Truth (Plus Lies) » barack obama

Cordoba’s logo has the peace sign in it…. for what it’s worth

Jefff — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:07:08 +0000

The designer who made the Cordoba Initiative’s logo by arranging western peace signs in a Muslim-ish flower pattern sighs over the insignificance of his design in the Ground Zero Mosque controversy. For him, the Initiative’s embrace of this western symbol is evidence of their good intentions.

Oh but this is the culture war, and nothing is uncontroversial in the culture war. Back when the Peace symbol was becoming ubiquitous, conservative and Christian groups warned about the nefarious meanings encoded in it. From Time Magazine, 1970:

American Opinion magazine, published by John Birch Society Founder Robert Welch, compared the familiar peace symbol to an anti-Christian “broken cross” carried by the Moors when they invaded Spain in the 8th century. A recent national Republican newsletter noted an ominous similarity to a symbol used by the Nazis in World War II; some experts say it was a letter in an ancient Nordic alphabet. Any resemblance, however, is probably coincidental. The peace design was devised in Britain for the first Ban-the-Bomb Aldermaston march in 1958. The lines inside the circle stand for “nuclear disarmament.” They are a stylized combination of the semaphore signal for N (flags in an upsidedown V) and D (flags held vertically, one above the signaler’s head and the other at his feet).

Which sounds an awful like the present-day right wing’s conspiracy theories about Obama’s nuclear summit logo and this missile defense logo:

Says Big Government’s Frank Gaffney:

Team Obama’s anti-anti-missile initiatives are not simply acts of unilateral disarmament of the sort to be expected from an Alinsky acolyte. They seem to fit an increasingly obvious and worrying pattern of official U.S. submission to Islam and the theo-political-legal program the latter’s authorities call Shariah.

What could be code-breaking evidence of the latter explanation is to be found in the newly-disclosed redesign of the Missile Defense Agency logo (above). As Logan helpfully shows, the new MDA shield appears ominously to reflect a morphing of the Islamic crescent and star with the Obama campaign logo.

The evidence is conclusive.

PS I think the lesson for designers in this is that people will receive the message they’re looking for in your design long before they receive the message you actually put there.
Via The Morning News, Wikipedia.

The President stands WITH SHARIA!!!

Jefff — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 18:16:05 +0000

Apparently, the President supports sharia law for the whole world and wants to subjugate your daughters. Or something.

President Obama gave a lovely speech for Ramadan, expressing a very important sentiment regarding the “Ground Zero” “Mosque”.

And the reason that we will win this fight is not simply the strength of our arms – it is the strength of our values. The democracy that we uphold. The freedoms that we cherish. The laws that we apply without regard to race or religion; wealth or status. Our capacity to show not merely tolerance, but respect to those who are different from us – a way of life that stands in stark contrast to the nihilism of those who attacked us on that September morning, and who continue to plot against us today.

As countless others have pointed out again and again, the President also reminds us in this speech that we aren’t fighting the religion of Islam. We’re fighting murderous extremists, who have killed more Muslims than adherents of any other religion — including innocent Muslims who died in the 9/11 attacks.

But never mind that. It doesn’t stop PRINCIPLED CONSERVATIVES Frank Gaffney and Andy McCarthy from telling us that this event means that President Obama supports sharia — I guess there were a couple people invited to the Ramadan event that either made some remarks or are associated with some group that Gaffney and McCarthy don’t like.

And you know what? Gaffney and McCarthy might even have a point, but I can’t take their word for it because I know from experience that they’re just as likely to be hyping nothing into something as expressing a legitimate concern. McCarthy, for one, is a lead intellectual in the theory that Obama (along with liberals!) is out to undermine America. He writes books about it. Here is part of Wonkette’s review of his latest, The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America:

A few things covered and vigorously condemned in this book: Barack Obama, Barack Obama’s bow to the king of Saudi Arabia (because the proper way to host Saudis is to hold their hands while showing them around your ranch), Barack Obama’s colonial subject bow to Queen Elizabeth II, Barack Obama’s father (who instilled Communism in his estranged son), something called “the Left,” Muslims, Saul Alinksy and his legions of followers, Karl Marx and his daily walks to the British Museum, and eighteenth-century French philosophers.

I’ll admit that I haven’t read any of his books and that I don’t plan to. My guideline is that if it takes a book to make an insane claim not be insane, the claim will probably still be insane at the end of the book. But the reader might be confused!

Anyway, more evidence of Andy McCarthy’s even-handedness and fealty to truth and understanding is the post following “The President Stands with Sharia”. This one’s called “9/11 Families Stunned by President’s Support of Mosque at Ground Zero“, and it shows conclusively that the families of 9/11 victims all hate Barack Obama and the Ground Zero Mosque. Just kidding, “9/11 Families” is the name of a right-wing group led by Debra Burlingame — who, it should be said, is indeed the sister of someone who died on 9/11. But, looking at her website, it’s not clear to me how many other 9/11 family members are part of her organization. Certainly, she doesn’t speak for another group, “September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows” who have announced their support for the Cordoba Center. Perhaps Andy McCarthy should have pointed out this difference of opinion in his post.

Tom Vilsack seems like a jerk

Jefff — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 20:59:30 +0000

I’ve been following this story today, and it sure seems like Tom Vilsack might be a jerk for demanding the resignation of Shirley Sherrod. And even a bigger jerk for not backing down a bit as it’s become clearer that Andrew Breitbart’s video purportedly showing that she discriminated as a USDA employee actually shows no such thing.

And of course, if Tom Vilsack is being a jerk this transparently, that makes Barack Obama an accomplice in the jerkness.

UPDATE: As the facts have come in, and Vilsack has stood stubbornly by a misinformed, knee-jerk reaction, I’m starting to wish I’d used a stronger pejorative.

Paintings of Obama naked with a unicorn

Jefff — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 00:02:07 +0000

Ah, before the Gulf was filled with oil, we were still innocent and compelled to make paintings of Obama with a unicorn.

Obama isn’t in that old video, come on

Jefff — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 23:39:54 +0000

Politifact takes bloggers to task for their lies: Obama is not in the “Whoomp There It Is” video.

Where Obama and I must part ways

Jefff — Mon, 10 May 2010 15:42:10 +0000

With iPods and iPads; Xboxes and PlayStations; information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment. All of this is not only putting new pressures on you; it is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy.

You shut your dirty socialist mouth, President Barack Obama.

A good point about filibustering Supreme Court nominees

Jefff — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 14:57:57 +0000

If republicans decide to filibuster Obama’s next Supreme Court nominee, Obama won’t have a lot of room to shame them. Because they have a point about this:

"It didn't go without being noticed that only two of the elected officials in the room had never filibustered a Supreme Court nominee," says one Republican Senate aide. Those two, of course, were McConnell and Sessions. So at the moment, the only lawmakers who are being criticized for even being open to the possibility of a filibuster are the ones who have never, in fact, taken part in one. "It's kind of challenging for Democrats now to make the case that Republicans ought to be helpful and speed things up when they not only tried to slow Alito down but voted against cloture," says the Senate aide.

Via Instapundit

Balance Alert! Obama’s space program

Jefff — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 17:12:43 +0000

Rand Simberg writes in the National Review defending Obama’s NASA strategy:

The reality is that Obama’s new space policy is more conservative than George W. Bush’s was, as I noted two-and-a-half months ago when the new budget was first released. Don’t take my word for it — ask Newt Gingrich or Bob Walker, or Dana Rohrabacher, conservatives who follow space policy closely and aren’t swept up in nostalgia for a Space Age that never really was, at least not in terms of making human spaceflight affordable or sustainable. The opposition from so many Republicans and conservatives to this new policy, which analysts and space activists have been seeking for years, is both frustrating and mystifying. As a former staffer for both Gingrich and Rohrabacher said at a recent space conference, “Democrats don’t think that capitalism works within the atmosphere, and Republicans apparently don’t think it works above it.”

Via Instapundit

Obama bowed, people died

Jefff — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:05:53 +0000

If you haven’t heard, this is apparently a very big deal:

Obama is bowing to the leader of China! All is lost! We may as well put lead in our own toys!

To revisit a soon-to-be-old friend, Confederate Yankee of the 100+ deleted comments thinks Obama is an “unteachable buffoon” for this transgression.

So I couldn’t help myself, and now I’ve gotten involved in the comments of this post about Obama and bowing. At first, I thought it was just a silly thing to worked up over. But as I got deeper into the discussion with CY’s readers, I decided to give them a chance to show me their opinion was justified. I mean, if Obama’s bowing spree actually is making the rest of the world think we’re lap dogs, then he should really stop. But for my part, I wasn’t able to find any evidence on the web that anybody but conservatives actually think the bowing makes Obama look weak. I asked the CY commenters about this and all I got were repeated assertions about how bad it is that Obama bowed. My favorite commenter then argued back that if all these world leaders still respected Obama, why weren’t they bowing to him? Which caused me to (perhaps too) gleefully summarize. Self-quote:

A: I can’t believe Obama bowed!
B: Why does bowing matter?
A: Because then no one else respects him.
B: How do you know they don’t respect him?
A: Because they don’t bow!

If they finally come back with some real evidence, I’ll update this post. And perhaps do some bowing of my own!

UPDATE: I do feel compelled to point out that the wingers at CY finally presented some evidence that Obama’s earlier bow to the Japanese Emperor was seen as a gaffe by the Japanese. Here’s a good link about that. Of course, they couldn’t show that it was any more significant than a gaffe — that is, did it actually make them think Obama or America weak because of it? And I’m also less inclined to give them any credit for intellectual integrity since I’ve now been banned from the site.

UPDATE 2: You know, I actually just saw the video of the greeting, and it’s more of a nod than a bow. These guys are fucking idiots.

Balance alert!

Jefff — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 16:20:33 +0000

Well, this is a nice surprise. Fox News has published a story about the nutty things some Tea Partiers say. Of course, the article’s thrust is to portray the crazies as the fringe of the movement. Nevertheless, it’s hard to argue with reporting like this:

Other Tea Party members continue to question the president’s citizenship — a sign reading “Show Us Your Birth Certificate” popped up at a recent rally in Traverse City, Mich.

“What’s more disturbing is that he’s not answering them,” Tea Party member and conservative blogger Andrea Shay King said of the questions over Obama’s birthplace.

The Hawaiian government twice confirmed during the 2008 presidential election that a copy of Obama’s birth certificate was authentic. Factcheck.org tracked down the birth certificate and posted copies of it online.

Via Wonkette