What a long, sad trip it's been

I am relieved that the perpetrator of the Norway attacks turned out to be a right-wing Christian fundamentalist.

If he had been a Muslim -- even one not connected to any particular terrorist group -- the shrieking, hand-wringing and dire warnings here in the U.S. media would have been unbearable. They'll be coming for our children next! Pantywaist liberal "tolerance" doesn't work when you're dealing with savages! Look where it got Norway! Political correctness will kill us all! THIS IS A WAKEUP CALL!!

But because he was a right-wing, Christian fundamentalist, anti-immigration gun lover who espoused views that happen to be popular with many right-wing groups in the U.S., this man will be dismissed as nothing but a lone wolf lunatic who was not influenced, inspired or incited by anyone or anything. Then this horrific story will quietly fade away, hopefully before someone at Fox News gets their tender feelings hurt and starts bewailing the proliferation of "liberal intolerance" and "left-wing hate speech."

Yes, I am relieved.

Sarah Palin is hardly worth talking about, but these soundbites from her current cross-country tour of great American landmarks are too good to pass up:

In Boston, reflecting upon Paul Revere:

"He who warned, uh, the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free and we were going to be armed."

Palin's just a few years older than I am, so I know if they were teaching Paul Revere's Ride during my gradeschool days, they were sure as hell teaching it during hers. Frankly, Paul Revere's Ride is one of the few tidbits of American Revolution history that is remotely captivating to a grade-schooler. I remember the story and I'm an America-hating liberal. I wonder why a great patriot like Palin doesn't seem to know anything about it.

In New York, at the Statue of Liberty:

"This Statue of Liberty was gifted to us by foreign leaders, really as a warning to us, it was a warning to us to stay unique and to stay exceptional from other countries. Certainly not to go down the path of other countries that adopted socialist policies."

This is getting like that TV show, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? Regarding Sarah Palin, I think the answer is a resounding "no."

Palin is obviously ignorant of even the simplest tourist-trap factoids about American history, so she makes up her own. Not surprisingly, she fabricates versions that support her extreme conservative beliefs. So the Statue of Liberty becomes some kind of coded warning from France not to turn into...France (France is just one of the countries that American conservatives consider part of the great Axis of Godless Socialism). Paul Revere's Ride morphs into a stirring tale of gun rights (which is especially hilarious considering that Al-Quaeda released a video yesterday instructing would-be terrorists on how easy it is to buy guns in the U.S., literally saying, "So what are you waiting for!?")

It doesn't even matter that she's being widely mocked for stuff like this. First of all, it plays into her never-ending claim that the "lamestream media" is out to get her, and her followers eat that up. Second, she doesn't give a shit about real American history, she only cares about the extreme-right conservatism that she thinks is the real story of America. Her followers eat that up too, and an awful lot of them think she'd make a great president.

Meanwhile, some conservative bloggers are also very busy... criticizing the president's speech. Seems they think it was kind of uppity.

Personally, I'd appreciate it if reporters would stop saying that "It took ten years to find him." It did not take ten years. It took just over two years...dating back to the beginning of Obama's administration. Finding Bin Laden was never a priority for Bush. As early as March 2002, a mere six months after the September 11 attacks, Bush was already saying, "I truly am not that concerned about him." Indeed, I think he was not concerned about him at all. The invasion of a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 was the prime military directive of Bush and his administration. Bin Laden was a potent and convenient boogeyman and I think they liked having him around to fill that role. Any suggestion by Bush that he was actually searching for Bin Laden was nothing but "Dead or Alive!" swinging-dick theatrics for the rubes, who gladly ate it up.

Of course now the national conversation will jump from Obama's "fake" birth certificate to Bin Laden's "fake" corpse. In fact, I expect Donald Trump to weigh in on this within the next couple of days. Then Trump, and others, will be invited on television to be interviewed by so-called journalists as if this is somehow a legitimate and serious topic for debate, while anyone with a brain sits there and facepalms in agony. Years from now, there will still be people in this country who will talk about the "conspiracy" surrounding Bin Laden's death, because they will never be able to accept that it was a Kenyan Muslim Marxist jiggaboo who took Bin Laden out, not their beloved "Mission Accomplished" flight-suit cowboy, "Mama Grizzly" Palin, or any one of a host of tough-talkin', gun-slingin' real Americans.

I imposed a moratorium on talking about this kind of stuff on my journal but this is too extraordinary to pass up.

A group of conservative activists is pressuring the governor of Virginia to cut off all funding for Planned Parenthood (for my foreign readers, Planned Parenthood is an organization that provides gynecological services, including birth control and abortion, usually to lower-income or poor women Corrected: See july_july_july's comment below). Among those activists is an elected Republican official, Delegate Bob Marshall, who had this to say about his rationale:

“The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children,” said Marshall, a Republican.

“In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.”

I suggest you take a moment and let that sink in. If you're a human being and not a conservative borg, your first reaction is probably to say that's despicable. And it is, but it's so much more than that.

Let's ponder the sheer insanity of this statement.

First: "The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically." Okay, I'd like Bob Marshall to produce some hard data on this. I want to see CDC/NIH statistics that women who have abortions, especially of a first conception, go on to have handicapped children.

Second: Note the blurring between pseudo-science ("nature takes its vengeance") and the Biblical malarkey that follows. Which one is it? Is this fictitious increase in handicapped children a biological side-effect of abortion or is it the wrath of God? Or does Marshall believe those are one in the same?

Third: How would Marshall explain the handicapped and seriously ill children born to women who have never had abortions? How would he explain the perfectly healthy children born to women who have had them? I'm sure if pressed on this, Marshall would stammer something about how he just meant that women who have abortions are playing Russian roulette with their future children. Okay, that argument might work if there were any scientific proof that abortion causes future birth defects, because biology is sometimes a guessing game. After all, some people can smoke for fifty years and still not get cancer. But since Marshall goes on to yammer about "special punishments," is he implying that the very terrible wrath of God is itself selective about these things? And if so, why?

Fourth: Based on Marshall's reasoning, as long as you bring that first conception to term, you're in the clear, because only the first-born is special in the eyes of God. So then can you go on to have as many abortions as you want? That's quite liberal of Bob Marshall.

Five: It goes without saying but I'll say it anyway: What kind of sick fucking bastard goes around saying that handicapped children are a punishment from God?

There are so many reasons to get outraged about this kind of shit but not the least is because, outside of blogs and more liberal news outlets like MSNBC, this sort of thing doesn't get coverage. The anti-choice religious maniacs in this country operate under the very positive-sounding label of "pro-life" and are usually depicted as people who just happen to have opinions and values guided by their Christian faith. This is baloney. They are not pro any life except the kind that they can exploit, namely fetuses and occasionally, people in irreversible comas. And as for their values? Their values are perfectly illustrated by Bob Marshall's statement: sick, backward, medieval perversions of both Christianity and any sort of natural human decency. THIS is how these people should be depicted. As the sick, twisted fucks that they are.

It should also be noted that according to Rachel Maddow, Planned Parenthood currently receives the whopping sum of about $36,000 in funding from the state of Virginia, primarily in Medicaid payments that are no doubt covering services other than abortion.

I really need to leave. The country.

More conservative wisdom from California Republican Congressman, John Campbell:

"The achievers, the people who create all the things that benefit rest of us, are going on strike. I’m seeing, at a small level, a kind of protest from the people who create jobs, the people who create wealth, who are pulling back from their ambitions because they see how they’ll be punished for them."

I thought the Republicans were supposed to be the party of Joe n' Jane Sixpack, hockey moms and NASCAR dads and "real" Americans. I wonder how many of those types earn more than $250,000 a year? Because clearly, anyone earning less than that is a non-achiever who creates nothing that benefits anyone. Everyone get that?

Don't you just love it when scumbags show their true colors? I'm not surprised...this is what I've always known about the Republican establishment. They're the party of the wealthy and all that "real Americans" shit was never anything but...shit. But damn, I hope this is coming as a real wake-up call at least to some of the folks out there who've been voting Republican all these years. The people you voted into office THINK YOU'RE LOSERS. And they always have.

Oh and by the way, where the fuck are all the "Christians" while this is going on? I don't recall Jesus saying, "I came that you might have life and have it to the fullest...but only if you make more than $250,000 a year." The Jesus that I read about went into the temple and kicked some money-changing ass. And had precious few good things to say about the rich in general. Oh what the fuck am I thinking? No one gives a shit about Jesus or anything he actually said.

John Cole again:

"I really don’t understand how bipartisanship is ever going to work when one of the parties is insane. Imagine trying to negotiate an agreement on dinner plans with your date, and you suggest Italian and she states her preference would be a meal of tire rims and anthrax. If you can figure out a way to split the difference there and find a meal you will both enjoy, you can probably figure out how bipartisanship is going to work the next few years."

This reminds me that last week on the Today show, Matt Lauer questioned whether Obama had screwed up from the get-go by creating a stimulus package that "he knew would be unpalatable to the Republicans."

Can someone please fucking tell me why we should be wasting one second of precious time worrying about what is "palatable" to Republicans? Haven't we learned by now that anything that's to their taste is going to choke the rest of us?

...you just hit rock bottom and keep on digging.

Two examples of why I don't watch network "news:"

1) After all the campaign blather about whether Obama seemed too "elitist" and all the glorification of Joe Sixpack wisdom and small-town values, it was pretty fucking bizarre to see high-society cadaver Sally Quinn on Dateline last night lockjawing about how vital it is for the President and Mrs. Obama to be part of the Washington D.C. social circuit. Gee, Lady Quinn, don't you think he has a FEW more important things to worry about than making the Beltway party scene? Go keep a crypt somewhere, you hag.

2) Joe Scarborough on this morning's Today show blithely uttered the jaw-dropping nonsense that the "partisan nastiness of the past 12 years" was "a generational thing." No, Joe, it was a REPUBLICAN thing. The endless persecution of Bill Clinton for one non-scandal after another and his eventual impeachment over a blowjob was not carried out by members of any particular "generation." It was carried out by REPUBLICANS. Just as the partisan hackery, cronyism and corruption of the past eight years was not "generational." It was REPUBLICAN. Say it loud, Joe: REPUBLICAN. REPUBLICAN REPUBLICAN REPUBLICAN.

Will the bullshit never stop?

VOTED.

Now we hold our breath...