World News Korner

Courtesy of the American Conservative:

Palin and all those who cheered her sacrilegious jibe ought to be ashamed of themselves. For us Christians, baptism is the entry into new life. Palin invoked it to celebrate torture. Even if you don’t believe that waterboarding is torture, surely you agree that it should not be compared to baptism, and that such a comparison should be laughed at. What does it say about the character of a person that they could make that joking comparison, and that so many people would cheer for it. Nothing good — and nothing that does honor to the cause of Jesus Christ.

If I thought that kind of hateful declaration and abuse of the Christian religion was what conservatism stood for, I wouldn’t be able to call myself a conservative. Some conservatives do stand for that. They’re wrong, and they should be called out on it — not because some liberal somewhere is going to be offended, but first and foremost because we Christians who identify as conservatives are appalled by it.

Courtesy of The Federalist:

I’ve long defended Palin against the offensive treatment she’s received at the hands of a blatantly biased media, a media that collectively lost its mind the moment she entered the national stage. But that hardly means she must be defended at all times.

Those were conservatives, who once thought Palin was someone to be admired.

Here was how Andrew Sullivan, not a fan of Palin's but still a conservative, and still a very religious man covered it:

A Christian who can equate the sacrament of baptism with a barbaric form of torture is not a Christian, whatever self-righteous blather she emits. And a former vice-presidential candidate who talks of “baptizing” Muslim terror suspects through waterboarding is handing al Qaeda a propaganda coup on a platter. She disgusts me. And what disgusts me even more is the rank cowardice of so many sane Republicans who for far too long have failed to take her on.

Ouch! That's going to leave a mark.

Here is how Washington Monthly responded:

I have a theory that Sarah Palin has the intent to humiliate John McCain as often as possible. Maybe it’s because McCain wouldn’t let her give her own concession speech. Maybe it’s some of the things McCain’s advisers have said about her. Or, maybe, it’s just a joke the gods are playing on McCain for being so stupid in his choice of running mate.

The best part is that McCain won’t allow himself to react to this because he can’t admit the magnitude of his mistake.

Of course there are still a number of conservative news outlets who are resisting the urge to call Palin out over her remarks, and are undoubtedly waiting for all of this attention to blow over.

But to what end?

After all it is only a matter of time before she says something equally horrifying, that will embarrass her supporters, thrill her detractors, and shame those who once believed she could actually be a politician worth supporting.

I sometimes get attacked for "lying about Sarah," but the most devastating thing I ever did was simply to post videos, and transcribe her speeches, so that everybody could hear for themselves the level of insanity that issued from her frothing maw.

Source

Courtesy of WSBTV:

Parents at a Forysth County park abruptly stopped a children's baseball game after growing suspicions of the behavior of a man carrying a gun in a waist holster Tuesday night.

"He's just walking around [saying] 'See my gun? Look, I got a gun and there's nothing you can do about it.' He knew he was frightening people. He knew exactly what he was doing," said parent Karen Rabb.

Rabb told Channel 2’s Tom Regan the parents grew so alarmed that they brought the game to a halt when the man declined a request that he leave a parking lot overlooking the baseball field.

“He scared people to the point where we stopped the game, took the kids out of the dugout and behind the dugout, and kind of hunkered down,” Rabb said.

Park users flooded 911 with 22 calls about the man. Forysth County deputies questioned the man, and found that he had a permit for the handgun. Authorities said since the man made no verbal threats or gestures, they could neither arrest him nor ask him to leave the park.

Another parent questioned what point the man was trying to prove.

"Why would anyone be walking around a public park, with a lot of children and parents and people here playing baseball, and he's walking around with a gun? I don't think the parents would have been nervous had he just had the gun in his holster and was just watching the game," said parent Paris Horton.

Why would anybody be walking around a crowded baseball field and frightening people by openly carrying a gun?

Because he can. And if the NRA gets their way, there will be a whole lot more of this kid of incident too.

Welcome to the America, where gun rights take precedent over a child's right to feel safe while playing baseball.

Source

Apparently this was unveiled during the same rally where Palin suggested that waterboarding was just the way we baptize terrorists.

Here is more from the You Tube page:

At the NRA's annual convention on Saturday, Wayne LaPierre unveiled a new ad the group is planning to air on TV and boy, is it a doozy. The ad is very evocative of a movie trailer for some inspirational drama, complete with b-roll of average Americans and sweeping, dramatic music to convey a simple message: it's us against the world now. Who's with the good guys?

The people featured in the ad declare things like "You are surrounded by a world where mad men are famous and good ones forgotten" and "'The good guys are a lie,' they laugh. Everyone's corrupted." It stakes out a clear position that there are "good guys" in the world fighting against the "hypocrites, chameleons, bullies, and yes-men."

After showing the ad, LaPierre declares, "Ours is a national movement. Right now it's sweeping the country in homes, in churches, in coffee houses, in PTA meetings."

Yes it is the good guys versus the bad guys.

And clearly the good guys would be the ones brandishing firearms and advocating an armed response to the policies of the federal government.

Source

I am just NOT a fan of camping anymore.

Every summer somebody guilts me into taking them camping, and every time I spend the entire trip wishing I was back home in my warm bed.

Summer is here again, so I know what's coming.

Now don't get me wrong, when I was younger I went camping all of the damn time.

I even spent the night on a mountain top with no tent or sleeping bag for protection.

Hell I once slept in a damn tree!

But come on, do you have any idea how much my mortgage payment is? Why would I spend all of that money and then to sleep under a swarm of mosquitoes, only to wake up with my clothes soaking wet from a surprise rainfall.

And then I have to spend the next several days trying to work the kink out of my lower back, while answering the hundreds of e-mails that arrived while I was gone.

I live only a few minutes away from great hiking trails, plenty of fishing streams, and more nature than many people see in a lifetime. And all of it is only a handful of minutes away from my very own bathroom and internet.

Now if I can only convince everybody else.

Source

Courtesy of Palin's Facebook page

Courtesy of The DesMoines Register:

Sarah Palin gave GOP U.S. Senate candidate Joni Ernst rave reviews during a rally today in Iowa.

"I haven't been this excited about a candidate in quite a while," Palin said. (Probably going to come as news to all the other candidates that she feigned excitement for while standing next to them on stage.)

The country needs politicians who can be counted upon to "buck the establishment" and "do what the people, in this case of Iowa, will be sending her to do for us," (Which apparently is to sabotage the government so it no longer functions.) Palin, a former vice presidential candidate, said during a ShePAC's "Heels On, Gloves Off!" rally in West Des Moines.

"So just so happy that, heck yeah we found a candidate that we know we can have faith in," Palin said. "We can trust her. She has proven herself over and over again. She is the right one."

She told the Iowa audience of about 250 on a Sunday afternoon soaked in thunderstorms that she was impressed with Ernst's "Squeal" ad. Ernst got national buzz for the campaign ad, in which she declares that she "grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm" and will "cut through the pork" in Washington.

"It's like, 'Whoa nobody's going to push her around. She's not going to be co-opted," Palin said. (Too late for that, the Koch brothers already own her ass.)

Palin said it was up to the audience to spread word of Ernst's resume. "You will report accurately about this wonderful candidate," she said as the crowd clapped and cheered. "I won't even ad lib what I was going to say about the press because I don't want them to take it out on Joni. OK, I'll try to be nice about what I really think about the lame stream media and how they cover conservative women in politics."

Yeah right, like anything this idiot says anymore is an "ad lib." She is tightly scripted and controlled by those who are paying her way these days.

And apparently those individuals want this lunatic in D.C..

Enrst campaign bus. It says, "Honk if you want to make DC squeal."

Ernst only has a narrow lead right now (25 to 23 percent), with forty percent still undecided, so this could certainly be another Palin flop.

The last thing this country needs is any more of these Palin backed obstructionists making it to Washington.

By the way it looks like she is still shopping for her clothes at the first Wal-Mart she sees at whichever venue she arrives at.

@SarahPalinUSA supporting @JoniForIowa "The status quo has got to go!" #TeamJoni pic.twitter.com/05usHZiat5
— Kim Reem (@KimReem) April 27, 2014

Update: Apparently not much of a crowd.

Maybe it's the rain, but the ballroom for Palin is far from full pic.twitter.com/zd2AcBmT04
— Robert Costa (@costareports) April 27, 2014

Oh how the not quite so mighty have fallen.

Source

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Courtesy of the ACLU:

The Alaska Supreme Court ruled today that the state unconstitutionally discriminates against same-sex couples by denying them equal access to a property tax exemption for senior citizens and disabled veterans.

The rules were challenged by the ACLU of Alaska, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Davis Wright Tremaine LLP on behalf of three couples who were denied full access to a $150,000 property tax exemption that Alaska makes available to opposite-sex married couples. Because same-sex couples cannot legally marry in Alaska, the state treated them as roommates rather than as families and let them get the exemption for only half of the value of their homes. Roger Leishman, partner at Davis Wright Tremaine, successfully argued the case at trial and on appeal before the Alaska Supreme Court.

"Families in Alaska deserve better than a second-class system of laws for same-sex couples who are just as committed to each other as heterosexual couples," said Joshua Decker, executive director of the ACLU of Alaska. "Our senior citizens and veterans should not have to pay more taxes just because they happen to be gay or lesbian."

I think that Alaska is primed and ready to move forward with marriage equality up here.

Hell we are already getting ready to vote on legalizing marijuana, so we might as well move the state forward in this regard as well.

Besides I want this to happen before that pernicious prick Jerry Prevo dies.

Using his sermons to vilify the LGBT community, and his political influence to help shape policies which oppress them, this man has been the driving force behind homophobia in this state for decades.

I just want the opportunity to see his face when the people of Alaska reject his hate mongering and openly embrace their gay brothers and sisters.

Source

Courtesy of the Washington Times:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin fired up a crowd of thousands inside Lucas Oil Stadium Saturday night to kick off the National Rifle Association’s “Stand and Fight Rally,” saying Americans’ constitutional rights as envisioned by the founding fathers are under attack and policies like gun-free zones constitute “stupid on steroids.”

“They knew that if the Second Amendment goes, the rest of the constitution is not far behind,” she said of the country’s founders. (This is patently untrue, as the emphasis on gun ownership by everyday citizens was NEVER the goal of the Founders. THEY were talking about militias.)

In her approximately 12-minute address, Mrs. Palin also derided what she argued is akin to a ‘blame the messenger’ attitude on gun violence many Americans take today.

“Gun stores are an accomplice to crime,” she said, “and that fork made me fat.”

She also derided those who she said place an emphasis on political correctness in handling the country’s adversaries “instead of putting the fear of God in our enemies.”

She said later in her address that if “I were in charge” — a line that drew applause from the crowd — “they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.”

Jesus what a crazed bitch! Actually waterboarding is how we turn perfectly innocent people into lifelong enemies of America.

At one point in the speech Palin said: "If you control oil, you control an economy. If you control money, you control commerce. But if you control arms, you control the people."

Essentially repeating the NRA lie that this administration wants to take away people's guns in order to oppress them, and remove their ability to fend off the police or military when they come to enforce unconstitutional laws.

At another point in her speech she said, "Gals you know that nowadays ammo's expensive. Don't waste a bullet on a warning shot."

Because you know it always better to shoot first and ask questions later.

Palin was beyond crazy in this speech and if you only listen to a few minutes of that you will see that for yourself. However she was standing in front of a crowd that ate up every word.

The country dodged a bullet in 2008, but if this woman, and the NRA, continue to have any impact on our politics there are bound to be far more flying around in the not too distant future.

Update: Raw Story is on this as well:

“Do you know why those clownish little Kumbaya-humming fairytale-inhaling liberals want to be tough all of a sudden and control your guns?” she said. “It’s ‘cuz guys like [Sen.] Al Franken (D-MN) and [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid (D-NV), they’re not satisfied with just taking your money and your job, your truck and your property and your rights, your healthcare – they didn’t want to just stop at that.”

Referring to Attorney General Eric Holder’s suggestion that technology advances, like a bracelet that interacts with a weapon, might help stem the flood of shootings, Palin referenced the many bracelets she wears that commemorate fallen soldiers and various other American causes.

“You can have these bracelets when you pry them past my cold, dead hands,” she said, echoing a popular NRA bumper sticker from the 70′s.

Damn that is one nasty bitch!

Source

Courtesy of the National Journal:

Speaking at the University of Connecticut on Wednesday night, Hillary Clinton made a restrained but nonetheless damning attack against Edward Snowden.

"People were desperate to avoid another attack, and I saw enough intelligence as a senator from New York, and then certainly as secretary [of State], that this is a constant—there are people right this minute trying to figure out how to do harm to Americans and to other innocent people," Clinton said. "So it was a debate that needs to happen, so that we make sure that we're not infringing on Americans' privacy, which is a valued, cherished personal belief that we have. But we also had to figure out how to get the right amount of security."

As for Snowden's role in exposing the NSA programs, Clinton insinuated that she found his motives suspicious.

"When he emerged and when he absconded with all that material, I was puzzled because we have all these protections for whistle-blowers. If he were concerned and wanted to be part of the American debate, he could have been," she said. "But it struck me as—I just have to be honest with you—as sort of odd that he would flee to China, because Hong Kong is controlled by China, and that he would then go to Russia—two countries with which we have very difficult cyberrelationships, to put it mildly."

Clinton stressed the strangeness of Snowden's decision to flee to countries that have perpetrated cyberattacks against the U.S. She noted that when State Department officials would travel to Russia or China on diplomatic business, they would leave their cell phones aboard the plane with their batteries taken out. "It's not like the only government in the world doing anything is the United States," she said.

"I think turning over a lot of that material—intentionally or unintentionally—drained, gave all kinds of information, not only to big countries, but to networks and terrorist groups and the like. So I have a hard time thinking that somebody who is a champion of privacy and liberty has taken refuge in Russia, under Putin's authority."

With sarcasm creeping into her voice, Clinton implied that Snowden acted all too friendly toward Vladimir Putin, whose country has been harboring Snowden since last August.

"And then he calls in to a Putin talk show and says, 'President Putin, do you spy on people?' And President Putin says, 'Well, from one intelligence professional to another, of course not.' 'Oh, thank you so much!' I mean really. I don't know, I have a hard time following it."

I'm going to leave Hillary's statements here for you to discuss, without adding any of my own opinion.

Besides by now I think most of you know where I am on the Edward Snowden situation.

Source

Courtesy of CBS News:

President Obama took some serious heat last year when insurers started dropping millions of Americans from health plans that were no longer Obamacare-compliant, seemingly breaking his promise, "If you have insurance that you like, then you will be able to keep that insurance."

A new study, however, backs up the administration's claims that the cancellations were part of the normal churn of the individual health market.

After analyzing patterns in the nongroup health coverage market from 2008 to 2011, Harvard professor Benjamin Sommers found that the market was characterized by high turnover before the Affordable Care Act was implemented. Additionally, Summers found that most people who left the nongroup market acquired other insurance within, suggesting that the cancellations attributed to Obamacare are unlikely to have a significant impact on overall coverage rates.

And another GOP talking point bites the dust.

Just have to keep spreading this information around before November.

If enough people are educated about the truth concerning the Affordable Care Act it will be that muhc harder for the Republicans to beat up the Democrats with it during the campaigns.

Source

I love this quote because I remember as a child wondering what it felt like to be an adult, and having no idea why adults seemed so sad, and tired, and depressed all of the time.

I am still waiting to understand.

Source

Bill Maher: "Somebody has to tell me, how do they do it? How do Republicans win elections?"

Maher goes on to point out that polls show that the majority of Americans are for the things that Republicans are adamantly against. So how do they win?

Maher: "I'll tell you how. They employ a complex, multifaceted technique, political scientists call 'cheating.'"

Yep, that's it alright.

Maher also says that sometimes liberals make it easy for Republicans to win by being bossy, or arrogant.

However he ends the segment with this:

"Remember, for every liberal with a cause who makes you go ‘Oh, shoot me,’ there’s a conservative with a gun who will.

Source

Courtesy of Esquire:

At the Bundy camp last week, pundits and politicians descended on Bunkerville, Nevada, to throw in their American flag hats with the BLM protestors. A FOX news van had been parked by the side of the road for days. Up on the ridge, militia snipers kept a trained watch as Bundy held court, and disciples from far and wide came to share their personal theories as to why the government was enforcing a court order.

But on Thursday, we witnessed a mainstream exodus from Bundy’s flank. Sean Hannity, Bundy’s biggest booster, called his racist remarks “beyond despicable,” but maintained that they should not taint the supporters who “for the right reasons saw this case as government overreach.”

Exactly how difficult was it, though, to determine pretty early on that Bundy and his followers were using the threat of force to back up some terrifyingly misguided beliefs?

During the few hours I visited last week, this was what was said.

Some of the things the Esquire reporter saw almost defies description, but here is a taste.

Openly discussed racism:

It’s dizzying and hot at the camp, and a very friendly man named Roy, wearing an Obama t-shirt with a joker smile painted on, hands me a cold bottle. He's from nearby Mesquite and has been a close friend and supporter of Bundy's these last few years. When I tell him I’m from New Mexico, the former cop says he has a very good buddy who used to work as a sheriff in my area.

“He got in a bit of trouble,” he chuckles. “He pulled over a carload of illegals one night, didn’t have room to haul ‘em all, so he put a chain around their neck and put a padlock through it, went to the next one, then he chained ‘em to a tree!”

He buckles with laughter as the story heats up. “Then he left ‘em and went to town to get his pickup to haul ‘em all back in. So, you might imagine, that didn’t play well — ha! You’re a young’un, but everything wasn’t against the law, way back when.”

Cliven Bundy religious prophet:

The crowd, fresh off their victory at the Battle of Bunkerville, gives Bundy a standing ovation. But he doesn’t seem pleased. He reproaches the crowd for failing to follow the word of God – to the letter – which he says is being delivered through him. They failed, for example, to follow his instructions to tear down the toll booths at Lake Mead and disarm the Park Service.

"The message I gave to you all was a revelation that I received. And yet not one of you can seem to even quote it.”

Cliven continues, sermon-like: "The records of our bible — how long have they been kept? Thousands of years. They’ve been turned over generation after generation, buried, and all kinds of things happen to ‘em. And yet, here, something I felt was inspired [by God] and yet we haven’t even carried it forth for even a couple of days. Shame on us.” Smattering of clapping.

He goes on to explain that, although they managed to deter the BLM, they failed to do it "within one hour," as the revelation had prophesied. So when an hour passes, he decides to get in his bulldozer and march on the BLM himself. The dozer gets stuck in the mud and he receives another revelation.

“It come to my mind real plain — the good Lord said, ‘Bundy, it’s not your job, it’s THEIR job.’ So we come back over here and heard that they had brought some cattle back. So I want you to understand,” addressing the crowd, "This is not my job, it’s YOUR job.

Wingnuts of all shapes and sizes:

Clearly the longer that any sensible person spends around Bundy and his group of radicals, the more clear it becomes that his ranch has become a kind of gathering place for all of the Alex Jones conspiracy theorists (Yesterday they went after Glenn Beck), angry racists, and trigger happy sovereign citizens types that were within walking, driving, or hitchhiking range.

If the BLM were smart they would simply sit back and let this powder keg smolder a little longer, because I think it is only a matter of time before these lunatics get bored and start looking around the ranch for someone to take their inner range out on.

Things could get mighty interesting in old Bunkerville before too long.

In the meantime, at least the citizens of Nevada know where all he crazy people are hanging out.

Source

Courtesy of Alabama.com:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin offered plenty of red-meat attacks on President Barack Obama during an appearance at the Baldwin County Republican Party’s annual fundraising dinner Friday, but she did not spare her own party.

Palin, who rocketed to political stardom after presidential candidate John McCain tapped her as his running mate in 2008, expressed nearly as much exasperation with the GOP establishment as she did with Democrats.

She referenced her own upbringing in an Alaskan hunting family in declaring that she would fight politicians that conservatives deride as “Republicans in Name Only” during intra-party squabbles.

“I’m not afraid at all to go on a little RINO hunt,” she said.

You ever meet somebody who is constantly complaining about how crappy their life is, but when you hear them talking about it right away you recognize that everything bad that happens to them is a self inflicted wound?

That's what the Republican party has become.

They are the girl that hooks up with a guy, forgets to use birth control, and then complains that she got knocked up and the guy up and disappeared.

Or the guy that gets pulled over while driving home after drinking shots all night, because he "doesn't live very far from here."

Or the national political party that thinks they can rile up the most fringe part of their base in order to win elections, without that fringe suddenly turning on them and trying to replace them with lunatics just like them. Oh wait, that's EXACTLY like the Republican party.

And these local idiots continue to be unaware that they are dealing with the devil who is working toward their destruction.

Case in point:

Turning serious, Palin questioned the commitment of some Republicans to repealing the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature legislative achievement.

“They’re giving a lot of lip service to it, but it’s not happening,” she said.

The reason, Palin suggested, is that some Republicans have concluded they are better off raising campaign contributions off of the issue and leaving the law alone. She said too few Republicans in Congress supported efforts by Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Mike Lee, R-Utah, to shut down the federal government in order to force the defunding of the health reform law.

“They left some of our guys out there alone,” she said. “Worse than that, they joined the lapdog media” in condemning Lee and Cruz.

Palin urged Republicans to “send reinforcements” to help tea party Republicans in Congress. She paraphrased a famous Obama quote in crediting the tea party for engineering the Republican takeover of the House in 2010.

“Republican establishment, you didn’t build that – the tea party did that,” she said.

One has to wonder if ever, in their wildest dreams, the McCain campaign could have realized that their ignorant little VP choice from the wilds of Wasilla, would someday help to found a movement that would elect subversive representatives, who would attack the party from within, while working to usher in the demise of its national relevancy?

You know, somehow I doubt it.

You know in the book Victor Von Frankenstein chased his monster all the way to the frozen north in an attempt to destroy it. In the end the pursuit took his life instead.

Perhaps the Republican party will be more successful.

Source

Courtesy of Raw Story:

Yesterday, the Louisiana Senate Education Committee upheld a controversial law that allows science teachers to bring “supplemental science education materials” into the classroom.

The Committee voted 3-1 to uphold the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA) — which critics contend allows teachers to introduce creationist literature into science classrooms — on the grounds that no proof that teachers were importing religious-oriented material into the public school could be found.

Critics of the law, including Dr. Jim Dugan, claimed at the hearing that LSEA is a ruse designed to allow for the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in public schools under the aegis of “critical thinking.”

“I think it’s obvious to any thoughtful person that the poorly written and deceptively named ‘Louisiana Science Education Act’ is a crude attempt to provide legal cover for the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in public schools,” he said.

“The bill exclusive targets — and I’m quoting from the bill here — ‘evolution,’ ‘the origins of life,’ ‘global warming,’ and ‘human cloning.’ These are not topics,” he continued, “thought to be problematic by scientists, or science educators, but [are] wedge issues frequently used by Christian fundamentalists to attempt theocratic control over public school curriculum.”

As I said yesterday education in this country is under attack, and the ONLY way to stop it is to start electing Democrats and clean out the anti-science, anti-education, Republican scumbags who are trying to destroy public education in this country.

With Bobby Jindal in charge of the state the children of Louisiana simply do not stand a chance.

Source