Delaware Masturbators March Against O’Donnell « Borowitz Report

Delaware Masturbators March Against O’Donnell « Borowitz Report

It's a Crazy World When Ron Paul Starts Making Sense

Ron Paul to Sunshine Patriots: Stop Your Demagogy About The NYC Mosque!

335 Responses

By RonPaul.com on August 20, 2010

Congressman Ron Paul today released the following statement on the controversy concerning the construction of an Islamic Center and Mosque in New York City:

Is the controversy over building a mosque near ground zero a grand distraction or a grand opportunity? Or is it, once again, grandiose demagoguery?

It has been said, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” Are we not overly preoccupied with this controversy, now being used in various ways by grandstanding politicians? It looks to me like the politicians are “fiddling while the economy burns.”

The debate should have provided the conservative defenders of property rights with a perfect example of how the right to own property also protects the 1st Amendment rights of assembly and religion by supporting the building of the mosque.

Instead, we hear lip service given to the property rights position while demanding that the need to be “sensitive” requires an all-out assault on the building of a mosque, several blocks from “ground zero.”

Just think of what might (not) have happened if the whole issue had been ignored and the national debate stuck with war, peace, and prosperity. There certainly would have been a lot less emotionalism on both sides. The fact that so much attention has been given the mosque debate, raises the question of just why and driven by whom?

In my opinion it has come from the neo-conservatives who demand continual war in the Middle East and Central Asia and are compelled to constantly justify it.

They never miss a chance to use hatred toward Muslims to rally support for the ill conceived preventative wars. A select quote from soldiers from in Afghanistan and Iraq expressing concern over the mosque is pure propaganda and an affront to their bravery and sacrifice.

The claim is that we are in the Middle East to protect our liberties is misleading. To continue this charade, millions of Muslims are indicted and we are obligated to rescue them from their religious and political leaders. And, we’re supposed to believe that abusing our liberties here at home and pursuing unconstitutional wars overseas will solve our problems.

The nineteen suicide bombers didn’t come from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran. Fifteen came from our ally Saudi Arabia, a country that harbors strong American resentment, yet we invade and occupy Iraq where no al Qaeda existed prior to 9/11.

Many fellow conservatives say they understand the property rights and 1st Amendment issues and don’t want a legal ban on building the mosque. They just want everybody to be “sensitive” and force, through public pressure, cancellation of the mosque construction.

This sentiment seems to confirm that Islam itself is to be made the issue, and radical religious Islamic views were the only reasons for 9/11. If it became known that 9/11 resulted in part from a desire to retaliate against what many Muslims saw as American aggression and occupation, the need to demonize Islam would be difficult if not impossible.

There is no doubt that a small portion of radical, angry Islamists do want to kill us but the question remains, what exactly motivates this hatred?

If Islam is further discredited by making the building of the mosque the issue, then the false justification for our wars in the Middle East will continue to be acceptable.

The justification to ban the mosque is no more rational than banning a soccer field in the same place because all the suicide bombers loved to play soccer.

Conservatives are once again, unfortunately, failing to defend private property rights, a policy we claim to cherish. In addition conservatives missed a chance to challenge the hypocrisy of the left which now claims they defend property rights of Muslims, yet rarely if ever, the property rights of American private businesses.

Defending the controversial use of property should be no more difficult than defending the 1st Amendment principle of defending controversial speech. But many conservatives and liberals do not want to diminish the hatred for Islam–the driving emotion that keeps us in the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia.

It is repeatedly said that 64% of the people, after listening to the political demagogues, don’t want the mosque to be built. What would we do if 75% of the people insist that no more Catholic churches be built in New York City? The point being is that majorities can become oppressors of minority rights as well as individual dictators. Statistics of support is irrelevant when it comes to the purpose of government in a free society—protecting liberty.

The outcry over the building of the mosque, near ground zero, implies that Islam alone was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. According to those who are condemning the building of the mosque, the nineteen suicide terrorists on 9/11 spoke for all Muslims. This is like blaming all Christians for the wars of aggression and occupation because some Christians supported the neo-conservatives’ aggressive wars.

The House Speaker is now treading on a slippery slope by demanding a Congressional investigation to find out just who is funding the mosque—a bold rejection of property rights, 1st Amendment rights, and the Rule of Law—in order to look tough against Islam.

This is all about hate and Islamaphobia.

We now have an epidemic of “sunshine patriots” on both the right and the left who are all for freedom, as long as there’s no controversy and nobody is offended.

Political demagoguery rules when truth and liberty are ignored.

Poll: Kansas Senate - Results | Polldaddy.com (poll 3627488)

Poll: Kansas Senate - Results | Polldaddy.com (poll 3627488)

More Republican Negativity . . .

Brownback: No More Funding Increases for Education

Sam Brownback says it's time to increase the performance of Kansas school children, as measured by standardized testing, of course. We'll do this, according to Brownback, while enacting a state-wide spending freeze. We are left to draw the inference then that Brownback believes Kansas educators already have all the resources they need to reach all students.

Perhaps he should visit the elementary school in Wichita where a former student of mine has taken a first-year position this year where is she required to purchase her own reams of copy paper.

Senator Brownback, you are clearly out of touch with reality.

Strategy for Republican Moderates in the 2010 Midterms or Playing Dress Up at a Tea Party

First, run as far to the Right as possible. Bill yourself as an anti-Obama, anti-federal, anti-incumbent Tea Party libertarian who aligns him or herself with the likes of Kentucky’s Rand Paul, whose very name (think Atlas Shrugged) exudes extremism. Join Michele Bachman’s caucus in the House of Representatives and root for Sharron Angle to unseat Harry Reid in the Nevada senate race.

Second, once your Tea Party disguise is in place, distance yourself from the actual philosophy of the Tea Party movement. After all, what will voters think when they discover that Michele Bachman favors phasing out Social Security, or that Rand Paul opposes Medicare—saying that it’s the type of program that led to the fall of the Soviet Union? What will they think when they find out that Sharron Angle favors the elimination of the Department of Education and opposes a woman’s reproductive freedom even in the case of rape or incest?

Third, pretend that masquerading around your state or congressional district as something you’re really not is in no way hypocritical. Work on the assumption that voters understand that politicians must use polls (not personal conviction or integrity) to win races.

Be careful what you vote for; you might just get it

As Republican primary candidates compete to see who can run the farthest right of the moderate values of most Kansans, it might just be time to take a pause and examine what a far-right blueprint would be like—not just for Kansas but for our nation. Voting to follow the agenda of the Tea Party would mean ending programs like social security and Medicaid of which House Tea Party Caucus founder Michele Bachmann has said: "So, what you have to do, is keep faith with the people that are already in the system . . . but basically what we have to do is wean everybody else off.”

This might not be a position that candidates like Jerry Moran and Todd Tiahrt truly support, but one is left to wonder why, then, have Moran and Tiahrt joined the Tea Party Caucus in the House? Was this simply a political calculation, or do the congressmen agree with other Tea Party initiatives, following the lead of Tea Party darlings Rand Paul and Sharron Angle who hold that we should abolish the Department of Education (putting the banking industry in charge of student loans and ending federal aid to public schools entirely) and close the Department of Energy, ending not only federal investment in clean energy but also its oversight of nuclear materials?

Or, perhaps, the larger question is: “Which is worse? To take views that are not entirely in agreement with your own but are politically expedient, or to actually have such extreme views in the first place?”

An alternative to the mudslingers on the Right

An Important Message from James Carville

"I have a message from the Tea Party ... we've come to take our government back." - Rand Paul

Let Uncle James translate what Tea Party Republicans really mean when they say they want to "take our government back."

Kentucky's Rand Paul opposes the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Nevada's Sharron Angle is itching to dismantle Social Security. And California's Carly Fiorina dismisses climate change concerns as fretting about "the weather."

Look, we've all snickered at some of the kooky ideas these Tea Partiers espouse. But there's nothing funny about the challenge we face. And it certainly doesn't help that corporations now can spend an unlimited amount in support of candidates they like.

We have the power to keep these extremists out of Washington. We only have to seize this moment. It's time to fight back, and there's no better way than giving to the DSCC. I support the DSCC because they spend money where it's needed - to fight the Rand Pauls and Sharron Angles. Help me keep the extremists out of the Senate!

These candidates seem extreme to us, but there's a lot of people buying what they're selling. Angle raised more than $100,000 in an hour shilling for support on the Rush Limbaugh show. Paul is taking a page from his dad's playbook and using "moneybombs" to consolidate support. And Carly Fiorina - well, she hardly needs to raise any money at all with that cushy $42 million golden parachute she got after nearly driving HP into the ground.

Your gift today will make a big difference against these candidates. The DSCC uses donations from grassroots Democrats like you and me to build tough campaigns, fight Republican lies and get every last Democrat to the polls come November. We can beat them, but not without your immediate help.

Rand Paul and his radical pals say they want their country back. Well, I'm here to say that it's our country, too. And they're not going to drag us backward without one heck of a battle. Join the fight.

Sincerely,

James Carville


Democratic Senate Campaign Committee

A Spot of Tea (Party) with a Side of Crazy

Straight from her Wikipedia entry (you can't make stuff like this up) comes the belief system of Orly Taitz who recently lost her bid to become the Republican nominee for California Secretary of State.

Taitz alleges that Barack Obama due to his father's nationality is not a natural born citizen of the United States and therefore not qualified to serve as its president. She furthermore claims he was born in Kenya and that he falsified his Selective Service papers and his application to the Illinois bar.Regarding Obama, Taitz has said: "I believe he is the most dangerous thing one can imagine, in that he represents radical communism and radical Islam: He was born and raised in radical Islam, all of his associations are with radical Islam, and he was groomed in the environment of the dirty Chicago mafia. Can there be anything scarier than that?"

Other Obama-related rumors Taitz has repeated include:

* A number of homosexuals from Obama's former church have died mysteriously.

* Obama has dozens of social security numbers, and his passport is inaccurate. Taitz claims that a person who was cooperating with the FBI in connection with Obama's passport died mysteriously, "shot in the head."

* A Kenyan birth certificate with the name "Barack Obama" is authentic.

* Obama's first act as president was to donate money to Hamas, which she claims will be used to build Qassam rockets.

* Obama or someone connected to him has made threats to Taitz's life, including vandalizing her car.

* Obama is having the Federal Emergency Management Agency build internment camps for "Anti-Obama dissidents."

Taitz also has supported a number of other theories not directly related to Obama, including: that Goldman Sachs runs the United States Treasury,that Baxter International has developed a bird flu vaccine that kills people,that Representative Alcee Hastings and the House of Representatives are planning to build at least six labor camps,that Hugo Chavez owns the software that runs American voting machines,that FactCheck is untrustworthy because of its links to the Annenberg Foundation,and that Fox News is partly owned by Saudi Arabia.

The irony of it all? Taitz is not a natural-born citizen of the United States.

Wait, I think I just discovered what an illegal alien might look like! Never mind; he has a green card.

Diverse Experiences Enrich The Classroom (Great Response to Mindless Opposition of Ethnic Studies out of Arizona)

In Thursday’s program, we covered the debate over a new Arizona law that targets ethnic studies programs in schools. One of our guests, Arizona state school superintendent Tom Horne, specifically called out a "La Raza" studies program in his state as racially biased, and applauded the new law for battling ethnic chauvinism in the classroom.

Well, it's about time. Where was this law when my mother "learned" in school that slavery was good? Or when I attended an elementary school named for a Confederate general? Or when my school library selected books that repeatedly referred to Native Americans as "savages"?

American schools that teach the history of this country as if it were color-blind AND free of institutionalized racism aren't just ethnically biased...they're wrong on the facts. And what this Arizona law fails to acknowledge is that many ethnic studies programs began because — for decades — people of color were ignored, slurred or misrepresented in history books.

Still, I don't buy the line that all ethnic studies teachers keep their own politics out of their lesson plans; lots of teachers don't. In my progressive, racially integrated, middle-class high school, I had one teacher —a black nationalist — who regularly spent class time railing against capitalism, denouncing the government and complaining that interracial dating threatened the survival of African Americans as a people.

But it's naïve to think that it's just teachers of color who cross that line. I had a very good white social studies teacher who once shouted down a black student for suggesting that race influenced the decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan — and not Europe — during World War II. That's by no means a FACT, but it is a valid opinion, one that could have sparked an interesting discussion instead of a humiliating put down. And a very mediocre white teacher once explained to my class that affirmative action was compromising the quality of her profession. That's an interesting opinion, but not a fact to be dictated to impressionable students.

When teachers share their own prejudices with the class, administrators should tell them to stop it. But it's no reason to threaten the budget of an entire school system or the cultural education efforts of public schools statewide. Especially in these fiscally tight times, a law like this could make school administrators feel like they need to be political correctness cops. And frankly, public school teachers feel threatened enough: They worry that bad standardized test scores or budget cuts will cost them their jobs; that angry students will target them with false claims of abuse or sexual harassment; that parents will verbally — or even physically — attack them for not giving higher grades to their undeserving children.

Most educators want to influence the next generation, and that doesn't mean teaching only algebra or poetry. They've got life experiences, ideals and values that they believe will help young people better themselves. That's a good thing. Trying to legislate against abusing that influence creates another reason for good people to turn away from a profession that badly needs them.

By Alicia Montgomery

http://www.npr.org/blogs/tellmemore/2010/05/14/126826529/diverse-life-experiences-enrich-the-classroom

Hip-hop studies the latest in mindless education trend | The Daily Caller - Breaking News, Opinion, Research, and Entertainment

I've never been a fan of Tucker Carlson, and the guys from Flocabulary were probably naive thinking that they'd get a fair shake from the folks at Fox, but I felt the need to post this in defense of teachers everywhere who are using alternatives means to reach their students. It seems if we use traditional methods like lectures we are failing to recognize that brain-based studies reveal that this mode of transmission simply isn't effective. If we think outside of the box and try to be innovative, we are simply dumbing down education. I'm guessing that Mr. Carlson hasn't ever taught a class, and that if he dared, my junior high students would eat his lunch. Now that's something to rap about.

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The Party of No

So You Want to Run on the Repeal of Health Care Reform?

Robert Creamer over at the Huffington Post has provided those of us who must now defend national health care reform with some great thoughts to share with the repeal-the-bill tea-party wing nuts who will, undoubtedly, show up (very soon) on a campaign trail near you:

Because it's passed into law, Democrats are now the ones who will be in a position to demand that Republicans keep their "hands off our health care." And we can be very specific about provisions that go into effect right away.

Does Congressman Boehner really want to repeal the 35% tax credit that helps small business buy health care for their employees?

Does McConnell really want to repeal the provision that prevents insurance companies from denying benefits to children who have "pre-existing conditions?"

Does Steele really want to kick all the recent college grads off their parent's health insurance policies?

Does the Republican caucus really oppose closing the "donut hole" of coverage for senior citizen drug benefits -- or forcing seniors to send back the 250 check they will get this summer as a down payment on making drugs more affordable?

They ball is in our court now, and one thing is clear: Americans do not like to see existing benefits cut, and that is exactly what the Party of No has to offer them this fall.

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