Great collection of t-shirts worn by attendees of the recent Glen Beck rally in D.C.
Archive for the ‘politics’ Category
those pesky liberals
It doesn’t surprise me to see that Conservapedia has an article dedicated to ‘counterexamples’ to the theory of relativity. Number 9 is my favorite..
quote of the day
To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous liberals, or to quit halfterm, and by opposing, rake in speaking fees
More Palin nonsense, via normative.
what? no.
Sarah Palin, will you please shut up?
Please?
According to a post on her facebook page, she claims that the BP gulf oil spill occurred because “radical environmentalists” have protested against drilling in “safer” places (like Alaska’s ANWR), resulting in the “outsourcing” of the country’s oil production into foreign countries and deep-sea areas. Therefore, BP’s oil spill can be blamed on everyone who works to “lock up safer drilling areas”.
The illogic of this argument is staggering, and I don’t have enough time or concern to unpack her brilliantly flawed reasoning. I’ll simply point out that in the first paragraph of her post she claims that oil production shouldn’t be outsourced to other countries (i.e. the Mideast) because “[we become] beholden to them. Some of these countries don’t like America. Some of these countries don’t care for planet earth like we do – as evidenced by our stricter environmental standards.”
Isn’t it precisely these “stricter environmental standards” that have prevented companies from drilling in “safer” areas? Aren’t these standards based on popular and legislative distaste for pollution-based disasters? You can’t simultaneously praise the nation’s “stricter environmental standards” while excoriating the very people who advocate and enforce those same standards.
sign me up for the ninja cat army
The recent attempt by the GOP to get voter input on the new Republican congressional agenda ran into one major snag: the internet.
be very afraid
The Texas State Board of Education is now a Republican-dominated group led by evangelical Christian activist Cynthia Dunbar. She is currently proposing changes to that state’s social studies curriculum to advance a conservative agenda and “promote patriotism.”
Here are some facts we should all be aware of. These facts have been culled from the linked articles.
- Dunbar supports teaching intelligent design in science classes, and believes that American government is ultimately governed by the scriptures.
- In her 2008 book One Nation Under God Dunbar calls public education a “subtly deceptive tool of perversion” as well as saying that “The establishment of public schools is unconstitutional and even ‘tyrannical’.
- She states in her book that “The only accurate method of ascertaining the intent of the founding fathers at the time of our government’s inception comes from a biblical worldview . . . We as a nation were intended by God to be a light set on a hill to serve as a beacon of hope and Christian charity to a lost and dying world.”
- In March of 2010, Dunbar proposed and won ratification of a number of modifications to Texas K-12 social studies curriculum, notably the removal of Thomas Jefferson and mention of the Age of Enlightenment (in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority).
- Dunbar has proposed curriculum changes that sideline Thomas Jefferson, who favoured separation of church and state, while introducing a new focus on the “significant contributions” of pro-slavery Confederate leaders during the civil war.
- Dunbar has proposed curriculum changes that drop study of Sir Isaac Newton in favour of examining scientific advances through military technology.
- Dunbar has proposed curriculum changes that suggest that the anti-communist witch-hunt by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s may have been justified.
- Dunbar has proposed curriculum changes that describe the civil rights movement as creating “unrealistic expectations of equal outcomes” among minorities.
- Dunbar has proposed curriculum changes that drop references to the slave trade in favour of calling it the more innocuous “Atlantic triangular trade”
- Dunbar has proposed curriculum changes that require history students to study documents, such as the Mayflower Compact, which instil the idea of America being founded as a Christian fundamentalist nation.
oh great
Alabama gubernatorial candidate Bradley Byrne recently had occasion to reaffirm his support of the teaching of creationism in Alabama schools.
Sigh.
If he’s elected, I’m moving to Denmark.
riding those coattails
Blue seems to be the new color for political websites these days.
preaching to the choir
I like this guy Jason Levin. He’s put together a network of Tea Party infiltrators called Crash the Tea Party. Their operations involve attending tea party rallies and protests and out-crazying them in order to reduce the movement’s credibility. The purpose is not to shut them down, Levin notes, but to help push the group further from the mainstream. Not that it should be that hard, of course.
let’s call a spade a spade
New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Rich points out the obvious: the right-wing rage has very little to do with the new health care bill. After all, the bill’s prototype is the health care legislation Republican Mitt Romney signed into law in Massachusetts. The A.M.A. endorsed the legislation, as did the hospital associations and most insurers (after the public option was dropped).
The real cause? White people are afraid the country is being taken over by people not like them and who are intent on disenfranchising them, just like they were afraid when the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964.
Irony of the day
From an article in the Montgomery Advertiser about an anti-health care rally that was held outside of the state house yesterday.
Opponents outside the Statehouse carried signs comparing the health care plan to socialism and communism.
“It is an attempt to do away with our individual rights and build government up so that people will be dependent on it,” said Keith Auston, a Navy retiree from Cullman.
Auston, who was attending his first political rally in Montgomery, said he’s also worried the plan will damage the health care he receives through the federal Tricare program for military retirees.
the new blue belt
Interesting article on how soil types determined the 2008 election in the deep south.
SaY no To sOcilism
Introducing “teabonics,” a new way of reading, spelling, and thinking in America.
My favorite:
ENGLISH IS OUR
LANGUAGE
NO EXCETIONS
LEARN IT
Via Stone. 
old ideas are sometimes the best
Remember F.D.R.? That unassailable lion of American politics? Well, it just so turns out that he was a staunch advocate of a Second Bill of Rights which would guarantee 1) a job with a living wage, 2) freedom from unfair competition and monopolies; 3) a home, 4) medical care, 5) education, and 6) recreation.
Yes, medical care.
Also, in related news, it turns out that Republicans were for President Barack Obama’s requirement that Americans get health insurance before they were against it.
perspective
Most unlikely link of the day: Rosie O’Donnell’s blog. However, she makes a point worth repeating, and apparently it will need to be repeated over and over and over and over and over.
We had eight years of Bush and Cheney, Now you get mad!?
You didn’t get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.
You didn’t get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.
You didn’t get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.
You didn’t get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.
You didn’t get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.
You didn’t get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and counting) on said illegal war.
You didn’t get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq.
You didn’t get mad when you found out we were torturing people.
You didn’t get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.
You didn’t get mad when we didn’t catch Bin Laden.
You didn’t get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.
You didn’t get mad when we let a major US city, New Orleans, drown.
You didn’t get mad when we gave a 900 billion tax break to the rich.
You didn’t get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark.
You finally got mad when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they are sick. Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all okay with you, but helping other Americans…oh hell no.
Update: In related news, a recent Harris poll of Republicans found some scary numbers:
- 67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist.
- 57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim.
- 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was “not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president.”
- 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is “doing many of the things that Hitler did.”
- Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama “may be the Antichrist.”
I don’t want to hear any more Republicans dismissing these views as if they don’t represent the party. They clearly do. There are a lot of people drinking the Kool-aid, and the Republican leadership has tacitly encouraged it.
Who needs a teleprompter?
Palin’s hand-written notes from the Tea Party convention:
Energy
Budget cuts
Tax
Lift America’s Spirit
And so the saga continues. via darkpony.
been there, done that
The next time I hear Republicans sputtering about the increased deficit, I’m just going to hand them a copy of this piece by David Axelrod.
