Last Call

As I've said before, the chief goal of Republicans now is to do everything they can to punish the Minority Majority in an effort to peel off voters.  Odious human carbuncle Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association wants a national 'clamp down' on Latino voters, who overwhelmingly voted for President Obama and the Democrats last week.

“Hispanics are not Democrats, don’t vote Democrat because of immigration,” the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer said in video posted by Right Wing Watch on Tuesday. “It has to do with the fact that they are socialists by nature. They come from Mexico, which is a socialist country. They want big government intervention, they want big government goodies.”

“Now they want open borders — make no mistake — because they’ve got family and friends that they want to come up and be able to benefit from the plunder of the wealth of the United States, just as they have been able to do.”

He continued: “Republicans can pander all they want to Hispanics, to immigrants and it will not work. There is no way on Earth you care going to get them to leave the Democratic Party. It’s one reason we got to clamp down on immigration.”

Odds of a comprehensive immigration deal?  Zero. Stop kidding yourself, America.  Racist white supremacist assholes like Fischer will continue to beat the Republican Party up until they're the only ones left.

The only way to move forward at this point?  Democrats must take back control of the House.

Also They Are Responsible For Unimaginably Horrendous Cootie Rampages

Congress really does need to pass some sort of law that selects an American in a process like jury duty and gives them a foam bat to smack the hell out of people when they say completely moronic crap like this.

Bryan Fischer, the "Director of Issues Analysis" for the conservative Christian group the American Family Association, wrote on his blog this week that gays -- not Julian Assange -- are responsible for the thousands of government documents released by Assange's WikiLeaks.

More specifically, Fischer assumes that the alleged WikiLeaks source Private Bradley Manning was "at minimum" seriously confused about his sexuality. He then really stretches things when he suggests that Manning leaked the documents to wage war on the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.

In Fischer's own words:

Regardless, he is a one-man argument for keeping open homosexuals from serving in the military in the first place. If the 1993 law - which flatly prohibits homosexuals from a place in the armed services - had been followed, there would be no PFC Bradley Manning and no WikiLeaks.

Apparently Fischer isn't the only one who feels this way. Ann Coulter also wrote last week that Manning's supposed homosexuality is to blame for his alleged decision to leak the documents, calling him a "poster boy" for Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

To recap, the only possible motive Bradley Manning could have to leak things to Julian Assange and company is...he's gay.  Because everyone who thinks DADT should be repealed is secretly gay, obviously.

You know, two-thirds of America. All of them, closet cases.

Also, cooties that can completely disable the most powerful military on earth.

The mind of a wingnut is a frightening place.  That probably explains why they work so hard to change the world around them to match.  I'm really kind of disappointed it wasn't somehow our seekrit mooslim Kenyan dictator's fault, you know?

Values-Added Stupidity

The annual Values Voter Summit continues this weekend in Washington DC, with the creme' de la creme' of the wingnut elite spouting epic levels of hate along with Mitt's veep choice.  Friday was everything you expected from the Obama Derangement Conference, headed by the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer.  But the conference quickly turned into a circular firing squad as Mitt Romney's crash and burn routine continued.

“If Barack Obama wins this election the Republican Party as we know it is finished, it is dead, it is toast — you can stick a fork in it,” he told TPM Friday at the Values Voter Summit in Washington. “And conservatives, grassroots conservatives, are either going to start a third party or they are going to launch a hostile takeover of the Republican Party.”

Fischer said he believed Romney would be leading national polls by double digits at this point if he had followed Paul Ryan’s lead and offered more detailed conservative positions on the budget and social issues.

“The biggest mistake is they put a bag over Paul Ryan’s head,” he said. Fischer said he was “deeply disturbed” that Ryan didn’t mention the campaign’s opposition to gay marriage in his speech to the summit on Friday.

Ryan spent his speech time saying the most important issue in the election was making abortion illegal in all cases.

“‘We’re all in this together’ — it has a nice ring,” Ryan said. “For everyone who loves this country, it is not only true but obvious. Yet how hollow it sounds coming from a politician who has never once lifted a hand to defend the most helpless and innocent of all human beings, the child waiting to be born.”

Ryan, who believes that abortion should be outlawed even in cases of rape and incest, cast Obama as an abortion extremist in the speech.

“President Obama has chosen to pander to the most extreme elements of his party,” Ryan said. “In the Clinton years, the stated goal was to make abortion ‘safe, legal and rare.’ But that was a different time, and a different president. Now, apparently, the Obama-Biden ticket stands for an absolute, unqualified right to abortion — at any time, under any circumstances, and even at taxpayer expense.”

PS, that includes outlawing contraception, too, folks.  Of course, the day wouldn't have been complete without entertainment, ranging from "former Islamist terrorist who found Jesus" Kamal Saleem...

“I started working for whoever paid the best to advance Islamism.” he said, pacing back and forth onstage. “Saddam Hussein pays better money than anybody else. He was very generous.”

If Saleem’s story sounds unbelievable it’s because there’s little sign any of it ever happened. News investigations into his past haven’t turned up any corroborating evidence of his terrorist resume, but they’ve found plenty of former colleagues and acquaintances who doubt the veracity of Saleem’s autobiographical details.

For one, Mother Jones reports Saleem, real name Khodor Shami, spent over a decade before his “ex-terrorist” act as a staffer at Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. And despite Saleem’s claims that the FBI relies on him for insight into jihadist thinking, they claim they’ve never heard of him. A 2008 expose by CNN’s Anderson Cooper found similar holes in his story, which paralleled other equally dubious figures making their living off the “ex-terrorist” talk circuit. 

...to professional racist dog-whistler Gary Bauer.

Conservative pundit Gary Bauer, the former president of the Family Research Council, which puts on the Values Voter Summit each year, told the crowd at the 2012 conference Friday that it needs to turn out in great numbers to defeat President Obama’s army of welfare recipients and fraudulent votes.

After his speech, Bauer told TPM “voter fraud is rampant in urban areas” and he expected that to help Obama.

Bauer also told TPM that “there are a lot of people who will vote this November because they depend on government largesse,” meaning checks from Washington. He expects those voters to go Obama as well.

“They will vote for their own perceived interests, which is they don’t want anybody cutting back the size of the checks,” Bauer said.

Yep, because we black people are just stupid, stupid negroes stuck on Obama's plantation.  Bauer didn't have a lick of evidence, but racism, chicanery, fear and facism is all the GOP has left, folks.

They're done.

Last Call

Next time you hear "There's no difference between Romney and Obama on LGBT issues!" from someone, recall this story about how the largest anti-gay group in the GOP is vowing to destroy Mitt Romney over having a gay person on his staff.

A leading anti-gay figure in the Republican Party attacked Governor Mitt Romney for hiring an openly gay spokesman, sending a shot from the GOP's socially-conservative base across the nominee's bow.

Bryan Fischer, the director of issue analysis for the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association, is probably the most straightforwardly anti-gay Republican to appear regularly in the party's mainstream. Presidential candidates including Rick Santorum have appeared on his radio show, and he spoke at the Values Voter Summit in Washington in October.

He responded yesterday to Romney's decision to hire an openly-gay — "out & loud gay," in Fischer's terms — foreign policy spokesman, Richard Grenell by calling it a "message to the pro-family community" of "drop dead."

You have a choice in November if you believe as I do that gay rights are human rights.  Here's a hint: the Republican Party is the wrong one.

Unholier Than Thou

Digby has an excellent reader on Bryan Fischer, the latest subterranean scuzzbag talk-radio lout Christian Dominionist to be dug up by the Tea Party in an attempt to sound the dog whistle on Obama.  This guy is turning into the new go to religious loudmouth for the winger right.  Here's a sample of his teachings:

The Scriptures clearly instruct wives, "Submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord" (Ephesians 5:22). The word "submit" is comprised of two Greek words, one of which means "under" and the other of which means "to set" or "to arrange." So a wife is instructed to arrange herself, put herself, set herself, under the leadership of her husband in the home.

What's critical to understand here is that there is no verse in the Bible that instructs a husband to see to it that his wife submits to him. This is a matter between a wife and her Lord, not between a wife and her husband. It is not her husband who is asking her to submit, it is God. It is a matter of reverence for Christ rather than for her husband that prompts her to voluntarily arrange herself under her husband's leadership.

It is a gift that she gives to her husband, not a right that he demands. She demonstrates her reverence for Christ by not challenging her husband's leadership in their home but by supporting him and working with him to help him succeed in shaping and directing the life of their marriage and family.

How does a husband submit himself to his wife? As Webster reminds us, husbands are told to "love your wives, as Christ love the church and gave himself up for her" (Ephesians 5:25). That is, he submits himself to his wife by refusing to use his headship simply as an excuse to get his own way, or as a cloak for his own selfishness. He submits himself to his wife by making a determination to use the authority God has given him in his home to give his wife and children what they need rather than to get what he wants.

Marriage is not and can never be a democracy. Somebody has to have the tie-breaking vote when the poll reveals a one-to-one tie. In a Christian marriage, the husband is the tie breaker. The way it is designed to work is that a wife willingly defers to her husband on those rare occasions when they cannot agree on a course of action, and the husband makes the decision that his conscience tells him is best, not for himself, but for her, their marriage, and their home.

If a husband believes before God that the best decision in a given situation is different than the one his wife prefers, he does not order her to follow him, he asks her. The decision is then up to her. He's not forcing her to do anything. He leaves the issue squarely where it belongs, between her and her God.

If you have a problem with a Christian view of marriage, fine. Don't become a Christian then. Nobody is going to make you, again unlike Islam where the choice is convert or die. But if you do decide to follow Christ, his instructions regarding marriage are clear.

And that's fine for a personal belief between a husband and wife, as all faith should be that:  personal.  I'd never buy into any of this myself, but that's my choice as well.  It's when these tenets are espoused by politicians as the preferred religion of the land that this starts to become a problem.  It's when you believe that the politicians running the country should and need to be guided by beliefs like this that I have a problem with.  You get this kind of thing into national politics and the laws I have to follow as an American, and then we have issues.

Do read Digby's article, there's a lot more on Fischer's odious beliefs on Islam, gays, and the occasional but necessary practice of stoning women.

This Week In GOP Pants On Fire Lies

This week's PolitiFact Pants on Fire Liar?  GOp Presidential...umm..."hopeful" Herman Cain.

 

On "The Glenn Beck Program" radio show May 24, the Republican presidential hopeful tried to rebut accusations that in March he said he would not appoint Muslims to Cabinet positions or federal judgeships in a potential Cain administration.

"I did not say that I would not have them in my Cabinet. Because if you look at my career, I have hired good people regardless of race, religion, sex, gender or orientation and this sort of thing," Cain told Beck.  

Only one problem.  Three, actually.  Herman Cain indeed said he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet, and said it three separate times.

He said it here to Think Progress:



He said it again to our old pal Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association on Fischer's show:



And he said it a third time to Neil Cavuto on FOX.



Three times Herman Cain clearly said he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet, and he went on in those instances to explain exactly why:

"And based upon the little knowledge that I have of the Muslim religion, you know, they have an objective to convert all infidels or kill them," Cain said.

But he's not a bigot.

"No, I will not," Cain replied. "And here’s why. There is this creeping attempt, there’s this attempt to gradually ease Sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government. It does not belong in our government."

But remember, not a bigot.

"A reporter asked me ‘Would I appoint a Muslim to my administration?’ I did say ‘no,’ " Cain told Cavuto.

"And here’s why ... I would have to have people totally committed to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. And many of the Muslims, they’re not totally dedicated to this country," he said.  

And you're the bigot if you think Hermain Cain has an irrational hatred of Muslims.  He's totally qualified for President with statements like this.


New tag:  Herman Cain Is Just Misunderstood.

Hangin' In the Clubhouse

The GOP '12 crowd is hanging out at the Values Voters Summit in DC today, where the Republican hopefuls get to kiss the ring of the Dominionist right.  This year's VVS is no exception.

All the big boys from the moral side of things are here: Bill Bennett, Gary Bauer, Liberty University Law Dean Mat Staver (perhaps best known for telling Newsweek just after the 2008 election that President Obama is not the anti-Christ, but he "can see how others might" think he is), Sean Hannity, Phyllis Schlafly, anti-abortion heartthrob Lila Rose, the xenophobic Bryan Fischer and many, many more are scheduled to speak. Of course the star is FRC's president Tony Perkins, the man who keeps hope alive for the moral warriors of the right, batting down any chance that the GOP will shift too far away from it's traditional, religious-moral core.

And despite the tea party's public arm's-length distance from social issues out on the campaign trail, virtually all of it' political stars will be glimmering from the podium, including the newest and brightest star of the week, Delaware Republican Senate nominee Christine O'Donnell. She'll be joined by tea party heavyweights Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) and wannabe tea party heavyweight Newt Gingrich. Other political contenders scheduled to appear include Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. 

And that's the important part of all this.  This event is to show the Tea Party that they need the Dominionists, and the Dominionists need to show the Tea Party faithful that they are behind them as well.  It's full and complete integration of The Crazy into the Republican Party here, and it will all be on display this weekend.

Should be as depressing as it is hysterical.

Rand Paul: Gordian Knothead

My junior senator's logic causes me actual, physical pain at times.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who describes himself as a libertarian, said Wednesday that he opposed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) because it could unintentionally result in same-sex marriage becoming legal.

“I believe in traditional marriage,” he said during an interview with Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association. “I really don’t understand any other kind of marriage. Between a man and a woman is what I believe in, and I just don’t think it is good for us to change the definition of that.”

Paul noted that his state, Kentucky, had approved a constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage. He said he was “not sure” about DOMA, but warned the federal law could result in conservatives losing “the battle for the whole country.”

Paul said marriage rights should be decided state-by-state rather than nationally so that “urban centers” couldn’t dictate the law.

To recap, Mr. Small Government here seems to think that it's not only good but completely necessary for the government to define what marriage is and then enforce it.   The guy is totally okay with legislating his beliefs on other people, but only at the state level, so that nobody in the federal government can tell him he's wrong to do so.  This makes him a "Libertarian".

It makes hm a moron, too.  Sadly, as I mentioned, it also makes him my representation in Washington DC.

This makes me sadder than you will ever, ever know.

Overreaction Attraction Action

Here's what opponents of DADT repeal say will happen as a result of today's vote.  Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association predicts the end of America:

Character-driven officers and chaplains will eventually be forced out of the military en masse, potential recruits will stay away in droves, and re-enlistments will eventually drop like a rock.

The draft will return with a vengeance and out of necessity. What young man wants to voluntarily join an outfit that will force him to shower naked with males who have a sexual interest in him and just might molest him while he sleeps in his bunk?

This isn’t a game, and the military should never be used, as is now being done, for massive social re-engineering. The new Marine motto: “The Few, the Proud, the Sexually Twisted.” Good luck selling that to strong young males who would otherwise love to defend their country. What virile young man wants to serve in a military like that?

If the president and the Democrats wanted to purposely weaken and eventually destroy the United States of America, they could not have picked a more efficient strategy to make it happen.

Rarely can you point to a moment in time when a nation consigned itself to the scrap heap of history. Today, when the Senate normalized sexual perversion in the military, was that moment for the United States. If historians want a fixed marker pointing to the instant the United States sealed its own demise, they just found it.

Quite interesting.  Well, by that "logic" anyone who doesn't immediately signal their intent to quit the military must be a closet case lurking with the intent to destroy America with gay sex.  I wonder how long it will take before the Right Wing declares war on the Pentagon?  Will they defund the Defense Department to stop men showing either other their rifles?  Will the Republicans introduce legislation to stop women hiding in the bush?  Will our now eternally tainted military become Pubic Enemy #1.

How long before Republicans sing the praises of conscientious objectors who are bravely refusing to serve in war because of gay cooties?  Surely if the draft is inevitable, these manly patriots will join the military in order to save the civilian population, right?

I mean it's not like these guys are a bunch of chickenhawks who are trying to score lame political points by demonizing our LGBT loved ones, yes?

Perish the thought.

StupidiNews! Science Roundup

Though there is no dates given as to when it might go into production, there is a suitcase on wheels that charges a portable battery.  So when you're stuck at the airport you can charge your devices instead of competing for a plug-in like the common folks.  It's pretty spiffy, you can see it here.  As we grow more and more dependent on technology, the power wars should start heating up.  Or someone smart will keep making gadgets like this that let us produce our own.

On the other side of that coin, you have Bryan Fischer.  He is so far removed from science that he believes AIDS victims can cure themselves if they stop having sex and doing drugs.  He also is "not convinced" that the HIV virus causes AIDS, citing Magic Johnson as an example.  So uh, I guess all those people who got it from blood transfusions or were infected by a straight but cheating partner just had it coming, right?  What a dick.

Last Call For Tyranny Of The Minority, Or Something

Conservatives have a real problem with really bad reductio ad absurdum nonsense, especially when they are losing. Take this 24-karat gold pated turd of a loser here:

No more rainbow flags, America!” declares anti-LGBT activist Linda Harvey, who offers up an unhinged rant in BarbWire today about why Americans should take down the LGBT rainbow flag along with the Confederate battle flag.

Harvey, the head of the far-right group Mission America, writes that homosexuality is just as “evil” as slavery, adding that “‘LGBT’ lifestyles will ultimately be revealed to be a destructive blight on our nation.” Similarly, according to Harvey, the LGBT rainbow flag is just as offensive as the Confederate flag since the Pride flag’s “hateful colors” push “depravity” and “bigotry.”

“If only we had that kind of leadership now in Washington as we had in Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, who delivered the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863,” Harvey continues. “We need an Emancipation Proclamation now to free America from the tyranny of sodomy.”

Radio host Bryan Fischer also demanded that the LGBT Pride flag come down with the stars-and-bars.

This is literally the "Isn't the NAACP racist and shouldn't it be outlawed?" argument applied to the LGBTQ community, with a helpful dollop of not even being close to reasonable.

But this is how bad they are losing the argument on the Confederacy right now.

Playing Into The Hands Of The Real Enemy

When the jagoffs over at the American Family Association are calling for the purge of all Muslims from the U.S. military, you just have to shake your head and wonder why these fools are doing Al-Qaeda's work for them.

A chief spokesman for the pro-life, far-right organization, American Family Association, has called for the purging of Muslim soldiers from military ranks in the wake of the tragic killings at Fort Hood.

Bryan Fischer, AFA's Director of Issues Analysis, put up a relatively unnoticed blog post last Friday arguing that U.S. command needed to "stop the practice of allowing Muslims to serve in the U.S. military."

"The reason is simple," Firscher wrote, "the more devout a Muslim is, the more of a threat he is to national security. Devout Muslims, who accept the teachings of the Prophet as divinely inspired, believe it is their duty to kill infidels. Yesterday's massacre is living proof. And yesterday's incident is not the first fragging incident involving a Muslim taking out his fellow U.S. soldiers."

"Of course, most U.S. Muslims don't shoot up their fellow soldiers. Fine. As soon as Muslims give us a foolproof way to identify their jihadis from their moderates, we'll go back to allowing them to serve. You tell us who the ones are that we have to worry about, prove you're right, and Muslims can once again serve. Until that day comes, we simply cannot afford the risk. You invent a jihadi-detector that works every time it's used, and we'll welcome you back with open arms."

Because apparently being a Christian is all about forgiveness, unless the other person isn't a Christian, in which case screw 'em.

So, since we're throwing out all Muslim servicemembers because of Maj. Hasan, can we toss all Christian members of the military out unless they can prove they aren't going to be Timothy McVeigh?