Year: 2007

Coulter to Medved: ‘Jews Believe That My Savior, a Jew, Was a Raving Lunatic’

Jon Ponder

On Monday, Ann Coulter went on the radio talkshow of rightwing social critic Michael Medved, who is Jewish, to clarify a statement she’d made on Donny Deutsch’s cable chat show a week or so earlier about her desire as a Christian to have Jews “perfected,” meaning, converted to Christianity:

“Here it is just a straight, plain, non-controversial statement of what all Christians believe. Of course, all Christians want everyone to be a Christian, like all feminists would like everyone to be a feminist.”
— Ann Coulter

COULTER: [Judaism], as I explained — Christians accept the Old Testament. Jews don’t accept the New Testament, so, you know, as long as we’re playing this new sport of “he who is offended first wins,” if anyone’s going to be offended by anyone else’s religion, the Jews believe that my savior, a Jew, was a raving lunatic, and you don’t see me sniffling and crying.

Later in the show, predictably, Coulter starts sniffling and whining, if not actually crying:

COULTER: I’m sorry. I just can’t take this seriously, Michael. I don’t know when Donny Deutsch became the Al Sharpton of the Jews, but I don’t think it’s working.

MEDVED: Well, the problem here is that a lot of the major Jewish organizations —

COULTER: Are lying. But they attack me — I mean, it’s — from what I can tell, it’s all the usual suspects. It’s always the same thing. Actually, the only thing that is different here is usually I have told a joke. It is a satire. Here it is just a straight, plain, non-controversial statement of what all Christians believe. Of course, all Christians want everyone to be a Christian, like all feminists would like everyone to be a feminist, though it’s maybe a little more important to us.

And yes, of course, we accept the Old Testament, which is what I said. And as I say in my current book, if the things I say are so outrageous, why won’t they quote me accurately? I am never quoted accurately and, once again, I’m not being quoted accurately here.

For the record, here is what she said to Deutsch:

[…]

New Gov’t Report: Surge Producing Little Progress in Iraq

Jon Ponder

New York Times:

Attempts by American-led reconstruction teams to forge political reconciliation, foster economic growth and build an effective police force and court system in Iraq have failed to show significant progress in nearly every one of the nation’s provincial regions and in the capital, a federal oversight agency reported on Thursday.

The report, by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, comes as the United States tries to take advantage of a drop in overall violence to create a functioning government here.

Stuart Bowen, the special inspector general, testified about the report to a House Armed Services subcommittee yesterday.

Poll: 81% Favor Dems’ S-CHIP Expansion – Which the House GOP Killed Today

Jon Ponder

CBS News:

Eight in 10 Americans favor expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP, including large majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.

And:

[The] poll finds that only about one in five Americans (22 percent) approve of the president’s handling of health care. That’s lower even than his approval rating on Iraq (26 percent).

These new numbers come hot on the heels of the vote today by House Republicans to rubberstamp Bush’s veto of the S-CHIP program.

As we noted earlier, a GOP pol who predicted his colleagues would sustain the veto was incredulous. “I don’t know why our guys are following [Bush] into the sea like lemmings,” he said.

Breaking: Assassination Attempt on Benazir Bhutto

Jon Ponder

Both CNN and MSNBC are reporting that as many as 10 people have been killed by a pair of bombs that exploded in Karachi, Pakistan, during homecoming celebrations for former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

The bombs exploded near Bhutto’s motorcade, but she was not injured, according to preliminary reports.

Update: CNN now says it has confirmed that at least 48 people are dead, 60 wounded.

Bush Has Flipflopped On S-CHIP – Opposed It As Governor, Then Took Credit for Its Success, Now Is Trying To Strangle It in Its Crib

Jon Ponder

As governor of Texas, George Bush opposed the S-CHIP program:

Bush doesn’t give a damn about kids. If passing this legislation helped line the pockets of his buddies who running the U.S. healthcare system into the ground, he’d be all for it.

In the 1990’s, then Texas Governor George W. Bush opposed a bi-partisan effort to expand S-CHIP in his state. Despite Texas’ worst-in-the-nation status (then and now) in the percentage of residents without insurance, Bush (then as now) opposed the broadened program on both fiscal and philosophical grounds. As Salon reported in July 2000, Bush tried to limit eligibility to families with incomes at 133 percent of the poverty line, compared to the 200 percent standard adopted in most states (and over Bush’s opposition, in Texas). Bush’s hard line would have kept 200,000 kids off the program’s rolls. As it was, the difficult and cumbersome application process limited sign-ups to only 28,000 of the 500,000 children eligible by mid-2000.

But in 2000, Bush, the presidential candidate, took credit for the program’s success in Texas:

In Bush’s press release it says: “When the CHIPs program was first implemented, Governor Bush embraced it as an opportunity to help deliver health coverage to thousands of uninsured children, and signed legislation providing health insurance for more than 423,000 children.”

Three months ago, Bush’s administration tried to strangle S-CHIP in its crib:

Just two weeks after the House and Senate each approved major expansions of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), the Bush administration announced draconian new eligibility rules that would trim thousands of low income children from the rolls…

As the New York Times described, the White House quietly dispatched a letter at 7:30 PM on Friday evening outlining its new curbs on S-CHIP eligibility. With Congress out of session, Dennis Smith of the federal Center for Medicaid and State Operations notified states that they must reach 95 percent enrollment of families below 200% of the poverty level before they can expand their programs. Of course, no state currently approach the 95 percent figure today (nationally, almost 30 percent of eligible children remain unenrolled in S-CHIP). Worse still, several states previously received the federal government’s OK to extend their coverage to even higher income levels and more are considering further expansion still…

Last week, of course, he vetoed a Democratic proposal that would have expanded S-CHIP’s coverage to millions more lower income children. Today, the mindless drones in his party in Congress are set to follow him over the cliff again by sustaining his veto.

What this proves — again — is that George W. Bush doesn’t give a damn about middle-class and poor Americans or their children. It’s all politics to him. If passing this legislation helped line the pockets of his buddies who running the U.S. healthcare system into the ground, he’d be all for it.

GOP Lawmaker on S-CHIP: ‘I Don’t Know Why Our Guys Are Following [Bush] into the Sea Like Lemmings’

Jon Ponder

Carpetbagger Report:

“We are not happy, no doubt about it,” the Republicans told Dear Leader’s message-meisters. The main cause of their discontent was the White House attack on the children’s health insurance program.

One GOP lawmaker [asked, rhetorically], “It’s stupid politics. The leadership is putting pressure on Members [to sustain the veto], promising to rebuild the brand. I don’t know why our guys are following [Bush] into the sea like lemmings.”

Maybe out of habit?

Carpetbagger Report also cites reports that Bush’s flying monkeys in the West Wing message shop were unpleasantly surprised when they summoned GOP congress people to the White House for spine-stiffening last week.

“We are not happy, no doubt about it,” the Republicans told Dear Leader’s message-meisters. The main cause of their discontent was the White House attack on the children’s health insurance program.

In another report, a veteran GOP strategist told a reporter:

“It’s just stunning to me … that after seven years of Republicans complaining that the president won’t use his veto, [the White House and Republican Congressional leaders] choose their big showdown to be over children’s health care. Good Lord, it probably polls at 80 percent!”

For an opposing views on GOP lemmings, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review — the newspaper owned by Richard Melon Scaife, the wealthy rightwing ideologue who funded the Arkansas Project that paid people to smear about the Clintons in the 1990s — published an editorial that offers a glimpse into the howling, soul-less darkness of the conservative mind:

The new S-CHIP, should GOP “leaders” convince more lemmings to take the plunge and override a promised presidential veto, will have the perverse effect of encouraging those already with private coverage to opt for “the government plan.”

Even more perverse — the increase is funded by a higher cigarette tax that hits the poor the hardest; the very families that S-CHIP was designed to help will be paying for families that can help themselves.

The S-CHIP 63 should be ashamed. As should be Republican “leaders” promising to make the Socialist-CHIP program veto-proof.

The word this morning is that there won’t be enough lemmings of either stripe to over-ride the president’s veto of the children’s health insurance program when the vote is held later today.

Let’s just hope voters will remember this day when they go to the ballots in November 2008.

Ann Coulter’s Web Site Hacked

Buck Banks


No sympathy: Right wing hell bitch Ann Coulter’s Web site was hacked yesterday by someone who doesn’t like her very much. Here’s what they wrote:

Dear Readers,

I’ve been participating in a charade for nearly eleven years, now. Quite frankly, I’m sick of it. You have all been a part of a sick joke that I began considering shortly after first getting on the air. At first, it was quite interesting to see how people would react when I would use twisted logic and poorly masked bigotry.

But eleven years is a long time to be living a fake life, and I can no longer tolerate this falsity. Even someone as fake as I tires out eventually.

Here’s the truth, I don’t care what people believe. Jews don’t need to be “made perfect” as I so arrogantly proclaimed to Editor & Publisher not a half week ago. I don’t even care if people are Muslim. Granted, I don’t know much about the religion or the people, but they are people. This is something that we cannot forget, they are in an abhorrent situation. These people are in need of education. Perhaps if we did not participate in causing them misery, they would not hate us so.

In fact, does it really matter whether we are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, or even Pagan? We are one nation. One. We should not let petty differences separate us, we are all American, and should act in that manner.

And with that, my precious viewers, I bid you adieu. My career as a media figurehead is over.

Signed,

Ann Coulter

Ah, would that it were true. You can see a screen shot of the hacked site here.

Pensito Review’s site was down for a while this morning and buzzflash is offline this afternoon. Wonder if it’s Coulter’s revenge ….

Republican Breakthrough: Candidates Finally Suck Up to an Ethnic Group

Trish

The Republican presidential candidates’ “scheduling conflicts” seem to only crop up around events that cater to Latino, African-American, or YouTube voters. Not only are the Daytimers wide open for Jewish groups, many of the candidates have such an affinity for all things Hebrew that they might call Madonna for Kaballah lessons.

Just ask them.

…it came as no surprise yesterday when five presidential aspirants addressing a forum of Republican Jews all touted their Jewish credentials…

Yet not one of the candidates condemned the recent comments of Republican shock jockette Ann Coulter, who said Jews need “to be perfected.”

Mitt Romney spoke of his “old friend” Binyamin Netanyahu. Former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson used the words “Israel,” “Israeli” or “Israelis” 13 times in about 45 minutes. Sen. Sam Brownback told a story involving how hard it is to find a “nice, young Jewish man” in his home state of Kansas. And Rudy Giuliani recalled the moment in 1980 or so when he just knew the Gipper was going to become the next president.

“I was at a bar mitzvah reception in Manhattan,” the former New York City mayor said. “One after one, everybody’s talking about voting for Ronald Reagan.”

Oh puh-lease. Can you for one second imagine substituting these fond phony-isms about Jews with ones about blacks or Hispanics or — holy moly! — gays?

Mitt Romney: “As I told my old pal Tyler Perry the other day…”

John McCain: “I’ll never forget when my family was at a Quinceañera celebration and everyone was talking about voting for Bob Dole…”

Actually, it would probably sound more like Bill O’Reilly marveling over how much like regular people the blacks at the restaurant he visited are. Actual O’Reilly quote:

“I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it’s run by blacks, primarily black patronship.”

Maybe it’s best if the Republicans confine the sucking up to groups with whom they feel comfortable.

Yet, even with everyone whipping out their yarmulkes, not one of the candidates took a moment to condemn the recent comments of Republican shock jockette Ann Coulter, who said Jews need “to be perfected.” Come on guys, where is your real loyalty? To your new Jewish pals or your old reliable Republican mouthpieces?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Superbug Kills More Americans Than AIDS

Jon Ponder

Los Angeles Times:

The number of severe infections by a “superbug,” known as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, isat least twice as high as researchers previously believed, and the bacterium now kills more Americans than AIDS, researchers reported today.

The antibiotic-resistant infections, commonly called MRSA, were once confined to a few hospitals, but a new study by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that in 2005 they made an estimated 94,000 Americans seriously ill and killed almost 19,000, compared with 17,000 who died of AIDS…

The infections have been a growing concern, particularly over the last decade, as they have spread outside hospitals, popping up in prisons, athletic fields and locker rooms.

The study reported that nearly 14 percent of new antibiotic-resistant staph infections are not linked to hospitals or other medical facilities, indicating that the disease has become ingrained in parts of the wider community.

The finding was reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).