YOUNG FUNDIES ARE SCARY

Glenda Beck spoke at something called Dayspring Christian Academy in Lancaster, PA and just before, we got a glimpse of young Fundie zombies:

Glenn Beck in Lancaster speech: 'God doesn't lose'
U.S. can avoid bleak future if it turns to God, he says.
By JANE HOLAHAN
Lancasteronline.com

Before Beck came out, Erin Haas, a fifth-grader at the academy, spoke about the importance of voting and a video showed a number of students proclaiming their beliefs about the founding fathers, the Constitution and Christianity.

"God is the founder of America," one proclaimed.


"Our Constitution was made only for moral and holy people," another said.

WHY FATS LIMBAUGH DOESN'T HAVE MANY TWITTER FOLLOWERS?

I've read a number of times that his main demographic is people over 64 and Pew just found that relatively speaking, there are fewer oldsters online, only 41%.

NO, IT WASN'T A REACTION TO HILLARYCARE

Some conservatives claim that the Heritage Foundation backed mandate-style health care reform in 1993 because they were simply terrified of what Hillarycare might bring.  This can't account for Heritage's endorsement of Romneycare in 2006: (h/t Igor Volsky at Think Progress)

MOFFIT (HERITAGE FOUNDATION): We’ve been honored by your request…to participate in giving our best advise and our technical assistance in designing a new and different kind of health insurance market. A market that is patient-centered and consumer-based, which will ease access to affordable coverage for thousands of Bay State citizens. This is new. It’s a new market, where individuals and families will be able to own and control their health insurance and take it with them to from job to job… Nothing like it has ever been attempted anywhere else in the United States. So Massachusetts has raised the bar for every state in the union. And that’s the applause you’ve given to your public officials here today is going to echo far beyond the hallow halls of this historic place.

Moffit was a big cheese at Heritage and he's still there:

Robert Moffit, Ph.D.

Senior Fellow

Center for Policy Innovation

Robert E. Moffit, a seasoned veteran of more than three decades in Washington policymaking, is The Heritage Foundation’s senior fellow in domestic and economic policy studies.

Moffit long has specialized in health care and entitlement programs, including Medicare. He brings to the reform effort his government experience as a senior official of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) during the Reagan administration.

Moffit, a senior member of Heritage’s pace-setting health care team, directed the think tank’s Center for Health Policy Studies from 2003 until June 2010.

Sometimes, all you need is a picture and this one comes from the NYT of 4/13/2006:

ORIGINAL PHOTO CAPTION:

Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, joined by, from left, Dr. Robert Moffit of the Heritage Foundation, State Senator Robert E. Travaglini, Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, signed health care legislation into law Wednesday.

ANOTHER REASON TO VOTE FOR PRES. OBAMA

(h/t Ian Millhiser at Think Progress)

The reactionary lawyer Robert Bork is on Mitten's Judicial Advisory Committee:

Robert Bork: Former judge and failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork is the co-chair of Romney’s “Judicial Advisory Committee.” Bork opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans employment and other discrimination against women, calling the idea that laws can require private companies to cease discriminating a “principle of unsurpassed ugliness.” More recently, the top Romney legal advisor mocked the very idea that gender discrimination even exists. In Bork’s words, “[i]t seems to me silly to say, ‘Gee, they’re discriminated against and we need to do something about it.’ They aren’t discriminated against anymore.”

This brings up another problem with the Reagan Presidency: too many extremists like Bork and Mark Levin were given important jobs and as a result, they have not faded away.

MIITTENS MAY NOT BE A REAL CONSERVATIVE...

(h/t The Dish)

but he lies like one.  He recently claimed that women account for 92.3% of the jobs lost under Pres. Obama.  There is a tiny bit of truth to this:

"Between January 2009 and March 2012 men lost 57,000 jobs, while women lost 683,000 jobs. This is the reverse of the recession period of December 2007-June 2009 (with an overlap of six months) which saw men lose 5,355,000 jobs and women lose 2,124,000 jobs," Steinberg told us in an email.

So timing was important. And if you count all those jobs lost beginning in 2007, women account for just 39.7 percent of the total.

Kevin Drum provides a nice graph that shows the full picture:

WHAT YOU STILL WON'T HEAR FROM FAUX NEWS OR FATS LIMBAUGH

Both outlets still haven't mentioned that John Derbyshire was fired from the National review for being a racist pig.

TIDBITS

- Fats Limbaugh is still FAILing on Twitter. Despite repeated on-air requests from Fatso, he only has 174,017 followers.

- Mark Levin is coughing a lot more during his radio show and that may be because of his heart problems.

- Just like Fetus Boy Santorum, Newt Gingrich claims FAUX News tossed him under the bus.

TAX-CUT JEEBUS STILL LIVES

Years ago during the Bush Presidency, I came across a report of Fundies claiming that Jeebus would want his followers to support Von Mises' economics and I saved it in a file with other Fundie nonsense which I have since misplaced.

Today, Raw Story informs us that Tax Cut Jeebus is still alive:

“One of the problems we have even as Christians is I’ll guarantee you most Christians cannot tell you the two parables Jesus taught about capital gains tax, nor can the tell you the four verses in the Bible that condemn the estate tax, nor can they tell you what Jesus said in Matthew 20 about minimum wage,” evangelical Christian minister David Martin, who is a former co-chair of the Texas Republican Party, explained. “We let the secular people tell us how economics is supposed to be run. God told us how to run economics.”

It's no accident that Glenda Beck was a guest on the show and had his usual dire warning:

“Most people don’t know they’re being used by evil,” Beck agreed. “And some are — some do know. But most people don’t have any idea that they are in bed with absolute evil. It’s not a Republican-Democrat thing. This is evil that is happening right now. And we have to call evil by its name.”

“I really think we are a society globally that is now worshiping Baal,” he added, referring to one of many ancient Semitic fertility gods, which Christians consider to be a demon. “We’re not doing it consciously, but we are doing it. We’re worshiping Baal.”

Here's the basic Fundie line: We have Absolute Truth, They have Absolute Evil.

I'M STILL PUZZLED

Over the last month, I've come across a few articles that claim Ann Romney will be a great asset to Mittens campaign but no matter how nice she is, she can't make Mittens any less stiff or less out of touch with most working people.  The wingnut stink about Hilary Rosen's remark that Ann has never worked a day in her life is not only true, it points out the vast difference between Mittens and the 99%.

OOPS! THE NATIONAL REVIEW FOUND ANOTHER ONE

Racism has been part of the National Review since the 1950s and firing John Derbyshire is really just the beginning of a long-overdue cleaning.  Robert Weissberg is the Review's newest "discovery."

THIS IS A TERRIFIC MOVE

Pres. Obama correctly points out that St. Reagan would be a socialist by the Bagger standards and that is a serious blow at a pillar of conservative ideology.

Obama on Reagan: a ‘wild-eyed, socialist, tax-hiking class warrior’

THANK YOU REP. WEST!!!

I usually reply with a "thank you" to a particularly wingnutty post on POLITICO and this time Rep. Allen West (R-Bagger) gets honored because he called all the Democrats in the CPC communists.  This is exactly the same hysteria talk radio gasbags use to pump up their ratings and I suspect it's the reason there has been such a low turnout for the GOP Presidential primaries. That's for two reasons: (1) The psychos who still buy into the Bagger kraziness are disillusioned with the results of the 2010 election and (2) the non-psychos have been turned off.

UPDATE: McClatchy points out that Romney's success means the death of the Baggers and that's a good thing.

HELLO HUCKSTER; GOODBYE GIBSON

KVOI, the local Fundie station in Tucson, has picked up Huckabee's show and dropped John Gibson.

AN OLD WINGNUT OUTRAGE DU JOUR

Back on March 6 2009, Michelle Malkin was incensed to learn that homeless people have cell phones. To her, this was an obvious violation of the Natural Right of poor people to live without a phone. Earlier this year, we discovered that the Federal government subsidizes phones for poor people, thus solving this particular conservative conundrum.

I REPEAT: HOW DOES KQTH MAKE ANY MONEY?

Almost a week ago I was amazed how the 9:30 PM break on KQTH didn't have any paying ads, only station promos. Tonight at 9:30, it's the same.

WHY GASBAG RADIO WORKS SO WELL

(h/t Mediaite)

If you listen to popular talk radio gasbags (Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck) you'll discover that they don't know much and aren't very bright but that seems perfect for the conservative message machine because it's under low-processing situations that conservative ideology flourishes. It also probably helps that many people listen to garbage radio while driving.

Low-Effort Thought Promotes Political Conservatism
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Scott Eidelman eidelman@uark.edu
Christian S. Crandall
Jeffrey A. Goodman
John C. Blanchar

Abstract

The authors test the hypothesis that low-effort thought promotes political conservatism. In Study 1, alcohol intoxication was measured among bar patrons; as blood alcohol level increased, so did political conservatism (controlling for sex, education, and political identification). In Study 2, participants under cognitive load reported more conservative attitudes than their no-load counterparts. In Study 3, time pressure increased participants’ endorsement of conservative terms. In Study 4, participants considering political terms in a cursory manner endorsed conservative terms more than those asked to cogitate; an indicator of effortful thought (recognition memory) partially mediated the relationship between processing effort and conservatism. Together these data suggest that political conservatism may be a process consequence of low-effort thought; when effortful, deliberate thought is disengaged, endorsement of conservative ideology increases.

I GUESS THE '60S WEREN'T SO BAD AFTER ALL

Conservatives have blamed the '60s for almost anything that's gone wrong in America, especially sexual mores. Today, the CDC has a press release that shows teen age pregnancy rates began declining since about 1960:

Teen childbearing has been generally on a long-term decline in the United States since the late 1950s (1–3).

ATRIOS MAKES A GREAT POINT

He's been doing a "Wanker of the Decade" review and had these words about Will Saletan which are widely applicable:

The Lords of Slate, including Saletan, come from the waning days of the era of High Punditry, where people with no particular knowledge or skills, but who are truly the right sort of people, from the right schools, with the right friends, would send their pronouncements down from the mountain onto the grateful population below. They are for some reason granted the magic power of punditry, the ability to survey the entire body of knowledge on a particular topic, and issue their final infallible decree in time for their deadline. All the experts in the world be damned, give The Lords an afternoon and an intern and The Truth can be determined, usually by determining that The Partisans On Both Sides Are Wrong, while arriving at their proclamations without nasty partisan preconceptions or agenda involved.

FETUS BOY SANTORUM QUITS

First of all, this is a big defeat for Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and Glenn Beck because they supported his campaign.  Second, who will the rubes vote for now?

MORMONS ARE INTOLERANT BUSYBODIES

They put a LOT of effort into passing California's ballot measure that prohibited gay marriage and are now doing the same thing in Maryland.

DERBYSHIRE: TOO HOT TO TALK ABOUT?

Today, the firing of John Derbyshire by the National Review was not mentioned by either Fats Limbaugh, Mark "Foamer" Levin or Sean "The Baby Jesus" Hannity.   There was also nothing on the FOX News site.

DEFINITELY NOT THE WRIGHT STUFF

Hannity and Mark Levin played some clips of a speech by Rev. Jeremiah Wright and I was appalled at this segment:
(I apologize for the Newsmax link but I did hear the audio, so I know the Newsmax report is correct on this point)

“There are politicians who are making decisions about you, about your lives, about your future, about your family, about your children, and the real tragedy is they live in a different world from your world altogether. There are people in power right now who have opinions about you based on their privilege of skin color,” he said, adding, “Pilate was European, Jesus was not European.

“They are ignorant and arrogant – and these are graduates of Harvard and Yale – setting policies for you based on the stupidity of David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Voltaire, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Thomas Jefferson — a pedophile — Theodore Roosevelt and a racist Supreme Court.

“The ignorance and arrogance of white supremacy have the shapers and movers of world policy living in a different world from people of color altogether. And the sooner you realize that, the better off you’re going to be.”

David Hume, "The most important philosopher ever to write in English, David Hume (1711-1776)," is one of the greatest philosophers in the history of the world and to call him stupid is worse than an error.

ANOTHER QUOTE FROM LUKE

(h/t Susie Madrak at Crooks & Liars)

Saint Luke, that is. In addition to the Acts of the Apostles, a document for true communists, Luke also wrote a Gospel which also promotes wealth re-distribution:

Luke 18:18-25 (New Revised Standard)
18 A certain ruler asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 19 Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 20 You know the commandments: "You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother.' " 21 He replied, "I have kept all these since my youth." 22 When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." 23 But when he heard this, he became sad; for he was very rich. 24 Jesus looked at him and said, "How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! 25 Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

YAY! WE'RE NUMBER 1 AGAIN!!!

This time we lead Western European and economically comparable countries in intentional homicide rate (data from Google, World Development Indicators) -

THE HONORABLE MATTHEW LYONS (1749-1822)

Lyons was a Democratic-Republican who was also a member of the House of Representatives for Vermont. The Federalists despised him for his ideas and his heritage - Lyons was born in Ireland. According to Freedom's Fetters, page 222, this happened in the House between July 2nd and 3rd, 1797:

The nativist John Allen was disdainful of this un­American view and appealed to the better blood and accent of Americans to carry the question raised by the Irish-born Lyon.

The Vermont Republican replied that he had never before heard of congressmen boasting of their blood, but he had no objection to gentlemen of "high blood" going through with the "boyish piece of business" of carrying the answer to the president. Though he had no pretentious to "high blood" he thought he had as good blood as any Federalist, as he was born of a "fine, hale, healthy woman."

He did not claim to be

"descended from the bastards of Oliver Cromwell, or his courtiers, or from the Puritans who punished their horses for breaking the Sabbath, or from those who persecuted the Quakers, or hanged the witches."

Lyons should be considered one of the first Americans to point out that the Fundies were full of bullshit.

I MAY HAVE MISSED THIS

but I've never come across any solid empirical evidence for this claim by Jeebus gasbag Rick Warren:

WARREN: The only way to get people out of poverty is J-O-B-S. Create jobs. To create wealth, not to subsidize wealth. When you subsidize people, you create the dependency. You — you rob them of dignity. There are a lot of negative things that happen to us. Rather, we should be focusing on wealth creation and job creation, in my opinion…

Here's another viewpoint:

Grub first, then ethics.

BERTOLT BRECHT, The Threepenny Opera

AT LEAST 5 YEARS TOO LATE

This story:

Afghanistan, U.S. reach deal on controversial night raids
By Hamid Shalizi

KABUL | Sun Apr 8, 2012 8:14am EDT

(Reuters) - Afghanistan and the United States reached a deal on Sunday to curb night raids on Afghan homes, giving Kabul a veto over the operations despised by most local people and clearing the way for a wider pact securing a U.S. presence.

shows once again that we simply can't run counter-insurgency operations because Americans have been killing innocent Afghan civilians for well over 5 years.