The Group of People I Like Keeps Dwindling

Tags

budget, environment, Glenn Beck, media wackos, Muslims, Qur'an, racism

One of the things that has long troubled me in the silly war by the extremist right to paint Obama as a Muslim, is why the response isn’t simply: so what if he is? Why is it something that must be defended against? Have we gone so far around the bend into naked hatred that it would not be okay to have a Muslim president?

The fact that Barack Obama is assuredly a Christian, is beside the point. We need only go as far as Herman Cain to find someone willing to blatantly state that no Muslim would find their way into “his” administration.

A furor erupted in New Jersey when the governor there appointed a Muslim to the Court of Appeals. Thankfully, the governor says he would do it again!

But we are, it seems, making it almost alright to bash Muslims. The extremist right is simply awful in its hate-spewing, using all sorts of words and phrases meant to inflame and leaving no doubt that they conceive of Muslims in general as a thing to be eradicated from the body politic. As we have previously noted Bryan Fischer suggests they have no “1st Amendment rights” since our Founding Fathers, inexplicably never meant to include anyone but Christians, and perhaps “good” Jews.

Many extremists point to the Qur’an as being a hate-filled book. Frankly, from things I’ve read, by people who have reason to know, it is no more so than the Bible, which admittedly portrays a pretty violent and bloodthirsty God in parts of the Hebrew Scriptures.

But did you know that the person named most often in the Qur’an is Moses? And the second most named person is Jesus? And the third is the Virgin Mary? I sure didn’t. Read an account of this and other things from the Qur’an at The Reaction, in a guest post by Hamid M. Khan, adjunct professor of Islamic Law at the University of Colorado Law School.

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A couple of shorts. This just in. Beck is “transitioning off” his TV show. Meaning he has been told to take a hike. The usual “new projects are in the works” was released.

Democrats proposed that if the Rethugs were intent on the government shutdown, that the moral thing to do was to stop paying themselves in Congress and President. The GOP said whoa, that was going too far!

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With Paul Ryan’s “new budget” which basically guts Medicare and Medicaid, we now see that the GOP strategy is to support in every way the rich getting richer and placing all the economic suffering on the poor, women and old people. Coupled with their growing attacks on Muslims, and Latinos, well, we can see that it is the party of the great shrinking white well-to-do. Good luck with that.

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If you want to find out what your state excels in, environmentally that is, well take a look at the map below. [h/t Joe.My.God]

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What’s on the stove? Fish Tacos (recipe anyone?)