Republican Nominee Want to Be's Attack Hillary at CPAC

CPAC Registration Desk

Personally, were I to be at CPAC, I think I'd want to be disinfected after being in such close quarters with so many reality challenged lunatics.  That said, CPAC can provide a road map of what are likely campaign talking points that the pandering GOP clown car occupants will use in the coming GOP presidential nomination fight.  Based on comments at CPAC, it looks like Hillary Clinton may be replacing Barack Obama as the GOP's biggest bogey man despite the white superemacist that has become de rigueur in today's GOP  A piece in Politico looks at the attacks on Clinton which include whining about Benghazi even though Congressional investigations found no bais for attacks on Hillary.  Here are some article highlights:

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Hillary Clinton couldn’t make it to the Conservative Political Action Conference because “we couldn’t find a foreign nation to foot the bill.” Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO, insisted Clinton “likes hashtags, but she doesn’t know what leadership means.” And former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush knocked her on conflict of interest claims involving her family’s foundation.

It was amply clear at the annual conservative confab this week that Clinton has eclipsed Barack Obama as the Republican residential hopefuls’ main punching bag. But it is the sheer number of distinct anti-Clinton attack lines that is raising eyebrows.

Whether onstage or off, Republicans derided Clinton from every angle. They cast the 67-year-old as yesterday’s news, brought up her husband Bill Clinton’s 1990s scandals, questioned the rationale for her expected run for the White House, criticized her high-dollar speaking fees, and, of course, lashed her over the Benghazi attacks.

Republicans eager to derail a Clinton 2016 campaign, like those flooding the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center here, see the panoply of critiques as a show of force against a candidate they insist is more vulnerable than her allies realize. Watching warily from afar, however, Democrats eager to see a Clinton presidency cast the attacks as a sign of confusion in the GOP, predicting the mish-mash of arguments will fail to jell and dent the former secretary of state’s image.

Republicans’ intense and long-standing focus on Clinton suggest many of them expect her to be a formidable candidate. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, for instance, warned a packed hotel suite of about 100 college students that Clinton has strategic advantages because she is a woman and could make history by winning the White House.

But as White House aspirants paraded through the convention center halls this week and riled up conservative activists from the stage, fellow Republicans brushed off the notion that there were too many arguments against Clinton floating around, pointing out that 2016 hopefuls aren’t expected to coordinate their messages.

Democrats pointed out that Clinton, a public figure for decades, has weathered numerous controversies in the past, and that it will be hard for any one issue to change perceptions of her so far ahead of the election, especially when Republicans are hitting her with so many separate criticisms.

Republican 2016 hopefuls speaking at the convention center aren’t trying to sway independents; they’re trying to excite the GOP base, and a stinger of a line about Clinton is worth the barrage of attention it will get.

True, these tawdry whores are trying to excite the lunatics of the GOP base, but they risk alienating women who may feel that Hillary s being beaten and trashed undeservedly simply because she is a strong woman.  What plays well with the Eagle Forum crowd may go down in flames with sane women, especially single working women. 

Religion as an Evil: Egypt's Anus Inspector

Ridiculous cretin "Dr." Louis

One has to wonder at times why the Abrahamic religions are so obsessed with sex and the suppression of what modern science and medical knowledge have found to be normal sexual activities and sexual orientations.  An obsession with homosexuality is found across conservative Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  And none of these "godly folk" will face the fact that (i) the Old Testament was written by ignorant goat herders and (ii) nowadays, Mohammed would have been likely committed to an insane asylum.  Islam, however, seems hell bent on winning the prize for the most bizarrely obsessed with all things gays. As BuzzFeed is reporting, in Egypt the police medical examiners actually inspect the anus of anyone suspected of homosexuality.  This reality makes the bitter old queens in dresses at the Vatican almost look rational.  Here are highlights on this sick, bizarre practice:

When asked to explain what Cairo’s medical inspectors look for when they examine someone who’s been arrested for homosexuality, Dr. Maged Louis picked up a pen and started sketching an oval with sharp points on both ends. 

“The shape of the hole will change,” he said. The anus “won’t be normal any more and will look like the female vagina.”

More than 150 people have been arrested on charges of homosexuality since President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took power just under two years ago, the largest roundup of alleged LGBT people in more than a decade in Egypt. Anal exams are a routine part of the investigation in such cases, and Louis has a role in overseeing all of them. He is the deputy director of the Justice Ministry’s Forensic Medical Authority, as well as the chief of forensic medicine for the Cairo police district.

“First we make them take the prostrate position — the position that Muslims take when they pray,” he said in an interview with BuzzFeed News. The tests are intended not just to determine whether someone has ever had anal sex, but also to detect “chronic homosexuals,” because the letter of Egyptian law only criminalizes men who engage in “habitual debauchery.” Louis said that he believed that in addition to their elongation, the anuses of “chronic homosexuals” also don’t clench when touched or don’t contract as tightly.  “A normal man’s anus can’t take more than one joint of the small finger,” he said. 

International human rights and medical experts dismissed Louis’s checklist as having “no medical basis” and being “categorically not true.” Most of those interviewed by BuzzFeed News couldn’t contain their shock before all of the criteria were listed.

“I think you heard my laugh — I think that says it all,” said Dr. Joel Palefsky, a professor at the University of California San Francisco specializing in anal cancer who is president of the International Anal Neoplasia Society. “We run a clinic where we do anal examinations of thousands of patients … Never in my 20 years of doing this have I seen an anus that looks like a vagina.”

The idea that inspectors are intentionally fabricating evidence because of their own homophobia isn’t what makes these exams so disturbing — though that does sometimes happen, according to defendants’ accounts. It’s that beliefs about homosexuality are leading doctors — some of whom have done extensive (and horrific) research into perfecting diagnostic techniques — to believe that what they are doing is science.

This insane drivel sounds like something the Nazis dreamed up about the Jews and skull size, etc.   I'm not sure where Dr. Louis got his supposed medical degree, but it needs to be revoked immediately.   The larger issue, of course, is why the USA continues to give billions of dollars to such retrograde regimes and why anyone gives any deference to the practitioners of such batshitery.

Even Right Wing New York Post Slams NRA and LaPierre - As Do Connecticut Authorities

You know things are bad PR wise for the NRA when even the far right New York Posts describes the NRA's LaPierre as a nut case.   One can only hope that by making its insane statements yesterday the NRA has finally succeeded in repulsing even many Republican political whore who in the past sold their integrity for NRA money.  Meanwhile, officials in Connecticut are piling on to condemn the NRA:

An article in Think Progress looks at the condemnation hitting the NRA from all sides in Connecticut.   Here are highlights:

Teachers, school superintendents, mayors and police chiefs in Connecticut are rejecting the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) response to the shooting in Newtown, describing the gun lobby’s proposal to equip schools with armed guards and more guns as too simplistic, shameful, and opportunistic.

One Connecticut school superintendent dismissed the NRA’s suggestion as “an ill-conceived reaction from an organization that does not have any credibility or expertise with respect to addressing school violence” and said that the idea “is an excuse for not addressing the need to enact meaningful safe gun legislation in conjunction with an investment in mental health services.” Putnam Police Chief Rick Hayes called the proposal “scary,” noting that teachers can’t possibly have the kind of training necessary to safely handle large weapons.

Senate Minority Leader John McKinney (R), whose district includes Sandy Hook Elementary School, called the proposal “ill-timed.” “I also don’t think his idea of undoing or repealing gun-free school zones is a good idea at all,” he said. “I’ve always understood, and believe, that our Second Amendment is an integral part of our Constitution, and people should have the right to bear arms … but I think we should have a fair conversation in this country about what the limits to those rights are.”

Tom Moore, assistant superintendent for administration for West Hartford schools, told the Hartford Courant that his district “won’t be taking our advice on how to keep kids safe from the president of the NRA.” He added, “I come from a family of hunters; I have four brothers who are hunters and members of the NRA. All I’ll be asking for for Christmas, after hearing Wayne LaPierre essentially blame school officials for the shootings, is for [my brothers] to resign from the NRA.”

In fact, newspaper headlines across the state flatly rejected militarizing Connecticut schools.

Sarah and Todd Palin's REAL Ties to Anti-Americans

The ever disingenuous Bible Spice Palin continues to tell lies about Barack Obama's alleged ties to terrorists yet conveniently forgets her husband's seven year love fest with Alaska Independence Party ("AIP") and/or her own past statements that she supports the party's principles - like breaking away from the USA? The women is despicable and proves herself more of a lying snake with each passing day. Now Salon has a lengthy article that looks at the Palin's ties to the AIP and one can only wonder why the MSM is not all over the issue. But then I forget, most in the MSM no longer have heard of the concept of investigative reporting. A reading of the Salon article makes it clear that it is Sarah Palin, not Barack Obama, who is out of touch with true mainstream American values. This woman is a nutcase and dangerous. Here are some highlights from the Salon story:

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Though [former Alaskan Independence Party chairman Mark] Chryson belongs to a fringe political party, one that advocates the secession of Alaska from the Union, and that organizes with other like-minded secessionist movements from Canada to the Deep South, he is not without peculiar influence in state politics, especially the rise of Sarah Palin. An obscure figure outside of Alaska, Chryson has been a political fixture in the hometown of the Republican vice-presidential nominee for over a decade. During the 1990s, when Chryson directed the AIP, he and another radical right-winger, Steve Stoll, played a quiet but pivotal role in electing Palin as mayor of Wasilla and shaping her political agenda afterward. Both Stoll and Chryson not only contributed to Palin's campaign financially, they played major behind-the-scenes roles in the Palin camp before, during and after her victory.

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Palin backed Chryson as he successfully advanced a host of anti-tax, pro-gun initiatives, including one that altered the state Constitution's language to better facilitate the formation of anti-government militias. She joined in their vendetta against several local officials they disliked, and listened to their advice about hiring. She attempted to name Stoll, a John Birch Society activist known in the Mat-Su Valley as "Black Helicopter Steve," to an empty Wasilla City Council seat. "Every time I showed up her door was open," said Chryson. "And that policy continued when she became governor."

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The AIP was born of the vision of "Old Joe" Vogler, a hard-bitten former gold miner who hated the government of the United States almost as much as he hated wolves and environmentalists. . . . . During a gubernatorial debate in 1982, Vogler proposed using nuclear weapons to obliterate the glaciers blocking roadways to Juneau. "There's gold under there!" he exclaimed. Vogler made another failed run for the governor's mansion in 1986. But the AIP's fortunes shifted suddenly four years later when Vogler convinced Richard Nixon's former interior secretary, Wally Hickel, to run for governor under his party's banner. Hickel coasted to victory.

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Hickel's subsequent failure as governor to press for a vote on Alaskan independence rankled Old Joe. With sponsorship from the Islamic Republic of Iran, Vogler was scheduled to present his case for Alaskan secession before the United Nations General Assembly in the late spring of 1993. But before he could, Old Joe's long, strange political career ended tragically that May when he was murdered by a fellow secessionist.

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"The AIP is very family-oriented," Chryson explained. "We're for the traditional family -- daddy, mommy, kids -- because we all know that it was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. And we don't care if Heather has two mommies. That's not a traditional family."

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"The Alaskan Independence Party has got links to almost every independence-minded movement in the world," Chryson exclaimed. "And Alaska is not the only place that's about separation. There's at least 30 different states that are talking about some type of separation from the United States." This has meant rubbing shoulders and forging alliances with outright white supremacists and far-right theocrats, particularly those who dominate the proceedings at such gatherings as the North American Secessionist conventions, which AIP delegates have attended in recent years.

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Another far-right organization with whom the AIP has long been aligned is Howard Phillips' militia-minded Constitution Party. The AIP has been listed as the Constitution Party's state affiliate since the late 1990s, and it has endorsed the Constitution Party's presidential candidates (Michael Peroutka and Chuck Baldwin) in the past two elections. The Constitution Party boasts an openly theocratic platform that reads, "It is our goal to limit the federal government to its delegated, enumerated, Constitutional functions and to restore American jurisprudence to its original Biblical common-law foundations." . . . . In Wasilla, the AIP became powerful by proxy -- because of Chryson and Stoll's alliance with Sarah Palin.

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In 1994, Sarah Palin attended the AIP's statewide convention. In 1995, her husband, Todd, changed his voter registration to AIP. Except for an interruption of a few months, he would remain registered was an AIP member until 2002, when he changed his registration to undeclared. In 1996, Palin decided to run against John Stein as the Republican candidate for mayor of Wasilla. While Palin pushed back against Stein's policies, particularly those related to funding public works, Chryson said he and Steve Stoll prepared the groundwork for her mayoral campaign.

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While Palin played up her total opposition to the sales tax and gun control -- the two hobgoblins of the AIP -- mailers spread throughout the town portraying her as "the Christian candidate," a subtle suggestion that Stein, who is Lutheran, might be Jewish.

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By Chryson's account, he and Palin also worked hand-in-glove to slash property taxes and block a state proposal that would have taken money for public programs from the Permanent Fund Dividend, or the oil and gas fund that doles out annual payments to citizens of Alaska. Palin endorsed Chryson's unsuccessful initiative to move the state Legislature from Juneau to Wasilla.

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Chryson says the door remains open now that Palin is governor. (Palin's office did not respond to Salon's request for an interview.) While Palin has been more circumspect in her dealings with groups like the AIP as she has risen through the political ranks, she has stayed in touch. When Palin ran for governor in 2006, marketing herself as a fresh-faced reformer determined to crush the GOP's ossified power structure, she made certain to appear at the AIP's state convention. To burnish her maverick image, she also tapped one-time AIP member and born-again Republican Walter Hickel as her campaign co-chair.

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But whether the Palins participated directly in shaping the AIP's program is less relevant than the extent to which they will implement that program. Chryson and his allies have demonstrated just as much interest in grooming major party candidates as they have in putting forward their own people. At a national convention of secessionist groups in 2007, AIP vice chairman Dexter Clark announced that his party would seek to "infiltrate" the Democratic and Republican parties with candidates sympathetic to its hard-right, secessionist agenda. "You should use that tactic. You should infiltrate," Clark told his audience of neo-Confederates, theocrats and libertarians. "Whichever party you think in that area you can get something done, get into that party. Even though that party has its problems, right now that is the only avenue."

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Now, Palin is a household name and her every move is scrutinized by the Washington press corps. She can no longer afford to kibitz with secessionists, however instrumental they may have been to her meteoric ascendancy. This does not trouble her old AIP allies. Indeed, Chryson is hopeful that Palin's inauguration will also represent the start of a new infiltration. "I've had my issues but she's still staying true to her core values," Chryson concluded. "Sarah's friends don't all agree with her, but do they respect her? Do they respect her ideology and her values? Definitely."

Palin's Alternate Universe

Bob Herbert has a column in yesterday's New York Times that looks at the frightening lunacy of Sarah Palin and her fellow Kool-Aid drinkers in the GOP base. It is obvious why anyone with a brain and capable of logical thinking patterns finds the woman down right scary - I certainly do - since she seems to have no connect with reality. Reality is whatever she thinks and feels with no need to look at objective facts. If she doesn't like a question posed to her, she just pretends something else was asked of her. I suspect that much of this phenomenon comes from her crazy religious background which believes that the earth is 6000 years old, that man and dinosaurs lived on the earth together, and that one can "pray away the gay." Science, medical facts, etc., mean absolutely nothing to the woman. The thought of someone like Palin potentially ending up as president of the United States ought to give everyone the world over cold sweats. In my view, Sarah Palin represents a clear and present danger to the nation and the world. She needs to remain nothing more than a hockey mom. Here are some highlights from Herbert's column.

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Sarah Palin is the perfect exclamation point to the Bush years. We’ve lived through nearly two terms of an administration that believed it could create its own reality: “Deficits don’t matter.” “Brownie, you’re doing a heckuva job.” “Those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere.” . . . Now comes Ms. Palin, a smiling, bubbly vice-presidential candidate who travels in an alternate language universe. For Ms. Palin, such things as context, syntax and the proximity of answers to questions have no meaning.

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In her closing remarks at the vice-presidential debate Thursday night, Ms. Palin referred earnestly, if loosely, to a quote from Ronald Reagan. He had warned that if Americans weren’t vigilant in protecting their freedom, they would find themselves spending their “sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was like in America when men were free.” What Ms. Palin didn’t say was that the menace to freedom that Reagan was talking about was Medicare. Does Ms. Palin agree with that Looney Tunes notion? Or was this just another case of the aw-shucks, darn-right, I’m-just-a-hockey-mom governor of Alaska mouthing something completely devoid of meaning?

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This is such a serious moment in American history that it’s hard to believe that someone with Ms. Palin’s limited skills could possibly be playing a leadership role. On the day before the debate, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, made an urgent appeal for more troops, saying the additional “boots on the ground,” as well as more helicopters and other vital equipment, were “needed as quickly as possible.”

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The nation lost nearly 160,000 jobs in September, more than double the monthly losses in July and August. Conditions are probably worse than even those numbers indicate because the government’s statistics do not yet reflect the response of employers to the credit crisis that has taken such a hold in the last few weeks. Where is the evidence that Governor Palin even understands these complex and enormously challenging problems? During the debate she twice referred to General McKiernan as “McClellan.” Neither Ms. Ifill nor Senator Biden corrected her.

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The credit markets are frozen. Our top general in Afghanistan is dialing 911. Americans are losing jobs by the scores of thousands. And Sarah Palin is making sure we know that the chant is “drill, baby, drill!” not “drill, drill, drill.”

AFA Announces Boycott of McDonalds

It would seem that Don Wildmon and the American Family Association - why is it I sense that the "F" in AFA would seem more appropriate if it stood for "fanatics" - must be in dire need of a reason for the news media to mention him/the organization. Hence the new boycott announcement, this time aimed at McDonalds. Like past boycotts that have failed utterly - even though the AFA always in its special delusional way claims victory - this one no doubt will cause barely a ripple for McDonalds. In fact, it might prompt me and others who normally avoid McDonalds to stop by once in a while. Meanwhile, Wildmon has provided plenty of fodder for articles rightfully trashing his organization. A great example is Chris Kelly's hilarious column at the Huffington Post. Make sure you go to the article and read the comments posted by freepers. Here are some highlights:

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There's at least one good reason to like McDonald's: They're being boycotted by the American Family Association. What did McDonald's do to cross the AFA, its president, Donald Wildmon, and -- by extension -- Jesus (R-Nz.)? They donated $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. McDonald's' revenue runs about five billion dollars a quarter, so you can see their profound commitment to destroying the family through sodomy.

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The AFA says that by donating one thousandth of one percent of its 2007 earnings, "McDonald's has chosen not to remain neutral but to give the full weight of their corporation to promoting the homosexual agenda."

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It feels a little like the American Family Association was looking for someone to boycott and it was just McDonald's' turn. They've already boycotted Sears, Kohl's, Kmart, Target, Old Navy and IKEA. As a result, they're naked and don't have anywhere to sit. The McDonald's boycott follows boycotts of Burger King, Carl's Jr., 7-11, Proctor & Gamble and Kraft, which means Donald Wildmon hasn't eaten anything for sale in America since the late '70s. You'd think he'd be dead, but no.

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But McDonald's might want to think about the kind of customers they're losing. They appear to be lunatics. . . . I just had a thought -- honest to God, I swear this wasn't where I was heading with this thing; I was just going to make a lot of snotty remarks about reductio ad absurdum and the McFaddin Family's feet -- but it occurs to me that McDonald's has done something brilliant: They've deliberately offended a demographic they don't want.

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For just $20,000, they've chased off all the crazy people who hang around McDonald's sputtering and ranting and making me not want to eat there.

Hampton Roads' Local Embarrassment, Pat Robertson Makes Prophesies

Why can't this buffoon simply keep his mouth shut? The Virginian Pilot is reporting (http://hamptonroads.com/2008/01/pat-robertson-predicts-violence%2C-recession-2008) that local blow hard and Christianist, Pat Robertson, is running his mouth with predictions for 2008 notwithstanding that his record for 2007 was not so good. Every time this man speaks I cringe at having him connected to this area. Thank God most news reports generally reference Virginia Beach as his location rather than Norfolk. I cannot believe having this man or Regent University is a positive when the local economic development teams go out seeking to recruit progressive business to relocate to the area. As for his predictions, I think I could safely make some of them with no need to consult God. Amazingly, he apparently did not blame gays for any predicted misfortunes in the coming year. Here are highlights from the Pilot's coverage:

Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson acknowledged today that his prophecy of a nuclear terror attack in 2007 failed to unfold, but said God has told him a recession will hit the nation this year. Robertson cited information from God when he predicted on Jan. 2 last year that major American cities would be hit by "very serious terrorist attacks" causing "possibly millions" of deaths. No such catastrophe occurred. "All I can think is that somehow the people of God prayed, and God in his mercy spared us," Robertson said on "The 700 Club," a television show he hosts on the Christian Broadcasting Network, based in Virginia Beach.

Predicting the future based on what he says God tells him is an annual tradition for Robertson, who customarily spends the last days of each year in prayer. Today, Robertson implied that God informed him whom voters will elect president in November.

"He told me some things about the election, but I'm not going to say because some old man on '60 Minutes' would make fun of me, so I'm not going to tell you who the winner's going to be," Robertson said. He said oil would reach $150 a barrel -- the price hit $100 today -- with the dollar continuing to lose value in 2008.

"I also believe the Lord was saying by 2009, maybe 2010, there's going to be a major stock market crash," said Robertson, who is a millionaire businessman as well as an evangelical leader. Additionally, "the Lord was saying there's going to be violence and chaos in the world," Robertson said. He cited violence in Kenya and Pakistan, saying "we've just begun to see what's going to happen."