Egads, I Hate JD Vance.

 

Of all the trifling twats that ever twatted triflingly, JD Vance feels like he might be both the most trifling and twattiest. The adoption of Trump's victimization fetish that the US has been "taken advantage of" is so uniquely lame and fucked up. Did Lady Liberty get railed by the big old Lumberjack? How sway? 

Trump himself conflated the Canadian trade deficit thing with our actual US debt, which this asshole put 8 trillion American dollars on. As a member of the party that DOES NOT swan about preaching "fiscal responsibility" while racking up losses by granting tax cuts to the rich at every opportunity, um. 

Fuck you. Fuck you from the soles of your shitty unspurred feet to the crown of your molting head. And what I say for Trump goes ditto (megadittoes. even!) for his mini-me. 

JD Vance tells stories. That is to say, more appropriately, he lies, and he knows and accepts that he lies. 

Let's know and accept that. too. And acknowledge how unacceptable that behavior is. 

Show Me Where on this Body of Christ the Gospel Hurt You

I don't know why Bishop Mariann Budde asking Trump to "Be Best" blew so many MAGA's little minds, but I think it has to do with the idea that while Christ might have told people that whatever you do to the least of these, you do to him--but like, what does that have to do with Christianity?  It gets read not as a plea to the better angels of Trump's nature, but a call out, because they understand he has no such better angels--

And that is exactly what they like about him. It doesn't just say something about him--but themselves. And if it made them feel bad or less than what their professed faith actively calls them to be in so many words, they would rather lash out at being made to feel bad, than actually reconsider the morality of brutalizing other people, doing actual harm to them.

Which sounds weak and insecure to me.

Just a thought. 

The Aesthetics of Manslaughter

 

Look at him--the National Police Association bids, "Behold the man." His golden curls lit by the sun, his rugged jawline, without obvious benefit of mewing. His head held high, his shoulders back. The V of his swimmer's build, the likely fruitfulness of his Aryan loins. I have never seen a police Tweet so obviously eroticized. Choke me out too, Big Daddy, it practically cries. I'm bad and totally down and you're gooooooood. A Good Samaritan who mercy kills sad-ass mentally ill poors. Do that T4 shit, Big Daddy with the mustache. Go like a killing machine. 

I'm not exaggerating what I'm seeing online.  Holy shit, this is spank material. No, let me unveil this:

Yeah, they used AI to make this art about the guy who clapped down his socials and who probably would get more hotter for these weirdos if he was milkshake ducked. 

I guess these are the same kinds of people who make Trump look like he isn't a fat ass who needs a golf cart, but is some kind of real man of genius (tm).  And also really strong and not a soft handed manbaby. 

They want a hero. They want a weird and obvious lie. They want to be told that Neely was an obvious threat because of course he was and that killing a man saved the day. They don't want to wonder what could have been if real Good Samaritan options, like feeding the hungry, were employed. Where is the payoff there--in the idea of someone else being salvaged from a terrible place? What if someone just said, "Brother, at the next stop I will buy you some food and drink."

Because that was what the Good Samaritan would have done.

You damn dumb asshats--that's Christianity--you were supposed to see Him in the least of these. Not in the exulting godhood of the slayer, but in the moment of desperation in the slain. He was the Son of Man Penny crucified by the cross of his own hands and he and a multitude don't want to know it. 

But I choose to see it. And seeing the humanity of another, however wretched, is a choice. We don't have perfect souls down here, and we don't have perfect victims, but what we have is one another. And this imperfect man got killed because another man heard his cry that he had not food and no water, and decided he didn't need air either. 

And I find that inaesthetic. Actually, I find that appalling, and the gorgeous face of the killer doesn't tell me something other than we don't tell the truth about the poor among us, or so many other marginalized--we let people somehow not exist on our book of the living. And we let others off the hook so easily, for superficial reasons. 

How can that be ok? 

How Small, Is All

 

The fact that this guy thinks that two loving parents is some slam dunk against Pete and Chasten says a lot about just how broken and unloved these “family values conservatives” are. pic.twitter.com/N1Q65Xze6a

— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) March 2, 2023

This Tweet encapsulates for me so much of what is damaged and wrong with the conservatives. Tell me an American veteran became a small-town mayor, married a schoolteacher, rose to a White House cabinet-level position, and adopted beautiful twin babies, and it is absolutely a family that shows what the American dream can be. And conservatives come along, and somehow, this is bad because it is two men? 

Why? What specific thing about them being two men fucks this up for them? The haters can say religion, but why? Buttigieg is more Christian than me. What if there was a God who said "Judge not, lest ye be judged?" What if love wasn't a problem at all?  What if queer people took inspiration for their faith through love for the longest time? What if Biblical gender wasn't as clear-cut as people suppose? 

The War on Christmas

 

It's Christmas Eve and about 50 migrants were dropped off in front of Kamala Harris' residence with the temperature in the teens. Another stunt by Greg Abbott. pic.twitter.com/wUjkxplYmB

— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) December 25, 2022

You can tell me there was no room at the inn, but does anyone honestly mean to say there was no room--in Texas? Or was it only that in his fondness for the stranger (as even He had been a sojourner in Egypt), Governor Abbott felt it correct to send these people across a storm-thrown passage because he couldn't be sure he could keep the lights on for them?

 

Lest I Be Considered A Bigot

Sen. Rick Scott: "The left discredits those who believe in a supreme being or the commitment of marriage, and doesn't place value in family." pic.twitter.com/TVTDm9CRCC

— The Hill (@thehill) September 24, 2020

Watch this entire video. I'm a leftist. I don't hate religious people, hard work, Mom or apple pie. I feel like I just got personally reamed out by this elected official, Senator Rick Scott. This man told me I had no values. He told me I don't care about marriage or the deeply-held values of faith communities, that I disrespect the troops and law enforcement, that I am not American in the sense that he understands America from the Pledge of Allegiance and so on.

The pledge of allegiance was written by a socialist minister (because socialists can also be believers--not that there's anything wrong with not being one) and did not include the words "under God" originally. Just as we have civilian leadership over the military--it's the decision of the people through their elected representatives whether a nation should go to war and those elected representatives determine our treaties. Some protestors have a radical view regarding the future of law enforcement, but no one is saying that there will be no laws, nor that no mechanism of enforcement should exist.

And this man needs to back off entirely about the concept of family and the sanctity of marriage. Is he saying couples can not divorce? (Because for what it's worth, I've been divorced and it worked out great for both me and my ex.) (I doubt that's what he's referring to, though.) I think he might be implying that some marriages are not created equal to others because of the genders of the partners involved. But I am a big fan of marriage. I think marriage is a great institution, and I love that LGBT people can enter into marriages and create warm, loving families. If he is against those bonds, maybe the marriage-hater is him, ok? Maybe he's disrespecting those families.

And I don't have a problem with people of faith--I just don't think they need to tell me I have to believe as they do, which is no more than any person of any religion would say to a person of a different religion.

So, let me get stupid and hold up a Senator Marsha Blackburn Tweet:

In Chuck Schumer’s America — only atheists can be Supreme Court Justices.

— Marsha Blackburn (@VoteMarsha) September 25, 2020

A Jewish Senate leader who is, with all of us liberals, mourning a Jewish Justice, only wants atheist Supreme Court Justices, like, maybe, Sonia Sotomayor, a Catholic, who is, according to some protestants, not really a Christian? If what she said seems stupid, it's because it is.

What is all of this religious signifying for? Is it squid-ink to warn liberals off of challenging Trump's preferred SCOTUS choice, Amy Coney Barrett, on religious grounds? I already can't with her on the grounds that Republicans have chosen her, and they clearly believe a atheist woman of childbearing age and alternative sexuality who wants to do her own thing is the entire problem with this country, and nope, I am not the fucking one.

So I am not going to pick a fight over the unfortunate choice of Judge Barrett's religious affinity group's covenant female leader's former titles of "Handmaidens" and wax weirdly on about how this is like a SF novel. That isn't the problem. The problem is Trump got two of his SCOTUS picks by dubious engineering (the Scalia seat held open throughout 2016, and Kennedy's retirement) already, and Trump never was the popular choice, polls badly, and unless I miss my mark, should not get re-elected.

Barrett is the same age as I, and I do not think she represents most women of my generation in terms of reproductive choice and gay rights. I do not want her on a court for the next, possibly 30-40 years. Not because of her beliefs, but because I think she will find a reason to bend the 14th amendment against the way so many have been pulling it, like the arc of history, like the definition of justice, for so long.

The right wing opines that the problem is that people like me are discriminating against her. To do so, they have shown no problem in discriminating against people like me. I worry that this country is reinforcing racist values, but I know in my guts that we are also at risk for theocracy.

Can I Get a Witness?

Damn. I did not realize that Sean Spicer was out there shaking his groove thang as a powerful witness to Christ through the language of dance as opposed to being a discredited lying hack trying to improve his Q score by appearing fuzzy and relatable.

Well, if you can't dance, I wouldn't want to be a part of your culture war, anyway.

(I don't know what's up--I screen-capped because the Tweet wouldn't embed.)

An Argument for Religious Freedom

Recently, Franklin Graham, the late Rev. Billy Graham's Islamophobic and homophobic scion, challenged Pete Buttigieg for referring to himself as a gay Christian because to Graham, it is not possible to be both Christian and gay. 

This is not news to millions of gay people who actually consider themselves Christian--of course, they've heard at one time or another that they are imperfect in their beliefs if they don't also hate themselves. It might be news to Graham that their religion, and freedom to practice it, is no less valid than his own and that it isn't actually up to Graham to decide who gets to call themselves a follower of Christ.

I don't follow religion, myself, and struggle with the textual smarty-pants tendency to point out this passage or that to refute the fine print gatekeepers who want to reserve their own slice of heaven, for the price of striking off others for whatever scape-goatish reason they are so inclined. It's truly not my god and not my book, and as far as one person's interpretation of it goes, it's probably not even my business--but to that extent, it isn't really Graham's business to monitor someone else's religious rectitude, either, as if only one version of the Bible even existed. 

What we do have in common, as Americans, is the First Amendment. It seems that Graham would prefer to have his interpretation of religion override what others hold to be true, and even would ask that the government agree with his interpretation to limit the rights of others to follow their non-harmful life choices, such as marrying a consenting, adult partner.   But religious guidelines can dictate what to eat and what to wear and how to discipline one's children and on and on--the problem is to what extent any religious person's mere opinion should hold weight over another person's pursuit of happiness. 

Or maybe it isn't a problem at all--Graham just wants to cause trouble. Pete Buttigieg is as free to be a gay Christian as Graham is to be a bigoted one because he accepts Christ as central to his faith. I'm a happy little atheist because why not? But that sort of assumption that freedom of religion can mean freedom from having one's rights impinged by another's religious view isn't as common as I suppose it ought to be. I can't help but think about the times I've seen Tony Perkins or Brian Brown or some other "true religion" type being treated as if their view--imposing a specifically scriptural interpretation on LGBT people's right to marry, adopt, or even exist, as if they were perfectly ordinary--and not actually peculiar sectarian extremists trying to impose a sort of Christianism on other folks. Especially when this kind of judgment and imposition of religious bigotry does societal harm. 

A Sorrowful Eastertide

Eight blasts across Sri Lanka have killed at least 207 people and injured hundreds of others, prompting the government to impose a nationwide curfew and block social media https://t.co/JiV0FVevhn pic.twitter.com/kySWVmFAnC

— CNN International (@cnni) April 22, 2019

This Holy Week saw the partial destruction of a magnificent historical Christian structure due to an act of bad wiring and fate, and ends with an horrific act of violence across Sri Lanka, where eight blasts (and other, secreted devices have been found) have resulted in the deaths of more than two hundred people, and the wounding of hundreds more. I can only express my shared sorrow for the enormity of this assault on worshippers, travelers, and fellow humans, all underserving of such horror intersecting with their lives, and hope that justice is delivered to those who meant to express some political viewpoint (one can but assume) with blood.

If this does not in some way desecrate the meaning of this day for the faithful, I would state that there is no way the blood of the innocent ever pays for any other, dislocated guilt, of trespassers against human rights or thoughtless elites whose activities grind others down through multiple transgressions against their health, pocket, and general welfare. These human lives, abruptly changed, whether for death or disability, and the disruption of the lives of their nearest and dearest ones, will only answer to the horror of the act, and not any intention on the part of the terrorists, because terror is senseless. It speaks to nothing but babbles in fire and sound and blood. It is a sign of the exhaustion of reason, not the beginning of any rational conversation. It deafens and numbs and blinds by scattering grief and hurt.

This attack was appalling, and reminds us that human lives are often wasted for any number of reasons, when for all, life is already short enough and marked with sorrow. We wait on a day when we sort out this gross failure to see the human in one another, and acknowledge the life journey and struggle for knowledge everyone of us shares.

But until all humanity learns better how not to create more grief, I sit in grief with Sri Lanka and the many other nations from which these victims had come. Our mortality and its recognition brings us all, believer and nonbeliever alike, to a dreadful contemplation. Our only comfort is one another, and if all I can do is suffer with you--I do.

Batshit is an Accelerant

Notre Dame's famous rose windows survived fire: report https://t.co/QDw7pC4CQP pic.twitter.com/E910ldv7m6

— The Hill (@thehill) April 17, 2019

When I consider the great tragedy of the fire that threatened to consume the Notre Dame Cathedral, I will hold on to the amazing effort of so many people, the fire department, the clerical and historical personnel, that tried to ensure that whatever existed of cultural and historical and artistic importance that could be preserved, was. That the rose windows survived, the optical brilliance that they are, the technological and artistic genius of a bygone era that they represent, still survive, is, to me, a great comfort. Glass, after all, is notoriously fragile. But this glass was made to endure. As many things of great beauty and cultural significance have been and do, despite heat and pressure and the accidents and incidents of mankind's interference. The rose windows created a part of the sacred atmosphere within the cathedral by diffracting light in a way different than we normally see--in a human-engineered way, that seems touched by whatever we might mean when we think of the divine.

I have a great reticence for taking the potential destruction of any work of human hands as symbolic of anything--are we so stolid and numb to our fate to fail to know that even the works of our hands are subject to decay and disaster? It should not be possible. The bashed noses of the Sphinx and other ancient representations of faces should tell us that much. There is no homeland skyline that will not be altered in someone's lifetime. In one of our great US cities, we have seen a skyline greatly altered, ourselves, via a travesty of political demonstration and a tragedy of human action.

And here is were the greatness subsides to the banal and even stupid--where one might even ask how anything so old might burst into flames?

I don’t understand how a fire of this magnitude could happen accidentally

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) April 15, 2019

The question might well be how it was not destroyed prior to now, wood being very flammable and growing more dry and brittle over the years. The structure was a mess and in the midst of a renovation--perhaps too late. But now a more radical correction can be made.

Certainly, some people never being off of their bullshit, will openly suppose it had to be the result of an act of arson and terrorism. The irresponsibility of this is incalculable as fingers of blame can point any and everywhere, but certainly at non-Christians.


The imbeciles of the right wing somehow made the supportive comment of Rep. Ilhan Omar the subject of a more than two-minutes' hate. I will not point out those commentaries except to note that all buildings are art and architecture, even those occupying a sacred space. Taking any words said by anyone anywhere, and holding them to an impossible standard of saying exactly what your own brain wants them to say, is more chillingly PC than any liberal would ever expect for any speaker, ever. Congrats for out jack-boot-thugging us libs again--the fanciest way to own us is always by being worse, so, you go, guys!

Anyhow, Fox News proceeded from the idea that Paris deserved this tragedy, even if no actually good network would've. And several sites spread bad information.

The fire at Notre Dame is now out, but the rumor and lies regarding what happened can be an accelerant to further tragedy. This kind of thing would be a greater folly and a worse catastrophe. There is no good reason that batshit should reignite such a destructive fire.

TWGB: No Kings

It makes sense to me to open this post with Donald Trump signing the front of Bibles for Alabamians who have survived the extraordinarily severe tornado outbreak that killed 23 people. He would surely sign the cover, as it is the only part I really think he ever looked at. But that isn't weird. A Bible is a keepsake book, a thing you won't throw away. And the signature of a President, no matter which one, is a kind of historical record. Many Christians have keepsake Bibles where there is a place to recognize family histories like births and deaths. It's a part of our family lore and hand-me-down heritage to gift a Bible to a newlywed couple to remind them to raise their family in the faith. My parents received such keepsake Bibles that I ferreted out as a unchurched child among our various basement treasures--put-away unfashionable clothes and holiday decorations and military mementos and other random things people in their thirties have that their kids might find. 

I found the religion I didn't have--and because I was a reader, read. But there was nothing in those keepsake gifted Bibles that made me feel anything different about us--other than that my immediate family never indoctrinated me into this thing of religion that their families obviously had, that we never practiced. I used the unused pages to try and fill in the family history bits that had been left not filled in, but didn't even know what apparently, family Bibles should have recorded. 

What I did know, though, was better than religion--I had safety. My parents taught me to be capable. I wasn't brave, but I could fake it. I wasn't strong, but I could find strength. I was not fast, but I could be ready. I was smart, but they taught me when to not be too clever. I don't know what Donald Trump was taught when he was a wee'un, but I don't think it is too much removed from his grandfather who started hotels that might have offered more than the usual accommodations. He was taught to monetize, to capitalize.  And this is what he does. He moved from residential real estate to casinos because here is more money there. And then branched out to other ventures like a modeling agency, that wasn't too far removed from human trafficking. 

Things being sex-trafficking adjacent though, are necessarily bad, and it looks like Trump and the GOP are pretty well sex-trafficking adjacent. (More so than usual.) A recent bust of a spa chain that deals in massages and more which was goddamn close to Mar-A-Lago brought in NFL Patriots owner Robert Kraft, but the founder of this little old business selfied with so many prominent GOP figures, but most notably Trump at the Super Bowl. Well, I guess for a person with a dodgy business, friend in high places could come in handy. She also took pics with Jesse Watters and Judge Pirro and all the Trump kids and so on. 

Donald Trump likes to talk about sex trafficking along the US border. This, under his very nose--is actual sex trafficking. 

But is there more to the story? Is the madam trafficker also selling access to a certain person inclined to be accessible at one of his business addresses?  Yes? He is often there and is apparently susceptible to people who want to drop him a note that says anything like "Dear king". 

Now, my friends, you know in this country there shouldn't be any kings but Jesus and Elvis, and Elvis has left the building. Trump is no "King Cyrus" either. Trump being called "King" is weird, but his accepting hints of policy from randos who frequent his business is also very weird.

I look at his trademarks, and have to wonder what this is all about. Is he eventually setting up actual escort services and what could generously be called spas along the lines of Mme. Yang at any of his properties abroad as a kind of full-service agreement? After all, this is the guy who is not at all circumspect with his own sexual continence. But I also wonder--what about the blackmail potential? Trump has used surveillance on people at his properties. To what end, though?

Questions for Ted Cruz

Two basic Qs every reporter should ask Beto today: (1) should the “caravan” be allowed to cross illegally into Texas? (Beto refuses to answer.) And (2) did your campaign dollars illegally fund their doing so? https://t.co/5HcePn3AGs

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) November 2, 2018

Does Ted Cruz Tweet something like this because (1) he doesn't like his internal polling very much or (2) because he doesn't like himself very much? Because it just seems to me you'd had to be some kind of schmuck to shoot past "George Soros and the Democrats" are funding the caravan (which, as I've pointed out, makes no sense--not before an election we sure as hell wouldn't have!) to "my opponent is funding them"--when it should be clear these are desperately poor people walking a couple thousand miles because...

They have nothing. They aren't funded: they have nothing. And whatever someone might want to do for them might be considered one's moral duty to help the least of us. If one ever believed in such a thing.

UPDATE: Ah--apparently, Cruz's calumny was based on an O'Keefe lie, and O'Rourke's staffers were discussing a donation to charity that was being conflated with the caravan. Cruz and O'Keefe are entirely made of bullshit.

The Trump Problem 6: Dan Hominy

Trump source in room tells me Trump made a gen elex map pitch to the group. Mentioned NJ ("right, Chris?!"), CA, PA, MD as in play.

— Ali Vitali (@alivitali) June 9, 2016

I think the Republicans have an interesting problem with Donald Trump in that they want him to be someone he pretty much isn't. They think he is growing and learning.  He will stop being a textbook racist asshat any day now.  Basically, they believe that they can decry the things said by Donald Trump, and still support "Dan Hominy".

"Dan Hominy" is my private name for "The Nominee"--a salt-of the earth independent small government businessman who pleases the evangelical contingent while being strictly acceptable to the Chamber of Commerce folks, and who, when he's up for it, shows a solid grasp of national defense priorities. You know, a "Generic Republican", who, if things were anything but what they are right now, would be just the three-legged-stool sitting SOB to eke out an electoral college win over Hillary Clinton. A guy with no major negatives, a reputation for honesty, and a basic general competence.  I think, despite Donald Trump actually being the person who won the GOP primaries, a lot of Republicans want to mainstream their guy as being this "Dan Hominy"--slogan? "He's got grits!"

John Kasich and Exporting "Judeo-Christian Values"

You know, I think OH Gov. John Kasich has come as close as there can be to being the "reasonable man" on stage in primary debates. He's informed, compassionate, and except for a little signifying, not overtly doling out pandering horseshit.

Which is why this business with creating an agency to dispense Judeo-Christian memes to countries he deems could use them is a hot mess. Remember just a blog post or so back when I mentioned that Ben Carson's adviser, Gen. Dees, was in favor of militarized missionaries? Well, that sort of thing is actually not allowed by military convention--US soldiers are not to proselytize.  (It's bad enough when heavy proselytization is used on the troops themselves.) We have this funny old thing here in the States about church and state separation, despite the best efforts of people like the head of Ted Cruz' SuperPAC, David Barton, to pretend it is not a real thing. An agency like the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, created under President George W. Bush, is questionable enough--but even that office recognizes the Establishment Clause and steers away from proselytizing.

This proposal does not. It specifically mentions "Judeo-Christian values"--implying that any other values of any other creed must be less-than. (I've recently mentioned on Twitter that "Judeo-Christian" is such a passive-aggressive phrase in that the third Abrahamic faith is, intentionally, silent.) It specifically would be geared towards spreading "Judeo-Christian values" to--whom? The poor benighted boogers of lesser faiths who don't have values that Kasich recognizes as "correct"? Why, that is tremendously paternalistic and really likely to make people more pissed off at our colonialist mindset!

Yeah. I had a little respect for Kasich, but, while this idea might sort of woo evangelicals, seriously, if there was a way to peel them off of Carson and Cruz, Huckabee would have tried it. I think it's a turkey, and as God is my witness, I do not believe turkeys can fly.

Moments of Amazing and Short-Lived Grace

Let's talk now, honest people, about how short and contentious our moments of revelation are, and how they collapse under the weight of our ponderous human frailty--no wait. Let's don't. The song "Amazing Grace" is a beautiful song about turning over one's life through a thunderbolt of awareness of what one is now and what one wishes to be.

The author of that song was a slaver who was saved and became an abolitionist. That song is an autobiography of a turning point in a life. But more than that, it is a song about getting awakened. The people who lost their lives June 17th were awake in their faith. That song has been sung at many a Christian burial, and played beautifully by that least-loved of instruments, the bagpipes, at the funerals of soldiers, cops, and firefighters. It's a song we associate with the hope that this awake life was well-lived and that this soul comes finally home.

But let's not get too much overtaken with that song, although in that instant our President went and took us all to church. Let's consider the eulogy that he delivered for Pastor Clementa Pinckney about the arc of history within the Black church:

A Person Really Can be Christian Without Being a Bigoted Jackass

I really don't like that I'm revisiting the Duck Dynasty tempest in a TV show thing again this soon, but there's an idea I've been pondering over regarding the reaction on the right in full-throated support of Phil Robertson's anti-gay comments that has been bothering me:

Do conservatives really think that the problem with what Robertson said was because gays and liberals and liberal gays and atheists and liberal gay atheists all hate Christianity? Like, if someone quoted the Sermon on the Mount, we'd have equal issues, or even any of that "Love thy Neighbor" "Love thy Enemy" and "Turn the other cheek" stuff?

The reason I'm asking is, the response on the right has even gone so far as to label this guy another Rosa Parks-- I guess because he's sticking it to the liberal, atheist, gay Powers That Be that have systematically...soundly criticized people we disagree with and occasionally engaged them in debate, usually while being greeted with slurs for who we are while having our own liberties curtailed, like actually, as in--enshrined in laws, like laws against gay marriage or atheists holding office and stuff? Because that kind of thinking is not even satirically funny. It isn't even like "Joke is on you guys, because you're doing it too" kind of funny, because we aren't. Because one side is saying  "We want you to leave sexual minorities be so long as they are engaging in consensual private behavior" and the other is saying "It is our right to demonize and use eliminationist rhetoric against people who engage in the kind of consensual private behavior we deem inappropriate." I can easily see the difference. Why is this difficult for them?

Heh Heh Propinquity--Pat Robertson and the Ten Commandments

See, although your Old Testament might show that adultery is one of the ten things God said you really, really, shouldn't do, Pat Robertson, like the anything goes hippy scoundrel he is, understands why if you were General Petraeus, you'd really want to hit that ass. Because really, what choice do you even have, if you are a man with a penis? Like, free will and shit?

BWWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! You are a dude with a penis. Shut up you should tap that hell out of that.  Pat  Robertson says and it's not like he's a sleazeball plutocrat; patrirachy-reinforcing peddler of nonsense from the dangers of Halloween candy to the susceptibility of all us for living where the gays and Democrats and feminists and all'em can make God send Hurrycanes! Like 9/11's.  For giving money to the ACLU and getting divorced and all the things that--

Okay--long story short, Pat Robertson has been blaming shit on me, personally, as the person who ended my marriage, started practicing witchcraft, and taking birth control. I'm kind of fed up with it. I went to atheism--no good.  I switched to PFAW for my donations--nada. And yet somehow, I think adultery is bad faith you shouldn't have with your spouse--you should totally talk it out and see where you stand on that--

Robertson is all like "Men cheat".

Who's permissive?

Just a good ol'boy never meaning no harm....

So, I was totally thinking of putting up a post about Governor Rick Perry and the whole birther and speculating about a flat tax thing, but last night I had a big old case of the "fuckitalls" and said, "You know what--I'll wait.  Let me just see where he's heading with the flat tax and the birther stuff and then I'll put a post up."

Right I was.

See, I am not overly impressed with Rick Perry as a candidate. Nope. The ringing chimes of right-wing wonderment at his entree into the race were thunderous, but he never brought the lightning (because lightning is bright! Draw your own conclusions!)  Rick Perry came off his Response Jesuspallooza entering the primary and expecting to be the front-runner and he got it, but then squandered his lead with botched debate responses. Suddenly, "Rick Perry" became 2012's version of Fred Thompson 2008 (I don't know who first said that--TBogg? Charles Pierce? Anyway, I argee and am stealing it--he's Fred Thompson with bells on.)   The beneficiary of his stupidity was Herman Cain, whose great gimmick was his 9-9-9 flat tax plan. (Now available for 9-0-9 in limited areas!)

The normal response of any good politician would be to savage the 9-9-9 plan and explain how it would be disastrous and stupid and would never work. This was sort of the response at the last debate, though hardly enough. Rick Perry's response to this stupid, gimmicky flat tax is: "I got to get me one of them."

Larry O'Donnell And Franklin Graham--and woe unto Franklin Graham:

Obama "cain't" produce proof he isn't foreign or is hardly Christian enough.  Only God knows if he really is, but that doesn't mean you know whether Obama is or isn't a Christian.

And so on.

What a jerk.

Oregon Faith-healing cult negligently lets their kids die.

I've covered this cult before--I still can't understand how absolutely deranged by religion these idiots are. I still can not imagine how they could be so persuaded that any kind of God worth following would want them to let their kids die when they could be easily healed with medicine.



The baby in this picture is one of the more egregious examples of negligence--if you can see that picture, there is quite obviously a growth on that child's eye, and it is large enough to be very painful if you have any imagination. From the story it accompanies:

The Wylands were indicted within the past few days and probably will be arraigned next week, said Colleen Gilmartin, the deputy district attorney handling the custody case in juvenile court.

Under Oregon law, it is a crime for parents to intentionally and knowingly withhold necessary and adequate medical attention from their children. First-degree criminal mistreatment is a Class C felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

The Wylands and their church reject medical care in favor of faith-healing -- anointing with oil, laying on of hands, prayer and fasting. The parents testified at a juvenile court hearing last week that they never considered getting medical attention for Alayna.

According to court documents, Rebecca Wyland anointed Alayna with oil each time she changed the girl's diaper and wiped away the yellow discharge that seeped daily from the baby's left eye.

It is amazing that they could watch a child suffer and even face the possibility of this child being blinded or even dying, over seeking medical attention that was easily available and very effective. If I could even imagine a God (I know I've probably made this point before) that would damn my soul to Hell everlasting for wanting to ease the suffering of a child--so help me, I would be damned, without question, and I would in return curse a God that made us so fragile, and denied us any recourse but prayer and His whims. This is an obnoxious and unworthy God they must follow, that insists on death and pain and illness, and denies the remedies that people find just by wanting to look, through the scientific method.