Hillary was on fire in the South Carolina Primary, getting the majority of Democratic votes in every single county, much to the chagrin of Bernie Sanders and his followers. Originally it was thought that Bernie at least did better with Caucasion folks, but Hillary took away that demographic, too.
And she gave one of the most inspirational speeches of her entire career - must watch! She vowed that "Tomorrow this campaign goes national" as she sails into Super Tuesday in a good place to win big in many states.
Bernie Sanders has a legion of followers who are sometimes stereotyped as young white males with a certain know-it-all attitude. They are known as the "Berniebots" or more commonly the "Berniebros."
The archetype is simple: a young, male supporter of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who questions Clinton supporters on a spectrum that ranges from simply tone-deaf to outright misogynistic.
He’s the smug-seeming young Sanders supporter who asked Clinton at a CNN town hall why young voters aren’t enthusiastic about her candidacy, then suggested it was because she’s dishonest. He’s the guy who floods Internet comment boards accusing Clinton supporters of voting with their “vaginas.” He’s the idealistic young liberal who replies to any critique of Sanders on social media with a flood of crass terms and vitriol.
The Iowa Caucus was a close race for the Democrats. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton split the vote right down the middle with Hillary winning by just a few points. Democrats should have been thrilled to have two strong candidates who excited voters - we are all on the same side, after all. But some of Bernie's supporters - male and female - chose to go negative about Hillary's victory, taking it out on other Dems, trolling their Twitter and Facebook accounts, while insinuating that Hillary had somehow cheated them out of an "easy" win.
The Bernie-Bros-and-Gals were helped along by the media, namely MSNBC who had a hyper Steve Kornackie's talking about how crazy the Iowa Caucus process is without fully understanding it. Kornacki made it sound as if the election was being decided by "coin tosses" because that is the way ties were broken in some precincts, and that has probably been done for 100 years in Iowa. But the Bernie-bro meme quickly became that "Hillary stole the election with lucky coin tosses," diminishing the achievement of being the first woman to ever win the Iowa Caucus, and setting off purity troll-mania among the Bernie supporters.
Accusing Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party of election fraud is a mistake.
My Facebook feed is rapidly filling up with Sanders supporters who are accusing various precinct officials as well as both the Clinton campaign and the Iowa Democratic Party of rigging the vote against Bernie. With the 30-to-21 delegate split clearly showing a Clinton victory, it was pretty damn close to a tie, and Sanders supporters should be proud of achieving second place with a wafer-thin margin. Scouring Iowa precincts for fraud just looks like sour grapes. Plus, attacking the Democratic Party itself won’t help Sanders with acquiring the necessary party endorsements to win the nomination — superdelegates matter, and Sanders lags far behind on this front with a margin of 465 party endorsements for Clinton and just two for Bernie. By the way, the C-SPAN video being circulated with the headline “Clinton Voter Fraud in Polk County, Iowa Caucus” was user-generated, and likely comes from a Sanders supporter — not C-SPAN itself.
You know nothing about how a caucus works because you didn’t take the time to educate yourselves and you treat our good Democratic Party caucus chairs who have been working elections honorably since before you were born with disrespect and suspicion as if they are there to “rig” the caucus.
Then when it’s all over, you take to the web and start making accusations of voter fraud and demanding recounts. You pretend that flipping a coin to decide something at the caucus is some nefarious Clinton scheme to rob Bernie Sanders because again you never took the time to educate yourselves so you would know that the coin toss is nothing new or nefarious. Then you are silent when it turns out that the real beneficiary of the evil coin toss was Bernie Sanders.
The coin flip rule has been part of the Democratic Iowa caucus process for years. The only thing about it that’s changed is our ability to document it.
As we’ve reported before, the last Democratic caucus that was actually contested was back in 2008, when smartphone use was much less widespread and Twitter had barely hit the mainstream. Before this year’s caucus, we predicted that the existence of this technology would give Americans a window into the process they’ve rarely seen before. If the coin flip mini-drama is any indication, we were right.
. . . each delegate awarded last night, while still important, still represents a fraction of one state delegate—the people who actually choose the nominee at the Democratic Convention. County delegates, in other words, don’t carry as much weight. That’s why when the results come in, they’re reported not as county delegates, but as state delegate equivalents. Last night, Clinton beat Sanders by nearly four state delegate equivalents. And what that means is the outcome of the race wouldn’t have changed if the coins flips had flopped in Sanders’ favor.
It's a strange thing that sometimes people will agree with a notorious person as long as their philosophies or narratives somehow mesh. I guess that's what is meant by "strange bedfellows" in politics.
In the case of Rachel Dolezal, a white woman posing as a black woman, things are more muddled than that.
For some reason, Melissa Harris-Perry of MSNBC (#nerdland) decided to defend Dolezal in an very hypothetical and even nonsensical way, using the analogy of transexuals who seek to find their "real" identity. What she avoided was any semblance of a news story with facts.
On Saturday, MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry met the ire of social media after seemingly asserting that Dolezal could actually be black, despite the fact that Dolezal’s parents have said that their background was everything but black—Czech, Swedish and German. “Is it possible that she might actually be black?” Harris-Perry questioned.
“I want to be very careful here, because I don’t want to say it’s the equivalent of the transgender experience,” she said. “But there is a useful language in ‘trans’ and ‘cis,’ which is just to say some of us are born cisgendered and some of us are born transgendered.”
Okay, now first of all, while Harris-Perry believes that "race is a social construct," it is clearly different from judging someone's gender identity - how they perceive themselves sexually in a subjective personal way. Dolezal is by all accounts objectively lying about facts and details of her life, travels and resume. Facts are facts in the real world, and not everything is conjecture. Her real white parents know who they are. Her adopted black brother knows who she is. Other people did not know the reality of Dolezal's life, and her own spin has simply been dishonest on many levels.
What infuriated Harris-Perry's viewers was that she seemed to breeze right past the idea that Dolezal is a rampant liar, as if that wasn't relevant to the story. Harris-Perry mainly wanted to make some larger point about racial identity being a personal choice. And maybe that's true for anyone who isn't a public figure. But the fact is, Rachel Dolezal has chosen to become a public figure, a university professor, and the head of the Spokane NAACP. Someone can "pass" as anything but a public figure has to bear scrutiny by the public, and cannot just keep lying to the point of being delusional.
The real world isn't make-believe.
The following day, Harris-Perry did another segment defending her first piece, defending herself while admitting that Twitter reaction was nearly unanimous - that it was "inherently problematic" to ask if Dolezal could actually be truly black. But she kept referring to "race being policed" because it is perceived as "fixed," and that shows she was missing the point again.
Trans-activist Cherno Biko made the important point that "Dolezal made a decision to start acting, while trans-folk need to stop acting." But Harris-Perry then had another "derp" moment:
What if she (Dolezal) is not pretending? And not Rachel in particular . . . Is it possble to be born into a body that is not an authentic expression of your racial identity? And what words that might look like?
Her panel seemed dumbfounded and stared in disbelief, and no one responded because they could tell the crazy train had left the station. When Jamelle Bouie pointed out that some racial identity is imposed, then Harris-Perry asked whether gender identity wasn't also "imposed," which is also nutty considering several people on the set with her were transexuals who had "chosen" to find their "real" identities. Truly one of the most awkward moments on a talk show I've seen in my 55 years.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Next week on the MHP show: Is Rachel Dolezal blacker than Obama?
I've been watching MSNBC ever since it first appeared on my local cable TV. I was a huge fan of Keith Olbermann, and sad when he was asked to leave the channel. I won't go into all that here ~ read this article for some background. Keith is still a TV icon to the Left because he would stay on a story for weeks after it was dropped by other networks, and he never backed down in his attacks on rival Fox News, especially Bill O'Reilly. While obviously his personality was too strong for some, and maybe too strong for cable news, he wasn't just a mouthpiece for a bunch of talking points like say, cough, cough, Joe Scarborough, cough.
I will always miss Keith's commentaries, but I got over it and became a fervent MSNBC watcher again during President Obama's 2012 campaign. I loved their "Lean-Forward" message, and Rachel Maddow's speech to the Tea Party about all the things that weren't going to happen now that Mitt Romney had failed as a candidate.
But just after the election something changed. Time and again from 2013 till now, MSNBC has disappointed their main viewership, made up of Democrats and Liberals like myself who voted for Barack Obama. It's not just one thing, it's an accumulation of wrong-headed mistakes. If I had a dollar for every time someone on Twitter told me to turn off MSNBC and boycott them, I would have a chunk of change.
The bottom line is this: MSNBC has forgotten who their demographic is. In their quest to steal from Fox and CNN, they think they have to become a right-center network. But in doing so, they are offending the very people who have stuck with them since before Keith Olbermann got the boot.
MSNBC’s decline can be traced back to one decision. At the time, when he let Keith Olbermann walk out the door, MSNBC boss Phil Griffin believed that his network’s brand was strong enough to replace the former 8 PM host. Griffin was wrong.
After Lawrence O’Donnell had failed, Griffin put Ed Schultz in the 8 PM slot. Griffin shuffled Schultz off to the weekends because he believed that MSNBC could attract more young viewers by developing several clones of Rachel Maddow’s successful 9 PM show. Phil Griffin decided to go wonky with Chris Hayes at 8, which led to many former MSNBC viewers leaving and not coming back.
Hayes has been a disaster at 8 PM, and viewer demand for Schultz was so strong that the blue collar populist was put back on to the weekday lineup at 5 PM.
MSNBC was floundering, and Griffin made things worse by caving to Sarah Palin and the right by defacto firing Martin Bashir for some blunt comments that he made about the former half term Alaska governor.
Bashir never has the audience that Olbermann did, but his removal from 4 PM sent a message to MSNBC’s viewers. Lean Forward was just a marketing slogan. When push came to shove, MSNBC easily caved to right-wing pressure.
Martin Bashir was fired after reading a historical document about slavery on the air in response to Sarah Palin, who had tossed slavery into her word salad about GOP oppression caused by President Obama. Bashir was disgusted with Her Royal Stupidity misinterpreting history, and he made a choice to speak some serious truth so she would understand the demeaning tortures that real slaves in the South had to endure.
While it's true that some details of the history lesson were distasteful (so-to-speak), the far-right on Twitter spread the untrue story that Bashir had told Palin to "eat sh*t" on the air. The Tea Party kept the pressure on until the President of MSNBC, Phil Griffin,fired Martin Bashir.
Phil Griffin has a long history of pandering to the Right:
It's been nearly a year since #msnbc and Phil Griffin caved in, not to Al Qaeda, but to Republican priss Priebus. http://t.co/RnxGlSGfJa
— E.A. Harris (@KW2Kenai) January 13, 2015
Call 212-664-2456 Direct Line to Phil Griffin's office to protest Martin Bashir leaving MSNBC http://t.co/HUY2AmG9tS
— Neal Schulz (@GBNeal59) December 5, 2013
Melissa Harris-Perry Gives Tear-Filled Apology to Mitt Romney for Black Grandchild Jokes - http://t.co/x8PXYn65GC < took her time saying it
— Frank Woodman Jr (@kstaxman) January 11, 2014
Griffin is known for having "pets" at MSNBC, and they know who they are. Take Joe Scarborough, please. He did an interview last year, after the firing of Bashir, explaining his relationship with Griffin:
Appearing on Steve Malzberg‘s NewsMaxTV show Wednesday, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough spoke out about the controversy surrounding his colleague Martin Bashir...
. . . Malzberg asked Scarborough why MSNBC hadn’t suspended Bashir or publicly reprimanded him. Obviously hesitant to comment on internal matters, the Morning Joe host suggested that, much like how Fox chief Roger Ailes doesn’t allow his hosts to attack each other, MSNBC’ers are unable to do the same.
However, he did say:
Every time something horrific is said like that, I go in and I talk to Phil Griffin, who I’m good friends with. And I say, Phil, this is unacceptable. Either they apologize for it or I’m going to bring it up myself.
Personally, I can't stand "Morning Joe" and I usually only see clips of it on Twitter. But apparently it started out to be MSNBC's one right-leaning show to "balance" the rest of the network. Maybe that would work if the namesake of the show had an ounce of humility and a willingness to learn from others. Unfortunately, Joe Scarborough is a loud-mouth bully who dominates not just sidekick Mika, but anyone else who shows up in the morning.
Last year, Scarborough verbally attacked the large and growing Democratic and Liberal-leaning Twitter group Unite Blue, of which I am a member. He called our members "freaky fringe haters" or something like that, never thinking for a minute he was shooting himself and MSNBC in the foot. Somehow he thought it was a good idea to attack the very demographic that was keeping his job available to him, since Dems and Liberals watch most of the other shows.
That display of arrogance should have been enough to get him fired like Martin Bashir, but we soon found out that "pets" get to stay, and the feelings of a huge group of Democrats don't mean very much to Phil Griffin, compared to someone important like the Tea Party's Sarah Palin.
For a long time many have called for Joe Scarborough to be fired to save the rest of the network, but instead, Griffin tried him out on the night shift last week, in place of Maddow and Chris Hayes. It's unbelievable.
.@debdlund Scarborough and weekend Jail programs do nothing to develop brand loyalty of Progressive audience. All Phil Griffin's doing.
— Bill Wong (@ten24get) February 5, 2015
This recent article warning of impending doom at the network makes no mention of Joe Scarborough, choosing to blame mainly Chris Hayes, and warning that Ronan Farrow and Joy Reid may be on their way out. Looks like he wants to "save the pets" while kicking off the strays.
January ratings revealed double-digit declines compared with January, 2014 in all ratings measurements. During the day, MSNBC was down 20 percent in viewers and 37 percent in the advertising-coveted 25-54 demo. In primetime, it fell 23 percent in viewers and 39 percent in demo.
In October, MSNBC President Phil Griffin said the network was "experimenting" with new ways to regain momentum, spawning widespread speculation that he planned to make significant changes to the lineup. Ronan Farrow's show, which debuted last year and has received dismal ratings ever since, is one program that is widely believed to be up for removal. On Tuesday, it brought in just 11,000 viewers in the demo.
An MSNBC spokesperson declined to comment on the Tuesday ratings.
But Morning Joe isn't the only problem at MSNBC. Even the mainstays of the network seem to lean some other direction besides Left.
Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes, for all the good they do night after night, often go a little nuts and out of step with ordinary liberals out here in the heartland, to the point that real Democrats just turn them off. This has become more of a cumulative effect since the 2012 elections. Yes, they have a right to their opinions, but if you want to know why the ratings are so low, look back over the past two years at topics that may seem unimportant in the scheme of things, but which made viewers angry enough to boycott MSNBC.
I love Rachel Maddow and I really enjoy her show. She is witty, entertaining, funny, and at her best, her show has the spirit of Keith Olbermann.
But unfortunately she sees herself as a "War Historian," and whenever President Obama seems to be on the verge of doing something with American firepower or diplomacy anywhere in the world, Maddow goes berserk. I remember the first time I went "click" on her show. She was saying that President Obama had every right to intercede in Syria, but that he needed to ask permission from Congress or he might get us trapped into another war in the Middle East. It still makes me go "huh?" She sounded just like the nuts on Fox who didn't want that uppity President to do anything like any other President who has ever lived.
And what's worse, Maddow seemed to have no sense of irony that the Congress she was suggesting he ask for "permission" is the same wingnut Congress she reported on every night as a bunch of warmongers obsessed with guns and Benghazi. He was supposed to ask them? She even invoked the Constitution, which is right up there with Sarah Palin!
Some people forgot to watch her show after that. Oh, and they were really mad at her. Some of them still are. Some viewers just aren't coming back.
Comcast Secretary of State Rachel @Maddow consulting with Comcast Emeritus Chair Andrea Mitchel on how bad Obama messed up our War in Syria.
— Ina (@InaMaziarcz) August 30, 2013
Hannity and Rachel @maddow basically in total agreement against war in #Syria. Not sure that was the Hope and Change Obama was going for.
— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) August 28, 2013
@KaJo503@Maddow She's so arrogant, she doesn't accept her Ivory Tower views on Obama Admin or on Syria play any role in her decline.
— Jeff Gauvin (@JeffersonObama) August 29, 2013
There are some problems with Chris Hayes too. His chirpy, giddy and cerebral persona were more appropriate for his Saturday morning show "Up," but Griffon thought he could save their prime-time lineup and attract the younger demographic. It was soon apparent that it didn't work out that way. I think he means well and much of his reporting is excellent, such as his work during the Ferguson marches.
What I didn't expect was that he would become the sudden champion of an out-and-out traitor to the United States, Edward Snowden, the Russian "patriot" defector.
Viewers didn't leave the show because Hayes criticized the NSA. Viewers just got fed up with MSNBC's elevation of Snowden's partner/mentor/witness/whatever Glenn Greenwald as some kind of hero journalist and paragon of virtue who wants to save the world. The real Greenwald is a raging Anti-Government Libertarian and Near-Anarchist who calls the President an "Imperial Emperor" (just like the rightwing nutjobs) and thinks anyone with allegiance to any country is a "statist." After a few weeks of Greenwald worship, Chris Hayes figured out that most Democrats don't like him, but by then Hayes was like a little boy whose balloon got deflated all of a sudden by criticism on Twitter and the falling ratings.
Fascinating to watch Glenn Greenwald sucking up to Chuck Todd and Chris Hayes. Obviously thinks they're sympathetic.
— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) September 24, 2014
I refuse to watch Chris Hayes if he continues to invite Greenwald on show. Greenwald enemy to country! @AngieinWAState@allinwithchris
— Mary Ann Barbero (@marieann66) July 10, 2014
So basically all you get from Chris Hayes is a one sided report on the NSA by way of Glenn Greenwald. Almost daily. Not balanced.
— Gus (@Gus_802) July 31, 2013
When asked if broccoli was his favorite vegetable, Chris Hayes responded with, "whatever vegetable Greenwald likes, I like." #BroccoliGate
— Gus (@Gus_802) July 9, 2013
The Greenwald and Rand Paul Themed MSNBC Experiment Has Been A Complete Failure. Lowest Ratings In 6 Years http://t.co/vVkLfV4KHY#p2
— Jeff Gauvin (@JeffersonObama) July 3, 2013
Griffon can blame Ronan Farrow, Joy Reid, or anyone else he likes for low daytime ratings. But he should look at his pets, for instance the ever-exasperated Andrea Mitchell and the ever-smarmy Chuck Todd. Day after day since the last election they have been going into hysterics over President Obama's "Optics" - "Why is he playing golf" or "Why is he going out for dinner?" "Why is he drinking coffee?" "Why doesn't he care?" "Why is he on vacation?" - stuff no one ever said about George W. Bush or any other President in history.
POTUS and VPOTUS now golfing after announcing decision to delay action Optics?
— Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) August 31, 2013
The fact that Chuck Todd thinks that asking about golf is hard hitting journalism just shows how doomed .@MTP ... http://t.co/f3gbsaiu3H
— Pnthrgrlgail (@Mama4Obama1) September 7, 2014
Krystal Ball from "The Cycle" is another problem. She is so far-left, she is nearly to the right of Rand Paul sometimes. She's not that horrible sometimes, but other times, she is. I don't hate her, but I don't watch her anymore either.
Ball went on a crazy tirade about the Obamacare website back when it was having problems, helped along by some whining by then MSNBC fixture, Ezra Klein - who wanted background music while waiting on the phone. Of course now that the same website is enrolling millions of new people into health insurance,and yes, Krystal Ball does seem to take pride in that - NOW. But back at the beginning, Ball certainly helped the Far-Far Right by slamming ACA Obamacare because it wasn't working automatically.
Considering that just this week, two years after Ball and Klein attacked the Obamacare website, my own state of Tennessee just turned down Medicaid expansion again due to Obamacare haters in the GOP, it was never a good thing that Krystal Ball decided to attack ACA from the left. Maybe MSNBC has chosen to forget this wrong-headedness, but it's harder to forget here in a red state.
She also praised Libertarian Nutcase Rand Paul as "courageous, and begged Hillary Clinton not to run for President. . Last year, she said President Obama's State of the Union "depressed her." What. The. Hell? Is it any wonder that viewers sometimes wonder whose side she is on?
Last year, Chuck Todd wrote a book about President Obama called "The Stranger," which the President and his daughter mocked just before Christmas as "a sad book." Todd is famous for stating that he had no obligation to report "the truth" about Obamacare to the GOP - that tells you all you need to know about his life as a "journalist." He replaced the lame David Gregory, another Phil Griffin favorite, on NBC's Meet the Press, and I'm sure the ratings have plummeted even more. Todd also turns up frequently on MSNBC shows such as Morning Joe and Hardball to discuss "Lame Duck" or "Weak" President Obama. What Democrat wants to hear that stuff day after day? Not this one!
My point here is that there are many problems with MSNBC, and they are so deep it may not be fixable with Phil Griffon at the top. Unfortunately he seems to be tone deaf to the viewers, and incapable of firing his pets. They can turn the network into another version of Fox News and probably lure some wingnut viewers if that's what they want, but it would be a shame to see the network of Keith Olbermann go completely down the toilet.
If the owners at Comcast/NBC wanted @MSNBC to be successful, they wouldn't keep Phil Griffin in his job.
— Allan Brauer (@allanbrauer) February 5, 2015
Maybe Phil Griffin at @msnbc should look in a mirror, he is one of major reasons of any ratings issues. #MourningJoe and Wika
— Caligirl22 (@Twitlertwit) February 6, 2015
There's more on the alleged "firing" of Bryan Fischer from the Christian group American Family Association (AFA).
Rachel Maddow covered it on her show again Thursday night, pointing out that Fischer and the AFA had attacked Mitt Romney in 2012 because he was a Mormon, calling his religion a "cult" that worships a "false god." Yet mainstream RNC leader Reince Priebus and other members of the GOP are traveling to Israel this weekend on the dime of the AFA. As Rachel points out, they don't have to get on the plane Saturday morning. But I bet they do!
... In reality, this might not actually change very much for Fischer. After Maddow broke the story, Fischer tweeted, “Don’t believe everything you hear! I’ll be on air same time tomorrow as always 1-3pm CT, on http://www.afr.net . Tune in!” Wildmon’s description of Fischer as “just a talk show host” isn’t so different from the many times that AFA has stipulated that Fischer does not speak on the organization’s behalf, even when he’s speaking on their radio network or writing for their news site. Though his bio has been scrubbed from AFA’s site, all of his written content remains. The incident may perhaps be an embarrassment to AFA and to Fischer, but if he’s continuing to do his radio show, his status quo — the podium AFA provides him — might not have actually changed at all. Maddow pointed out during her segment that Fischer’s extremism was not a problem when AFA funded Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s (R) pre-presidential prayer rally, nor for Louisiana’s Gov. Bobby Jindal’s (R) recent prayer rally, but the Republican Party’s reputation in Israel may have been just a step too far.
Here's a great lampoon of Fischer babbling about how The Gays Caused the Holocaust in a song by James Rustad:
"Jesus Loves Me, This I Know, Cause Rick Perry Tells Me So, If I Die I'll Go To Hell Says Governor Bobby Jindal."
Basically the AFA demoted Fischer but didn't take away his talk show, so while he isn't technically a "spokesman" for the group, essentially he still is their mouthpiece. So the AFA may think everyone is as gullible as Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal and their members seem to be, but no one is buying that Fischer is gone from their organization. It's also doubtful that the Jewish Press is going to believe it in time to save the RNC's trip to Israel which starts this weekend.
The AFA apparently decided to downplay Fischer’s role amid an uproar over the fact that the group is sponsoring a trip to Israel this weekend for nearly 100 members of the Republican National Committee. The AFA is virulently antigay and on the far right concerning every other issue — the progressive Southern Poverty Law Center classifies it as a hate group — but Fischer is its most outrageous face.
Fischer's remarks over the past few years read like a playbook of antigay hyperbole: that Adolf Hitler’s most savage enforcers were gay soldiers (ignoring the fact that Hitler’s regime sent gays to concentration camps); that gays and Mormons may be plotting together to legalize polygamy; that “flaming homosexuals” will storm Christian bookstores and demand jobs if antigay discrimination is banned nationwide; that the Supreme Court ruling against the Defense of Marriage Act was a bigger legal travesty than the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin; and that if schools are teaching LGBT history, they should include the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah.
And that’s just Fischer on LGBT issues — he has also said that religions other than Christianity have no right to free exercise under the First Amendment, that Muslims are traitors, and that believers in evolution should not hold public office.
God here declares one simple, abiding truth: he will deal with the nations of the world as they deal with Israel.
A nation which stands with Israel will receive a blessing from God. A nation which stands against the Jewish people (Nazi Germany comes to mind) will rest under a curse.
You can argue all day if you’d like about whether the United States is a Christian nation. The evidence is indisputable that it is, but one thing no one can dispute is that the United States has been kind to the biological and spiritual offspring of Abraham.
. . . The Jewish people zealously protected, preserved, and passed on the very words of God as recorded by the ancient prophets and historians in Israel. Our faith as a Christian nation is rooted in Jewish soil. No Judaism, no Christianity.
Abraham is our father in the faith, the Ten Commandments our guiding standard for both personal and public morality, and the Jewish prophets of old still a source of inspiration. (You can ask Martin Luther King, Jr. about that.)
That blog post is really just a recap of Fischer's beliefs in "Christian Founding Fathers."
AFA rejects the idea expressed by Bryan Fischer that "Free exercise of religion" only applies to Christians. Consequently, AFA rejects Bryan's assertions that Muslims should not be granted permits to build mosques in the United States;
AFA rejects the ideas expressed by Bryan Fischer that the violent expulsion of Native Americans was divinely ordained and that, "Superstition, savagery and sexual immorality" morally disqualified Native Americans from "sovereign control of American soil."
AFA rejects the ideas expressed by Bryan Fischer that "we" need to clamp down on immigration because Hispanics are socialist by nature and vote Democratic because it allows them to "benefit from the plunder of the wealth of the United States."
AFA rejects Bryan Fischer's characterization of minorities as "people who rut like rabbits."
AFA rejects the statement by Bryan Fischer that, "Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews."
AFA rejects the policy advocated by Bryan Fischer that homosexual conduct should be illegal
AFA rejects the notion advocated by Bryan Fischer that, "We need an underground railroad to protect innocent children from same-sex households."
AFA rejects Bryan Fischer's statement that, "If Hillary Clinton becomes president In 2016, she will not only be our first female president, she could be our first lesbian president."
....In light of this notice, do not continue to charge AFA with the statements by Bryan Fischer that we have repudiated. When identifying "hate groups" in the context of training military or law enforcement personnel, do not put AFA in a false light by quoting Mr. Fischer's statements that we have repudiated.
SPLC President Richard Cohen, in a letter to the AFA today (see below), wrote that “it’s difficult to see the AFA’s disavowal as anything other than an effort to quell the negative press attention you’re receiving in connection with your sponsorship of an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel for members of the Republican National Committee.”
. . . Cohen noted that other AFA officials, including its president, Tim Wildmon, and founder, Don Wildmon, also have made statements “that reflect narrow-minded bigotry” and that AFA printed materials have demonized the LGBT community. “Without ending Mr. Fischer’s talk show, without apologizing for the bigoted statements that he, Mr. Wildmon, and others associated with the AFA have made, and without making it crystal clear that the AFA will not tolerate any such statements in the future, the AFA’s 11th-hour disavowal of Mr. Fischer appears to serve only one purpose: to give the AFA a degree of plausible deniability while it continues to spew hateful rhetoric,” Cohen wrote. “It’s a shell game and a transparent one at that.”
Rachel Maddow broke the news last night on her MSNBC show that wiggedy-whack Evangelical Bryan Fischer has been fired as spokesman from the group American Family Association, which is a cheerleading and money-raising support group for the Tea Party and the far-right wing of the GOP.
This is a complicated story, and will be ongoing for some time to come. The basic plot is that the American Family Association has paid for members of the RNC (Republican National Convention) to take a trip to Israel starting next Sunday. The Jewish press then discovered that the AFA has some, ahem, not-quite-Jewish-friendly members, such as Evangelist and Hate-Radio Talk Nut, Bryan Fischer.
The story below gave the RNC good reasons to pressure AFA to fire Fischer. Although frankly, this isn't news to anyone familiar with the Southern Poverty Law Center, Hatewatch, or the Evangelical movement.
U.S. NGO: Evangelical 'hate group' funding Republican National Committee trip to Israel Evangelical political operative planned 9-day freebie trip for national committee members, on behalf of the conservative Christian AFA group which blasts Muslims, gays. SPLC rights group staffer: Our issue is not with the trip, but with the 'heinous beliefs' of those sponsoring it.
The The AFA is described as a "hate group” and "extremist group” by the SPLC, an Alabama-based civil rights nonprofit, because of statements it made that are deemed anti-LGBTQ, anti-Latino and anti-black, and which suggest that the United States is a country for Christians only.
“The AFA has an extensive track record of bigotry and hate,” SPLC president and CEO Richard Cohen wrote in a letter to each member of the RNC, urging them not to go on the free trip. Bryan Fischer, the AFA’s director of issue analysis, has said that black people “rut like rabbits.” Moreover, in a September essay, he wrote: “We are a Christian nation and not a Jewish or Muslim one.” On a video segment on MSNBC’s "Rachel Maddow Show" last Friday, Fischer was seen blasting gay activists as “jack-booted homo-fascist thugs,” and depicting Islam as “an Ebola virus that is lethal and deadly.”
So in order to save some kind of dignity for this trip to Israel, the group threw Fischer under the bus. However, he still has his radio show where he can continue to hate the Jews and everyone else as much as he wants.
Don't believe everything you hear! I'll be on air same time tomorrow as always 1-3pm CT, on http://t.co/sI2xhN0XQd. Tune in!
— Bryan Fischer (@BryanJFischer) January 29, 2015
From what we have been able to gather, Fischer has not actually been dismissed by AFA but has rather merely been stripped of his title as director of issues analysis and his role as spokesman for the organization. Fischer will reportedly continue to produce his daily radio program for the AFA's radio arm, American Family Radio.
If this is indeed the case, then the AFA has literally accomplished nothing with this stunt and has completely failed to distance itself from Fischer's utterly despicable views. The primary venues though which Fischer has managed to spread his bigotry for the last six years have always been owned, operated, and funded by the American Family Association and that relationship appears to remain intact.
And of course, his departure is probably just the tip of iceberg, since most AFA members espouse the idea of America as a "Christian Nation" above all other religions. That's clearly why they have kept Fischer around all these years, in spite of the controversy. So will this firing make much difference? Not really. Other members of the group agree with him!
. . . Asked why he organized this trip, Lane said, “Who’s the best friends of Israel? The 65 to 80 million evangelicals in America who read their Bible and believe in the Abrahamic covenant.”
. . . Lane is a longtime behind-the-scenes, evangelical Christian political operative who rarely speaks to the press. In an interview with Haaretz, however, he said his work involves “mobilizing pastors in pews around the country” to be politically involved.
His American Renewal Project is working to persuade 1,000 evangelical pastors to run for public office in 2016. “The Lord gave me this model of mobilizing pastors to try and engage the culture. Somebody’s values are going to reign supreme,” Lane told Haaretz, adding, “America was founded by Christians for the glory of God and the Christian faith.”
Lane said he’s taking a total of 98 people on the nine-day trip to Israel, which begins on Saturday, January 31. Participants will travel from the Galilee and Golan Heights to Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, he told Haaretz, with Jewish tour guides and two evangelical pastors in tow. In addition to Priebus and his wife, guests include Susie Hudson, who last week was elected RNC secretary, and Jewish conservative radio talk-show host Dennis Prager.
. . . Asked who exactly furnished the approximately $400,000 that Lane says the trip will cost, he declined to share specifics. “I know people who love Israel and want influential people to travel there and see the reality of the land of Jesus,” he told Haaretz.
. . .
So the American Far-Right and Israeli Judaism are strange bedfellows. Evangelicals say that they share the same family-values with Orthodox Jews, even while they whisper among themselves that "Jews are the Pharisees who killed Jesus." Israel gets support from the GOP and Evangelicals because of Biblical Prophecy that talks of Israel's downfall during the future apocalypse of Armageddon, during which the "wings of eagles" (the United States) will save them from the Antichrist (Muslims), or something like that. It's a strange connection - the Evangelicals believe the Jews are doomed and only Jesus can save them, which isn't what most Jews want to hear.
Political Israelis such as Bibi Netanyahu use this fervent support from the Right to pull stunts, such as teaming up with John Boehner to diss President Obama over Iran in the House of Representatives. And they use it to get more money for "security in the Middle East." But the truth is, there isn't much real common ground between the Jews and the Evangelical side of the GOP, so things can fall apart in a hurry.
. . .When “The Rachel Maddow Show” asked AFA President Don Wildmon what prompted Fischer’s ouster, Wildmon specifically referenced Fischer’s bizarre assertions connecting Nazis and homosexuality. Fischer, of course, originally made these remarks years ago, and has repeated related comments in the years since, but talking to us last night, Wildmon now says, “We reject that.”
As of last night, Fischer’s bio page on the AFA website has been removed.
. . . the American Family Association, despite years of right-wing extremism, is partnering with Reince Priebus and members of the Republican National Committee on a trip to Israel, which created an awkward dynamic. Why would the RNC team up with a group whose spokesperson says things like, “Counterfeit religions, alternative religions of Christianity have no right to the free exercise of religion”?
Nearly 100 RNC members are scheduled to participate in the AFA-sponsored Israel trip, which begins this weekend. It’s against this backdrop that, all of a sudden, Fischer is no longer the religious right group’s spokesperson.
The Right Wing Nut Jobs can't wait to white-splain and justify the murders of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Tamir Rice in Cleveland, and Eric Garner in New York City.
"If you're a black cop and you see me walking down the street, and you see an 18-year-old black guy walking down the street in the south Bronx, and you're told to stop and frisk, your job is to stop crime based on data," Scarborough said, "What do you do as a black cop? Do you go, 'I'm going to go across the street and frisk the white dude who looks like he lives in Connecticut?'"
. . . “A cop is not out on the street going, ‘You know what I’m going to do today? I’m going to move our society forward,’” Scarborough screamed. “A cop on the street has one job: to protect the people in that neighborhood. It is not to make a statement that makes prime-time people on MSNBC feel better about America.”
And he really hates that whole "hands up, don't shoot" protest thing:
The St. Louis Rams think it's cool to suggest St. Louis cops shoot young black men with their hands up in the air when we know that was a lie?" Scarborough asked. "It's a lie.
Chris Hayes of All In, also on MSNBC, disputed that it is a "lie."
“Someone needs to tell me why Michael Brown has been chosen as the face of black oppression,” Scarborough said, arguing the left’s martyrdom of Brown mirrored the right’s lionization of George Zimmerman.
“There are so many great people to embrace as heroes in the black community, that deciding you’re going to embrace a guy who knocked over a convenience store and then according to a Grand Jury testimony acted in ways that would get my children shot? …That’s your hero? That’s the reason you want to burn down black businesses?…Really? This is your mission in life?”
Which led Lisa Bloom to retort:
.@JoeNBC No one has said Mike Brown was a hero. What we have said was that we don't give the death penalty to shoplifting teens.
As if all that wasn't enough, Scarborough went off on Tamir Rice, the child who had a toy - yes a toy - gun, and police shot him down without even investigating. Morning Joe says it wasn't a toy after all. Wow, for a man obsessed with the "lies" of the Left about Mike Brown, he doesn't much care about spreading Right Wing lies about Tamir Rice.
Scarborough: There’s another story in Cleveland where a young boy was shot dead. Police officers got a 911 call he was waving a gun scaring the blank out of everybody in this public park. Police officers came up and shot the young boy. He was 12 years old. They had taken off the markings to make it look like a toy gun. It was an actual gun. Do you know what The New York Times put in the caption of the video? ‘Police officers shoot child with toy.’ I don’t know exactly who puts those, attaches those, we are doing such a grave disservice to police officers in this country...
