Levi Johnston has been reveling in his 15 minutes of fame as the baby-daddy of Sarah Palin's grandson. And now, to complicate things, he may or may not also be the father of another inconvenient out-of-wedlock pregnancy he planted in another young woman during the time that he and Bristol had called off their engagement. Before that inconvenient truth emerged, he and Bristol were planning to get married-- against Mama Sarah's wishes -- but now that's off again . . . again.
So, too, is the truth -- on again, off again.
After Levi and Bristol split the first time, he made some accusations about Sarah and her family life. Then when they got back together, he apologized for having said things that weren't true.
Now he has retracted the apology, saying he was right the first time.
So, my question is: when you now say you were lying when you said you lied, how the heck does anybody -- including you -- know when you're telling the truth?
Here's my advice, Levi. You're a good-looking hunk of testosterone-soaked young manhood. But it's time for you get over your Hollywood pretensions and your political aspirations and go back to the basics. Study and pass your GED so you can be a high school graduate, get a job, and take a sex-education course -- one that teaches about contraception instead of the kind sanctioned by Grizzly Mama Sarah.
All that abstinence advice just doesn't seem to work for you, does it Levi?
Ralph
Friday, August 27, 2010
George Rentboy Rekers -- redux
Remember the big story last spring about Dr. George Rekers, the retired professor who was the expert witness testifying for the state in both the Florida and Arkansas court trials that upheld their laws against same-sex adoptions?
In Florida, the Attorney General who headed up the prosecution had paid Dr. Rekers something like $120,000 for that testimony, which was worse than worthless. It was just plain, downright wrong -- unscientific and untruthful.
Bill McCollum, the AG, claimed that he had to pay that much because he had trouble finding anyone who would testify to the truth of those "studies" that purportedly showed that it was harmful to children not to have a mother and a father.
Those studies have been widely discredited, because they compare children being raised by single mothers with children being raised by a mother and father. They have nothing to do with children being raised by two mothers or two fathers. So what they were measuring was the effect of having only a single parent (and so often the circumstances that make that necessary -- divorce, death of a parent, poverty, etc.)
OK. That's the background reminder. The news is that that AG Bill McCollum lost his bid for the Republican nomination for governor of Florida. It couldn't have happened to a more deserving bigot.
It's called: SCHADENFREUDE
Ralph
In Florida, the Attorney General who headed up the prosecution had paid Dr. Rekers something like $120,000 for that testimony, which was worse than worthless. It was just plain, downright wrong -- unscientific and untruthful.
Bill McCollum, the AG, claimed that he had to pay that much because he had trouble finding anyone who would testify to the truth of those "studies" that purportedly showed that it was harmful to children not to have a mother and a father.
Those studies have been widely discredited, because they compare children being raised by single mothers with children being raised by a mother and father. They have nothing to do with children being raised by two mothers or two fathers. So what they were measuring was the effect of having only a single parent (and so often the circumstances that make that necessary -- divorce, death of a parent, poverty, etc.)
OK. That's the background reminder. The news is that that AG Bill McCollum lost his bid for the Republican nomination for governor of Florida. It couldn't have happened to a more deserving bigot.
It's called: SCHADENFREUDE
Ralph
Thursday, August 26, 2010
GZM - 6: Sew hatred . . . reap violence
Sew hatred . . . and reap violence.
That is the lesson from the ginned up furor over the misnamed GZM, which is neither at ground zero nor a mosque in the sense most Americans think of a mosque as a particular kind of building with minarets and calls to prayer five times a day that peal out into the neighborhood.
Now a Muslim cab driver in New York has been stabbed in the neck (fortunately it was not fatal) by a young man who got into his cab as a supposed rider. This was clearly a hate crime. According to reports, after getting an affirmation that the driver was muslin, he said "Consider this a check point" and then attacked him with a knife, cutting his throat.
The driver was able to drive, so he locked the back doors and attempted to drive to a police station with the man still inside. But he managed to crawl out a window. He has since be captured and is jail without bond, accused of a hate crime.
Now, what do you have to say, Newt? You are as responsible as anyone else, because of your ginning up the furor with the most vile bit of lies that got trumpeted through the FoxNews megaphone.
Maybe, just maybe, this will bring thinking people to their senses to realize what is happening -- all as crass political pyrotechnics.
All praises to Mayor Blumberg, who has redoubled his support for the Islamic Center as he denounced this hate crime.
Ralph
That is the lesson from the ginned up furor over the misnamed GZM, which is neither at ground zero nor a mosque in the sense most Americans think of a mosque as a particular kind of building with minarets and calls to prayer five times a day that peal out into the neighborhood.
Now a Muslim cab driver in New York has been stabbed in the neck (fortunately it was not fatal) by a young man who got into his cab as a supposed rider. This was clearly a hate crime. According to reports, after getting an affirmation that the driver was muslin, he said "Consider this a check point" and then attacked him with a knife, cutting his throat.
The driver was able to drive, so he locked the back doors and attempted to drive to a police station with the man still inside. But he managed to crawl out a window. He has since be captured and is jail without bond, accused of a hate crime.
Now, what do you have to say, Newt? You are as responsible as anyone else, because of your ginning up the furor with the most vile bit of lies that got trumpeted through the FoxNews megaphone.
Maybe, just maybe, this will bring thinking people to their senses to realize what is happening -- all as crass political pyrotechnics.
All praises to Mayor Blumberg, who has redoubled his support for the Islamic Center as he denounced this hate crime.
Ralph
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
GZM - 5: The mendacity of the opposition
At first Rachel Madow refused to cover the mis-labeled "ground zero mosque" on her news analysis show, because she said it was a "ginned up" controversy. But then, when Fox News kept escalating it, she felt she had to present the other side. Which she did, quite forcefully.
Frank Rick wrote about it in his New York Times column on Sunday, also calling the furor "ginned up."
The Republicans have found their wedge issue for the 2010 elections. Devoid of any new ideas that could get us out of the mess we've inherited from their previous time in power, they rely on some hot-button issue to rouse their troops and rev up the frenzy of hate.
In previous elections, it has been gay marriage or abortion. This time around it was illegal immigration -- until, miraculously, the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" was resurrected from the ash heap of non-concern.
The arguments for "hallowed ground" and "sensitivity to the feelings of the survivors" have been exposed and found wanting. Not that some victims' families wouldn't feel wounded all over again -- a few of them would. But many others, understanding the real purpose of the organizers, support the building of the Islamic community center which, if we take them at their word, is intended as a cultural center that will promote and increase the understanding of moderate Islam -- exactly what is needed.
Here's the deal that makes it so clearly a "ginned up" controversy: even conservative pundits were silent on the plans to build the center when it was first announced. Laura Ingraham of Fox News interviewed the wife of the project's organizer, and said to her, "I can't really find many people who have a problem with it. I like what you're doing." That was a conservative voice on FoxNews speaking. That was in December 2009.
Frank Rich wrote that the furor stirred up by FoxNews and the neocons (remember them, the champions for invading Iraq?) has rendered Gen. Petraeus' last ditch counterinsurgency push in Afghanistan inoperative.
Indeed. This is the worst form of political grandstanding on a ginned up controversy that has just enough truth in it to grab the attention of the unthinking masses.
Plans for the project were announced in December 2009. Yet it wasn't until May 2010 that the outraged news stories began.
Now it has become, not only a wedge issue for the election, but it has become the focus of anti-American sentiments. The rantings of the right are giving the radical Islamic propagandists ammunition to claim that Americans are intolerant and want to destroy peace-loving moderates as well as terrorists.
This is not only sad and shameful. It is dangerous. We are just turning more and more young jihadists into radicals who will feel it is their mission to destroy us.
Ralph
Frank Rick wrote about it in his New York Times column on Sunday, also calling the furor "ginned up."
The Republicans have found their wedge issue for the 2010 elections. Devoid of any new ideas that could get us out of the mess we've inherited from their previous time in power, they rely on some hot-button issue to rouse their troops and rev up the frenzy of hate.
In previous elections, it has been gay marriage or abortion. This time around it was illegal immigration -- until, miraculously, the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" was resurrected from the ash heap of non-concern.
The arguments for "hallowed ground" and "sensitivity to the feelings of the survivors" have been exposed and found wanting. Not that some victims' families wouldn't feel wounded all over again -- a few of them would. But many others, understanding the real purpose of the organizers, support the building of the Islamic community center which, if we take them at their word, is intended as a cultural center that will promote and increase the understanding of moderate Islam -- exactly what is needed.
Here's the deal that makes it so clearly a "ginned up" controversy: even conservative pundits were silent on the plans to build the center when it was first announced. Laura Ingraham of Fox News interviewed the wife of the project's organizer, and said to her, "I can't really find many people who have a problem with it. I like what you're doing." That was a conservative voice on FoxNews speaking. That was in December 2009.
Frank Rich wrote that the furor stirred up by FoxNews and the neocons (remember them, the champions for invading Iraq?) has rendered Gen. Petraeus' last ditch counterinsurgency push in Afghanistan inoperative.
"How do you win Muslim hearts and minds in Kandahar when you are calling Muslims every filthy name in the book in New York?" . . .Rich went on to question the real motives of Republicans in Congress who have become so "concerned" about the offended feeling of those who actually live in New York, since all but 12 of them in the House voted against health benefits for the 9/11 responders just last month.
"The ginned up rage over the 'ground zero mosque' was not motivated by a serious desire to protect America from the real threat of terrorists lurking at home and abroad -- a threat this furor has in all likelihood exacerbated - but by the potential short-term rewards of winning votes by pandering to fear during an election season."
Indeed. This is the worst form of political grandstanding on a ginned up controversy that has just enough truth in it to grab the attention of the unthinking masses.
Plans for the project were announced in December 2009. Yet it wasn't until May 2010 that the outraged news stories began.
Now it has become, not only a wedge issue for the election, but it has become the focus of anti-American sentiments. The rantings of the right are giving the radical Islamic propagandists ammunition to claim that Americans are intolerant and want to destroy peace-loving moderates as well as terrorists.
This is not only sad and shameful. It is dangerous. We are just turning more and more young jihadists into radicals who will feel it is their mission to destroy us.
Ralph
Monday, August 23, 2010
OK, GOP: Time to take a stand
So, can you guys just settle on one line of attack on who Obama is, please?
As Sam Stein points out on Huffington Post: Those attacking Obama's ethnic/cultural/political identify can't seem to settle on just what kind of alien religion they want to claim he is affiliated with:
During the campaign, when the Rev. Wright emerged, Obama was denounced for his supposed black liberation theology. Then he was a communist, or a Marxist (they don't seem to know the difference). Now he has become a Muslim sympathizer and -- worse -- a Muslim himself.
See, his father was a Muslim, so according to some, that makes him a Muslim, whether he wants to be or not. Never mind that, before Barack was born, his father had become an atheist and left the Muslim faith. And never mind that Barack hardly even knew his father, never lived with him, and was far more influenced by his mother and her white Protestant Kansas family.
Egad !!! Won't November ever come -- and go. Maybe when the election is over, those who exploit any scrap of anti-Obama rumor or distorted fact will just calm down and leave us all in peace.
It's not really about religion. It's about trying to destroy the Democratic control in Washington and to destroy this upstart black man living in the White House. It's about . . . politics.
Ralph
As Sam Stein points out on Huffington Post: Those attacking Obama's ethnic/cultural/political identify can't seem to settle on just what kind of alien religion they want to claim he is affiliated with:
During the campaign, when the Rev. Wright emerged, Obama was denounced for his supposed black liberation theology. Then he was a communist, or a Marxist (they don't seem to know the difference). Now he has become a Muslim sympathizer and -- worse -- a Muslim himself.
See, his father was a Muslim, so according to some, that makes him a Muslim, whether he wants to be or not. Never mind that, before Barack was born, his father had become an atheist and left the Muslim faith. And never mind that Barack hardly even knew his father, never lived with him, and was far more influenced by his mother and her white Protestant Kansas family.
Egad !!! Won't November ever come -- and go. Maybe when the election is over, those who exploit any scrap of anti-Obama rumor or distorted fact will just calm down and leave us all in peace.
It's not really about religion. It's about trying to destroy the Democratic control in Washington and to destroy this upstart black man living in the White House. It's about . . . politics.
Ralph
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