So now it 's official. Donald Trump would rather have an accused child molester in the Senate rather than a Democrat.

Trump, commenting on Roy Moore sexual assault allegations: “You don't need someone who's soft on crime like [Doug] Jones.” pic.twitter.com/CdnZZhRTSh

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 21, 2017

"He denies it, he totally denies it, he says it didn't happen."

Now where have we heard that before?

Oh yeah, I remember:

"He (Putin) says he didn't meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on the trip to Hanoi, Vietnam. "Every time he sees me, he said: 'I didn't do that.' And I believe, I really believe that when he tells me that he means it." 

Apparently if you are a Republican, or a Russian dictator, all you have to do is deny that you did anything wrong and you are believed.

However if you are a liberal or a Democrat, well then even after eight separate investigations have cleared you of wrongdoing, you are still guilty, guilty, guilty.

So this is the Republican party now.

Refute evidence which clears your opponents, and take on faith the word of anybody who benefits your party politically.

Wow!

Trump voter claims that he would believe The Donald over Jesus Christ.

Courtesy of The Hill: 

A man who said he voted for President Trump in 2016 said on Monday that if Jesus Christ told him Trump colluded with Russia, he would still have to check with the president to see if it was true. 

“If Jesus Christ gets down off the cross and told me Trump is with Russia, I would tell him, 'Hold on a second. I need to check with the president if it's true,’” said Mark Lee, one of six Trump voters to appear on a CNN panel Monday morning. 

Lee said he believes in the president and his mission of “draining the swamp.” 

“Trump is there for the small guy; he’s there for people like myself,” Lee said. 

Lee described the “swamp” as “the mainstream, the elites that look down on a guy like me.”

Okay that is a level of brainwashing that you just don't see very often.

Damn, how does this guy not realize that Donald Trump is the poster child for the very "elites" that he clams looked down on a guy like him? 

Donald Trump essentially confirms Washington Post story that he shared information about terrorists with the Russians. Update! s.

As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

...to terrorism and airline flight safety. Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

Courtesy of CNN: 

Trump's tweets Tuesday notably lack any mention of whether the information he shared was classified. 

And the remarks appear to contradict statements made by his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster -- who told reporters in the wake of the report that "the story as reported is false" -- and White House deputy national security adviser for strategy, Dina Powell, who said Monday "the story is false. The President only discussed the common threats that both countries faced."

Well in his tweet Trump is essentially admitting that he discussed terrorism with the Russians which is not what the White House talking points were after the story broke.

The WaPo story revealed that Trump had shared classified "code word" information which came from a US partner, and that, though he did not share the source, the Russians would likely be able to reverse engineer to reveal the source of the information on their own.

And while Trump is technically correct that he has "the absolute right" to reveal information, whether classified or not, doing so to the Russians reinforces the idea that the Russians are controlling Trump, and that he does not respect the importance of carefully handling confidential information or the allies who provided that information.

Here is more from CNN:

The potential consequences could hardly be more serious, former CIA case officer Bob Baer told CNN's Erin Burnett Monday night. 

"The President, by revealing this to the Russians, has lost control of this information. It's going to go to the Syrians, It's going to go to the Iranians -- Russian allies," Baer said. 

"The ability to protect that source whoever he is, wherever he is has been seriously undermined ... If a CIA officer had revealed this information to the Russians, he would be fired instantly." 

Essentially this is the crux of the problem. Simply put Trump has NO idea how to handle the responsibilities of his job.

And the message for our allies (Russia is NOT an ally.) moving forward is that this president is an amateur who cannot be trusted with the kinds of sensitive information that may need to be shared to keep the world safe from terrorism.

Update: Oh I did not see this tweet earlier.

I have been asking Director Comey & others, from the beginning of my administration, to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 16, 2017

Well gee, all former Director Comey had to do was come to the White House and he would have found the leaker immediately. 

More voters trust Donald Trump than trust the media covering his presidency. Because facts simply don't matter anymore.

Courtesy of the New York Post:  

President Trump has largely eroded America’s trust in the national political media during his first few months in the White House, according to a new poll. 

On the eve of Trump’s 100th day in office, a new national poll by Morning Consult finds that more voters trust the president than the reporters covering his administration on a daily basis. 

Thirty-seven percent of voters believe the White House has been more forthright than the media, versus 29 percent who favor the press. Another 34 percent were unsure or had no opinion. 

Trump has made media criticism a staple of his administration, often claiming that mainstream outlets are egregiously biased and guilty of disseminating “fake news.”

And that is how you dumb down America folks.

Undermine public education.

Push religion on the masses.

And convince people that the press is biased against a certain political party and their candidates. 

The next thing you know you have a disaster, which we have now come to know as the Trump presidency.

Donald Trump is going to appoint his son-in-law as his senior adviser. Well of course he is.

Courtesy of CNN: 

Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will be senior adviser to the president, a senior transition official told CNN Monday. 

The 35-year-old businessman-turned-political strategist played a key part in his father-in-law's presidential campaign and his new position is expected to test the limit of federal anti-nepotism rules.

Of course Kushner is the son of an ex-con, with no government experience, and numerous ongoing business deals around the world.

Seems like the perfect fit for a Trump administration.

Welcome to the kleptocracy.

(P.S. Any minute now you can expect Sarah Palin to launch an attack on Facebook concerning this obvious case of crony capitalism. Yep, any minute now. Probably just sleeping in, or getting over a hangover, but you stay tuned cause it's a coming.)

Trust in the media is at an all time low. Guess why.

Who ya going to trust, the fact checkers with the media or the bullshit that I shovel at you?

Courtesy of CNN Money:

While Americans' faith in media has been in decline for over a decade, this year's findings represent a sharp drop from the previous eight years, when between 40 and 45 percent of Americans expressed trust. 

The change is largely fueled by the aggressive anti-media rhetoric of Donald Trump and other Republicans, Gallup said. 

"With many Republican leaders and conservative pundits saying Hillary Clinton has received overly positive media attention, while Donald Trump has been receiving unfair or negative attention, this may be the prime reason their relatively low trust in the media has evaporated even more," Gallup said in its press release. 

"It is also possible that Republicans think less of the media as a result of Trump's sharp criticisms of the press," the release continued. "Republicans who say they have trust in the media has plummeted to 14% from 32% a year ago. This is easily the lowest confidence among Republicans in 20 years."

By contrast among Democrats trust in the media only dropped four points, 51% this year as opposed to 55% last year. 

Don't imagine for a second that this is an accident.

THIS is what Donald Trump and the Republican party are counting on.

Now when the news reveals something scandalous about Donald Trump the conservative voters assume it is a left wing hit job and it does nothing to hurt his poll numbers.

And the poll numbers are ONLY trusted if they show the race is tight or favor Trump, and if that is the case he gives them his stamp of approval on Twitter or during one of his rallies.

We have asked ourselves how such a clearly unqualified and dangerous candidate has made it this far, well this is our answer.

Atheists are still the most disliked group in America. So we have that going for us.

Courtesy of World Religion News:

Ten years ago University of Minnesota sociologists conducted research showing that, among a long list of racial and religious minority groups, atheists were the most disliked group of people in the United States. Last month they followed up with new research that shows that Americans still have negative opinions of atheists and the non-religious–and now they have a good theory about why that is. 

Survey data collected in 2014 shows that, compared to data collected in 2003, Americans have sharpened their negative views of atheists, despite an increase in people identifying as non-religious and an increase in public discussion of non-belief. 

The findings of this most recent survey support the argument that atheists are persistent cultural outsiders in the United States because they are perceived to have rejected cultural values and practices understood as essential to private morality, civic virtue, and national identity. Moreover, any refusal to embrace a religious identity of any type is troubling for a large portion of Americans. 

Well I would argue that the second and fourth contention are pure bullshit, however depending on your definitions the first and third may not necessarily be incorrect.

Yeah if you are an Evangelical, I really DON'T share your vision of American society.

And if by "elite" you mean a critical thinker who is not easily duped by superstitious nonsense, and believes they are intellectually superior to those who are, then yes guilty as charged.

I guess the same probably holds true concerning "perceived to have rejected cultural values and practices understood as essential to private morality," if by that they mean Judeo Christian values, as well as rejecting a "national identity" if that national identity means describing oneself as a Christian.

So great it appears that I have confirmed all of the reasons that certain religious groups may distrust and even fear those of us who identify as "Atheists."

However I would argue that some of those reasons are also WHY some of us defiantly argue for the integrity of the title Atheist.

I cannot speak for the entire group as we are wildly eclectic, but for myself I have eschewed the safety of the less threatening label "Agnostic" because for one it does not adequately describe my point of view, and two I do not believe it right to judge people solely on their beliefs, or lack thereof.

If you want to dislike me, dislike me because I am an arrogant asshole who thinks he is smarter than everyone else. THAT is a legitimate reason to dislike me.

However if you dislike, or distrust, me based on the fact that I do not attend your church, or worship your god, then I reject the legitimacy of your feelings.

For they are not based on anything to do with who I am, but only based on the misconception of the label with which I identify.

A misconception by the way which is changing ever so slightly every day, until at some point the labels will mean nothing, and all that will remain is the content of our character.

As it should be.

USA Gymnastics accused of ignoring years of sexual abuse allegations against coaches.

The 2016 Olympic Women's Gymnastics team.

Courtesy of the Indy Star:

Top executives at one of America’s most prominent Olympic organizations failed to alert authorities to many allegations of sexual abuse by coaches — relying on a policy that enabled predators to abuse gymnasts long after USA Gymnastics had received warnings. 

An IndyStar investigation uncovered multiple examples of children suffering the consequences, including a Georgia case in which a coach preyed on young female athletes for seven years after USA Gymnastics dismissed the first of four warnings about him. 

In a 2013 lawsuit filed by one of that coach’s victims, two former USA Gymnastics officials admitted under oath that the organization routinely dismissed sexual abuse allegations as hearsay unless they came directly from a victim or victim’s parent. 

Legal experts and child advocates expressed alarm about that approach, saying the best practice is to report every allegation to authorities. Laws in every state require people to report suspected child abuse. 

“USAG failed at this,” said Lisa Ganser, whose daughter filed the Georgia lawsuit, which is still being argued. “USA Gymnastics had enough information, I think, to have done something about this. It didn't have to happen to my daughter, and it didn't have to happen to other little girls.”

I have to admit that I have only paid minimal attention to the Olympic this year, until recently when the Gymnasts started competing.

As some of you may or may not know I was a mediocre gymnast myself in high school and a gymnastics coach in my thirties.

I will still argue that pound for pound the strongest athletes in the world are gymnasts.

I mean sure power lifters can sometimes bench press over 800 pounds, but just ask them to press up to a handstand or pull their bodies up into an iron cross the rings. THAT takes real strength, and the use of muscles that many athletes will never be asked to develop.

One of the first things I learned was that as a gymnastics coach the most important thing you have to establish with your athletes is a sense of trust because they quite literally place their lives in your hands.

More than perhaps any other sport there is a great deal of physical contact between the coach and the athlete because you have to physically assist them through their rotations, catch them when they fall, and even pick them up and place them on the equipment in certain circumstances.

For that reason as a coach you must conduct yourself with unwavering professionalism.

But even then there are incidents where hands can end up in the wrong places.

While still in high school I was once asked by the female coach to come into the gymnastics room to help spot a girl who was attempting a release move on the uneven bars. (Part of the deal I made for access to the gymnastics equipment was to be on call during the girl's training sessions and I did spot the girls fairly often.)

This time the young woman missed her grab and plummeted face first to the mat.

I was standing there and I managed to catch her before she hit, but in doing so I grabbed her by one of her boobs and between her legs. NOT, by the way, the appropriate manner in which to spot somebody according to the coach's manual.

I was incredibly embarrassed, and apologized profusely.

But she told me not to worry about it and that if I had not caught her she would probably have broken her nose or been knocked unconscious.

The point is that coach's have to be paragons of virtue in order to gain a gymnast's trust, ESPECIALLY if you are a male coaching young girls.

So for these young women to have been subjected to this abuse, when they desperately needed to trust their coaches, is incredibly shameful.

And it needs to be dealt with quickly and the young women entering this highly competitive atmosphere need to know they are protected and that their voices will be heard if they feel unsafe. And that reporting something like this will not endanger their standing or interrupt their training.

This sport is unbelievably hard on the athlete's bodies and can result in lifelong injuries. No parent should need to worry about their children suffering an emotional trauma as well.

One key reason why Democrats and Republicans will NEVER see eye to eye.

Courtesy of Vox:  

Here's a telling fact about modern American politics: Republicans only trust Fox News. Democrats trust every network but Fox News. 

The numbers come from a new study from political scientists Matt Grossmann and Dave Hopkins collating five years of Public Policy Polling data on which major news networks people do and do not trust. PPP's data shows that Republicans are just as distrustful of mainstream outlets as of MSNBC, and Democrats are about as trusting.

Personally I would suggest that the reason why Democrats trust other news networks more than Fox, is because they are all infinitely more factually based than Fox News.

Which I would contend is exactly why the Republicans trust Fox News more.

Fox News tells its viewers what they want to hear, rather than the facts that they simply do not want to hear.

After all as everybody knows, facts have a liberal bias.

Finally an arrest warrant has been issued for Bill Cosby.

Courtesy of NPR: 

Narrowly beating a statute of limitations deadline to file charges, prosecutors in Pennsylvania announced a felony sexual assault charge against comedian Bill Cosby on Wednesday. A former Temple University employee says Cosby drugged and assaulted her in January of 2004. 

Montgomery County, Pa., prosecutors have charged Cosby with aggravated indecent assault, a first-degree felony. 

"These charges stem from a sexual assault," according to prosecutor Kevin Steele, who said the assault occurred at Cosby's house in Cheltenham, a Montgomery County township that's just outside Philadelphia. 

Steele said Cosby is expected to appear in court to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon; he also urged any other victims to contact his office.

I have to admit that I was unsure that this would ever happen.

I thought that perhaps all of these things happened so long ago that this sexual predator was going to get away with what he had done to every one of the fifty plus women who he had drugged, raped, or molested. 

On a personal note let me just say that for somebody who grew up on Bill Cosby records, Fat Albert cartoons, and Cliff and Clair Huxtable, things do not get more surreal than this.

I'm a little younger, but I feel exactly the same way.

Source

New poll indicates that FOX News is the most trusted news source and MSNBC is the least trusted which seems to indicate that Americans are morons.

Courtesy of Quinnipiac:  

FOX News offers the most trusted network and cable news coverage, 29 percent of American voters say, when asked to compare the major TV news outlets in a Quinnipiac University National poll released today. But when network news is examined on a case-by-case basis, FOX drops in the ratings. 

In the comparison rankings, CNN gets 22 percent, with NBC News and CBS News at 10 percent each, 8 percent for ABC News and 7 percent for MSNBC, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University Poll finds. 

When asked, "Do you trust the journalistic coverage provided by FOX News," 20 percent of U.S. voters say "a great deal" and 35 percent say "somewhat." Scores for other networks are: 

NBC News - 14 percent "a great deal" and 46 percent "somewhat;" 
ABC News - 14 percent "a great deal" and 50 percent "somewhat;" 
CBS News - 14 percent "a great deal" and 50 percent "somewhat;" 
MSNBC - 11 percent "a great deal" and 41 percent "somewhat;" 
CNN - 18 percent "a great deal" and 43 percent "somewhat."

Well first off when you combine the "great deal" percentage with the "somewhat" percentage the disparity is not that great. 

That gives Fox News a combined percentage of 55 while the combined percentage for MSNBC is 52.

And NBC's combined percentage is 60, ABC News is 64, CBS at 64, and CNN comes in at 61, all of which beat both Fox and MSNBC.

However that really does not excuse the ignorance of viewers who actually believe that Fox News can be trusted on ANYTHING.

After all they are constantly mocked for telling lies and pushing a conservative ideology, not because the rest of the media is liberal, but because that is factually accurate.  

In fact a recent Salon article goes point by point to illustrate the lies of Bill O'Reilly and the devastating effect that they have had on this country, and the Tampa Bay Times Punditfact has a page dedicated to Fox News that is a veritable cornucopia of bullshit. 

The fact those truths are not more widely known and accepted means that those of us in the business of disseminating facts need to do a better job of calling them out on their lies.

MSNBC seems to subtly have promoted Rachel Maddow from cable show host to news anchor. Conservatives not exactly thrilled.

 ANNOUNCER: Meet Rachel. She’s a NEWS ANCHOR with a big personality. She’s smart, funny and passionate. But we’re about to find out what happens when she gets serious: 

RACHEL MADDOW: This is a story of legitimate wrongdoing on a big scale. 

MADDOW: Nope, that’s made up. Not true. 

MADDOW: If we’re not going to ask these questions now then when exactly are we going to ask them? 

ANNOUNCER: From MSNBC, The Rachel Maddow Show, weeknight’s at 9.

Okay so that's the promo, which I like, but I have to admit the change of title did not even catch my attention.

Did it catch yours?

Well it certainly caught the attention of some people: 

You won’t likely see MSNBC host Rachel Maddow filling in for Brian Williams on “NBC Nightly News.” While Maddow is usually described as the “host” of a cable news show, she is rarely called a “news anchor.” Her own NBC bio describes her as a “host”–and never even uses the word “journalist.” 

So it’s worth noting that a new MSNBC promo flips the script, describing Maddow as a “news anchor with a big personality. She’s smart, funny and passionate.” Conservative critics immediately jumped on the promo, noting that previous “Lean Forward” promos for MSNBC included hosts like Maddow talking about their passion for progressive issues. “Given the MSNBC host’s long track record of pushing her agenda it’s hard to imagine anyone seriously considering Rachel Maddow anything more than a liberal commentator with a cable news show,” writes Jeffrey Meyer at NewsBusters.

You know I would agree that Rachel is a liberal, I think that it obvious to everybody.

However if she has an "agenda" it is that facts are important, and that they, not political agendas, should determine if a story is newsworthy or not.

It is not her fault that facts tend to have a liberal bias.

Whenever I am asked by anyone who is the most trusted voice on any topic in the news I do not even hesitate to say "Rachel Maddow." I have a lot of respect for Lawrence O'Donnell, and many others on MSNBC, but my go to host, I'm sorry news anchor, is ALWAYS Rachel.

Some have even compared her to the great Edward R. Murrow, and I think that is a perfectly reasonable and appropriate comparison.

There are those who want to argue that MSNBC's low ratings indicate that none of the hosts are terribly impressive, but I would say that is mostly the fault of marketing and has nothing to do with Rachel's reporting.

In my personal opinion Rachel Maddow is the most trusted voice in news today. And I think it is high time she is recognized for that.

Secret Service agent assigned to President Obama leaked information to Romney campaign.

Courtesy of Inside Sources:  

As scandal continues to envelop the Secret Service, InsideSources has learned of a security failure leading up to the 2012 election. Multiple sources inside the Romney presidential campaign confirm that a Secret Service agent provided details of President Obama’s schedule several days prior to the President’s campaign stops becoming public. 

While sources involved in other presidential campaigns tell InsideSources that Secret Service detail assigned to each campaign will sometimes disclose private and personal information about those they are assigned to protect to opposing campaign staff, this instance in particular is very revealing of failures inside the Secret Service. 

In the closing weeks of the 2012 campaign, a Secret Service agent was on the ground in a key swing state to coordinate security ahead of several campaign stops by the President. The agent, who was married, made advances towards a Romney campaign staff member. 

InsideSources spoke with two staffers who witnessed the events in question. Each spoke on condition of anonymity and independently confirmed the details.

You know I used to have a great deal of respect for the men and women who stand between the President of the United States and those who mean him harm, but now I almost feel the whole agency should be disbanded and a new one started from scratch.

I think this guy said it best: 

When asked about the recent spate of security issues surrounding the Secret Service, a former member of the Presidential advance team under President Bush said, “Seeing firsthand the considerable threat the President is under and how seriously so many of these agents take their duty, it’s very concerning that there are some who would put the lives of the President and their Secret Service colleagues in peril. The President isn’t just a person; he’s an institution, a third of our functioning government, and a primary target for any country or group who would seek to do our country harm.”

Damn straight!

New polls shows that Americans would rather vote for an elderly, pot smoking, philanderer, than vote for an Atheist. Oh come on!

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

Americans would more likely support a philandering presidential candidate than an atheist one -- by an 18 percent margin -- according to a Pew Research Center poll published Monday. 

While 35 percent of respondents said they would be less likely to support a presidential candidate who had an extramarital affair, 53 percent of Americans indicated that not believing in God -- the trait viewed most negatively of the 16 tested -- would make them unsupportive of a candidate. 

In accordance with a widely cited study by the University of Minnesota, which found atheists to be the most disliked and distrusted minority group in the nation, only 5 percent of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for a secular candidate.

Okay this is really starting to piss me off.

This is the problem with politics in this country. Any liar, charlatan, or fool can attract support simply by draping themselves in the camouflage of  religion.

Yet the most upstanding, trustworthy, ethical candidate imaginable will see their chances crumble once their lack of blind faith is revealed to the ignorant masses.

I would place my morality against the average Christian, Buddhist, or Muslim any day of the week.

One of the biggest falsehoods of all time is that belief in God is necessary in order to be moral.

I contend that just the opposite is true.  How moral is a person really who believes he cannot do wrong without receiving everlasting torment, or sabotaging his chances for eternal life?

And how morally superior is the man, or woman, who lives a just and moral life simply because they recognize that it is the best way to contribute to the world?

Americans increasingly trust Democrats with healthcare in this country.

Courtesy of Reuters:  

Americans increasingly think Democrats have a better plan for healthcare than Republicans, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted after the White House announced that more people than expected had signed up for the "Obamacare" health plan. 

Nearly one-third of respondents in the online survey released on Tuesday said they prefer Democrats' plan, policy or approach to healthcare, compared to just 18 percent for Republicans. This marks both an uptick in support for Democrats and a slide for Republicans since a similar poll in February. 

"In the last couple of weeks, as the exchanges hit their goals, news coverage has been more positive and the support of the Democratic Party on this issue has rebounded," said Ipsos pollster Chris Jackson. 

"It's not that independents are moving their way, it's that Democrats who had previously been a little bit ambivalent in their support are coming back to the party," he said.

As if to drive the point home, Gallup has found that in states that embraced Obamacare, usually blue states, the rate of uninsured fell three times faster than in states which did not, all of which were red states:

The polling firm's data shows states that set up their own exchanges and expanded Medicaid had their uninsured rate fall by 2.5 percent, compared to a 0.8 percent drop in states that have opted out of at least one of the health law programs.

This of course should not come as much of a surprise to people who are not getting their news from conservative talk radio and Fox News. 

When "I am a Christian" is the first thing on their resume.

The above ad is not, I repeat NOT, a parody.

It is the real honest to goodness ad for crazy Teabagger, Dan Patrick a state senator who is now aiming for the Lt. Governor position in Texas.

He is also the guy whose Twitter account featured this tweet a few days back:

When Dan Patrick has a twitter typo, he has one heck of a twitter typo. pic.twitter.com/1gRwqKqNGP
— Michael Li (@mcpli) February 26, 2014

Yeah, but of course that was the fault of some underling who is too stupid to tweet what the Senator wanted tweeted, right? I mean is not ignorant enough to have made the mistake himself.

Yeah right.

As the political advertisement says Patrick is the guy who pushed for the mandatory sonograms for women seeking abortion in Texas, so that they can be humiliated before making one of the most difficult decisions of their life. And he is also the guy who sprinkled references to God all over Texas politics.

What better way to prove his Christy credentials. 

Now call me a cynic (Trust me I have been called worse.) but when somebody puts their Christian faith at the top of their list of attributes, that simply makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and for me red flags start waving all over the damn place.

I naturally assume that pretty much every politician running for office in Texas is a Christian (After all it IS Texas!), so when one of them gets all up in my face over their faith my first instinct is that they are somebody who does not want to be looked at too carefully, and instead hopes that Christianity provides a cloak of obfuscation that will immediately instill trust.

Of course only a moron believes that simply self identifying as a Christian automatically makes somebody trustworthy.

And as it turns out, Texas has more than its fair share of morons.

This from TFN Insider:  

The Dallas Morning News reports that four Texas politicians — politicians often aligned with religious-right groups that use faith as a political weapon — were among the victims of a Ponzi-like scheme run by a North Texas businessman. It seems they trusted the scammer because he appeared to be a good Christian and “godly man.” 

According to the Morning News, state Rep. Bill Zedler, R-Arlington; state Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford; state Sen. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney; and former state Rep. Wayne Christian, R-Center, invested separately a total of $331,000 in an energy-trading finance company. They were among more than 20 other Texans who invested about $2.5 million in Archer Bonnema’s company, Pirin Electric. 

Bonnema, who claimed to have helped find Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat a few years back, appears to have specifically targeted Christian conservatives as potential investors.

Well of course he did, who could possibly be more gullible?

"I'm a Christian, would I lie to you?" The answer is of course they would.

And it happens all of the time. In fact our prisons are bulging with Christians.

Dan Patrick's Christian credentials should not immediately ingratiate him to the voters of Texas, instead they should have their guard up and their critical thinking skills turned up to high. 

Because as Thor is my witness, this guy is up to no good.

More bad news for the Republicans.

Courtesy of MSNBC:  

Just 19% of Americans have confidence in Republicans, while a whopping 80% do not. 

A new poll that found Americans with serious doubts about all their elected officials, but Republicans scored particularly badly—even with their own voters. 

Just 36% of self-identified Republican voters say they have faith that their lawmakers will make good decisions. 

They’re damning numbers for a party that’s hoping to retake the Senate in 2014, hold onto the House of Representatives, and locate a promising candidate capable of beating the Democratic matriarch Hillary Clinton. 

In contrast, Congressional Democrats had the support of their own party—a majority support them—but just 27% of Americans overall.

As if that were not enough there is another new poll out that finds that Americans see the Republican party as too extreme: Americans view Democrats as more willing to work across party lines and Republicans as more extreme in their beliefs, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center. Asked to chose which party was more extreme in its positions, 54 percent of Americans picked the GOP, while 35 percent selected the Democrats. On the question of who was more willing to work with the other party, 52 percent pegged the Democrats, and 27 percent deemed Republicans more bipartisan.

But have no fear Republicans. I mean after all you still have Obamacare, Benghazi, and Monica Lewinsky to use against the Democrats. Right?

Well maybe they should have a little fear.

New documentary lays bare Pat Robertson's ongoing scam to bilk his supporters out of millions for phony help to Rwandan refugees. Update!

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

Now a new documentary lays bare the extent of the misrepresentations of Operation Blessing's activities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, that it says continue to this day. 

Mission Congo, by David Turner and Lara Zizic, opens at the Toronto film festival on Friday. It describes how claims about the scale of aid to Rwandan refugees were among a number of exaggerated or false assertions about the activities of Operation Blessing which pulls in hundreds of millions of dollars a year in donations, much of it through Robertson's televangelism. They include characterising a failed large-scale farming project as a huge success, and claims about providing schools and other infrastructure. 

But some of the most damaging criticism of Robertson comes from former aid workers at Operation Blessing, who describe how mercy flights to save refugees were diverted hundreds of miles from the crisis to deliver equipment to a diamond mining concession run by the televangelist. 

Throughout the Rwandan refugee crisis, when more than 1 million people fled into neighbouring Zaire and started dying en masse of cholera, Robertson told his viewers that Operation Blessing was at the forefront of saving lives. 

"It was the most important first medical shipment on the scene out of everything," he said of one aid delivery as he appealed for donations. In another broadcast, Robertson said Operation Blessing was saving thousands of lives. 

"The death toll in this particular camp went down to almost zero because of our people being there," he said. 

Robertson claimed that Operation Blessing sent plane-loads of doctors. 

"These are tents set up with our doctors and our medical teams that came from here to work as hard as they could to save lives," Robertson said over pictures of a large tent of children on drips being tended by nurses and doctors. 

But the film was of MSF medical staff at work. Operation Blessing had just one tent and a total of seven doctors. MSF officials who worked in Goma told the documentary-makers that they had no recollection of even seeing Operation Blessing – let alone working with it. 

"What's really unacceptable is that Operation Blessing took photographs of MSF workers and then used this in their fundraising," said Samantha Bolton, the former MSF spokeswoman in Goma.

I doubt that I have kept secret my utter disdain for this POS. However I urge you to visit the link at the top to get an idea of just what a truly despicable excuse for a human being that Pat Robertson is.

You know one of my major irritations about religion is the blanket of respectability that it affords charlatans and criminals, allowing them to gain trust and lure innocents into their web simply by identifying themselves and "Christians" or "Men of God."

It is like those labels numb the minds of the believers to such a degree that they are unable to access any rational thinking and will simply buy into any bullshit spewed by those whom they have been conditioned to trust.

Update: This documentary has frightened Robertson's people who are threatening to sue the filmmakers:

An Operation Blessing spokesman told The Virginian-Pilot that they are “considering legal action” against Lara Zizic and David Turner, whose film “Mission Congo” will hold its premier at the Toronto International Film Festival, over the film’s supposed “false and defamatory” content. 

CBN has a history of going after Robertson’s critics; for example, they recently embarked on an unsuccessful push to cover up a video of Robertson — first posted here on Right Wing Watch —arguing that gay men wear special rings that they use to infect random people they meet with HIV/AIDS. 

I think it would be incredibly beneficial for the Robertson camp to go after this film. It would bring TONS of free publicity to the documentary plus it would force Robertson and his people to defend their charity, which I think we KNOW would  essentially prove the filmmakers right and also open Pat Robertson up to charges of fraud.

Personally I hope they do attempt to sue them, but my gut says they won't.

Since today was all about babies I thought you all might enjoy this as our final post of the day.