So Donald Trump spent the morning retweeting a British fascist once convicted of verbally abusing a Muslim woman, in order to inflame his base.

VIDEO: Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches! pic.twitter.com/11LgbfFJDq

— Jayda Fransen (@JaydaBF) November 28, 2017

VIDEO: Muslim Destroys a Statue of Virgin Mary! pic.twitter.com/qhkrfQrtjV

— Jayda Fransen (@JaydaBF) November 29, 2017

VIDEO: Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death! pic.twitter.com/XxtlxNNSiP

— Jayda Fransen (@JaydaBF) November 29, 2017

The thing about that last video is that you KNOW that if fundamentalist Christians could get away with throwing gay people off of roof tops that it would actually be raining men in no time.

These videos are of course supposed to anger and upset you, and indeed they are terrible.

However for every video of a Muslim doing something terrible, you can be sure that there is one of a Jew, Christian, or Hindu doing something equally appalling.

Simply put people do terrible things for a variety of reasons, religion being only one of them.

However more to the point is the fact that Donald Trump is not just retweeting a supporter, he is retweeting a convicted fascist.

Courtesy of The Independent:

The deputy leader of Britain First has been found guilty of religiously aggravated harassment afer she hurled abuse at a Muslim woman wearing a hijab. 

Jayda Fransen, 30, was fined nearly £2,000 for wearing a political uniform and shouting at Sumayyah Sharpe during a "Christian patrol" of Bury Park in Luton, on Saturday 23 January. 

Fransen admitted telling Ms Sharpe that Muslim men force women to cover up to avoid being raped "because they cannot control their sexual urges", adding "that's why they are coming into my country raping women across the continent".

Ms Sharpe was with her four young children at the time.

I certainly have no warm feelings concerning Islam, nor any other organized religion, and rapists deserve the harshest of punishments under the law, but this woman was with her children and doing no harm to anybody.

To verbally assault her in a public place, in front of her babies, is unconscionable.

And I can all but guarantee you that now with the man in the White House retweeting all of this, that we will see soon more of that kind of behavior on our own streets as well.

Methinks that something is coming soon, and the tangerine tinted Hitler does not want us talking about it.

Michele Bachmann thinks that establishing a hate crime hotline is a violation of the separation of church and state. Wait, what?

Courtesy of Right Wing Watch: 

Former Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann was a guest on Jan Markell’s “Understanding The Times” radio program again last weekend, where she claimed that a hotline set up by the city of Minneapolis for reporting hate crimes was fascist and a violation of the separation of church and state. 

Last month, Minneapolis announced that a hotline had been established to allow residents to report hate crimes, which include “any crime against a person or property motivated by prejudice against someone’s race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity. This includes prejudice-motivated property damage (including graffiti), stalking and assault.” 

Bachmann claimed that this hotline is really an attempt to outlaw criticism of Islam and institute Sharia law, insisting that its creation is a violation of the separation of church and state. “What we’re seeing is that hotlines are being set up by units of government for the purpose of encouraging people to call in and rat on their fellow man to report a hate crime,” she warned. 

“What they’re trying to do is implement anti-blasphemy laws. They’re trying to implement Islamic Sharia law locally in order to quiet churches and quiet anybody who would talk about what the truth is about Islam.” 

“What they want is civilization jihad,” Bachmann continued. “They want jihad through the court system to silence speech because when you take away someone’s speech rights to speak out—like we’re doing right now, to tell the truth about something—then it’s game over … There should be a lawsuit filed against the city of Minneapolis for doing this. They have violated the so-called separation of church and state that the left is so in love with because they’re preferring Islam over any other religion and, number two, they’re fascists. That’s what they are, they’re fascists; they want to shut down your right to free speech.”

For some reason Bachmann believes that the only incidents which Minneapolis will label a "hate crime" is one perpetrated against a Muslim.

However according to the government website, this is how they define a hate crime:  

A hate crime is any crime against a person or property motivated by prejudice against someone’s race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender or gender identity. This includes prejudice-motivated property damage (including graffiti), stalking and assault.

Look at that, not one word about Islam.

For all intents and purposes Michele Bachmann has dropped off the radar, but I just wanted to share this to remind everybody that the batshit crazy did not arrive with Donald Trump.

The batshit crazy was already in place among the Right Wing conservatives just waiting to welcome Donald Trump into the fold.

Three days into his trip abroad Donald Trump is reportedly "exhausted."

Courtesy of the Washington Examiner:  

A White House official told reporters that President Trump is "exhausted" just three days into his first trip abroad as president. 

Trump was expected to say "Islamist extremism" during his speech to Muslim leaders in Saudi Arabia, but instead said "Islamic extremism." 

When asked why Trump deviated from the prepared text of his speech, an administration official said Trump is "just an exhausted guy." 

After the speech, Trump reportedly canceled his appearance at the Tweeps Forum. Ivanka Trump filled in for her father, speaking to about 400 people at the event.

Gee, only three days into his trip and already Trump is sucking wind and making mistakes?

Kind of surprising considering the fact that his doctor made the following claim: 

"If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency."

Interesting.

Also interesting is that Politicususa reminds us that there was a certain political opponent of Trump's who demonstrated substantially more stamina:

Hillary Clinton who refused to telecommute and visited 112 countries as Sec. of State. Hillary Clinton spent 401 days traveling which equals 1.099 years. 

Trump couldn’t last two full days.

Well of course the Russians would not want the most vibrant and capable candidate to win the White House. So they chose the walking orange heart attack.

Why the discussion of religion is so important.

I often get blowback for my "attacks" on religion.

Those attacks of course are often simply a post about the lack of historic evidence or the ignorance of accepting things without a factual basis to support their existence.

However as I often suggest there is probably no more important topic to openly discuss, argue, and examine than the impact of religion in the world today.

For instance the case can be made that much of terrorism is fueled by religious fanaticism.

It also holds true that much of our current prejudices stem from a religious origin.

The same is of course true of sexism, after all patriarchal ideals are pervasive throughout the Old Testament.

And perhaps most currently impactful is that blind faith also opens one up to the kinds of manipulations that served the Russians so well when they interfered in our last presidential election.

Yes, I am suggesting that religious faith is a large part of the reason that we have Donald Trump as our president.

So yes, openly discussing religion is quite, quite important.

Stephen Bannon becomes the terrorist's poster child to justify religious war with the United States.

Courtesy of the Washington Post: 

The way al-Qaeda tells it, the West is locked in an existential war with Islam. This is how the terrorist group justifies its violence and its fundamentalist ideology. And now it has found a Westerner to back them up — top Trump adviser Steve Bannon. 

Bannon graced the cover (above the fold!) of the most recent al-Qaeda-linked Al Masra newspaper. That prominence, University of Oxford researcher Elisabeth Kendall told Quartz, is “striking.” The piece focused on Bannon's views of Islam, saying he believes that “the forces of Islam cannot be stopped by peaceful means.” 

The paper cited a conversation Bannon had with a Danish journalist in May 2016. It also claimed that Bannon believes that the struggle is really between Christianity and Islam, not just Islam and the West. And it suggested that Bannon has “lost confidence in secular Europe, and sees Muslim immigrants as partially responsible for the retreat of traditional Christian values.

”Like other Trump advisers (and former advisers), Bannon has spoken publicly about these beliefs. In 2014, he gave a speech to the Vatican via Skype in which he said, “We’re now, I believe, at the beginning stages of global war against Islamic fascism.” On other occasions, he's suggested that the “Judeo-Christian West” is at war with “expansionist Islamic ideology.”

I don't think it takes a terrorism expert to realize that Donald Trump and his Islamophobic advisors are doing nothing to actually fight terrorism, but quite a lot to inspire future terrorist attacks against the United States.

The war in Iraq did a great job of incentivizing up and coming Jihadists, despite Bush's attempts to argue that the war was not based on religion, but Donald Trump and his advisors are not even attempting to to do that much and with their rhetoric and policy choices seem to be turning Anti-Islamic sentiment up to eleven.

In short any future terrorist attacks in this country can most likely be linked right back to Donald Trump and his merry band Muslim bashers.

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Rabbis warn that a university education is "dangerous" for young women.

Courtesy of the Independent:  

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish rabbis have banned women from going to university, The Independent has learned. 

The strict Satmar sect issued the decree, seen by The Independent, warning that university education for women is “dangerous”. Written in Yiddish, the decree warns: “It has lately become the new trend that girls and married women are pursuing degrees in special education. Some attend classes and others online. And so we’d like to let their parents know that it is against the Torah. 

“We will be very strict about this. No girls attending our school are allowed to study and get a degree. It is dangerous. Girls who will not abide will be forced to leave our school. Also, we will not give any jobs or teaching position in the school to girls who’ve been to college or have a degree. 

"We have to keep our school safe and we can’t allow any secular influences in our holy environment. It is against the base upon which our Mosed was built.”

The day that becoming more educated threatens your belief system, that is the day that you need to change your belief system.

You know I spend a lot of time going after Christianity here on IM.

But the main reason that I single out that particular religion is because it is the one whose negative effects we feel the most strongly here in America, and that one that negatively impacts our politics and education.

Trust me when I say I have the same disdain for ALL religions which argue against both men and women learning more about the world and universe which surrounds us.

And that certainly includes Judaism Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Mormonism, and even some forms of Buddhism. (Yes, I realize there are other religions, but I don't have all day to list them all.)

If I have any belief at all it is that as human beings it is our right and our responsibility to learn as much as we can and to help push forward the limits of human understanding.

If any religion interferes with that, then it is undermining who we are as sentient beings.

Rudy "9-11" Giuliani claims that "before Obama came along we didn't have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attacks in the United States." Um.......

Courtesy of TPM:

Speaking in Youngstown, Ohio ahead of Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, who was the mayor of New York City on 9/11, declared that Islamic extremists hadn't carried out any terror attacks on American soil before Barack Obama's presidency. 

"Under those 8 years, before Obama came along, we didn't have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attack in the US," Giuliani told the crowd. "They all started when Clinton and Obama came into office."

He literally starts off talking about the attacks that happened before Obama took office, and then seems to forget them by the end of the clip.

It's made somewhat more ironic by the fact that the only reason that anybody really even cares about his opinion anymore is because Giuliani was the Mayor of New York during the 9-11 attacks.

However I am not one of those people and have never found Giuliani to be anything but a partisan hack.

Besides in my opinion NO politician with any real credibility would find himself in the role as a Donald Trump surrogate.

Unfiltered video of Trump supporters. (NSFW because, you know, Trump supporters.)

And just imagine if these unwashed racist assholes suddenly all felt empowered because THEIR candidate was in the White House.

This whole country would be like Arkansas in the 1950's.

Just a reminder that there is a difference.

"With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion." Steven Weinberg.

The GOP's latest latest attempt to fear monger over the recent "Islamic terrorist attack" falls apart as evidence surfaces that the attacker was most likely a self loathing gay man.

Omar Mateen

Okay so as we know Donald Trump and the GOP have been having a field day with this recent mass shooting at that Florida nightclub, suggesting that it is indicate of President Obama's pathetic attempts to keep us safe from Islamic terrorists.

Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016

However recently the meme has started to crumble.

Courtesy of the Daily Mail:

Omar Mateen, the gunman who murdered 49 people in an Orlando gay club early Sunday morning, was a gay man himself according to multiple people who knew and had met the man. 

A gay man who attended the police academy in 2006 with Mateen said that the pair went out to gay bars and that at one point Mateen told the man he wanted to pursue a relationship. 

Meanwhile, multiple people are now coming forward to say that they had spoken with Mateen on gay hookup apps including Grindr and Jack'd. 

The attack, which many assumed was an act of Islamic extremism, now appears to possibly be tied to Mateen's own shame over his sexuality and investigators are now looking into this internal conflict as a possibly motive. 

The shooter's father, Seddique Mateen, made his beliefs on gay people very clear in a video he posted to Facebook on Monday saying 'homosexuals will be punished by God.' 

While early news reports seemed to focus on Mateen's ties to Islamic groups, that almost seems like an afterthought in light of new evidence which  suggests that Mateen was a regular at the Pulse nightclub.

What appears to be emerging is a picture of a man torn between his desire to be loved and the religion which condemned him, and those like him, to death.

Salon makes this rather important point as to why this attack may not serve the Republicans as well as they might hope:

After all, it’s not just fundamentalist Islam that is anti-gay. Fundamentalist Christianity is, too, and if anti-gay religious teachings can cause a Muslim to reach for his gun, they can surely do the same to a Christian. Indeed, hate crimes against LGBT people are common in this country, and most of them are not being committed by Muslims. 

All of which, in turn, is going to make it a lot harder for conservatives to demagogue against gay rights to rally the troops. If this is a homophobic crime, then it’s a testament to how anti-gay rhetoric can inspire horrific violence. Conservatives are still smarting over how the racist church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, resulted in the nation turning against those who fly the Confederate flag. There can be little doubt that this crime will lead to a similar darkening of attitudes against those who persist in spewing prejudice against LGBT Americans. 

So quite a lot of evidence suggests that Omar Mateen did not go into that nightclub on behalf of ISIS, he went into that nightclub to punish those within for feeling free to embrace who they were without shame.

Something he was clearly incapable of doing. 

That is NOT Islamic terrorism, if anything it is something even more disturbing. 

President Obama rips into Donald Trump and his other Republican critics over their insistence on the phrase "Radical Islam."

Courtesy of CNN: 

Obama, sounding infuriated at critiques of his foreign policy, pushed back against criticism for not using the term "radical Islamic terrorism." And he accused Republicans of fostering resentment among Muslims that could generate further attacks. 

"What exactly would using this language accomplish? What exactly would it change?" Obama asked during remarks at the Treasury Department. "Would it make ISIL less committed to try and kill Americans?" he continued, using a different acronym for ISIS. 

"Would it bring in more allies? Is there a military strategy that is served by this? The answer is none of the above," he said. "Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away."

THAT is who you want leading this country.

Not some bloated oddly coiffed buffoon, who thinks that impulsive tweets labeling everything "terrorism" before the facts have been gathered, is the same as carefully considered policy decisions based on an examination of the evidence.

Fortunately we happen to have a well qualified replacement for our Commander-in-Chief waiting in the wings.

And I am confident that she will know how to respond to the dangers facing this country as well.

Donald Trump uses Orlando shooting to "humble brag" about his foresight in calling to block Muslims from entering the country.

Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016

Reporting that Orlando killer shouted "Allah hu Akbar!" as he slaughtered clubgoers. 2nd man arrested in LA with rifles near Gay parade.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016

What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016

Once again it must be pointed out that the Orlando shooter was a US citizen, born and raised in this country. In other words NOTHING that Donald Trump has proposed would have saved even one life.

As if that were not bad enough it was discovered that Trump plagiarized his first tweet on the shooting:

It looks like Trump flagrantly copy & pasted @SebGorka's unsourced 2:03pm tweet, tweaked it, and posted at 2:52pm pic.twitter.com/aAHWUHvvnH

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) June 12, 2016

So presidential, don't you think?

(H/T to HuffPo.)

Teacher tries to teach a lesson on Islam in the Bible Belt. Whoops!

Courtesy of the Washington Post:

A Virginia county closed all of its schools Friday because of intense backlash over a class assignment about Islam, with some parents alleging that their children were being subjected to Muslim indoctrination and educators emphasizing the importance of exposing U.S. students to the world’s fastest-growing religion. 

A high school geography teacher in rural Augusta County asked students to try their hand at writing the shahada, an Islamic declaration of faith, in Arabic calligraphy. The task, community reaction to it, and a sudden influx of outrage from around the country — including angry emails, phone calls and threats to put the teacher’s head on a stake — led the school district to close rather than risk disruption or violence. 

Augusta County Sheriff Randy Fisher said the superintendent and the school board decided to close the 10,000-student school system after district officials and the Riverheads High School teacher who gave the assignment received emails that seemed to increase in volume and vitriol as the week wore on. Most emails and messages assailed the school and the teacher for “indoctrinating” students in Islam, and some referenced violence generally. 

Fisher said he saw messages that called for firing the teacher and putting “her head on a stake.” Photos of beheaded bodies also were sent to the Riverheads principal. In a news release, the superintendent also said people indicated that they were planning protests at school buildings and that “some communications posed a risk of harm to school officials.”

That's right the parents were so afraid that their children were being indoctrinated into a religion associated with terrorism in this country, that they terrorized the superintendent, school officials, and teacher. 

But remember, these are most likely Christians so it doesn't count.

Welcome to Donald Trump's America folks.

Furor over Donald Trump's recent remarks reaching critical mass. Update!

Remind you of someone? Trump wants to ban Muslims from entering U.S. @StuBykofsky @joeberkery @PhillyDailyNews Tues. pic.twitter.com/lVc9jjTm2S

— David Lee Preston (@DavidLeePreston) December 8, 2015

You know it has seemed that the Donald was coated in Teflon the way every criticism seemed to slide right off of him without leaving a discernible mark.

However this time Trump may have taken his "politically incorrect" shtick a smidge too far.

Today's @NYDailyNews cover accompanied by an emotional guest column about @realDonaldTrump https://t.co/Ue4IXx97gr pic.twitter.com/X9xLdSlaYG

— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) December 9, 2015

Not only did newly elected Speaker of the House Paul Ryan come out strong against Trump's remarks, but even the usually non-partisan reporter Richard Engel could not let this pass:  

"This is really not the country that I know," he said on MSNBC on Monday night. He continued: 

This is not small ball, actually. This matters. It would be interesting to say, "Oh, this is just fun. This is just more, you know, he's trying to score a few points." But the world watches this. The world sees the leading political candidate from one party making these kind of statements and still doing well and having these rallies. ... Those are going around the world right now, and people realize this person is leading in the polls. That must be what Americans think. I was today with an ambassador from the Middle East. Today. And we were talking exactly about this subject. And he said, "Well, people in our country watch what is going on, and it makes us very concerned." So from the world perspective, it is absolutely an image, an impression, a black spot on our collective foreign policy and our conscience. And it also just feeds into the ISIS [Islamic State] narrative.

Ricard Engel is well known for reporting the straight facts, with virtually no political spin, so for him to weigh in like this you have to know that Trump's remarks are upsetting and angering his sources.

In Britain there is already a petition, with well over 200,000 signatures, asking the Parliament to block Donald Trump from entering the UK.

Perhaps even more impactful, at least in Trump's eyes I would imagine, is news that his remarks have pissed off some of the Middle Eastern businessmen that he has long wanted to work a deal with:  

Emirati business magnate Khalaf al-Habtoor only months ago proclaimed his support for the Republican presidential candidate, but that's all changed in the wake of Trump's increasingly incendiary comments about Islam.

"If he comes to my office, I will not let him in. I reject him," al-Habtoor told The Associated Press. "Maybe we can meet somewhere where I can debate with him in a very civilized way, not in the way he approaches people." 

There is no way that I am going to suggest that this is the end of the Donald Trump campaign for President,  because at this point we are so far down the rabbit hole I cannot discern up from down.

However I will say that if this INCREASES his poll numbers, that the Republican party might just as well all start donning their white hoods in public right now.

Because there will no longer be ANY doubt as to just who they are from this point forward. 

Update: Stephen King weighs in as well.

I can no longer tweet about Trump. That anyone in America would even CONSIDER voting for this rabid coyote leaves me speechless.

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) December 9, 2015

Such a way with words.

That awkward moment when you condemn passages from the Quran, that are actually from the Bible.

Courtesy of The Friendly Atheist:  

A lot of conservative Christians like to argue, as do atheists, that the Qur’an is full of barbarism and misogyny. Unlike the atheists, though, they forget that their own Bible is also full of horrific verses. 

So the Dutch pranksters at Dit Is Normaal ran an experiment. They bought a Bible, but changed the cover to say it’s the Qur’an. Then they asked people to read passages and give their thoughts.

You know as far as pranks go, that was fairly brilliant. 

And of course that is the point that Atheists make over and over again.

These books are FILLED with hateful, violent, misogynistic garbage like that and if you do not live in a relatively progressive society, and instead one that bases its laws and guidelines on the holy book, you are essentially surrounded by barbarism.

A little food for thought this morning.

Courtesy of Matt Ridley: 

Fifty years ago, after the cracking of the genetic code, Francis Crick was so confident religion would fade that he offered a prize for the best future use for Cambridge’s college chapels. Swimming pools, said the winning entry. Today, when terrorists cry “God is great” in both Paris and Bamako as they murder, the joke seems sour. But here’s a thought: that jihadism may be a last spasm — albeit a painful one — of a snake that is being scotched. The humanists are winning, even against Islam. 

Quietly, non-belief is on the march. Those who use an extreme form of religion to poison the minds of disaffected young men are furious about the spread of materialist and secularist ideas, which they feel powerless to prevent. In 50 years’ time, we may look back on this period and wonder how we failed to notice that Islam was about to lose market share, not to other religions, but to humanism. 

The fastest growing belief system in the world is non-belief. No religion grew nearly as fast over the past century. Whereas virtually nobody identified as a non-believer in 1900, today roughly 15 per cent do, and that number does not include soft Anglicans in Britain, mild Taoists in China, lukewarm Hindus in India or token Buddhists in Japan. Even so, the non-religious category has overtaken paganism, will soon pass Hinduism, may one day equal Islam and is gaining on Christianity. (Of every ten people in the world, roughly three are Christian, two Muslim, two Hindu, 1.5 non-religious and 1.5 something else.) 

This is all the more remarkable when you think that, with a few notable exceptions, atheists or humanists don’t preach, let alone pour money into evangelism. Their growth has come almost entirely from voluntary conversion, whereas Islam’s slower growth in market share has largely come from demography: the high birth rates in Muslim countries compared with Christian ones.

And before the troll inevitably accuses me of proselytizing on this blog, remember that you can here voluntarily to read what I had to say. I did not buy advertising time during your favorite show, come to your door to leave pamphlets, or threaten your children with eternal damnation if they did not accept my lack of belief.

This Ridly guy is exactly right, the non-theists ARE winning.

We have all of the tools needed to educate and enlighten the world, even the children regardless of where they live, or what religion surrounds them. And once that happens there is simply no longer any room for primitive superstitions or ancient mythologies.

And it is the very fact that victory is coming, which is behind much of the turmoil that we see in the world today.

Rarely does a dominating demographic drop the reins of power voluntarily, nor come down from the top of hill peacefully.

So yes we are going to see more violence, and more political manipulations, but in the end the outcome is predetermined. The only question is how long will it take, and how many will die in the interim.

Saudi Arabia gives man death sentence for "doubting the existence of God."

Source

Courtesy of Middle East Eye:  

A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a Palestinian poet to death for renouncing his religious faith, according to documents seen by Human Rights Watch. 

Ashraf Fayadh was handed the sentence on Tuesday on charges of “doubting the existence of God,” according to court documents seen by the group’s Saudi Arabia researcher, Adam Coogle. 

Fayadh, who was born to Palestinian parents but grew up in the Gulf kingdom, was arrested by religious police in late 2013 after a reader complained that one of his books, his 2008 poetry collection Inner Teachings, could encourage people to renounce Islam. 

Fayadh, now 50, was released after a day due to lack of evidence, but was rearrested in January 2014 in the southwestern city of Abha. 

The poet was arrested in a coffee shop after watching a game of football, and was threatened with being deported to Gaza, his father told France24 at the time. 

Fayadh was initially sentenced to four years in prison and 800 lashes, but an appeal judge this week increased the sentence, handing down the death penalty.

Remember this is a Muslim country with whom WE have a special relationship.

In fact our former President seemed to have a crush on their former leader King Abdullah.

And our current President did not seem to have any problem cozying up to his successor King Salman.

The country has money to burn, and they send their children to some of the best schools in the world, and yet they STILL consider it reasonable to murder a man for using his critical thinking skills.

If America were really a place that respected freedom above all else, it would immediately cut ties with his back water country and tell them not to give them a call until they managed to drag themselves into the 21st century.

Is now a good time to remind everybody that fifteen of the nineteen 9-11 hijackers were Saudi nationalists?

In the wake of the Paris attack the words of Sam Harris about the Islamic faith seem more timely than ever.

Now I think you all know that my position on ALL religions is that they are an unnecessary and potentially harmful crutch used by people who do not trust their own critical thinking abilities.

However, like Harris, I also find some religions more concerning than others, based on their basic tenets and also how the teachings are interpreted in this day and age.

As you know I spend a great deal of time criticizing Christianity in this country, and those who profit from and hide behind Christianity in this country, mostly because it is the most prominent and impactful religion in this country.

And yes the horrific things that have been done in the name of Christianity in many ways overshadow the violence done in the name of Islam.

However in today's world one would be foolish not to recognize that there is a singular danger represented by the those who interpret Islamic teachings as a license to kill and destroy.

And ISIS in particular embodies the most dangerous elements of Islam. As noted back in March of this year by The Atlantic: 

Our ignorance of the Islamic State is in some ways understandable: It is a hermit kingdom; few have gone there and returned. Baghdadi has spoken on camera only once. But his address, and the Islamic State’s countless other propaganda videos and encyclicals, are online, and the caliphate’s supporters have toiled mightily to make their project knowable. We can gather that their state rejects peace as a matter of principle; that it hungers for genocide; that its religious views make it constitutionally incapable of certain types of change, even if that change might ensure its survival; and that it considers itself a harbinger of—and headline player in—the imminent end of the world. 

The Islamic State, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), follows a distinctive variety of Islam whose beliefs about the path to the Day of Judgment matter to its strategy, and can help the West know its enemy and predict its behavior. Its rise to power is less like the triumph of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (a group whose leaders the Islamic State considers apostates) than like the realization of a dystopian alternate reality in which David Koresh or Jim Jones survived to wield absolute power over not just a few hundred people, but some 8 million.

It is almost impossible not to recognize the positions of some of our more radical Christian leaders reflected in the above description. Many of them also believe that we are on the brink of witnessing the End of Times as well.

And in fact I would argue that it was George W. Bush's religious fundamentalism that inspired him to set into motion the events which have resulted in the dangers we are seeing today.

However make no mistake, if there is a terrorist attack in the world right now it is more than likely carried out by an Islamic Jihadist.

And understanding that fact, and the reasons behind it, may be our only hope of eventually putting a stop to all of this violence. 

Terror comes to the City of Lights. Update!

Courtesy of CNN: 

ISIS claimed responsibility for gunfire and blasts that targeted six sites Friday night in Paris, killing 128 people in one of Europe's deadliest massacres in recent years. 

In an online statement distributed by supporters Saturday, the terror group said eight militants wearing explosive belts and armed with machine guns attacked precisely selected areas in the French capital. 

In addition to the people killed, 180 others were injured, according to the Paris Police Prefecture. More than half of them are in critical condition.

I am sure that all of you watched this unfold last night just like I did.

And I am sure you share my shock, anger, and disgust. 

My daughter was attending the wedding of a good friend last night, but even during the ceremony she kept sending me texts asking what was going on. I told her what I knew from watching cable news, and she kept responding back with more and more horror, until she finally had had enough and stopped responding at all.

Still today there are conflicting reports on just now many people were murdered last night, some say 127 others put the death toll over 150.

What we do know is that innocent people simply living their lives were massacred by savages in the name of their religion. And that should frighten us all.

I know as a liberal I am supposed to understand the motivations of the oppressed, or to feel sympathy for those who are so desperate that they would lash out in such a manner, but to be honest I feel none of that right now.

All I feel is incredible anger.

I don't care what your holy book says you should do. I don't care how angry you are at the West. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care.

And if this act of savagery was supposed to make us care, or to frighten us, I don't think these Jihadists understand the people of France, or the people of the United States, very well at all.

Somehow I think that ISIS might have just made a terrible mistake indeed.

Update: Here are the President's remarks on the attack. And of course we will hear what the future President has to say about them at tonight's Democratic debate.

Anti-Islamic groups plan armed protests outside mosques all over the country this weekend. Oh that should be helpful.

Pro-gun Islamophobe  Jon Ritzheimer

Courtesy of TPM: 

The anti-Islam sentiment that has crept into the mainstream political dialogue in recent weeks may hit a boiling point this weekend, as planned protests outside mosques and Islamic centers across the nation coincide with the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March in Washington, D.C. 

A Facebook page called "Global Rally for Humanity" appeared in August urging "patriots" to organize protests at their local mosques on Friday and Saturday. "Global Rally for Humanity" appears to have ties to John Ritzheimer, who rose to prominence among anti-Muslim activists when he organized a protest and "Draw Mohammad" contest in May in Phoenix. Known for his bizarre antics, he recently attracted the attention of U.S. Capitol Police when he vowed in an open letter to arrest Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) over her support for the Iranian nuclear deal. 

It's unclear whether Ritzheimer himself organized the event. He said in a Facebook video posted Aug. 9 that he and others were "planning a global rally to protest against radical Islam," citing contacts in Canada, Australia and Europe. He also encouraged interested protesters to bring their weapons. 

"We’re not going to make you travel," he said in the video. "If you’ve got a mosque in your city, a mosque in your state, you go there. You voice your opinion there."

This is America so of course people are allowed to stage protests, but exactly WHAT are these idiots protesting?

Like many people I think that the atrocities perpetuated around the world in the name of Islam are horrible. Just like I feel that the atrocities directed toward gay people in Africa in the name of Christianity are horrible.

I just don't see how protesting a non-violent mosque in America addresses problems associated with the Islamic religion in other countries?

And asking people to bring their guns? That is just a recipe for disaster.

According to a recent poll one third of  Republicans want to make Islam illegal in this country, and nearly half want to make Christianity the official religion in America.

So is THAT the goal for these yahoos? To simply make it so inhospitable here in America that the Muslims will pack up and leave the country? Or are they attempting to start a fight in order to elicit a violent response?

That would explain the guns wouldn't it?

It's not bad enough that half the world seems to be engaged in one holy war or another, now these knuckle draggers want to start one in our country as well.