Barking Crazy Right Wingers

Iowa Rep. Steve King recently made news insulting blacks and Muslims in one little hate-filled speech.

But this isn't anything new. Steve King, a man who supports no-bid contracts for Halliburton but was one of only 11 Congressmen who voted AGAINST aid to Katrina victims, has a long record of intolerance and advocay of human rights abuse. Here's some footage of Steve King on the floor of Congress advocating...well, human rights abuses (thanks to Kingwatch.org):

According to King we should treat people like livestock. Just how far does he want to take that? How far does his confusion between humans and livestock go?

So these are Republican "values?" I say Feh!

Awhile back I wrote about an anti-Semtitic incident in Indiana where a Republican politician told a group of Jews that they didn't count because they only made up 2% of the Indiana population. I called this the Republican "2% solution." This is how the incident appeared to the Jewish group:

[In Feb. 2006], the Indianapolis JCRC’s Jewish Lobby Day was held. Around 40 Jews from around the State of Indiana came to Indianapolis to lobby our state senators and representatives on a number of issues.

The day ended with a private meeting with Speaker of the House Bosma meeting our group in the beautiful House chambers. We asked questions about full day kindergarten, about the clinics, and a young member of the delegation asked about providing sexuality education in public schools that is more than abstinence based. He responded to everything we asked. Sometimes we liked what he said and sometimes we didn’t. Speaker Bosma wondered why we hadn’t discussed the controversy surrounding the issue of prayer in House chambers. He told us his version of what happened and what he believes, and a passionate exchange took place. The end of this exchange left us, the Jewish delegation, in shock. Speaker Bosma, defending the prayer issue, asked, “How many Jews are there in Indiana? About 2%? There are at least 80% Christians in Indiana."

The Republican Party has already alienated about 2/3 of American voters. Their right wing extremism has turned into a big turnoff for America. But these extremists don't intend to give up. Mike Huckabee it the latest right wing nut case who wants to be the new George Bush.

Huckabee has recently surged in Iowa. I predicted some time ago that Huckabee could be the Dark Horse Republican candidate. He still has a hard fight ahead of him, but as the voters realize that McCain sold out to Bush years ago, Romney is a flip-flopper whose religious beliefs are scarcely less crazy than Scientology, and Giuliani is an unpleasant man who screwed New York firefighters and put a mob-connected dirty cop in charge of the NYPD, Huckabee starts looking good to some voters. I don't really think Iowa voters are suddenly turning into right wing fanatics like Huckabee. I think they are simply so disgusted with the Republican front runners, and Huckabee just happens to be the next in line. I believe once voters realize how crazy Huckabee is they will drop him like a hot potato. The question is will they realize in time?

The National Jewish Democratic Council has a fact sheet on Huckabee that I believe is worth consideration:

Dangerous Dark Horse:
HUCKABEE'S EXTREMISM

Huckabee indicated that he does not believe in evolution during a GOP primary debate. Watch the YouTube clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4Cc8t3Zd5E

Not too long ago Rudy Giuliani could claim to be a moderate, making many right wing extremists uncomfortable. But now, Rudy is embracing Christian fundamentalists, shedding any pretence of being a moderate.

This comes from the National Jewish Democratic Council:

“I am very encouraged by Pat’s support,” said GOP Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani in a statement released by his campaign. “His confidence in me means a lot. His experience and advice will be a great asset to me and my campaign.”

The "Pat" in question is the Rev. Pat Robertson [real name: Marion Gordon Robertson], who endorsed Giuliani's campaign for president today.

Yes, this is the same Pat Robertson who suggested that former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution. It is the same Pat Robertson who said: "the feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." It is the same Pat Robertson who called for the assassination of the President of Venezuela. And, alas, it is the same Pat Robertson who said: "just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It's no different."

Rudy Giuliani could very well become the Republican nominee for President. It's imperative that all of us start reminding our friends and neighbors today that a vote for Giuliani is a vote for Pat Robertson and the narrow vision of America he represents. We've already seen how the Bush Administration has paid back the religious right.

Well, I've said it several times before, but Bush and the corrupt, extreme right wingers of today will be the death of the Republican Party. Well, it seems this is coming a step closer as Bush's approval rating drops in ALL states. There is now not one single state in the Union where Bush's approval rating is above 50%. Not...one...single...state.

(click to enlarge)

You can also read more about it on Daily Kos.

Utah, Idaho and Wyoming are still the states that cling the most to liking Bush, but even in those tenatiously Republican states Bush has dropped below 50%...and remember that Republicans are having trouble getting elected EVEN in Idaho and Wyoming.

I believe we NEED two reasonable, competing political parties presenting two REASONABLE visions for America. It is how we have always functioned. So I don't celebrate Bush's destruction of the Republican Party. People like Gingrich, DeLay, Bush and Cheney have made the Republican Party so extremist that the vast majority of mainstream Americans now distrust and dislike the Republican Party, and people are leaving it in droves.

I didn't know this but last week was self-proclaimed "Islamo-facism awareness week," a right wing intolerance fest dreamed up by extremists Ann Coulter and David Horowitz. I only know that these fools were strutting around advocating intolerance because of an email I got from the organization Jews on First.

There is something so disgusting about the right wing fear of just about everything that isn't white, male, Protestant Christian. Ann Coulter is the perfect example of this. When we hear her condemning so-called Islamo-fascism, let's remember that she is the idiot who said right after 9/11 that:

"We should invade their [Muslim's] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

And what did she choose to advocate during her "Islamo-facism awareness week?" Anti-Semitism. Yes, she attacks Jews as part of her paranoia against Islam. Last week she told Donny Deutsch:

"we should throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians."

Ann Coulter also claimed that Christians want Jews "to be perfected" by converting to Christianity.

When she was challenged about how bat-shit crazy and offensive this was, she "explained:"

"No. I'm sorry. It is not intended to be. I don't think you should take it that way, but that is what Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews. We believe the Old Testament. As you know from the Old Testament, God was constantly getting fed up with humans for not being able to live up to all the laws. What Christians believe -- this is just a statement of what the New Testament is -- is that that's why Christ came and died for our sins. Christians believe the Old Testament. You don't believe our testament." Coulter later said: "We consider ourselves perfected Christians. For me to say that for you to become a Christian is to become a perfected Christian is not offensive at all."

Corruption is one of the issues I focus on the most. On Daily Gotham I focus a lot on problems within the Democratic party in Brooklyn, NY. But nationally I find than generally it is Republican corruption that is most prevalent and damaging to America.

Right now, I want to focus on a particularly vile, corrupt Republican Congressman, Tom Feeney (FL-24). This is a man closely connected with the Abramoff scandal that Republicans want you to forget but you and I know is still playing out. But Feeney is also majorly involved in voter fraud. In fact, Feeney should be the poster boy for the most un-American attack on democracy America has seen in recent years.

Feeney is a sitting Congressman, but let's start out by realizing that Tom Feeney has already been fined by the House ethics committee for his Abramoff connections. He has already been found to be corrupt by the House Ethics Committee, yet is still a "respected" member of the Republican Party and has not resigned from Congress.

But there is probably more coming...it seems that the FBI is investigating Tom Feeney further for those Abramoff connections. Gee, and the Republicans wanted us to think the Abramoff scandal had blown over.

But perhaps the worst Feeney has done is active participation in voting fraud. Yes, I say ACTIVE PARTICIPATION in voter fraud. Tom Feeney has been accused of recruiting computer programmers to write software that could alter vote totals on touch-screen voting machines in Florida. From the Seminole Chronicle:

In 2001 I started writing a novel. It was based on a handful of facts but was supposed to be pure fiction. The premise was that the Republican Party had become the arm of fanatic Apocalyptic Christians who wanted to force Armageddeon. My jumping off point was Reagan's Interior Secretary, James Watt's statement that the second coming was at hand so we don't need an environmental policy. My premise was that the selection of George Bush as resident of the White House was intended to put a malleable figure head who could be manipulated into starting the final war over the Holy Land with America as the force of God against Islam. I had reached a point where I was considering what kind of dramatic event I could use for the climax.

The next day was 9/11/2001. I was in Manhattan on 9/11. There was no way I could continue my novel after that day.

But as the years have continued, even though I can't return to the novel (not even sure it was ever worth it!), I realize that my premise was frighteningly close to the truth. And it is increasingly clear that America IS being led by fanatics who believe we are in the midst of a Crusade against Islam.

We are on a collision course to war that will be far, far worse than the Iraq quagmire. We are going headlong into a war that will link up the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And this collision course is being driven by BOTH sides.

The President of the United States is playing the same "smoking crater" lie with Iran that he did with Iraq. From Guysen.International.News:

Missed this when it first came out at the beginning of August. But the National Jewish Democratic Council has brought it to my attention. Mitt Romney has criticized Democrats for being unable to "recognize evil." And yet Mitt Romney ALSO is calling for America to look to Hezbollah as a role model.

...in an article titled “Mitt Romney cited Hezbollah's social network as a model for U.S. diplomacy,” the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported on recent comments by GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney that Hezbollah’s “kind of diplomacy is something that would help America become stronger around the world …” Today, the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) strongly criticized Mitt Romney for his praise of Hezbollah and released the following statement from Executive Director Ira N. Forman:

“It is the height of irony that, within weeks of saying Democrats are ‘uncomfortable in recognizing evil in the world,’ Governor Romney would make such ill-informed remarks that cite a terrorist organization as a model for U.S. diplomacy. Indeed, Mitt Romney’s naïve comments suggest a fundamental misunderstanding of the Middle East and geopolitical realities. Mitt Romney desperately wants to be President of the United States, but this type of comment clearly shows that he is not ready for prime time.