Tag: President Obama

Netanyahu to American Jews: Get Lost

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in American Jews, Jews, John Boehner, Netanyahu

Netanyahu to American Jews: Get Lost

By accepting Speaker Boehner’s invitation to address Congress, the Israeli leader has chosen to side with political forces opposed by many US Jews.

—By David Corn

 
Remy Steinegger /Flickr

It was not so shocking that House Speaker John Boehner would seek to undermine President Barack Obama and his attempt to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu to deliver an address to Congress, in which Netanyahu will presumably dump on Obama’s efforts. Nor was it so shocking that Netanyahu, who apparently would rather see another war in the Middle East than a deal that allows Iran to maintain a civilian-oriented and internationally monitored nuclear program, agreed to mount this stunt two weeks before the Israeli elections—a close contest in which the hawkish PM is fighting for his political life. Certainly, Netanyahu realized that this audacious move would strain his already-ragged ties with the Obama administration and tick off the president, who will be in office for the next two years and quite able to inconvenience Netanyahu should he hold on to power. (Even Fox News talking heads acknowledged that Boehner’s invitation and Netanyahu’s acceptance were low blows.) But what was surprising was how willing Netanyahu was to send a harsh message to American Jews: Drop dead.

For the past six years, one big question has largely defined US politics: Are you for or against Obama? The ongoing narrative in Washington has been a simple one: The president has tried to enact a progressive agenda—health care, gun safety, a minimum-wage hike, climate change action, immigration reform, Wall Street reform, gender pay equity, expanded education programs, diminishing tax cuts for the rich—and Boehner and the Republicans have consistently plotted to thwart him. The GOP has used the filibuster in the Senate to block Obama initiatives and routine presidential appointments. The House Republicans have resorted to extraordinary means—shutting down the government, holding the debt ceiling hostage, ginning up controversies (Benghazi!)—to block the president. All this has happened as conservative allies of the Republican Party have challenged Obama’s legitimacy as president (the birth certificate) and peddled vicious conspiracy theories (he’s a Muslim socialist who will destroy the nation). Throughout the Obama Wars, one demographic group that has steadfastly stood with the president is American Jews.

The clear conclusion is that despite Republican efforts to target Jewish voters and to paint the president as somehow anti-Israel, the Jewish vote is not up for grabs. In fact, there has been a remarkable consistency in the Jewish vote for Congress over the past three elections as measured by GBA surveys, including 66 percent for Democrats in 2010, 69 percent in 2012, and 69 percent in 2014.

And there’s this. The poll asked American Jews to cite two issues of importance to them. Only 8 percent mentioned Israel, which put this subject in 10th place, far behind the economy and health care. Another survey conducted earlier in 2014 showed American Jewish voters overwhelmingly supporting Obama and listing the economy and the growing gap between the rich and poor as their top issues. As the New York Times reported, “Concern about Israel or Iran ranked very low, even when respondents were asked for the second most important issue that would determine their vote for president.” The paper quoted Robert Jones, head of the Public Religious Research Institute: “We show no slippage in Jewish support for President Obama.”

It’s no news flash that American Jews tend to be liberal. In 2013, the Pew Research Religious and Public Life Project spelled out the obvious:

Jews are among the most strongly liberal, Democratic groups in U.S. politics. There are more than twice as many self-identified Jewish liberals as conservatives, while among the general public, this balance is nearly reversed. In addition, about seven-in-ten Jews identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party. Jews are more supportive of President Barack Obama than are most other religious groups. And about eight-in-ten Jews say homosexuality should be accepted by society.

And this Pew report noted that most Jews support Obama’s stance on Israel: “Obama receives higher marks from Jews by religion than from most other religious groups for his handling of the nation’s policy toward Israel. The strongest critics of Obama’s approach toward Israel are white evangelical Protestants, among whom just 26% approve of his performance in this area.”

By RSVPing to Boehner’s invitation, Netanyahu is choosing sides and embracing the folks whom most American Jews oppose. He is butting into US politics and enabling the never-ending Republican campaign to undercut a president widely supported by American Jews.

That is not good for Jews in the United States or Israel. Israeli politicians have long counted on Jewish support in the United States—and support from conservative evangelicals. Yet there have been signs that non-Orthodox American Jews are not all that happy with Netanyahu’s policies. A 2013 poll found that only 38 percent of American Jews believed that his government was “making a sincere effort to bring about a peace settlement” with the Palestinians. Close to half believed Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank was a bad idea. (Only 17 percent said it helped Israeli security.) That is, Netanyahu’s right-wing approach—even if supported by AIPAC and other American Jewish establishment outfits—was not popular with many American Jews.

And now Netanyahu is partnering up with Boehner to kick Obama in the teeth and sabotage one of the president’s top diplomatic priorities. He is essentially telling American Jews to get lost: I have no regard for the president you support and no regard for your own political needs and desires.

The leader of a foreign country ought to place his own assessment of national security imperatives first. But the relationship between the Israeli government and American Jews is an important and sensitive matter for both sides—and perhaps more so for Tel Aviv. After all, Israel, which receives about $3 billion in US aid annually, needs the United States more than vice versa. Yet Netanyahu has decided to snub American Jews and to insult the leader they strongly back. This speech might help Netanyahu in the Israeli elections; it could also backfire if Israeli voters decide to punish him for further weakening Israel’s special relationship with Washington. But Netanyahu’s scheming with Boehner against Obama could also end up alienating many American Jews from the Israeli government. By enlisting with Boehner, Netanyahu is conveying a brazen sign of disrespect for a community he and his country depend upon. What chutzpah.

Can’t Make This Up: Conservatives Now Say They Hate Spock After Obama Praises Character

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in conservatives, Mr. Spock, Star Trek

Star Trek Bones & Spock facepalm
Can’t Make This Up: Conservatives Now Say They Hate Spock After Obama Praises Character
Author: Jameson Parker
 

There is a popular belief among liberals that conservatives would stop breathing if President Obama came out in favor of air, and that may not be too far off.

After the tragic passing of Leonard Nimoy, the actor who had defined the role of one of pop culture’s most iconic science fiction characters, Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, there was universal praise of both actor and character from across the world. The remembrance was largely apolitical, with people on every part of the political spectrum paying respect. Some Republicans (erroneously) even tried to claim Spock and Nimoy as a conservative.

Then suddenly, everything shifted. Today, the group is disavowing Spock and arguing instead that he was an “appeasing arrogant jerk.” What happened? You can probably guess.

President Obama had marked the passing of Leonard Nimoy with a moving statement released by the White House:

“Long before being nerdy was cool, there was Leonard Nimoy.  Leonard was a lifelong lover of the arts and humanities, a supporter of the sciences, generous with his talent and his time.  And of course, Leonard was Spock.  Cool, logical, big-eared and level-headed, the center of Star Trek’s optimistic, inclusive vision of humanity’s future.

I loved Spock.”

Loved?! As if on cue, conservatives have lined up to re-remember Spock as basically a pointy-eared version of what they believe Obama to be. Matthew Continetti, a writer for the conservative paper The Washington Free Beacon, summed up the sentiments with an astoundingly sad article titled “I Don’t Love Spock.”

“I am also a Star Trek fan, but I admit I was somewhat confused by my rather apathetic reaction to Nimoy’s death. And as I thought more about the president’s statement, I realized he identifies with the very aspects of the Spock character that most annoy me. I don’t love Spock at all.”

Mistaking his own apathy towards the death of a fellow person as a sign that he was “on to something,” Continetti details the various ways Spock – a half-Vulcan living and working in deep space in the 24th century – is too liberal to ever be loved by conservatives. Let’s just say his examples are, to borrow a phrase, highly illogical.

“Not only do Spock’s peacenik inclinations routinely land the Enterprise and the Federation into trouble, his “logic” and “level head” mask an arrogant emotional basket case. Unlike the superhuman android Data, a loyal officer whose deepest longing is to be human, Spock spends most of his life as a freelancing diplomat eager to negotiate with the worst enemies of Starfleet.”

Negotiating with the enemy may sound like a reasonable way to avoid intergallactic war to you, but to Continetti it marks the very essence of what makes Obama an ineffectual leader. He expects his Star Trek characters to be like Data, a literal robot, who is defined by his loyalty, not by Spock, a man defined by his intelligence. The comparison is clear: Aboard the USS Enterprise, Obama would probably pal around with aliens – illegal or not.

The article continues to ooze with cherry-picked examples of times Spock led the Enterprise crew astray (just like Obama is leading America astray, wink wink nudge nudge).

“If we accept Star Trek (2009) as canon then the “cool” and “level-headed” Spock is responsible for the destruction not only of his home world and the death of 6 billion Vulcans but of the entire Star Trek timeline that audiences have loved for almost 50 years. As usual, evil happens because Spock is too idealistic, too in thrall to a value-neutral conception of science, to consider the unintended consequences of his actions.”

Continetti, having thoroughly described all the ways he feels Spock is the worst, then indicts Obama for liking him. (Presumably, Continetti hates the millions of other people who expressed grief and paid tribute to Nimoy, however they aren’t the ones that Continetti has a burning, all-consuming antipathy towards.)

“And Obama likes this selfish jerk? The coolness the president so appreciates in Spock is a thin veneer over a remarkably arrogant and off-putting detachment from human suffering. Dr. McCoy, played by the charming DeForest Kelley, bitingly exposed this truth about Spock’s nature again and again. Discussing the Genesis Project in Wrath of Khan, for example, Spock lectures McCoy, “Really, Dr. McCoy. You must learn to govern your passions. They will be your undoing. Logic suggests—”

But McCoy won’t hear it—and he’s right. ‘Logic? My God, the man’s talking about logic; we’re taking about universal Armageddon!’”

Strange, when dealing with universal Armageddown, one might hope the people in charge can maintain a cool, logical view of things. Instead, Spock – and by extension, Obama – are criticized for it. For conservatives, the goal is always to go with the gut. It worked so well for George W. Bush.

Continetti concludes:

“It will take America some time to recover from the legacy of our Spock-loving president—though probably not as long as it will take my friends to stop laughing at me for writing this column.”

Mr. Continetti, you are being too humble. No, it is likely the entire galaxy that is laughing at you for writing this column.

New Law in Saudi Arabia Labels All Atheists as Terrorists

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Saudi Fascists

New Law in Saudi Arabia Labels All Atheists as Terrorists

481242155-president-barack-obama-walks-with-prince-khaled-bin
President Obama walks with Prince Khaled Bin Bandar Bin Abdul Aziz (C-R), Emir of Riyadh, in Riyadh on March 29, 2014.

Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

No one has ever accused Saudi Arabia of being the Holland of the Middle East. You know, Holland, the country of unbridled liberalism where they encourage euthanization via legal pot brownie consumption. But, a recent report from Human Rights Watch shows new laws in Saudi Arabia have taken the country a step back and bulldozed what little public space there is for dissent in the country. The changes, predictably, come under the guise of “fighting terror.” And what’s the number one terrorist threat facing the country? Atheists, apparently.

Included under the terrorism provisions is the ban on “calling for atheist thought in any form.” That’s Article 1, in fact. It’s a rather strange headliner to the whole who-is-a-terrorist question considering atheism doesn’t historically raise many red flags in the pantheon of global terrorism. The provisions, which are almost imperceptibly broad, “create a legal framework that appears to criminalize virtually all dissident thought or expression as terrorism,” according to HRW.

And dissent is of rising concern in the country. Here’s why from the Independent: “The new laws have largely been brought in to combat the growing number of Saudis travelling to take part in the civil war in Syria, who have previously returned with newfound training and ideas about overthrowing the monarchy.”

When The Right Loved Vladimir Putin

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Clerical Fascism, Fascist Putin, Russian Theocracy, Vladimir Putin, Wingnut Media, World Nut Daily

When the right loved Vladimir Putin

When the right loved Vladimir Putin

Back when Putin was in the news for oppressing LGBT people, many conservatives said he had his virtues

Following Russia’s de facto annexation of Crimea this weekend, Republican leaders have begun forcefully criticizing President Obama, blaming his supposed weakness and tendency toward indecision for Putin’s aggressive move while suggesting that Russia’s autocrat wouldn’t have seized Crimea if he were more intimidated by U.S. power.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has long been one of Obama’s most hawkish Republican critics on issues of foreign policy, said on CNN that America has “a weak and indecisive president,” a situation that “invites aggression.” GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, meanwhile, complained on Fox News that Putin was “playing chess” while the U.S., under Obama’s leadership, was merely “playing marbles.”

Yet all this tough talk from Republican circles is obscuring a salient fact: Until recently, conservatives were far more divided when it came to their estimation of Russia’s president. While no high-ranking Republican in his or her right mind would ever praise Russia itself, it wasn’t so long ago that many conservatives — especially those of a more socially reactionary bent — were celebrating Putin for his country’s controversial anti-gay laws, which they described as being interested primarily in saving Christianity and “traditional” values rather than discriminating against LGBT people.

Here are just a few examples of right-wingers cheering on Putin:

The American Conservative’s Pat Buchanan and Rod Dreher

Back in December, the former strategist and speechwriter for Richard Nixon won some attention for a column in which he asks, “Is Vladimir Putin a paleoconservative? In the culture war for mankind’s future, is he one of us?” After a lengthy diatribe expounding on all the ways unelected judges and perfidious progressives had forced their radical, secular morals on the rest of the country, Buchanan comes so very close — just a centimeter away, really — from answering his own questions in the affirmative and welcoming Russia’s president into the paleocon fold. “While his stance as a defender of traditional values has drawn the mockery of Western media and cultural elites,” Buchanan writes, “Putin is not wrong in saying that he can speak for much of mankind.”

The American Conservative’s socially conservative blogger Rod Dreher, meanwhile, also had kind words for Putin, writing that the Russian leader “may be a cold-eyed cynic” but was nevertheless “also onto something.” Acknowledging that he’s merely putting forward a “guess” as to Putin’s motivations, Dreher writes, “If Russia is going to have a future, [Putin] must figure, it must be built on organic Russian traditions, which includes Orthodox Christianity.” Dreher went on to guess that Putin “believes that Russia’s rebirth depends on its rediscovery of a life-giving Christianity, which depends on rebuilding a sense of social respect for and trust in the Orthodox Church and its teachings.” Dreher also seems to endorse this reasoning, writing that “Orthodox Christianity is the only coherent basis for rebuilding the Russian nation from the ruins left by Bolshevism.”

The Weekly Standard’s Christopher Caldwell

Writing for the Financial Times in early February, one of the neoconservative magazine’s editors, Christopher Caldwell, reprimanded Putin’s critics in the West for focusing on “a short list of causes beloved of western elites” instead of all the good things Putin’s done. “Certainly Mr Putin’s respect for the democratic process has been fitful at best,” Caldwell grants, but then goes on to argue that those in the West who opposed Putin’s anti-gay laws are hypocrites. As evidence, he cites the fact that some of the most prominent opponents of Putin’s anti-gay law were previously supporters of an anti-blasphemy law that passed in the U.K. in 2006.

In the end, Caldwell implies that Putin’s critics aren’t much better at the whole democracy thing than he is, writing, “Those countries lecturing him about ‘healthy democracy’ … have lately shifted power from legislatures to executives and from voters to bureaucracies. In Europe it has been done through delegations of power to the EU. In the US, it has been done through judicial reversals of democratic election results (including on gay marriage) and congressional abdication (on trade, warfare, healthcare and intelligence gathering).” Caldwell finishes his column by claiming that the distance separating civil rights in the West and Russia “is not quite so obvious as it was 10 years ago.”

Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber and the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer

These two hardcore social conservatives both praised Putin for his anti-gay laws. In a December column for WND.com, Barber wrote that, during the Obama years, Putin has been able to claim for Russia “the mantle of world moral leader” and that Putin’s anti-gay laws were an example of his being able to “out-Christian our once-Christian nation.” He describes the controversial laws as banning “sexual anarchist propaganda.”

Fischer, for his part, was even more effusive in his praise for Putin, calling the Russian a “lion of Christianity” back in October. Putin, according to Fischer, is “the defender of Christian values, the president that’s calling his nation back to embracing its identity as a nation founded on Christian value.” Fischer went on to describe Russia as “more advanced spiritually than the United States.”

Elias Isquith

Elias Isquith is an assistant editor at Salon, focusing on politics. Follow him on Twitter at @eliasisquith, and email him at eisquith@salon.com.

Obama Crushes the Neocons

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Iran, Neocons

Obama Crushes the Neocons
The agreement signed with Iran on Sunday is a momentous step forward. Yet Republicans will try to subvert the success by playing to their Obama-hating base.

Well, the ayatollah appears to have lent his provisional support to the historic U.S.-Iran accord announced Saturday night. In a letter to President Hassan Rouhani, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said the deal “can be the basis for further intelligent actions.” Now we just need sign-off from our American ayatollahs. But the early indications are that the Republicans, eager to perform Bibi Netanyahu’s bidding—not that they needed a second reason to oppose something Barack Obama did—will do everything within their power to stop the thing going forward.

We shouldn’t get too carried away in praising this accord just yet. It’s only a six-month arrangement while the longer-term one is worked out. Those talks are going to be harder than these were, and it’s not at all a stretch to envision them collapsing at some point. Iran is going to have to agree to a regular, more-or-less constant inspection regime that would make it awfully hard for Tehran to be undertaking weapons-grade enrichment. It’s easy to see why they agreed to this deal, to buy time and get that $4.2 billion in frozen oil revenues. But whether Iran is going to agree to inspections like that is another question.

Still, it is indeed a historic step. Thirty-four years of not speaking is a long time. So it’s impressive that this got done at all, and even more impressive are some of the inner details, like the fact that Americans and Iranians have been in direct and very secret negotiations for a year. Rouhani’s election does seem to have made a huge positive difference—four of five secret meetings centered in Oman have been held since Rouhani took office, which seems to be a pretty clear indication that he wants a long-term deal to happen.

So this is potentially, I emphasize potentially, a breakthrough that could have numerous positive reverberations in the region—not least among them the virtual elimination of the chance that the United States and Iran would end up at war. And what a refutation of those harrumphing warmongers! I’d love to have had a tap on John Bolton’s phone over the weekend, or Doug Feith’s, or Cheney’s, and heard the combination of perfervid sputtering and haughty head shaking as they lament Obama’s choice.

Well, then, let’s compare choices. They chose war, against a country that never attacked us, had no capability whatsoever to attack us, and had nothing to do with the allegedly precipitating event, 9/11. We fought that war because 9/11 handed the neocons the excuse they needed to dope the public into supporting a unilateral war of hegemony. It has cost us more than $2 trillion now. It’s taken the lives of more than 100,000 people. It has been the author of the trauma of thousands of our soldiers, their limbs left over there, their families sundered. And on the subject of Iran, the war of course did more to strengthen Iran in the region than Obama could dream of doing at his most Machiavellian-Manchurian. Fine, the world is well rid of Saddam Hussein. But these prices were far too steep.

Then along came Obama in 2008, saying he’d negotiate with Iran. I’d love to have a nickel for every time he was called “naive” by John McCain or Sarah Palin (after the differences between Iran and Iraq were explained to her) or any of dozens of others (and yeah, even Hillary Clinton). I’d settle for a penny. I’d still be rich. You might think that watching this past decade unfold, taking an honest measure of where the Bush administration’s hideous decisions have left us, that some of them might allow that maybe negotiation was worth a shot.

Of course that will never happen. Marco Rubio was fast out of the gates Sunday, but he will be joined today by many others. Some will be Democrats, yes, from states with large Jewish votes. Chuck Schumer and Robert Menendez have already spoken circumspectly of the deal (although interestingly, Dianne Feinstein, as AIPAC-friendly as they come, spoke strongly in favor of it). There will be a push for new sanctions, and that push will be to some extent bipartisan.

But the difference will be that if the Democrats get the sense that the deal is real and can be had, they won’t do anything to subvert it, whereas for the Republicans, this will all be about what it’s always about with them—the politics of playing to their Obama-hating base. But there’ll be two added motivations besides. There’s the unceasingly short-sighted and tragic view of what constitutes security for Israel, which maintains the conditions of near-catastrophe that keep just enough of the Israeli public fearful of change so that they perpetuate in putting people like Netanyahu in power, thus ensuring that nothing will ever change. And perhaps most important of all in psychic terms to the neocons, there is contemplation of the hideous reality that Obama and the path of negotiation just might work. This is the thing the neocons can’t come to terms with at all. If Obama succeeds here, their entire worldview is discredited. Check that; even more discredited.

Rouhani appears to be moving his right wing a bit. Ours, alas, isn’t nearly so flexible as Iran’s.

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Birther, Rush Limbaugh Fan Threatens the President, Gets Arrested

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Birthers, Tea Baggers

Birther, Rush Limbaugh Fan Threatens the President, Gets Arrested

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An 81-year-old “birther” was arrested today and charged with threatening President Barack Obama’s life, according to federal court records.

Prosecutors allege that Elwyn Nels Fossedal was in a post office near his Wisconsin home last month when he announced, “If President Obama was here I would shoot him right there and kill him right now.”

When Secret Service agents confronted Fossedal about the threat—which was relayed to law enforcement by witnesses—he would not recant the statement and “repeated the threat using different words. He also made a number of additional threats towards the President,” according to a felony complaint.

[…]

Fossedal, a retired Pfizer employee, appears to be a “birther” based on comments he has posted online. A Rush Limbaugh fan, Fossedal has also called for Obama’s impeachment over the Affordable Care Act and declared that, “We need to throw the Muslim in the White House, OUT.”

In a funeral home obituary for his wife, Fossedal is reported as having resigned from the Lions Club International because the community service organization purportedly “would not allow the worship of Jesus Christ” so that it could “be accepted by Islamic Nations.”

thesmokinggun.com

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Obama Removes God; Farcical Idiot Pond “Breitbart” Make Fools of Themselves, Yet Again

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Right Wing Morons, Wingnuts

Breitbart “News” Beclowns Themselves Yet Again
Right wing journalism at its finest
By Charles  Johnson
I’ve taken a bit of a break from mocking the right wing idiots at  Breitbart.com lately, but this self-beclownment is so monumental it rivals Ben  Shapiro’s hilarious “Friends of Hamas” smear against Chuck Hagel, as Larry  O’Connor gets the vapors over President Obama’s recitation of an early version  of the Gettysburg address for a Ken Burns film: OBAMA  REMOVES ‘GOD’ FROM GETTYSBURG ADDRESS.

Then, six hours after the screaming anti-Obama headline comes the sheepish  update:

UPDATE: A text box now appears on the Ken Burns website learntheaddress.org which states: “Did you know there are five versions of the Gettysburg Address?  We asked President Obama to read the first, the Nicolay Version.” A  cached version of the same webpage from several days ago shows no such  reference.

Right, because O’Connor and the rest of the right wing crazysphere made such  a stink about this moronic fake outrage that Ken Burns needed to post a  clarification to stop the idiocy from spreading any further. Winning!

And speaking of clarifications, Larry — how about an update to your totally  wrong headline?

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Sarah Palin Joins The “Just Like Slavery” Teabernacle Choir

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Humour

Sarah Palin Joins The “Just Like Slavery” Teabernacle Choir

Posted by Mark

When republican critics get tired of calling President Obama a Muslim or a socialist or a Kenyan or a homosexual or a tyrant or a mad genius or an idiot figurehead or a Black Panther or a Wall Street lackey or lizard overseer, they generally just resort to comparing him to Adolf Hitler. However, lately a new unfounded and irrational insult has been working its way up the charts of the conservative hitlist, and has-been, half-term governor Sarah Palin is the latest to give it her rendition.

Palin: When that note comes due … and this isn’t racist … but it’s going to be like slavery when that note is due. We are going to be beholden to a foreign master.

Sarah Palin Palin was referring to the national debt, which she seems to believe is at risk of being sent to the International Collections and Captivity Corporation for redemption. While it was thoughtful of her to remind us that associating her remarks about the first African-American president with the historical scab of slavery isn’t racist, she nevertheless fails to grasp the intricacies of economics. But she does align herself with a growing congregation of noxious Tea Partiers who think that anything President Obama does that they don’t like is just like slavery. For instance…

  • Rush Limbaugh: Well over 50% of the American people don’t want [Obamacare]. And the Republicans are like ‘well we can’t do anything about it. The law’s the law, It’s the law of the land.’ Well, so was slavery one time, the law of the land.
  • Dr. Ben Carson: Obamacare is “the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery. […] In a way, it is slavery, because it is making all of us subservient to the government.
  • Sen. Rand Paul: Basically, once you imply a belief in a right to someone’s services — do you have a right to plumbing? Do you have a right to water? Do you have right to food? You’re basically saying you believe in slavery.
  • VA Atty Genl Ken Cuccinelli: “The founders knew how bad [slavery] was. We have other things in this country today and abortion is one of them.
  • Former Rep. Allen West: He does not want you to have the self-esteem of getting up and earning, and having that title of American. He’d rather you be his slave.
  • NH Rep. Bill O’Brien: And what is Obamacare? It is a law as destructive to personal and individual liberty as the Fugitive Slave Act.

Is this trend of comparing Obama’s agenda to slavery better than comparing him to Hitler? It’s a tough call. But many on the right may not mean it as an insult. There are some prominent conservatives who have publicly expressed their opinion that slavery was actually a pretty good thing. So perhaps this is just Palin’s way of complementing Obama.

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Fondly Remembering Obama’s Days As A Gay, Cocaine-Using Hustler

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Obama Conspiracies, Religious Crazies, Right Wing Loons

Fondly Remembering Obama’s Days As A Gay, Cocaine-Using Hustler

by Kyle Mantyla

While visiting Scott Lively’s “Defend The Family” website this morning, we spotted a rather intriguing headline posted in the “Latest News” section reading “Claim: Obama was a ‘gay’ teen favored by older white sugar-daddies.”

Obviously, we were professionally required to check that out and what we found was an interview conducted by crackpot preacher James David Manning with a woman named Mia Marie Pope, who claims to have been a classmate of President Obama’s back in Hawaii in the 1970s when he was a gay, cocaine using foreigner.

“He very much was within sort of the gay community,” Pope said. “And we new Barry as just common knowledge that girls were never anything that he ever was interested in … He would get with these older white gay men, and this is how we just pretty much had the impression that that’s how he was procuring his cocaine. In other words, he was having sex with these older white guys and that’s how he was getting this cocaine to be able to freebase”:

 

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This Week In Right-Wing Lunacy

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Religious Lunatics, Right Wing Lunatics, Right-Wing Lunacy

Paranoia-Rama: This Week In Right-Wing Lunacy

Submitted by Miranda Blue

RWW’s Paranoia-Rama takes a look at five of the week’s most absurd conspiracy theories from the Right.

This week, we learn more about President Obama’s secret gay past and Michelle Obama’s poor spiritual housekeeping, find out the real reason for Terry McAuliffe’s victory in Virginia, and are duly warned about the consequences of health care coverage and U.N. treaties.

5. Obamacare Will Force People to “Suffer and Potentially Die”

Texas Rep. Louis Gohmert, Congress’ most creative conspiracy theorists, told the residents of a nursing home in Texas this week that the Affordable Care Act would cut Medicare benefits, causing people to “suffer and potentially die.”

Gohmert’s claim that the ACA “cut $716 billion from Medicare,” repeated frequently by Mitt Romney in his presidential campaign last year, glosses over the fact that the cuts in costs – also recommended by Rep. Paul Ryan – would not affect Medicare benefits .

4. The United Nations Will Snatch Homeschoolers and Kids With Glasses

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee revived consideration of the United Nations Conventions on Persons With Disabilities this week, a year after a right-wing scare campaign managed to prevent the Senate from ratifying the treaty.

Taking the lead in the effort to sink the treaty was Michael Farris, director of the Home School Legal Defense Association, who claimed that U.S. ratification of the treaty would allow the U.N. to “get control” of children with glasses or ADHD and even lead to the deaths of children with disabilities. Invited to testify at this week’s hearing, Farris tried to convince senators that ratifying the treaty – which is based on laws already in place in the United States – would in fact lead to an American ban homeschooling. His only evidence for this fear was a completely unrelated immigration case .

The many right-wing conspiracy theories about the CRPD have been handily debunked by the U.S. International Council on Disabilities, as well as by former Republican senators Bill Frist and Bob Dole.

3. Michelle Obama Invited Demons Into The White House

The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer was shocked to learn that First Lady Michelle Obama hosted a White House event this to celebrate Diwali.

By celebrating the Hindu festival, Fischer warned, the first lady was inviting “demons into the White House,” necessitating a “spiritual cleanse” of the building after Obama leaves office.

Fischer neglected to mention that George W. and Laura Bush had hosted the very same event. He did, however, later in the week provide a helpful how-to on how to rid a home of demonic spirits in case it ever comes to that.

2. Voter Fraud Won the Election in Virginia

Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli thinks that President Obama won reelection through organized voter fraud , so it’s no surprise that some of his supporters were ready to cry “voter fraud” when he lost the gubernatorial election on Tuesday to Democrat Terry McAuliffe.

A full week before election day, Virginia conservative commentator Dean Chambers laid out how he predicted McAuliffe would “steal” the election through voter fraud. Meanwhile, Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber spent Election Day tweeting about how Cuccinelli would need to win by 7 points “to get within the margin of Democrat fraud.” And after the results came in, the white nationalist site VDARE claimed that McAuliffe must have relied on “black voter fraud” because it was not “plausible” that African-Americans would “turn out for New York Irish American Pol running for Governor with the same enthusiasm that they voted for a Black for President.”

In 2008, Virginia officials prosecuted 39 cases of voter fraud out of 3.7 million votes cast, none of which involved voter impersonation, the alleged target of Virginia’s pending voter ID law.

1. Obama Procured Cocaine Through Older White, Male Lovers

We already knew that during his student days President Obama was married to his male Pakistani roommate, the union from which he still wears a secret gay Muslim wedding ring , but we learned today via anti-gay activist Scott Lively that the president’s secrets go much deeper.

Lively linked on his website to an interview between crackpot preacher James David Manning and a woman named Mia Marie Pope, who claims to have been a classmate of President Obama’s back in Hawaii in the 1970s.

Pope recalled how the future president was “very much within sort of the gay community” and “was having sex with these older white guys” in order to procure “cocaine to be able to freebase.”

Thanks to RWW

http://tinyurl.com/pdew673

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What’s Wrong With That Story About Obama Knowing That Your Health Care Policy Would Get Cancelled?!

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Health Care, Obamacare

More manufactured, fake outrage, from the Republican swill geyser
Here Is What’s Wrong With That Story About Obama Knowing That Your Health Care Policy Would Get Cancelled

By Igor Volsky

obama-sad

The NBC News investigations unit is reporting that “50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a ‘cancellation’ letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law” — a fact administration officials knew but kept from the public.

The cancellations are a result of so-called grandfather rules promulgated by President Obama’s Health and Human Services. The rule exempts health insurance plans in existence before March 23, 2010 — the day the Affordable Care Act became law — from many of the new regulations, benefits standards and consumer protections that new plans now have to abide by, but says that policies could lose their designation if they make major changes. From NBC:

Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, “40 to 67 percent” of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, “the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range.”

That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.

This all sounds very ominous until you consider that the naturally high turnover rate associated with the individual market means that it’s highly unlikely that individuals would still be enrolled in plans from 2010 in 2014. In fact, the Obama administration publicly admitted this when it issued the regulations in 2010, leading Republicans like Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) to seize on the story in order to push for repeal of the grandfather regulations. Here is a story in The Hill from Sep. 22, 2010 pointing to this very same 40 to 67 percent range:

Hill screengrab

The debate was widely covered in the press, so it’s unclear what exactly the NBC investigation unit has uncovered.

The goal of grandfather regulations is to allow a consumer to keep their existing policies, while also ensuring that there are some basic patient protections built into these plans. If insurers make changes that significantly burden enrollees with lower benefits and increased costs they have to come into compliance with all consumer protections. Therefore, policies lose their grandfathered status if insurers cancel coverage when a person becomes ill, impose lifetime limits on benefits, eliminate all benefits for a particular condition and reduce the cap for covered services each year, among other changes. (In fact, in November of 2010, the federal government loosened some of these standards.)

So yes, individuals can keep the plans they have if those plans remain largely the same. But individuals receiving cancellation notices will have a choice of enrolling in subsidized insurance in the exchanges and will probably end up paying less for more coverage. Those who don’t qualify for the tax credits will be paying more for comprehensive insurance that will be there for them when they become sick (and could actually end up spending less for health care since more services will now be covered). They will also no longer be part of a system in which the young and healthy are offered cheap insurance premiums because their sick neighbors are priced out or denied coverage. That, after all, is the whole point of reform.

Update

 

Here is how Marilyn Tavenner — the head of CMS, the agency responsible for implementing the law — responded to questions about what she would tell an American who has received a cancellation notice during Tuesday’s health care hearing:

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A Reminder Just How Not Racist, the “We’re Not Racist” Tea Baggers, Are Not Racist, Not

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Assassinate Obama, Jules Manson, Racist Tea Party, Tea Baggers

Tea Party Politician on Obama: “Assassinate the fucken nigger and his monkey children”

By Anomaly

Tea Party candidate and Libertarian Jules Manson just called for the assassination of President Obama and his children on Facebook, but I’m sure it was just a ‘misspeak’ (wink wink).

In an unnerving display of racism and violence today, this Ron Paul supporting libertarian, who ran for a seat on the City of Carson’s City council last march, and thankfully failed, wrote:

“Assassinate the fucken nigger and his monkey children”

What’s a fucken? Grammar ‘misspeaks’ aside, behold the world of Jules Manson (no relation to Marylin Mason, who apparently is a kinder, gentler person):

Manson posted his visceral diatribe on his Facebook wall apparently angry over the passing of NDAA, however, someone should enlighten him that 86 Senators passed that abomination of a bill, which makes vetoing it successfully problematic; more than 2/3rds of the Senate majority supported this bill. But hey, don’t let the facts stop the racist rhetoric. Manson removed his offensive (and illegal) post when hundreds of Facebook users poured out their outrage. At this point, Manson (and no, this is not bad satire) felt compelled to explain that he is not really a racist. No, really.

Examiner.com’s Michael Stone reports, “Manson argued that using the word “nigger” does not make him a racist.” Sane America would beg to differ.

Americans Against the Tea Party‘s Facebook page posted a screen capture of the offensive remarks and recived over a 100 angry and outraged comments in a little over an hour. The following is a small sample of those remarks:

sure hope the Secret Service and FBI get this creep, he is dangerous to everyone! We can thank the Republicans for this brand of extremism.

reported to secret service…who seemed interested enough to ask for the url and a screen shot

“And his monkey children” smfh. That part bothers me the most.

I’d like to see how Fox News will defend THIS!

I hope the FBI has seen what he has said and will be showing up at his door soon.

The best way to stick it to idiots like this is vote to re elect Obama and then Warren in 2016.

Manson will be running for Senate next year (I joke). The failed politician’s Facebook page has since been removed and he’s most likely in a fetal position on the floor sucking his thumb waiting for the Secret Service. Good luck on that.

Big thanks to Michael Stone

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32 Republicans Who Caused the Government Shutdown

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Government Shutdown, Republican Clown Car

32 Republicans Who Caused the Government Shutdown
Here’s the Republican clown car!
Meet the House conservative hardliners.

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Friday was the fourth day of the government shutdown, and there’s still no sign of an exit. What’s surprising about the ongoing fight is how a small group of members of Congress have managed to bring Washington to a halt. Just months ago, Speaker John Boehner was warning that forcing the government to shut down over Obamacare or anything else was politically hazardous. Yet Boehner remains stuck, his strategy dictated by a small rump of members in the Republican caucus who refuse to budge. On Monday night, as government funding ran out, a group of around 40 hardline conservatives refused to support any resolution to fund the government that didn’t defund Obamacare. Since Monday night, their goals may have become less clear, but their resolve has not weakened. While it’s widely believed that a “clean” resolution would pass the House handily, it would also likely lead to a right-wing rebellion in the caucus that would spell the end of Boehner’s speakership.

So who are those hardliners? To compile this list, we started with a roster that the Senate Conservatives Fund, a group aligned with Ted Cruz, created of representatives who were allied with them. We cross-checked it with the list of members who signed an August letter by Rep. Mark Meadows demanding that Boehner use a shutdown as a threat to defund Obamacare, and against other public statements this week. It’s not a comprehensive roll — there’s no official “wacko bird” caucus that keeps a register — but it’s a window into the small but powerful group of men and women in the House of Representatives who brought the federal government to a standstill.

Representative: Justin Amash

Home District: Grand Rapids, Michigan

Quoted: “President Obama and Senator Reid refuse to negotiate over giving regular Americans the same breaks they give themselves, government workers, and big business.”

Representative: Michele Bachmann

Home District: Stillwater, Minnesota

Quoted: “This is about the happiest I’ve seen members in a long time because we’ve seen we’re starting to win this dialogue on a national level.”

Representative: Marsha Blackburn

Home District: Brentwood, Tennessee

Quoted: “There is some good news out of the shutdown, the EPA can’t issue new regulations.”

Representative: Mo Brooks

Home District: Huntsville, Alabama

Quoted: “America survived the last 17 government shutdowns.”

Representative: Paul Broun

Home District: Athens, Georgia

Quoted: “[The Democrats] need to look in the mirror, because they’re the ones to blame. They’re the ones that shut the government down.”

Representative: John Carter

Home District: Round Rock, Texas

Quoted: “We must postpone this overreaching and damaging law that I believe will bankrupt the hard-working every day American.”

Representative: John Culberson

Home District: Houston, Texas

Quoted: “The whole room [said]: ‘Let’s vote!’ I said, like 9/11, ‘Let’s roll!”

Representative: Ron DeSantis

Home District: Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida

Quoted: “It is a simple issue of fairness: Members of Congress, their staff, and the political elite should not be given special relief from the harmful effects of Obamacare while the rest of America is left holding the bag.”

Representative: Scott DesJarlais

Home District: Jasper, Tennessee

Quoted: “I remain committed in refusing to vote for any proposal that funds the president’s health-care law, and I call upon my colleagues to join me. A temporary government shutdown pales in comparison to the long-term negative consequences that Obamacare will impose on our economy and our healthcare system.”

Representative: Jeff Duncan

Home District: Laurens, South Carolina

Quoted: “I believe Obamacare has shut down America, so I’d rather shut down the government than continue doing what we’re doing, which is penalizing businesses and families in this country.”

Representative: John Fleming

Home District: Minden, Louisiana

Quoted: “This is what my constituents send me here for. This does underscore just how serious we are and how serious our constituents are about putting an end to Obamacare.”

Representative: Scott Garrett

Home District: Wantange Township, New Jersey

Quoted: “I am deeply disappointed that President Obama and the Senate refused to come to the negotiation table and failed to fund the federal government.”

Representative: Phil Gingrey

Home District: Marietta, Georgia

Quoted: “A majority of Americans think Obamacare will make health care in our country worse, and they’re right. House Republicans are listening to the American people, and I urge Harry Reid and Senate Democrats to do the same.”

Representative: Louie Gohmert

Home District: Tyler, Texas

Quoted: “There are just so many broken promises that we need to slow this train wreck, this nightmare. It’s time to put the skids on this thing and slow it down before more people get hurt.”

Representative: Tom Graves

Home District: Ranger, Georgia

Quoted: “House GOP is united around a very reasonable policy: POTUS should give families the same Obamacare delay he gave to businesses.”

Representative: Vicky Hartzler

Home District: Harrisonville, Missouri

Quoted: “The American people have spoken already on this: They do not want Obamacare …. It is hurting people.”

Representative: Tim Huelskamp

Home District: Fowler, Kansas

Quoted: “Most Americans realize the government shutdown has no impact on their daily life. They got their mail today; they’re going to get their Social Security check.”

Representative: Jim Jordan

Home District: Urbana, Ohio

Quoted: “We have to get something on Obamacare, because that — if you want to get this country on a fiscal path to balance, you cannot let an entitlement of this size that will truly bankrupt the country and, more importantly, one that’s not going to help Americans with their health care, you can’t let this happen. ”

Representative: Steve King

Home District: Kiron, Iowa

Quoted: “The American people have rejected Obamacare. The president is willing to put all of that on the line to save his namesake legislation, which I think would go down in history as the largest political tantrum ever.”

Representative: Raul Labrador

Home District: Eagle, Idaho

Quoted: To Chris Matthews of MSNBC: “You know, your boss, Tip O’Neill, shut down the government 12 different times. And you didn’t call him a terrorist.”

Representative: Tom Massie

Home District: Garrison, Kentucky

Quoted: “It’s just not that big of a deal.”

Representative: Tom McClintock

Home District: Elk Grove, California

Quoted: In response to Harry Reid calling Tea Partiers “anarchists”: “When the other guy starts calling you names, you know that you’re winning the debate, and you know that he knows you’re winning the debate.”

Representative: Mark Meadows

Home District: Cashier, North Carolina

Quoted: “James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 58 that ‘the power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon . . . for obtaining redress of every grievance.’”

Representative: Randy Neugebauer

Home District: Lubbock, Texas

Quoted: “We get tons of mail and E-mails and phone calls. And overwhelmingly, those phone calls say, ‘Congressman, do everything you can to get rid of this very onerous piece of legislation. We don’t want the government running our health care.’ And so, from my perspective, we’re doing the people’s work here.”

Representative: Matt Salmon

Home District: Mesa, Arizona

Quoted: “I was here during the government shutdown in 1995. It was a divided government. we had a Democrat president of the United States. We had a Republican Congress. And I believe that that government shutdown actually gave us the impetus, as we went forward, to push toward some real serious compromise.”

Representative: Mark Sanford

Home District: Charleston, South Carolina

Quoted: “Our society has been held together for over 200 years in no small part due to the belief that our system was fair or equitable, yet the implementation of the Affordable Care Act has been anything but that.”

Representative: Steve Scalise

Home District: Jefferson, Louisiana

Quoted: “Either Obamacare is good enough that it should apply to all or it is so bad that it should apply to none. It is time for the sweetheart deals and backroom exemptions to end.”

Representative: Dave Schweikert

Home District: Fountain Hills, Arizona

Quoted: “I know it’s not comfortable for a lot of people here, but this is how it’s supposed to work. It’s supposed to be cantankerous. It’s supposed to be this constant grinding.” *

* A previous version of this story quoted Schweikert saying that the shutdown “is my kind of fun.” That statement was taken out of context. The congressman was referring to an interview with NPR, not with the government shutdown. We regret the error.

Representative: Steve Stockman

Home District: Clear Lake, Texas

Quoted: “Americans want Congress to do two things, work together on our national fiscal crisis and stop Obamacare. It’s time Congress started listening to them.”

Representative: Marlin Stutzman

Home District: Howe, Indiana

Quoted: “We aren’t going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.”

Representative: Randy Weber

Home District: Pearland, Texas

Quoted: “When the Democrats passed [Obamacare] over 60 percent of America’s wishes three years ago, they began this government shutdown.”

Representative: Ted Yoho

Home District: Gainesville, Florida

Quoted: “It only takes one with passion — look at Rosa Parks, Lech Walesa, Martin Luther King.”

This post has been amended to clarify the context of a comment by Rep. Dave Schweikert.

All photos: Wikimedia Commons 

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America’s Christian Right Call for Military Takeover and Martial Law

by The Age of Blasphemy, posted in Christian Fascism, Martial Law, Military Takeover, Rick Joyner, Theocracy

Joyner: ‘Our Only Hope Is A Military Takeover’

by Kyle Mantyla

On yesterday’s episode of “Prophetic Perspective on Current Events,” Rick Joyner declared that democracy in America has failed and that the nation might not last even to the end of President Obama’s term, warning that we are heading for a tyranny from which we can only be saved by a military takeover.

“There’s no way our republic can last much longer,” Joyner said, adding that “we’re headed for serious tyranny” because the electoral system is so broken that the leaders we need who can save this nation will never win office.  That is why “our only hope is a military takeover; martial law”:

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