I’ve always thought that mixing politics and religion creates and cheapens both. Worse than that, it is downright dangerous. USA Today carries an excellent story about how the far right is spreading its divisive values (and, yes, un-Christian values) from the pulpit: CANTON, Ohio — Pastor Russell Johnson paces across the broad stage as he decries the "secular jihadists" who … Read More
The Psychological Basis of Neo-Conservativism
A Cornell scientist discovered it: Men whose masculinity is challenged become more inclined to support war or buy an SUV, a new study finds. Their attitudes against gays change, too. Cornell University researcher Robb Willer used a survey to sample undergraduates. Participants were randomly assigned feedback that indicated their responses were either masculine of feminine. The women had no discernable … Read More
Operation Yellow Elephant Update
Max Blumenthal talks to College Republicans, and asks them why they aren’t enlisting. The responses are what you would expect: “a nagging football injury”, “my ex-hippy parents don’t want me to”, etc. Then there is Cory Bray, a senior at at U.Penn’s Wharton School of Business. From the bar at a college Republican party, Bray brayed: "The people opposed to … Read More
Yellow Elephant Watch
I recently wrote a post (and received a little flak) about Yellow Elephants—specifically, the refusal of College Republicans to run a advertisement advocating military recruitment in the program of their annual convention in Las Vegas. The ad was refused because it was too much of a downer. Family Research Council leader (and KKK Grand Wizard contributor) Tony Perkins addressed the … Read More
Callous Invocation Of The Dead
Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, who really should do more to stay out of the spotlight (he’s under investigation for lots of stuff), is channeling the 9/11 victims. The subject was the passage by the House of a flag-burning amendment to the Constitution, and he said: "Ask the men and women who stood on top of the (World) Trade Center,” said … Read More
Republicans Hate Republicans
It looks like the enemy is engaged in infighting amongst themselves, which means that we are winning. Conservative columnist Neil Boortz writes: There are a lot of listeners out there who really need to make some attempt at growing up. Well, maybe not a lot of listeners .. but quite a few. Yesterday I spent some time on the air … Read More
Tomlinson – Partisan Liar
From the New York Times: Sixteen Democratic senators called on President Bush to remove Kenneth Y. Tomlinson as head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting because of their concerns that he is injecting partisan politics into public radio and television. Some will no doubt say that Tomlinson is trying to REMOVE partisan politics from public radio and television, because PBS … Read More
Operation Yellow Elephant
The objective of OPERATION YELLOW ELEPHANT is to recruit College Republicans and Young Republicans to serve as infantry. They demanded this war and now viciously support it. It’s only right that they also experience it. So far, it isn’t going too well. Recently, as reported here, Operation Yellow Elephant tried to get a recruitment ad into the program of the … Read More
What The Durbin Kerfuffle Reveals About The Right Wing
Yglesius said it for me: A little while ago Dick Durbin noted on the Senate floor that torturing prisoners was the sort of thing Nazis or Communists would do, and that the United States, trying to be one of the world’s good guys, should hold itself to a higher standard of conduct. The right-wing noise machine, deploying some now familiar … Read More
Please. Let’s Beat Up Michael Schiavo Some MORE!
Typical republican trick. Look like a fool for your actions so shift the focus onto something else. Like many on the right, Jeb Bush has much egg on his face about the whole Schiavo matter. She was in a persistent vegetative state, she was blind, and had half a brain. Despite what the right-to-useless-lifers stated, Terri Schiavo was never going … Read More
Lame Duck Bush
There’s no other way to view it—even conservative Republicans are backing away from Bush: The [Republican-controlled] House handed President Bush the first defeat in his effort to preserve the broad powers of the USA Patriot Act, voting yesterday to curtail the FBI’s ability to seize library and bookstore records for terrorism investigations. Bush has threatened to veto any measure that … Read More
Corruption So Startling, Even GOP Stalwarts Take Notice
You know it’s bad when even GOP senators want to know why the White House is hiding information from Congress on what John Warner called “the most significant defense procurement mismanagement in contemporary history.” Both Warner and John McCain, as well as Carl Levin want to know why the White House is sending redacted emails and other materials to the … Read More
Another Gets Unplugged From The Matrix
Read the whole thing: Two years ago I was a neocon. I supported Bush’s war on Iraq and I called everyone who didn’t a liberal Kool-aid drinker. I voted for Bush in 2000 and I listened to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and just about any right-winger on the radio that I could get a four-word talking point from to use … Read More
Too Little, Too Late
The headline says it all: Republican Party to require ethics training for candidates. COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Saying he’s “mad as hell” over recent ethical missteps by Republicans, state GOP Chairman Robert Bennett is planning to require all candidates seeking party support to undergo ethics training. This pertains to Ohio only (Bennett is the Ohio State GOP Chairman), but one … Read More
More Bad Polls For Repubs
Another poll is out—this time by NBC/Wall Street Journal (yes, that bastion of liberalism, the WSJ)—and it looks especially bad for the theo-neocons in the 2006 election. Democrats have a 47%-40% edge over the GOP in the generic ballot question for 2006, the largest advantage for the Democrats in this poll since 1994, while respondents felt by a large margin … Read More