Terror in Sweden?

   * I am not sure how many of you ever had the pleasure of shopping at one of those IKEA stores. It can be a very pleasurable experience. They actually have a nice little cafe with some good things to eat, and if you happen to have a small child, they will provide free day- care while you shop.

The furniture they sell, for the most part, looks pretty good as well. The problem is, though, that you don't but them already assembled, and you have to assemble them when you get home. That is when the nightmare begins. Believe me people, putting IKEA furniture together can be a terrifying experience.

I wonder if this is what was on the president's mind when he  was referring  to a terror attack in Sweden, yesterday. I say that because no one (including the Swedish authorities) knows just what the hell president trump was talking about when he made reference to that attack.    

"We've got to keep our country safe. You look at what's happening in Germany, you look at what's happening last night in Sweden," Trump told the crowd at his campaign-like rally in Florida on Saturday, critiquing Europe's refugee policies and complaining that his travel ban had been temporarily blocked by the courts. "Sweden, who would believe this?"

Of course there were no attacks or terror coming out of Sweden. (Well, there was the group *ABBA; they were kind of terrifying, but they are no longer a thing.) Just another lie told by the liar in chief.

And, of course, as is always the case, his supporters will try to minimize the lie by saying that the poor guy is just misunderstood, or that we are taking him too literally. I swear, there will soon come a time in this country when trump supporters will believe that two plus twp equals five, and that the main stream media and those on the left are only saying it equals four to distract from the good work that president trump is doing.

But this lie was too large and obvious to go unchecked, and trump did his best to address it today.

"Trump took to his Twitter account Sunday evening to explain that he was referring to a Tucker Carlson segment that appeared on Fox News Friday. In the segment, Carlson interviewed right-wing filmmaker Ami Horowitz, who had recently made a documentary about Sweden's refugee policy. The segment did not contain breaking news.

'My statement as to what's happening in Sweden was in reference to a story that was broadcast on @FoxNews concerning immigrants & Sweden.'

A White House spokesperson had attempted to explain what Trump had been referring to prior to Trump's tweet.

"He was talking about rising crime and recent incidents in general — not referring to a specific incident," White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters.
The country had spent the day baffled, however, because the president had said "last night" and nothing appeared to have happened." [Source]

Of course nothing happened, But thousands of his loyal and faithful fans went home thinking that something did.

I can hear them now.

"We have got to do something about those Muslims coming into our country. They just attacked Sweden.

 I sure hope  that they put extra guards around them IKEA stores and Volvo dealerships. These Muslims  mean war."  

*Pic from en.wikipedia.org

The day after.

   I would like to start this post by telling the nominee for president of a major political party in this country that "Afghan" is not a country. Also, I doubt seriously that the president is some kind of secret Muslim who is trying to undermine everything America stands for.

“Look, we’re led by a man that either is not tough, not smart, or he’s got something else in mind,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee declared. “And the something else in mind—you know, people can't believe it. People cannot, they cannot believe that President Obama is acting the way he acts and can’t even mention the words ‘radical Islamic terrorism.’ There’s something going on. It’s inconceivable. There’s something going on.”

So anyway, it's the day after the mass murder of club goers in Orlando, and, as is to be expected, the usual suspects are playing politic games with the tragedy.

Donald trump has been all over the news and he has been telling everyone who will listen that he has the magic bullet to stop terrorism and keep those evil Muslims in check. But does he? From all accounts Isis and similar groups have been using trump's cartoonish mug for recruiting purposes and using his words to fire up young Jihadist fighters.

It's scary to think what type of fight against terror a president trump will  coordinate. He already has some loopy plans that are not grounded in reality.

"Without distinguishing between mainstream Muslims and Islamist terrorists, Mr. Trump suggested that all Muslim immigrants posed potential threats to America’s security and called for a ban on migrants from any part of the world with “a proven history of terrorism” against the United States or its allies. He also insinuated that American Muslims were all but complicit in acts of domestic terrorism for failing to report attacks in advance, asserting without evidence that they had warnings of shootings like the one in Orlando.

 

Mr. Trump’s speech, delivered at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., represented an extraordinary break from the longstanding rhetorical norms of American presidential nominees. But if his language more closely resembled a European nationalist’s than a mainstream Republican’s, he was wagering that voters are stirred more by their fears of Islamic terrorism than any concerns they may have about his flouting traditions of tolerance and respect for religious diversity." [Source]

 

 

Fear is a powerful thing, and it can lead good people to make bad choices. Mr. trump is counting on it. 

*Pic from miamiherald.com

Another "white guy" endorsement.

  Tonight's cut and paste post comes from a white guy who is endorsing Donald trump.

 "I hereby offer my full-throated endorsement of Donald Trump for president.
After months of expressing disgust at the real-estate mogul and his xenophobic, distasteful campaign, something dawned on me: I'm a white guy.

What the heck do I have to lose in all this, aside from my self-respect, sense of morality, compassion, reputation, family and ability to ever look at myself in the mirror again?

By sacrificing those minor things, my America can be made great again! (I didn't actually think my America was that bad, to be honest, but apparently it is just awful, thanks mainly to people who look different than me. Who knew?)

At a rally in Florida on Saturday, Trump noted: "We have a terrible president who happens to be African-American."

That's an excellent point, and I'm glad Trump made it clear to his predominantly white audience — who held their right hands up and swore allegiance to Trump in a way that didn't seem at all Nazi-ish — that the president who is terrible happens to also be black.

Trump's not saying there's a connection, he's just saying. (Wink to all my fellow white guys.)
But if there's one thing we (white guys) can count on it's that a Trump presidency will make things better for all of us. There will be fewer Mexicans (wall); fewer Muslims (closing mosques, no refugees, general intolerance); fewer weak men with feelings (everything will be SO strong); and fewer women and minorities in the workplace thanks to political correctness being outlawed and everyone who's not a white guy wanting to move to Canada rather than deal with all the loud-mouthed white guys.

And why is it good to have fewer of all these people? Because we (white guys) all know that every out-of-work white guy is a victim of "others." It could be the fault of the president who happens to be black. Or it could be the Mexicans pouring across our Swiss-cheese border, as long as you ignore the fact that, according to a recent Pew Research Center study, there are more Mexicans leaving the United States than entering.

It's definitely not the fault of globalization and America's change to a more knowledge-based economy. It's the fault of us believing the politically correct myth that it's the fault of globalization and America's change to a more knowledge-based economy.

Trump will erase that myth and return all the high-paying manufacturing jobs by destroying political correctness, which is what's forcing us white guys to tolerate all these other people who have made white-guy America less great.

Consider what Rush Limbaugh said on his show last week: "Trump's speaking in ways that men today still speak, when they're not hounded by the modern eclipse of feminism and its supporters. Men speak this way to each other. They crack jokes this way to each other. It does not make them bad people. And I think there's a yearning for it among a whole segment of the population, women, men, they want this kind of gruff, fearless, tell-it-like-it-is persona."

Who among us — aside from women, blacks, Latinos, Asians, Muslims, gay men, lesbians, people with disabilities and people with a shred of human decency — isn't yearning to hear gruff men make racist jokes while slapping female co-workers on their butts?

Limbaugh continued to describe the ills of political correctness: "All kinds of horrible, rotten things happened, with just the advent of the modern era of feminism. And with all of these things like feminism and the other things that came along with it, political correctness was attached — and that was censorship. People had to shut up. They had to stop thinking the way they think. They certainly couldn't speak the way they could before, and all this is like a Champagne cork popping after years and years and years of being shaken up with all kinds of pressure building and no outlet for it. There is more anger and frustration subdued, contained over what the left has done to this country, to this culture, to our society, and it's just blowing."

I should be cork-poppingly angry! WHY DIDN'T ANYBODY TELL ME?!?!
Conservative radio host Michael Savage laid it out clearly in the very first words of his show last Wednesday: "We're fighting for our survival, of course."
Of course.

He continued: "Donald Trump represents the standard-bearer of America's future if we win. And I want you to think about who hates him and why they hate him, just think about this carefully. The deviants, the perverts, the intellectual haters of America, the losers who are jealous of anyone who has succeeded."

Damn deviant, perverted, intellectual success haters. They know nothing of the patriotism of off-color jokes and misogyny, or of the greatness America can again achieve if only we elect a loud white man who doesn't care how much he offends people who aren't loud white men.
I'm white. I'm a man. And I can be loud.

It's clearly time for me to uncork my anger and hop on the Trump train.
What do I have to lose? (Hint: everything.)" [Source]

Rex Huppke now labeled a race traitor in 5...4..3..


*Pic from slate.com

"The power of fear."

*Congrats to Donald trump for  picking up an important endorsement from the New England police union. I guess that he has been speaking their language of late.

And congrats to him for leading the GOP field in places like South Carolina, even after his statement about Muslims entering America.

Anyway, now might be a good time for this editorial from the New York Times:

"Go ahead, deplore Donald Trump. Despise his message. Reject his appeals to exclusion and hatred. But do not make the mistake of treating him as a solitary phenomenon, a singular celebrity narcissist who has somehow, all alone, brought his party and its politics to the brink of fascism.

He is the leading Republican candidate for president. He has been for months. The things he says are outrageous, by design, but they were not spawned, nor have they flourished, in isolation.

 

The Republican rivals rushing to distance themselves from his latest inflammatory proposal — a faith-based wall around the country — have been peddling their own nativist policies for months or years. They have been harshening their campaign speeches and immigration proposals in response to the Trump effect. Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush want to allow only Christian refugees from Syria to enter the country, and Mr. Cruz has introduced legislation to allow states to opt out of refugee resettlement.

 

And party officials around the country, attuned to the power of fear, have developed homegrown versions of the Trump approach. In 31 states, governors — most but not all Republicans — have formed an axis of ignorance, declaring their borders closed to refugees fleeing the Islamic State in Syria. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has sued the federal government and a nonprofit relief agency to keep refugees out. Indiana’s refusal forced one family to seek refuge in Connecticut. Georgia is seeking to deny displaced Syrians federal benefits, like food stamps, and keep their children out of school.

 

Civil rights organizations — the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center — are defending the displaced against blatant discrimination. That it is even necessary to protect the victims of Islamic extremism from being victimized again, in the United States, is a national disgrace.

 

This is the force that Mr. Trump feeds on and that propels him. It is bigger than he is, and toxic. Not a vote has been cast in the 2016 presidential race. But serious damage is already being done to the country, to its reputation overseas, by a man who is seen as speaking for America and twisting its message of tolerance and welcome, and by the candidates who trail him and are competing for his voters.

Mr. Trump has not deported anyone, nor locked up or otherwise brutalized any Muslims, immigrants or others. The danger next year, of course, is giving him the power to do so. And the danger right now is allowing him to legitimize the hatred that he so skillfully exploits, and to revive the old American tendency, in frightening times, toward vicious treatment of the weak and outsiders.

 

The internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II, as some Republicans have either forgotten or never understood, was a dark episode in American history. It is remembered today with regret, as something the nation struggled with, learned from, and moved beyond. But there are millions of Muslims who have good reason to fear that the darkness is falling again.

The time to renounce Mr. Trump’s views was the day he entered the race, calling Mexico an exporter of criminals and rapists. He played to the politics of nativism and fear that was evident last year, when a wave of Central American mothers and children, fleeing gang-and-drug warfare to the Texas border, presented themselves upon the mercy of the United States, and were met with derision and hysteria.

 

The racism behind the agenda of the right wing on immigrants and foreigners has long been plain as day. Mr. Trump makes it even plainer. After his remarks on Muslims, how many of Mr. Trump’s rivals have said they would reject his candidacy if he won the nomination? As of Wednesday, none." [Source]

 

*Pic courtesy of sandiegofreepress.org

 

 

Fear mongering in America.

   "A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder, usually defined as a persistent fear of an object or situation in which the sufferer commits to great lengths in avoiding, typically disproportional to the actual danger posed, often being recognized as irrational."

I just heard Donald trump's latest speech where he doubled down on his ludicrous and preposterous plan to ban all Muslims from entering the United States until we "can figure out just what the hell is going on." If  it wasn't for all the rabid fans of the turmpster cheering as if they were at a Saturday night lynching in Starkville, Mississippi, circa 1892, I would  have thought that I was watching a bad SNL skit. 

Of course the other republican candidates are now condemning trump with what the press is calling a "quick response".  The general consensus is that he has gone too far, and that what he is doing is not good for the country because it only serves to divide us. 

The irony is, of course, that it was these same republican candidates who took us down this slope in the first place. The most conservative of the bunch, Jeb Bush, was actually calling for some kind of religious test for folks coming into the country. That's a very trump like position.

This plan of Trump's opens up all kinds of doors. I am a Muslim American and I decide to take a vacay down to the beautiful town of Port Antonio, Jamaica. After my wonderful vacation I try to return to my stateside home only to be told that I cannot enter the country because of an edict from President trump. I have a job, a mortgage, an American wife, children.....Sorry kids, daddy is going to be at camp trump down in Cuba for awhile.  Anyway, you get the picture, this is not only inimical to our Constitution, it is just flat out stupid and unworkable on a practical level.

But hey, the snake oil salesman is selling a gullible and easily fooled American public something they are yearning for: safety, packaged in a nice little box of bigotry.  

"But if you doubt the marketability of bloodlust in a panicked America, look no further than Donald Trump, who leads the GOP field by a mile, and who literally wants to do unspeakable things to combat terrorism. That’s saying a lot, because there is very little that Donald Trump is unwilling to say. On several occasions recently, the things that Donald Trump has planned for fighting terrorism at home have been too awful for even him to say, and he’s on record supporting waterboarding.

On Friday, at a rally that was fraught with interruptions from protesters, Trump told an audience member who asked him how he would respond to the San Bernadino shooting that he couldn’t tell her, because he’d get into trouble with the press:" [Source]

 

I doubt it Donald, the press loves you. You have them eating out of your hand. 

 

The American people love you as well , at least the ones who are too scared to know better.

*Pic from cnn.com

 

 

 

Donald's religious test.

Wait a minute now, I know that Dr. Ben can seem outright crazy at times, but Donald Trump has no right to call out the man's religion. I take offense because I, like Dr. Ben, was raised Seventh Day Adventist. 

Donald seems to be suggesting that the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) church seems to be somehow on the fringes of American religious orthodoxy, and he says that he is "not so sure" if it is as mainstream as other religions.

I have news for Mr. Trump, he needs to study the different religions and their beliefs in America a little more closely. The folks in the SDA church are quite mainstream, and they have a health message that is way ahead of what all the other religions are pushing. (Check out this study about Loma Linda, California.)  And the charitable work that the world church does is not too shabby, either. As churches go, there is a lot to like about SDA. If you check out the average income and educational level of Seventh Day Adventists (black and white) you will find that it is not too bad.

"But field, why do they go to church on Saturdays and not Sundays like everyone else? "

Well there is that whole Exodus 20:9 thing. If you study your religious history you will find that the Seventh Day Adventist actually gets it right when it comes to following the Ten Commandments and not all those Sunday worshiping churches.

But I digress.

So why is The Donald going after Gentle Ben now? Well it seems that for the first time Donald is losing to Dr. Ben in one of these primary polls. The slip in his overall numbers that all the pundits have been predicting seems to be on the horizon, and that is causing much panic in camp Donald.

So now Donald will do what he does best: attack. I just don't want him attacking the one religion in America that I have a history with. Heck he shouldn't be attacking any religion. I mean we all know how he feels about Muslims, and America being America he has been allowed to get away with that.

Gentle Ben has attacked Muslims as well, which makes it hard for him to take the high road against Trump for doing the exact same thing that he did to others.  

"I’m Presbyterian,” Trump said on Saturday in Jacksonville. “Boy, that’s down the middle of the road, folks, in all fairness. I mean, Seventh-day Adventist I don’t know about. I just don’t know about it.”

I know about it, and trust me when I tell you that if more folks were SDA (not the Ben Carson type of SDA) America would probably be a much better place.







   

The Republican Crusades.

The Field Negro education series continues.

"One of the hot issues in the 2016 presidential election is how to deal with terror and slaughter in the name of Islam. President Obama and Hillary Clinton refuse to call such violence Islamic. They insist that Muslims are victims, not allies, of ISIS and al-Qaida.

The Republican candidates for president say this reluctance to associate Islam with jihadi violence is naïve, wimpy, and dangerous. “We need a commander in chief who will once and for all call it what it is, and that is that radical Islamic terrorism is a threat to us all,” says Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Rick Santorum agrees: “Islam is an ideology. And we need to be honest about the American public about what the nature of our enemy really is.” Sen. Marco Rubio promises a Reaganesque crusade:

[W]e must restore America’s willingness to think big—to state boldly what we stand for and why it is right. Just as Reagan never flinched in his criticisms of the Soviet Union’s political and economic repressions, we must never shy away from demanding that China allow true freedom for its 1.3 billion people. Nor should we hesitate in calling the source of atrocities in the Middle East by its real name—radical Islam.

   

The Republicans don’t just call the enemy Islamic. They criticize Clinton and Obama for preaching coexistence. At last weekend’s South Carolina Freedom Summit, they laughed off the Crusades and defended mockery of Islam. Carly Fiorina, a former Republican Senate nominee now running for president, demanded to know why Clinton has advocated “religious tolerance” and “the need to empathize with our enemies while Christians are being beheaded and crucified.”

Republicans who talk this way think they’re being tough. In reality, however, they’re aiding the enemy. They’re doing for ISIS what they did for al-Qaida: assisting its recruitment, social media, and political strategy. Rhetorically, ISIS and the GOP are in perfect harmony.

Don’t take it from me. Take it from the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. On Thursday his media team released a speech in which the would-be caliph presents his views on Islam, tolerance, and sectarian violence. Baghdadi sounds like a Republican candidate for president. Here’s what he says:
 

1. This is a war between Muslims and non-Muslims. ISIS, like al-Qaida, can’t wage a global or even regional war with 30,000 fighters. To build popular support, it needs to frame the conflict in religious terms. That’s why Baghdadi agrees with American conservatives who say our enemy is Islam:

O Muslims! Do not think the war that we are waging is the Islamic State’s war alone. Rather, it is the Muslims’ war altogether. It is the war of every Muslim in every place. … O Muslims everywhere, has the time not come for you to realize the truth of the conflict and that it is between disbelief and faith? … This war is only against you and against your religion.

2. Coexistence is impossible. Is authentic Islam compatible with Western values? Many conservative activists and politicians say it isn’t. This belief suits Baghdadi. He tells Muslims that they must choose:

O Muslims! Whoever thinks that it is within his capacity to conciliate with the Jews, Christians, and other disbelievers, and for them to conciliate with him, such that he coexists with them and they coexist with him while he is upon his religion and upon tawhīd (monotheism), then he has belied the explicit statement of his Lord (the Mighty and Majestic), who says, “And never will the Jews or the Christians approve of you until you follow their religion. … And they will continue to fight you until they turn you back from your religion.”

3. Islam is a religion of war. Santorum, Rudy Giuliani, and other Republicans say ISIS has a scriptural basis for its violence. Two weeks ago Jeb Bush said “part” of the Muslim world was “not a religion of peace.” Baghdadi, too, rejects the religion-of-peace narrative:

O Muslims, Islam was never for a day the religion of peace. Islam is the religion of war. Your Prophet (peace be upon him) was dispatched with the sword as a mercy to the creation. He was ordered with war until Allah is worshipped alone. He (peace be upon him) said to the polytheists of his people, “I came to you with slaughter.” … He never for a day grew tired of war.

The religion-of-war narrative, whatever its scholarly merits, serves political interests on both sides. It gives the Republicans red meat for the primaries, and it helps Baghdadi persuade Muslims that they’re commanded by God to support ISIS.

4. America doesn’t care about Muslim civilian casualties or civil liberties. Baghdadi says followers of Islam should stand with him because they can’t trust Western governments to protect their rights or spare their innocents. He warns Muslims:

And if the Crusaders today claim to avoid the Muslim public and to confine themselves to targeting the armed amongst them, then soon you will see them targeting every Muslim everywhere. And if the Crusaders today have begun to bother the Muslims who continue to live in the lands of the cross by monitoring them, arresting them, and questioning them, then soon they will begin to displace them and take them away either dead, imprisoned, or homeless.

Republicans seem determined to prove Baghdadi right. A few years ago, Rubio, Fiorina, Newt Gingrich, and other GOP leaders denounced peaceful Muslim pluralists for proposing to build a mosque in Manhattan near the site of the 9/11 attacks. Last weekend in South Carolina, Santorum complained that most of the planes we’re flying over ISIS territory “come back not having dropped their ordnance.” Apparently, Santorum thinks the military is too careful in its selection and examination of targets.

The convergence of Republican rhetoric with jihadist propaganda isn’t new. It’s been building ever since George W. Bush left the White House. Liberated from presidential responsibility, Republicans degenerated into a party that uses Islam for domestic politics instead of thinking about how their words resonate overseas. That’s how they became backup singers for Osama Bin Laden. Now they’re working for Baghdadi. Remind me again who’s naïve." [Source]


*Pic from zionica.com
 

Muslims just want to have fun.

Oh Lawd! What is going on here in A-merry-ca? Why is it harder for Muslims to pursue happiness than the rest of you A-merry-cans? BTW, Speaking of pursuing happiness; I guess we won't be up in arms about this latest social media flash mob phenomenon. I mean they are just college students, and I didn't see any of you Negroes in the crowd scaring folks. But I digress.

 "Rye Playland was shut down Tuesday after cops scuffled with Muslims upset that women wearing head scarves were barred from the rides, witnesses said.
Fifteen people, including three women, were charged with disorderly conduct and assault in the chaos, authorities said.

The Westchester County park was packed with Muslims celebrating Eid-ul-Fitr - the holiday marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
One woman, Entisai Ali, began arguing with cops over the amusement park's head scarf, or hijab, rule, said Dena Meawad, 18, of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
The ban, which is not Muslim specific, was imposed about 3 years ago mostly to prevent hats from falling onto the tracks of roller coasters and other rides, park officials said.

"The cops started getting loud with her and she started getting loud, too. They pushed her on the ground and arrested her," Meawad said.
Her cousin, Kareem Meawad, 17, went to try to protect the woman and was beaten by cops and also arrested, she added. Her brother, Issam Meawad, 20, was pushed to the ground and taken into custody when he tried to help his cousin, she said.

"She just wanted to get on a ride. That was it," Dena Meawad said of the initial confrontation. "It's clear, this all happened because we're Muslim."
John Hodges, chief inspector of Westchester County Public Safety, insisted that police did not use excessive force.

He said up to 100 cops from surrounding departments converged on the park.
Two park rangers were injured in the melee, prompting felony assault charges against two people arrested, officials said.
The ugly incident happened just after 1 p.m. The event was organized by the Muslim American Society of New York, and attracted 3,000 Muslims from Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Westchester County.

Ali's sister, Ayman Alrabah, 24, of Brooklyn said her husband, brother and father were all tackled by cops and put into handcuffs when they tried to help her sister.
Alrabah said she was unaware of the head-scarf rule until she and her sister tried to get on the park's Dragon Coasters.

"We requested a refund and all of a sudden an argument became a riot," Alrabah said. "Cops came. They were hitting my brother, my dad. My husband was on the floor and they were handcuffing him.

She said her 4-year-old son was "traumatized" by seeing his father arrested.
"They treated us like animals, like we were nothing," Alrabah said. "They came with their dogs and sticks. We came to have fun." [Source] 

Oh stop it! Where have you ever heard of cops attacking people with "dogs and sticks"? Oh wait....never mind.

Finally, I am not an expert on climate change and global warming [or the lack of it], but I do know that we have been having some unusually freakish weather occurrences all over the world of late, and that reasonable people can disagree on just how much man made behavior is causing the earth's weather patterns to change.

Reasonable people. The wingnuts in this country, and folks like their presidential candidate, Governor Big Hair, are not convinced.  They believe that global warming is all a hoax. And thanks to their 24 hour propaganda machine and the ignorance of quite a few most of our fellow citizens, they are actually gaining the upper hand in the debate. Which is really kind of sad, because if they had their way there would be no debate in the first place.

   

The greatest threat.

There must be some really bad stuff in the air around here. Just this weekend a man went all Musashi on his family in a [upper]middle class neighborhood right outside of Philadelphia:

"Montgomery County prosecutors have charged a 23-year-old man with fatally stabbing his father, mother, and twin brother.

Joseph McAndrew Jr. was arrested Saturday and charged with three counts of first-degree murder related to the stabbing deaths of Joseph C. McAndrew, 70; Susan C. McAndrew, 64; and James D. McAndrew, 23, in the family's Upper Merion home.

King of Prussia District Justice William I. Maruszczak said McAndrew did not speak at his araignment Sunday morning. He is being held without bail.

Neighbors said police arrived late Saturday, and four police cars were at the house on Holstein Road when one neighbor arrived home at 1:30 a.m. Sunday. "It's traumatic and very shocking," said the man, 23, who had attended Upper Merion schools with the brothers.

Speaking of Joseph Jr., the neighbor said, "I played soccer with him growing up. I never thought that anything was possible." The man asked not to be identified. He said the family had lived in the house for more than 20 years.

According to a police affidavit, all three were killed by "multiple cuts and lacerations" in the house, where police found several knives and a "samurai-style sword," the Norristown Times Herald reported. The two-story, white-stucco home is on a narrow, two-lane road." [More]

Yes, we never think certain things are possible with certain types of people. I mean just when you think you know someone...Anyway, clearly this young man had some serious issues and it's sad that it had to come to this. But hey, nothing surprises me anymore in A-merry-ca.

Finally, because nothing surprises me anymore, I shouldn't be surprised to hear that a certain wingnuut politician wants to have hearings on the "radicalization" of Islam in A-merry-ca.

"Rep. Peter King said Sunday he'll hold hearings on the "radicalization of the American Muslim community" - but some critics fear an anti-Islamic witchhunt.

King (R-L.I.) said a Congressional probe is needed because Al Qaeda has increasingly targeted Muslims living legally in the United States as potential terror recruits.

Despite the threat to their own community, King said, some Islamic clerics resist cooperating with investigators.

"We want to assess the extent of the radicalization of the Muslim community," he said. "It's clear to me there has not been sufficient cooperation."

"With Al Qaeda trying to recruit from within their community, it's important that they cooperate," said King, who will be chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security in the new Republican-controlled Congress. King's call drew fire from Muslim groups, who said they fear the hearings will only fuel bigotry and hatred." [Source]

This is what happens when you give wingnuts the power over anything; they abuse it. Good luck with those hearings Mr. King. I hope you get a chance to weed out all those radicals and crazies living among us. Although I think you might want to start with the crazy people living among our own families, first.

I have a little burning to do as well.

Who knew that being a media whore in A-merry-ca could get you so much attention? Take my man pastor Jones down in Florida, for example. Thankfully, his Koran burning is off for the moment. Still, he is lapping up his 15 minutes and using his new found power and fame to negotiate with the Muslims from that center at Ground Zero. If you don't build your Mosque I won't burn your Koran. Ain't that a b&^%#?!

But can you blame the guy for being like the lyrics from that Jean Carne song all of a sudden? The President! The Vice President! Generals! Heads of state! All begging him not to burn. That would give every red blooded A-merry-can the big head.

Well I want my 15 minutes, damn it, so I have decided to do a little religious burning of my own.

But first, a scripture from the good book:

"I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more." (Ezekiel 34:29)

It' s like this: on September 11, 1987, Peter Tosh was shot and killed by a Rastafarian named Dennis "Leppo" Lobban. Lobban broke into his home, demanded money, and when Tosh didn't give in to his wishes; he was shot execution style in the head.

To show my disgust for this cowardly act, I will burn what Rastafarians hold sacred on September 11th and I dare any Rastafarian anywhere in the world to stop me. Your "tree of life" and herb that heals nations will be lit up like a Christmas tree on September 11th, so get used to it. The good pastor in Florida backed down, but I won't, there is too much at stake. There are too many heathens in the land.

The "Fourth Reich"?

It's starting to feel like 1933 here in A-merry-ca. February 28, 1933, to be exact.

But thankfully, folks are still allowed to write opinion pieces like the following:

"The first thing that must be said about the mosque at ground zero is that it is not just a mosque, and it is not at ground zero.

Granted, calling it an Islamic center that contains a prayer space, a spa, a swimming pool, community meeting rooms, a 9/11 memorial, an auditorium, a basketball court, classrooms, and an exhibition space - to be located two blocks away and around a corner from ground zero, at a site Muslims are already using for prayers - doesn't have quite the same kick as calling it the mosque at ground zero. It's just a more accurate description.

Facts matter, and they seem to be in short supply in this ugly fight.

It's also important to note that the controversy over the center, which has now engulfed the president, is only one of several that have flared up across the country over mosque construction or expansion plans. Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Wisconsin, California - all have seen fights over mosque proposals. There are even two other New York mosque projects, in Brooklyn and Staten Island, that have provoked attacks and demonstrations.

There have also been attacks on existing mosques, not just planned ones. A bomb exploded during services at a mosque in Jacksonville, Fla., and there have been reports of arson and vandalism of mosques in Texas and Tennessee. (No one was hurt in the incidents, which are being investigated.)

Murfreesboro, Tenn., is witnessing a particularly ugly construction standoff, with many of the same features as the fight in Lower Manhattan. Mainstream politicians running in tough primary races have attacked the project there, and so have grassroots activists affiliated with local tea party groups........as Park51 after its address on Park Place - were high-profile grassroots activists, including Mark Williams, then-leader of a group called the Tea Party Express. He labeled the center a "monument" for the "worship of the terrorists' monkey-god."

One key opposition group, Stop the Islamization of America, is well-known for the inflammatory rhetoric of its leaders. They include Pamela Geller, who didn't bother providing a shred of evidence when she suggested that funding for the center could be "tied to jihad or terror." (There is no funding at the moment.) Geller has called for a ground zero rally on the anniversary of 9/11, and she has been touting Geert Wilders, a virulently anti-Muslim Dutch politician, as a featured speaker.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, has highlighted Geller associate John Joseph Jay as "truly vicious." According to the center, Jay wrote in his (all-lowercase) blog: "if islam kills non-believers as a matter of religious doctrine, then why should muslims expect to be free of retribution in the name of those islam kills?"

These are the people who defined and framed the debate over the Lower Manhattan Islamic center. Now the controversy has gone viral, attracting opposition to the project from ambitious mainstream politicians, including Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich, both of whom are toying with presidential runs, and Rick Lazio, a Republican candidate for governor of New York. Palin has ratcheted up the rhetoric, referring to Park51 as the "9/11 mosque....We should bear in mind that it's election season, and some politicians have clearly calculated that opposing the center - and similar projects around the country - will translate into political and financial support. But why should that be? And why should the construction of a house of worship in America - a country founded partly for the sake of religious refuge - become a full-blown national controversy?

Here we come to the key fallacy driving these fights - the "big lie," to use Hitler's term for a falsehood so preposterous that it goes unchallenged. In this instance, the lie is that Muslims attacked America in the name of Islam.

The U.S. government bears much of the responsibility for propagating this myth in the wake of 9/11. It allowed - indeed, encouraged - the view that a political attack carried out by a tiny group of radical terrorists was, in fact, an attack on America on behalf of all Muslims in the name of Islam. This was the argument disseminated by al-Qaeda itself. Hence, the federal government was in the curious position of promoting al-Qaeda's propaganda.

That al-Qaeda is a gang of disgruntled thugs - many of whom were our disgruntled thugs during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan - is deemed irrelevant in this view. They were our "freedom fighters" when Ronald Reagan was president; now they "hate our freedoms," as George W. Bush put it.

Of course, President Bush spoke in mosques, invited imams to the White House, and intoned that "Islam is peace." At the same time, though, his administration was interrogating tens of thousands of Muslims and jailing thousands of them, investigating Muslim students, using Byzantine immigration laws against Muslims and deporting tens of thousands of them, employing the Energy Department to monitor mosque radiation levels, using the Census Bureau to identify Muslim neighborhoods, and sending the FBI out to count American mosques.

This intense investigative focus on Muslims during the last several years, coupled with a constant labeling of terrorist plots as Muslim, created a fertile field for xenophobia.

Now Bryan Fischer, a leader of the fundamentalist American Family Association, has gone so far as to state flatly that Muslim Americans are by definition treasonous. "Permits should not be granted to build even one more mosque in the United States of America, let alone the monstrosity planned for ground zero," Fischer wrote recently on his blog. "This is for one simple reason: each Islamic mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government."

Fischer's solution? Repatriate Muslims to their home countries. This completely ignores the fact that close to a majority of the five million to eight million Muslims in this country were born here, and roughly a third are African American. Facts do matter. " [Story]

No they don't Mr. Salisbury, not if you are a wingnut.

Finally, I just read that James Jackson Kilpatrick is dead. May he go straight to hell. (If there is such a place.) The next time one of you black conservatives try to justify your political stance here in A-merry-ca, just remember that folks like James Jackson Kilpatrick was one of the founders of your movement.

WHAT IS SATIRE IN A FOX NEWS A-MERRY-CA?

Tonight would have been a perfect time for me to post about Miss. America doing her own version of the "slip n slide" at the Miss. Universe Pageant, and how it's a perfect metaphor for so many things that's screwed up with our republic these days . But alas, I have some other things on my mind, mainly presidential politics and the latest bru ha ha over his "O" ness.

Now first, I am going to surprise a whole lot of people and say that I understand what the "New Yorker" was trying to do with their cover. It was meant to be satirical, and I might be the only black person that's not a republican in these divided states to see it as such. If anyone should be offended by this, it's Muslim A-merry-cans, but then I am sure that they are so used to facing prejudice on a daily basis, that a magazine cover lampooning the people that show them prejudice, probably isn't all that offensive to them. Even Mr. Morton's people have gotten into the act: " The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree." Yeah right, sure you do Mr. Burton. And I am quite sure that most of the people it's lampooning will be voting for your candidate. Of course, as is usually the case, you Obamaholics have been losing your natural minds over this dis from the rest of A-merry-ca.

But isn't this a case of shooting the messenger? If you Obamaholics don't think that a significant number of your fellow citizens feel that the idiotic caricature on the cover of this magazine is accurate, well then I have a nice little antique bell with a crack in it to sell you from my hometown. Which, if you believe the Editors of this magazine, was the point of the cover: To make fun of the ignorant folks in A-merry-ca who actually believe that the pic is an accurate portrayal of his "O" ness. Ahhh field, come on, if this was FOX you would be all over them. I smell a double standard here. If you smell double standard, you have a heck of a good nose, because it probably is on my part. You see it's like this: FOX has a history of doing ignorant and racist shit, and they cater to the very folks this magazine happens to be lampooning. The clowns over at FOX are the ones who gave us the terrorist fist pump, the intentional mispronunciation of Obama's name, and the studio pundits who make fun of his wife and call her angry. So you damn right that if this was FOX I would have been all over their backwards ass behinds, and I make no apologies for that.

But not these folks, they don't have that history. This is not Vogue, who tried to take a serious picture and came off looking just flat out stupid, racist, and insensitive. The "New Yorker Magazine" folks know that this picture looks stupid and insensitive, and that was their point. What is a shame is that this cover created such an uproar, because the article in the magazine--I wonder how many people actually read it-- was a pretty good one. It chronicled the "O" man's rise as a typical South side Chicago politician, and featured an interesting cast of characters who seemed all too familiar to me. If some of you Obamaholics read it, you will find that your boy is a politicians like all the rest of the politicians here in A-merry-ca. It doesn't mean he won't do a good job, or that he doesn't deserve our vote, but I swear that wasn't water I saw him walking on.

"Onward Christian Soldiers"

"Rescue me o Lord from evil men; protect me from men of violence.

[men]who devise evil plans in their hearts and stir up war every day"

~~Psalm 140:1-2~~

I have a confession to make; I am a news junkie, I can't tell you how many different stories I read, watch, and listen to every day. But some stories always seem to get my attention more than others.

Like when I came across this story about the soldiers being sent camouflage bibles by various religious groups. Apparently this has been going on for awhile, but surprisingly, it just caught my attention.

Honestly, the shit is troubling. Although I suppose that we could reason that since we are a Christian nation our troops should be protected by christ. Hey, the "evil doers" according to some groups are praying to allah, why can't our boys who are charged to protect us, pray to our god?

But who says we are a Christian nation? Not history, and certainly not the facts. Weren't our founding fathers deists? Deism was what was practiced by the intellectuals in the early part of our Republic's history. And they were folks who who believed that human reason should be used to solve political and social problems. Deist did not believe in the divine inspiration of the bible. Thomas Paine, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson, to name just a few, were deists. So where did this myth of us being a Christian nation come from? The slaves who were brought here, and who worked to build up this nation certainly were not Christians. Nope, if you hear their plantation owners tell it, they were pagans who practiced things like witchcraft, voodoo, and other "dark" mysterious things. The Native Americans, who were already here, were not Christians. Nope, I don't think that they had a Christian god in mind when they spoke of the "great spirits".

Look, I know I am not a true believer, and if I thought that the bibles would give our troops even a slight edge over those allah loving Muslims they are fighting, I would be all for it. Unfortunately, I don't think that whoever is up there pushing the buttons has a bias in this fight one way or the other. And let's be clear, I have no problem with Christians, Muslims, or any other religious group. Most of the folks I know (like some of the people who comment here) who happen to belong to one religion or the other are good decent people. It's the ones who try use their religion to impose their will on others that I have a problem with. You know the ones; the crack pots who fly planes into buildings in the name of allah, or the crack pot who sends innocent men and women to die because he thinks he has some divine right as the leader of a Christian nation.

I do know one thing, if there is an evil force out there, he [she] is glad for the person who put us into this mess. And if he [the person who put us in this mess] calls himself a Christian, and it makes him feel better about himself and his war, well then so be it. Just keep killing those "evil doers", and we will see where that gets us.

So let's keep sending those bibles, shall we. And don't forget to make sure that they are camouflaged. After all, we wouldn't want our soldiers to give away their positions while they read the good book.