“Glenn, shut up!” so perfectly encapsulates their entire argument.

Also, stamping foot.

May had his knickers in a knot about the fact that Imam Rauf is in the Middle East using taxpayer funded money from the State Department and that his wife, Daisy Khan, will be joining him shortly. However, he neglected to mention that the Bush administration selected Rauf to travel to the Middle East to promote goodwill between the Muslim world and the U.S. Funny, how these folks often forget these little details.

As an aside, I saw a beaut of a sign in the crowd referring to the “impeechment” of Obama and Bloomberg. These folks are real brain trusts, aren’t they? Kind of like the “moran” placard a few months ago.

I can’t bring myself to watch the tape of this bearded troll, but I am just about over the wingnuts and this latest “issue.” 1) It ain’t a mosque (entirely). 2) It is two and a half freaking blocks from Ground Zero. 3) Pamela Geller is batshit crazy. Why has this even risen to the level of discussion? Oh, yeah, cause Faux Nooz has been flogging it unmercifully, and the other networks daren’t get left behind. It’s enough already…these idiots are playing with fire, and will end up starting a real “Crusade.” Then we are all screwed….

When May was frothing at the mouth and told Glenn to Shut Up, not just once but twice, the camera went to Rattigan which said shot showed him turning to his right, looking at either the director or the producer with a face asking what can I do? I bet he wanted to shut the May feed. I could be wrong, but of course, the diatribe was allowed to continue.
Just now, on Matthews, another wingnut was allowed to blab on over the progressive guest. It’s pretty clear what’s going on. The rabids are multiplying, and their “emotionality” must get better ratings. Ya think?

I am not smart enough to figure out what the wingnuts think they will gain from initiating a modern crusade. Everyone will lose…..even them. Same with the small cadre of the richies stealing the future from the rest of us…..when there is nothing to share, they will lose, too. How fuckin’ stupid are they?

Kind of explains why GREED is a sin.

The rabids are multiplying
Get it? Gord, I hate to sound like an old lady, but sometimes I miss the folks who appreciated the quick, odd snark.

That was a phenomenal segment. I love it. These reichwingers really don’t have a leg to stand on here.

Cliff May is weak, and limited.

I was just going to remark on that one after I’d read the rest of the comments in the thread. :)

I caught it, it was a good one. And yes, they’re multiplying. Like rabids.

Greenwald’s solid debating skills have buttressed Rattigan to his pleasure – making it easy for Rattigan to support the liberal argument. Rattigan is a solid liberal whenever Greenwald is laying it out for him.

Never heard Rattigan or anyone on tv say right wing nut job so many times.

I thought Greenwald might find the Timothy McVeigh Radical Christian angle useful. Because of McVeigh (and the Abortion Doctor Killers) are all Christians to be villified?

Oh, thank Goddess. (PS, I’d like you even if I didn’t know who your parents are. :) )

In my experience, that’s how most bullies are.

Are Americans that bigoted ,or do they really believe we are at war with Islam?

Yes

Fox News second biggest shareholder (a few billion dollars in NewsCorp) is a Saudi who helped to fund the Muslim “Mosque” in question.

Will Fox News viewers ever find out?

Billy, enough of them apparently do. Very tragic. See Jane’s early post, here, about a group, Stop The War On Prayer. There’s a fab youtube at top.

I think that could be a very useful argument here.

I thought Greenwald might find the Timothy McVeigh Radical Christian angle useful. Because of McVeigh (and the Abortion Doctor Killers) are all Christians to be villified?

Should all churches within, let’s say, a 12 block radius of the Oklahoma City site be moved? That’s still an open wound for a lot of people in that area…

I read somewhere, that this Mosque opposition is all just part of a conspiracy to turn Americans against Islam,so that we can have continued war, in the Middle east.
I wonder if there’s anything to it.

Support for the wars is at or near an all time low according to a report I read last week on CNN. That could make sense. And I wouldn’t put it past the right wing nut jobs :) to do just this sort of thing to drub up support.

Thanks, caught it earlier

not from Faux

initiating a modern crusade.

That’s precisely what this is all about. Just reading American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips, a chapter where he discusses the religious Xtianist history of the U.S. It is very much about being the chosen people with a covenant for the land. Put in that context, driven the heathens out of the sacred WTC site makes all the sense in the world.

As I was watching I was yelling at Cliff May myself, Jim…! ;-)

Btw, I couldn’t believe neither GG or DR swatted down May’s bald faced lies on Iran…! 8-(

I was disappointed DR didn’t actually call Cliff a RW nutjob to his face…! ;-)

Cliff May was Dick Cheney’s personal knob polisher.

I am not smart enough to figure out what the wingnuts think they will gain from initiating a modern crusade.

Simple, they want us afraid.
Look at how they were able to usher in a surveillance state after 911.
Republicans will protect you from the boogeyman, the Democrats are week.

I thought that was completely obvious. The real tell is that the very same people who are all hot for war against all those various Islamic countries, are the same ones making a fuss over this cultural center.

See 22.

What? You’re reading history and paying attention and thinking? /S
E!

“He finally just got down to saying to Greenwald “Glenn, shut up!”

thats how all of the GG anti’s respond to him. theres no hope in arguing the facts with him so they go to the “why do you hate America”, or “why do you hate Jews and yourself” thing really really quick.

Always fascinated to learn how the other side thinks. The history of Xtianists in the U.S. is history everyone should know. They went from around 34% of ‘church goers’ during colonial time to 65% in the late 20th C. Not sure whether the denominator is U.S. Protestants, or all Ctians. The mainstream religions, including R.C.s are losing members by leaps & bounds while the new splinter groups in the Pentacostal, evangelical, etc. modes are gaining them by leaps & bounds. And it’s not just the alleged Great Awakenings, it a steady trend. They take the OT model of being the chosen peeps, exodus to new chosen land. As a specific example, think of Mormons & UT.

Meanwhile, same trends are occurring with Jewists & Israel, Islamists & Mecca, and even Hinduists and other groups within India, although the traditions there are different. The militant defense of god-given land is a common thread. And that means war.

Anyhow, I’m just at the beginning of reading about it, so I won’t advance Phillips’s ideas too far, but you get the idea.

Classic. Hammer, meet nail. Greenwald, meet idiot RWer.

Hey, I want to start a huge cluster about those godawful Hillsboro Baptists. When will the larger Christian community say how awful they are? Why don’t the Leaders of the Christian community denounce them and run them out of town? They have hurt a lot of people, and they are clearly representatives of their religion, which is Christianity. Why can’t we have a Fred Phelps Free Zone around America?

What do I have to do to get this onto Fox Nooz? Seriously.

Why not declare war on the right wing nut jobs in the U.S.?

Hey, tell me. I spent a year at a fundamentalist church just to figure out what they were thinking. Okay? They aren’t. It was a very painful year, but at least I can speak from my own experience. My faith was never at stake. My sanity was on the line from time to time. Am I a nut? Maybe so, but I can speak from my heart.

Ratigan’s interview on CNBC that got him fired was something I never expected to hear. He actually said to people who knew what was happening as far as the counter-parties being covered 100% that as far as he was concerned that was insurance fraud. It wasn’t scripted and the result was he lost his gig at 7:30 that evening. This was before it was revealed that Goldman, Citigroup, and Bank of America were covered for their losses by policies from AIG which meant that the government money they were receiving was not making them whole but was making a profit for them.

Well, I wouldn’t spend a year actually mingling with ‘those people’ (heh). I much prefer the much more sanitized intellectual version of reading about it. *g*

We’re all different aren’t we? My husband was getting paid $125.00 a week to play piano in their praise band, too, so there were various incentives.

Great observation about them not thinking!…

It seems pretty clear though that these folks are all aligned in a very perverse and malignant way! They constantly are rattling sabers because they are defiantly in perpetual angst about having a ‘boogeyman’ to persecute and destroy! Currently it is the Muslims/Islam in one corner, Big government and overreach in another, a war with Iran over there, war with non-believers who don’t follow their fundamental dogma here, immigrants in another corner, and then ‘the black man as Prez’ ( i am none too pleased with him either, but i don’t wish him or his family harm)…it is endless and pervasive….
as well as sick and degenerate I might add.

A new twist on an old outcry warned:

First they came and got the Muslims…
then they came for the people of color
then they came for the gays, lesbians and transgendered,
then they came for the artists, musicians, intellectuals
then they came for the unwashed disbelievers and atheists
then they came for the poor and downtrodden
and by the time they came for me…there was no one left to speak out for me!

It is a religious and class war…and if you are not drinkin the ‘kool aid’, you are the enemy!

Unfortunately, people in Oklahoma City (I live there. I work two buildings away from the memorial site and about 5 blocks away from Anita Bryant’s office in the bricktown area) are far too right-wing for that kind of sanity. If you were to try to make the comparison between Muslim terrorism in NYC and Christian terrorism in OKC, your average Okie would blame MUSLIMS for the Oklahoma City bombing. They’d probably find a way to twist it all up so that Obama was responsible for terrorism in both NYC and OKC.

yeah thats kind of true, except what sabertooth said, and also i dont think McVeigh identified with Christians per se, except what would be infered culturally. He was a “white nationalist”(Nazi) although that was played down in all of the MSM chatter about him.

I have a bad habit. Some times I use the Internet Anagram Server.

“Glenn, shut up!” = Plunge Shut

Stop telling!!! Dammit.

watertiger is upstairs!
Late Night: Federally Funded Group Fans Batshit Crazy Flames Over Local Zoning Issue

My being from the Sonoran Desert, has given me a front seat for what the “arch-conservatives” are attempting to deliver across America, is their penchant for having tossed off their “sheep’s clothing” and what we are seeing now is the “wolf’s clothing” on full display, both in Arizona and in the Big Apple.

As for “hallowed ground”, there are numerous geographical locations and where the bodies piled up can be found, so I find the argument for this hallowed ground, beneath contempt.

Today, the Center-Left has yet to wrap their noggin around the notional that these loud-mouthed folks are nothing if not arch-conservatives to their core. And sadly, many are residing in the Democratic Party. Now, I am not in favor of any “purity pogrom” but the ballot box will do nicely.

Jaango

I honestly can’t believe I’m saying this, but Cliff May, despite having a fundamentally weaker argument, came across with the most coherent position. Part of that was the result of both Ratigan and Greenwald attacking strawmen that May himself wasn’t raising.

Ratigan sounded just blanketly incoherent when he was trying to make some point about being at war, or not, with Islam generally. I know where he was going with it, and I even agree with where he was headed, but given nothing but the context of this discussion I would have been completely lost in his tirade.

Greenwald made two very salient points, but they were lost in the complete chaos that was the larger “discussion.” TV interviews would be a whole lot better if they were conducted by people who are especially adept at thinking on their feet, and at least being able to feign impartial curiosity (I miss Bill Moyers). Instead you get folks like Ratigan and Uyger hastily building strawmen, and then feverishly hacking away at them.

By the end of it I couldn’t help but feel that most uncomfortable of feelings that only comes from seeing a good argument being made badly. It’s way, way worse than enduring a fundamentally bad argument.

Anyway, the whole exercise in trying “expose” the rank racism and race-bating in this controversy seems utterly pointless. They know they’re racists. We know they’re racists. Regardless what issue du jour is used as rhetorical cover; it is a pretty uninteresting distinction. They’re not going anywhere, and neither are we. I mean really, a decade long propaganda campaign stoking the irrational fears of the economically immobile and forgotten has resulted in lots of noisy irrational people with nothing better to do than go apeshit over what they’re told to be afraid of, and water is wet. They’re not even ashamed of being racist really, so what exactly is attempting stoke the shame they ought to have going to do?

I remember listening to Clifford May excuse interrogators for “walling” prisoners. It wasn’t harsh treatment, he claimed, because the interrogators thoughtfully wrapped towels around the detainess’ necks to protect them from injury while slamming them into the wall. Does he really believe this drivel? Oh, I think so. But this sort of argument merely diminishes his worth as a spokesman for any position he seeks to advance. And by aligning himself with the shrill and odious Pamela Geller, well, he’s got no credibility left whatsoever.

Not sure where you are going with this-

Between 1776 and 1850 the number of Americans with formal Church membership doubled, but one needs to read that carefully as actual Church attendance rates stayed the same. Seems it was just some folks in the Church getting formal about their membership.

Back in 80′s when I was into this type of reading there were a lot of discussion on what increases or decreases Church attendance and/or Church membership – with proof of nothing. But interesting theories – early 1700′s competition with itinerant preachers who ignored parishes that were established – or even parish boundaries – obviously added a few, but the studies looking at the EU did not agree with the studies looking at the US as to likely reason for most changes over time.

Since Church attendance has varied greatly over 2000 years – much like a sine wave than something that has direction – and this is true even over shorter periods like those where the intellectuals thought every one would get educated and become deists and leave the Churches empty except for the Unitarian Church.

Enjoy your book – report back please as I and I am sure others find this stuff interesting. I’ve gotten too lazy to do much research on my own, so I look forward to whatever you report.

Yup, and add in Blumenthal’s “Republic Gomorrah” and Craig Unger’s “Fall of the House of Bush” to underscore that emotionally unstable people are using extreme ideologies (often based on religious claims) to — as Ratigan points out try to ‘blow us all up’.

When I watched this segment earlier today, I was horrified initially — because I thought that Ratigan was the one who told Greenwald to, ‘shut up.’ (I couldn’t imagine Ratigan going that far off the deep end.) So I was relieved when Ratigan clarified by pointing out “Cliff, Glenn was very polite and let you speak even though you told him to ‘shut up’.”

Personally, I hope Ratigan announces a new ‘we’ll cut your mic if you tell another guest to ‘shut up’ policy’.

Thanks for highlighting this DDay; it was amazing to watch.

This was before it was revealed that Goldman, Citigroup, and Bank of America were covered for their losses by policies from AIG which meant that the government money they were receiving was not making them whole but was making a profit for them.

And wow, has Ratigan ever been vindicated.

It’s incredible to me to watch the media narrative about the election without ever discussing the levels of fraud that I think people like myself are collassally pissed about.
And the econ blogs like NakedCapitalism, zerohedge, The Big Picture, and New Deal 2.0 appears to be growing, savvy readership. The disconnect between the bloggers like Yves Smith, and the media political reporting, is just incredible.
As near as I can tell, Ratigan seems to be the only media guy who ‘gets it’. (The CNBC crew appear to be hopeless, so if in fact he got fired maybe it was the best thing that could have happened to his career…)

Basically, we’ve been defrauded on a vast scale, yet the political reporting doesn’t even reflect that fact. Incredible!
No wonder Ratigan’s viewership is mushrooming.
Along with econ blogs.

May is such a neo-con shill. I wish Dylan would have Glenn on more often. In fact, Glenn needs his own show. America needs Glenn to have his own show.

eppur si muove

If you are touchy about my post maybe you have a problem not my post. If my questions were to hot to touch then maybe we all have a problem.