When Silence isnt Golden, the GOP and the Planned Parenthood shooting

So its been about 48 hours since the shooting in Colorado and weve still heard nothing from 13 of the Republican candidates about it.

Now I get it, they dont want to speak before all the facts are in....after all it would be a shame to call it domestic terrorism before they knew for sure. And you know there was that story that maybe it was a bank robbery. So you know, maybe a slow deliberate approach, waiting until all the facts come in is warranted. Incidentally, why does that sound so familiar?

Oh yea.....thats it. That was the Obama approach to Benghazi, where, because he didnt address the possibility it was terrorism with in 7 seconds, he and Hillary are personally responsible for the death's that occurred.

Actually thats not fair....he DID say it could be terrorism in the first speech he gave on the subject....but since he didnt say it loud enough....its still his fault.

I wonder if the republicans are starting to regret that yet? After all, near as I can tell I am now well within my rights to say things like:

Jeb Bush wants to murder cops

Marco Rubio supports terrorists

Carly Fiorina is alright with murdering civilians

Rand Paul thinks its ok to kill people if you disagree.

After all, if only the Republicans had said the words DOMESTIC TERRORISM louder, maybe none of this would have happened.

I do look forward to seeing all of them have to give 11+ hour congressional testimony over the course of several years, in which they will have to explain why they didnt drop everything only focus on dead americans to the exclusion of everything else, like eating and pooping, only to eventually learn nothing.

Actually thats a bit unfair. We would totally learn some stuff. Stuff like Marco Rubio and Rand Paul taking to twitter not long after the attack and tweeting a link to buy new campaign merchandise. At least we know they werent too busy to tweet, they just didnt care amirite?   Cause by republican standards there is no other explanation. (like say a timed automated tweet that just had bad timing)

Actually, now that I think about it, maybe there IS another explanation other than 13 GOP presidential candidates are implicitly ok with domestic terrorism......they are too confused and/or scared to say anything about it.

Consider, the target of this mass shooting was Planned Parenthood. And Republicans HATE planned parenthood. So much so that the Republican controlled house voted to defund the group based on a videotape that was already known to be doctored with footage that didnt actually happen at planned parenthood at the time they voted. Then, they followed up with a congressional inquiry into Planned Parenthood to see if it was possible that maybe the tape HAD in fact been made at planned parenthood even if the people who made it said otherwise.

Point is, republicans might be a little torn on this one. 

For them, this would be like ISIS attacking a NeoNazi rally.......actually wait, given the current predilections of the GOP thats a bad analogy, they would KNOW who to support in that one (hint: the Nazis) so I'll try again.

That would be like ISIS bombing a Ku Klux Klan rally. No wait, that one doesnt work either. Ok one more....I got it

From the republican point of view, the Planned Parenthood shooting is like ISIS bombing a black lives matter protest......they dont particularly like either one, and think both are dangerous and evil.

So who do you sympathize with? After all, if you show sympathy to the victims, you piss off the radical anti abortion side of your base......but if show sympathy to the shooter you piss off everyone else.

So whats a Republican to do?

Actually it turns out, they have an answer to that too: Pretend it didnt happen, because its politcally inconvenient that it did.

See not too long after the shooting began, FOXNews (and a few other places) reporting the shooting WASNT taking place at a Planned Parenthood......it was taking place at a Bank.

As they reported:

"Denise Speller, manager at a nearby haircut salon, said she heard roughly 10-20 gunshots in the span of less than five minutes. She said she saw a police cruiser and two officers outside near Chase Bank, not far from the Planned Parenthood facility. One of the officers appeared to fall to the ground and the other office knelt down to render aid, then tried to get the officer to safety behind the car, she said. Another officer told Speller to seek shelter inside the building."

See it HAD to be a bank near the planned parenthood, cause as we all know, Bullets are stationary. Its not possible to shoot any one at range. Also, even if you throw a bullet, they are bound by the borders of the property they are thrown on....its like an invisible fence.

Also, of course, as we all know, in the event of a shooting, Police Officers are trained to tell bystanders to seek shelter in the building with the active shooter......

Point is, this "logic" led to tweets such as this all over the right wing:

by the editor of Breitbart.com

or an editor of the right wing National Review

Point is, its possible the 13 Republican candidates who remained silent, actually dont know or wont believe the truth.

Which sounds unlikely....but this is also the same party that believes Bush kept us safe on 9/11....Obama has clearly done something impeachable, despite no evidence and a record number of investigations, Obama was born in Kenya, the 2012 polls had Romney up by a huge landside margin, and all brown folks are dangerous.

So point is, delusion isnt that unlikley for these guys.

So there you have it, you have 13 republican candidate who are either Pro terrorist, delusional or pussies....your choice.

Now to be fair, there was ONE republican candidate who managed to put something out on twitter that expressed sympathies to the victims without actually having to pick a side or decide what the shooting really was about:

Senator Ted Cruz....who tweeted this:

Praying for the loved ones of those killed, those injured & first responders who bravely got the situation under control in Colorado Springs"
Holy crap, look at that, he managed to show sympathy for the cops and the killed, and not endorse planned parenthood or even admit the shooting took place there.

But apparently even that is seemingly beyond the abilities of the other 13 republicans...cause you know ITS SO HARD....but dont worry they are totally up for the challenges of being president.

Although to be fair, Ted Cruz has his own possible problems. In that a few days ago he announced he was endorsed by Operation Rescue, specifically its president Troy Newman.

“I am grateful to receive the endorsement of Troy Newman, He has served as a voice for the unborn for over 25 years, and works tirelessly every day for the pro-life cause. We need leaders like Troy Newman in this country who will stand up for those who do not have a voice.”
Which is now really awkward, since one of the things Operation Rescue does is pay the legal fees for those who commit acts of violence, including murder, against abortion providers.

But hey, at least Cruz feels sorry for those who are killed by those who agree with him and he supports......So thats better than Donald Trump right?

----------------UPDATED------------------------

So it turns out that since I first published, 4 more republicans have issued statements, Trump Fiorina, Huckabee and Carson.

Sadly, 3 of those Trump, Fiorina and Huckabee missed their marks and basically blamed planned parenthood for causing the attack.

All 3 cited the video tapes that surfaced months ago alleging to show planned parenthood selling baby parts as being so outrageous and unethical that of course people, including crazy people would feel compelled to stop it. (as the shooter apparently referenced that tape)

Of course the problem with that is those tapes are doctored....as admitted to by the people that put them out and most of the scenes about selling babies wernt filmed at Planned Parenthood (hence why the congressional inquiry got nowhere).

But I mean its still totally Planned Parenthoods fault....after all they SHOULD have been selling baby parts, that way the right wing wouldnt have had to lie about it. Its Planned Parenthoods fault for being too ethical and forcing the right to lie to people to anger crazy people enough to shoot the place up.....or something.

Ben Carson, actually probably should get some credit for his statement though:

"Unfortunately, there’s a lot of extremism coming from all areas. It’s one of the biggest problems that I think is threatening to — to tear our country apart. We — we get into our separate corners and we hate each other, we want to destroy those with whom we disagree.

It comes from both sides. So, you know, there is — there is no saint here in this — in this equation.

But what we really have to start asking ourselves is what can we do as a nation to rectify this situation?

How can we begin to engage in rational discussion?
You know, all you have to do is go to the — an article on the Internet and go to the comments section, you don’t get five comments down before people start calling each other names and acting like idiots, you know."

Now I say some, because, as of this moment, I am unaware of any pro choice activist going into a pro life gathering and shooting people....or even suggesting it, so I dont think you can say both sides are equally as culpable in the violence and shooting and death threats, or producing and having the government act on doctored video.......

But at least he sees this as a bad thing that needs to stop.....just a shame he didnt wake up from his nap 2 days ago to say it.

----------------UPDATED------------------------

Mike Huckabee is now responding as well, and if it wasnt for the fact it took him more than 48 hours to do it, I'd actually say (surprisingly) he nailed his response perfectly:

“Well, we don't know fully what the facts are, They're still being determined. We don't even know some of the victims' names yet. But regardless of why he did it, what he did is domestic terrorism, and what he is did is absolutely abominable, especially to those of us in the pro-life movement, because there's nothing about any of us that would condone or in any way look the other way at something like this."

Donald Trump's Heilway to Hell

So I felt a bit bad for Dr. Carson after my last blog. See I slammed him pretty hard in part for his claim that he saw tapes of Muslims cheering on 9/11....but as I pointed out he was only agreeing with comments made by Herr Donald, whom I basically gave a pass to by not really mentioning any fall out for Trump. And unlike Carson, Trump says he say it live

No more.

For those who missed the original comments

There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations. They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down. I know it might be not politically correct for you to talk about it, but there were people cheering as that building came down—as those buildings came down. And that tells you something. It was well covered at the time, George. Now, I know they don’t like to talk about it, but it was well covered at the time. There were people over in New Jersey that were watching it, a heavy Arab population, that were cheering as the buildings came down. Not good. 

[...]

"I watched in Jersey City, NJ where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down, Thousands of people were cheering, so something's going on we got to find out what it is."
This of course is the basis for Trump wanting special restrictions and nazi style tracking of Muslims in America

Unlike Carson, Herr Donald isnt backing down though.....he's trying to double down in the worst way possible.

First he cited an article the Washington Post published in 2001 to make his case.....problem is, the article doesnt actually agree with Trumps assertion.

Now to be fair it DOES say this:

"In Jersey City, within hours of two jetliners' plowing into the World Trade Center, law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river."

Ok so clearly some people were celebrating....but how many? The article doesnt actually say....it says in a different part that a total of 13 people were detained for some kind of connection (not necessarily cheering) but thats it...and thats a FAR FAR FAR cry from thousands.

And actually, it turns out, the NJ police did say in other places (notably ABCnews) how many people they detained for cheering when the towers came down....FIVE.

Oh and of those 5, exactly 0 of them where Muslim.....they were a group of Israeli students on vacation, who say they were just acting like jackasses who didnt realize what they were seeing was a terrorist attack and thought instead it was an accidental crash.

By the way, when this was all pointed out to Trump, backed up by the reporter in question....well responded like this:

And, of course as the video pointed out the reporter is disabled...specifically with arm movement. So yea by all appearances Trump mocked a disabled reporter for having the nerve to tell Der Fuhrer what he ACTUALLY said and not what Der Fuhrer wanted him to say.

Trump of course does what he does best....and claims hes not really a jackoff hes just made to look like one saying

“I would never mock a person that has a disability, I’m telling you, I would never do it." and claims he was just trying to appear confused....and that he didnt know the reporter was disabled. And then in typical Trump fashion, demanded the reporter apologize to HIM for assuming he was mocking

Which of course became a problem when published another article.....his history of reporting on, and attending events with Trump....that goes back 4 decades. And other journalists have backed him up on this....saying not only did Trump know him, they were on a first name basis.

Oops.

This may explain why, in what appears to be sheer desperation, Trump turned to another source to try to back up his claims....right wing website known as InfoWars, as he tweeted out a link to their article entitled "I LIVE IN JERSEY AND TRUMP IS RIGHT: MUSLIMS DID CELEBRATE ON 9/11 IN NJ . . . WE SAW IT!"on his twitter.

Now for those unfamilar with InfoWars, they are a right wing site that specializes in conspiracy theories. Notably they believe the Sandy Hook massacre was a "false flag" operation carried out by the Obama administration to steal our guns, FEMA having Americans deported and executed at FEMA run Concentration Camps, Andrew Breitbart, the founder of Breitbart.com, did not die of a heartattack as reported but was instead assassinated by Obama, presumably because he had proof of Obama's true parentage (it turns out Obama is actually the illegitimate son of Frank Marshall Davis, an american activist from the 80's and 70)...and of course they are Birthers (ironic given that if their conspiracy about Breitbart was right....both Obamas parents are american and he was born here).

They also believe the Oklahoma City bombings were done by Clinton, Osama Bin Laden was NOT killed during the Obama Administration (instead was killed on Bushes orders years ago, before 9/11), that the Boston Bombing and the Gabby Giffords shootings were both done by agents of the government, and they are the originators of the Jade Helm conspiracy (that being the American Army was going to occupy and annex Texas a couple months ago, and yes I checked Texas IS part of America, so maybe they got that one right? :P)

And notably in this case they are also 9/11 Truthers (basically they think the Bush Adminstration was behind 9/11 not Muslim Terrorists)

In otherwords, you gotta be pretty desperate to quote them as a source of ANYTHING.  Like if there website says its 430PM, I suggest checking your cell phone to verify it.

Also, ironically, despite what the headline of the article says......They DO NOT actually believe Donald Trump was right.

Quoting the article directly:

'I didn’t see thousands of Muslims celebrating but I absolutely saw a pocket, perhaps 100, jumping for joy at the sight of the smoke rising from where the Twin Towers used to be."

So yea, even a website that makes a name for itself "reporting" (read: making up) the craziest shit you can think of, doesnt agree with Trumps assessment of "Thousands"....apparently that's a step to far even for THEM...and they believe that the government massacring little kids for shits and giggles at Sandy Hook is reasonable (just for comparisons sake)

And finally, there is one OTHER source that contradicts Herr Donald on this one: Donald Trump.

See trump wrote the intro to a book called "where were you on 9/11?" which came out in 2002. Per trump's own writings

"I was in my apartment in the Trump Tower [on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001]. I knew what was happening because I can see downtown to the Financial district.”
Thing is there is no way Donald Trump could have been BOTH in Trump Tower and in Jersey City at the same time (unless that thing on his head that pretends to be hair is actually alive (which to be fair I give a least a 50/50 chance it is) and they split up that day),

 Which probibly explains why Trump is trying to deflect....in the same way he normally does...by attacking ANOTHER minority group. And in this case it served a double purpose, as it allowed him to both try to deflect his Muslim comments and defend his comments about how a black man who was assaulted at his rally had it coming, as in the middle of both of these controversies trump tweeted this:

Now if this seems a bit suspicious to you......it is.

For starters last I checked, its still 2015....so how exactly do we already have crime stats for the year if the years not over? (unless we have just totally done away with December, in which case I owe a massive apology to those who've been claiming a war on Christmas)

 Also probably worth noting, there is no such thing as the Crime Statistics Bureau of San Francisco.....so it shouldnt shock you to know that all those numbers are totally made up. (the number of whites killed by whites for example was 82% in 2014...not 16%)

So where did this come from? Well as far as anyone can tell, it was originally put up on twitter by a different user.

And yes, that is a NeoNazi swastika for the users profile pic. By the way, its worth noting that second image was taken from a blog called littlegreenfootballs who captured the second image just in case it got taken down. And it did......but not from Trump's twitter...just from the Nazi's

Cause something even NeoNazi's wont stand by.....thats more than good enough for the American Fuhrer. And yes I know its highly unlikely that Trump didnt know the tweet originated with the Nazi......he just looked at something that openly suggested, almost all killers (82%) are black, despite them being only 10% or so of the population and went "Seems legit" and retweeted it without checking it....cause it matched up with what he'd LIKE to believe.

Now there is one piece of good news we can end on. In the week since Donald Trump went full on Fourth Reich down the Heilway to hell, his support has freaking tanked. The most recent poll has him dropping 12% in the last week news that, I assume, has republicans in Jersey City and elsewhere openly celebrating (careful, lest you get seem by Trump, he might think your a Muslim and want you tagged and tracked).

Now of course, even a 12% drop leave him in first place with 31% support....which is still more than twice that of his closest competition, Dr Dumbass, who is at 14%. So actually, given that listing of the top two....maybe this still isnt much comfort to republicans yet....my bad.  

Going off the rails with a crazy Brain [surgeon]

I realize this is becoming a reoccurring theme....but Ben Carson is having a shitty shitty month.



First he tweeted this:

Anyone see the problem?

Hint: Check the map. Still dont see it?
Hint #2: Are you from New England by any chance?

If you are, youve likely noticed ALL of new England is in the wrong place.....assuming its there at all.

I can see Maine, I can see New Hampshire and I can see Massachusetts.

Also I can see a blue sideways L shaped thing below those 3 states connecting them to New York. But what the hell state is that? It's in the place of Connecticut...but Connecticut looks like this:

So maybe its Vermont? Well Vermont looks like this:

Wait! I just figured out (as in I legitimately just realized it as I was posting in the two above pictures, this not section was not planned out) what that Blue L is....what if we took ALL of New England, except Vermont and slid them all the way up so that Maine was located somewhere near Newfoundland?

That would put Connecticut right on top of the top of Vermont......which would look a little bit like a sideways L....And apparently Carson Campaign, decided to handle the border dispute by just merging the two states into the new state of Vernecticut....(and yes I've checked a blown up image of that part....there is no border, its not that if cant be seen, its not there)

Which now means we only have to find Rhode Island...which I assume is supposed to be the tiny white rectangle near the end of the L. Of course, oddly while Rhode Island is small.....its not THAT small....it appears to have lost about half its territory to Vernecticut. Also why is it WHITE? per the map Blue means one thing, Red means the other, and Grey means neutral. But what is white? and why is it only Rhode Island?

And actually New England isnt the only mistake, The bottom portion of the Delmava Peninusla, on the eastern coast of Delaware Maryland and Virginia which as the name suggests, is part of Virginia, appears to have been annexed by Maryland.

Now while I'm willing to assume that was a simple mistake (as we are dealing with a very small piece of land)...how the fuck did the whole New England mess happen?

Its not like its god damn difficult to find a blank map of the united states. Just google "Blank map of the united states" and youll have hundreds you can download and color...with all the states and borders in the right place. Then you upload and post your image...no guess work on state locations required.

And I cant even believe that was a copy paste job gone wrong after they decided to move the map in the image. Notice the border of Vermont seems intact....thats highly unlikely as an accident given that that border touches New Hampshire....some one had to deliberately cut along that border. Although even I cant hazard a guess why? Maybe some kind of slight to Bernie Sanders (who's from Vermont)? Who the hell knows.....

 So again, Why did this happen? and most importantly will Ben Carson's campaign realize their mistake before the New Hampshire Primaries? Cause if Carson uses that map hes going to wonder why all the New Hampshire voters speak French....,.


Sadly Geographic is only the start of Carson's problems this time around.

Who would you think said this?

“Nobody has been able to sit down with [Carson] and have him get one iota of intelligent information about the Middle East,”

If you guessed a Democrat....youre wrong.

If you guesses any of his republican opponents, or anyone working for or endorsing them....youre wrong.

If you guessed one of his own foreign policy advisers...DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER.

Now this was said in response (I assume) to Carson's declaration in the last debate that China has troops in Syria....which was a surprise to many, including the Chinese.

Carson's doubling down on this, by making the outrageous claim that he was right and supporting it as follows:

“I have several sources that I’ve gotten material from. I am surprised my sources are better than [the governments], [The White House] will have an opportunity to see my material.”
Right...because you know Dr. Dumbass has better sources than the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, State Department ect combined....

Not too shockingly Dr. Doofus had to walk the statement back...claiming he was joking.


By the way, the adviser who attacked him for this, one Duane Clarridge, wasn't done as he also added "Mr. Carson needed weekly conference calls briefing him on foreign policy so “we can make him smart.”

Yea...see the allegation is that Carson is so dumb, even weekly briefing arnt helping.

I spell this out, because it seems Carson's Crack[pot] campaign staff didnt get the memo as this was their response:

"Mr. Clarridge has incomplete knowledge of the daily, not weekly briefings, that Dr. Carson receives on important national security matters from former military and State Department officials"

See, Clarridge is wrong. Carson's not an idiot who gets WEEKLY briefings.....he's an idiot who gets DAILY briefings.

There's a term for what Carson's campaign just did to him with that defense its called.....NOT HELPING!!!!!!!!!

They added:

"Mr. Clarridge's input to Dr. Carson is appreciated but he is clearly not one of Dr. Carson's top advisors. For the New York Times to take advantage of an elderly gentleman and use him as their foil in this story is an affront to good journalistic practices."

Right....see hes clearly not one of Carson's top advisers because he didnt realize that Carson was in fact 7 times stupider than he thought he was.  And the New York Times should feel bad giving Carson 7 times more credit than he should get. That is bad journalism....they are right on that...

Incidentally. you know who is probably thrilled that Carson's campaign doesnt consider him that close to Carson...and implies he is in no way responsible for Carson's foreign policy ideas?  Duane Clarridge, who probably would like to have a job advising someone after Carson.

Like seriously the Carson campaign thinks they got one over on Clarridge.....by creating distance between him and Carson's stupidity and pointing out Carson is much stupider than Clarridge thought.

 Again: YOU. PEOPLE. ARE. NOT. HELPING.

But sadly for Dr. Dumbdumb, the week got even worse when Donald Trump said this:
"I watched in Jersey City, NJ where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down," Trump said Saturday at a rally in Birmingham, Alabama. "Thousands of people were cheering, so something's going on we got to find out what it is."

Now your probably wondering how a quote from Herr Trump gets Carson in trouble..well see AFTER Der Fuhrer made his comment Der Moron made his in which he was asked about his opinion to these alleged Muslims cheering. He said:

“There are going to be people who respond inappropriately to virtually everything. I think that was an inappropriate response, I don’t know if on the basis of that you can say all Muslims are bad people — I really think that would be a stretch.”

He also added that while he didnt see it happen that “I saw the film of it, yes,”. To which a reporter asked, just to make sure there was no miscommunication "In New Jersey?" to which carson again said yes and added that it was in "the newsreels" at the time

Now heres the problem. No Such Tape exists....because no such thing happened. Which led to this awkward as fuck walk back by Carsons campaign. a couple HOURS later, ABC tweeted this:

"Carson camp says he doesn't stand behind comments & apologizes.Was thinking of Middle East, not New Jersey,camp says"

Totally understandable mistake really. Seriously, you tell me which of these is Jersey City and which one is in the middle east:

 

I cant tell them apart AT ALL.....

By the way Carson's walk back didnt end with basically admitting he spoke with no damn clue as to what words were coming out of his mouth. he later went on FOX and added this

"I thought we were just talking about the fact that Muslims were inappropriately celebrating. I didn't know that they had an agenda behind the question."

Yea see, its not his fault.....he though the question was just about Muslims...not specific Muslims...even though that was both part of the original question....and a follow up.....he cant be expected to pay attention to small details....like WHERE things are....of IF they are real.

And of course, if he realized the media had an agenda...like reporting the things people say verbatim...well thats just not fair. Its not the medias job to report stuff.....

Speaking of the media tricking Carson into speaking and recording it, Carson was recently interviewed by CSPAN for part of their "Road to the White House" series and asked which former president he admired.

"I’m impressed by a lot of them, but particularly impressed with Thomas Jefferson, who seemed to have very deep insight into the way that people would react, And he tried to craft our Constitution in a way that it would control people’s natural tendencies and control the natural growth of the government.”

Which is cool and all....except for one small problem. Jefferson had NOTHING to do with the Constitution. He wasnt even in the country at the time, let along crafting ANYTHING.

He was actually in France at the time, acting as America's minister, and throwing his full support behind the nascent French Revolution...an event he assumed based on how he expected people to react, would be mostly bloodless and widely popular and successful.

 Of course, the French Revolution was result in the deaths of ten's of Thousands in "The Terror", and eventual dictatorship of Napoléon Bonaparte and the restoration of the monarchy....so I'm not even sure we can give Jefferson credit for "insight into how people react" part of Ben Carson's Bullshit.

So yea, in the course of a week, the Dr Dipshit has managed to flunk Geography, History, Journalism, Foreign Policy and even throwing an advisory over board....What makes this guy think he's qualified to be president again?

Ok though, kidding aside, why does this seem strangely familiar....a republican who SHOULD be smart, who instead seems really kinda dumb, has odd intelligence data no one else has, and had trouble differentiating between Middle Eastern countries?

Actually you know what.....maybe Carson does know EXACTLY what he is doing, after all it worked before.

Sieg Heil: Americans new major political party.

So basically ever since the emergence of the Tea Party, I've been expecting the fall of the Republican Party, as they are basically tearing themselves to sheds. And I figured some other party would rise up to replace them...possibly while still using the same name.

I just never expected that party to be the American Nazi Party.......

Yet, if the Republicans are to be believed, they actually think the Nazi's had the right idea.....and they have for some time now. And no its not just a group of fringe wackjobs, its a good chuck of their president field.

Ok so I mentioned a while back about how radio talk show host Jan Mickelson wants to enslave brown people. And Ted Cruz wants to retroactively strip them of their citizenship. Trump Wants to censor the media, and Chris Christie wants to force all immigrants to this country (including legal ones) to wear some kind of tracking device....a move straight out of the playbook of the third reich.

What I didnt know at the time, is we barely scratched the surface. Turns out the Nazi's are back and even stronger than I realized.

We start small, with State Representative Tony Dale (R) who sent a letter to his govenor asking his govenor to keep Syrian refugees out of Texas, because Texas' laws would allow these refugees to do things like buy a gun or even "they could board a plane legally in the United States".

Now Rep Dale is not shockingly a huge proponent of gun rights.....except apparently to members of a specific religious or enthic group. If this sounds familiar, its because it is. The Nazi's loosened gun restrictions for all German's....with the exception of the Jews.

And of course, the Nazi's also feared Jews moving around...hence the ghettos and camps.

By the way it should be noted, Dale's Governor, Gregg Abbott did say his state wont accept any Syrian Refugees based on these grounds:

"[The federal government] do not have the capability to distinguish between those refugees who can pose as terrorist, and those who may be innocent, and until the United States develops that capability it is essential that we do first things first, and that is and that is to keep the people of the state of Texas safe,"

Abbotts not alone in this, 30 other governors (all but 1 republican) have said similar things for similar reasons. Now while its true none of them have any legal power to do anything about it, this is still suggesting that members of a specific ethnicity be considered inherently dangerous and contained until "proven" otherwise.  Again this should sound familiar.....Sieg Heil.

Oh and its not just Texas either. Rhode Island state Sen. Elaine Morgan (R) has said:

"[t]he Muslim religion and philosophy is to murder, rape, and decapitate anyone is a non Muslim.
If the U.S. does "take these people in, "we should set up refugee camp to keep them segregated from our populous [sic]. We have veterans in the streets starving, alcoholics, drug addicts. I can see taking [Syrian refugees] in, but keeping them all centralized – it sounds a little barbaric, but we need to centralize them and keep them in one central area.”

Yes, it is barbaric...points for honesty. In fact its so barbaric that this is exactly the same idea and justification used to set up the first concentration camps (not yet death camaps) in Nazi Germany.......Sieg Heil.

Now again, this probably all seems bush league at this point...so lets kick it into high gear.

Republican presidential candidate John Kasich recently floated an idea that we needed a "new agency that has a clear mandate to promote the core Judeo-Christian values that we and our friends and allies share"

Sounds an awful lot like a Ministry of Propaganda....propaganda that apparently is based on religion...except 1, which is "threatening". Why does this sound familiar? 

Joseph Goebbels. Minister of Propaganda.

Oh yea.....thats it. Sieg Heil.

Actually to be fair to Kasich, he did walk this idea back the next day...so maybe I misjudged him?

Probably not actually, since hes one of those 31 governors who wants to block Syrians from entering his state. Or as he put it:

“Look, I can’t let people into the state when it could jeopardize people’s security. I don’t feel that there’s any conflict at all between having a big heart and a good brain and having to be a leader of a state where I don’t want people to be in danger"

Oh by the way, speaking of members of those 31 governors running for president: we are back to the originator of using the Nazi's as a policy blueprint, Gov Chris Christie:

Chrisite was on right wing talk show host Hugh Hewitt's radio show Monday and was asked about taking in a specific group of Syrian Refugees....orphans under 5. His anwser?:

You know, Hugh, we can come up with 18 different scenarios. The fact is that we need appropriate vetting, and I don’t think orphans under five are being, you know, should be admitted into the United States at this point. But you know, they have no family here. How are we going to care for these folks? The fact is you can come up with a number of different scenarios, Hugh. But in the end, I don’t trust this administration to effectively vet the people that they’re asking us to take in. We need to put the safety and security of the American people first."

So Syrian's are born inherently evil and dangerous, hence why we cant even take in the children? Goebbels would be proud.

Christie and Kasich arnt along in this by the way. Carly Fiorina agrees as well :

"Secondly: of course we are a compassionate people, but the vast majority of refugees leaving Syria are able bodied young men. And our own government has told us that we cannot properly vet these people, so of course we can not be letting them in.”
Truth of course is that most of the refugees (98% )arnt able bodies young men...but if it will keep the undesirable religon out by claiming they are not the victims but in fact the perpetrators....well of course it has to be said...thats Nazi 101

Now enter Ted Cruz....the son of a Refugee from an anti american country:

"It is nothing less than lunacy, It makes no sense whatsoever for us to be bringing in refugees who our intelligence cannot determine if they are terrorists here to kill us or not. Those who are fleeing persecution should be resettled in the Middle East in majority Muslim countries."

Cruz has also pledged to introduce a bill in the senate banning Syrians from entering the United States.

See Syrians are ALL muslims, Muslims are inherently dangerous, we should keep them all away.

Too bad Rand Paul beat him too it.  See Paul introduced a bill making Syrians who do somehow make it into this country ineligible for any kind of help, be it housing, medical, ect. Keep in mind, Refugees are literally the people least likely to come here with any money or property of any kind. But you see according to Paul

"The biggest issue of the day is how we protect ourselves from terrorism. My amendment goes to the heart of the matter. Are we sufficiently vetting those who might come here and attack us from the Middle East? [...] my request is simple — an up or down vote on his Amendment to cut off welfare to new refugees. We should be pause the refugee program while we fix it and ensure national security is addressed. This vote is to send a message to President Obama to halt this program now.""

You see the thing is: "The two Boston bombers were here as refugees. They didn't take very kindly to what we gave them—education, food, clothing, and they chose to attack our country.”
Of course, this isnt true....the Boston Bombers were the sons of a man granted Asylum (a different legal definition and process) and not actually from the middle east, they were russians.

But a good nazi never lets facts stand in the way of blaming the people he wants to go after anyways.

Oh also as a even more evil twist, Paul's bill would also include people from 34 other countries seeking refugee status....including France. Because I assume since France was weak and attacked by Muslim's we dont want them here either.....they cant be trusted.

Now over to Jeb Bush...who at least wants some Syrians in.....

"But I do think there is a special important need to make sure that Christians from Syria are being protected because they are being slaughtered in the country and but for us who? Who would take care of the number of Christians that right now are completely displaced?"

You know, the ones who arnt Muslims.....because again Muslims are inherently undesirable.

As to those undesirable's "we should focus on creating safe havens for refugees in Syria rather than bringing them all the way across to the United States,"

We can help them....provided they stay in their special Muslim areas.....

Next up Doctor Ben Carson. He was asked about admitting Syrian's and gave the following analogy:

"“For instance, you know, if there is a rabid dog running around your neighborhood, you’re probably not going to assume something good about that dog, and you’re probably gonna put your children out of the way,"
Because it turns out, Muslims, because of their religion are subhuman and more akin to animals. This was the main tenant of the 3rd Reich's propaganda against the jews. Sieg Heil.

Now enter son of 2 refugees...Senator Marco Rubio who was recently interviewed about what he thinks we should do about attacks like what happened in Paris:

"The first thing we would want to know is, what are the cell phones records of these people? Let's say that, God forbid, what happened in Paris happened in Washington. We would want to know -- we would want access to these people's phone records, because it would give us clues as to who they were working with, who probably may be involved in plots themselves later on down the road.[...]

Listen, the background checks are required now. The problem is not the background checks. The problem is we can't background check them. You can't pick up the phone and call Syria.

And that's one of the reasons why I said we won't be able to take more refugees. It's not that we don't want to; it's that we can't because there's no way to background check someone that's coming from Syria.

Who do you call and do a background check on them?

The bottom line is that this is not just a threat coming from abroad. What we need to open up to and realize is that we have a threat here at home, homegrown violent extremists, individuals who perhaps have not even traveled abroad, who have been radicalized online. This has become a multi-faceted threat.

In the case of what's happening in Europe, this is a swarm of refugees. And as I've said repeatedly over the last few months, you can have 1,000 people come in and 999 of them are just poor people fleeing oppression and violence but one of them is an ISIS fighter.

If that's the case, you have a problem and there is no way to vet that out. There is no background check system in the world that allows us to find that out because who do you call in Syria to background check them?
So by Marco Rubio's standards, it appears all new syrians should be banned from the country, even if only 1 in a thousand is a potential threat, and we need to start monitoring existing american Muslim's cell phones....you know just in case. Cause we cant trust Muslims here or anything.

Thats starting to sound an awfull lot like the Nuremberg Laws. Sieg Heil.

And Rubio didnt just stop there...heres a later comment from him on instituting an American Nuremberg Law:

"It’s not about closing down mosques. It’s about closing down any place — whether it’s a cafe, a diner, an internet site — any place where radicals are being inspired [...]So whatever facility is being used — it’s not just a mosque — any facility that’s being used to radicalize and inspire attacks against the United States, should be a place that we look at,”

So any place in the US that MIGHT be used by people who want to attack the US (as determined by Marco Ruibo if he's in charge) should be shut down by the government.....even its a private business (like say a cafe) and just happens to be serving customers who Rubio deems a threat....even if the cafe it self has nothing to do with them.

Yea....that was pretty much the impact of the original Nuremberg laws....although the German Nazi's were a bit more subtle about it.

Also comments like this, might explain why a bookstore in Colorado named ISIS (after the Egyptian goddess) had its windows smashed the other day....despite having nothing to do with any political faction at all. it seems maybe Kristallnacht is coming. Seig Heil.

By the way, I in no way want to imply Rubio is alone in this.....back to Doctor Carson:

"What I have said is that I would be in favor of monitoring a mosque or any church or any organization or any school or any press corps where there was a lot of radicalization and things that were anti-American,"

So Carson actually wants control over the schools and the press.....you know just in case Muslims are there. Cause you know, freedom of the press shouldnt really apply when Muslims might exist....Constitution be damned.  Again if this sounds familiar is it. The Enabling acts passed in Germany allowed the Nazi to circumvent and remove constitutional protections....to you know, keep people safe from jews. 

Actually to be fair to Carson, its not JUST Muslim's he wants the database on.

"Well, I think we should have a database on everybody who comes into this country,"

Which makes sense, I mean after all, we dont want any non aryans Americans polluting our Lebensraum.

Oh by the way, you remember Rand Paul's bill I mentioned earlier? turns out this is actually one of the things is asks for. DHS has to monitor all immigrants...and institute the Chris Christie endorsed tracking system.

Although actually, I need to be fair to Carson...he later added this

"Hopefully, we already have a database on every citizen who is already here. If not, we are doing a very poor job."

So yea we ALL need to be monitored and registered....for our protection of course. Sieg Heil.

Now so far I've hit 8 of the GOP presidential candidates..including 7 of the 8 candidates who made the last debate. But you may have noticed 1 big name is missing. Donald Trump the GOP FRONTRUNNER.

Unfortunately, he's not missing because he sees reason in this instance....he's missing because he's so much more extreme than the other candidates I havnt gotten to him yet. While the other candidate may be endorsing some Nazi policies, Trump is apparently not running for president....he's running for Fuhrer.

So not only does Trump agree on keeping out Syrians, monitoring all immigrants, a national database to track Muslims (he actually doesnt go as far as Carson on this one in that he doesnt want to apply it to natural born americans) but well he goes farther than any other candidate too.

See he doesnt just want Mosques "mointored" he wants them shut down:

"Nobody wants to say this and nobody wants to shut down religious institutions or anything, but you know, you understand it. A lot of people understand it. We’re going to have no choice,"

Remember the 1st amendment freedom of religion? yea looks like we are just going to have to "Enable" that right out of the Constitution too....cause Muslims.

And thats not the only protection Der Fuhrer would like to remove. When asked directly if he favored Warrant-less searches for Muslims and other groups (which would be a direct violation of the 4th amendment) Trump said

'“We’re going to have to do things that we never did before. And some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule, And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy. And so we’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.”

Ah so we will have no right....except those  Der Fuhrer gives us...but we will be safe right? so its totally worth it. Sieg Heil.

Oh and back to the Muslim database....when asked if registration would be mandatory trump said "[it would] have to be." but not to worry Muslims would be signed up at "different places' and its actually easy to do since ""It's all about management."

Muslim registration Manager.

And actually as it turns out, registering in the database might not be enough. See there was also this quote:

"Yahoo News asked Trump whether this level of tracking might require registering Muslims in a database or giving them a form of special identification that noted their religion. He wouldn’t rule it out."
Presumably, this Identification would be a Green Triangle in keeping with tradition:

Nazi Identification Badges.

Now to be fair to Trump he didnt out right say Muslims should wear ID badges....he apparently just didnt rule it out, and it is the logical conclusion of his other policies.

By the way, when asked directly "Why would Muslim databases not be the same thing as requiring Jews to register in Nazi Germany? What would be the difference? Is there a difference between the two?” Trumps reply was:

"You tell me”

Thats right, Trump's response to how his policy is different than that of the Nazis was basically "dont know, dont care".

Which isnt surprising all things considered. In the past couple of weeks their have been separate reports of a latino woman and a black man being attacked and assaulted durring trump rallies. Trump for his part, didnt even stop speaking during the first attack on the woman Its worth noting that when the woman was assaulted it was met with chants of USA from the crowd. I supposed though in fairness its possible Der Fuhrer actually didnt know. (this all coming after Trump had a latino reporter escorted out of an earlier press conference by police for daring to ask a question)

But the assault on the black man? thats where it gets a bit tricky. See Trump did actually stop speaking for that one....apprentice to figure out what the disruption was. At which point he said "'Get him the hell out of here.'"...probably because the black man was wearing a t-shirt protesting trump and yelled once or twice.

Trump by the way, was asked about this on FOX News. His response:
“Maybe he should have been roughed up, It was disgusting what he was doing."

That being, disagreeing with Der Fuhrer.  SIEG HEIL!

He also compared his reaction to that of Bernie Sanders, who was once interrupted by Protesters....so had them come on stage and gave his microphone so they could speak to the crowd.

You see, [Sanders] was politically correct, Two young women came up to the podium. They took over his microphone. I promise you, that's not going to happen with me. I promise you. Never going to happen. Not going to happen. Can't let that stuff happen."

 HEIL TRUMP!

Trump DOES have a solution though...his campaign has started setting up media containment zones...which they call "the pen" to keep the media out of the crowd. See that way, the media cant see or report on these assaults (as they got video of the two I already mentioned). Because apparently, in the mind of the Frontrunner of the American Nazi Party, the problem is not that these assaults are happening....the problem is that people who may not agree with him are hearing about it....thats the problem that needed to be fixed.  Not the beatings.....and certainly not the campaign platform directly copied from the Nazi playbook.

SIEG HEIL!  HEIL TRUMP!

This is a real tweet put out by Trump a few months ago. The soldiers are wearing Nazi Uniforms.At the time Trump claimed it was a mistake. Doesnt look that way anymore.

2nd Democratic Debate things you need to know.

So I've felt for a while I really should do something for the Democratic debates. Especially after I had nothing for the first one.

Problem is I cant rank candidate performance like I do the republicans though, cause thats basically only 3 paragraphs due to the smaller number of candidates. But it occurred to me, I can at least comment on the major takeaways from the debate/the moments you need to know about...in short instead of filtering the memorable moments by candidate as I do with the GOP, fliter the candidates though the memorable moments. So with that in mind, here we go


Sanders is "bad" on Paris.

So Sanders took alot of heat in the opening of the debate for his quick pivot away from Paris....which is weird because he didnt really.  Heres the prompt from the moderator "You will each have one minute for an opening statement to share your thoughts about the attacks in your Paris and lay out your visions for America. First, Senator Sanders"
Notice that? they have 60 seconds to talk about two disconnected topics in the same sentence.

Here by the way are the candidate replies:

#1: "Well, our prayers are with the people of France tonight. But that is not enough. We need to have a resolve that will bring the world together to root out the kind of radical jihadist ideology that motivates organizations like ISIS, the barbaric, ruthless, violence jihadist, terrorist group.

This election is not only about electing a president. It's also about choosing our next commander in chief. And I will be laying out in detail what I think we need to do with our friends and allies in Europe and elsewhere to do a better job of coordinating efforts against the scourge of terrorism. Our country deserves no rest because all of the other issues we wanna deal with depends on us being secure and strong."

#2: "My heart, like all of us in this room, John, and all the people across our country-- my hearts go out to the people of France in this moment of loss, parents and-- and-- and sons and daughters and family members. And-- as our hearts go out and as our prayers go out to them we must remember this, that this isn't a new face of conflict and warfare, not in the 20th century but the new face of conflict of warfare in the 21st century.

And there is no nation on the planet better able to adapt to this change than our nation. We must be able to work collaboratively with others. We must anticipate these threats before they happen. This is the new sort of challenge, the new sort of threat that does, in fact, require new thinking, fresh approaches and new leadership. As a former mayor and a former governor, there was never a single day, John, when I went to bed or woke up without realizing that this could happen in our own country. We have a lot of work to do to better prepare our nation and to better lead this world into this new century."

#3:  "Well, John, let me concur with you and with all Americans who are shocked and disgusted by what we saw in Paris yesterday. Together, leading the world this country will rid our planet of this marvelous organization called ISIS. I'm running for president because as I go around this nation I talk to a lotta people. And what I hear is people concerned that the economy we have is a rigged economy.

People are working longer hours for lower wages. And (UNINTEL) income and wealth goes to the top 1%. And then on top of that we got a corrupt campaign finance system in which millionaires and billionaires are (UNINTEL) use some of the money into super packs heavily influencing the political process. What my campaign is about is a political revolution. Millions of people standing up and saying, "Enough is enough. Our government belongs to all of us and not just a handful of billionaires."

Notice by the way, I'm not telling you which candidate said what (and they are out of order from the order the candidates spoke in the debate).....thats the point. They all followed basically the same format on Paris, give a platitude quickly and pivot to the other part of the question.

Sanders didnt do any better or worse on that issue than the other candidates.....he just went first, which means I guess he gets left holding the bag when some people decided to make a fake issue out of this

Clinton whiffs on the Minimum Wage. 

Alright so their is a movement in this country for a $15 minimum wage. Now do the democratic nominee's support it?

Sanders: "So I believe that over the next few years, not tomorrow, that over the next few years we have got to move the minimum wage to a living wage $15.00 bucks an hour. And I apologize to nobody."

O'Malley I cant quote because it was a little more drawn out with some moderator back and forth and some prodding, but summery is, he supports $15 an hour raised marylands minimum wage to 10.10 because the legislature wouldnt go higher, but thinks even that minimum wage should go up to 15.

And now Clinton: "I support a $12 national federal minimum wage. That is what the Democrats in the senate have put forward as a proposal. But I do believe that is a minimum. If you go to 12 it would be the highest historical average we have ever had now.”

So why is Clinton stopping at 12 and not 15? its not really clear...it seems to be an attempt to triangulate with those who are opposed to a minimum wage increase of any kind....but they would also appose 12. And its only going to annoy those who say 15 is the "living wage" requirement.

Which might actually include Clinton, given her later comments about wages falling behind

“Well, first of all, it isn’t the middle class; I have made it very clear that hard-working middle-class families need a raise not a tax increase. In fact, wages adjusting for inflation haven’t risen since the turn of the last century after my husband’s administration, so we have a lot of work to do.”

So we need to adjust for inflation? just not all the way or something?

But I've long thought this was one of the problems with Clinton....she cant give a noncalculated answer, but her calculations usually land her in a place where no one is actually happy with it.

At the moment her position on minimum wage seems to be it should go up....just not enough to be a living wage, a clunky position that seems assured to get her attacked from both sides on the issue.

Clinton chokes on Radical Islam

Speaking of Clinton's habit of assuming everything it politicized and needs a middle ground anwser that pisses everyone off, we get to her statement about Radical Islam...or something.

Heres the entire exchange:

"JOHN DICKERSON[moderator]: Secretary Clinton, you mentioned radical jihadists.

HILLARY CLINTON: Yes.

JOHN DICKERSON: Marco Rubio, also running for president, said that this attack showed-- in-- the attack in Paris showed that we are at war with radical Islam. Do you agree with that characterization, radical Islam?

HILLARY CLINTON: I don't think we're at war with Islam. I don't think we at war with all Muslims. I think we're at war with jihadists who have--

JOHN DICKERSON: Just to interrupt, he-- he didn't say all Muslims. He just said radical Islam. Is that a phrase you don't--

HILLARY CLINTON: I-- I think that you can-- you can talk about Islamists who-- clearly are also jihadists. But I think it's-- it-- it's not particularly helpful to make the case that-- Senator Sanders was just making that I agree with that we've gotta reach out to Muslim countries. We've gotta have them be part of our coalition.

If they hear people running for-- president who basically shortcut it to say we are somehow against Islam-- that was one of the real contributions-- despite all the other problems that George W. Bush made after 9/11 when he basically said after going to a mosque in Washington, "We are not at war with Islam or Muslims. We are at war with violent extremism. We are at war with people who use their religion for purposes of power and oppression." And yes, we are at war with those people that I don't want us to be painting with too brand a brush.

(OVERTALK)"

So that was basically a several minute detour on what the meaning of the word "is" is....and for no good damn reason. This by the way is another reoccurring Clintonism, she did the same thing a few months ago when asked about gay marriage....she agreed with the statement the reporter asked her....but only after spending several minutes attacking the reporters wording (that she later accepted) for no clear reason

As near as I can tell, Clinton actually agrees with Rubio...except that, for whatever reason she cant just come out and say it....at least not until the question is reworded to her particular liking (using jihadist in place of Islam). And clearly its not the fact hes a Republican that is causing the issue here, as she openly admits to agreeing with Bush (who also agrees with Rubio)

And all of this seems to be because she thinks its a trap, presumably to make her agree with Rubio.....which she does. So how exactly would that be a trap in the first place?

And her objection such as it is doesnt make sense. Shes apparently worried that calling it Radical Islam doesnt draw enough distinction between those who follow Islam, and those who follow a Radical interpretation of Islam, despite the phrasing being used being pretty much the exact definition of the distinction she wants to make.

All in all just a very awkward, confusing moment that makes Clinton look more paranoid than presidential.

Clinton goes 9/11.

Speaking of awkward Clinton moments she was pressed on her wallstreet financing by Bernie Sanders...and well things just got weird. Again the exchange in full:

BERNIE SANDERS: I have never heard a candidate, never, who's received huge amounts of money from oil, from coal, from Wall Street, from the military industrial complex, not one candidate, go, "OH, these-- these campaign contributions will not influence me. I'm gonna be independent." Now, why do they make millions of dollars of campaign contributions? They expect to get something. Everybody knows that. Once again, I am running a campaign differently than any other candidate. We are relying on small campaign donors, $750,000 and $30 apiece. That's who I'm indebted to.

HILLARY CLINTON: Well, Scott, Scott, wait a minute, wait a minute.

(OVERTALK)

JOHN DICKERSON: Secretary Clinton gets to respond.

HILLARY CLINTON:--answer to impugn my integrity, let's be frank here.

BERNIE SANDERS: No, I don't.

HILLARY CLINTON: Oh, wait a minute, senator. (LAUGH) You know, not only do I have hundreds of thousands of donors, most of them small, I am very proud that for the first time a majority of my donors are women, 60 percent. (APPLAUSE) So I-- I represented New York. And I represented New York on 9/11 when we were attacked.

Where were we attacked? We were attacked in downtown Manhattan where Wall Street is. I did spend a whole lot of time and effort helping them rebuild. That was good for New York. It was good for the economy. And it was a way to rebuke the terrorists who had attacked our country. (APPLAUSE)

So Sanders brings up a concern that people who are supported by Wallstreet wont go against Wallstreet....this is a popular concern on both the right and the left actually. And Clinton's reply is what basically? 9/11 gives her a free pass because 9/11?

No seriously, I cant see any logic at all in clintons reply....well except that she seems to think a non sequitur play on emotions for no reason will distract people from logic.

And actually the oddest part of her whole response is that, if we attempt to apply logic to  ITS A FUCKING HORRIBLE ANSWER.

Ok so, Sanders claim is, Clinton cant be trusted to regulate Wallstreet because they donated to her.

And the little bit of logic we can squeeze out of clintons asinine statement is that they give her money because she helped to rebuild after 9/11.....you know with the form and power they had to wreck the world economy 7 years later......because of how she rebuilt them.

Basically, it seems like Clinton just accidentally [I assume] took credit for all the things that lead to the financial collapse in the first place......definitely proving sanders prove valid.  

Bernie Sanders with the line of the night:

First the set up, from one of the other moderators:

"Well, let's get specific, how high would you [raise taxes]? You said before you'd go above 50%. How high?"

Normally admitting to wanting to raise taxes is the kiss of death in american politics. But it seems American Politics has yet to feel the Bern, as sanders scored a total knockout with his answer:

"BERNIE SANDERS: We haven't come up with an exact number yet. But it will not be as high as the number under Dwight D. Eisenhower which was 90%. But it will be-- (LAUGHTER AND CROSSTALK) I'm not a socialist compared to Eisenhower.

Ok, thats going to leave a mark. Especially given how Republicans keep wanting to go back to the good old days....when Ike was in office.  Plus it directly hits the GOP on their "we always cut taxes" bullshit and shows how far the GOP was moved to the right....and also steals the "fisical responsibility" out from under the GOP.....given that, Ike was the last republican to balance the budget.....want to guess how he did it? :D

Now at first I was concerned that Sanders had just signed his own death warrant by opening himself up to claims of jacking up taxes as high as 90%.....but based on conservative reaction I was wrong.

See sanders said this earlyish in the debate, and yet by the end of the debate all the conservative twitter feeds I was watching were still desperately trying to prove this assertion untrue and/or just furious he'd brought it up.

Now in some respects Sanders may have landed this punch a little too well.....as no one seemed ot notice when he did the same thing, with a different republican, later in the night

"Here is the major issue when we talk about Wall Street, it ain't complicated. You got six financial institutions today that have assets of 56 per-- equivalent to 50-- six percent of the GDP in America. They issue two thirds of the credit cards and one third of the mortgages. If Teddy Roosevelt, the good republican, were alive today you know what he'd say? "Break them up. Reestablish (APPLAUSE) (UNINTEL) like Teddy Roosevelt (UNINTEL) that is leadership. So I am the only candidate up here that doesn't have a super PAC. I'm not asking Wall Street or the billionaires for money. I will break up these banks, support community banks and credit unions-- credit unions. That's the future of banking in America."
So yea....vote for the Socialist....he's only as radical as the GOP was in the first 2/3rd of the 20th century.

And Sanders is now making it very difficult for the modern GOP to reach back in time and claim to be influenced by the policies of a previous Republican President should he reach the general....hes already campaigning on their economic polices.

But hey at least as far as two term presidents go, the GOP still has the guy who resigned, the unpopular possible war criminal who lied us into war and crashed the economy and St. Reagan right?

Actually not so much, as O'Mallay picked up the assist on Reagan after Sanders' comments on Eisenhower.

"I mean, (UNINTEL) under Ronald Reagan's first term the highest marginal rate was 70%. And in talking to a lot of our neighbors who are in that super wealthy millionaire and billionaire category great numbers of them love their country enough to do more again in order to create more opportunity for America's middle class."

You know, I know the GOP is shitting their collective pants over the possibility of facing Hillary in the General.....but maybe shes not the one they should be worried about, as it seems its the other 2 candidates who came ready to fight "dirty". Just saying.


Anywho, thats it, thats all 5 of the major debate moments at the Democratic Debate yesterday. But I'm not quite done yet, I have a "bonus" pointless but funny moment at the debate.

So, at the Republican Debate last week, any members of the media who wanted to use Wifi (which was all of them) were required to use the WiFi provided by the RNC....and the RNC's password.

it's funny get it? the "liberal media" had to type Stop Hillary before they could log on to the internet...LOL.

Well it turns out the DNC figured they could one up the RNC as far as trying to make political messages out of WiFi log in's 

Damn. lets see in just one piece of paper the Dem's did manage to one up the GOP, as it seems in comparison the GOP's only goal is to stop Hillary, where as the Dems would like to create jobs.

But its more the Dem's password....or lack of one that really gets the prize here. Talk about an easy way to make the other party look elitist and exclusionary, and rub their faces in in.

Personally, I hope to see this Wifi war continue, as while its totally pointless irrelevant and stupid, its also pretty funny.

So yea, balls in your court RNC....time to top that...if you can.  

That time Bristol Palin was right...Starbucks and seeing red

So look I pride my self on giving people credit when they are right, even if, generally speaking those same people are idiots. So in that spirit, let me just say that I actually agree with Bristol Palin's most recent public comments over the Starbucks Red Cup "controversy".

Ok so for those of you not familiar with it, every year in December Starbucks releases a special holiday red cup. This year however, the Relgious Right has their collective panties in a bunch over the cup

This is the 2015 version thats got everyone so pissed off:

Now at this point, if your, you know NORMAL, your probably asking yourself, what the fuck is the big deal? there is literally nothing, offensive on the cup.

Well see that's offensive....they took off all the christian iconography that is all over the cups usually and thats insulting to Christians.

Seriously, do a comparison yourself. Here's a picture of the unchristian 2015 cup and prochristian cups from the previous 3 years:

Can't you just see the Jesus exuding from those other 3 cups?

No? Ok well you can see the manger scene right? the virigin Mary? a cross? an Angel? no?

Well congratulations your fucking normal. Starbucks has NEVER put any religions iconography on their holidays cups, instead preferring secular symbols like snow flakes, santa, snowmen, and ornaments

Now, as to the headline of this piece: Enter Bristol Palin who decided to weigh in on this controversy in a blog post:

"Over the past few years, Starbucks has rolled out their “red cups” right after Halloween to signal the start of the holiday season. Usually adorned with snowflakes and reindeers, this year the cups were given a makeover in a more sleek all red ombre look.

And somewhere, somehow someone took offense to the change, claiming it was part of the war on Christmas.

And the media RAN with it. They used one small group’s opinion about the cups and began attributing it to the greater Christian community. The mainstream media and the Left love their outrage machine where they claim the world is ending because any number of tiny people have expressed hurt feelings on social media. So now, they’re taking a tiny fraction of people’s response and attributing it to all conservative Christians.

Do not buy in to the media hype surrounding this story!! It is just another attempt by the LEFT to make Christians look stupid."

Now believe it or not, Bristols one word away from being 100% correct... And her implied point, that the majority of christians dont give a shit, and dont find Starbuck's cups any less (or more) religious then they ever are, it totally accurate and spot on.

Now the one word Bristols off on, highlights actually the major problem a particular group of people in this country. That one word being LEFT.

This is not a controversy fueled by the Left wing....its actually being run by the right.

Or more specifically its being run by those on the right who prey on the ignorance of others on the right, in this specific instance Breitbart.com (although a facebook post made by a guy who read their article seems to get most of the credit from some outlets)

They ran an article about how suddenly and without warning starbucks apparently took the christ out of coffee. Thing is, they didnt even try to hide how weak their story was....mostly because they know they dont have to, given the number of morons who generally read them.

For example some excerpts:

"To the right is the 2009 offering. You can see distinct elements of Christmas, even if that means Christmas in a modern sense.

They lean heavily on stars (you know, like in the Nativity Story) and the background resembles the branches of a Christmas tree. All in all, a pretty good and acceptable design for something that self-defines as a Christmas-orientated product.

But 2009 was a long time ago, and since then the company has slowly, but definitely, moved away from Christmas, and Christian iconography." 

Now to be fair I guess I see how, if we assign pretend meanings to things like stars, and pretend christmas trees have fuckall to do with Jesus, you might have gotten you head lodged far enough up your ass you think you have a point.

But look how fast it goes down hill even if Im enough of a contortionist to wedge my head up my ass the way it needs to be to accept his premise.


"To the left here, you’ll see the 2010 offering. Snowy, seasonal, at least it resembles something mildly festive and Western.

The same applies to the 2011 red cups, which have a dog sledging down a hill on the back of a snowman, snowflakes falling around them. It’s cute, really.

They stuck with snowmen for 2012 [lower right, second picture in this blog], with a big one winking at you with a star in the background that year, and a sort of upmarket stars and baubles motif on their 2013 cups.[lower left, second picture]"

 
Actually, I wouldnt say the 2010 cups looks all that festive.....just looks like people going for a walk in the snow....and they dont even see a indentation that looks like Jesus in it.

"And then it all went south. Or east, maybe.

"2014’s cups [upper right, in that second picture] looked like a child scrawled on them with a marker pen. And not in a cute way. It was a distinct shift away from looking “Christmassy”  before the monstrosity they’ve released this year."

See now I understand his problem. When you have a two tone red cup that makes a patter than looks kinda like a pine tree you walk with god. When its snowflakes and other geometric shapes its almost like hugging Jesus. But when those two tones look kinda like wrapping paper.....thats dangerous close to selling your soul to the devil.

But still this is the major plague attacking Christian values in *this* country as the article gets to

"Frankly, the only thing that can redeem them from this whitewashing of Christmas is to print Bible verses on their cups next year.

Not that I’d buy their burnt coffee anyway. And certainly not while they keep spelling my name “Ragih” (right) on their cups.

“But Ragih,” I hear you say. “Why do you care about what Starbucks is doing anyway? It’s crap coffee and none of us buy it.”

Sure, but plenty of people do. And subliminally, they’re being told/reminded that this time of the year is no longer about Christmas. It’s about the colour red, or something. It’s a “holiday season”. Don’t say Merry Christmas. It’s offensive.

And no, I’m not “reading too much into it”. This is happening. And it’s as disgusting as an Eggnog Latte."

Now a couple of points that arnt as obvious from the reading the article. First it's written by a guy named Raheem Kassam. Now if you look into Mr. Kassam's background, you will notice a few things very quickly.

1st) he's British and still lives there.  Kinda important when this story is being used as proof of Unamerican values and seen as a story about the attack on the American way of life.
2nd) Mr. Kassam is an Atheist.
 3rd) He was raised Muslim.

Now I have no problem with that (hell *I* am an atheist) but they suggest a strong likelyhood that Mr. Kassam is not too likely to be genuinely concerned about the alleged waning influence of a religion in which he's never been a member in favor of the "religion" (or belief system) that he IS a member of (if we accept his premise that the red cups are inherently anti christian and prosecular)

And actually to be honest, I only like the 3rd one because it lets me show just how stupid some people are. See the people who prey on the moronic part of the right wing usually like leaving pretty obvious clues they shouldnt be taken that seriously....its probably makes it much funnier when the dumb shits actually freak out.

So the article he wrote includes this line in its introduction. " And today I returned to my old, caffeinated Mecca (and the crowds made it feel like I was on the Hajj, too)." 
Now this is a perfectly fine analogy, and if you love coffee. likely appropriate normally. But its a bit out of place for a guy whose claiming to be a christian standing up for an assault on christian values. I highly doubt most of his target audience has any idea what the Hajj is.

But thats also the point of the analogy. Its a signal to those of us with working brains that this should never be taken seriously. And its a safe signal to drop, because Mr. Kassam knows none of his readers will actually click on the link to see what a Hajj is, and therefore notice the implication that Mr. Kassam may not be christian (and he isnt) and therefore likely doesnt actually believe in the problem he's inventing.

And look in fairness to Mr. Kassam, this isnt something unique to him. One of the things I love about the excentric and insane stories on the right, is that most right wing websites include links to the very things that prove their entire story is a lie.....because they know their target audience will never click them...and if your smart enough to do it, they dont really want you anyways (you might eventually ask a hard question of them like "yea but the math on your tax plan doesnt work")

But that brings up to the broader problem....it turns out that in america we have an entire political party whose base is made up of people of the non link clicking variety.

Dont believe me? Here's that parties front runner:

Guess whos too stupid to know they are being played? ^^^THAT GUY^^^

But their is good news, Many many many many more on the right are pushing back against this story as the stupid fake bullshit that it is.  Like FOX News, in multiple articles. (although as the video in the last link proves, some of FOX is still infested with critical stupid)

Or, my personal favorite ray of hope that maybe, finally, we found the stupid that broke the camels back is this:

"Funny, though, how some grinches on the Left take things too far in attempts to make all us jolly revelers look ridiculous, lumping us in the same box concerning misplaced outrage over a coffee cup's non-controversy.

My daughters spent many summers employed as hardworking baristas; I love their take on faux concern over Starbucks red Christmas cup and why you should enjoy your festive cuppa'joe anyway!"

The author of that quote, in case you couldnt tell from the grammer, is Sarah Palin, once the benchmark for stupid republicans.....even she doesnt buy into the story and knows its bullshit.

So, and I've never said this about anything Sarah Palin has said before.....thats a good sign for our countries future.