Alexander Cockburn: Rick Santorum is the most fanatical Christian to run for the Republican nomination in the modern era, maybe any era

living through the slow-motion train wreck that is the endless 2012 presidential election is one of the most painful experiences of my 64 years and candidates like rick santorum push the pain level to almost intolerable levels...

from counterpunch...

Surely Rick Santorum is the most fanatical Christian to run for the Republican nomination in the modern era, maybe any era. Next to him Pat Robertson, billionaire founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, who ran for the nomination in 1988, has the tolerant, glassy-eyed bonhomie of the late Dean Martin. Robertson has always been in show business. Four years ago we had Mike Huckabee, the evangelist and former governor of Arkansas, one of the boys, shacked up with Mrs Huckabee in his doublewide on the grounds of the Arkansas gubernatorial mansion. He has always been in show business too.

But with Santorum – a conservative Roman Catholic and member of Opus Dei – there’s a truly manic edge to his religious pronouncements and activities. It was Santorum and Mrs S, don’t forget, who took their still-born baby home from the hospital and laid it among their living tots, telling them, “he’s with the angels now,” an episode Mrs Santorum later recorded in a memoir.

Santorum doesn’t believe in the right to privacy. Not that Obama has any qualms about taps on your phone and powers of arbitrary arrest, but he probably doesn’t care too much about whatever human combos are being tried out in the bedroom. Santorum frets 24/7 about beastliness and unnatural acts, and yearns to restore full rights to snoops to kick down the motel door, twitch aside the blankets and haul couples off for all manner of moral abominations.

Contraception in Santorum’s opinion is “a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be”. Pre-natal testing is also a no-no for Santorum, father of eight.
 
In 2003 Santorum said he favored having laws against polygamy, adultery, sodomy, and other actions “antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family”. The possibility of bestiality in today’s licentious times bothers him a lot — “man on dog,” as he famously put it on a talk show. Not for him the possibility of abortion in cases of rape: “I believe and I think that the right approach is to accept this horribly created, in the sense of rape, but nevertheless, in a very broken way, a gift of human life, and accept what God is giving to you.”

[...]

Why is a guy like this currently running neck-and-neck with Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination? The usual maps drawn by political experts stipulate that at some point in the prolonged nomination battle the candidate has to shed the gothick nuttiness and over-the-topness that got him traction in the early primaries and reach out to the independents without whose support no presidential bid can succeed.

There’s zero sign that Santorum is of any disposition to do this. So why does he turn out to be the last man standing in the path of the Mormon billionaire Mitt Romney in the battle for the nomination?

First and foremost, he’s not Mitt Romney.

ain't it amazin' how somebody like santorum can actually make somebody like romney seem not all that bad and somebody like romney can make a two-timing, bait-and-switch president like obama seem halfway acceptable...? nah... screw 'em all, every damn one of 'em...

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John McCain vs. John McCain

from robert greenwald and bravenewfilms...



http://therealmccain.com/

brasscheck tv...

President McCain?
Giuliani - the 9/11 ghoul - has been eliminated.

So has Mitt Romney, a high ranking member of a church that until relatively recently was officially racist.

Which leaves us with...this guy.

The Republicans managed to fraudulently put Bush in the White House - twice - and McCain is clearly a water boy for the War Party.

So, are we looking at the next president of the United States?

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Christian dominionism, American fascism

chris hedges, in this video from canadian broadcasting, talks about the u.s. christian right, their fascist tendencies, his book, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America, and the recent article in the toronto star...

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer prize winning writer and author of "American Fascists." In his latest release, the former New York Times correspondent compares the U.S. Christian right to 20th Century fascism.

As a son of a preacher, Hedges has a deep knowledge of the Bible which he uses to openly blast the role of Christianity in politics.

Hedges believes the far right Christian believers have been manipulated by the high power, allowing for bigotry and intolerance.

again, nothing we don't already know...

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Rudy Giuliani as seen by Frank Rich

no comment needed...

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Cindy Sheehan throws in the towel

it looks like quite a few people besides me are fed up to the teeth with the crap on both sides of the fence... i have to say i didn't realize that cindy sheehan was being demonized by the left as well as the right...

from cindy sheehan at daily kos...

I am deemed a radical because I believe that partisan politics should be left to the wayside when hundreds of thousands of people are dying for a war based on lies that is supported by Democrats and Republican alike. It amazes me that people who are sharp on the issues and can zero in like a laser beam on lies, misrepresentations, and political expediency when it comes to one party refuse to recognize it in their own party. Blind party loyalty is dangerous whatever side it occurs on. People of the world look on us Americans as jokes because we allow our political leaders so much murderous latitude and if we don’t find alternatives to this corrupt "two" party system our Representative Republic will die and be replaced with what we are rapidly descending into with nary a check or balance: a fascist corporate wasteland. I am demonized because I don’t see party affiliation or nationality when I look at a person, I see that person’s heart. If someone looks, dresses, acts, talks and votes like a Republican, then why do they deserve support just because he/she calls him/herself a Democrat?

[...]

This is my resignation letter as the "face" of the American anti-war movement. This is not my "Checkers" moment, because I will never give up trying to help people in the world who are harmed by the empire of the good old US of A, but I am finished working in, or outside of this system. This system forcefully resists being helped and eats up the people who try to help it. I am getting out before it totally consumes me or anymore people that I love and the rest of my resources.

Good-bye America ...you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can’t make you be that country unless you want it.

It’s up to you now.

i can't blame her in the least... the state our country is in now cannot be helped by party affiliation, left-right polarization, republicans, democrats, liberals, conservatives, progressives, libertarians, dominionists, christians, jews, or atheists... things will only change, as cindy so rightly points out, if we want them to, which, to me, means we have to come together around the only thing that makes this country a country, and that is our constitution... without that, we are nothing, and, if we wait, bush and his criminal compadres will continue to make hash out of the little that's left...

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More on Fore - oopsies, she's pro-choice!

aw, geeez... don't anybody go tell dobson, falwell, robertson, or tony perkins...

Federal Election Commission records show that Fore gave $3,500 to the group WISH List from 1998-2000. The WISH List describes itself on its website as an organization that works to "raise money to identify, train, support and elect more Republican women leaders to public office at all levels of government. WISH is America's largest fundraising network for pro-choice Republican women candidates!"

uh-oh, henrietta... you got a lot o'splainin' to do...

FAQs About The WISH List

What is The WISH List?

The WISH List -- which stands for Women In the Senate and House® -- raises money to identify, train, support and elect more Republican women leaders to public office at all levels of government. WISH is America's largest fundraising network for pro-choice Republican women candidates!

How does WISH work?

• WISH identifies promising pro-choice Republican women candidates.
• We examine each candidate, campaign organization and race.
• Viable contenders are introduced to our members through profiles.
• WISH members are urged to contribute to at least two WISH-endorsed candidates per election cycle.
• WISH holds events -- from small "living room groups" to large receptions throughout the U.S.-- to benefit The WISH List and its candidates.
• WISH forwards member contributions to the designated campaigns.

like the first thing i wanna know is how did she get past the litmus test...?

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The Christian right is not going to sink into oblivion (and neither is the Constitutional crisis)

max blumenthal points out the obvious...

Goodling may be out of a job, but thousands of capable Christian right cadres remain, waging the culture war from inside the White House, federal agencies and Republican congressional offices. Together they will continue to inflame conflicts that were previously unimaginable.

Anyone insisting in spite of continuously mounting evidence that the Christian right is going to simply shrink into oblivion because the Democrats control Congress, or because evangelical leaders are prone to scandal, should learn from Goodling's example and take the fifth.

let me hasten to add... anyone who thinks for one bloody second that the constitutional crisis that has been gripping the u.s. since the scotus decision of 12 december 2000 validated the quiet bushco coup d'etat is going to quietly disappear because the dems control congress or even when and if the dems win the presidency in 2008, has got another think coming...

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The invasion of the "smiley fascists," or how our government was stolen out from under us

a fascinating post by kstreetprojector over at daily kos, a guy who rubs shoulders with most of the d.c. power structure on a daily basis, where they will be most unguarded - the lunch deli...

Does Mr. Sampson have the skills, knowledge and credibility to understand and evaluate the work of our nations most important prosecutors? No, he does not. But is a fanatic. He is loyal. He does as he is told. In private he is a meticulous, score keeping enforcer of Rove's political machine. Under the Klieg Lights he appears as a lost puppy who couldn't possibly have eaten all the steaks on the BBQ plate.

Does Ms. Goodling have the common good, the constitution and our nations interests at heart? No, she does not. But she is a fanatic. She is loyal. She does as she is told. And while she has spent 7 years vetting every entrant to the DoJ for "Loyalty to the End Times Christian Agendas," she suddenly has $600 dollar and Akin Gump attorneys exercising her 5th amendment rights. I can not imagine how she would react if anyone tried to use the same privilege if she were the inquisitor.

[...]

Clinton's Appointees: Smart. Intellectually Curious. Fair. Strong understanding of their jobs (or willing to admit what they didn't know). Aware they have a role as public servants. Aware they are servants of the people. (Oddly) mostly non-partisan. Willing to drink in public.

Bush's Appointees: Smart. Loyal. Mostly Born-Again or LDS. Most with little or no experience in their jobs, but a fanatic certainty they are their to enforce "the right" decisions which will be delivered by superiors in good time. Ruthlessly-Totally-Unforgiving Partisans, in many cases they will openly express they are certain they have a god-directed duty to 'save' our nation. When you ask them from what, they use several words in an almost interchangeable way: The Terrorists, The Liberals, Social Decay, Moral Decay or The Democrats.

I have come to think of them as the Smiley Fascists. They are young, happy, loyal, ruthless, forcefully Christian, and always smiling. It can be disturbing.

no shit...

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Christian dominionism

we should never take our eyes off of THIS ball...

The Christian right has lured tens of millions of Americans, who rightly feel abandoned and betrayed by the political system, from the reality-based world to one of magic -- to fantastic visions of angels and miracles, to a childlike belief that God has a plan for them and Jesus will guide and protect them. This mythological worldview, one that has no use for science or dispassionate, honest intellectual inquiry, one that promises that the loss of jobs and health insurance does not matter, as long as you are right with Jesus, offers a lying world of consistency that addresses the emotional yearnings of desperate followers at the expense of reality. It creates a world where facts become interchangeable with opinions, where lies become true -- the very essence of the totalitarian state. It includes a dark license to kill, to obliterate all those who do not conform to this vision, from Muslims in the Middle East to those at home who refuse to submit to the movement. And it conveniently empowers a rapacious oligarchy whose god is maximum profit at the expense of citizens.

We now live in a nation where the top 1 percent control more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined, where we have legalized torture and can lock up citizens without trial. Arthur Schlesinger, in "The Cycles of American History," wrote that "the great religious ages were notable for their indifference to human rights in the contemporary sense -- not only for their acquiescence in poverty, inequality and oppression, but for their enthusiastic justification of slavery, persecution, torture and genocide."

they're out there, still working hard, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out what audience the likes of mccain, romney, and brownback are playing to...

This movement -- the most dangerous mass movement in American history -- will not be blunted until the growing social and economic inequities that blight this nation are addressed, until tens of millions of Americans, now locked in hermetic systems of indoctrination through Christian television and radio, as well as Christian schools, are reincorporated into American society and given a future, one with hope, adequate wages, job security and generous federal and state assistance.

The unchecked rape of America, which continues with the blessing of both political parties, heralds not only the empowerment of this American oligarchy but the eventual death of the democratic state and birth of American fascism.

it's a pretty good analysis... i suggest you read it all here...

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