Testing One Two Three

Happy Thanksgiving to Penigma Readers

Wishing everyone a safe and HAPPY holiday, with the family and friends of your choice.

It is a great day to celebrate all of our blessings, and the many ways we have all of us in this nation arrived where we are today, and to dedicate ourselves to each other and to making this a better nation in a better world, so that everyone can share these blessings.

Most of all, I hope that each of our readers will give a priority to devoting all their energy and attention to their connections to others, rather than giving in to the greedy consumerism of Thanksgiving shopping.

For those in need of a safe holiday topic, well away from politics or religion, a little Minnesota Holiday Turkey talk - the apropos dictionary word of the day:

Medical Dictionary

borborygmus  bor·bo·ryg·mus (bôr'bə-rĭg'məs)
n. pl. bor·bo·ryg·mī'  (-mī')
 A rumbling noise produced by the movement of gas through the intestines.

The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.

and the Minnesota-bred and raised White House birds:

Fair is fair, Conservatives are greedy but never fair

Nuclear Meltdown

The right-wing (those who deny science, carry around assault rifles to intimidate people, etc..) certainly seem to be very unhappy with the vote last week to limit the use of the filibuster in US Senate. They claim that it's an unprecedented attack, that the Democrats were irresponsible and will certainly regret their action down the road.  They think the Democrats shouldn't have acted this "recklessly" and should have backed down short of this change.

Here's the thing, 10 years ago the Democrats filibustered George W. Bush's nominees.  They did so on the merits of the candidates qualifications because Bush put forward some very extreme candidates, yet people like Samuel Alito were approved, so apparently there were those who were even more extreme. 

Even if not, the reaction of the Republicans was to do the EXACT SAME THING, to change the filibuster rules.  And here's the difference, rather than have the rule changed, the thing the Republicans say that should not have been done - even though they absolutely were going to do so 10 years ago, the Democrats backed down.  They "saved" the filibuster in that form and President Bush's nominees got their up or down vote. 

If the Republicans were serious, if this wasn't just some grand-standing, belly-aching ballyhoo.  If this wasn't simply about being really PISSED about not being able to prevent President Obama's nominees, ANY nominees to certain courts, from being given that same vote.  They CLAIM they didn't want appointees for courts where there was insufficient work, yet they (those same Republicans) filled numerous seats on those very SAME courts during Bush's years, including seats on the DC court of appeals.  There was no more work then, there's no less now.  You can be damned sure that they'd have approved appointments by a President Romney.  They gave little thought to "stuffing the court" during Bush's years.

So, if they wanted to save the filibuster..  they could have.

Just like the Democrats DID 10 years ago.

This was a confrontation of their making.  A confrontation the Democrats were more accommodating about than were Republicans when the roles were reversed.  All they, the Republicans, had to do was to be as accommodating as the Democrats were.  Nothing more.  But to Republicans, backing down was what they demand of Democrats, but something they NEVER do.  They do not compromise - certainly those who say things like the President is not a US citizen, do not compromise   Just like they wouldn't compromise to save the filibuster 10 years ago and instead demanded the Dems give in or they'd kill the filibuster, they use their power to the extreme but get really pissed when that same power is then used against them.  They do not give in.

Instead, they meltdown in anger, they get out their guns and shout about "2nd Amendment Remedies" and they most certainly do not EVER behave in they way they demand of responsible people.  They could have agreed to allow those same up or down votes as did the Dems. The only difference this time is the Democrats decided to not back down again,  They expected the same behavior from the Republicans that they themselves were willing to do 10 years ago when they filibustered Bush's nominees 16 or so times - (and the Republicans have, btw, filibustered Obama's nominees more than 400 times).

This is the Republicans problem, and only they are to blame for it.

Give 'em Hell, Harry!

lapel pin

I applaud Harry Reid for exercising the ridiculously wrongly titled nuclear option.  It was not about destruction, but about constructive progress.

Our government has to evolve to reflect the changing realities, including the filibuster.

The Jefferson Memorial has a passage on the 4th panel that is an abbreviated version of this original passage:

"I am certainly not an advocate for frequent and untried changes in laws and constitutions. I think moderate imperfections had better be borne with; because, when once known, we accommodate ourselves to them, and find practical means of correcting their ill effects. But I know also, that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

We can no longer continue under the barbarity of conservative filibuster that is so destructive to the function and intent of government.  We have ever and always been expected to change our system of government as necessary - and it HAS been necessary beyond any fairness or honesty or good faith from the right.

Nothing exploded, no mushroom cloud appeared in Washington D.C., unless you count the metaphorical explosion of Turtleman Mitch McConnell's head.

It is time and frankly long overdue for the Democrats to stop the egregious abuse of the filibuster to such an extent that it not only obstructed the Obama administration, it had become a form of the government shut down and had begun to nullify the actual provisions of how our government was structured to function, effectively damaging our constitutional form of government.

We DO need protection for the minority party, but the filibuster is NOT in the constitution.  Contrary to the claims if the historically illiterate radical right, like Rush Limbaugh, this is not a particularly old tradition nor was it ever intended as the procedural adoption of it progressed to be what the radical right has done.

In that regard, the radical right, the gutless mainstream GOP and the Tea Party that dictates to them, are not superpatriots, they are un-American pseudo-patriots.  They care only about their political advantage, which is both petty and malicious, while offering NOTHING of value in solution to the problems that government can improve.

The ONLY individuals to blame for this development are the radical right, including Mitch McConnell who is facing even more radical right primary challenges.

The PRAISE goes to Harry Reid and the Democrats for finally digging out and dusting off their back bones from whatever closet they had left them in, under the guise of seeking comity.

Sovereign Citizen v. Scottish Police

He pulls Black's Law Dictionary as his legal authority: what is wrong with this?  Also, You might want to read this before making any comments:
www.policespecials.com/forum/index.php?/topic/25231-comparison-of-scottish-english-law/

Fortunately, no guns were involved!


See also: www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/video-cool-cops-witty-banter-2815416

It seems this movement has reached the UK.


I forgot to add this when I originally posted this at MikeB's: Scotland has a different legal system than the rest of Britain: www.scottishlaw.org.uk

Conservative Hatred for Our Presidents, on the 50th Anniversary of JFK's Assassination

I was reminded last weekend by an interview with one of the then cub reporters who covered the trip to Dallas of President and Mrs. Kennedy that they went to Dallas in spite of intense opposition to the JFK presidency.

There is a specific lesson to be learned from that day, about the hatred of conservatives for our Presidents.

In point of fact, at the airport, this cub reporter mentioned people picketing, people chanting, calling JFK a Socialist, a Marxist, a Communist, with words that are virtually identical to those used by the modern radical right 50 years later.  The radical conservatives of both the Democratic and Republican parties did not portray JFK AS Hitler, the way they do Obama, but the radical right is now making up for that by portraying JFK as being pro-Hitler.  And as these images show, that continues - the Daily Mail, a reprehensible UK tabloid, featured the second image here in May 2013.



It is worth noting that a lot of bogus crap about Hitler and about other public figures, past and present, have been promoted over the years, in spite of being quite false.



and from TownHall.com, a 'Conservative news' site (heavy on the 'Con' as in fake, not so heavy on news):

One Man's Hitler Fascination

Brent Bozell | May 29, 2013

Here's a story you probably haven't heard, unless you read Drudge or Breitbart. The Independent in the U.K. has published a story (from which I pull freely), as have a couple of Jewish outlets. That's all I can find. You tell me if it qualifies as "news" that the "news " media should be covering.
It involves a young man who would someday become one of the best-known and most powerful men in the world. A new book is out. It explores recently uncovered diaries kept by this young man. The journal entries document his fascination with Adolf Hitler and Nazism.
This young man traveled to Germany three times between 1937 and 1945. Clearly he admired the Germans -- and that includes the racial imperatives of Nazism. The Independent reveals this entry logged after he visited the Rhine in 1937:
"Very beautiful, because there are many castles along the route. The towns are all charming which shows that the Nordic races appear to be definitely superior to their Latin counterparts. The Germans are really too good -- that's why people conspire against them -- they do it to protect themselves."
By today's standards, that sentiment is clearly racist. It glorifies Aryans as "superior" to brown people. (If you doubt me, contact your local La Raza office, read them that passage, and solicit a comment or two.)
This young man wrote as well: "I have come to the conclusion that fascism is right for Germany and Italy. What are the evils of fascism compared to communism?" His travelling companion, Lem Billings, would later state that the young man was "completely consumed by his interest for the Hitler movement."
The young man would return to Germany after the war, in 1945, and after visiting Hitler's famous "Eagle's Nest" mountain-top retreat, would write that, "Anyone who has visited these places can imagine how in a few years, Hitler will emerge from the hate that now surrounds him and come to be regarded as one of the most significant figures that ever lived. There is something mysterious about the way he lived and died and which will outlive him and continue to flourish. He was made of the stuff of legends."
This man was 20 in 1937. It is undeniable that any pro-Nazi sentiments that might have existed in his youth -- his father was a public apologist for Hitler -- evaporated with time. Still, this man was one of the most prominent men of the 20th century. How could this not be of interest to the media?
You can hear the explanations. They are what the press had to say to justify not reporting the late Senator Robert Byrd's membership in the KKK.
It's not news. He was young and naive. This is in some respects true. There is no "hard" news here, but how often do we find news reports about a prominent person's past? George W. Bush for one would find this curious. How many stories -- hundreds? -- were filed about his wild partying days at roughly the same age?

TownHall.com features a lot of right wing extremist blogs, like Hot Air.  It shouldn't surprise anyone that this is a right wing propaganda sit, not a legitimate news outlet.

Townhall.com is a web-based publication and a print magazine with a conservative viewpoint, primarily dedicated to conservative United States politics. It was previously operated by the Heritage Foundation, but is now owned and operated by Salem Communications. Townhall.com, which publishes daily, features more than 80 columns (both syndicated and exclusive) by writers such as Jack Bouroudjian, Dennis Prager, Neal Boortz, Ann Coulter, Dinesh D'Souza, Larry Elder, Jonah Goldberg, Rebecca Hagelin, Paul Jacob, Paul Kengor, David Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Michelle Malkin, the late Robert Novak, Thomas Sowell, Jacob Sullum, Mike Adams, Matt Lewis, Amanda Carpenter, Fred Thompson, Jeb Bush, Lisa De Pasquale, Bruce Bialosky, Cal Thomas and John Hawkins. It also publishes news from the Associated Press. Its columnists often appear as guest commentators on C-SPAN, MSNBC, CNN, and the Fox News Channel.

The problem is, of course, that I cannot find any verification or validation for any of these claims about JFK. They have as little legitimacy as the fake Kenya birth certificates the crazies, like Orly Taitz, keep manufacturing for President Obama. Not one single serious source has repeated this nonsense. But it is a great example of the lengths to which the radical right will go to lie, and how much they embrace belief in things which are not true and how deeply the hatred goes.

The Lessons of History for Liberty and Equality - NO Second Class Citizens

Yesterday, the Governor of Illinois signed into law full marriage equality for that state, a state with the motto "land of Lincoln", recognizing same sex marriage. Previously, that state had, as others do, provisions in place for civil unions.

One of the problems with civil unions as an alternative to marriage is that they don't receive recognition for tax purposes that marriage does. In another state that is recognizing same sex marriage this month, Hawaii, which also has had civil unions for some time, this was one of the reasons for that state's legislature to change their laws. This was underlined by Think Progress in their coverage of the lesbian law maker who was shamefully ignorant on this key topic:

" federal agencies have explicitly said in the months since the DOMA decision that civil unions will not be counted for most federal marriage benefits, including tax benefits, Social Security, and any partner benefits for federal employees."

Because human beings for no good or valid reason, are being treated differently, and unfairly, under the law, I would argue that as wonderful as state by state equality is, we need something on the national level - for the same reason that we did so in the civil war, fighting to end slavery. States don't treat people fairly when allowed to act badly. We've seen it in the embrace and institutionalization of slavery in the 18th and 19th century; we've seen it in the 19th and 20th century, with Jim Crow laws. We see it now, with the attempts by various conservatives to try to return to those Jim Crow laws of voter suppression and other kinds of discrimination, trying to hide them under different covers and false justifications.

I can still vividly recall as a child, traveling with my very conservative Christian Yankee parents throughout the deep south, seeing vestiges of segregation with remaining 'whites only' and 'coloreds only' signs hanging over water fountains. My parents explanation for these signs still being in evidence, and for the existence of them in the first place, was that the people making the laws, the people voting, in these places deeply and sincerely believed in the importance of segregation, and that while they held what were clearly different views of racial characteristics, they honestly did not believe themselves to be bigots or racists.

And of course, the dominant political movements, currently pretty much inherited by modern conservatives, including the tea party, believed they were upholding sacred tradition and important values, up to and including both family values (particularly as relating to anti-miscegenation laws prohibiting inter-racial marriage) and religious values. We still see the occasional argument that God does not want the races to mix.

Conservatives: Willful Ignorance, Revisionist History, and Hate Seeking - Immigration, and the Gettysburg Address

The sad reality is that the far right believe a lot of things that are simply not true, including that it was John Quincy Adams rather than the Union Army, Abraham Lincoln, and the United States Government that ended slavery in the mid 19th century, not the founding fathers (or their sons) in the 18th or early 19th.  The view of the dollar bill imagery, and the view of immigrants is also pretty warped in the Bachmann version, but then she is a singularly stupid woman.  It is willful ignorance.

I recently engaged with a commenter identified as a troll over on the city pages coverage of facebook racism by the MN GOP.  Among the various claims made by the troll, who I don't doubt really believes many things that are not true, was the claim that 'Democrats are bringing in millions of illegal immigrants'; I don't doubt that this is just one more in the long line of right wing media and blogosphere baloney.  And yesterday, on the 150th Anniversary of the Gettysburg Address, similarly, the radical righties attacked President Obama with another false accusation that demonstrated both their inability and unwillingness to fact check anything, and their malice in not doing so.

The only things wrong with the claim, and with the article below is 1. it does not identify any new or additional illegal immigrants having entered or being likely to enter as a result of this executive order, specifically it also does not identify the order as pertaining to any new illegal immigrants after the date of the executive order issue; 2. it refers to amnesty, but the executive order does NOT provide amnesty at all (amnesty:"a general pardon for offenses, especially political offenses, against a government, often granted before any trial or conviction.") 3. undocumented means, in this context, without proper entrance papers to come across U.S. borders for an authorized period of time; it does NOT mean without any means of personal identification or identification of a relationship to another person.

The City Pages troll, when pressed for proof of his claim, gave as a source this piece from the Examiner.

On Friday, the Obama administration issued another amnesty for still, another group of illegal aliens, this time doing so under the guise of relieving "stress and anxiety" of our troops.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services memo reads:

...our veterans, who have served and sacrificed for our nation, can face stress and anxiety because of the immigration status of their family members in the United States. We as a nation have made a commitment to our veterans, to support and care for them. It is a commitment that begins at enlistment, and continues as they become veterans."

This executive action specifically allows the illegal alien spouses, children and parents of active duty troops, reservists and veterans to stay in this country, and even apply for permanent residence.
Of course, it will not only be the "spouses, children and parents" who will seek and gain legal status.

Remember, illegal aliens are 'undocumented.'

How can federal officials either prove or disprove the family lineage of someone with no legitimate papers?

Not only will this illegal order assist those living here illegally in abusing our laws, but it will serve as yet another encouragement, or 'magnet,' to those still South of the border considering making the illegal journey to what has become the world's largest welfare state.

Apparently, since amnesty legislation seems to have stalled in Congress, Obama plans on (illegally) granting amnesty to all illegal aliens...one executive order at a time.

For those of you who are old enough to remember when Secular Right Wing Saint Ronnie Raygun, while president in 1986, supported and signed this legislation:

The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), Pub.L. 99–603, 100 Stat. 3359, enacted November 6, 1986, also Simpson-Mazzoli Act, is an Act of Congress which reformed United States immigration law.

In brief the act:[1]

Gun Huggers must be SO proud... NOT

Is allegedly abusive to women, repeatedly;

how big a stretch is it that he attempted to bully Trayvon Martin?

George Zimmerman is in the news again, with another arrest, and another of his apparent anger issues with guns problems.

This one does not appear to involve his wife, where he was accused of threatening his wife and her father with a gun, and accused of damaging her property.  Now we have at least partial insight into why the wife filed for divorce in September, since the girlfriend is indicating their relationship dates back to August.

Apparently George Zimmerman has some boundary problems with respecting other people's residences - first the wife's and now the girlfriend's home.

The incident with the wife was his third run in with law enforcement in a few months, so this makes at least 4 since he got off from killing Trayvon Martin.  This time the girlfriend also is a gun hugger, another Meleanie Hain event waiting to happen.  It's just a matter of when Georgie Zimmerman will be involved in another shooting, possibly another killing, unless someone takes away his guns once and for all (and even then he might find some other means of violence, but in all probability a less successful one).



In an apparent attempt to boost his image, George Zimmerman and his attorneys and spokespeople tried to manufacture that GZ was some kind of hero, when he was not.  The incident of a sympathetic gun nut rolling his car was misrepresented to the public as if he was a hero who pulled people to safety from a burning wreck.

The reality is that the driver carelessly tipped his SUV over at a low speed, something which happens quite often, and for which the SUV in question has the worst safety records among SUVs.  Then Zimmerman stood around with a fire extinguisher, even though there was no fire.

A week later, someone apparently connected with Zimmerman made numerous calls to the media on his behalf, and the media then contacted the sheriff's office regarding the incident - and initially misreported it as a heroic event when it was not anything of the kind.  There is a probability that Zimmerman in fact responded to the incident because he was looking for an occasion such as this, as he has been reported to spend periods of time monitoring police scanners.

When the gun-huggers protest that we should all trust them to use their firearms responsibly, it is precisely because they make heroes out of people who DON'T use them responsibly - like George Zimmerman, who arguably should NOT have been given a pass for killing unarmed Trayvon Martin that exemplifies what is wrong with the gun huggers world view, and how law abiding they are NOT.


George Zimmerman - back in court in Sanford where he killed an unarmed kid, back in lax-gun-law state Florida.

Priorities equate to values; Conservatives have poor values - and their economics are poor as well

Learn the lessons of history

Just Sayin' -- where is the credit?

Republican Dirty Politics Still Crossing the Northern Border – But THERE It IS Prosecuted, Conservatives ARE Fined

Robo-caller, if they were cute

The GOP plays dirty; and as of 2011, following the Tea Party putsch of 2010, the Canadian Conservatives imported the GOP strategies, and dirty politics into Canada — and are paying the price.  To understand the GOP in the U.S., we also need to follow what they have been up to in our neighbor to the north.

Not too many Americans have followed the scandals, plural, of dirty tricks American Conservative style crossing the border to contaminate Canadian Conservative politics. Time to update those scandals, and to educate the isolationists among us about American style dirty tricks by firms that specialize in GOP strategy that have been active in Canada.

We should be looking to the same dirty tricks on OUR side of the border.

Following the 2010 year of the Tea Party wins, Canadian conservatives decided to try to emulate the voter suppression tactics that worked so well for those “value voter” right wing nuts in the U.S. They did so by employing the same right wing strategists.

A little background – this sums up the claims about voter suppression made back in March 2012 regarding the 2011 election cycle in Canada:

UVic professor claims voter suppression promoted at conservative campaign school
By Andy Radia | Canada Politics
Wed, 7 Mar, 2012
While the Conservatives continue to deny their involvement in the robocall
The latest link is courtesy of John Fryer, a member of the Order of Canada and an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria.
In the wake of the robocall scandal, last week, Fryer penned an open letter describing a campaign school he attended two years ago, at the Conservative-aligned Manning Centre for Democracy.

“In January, 2010, my UVic inbox had an e-mail invite from a democracy centre to attend a campaign school. Intrigued, I signed up for the three-day event,” Fryer wrote in the letter published in the Globe and Mail.
“Topics covered included voter identification. Discussion ensued about suppression techniques. Instructors explained voter suppression tactics were borrowed from those used by the U.S. Republican Party. Many kinds of suppression calls were canvassed. Another instructor gave detailed explanations of how robo-calls worked, techniques for recording messages, plus costs involved.
“Instructors made it clear that robo-calling and voter suppression were an acceptable and normal part of winning political campaigns.”

In a later interview with Emma Pullman of the Vancouver Observer, Fryer claims that in a question and answer session, attendees discussed voter suppression tactics. They talked about posing as a member of another party, and about making rude calls at inconvenient times as a strategy to get the supporter of another party to not go out and vote for their candidate.
Pullman did some research into the so-called “campaign school” and found several Conservative links.
“The event’s star-studded slate of speakers included former Press Secretary to Stephen Harper (and current President of Sun Media) Kory Teneycke and David Akin, the National Bureau Chief for Sun Media,” Pullman wrote in a column published Wednesday.
“Other headliners were Stephen Taylor, founder of the Blogging Tories, and Dimitri Pantazopoulos, a former pollster for the federal Conservatives, the Canadian Alliance and the Reform Party who is now the Principal Secretary to Premier Christy Clark.”
Pullman claims the school was organized by Fraser McDonald of the Manning Centre in addition to Richard Ciano and Nick Kouvalis, both founding partners of Campaign Research Inc.
According to a recently Ottawa Citizen article, Campaign Research did work for at least 39 Conservative candidates in the last election, and was paid nearly $400,000 for the work.
Campaign Research was also the firm implicated in the campaign against Irwin Cotler. In December, the company allegedly placed misleading calls to the Liberal MP’s constituents falsely claiming he was resigning his seat.
There is no indication, however, that Campaign Research was in any way involved in the robocall scandal.

Since then, additional claims have resulted in fines and expanded investigations into voter suppression, including that related to a Republican strategy firm, Front Porch Strategies. As of this past September, Front Porch Strategies continues to be linked to NEW conservative scandals in Canada, while the 2011 election investigations continue and expand, beyond substantial fines last spring:

Front Porch Strategies’ Harper Connection
Front Porch Strategies may ring a bell for Canadians because of the firm’s efforts in the 2011 federal election in which, “Fourteen Conservative MPs signed on with a well-connected Republican company during last year’s election campaign, contrary to the party’s claims.” Among their clients was Peterborough MP Dean Del Mastro, the Conservative Party’s point man on the Robocall scandal, whose campaign spending in the 2008 election is being investigated by Elections Canada.
Despite working on 14 Conservative campaigns, some Conservatives tried to cover up Front Porch’s involvement. “Four of the 14 Conservative MPs who hired US political strategists in the 2011 election do not list the voter contact firm on their Elections Canada expense reports,” according to findings by the Vancouver Observer.
“It’s not clear whether Front Porch stuck to teleforum work or handled other types of voter outreach — such as robo-calling — for its 14 Conservative clients,” the Toronto Star reported, adding that “the company’s website notes it has worked for the Conservative caucus as well as MPs.”
But Front Porch definitely went even further in some ridings on behalf of its Conservative clients, and the Conservatives tried to cover it up. As reported in the Vancouver Observer, “In at least two Conservative-won ridings with reported election irregularities, Front Porch Strategies had US staff on the ground – possibly against Elections Canada rules barring foreign campaigning. In the wake of the ‘robocall’ voter suppression scandal, the Republican-tied U.S. firm hired by 14 Conservative campaigns admitted on Friday to having had U.S. staff working ‘in the trenches’ during the 2011 elections, in an apparent violation of the Canada Election Act which bars foreign political involvement.”
The connection between the Conservative Party and Front Porch Strategies goes even deeper. Prior to the federal election, Front Porch hired Jim Ross, a long-time Conservative operative and former staffer for Conservative MP Rick Dykstra, as a consultant for its Canadian operations. Front Porch also hired Erin Wall, a former communications adviser to Treasury Board President Tony Clement.
And Front Porch doesn’t hide its pro-Harper-Conservative leanings, with the CBC reporting that Front Porch’s “website features a gushing report on Harper and the Conservatives winning last year’s election, calling the prime minister ‘the most powerful conservative leader in the Americas.’”
When the revelations about Front Porch surfaced last spring, Democracy Watch’s Duff Conacher commented that “it’s very disturbing to see the Conservative Party using companies with these kinds of partisan (Republican) ties.”

The latest is an attempt, after the Conservative Party has been fined, and while it is up to it’s metaphorical eyeballs in other scandals, notably involving campaigning in that same election by conservative senators, it appears that a young volunteer may be being scapegoated. Sona was charged in May, but has not yet come to trial, which is scheduled for June 2014.

Now a ban has been lifted on Conservative staffers who accused Sona, against whom there was no direct evidence, AND it turns otu that there are some very serious charges of questionable involvement by the lawyer for the Conservative party, who with his law firm, are embroiled in that OTHER Canadian Conservative politics scandal.

Hamilton’s involvement in the interviews with witnesses has raised questions about the independence of the Elections Canada investigation into calls that the agency believes were made using records extracted from the Conservative Party’s voter-tracking database.
On Monday, Hamilton was drawn into the political drama over the Senate expense scandal when Senator Mike Duffy tabled a copy of a cheque for $13,560 from Hamilton’s law firm, which Duffy said was used to pay his legal fees.
Elections Canada continues to investigate more than 1,300 complaints about misleading live and recorded election phone calls in 200 other ridings across the country, which were reported to the agency after the Citizen and Postmedia News reported on the Guelph investigation last year.

That other scandal involving conservatives is the basis for an effort to either permanently dissolve the upper house of the federal Canadian government, equivalent to and modeled after the American bicameral legislative branch, or to radically reform it.

OTTAWA—By revealing the Conservatives used their own funds to secretly help Sen. Mike Duffy during the investigation of his questionable Senate expenses, the embattled senator thrust Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s party squarely into the alleged cover-up of the scandal.
The possible role of the Conservative Party, which counts on the public for support through tax-deductible donations, has been looming in the background of the Senate scandal for months.
In a court document in June, the RCMP said lawyers for Nigel Wright, the former chief of staff for Harper, told police the Conservative Party was initially going to repay the Senate for Duffy’s questionable expense claims from party funds. That was when it was estimated that Duffy’s questionable expenses totalled about $32,000, the lawyers told the RCMP.
“When it was realized that the cost was actually $90,000, it was too much money to ask the Conservative Party to cover,” according to information provided by RCMP Cpl. Greg Horton. Wright then offered to cover the cost of Duffy’s expense problem to protect taxpayers, his lawyers told police.
The only two conditions were that the money be repaid promptly and that Duffy “stop talking to the media about it,” according to Horton. The investigation is ongoing.
The police probe came after it became public that Wright had personally written a $90,000 cheque to Duffy to allow the senator to pay back his questionable expenses. This also led to Wright’s departure from the PMO. Recently, Harper has been pushing for senators to suspend Duffy — along with senators Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau — from the Senate without pay over alleged misuse of Senate funds.
But on Monday, the saga took a new turn as Conservative Party officials were forced to confirm Duffy’s revelation that he received a $13,560 cheque from the Tories to pay his legal bills.
Relishing the irony of the situation, Duffy told the Senate: “Mike Duffy, the man they now claim is a cheat, had more than $13,000 in legal expenses paid by Arthur Hamilton, the Conservative Party’s lawyer.”

Looks like the Canadian Conservatives are starting to distance themselves from American Conservative politics. Maybe we would get OUR Conservatives to give up dirty politics too — if we start putting them in jail, and making them pay hefty fines for illegal and unethical behavior during elections.

Right Wing Extremist Craig Cobb Can't Be a White Supremacist Anymore - He's too black.

Fact is stranger than fiction - and more fun.


Ugly human being (on the inside) Craig Cobb, who wanted to try to take over quiet little Leith, North Dakota, and remake it as a White Supremacist stronghold got some (for him) bad news.  Cobb has had his comeuppance: he's 14% black, which excludes him from membership in his own little clique.

As noted in the Bismark Tribune:

Cobb said he plans to “continue on either way.”
He said the results, if accurate, could explain his hatred of blacks, because tribal Africans were hostile to other tribes and feel contempt toward American blacks of mixed tribes.
Cobb said he’d understand if he’s rejected by other white separatists and neo-Nazis because humans should be able to exclude others by choice. He’d also be too black to belong to his own racialist Creativity religion.
“Who knows, I can be an active border guard for people more pure than I,” he said.
Asked about the implications for Leith, Cobb wondered if he’ll be target of “discrimination against octoroons in Leith.”
Octoroons are people with one black great-grandparent.

It is unlikely that Cobb and his few co-belligerent bigots will succeed in taking over Lieth. But in the interim, Cobb is unlikely to find a different DNA result, unless he tampers with it in some way. And more testing that confirms the information will only solidify his alienation from his fellow neo-nazi nut jobs.  Nobody hates as intensely as the rabid radical right, the most unraveled and frequently violent fuzzies of the right wing fringe.

GOP = Incompetence, Overpaid

GOP = Hypocrisy

Best quote heard in a long, long time

From the new Amazon.com original series, featuring the creative talents of GarryTrudeau's writing (yes, the Doonesbury creator) and the acting talents of John Goodman and Bill Murray, among others, in a satire about Washington D.C. and four conservative senators who rent a house together.

The quote, delivered to John Goodman's character:

"You know what John Stuart Mill said, that conservative people aren't necessarily stupid, but stupid people DO tend to be conservative? 

That was then.

Nowadays, Stupid and Stupid's mutant cousins, Crazy and Evil, are all that is left of your party.

I'll see you in committee."

It is an original series, available by subscription to Amazon; up to now, I'd blown it off as something to give a miss. Now.....I just might have to reconsider.

The actual quotation from Mill, the extraordinary Member of Parliament, philosopher, economist, ethicist, scientist, and early feminist from the 19th century is:

Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.

There is another quote from Mill which pertains to this one, in my experience:

There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.

Thank the GOP Corporatists for this! This is bad!

The original was more honest, and made more sense...

The worst remake ever..........

Denial of Service Attack on the Obamacare.gov Site

The right wing has had a whack at interference with the health care site, a denial of service attack.

from Arstechnia

"Researchers have uncovered software available on the Internet designed to overload the struggling Healthcare.gov website with more traffic than it can handle.

"ObamaCare is an affront to the Constitutional rights of the people," a screenshot from the tool, which was acquired by researchers at Arbor Networks, declares. "We HAVE the right to CIVIL disobedience!"

In a blog post published Thursday, Arbor researcher Marc Eisenbarth said there's no evidence Healthcare.gov has been subjected to any significant denial-of-service attacks since going live last month. He also said the limited request rate, the lack of significant distribution, and other features of the tool's underlying code made it unlikely that it could play a significant role in taking down the site. The tool is designed to put a strain on the site by repeatedly alternating requests to the https://www.healthcare.gov and https:www.healthcare.gov/contact-us addresses. If enough requests are made over a short period of time, it can overload some of the "layer 7" applications that the site relies on to make timely responses.

 We don't know who wrote this (Arstechnia offers the lame and unlikely possibility this might have been done by Obamacare supporters) but the far more plausible, credible explanation is that this was is what it claims to be, an attack on obamacare by those who do NOT support it.

Here's the thing -- acts like this are NOT civil disobedience, where the person who deliberately violates the law also does not resist arrest and punishment; they don't hide who they are. That is the key part that puts civil in civil disobedience.

More to the point, if this is the act of the inept and disgruntled, what about the actions that may be going undetected so far of the more competent and angry radical right?

Right Wing has got Nuthin' - per usual

We're number 1, we're number 1 in health care.  Except factually, we aren't.  As the president noted in his recent address to the nation, our status quo health care system did not function well.  It was a mess, a disaster in mid-disintegration.

We have 30 million people who don't have health care insurance and who can't afford or have access to health care.  The we're the best false claim also ignores and denies that unpleasant truth that our system delivers worse medical outcomes at a higher cost than other developed nations --- and we're declining in that regard, not improving, under the old status quo that Mitch McTurtleman talks about below.

In other words......Mitch and the rest of the right have got nuthin' (hmmmmm where have I heard THAT before?) They offer no valid solutions that reduce the increase of costs, increase of premiums, number of uninsured, the issues of denial of insurance for pre-existing conditions, or the inability of those under 26 to remain on a parent's insurance policy if they don't have their own coverage. Nope, that is ONLY an option for most people under Obamacare.

Wise words and funny pictures, from Mark Fiore

 

Here comes the Tea Party REVENGE on the less radical right

Down with Tyranny and Buzz Feed have the larger story.

The Tea Party Leadership Fund is hoping to find “credible challengers” to any Republican who voted for the shutdown deal in October. At the top of the list: House Speaker John Boehner.

WASHINGTON — A tea party group has launched a campaign to support primary challenges against all 87 Republicans who voted for the deal in late October to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling.
The Tea Party Leadership Fund, a PAC affiliated with the group TheTeaParty.net, began a fundraising push — dubbed the “Primaries for Traitors Fund” — shortly after the shutdown deal passed in the House, and they are now ramping up efforts to find “credible candidates” in each of the districts, said the fund’s treasurer, Dan Backer.
“From our perspective, we see this as a signature vote. You can’t be a conservative and vote to raise the debt ceiling,” Backer said. “I recognize there are some places where voters may actually think that was the right vote. And there may be places where you have an incumbent who wins with 90% of the vote every time and there’s not a credible challenger. I recognize that, but we’re certainly going to do our best.”
Backer says the group has honed in on a few specific members to start: Illinois Rep. Rodney Davis, New York Rep. Peter King, North Carolina Rep. Robert Pittenger, Louisiana Rep. Charles Boustany, and most importantly, Backer said, House Speaker John Boehner in Ohio.
“Our goal is to keep going one after another after another as our resources allow. To get our feet wet, we’re starting out with a few, but nobody is going to get a pass,” he said.
Questions have been raised about the PAC’s fundraising. The liberal blog ThinkProgress called their fundraising push a “gimmick.” Despite raising more than $1 million in 2012, the group only spent around $27,000 in support of two Republican candidates last cycle, according to Open Secrets, and no money against Republican incumbents.

I continue to be amazed at the capacity for those on the right to be gullible in the long term separation from their presumably hard-earned money.  So, it doesn’t surprise me this is one more example of the same thing we see in so many of the crazy and radical and often just plain false assertions used by the radical right to generate cash.  Other than the big money behind the Tea Party, like the Koch Brothers, I am actually surprised that the grass roots radical right aren’t tapped out by now.
The key paragraph from BF is this one:

Backer says they are deadly serious about finding candidates. He acknowledges their goal may be unattainable but doesn’t think that should stop them from trying to make life difficult for members. And those members whose voting records have been otherwise solidly conservative? Backer wants to take them out too.

Will they really come looking for a primary challenger in either Kline or Paulsen’s district? They aren’t naming either as their first priority, but per Down with Tyranny, they DO still make the 2nd tier/ next greatest priority list, and once making that list, if the DO find a primary challenger, then it becomes an issue for the MN GOP, one they are in poor position to counter-fund.  This doesn’t look to be a particularly big dollar effort to primary either of our right wing Congressional delegation, but if this bunch of baggers are joined by other groups, other PACs, it could get very interesting indeed.  The Baker’s Dozen targeted so far are:

• Gary Miller (R-CA)
• Buck McKeon (R-CA)
• David Valadao (R-CA)
• Fred Upton (R-MI)
• Michael “Mikey Suits” Grimm (R-NY)
• John Kline (R-MN)
• Michael Fitzpatrick (R-PA)
• Erik Paulsen (R-MN)
• Dave Reichert (R-WA)
• Pat Meehan (R-PA)
• Darrell Issa (R-CA)
• Joe Heck (R-NV)
• Mike Coffman (R-CO)

This week in science, via IFLS

Be careful what you wish for......

The Extremes, the Radical Right and ALEC under various names - from PR Watch

Center for Media and Democracy and Progress Now Reports
Show Expansive Reach Of State Policy Network

Twelve new reports released today expose the State Policy Network (SPN), an $83 million web of right-wing "think tanks" in every state across the country. Although SPN's member organizations claim to be nonpartisan and independent, an in-depth investigation reveals that SPN and its state affiliates are major drivers of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)-backed corporate agenda in state houses nationwide, with deep ties to the Koch brothers and the national right-wing network of funders. The reports show how these groups masquerade as "think tanks," and describe how some of them may be skirting tax laws while really orchestrating extensive lobbying and political operations to peddle their legislative agenda to state legislators, all while reporting little or no lobbying activities.
"The 'experts' of State Policy Network groups get quoted on TV, in the papers, or in the legislature as if they were nonpartisan, objective scholars on issues of public policy," said Lisa Graves, Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). "But in reality, SPN is a front for corporate interests with an extreme national policy agenda tied to some of the most retrograde special interests in the country, including the billionaire Koch brothers, the Waltons, the Bradley Foundation, the Roe Foundation, and the Coors family."
Denise Cardinal, executive director of Progress Now, added, "The bottom line is these organizations of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich are representing themselves as groups that are looking out for the best interests of everyday, working class Americans and it's just a blatant lie. What we're doing is trying to bring some transparency to the damaging work they're doing on a daily basis. From policies that promote polluting the air and water to the destruction of our public education system and a tax system that benefits their rich donors, what these organizations are doing is shameful and it's time that someone brought this to light."
You can see the reports -- a nationally-focused report written by CMD and eleven state-focused reports written by Progress Now member groups and CMD -- at www.StinkTanks.org as well as detailed information documented at SourceWatch.org.
Key findings of the report include:

• While it has become an $83 million dollar right-wing empire, SPN and most of its affiliates do not post their major donors on their websites. The identities of the donors we have discovered reveal that SPN is largely funded by global corporations -- such as Reynolds American, Altria, the e-cigarette company NJOY, Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon, Facebook, the for-profit online education company K12 Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, Kraft Foods, Express Scripts, Comcast, Time Warner, and the Koch- and Tea Party-connected DCI Group lobbying and PR firm -- that stand to benefit from SPN's destructive agenda, as well as out-of-state special interests like the billionaire Koch brothers, the Waltons, the Bradley Foundation, the Roe Foundation, and the Coors family -- who are underwriting an extreme legislative agenda that undermines the traditional rights of modern Americans.
• Although SPN's affiliates are registered as educational nonprofits, several appear to orchestrate extensive lobbying and political operations to peddle their legislative agenda to state legislators, despite the IRS's regulations on nonprofit political and lobbying activities.
• SPN and its affiliates push an extreme right-wing agenda that aims to privatize education, block healthcare reform, restrict workers' rights, roll back environmental protections, and create a tax system that benefits most those at the very top level of income.
• SPN and many of its affiliates are some of the most active members and largest sponsors of the controversial ALEC, where special interest groups and state politicians vote behind closed doors on "model" legislation to change Americans' rights, through ALEC's task forces. SPN has close ties to, and works with, other national right-wing organizations like the Franklin Center and David Koch's Americans for Prosperity.

Minding our P's and Q's - conversational intervention for the Holidays

We all have relatives and family friends who disagree wildly on those hot topics of politics, economics and religion at large social gatherings, and that is never more true than holidays like Thanksgiving.

In anticipation of the upcoming holidays, I was always encouraged to prepare for such social occasions by stocking up on conversational tid bits that can be uncorked if conversation gets more heated than the Thanksgiving turkey or pumpkin pie.

Such topics, to be effective in defusing intense conversations with a change of topic, usually need some novelty aspect to distract and amuse. But to be effective, they also need to have the legs to offer also some serious facets for discussion.

There is really no other way to put this, what works well often involves body parts or bodily functions. For some reasons, THAT is something over which people can find common ground for safe, neutral conversation.

The image to the right is from IFLS on facebook, which features science news and topics. I post it here because it amused me to come across not one, but TWO examples of biology and physics research intersecting with such a mundane topic in one week. I post it here, for our good readers to save up in preparation for the coming holidays, should a conversational intervention related to politics and/or religion be necessary.

Here is the rest of the story via the IFLS story, from National Geo:

New Law of Urination: Mammals Take 20 Seconds to Pee
Call it the other Golden Rule: Scientists have found that all mammals weighing more than 2.2 pounds (a kilogram) empty their full bladders in about 20 seconds.

Like many new parents, David Hu, a mechanical engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology, has changed a lot of diapers. Unlike many new parents, however, these soggy diapers caused Hu to think about the physics of urination.
“While I was changing these diapers, I was wondering how it would be different for different animals. How much fluid would they create and how long would it take to leave the body?” Hu said. (Also see “Growing Teeth and Four More Odd Uses for Urine.”)

“The physics of urination—what the forces are and how they affect how quickly urine comes out, is not totally understood, even though it’s a really old problem.”

Although it might sound silly on the surface, urination is actually serious business in the medical and veterinary worlds, especially during the aging process. Many men get enlarged prostates as they get older, which can narrow the urethra and impede urine flow. Veterinarians have been looking for a quick and easy way to identify problems with animals’ urinary tract.

Pee Cam

First, Hu wanted to know how urination varied from species to species. The bladder of a large domestic dog can hold 1.4 liters (about 0.4 of a gallon) of fluid, or roughly the amount of a large bottle of soda. An elephant’s bladder, however, can hold 160 liters of fluid, or enough to fill three large garbage cans. Hu wanted to know how this size difference affects the urinary tract and urine flow.

Enter the pee cam. Three of Hu’s graduate students at Georgia Tech used high-speed cameras to record peeing animals at Zoo Atlanta and elsewhere.

They also measured how much pee was produced by each of these animals, which ranged from rats to jaguars to elephants. The scientists supplemented their research with YouTube videos from zoo visitors. Last, the researchers obtained measurements of the animals’ bladder and urethra widths and lengths from other researchers.

You can read the rest of that science here -- and it IS interesting. This is about real science, including important medical research, even if it might sound a little silly at first blush. And of course, there is a Youtube video for it:


But then via the CBC - the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program, As It Happens and Popular Science - I coincidentally happened last week on this little gem on the same general topic. If you have even the most minimal social skills at all, this will give you the necessary topic for a conversational intervention before .......well... before someone gets p*ssed off.

Science Addresses The Problem Of Pee Splashback

Brigham Young University's Splash Lab looks into the dynamics of the male urine stream.

They call themselves "wizz kids." Todd Truscott and Randy Hurd of Brigham Young University's Splash Lab, a research lab studying the physics of fluids, have been using high-speed cameras to examine exactly what happens to a stream of urine when it hits the toilet.

They're on a quest against "splashback," simulating male urination in the lab (using this apparatus) to see how exactly you can go about getting it all in the bowl. For the sake of clean bathrooms, clean pants and happy subsequent bathroom-goers. According to Hurd, part of the messiness caused by male urination is due to a phenomenon called Plateau-Rayleigh instability, which causes streams of falling liquid to decompose into droplets. When a guy pees, the urine stream breaks into droplets about 6 inches away from the urethra exit. "So by the time it hits the urinal, it's already in droplet form," he told the BBC. "And these droplets are the perpetrators of the splash formation on your khaki pants."
The best way to avoid unwanted urine splash seems to be sitting on the toilet, a technique that has been advocated by certain restaurants, Taiwan's Environmental Protection Administration minister, and one Swedish politician, and shouted down by many corners of the Internet. You're about five times farther from the bowl when you stand as when you sit, creating a bigger splash, but if standing to pee is essential to your manhood, Hurd says that you can also switch the "angle of attack," so to speak. Smaller angle between stream and toilet water, less splatter. Even better, hit the porcelain instead of the water, which Hurd says makes the process "a lot less chaotic."

The Splash Lab will be presenting its research at the American Physical Society Meeting later this month.

You laugh (I hope) -- and that's the whole point -- but on a more serious note, someone somewhere is going to build the bathroom plumbing equivalent of a better mousetrap from research like this, and get very rich. For myself, given the problems outlined in the As It Happens interview with the additional problems of an unavoidable aerosol spray that occurs every time a toilet flushes, and how that spreads all over bathrooms, the next time I have an opportunity to engage in either building a new house or a bathroom renovation, the porcelain throne is going behind a wall and a door in its own 'throne room'. Just sayin.

And now you are prepared for the worst conversational crisis of the approaching Holidays.

Sums it up.......about the ACA

What Conservatives REALLY Want

GOP = Hypocrisy; they DO NOT support our troops!

On the 75th Anniversary of Kristalnacht, we in America have THIS SH*T from our last president, the Tea Party, and the Religious Right

Kristalnacht

For those of you who slept through history classes, Krisalnacht, the night of broken glass, was the Nazi initiated burning and looting of 1,000 Jewish synagogs, the destruction of 7,000 Jewish businesses, the killing of nearly 100 Jews outright, the imprisonment in concentration camps of some 30,000 Jews - during which imprisonment some 2,000 were killed, including those who were beaten to death. The German authorities did nothing to stop the violence. The Nazis then stole Jewish property to fund their party. That was November 9th and 10th, 1938.


And then to add insult to injury, the government penalized the Jews for the event, and taxed them (call it a fine if you prefer) by taking an additional 20% of Jewish property. The Kristalnacht violence was precipitated by the pretext of revenge for a 17 year old Polish Jew shooting a Nazi official in Paris over forced deportations from Germany.



A reporter for Mother Jones broke this story, covered it thoroughly (read it here), and continues to post updates:

Update (11/8/13): After this story published, the Messianic Jewish Bible Institute removed references to George W. Bush's scheduled appearance from its website. But Freddy Ford, a spokesman for the former president, told Mother Jones on Friday afternoon that Bush's plans "haven't changed," and he will appear at the event.

Just as the religious right 'nuts' are cranking up their faux War on Christmas (aka War on Christians) in order to assert some form of domination and pre-eminence over the holidays of other religions, and to intrude their holiday unrelentingly on those who are secular, be it atheist, or agnostic, we also have this abomination: the conversion of Jews in order to advance extremist, far-right Christian faux prophecy, while teaching Jews killed Jesus (inaccurate) and that they will burn in hell if they do not convert.

Messianic Judaism is a weird, largely American fundamentalist creation that seeks to convert Jews in order to bring about the end of the world. It is part of the apocalyptic end days extremism associated with contriving Armageddon followed by some form of the Rapture and the 2nd coming, and the emergence of a literal anti-Christ. The obsession with this 'final great war' is directly linked to the militant politics of the right - they want to start that war.

Salvation in most forms of Messianic Judaism is achieved only through acceptance of Jesus as one's savior.^[20] It is believed that all sin has been atoned for by Jesus' death and resurrection. Any Jewish laws or customs that are followed are cultural and do not contribute to salvation.^[10] Belief in the messiahship and divinity of Jesus, which Messianic Judaism generally shares, is viewed by many Christian denominations^[21] and Jewish religious movements^[22] as a defining distinction between Christianity and Judaism.^[28] Mainstream Christian groups usually accept Messianic Judaism as a form of Christianity.^[21]Some adherents of Messianic Judaism are ethnically Jewish,^[2][21] and many of them argue that the movement is a sect of Judaism.^[29] Jewish organizations, and the Supreme Court of Israel in cases related to the Law of Return, have rejected this claim, and instead consider Messianic Judaism to be a form of Christianity.^[22][30] From 2003 to 2007, the movement grew from 150 Messianic houses of worship in the United States to as many as 438, with over 100 in Israel and more worldwide; congregations are often affiliated with larger Messianic organizations or alliances.^[31][32] In 2008, the movement was reported to have between 6,000 and 15,000 members in Israel^[33] and 250,000 in the United States.^[34]

Raise your hand and wave it wildly if you know who they think the antichrist is (Hagee among others, thinks the Roman Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon):





As Reuters noted in their article on the commemoration of Kristallnacht that there is a close relationship between Islamophobia, which we see driving the religious right, and Anti-Semitism.

While governments carry out their tasks of remembrance in a dutiful and sometimes heartfelt way, Jewish groups warn against complacency among the general population, citing resurgent anti-Semitism in Europe and newer concerns about Islamophobia.

In a report published on Friday by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, over half of 5,847 Jews surveyed in eight EU countries said they had heard or seen someone claim that the Holocaust was a myth or had been exaggerated.

New York Rabbi Marc Schneier, himself the descendant of Viennese Jews, has spent years working to build bridges with the Muslim community and he urged solidarity with other minorities during a visit to Vienna this week.

"Had there been these alliances 75 years ago, it would have been a very, very different story," he told Reuters ahead of a Kristallnacht remembrance event at the Austrian parliament. "It's about fighting for the other."

There are people, like this minister of a MEGA-church, in the video below, who are obsessed with dominating American politics to advance their religious agenda. It is a bad agenda, and they should be nowhere near anything related to the control of the government, because they believe that it is for the good of everyone that they impose THEIR beliefs, and ONLY THEIR beliefs, on everyone, compelling them and coercing them if necessary. These people are not merely hateful, but they are dangerous to U.S. governmental policy.

As with the extreme, the radical religious right, and their homophobic positions, where they CLAIM to love gays while fundamentally denigrating them as abominations, the right apparently sincerely believes they are offering everyone else a gift of gold. To those on the receiving end of that gift, it is a smelly steaming stinking turd badly daubed with the cheapest gold paint, a deep and profound insult.

This is not ONLY a correlation between this one preacher and 'Duh-b'ya', this is the same old same old from our own Michele Bachmann who is obsessed with the end times, Sarah Palin, who advocates this stuff. We see it as well from Ted Cruz and his father, a birther and who is one of these same kind of preachers. We see it from southern Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee the past Governor of Arkansas, and we see it from politicians like Rick Perry, current Governor of Texas. Let's not leave out former Senator Rick Santorum, or former speaker of the House, the Nut Gingrich, who has dabbled with these groups.

I have a deep, deep objection to sloppy scholarship and factual inaccuracy, whether science, economics, history, the arts, or religion. This is false information, sloppy scholarship - false scholarship - driving a hateful political agenda, regardless of the depth of sincerity on the part of these true believers.



It is worth noting here, as context, that the narrator Edward Asner is of Russian Jewish ancestry, and was raised an orthodox Jew.




Remember the note left by the mass-shooter at LAX airport? The "New World Order" was his explanation for shooting people.

That OTHER Rememberance, Nazi Kristalnacht and the November Pogrom

Kristalnacht, night of broken glass, was the night that the retaliatory killing of Ernst vom Rath became the pretext for the Nazi party engaging in widespread acts of violence against Jews, and the seizing of their property illegally by the Nazi party to fund their continuation.

Approximately 1,000 synagogs were destroyed, and more than 7,000 business owned by Jews were destroyed - the 'broken glass' of the historic event's name. Nearly 100 Jews were killed that night, and another 30,000 were rounded up and taken to concentration camps, where another 2,000 died, some of them beaten to death.

And then Jews were fined, to penalize them for Kristalnacht, the ultimate blaming of the victim:

The persecution and economic damage done to German Jews continued after the pogrom, even as their places of business were ransacked. They were forced to pay Judenvermögensabgabe, a collective fine of one billion marks for the murder of vom Rath (equal to roughly $US 5.5 billion in today’s currency), which was levied by the compulsory acquisition of 20% of all Jewish property by the state. Six million Reichsmarks of insurance payments for property damage due to the Jewish community were to be paid to the government instead as "damages to the German Nation"

In Paris, this man,  17 year old Herschel Grynszpan, shot a Nazi, Ernst vom Rath,a killing precipitated by anti-semitism, including the violent and forcible expulsion of Polish Jews from Germany.

Those Jews, born in Germany, whose parents came from other countries.  They were rounded up one night, unannounced, forced to leave carrying only personal items in a single suitcase each, and their property was confiscated by the Nazis to fund their political organization. The policy on a small scale  was a test run for what was continued during and after Kristalnacht on a larger and more official scale.

German Polish Jewish expulsion aka

Ausweisung polnischer Juden

As noted by Reuters yesterday:

Nazi Kristallnacht against Jews remembered as living memory fades

...The 75th anniversary of the infamous pogrom is being marked with ceremonies in Berlin, Vienna and elsewhere this weekend.
Events such as the coming to light last weekend of a huge hidden trove of Nazi-looted art show that many questions and claims for restitution arising from the Holocaust and World War Two remain unresolved.
But the nature of remembrance is changing as governments absorb the work once done by activists, and the focus switches from bringing the perpetrators to justice to educating a generation growing up as the events fade from living memory.
"Time goes by, it's clear. It's not like it was a few years ago. You have to consider that the survivors are dying out," said Beate Klarsfeld, a driving force in hunting down and bringing to justice war criminals including Klaus Barbie.
Klarsfeld, 78, now spends much of her time on educational work, and was invited to Vienna to speak at the opening of a Holocaust exhibition aimed at school classes.
AMBIVALENCE TOWARDS REMEMBRANCE
The opening was presided over by a government minister and attended by dignitaries including the head of Austria's Jewish community. But the exhibit itself was buried in the cellar of a Jewish theatre in the Leopoldstadt district outside the city center.
"I think it's important, but it's a shame it's in the basement," said Ari Rath, who fled Vienna as a boy in 1938 and spent many years as editor of the Jerusalem Post in Israel before becoming an Austrian citizen again in 2007.
The situation underlines the ambivalent attitudes to remembrance of Nazi atrocities, especially in Austria, which largely welcomed Hitler's annexation in 1938 but spent decades after the war considering itself the dictator's first victim.
While governments carry out their tasks of remembrance in a dutiful and sometimes heartfelt way, Jewish groups warn against complacency among the general population, citing resurgent anti-Semitism in Europe and newer concerns about Islamophobia.
In a report published on Friday by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, over half of 5,847 Jews surveyed in eight EU countries said they had heard or seen someone claim that the Holocaust was a myth or had been exaggerated.
New York Rabbi Marc Schneier, himself the descendant of Viennese Jews, has spent years working to build bridges with the Muslim community and he urged solidarity with other minorities during a visit to Vienna this week.
"Had there been these alliances 75 years ago, it would have been a very, very different story," he told Reuters ahead of a Kristallnacht remembrance event at the Austrian parliament. "It's about fighting for the other."