I Didn't Say It ...

President Obama, on the death of Fidel Castro:

“At this time of Fidel Castro’s passing, we extend a hand of friendship to the Cuban people. We know that this moment fills Cubans – in Cuba and in the United States – with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation. History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him…”

No matter what you felt about Castro, there was a family that lost someone, and there are some in his country, and in ours, who mourn.

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President-elect _____, on the death of Fidel Castro ... via Twitter, of course:

"Fidel Castro is dead!"

Figures.

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Alec Baldwin, responding via Tweet to President-elect _____'s Tweet about being mocked on SNL; _____ said, “I watched parts of Saturday Night Live last night. It is a totally one-sided, biased show – nothing funny at all. Equal time for us?”:

“Equal time? Election is over. There is no more equal time. Now u try 2 b Pres + ppl respond. That’s pretty much it…You know what I would do if I were Prez? I’d be focused on how to improve the lives of AS MANY AMERICANS AS POSSIBLE…I’d be focused on improving our reputation abroad, including actually fighting for freedom and not just oil…I would make every effort 2 retrain Americans so 2 cre8 jobs. 1 way u make America gr8 again is 2 put it back 2 work…I would make appointments that encouraged people, not generate fear and doubt.”

And _____ will WhineTweet in 5 ... 4... 3... 2 ... 

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John Primomo, a Texas judge presiding over a US citizenship ceremony in San Antonio, told the future citizens:

“I can assure you that whether you voted for him or you did not vote for him, if you are a citizen of the United States, he is your president. He will be your president and if you do not like that, you need to go to another country.”

America under _____; love him or leave it.

Funny, because to me. it’s America under _____, love it and get him out before he destroys it all.

UPDATE: Five district court judges unanimously agreed to remove Judge John Primomo from overseeing the ceremonies from now on.

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Loretta Lynch, US Attorney General, on the spike in hate crimes:

“These numbers should be deeply sobering for all Americans. Some of these incidents have happened in schools. Others have targeted houses of worship, and some have singled out individuals for attacks and intimidation.” She continued, “We need you to continue to report these incidents to local law enforcement, as well as the Justice Department, so that our career investigators and prosecutors can take action to defend your rights. I want the American people to know that as long as that work is necessary, the Department of Justice will continue to carry it forward.”

The FBI reported a six-percent increase in hate crimes nationally in 2015, with anti-Muslim crimes increasing by 67 percent.

Sad to say, it may only get worse under President _____.

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Elizabeth Warren, on President-elect _____’s choice of Stephen Munchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker, to be treasury secretary:

“Steve Mnuchin is the Forrest Gump of the financial crisis—he managed to participate in all the worst practices on Wall Street. He spent two decades at Goldman Sachs helping the bank peddle the same kind of mortgage products that blew up the economy and sucked down billions in taxpayer bailout money before he moved on to run a bank that was infamous for aggressively foreclosing on families. His selection as Treasury Secretary should send shivers down the spine of every American who got hit hard by the financial crisis, and is the latest sign that Donald _____ has no intention of draining the swamp and every intention of running Washington to benefit himself and his rich buddies."

Go get ‘em, Liz.

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I Didn't Say It ...

Franklin Graham, on America's "moral bankruptcy":

"What happens when you remove biblical standards and leadership from a country? Moral bankruptcy, that’s what. … Headlines every day reveal what a sad state we’re in. CBS News just reported that Caitlyn Jenner will pose nude for the cover of Sports Illustrated, draped only in his Olympic gold medal and an American flag. There’s a lot wrong with that picture! … And, as if that isn’t enough, our cartoons aren’t even immune! Disney’s Frozen, the highest-grossing animated movie of all time, has some supporters calling for the heroine Elsa to have a lesbian girlfriend in the movie’s sequel. … Pray for our nation, and get involved by standing up for God's truth and His righteousness."

Someone’s in a twist and apparently believes in a God that hates, not a God that created all of us … though some of us a little less tolerant and a lot more bigoted than others.

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Dan Savage, exposing the reason why the GOP and the far right are coming for our trans brothers and sisters:

[The GOP] couldn’t demagogue anymore about gays and lesbians because too many of us are out and too many people know us so they took the same old script – 'Oh they’re recruiting children, preying on children, threatening children, creeping in bathrooms.' That was what they said about gay men 40 years ago. And they’re just taking that now and applying that to trans women and it’s bullshit and trans women and men use bathrooms all over the country and have forever. And they have no cases to point to where a trans person has exploited a civil rights protection to prey on a child."

I’ve said this before myself; same-sex marriage is legal, more and more gay men and women are coming out and so who can the conservatives bash now?

Trans is the new gay, so let’s go after them with the same fear tactics we’ve used before.

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Anne Coulter, wacknut conservative, on policing bathrooms:

“It’s not that transgender people are going to go and molest children, [but] once you say that men can go into women’s bathrooms – men who are out shopping with their little daughters and don’t have mommy to bring her in there. It’s not that the trans are going to molest them. It’s that a child molester now has the right to go into that bathroom."

Really, Ann? Because a trans female uses the women’s bathroom it legalizes a child molester’s access to those same bathrooms?

Seriously, Shut.Up.

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Dan Savage, instantly smacking Coulter down:

"That’s bullshit. A child molester doesn’t need to put on a dress to go into a bathroom. You can Google ‘sexually assaulted in a restroom’ and you get thousands of examples of cisgendered straight men."

Savage, again, is one hundred percent correct.

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Pat Robertson, on the DOJ suing North Carolina to stop it from implementing portions of HB2 and then blaming it all on … who else … Obama:

“How absurd can you get! How does this become a great civil rights issue? This is America and this is who you put in office. You elected [Barack Obama]. I didn’t elect him. You did.”

I imagine Pat also held his head and wrung his hands and whimpered and moaned about black people using the same drinking fountain as white folk … using the same bathroom as white folk. Now it’s trans women using bathrooms.

Same story, same asshat, but let’s end with a calmer head, and more fierce voice, and more open heart …

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Loretta Lynch, U.S. Attorney General, on North Carolina's Bathroom Bill:

"Let me also speak directly to the transgender community itself. Some of you have lived freely for decades. Others of you are still wondering how you can possibly live the lives you were born to lead. But no matter how isolated or scared you may feel today, the Department of Justice and the entire Obama Administration wants you to know that we see you; we stand with you; and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward. Please know that history is on your side. This country was founded on a promise of equal rights for all, and we have always managed to move closer to that promise, little by little, one day at a time. It may not be easy, but we’ll get there together."

I had tears in my eyes listening to Ms. Lynch speak so eloquently of acceptance and tolerance and a need to understand anyone who might be different from others.

How is it that her message is portrayed as one of hate by certain so-called men of God and Christian conservative Republicans?

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Hate Speech Isn't Free Speech

I am all about Free Speech; I have opinions, boy oh boy, do I have opinions, and I like the idea that I can share them, here, in the blog-o-sphere, as well as in the real world. And, yes, I even like opinions that differ from mine because I think that sparks discussion, which sparks learning and, can, spark change.

But there’s a thin line between Free Speech and Hate Speech; and Hate Speech isn’t free … it costs. It costs someone part of his-or herself; it costs people their self-respect; it costs people their sanity; and, it can cost people their lives.

On the heels of last week’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, last week Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr., son of the late religious right leader Jerry Falwell Sr., while giving the convocation at the Christian school, urged his students to carry weapons on campus:

“It just blows my mind that the president of the United States [says] that the answer to circumstances like that is more gun control. If some of those people in that community center had what I have in my back pocket right now … Is it illegal to pull it out? I don’t know, [but] I’ve always thought that if more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in ….”

The rest of that sentence was drowned out by loud cheering from the Christians students though Falwell was heard saying, “and killed them.” Yes, he urged his students, his Christian students, to get a gun, carry a gun, and use a gun to kill Muslims. Yup, a man of God urging people to murder, not terrorists, mind you, but people of a different faith because ... here we go again:

Muslims aren't terrorists; terrorists.

Now, he might say he meant “kill Muslims” when they attack us, but what happens when just one of his flock decides he doesn’t want to wait until the Muslims attack and he, or she, goes on a shooting spree because Jerry Falwell, Jr. urged it?

And Falwell went on:

“I just wanted to take this opportunity to encourage all of you to get your permit. We offer a free course. Let’s teach them a lesson if they ever show up here.”

And naturally, as his remarks went viral, Falwell tried to back-step, saying that when he referred to “those Muslims,” he was referring to Islamic terrorists, but that’s not what he said; 

“[If] more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in … ”

And then he said if given the chance to say it again, he’d say the exact same thing.

Kill. Muslims. Falwell said his comments have generated the most positive comments he has ever received for remarks made during convocation, but I wonder how the 15 to 20 Muslim students — and yes, some Muslims do attend Liberty University — feel about his remarks.

Hate Speech; it’s not free if it costs someone their dignity, their soul, their life. And if even one Muslim student, or one Muslim American, is harmed or killed by someone who listened to Jerry Falwell Jr. and his Hate Speech masked as Free Speech masked as convocation, I would hope that the government steps in and arrest him for aiding and abetting a murderer because that’s what his kind of speech can do.

And he’s not the only one …

On the heels of that terrorist attack in San Bernardino — now believed to have been carried out by radicalized adherents to ISIS ideology — the spread of anti-Muslim Hate Speech is on the rise, from the son of evangelists, and university presidents, to a man who would like to, one day, be the President of the United States.

Last week, former New York governor, and long, long, shot for the GOP presidential nomination, George Pataki, used Twitter to spread hate:

Yes, he’s actually calling for the murder of Muslims. And he aimed his comments at Attorney General Loretta Lynch because she has angered so many of the right, the Christian right, the Republican right, the fear-mongering right, by saying that we need to remain calm in these tense times:

 “I think it’s important, however, that as we again talk about the importance of free speech we make it clear that actions predicated on violent talk are not America they are not who were they are not what we do and they will be prosecuted.”

And she’s right; Free speech is free ... but it costs when it turns to Hate. It can costs lives, and well, in my mind, George Pataki should be arrested and charged with accessory to murder should there be any anti-Muslim deaths in this country. He’s asking for it; he’s telling us to do it.

Kill. Muslims. And we’ve seen, in Texas, as I posted last week, anti-Muslim vandalism by these so-called Americans, so it’s not much of a stretch to think that some gun-nut, made all the more paranoid by the right’s rhetoric about the Muslim community, might take matters into their own hands and start shooting.

You have a governor and a so-called man of God telling them to do it. But maybe, just maybe, these two men will be arrested and called out for what they say, what they advocate, what they urge.

United States Attorney General Loretta Lynch has vows that the department of Justice will go after Hate Speech — like Pataki, who dared Lynch to arrest him, and Falwell — that might incite violence against the Muslim community:

“Obviously this is a country that is based on free speech, but when that edges towards violence…we will take action.”

Since 9/11, the Department of Justice has investigated more than 11,000 acts of anti-Muslim rhetoric in this country; hate speech. Unfortunately, just 45 of those cases were prosecuted, though Lynch sadly thinks that number will rise.

Farhana Khera, Director of Muslim Advocates, along with 46 other religious groups, including the Presbyterian and American Baptist churches, sent a letter in September to the Republican National Committee [RNC] and the Democratic National Committee [DNC] expressing concerns over the “divisive rhetoric being used by some presidential candidates.”

Only the DNC responded to that letter.

And Khera says that inflammatory anti-Muslim language on the campaign trail has persisted; especially with Donald [t] Rump, who advocated a national registry for Muslims — so we can watch “them” — and claimed that Muslims in New Jersey celebrated after the September 11 attacks.

It’s Hate Speech, y’all, from the pulpit to the campaign trail, and the people on the right, the politicians and the RNC refuse to even acknowledge it, because fear is what motivates their base.

Fear and Hate; not Free Speech

George Pataki story via Addicting Info

Jerry Falwell, Jr. story via Washington Post
Loretta Lynch story via ABCNews