Think Progress pointed out, the half-full Rick Perry prayer rally was on the same day - down the street from an event for poor Texans to get free school supplies, uniforms and immunizations. The 100,000 person event was so over capacity it was turning people away.

There seems to be a theme here. The poor have no more famous an advocate than Jesus Christ but the mega-churches seem to be focusing on the mega-donors and the mega-rich.

Case in point: Rick Warren. Last week he tweeted a hard-right (and incorrect) talking point about how half of Americans pay no taxes. This coming from a guy whose the leader of a non-profit (think tax exempt) church in affluent Orange County.

Above is a video from my show, a The Young Turks spin-off, TYT Now talking about this divide. It's a disconnect that gets worse in countries where wealth distribution is stark.

In the same show we talked to C&L reader, author Rick Perlstein about the right-wing, conservative women and the effort to scare up the votes for 2012. "I'm writing the third book in my trilogy about how these guys [GOP] took over the country," says Perlstein.

If you guys have any guests you like to see interviewed let me know!

Here's our Facebook page.

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I was watching Glenn Beck yesterday hosting Daniel Pipes and Christopher Holton as they talked about how leftists are funding Middle Eastern terrorism and the subject turned (as it often does with Beck and the Mideast) apocalyptic:

BECK: I was made fun of by bringing up -- because I don't know. You know, I'm a Christian and I don't know when Jesus is coming back. I have a lot of Jewish friends and I say -- I've made a pact with them. Look, both die, we get up to the pearly gates and the Savior is there and he's like hey, I haven't been to Earth yet. You vouch for me. If he's like, I'm just about ready to go back, I vouch for you.

And I have no idea when -- when he's coming. But it's always kind of a good idea just prepare. His -- how many -- how many people are Christian here? OK. How many people -- how many people think that a lot of the things -- and I know it's happened a million times. I mean, the apostles were saying, oh, Jesus is going to be right back. He just went to go get a sandwich and stuff.

So, how many people here believe that this feels like a time that you haven't experience in your lifetime? That's a little disturbing.

It left me scratching my head. Now, I'm neither Jewish nor particularly deeply versed in their theology, but I would be awfully surprised if their vision of the afterlife entails meeting Jesus at the Pearly Gates. I checked some online sources for more information, and concluded that this is probably right.

Indeed, most Jews I know, if faced with the above scenario, would be pretty upset that they had backed the wrong horse in the big Messiah sweepstakes, you know?

Not to mention having Glenn Beck vouch for you. That kind of endorsement likely would land you in Gehenom.

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Ann Coulter appears on CNBC and announces that Judaism should "just be thrown away" because Jews are "imperfect Christians."

DEUTSCH: That isn't what I said, but you said I should not -- we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians, then, or --

COULTER: Yeah.

DEUTSCH: Really?

COULTER: Well, it's a lot easier. It's kind of a fast track.

DEUTSCH: Really?

COULTER: Yeah. You have to obey.

DEUTSCH: You can't possibly believe that.

COULTER: Yes.

DEUTSCH: You can't possibly -- you're too educated, you can't -- you're like my friend in --

COULTER: Do you know what Christianity is? We believe your religion, but you have to obey.

DEUTSCH: No, no, no, but I mean --

COULTER: We have the fast-track program.

Coulter justified her remarks with this:

Coulter responded: "No. I'm sorry. It is not intended to be. I don't think you should take it that way, but that is what Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews. We believe the Old Testament. As you know from the Old Testament, God was constantly getting fed up with humans for not being able to live up to all the laws. What Christians believe -- this is just a statement of what the New Testament is -- is that that's why Christ came and died for our sins. Christians believe the Old Testament. You don't believe our testament." Coulter later said: "We consider ourselves perfected Christians. For me to say that for you to become a Christian is to become a perfected Christian is not offensive at all."

Dateline: June, 2010

Today, Ann Coulter is still busy writing columns like her most recent where she mocks Malia Obama while making some really convoluted parallel to Monica Lewinsky's blue dress. She's featured at CPAC, and she's still listed on the top 20 "Conservative Hotties" list. She has the same content distributor, her agent hasn't abandoned her, and she enjoys the "respect" (I use the term loosely) of the conservative community.

When you're a conservative and suggest an entire religion should surrender itself to another, it's not considered anti-Semitic. I understand Coulter's theology here, but nowhere in that theology is there a suggestion that Judaism should just "go away."

On the other hand, we have Helen Thomas making equally ill-advised and hurtful remarks about Jews leaving Israel. Within a few days, she's forced into retirement, abandoned by her agent and writing partner, villified by the DC Press glitterati, slammed by the White House, and drummed out of a career she's had for 57 years.

Political correctness, thy name is hypocrisy.

via Liberal Oasis:

Freshman Sen. Ken Salazar, who has been trying to position himself as a moderate Dem and describes himself as a “person of faith,” is under attack by Focus On The Family over the nuclear option.

And he’s not taking it sitting down. Scripps Howard reports:

"I do think that what has happened here is there has been a hijacking of the U.S. Senate by what I call the religious right wing of the country," Salazar told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference Wednesday.

He singled out Focus on the Family by name, objecting to full-page newspaper ads the ministry's political arm recently placed, targeting 20 senators in 15 states.

"I think what has happened is Focus on the Family has been hijacking Christianity and become an appendage of the Republican Party," Salazar said in an interview. "I think it's using Christianity and religion in a very unprincipled way."

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It's becoming evident that conservatives no longer consider open advocacy of violence against other people anything more than a mild social faux pas, an embarrassing slip of the tongue, if those people happen to be their "enemies" -- liberals, Muslims, immigrants, gays and lesbians, anyone who fits the description of The Other.

That's been made evident in two recent incidents involving violent eliminationist rhetoric from right-wingers in high-profile positions -- cases that, had roles been reversed and the targets instead were Republicans, would have certainly aroused not just the wrath of the right-wing talk machine but numerous "centrists," and the persons who uttered them would have been summarily fired.

The first involved a math teacher in Jefferson County, Alabama, who helped illustrate a geometry problem for his students by having them figure out the shooting angles for assassinating President Obama. Initially, everyone in town, including school officials, were happy to make excuses for him and let him off easy. It wasn't until there was broad national outrage over the story that they wound up giving him a suspension:

Gregory Harrison, the teacher at Corner High School in Jefferson County, Alabama, was to receive a slap on the wrist in the form of a "long conversation" with the local school authorities, after sparking a Secret Service investigation when he discussed possible angles to use in shooting at the president.

But officials only later decided they needed to take tougher action against Harrison following a flood of calls from people outraged at the lenient treatment.

Last week in Houston, a talk show host named Michael Berry -- who at one time was the city's Mayor Pro Tem -- went on his regular show and, during an exchange with a Muslim man named "Tony", declared that if Muslims dare build a mosque in the near vicinity of the World Trade Center site in New York City, then he hopes someone blows it up.

From Amanda Terkel at ThinkProgress:

BERRY: No, Tony, you can’t build a mosque at the site of 9/11.

TONY: Why not? Why not?

BERRY: No, you can’t. And I’ll tell you this: If you do build a mosque, I hope somebody blows it up. ... I hope the mosque isn’t built, and if it is, I hope it’s blown up. And I mean that.

Let me tell you something, Tony. It's the right-wing nutjobs that are gonna keep this for people like you from the people that come for ... It’s right-wing radicals like me that are going to keep this country safe for you and everyone else from the people who are flying the planes from the country you fled from. If you want to identify with those people, go live with them.

Continue reading »

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Bill O'Reilly's been on a tear lately in pushing the notion that Islam itself is the Enemy of America. Last night -- while sneering that "the media" gave Muslims a break by not blaming Islam for the failed Times Square bombing attempt -- he declared that there are "millions of jihadists" out there

"Millions of them!" he shouted.

Well, no doubt there are large numbers of radical Islamic jihadists -- and more every time O'Reilly opens his mouth on the subject. But millions? I don't know of any expert on the subject who would put the numbers that high.

This continues a recent theme for O'Reilly of demonizing Islam generally. The night before, he had this segment with Monica Crowley and Alan Colmes:

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O'Reilly: Why is it important? The goal of the United States should be to protect its citizens, No. 1, and to defeat the enemy, No. 2. Why is it important to pinpoint that it's Islam? Why is that?

Crowley: Because when you have this inability to call the enemy what it is, then there's no hope of defeating that enemy.

O'Reilly added that "I wanna name Islam", but wasn't sure it would do any good.

Alan Colmes brought some sanity to the discussion by pointing out that Islamic fundamentalist radicals are no more representative of Islam than the Hutaree Christian Militia are representative of Christianity.

Of course, this blew the minds of O'Reilly and Crowley, who promptly short-circuited and dismissed Colmes as "babbling".

What O'Reilly and Crowley can't seem to understand is that it's not only a crude, bigoted smear to declare "Islam" the Enemy, it flies in the face of our many Islamic allies who play critical roles in the "war on terror" (e.g., Turkey and Pakistan).

Oddly enough, a visibly angry Crowley wraps up by explaining: "We're not in a war against a religion, but we are in a war against terrorists who are acting in the name of Islam."

Um, yeah. And that would differ from what Obama has said exactly how?

We are at war. We are at war against al Qaeda, a far-reaching network of violence and hatred that attacked us on 9/11, that killed nearly 3,000 innocent people, and that is plotting to strike us again. And we will do whatever it takes to defeat them.

And we've made progress. Al Qaeda's leadership is hunkered down. We have worked closely with partners, including Yemen, to inflict major blows against al Qaeda leaders. And we have disrupted plots at home and abroad, and saved American lives.

And we know that the vast majority of Muslims reject al Qaeda. But it is clear that al Qaeda increasingly seeks to recruit individuals without known terrorist affiliations not just in the Middle East, but in Africa and other places, to do their bidding. That's why I've directed my national security team to develop a strategy that addresses the unique challenges posed by lone recruits. And that's why we must communicate clearly to Muslims around the world that al Qaeda offers nothing except a bankrupt vision of misery and death –- including the murder of fellow Muslims –- while the United States stands with those who seek justice and progress.

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Paul Krugman recently wrote that he thought that Republicans and Democrats no longer occupy the same universe with one another. Certainly, my understanding of Christianity isn't the same as Glenn Beck's, when he advised his listeners to leave their churches if those churches focus on social justice:

Glenn Beck set out to convince his audience that "social justice," the term many Christian churches use to describe their efforts to address poverty and human rights, is a "code word" for communism and Nazism. Beck urged Christians to discuss the term with their priests and to leave their churches if leaders would not reconsider their emphasis on social justice.

"I'm begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words 'social justice' or 'economic justice' on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!"

Now, I'm going to set aside the troubling implicit admission of the selfishness of the Mormon Church by this LDS convert for the moment. I just have to ask if Beck has read the same Bible as the rest of us:

"Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me."

"Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?"

"And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." (Matthew 25:34-40)

Now that seems pretty clear to me that Jesus said that you need to do good works with those less fortunate than you and that he felt it was critical that you show his devotion to Him by doing so. But maybe Beck missed that sermon.

He then went on to conflate communism and Nazism, saying they both were the ultimate expression of the (you guessed it) left, by saying they both focused on the dreaded "social justice".

Man, teh stoopid, it hurts. I wish there was a way to just stop this stupid "Nazis were leftists" meme (Erick Erickson was tweeting that this morning too--citing Jonah Goldberg as an expert--bwahahaha!). But since one must shut down one's brain to believe that, I think it's a lost cause.

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President Obama ignored warnings not to appear at the National Prayer Breakfast today, since it was organized by fundamentalist religionists whose animus towards not just him but all progressives has been all too obvious for years. But he did anyway -- and, as Sam Stein at HuffPo reports, actually managed to deliver an important message about the critical role of civility in a democratic society.

The main point was that right-wing nutcases, and their frothing about Obama's supposed foreignness and radicalism and hatred of Christianity, make it impossible to even have a rational discussion:

Obama: Civility also requires relearning how to disagree without being disagreeable -- understanding, as President [Kennedy] said, 'Civility is not a sign of weakness.' Now I am the first to confess I am not always right. Michelle will testify to that. But surely, you can question my policies without questioning my faith. Or for that matter, my citizenship.

No doubt, the talkers at Fox will take this as evidence that he hates the "jes' folks" who populate the Tea Parties.

The Reality-Based Community: Precaution, uncertainity, insurance, and morality

Emptywheel: Blackwater, the next installment

Attackerman: Wonder why people think Netanyahu is an enemy of peace?

43-Ideas-Per-Minute: Adventures in Tweeting: Black Lke Me

Crackpot Press: Meghan McCain: So disappointing

HOLY CRAP: GOP likes Christmas...Christianity and the Crash...Serenity Prayer...Hot, steamy Mormons...Jesus writes to 'Christian' America...Miracle...Warren speaks...Is the Tobacco Industry Pro-Life?...Baghdad goes miserable...Freethought of the Day...Second Circumcision...SCOTUS to hear Religious discrimination case...Stealing Christmas...Proselytizing Sheriff

Apparently not happy with just creating their own facts, the brain trust that brought us Conservapedia is now launching a new project: rewriting the Bible without that annoying liberal bias:

The eager young men at Conservapedia are p.o.'d that the Bible might be seen as too liberal. So they've come up with the Wiki-style Conservative Bible Project, to make sure the Lord doesn't go all wobbly on us. Excerpt:

As of 2009, there is no fully conservative translation of the Bible which satisfies the following ten guidelines:[1]

• Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
• Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity
• Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level[2]
• Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop;[3] defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle"
• Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots";[4] using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census
• Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
• Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
• Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story
• Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
• Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities

[..]

"The liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio"? Hoo-wee! Elitists like to use words, and lots of 'em! "Unnecessary ambiguities"? But how are you going to abide by the conservative mandate to avoid "dumbing down" Holy Writ while at the same time avoiding big words liberals use? More seriously, the insane hubris of this really staggers the mind. These right-wing ideologues know better than the early church councils that canonized Scripture? They really think it's wise to force the word of God to conform to a 21st-century American idea of what constitutes conservatism? These jokers don't worship God. They worship ideology.

The Bible without all that liberal bias? I thought the Bible was the inviolate Word of God? Wouldn't taking out any liberal teachings violate the inviolate? How much of Jesus's teachings will actually make it into the book? How will these boneheads re-write these statements (courtesy of Jesus is a Liberal)?:

• Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. [Matthew 5:9]
• Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. [Matthew 5:39]
• I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despite-fully use you, and persecute you; [Matthew 5:44]
• If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to cast a stone at her. [John 8:7]
• Do not judge, lest you too be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. [Matthew 7:1 & 2.]
• Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy [Matthew 5:7]
• But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. [Matthew 6:15]
• Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. [Luke 12.15.] Truly, I say unto you, it will be hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. [Matthew 19:23]
• You cannot serve both God and Money. [Matthew 6:24.]
• Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's. [Matthew 22:21]
• Love your neighbor as yourself. .[Matthew 22:39]
• So in everything, do to others as you would have them do to you. [Matthew 7:12.]
• If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. [Matthew 19:21]
• But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. [Luke 14:13&14.]

Oh yeah, this is gonna be a HUGE success in publishing.