3 nutters arrested by FBI

These nutters are special nutters…as in religious extremists. From The Detroit Free Press, via Slate:

The FBI arrested three people with suspected ties to Christian militias in a series of raids over the weekend, the Associated Press reports. The raids were conducted in Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana and were reportedly targeting the Christian militia Hutaree, who were believed to be illegally selling pipe bombs. According to a spokesman from the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia, a member of Hutaree called the Volunteer Militia on Saturday to say that their hideout was being raided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. “They said they were under attack by the ATF and wanted a place to hide,” spokesman Mike Lackomar said. “My team leader said, ‘no thanks.’ ” Lackomar added that Hutaree—which means “Christian warrior”—was a religious cult and is not considered part of the “militia community.” “They are more of survivalist group and in an emergency they withdraw and stand their ground. They are actively training to be alongside Jesus,” Lackomar told the press. Hutaree’s MySpace page corroborates with this, describing the group’s mission as “preparing for the end time battles to keep the testimony of Jesus Christ alive.” Gawker reports that Internet trolls have since covered the page with gay porn and sacreligious images and that a mysterious user named “David” posted a warning saying that the world hasn’t seen the last of Hutaree. “Lots of men are in the backwoods at the moment. Bunkers exist that’ll keep a few for months,” David wrote. Arrested members will appear in a Detroit court later today.

Homegrown Terrorists of the religious variety….how quaint. Religious extremists on parade!

We support this regime?

Karzai signed into law a repressive, horror-filled bill that allows men to deny their wives food if the wife does not cater to the husbands sexual whims. I shit you not, from The Guardian via the Afghanistan Conflict Monitor:

Afghanistan has quietly passed a law permitting Shia men to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands’ sexual demands, despite international outrage over an earlier version of the legislation which President Hamid Karzai had promised to review.

The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work.

“It also effectively allows a rapist to avoid prosecution by paying ‘blood money’ to a girl who was injured when he raped her,” the US charity Human Rights Watch said.

That is some sick extremist bullshit isn’t it? According to Human Rights Watch this law contradicts Afghanistan’s own constitution.

In April President Obama spoke out against this law, as did Gordon Brown and most of the UN.

Obviously, Karzai has sold his soul to the devil, otherwise known as the religious extremists.

And we have soldiers dying every day for this fuckwit and his administration.

Huckabee hears an alarm clock, instead of voices apparently

The biggest Christofacist in the presidential race is getting a lot of press lately..and not all of it good for him. Think Progress has a goodie up:

1998, then-Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee spoke at the National Pastors’ Conference, explaining why he entered into politics:

I didn’t get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn’t have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives. […]

I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ.

In the past, Huckabee has also claimed that God supports Republicans. McCain, similarly, has claimed that “the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation.”

If that didn’t tickle your ‘funny bone’ take a gander at the GQ writeup currently online. A small piece to tempt you:

It’s only when Huckabee talks religion that you realize how conservative he is. Unlike most of the GOP field, he isn’t just trying to woo the religious right. He is the religious right—a former Baptist minister, a believer’s believer on abortion and gay marriage, a skeptic about evolution. But while it may seem strange to hear a candidate say “stewardship of the earth” in one breath and “abortion mill” in another, you should get used to it: Huckabee’s mix of economic populism and social conservatism might just be the future of the post-Bush GOP.

Ok..I am going to have nightmares now about this jackass. Seriously..the future of the GOP? Dear Buddha..save us.

What would the Prince of Peace think of the Prince of War?

The word Theocracy is derived from the two Greek words Qeo/j(Theos) meaning “God” and kra/tein (cratein) meaning “to rule.” Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater USA believes in a Theocratic form of government. Besides Blackwater USA, he is also the Vice President of the Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation, which funds one of the biggest groups of religious Theocrats in existence, the ADF (Alliance Defense Fund). The ADF’s mission is to break down the wall of the separation of church and state. They raise millions for their mission not from the small donations of individuals but from foundations like Erik Prince’s. A good read on the subject is Sarah Posner’s article entitled: ARMY OF GOD-The Legal Muscle Leading the Fight to End the Separation of Church and State.

Back to Mr. Prince. He specializes in not only funding rightwing religious groups that want to change America’s secular government into a Theocratic government; he is a millionaire that owes much of his success to the company he founded, Blackwater USA. Blackwater received a few meager contracts during the Clinton administration but hit the mother lode after 9/11. Interestingly enough, Blackwater was on the mind of Donald Rumsfeld the day before 9/11 was embedded in the minds of all Americans. The SOS spoke that day, September 10^th, about the Department of Defense and its waste and inability to keep America secure. Rumsfeld called for a wholesale shift in the running of the Pentagon, replacing the old DoD bureaucracy with a new model, one based on the private sector.

The next day, September 11^th, ushered in the beginning of an unprecedented scale of outsourcing and privatization of our military. By the end of Rumsfeld’s tenure in late 2006, there were an estimated 100,000 private contractors on the ground in Iraq–an almost one-to-one ratio with active-duty American soldiers. Mr. Prince has become a very rich man who runs a private army. To quote from Jeremy Scahill’s book entitled Blackwater, the Rise of the world’s most powerful mercenary army: “Blackwater is the elite Praetorian Guard for the “global war on terror,” with its own military base, a fleet of twenty aircraft, and 20,000 private contractors at the ready.” Also included in their arsenal are helicopter gunships, a private intelligence division, and it is manufacturing surveillance blimps and target systems.

The inherent problem with outsourcing our military to a private mercenary group is obvious. There is no oversight, no accountability and no allegiance to our constitution and its tenants of civil liberty’s and due process. However I doubt much of that bothers Mr. Prince since his goal is to change our constitution and our government so that both are based on a Theocracy. One would think Mr. Prince would value life over money, but I do not think that is the case based on the penny pinching that Blackwater undertakes. They took one word, “Armored”, out of a major contract they signed to provide services in Iraq. This cost 4 of their contractors their lives:

It is one of the most infamous incidents of the war in Iraq: On March 31, 2004, four private American security contractors get lost and end up driving through the center of Falluja, a hotbed of Sunni resistance to the US occupation. But on March 12, 2004, Blackwater and Regency signed a subcontract, which specified security provisions identical to the original except for one word: “armored.” Blackwater deleted it from the contract. To quote the attorney that represents the families, Mr. Miles:

“When they took that word ‘armored’ out, Blackwater was able to save $1.5 million in not buying armored vehicles, which they could then put in their pocket. “These men were told that they’d be operating in armored vehicles. Had they been, I sincerely believe that they’d be alive today. They were killed by insurgents literally walking up and shooting them with small-arms fire. This was not a roadside bomb, it was not any other explosive device. It was merely small-arms fire, which could have been repelled by armored vehicles.”

So, what would Jesus think of the “Prince of War”, Mr. Erik Prince cutting corners to become even more wealthy, not to mention funding groups that seek the destruction of our constitution? How would Jesus feel about Mr. Prince funding a group that advocates hatred of gays, who last time I checked…were made in God’s image?

Methinks, he would not be happy one bit that people like Erik Prince make money in an immoral war and in ways that jeopardize human beings so he can fill his own coffers and those of the religious extremists. He also wouldn’t be too fond of groups like the ADF that promote hatred and intolerance among other things. I could be wrong..but I doubt it.

“Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”– And I am not talking about the alleged persecution of Christians, as the ADF is so fond of saying. I am talking about the persecution of gays by groups like the ADF.

Tags: Politics, Blog Against Theocracy, Religion

Crossposted at Bring it On!, The Blue Republic, Bakersfield.com

Bakersfield Soldier’s religious beliefs clash with his job.

When I saw the story on KERO, it made me sad. People have no right to judge a man who went when he was told to go to war. Even if he supports the war, he can feel as he does, which isn’t my concern btw, he can stand for or against the war, its his right as an American. It has to be hard to be in his shoes.

“Sgt. Mathew Gonzalez said his decal that reads “Lord please forgive me, I have committed sins for our freedom” is a message he created to show that as a Catholic he believes he did sin by killing someone in Iraq.”

This man has to have one heck of a headache. People are bitching at him for his use of free speech. Something, you know..he supports by being a fighting military man, who has sworn to protect ALL our freedoms. The local TV website I linked above has a survey on this topic, and remarkably, our red city has voted 1490 to 167 that his decal is NOT disrespectful. I would really expect the religious nutjobs that are a thriving group here in BibleBelt section of the San Joaquin valley to come out against him.

Color me happily surprised. I would also like to thank Sgt. Mathew Gonzalez for his service. I am sorry it has caused him emotional or physical pain. God Bless you Sir.

Tags: Politics, Religion, Iraq War, Freedom of speech