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I would say, “Give consideration to your eternal salvation.” Because to vote for a person who has expressed a fanatical determination to not only support abortion as it exists now but to remove all limitations on it through the Freedom of Choice Act, and to extend it without any recourse, throwing out all of the efforts of citizens over the last 35 years to place reasonable limits on abortion, that voting for a person who has expressed his determination to do this to Planned Parenthood, to NARAL – that you make yourself a participant in the act of abortion. That’s gravely wrong, and you mustn’t do it because your eternal salvation is tied up in that important choice.

Of course, the religious right doesn’t want to impose their religious views on the rest of us.  No, no. On the contrary, it’s their culture and their values which are under attack — they’re just defending themselves.

In many ways, tomorrow really is about progress and hope vs. a bunch of Dark Ages throwbacks.  Go vote.

Aren’t anti-abortion voters already sure who they’re voting for? They’ve got fetuses on their signs for god’s sake.

Are there undecided or swing voters on whom this kind of idiotic thing works? Are there rational people in this county who believe that Obama wants to kill babies?

It’s probably this just meant to motivate religious freakazoids — who know everything, including what you ought to do and not do with your genitals — get out and vote.

Absolutely. I’m very concerned that he may have anti-American views. That’s what the American people are concerned about. That’s why they want to know what his answers are.

She also said that she wanted “the media” to 

do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think people would love to see an expose like that.

Here’s the video:

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When “the media” and “the people” noticed that she had said something this monumentally stupid, campaign contributions began pouring in to her opponent, El Tinklenberg.  He raised over a million dollars in the few days following her disastrous appearance on Hardball.

Realizing she had made a mistake in letting her reason-impaired and extreme views out on national tv, she went on a local show a few days later to lie about what she’d said:

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Unfortunately for Bachmann, nobody bought that.  So today, she spoke to a local Rotary club and said that it was the show’s fault.  She also told the Rotarians that she didn’t

call for an investigation of members of Congress for their pro-American or anti-American views. That is not what I said.

Actually, that’s exactly what she said.

In an interview with a local newspaper, she used the Admiral Akbar defense, calling her appearance a “trap.” She also said that she’d never seen Hardball before.  There’s just no way that’s true: Michele Bachmann is a regular on Larry King Live and other cable shows.  She’s image conscious and (until recently) media savvy. To think that she’s never even seen one of the most influential political shows on television is simply not believable.

As noted previously here, Bachmann is a right-wing extremist:

She opposes legislation to strengthen women’s’ rights in the workplace, wants to outlaw abortion, voted no on more funding for schools, and voted no – twice – on SCHIP, which would have provided health insurance to two to four million children. One of her biggest boosters is Phyllis Schlafly, the anti-feminist crusader.

She’s also an alumnus of Oral Roberts University.  Before getting to Congress, she ran a school, where

Conflicts arose when many parents and the school district questioned if money from public tax dollars was going towards injecting Christianity into the curriculum. Minnesota state law prohibits charter schools from using taxpayers’ money for teaching religiously motivated courses. Parents charged Bachmann with trying to set up classes on Creationism and advocating “something called ’12 Christian principles’ be taught, very much like the 10 Commandments.” Bachmann and the board of directors also refused to allow the in-school screening of the Disney film Aladdin, feeling that it endorsed magic/witchcraft and promoted paganism.

To her credit, Bachmann hasn’t previously tried to hide who she is, which says a lot more about the people of her district than it does about her.

“He’s neither-nor,” said Ricky Thompson, a pipe fitter who works at a factory north of Mobile, while standing in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store just north of here. “He’s other. It’s in the Bible. Come as one. Don’t create other breeds.”

Here’s pipe fitter/biblical scholar Ricky Thompson:

And here’s a real knee-slapper from another Alabama shopper:

“He’s going to tear up the rose bushes and plant a watermelon patch,” said James Halsey, chuckling, while standing in the Wal-Mart parking lot with fellow workers in the environmental cleanup business.

Oh man, that’s funny.  See, blacks love watermelon, so if we put a black guy in the White House, he would get rid of the rose bushes and put in a watermelon patch so he could have watermelon all the time. That’s what makes James Halsey’s joke so incredibly funny. And you know who would probably really like that joke? James Halsey’s wife/13 year old first cousin. She’s a real jokester — if you believe what you read at truck stops.

Of course, Barack Obama was the president of the Harvard Law Review, and is now a United States Senator, his party’s nominee for president, and (if the polls are right) on the brink of becoming the 44th President of the United States.  Master race member James Halsey, by contrast, spends his time standing around making jokes in a Wal-Mart parking lot in a remote part of Alabama. 

Still, those blacks do love their watermelon.  That James Halsey is one funny guy.

As to Queen Esther, who remembers Katherine Harris?

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Yesterday, McCain appeared to try and dial back the bigotry:

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Maybe McCain ought to get some credit for finally, if extremely reluctantly, rebuking the Republican mob for its misconceptions about his opponent (and getting booed for it). The most interesting thing about that clip, though, is not McCain’s correction.  It is instead the explicit racism and implicit acknowledgement that belief about Obama’s racial makeup is itself a legitimate basis on which to criticise him.

What the questioner said was not that Obama is a “foreigner,” as others have suggested, but that he’s an “Arab.” That, in McCain’s supporters’ minds, is criticism enough to disqualify a candidate from office.  That’s why the ignoramus in red felt so comfortable standing in front of thousands of people in the room and millions by television and expressing her mistrust of Obama for no reason other than that his ethnic makeup is other than white.

And McCain didn’t rebuke the questioner for her racism.  His response wasn’t to tell the questioner that even if Obama were an Arab-American that would be irrelevant. He simply said, “no, ma’am, no ma’am, he’s a decent, family man, citizen. . .”  Because Lord knows, Arabs couldn’t possibly be decent, family men, or citizens.

One can’t help but wonder what it might’ve been like if Republican former Senator, cabinet secretary, and Arab-American Spencer Abraham had been in the room.  Or incumbent Republican Senator and Arab-American John Sununu. Or incumbent Republican Congressman and Arab-American Darrell Issa. How comfortable would they have felt standing among thousands of screaming morons, hearing “Arab” used as an epithet and their candidate responding not by pointing out that Arab-Americans are equal to the rest of us and people who believe otherwise are racists whose support is unwanted, but simply correcting the record?

McCain isn’t a racist. And it’s not entirely his fault that he’s profiting from racism.  But he is a Republican and this is what large parts of the Republican party is in 2008: an organization in which plain-spoken, open bigotry is not only acceptable, but a legitimate part of politics. Despicable.

UPDATE:

Via AMERICAblog:

Supporter holds up Obama monkey doll at McCain-Palin rally:

Watch CBS Videos Online

UPDATE TWO:

Ana Marie Cox agrees: Not All Arabs Are Terrorists.

Scientists confirm shark’s ‘virgin birth’

Pup carried by Atlantic blacktip shark contained no male genetic material 

By Steve Szkotak

RICHMOND, Va. – Scientists have confirmed the second case of a “virgin birth” in a shark.

In a study reported Friday in the Journal of Fish Biology, scientists said DNA testing proved that a pup carried by a female Atlantic blacktip shark in the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center contained no genetic material from a male.

The first documented case of asexual reproduction, or parthenogenesis, among sharks involved a pup born to a hammerhead at an Omaha, Neb., zoo.

“This first case was no fluke,” Demian Chapman, a shark scientist and lead author of the second study, said in a statement. “It is quite possible that this is something female sharks of many species can do on occasion.”

The aquarium sharks that reproduced without mates each carried only one pup, while some shark species can produce litters numbering in the dozen or more. The scientists cautioned that the rare asexual births should not be viewed as a possible solution to declining global shark populations.

“It is very unlikely that a small number of female survivors could build their numbers up very quickly by undergoing virgin birth,” Chapman said.

The medical mystery began 16 months ago after the death of the Atlantic blacktip shark named Tidbit at the Virginia Beach aquarium. No male blacktip sharks were present during her eight years at the aquarium.

In May 2007, the 5-foot, 94-pound shark died of stress-related complications related to her unknown pregnancy after undergoing a yearly checkup. The 10-inch shark pup was found during a necropsy of Tidbit, surprising aquarium officials. They initially thought the embryonic pup was either a product of a virgin birth or a cross between the blacktip and a male of another shark species — which has never been documented, Chapman said.

Tidbit’s pup was nearly full term, and likely would have been quickly eaten by “really big sand tiger sharks” that were in the tank, Chapman said in a telephone interview from Florida.

That is what happened to the tiny hammerhead pup in the Omaha case.

“By the time they could realize what they were looking at, something munched the baby,” he said of aquarium workers. The remains of the pup were used for the DNA testing.

Virgin birth has been proven in some bony fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds, and has been suspected among sharks in the wild. The scientists who studied the Virginia and Nebraska sharks said the newly formed pups acquired one set of chromosomes when the mother’s chromosomes split during egg development, then united anew.

Absent the chromosomes present in the male sperm, the offspring of an asexual conception have reduced genetic diversity and, the scientists said, may be at a disadvantage for surviving in the wild. A pup, for instance, can be more susceptible to congenital disorders and diseases.

The scientists said their findings offer “intriguing questions” about how frequently automictic parthenogenesis occurs in the wild.

“It is possible that parthenogenesis could become more common in these sharks if population densities become so low that females have trouble finding mates,” said Mahmood Shivji, one of the scientists and director of the Guy Harvey Research Institute at Nova Southeastern University in Florida.

The DNA fingerprinting techniques used by the scientists are identical to those used in human paternity testing.

Chapman, who is with the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook, was assisted in the study by Beth Firchau of the Virginia Aquarium.

Chapman and Shivji were on the team that made the first discovery of virgin birth involving the Nebraska shark.

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So what is the Judicial Confirmation Network?  It’s a front group set up by Pat Robertson’s personal shyster, religious freakazoid Jay Sekulow.  But does it really matter who these theological neanderthals are? I don’t think so.

Here’s what’s really important: they want John McCain to be president because he’s just like George W. Bush:

Today, in advance of President Bush’s address to the Republican National Convention, the Judicial Confirmation Network distributed buttons to delegates and guests bearing the photographs of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sam Alito and stating “Thanks, W!”

The idea is to thank President Bush for nominating two outstanding Justices of the Supreme Court who are faithful to the Constitution,” said JCN Executive Director Gary Marx. “Besides keeping our country safe since 9/11, President Bush’s Supreme Court picks will be the greatest legacy of his administration.

With perhaps as many as four Supreme court nominations to be made by the next President, this election will determine whether the new Justices in the mold of Roberts and Alito will usher in a new era of judicial restraint, or whether we will be plunged back into a generation of further liberal judicial activism chipping away at our democracy.

 Here’s the button:

JCN remote control user Wendy Long says:

Americans do not get to choose Supreme Court Justices. In their wisdom, the Framers of the Constitution provided that the President chooses them for all of us. The next President will exercise that most important judgment, probably at least several times. JCN is educating Americans about the differences between an ‘Obama Court’ that would engage in judicial activism, acting as a super-legislature and imposing a political agenda from the bench, and a ‘McCain Court’ that would likely practice judicial restraint and fairly apply the law based on what the Constitution says and on laws passed by the representatives accountable to the American people. 

I’m kind of with the JCN on this: Everyone who feels like saying “Thanks W!” ought to follow the Network’s advice and vote for for John McCain.  The other 70% of us will go with Barack Obama.

UPDATE:

AMERICAblog sees JCN’s Rezko and raises them a Keating.  

I would add that, for those in Florida, Sarah Palin enjoyed at least one sermon at her church by Jew for Jesus wackjob David Brickner. He informed the congregation that Israeli Jews get what’s coming to them in terrorist attacks because they don’t accept the divinity of Jesus.

Palin was also given protection from witchcraft by the guy in the video below.  He thinks it’s high time we have some Christian businessmen and bankers since banking seems to be dominated by a certain Semitic people with a talent for making money and a taste for lox:

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Of concern to McCain’s campaign, however, is a remaining and still-undisclosed clip from Palin’s interview with Couric last week that has the political world buzzing.

The Palin aide, after first noting how “infuriating” it was for CBS to purportedly leak word about the gaffe, revealed that it came in response to a question about Supreme Court decisions.

After noting Roe vs. Wade, Palin was apparently unable to discuss any major court cases.

There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence.

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Palin’s comments put her in direct conflict with just about everybody in Israel.  Anyone who’s spent any time there (and I have) knows that Israelis are rarely of a single mind on any issue, particularly ones dealing with security.  Two Jews, three opinions, Israelis like to say. 

Shortly after her selection, I noted the presence of an Israeli flag in her office:

Yesterday at the UN, she told Israeli President Shimon Peres about that flag.  As an unapologetic supporter of Israel, I don’t find this particularly reassuring.  

Palin’s “support” for Israel isn’t about security or democracy and it most certainly isn’t about peace.  It’s about advocating a religiously-motivated, militaristic, and uncompromising view of the Middle East. This is from the conservative Washington Times:

Sarah Palin displays an Israeli flag in her governor’s office in Juneau, even though she has never been to the country, and attends Protestant evangelical churches that consider the preservation of the state of Israel a biblical imperative.

Nothing wrong with that.  Israel’s continued existence shouldn’t be controversial, but in some quarters it is.  Palin’s brand of Evangelicalism, however, teaches very speicfic understanding of the meaning of “perservation of Israel.”  Here’s how one prominent Evangelical leader describes it:

[Pastor John] Hagee calls it “biblical advocacy,” an idea that has attracted prominent Evangelicals like Gary Bauer and Jerry Falwell to join Hagee. A “biblical advocate” for Israel believes the borders of the country were set by God and should not be altered. It’s a view at odds with the majority of Israelis who are prepared to trade land for peace, but, Hagee promises, the group won’t intervene in internal Israeli politics. 

The documentary Jesus Camp told the stories of Americans who share Palin’s views.  One family homeschooled its children, was, like Palin, radically conservative, revered George W. Bush, and believed Jesus’ return was imminent.  Every morning, family members gathered around the breakfast table and said the Christian Pledge of Allegiance.  In addition to the American and Christian flags, guess what that family waived:

Because of internal political and religious pressures, Israelis and Palestinians simply can’t make peace on their own.  Both sides need the US to bring its prestige, power and influence to bear to provide the cover each needs to make the kinds of historic, emotionally charged compromises required to make lasting peace. The “support” that Sarah Palin would offer to Israel as president or vice president is the kind that virtually guarantees that generations of Israeli — not Alaskan — children will remain locked in conflict because of a biblical worldview that they don’t share. 

Palin is no terrorist, but she shares something disturbing in common with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  Despite the fact that, officially at least, the Palestinians have already recognized the Jewish state, and regardless of what kind of comprehensive deal they conclude with Israel,  Iran will “never recognize Israel.” Many Iranians refer to this as the more Palestinian than the Palestinians policy.  And that’s the mirror image of what Palin proposes. 

Barack Obama, by contrast, promises “not to waste a minute” getting the parties to the table to restart negotiations. If negotiations succeed, the Jewish state will, for the first time in thousands of years, have defined, recognized borders which protect its democratic, Jewish character. That’s security.