Another One: The Rick Barber Edition

I can’t wait for the Emmys’ new “Most Unhinged Alabama Primary Commercial” category. In addition to this one and this one, Rick Barber comes through with perhaps the most deranged ad of the season. Yay!

Yes, that’s Rick Barber comparing our current tax rates (lowest since 1950) to human bondage. He also throws in a couple Holocaust images and pisses on the corpse of Abe Lincoln in order to pander with crazed candor. Then, for some reason there’s an alcoholic-looking hilljack with a lilting choir boy voice mashing the Star Spangled Banner with some moonshine-inspired lingo. Odd.

So disturbing is this creep, that Ruth Marcus felt compelled to scribble an entire editorial about this teabagger.

Images flash by: African slaves. North Korean prisoners. Concentration camps. “We shed a lot of blood to stop that in the past, didn’t we?” asks Barber, a Marine Corps veteran. “Now look at us. We are all becoming slaves to our government.”  […]

The taxes over which Barber is ready to revolt are the product of a democratic system, approved by a majority of elected lawmakers — the system that could produce a Congressman Barber if he somehow wins the runoff against Montgomery councilwoman Martha Roby to face incumbent, first-term Democrat Bobby Bright, who won in 2008 by just 1,766 votes.

That’s a point seemingly lost on the Right these days. As much as I hated nearly every day of the Bush presidency, I don’t remember overt or coded language inciting armed revolution, particularly from Democratic party leaders. Did I want a revolution after the Iraq invasion? Or after Cheney exempted oil & gas companies from the Clean Water Act? Or after the CIA tortured innocent people? On and on and on…? Of course not. What kind of American has so little respect for or Democratic institutions and representative democracy that he bails over disagreement in policy? Well, after the last 18 months of observation, I’m pretty sure that person tends to be an asshole hiding behind a flag and vague taglines involving the word ‘freedom.’ Someone like Rick Barber.

When I spoke by phone with Barber, he was affably extreme, calling “most of our major departments” — he mentioned Education and Energy — unconstitutional and suggesting that Social Security is as well because it is not among Congress’s enumerated powers. “I don’t believe that it’s the government’s job to provide retirement for the nation,” he said.

As to the video, Barber was unapologetic. “We can’t be so naive to think that just because we live in America that can’t happen to us,” he said. “We are being fed a socialist agenda spoon by spoon, and we don’t see it coming. In Germany, when Hitler was first elected under the Socialist Party, no one would have thought in a million years it would have gone where it did.”

I would not have thought in a million years that this kind of thinking would be inside the conservative mainstream. If it is not, it is time for rational conservatives to speak up.

And there it is. We’ve got Hitler! Rick Barber – you win today’s edition of Crazy Time Alabama Primary Ads.

You Know How I Know You’re Catholic?

Truly I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation, but has passed from death to life…Yet while residing in this world before death and loving someone possessing the same “equipment,” may you be condemned to suffer…you godless homo.

Employees at Catholic Charities were told Monday that the social services organization is changing its health coverage to avoid offering benefits to same-sex partners of its workers — the latest fallout from a bitter debate between District officials trying to legalize same-sex marriage and the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.

No caption necessary.

Starting Tuesday, Catholic Charities will not offer benefits to spouses of new employees or to spouses of current employees who are not already enrolled in the plan

“We looked at all the options and implications,” said the charity’s president, Edward J. Orzechowski. “This allows us to continue providing services, comply with the city’s new requirements and remain faithful to the church’s teaching.”

Catholic Charities, which receives $22 million from the city for social service programs, protested in the run-up to the council’s December vote to allow same-sex marriage, saying that it might not be able to continue its contracts with the city, including operating homeless shelters and facilitating city-sponsored adoptions. Being forced to recognize same-sex marriage, church officials said, could make it impossible for the church to be a city contractor because Catholic teaching opposes such unions.

After the council voted to legalize gay marriage, Catholic Charities last month transferred its foster-care program — 43 children, 35 families and seven staff members — to another provider, the National Center for Children and Families.

Orzechowski said Monday that the change in health benefits will be the last move necessary in response to the legislation.

“We do not anticipate any further changes whatsoever,” he said. “Taking the action we have on foster care and spousal we feel has addressed everything the new law requires of us.”

Staff members at the charity were not given advance notice of the new policy and will not be able to add a spouse now because the most recent open enrollment period ended in November.

. A letter describing the change in health benefits was e-mailed to employees Monday, two days before same-sex marriage will become legal in the District.

The Catholic Church’s “Social Teaching Doctrine” based upon Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical letter Rerum Novarum emphasizes human dignity and commits Catholics to the welfare of others.  This apparently applies only to the Church’s benevolent and underpaid charitable workers, and not the Church itself.  Unless of course you’re a Church-employed pederast, at which point you don’t have to worry at all about the Church’s full (legal + financial) support.

In a related story, gay marriage became legal in D.C. yesterday. The planet remains intact.

Yesterday’s Moment In False Equivalency

Some Beltway-Bubble Wisdom from David Broder:

Was Christmas Day 2009 the same kind of wake-up call for Barack Obama that Sept. 11, 2001, had been for George W. Bush?

The near-miss by a passenger plotting to blow up an American airliner as it flew into Detroit seems to have shocked this president as much as the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon did the last.

Both presidents had had plenty of warnings in the form of threats and even incidents. But both were caught off guard: Bush reading to a classroom of youngsters; Obama on a family vacation in Hawaii.

Bush reacted with anger and a determination to punish the people who wreaked the havoc. Obama was just as mad, but a good portion of his anger was targeted at the members of his own intelligence bureaucracy who he said had missed the abundant clues and failed to forestall the attack. Like Bush, he vowed to see that the consequences also fell on the foreign country that gave birth to the plot — Afghanistan eight years ago, Yemen today.

“Plot” is an awfully interesting word to describe some disillusioned brat who strapped some explosives to his dong. And since Yemen is home to some al Qaeda members (likely because of astronomical illiteracy, unemployment, and a weak central government), the bomber met with some guy in Yemen, (no doubt a place Broder only knows from crossword clues) what response does Beltway Wisdom dictate?

For now, we are conducting a proxy war in Yemen, but that may change. Al-Qaeda’s local enablers must learn that there is a price to be paid when Uncle Sam is attacked from their bases.

More war! Yes. Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and now Yemen. And way to get folksy with the “Uncle Sam” reference. Really gets the blood going. Of course More Occupation = A Safer America.   

Many have been looking for a similar shift of tone in his dealings with the dictators in Iran and North Korea and even in his tolerance for the politics-as-usual maneuverings of many Republicans and some Democrats in Congress.

Strawmen! Get after it, Broder! Tool.

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As for Today’s “moment,” Josh Marshall  sums it up nicely:

Talking about racism does not make you racist; advocating racism does.

Not Welcome To The Terrordome?

Take It From The Man

The Washington Post would never make this mistake with Tom Jones’ Sex Bomb or Billy Joel’s Only The Good Die Young. Nerds.

A Nov. 26 article in the District edition of Local Living incorrectly said a Public Enemy song declared 9/11 a joke. The song refers to 911, the emergency phone number.

Article In Question:

Public Enemy has earned notoriety with more than 20 years of politically charged music about fighting the power, challenging racism and declaring that 911 was a joke. The group has joined forces with Virgin Mobile USA to combat youth homelessness as part of National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week.

Flav and Chuck D are taking the time to combat homelessness and the author apparently didn’t want to take the time to listen to the song she references. “911 is a Joke,” is off the pretty damn awesome Fear Of A Black Planet album.

So get up, get, get get down
911 is a joke in yo town
Get up, get, get, get down
Late 911 wears the late crown

Oh, and this album was released in 1990.  In fact, then president George H. W. Bush received a security briefing entitled, “Public Enemy Determined To Make Joke About Bin Laden’s Eventual Attack On U.S.”  Kind of  like this one. Does the family read?!  So much rap could’ve been averted.

Post Editors:  Stop whoring and start editing.

Douchenozzle Of The Week

If there’s one organization that can demand pious morality from others, yet  still blame others for its own misdeeds, it’s the Catholic Church.

Enter Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League, and all-around hateful jackass, who the Washington Post just allows to go on a fact-free, juvenile rant.  Some highlights:

Sexual libertines, from the Marquis de Sade to radical gay activists, have sought to pervert society by acting out on their own perversions. What motivates them most of all is a pathological hatred of Christianity. They know, deep down, that what they are doing is wrong, and they shudder at the dreaded words, “Thou Shalt Not.” But they continue with their death-style anyway ….

Thou Shalt Not Commit Douchebaggery.

Totally!  When I lube up my group sex partners and strap on the ball-gag, the only thing going through my mind is 80-year old Sister Mary (my 3rd grade teacher), and our complicated lust/hate relationship. It’s all about Catholicism!  Actually, it’s you Bill. I can’t stop thinking of you. You and St. Fiacre, patron saint of  hemorrhoids sufferers (true).

But I guess it’s just adult, consensual, out-of-wedlock, non-missionary, secular fucking that should be shamed and condemned.  Because, as we both know, Mr. Donahue never met a Catholic child-molester for whom he couldn’t make excuses……..

Douchenozzle’s Checklist for American decay:  The Sexually Active? Check.  Ok, moving on – Hollywood:

There was a time when Hollywood made reverential movies about Christianity. But those days are long gone. Now they just insult. And when someone finally makes a film that makes Christians proud, he is run out of town. Were it not for Mel Gibson, there would have been no “Passion of the Christ.” But for every Harvey Weinstein who likes to bash Catholics, there is always someone else waiting in the wings to do the same ….

I understand Bill’s job is to “spin,” but Jesus Christ (no pun),  there’s no way this asshead can honestly believe Mel Gibson was “run out of town”  because of The Passion.  For God’s sake, people gave him money to do Apocalypto.  No mention of the lesser-known, anti-Mayan prejudice of Hollywood Jews.

Gibson tarnished his own reputation by getting trashed and making public his hostile anti-Semitism.  But it’s all a symbol of Catholic persecution because Harvey Weinstein produced a movie with an evil priest.

Maybe Donahue is just upset because he went to the “casting couch” with a Hollyowood producer who promised him a role in the next Flomax commercial. Sad.

Okay, moving on to  liberals + gays + philanthropists:

Catholics were once the mainstay of the Democratic Party; now the gay activists are in charge. Indeed, practicing Catholics are no longer welcome in leadership roles in the Party: the contempt that pro-life Catholics experience is palpable. The fact that Catholics for Choice, a notoriously anti-Catholic front group funded by the Ford Foundation, has a close relationship with the Democrats says it all ….

Yes, Democrats despise Catholics.  You know, arch-enemies like John Kerry, Joe Biden, and Ted Kennedy.

The culture war is up for grabs. The good news is that religious conservatives continue to breed like rabbits, while secular saboteurs have shut down: they’re too busy walking their dogs, going to bathhouses and aborting their kids. Time, it seems, is on the side of the angels.

This guy is so out-of-touch it’s unbelievable.  Doesn’t he know we’re all aborting dogs, walking kids, and eschewing baths altogether?

Bill has a classic Perseuction Complex.  Look, asshole, this isn’t the 1920s.  I will refrain from retelling the history of anti-Catholicism, but let’s make one thing clear:  Calling out the Church’s criminal conspiracy to cover-up the pedophilia of their priests does not constitute  persecution.  It constitutes appropriate indignation at the most despicable behavior attributable to humans.  Where’s your moral compass, Dbag?

You can fight your imaginary culture wars all you want.  At the end of the day, only a miniscule pack  of drones will pick up the pitchforks to follow you.  And at the end of the day, you’ll still be a Douchenozzle.