NPR’s “Morning Edition” has been trumpeting their series on the gazillionaires who are funding the presidential stakes, thus far. But, under attack from Congress, they must, of course, bend over backwards to be “balanced.”

Penny Nance was on NPR this morning

Never mind that there are, according to their own reporting “More than two dozen people or groups have donated at least $1 million each to the new superPACs, which can raise unlimited funds to help a candidate — although without technically coordinating with that campaign.”

Never mind that virtually ALL of them are Republicans. No: Bill Maher must be used to “balance” their softball report on Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino magnate who’s personally financed Newt Gingrich’s “Crusade of Lunacy” campaign to the tune of $15 million, and promises to spend $100 million to defeat President Obama’s re-election.

“Fair” enough.

But, they must also “balance” the balancing report by putting an “opposition” point of view on Bill Maher in their ever-so-tepidly headlined story of this morning, the utterly castrato “Bill Maher’s Obama SuperPAC Donation Causing A Stir“:

Maher asking “Who the f*** is Saul Alinsky?”

Unfortunately for Priorities USA Action, other big donors haven’t ponied up, or at least not as of the end of February, the last Federal Election Commission reporting period.

It could be because of the heat Maher has gotten from conservative women’s groups since the donation. They’re upset over graphic off-color remarks Maher has a habit of making about women, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.

“He has no respect for conservative women,” says Penny Nance, who heads Concerned Women for America. “He finds us distasteful. He says all kinds of really ugly things about us.”

Nance says she is upset that liberals were outraged when talk radio’s Rush Limbaugh made a sexist slur against a Georgetown University law student, but are silent about Maher’s repeated vulgarity.

“I don’t expect Bill Maher to change,” says Nance. “But I do expect the president of the United States to really carefully think through the people that he aligns himself with and who he accepts money from.”

Nance has launched an online campaign to get Priorities USA Action to return Maher’s check.

By law, Obama cannot coordinate any actions of the superPAC.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama does not condone derogatory comments about women, but added: “We are not and cannot be the arbitrator of every statement that everybody makes in the policy and political arena.”

Priorities USA Action is not returning Maher’s check….*

[* Go and read the entire piece, and you will see that Penny Nance's sound-bitten OUTRAGE is the engine that drives the literary Monster-truck over the rhetorical barrels.]

Gee. “Concerned Women for America.” Going to bat for women’s rights, right?

Not exactly:

CWA is anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-feminism and anti-sex education. Beverly LaHaye* started CWA to respond to the advances of feminism after watching NOW founder Betty Friedan on television in 1978. CWA identifies feminism as “anti-god, anti-family.” CWA identifies state-level Equal Rights Amendments (ERAs) as responsible for the breakdown of families, “The ERA proposes the elimination of our God-given roles as men and women, resulting in the redefinition — and eventual destruction — of family.”

[* In 1981, Beverly's husband, Tim LeHaye, co-writer of the "Left Behind" series, who ran the Moral Majority for Jerry Falwell, founded the Council on National Policy, which, by a strange coincidence, is the bunch behind Rick Santorum at present, Foster "Aspirin Knees" Friess, former president being Santorum's biggest contributor at $1,6 million, according to NPR. Small world. ]

Oh. So THEY’RE upset about Bill Maher’s bad language towards women who believe the way that THEY do? Take a look at the “CEO” of CWA:

Click here to view the embedded video.

or click here to view on YouTube
NOTE: You’ll find Penny Nance at 2:37, explaining,
perhaps, HOW the 2010 Tea Party’s fiscal issues
were hijacked by “social conservatives” as she assists
in so doing, with John King moderating on CNN

@ 6:13 she demands that the gay “Log Cabin Republican”
“which is whah I’m gonna ask yew to publicly say that
you will not push for repeal of donaskdontell and
domestic partner benefits, all those things that the
gay rights groups go after …

Don’t you think NPR OUGHT to have  TOLD us who this botoxed barking moonbat harpie from hell WAS before letting her slander Bill Maher — and all the actual Feminists in the entire world, men included?

In 2002, CWA vehemently opposed ratification of CEDAW (the United Nation’s Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women), claiming its pro-women empowerment and equality sections comprised a “leftist utopian wish list.” The Convention, which opposes the discrimination or subordination of women across the globe, was criticized by LaHaye Institute Fellow Janice Shaw Crouse, as imposing contemporary colonialist, neo-Marxist agendas. CEDAW was ratified on January 7, 2005, by 71 countries, and endorsed by 76 signatories. The United States was not one of them.

Two minutes of googling produced the information, and another ten minutes produced the video. Which, if you liked, you can find 181 MORE that CWA have uploaded and a wealth of others from other sources on YouTube.

Here’s who Right Wing Watch says she’s working for as Spokesmodel:

Activities

• CWA has lobbied against the Freedom of Choice Act and gay rights legislation in many states. Grassroots activity in most states is led by a CWA Area Representative and a steering committee. According to its 2003 990 Report, CWA spent a total of $92,560 in lobbying expenditures to influence both public opinion and legislative bodies.
• This group monitors state legislation, organizes Prayer/Action chapters and coordinates the CWA’s “Project 535″ grassroots congressional lobbying program. (“Project 535″ refers to the total number of Members of Congress in both the House and Senate.)
• CWA fights against sex education curricula that is not completely abstinence based and opposes anti-drug and alcohol abuse programs that emphasize self-esteem. Many challengers to books and curricula in public schools use CWA-produced materials.
• CWA has been active in the fight against using Harry Potter books in schools. Publications such as “Harry Potter: Seduction of the Occult” claim that the books promote the practice of witchcraft among children. CWA offers books and videos such as, “Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged: Making Evil Look Innocent.” (Produced by Tim LaHaye, Beverly LaHaye’s husband.)

• CWA has also been active in supporting the teaching of Creationism and “Intelligent Design theory” in science classrooms.
• CWA’s anti-gay work covers many issues, from supporting the Boy Scouts of America ban against gay participants, to opposing any openly gay people in President Bush’s administration. CWA has been active in opposing any and all gay and lesbian civil rights measures, including supporting the right to discriminate against gays and lesbians in employment. CWA supports the “Truth in Love” campaign that says that homosexuality is a sin and claims gays and lesbians can become “straight” through “the love of Jesus Christ.” CWA established the Culture and Family Institute (CFI) to combat gay and lesbian civil rights. Robert H. Knight, a long time anti-gay crusader, leads the Culture and Family Institute.
• During John Ashcroft’s confirmation hearings in the Senate, CWA and many other “pro-family” groups held a press conference of conservative women leaders, which they claim resulted in 13,000 e-mails to senators, phone calls from members, hand-deliver information to senators and appeared on several major news networks. CWA called Ashcroft’s critics “anti-religionists.”
• As a leader of the religious right, Beverly and her husband Tim LaHaye are strong supporters of other Religious-Right groups and leaders. For instance, in the summer of 2001 the LaHayes gave Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University $4.5 million. (Beverly LaHaye is a trustee of the university.)
• Beverly LaHaye, alongside many other conservative leaders, has lobbied to de-fund the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). In 1991, she testified before the Committee on Appropriations, Interior Subcommittee, of the House of Representatives to argue for de-funding of the NEA.

There’s more, but that’s all I could find in three minutes.

I don’t mind the blatant propaganda, but when a wolf appears in sheep’s clothing, pretending to be a Defender of the Sheep (who don’t need all those shepherds, quoth the wolf), one EXPECTS NPR’s Morning Edition to have a CLUE.

No. The “feminist” voice denouncing Bill Maher’s “misgyny” is one of the most misogynistic groups, arguably, to ever put on their culottes one shaved leg at a time. Seriously, NPR: THIS is who you put up as the “voice of women” against Bill Maher’s “misogyny”? (When she’s not appearing on Sean Hannity? Seriously?)

Click here to view the embedded video.

click here to watch on YouTube

In case you’re wondering, here are some other “defense of women” things that “Concerned Women of America” have been up to (ibid.):

History

• In 1994 CWA filed suit on behalf of an anti-abortion protester who was arrested during a protest against the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE), which banned protesters from blocking clinic entrances. In 1995 the Court of Appeals upheld FACE and CWA appealed to the Supreme Court, although the Court refused to hear the case.
• In 1994 the Virginia State Democratic Committee filed an injunction against CWA to stop the distribution of CWA’s “nonpartisan” voter guides. CWA and the Family Foundation (of Virginia) appealed to the courts, which ordered the ban lifted.
• In 1993 CWA-Iowa claimed victory by helping to defeat the state ERA with a 52 percent majority vote.
• In 1988, Beverly LaHaye testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the confirmation hearings for Judge Anthony Kennedy to the U.S. Supreme Court.
• During the 1987 Supreme Court nomination hearings for Robert Bork, CWA led a national petition drive, sponsored a “Women for Bork” rally, and organized 350 people to lobby senators on Bork’s behalf.

Talk about the simplest stage magic fooling the dullest of the rubes (only, I’m sure, this rube has an ivy league degree and drinks the tony tea of the public radio crowd.)

What can we fool them with next?

You can download your own MP3 recording to treasure and cherish here.

The “profile” of Bill Maher has been satanically switched from the poorest of the “big contributors” in the whole shebang to the faux “women’s rights” campaign and Obama slur launched by the astroturfers paying Ms. Nance’s salary — which was $169,231 in 2010, according to their 990 “charitable” Tax Return, page 7:

Click for the complete .pdf of CWA’s 2010 tax return (50 pages)

I’ve commented on the “Spokesmodel” phenomenon at length in “Schizoid in Barbieland,” but it is ironic that just today, GLAAD released this report:

ANTI-GAY ACTIVISTS LOOKING FOR GLAMOROUS, UNINTELLIGENT CELEBRITIES TO ADVANCE THEIR CAUSE

Tuesday, March 27, 2012 – 4:49pm by Aaron McQuade, GLAAD’s Director of News and Field Media

It sounds like a headline from the Onion, but strategy documents uncovered yesterday, from the nation’s most prominent anti-gay marriage group, the National Organization for Marriage (found by the Human Rights Campaign), reveal a novel approach to convincing Americans to vote against marriage equality: recruit glamorous but unintelligent celebrities. (p.19/20)

“Hollywood with its cultural biases is far bigger than we can hope to be. We recognize this. But we also recognize the opportunity – the disproportionate potential impact of proactively seeking to gather and connect a community of artists, athletes, writers, beauty queens and other glamorous non-cognitive elites across national boundaries. (This is applying the Witherspoon and IAV model to non-intellectual elites.)”

(emphasis added)

Which is weird, because I hadn’t ever realized that Bill Maher was gay.

But then, unlike NPR and you, Gentle Reader, I’m easily duped.

Hey Rocky! Watch me pull a rabid out of my hat!

Oh, wait: Weren’t we trying to distract you with this “Bill Maher” stuff from Rush Limbaugh’s three-day sexist slander of a private citizen? A young woman?

Hocus pocus: Abracadabra.

And another “profile” of a shadowy post-Citizens United figure who’s ponied up $1 million is completed. I can’t hardly wait for that there Foster Friess piece.

• million dollar donors
• The SuperPAC Superdonors

Courage.
======================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.

Spoiler alert: If you haven’t seen the original episode of the original Star Trek (and I knew a refugee from Tehran who told me how their Pre-Revolution dinners had been disrupted in a battle for years, because her brother wanted to watch Star Trek, which came on at dinnertime in Iran), then be warned that I’m going to give the whole shebang away, and if you read on, you will deprive yourself of the delight of watching it for the first time, without knowing what will happen. T’would spoil it for you.

Bearded Spock in “Mirror, Mirror”

“Mirror, Mirror” was broadcast for the first time on October 6, 1968, and I watched it. I had to arrange to be at a friend’s house to see it — there being a strict prohibition since the first episode, Nancy, the Salt Vampire, because monsters gave my little brother John nightmares — so I snuck it, nonetheless, and, tag-along John started sneaking it, too. Go figure. He had to lie about his nightmares thereafter, since he was bound under the same familial taboo and proscription that I was … because of HIS nightmares. Go figure.

The short form is this: Transporter accident lands small contingent of the lead characters in a parallel universe which is not the democratic Federation, but the ruthless Empire. All other regular characters then get to play their doppelgängers, their shadows, and it’s a lot of plots within plots and backstabbing fun as the decent heroic Enterprise captain and officers attempt to return to their universe. And at the end, the Captain appeals to the parallel universe Spock, and convinces him of the reason for democratic governance, and the ultimate futility of despotic Empire. And he give bearded Spock a weapon that will make him invincible in pursuing that path.

And he knows that Bearded Spock will see the logic of it. And there is that most important of tags: We, like the crew have been troubled by a sneaking worry about what the barbarian Enterprise crew is doing on the Federation Enterprise.

Regular Spock, albeit Amok

And here is the wisdom. “Oh, we threw ‘em in the brig.” Because (paraphrasing) while a civilized man may pretend to be a barbarian, a barbarian may not pretend to be a civilized man. And civilization depends on civilized men and civilized women. Civility means something to you, but it is ALSO the civic duty to report a crime, or defend the country.

And we wonder what the logical — and ultimately civilized — bearded Spock is doing in the universe of the barbarians.

Which brings me to Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher and Michael Kinsley.

All three believe that what they are doing — each in his own way — is the reasonable response, the civilized response. Response to the yowling rationalizations and equivocations of the barking snarkosphere over the Rush Limbaugh vilifications of women, and loss of advertisers (as discussed yesterday, and the day before, and so on and so forth).

(Well, if it is, the scene at the end of Zardoz is the kind of civilization we’re talking about. And it’s that latest buzzword that hurts my ears to hear from its utter clichéness and [pl]attitude: unsustainable.)

It is International Women’s Day, gentlemen, and the women of America have been attacked, let’s face it, by male power figures. And our civilization is being attacked by ruthless barbarians who use schoolyard bully tactics, stymie the government IN A RECESSION, betray the cause of Liberty embodied in the Declaration of Independence by not allowing and agreeing that we should walk together in the governance of this land — just as their Revolution has swept the entire globe. Peoples all over the world are fighting for democracy and we are showing them how stupid, silly and selfish corrupt democracies can be.

Lincoln at Independence Hall

That is a betrayal of our parentage, which has given us this land, it is a betrayal of our present in NOT dealing with present crises to chase, instead, shibboleths of a bygone century, and it is a cruel betrayal of our posterity and of being the first generation to leave America worse than we found it.

No: Like bearded Spock, and Federation Kirk, in that parallel universe, you have to play by their rules to stay alive. But you can also recognize that there comes a time to fight back. Not by defending Rush Limbaugh’s “free speech” rights. He has NONE — on the commercial airwaves. He has Commercial speech rights, which CAN be governed and regulated on the public airwaves, as reiterated by the Supreme Court for a very long time.

I see all three of you pinioned by fuzzy thinking.

There are two arguments being made, and they have cowed you and the rest of the Zardoz civilized into utter catatonia.

The first is: well somebody on your “side” did it, too.

The Greeks would say: two wrongs don’t make a right, but at this point, any number of wrongs can make you a right-wing hate machine.

I would put it to you this way: so you’re saying that until I and every other Democrat who has ever lived is perfect, we cannot make moral and ethical judgments of your actions? (Dream on.)

But since this is never made explicit, the “civilized” meekly accept this outrageous argument and have FOR DECADES.

It is logically absurd. Even Bearded Spocks know that.

Independence Hall (photo by author 2008)

The second argument invariably trips up all commentators on the Left, and I am here to lay it out for you in very simple terms:

Communication of THINGS in English require two elements to be present to be meaningful:

There is always an amount of a thing. That is the quantity.

And that thing has a value in whatever context it exists: space is empty or cold, ducks are flying animals or water animals,

The false equivalence argument always works by suppressing either quantity or quality.

• Quality: Charles Manson is a criminal. Your grandma got a parking ticket. Therefore, since both share the quality of “law breaker” Your Grandma = Charles Manson. The quality or the degree of “law breaker” is absurdly different between your grandma and Charlie Manson, no matter what you might have told your therapist. Bill Maher called Sarah Palin, an abrasive and equally insulting — see “Palin’s Penis Poke Provokes Proprietor’s Point“– public figure, a “twat.” Once. Rush Limbaugh abused a young woman, a private citizen only a couple of years out of high school for three days for three hours a day. And then used an apology to CONTINUE that public abuse another day and then attacked a young female journalist for another three hours the NEXT day. They are no more equivalent than your grandma and Charlie Manson.

or,

• Quantity: The numbers have different masses, they are of entirely different quantity. Baby Linda said a bad word. A drunk screamed a bunch of incredibly dirty, scatological, scabrous and profane words at a judge in a courtroom when court was in session. The relative weight or quantity of baby Linda’s bad word and the drunk and really disorderly fellow is virtually immeasurable. Or, Rush Limbaugh said yesterday that he has “18,000″ advertisers (counting all local advertisers on all stations) and that losing 28 (or 32, he vacillated) doesn’t mean anything, therefore. Because, Granny’s Donuts in Pig’s Knuckle, Arkansas is the SAME as Sears or AllState.  The QUANTITY of advertising dollars represented is utterly out of skew. Granny’s Donuts may not spend as much in a year as Sears spends on advertising nationally in a DAY.  The weight of the audiences if different. Granny reaches ten or twenty thousand listeners around Pig’s Knuckle. Sears reaches millions nationally and overseas. An ENTIRE continent is DIFFERENT than the AM radio listenership of Keeblerville, Arkansas. DIFFERENT QUANTITY.

And sometimes, a bit of both. There is nuance in all things, we move on.

• NOT EQUIVALENT. Therefore, not a supportable or even ascertainable ’argument.’ Fail.

And yet, this is the argument that is made over and over and over and over again. successfully.

It is a logical fallacy. It is a rational impossibility, and yet “civilized” media mavens accept this ridiculous proposition over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again — BECAUSE BOTH SIDES DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bwahahahahahahh!

Now, see if you can untangle that very simple fallacy attached to the last actual sentence in English above. (Hint: it’s NOT Bwahahahahahahh!)

Take your time. I’ll wait.

Limbaugh robbing a crippled child

Dum dum de dum dum. Doo wacka doo wacka doo wacka doo.

Done? OK.

The Republicans do it all the effing TIME. The Democrats much less occasionally, and if they do it, THEY ought to be called out on it, too.

But the false conflation of two entirely different things through omission of quantity or quality is the essence and the error of the argument, and until you solve this simple puzzle, you will NOT be let through to the next game level, and you will receive no fresh lives or bonus points. You will NOT be bearded Spock in the Land of the GOPs.

Keith Olbermann implicitly bought this argument last night, when he equated Limbaugh’s days and hours of serial verbal abuse of women with his (false equivalence’d)  comments on Michelle Malkin, surely one of the mistresses of contumacious vilification and sanitized obscenity to spew venom in the public sphere.  And vowed to never sin no more* and to retire “worst persons in the world” yet again, repeating his mistake of a couple of years ago.

Michelle Malkin and John Fund at the 2009 Sammy Awards

(Aristotle: “To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.” When barbarians manipulate your conscience, sir, ask yourself, Who is the more irrational: he who rationally rebuts irrational accusations to the irrational, or the irrational who have made such accusations? Answer: the former, since the former is gifted with a mind, and a soul and articulate knowledge of civilization, whereas barbarians can only be expected to be barbaric.)

The media are gatekeepers of civilization, and it is their responsibility NOT to split the difference between reason and unreason; nor between civilization and barbarism. We have accepted the necessity of logic and reason since Greece. That has NOT changed, sophistries notwithstanding. Unreason and civilization cannot co-exist. (I refer you to the Dark Ages for a reference point.)

As for Michael Kinsley: may whatever deity or non-deity you either worship or accept as Ultimate Reality have mercy on your soul, if you believe in a soul, but if such an imprecation would offend either your theistic or non-theistic sensibilities, and would wish withdrawn, consider it withdrawn, along with any implicit supplication to any deity that you might or might not believe in. Amen.

The Winds of Time

You’re going to have to be bearded Spock in the Land of the GOPs, and this ridiculous “tolerant” notion that you ought to keep turning the other cheek again when they lie with their mindless fallacies and their brainwashed masses is a betrayal of your country and civilization just as surely as theirs is and continues to be: a long, pissing on the graves of the Founding Fathers, who believed in a better sort of America than we seem to envision.

Now, you have your weapon that will make you invincible against the barbarians of the Empire.

You can do a lot of damage by passing on this simple weapon and by using it at every rhetorical opportunity — because, since the weapon is knowledge, you can arm others without disarming yourself in the process . When a critical mass is reached, the GOPs will find another fallacy, but in the meantime, you slays the dragons you got.

Next week, if you do well, come back, and we’ll see about getting you your Magic Sword.

Jabberwock : illustration by John Tenniel for
“Alice Through The Looking Glass”

Now: go and do battle with the barbarians. They are pretending to be civilized, and that is their infallible weakness. And you can do this. Our future and our children’s future hang in the balance.

Courage.

================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.

Jessica Winter debates in TIME Ideas: Are Women People?

Winter says, “in the past couple of months, certain powerful figures in media and politics have cracked open that certitude,” that “women are fully autonomous human citizens—who vote, even.”

I can fully understand the questions Winter is posing given the recent increase in the War On Women, by members of the Republican Party and Clergy.

In her article, Winters recapps “recent instances of powerful men from the fields of law, politics and literature tackling the question that has captured America’s imagination: Are Women People?”

It’s a must read on this International Women’s Day.

There’s a plethora of newborn (and, alas, wrong-headed) petitions out there to fight back against Limbaugh’s “slut” and “prostitute” verbal filth — directed at a private citizen, a woman, who dared to stand up before congress and tell what she knew.

You CAN stop Limbaugh. It just takes a small amount of effort and a little smarts in how to apply that effort. To wit:

How To Stop Hate Radio (from 2008)

The question here isn’t whether Glenn Beck is a delusional idiot. The real question is WHO at the Washington Post decided that this hogswallop was worthy of publication in any serious newspaper?

Why we are all Catholics now
By Glenn Beck

Photo: Beck meets the newly elevated Cardinal Timothy Dolan in the Vatican.

I am a proud member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but today, I call myself a Catholic. Why? Because the state is telling the Catholic Church to violate its principles and teachings. So if you are a person of faith, you must call yourself a Catholic.

Today, the Catholic Church is defending a historic American freedom. We tend to forget that many of America’s earliest European settlers were religious refugees. Europe was not a kind place to the faithful if the state didn’t approve: Jews in Spain, Puritans in England, Protestants in France and so on. You were cast out, or worse…

Self-righteous, pseudo-persecuted moron.

This is a hilarious internal contradiction, when you realize that the Jews in Spain and the Protestants in France were being PERSECUTED BY THE CATHOLIC CHUCH!

Here is the Catholic Church’s position on Mormonism (note the “Nihil Obstat“ and Imprimateur at the bottom of the document.):

Distinctive Beliefs of the Mormon Church

Are Mormons Protestants? No, but their founder, Joseph Smith, came from a Protestant background, and Protestant presuppositions form part of the basis of Mormonism.

Still, it isn’t correct to call Mormons Protestants, because doing so implies they hold to the essentials of Christianity—what C. S. Lewis termed “mere Christianity.” The fact is, they don’t. Gordon B. Hinckley, the former president and prophet of the Mormon church, says (in a booklet called What of the Mormons?) that he and his co-religionists “are no closer to Protestantism than they are to Catholicism.”

That isn’t quite right—it would be better to say Mormons are even further from Catholicism than from Protestantism. But Hinckley is right in saying that Mormons are very different from Catholics and Protestants. Let’s examine some of these differences. We can start by considering the young men who come to your door.

They always come in pairs and are dressed conservatively, usually …

And, at the bottom of the page:

NIHIL OBSTAT: I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL,
Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004

IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004

I don’t have a dog in this fight: I am neither a Mormon nor a Catholic, but, if both are honest intheir commitment to “truth,” then the plain facts need to be stated.

Glenn Beck is not a Catholic, and the church considers the Mormon faith to NOT be Christian. (There is a wealth of additional material here. If you are further interested, just put “MORMON” in the search box at the top of the page.)

And there is a difference between “freedom of religion” and imposing your religious beliefs on others.

“Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition …” — M. Python

But that is a topic for another day. Here’s the explanation for the doctinal purity of the aforementioned piece from “Catholic Answers“:

If the Catholic writing the book is a member of a religious order, the manuscript is first sent to his religious superior before it is sent to the Censor and Bishop. If the religious superior finds no impediment to publication, he will give the book his stamp of “Imprimi Potest,” which means “it can be printed.”

Nowadays, after the Imprimatur, you might see these words:

The “Nihil Obstat” and “Imprimatur” are official declarations that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. No implication is contained therein that those who have granted the Nihil Obstat and the Imprimatur agree with the content, opinions or statements expressed.

Please know that the presence of an Imprimatur does not mean that a book is an official text of the Church. It doesn’t make the book the equivalent of an encyclical, say. It’s not the approval of the work by the Pope or a dogmatic Council, and it’s not a stamp of infallibility. It doesn’t even mean that everything in the book is accurate, only that there is nothing in it that contradicts Catholic dogma.

[...]

SUMMARY

Religious Superior’s stamp: IMPRIMI POTEST “it can be printed”

Censor’s stamp: NIHIL OBSTAT “nothing stands in the way”

Bishop’s stamp: IMPRIMATUR “let it be printed”

Chief Justice John Roberts attends “Red Mass”

I hope that this clarifies the situation somewhat.

Good grief.

There is a foolish notion that “religious tolerance” means that one should never criticize ANY religion, no matter how bizarre, hateful or strange their means or ends, but that is NOT religious tolerance, that is intentional self-blinding.

I can easily and happily tolerate Catholicism and Mormonism, and I can love my Mormon and Catholic friends (and I have loved a few, if you get my drift), but that does NOT mean that I blindly accept every notion advanced by the representatives of either faith.

There is a difference between religious freedom and religious license. Check the founders.

No word, yet, on whether Beck is a jelly donut.

Courage.

======================

A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog.

Republican Rep. Darrell Issa chaired a hearing on Capitol Hill today on religious freedom and the new mandate that health insurers cover contraception. 

As the hearing got under way,  an argument broke out over Democrats could add a female witness to the all-male panel.

“Where are the women?” the minority Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., asked early in the hearing.

She criticized the Republican committee chairman, Rep. Darrel Issa, for wanting to “roll back the fundamental rights of women to a time when the government thought what happens in the bedroom is their business.”

“We will not be forced back to that primitive era,” she said.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There were NO women invited to testify. NONE.

Among witnesses invited to attend the hearing, by Rep. Issa, “was a representative of the Catholic bishops, who oppose the Obama administration “accommodation” on birth-control coverage” and ”many other men of other religions.”  

Not invited, complained Democrats, were representatives from the Catholic Health Association, which is run by a woman and actually runs the Catholic hospitals, nor Catholic Charities, both of which said Friday they supported the president’s plan.

Seriously… This isn’t about religious freedom. We all know that… It’s all about the Republican War on Women. Keep them home, in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant!

House minority leader Nancy Pelosi chastised the “House committee examining the Obama administration’s contraception rule that included an all-male panel of witnesses.”

“Imagine having a panel on women’s health and they don’t have any women on the panel,” she told reporters Thursday. “Duh.”

It appears that a majority Republican men are still not at all education about women’s health,
as we also witnessed today in an interview with Rick Santorum supporter, Foster Friess. Friess is the “single largest donor to the super PAC supporting Rick Santorum’s presidential bid.” 

His comments “shocked MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell in an interview” today when he “suggested a novel approach to contraception.” 

[...] the 71 year old Wyoming multi-millionaire offered this retort when Mitchell pressed him about whether he agreed with Santorum’s stance on contraception.

“Back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives,” Friess said. “The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.”

Friess was also quoted as saying “Who cares?” when Andrea Mitchell “pressed Friess again on Santorum’s position on contraception.”

Keep the little woman down… Stand behind your “religion” and keep the little woman down. Makes me sick… 2012, and we”re still fighting for our rights!

A few days ago, I watched an interview with Angela Jolie about her new movie – first directed movie – In the Land of Blood and Honey. I was so deeply moved to witness her talking about wanting to open a discourse about the rape of women used as a weapon of war. It’s a much welcomed yet long overdue open conversation. I truly hope it helps bring the problem into awareness of our world and to heal the wounds that cause it and are caused by it.

Here in the U.S. we may agree that the rape of women as a weapon of war is horrible. Yet we have done our own atrocious acts as part of our participation in war – sexually demeaning and humiliating prisoners of war in Abu Ghraib, urinating on the bodies of slain enemies in Afghanistan, and who knows what else! But what about the use of rape in the war against women right here at home? “Not possible,” you say? Sadly, tragically, it is possible – and it is occurring.

A relatively new occurrence: There is a law recently passed in Texas – and also recently upheld by the appeals court in Texas – that makes it mandatory for a woman who seeks an abortion to have an invasive vaginal ultrasound . . . under the guise of educating her, say proponents, but in reality to intimidate her out of having the abortion.

Now most women I know would completely understand that is a form of rape . . . to be forced by your government and the law to have an object – even an ultrasound scanner – put into your vagina by your doctor . . . even if your doctor doesn’t want to do it, but more importantly, even if you don’t want it. And many of the men I know understand the truth of that, too. But there are many women and men who don’t get it . . . yet. And their not getting it passively, unconsciously allows and even helps it to go on.

Maybe this will help them get the reality of rape as a weapon in the war against women:

The FBI recently redefined rape. Now included in the definition of rape is . . . the use of an object. So, no matter the guises for the Texas law, it is in direct conflict with the FBI definition of rape.

I hope you care. I hope you care about your body being violated in that way. . . raped by an object at the hands of the government.

I hope you care about your mother’s, sister’s, daughter’s bodies being violated in that way.

I hope you care about your wife’s, girlfriend’s, fiancee’s body being violated in that way!

Too many of our women – not just in the US but all over the world – were sexually abused as children. This law and others like it would be a repeat abuse of the earlier violation and wounding.

We need to care – deeply – for if the government can force rape as a weapon in the war against women, then the people in our country who are afraid of the empowerment of women and of powerful women will be able to continue escalating the war against women . . . just like so many others have continued escalating other wars in our world.

I hope we will work together to protect our girls and women . . .

I hope we will work together to prevent the further escalation of the war against women . . . and in so doing, prevent the further escalation of war! and protect our world!

© Judith Barr, 2012

Jill at Feministe explains: Oh for the love of God. 

This is really beyond the pale. And really, if the “What election sexism?” Democrats can’t see how over-the-top this is, I don’t really know what to say.

Progressives should be better than this.

I’m so sick of this sexism crap… Be sure to check the links from Jill: “For thoughts on sexism in the election in general, I refer you to Rebecca Traister and Amanda Fortini.”

And: Contact the TNR editors (letters@tnr.com) and tell them to stick to the issues — not sexist caricatures.

The Democratic Daily is not sponsoring or endorsing this event, but, you should know about it — in the name of democracy.

If you happen to be in New York City today and tomorrow, seriously consider showing up at Hillary Clinton Forum NYC Protest Tomorrow, April 11. It is co-sponsored by the independent Hillary Clinton Online Forum and the independent Veterans for Hillary (v4hill.com).

If you aren’t in New York or can’t participate in-person and wish to “participate,” please go here.

I’m on fire, right now, as I have a lot on my mind. I’m sure many of you are getting worked up about the same things that are sticking in my craw. Yet, when I try to express myself in a coherent fashion, it comes out on the page looking something like  ”akjf;laghoehtoieWTFgj;akjoijfoidjAHHHH!” Of course, I “know” what it says, but it’s impossible to translate.

I have plenty of time to think of these things, as I go about my daily tasks. I think “oh, how witty that will sound” and then I sit down to write and…I got nothin’!

Maybe I worry too much about censoring myself once I set down to my computer, trying not to offend anyone or at least, not offend them too much, especially with everyone on even higher alert and pointing to offenses more than usual during the current primary/caucus race. I think that I am coming to a point where I say fu…–I mean, “bleep” that (*wink*), I would rather lose friends than not be able to speak my mind. Of course, I will always be respectful when I am in a space (where you may be reading this) that does not belong to me, but I’m thinking it’s time for me to cut to the chase and actually say whatever the he…–I mean, “bleep” is on my mind.

That being said, there is some shi…–I mean, there are some things in today’s round-up that will definitely make you go “wtf?” So, why don’t we start off with a little soft shoe to ease you into it: Gregory Hines & Steve Martin Tap.

++++++++++

Try dancing around today’s Ten Post Round-Up:

1: If sisters are doing it for themselves, how come movies and television are not representing them properly?…

On-Screen Sex Ratios Add Up to One Big Negative–AlterNet

2: Things not so comfy cozy on the housing front between GWB and the GOP?…

Bush throws GOP Senators under the bus on the bi-partisan housing bill–AMERICAblog

3: Those rebate checks might not arrive in time to do the economy any good, but at least the average Jane and Joe can maybe pay off one more bill before finally hitting the skids…

It’s official now: George W. Bush is today’s Herbert Hoover–Brilliant at Breakfast

4: Milestones and reminders on the road to victory in Iraq: Are we there yet?…

Another anniversary!–Bring It On!

5: They’re gonna git cha, so ya better pay up!…

IRS Hunts Down “Tax Defiers”–The Huffington Post

6: They have all this money, yet, they are still relying on the US for financial help? Excuse me while I beat up my desk with my forehead…

Iraq’s Oil Profits–The J-Walk Blog

7: Just one more thing for the cash-strapped working poor to worry about: Fraudulent rental agreements that leave them out on the streets (after handing their first and last plus security to a complete stranger who disappears into the night)…

Scam Leaves 3 Families Moving Into Same House–NBC10.COM

8: In a “real” free-market system, this makes perfect sense. Everyone is going broke, you gotta be able to make money where you can and if the whole world suddenly is starving, the last thing a hungry fisherman is going to be concerned with is the purple-bellied flying carp and whether or not it’s extinct…

As Prices Rise, Farmers Spurn Conservation–New York Times

9: I miss the old “Dr.” Phil: “You shouldn’t shush a nation when a president decides he’s gonna go to war. If we ever need the First Amendment, we need it then”….

Phil Donohue Stands Up For Free Speech In A Time Of War–News Hounds

10: I’ve said it before, being a friend of GWB and company means never having to say you’re sorry…

Bush Justice in the Department of Just Us–Scatablog

Oh, I definitely need more coffee!

284 días hasta el final de un error…

Peace.

(yes, I suffer from head*desk syndrome)