drink a hot chocolate.  Isn't life hard enough without making shit up out of thin air to fuck with yourself?(audience cheering and applause)

Don't we have enough rules to follow and enough asses we have to kiss in reality?  Your boss, your spouse, the tax man, your parole officer, your horny cellmate?  Without fabricating made up new ones?  Jews can't eat ham.  Jehovah's Witnesses can't buy Girl Scout cookies.  The Amish can't drive cars.  Catholics can't masturbate.  Scientologists can't go to therapy.  Baptists can't dance.  Sikhs can't shave.  And Lord knows, Muslims can't take a joke.  (audience laughter)

An open letter to the people who hate Obama more than they love America

By Jesse LaGreca

 

I meet you all the time. You hate Obama. You hate gay people. You hate black people, immigrants, Muslims, labor unions, women who want the right to make choices concerning their bodies, you hate em all. You hate being called racist. You hate being called a bigot. Maybe if you talked about creating jobs more than you talk about why you hate gay people we wouldn't call you bigots. Maybe if you talked about black people without automatically assuming they are on food stamps while demanding their birth certificates we wouldn't call you racist. You hate socialism and social justice. You hate regulations and taxes and spending and the Government. You hate.

You like war. You like torture. You like Jesus. I don't know how in the hell any of that is compatible, but no one ever accused you haters of being over-committed to ideological consistency. You like people who look like you or at least hate most of the things that you hate. You hate everything else.

Now, I know you profess to love our country and the founding fathers (unless you are reminded that they believed in the separation of church and state), but I need to remind you that America is NOT what Fox News says it is. America is a melting pot, it always has been. We are a multi-cultural amalgamation of all kinds of people, and yet you still demonize everyone who is not a rich, white, heterosexual christian male or his submissive and obedient wife.

You hate liberals, moderates, hell, anyone who disagrees with Conservative dogma as espoused by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. You hate em.

Well, here are the facts, Jack. If you hate the Government then you are unqualified to manage it. If you hate gay people more than you love America than you should take your own advice and get the hell out. There are several countries that are openly hostile to gay people, but they are full of brown people and you don't like them much either from what I understand. It looks like you are screwed, but that's not what I am here to tell you.

Now that you have thrown everything and the kitchen sink at President Obama and it still hasn't worked you are panicking. Obama's approval ratings are still near 50% despite your best efforts to undermine the economy and America's recovery at every step you can.

You tried to hold the American economy hostage to force America into default on its' debts, debts that YOU rang up under Bush, so you could blame it on Obama and it failed. You've used the filibuster more than any other Congress ever, going so far as to vote against providing health care access to 9/11 first responders. You remember 9/11, don't you, it's that thing you used to lie us into a war in Iraq, and then when Obama killed Bin Laden and ended the war in Iraq you told people that he hates America and wants the troops to fail. You monsters. You hate Obama with a passion, despite the fact that he is a tax cutting, deficit reducing war President who undermines civil rights and delivers corporate friendly watered down reforms that benefit special interests just like a Republican. You call him a Kenyan. You call him a socialist. You dance with your hatred singing it proudly in the rain like it was a 1950's musical.
 
Frankly, you disgust me. Your hatred nauseates me. Your bigotry offends me. Your racism revolts me. Dear haters, I am openly questioning your patriotism.

I think you hate gays, Obama, black people, poor people, all of us, women, atheists and agnostics, Latinos, Muslims, Liberals, all of us, I think you hate every one who isn't exactly like you, and I think you hate us more than you love your country.

I think you hate gay soldiers more than you want America to win its wars.

I don't even think you want America to win wars, you just want America to have wars, never ending wars and the war profiteering it generates. You love that kind of spending, you love spending on faith based initiatives and abstinence based sex education (George Carlin would have loved that one), you love spending on subsidies for profitable oil corporations, you spend like drunken sailors when you are in the White House, but if it is a Democrat then suddenly you cheer when America doesn't get the Olympics because it might make the black President look bad. 

But oooh you love your country, you say, and you want it back. Well listen here skippy, it isn't your country, you don't own it, it is our country, and America is NOT the religiously extremist Foxbots who hate science, elitist professors and having a vibrant and meaningful sex life with someone we love if Rick Santorum doesn't approve of it. Rick Santorum isn't running for America's fucking high school dance chaperone, he should probably just shut the hell up about sex, but he can't because he has nothing else to run on.

Republicans can NOT win on the issues. They've got NOTHING. All they have is a divide and conquer class war that pits ignorant racist and bigoted people against the rest of us in a meaningless battle of wedge issues and the already proven to fail George W. Bush agenda again of tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, privatization and war profiteering and nothing else, so all they can do is blame black people, gays the government, anybody and everyone else for their own failings. The party of personal responsibility, my ass.

But they love multi-national corporations, just ask a gay hating and racist religious extremist if they think Corporations are people and they will gladly agree, but if you ask them if gay people are people they aren't so sure.

Dear haters, you are the cruel, heartless misinformed assholes who would sell America out to Haliburton in a heartbeat, you would rather pay ZERO taxes than you would see a newly born baby get access to quality health care, you cheer when we discuss denying health care to young people with preventable diseases, and you boo when we discuss the First Ladies plan to cut back on childhood obesity. 

You are a cross to carry and a flag to wrap yourself in away from being the people who Sinclair Lewis warned us about, but I guarantee that if Fox News told you to dress that way you would, because you are the same blind, ignorant and closed minded dunces who drove this country into a civil war years ago because you are bound to the notion that some men are more equal than others. In short, the reason I proudly wear my union army hat is because of seditious sell outs like you who constantly fuck over working class Americans so a foreign entrepreneur like Rupert Murdoch can get a bigger tax break. If corporations are people, they are neither American patriots nor capable of love. Just like you.

So stop wearing your hate with pride. Stop celebrating your anti-science, anti-math ignorance. Stop using code words to mask your bigotry like "family values", especially when you hate my family and when you stand on the same stage as a guy who has had three marriages or if you share a seat in the Senate with a guy who cheated on his wife with hookers while wearing diapers. 

You should be ashamed. I know that you are just doing this to motivate your misinformed hate cult base because if they actually knew that your ideas will make them poorer than they are now, they would never vote for you. You are doing your best to impoverish your countrymen so rich people can get bigger tax breaks and you can keep on delivering corporate welfare to the special interests who have bribed you, and I am disgusted by the way you gleefully parade your hatred with aplomb. I don't think you do love America. At least, not as much as you hate everyone in America who isn't exactly like you.

You should think about that, and maybe get some help.

And for the record, I do not hate you. I am embarrassed by you and nauseated by your cruel and thoughtless behavior and your all consuming greed, but I do not hate you. I forgive you and I hope you can change someday, but I don't hate you. You have enough hate in you for the rest of us as it is.


You can follow me on twitter @JesseLaGreca

Originally posted to MinistryOfTruth on Mon Jan 09, 2012 at 01:57 PM PST.This piece was used with permission of the author. 

This piece was used by permission of the author.

The strange world in which we live - Part II

Today a Russian court convicted eight people for participating in an anti-Putin protest in 2012 on the eve of his inauguration for a 3rd term as president.  So far as I know their sentences have not yet been decided.  Following that event in 2012, Mr. Putin set up stiffer laws regarding protests in the new, "democratic" Russia.

It looks as though that kindly Russian bear we see at Sochi has a big bite!


What I learned from reading a golf instruction book:   Adam Scott, the wonder golfer from Australia, wrote that one must keep the head level during the swing.  Then he noted "Hovering the clubhead prevents jerks."  Oh, if only it were that easy.  I've tried keeping my head level, almost missed the ball, and some jerks standing nearby starting laughing.


On to Miley Cyrus.  What to do about Ms. Raunchy?  She's currently on her Bangerz tour and she does some fairly raunchy things in her act.  Pay your money and you can watch her "straddle a flying hot dog, stuff a thong in her mouth and simulate oral sex on a Bill Clinton impersonator while accompanied by mom and dad."

Some parents find this vulgar and upsetting and unsettling and want the Bangerz tour to go away - permanently.  Said parents and other protestors have caused some U.S. arenas to consider dropping Bangerz and Ms. Miley on her pert, little backside.

But, hey, if you don't like her show, don't go.  Lock your kids up at home.  Ms. Cyrus does nothing for me.  I think she's a sad little person who's probably in over her head and perhaps not too sure of her singing talent which is why she includes the raunchy stuff, but I don't have the need to shut her down.  If enough people don't attend her shows, she'll have to shut down on her own.  But I don't think that's going to happen no matter how many pious parents piss on her.


John McCain.  You may remember him.  He's the guy who flew a plane over North Vietnam although ordered not to do so, got shot down and spent five years or so in a North Vietnamese prison camp where, although he was treated pretty well, somehow came back a "hero" and parlayed that old "wounded hero" bit into one hell of a long political career.

There are two other notable things about Sen. McCain.  One is his involvement in the old Savings & Loan scandal.  Although deeply involved he came out of that smelling like a rose, too.  Well, a damp, wilted rose, but a rose nonetheless.  The other is his failed candidacy for the presidency known mainly for his monumentally stupid decision to cast Sarah Palin in the role of his running mate.

McCain down through the years has been on the wrong side of history over and over again which isn't surprising since he is a Republican.  He championed our disastrous adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.  He thought we should have sent boots into Syria.  He's agitating for U.S. military action in Syria.

This week he also called Mr. Obama "the most naive president in history."  McCain was unhappy with the way Mr. Obama treated Mr. Putin and because Mr. Obama has used restraint in reacting to the crisis in the Ukraine.

McCain really has no itch to scratch.  Obama shut down the war in Iraq and brought (most of) the troops home.  It's complicated, thanks to the bunch of morons who ran the country from 2000 to 2008.  Obama is also in process of extracting our troops from Afghanistan.  Mr. Obama, contrary to Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain, does not find it necessary to engage our military wherever in the world a violent conflagration pops up.

Mr. McCain sits on his hands and complains.  And if ain't one thing, it's another.  It doesn't matter what our President does, McCain will not like it.  But what can we expect?  You can't make a statesman out of someone who lacks the character and intelligence of a statesman.  Remember he's the guy who signed on Sarah Palin.  Ha!


I read yesterday that according to a Gallup Poll, North Dakota is our happiest state?  What?  North Dakota?  The state with the climate that makes Alaska look positively balmy?  Gallup based its assessment on "work environments, health and access to food and water."

At first I thought this was a crock.  I thought Florida has to be the happiest state.  But then I remembered that Florida is inundated with grumpy old retired folks who hate cold weather and complain about the heat, go out to eat every night jamming up the restaurants, drive like ignorant maniacs and leave a dollar tip for a $50 meal.

But it is sunny here.  That's why they call Florida the Sunshine State.  I'd like to see the sun shining on the rear ends of a lot of these folks heading back north - to North Dakota, maybe.


My grandmother lived on a farm in northern Minnesota.  The house had no indoor plumbing.  When we went to visit her we had to do our business in a stinky, old wooden outhouse across a driveway from the main building.  And yes, the only toilet paper available was most often pages torn from a Sears Roebuck catalog.  It was a crappy situation.

But we've come a long way since those primitive days.  There's a new company starting up in New York city which will offer members luxury toilet facilities.  These facilities are very fancy schmancy with private privys, showers and even a special room for mothers with young children.  Members will pay $6.00 and up per day for the privilege of doing their business like the One Percenters.


Boeing, you may recall, is a big airline company.  It's been manufacturing airplanes in the Pacific Northwest (Washington State) for many years.  But Boeing thinks it does not need to pay its way because, I suppose, it provides a number of jobs for people in that area.

Boeing, however, is a taker not a giver.  It gets a huge number of federal contracts every year.  In fact, 4.4% of ALL federal contracts go to Boeing.  Last year the company made $5.9 billion in pretax profits, which is pretty good considering Boeing paid NO federal income tax.  It had a federal tax rate of -1.4%.

Not only so, but Washington State, which believes Boeing to be a great asset to the community, has given the company $8.7 billion in tax breaks through 2040 to get the company to build a new manufacturing plant in Washington.  That was after Boeing threatened to build elsewhere and then went on to break the back of the union.


Pakistan has a lot of trained monkeys who entertain people in public or private places by doing tricks while held on a leash.  When I first read that story I thought immediately of the U.S. House of Representatives and how much fun it would be to find out whose leash was holding whom!


If you see an ad that promises to show you a special trick which in a few easy lessons will add 20 yards to your golf shots, don't believe it!


If you see an ad that promises to save your soul, especially if it comes from a religious institution, don't believe that, either.


Meanwhile, keep smiling and watch out for the jerks.

The strange world in which we live

So many things have changed in the past 40-50 years. Some changes have been good, others not so much. In certain instances, we seem to be moving backward to a more uncertain, dangerous and unscientific time.

Who would have thought after Roe v. Wade that we'd still be fighting abortion?  Who could have foreseen that contraception would again become an issue and that some medieval minds would argue that a fetus is a person? The teaching of evolution, which was widely accepted, is now being attacked by religious zealots who care nothing for science and truth but only for the writings of ancient desert munchkins who adapted wild tales about a deity creating everything in six days and then becoming so tired he had to rest; or a deity who regretted creating humans at all, so arranged for a genocidal flood saving only certain animals and a degenerate old fool named Noah, who immediately following the flood proceeded to fire up the wrath of his god friend.  There are ignorant folks today still looking for the mythical ark on a mythical mountain.


I've always thought it a bit strange that we legalize alcohol but put people in jail for most of their lives for the mere possession of a few grams of a weed called marijuana. Alcohol causes more death and depravity in one year that marijuana has caused since the beginning of time.

But the light has dawned in certain of our states who have legalized or intend to legalize the sale and consumption of marijuana. Colorado is one such state and it turns out that the tax monies received from marijuana sales have exceeded all expectations to the delight of those who worry about budget deficits.

But certain politicians just cannot leave people alone and continue to attempt to regulate all kinds of personal behavior. I'm no fan of tobacco because of the fact it can cause so many medical problems, but we need to allow people to live their lives and make their own decisions about such things. The abolition of alcohol did not work, nor will the abolition of tobacco.

A step toward the abolition of tobacco has been taken by the States of Colorado and Utah. They are getting ready to raise the smoking age to 21. One not too bright Utah person by name of Marla Breenum said, "By raising the age limit, it puts them [young people] in a situation where they're not going to pick it up until a much later age." Can anyone really be this stupid?

As mentioned, I've got nothing good to say about smoking. But I've nothing good to say about a lot of things, like religion, the Republican Party, Utah in general, rutabaga, George W. Bush, or brandy.

I do find it interesting, though, that certain pathetic patrons of pious nonsense feel they have the right to limit the freedom of other people - especially those powerless to resist, such as teenagers.  Why the hell can't our so-called legislators leave our personal behavior alone and get busy passing laws that ban discrimination rather than allow it; that protect the 99% from the predatory 1%, that instigate job creation rather than boosting the wealth of the already rich?

Along those lines: Several states have attempted to pass laws protecting business owners who wish to use religion as a shield behind which to discriminate against people they don't like or with whom they disagree: Gays, for instance. Idaho, Kansas, South Dakota and Tennessee have tried to do this without success. Arizona, however, has actually passed such a law. And it's very likely Arizona's dim-witted governor will sign it.

It seems to me a better idea, if we have to pass such laws, to enact a statute to allow the rest of us to discriminate against asshat legislators who write and vote for anti-gay laws or anyone else we dislike on "religious" grounds.  If I owned a business, I might be emboldened to discriminate by not allowing anyone into my establishment who was a politician, or carried a gun, or wore a cross around his/her neck, or sported a crew-cut, or had a visible tattoo on his/her body, or drove a Ford, or had a connection with the so-called Tea Party.


Is it just me, or do other people find the winter Olympics mostly boring? I mean, really, if you've seen one skier, you've seen them all. If you've seen one bobsled run, you've seen them all. The same goes for figure skating, cross-country skiing, luge contests, snow-boarding, Russian presidents and NBC hosts.

And who would conduct a winter Olympics where the temperature in February is warmer than it is in Central Florida? And who would put together a winter Olympics that cost his country $50 billion? Fifty billion dollars!!!


Texas is always fun to write about because so many crazies live there and so many crazy things go on there. Guess who's down in Texas these days trying to help certain Republican politicians win their political races? Ted Nugent! Who is Ted Nugent? If you don't know, that's probably for the best. Think of the south end of a horse traveling north that has diarrhea.

Ted Nugent is the lowest of the low. He's a musician and his latest stunt to gain more notoriety was to call President Obama a "subhuman mongrel." Why couldn't the press ignore him? We have enough fools we have to suffer. Nugent isn't one of them. Being a heavy-duty supporter of the NRA, Nugent probably carries a gun in his guitar. Maybe one of these days he'll play the wrong string and put himself out of our misery!


Alaska is a lot like Texas in that the people there, probably due to brain-freeze, elect really weird politicians. For example, once upon a time the people elected a governor who made a lot of noise, blew a lot of the peoples' money like she had done when merely a mayor of a piddly little town in the hinterland, and who failed to finish out her term.

It seems she desired a TV career and money more than serving the public. But it turned out nobody who mattered cared much about her. An empty head, even if blessed with bouffant hair, only goes so far. But Ms. Palin is not going quietly into the night. She can't go anywhere quietly. Nope. She's got a new Teevee reality show called "Palin's a Pumkinhead." Nah, I'm just kidding. Almost as strange, though, is the real title: "Amazing America with Sarah Palin."

This is really true! It's perfect, though, 'cause no one, absolutely no one, knows as much about 'Murica" as does Ms. Palin. So "Prepare to be amazed," warns Ms. Palin, the invincible preppy pinhead who used to live in a northern state where she shot unsuspecting and innocent wolves from helicopters.


More stuff from the strange world in which we live tomorrow. Stay tuned.

On rights, freedom and military heroes

[According to Snopes, the story told below is essentially true.  The email by which it is being disseminated in recent days was taken from a 2007 speech by Mike Huckabee at a conference of right-wing conservatives.  Some students who were present in the classroom back in 2005 state that there were not as many veterans as indicated in the story and they were not in uniform.  It seems the teacher has a mission to honor our veterans for their service, which is not an unworthy goal.  But...]


Here's the story sent to me by a friend.

It's about a high school teacher in Arkansas who, in 2005, with permission from the powers-that-be, removed all the desks from her classroom on the first day of school.  Her students were understandably confused and concerned and questioned the disappearance of their work sites.

The teacher explained they couldn't have their desks back until they could tell her how they "earned" the "right" to sit in them.  They responded with a number of possible answers, such as good grades, good behavior, etc., but the teacher rejected each and everyone.

Finally, as the day drew to a close, and when the last period kids had taken places on the floor, the teacher said she would tell them what they had done to earn the right to sit at a desk in her classroom.

She went to the door, opened it and 27 military vets, in uniform, walked in, each one carrying a desk.  These vets set down the desks, then went and stood against a wall.

The teacher told the students "You didn't earn the right to sit at these desks.  These heroes did it for you. ... They went halfway around the world, giving up their education and interrupting their careers and families so that you could have the freedom you have."

She went on to blather about their responsibilities to be "good citizens" and "good students" because these vets "paid the price so that you could have the freedom to get an education."


Well, not so.  Rather than be applauded the teacher should have been rapped on the knuckes and sent back to college to study American history and the Constitution!

First of all, let's dispense with all this hero nonsense.  For some time now, I've noticed that every one in a uniform is considered a "hero."  That is not true.  A hero is someone who goes out of his/her way at great risk to himself or herself to help others in need.  Enlisting in the military doth not a hero make.  Wearing a uniform is not the mark of a hero.

In fact, these days many of our military personnel are on the bottom of the goodness scale.  That's probably always been true, and we've heard of terrible atrocities committed by our troops during WWII; we know what happened at My Lai in Vietnam; and the horrible things our military (and the CIA) did to those confined to the Abu Gbraih prison in Iraq (sexual assault, sodomy, murder) are still fresh in our mind.

Other of our so-called heroes have been behaving despicably by attacking other so-called heroes within the military itself.  The Department of Defense reports that in 2013, there were 19,000 cases of sexual assault.  In 2014 sexual assault remains a huge problem and it seems the military establishment is having a difficult time stopping it.

The suicide rate among our military and our veterans is also a problem.  Some statistics report that 22 veterans take their lives every day.  This is very sad, but if nothing else, it indicates severe problems among our so-called "heroes."

To call everyone in uniform a hero diminishes those who have served and continue to serve heroically!


Secondly, the military does not provide for our freedoms.  Military service or military might or military action does not guarantee that high school kids can have a desk in a classroom or get an education.  Our misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan have nothing to do with our freedoms.  In fact, because of the hornet's nest these military actions have created among the more radical groups in the Middle East, the U.S. is at a higher risk for terrorist attacks.

Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan represented or represent a threat to our freedoms.

World War II was the last time that we sent our military to war where freedom in any sense was involved.  Our military fought to defeat totalitarian dictators and states which had as their goal the conquest of our country which would have doubtless resulted in the loss of our freedoms.  That was not true in Korea, Grenada (the Gipper's little war), Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan.


Our freedoms are given to us by the Constitution of the United States.  That is the foundation of our country, the bedrock upon which our freedoms rest.  So, unless there is a threat to undo our Constitution which might require a military response, these "heroes" carrying desks into the classroom had nothing to do with our freedom!

And this is where the teacher really goes off the rails.  The laws of our land and our states provide for a free public education through the 12th grade.  Nobody has to "earn" that; nobody can "earn" that.  It is a right given to every child and it is free.  Nobody has "paid the price" so that our children can get an education.

It's as much of a "right" as the right of free speech!


Perhaps the teacher's heart was in the right place.  But the road to hell is paved, I've heard, with good intentions.  As a veteran and as a retired teacher, I get tired of reading this kind of sentimental nonsense which indicates not just a lack of common sense, but a serious lack of learning.  It would be interesting to know what other misguided lessons she has imposed on her students.

No loaded guns at gun show

h/t to Crooks & Liars.

Sarah Silverman talks to Jesus