Headlines - Monday August 30

While the teabaggers are getting ready to vote for a Senator from Alaska who believes that unemployment insurance and Social Security are unconstitutional and people delude themselves that these people are ONLY concerned about the national debt, it's funny how we've heard NOTHING from any of these teabaggers and their candidates about the billions squandered in rebuilding Iraq:

A $40 million prison sits in the desert north of Baghdad, empty. A $165 million children's hospital goes unused in the south. A $100 million waste water treatment system in Fallujah has cost three times more than projected, yet sewage still runs through the streets.

As the U.S. draws down in Iraq, it is leaving behind hundreds of abandoned or incomplete projects. More than $5 billion in American taxpayer funds has been wasted — more than 10 percent of the some $50 billion the U.S. has spent on reconstruction in Iraq, according to audits from a U.S. watchdog agency.

That amount is likely an underestimate, ......

 

And this doesn't even include the $9 billion that mysteriously disappeared in that country during the war.

 

Meanwhile, in the other war ...

 

It's a good thing the U.S. is spending hundreds of billions of tax dollars and thousands of American lives to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen. Wait .... "The bodies of five people working for a female candidate in Afghanistan's parliamentary election have been found in western Herat province. They were among a group of 10 people kidnapped by armed men on Wednesday. Five were later released, say reports. The Taliban later said they carried out the abductions. No group has said it carried out the killings. The staff were working for Fauzia Galani, who is seeking re-election to parliament in September's polls. Police chief Nisar Ahmad Popal said the bodies had been found dumped on a mountainside in Adrskan district. Reports say their hands had been bound and they had been shot in the head. Taliban insurgents opposed to the elections in general - and female candidates in particular - have been blamed for the murder of a number of candidates."

 

And in that vein: Another Afghan candidate assassinated The murder of Haji Abdul Manan by two unidentified gunmen on a motorbike who rolled up on him as he walked to his mosque for evening prayers on Friday brought the number of candidates killed in advance of the September 18 elections to four.  The United Nations also reports widespread intimidation of female candidates. On Thursday, ten campaign workers and relatives of one female candidate, Fawzia Gilani, were reported missing in Herat. It is unknown yet whether they were nabbed by the Taliban or a political rival. About 2500 candidates are vying for 249 seats in the Parliament. Of those 249 seats, 65 are set aside for women, and 385 (exceedingly brave) women are running. (For the record, we love it when we both get a part of a larger story.)

 

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Frank Rich has a magnificent column on their billionaires, the ones who fund the Hard Right (and fund it and fund it and fund it)

 

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What We Saw at the Glenn Beck Rally in DC (Whitestock).

 

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Religious rights only apply to Christians or possibly Mormons. CBS News:

Federal officials are investigating a fire that started overnight at the site of a new Islamic center in a Nashville suburb.

Ben Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department confirmed to CBS Affiliate WTVF that the fire, which burned construction equipment at the future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, is being ruled as arson.

Special Agent Andy Anderson of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told CBS News that the fire destroyed one piece of construction equipment and damaged three others. Gas was poured over the equipment to start the fire, Anderson said

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Symbol of Fear: Glenn Beck Wore a Bulletproof Vest at Restoring Honor Rally

 

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In case you thought it was only about proximity to Ground Zero

Apparently even Tennessee is too close to Ground Zero to build a mosque:

 

Federal officials are investigating a fire that started overnight at the site of a new Islamic center in a Nashville suburb.

Ben Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department confirmed to CBS Affiliate WTVF that the fire, which burned construction equipment at the future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, is being ruled as arson.

These people see no irony in their fear of shari'a law while calling this a Christian nation. And in case you're inclined to think this kind of thing is justified, substitute the word "synagogue" for mosque, and then tell me that this is in no way, shape, or form similar to Germany circa 1935.

There has been no spectacular attack. Even when the "underwear bomber" episode took place by someone who WAS a radical Muslim, we didn't see this kind of response. So why do we see it now?

Why? Because it's an election year. Because Republicans sense that many Americans have a deep mistrust of Islam that lies right under the surface, and they can exploit it for political gain by reminding them of the mysterious guy in the White House with the funny name. The problem is that when you whip people into a frenzy of fear, it's hard to control what happens. Of course, the Republicans are sitting there, popcorn in hand, waiting for it to all blow up, certain that when it does, it won't be in THEIR faces.

 

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This ought to distract Pakistan from the continuing and horrific floods: a cricket scandal. "Three Pakistan cricket players have been questioned by police over claims they were involved in a betting scam, the team manager has said. Yawar Saeed said cricket was not "institutionally corrupt" in Pakistan, and the claims were unproven. The News of the World claims it paid a middleman for details of three no-balls later bowled by Pakistan as predicted. A man arrested on Saturday on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud bookmakers has been bailed without charge. Scotland Yard said Mazhar Majeed, 35, was bailed to appear before police at a future date."

 

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Those pesky environmental stories that don't get to the front pages...and if they do, they fall below the fold.

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The last American "combat brigade" may have left Iraq, but this is far, far, far from over.

 

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Glenn Beck: American fascist.

 

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Barack Obama so bored of peoplke calling him Muslim

Glenn Beck gathered 90,000 of his saddest friends from the senior center to have a picnic lunch on MLK's grave Saturday, which was just a way for Glenn Beck to say to Obama, "When I called you a 'racist,' what I meant was some kind of vague crap about how you are not as Christian as I am, because I am some kind of 'Mormon Convert,' whatever that is." Obama ignored this entirely, and instead told a secular teevee news host that it just doesn't matter if some people who already hate black people prefer to just call the president a "Muslim" instead. But why do the Muslims all love Obama so much? It's not like he quit bombing Afghanistan all the time! It's not like he closed the American Torture Prison at Guantanamo Bay! So maybe Obama really is a secret half-muslin, because what else could explain his sky-high approval ratings with the very people he tortures and bombs, daily, for America? A shocking 78% of American Muslims approve of this guy, even though his very rare visits to church were, in fact, to a "Church of Christ" in Chicago. That doesn't sound like a very good mosque name, "Church of Christ." [Business Week/Chicago Tribune]

 

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The End of America: Last Glance At Glenn Beck's Horror Picnic

 

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Ladies and gentlemen, the "id" of your typical Beckhead unleashed.

 

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Honest to Christ, how do you combat this level of willful stupidity?

Connie Lowe is 47, a homemaker from Parrish, N.Y., who has never voted but plans to do so this fall, moved by a new energy in the country she can't quite explain.

"It's the economy today," she said. " I want my son" -- 8-year-old Alexander -- "to grow up and be able to get a degree and get a job."

She has struggled to find work -- in a factory or day care, but jobs are scarce. She is being supported by her boyfriend, a Vietmam War veteran who has a heating and cooling business.

Her dislike over where the country is going motivated her to climb aboard one of 23 buses that came from the Albany area. "I want to fight back, get involved in what's going on," she said.

And President Obama? "Don't get me started," she said. "It's like he doesn't care. He's always off playing golf or on vacation or something. He has no idea what's going on with our boys in Iraq. He never served a day in his life."

Did Connie manage to SLEEP through 2001 - 2008?

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Beck and cashing in on god

Beck's got this shtick down pat.

In what resembled more a revival than a political rally, conservative talk show host Glenn Beck urged the large crowds at his "Restoring Honor" event Saturday to "turn back to God" and return America to the values on which it was founded.

"Something beyond imagination is happening," he told participants who packed the National Mall in Washington. "America today begins to turn back to God. For too long, this country has wandered in darkness."

"Look forward. Look West. Look to the heavens. Look to God and make your choice," he said. "Do we no longer believe in the power of the individual? Do we no longer believe in dreams?"

Well I don't know about anyone else but as Dana Milbank points out, Beck certainly believes in his dream.

There is a telling anecdote in Glenn Beck's 2003 memoir about how the cable news host was influenced by the great fantasist Orson Welles. To travel between performances in Manhattan, Beck recounts, Welles hired an ambulance, sirens blaring, to ferry him around town — not because Welles was ill but because he wanted to avoid traffic.

Most of us would regard this as dishonest, a ploy by the self-confessed charlatan that Welles was. Beck saw it as a model to be emulated. "Welles," he writes, "inspired me to believe that I can create anything that I can see or imagine."

And so he has.  Beck has created a fictional world of good versus evil where he, anointed by God no less, plays the pivotal role of savior for the huddled masses who face oppression and tyranny at the hands of an oligarchy controlled by progressives.  And if along the way Beck cashes in a few hundred million, so be it.  The Beckster will tell you it is all part of God's master plan.