Dr. Carson Exposes Himself, Again

Dr. Carson as one of the Seven Dwarfs, Sleepy

Ben Carson:   "I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away." 


(First of all, the above sentence is unintelligible, but the confused doctor seems to be saying that the loss of gun rights is a more devastating sight to behold than a 6-year old's bloody, bullet-ridden body.  And how does one "see" a loss of gun rights? He's proving every day that a brain surgeon isn't necessarily a brilliant polemicist, and can even be a ninnyhammer.)

I'd like him to tell that to all the parents who lost their babies in the Newtowne massacre, (He wouldn't have the cajones to do that, believe me.) Then repeat it to the parents of all the college students and high schoolers who've been massacred, and to the loved ones who lost mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, grandchildren, grandparents, aunts, uncles in all the 297 (so far) mass shootings this year.

Dr. Carson continued:

"The Left would prefer to use these tragedies to advance a political agenda. To me, that is also devastatingly sad..."  

Said the guy who used the tragedy in Roseberg to further the "No gun controls whatsoever, EVER!" political agenda.

When asked if he were president would he go to Roseberg to speak in the aftermath of the massacre, Dr. Carson made this incredibly stupid remark:

“But, Dr. Carson, would you go?” host Brian Kilmeade [FAUX NOOZ] wondered. “If the people of the community say don’t go, would you still go if you were president on Friday?”

 “Probably not,” Carson replied. “I mean, I would probably have so many things on my agenda that I would go to the next one.”

The next one. Dr. Carson, if he were preznit, would find the time to go to the next shooting massacre. See, Carson has accepted massacres as an American Way of Life. Can you believe this noodle brain? Can you imagine a POTUS saying this to the American people?:

"My fellow Americans, I've got too much on my agenda to go and comfort the families of the slaughtered from our most recent gun-massacre.  But I sure will make room in my schedule to show up at our next shooting massacre. Count on it.  Good night, and God Bless America!"

Keep talking out of your backend, Dr. Carson. The more you do so the less chance you'll have of ever being president.

The NRA

The feckless Donald "I'm The Greatest At Everything" Trump wimps out on gun violence and goes all NRA, admits he, the Greatest Terrific Guy On The Planet, can't solve the problem (proving once again that he's all hair and no follicles):


On guns, Trump finally meets his Kryptonite


"When host George Stephanopoulos noted how uncharacteristically can’t-do this attitude was for Trump, the latter insisted: “Now, George, I could say, oh, we’re going to do this and that and it’s never going to happen again. You have sick people in this country and throughout the world, and you’re always going to have difficulty.” 

Taking a page out of the National Rifle Association’s playbook, Trump then laid responsibility for gun violence at the feet of the mentally ill. But he abstained even from advocating for more screening and services for mental illness. 

In other words, Trump, like other conservative politicians he claims to disdain, shrugged. 

Trump, a man who prides himself on his great willingness to speak the politically incorrect truth, dared not offend his base. Trump, who considers himself unrestrained by special interests, paid obeisance to perhaps the most powerful special interest in the country, the gun lobby (from which he seems to have cribbed his own gun policy proposals). Trump, the self-proclaimed strongman, is now mysteriously impotent."

John Oliver talks about the "mental health" issue that people who don't want to talk about gun violence always talk about:

Australia Talks About Our Gun Culture

After a string of gun massacres over the last 3 years that have left hundreds dead and thousands injured, the United States has had a much different response. America has done nothing.

In the wake of Oregon mass murder, Australians are disgusted and perplexed by the American response.

Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, Michael Pascoe blasted American society as immature and unable to take basic actions to save lives:

In his very fine speech this morning, full of sorrow and frustration, President Obama made a mistake: Australia is not like the United States. We decided not to be.

We decided to grow up instead and become a more reasonable, rational society that explicitly values human life and prefers to think the best of people, rather than the worst.

The US is too immature a society to be allowed to play with guns. It has never shed its Wild West mythology. Americans still use their courts to kill people, which sends a message in its own way… It’s a country that values property more than life.

An editorial in Brisbane Times castigates America’s inaction on guns:

At Oregon last week, four guns were recovered – three pistols and a semi-automatic rifle. Did Mercer have the right to bear those arms? Yes, he did. From that question and answer flows the grim crimson tide. And from that flows, as always, the arrant nonsense from the NRA, and those of like mind, that guns are good, that guns are not the problem, that the president is politicising the issue. He should be, indeed he has been, with limited success. However, such is the web of lobbying, money, political support and sway, interconnected with the myriad legal jurisdictions, that we despair of seeing radical progress.

Yet we must condemn. America prides itself on being a light in the world for democracy and liberty. Yet within its borders it is armed to the teeth. This is a tyranny, borne on a historical anomaly, that must end. Surely, if the phrase “land of the free” stands for anything, it is the embracing of the freedom not to have to live in fear of the gun.

News.com.au, which bills itself as “Australia’s most popular news site,” suggested it was time for America to rethink the 2nd Amendment saying “the legacy of America itself” was at stake:

You sense that President Obama’s legacy as President is on the line here. But so, too, is the legacy of America itself.

America’s gun laws date back to the period in the late 1700s and the time of the War of Independence against Britain. It’s in this long gone era that the second amendment to the constitution was passed — an amendment which permitted and today still permits gun ownership to all.

This archaic law is viewed as sacrosanct by some, but Mr Obama clearly believes it must be challenged.

The same site interviewed David Herber, an Australian who lives near UCC in Oregon. Herber said he supported more gun control in America, but the political system in the United States is dysfunctional:

“As you are likely aware we have had a great many similar tragedies in the United States,” he said.

“Several that you would have thought would shift the needle of political debate, like Sandy Hook, have really done nothing other than become talking points in the national debate”…

“The majority of Americans worship the Second Amendment more than the Bible”…

The disgust is not limited to Australian shores. The New York Times struck a similar note. “Mass shootings have become an unsurprising part of American life, with lame public rituals in which politicians express grief and then retreat quickly into denial about this scourge,” t

SUNDAY NIGHT POETRY

After, The God
              (with thanks to W.B. Yeats)

Enter a young girl, neck
arched against the black loam.

History moves in quick strokes
through her; light bends in pools

in reeds. Carefully, the plumed air
harvests its fear, its absent voices.

Deneb in the Cross falls down
upon the beating wings. Rapid

light leaps at animal stroke and shudder.
A village sleeps, Only orphan dogs

hear the scaled note, high then descending
into false water. Tear of cotton, thin

scent of fennel, lemon in the bruised swale.

                                                         --S.K.

SUNDAY SCIENCE (and Religion) BLOG

Mars, water, and tardibears. Oh My!





Bill Maher explains Republican Jesus.

Honoring the Men of B Company 3rd Ranger Battalion of 22 Years Ago Today

My nephew, second from the left in the photo:

My nephew writes about it today:

Today marks 22 years since 18 U.S. Soldiers were killed and 73 wounded during ‪#‎operationgothicserpent‬ in ‪#‎mogadishu‬ Somalia on October 3rd, 1993. Every year, i run the ‪#‎mogadishumile5k‬ with my ‪#‎ranger‬ buddies to honor our airborne rangers in the sky and pay respects to how the men of B co 3rd Ranger Battalion had to run from the scene of the grizzly battle back to the safety of their base without the benefit of cover and with only the ammo left over after the sustained fighting. ‪#‎rangersleadtheway‬ ‪#‎RLTW‬ ‪#‎remember‬‪#‎TSAF‬ ‪#‎thisshitaintfree‬

JEB!: "Stuff Happens"

BTW, what happened in Oregon was terrifying. Why wouldn't it be considered a "terrorist" attack? Is it only "terrorism" when a foreign Muslim or American Muslim kills other Americans? Was Dylann Roof a terrorist when he killed people in a church in Charleston?



In disturbing images posted online, Harper-Mercer, who was born in England and moved to the States at a young age, posed with guns and shared pro-IRA newspaper front pages, an Express.co.uk investigation has found. 

 He also posted a three-minute video on the social networking site MySpace featuring IRA fighters branding guns and wearing balaclavas. 

 On his dating profile on the website Spiritual Passions, he wrote that he "doesn't like organised religion". His user name on the dating site was ironcross45 – a possible reference to the Iron Cross, a German military symbol reintroduced by the Nazis.

So was this guy a Nazi-loving, IRA sympathizing jihadist? Does it matter? Apparently to the extremist right wingers in their rush to blame massacres on Muslims it does -- except it doesn't matter when massacres are perpetrated by crazy young white non-Muslim men.  

*****

And then there's this guy:

When asked how he would react to a gun massacre if he were president, Donald Trump said:


“You’re always going to have problems. I mean, we have millions and millions of people, we have millions of sick people all over the world — it can happen all over the world, and it does happen all over the world, and it does happen all over the world, by the way, but this is sort of unique to this country, the school shootings. And you’re going to have difficulty no matter what… You’re going to have these things happen and it’s a horrible thing to behold, horrible… It’s not politically correct to say, but you’re going to have difficulty and that will be for the next million years, there’s going to be difficulty, and people are going to slip through the cracks." 

 After a bit more mush-mouthing he said:

 “What are you going to do, institutionalize everybody?… That’s the way the world works, and that’s the way the world always has worked.” 


 So, do nothing? That’s Trump’s plan. Just accept our worldwide leadership in gun massacres. We are, afterall, NUMBER ONE!

Because of Our Inaction

Addicting Info:


"Obama also took Congress to task for their cowardice regarding gun laws. The blood of thousands of victims are on their hands, because of their inability to stand up to the NRA and radical gun nuts in the Republican Party. 

 'This is a political choice that we make. To allow this to happen every few months in America. We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction.'  

Obama was actually being too generous with the frequency. Mass shootings on the scale of Oregon may only happen every so often, but mass shootings more generally happen almost daily. As the Washington Post noted: 

'We’ve gone no more than eight days without one of these incidents this year. On six days in September, there were 3 mass shootings or more. If the initial casualty figures in Oregon hold up, that would bring the total of deaths by mass shooting this year to 380 so far, with well over one thousand injured.' 

 The president has shown time and again that he is willing to act on strong gun legislation. His repeated calls to address the rampant gun violence in the country have been repeatedly ignored by the legislative branch. 

Is it too soon to talk about gun control? 

The victims in Roseburg, Oregon. – And in Newtown, Aurora, Charleston, Chicago, Lafayette, the list goes on – would suggest that it wasn’t soon enough."


Oregon college shooting: Figures reveal Obama is right that guns kill more Americans than terrorism

Hello NRAmerica!

How do you like your 33+ dead and maimed, Mr. Death?

CORRECTION: As of 9 PM, 10 dead; 7 injured. Shooter dead. 26 year old male.


 Meanwhile, an a**hole reacts: 


 Oregon Sheriff Handling Massacre Fought the White House on Gun Control After Newtown —

By Becca Andrews | Thu Oct. 1, 2015 6:33 PM EDT Email 13 

As the sheriff in Douglas County, Oregon, John Hanlin was front and center following Thursday's shooting at Umpqua Community College, which left at least 13 dead and 20 wounded. Two years ago, Hanlin was one of hundreds of sheriffs around the country to vow to stand against new gun control legislation. In a January 15, 2013, letter to Vice President Joe Biden, he wrote, "Gun control is NOT the answer to preventing heinous crimes like school shootings."




You're right.

Gun control is obviously NOT the answer.  More guns in the general population, especially allowing mentally ill young men access to those guns, is the way to go. 

More guns for mentally ill people will keep us safe! Go for it. And think about it while your daughters, sons, granddaughters, and grandsons attend our fabulous NRAmerican schools.

We are an egregiously stupid country when it comes to guns.


Boston Globe

 So far this year, there have been at least 294 mass shooting incidents. There have been 274 days. That’s according to the Mass Shooting Tracker. 

The project tracks incidents in which four or more people are shot — but not necessarily killed — in a spree or setting. 

 Of the mass shootings, 84 incidents can be categorized as spree murders, including the shooting Thursday at Umpqua Community College in Oregon that left at least 13 people dead and more injured. Spree murders are defined by the FBI as the murder of two or more people committed without a cooling-off period, according to the Mass Shooting Tracker.

No problem here. This is normal for a country. Mass shootings, carnage, death, maiming. Yay NRAmerica! Second Amendment Rights RUUUUUULE!

click on chart:

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."