Why Republicans Embrace Simpletons and How it Hurts America – Forbes

December 2, 2011 by 1 Comment

Dear Republicans: Before you dismiss another liberal, socialist blog post, consider the source of the material: Forbes.

That’s Forbes, as in, “Information For World Business Leaders” Forbes. And it isn’t just the rest of America wondering why you love your village idiots. Although I know you don’t give a tinkers’ damn about any other countries besides ‘Merica (there are other countries out there besides Mexico and “those illegals”) it bears repeating that people in other countries routinely dismissing the US as a bunch of morons does affect our standing in the world. So Forbes covers it. James Marshall Crotty:

Since I report on American education, including the intellectual lassitude of American voters, foreign observers routinely ask me: Why Do Republicans Gleefully Embrace Idiots as Presidential Candidates?

The question naturally begs a larger question: How can a country, with the world’s highest national GDP, and absurdly complex systems regulating everything from credit default swaps to nuclear missile safety, possibly allow onto its national stage men and women of such transparently inferior intellect?

The easy answer is that there has always been a long, pathetic history of anti-intellectual paranoia in American politics, as Richard Hofstadter documented in his book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963). It is like kudzu. You just can’t kill it. No matter how advanced the U.S. becomes in technology, biomedicine, and weaponry, it not only attracts, but promotes, under the rubric of equal opportunity, a confederacy of dunces as Presidential candidates.

To be fair, Democrats have had their share of dolts, including the tax-cheating, race-baiting, college dropout Reverend Al Sharpton (who gained fame not only because of his courageous civil rights protests, but because he claims to be “Keepin’ It Real”; read: not formally educated), as well as Democrat-turned-Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond (whose 1948 campaign slogan was “Segregation Forever”). Nevertheless, in 2011, the God-fearing Ossified Party has rolled out the greatest assortment of Know-Nothings in its history, most of whom share a singular misconception: because I can do one small thing well (e.g., run a pizza chain), I can handle the world’s most demanding job.

I continue to marvel at all the naked Emperors in their new GOP clothes. I mean, I know most Fox watchers are good little sheep, but seriously? There’s like 40% of America that just wanted to drink a beer with G.W? Well, it’s worse now. Crotty:

Things are now so bad on the dumbass front that, in a poll announced yesterday, Iowans are no longer interested in the current crop of Republican cretins. This includes Texas Governor Rick “Oops” Perry, who, in a colossal boneheaded moment in a live nationally televised debate, could not remember the third federal agency he would cut as president.

In an empirical validation of the anti-intellectual streak in GOP Politics, Perry then went on national talk shows the following morning to defend his stupidity as a reason to vote for him. On CNN’s “American Morning,” Perry said, “We’ve got a debater-in-chief right now, and you gotta ask yourself: ‘How’s that working out for America?’” In other words, being a good debater, and knowing the issues, is bad for America. This list also includes Michelle “Pray the Gay Away” Bachman, who believes that “Founding Fathers” like John Quincy Adams “worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States” (except J. Q. Adams died in 1848, long before “slavery was no more”). Even though the self-righteous Bachman is a native of Waterloo, Iowa, voters in her home state just cannot see trusting her with the codes to the U.S. nuclear arsenal (trusting a Creationist like Bachman on any public policy would be like trusting a phrenologist with curing your cancer).

And, yes, this also includes the endlessly entertaining Herman “I’m Not Supposed to Know Anything About Foreign Policy” Cain, whose inability to construct a coherent sentence on Libya and stated desire to prevent an already nuclear-armed China from “going nuclear” are now part of national dumbass folklore.

And lets not forget the deeply annoying Rick “Sanctum” Santorum, who said publicly that former P.O.W. John McCain “didn’t understand advanced interrogation techniques.” A Republican dumbass hallmark: arrogance wed to ignorance.
As a result of such transparently dumb stooges, Iowa Republicans, and conservatives in general, are actually settling on a bona fide shyster in the Richard Nixon mold: the pudgy, pompous, nastiness known as Newt Gingrich. As I made clear in my previous column, Darth Gingrich Vs. the Romney Ken Doll, the Republican nomination is now a race between Gingrich and Romney, which, once all the baggage of the corrupt former Speaker is laid out for all to see, could tilt to the nomination back to the Massachusetts Mormon, where’s it’s been for most of this Republican election cycle.
Preach it, brother. But who in the GOP will listen?

(Read the whole thing: Why Republicans Embrace Simpletons and How it Hurts America – Yahoo! News.)

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The Biggest Threat to U.S. National Security: Muslims or Christians?

November 30, 2011 by Leave a comment

Christians a threat to National Security?  I make the argument that it’s religion that is the largest threat, but which religion is the most dangerous? I doubt the majority of Americans would be able to name a second to the Muslim faith. (The deeply religious minority would probably think of Atheism eventually, but that’s another discussion.) Does a Christian who believes we should welcome the Second Coming as soon as possible pose a threat? Author David Sirota looks at the data over at Slate:

If you have the stomach to listen to enough right-wing talk radio, or troll enough right-wing websites, you inevitably come upon fear-mongering about the Unassimilated Muslim. Essentially, this caricature suggests that Muslims in America are more loyal to their religion than to the United States, that such allegedly traitorous loyalties prove that Muslims refuse to assimilate into our nation and that Muslims are therefore a national security threat.

Earlier this year, a Gallup poll illustrated just how apocryphal this story really is. It found that Muslim Americans are one of the most — if not the single most — loyal religious group to the United States. Now, comes the flip side from the Pew Research Center’s stunning findings about other religious groups in America (emphasis mine):

“American Christians are more likely than their Western European counterparts to think of themselves first in terms of their religion rather than their nationality; 46 percent of Christians in the U.S. see themselves primarily as Christians and the same number consider themselves Americans first. In contrast, majorities of Christians in France (90 percent), Germany (70 percent), Britain (63 percent) and Spain (53 percent) identify primarily with their nationality rather than their religion. Among Christians in the U.S., white evangelicals are especially inclined to identify first with their faith; 70 percent in this group see themselves first as Christians rather than as Americans, while 22 percent say they are primarily American.”

If, as Islamophobes argue, refusing to assimilate is defined as expressing loyalty to a religion before loyalty to country, then this data suggests it is evangelical Christians who are very resistant to assimilation. And yet, few would cite these findings to argue that Christians pose a serious threat to America’s national security. Why the double standard?

Being such a Christian-centric country, it might seem counter-intuitive that Muslims aren’t the biggest threat. But think about it: devout Christians are quick to put God before Country, God Above All, and most Americans don’t even notice. Change God to Allah from a devout Muslim, and the average American would call the FBI pronto. Sirota continues:

Because Christianity is seen as the dominant culture in America — indeed, Christianity and America are often portrayed as being nearly synonymous, meaning expressing loyalty to the former is seen as the equivalent to expressing loyalty to the latter. In this view, there is no such thing as separation between the Christian church and the American state — and every other culture and religion is expected to assimilate to Christianity. To do otherwise is to be accused of waging a “War on Christmas” — or worse, to be accused of being disloyal to America and therefore a national security threat.

Of course, a genuinely pluralistic America is one where — regardless of the religion in question — we see no conflict between loyalties to a religion and loyalties to country. In this ideal America, those who identify as Muslims first are no more or less “un-American” than Christians who do the same (personally, this is the way I see things).

But if our politics and culture are going to continue to make extrapolative judgments about citizens’ patriotic loyalties based on their religious affiliations, then such judgments should at least be universal — and not so obviously selective or brazenly xenophobic.

(via Are evangelicals a national security threat? – Religion – Salon.com.)

English: Christian Bible, rosary, and crucifix.

Image via Wikipedia

That’s a nice dream, but the reality is most Americans don’t notice how  dangerous the “God First, America Second” belief is. I shudder to think how many deeply evangelical Christians are in the military, answering to “a higher law”. And of course, we have the base of the right wing – fundamentalist Christians – trying to elect a President who believes the same thing. If someone like a Rick Perry or a Herman Cain ends up with their finger on the button, I’d call that a bigger threat to our National Security than the “Muslim” president we have now.

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On Herman Cain: Oh, The Arrogance… The Arrogance…

November 29, 2011 by Leave a comment

Seriously, the arrogance of Herman Cain has just GOT to make him the perfect candidate for the GOP. I think he could be caught having sex with an intern on live TV and he would still deny it.

For the record, he is admitting knowing Ginger White for 13 years, texting and calling her at all hours of the day and night because he was “helping her financially”. Here’s the details through TPM:

Ginger White, the Atlanta businesswoman who is claiming that she had a 13-year affair with Herman Cain, has given details of the alleged relationship to the local Fox station in Atlanta.

White told the station that Cain would fly her out to cities where he was speaking, and that they would then stay nice hotels. She claims that their physical relationship ended about eight months ago, right before Cain launched his presidential campaign.

One juicy detail is what she said he signed on her copy of his recent book: “Friends are forever! Everything else is a bonus.”

White said she came forward because she was worried about potential media coverage about herself — and because of Cain’s attacks on the other women who have accused him of sexual harassment. “It bothered me that they were being demonized, sort of, they were treated as if they were automatically lying, and the burden of proof was on them,” White said. “I felt bad for them.”

White also showed the station evidence of some kind of contact with Cain — cell phone records, with Cain himself responding when the station tried the number:

She showed us some of her cell phone bills that included 61 phone calls or text messages to or from a number starting with 678. She says it is Herman Cain’s private cell phone. The calls were made during four different months— calls or texts made as early as 4:26 in the early morning, and as late as 7:52 at night. The latest were in September of this year.

“We’ve never worked together,” said White. “And I can’t imagine someone phoning or texting me for the last two and a half years, just because.”

We texted the number and Herman Cain called us back. He told us he “knew Ginger White” but said these are “more false allegations.” He said she had his number because he was “trying to help her financially.”

(via Cain ‘Mistress’ Offers Details Of ‘Affair’ | TPM2012.)

Will THAT be enough evidence to torpedo such a confirmed liar? I doubt it. But he’s reconsidering his run now, because of the toll it might take on his family. Like, they might wake up and smell the coffee, and torpedo his ass themselves. (The one good thing I could see coming out of this would be if his wife stood up for herself and dumped his lying, cheating, sexual-harrassing ass.)

Huffpo on the reassessment:

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain told his staff Tuesday morning that he is reassessing his candidacy and will make the decision whether to remain in the race in “the next several days.”

Cain’s campaign has been plagued by sexual harassment allegations, and Monday a woman came forward alleging a 13-year affair with the candidate.

The Des Moines Register has more quotes from the Tuesday morning conference call. Cain reportedly told about 90 staff that the latest affair story might create “too much of a cloud” around his campaign.

“If a decision is made, different than we should plow ahead, you all will be the first to know,” he said. “Now with this latest one we have to do an assessment as to whether or not this is going to create too much of a cloud in some peoples’ minds as to whether or not they should support us going forward.”

He went on to deny the woman’s story as he did Monday when it broke. NRO has the full transcript of the five-minute call.

Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon told the Washington Post that Cain plans to remain in the race.

“It’s a reassessment of where we stand and the road ahead, similar to other times in the campaign’s history,” Gordon wrote in an email. “He is not thinking of dropping out of the race. He is simply reassessing the state of the campaign. We intend to be full speed ahead.”

Top Republicans have called for Cain to drop out of the race.

(via Herman Cain ‘Reassessing’ 2012 Candidacy.)

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Herman Cain: “Dr. Abdallah. That sounds foreign… too foreign.”

November 23, 2011 by Leave a comment

There was a time when I was rooting for Herman Cain to win the Republican nomination. The thought of having two black men running for president was too beautiful; I could just imagine all those racist cracker heads exploding in unison like some bloody Darwinian symphony, with Rush Limbaugh‘s bloated belfry as the finale.

But now this art performance (to quote MSNBC‘s Rachel Maddow) has gone too far, even for me. Cain’s hate-filled, Christians-only, blatantly misogynist run needs to stop. The folks at BalloonJuice strip off the sugar-coating:

What a disgusting, bigoted piece of crap.

I’m not sure how much more bullshit could possibly spew from Herman Cain’s face-hole.  From claiming that he would make Muslims take a loyalty oath, to his not-at-all credible claims that he didn’t sexually assault and harass several women during his tenure at the National Restaurant Association, to his jokes about electrified fences along the Mexican border, to calling Nancy Pelosi “Princess Nancy” to calling vegetable pizza “sissy pizza” that real men would never eat, Herman Cain keeps demonstrating that he is, to be blunt, an asshole.

And now there’s this doozy: On Friday, Herman Cain made a campaign stop Cain The Holy Land Experience, a Christian-theme amusement park in central Florida where he intimated that he wouldn’t want a dirty Muslim furriner to treat him for his cancer. You know—because there are Muslim “sleeper doctors” out there trying to kill dumb fucks like Herman Cain:

Cain speaks for nearly a half an hour and despite a couple fleeting “999” mentions, keeps his speech to topics of faith and his recent battle with cancer. He begins with a story about how he knew he would survive when he discovered that his physician was named “Dr. Lord,” that the hospital attendant’s name was “Grace” and that the incision made on his chest during the surgery would be in the shape of a “J.”

“Come on, y’all. As in J-E-S-U-S! Yes! A doctor named Lord! A lady named Grace! And a J-cut for Jesus Almighty,” Cain boomed.

He did have a slight worry at one point during the chemotherapy process when he discovered that one of the surgeon’s name was “Dr. Abdallah.”

“I said to his physician assistant, I said, ‘That sounds foreign—not that I had anything against foreign doctors—but it sounded too foreign,” Cain tells the audience. “She said, ‘He’s from Lebanon.’ Oh, Lebanon! My mind immediately started thinking, wait a minute, maybe his religious persuasion is different than mine! She could see the look on my face and she said, ‘Don’t worry, Mr. Cain, he’s a Christian from Lebanon.’”

“Hallelujah!” Cain says. “Thank God!”

Herman Cain? Please go away. Just get yourself a Fox News talkshow and end this farce. Or, if you prefer, find an exceedingly hot fire and hurl yourself in it.

Thanks in advance.

via Balloon Juice » Herman Cain Might Not Accept Medical Treatment from Muslims

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Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid: The Republican Plan To Nullify The Courts and Establish Christian Theocracy

November 22, 2011 by Leave a comment

Whoever gets the Republican nomination in 2012, you can be sure of one thing: they plan to end our Democracy.

At the Iowa “Thanksgiving Family Forum” there were dire warnings against Sharia law. But there was a whole lotta love for a Theocracy, as long as it’s a Christian one. In fact, only one candidate even mentioned freedom of choice; the only problem is, he hasn’t a chance in hell (you’ll pardon the expression) of winning the nomination (via Slate):

There was [only] one voice of dissent among the candidates. Ron Paul, the libertarian congressman from Texas, argued that people should be allowed to make bad decisions, that freedom of choice in religious matters should extend to atheists, and that powers not reserved to the federal government should be left to the states. But in a field of candidates bent on legislating Christian morality and purging uncooperative judges, Paul stood alone. Protecting America is too important to let the Constitution get in the way.

The rest, meh… Jesus is Lord, and we have to make our country ready for his return. Here are the lowlights of your current Republican hopefuls, every one waiting to get their godly, self-righteous finger on the nuclear button:

1. Religious Americans must fight back against nonbelievers. To quote Herman Cain:

What we are seeing is a wider gap between people of faith and people of nonfaith. … Those of us that are people of faith and strong faith have allowed the nonfaith element to intimidate us into not fighting back. I believe we’ve been too passive. We have maybe pushed back, but as people of faith, we have not fought back.
2. The religious values we must fight for are Judeo-Christian. Rick Perry warned:

Somebody’s values are going to decide what the Congress votes on or what the president of the United States is going to deal with. And the question is: Whose values? And let me tell you, it needs to be our values—values and virtues that this country was based upon in Judeo-Christian founding fathers.

3. Our laws and our national identity are Judeo-Christian. Michele Bachmann explained:

American exceptionalism is grounded on the Judeo-Christian ethic, which is really based upon the 10 Commandments. The 10 Commandments were the foundation for our law. That’s what Blackstone said—the English jurist—and our founders looked to Blackstone for the foundation of our law. That’s our law.

4. No religion but Christianity will suffice. Perry declared, “In every person’s heart, in every person’s soul, there is a hole that can only be filled by the Lord Jesus Christ.”

5. God created our government. Bachmann told the audience: I have a biblical worldview. And I think, going back to the Declaration of Independence, the fact that it’s God who created us—if He created us, He created government. And the government is on His shoulders, as the book of Isaiah says.

6. U.S. law should follow God’s law. As Rick Santorum put it:

Unlike Islam, where the higher law and the civil law are the same, in our case, we have civil laws. But our civil laws have to comport with the higher law. … As long as abortion is legal—at least according to the Supreme Court—legal in this country, we will never have rest, because that law does not comport with God’s law.

7. Anything that’s immoral by religious standards should be outlawed. Santorum again:

God gave us rights, but He also gave us laws upon which to exercise those rights, and that’s what you ought to do. And, by the way, the law should comport—the laws of this country should comport with that moral vision. Why? Because the law is a teacher. If something is illegal in this country because it is immoral and it is wrong and it is harmful to society, saying that it is illegal and putting a law in place teaches. It’s not just—laws cannot be neutral. There is no neutral, Ron. There is only moral and immoral. And the law has to reflect what is right and good and just for our society.

 8. The federal government should impose this morality on the states. Santorum once more:
The idea that the only things that the states are prevented from doing are only things specifically established in the Constitution is wrong. Our country is based on a moral enterprise. Gay marriage is wrong. As Abraham Lincoln said, the states do not have the right to do wrong. … As a president, I will get involved, because the states do not have the right to undermine the basic, fundamental values that hold this country together.

9. Congress should erase the judiciary’s power to review moral laws. Newt Gingrich suggested:

I am intrigued with something which Robby George at Princeton has come up with, which is an interpretation of the 14th Amendment, in which it says that Congress shall define personhood. That’s very clearly in the 14th Amendment. And part of what I would like to explore is whether or not you could get the Congress to pass a law which simply says: Personhood begins at conception. And therefore—and you could, in the same law, block the court and just say, ‘This will not be subject to review,’ which we have precedent for. You would therefore not have to have a constitutional amendment, because the Congress would have exercised its authority under the 14th Amendment to define life, and to therefore undo all of Roe vs. Wade, for the entire country, in one legislative action.

Gingrich said the same strategy could secure the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages and protects the right of states to disregard same-sex marriages performed in other states. In his words, “You could repass DOMA and make it not appealable to the court, period.”

10. Courts that get in the way should be abolished. Gingrich again:

The simplest first step which I would take is to propose—and I hope this will be a significant part of the campaign next year—I have proposed to abolish the court of Judge Biery in San Antonio, who on June 1 issued an order that said, not only could students not pray at their graduation, they couldn’t use the word benediction, the could not say the word prayer, they could not say the word God, they could not ask people to stand for a moment of silence, they couldn’t use the word invocation, and if he broke any of those, he would put their superintendent in jail. I regard that as such a ruthless anti-American statement that he should not be on the court, and I would move to literally abolish his court, so that he could go back to private practice, as a signal to the courts.

Biery’s order was an overreach. In fact, it was overturned two days later by an appeals court. But he’s only the first target of the anti-judicial purge. The next words after Gingrich’s threat came from Santorum, who said: “I agree with a lot of what has just been said here. I would go farther—one step farther, Newt. I would abolish the entire Ninth Circuit.”

11. The purge of judges should be based on public opinion. Gingrich  once more:

Part of the purpose of singling out Judge Biery and eliminating his job is to communicate the standard that the two elected branches have the power and the authority to educate the judiciary when it deviates too far from the American people. And I think you would probably take that approach.

12. Freedom means obeying morality. Santorum concluded, “Our founders understood liberty is not what you want to do, but what you ought to do. That’s what liberty really is about.”

So there you have it. The only hope for actual freedom of religion, and any voice for atheists, is Ron Paul. Who believes in hell, he just doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in it.

via Christian theocracy: How Newt Gingrich and the GOP would abolish courts and legislate morality. – Slate Magazine.

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Herman Cain Blames The Unemployed, GOP Debate Audience Cheers (VIDEO)

October 19, 2011 by Leave a comment

I love this. It’s been said you can never go broke underestimating the stupidity of the American people. But just how stupid – I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, how ignorant – do you have to be to just blame Obama? If the Tea Partiers will accept this, the middle class will vote them out in droves. In droves.

I didn’t blame the Tea Party  for protesting the bailouts, I blamed them for trying to pin it on Obama when most of it was done by Bush. I blame them now for blindly ignoring the issues they supported to attack the sitting President – something we were not supposed to do under Bush.

And these people are cheering because the unemployed are unemployed. It’s their fault, the ignorant saps. But go blame Washington, not the guys who got rich shipping your jobs to China and destroying our economy.

As they say in the Guinness commercials, “brilliant”.

Watch it here: Herman Cain Blames The Unemployed, GOP Debate Audience Cheers (VIDEO).

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Just Remember I Said It First

October 7, 2011 by Leave a comment

The Primaries Are a Long Way Off

posted by  on FRI, OCT 7, 2011 at 12:19 PM

But if it winds up being Barack Obama vs. Herman Cain… just think of the all the racist crackers out there whose heads will explode. Boom, boom, boom.

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