Hurricane Isaac, the wrath of God?
With Hurricane Isaac threating the Florida coast, speculation mounts as to whether it will force cancellation of the Republican National Convention in Tampa. Soil conditions in the area are near saturation and that could lead to significant flooding even if high winds are avoided.
Florida governor Rick Scott says the state is “ready for the worst.” He is optimistic that the track most recently has moved westward, so that the brunt will be felt by the folks in Pensacola.
7 Birthers to speak at RNC
The Think Progress web site reports that no less than 7 birthers are scheduled to speak at the Convention in Tampa, not counting a number of unofficial events scheduled to coincide. TP has a very broad definition of “birther,” we must admit.
Conservative TV evangelist Pat Robertson has prayed away hurricanes from Virginia Beach, Virginia, but it is not known whether the 82-year-old Robinson has been contacted to help the Republicans in Tampa. He is noted for his remarks saying that hurricanes and other natural disasters are a punishment for homosexuality and abortion.
Read the hurricane coverage at Weather.com.
Update:
Hurricane Isaac appears to be trending eastward, bringing Tampa well into the probability area. I have updated the graphic for August 25, 2012 at 8:30 AM EDT. Click on the image to view the latest track.
Update 2:
After Day 1 of the Republican National Convention was canceled, Hurricane Mitt Isaac flip-flopped its course and is now heading westward towards Mississippi and Louisiana. I have updated the graphic for August 26, 2012 at 8 PM EDT. Click on the image to view the latest track.
well they have been praying for rain in Texas, this my be the answer.
Seems like poor planning to schedule a big important event, which could be held anywhere in the United States, in Florida during hurricane season.
It’s almost September. Aren’t there supposed to be formal debates between Romney and Obama?
The floods are expected to wash away millions of shredded voter registration files.
Perhaps they should pray to the patron saint of Florida elections, St. Chad.
The debates start October 3. There will be 3 Presidential debates and one VP debate. Here is the schedule:
http://www.2012presidentialelectionnews.com/2012-debate-schedule/2012-presidential-debate-schedule/
Nah. God pities the mentally retarded.
Well done!
And if there was any reason to think Obama will not reelected, just wait for the debates. Romney is toast. No amount of prep will put lipstick on that piggy.
Agreed.
Didn’t I read somewhere that Arpaio would be speaking at the GOP shindig?
Groan. Yes, but at least they have put him off to the side, at the zoo.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/80063.html
I hadn’t realized that Maggie O’Connell (OK, actress Janine Turner) had gone birther. And blonde. Sad. She’s one of the “birther seven” scheduled to speak at (or near, I guess) the convention.
God is being extremely kind, then. Look what he did to Egypt for a lot less.IMHO.
There is a hurricane on the way…
Yeah, I noted that once before. She was hot once upon a time. Too bad.
I hope a hurricane does not disrupt the RNC. I’m sooo looking forward to photos of family values men, in the plethora of strip clubs.
“TV evangelist Pat Robertson has prayed away hurricanes from Virginia Beach, Virginia”
Pat Robertson: “I Just Baptized Everyone On Mars” –
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s2i9907
This article has been updated to show an eastward trend in the hurricane predicted track.
The Lord has heard my prayer. 😛
Misha, the strip clubs aren’t going to miss the opportunity for the extra cash. They will remain open and the GOP male attendees will probably be spending much more time being entertained.
I just saw on The Weather Channel that they are sending Jim Cantori to Tampa, while they are sending some lesser names to Key West and Miami. I think they are looking at a Tampa brush at least. It would seem strange to send Cantori to Tampa otherwise.
(excerpt) Here are the members of the birther bunch who will be speaking in Tampa next week:
1. Donald Trump. The famed billionaire/birther king Donald Trump has been the most vociferous — and most closely connected to Romney — person alleging that the President wasn’t born in the United States.
2. Actress Janine Turner. The Northern Exposure star who has her own conservative radio show wrote a long screed titled “Reasoning ‘Kenyan Born.’” In it, she complains that anyone who questions the president’s citizenship is deemed a racist: “If this were a legal case in court, [Obama’s] book bio stating that Obama was ‘born in Kenya’ would be taken into consideration.”
3. Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens. During a town hall captured on video (at 3:5), Olens said, “You know the state of Hawaii says he’s produced a certified birth certificate… so on one hand I have to trust the state of Hawaii follows the laws. On the other hand it would be nice for the President to say, here it is, I have a copy.”
4. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. On one radio appearance during Huckabee’s bid for president, the former governor said, “I would love to know more [about where Obama was born]. What I know is troubling enough.” He later walked back the statement.
5. Florida Gov. Rick Scott. In 2010, the Orlando Sentinel reported than an audience member at one of Scott’s campaign events asked “what he would do about President Obama’s ‘birth certificate’ and whether he could legally appear on the 2012 ballot in Florida.” Scott responded, “I’ll have to look into it.”
6. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). The Vice-Chairman of the House Republican Conference once told reporters “Oh, I’d like to see the documents.”
7. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Jindal was willing to sign a “birther” bill into law. It would have required all presidential candidates to release their birth certificate in order to qualify for a spot on the state’s ballot.
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/08/24/743791/birther-convention/?mobile=nc
New GOP slogan: YES WE KLAN!
Just came from Oily Taint’s site. She thinks this is a serious post: “Obama zombie hysteria reaches crescendo, now they are saying that God will punish Republicans for harboring birthers”
No, but the Settlers will be punished for lynching an Arab:
The school of lynching – Israeli society can no longer continue to play the innocent and pretend that it’s shocked by the attempted lynching of Palestinians by Jews in Jerusalem last week.
The police at first treated the incident as a brawl; only on Sunday did they change their tune and begin treating it as an attempted lynching that failed only by chance to end in death…http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/the-school-of-lynching-1.459559
Way to go, Orly. Hope you’re proud to be a shonde. Go to your settlement, where you can legally harass people with Arabic names.
marinskym at gmail dot com – I’m not afraid of tinpot meshugganers like you.
To readers: we’re all having fun laughing, but these people are dangerous. Now Rmoney is trying to incite a lone wolf.
Wow…what a disturbing story…the parts that stood out to me the most were:
Sadly, the attitudes of bigotry and hate stemming from the right are driving things in this nation towards the same dangerous territory….
Well here is a zombie that is actually really real and actual:
Zombie Bank Account: $888,888 Withdrawn From Dead Man Richard Palmer’s Account
No offense to you faith, Dr. C., but religion, like conspiracy theories, is hard to satire. The real thing can and does grow indistinguishable from parody.
Also, God still loves the great state of Florida for the 27 electoral votes it gave Obama in 2008.
The Republican have essentially cancelled the first day of the convention.
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/25/13480404-hurricane-impending-republicans-cancel-first-day-of-convention?lite
In case there is any doubt, this article is satire.
Is Turner right that the book bio would have to be taken into consideration in court?
One would think an actual official state document would have more weight.
One would think so. The fright wingers have nothing but the spread of irrational fear as their weapon of choice.
I would think so yes. If it ever got to the point of examining the evidence in that way.
It would account for zero in comparison to the “actual official state document”, but it would be taken into account.
As someone who testifies from time to time, in ordr to get the biography into evidence, you will needd to authenticate it. As I understand it, the author will testify that she was wrong. How her prior statement would be admitted is a mystery to me. What value as evidence does it have? That someone, not Pres. Obama, once said he was born in Kenya?
Separately, this is the best you’ve got?
Not to mention that I know of no one who has an actual copy of the biographical sketch which was written by the publicist. All they have are Internet images, and we all know how they can be manipulated!
I once did some work for Duane Eddy, a member of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame. He expressed some chagrin that many things which were written about him, even in the liner notes of his own record albums, were not correct. One record company even put out a single with his name on the label, even though it was actually recorded by a different guitarist.
Her statement:
“This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me–an agency assistant at the time,” Goderich wrote in an emailed statement to Yahoo News. “There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii. I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/born-kenya-obamas-literary-agent-misidentified-birthplace-1991/story?id=16372566
Hurricanes seem to hate the GOP like tornadoes hate trailer parks.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aEP.qxo3OC5A&refer=home
Sensible people don’t live in disaster-prone areas. 😉
why do they insist on planning convention on the SE coast in hurricane season?
Looks like the Hurricane has veered to the West. I think they misnamed this one. It should have been called Hurricane Mitt, the flip flop storm.
IANAL. I don’t the brochure itself is admissible without some foundation. The literary agent could testify as to what Obama told her, but she has already said that Obama didn’t tell her he was born in Kenya.
Birthers in general, including putative attorney Orly Taitz, seem not to understand the concept of admissible evidence.
Mark Hatfield at the Atlanta hearing did submit admissible evidence (I think), but all it did was prove that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961 to Stanley Ann Dunham and Barack Obama, Sr. and that the latter was not a US Citizen. If Obama’s attorney had shown up, he could have stipulated that.
Because their environmental platform: “Climate Change? What Climate Change? We’re just clearing all that useless ice from around the North Pole so we can get at the oil that is down there.” requires them to ‘put their head into the mouth of the lion?
Actually, no, it wouldn’t.
You would not be able to get the brochure into evidence. It’s hearsay, plain and simple. Here is what you’d have to do to start protecting it…
Call the writer of the brochure to the stand, ask her where Obama was born. This would then be offered to impeach her, and not for the truth of the matter asserted. Of course, the entire thing not being offered for the truth of the matter asserted kind of defeats the purpose of you offering it in the first place, but that’s beside the point.
Birthers still believe that the information came from Obama, or, alternatively, that the fact that he “never corrected it” somehow amounts to admission it was true.
They probably also somehow believe that one of their “crack” lawyers would cross-examine the writer until she breaks down and cries “yes, it was him who told me, and then Nancy Pelosi personally threatened me to have me killed if I ever tell anyone, and then she forced me to sing the Internationale with her”.
Y’know, the classic Matlock stuff. 😉
So, Doc, now that Isaac is going to miss Tampa, does that mean that God loves Republicans and/or birthers?
No Monday session, no Trump. It looks like the damage is already done.
No, it means Pat Robertson talked by telephone, with his invisible friend – just like he did in Virginia Beach.
No. He hates modern Republicans, and thinks you personally are a huge asshat.
Told me so Himself.
Actually I fielded this earlier, when I mentioned that God in fact pities the mentally retarded. So don’t worry Jerry, you’ll be okay. You can go back to counting to potato now.
Well, considering the fact that the end result is that “the Donald” won’t be speaking, I think we can safely conclude that God does dislike birthers (that whole “thou shall not bare false witness” thing would make that obvious), but as of yet, it seems he’s still willing to give some Republicans the benefit of the doubt.
Speaking of remarkable things, I was watching TV a bit ago, finishing up an episode of American Pickers, when I spotted “The House of Representatives” on C-SPAN. I hit the button just as a fellow was banging a gavel and declaring, LIVE, that the Republican National Convention was called to order. Then he immediately banged the gavel again declared it adjourned. So God made his point without hurting anybody.
Of course, the article was meant as a joke. I didn’t mean to assert that God actually was punishing Republicans or using weather to make a statement. The article was written to tweak the folks who do believe in such “signs” from God.
From NBC News:
While Tampa has avoided a direct hit, Isaac risks presenting an even bigger problem for the convention planners here — becoming a hurricane and slamming into Louisiana, Mississippi, and the Florida Panhandle on Tuesday. And politically, it has raised the specter of Hurricane Katrina. The New York Times: “Republicans were wary of the optics of television coverage split between the revelry and partisanship surrounding Mr. Romney’s nomination and the threat of the storm making landfall in Louisiana or Mississippi seven years to the week after Hurricane Katrina left an American city in ruins.” The paper adds, “It is the second consecutive time Republicans have had their conventions disrupted by the August storms.”
Objection. Hearsay.
I am glad that you equated Republicans and Birthers.
You know, speaking of Birthers and The Bible, the Birthers actually do have a Holy Book:
http://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/the-birther-bible/
This isn’t just shameless blog pimping, there really is comfort to be found in the words. The Book of Lamentations, Chapter 2: 6-11 – – –
6. And when one doth confront the Anti-Vattelites, concerning the outcome of some battle, this is the manner of their speech;
7. And they sayeth with false kindness, “Why didst Thou not listen unto us?” and, “Didst we not tell Thee it wouldst be so?”
8. Verily, there is a great pain in these words, for in truth the Anti-Vattelites careth not for our suffering, but doth take great pleasure therein.
9. And of a truth, they didst indeed say these things unto us before the happening thereof, and we listened not, which maketh us to rub salt into our own wounds.
10. Also doth they tell of villages and those of addled wits therein, and inquire if our village doth seek us, thinking us lost.
11. Canst any Song of Lamentation hold tears enow, when one’s enemies art rolling upon the floor in laughter?
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Masterful!
When religious birthers were asked the question whether Isaac meant that God hates Republicans, their answer was that God sent Isaac to scare away the “black rioters” that “planned to disrupt the convention” (classic mixture of denial and a bad case of “do, too!”).
According to them, Isaac missing the convention means God wants people to disrupt the convention? Y’know, no matter how hard you try, you can’t have the cake and eat it.
Though birthers, just like the Queen who believed six impossible things before breakfast, can make two diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive claims in just one sentence. 😉
Nope he still hates them. He made Mitt Romney the nominee didn’t he?
He also bumped Donald Trump from the convention.
Well, from my mouth to God’s ears! Here I was talking about the Birther Bible the other day, and LO AND BEHOLD! – my secret Birther source emailed me a new book of the Birther Bible, The Book Of Revelations:
http://birtherthinktank.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/the-book-of-revelations-update-to-the-birther-bible/
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Is there any more evidence in the existence of god than there is the belief Obama is not a US citizen?
Seems like it’s still a matter of “because we think so, it must be the truth.”
Birtherism is very much akin to a Cult religion.
Aren’t all religions basically a cult?
cult |kəlt|
noun
a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object : the cult of St. Olaf.
• a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister : a network of Satan-worshiping cults.
• a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing : a cult of personality surrounding the leaders.
• [usu. as adj. ] a person or thing that is popular or fashionable, esp. among a particular section of society : a cult film.
There are probably several orders of magnitude more reasons to support the idea God does not exist, or Jesus wasn’t his son, than there are for the idea that Obama wasn’t born in Hawaii.
The problem is that “critical thinker” is a self-proclamation that doesn’t fit any conspiracy believer. If it were, the same critical thinking that can parse sentences until they allegedly mean the opposite of what they say would tear the entire conspiracy theory to shreds, or at least expose its hypocrisy (as in “we all are convinced Obama managed to fool anyone that he is eligible until *we* looked closely, but we can safely believe any other candidate to be qualified without any further thought”).
There are conflicting reports as to where Jesus was born, with reports of Bethlehem and Nazareth competing in the Gospel accounts. So speaking positively, it is far more certain that Obama was born in Honolulu than that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Plus the birth year of Jesus is totally up for grabs. We know Obama’s birth date to the minute.
It depends on your definition of cult. As you noted in your comment there are several. By one definition you could say that all religious are cults, but that’s not the definition usually in play. I ran across a set of criteria for recognizing a cult used in the sense that I think G might have meant the term. By that list, I wouldn’t call birtherism a cult; it lacks leadership and organization.
Not to mention the actual date of birth itself. All historical evidence points to December 25th as a date conveniently chosen by the Romans, to coincide with certain Winter Solstice type festivals going on at the time. So whatever Jesus’ actual birth date would have been (and there are a number of theories), it has become forever moved and associated to a different month and date, which we all now celebrate. But hey, that all took place several hundred years after Jesus was gone…so who was left to notice or complain…convenient…
Correct Doc. However, I’m sure you recall that we’ve discussed this very topic about Birthers and their correlations to cults in numerous posts here over the past 4 years.
I was not alone in coming to the conclusion that their is a new, modern version of cult emerging – the Internet-based Cult, which is like a cult in ever way, but replaces the need for specific leadership and organization with the ability to be widely dispersed and have easy access to one another via a network of safe “coccooned” information and communication sites, where they can groupthink screen out any information or person that disagrees with them.
However, even in the Internet-based Cult model, this does not make their movement truly “leaderless” at all – it just spreads out the role of a leader to something more akin to “idol worship” or “hero worship” across several prominent figures. Of course, this leads to certain schisms of devotion amongst the flock, as some adhere to the voice of certain leader(s) over others…
Hence we get the noticeable difference in Birthers who spout the Vattel nonsense (strong idol worshippers of Apuzzo & Donofrio), the Arpaio/WND devotees and those that worship the Birther Queen, mad Orly.
Careful. You might come to the notice of the dentist and get sued for defamation of RICO Queenship for that kind of remark.