Oh my MAD.

DJ! has learned, via Broadsides, that Sarah Palin has been cartoonified by MAD magazine. Some may think that's a good thing; any kind of exposure (ahem!) will help the wannabe presidential candidate with her campaign.

I dunno. How far can that MILF mojo Palin has going for her be pushed with the Glenn Beck freaks, teabaggers, the rightwingnutters and the fundamentalist religious zealots before it becomes a liability?

MAD Magazine has a history of savagely parodying US political figures, as well as pop cultural icons - mostly in the entertainment business. Nobody is safe from the snarkiness and silliness that the publication's creative team produces year after year.

Comics historian Tom Spurgeon picked Mad as the medium's top series of all time, writing, "At the height of its influence, Mad was The Simpsons, The Daily Show and The Onion combined." Graydon Carter chose it as the sixth best magazine of any sort ever, describing Mad's mission as being "ever ready to pounce on the illogical, hypocritical, self-serious and ludicrous" before concluding, "Nowadays, it’s part of the oxygen we breathe."

Joyce Carol Oates called it "wonderfully inventive, irresistibly irreverent and intermittently ingenious American." Monty Python's Terry Gilliam wrote, "Mad became the Bible for me and my whole generation."

As Antonia says, the next three years are going to be fun. And funny: ha-ha & weird.

Blame Mandos.

Our friend Mandos - fellow blogger and Ottawan, though now residing elsewhere - appears to be quite excited about a recent development in Eggbert Umbert's narrative.

"BREAKING!!!! UMBERT REFERS TO SEX FOR FIRST TIME!!"

Yawn. Wake us up when Umbert's parental-units-in-waiting are doing the horizontal mambo, doggy-style, and the cartoon embryo is bouncing around the uterus like a pinball. Though that's unlikely to happen.

After all, this comic strip is a cash cow for its creator, Gary Cangemi. It appears in the National Catholic Register and it's syndicated to a large number of associated catholic organizations' newsletters.

Umbert©™ states that he's "the product of 100% natural family planning." The implication is that sexual relations between the two hopeful-to-be-parental-units was achieved for the purpose of procreation. Now that Umbert©™ is in residence, there's no justification for his human-rights-deprived vessel to engage in carnality, is there? As for the male parental-unit-in-waiting, in spite of catholic religious dogma currently in vogue, he's probably furtively getting his rocks off elsewhere.

Choice for Me. . . . yadayadayada

JJ beat me to this. (Dammit, I hadda watch Survivor and the sleaze Russell found another fucking immunity idol.) But the hypocrisy is too delicious to ignore.

The Republican National Committee’s health insurance plan covers elective abortion – a procedure the party’s own platform calls “a fundamental assault on innocent human life.”

Federal Election Commission Records show the RNC purchases its insurance from Cigna. Two sales agents for the company said that the RNC’s policy covers elective abortion.

Informed of the coverage, RNC spokeswoman Gail Gitcho told POLITICO that the policy pre-dates the tenure of current RNC Chairman Michael Steele.

“The current policy has been in effect since 1991, and we are taking steps to address the issue,” Gitcho said.

1991, you say? Wow. How many little Rethuglicans have been aborted in eighteen years, we wonder.

Hypocrisy. It's a Republican brand.

I link again. The only moral abortion is my abortion.

UPDATE: Zoom! That was fast. JJ beat me again: The RNC abortion party is over.

Carpetbagging Teabaggers: Not Over Yet

Is Doug Hoffman the newest Quitbull?

Conservative Doug Hoffman conceded the race in the 23rd Congressional District last week after receiving two pieces of grim news for his campaign: He was down 5,335 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted on election night, and he had barely won his stronghold in Oswego County.

As it turns out, neither was true.

But Hoffman’s concession -- based on snafus in Oswego County and elsewhere that left his vote undercounted -- set off a chain of events that echoed all the way to Washington, D.C., and helped secure passage of a historic health care reform bill.

Democratic Rep. Bill Owens was quickly sworn into office on Friday, a day before the rare weekend vote in the House of Representatives. His support sealed his party’s narrow victory on the health care legislation.

In a recanvass, Owens's lead has narrowed to just over 3,000 votes. Now they will count the absentee ballots, but they were distributed before Dede Scozzafava dropped out of the race, leaving it to the carpetbagging teabagger and the Dem, a fact which might benefit the teabagger.

"I don’t know if we would have conceded on election night," Rob Ryan, Hoffman’s campaign spokesman, said Wednesday while discussing the latest results of the recanvassing. "I’m someone who doesn’t like to look back. But would we have taken longer to make a decision on election night? Probably, if we knew it was only 3,000 votes making the difference."
. . .

"When people look back at this race, it was a remote possibility that Doug Hoffman would be a contender," Ryan said. "But miracles do happen.

So of course the teabaggers are screeching that Owens was improperly sworn in by the She-Devil Pelosi. That they wuz robbed. That the Dems rigged the election. And so on and on and on.

More fun to come.

Background here, here, and here.

Another inappropriate and violent testerical FAIL.

In his blogpost today, C.C. draws our attention to what can happen in the US when you mix ignorance, testosterone enhancement and islamophobia, Dear idiot wankers: This is YOUR fault. From here:

Marine reservist Jasen Bruce was getting clothes out of the trunk of his car Monday evening when a bearded man in a robe approached him. That man, a Greek Orthodox priest named Father Alexios Marakis, speaks little English and was lost, police said. He wanted directions.

What the priest got instead, police say, was a tire iron to the head. Then he was chased for three blocks and pinned to the ground — as the Marine kept a 911 operator on the phone, saying he had captured a terrorist.

Police say Bruce offered several reasons to explain his actions: The man tried to rob him. The man grabbed Bruce's crotch and made an overt sexual advance in perfect English. The man yelled "Allahu Akbar," Arabic for "God is great," the same words some witnesses said the Fort Hood shooting suspect uttered last week.

"That's what they tell you right before they blow you up," police say Bruce told them. Bruce ended up in jail, accused of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. He was released Tuesday on $7,500 bail.

Marakis ended up at the hospital with stitches. He told the police he didn't want to press charges, espousing biblical forgiveness.

But Tuesday, Bruce wasn't saying sorry.

Marakis forgave Bruce, even though his assailant never apologized or expressed contrition. Now that is true christianity, unlike the ideologically-fuelled hate that various rightwing nutters, fundamentalist religious zealots and christofascists like Pat Robertson are shrieeeking.

We think that police should press charges against Bruce nonetheless. That man is a ticking time bomb and a threat to the public although it's likely his next victim will be his wife. We wonder what excuses to justify his violence he'll invent then.

In Chain Emails We Trust.

There she goes again. In the course of a speech she delivered at a fund-raising banquet for Wisconsin Right to Life Sarah Palin leveled more claims against progressives and RINOs. Though she didn't use the term "Death Panels", Palin suggested that those who aren't members of The Fetus©™ fetishists organizations are plotting to eliminate grandpa & grandma as well as handicapped children like her son Trig.

What may they feel about an elderly person who doesn’t have a whole lot of productive years left,” Palin asked an audience of about 5,000 who paid $30 each to hear her speak in an airplane hangar-like exhibition hall at the Wisconsin state fairgrounds just outside of Milwaukee.

“In order to save government money, government health care has to be rationed… [so] than this elderly person that perhaps could be seen as costing taxpayers to pay for a non-productive life? Do you think our elderly will be first in line for limited health care? “And what about the child who perhaps isn’t deemed normal or perfect per someone’s subjective measure of their use or questionable purpose in the eyes of a panel of bureaucrats making our health care decisions for us,” she
continued.

Palin did not expressly raise the prospect of government-mandated “death panels” to determine who lives or dies – the incendiary and inaccurate charge she made over the summer about Democratic health care plans—but repeatedly suggested that liberal social policies could lead to de facto euthanasia.

But the inadvertent highlight of her speech was extemporaneous remarks about the expression "In God We Trust" and its location on US coins.

Noting that there had been a lot of “change” of late, Palin recalled a recent conversation with a friend about how the phrase “In God We Trust” had been moved to the edge of the new coins. “Who calls a shot like that?” she demanded. “Who makes a decision like that?” She added: “It’s a disturbing trend.”

Unsaid but implied was that the new Democratic White House was behind such a move to secularize the nation’s currency. But the new coins – concerns over which apparently stemmed from an email chain letter widely circulated among conservatives – were commissioned by the Republican-led Congress in 2005 and approved by President Bush.

Grasping at straws or rather, using the content of chain emails to prop up her creds with assorted rightwing nutters, religious zealots and teabaggers, Sarah Palin continues on her self-proclaimed 'maverick' path.

Theocracy in the US

It seems there's not much that can be done in the US can do to stop a theocracy if the evil Christofascists known (creepily) as The Family continue to use the lobbying wing of the Catlick Church to achieve their common goals.

Isn't this more than a little chilling?

Tax-exempt organizations, including churches, are barred from endorsing political candidates. But they can lobby, as the USCCB* does (it even has its own government relations department, as do other religious denominations). Yet while corporations, individuals, and secular non-profits who lobby the government are required to file publicly available forms under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, a church or "its integrated auxiliary, a convention or association of churches and religious orders" are not. If they hire an outside firm to lobby on their behalf, that firm must file under the LDA, disclosing the pieces of legislation lobbied on, the names of the lobbyists, the amount of money spent on lobbying, and other details. But if the church does its own lobbying -- as with an in-house government relations department -- it is exempt from the LDA.

Moreover, the IRS rules exempting houses of worship from filing tax returns further shields them from transparency requirements. Although tax-exempt organizations may lobby, they must limit it to a certain proportion of their time and revenue, and document this on their tax returns and other documents. But because houses of worship are exempted from filing tax returns, again, exactly how many resources they devote to lobbying is shielded from public view.

*Catlick bishops gang

And, given the general religious nuttiness in the US, anybody who tried to change this bit of law would be promptly Scozzafava-ed.

Anybody know what churches can get up to in Canada?

ADDED: Here's the scoop on charities and political activity in Canada:

A registered charity can devote part of its resources to political activities provided substantially all of its resources are devoted to charitable activities. As a general rule, we consider a charity that devotes no more than 10% of its total resources a year to political activities to be operating within the substantially all requirement.

However, we recognize that this administrative guideline may have a negative impact on smaller charities. Therefore, the following thresholds will apply:

* Registered charities with less than $50,000 annual income in the previous year can devote up to 20% of their resources to political activities in the current year.
* Registered charities whose annual income in the previous year was between $50,000 and $100,000 can devote up to 15% of their resources to political activities in the current year.
* Registered charities whose annual income in the previous year was between $100,000 and $200,000 can devote up to 12% of their resources to political activities in the current year.

And at the Library of Parliament I found this.

The restrictions placed on charities engaged in political activities may also prevent otherwise deserving organizations from engaging in important public policy dialogues. During the same-sex marriage debate, for example, the Bishop of Calgary wrote an open letter that said he would consider excommunicating Prime Minister Paul Martin over his government’s plan to legalize same-sex marriage. The CRA responded, stating that the Catholic Church’s charitable status could be put in jeopardy if the Bishop continued to engage in partisan political activity.(15) The ITA was amended in 2005 by Bill C-38, to offer additional assurances that a charity would not be discriminated against for expressing its views on same-sex marriage; however, this amendment contains limitations.(16)

According to the letter of the law, the CRA’s interpretation is understandable: the ITA forbids partisan political activity, and suggesting that a party leader’s views are immoral could be seen as tacit partisan political support for his or her opponents. Critics, however, questioned why a religious figure could not have reservations about the morality of a political leader’s beliefs without risking revocation of the organization’s charitable status.(17) Religious views on morality will occasionally clash with legislated morality, as expressed, for example, through the Criminal Code. In such cases, a threat by the CRA to revoke charitable status could be seen in part as a move to shield government policy from unwanted criticism. The rule against political discourse also seems to fetter the values of freedom of expression and freedom of religion that are enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, especially where charities are expected to fulfil a role as the “voice of conscience” in relation to the government of the day.

(16) Bill C-38, An Act respecting certain aspects of legal capacity for marriage for civil purposes (1st Sess., 38th Parl., 2004-2005), contained a clause that protects the right of a registered charity to engage in the same-sex marriage debate without fear of losing charitable status. Bill C-38 did not, however, change the requirement that the charity devote at least 90% of its charitable resources to its primary purpose, for example the advancement of its religion. Nor can a charity engage in partisan political debate on the same-sex marriage issue. The section simply gives an extra statutory assurance that debating the merits of same-sex marriage, if ancillary and incidental to the charity’s primary purpose, will not lead to revocation of charitable status.

So, if I'm reading this correctly, it seems that religious groups do have to disclose their lobbying efforts and do risk their tax-free status if they exceed the limit.

Just another fetishist of The Fetus©™

We learn, via CC's blogpost The Justin Chronicles that another Blogging Tory blathers on and on, using the familiar "Because I say so" approach to zygote zealotry. Expect the same-old same-old rationalizations and equivalencies, as always based on the premise that a blob of dividing cells has more human rights than the female vessel that carries said blob.

Hey Justin, one more reason to give thanks to your g-d that you were't born female, right?

Clearly nobody is going to force you to endure 9 months of unwanted pregnancy, but being a neocon man, you have the right to opine about humanity. And bonus points for you - you'll have the opportunity to kill human beings who have the bad grace of living on land that a government (who considers them sub-human) wants to occupy.

"Islam is not a religion."

Well it would take one to know one, it seems.

From Think Progress, we learn that Pat Robertson has wasted no time in furthering his christofascist agenda.

On his 700 Club TV show yesterday, Pat Robertson claimed that Islam is “not a religion,” but “a violent political system bent on the overthrow of the governments of the world and world domination” ... Anti-Islam rhetoric is nothing new for Robertson. He has previously called it “a violent religion” and “a political system…bent on world domination.”

It's interesting how his condemnation of the fundamentalist islamic movement corresponds exactly to the extreme and radical political tactics that his church advocates.

And they talk about infidels and all this, but the truth is that’s what the game is. So you are dealing with not a religion. You’re dealing with a political system.

Robertson's acolytes and zealots are no different from the islamists that he decries, except for the god they claim, in order to run roughshod over non-believers.