The results are in

Based on my own exit polling (sample size = 1), I'm calling Washington for Obama at 10:45 am. Suck on it MSM!

Credit and blame where they are due

Everyone make note of this, I'm going to say something nice about Republicans and criticize some liberals.

I think the Republican convention organizers deserve credit for responding to the peanut throwing incident by throwing the offenders out and the the RNC deserves credit for issuing a statement condemning the act.

I also think a lot of liberal tweeters and bloggers should be ashamed of themselves for all the fat jokes that flew around during Chris Christie's speech last night. Was that the only thing you could think of to criticize? Did you even listen to him? We should be better than that.

Racist scumbag embarrasses my home state

Alaska can't get a break. For most of its existence, Alaskans have had to put up with silly stereotypes of igloos, prospectors, and a polar bear in every kitchen. Then along came the Palins, money grubbing publicity hounds who made the Alaskan electorate look like a bunch of idiots. Now we get this guy, who makes Alaskans look like ignorant racists.

COMES NOW Gordon Warren Epperly, Pro Se, challenging the Nomination Petition of Barack Hussein Obama II, Aka Barack Hussein Obama, Aka Barack H. Obama or his Electors to appear on the Primary and General Election Ballots of the State of Alaska as a Candidate for the Office of President of the United States of America.

[...]

As stated above, for an Individual to be a Candidate for the Office of President of the United States, the Candidate must meet the qualifications as set forth in the United States Constitution and one of those qualifications is that the Candidate shall be a "natural born Citizen" of the United States. As Barack Hussein Obama II is of the "Mulatto" race, his status of citizenship is founded upon the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Before the [purported] ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the race of "Negro" or "Mulatto" had no standing to be citizens of the United States under the United States Constitution.

After this, he goes off into that branch of birtherism that says Obama cannot be a citizen unless both of his parents were citizens. But that's just gravy. The real meat of argument is that only white males are allowed to hold office. In a footnote to his document, he claims Dred Scott is still the law, meaning no one of African ancestry can be a citizen.

Epperly is some sort of crank who writes letters to the Juneau newspaper and files legal documents that reflect the bizzare sovereign citizen legal teachings so popular with the militia crowd. In the past he has harrassed the National Archivist with demands for proof that the Fourteenth Amendment is really the law of the land. For the last few years he has called Lisa Murkowski a usurper because women, white or not, are not allowed to hold political office.

What did Alaska do to deserve this?

Newt's plan: "Fire everyone, even me!"

As Newt Gingrich would be the first to tell you, Newt Gingrich is a smart guy, an imaginative, forward thinking kind of guy who is willing to look at unconventional solutions to difficult problems. This kind of bold and daring thinking was on display at last night's debate. In answer to a question from the audience, "what are you going to do to bring down the debt?" he said:

I agree generally with the need to reform government. I think that, if we were prepared to repeal the 130-year-old civil service laws, go to a modern management system, we could save a minimum of $500 billion a year with a better system.

Gingrich--like Plutarch, Gibbon, and Churchill--was an historian, so he doesn't throw dates around willy-nilly. When he says "130-year-old civil service laws" he has something very specific and historical in mind. That specific and historical thing can only be the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883. This act was a bipartisan reform, written by a Democrat, Sen. George H. Pendleton, and championed by a Republican president, Chester Alan Arthur, both of whom, like Gingrich, were historical personages willing to take on unconventional and smart positions. The purpose of the law that Gingrich wants to repeal was to eliminate corruption and increase the professional quality of the civil service by reducing the number of patronage positions. This the genius of Gingrich's forward thinkingness; who needs professionalism and laws against corruption when one has modern management system? Only unimaginative, small thinkers who aren't Newt Gingrich, that's who.

Newt Gingrich's brilliance is not limited to history and modern management systems. He's also a master of mathematics far beyond the ability of lesser minds to comprehend. Take that number of "minimum of $500 billion a year." As we know, Gingrich is very specific in his brilliance; he must have something concrete in mind when gives a number like that. But what could it be. According to the latest analyses by the OMB (p. 122), the entire Federal payroll for 2011 was $ 432.6 billion. That number includes not just the civil service, but also all four branches of the military, active reserves, the judicial branch, the legislative branch, and the president himself. At this point, mundane minds are probably thinking, "gee, that doesn't add up. After firing the entire government, how does he expect to eliminate another $67.4 billion, at a minimum?" This is here Gingrich's sublime mind comes into play. He knows there are plenty of ways to squeeze more blood from the federal turnip. For example, he could stop paying their pensions, cancel veterans benefits, refuse to allow any of the 4.6 million new unemployed he just created to collect the unemployment insurance they've been paying for, and make them pay back some of their salaries from previous years. Lesser minds would never suggest such daring solutions.

Or he might be talking out of his ass.

Note: I'm not saying anything that wasn't already said here. I'm just more sarcastic than they are.

Did Santorum just call Obama the Antichrist? Updated

The short answer is "yes."

For over thirty years, the religious right has been teaching its followers that they are under siege by modern society, by liberals, by secularists, and by the Democratic Party. Anything they find even moderately unpleasant, their leaders tell them is an attack aimed directly at destroying, not just them, but Christianity and Christians. This paranoid world view fits very well into the Protestant end-times narrative. If they already believe that they are under constant attack by vaguely defined, almost irresistible forces it's not much of a jump to believe that those forces are diabolical in nature. And many do make that jump.

Rick Santorum gladly encourages those feelings of paranoia in his audience and is trying to direct them into a force that he can ride into the White House. When Obama says every kid should go to college, Santorum says that's because the Left uses college to indoctrinate our kids. The secular Left, he warns, wants to crush religious dissent, just like in the old Soviet Union. The day day after Obama spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast, Santorum railed that "he has done more to assault religion in this country than any president." Santorum has never been one to shy away from over the top rhetoric including, of course, the Hitler card.

Today he managed to go beyond Hitler and the Soviet Union. Today, he suggested to his followers that Obama is the Antichrist or, at the very least, paving the way for the Antichrist.

They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is the government that gives you rights. What’s left are no unalienable rights, what’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine. Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that. But if we do and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.

So, you might ask, where's the Antichrist in all that talk of the French Revolution? Guillotines have a special place in most versions of the end-time narrative being passed around. The non-raptured Christians who stay behind and battle the Antichrist during the Tribulation are supposed to be martyred on the guillotine if they are captured. End-time writers base this detail on Revelation 20:4.

"Judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands."

This is not an obscure detail; this is something that any apocalyptic Christian will instantly recognise. Google "antichrist" and "guillotine" and you will get over two million results. This is something that even secular survivalists have added to their repertoire of things to be paranoid about. Browse through those Google results and you'll find them all tied up with FEMA concentration camps, the New World Order, vapor trails, Bilderberg, and the Illuminati. It shows up in the Ron Paul forums.

The Obama-Antichrist link isn't new. The urban legend debunking site Snopes has had a page on this since 2009. Oscar Ramiro Ortega-Hernandez, who was arrested last fall for shooting at the White House was quoted by acquaintances as believing Obama was the Antichrist. Till now, that kind of talk has been limited to televangelists and the fringe. Santorum is taking a big leap by bringing it into the mainstream.

The Antichrist angle is new low, even for Santorum. He needs to be called to account for it.

Update: It looks like the guillotine dog-whistle is going to be a regular part of Santorum's stump speech. He repeated it in Oklahoma today.

It was a secular revolution on which we relied on the goodness of eacother. This is the left’s view of where America should go. And of course where did France go? To the guillotine. To tyranny. If there are no rights that government needs to respect, then what we see with ObamaCare is just the beginning of what government will do to you.

What a disgusting human being.

This would make the debates worth watching

No Flag Pins!!!

Why do they hate America?


Image credit.