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| Daily Show: The Rogue Warrior | ||||
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Friday, November 20, 2009
Jon Stewart - the Rogue Warrior
Thursday, November 19, 2009
God, guts and guns
It was a fairy new Hyundai, blue in color. At eight o'clock in the morning, the driver ran a stop sign, then accelerated down the road at a pace well over the speed limit.
But he was, as so often happens with speed demons, stopped at a red light when I puttered up behind him.
A sticker on the back of his car screamed "Throw the bums out" next to a picture of the U.S. Capitol. On the left side of the rear window was a NRA sticker. On the right side was another sticker which read:
"God, Guts and Guns made America. Let's keep all three."
We have too many stoopids in this country! Here's a guy who pompously proclaims his faith in "god, guts and guns" while at the same time defies basic traffic laws which are essential to our common good, e.g., the ability to share the roadways without killing each other in accidents that are not really accidents but simply piss-poor driving habits.
But his hypocrisy is merely a part of his stoopidness.
Obviously, he doesn't read books. Probably doesn't read the newspaper and if he did read the newspaper, he'd read the Washington Times. Also, obviously, he learned very little in school and has not bothered to learn anything since.
He lives in some mythical world where the deity is his buddy, and like a good buddy, his god carries a .38 strapped to his waist under his robes, and when he created the world he created the US of A for white anglo-saxon descendants of white, anglo-saxon immigrants.
In this mythical world, when those white anglo-saxon immigrants came to this country, the Injuns were the bad guys, and it was only right that the U.S. Calvary and the settlers did what was necessary to rid the land of the "red" man so the whites could move in and take it over. Damn Injuns didn't need it anyway.
Today, in his pea-brain, he "knows" it's not Injuns who are the problem, but "Mescan" illegals and Arabs [read Muslims] and others of dark complexion.
Ronald Reagan plays a big role in the wild driver's mythical world; and because he is stoopid and fanatically ignorant, our friend thinks Reagan struck down the mighty Soviet Union with his capitalistic sword, another myth repeated with increasing fervor by Repugnican nogoodniks bought and paid for by the corporations. He knows not that Reagan had little to do with the Soviet disintegration. Our friend also doesn't understand that his B-movie star hero is responsible for initiating a financial process which ended with the destruction of our financial system under Georgi W. Bush.
Our friend remains stoopid because he gets what little information his brain can process from the folks at FAUX News, and from Rush Limbaarger, and really believes Obama might not have been born in "Amurica" and may even be a Muslim, if not the anti-Christ.
No doubt he thinks the quitter from Alaska would make a wunnerful pres'dent. I mean, she believes in God and ev'rything!
God, guts and guns. God, if he or she existed, would probably destroy this country for all the evil it has perpetrated and continues to perpetrate. The ancestors of today's "WASPS" wiped out an entire native population, sometimes with deadly efficiency, such as handing out blankets infected with smallpox. Then our ancestors stole the land. Then, they herded the natives off to concentration camps called "reservations." They made 150 treaties with the Indians beginning in the middle of the 19th century and broke EVERY SINGLE one of them!
During the early years of the 20th century our troops marched off to Latin America to ensure that American corporations could exercise their license to steal the natural resources of the people living in those lands. Proclaiming a belief in "democracy," we proved the opposite by propping up dictator after dictator for the simple reason they looked the other way while we raped the country. U.S. Marines were posted in Nicaragua until 1936 for precisely that purpose!
It is true we fought a couple of world wars in order to rid the world of some nasties, and we did a good job, overall. But we also used poison gas. We fire-bombed entire cities filled with civilians. We corralled our own citizens and put them in concentration camps because they were ethnic Japanese. Furthermore, we were betrayed by some of our own companies, including those owned by the Bush family. And "Big Blue," aka IBM, made it possible for Hitler to round up and murder 11 million people (including 6 million Jews) with deadly efficiency.
Slavery was the epicenter of evil in this country for over a century. God-fearing Americans bought and sold other human beings and claimed the right to do so based on their interpretation of the Bible, just as today's christianists deny gays and women their civil rights based on their interpretation of the Bible. Nor did the Civil War end slavery; it continued by another name. In fact, thousands of black Americans were enslaved up until the 1940s, many by companies well-known to us today, such as U.S. Steel.
Fast-forward to 2003. George W. Bush, president by virtue of a Supreme Court decision which denied the vote of the people, a vote clearly in favor of Albert Gore, decided to wage war on a piddling little country in the Middle East which posed no threat to the U.S. But Mr. Bush and his friends wanted Iraq's oil, for under the Iraqi sands lie some of the largest oil reserves in the world! In order to gain the support of the American people for this murderous adventure, Bush told one lie after another. The "war," which was a preemptive invasion by a big, powerful country of a small, weak country, turned quickly into a disaster which continues to this day. It has caused the deaths of over 4,000 American soldiers, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, destroyed the country of Iraq and has depleted the U.S. treasury. Bush has not been held accountable and struts about on the world stage as if he were not a criminal but some sort of "conservative" hero.
God, guts and guns made America? To which America is this clown referring by flaunting his stoopid car sticker? If there should be a deity and if he or she should actually be an ethical god, he or she would likely strike down this person's "America."
Guts? We could come up with thousands of anecdotes regarding the personal courage of American people. But what would that prove? Nothing, other than there are Americans, who, like people all over the the world who are able to sometimes act heroically.
As a nation, we have indeed stepped up to the plate in times of world crisis, but the mythology is wrong.
For example, in 1939 and beyond, as Hitler's troops stormed over Europe creating hell on earth, there was no great uprising in the United States to take him on. In fact, many, if not most Americans, wanted nothing to do with him. Hitler, they said, was Europe's problem. Let Europe deal with him.
President Roosevelt had to resort to subterfuge in order to supply the British with the war materiel they needed to survive the Nazi onslaught. Many members of Congress hated Roosevelt with a passion and did everything they could to keep America isolationist. If they had had their way, we would have a very different world right now!
God had nothing to do with any of this. It was men like Roosevelt and all those fighting men and women who marched off to war that had the "guts" that made the difference. Miserable little wackos marching to Glenn Beck's corporate "tea party" drummers do not demonstrate "guts."
Guns. What is it with these guys and guns? I think maybe they have such little penises that guns provide some kind of compensation for their physical shortcomings. But guns are part of the American myth popularized by Hollywood from the early days. According to our friends in Tinseltown, everybody in the Old West carried at least one gun, strapped low on the hip, ready to go at a moment's notice.
The truth, however, is quite different. Few people carried guns. To carry a gun was dangerous; it was a good way to get killed.
And even if you can make a case for hunting and killing our brother and sister animals, why in the world do these wingnuts feel the need to have automatic weapons in their fevered little palms?
The reason has to do in part with the unrelenting war waged by the National Rifle Association on behalf of its corporate sponsors, the gun manufacturers, to ensure that any and all weapons be available at all times to every American who wants them.
So the NRA harps continually on the notion that any gun control is bad. Any attempt to regulate the purchase and use of any kind of weapon is evil, and will automatically lead to further restrictions and eventually no one will be able to own any guns. During the last presidential campaign, the NRA told lie after lie about Obama's position relative to guns and said quite bluntly that he was a threat to gun owners everywhere.
That's the mythology; again, not true.
But have guns made America "great"? Of course not. Such nonsense is another part of the mythical world in which too many of our citizens live!
"God, guts and guns made America" proclaims the moron in the Hyundai - as if this country, which is way down the list of countries in terms of infant mortality, education, health care, etc. is some kind of paradigm of righteousness.
It isn't. But still it is a great country in other ways. Our Constitution stands as a beacon of freedom in spite of the fact that Presidents and Vice Presidents like Bush and Cheney and other stoopid Repugnicans tossed it in the trash, and in spite of the fact some Repugnican nogoodniks don't know the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (e. g. "Weepy" John Boehner).
The US of A is a country of possibilities, many unrealized and increasingly denied these days by rightwingnut religious and non-religious crazies.
But it sure as hell isn't Paradise. And God, guts and guns are not only not responsible for America's greatness (realized or potential) but each, in and of themselves, pose a real threat to, not only our "greatness" but our very existence.
But he was, as so often happens with speed demons, stopped at a red light when I puttered up behind him.
A sticker on the back of his car screamed "Throw the bums out" next to a picture of the U.S. Capitol. On the left side of the rear window was a NRA sticker. On the right side was another sticker which read:
"God, Guts and Guns made America. Let's keep all three."
We have too many stoopids in this country! Here's a guy who pompously proclaims his faith in "god, guts and guns" while at the same time defies basic traffic laws which are essential to our common good, e.g., the ability to share the roadways without killing each other in accidents that are not really accidents but simply piss-poor driving habits.
But his hypocrisy is merely a part of his stoopidness.
Obviously, he doesn't read books. Probably doesn't read the newspaper and if he did read the newspaper, he'd read the Washington Times. Also, obviously, he learned very little in school and has not bothered to learn anything since.
He lives in some mythical world where the deity is his buddy, and like a good buddy, his god carries a .38 strapped to his waist under his robes, and when he created the world he created the US of A for white anglo-saxon descendants of white, anglo-saxon immigrants.
In this mythical world, when those white anglo-saxon immigrants came to this country, the Injuns were the bad guys, and it was only right that the U.S. Calvary and the settlers did what was necessary to rid the land of the "red" man so the whites could move in and take it over. Damn Injuns didn't need it anyway.
Today, in his pea-brain, he "knows" it's not Injuns who are the problem, but "Mescan" illegals and Arabs [read Muslims] and others of dark complexion.
Ronald Reagan plays a big role in the wild driver's mythical world; and because he is stoopid and fanatically ignorant, our friend thinks Reagan struck down the mighty Soviet Union with his capitalistic sword, another myth repeated with increasing fervor by Repugnican nogoodniks bought and paid for by the corporations. He knows not that Reagan had little to do with the Soviet disintegration. Our friend also doesn't understand that his B-movie star hero is responsible for initiating a financial process which ended with the destruction of our financial system under Georgi W. Bush.
Our friend remains stoopid because he gets what little information his brain can process from the folks at FAUX News, and from Rush Limbaarger, and really believes Obama might not have been born in "Amurica" and may even be a Muslim, if not the anti-Christ.
No doubt he thinks the quitter from Alaska would make a wunnerful pres'dent. I mean, she believes in God and ev'rything!
God, guts and guns. God, if he or she existed, would probably destroy this country for all the evil it has perpetrated and continues to perpetrate. The ancestors of today's "WASPS" wiped out an entire native population, sometimes with deadly efficiency, such as handing out blankets infected with smallpox. Then our ancestors stole the land. Then, they herded the natives off to concentration camps called "reservations." They made 150 treaties with the Indians beginning in the middle of the 19th century and broke EVERY SINGLE one of them!
During the early years of the 20th century our troops marched off to Latin America to ensure that American corporations could exercise their license to steal the natural resources of the people living in those lands. Proclaiming a belief in "democracy," we proved the opposite by propping up dictator after dictator for the simple reason they looked the other way while we raped the country. U.S. Marines were posted in Nicaragua until 1936 for precisely that purpose!
It is true we fought a couple of world wars in order to rid the world of some nasties, and we did a good job, overall. But we also used poison gas. We fire-bombed entire cities filled with civilians. We corralled our own citizens and put them in concentration camps because they were ethnic Japanese. Furthermore, we were betrayed by some of our own companies, including those owned by the Bush family. And "Big Blue," aka IBM, made it possible for Hitler to round up and murder 11 million people (including 6 million Jews) with deadly efficiency.
Slavery was the epicenter of evil in this country for over a century. God-fearing Americans bought and sold other human beings and claimed the right to do so based on their interpretation of the Bible, just as today's christianists deny gays and women their civil rights based on their interpretation of the Bible. Nor did the Civil War end slavery; it continued by another name. In fact, thousands of black Americans were enslaved up until the 1940s, many by companies well-known to us today, such as U.S. Steel.
Fast-forward to 2003. George W. Bush, president by virtue of a Supreme Court decision which denied the vote of the people, a vote clearly in favor of Albert Gore, decided to wage war on a piddling little country in the Middle East which posed no threat to the U.S. But Mr. Bush and his friends wanted Iraq's oil, for under the Iraqi sands lie some of the largest oil reserves in the world! In order to gain the support of the American people for this murderous adventure, Bush told one lie after another. The "war," which was a preemptive invasion by a big, powerful country of a small, weak country, turned quickly into a disaster which continues to this day. It has caused the deaths of over 4,000 American soldiers, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, destroyed the country of Iraq and has depleted the U.S. treasury. Bush has not been held accountable and struts about on the world stage as if he were not a criminal but some sort of "conservative" hero.
God, guts and guns made America? To which America is this clown referring by flaunting his stoopid car sticker? If there should be a deity and if he or she should actually be an ethical god, he or she would likely strike down this person's "America."
Guts? We could come up with thousands of anecdotes regarding the personal courage of American people. But what would that prove? Nothing, other than there are Americans, who, like people all over the the world who are able to sometimes act heroically.
As a nation, we have indeed stepped up to the plate in times of world crisis, but the mythology is wrong.
For example, in 1939 and beyond, as Hitler's troops stormed over Europe creating hell on earth, there was no great uprising in the United States to take him on. In fact, many, if not most Americans, wanted nothing to do with him. Hitler, they said, was Europe's problem. Let Europe deal with him.
President Roosevelt had to resort to subterfuge in order to supply the British with the war materiel they needed to survive the Nazi onslaught. Many members of Congress hated Roosevelt with a passion and did everything they could to keep America isolationist. If they had had their way, we would have a very different world right now!
God had nothing to do with any of this. It was men like Roosevelt and all those fighting men and women who marched off to war that had the "guts" that made the difference. Miserable little wackos marching to Glenn Beck's corporate "tea party" drummers do not demonstrate "guts."
Guns. What is it with these guys and guns? I think maybe they have such little penises that guns provide some kind of compensation for their physical shortcomings. But guns are part of the American myth popularized by Hollywood from the early days. According to our friends in Tinseltown, everybody in the Old West carried at least one gun, strapped low on the hip, ready to go at a moment's notice.
The truth, however, is quite different. Few people carried guns. To carry a gun was dangerous; it was a good way to get killed.
And even if you can make a case for hunting and killing our brother and sister animals, why in the world do these wingnuts feel the need to have automatic weapons in their fevered little palms?
The reason has to do in part with the unrelenting war waged by the National Rifle Association on behalf of its corporate sponsors, the gun manufacturers, to ensure that any and all weapons be available at all times to every American who wants them.
So the NRA harps continually on the notion that any gun control is bad. Any attempt to regulate the purchase and use of any kind of weapon is evil, and will automatically lead to further restrictions and eventually no one will be able to own any guns. During the last presidential campaign, the NRA told lie after lie about Obama's position relative to guns and said quite bluntly that he was a threat to gun owners everywhere.
That's the mythology; again, not true.
But have guns made America "great"? Of course not. Such nonsense is another part of the mythical world in which too many of our citizens live!
"God, guts and guns made America" proclaims the moron in the Hyundai - as if this country, which is way down the list of countries in terms of infant mortality, education, health care, etc. is some kind of paradigm of righteousness.
It isn't. But still it is a great country in other ways. Our Constitution stands as a beacon of freedom in spite of the fact that Presidents and Vice Presidents like Bush and Cheney and other stoopid Repugnicans tossed it in the trash, and in spite of the fact some Repugnican nogoodniks don't know the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (e. g. "Weepy" John Boehner).
The US of A is a country of possibilities, many unrealized and increasingly denied these days by rightwingnut religious and non-religious crazies.
But it sure as hell isn't Paradise. And God, guts and guns are not only not responsible for America's greatness (realized or potential) but each, in and of themselves, pose a real threat to, not only our "greatness" but our very existence.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Costs of health care vs. costs of war
Is this a great country, or what?
Maybe not. It appears, unfortunately, that we've got our priorities all screwed up. The Repugnicans and the Blue Dogs whine and worry about fiscal responsibility and deficit spending ... at least when the conversation turns to health care. But when it comes to waging war on real or imagined enemies, however, they don't seem to be worried at all about fiscal responsibility and deficit spending.
Could the reason have something to do with their allegiance to the various industries that charge exorbitant prices for the faulty equipment they provide for our military; an allegiance which fills their Congressional coffers to overflowing thus ensuring their re-election to office?
An AP story today cites an Obama administration aide as saying the health bill heading to the Senate floor is projected to cost $849 billion over TEN years. It will cover 96 percent of the American population.
Now, the war in Iraq, which has been waged with little success for six years has already cost, according to National Priorities, over $701 billion, and some have projected the total cost to be over $1 trillion.
The projected cost for the war in Afghanistan in the fiscal year 2010 is $73 billion. That's about $1.2 billion a WEEK!
Now consider that in our beloved country, the most adamant haters of Obama and his health bill are lovers of God and Jesus Christ. They have no problem with the cost of killing thousands of people in other lands; no problem with wreaking the worst kind of devastation upon innocent civilians, including children; no problem with destroying the infrastructure of another country; but they do have a problem with providing health care for the least among us!
Not once have I heard a christianistwingnut or a radical freak fan of FAUX News complain about the fact that employees of the U.S. government (including our Congress people) receive a wonderful health care package. That's "socialism" you know. And you surely won't hear Congress people complaining about their health care. But the greedy stoopids don't want other folks to share in their largess.
And, well, we have to kill people. And that takes money. So we don't have any left for health care!
I ask you again: Is this a great country, or what?
Maybe not. It appears, unfortunately, that we've got our priorities all screwed up. The Repugnicans and the Blue Dogs whine and worry about fiscal responsibility and deficit spending ... at least when the conversation turns to health care. But when it comes to waging war on real or imagined enemies, however, they don't seem to be worried at all about fiscal responsibility and deficit spending.
Could the reason have something to do with their allegiance to the various industries that charge exorbitant prices for the faulty equipment they provide for our military; an allegiance which fills their Congressional coffers to overflowing thus ensuring their re-election to office?
An AP story today cites an Obama administration aide as saying the health bill heading to the Senate floor is projected to cost $849 billion over TEN years. It will cover 96 percent of the American population.
Now, the war in Iraq, which has been waged with little success for six years has already cost, according to National Priorities, over $701 billion, and some have projected the total cost to be over $1 trillion.
The projected cost for the war in Afghanistan in the fiscal year 2010 is $73 billion. That's about $1.2 billion a WEEK!
Now consider that in our beloved country, the most adamant haters of Obama and his health bill are lovers of God and Jesus Christ. They have no problem with the cost of killing thousands of people in other lands; no problem with wreaking the worst kind of devastation upon innocent civilians, including children; no problem with destroying the infrastructure of another country; but they do have a problem with providing health care for the least among us!
Not once have I heard a christianistwingnut or a radical freak fan of FAUX News complain about the fact that employees of the U.S. government (including our Congress people) receive a wonderful health care package. That's "socialism" you know. And you surely won't hear Congress people complaining about their health care. But the greedy stoopids don't want other folks to share in their largess.
And, well, we have to kill people. And that takes money. So we don't have any left for health care!
I ask you again: Is this a great country, or what?
Rachel Maddow - The right's reckless rhetoric
"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me!"
Oh, yeah? If history tells us anything it tells us that words do matter. Rhetoric can be helpful and upbuilding or hurtful and degrading. The rightwingnuts know this, and use their rhetoric to tear down the very country they pretend to love.
And as Frank Schaeffer points out, the christianist wingnuts with the tacit and sometimes outright support of the Repugnican nogoodniks on the right are ramping up the rhetoric actually calling for God to strike down our president. And these creeps claim to follow the so-called Prince of Peace!
Oh, yeah? If history tells us anything it tells us that words do matter. Rhetoric can be helpful and upbuilding or hurtful and degrading. The rightwingnuts know this, and use their rhetoric to tear down the very country they pretend to love.
And as Frank Schaeffer points out, the christianist wingnuts with the tacit and sometimes outright support of the Repugnican nogoodniks on the right are ramping up the rhetoric actually calling for God to strike down our president. And these creeps claim to follow the so-called Prince of Peace!
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Keith Olbermann - Worst Person in the World - Convict Hasan without a trial
Some of our right-wingers really don't like the idea of a Democracy and really hate our Constitution.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Wanda Sykes Takes on OBAMA CARE Fear Mongers
From Crooks and Liars:
November 15, 2009 FOX Wanda Sykes Show
In a hilarious monologue on her second installment of The Wanda Sykes Show, Wanda takes on the Health Care Reform fear mongers and republicans in general... "The only way Republicans will read the Health Care Bill is to rest it on the back of the hooker they're banging down at C Street House!"
Friday, November 13, 2009
Keith Olbermann - GOP state senator casts Obama as terrorist
Let's see: Palin was a vice presidential candidate; the kookaburras on the right are touting Lou Dobbs for president; the GOP has more creepy very stupid wingnuts in the party than Carter's got little liver pills (I've been waiting years to write that!); and then there's this whackjob out in Colorado.
It's scary. Overt racism masquerading as godliness, or patriotism, or plain old-fashioned fascism is rampant in this country. Stupidity and ignorance reign.
Watch the video and see how all that plays out in Colorado!
It's scary. Overt racism masquerading as godliness, or patriotism, or plain old-fashioned fascism is rampant in this country. Stupidity and ignorance reign.
Watch the video and see how all that plays out in Colorado!
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Carrie Prejean on Larry King
Ms. Prejean, rightwingnut, christianist porn star who just luuuuves Jesus and is a favorite of ultra-conservative Repugnicans everywhere, went on Larry King where she proceeded to have a melt-down. What a whack-job!
Keith Olbermann - Fox News proves Palin wrong
Sarah Palin is a liar, but we've known that for a long time. Now, in an hilarious scenario, it's Fox News that proves she is a liar!
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Michele Bachmann breaks the rules
Perhaps the House will give her a break...I mean she is dumber than dogshit. Nah. She may be a broomstick, but she gets her marching orders from Jesus. Slap her with a big fine!
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Oops! Jon Stewart exposes FAUX News fauxness
Unfair and unbalanced = FAUX News. What a bunch of creeps!
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck's Protest Footage | ||||
| ||||
Lou Dobbs rides off into the sunset
Dobbs is gone thanks to a lot of people and organizations challenging his bigotry and hate...here's a clip from Media Matters that puts it all in perspective...
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
AMA - Remove marijuana from Schedule 1 drug list
It's about time. And how many people have been sent to prison for years for possession of an ounce or less of MJ? We get smart so late!
From Crooks and Liars:
November 11, 2009 CNN
The American Medical Assn. on Tuesday urged the federal government to reconsider its classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use, a significant shift that puts the prestigious group behind calls for more research.
The nation's largest physicians organization, with about 250,000 member doctors, the AMA has maintained since 1997 that marijuana should remain a Schedule I controlled substance, the most restrictive category, which also includes heroin and LSD.
In changing its policy, the group said its goal was to clear the way to conduct clinical research, develop cannabis-based medicines and devise alternative ways to deliver the drug.
From Crooks and Liars:
November 11, 2009 CNN
The American Medical Assn. on Tuesday urged the federal government to reconsider its classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use, a significant shift that puts the prestigious group behind calls for more research.
The nation's largest physicians organization, with about 250,000 member doctors, the AMA has maintained since 1997 that marijuana should remain a Schedule I controlled substance, the most restrictive category, which also includes heroin and LSD.
In changing its policy, the group said its goal was to clear the way to conduct clinical research, develop cannabis-based medicines and devise alternative ways to deliver the drug.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Rachel Maddow - The Influential C Streets and Health Care
If you don't think perverse religious conservatives hold power in Congress, this will awaken you! C Streets, members of the ultra-secretive The Family, played a big role in getting the Stupack anti-abortion amendment passed as part of the Health Reform bill.
It's downright scary! These are theocrats, secretly going about their business of re-creating the USA into a conservative "Christian" country. They swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, but that is secondary to their commitment to Christianize the nation!
From Crooks and Liars:
Rachel Maddow runs down the list for us of C-Street family members who also voted for Bart Stupak’s anti-abortion amendment yesterday. Nothing like having what amounts to a secretive religious cult making health care policy for women in the United States. As Rachel noted that list includes:
Rep. Bart Stupak D-MI
Rep. Joe Pitts R-PA
Rep. Ike Skelton D-MO
Rep. Mike McIntyre D-NC
Rep. John Tanner D-TN
Rep. Lincoln Davis D-TN
Rep. Dan Boren D-OK
Rep. Heath Shuler D-NC
Jeff Sharlet joined Rachel to discuss The C-Street Family's ever growing influence within the Democratic Party.
Maddow: What are Congressman Stupak and Congressman Pitts’ connections to C-Street and The Family? Is one of them more deeply involved than the other?
Sharlet: Yeah, well Congressman Pitts has been involved with The Family since 1976 and in the 1980’s he was instrumental in bringing anti-abortion politics into this kind of elite fundamentalism that until that point had been focused on economics and foreign affairs. Bart Stupak meanwhile has been living at C-Street since at least 2002 when he told the Los Angeles Times “we kind of don’t talk about what happens here”.
Maddow: Are there signs that The Family had anything to do with the Stupak-Pitts amendment? I mean this is quite a legislative coup that they’ve pulled off.
Sharlet: Well, you have to consider that Congressman Pitts is what The Family calls a core member. This is a little like being on the board of directors. You can go on line and find video of him talking about the objectives of the group is to create a god led government. He has worked over the years to prevent not only abortion but AIDS education overseas and so this has been a life-long project for him going back years and years and years. Stupak is a little bit newer to this issue and I think what you really have to question here is Pitts who’s been active in this for a long time and was bringing up these amendments I think in Stupak and his brother in The Family as it was called, found a Democrat to carry the issue for him.
Maddow: So you think this legislative work reflects more the skills, connections, background of Congressman Pitts than it does Bart Stupak?
Sharlet: Yeah well with respect to Congressman Stupak nobody ever called him the brightest bulb on the porch. Everybody likes him, he’s a good guy; Pitts is a guy who’s been doing this for a long time. When he was a state legislator he was head of a national state legislative group that was really doing anti-abortion work on the state level before anyone was really paying attention to it. He is a long term strategist and I think we really have to look at that broader connection and how he played this issue.
Maddow: Let me ask you about some of the other conventional wisdom here because the sort of conventional explanation for this is that this anti-abortion amendment to health reform resulted mostly from the Catholic Bishops pressuring Catholic politicians to support it but I know that you think it’s bigger than that. Can you explain why?
Sharlet: Well I think it’s unfair to Catholics, I think it’s unfair to Evangelicals. First of all most of the press is focused on Catholics despite the fact that a number of the Congressmen involved in this are not Catholic including Congressman Pitts and including Congressman Shuler who you mentioned and frankly the majority of American Catholics are pro-choice and that’s not true of the majority of American Evangelicals. I think it’s a very comfortable story to tell ourselves that this is just traditional Catholic conservatism rather than facing the fact there is a growing and new Evangelical, conservative Evangelical influence within the Democratic Party.
Maddow: We have talked a little about this in the past, but obviously because we’ve been talking about a form of conservatism and how this religious movement dovetails in many ways with a lot of conservative agenda items do you feel like we’ve overlooked or generally speaking it’s been overlooked how conservative Democrats are part of this too?
Sharlet: Yeah, absolutely. Conservative Democrats have made this happen. I mean look here we are with a fully Democratic government and Joe Pitts and his colleagues like Chris Smith and so on have just achieved a goal they could not achieve during eight years of Bush and they’ve done it with Democratic help and they’ve done it with—I think what’s crucial is you have to look at the traditional Catholic pro-life votes, respect those—but look at the new influence of Evangelicals Democrats like Heath Shuler, traditionally Evangelical Democrats, like Joe Pitts, and you see a growing movement within the Democratic Party that we just haven’t faced up to yet.+
It's downright scary! These are theocrats, secretly going about their business of re-creating the USA into a conservative "Christian" country. They swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, but that is secondary to their commitment to Christianize the nation!
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From Crooks and Liars:
Rachel Maddow runs down the list for us of C-Street family members who also voted for Bart Stupak’s anti-abortion amendment yesterday. Nothing like having what amounts to a secretive religious cult making health care policy for women in the United States. As Rachel noted that list includes:
Rep. Bart Stupak D-MI
Rep. Joe Pitts R-PA
Rep. Ike Skelton D-MO
Rep. Mike McIntyre D-NC
Rep. John Tanner D-TN
Rep. Lincoln Davis D-TN
Rep. Dan Boren D-OK
Rep. Heath Shuler D-NC
Jeff Sharlet joined Rachel to discuss The C-Street Family's ever growing influence within the Democratic Party.
Maddow: What are Congressman Stupak and Congressman Pitts’ connections to C-Street and The Family? Is one of them more deeply involved than the other?
Sharlet: Yeah, well Congressman Pitts has been involved with The Family since 1976 and in the 1980’s he was instrumental in bringing anti-abortion politics into this kind of elite fundamentalism that until that point had been focused on economics and foreign affairs. Bart Stupak meanwhile has been living at C-Street since at least 2002 when he told the Los Angeles Times “we kind of don’t talk about what happens here”.
Maddow: Are there signs that The Family had anything to do with the Stupak-Pitts amendment? I mean this is quite a legislative coup that they’ve pulled off.
Sharlet: Well, you have to consider that Congressman Pitts is what The Family calls a core member. This is a little like being on the board of directors. You can go on line and find video of him talking about the objectives of the group is to create a god led government. He has worked over the years to prevent not only abortion but AIDS education overseas and so this has been a life-long project for him going back years and years and years. Stupak is a little bit newer to this issue and I think what you really have to question here is Pitts who’s been active in this for a long time and was bringing up these amendments I think in Stupak and his brother in The Family as it was called, found a Democrat to carry the issue for him.
Maddow: So you think this legislative work reflects more the skills, connections, background of Congressman Pitts than it does Bart Stupak?
Sharlet: Yeah well with respect to Congressman Stupak nobody ever called him the brightest bulb on the porch. Everybody likes him, he’s a good guy; Pitts is a guy who’s been doing this for a long time. When he was a state legislator he was head of a national state legislative group that was really doing anti-abortion work on the state level before anyone was really paying attention to it. He is a long term strategist and I think we really have to look at that broader connection and how he played this issue.
Maddow: Let me ask you about some of the other conventional wisdom here because the sort of conventional explanation for this is that this anti-abortion amendment to health reform resulted mostly from the Catholic Bishops pressuring Catholic politicians to support it but I know that you think it’s bigger than that. Can you explain why?
Sharlet: Well I think it’s unfair to Catholics, I think it’s unfair to Evangelicals. First of all most of the press is focused on Catholics despite the fact that a number of the Congressmen involved in this are not Catholic including Congressman Pitts and including Congressman Shuler who you mentioned and frankly the majority of American Catholics are pro-choice and that’s not true of the majority of American Evangelicals. I think it’s a very comfortable story to tell ourselves that this is just traditional Catholic conservatism rather than facing the fact there is a growing and new Evangelical, conservative Evangelical influence within the Democratic Party.
Maddow: We have talked a little about this in the past, but obviously because we’ve been talking about a form of conservatism and how this religious movement dovetails in many ways with a lot of conservative agenda items do you feel like we’ve overlooked or generally speaking it’s been overlooked how conservative Democrats are part of this too?
Sharlet: Yeah, absolutely. Conservative Democrats have made this happen. I mean look here we are with a fully Democratic government and Joe Pitts and his colleagues like Chris Smith and so on have just achieved a goal they could not achieve during eight years of Bush and they’ve done it with Democratic help and they’ve done it with—I think what’s crucial is you have to look at the traditional Catholic pro-life votes, respect those—but look at the new influence of Evangelicals Democrats like Heath Shuler, traditionally Evangelical Democrats, like Joe Pitts, and you see a growing movement within the Democratic Party that we just haven’t faced up to yet.+
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