Political Quotes of the Day

[Dardedar]

Pete Stark, the only open non-believer/freethinker serving in the US congress, from an exchange in a townhall meeting:

After the constituent rambled on with bunch of BS talking points, and no question, he ended with:

"Mr. Congressman, don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining."

To which Stark responded:

"I wouldn't dignify you by peeing on your leg, it wouldn't be worth wasting the urine."

LINK

Freethinkers don't take no guff.

[Dardedar]

From my Media Matters summary of Limbaugh today:

"After the break, Rush said that Joe Wilson didn't call the president a liar, he just said "you lie" to the president."

And the distinction would be? What is someone who lies, called?

[Doug]

And the distinction would be? What is someone who lies, called?

Right. For Rush to be right, Obama would have to lie without being a liar. Since that is a pretty tall order, it is safe to say that Wilson called Obama a liar by accusing him of an act (lying) that directly implies that he is a liar. ("Implies" here means logical implication, which means that it follows logically.)

Imagine a jury finding a man guilty of murder, but the man admits this but still boasts that no one accused him of being a murderer. Or a man says that his wife has committed adultery, but she says that he has accused her of adultery but he has never accused her of being an adultress.

[Doug]

Frank Shaeffer, son of famous evangelical leader Francis Shaeffer and former evangelical himself, weighs in on the nutbars on the right in an interview on The Rachel Maddow Show.

=======================

Maddow: I do not know what possessed this polling firm to ask whether or not that people think the President is the anti-Christ, but they did. Does the response rate among conservatives surprise you? More than one in three saying yes or they don’t know.

Schaeffer: Well I was a child when President Kennedy was assassinated and my mother thought that because he died of a head wound foretold in scriptures of the anti-Christ he would be resurrected as the anti-Christ. She thought this might be a possibility. So those of us who come from the evangelical subculture have been weaned with our mother’s milk on a changing case list of villains. It might be Kennedy to one generation, Obama to the next.

But the larger point this brings up is that the mainstream not just media but culture doesn’t sufficiently take stock of the fact that within our culture we have a subculture which is literally a fifth column of insanity that is bread [sic] from birth, through home school, Christian school, evangelical college, whatever to reject facts as a matter of faith.

And so this substitute for authentic historic Christianity, and I may add as a little caveat here, I’m a church-going Christian, really brings up the question. Can Christianity be rescued from Christians? And that’s an open question. And when you see a bunch of people going around thinking that our President if the anti-Christ you have to draw one of two conclusions.

Either these are racists looking for any excuse to level the next accusation or they’re beyond crazy. And I think beyond crazy is a better explanation and that evangelical subculture has rotted the brain of the United States of America. We have a big slice of our population waiting for Jesus to come back. They look forward to Armageddon. Good news is bad news to them. We talk about the Left Behind series of books that I talk about in my book Crazy for God.

What we’re really talking about is a group of people are resentful because they know they’ve been left behind by modernity, by science, by education, by art, by literature—the rest of us are getting on with our lives. These people are standing on a hill top waiting for the end and this is a dangerous group of people to have as neighbors. And they’re our national neighbors. And this is the source of all these insanities that we see leveled at the President. One way or the other they go back to this little evangelical subculture. It’s a disaster.

See the video clip here.

[Dardedar]

"ACORN, after all, was on tap to receive "eight and a half trillion dollars of stimulus money," according to Sean Hannity -- a number that was a thousand times greater than the equally fictitious billions that Beck had accorded to the organization on behalf of the government. ACORN had suddenly ballooned from an organization which had received $53 million in federal funds over 15 years to representing 67 percent of America's gross domestic product."

Media Matters

[Dardedar]

"...one of Bush's top speechwriters at the end of his administration... has written a tell-all:

Excerpts:

Bush, when told that Idaho Sen. Larry Craig had been the latest GOPer to be caught in a sex scandal involving boys or men: "What is up with all these Republicans?"

Bush, it turns out, is like millions of Americans: "I haven't watched the nightly news one night since I've been president," he said.

Interviewing for the job, Latimer was told by Chief of Staff Josh Bolten that Bush's White House was "the most ethical administration in history." He added: "Looks like even Scooter Libby might get off."

Bush on Jimmy Carter: "If I'm ever eighty-two years old and acting like that have someone put me away."

Huff Po

[Dardedar]

"I think John McCain would have been worse for the country than Barack Obama," Beck told Couric in the debut episode of her new web show, @katiecouric.


Huff Po

[Dardedar]

"All pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards.
And if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he’s going to want to go out and get Playboy?
I’m pretty sure he’ll lose interest. That’s the last thing he wants."
-- Tom Coburn, confessing he started masturbating at age 11, LINK

[Doug]

"All pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards.

DOUG
Inward? Playboy is not full of mirrors. These Republicans sure are full of wishful thinking.

[Savonarola]

-- Tom Coburn, confessing he started masturbating at age 11, LINK

Pretty sure this was not Coburn himself but Coburn's Chief of Staff. ... which is funny when you consider his title.

[Dardedar]

Yep, that's what I get for not checking Bartcop. Oh, and the guy's name... "Schwartz." (Mel Brooks' favorite slang for the male unit)

[L.Wood]

Mel Brooks' favorite slang for the male unit

Male unit? Hmm. I thought a unit was a collection of something, all rolled up into one. Like a K-9 unit. The unit being a cop car, a cop and a dog.

So a "male unit' as a collection all rolled up into one ...ah shucks I quit.

While on boys, porno, Playboy and gays I wonder how they kept Dobson's advice out of it...the bit about taking your son in the shower and
playing show and tell.

.

[Dardedar]

"Atheism has been on the rise for years now, and the Bible of the atheists is The Origin of Species," Cameron tells PEOPLE. "We have a situation in our country where young people are entering college with a belief in God and exiting with that faith being stripped and shredded. What we want to do is have student make an informed, educated decision before they chuck their faith." --Kirk Cameron, Huff Po

I couldn't agree more. Students should, and do make an informed, educated decision, just before they chuck their faith. And that is as it should be.

Cameron and Comfort are a farce and their little book is going to blow up in their faces. It will be a good teaching tool for how dishonest they are.

[L.Wood]

.


DAR

Cameron and Comfort are a farce and their little book is going to blow up in their faces. It will be a good teaching tool for how dishonest they are.

Kirk says the Origin of the Species is public domain.

Well so is the Holy Bible. As a counter suggestion perhaps the Freethinkers, all over the country, would enjoy putting out a version of the bible with forwards and explanations.

.

[Dardedar]

Bill Maher rant:

New Rule: If America Can't Get it Together, We Lose the Bald Eagle

[kwlyon]

Pete Stark, the only open non-believer/freethinker serving in the US congress, from an exchange in a townhall meeting:

After the constituent rambled on with bunch of BS talking points, and no question, he ended with:

"Mr. Congressman, don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining."

To which Stark responded:

"I wouldn't dignify you by peeing on your leg, it wouldn't be worth wasting the urine."

LINK

Freethinkers don't take no guff.

I watched the video...I love the lady that wants a requirement for proof of citizenship before treatment...Who else here has had the pleasure of watching an old woman fill out paperwork in the emergency room while her husband was having a heart attack?...I will tell you right now if I ever need emergency medical care and they deny me service because I can't find my damn drivers license...if they even ask for it while I am in such a state...they better let me die. If I ever witness someone being denied medical care because they can not "prove their citizenship" I would like to ask you guys to use the freethinker funds to bail me out. I am going to find that lady and beat the ever living hell out of her....then take her drivers license... WHO THE FUCK ARE THESE PEOPLE!

Kevin

[Dardedar]

WHO THE FUCK ARE THESE PEOPLE!
Kevin

DAR
Answer just posted, here.

[Dardedar]

Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kans.) told reporters on Wednesday that opposition to the president's health care package was driven, in part, by knee-jerk partisanship and he urged Congressional Republicans to consider backing a version of reform.

The 1996 Republican presidential candidate also predicted, following a speech at a health care reform summit in Kansas, that "there will be a signing ceremony" for a reform bill sometime this year or early in 2010.

Dole, according to reports, framed the pushback to Barack Obama's reform agenda as almost perfunctory in nature.

"Sometimes people fight you just to fight you," he said, according to The Kansas City Star. "They don't want Reagan to get it, they don't want Obama to get it, so we've got to kill it..."

"Health care is one of those things," he added. "Now we've got to do something."

"We're already hearing from some high-ranking Republicans that we shouldn't do that. That's helping the president," Dole said.

Huff Po

[Dardedar]

Grayson knocks another one out of the park:

***
October 08, 2009 C-SPAN. Rep. Alan Grayson has a few words for both Democrats and Republicans on health care reform.

Grayson: Maddam Speaker I have words for both Democrats and Republicans tonight. Let's start with the Democrats. We as a party have spent the last six months-- the greatest minds of our party dwelling on the question, the unbelievably consuming question of how to get Olympia Snowe to vote for health care reform. I want to remind us all... Olympia Snowe was not elected president last year. Olympia Snowe has no veto power in the Senate. Olympia Snowe represents a state with one half of one percent of America's population.

What America wants is health care reform. America doesn't care if it gets fifty one votes in the Senate or sixty votes in the Senate, or eighty three votes in the Senate-- in fact America doesn't even care about that. It doesn't care about that at all.

What America cares about is this. There are over one million Americans who go broke every single year trying to pay their health care bill. America cares a lot about that. America cares about the fact that there are forty four thousand seven hundred eighty Americans who die every single year on account of not having health care. That's a hundred and twenty two every day. America sure cares a lot about that.

America cares about the fact that if you have a pre-existing condition even if you have health insurance, it's not covered. America cares about that a lot. America cares about the fact that you can get all the health care you need as long as you don't need any. America cares about that a lot.

But America does not care about procedures, processes, personalities-- America doesn't care about that at all. So we have to remember that as Democrats. We have to remember that's what's at stake here is life and death, enormous amounts of money and people are counting upon us to move ahead. America understands what's good for America.

America cares about health care. America cares about jobs. America cares about education, about energy independence. America does not care about process or politicians, or personalities or anything like that.

And I have a few words for my Republican friends as well. I guess I do have some Republican friends. Let me say this. Last week I held up this report here and I pointed out that in America there's forty four thousand seven hundred eighty nine Americans who die every year according to this Harvard report-- published in a peer reviewed journal-- because they have no health insurance.

That's an extra forty four thousand seven hundred eighty nine Americans who die, whose lives could be saved-- and their response was to ask me for an apology... to ask me for an apology. That's right... to ask me for an apology. Well, I'm telling you this-- I will not apologize. I will not apologize.

I will not apologize for a simple reason. America doesn't care about your feelings. I violated no rules by calling this report to America's attention. I think a lot of people didn't know about it before hand.

But America does care about health care in America and if you're against it, then get out of the way. Just get out of the way. You can lead. You can follow-- or you can get out of the way. And I'm telling you now to get out of the way.

America understands that there's one party in this country that's in favor of health care reform and one party that's against it and they know why.

They understand if Barack Obama were somehow able to cure hunger in the world, the Republicans would blame him for over-population.

They understand that if Barack obama could somehow bring about world peace, they'd blame him for destroying the defense industry.

In fact they understand that if Barack Obama has a BLT sandwich tomorrow for lunch, they will try to ban bacon.

But that's not what America wants. America wants solutions to its problems and that begins with health care. And that's what I'm speaking for tonight.

LINK

[Savonarola]

Grayson knocks another one out of the park:

This guy is a little over the top, but he's still my new hero.