And yet he’ll probably be re-elected with 60% of the vote. We are well and truly fucked as a species, I think.

“We are well and truly fucked as a species, I think.”

I don’t know about the whole species, but Americans look like we are definitely fornicated…

“In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.”

Taggart: I got it! I know how we can run everyone out of Rock Ridge.

Hedley Lamarr: How?

Taggart: We’ll kill the first born male child in every household!

Hedley Lamarr: Hmm ... Too Jewish.

Oh forgiveth me my merciless transgressions upon the unwritten script against lame, out dated link whoring.  I just can not see a Sarah Palin article without wanting to add some information to the mix that is the wonder and magic of Palin herself.  Whom, as someone who played more hockey in law school than studied law, just loves this wonderful, caring, nurturing, well informed, all American self described “hockey mom.”

Here, an ode to Sarah “If BS were currency, she could bail out wall street herself” Palin’s numbing hypocrisy (which should answer the question well Jesse as to how she will respond; she will call this delegate’s horrible exclamation satire, or likely she will come up with something even better!)

Please please branch out from the insularity of self reinforcing and often self selection Internet polarization, and begin to work to paint, to show, to communicate beyond the choir, a broader picture to the many hard working Americans who are not the “evil” or “stupid” figures they are often pejoratively labeled as, but simply see things in a little different way, and have been mislead, and are more easily swayed by rhetoric that appeals to our worst and most base emotions, while being convinced that it is their logic that is being appealed to.

When this picture is painted effectively, we will no longer have the very opposite of our best and brightest (aka, the Palins, the Becks) playing such a large, and still highly underestimated role in shaping our national debate, and leading people.

For the record, it is a bad thing to have the opposite of our best and brightest, but instead our most gifted spin artists, and our most base emotion appealing, lead so many, as is happening in America right now, today.

As for the Virginia state delegate, is this a milder version of the type of dictatorial moralizing that the Taliban—who emanate from a much different, harsher, and less liberty respecting background—engage in? (I say milder because he did not try to dictate or compel punishment, only made the reference to God himself doing so.)  Are extremists everywhere the same, only made different by the circumstances, philosophies, conventions and teachings of their respective regions and countries where they grew up and matured?

Wow, somebody finally topped the statement from another VA Senator that the (paraphrasing here) “Blacks should get over slavery, after all, I don’t hold it against the Jews that they killed Jesus!”

Bob Marshall was so crazy that the RPVA chose Jim Gilmore over him to run for the Senate against Mark Warner…even though the way they chose him was through a convention instead of a primary! He was too scary even for the group of wingnuts at their convention.

He can forget about running against Webb in 2012 now, I guess it will either be Eric Cantor or George Allen trying to stage a comeback.

A while back, there was some British football coach who got into trouble for saying that the disabled were suffering because of mistakes in a past life.  That statement was more reasonable than Marshall’s.

“As for the Virginia state delegate, is this a milder version of the type of dictatorial moralizing that the Taliban—who emanate from a much different, harsher, and less liberty respecting background—engage in?”

Yes.  And how much milder it is may be open to debate.  Give wingnuttia the same kind of dictatorial control the Taliban has had and who knows what kind of Gilead they would create…

“Are extremists everywhere the same, only made different by the circumstances, philosophies, conventions and teachings of their respective regions and countries where they grew up and matured?”

Yes.  But the languages are often different too…

I had a PoliSci professor explain that ultimately, no matter where they start from, extremists always end up using (or wanting to use) State Power to enforce their ideas, even to the point of using the rifle to eliminate those who disagree.

If you’re dead, it doesn’t matter much if you died because you worshiped the wrong god (or didn’t worship at all) and were persecuted because of it, or because you believed Lysenko was wrong — you’re still dead…

As for the Virginia state delegate, is this a milder version of the type of dictatorial moralizing that the Taliban—who emanate from a much different, harsher, and less liberty respecting background—engage in? (I say milder because he did not try to dictate or compel punishment, only made the reference to God himself doing so.) Are extremists everywhere the same, only made different by the circumstances, philosophies, conventions and teachings of their respective regions and countries where they grew up and matured?

Yes. I have zero doubt had Cheney been born in an usntable, third world country instead of Wyoming, he would have been a Saddam Hussein-style dictator (or at least made the attempt).

A Rethuglican said it, so it must be ok.

@6 Phoenician in a time of Romans

It was a man named Glenn Hoddle, who stated it was his Hindu/Buddhist style belief that how you are reincarnated is based on behavior in your former lives. So born a rich white male with lots of talent, you behaved well, born with disabilities, or poor then you led a bad former life. He was a follower of a faith healer, Eileen Drewery, both of them fruit loops. The interview where he said it was met with a very hard backlash and he resigned from his job as the manager of the National (about as important and high a job as you can get) Team soon after.

It was a Republican who made the statement.  I expect Sarah Palin either to ignore it or find some way to defend it as she did Limbaugh’s rantings.

born with disabilities, or poor then you led a bad former life

Mother Avenger used to chalk up the difficulties in her life to having been a Nazi like Ilse Koch in a previous life to account for such things as her being interned in a Japanese Army prison camp and watching a Chinese guerrilla get buried alive by the Japanese soldiers.

And this was before she lost my 2 brothers to cancer when they both were in their twenties.

See also, “John Bull’s Other Island”

The psycho’s reasoning is really the whipped cream topping of crazy. We can divvy up who wants to be the first to teach him basic biology, point out that the amount of children born with disabilities has actually gone down with better pre-natal care and woman-centric policies.

But I’m totally calling the right to slowly explain to him with pictures why it’s impossible for an “abortion” to be one’s “first born”.

I mean, has their sperm magic delusions pushed so much crap up until the only point a man did anything in the pregnancy process that even the action of giving birth is retroactively dated to the moment the man “forgot” to use a condom? That’s the impressive part.

Gee, it almost seems like he pulled this “statistic” out of his ass, didn’t he?  I suppose that women who have had an abortion might be statistically slightly more likely to later have a disabled child if they had had to terminate previous pregnancies because genetic issues caused life-threatening defects in their fetus, but all women who’ve had abortions subsequently give birth to disabled children?  Really?

I have nothing to add to this because my brain keeps repeating, “You have got to be fucking kidding me…” over and over.  My very conservative sister who has a Down Syndrome daughter will be very, very interested to hear this.  My guess is that we will all be hearing about my sister very soon, as the news will be full of her attempts to wrap her fingers around this asshole’s throat.

Well, there you have it, neatly distilled: your average anti-abortion crusader really does think as children not as a grand thing, but simply as a punishment; disabled children doubly so!

Nice of him to finally spell it out for those who still kid themselves that these types actually just love children and place a high value life etc, eh?

He can forget about running against Webb in 2012 now, I guess it will either be Eric Cantor or George Allen trying to stage a comeback.

That largely depends on what happens this November… if the GOP wins the House, Cantor becomes the 2nd highest ranking person of the majority party in the U.S. House of Representatives - the equivalent of what Steny Hoyer currently is in the Democratic-controlled House.  It’s doubtful Cantor would give up such a high-ranking job that could theoretically one day lead to the Speaker’s chair so he can start over at the bottom of the totem pole in the Senate.

Barney Frank didn’t run for Kennedy’s Massacusetts Senate seat for similar reasons - the trade-off wouldn’t have been worth it.  He has more power as a high-ranking House member than he would have as a low-ranking Senator.

2010 is fine, people are running scared over what is essentially a joke.  Prior to the unemployment going to 9% the outlook was “unless democrats can get unemployment to under 10% they’ll lose the house!” Now they did it, so what is the new reason?  Just don’t worry about it, get people involved and we’ll win.

As to the subject at hand, this man is crazy or stupid.  Possibly both but if he runs for any serious office that statement will become national news cannon fodder and will make him largely reviled.  Frankly the fact that republicans are just feeding their religious zealots red meat means they’re basically out of ideas and need to keep the base rallied but that sort of approach won’t win independents.

Yeah, I’ve heard that one before, around early January…

Massachusetts is fine, it’s like the most liberal state in the country.  No way they elect a Republican to Kennedy’s seat.

Seems to me that the assumption that “everything’s fine” is exactly why many Democratic base voters aren’t gonna show up at the polls this November unless D.C. gives them a reason to show up.

If they can get a good HCR bill passed and they can get unemployment (it’s way more than 10% - that’s the “safe” number - U6 puts it closer to 20%) to a substantially lower number, things could be fine.

But we ain’t there yet.  It’s good that we have 9 months left, because if the midterms were tomorrow, we’d get annhilated.  Look at the R2K findings on the enthusiasm gap between Democratic and Republican voters - R2K is, if anything, a liberal-leaning poll (commissioned by Daily Kos) saying that we’re in deep trouble unless things drastically change.

Democratic voters aren’t gonna bother voting if they feel like their only two choices are “extremely shitty” and “a little less shitty”.  But you can damnwell bet the GOP voters will be out in force in November no matter what.

If the White House and Congress can find their spines and start governing as if they are in charge, they can turn this all around.  If they don’t, they’re gonna get rolled, bad.

I’m not doubting we could lose it, but the self-defeatist attitude needs to stop.  I hate the vicious circle that the media portrays as the democrats are imploding when realistically they’re trying to judge the ground and ignore Hannity and his idiot cohorts.

The biggest point I see is if we pass comprehensive health care then the tide is stemmed, the conservatives lose and everybody goes home a little happier and a little more liberal.  Unemployment isn’t even as important, republicans will claim numbers, democrats will point out stimulus money use and hammer the few republicans who walk around handing out big checks of it as hypocritical. 

As to Massachusetts, unless Boston votes in a bloc (like they normally do) the state is actually rather moderate.  The democrat up there didn’t campaign like she should have, Scott Brown did everybody but show his penis (and then he did.)  Sometimes it’s less about substance and more about shmoozing.  The man can shmooze but since he’s basically hamstrung the state with his obstructionist attitude he’ll be out sooner than you think. 

Keeping people involved and Obama pressing his huge hope battalion into action will keep 2010 from going south.  Just keep hammering away at the health care bill.

Oh my God. The number of things horribly wrong and offensive in that statement is just…I don’t even know where to start.

Children born with disabilities are some kind of punishment? Aborting a first pregnancy affects the development of an embryo/fetus conceived after that abortion? Does it work if you carry a pregnancy to term, then abort a second pregnancy, then get pregnant a third time? Or does “nature take its vengeance” only if you have an abortion the first time you get pregnant? And “nature” takes revenge because of Jewish law about paying the priests for firstborn children and unclean animals, and the priests sacrificing firstborn cows, sheep, and goats in the Temple?

Okaaaaay.

I haven’t anything coherent to say, so I can sum up my feelings to this “man” in two words:

FUCK YOU.

As if women don’t already get blamed ENOUGH anytime a uterus doesn’t perform as they expect? I’m a pro-choice atheist and still had a hell of a time with self-blame after my child with DS was born, wondering about karmic retribution of some kind because of having had an abortion. Statistics helpfully point out that at least 80% of the time trisomy 21 comes from the ova, and the increased odds of the syndrome occurring are shoved in the face of every woman attempting to conceive past the magic age.

I was in the absolute lowest risk bracket- at 23 years old the estimated chances of having a child with DS are 1/ 2650. There probably are a lot more conceptions with trisomy 21 than anyone knows, they are just miscarried early on.

Just… grr. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.

That largely depends on what happens this November… if the GOP wins the House, Cantor becomes the 2nd highest ranking person of the majority party in the U.S. House of Representatives - the equivalent of what Steny Hoyer currently is in the Democratic-controlled House.  It’s doubtful Cantor would give up such a high-ranking job that could theoretically one day lead to the Speaker’s chair so he can start over at the bottom of the totem pole in the Senate.

True, there’s just a lot of gossip around Richmond (where Cantor represents the wealthy, white half) that he has the eye on the Senate and he’s pissed that George Allen is even considering trying to get his old seat back.

Either one wouldn’t stand a chance against Webb especially in a Presidential year. Cantor especially would look ridiculous next to Webb in a debate.

Don’t sweat it, libs. It was satire.

Yeah, that is an incredibly hurtful thing to say—even if you are anti-choice, you should realize that telling the parents of disabled children that it’s somehow their fault is really beyond the boundaries of acceptable behavior.  I hope Sarah Palin *does* say something back to him—there’s very little she could do that would impress me, but smacking this guy down might do it.  If she smacked him down with a well-reasoned argument, at least, which…yeah, when pigs fly.

Fox News will put a D next to his name when they report it, Palin will jump on it as a liberal death-panel thing. Or she’ll go on her riff that Trig isn’t disabled, he’s special (which he could very well be).

Not surprising.  I have a chronic illness and used to belong to a support board on the internets.  Some religious lady popped on and told us that our illness is punishment for all of our sins.  Naturally, a lot of us got pissed off ... especially the members who were moms of young children who were afflicted with the illness to a greater degree than some of us adults (it generally afflicts adults far more often than kids). 

Of course, that was less religious pseudo-science and more religious idiocy. 

I just wish people would stop trying to blame disability on sin.  It’s hard enough existing as someone with a disability WITHOUT having people judging you as being some kind of bad person in this life or another.  And I’m sure it’s hard enough for parents of a disabled kid without being told it’s your fault.  (And what about the sins of the father?  Why doesn’t he get any blame?  “Your kid’s disabled because you masturbated too much!  Whoops!  Sorry!”)

when realistically they’re trying to judge the ground and ignore Hannity and his idiot cohorts.

Really.

I pray that is their excuse.  If they’re just dragging their feet out of sheer fear or stupidity then everything is already lost.  If anything it has more to do with the senate not wanting a filibuster and another of utterly complex rules that prevent them from acting along with public perception.

I am pretty sure that S.P would point out that for slutty slut sluts having a child with a physical or mental disability is a punishment but for virtuous women it is a blessing and opportunity to please god.

  X-tians who work the avenging deity motif never cease to amaze me. “Watch yer back” is such a spiffy reason to conform to a narrow definition of what it is to be a good person.

@25: Hah! Yes!

I can’t believe they didn’t try that dodge again.

@32.  Yes.  Children with disabilities are either a) divine punishment upon their parents for their sinning ways b) an opportunity for virtuous parents to prove their love of god and wee babies and at no point are they c) independent human beings.

But, yes, it is Rahm Emanuel and the rest of us who have refused to disembowel him with are bare hands who hate persons with disabilities.

Have birth defects actually increased recently?  If so, how does that scale with abortion rates?  And how does it correlate with maternal age, which is the more probable factor?

Some religious lady popped on and told us that our illness is punishment for all of our sins.

Wow, WTF?  Isn’t there a story where Jesus specifically says that illness and disability are not punishment for sin?  I don’t know the book and verses, but Jesus is in a market with someone and meets a man who had been blind since birth.  The dude with Jesus asks if the blindness is punishment for the man’s sin, or the man’s parents’ sin, and Jesus said that it’s neither.  Why is that I know more about the Bible and I’m not even religious?

Yes. I have zero doubt had Cheney been born in an usntable, third world country instead of Wyoming, he would have been a Saddam Hussein-style dictator (or at least made the attempt).

I highly doubt that.

Say what you will about Sadaam. But at least he was a soldier as well as a ruthless killer.

Cheney (and all the other neocons) are all cowards. There is no way the could lead a group of people in a third world country to follow them.

Only in America can people like them attain power.

A nation hungry for leadership awaits her example.

Not holding my breath…

I’d also like to hear something on this from that normally-functioning actor living with Down Syndrome who likes to speak at pro-life events.  And his family, who seem to have thought him a blessing rather than God’s Vengeance.

@XEranar and DTG #19 and 20:

But, per this morning’s NPR broadcast, having a Brown (R) may not be so awful - he broke ranks to vote w/ the Dems this morning, just as Snowe often has.

This—and now Utah has passed a bill that makes miscarriages a possible crime.