The Bush Recession In His Own Words

America's Five Most Intolerant Christians

James Hartline is the publisher of The James Hartline Report, a website so extreme that visitors unaligned with far right social causes will immediately feel the need for a bath. Whether he's railing about an imaginary lesbian menace or working "in Jesus' name" to quash women's reproductive rights, Hartline panders to the fears of the converted. Here's just one example of his bile: "The same treacherous and demonic immorality that was pervasive in ancient Sodom has arisen again in the newly resurrected Sodomic gay communities around the United States. I have lived through six years inside of the gay community of Hillcrest as a committed Christian and I am a sure witness that Sodom has, in fact, resurrected itself." Hartline regularly describes gays as a "bunch of rebellious child molesters," a stance which incites hate crimes against members of the LGBT community.

Focus on the Family’s Dr. James Dobson lathers his hate like ultrasound gel on an expectant mother’s stomach. “Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage! It will destroy the Earth!” (Please, Dr. Dobson, take 100 aspirin and call us in the morning.) PFAW writes: "While Dobson made a name for himself as an avuncular purveyor of parenting advice, he now uses that power to promote a range of troubling views and candidates who share those views. He says the gay rights movement is seeking the 'utter destruction of the family' and likens proponents of marriage equality to the Nazis. He has backed candidates who call for the execution of abortion providers." (More crazies after the jump...)

The Reverend John Hagee, who Senator John McCain once hailed as his spiritual advisor, referred to the Catholic Church as The Great Whore and said that Adolf Hitler was fulfilling God's will by prodding the Jews - those few that were left after the Holocaust - toward Israel. When these statements came to light some conservative Christian bloggers rallied to Hagee's defense, claiming that his words had been twisted or misunderstood. But these two statements, unhinged as they are, comprise but a small portion of the minister's creepy End Times, Hellfire and Damnation worldview. His flock of Sheeple continue to follow him blindly toward the Rapture.

Sally Kern is a Republican State Legislator in Oklahoma. She's also the wife of an ordained Baptist minister. Ms. Kern gained notoriety in March of 2008 when she announced that gays were worse than terrorists. That's right. She said that Americans who are gay are worse than the terrorists who killed over twenty-seven hundred U.S. citizens. This is the vilest sort of hate speech imaginable - and it leads to violent crimes against gays and lesbians. It might surprise you to learn that Miss Sally has recently started packing heat. To protect herself, she says. She's walking around with a fully loaded semi-automatic weapon in her purse. One can't help but think of Dan White, the homophobic San Francisco city supervisor who shot and killed out politician Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. Might shrill Sally suddenly snap one day and start gunning down LGBT folk? She certainly talks the talk.

Tony Perkins of the so-called Family Research Council rallied the Religious Right in their multi-pronged attacks on Terri Shiavo's husband Michael before and after her death. Americans United executive director, the Rev. Barry Lynn, said of Perkins: "I've worked in Washington a long time, but I've never seen anything as manipulative as what Perkins and the FRC did over Terri Schiavo. They took a terminally ill woman and turned her into a political tool to gain leverage in Congress." Perkins, who obsesses about gay sex to a degree that would embarrass most normal, secure heterosexual males, was involved in securing the mailing list of Ku Klux Klansman David Duke for a Louisiana Senate campaign he managed in 1996. Then he applauded African American bishops who rejected funds to help AIDS victims from churches that allow gay clergy, saying: "No amount of silver is worth sacrificing your duty to your congregation and to God." Which I'm sure was a comfort to the children who were dying of that disease.

(Note: We didn't include Shirley Phelps-Roper, Matt Barber or "Porno" Peter LaBarbera on this list because we believe them to be certifiably insane.)
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It's sad that so many of the preachers and right-wing politicians who demonize gays are oblivious to the fact that they're responsible for creating an environment in which hate crimes flourish. The tragic death of 15-year-old Lawrence King is but one case in point. Curiously, when Lawrence was shot to death inside his junior high school it came as a surprise only to those Christians who preached the intolerance that encouraged his killer. And while that young boy bled out on his classroom floor, those good Godly people still clung to their "love the sinner hate the sin" mantra. Love the sinner, hate the sin. Love the sinner, hate the sin. I will tell you this. If this child's "sins" had been a little less "hated" he might still be alive today.

Despite everything, we believe there is hope on the horizon. Mainstream Christians are beginning to denounce the mean-spiritedness and intolerance espoused by right-wing fanatics. Churchgoers are turning away from the prophecies of doom. They're rejecting the hurtful words, the fear, the unreasoned prejudice. And they're starting to view those who are different with kindness and respect, and without resorting to hate. Which is exactly what Jesus would do.

Source: The Progressive Puppy

George H.W. Bush: I'd like to see Jeb be president one day.

Alex Jones - "DO NOT DEFEND ME"

SAVE THE FAKE ECONOMY WITH MORE DEBT HAHA -FKNNEWZ 121407

5 Lies About Israel's Assault on Gaza

5 Lies About Israel's Assault on Gaza

Lie #1) Israel is only targeting legitimate military sites and is seeking to protect innocent lives. Israel never targets civilians.

The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated pieces of property in the world. The presence of militants within a civilian population does not, under international law, deprive that population of their protected status, and hence any assault upon that population under the guise of targeting militants is, in fact, a war crime.

Moreover, the people Israel claims are legitimate targets are members of Hamas, which Israel says is a terrorist organization. Hamas has been responsible for firing rockets into Israel. These rockets are extremely inaccurate and thus, even if Hamas intended to hit military targets within Israel, are indiscriminate by nature. When rockets from Gaza kill Israeli civilians, it is a war crime.

Hamas has a military wing. However, it is not entirely a military organization, but a political one. Members of Hamas are the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people. Dozens of these elected leaders have been kidnapped and held in Israeli prisons without charge. Others have been targeted for assassination, such as Nizar Rayan, a top Hamas official. To kill Rayan, Israel targeted a residential apartment building. The strike not only killed Rayan but two of his wives and four of his children, along with six others. There is no justification for such an attack under international law. This was a war crime.

Other of Israel’s bombardment with protected status under international law have included a mosque, a prison, police stations, and a university, in addition to residential buildings.

Moreover, Israel has long held Gaza under siege, allowing only the most minimal amounts of humanitarian supplies to enter. Israel is bombing and killing Palestinian civilians. Countless more have been wounded, and cannot receive medical attention. Hospitals running on generators have little or no fuel. Doctors have no proper equipment or medical supplies to treat the injured. These people, too, are the victims of Israeli policies targeted not at Hamas or legitimate military targets, but directly designed to punish the civilian population.

Lie #2) Hamas violated the cease-fire. The Israeli bombardment is a response to Palestinian rocket fire and is designed to end such rocket attacks.

Israel never observed the cease-fire to begin with. From the beginning, it announced a “special security zone” within the Gaza Strip and announced that Palestinians who enter this zone will be fired upon. In other words, Israel announced its intention that Israeli soldiers would shoot at farmers and other individuals attempting to reach their own land in direct violation of not only the cease-fire but international law.

Despite shooting incidents, including ones resulting in Palestinians getting injured, Hamas still held to the cease-fire from the time it went into effect on June 19 until Israel effectively ended the truce on November 4 by launching an airstrike into Gaza that killed five and injured several others.

Israel’s violation of the cease-fire predictably resulted in retaliation from militants in Gaza who fired rockets into Israel in response. The increased barrage of rocket fire at the end of December is being used as justification for the continued Israeli bombardment, but is a direct response by militants to the Israeli attacks.

Israel's actions, including its violation of the cease-fire, predictably resulted in an escalation of rocket attacks against its own population.

Lie #3) Hamas is using human shields, a war crime.

There has been no evidence that Hamas has used human shields. The fact is, as previously noted, Gaza is a small piece of property that is densely populated. Israel engages in indiscriminate warfare such as the assassination of Nizar Rayan, in which members of his family were also murdered. It is victims like his dead children that Israel defines as “human shields” in its propaganda. There is no legitimacy for this interpretation under international law. In circumstances such as these, Hamas is not using human shields, Israel is committing war crimes in violation of the Geneva Conventions and other applicable international law.

Lie #4) Arab nations have not condemned Israel’s actions because they understand Israel’s justification for its assault.

The populations of those Arab countries are outraged at Israel’s actions and at their own governments for not condemning Israel’s assault and acting to end the violence. Simply stated, the Arab governments do not represent their respective Arab populations. The populations of the Arab nations have staged mass protests in opposition to not only Israel's actions but also the inaction of their own governments and what they view as either complacency or complicity in Israel's crimes.

Moreover, the refusal of Arab nations to take action to come to the aid of the Palestinians is not because they agree with Israel’s actions, but because they are submissive to the will of the US, which fully supports Israel. Egypt, for instance, which refused to open the border to allow Palestinians wounded in the attacks to get medical treatment in Egyptian hospitals, is heavily dependent upon US aid, and is being widely criticized within the population of the Arab countries for what is viewed as an absolute betrayal of the Gaza Palestinians.

Even Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has been regarded as a traitor to his own people for blaming Hamas for the suffering of the people of Gaza. Palestinians are also well aware of Abbas' past perceived betrayals in conniving with Israel and the US to sideline the democratically elected Hamas government, culminating in a counter-coup by Hamas in which it expelled Fatah (the military wing of Abbas' Palestine Authority) from the Gaza Strip. While his apparent goal was to weaken Hamas and strengthen his own position, the Palestinians and other Arabs in the Middle East are so outraged at Abbas that it is unlikely he will be able to govern effectively.

Lie #5) Israel is not responsible for civilian deaths because it warned the Palestinians of Gaza to flee areas that might be targeted.

Israel claims it sent radio and telephone text messages to residents of Gaza warning them to flee from the coming bombardment. But the people of Gaza have nowhere to flee to. They are trapped within the Gaza Strip. It is by Israeli design that they cannot escape across the border. It is by Israeli design that they have no food, water, or fuel by which to survive. It is by Israeli design that hospitals in Gaza have no electricity and few medical supplies with which to treat the injured and save lives. And Israel has bombed vast areas of Gaza, targeting civilian infrastructure and other sites with protected status under international law. No place is safe within the Gaza Strip.

Source: Foreign Policy Journal

FKN News: Death in Gaza 2 Easy

2008: Bush’s Last Year By The Numbers

President Bush issued a statement yesterday in which he heralded New Year’s day as “an opportunity to remember the events of the past and look forward with hope to the year ahead.” But as Bush looks forward to leaving office, the nation is stuck with the results of many of the Bush administration’s failed policies.

To mark the passing of Bush’s last full year in office, ThinkProgress rounded up statistics on some of the most significant effects of Bush rule in 2008:

Number Of U.S. Troops Killed in Iraq: 322.
Number Of U.S. Troops Killed in Afghanistan: 151.
Number Of Jobs Lost: 1.9 million.
Number Of Banks Federal Government Now Owns Stock In: 206.
Number Of Uninsured Americans: 47.5 million.

Change In Housing Prices: declined 18 percent.
Change In Health Insurance Premiums: increased 5 percent.
Change In Number Of Delinquent Mortgages: increased 75 percent.
Change In Use Of Food Stamps: increased 17 percent.
Change In Dow Jones Industrial Average: declined 35 percent.
Change In Bush Approval Rating: declined 9 percent to 29 percent.

Paul Krugman noted recently that the Bush administration’s failings have often been obscured in the short-run because the White House was particularly effective at inventing an alternate reality that it then “impressed on the public.” In 2008, however, despite its repeated attempts to wish it away, the reality of its domestic policy failures caught up with Bush administration and the nation.

Source: Think Progress

The Sarah Palin-Like Presidency

The Sarah Palin-Like Presidency

In a recent article in Newsweek (excerpts posted below) top aides report that Bush was doomed with the American public after Katrina. But Bush handled Katrina the same way he did everything while President, displaying a total lack of care for people and a genuine disinterest in them and their situations. But unfortunately Bush is what passed as compassionate conservatism to the American people.

So Just as Sarah Palin ignited much of the conservative base in this last election. Bush had previously ignited that same base by displaying the same characteristics that the Republican conservatives find so appealing. A leader that appeals to this base, like Bush and Palin, must display an alarming lack of intellectual curiosity, understanding, and creativity to go with an extreme lack of empathy or compassion. Unfortunately what the conservative base, and ultimately a great many of the American people, find so appealing contributed to a terrible catastrophe on the Gulf Coast. It has also contributed to our present economic Katrina.

In the future, the American people, for their own protection, should demand leaders that have genuine feelings for people while also displaying an intellectual capacity.

Grant

....Lawrence Wilkerson, top aide and later chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, said that as a new president, Bush was like Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee whom critics said lacked knowledge about foreign affairs. When Bush first came into office, he was surrounded by experienced advisers like Vice President Dick Cheney

and Powell, who Wilkerson said ended up playing damage control for the president.

"It allowed everybody to believe that this Sarah Palin-like president — because, let's face it, that's what he was — was going to be protected by this national-security elite, tested in the cauldrons of fire," Wilkerson said, adding that he considered Cheney probably the "most astute, bureaucratic entrepreneur" he'd ever met.

Source: Newsweek

Utah Phillips--"My Body is My Ballot"

Utah Phillips--"My Body is My Ballot"

UTAH PHILLIPS: Well, now, you’ve got me boxed in. Amy, you know, you make—you ever made of vow? You know, like Catholics make vows, don’t they? You make a vow of celibacy or a vow of poverty. I made a vow to Ammon Hennacy shortly before his death, that, you know, he would never—he was an anarchist, a great anarchist. And he would never speak when I was running for the Senate. He would never talk, you know, for me. Another you learn things the hard way, don’t you? He made me promise that I wouldn’t engage in systemic politics ever again, that there was another way I had to do this.

Ammon never went to the polls, but you couldn’t tell him you hadn’t voted. He did vote. Ammon’s body was his ballot. And he cast it in behalf of the poor around him every day of his life. And he paid a terrible price for that. You couldn’t tell him he hadn’t voted. He said, “Yes, I did vote. I just didn’t assign responsibility to other people to do things. I accept responsibility and saw to it that something got done.” It’s a different way of looking at voting, isn’t it? And you can do that all the time. You could have your life. And that’s the way I live my life. My body is my ballot. It’s a lesson I learned from Ammon. That’s my way. That’s the vow I took, and I’m not going to break it. Right?

Given that, I can’t, of course, ask people to do something that I wouldn’t do, you know, but it does appear to me that these fascists that have taken over have got to get—we’ve got to get rid of them. They’re not Republicans, and they’re not Democrats up there. You know, they’re something else. They’re corporate fascists. And they got to be out of there. And the only organized force on the planet—in the country that I know of that can do that is the Democratic Party. God help us all. You know, it’s like buying a seat on the Titanic, the Democratic Party, but they’re the only force, organized force, that has the ability to do it. So it’s imperative that the entire progressive movement come together, like they did in the Great Depression at the time of the CIO.

Every progressive force in the country came together, gave them the window of opportunity, Roosevelt’s second term, and put their differences on the shelves, stopped hammering on each other. In the Great Depression. And we came out of that with Social Security and workmen’s compensation and a minimum wage, you understand? The whole progressive movement, from animal rights to the feminist movement to anti-nuclear—I don’t care what permutation—have got to saying, “This is my issue, this is my issue,” and join forces and once again create the united front, total united front, and take over the Democratic Party, and that’s the only way we’re going to be able to do this, to pull this off. We can’t do that—then, when we’ve done it, go back and hammer on each other, OK, but for right now, all the difference has got to be pushed aside. I am absolutely appalled at these Democratic candidates hammering on each other, you know, not recognizing the direness of our situation.

Source: Democracy Now