There’s an article up at HuffPost entitled, “What If a Muslim Company Used the ‘Hobby Lobby’ Decision to Impose Its Values on White Christians?”
As long as Scalia, Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy are on the bench, I really don’t think we have to worry about that.
As Iraq disintegrates, Dems are blaming Bush and Republicans are blaming Obama. And the same arguments will take place when we finally leave Afghanistan and that God-forsaken place falls apart.
But as we apportion blame, let’s not forget the British and the French.
One of the huge problems we’ve had fighting in Afghanistan is that when we pursue the Taliban, they cross the border into Pakistan, where our ability to follow them is severely restricted. The Afghans have a save haven there because the people are Pashtun on both sides of the border. Rather than think of themselves as Afghans or Pakistanis, they think of themselves primarily as Pashtuns. A sensible border would have all the Pashtuns living in the same country, but noooooo. Back in 1893, a British colonial official created the Durand Line to separate British India from Afghanistan. When that part of India became Pakistan in 1947, the absurd border remained, irrationally dividing the Pashtuns.
As for Iraq, the British and French arbitrarily drew the Sykes-Picot line in 1916 (and implemented it after WWI), which falsely divided Ottoman Empire territory into Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, separating Sunni tribes with a purely artificial border. The Iraq side was for the British, and the Syrian-Lebanese side was for the French, with no regard for the Sunnis who should have been assigned to the same country. If ISIS weren’t welcomed and joined by Maliki-hating Sunnis as they come from Syria into Iraq, they wouldn’t have been able to make the swift conquest they have.
And don’t get me started on the Kurds, who have really gotten the short end of the stick. They are a distinct people, Muslim, but not Arab. They should have an independent Kurdistan (and maybe will when this mess get resolved) that unites the Kurds now divided among Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria.
Some Tennessee state legislators freaked out about a new floor-level sink in a men’s room at the Capitol. They thought it was — oh the horror — so that Muslims could wash their feet before prayer.
Actually, the sink is so that custodial staff can wash their mops and fill their buckets more easily.
I was going to say this is incredible, but actually it’s just Fox News being Fox News.
In a discussion about the TV network Al Jazeera, which is going to begin broadcasting in eight U. S. cities, a contributor on Megyn Kelly’s show, Lisa Daftari, said it was especially scary that Al Jazeera is going to Detroit, which has “an ex-pat community of Muslim-Americans where sleeper cells have been detected.” So Al Jazeera is going to broadcast messages to the sleeper cells!
First, if anyone’s planning to destroy Detroit, I think we already beat them to it.
Second, how can you be a Muslim-American “ex-pat” in Detroit? You can be an ex-pat in London or Paris, but an American can’t be an ex-pat in America. Oh, wait, I forgot, Muslim-Americans aren’t really Americans…
Congressman Pete King (R-NY) told CNN today, “It was great killing President bin Laden.”
Hey, Osama, Obama, it’s tough to keep the America-hating Muslims straight.
The GOP tells us that this is a watershed election. I agree, but not for the reasons they say. This isn’t about whether or not we’re going to switch to vouchers for Medicare or what the Medicaid budget is going to be. This is about whether we’re going to continue down the Republican path to the Dark Ages.
To their shame, the GOP has let extremists take over their party at the state and national level. The question on November 6 is whether we’re going to let the crazies take over our country.
I grew up believing that some things were settled in our society — that evolution was established science, that Keynesianism was established economics. But now the GOP presents laughable, long-discredited science and economics as the truth.
With 435 congressional districts, we’re going to get people like Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin. But fringe people like him should not be elevated to the Senate. And they definitely shouldn’t become Vice President, but Paul Ryan and Todd Akin are Tweedledee and Tweedledum on social issues. Ryan is a little more careful about what he says in public, but their views and votes are the same.
We are outraged about the Taliban shooting of 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan because she defended the right of girls to go to school. We rightly think the Taliban are sick barbarians. But if Ryan and Akin had their way, we’d have 14-year-old rape and incest victims dying from illegal abortions. That is every bit as sick and barbaric.
I voted for Bush 43 in 2004 and McCain in 2008 because I was afraid of the radical Muslims. I’m still a registered Republican, but I’m voting for Obama because I’m afraid of the radical Christians. I want to defeat the Christian Taliban here at home.
From “Why Russia Is Backing Syria,” Ruslan Pukhov, NYT:
“Many Russians believe that the collapse of the Assad government would be tantamount to the loss of Russia’s last client and ally in the Middle East and the final elimination of traces of former Soviet prowess there — illusory as those traces may be.
“Such attitudes are further buttressed by widespread pessimism about the eventual outcome of the Arab Spring, and the Syrian revolution in particular. Most Russian observers believe that Arab revolutions have completely destabilized the region and cleared the road to power for the Islamists. In Moscow, secular authoritarian governments are seen as the sole realistic alternative to Islamic dominance.
“The continuing struggles in Arab countries are seen as a battle by those who wear neckties against those who do not wear them. Russians have long suffered from terrorism and extremism at the hands of Islamists in the northern Caucasus, and they are therefore firmly on the side of those who wear neckties.
“To people in Moscow, Mr. Assad appears not so much as ‘a bad dictator’ but as a secular leader struggling with an uprising of Islamist barbarians.”
The Russians are backing Assad for the same reason we backed Mubarak for all those years. We both fear the Arab Street. The Russian have their bastards, and we have ours.
The Russians have never been fond of Islam. Under the Czars, the Russians viewed the Muslims in their empire as a threat to Christianity. Under the Communists, the Russians viewed the Muslims in their empire as a threat to atheism.
Embattled Farmers 