Inspire Political Discourse

FLASHBACK: Witch Hunter, Thomas Muthee, Prays Over Palin

This video was originally posted on the website of Palin's church in Wasilla. It depicts Palin as she is prayed over by Kenyan witch hunter, Thomas Muthee. He prays that she will be protected from witchcraft as she seeks higher office.

Muthee began his life in ministry in Africa by hunting down a local woman named Mama Jane after proclaiming her a witch. Six months of fervent prayer and research identified the source of the witchcraft as a local woman called Mama Jane, who ran a “divination” centre called the Emmanuel Clinic in Kiambu, Kenya. Her alleged involvement in fortune-telling and the fact that she lived near the site of a number of fatal car accidents led Pastor Muthee to publicly declare her a witch responsible for the town’s ills, and order her to offer up her soul for salvation or leave Kiambu. After Pastor Muthee declared Mama Jane a witch, the townspeople became suspicious and began to turn on her, demanding that she be stoned. [……]

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Trailer for Glenn Beck's New Book

Ye "Gods of the copybook headings", is Beck having us all on, or is he just certifiable [as most of us have long thought]?  

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer Lies About Her Father’s Military Service and Then Denys Lying About It

Brewer recently made a comment claiming that her father “died fighting the Nazi regime”, via The Arizona Guardian:

“Knowing that my father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany, that I lose him when I was 11 because of that...and then to have them call me Hitler's daughter. It hurts. It's ugliness beyond anything I've ever experienced.

As pointed out by The Guardian, Brewer's father, Wilford Drinkwine, actually worked as a civilian at a naval munitions depot in Hawthorne, Nevade during WWII. He died in 1955 from lung cancer, leading one to conclude that Brewer is playing fast and loose with the truth.

Now, she is ludicrously claiming that she “didn’t mislead anyone”.

“There is no way I have ever misled anybody. You're trying to make a liar out of me.

Governor Brewer, you did most certainly lie. It really is that simple.

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UPDATE: Commentary from media outlets:

Vanity Fair:

Jan Brewer, imperial sun queen of Arizona's chromatocracy, told the Arizona Republic that her father died fighting Nazis during World War II. The saga is very sad, except its tragedy is somewhat mitigated by the fact that it is extremely untrue.

Daily Kos:

Ah yes, claiming her father died fighting Nazis in Germany should, in no way, be construed as implying that her father died fighting Nazis in Germany.

Arizona Republic:

But I'm wondering if you would feel the same if the embellishments had been made by former Gov. Janet Napolitano? Because these days we seem to make excuses for those with whom we agree and condemn those with whom we disagree no matter WHAT the facts.

Political Cartoon of the Week: Beck Followers Are Morons

Via LAProgressive

BP asks “What Oil Plumes??”

Tony Hayward, BP CEO, and chief liar/snake-in-the-grass, claims that there are NO oil plumes in the water. Via Huffington Post:

VENICE, La. — Disputing scientists' claims of large oil plumes suspended underwater in the Gulf of Mexico, BP PLC's chief executive on Sunday said the company has largely narrowed the focus of its cleanup to surface slicks rolling into Louisiana's coastal marshes.

During a tour of a BP PLC staging area for cleanup workers, CEO Tony Hayward said the company's sampling showed "no evidence" that oil was suspended in large masses beneath the surface. He didn't elaborate on how the testing was done.

Hayward said that oil's natural tendency is to rise to the surface, and any oil found underwater was in the process of working its way up.

"The oil is on the surface," Hayward said. "There aren't any plumes."

Scientists from several universities have reported plumes of what appears to be oil far from the site of BP's leaking wellhead, which is more than 5,000 beneath the surface.

Okay, Tony. This is the same guy who said that the environmental damage will be “very, very, modest”. Um, yeah.

TRANSCRIPT: President Obama on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill – May 27, 2010

An excellent conference with the President taking full responsibility for the response to, and clean up of, the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

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THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C.

12:50 P.M. EDT, THURSDAY, MAY 27, 2010

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good afternoon, everybody.

Before I take your questions, I want to update the American people on the status of the BP oil spill, a catastrophe that is causing tremendous hardship in the Gulf Coast, damaging a precious ecosystem, and one that led to the death of 11 workers who lost their lives in the initial explosion.

Yesterday the federal government gave BP approval to move forward with a procedure known as a top kill, to try to stop the leak. This involves plugging the well with densely packed mud to prevent any more oil from escaping. And given the complexity of this procedure and the depth of the leak, this procedure offers no guarantee of success; but we're exploring any reasonable strategies to try and save the Gulf from a spill that may otherwise last until the relief wells are finished, and that's a process that could take months.

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Oil Man Calls for Firing of Admiral Thad Allen in Daily Kos Diary

Warning: NFSW due to heavy swearing. Excellent article. A MUST read. I'm inclined to agree with fishgrease.

Now the Coast Guard? They know booming. They know what fucking proper fucking booming looks like. Coast Guard commandant, Adm. Thad Allen should be fired. Today. Now. This minute. Before he can give another press conference echoing what BP said not five minutes before him. Then he should be fucking court-martialed and fucking sent to prison before BP can give him a goddamned fucking job. He's a shameless piece of shit. And so is President Obama if he can't see that. People who know me and how I've supported our President through thick and thin, know how hard it was for me to write that. I'm literally on the verge of tears, right this second. But I won't erase it. There it is.

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Oil Spill Perspective

On the BP Oil spill in the Gulf, a bit of perspective, perhaps:

As the studies extended into a second year, scientists noticed how fast the marine environment recovered, helped by naturally occurring microbes that feasted on the oil and degraded it.

Perhaps due to those microbes, aquatic life along the shoreline in Texas had returned to normal within three years — even as tar balls and tar mats remained along the beaches, sometimes covered by sand, according to Wes Tunnell, a marine biologist at Harte Research Institute of Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi.

“We were really surprised,” Lizarraga said. “After two years, the conditions were really almost normal.”

VIa

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Dispelling Idiocy – Part 1: What were Obama's grades at Occidental College?

WTF cares?

Obama's grades were good enough to get him in to a prestigious, top 10 college, Columbia University, where he graduated with a degree in political science and a specialty in international relations.

Of note also, his grades at Columbia were obviously good enough to get him in to Harvard, where he held the most prestigious student position available at Harvard, as President of the Harvard Law Review.

The future 44th President then graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. and instead of doing what he was advised to do, and could have done, and despite the amount of debt he had necessarily accumulated while attending Harvard, he chose not to go for a clerkship with the Supreme Court, nor to join a big bucks prestigious firm, and instead, chose to help others, and devote himself to public service.

Image: 1990 Joe Wrinn/ Harvard University News/ File
Watch for Part 2 of Dispelling Idiocy, which will address myths about his career.

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FUNERAL CRASHER! Sarah Palin Knows No Boundaries - Crashes Wally Hickel's Funeral

Stepping firmly down on to a new low, today Palin crashed the funeral of a man said to despise her, Wally Hickel (R), the former Alaska governor and the Secretary of Interior under Nixon.

Shannyn Moore, an Alaskan blogger, wrote a moving tribute to Hickel as she smote Palin's latest outrage with her well-inked superpen.

Half-Governor Sarah Palin crashed twice-Governor Wally Hickel's funeral today. Trust me, if Sarah Palin was paying her respects, the check would bounce. The guest list was impressive with many Alaskan dignitaries. And then there was Palin with her daughter Piper, the 8-year-old human shield, in tow.

Ms. Moore wrote of Hickel's accomplishments, of Hickel as a human being, and of Hickel's unfavorable opinion of Sarah Palin.

My friend, Geoffrey Dunn asked Hickel last year for a formal, on-the-record response to Palin's stunted career as governor. Dunn wrote, "He took a deep pause. "She fell in love with the national spotlight and lost her ethical compass," he said thoughtfully. "That was a sad day for Alaska and America."

After the 2008 election, Hickel's Anchorage Daily News article eviscerated Palin's race baiting on the campaign trail."Palin became the spokesperson for the divisive voices in American politics. She dismissed the greatness of our immigrant heritage, indeed of today's Alaska, where in Anchorage alone nearly 100 languages are spoken in the homes of the children in our public schools."

And from Geoffrey Dunn, there is this:

Hickel viewed Palin with personal disdain, describing her "political opportunism" in the most condemnatory terms possible. He had lost all respect for her. She "used" him like she would use many other patrons as she scratched and lied her way to a strange form of national political celebrity, and Hickel was not afraid to call it like he saw it. He was not bitter--he was a much bigger man than that--but at the same time, he was not afraid to show his disgust. "I don't give a damn about her," he told me.

She did not belong at this man's funeral, and the depths to which Narcissus, er....Sarah Palin, will sink, never ceases to amaze me.

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Video of Blumenthal in March: "I did not serve in Viet Nam"

SB1070 Palin Again Defending What Was Wrought "We’re all Arizonians"

On Saturday, Palin spoke at a news conference with Gov. Jan Brewer [R-AZ] in an effort to discourage the growing boycott of Arizona due to SB1070, the immigration law enacted in Arizona earlier this month.

Palin defended the law by declaring President Obama responsible for the lack of secure borders, said lack "forcing" Arizona to take action to defend itself and secure it's own borders.

We're all Arizonans now. And in clear unison we say, 'Mr. President: Do your job. Secure our border”.

Okay, so here are a few FACTS for Ms. Palin:

  The crime rate in border towns has not increased for a number of years.