AL Simpson takes on his critics (via @drudge_report)

Wonder if Simpson will be criticized as widely as @SarahPalinUSA was yesterday…

I basically agree with most of what Simpson says

Amplify’d from www.trib.com

But Simpson said that while every interest group that testified before his committee agreed that the mounting federal debt is a national tragedy, they would then talk about why government funding to their area of interest shouldn’t be touched. “We had the greatest generation — I think this is the greediest generation,” he said. All this hubbub isn’t a surprise to Simpson, given how politically polarized the country is these days. “You don’t want to listen to the right and the left – the extremes,” he said. “You don’t want to listen to Keith Olbermann and Rush Babe [Limbaugh] and Rachel Minnow [sic] or whatever that is, and Glenn Beck. They’re entertainers. They couldn’t govern their way out of a paper sack — from the right or the left. But they get paid a lot of money from you and advertisers — thirty, fifty million a year — to work you over and get you juiced up with emotion, fear, guilt, and racism. Emotion, fear, guilt, and racism. Read more at www.trib.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/gi6e

Robertson, Rush, Danny Glover and the National Alliance for Liberty and Freedom

What do these four have in common? They said some things about Haiti that brought derision and rightly so. [Ed. note – any bolding below is my own]

First Pat Robertson,

Pat Robertson, the evangelical Christian who once suggested God was punishing Americans with Hurricane Katrina, says a “pact to the devil” brought on the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

…

The Haitians “were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever,” Robertson said on his broadcast Wednesday. “And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’ “

Besides being mean and hurtful, it shows Robertson’s lack of Biblical knowledge. Any one who has even a cursory knowledge of Scripture knows that sometimes good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people.

There’s another problem. It may not be true.

Part of the revolution mythology is that one of the revolution leaders sacrificed a pig in Bois Caïmin in a voodoo ceremony and made a contract with Petwo [Haitian voodoo spirits]. It may or may not be true, but to call that a pact with the devil is a gross misrepresentation of what voodoo is. It’s about anything but the devil. He’s imposing an evangelical religious order on a much more sophisticated practice, and he’s turning it into a cheap invocation of Satanism.

Some evangelicals, especially the charismatics, of which Robertson is one, would contend that these types of ceremonies are a pact with Satan.

Robertson’s spokeman denied that Robertson claimed God was punishing Haiti,

Dr. Robertson never stated that the earthquake was God’s wrath. If you watch the entire video segment, Dr. Robertson’s compassion for the people of Haiti is clear. He called for prayer for them. His humanitarian arm has been working to help thousands of people in Haiti over the last year, and they are currently launching a major relief and recovery effort to help the victims of this disaster. They have sent a shipment of millions of dollars worth of medications that is now in Haiti, and their disaster team leaders are expected to arrive tomorrow and begin operations to ease the suffering.

The only versions of the statement I saw was on YouTube which is blocked on my network so you’ll have to make your own decision.

Here’s my point: If Harry Reid can be forgiven an insensitive remark because of his years of action, why can’t Robertson’s insensitive remarks be forgiven for the same reason?

On to Rush:

Rush Limbaugh is not backing down from his claim that President Barack Obama is trying to score political points off the earthquake in Haiti.

Challenged by a caller during his show Thursday, Limbaugh said: “If I said it, I meant to say it, and I do believe that everything is political to this president.”

“Everything this president sees is a political opportunity, including Haiti, and he will use it to burnish his credentials with minorities in this country and around the world, and to accuse Republicans of having no compassion,” Limbaugh said in comments flagged by the liberal blog Think Progress. [links were already in the article linked to]

I take Rush with a grain of salt whenever I get the rare chance of listening to him. He says outlandish things. He says them to gain listeners. Listeners bring him money. If people don’t know that by now….

And the fact that a politician would do something for political gain is shocking! Shocking I tell you.

I think it was the wrong time to say it, but Rush really doesn’t care what I think.

Danny Glover, in contrast with Robertson, believes the earthquake was caused by global warming.

“What happened in Haiti could happen to anywhere in the Caribbean because all these island nations are in peril because of global warming,” Glover said. “When we see what we did at the climate summit in Copenhagen, this is the response, this is what happens, you know what I’m sayin’?”

Um, no, Mr. Glover, we don’t.

Finally, there is a petition circulating online, purportedly by “National Alliance for Liberty and Freedom, a coalition of national libertarian, tea party, objectivist, and Ayn Rand groups and written by Glenn Adamson (glennadamson78@yahoo.com)”. This petition wanted no public funds to go to help Haiti earthquake victims.

Who is this organization? A Google search only brought me back to the petition and some interesting tweets,

First – @owillis that petition looks fake … who is Glenn Adamson and the “national alliance for liberty and freedom”?

Second –  @velvethammer [commetator Alan?] Colmes is blaming Freedom Works for a petition that clearly says it was written by “National Alliance for Liberty and Freedom”

Last – Hey [MSNBC’s Rachel] @maddow does The National Alliance for Liberty and Freedom exist? regarding Haiti petition by “Glenn Adamson” can’t find them on web.

Who is Glenn Adamson? An email to the address on the petition has brought no response thus far. Another Google search only gave me hits for an arts writer, or posts about this petition

So I regard this petition as fake until someone can give me some information on the organization and the author.

There.

Waukesha Carnival – No football Sunday edition

OK, this is late. Google Reader decided to quit working last night. But this is edition 50, IIRC. But let’s not rest on our laurels.

Beginning with posts on national topics. silent e has a question at silent e speaks now that administrations have changed. I can answer it. No. We’ve got at least one more year.

Dad29 opines that Obama calling out Rush Limbaugh a rookie mistake. He’s right. He only increased Rush’s audience. James Rowen has the tack Obama should take.

At Wigderson Library & Pub, James Wigderson has some points to make about living and blogging in the Obama era. That’s what I’ll try to follow. Will I criticize? Yes. But I’ll try not to nit pick. I hope my readers will never find Obama Derangement Syndrome here.

MommaBlogger at Homemaker’s Guide to the Galaxy has some info on CPSIA. I hear libraries will feel the effects also.

Dan Diebert shares at The D Spot a picture that belies the enviro-consciousness of the president’s followers.

Kyle Prast links to a thought-provoking pro-life ad at Practically Speaking.

A little bit closer to home Concernedcitizen lets us know he’s still at Skeptics Anonymous. The usual suspects are at fault for his lack of posting. It happens.

Huckleberry Dumbell crowns his Bonehead of the Day, the Oconomowoc Common Council. You can read why at The Spring City Chronicle.

Dave posts about a lunch at Sprizzo’s at Five Points Blog.

Alexander at A Little off Main has a name for Republicans who are fine with the stimulus increase government spending and want their share–RINO.

Linda Richter at Inside New Berlin notes the return of Jefferson Davis and Ted Wysocki.

The Asian Badger gives some perspective on Flight 1549 and links to FL390 where the Airbus 320 pilot who blogs there gives even more perspective.

Finally, a couple of miscellaneous posts. First, Byron Houlgrave has a nice sports shot.

At Fairly Conservative, Cindy Kilkenny links to a couple of piece’s that would be worth a read by all of us. Unfortunately, the title played havoc with my internet filter as did the title of one of the articles.

And Scott Feldstein brings us home with some nice thoughts on reading to kids.

That’s it for this edition. If you have posts from last week you think should be here, note the link in the comments. Also if you see something for next week’s carnival, place a link in the comments here.

Colin Powell takes on Rush Limbaugh

Tim Cuprisin on his blog links to a CNN report on an interview with Colin Powell to be aired Sunday at 1pm ET, in which he talks about what Republicans need to do and wonders whether Rush Limbaugh serves the party well.

Cuprisin doesn’t much go for the “sqwakers” anyway, so this fits in his meme.

Powell, of course, supported Obama over McCain, whom I suppose was too conservative for him.

There is nothing wrong with being conservative. There is nothing wrong with having socially conservative views — I don’t object to that. But if the party wants to have a future in this country, it has to face some realities. In another 20 years, the majority in this country will be the minority.

The thing that surprised me was that Powell considers himself a Republican. I must have missed that.

Any way here’s what he said about Limbaugh,

“Can we continue to listen to Rush Limbaugh?” Powell asked. “Is this really the kind of party that we want to be when these kinds of spokespersons seem to appeal to our lesser instincts rather than our better instincts?”

I’m not a big fan of talk radio and hardly listen to it, unless I’m in the car, but doesn’t Air America do the same kind of thing? It didn’t seem to hurt the Democrats.

But I guess he’s saying Republicans should become Democrats.

That should give the country a choice.

I guess some Republicans feel like Powell and Emil W. Henry Jr.

who wrote in the Washington Post about infrastructure spending, which was not bad, but he started with this,

In the wake of the recent electoral rout, we conservatives must redefine ourselves in a world that has changed since the birth of the Reagan Doctrine.

Rout? Oh, it was a convincing victory and we should learn some lessons from it, but a rout? I guess his definition of a rout is different from mine. And Republicans have won twice since the election–hardly what you would expect from a rout.

A Waukesha Carnival, edition 8

Without further ado, let me give you the most thought provoking articles I read from Waukesha bloggers this week. If you have some either by Waukesha bloggers or about anything Waukesha, add them in the comments or send an email to thoughtfulconservative [at] yahoo [dot] com.

Three area bloggers give summaries of local news with brief comments on each topic just about every day. One is Jeff at Five Points blog. His Wednesday summary had excellent suggestions for streamlining Planning Commission meetings.

The second is Fox Head. His Saturday post had a good paragraph on Waukesha’s budget and the slosing of bus route 9.

Third is The Spring City Chronicle. He dealt with Waukesha budget matters also, concentrating on big increases in a couple of items. He had a good discussion on a post concerning the Crandon tragedy. He also did some ghost blogging.

The Asian Badger gives kudos to Sens. Kohl and Feingold. Yes, you read that right.

Tim at The Other Side of My Mouth and I don’t agree too often. But this post about recent calls in Congress about Move0n.org and Rush Limbaugh is right on.

The folks at Hobo Springs are into their Biggest Loser “competition.”

Jessica McBride has some PR advice for the authorities dealing with the Crandon tragedy.

Yorick’s Persiflage adds his thoughts on Christians and politics.

Scott Feldstein asks about our favorite mint or gum. Those Altoids boxes are nifty.

Fletch at Two Heroes has some interesting thoughts. I’d link to them directly, but I still can’t figure out how to. I think he just updates one post for each day he writes for as long as he wants the post to be.

At Peterepublic.org, Pete gives his opinion of the proposed changes to Wisconsin license plates for vets.

Silent e speaks about the fact that crude oil was above $83 yet gas was at its lowest level in 6 months.

Lisa at Sequentially Speaking disappoints all male comic book readers everywhere.

MommaBlogger at Homemaker’s Guide to the Galaxy posts about kids saying the darndest things at the darndest times.

Sancho at La Raza de Waukesha takes exception to the title of Wiggy’s post.

James at Wigderson Library & Post gives us the entire conversation between Ann Coulter and Donny Deutsch that has everyone in an uproar for some reason.

Dad29 has a novel way of determining how much to contribute to a campaign.

Well, I think that’s it for this week. If I’ve left something out, let me know. As usual nominate your own in the comments.