Just kill me now:

An outspoken opponent of the so-called ground zero mosque in Manhattan is also taking on Islam in Chicago. 

Pamela Geller, leader of a movement called Stop the Islamization of America, asserts that Muslims are increasingly taking over schools, financial institutions and the workplace.

Geller’s latest campaign against “Islamization” has appeared in ads this summer on top of 25 Chicago cabs. Beside pictures of young women who were allegedly killed by their Muslim fathers for refusing an Islamic marriage, dating a non-Muslim or becoming “too Americanized” is the message: “Is your family threatening you?” and the Web address of LeaveIslamSafely.com. Though the placards appear to offer a haven for young women who want to leave Islam, critics contend the signs stoke fear among passengers and passers-by about the way an estimated half of the city’s taxi drivers worship, and seek to suppress the religious liberty on which the nation was founded.

What is it about Chicagocentric stories about cabbies in August?  Last August, Blackhawk star Patrick Kane punched out a cabbie in Buffalo over… twenty cents.   (It turns out that Kane had a decent year after that — silver in Vancouver, Cup-clinching goal against Philadelphia in June.)  Now: this crap.

If this Geller [REDACTED] has a tenth of the success that Kaner got…. Jesus.  I need a drink.

Meg Whitman has conducted the most imperial of campaigns for the GOP nomination for California Governor, refusing to speak to editorial boards, refusing to take questions from the audience at the few public events she has done, and plowing more and more of her money into her campaign ads that run ad nauseam on radio and TeeVee.  Her opponent, Steve Poizner, who was written off as dead in the water a few months ago, has pulled up with her in the polls. (On the back of endorsing Arizona’s SB 1070 and immigrant-bashing, but that is for another rant).

Whitman’s radio ads bashing welfare recipients are constant and continuous, even on my groovy progressive local San Francisco radio station KFOG.  So far I have been spared Whitman’s anti-immigrant ads playing in Sandy Eggo that torture Nojo.

Bashing the poor and voiceless has been a go-to strategy for politicians of both parties for generations, from Reagan to Clinton to Whitman, who to date has spent $64 million of her own money on her campaign.  While Clinton’s “End of Welfare as We Know It” in 1996 shows the equal-opportunism of campaigning by bashing the poor, the Cadillac-driving welfare queens have been the go-to boogieman in Republican primaries around the country for decades.  With the not-so-subtle coded racism and city-bashing imbedded in the attacks (nevermind that the majority of recipients of welfare assistance in this country are rural whites), it’s almost a cliché at this point.

Let’s deconstruct the ad, shall we? Read more »

Quick! Somebody sacrifice a virgin! If the radar photo above is any indication, Europeans have clearly pissed off Mother Earth with their excesses. After the jump, heartbreaking stories of “tragedy” from some of the world’s most privileged people.
Read more »

Ladies and gentlemen, the Most Rev. Richard J. Malone, Bishop of Portland, Me., bringing the smackdown.

REFERENDUM ALERT TO FAITHFUL CATHOLICS

[subtle, no?  –Ed.]

A group of self-described Catholics who have chosen to dissent publicly from established Catholic doctrine on the nature of marriage as the union of one man and one woman recently published a paid political ad entitled “Statement of Conscience by Maine Catholics Regarding Marriage Equality.”

The evidence for their dissent runs through the statement and is crystallized in the following sentence: “…we find disturbing any suggestion that formal Church teaching obligates all Catholics to oppose marriage equality.”

In contrast, please let your conscience be formed by these clear and authoritative words of Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger): “In those situations where homosexual unions … have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty.” (Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, July 2003)

A Catholic whose conscience has been properly formed by Scripture and the teachings of the Catholic Church cannot support same sex marriage. Please vote YES on question 1.

Is the correct answer —

(A) “Please send your corporation’s Form 1120-X, together with your long-overdue tax payment, to Internal Revenue Service, Ogden UT 84201-0012.”

(B) “As for forming your conscience about that sexual abuse stuff, and rumors about cover-ups, that you keep hearing about in the media, we ask you to keep an open mind.  We will fully address this issue with you soon.  Eventually.  Promise.”

Orly, to TPM — who, apparently, is taking her calls so we don’t have to:

This threat of sanctions gives me an opportunity to demand rule 11 discovery and get all of Obama’ records through the back door.

(Shitty grammar in original.)  All this in the context of her client dumping her like a cold fish and going off to Iraq anyway, and Orly claiming that the client’s letter to the Judge was (yes!) forged, and blah blah blah.

This is what interested me, though: Rule 11 discovery?  Good Lord.  I mean: forget the fact that Rule 11 has no provision for discovery.  None.  This woman is thinking about asking the Judge to allow her to get evidence in order to show that her filing wasn’t totally full of shit?  You’re kinda sorta obligated to do that before you file something.

All of this is further proof, of course, that one would be better off getting a law degree from a Cracker Jack box than Taft Law School.  But we knew this.

Oh, one more last hit from Orly [sic, natch]:

The most important question is still on the table: why would the judge levy $10,000 in sanctions instead of instructing Obama to produce a real Hospital birth certificate with a name of the hospital name of the doctor and signatures, so we can locate this birthing file?

Why?  Because you are an idiot.  That’s why.

Oh, Dick Morris.

It was wrong to do it. This trip gives North Korea the ability to act like the good guy in world public opinion by releasing people they shouldn’t have seized in the first place. Considering their record, bomb explosions, and missile tests, we should not be in the business of letting North Korea score propaganda victories.

One: the two people released were journalists.  Don’t you think that they would have some decent reporting to do about the justice system of North Korea, and areas of improvement with regard to, um, justice?

Two: Bubba got a free-roll on intel regarding the health (physical, mental, otherwise) of Kim Jong-il.  That might be somewhat useful to Barry et al.

Three: See that picture up there?  That’s the photo going to 99.9% of the world right now.  Pictures speak louder than words.  In particular, yours.

So: a propaganda victory?  Dude.