It's also possible that it was an accident. Russian insurgents in Ukraine have been firing anti-aircraft missiles at Ukrainian fighter jets, so who knows. But an airliner looks nothing like a fighter jet or even a bomber.Exactly. I suspect that Russia may use the same excuse. We shall see. After all, Obama is no threat.

It's such an emotional issue dependent on where you stand. You have people like the Hilton sisters who make people question whether they really deserve what they have for doing nothing. But these same people seem to have no issue with what Justin Beaver or LeBron James and others make. Nasty CEO's and their millions are just horrible people when so many of our citizens "deserve" a piece of their pie to make their lives so much easier.

Personally I'd rater see an increase in opportunity equality than simply focusing on income.

At least they know where it is this time. I wonder how long CNN will cover it for. ....remember a few months ago another airplane who was going to Malaysia disappear

I see the tea party movement as very similar to the jihadist movement in the Muslim religion.  Only their way is acceptable.  This is the new religion that is sweeping the less intelligent of our people. The Old white men want to take this country back.  The real problem is that yes everything looked better when you were young, but as you get older you pine for the good old days when you could walk or run around and you didn't get ackes and pains.  Those days won't come back so for god sake quit trying.

link for use of cluster bombs in densely populated areas (I know, that's all of gaza basically). just haven't heard this before.

A very interesting post.  It does seem to fit what is happening with the tea party today. Sadly it is turning into a religion of hatred.

You actually think Russia is behind this? Why would Putin purposely do something to hurt the appearances of the rebels? It's more likely that the Ukrainians shot it down to blame Russia.

The thing is, Israel attacks terrorist/military targets while Hamas attacks civilian targets. And Israel's military doesn't hide behind civilians when conducting their operations the way Hamas does.

This well written op-ed completely nails what liberals have been saying about the "grassroots" TP movement from the beginning.  It isn't political fervor; it's ham-fisted religious fundamentalist radicalism.




The Tea Party Isn’t a Political Movement, It’s a Religious One
Obama is the Antichrist, Republicans are heretics, and compromise is unholy. Politics can’t explain how the right acts.
Jack Schwartz
July 13, 2014


America has long been the incubator of many spiritual creeds going back to the Great Awakening and even earlier. Only one of them, Mormonism, has taken root and flourished as a true religion sprung from our own native ground. Today, however, we have a new faith growing from this nation’s soil: the Tea Party. Despite its secular trappings and “taxed enough already” motto, it is a religious movement, one grounded in the traditions of American spiritual revival. This religiosity explains the Tea Party’s political zealotry.

The mark of a national political party in a democracy is its pluralistic quality, i.e. the ability to be inclusive enough to appeal to the broadest number of voters who may have differing interests on a variety of issues. While it may stand for certain basic principles, a party is often flexible in applying them, as are its representatives in fulfilling them. Despite the heated rhetoric of elections and the bombast of elected representatives, they generally seek consensus with the minority in order to achieve their legislative goals.

But when religion is thrown into the mix, all that is lost. Religion here doesn’t mean theology but a distinct belief system which, in totality, provides basic answers regarding how to live one’s life, how society should function, how to deal with social and political issues, what is right and wrong, who should lead us, and who should not. It does so in ways that fulfill deep-seated emotional needs that, at their profoundest level, are devotional. Given the confusions of a secular world being rapidly transformed by technology, demography, and globalization, this movement has assumed a spiritual aspect whose adepts have undergone a religious experience which, if not in name, then in virtually every other aspect, can be considered a faith.

Seen in this light, the behavior of Tea Party adherents makes sense. Their zeal is not the mercurial enthusiasm of a traditional Republican or Democrat that waxes and wanes with the party’s fortunes, much less the average voter who may not exercise the franchise at every election. These people are true believers who turn out faithfully at the primaries, giving them political clout in great excess to their actual numbers.  Collectively, this can make it appear as if they are preponderant, enabling their tribunes to declare that they represent the will of the American people.

While a traditional political party may have a line that it won’t cross,the Tea Party has a stone-engraved set of principles, all of which are sacrosanct. This is not a political platform to be negotiated but a catechism with only a single answer. It is now a commonplace for Tea Party candidates to vow they won’t sacrifice an iota of their principles. In this light, shutting down the Government rather than bending on legislation becomes a moral imperative. While critics may decry such a tactic as “rule or ruin,” Tea Party brethren celebrate it, rather, as the act of a defiant Samson pulling down the pillars of the temple. For them, this is not demolition but reclamation, cleansing the sanctuary that has been profaned by liberals. They see themselves engaged in nothing less than a project of national salvation. The refusal to compromise is a watchword of their candidates who wear it as a badge of pride. This would seem disastrous in the give-and-take of politics but it is in keeping with sectarian religious doctrine. One doesn’t compromise on an article of faith.

This explains why the Tea Party faithful often appear to be so bellicose. You and I can have a reasonable disagreement about fiscal policy or foreign policy but if I attack your religious beliefs you will become understandably outraged. And if I challenge the credibility of your doctrine you will respond with righteous indignation. To question the validity of Moses parting the Red Sea or the Virgin Birth or Mohammed ascending to heaven on a flying horse is to confront the basis of a believer’s deepest values.

Consequently, on the issues of government, economics, race, and sex, the Tea Party promulgates a doctrine to which the faithful must subscribe. Democrats and independents who oppose their dogma are infidels. Republicans who don’t obey all the tenants are heretics, who are primaried rather than burned at the stake.

Like all revealed religions this one has its own Devil in the form of Barack Obama. This Antichrist in the White House is an illegitimate ruler who must be opposed at every turn, along with his lesser demons, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. They are responsible for everything that has gone wrong with the country in the last six years and indeed, they represent a liberal legacy that has betrayed America’s ideals for the better part of a century. Washington is seen in the same way Protestant fire-breathers once saw Rome: a seat of corruption that has betrayed the pillars of the faith. The only way to save America’s sanctity is to take control of Washington and undermine the federal government while affecting to repair it. Critical to this endeavor is the drumroll of hell-fire sermons from the tub-thumpers of talk radio and Fox News. This national revival tent not only exhorts the faithful but its radio preachers have ultimately become the arbiters of doctrinal legitimacy, determining which candidates are worthy of their anointment and which lack purity.

Having created a picture of Hell, the Tea Party priesthood must furnish the faithful with an image of Paradise. This Eden is not located in space but in time: the Republic in the decades after the Civil War when the plantocracy ruled in the South and plutocrats reigned in the North. Blacks knew their place in Dixie through the beneficence of states’ rights, and the robber barons of the North had a cozy relationship with the government prior to the advent of labor laws, unions, and the income tax. Immigrants were not yet at high tide. It was still a white, male, Christian country and proudly so. When Tea Party stalwarts cry  “Take back America!” we must ask from whom, and to what? They seek to take it back to the Gilded Age, and retrieve it from the lower orders: immigrants, minorities the “takers” of the “47 percent,” and their liberal enablers.

Most critical to any religious movement is a holy text, and the Right has appropriated nothing less than the Constitution to be its Bible. The Tea Party, its acolytes in Congress and its allies on the Supreme Court have allocated to themselves the sole interpretation of the Constitution with the ethos of “Originalism.” Legal minds look to the text to read the thoughts of the Framers as a high priest would study entrails at the Forum. The focus is on text rather than context and authors; the writing rather than the reality in which the words were written. This sort of thinking is a form of literalism that is kindred in spirit to the religious fundamentalism and literal, Biblical truth that rose as bulwarks against modernity.

One thing that Tea Partiers and liberals alike both recognize is that the Constitution forbids the establishment of religion. The prohibition was erected for good reason:  to prevent the religious wars that wracked Europe in the previous century. The Enlightenment was to transcend such sectarian violence inimical to the social order together with the concomitant religious oppression that burdened individual conscience. By investing a political faction with a religious dimension the Tea Party presents a challenge to both religion and democracy.

Jack Schwartz supervised Newsday's book pages and was a longtime editor at several New York dailies.


http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/13/the-tea-party-isn-t-a-political-movement-it-s-a-religious-one.html

No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.
Pillage is prohibited.
Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited.


Seems relatively straight forward, and I don't see how collateral damage would apply normally. If the intent was to destroy property in the vicinity as punishment for something the people didn't actually do, then yes.

I would suggest most people in first world countries have a problem with the concept of collective punishment. I certainly do. Israel has no blame here. They have a right to exist, and be where they are at. The Palestinians choose war over peace.

Watchdogs is a good game, kinda short though but fun almost like grand theft auto.  you can get it for free on xbox live gold, but I think that was like 4 months ago.

You don't need to remember passwords. Just always use the "forgot my password" link and get a new auto-generated one every time you want to use the site. If they don't assign a temporary one, just cut and paste a whole paragraph from an arbitrary web page that you happen have open. You don't have to remember anything if you reset every time you want to log in.

Even though I am an atheist I like this Pope and am really hoping he justifies my affection by rooting out the pedophiles and starting to turn them over to the police.
But, as it is with all of this pope's hippie talk about helping the poor and social justice, I worry about this pope's, uh, health. You just get the sense that if he pushes too far he might get suddenly very ill. Or he may become victim to a terrible "accident."
It will take a lot of effort to take one of the world's most corrupt institutions and turn it into a force for good.

LOL   Name every conservative comedian you know....and after you are finished writing "Dennis Miller"...Ill write down the names a few hundred liberal comedians.

I'm STILL trying to discern where your funny joke is a shot at the president.  So far, you haven't said.

Michelle Obama is not an elected political figure, but she does have the right to free speech, a platform, and the right to support her own and her husband's programs.  Just as Laura Bush did.  So no, you don't get to lump her in with a congresswoman who deserves what she gets (as if either of them deserve that)    Would your 'joke' naming Laura a good trade for a pig draw guffaws from you?

You can tell the 'same jokes' if you live in 1940 in your head. So what do you forward thinking girls think of Rush's knee slapper about Chelsea Clinton?   Is that the nuance you can relate to?
Conservative humor is all some variation on I Love Lucy.  Lucille Ball was a genius comedian, but the show was misogynistic as fuck.  Unfortunately it covered the entire range of r-w "humor".

When I was your age, I also thought wonderful thoughts about world peace and shit.Now i see this things with different eyes.

The question is not if this thing is going to go, it's when. something is going on with the volcano. Just a couple of years ago there was a report that the land level was rising due to magma filling the chamber. then just recently, reports of earthquake swarms around the area. now we have roads melting.. Folks, lets be frank here sure the USGS has no Idea when it will go. we can all agree with that. but we can also agree that it's gearing up to go sometime in the future.