Fun Size Bytes
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If you know anything about me, you know I’m glad that President Obama has been re-elected. That said, please remember to be kind and generous and loving to Governor Romney and to our right-leaning brothers and sisters.
Jesus didn’t say “Love the people who think like you do, and f*ck the rest.” No, Jesus said, “Love your enemies. I know it’s hard, but do it. Love your enemies and pray for them.” So be the bigger person. Be the gracious and generous one, because those are progressive values. Be kind and loving, because those are Christian values. Thankfully, God doesn’t care whether we actually likeanybody, just that we love them, which is a good thing because it’s a lot easier to love than to like.
Be joyful. Be energized. Be progressive. Be prayerful. And be loving. Please. This is what America needs us to be.
Strongly agreed.
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“You go to the hospital, you get treated, you get care, and it’s paid for, either by charity, the government or by the hospital. We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.” —Mitt Romney, getting everything wrong on health care. (via think-progress)
You all know this is complete bullshit, right? IT SIMPLY IS NOT TRUE.
(via monkeyfrog)
DOES HE REALLY THINK THIS?
(via elizabite)
Completely wrong. (via notactuallyme)
Congratulations to Mitthead for discovering the modern equivalent of “Let Them Eat Cake.”
What’s next?
“If your car needs repairs because your driver ran over another stinky filthy hobo, then you just use one of your other ones. We don’t have cars that stop working. Don’t be ridiculous.”
(via notactuallyme)
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“A pro-life, family-values congressman who worked as a doctor before winning election as a Tea Party-backed Republican had an affair with a patient and later pressured her to get an abortion, according to a phone call transcript obtained by The Huffington Post.
The congressman, Rep. Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee, was trying to save his marriage at the time, according to his remarks on the call, made in September of 2000. And, according to three independent sources familiar with the call and the recording, he made the tape himself.
DesJarlais, who was provided a copy of the transcript by HuffPost, did not deny its contents, but in a statement released through his campaign characterized it as just another sordid detail dredged up by the opposition. “Desperate personal attacks do not solve our nation’s problems, yet it appears my opponents are choosing to once again engage in the same gutter politics that CBS news called the dirtiest in the nation just 2 years ago.”—Scott DesJarlais, Pro-Life Republican Congressman And Doctor, Pressured Mistress Patient To Get Abortion [Emphasis Added]
Hey Scott! You know what’s a good way to save your marriage? Not putting your dick in people you aren’t married to!
Seems to me that if the GOP really believed in the “sanctity of marriage” they’d stop letting elected GOP officials get married.
The GOP: “We Believe In Personal Responsibility… for other people.”
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Jeff Goldblum, seen here reviewing a collection of the latest statements by Republicans on rape and abortion.
~Related:~
BREAKING: GOP votes to put a “human life amendment” in their party platform, including an abortion ban with no exception for rape or incest. (source: https://twitter.com/TheDemocrats/statuses/237937090988478464)
“Wake up: It’s not just Akin” By LZ Granderson, CNN Contributor
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“Eight years was awesome and I was famous and I was powerful.” —George W. Bush
I’m glad that being the President during the worst terrorist attack in the history of the country didn’t bring him down. Or overseeing the biggest surplus turn into the biggest deficit. Or starting two unwinnable wars.
Reminds me of “I’m doing okay. Don’t worry about me” from A President Besieged and Isolated, Yet at Ease.
I don’t know why I’m surprised. He’s never given a shit what other people thought of him, and he’s probably still convinced that history will judge him as a great president.
He takes obliviousness to a whole new level.
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Headline of the Day: “Quietly, the Republican Party is embracing gays”
Me: “Yeah, well, they’ve always quietly embraced them… until they’re caught in the act.”
Nothing says “separate but equal” quite like “We’ll welcome you as long as no one has to know about it.”
Difficult to see this as anything other than just another attempt by the GOP to court voters by whatever means necessary.
The Etch-A-Sketch party…
(Ok, now back to the no-politics part of our show.)
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The best campaign counter-attack video I HAVE EVER SEEN. Obama 2012
”So we’re going to call their BS when we see it and we need your help to call them on it too and set the record straight. So share this, tweet it, facebook it, I keep hearing about tumblr and whatever that is…please use that too. Thank you.”
-Stephanie Cutter / Deputy Campaign Manager at Obama for America.
And a Tumblr shout-out.
“We’re going to call them on their B.S.” - Favorite Part.
Favorite Part, indeed.
(Although I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that David Karp will throw his support behind Romney if he agrees to condemn Missing-E as “a dangerous hack as well as a clear and present danger to America.” He also wants to be allowed to give Cutlerish a wedgie on national TV.)
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“Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home—but not for housing. They are strong for labor—but they are stronger for restricting labor’s rights. They favor minimum wage—the smaller the minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all—but they won’t spend money for teachers or for schools. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine—for people who can afford them. They consider electrical power a great blessing—but only when the private power companies get their rake-off. They think American standard of living is a fine thing—so long as it doesn’t spread to all the people. And they admire of Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it.” —Harry S. Truman (via silas216)
Nope, there is nothing new under the sun.
(via undercovernun)
(via undercovernun)
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It’s been two years, I wonder if anyone has been added to that list yet…
(ps — I don’t expect to post a lot of political stuff this election season, but I will try to always use the “politics” tag if you want to filter it out.)
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“Earlier this week, we reported on efforts by an Indiana state legislator who was interested in getting creationism inserted into the state’s science classrooms. He managed to get a modified bill, one that was less sectarian but still overtly promoted religion, passed by the state’s Senate. Yesterday, however, the leader of the Indiana House voiced unease about having the state wade into an area that the Supreme Court has declared an unconstitutional promotion of religion.” —Indiana backing away from bill allowing creation “science” into classrooms
What are the odds that state legislator who thinks he can overrule the Supreme Court is a Republican?
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(via redcloud)
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Perpetual War Is a Bigger Threat Than Terrorism Our thought process is as follows: terrorism is a threat, and it justifies waging war anywhere on earth where there are terrorists. As we all know, however, it’s impossible to kill every last terrorist. Thus the war on terrorism rolls on. Even if we leave Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, it’ll continue.
Give the hawks their due: terrorism is an ongoing threat to the United States. In fact, it’s likely to pose a bigger threat with every year that passes, insofar as technological advances are permitting people with meager resources to obtain ever deadlier weapons. Heaven forbid they get a nuke or a killer virus. What the hawks fail to recognize, however, is that perpetual war poses a bigger threat to the citizenry of a superpower than does terrorism. Already it is helping to bankrupt us financially, undermining our civil liberties, corroding our values, triggering abusive prosecutions, empowering the executive branch in ways that are anathema to the system of checks and balances implemented by the Founders, and causing us to degrade one another.
Despite a decade without a major terrorist attack, the government continues to claim ever broader powers and to spend billions more in treasure. So what do things look like after another decade? Or after another major terrorist attack? Or when the Oval Office is occupied by someone who wields powers President Obama already claims in an even more abusive fashion?
All the metrics I mentioned are bound to get worse until Americans demand more than improved tactics, or an exit strategy in Iraq or Afghanistan, or the assurance that a leader will do what is necessary to keep us safe. Though terrorism will always threaten us — as it always has — the American people should demand an exit strategy in the war on terrorism, and an approach to safeguarding the homeland that isn’t likely to bring about our fiscal ruin, the loss of our liberty, and the corrosion of our morals. Being far more powerful than our enemies, we pose the biggest threat to ourselves.
Good read, and good linked resources.
(via darkuncle)
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The Founding Fathers *did* favor government sponsored heathcare & socialized medicine
Not that GOP/Tea Party folks are likely to be swayed by anything as trivial as facts and history, but you might want to read these and pass them along anyway.
Note: those are Instapaper links because both of the original articles show more ads than content.
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Next up on my “to watch” list: PBS’ God in America.
You people with decent Internet connections can watch it free online.
(If you want to own it, buy it from Amazon for $22 using G’s Amazon referral link.)
The description made it sound too interesting to miss:
For the first time on television, God in America explores the tumultuous 400-year history of the intersection of religion and public life in America, from the first European settlements to the 2008 presidential election. A co-production of AMERICAN EXPERIENCE and FRONTLINE, this six-hour series examines how religious dissidents helped shape the American concept of religious liberty and the controversial evolution of that ideal in the nation’s courts and political arena; how religious freedom and waves of new immigrants and religious revivals fueled competition in the religious marketplace; how movements for social reform — from abolition to civil rights — galvanized men and women to put their faith into political action; and how religious faith influenced conflicts from the American Revolution to the Cold War.
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“The American story cannot be fully understood without understanding the country’s religious history,” says series executive producer Michael Sullivan. “By examining that history, God in America will offer viewers a fresh, revealing and challenging portrait of the country.”
As God in America unfolds, it reveals the deep roots of American religious identity in the universal quest for liberty and individualism — ideas that played out in the unlikely political union between Thomas Jefferson and defiant Baptists to oppose the established church in Virginia and that were later embraced by free-wheeling Methodists and maverick Presbyterians. Catholic and Jewish immigrants battled for religious liberty and expanded its meaning. In their quest for social reform, movements as different as civil rights and the religious right found authority and energy in their religious faith. The fight to define religious liberty fueled struggles between America’s secular and religious cultures on issues from evolution to school prayer, and American individualism and the country’s experiment in religious liberty were the engine that made America the most religiously diverse nation on earth.
Yeah I mostly quoted that because it’s the first time I’ve ever heard the phrase “maverick Presbyterians” :-)
