Don't Come For India ... Or Curry

Gene Weingarten is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist and is not at all a comedian. Case in point: last week, the Post published  Weingarten’s attempt at humor in a piece entitled, “You Can’t Make Me Eat These Foods,” in which Weingarten writes about the kinds of food he will not eat … foot stomp!

These foods include balsamic vinegar, sweet pickles, anchovies, and Indian food. Indian food. ALL Indian food. Weingarten says Indian food is “the only ethnic cuisine in the world insanely based on one spice” [curry]and he doesn’t get it “as a culinary principle.” 

Well, Weingarten received all kinds of blowback on social media, including accusations of racism. And even Indian-born Padma Lakshmi, food author and host of my favorite reality show competition, Top Chef, didn’t sit this one out, when she Tweeted:

And why was Padma so incensed? Well, not just because it was an ignorant thing to say, but there were some not-so-subtle racist undertones in what Weingarten said, like:

“Indian food. The Indian subcontinent has vastly enriched the world, giving us chess, buttons, the mathematical concept of zero, shampoo, modern-day nonviolent political resistance, Chutes and Ladders, the Fibonacci sequence, rock candy, cataract surgery, cashmere, USB ports … and the only ethnic cuisine in the world insanely based entirely on one spice. If you like Indian curries, yay, you like Indian food! If you think Indian curries taste like something that could knock a vulture off a meat wagon, you do not like Indian food. I don’t get it, as a culinary principle. It is as though the French passed a law requiring every dish to be slathered in smashed, pureed snails. (I’d personally have no problem with that, but you might, and I would sympathize.)”

And when Lakshmi, and others, began coming for him, Weingarten Tweeted, then deleted, this:

“Took a lot of blowback for my dislike of Indian food in today’s column so tonight I went to Rasika, DC’s best Indian restaurant. Food was beautifully prepared yet still swimming with the herbs & spices I most despise. I take nothing back.”

That’s when Padma entered the chat, replying to the now-deleted tweet:

The Washington Post proceeded to edit Weingarten’s original piece and added the disclaimer:

“CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that Indian cuisine is based on one spice, curry, and that Indian food is made up only of curries, types of stew. In fact, India’s vastly diverse cuisines use many spice blends and include many other types of dishes. The article has been corrected.”

But Lakshmi wasn’t done with Weingarten just yet, and posted this to her Instagram:

“There is truly no need for something like this to be published in 2021 (or ever). It’s racist and lazy at best.

My issue is not this person’s performative contrarianism (although it is tedious) or that he didn’t enjoy the Indian cuisines he’s tasted.

My problem is in this attempt at a comedic piece he’s actually just regurgitating old colonizer tropes, gleefully reducing the culture and country of 1.3 billion people to a (frankly) weak punchline- and that the [Washington Post] published it."

But the best was one Tweet, not from Padma, that said:

“I pride myself on my Pakistani cooking. I also love South Indian, and fusion dishes. That you got paid to write this tripe, and boldly spew your racism is deplorable. May your rice be clumpy, roti dry, your chilies unforgivable, your chai cold, and your papadams soft.”

Mic drop.

PS You also pissed off one Carlos in Smallville who loves Curry perhaps a soupçon more than he loves his husband.

And I’m good with that!

My Two Cents: The Nashville Statement

America today ... some in Texas have just come through the worst hurricane ever to arrive on our shores; some are homeless, many are jobless, some have died. Our president viewed a trip to the region as a campaign stop—“Look at the crowds!”—and has treated his presidency as a money-making scheme and a chance to discriminate against anyone who doesn’t look like the ‘us’ he pictures in his mind.’ Mexicans are rapists, Muslims are terrorists, trans Americans are unfit, but neo-Nazis and white supremacists, at least some of them, are nice folks.

Our country is more divided than at any time in recent memory and so this is a time when many folks turn toward their faith to find some sense in it all, to find a way through this darkness. But what are our so-called “Christian” leaders doing?

And don’t get me started on Joel Osteen turning his back on flood victims until Twitter shamed him; that’s disgusting enough.

No, our evangelical leaders, our ALLEGED men, and women, of God, have released The Nashville Statement—which as I found out, is not an indictment of that TV show because Rayna died.

The Nashville Statement wasn’t created to bring us together, to help our friends and families in Texas and Louisiana who are in need; it wasn’t written to help us combat the KKK and Nazis marching in the streets; it doesn’t ask us to help fight bigotry and intolerance, anti-Muslim, anti-Mexican hate. No, the Nashville Statement condones, promotes and praises hate, against the LGBT community.

It’s just so Christ-like ... these “articles” of The Nashville Statement:

Article 1

WE AFFIRM that God has designed marriage to be a covenantal, sexual, procreative, lifelong union of one man and one woman, as husband and wife, and is meant to signify the covenant love between Christ and his bride the church.

WE DENY that God has designed marriage to be a homosexual, polygamous, or polyamorous relationship. We also deny that marriage is a mere human contract rather than a covenant made before God.

Article 2

WE AFFIRM that God’s revealed will for all people is chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage.

WE DENY that any affections, desires, or commitments ever justify sexual intercourse before or outside marriage; nor do they justify any form of sexual immorality.

Article 3

WE AFFIRM that God created Adam and Eve, the first human beings, in his own image, equal before God as persons, and distinct as male and female.

WE DENY that the divinely ordained differences between male and female render them unequal in dignity or worth.

Article 4

WE AFFIRM that divinely ordained differences between male and female reflect God’s original creation design and are meant for human good and human flourishing.

WE DENY that such differences are a result of the Fall or are a tragedy to be overcome.

Article 5

WE AFFIRM that the differences between male and female reproductive structures are integral to God’s design for self-conception as male or female.

WE DENY that physical anomalies or psychological conditions nullify the God-appointed link between biological sex and self-conception as male or female.

Article 6

WE AFFIRM that those born with a physical disorder of sex development are created in the image of God and have dignity and worth equal to all other image-bearers. They are acknowledged by our Lord Jesus in his words about “eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb.” With all others they are welcome as faithful followers of Jesus Christ and should embrace their biological sex insofar as it may be known.

WE DENY that ambiguities related to a person’s biological sex render one incapable of living a fruitful life in joyful obedience to Christ.

Article 7

WE AFFIRM that self-conception as male or female should be defined by God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption as revealed in Scripture.

WE DENY that adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is consistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption.

Article 8

WE AFFIRM that people who experience sexual attraction for the same sex may live a rich and fruitful life pleasing to God through faith in Jesus Christ, as they, like all Christians, walk in purity of life.

WE DENY that sexual attraction for the same sex is part of the natural goodness of God’s original creation, or that it puts a person outside the hope of the gospel.

Article 9

WE AFFIRM that sin distorts sexual desires by directing them away from the marriage covenant and toward sexual immorality— a distortion that includes both heterosexual and homosexual immorality.

WE DENY that an enduring pattern of desire for sexual immorality justifies sexually immoral behavior.

Article 10

WE AFFIRM that it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism and that such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.

WE DENY that the approval of homosexual immorality or transgenderism is a matter of moral indifference about which otherwise faithful Christians should agree to disagree.

Article 11

WE AFFIRM our duty to speak the truth in love at all times, including when we speak to or about one another as male or female.

WE DENY any obligation to speak in such ways that dishonor God’s design of his imagebearers as male and female.

Article 12

WE AFFIRM that the grace of God in Christ gives both merciful pardon and transforming power, and that this pardon and power enable a follower of Jesus to put to death sinful desires and to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord.

WE DENY that the grace of God in Christ is insufficient to forgive all sexual sins and to give power for holiness to every believer who feels drawn into sexual sin.

Article 13

WE AFFIRM that the grace of God in Christ enables sinners to forsake transgender selfconceptions and by divine forbearance to accept the God-ordained link between one’s biological sex and one’s self-conception as male or female.

WE DENY that the grace of God in Christ sanctions self-conceptions that are at odds with God’s revealed will.

Article 14

WE AFFIRM that Christ Jesus has come into the world to save sinners and that through Christ’s death and resurrection forgiveness of sins and eternal life are available to every person who repents of sin and trusts in Christ alone as Savior, Lord, and supreme treasure.

WE DENY that the Lord’s arm is too short to save or that any sinner is beyond his reach.

It all boils down to this: LGBT people are bad.

The Nashville Statement boasts about 150 initial signers—you can find all their names HERE—and almost all of the 150 or so asshats and wingnuts and so-called “Christians” support Donald Trump, a man who doesn't have a clue about the Bible, is probably the least "Christian" president America has ever had, a man who has been married three times, committed adultery at least once, that we know of, has been divorced twice, and has admitted he does not ask God for forgiveness.

They support this man, but it’s the LGBTQ community that they fear most.

And, you know, just in case you didn’t think the signers of this piece of Christian hate could not appear more ignorant and foolish, one of the signers, Albert Mohler, the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a highly-influential Christian evangelical leader, says the Articles of The Nashville Statement are not words of hate, but of love:

"I was a signer of ... the Nashville Statement, a document adopted by a group of evangelical Christians seeking to reaffirm traditional Christian values on sexuality. ... One of the most intense lines of criticism was that we, signers of the document, dismiss the pain and suffering of those who live outside those historic Biblical sexual norms. That we weren’t acknowledging the rejection they feel in the church and were making their sins appear more significant than our own. ... In releasing the Nashville Statement, we in fact are acting out of love and concern for people who are increasingly confused about what God has clarified in Holy Scripture."

Love and concern, while telling the LGBT community that we don’t have the right to marry, to have children, to even love the people we love.

But, oddly enough, as a so-called “Christian,” Mohler and The Nashville Statement doesn’t address divorce, adultery, child abuse; he doesn’t seem bothered by an adulterous pussy-grabbing anti-Mexican, anti-Muslim president, but he thinks trans persons are the greatest threat to America and that my marriage is some kind of abomination.

In other words, he's doing what evangelical Christians have been doing for decades: calling LGBT people sinners while claiming their "truth"—which is mostly just hate, condemnation and judgment—is love.

There are millions of Americans in Texas and Louisiana who are literally under water right now, millions of Americans who have lost everything, millions facing loss of health care coverage, millions of American children waking up hungry every day and going to bed starving, millions working in jobs that don't pay living wage, being forced to work two, three, four or more jobs just to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads, millions affected by gun violence, by hate marching in the streets and yet this band of “Christians” wants to release a statement denouncing LGBT Americans simply because we’ve asked for, and received some, equality.

And what Mohler and his fellow signers don’t seem to realize, because they are too busy keeping her heads buried in the sands of the 1950s, and even earlier, is that more  and more Americans see them for what they are: not as Christians, but as extremists, bigots, and haters.

God is watching these men, and women, and She is not happy.

And you know how I know that? I live in one of the most religious states in this country—it’s practically the buckle on the Bible belt—where, when you meet people, they ask you two questions:

Where are you from

Where do you worship

And yet these people, these folks whose lives sometimes revolve around their churches, look at Carlos and me as a couple, as a married couple, as just their neighbors, their friends, and their co-workers. They don’t look at us with hate or disgust; that’s reserved for the little men and women who signed that vile statement.

And there aren’t that many of them.

Random Musings

First and foremost ... boycott the inauguration tomorrow. I mean, we all know how much _____ likes to brag about TV ratings so wouldn’t it be great if this was the least watched inauguration ever? And, even if it isn’t, you’ll feel better for not having partaken in the glorification of a man endorsed by the KKK and the KGB.

‘nuff said ... oh, except .... #Resist.

Speaking of the inauguration ... one Scottish newspaper description of the event has gone viral.

In the TV description section of the Herald Scotland, “President _____: The Inauguration” is described as if it is an episode of The Twilight Zone.

“After a long absence, The Twilight Zone returns with one of the most ambitious, expensive and controversial productions in broadcast history. Sci-fi writers have dabbled often with alternative history stories – among the most common is the “What If The Nazis Had Won The Second World War” setting – but this huge interactive virtual reality project, which will unfold on TV, in the press, and on Twitter over the next four years, sets out to build an ongoing alternative present. The story begins in a nightmarish version of 2017 in which huge sections of the US electorate have somehow been duped into voting to make Donald Trump president. It sounds far-fetched, and it is, but as it goes on it becomes more and more chillingly plausible. Today’s feature-length opener concentrates on the gaudy inauguration of President Trump, and the stirrings of protest and despair surrounding the ceremony, while pundits speculate gravely on what lies ahead. It’s a flawed piece, but a disturbing glimpse of the horrors we could stumble into, if we’re not careful."

Scary sh*t indeed ... so, again ... #Resist. 

Marriage equality may soon be coming to the Land Down Under, but not if the Australian Christian Lobby has anything to say about it.

They have been fighting equality hard, but now they also have a new target ... a fashion campaign from the Volley Australia shoe label, which encourages people to “root” for change.

Volley’s new #grassroots ad campaign features gay and straight models frolicking in cars, in nature, and on the tennis court with the tagline:

“We’re sick of being socially engineered and we shun political correctness. We’re young and we’re rooting for change. We are children of the sun and are comfortable in our own skin, so don’t tell us who to love or how to be. Our campaign is all about the celebration of sexual expression whilst remembering to stay safe. For this reason we’ve joined arms with Ansell condoms in support of safe sex, as whilst we’re all about rooting, we believe in ‘safety first’. So stay safe this summer and root for us, root for change, root for VOLLEY.”

But Wendy Francis, a member of the Australian Christian Lobby, says Volley has something dirtier in mind ... The Sex! Or, as they say Down Under, “rooting”—which is “doing the sex” in Oz-talk.

Um, Wendy, you and your ilk think everything is about The Sex. It isn’t. It’s about equality, something Jesus tried to do but folks like you have ruined. And perhaps if you were doing a little “rooting” you’d be less uptight.

Just sayin’.

DisruptJ20, a series of mass actions supported by the activist collective DC Welcoming Committee, is planning protests around the inauguration, one of which is a Queer Dance Party at the Chevy Chase, Maryland home of VP-elect Mike Pence on Wednesday.

Yup, they held a Queer Dance party at Mike Pence’s house and you just know he ran away from that lest he be spotted in a window choking Little Mike as he watched the Boys dance.

Betsy DeVos, _____’s nominee for education secretary said during her Senate confirmation hearing that local authorities should decide whether guns should be barred from American schools — citing the case of a school in Wyoming where a special fence protects students from bears.

Yes. She did. When Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy—whose state saw the worst school shooting in history at Sandy Hook Elementary—asked DeVos to explain whether she thought guns belonged “in or around schools,” DeVos argued that some schools — like those in Wyoming — need weapons “to protect from potential grizzlies [bears].”

Yup. She did. Pray for us with loons like this in government.

As a gay man it is part of my obligation to be obsessed with The Wizard of Oz.

Naturally, I love the Judy Garland film, and I loved the Broadway show with Stephanie Mills, and the movie version of The Wiz starring Diana Ross. I also loved the Wicked books by Gregory Maguire and have seen the Broadway show Wicked and several touring companies of the show.

I have also watched every version of Oz that appeared on television, though there was one set in a men's prison, that didn’t include Dorothy or Toto but did have, um, merit.

Now, NBC is showing Emerald City, a  kind of Game of Thrones Oz. it’s quite beautiful to look at ... the Witch of the East’s costume alone was fabulous, but it also has two other things going for it ... Oliver Jackson-Cohen, left, a British actor, riffing on the Scarecrow, and Mido Hamada, right, a kind of Emerald City guard searching for Dorothy.

Two hot reasons to keep my fascination with all things Oz going.

Chris Christie is talking again, and is now saying that it was his wife, Mary Pat, who kept him from taking a position in the _____ administration because she refused to move from New Jersey to Washington, DC:

“He didn’t offer me a job that I thought was exciting enough for me to leave the governorship, and my family, because Mary Pat made really clear she wasn’t coming to D.C.”

In December, _____ transition sources said Christie was offered cabinet-level posts like secretary of Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs, as well as a slot as a top White House aide or as US ambassador to Italy.

Ambassador to Italy? It must be love if Christie turned down two years of Italian food.

Just sayin’.

So, recently Leslie Jordan, who played pint-sized homo Beverly Leslie on Will & Grace announced that the show would be returning to TV for ten new episodes next season and Debra Messing, the Grace of Will & instantly shot that down saying nothing had been confirmed.

Um, except now it has been confirmed ... NBC announced this week that a one-off season consisting of 10 episodes of Will & Grace  is coming  and pretty much everyone from the old show will be involved. Will & Grace creators Max Mutchnick and David Kohan will act as showrunners and executive producers. James Burrows, who directed every episode of the show, will be back to direct the revival episodes as well as produce. 

It’s baaaaaack. And just in time ... I need a Karen fix.

Camden "Duck" Drop

Every year the Smallville, er, Camden Rotary Club holds the Rotary Duck Drop in Kendall Park here in town.

The event — which is the dropping of Rubber Duckies into one part of Kendall Lake and following their progress to another point on the lake, with those who have chosen the winning ducks receiving prizes — also includes face-painting, children’s activities, live music, door prizes and a chance to win an iPad, iPad mini or iPad Touch. The proceeds will the Camden Rotary Club and enable members to perform various charitable acts throughout the year.

Sadly, this year our local paper, the Camden chronicle-Independent failed to proof-read the news item for the Duck drop.

Still, this sounds fun, too …. 

The Daily Hypocrite: Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz is an asshat; no doubt. He’s also a ginormous liar, and we have a myriad of instances where he’s done just that. And he’s still bragging about how he shut down the government and cost the American taxpayers $24 billion dollars, and is even using that to run for office, though I wonder how he’d cry and bitch and moan if, as President … I know, it’ll never happen … a Democrat shut down the government.

But this isn’t about lying, being an asshat, or destroying the government Ted Cruz; this is about Hypocrite Ted Cruz.

See, he recently released an ad for his political campaign, featuring Ted and the missus, sitting with their two children, reading them Christmas tales, like "How Obamacare Stole Christmas" and "Rudolph The Underemployed Reindeer."

Too funny. Not. But then he read from a book called “The Grinch Who Lost Her Emails” and had one of his children, his seven-year-old daughter, read the line:

“‘I know just what I’ll do,’ she said with a snicker. ‘I’ll use my own server and no one will be the wiser.’”

Isn’t that hilarious how he makes his children part of his campaign when surely his seven-year-old daughter knows next to nothing about what she’s saying, but is, in fact, just parroting what Daddy told her to say?

And so, Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist Ann Telnaes created a cartoon for The Washington Post — which has since been taken down — depicting Ted Cruz as Organ Grinder Santa Claus and his two daughters as the dancing monkeys.

And Cruz went off.

"Not much ticks me off, but making fun of my girls, that will do it. Don't mess with my kids. Don't mess with Marco's kids. Don't mess with Hillary's kids. Don't mess with anybody's kids. Leave kids alone."

Huh. But didn’t you start this by making your own children part of your campaign? I mean, you chose to put them in a campaign ad, and even had one of them take a shot at Hillary Clinton, and that’s somehow all right?

Siddown Ted, your hypocrisy is showing. But he isn’t done. Now he’s using that Washington Post cartoon as a money grab for his campaign, which fired off a fundraising email entitled, "They attacked my children!"

"You see, there is something that rises up inside a man when his children are attacked—something fierce and unstoppable. It is this same unstoppable force that makes me more determined than ever to fight for you, your family, and American families everywhere. Can I count on you to stand with me?"

So he uses his children in an attack ad on Hillary Clinton — going so far as to have a seven-year-old ‘read’ from the book — and when a cartoonists calls him on it, he cries foul and uses the situation to ask for money because, wait for it, his children.

I agree that children should be off limits in these campaigns, but if you’re gonna use your kids to attack the President — who, by the way is not running for office remember — or an adversary, you have no right to get your knickers twisted when someone else makes a parody of your family. You started it; you used your child as a trained monkey for a political ad.

And finally, my main issue with the cartoon is that Ted Cruz should have been depicted as a monkey because that’s what he is: a trained chimp, pandering to the rightwingnuts.

Ted Cruz: The Daily Hypocrite.

Let's Talk About Race, Baby... Again

I find it odd, and sad, and sick and twisted, that when people hear that there are more black men in prisons than white men they say it’s because black men commit most of the crimes. I mean, that is patently false, and yet people seem to believe it.

But do people believe it that when a black man is arrested on a drug charge, even a minor drug charge, most of the time they get jail, and yet when a white man is arrested on a similar charge they often get a trip to rehab.

Is that fair? Is it racist? Well, then what about this …

Back on March 23rd, the Iowa Gazette ran two separate crime stories. One story was about three white University of Iowa wrestling team members who’d been charged with burglary, and the other story, on the same day, remember, and was about four black men who were suspects in a different burglary.

Same crimes; different races. And when Lee Hermiston, the reporter who covered both stories, and the newspaper, told the tale, they posted pictures of the accused in the paper with one notable difference: the three white men were named alongside their yearbook photos, while the four black men were named alongside the mugshots taken at the time of their arrest.

White men get pretty pictures in suits and ties, while black men get mugshots.

And so, when the time comes for a trial, don’t you think it already looks like at least four of those seven men are guilty, while the other three look like it was just some colossal mistake, or college prank? This idea that the paper used two different types of photographs to portray seven different men all charged with the exact same time perpetuates the idea that black men are thieves and white men are good old college boys.

And in the stories on the alleged thieves, the white men are called wrestlers while the black men are referred to as burglars. You think that gives anyone a leg up when, or if, the cases go to trial?

Still think there isn’t a race problem in this country?

via Addicting Info

Feud: Mama Grizzly Bore™ vs. The Washington Post

It used to be good being the Mama Grizzly Bore™. Sure, she blew John McCain’s’ lest, best, shot at ever living in the White House and yes, she quit her job as Governor of Alaska because all those questions about her lack of ethics were making things hard for her. But, she had a base of support, mostly wingnuts, illiterates and Teabaggers, or any combination thereof,  and so she could host a reality show and “write” a book and get paid a couple of bucks to speak here and there. But, this summer just might be the summer of the MGB’s™ discontent.

See, even her base of loons and nut-monkeys turned on her when she began her rabid Impeach Obama talk — and if the loons and nut-monkeys turn on you, well, you better sit down — and then a poll came out in which the majority of Americans, and not just the liberal elite Hollywood types with their cement ponds and fancy cars, picked her as  the person they most want to see shut up and go away; I won’t mention that I’ve been saying that since late summer 2008, m’kay?

And she just recently came up with her own media channel, dubbed by some as the Blamestream Media, which is more expensive and far less interesting ort newsworthy than NetFlix.

So, I feel for her ... I kid.

See, now MGB™ has gone on the attack against the Washington Post on her Facebook page, calling WaPo reporters “a bunch of wusses” too scared to investigate Obama:

“The public knows of our current president’s incompetence, denials, and cover-ups, but would be well served if we could count on your resources to dig deep for truth in all matters pertaining to Team Obama.

…

The list of Obama abuses and impeachable offenses is long. I challenge you to lift a finger and help protect democracy, allow justice for all, and ensure domestic tranquility by doing your job reporting current corrupt events fairly. If not, you prove yourselves incompetent and in bed with Obama, not caring one iota about media integrity.

Those running the Washington Post’s show now, compared to those during the Nixon era, are too afraid of being uninvited to the permanent political class’ cocktail parties and petty gossip fests, making you all a bunch of wusses. I challenge you to get to work.

…

To reclaim your credibility (and the mainstream media’s, at large), I challenge you to engage in the same aggressive investigative journalism you courageously employed 42 years ago covering President Nixon.”

Sadly, MGB™ who infamously could not name one single newspaper she read when being interviewed by Katie Couric in 2008 — I guess she doesn’t think The National Enquirer counted — picked on the wrong paper with which to tangle.

Responding to MGB’s™ ludicrous, and, at times, childish, rebuke, the Washington Post expressed surprise that Palin actually reads a newspaper, even if they are “circa the early 1970s.” And then they said this:

“Way to blast that Washington Post!

One problem though: The post in which you blast the Washington Post sits about ten posts above this July 20 Facebook post of yours, which starts with these words:

Obama Knew of Border “Crisis” Prior to Reelection; Lied About That, Too!

The Washington Post has a bombshell article out about how “top officials at the White House and the State Department had repeatedly been warned of the potential for a further explosion in the number of migrant children since the crisis began escalating two years ago.

Bold text added to note a contradiction in your timeline. In one Facebook post, you’re calling The Post wussies, and in an earlier one, you’re crediting its reporting for exposing a policy failure of the Obama administration. It’s not really a big deal, though. One remedy would be to delete the post that congratulates The Post for its July 19 story on the early warnings about the border crisis. Another remedy would be to amend your Post-slamming post to say something along the lines of: “You’ve fallen like a lead balloon, except for that sweet story last week about how the Obama administration had ample warning of the border crisis, as well as any other Obama administration-critical stories that I missed on account of my documented failure to read newspapers.”

A third approach would be to leave things as they are, on the safe assumption that no one looks to you for consistency anyhow.”

Oh MGB™. Schooled and read by the Washington Post.

source

Richard Cohen Says The GOP Isn't Racist And Then Proves It Is

The other day I stopped in at Viktor’s place — Maybe it’s JustMe — as I usually do, and he’d posted this quote from The Mama Grizzly Bore™ about the US debt to China:

"This free stuff, so seductive. Why do you think marketers use free stuff to bring people in? Free stuff is such a strong marketing ploy. But didn't you all learn too in Econ 101 there ain't no such thing as a free lunch? Our free stuff today is being paid for by taking money from our children and borrowing from China. When that note comes due -- and this isn't racist.. but it's going to be like slavery when that note is due. We are going to be beholden to a foreign master. Because there is no plan coming out of Washington, D.C. to stop the incurrence of debt."

Now, I’m not here to talk about debt, or even MGB™, because the part of the quote that got me is the part where she says “this isn't racist.. but it's going to be like slavery when that note is due.” I made a comment that when someone says they are about to say something that isn’t racist, then it’s usually racist. The qualifier does nothing but draw attention to your racism.

But that’s the GOP, in a lot of ways, though, to be fair, not all of the GOP. But, as we’ve seen these last five years, with the way the GOP has gone against anything and everything that our first Black President has put forward — without coming up with their own ideas, mind you, as proof that they are better in politics — the GOP is racist.

Even Richard Cohen, a Washington Post columnist,  is racist and thinks the GOP is racist, and we know this because he s trying to tell us that the GOP isn’t racist, by, um, well, writing about it. And, again to be clear, this is the same not racist Richard Cohen who, earlier this year, claimed victory in the George Zimmerman trial after Zimmerman was acquitted of murdering Trayvon Martin; Cohan had compared the image of Trayvon Martin in a hoodie had the same affect on a white man as a man Ku Klux Klan robes does to a black man.

Yes, he did. And now he’s gone off again, proving he’s not racist by being a racist, in talking about newly elected New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio and his family:

“Today’s GOP is not racist, as Harry Belafonte alleged about the tea party, but it is deeply troubled — about the expansion of government, about immigration, about secularism, about the mainstreaming of what used to be avant-garde. People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering mayor-elect of New York—a white man married to a black woman with two biracial children. {Should I mention that Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?} This family represents the cultural changes that have enveloped parts — but not all — of America. To cultural conservatives, this doesn’t look like their America at all.”

Oh, where to begin … ?

I guess I was first appalled about his verbiage ‘mainstreaming of what used to be avant-garde.’ I take it, he means The Gays and by mainstreaming he means equality, which apparently he doesn’t consider worthy of all for all people.

But it’s his blatant racism, his implication that a white man married to a black woman, and with children no less, is somehow appalling to conservatives because it doesn’t look like ‘their America.’

I’ve got news for you Mr. Cohen, you are a racist, and this isn’t just your America. Last I checked it belonged to all of us equally, regardless of gender, orientation or race. The great thing about America, to me, and I guess this is just another in a long list of reasons why I’ll never be called a conservative, is that we are all Americans, no matter our skin color, accent, ethnicity, religion, lack of religion, gender, age, sexual orientation. And we can all — or at least some of us — marry whomever we choose to marry, be they different races or religions or, in at least 15 states and the District of Columbia, the same gender.

That’s America, Mr., Cohen, not your lily white one-way view, and that’s why the GOP is floundering, because while the rest of  America and the world, change and adapt and grow and learn, learn, and understand, the GOP is stuck in the mud up to their necks.

Racist, indeed.

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