By Tana Ganeva
AlterNet

The Nevada GOP nominee for Senate thinks abortion should not be allowed even in cases of rape and incest.

For most of her campaign for U.S. Senate, Nevada GOP nominee Sharron Angle’s election strategy has consisted of avoiding reporters so she doesn’t get tricked into saying things publicly. Last night’s interview on Jon Ralston’s “Face to Face” is one of the few times since winning the GOP nomination that Angle has braved a media outlet that was not a wingnut blog or Fox News.

Fortunately, Angle has already said enough crazy shit to hobble spin efforts designed to paint her as less of an extremist for the general election. In a January interview with conservative talk show host David Manders, Angle explained her views on abortion. As with most responsible policy positions, the inspiration for Angle’s stance comes from God (clearly, the Old Testament God who is really into incest and rape):

MANDERS: I too am pro-life, but I’m also pro-choice. Do you understand what I say when I mean that?

ANGLE: Well, I’m pro-responsible choice. There’s choice to abstain, choice to use contraceptives … there’s all kinds of good choice….

MANDERS: Is there any reason at all for an abortion?

ANGLE: Not in my book.

MANDERS: So, in other words, rape and incest would not be something?

ANGLE: You know, I’m a Christian, and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things.

>> Read Complete Article @ AlterNet <<

by Justin Elliott
via Salon

[This is a perfect example of why the Supreme Court ruling that lifted the limits on how much corporations, unions, and individuals can donate to 527 groups was such a stunningly bad idea. ~ Wicasta]

Virtually all of the $4.7 million raised by Karl Rove’s new conservative outfit was contributed by just four billionaires, three of whom are based in Dallas, Texas, and two of whom made their fortune in the oil and gas industry.

The IRS filing of American Crossroads, an outside 527 group that was conceived by Rove and ex-RNC chair Ed Gillespie, gives a good taste of who is funding the GOP effort to make big gains in the House and Senate come the fall. The group has already burned through $600,000 on ads attacking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is facing a reelection contest against Republican Sharron Angle (see one of the spots below). Chaired by another ex-RNC chair, Mike Duncan, American Crossroads has pledged to raise $50 million to beat Democrats in the midterms and has been seen by some as a competitor to the Republican National Committee itself.

And despite the group’s description of itself as “grassroots,” Salon’s review of its IRS filings show that four billionaires have contributed 97 percent of the $4.7 million it has raised to date. There are no limits on how much corporations, unions, and individuals can donate to 527 groups.

>> Read Complete Article @ Salon <<

If you haven’t heard about the unbelievable moves in Texas to inject textbooks with Right-Wing Conservative ideology, it’s time to get up to speed. Activists on the Texas State Board of Education have been making changes to the curriculum in Texas that will help indoctrinate their children into a radically Conservative world-view, in the hope that Texas’ role as one of the largest markets for textbooks in the nation will help shape the school curriculums in other states, as well. It’s the classic bait-and-switch, which Ralph Reed and the Christian Coalition espoused back in the 1990′s – that Conservative school board candidates should run as moderates so that they can be elected, with the intention of pushing the radical Conservative agenda once in office.

Among the many changes to textbooks in Texas is changing references to the “slave trade” to a more benign “Atlantic triangular trade” – you know, because “slave trade” has such negative connotations. Capitalism, again because of negative connotations, will in the future be referred to as the “free enterprise system”. And don’t even think about teaching the Theory of Evolution: children must instead be taught that God created Earth using the euphemistically-titled technique known as “Intelligent Design”. On the surface this all sounds like a discarded Saturday Night Live sketch, but these people are deadly serious.

…click here to read more

I’ve been trying to explain to some of my well-meaning, but terribly misguided relatives why I have such a fundamental problem with the so-called Tea Party “movement”. Then I ran across an excellent article by Ron Rosenbaum on the Slate web site, which discusses the Tea Party revisionism and why, as I’ve contended, it’s dangerous to dismiss these people as fringe lunatics. They might be foaming at their mouths and spouting bizarre conspiracy theories, but they’re getting a lot of media attention. Unfortunately, we live in a country where a significant number of citizens believe American had a moral obligation to invade the country of Iraq, but couldn’t find Iraq on a map if their children were being held hostage in Baghdad. The lies sink in. Fox News has long since codified the tactic of repeating a lie until it begins to sink in. That’s part of what has given rise to the Tea Baggers’ bizarre alternate reality.

Excerpts from the article follow;

I am a great believer in used-bookstore serendipity. Sometimes when you’re thinking about how to express something, you find a perfect exemplification of it just by chance in the musty stacks of such an emporium. Here’s a remarkable example. I’d been trying to find a way to write about Tea Party ideology, and in particular about the fraudulent history and distorted language it indulges in. Listen to Tea Partiers on cable news—or read the signs they hoist or their Internet comments—and you frequently encounter the flagrant abuse, the historically ignorant misuse, of words such as tyranny, communist, Marxist, fascist, andsocialist.

You hear them say, for instance, that we live under “tyranny” because one side lost a health care vote in an elected legislative body. And that, in all seriousness, the president is a communist. For many Tea Party members, the word is not just a vile epithet; it’s a realistic political description. Check out this clip in which Tea Party “celebrity” spokeswoman Victoria Jackson flatly tells a flummoxed Fox News host, “The president’s a communist.” When the host (the Fox host!) starts to object, she responds that Glenn Beck has taught her that progressive is a code word for communist. (Time to put that ugly hammer and sickle logo inside the “O” on your I-hate-Obama T.P. protest sign!)

Most people with a basic grounding in history find Tea Party ignorance something to laugh about, certainly not something to take seriously. But I would argue that history demonstrates that historical ignorance is dangerous and that it can have tragic consequences, however laughable it may initially seem. And thus the media, liberals, and others are misguided in laughing it off. And educated conservatives are irresponsible in staying silent in the face of these distortions.

It’s time to take on these superliars and stop them from spreading their poisonous ignorance.

• Read Full Article >>

I’ve had quite a few people ask me why this web site doesn’t have a Facebook page. Honestly, I never thought anyone would be interested. But, with Facebook making moves to begin their take-over of all social networking, I figured it was about time we got in-line with The Borg. So… if you have a Facebook account, we’d be very pleased if you’d add us to your notification list by visiting the page and clicking on “I Like”. Thanks so much for your continued support through the years. I’ve been touched by how few of our subscribers have left through the years. Now, whether that means ya’ll are a bunch of Right-Wingers who are keeping an eye on me or not, I can’t really say. But I prefer to think not.

by Robert de Neufville

When evangelist Franklin Graham—son of the better known Billy Graham—had his invitation to the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer service rescinded after Muslim members of the military complained about comments he made about their religion, Sarah Palin leapt to his defense. “Are we really so hyper-politically correct,” she wrote, “that we can’t abide a Christian minister who expresses his views on matters of faith?”

The complaints about Graham go back to his remark in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks that Islam is “a very evil and wicked religion.” Graham justified his views by saying that “It wasn’t Methodists flying into those buildings, it wasn’t Lutherans. It was an attack on this country by people of the Islamic faith.”  He told an interviewer in 2006 that his views hadn’t changed, saying that “If people think Islam is such a wonderful religion, just go to Saudi Arabia and make it your home. Just live there. If you think Islam is such a wonderful religion, I mean, go and live under the Taliban somewhere.” And in the wake of the decision not to invite him the Pentagon’s National Day of Prayer service Graham continues to defend his original statement, saying that Muslims were “enslaved” by their religion.

Read Full Article >>

by Bill Quigley, CommonDreams.org

Glenn Beck and other far right multi-millionaires are claiming that the US is hot on the path towards socialism. Part of their claim is that the US is much more generous and supportive of our working and poor people than other countries. People may wish it was so, but it is not.

As Senator Patrick Moynihan used to say “Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. But everyone is not entitled to their own facts.”

The fact is that the US is not really all that generous to our working and poor people compared to other countries.

Consider the US in comparison to the rest of the 30 countries that join the US in making up the OECD – the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. These 30 countries include Canada and most comparable European countries but also include some struggling countries like Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Korea, Mexico, Poland, Slovak Republic, and Turkey. See www.oecd.org

When you look at how the US compares to these 30 countries, the hot air myths about the US government going all out towards socialism sort of disappear into thin air. Here are some examples of myths that do not hold up.

• Read Full Article >>

I just read an article by a gentleman named Chris Currey. Now, this is the kind of Republican I could sit down and have a talk with. I miss ‘em. God help us all if nutjobs like Sarah Palin are the future of the GOP. The real Conservatives are being driven out of the Republican party by the lunatic fringe. We’re getting into dangerous waters when only one of the two major political parties is based in reality. The Democrats are far from perfect, but the alternative is increasingly a bunch of weirdos with tin foil hats on their heads. Today’s GOP has left me no choice but to throw my support behind the Democrats and abandon my long held policy of voting for who I thought was best for the job, irregardless of their political affiliation. There are very few moderate Republicans that I can vote for anymore.

Anyway, I suggest you read Chris Currey’s article. It sums up this growing problem more eloquently than I ever could. Excerpts follow;

How the GOP Purged Me
by Chris Currey

I am an old Republican. I am religious, yet not a fanatic. I am a free-marketer; yet, I believe in the role of the government as a fair evenhanded referee. I am socially conservative; yet, I believe that my lesbian niece and my gay grandchild should have the full protection of the law and live as free Americans enjoying every aspect of our society with no prejudices and/or restrictions. Nowadays, my political and socio-economic profile would make me a Marxist, not a Republican.

I grew up in an era where William F. Buckley fought the John Birch society and kicked them out of the Republican Party. I grew up with -– in fact voted for the first time for –- Eisenhower. In 1956, he ran a campaign of dignity. A campaign that acknowledged that there are certain projects better suited to be handled by the government. See, business thinks in the short term, as he said. That’s the imperative of the marketplace. I invest and I expect that in a few quarters, I garner the fruits of my investment. Government, on the other hand, has the luxury to wait a few years, maybe decades, for a return on a given investment. As a former businessman, I know that first hand. Am I a Marxist for thinking that?

I witnessed the fight for equal civil rights in the 1960s. And as a proud American, I applauded the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act, and we became a better country because of them. Those acts made America stronger. Those acts, at their core, represented and still represent all the values upon which the Republican Party was founded. Yet today, our GOP representatives and leaders are ashamed of them. When they talk about them, you feel their discomfort, their clumsiness, and sometimes their shame. That awkwardness is so strong that it crosses the television screen and hits you in the face in your living room. Why is that? What happened to this generation of Republicans? We are the party of Abraham Lincoln, and yet we act and behave as if we are the party of Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Read Full Article >>

There is more evidence of the lunacy of the Far Right, as reports trickle in about the nine people in a “Christian warrior” militia group, called the Hutaree, who were accused Monday of plotting to kill a Michigan law enforcement officer and then attack other police at the resulting funeral. It really shouldn’t surprise anyone that a militia group has armed themselves and is actively promoting rebellion against the Federal government.

What is surprising is that just days before the FBI arrested the nine militia members, local government reached out to the militia for help finding missing residents. Bridgewater Township Supervisor Jolea Mull twice asked local militias, including Hutaree, the group from which the nine suspects belong, to help law enforcement in their search.

“Based on what I have observed of our local militia’s efforts, I highly recommend that other municipalities coordinate with and get to know their local militia members,” Mull, a Republican, told AnnArbor.com.

…click here to read more

An excellent article by columnist Frank Rich in the New York Times addresses some of the issues I looked at in my last article. It’s a good read, and brings up prescient points that we should all keep in mind. ~ Wicasta

There were times when last Sunday’s great G.O.P. health care implosion threatened to bring the thrill back to reality television. On ABC’s “This Week,” a frothing and filibustering Karl Rove all but lost it in a debate with the Obama strategist David Plouffe. A few hours later, the perennially copper-faced Republican leader John Boehner revved up his “Hell no, you can’t!” incantation in the House chamber — instant fodder for a new viral video remixing his rap with will.i.am’s “Yes, we can!” classic from the campaign. Boehner, having previously likened the health care bill to Armageddon, was now so apoplectic you had to wonder if he had just discovered one of its more obscure revenue-generating provisions, a tax on indoor tanning salons.

But the laughs evaporated soon enough. There’s nothing entertaining about watching goons hurl venomous slurs at congressmen like the civil rights hero John Lewis and the openly gay Barney Frank. And as the week dragged on, and reports of death threats and vandalism stretched from Arizona to Kansas to upstate New York, the F.B.I. and the local police had to get into the act to protect members of Congress and their families.

How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. The weapon of choice for vigilante violence at Congressional offices has been a brick hurled through a window. So far.

Read Full Article >>