God, Rape, Reason, and the Senate

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Yesterday, Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock made the mistake of discussing his religious views about rape and pregnancy.   He said,  “I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen”.

God intended for that particular pregnancy to occur   …the pregnancy that resulted from a brutal and violent act.  The joining of that particular monster and that particular victim was a necessary antecedent to the pregnancy.  One cannot say that God intended that pregnancy to happen without implying that the necessary antecedent to the pregnancy was part of God’s plan as well.

When more logical people than Mourdock pointed this out, he said,   ”Are you trying to suggest that somehow I think that God pre-ordained rape? No, I don’t think that. That’s sick. Twisted. That’s not even close to what I said.”

Yes Richard, it is sick and twisted.  And it is also an unavoidable implication of your foolish statement.

When Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin expressed his opinion that a woman’s body has a protection that does not allow women to get pregnant after “legitimate rapes”,  he didn’t bring the intentions of God into it.  It was simple, abysmal ignorance.

These two foolish statements by Senate candidates made me think of the ancient concept of trial by ordeal.  Trial by ordeal took many forms, but the general idea was that something horrible would be done to you, and if you survived, that was God’s indication that you were innocent. The “trial” could involve things like fire, water or poison.

For example, if you were thrown into deep water with a weight around your neck, God could save you or not.  His choice.  Whatever happened to you was taken as an indication of a supernatural judgement.  That’s something like getting raped and being told it’s all part of God’s wonderful plan if you get pregnant.

This year, I would vote for either of these men.  We must take the Senate to have any chance at all of avoiding disaster.  But if Republicans have too many of these irrational men as a weight around their neck, they will sink as a political party.

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Another analogy to Medeival thinking is the following:  Medical treatment was opposed on the theory that it was interference with God’s will.  Getting sick and dying were part of God’s plan for you and you had no business trying to interfere with His plan.  Acceptance and suffering was said to be the noble way to go.

It’s Not Like She Is Trying To Run For President…

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The front page of CNN.com ran the following story this morning:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/23/living/ann-coulter-obama-tweet/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Shock-commentator Ann Coulter used the r-word when describing Obama on Twitter.  Imagine that…  People like Ann Coulter, Bill Maher, and Chris Matthews keep their ratings high with provocative statements that go well beyond the bounds of what are socially acceptable levels of insensitivity, racism, and scathing sexism.  Though reprehensible, it is not like they are trying to run for public office…

Can you imagine someone like Romney or Obama making fun of people with special needs?  Just in case you can’t, it would look something like this:

How interesting that the press is running stories about how insensitive a right-wing commentator is, rather than how “people” on the public stage should be more cognizant of those with special needs.  Ms. Coulter should be honored that they hold her to a higher standard than they do the President of the United States.

Calmly, Comfortably and With Great Self Assurance

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There is a scene in an old movie that is a perfect mataphor for much of modern politics.  The 1967 movie, “A Guide for the Married Man” , is a series of vignettes illustrating how a man can cheat on his wife without getting caught.  An important part of the story, of course, is how to lie effectively.  In the classic scene, Joey Bishop is in bed with another woman when his wife walks into the bedroom.  Watch the technic here…

You lie calmly and comfortably.  You lie with great self-assurance.  You deny reality.  Deny, deny, deny.

Sound familiar?  Do you know anyone whose name starts with O who is an absolute master of this technic?

I think of this scene quite often, in its political context, and assumed I was the only one who did.  I was wrong.  Dorothy Rabinowitz referenced the scene in her Sunday column in the Wall Street Journal.  Read it here.

Idiocracy Comes to Politics…

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Idiocracy is a cult movie by Writer/Director Mike Judge that described the future consequences of a society where natural selection is reversed and idiots out-breed the smart people.  The premise becomes unsettling as we learn the TV ratings of shows like Jersey Shore and Honey Boo Boo. However, we can easily dismiss entertainment as a cheap thrill that doesn’t necessarily indicate the IQ level of the viewer.  We’ve all been sucked into programming we are not proud of.  There is no reason to take it seriously…

So, how do we explain away MSNBC? I don’t believe that the network is billing itself as the sensationalist circus of morons that it is, so people may actually be taking them seriously.  Having watched a few episodes of Jersey Shore (truth comes out), I can’t say I’ve seen anything more pathetic or ignorant than the following video:

It almsot feels dirty debunking what is said on MSNBC, like Warren Sapp would feel playing in a pee-wee football game. Not only do Mormons serve in the military, the FBI and CIA are famously full of them… Just when you think the ignorant lowlife couldn’t get more pathetic, O’Donnell goes on to insult Tagg Romney’s name and challenge him to a fight. Let that one sink in: This is a 60 year old journalist who pulls 1.5 million viewers a night challenging someone to a fight and insulting his NAME!

O’Donnell isn’t an anomoly on the network. Here is one of his collegues on the network:

Chris Matthews either believes that he lives in a banana republic, or he thinks that his viewers are really dumb enough to buy that the constitution restricts the first amendment when addressing the president in a debate.

I could fill pages of this website with distortions and non-sequitors presented daily by O’Donnell, Matthews, Bashir, Sharpton, Hayes, and Shultz.  It really begs the question: Who is taking these idiots seriously?

Tis the Season for Selling Lies

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Peter Farrara’s recent column in Forbes is a superb expos’e of some of the major lies that comprise the bulk of Obama’s campaign rhetoric.  It is a deceitful and divisive campaign that relies on the ignorance of his prospective voters.  A case can be made that some of the lies are really a reflection of the economic ignorance of the President himself, and therefore not technically lies … though still not excusable.  Read it and see what your think.   Here is an excerpt:

But the Obama fallacy most harmful to the nation, perpetuated in the debate, is the fundamentally false narrative and conception regarding the American tax system: that the rich do not pay their fair share.  The truth is that the rich pay more than their fair share, particularly in regard to federal income taxes, where upper income earners pay, in fact, essentially all of the federal income tax burden.

The CBO reported earlier this year that in 2009, the year Obama entered office, the top 1% of income earners paid 39% of all federal income taxes, while earning just 13% of the income.  That was more than double the 17.6% of federal individual income taxes paid by the top 1% when President Reagan entered office in 1981.

CBO further reported that in 2009 the top 20% of income earners, those earning more than $74,000, paid 94% of federal individual income taxes.  That was 85% more, almost double, the share of national income they earned.

In sharp contrast, in that same year, the middle 20% of income earners, the true middle class, paid 2.7% of total federal individual income taxes on net, while earning 15% of before-tax income.  And the bottom 40% of income earners, instead of paying some income taxes to support the federal government, were paid by the IRS cash equal to 10% of federal individual income taxes on net.

That means altogether the bottom 60% of income earners, which includes the middle class, paid less than 0% of total federal individual income taxes as a group on net.  Instead, as a group, they received cash payments from the IRS on net.

Given these indisputable facts, it is preposterous for President Obama to be promoting his false narrative regarding federal income tax burdens, not only during this campaign, but during his entire Presidency. He is misleading the country, and stirring up false resentments.

Even looking at all federal taxes, and not just the predominant income taxes, the story is the same…..

Read the whole thing here.

 

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Here’s more proof of what happens when politicians make economic decisions rather than leaving investment decisions to free markets, with private money at risk.  As with similar stories posted here, politicians first make grandiose claims, …..then reality is up to bat….

  Wasting Money by the Millions 

And,

 Here’s a list of 36 “green” companies that lost thousands of millions of taxpayer dollars

That’s a lot of green.

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Just for Fun…

Romney’s comedy routine at a charity fundraiser last night was definitely worth seeing.  It will surprise you…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QsSzkCgcBtU#!

Completely Unfounded and Preposterous

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Libyan President Mohammed el-Megarif said of the Benghazi attack,

“The idea that this criminal and cowardly act was a spontaneous protest that just spun out of control is completely unfounded and preposterous.”…

This is how you were lied to:

It is a fact that the U.S. had real-time information about the attack. We were on the phone, live, with the consulate for hours as the attack unfolded. We had live pictures. Surviving witnesses described the attack in detail the next day. There was no “demonstration” prior to the attack. A witness said it was completely calm and quiet outside the consulate before the terrorist attack.

Our government knew what happened. They lied about it. They are still lying about it, but the story is unraveling.  [Update:  Last night, appropriately on the Comedy Channel, the President said this about the Libya story:  “Every piece of information that we get, as we got it, we laid it out to the American people.”  Read the interview below to see what a preposterous lie that is.]

Colonel David Hunt was interviewed by Howie Carr, shortly after the Biden debate where Biden blamed the false story on an intelligence failure. Hunt discusses the lies and describes the elaborate security monitoring system that informed the Administration about what was happening in Libya as it was happening. Here is the transcript of that interview:

Carr: Colonel Hunt, thanks for being with us again today. What did you think when you heard Joseph Biden talking ragtime right out of the box last night?
HUNT – The second time in my public career I get to call a public figure a liar — that’s what I thought. Joseph Biden, right off the bat, lied.

He said that what happened in Libya recently… The administration looked so inept is because of an intelligence failure.

Howie, When Pakistan blew up an atomic bomb, and we didn’t know about it, that was an intelligence failure. When 9/11 happened, that was an intelligence failure. When India blew up an atomic bomb and we didn’t know about it, that was an intelligence failure.

When the Iraqi military lined up on the Kuwaiti border, and we didn’t see it coming – didn’t know they were attacking until they did it, that’s an intelligence failure.

This is a flat leadership problem.

What happened is that a woman named Lamb, Undersecretary of State for DSS (Department of State Security), 2 days ago, told Issa’s committee that she listened, was talking to, and recorded an almost six hour fight that resulted in the death of four Americans. She was at the State Department’s Operations Center in Foggy Bottom in DC.

When that happens, there are a bunch of people that get informed. President of the US gets found—- the embassy is being attacked—Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Director of CIA, and on and on. Continue reading →

You May Wonder…

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You may wonder why Obama mostly gives speeches on college campuses.  Wonder no longer…

With people like that, there is just no reason not to run the same scam the second time and see if it works:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZgQhnNRSuw

 

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Some things worth knowing:

Kevin Williamson, at NRO, soberly assesses Romneys situation if he becomes captain of the sinking ship:

…Winning will be no bed of roses, either: The economic growth rate in January 2013 probably will be approaching zero, our international standing has been diminished by Obama’s clumsiness and timidity, and our fiscal position is untenable. Romney is working very hard to secure for himself a big box of insoluble problems.

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Welfare spending tops a trillion a year.  Senator Jeff Sessions reports on a recent study of spending:

“The results are staggering. The Congressional Research Service identified 83 overlapping federal welfare programs that together represented the single largest budget item in 2011—more than the nation spends on Social Security, Medicare, or national defense. The total amount spent on these 80-plus federal welfare programs amounts to roughly $1.03 trillion. Importantly, these figures solely refer to means-tested welfare benefits. They exclude entitlement programs to which people contribute (e.g., Social Security and Medicare).”

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If poverty was simply a question of wealth redistribution, the sheer amount of dollars spent since the not-so-Great Society programs of the 1960s should have resolved the problem. In 2011, Peter Ferrara calculated that “total welfare spending [in 2008] . . . amounted to $16,800 per person in poverty, 4 times as much as the Census Bureau estimated was necessary to bring all of the poor up to the poverty level, eliminating all poverty in America. That would be $50,400 per poor family of three.

And welfare spending has risen 32% in the last 4 years, so the figures are now much worse.  This cancer will kill us if it is not controlled.  Believe it or not, there are people who view this as a very good thing.  Just Google Cloward and Piven and read the first few entries.  Obama taught the Cloward and Piven strategy in Chicago.

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“For Every 1 Person Added To Labor Force Since January 2009,” the chart reads, “10 People Added To Those Not In Labor Force.”

That is, in nearly the four years, since President Obama took office in January 2009, only 827,000 people have been added to the labor force, while during that same time period, 8,208,000 have been added to those not in the labor force.

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Mark Steyn has a good column about Who’s Politicizing Benghazi?

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A man named Mohammad was arrested for plotting to set off a bomb near the world trade center.  He said he wanted to help destroy America so that Muslims “could be one step closer to run the whole world.”  That is the goal of Jihad, folks.  It is a supremacist ideology like Nazism.

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