Open Thread - Friday April 10, 2015

Submitted by NCTim on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 7:00am

Like politics, religion can bring out the worst in people. Religion is used to discriminate, intimidate and attracts psychopathic personalities. Sociopaths use religion to manipulate and control people. How else can we explain James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Tony Perkins, Pat Robertson or David Koresh?

EXPOSÉ: THE “CHRISTIAN” MAFIA

After several months of in-depth research and, at first, seemingly unrelated conversations with former high-level intelligence officials, lawyers, politicians, religious figures, other investigative journalists, and researchers, I can now report on a criminal conspiracy so vast and monstrous it defies imagination. Using “Christian” groups as tax-exempt and cleverly camouflaged covers, wealthy right-wing businessmen and “clergy” have now assumed firm control over the biggest prize of all – the government of the United States of America.

http://www.insider-magazine.com/christianmafia.htm

Meet 'The Family'

The writer, who went undercover among America's secret theocrats, describes three bizarre weeks of 'man to man' interaction with the power elite.

http://www.alternet.org/story/16167/meet_%27the_family%27

The Secret Political Reach Of 'The Family'

You may recognize these names from recent headlines: Sen. John Ensign, Rep. Bart Stupak and Rep. Joe Pitts. Stupak and Pitts have become familiar names through the media's health care overhaul coverage; their abortion funding amendment introduced an 11th-hour twist as the House of Representatives approached a vote on a landmark health care bill.

Ensign was the focus of media attention over his affair with a campaign staffer. Just last night, a Nevada man disclosed that he found out about his wife's affair with the state's junior senator — his best friend — via a text message.

The common factor among these political players is their involvement with the Family, a secretive fellowship of powerful Christian politicians that centers on a Washington, D.C., townhouse.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120746516

Focus on the Family

Focus on the Family founder and chairman James Dobson is perhaps the most influential right-wing Christian leader in the country, with a huge and loyal following that he can reach easily through an impressive media empire.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/focus-family

Evangelical Liberty University received half a billion dollars in federal aid money

Liberty University, the evangelical private Christian school founded by dead apartheid-supporting bigot Jerry Falwell, received $445 million in federal financial aid last year.

http://www.salon.com/2011/04/05/liberty_university_federal_money/

History of the Anti-Gay Movement Since 1977

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-iss...

Essay: The Christian Identity Movement

Of all the movements that have appeared among white racists in America, Christian Identity is surely one of the strangest. Though nominally Christian, it owes little to the even the most conservative of American Protestants. Indeed, its relationship with evangelicals and fundamentalists has generally been hostile due to the latter’s belief that the return of Jews to Israel is essential to the fulfillment of end-time prophecy. Identity has created for itself a unique anti-Semitic and racist theology, but despite its curious beliefs, it rose in the 1980s to a position of commanding influence on the racist right. Only a prolonged and aggressive effort by law enforcement, together with the demise of influential leaders who were not replaced, brought about its present decline.

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/ideology/christ...

Hillary's Prayer: Hillary Clinton's Religion and Politics

It was an elegant example of the Clinton style, a rhetorical maneuver subtle, bold, and banal all at once. During a Democratic candidate forum in June, hosted by the liberal evangelical group Sojourners, Hillary Clinton fielded a softball query about Bill's infidelity: How had her faith gotten her through the Lewinsky scandal?

After a glancing shot at Republican "pharisees," Clinton explained that, of course, her "very serious" grounding in faith had helped her weather the affair. But she had also relied on the "extended faith family" that came to her aid, "people whom I knew who were literally praying for me in prayer chains, who were prayer warriors for me."

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/09/hillarys-prayer-hillary-clin...

Do you like your politics and religion shaken or stirred?

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Submitted by smiley7 on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 7:51am
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With Graham's empire in our back yard including a local state senator, your post this morning rings the home bell.
I enjoyed this NPR interview:

Kruse's book investigates how the idea of America as a Christian nation was promoted in the 1930s and '40s when industrialists and business lobbies, chafing against the government regulations of the New Deal, recruited and funded conservative clergy to preach faith, freedom and free enterprise. He says this conflation of Christianity and capitalism moved to center stage in the '50s under Eisenhower's watch. from Terry Gross interview on Fresh Airhttp://www.wbur.org/npr/396365659/how-one-nation-didnt-become-under-god-...

One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America Hardcover – April 14, 2015
by Kevin M. Kruse (Author) http://www.amazon.com/One-Nation-Under-God-Corporate/dp/0465049494

Have good day.

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Submitted by NCTim on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 8:21am
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Wanting to replace the Aycock statue with Billy Graham. Franklin Graham is not the shiniest coin in the collection plate.

http://www.christiantoday.com/article/nc.lawmakers.propose.billy.graham....

I agree, as long as the name on the statue is Rev. Billy Grifter.

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

Submitted by NCTim on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 8:29am
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The Nixon tapes reveal that in 1972, Nixon, Graham, and H.R. Haldeman had a conversation in the Oval Office in which the Jews were targets:

Graham: “This [Jewish] stranglehold has got to be broken or the country’s going down the drain.”
On January 30, 1969, Vereide, Billy Graham, and newly-inaugurated President Richard Nixon gathered for the Presidential Prayer Breakfast. There is little doubt that Nixon had been tipped off years before by his friend and bankroller Howard Hughes about Vereide’s ties to Pan Am’s Trippe and his bought-and-paid for senator, Brewster. Nevertheless, Nixon, a Quaker, became close to Billy Graham, the North Carolina-born evangelist and one-time student at Bob Jones University who is also the Fellowship’s patron saint. Obviously, Nixon shared the Fellowship’s and Graham’s anti-Semitism.

Nixon: “You believe that?”

Graham: “Yes, sir.”

Nixon: “Oh, boy.” So do I. I can’t ever say that but I believe it.”

Graham: “No, but if you get elected a second time, then we might be able to do something.”
---
Graham: “By the way, Hedley Donovan has invited me to have lunch with [the Time Magazine] editors.”

Haldeman: “You better take your Jewish beanie.”

Graham: “Is that right? I don’t know any of them now . . .A lot of Jews are great friends of mine . . .They swarm around me and are friendly with me because they know that I’m friendly with Israel. But they don’t know how I really feel about what they are doing to this country.”

Nixon: “You must not let them know.”

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

Submitted by smiley7 on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 8:53am
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Sen Dan Soucek has sponsored many of the most onerous bills and locally backed a campaign to ban a good book at the high school. He is co-chair of the Senate education committee as well.
I took on Falwell in the press right after 911 with the ending result of App State's student body and faculty council voting to end the university's athletic relationship with Liberty; had several heated conversations with Jerry junior.
They get revenge btw.

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Submitted by NCTim on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 8:59am
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Very christian of them. I assumed that was the case, it's how they roll.

Some people believe that a rising tide lifts all boats. Some people sink other people's boats to elevate themselves. We call them sociopaths.

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

Submitted by DonMidwest on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 9:19am

The battle under way in America is not between religion and science. It is not between those who embrace the rational and those who believe in biblical myth. It is not between Western civilization and Islam. The blustering televangelists and the New Atheists, the television pundits and our vaunted Middle East specialists and experts, are all part of our vast, simplistic culture of mindless entertainment. They are in show business. They cannot afford complexity. Religion and science, facts and lies, truth and fiction, are the least of their concerns. They trade insults and clichés like cartoon characters. They don masks. One wears the mask of religion. One wears the mask of science. One wears the mask of journalism. One wears the mask of the terrorism expert. They jab back and forth in predictable sound bites. It is a sterile and useless debate between bizarre subsets of American culture. Some use the scientific theory of evolution to explain the behavior and rules for complex social and political systems, and others insist that the six-day creation story in Genesis is a factual account. The danger we face is not in the quarrel between religion advocates and evolution advocates, but in the widespread mental habit of fundamentalism itself.

We live in a fundamentalist culture. Our utopian visions of inevitable human progress, obsession with endless consumption, and fetish for power and unlimited growth are fed by illusions that are as dangerous as fantasies about the Second Coming. These beliefs are the newest expression of the infatuation with the apocalypse, one first articulated to Western culture by the early church. This apocalyptic vision was as central to the murderous beliefs of the French Jacobins, the Russian Bolsheviks and the German fascists as it was to the early Christians. The historian Arnold Toynbee argues that racism in Anglo-American culture was given a special virulence after the publication of the King James Bible. The concept of “the chosen people” was quickly adopted, he wrote, by British and American imperialists. It fed the disease of white supremacy. It gave them the moral sanction to dominate and destroy other races, from the Native Americans to those on the subcontinent.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/fundamentalism_kills_20110726

Chris Hedges

Fundamentalism Kills

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Submitted by DonMidwest on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 9:34am

moving story

https://www.thedodo.com/greenwald-the-dogs-you-rescue--389145041.html

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Submitted by mimi on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 10:10am
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and you really know what you get back from a dog, you rescued and started to love, when you give him away again. I thought at a point I had to do so and gave my dog up for adoption. I never forget my dog's last look at me when she realized "something is wrong". I can't forget her look and I my feelings about what I did are the same I had, when I twice in my life left my son as a kid in places where I shouldn't have left him. It is somewhat a thing you never forget. You just never forget.

What GG writes about the way his dog reacted when she gave birth to the puppies is so true. (He is really a good writer, my golly) My mother breeded twice with our poodle, when I was a kid. She kept each time one of the whelps, so throughout her life my mother had a 3 generational dog set to give our family companionship. I remember well how our dog "Ronnie" reacted when my mother for the first time raised her hand into the special breeding box, she had built, to help with moving one of the whelps. A very clear threatening snarl said: "keep your hands away and dare you not touch anything in here and don't disturb me doing my business of giving birth". Our dog had never, ever snarled at any of us in the family. I even think, if you would go against the wish of the dog, she could discard the whelp you touched and never take care of it again.

I wished I had scanned some photos of me with the whelps. I was eight years then. Oh well, that was a journey into very old memories. Smile

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Submitted by DonMidwest on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 10:24am

from Glenn's twitter account which is almost, very nearly, just around the corner, 500,000 twitter followers (is at 499K right now)

twitter is on the list of street drugs? is there an AA for twitter addicts?

Glenn Greenwald ‏@ggreenwald 8m8 minutes ago

Just had the honor of visiting Chelsea Manning at Fort Leavenworth. She looks, sounds and is great.

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Submitted by mimi on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 10:45am
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had helped her 'weather' the affair of her husband is so corrupted just by expressing a response at all in public in front of TV cameras and microphones, that it reminds me why I think she I wouldn't want to follow her, despite all her "experience".

The fact is that the presence of cameras and media corrupt character integrity, if you want it or not. At the same token I could really kick the reporter's ass for what kind of questions they ask. I wait for the politicians to fight back against reporters, who overstep the rights to privacy of a politician. I wait for reporters to not run wild after any idiot opportunity to "unclothe and show the nakedness of their political interviewees". Can't stand all of it. What does the viewer of that interview get out of the question the reporter asked? Nothing but a bubble of a stupid answer nobody gives a shit for. I really would love if people would keep their junk and their religious faiths private and out of the media and public eye.

It's nobody's business how HRC "weathered" the affair of her husband. Too bad your excellent OT reminded me of that. Really a lot of stuff in there I want to follow up on. Thanks, Tim.

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Submitted by mimi on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 1:50pm
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Monday, Sep 10, 2012 11:24 AM EST
Why I left the GOP - I grew up in a rich, Republican household, but after Katrina and Iraq, I realized my priorities were out of order -
Jeremiah Goulka That's GW Bush for real. Gosh. So that is his second reborn Christian experience, or what?

"If you’re young and not a Democrat, you’re heartless. If you grow up and you’re not a Republican, you’re stupid.”

I might add, "if you are old and senile and are still a Republican, you are a jerk".

I always imagined that I was full of heart, but it turned out that I was oblivious. Like so many Republicans, I had assumed that society’s “losers” had somehow earned their deserts. As I came to recognize that poverty is not earned or chosen or deserved, and that our use of force is far less precise than I had believed, I realized with a shock that I had effectively viewed whole swaths of the country and the world as second-class people.

No longer oblivious, I couldn’t remain in today’s Republican Party, not unless I embraced an individualism that was even more heartless than the one I had previously accepted. The more I learned about reality, the more I started to care about people as people, and my values shifted. Had I always known what I know today, it would have been clear that there hasn’t been a place for me in the Republican Party since the Free Soil days of Abe Lincoln.

Oh, Bush even learned how to stop loving the bombs. Phew.

Ok, what I read in this article makes me so mad, I can't quote it. It's apparently part of the book "The United States of Fear", which I have on my shelf waiting to be read. Now I wonder, if I should read it, it will certainly just enrage me. Why would I be so masochistic and dwell into all of that? I could just go fishing ... and eat my fishes too... if my brain and my stomach weren't that upset from the onset and prevented me from doing just that.

Man, this guy is responsible for how many people killed in the wars he initiated?

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Submitted by mimi on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 2:20pm
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didn't post it, as I couldn't cut it well and another kossack had covered the event, where he spoke. I knew many people liked him as progressive Democrat, but when I watched his "body language and way of talking" I couldn't quite "like" him. I thought he was "slicky, glitchy and in love with himself". But I surpressed these thoughts, as being you know just typical female prejudiced feelings from the guts.

Now they came back from my guts junkyard. I can't stand when that happens.

Does Alan Grayson Want War With Iran?

The article ends with this sentence:

If you think it's time for Rep. Grayson to switch from the AIPAC team to the public team, you can tell him so here.

I am not calling. That would be supporting another guy to "switch" to a "reborn enlightened one" and would just facilitate to hide his "bipolar believer's switching disorder". I like to see my pinocchios' nose straight in the light and not broken off to make the length invisible.

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Submitted by praenomen on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 2:50pm

which means I live very close to the Crystal Cathedral...each time I drive past the church I think about how many people could have been fed and clothed with the money that it took to build that complex.

I was raised in an evangelical home, and I can personally attest to the amount of damage it has caused my family. It took years to rid myself of that influence.

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praenomen

Submitted by Shahryar on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 3:04pm
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it's all a con for money and power

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Submitted by smiley7 on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 3:13pm
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the longest con. You know how you remember some quotes from people; a long time ago, a senior woman, an avid supporter of the arts, said she wished she could relive her life without all the guilt that was thrust upon her.

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Submitted by JtC on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 4:10pm

head on over and join the new group, we gotta' go all in or the Republicans will screw everything up, or something.

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Submitted by praenomen on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 4:31pm

for someone else.

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praenomen

Submitted by JtC on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 4:38pm

brother. Good to see you back in action p.

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Submitted by praenomen on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 4:52pm

sometimes it takes a good kick in the butt to force me to climb out of my head.

You're a good guy, JtC

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praenomen

Submitted by smiley7 on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 4:57pm
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good catch. I see the comments are poring in....

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Submitted by shaharazade on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 9:08pm
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What is wrong with these people? They are stupid, ignorant and extremely delusional. Haven't they noticed the complete take over of the Dem. party apparatchik by the anti-democratic neocon/neoliberals who are just as power hungry and psychotic as the Republican's they hate? Don't mind me after spending the morning reading about The Family and Hillary's deep ties to their 'inevitable' world rule as god's chosen killers with their holy endless warriors I'm bummed out. No wonder she scares the crap out of me. A bad ass who's on a divine mission for power and wealth creating. It takes a lot of deaths, human misery and devastated villages to do god's work.

This afternoon I read all about Rahm's victory in Chicago. Naked Capitalism has the best I've read explain why Chuy didn't win.

Chicago Mayoral Race Results: “Rahm, They Tell Me You Are Crooked, and I Answer: Yes, It Is True. Period.”
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/04/chicago-mayoral-race-results-rahm...

This ones pretty good too but imo is too easy on the so called progressive Dem. pols involved

The Austerity Agenda Was Unopposed in the Chicago Mayoral Election
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/30139-the-austerity-agenda-was-uno...

After that I read all about Chuck Schumer's unopposed anointing as Dem. minority leader by Reid....There is no more left, left. I'm starting to really despise the handle 'progressive'. I'd like to see an unabashed liberals wing of the party with the guts to take these Imperialist, Third Way'ers and assorted Endless Warriors on. To top it off my favorite news source The Guardian seems to have gone to hell and become a 'life style' neoliberal neocon propaganda rag with no content worth reading. Maybe I'll unplug my computer this weekend as their seems to be no news but bad news.

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Submitted by DeadHead on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 9:28pm

I was just telling Joe elsewhere that I was on the verge of calling someone a Bot.

Coincidentally, it was in that "group announcement" diary.

Elsewhere in that fawnfest, I had posted the "Ready for Oligarchy" image, and, sure enough, someone actually tried to tell me that by making the "oligarchy" argument, I was REALLY saying Hillary hasn't achieved anything or earned her own money.

Basically, it was yet another attempt to "sexism-ify" an otherwise non-sexist argument.

Sunday oughta be interesting.

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Submitted by JtC on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 9:33pm

gotten to use the Jerry flipping the bird image yet?

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Submitted by DeadHead on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 10:06pm

I've thought about it SEVERAL times, believe me.

I'd probably get HR'd—even the humor of that photo wouldn't be enough to dissuade some of these HR-happy fools from pulling the trigger.

Interestingly, the helpdesk is still up, so maybe a few trolls will show up over there.

Which reminds me—I think I figured out what this site update is actually doing. It's flashing all the Bots' firmware, upgrading them from version "Obama" to version "Hillary" in preparation for Hillary's announcement on Sunday.

The timing is too coincidental. ;•)

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Submitted by JtC on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 10:10pm

DeadHead, I think you're on to something there. Hillary flash makes sense to me, you're a genius, dude.

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Submitted by DeadHead on Sat, 04/11/2015 - 1:10am

…database-related, I've at least found a cheap new comeback to the "I hated Hillary in 2008 because Obama but now I love her because unprincipled hyper-partisan" crowd.

Apparently the firmware upgrade was a success.

;•)

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Submitted by mimi on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 10:22pm
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do you mind to translate ?

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Submitted by JtC on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 10:25pm

that one is snark, mimi.

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Submitted by mimi on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 10:39pm
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that's why I don't like translations German - English - they often sound like ..."what"? ...to your ears I guess.

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Submitted by mimi on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 9:38pm
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can't always understand the snark language. There were two "announcement" diaries there, if I remember correctly, one for HRC and one for Bernie Sanders. Both were weird. Was the HRC one a snark diary? Gosh, I feel so stupid. Help.

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Submitted by shaharazade on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 9:48pm
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but it's not. Missed the Bernie announcement dairy so I don't know if it's snark. Dkos is down till tomorrow so I can't check. There are a lot of diaries these days over there that I can't believe aren't snark.

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Submitted by shaharazade on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 10:16pm
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I really can't handle it anymore. It's just to surreal, the denial is mind boggling. Last time I commented I flipped out at Meteor Blades on Night Owl. It was the day he reced Armando's racist smear post that followed praenomen's response to BBB's white Bubba's are leaving the party. That whole debacle may have done the trick as far as commenting goes. Mimi thought the Hillary diary it was snark it was so bad. Choco8 and you seemed to be the only two people in the thread that we're living in the real world. As ek said earlier today 'Creating your own reality is a symptom of severe mental illness you know.' Glad to read you here hope you post some more. It helps you keep your balance and sanity to come here after messing with and tweaking the bots and royalists at dkos. My husband calls it dhate.

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Submitted by mimi on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 10:35pm
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BBB, Armando broke something in me, especially the reactions to praenomen's diary. I wasn't aware about her as an author before and started to scan a couple of her older diaries and was very impressed. So, the more angry I got with the way they tried to "demoralize" her. After all the diaries she had written on dailykos, I think that showed some miserable intent to silence her by the commentators.

I didn't understand the comments today's Hillary announcement diary, because they were so "snarky" (or to me simply not understandable). So, in the end I thought may be the whole diary itself was snark and I didn't get that. I ama confused as always. Always glad if someone talks plainly, it might be less funny, but for people like me, more comprehensible.

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Submitted by JtC on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 10:38pm

praenomen is a guy.

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Submitted by mimi on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 11:36pm
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and here may be she is a guy. I think we need a new gender for those who are both ... Smile
If it's true then he is a dangerous writer ... oh, get out of here, why should I care what someone is, if they change their sex every other day.
I love them both in female or male format as long as they write something I like. Sigh. The digital life is so complicated and so annoying.

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Submitted by mimi on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 11:50pm
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I apologize, he introduced himself and his wife in a comment to me. Just had forgotten and I have no reason to doubt him. Sorry. Me head is just too small for all of it.

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Submitted by praenomen on Sat, 04/11/2015 - 1:49am

And I hope it has been that way since my birth; there is no ambiguity about my sexual identity...but leave it to the DKos to attack my sexual preferences...they've attacked me in every other way.

And like I told you about my wife: she was murdered many years ago, but I still think about her everyday...she was the love of my life, and no one since has even come close to filling the void she left behind.

I was left to raise a three-year old daughter, and fortunately she was very much like her mother; and now, she has a daughter that is even more like her grandmother; I feel very blessed.

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praenomen

Submitted by mimi on Sat, 04/11/2015 - 7:55am
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I just don't know why for a moment back when I read your diary on DK last week (and I was too tired to search for exactly what it was yesterday night), I felt you must be a woman. I forgot about your comment you made to me a couple of days ago to me here at the 99caucus yesterday night as well., when I wrote my stupid comment. Then I realized what I did and apologized, because I searched for your comment you made to me here later on during the night and saw that a made a big pile of pooh.

I hope you can accept my apologies. Now I believe that your life experiences made you especially sensitive to understand women's way of feeling pain and that this is reflected in your writing so well, that it felt to me you were female. Gosh, I am embarrassed. I have to say that I can't deal well with this kind of media and it somehow sometimes compromises and corrupts me. I am so sorry for that.

Let's please reboot and start all over. Sir. Smile

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Submitted by praenomen on Sat, 04/11/2015 - 11:55am

I've interacted with you enough to know you are a good person...and yes, you are right; my experiences have taught me to be sensitive to women's issues...that's one of the good parts about being a "Mr. Mom"...I think women have to juggle so many things at one time it's amazing that they can survive two years of raising a family...

Years ago, I saw Garth Brooks and his brother hanging out and playing catch with a football, and I always thought he seemed like a nice guy...but after he walked away from the music business to raise his daughters, my admiration for him increased exponentially...people like that make greedy CEOs seem so small and petty.

There's no need to reboot; I like you just the way you are...

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praenomen

Submitted by mimi on Sat, 04/11/2015 - 12:57pm
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went the last hours rereading all those diaries (your's, Armando's,Brooklybadboys) to find the comment I remembered somehow in my mind, which lead me to believe you might be a woman, and I have to admit I can't find it anymore.

I am really not up to all of it, read back and force and mix up lots of things, forget things, or misunderstand them (like I also read again so many things about "populism", which I didn't catch before).

I feel better just reading and not writing, but post impulsively my emotional reactions too often too fast. I would do better just reading books.

Thanks again.

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Submitted by mimi on Sat, 04/11/2015 - 11:32am
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there is no reason to doubt your comment. I am sorry, JtC. You are such a kind guy and I am such a nervous wreck sometimes. Sigh.

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Submitted by JtC on Sat, 04/11/2015 - 11:46am

it is a very easy mistake to make on the internet.

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Submitted by Shiz on Sat, 04/11/2015 - 10:52am

"I think the whole incident of diaries by praenomen, BBB, Armando broke something in me ..."

That is precisely why I'm here. I simply cannot handle their rancid bullshit anymore - it's way too much. I'm not just taking a break on c99p; I finally feel DONE with Daily Kos. It's a good feeling. Smile

Legitimately, some of them are terrible fucking people, and they now have overrun the site.

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I miss Colorado.

Submitted by praenomen on Sat, 04/11/2015 - 12:00pm

There are some very nice people on this site, and we're all struggling to find our footing...but we're glad you're here.

And where did you live in Colorado?...it is an incredibly beautiful state..

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praenomen

Submitted by Shiz on Sat, 04/11/2015 - 2:30pm

Everyone has been incredibly kind, and I truly love that. It is such a different environment to get used to than the one on Dkos, which was fraught with so much aggravating strife that I would often have to log off just to retain my sanity.

Colorado is a very beautiful state, I certainly agree. For 14 years, I lived either in Boulder or the surrounding 'burbs. Then, in 2011, I moved to Denver and fell in complete love with the city. When I do move back (which I will), I'm going straight back to Denver. Smile I never realized what a city creature I was until I lived there.

Boulder is roughly the size of Green Bay, but they are so disparate that it seems unfair to compare them at all.

How do you like Orlando? You have Rick Scott and I have Scott Walker. Fun fucking stuff. :/

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I miss Colorado.

Submitted by praenomen on Sat, 04/11/2015 - 7:43pm

It's a great place. When I was young, I spent a lot of time in Estes Park and Aspen, but then it began to lose a little of its natural charm due to the large influx of tourists, so I stopped vacationing there.

I'm on the other coast. I live in LA...but I still dislike Rick Scott (and Scott Walker)...and I have mixed feelings about our governor; I'm not too happy with his water conservation plan...the only people honoring it are the ones who are suffering the most; the wealthy people here just ignore laws they don't like...

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praenomen

Submitted by praenomen on Sat, 04/11/2015 - 1:20pm

but I don't know how to delete the redundancy

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praenomen

Submitted by Unabashed Liberal on Fri, 04/10/2015 - 5:22pm
Unabashed Liberal's picture

to Coe and 'the Family' to share.

Those folks "scare us," and we're affiliated with the very left of the religious community--the Universalist Unitarians, which some scoff as as 'not a real religious denomination.' (because it is so left)

Anyhoo, since FSC is announcing Sunday (via video), I hope to be ready to post on 'the Family,' and many of her corporatist ties--after taxes are done, and Family's gone.

I also enjoy Hedges' thoughts on religion or faith. They are similar to mine. IOW, he does not consider all religious precepts to be negative or evil. Quite the opposite. But he is very fearful of religious fundamentalism, and the perversion of religious precepts by fanatics.

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Don't anyone feel sorry for FSC's being asked about how she coped 'with Bill.'

She is one of the biggest panderers (of Dems) to conservative Democrats--especially religious ones. She probably sought out the opportunity to express her deep (fundamentalist) religious convictions.

Which is okay--I intend to help her with that, LOL! And how!

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Really glad that she's finally throwing her hat in--now she (hopefully) will not be able to avoid pressing questions, etc.

Oh, heard that Lincoln Chafee is forming an exploratory meeting. Hope he doesn't fool the anti-war crowd (like ol'd Howard Dean sucked me in, my running against the Iraq War, then selling out Everybody on social insurance--the ACA).

Certainly, the reporters that I'm hearing on POTUS (People Of The United States) are eager to carry the faux message that O'Malley, who is unknown to many nationally, is some sort of 'born again lefty.' What a crock!

Heck, don't they realize that we have 'the internets' now? Won't be as easy to fool Everybody, as it was with Bill Bradley and Al Gore, IMHO.

BTW, some really great diaries--thanks to all!

UL

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