If all the wingnuts are pulling their kids out of school because the President is going to speak for fifteen minutes, can we teach evolution the rest of the day?
Seriously, I think it is great Jon Henke is waging his own “jihad” against WND and I support him 100%, but if he just thinks it is Joseph Farah, he is sadly, sadly, mistaken. Go read Malkin. Go read Andrew McCarthy and the rest of the NRO clowns, go read the Free Republic, go read CPAC’s blog of the year wailing about Obama in Muslim garb, go read Sarah Palin kvetching about death panels.
Your problem isn’t just WND- as the RNC is happy to prove. The entire party has been taken over by crazy people.
Not that some people haven’t been warning about this for several years or anything.
Incertus
Maybe we could throw some non-abstinence-only sex education in there while we’re at it. Just saying.
Sloth
They’re not crazy, they just inhabit another reality.
One in which it’s perfectly OK to defend hitler, for example, or where death panels stalk the populace and everyone is just like Glenn Beck.
I hope they decide to stay there.
Rosali
How will we know when we’ve reached peak wingnut? It just keeps getting worse and worse.
Pangloss
The GOP gave up on governance based on an actual, legitimate philosophy of government a long, long time ago. The only thing left is demonizing their opposition.
Zifnab
If all the wingnut kindos cleared out of school every day the President showed up, I would request the President show up every day.
Tom
When the RNC is sending out “surveys” suggesting Democrats will deny treatment to Republicans under Obamacare, then, no it’s not just WND that’s the problem. The Republican Party has rotted to the core.
dr. luba
@Rosali: Peak wingnut is like the horizon–you can approach it, but you will never reach it…
Silver Owl
The wingnut’s kids will get behind in their school work or prepping for the Meap test in some cases. Sucks more for their kids than it does for their parents but hey it’s not like wingnuts give a shit about anything but their petty egos anyways.
Trinity
If we don’t find a way to clobber them again in the next election then they will never ever let the “moderate” republicans back through the door. They will always double or triple down on teh crazee because it will have been proven to benefit them politically.
This is why Obama has got to energize his base with health care reform. If he losses us on this battle and 2010 is a win for the wingers then we are seriously f**ked.
gnomedad
Is he going to convert the kids into communist zombies with or without a teleprompter?
Tom
I have a bad feeling that peak wingnut will take place on April 19th.
Michael
I’ve been majorly depressed lately over the thoughts of what this country is turning into.
It dawned on me that we have a somewhat higher percentage of wingnuts than did Weimar Germany, and that they’re of the sort that are easily manipulated into condoning, supporting and performing atrocities if talk radio and Fox tell them that its OK in the name of security.
In Weimar, though, the industrialists actually worked with the government to help meet some of the needs and wants of the working class, thereby cementing a fascist right populist government into place. Here, our industrialists would never do that, so their continued selfishness and venality is our only hope to avoid some takeover of all policy by the right wing internet echo chambers.
freelancer
I had a similar thought on this last night. Wingnuts are pulling their kids out of your class? Make lemonade.
Teach all the shit they bitch about:
Literature
Biology
Civics
US History
World History
Art
Foreign Language
In a not totally unrelated thing, I learned today via PZ Myers that Unicorns are in the Bible. Numbers 23:22.
FUCKING UNICORNS.
robertdsc
I’m sure the wingnut parents will be thrilled to have President Palin speak in 2013.
AhabTRuler
Yeah, that’d be Gary, God’s favorite.
YellowJournalism
I read that there’s even web sites encouraging students whose parents aren’t pulling them to skip school that day “in protest”. In protest of what? Someone telling you to do well this school year?
Kids will use any excuse to get out of school if they can. Just look at the “Day without a Mexican”. Tons of students skipped in “support” and didn’t even show up to the actual rallies. These idiots shouting “Obama Youth Corps” are just giving those students a reason to leave for the day.
And I don’t get why they’re asking for a transcript of the speech to be given ahead of time. Do they think Obama is going to drop the F-bomb and tell kids to spike Granny’s Ensure with rat poison? A commenter on one blog I go to said something about how there will be tons of kids out getting signatures the next day for health care reform. He was serious. I don’t know why they keep saying that those of us who support this president think he’s “the One” or the “Messiah” since they’re the ones that act like Obama can do magic voodoo on their children.
The Grand Panjandrum
Shit, go read the very first comment on Henke’s blog post. The nutters infest everything and everywhere in right blogistan, AND many elected Republicans in Congress.
Kos gets even more props from me now than he did at the time for getting rid of 9/11 truthers and then the 2004 Fraudsters.
freelancer
Even as a heathen, I occasionally find myself praying for the Rapture as well, if only to increase the world’s collective IQ by about 40 points.
We are all mayans, also.
ellaesther
Holy fuck. I had been avoiding reading about this because I knew — I JUST KNEW! — how pissed off it would make me, and then you went and had to provide a link right there, didn’t you?
Holy fuck! The ceaseless efforts to delegitimize this President, to Other him to the extent that it looks as if a free and fair election that brought the man to the Oval Office on a fucking landslide was somehow a left-wing putsch and he is thus to be treated as an interloper, nay a traitor — OH.MY.GOD!! The desire to smack certain people, and hard, is getting very very strong.
HE IS OUR PRESIDENT! THAT IS NOT “PARTISAN”!
Even though George W. Bush spent his entire administration telling me that me and mine were not true Americans, I never once thought to suggest that he wasn’t “my” President — even when the system allowed him to steal the office! I didn’t like him, I worked against him, I sang and prayed and whooped like a fool when he was on his way out (finally….), but I would never, ever have suggested that he did not have a right to speak to my children in their schools. BECAUSE HE WAS THEIR PRESIDENT, TOO!!
Fucking hell. So sorry. Capslock, egregious usage of exclamation points and numerous droppings of the F-bomb. I’m a bit riled. Mainly because this is the sort of atmosphere that leads to assassination attempts, and they just seem to keep wanted to drive us down that fucking road…. Oy, oy.
Graeme
I knew the black helicopter set would be back in a big way, but I didn’t think they’d take over the party. I also saw a housing bust coming, but I didn’t think it would be nearly this bad.
Given I seem to be too optimistic in my pessimism, I’m deathly afraid of what’s next.
Va Highlander
This really is good news for McCain, isn’t it?
harlana pepper
By this point, it should be obvious that “peak wingnut” is simply a myth. Wingnuttia goes to infinity.
YellowJournalism
@Silver Owl: No, it’s the teachers, administrators, and parents of other kids who suffer because it’s the wingnuts and their politician handlers who are the first to scream about low test scores.
asiangrrlMN
Fuck them all. That is all I have to say on this subject. My heart is sad and weary and broken. I can’t take much of this shit any more.
@freelancer: Yes, this. And, top it off with a big heaping of French.
MikeJ
I wish the wingnuts would check out Romans 13:1-7.
SenyorDave
I actually went to the link, not realizing that it was malkin’s site. She had a link to a truly insane site aptly named: http://www.rightwingrocker.com/.
But the comments on malkin’s site are truly amazing. People really believe the shit they are saying? Comparing Obama to propaganda radio WW2 types. I have to believe that so much of this is related to skin color. There was vitriol against Clinton, but I don’t remember it this bad.
The level of lunacy is disturbing. I hope those re-education camps that Obama is putting together in Maine are almost ready, because there are a boatload of folks who we should be sending there.
asiangrrlMN
P.S. Arugula and Dijon mustard for lunch, please.
harlana pepper
@dr. luba: Ah, I see you beat me to it! Scientific types, present your theories.
matoko_chan
This just more evidence of the widening IQ gap in between-party affiliation.
Can n/e one think of a strategy more efficiently designed to make Obama irresistable to another generation of American youth than to forbid the Teabagger demographic’s offspring to watch him on tv?
beltane
@Michael: If Cheney had thought to use 9/11 as an opportunity to give Americans cheap, universal health care he could have been dictator for life. Luckily the right-wing here is too shortsighted and greedy to give the little people the bread part of bread and circuses.
Calouste
So what are those wingnuts the most worried about? What Obama will say or that their kids will notice that the President is of the melanin-enhanced persuasion and therefore might start questioning what their parents have been telling them about people of the melanin-enhanced persuasion?
Zifnab
@Michael:
See, that’s the real joke. The white collar workers can get paid far less than they are do, but so long as the stay higher on the totem pole than their blue collar peers, they’ll keep voting GOP. And the blue collar folks tend to be poorer and less educated, which makes them more open to the “Death Panels” nonsense.
The Grand Panjandrum
@freelancer: PZ is getting a little carried away with the unicorn translation. Yes, some translations and accompanying commentary hint at it but in fact most biblical scholars believe a more accurate translation is that the passage refers to rhinocerous. Myers can overdo it at times and in this case he did.
South of I-10
I really hope this is peak wingnut. I can’t take much more. In the Bush years, even when I would disagree with people in a discussion, I could do it politely and respect their belief, even if I didn’t agree with it. We might even be able to find some middle ground. Not anymore. Everyone is just yelling all the time and not really saying anything. It’s quite depressing.
Leelee for Obama
Yeah, the GOP here in Flori-duh are taking the lead on this. I’m sooooooo proud. I really think peak-wingnut is unreachable, they just keep ramping up the crazy. If they’re healthy, my GrandDaughters will hear the President, and love it. My little baby Democrats.
On another note: listening just a bit ago to c-span. They had a guy on who runs 30, 30! Community Health Centers in D. C. Of course, one guy gets on and says it’s not government’s or employers’ responsibility to provide health care-the people should do it their own selves(his words, not mine). When pressed, he tells us he’s has VA coverage, but he has a cop-pay, so he’s paying his own way. One despairs.
harlana pepper
@asiangrrlMN: I say drop them in the middle of a US Embassy contractor hazing in Kabul so they will have something reality-based of actual substance to worry about.
Violet
@matoko_chan:
Lolz. Good point. Make the President off limits. The kids will only want to see him even more.
Leelee for Obama
@harlana pepper: This is a great idea, harlana! Only problem I foresee is that they probably do shit like that after the Friday Night Lights go out and their team loses. Not a rap on football, just the fans in peak-wingnut mode.
freelancer
@The Grand Panjandrum:
I looked it up for myself. Some versions have it translated as “great ox”, but different sites have King James definitively saying Unicorns. If creationist assholes like Ken Hamm can twist a biblical reference to “Behemouth” as actually meaning “Dinosaur”, then fuck them. You now have to become apologists for Unicorns. That’s meeting them more than halfway.
What? Was Jesus a time-travelling sleeper Replicant or something?
I might could buy something that plausable.
ironranger
I really feel sorry for the kids of these kooks. Child abuse.
Leelee for Obama
@freelancer: Sure would have made Catholic Elem. School boatloads more fun!
Michael
For all thier life advantages and great education, they’re nothing but a bunch of fuckups. Continuing to enhance their status quo (and concomitant decisionmaking power with regard to broad national issues) has been a huge, grave mistake.
Xenos
@Tom: “The Republican Party has rotted to the core.”
That has been clear for a while, at least since the RNC was running much of the Bush White House email servers, and conveniently wiping the archives whenever a scandal arose. I would love to see a special prosecutor investigate that business, oh yes…
Sean
@Sloth:
The problem is, a crazy person’s vote counts just as much, in this Universe, as mine does. And their money buys just as much, in this Universe, as mine does.
I’d suggest a 3/5ths compromise for crazy people, but then I’D be living in the crazy Universe.
-S
LoveMonkey
The GOP on the national scale is headed in the same direction as the GOP in Arizona was going 30 years ago.
The end result of that, skipping over the history, was that a complete lunatic named Evan Mecham got himself elected governor in a 3-way contest.
Most people think that the story was that Mecham, who had been running for governor over and over again and being largely ignored and laughed at by the majority here, got into the job and proceeded to fuck it up and piss everyone off until he was impeached and tossed out, making Arizona politics the butt of jokes and leaving behind a trainwreck that included our state being the only one in the country without a Martin Luther King day. You can google him, see his picture which looks exactly like a middle aged Alfred E. Newman, and read the horror story on your own time.
The point is that having a party taken over by crazies is not necessarily the end of a story. It could be the beginning of the story of a breakup of a coalition and the resulting political chaos that can ensue. The danger for Democrats is becoming blase about the implosion of the GOP and not realizing that the resulting fragmentation agonies can have very negative effects unless our party, the Democratic Party, gets its act together, works hard, governs competently, and dots the i’s and crosses the t’s and keeps its own house in order. We could be in for a wild ride after Obama if we are not careful. The screaming meemies will be trying to tear down everything we have accomplished.
kay
I’m honestly stumped. I can’t even get angry at the Democrats or Obama anymore. I don’t know what you do with people who just absolutely refuse to accept the results of an election.
Is there some historic template for this? From Day One they have just dug in and disputed his legitimacy as President.
It’s all of a piece, and it’s not going away.
I’m not that creative, and I have huge gaps in my knowledge of history. That means I can’t come up with anything original, and I don’t know of any approach anyone else has come up with.
Has this happened before in some other democracy? Where you had an election, and the losers just refused to accept the certified result, months later?
Citizen_X
That’s it, I’m off the internets, John; you won ’em today.
Leelee for Obama
@kay: Kay, you must read up on the ancient period 1993-2001. During that time a group of crazed maniacs who felt the elected President of a democracy was not legitimate, because one of their own had screwed their pooch, and the Bubba in office wasn’t one of their Bubbas. It’s illuminating.
The Grand Panjandrum
@freelancer: That is the real issue here. They believe the bible is literal, so when you say it is the literal word of your god it then is difficult to NOT accept all of it. However, facts never seem to get in the way of any argument the christainists want to make, do they? They want it both ways. If it isn’t in the bible they won’t believe it. If it is in bible, but transparently ridiculous, they ignore it. You could call it Eternal Toddlerhood, or something like that.
licensed to kill time
Last night I read the Vanity Fair article (don’t know how to embed link but will try)
and was interested to see that the more things change, the more they stay the same:
Manchester also discovered that Dallas “had become the Mecca for medicine-show evangelists … the Minutemen, the John Birch and Patrick Henry Societies, and the headquarters of [ultra-conservative oil billionaire] H. L. Hunt and his activities.”
“In that third year of the Kennedy presidency,” Manchester wrote, “a kind of fever lay over Dallas country. Mad things happened. Huge billboards screamed, ‘Impeach Earl Warren.’ Jewish stores were smeared with crude swastikas.…Radical Right polemics were distributed in public schools; Kennedy’s name was booed in classrooms; corporate junior executives were required to attend radical seminars.” A retired major general ran the American flag upside down, deriding it as “the Democrat flag.” A wanted poster with J.F.K.’s face on it was circulated, announcing “this man is Wanted” for—among other things—“turning the sovereignty of the US over to the Communist controlled United Nations” and appointing “anti-Christians … aliens and known Communists” to federal offices. And a full-page advertisement had appeared the day of the assassination in The Dallas Morning News accusing Kennedy of making a secret deal with the Communist Party; when it was shown to the president, he was appalled. He turned to Jacqueline, who was visibly upset, and said, “Oh, you know, we’re heading into nut country today.”
(That’s a quote from the article- no html skills here…)
Meanderthal
I read some of that blog and, honestly, I hope they all devour each other. Even the “reasonable” voices seem utterly disconnected from the real world.
geg6
@kay:
The United States of America c.1860.
‘Nuff said.
freelancer
@Leelee for Obama:
You obviously have a flawed version of history. It’s obvious that nothing happened before 9/11 except for Jesus and Chappaquiddick.
licensed to kill time
ok, link fail – here’s the address:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/10/death-of-a-president200910?currentPage=4
I better go get cleek’s toolbar, sorry.
Comrade Kevin
The very first comment on that Henke post is from a birther. Good luck trying to separate the Republicans from their idiot base.
Deborah
@YellowJournalism: If he could do magic voodoo we’d have already passed all the stuff they’re so het up about. These people are completely incapable of following a logical thought process even 2 steps.
@Graeme: Could you worry that the economy will recover, but too rapidly?
Leelee for Obama
@freelancer: I buy my history books from FRANCE!!!!
steve s
i would really, really be curious to see your data on that.
PTirebiter
And yet they’ve managed to get end of life counseling yanked from any health care reform. Maybe we should taunt them into their beloved armed rebellion, Those who didn’t actually die from self inflicted wounds could then be readily identified by their limps and missing appendages.
Augustine
@harlana pepper:
But peak wingnut should be taught alongside all the other myths (FSM, evolution, gravity, unified field theory)
South of I-10
@freelancer: Stop making me laugh at work!
kay
@geg6:
Oh, no. I’m not ready for that. I’ll need more time.
This latest just makes me sad. It’s bothered me a little all day, in a self-pitying way. I just think inspirational civics speeches at public schools are so mainstream they’re dull. If he’s accused based on this, there’s just nothing they won’t go after. I was so discouraged when I saw that media were picking it up, as “controversy”. At some point you just have to call bullshit, but no one seems capable of doing that.
licensed to kill time
FSM is a myth?! But…I’ve been touched by his noodly appendage!
Deborah
From Henke’s comments:
“Don’t fear the birther. Embrace them.”
and
“Axelrod has taken a weakness of Obama (his caginess) and transformed it into a powerful weapon of antagonization that keeps those on the right susceptible to paranoia paranoid.”
I especially like the latter–the Birthers are All Obama’s Fault! It’s part of a Mass Conspiracy by Axelrod to make the Right seem like a Bunch of Paranoids!
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
How will we know when we’ve reached peak wingnut?
Wingnuts never die. They only fade away…
vacuumslayer
@Rosali: Is there a peak? I’m not so sure anymore.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@YellowJournalism:
I think they find the idea that other Americans would actually choose to put a n****r in the White House so incomprehensible and frightening that from their point of view the only possible explanation is that Obama possesses some sort of occult powers of mind control, to which the young are unusually susceptible. Sort of like the political equivalent of the 1918 Flu – the “rational” response to which is to don masks and shun the company of the already infected until the pandemic has passed (which they assume will happen when the rest of us come to our senses about the terrible reality of ObamaCare-DeathPanels-Porkulus-Soshulism)
So from their point of view, a virulent H1N1 outbreak or an Obama speaking appearance, what’s the difference? PULL UR KIDZ OUT OF SKOOL B4 THEY R INFECTED!
MikeJ
Teach the controversy!
steve s
@Leelee for Obama:
I agree this is not much different than the 90’s. My Kentucky relatives were hoping the marine corps would stage a coup d’etat, because clearly the writers of the constitution could never imagine a monster like Clinton coming to power. Otherwise Clinton would use Y2K to declare martial law and oppress us with hidden Chinese troops. I’m not kidding.
PurpleGirl
Grand Panjandrum: Another part of the problem with seeing the Bible as literally true is that of the version you read. Many (most?) of the fundies insist on only reading the King James version; if you try to tell them the translation was poorly done because the translators didn’t know a lot about the ancient languages, they won’t believe you. (Jesus spoke English, dontcha know!)
kay
@Leelee for Obama:
Right. But this Democrat didn’t do anything yet. He hasn’t even attended a deposition, or faced an inquiry of any kind. This is like preemptive? What IS this?
ellaesther
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Oh, lord, if only they would. I have the feeling that they don’t even rust.
steve s
Personally, I want it to go totally bonkers. Like Secession bonkers. But as loud and petulant as the wingers are, they don’t have the guts.
shelley matheis
Tell you exactly how it will go. Leading up to his little education speech there will be all this hand-wringing and knashing of teeth. ‘You can’t trust what Obama will say? What is he really up to. I don’t like these Orwellian methods,,,,etc.”
After the speech the same people will dismiss it as pointless pap. “Oh, study hard to be successful? Well, d’uh. Thank you, Professor Obama! (insert sneer.)
Jesus. And these people had the nerve to accuse the left of ‘Bush Derangement Syndrome.’
As somebody else said, if Obama found a cure for cancer they’d be howling, ‘Why does Obama hate oncologists? Why is he trying to put them out of work???”
Augustine
@Deborah:
After all, seasons don’t fear the birther. Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain.
We can be like they are.
ellaesther
@licensed to kill time: And, I am sure, He turned His orecchiette to your pleas….
(I will make orecchiette happen, people. Oh yes I will!)
Leelee for Obama
@kay: No, it started almost immediately with the Clinton’s as well. Scaife was after them from before the Inauguration and funding loads of crazy all over the place. The worst of it is teh famous, but there was plenty happening early on. I worked in a very Republican oriented restaurant then, and the TV was always on at the bar, and always touting something about Clinton being the worst evah, and a usurper!
JackieBinAZ
@freelancer: And Saint Ronnie’s benevolent and prosperous reign.
The Grand Panjandrum
BTW here is Bush, Sr “indoctrinating” our children in a televised classroom speech. The internets haz dun gud. Also. Too. Again.
vacuumslayer
@freelancer: In the nutters’ defense, it wouldn’t bother me if the kids learned a bit about unicorns. I like unicorns.
ellaesther
@steve s: AGHHHH! You take that back, take that back! This is exactly what I fear we’re headed towards…. You will recall what happened after those particular wingnuts were defeated, and secession was reversed.
I’m telling you man, they are laying the groundwork for an assassination attempt (knowingly, willingly, or not — but I should say “AND not,” because I’m pretty sure some of them are doing it quite knowingly and quite willingly).
Leelee for Obama
@Leelee for Obama: On this President, sadly, I think we know what the issue is. Even if Obama had gotten a larger % of the vote, this would be happening. See Pat Buchanan on the pure, N European, white perfection of the U S A.
licensed to kill time
@ellaesther:
ok, I had to google orecchiette. yep, his pasta’s all over my pleas!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@kay:
Yes, in fact it happened within living memory – Spain, 1936.
Of course if you prefer homegrown precedents, there’s always the 1860 election. Good times!
vacuumslayer
@asiangrrlMN: Throw in a latte. That’ll really make ’em mad.
J.D. Rhoades
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Wingnuts never die. They only fade away…
When?
steve s
@ellaesther: What are you talking about? The civil war?
freelancer
I’m at work right now, so I can’t do it, but someone needs to take video and photos of all the teabaggers, birthers, birchers, deathers, media hacks, Fox News Pundits, and secessionists, and put together a clip with this as the audio track.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN1bJqU50iA
burnspbesq
Good Grief. Jim Bunning has been a disaster as a Senator. And now we may have another idiot ex-pitcher?
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4442556
shelley matheis
Sloth
Schilling endorsed Bush in 2004. Quite publicly.
I’m not thinking he has much of a chance.
Augustine
@Sloth:
Indeed, and I want the over on “stupid, idiotic comments” that render him unelectable
Dave C
Just think about what would happen if the Republican party took back power in its current state. No matter how pathetic the Democrats can be, it is the duty of all reasonable people to vote against the Republican party at every opportunity until they decide to once again inhabit Planet Earth once again.
ellaesther
@steve s: The assassination after the civil war. I’m reading all this Lincoln stuff lately, and just painfully aware of how virulent hatred and craziness can lead to guns going off.
I’m a smidge worried, is all.
ellaesther
@ellaesther: OH! But you were probably talking about Texas!
Jeez, I’m sorry. “I’m a smidge worried,” and also apparently a bit obsessed.
steve s
ellaesther
@ellaesther: Crap, this was meant for steve s, not me!
I’m going to go do some breathing exercises. I am apparently hyperventilating or something.
steve s
I wouldn’t be worried. He’s pretty well guarded.
ellaesther
@licensed to kill time: I know…. This is why I’ll never really make it happen. It’s too pasta-esoteric! But it makes me smile, so I keep trying….
licensed to kill time
@ellaesther:
See my post at #50 – I got creepy goosebumps when I read it. I was 10yrs old when I heard over the loudspeaker at school that the President had been shot. I thought they were talking about Lincoln, and then it sank in. I ran home and told my mom who slapped me across the face and said not to say such a terrible thing, even as a joke. Then we turned on the TV.
I was too young to know about the virulent atmosphere politically then, but reading about it again last night got me ruminating about the poisonous vapors spewing from the wingnuttispere right now and thinking the conditions are ripe. FSM forbid….
Quaker in a Basement
Tiny steps, Mr. Cole.
I remember another steadfast conservative whose eyes opened to the craziness around him, bit by bit.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Wingnuts never die. They only fade away…
When?
After Nixson, they faded away for a while. After the OK City bombing by one of their own, they faded for a while. That is until 9/11 when they started blaming the OK City bombing on a “Muslim collaborator” who influenced McVeigh. This is their cycle. At least one of them will do something so disgustingly bad that it horrifies their own, and the whole movement gets backed away from for a while. Then it slowly festers underneath the surface for years until it erupts again, like herpes.
ellaesther
@steve s: I know…. And Lincoln’s body guard (singular) literally had the night off that night at Ford’s Theater, and King didn’t have any Secret Service protection, and the Kennedys didn’t have anything like what Obama has today (and has had since he announced)… but I worry. I really, truly do. And I think that this fucking “my children will not listen to the democratically elected President of the United States because that would be partisan and wrong” bullshit is part and parcel of such a wide effort to completely delegitimize him — not his policies, not his decisions, but him, personally, as President — that it makes me worry all the more.
Going back to deep breathing now.
Comrade Darkness
@freelancer: Good grief. Do you know how many children’s books there are where the Unicorns do not get on Noah’s Ark for various reasons? Not only are they in the Bible, there is an entire sub-genre dedicated to keeping the kiddies from wondering why we don’t still have them (and therefore doubting the flood mythos).
licensed to kill time
@ellaesther:
And this is why I love this blog – just when I despair and fume and succumb to hopelessness, someone comes along and makes me laugh at it all. Best commenters evah!
ellaesther
@licensed to kill time: A retired major general ran the American flag upside down, deriding it as “the Democrat flag.”
This is exactly what they’re doing by suggesting that the President of the United States of America taking time to speak to American school children is “partisan.”
Oyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoy.
I know that the Secret Service is much more intense now than it was then (in no small part because of then), but God in heaven, they are not God. Or FSM.
freelancer
@Comrade Darkness:
13 years of Catholic Primary and Secondary education. You would think I would have remembered something as distinct as Unicorns.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Tom: Links to this, please? I have wingnut inlawz I need to ask about this.
Elie
I am getting more and more depressed, though I have been fighting that feeling..
I sure hope that team Obama has some answers — more to energize our base than to quell the crazies — I don’t think that they are quellable…
I am so dispirited right now…how could such crazy hatred seize our national agenda to this extent and give a run for the money on important, broad based issues such as health care? I know that we should not have expected an easy time of it (and I didnt), but I did not anticipate the cesspool ugliness that has bubbled up from the core of the Republican Party. If “Night of the Living Dead” was actually reality, I could not be more horrified…
I hope that there are enough of the normal folks still left to keep it anchored to some sort of positive reality. Right now, I am not sure…
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
I’m pretty cynical, and I have to say I’m floored by the reaction of the right these days. At least with Clinton, there were affairs/rumors of shady dealings back from his tenure as governor of Arkansas to work off of. Obama has none of that.
I’ve talked to Republican acquaintances about this school speech, and they literally cannot see a similarity between this and anything any previous president has done. Their view of Obama has become so crazy and negative that they simply cannot interpret even the most innocuous action as anything other than some plot to advance creeping totalitarianism.
Was there wingnut outrage over the Obamas’ dog?
freelancer
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
I think they were pissed it was a Portuguese water dog, and not an American one.
licensed to kill time
@ellaesther:
That’s what my SO said last night wrt the Secret Service, much more on top of it these days – no more open convertibles, more like the Popemobile.
ironranger
I keep thinking how bizarre americans must look to most of the rest of the world. I’ve been thinking that since 2000 but it hasn’t gotten any less stupid since last Nov, worse in some respects. I feel like I’m watching “Idiocracy”.
Leelee for Obama
Actually, poor Bo Obama got bitched about for two reasons-he’s not a shelter dog(cause of Malia’s allergies) and the fact that he’s a gift from Teddy Kennedy. And no, actually, they have no sense of decency! ( I knew you would wonder.)
Leelee for Obama
@ironranger: I think the rest of the world thinks we’re all major drug users. I wouldn’t blame them if they did.
Elie
I think that what is really sick is that many in the Republican leadership (not all, of course) KNOW that they are playing with fire and KNOW that they are damaging a whole lot without being able to replace it with anything that will work. Do they think that they would be able to seize a peaceful, obedient nation full of zombie yes men if something were to happen to Obama? Do they think that this nation would EVER be the same again and that they would actually profit from what remained? They are very very mistaken. It would destroy this nation and unleash furies that would make the Civil War look like a cakewalk.
We are walking on a razor’s edge
Makewi
Ok serious question, if Obama uses this speech to push for support in his policy initiatives would you consider that an abuse of power?
vacuumslayer
@Makewi: Yeah. Because we all know how active the 5-18 year old voter is.
Elie
Leelee:
We are not major drug users — we are just CRAZY. We NEED therapeutic drugs and to be admitted for treatment for our own safety and the safety of the world.
I wish that I knew more history. Surely there must have been another time like this that we could learn from? The Inquisition, Salem Witch Trials, Third Reich come to mind but I know there have to be more…
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Elie:
I think you give the GOP leadership too much credit for self-awareness and/or historical perspective. They are simply doing in a rather mechanical fashion what they did the last time they lost a presidential election in 1992. Cry ‘Havoc’ and let slip the dogs of craziness. Look how well it worked for them last time – they got back control of the House in 1994 and very nearly managed to impeach the President, followed by their taking both Congress and the WH back from the Dems within another few short years.
We can expect them to stick to this script and not deviate from it until the voters beat some sense into them. And it will take more than one election to do that – they will have to lose again and again and again, like they did to FDR and Truman in the 1930s and 1940s, before they tack back to the middle like they did when they nominated Eisenhower.
Tom
@ Ivan
Here’s the link.
vacuumslayer
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Or Fay DeVay. [/Wings joke]
ironranger
@Leelee for Obama:
Too bad we can’t blame it on drugs. Most of these off the deep end wingnuts seem to have gotten this looney substance free.
Randi Rhodes is reading stuff from all the wingnut sites. I can’t even imagine how they dream up all this stuff.
Demo Woman
Southerners have the smallest percentage of students graduating from high school, they have the highest rate of teen pregnancy, their tests scores are in the tank and they preach family families. They have dinner table discussion about the ****** in the White House who wants to socialize the country and brain wash our kids.
There is such a disconnect with them about what family values mean.
Demo Woman
@Demo Woman: I need an edit… they preach family values.. not family families although incest could explain a lot.
Elie
ThatLeftTurn —
Yeah, but times are different. Their approach relies on not having actual real bad things like an assassination happen. Though it was hell in ’94 — I don’t recall them unleashing the dogs suggesting assassination or harm to the President that they are now. Thanks to years of Republican policies, we also have quite a few more untreated crazies walking around with an itch to be “famous” — and they are egging them on..
So yes, some of this is the old template. But it is being applied in a more dangerous set of circumstances.
General Winfield Stuck
You think that’s bad Gracie..
Don’t know bout you, but if General Malkin’s tea bagger brigades of Major Idiots launch a Minor Invasion, we must not surrender and plan to fight to the last libtard, or until Glen Beck cries, again. Also.. You Betch’ya/Wingnut.
Demo Woman
I’d try to correct my statement but unfortunately, I just caused additional work for the mods. I think I found a banned word.
i*n*cest.
The Saff
@ellaesther: I’m right there with you. Everytime I log on to the internets, I sort of brace myself for a bad headline. I know the Secret Service is beyond excellent and that they know what’s out there. That said, I can’t help but be afraid for Obama. The anger and the hatred aimed at him is so ugly and it is so wrong.
Rachel Maddow was talking last night about how we need a rational, thoughtful opposition party in order to move forward as a nation.
Gawd, but my head aches constantly from all the stupidity.
DonkeyKong
Wingnut’s a hell of a drug!
kay
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason:
I agree. They’re crazed with anger. It’s taking “sore loser” to a whole new level. I have the misfortune to deal with a winger-college professor-lawyer who (sadly) dabbles in actually practicing law. He makes an ass out of himself constantly, with over the top he-man language, on a good day, but he’s now at red-faced screaming level.
I don’t take his calls. I send emails and faxes. I cannot listen to it anymore. I get his insane voice mails, and respond to his substantive, relevant queries with an email or a fax, and try to limit exposure to the accompanying rant. I simply cannot have a telephone conversation with him. Nothing gets accomplished.
freelancer
@DonkeyKong:
lawls.
Insane screaming also.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN1bJqU50iA
tripletee
@kay:
Apparently you’ve forgotten the election in 2000? I know lots of people who refused to accept the certified result back then.
@Makewi:
Jesus, dude, do I have to do your job for you?
kay
@Makewi:
Here’s the irony. Liberals aren’t happy with Obama on education, and they are about to get less happy. There are strong indications that Obama’s education secretary is leaning Right.
That’s a fact. Fat lot of good it did him, huh? Conservatives are grossly misinformed or underinformed. You’re protesting without a freaking clue.
There’s no connection with reality here. You’re crazy people.
REN
My question is, where is the media, and why isn’t this being recognized for the craziness that it is. Folks like these have always been around, but I have never seen them get a complete pass from the media for spouting easily debunked lies and nonsense, as they are in today’s media.
To my mind this is the more dangerous development.14 out of 100 people screaming at a town hall and this is the story? What’s wrong with that picture? Why is it happening? The MSM is controlled by large corporations and we know what their agenda is. Are we to believe that the unbiased truth cannot be obtained from any MSM outlet?
Unfortunately, that’s what I believe. How far do you think Murdoch will go if Dems. try to tamper with his little empire?
Elie
The other piece to this is that it will require and continue to require both self control and focus from those of us on the left/progressive.
These crazies would love for one or more of us to do something crazy in response to their abuse — and then we would be in a free-for-all — limiting anything getting done about anything except the details of the crazy (too much time spent there already)
Their craziness is also scary to many regular mild mannered citizens. It shuts them up and is a barrier to their involvement as they avoid the unpleasantness and the sense of real danger and threat when they see, for example, people walking around with guns at public meetings. If we fight that overtly, however, we give them what they want…
Terrible…
kay
@tripletee:
Did they though? In any real sense? List what they did, after the SCOTUS verdict. Make a list.
Here’s mine:
1. birth certificate
2. insane screeching over stimulus
3. insane screeching over bail outs
4. insane screeching over GM-Chrysler
5. insane screeching over first and second trip abroad
6. town hall meetings
7. school speech
8. Notre Dame speech
There was a genuinely contested election in 2000. Wanna list what liberals did to refute the FACT of Bush’s Presidency?
Elie
kay:
Add:
9. Insane screeching over death panels
10. Insane screeching over killing babies
General Winfield Stuck
We just need a cotton field on the South Lawn, so Obama can do some legitimate work.
tripletee
@kay:
I was just messing with you – sorry, couldn’t resist. I was surprised that a full-time spoof like Makewi had passed up such a tempting target.
licensed to kill time
@General Winfield Stuck:
Gah, just spewed water all over the screen!
DZ
Peak wingnut has been achieved more than once, but with devastating consequences. Try Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mbutu, Idi Amin and many others
Elie
REN
Their empire as they knew it is already gone and irreplaceable. All they will do if this continues is assure that we will all be living in hell for some time to come and no one will be a beneficiary.
kay
@Elie:
Add:
1. Holder, Eric, everything he has ever done or said, to date
2. two day crazed rant directed at Homeland Security (remember that? it was early)
3. full-week rant over mortgage program (I had forgotten that. CNBC, etc.)
I watched about 90 seconds of Glen Beck last night. He takes Obama Administration members, flashes a (distorted) picture of them up on the screen, and flashes an out of context paragraph.
Here’s the truly bizarre part. He adds various computer-generated “voices” to SPEAK the cherry-picked paragraph. I watched this freaking insane treatment of Cass Sunstein last night. Cass Sunstein is a brilliant, mild-mannered academic. He’s a law professor. Glen Beck distorted his face and voice to make him out to be a crazed monster. It was just scary-crazy.
I was watching this in amazement.
Cyrus
Heh, yeah, I noticed that too. Not sure where, but probably in a link from Sullivan’s. Before now I think I’ve only seen thenextright.com linked by Ezra Klein as an example of a reasonable conservative from Ezra’s old blog. So I went to Ezra’s new blog and left the following comment:
I’ve given you and/or him a hard time in the past (at your old blog, at least) because for all that you touted him and others at thenextright.com as a moderate, more-or-less principled Republican, they still toe the party line, have no concrete policy proposals except for tax cuts, slobber all over Zombie Reagan, etc.
However, Henke has a post up now calling birthers “the Birchers of our time,” calling for a boycott of WorldNetDaily, and among others he’s trying to get the RNC on board. Now obviously, the RNC includes some birthers itself, but this actually does look like a step in the right direction rather than his usual lip service.
Good for him. Maybe (maybe) you were right about The Next Right.
It’s been fun to read the follow-ups the their comments, where between birthers saying “WND is right you RINO” and liberals saying “boycotting birthers won’t work because too many conservatives ARE birthers,” Henke is basically alone.
Elie
kay;
And —
1. His trip to New York City with his wife for an evening out.
2. He wore comfortable jeans to throw out the All-Star first pitch
3. He was accused of throwing the pitch in the dirt, despite visual evidence that it was indeed caught by the Catcher
We won’t even go into Michele of the Bare Arms and Shorts!
kay
@tripletee:
Sorry. I’m touchy about that. I’m proud of liberals for the post-SCOTUS behavior. I’m with Al Gore. You gotta accept the decision. We did, and I’m proud of that.
Imagine this crowd? Jesus. There would be blood in the streets. They lost by a huge margin, and they still don’t accept it.
Demo Woman
Let’s not forget the terrorist bump made the news!
Quaker in a Basement
Elie, Kay:
DVD-gate!
freelancer
I think this sketch is a perfect metaphor for the right wing vs Obama lately:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tP4yX2rkpBc
kay
@Elie:
I put all that under “sniping”.
Michelle has very toned over-40 arms. Some resentment of that was inevitable. I didn’t expect it to come from DAVID BROOKS, who is seething with jealousy over Michelle Obama’s biceps, apparently, but, whatever. He’s sort of pale and flabby.
kay
@Quaker in a Basement:
I forgot that. That WAS big. Two days. What was it about, again? :)
kay
@Demo Woman:
Terrorist fist bump, duly noted. OUTRAGE.
GATES! How could we forget the 2 weeks they spent on Gates!
Christ. They must be exhausted. This list goes on and on.
Michael
I’m thinking that if they succeed in causing civil unrest via some vile act of mass mayhem, I may have to go on a conservopundit hunt of my own, consequences be damned.
Makewi
@tripletee:
I can’t always be here. Sometimes you are just going to have to police yourselves.
I would boil the argument over how the kvetching is somehow SO MUCH WORSE now to one of our child molesters are so much cooler than your child molesters. If you say so.
Makewi
@Michael:
You have my vote for Internet tough guy of the day.
freelancer
@Makewi:
??
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/920086/
Chad N Freude
@Deborah:
Fixed.
Fixed better.
Brachiator
@PurpleGirl:
Well, no. The King James group consisted of 47 scholars, based out of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. They knew ancient languages and had access to some of the best previous English translations of the Bible (Tydale, Cloverdale) and good versions of the Greek, Hebrew and Latin texts. Some translation issues are the same as exist today – no consensus as to what a word or phrase means.
Many evangelicals prefer the The New International Version, one of the most popular “new” translations, which is due for another cleanup in 2010.
Evangelicals and fundies believe that the word of God comes through no matter how the Bible is translated, which is just as goofy as the Pope’s recent insistence that the Bible can only be understood with the Church.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=15765
I believe in mocking fundies as much as anyone. But it helps to have an accurate understanding of where they are coming from.
When John Quincy Adams won a disputed election (the House of Representatives had to decide between Adams and Andrew Jackson), Adams enemies fumed, tried to undermine him and made sure he would be a one-term president.
When John Tyler became president upon the death of William Harrison, some didn’t think this was constitutional, and insisted on referring to Tyler as Vice-President or Acting President. Opposition to Tyler and his policies was so great that there was an attempt to impeach him. One of the committees was headed by John Quincy Adams, which set irony bells ringing throughout the known universe.
Elie
kay, Quaker:
I am reminded of the movie The Exorcist”.
There is a scene when the young priest tries to describe to the lead, experienced exorcist how many personalities are manifested by the vile spewing, head turning, levitating, eye rolled back, screaming entity in the bed. The Exorcist turned to him and said:
“There is only one” — meaning, all of these various manifestations are just basically different versions of the same monstrosity…
Sometimes it helps me to think of it that way, though I am not formally religious, nor do I really believe in exorcism…After this period and experience however, I may change my mind.
SIA aka ScreamingInAtlanta
Kay no.62 – that’s it exactly.
Michael
P.S. I’ll remind all that this was the schtick that they pulled on Terri Schiavo – keep repeating lies, even refuted ones, and do it in as many places as possible, while buffeting Congress, Jeb Bush and Dubya with enough repeated calls to make it look like a huge public sentiment.
Randall Terry’s movement may actually be running the GOP, because that is how they’re acting at the moment.
Elie
Licensed to Kill Time @ #50
“In that third year of the Kennedy presidency,” Manchester wrote, “a kind of fever lay over Dallas country. Mad things happened. Huge billboards screamed, ‘Impeach Earl Warren.’ Jewish stores were smeared with crude swastikas.…Radical Right polemics were distributed in public schools; Kennedy’s name was booed in classrooms; corporate junior executives were required to attend radical seminars.” A retired major general ran the American flag upside down, deriding it as “the Democrat flag.” A wanted poster with J.F.K.’s face on it was circulated, announcing “this man is Wanted” for—among other things—“turning the sovereignty of the US over to the Communist controlled United Nations” and appointing “anti-Christians … aliens and known Communists” to federal offices. And a full-page advertisement had appeared the day of the assassination in The Dallas Morning News accusing Kennedy of making a secret deal with the Communist Party; when it was shown to the president, he was appalled. He turned to Jacqueline, who was visibly upset, and said, “Oh, you know, we’re heading into nut country today.”
Whoa!!! We have had this sickness then a long, long time.
I’m sad, very sad….
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Elie:
Yo’ve never read Albion’s Seed or The Cousin’s War, I take it. It goes waaaaay back. England in the 1640s is probably as good place as any to start in tracing its origins.
General Winfield Stuck
@Michael:
This is true. But you can put only so many Clown Cars on the road before most people catch on and just point and laugh. This goes double after you wreck the economy and make Dick Cheney Lord of Flies.
BDeevDad
For those saying this is unprecedented:
Reagan’s speech to school children via C-Span and ITN (pre-internet)
Elie
ThatLeftTurn…
I will put those on my list – I think.
Its not that I did not know that crazy exists in the US. Just did not appreciate its prevalence and continuing reinforcement in our media to the full extent that I do now. It is extremism that invites and provocates a response that indeed ties you to the devil if you accept the challenge as it is offered.
I do not think that we have developed an adequate response to this that does not inflame its energy and dissipate our own … THAT would be turning a corner..
Catsy
@tripletee:
Ah yes, I remember it well–after Bush’s unequivocal victory over Al Gore, there was a huge groundswell of outrage–inspired and encouraged by the Democratic Party–at the idea that the white son of a powerful political dynasty could possibly defeat strong progressives like Gore and Lieberman.
Who could forget Gore’s weekly appearances on the Sunday talk shows, attacking the man who’d just defeated him in both the popular and electoral college in a landslide that left no one in doubt about the will of the nation?
Similarly burned into my memory were the vicious attacks from the mainstream left–again, encouraged by the Democratic Party and the media–questioning Bush’s patriotism and even whether or not he was an American citizen, accusing him of treason and stoking the fires of racism and resentment. I remember arguing with my fellow liberals, pointing out that their rhetoric about revolution and armed resistance was going to inspire some lone nut from PETA to commit actual violence.
Or perhaps one of these things is not like the other, and even attempting the comparison makes you look like a blithering idiot who couldn’t pour piss from a boot with instructions on the sole.
jack-of-all-thumbs
John,
As a former high school science teacher, thanks for making me laugh with that suggestion.
RobertB
My daughter’s school district has decided not to show President Obama’s Tuesday address due to the “controversy” surrounding it. I railed at the Superintendent’s secretary over the phone, because he wasn’t taking any calls at that particular moment.
http://www.hilliard.k12.oh.us/departments/superintendent.cfm
No news on the website yet, but I got the news email from the elementary itself.
PartyLikeIts1990
It’s a little surprising that Glenn Beck has the time to distort the words of Obama cabinet members, yet somehow just can’t find the time to deny the spreading rumors that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990.
Why won’t he deny it? A little hard evidence to show his innocence would go a long way in stopping these rumors, which suggest that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990.
kay
@RobertB:
Ask them if they showed Reagan’s address, or George HW Bush’s address.
Ask them that. George HW Bush actually pushed his education plan, prior to an election.
Where was the outrage?
Origuy
I’m reading Antonia Frasier’s Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot. There are some similarities to today’s situation. A group of Catholics planned to blow up the Houses of Parliament, to kill King James and his heir, so that a Catholic would replace him. This is the genesis of Guy Fawkes’ Day celebrations. Some of the actions of the radical Catholics remind me of the wingnuts. The difference is, though, that Catholics really were oppressed in Tudor and Jacobian Britain. But James, a Scot, was seen by many English as not really deserving of the English throne; Scots were barbarous, savage, certainly not house-broken.
The plotters thought they had far more support than they did.
General Winfield Stuck
@freelancer:
The only logs this troll launches are steamy and stanky..
Skepticat
@licensed to kill time:
I’ve unhappily been thinking about this a lot lately, for I remember it all too well. I live in abject fear of a recurrence.
slag
I can’t believe I never noticed the WEH tag before. Even having read the majority of WEH-tagged posts. Ahhh…the many layers of Balloon Juice.
Norris Hall
If parents don’t want their kids to watch that
black man telling white kids to stay in school that’s their right.
We Texan’s have a long history of opposing “the importance of education, working hard and setting goals.”
It’s our belief that kids will learn whatever they need to learn in time and that no attempt should be made to encourage them to do better or to stay in school.
Actually Obama should be telling that to little black kids. They are the ones that are dropping out and getting pregnant at 13.
Texas has a long proud history of keeping the blacks “in their place”. So now we got to listen to one of them blacks lecturing our white kids to stay n school??
If Obama wants to push a broom down the school halls, that’s ok. But to put that black man in a suit and tie and treat him like he’s the president of the United States or something like that….
Now that’s taking things too far.
I miss the good old days when those darkies had to address us as “massah”, don’t you
RobertB
@kay
Their rationale isn’t that they don’t want to show the speech because of the content, they don’t want to show it because of the controversy. The fact that the reasoning behind the controversy is 50% pure distilled wingnut and 50% obstructionism doesn’t really enter into the picture. Besides, I still have access to it on http://www.whitehouse.gov, so that makes it okay, right?
Catsy
What really gets me is that it boils down to this:
Obama: I’d like to speak to your kids about how important it is to stay in school.
Wingnuts: Oh yeah? Well then I’m keeping them home from school!
Sane Humans: …
Parenting FAIL.
kay
@RobertB:
I live in a very conservative area so I’m somewhat familiar with this stuff. Our high school science teachers once admitted to an out of area newspaper reporter that they “avoided” evolution, because it was “controversial”. We’re infamous as “bottom 10 in the state for science”, and number one for teenage pregnancy, per capita. It’s rural, it’s white, it’s low-income, and it’s NoBama.
They once tried to ban To Kill A Mockingbird. They tried to ban Harry Potter. They once held a prayer-service-vigil (or something, I’m not sure what the point was) prior to a school play where they excluded one child, because it was “in Jesus name” and this little girl wouldn’t say that, to her credit, because that’s not her religion. She stood there, outside the magic circle. Nice, huh?
I thank you for persevering. I know how difficult it can be.
freelancer
This thread inspired an idea:
So guess what I went and did.
Hopefully it makes y’all laugh as much as I crack my own self up.
spare
The more I think about this, the more mad I get. My kids’ school district is refusing to broadcast OUR president:
“because they don’t know what will be said the district decided not to show President Obama’s address live. ”
Maybe they should run it on 30-second delay and get the bleep machine out.
They say they’ll review and see if they can fit it in to the curriculum later.
What have we come to?
tripletee
@Catsy:
Snagged another one. I forgot how much fun spoofing can be.
@freelancer:
Nice! But 32 seconds really isn’t enough to adequately convey the true breadth and width of the crazy. Hell, 32 months might not be long enough.
bago
Y’know, Jesus was a pretty cool dude. Hung out with whores, First miracle was getting a party drunk, he said you should pay your taxes, and the only time he kicked some ass was when scumbags were making money off of religion.
Christ is a righteous dude.
michele
@RobertB:
actually, they are showing it.
http://www.hilliard.k12.oh.us/news/newsRelease.cfm?releaseID=090409
chrome agnomen
is out wingtard parents learning?
Commander Ogg
The writter Joe Bageant wrote the following in 2004:
For liberals to examine the current fundamentalist phenomenon in America is accept some hard truths. For starters, we libs are even more embattled than most of us choose to believe…Evangelical born-again Christians of one stripe or another were then, and are now, 40% of the electorate, and they support Bush 3-1. And as long as their clergy and their worst instincts tell them to, they will keep on voting for him…regardless of what we view as his arrogant folly and sub-intelligence. Forget about changing their minds. These Christians do not read the same books we do, they…consider even CBS and NBC super-liberal networks of porn and the Devil’s lies…They believe in God, Rumsfeld’s Holy War and their absolute duty as God’s chosen nation to kick Muslim ass up one side and down the other. In other words, just because millions of Christians appear to be dangerously nuts does not mean they are marginal.
Obama won the lection by 52.9% of the vote. Food for thought.