Yet another Republican candidate who thinks he needs to prove his manhood by being seen shooting a gun. Oh and his analogy is insulting to those who died but Not Joe the Non plumber knows that.
But posing with weapons/military is as American as politicking at the Iowa State Fair, kissing babies ending important speeches with 'GOD BLESS AMERICA!"
Even Jerry Brown- Jerry Brown!- made sure to fund a military school in Oakland to score points.
Write now I'm reading about the Einsatzgruppen...I'm sure I've mentioned it here before. It's nightmarish. No really--it gives me nightmares.
The justification that the Nazis used for massacring Jews on the Eastern Front...before the full industrial killing infrastructure of the camps was in place...was that the Jews were engaged in partisan activity. Whole villages and neighborhoods were massacred as "retaliation" for a sabotage or an attack on German troops or local allies. The event prompting the massacres was basically always a fiction, but the Nazis were attempting to create a counterfeit history in which their purges of Jews were justified and even "ethical" by the standards of wartime. The Nazis weren't just imagining a future where they'd one, but already concocting the mythos that they would teach their descendants.
Yeah...it's a foul Godwin, but it's especially foul because the people concocting this story are so ignorant of what they're talking about.
Write now I'm reading about the Einsatzgruppen...I'm sure I've mentioned it here before. It's nightmarish. No really--it gives me nightmares.
The justification that the Nazis used for massacring Jews on the Eastern Front...before the full industrial killing infrastructure of the camps was in place...was that the Jews were engaged in partisan activity. Whole villages and neighborhoods were massacred as "retaliation" for a sabotage or an attack on German troops or local allies. The event prompting the massacres was basically always a fiction, but the Nazis were attempting to create a counterfeit history in which their purges of Jews were justified and even "ethical" by the standards of wartime. The Nazis weren't just imagining a future where they'd one, but already concocting the mythos that they would teach their descendants.
Yeah...it's a foul Godwin, but it's especially foul because the people concocting this story are so ignorant of what they're talking about.
So was the fate of my grandfather's family in Sokoly, Poland. My grandfather, his brothers and sisters left Poland after WWI in 1918 and came here (1 sister went to Argentina). His parents and 2 other brothers and their families were later taken to Auschwitz where one nephew survived and was liberated at age 14. (He moved to Israel and so my cousins are there.) Others in Sokoly were murdered in the town or escaped and lived in the surrounding forests. Some even until after the war and even then, the Nazis, Poles and Russians came back to kill them. Some of their story is here.
Those links are from the Sokoly chapters in the Yizkor books, written sometime in the 60s and 70s, by survivors all over the world so the stories can be told. In this chapter, we believe my great grandfather is mentioned, Itsche Zlotko (my mother says my grandfather's dad (her grandfather) was named Yitzak and Itsche could be a nickname). He built windmills but was also a gravedigger and a shamash in the synagogue (like a rabbi's assistant).
Zlotko is a coin in Polish so when my grandad came to America, they changed his name to "Gold."
As an aside, the President was recently chided by the Poles because he referred to a Polish concentration camp instead of Nazi camp. But the Poles were just as murderous as the Nazis. My grandad never told anyone he was Polish he hated them so.
I regard using the Holocaust to gain political brownie points a sin.
But posing with weapons/military is as American as politicking at the Iowa State Fair, kissing babies ending important speeches with 'GOD BLESS AMERICA!"
Even Jerry Brown- Jerry Brown!- made sure to fund a military school in Oakland to score points.
You gotta love it- and laugh.
It's not all that military. (I interviewed there once.)
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Michele Bachmann was the muse for a new romance novel called Fires of Siberia, to be published June 1, about a fiery presidential candidate who tries to bone up on her foreign policy credentials only to get stuck in the wilderness with a sexy stranger. "Inspired by the life of Tea Party leader and Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Fires of Siberia is an ...
It's from last week; I should've paged it then. After the previous essay on Benghazi, I got a bunch of email. The gist of which is best summed up as: Okay, Benghazi, fine, whatever. Fine. But what about the IRS thing? Huh, what about that? How are you going to defend your boy Obozo on that, huh? Huh? It's Obumer's Watergate, Man, he's going ...
On Wednesday, Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) held an anti-abortion press conference for the bill he intends to reintroduce that restricts women's abortion rights nationwide. A direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, Franks' bill bans abortions after 20 weeks, before a fetus even reaches the point of viability. Just this week, an appeals court stuck down a 20-week abortion ban enacted by Franks' home ...
WASHINGTON -- Two prominent old-line Senate Republicans threw down the gauntlet to their more conversative colleagues on Tuesday, challenging them to stop obstructing the passage of a budget. Led by tea party Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), Republicans have been preventing the Senate from sending the budget it passed earlier this year to a conference committee with ...
WASHINGTON -- The Republican candidate for Virginia's Lieutenant Governor, Rev. E.W. Jackson, is getting a decidedly cool response from his state's Republican establishment in Washington, who weren't eager to associate themselves with the conservative firebrand's history of anti-gay and anti-abortion statements. Republicans have largely, and happily, lined up behind Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the GOP's candidate for governor. But Jackson's surprise win at ...
As our planet warms from excess carbon in the atmosphere, some of that heat is absorbed by the ocean. Fish and invertebrates are responding to warming waters by moving to higher latitudes or deeper waters where the water is cooler, and it was expected that these shifts would eventually affect availability of some commercially harvested species. "Eventually" may be now. Ocean warming has ...
Republicans have finally done it. They've managed to do their jobs so horribly that their favorability rating has fallen right off a cliff into record-breaking territory. A new CNN poll reveals that an astounding 59% of Americans view Republicans unfavorably. This development comes on the heels of a recent poll showing that President Obama's job approval rating has risen. According to Business Insider: ...
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Surf forecasting has come a long way. This is a clear and well-written analysis of the storm that created the recent run of XXL surf in Tahiti.
More: Rep. Steve King Says $20 Billion Cut in Food Stamps Won't Be 'Noticeable' Few will even notice major cuts in our nation’s food stamp program, according to Rep. Steve King (R-IA).Speaking on the floor Tuesday, King argued that a $20 billion cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program “spread out over ten years is not something that is going to be noticeable.” KING: ...
Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, argued that there is no comparison between Hurricane Sandy relief, which he voted against last fall, and aid for his state in the wake of Monday’s devastating tornado because the two are “totally different.”
More from Salon
This video keeps me sane. A monkey, a pig, riding (backwards)...
...and suddenly I can deal with the randomness of the universe.
Oh, and apologies for the earworm.
"The senior senator from Arizona urged this body to trust the Republicans. Let me be clear, I don't trust the Republicans," Cruz said. "
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Pope Francis rocked some religious and atheist minds today when he declared that everyone was redeemed through Jesus, including atheists. During his homily at Wednesday Mass in Rome, Francis emphasized the importance of "doing good" as a principle that unites all humanity, and a "culture of encounter" to support peace. Using scripture from the Gospel of Mark, Pope Francis explained how upset Jesus' ...
Not only is it a Green Company, It's a successful Green Company.
Cue the wing nut outrage.
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In an extraordinary admission, Attorney General Eric Holder has told Congress that U.S. drone strikes since 2009 have killed four Americans -- three of whom were "not specifically targeted." For all the effort that the Obama administration has gone to in asserting that its drones only kill the people that the administration intends to kill, Holder wrote in a letter today to Sen. ...
"Christians should stop wielding religion as a tool of oppression, write Evette Dionne at Clutch magazine." The following is from a link from this article at The Root: YouTube She continued, "That is not a godly energy you're giving off now! I don't understand being so saturated in a dogma and a theology that you would not embrace your sister in her deepest need ...
Indiana Jones, the swashbuckling fictional adventurer, would seem to have nothing on John Goddard. As a boy growing up in Los Angeles, Goddard dreamed of adventures in faraway lands and spent his life pursuing an elaborate set of goals. He wanted to climb the world's most perilous peaks, navigate its major rivers and explore its most remote regions, among many other ambitions. Goddard, ...
It has long been part of the Washington game for officials to discredit a news story by playing up errors in a relatively small part of it. Pfeiffer gives the impression that GOP operatives deliberately tried to "smear the president" with false, doctored e-mails. But the reporters involved have indicated they were told by their sources that these were summaries, taken from notes ...
Obesity is on the rise-- as is the incidence of Heart Disease, Diabetes, Stroke and various forms of Cancer. And, shockingly, diseases that had in the past begun in old age are now appearing at much earlier ages. A groundbreaking scientific study showed how easily (and inexpensively) the rate of occurrence of these and other serious illness could be greatly reduced-- but this information ...
The formal structure of "You Didn't Try to Call Me" is not revolutionary, but it is interesting. You don't care. -- Liner notes for "You Didn't Try to Call Me" on "Freak Out!"
Frank says: