On the treason side, I give you Stephen Steven King¹, who is, of course, of interest to any GOP presidential aspirant as a major figure (FSM save the Republic!) in first-in-the-nation-caucus-state Iowa:
“…here is what [one] thing that I don’t understand, I don’t understand how Jews in America can be Democrats first and Jewish second and support Israel along the line of just following their president…”
Speaking as a Jewish-American who thinks Netanyahu is a corrupt, power-for-power’s sake bigoted hack whose policies are a clear and present danger to Israel, let me first say to Representative King:
Fuck you.
With that reasoned and considered reply out of the way, let’s parse this.
“I don’t understand”
Considering the speaker, that clause doesn’t narrow it down very much.
“how Jews in America”
Not, notice, “American Jews.” This line is the tell, the crack that lets you see into what smells to me like a very familiar trope of anti-Semitism. I don’t want to be paranoid, but King’s plain text tells you he sees within America a group defined by an affiliation, an bond of connection to a country or a cause that is not native to their home. We are Jews sojourning in America, and it may come to pass (how appropriate for the season!) that there will arise in Washington a King who knows not Moses. Or so this false prophet suggests.
“Democrats first and Jewish second.”
First,carnally know you again, King. I for one, am a Democrat at least in part because of my Jewish education. Specifically, Isaiah 58 v. 1-12. I may have lost any belief in a sky god — but tikkun olam* and that strand of the Jewish tradition remains a touchstone.
But more seriously, look at what King does here: he assumes a reflexive Jewish duty of allegiance to a political movement in Israel he conflates with Israel as a whole (not as bad an error I as I would wish right now, alas), which cannot be met as a member of the Democratic party.
“along the line of just following their president…”
Well, intercourse you some more, Congressman, sideways, with an oxidized farm implement. Barack Hussein Obama is America’s president. Yours too. Suck on it.
Diving a little deeper, what strikes me is the combination of hostility to Jews — American Jews — and the smell of treachery. We U.S. born and bound remnants of the Kingdom of Judea are failing Rep. King. We are unsatisfactory to him in the failure of our allegiance to a foreign power. He here explicitly advocates Jews in America form a fifth column for Israel. Failing to do so, we are to him twice the “other” — Democrats and the wrong kind of Jewish.
To which I say: beware of the demagogue who starts to define you out of commonwealth. The next steps…we’ve seen them before.
But even more, what do I see in King himself?
Treason is a nasty word. But there are clear US interests at stake in controlling any Iranian ambition for a bomb. Conspiring with a foreign leader to undermine US government efforts to that end?….
Next up: psychopathy, in the form of erstwhile blog favorite Paul Ryan. Here is his view on the appropriate state response if the Supreme Court were to gut subsidies on Healthcare.gov:
“If people blink and if people say this political pressure is too great, I’m just going to sign up for a state-based exchange and put my constituents in Obamacare, then this opportunity will slip through your fingers,” Ryan said, per the Journal.
That would be the opportunity to wait for Congress to enact a “reform” that would (on the evidence of the latest GOP budget fraud) gut Medicaid, erode Medicare, and leave millions of Americans (twenty million or more, as of this writing) without the health insurance they so recently gained.
In other words, the opportunity Ryan wants state governments to seize is to allow their citizens in great numbers to face the inevitable reality of illness and accident without a net.
Pure psychopathy. I’d use the word “evil” but I wouldn’t want to be accused of being shrill.
Beyond labels (see what I did there?) this is the message I take from the juxtaposition of Messrs. King and Ryan. This is the Republican party. These aren’t fringe players. They’re leaders, major shapers of policy, rhetoric and belief for just about half of the country, and much more than half of those with money enough to move power. And they are freaking crazy.
We have nothing but work to do between now and 2016. Not just the United States but the world can’t take the punishment of these guys holding all three branches of the government in Washington.
One last thing: to the question at the head of this post. To channel the wisdom of Reb Chevy Chase, they’re both.
¹Fix’t, per multiple corrections in the comment thread. Thanks all, and apologies to Maine’s favorite (horror-esque) son.
*F**k you WordPress autocorrects olam to loam, just so you know.
Image: Rembrandt van Rijn, The Old Rabbi, 1642.
Corner Stone
See ya later, Bill Self.
Rock Shock, no Jayhawk.
OzarkHillbilly
I saw the first few lines of this post yesterday. I guess you decided you had more you wanted to say better, Tom? Doesn’t matter. You are preaching to the choir.
Professor
Stephen King is an imbecilic, uneducated ignorant idiot, why worry about him? He does NOT understand the implication or effect of what he spouted on the airwaves.
WaterGirl
Tom, in response to your question, I say YES!
Mike in NC
Loam is exactly what scum like Steve King and Paul Ryan have between their ears.
OzarkHillbilly
Oh, and Peter King is to antisemitism what Rush redundant tree branch is to racism.
Zinsky
I think that is “rock chalk, Jayhawk!” But, yes it is dumb and pointless. And, yes, the Republicans are mindless traitors. And have been since WWII.
Brendan in Charlotte
Tom – Traiterous Psychopaths
Iowa Old Lady
The fact that these guys aren’t fringe players is shocking. I mean, Ryan is their budget guru. He was their VP candidate.
I don’t even know where the fringe would be any more.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
You got me worried for a minute that you were buying into the fairy tales the governor of Maine was spinning this week about Stephen King moving to a lower-tax state.
FWIW, the rep from Iowa’s full name is Steven, not Stephen:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_King
Linda Featheringill
Jews in America? But not Americans?
Hmmph.
So now Rabbi Steven King is telling youse guys how to think?
Double hmmph.
Baud
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Me too.
Roger Moore
@Iowa Old Lady:
The fringe is toward the center.
Germy Shoemangler
Jews in America?
Reminds me of the scene in Downton Abbey, when Rose’s grumpy mother meets her fiance: “I’ve always thought of you people as nomads.”
jl
I am not Jewish, but what King said made my blood boil. I cannot imagine my rage if I were Jewish or he went after the treacherous fifth column of Swiss-Irish Democrats. Hell, we don’t even have a country, how cosmopolitan and rootless is that, huh? Thanks to Levenson for parsing this scumbag’s verbal puke.
Seems like the media GOP worship is ramping up for the GOP primary. I doesn’t bother anymore, I just expect it.
That courtly and graceful pillar of the journalistic community, crazed hick and meretricious hack Schieffer gave the lone Democrat Tulsi Gabbard a very few minutes after most of the show was devoted to vile hacks and professional cynics and scumbags Corker and McCarthy. And then Schief’s first question was an attempt to get Gabbard to slam Obama.
Gabbard who is an Iraqi vet and seems like awesome person (check her Wikipedia bio) didn’t take the bait and appeared to have more knowledge and intelligence in her little finger than the three himbos that preceded her.
Note some weekly news rag with a supposedly serious story about what is Jeb!’s identity in the Bush crime family.
I also see that the new line is that the Democrats don’t have a deep bench. I hear that from some commenters too. Seems to me that the GOP only has a deep bench if you count all of their loons, including that jackass who is supposed to declare in a day or so.
I guess we could round up people like Schweitzer and him run around making a fool of himself in public more, so we would have a ‘deep bench’ too. But Schweitzer might not count since he has not always been a loon and a conman.
pete
I don’t understand how
Jewspeople in America can beDemocratsRepublicans first andJewishAmericans second and not supportIsraelthe USA along the line of just following their presidentmsdc
I don’t know, Steve King always makes me want to recite Ezekiel 25:17.
grandpa john
Ryan, evil? of course he is. His philosophy of governing is classic textbook personification of biblical evil, he is a prime example of the evil described in the book he proclaims to be a born again advocate of . So is King also
Villago Delenda Est
As I said over at Wonkette the other day on this, you could fill the libraries of the world with all the things that Steven King of Iowa does not understand.
jibeaux
I have to assume saying shit like this is approximately as effective as the “get off the Democratic plantation” pitch.
anyone else notice that this is all the party of “why are Democrats always playing identity politics wahhhh”?
OzarkHillbilly
Florida Lawmakers having much fun with the dance around the words “climate change”…. Too funny.
Normally I would hope that Betty C is watching, but in this case maybe it is better that she is not.
Germy Shoemangler
Mark Twain on Steve King:
“His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere.”
raven
@efgoldman: And some of us that are aren’t.
jl
Also, becoming more and more obvious that the bogus HRC mail scandal is basically a GOP attempt to keep BhengaZombie!!!!! alive.
My current theory of media GOP worship is that since our miserable failed corporate media experiment is almost entirely a toxic stew of ruthless, ignorant, narrow minded careerist corporate hacks and bad faith artists who have no life skills at all other than being greedy ambitious grifting, pandering, posturing, and frauds who present themselves as informed and curious journalists, they have a natural affinity for their closest kin in politics.
Adam
There has always been a deep well of antisemitism in the Republican party (Pat Buchanan, Ron Paul, most of the attacks on George Soros). Steve just forgot to say the loud part quietly.
WaterGirl
@efgoldman: Between Mark Kirk as a senator and the new republican governor, whose name I cannot stand to read or hear, let alone type, it feels like Illinois is starting to resemble that.
Iowa Old Lady
@efgoldman: Until Joanie Ernst replaced Tom Harkin and Rod Blum replaced Bruce Braley as my rep, I was doing fine. Now I’m keeping my head down and hoping this is a temporary situation.
jl
Forgot to add that Schieffer’s final tidbit of wisdom on his show today was an asinine pablum platitude stew of cluelessness about how Obama was really not being nice and keeping some kind of trivial political feud alive by not automatically running and making kissy kissy make-up as soon as Netanyahu started doing damage control after the election.
I didn’t know at the time Schieff was delivering a wan and anodyne version of McCain’s bitter idiocy today. I guess ol’ Schieff had been talking to his favorite John before the show.
Why does such a raft of corrupt morons have such political influence in this country.
Schieffer and McCain may actually believe what they say, since they seem to think that they are smart and very important savvy people who belong to some kind of special club and if everyone just plays along, it will all be fixed up in the quiet back rooms. See, they imagine themselves to be real players.
No wonder the current debased loons that inhabit and run the GOP get their balls lifted as easy as a dangling wallet every time they so much as try to pick their own noses in foreign affairs.
OzarkHillbilly
@efgoldman: There are worse things in the world. I could be living in Texas.
Elizabelle
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
As Mnem noted upthread: Tom: you need to correct the spelling of your miscreant’s name.
Stephen King is the horror/other stories author. Steven Arnold King is the psychopath representing Iowa’s 4th Congressional District.
Rather than focus on the psychopath: Stephen King, the writer from Maine, did something absolutely marvelous this week, and I’d be more blog captured if we said “atta boy” to him than whinged over the Iowa psychopath’s latest.
Stephen “Carrie Cujo Salem’s Lot” King in the news: Maine’s Tea Partying Governor Paul LePage said — erroneously — that King had moved to Florida to avoid paying Maine income taxes (which LePage would like to slash, to attract more wealthy retirees).
Not true. Stephen King fired back but good: per the Portland Press Herald:
Citizen_X
@Mnemosyne (tablet): I have to reiterate this point: the asshole Congressman’s name is STEVEN King, not to be confused with the legendary horror author (and liberal stalwart) from Maine, STEPHEN King.
Iowa Old Lady
@OzarkHillbilly: God, that is so true.
HRA
Thank you for posting this outrage, Tom. When I first read it this morning only as a title, I thought why isn’t anyone speaking up about it. This is so damn wrong.
rikyrah
They are traitors AND psychopaths.
See.
Answered that for you.
jl
@HRA:
One of the very few honest and competent political news organizations in the country is calling it what it is:
Anti-Semitic Congressman Lashes Out Again
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/anti-semitic-congressman-lashes-out-again
Edit: Might be rude and some kind of ethnic or race card double reverse dog whammy thing to call out Steve King’s bigtory. Might have to discuss all his other bigotries: blacks, Hispanics, women, pretty much anyone except people just like him. Plenty of white goys on his list too. He is clearly smearing the whole Democratic party as anti-Semitic.
Gavin
Republicans aren’t psychopaths.. that’s a few steps further down the NPI. They’re merely sociopaths!
Projection is a classic sociopathic technique.. if I’m attempting to control people and you’re my rival, I assert that you’re a manipulator! Why? It focuses stupid people [media] on you.. because who would possibly perceive that the same person who asserts others are manipulating… is themselves the manipulator!
grandpa john
@raven: Yeah, I can remember a time unlike the present when many of us were classified as traitors because we opposed the act of unilaterally invading a foreign country using lies and manufactured evidence by the then president and his government, wonder what changed?
Patrick
@jl:
Oh, for crying out loud. Netanhayhu came to Congress, knowing damn well that President Obama had not been informed or privy to his visit. Why the hell should Obama do anything? He and the office of the President was disrespected.
I am so sick of idiots like Schieffer who only speaks for the white, 70+ crowd in this country.
beltane
@HRA: The ADL is supposed to speak up about things like this, but they have gone full-bore Likudnik over the years, implicitly taking the side of Steven King over that of American Jews. 20 years ago, if someone created a fictional character resembling Netanyahu, they would have (rightly) been condemned as promoting Antisemitism. Someone should inform Netanyahu (I will not call him BiBi) that the American Christian right’s support for Israel is very broad and about a millimeter thick. It would take very little to convince them that the Israelis of today are somehow fraudulent and not The Ones who will bring about the Raputure.
Mostly I am angered by the very vocal right-wing Jewish organizations and the very milquetoast centrist and liberal ones. All of this has the potential of not ending well at all.
OzarkHillbilly
@Iowa Old Lady: @efgoldman:
I was born there. I have relatives there. And while my Aunt Jean is an absolutely the sweetest Southern Bell you ever could meet (I cussed her out the night my mother died)(she laughed)(Long story, but no, I did not know it was her) I have never yet met a Texan who had a sense of humor about Texas. Not even my mother.
rikyrah
I think he’s mad because I believe American Jews see the right-wing for who they are. Israel is useful because too many of the right wing support it because of The Rapture. If not for that, would they remotely care about Israel?
jl
@beltane:
“the American Christian right’s support for Israel is very broad and about a millimeter thick.”
That is rude. It is rude to point out that most people in the American Christian right supports Israel so they can get Armageddon going and have the pleasure of watching Christ (returned as Warrior this time, not some peacenik lovey guy) make the Jews grovel and give them a choice of converting to Christianity or dropping into hellfire.
That is really great support! To suggest there is something odd about that kind of support is probably anti-Christian bigotry.
srv
Congressman King? Sir, do you see any sorta pattern here?
Jewish Members of 113th Congress
BTW, how’s our Country Club application going?
raven
@efgoldman: And Barbara Jordan.
OzarkHillbilly
@efgoldman: Oh Dog… and how I miss her. Still, I never had the pleasure of actually meeting her. ;-)
Violet
@rikyrah: Yeah, you can’t pick. They’re both.
jl
@jl:
‘ [Steven King] is clearly smearing the whole Democratic party as anti-Semitic. ‘
Huh, hadn’t seen the post below yet when I typed that up above. Yep, I guess Steve King is pretty clearly doing just that:
King Says Anti-Semitism Contributed To Democrats’ Netanyahu Boycott
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/steve-king-israel-netanyahu-democrats
King starts to go full Holocaust on the Democrats.
Look, all you ‘Jews in America’ better listen up. Your friend Steven King is warning you the Democrats are going to go Nazi on you. What a vile pile of dung this guy is.
Anybody of any description who is not ‘Just Exactly Like Steven King and Jumps like a Bunny to Do Just What he Wants When he Wants’ is a fool if they don’t think they will show up on his list of groups to defame smear, slam slander, and bigot and discriminate against sooner or later.
Karen
That’s why when people say that Republicans love Jews I have to correct them. They love a Jew (Shel Adelson) and love Israel. But the Israel they have in mind is not for Jews. Unless they’re dead ones. I’m not looking forward to Passover because I’ll be hearing about how wonderful Netanyoohoo.is and the blood will be dripping from my tongue from biting it. To Zionist Christians like King, the only good Jew is a dead one that has brought on the End of Days and my GOP family on my dad’s side will not want me to say anything about it. Thank G-d the family on my mom’s side are teachers, principles and professors and are very liberal.My parents are as well.
Baud
@Karen: Do you have to bite your tongue?
azlib
This is where you lost Steven King. Clearly you are a godless atheist pretending to be a Jew. :-)
GregB
There are no Jewish folks in Pastor Hagee’s Kingdom come for sure.
I wonder if Reprehensible King would ever utter:
Are you a Muslim second and a Republican first?
jl
@efgoldman: Mere flunkies useful if it will net them a dollar or a vote.
Chris
This. The notion that Jews everywhere in the world have a racial obligation to a foreign country has pretty much struck me as deeply, deeply TARFU’d for a long time, whether it’s coming from antisemites accusing Jews of having such an allegiance or Zionists (or “Zionists”) on the other side demanding that they should have such an obligation.
One of the things that disgusted me the most about the reaction to Charlie Hebdo were the people I saw changing their Facebook or Twitter avatar to an Israeli flag – not a French one – after the kosher market shooting. Not actually sure what they’re saying; that they consider the dead Jews more Israeli than French; or that they care about the dead Jews more than they do the non-Jews who were also targeted and killed; or if they’re simply being refreshingly honest and saying “I actually don’t give a shit that these people died, I’m just gonna use them as a pretext to bolster my psycho-warmonger cause (which nowadays is considered better represented by the Israeli leadership than the American or French ones).” None of these options speaks well of them, though.
Chris
@Gavin:
Because it’s how they justify their actions, to other people and to themselves. If These People are being evil, then I am justified in being evil back, because they started it. If not, then… well, then I’m the only one doing evil, and then I’m just a douchebag. And who wants to think that?
Projection happens because it’s necessary, not only for their cause, but for their own psychological well-being, to believe that the other side is in fact guilty of all the things they know they themselves are guilty of.
WaterGirl
Public Service Announcement:
If you are recording The Good Wife, you may want to know that it started 45 minutes late. As did the show before it and the show that will follow.
beltane
@Chris:
I’ll go with that one.
Amir Khalid
Some world news: Lee Kuan Yew, the father of Singapore (and for 31 years its founding Prime Minister) and of its current prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, has died at 91.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
Thank you, efg. Your support is much appreciated.
seefleur
@Elizabelle: And to add the cherry to the top of this deliciousness from Stephen King, Ann LePage, wife of the idiot in the Blaine House, was sent a letter from the state of FL telling her that she’d better pay up on the $14K in taxes that she owes FL. I larfed when I read about that.
Chris
@Karen:
“They don’t love real Jewish people. They love us as characters in their play. And that’s not who we are, and we never auditioned for the part, and the part isn’t one that ends well for us.”
SiubhanDuinne
@jl:
The only possible good outcome of today’s Sunday Teevee Gabfests is what Charlie Pierce’ll have to say about them tomorrow.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
Floor wax, dessert topping….
Amir Khalid
@efgoldman:
As I understand, until the post 9/11 demonisation of Muslims by Republicans, Muslim Americans were usually Republican because it appealed to their social conservatism.
Elie
@jl:
They had to do it to try to pull the frame back to something that they could try to control again. The reality is that Netanyahu and they laid a gigantic turd and it is smelling to all high heaven not just here but across the globe. They know this sucked and will suck more as time goes on.. wait till the first UN vote comes up on this…
They way overplayed their hand… way way way. They probably have no choice but to pretend Obama should do something because if they accept reality, they have nothing. Nothing.
Kropadope
@SiubhanDuinne: The only single thing I’m aware of that is useful across all situations no matter what, tax cuts.
beltane
@Chris: Right-wing Jews like Bill Kristol et al. seem to think the play will have a different ending this time. I’m sure they think the Steven Kings of the world are useful idiots, putty in their hands, but they fail to grasp that there are lots of them, and they can easily be led by someone else. The AIPAC crowd thinks they’re playing the rubes; history would argue that the rubes are probably playing AIPAC.
jl
@SiubhanDuinne:
Actually was glad I listened to the courtly and gracious crazed old hackity hick today. Rep Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) was very articulate, informed, intelligent, In a word: awesome.
Might be another important Democratic politician from Hawaii again someday.
Tulsi Gabbard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsi_Gabbard
Edit: actually, I think I am in love. But she just got engaged, and I try to not to splash my political crushes all over Balloon Juice blog.
Edit2: I liked the way she kept reminding that old ass that it was Dub who messed up Afghanistan and Iraq in particular and the Middle East in general. After that geezer hack had the gall to open her all too brief segment by trying to get her to bash Obama.
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
From one old person to another: Nicely played!
Mike in NC
Steve King’s stupid remark about “their president” brings to mind that wonderful comment delivered on the House floor in 1994 by the odious Dick Armey (R-TX): “Your president just isn’t that important to us”.
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: Would love to have your take on Mr. Lee Kuan Yew’s life. He seems to have accomplished a lot.
Have not yet been to Singapore (or Malaysia), but both are on the five year plan.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@WaterGirl:
Thanks. Good to know for Battle Creek.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid:
Goodbye, Harry.
I wish you’d had in life the decency and the courage to treat your opponents fairly. Thye Poh, and JB, and Francis, and Devan, and Wah Piow — and so many others — all deserved better than what you crushed them with.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack (tablet): Yeah, I am liking Battle Creek, too.
Edit: I never was able to find that Doctor Whoever-It-Was show on PBS. I guess it’s not on in my area. Do you recall the name? It was a mystery.
Mike in NC
@WaterGirl: Gotta love Mayhem.
Bob Munck
Him too, according to the right wing.
Amir Khalid
@Elizabelle:
Yes he did so much for Singapore, but you wouldn’t have liked him as a national leader.
@Cervantes: The guy believed not in democracy but in running a tight ship. He regarded political opposition as mutiny, and treated his opponents and dissenters as mutineers.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid:
I agree, but he did hypocritically play the democracy game when it suited him in the marketplace.
rk
Funny if you change the language a bit and say for example “I don’t understand how muslims in America can be Democrats first and muslims second”. Why are the muslims following the President’s actions against an Islamic country”. I wonder how that’ll go over?
Anne Laurie
@Amir Khalid:
Anecdotes are not data, but in the heavily Muslim-American Detroit area during the 1980s, the GOP used to dogwhistle about how the Jews were all Democrats, ifyouknowwhatimeanandithinkyoudo…
(Not saying the Arab-American in Dearborn took the bait, but the Repubs trotted out the ‘why is it so many Joooos insist on voting for lie-bral Dems?’ letters & op-eds for every election.)
Cervantes
@rk:
Swimmingly, I’m sure.
Lihtox
“…here is what [one] thing that I don’t understand, I don’t understand how [Americans] in America can be [Republicans] first and [American] second and support [the president] along the line of just following their [psychopathic, treacherous party leaders]…”
There, fixed that for him.
Amir Khalid
@rk:
There are so few Muslim Americans. Do the political powers that be give a flying shit what they think?
Southern Beale
Why is nobody (or hardly anybody) talking about how fucking putrid it is that non-Jews like Steve King are Goysplaining what American Jews should think of Israeli politics?
jl
@Cervantes:
Not sure what the history is, but here’s polling that says 11 percent of Muslims consider themselves Republican or Republican leaning. Sixty three percent are Democratic or leaning.
GOP outreach fail, I guess.
Twenty-three percent of Jews are GOP or leaning.
Mainline and Evangelical Protestants are evenly split, about 40 percent for each.
Mormons are 65 percent GOP or GOP leaning. I assume Mormon Democrats are ‘Jack’ Mormons, drinking Pepsi (or is Coke that the LDS owns stock in?), coffee, and demon rum.
jl
@jl:
Forgot the link:
Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project
http://religions.pewforum.org/portraits
Another Holocene Human
@seefleur: I wish I could be at the tax certificate auction to laugh and laugh.
ETA: maybe I’m think of California and they just seize the property for non payment and then auction it outright. Doesn’t matter, really.
Amir Khalid
@Cervantes:
Yes, Lee Kuan Yew (around these parts, there are so many Lees; one must mention him by his full name) was capable of bullying and hypocrisy, even bigotry, when it suited him.
Chris
@beltane:
Interestingly, I remember reading that a switch in the focus of their religious/racial bigotries is part of what brought a bunch of people to the pro-Israel side in the first place. In 1948, Strom Thurmond was campaigning on his third party platform, and since Israel had just been created, Thurmond used it to attack Truman with the usual Ku Klux Klan line, of “read your Bible, the Jews killed Jesus, and if you’re siding with the Jews, it means you hate Jesus!” Truman hit back with “read your Bible, the Jews are God’s chosen people, so if you’re siding AGAINST the Jews, it means you hate Jesus!” The South being the Bible belt, it ended up being a pretty good retort.
Debbie
You left out the best part, where King said the Jews who didn’t support Netanyahu were Leftists and misogynists.
Another Holocene Human
@Amir Khalid: As I understand it a lot of Muslim immigrants were small business owners/sole proprietors and in the 90s and early aughts the GOP was selling ponies and tax evasion for small business owners/sole proprietors.
I don’t think Muslim factory workers were ever eager GOP voters (see: Michigan).
Another Holocene Human
@jl: Doesn’t Gabbard have some serious baggage?
Another Holocene Human
@Amir Khalid: Apparently not, see 2010.
Another Holocene Human
@jl: Mormons told me in all earnestness that alcohol in stew and desserts “cooks off”. Lol, no.
eta: but the profit bring ’em young shouldn’t care about imported rum since it was a family of beer brewers that he was out to ruin when he banned alcohol…
jl
@Another Holocene Human: Yeah, I guess your right. I didn’t read the wiki article closely enough about her Hiduism. She’s a hare krishna Hindu. Which I don’t care about at all, but probably not good for national electoral offices. Also divorced, though her ex is a political supporter, so probably not much bitter scandal mongering to go with that. So, eek, a divorcee!
She did take oath of office on a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, which I think is cool.
Edit: Also, pretty willing to go on Fox to disagree with Obama. Though I note that in the ones I see she always points out that the GOP is worse, and good at countering jackass Fox hosts’ attempts to get her to bash the fiendish super villain but yet sadly inadequate Obama.
jl
@jl: On other hand, if US ready for first African-American president, then it is damn well ready for its first Samoan-American Hindu lady divorcee Iraq war veteran president. Bring it on!
Cervantes
@jl:
She’s getting married again, April 9.
(He’s Hindu as well.)
Karen
@Baud:
I’m trying to get out of going to Seders at my aunt’s and cousin’s and since my mom is all for it, I might be able to pull it off. :)
jl
@Cervantes: Yes, I know. It broke my heart to read that.
I think for a woman, the GOP reptiles would try to make an issue of a divorce, even if she was remarried and had the best second marriage in human history.
Karen
Steve King, geh en drerd. (I think that’s how I spell it, my Yiddish isn’t the greatest. Translation: Go in the earth.
ruemara
I know I’m not the first, but, I just got back from the gym. Re: title question. Why Not Both?!
Cervantes
@efgoldman:
First Rockport, then Gloucester.
The glue was made from fish skin.
Cervantes
@jl:
@jl:
Thanks.
Matt McIrvin
@Amir Khalid: He also was something of a eugenicist, if I recall correctly. Tried to get rich people to breed more because he thought they were genetically superior and was afraid that the riffraff were out-reproducing them.
Matt McIrvin
@jl: If I recall correctly, the Republican outreach to Muslims was actually working pretty well until 9/11, when hating them all over the place suddenly became politically advantageous.
As for the OP, I guess I have to be the guy who says this still isn’t technically treason because neither Iran nor Israel is at war with the US. Scummy behavior not in the national interest, yes.
redshirt
@efgoldman:
I did, but I’m nuts!
Matt McIrvin
@Amir Khalid: I know that in 2000, Muslim Americans were a large enough voting bloc in Michigan that Bush actually made an effort to get their votes.
Today, if I can believe Wikipedia, it appears that other states have more: Illinois is 2.8% Muslim, Virginia 2.6%, New York 2.0%. Many are relatively prosperous professionals of South Asian origin. Virginia is still at least theoretically something of a swing/purple state, so it’s a population that may be worth trying to get.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@WaterGirl:
The Doctor Blake Mysteries. Australian series.
Porlock Junior
@Elizabelle:
For my part, though nobody asked me, I like Stewart Brand’s take, when someone pointed out the fine things LKY had been doing for Sinapore:
Dictators give me the creeps.
J R in WV
@Another Holocene Human: Actually, it is true.
And at different temps, different alcohols will cook off first. This is how distillation of beverages works, after all.
Once a water-based fluid reaches 100 degrees at normal atmospheric pressure, there won’t be any alcohols left, as they all have a vaporizition temperature much lower than that.
If you add complex alcohol-based fluids to a dish, like brandy or rum, or even wine, there are tons of non-alcohol fluids with lots of flavors you associate with those beverages, and those fluids remain in the dish. But the alcohol is gone into the atmosphere, unless you go to a lot of trouble to keep it contained in the foodstuff.
PaulW
I don’t understand how Christians make themselves Democrats first and Christians second. I mean, a lot of Catholics and Protestants vote Democratic, right? Yet here’s the GOD’S PARTY the Holy Chosen Randian Roller Republicans with Pat Robertson’s Seal of Approval stamped on every GOP leader’s pale butt-cheek, and there’s still Christians out there who refuse to buy the sucker’s bet of fear, greed, and vanity that the modern Republicans shill on an hourly basis on GOD’S OWN NETWORK Fox Not News.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack (tablet): Thank you! I wrote it down this time.
I knew the name when I was checking PBS, so no luck there, but now maybe I’ll see it somewhere else in the future.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You all do understand King is coming at this from Dispensanilism – the Jews need to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem for Jesus to return and kill all the Jews, atheists, communists, union members, hippies, kids wearing hoddies and so on. See the book series Left Behind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispensationalism
So yes, it is a form of anti-Semitism, but it’s more of a passive one. King’s bewilderment is why aren’t the Jews playing the role assigned to them in this Christian LARP.
russell
what I don’t understand is how Presbyterians in American can’t support nationhood for Scotland.
Cervantes
@russell:
They’re self-hating Presbyterians.
Jay C
Well, since Steve King seems to have trouble understanding some simple political factors in this country, maybe the following can enlighten him a bit*:
*but I doubt it.
ed
Cantor: Jewish Americans Are Democrats Because They ‘Are Prone To Want To Help The Underdog’
(via Think Progress)
OK, then…
Chaplain Weasle
@Zinsky: after WWI, they (Republicans) impeded Wilson’s plans for the post war world, enabled the repressive measures of the Versailles Treaty, the Treaty of Rapollo, the International Opium Convention and the handover of Chinese and Japanese territory to Imperial Japanese forces while rejecting joining the League of Nations! Their ignorance of military spending, foreign relations, and support for the United States on the world stage set the ball rolling so that The Great Patriotic War/WWII was pretty much inevitable… including the preemptive air strike on Pearl Harbor. Republicans have always been traitorous asshat lying !^÷£! I just hope that they don’t do to the US now what they did about 100 years ago. I know I listed a lot there, but Im very ticked off and had to confine it to a small comment. /rant
Andrew Rei
I’ve spent a lot of time studying the differences between psychopaths and sociopaths plus the US Code, especially Title 18, Chapter 115, Sections 2381-2385…with that in mind:
By the legal definition of Treason, not many of the GOPers are Traitors. HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t criminals. EVERY GOP politician in this country is guilty of insurrection or sedition or, in many cases. BOTH.
GOP Conservatives are Fascist psychopaths (with rare exceptions); GOP Teaidjits are Fascist sociopaths and “Firebaggers” (Libertarians) are Fascism-suborning sociopaths….
(Drops the mic and leaves)