Holy Shit

This interview was just dandy. And by dandy, I mean mind-numbingly hilarious. Where does he think he's at? Constantly interrupting and screaming only makes you right on Fox. The good stuff starts at 5:42.

OUT OF CONTEXT!!!!!!

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Franken: "This is a perversion of the filibuster"

This week Republicans have been blocking the debate about financial reform from happening. They haven't been blocking any actual bill or anything, they've been blocking any discussion from happening at all. Then as they always do when there are no rational reasons to justify their actions, they proceeded to lie to the American people. Again.

Well, they finally stopped filibustering. But it's too late. They've already shot themselves in the foot (feet?) with this. They have clearly displayed that they are on the side of Wall Street, and not on the side of the American people. If Democrats are smart, they're going to be reminding us of this over and over and over again as election season rolls closer. There is absolutely no reason they should have done this, other than to throw a wrench in the gears of the inevitable, and it only serves to further display their support for American plutocracy.

Al Franken gets it, and he's been showing that time and time again ever since he got to Washington. Here he is tearing apart the GOP for filibustering this. You almost have to feel sad for him, you can tell in his voice that he can't believe he has to say these things.

Obama Attempts to Rally Progressives for 2010 Elections

A lot can happen in seven months, November is still a long way away. We would like to think the Republicans actually have a powerful voice right now because of all the media coverage they're getting, but I saw a poll recently saying tea party support among Americans was only hovering around 33%. And Obama's poll numbers are higher than Reagan's at the same point in his presidency.



This however is what's scaring me.



If everyone in the country actually shows up to the voting booth, I really don't think the Democrats will do that bad. But polls don't mean shit if people don't care enough to vote. The republican base is rallied as shit, and they're going to be turning up in droves. Plus, Republican candidates are going to have a limitless amount of corporate cash, and a lot of that ensuing propaganda will undoubtedly sway a lot of the dumbass independents. It doesn't look very good.

Once Republicans take Congress, you can fully expect the U.S. government to stop functioning entirely. Republicans will prevent anything from being accomplished, and then they'll say it was because of Obama. Someone at Daily Kos actually predicts they'll go for impeachment. I doubt it'll actually go that far, but... he puts forward an interesting case.

When the Republicans took over congress in 1994, the first thing they did was start serious and official investigations into the shadowy conspiracy theories of the loony right. They appointed a Javert-like investigator to turn over every rock, look at every paper, search in every crevice, to find SOMETHING, ANYTHING to use to destroy Bill Clinton. And eventually, they found it in early 1998.

Their actions were considered cruel and cynical and it indeed cost them in the elections that year -- but they still maintained their control of the House, so impeachment moved forward. Even though it was clear that the Senate and the American people wanted nothing to do with it, they forged ahead. Why? Their real goal was the White House in 2000.

And their plan worked. The impeachment of Clinton took enough shine off that apple to hinder Al Gore just enough to allow a certifiable sociopath to get close enough to winning the election that they could then use their legal spin and rigged Supreme Court majority to put him the rest of the way into the White House. The party of ME ABOVE ALL ELSE. ME ABOVE COUNTRY. ME ABOVE CONSTITUTION. ME ME ME MINE.

I'm really not worried at all about Obama's 2012 run though. If George Bush can win twice, anybody can win twice. And we might see some third-party candidates run like Ron Paul or maybe Sarah Palin, who will hopefully split the vote and make the possibility of any conservative winning out of the question.

Sunday Youtube Post

Sinead O'Connor on Rachel Maddow Show

Just in case anyone forgot, Sinead O'Connor was the one who caused a huge controversy 18 years ago by ripping up a picture of the Pope live on SNL, in protest of church child abuse. Everyone flipped their shit. Guess who was right?

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The only thing that I think would make anyone happy, which would honor not only the victims but the Holy Spirit who these people claim to be representing, would be for him to actually admit that there was an orchestrated cover-up and get out of office, and let us have a church which is run by people who actually believe in God.

Here's the op-ed O'Connor wrote that was mentioned. Rachel Maddow is the classiest reporter on television, and if you don't agree with me, fuck off.

Napoleon

I bought Napoleon: Total War earlier, and it's been tearing me apart waiting for it to download. As I wait, I decided to pick up a book I've had for about a year, but I never really bothered to start because it seemed so intimidating.



I really wish I would've started it sooner. I sort of got into a Napoleon podcast a few months ago, which releases episodes explaining the era in chronological order. The host's enthusiasm bordered a little on 'batshit,' so it didn't really keep my attention.

The preface of this book explains how historians debate on whether or not Napoleon was a 'good guy' or a 'bad guy.' This author puts him in the 'bad guy' camp, saying that Napoleon supported all the ideals of revolutionary France, but for all the wrong reasons. More freedoms for the people was simply a byproduct of his climb to power. And he actually backs it up too (Napoleon was constantly picked on growing up and always overcompensated and developed a skill for lying, he was a history buff and strongly admired the tyrant Julius Caesar, etc).

The podcast guy on the other hand practically orgasmed every time he mentioned Napoleon's name. Napoleon could do no wrong, he was simply carrying out the wars because every other country in Europe hated democracy, Napoleon was defending it. Author guy actually brings that point up, and says it's greatly exaggerated. They both seem pretty biased, but the author actually puts evidence forward, so I'm probably going to stick with him for now. I really want to know why all my history classes skipped over this. It was basically the real World War I. Hitler was quite literally a bumbling retard, and the power of Nazi Germany could probably be considered a fluke. Napoleon Bonaparte was practically the resurrection of Julis Caesar on steroids. He was utterly brilliant. It gives me shivers, thinking about about what he could've done if he had modern weapons.

I don't even know why I made this post. I just really want this fucking game to download.



"Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me."

Obama Will Ban Fishing

New Left Media visits the tax day protests in Washington D.C.



Propaganda and angry mobs have always come and gone throughout American history, but I'm not sure if there's ever been a time when such a steady stream of corporate money has fueled the misinformation so efficiently. These people are only going to be pushed further and further away as my generation grows older and the country keeps changing, and the thought of their reaction really scares me.

Olbermann Destroys Palin on Church and State

An appeal to authority argument is when someone thinks a statement is correct simply because it was said by an authoritative figure.

Source A says p is true.
Source A is authoritative.
Therefore, p is true.

This argument is fallacious. It is always wrong. Simply being in a position of authority doesn't mean you know everything. People who use this argument don't know how to form opinions, and they depend on daddy to tell them what they're supposed to think.

I truly, honestly believe that a lot of Republicans confuse how they view God with how they view the Founding Fathers. As in, they think the founders are God. They know absolutely nothing about the founders, and they know absolutely nothing about God. But that's not going to stop them from pretending to. They project their own opinions onto both. They take both of their quotes out of context. They've completely forgotten the messages they originally stood for. They believe the founder's 'word' (or, their own projected opinion) is infallible, and anyone who disagrees is going to hell and/or a communist. They have completely made up their own authority to appeal to.

Anyone who's read even a little bit about the Revolutionary War era should know that the founders were products of the Enlightenment. They were very much secular. The vast majority of the founders were Christian, but they typically held a strong distrust against organized religion in general, specifically when it mixes in with government. That's monarchistic European thinking. That is one of the key principles Revolutionary America fought against, and any fucktard should know it.

Sarah Palin was caught projecting her opinions onto the founders. Keith Olbermann calls her out on it, and shits down her neck.

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I don't know why Olbermann only quoted Jefferson. Thomas Paine and James Madison hated religion even more than he did. Jefferson actually warmed up to Christianity a bit later in his life, believing Jesus was one of the greatest moral philosophers who had ever lived (just not in his divinity). Keep in mind, most of the founders disagreed with them (we can't make the same mistake Republicans are making and assume that every founder universally agreed on everything; they were just as divided as we are). Most everyone was undoubtedly secular, but in terms of personal belief, Jefferson, Paine, and Madison were the extremists of their age.

Jefferson and his best friend John Adams eventually agreed to just stop discussing religion altogether, since their debates would always grow so heated, and threaten their friendship. The Federalists viciously attacked Jefferson in the 1800 election for being a "deist" and an "infidel." Most of the founders cut off relations with Paine entirely during his later years when most of his stronger criticisms against Christianity came out in The Age of Reason. Jefferson was the only friend who stuck by him, and the Federalists attacked him for doing that too. Paine and Jefferson were both deists. James Madison, who was Jefferson's protege and principle author of the Constitution is considered by many to have been an atheist.



“Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make half the world fools and half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the world.”
-Thomas Jefferson

“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government.”
-Thomas Jefferson

“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.”
-Thomas Jefferson

“May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.”
-Thomas Jefferson



"My own mind is my own church."
-Thomas Paine

“The world is my country, to do good is my religion.”
-Thomas Paine

"Yet, with all this strange appearance of humility and this contempt for human reason, he [the Christian] ventures into the boldest presumptions; he finds fault with everything; his selfishness is never satisfied; his ingratitude is never at an end. He takes on himself to direct the Almighty what to do, even in the government of the universe; he prays dictatorially; when it is sunshine, he prays for rain, and when it is rain, he prays for sunshine; he follows the same idea in everything that he prays for; for what is the amount of all his prayers but an attempt to make the Almighty change his mind, and act otherwise than he does? It is as if he were to say: Thou knowest not so well as I.”
-Thomas Paine



"The civil government ... functions with complete success ... by the total separation of the Church from the State."
-James Madison

"Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects."
-James Madison

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprize, every expanded prospect."
-James Madison

"Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure and perpetuate it needs them not."
-James Madison

"That diabolical, hell-conceived principle of persecution rages among some, and to their eternal infamy the clergy can furnish their quota of imps for such a business."
-James Madison

"Among the features peculiar to the political system of the United States, is the perfect equality of rights which it secures to every religious sect ... Equal laws, protecting equal rights, are found, as they ought to be presumed, the best guarantee of loyalty and love of country; as well as best calculated to cherish that mutual respect and good will among citizens of every religious denomination which are necessary to social harmony, and most favorable to the advancement of truth."
-James Madison