Much has been made of Christine O’Donnell’s surprising win over the former governor of Delaware, Mike Castle for Republican senate candidate. It appeared that even O’Donnell was surprised herself. Why has so much been made over O’Donnell rather than the others, especially the guy with the porno email? Simple. Christine O’Donnell has a paper/video trail a mile long. She is not obscure.
O’Donnell is an attractive 41 year old woman who has appeared at least 22 times on Bill Maher’s show, Politically Incorrect. O’Donnell was the Christian Activist on the panel. Additionally, she ran at least once against Joe Biden for senator. She has been a spokesperson for Concerned Women for American, and she was the president and founder of S.A.L.T. (Savior’s Alliance for Lifting the Truth). People know too much about her.
At least 5 senatorial candidates have gone on record, very recently, (no blaming the past) as being very much in favor of what the rest of us would call big government–government intrusion into people’s personal lives–the kind of government intrusion that heretofore has gotten people labeled part of the reactionary fringe. These 5 candidates have stated that they are opposed to abortion even in cases of rape or incest.
Even those politicians in the pro-life movement, with the except of only a couple of people, have not stated that they think a woman should be forced by the government to bear the child of her rapist. This position is extremism and it certainly isn’t getting government out of people’s business.
Shame on these 5. Women and girls are attacked and sexually abused daily. Those who are exposed to incest have an increased chance of pregnancy because of the repeated behavior. And yes, it does happen, horrifying as it sounds.
This kind of intrusion goes beyond the pale and illustrates that real everyday people aren’t running for office. These people are idealists and social busy bodies who are clueless about some of the hardships of life that face some people daily. If they truly are against big government, they will pull in their horns on this issue. Otherwise they are just as bad as the people they so desperately want to replace or worse.
Not only will pro choice women shun these candidates, but some who generally consider them pro-life will do the same. Most people want a safety net in there. No exceptions for rape and incest is hardcore extremism.
On Sept. 12, 1960, presidential candidate John F. Kennedy gave one of the most important speeches on church and state in American history. Refuting charges that his Catholic religious affiliation would interfere with his presidential duties, Kennedy outlined the proper constitutional relationship between religion and government.
A half century later, Americans are still struggling with issues of faith and politics. Some candidates trumpet their personal religous affiliations in a crass attempt to secure votes. Others attacks Islam or other minority faiths in a divisive and destructive maneuver to win elections.
The speech you just heard was given 2 months before the 1960 election day. At the time JFK spoke, no Catholic had ever been elected president. To date, he is still the only Catholic to be elected president, even though the Supreme Court is made up of three Jews and 6 Catholics. It is the first time in history that there has been no protestant on the high court.
The same abuses are going on today that Kennedy addressed, only I believe those abuses are worse. Americans are still trying to get money from the public coffers to support religious based schools. Priests and Bishops are denying politicians the sacraments because they have labeled themselves pro-choice. Houses of worship are being vandalized and at times denied permission to build because of who they are.
Some Americans continue to deny that the Founders built in some protections in our Constitution. These same folks seem to think that the establishment clause was to protect churches from government only. Some people still want to hang their own doctrine in classrooms and endoctrinate school children because they are a captive audience. The call for prayer in schools is loud and clear, even though it has been almost 50 years since Madalyn Murray O’Hair won her famous case before the Supreme Court.
There is a call for ministers to preach who the ‘good’ Christian candidates are from the pulpit and to defy IRS rulesthat forbid this type of behavior. The Air Force Academy was under the microscope for harassing cadets who weren’t evangelical and for requiring attendance at certain functions. Mikey Weinstein’s organization Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Wiccans at Fort Hood gained the right to practice their religion only to have it snatched away because of community pressure.
Some Americans were highly insulted at the reference to the ‘Guns and God’ vote by President Obama. No thought was given to what is said about him on a daily basis regarding his country of birth and his religion, of course. Many Americans very want religion to be a part of their government, just as long as it is THEIR religion and not someone else’s. Sharia Law is unacceptable but a Christian version of the same thing would be perfectly acceptable to some folks.
I am not sure Kennedy’s dream wasn’t far too illusive for the last part of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century.
[UPDATE: At least one other blog has launched a character assassination of some of us here on Moonhowlings. Actually, I haven’t been sent a single word that is true. That’s the sad part. How can people be so self-righteous and yet be so incorrect in their assumptions?]
The Torches and Pitchforks gathering at Manassas City Chambers scheduled for tomorrow night @ 7 pm just might have to take to the parking lot. The Manassas City Council will be holding a special meeting at 6:30 in the chambers. It will be difficult for 2 meetings to be held at the same place at the same time. Citizens time will be held and the same standards as any other Council meeting will be adhered to.
This meeting will follow a closed session with attorneys scheduled for 5:30 p.m.
Since this topic cropped up last week, I have read and heard the word ‘Christian’ thrown around quite a bit. That’s getting a little old. Plenty of good Christian people, as well as people of other faiths, will be in attendance at the City Council meeting supporting an upscale adult boutique. Some of the politicians who want to trumpet their religion to their base should be just as worried about dissing those folks who don’t consider themselves part of the Conservative Christian movement.
“I shall not today attempt further to define [obscenity]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it….”
That famous statement, uttered by the late Justice Potter Stewart in 1973 when faced with a case involving obscenity, illustrates the difficulty of trying to determine what constitutes obscene or pornographic content. The term “pornography” has no well-defined meaning, certainly no legal definition. And if a Supreme Court justice had trouble defining the nature of sexually explicit material, how easy is it for the rest of us—each of whom looks at the world in a different way? Lack of consensus is one reason the subject of pornography is such a contentious legal issue.
Pornography is a word thrown about all too easily. We call lots of things ‘porn’ or pornography when we really don’t mean it. We joke a lot about porn. Obviously the XXX girlie shows are porn, aren’t they? Anything that says XXX has to be porn and it has been my experience, if it has even one X, it is.
I realized last week that people have very different ideas about what constitutes pornography. A new adult boutique will be opening in the City of Manassas in the near future and the townspeople are beside themselves. I am asking what’s the big deal? Another such shop exists on route 28 that has been in business for at least 20 years. People don’t like the location of the new kid on the block, it seems. Not in the City of Manassas! So do we want to take what we perceive as porn and brush it under the rug? Do we want it far away so we can sneak into the store and buy something we wouldn’t want our mothers to know about and not be seen by our friends and neighbors?
Is Old Town Manassas the crown jewel where there are no secrets? Young people (under 40) seem to have a lot easier time simply discussing things like sex toys and real fancy erotic underwear much easier than those of us who are post 40. Yet, some of the people hollering the loudest are not in the post 40 demographic.
The best example I can come up with when someone asks what is porn would be the John Bobbitt flick he made after he was sliced and diced. Someone got Mr. Howler an advanced copy and he was all proud of himself for getting the coveted video. I lasted maybe all of 30 seconds before I left the room. Mr. Howler, tough guy that he is, was even grossed out and he didn’t last more than 5 minutes. So is porn stuff that grosses us out? Is it always sexual? How do we decide what ‘community standards’ are? Is the issue of porn on a collision course with 1st amendment rights?
Before we can decide what kind of shops we want to condone or condemn , it seems sensible to clarify what we really consider pornographic, obscene or indecent. In doing so, we have to realize that our neighbors probably won’t come up with the same set of attributes.
Just when we thought it was safe to go back to the City of Manassas, we find out that the sin of sex is lurking about on Battle Street. Oh my goodness! Some Godless sinner wants to set up a shop selling ‘marital aids.’
I suppose the major question should be whether the proposed shop will fit in with the decor of Old Town Manassas or will it have a giant condom the size of Gumby outside, luring customers in. Will Mr. Buzzy be out sitting on the bench outside the shop, showing all the ladies his talents?
Perhaps the shop keeper will behave as anyone wanting to do business and keep the ‘adult’ business inside and the kiddies out. Or, if ‘marital aids’ aka sex toys are just a sideline, perhaps there will be an adult section of the store. Anyone wanting to fit in needs to meet zoning standards and town codes. The decor should match everyone else.
Manassas is no stranger to stores of this nature. There is a Fashion Fantasy clothing shop over on rt. 28 that sells considerably more than fishnet stockings. No one seemed to mind that shop and it has been there for years. All sorts of dirty little secrets can be bought at Fashion Fantasy on 28. If any of the town leaders are upset because the new shop will be in Old Town, then that is pretty hypocritical. I guess it is ok to have an erotic shop over near the trailer park but not too close to the more upscale part of town. Some things never change.
Little birds are telling me that some of the fine folks of Manassas have some fairly draconian plans to discourage customers. So much for the concept of free market. Probably those who are in the biggest tail spin over the new shop are the ones who do a lot of catalog orders. [wink wink]
Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and his sidekick, Sideshow Bob (Marshall) have quite a dog and pony show going. Marshall asks a question of a controversial nature and AG answers it, thus setting the Old Dominion on a collision course with civil liberties each and every time. Does anyone notice a pattern?
Loudoun County’s controversial debate over public displays on the courthouse lawn now has the ear of Virginia’s top attorney.
State Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli on Aug. 24 issued an opinion saying Loudoun County can erect holiday Christmas displays on public property as long as the displays represent other faiths and beliefs.
The opinion came at the request of state Del. Bob Marshall (R-south-central Loudoun).
Beck, a popular figure among tea party activists and a polarizing Fox News Channel personality, is headlining the event, and Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee and a potential 2012 president candidate, will be a prominent speaker. But Beck told his television audience again on Thursday that it’s not about politics.
The event’s website says the rally is to pay tribute to America’s military personnel and others “who embody our nation’s founding principles of integrity, truth and honor.” It also is to promote the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, which provides scholarships and services to family members of military members.
The website urges citizens to attend and “help us restore the values that founded this great nation.”
How can anything featuring Sarah Palin not be about politics? She is the embodiment of politics.
Rachel Maddow does an excellent job of showing how rights can be taken away by making whatever it is that people are trying to do inaccessible. Inaccessibility substitutes for making an act illegal. Its a rather cowardly, un-democratic means of getting one’s own political way. Maddow also interviews the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice America.
Maddow explains how hospital regulations would financially burden abortion providers rather than making abortion safer (Double wide hallways, swinging doors, 15 mile proximity to emergency room, etc.) Cuccinelli’s explanation is vague and full of weasel words, so that the average Virginian really doesn’t know what is being said.
Cuccinelli attempted draconian, technically illegal abortion legislation while he served in the Virginia Senate. He was unable to ever pass his legislation. Now he attempts to circumvent legislation by simply declaring his opinion to be law. His attempts to codify his own opinion won’t fly for long.
Cuccinelli will not last. Most people don’t like having other people in their bedrooms. It remains to be seen if McDonnell will execute Cuccinelli’s opinion into state policy. Meanwhile, Cuccinelli has driven Virginia so far to the cultural right that he endangers other Republicans who might not be extremists.
Finally, Maddow addresses something the rest of us have been aware of for a long time. There is a tendency to bully those who are pro-choice. Many pro-choice people feel too intimidated to admit they are pro-choice, much less hold their legislators accountable for their votes. Every woman in Virginia must decide that the women of Virginia are capable of making their own morally appropriate choices. They need to decide today that they will not allow others to define them. Pro-choice is not being pro-abortion and do not let anyone tell you it is.
Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) says he knows firsthand the risky business of refusing to call President Obama a “socialist” from his primary election defeat earlier this summer.
Inglis was quoted reflecting back on his loss by the New York Daily News on Monday.
“I figured out early in the race I was taking a risk by being unwilling to call the President a socialist,” explained the outgoing congressman. “I’d get asked a question and they’d all wait to see if I’d use the word – socialist – they were throwing around. I wouldn’t. Because I don’t think that’s what he is.”
Inglis elaborated, “To call him a socialist is to demean the office and stir up a passion that we need to be calming, rather than constantly stirring up.”
I have no idea if Bob Inglis is correct or not. I don’t know if that is why he lost his bid for re-election in the primary held earlier in the summer. He makes a good point though. What I do know is that the word ‘socialist’ is mighty old and might tiresome. I got tired of hearing Nazi and Hitler also. I think I will add ‘socialist‘ to the ‘down the rabbit hole’ list of words that will get one thrown in to moderation so we can take a break.
It is just time to find another word. Not everything you don’t like is socialist. That is too 50’s for me. Recycled politics. Next thing we know we will slide into saying ‘communist.’ Then we will have to drag out McCarthy. At least on this blog, please find another word. It really is getting old, boring, and recycled.
Furthermore, calling someone a socialist is simply libelous and defamatory unless the individual has identified themselves as such. Spreading rumors and lies and printing unsubstantiated material without identifying it as such is much the same. Regardless of what is done on other blogs, it isn’t going to be done here.
PHOENIX — Minutemen groups, a surge in Border Patrol agents, and a tough new immigration law aren’t enough for a reputed neo-Nazi who’s now leading a militia in the Arizona desert.
Jason “J.T.” Ready is taking matters into his own hands, declaring war on “narco-terrorists” and keeping an eye out for illegal immigrants. So far, he says his patrols have only found a few border crossers who were given water and handed over to the Border Patrol. Once, they also found a decaying body in a wash, and alerted authorities.
But local law enforcement are nervous given that Ready’s group is heavily armed and identifies with the National Socialist Movement, an organization that believes only non-Jewish, white heterosexuals should be American citizens and that everyone who isn’t white should leave the country “peacefully or by force.”
“We’re not going to sit around and wait for the government anymore,” Ready said. “This is what our founding fathers did.”
An escalation of civilian border watches have taken root in Arizona in recent years, including the Minutemen movement. Various groups patrol the desert on foot, horseback and in airplanes and report suspicious activity to the Border Patrol, and generally, they have not caused problems for law enforcement.
But Ready, a 37-year-old ex-Marine, is different. He and his friends are outfitted with military fatigues, body armor and gas masks, and carry assault rifles. Ready takes offense at the term “neo-Nazi,” but admits he identifies with the National Socialist Movement.
Sharron Angle, the woman who wants to replace Harry Reid as Nevada Senator, has some pretty extremist ideas, even though she is attempting to temper some of her extremism since the primary election. The one thing she is not softening on is abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. According to the Huffington Post:
Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle has moderated a host of policy positions in her transition from a primary candidate to general election contender battling Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. One thing she has not backed away from has been her insistence that abortion should be outlawed universally, even in cases of rape and incest.
In a radio interview Angle did in late June, the Tea Party favorite re-affirmed her pro-life sensibilities (rigid, as they are, even within Republican circles), when she insisted that a young girl raped by her father should know that “two wrongs don’t make a right.” Much good can come from a horrific situation like that, Angle added. Lemons can be made into lemonade
Lemonade? OMG. We truly are in the middle of a culture war. How on earth can someone make that kind of determination for someone else?
I am not sure women are going to fall for this nonsense. Maybe the women I know are just different from the Palin kind of women. The women I know think for themselves and don’t need to get behind a Ms. Sound byte to have their voices heard.
The video is getting rave reviews in conservative circles. What’s unique or catchy about it, or is it just more of the same?
So is Sarah Palin the cheerleader for Republicans? Tea Partiers? Women? Conservatives? I am really not sure who she represents. All I know is, she quite her elected post to persue loftier ambitions. I can only assume she plans on running for President.
E. J. Dionne had an interesting Op-Ed piece in Monday’s Washington Post. In it, he used Mark Souder as the focal point as a Christian, a Christian lawmaker, and a person who recently fell, from grace [sorry–typo] and the high road.
Mark Souder was outted as having had an affair with the very part time staffer with whom he had made an abstinence -only video. Souder is certainly in a long list of those men in power who somehow betray their spouses for other women.
Dionne, a noted liberal columnist, calls upon Christians basically to come down off their high horses. Part of his column from the Washington Post is below:
…I asked Souder to appear at an event with former New York governor Mario Cuomo where both reflected on the role of faith in their public lives. Their thoughts were later included in a book. “To ask me to check my Christian beliefs at the public door is to ask me to expel the Holy Spirit from my life when I serve as a congressman, and that I will not do,” Souder said. “Either I am a Christian or I am not.”
So I do hope that Souder finds a way to work out his redemption. But it is precisely because this story hits me personally that I want to shout as forcefully as I can to my conservative Christian friends: Enough!
Enough with dividing the world between moral, family-loving Christians and supposedly permissive, corrupt, family-destroying secularists.
Enough with pretending that personal virtue is connected with political creeds. Enough with condemning your adversaries, sometimes viciously, and then insisting upon understanding after the failures of someone on your own side become known to the world. And enough with claiming that support for gay rights and gay marriage is synonymous with opposition to family values and sexual responsibility.
It’s not the self-righteousness of religious conservatives that bothers me most. We liberals can be pretty self-righteous, too. It’s the refusal to acknowledge that the pressures endangering the family do not come from some dark secular leftist conspiracy but from cultural and economic forces that affect us all. People are encouraged to put all sorts of things (career advancement, wealth, fame, the accumulation of things, various forms of self-indulgence) ahead of being good parents and spouses. Our workplaces are not as family-friendly as they could be.
Why does it even have to be said that a devotion to family has nothing to do with ideology? In my very liberal Maryland neighborhood — 80 percent of my precinct voted for Barack Obama — parents crowd school meetings, flock to their children’s sporting events, help them with homework and teach them right from wrong based on values that I doubt differ all that much from those prevailing in more conservative environs. And while a lot of my neighbors are active in their religious congregations, the secular parents take their family responsibilities as seriously as the believers do.
And those of us who are liberal would insist that our support for the rights of gays and lesbians grows from our sense of what family values demand. How can being pro-family possibly mean holding in contempt our homosexual relatives, neighbors and friends? How much sense does it make to preach fidelity and commitment and then deny marriage to those whose sexual orientation is different from our own? Rights for gays and lesbians don’t wreck heterosexual families. Heterosexuals are doing a fine job of this on their own.
“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” It’s a scriptural passage that no doubt appeals to Mark Souder. But it would be lovely if conservative Christians remembered Jesus’s words not only when needing a lifeline but also when they are tempted to give speeches or send out mailers excoriating their political foes as permissive anti-family libertines. How many more scandals will it take for people who call themselves Christian to rediscover the virtues of humility and solidarity?
E. J. Dionne seems right on the money to me. I only wish I were able to articulate his feelings on the subject as well. What separates John Edwards from Mark Sanford or any of the other ‘fallen angels’ of late? Not much. All behaved dishonorably. However, John Edwards never set himself up as an angel. Good thing because he is perhaps the biggest scum bag of all. He just didn’t have as far to fall as the others.
Apparently AG Ken Cuccinelli feels the Goddess Virtue is revealing too much wardrobe malfunction on the Virginia State Seal. He is now handing out pins with less …errr….cleavage? It sounds like he has been listening to too many Iranian clerics for his own good.
Traditional Virginia SealCuccinelli Goddess Virtue
The Cuccinelli goddess is more modest. Perhaps he is trying to prevent earthquakes like that wacko in the middle east.
Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi angered women’s groups around the world on Monday when he claimed that promiscuous women were responsible for literally making the earth move.
“Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” Sedighi said.
“What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble?” he asked during a prayer sermon on Friday. “There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam’s moral codes.”
So is Ken is trying to prevent our own Boob-quake here in Virginia with his new pins? Is he like the Taliban or something? The Virginia State Seal has the goddess Virtue vanquishing a tyrant. Sic Semper Tyrannis: Thus always to tryrants. Not that most NORMAL people have ever noticed, but her left breast is slighly exposed, in goddess warrior like fashion–classical art and all.
The Norfolk Pilot states:
When the new design came up at a staff meeting, workers in attendance said Cuccinelli joked that it converts a risqué image into a PG one.
The joke might be on him, said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato.
“When you ask to be ridiculed, it usually happens. And it will happen here, nationally,” he said. “This is classical art, for goodness’ sake.”
It wouldn’t be the first time that Cuccinelli has found himself in a punch line since taking office. The conservative Republican made Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” in March after he advised state colleges and universities they lack the legal authority to protect gay employees from discrimination.
“You can’t be gay in college?” host Jon Stewart asked in mock disbelief. “That’s the whole point of going to college!”
If the jokes start to fly, Cuccinelli can’t say he didn’t see it coming, Sabato said – not after what happened in 2002, when U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered drapes installed to cover partially nude statues at the Justice Department. “Ashcroft had one excuse: it hadn’t been done before and he wasn’t prepared for the critical onslaught that he faced,” Sabato said. “Cuccinelli has no excuse at all. He knows what’s coming because of what happened to Ashcroft. You can only conclude that he enjoys being the center of pointless controversy.”
Efforts to reach Cuccinelli on Friday were unsuccessful.
His spokesman, Brian Gottstein, said the pin was paid for by Cuccinelli’s political action committee, not with taxpayer funds. He acknowledged that the attorney general has pointed out Virtus’ “more modest attire,” adding that the rendition chosen by his boss “harkens back to an older version of the seal.”
The Great Seal of the Commonwealth is a two-sided image dates back to the year 1776.
The Code of Virginia stands firmly on its description of the State Seal:
The side depicted on the state flag features Virtus standing victoriously over Tyranny, a male figure prone on the ground in defeat, his crown fallen from his head. Beneath him is the motto Sic Semper Tyrannis: Thus Always to Tyrants.
Click the link for exact wording.
Now we know why Taliban Cooch is sending out those beg letters! He needs to buy new pins to hand out with Goddess Virtue fully clothed. He appears to have little regard for Virginia traditions, the Virginia Constitution, and anything past his own sense of misguided morality. Perhaps he is now an ‘earther’ in addition to being a birther. You know, one of those people who think showing breasts causes earthquakes.
When is our AG going to stop with the circus sideshow stuff? He just has too many attention seeking behaviors for most Virginians. Larry Sabato is correct. The Cooch’s behavior is juvenile and distracting from real governance. Meanwhile, Virginians anxiously await being the butt of yet more jokes on late night comedy.
Just when we thought it was safe to go back to the City of Manassas, we find out that the sin of sex is lurking about on Battle Street. Oh my goodness! Some Godless sinner wants to set up a shop selling ‘marital aids.’ 
