Hypocrite John McCain Claims that He's Not a Maverick

     How desperate is John McCain?  How far has he fallen?  He's now officially a parody of himself.

     Baptist, Republican, Panama-born, Senator John McCain continues to flip-flop and sell his soul down hypocrisy lane trying to garner the votes of the far-right Tea Party folks.  McCain now claims that he's not a Maverick.  What?  After his entire presidential campaign was run on the "We need two mavericks like me and Palin."

     David Margolick of Newsweek reports:

    "Maverick" is a mantle McCain no longer claims; in fact, he now denies he ever was one. "I never considered myself a maverick," he told me. "I consider myself a person who serves the people of Arizona to the best of his abilities." Yet here was Palin, urging her fans four times in 15 minutes to send McCain the Maverick back to Washington.

     John McCain, ex-maverick, is a liar and hypocrite.  He is either senile or crazy to claim that he has never considered himself a maverick.  The people of Arizona need to throw him out on his ass.

     The Daily Show's take on the various flip-flops and hypocrisy of Republican Senator John McCain's unmaverickness.

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Catholic Sexual Abuse Scandal Update

     Is anyone else exhausted with the endless barrage of new stories about the Vatican and Pope Benedict Ratzinger being involved in the mishandling of sexual abuse perpetrated by priest pedophiles?  How many tsunamis of victims must come forward before people in the pews start demanding their leaders' resignations and some real change?  While I'm exhausted, I will continue to pass on the news.  This story can not be allowed to die, as long as children continue to be raped in the name of the Catholic god.

     Here are some of the the stories coming out of today's news concerning the Roman Catholic Church priest-perpetrated and hierarchy-concealed sexual abuse of minors:

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  The Vatican claims that the news reports tying the pope to the mishandling of sexual abuse cases are a hate campaign run by gay rights and women's rights advocates.  Of course, blame the gays and blame the women.  You've been doing this since the book of Genesis, and millennia later, we girls and gays are still here and we're still in your church.  Sing a new song, and not "I Can Change."  Show us the change.  Hate campaign?  That's projection if I've ever heard it.
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  Roseanne Barr questions whether as many girls are being sexually abused in the church and chastises Catholic parents saying Taking your kid where you know sex offenders hang out is inexcusable!!!" 
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  Some (at least partial) honesty from a bishop: Bishop Georg Mueller of Norway admits to having sexually abused an altar boy.
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  The abuse scandal at the Vatican is putting major strain on the ancient ways of Vatican operation.
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  Remember Cardinal Levada, who came to Pope Ben's rescue?  Here's a spread in the New York Times about how deep he was into legal troubles for his reshuffling and enabling of pedophile-priests, until Pope Ben lifted him from his troubles and deposited him in the safety and "diplomatic" immunity of the Vatican.
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  More on the Minnesota  priest accused of raping two girls and how he escaped to India where he is working with access to children.   Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, 55, has never faced the criminal charges in the United States and says he will return to the U.S. for trial if extradited.
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  Lutheran theology professor John Stephenson comes to Pope Benedict's rescue.
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  Protest at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York on Easter Sunday by gay rights advocates. Video below.

Easter Violence: Cat Crucified in Geneseo, Illinois

     Where would someone get the idea to nail a cat to a telephone pole?  As the old songs says: "You must be carefully taught."       

     In the midst of the Christian celebration of the crucifixion and alleged resurrection of Jesus last weekend, someone in rural Illinois, outside of Geneseo, not far from where I grew up, crucified a cat.  We're not talking violence against Easter candy, but an actually living, defenseless cat being nailed to wooden pole.

       The Quad City Times reports:

     Geneseo resident Andrea Bristol said she discovered the cat "hanging face down just by one foot," on Ropp Road about 5 p.m. Monday, on her way home from work.  At first, she thought it was a raccoon climbing down the pole, but"something just didn't seem right,"Ms. Bristol said.  She stopped and found the gray cat with a nail through a hind paw. It was bleeding and had patches of fur missing. "It just made me sick to my stomach," she said.  She thought the cat was dead until she heard a faint wheezing noise and then called theHenry County Sheriff's Department. An animal control officer took the cat to Miller Veterinary Service in Atkinson.

     In this news report by WQAD 8 the beaten and tortured feline, left to die, is given a 50/50 chance of recovery.  Happy Easter!
 

A Day in the Life of Tea-Party-Inspired Violence and Terror

     You know how Tea Party and Republican politicians, like Sarah Palin, have been using language saturated with veiled and not-so-veiled calls for violence against the U.S. government and elected officials (Democrats).  Well the past few days have been bearing fruit.  And as their Jesus said, you shall know a tree by its fruit. 

     In the embedded video below, Rachel Maddow reports on the fruit of the Tea Party's labor.  Here are the highlights.

• A Washington man has been arrested for threatening to kill Senator Patty Murray (Democrat-WA) because of the healthcare reform bill that was passed. (FOX News reports "Man in Murray threat wasn't an intimidator." Big surprise.)
• Congressman John Lewis (Democrat-GA) released an example of the threats he's been getting.  The phone message is in the coverage embedded below.  It involved repeated use of the both the f-word and the n-word, and repeated Tea Party lies about the health reform killing people.
• Erlyndon J. Lo, a 27-year-old man from Plano, Texas, was arrested after saying he'd use physical and deadly force to stop abortions at a clinic in Dallas.  (Remember Bill O'Reilly's call to arms against George Tiller, who was murdered last year while in his church?)
• Conservative guns rights advocates are planning an armed March on Washington, D.C., on April 19th.  They will march in Virginia as close as they can get to the National Mall legally armed.  They are planning various armed protests in state capitals.
• In Virginia, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell just declared April to be Confederate History Month.

     I guess the question of these good Christians is now "Who Would Jesus Terrorize?"
    

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John Ensign Will be Indicted

     The Los Vegas Sun reports that it's very likely that born-again Christian, member of the Family, and Republican Senator John Ensign, who called on President Clinton to resign after his blow job in the oval office, will be indicted on ethics charges involving his affair with "with his best friend’s wife, Cynthia Hampton, who had been Ensign’s campaign treasurer and whose husband, Doug Hampton, had been his Senate co-chief of staff," before paying them off, etc. etc.

     In the article entitled "Deconstructing the facade of John Ensign" the Sun reports the results of interviews with "more than a dozen friends, associates and Republican allies, some of whom have known Ensign for years," in which these Republican friends called him "tone-deaf," "borderline obtuse," "increasingly arrogant," "narcissistic," "reckless," "a detached, self-righteous figure," "oblivious to the collateral damage caused by his actions," "examples of Ensign's selfishness and arrogance are legion," "narcissism," "character defects," "he was an ass to his employees," "a showhorse, not a workhorse," "neither knowledgeable nor interested in the gritty details of policy or politics," and "uninformed."

     It seems that even in his hometown, Sin City, the hypocrisy of John Ensign is finally catching up with him.

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