Following up on President Obama’s news statement earlier, Hillary Clinton blasts Trump for insinuating that PBO is somehow in league with ISIS, dispenses with the semantic stupidity around “radical Islam” and reaffirms the need to partner with Muslims at home and abroad:
Excerpts, again via Buzzfeed:
Her speech here, however, came as a full-scale rebuttal to the GOP nominee and his inflammatory remarks and false statements in the days after Orlando.
She dismissed his campaign as full of “conspiracy theories” and “pathological self-congratulations,” and tore through the national security address he delivered on Monday in New Hampshire as filled with “bizarre rants” and “outright lies.”
Clinton also reminded voters that Trump led the birther movement against Obama (“I guess he had to be reminded Hawaii is part of the United States”), and more recently cast doubt on an Indiana-born federal judge because of his Mexican heritage (“I guess he has to be reminded Indiana is in the United States”).
I’m so glad she raised the birther issue again since that is another overtly racist campaign he undertook that mirrors his more recent rants against Judge Curiel, and Trump should have to answer for it.
She also riffed on the “radical Islam” talismanic words idiocy, echoing Obama in saying that deeds matter more than words and reiterating how stupid it is to declare war on an entire religion. Bottom line, Trump is an ISIS stooge whose actions are playing right into the terrorists’ hands and is therefore unfit to lead. Huzzah!
PS: The video cuts off before the speech ends, but it’s the only one I could find. Sorry!
Elizabelle
A whacking fresh thread, eh?
Trentrunner
Is it just me, or is Hillary looking-sounding-acting especially super-fucking presidential in this?
Poopyman
Somebody pulled a brand new “This Time For Realz” post. Couldn’t have been Cole, since he never checks for new posts anyway….
ETA – Oops! I see it was Cole and he switched up posts. So the bigfooting continues unabated.
Uncle Cosmo
Feed is practically inaudible even with the PC audio maxed out. At least there’s closed captioning.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
I’m so sick of hearing about how somebody doesn’t say “Islamic terrorism” often enough. These right wingers truly cannot fathom how cheap words can be. Saying something is easy. They think it’s the biggest deal there is. It’s like the whole “American exceptionalism” shit. It’s the same damned shit. We don’t have to do anything, in their minds, to be AWESOME!!!!! All we have to do is say it, loudly enough and often enough. Cheap-talk patriots. That’s what they are.
Cole Moore Odell
Based on the past few days, it will be interesting to watch the dynamic over the next few months of Obama, Clinton, Sanders, Warren and others engaging in a coordinated daily pummeling of Trump while the GOP acts like pro wrestling refs momentarily distracted by something outside the ring.
dr. bloor
Every Trump speech is what Rummy would refer to as a target-rich environment. She and her speechwriters must be climbing over each other to get to the keyboard to write up responses to his sociopathic craziness.
Betty Cracker
@Cole Moore Odell: Yeah. I’m impressed so far with Warren, PBO and HRC taking turns whacking the tangerine pinata. Does Trump have anyone of stature who is willing to take on a similar role? Chris Christie, manservant, is too busy picking up McDonald’s orders.
trollhattan
@Trentrunner:
Don’t mean to come across as trivial but through the primary video clips of Hillary typically had her speaking at full throttle, which isn’t her strong suit and especially with a speech-strained throat. Long-form Hillary mostly speaks in a normal voice with good inflection, pauses, and none of the roughness. The other voice comes out when making a point or wrapping. I find listening to her pretty enjoyable for the most part; but anybody judging her on soundbites might not know her speaking abilities at all.
Uncle Cosmo
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
All flag-pin, no battle.
Yutsano
The only way that happens is if he loses and loses big.
schrodinger's cat
@Betty Cracker: We should call him Agent Orange. He is toxic and he is orange.
schrodinger's cat
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): In their minds its WW II and they are Churchill. They think Allies won because Churchill gave speeches and said the right things.
Groucho48
It’ll be interesting to see if this has any effect on the polls.
Steve Crickmore
But are Clinton and Obama winning the debate by avoiding linking the massacre to the background of Islamic extremism or jihadism, I doubt it.
jl
@Cole Moore Odell: I heard on news that Sanders will be giving a national internet address to his movement on Thursday. I hope he has intention, and a good plan, to keep his supporters on board for a huge turnout in November. If he has a plan, he isn’t wasting any time getting on it. I hope it is a good one.
And, the HRC we saw in the clip is the perfect antidote to Trump nonsense. Hope we hear more like that.
Cole Moore Odell
@Betty Cracker: Would Trump allow anyone of stature to speak for him? Seems antithetical to his M.O. Based on past behavior, I imagine that even if he did let someone like Christie defend his bullshit, Trump would feel compelled to immediately undercut and humiliate him just to show everybody who’s boss. He’s like a supervillain who kills his own henchmen to show how crazy evil he is. It’s why I’m having trouble envisioning who could possibly be his running mate.
Iowa Old Lady
@Groucho48: Yes! I want to see how the polling reads over the next week.
aimai
@Uncle Cosmo: All flag pin/no battle is fantastic.
Also: great speech. Loved it.
jl
@Steve Crickmore: I think Obama and HRC discussed and explained it very clearly and in detail. As we get deeper into general election, more people will start paying closer attention. So, I don’t understand what that link thinks it is talking about with ‘not discussing it;.
jl
@jl: And one reason I hope Sanders gets in the fight is that he can thunder withering Old Testament Prophet style ridicule and explanation like no one else, not even Obama or HRC. Maybe Biden comes close.
Lamh36
what’s that they say about a broken clock
opiejeanne
@jl: Sounds like “concern trolling”.
MomSense
@Trentrunner:
Super fucking presidential!
Obama and Hillz are pretty fantastic at the one-two punch. This is going to be glorious.
schrodinger's cat
@opiejeanne: I agree, he has said the same thing at least 10 times.
piratedan
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): these are the same tools that say that Dems don’t have enough respect for vets while at the same time the GOP is busy strangling the funding of the VA.
Chris
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
There’s an essentialism to wingnut ideology that makes them place an enormous value on what people are, intrinsically, in some sort of innate and unalterable way… that’s completely removed from what people do. It’s how they end up patting each other incessantly on the back over how they’re not racist because they don’t habor hatred for blacks and gays and Muslims, and how it’s incredibly unfair of liberals to claim that they’re racists when they can’t see into their hearts. The fact that a racist is not someone who feels racist feelings but someone who does racist things and that nobody gives a fuck who you are “on the inside” genuinely doesn’t occur to them.
Betty Cracker
@Steve Crickmore: You’re buying Trump’s silly-ass semantic bullshit. Neither PBO nor HRC deny or obfuscate the religious connections to this particular brand of terrorism — both specifically said the terrorist attack was based on a “perverted version of Islam” in their speeches today, FFS, and they’ve said it before. What they DON’T want to do is to generally alienate Muslims. That’s not only smart policy, it’s the right thing to do. What’s so hard to understand about that?
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@piratedan:
Well, yeah. Who cares what anybody does? It’s what they say that defines them!
TriassicSands
I heard a former FBI agent say that there have been 892 “mass shootings” in the US since Sandy Hook. How is that even possible?
daves09
@Cole Moore Odell: Just read the full Trump statement excommunicating the WaPo. Unless he has a mental double-scary thought-he wrote the damned thing himself. The man cannot delegate-expect him to announce that he will be his own VP.
MattF
@Chris: Also wingers claim profound insight into people’s true belief. So, even if Obama doesn’t pray to Mecca in public– he’s a Kenyan Mooslim in his heart, and that’s what counts.
ruemara
@Cole Moore Odell: you can excise Sanders from that list. He’s still focused on the primary.
Kay
It seems like a real problem to me for Trump that he has no surrogates. It’s an advantage in a primary, the “outsider” role but what it means now is no one will defend him because it’s too risky. They have their own political careers to worry about. They don’t know what he will say or do.
The only thing holding him up is poll numbers. Without that, Trump has nothing. That’s the tightrope he’s walking. They’ll bolt en masse if it starts to look like a sure thing he’s going to lose.
MattF
@daves09: He’ll show up at the convention with a sock puppet and declare that it’s the Vice President.
NonyNony
@daves09:
He hired John Barron or John Miller to be his PR person.
(To those who can’t follow the link and don’t remember this story – in the 90s Trump pretended to be his own PR person to fluff himself to the media. The man has always been a nut.)
Keith P.
I actually overheard a conversation at work today where one guy asks another one “I mean, how can he possibly defeat something that he can’t even mention by name?” I didn’t insert myself into the conversation because I hate arguing with talking points (too much like living on a cable news channel), but jeez, talk about blindly repeating without thinking.
Mnemosyne
@Steve Crickmore:
The FBI and local police are now backing off the “terrorism” link in Orlando. He does not appear to have had any real connection to ISIS and seems to have been a sad, angry man who couldn’t accept his own sexuality and was grasping for an excuse for his actions. Why are you buying in to a mentally ill murderer’s delusions?
O. Felix Culpa
It makes me proud to have leaders like President Obama and Secretary Clinton. Both are people of integrity and courage. Given the crap that’s thrown at them, though, why do they (or any other decent, rational person) want this wretched job of president?
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Chris:
I’ve thought about this a lot over the last few years. I’ve written before here about our older daughter, now 9. When she was 3 or 4, she had a little bath towel thing with a frog’s face on one corner, made so it would fit over the back of a child’s head and they could kind of wrap it around themselves after a bath. She took to it, and would sometimes put it over her head and became “Super Froggy!” Super Froggy was a superhero. One time I asked her what made Super Froggy so super; that is to say, I asked why she was a super hero when she became Super Froggy. The question utterly threw her. She couldn’t begin to answer. “Uh, uh, well, uh, I’m Super Froggy!” was all she could answer. And right then, I understood in a flash how conservatives’ minds work when it comes to “American exceptionalism” or anything like that.
Our daughter wasn’t a super hero because she did anything. She was a super hero because she was something. She was Super Froggy. That was the beginning and the end of it to her. She became a super hero by virtue of calling herself one, and that alone. I think many conservatives have no deeper understanding of what makes us who we are then our then-four year old child did.
Or, as Professor Dumbledore said at the end of one of the Harry Potter books, when Harry learned that he had some of the same abilities that Voldemort had, it isn’t what we can do that defines us; it’s what we choose to do–or not to do. In the same way, it isn’t what we call ourselves that means anything, but what we do, how we live our lives. Depressingly few conservatives seem to get this.
MattF
@Kay: Some polling has shown a measurable negative ‘Trump Effect’, particularly among moderates– and if the effect continues to be seen, Republican politicians will be doing disappearing acts. They’re cowards, after all.
NonyNony
@Kay:
He’s damn lucky that the press has to keep the horserace narrative running to keep their ratings from tanking. If we had a truly neutral press they’d have to report that he’s been consistently down in the polling averages against Clinton since last year. Or even more – they’d frame the polls in terms of electoral votes rather than the popular vote to show exactly how far apart the two are.
Instead they’ll push every outlier poll that will help them keep the idea that this is a close race alive for as long as they can.
jl
@ruemara: See what the news is about his address to his minions on Thursday.
My personal view is that he de facto dropped out of his presidential run during his speech on June 7 when it became clear he got whooped.
Now he is focused on leading his political revolution. Whether that is for good or ill after November, we will know more after Thursday.
But, I could be wrong. I hope not. If he natters about continuing his presidential quest in his national address, he’s a jerk, or a fool, or getting old in the head.
Last thing I heard him say about his presidential run and the convention was “we can do arithmetic’.
trollhattan
@TriassicSands:
IIUC any time four of more people are shot (wounded or killed) in a single incident that’s a mass shooting. Heck, I’ll wager my metroplex has had at least a couple dozen since then.
Steve Crickmore
@jl: Clinton and Obama are finally drawing closer to actually discussing that this is part of Islam, that is becoming more virulent and has crossed over borders. Still I don’t see them pleading for the liberation of Muslim women or gays in the Muslim world. Their politics have been to scrupulously avoid touching on these issues, other than Obama praising what “a great religion” Islam is- without the caveat that it may be great only for people born with male genitals.
trollhattan
@Cole Moore Odell:
I would pay money, yoooge money, to watch Trump tell Christie to get his shine box.
jl
@MattF: As I noted in earlier thread, I heard on the news this morning that main source of Trumps recent drop in the polls is among middle age politically moderate white guys. That would be a very good sign, if it continues.
Kay
@MattF:
They are cowards but they also don’t agree with him. The vast majority of Republicans voted to fast track TPP. Bush led an immigration reform bill effort and almost passed it. It was extremely friendly to business interests, who all want immigration reform. So, they know he’s unqualified, they don’t have any history with him and they disagree with him on huge areas of policy. But, the base voted for him and he was w/in 5 points of Clinton. Without the competitive polls his entire leverage is gone. It’s one thing to back a potential winner that you loathe, it’s another to back a loser.
Mike in NC
@Kay:
He can trot out Sarah Palin and Ann Coulter to talk about his yoooouge brain and business skills, but that won’t play out the way he thinks. Please proceed, confidence man.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Steve Crickmore:
Your concern is noted, but nobody here gives two shits what you think. So fuck off.
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
Strangely, one of the few arguments I ever won with my late conservative dad was when he said that some people were just bad, and I said, “Well, sure, but they’re just as likely to be running Enron as they are to be dealing drugs.” He didn’t really have a comeback to that.
Steve Crickmore
@Mnemosyne: Look at his father and question whether politics and religion were not a large part of the killer’s pathology.
Emma
@Steve Crickmore: Oh FFS! You will keep trying this silliness until the end of time, won’t you? All of the religions of the Book are better, much better, for male genital humans. It’s baked in the goatherder tribal structure.
Betty Cracker
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Great analogy! And if I ever have to pick a new internet handle, I may go with Super Froggy…
jl
@Steve Crickmore: Did you listen to HRC’s speech. She specifically addressed those issues. But it sounds like your problem is position of women in Islam generally. But that is your issue, not Trumps. And then i think similar discussion of women in reactionary Christianity, Hidusim and Judaism in order too.
RobertDSC-iPhone 6
@jl:
In all honesty, Bernie is completely out of his league when it comes to foreign policy. It would be far, far, far better for him to zip it after today. He is hopelessly outmatched with Obama and Hillary taking turns on shitbag Trump.
His time is over. No more words from Bernie. Nothing he says or does matters anymore.
MattF
I predict that we are going to start hearing complaints about skewed polls.
trollhattan
@Mike in NC:
Thanks for reminding me of Moose-olini’s endorsement speech, during which the bloated fuck just stood there and to be honest, I couldn’t tell whether smiling or grimacing. But it was the quietest I’ve ever seen him. He’s not stupid, was he thinking “What have I done?” or was the word salad acceptable to Donny? What a weird, weird event.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Betty Cracker:
Take it with my–and our daughter’s–blessing. Somebody has already taken Mingobat, which was what our three year old wanted to name our new dog. Maybe I should start a business selling internet handles. I can’t use all the ones I come up with for myself, though, Lord knows, I’ve been trying…
satby
@Steve Crickmore: I am not a spokesperson for Islam, but the Muslim world is as diverse as the Christian one. Westboro Baptist doesn’t speak for all Christians, does it? A billion Muslims are not represented by a few hundred extremists either.
And though we flatter ourselves that we are Daesh’s main target, it is in fact other Muslims, mostly Shia, that they consider their primary target. They consider Shiites heretics.
The Thin Black Duke
@jl: I think that the more people see of Trump and understand what he is and what he wants to do, the more irrelevant Bernie Sanders becomes. People are beginning to realize who the real enemy is, and Bernie can either stop this nonsense and get on board or get left behind. There’s no time for bullshit.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@satby:
Oh, don’t try to teach him anything. He’s on a roll, here, and you’ll only confuse him.
Immanentize
@Chris: This so much. I have a million things to say about this — but I will just leave this one from my death penalty defender colleagues (who came to the work through his deep Catholic faith) who used to say:
“Some of my Baptist friends seem to think that the difference between good and evil is the difference between themselves and others. But a true Catholic understands that the difference between good and evil is a line that runs straight down the center of the human heart.”
I never thought that last clause depended on being Catholic.
gene108
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Cheap words have underpinned their entire political party for decades from George W. Bush’s “ownership society” to his dad’s “A thousand points of light”.
Group tested, Luntz-approved words are what drive their Party, because most folks don’t really support what they stand for, with regards to wealth redistribution.
O. Felix Culpa
@Steve Crickmore: Sorry to intrude facts into the concern trolling, but Secretary of State Clinton did an awful lot for women internationally in the Obama administration. Somehow I don’t think it’s quite the done thing for a Democratic administration to attack a religion. Let’s leave that perfidy to the Republicans. Obama and Clinton can – and have – achieved humanitarian goals through other, more effective means.
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/05/12/judging-hillary-clinton-as-secretary-of-state/clinton-was-a-powerful-voice-for-women-around-the-world
Iowa Old Lady
@Kay: Here you go, Kay. Bloomberg poll taken between Friday and Monday: 49/37 for Clinton over Trump.
dogwood
@jl:
Sanders is still campaigning for the nomination, giving the same stump speech. If he wanted to appear presidential, he would be weighing in on this stuff in a serious manner. I don’t think today’s primary is going to get the attention he and his supporters hoped for and what he he does after tonight is going to be less important than they think as well. This is the danger of such a narrow campaign. When the shit gets real about an issue you don’t talk much about, you’re pretty much out of the mix.
schrodinger's cat
@satby: Adding to the point you are making. Not that I am a spokesperson for Muslims either. This kinda of ignorance is appalling.
Yesterday when I was listening to Gandhi’s favorite bhajan, I came across a Qawwali version of it.
Imagine that, Muslim pplz singing a Hindu bhajan.
Many Sufi shrines in India attract Hindu and Sikh devotees and Bhakti (Devotion) movement in India is deeply influenced by Sufi poets and vice versa. See for example, Kabir, who wrote poetry praising Ram and Rahim.
WaterGirl
@satby: and your second bird flew the nest today, right?
trollhattan
@The Thin Black Duke:
Yup. Last weekend’s sad and savage events pushed Bernie into irrelevance a lot faster than otherwise would have happened. Whatever traction he may have had is missing and I don’t expect him to have a big influence at the convention.
Mnemosyne
@Steve Crickmore:
Uh, are you under the impression that only Muslim self-hating gays lash out and kill other gay men? Because I’m pretty sure that neither John Wayne Gacy nor Jeffrey Dahmer were Muslims, though I’m pretty sure you’re now going to try and claim they were since they don’t fit your paradigm.
ETA: I’m pretty sure that being raised in an abusive, crazily religious home did not help the killer’s mental situation. But the fact that it was a Muslim home rather than a Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Buddhist one has a whole lot less to do with it than you’re willing to admit. Islam is not special. Sorry.
gene108
@Steve Crickmore:
You don’t get to reform other people’s religions.
It’s not a hard concept to grok.
Patricia Kayden
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): I guess calling terrorism “Radical Islam” somehow discredits all Muslims, in the minds of Rightwingers. I wonder if those same people would be comfortable with calling KKK “Christian Terrorists”. It’s not as if this country doesn’t have a history of White Christians using organized violence against minorities.
Kay
@Mike in NC:
Well, he can but they’re horrible and also has-beens. If anyone knows that it’s Donald Trump. He understands “popular”. He also has no “campaign” (as an organizational entity) so he’s wholly dependent on the GOP and the various conservative orgs to turn theirs over to him. Sean Hannity’s grifter operation run out of a PO Box in Virginia just isn’t going to be enough.
It’s weirdly fascinating to watch, because it’s an absence rather than a presence. There’s just nothing real there.
satby
@WaterGirl: Yes, she did! I’m going to have to create and share a little photo album of the year for you all to see if you’re interested. I’ll link in a morning open thread later.
You got home safely, I assume?
Schlemazel Khan
@Steve Crickmore:
oh go fuck a goat dipshit
EDIT
scratch that – no sense a poor innocent goat should suffer from your angry inch. Go fuck a night stand
Patricia Kayden
@Steve Crickmore: Secretary Clinton and President Obama may be very aware that in our country, there are religious extremists who are still fighting against marriage equality and civil rights, i.e., bathroom bills targeting transgender people. We have our own Christianists to deal with.
satby
@schrodinger’s cat: The success and care with which India has integrated it’s Muslim minority is a good example for the world. Because I know that came at a cost.
OzarkHillbilly
@Steve Crickmore: When are you going to discuss the fact that this is part and parcel of all the Abrahamic religions? That more Americans have been killed by so called “Christians” than Muslims have ever dreamed of killing? That pro-life Christians aren’t very pro life once a person is born? That there are legions of “Christians” wandering our streets armed to the teeth just waiting for somebody to….. fill in the blank?
Get off your holier than thou high horse. Jesus wouldn’t be very impressed and neither am I.
scav
Steve Crookneck is giving me flashbacks about how we had to go into Iraq because of the poor poor wimminz, over issues that if they were enacted domestically would be forcing PC-bullshit down the oppressed real ‘mercans’ (necessarily evangel) necks. This is just a rainbow flavored repeat. Apparently shoving gay-marriage falafel down other people’s necks (preferably with US issue tanks) isn’t over-reach, while the evangel-sponsored goverment crackdown on gays in Uganda and elsewhere is star-spangled reeeeeeligious freedomz and also a mandatory export.
schrodinger's cat
@satby: There are some black marks too, like Godhra in the early aughts and the business with Babar’s mosque in the early nineties. Islam has been in India for over a 1000 years.
schrodinger's cat
@satby: There are some black marks too, like Godhra in the early aughts and the business with Babar’s mosque in the early nineties. Islam has been in India for over a 1000 years. There have been many ups and downs along the way
Feathers
@gene108: Dashiell Hammett said it best: “The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.”
aimai
@dogwood: This, a thousand times. I said this over at Kos but it bears repeating here. Presidents don’t have the luxury of picking the kind of crises that face them every day. You don’t know when you go to bed what disaster awaits you the next day. Just because you have a program, or a platform, doesn’t mean that it will have any relevance to the issue that will smack you in the face five minutes after you are sworn in. That’s why you can’t pick a President based on a laundry checklist, you have to pick someone who is calm, collected, battle tested, rational, well educated, well prepared, etc…etc…etc… I’m very, very, happy with my choice in this primary and sad that Bernie is proving himself to be so, well, unpresidential.
msdc
@Trentrunner:
I think it’s the comparison to the other available options. But it’s a comparison she’s chosen to highlight.
scav
@Schlemazel Khan: Night stands are useful, especially for people with glasses. Can we compromise on a rusty garbage disposal?
dogwood
A thread about Clinton and Obama’s tag-team effort to go after Trump is taken over by a troll and his enablers. What a surprise.
catclub
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
All the things that actually make us exceptional – primarily birthright citizenship and welcoming of immigrants – they hate those.
Steve Crickmore
@jl: I listened to the first part of her speech. Your are correct, one of my issues with all religions is that they are very patriarchical, because they reflected temporal power at the time of their creation and growth. It is difficult to give women equality without questioning the whole foundation of first Islam yes and secondly Christianity etc. and so on. We gave up beliefs in Jupiter and Thor and someday, we may do the same for the God of Abraham when it becomes untenable. In the meantime, Obama and his successors can not afford to speculate too much beyond the average citizen’s imagination or reasoning ability. So I suppose this is a balancing act that all political leaders in a democracy face if they want to get elected.
Cacti
@dogwood:
Over the past week, when Sanders has still tried to hold himself out as a serious candidate for the Dem nomination, he’s looked really…small. The party has moved on without him.
catclub
@Feathers: “The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.”
I just read the entire interview Trump had with the WaPo in March. Either patter or straight gibberish.
jl
@jl:
And I forgot to add that, as far as I can see, reactionary Christianity is the public face of Christianity in the US today. I think reactionary Xtianity is what is advertised as the real olde tymey Christianity (though in several important ways it is the opposite of traditional Christian doctrine) by the TV news actors and pundits when they feel the need to demonstrate some respect for religious and spiritual issues in the US. And, speaking as a very liberal semi-Christian, don’t the moderate, liberal and radical liberal Christian communities all bear responsibility for letting this happen? Are they not all, including me, SUSPECT and COMPLICIT?
That possibility might raise uncomfortable parallels with sanctimonious concern trolling about the billion plus Muslims on the planet.
Chris
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
I think that’s about right. Although it should be said that vast, vast, vast rivers of ink have been spilled in terms of justifying things like 1) why America is Exceptional, 2) why conservatives are not racist, etc. But they seek it out as rationalization to comfort themselves – as given away by the fact that, when confronted and asked why, if they support anti-gay or anti-black or [wev] policies, they shouldn’t be called racist, it inevitably devolves into some form of “you can’t see into my heart.”
Also… For me, this actually started out as a theological argument, so it’s worth noting that there’s actually an entire philosophical doctrine out there that actually pretty much revolves around “it’s what you are, not what you do.” The entire “salvation through faith alone” school of thought holds that because mankind is so inherently broken, trying to earn salvation through what we do is pointless. The only thing we can do is embrace Jesus as our personal savior, at which point he’ll just ignore all our sins and save us. What that translates to in real-world terms: “join our tribe, and you’re one of the Elect. Don’t, and you’ll go to hell.” It’s a very small jump from that to “good and evil are tribal identities, not things we do.”
Baud
I’m not big on polls, but since we are constantly subjected to negative polls, here’s TPM just now.
Miss Bianca
@Steve Crickmore: Like you give a crap, really, about gays or Muslims in “the Muslim world”. In case you haven’t noticed, things aren’t exactly awesome for those “born without male genitals” right here in the good old Christianist USA. Forget what the President or Sec. Clinton are doing or not doing in Muslim countries – what are *you* doing to address women’s and gay rights, right here, right now? Given your deep, deep, professed concern for same?
jl
@Steve Crickmore: I got no problem if you feel that way about Islam. But I don’t think that has anything to do with the BS attacks Trump and reactionary politicians are making now on Democrats.
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’m pretty sure Steve has no clue that there’s more than one kind of Muslim, much less that the different sects are fighting each other in Syria.
He’s basically saying that the Southern Baptist Convention is led by Pope Francis and has no clue why we’re laughing at him.
Chris
@Immanentize:
I promise I hadn’t read this when I posted the above.
The theological debate as I experienced it was in fact Catholic vs. evangelical (Catholic doctrine holding that your actions do matter in earning your salvation). But I’d like to point out that American-style evangelical fundamentalism is a pretty specific belief system – it’s not all Protestants who believe that, and it’s certainly not all non-Catholics. And on the flip side, as with creationism, there are plenty of Catholics who basically believe the same thing (that you have to be Catholic to be a good person/to get into heaven/wev) even if it’s not technically what the church teaches.
That’s kind of the problem with “good and bad as tribal identity markers” – it can be applied to virtually any tribal identity you want.
Cacti
@Baud:
Currently, Drumpf is tied with Clinton in Utah, and trails her in Kansas.
The 2016 election has early potential to turn into a once in a generation, Goldwater-esque EC beat down.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: All Muslin wimmenz is oppressed. One of my housemates was a Pakistani woman who was doing a master’s in EE. I also knew a couple of female Jordanian grad students in Chemistry. I guess they women didn’t get SC’s memo. Most of these women chose to stay back find jobs over here.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: Ah yes — the Christianist credo: “Life begins at CONCEPTION! But ends at birth.”
John D
Look, the Bloomberg poll is super awesome and great and wonderful, but it’s still June and that’s a poll for the general in November. It has all the predictive power of roadkill. Lets not get complacent, OK?
Baud
@Cacti: Obama may end up like Moses, leading his people to the Promised Land but never entering it himself.
@John D: Ok.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: Also, that Obama’s signing the nuclear treaty with Iran is the first step towards reducing Saudi Arabia’s influence in the region. But of course, words are more important than action. Its like the stupid flag pin debate all over again.
sm*t cl*de
@efgoldman:
No need for the RNC. Remember Trump’s history of dropping out of debates to hold worthy-cause fundraisers (and hanging onto the money).
nominus
speaking of Bernie…bwahahahhahaha
https://twitter.com/BiIICIinton_/status/742832643897577472
les
@Steve Crickmore:
No they’re not, because they’re not avoiding the link. Christ, can you read?
jl
@schrodinger’s cat: Just my personal experience, but I’ve known quite a few Muslim people, families, from grad school and work. I’ve known some very pious ones who somehow, like some Christians, can reconcile belief in the literal truth in their Holy Book with what science tells us about the Big Bang and evolution. But also very liberal ones. And everything in between, including strange mixes of very liberal mindedness and spots of odd doctrinaire prudishness. One guy was so liberal, he has to be a little quiet in his home country about how he interprets the Koran, but he hates it when Muslim women play it a little sexy within the confines of traditional Muslim dress. Which may be why his wife dresses pretty western. Like, she can put on a bathing suit if she wants, no problem, but he gets pissed if she puts on a traditional head scarf and lets a little fetching hair lock show by accident on purpose.
Many of them remind me of US Catholic men’s attitude about stuff Popes have said about contraception: when the Pope talks about religion that is fine, that’s his job, but, hey, if you’re not playing the game, you don’t try to make the rules.
I think human nature is pretty much the same all around the world and in all religions.
Immanentize
@Chris: I totally believe you — two twigs in the same stream. For me, I have discerned the Calvinist thread (saved by grace, not by deeds) has now animated the Catholics. That, is a problem. Someone up above said something to the effect of, I don’t give a flatiron what you think inside, it is how you act that matters (was that you?). I (try and fail) to live by that. Every year I show my first year law students the following about racist acts and racist intentions. I love it, but more importantly, they do too! “You must remember that the ‘what they did’ conversation is different from ‘what they are conversation.'”
How to Tell Someone They Sound Racist: (Jay Smooth):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ti-gkJiXc
les
@TriassicSands:
I think the standard is 3 or more people shot. At that level, averaged over one per day last year. It’s so common you never hear about it.
schrodinger's cat
@jl: Most of the Muslim women I know don’t even wear a headscarf except when they go to a mosque or while saying prayers. My Pakistani roommate turned down a lot of proposals from back home because she liked her independence. I have lost touch with her and I don’t know if
she did eventually get married. She was a stickler for saying her prayers after she got home in the evening but other than that she didn’t make a big deal of her religion and was quite the feminist.
Brent
@John D: I certainly agree that we should not become complacent and I doubt anyone plans to do so. However, I think Josh at TPM also made an important point today which is that Drumpf’s entire appeal, such as it is, relies heavily on polls. His argument to the electorate is that he is a winner and the more he is shown to be losing, the worse it gets for him. He is, as Josh puts it, “uniquely dependent on winning poll numbers.” So as poll after poll comes out where he is not only losing but losing badly, it creates a downward spiral for the particular kind of candidate he is.
Personally, I would prefer to see the numbers a bit closer because the longer Republicans think they have a chance, the worse the damage will be when they realize they don’t. But here we are.
Mnemosyne
@John D:
Hey, if right-wingers can spike their Trump polls, Imma gonna spike that poll. It doesn’t mean I’m going to work any less hard just because I’m going to smack Republicans in the face with it.
Mnemosyne
@les:
Actually, I think the FBI standard is 4 or more killed. And, yes, we’ve met or exceeded that standard every goddamned day since Sandy Hook even while the overall murder rate continues to go down.
John D
@Mnemosyne: Fair enough. I’ve been staunchly against the argument that Sanders was more electable than Clinton because of polls for the general during the primary, so I felt like I honorably had to make the same argument in this case.
(It’s a great poll! Just … let’s look at August before we start to believe in it fully, lest our hopes get dashed.)
jl
@Brent:
‘ I would prefer to see the numbers a bit closer because the longer Republicans think they have a chance’
Not me, I hope Trump’s poll numbers go down to nothing but the rabid Republican primary voter base tomorrow, and then start going down from there as some of those people are shocked back into good sense.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@jl:
You’re making an awfully big leap there, thinking that these people ever had any good sense to begin with.
Cacti
@Mnemosyne:
And most incidents don’t get much mention beyond the local news.
Prior to the Orlando incident, the worst of 2016 happened in Hesston, KS back in February, with 4 killed and 14 wounded.
les
@Mnemosyne:
Thanks; I should look before I type, but that would be too much like work, like. The fact that pretty much anyone who sees the number is amazed kinda says what a society we’ve built, doesn’t it?
Betty Cracker
@Cacti: From your keyboard to the FSM’s delicate, noodley orecchiette!
trollhattan
@les:
Did some digging and there’s no accepted term of art for it. Did find a nationwide list of shootings with 4 or more victims, fatal or not. It will shock nobody paying attention there have been THREE since Orlando.
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
And there were 10 people killed the day before Orlando, in 4 separate incidents.
Carl W
@Mnemosyne:
Pretty sure that’s not quite right. There seem to be two popular definitions; one is “4 or more killed” (happens a few times a year), the other is “4 or more injured or killed” (happens, on average, about once per day). (Got that from this FiveThirtyEight podcast, sometime in the first 15 minutes probably?)
Kathleen
@efgoldman: I see The Combster phoning into the debate and the network putting a speakerphone in an empty chair on stage. Can you imagine how much fun Hillary could have with that?
Kathleen
@ruemara: Reminds me of the die hard Japanese soldiers who hid in caves thinking the war was still going on.
bemused senior
@Steve Crickmore: You should listen to this excellent speech which discusses HRC’s work for women’s rights internationally, beginning in Bill Clinton’s administration. She has fought for progress on this issue for many years.
bemused
@schrodinger’s cat:
I like!
From Both Sides of the Pond
@Chris:
The thing so many Protestants seem to miss is what is demanded of them in return for that saving grace – a life lived as unflinchingly as possible doing good deeds as a demonstration of gratitude for God’s mercy. If you can’t demonstrate that, you haven’t really internalized that promise, and therefore can’t actually receive that gift.
satby
@schrodinger’s cat:
There always are where human beings are concerned, aren’t there?
Monala
@TriassicSands: As mentioned upthread, mass shooting is defined as three or more persons shot or killed in a single incident (not counting the shooter). However, these incidences include family killings, gang and organized crime killings, as well as stuff like shooting up a workplace or going on a public rampage. The former two (family killings, gang/mob killings) are likely to only get attention locally, while on a national level, we tend to hear about the last type, which makes up about 1/4 of the total mass shooting incidences.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
@Cole Moore Odell: Many Baptists believe in predestination; God creates people good (as in white, Baptist, Republican) or evil (as in ethnic, Non-Baptist, liberal) and there is nothing anyone can do, ’cause the Baby Jesus wants them to go to Heaven or burn. Go look up the acronym TULIP.
Speaking as a god mocking Atheist, predestination sounds like the biggest idiocy I have ever heard. When you get down to it Religion is a life philosophy and telling someone they are good no matter how much of a vicious bastard they act like, might be comforting to the individual in question, but toxic to society at large.
Betty Cracker
@shomi: You’re right.
ChiGail
@satby: I would love to see your photo album of the girls’ year with you. I only saw the one pic of the Chicago meet-up (which I didn’t attend because the weather was awful that night).
From Both Sides of the Pond
@Enhanced Voting Techinques:
Calvin would have been horrified at those claiming to follow his thinking believing that. Predestination to him was that time is meaningless to a diety who exists outside it; he knows all your actions you will take at the beginning of time as well as at the end, because it’s all the same to him. You still have free will and choose all your actions – it’s just that God’s judgement transcends time. There’s no fate or inescapable destiny as people think of it.
Betty Cracker
@From Both Sides of the Pond: Have you ever read any Marilynne Robinson? If not, do yourself a favor…
Chris
@From Both Sides of the Pond:
That was exactly my objection at the time. That mankind can’t actually save itself is one thing, but that doesn’t mean you don’t still need to earn your way, and the idea that all you need to do that is say you accept Jeebus seems like quite a leap.
AxelFoley
@jl:
You’re kidding, right?