Tag: Rachel Maddow

Fresh off his prayer event, The Response, Gov. Rick Perry will announce his candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination in South Carolina at the third annual RedState conference in Charleston. A lot of attention has been given to Perry’s connection to the event and Rachel Maddow in an extensive piece exposed the hate message that many of the so-called Christians were spreading as the crowds prayed and cheered.

One of the sponsors is a little known bizarre, evangelical group, the American Apostolic Reformation. Al Jazeera notes the AAR’s similarity to the Taliban. The group has been around awhile and was first noticed in the 2008 campaign when one of its most prominent practitioners, Kenyan witch-hunter Thomas Muthee, anointed Sarah Palin. AAR has bragged on line about destroying ancient Native American artifacts much like the Taliban did in Afghanistan with the destructions of the two colossal images of the Buddha in Bamiyan province in early 2001. The ultimate goal is to replace secular democracy, both in America and around the world, with a Christian theocracy, an ideology known as “dominionism”, striking similar to the Taliban and radical Islam. And this is the group that social conservative, religious zealot Rick Perry embraces.

In a long article, the Texas Observer describes them as “Rick Perry’s army of God”:

The new prophets and apostles believe Christians–certain Christians–are destined to not just take “dominion” over government, but stealthily climb to the commanding heights of what they term the “Seven Mountains” of society, including the media and the arts and entertainment world. They believe they’re intended to lord over it all. As a first step, they’re leading an “army of God” to commandeer civilian government.

On a lighter note, Stephen Colbert’s Super PAC,  Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, has produced its first two campaign ads in Iowa  targeting “Rick Parry”.

The Republicans “crazies” are flooding the primary field with felons, the head of the KKK and the religious fanatics that make the Westborough Baptist Church members sound sane.

GOP candidates court crackpot constituency

Rachel reviews the role of the social conservative fringe in 2012 Republican politics.

Jon Walker at Firedoglake says that the negotiations on the debt ceiling keep moving right:

In the beginning, the idea that any political party would actively hold the debt ceiling hostage to reduce the deficit was considered absurd. Mainly because all the top politicians have admitted they don’t want the country to default and that actually forcing a default would have the exact opposite affect of sending Treasury bond rates up, making the deficit problem dramatically worse. Only a year ago, the idea the debt ceiling must be raised was not just the broad centrist position, and it has been the common sense position for decades.

Instead of holding a firm line and pointing out that Republicans were flirting with incoherent madness related to the debt ceiling, Democrats ,lead by President Obama, choose to feed the Republican deficit hysteria by actively refusing to take a stand. This moved the debate radically to the right. It made it acceptable to hold America credit worthiness hostage to demand deficit reductions despite massive unemployment.

John Amato at Crooks and Liars gives a tutorial in Negotiating for Dummies:

Every “cut” is on the table, but not revenue increasers. This is all kabuki and the debt ceiling isn’t the same type of game they played with as shutting down our own government was. But if Democrats use meaningless military cuts to justify massive cuts in education, food safety, health research and criminal justice as some kumbaya moment, then this will be not a deal, but a ritual sacrifice.

Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes, Washington Editor of The Nation magazine, discussed the lengths to which the Republicans have gone to undermine President Obama, calling it “craven shameless, unprincipled partisan hackery”

At this point, I call it insanity on the part of the President and the Democratic leadership.

This nuisance law passed by the right wing, ultra-ignorant of the US Constitution, Tennessee legislature is most assuredly unconstitutional and unenforceable even if it were. Can you just picture the mile high stack of law suits filed in Tennessee courts? Can you imagine the cost to the state? Smaller government? LMAO

Rachel Maddow reports on a new Tennessee law that bans the transmission or display of an image on-line that can frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress to someone who sees it.

Osama bin Laden is dead. Now after 10 years why are we still Afghanistan? What our diplomats fail to recognize about tribal customs of the Afghan people gets an explanation from Rachel Maddow. The reason for the military to be in Afghanistan is dead, of that I am certain. Are we now getting closer to bringing our troops home?

The world is suppose to end today. I would guess we’ll find out sooner or later but as one late night comedian said, “it would be a shame if we only lived three weeks longer than Osama bin Laden”.

So in case the world ends sometime tomorrow, or even if it doesn’t, Rachel Maddow has a drink that will bring some cheer called the “Last Word” from the Zig Zag Cafe in Seattle, WA where the drink was “reborn”.

Equal parts:

   gin

   fresh lime juice

   maraschino liqueur (Rachel recommends Luxardo brand)

   green Chartreuse

Shake well with ice for longer than you think you need to, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Rachel takes a look at one of the effects of the emergency finance law, particularly on a remarkable Detroit high school that faces closure.

Rachel explains how Republican efforts around the country to strip the middle class of union rights and other economic attacks are only serving to rally the Democratic voting base.

Transcript of the video is not yet available. When it is, it can be found here.

Recently Naomi Klein, the author of the “Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capital Management”, has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now discussing Anti-Union Bills and Disaster Capital Management American-Style:

   NAOMI KLEIN: Well, I just found out about this last night, and like I said, there’s so much going on that these extraordinary measures are just getting lost in the shuffle. But in Michigan, there is a bill that’s already passed the House. It’s on the verge of passing the Senate. And I’ll just read you some excerpts from it. It says that in the case of an economic crisis, that the governor has the authority to authorize the emergency manager-this is somebody who would be appointed-to reject, modify or terminate the terms of an existing contract or collective bargaining agreement, authorize the emergency manager for a municipal government-OK, so we’re not-we’re talking about towns, municipalities across the state-to disincorporate. So, an appointed official with the ability to dissolve an elected body, when they want to.

   AMY GOODMAN: A municipal government.

   NAOMI KLEIN: A municipal government. And it says specifically, “or dissolve the municipal government.” So we’ve seen this happening with school boards, saying, “OK, this is a failing school board. We’re taking over. We’re dissolving it. We’re canceling the contracts.” You know, what this reminds me of is New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, when the teachers were fired en masse and then it became a laboratory for charter schools. You know, people in New Orleans-and you know this, Amy-warned us. They said, “What’s happening to us is going to happen to you.” And I included in the book a quote saying, “Every city has their Lower Ninth Ward.” And what we’re seeing with the pretext of the flood is going to be used with the pretext of an economic crisis. And this is precisely what’s happening. So it starts with the school boards, and then it’s whole towns, whole cities, that could be subject to just being dissolved because there’s an economic crisis breaking collective bargaining agreements. It also specifies that-this bill specifies that an emergency manager can be an individual or a firm. Or a firm. So, the person who would be put in charge of this so-called failing town or municipality could actually be a corporation.

We are now seeing the push to fulfill this agenda to make “harsher American less democratic”.  Not  only are they stripping the rights of workers but the Republican corporate agenda is now going after the one remedy that Americans have to stop them, voting rights. Currently there are bills under consideration in 32 states to make it harder to vote in 2012, by forcing people to ID that the poor, minorities and students that they have difficulty obtaining, eliminating same day registration and restricting the voting rights of people who have served time in prison.

Michael Moore appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show commenting on the aftermath of the stealth, and quite possibly illegal, vote by the Republicans in the Wisconsin Senate to remove the right of collective bargaining from state workers. He was so furious that his voice actually broke with the emotion of the moment. Every working person in this country needs to walk out on Friday at 2 PM in your respective time zones and join the people of Wisconsin to take back our country for the people.