Samantha Bee just did to the Religious Right what they have been doing to America for the last forty years.

Okay first off let me just say that Samantha Bee is singing my song and the melody sounds delightful.

This is what I have been talking about since the very beginning of IM. In fact this issue is why IM even exists.

And damn did she do a good job or what?

This is right up there with the deep dives that John Oliver has been doing over at HBO, and that is high praise indeed.

Do yourself a favor and watch this entire segment.

And then do the country a favor and spread it far and wide.

Jeb Bush goes to Liberty University to pander his pants off for that sweet, sweet evangelical vote.

Courtesy of Politico: 

Jeb Bush on Saturday made a major overture to evangelical voters, seeking to reassure a skeptical voting bloc that when it comes to core beliefs about religious freedom and Christianity’s role in the world, he’s with them. 

The former Florida governor and likely presidential candidate made his pitch at a commencement address at Liberty University, a prominent symbol of evangelical Christianity in Lynchburg, Va., that has become a routine campaign stop for presidential hopefuls. Bush aimed to connect with evangelical voters — many of whom have been wary of his potential candidacy — by decrying progressives who, in his characterization, see no role for religion in public life.

“I am asked sometimes whether I would ever allow my decisions in government to be influenced by my Christian faith,” Bush said, building on a spirited defense of the First Amendment and the importance of free exercise of religion. “Whenever I hear this, I know what they want me to say. The simple and safe reply is, ‘No. Never. Of course not.’ If the game is political correctness, that’s the answer that moves you to the next round. The endpoint is a certain kind of politician we’ve all heard before – the guy whose moral convictions are so private, so deeply personal, that he even refuses to impose them on himself.” 

Holy crap! It almost sounds as if Bush has been possessed by the spirit of Ted Cruz.

But wait, there's more:  

“The stories vary, year after year, but the storyline is getting familiar: The progressive political agenda is ready for its next great leap forward, and religious people or churches are getting in the way. Our friends on the left like to view themselves as the agents of change and reform, and you and I are supposed to just get with the program.” 

And do you know why those of us on the Left view ourselves as "agents of change and reform?" 

Because we are.

And the reason that that we see Fundamentalist Christians diametrically opposed to that kind of change, or the acceptance of all people despite their sexuality, religion, or lack of religion, is because they are.

If religious people did not demand that their ability to discriminate against gay people while hiding behind their faith be protected, or attempt to indoctrinate public school children in science classes by promoting the teaching of Creationism, or freak out because a child sits during the Pledge of Allegiance rather than pay homage to their God, then I don't see too many liberals having a problem with them.

After all it is not their right to worship that we object to, it's their constant need to impose their primitive religious beliefs on all of the rest of us that chaps our ass.

You know we openly mocked Sarah Palin just the other day for going full televangelist, but now it's clear that she is simply jumping on a bandwagon already bulging with potential presidential candidates who seem poised to reanimate the social conservative values of the Moral Majority.

And this in the era of gay marriage, a dramatic decline in church attendance, and the rapid growth of non-theism.

Well as one of those political progressives that Jebbie is bitching about all I have to say is, "Sounds like a plan to me."

I completely support the Republican party going back in time and embracing the values espoused by Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggert, and Pat Robertson.  Good luck with that.

It appears that Sarah Palin's focus has shifted from endorsing gubernatorial and senate candidates to supporting campaigns to elect conservative attorneys general.

Courtesy of Palin's Koch brother directed Facebook page:  

While most of the focus leading into 2014 elections has been on the country's life and death fight for our future with a conservative majority serving in the U.S. Senate, there are other offices we need to count on to put a stop to the liberal Obama agenda. In individual states, good Attorney Generals have led the legal fight against Obamacare, to protect religious liberties and states’ right, and to uphold other imperative core Constitutional principles. Here are four conservative Attorney General candidates I'm supporting. They will continue the fight for all of us! 

Arkansas, Nevada, Texas, and Arizona, interesting.  All pretty reliably red states, though Arkansas does have a Democrat as governor.

It is a little unusual for Palin to place any focus on Attorney Generals as a rule, though of course she made sure that her choices as Governor of Alaska were well trained little lap dogs.

That is why I think it is pretty obvious that conservative think tanks funded by the Koch brothers and others are behind her sudden shift to AG candidates.

I think this article from 2010 about the rise of the Attorneys General explains why:

In the last few months, conservative AGs have become some of the nation's most prominent opponents of federal power in general and the Obama administration specifically. They're trying to block provisions of the federal health-care reform law in court, and they're working to limit the federal government's power to regulate guns and greenhouse gas emissions. 

In the last few months, conservative AGs have become some of the nation's most prominent opponents of federal power in general and the Obama administration specifically. They're trying to block provisions of the federal health-care reform law in court, and they're working to limit the federal government's power to regulate guns and greenhouse gas emissions. 

For Republican AGs, protecting state prerogatives has meant battling the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress. In doing so, they've enjoyed instant influence. 

When the Senate passed a version of health-care reform that included special Medicaid payments to Nebraska--the so-called "Cornhusker Kickback"--13 Republican AGs wrote to Congress threatening to sue, claiming their states weren't being treated equitably. Congress dropped the provision. Later, Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives considered using a procedure know as "deem-and-pass" to allow the House to give approval to the unpopular Senate version of health-care reform without a direct vote on the matter. Republican AGs threatened to sue again, arguing deem-and-pass was unconstitutional. The House dropped the strategy. 

Those concessions, of course, didn't stop AGs from suing when Obama finally signed the health-care bill into law in March. The AGs argue that requiring everyone to buy health insurance is unconstitutional and that the law places an unfair burden on the states. So far, around 20 states are supporting legal action to block the law, and all but one of the participating AGs are Republicans. 

Of course all of that came to naught after the Supreme Court ruled in support of the mandate.

But there are certainly other policies that the Attorneys General can band together to fight against. 

It was Jerry Falwell who laid out the framework for running conservatives in local and state elections in an attempt to create a bulwark against liberal policies, and then to move successful candidates up the food chain to ever more powerful positions.

In fact much of what we see in politics today is the direct result of Falwell and his Moral Majority: 

Falwell helped to lay the groundwork for the coalition of Protestants, Catholics, and Mormons that now makes up the social conservative wing of the GOP—and helped to bring this coalition of social conservatives into an even larger coalition with fiscal conservatives and foreign-policy conservatives. Moreover, it was Falwell who did more than anyone—even Ronald Reagan—to foreshadow the political style of the contemporary GOP, a style rooted in orthodoxy and disdainful of compromise. In short, if at any point during the past few years you’ve found yourself wondering how the Republican Party got to its present state, understanding the worldview of Jerry Falwell is a good place to start.

So successful was this strategy that the Republicans have been the dominant force in Ameircan politics for the last thirty years or more.

However today the world is changing yet again, as illustrated by the recent decisions in favor of same sex marriage and the population increase of non-whites and the non-religious in this country.

What better way to fight that change than to elect Attorneys General who will actively fight against progress?

And where there is obstructionism and resistance to change can Sarah Palin be far behind?

Which sort of begs the question, why is Sarah Palin not supporting HER former AG's run for Mark Begich's Senate seat?

Remembering when it was not abortion or homophobia that united the Fundamentalists. It was segregation.

Pamphlets handed out in churches during the early sixties.

Every once in awhile I like to remind people that the Religious Right that helped to get Ronald Reagan elected to the presidency in 1980, did not get its start as a political movement that embraced conservationism, pro-life, and an anti-homosexual agenda.

No there was a time when none of those issues even registered with the Fundamentalists.

As Frank Schaeffer likes to remind people, it was he and his father who helped shape the Evangelical pro-life movement, and it was they, working under the banner of the "Moral Majority," who made it the main issue that Republicans ran on in the 1980's.

But before that what united that group of folks was not "killing" unborn babies. No it is the possibility that there might be some babies born with "mixed blood."

And the father of the Moral Majority, Jerry Falwell, was one of the worst agitators:

Like many Southern White ministers, Falwell didn’t sit on the sidelines at the outset of the modern civil rights movement, he joined the opposition. 

“Decades before the forces that now make up the Christian right declared their culture war, Falwell was a rabid segregationist who railed against the civil rights movement from the pulpit of the abandoned backwater bottling plant he converted into Thomas Road Baptist Church,” Max Blumenthal writes in an insightful article in The Nation magazine. “This opening episode of Falwell’s life, studiously overlooked by his friends, naively unacknowledged by many of his chroniclers, and puzzlingly and glaringly omitted in the obituaries of the Washington Post and New York Times, is essential to understanding his historical significance in galvanizing the Christian right. Indeed, it was race –not abortion or the attendant suite of so-called ‘values’ issues – that propelled Falwell and his evangelical allies into political activism.” 

Four years after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education outlawing segregated public schools, Falwell gave a speech titled, “Segregation or Integration.” 

His message was unmistakably clear: “If Chief Justice Warren and his associates had known God’s word and had desired to do the Lord’s will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision would never have been made. The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn the line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line.”

This was the issue that originally united the Southern white Evangelicals together, and it continues to permeate the conservative party to this day.

So is it really any wonder that Fox News clearly shows a racial bias in their coverage?

Of course not. Because their main demographic is older conservative white folks who were raised in churches where those pamphlets were common place, and the pastor's sermons were peppered, not with warnings about premarital sex or the homosexual agenda, but instead with the need to keep the races from mingling at to keep God's people pure.

Sarah Palin at Liberty University. Update: Palin responds to Bashir resignation.

Look! It's the ghost of false pregnancies past!

Courtesy of Liberty University:

In a sit-down, conversational interview on stage with President Jerry Falwell, Jr. and Vice President for Communications Johnnie Moore, Palin talked about her motivation to keep standing for “time-tested truths” — the same truths Liberty upholds — when she is attacked by the mainstream media for her conservative views. (Really? Liberty University stands up for the fake pregnancy stories and misrepresentation of our country's values that Sarah Palin stands up for?)

“This is what inspires me — you,” she told the arena of more than 10,000 students. “ … What inspires me and allows me to keep going and standing strong is being in a place like this.” 

Courtesy of Facebook

“You guys are doing an awesome job; it’s amazing, the infrastructure, additions to the amenities, what a wonderful force for good in this part of the nation and for the world,” Palin said. 

Coming off a 15-city tour for her new best-seller, “Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of Christmas,” (Is it really still a "best seller" when it is at number 664 on the Amazon best seller list?)  she talked about the larger message that the Christmas story brings today. 

“My book is about protecting the heart of Christmas, which is really about protecting the heart of America,” (That's right kids the pagan holiday Saturnalia, today mostly represented by the Turkish St. Nicholas, and celebrated by plunging ourselves into debt in order to buy the newest, most expensive factory assembled  soon to be obsolete electronics, equals America.) she said. “Because the message of Christmas is the message of hope and change, not the stuff you hear coming out of Washington. (Wait, what?) … It’s the Judeo-Christian faith that provided all the foundation in our charters of liberty, our Constitution, our Declaration of Independence. It was a faith–filled people who understood how blessed our land was and the opportunities we have, our wonderful work ethic, all the things that have made America so exceptional.” (Such as killing off its original aboriginal inhabitants, raping the land for its precious minerals and resources, and polluting its air so that our children are born with allergies and birth defects.)

She said the tour is about more than a book; it is about restoring our nation’s principles. (Of greed and commercialism.)

“That’s why I appreciate Liberty University,” she said. “You will be a force for good, understanding the importance of Christian faith and a Christian education. You are the future leaders of this country.” (Let us all hope that's not true.)

Students submitted their own questions for Palin, which ranged from who her biggest inspiration is (her youngest son, Trig, who has Down syndrome and has taught her “the world’s standards of perfection are not God’s standards of perfection”) to her family’s favorite Christmas memories (eating moose chili and traveling “over the river and through the woods” by snow machines). ("Over the river and through the woods?" Hmm I wonder if they are off to "Grandfather's house?" And I certainly hope that the snowmachine knows the way through the "white and drifted snow." I swear there is not one original thought in this imbecile's head.)

She left students with a lesson she’s learned as a leader: 

“Fear not. Again, it’s that message of Christmas; remember the angel came to Mary in a situation with less than ideal circumstances (Yeah she was knocked up and needed to explain it to her husband.) … and that message needs to be received by each one of you here today as you get out there in a pretty rough and tumble world. You’re going to be inundated in the workplace with cultural and societal pressures trying to beat you down (That's Palin speak for "educate you.")… remember that message from that angel. … The greater message was that everybody is made so uniquely, with certain gifts and talents and passions and interests for a reason, to get out there and do good for the world. … When it comes to families, when it comes to jobs, please remember that you do have purpose and you do have destiny — God don’t make no junk. ... Success is letting Him shine through you so that others will be attracted to that light — the eternal destiny is really what matters.” 

Looking back at where God has taken her, Palin still calls her rise to a position of leadership “bizarre,” (Well there's something we can agree on.) but credits it as God’s work. (And here he thought the platypus was the worst of his screw ups.)

“Put your life in God’s hands — you never know where you’re going to end up.”

Yeah you could end up promoting a poorly conceived ghostwritten book on a book tour that is  falling apart faster than that space station in the movie "Gravity."

If there were actually 10,000 students there you KNOW they were compelled to attend. No way do 10,000 young people, even Liberty University brain washed young people, voluntarily turn out to have their IQ's lowered by this simpleton.

I wonder where she will go next? Perhaps there is a local prison who could lock there inmates into a room to hear her demonstrate her lack of knowledge about America and Christmas?

Or better yet an institute for the insane. THAT would make her feel right at home.

Update: Here is the video of Palin discussing Bashir from Fox and Friends. 

And here is a synopsis provided by Mediaite: 

“In this world, you are going to be hurt and attacks will come your way,” Palin said. “I just hope attacks like that doesn’t make people hesitate.” 

“One of the things about his attack is it was scripted,” Steve Doocy observed. “The people at NBC had a chance to review it and said – they obviously, or apparently, all agreed.” 

“It was refreshing to see, though, that many in the media did come out and say, ‘Look, our standards have to be higher than this,” Palin observed. 

Brian Kilmeade asked if the Sarah Palin of 2008 would have reacted then to this manner of attack as she did. “At this point I’m used to it,” Palin replied. “That’s kind of a sad state of affairs to have to admit that, at this point, I am used to it.” 

“Six years ago, I probably would have been personally hurt by such an attack,” she revealed. 

Asked if anyone representative from a women’s advocacy group had reached out to her, Palin noted that she never “heard from one feminist.” 

“I’m sure they’re getting to it,” Elisabeth Hasselbeck suggested sarcastically. 

Palin concluded by disclosing that she feels “callused” and is no longer surprised by these types of attacks on her character.

Okay I just threw up n my mouth a little.

ANYBODY who believes that Palin is the victim of ANYTHING is a moron. The woman has been playing this victim card since she was a child, and the fact that there are still so many who cannot see through it pisses me off.

Sarah Palin's next two stops on her Grift-a-palooza will be at a university founded by a dead televangelist and to visit the library of one just barely clinging to life.

Photo of the Heath family's holiday mountain of death mentioned in Sarah Palin's book.

Courtesy of Aimee Simple McFuckup's Facebook page: 

Honored to be participating in the final Convocation of 2013 this Wednesday at Liberty University. Look forward to discussing “Good Tidings and Great Joy” and how together we can protect the heart of Christmas. 

Liberty University, for those who do not know, was founded by gay basher extraordinaire Jerry Falwell, who built the school in response to new civil rights laws that were forcing regular universities to  allow black folk to sleep in the same dorms as their white betters.

This will take place tomorrow, on Wednesday, after that Palin is off to one of the few libraries on the planet that would allow her sad little book to be placed on its shelves.

We will be in Charlotte, NC, this Friday, December 6th at the Billy Graham Library signing copies of "Good Tidings and Great Joy." Look forward to visiting with volunteers as well as supporting Operation Christmas Child. Todd, Bristol, and I visited Haiti with Franklin Graham and were able to hand out some of the generous shoeboxes these volunteers process and package with care -- glad to have the opportunity to thank them and highlight the great work they do.

So Palin is now essentially working the tent revival circuit, trying to find folks who are not known for exercising their critical thinking skills, in the hopes that she will be able to unload a few more of these future toilet paper dispensers.

After all who better to buy a book full of fabrications and poorly written family mythology, than people raised to accept that the Bible was a historically accurate document written by the hand of God?

Of course that is assuming that these Bible thumpers were not paying attention when this happened.

Sarah Palin's "War on Christmas" book currently resides in 666th place on the Amazon bestseller list [pic]: pic.twitter.com/tSK2xPp2ki
— Path2Enlightenment (@Path2Enlighten) December 3, 2013

But hey, if you think about it, "Santa" is just "Satan" with the letters rearranged. After all who ELSE knows whether you're naughty or nice?

The pro-life movement has its roots, not in fighting abortion, but fighting desegregation.

Courtesy of Salon:  

As the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wadepassed, evangelical leaders marked the occasion with histories of how their community took up the anti-abortion cause. Mark Galli, editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, has suggested the movement formed out of grassroots reflection on “the terrible and inevitable consequences of legalized abortion.” Albert Mohler, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president, insisted it arose from moral outrage triggered by Roe v. Wade. 

Both histories provide pristine portraits of the origins of the evangelical right, suggesting its founders based their advocacy on scholarly assessments and aspired to noble political ends. But a history can be told that is significantly less flattering. 

The right-wing evangelical movement was not an immediate backlash to Roe v. Wade. The evangelical community, unlike Roman Catholicism, showed little interest in combating abortion until almost 1980. As Jerry Falwell lamented in 1979, “The Roman Catholic Church for many years has stood virtually alone against abortion. I think it’s an indictment against the rest of us that we’ve allowed them to stand alone.” 

Although evangelicals were mostly silent on abortion after Roe v. Wade, they were not silent on other political issues. Paul Weyrich, one of the evangelical right’s most influential founders, recalls that the movement initially emerged to defend racially segregated Christian schools from government intrusion: 

[W]hat galvanized the Christian community was not abortion, school prayer, or the ERA [Equal Rights Amendment]. I am living witness to that because I was trying to get those people interested in those issues and I utterly failed. What changed their minds was Jimmy Carter’s intervention against the Christian schools, trying to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de facto segregation. 

In other words, as Randall Balmer has succinctly put it: “the religious right of the late twentieth century organized to perpetuate racial discrimination.” 

Only after the movement was underway did it begin advocacy on abortion. It did so, in large part, based on highly dubious arguments advanced by the popular writer Francis Schaeffer.

You know I started to write something about this very thing about a year ago, but I had trouble finding the information online that I needed.

Bill Maher on Mitt Romney's visit to Liberty University: "A guy in magic gym shorts talking to virgin Baptists. Clown, meet college."

Courtesy of the Huffington Post:

 "You can't expect me to believe anything Mitt Romney said last week at Liberty University, because a) he's a liar and b) Liberty University isn't really a university," Maher began. "It's not like an actual statesman visited a real college. It's more like the Tupac hologram visited Disneyland and said what he would do as president during the Main Street Electrical Parade."

I loved this part of Maher's New Rules on Saturday, because it has long irritated me that these religious schools are allowed to teach bullshit to their students and pass it off as an "education." Because the University meets the requirements of  accreditation the students, at least on paper, appear to be as knowledgeable as students from any other university.

Of course what they really are is little Fundie soldiers who are supposed to go out into the world and change law, politics, and even entertainment in this country to meet Jerry Falwell's extraordinarily narrow Biblical world view.

But Mitt Romney, who KNOWS he must get the Evangelicals to support him or he is as dead in the water politically as his wife is in the marital bed, sucked it and actually pretended that he was talking to a group of people who respected him. Which of course they didn't, as evidenced by the fact that one of the classes offered is called Theology 678—Western and New Religions.

Here is the description of that class's curriculum:

"The history, doctrines, and present state of the major cults such as Mormonism, Christian Science, Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventism. The course will also include a study of the Occult Movement. Emphasis is placed on the errors of these groups and on methods and materials for confronting them effectively."

 Oh yeah I'm sure they hung on his every word.

Virginia University dormitories to be cleared of students in order to make way for Sarah Palin and her entourage/family. Update!

"Are you sure they're all gone?"

Courtesy of Joe's blog:

“a whole dorm full of students were told to go home for the weekend so that her entourage could stay there. Some of them were pretty bent out of shape.”

Yep you can't have any prying eyes around when the Palins come to town now can you?

Interesting that our very own Alaskan homophobic-in-chief Jerry Prevo currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Liberty University, don'tcha think?

You might remember Prevo as having joined Palin, along with Franklin Graham, in an effort to help her save face when she failed to come to the aid of the rural Alaskans during their time of crisis, and needed a grand gesture to convince people that she really DID care. She "accomplished" this by purchasing cookies, which she claimed to have made, and then handing them out to the wrong villagers.

(By the way did I mention that Prevo ALSO serves as a board member on Franklin Graham's "we'll help you if you convert" charity Samaritan's Purse?  Well he does.)

Palin should feel quite comfortable on the campus of Liberty University.  Founder Jerry Falwell was one of the last segregationists standing when the racist south was dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th Century:

Born and raised in America's segregated South, Falwell preached that racial segregation was the Lord's will, but dropped such overt racism from his perspective when it became unpopular to say such things aloud. Still, from his pulpit Falwell supported South African apartheid, and opposed Nelson Mandela's release from prison. In one of his earliest appearances in the national media, Falwell made headlines by criticizing Rev Martin Luther King for his political activism. "Preachers are not called to be politicians", said the young Falwell, "but to be soul winners". (Wow! Considering that THIS is the man who formed the Moral Majority, that is one ginormous piece of hypocrisy to swallow!)

It is not talked about much these days, but Falwell actually founded Lynchburg Baptist College, later to be called Liberty University, NOT because he was called by God to do so (as he would preach from his pulpit for the next thirty plus years), but because he was trying to keep those dirty "Negroes" separated from the nice Christian white students, after the desegregation of dorms became the rule of the day.

Unfortunately for the southern racists, eventually Falwell was forced to allow the "colored folks" to attend his school and live in his dorms.

But don't worry! On the weekend of October 8 they will be segregated once again, allowing ONLY Dominionism embracing Wasilla white trash to stay in its rooms!

Somewhere Jerry Falwell is smiling.  (And if there really IS a God that "somewhere" will be the fiery pits of hell!)

Update: Okay this is MUCH worse than I first thought.

The Liberty University kids will NOT have to give up their rooms to Palin and her supporters, the students being ejected are from neighboring Virginia University of Lynchburg.

Here is the report by WSET:

Students at The Virginia University of Lynchburg say they're not sure who they should blame for making them move out of their dorm rooms. 

VUL students have been living in two local motels that have been converted into dorms. But those motels are all booked next Thursday, Friday and Saturday because visitors are coming to see Sarah Palin at the Liberty University Women's Conference. 

Now, the students have to get out. 

Antwan Jenkins, an LU student staying at the Travel Lodge, says it's just not fair he has to repack all of his stuff, along with his pet lizard, just when he finally got his room the way he likes it. 

"Yeah we have to get everything up out of here, like we're going home for good," said Jenkins. 

University officials say it's been the plan since the students first moved in. 

"Sarah Palin is coming to town and those arrangements had been made long before we began to use the motels for students," said Dr. Ralph Reavis, the VUL president. 

Carlos Bodre, who's here from NYV, says it caught him off guard this week. He says it will cost him $250 for a train home to New York. "I ain't got a job so I ain't even got that money so I have to call my parents and let them know that they got to pay," said Bodre. 

Jasmin Coley, who lives at Travel Lodge, is planning for her mom to come get her from Washington, D.C. 

"It cost her a $100 to get here, which means coming and going and then bringing me back and then going back is $400 that we don't have. We're not rich," said Coley. 

Did anybody else happen to notice that seemingly ALL of these suddenly homeless students were African American? (Click the link to view the video)

Well surely we can't blame THAT on Sarah Palin. I mean that just must be a coincidence, right?