Left Agenda

We’ve all heard the news of Sen. Reid’s dumb-ass comments pertaining to Obama.

In their new book “Game Change,” authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann say that in 2008 Reid described candidate Obama as a ” ‘light-skinned’ African American ‘with no Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one,’ ” whom many voters would embrace.

Reid’s insensitive remarks aside, many Right Wing Wackos (RWWs) began spouting comparisons to Reid’s remarks and Trent Lott’s remarks made in 2002 that he wished Strom Thurmond had been elected POTUS. ‘Those comments ended up getting Lott removed as majority leader, so why shouldn’t Reid be removed’ cries the little sheep. Remember Strom Thurmond? The bigoted racist segregationist that said,

All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches.

Well, take a moment to glance at those two quotes from Reid and Thurmond and ask yourself if they’re even close to being similar. Faux News loves to incite the dumb masses of GOP/Tea Bag/RWWs so, of course, they push the “double standard” myth commonly pushed by RWWs about Liberals. Another case of the pot calling the kettle “black”. Their response isn’t a surprise nor are their audience’s responses a surprise. I just wanted to share a few beauties I cherry-picked out of the readers’ comments when Faux asks whether there’s a “Double Standard”. Let the frightened illiterate hysteria begin. For your amusement:

gsspike

Rhode Island

It’s the American people Read insulted not Obama! He needs to apologize to us!!!

Maybe gsspike needs to “Read” more.

onathan8

California

How do you spell doubel standed? Democrat is how it is spelled.

Let’s start with, “How do you spell doubel?”

susanfuchs

New York

If you wish to see how much of a “double standard” there is, re-listen to the president’s words… “harry reid has been on the “right” side of history, …. so apparently, if you are a democrat, you’re okay to say anything, but if you are a republican,,,, you can’t. That, is repulsive, you wonder why people are angry and getting more so?

The logic is truly astounding. ‘Don’t you see, since they said A apparently it means X.’ Uh oh, another one of those “angry” warnings.  Don’t ask what susan is fuching.

genus1

Montana

Montana -- Interesting, at every press conference Biden has 60% blacks around him. Where are his friends at the funeral of his mother?

Ouch! This Palin supporter goes right for O’Biden’s jugular.

astergis46

Georgia

I’m not surprise by the comment that Mr. Reid made comments like that has gone on since slavery and will continue to go on until the end of time it isn’t a party line it’s ignorance and as long as we have ignorant people in this world we will continue to have rasicm.So lay off the political issue and just deal with the real issue.WE LIVE IN A RACIST INVORIMENT.

The… voice… of… reason…?

bigak

Pennsylvania

I was a loyal Democate until I saw the light & converted. The Democates do not represent anyone but themselves and don’t care who realized it. Double Standards in everyway. We all must fight extremely hard in the next elections to get rid of all of them.

Like a deer staring into your headlight. Oh, “Double Standards” is now a proper noun, don’t forget.

ordinaryjoe

Missouri

Harry Reed is a communist traitor and like all communists he operates under a double standard. On more reason to vote out all the communist scum in congress in 2010

Seriously, people think that Mr. “Reed” is a Communist? Points for least spelling errors.

jimgoodman

Nevada

I hope all Republicans will ban together and take control of both the House and Senate so the American people will be considered in any bill and do away with all these buying of votes.

Ah, the jimgoodman’s of America. The naivety is almost cute, isn’t.

foxhunt55

California

IT IS ALL ABOUT HEALTH CARE! THAT IS THE ONLY REASON HE IS STILL THERE. THE HYPOCRISY IS AMAZING BUT NOT UNEXPECTED! I HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR THIS MAN AND WE HAVE TURNED ENOUGH CHEEKS FOR THE DEMS. TIME FOR HIM TO GO! THE SOONER THE BETTER!

Aaaaah, stop screaming at me! I think I missed the part where RWWs, “TURNED ENOUGH CHEEKS FOR THE DEMS.”

lucillelouise

Colorado

I am so very tired of Democrats practicing double standards regardless if it has to do with racism or any other issue. The senate needs to be divided evenly as well as the house and I’m so afraid this will never happen. Obama is in bed with the worst, has done many favors like for BEN NELSON recently and he on his own is scary.

Wide-eyed and doe-like, lucillelouise gave her mind entirely to Faux News and Baby Jesus.

Apparently, this video is getting the comic some death threats from violent Tea Baggers. You know the type; the same ones that post comments on Faux News articles about getting their gun and shooting Liberal Fascist Socialist Communist Homosexual Minority Environmentalist Pinko Scum. Yes, I’m talking about America’s own homegrown terrorists, usually Christards.

Politicians lie.  We’ve all known that since we the moment we grew up and became adults, or sooner for some of you that gain wisdom early.  Lying comes in many forms.  There’s simply withholding the truth, or maybe not correcting other people’s lies.  There’s giving half-truths so what you’re saying is mostly true.  Then there’s a complete unequivocal lie whereby someone states one thing with the full knowledge that the opposite is true.

Filtering through these different types of lies is exactly what you have to do when listening to almost any rhetoric be it originating from the media, politicians, our acquaintances… More and more I’m coming to the conclusion that people that support the GOP (along with fundamentalist Christians) have no idea how to distinguish between these types of lying.  This is a failure in critical thinking skills.  Once a person believes that so-and-so tells the truth, they no longer try to distinguish between when they’re telling the whole truth or half-truths.  They no longer question if the person would ever lie.  It just simply isn’t done.  It’s my theory that GOP supporters, Tea Baggers, and Fundies are all part of this group of people that have little to know critical thinking skills.

Now, with that in mind the GOP continues to abuse their constituents low critical thinking skills by lying and fear-mongering.  Case in point:

1) Dems should be afraid of losing their majority in 2010 because it’s almost certainly going to happen.  How do we know, because there are so many Dems retiring.

2) The failure of TSA and Homeland Security and Obama is that no one is saying “terrorism” enough.  We need to say “terrorism” as often as possible in order to remind everyone that we are at war with “terrorists.”  America is at war with drugs communism Iraq Afghanistan Terror.

First off, the Dems losing seats and thereby their majority may happen.  There’s an election, who knows what the results will be.  You could argue that the majority isn’t even important considering how well the Dems have used it up to now.  What you can’t argue, legitimately, is that the Dems have more to fear than the Reps when it comes to losing seats because the numbers don’t even suggest that.  If anything they suggest the exact opposite.  Polls show that Dems are more in favor than the Reps; both have low scores but Reps’ tend to score a good ten points or more lower.  Also, there’s more Reps Representatives and Senators retiring than there are Dems.  I know Faux viewers are pulling their hair out by now because this simply can’t be true; Glenn Beck never mentioned this!  No, of course not.  He’s off ranting about how African-American is a bullshit term for… what?  Black, Negro, Afro-American,… or would Beck prefer Nigger?

Democrats	FAV	UNFAV	NO OPINION
ALL	42	54	4
MEN	33	63	4
WOMEN	51	45	4
DEM	75	22	3
REP	5	94	1
IND	36	62	2
OTHER	32	64	4
NON VOTE	42	46	12
WHITE	33	65	2
BLACK	79	12	9
LATINO	51	40	9
OTH/REF	51	39	10
18-29	59	33	8
30-44	28	66	6
45-59	49	50	1
60+	40	58	2
NORTHEAST	61	29	10
SOUTH	24	72	4
MIDWEST	45	53	2
WEST	44	55	1

Republicans

	FAV	UNFAV	NO OPINION
ALL	29	61	10
MEN	39	51	10
WOMEN	19	71	10
DEM	9	87	4
REP	84	4	12
IND	19	69	12
OTHER	21	68	11
NON VOTE	11	73	16
WHITE	37	53	10
BLACK	6	88	6
LATINO	12	74	14
OTH/REF	11	75	14
18-29	10	84	6
30-44	47	41	12
45-59	23	69	8
60+	26	61	13
NORTHEAST	10	83	7
SOUTH	58	30	12
MIDWEST	19	71	10
WEST	20	70                     10

These figures are taken from Research 2000.

Second, WTF does using the word “terrorism” have to do with keeping the country safe?  Let’s just skip over that fact that Obama and his appointees have been using the term over and over again for months.  But, in what way would it benefit the American people, how would it help keep us safer, if Obama said the word “terrorism” more?  Of course, it couldn’t be the GOP or Dickhead Cheney’s repeated international statements saying that America is weak that would instigate an attack, would it?  No, it wouldn’t be the continued use of Holy Warriors trying to convert Afghanistan and Iraq people to Christianity, would it?  It wouldn’t be that America has killed thousands of innocent civilians and tortured thousands more and many Americans support these actions that would create animosity towards America, would it?  Nah, it’s because Obama doesn’t say the word “terrorism” enough.  Got it?

What’s sad is how many people believe this crap spewing from Faux News and the GOP.  Let me set the record straight, whether you call yourself Conservative, Libertarian, Republican, etc. you’re either a complete idiot for believing their drivel, you’re one of the people lying for your own benefit, or you’re a complete asshole that believes the American Dream is to care only about yourself and never about anyone else.  I’m betting it’s one of the first two.

Dan Gainor from Faux News is Arguing with me on Twitter

(This is from my post on DailyKos)

I’m actually a little surprised that my lowly tweets were even noticed.  I’ve only got 63 followers, basically nothing, yet somehow when I posted a comment about Dan Gainor’s recent opinion piecefor Foxnews.com he caught wind of it and responded.  The argument continues… this is fun!

My original tweet:

F-Head Dan Gainor at Faux News says gov. workers making 100k/yr. are “fat cats”// Nevermind millionaire execs. http://bit.ly/7Em2O9

Subtle, huh?  I know, I’m not much for playing nice.

His response:

@GodlessAmerican Millionaire execs aren’t getting paid w my tax dollars (except largely where Obama has made sure they were)

Mine:

@dangainor, Uh, are you forgetting the TARP funds which your beloved Bush passed? Exec. pay has gone up 400% in 30 yrs.

@dangainor How about the abusive privatization of our military propagated by Rumsfeld?

Gainor:

@GodlessAmerican “Abusive?” You guys are the ones who like a big military. Funny thing is, military NEEDS to have certain skill sets.

Mine:

@dangainor Us guys like “big military?” WTF Liberals have continuously called for lessoning of military funding.

@dangainor It is the Right and Faux News that continuously calls for military action. Not liberals.

@dangainor “Certain skill sets” already were present, Rumsfeld replaced gov. workers for over-paid ‘fat cat’ privateers.

Gainor:

@GodlessAmerican What you say and what you do are different. You want the peace dividend but get angry when people are hired 2 do those jobs

@GodlessAmerican Funny, peace protests were everywhere under Bush and are nowhere under Obama. You guys just used the war for politics

@GodlessAmerican Not enough of those skill sets were present to fight the war.

Mine:

@dangainor There already were people doing those jobs Gainor; Rumsfeld fired them and replaced them with contractors.

Let’s see where things go from here.

UPDATE: 2038 PST

Me:

@dangainor You’re ignoring the ‘fat cats’ that were paid with YOUR tax dollars to do a job that Americans already did for far less.

UPDATE: 2041 PST

Me:

@dangainor There’s protests against Obama’s war. I know of people that have gone to a few.

That’s for rossl.

UPDATE: 2046 PST

I wanted to bait him a little since he wasn’t replying.

Me:

@dangainor It’s harder arguing with someone that isn’t going to agree with everything you say like Faux News, huh?

And Gainor finally replies:

@GodlessAmerican You can’t be serious and claim that Dems are still making the war an issue.

Me:

@dangainor No, you’re right. It must be since Dems have to clean up the HUGE mess Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld left us, ya think?

UPDATE: 2052 PST

Me:

@dangainor Instead, Obama is making nuclear proliferation an issue. He’s not chasing after a false report of yellow cake that doesn’t exist

UDPATE: 2103 PST

I’s tinks Gainor no liky playing wit me.

More baiting:

@dangainor Atleast Obama hasn’t flown a “Mission Accomplished” banner. There are protests against the war, Y doesn’t FN cover them?

UPDATE:  2114 PST

I think that’s all folks.  I had a great time.  Thanks for the recs.

Oh, and my last tweet:

@dangainor Thanks for playing with me. Excuse me while I talk to a few adults, @markos place. http://bit.ly/84kThn

UPDATE:

UPDATE: 0933 12/22/09 PST

Gainor:

@GodlessAmerican I follow lefty sites and I watch as even the Code Pinkers try to rationalize the war. Who are you kidding?

@GodlessAmerican Nuclear proliferation is a bogus issue. Nukes won’t go away. He might as well promise rainbows and unicorns.

@GodlessAmerican You do know I don’t work at Fox, just saying.

Me:

@dangainor And yet the threat of WMDs brought the nation to its knees.

@dangainor Your opinion piece rang true to one of Faux News’ messages, kill the middle class.

@dangainor A conservative dissing nuclear proliferation? Wasn’t nuclear disarmament Reagan’s legacy? Oh, and helping the rich get richer.

@dangainor And my wife loves Unicorns, damnit!

UPDATE: 0945PST

Me:

@dangainor You write for the Forum, you’re a constant guest on Faux Business(insert joke). You’ve got a few hats. All push neo-liberalism.

UPDATE: 1002 PST

Gainor:

@GodlessAmerican Your middle class claim makes no sense. Grew up in working class family.

@GodlessAmerican O wants to get rid of ALL nukes. He’s not trying to find peace between two potentially warring parties.

@GodlessAmerican Libs also write for the forum. If you were a better writer maybe you could as well.

Me:

@dangainor Where you grew up isn’t where you are now.

@dangainor Gosh, that hurts Dan. I don’t think they’d appreciate my ideas.

@dangainor I visit the Forum regularly, never see any Libs. You’re upset because you can’t back you Op-piece.

This is still going on today, 12/22/09.  If you want to keep following the conversation then go to my twitter page.

Jesus, that's a BIG head Jesus!

It’s been a long warn-out case of denial, the Catholic tradition. Yes, for years (uh, hundreds) people have believed in the silly nonsense that makes up the apostle based patriarchal tyranny that is the Pope. Any-hoo, along with the history which is largely falsified are the so-called ancient relics of dubious reliability. Among these “relics” are bones of your favorite saint of the week and the Shroud of Turin.

Never mind that any real scientific research on these items continuously shows that they are not, at all, authentic. The Catholic church is quite sure of itself.

New evidence, which only supports prior evidence, shows again that the Shroud of Turin is a fake. Surprising? Not in the least. Amusing? Oh, ever so much.

According to researchers involved in the excavation and subsequent testing, the recently discovered shroud lends more credible evidence that the Shroud of Turin does not date to Romantimes when Jesus died but from a later period.

I laughed when he was elected. I loved reading Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them): A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. And now I’m loving it that Al Franken is a U.S. Senator; I wish he represented California!

Part I: Franken calls out more liars.

Part II:

Fox News: Fair and Balanced Corruption

Faux News never ceases to amaze me. Their incessant fear-mongering and asinine logic frequently befuddled even the most acrobatic mind. What surprises me even more is their fans. I’m guessing that the majority of their fans, their viewers, are lower or middle class American citizens. That’s an assumption and if anyone has evidence to refute that, I’d love to see it. Now, while these fans and viewers have supported the exorbitant rise in pay to America’s richest 1% simply because they worked for it and they deserve it, they are still watching Faux News whom is now making the case that minimum wage should be dropped!

Minimum wage is a pittance. It’s nothing. If you work full time for a year making minimum wage, it wouldn’t equal what Goldman Sach’s executives make in a single day. Is there anyone that would seriously argue that a year’s worth of work isn’t worth the same amount as a single day’s?

They completely ignore any of the myriad of reasons for keeping the minimum wage, or those arguments that say raising the minimum wage would benefit the economy and side-step it by calling it D.C.’s “sacred cow.” Have so many lower and middle class Americans completely forgotten the decades of fighting that the Labor movement went through to get Americans a forty hour work week? Or the weekend? Or mandatory holidays? Or sick leave? Or maternal leave? Or anything that benefits the working class instead of the rich executives? How fucking stupid are you Fox News watchers?!

No, don’t bother answering.  It’s a rhetorical question.

Most people remember the movie, Hotel Rwanda.  If you haven’t seen it yet, go get it.  It’s incredible.  This article isn’t about the movie though.  It’s about the future of Faux News and commentators like Glenn Beck.  In 1994 there was a massive genocidal movement against “Rwanda’s Tutsis and Hutu political moderates by the Hutudominated government under the Hutu Power ideology.”  Thousands of people were killed.

Images of genocide.

Only a fraction of the deaths.

There have been convictions for these crimes, and those convictions are continuing to this day.  A recent conviction involved someone that was present on the air-waves.  They weren’t in the street killing people, they were inciting people to do it.

Valerie Bemeriki, a radio journalist, admitted to inciting these murders.  Even if she didn’t admit to it, it was clearly recognizable when she said on the air,

“Do not kill those cockroaches with a bullet -- cut them to pieces with a machete.”

Finally, this woman will be incarcerated and serve time for her crimes against humanity.

Faux News and Glenn Beck have a similar future.  It only takes a few minutes going through the comments of Faux News zombies to find a myriad of violent and death related respondents.  From every action by the Democrats or the Left which is perceived with mass-hysteria and in their confusion of reality and facts vs. faith and tradition appears a distinguishing trend; many of them are perfectly willing to resort to violence and massacre to support their ignorant and ill-founded ideology.

Americans killing Americans.  And who’s inciting this kind of behavior?

Is he saying to kill people, yet?  Nope, but I think his followers are getting the idea.

Glenn Beck is just the most visible of these hate-mongers and violence inciters.  There are many others.

WAIT TILL THE END; they give plenty of examples of conservative talk radio hosts inciting hatred and violence.  And then they mention Rwanda…

The list of hate-mongers is long: Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter, Pat Robertson, etc., etc.

What’s funny is that it takes a comedian to get serious about politics.  Remember folks, this guy isn’t a career politician.  He hasn’t been grounded in the art of considerate bullshit that makes up the majority of D.C. debate.

Thank GOD for Al Franken! 8 O

It’s something that the Right has a hard time with, especially Beck/Limbaugh fans.  You can come up with your own opinions, but you can’t create your own facts.  Facts are facts.  Thune gets bitch-slapped!  South Dakota, you can do better!  So, did Thune read the bill?

So, Jesus is a toy? Oh, that's so much better!

The White House is a government building, right?  It is a part of the United States and not a part of the vast talking-head, gospel of prosperity Evangelical church, right?  It’s not religious in any way, right?  Well, of course not but that doesn’t mean that religious activities don’t happen there.

The supposed taking place of religious activities isn’t what’s at issue, but the seemingly misunderstood dictation of what must take place.  The only thing that must take place, given that it’s a government building, is that equality is presented.  If religious spectacles are to be shown than equally religious spectacles should be shown as well, along with other belief or lack of belief systems.  I don’t know how many that is, but it seems like it would take up another building entirely to have a holiday scene for each religion that in any way celebrates something that takes place over the winter.

Now, while celebrating Christmas is of course rooted in the Christian church’s theft/appropriation of  paganism and its observances it only seems natural that those same observances would continue to be reappropriated at a later date, which they has.  Now!  I celebrated Christmas as a child and I know many people that do too but with absolutely no connection whatsoever that in anyway celebrates some little fake baby being born by an unwed mother.  Nothing about Christmas is about Christ.  While that rattles in your brain for a while let’s move onto the point.

Why in the world is someone getting upset about the prospect of the White House not putting up it’s “traditional” nativity scene with little Jesus, all the hay, and some little tart next to him?  Why is that important?

Renowned children’s book author and Faux News’ own “cultural” analyst, Eric Metaxas seems to be shitting a brick about the idea/rumor/possibility that the WH won’t have its “traditional” nativity scene.  Children’s books aren’t the only thing that Metaxas has published.  Aside from those, he’s been published in a myriad of magazines and recently published Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God (but were afraid to ask) and the sequel, Everything ELSE You Always Wanted to Know About God (but were afraid to ask). I suppose that when he said “Everything” it meant only what would fit into the first book.  So, it’s nice to see that Metaxas has such a close relationship with his imaginary friend that apparantly god/dog doesn’t mind him giving out all of his secrets.  Kind of like a ‘enquiring minds want to know’ kind of thing.

Pictured with America's beloved bigot, Rick Warren. Ahhh, Christmas and killing homosexuals go together so well, huh Warren?

So, off the deep end he’s gone (or maybe he’s been there for awhile) and now he’s ranting about a little minuscule nativity scene that may or may not get put up in the WH.  The part that speaks volumes is the title, “Jesus Nearly Banned at White House Inn”.  Uh, did he say, “Banned?”  And what-the-fuck “Inn” is he talking about?

Also speaking volumes; straight from the Horse Ass’ mouth:

I was reading the New York Times Sunday Styles section yesterday (yep, I’m straight) when I came across an article about embattled White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers — she’s the one who broke with previous White House tradition by inviting herself to the state dinner when she should have been at the door keeping out the loopy riff-raff.

But in the twelfth paragraph of the article there was a real bombshell: It said that earlier this year at a luncheon with other previous White House social secretaries, Ms. Rogers claimed that this year the White House would have a “non-religious” Christmas celebration. (For those of you confused by that, it’s just like a “non-religious” Yom Kippur celebration, or a “non-Irish” St. Patrick’s Day celebration, or an “international” July 4th celebration.)

First, let me be the first to point out the incredibly unsubtle bigotry and stereotyping of homosexuals.  Secondly, does Metaxas protest too much?  Third, what really seems to be getting Metaxas’ girdle in a bunch is the “non-religious” part of WH Social Secretary Desiree Rogers’ words.  Then, by setting up a few false comparisons he’s able to deftly move into how by “non-religious” the WH is specifically targeting Christianity and American tradition.  Hmm…

A quick word on tradition.  If the only reason you have for doing something which others are calling to end is to say that it is “tradition” then you’ve already lost the argument.  ”Tradition” is what keeps minorities from having the same rights, women from having equal pay, bigotry in power, and majority rule a continuous policy.  Tradition is bullshit, usually.  If tradition is all you’ve got for a defense, then you’re lying about your true motivation.

I hope Metaxas has a nice Christmas this year.  I will, but without the tree or any other Pagan attributes.  I think I’ll eat a lot of food, drink a lot of alcohol, and maybe watch Religulous.