Tag: First Amendment

I know I’ve never prayed to you before.  Truth to tell I don’t believe in you.  No disrespect intended to either you or your followers, but I think you don’t exist.

Before you get too angry with me saying you don’t exist, understand, I’m merely a lowly human who, if you did exist, you supposedly gifted with rationality and who can only go by the evidence of his senses and things that science and rationality (your gift, if you’re there) have given us, such as “objective evidence”.

But, Barack Obama and Congress wants me to pray to you.  So much so that, instead of prosecuting thieves and criminals who wreck lives so badly that they are despoiling your supposed creation and putting little old ladies out on the street, his Justice Department is instead working to ensure that gay people can’t get married or serve in the military, and that his government’s call to demand people to pray to you is enforced and upheld by our country’s laws, despite the First Amendment.

And, Dear God, whom I sincerely hold and believe you don’t exist, it’s not as if I bear any malice toward those who feel otherwise, that you do exist.  But, understand, God, that I all too often think that Belief In You is used for nefarious things, things that if your Books were to believed, even unholy things, done in Your Name, while at the same time no objective evidence exists that we are talking about anything at all.

Dear God, we know that it is held that you love all your Children, even those such as don’t believe in you, or otherwise believe that the running of a just society is possible without a belief in your existence, but who otherwise hold in a belief in Human Morality, which, if you did exist, would be Your Gift, also.

It is in this spirit, I would like to Ask You, to please Inform the Hearts of your Followers, such that they stop doing things like this, yes, even to those who believe in Human Morality as opposed to God-based Morality:

In the late 1980s, protesters burned Crabb’s likeness in effigy after she allowed Indian tribes to spearfish off their reservations – a practice some white fishermen believed ruined their sport. Demonstrators threw rocks, uttered racial slurs and accused Crabb of giving Indians special treatment.

It is Often Asked, by those who profess a Belief in You, What would Jesus do?  I know, Dear God, that if you Do Exist, you would not want to have your Followers Burning People in Effigy, even such as those who don’t Believe that a Belief in You, Personally, is Necessary or Consonant with the running of a Just Government.

In this spirit, so ordered and requested by Barack Obama, among others, that I would like to Abjure, Request and Plead with you for the following.

And the corollary Constitutional right to say extremely crazy, untrue, provocative things to large gatherings of possibly armed people has been getting a workout, too.

Look at this:

A few thousand people gathered at Freedom Plaza in Washington today for the first of two Tea Party rallies in the nation’s capital today organized to protest government spending and taxation.

Clutching angry signs and occasionally breaking out into chants of “USA! USA!,” the protesters listened to a series of fiery speeches attacking the Obama administration for what they cast as irresponsible spending and far left wing policies.

Rep. Michele Bachmann said the “gangster government” has instituted a “takeover of one private industry after another,” again making her questionable claim that “the federal government owns or controls 51 percent of the private economy.”

She said the Obama administration is “perfectly content with presiding over a decline in our economy,” adding: “I’d say it’s time for these little piggies to go home, and come November that’s where they’re headed.”

That, of course, is Constitutionally protected, insane speech.  The “gangster government” was elected by a majority vote.  And its policies, for better or worse, were what it was apparently elected to do.  Evidently, democracy and majority rule are now “gangster government.”  But strangely, the previous administration’s kidnapping foreign nationals off of streets, secretly putting them on airplanes, flying them to secret, black hole prisons, and torturing them for months is not “gangster government.” That’s necessary “security.”  The illegal renditions must not have been “gangster government” solely because there was no demand for ransom.  But I digress.

Michele Bachmann’s (RWNJ-Minn) utterances are so far from the truth and so obviously unhinged that Bill Clinton has criticized them:

“They are not gangsters,” Mr. Clinton said in an interview with the New York Times. “They were elected. They are not doing anything they were not elected to do.”

The former president, who was in his first term in office when Timothy McVeigh bombed an Oklahoma City federal building, drew parallels between the anti-government rhetoric being used now and what was being said then.

But back then it was the camouflage wearing militia fringe that was making the dangerous, provocative claims.  Nobody in their right mind listened to their rantings.  They were shunned.  And they got no publicity.   And now, well now it’s an elected Congressperson and evidently the Tea Parties and Faux TV that trumpet this insanity and the rest of the Traditional Media^TM feels compelled further to disseminate the ravings.

The First Amendment Right to crazy talk is getting a total, stretching workout.  Let’s hope this exercise of madness doesn’t lead inexorably to yet another “imminent breach of the peace.”

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simulposted at The Dream Antilles and dailyKos

First, my apologies to all I’ve offended.  All I can say is, it was whiskey and a new medicine speaing.

So, what about the Citizens United case?

In a nutshell, it practically changes federal law very little but overturns a lot of state law.

In terms of federal elections, Citizens United changes the law little and doesn’t mean much.

As for state elections, fasten your seatbelt.

Advocacy organizations will now be able to go into states, such as Michigan, and pound the voters.  Fasten your seat belt.

The real question is, will you give to these advocacy organizations?

That’s what they hope.

Mr. Olbermann, can we talk a minute? Let the Dog start off by saying he is a huge fan of your show Countdown, he and Mrs. Dog have watched for years, all the way back to when you were counting the days since the declaration of mission accomplished in Iraq in the low 1000’s. This all prefaces to talk about an issue the Dog has with you in one very particular area.

“Originally posted at Squarestate.net“

Crossposted at daily kos

Sarah Palin and Thomas Van Flien are lizard people from the planet Trafalmador disguised as human beings, the Palin children were hatched in an incubator, Todd Palin is a mutant whose super power is to remind us of Kevin Federline, and Thomas Van Flein engaged in sexual acts with a donkey and a snowblower.

    I will say whatever I damn well please about Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Michael Wiener (Savage) or anyone else, because I have the right to do so. If Sarah Palin and Thomas Van Flien don’t like it, they can go blow it out their a$$.

    I say a$$, because, much like $250,000 of Ex-Gov Palin’s wardrobe, I know someone is paying her lawyer, and I doubt that it is her.

ABC Shits on Bloggers, and quotes John McCain saying

    “She will continue to play an important leadershiprole in the Republican party.”    

– Sen. John McCain

    This is clearly a victory for John McCain

    A hat tip to DKos user Walt starr whose diary Palin’s Attorney Threatening Lawsuits helped make this story public.

    In what amounts to an attack on free speech as well as blogger’s rights, Thomas Van Flien wrote a letter on behalf of Ex Alaska Gov and possibly soon to be indicted Sarah Palin (R) which threatens lawsuits specifically against Blogger Shanynn Moore of The Mudflats.net and citizen journalism.

    I reserve the right to speculate the potential indictment of Ex-Gov Sarah Palin for illegal involvement with contractors in the building of the Wasilia Sports Complex, as well as the illegal firing of an Alaska State Trooper who had ties to the Palin family, as well as the possible poaching committed by Sarah Palin’s Father In Law for hunting big game without the appropriate hunting tags, and any other potential illegality or conflict of interest engaged in by Sarah Palin during her 30 month tenure as Governor of Alaska.    

    Further, I reserve my first Amendment right to speculate that Sarah Palin and Thomas Van Flien are lizard people from the planet Trafalmador disgusied as human beings. I have the right to speculate that the Palin children were hatched in an incubator and that Todd Palin is a mutant whose super power is to remind us of Kevin Federline, and I reserve the right to speculate that Thomas Van Flein engaged in sexual acts with a donkey and a snowblower.