More crazy American right-wing ideas: This editorial calls on the US government to put “diplomatic and extra-diplomatic pressure” on the UK to “act” against the “notorious” East London Mosque.
And what should they do? Blow it up?
Latest Updates: US conservatives RSS
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johnpi
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johnpi
The spokesman for the American Family Association, a right-wing group, has issued a statement calling for the purging of Muslim soldiers from US military ranks.
“Of course, most U.S. Muslims don’t shoot up their fellow soldiers. Fine. As soon as Muslims give us a foolproof way to identify their jihadis from their moderates, we’ll go back to allowing them to serve. You tell us who the ones are that we have to worry about, prove you’re right, and Muslims can once again serve. Until that day comes, we simply cannot afford the risk. You invent a jihadi-detector that works every time it’s used, and we’ll welcome you back with open arms.”
“This is not Islamophobia, it is Islamo-realism.”
Meanwhile, the relatives of one of the victims has spoken out against the collective scapegoating of Muslims.
“You can’t blanket a whole group of people. There’s extremists in every religion, and there’s extremists all over the world,” said Cahill’s daughter, Kerry. “And I don’t think that we can blanket a whole group of people when this man obviously was ill, I think.”
Cahill’s other daughter, Keely Vanacker, expanded: “The death of our father, or any of these victims, shouldn’t be an excuse or reason to begin to hate an entire group of people.”
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johnpi
An update on the ‘Conservative Bible’ project, where US right-wingers claim they are removing ‘liberal bias’ from the Christian holy book.
A word that was formerly translated as “young girl” or “maiden” is now being replaced with “floozy,” “bimbo,” or “temptress.”
So how is the new translation proceeding? As of October 11, the completed “translations” on Conservapedia include Mark 1-8, Matthew 1-9, Luke 1-2, John 1-3, Philemon, and a few verses from Genesis, 1 John, Jude, and 1 and 2 Thessalonians. As for the Hebrew Bible, only Genesis appears to be slated for translation. Calling the works in question “translations” may be a misnomer since work with Greek originals seems to be intermittent at best. For the most part, the changes are simply re-phrasings of passages from the King James Version.
Where commentary has been made on the Greek, it typically reflects a rudimentary and sometimes distorted understanding of the language. For example, the only mention of any Greek in the translation of the Gospel of Mark 1-8 comes in verse 6:22, where the “translators” have argued that korasion, which means “young girl” or “maiden,” should be translated as “floozy,” “bimbo,” or “temptress”—despite the fact that this translation has no historical, philological, or textual basis. In fact, Mark uses the same word in 5:41, in reference to a young girl whom Jesus raises from the dead.
Somebody should alert Rifqa Bary of her new status among the conservative Christians…
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johnpi
Dalia Mogahed, Obama’s Muslim policy advisor, is angry about her treatment at the hands of Hizb ut Tahrir propagandists on a UK television show – as angry as she is at US conservatives who twist what she says to form an equally dishonest, distorted, ideological view of Islam.
The HT representative on the program dismissed or “reinterpreted” findings I presented so as to not challenge the group’s simplistic utopian ideology which holds liberty in contempt as morally decadent. For example, as I regularly report, our research shows that far from denouncing democracy, Muslims around the world say it is among the things they most admire about the West, specifically mentioning “liberty” as a desirable attribute. Around the world, from Morocco to Malaysia, Muslim respondents described their respect for much of what the West holds dear: freedom of the press, the rule of law, and transparency and accountability of government.
As much as HT selectively ignored and exploited these findings to push their propaganda, many conservative pundits who diametrically oppose HT’s vision of the world, did much the same. To them, my crime was that I reported that many Muslim women wanted sharia as a source of legislation. I also explained that Muslim women surveyed by Gallup said they believed they should have access to equal legal rights, free employment, voting without family influence, and even leadership positions in government. This suggests that many Muslim women see Sharia differently from those who use it to deny women rights. For simply stating results of survey research, I stood accused of “endorsing” Taliban-like rule, and downplaying the abuses done in the name of sharia.
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johnpi
The Untouchables: Right-wingers put themselves in an uncompromising ‘world apart.’
Reaching for a metaphor:
Commentators have observed a resurgent brand of conservatism that has taken on the characteristics of religious zealotry. It is a brand of conservatism that cannot be negotiated with because its adherents see themselves as the bearers of the one true faith and as victims of a host of apostate “others” who they feel must not be appeased through compromise.
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johnpi
Recently, US Senator Al Franken introduced an amendment that would give US citizens working for military contractors access to US courts if they have been raped by other contractor employees. Thirty senators – all Republicans – voted no.
Someone has created a website, http://www.republicansforrape.org for the “thirty legislators who were brave enough to stand up in defense of rape and vote against Senator Al Franken’s anti-rape amendment to the 2009 Defense Appropriations bill.”
The satirical blog writers couldn’t resist a Saudi Arabia analogy:
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johnpi
The US Republican party launched its clunky new error-riddled website today. A cavalcade of screw-ups ensued.
In a gambit to make the party look diverse, almost half the people listed on a ‘Republican heroes’ page were African Americans (even though only 2 percent of blacks are registered Republicans). It also listed baseball great Jackie Robinson as a “great Republican” – even though Robinson was a registered independent who denounced the “hatred” evident at the 1964 Republican party presidential convention: “one of the most unforgettable and frightening experiences of my life.”
Also prominent among said screw-ups was listing the “Iraw war” as a Republican accomplishment.
Five months later, in March 2003 President Bush ordered 250,000 U.S. troops into Iraw.
The phrase, “meanwhile, in a different universe” comes to mind…
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johnpi
The Democratic party’s response to Republican outrage at Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize:
“Either sensing an opening to cast the Republican Party as actively rooting against America, or just fed up with the stream of negative responses,” writes Sam Stein, “the Democratic National Committee put out an unusually blunt statement Friday morning. The gist: that the GOP sides with the terrorists.”
“The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists — the Taliban and Hamas this morning — in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize,” wrote DNC Communications Director Brad Woodhouse. “Republicans cheered when America failed to land the Olympics and now they are criticizing the President of the United States for receiving the Nobel Peace prize — an award he did not seek but that is nonetheless an honor in which every American can take great pride — unless of course you are the Republican Party.
The 2009 version of the Republican Party has no boundaries, has no shame and has proved that they will put politics above patriotism at every turn. It’s no wonder only 20 percent of Americans admit to being Republicans anymore – it’s an embarrassing label to claim.”
Chris Bowers lauds this response: “That is just about the most aggressive, hard-hitting rhetoric I have ever read from a Democratic Party committee. It is like Alan Grayson wrote this response.” Glenn Greenwald pans it: “Apparently, according to the DNC, if you criticize this Prize, then you’re an unpatriotic America-hater — just like the Terrorists, because they’re also criticizing the award. Karl Rove should be proud.”
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johnpi
Florida Republicans shoot ‘Muslim’ targets at meeting.
South Florida Republicans held a weekly meeting at a gun range, shooting at targets including cut-outs of a Muslim holding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
The GOP (Republican) candidate to replace U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz fired at a full-body silhouette with “DWS” written next to its head.
Wasserman Schultz declined comment, but the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee called the Tuesday event “extremist” and “sexist.”
Robert Lowry, who’s vying for Wasserman Schultz’s seat, initially described his target as a joke. Minutes later, he called it a mistake.
Others refused to apologized for the Southeast Broward Republican Club event, featuring assault rifles and handguns. A conservative activist said they should stand up for their beliefs in the heavily Democratic county.
Update:
Here’s a screengrab of the target being used:
>
Check out video of the shooting event here.
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johnpi
Conservative: Women’s right to vote is “bad for society”:
Last month, radio host Alan Colmes asked National Review columnist John Derbyshire about a chapter in his new book, called “The Case Against Women’s Suffrage.” After Colmes repeatedly pressed him about his views on womens’ suffrage, Derbyshire admitted that while he thinks women should be allowed to vote, we’d “probably” be a “better country” if they didn’t.
Yesterday, radio host Thom Hartmann probed Derbyshire about the suffrage issue, and Derbyshire re-affirmed his view that “of course” he believes women should have the right to vote. But, he explained, they shouldn’t exercise that right because it is “bad for conservatism” and therefore “bad for society.”
Think Progress blogger Zaid Jilani notes:
While Derbyshire may think that gender equity is “bad for society,” the fact is that the countries that rank the highest in the World Economic Forum’s gender gap index — meaning they have the most gender equality — tend to also rank the highest on the U.N.’s Human Development Index. While it’s possible that women’s suffrage is “bad for conservatism,” maybe it’s conservatism — not women’s suffrage — that is “bad for society.”
When will someone invade America and ’save’ our women from these thugs?
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johnpi
American comedian Janeane Garofalo is dangerous, says this conservative blogger. She is leading an army of disaffected African Americans in violent uprising against white America – because she went on a TV show and said the teabaggers are nothing more then Klan members without the hoods.
The disaffected African-American youth in this country who are looking for any sort of reason to justify their anti-social behavior will latch onto such screeds as a defense. We have already allowed people in this country to blame their condition in life, that they find themselves in, on everything but themselves. It is always some sort of external force that is to blame for not achieving everything they hoped to achieve, or in what has become an overused word–fair.
If people were paying attention they would notice that the high achievers in our society almost never come out and say the reason they got to where they at is because somebody gave it to them. If success comes from hard work, a willingness to put in the extra hours, maybe taking a risk or two, and always working to improve their skills then what do people who don’t rise to such lofty heights attribute their lack of success to? Listen to the people who feel they have been left behind and they will almost never cite any of those success factors as a reason of their lack of success. They blame mommy and daddy, the red haired girl in second grade or not getting the winning lottery ticket.
Let me tell you, that red-haired girl in the second grade was awful, simply awful.
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johnpi
Some more suggestions for the new conservative bible:
“And Sampson slew the Philistines with a jawbone of a stegosaurus”
“Jesus turned the water into napalm and laid waste to the Samaritans for what the Egyptians hath done”
“Woe be unto the Nazareth Post, for we countethed 13 million people at the Sermon on the Mount.”
“Go thou now and bomb the shit out of the swarthy”
“Jesus spake, ‘I hope those foreign bastards don’t translate my English into Greek.’
“And the Holy Spirit spake unto Mary, ‘Hast thou seen mine bald eagle etchings?’”
“Suffer the little children so their detained parents will talk.”
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johnpi
Bob Corker, a Republican senator from Tennessee, insulted a former Canadian Public Health Minister by telling her that her country, which has universal health care, has a “parasitic relationship” with the United States because of its supposedly inferior health care technology:
During a hearing of the Special Committee on Aging, the Tennessee Republican told Canada’s former Public Health Minister, Dr. Carolyn Bennett, that her country is “living off of us” because they set lower prices for health care and “all the innovation, all the technology breakthroughs just about take place in our country and we have to pay for it.”
“It is not really our country so much is the problem, it’s sort of the parasitic relationship that Canada, and France, and other countries have towards us,” Corker said. “…You benefit from us, and we pay for that. And I resent that, and I want to figure out a way to solve that.”
Think Progress blogger Zaid Jilani notes:
Although attacking the Canadian and European health care systems is a common tactic for conservatives, the fact remains that these countries have been leading health care innovators time and time again.
Canada brought the world insulin, developed bone marrow transplantation, and conducts more lung transplant surgeries than the United States. Meanwhile, of the twenty most profitable pharmaceutical manufacturers, only nine are from the United States — the rest are from western Europe, Japan, and Israel, all of which have universal health care systems that Corker so is opposed to.
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johnpi
Texas: 11th Congressional District candidate calls for end to Muslim immigration.
Big Country congressional hopeful Canyon Clowdus wants no more Muslim immigration to America. But he doesn’t want to stop at the stance he outlined to radical blog “Dr. Bulldog and Ronin,” which endorses him for 11th Congressional District representative.
“It’s not just them,” the conservative Republican told a reporter Sunday night. “They need to check all immigrants. They used to assimilate.”
Instead, immigrants retain their beliefs, hurting America, Clowdus, a Marble Falls businessman, said.
Clowdus wants to halt Muslim immigration to stop what the blog termed a “stealth Jihad” and “creeping sharia” to replace the Constitution with Islamic religious law.
Clowdus’ motto: “Let’s put God back in government!”
Clowdus’ campaign website seems to say that George Washington wasn’t very bright, but he was a good man, and it’s the same diff’ for Clowdus.
George Washington was not elected our first president because he was a “mental giant” as Thomas Jefferson or Ben Franklin were considered to be, but because he was a “moral giant“. Many of our elected officials simply do not want to act on the taxpayers best interest in fear of making enemies, in turn, not getting re-elected. We need leaders in Washington that will fight without concern of re-election or any loss to themselves. Fight for what is right…fight as “moral giants“ for OUR great nation.
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johnpi
Remember this? “…many American Muslims share the Republican party’s social views.” Meet the ‘young lion’ of US conservatism: “No guy will die for an ugly girl.”
Jason Mattera describes himself as “the surprisingly fresh face of conservatism.” He is the spokesman for the Young America’s Foundation, a student organization. Its motto is “The conservative movement starts here,” and is described as “the principal outreach organization of the Conservative Movement.”
Sarah Posner writes in Campus Progress:
During the panel, Mattera took the David and Goliath metaphor another perverse step: If conservatives (David) smite liberals (Goliath), they will be rewarded with the hot conservative women, just like King Saul promised his daughter to the warrior who slew the evil giant. “You know his daughter must have been beautiful because there’s no guy who is gonna die for an ugly girl.” “Our women are hot. We have Michelle Malkin. Who does the left have, Rachel Maddow? Sorry, I prefer that my women not look like dudes.”
So what sort of fella is Jason Mattera? The young conservative leader maintains a blog with posts titled: Ted Kennedy Silenced, Can Lesbians Have Phalluses, Defending Rush Limbaugh, Abortion Deadly, and What’s the Difference Between a Jewish and a Latino Phallus. (He’s rather focused on phalluses, ya’ think?) On the blog’s “about page” Mattera writes like a 90’s Valley Girl: I heart free markets, traditional values, and limited government. Currently I represent Young America’s Foundation. I have two awesomely awesome parents. I swing and salsa dance… I avoided a public school education, thanks to the financial sacrifice of my awesomely awesome parents.
Because Republicans “heart” your “awesomely awesome” conservative values.
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johnpi
In an interview:
THE HILL: What vote would you like to redo?
KING: I don’t really go back and re-live that sort of thing. Some of the big votes that I’ve thought about, some of the jury’s still out. And at this point, maybe I’d answer that question another way, probably the singular vote that stands out that went against the grain, and it turns out to be the best vote that I cast, was my “no” vote to the $51.5 billion to [Hurricane] Katrina. That probably was my best vote. But as far as doing something different again, I don’t know.
Amanda Terkel reports:
Media Matters Action Network’s Matt Finkelstein writes, “Katrina killed 1,464 in Louisiana alone and uprooted the lives of countless others all over the gulf region. Yet, King says this was his ‘best’ moment in Congress. Not fighting for ‘conservative principles’ like smaller government, lower taxes, or a strong national defense — no, he’s most proud of opposing relief for victims of a catastrophe.”
Because Republicans represent your conservative values.
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Howard Kaloogian, a disgraced Republican politician who took a picture of a quiet Istanbul street during his campaign for the US House and tried to pass it off as Baghdad “to report the good news on Operation Iraqi Freedom” has now attached himself to the right-wing ‘teabagger’ movement in the US.
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johnpi
Recent incident of teenage hijabi bullying in Florida provides disturbing view into the mind of the bully, who is about to join the US Army and go to Iraq.
After the incident, Lawrence was asked by a school staffer why she confronted the girl. “She began to rant that she was enlisting and was going to Iraq and that basically because the girl looks Middle Eastern, that makes her an enemy because all Iraqis are Middle Eastern,” according to the referral signed by assistant principal Stephen Crognale.
When journalists later asked her about these comments, she denied them.
The girl’s father doesn’t seem to be helping her sort out her confusion, instead copping a ‘we are the victims here’ attitude:
“You have someone in the States who is able to enjoy our educational and health care systems, yet it’s okay for them to be disrespectful, and it’s not okay for my daughter to speak her mind,” said Mark Lawrence, Heather’s father. “That’s her First Amendment right. That’s her freedom of speech.”
Funny, US conservatives were once ideologically known for their incessant whining about liberal ‘victimhood mentality,’ yet they seem to be on a hair-trigger to step into the role.
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johnpi
Republicans practicing taqiyya in the US healthcare debate.
One vocal attendee was a woman named Heather Blish, who identified herself as “just a mom from a few blocks away” and “not affiliated with any political party.” When interviewed by the local NBC affiliate, Blish insisted she was not a member of the Republican Party. “I left the party,” she said. Blish’s statements, however, are distortions. From NBC’s report:
Her LinkedIn page shows something different. She was the vice chair of the Republican Party of Kewaunee County until last year. She worked on the John Gard campaign, who ran unsuccessfully against Kagen last year. And it says she’s a part of the Republican Party for Kagen’s district, as well as the Republican Party of Wisconsin, and the Republican National Committee.
Her LinkedIn page shows she’s a graduate of Faith Academy (there are several in Wisconsin, but they all aim to provide a “quality Christian education.”) Count taquiyya among the good Christian values…
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johnpi
For the modern GOP, it’s a return to the “white voter strategy.”
With Republican party leaders so constrained by ideological blinders that none of their positions is likely to produce gains among non-white minorities, especially Hispanics, the GOP is finding it has no real alternative but to revert to a “white voter” strategy.
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johnpi
More racist Facebook page comments discovered by Audra Shay, the top candidate in the race to head national Young Republicans political group (post on the first set of comments here).
* In October 2008, in the wake of news that an effigy of Sarah Palin was being hung outside an affluent Hollywood home as an offensive Halloween decoration, Shay replied, returning to the “LOL” style that she employed after the “coons” comment: “What no ‘Obama in a noose? Come on now, its just freedome [sic] of speech, no one in Atlanta would take that wrong! Lol.”
She picked up the thread again the next morning with a clarification and a new insight. “Apparently I could not spell last night. I am wondering if the guys with the Palin noose would care if we had a bunch of homosexuals in a noose.”
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johnpi
Because the Republican party represents your conservative values:
David Brooks: A Republican senator put ‘his hand on my inner thigh’ for a ‘whole’ dinner party.
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johnpi
Yet another rising Republican star busted for racism.
Last Wednesday, Audra Shay, the Bobby Jindal-supported shoe-in to be the new leader of the Young Republicans was engaged in an exchange with some other members of that group on her Facebook page. A Facebook page friend posted the following:
Obama Bin Lauden [sic] is the new terrorist… Muslim is on there side [sic]… need to take this country back from all of these mad coons… and illegals.
Shay weighs in on the comments a few minutes later: “You tell em Eric! lol.”
Several other Young Republican Facebook friends challenged the use of the word ‘coon’ (but not the comment about Muslims). Shay subsequently ‘de-friended’ the commenters who challenged the racist slur, but kept her friendship link with the racist commenter.
The two comments directly below the boxed comments are worthy of attention too. “Obama faces” (with a wink) is more racist reference, and the comment about ‘Liberal’s (sic) shooting themselves in the foot’ is ridiculous in this context…
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johnpi
Glenn Greenwald: What if the Uighurs were Christian rather than Muslim?
Thoughts on reports of rioting in Western China today:
Just imagine if the Uighurs were a Christian — rather than Muslim — minority, battling against the tyrannical Communist regime in Beijing, resisting various types of persecution, and demanding religious freedom. They would be lionized by America’s Right, as similar Christian minorities, oppressed by tyrannical regimes, automatically are. Episodes like these — where a declared Tyranny like China violently acts against citizens with whom we empathize — are ones about which, in general, the American political class loves to sermonize.
But the Uighurs are Muslim, not Christian, and hostility towards them thus easily outweighs the opportunity they present to undermine the Chinese Government.
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johnpi
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New GOP phrase for detainee pictures: “Terrorist propaganda photos.”
I thought Republicans said they were “frat party momentos.”
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johnpi
Planet conservative: When alternative narratives become alternative realities.
Yesterday, Charles Krauthammer accepted the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism, an annual award given by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. In his acceptance speech, Krauthammer lauded Murdoch and Roger Ailes for creating an “alternate reality” for its viewers:
KRAUTHAMMER: What Fox did is not just create a venue for alternative opinion. It created an alternate reality.
A few years ago, I was on a radio show with a well-known political reporter who lamented the loss of a pristine past in which the whole country could agree on what the facts were, even if they disagreed on how to interpret and act upon them. All that was gone now. The country had become so fractured we couldn’t even agree on what reality was. What she meant was that the day in which the front page of The New York Times was given scriptural authority everywhere was gone, shattered by the rise of Fox News.
It’s so healthy for a democratic countrty when voters act on the basis of an imaginary world.
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johnpi
Short video based on text from Glenn Beck’s book, The Real America: Messages from the Heart and Heartland, rated PG-13. Every word in the video is lifted from Beck’s book.
Remember, as Glenn writes in text subsequent to that excerpted in the video:
“Please do not refer to us as an ‘incestuous’ couple. Keep the hate language to yourself. We prefer to think of the gift we have been given as ‘familial love.’”
Fox News pundits like Glenn Beck represent your conservative values.
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johnpi
Because Republicans reflect your conservative values:
Sarah Palin’s outrageous hypocrisy on teen sex.
Palin knew her daughter was having sex in her own house. What does it take to get discredited as a right-wing “family values” merchant these days?
….super-religious governor Palin was letting Bristol’s hunkface beef accessory Levi nail her daughter more or less regularly under the family roof.