conservatives archives

Things more Muslim than Obama

Since the bedwetting conservatives are getting so stimulated by stirring up nonsense like "Barack Obama is a Muslim" and a "terrorist"....

http://www.moremuslimthanobama.com/moremuslimthanobama/

Too funnny!

McCain’s endorsement of Big Brother

He just loves Government spying on Americans.

Donut jihad!

Another reason why the right cannot be trusted: They have lost touch with reality.

Does Dunkin’ Donuts really think its customers could mistake Rachael Ray for a terrorist sympathizer? The Canton-based company has abruptly canceled an ad in which the domestic diva wears a scarf that looks like a keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Arab men.

Some observers, including ultra-conservative Fox News commentator Michelle Malkin, were so incensed by the ad that there was even talk of a Dunkin’ Donuts boycott.

‘‘The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad,’’ Malkin yowls in her syndicated column.

Will Hillary Clinton denounce the “pansy” statement?

Hillary Clinton was grinning from ear to ear while North Carolina Governor Mike Easley endorsed her by saying she's no "pansy."

It's the kind of veiled homophobic slur wingnuts use. We remind you that both Easley and Clinton are Democrats.

Never mind the innuendo directed at Barack Obama. What about voters who happen to be homosexual, or happen to think homosexuality is in fact not a mortal sin?

Ryan J. Davis on HuffPo:

Now, I know from spending many recesses in middle school being called a pansy that it's just a subtle way of saying "faggot." Clinton stood by while Easley made that comment, smiling away. Speaking to a prominent gay journalist friend of mine this morning, he expressed his frustration with her campaign. "Hillary doesn't care about the gays. It's that simple. We're a political tool, like everything else in that family's orbit."

Clinton owes the gay community, which she has shamefully used as an ATM during her campaign, an apology for gay-baiting. We're waiting, Hillary.

Joe Aravosis on Americablog:

Oh, so Hillary has launched a "culture war" against Obama. And what are the three elements of the culture wars? God, guns, and gays. Hillary already pulled the God and gun card on Obama in Pennsylvania, where she couldn't even say when she last went to church, and then claimed she was a hunter after a lifetime as one of America's top gun control advocates. And now she's gay-bashing.

So will she denounce Governor Easley? Will the media press her on it, after hounding Obama about Reverend Wright?

Oh, but let's not pick on Hillary. She's had such a hard life.

Joe Sudbay on Americablog:

Think about your daily existence and compare it to Hillary's "tough" life.

When was the last time Hillary Clinton:

Went to the grocery store?

Pumped gas?

Had to argue with her health insurance company about a bill?

Had to wait for the cable guy?

Had a spontaneous, unscripted moment?

The woman has lived in a protective bubble for over 16 years. She and her husband have hauled in over $100 million over the past seven years. Everyone around her is either paid to be around her -- or pays to be around her. And, she has paid Mark Penn a lot of money to tell her about the lives of real people, gleaned from focus groups and polls. That's her reality and she's not exactly roughing it.

Semantic quibbles #3: Conservatism

Here’s Mike Tennant at LewRockwell.com Blog, quasi-approvingly quoting Jacob Heilbrunn’s summary of Bill Buckley:

Jacob Heilbrunn writes: Buckley wasn’t a radical conservative. He didn’t believe in trying to destroy the Eastern Establishment; instead, he wanted to reform it. Therein lies the entire problem.

Hold up. I’m lost.

In what possible sense of the word conservative is it a genuine conservative’s goal either to smash or to reform the ancien régime?

Maybe this political debate is really about something other than what Tennant, or Heilbrunn, or for that matter Buckley, thinks it is about.

Further reading:

‘Strict constructionists’ must disqualify John McCain

He's not a natural-born citizen, is he?

McCain's likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a "natural-born citizen" can hold the nation's highest office.

Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states.

"There are powerful arguments that Senator McCain or anyone else in this position is constitutionally qualified, but there is certainly no precedent," said Sarah Duggin, an associate professor of law at Catholic University who has studied the issue extensively. "It is not a slam-dunk situation."

McCain was born on a military installation in the Canal Zone, where his mother and father, a navy officer, were stationed. His campaign advisers say they are comfortable that McCain meets the requirement and note that the question was researched for his first presidential bid in 1999 and reviewed again this time around.

So maybe it's a gray area. Isn't this where the self-proclaimed 'strict constructionists' get all holier-than-thou and demand that the Constitution be interpreted as narrowly as possible?

True conservatives who actually walk the walk and don't just talk the talk must proclaim John McCain as not eligible to hold presidential office.

Cue the right-wing hypocrisy....

The Conservative Mind (second Sin Fronteras edition)

The stimulus:

The response:

Do you have one for uninsured drunk illegals crashing and killing innocent Americans?

Or how about one of a drophouse packed full of endentured [sic] slaves?

Or of an illegal killing a police officer in a sanctuary city?

How about the fragile desert environment full of trash?

BTW: I love Mexican food. Just hope an illegal with a contagious disease that wasn’t screened at the border doesn’t work at my favorite restaurant. Kinda challenging to draw a cartoon of that.

Seen by searching illegal immigrant.

89AKurt, comment at Flickr (2008-02-08)

Just remember: they are not against immigrants. They’re just against illegal immigrants.

(Via Boiling Point Blog 2008-02-09.)

Further reading:

Colbert’s America

Though I have a horrendous commute --recently made appreciably more bearable by my trusty iPhone-- I haven't converted to the Church of the Audiobook . The production values suck. Authors don't generally make very good readers. Professional readers often sound like self-serious high schoolers reading "The Cask of Amontillado" at assembly. And books, you know, are supposed to be read.

Yesterday, I broke with form and downloaded Stephen Colbert's I Am America (And So Can You!). In addition to Colbert's narration, the audiobook features characters voiced by Jon Stewart, Amy Sedaris and lesser deities from Crewe Colbert.

While I'm only through the first few chapters and can't give you a full review, I'm ready to disagree with the NYT's Janet Maslin:

When it refers to the American family as “a Mom married to a Pop and raising 2.3 rambunctious scamps” or to a cat named Professor Snugglepuss, “I Am America” gets lazy. The same goes for a sophomoric crack about why books are scary: “You can’t spell ‘Book’ without ‘Boo!’” And this book is capable of better witticism than: “Now I’m not the smartest knife in the spoon.” But it doesn’t take the smartest knife in the spoon to understand the point of this undertaking. If “I Am America (And So Can You!)” had nothing but its title, its Colbert cover portrait and 230 blank pages instead of printed ones, it would make a cherished keepsake just the same.

Apparently, it does take a smarter knife in the spoon than Janet Maslin to recognize that Colbert's deadpan parody of Teh Factor is supposed to be just as sophomoric, lazy and witless as O'Reilly is. In this, "I Am America ..." alternatively delivers belly laughs and a car-sickness-like nausea.

Stephencolbert

UPDATE: Speaking of "alternatively [delivering] belly laughs and a car-sickness-like nausea," someone at the 14th & K Borders (bookstore closest to the White House) has set-up an ideological battle zone at the mouth of the store.

Still thinkin’ about the cuts…

I haven't heard much about organizing against the Conservative cuts to the Status of Women Canada. There have been a few good articles and some discussion here and there. But, I'm not sure that anything is actually being done about it.

There is an informative and attractive website, that was pointed out to me by a reader: Status Report

An excerpt:
Beverley Oda, Minister of Heritage and Status of Women, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, have taken drastic steps away from women's equality.

On September 25, 2006, the federal government announced a 5 million dollar (40%) cut to SWC's administrative budget.

On October 3rd, they removed the very word "equality" from SWC's mandate and changed the rules so that women's groups cannot use federal funding to do advocacy or lobbying.

All of this takes place nine months after Harper committed to take concrete and immediate steps to increase women's equality in Canada.


I suggest visiting it.

I don't know what is going on in this country. I'm not sure why there wasn't more outrage at the cuts. Many other good programs were cut as well. The youth employment initiative, the museums assistance program, the court challenges program...

What can we do?

Still thinkin’ about the cuts…

I haven't heard much about organizing against the Conservative cuts to the Status of Women Canada. There have been a few good articles and some discussion here and there. But, I'm not sure that anything is actually being done about it.

There is an informative and attractive website, that was pointed out to me by a reader: Status Report

An excerpt:
Beverley Oda, Minister of Heritage and Status of Women, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, have taken drastic steps away from women's equality.

On September 25, 2006, the federal government announced a 5 million dollar (40%) cut to SWC's administrative budget.

On October 3rd, they removed the very word "equality" from SWC's mandate and changed the rules so that women's groups cannot use federal funding to do advocacy or lobbying.

All of this takes place nine months after Harper committed to take concrete and immediate steps to increase women's equality in Canada.


I suggest visiting it.

I don't know what is going on in this country. I'm not sure why there wasn't more outrage at the cuts. Many other good programs were cut as well. The youth employment initiative, the museums assistance program, the court challenges program...

What can we do?