The Republicans are steamed at Franken because partisans on the left are using a measure he sponsored to paint them as rapist sympathizers — and because Franken isn’t doing much to stop them.
“Trying to tap into the natural sympathy that we have for this victim of this rape –and use that as a justification to frankly misrepresent and embarrass his colleagues, I don’t think it’s a very constructive thing,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in an interview.
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“I don’t know what his motivation was for taking us on, but I would hope that we won’t see a lot of Daily Kos-inspired amendments in the future coming from him,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, No. 4 in the Senate Republican leadership. “I think hopefully he’ll settle down and do kind of the serious work of legislating that’s important to Minnesota.”
And why exactly should Franken do anything to stop anyone from labeling Republicans as siding with rapists when that is where their votes lie? It was their choice to vote against Franken, which was probably a decision based on the fact that it is Franken and had absolutely nothing at all to do with the amendment itself. This tells you just how awful the Republicans have gotten in Congress. They were unwilling to approve an amendment against the government providing contracts to companies who don’t ban rape. You’d think every single Senator would agree with that. Of course, Franken’s amendment was brilliant, because it targeted companies like KBR which essentially had in their contract a clause that allowed rape to occur. And because KBR is so close to the Republicans, they just simply could not vote against them. Even if it meant being labeled as siding with rapists. Two wonderful things occurred in the November 2008 election. 1. Barack Obama was elected president. 2. Al Franken was elected Senator.
Surprise Surprise, Mr. Friedman is against Obama and his push in Afghanistan. Who would have thunk it. And what is his reason?
Let me start with the bottom line and then tell you how I got there: I can’t agree with President Obama’s decision to escalate in Afghanistan. I’d prefer a minimalist approach, working with tribal leaders the way we did to overthrow the Taliban regime in the first place. Given our need for nation-building at home right now, I am ready to live with a little less security and a little-less-perfect Afghanistan.
Huh? I guess gone are the days when he thinks we can because we can
FRIEDMAN: You don’t think, you know, we care about our open society. You think this bubble fantasy, we’re just going to let it grow? Well, suck on this, ok. That Charlie, is what this war was about. We could have hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. Could have hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could. That’s the real truth.
We can’t just “hit them” anymore, can we Mr. Friedman. And look at what he says about Iraq:
To me, the most important reason for the Iraq war was never W.M.D. It was to see if we could partner with Iraqis to help them build something that does not exist in the modern Arab world: a state, a context, where the constituent communities — Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds — write their own social contract for how to live together without an iron fist from above.
That is of course not what he said in 2003. He said “We hit Iraq because we could. That’s the real truth.”
What do I believe? I believe Thomas Friedman should retire and stop talking about things he apparently no longer knows anything of value about. I think it is time for him to shut the hell up.
Til death do us part? The vow would really hold true in California if a Sacramento Web designer gets his way.
In a movement that seems ripped from the pages of Comedy Channel writers, John Marcotte wants to put a measure on the ballot next year to ban divorce in California.
The 2010 California Marriage Protection Act is meant to be a satirical statement after California voters outlawed gay marriage in 2008, largely on the argument that a ban is needed to protect the sanctity of traditional marriage. If that’s the case, then Marcotte reasons voters should have no problem banning divorce.
“Since California has decided to protect traditional marriage, I think it would be hypocritical of us not to sacrifice some of our own rights to protect traditional marriage even more,” the 38-year-old married father of two said.
I would hope all who fought for Prop 8 would stand behind this. Nothing destroys marriage more than divorce. Nothing threatens families more than divorce. Surely the Church will ask its membership to fork over another $20 million for the support and passage of this bill that will protect marriage even more.
I just don’t understand why the New York Times keeps paying this gasbag. Here he writes about how Major Hasan fell for “The Narrative” some Muslim propaganda on how the US has meant to destroy Islam or something:
Here’s my take: Major Hasan may have been mentally unbalanced — I assume anyone who shoots up innocent people is. But the more you read about his support for Muslim suicide bombers, about how he showed up at a public-health seminar with a PowerPoint presentation titled “Why the War on Terror Is a War on Islam,” and about his contacts with Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni cleric famous for using the Web to support jihadist violence against America — the more it seems that Major Hasan was just another angry jihadist spurred to action by “The Narrative.”
What is scary is that even though he was born, raised and educated in America, The Narrative still got to him.
The Narrative is the cocktail of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies about America that have taken hold in the Arab-Muslim world since 9/11. Propagated by jihadist Web sites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals, satellite news stations and books — and tacitly endorsed by some Arab regimes — this narrative posits that America has declared war on Islam, as part of a grand “American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy” to keep Muslims down.
Huh… I wonder. Where would jihadist Web sites, mosque preachers, Arab intellectuals, satellite news stations and books get this idea that American-Crusader-Zionists were part of a conspiracy to keep Muslims down… I wonder… oh yeah…
FRIEDMAN: You don’t think, you know, we care about our open society. You think this bubble fantasy, we’re just going to let it grow? Well, suck on this, ok. That Charlie, is what this war was about. We could have hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. Could have hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could. That’s the real truth.
Gee, one has to wonder why Muslims might feel threatened by America…
Has anyone asked how exactly can a band of about 10,000 fighters put the most powerful nation on the planet in such a bind as the Taliban has done to the United States?
An expert commission says the Roman Catholic Church in Dublin covered up decades of priests’ sexual abuse of children because its bishops were determined to protect the church’s reputation at the expense of victims.
Maybe the Catholic Church doesn’t realize this, but this destroys the whole nature of the Catholic Church. Instead of protecting the innocent against the sins of evil men, the Catholic Church protected itself and its reputation (whatever that means, whatever is left of it). Don’t go to the Catholic Church to see men of God. They are not there. That’s what the Catholic Church has essentially said with this action. You will see men who find any way possible to hide their own sins and crimes. Just imagine this. A priest is supposed to represent Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, and he not only sexually abuses children (!) but then gets his boss, the bishop to cover his pedophile ass. No wonder atheism is on the rise. If this is what Jesus Christ is all about, it is no wonder many people want none of Him.
UPDATE: The piece has been updated with more information from the report. This paragraph is damning:
The report said all four archbishops sought ”the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the church, and the preservation of its assets. All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities.”
Dana Perino was Bush’s spokeswoman at the end of his second term. Maybe she was confusing Bush’s second term with his first term. You know, when something happened on a clear blue Tuesday in September in the 2001 Year of our Lord. Unsurprisingly, Sean Hannity does not help her clarify what she meant. See, in Sean Hannity’s eyes, much like in Dana Perino’s, there was no attack on our country when Bush was in office. No, that was Bill Clinton’s fault.
“There’s been a lack of acknowledgement by our president in understanding what it is that the American military provides in terms of, obviously, the safety, the security of our country,” Palin said during an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren. “I want him to acknowledge the sacrifices that these individual men and women — our sons, our daughters, our moms, our dads, our brothers and sisters — are providing this country to keep us safe.”
Now that’s some serious disrespect for the president, who after all, has acknowledged the sacrifice of our troops at both Fort Hood and at Dover. It shows the utter ignorance that defines Sarah Palin. It’s also an attempt by her to be domineering and controlling over Obama. The moment Obama acknowledges troops anytime in the future, she’ll go out and say “good, now go do this too while you’re at it, boy.” I guess that’s what conservative white folks like to do with black men. Andrew Sullivan adds:
But of course, the reality is not what matters. What matters is attacking the president of the United States as a traitor to his own soldiers. And what is in the interest of those soldiers? More war, of course. And no presidential analysis of strategy – just being “tough” and adopting maximalist interventionism.
The likes of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck do not see Obama as a legitimate president. I bet you that if they were to write history books, they would simply go from the 43rd president being George Bush to the 44th president being whoever follows after Obama. They would love nothing more than to see a Honduran style military coup in America. Let me remind you again of Beck desiring that Obama be overthrown.
Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are about as anti-American as you can get these days.
BECK: I’ve done a lot of reading on history in the last few years and I was amazed to find that what we’re experiencing now is really a ticking time bomb that they designed about 100 years ago, beginning in the progressive movement. And they thought, “you know what, if we just do this and this and this and this, over time if we do it in both the Republican and Democratic parties, we will have our socialist utopia.” Well, I say again, two can play at that game. I am drafting plans now to bring us back to an America that our founders would understand. … We need to start thinking like the Chinese. I’m developing a 100 year plan for America. A 100 year plan. We will plant this idea and it will sprout roots.
I think his followers need to realize something. Their leader is borrowing not just from one perceived enemy: the Maoist Chinese, but from TWO! See, he’s been reading history (amazing if true) and he’s surprised by the progressive movement’s longevity. (Clearly he hasn’t studied much of any history before these past few years, as he claims, otherwise he would have known that the progressive movement has definitely been around for a while and would not be surprised at this). Problem for Beck is that the progressive movement didn’t have a charlatan at the lead, a comedian who claimed that no one should take him seriously, who was really a clown, a morning zoo crew member.
In any case, Beck says that his movement should borrow the tactics of two of their enemies. The progressives, who were (and are) in this for the long haul, and the Maoist Chinese, who were also in it for the long haul. Think like the Chinese, he says. Plant a ticking time bomb like the progressives, he says. What exactly is he talking about? It’s not really that clear. He talks about hearkening back to the Founding Fathers, but, well, it gets confusing from there, because it’s just not clear exactly what that really means. Not only that, but this man is not a serious thinker, and he tells people not to take him seriously. So why should ANYONE entrust him with a plan to save America? He could probably end up being worse for America than Mao was for China.
Harry Reid got everything he wanted from the CBO report. Time to pass the bill, Harry. No more screwing around. Give Americans a good Christmas present.
“I looked as hard as I could at how states could declare bankruptcy,” said Michael Genest, director of the California Department of Finance who is stepping down at the end of the year. “I literally looked at the federal constitution to see if there was a way for states to return to territory status.”
You don’t have to look so hard dude. Just raise the taxes. That raises your revenue. That pays your bills. What a stupid moron.
“I was very struck also by Janet Napolitano’s comment, I hadn’t read it before to see her say that, that the number one priority is to bring [Hasan] to justice is such a knee-jerk comment and such a stupid comment. He’s going to be brought to justice. He is not going to be innocent of murder. There are a lot of eyewitnesses to that. They should just go ahead and convict him and put him to death,” – William Kristol, appearing on Fox News.
Wasn’t this kind of persecution one of the founding reasons why people fled Europe for America? Where people can be free from religious persecution? Look at this story carefully. The city of Washington DC wants to pass a same sex marriage law, and the Catholic Church is threatening to shut all its social services in the city if it does so. Not because the Catholic Church would be forced to marry gays. Not because the Catholic Church would be forced to give up its tax exempt status. Not because the Catholic Church is in any way threatened from existing ever again in DC. But simply because the Catholic Church does not like the law.
Frankly, I say good riddance. This is the kind of religious abuse people fled Europe for long ago. The Catholic Church, of course, does not realize that by closing its social service doors, it opens a vacuum for competitors (like, say, the Mormon church), or more socialist programs. Surely the Catholic Church is against socialism. Which is the greater priority, boys? Socialism or gay rights? This of course differs from the Mormon Church which has issued support for a similar type measure in Utah (not gay marriage, but equal rights under the law for gays, which is a step in that direction, and which would affect gay workers for the LDS Church).
