World News Korner

I had a cat once that was a holy terror.

He waited in the hallways for us kids and scratched at our feet as we walked by. Such an asshole.

However our little terrier was taking none of that from a cat and she chased that cat, who was much bigger, all over the house.

But the best deterrent we had against a takeover by the nine cats that my mother had in those days was my dog Kino.

Kino was a 120 pound part husky, part German shepherd, part wolf hybrid and he did not suffer crap from the animals lower on the food chain in any way.

I remember once watching a cat sneak over to his food bowl in the corner while he slept on the floor by the door. It took the cat about ten minutes to finally, slowly work his way over to that bowl.

Once the cat was positive that Kino was too deeply asleep to catch him he started to eat.

But Kino was not asleep. His eye opened and he very slowly rose to his feet, walked up behind the cat, and let go one baritone bark that sent that cat right into the wall behind the bowl.

At first I thought maybe the cat had broken its neck, but it quickly scrambled to its feet and ran up the wall and onto a nearby cabinet, and from there across every surface up off the ground until he had made it down the hallway and away from the terrifying beast.

Kino then sniffed his food and walked over to his former spot to continue his nap.

Source

Source

By they way the thing that people seem to conveniently forget is that the so-called "War on Christmas" has been waging for hundreds of years.

Courtesy of Time Magazine:

The front lines of the War on Christmas were originally manned by none other than the Puritans — and not on the side many conservative news anchors might think. Objecting to the yuletide festivities on the grounds that they didn't square with the Bible's teachings, in 1659 the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony banned the holiday; it wasn't reinstated until 1681. For a war often blamed on secular terrorists, these are some pious roots.

Since then, the perpetrators of the struggle against Santa have taken on many forms; just about every major bugbear on the radical left has at one point or another been blamed. In the beginning, of course, there were the Jews. "The whole record of the Jewish opposition to Christmas...shows the venom and directness of [their] attack," wrote automaker and notorious anti-Semite Henry Ford in 1921, citing efforts around the country to silence Christmas carolers and suppress demonstrations of religion in schools. By the 1950s, blame had shifted to the Communists. "One of the techniques now being applied by the Reds to weaken the pillar of religion in our country is the drive to take Christ out of Christmas," screamed a 1959 pamphlet (the overpunctuated title: "There Goes Christmas?!") issued by the newly-formed John Birch Society. The society also assailed United Nations "fanatics" who were trying to "poison the 1959 Christmas season with their high-pressure propaganda."

Before it became part of mainstream conservative punditry, the leading proponent of the War on Christmas was a former magazine writer and editor named Peter Brimelow. A virulent anti-immigration crusader whose views were considered extreme by mainstream conservative journals like National Review, Brimelow founded a website called VDare.com that soon was at the forefront of the fight to sanctify Christmas cheer. Beginning in 1999, Brimelow ran a competition to spotlight offenders in the War on Christmas. The inaugural villain was the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which earned the dubious honor for hosting a holiday party dubbed "A Celebration of Holiday Traditions." The following year, Amazon.com became a target of Brimelow's wrath for subjecting consumers to the nondenominational greeting "Happy Holidays!" (In 2003, VDare was classified as a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center for providing a platform for white nationalist viewpoints.)

Outrage over alleged restrictions against Christmas emblems imposed by stores like Wal-Mart and Sears led conservative mouthpieces like Sean Hannity and O'Reilly to take up the cause in earnest. "I think it's all part of the secular progressive agenda...to get Christianity and spirituality out of the public square," O'Reilly said on Nov. 18, 2005. "Because if you look at what happened in Western Europe and Canada, if you can get religion out, then you can pass secular progressive programs like legalization of narcotics, euthanasia, abortion at will, gay marriage." In an interview with National Review, Gibson lay blame for the phenomenon at the feet of the American Civil Liberties Union: "Generally there is an ACLU component to the Christmas controversy."

So there you have it: the war on Christmas is a godless plot cooked up by a cabal of latte-sipping liberals, greedy retail tycoons, bearded ACLU communists and Ban Ki-moon acolytes who secretly gather in Bay Area synagogues to smoke pot, deface Bibles and perform abortions.

This was a ridiculous controversy in 1659, and it remains a ridiculous controversy today.

It is used by manipulative conservatives to enrage the low information Christians into believing that they are being persecuted. Only those raised to believe that they are martyrs would fall for it, but churches are overflowing with those who believe that very thing.

Prepare and fertilize the soil when they are young, and you can plant whatever seeds you want to as they grow older, and the paranoia and sense of persecution will grow right along with them.

Source

The above graphic was found on Palin's Facebook page.

Of course the comparison is somewhat misleading because though base pay for an E1 Recruit can be as low as $16,168 a year, there are other monetary compensations such as a housing allowance, hardship duty pay, assignment incentive pay, hazardous duty incentive pay, and hostile fire/imminent danger pay.

Not to mention that a recruit essentially enters the military as an unskilled worker whose room and board is provided for him as he learns the skills necessary to achieve competency in his job.

I have never heard of McDonald's letting their fry cooks sleep in the restaurant at night and eat for free.

However let me simply say that I think that those in the military deserve a pay raise as well. (They also deserve to not have their paychecks interfered with, a fact that did not seem to bother Palin and her fellow Teabaggers when they shut the government down for two weeks earlier this year.) Yet the fact that they do not yet have one does nothing to change the fact that people are underpaid in this country, in a variety of occupations, and that our country's economy would be dramatically improved if they were paid a more reasonable wage.

So this graphic may make conservatives, and Sarah Palin, feel justified in arguing against paying low wage earners more money, but all it really does is demonstrate that there are many lines of work where the compensation is inadequate.

But hey at least Palin did not slap a SarahPAC logo on the graphic so that she could benefit momentarily from the soldiers who she claims to support. Small favors and all that.

Source

Courtesy of Bloomberg:

Next week, a number of celebrities will join in an effort organized by an independent group to boost enrollment on the online exchanges, said a person familiar with the plan, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about it. An advertising blitz will begin in January after the holiday season has ended, said the person.

Scarlett Johansson, Aisha Tyler, and Gabrielle Union have recorded phone messages that Planned Parenthood is using to promote enrollment. Actresses Lena Dunham of “Girls” and Elizabeth Banks of “Hunger Games” posted Twitter messages to promote a Planned Parenthood Internet town hall this week on Obamacare.

In addition, Planned Parenthood, which provides health services to women, will “ramp up significantly” its efforts to promote enrollment in January, deploying hundreds of staff members with a goal of contacting a half-million people in Texas, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, said Rachel Fleischer, spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Enroll America, an advocacy group with close ties to the White House, plans more than a thousand events across the country to promote coverage during the first three weeks of December, a 40 percent increase from the same period in November, said Justin Nisly, a spokesman.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the campaign arm of House Democrats, sent statements to the hometown news media of 60 Republican lawmakers who have previously voted to repeal Obamacare, criticizing them for benefits that would be eliminated.

The Republicans response to this, now that the website no longer affords offers them an example to use for their attack, is to cherry pick news of people having to pay higher premiums for coverage that is now more comprehensive than their old coverage, or which reflects the fact that the governors of their state did not work with the administration to expand Medicaid or put state sponsored health care exchanges in place.

That sort of makes the tactic of sending statements to the local press in those states reminding them that their conservative politicians may be responsible for why the program is not working in their community, and that they also voted to strip their constituents of the benefits that ARE working, kind of brilliant.

And let me just say, as a red blooded male, that NOTHING the Republicans can come up with is going to stand a chance against a message on my phone from Scarlett Johansson telling me that enrolling IS a good idea.

Source

Courtesy of Spero News:

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said universal health care should be available to all Americans. He was speaking at a charity event for prostate survivors in Seattle.

Powell told the audience that countries in Europe, Canada and South Korea offer universal, single-payer health care and said he often asks why the United States has not implemented the same system.

"Whether it's Obamacare, or son of Obamacare, I don't care," Powell said. "As long as we get it done."

Powell, a retired four-star general, was diagnosed with prostate cancer and credits his survival to the universal health care provided by the United States military.

Sharing health stories with the audience about his wife, Alma, and a neighbor, Powell said he and his wife have never worried about whether their health care would bankrupt them. He contrasted his experience with his neighbor, Anne, who cannot afford the MRIs to identify tumors in her brain before doctors will operate on her. Powell said she has health insurance, but it does not cover MRI imaging. He said she was out of work and he gave her the funds three weeks ago to receive treatment.

"We are a wealthy enough country," Powell said, "with the capacity to make sure that every one of our fellow citizens has access to quality health care."

Son of Obamacare. Sounds like a good deal to me.

I have the hardest time forgiving Colin Powell for allowing himself to be used by the Bush administration to sell the Iraq war, but if he keeps on talking sense like this I may have to start trying.

Of course single payer universal health care is the best option for our country, and if Americans would stop allowing themselves to be frightened by the Right Wing scare tactics we could be enjoying its benefits today.

Source

Photo courtesy of Facebook

Courtesy of the Arizona snowbird's Facebook page:

Meeting old friends! Charlie and his family met the Palins during the ’08 campaign and during the 2009 “Going Rogue” book signing event in The Villages, FL. They met again during a book signing event for Governor Palin’s new book, “Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas,” on Friday, December 6, 2013, at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Look Palin found the one Down Syndrome boy in the crowd to get her picture taken with.

Of course it is the same Down Syndrome boy she had her picture taken with in 2009.

Photo also courtesy of Facebook

This from the Billy Graham website:

Palin visited the Billy Graham Library for a tour and a signing of her recent book release, Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas.

“I certainly recognize there is a war on Christmas that’s being waged—it seems—in our culture right now,” she said. “The true meaning of Christmas, of course, is Christ’s birth. I wanted to write this so that people realize that they can proudly and boldly proclaim the true meaning of Christmas.”

In 2010, Palin and some of her family members travel to Haiti, where they visited a Samaritan’s Purse cholera clinic and help distribute Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes. In 2009, Palin visited Billy and Franklin Graham at Mr. Graham’s Montreat home in the North Carolina mountains.

Today, she finally had the chance to visit the place the bears the name of one of her spiritual heroes.

“Billy Graham changed the world because he has allowed Christ to shine right through him. People would listen to him and could receive his message,” said Palin, who attended Mr. Graham’s 95th birthday party last month in Asheville, N.C. “He so capitalized—in a good way—on the favor that God gave him to do the Lord’s will and to do the Lord’s work.”

“I am happy to be here at the Billy Graham Library today. I had no idea it was this amazing. It reflects the fact that it was not about Billy Graham. His ministry is truly about the Gospel, and this facility reflects that.”

You know I used to joke that someday Palin would walk away from politics altogether and start her own church, and follow in the tradition of the Jerry Falwells, Billy Grahams, and Jimmy Swaggerts that came before her. And more and more it looks like that may not have been such a joke after all.

At least if she did that she could afford better wigs.

Palin mingling with Samaritan's Purse volunteers

After this disastrous book tour I actually think that Palin has just about run out of options. She can really no longer seriously perform her political prick tease, she can't sell books, and nobody wants to see her on television.

She is a talentless has been, whose looks are rapidly deteriorating, and whose family has come to rely on her to pay their bills. So what options does somebody like her have left?

Source

Courtesy of Salon:

Religious freedom and separation of church and state have always been hated concepts to the religious right. Indeed, it’s fair to say that the religious right exists to fight any legal or cultural support for people who don’t want their narrow definition of Christianity foisted on them. From objecting to gay marriage to trying to wedge creationism in schools, the religious right exists as a political movement for the purpose of stripping away religious freedom and establishing their religious beliefs as the dominant organizing force in law, politics and culture.

So why then are we hearing all these people who live their lives attacking religious freedom complaining all the time that “religious freedom” is under attack from liberals? Whydoes every religious-right publication and event echo the claim that right-wing Christians are somehow being stripped of the very right to religious freedom the right has worked tirelessly to take from everyone else for decades?

The simple answer is they’re lying. Claiming the mantle of victimhood is so politically potent that religious-right leaders are going to do it, no matter how untrue it is, because, to be blunt, they’re not held back by any moral interest in honesty. Getting Grandma to think she’s going to lose her church is a great way to get her to sign her Social Security check over to your organization.

The longer answer is that the religious right has concocted a new strategy to squelch religious freedom: By redefining “religious freedom” to mean its opposite. The hope is that by repeatedly using the term “religious freedom” when they mean “giving the Christian right power to impose their faith on others,” they can eventually drain the phrase of all its meaning and finally, after decades of fighting secularism, make it easier for the religious right to strip away individual protections for religion. In other words, they hope by saying that up is down long enough, the public and the courts will finally believe it.

This attitude—that their “religious freedom” can only be protected if they get to foist their faith on everyone else—is nakedly obvious every year when the whining about the mythical “war on Christmas” begins. Needless to say, there is no war on Christmas. There is no effort whatsoever to prevent anyone from celebrating Christmas, buying Christmas presents, going to mass on Christmas, or playing that Manheim Steamroller record until you want to claw your ears out. Without fail, every example the right comes up with to prove there’s a war on Christmas is, in fact, something else: An attempt to recognize that not everyone is a Christian and respect that there are multiple holidays people may be celebrating in lieu of, or in addition to, Christmas.

This belief that Christians, particularly right-wing Christians, are entitled to be acknowledged at the exclusion of everyone else and entitled to have their holidays held out as more important than everyone else’s cropped up immediately after Thankgiving, right on schedule this year. The National Republican Congressional Committeetweeted out a picture of a T-shirt they’re selling that says, “’Happy Holidays’ is what liberals say,” in Comic Sans font, of course. On the back it reads, “Merry Christmas.” The “joke” doesn’t make sense unless the viewer agrees with the premise that conservative Christians are better than everyone else, and in order to honor how much more important they are, all other holidays and faith traditions need to be hidden away, as if they’re shameful.

You know it may seem as if these people are simply ridiculous and that the only appropriate response is to mock them, but I have to remind myself that these people are potentially dangerous, and that if they WERE to get their way in establishing Christianity as the state sponsored religion, that the social injustices and oppression would start piling up almost immediately.

That idea, which seems less and less likely as our population becomes less and less religious, is still one that keeps me on edge and my attention focused on the various strategies utilized by religious groups attempting to hold onto power or gain more influence over out education, politics, and media.

Bill O'Reilly and Sarah Palin may be driving around in a clown car, but there are more nefarious goings on in the shadows that their bulbous noses and fright wigs may distract us from noticing.

Source

Courtesy of American Prospect:

Homeschooling didn’t begin as a fundamentalist movement. In the 1960s, liberal author and educator John Holt advocated a child-directed form of learning that became “unschooling”—homeschooling without a fixed curriculum. The concept was picked up in the 1970s by education researcher Raymond Moore, a Seventh-Day Adventist, who argued that schooling children too early—before fourth grade—was developmentally harmful. Moore’s message came at a time when many conservative Christians were looking for alternatives to public schools. Moore’s work reached a massive audience when Focus on the Family founder and Christian parenting icon James Dobson invited him onto his radio show for the first time in 1982. Dobson would become the most persuasive champion of homeschooling, encouraging followers to withdraw their children from public schools to escape a “godless and immoral curriculum.” For conservative Christian parents, endorsements didn’t come any stronger than that.

Over the next two decades, homeschooling boomed. Today, perhaps as many as two million children are homeschooled. (An accurate count is difficult to conduct, because many homeschoolers are not required to register with their states.) Homeschooling families come from varied backgrounds—there are secular liberals as well as Christians, along with an increasing number of Muslims and African Americans—but researchers estimate that between two-thirds and three-fourths are fundamentalists.

Among Moore and Dobson’s listeners during that landmark broadcast was a pair of young lawyers, Michael Farris and Michael Smith, who the following year would found the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). With Moore’s imprimatur and Dobson’s backing, Farris and Smith started out defending homeschooling families at a time when the practice was effectively illegal in 30 states. As Christians withdrew their children from public school, often without requesting permission, truancy charges resulted. The HSLDA used them as test cases, challenging school districts and state laws in court while lobbying state legislators to establish a legal right to homeschool. By 1993, just ten years after the association’s founding, homeschooling was legal in all 50 states.

What many lawmakers and parents failed to recognize were the extremist roots of fundamentalist homeschooling. The movement’s other patriarch was R.J. Rushdoony, founder of the radical theology of Christian Reconstructionism, which aims to turn the United States into an Old Testament theocracy, complete with stonings for children who strike their parents. Rushdoony, who argued that democracy was “heresy” and Southern slavery was “benevolent,” was too extreme for most conservative Christians, but he inspired a generation of religious-right leaders including Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson. He also provided expert testimony in early cases brought by the HSLDA. Rushdoony saw homeschooling as not just providing the biblical model for education but also a way to bleed the secular state dry.

With support from national leaders, Christian homeschoolers established state-level groups across the country and took over the infrastructure of the movement. Today, when parents indicate an interest in homeschooling, they find themselves on the mailing lists of fundamentalist catalogs. When they go to state homeschooling conventions to browse curriculum options, they hear keynote speeches about biblical gender roles and creationism and find that textbooks are sold alongside ideological manifestos on modest dressing, proper Christian “courtship,” and the concept of “stay-at-home daughters” who forsake college to remain with their families until marriage.

HSLDA is now one of the most powerful Christian-right groups in the country, with nearly 85,000 dues-paying members who send annual checks of $120. The group publicizes a steady stream of stories about persecuted homeschoolers and distributes tip sheets about what to do if social workers come knocking. Thanks to the group’s lawsuits and lobbying, though, that doesn’t happen often. Homeschooling now exists in a virtual legal void; parents have near-total authority over what their children learn and how they are disciplined. Not only are parents in 26 states not required to have their children tested but in 11 states, they don’t have to inform local schools when they’re withdrawing them. The states that require testing and registration often offer religious exemptions.

The emphasis on discipline has given rise to a cottage industry promoting harsh parenting techniques as godly. Books like To Train Up a Child by Michael and Debi Pearl promise that parents can snuff out rebellious behavior with a spanking regimen that starts when infants are a few months old. The Pearls claim to have sold nearly 700,000 copies of their book, most through bulk orders from church and homeschooling groups. The combination of those disciplinary techniques with unregulated homeschooling has spawned a growing number of horror stories now being circulated by the ex-homeschoolers—including that of Calista Springer, a 16-year-old in Michigan who died in a house fire while tied to her bed after her parents removed her from public school, or Hana Williams, an Ethiopian adoptee whose Washington state parents were convicted in September of killing her with starvation and abuse in a Pearl-style system. Materials from HSLDA were found in the home of Williams’s parents.

I know from experience that there are few topics that elicit as an emotional response from my readers as that of homeschooling. However I am also compelled to bring these facts to your attention, because this is how many Fundamentalists are undermining education in this country, isolating their children from their communities, and keeping social services from discovering harmful activities happening within their homes.

I have had some contact with children who were home schooled in the past, and most of them were seemingly quite well adjusted. Others exhibited symptoms of isolation, paranoia, and social awkwardness.

However the fact remains that there is a very purposeful agenda within the home school community, and it is NOT to better educate our children.

Source

This according to Wikipedia:

Kazimierz Łyszczyński was a nobleman, landowner, philosopher, and soldier in the service of the Sapieha family. For eight years he studied philosophy as a Jesuit and then became a supply judge (podsędek) in legal cases against the Jesuits concerning estates.

Łyszczyński had read a book by Henry Aldsted entitled Theologia Naturalis, which attempted to prove the existence of divinity. But its arguments were so confused that Łyszczyński was able to infer many contradictions. Ridiculing Aldsted, Łyszczyński wrote in the book's margins the words "ergo non est Deus" ("therefore God does not exist").

This was discovered by one of Łyszczyński's debtors, Jan Kazimierz Brzoska, who was the nuncio of Brest in Poland or a Stolnik of Bracławice or Łowczy of Brześć. Brzoska, reluctant to return a great sum of money to him lent by Łyszczyński, accused the latter of being an atheist and gave the aforementioned work as evidence to Witwicki, bishop of Poznań. Brzoska also stole and delivered to the court a handwritten copy of De non existentia Dei, which was the first Polish philosophical treatise presenting reality from an atheistic perspective, and which Łyszczyński had been working on since 1674. Witwicki along with Załuski, bishop of Kiev, took up this case with zeal.

The King attempted to help Łyszczyński by ordering that he should be judged at Vilna, but this could not save Łyszczyński from the clergy. Łyszczyński's first privilege as a Polish noble, that he could not be imprisoned before his condemnation, was violated. The Łyszczyński case was brought before the diet of 1689 where he was accused of having denied the existence of God and having blasphemed against the Virgin Mary and the saints. He was condemned to death for atheism. The sentence was carried out before noon in the Old Town Market in Warsaw, where his tongue was pulled out followed by a beheading. After that, his corpse was transported beyond the city borders and cremated.

For untold centuries the religious have done everything in their power to destroy any who would dare question of reality of their God. They have burned us, tortured us, hanged us, imprisoned us, for doing nothing more than using the brain that THEIR faith stated that THEIR God had gifted to mankind.

Would any loving God give a bird wings and then lock him in a cage, or a fish gills and then strand him on the shore, why give a man intelligence and demand that he not think?

And if such a God existed, would he be worthy of worship?

Source

I watched television all day yesterday and today, and was very impressed with the depth of emotion that people feel about Nelson Mandela.

He touched the lives of many, and served as a shining example of heroism and integrity for the rest of us.

However at the same time I was sickened by those on the Right Wing who are crawling out of the woodwork to get a little reflected glory by claiming to have been inspired by him, when in fact they were anything but.

This from Right Wing Watch:The news today of Nelson Mandela’s passing is also time to reflect on the complicated relationship between Mandela and his anti-apartheid African National Congress (ANC) with the US, which did not always support the anti-apartheid struggle. In fact, American conservatives lobbied the federal government in the 1980s to withhold support from the anti-apartheid movement.

President Reagan added the ANC to the US terrorism watch list, a designation not removed until 2008, and unsuccessfully vetoed sanctions against the apartheid regime. Many Republican lawmakers did break with the Reagan administration’s stance, but “all 21 [Senate] votes to sustain the veto were cast by Republicans.”

Mandela faced criticism from Republican leaders including Dick Cheney, who described Mandela’s ANC as a “terrorist organization,” and Jesse Helms, who “turned his back during Mandela’s visit to the U.S. Capitol.” Even in 1998, Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly lumped Mandela together with notorious dictators.

The late Jerry Falwell urged [PDF] his supporters to write their congressmen and senators to tell them to oppose sanctions against the apartheid regime. “The liberal media has for too long suppressed the other side of the story in South Africa,” he said. “It is very important that we stay close enough to South Africa so that it does not fall prey to the clutches of Communism.”

“South Africa is torn by civil unrest, instigated primarily by Communist-sponsored people who are capitalizing on the many legitimate grievances created by apartheid, unemployment and policy confrontations,” Falwell continued.

Ronald Reagan, those on the Religious Right, and the conservatives supported apartheid until the very last second, and only changed positions when it was no longer politically feasible to do anything else.

Dick Cheney even defended his vote labeling Mandela a terrorist:


“The ANC was then viewed as a terrorist organization," Cheney said on ABC's "This Week." "I don't have any problems at all with the vote I cast 20 years ago.''

And even today, while most of the media is fawning over the memory of this great leader, those on the Right can barely contain their disgust.

Bill O'Reilly:

“He was a communist, this man. He was a communist, all right? But he was a great man! What he did for his people was stunning!… He was a great man! But he was a communist!”

And if a conservative makes the mistake of issuing a statement in support of Mandela, without also calling him a terrorist or Marxist, well then you learn the same hard lesson that Ted Cruz just learned:

Yeah who cares that this man suffered for his country like no other, spent 27 years behind bars, only to emerge and unite his people to bring about peace?

I mean sure, if he had been white and a capitalist, but he was the wrong color and the wrong political ideology.

Assholes!

Source

Click poorly fitted Christmas wig to start video

Here is the transcript which I checked against the one at Fox for accuracy:

O'REILLY: Continuing now with Governor Sarah Palin her new book "Good Tidings and Great Joy" pretty much takes up my theme that Christmas has to be defended these days in America. So when did you first notice a change?

PALIN: Oh well you know, I noticed a change back when I was the mayor of our city. And I sanctioned and promoted and participated in our Nativity scene that I would allow --

O'REILLY: That was Wasilla. What year was that?

PALIN: Yes that was in the early 2,000s was when I started hearing from people saying you're not going to be able to keep this up, Madam Mayor. Somebody is going to sue you for allowing God to be recognized in the public square. (Yeah I am pretty sure this never happened. Especially not in Wasilla which is full of Fundamentalist Bible thumpers. Just a story to give her self credibility with O'Reilly.)

O'REILLY: Ok so early 2,000?

PALIN: Yes.

O'REILLY: It started to come in.

PALIN: In my life, yes.

O'REILLY: Right. And no that's me too. Me too.

PALIN: Ok yes.

O'REILLY: Pretty much 10 years ago. And then it reached its apex when some major corporations ordered their employees not to say "Merry Christmas", do you remember that? (And that Timmy is how the Fox News fake war on Christmas began.)

PALIN: Yes. (Of course she remembers that. Where do you think she got the idea to have this book written for her Bill?)

O'REILLY: And I think you have some examples in your book about that.

PALIN: I do. Yes.

O'REILLY: And then we said to people hey you know maybe you don't want to shop at these places. And then all of a sudden magically, like Santa, they changed.

PALIN: Well, what I recognized in the book too, though, are those businesses that are bold enough to not allow that double standard to be applied. And their employees can say what they want to say. And they can freely express their acknowledgment of Jesus being the reason for the season at Christmas time. And I give shout outs and kudos to those businesses because customers will stick with them then. (Sure but let one business owner celebrate Saturnalia, the foundation for Christmas, by selecting one customer as "Lord of Misrule," to embody the evil in the world, and then slaughter them as a sacrifice, and watch the Christians freak out about that! Hypocrites!)

O'REILLY: And most of them are doing that.

PALIN: Yes, they are.

O'REILLY: You don't have any beef about happy holidays. Do you?

PALIN: Absolutely not nor Santa Claus, or anything else. No it's all wonderful.

O'REILLY: You know this woman -- this woman in the "New York Times" today I forget her name. But she writes a column there. (Gail Collins. Good article too.) She is you know she's mocking you and mocking me saying oh they don't like happy holiday. I don't care about happy holidays. Somebody say happy holidays to me I said ok give me a present that's my thoughtI don't care if they're holidays you know let's -- where is my present. But when you start to say you can't say merry Christmas.

PALIN: Right, right.

O'REILLY: And you can't have the karesh. (I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. Update: Okay some of you have suggested that O'Reilly might have said "creche" which is a French word representing the nativity.)

PALIN: Right. (But of course dipshit says "right" anyhow.)


O'REILLY: And you can't have Christmas carols by choirs, school choirs, it's part of our culture.

PALIN: Well and that's the double standard that's applied. And that's what I'm not going to sit down and accept and I don't think the majority of Americans will. Because that is -- that war on Christmas is the tip of the spear that really translates into a war on religious freedom and that's a much bigger problem that we will be facing if we just were to sit back and allow the angry atheists who are armed with an attorney to tell us that we cannot say things like "Merry Christmas". (There's that slam against atheists again.)

Sarah Palin finds the courage to appear on the O'Reilly Factor? Must be a Christmas miracle. Update!
O'REILLY: After you get off the air here you might go over to Times Square there's a big atheist sign now and it's very offensive. It says "You don't need God in Christmas." Ok and it's huge, it's huge. I mean there is money behind these people. Now do I object to that sign? Not really. I don't object to it. But it's mean-spirited. (How is it "mean spirited?" If Christians can put up signs claiming that Christmas belongs to them, and demanding that people remember the so-called "reason for the season" then how is it any different for another group to suggest that you can celebrate Christmas without including a particular religion?) It goes back to MSNBC. It goes back -- it's just mean spirited. ("Back to MSNBC?" Does he mean the same MSNBC that has Rev. Al Sharption as a host as well as the very Catholic Chris Matthews?)

PALIN: And yet, you are going to be called thin skinned and intolerant if you claim taking offense at seeing something like that.

O'REILLY: Really?

PALIN: And yet they can sue for claiming an offense taken because we do recognize Jesus being the reason for the season. (Only on public, or government, property. You know, the people's property. Anybody can put any damn thing they want on their private property.)

O'REILLY: Now let me stop you know because I spray painted over that sign I'm going to be called intolerant? No I wouldn't do something like that. Now, in your book you have recipes. (Wait what are we talking about? Was that supposed to be a smooth segue?)

PALIN: Yes.

O'REILLY: Recipes?

PALIN: Yes, yes.

O'REILLY: For what?

PALIN: Well, we have, you know, traditional Alaskan mills that are organic (Yeah except we don't call them "mills" we call them "meals," because we are not idiots.) and our mills happened to be wrapped in fur and not cellophane. (Oh God make her stop talking! Yes we do use cellophane and tinfoil. We are Alaskans, not fucking cave people!)

O'REILLY: Yes.

PALIN: And I explain how it is that we prepare our moose chili and halibut dip. (From what I've heard with mostly store bought ingredients. This woman could not cook if her life depended on it.)


O'REILLY: Moose chili, I've got to get some of that. I was in Alaska this summer I don't know if you know that. I was at Glacier Bay. (And did he bother to stop by and seeing the Grizzled Mama? No he did not.)

PALIN: Yes.

O'REILLY: Unbelievably beautiful.

PALIN: Right it's beautiful.

O'REILLY: And we ran around and we caused trouble. And every -- and you know it was my reception was mixed. I mean some of the people really liked me but some of the people you know, they are kind of like you know what are you doing here? Don't ever come again. But I should have stocked up on moose chili. And nobody guided me into that.

PALIN: I'll bring you some next time.

O'REILLY: You have to because there's not a lot of moose on Long Island where I live. So it's either we can't really slay them and chop them up into chili.

PALIN: I don't think you can shoot anything. I mean isn't...aren't..isn't the mayor around here trying to ban everything?

O'REILLY: Well the bad guys can shoot people.

PALIN: Yes the bad guys --

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: The good people can't. See, that's the law in New York. If you're bad, yes, go ahead and you can shoot. But if you're good you can't. But in Alaska everybody is armed and ready.

PALIN: Well, we're independent.

O'REILLY: That's right.

PALIN: And we want to protect ourselves and we do want to fill our freezer with organic meat.

O'REILLY: Now I'm holding you to the moose chili business.

PALIN: All right.

O'REILLY: All right so next time in.

PALIN: Absolutely.

O'REILLY: I'm going to show everybody the can. All right Sarah Palin, everybody, thanks for coming in.

"Show everybody the can" What can is he talking about? Does he think she can both cook AND can stuff?

Interesting that O'Reilly's approach to interviewing Palin is to talk most of the time and limit her responses to one or two words, so she can't say anything too stupid on his show.

Not a bad policy really, except that leaves it up to O'Reilly to say most of the ignorant things and he certainly did not disappoint.

By the way you just know that the only reason that Palin showed up on his show is to prove she was not afraid right? But he treated her with such kid gloves that I would bet anything that she would not agree unless he promised not to make her answer hard questions or have her talk about anything she does not understand. Which must be hard considering just how much there is that she knows nothing about.

Update: Palin talks about this interview on Facebook:

I had a great time chatting with Bill O’Reilly last night about “Good Tidings and Great Joy.” I had forgotten I wore the same shirt this morning that I did on Fox last night… that is until every other person at the library today mentioned they enjoyed the O’Reilly interview and thought it was cool I was wearing the same clothes! I laughed and explained that this is what happens when you’re living out of a suitcase on the road meeting all these great people!

Yeah sure she wore it twice becasue she is living out of a suitcase. I thought the reason that people brought suitcases was to have a change of clothes?

Update2: Palin looking very out of place in New York.


More behind-the-scenes: walking to interviews incognito in NYC yesterday snapped by Willow...

You know in Alaska we have had criminals, shysters, pimps, corrupt politicians, and mass murderers, but NOBODY has made us look as bad as this batshit crazy lunatic.

Source

Courtesy of HuffPo:

The Michigan Republican Party is seeking to increase its visibility in Democratic- and minority-heavy Detroit, and last week, it brought Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to the city to open the party's African-American Engagement Office. But if anything, the launch event put into stark relief just how much work the GOP has to do, when a largely white audience turned out to hear the senator speak.

Paul initially spoke at the new African-American Engagement Office on Livernois Avenue in Detroit for about four minutes on Friday. According to the progressive site Eclectablog, "The seats in the tiny space were filled with well-dressed supporters, most of whom were African-American."

“Today’s opening of this office is the beginning of a new Republican Party,” Paul said. “This is going to be a Republican Party that is in big cities and small cities, in the countryside, in the city. It’s going to be about bringing a message that is popular no matter where you’re from, whether you're rich or poor, whether you’re black, white or brown.”

Paul then went to a larger grassroots event at the Grace Bible Chapel, where there were protesters from the civil rights group National Action Network outside. The online invitation said the event was intended to "celebrate the opening of our African-American Engagement Office in Detroit."

Tracking footage from the Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, however, shows an overwhelmingly white audience ended up turning out:

Detroit is approximately 83 percent African-American.

Wow, that is just sad.

You know, and here's just a thought, perhaps it would help if the GOP were not constantly fighting to get rid of the minimum wage or keep it low, fighting against Women's reproductive rights, and fighting against social programs which greatly benefit the African American voters.

It might also help not to send the man who famously argued against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Source

"Look interesting Mitt." "I'm trying to look interesting."

Courtesy of Hollywood Reporter:

Netflix is casting its vote for Mitt Romney.

The subscription streaming service, which has become an increasingly influential player in the original content sphere, will premiere the Romney documentary Mitt exclusively beginning Jan. 24 at 12:01 a.m. PST.

Mitt, which also was announced Monday as part of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival's Documentary Premieres lineup, provides an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at a candidate running for president. The Greg Whiteley-helmed film will make its debut at Sundance on Jan. 17.

The film follows Romney’s Oval Office aspirations beginning Christmas 2006 to his initial run to become the Republican nominee in 2008 and through his concession speech in 2012. Given unprecedented access by Romney and his family, Whiteley travels alongside the campaign through interactions with potential voters, preparations for the debates and personal moments with his family. It all concludes with election-night results.

"Greg Whiteley’s Mitt provides viewers a surprising level of access into a fascinating world," said Lisa Nishimura, Netflix vp original documentary and comedy. "This rare inside look at Mitt Romney and his family as he runs for president showcases a unique kind of storytelling, one which takes the viewer well beyond the politics."

OMGD! How in the hell does somebody drink enough caffeine to stay conscious through this snoozefest?

I can see it now.

"Here's Mitt Romney pumping his own gas almost like an earthling"

"Here's Mitt Romney trying to show affection like a human being."

"Here's Mitt Romney trying to think up an answer as to WHY he wants to be President."

"Here's Mitt Romney trying to eat fair food. Isn't he just so lifelike?"

But to be fair, I might just watch it. You know just to see how long I can get through it before my eyes roll up into my head and I pass out onto the floor from sheer mind numbing boredom.

This is what Netflix spends my subscription money on instead of getting that 2nd season of "Orange is the New Black" up and running. Idiots!

Source

The above is from Palin's visit to Liberty University last Thursday. Where Palin did her best to lower the IQ of the already logic averse student body that attends the "school."

Here is how the Washington Monthly covered this portion of her speech:

Palin said Jefferson would likely agree that secularists had set their sights on destroying the religious themes in Christmas celebrations.

“He would recognize those who would want to try to ignore that Jesus is the reason for the season, those who would want to try to abort Christ from Christmas,” she said. “He would recognize that, for the most part, these are angry atheists armed with an attorney. They are not the majority of Americans.”

Palin said there was a double standard that protected atheists at the expense of the religious.

“Why is it they get to claim some offense taken when they see a plastic Jewish family on somebody’s lawn - a nativity scene, that’s basically what it is right?” she said. “Oh, they take such offense, though. They say that it physically even can hurt them and mentally it distresses them so they sue, right?”

“But heaven forbid we claim any type of offense when we say, ‘Wait, you’re stripping Jesus from the reason, as the reason for the season,’ but heaven forbid we claim any type of offense,” Palin said. “So that double standard, I think Thomas Jefferson would certainly recognize it and stand up and he wouldn’t let anybody tell him to sit down and shut up.”

The Washington Monthly then went on to provide a couple of Jefferson quotes that indicate Palin's complete lack of knowledge or understanding of the Founding Father.

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between church and State.” -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT., Jan. 1, 1802

“Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law.” -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814

What's more, Jefferson was famously so unimpressed with the New Testament that he took a razor and cut out all of the miracles attributed to Jesus, and the parts that he considered pure BS, and put together the Jefferson Bible dedicated to the philosophy of Jesus.

No birth in a manger, no wise men, no walking on water, no healing the sick, no bringing the dead back to life, and no resurrection after the crucifixion.

So exactly HOW does Palin imagine that Jefferson would get his panties in a wad over people celebrating a holiday that does not fall anywhere near the birthday of Jesus, without saying the words "Merry Christmas?"

P.S. This is how the Washington Monthly began their arcticle:

If you could turn stupid into a fuel, you could use Sarah Palin to leave the Solar System.

That about sums it up, don't you think?

Source

Source

Have you ever read the Bible's Ten Commandments?

The first three are all to stroke God's humongous ego, the fourth tells us not to work on Sunday which millions of people break every week, the next three seem fairly reasonable, and essentially EVERY OTHER religion has them as rules too, and the last one flies in the very face of what it is to an American.

I tell you after reading the Ten Commandments as a kid I realized right away that only a douchebag would ask human beings to follow those rules.

Source