Horrifying. This is what we get when the far right gets a free pass from the mainstream media. How about nightly fact checks on the evening news programs? These people are dangerous (the so-called journalists on the far right) when they inflame potential domestic terrorists so they can drive up ratings with their "info-taiment" shock talk, and then run from the responsibility when one of these nut jobs actually takes everything they've been saying as fact and starts building bombs or firing off shots.
Do they have the right to say the things they do? Well, I suppose they do. But the mainstream media, more so, has the responsibility of challenging what they say, from Fox News to Glenn Beck and beyond. Instead, they ignore it, or even worse, take it seriously and start reporting on the same "stories" these dangerous anti-journalists are fabricating without any real reporting to clarify fact and to separate truth from fiction.
When, not if, but when we have the next OKC, I'll be blaming the major mainstream news outlets as much as I'll be blaming the right wing "info-tainment" outlets. Perhaps even more so, because they truly are dropping the journalism ball where Beck and folks make it very clear that they are pandering to their viewers and listeners for the sake of the holy dollar and have little real interest in actually being journalists.
A lot of these folks cite the Bible for their political philosophies, well here's one for them:
Romans 13 (NSV): 1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of him who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay all of them their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.
Monday, November 25, 2013
When does it become too much? Some tea partiers are now calling for Obama’s “legal” assassination
Sunday, October 07, 2012
Christian persecution in America?
This has always frustrated me. We can talk about the death of spiritual principals and how those who do try to follow a spiritual way of life, whether or not I agree with them, are probably falling into a minority in this country, but to claim you are persecuted for being a Christian in the USA? That just makes me want to puke.
Related Posts
Monday, April 23, 2012
The war on women & Santorum’s choice
As for this last image, on Facebook I wrote:
There is truth here. Not that these men are necessarily misogynists, they probably are not. But their campaign strategies are geared towards solidifying support of demographic groups who will actually vote for them, and in the general election the majority of women will vote Dem pretty much no matter what these fools do, so pissing them off really doesn't change the game for them at all.
Appealing to Non-College Educated White Males, however, the GOP's most dominant demographic, is a huge part of their game plan. The more heavily they dominate this segment of society, the more they can alienate these fellows from the democrats and Obama, the greater their chances of victory in the primaries and in November.
Being worried about what women think is a losing game for them, there is no reason for them to care what they think at all.
Since then, Romney has wrapped up the nomination. This came a little earlier than I thought it would. I actually suspected that Santorum would not give up until the convention, allowing the GOP as much of a chance as possible to try to get out of nominating Romney.
However, I think Santorum had a real moment of clarity leading to his withdrawal from the race. Brace yourselves, I am actually going to say something nice about this fellow.
I do suspect that staying in the race as long as humanly possible was Santorum's plan. I think, on the Friday before he dropped out, that he had every intention of still being in the race a week later.
I believe there were two factors that made him change his mind.
One, of course, was the fact that he was apparently looking at an embarrassing loss in his home state of Pennsylvania.
Santorum as the GOP’s next frontrunner
At this point in his campaign, politically, I think he should have been looking more towards the future than any real chance of being sworn in as president in 2013. Of course, he still had a long shot at widening the cracks between Romney and the, quite frankly, bigoted far right wing of the Republican Party to create some convention drama and an even longer shot at still derailing Romney’s nomination, either becoming the nominee himself or creating the possibility of another candidate stepping into the role.
But the odds of creating any of these scenarios were shrinking fast. Getting shellacked in Pennsylvania would have lowered the odds even further.
And I don’t think his eye should even have been on the nomination this year, at least for the last couple months. He should have been looking at 2016 or 2020, depending on Romney’s fate this fall. For Santorum, staying in the race as long as possible should have been all about positioning himself for the future. The longer he hung in there, collecting headlines if not delegates, he was building a solid foundation for a future run at the Presidency.
The GOP has a track record of elevating those who make a good showing one year to frontrunner status the next. Santorum’s campaign, for the last month or two, could have been following a John McCain strategy.
In 2000, McCain stayed in the race far past the point where Bush had locked up the nomination and was rewarded with front runner status for almost the entire duration of the 2008 Republican primaries, fairly easily wrapping up the nomination his next time out. Of course, he managed to stay in the race that year without becoming a joke.
In 2008, the McCain role was played not by Romney, but by Huckabee. However, since Huckabee decided, early, to sit this one out, Romney slid into the 2nd place role this year and, like McCain in 2008, has now completed a fairly easy primary season and secured the nomination without too much fuss or muss.
Let’s face it, the GOP primaries this year were not a close thing. Romney owned them. Most of the noise about any real competition this year was just that, noise from the media trying to keep a blowout interesting through the end of the fourth quarter. This is not to say that what competition there was wasn’t interesting, it was, and it revealed a lot about the nature of the GOP and its different demographic elements, but the race itself was not a close one at all.
If Santorum really wants to be president, he has a real chance at becoming the GOP front runner the next time around. Like McCain and Romney, he needs to spend the next four to eight years quietly organizing and he can, pretty much, claim early frontrunner status the next time around. Especially if the far right continues to dominate the party like it has, which is almost inevitable if Obama wins re-election.
However, this future front runner status depends on Santorum maintaining his credibility this year.
By pulling out when he did, the former Senator is ending on a relative high note, while he is still seen as a strong candidate. The story, however, could have changed if he stayed in the race and suffered an embarrassing loss in his home state.
So far, the humiliating 17 point loss of his Senate seat has remained out of the national press, for the most part, and has been forgotten by almost everyone.
After another brutal home state loss, I suspect that his past political failures would enter into the national conversation and the story would change from his relatively successful presidential campaign this year to his repeated failings as a candidate for political office.
In other words, the press about his campaign would turn from being mostly positive to mostly negative. By getting out now, as I said, he ends this year’s run on a high note and 2012 becomes a bright spot on his resume, not a hurdle to be overcome in the future.
Santorum’s Priorities
All of these considerations set aside, I still suspect that Santorum was in the race for the long run this year, until the weekend before he dropped out.
He was still seen as being a factor in this year’s nomination process, his campaign was still receiving decent press, though it was starting to turn a little negative as Pennsylvania approached, and, let’s face it, a part of me really wonders if Candidate Santorum is really savvy enough to consider the arguments I made above in defense of his campaign to this point and how it poses him for a future run for the nomination.
If there was ever a candidate to stay in the race far past the point of respectability, ruining his reputation and future in a blind run towards an unreachable finish line, it would seem to be the former Senator. This would be a move right out of his playbook, blind self-immolation.
Though I am sure his campaign advisors saw what I saw for the last couple of months and have been talking to the former Senator quite a bit about how long to stay in and when to drop out. In fact, I would strongly suspect that these voices in his ears were whispering that, in order to position himself properly for the next campaign, that he should drop out before the Pennsylvania contest.
And I am pretty sure that Santorum was ignoring these voices until his daughter was hospitalized the weekend before he dropped out.
That weekend, I bet, Rick got in touch not only with some big doses of reality but that he also took a long look at his priorities in life.
Whether or not he really believed that he still had a shot at the Presidency this year, I do not know, but even a rock would be having doubts by that point. But I think he was still having fun. I think, whether or not he believed he still had a chance, that he was enjoying the spotlight that was shining not only on himself but also on his (crazy, crazy, terrible, awful, horrible) political beliefs.
And, of course, inspiring national conversations about beliefs that are important to oneself would be a difficult role for anyone to walk away from. I suspect that as long as he was inspiring these conversations that Santorum wasn’t going anywhere, even if staying in the race eventually cost him his own political future.
Until his daughter’s hospitalization, I don’t think Santorum would have dropped out of the race until his campaign faded from the spotlight, until it resembled something like Newt Gingrich’s, and then I think he’d probably stay in the race until the money completely ran out or even longer, until, like Newt, he could sit there with his toe still in the pond while doing very little active campaigning.
But that takes a lot of time and effort and I am sure that even Santorum was beginning to see that his 2012 run was over. It is one thing to be taking time away from one’s family and an ill child when one has a real shot at the White House, it is quite another to take that time for what amounts to little more than political noisemaking and rabblerousing.
I think Santorum made a very healthy choice here for himself and his family. I applaud him for it. Sure, I wanted the man out of the race. Amusing (and infuriating) as he was, any chance he has at ever reaching the Oval Office needs to be shut down as soon as possible. But I also am glad to see him (or anyone) putting his family first like this.
Yet my applause are a little bitter sweet here. By making a great choice as a human and a father he has also, accidently, made a great political move. I would be very surprised if we are not dealing with frontrunner Santorum the next time out, and that is not a good thing for America at all.
I see his exit as coming about through the following process…
My advisors keep telling me that it is getting close to the time where I should walk away, but I am not there yet myself. Wait, I need to be with my family now. Oh, okay guys, let’s schedule a press event. Why are my advisors so happy? I though we were admitting defeat and going home? Why are they so happy about losing? Why are they chanting “2016… 2016… 2016…”? Boy, that volunteer has a cute butt, I wonder if he works out? Holy cow, I’ve got to go pray now!
Okay. I tried to keep those sorts of jabs out of this post. But I couldn’t resist just one.
See you the next time around, Rick. Though I can’t say that I look forward to it.
Facebook, Snip.it, & Pinterest
Yeah, it’s been way too long since I posted here. I’ve been throwing a lot of links up on Facebook, Snip.it, and Pinterest, but I have not had any time at all to write for the last several weeks.
Follow me on those sites for more content between my posts, and from the links I share, you can get a pretty good idea of what is distressing our democracy on an almost daily basis.
Related Posts
Monday, March 05, 2012
Same-sex marriage is an issue of civil rights
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Mostly around here, I do things quickly with little thought, especially when it comes to assigning tags to posts (itself a relatively recent addition to the blog). However, one issue I spent quite a bit of time thinking about was on how to tag LGBT issues.
I decided to just file them under “Civil Rights.”
The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capeheart pretty much sums up my thoughts in this clip.
On a side note, Gov. Christie comes across as a real ass in the brief clip of his appearance on Morning Joe. I thought his charm was supposed to be his selling point.
Oops, I forgot. This is what they call charm in many corners of the far right these days.
Dicks.
Blacks and gays: The shared struggle for civil rights - PostPartisan - The Washington Post:
“It’s an issue of civil rights, as you said. It’s an issue of equality. It’s an issue of equal treatment under the law,” I said. “No one is asking for special rights. No one is asking for any kind of special favors. We’re just looking for the same rights and responsibilities that come with marriage and also the protections that are provided under marriage. In that regard overall we’re talking about a civil rights issue and what African Americans continue to struggle with is exactly what lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are struggling with today.”
Men and women picket the White House on May 29, 1965, in a protest organized by the Mattachine Society of Washington ( File photo - United Press International )
Related Posts
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Code Speak: Politics, bigotry, & the problem with Santorum
Before the Florida primary, I mistakenly believed that Rick Santorum was done.
Can’t we just be done with him? Please?
The Anyone But Romney camp has got them selves into a pickle… They have to decide between the walking contradiction of Newt Gingrich and Santorum, whose issues as a general election candidate may be just as awkward, but in a very different way...
Republicans and the Culture Wars: Why It Won't Work This Year - The Daily Beast:
Then there’s Rick Santorum, who, by all rights, should dominate the values battlefield. He’s got the loving wife, the passel of kids, the goofy-dad vibe. And, let’s face it, the man has never met a policy issue he didn’t see through the prism of family values. Tax reform? Regulatory reform? Deficit spending? As Rick tells it, the first step toward addressing any of these problems is to reinstate the ban on sodomy.
On pure piety points, no one can beat Rick. We’re talking here about a guy who has said he would use the presidential bully pulpit to warn of how contraception tempts even married couples to get busy in ways contrary to God’s will. This, of course, is part of the problem. Opposing abortion is one thing. Opposing contraception even among married folks doesn’t make Rick seem like a paragon of moral virtue so much as a refugee from the 16th century.
This excerpt touches on the real problem with Santorum without actually landing on it. It is not Santorum’s beliefs that are necessarily troubling to the far right, it is the way he communicates them. He either has made a decision at some point in his career to ignore the generally accepted code speak of the conservative social agenda, or he just doesn’t understand it.
If the former, then this is, perhaps, a bold though politically difficult approach to campaigning for him. If the latter, then he may be too stupid to be president. Not that that has stopped voters before.
What do I mean by code speak? Well, on gay rights, instead of calling them “special rights,” he focuses instead on the idea that homosexuality is a sin. Sure, a lot of non-politicians focus on the Biblical rather than the political points of this issue, but usually those are not people running in statewide elections, let alone wanting to run in a national general election.
Likewise, the new contraception debate (really, have we drifted that far to the right?)…
Instead of talking about the economics of health care, or even the questionable argument about religious freedom for faith-based organizations, Santorum, in the past, hit a straight moral line drive with the argument that contraception was bad for families. Of course, this was before the debate raised like an oily sludge to the surface of the election cycle, and at the time he said that he was not in favor of legislating this brand of morality, but times and political climates can and do change…
This sort of right wing code speak becomes very troubling to me when the President is being discussed. I know the issues that most on the right have with Obama have nothing to do with his race, but… All the claims about the President being a Muslim, a non-native citizen, and even a socialist… In a different day and age, how many of the people making so much noise about these non-issues wouldn’t bother? Instead, thirty plus years ago, they would just be making noise about getting the black man out of the White House.
Not everyone, don’t get me wrong. But I am sure that some percentage of those making these sorts of arguments about the President are just using these non-issues as code speak about his race.
While I disagree with Santorum at a fundamental level on just about every issue and take exception to almost every word that comes out of his mouth, at least he is not that kind of slime. I have no doubt that his issues with Obama have a lot more to do with wanting his job than with the color of the President’s skin.
The bigoted, racist kind of slime out there who do have that problem should be worried, though, because Santorum does not play their game and, in the unlikely event that he secures the GOP nomination, his inability to use proper conservative code speak will slay any chances at victory in November.
Only by using code speak to portray religious and moral beliefs as legitimate political issues can one who seems to believe that birth control is a refuge for loose women with low morals succeed in gaining acceptance outside of the far right conservative primaries.
Of course, Santorum’s failure to grasp the necessity of right wing code speak is not his only problem, beyond failing to understand how to discuss social issues, he really doesn’t seem to understand which aspects of these issues really engage people in the first place:
But it’s not just that the senator’s positions are out of touch with the mainstream electorate (a mere 8 percent of Americans think birth control is immoral; 84 percent of U.S. Catholics think you can use it and still be a good Catholic). It’s that the guy is simultaneously too pious and too pathetic.
Take his views on gay rights. Plenty of people object to gay marriage, but Santorum has long come across as a bit of a clown on the entire subject of homosexuality. It’s some combination of his whiny manner and his slightly-too-colorful blatherings about how “sodomy” is kinda like polygamy or incest but not quite so bad as man-on-dog action. With that kind of commentary, small wonder Dan Savage decided to execute his devastating lexical takedown of the senator.
Perhaps saddest of all, when things get uncomfortable, Santorum crumbles. Pressed recently about a section of his 2005 book, It Takes a Family, that laments “radical feminists” undermining the family by pushing women to work outside the home, the senator pleaded ignorance and claimed the bit had been written by his wife.
To be sure, this whole Serious Candidate business is new to Santorum.
Here’s to crumbling and blaming it on your wife. That sells really well in the heartland.
The problem the rest of us will have if Santorum became president should resolve itself any time now. I am just surprised he’s made it this far.
But not really. I still am not convinced that the GOP can bring itself to nominate a Mormon, er… I mean someone who flip flops on all the issues they hold dear while being responsible for the rough draft of the “anti-American” and “Socialist” Obama death panel plan.
Unfortunately, the only other sane choice they had this year was another, lesser known Mormon, er… I mean someone who endorsed the President’s anti-Amercian, Nazi Communist agenda by actually working for the guy. Ambassador to China or closet communist?
Huntsman's failure to launch and the Anyone But Romney crusade, it surely couldn’t have anything to do with faith, could it? I am sure that for most primary voters, the politics do come first. Unfortunately, I am sure that there are a few out there who obscure their true feelings with political code phrases.
A skill Santorum seems to lack.
Related Posts
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Conservative voters: Poorly informed with low IQs & voting against their own best interests?
I was just going to throw this link up onto Snip.it & Pinterest, but I really felt some words were necessary here.
First of all, I have known some very intelligent people who have conservative political views. Not only are they smart, but their political views are smart as well. Their arguments are usually well developed, informed, and are very intelligent, based on legitimate facts, figures and historical interpretations.
Quite often I disagree with them, but this is because we subscribe to some different historical and philosophical interpretations. However, when we debate, I hope both of us walk away better informed than when we started.
These debates usually change no minds, but they can actually make each of our arguments stronger, because through a well-informed conversation on an issue, we both learn some new facts and figures, holes are punched in our weaker arguments, and we have to find support for fuzzy truths we may have thrown out in haste or drop those imperfect arguments from our repertoire. In the end, each side can make a better informed decision on the point being discussed and, hopefully, takes away stronger arguments in defense of our views.
But what about right and wrong? What about winning? Well, in intelligent debates, we are usually arguing sane problems and issues that have multiple, legitimate, intelligent solutions. There usually is not a right answer or a wrong answer. Or they are very complex problems that require the best ideas from both the right and the left to be adequately resolved.
Of course, I am not talking about racism, prejudice, discrimination, or science. I usually find that intelligent conservatives and I pretty much share the same views here. Because we are not stupid or ignorant.
Which brings us to this…
Conservatism Thrives on Low Intelligence and Poor Information | | AlterNet:
…Canadian study published last month in the journal Psychological Science, which revealed that people with conservative beliefs are likely to be of low intelligence. Paradoxically it was the Daily Mail that brought it to the attention of British readers last week. It feels crude, illiberal to point out that the other side is, on average, more stupid than our own. But this, the study suggests, is not unfounded generalisation but empirical fact.
It is by no means the first such paper. There is plenty of research showing that low general intelligence in childhood predicts greater prejudice towards people of different ethnicity or sexuality in adulthood. Open-mindedness, flexibility, trust in other people: all these require certain cognitive abilities. Understanding and accepting others – particularly "different" others – requires an enhanced capacity for abstract thinking.
But, drawing on a sample size of several thousand, correcting for both education and socioeconomic status, the new study looks embarrassingly robust. Importantly, it shows that prejudice tends not to arise directly from low intelligence but from the conservative ideologies to which people of low intelligence are drawn. Conservative ideology is the "critical pathway" from low intelligence to racism. Those with low cognitive abilities are attracted to "rightwing ideologies that promote coherence and order" and "emphasise the maintenance of the status quo".
Pausing for a second… I do not equate conservative ideology with intolerance, necessarily. Social conservatism, perhaps, but not conservatism in general.
It seems as if a narrow path is being walked here, almost but not quite defining conservatism as racist and intolerant. That may be problematic. Further, if these sorts are drawn to the conservative ideology, does that mean conservative ideology is intolerant? Or does it become intolerant because of the influx of these intolerant people with low IQs? In the end, does it matter even matter where the causes and effects lay? Or has it become a self-perpetuating cycle with the chickens shitting all over the eggs they are laying, beyond any identification of cause and effect?
Blah. From here the article climbs up onto more solid ground… The problem lies not with a lack of intelligent conservatives, but with the way the intelligent conservatives have been pandering to their side’s “basest, stupidest impulses.”
This is not to suggest that all conservatives are stupid. There are some very clever people in government, advising politicians, running thinktanks and writing for newspapers, who have acquired power and influence by promoting rightwing ideologies.
But what we now see among their parties – however intelligent their guiding spirits may be – is the abandonment of any pretence of high-minded conservatism. On both sides of the Atlantic, conservative strategists have discovered that there is no pool so shallow that several million people won't drown in it. Whether they are promoting the idea that Barack Obama was not born in the US, that man-made climate change is an eco-fascist-communist-anarchist conspiracy, or that the deficit results from the greed of the poor, they now appeal to the basest, stupidest impulses, and find that it does them no harm in the polls.
…
…"the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital centre today". The Republican party, with its "prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science" is appealing to what he calls the "low-information voter", or the "misinformation voter". While most office holders probably don't believe the "reactionary and paranoid claptrap" they peddle, "they cynically feed the worst instincts of their fearful and angry low-information political base".
This is troubling in so many ways. But this is why so many poor Americans are fervent Republicans while many of the policies and practices of the GOP act against their own best interests at worst, or have little to do with any issues really effecting the poor at best.
Even more troubling:
In the UK, “the Guardian reported that recipients of disability benefits, scapegoated by the government as scroungers, blamed for the deficit, now find themselves subject to a new level of hostility and threats from other people.”
And even worse, and heading towards my real point here:
These are the perfect conditions for a billionaires' feeding frenzy. Any party elected by misinformed, suggestible voters becomes a vehicle for undisclosed interests. A tax break for the 1% is dressed up as freedom for the 99%. The regulation that prevents big banks and corporations exploiting us becomes an assault on the working man and woman. Those of us who discuss man-made climate change are cast as elitists by people who happily embrace the claims of Lord Monckton, Lord Lawson or thinktanks funded by ExxonMobil or the Koch brothers: now the authentic voices of the working class.
Many of the policies that benefit corporations are acutely harmful to the poor. Tax policy? Maybe, maybe not, but the minimum wage? Expensive workplace safety regulations? Even more costly environmental protection regulations?
The people arguing for deregulation will never live where the water supply has been poisoned by carcinogens, so why should they worry? Guess who gets to live there? The people voting for the conservative candidates who argue that such regulations kill jobs.
The real issue is not the IQ of the voters. I know for a fact that many of the loudest voices on the left should be locked in small rooms and only allowed to talk to rocks. Both sides have these people.
But what is so disturbing to me is how so many on the right so callously prey upon the ignorance of many in their voting base.
Perhaps this is my own prejudice, but what I see so often is the left saying, vote for us and we’ll keep the plant next door to your house from killing you while the right says, vote for us, and we’ll keep the left from putting job killing regulations on the plant next door to you and who really believes in all that science stuff, anyway, that says arsenic is bad for you? Jobs and superbabies! You can have it all!
I used the photo of the class warfare sign at the top of this post because I feel that this really is class warfare. It is an act of class warfare for the right to use these tactics on their own supporters.
The right says we cannot have a discussion about income inequality, because that is class warfare and an attack on the capitalist principles of the American Dream. Those on the right who would actually benefit from having this discussion, those who desperately feel the worsening ache of the dying American Dream every day, turn angry, fearful eyes towards those on the left who are fighting for them, away from those on the right who are actually stealing access to the American Dream from the vast majority of the country’s citizens in the first place.
And that, beyond being reprehensible, is just plain frightening.
Related Posts
Friday, February 10, 2012
Santorum & Obama: Which is worse for religion?
Some good points in this video…
What I want to know, if we are not supposed to be funding birth control with our tax dollars, we are also not funding erectile dysfunction treatments with our tax dollars, right?
That would just be crazy and hypocritical for insurance to cover one and not the other.
What? Really? One is a health issue and one is a moral issue?
Someone needs to explain that one to me.
The crazy right is always going off about how Obama is dangerous to religious freedom. I forget which one of the GOP candidates it was, they are blurring together a bit, was saying that one of his first acts upon taking office would be to overturn by executive order all of the anti-Christian acts put into place by the Obama Administration.
For the life of me, I can’t think of a single anti-religious executive order or bill signed by Obama, but maybe I am just getting my news from the wrong sources.
Watching this video, I realized they might be talking about women’s health issues. I forget that pro-woman’s health is often considered anti-Christian.
But, at least, if the GOP gains the Presidency, we can all rest assured that Islamic Sharia Laws will not be enacted in the United States. But who will protect us from these psychos wanting to write Leviticus into the U.S. Code and into the Constitution?
Well, if they do, we can rest assured that many of them will quickly be out of office, stoned to death for their sins…
Right?
To my way of thinking, these people harm religion more than Obama every would in a millions terms in office.
I suppose we do have to feel some sympathy since Christians are such a persecuted minority in this country.
ABCNEWS.com : Poll: Most Americans Say They're Christian:
Eighty-three percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians. Most of the rest, 13 percent, have no religion. That leaves just 4 percent as adherents of all non-Christian religions combined — Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and a smattering of individual mentions.
Oh, there I go again. Listening to their words instead of checking their facts. Better quit while I am ahead.
Fortunately, I do believe that these far right nut jobs are a minority, and if they feel persecuted, it is only because being surrounded by sane people must be very frustrating for them. That does give me hope and faith in my fellow Americans.
I am also pleased if, as Uygur argues, this turn back to the crazy social agenda by the GOP candidates means that they are losing confidence on running on economic issues. I agree the figures are on Obama’s side when it comes to the economy.
And the GOP loses when they run from so far to the right on the social issues.
Related Posts
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Is the GOP really this anti-Romney? Now they’ve got a little Santorum on their shoes…
Yep. It’s Rick’s turn…
Here is a scary one. Unfortunately, embedding is disabled: Rick Santorum Argues With Student Over Gay Marriage http://youtu.be/PzzDrOR30U8
Urban Dictionary: santorum
Related Posts
Another one bites the dust: Bachmann Out
Now that Michele Bachmann has dropped out of the presidential race, TPM took a look back at a memorable candidacy and compiled our favorite moments:
Some more winning moments...
Related Posts
Sunday, November 27, 2011
A dysfunctional system goes Super… And fails.
 |
| From 2011-11 (Nov) |
On Howard Kurtz’s Reliable Sources this morning, Kurtz was asking if the media was over-hyping and over-blowing the consequences of the “Super Committee's” failure to come up with a debt reduction plan.
He asks if all these “terrible things” that may happen as a result of this failure are “just media hype?”
In these teasers for the segment, it seemed to me that he was missing the real punch line here, but after a weak panel discussion on the topic, he did get to the point I feel needs to be made.
The real story here is how the failure of the “Super Committee,” which was set up to actually succeed without a lot of the procedural chains that bind the rest of Congress, brings into sharp relief the fact that, in Kurtz’s words, “nobody seems to be able to get anything done in Washington.”
He points out how this failure “highlight[s] the utter dysfunction of Washington.”
To me, this is the real story here. Of course Congress will find a way to avert the “disaster” of across the board budget cuts, of course tax codes will remain ridiculously full of loop holes for the richest individuals and corporations… Of course the traditional and non-traditional media will make a lot of noise about small political maneuvers that distract everyone from the real issues and problems facing our country and binding our system…
Nothing much will change. Few real problems will be solved (or even mentioned), problems manufactured for use as political weapons will be howled about…
And nothing much will change.
This is the story that is not being covered.
I saw this quote earlier, from Andrew Sullivan, explaining the Occupation and Tea Party movements…
"The theme that connects them all is disenfranchisement, the sense that the world is shifting deeply and inexorably beyond our ability to control it through our democratic institutions. You can call this many things, but a “democratic deficit” gets to the nub of it. Democracy means rule by the people—however rough-edged, however blunted by representative government, however imperfect. But everywhere, the people feel as if someone else is now ruling them—and see no way to regain control."
The system has become nearly impossible to change. The far right’s reaction is to just break it. The left wallows in ineptitude. The center rolls its eyes and simmers in a weak broth of futility.
For awhile, I’ve been thinking that if I ever took a sign to an Occupation event, it would be this:
The Status-Quo is
working for someone.
Is it working for you?
What is the solution? Well, there are no big universal fixes. But this is the conversation that we need to be having.
Finally, I loved this quote from Kurtz this morning: “miillions and millions unemployed and that is becoming an old story and that does bother me.”
Exactly. It should bother everyone.
Related Posts
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Monday, November 07, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Ronald Reagan and Obama both said the same thing about taxes for the wealthy
Thanks to Aleshia on Facebook for spotting this clip.
 |
This is not our grandparents' Republican Party... |
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Republicans 2012: You know you are in trouble when...
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
On SNL (with Video): Rick Santorum fantasizing about gay shower sex (because I just can't say that enough...)
Livewire | TPM: Santorum: SNL Debate Sketch Was 'Bullying':
Rick Santorum found himself debating the rest of the GOP field from inside a gay bar over the weekend. Actually, that was just where SNL placed Andy Samberg as he was portraying the candidate in a sketch. Neither Samberg’s Santorum not the candidate himself were pleased with the placement.
In an interview over the weekend, Santorum claimed that the sketch was “bullying.” “We’ve been hammered by the left for my standing up for the traditional family and I will continue to do so,” Santorum said. “The left, unfortunately, participates in bullying more than the right does. They say that they’re tolerant, and they’re anything but tolerant of people who disagree with them and support traditional values.”
'via Blog this'
Related Posts
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Class Warfare: Occupy Together Videos
Well, guess what... This is what class warfare looks like. Maybe if we had those discussions, for real, over the last ten years, we wouldn't have reached this point.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Go Republicans! Another case of keeping millions unemployed to put one man out of work
This...
Americans, unlike the Senate, approve of Obama’s jobs bill, poll says | The Ticket - Yahoo! News:
Senate Republicans Tuesday may have blocked President Obama's jobs bill, but a new poll suggests that's not what a majority of Americans want.
Nearly two-thirds of the respondents to a survey from NBC/Wall Street Journal voiced their approval when pollsters were told them the details of the president's "American Jobs Act"-- including that it would cut payroll taxes, fund new road construction, and extend unemployment benefits. NBC reports that 63 percent of respondents said they favored the bill, with just 32 percent opposing it. 'via Blog this'
...reminds me of this...
PS: I stole the second one from here: http://www.republicanjobcreation.com It is worth a look.
Sunday, October 09, 2011
Rick Santorum Fantasizes About Gay Soldiers Who 'Shower With People'
Considering the second excerpt from this piece, I felt it necessary to post the Google search of his name from this morning. Yep. I did it. I went there. So much for the high road.
Rick Santorum Bemoans Gay Soldiers Who 'Shower With People':
"Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum doubled down on his recent comments opposing allowing gay soldiers to serve in the U.S. military, invoking the image of soldiers showering together to explain his support for reinstating the discriminatory "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
...
Wallace then presented a quote from a former military official to Santorum and asked whether he agreed with its basic idea: "The army is not a sociological laboratory. ... Experiments ... are a danger to efficiency, discipline and morale and would result in ultimate defeat."
Santorum, looking uncomfortable, said that he did agree with the general idea of the statement. Wallace then revealed that the quote was from Colonel E.R. Householder, a World War II-era official whose comments were made in opposition to the racial integration of the military."
'via Blog this'
Just checking the old Google Search...
