Exactly.

 

Exactly.

Christianists to Pick Up Artists

Conservatives cite ‘neutrality’ memo as proof of military’s hostility to Christianity

A conservative group claims the United States Air Force violated religious freedom by advising officials not to discriminate against subordinates based on their religion. 

The Family Research Council on Tuesday released a report on religious freedom in the United States Armed Forces, which concluded the Obama administration was cracking down on Christianity. 

The report stated that high-level officers within the Air Force were cooperating with “anti-Christian activists” like attorney Michael Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. As evidence, the report compiled a list of incidence which purportedly showed religious freedoms being violated.

Tasers kill. The police know this and keep on using them.  So I guess they're just letting the lawsuits pile up?

Edward Snowden: US officials are preventing me claiming asylum

Arizona being Arizona... APS seeks higher bills for new solar customers

The Cheney presidency was where the NSA spying started.  Before 9/11.  No surprise there...

We are not Trayvon Martin.

Republican pick up lines to woo women voters....

What else could he be doing?

Dick Armey grabs for power?

While the energy of the anti-tax and anti-Big Government tea party movement may yet haunt Democrats in 2010, the first order of business appears to be remaking the Republican Party.

Whether it’s the loose confederation of Washington-oriented groups that have played an organizational role or the state-level activists who are channeling grass-roots anger into action back home, tea party forces are confronting the Republican establishment by backing insurgent conservatives and generating their own candidates — even if it means taking on GOP incumbents.

“We will be a headache for anyone who believes the Constitution of the United States … isn’t to be protected,” said Dick Armey, chairman of the anti-tax and limited government advocacy group FreedomWorks, which helped plan and promote the tea parties, town hall protests and the September ‘Taxpayer March’ in Washington. “If you can’t take it seriously, we will look for places of other employment for you.”

“We’re not a partisan organization, and I think many Republicans are disappointed we are not,” added Armey, a former GOP congressman.

Remember Rachel Maddow told us what Dick Armey actually is...

He was listening to the wrong station then.

In a Los Angeles Times op-ed, Andrew Klavan claimed he's "never heard" Rush Limbaugh "utter a single racist, hateful or stupid word," and offered a "[c]hallenge" to "liberals" to "[l]isten to the show ... and keep an open mind." However, Media Matters listens to Limbaugh everyday and has documented numerous examples of him spewing offensive commentary and basic misstatements of fact.

Media Matters then shows a list (obviously not comprehensive). Rush Limbaugh is a stupid, racist, hateful moron who rules the Republican party and has them trembling in abject fear whenever they try to stand up to him. Rush Limbaugh is setting the Republican agenda by using racist, hateful, and massively stupid statements. And all the Republicans can do is still try to change the packaging but not the substance of their message: racism, hate and stupidity.

Just how dumb does Klavan think we are?

The drunk on the subway car molesting women

Is the present day icon for the Republican party. Read or listen to the entire interview with D. L. Hughley and Frank Schaeffer, the son of one of the founders of the religious right who has seen the Republican party hijacked by the rabid fringe element.

HUGHLEY: That's an amazing thing. In your letter. You wrote an open letter to President Obama. You asked him not to even count on Republican backing.

SCHAEFFER: Right.

HUGHLEY: You say that they hate him.

SCHAEFFER: They do hate him.

HUGHLEY: They hate him.

SCHAEFFER: They do hate him.

HUGHLEY: That's pretty strong.

SCHAEFFER: Rush Limbaugh's telling the truth when he says he wants him to fail. These people are ideological enough that they would rather take our whole country down and be proven right than be patriotic Americans and stand up and do the thing that every American ought to do right now, which is support the president, whether you voted for him or not.

(APPLAUSE)

HUGHLEY: Why -- why then are men like Rush Limbaugh and a woman like Ann Coulter so tremendously popular? Why then? It makes me as an American go, this is how a large percentage of the country feels.

SCHAEFFER: No, don't think so. I think if people read my book, they're going to see that the religious right started with good intentions. And then was manipulated by very crass people who have taken it in a different direction for personal gain. Today you have about 20 million people who buy all of Ann Coulter's books, watch Rush Limbaugh. Send money into the televangelists. It's all the same people.

The fact of the matter is, there are 300 million of us. There's no 20 million of us. The truth is I failed every math class. But somebody in the audience will tell us what the percentage of 20 million of 300 million. It's not a big percentage. It's just a loud percentage. This is the drunk on the subway making trouble in the car for all of the people on the subway. There are 100 decent citizens on there, there is one ass in the front that's molesting women. That's the Republican Party now in terms of the loud car.

Republicans do not want!

(edited for clarity)

John McCain is George Bush is the Republican party.

What Digby says:

The Republican party is George W. Bush --- there is no daylight. They acclaimed him as the second coming of Winston Churchill and Alexander the Great just three years ago. They put him back in the White House and then swaggered around calling Democrats neutered farm animals.

"Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with the Republicans. Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they've been fixed, then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful. They don't go around peeing on the furniture and such."


They can run from that but they can't hide. Bush and the conservative movement he represents need to be tied around McCain's neck so tight he can't breathe.

Oh, and look!

Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and defeated contender for the GOP presidential nomination, is currently at the top of John McCain's short list for a running mate. At least that's the word from a top McCain fundraiser and longtime Republican moneyman who has spoken to McCain's inner circle. The fundraiser is less than thrilled with the idea of Huckabee as the vice presidential nominee, and many economic conservatives—turned off by the populist tone of Huckabee's campaign and his tax record as governor—are likely to share that marked lack of enthusiasm.

If you read the comments, McCain supporters seem to be just a bit distressed over Mike Huckabee being considered for VP .... I wonder why?

It's hard to be the party of outraged victimhood

When you've been in complete power for two terms and trashed the joint. We've now seen up close and personal what the Republican party does when it controls all three branches of government.

Chet Scoville of The Vanity Press quotes Rick Perlstein from The Nation:

The whole machine had always been built on a series of bluffs: that once the malign hand of the liberals was removed from the executive, legislative and judicial branches, our new conservative Jerusalem would be achieved. But something remarkable occurred in the five years between 2001 and 2006: for the first time since the rise of the modern conservative movement with the nomination of Barry Goldwater in 1964, then the rise of Newt Gingrich's revolutionaries in 1994, the right had a chance to control all three branches of government--to actually run the country. Naught but obvious failures have been the result: a crashing economy, a rotting infrastructure, a failed war and a less safe world, more Americans saying their nation is on the wrong track than at any time since pollsters started measuring.

In the face of all this, the conservative movement has kept on trying to do the only thing it knows how to do: sell conservatism. Saner heads in the Republican Party, meanwhile, have done their darnedest to put forward a presidential prospect who might let the party distance itself, if only rhetorically, from the disaster that conservatism in power has proved to be.

But without "conservatism" as the core narrative, the Republican Party doesn't know how to tell any stories at all. Its confusion over how to talk about McCain is only the symptom. The conservative era is over--if you want it.

So... tell me again why on earth would you vote in a party to govern that hates government?

We can only pray this is true

We've been on the brink of a theocracy in the United States these last few years: a government that has no wall between church and state, controls women's bodies, controls scientific research, controls what was taught in schools, declares the Iraq war a crusade and eggs on Israel to activate the Rapture. Yet now there seems to be a lessening of focus on a grab for governmental power and a shift by some to other things:

With the GOP having controlled the White House and the House for the previous six years — and the Senate for the previous four — social conservatives expected much more progress on their agenda in Washington. Although they are happy that Bush has used his veto power to stop an expansion of federal stem cell research, signed a law banning the procedure opponents call “partial birth” abortion and won confirmation of two solid conservatives to the Supreme Court, the Christian right’s rank and file say they’re frustrated that Washington has not pushed for more-sweeping restrictions on abortion and gay rights.

Meanwhile, the president’s support for granting a path to citizenship for those who entered the country illegally has further strained the GOP’s relations with the evangelical base — a voting bloc Perkins estimates as one-third of voters in the GOP primaries, enough to make or break any candidate. And the past year’s trio of Republican A-congressional sexual scandals — centered on Rep. Mark Foley of Florida, Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana and Sen. Larry E. Craig of Idaho — has only fed the climate of disillusion. “Certainly,” Perkins said, “there is reason to be concerned about the future of the relationship” between social conservatives and the Republican Party.

And that has led Perkins and other religious leaders to push for the closer-than-usual examination of the GOP aspirants. “What I hear and see is that if you were a Republican candidate in the past, you got a pass on close scrutiny on key issues,” Perkins said. “I don’t think that’s going to be the case anymore. They are going to have to verify their credentials in order to gain the support of social conservatives.”

While these leaders hope that a consensus candidate will emerge, they are also openly concerned that evangelicals are now in danger of fragmenting at various points on the political spectrum. That’s because more than the composition of the Republican field has changed; evangelical voters are changing as well. Some, while still traditionally conservative in their beliefs, are weary of what they see as a pattern of disrespectful treatment from GOP candidates: lip service during campaigns followed by a dim interest in their agenda once in power. But other religious voters are embracing causes not traditionally identified with American conservatism, such as global warming, human rights and poverty relief.

For those faithful who still see a theocracy being achievable, their demands are a cause for rejoicing:

Now then, your evidence of a new hope? Your reason for rejoicing? Right here: It seems the remaining core of politicized evangelicals, far from realizing its diminished influence and far from realizing the GOP has largely imploded and far from sensing, therefore, that it might perhaps be time to dial down some of its more unpopular, virulent agenda items, this group is actually aiming to step up its dogmatic demands from various GOP candidates this next election.

That's right. They want more. Or rather, less.

Apparently, Bush's GOP has let them down. They have not been content with BushCo's anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-sex, pro-abstinence, anti-women, anti-science, pro-war, God-hates-Islam stance, nor have they been content with having their trembling hands around the throat of the preceding Republican Congress for half a decade and clearly they have been insufficiently humiliated by the happy slew of right-wing preachers and politicians who've been revealed as meth-loving, restroom-lurking, boy-fetishizing gay hypocrites.

According to the new plan, any current GOP candidate who now wants the valuable evangelical vote will have to prove himself not merely guided by conformist religious zealotry in all things (Hi, Mitt!), but will have to prove his unflappable support for the GOP stance in key issues across the evangelical board, primarily regarding the Big Duo: abortion rights and gay rights. Or, more specifically, the total annihilation of both.

Do you see? This is exactly why we can now rejoice. Because this is the delightful thing about the fundamentalist worldview (and, for that matter just about any strict religious worldview you can name), the thing that absolutely and forever guarantees its frequent and eventual downfall: It can never be sated.

It's true. No matter how clamped down we as a culture become, no matter how much misinterpreted Biblical dogma we're forced to swallow, no matter how many insidious laws are passed limiting behaviors and restricting independent thought and repressing sexuality and banning dildos in Texas, it will never be enough.

And the faithful are disappointed in their choices:

It definitely is a moment of crisis for the Evangelical Right. When you style yourself the GOP's ground army (and they are), yet your presidential forum attracts only Huckabee, Brownback, John Cox (who?), Alan Keyes Ron Paul, Tancredo and Duncan Hunter, you know you're getting the dredges of the GOP field.

They're not just losing the ideological and "culture" war (yes, people love Queer Eye and Gay-Straight alliances are popular in high schools these days) in broader America, they are losing it from within as they bleed activists to progressive causes. Some of their highest profile leaders have been brought down by scandal -- Ralph Reed and Ted Haggard (former head of the National Association of Evangelicals), as well as political allies like Sen. Larry Craig -- while also losing one of their biggest champions, Jerry Falwell, this year.

It's a movement in disarray and their increasing disenchantment with politics may prove yet another headache for an already-reeling Republican Party.

Praise the Lord!

Update: Rook of Rook's Rant observes:

In terms of the Republican party, they pretty much charted a path towards destruction when deciding to take advantage of the political power of the conservative Christians. It was in direct conflict with the corporate arm of the Republican party.

In many ways, It seemed an act of desperation. The major political players in the Republican party could not attract a majority with their policies and stances. Co-opting the divisive and destructive policies of the conservative Christians was a quick fix, towards a quick grab of power.

But it was bound to burn them in the end. Hatred always creates a wall, resulting in isolation. Eventually the hatred, having no target, turns inward and creates self-loathing. This is what we are witnessing with the Republican party -- and the conservative movement. The policies of the last 6 years has caused the once powerful Republican minority to become isolated, with the country moving away from them. All they have left to focus their hate on is each other.

Rove's legacy

James Carville:

The evidence is now pretty conclusive that Mr Rove may have lost more than just an election in 2006. He has lost an entire generation for the Republican party.

A late July poll for Democracy Corps, a non-profit polling company, shows that a generic Democratic presidential candidate now wins voters under 30 years old by 32 percentage points. The Republican lead among younger white non-college-educated men, who supported President George W. Bush by a margin of 19 percentage points three years ago, has shrunk to 2 percentage points. Ideological divisions between the Republican party and young voters are growing. Young voters generally favour larger government providing more services, 68 per cent to 28 per cent. On every issue, from the budget to national security, young voters responded overwhelmingly that Democrats would do a better job in government.

It is not just Democracy Corps that has found this. A host of new polls and surveys over the course of the past few months has served as a harbinger of a rocky 2008 election for Republicans.

The March poll from the Pew Research Center showed that 50 per cent of Americans identify as Democrats while only 35 per cent say they are Republican. The June NBC-Wall Street Journal poll showed 52 per cent of Americans would prefer a Democratic president while only 31 per cent would support a Republican, the largest gap in the 20-year history of the survey.

Mr Rove’s famous electoral strategy – focusing on the Republican base first – is also largely responsible for a shift in international public opinion against the US. It would not be fair to blame Mr Rove for the Iraq war. But it is clearly fair to blame his strategy for the Terry Schiavo fiasco and the Republicans’ adherence to the policies and doctrines of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson. The world and now most of the US are contemptuous of the theocratic underpinnings of the policy Mr Rove ushered into government.

[snip]

Mr Rove was as powerful a government figure as he was a campaign figure. The past six and a half years of Mr Rove’s career were spent as a very, very senior and extraordinarily influential Bush administration official.

He has been assistant to the president, senior advisor and deputy chief of staff. Mr Rove was the architect of social security reform, immigration, the hiring and firing of justice department officials and the placement of literally thousands of ideologically driven buffoons throughout the US government. As deputy chief of staff he was also responsible for handling the White House post-Katrina reconstruction efforts. On these actions, history has already rendered its judgment on Mr Rove. And, as we say in Louisiana, “it ain’t pretty”.

But Rove's book will explain it all!

Maybe just one good old fashioned terrorist strike

Would bring back the good old days where fear kept the citizens in line and the Republicans could gut the treasury with no oversight:

[Dennis Milligan, chairman of the Saline County Arkansas Republican Party] said Republicans will have a hard time winning 30 House seats in next year’s election.
[snip]
He said he’s “150 percent” behind Bush on the war in Iraq.

“At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001 ], and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country,” Milligan said.

Those were the days, huh, Dennis?

(link via Buzzflash)

Corporation donations to this last 2006 election

Tengrain of Mock Paper Scissors has a fantastic graphic.

Did you know that Barnes and Noble gave 81% of their $129,680 to the Democrats? But Curves gave 100% of $177,300 to the Republicans. Good to know who to do business with!

Having problems keeping track of all the candidates for president?

Tengrain does a fantastic and hilarious job of keeping both the Democratic and Republican lists simple and succinct!