Republi-CON Family Values, All In the Family Edition

UPDATE VI:  "[J]ust before he ascended in 1999 to the most powerful position in the lower house of Congress, Hastert pushed hard for a law [saying} . . .

'This bill sends a strong message to the most heinous of criminals who prey upon our children – you will be punished to the fullest extent of the law'".

Read the Daily Mail, Hypocrite Hastert called for tough action against pedophiles, kept a file called 'homosexuals' and was praised by the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.  

UPDATE V:  There is no comparing Lena "Dunham’s 'admission' of non-incidents of non-abuse to Josh Duggar's conduct, to begin with, he was twice her age.  But it highlight's the nature of Republi-con celebrity. 

"Duggars are essentially famous for the same reason the Kardashians are: their sex lives.

Conservatives take their celebrities where they can get them. Sure, there are actors and country music stars, snatched up quickly for pro-troop specials and benefits, but the Duggars are the rare example of a true conservative folk hero crossovers, individuals whose fame is not dependent on a celebrity-generating skill (acting, singing) but on a set of beliefs. They share that slim slice of Venn diagram (general popular recognition and genuine conservative activism) with the Duck Dynasty clan and a smattering of lesser lights: Joe the Plumber, the owners of Memories Pizza, Cliven Bundy, and Pam Geller. Military heroes are adopted quickly, and territorially. Ben Carson was raised up immediately after his one-sided “confrontation” with the president. . .

Conservatives might argue—and they have a point—that liberals don’t need a separate celebrity culture. Liberal media darlings are, pretty much, media darlings. Their path to celebrity isn’t political because it doesn’t need to be political. Lena Dunham isn’t famous because she’s the victim of a right-wing pile-on, she’s the victim of right-wing pile-on because she’s famous.

The Left doesn’t have anything quite like the conservative folk hero, people who are neither politicians nor activists nor professional performers but simply famous for being liberals. Sandra Fluke, perhaps. Cindy Sheehan (Remember her?) And when they do pop up, the liberal political ecosystem doesn’t have the same network of conferences, straw polls and candidate cattle-calls that prop up the Duggars and their brethren.

Even more than the conferences, however, conservative folk heroes find their credibility increases not via leadership but through victimhood. All criticism by mainstream voices becomes proof of worthiness—and the case of Josh Duggar exposes just how self-defeating the raising up these folk heroes via victimhood can be.

Not that the Palins would realize this. What does Sarah Palin’s own fame stand on now these days, anyway? A caps-lock key and a sense of grievance. It’s not much, but these days, it’s all any conservative celebrity needs. Ironically, it’s their grievance that makes them worthy of attention from the mainstream media as well. The Duggars’ and Palins’ off-the-map political and world views are what draw attention. Outsiders want to stare at the spectacle.

Maybe the cruelest trick that liberal elites ever pulled was luring so many camera-starved conservatives into the limelight—and out of the reality distortion field of their own devising."

Read The Daily Beast, Sarah Palin’s Bitter Cry for Attention.

UPDATE IV:  What goes around comes around, continued.

"Should the former House speaker be prosecuted? The Dennis Hastert who impeached President Clinton thinks so."

Read Slate, Hastert’s Hypocrisy. 

UPDATE III:  Gotta love that Republi-con hypocrisy.

Read Salon, Candidate Jim Bob Duggar in 2002: Those who commit incest should be executed.

UPDATE II:  Are the Duggars part of a 'fundamentalist' Christian sex abuse ring?

"Doug Phillips of the far-right group Vision Forum was forced to step down after admitting to 'a lengthy, inappropriate relationship with a woman.' The woman in question, Lourdes Torres-Manteufel, claims it was more than "inappropriate," noting that they met when she was 15 and that he "methodically groomed" by moving her into the house as a nanny and becoming "the pastor of her church, her boss, her landlord, and the controller of all aspects of her life" before pushing for sex. The Duggars were tight with Phillips and Vision Forum, which promoted a lot of Duggar-related material.

Another hardcore fundamentalist leader who had a mentorship relationship with the Duggars, Bill Gothard, was also caught up in a sex abuse scandal last year. Gothard was the leader of Institute in Basic Life Principles, an organization that promotes the 'quiverfull' philosophy—particularly its emphasis on forsaking contraception and having as many children as possible. Gothard resigned after more than 30 women accused him of sexual harassment and abuse. Prior to this, Wire reports, the Duggars were "devotees of Gothard's Advanced Training Institute seminars. Until recently, the Duggars' official website called Gothard's Embassy Institute (which he also founded) their '#1 recommended resource' for families (that page now displays as blank)."

Vision Forum, the Institute in Basic Life Principles, and the Duggar family are arguably the three most influential groups promoting the 'Christian patriarchy' movement, which promotes homeschooling, wifely submission, extreme pre-martial chastity (no hand-hugging or kissing), no contraception, and the idea that women's only real role in life is as wives and mothers. Having all your major leadership eaten up by sex abuse scandals is no small thing."

Read Slate, Duggar Revelations Are Just the Latest Sex Abuse Scandal to Rock Far-Right Fundamentalism.

 

UPDATE:  "The Duggars have previously promoted the teachings of Bill Gothard and the Institute in Basic Life Principles, a conservative organization that was once popular among the Christian homeschooling movement. Gothard resigned from the institute he founded in 2014, after allegations of sexual harassment, molestation and failing to report child abuse."

Read he Washington Post, Josh Duggar apologizes amid molestation allegations, quits Family Research Council.

"The police report of Josh Duggar's alleged molestation reveals that incidents happened multiple times between the then teenager and several girls, almost always while the minors were sleeping. . .

'Josh Duggar was investigated for multiple sex offenses, including forcible fondling, against five minors. Some of the alleged offenses investigated were felonies.'

According to the police report, in March 2002, Jim Bob was told by a female minor that his son, then 14, had been 'touching her breasts and genitals while she slept' on numerous occasions.

Josh allegedly admitted to this according to the report, and Jim Bob says he was 'disciplined.'

He was accused again however in March 2003 of allegedly touching the breasts and genitals of 'several woman,' both while they were sleeping and even when they were awake.

The police report says the alleged victims 'live with their parents Jim Bob and Michelle.'

At that point Jim Bob reportedly informed the elders at his church of the situation, but no one notified law enforcement.

The family did send Josh to a 'program [that] consisted of hard physical work and counseling' according to the police report for four months. . .

After he returned home from his program, Jim Bob did take his son to Arkansas State Trooper Jim Hutchens, a family friend.

Hutchens had a stern talk with Josh, but did not take any official action.

He is now serving 60 years in prison after he being caught with child pornography shortly after being released from prison on a previous child pornography charge. . .

Josh currently works for the Family Research Council, and frequently posts photos of himself with [Republi-con] politicians."

Read the Daily Mail, Unsealed police report reveals 'Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar covered up after eldest son Josh confessed to repeatedly fondling girls when he was a teen - and case only went to police in 2006 because of Oprah concerns'.

In 2016, It's Either Sound Like Obama, or Sound Crazy

"The moment a GOP 2016 contender stops sounding like an uber-hawk on foreign policy, they sound very much like Barack Obama."

Read the Washington Post, The trouble with Jeb Bush not sounding crazy on foreign policy.

No one proves this better than the Donald.

And it's not just true on foreign policy, think healthcare.

A Supreme Court Decision Gutting Obamacare Subsidies Will Highlight Republi-CON Hypocrisy

UPDATE:  "Republican leaders in Congress have been promising to craft a detailed Affordable Care Act alternative ever since President Barack Obama signed the law in March 2010. But while Republicans have found time to vote on repealing the health care law more than 50 times -- and have worked hard, as they did on Tuesday, to pass modifications that would benefit powerful special interests like the medical device industry -- they’ve yet to move a single Obamacare alternative through committee and to the floor. Nor has any committee with relevant jurisdiction held even a single hearing on how to handle the aftermath of a potential Supreme Court ruling that wipes out tax credits in two-thirds of the states. . .

Republicans' history of promising and then not delivering comprehensive health care legislation -- a history, after all, that goes back decades -- hints at a deep, fundamental disagreement with the entire idea. Republicans will talk up the importance of helping people with pre-existing conditions or providing financial assistance to people for whom insurance is too expensive. But creating a truly universal coverage system -- in which everybody has access, regardless of income or health -- requires taking steps that many conservatives simply can’t abide.

Specifically, universal coverage requires some combination of regulation, taxes and redistribution (from healthy to sick, and from rich to poor) that Republicans tend to find economically destructive, morally noxious or both. That's true of wholly nationalized, single-payer systems like you find in France or Taiwan. It's true of universal schemes of regulated private insurance, like they have in the Netherlands, Singapore and Switzerland. It's even true of programs in the U.S. that have existed for a long time -- not just Medicare but also, to some extent, employer-sponsored insurance."

Read The Huffington Post, The Real Reason Republicans Don't Have A Contingency Plan For Obamacare.

"Prepare to be shocked, shocked, shocked! It’s increasingly looking like Republicans won’t have any contingency plan in place if the Supreme Court guts subsidies for millions in three dozen federal exchange states. . .

Some 6.4 million people are now at risk of losing subsidies nationally. . .

It shows that the greatest numbers of people who stand to lose subsidies live in states that are key presidential battlegrounds and home to some of the most contested Senate races of the [2016 election] cycle". 

Read the Washington Post, The stakes in Obamacare lawsuit just got a whole lot higher.  

Words to Live By

From an email:

Kindness is in our power even when fondness is not. -- Henry James

Compassion is language the deaf can hear and the blind can see. -- Mark Twain

Carry a heart that never hates , a smile that never fades and a touch that never hurts.

Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true. -- Robert Brault

Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you, not because they are nice but because you are.

Never look down on anyone unless you are helping them up.

A good character is the best tombstone.

Those who loved you will remember. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.

It's nice to be important but it's more important to be nice.

Today, give a stranger one of your smiles, it might be the only sunshine he sees all day.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.

I always prefer to believe the best of everybody, it saves so much trouble. -- Rudyard Kipling

Don't be yourself — be someone nicer.

Never miss an opportunity to make others happy, even if you have to leave them alone in order to do it.

Love your enemies - it will confuse them greatly.

There is one word which may serve as a rule for all one's life — reciprocity. -- Confucius

Grownups know that little things matter and that relationships are based on respect.

Don't wait for people to be friendly, show them how. -- Henry James

The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway. -- Henry Boyle

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people. -- Abraham Heschel

If we should deal out justice only in this world, who would escape? No, it is better to be generous for it gains us gratitude. -- Mark Twain

Be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, tolerant of the weak, because someday in your life you will be all of these. -- George Washington Carver

You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you. -- John Wooden

If those who owe us nothing gave us nothing, how poor we would be. -- Antonio Porchia

You cannot do a kindness too soon for you never know how soon it will be too late. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

By swallowing evil words unsaid, no one has ever harmed his stomach. -- Winston Churchill

Real generosity is doing something nice for someone who will never find out. -- Frank A. Clark

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak. -- Epictetus

Don’t let those who take advantage of your generosity stop you from being generous. -- Author Unknown

Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud. -- Maya Angelou

In a world full of people who couldn't care less, be someone who care s more. -- Author Unknown

Love thy neighbor and if requires that you bend the truth, the truth will understand. -- Robert Brault

Was It Worth It?

UPDATE XI:  "Washington can provide aid, training, arms, air power — even troops. But it cannot hold together a nation that is falling apart."

Read the Washington Post, Iraq exists only as an idea, not a nation.

UPDATE X:  "The [Iraq] WMD claims were the result of the need to find a case for the war, rather than the other way around. Paul Krugman is exactly right when he says:

'The Iraq war wasn’t an innocent mistake, a venture undertaken on the basis of intelligence that turned out to be wrong. America invaded Iraq because the Bush administration wanted a war. The public justifications for the invasion were nothing but pretexts, and falsified pretexts at that.'

Read The Atlantic, The Right and Wrong Questions About the Iraq War.

Read also Bloomberg, The Iraq Invasion: What We Knew Then, which notes that 2004 and 2008 Senate Intelligence Committee reports outline the numerous lies, not mistakes but lies, of Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice and others to promote the war.

UPDATE IX:  Some people never learn, or admit error.

Read Vox, Jeb Bush learned the wrong lessons from the Iraq War and the Washington Post, Jeb Bush’s Iraq quagmire is just getting started.

Remember what I said, many times before and during the war: what is the objective, what will be the cost, and are Americans willing to pay the cost to achieve the objective.

Pretty prophetic I must say.

UPDATE VIII:  "Iraq’s army looked good on paper when the Americans left [in 2011], after one of the biggest training missions carried out under wartime conditions. But after that, senior Iraqi officers began buying their own commissions, paying for them out of the supply, food and payroll money of their troops. Corruption ran up and down the ranks; desertion was rife.

The army did little more than staff checkpoints. Then, last year, four divisions collapsed overnight in Mosul and elsewhere in northern Iraq under the determined assault of Islamic State fighters numbering in the hundreds or at most the low thousands, and the extremists’ advance came as far as this base [Camp Taji, only a few miles from Baghdad, the Iraqi capitol]."

Read The New York Times, U.S. Soldiers, Back in Iraq, Find Security Forces in Disrepair.  

UPDATE VII:  "'There is no state left. It is a state of militias.'

The state of Iraq has indeed failed. It no longer has the legitimacy or the power to extend control over its whole territory, and the power vacuum is being filled by a multitude of non-state actors, increasingly extreme and sectarian, who will likely continue to fight each other for years to come, supported by regional powers. Whether a new kind of order will finally emerge, with more local legitimacy, remains to be seen."

Read The Atlantic, 'Iraq Is Finished'.

UPDATE VI:  "The proximate cause of Iraq’s unraveling was the increasing authoritarian, sectarian and corrupt conduct of the Iraqi government and its leader after the departure of the last U.S. combat forces in 2011.  The actions of the Iraqi prime minister undid the major accomplishment of the Surge. (They) alienated the Iraqi Sunnis and once again created in the Sunni areas fertile fields for the planting of the seeds of extremism, essentially opening the door to the takeover of the Islamic State. Some may contend that all of this was inevitable. Iraq was bound to fail, they will argue, because of the inherently sectarian character of the Iraqi people. I don’t agree with that assessment." [Of course he can't agree it was inevitable, that would be admitting the war was a mistake to begin with.]

Read the Washington Post, Petraeus: The Islamic State isn’t our biggest problem in Iraq. 

The article notes how in 2008 Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard commander, taunted Petraeus that Iran controlled Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, and Afghanistan. 

UPDATE V:  "Last year saw the highest number of terrorist incidents since 2000, according to the latest Global Terrorism Index released by the Institute for Economics and Peace. Worldwide, the number of terrorist incidents increased from less than 1,500 in 2000 to nearly 10,000 in 2013. Sixty percent of attacks last year occurred in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria.

The report suggests that U.S. foreign policy has played a big role in making the problem worse: 'The rise in terrorist activity coincided with the US invasion of Iraq,' it concludes. 'This created large power vacuums in the country allowing different factions to surface and become violent.' Indeed, among the five countries accounting for the bulk of attacks, the U.S. has prosecuted lengthy ground wars in two (Iraq and Afghanistan), a drone campaign in one (Pakistan), and airstrikes in a fourth (Syria)."

Read the Washington Post, After 13 years, 2 wars and trillions in military spending, terrorist attacks are rising sharply.

UPDATE IV:  "During the reconstruction of Iraq, the United States spent about $20.2 billion to train and equip Iraqi security forces, about a third of the total funds spent on reconstruction.Today, those same security forces lost control of Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul. . .

Iraqi security forces still haven’t ousted ISIS from Fallujah, which it captured at the beginning of this year, but Mosul is a much larger and more strategically important city."

Read Slate, The Fall of Mosul and Is the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria” a Real Country Now?

UPDATE III:  "It’s been nearly eleven years since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which, almost since it began, proved to be the historically fatal element in the war on terror launched by George W. Bush’s White House. His Administration, and its sundry neoconservative wingmen, went so far as to tout the war in Iraq as a means to promote democracy across the Muslim lands. At the same time, there was a growing unease that things might not turn out well. In a 2005 conversation I had with the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq at the time, Zalmay Khalilzad, he spoke of his fears: 'I shudder to think what we could face if we don’t fix Iraq.' He foresaw the possibility that an Iraqi civil war between Sunnis and Shiites could infect the entire Middle East.

Where are we today? It seems a good time to take stock."

Read The New Yorker, What the War in Iraq Wrought. 

UPDATE II:  "The proof of how pointless the entire [Iraq war] was—if you even needed more—came Friday morning, with a report . . . in the Washington Post.

'At the moment, there is no presence of the Iraqi state in Fallujah,' a local journalist who asked not to be named because he fears for his safety told Sly. 'The police and the army have abandoned the city, al-Qaeda has taken down all the Iraqi flags and burned them, and it has raised its own flag on all the buildings.'

Fallujah has fallen, and the same scenario is about to happen in the even-larger city of Ramadi."

Read Slate, Tell Me Again, Why Did My Friends Die in Iraq?

UPDATE: "President Obama’s announcement Friday of the withdrawal of nearly all troops from Iraq by Dec. 31 and an end to the U.S. war in Iraq marks a bittersweet moment for many of the families of the more than 4,400 American service members who lost their lives in the conflict.

The organization Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors . . . estimates that 2,465 people lost their spouses and that 3,137 children lost a parent. Some 8,964 parents lost a child, while 13,446 lost a grandchild and 3,675 lost a brother or sister." Read the Washington Post, For families of fallen, a bittersweet day.

As first asked below three years ago, and again in 2010, was it worth the price in blood and treasure?

Robert Kaplan, an early supporter of the war in Iraq, asks "Was the invasion worth it?"

His conclusion, no.

Clever Signs

From an email:

Sign on a gynecologist's office:  "Dr. Jones, at your cervix."

In a podiatrist's office:  "Time wounds all heels."

On a septic tank truck:  Yesterday's Meals on Wheels

At an optometrist's office:  "If you don't see what you're looking for, you've come to the right place."

On a plumber's truck:  "We repair what your husband fixed."

On another plumber's truck:  "Don't sleep with a drip. Call your plumber."

At a tire shop in Milwaukee:  "Invite us to your next blowout."

At a towing company:  "We don't charge an arm and a leg. We want tows."

On an electrician's truck:  "Let us remove your shorts."

In a non-smoking area:  "If we see smoke, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action."

On a maternity room door:  "Push. Push. Push."

At a car dealership:  "The best way to get back on your feet, miss a car payment."

Outside a muffler shop:  "No appointment necessary. We hear you coming."

In a veterinarian's waiting room:  "Be back in 5 minutes. Sit! Stay!"

At the electric company:  "We would be delighted if you send in your payment. However, if you don't, you will be."

In a restaurant window:  "Don't stand there and be hungry; come on in and get fed up."

In the front yard of a funeral home:  "Drive carefully. We'll wait."

At a propane filling station:  "Thank heaven for little grills."

At a Chicago radiator shop:  "Best place in town to take a leak."

On a septic tank truck:  "Caution - This truck is full of political promises."

The Big Republi-CON Lie

"For the entirety of Barack Obama’s presidency, Republicans have taken an awkward, cynical, schizophrenic view of entitlements. They have voted with near unanimity for a budget that would radically overhaul Medicare, but have promised (unworkably) to isolate the old and nearly old from any disruptions. They have largely sidelined their preferred Social Security reforms, but salivated over the prospect of voting for a cut to Social Security benefits when they thought Obama might sign it. They have railed against the Affordable Care Act for reducing spending on Medicare while voting for budgets that preserve those very cuts.

The only way to make sense of this mishmash is to remember that the GOP owes its political livelihood to the elderly. To pursue conservative goals, without obliterating their coalition, Republicans must twist themselves into pretzels. They must detest spending, but only on those other people. Their rhetorical commitments are impossible to square with their ideological and substantive ones, though, and the agenda they’ve promised to pursue when they control the government again would not exempt retirees and near retirees in any meaningful way. At the end of the day they can only keep their promises to one interest group, and it’s not going to be the elderly."

Read The New Republic, Mike Huckabee Is Prepared to Blow Up Republicans' Big Ruse.

The Republi-CON Obamacare Hypocrite(s)

UPDATE:  "Senate Republican leaders are seriously considering legislation that would extend health insurance tax credits through the 2016 election even if the Supreme Court invalidates them later this year."

Read Bloomberg, GOP Leaders Consider Preserving Obamacare Subsidies Until After the 2016 Election.

Remember, it was their idea to begin with, as I first noted in 2011.  Just ask Romney. 

"Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who announced his run for president on Monday . . . the right’s champion of 'no compromise' assault on Obamacare and much of the rest of the federal government admitted that, yes, he would be going on Obamacare. . . 

The law does not require Cruz to get health insurance on the exchanges. Instead of going through the exchanges, he could have paid the tax penalty for not having insurance, 'likely cheaper than buying an insurance plan,' but at the cost of being uninsured. Or his wife could have applied to COBRA and extended her benefits from Goldman Sachs for up to 18 months, though she would have to pay all of the premium. Or he could bypass the exchanges and buy insurance directly from a private insurer. Sure, he’d have to spend time navigating the market himself, but I’m sure the Princeton graduate can figure it out. . .

Cruz is not just anyone. He wants us to vote for him for president. He has consistently demanded that his Republican colleagues never compromise. He not only thinks that Obamacare, which he says puts the government 'between you and your doctor,' is a bad policy; he thinks that it is such an existential threat to the United States and its health-care system that it was worth shutting down the government in an attempt to undermine the law. But suddenly the law and the health system it created is not scary enough for his family? If Cruz really wants to run as the candidate of righteous convictions, he’ll have to do a better job of following his own."

Read the Washington Post, Yes, Ted Cruz is a hypocrite for going on Obamacare. 

The Republi-CON "We Love Our Nazi Gestapo Military" Hypocrites

The latest Republi-con conspriacy, the U.S. Army Special Operations Command is planning "an attempt to institute martial law, possibly in collusion with Wal-Mart. . .

'It’s the same thing that happened in Nazi Germany: You get the people used to the troops on the street, the appearance of uniformed troops and the militarization of the police.'"

Read the Washington Post, Jade Helm 15, a military exercise, brings wild speculation in Texas about 'martial law'.

Luther For President in 2016

"The White House Correspondents' Dinner has become a strange event. It is, ostensibly, an evening when the president and the press can come together to share a few lighthearted laughs. But it's evolved into a recital of brutal truths — albeit one neither side ever really admits happened.

The joke of President Obama's performance on Saturday was that he wasn't joking. Everyone just had to pretend he was. Take this section, from the official White House transcript:

After the midterm elections, my advisors asked me, "Mr. President, do you have a bucket list?" And I said, "Well, I have something that rhymes with bucket list.’" (Laughter and applause.)

Take executive action on immigration? Bucket. (Laughter.) New climate regulations? Bucket. It’s the right thing to do. (Laughter and applause.)

The tip-off there is, "It's the right thing to do." That's not a joke. That's Obama's actual justification for the aggressive executive actions of his second term — "fuck it, it's the right thing to do." But the norms of politics are such that he typically has to frame his actions as routine, dull, even necessary. He has to search for precedent and downplay the consequences.

It's only on the evening of the White House Correspondents' Dinner when he can say what everyone already knows: his actions are huge, they are controversial, they push the norms of American politics, but fuck it, at a moment when American politics seems increasingly broken, Obama has decided to just go ahead and do what he thinks is right.

Then there was this line:

A few weeks ago, Dick Cheney says he thinks I’m the worst President of his lifetime. Which is interesting, because I think Dick Cheney is the worst President of my lifetime. (Laughter and applause.) It’s quite a coincidence.

It's funny, sure. But he's not kidding. It's just the thing Obama can't usually say. The humor is in the shock of him actually saying it.

But the place where Obama stopped being polite and started getting real was when he brought out Luther, his personal anger translator. This was, itself, a way of giving up the game. The Luther joke comes from the Comedy Central sketch show Key and Peele, and the point of it is that Obama, as the first black president, is not allowed to express his anger, as America is terrified of angry black men. And so he's got Luther — the angry black man who can say what he can't. . .

There are no jokes there. There's just Obama saying what he has to say and Luther saying what Obama actually believes.

And what Obama believes is that the press is often sensational, trivial, and fearmongering. He thinks they hype negative stories for weeks on end and then refuse to admit their mistake when the horror fizzles. He thinks he gets the blame for catastrophes but little credit for solutions. He thinks the media has a deep bias toward negative stories (which, of course, we do).

But if Obama is annoyed at the press, he is appalled at Republicans who deny climate change — and are trying to block him from taking action to stop climate change. Obama believes global warming a generational threat, and so when he sees James Inhofe, the chair of the Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works, throwing snowballs on the chamber's floor, well, his thoughts on that would likely be seen as unpresidential if he gave them voice."

Read Vox, The joke was that Obama wasn’t joking. 

Thank God We Saved the Banksters, But Why?, Cont.

UPDATE:  Get a job at the U.S. Treasury, use the treasury to bailout the Banksters, and then retire from government and the Banksters hire you for an obscene salary. 

And they call it 'public service'.

Read the Washington Post, Ben Bernanke scores another Wall Street payday, which notes that this is "yet another example of the revolving door between Wall Street and Washington. Just to name a few, former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has joined the private equity firm Warburg Pincus, former Fed governor Jeremy Stein has enlisted with the hedge fund BlueMountain Capital Management, and former Office of Management and Budget chief Peter Orszag has jumped on board with Citigroup." 

"The Federal Reserve lent billions to rescue banks during the financial crisis, but it has done little to help American taxpayers." Read The New York Times, The Rescue That Missed Main Street.

The 'low-down, no-good godawful' bailout worked (for the banksters).

The Republi-CON "Guns Make You Safer" Myth

UPDATE:  Read also the Los Angeles Times, We all pay: The high costs of gun violence, which notes, "[g]un violence's cost: About $229 billion a year".

"After the Sandy Hook tragedy, reporters often called me to ask for information on firearms. They wanted to know whether strong gun laws reduced homicide rates (I said they did); and, conversely, whether permissive gun laws lowered crime rates overall (I said they did not). . .

[A] large majority of gun researchers have arrived at the same conclusion about firearms . . .

[A] gun in the home increases the risk that a woman living in the home will be a victim of homicide (72% agree, 11% disagree) and that a gun in the home makes it a more dangerous place to be (64%) rather than a safer place (5%). There is consensus that guns are not used in self-defense far more often than they are used in crime (73% vs. 8%) and that the change to more permissive gun carrying laws has not reduced crime rates (62% vs. 9%). Finally, there is consensus that strong gun laws reduce homicide (71% vs. 12%)."

Read the Los Angeles Times, There's scientific consensus on guns -- and the NRA won't like it.

Read also, How Dare He Try To Prevent Another Massacre of Little Children

A Final Word On Torture?

UPDATE: V: A "new report issued this morning by Amnesty International charges that the Obama administration has effectively granted impunity to the practitioners of torture, and that its reluctance to address the issue 'not only leaves the USA in serious violation of its international legal obligations, it increases the risk that history will repeat itself when a different president again deems the circumstances warrant resort to torture, enforced disappearance, abductions or other human rights violations.' . .

At this point, it certainly doesn’t seem inconceivable that in response to a major national security threat, the U.S. could once again decide it needs to 'torture some folks.'"

Read Slate, Could America Torture Again?

UPDATE IV:  "Dick Cheney gave an interview that illustrated why it was so imprudent to abandon the taboo against torture and indulge in implausible hypotheticals. 13 years ago, Americans were arguing over whether it should be legal to torture a known terrorist if we knew it could stop a mass casualty attack on a major city. Now a former vice-president is defending the torture of innocent people."

Read The Atlantic, Dick Cheney Defends the Torture of Innocents.  

UPDATE III:  "The Senate's report on torture describes the Central Intelligence Agency as not just nauseatingly brutal, but also dishonest and ineffective. The report finds that the agency lied to the Bush administration, Congress and the public to hide the fact that an incompetently managed program of torture was failing to produce useful intelligence."

Read the Washington Post, Rectal feeding is exactly what it sounds like.  

UPDATE II: Reading "the stomach-churning findings of the 500-page executive summary [of the the Senate intelligence committee’s report on torture], the only part cleared for declassification, reinforces its importance. No one can review this account without feeling horror and shame, and without feeling anger at the degree to which public officials and the public itself were misled about what was being done in the name of national security.

Among the conclusions: So-called enhanced interrogation was 'not an effective means of obtaining accurate information.' Instead, “multiple CIA detainees fabricated information, resulting in faulty intelligence.”

Meanwhile, the interrogations 'were brutal and far worse than the CIA represented to policymakers and others.' The techniques included, in addition to waterboardings that amounted to near-drownings, detainees being kept awake for up to 180 hours, detainees subjected to 'rectal rehydration' and detainees kept shackled in total darkness in dungeon-like conditions.

Even as the CIA mistreated detainees, it submitted false claims about the effectiveness of the interrogation techniques and misled the Justice Department and others about what it was doing. Its claims of counterterrorism successes were 'wrong in fundamental respects,' at best corroborating information already available or acquired before the application of enhanced interrogation."

Read the Washington Post, Exposing the CIA’s stain on America.  

UPDATE: One shameful example of our "endless borderless war against an emotional state," and its constitutional travesty, the military tribunals "designed by President Bush, implemented by President Obama and inspired by President Kafka". 

Read Slate, The Guantánamo Memoirs of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, How the United States kept him silent for 12 years.

And read these previous posts:

Does the Star-Spangled Banner Wave Over the Land of the Torturers?

WWJT (Who Would Jesus Torture) and

Bush, the Hypocrite-in-Chief

Then read this article from the Washington Post, Treatment of Terror Suspects a 'Collective Failure.'

47 Traitorous Republi-CONs Just Gave Iran the Nuclear Bomb

UPDATE VI:  Read Slate, Why Is the U.S. Backing a War That’s Helping al-Qaida.

What a mess!

UPDATE V:  "If you study Republican behavior over the past quarter-century, you’ll find that the image of conservative lawmakers standing resolutely for American strength and unity is a myth. Republicans support wars launched by Republican presidents. When Democratic presidents undertake wars or negotiations, Republicans generally attempt to sabotage them. In fact, Republicans often side with our enemies. . .

If a political party wanted to tear America apart, weaken its position in the world, reduce our capacity to influence events, and encourage our adversaries, it would look exactly like what the Republican Party has done under Democratic presidents. "

Read Slate,  Foreign Saboteurs.

UPDATE IV:  "More sanctions are unlikely to produce a better nuclear agreement."

Read The Atlantic, What's the Alternative to Obama's Iran Deal.  

UPDATE III:  "Should we be arming ISIS? Or let me ask that differently: Why are we, for the third time since 9/11, fighting a war on behalf of Iran?

In 2002, we destroyed Iran’s main Sunni foe in Afghanistan (the Taliban regime). In 2003, we destroyed Iran’s main Sunni foe in the Arab world (Saddam Hussein).  But because we failed to erect a self-sustaining pluralistic order, which could have been a durable counterbalance to Iran, we created a vacuum in both Iraq and the wider Sunni Arab world. That is why Tehran’s proxies now indirectly dominate four Arab capitals: Beirut, Damascus, Sana and Baghdad."

Read The New York Times, Go Ahead, Ruin My Day.

Read also, Was It Worth It?

UPDATE II:  Of course, there is always war, which the chickenhawks and warmongers want.

Beware though, "[i]f the United States attempts to destroy Iran’s nuclear capacity by air, the mission would not be like Israel’s 1981 single-day strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor. A U.S. attack would have to target multiple complexes, and planners would need to prepare the battlefield by destroying air defense radars, interceptors and much of Iran’s air force. Such an operation could require hundreds of sorties over several days.

Iran would probably respond by threatening shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, potentially touching off a global oil crisis. The U.S. Navy would be forced to patrol the Persian Gulf and possibly undertake a lengthy operation to destroy Iran’s navy and its arsenal of anti-ship cruise missiles.

Iran would be unlikely to capitulate even with its air force and navy out of commission. It would probably turn to terrorism to strike at U.S. targets around the globe. If such attacks were successful, they would generate enormous public pressure to escalate the conflict, perhaps including demands for regime change in Tehran. That, in turn, could mean yet another U.S. ground war in the Middle East, this time against a nation of more than 80 million. As we learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, the costs of such a conflict could be measured in decades, tens of thousands of U.S. casualties and trillions of dollars. Such escalation is not a certainty, but it is a real possibility."

Read the Washington Post, Don’t sugarcoat the costs of war with Iran.

UPDATE:  What the Senator Cotton did defied "the chain of command in what could be construed as an illegal act [see the Logan Act] . . . [It was a gross breach of discipline, and especially as a veteran of the Army, [Cotton] should know better. . . I have no issue with Senator Cotton, or others, voicing their opinion in opposition to any deal to halt Iran’s nuclear progress. Speaking out on these issues is clearly part of his job. But to directly engage a foreign entity, in this way, undermining the strategy and work of our diplomats and our Commander in Chief, strains the very discipline and structure that our foreign relations depend on, to succeed. . . The breach of discipline is extremely dangerous, because undermining our diplomatic efforts, at this moment, brings us another step closer to a very costly and perilous war with Iran."

So say retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, "now a senior advisor with National Security Network, a Washington, DC-based foreign policy think tank."

Read the Washington Post, Tom Cotton picked apart by Army general over ‘mutinous’ Iran letter.

Republ-cons sent a letter of support to their brother Iranian hardliners "in the middle of a high-stakes negotiation, with all the gravity and deliberation of a blog posting. In timing, tone and substance, it raises questions about the Republican majority’s capacity to govern." 

It weakened the U.S. and will undermine sanctions.

Read the Washington Post, The true scandal of the GOP senators’ letter to Iran. 

Read also Slate, An Open Letter to 47 Republican Senators of the United States of America from Iran’s Hard-Liners, stating they "look forward to working with [the Republ-cons] in the future on other matters of common interest, such as prayer, capital punishment, and troops in Iraq."

The Republi-CON "Obama Hates America" Myth

UPDATE:  "Conservatives will harrumph to the contrary, but relative to his peers, Obama has had a remarkably clean, scandal-free presidency."

Read Slate, Obama’s Gift to Hillary Clinton.  

"There is simply no question that, in his own telling, Barack Obama believes that the United States is an exceptional, great, splendiferous nation—the world's most powerful force for good. And he will be happy to explain to you, at great and occasionally repetitive length, why he holds that belief, as the video above indicates. (Among his America-themed speeches, some of which we took clips from: Obama's 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote in Boston, his March 2008 speech on race relations in Philadelphia, his 2008 nomination-acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, his election night remarks at Chicago's Grant Park in 2008, his inaugural address in 2009, his June 2009 speech in Cairo, his 2012 State of the Union address, his 2012 Democratic National Convention speech in Charlotte, his 2012 election-night speech in Washington D.C., his 2013 inaugural, his September 2013 address to the United Nations, his December 2013 speech on economic mobility in D.C., his 2014 State of the Union, his May 2014 commencement address at West Point, and his post-election press conference in November 2014; click links for transcripts.*)

. . . [N]no one could seriously read or watch Obama's remarks and come away with the overall impression that he is anything but relentlessly positive about the United States."

Read Slate, Watch Barack Obama Talk About How America Is the Greatest Country on Earth in 13 Different Speeches, or watch

The 2016 Republi-CON Primaries -- Time to Pledge Allegiance to Charlatans and Cranks

UPDATE II:  "The 2016 Republican candidates can already be sorted into roles that tell us a lot about their chances of winning the nomination."

Read The New York Times, The G.O.P Presidential Field Looks Chaotic. Its Not., which reviews the 'invisible primary leaders, mainstream alternatives, and factional favorites.'

UPDATE:  The Republi-con's first candidate is "a guy with a big mouth and no results . . . [h]e oversimplifies, he exaggerates ... he doesn't provide leadership and he has no real experience," and that according to his party comrade.

Let the circus begin!

Read CNN, GOP Rep. Peter King dismisses Ted Cruz as 'carnival barker'.  

And who will be next, possibly a deadbeat "publicity-hound billionaire and reality TV host"?  We can only hope.

"[W]hat does it say about the current state of the G.O.P. that discussion of economic policy is now monopolized by people who have been wrong about everything, have learned nothing from the experience, and can’t even get their numbers straight?

The answer, I’d suggest, runs deeper than economic doctrine. Across the board, the modern American right seems to have abandoned the idea that there is an objective reality out there, even if it’s not what your prejudices say should be happening. What are you going to believe, right-wing doctrine or your own lying eyes? These days, the doctrine wins.

Look at another issue, health reform. Before the Affordable Care Act went into effect, conservatives predicted disaster: health costs would soar, the deficit would explode, more people would lose insurance than gain it. They were wrong on all counts. But, in their rhetoric, even in the alleged facts (none of them true) people like Mr. Moore put in their articles, they simply ignore this reality. Reading them, you’d think that the dismal failure they wrongly predicted had actually happened.

Then there’s foreign policy. This week Jeb Bush tried to demonstrate his chops in that area, unveiling his team of expert advisers — who are, sure enough, the very people who insisted that the Iraqis would welcome us as liberators.

And don’t get me started on climate change.

Along with this denial of reality comes an absence of personal accountability. If anything, alleged experts seem to get points by showing that they’re willing to keep saying the same things no matter how embarrassingly wrong they’ve been in the past.

But let’s go back to those economic charlatans and cranks: Clearly, failure has only made them stronger, and now they are political kingmakers. Be very, very afraid."

Read The New York Times, Cranking Up for 2016.

As noted before, Republi-cons never let reality spoil a good delusion.

How Many Days Since Birther Fool's Day?

UPDATE IV:  Happy Second Birther Fool's Day! 

It has been more than a year since the first Birther Fool's Day, and still no  'universe-shattering' revelation(s).

UPDATE III:  Now we'll see if the Birthers were motivated by principle or race.

Read the Washington Post, Everything you need to know about the Ted Cruz ‘birther’ movement.

UPDATE II:  Two weeks until Birther Fool's Day, and still no  'universe-shattering' revelation(s).

Can you say sucker!!

UPDATE:  It has been almost a year since Sheriff Joe’s Scooby Doo Gang and Pastor Truthiness (aka Huckster and Con Man) started the con, promising 'universe-shattering' revelation(s) soon.

On Fact-Free Friday, maybe the pastor will tells us when the 'universe-shattering' revelation(s) will be made.

Bwahahahaha!!!!

Birther Fool's Day was the first day after the month that the universe was to be 'shattered', as promised by the "Sheriff Joe’s Scooby Doo gang" to 'Gallups' gullibles' on 'fellatio Friday' in mid-December 2013 (the 'universe-shattering' twist was being promoted elsewhere in late November).

It is no coincidence that Birther Fool's Day was April 1st.

And how much time has past since the promised 'universe-shattering' revelations:


That sound you hear is the growing laughter at the Birther delusions.

The Republi-CON "Religious Freedom and Heritage" Myth

Slavery was "God’s will, desegregation was Satan’s work, and the federal government was the Antichrist [and the Confederate flag as a historic symbol] . . .

[So said] a hard-working, Christian man that loves God and wants to further (God’s) work throughout the world . . .

[Who could] doubt [his and other's] sincerity. Why wouldn’t they believe racism was God’s will? We white Southerners heard that message on weekends from the pulpit, on school days from our segregated schools, and every day from our governments. When Richard and Mildred Loving left Virginia to be married, a state trial judge convicted them of violating the Racial Integrity Act. That judge wrote that 'Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents … The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.'

That’s a good background against which to measure the uproar about the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was signed into law by Governor Mike Pence last week. I don’t question the religious sincerity of anyone involved in drafting and passing this law. But sincere and faithful people, when they feel the imprimatur of both the law and the Lord, can do very ugly things."

Read The Atlantic, What Makes Indiana's Religious-Freedom Law Different?

One man's so-called religion is another man's discrimination.

"The F--k Barrel": America's Modern Fuedalism

Learn how "excessive policing and municipal fines can ruin" the poor.

Watch Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Municipal Violations (HBO):

Find the #1 Song on the Day You Were Born

Enter your birthdate (or any date) and find the #1 song for that date here!

The results will include a link to the #1 song nine months earlier, if you know what I mean ;-) or care to know.

Rick Perry, R-Murderer and Believer of Junk Science

UPDATE VI:  "What happens in Texas when you get a man executed on the basis of bad testimony?"

Read Slate, Justice Deferred.


Perry, the former prosecutor John H. Jackson, and others should be prosecuted for conspiracy to commit murder.

UPDATE V:  "In a major turn in one of the country’s most-noted death penalty cases, the State Bar of Texas has filed a formal accusation of misconduct against the county prosecutor who convicted Cameron Todd Willingham, a Texas man executed in 2004 for the arson murder of his three young daughters.

Following a preliminary inquiry that began last summer, the bar this month filed a disciplinary petition in Navarro County District Court accusing the former prosecutor, John H. Jackson, of obstruction of justice, making false statements and concealing evidence favorable to Willingham’s defense.

'Before, during, and after the 1992 trial, [Jackson] knew of the existence of evidence that tended to negate the guilt of Willingham and failed to disclose that evidence to defense counsel,' the bar investigators charged."

Read the Washington Post, Prosecutor accused of misconduct in disputed Texas execution case.

UPDATE IV:  "More than a decade after Cameron Todd Willingham was executed for the arson murder of his three young daughters, new evidence has emerged that indicates that a key prosecution witness testified in return for a secret promise to have his own criminal sentence reduced. . .

In two days of interviews recently with the Marshall Project, [the witness, Johnny E] Webb gave the most detailed account to date of how he came to testify against Willingham. He said that [the prosecutor, John H.] Jackson threatened him with a life sentence in the robbery case — a possibility under Texas law because Webb had several prior convictions — unless he testified. . .

During Willingham’s three-day trial in August 1992, Jackson pointedly asked Webb on the witness stand whether he had been promised a lighter sentence or some other benefit for his cooperation. Webb told the judge and jury that he had not."

Read the Washington Post, Letter from witness casts further doubt on 2004 Texas execution. 

UPDATE III: For those Republi-cons who are reading challenged, a reminder that you can watch the PBS Frontline documentary on the Willingham case.


UPDATE II: Read the report of the Arson Review Committee, A Peer Review Panel Commissioned by the Innocence Project regarding Willingham’s case, and another case of alleged arson. One executed, but one not, based on junk science.


UPDATE: "There is little dispute that the arson evidence in Willingham’s case, based on myths that had permeated fire investigations for years, was invalid. Every independent expert, including the top experts in the country, has concluded that there was no evidence of arson." Read SSRN, The Execution of Cameron Todd Willingham: Junk Science, an Innocent Man, and the Politics of Death.

"Faith and reason are not mutually exclusive, but Perry makes you think they are." Read the Washington Post, Rick Perry, the Republicans’ Messiah?

And Perry's no messiah, he rushed to have the man executed for political reasons, his reelection.

Read a previous post, Executing an Innocent Man and Trying to Hide It.

More Pandering to Birther Buffoonery

UPDATE III:  He's back for 2016.

Read Slate, Donald Trump Will Save America From Boring Grownup GOP Primary, which notes that Republi-cons hoped "to avoid having such "eccentric" candidates this time around might be cringing at Trump's continued harping on President Obama's birth certificate, but there's not too much they can do to keep him under wraps."

UPDATE II:  Is your local congressman a birther?

It seems our congressman can't decide.  Read the Pensacola News Journal, Rep. Jeff Miller suspends Twitter account over 'birther poll'. 

UPDATE:  Donald Trump has helped Obamney win over the birthers, now all he needs is America's '9/11 truthers, alien abductees, doomsday preppers, Sasquatch hunters, and Sasquatches or Sasqui.'

Watch the Colbert Report, Donald Trump's Creative Truth & Mitt Romney's Poll Numbers:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Of course, some doubters think the Trump is bloviating ignoramus.  

Based upon the Pastor's self professed 10-year law enforcement background and experience, I'm waiting for the arrests that he claims are imminent.

In the meantime, the birthers are proving themselves buffoons again, with their racist lies.

Did you know that in 1990, "an obscure publication known as the New York Times had written about his election as head of the Harvard Law Review, and noted, 'His late father, Barack Obama, was a finance minister in Kenya and his mother, Ann Dunham, is an American anthropologist now doing fieldwork in Indonesia. Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii.'"  (From the Washington Post, The birthers are back! The birthers are back!)

Yet in Arizona, the Arizona secretary of state, Ken Bennett and former Republican president of the Arizona Senate, who is planning to run for governor in two years, is 'pandering to crackpots — and humiliating himself in the bargain.' 

"Never mind that Hawaii has confirmed publicly and repeatedly, since before the 2008 presidential election, that Mr. Obama was born there; that the Hawaii Department of Health has released both the short and long forms of the president’s birth certificate; and that all this information, along with clear-as-a-bell explanations, is available to the public online. [To birther buffoons] none of that is sufficient proof for the Show Me Your Papers State. . .

Everyone knows that birthers — the few that remain against the overwhelming facts of documentary evidence — are half-baked clowns who live for their pet conspiracy theory. . .

Fine. Let the buffoonery play through its final act. We’re confident that, in the end, Mr. Bennett will ensure that Arizona’s ballot includes the name of the president of the United States, all the while insisting, disingenuously, that his actions were merely an instance of due diligence.

But by threatening to exclude Mr. Obama from the ballot, Mr. Bennett transformed what should have been a farcical sideshow of the 2012 election into an actual menace to democracy. He legitimized the lunatic leanings of the United States’, and his party’s, most extreme elements. He put it in the minds of radicals everywhere that elected officials, for the shabbiest reasons (or none at all), can float the idea of bending ballot rules and suffer no adverse consequence.

In the process, he shamed Arizona on the 100th anniversary of its statehood, giving it the appearance of a banana republic that’s come unhinged under the influence of partisan fever."  (From the Washington Post, In Arizona, more birther buffoonery.)

And while one would think that "[w]henever the “birther” movement rears its head, sensible people argue that the press should just ignore it, since it’s so far out on the lunacy spectrum. . .

Mr. Bennett is not just your ordinary, garden-variety birther. He is co-chairman of the Mitt Romney campaign in Arizona. "  (From The New York Times, The Romney Campaign Joins the Birther Brigade.)

Alas, after embarrassing Arizona once again (you may remember that a "bill requiring presidential candidates to provide proof of citizenship in Arizona was vetoed last year by" the Republican governor), Bennett "received the 'verification in-lieu of certified copy' from officials within the Hawaii Department of Health that we requested in March . They have officially confirmed that the information in the copy of the Certificate of Live Birth for the President matches the original record in their files.'"  (From the Washington Post, Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett satisfied Obama was born in United States.)

I can't wait to hear how our Resident Pastor-to-the-Dictators (AKA Pastor Truthiness (formerly known as Pastor Poppins)), who plagiarize lies to salvage his malicious fantasy campaign to brand Obama as an outsider, as un-American, as non-American, will explain it all to his sycophants on Friday.

For more on the birthers racists fantasies, see these prior posts:

This Post is For All You Birthers Out There

Republi-Cons Have No Shame, Judge Edition

The Spin of Pastor 2+2 Does Not = 4, AKA Pastor Dred Scott or Pastor Truthiness (Formerly Known as Pastor Poppins)

Don't Be Duped by the Birthers

The Republi-CON 'January 2014 Disproves Global Warming' Myth

UPDATE III:  So, because it is cold outside, global warming is a hoax.

"As Stephen Colbert wrote, brilliantly mocking this kind of ridiculosity, "Global warming isn't real because I was cold today! Also great news: World hunger is over because I just ate.'

Read Slate, Ted Cruz Goes Full Orwell.

UPDATE II:  Read USA Today, Earth had warmest winter on record.

Read also, So You Don't Believe in Global Warming, Then Explain What Happens to 35 Gigatons of CO2 Each Year.  

UPDATE:  "The climate numbers are in from January and, on a global perspective, it actually wasn’t that cold at all.

In fact, for the 347th month in a row, planet Earth was downright toasty.

Yep, the last month in which Earth’s average temperature was below the 20th-century average was during the Reagan administration. February 1985, to be exact: 'I Want to Know What Love Is' by Foreigner was the No. 1 song in the country. Sally Field had just been nominated for best actress for Places in the Heart. The author of this piece celebrated his fourth birthday party. That’s a long time for a planet to run a fever.

Since that moment 29 years ago, there’s been an unbroken stretch of planetary warmth. Almost as if the entire globe was warming. Hey, maybe we can call it 'global warming'".

Read Slate, Don't Let the Snow Fool You. January Wasn't Cold at All.  

In the continental U.S, the "average temperature of the U.S. was just 0.07°F below the 1981-2010 average according to NCDC. . .

[In fact Alaska] had its 3rd-warmest January, with temperatures 14.8°F above average. During a late January warm spell, the daily high reached 62°F in Port Alsworth, tying the highest January temperature recorded in the state."

Read Climate Central, Never-Ending Winter? Nah, January in U.S. Was Average.  

Happy π Day!

Today "is March 14, or, as it’s written in the U.S., 3/14. That makes it Pi Day, because the mathematical constant π is roughly equal to 3.14. Nerds celebrate this date every year, because, well, we’re nerds. Duh.

But this year’s π Day is special: It’s the year 2015, so the date is 3/14/15, giving us two more decimal places of the famous constant. In fact, if you celebrate it at 9:26:53 today, you get π to nine decimals: 3.141592653. Since the next digit is a 5, you can even round up and celebrate π Day for an extra second. Woohoo!"

Read Slate, 8 Things About Pi for Pi Day. 

Read also Slate, A Very Special Pi Day. 

Happy Friday the 13th!

"This year will see three Friday the 13ths, the most possible in a calendar year. Recently, the holiday has been mostly used for themed bar nights and marathons of a certain movie series. But what led people to associate this day and date with unfortunate fates in the first place?

In the video [below], some common explanations."

Watch Slate, What’s So Bad About Friday the 13th?:



FYI, paraskevidekatriaphobia is fear of Friday the 13th

The Repbli-CON Plan to Destroy the Economy

UPDATE IV:  Read Bloomberg View, Best State for Business? Yes, California.

Read also Slate, The States Where Second (and Third, and Fourth) Marriages Are Most Common. 

UPDATE III: More proof that God hates the South.

Read The Huffington Post, These 9 Maps Should Absolutely Outrage Southerners. 

UPDATE II:  "In perhaps the least shocking economic data point to be released this month, American consumers were sharply less confident about the economy in early October than they were in September. Turns out, shutting down the government for 16 days while using the threat of a government debt default to battle over the nation's budget isn't great for peoples' psyche."

Read the Washington Post, Consumer confidence collapsed this month. Thanks, Congress!

UPDATE:  Want proof that Republi-cons are bad for the economy?

"On average, the economy in the districts those Republicans represent is significantly worse than it is in the nation at large.

The median income in those districts last year was 7 percent lower than the national median, according to the Census Bureau. The unemployment rate averaged 10 percent. That was almost two percentage points higher than the national rate, and two percentage points higher than the overall rate in the states that contain each district."

Read the Washington Post, At the source of the shutdown, the economy falters — and anger at Barack Obama runs high.

Of course, it could be that God just hates the South (new link).

As suggested by former Bush administration speechwriter Marc Thiessen, who urged Republi-cons (at the Washington Post, The GOP flunks Hostage Taking 101) "to release the government hostage and instead jack up its demand for the debt ceiling":

"'[O]ne of the first things they teach you in Hostage Taking 101 is that you have to choose a hostage the other side cares about saving' . . a debt-ceiling breach would potentially destroy millions of jobs, making it the perfect threat."

Read New York Magazine, Why the Shutdown Is Leading to Debt Default; or, What Happens When You Take Hostages Without a Plan.

The article states that "Boehner resembles William H. Macy’s character in Fargo, who concocts a simple plan to have his wife kidnapped and skim the proceeds, failing to think a step forward about what happens once she’s actually seized by violent criminals. He doesn’t intend for her to be harmed, but also has no ability to control the plan once he’s set it in motion. In the end, Boehner's Speakership is likely to end up in the wood chipper, anyway."

For a preview, watch the wood chipper scene:

The Republi-CONs Ugly Political Cynicism

"Questioning this affirmation involves a serious charge — an accusation of the worst sort of cynicism. And it is simply not the role of a Christian layman to publicly dispute the self-identification of other Christians, especially in a political context. It is a practice that can lead down ugly alleys of sectarianism."

Read the Washington Post, Scott Walker and judging the faith of another.

Republi-cons might also read the Constitution they claim to so dearly love. 

The End of the World is Near, Again

UPDATE VIII:  Read also Wikipedia, Apocalypticism.  

UPDATE VII:   FYI, "ISIS's interpretation of Islam is not literal. It is not serious."

Read The Atlantic, What Muslims Really Want, which notes that:

"The Quran is a single volume, roughly the length of the New Testament. It is a complex and nuanced text that deals with legal, moral, and metaphysical questions in a subtle and multifaceted way. Then there are the hadith, or records of sayings and doings of the Prophet Muhammad, which run into dozens of volumes spanning literally hundreds of thousands of texts, each on average a few sentences long. Then there is the juridical and theological literature about the Quran and the hadith, which consists of thousands of works written throughout Islamic history.

Does ISIS cite 'texts'? Yes, though its main method is to cite individual hadith that support its positions. But remember: The hadith consist of hundreds of thousands of discrete items that range from faithfully transmitted teachings to outright fabrications attributed to the prophet, and every gradation in between.

Over the centuries, jurists and theologians of every stripe, Sunni and Shiite, have devised rational, systematic methods for sifting through hadith, which are often difficult to understand or seem to say contrary things about the same questions. They have ranked and classified these texts according to how reliable they are, and have used them accordingly in law and theology. But ISIS does not do this. Its members search for text snippets that support their argument, claim that these fragments are reliable even if they are not, and disregard all contrary evidence—not to mention Islam’s vast and varied intellectual and legal tradition. Their so-called 'prophetic methodology' is nothing more than cherry-picking what they like and ignoring what they do not. . .

What distinguishes the interpretive approach of groups like ISIS from others is not its literalism (Sufis are indeed the most 'literal' of all such interpreters of the Quran) but its narrowness and rigidity; for the adherents of ISIS, the Quran means exactly one thing, and other levels of meaning or alternate interpretations are ruled out a priori. This is not literalism. It is exclusivism."

Imam Truthiness (formerly known as Pastor Truthiness and Pastor Poppins) does the same, always claiming his interpretation of the Bible is inerrant. 

UPDATE VI:  Hallelujah, we are saved.  It appears that certain claims of the end times by our local Imam Truthiness (formerly known as Pastor Truthiness and Pastor Poppins) are "completely off-the-wall . . . an exercise in imagination that is going to confuse many people," so says his "dear and valued friend."

Read Lamb & Lion Ministries Blog, A Confused Book About Revelation.

One commenter even said that Imam Truthiness "wrote this book, purely to make money." Another wrote that he "has been deceived by Satan."  And yet anothers write that he "has been caught up with demonic deceits, this has happened many times over the yrs" and he is "a false prophet. Or if you don't want to go that far...at least he has lost his way on the subject matter in his book."

 

UPDATE V:  After reading The Atlantic article, it is clear that ISIS is to Islam as David Koresh was to Christianity.  

UPDATE IV:  ISIS "is a religious group . . . [that believes] that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse."

Read The Atlantic, What ISIS Really Wants, which notes that for "certain true believers—the kind who long for epic good-versus-evil battles—visions of apocalyptic bloodbaths fulfill a deep psychological need."

And just how to advance the apocalypse -- with a religious war -- which it seems Imam Truthiness (formerly known as Pastor Truthiness and Pastor Poppins) would also like.

UPDATE III:  As noted before, Pastor Truthiness (formerly known as Pastor Poppins) is fond of citing current events as fulfillment of 'prophesy' of the soon-to-be apocalypse (in support of his personal religious myths of course). Why are people addicted to such 'predictions?'

It turns out his ideology is shared by Islamic fundamentalist.

Read CNN, Why does ISIS keep making enemies?, which notes that ISIS "ideology is that of an apocalyptic cult that believes that we are living in the end times and that ISIS' actions are hastening the moment when this will happen."

UPDATE II:  "Bigotry has always existed, and though its techniques may change, its goal is always largely the same. The bigot, Bronner writes, 'directs his hatred against those who threaten (or might threaten) his privileges, his existential self-worth' by challenging the prevailing prejudices of the day. His beliefs are unquestionably the right ones; he 'hears the Lord’s voice and he condemns those who don’t, or interpret it otherwise.' But if you criticize the bigot for his antediluvian views, he’ll scurry behind the shield of 'traditions' and 'established habits.' . . 

So while the bigot may be a 'true believer,' he is also a pragmatist. He can twist mythologies, including religion and imagined tradition, to fit his needs in a thousand different ways. But behind the bigot’s beliefs is an all-consuming fear of modernity. It was modernity, after all, that gave minorities the tools to combat their oppression—which, in turn, led to the increasing marginalization of prejudiced holdouts.

The bigot’s fight against modernity also allows him to disguise his biases as a principled conviction that minorities are, in Bronner’s words, 'fighting against the natural order of things.' We see this casuistry deployed repeatedly in the right’s strange quest to smear and dehumanize trans people: Because conservatives have always believed in strict adherence to an unbreakable gender binary, that binary must be accurate. 'Things are the way they are,' in Bronner’s succinct phrasing, 'and they are that way for a reason.' If trans people could go millennia without demanding respect, they have no right to demand it today.

Why are bigots so terrified of modernity and its enthusiasts? Simple: As minorities capitalize upon the 21st century’s enlightened cosmopolitanism, bigots feel their power slipping away. After anti-gay activists failed to pass a gay segregation bill in red-leaning Arizona, conservatives cried foul, arguing that the measure’s demise imperiled their own 'religious liberty.' Their conception of 'liberty'—the freedom to discriminate against gay customers—might not be shared by many mainstream Americans in 2014. But conservatives are desperate to cling to this 'liberty' nonetheless; their right to deny gay people basic dignity, so uncontroversial for so many years, is tantamount to an assertion of power over the oppressed in the public sphere. With it, conservatives can cling to a shred of their former cultural dominance. Without it, their cause is revealed as a fraud."

Read Slate, Are Anti-Gay Activists Bigots? A Brilliant, Disturbing New Book Says Yes.

UPDATE:  Does "[a]ll that talk of snake-inspired subterfuge, planet-cleansing floods, and apocalyptic horsemen might hamper [some people's] ability to differentiate between fantasy and reality—or even to think critically."

Read Slate, Is Religion Good for Children?, which noted that researchers have found that the division in perceptions of reality between religiously raised and secular children was striking. Religious teaching, "'especially exposure to miracle stories, leads children to a more generic receptivity toward the impossible, that is, a more wide-ranging acceptance that the impossible can happen in defiance of ordinary causal relations.'

If you’re surprised by these findings, you probably haven’t attended a church service lately. Religions tend to be founded on miracle stories—exactly the thing religious kids had trouble distinguishing from reality. When you’ve been told that a woman was created from a man’s rib, or that a man reawakened three days postmortem little worse for the wear, your grasp on reality is bound to take a hit. Religious children are told these stories from an early age, often as though they are unquestionably true. (Some are told that questioning them might lead to eternal damnation.) If you’re expected to believe two of every animal could fit on an ark made of gopher wood, wouldn’t you have trouble understanding that magical sails don’t exist? . .

The question of children and religion, then, is really just a small part of the broader dilemma of faith versus skepticism. In the United States, the vast majority of us choose the former and push our kids to do the same. That might make them docile, obliging, and credulous. But it doesn’t make them better people."

Pastor Truthiness (aka Huckster and Con Man) says the end of the world is near.  But before you get swindled by this scam, or spend money on the conferences and books, get educated.

Read and/or watch PBS Frontline, Apocalypse.

There is a detailed chronology of end timers, through 1999 (when the program first aired).

You'll also understand that Pastor Truthiness (aka Huckster and Con Man) stands in the company of other end timers, like William Miller and David Koresh and other cultist, as well as Marx and Hitler.

He's just part of America's Doomsday Industry.