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[personal profile] solarbird
I saw this before, but didn't know whether to believe it, but now there's a second source that isn't townhall.com: Associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has decided to use the prestige of the Supreme Court to fuel paranoid conspiracy freak insanity about Barack Obama by taking to conference one of the various nutbar lawsuits against President-Designate Obama's citizenship. This is truly wretched. It's not just that the case has no merit; it's that Justice Thomas has decided to use the Supreme Court as a baiting toy to fuel the insane.

Glenn Greenwald has disturbing reports of possible backtracking - and the backtracking on the backtracking - on torture by Democratic leadership in the Senate. The Weekly Standard has, of course, been urging Chief Executive Bush to award the Medal of Freedom to torturers. Meanwhile, the New York Times still refuses to call torture "torture," and continues to label torture opponents as crazy leftists. More here, if you can stomach it.

Meanwhile, Pope Benedict has thrown Vatican efforts against a UN resolution calling for an end to the practice of criminalizing and punishing people for their sexual orientation. Yes: the Vatican, under Pope Benedict, is now actively working to keep queers illegal in many countries. The Catholic Church hierarchy is now effectively supporting the death penalty for homosexuality in Saudi Arabia.

Over in the Air Force, Capt. Christian Biscotti led a mandatory-attendence presentation at RAF Lakenheath declaring evolutionary theory a pro-suicide Marxist-Communist evil, and promoting Creationism as the antidote. Regular readers familiar with fundamentalist Creationist rhetoric will recognise many of the attack points made in the slides. The religious-indoctrination presentation was officially a "suicide prevention" exercise. Many more slides and a link to the entire presentation here.

Much of the above is borrowing/stealing from the highly sectarian The Purpose-Driven Life, by Pastor Rick Warren, who on the 3rd endorsed the assassination of foreign leaders he sees as "evil," supporting Fox News's Sean Hannity and his declaration that such actions are "righteous."

Closer to home, the University of Washington student newspaper The Daily has spurred protests after running an op-ed against same-sex marriage rights, bringing in the usual hate arguments that homosexuality is an emotional problem and that marriage rights for queers will lead to incest, bestiality, and pedophilia. (Original article here.) The article is accompanied by an abstract graphic of a generic man marrying a sheep. There's a student protest at 12:30, 5 December 2008, and a Facebook group here.

In creepy, creepy, creepy news, the number of troops the Pentagon is talking about deploying domestically has swelled to 20,000. The idea of any deployment was first floated a couple of months ago, and the number has grown five times since then. They are, of course, citing terrorism.

Finally, in somewhat more rational news, Vice-President Designate Biden came out in support of more and better support for passenger rail, particularly for in-city transportation.

eta: I've already had to use the banhammer once today on a newly-created account by an OBAMA IS A SEKRIT MUSLIM/birth-certificate crazy. I will continue to apply as necessary, so don't bother.

Date: 2008-12-05 04:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] epawtows.livejournal.com
Amnesty International?

I'm sure they have extremest members who think tongue-lashings count as torture, and believe that their opinions are that of AI's. But I doubt they represent AI's views any more than the 'not a natural citizen' kooks represent the GOP.

Date: 2008-12-05 07:07 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] partywhipple.livejournal.com
THAT'S IT!!!

Thanks it was driving me nuts

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