Kevin McCarthy (R-BENGHAZI!) Admits Benghazi! Investigation Was Nothing More Than a Plot To Hurt Hillary's Campaign For The Presidency

UPDATE BELOW



When they're not cheating through gerrymandering to keep their Congressional seats; or when they're not telling the truth but lying about Planned Parenthood, there's one thing the TGOP can alway use to keep their lackeys whipped up into a frenzy of free-floating, spittle-flecked rage:

BENGHAZI!

Their own investigating committees found no cover-up, no wrong-doing on Mrs. Clinton's watch, but that didn't stop the mouth-breathers from repeating their BENGHAZI! slop. And what they've perpetuated is TGOP true propagandist slop -- it smells, it's ugly, and it belongs in a latrine with the rest of their lies and dirty tricks.



After Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) admitted that Republicans lied about the purpose of the Benghazi investigation, several top Democrats are calling out the House Republicans’ abuse of power and calling for an immediate end to the investigation. 

 Rep. McCarthy got flustered during an interview with Sean Hannity and blew the worst kept political secret in Washington. He admitted that the Benghazi investigation is all about digging up mud on Hillary Clinton. 

 The ranking member of the Select Committee on Benghazi, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) said, “This stunning concession from Rep. McCarthy reveals the truth that Republicans never dared admit in public: the core Republican goal in establishing the Benghazi Committee was always to damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and never to conduct an even-handed search for the facts. It is shameful that Republicans have used this tragedy and the deaths of our fellow Americans for political gain. Republicans have blatantly abused their authority in Congress by spending more than $4.5 million in taxpayer funds to pay for a political campaign against Hillary Clinton.”

*****

I'm shocked, shocked, SHOCKED! I tell you that the TGOP liars would use the deaths of Americans for a smear campaign against Hillary Clinton!

It never occurred to the dimwits in the TGOP that no indictments, no accusations, no nothing was brought against then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But then again, that particular branch of the TGOP is not known for its critical thinking -- or any sort of thinking at all. If something was against Hillary Clinton, then they were for it, truth be damned, and keep spreading the slop far and wide.

Only this time the presumptive new Speaker of the House shot his sloppy mouth off for all the country to hear. The BENGHAZI! investigations were never about the deaths of those four Americans, they were about getting Hillary.

The thing about the Clintons that these poor benighted people still don't get is that their plans to destroy Hillary will be just as successful at their Whitewater plans were, which is to say, those plans didn't quite work out they way they wanted them to, did they.

*****

The office of Democratic Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, “House Republicans were never interested in a bipartisan investigation to improve the security of Americans abroad. They’ve only been interested in pure extremist political theater. Leader McCarthy: the American people don’t want more politically-motivated “select committees” – not to smear presidential candidates, and not to assault women’s health. They want real leadership to confront the challenges we face as a nation.” 

Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) called for an immediate end to the Benghazi investigation and for Republicans to apologize to the families of the Benghazi victims, “Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy pulled the curtain back on the true purpose of the Select Committee on Benghazi – not to get the facts – but instead as a political ploy against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. 

This stunning admission shows a gross misuse of millions in taxpayer dollars for a purely political purpose.

*****

I'm afraid I haven't been fair. Dear me. The one thing the present-day TGOP IS good at:

Spreading total Bullsh*t and getting their followers to believe it.

UPDATE:

Simon Maloy @Slate


This is an archetypal example of the Kinsley Gaffe: a politician accidentally uttering a truthful statement. Anyone who’s paid even cursory attention to the GOP’s treatment of the Benghazi attacks will likely have already concluded that the party’s interest in the matter is linked to Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions.

But it’s still bracing to see one of the most powerful Republicans in Washington come right out and brag about how he and his colleagues set up a taxpayer-funded investigation to damage the political prospects of the opposition party’s leading presidential candidate.

It’s downright scandalous, and precisely the sort of political corruption that Republicans argue is at the heart of the Obama administration’s response to Benghazi.

No less remarkable is the fact that McCarthy offered up the politicized Benghazi investigation as an “example” of how he would conduct business as Speaker of the House. He just put it right out there and told Sean Hannity that the McCarthy Congress will be a series of investigations aimed at hurting the Democrats’ chances of electoral success. 

He’s also impugned what little credibility Benghazi committee chair Trey Gowdy enjoys, and he’s given critics of the committee all the reason they need to trash the committee as a disreputable and untrustworthy exercise in partisan scapegoating. 

One Democratic member of the Benghazi committee had already called for the investigation to be shut down, and other Democrats are doing the same in the aftermath of McCarthy’s remarks.

Wednesday is Trump Hump Day

THE MOUTH THAT ROARED:










JOE NOCERA, The New York Times


I wonder, in fact, whether even now Trump is a serious candidate, or whether this is all a giant publicity ploy. Once a real developer, Trump is largely a licenser today; the more famous he becomes, the more he can charge to slap his name on buildings or perfume or men’s suits.

I’m not alone in wondering this, of course. Several Republican consultants I spoke to openly questioned whether Trump is in it for the long haul. “You would see him spending a lot more money if he were putting together a true national infrastructure,” said Rick Wilson, a Republican strategist.

There’s one other thing. All his life, Trump has had a deep need to be perceived as a “winner.” He always has to be perceived coming out on top. That’s why, ultimately, I don’t think he’ll ever put himself at the mercy of actual voters in a primary. To do so is to risk losing. And everyone will know it.

He’ll be out before Iowa. You read it here first.

Ben Carson: "Every Mouse Has a Wittle Wee-Wee"

Tuesday Night flashback to the first TGOP debate:

Florida GOPer hatches plan to redraw Dem's district with black inmates who can't vote.

While the TGOP went after ACORN, they turned a blind eye to their manipulative scamming to keep Congressional districts in the TGOP column. If you can't win on the issues, there's always a way to deceive, delude, and dupe, and the hypocritical little cheats are masters at it:




Busted: Florida GOPer hatches diabolical plan to redraw Dem’s district with black inmates who can’t vote



"Republican Florida state Rep. Janet Adkins was recently caught on tape explaining her plan to defeat state Rep. Corrine Brown, a black Democrat, by redrawing the district lines to include African-American inmates who cannot vote.

Brown sued the state earlier this year after Republican lawmakers proposed adding about 7,000 inmates to Congressional District 5. Prison populations in Florida include a much higher percentage of minorities compared to the general population.

 According to Brown, lawmakers were making it more difficult for black candidates to get elected by making it appear that the black voting population had increased when it had actually decreased because inmates could not vote.

 In a private meeting with supporters last month, Adkins admitted that the strategy was the key to defeating Brown, Politico reported on Wednesday.

 “You take a look at when you’re drawing these minority access districts, one of the questions that’s been asked is what’s the right percentage of minorities?” she said after making sure no reporters were in the room. “When you look at drawing that east-west corridor, what’s the primary industry in North Florida? Prisons.”


Listen to this GOPers diabolical plan to make sure her opponent will lose.





It's the same way Republicans won the US House: by gerrymandering their districts and ensuring that no Democrat has a chance of winning a contested seat. IOW, cheating.




Gerrymandering Rigged the 2014 Elections for GOP Advantage


In 2012, the first congressional election after the last round of gerrymandering, Democratic House candidates won 50.59 percent of the vote — or 1.37 million more votes than Republican candidates — yet secured only 201 seats in Congress, compared to 234 seats for Republicans. 

The House of Representatives, the “people’s house,” no longer requires the most votes for power. As the results from this year roll in, we see a similar dynamic. Republican gerrymandering means Democratic voters are packed tightly into single districts, while Republicans are spread out in such a way to translate into the most congressional seats for the GOP. 

 There are a lot of structural issues that influence congressional elections, from voter ID requirements to early voting access. But what does it matter if you’ve been packed into a district in which your vote can’t change the composition of Congress.

Senator Cruz's Preacher Daddy -- The One Who Calls Cruz "The Anointed King."

A commenter in the Sept. 26 post brought up the fact that some right wingers are claiming that the Pope is "political," as though the Pope is the only religious leader with a political agenda. 

Now we know Ted Cruz's daddy isn't on the same level as the Pope, but Papa Rafael is the father of a man whose ambition is to be the leader of the free world. One would think that the guy who calls his son, Ted Cruz, "The Anointed King," might have some influence on him. The Pope would have ZERO direct influence on anyone of the contenders running for the presidency at this time, but Ted Cruz's father, should Cruz win the presidency? What do you think? He hasn't exactly hidden his agenda on this at all, has he.


From "If You Only News"

Senator Ted Cruz, who is running for President of the United States in the GOP primary, needs to keep is father, Rafael Cruz, on a leash. Because, if there’s anyone who is a bigger media whore than Ted Cruz, it’s his father, Rafael. 

 While at an event in Houston, the elder Cruz, who is somehow an ordained pastor, spoke to a group of right-wing homophobes trying to repeal an ordinance protecting LGBT citizens. Not only did Cruz attack the ordinance, he chastised the Supreme Court for its decision in June legalizing same-sex marriage, saying it had no jurisdiction to rule on marriage. It is because of Satan’s influence that conservatives must aspire to higher office, Cruz told the group. 

 But it was his stinging an outrageous attack on Houston’s openly lesbian mayor, Annise Parker, that took the cake in lunacy:

"It is appalling that in a city like Houston, right in the middle of the Bible Belt, we have a homosexual mayor. Why? Because so many people have been sitting in their pews or sitting at home with this business about ‘separation of church and state.’ " 

Cruz then launched an assault on the separation of church and state, calling it a lie. Let’s remember one thing: the elder Cruz is a campaign surrogate for the Senator in Texas. He’s supposed to represent what his son believes.





Where is the right wing's outrage on Rafael Cruz's anti-Constitutional statements? 
I recall the bilious anger that came from the righties over President Obama's Rev. Wright problem.  Mr. Obama left Rev. Wright and his church. Ted Cruz can hardly leave his own father, but he can speak out and refute the anti-Constitutional claims Rafael makes about church and state. It appears the right wingers' concern over what pastors say stops when someone from their tribe makes anti-American statements.

Sunday Night Poetry

The White Fires of Venus

Denis Johnson, 1949

We mourn this senseless planet of regret,
droughts, rust, rain, cadavers
that can’t tell us, but I promise
you one day the white fires
of Venus shall rage: the dead,
feeling that power, shall be lifted, and each
of us will have his resurrected one to tell him,
“Greetings. You will recover
or die. The simple cure
for everything is to destroy
all the stethoscopes that will transmit
silence occasionally. The remedy for loneliness
is in learning to admit
solitude as one admits
the bayonet: gracefully,
now that already
it pierces the heart.
Living one: you move among many
dancers and don’t know which
you are the shadow of;
you want to kiss your own face in the mirror
but do not approach,
knowing you must not touch one
like that. Living
one, while Venus flares
O set the cereal afire,
O the refrigerator harboring things
that live on into death unchanged.”

They know all about us on Andromeda,
they peek at us, they see us
in this world illumined and pasteled
phonily like a bus station,
they are with us when the streets fall down fraught
with laundromats and each of us
closes himself in his small
San Francisco without recourse.
They see you with your face of fingerprints
carrying your instructions in gloved hands
trying to touch things, and know you
for one despairing, trying to touch the curtains,
trying to get your reflection mired in alarm tape
past the window of this then that dark
closed business establishment.
The Andromedans hear your voice like distant amusement park music
converged on by ambulance sirens
and they understand everything.
They’re on your side. They forgive you.

I want to turn for a moment to those my heart loves,
who are as diamonds to the Andromedans,
who shimmer for them, lovely and useless, like diamonds:
namely, those who take their meals at soda fountains,
their expressions lodged among the drugs
and sunglasses, each gazing down too long
into the coffee as though from a ruined balcony.
O Andromedans they don’t know what to do
with themselves and so they sit there
until they go home where they lie down
until they get up, and you beyond the light years know
that if sleeping is dying, then waking
is birth, and a life
is many lives. I love them because they know how
to manipulate change
in the pockets musically, these whose faces the seasons
never give a kiss, these
who are always courteous to the faces
of presumptions, the presuming streets,
the hotels, the presumption of rain in the streets.
I’m telling you it’s cold inside the body that is not the body,
lonesome behind the face
that is certainly not the face
of the person one meant to become.

Sunday Science Blog

One of my favorite videos.  

The rare kakapo parrot gets really, really friendly with a visitor in his environment.

Poped Out? Here's Some FLOTUS Eye Candy.

State dinner with Chinese President Xi JinPing:

FLOTUS looking GORGEOUS!

Friday Cartoon Round-Up

h/t Democratic Underground

Presidents Bush and Obama on Muslims

Here’s a fun game. Here are some statements from Presidents Obama and Bush. 

See if you can guess who said which.



1)   “Ours is a war not against a religion, not against the Muslim faith. But ours is a war against individuals who absolutely hate what America stands for.” 

2)   “They’re terrorists. And we are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.” 

3)   “Our war is not against Islam, or against faith practiced by the Muslim people. Our war is a war against evil.” 

4)   “Our enemy doesn’t follow the great traditions of Islam. They’ve hijacked a great religion.” 

5)   “Given the…nature of the enemy — which is not a traditional army — this work takes time, and will require vigilance and resilience.” 

6)   “The terrorists do not speak for over a billion Muslims who reject their hateful ideology.” 

7)   “The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself.” 

8)   “How do we, as people of faith, reconcile these realities — the profound good…the compassion and love that can flow from all of our faiths, operating alongside those who seek to hijack religious for their own murderous ends?” 

9)   “There are thousands of Muslims who proudly call themselves Americans, and they know what I know — that the Muslim faith is based upon peace and love and compassion.” 

10)  “This great religion in the hands of a few extremists has been distorted to justify violence.”


Answers to Bush-Obama language quiz: 

1-Bush 
2-Obama 
3-Bush 
4-Bush 
5-Obama 
6-Obama 
7-Bush 
8-Obama
9-Bush 
10-Obama



The extremists on the right who believe Mr. Obama is an Islam-loving, Commie, Kenyan, Muslim will ignore how their Christian Conservative President Bush defended and praised Islam -- which, of course, doesn't make HIM a Muslim, but it makes President Obama a Muslim.  And we mustn't forget that Obama's middle name is Hussein, which proves he's a Muslim, because someone's given name is what makes that person a Christian, Muslim, Jew, or Pastafarian. The fact that President Obama identifies himself as a Christian is immaterial to the extreme haters on the right. Their detestation of this president is their life's blood; they feed on it and nourish their unhappy little souls with it. It's what holds them together in their tight little circle of hate.

If you repeat a lie often enough, -- in this case, that President Obama is a Muslim -- then you'll allow yourself and others to believe it's the truth.  And if you really believe President Obama is a Muslim, all evidence to the contrary, you must be one of those people who call Americans "vermin" and one of those people who want to kick Americans out of their own country because of the religion they practice. 

The Nazis demonized the Jews in the 1930s, blamed them and liberals for everything that was wrong with Germany. There isn't that much difference between what the Nazis said then and what the extremist wingnuts are saying now about Muslims (and libtards). They're just too blinded by their fear, loathing, and ignorance to see it for what it is.



"...all evidence points to the fact that Obama is a Christian. The members of the public who say he is a Muslim -- 18 percent, according to the Pew poll [2010] -- are wrong, and we rate their statement Pants on Fire!"


From "Christianity Today:"

Obama Is Not a Muslim

From Wikipedia:

Allegations that Barack Obama secretly practices Islam or is an atheist, or that he is the antichrist of Christian eschatology, have been suggested since he campaigned for the U.S. Senate in 2004 and have proliferated since his election as President of the U.S. in 2008. 

As with conspiracy theories surrounding his citizenship status, these false claims are promoted by various fringe theorists and political opponents, with American bloggers and talk radio hosts particularly promoting the theories. 



And then there are the more egregiously dumb who use doctored videos to "prove" President Obama is a MOSLEM!

"The video in the link is actually a compendium of intercut, out-of-context statements taken from various interviews with Barack Obama in which he discussed Islam in general (as well as his childhood exposure to Islam), and from addresses delivered by President Obama to areas of the world with predominantly Muslim audiences for the purpose of "creat[ing] a better dialogue so that the Muslim world understands more effectively how the United States, but also how the West thinks about many of these difficult issues like terrorism, like democracy, to discuss the framework for what's happened in Iraq and Afghanistan and our outreach to Iran, and also how we view the prospects for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians."



The above is a somewhat complicated explanation of why President Obama (as well as his predecessor, GWB) do not condemn the Muslim religion. But the rightwing nutjobs can't understand something as nuanced as presidents not wanting to make a difficult situation worse by stirring up hatred against the world's 1.2 billion Muslims. The absence of malice toward non-jihadist Muslims by President Obama (and GWB) is the only proof needed, to the simple-minded, that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.

Wednesday is Trump Hump Day

The whiners who support the Trumpster complain that the Left and the Media "destroy" their candidates. Remember how Sarah Palin was "destroyed" by the media when they reported her inability to name one newspaper she read? What a "GOTCHA" question that was! It was all downhill for the "bullpit with lipstick" after that. Now we have Donald Trump, who 30+ percent of the TGOP supports for the presidency, and his whining supporters claiming the media are trying to take him down.

The truth, which always eludes the true believers of the TGOP, is that the Trumpster will sabotage himself with the incessant self-aggrandizing, meaningless tripe that he demagogues and tweets day after day.

The following quotes and tweets show that the Trumpster has the emotional maturity of a 10-year-old school yard bully:


Here are the Trumpster's expletive-laden zingers on foreign policy and trade. 

"Speaking about America's military presence abroad, he said:

We build a school, we build a road, they blow up the school, we build another school, we build another road they blow them up, we build again, in the meantime we can't get a fucking school in Brooklyn.


Speaking in Las Vegas in 2012, Trump gave his take on how to keep oil prices low for American consumers: just curse out OPEC! The real crux of the problem, in his words: 


"We have nobody in Washington that sits back and said, you're not going to raise that fucking price."


And despite the fact that some of his clothing is made in China, Trump bashed the Middle Kingdom. If elected president, what would his message for China be?

 "Listen you motherfuckers, we're going to tax you 25 percent!"




The Trumpster likes to tweet:

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump No more massive injections. Tiny children are not horses—one vaccine at a time, over time. 9:29 AM - 3 Sep 2014 489 489 Retweets 435 435 favorites 


Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump An 'extremely credible source' has called my office and told me that @BarackObama's birth certificate is a fraud. 4:23 PM - 6 Aug 2012 2,568 2,568 


The Trumpster likes to brag:


I dealt with Gaddafi. I rented him a piece of land. He paid me more for one night than the land was worth for two years, and then I didn't let him use the land. That's what we should be doing. I don't want to use the word "screwed," but I screwed him. That's what we should be doing. 

Our country is in serious trouble. We don't have victories anymore. We used to have victories, but we don't have them. When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let's say China in a trade deal? I beat China all the time. All the time.   


(Note: Donald J. Trump outsources his clothing manufacturing to China.)


The Trumpster is a dedicated Birther:


Trump isn't so sure that the President is being square with the American people on matters of faith — despite his annual participation in the National Prayer Breakfast, among countless other examples, Trump believes that President Obama might be Muslim. 

 He may have one but there's something on that, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim. I don't know. Maybe he doesn't want that. Or he may not have one. I will tell you this: if he wasn't born in this country, it's one of the great scams of all time. 



The Trumpster, like all misogynistic bullies, attacks women on their looks:


Yet another bad-taste attack on a prominent woman — Trump called Huffington Post founder Ariana Huffington "unattractive both inside and out" in a 2012 tweet.

SOURCE




From Digby: 

" And they[the media] are shocked, I tell you, shocked that Donald Trump would be seen as someone who would endorse such ugly sentiments. 

 That's right, the man who announced his presidential campaign by declaring that most undocumented immigrants are rapists is supposed to be someone who repudiates xenophobic language and they are surprised that the man who ridiculously insisted the president was not born in the US and succeeded in getting him to release his long form birth certificate to prove him wrong is supported by a bunch of Muslim-hating bigots."

Koch Brothers Lose Their Investment

Not much of a ROI for the Koch Brothers from this guy.

I never understood how anyone could see Walker as the POTUS/CiC.  Apparently a lot of people couldn't either. 

Walker bragged that because he faced down unions in his state, he'd be able to easily handle ISIS. That inane comparison was an insight into his overblown assessment of his abilities. Wisconsin teachers are not the same as ISIS -- Duh! Then there was his absurd statement about building a wall between the U.S. and Canada -- he said that was a reasonable idea. Right. But he never explained how he would, as POTUS, get the wall built in the Great Lakes that share a border with the U.S. and Canada. Details, details! 

You've been beamed OUT of the race, Scottie.  Buh-bye!

The TGOP's Allergy to Facts

The extremist right wingers' preposterous insistence that President Obama is a Muslim (as if there were something unAmerican about that) is only one symptom of their allergy to facts. Some right wing pundit once stated that the TGOP creates its own reality, and we can observe that every day some wacko insists the POTUS is not a Christian but a Muslim, despite the truth that stares them in their allergy-to-facts faces:

Speaking of anti-Muslim baiters, Dr. Carson stepped in it again with his ignorance of the United States Constitution on full display.  The right wingers think this man, who knows practically nothing about our country's founding document, would make a nifty preznit! Because, you know, if you wanted someone to perform complicated brain surgery on your child, you'd go for the guy who knows how to install a garbage disposal in your kitchen sink!






By Michael Cohen:

"...Jake Tapper directed a question to Carson about the connection between vaccines and autism..."

This isn’t a complicated issue. There is no link between vaccines and autism. None. That should have been the answer when the question was posed to an actual medical doctor such as Carson. But Carson demurred. Instead of answering, he pivoted to a bizarre complaint about big government and the size of the federal workforce."

[skip]

"And when Trump, who has for years trumpeted the autism/vaccine link, claimed that he wasn’t opposed to vaccines but that they should be spread out (which actually increases the risks of spreading deadly diseases), Carson went along with him. While he noted that there is no known connection between vaccines and autism, Carson also said, “We’re probably giving way too many.”

[skip]

"[Rand]Paul thinks “freedom” is more important than public health. It’s one thing to marvel at the unprecedented and stupefying levels of GOP know-nothingness on display this election season — the misstatements, the untruths, the exaggerations, the falsehoods, and the straight-up lies. But these vaccine comments represent a legitimate public health menace. And it’s indicative of the allergy to facts, data, and evidence that is the real story of the GOP debate, and indeed of the Republican nominating contest — and we need to be talking more about it."

[skip]


"Carly Fiorina went further into crazy land than Rubio by calling for “aggressive military exercises in the Baltic states” and no dialogue at all with Russia. She also said that Iran has “talked Vladimir Putin into aligning themselves with Iran and Syria to prop up Bashar al-Assad” — as if Russian support for Assad doesn’t go back decades. These are minor points that few nonwonks noticed, but it’s indicative of how ill-informed so many of the comments were during the debate; and how reluctant (or too ill-informed) debate moderators are to point out these statements are wrong. 

 We joke about this stuff, but after a while it’s no longer funny. The Republican Party is dominated by candidates who are proudly, even boastfully ignorant. Rejecting the clear science on vaccines or climate change is practically the price of admission even to be considered a legitimate presidential candidate. 

Playing on xenophobic fears of immigrants by lying about the economic costs and threats to American workers — pro forma. It reached a point Wednesday night when a candidate actually saying something true was an event worthy of note. But make no mistake, the descent of the Republican Party into dishonesty, lies, and cravenness is no joke. It’s a national crisis."

Sunday Night Poetry

Nano-Knowledge
by Heather McHugh

There, a little right
of Ursus Major, is
the Milky Way:
a man can point it out,
the biggest billionfold of all
predicaments he's in:
his planet's street address.

What gives? What looks
a stripe a hundred million
miles away from here

is where we live.

*

Let's keep it clear. The Northern Lights
are not the North Star. Being but
a blur, they cannot reassure us.
They keep moving - I think far
too easily. September spills

some glimmers of
the boreals to come:
they're modest pools
of horizontal haze, where later

they'll appear as foldings in the vertical,
a work of curtains, throbbing dim
or bright. (One wonders at
one's eyes.) The very sight
will angle off in glances or in shoots
of something brilliant, something

bigger than we know, its hints uncatchable
in shifts of mind ... So there

it is again, the mind, with its
old bluster, its self-centered
question: what

is dimming, what is bright?
The spirit sinks and swells, which cannot tell
itself from any little luster. 

Heather McHugh

Sunday Science Blog

When the going gets tough, Trump the Wimp gets going.

Criticism against the Trumpster by Republicans and Democrats has resulted in Donald Trump, at the last minute, pulling out of a Republican forum he was going to attend in South Carolina on Friday. Using "he's gotta close a deal" as an excuse, the little coward backed out as more people call him out for not condemning the crazy guy in New Hampshire who claimed President Obama was not an American citizen, but a Muslim, and that President Obama wants to kill him.



"We have a problem in this country. It's called Muslims," an unidentified man who spoke at a question-and-answer town hall event in Rochester, New Hampshire asked the mogul at a rally Thursday night. 

"You know our current president is one. You know he's not even an American." 

 A seemingly bewildered Trump interrupted the man, chuckling, "We need this question. This is the first question." 

 "Anyway, we have training camps growing where they want to kill us," the man, wearing a "Trump" T-shirt, continued. "That's my question: When can we get rid of them?" 

 "We're going to be looking at a lot of different things," Trump replied. "You know, a lot of people are saying that and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening. We're going to be looking at that and many other things." 

 The real estate mogul did not correct the questioner about his claims about Obama before moving on to another audience member.

From Politicususa:


Donald Trump is proving that there is no spine behind his bluster. Instead of facing the music for his birtherism, Trump has gone into hiding. The excuse that Trump had to back out of a big public event at the last minute because of a business deal closing doesn’t wash, because Donald Trump has business deals closing all of the time.

[skip]

Anyone who isn’t a Republican doesn’t believe in the birther conspiracy. By not correcting his supporters who claimed during a rally yesterday that the President is a foreign born Muslim, Trump has doomed himself to fringes of the Republican Party. The campaign has gotten hard for Trump, and his first reaction was to run away and hide. How is Trump supposed to make America great again when he can’t handle negative media coverage?





So the wind bag is starting to collapse, and his wimpiness, his cowardice in not standing up to the obviously crazy idiot who slandered the US president is there for all to see.

If you can't stand up to a feeble-minded dolt, Donnie, you're not fit to be president of a sewing circle, never mind the most powerful country on the planet.

The Kids Are Alright, Part V

Adults could learn a lesson or two from these supportive teens.

Good for them, and good for Ahmed Mohamed.


Kids Fight Back Against Racist School and Police By Bringing Clocks To School

We're proud of you, America.

And for all you haters who slander and demonize all Muslims...

Irving, Texas, Teen Arrested for Doing Science

By now you've read the depressing story about Ahmed Mohamed:



Northwest Dallas CountyAhmed Mohamed swept up, 'hoax bomb' charges swept away as Irving teen's story floods social media


 All one has to do to understand the over-reaction to this teenager's self-conducted science project--a homemade digital clock--is read what the far right wingers say daily on their blogs about people like Ahmed and his family. Go read those blogs and you'll find far right TGOPers saying what is quoted below. No, I will not link to any of them. (Please remember that the people who write this also become very pius every Sunday by blogging about a loving, all-accepting Jesus Christ):




"So a mistake was made, ok it's over, do we have to invite the kid to the White House and kiss his ass to apologize ? Or maybe we should hold a Beer or a Coke summit in the Rose Garden! Muslim problems pop up all the time. We can't always be right. 

The president is too obvious where his allegiance lies. TRAITOR to the American People. 

Our congresscritters should have stopped this asshole years ago. Weapons (small arms and manpads) are probably scattered all over the country and they won’t dare inspect a mosque for fear of offending these sand rats. I thought we would have a bad summer but we better be prepared for one helluva winter. If anything happens along the lines of 9/11, I hope that it starts where all these progressives live. Maybe then the elites will realize that they are on the jihadis’ list too."



"Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, says his country will accept only Christian refugees as it would be “false solidarity” to force Muslims to settle in a country without a single mosque." It sounds like Slovakia is way ahead of the curve! As for those ports-of-entry into Europe, the only food that should be served is pork: sausages, ham, bacon, pig's feet, etc. Anyone refusing to eat it or getting sick from eating it should be sent back to the Moslem Hell Hole from whence they came!"


"I also posted this on another popular blog site in light of PS tolerance for filthy Moslem vermin and here as a testament to plummeting SAT scores!"


"...yea, a disarmed society requires the vast majority to be willing participants in non-violence. That's not so in Europe anymore with the moslem invasion and economic strife. Honestly folks, with all the vermin you iknow are running around in the USA do you really want to disarm? Wow."


"Conservatives need to stop laying[sic] down. People who are not interested in this lifestyle need to stop laying[sic] down. And here's a tip for any lib progressives. No one has to like you. No one has to like LGBT people. No one has to like or even accept moslem vermin. Got a problem with that?"




"We certainly can't round 'em all up and put em in concentration camps, and even if we could, it would NOT solve the problem. The Nazis tried it with people THEY didn't like, and didn't THAT backfire BIG TIME over the long haul? The very people the Nazis tried to exterminate systematically once freed by the Allies soon recovered, then returned with a vengeance to became more powerful and influential than they ever had been at any time in their prior history."


"I agree about Obummer being Muslim as many intelligent and prominent figures have said (Of course, the intelligence requirement would exclude the Dems.). But the Muslims by sheer multiplication have become the proverbial octopus, encircling the prey..."

*********************

I invoke Godwin's law here because the people who write what is quoted above have much in common with the people who slandered the Jews.


Early in his membership in the Nazi Party, Hitler presented the Jews as behind all of Germany's moral and economic problems, as featuring in both Bolshevism and international capitalism. He blamed "money-grubbing Jews" for all of Weimar Germany's economic problems. He also drew upon the antisemitic elements of the stab-in-the-back legend to explain the defeat in World War I and to justify their views as self-defense. In one speech, when Hitler asked who was behind Germany's failed war efforts, the audience erupted with "The Jews."

After the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923, he moderated his tone for the trial, centering his defense on his selfless devotion to the good of the Volk and the need for bold action to save them; though his references to the Jews were not eliminated (speaking, for instance, of "racial tuberculosis" in "German lungs"), they were decreased to win support. Some Nazis feared their movement lost its antisemitic edge, and Hitler privately assured them that he regarded his previous views as mild.

Mein Kampf raged against Jews as a dangerous bacillus.


In 1933, Hitler's speeches spoke of serving Germany and defending it from its foes: hostile countries, Communism, liberals, and culture decay.


Read any of the far right wing blogs and you'll find these exact same themes applied to Liberals/Progressive, the LGBT communities, African-Americans, Hispanics, and Muslims.

Is anyone surprised that Ahmed Mohamed was treated as a terrorist instead of as a young man who aspires to be a scientist?


MORE HERE.

Wednesday is Trump Hump Day

Here's another look at the type of person who supports the Trumpster:


‘Clean my hotel room, b*tch': More Trump fans caught making racist remarks at Latinos


“The Mexicans are the hairs of a*sholes. Viva Donald Trump,” one 30-year-old woman reportedly said in both English and Spanish. The woman, who identified herself only as “Jackie,” also told one demonstrator, “Clean my hotel room, b*tch.”



This is the sort of gutter-brained hater who supports a demagogue like Donald Trump. 

Is this how he wants to make America great again? 

He's an inspiration to the worst of the worst impulses in America.



From the Dallas Morning News:

Editorial: All Donald the Vulgarian can do is drag the GOP down with him


"...this phenomenon, for lack of a better term, has ceased to be about Donald Trump. As in years past, it’s now more about the people who say they support him, hell (quite possibly) or high water (undoubtedly). 

What Trump drives home through ill-considered remarks about Mexican immigrants, former Vietnam POW John McCain and now Fox News host Megyn Kelly is that he’s no plain-spoken candidate of character. He doesn’t even pretend to play one on TV. What his remaining fans support is someone willing to mouth in public the words of the proudly xenophobic, ignorant and misogynistic. That he believes there’s a market for that among actual Republicans is unfortunate — for Republicans. 

Look, we understand his mile-wide, inch-deep surface appeal. He insists he’s the one anti-political-correctness candidate. “He tells it like it is,” instead of offering stereotypically squishy, over-focus-grouped talking points. He sounds so fearless because he’ll say anything to anybody. Except he’s not. 

He whines and complains when a debate moderator asks him pointed and perfectly within-bounds questions about things he has done or said. When that questioner is a woman, he steps down from the gutter — or wherever — and tries to bully her into silence, then denies what the world understood him to say. Disagree? Well, “stupid,” that puts you among the “slobs,” “fat pigs,” “idiots,” “dogs” or “disgusting animals.” You don’t have to like Rosie O’Donnell or Megyn Kelly to be repelled by such crassness. All you have to be is a human being with a brain and common sense. 

We’re confident such Republican voters still exist. Telling it like it is doesn’t have to mean stooping to the vulgar extremes. Someone actually running for president would know that; someone play-acting as a candidate caricature might not. Or, in Donald Trump’s case, clearly doesn’t. 

 His chance of winning the GOP nomination is nil, and he won’t even promise to support the nominee. All he can do is drag a party down with him."




And no, the fact that we and others see the Trumpster for what he is -- vulgar, crass, thin-skinned, whining demagogue with nothing of substance to offer -- doesn't mean we're "scared" of him.  That's what the Tea Party fans of Sarah Palin said when we criticized her.  Where is she now?  

No, we're not afraid of the Trumpster, we're appalled that so many people are supporting this short-fingered vulgarian who promises them everything by saying nothing.  

He's just gonna be great and he'll be winning so much that we Americans will be sick of winning. That's his promise.  A ten-year old playing "King of the Hill" would promise the same.  The only difference is that the ten-year old's playmates would have the brains to laugh at him instead of believing his empty boasting.

Liberals vs. Conservatives on Quality of Life Issues

From the blog "Why Evolution is True," a number of charts that show differences between liberal/conservative areas of the U.S.A.

Think of these charts and remember them when conservatives tell everyone how superior their political ideology is.

Look at how well, for example, the liberal northeast does compared with the very conservative southeast, deep south, and southwest on quality of life issues.

If conservatism is a superior ideology, why do conservative run states do so poorly in quality of life issues?  


The comparisons begin with religiosity:

Teen birth rate:

Overall accessibility and quality of health care:








Life expectancy: Healthy years of life beyond age 65:

Levels of poverty by state:

















 Human development (well being) by state:


Levels of

Sunday Night Poetry

The End
by Mark Strand

Not every man knows what he shall sing at the end,

Watching the pier as the ship sails away, or what it will seem like

When he’s held by the sea’s roar, motionless, there at the end,

Or what he shall hope for once it is clear that he’ll never go back.

When the time has passed to prune the rose or caress the cat,

When the sunset torching the lawn and the full moon icing it down

No longer appear, not every man knows what he’ll discover instead.

When the weight of the past leans against nothing, and the sky

Is no more than remembered light, and the stories of cirrus

And cumulus come to a close, and all the birds are suspended in flight,

Not every man knows what is waiting for him, or what he shall sing

When the ship he is on slips into darkness, there at the end.

Sunday Science Blog

Found via Three Quarks Daily

It’s Been 6 1/2 Years Obama – Where’s The FEMA Camps, Sharia Law, Suspension of the Constitution?

It’s Been 6 1/2 Years Obama – Where’s The FEMA Camps, Sharia Law, Suspension of the Constitution?


"...here are three,,,allegations, myths, lies regarding the Obama agenda that have failed to come true in spite of the 6+ years Obama has been in office.

 FEMA Camps

The rumor of the wide-spread detention of gun-toting, God-loving Americans being placed, by the millions, into FEMA camps has been around for years now. Late last year, Morgan Brittany, actress and host of conservative online show PolitiChicks, won a gold star for her assertion that “the Obama administration has ‘orchestrated’ Ebola and other crises in order to declare ‘martial law’ and seize everyone’s guns,”



Islamic/Sharia Law

Our favorite rumor regarding Obama’s plans to impose Islamic/Sharia law on the United States comes from an interview last year with Jim Garrow. As Right-Wing Watch reported last February, in an interview with “The Rundown," right-wing huckster Jim Garrow cited the completely bogus conspiracy theory that Obamacare is paving the way for legal decapitation by guillotine, which he claims is part of President Obama’s plan to impose Islamic law on America.”




Martial Law 

We have heard for years about the imminent suspension of the Constitution and the imposition of martial law. In spite of the obvious absurdity of such claims, there are those who go much further than that. One such example can be found, yet again, with insane Jim Garrow. The story begins with a Facebook post from January 2013 in which he claimed that Obama is purging military leadership of anyone unwilling to fire on U.S. citizens. 

 I have just been informed by a former senior military leader that Obama is using a new “litmus test” in determining who will stay and who must go in his military leaders. Get ready to explode folks. “The new litmus test of leadership in the military is if they will fire on US citizens or not”. Those who will not are being removed. – Dr. Jim Garrow – January 21, 2013

Needless to remind everyone, but I will, that the people who eat up these conspiracy theories are the same people who support Donald Trump.  

Also the woman, Kim Davis, who tried to impose her brand of Christianity on gay couples seeking marriage licenses in Kentucky apparently doesn't understand that disobeying the law carries consequences. If her deeply held religious beliefs prevent her from carrying out the duties under the law that she swore to uphold, then she should resign and find other work. 

We are a secular nation under secular laws. Those who support Davis would never accept, say, a devout Muslim woman in the same position who refused to issue a marriage license to a couple if the woman was not wearing a hijab, would they? They would never accept a devout, anti-gun religionist refusing to sell a firearm to someone. Would they not tell that person to find other work because Second Amendment! 

Marriage equality is the law of the land, Davis and her fellow religionists don't understand that the United States is a secular nation that protects all religions, and not just her brand of Christianity.  Her, and especially Mike Huckabee's, argument is invalid.


The Bible Doesn’t Have Authority Over The Constitution And Here’s Why That’s Good News

September 11, 2001 -- Kevin McCarthy

Remembering him and all who lost their lives.

Kevin McCarthy

I measure every Grief I meet
by Emily Dickinson
I measure every Grief I meet With narrow, probing, eyes – I wonder if It weighs like Mine – Or has an Easier size. I wonder if They bore it long – Or did it just begin – I could not tell the Date of Mine – It feels so old a pain – I wonder if it hurts to live – And if They have to try – And whether – could They choose between – It would not be – to die – I note that Some – gone patient long – At length, renew their smile – An imitation of a Light That has so little Oil – I wonder if when Years have piled – Some Thousands – on the Harm – That hurt them early – such a lapse Could give them any Balm – Or would they go on aching still Through Centuries of Nerve – Enlightened to a larger Pain – In Contrast with the Love – The Grieved – are many – I am told – There is the various Cause – Death – is but one – and comes but once – And only nails the eyes – There's Grief of Want – and grief of Cold – A sort they call "Despair" – There's Banishment from native Eyes – In sight of Native Air – And though I may not guess the kind – Correctly – yet to me A piercing Comfort it affords In passing Calvary – To note the fashions – of the Cross – And how they're mostly worn – Still fascinated to presume That Some – are like my own –

The Iran Deal: Clinton vs. Trump

Serious vs. Clown:



From Politico:



The contrasts were stark. She [Hillary Clinton] spoke inside a windowless think tank auditorium, from a podium and with a teleprompter. Chilled water and a conversation in upholstered chairs awaited nearby. Her address was substantive, serious and staid. “Is it perfect? Well, of course not. No agreement like this ever is,” she said of the Iran deal. “But is it a strong agreement? Yes it is.”

 He [Donald Trump] spoke in the beating midday heat before a raucous, tea party-organized rally of more than 1,000 at the foot of the Capitol. He flashed a thumbs up as supporters screamed “Donald!” and waved pro-Trump signs. “Never ever, ever in my life have I seen any transaction so incompetently negotiated as our deal with Iran,” he said. “And I mean never.”

This was Clinton in her element, and Trump in his. She offered a detailed policy defense of the Iran deal. He inveighed against it with insults. She lectured. He hectored. “Diplomacy is not the pursuit of perfection. It is the balancing of risk.” Clinton explained.

“We are led by very, very stupid people,” said Trump. “Very, very stupid people. We cannot let it continue.”



 [skip]



Trump continued to say absolutely NOTHING and continued to impress the people who love candidates who insult, hector, taunt, and say ABSOLUTELY NOTHING:



Trump, unsurprisingly, stole the show. “We will have so much winning if I get elected that you may get bored with winning. Believe me,” Trump said to loud cheers. “I agree: You’ll never get bored with winning!”




Trump is the personification of a demagogue:


dem·a·gogue ˈdeməˌɡäɡ/ 

noun a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument. 

synonyms: rabble-rouser, agitator, political agitator, soapbox orator, firebrand, fomenter, provocateur


There it is nation.  The TGOP want a thrice-married, rabble-rousing clown, who made fun of a POW, who insulted an entire country and its culture, who denigrated not just Megyn Kelly with his menstruation taunts, but Carly Fiorini's looks, to represent them.  


Trump insults Carly Fiorini's looks:


"Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our nextpresident?!" the magazine quotes Trump as saying while he and his staff watch a television appearance by Fiorina. "I mean, she's a woman, and I'm not s'posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?" 



Jeebus, Mary and Joe Pepitone!  Can you imagine what this blatherskite would say about Germany's Angela Merkel? Imagine Trump making insulting remarks about female heads of state?!  But more to the point:  Who are the minnow-brained clotpoles who support this national embarrassment?

Wait. I know.  They're the people who have feasted on hatred and bigotry ever since November of 2008, and they now have a perfect candidate to represent all they stand for.

Trump isn't anything new on the world's political stage.  Just ask the Italians.

Donald Trump:  The Don Rickles of politicians.

Wednesday is Trump Hump Day

The Sanctity of Marriage, Tea Party Style

Remember how people claimed marriage equality would destroy  the sanctity of marriage?

Well, here are some of the leading lights of the Tea Party who believe in the sanctity of marriage so much that between the 4 of them, they've serial-married for a total of 14 times. And the people who howled the most about those icky gays "shoving their icky marriages down our throats" have zero to say about serial marriages and divorces.  

They're even dreaming of having one of them in the White House with his third and current centerfold wife.