JABbering Stooge

Glenn Greenwald takes the “librul” media to task for their reflexive defense of their time spent as Bush’s lapdogs.

Oh goody. Some churches are going green for Lent. About time churches started caring about being “Stewards of the Earth.” As some of the commenters over at the Newsweek story have suggested, this is a good start, but it’s only a start. If their commitment lasts longer than the Lenten season, I’ll be impressed.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church has added pollution and economic and social injustices to its list of sins. Sadly, it ranks those issues (the things Jesus actually talked about) as being below slut-shaming and covering up for priests who are overly friendly with raping altar boys in importance.

And this sudden green streak among people of faith couldn’t come at a better time:

The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades.

Still think that global warming is “junk science?”

Meet virulent homophobe and Oklahoma state senator (but I repeat myself) Sally Kern.

Notice how she melds all the code phrases into one unhinged pea-soup spewage into the bucket of representative government. Persecution complex? Check. Dark mutterings about conspiracies to rape your kids and turn them gay? Check. Rhetoric equating homosexuals with disease that needs to be “culled?” Check. Off-topic rants about the need to shove all Muslims into human-sized microwaves? Check. This is what they really mean by the “family values” dogwhistle bullshit. Oh, and of course, when called out on their rank bigotry, they try to claim that they were “taken out of context.” As if there were any context in which such nakedly hateful remarks could ever be considered even remotely kosher!

Excuse me while I

The Perpetually Wrong Bill Kristol on Sen. McSame as Bush (hat tip, TBogg):

Buried inside Sunday’s papers was a noteworthy election result. In a special election to replace former Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, first-time Democratic candidate Bill Foster emerged victorious. George Bush easily carried the district in 2004, as has every recent G.O.P. presidential candidate.

This Democratic pickup suggests that, for now, we’re in an electoral environment more like 2006 than 2004. Foster’s eight-percentage-point improvement on John Kerry’s 2004 performance in the district mirrors the general shift in the electorate from 2004, when Bush won and the Republicans held Congress, to 2006, when the Democrats took over Congress and ran on average about eight points ahead of the G.O.P. Most surveys have shown the Democrats retaining that sizable advantage over the last 16 months. Saturday’s special election would appear to confirm these polls.

Now, I’m not as Smart™ or as Serious™ as Bill Kristol, but even I can see that if an eight-point swing in four years can flip a district from red to blue, then one can hardly describe Bush’s 2004 performance as “easily carry[ing]” a district.

Sidebar: Goldy at Horsesass.org points out that the Foster vs. Oberweis special election was quite possibly a test of Obama’s coattails come November, as Obama had endorsed Foster, and even cut a campaign commercial on Foster’s behalf. If this race is any indication of things to come, then the Rethugs are in for an even bigger (and even more well-deserved) thumpin’ in 8 months’ time — so long as Obama is the nominee.