Monroe Anderson

Who arrested religion in Indiana?

 

    Indiana's Religious Freedom law has triggered a spirited debate throughout the nation and may be the next right wing attack on civil rights. Here's my Chicago Defender Column on the controversy.

 

What’s bad for the gays will be bad for the Blacks

 

Monroe Anderson

Defender Columnist

 

If you haven’t been paying attention to the firestorm over Indiana’s “freedom of religion” law, it’s time that you do. Our neighboring state’s new legislation reflects Black America’s past and could easily come to mirror our future.

The bill is rightly being described as a license to discriminate. It allows anyone with a business to not do business with anyone they choose by claiming they believe it violates their religious values.

We’ve seen this play before.

God and religion have been used as the guiding principle in overt discrimination against Blacks throughout virtually all of our nation’s history. The KKK burned crosses before lynching Black men.  Bigoted Christians cited the curse of Ham, the father of Canaan in Genesis, to justify slavery. “Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.”

Ham is believed to have been a Black man.

Unequal public schools for Blacks were the will of the Almighty opined Georgia Gov. Allen Candler in 1901, “God made them negroes and we cannot by education make them white folks.”

Nor did God cotton to miscegenation.  Richard Loving, a white man, was sentenced to one year in prison for marrying Mildred Jeter, a Black woman. The couple had broken Virginia's law, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, by going to Washington, D.C. to get married then naively returning to home.

Apparently the Lovings had broken the Holy Father’s law as well. “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents,” wrote Judge Leon M. Bazile in his 1959 ruling. “The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act does not mention same-sex mixing but it’s arguably aimed at those with a certain sexual orientation. Last year, the same-sex marriage ban was overturned by a federal court. Some pouting proponents, who wanted the ban to stand, headed straight for the governor and the Indiana General Assembly to make sure there would be a freedom of religion law on guard to protect bigotry, as they knew it.

The state’s RFRA is yet another Republican head-fake where conservatives pretend that they’re not doing anything wrong while they’re definitely doing something wrong. Just like the GOP’s scheme to suppress Black participation at the ballot box through voter I.D. laws, the religious freedom law would allow business owners the right to use their faith as an excuse not to serve lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals, aka LGBTs--or hire or rent to them.

Black Americans know all too well how that game is played and if the new rules remain legalized then it won’t be long before it’s played on us. Again.

The legislation Gov. Pence signed last week prohibits state laws that “substantially burden” a religious institution, businesses and associations from following religious beliefs. The new law in effect serves as a legal shield for people, associations and businesses big and small from being sued for discrimination if they claim their religion made them do it.

    The uproar that followed caught Indiana’s governor off guard. He reflectively characterized it as a battle between religious freedom and gay rights, assuming he knew who’d win that fight.

Gov. Pence, and his overly weighted Republican General Assembly, quickly discovered that they were wrong. Besides the sign-carrying LGBT protesters, Indiana’s state lawmakers heard disapproval from other states, businesses, sports organizations, future conventioneers and social media.   

The CEOs from Eli Lilly and Co., Anthem and Indiana University Health were among nine of Indiana’s largest employers pointing out that discriminatory legislation was bad for business. Seattle’s mayor and Connecticut’s governor banned their employees from traveling to Indiana to do business. Indianapolis-based Angie’s List CEO announced that his company was going to halt plans for a $40 million expansion in the state’s capital. The president of NCAA, whose Final Four competition takes place in Indianapolis this weekend, said yesterday  that Indiana's new "religious freedom" law goes against what higher education and America is all about. And there is, of course, a social media response: On Twitter the hashtag is #boycottindiana.

All that outrage has focused Gov. Pence’s mind like a hanging. He was claiming that Indiana’s RFRA law was no different from the one in Illinois and the other 18 states that passed one. Pence left out the part about those other states having a separate law that specifically protected LGBTs from discrimination, while his state does not. You can be fired in Indiana for being gay.

Over the weekend, he was asserting that the law wouldn’t be changed. Yesterday he held a press conference to announce that maybe it would. He’s having his legislature revamp the onerous law.

“Clearly. Clearly, there’s been misunderstanding and confusion and mischaracterization of this law,” Gov. Pence said. “I abhor discrimination.”

Right. Don’t stop paying attention yet. Arkansas passed its own religious freedom law yesterday.

Sikh Slayings: White Anxiety Gone Extreme

Here's my Root commentary on the Sikh tragedy. No more commentary here. It speaks for itself.

 

Sikh Slayings: White Anxiety Gone Extreme

America's browning drives a backlash that found its most virulent strain in Wade Michael Page.

By: Monroe Anderson | Posted: August 10, 2012 at 12:26 AM

 

(The Root) -- When Wade Michael Page walked into a Wisconsin temple last wesek, murdering six Sikh worshippers and critically wounding three others, it was an incident waiting to happen.

As the neo-Nazi loser marched through the temple randomly shooting one Sikh after the next, perhaps the "14 words" motto of white supremacists was running through his warped mind: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children."

To the insecure and frightened haters in our nation, the end of white dominance in America is increasingly inevitable. Besides being red, white and blue, the good old US of A is steadily becoming brown, black and yellow -- a majority-minority nation.

During a 12-month period that ended July 2011, for the first time in America's modern history, more minority babies were born than white babies. Casually referred to by white supremacists as members of "the mud races," Hispanic, black and Asian newborns made up 50.4 percent of the nation's births during that period. Just 22 years ago, minority births accounted for a much lower figure -- 37 percent.

"White supremacist groups have been having a meltdown since the Census Bureau predicted that non-Hispanic whites would lose the majority by 2050," said Mark Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitored Wade Michael Page in particular for the past 12 years, and hate groups in general for much longer than that. "The demographic change in this country is the single-most-important driver in the growth of hate groups and extremist groups over the last few years," he told ABC News.

Last year Potok's organization reported that hate groups in America had exploded to more than 1,000 from 602 at the beginning of the millennium.

Domestic terrorist Page, a 40-year-old U.S. Army reject, who died from a self-inflicted wound during the Oak Creek massacre, could take credit for some of that growth. For more than a decade, Page had been playing hate music. He played with white-power heavy-metal bands affiliated with Hammerskins Nation, and he led a couple of bands of his own, Definite Hate and End Apathy. His music appealed to other young white losers, creating new haters every day. It also raised money to help bankroll other hate groups like the National Alliance, the violent hate group that inspired Timothy McVeigh to blow up a Oklahoma City federal building in 1995.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, which also monitors America's white supremacy groups, the names of these racists bands reveal what's on their minds and in their hearts, names like Grinded Nig, Jew Slaughter and Aggravated Assault. "In keeping with its attempts to reach out to young people, one label, named Resistance Records, even markets a white supremacist video game, 'Ethnic Cleansing,' " the ADL reports on its website. "The game is a first-person-shooter in which the player takes on the role of a white warrior in a future 'Race War,' who must kill all nonwhites to ensure 'the survival of your kind.' "

Although these virulent, malicious white supremacists, who wear their hate on their tattoo sleeves and everywhere else, are more or less a limited group of bigots, they may merely be the underbelly of a larger phenomenon.

When the Tea Party and other conservatives cry, "We want our country back," it doesn't take much imagination to translate what that means as the nation's demographics and culture continue their colorful shift.

Mainstream conservatives have been spewing coded, dog-whistle racist messages since Ronald Reagan's "Welfare Queen" speech in 1976 and the Willie Horton ad employed in the George H.W. Bush 1988 campaign against Michael Dukakis. More recently, the billionaire Koch brothers and their right-wing organization, Americans for Prosperity, were accused of buying a North Carolina school board in an effort to resegregate the Wake County school system.

So I wasn't exactly shocked when conservatives attacked Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano when she issued a report in April 2009 warning that right-wing extremists threaten American security. The nine-page report, titled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," documented the smoldering hate among the nation's extreme right-wing groups, warning that some individuals might commit violent acts. "If such violence were to occur," the report said, "it likely would be isolated, small-scale, and directed at specific immigration-related targets."

Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin posted a blog with this headline: "Confirmed: The Obama DHS Hit Job on Conservatives Is Real."

Another conservative website, Alex Jones' Prison Planet, is headlined, "Homeland Security Report Lists 'Liberty Lovers' as Terrorists."

And then-top Republican of the House Intelligence committee, former Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, charged "unsubstantiated conclusions and political bias," worthy of a House investigation.

I would like to attribute all this hate to good old-fashioned American exceptionalism, but I would be wrong.

A year ago, Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik went on a shooting and bombing spree that left 77 people dead, many of them teenagers, almost all of them Muslims. Like his brethren in the U.S., he hated Muslims, he hated people who didn't look like him and he hated cultural diversity.

I fear this is just the beginning. Not only are some white Americans threatened by the encroaching "mud races," but there is a quickening recognition around the planet that the world is yellow, brown and black.

Less than a quarter of the world's population is white. By 2060, fears conservative Pat Buchanan, that percentage may dip into the single digits.

Cyber columnist Monroe Anderson is a veteran Chicago journalist who has written signed op-ed-page columns for both the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times and executive-produced and hosted his own local CBS TV show. He was also the editor of Savoy Magazine. Follow him on Twitter.

What would Allah say about Chick-Fil-A?

    I’d heard about Chick-Fil-A long before I tasted it. It was being touted by a few of my friends as so good it would make you want to slap your momma.
    Last year, while driving out east,  my wife, Joyce Owens, and I stopped at one of its franchises and much to my surprise, I discovered Chick-Fil-A tasted like, well, it tasted like....chicken.
    It wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t special either. Harold’s Chicken Shack on the South Side or Marcello’s chicken on the North Side both serve a tastier bird.
    So when I noticed that a Chick-Fil-A had opened a couple of blocks off the Mag Mile, I made no beeline to grab a bite. And, when there was a call to boycott the fast food chicken chain because its CEO, Dan Cathy, exposed himself as being anti-gay, it was as easy for me to ignore as to not vote for Mitt Romney.
    But when Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Alderman Joe Moreno started making noises about cancelling Chick-Fil-A’s order for a second restaurant in Chicago, my interest was piqued.
    The two Chicago pols took it beyond the boycott to the political stage. Should a restaurant be barred from doing business in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood because Cathy--who takes prides himself in being a good Christian and family man--is a bigot?
    There would be no easy answer if Cathy’s bigotry was just a matter of religious belief. But this man puts his money where his mouth is. In 2010, the fast food chain donated nearly $2 million to anti-gay groups.   
    The bottom line: Cathy’s nearly 2,000 restaurant chain is funding bias against gays.
    And while there is no proof that any Chick-Fil-A has refused to take money from homosexuals, the contributions speak volumes in and of themselves.

All you have to do is look at it a little differently.

Instead of Chick-Fil-A CEO being a family man and a Christian, let’s imagine that he was a family man and a Muslim. As a good Muslim, let’s say he bragged about being anti-Israel, rather than anti-gay. Let’s think of what the reaction would be when it was discovered that he contributed money to anti-Israeli groups. Not terrorists groups but pro-Palistinian groups.

I wonder how important it’d be that Chick-Fil-A had no record of discriminating against Jews. And I wonder if the same people who flocked into the Chick-Fil-A Appreciate Day would be lining up to show their support and contributing to record sales.

There’s that old axiom about not discussing religion or politics at the dinner table. Dan Cathy might want to make it his food for thought.

In Search of Intelligence in the Multiverse--Not anywhere where Glenn Beck just happens to be

 
 

    During yesterday's fleeting hour, while he was interviewing the very troubled former New York congressman, Eric Massa, Glenn Beck was out of his mind. 

This was the first time the whining, weeping conservative talk show host sounded, sounded, sounded, well.....thoughtful as he tried to get freshly-resigned Massa to dump all over his fellow Democrats and the Obama Administration.

When I say Beck sounded thoughtful, let me be clear: I'm speaking relatively here.

Any other time Beck favors staying stuck on stupid, saying stuff like President Barack Obama is a racist who "has a deep-seated hatred for white people."

As Media Matters points out, Beck "has flirted with the idea that FEMA is building detention camps, suggested that President Obama is purposefully "tanking" the economy to force young people to work for ACORN and AmeriCorps, and said that Obama and former President George W. Bush are 'moving us away from our republic and into a system of fascism.'"

Beck, who was named Media Matters' Misinformer of the Year, also thought the Tea Baggers march on Washington was 1.7 million strong--about seven times as much as the number of anti-reform protesters that actually showed up. He apparently thinks the ideas enumerated in his banal 912 Project, with its nine principles and 12 values, are something new, necessary or profound.

But right after I saw Beck's broadcast yesterday, which left me hoping against hope that he wasn't the dullest knife in the drawer, I read that on Monday he was urging the listeners of his syndicated radio show to leave churches that preach social justice.

As it turns out, Beck thinks that the term many Christian churches use to describe efforts to tackle poverty and promote human rights is a "code word" for communism and Nazism. 

Who would dare think the teachings of Jesus Christ were the ambitions of commies and Nazis? Glenn Beck.

This commentary was cross-posted on the AgoraVox website.

In Search of Intelligence in the Multiverse--Not in the muddled mind of Alan Keyes

When it comes to the rabid right, perennial loser Alan Keyes comes off effortlessly as the big dog.

I witnessed him spouting his coo-coonalities while foaming at the mouth on a regular basis back in 2004 when Illinois Republicans, for want of ANYBODY to put up a pretend challenge to State Sen. Barack Obama for the U.S. senate seat, recruited Keyes from Maryland.

I immediately saw it as a cynical move by the state Republicans to pit their Black against the Black Democratic candidate, reasoning that one African-American was as good as the next. I would later come to that same conclusion when the Republican National Committee would con Sen. John McCain into partnering with Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin, figuring since the Democrats failed to put Hillary Clinton on the Obama ticket, their woman candidate was as good as the junior senator from New York would have been.

Both gambits proved to be the undoing of the Repubs. 

Obama went on to become the second Black U.S. senator from Illinois within a decade. Oh yeah, and with a big hand from the lipstick-wearing Pitbull, he's now the POTUS.

As Obama's challenger for the U.S. senate seat, carpetbagger Keyes came off as whacked out on peyote-laced Jesus juice. Keyes accused Obama's position on abortion as the "slaveholder's position." Keyes asserted that Obama's Lord and Savior wouldn't even vote for the Democrat. Before it was over, Keyes had throughly embarassed the Illinois Republicans, exposing how dim-witted their decision to draft Keyes had been. And when it was over, Keyes lost to Obama, 27 to 70 percent.

Now, he's back at it. In a video that surfaced yesterday, Keyes calls President Obama "a radical communist" and said he refused to acknowledge the validity of Obama's inauguration because the President is not a U.S. citizen. You've got to hear him to believe him before coming to the conclusion I came to long ago: Alan Keyes is all babble and all psycho too.

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Blagojevich's ploy reveals Obama's seat is black

A chance meeting between a dull kitchen knife and my left hand as I prepared Christmas dinner turned into blood at first sight. So, I'm just now healed enough to be able to type with both hands. In other words, this is a lame excuse on why I haven't posted in three weeks. 

But now, I'm back. Here's a column I wrote for Ebonyjet.com about Gov. Rod Blagojevich's appointment of Roland Burris to Barack Obama's vacated senate seat. The selection may be as much about jury selection as it is about good governance.

Here's what I had to say.

Mr. Burris Goes To Washington


The appointment of Roland Burris to Obama's Senate seat is anything but a simple plan


January 6, 2009 


By Monroe Anderson

I missed the exact moment when Barack Obama's vacant U.S. Senate post became a blacks only seat.  No one sent me an email declaring it was ours. Nor did anyone hit up my cell or Facebook page. I didn't even get a tweet.

But, apparently, the seat that once belonged to the president-elect now commands exclusive dibs from black pols in Illinois, period.  No whites need apply. Asians or Hispanics shouldn't bother either.Rep. Bobby Rush said as much. During Gov. Rod Blagojevich's news conference last week announcing the appointment of Roland Burris to Obama's vacated seat, the Illinois congressman from Chicago emerged from the press pool to commandeer the mike. "Let me remind you that there presently is no African American in the Senate," Rush said, talking through the media to address state and national Democrats. "I would ask you not to hang or lynch the appointee as you try to castigate the appointer."And while the appointer kept asserting during the news conference that it was all about the appointee, I didn't quite buy it.I believe that it's about Burris as the black appointee as much as it is about the red herring to be introduced at the governor's jury trial.  Blagojevich hasn't been indicted yet, but the big money is betting that he will be come spring.  Anticipating the inevitable, the governor has hired Ed Genson, the high-priced super lawyer who got R. Kelly off, as his defense attorney.When the trial begins, the Burris appointment—if it plays out badly with the Democrats over the next couple of days—may play well in Blagojevich's defense. Think O.J.  If the Senate Dems have a fit, denying the one seat vacated by an African American to be filled by another, then any blacks on the jury may be sympathetic enough to the governor to vote to acquit him—striking another symbolic blow against institutional American racism.I know it sounds a little far-fetched but so does the idea that a governor would try to sell the U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder.  But it also sounds far-fetched that in 21st-century America, blacks have no representation in the U.S. Senate, while there are 13 Jewish Americans, three Hispanics and two Asians.  It is also outlandish that in this time of change, Democratic leaders would ignore the law to play politics.Illinois State Democrats are in a mad rush to impeach their defiant governor and U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald is working overtime to indict him, but so far Blagojevich has not been proven guilty of anything but having a filthy mouth.  That means the governor is lawfully empowered to appoint Burris, who is untouched by any hint of corruption and unquestionably qualified to perform the duties of the post.Thirty years ago, Burris became state comptroller, the first black Democrat elected to statewide office in Illinois. After three terms in that office, he was elected the Illinois attorney general.  Since then, he's become a lovable loser. He has run three times for governor, and one time each for mayor and U.S. senator, each time coming up empty handed.That's why Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Dems are doing so much hand wringing.  Although he denies it, Reid has been reported as saying he did not want the seat to go to Representatives Jesse Jackson Jr., Danny Davis or state Senate President Emil Jones because he believes that none of the three black men could win the statewide election in 2010.If the Democrats insist on taking a bad situation and making it worse, it may be a moot point. Secretary of State Jesse White, the highest-ranking black official in Illinois right now, has refused to certify the Burris appointment.  The Democrats in the U.S. Senate insist that they won't seat Burris when he arrives at the chambers today.They may want to rethink that.  Rep. Rush, a former minister of the Black Panthers who is now a Baptist minister, Sunday night called the Senate "one of the last bastions of plantation and racial politics in America," then warned that the Senate Democrats who fight Burris' appointment are "going to ask for forgiveness" from the black American voter.Hmmmm. Come to think about it, that seat may need to be black after all.

Monroe Anderson is an award-winning journalist who penned op-ed columns for both the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. Check out his blog at monroeanderson.typepad.com  

Obama's no joke to Al Qaida, KKK and other haters

 

         A little more than a year ago, I went to The Second City Theatre to enjoy its side-splitting hit revue at the time, "Between Barack and a Hard Place." The famed improv comedy ensemble, which is the comedic mother of Saturday Night Live, had put together a show that was all about Barack Obama, his candidacy and his political appeal.
    I was reminded of the series of satirical skits today when Al Qaida's mouthpiece for Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released an audiotape calling our President-elect a House Negro.
    "You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the Muslims, and pray the prayer of the Jews, although you claim to be Christian, in order to climb the rungs of leadership in America," observed bin Laden's sidekick in the recording.
    Has The Second City gone international with its satire? Is Al Qaida giving up on being a bunch of murderous religious zealots for stand-up comedy? What is going on here? And, where the hell is Osama bin Laden? Is he dead or simply too chicken to play straight man his deputy-villain's new routine?

    As it turns out, Obama's historic election as the first black leader of the free world has haters all over the planet in a bind. Right after the election, Thomas Robb, a grand poo-pa-pa in the Ku Klux Klan attributed Obama's success to his being only half black. Apparently Obama's Kansas mother's white, superior blood contributed to all the positive qualities that got him where he is going.
    And before our homegrown, historical terrorist group could finish explaining this inexplicable phenomenon, that terrorist group abroad figured it had some 'plaining to do as well.
    If America was as evil, racist and anti-Muslim as Al Qaida would have its followers believe, then what was the rationale behind Barack HUSSEIN Obama's popular, un-Saddam-like landslide election victory?
    Hmmm. Maybe the K.K.K. was on to something, sort of.
    The Al-Qaida tape definitely had a racial edge to it. Obama isn't a black man or anything the world's majority population--colored people--should relate to. He's a tool of the white man. The House Negro that Brother Malcolm tongue-lashed. Al-Zawahiri's audiotape features snippets from Malcolm X's 1965 speech in Selma, Alabama where he compared the "house negro," who Uncle Tommed for favors from the slave master to the "field negro," who picked cotton and would rather see the plantation owner dead. Malcolm X, the spokesman for the Nation of Islam who later became a convert to a more orthodox Muslim faith.
    Federal surveillance of both Al Qaida and the K.K.K. made it too difficult for note comparison so the Muslim haters left out the white mother part that the Christian haters promoted so prominently.
    Apparently, hiding in the cave lands of Pakistan is not the best place to keep abreast of current events or the latest trends in humanity. If bin Laden is still alive, then al-Zawahiri might want to slip him into Chicago to check out Second City's latest show so the two terrorists, like their counterparts in America the Klan and the neo-Nazis, can work on updating their hateful passions and pronouncements.
    Their work is cut out for them. Two weeks before the November 4 election, an Al Qaida website backed John McCain, not understanding that America was in the process of changing.
    The Second City, on the other hand, was right on it. The comedy theatre's current hit revue is "No Country for Old White Men." I don't hear the haters laughing.

           (This post is also on Huffingtonpost.com.)

Wingnut Watch: Bitter and clinging to maniacal memes

    Members of America's rad-right are almost always strangers to reality. I know because I make it a point of keeping an eye on them. I like to watch Fox Cable News just to see what their aberrant version of fair and balanced is on a given day. I also read the dauntingly diminutive observations on conservative blogs.
   Over the past few days, I've noticed that with Barack Obama's landslide victory on Tuesday the losers are losing it even more.
    Let me give you a sampling.
    Here's the beginning to the latest post on the WesternFront America blog:

Some Of Us Mourn The Loss Of America Today.
By J.D. Longstreet

We mourn the loss of Freedom, Democracy, and America’s position in the world as it’s leader. In place of all these, America has chosen SOCIALISM the “Destroyer of Nations”.

I am ashamed of my fellow Americans for giving up their freedom, their constitution, their liberty, everything the Founding Fathers gave us, for so cheap a price and so fleeting a dream. They were promised nothing. They accepted nothing and will be given nothing.

The disunity of America is now complete. There is nothing left of that which bound us together. The descent of America, into the ash heap of history, has officially begun. The decline will be relatively swift and excruciatingly painful.

May God have Mercy on America, on those who warned “the other people who live in this country”. I cannot use “fellow Americans” as that phrase no longer applies. It has been shredded by the Obama Machine and by the Democratic Party.

It is now time to prepare for the coming anarchy. Providence, it seems, has decided to withdraw it’s protection and leave exposed those who have defaced and destroyed this land from within.

Soon America will face wars within and without our bordrrs, financial collapse, descention between the races, and open hostility in the streets of our cities. Those expecting utopia will quickly learn they have been duped and no such paradise on earth is within their reach nor their sight. They will learn they were simply a means toward an end and now that that end has been accomplished they are no longer needed nor wanted.

    As anybody who reads a newspaper, watches or listens to the news or reads anything but other right-wing propaganda online, we're in the midst of financial collapse. As for the racial "descention" between the races, ahem, more white Americans voted for Obama than black Americans so don't be surprised if you see black and white together marching through our city streets singing "We Have Overcome."

    And here's what Big Dog's Weblog had to say:

The Message About Obama

by Big Dog on Nov 7, 2008 at 14:13 Political

I have listened to people who think Obama is the anti Christ and that his election marks the end time as depicted in the book of Revelation. I am not convinced that the election of Obama is a sign of end times but an interesting thing happened the day after the election.

The day after the contest was declared over and Obama declared the winner, the evening three digit lottery number in Chicago was drawn. That number was 666. Those of you who pay attention will recall that Revelation 13:18 designates that number to “the Beast.”

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

      I'm not big on this Satan stuff but if I had to go with it, I'd say we've been under that spell with George Bush and Dick Cheney. That's unless you don't believe that lying to get us into a war, then occupation, trashing the U.S. Constitution and turning a deaf ear to drowning and starving Americans in New Orleans is the handiwork of a couple of saints.

    And no honeymoon for President-elect Obama on Teri  O'Brien's blog. Apparently, the Harvard law-educated Illinois Senator is just another black man who got the job a more qualified white man deserved. Here's some of what O'Brien, who is also known as “America’s Conservative Warrior Princess,” had to say:

The Affirmative Action President-Elect

     A friend wrote “Let's look on the bright side. At least we won't have to listen to all those liberals whine and bitch for the next four years.” To which I responded, “you have GOT to be kidding!” They will whine even more now, and louder. Think about it this way: Michelle Obama parlayed her victim status and sense of entitlement into affirmative-action spots at elite schools and a six-figure salary for a white-guilt generated community liaison gig, considered necessary only because of the stoking of anger and the aforementioned sense of victimhood and entitlement in people exploited by “community organizers.” Let me know when the bottomless pit of race-obsessed rage that is Michelle Obama stops whining.

    How about Jesse Jackson? He managed to shakedown the lily-livered, spaghetti-spined suits who run American corporations for millions. Has he been whining less? If anything, today he’s probably whining more, and certainly about the fact that he wasn’t up on the stage last night with The One. Hey, Rev. Jackson, are you rethinking that remark about wanting to neuter the man-god?

    The examples are endless. When you tell people they have been victimized by an immutable, inherited condition, so much so that they deserve to be compensated, all you buy with your compensation is an increased sense of entitlement and more complaining.

    Barack Hussein Obama is our first affirmative-action President-Elect. Many of the white voters who cast a ballot for him did so for the same reason as the administrators at Columbia and Harvard admitted him to their elite schools: his race. Perhaps in both cases it wasn’t the only factor, but it was definitely a factor, as they all freely admit.

    For a bunch that claims to be more American than the rest of us, there is a curious and instant disrespect for the man who is going to be POTUS. Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. presents an interesting challenge for these folks: How do you love your flag and love your country while hating your leader?

   

Black minister preaches Obama hate to whites

           “What every white person should know and hear” read the subject line to an email forwarded to me. It came from one of my white, right email pals.  I have several conservatives I correspond with because I like to know what my philosophical opposites are thinking, because I like to prick them with my solid-left observations and because, beyond the politics, we somehow, someway recognize each other’s humanity.
     So I opened the YouTube video, “A Call to Arms For White People of Truth,” that my electronic pen pal, Gene, had forwarded to me.  As it turned out, it was another diatribe from Rev. James David Manning, who has a string of these uninformed, self-hating, self-aggrandizing virals. In this one, the Atlah Worldwide Ministries pastor preaches that "black people always walk around with a chip on their shoulder, because they're black, daring anybody to say anything to them" and that "black men are full of abandonment, they're full of murder, they're full of robbery..."

        I posted one of his earlier videos, "Obama's Bra 54 Double 'D'," on March 23. In that one, fulminating about the viral video, "I Got a Crush On Obama," Rev. Manning starts off with “Obama is a Mac Daddy,” before describing as a “big-chested white woman” Obama Girl. "who must be a 54 D, double D."

       He gets more nutty and less correct from there.
       Rev. Manning claims to be a Ph.D.  He was featured ranting on Obama on Fox Cable News' Sean Hannity's show.  Dr. Manning has also theorized that black people have no honor, that Obama is a homosexual drug user forever and that Obama is a test tube baby.
     While the misguided minister has no street, religious or academic cred, he does have cyberspace appeal: His viral untruths are out.
     Those who are capable of walkin and spittin tobacco at the same time know that Rev. Manning is talkin electronic cow chips. Those that think his message meritorious are still working their way through the pictures in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous novel.

      And that really is something every white person should know and hear.

Vetting Gov. Palin 2.1

     No matter what Barack Obama, Joe Biden, the Elitist Liberal Eastern Media and hordes of frustrated Democrats say, Sarah Palin and John McCain are the candidates of change--somehow they're managing to change lies into what millions of Americans believe to be the truth.
     Despite the Bridge to Nowhere and Troopergate revelations, the McCain campaign keeps pushing the idea that Palin's a maverick and a reformer.  In Republican quarters, I'll bet they just think of what they're spieling as little white lies. I say we need a little colorblindness here--just remove the white. Oh, hell, the little, too.
     I have already addressed a measure of the misspeaks and untruths. So, if you're interested in reading some of McPalin's lying truisms, check out my previous posts, Vetting Sarah Palin 2.0, Palin McCain: More Text, lies and video tape, At RNC, when their mouths were moving they weren't telling the truth, and Impalin Palin on a need to know basis.
     Among the many lies, of course, is that Gov. Palin was properly vetted.  We know better.  We now know that McCain met with Palin a little longer than Idaho Sen. Larry Craig met with the undercover cop in the men's room stall next to him at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
     So now we are getting a drip, drip, drip of how much a maverick and reformer the Alaska governor really is.  Here are two of the latest discoveries:

Report: Palin's expense statements shows she tapped state travel allowance while staying home
By Associated Press
4:03 PM CDT, September 9, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) _ Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has charged her state a daily allowance, normally used for official travel, for more than 300 nights spent at her home, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

An analysis of travel statements filed by the governor, now John McCain's Republican running mate, shows she claimed the per diem allowance on 312 occasions when she was home in Wasilla and that she billed taxpayers $43,490 for travel by her husband and children.

Per diem payments are meant for meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business. State officials told The Post her claims--nearly $17,000 over 19 months--were permitted because her "duty station" is Juneau, the capital, and she was in Wasilla 600 miles away.  Palin spends little time at the governor's mansion in Juneau, especially when the Legislature if out of session, and instead prefers to live in Wasilla and commute to her office in Anchorage.

Palin's spending and record in office are coming under intense scrutiny as she is presented to the nation as a champion of ethics reform and frugal use of tax dollars--a leader who put the state jet on sale on eBay and drives herself to work.

 To read more of the AP report, click here.

Bruce Wilson reported a couple of days ago in his Huffingtonpost.com commentary this:

Sarah Palin's Churches and The Third Wave: New Video Documentary

Sarah Palin's churches are actively involved in a resurgent movement that was declared heretical by the Assemblies of God in 1949. This is the same 'Spiritual Warfare' movement that was featured in the award winning movie, "Jesus Camp," which showed young children being trained to do battle for the Lord. At least three of four of Palin's churches are involved with major organizations and leaders of this movement, which is referred to as The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit or the New Apostolic Reformation. The movement is training a young "Joel's Army" to take dominion over the United States and the world.

To read more of Wilson's commentary, click here.

Sarah Palin's Churches and The Third Wave: New Video Documentary

    Bruce Wilson reported a couple of days ago in his Huffingtonpost.com commentary this:

    Sarah Palin's churches are actively involved in a resurgent movement that was declared heretical by the Assemblies of God in 1949. This is the same 'Spiritual Warfare' movement that was featured in the award winning movie, "Jesus Camp," which showed young children being trained to do battle for the Lord. At least three of four of Palin's churches are involved with major organizations and leaders of this movement, which is referred to as The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit or the New Apostolic Reformation. The movement is training a young "Joel's Army" to take dominion over the United States and the world.   

    To read more of Wilson's commentary, click here.