Uppity Wisconsin
Making Wisconsin Progressive Again
Onward Christian Athletes Scores
Tue, 11/17/2009 - 11:21am | mal contends
Growing up in Wisconsin during the Bart Starr-coached years (1975-1983), I used to grimace as Bart announced that a new draft pick is a "good Christian."
'Chriiiiist Bart, who cares? Just get some players.'
But like everyone else I felt Bart is Bart, a winner from the glory years.
Over the last 15 years roughly as right wing Christians have taken aim at America's military, an authoritarian and evangelical strain of Christianity has taken aim at professional sports, in its own exclusionary and often wacky dogmatic way.
Muslim? They're spiritually dead. Jewish? Dead. Free-thinking agnostics? Dead. Oakland Raiders who played during the 1970s-80s? Beyond dead and not even Christ can save those guys.
'Chriiiiist Bart, who cares? Just get some players.'
But like everyone else I felt Bart is Bart, a winner from the glory years.
Over the last 15 years roughly as right wing Christians have taken aim at America's military, an authoritarian and evangelical strain of Christianity has taken aim at professional sports, in its own exclusionary and often wacky dogmatic way.
Muslim? They're spiritually dead. Jewish? Dead. Free-thinking agnostics? Dead. Oakland Raiders who played during the 1970s-80s? Beyond dead and not even Christ can save those guys.
Tags: LGBT Community Needs to Fracking Chill on Obama and Warren
Sun, 12/21/2008 - 11:08pm | mal contends
Update: Percentage of Americans who believe that God created man pretty much in his present form in one instance within the last 10,000 years: 47 percent. ... Rick Warren is one of these people.
Fla Court Rules Gays Get Equal Protection, Adoption Ban Unconstitutional
Wed, 11/26/2008 - 11:50am | mal contends
Has Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Cindy S. Lederman been getting too much sun or is she seeing the light?
Judge Lederman ruled on a case challenging a Florida law that bans lesbians and gays from adopting, ruling the statute unconstitutional.
The case raises the big question Republicans are pondering as they decide which way forward for their battered Party: Embracing ignorance and authoritarianism or some manner of qualified libertarianism.
Judge Lederman ruled on a case challenging a Florida law that bans lesbians and gays from adopting, ruling the statute unconstitutional.
The case raises the big question Republicans are pondering as they decide which way forward for their battered Party: Embracing ignorance and authoritarianism or some manner of qualified libertarianism.
[Pictured above is Martin Gill with the two brothers he hopes to adopt in Florida.] From the ACLU:
McCainCon Nearing Completion
Tue, 10/14/2008 - 7:51am | mal contends
Poor John McCain.
His campaign embraces McCarthyite tactics; appeals to fear and racism, throws around the GOP charges of voter fraud, and the rightwing still hates him.
As we have noted here before, though there's no open talk from GOP insiders, there is a secret let-McCain-fall program: Call it McCainCon [a play on the secret EComCon conspiracy from the Seven Days in May movie based on the Fletcher Knebel-Charles W. Bailey II book].
McCain is a fatally weak GOP candidate to face Obama, and it’s likely that many GOP movement wingers see him as a 2008 sacrificial sheep happily slaughtered to the 2012-2016 gods.
That appeared clear months before.
His campaign embraces McCarthyite tactics; appeals to fear and racism, throws around the GOP charges of voter fraud, and the rightwing still hates him.
As we have noted here before, though there's no open talk from GOP insiders, there is a secret let-McCain-fall program: Call it McCainCon [a play on the secret EComCon conspiracy from the Seven Days in May movie based on the Fletcher Knebel-Charles W. Bailey II book].
McCain is a fatally weak GOP candidate to face Obama, and it’s likely that many GOP movement wingers see him as a 2008 sacrificial sheep happily slaughtered to the 2012-2016 gods.
That appeared clear months before.
Matt Taibbi on John McCain's Problem with the Religious Right
Tue, 07/29/2008 - 4:28am | mal contends
Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone discusses the failure of John McCain to consolidate his position as GOP nominee with the religious right, asking: Is this the end of the GOP's unholy alliance?
As written here before, though I happen to disagree with their descriptive facts of the world, those of the religious right whom I have met personally (here in Wisconsin) are earnest and well-intentioned, disdainful of cynicism and involved in the concept of community. And they do not respect liars.
And that's why McCain is not playing well.
(H)is basic stump speech doesn't contain a single line about God or religion. McCain is probably the first Republican in modern history to talk more about 'green technology' than about his personal relationship with Jesus Christ. ...
As written here before, though I happen to disagree with their descriptive facts of the world, those of the religious right whom I have met personally (here in Wisconsin) are earnest and well-intentioned, disdainful of cynicism and involved in the concept of community. And they do not respect liars.
And that's why McCain is not playing well.
(H)is basic stump speech doesn't contain a single line about God or religion. McCain is probably the first Republican in modern history to talk more about 'green technology' than about his personal relationship with Jesus Christ. ...
Anti-Catholic Nut Tom Reynolds' Guys to Be Revealed Next Week
Wed, 07/02/2008 - 8:47am | mal contends
Clean Sweep Wisconsin's foray into the state Assembly races is being fronted by former state senator Tom Reynolds (R-Outer Reaches).
Reynolds has created Clean Sweep Wisconsin's PAC and is recruiting numerous rightwing candidates to run in the Democratic primaries of Milwaukee state representatives.
Wonder if that means all Catholics and non-virgins will be swept away this election cycle.
The Wisconsin State Journal's Mark Pitsch politely describes Reynolds as "eccentric".
But with Reynolds, politeness obscures reality.
The Milwaukee Shepherd-Express' Lisa Kaiser leads her piece from June thusly:
Religious Right Portends Trouble for McCain
Sun, 06/08/2008 - 2:22pm | mal contends
My Friends, McCainCon Is in Motion, Dems Can Be Happy
Mon, 03/03/2008 - 9:00am | mal contends
Obama advocates (especially voters in Wisconsin prideful that their state is the turning point in the destruction of Hillary’s Democratic coalition) concerned about the recent pro-McCain coverage on CNN and MSNBC as a precursor of biased media treatment to come can relax.
McCain is a fatally weak GOP candidate to face Obama, and it’s likely that many GOP movement wingers see him as a 2008 sacrificial sheep happily slaughtered to the 2012-2016 gods.
There's no open talk from GOP insiders of course, but there is a secret let-McCain-fall program: Call it McCainCon [a play on the secret EComCon conspiracy from the Seven Days in May movie based on the Fletcher Knebel- Charles W. Bailey II book].
I'm suggesting a plot by conservative movement officers to sabotage the GOP nominee for president of the United States.
And conservatives need only participate with faint energy in the campaign to add their support to this McCainCon conspiracy, watching a man they dislike take the fall in a Goldwateresque election for the GOP.
Consider some structural election facts and Democratic capabilities.
John McCain Would Be a Weak GOP Nominee in Wisconsin
Thu, 01/31/2008 - 2:39pm | mal contends
Assuming the GOP nomination is not settled by Wisconsin's primary on Feb. 19, one might believe that born-again frontrunner Senator John McCain would be a great fit for Wisconsin.
Self-proclaimed straight talker, with a reputation as a maverick, McCain has a lot of appeal.
But today's Wisconsin GOP is not that of 20 years ago, and McCain's appeal to political independents would fail here as his straight-talk express is revealed as another media creation lacking substance and conviciton.
Democrats, and the vast majority of Americans not adherring to rightwing ideology are looking forward to a John McCain GOP nomination for president, because it would come up way short.
McCain faces the impossible task of disentangling himself from George W. Bush and the close-to-impossible task of bringing along the religious right in a general election.
War stops thousands of beating hearts
Wed, 11/21/2007 - 5:33pm | xoff
I saw that on a bumpersticker recently, and thought it was a cogent reminder to so-called right-to-lifers that saving lives of real, whole people who actually exist and function as human beings should be at least as important as saving unborn fetuses or frozen embryos.
But to the religious right, and to the Catholic church, which I don't lump in with the evangelicals, some "beating hearts" are more important than others. When you go to Abortion Stops a Beating Heart website, you discover that Pro-Life Ministries "supports President Bush and our brave soldiers fighting Islamic terrorism." A link takes you to this explanation of Islam:
Why you Need to Understand Islam and Islam's False Religion of Hate, Intolerance and Errors Which Leads its' Followers to Hell and Eternal Separation from God and Become a Follower of Jesus Who is the Christ, the ONLY Son of God, and sits at God's Right Hand!
But are their Islamic hearts, and the hearts of Iraqi civilians, beating, or is it only the US military, whose hearts beat true for the red, white and blue?
Religious Right Figures Signing Pro-war Statement Identified by ADL as Assaulting Tolerance and Pluralism
Fri, 09/14/2007 - 12:00pm | mal contends
Madison, Wisconsin — Several major American religious right figures signing an anti-Iraqi withdrawal statement were previously identified by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as extremists assaulting tolerance and pluralism in America.
A group of 44 right-wing, extremist American leaders released a Declaration on Monday urging the continuation of American policy in Iraq and warning of catastrophic consequences if America withdrawals from Iraq.
God To Dead Jerry Falwell; Go to Hell ... Now!!
Tue, 05/15/2007 - 3:04pm | mal contends
Jerry Falwell, one of the most despicable abusers of the teachings of Jesus and the earnest faith of religious Christians, a foul, mean-spirited power hungry Neanderthal who sought to set back civilization has been called to meet his maker. I have no doubt, he will join the other racists, bigots, homophobes, war mongers, greedy money-grubbing corporatists and holy-rolling religious hypocrites he supported, encouraged and empowered.
Falwell made his infamous, and perhaps signature statement after 9/11 on the 700 club, saying, "the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians," as well as liberal advocacy groups were to blame for the attacks, according to Fox news. He later made a weak, non-specific apology. This statement could well be the quote that he is and should be remembered by.