Je Suis Charlie Aussi. Saudis say Charlie Hebdo Massacre "incompatible with islam", but still imprison and execute people for blasphemy

It is a FACT that fanatic Islam is a barbarous religion.  The first proof of this is all the blood-thirsty threats that fanatic Muslims will make against you the moment you say this.  They are literally proving what they are attempting to deny when they act this way, but most are still not capable of controlling themselves.  They will claim you are provoking them, but if you insult Christianity, you won't find virtually* any Christians demanding that you be put to death on the spot by a lynch mob.  Sure most Christians won't like you saying bad things about Jesus or their religion, but they accept your right to say such things without trying to murder you for it.  Muslims do not accept your right to say these things, and yet insist on their own "right" to "freedom of speech".  That makes them hypocrites, pure and simple.  They want freedom of speech, including the freedom to insult and blaspheme Christianity, but they want to murder you if you say bad things about THEIR religion. That is barbarism and its also hypocrisy.

They are even more hypocritical when they try to have it both ways and say that the Paris attacks are "incompatible with Islam".  Indeed it is not incompatible with Islamic law as practiced in Saudi Arabia, Iran, or many other places by the state, where they believe that it is justified to execute, imprison, and/or publically flog people who blaspheme their religion.  

Even 25 years after Iran issued a death sentence against Salman Rushdie for writing _The Satanic Verses_, they have not retracted it but reaffirmed it.  Yes, the Saudis are saying that the Paris attacks are "incompatible with Islam", and then we hear about a person sentence to 10 years in prison, a quarter million dollar fine, and 1000 lashes for blasphemy.  Yes, Raif Badawi received this sentence for blog posts critical of Islam.  Maybe he wasn't sentenced to death formally, but 1000 lashes could certainly kill someone.  Nobody in Western Christian countries receives sentences like this for blaspheming Christianity. Public beatings are still barbaric, and Muslims in Saudi Arabia support it.  Therefore they are barbarians and hold these beliefs because of their barbaric religious views.

Now I did say that "virtually*" no Christian in the western world thinks you should be put to death for blasphemy.  There are very tiny Christian minorities, like those at the Westboro Baptist Church, of "god hates fags" fame, who picket the funerals of American Soldiers, believe in strict biblical laws. But they are very uncommon.  Even the majority of fanatic Christians think they are too extreme.  No Western nations, including those that are nominally Christian, such as the Vatican State, for example, are known to routinely execute or imprison people for blasphemy alone.

Such is not the case in Muslim countries.  It is not tiny minorities who believe people should be put to death by stoning or beheading, etc. for committing blasphemy.  It is common place and frequent in Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.  It is not a powerless fringe minority.  It is the state, and it has widespread support amongst the populace.  That is the difference, and that is why it is totally legitimate to say that Islam itself is a barbarous religion that very clearly condones and supports this kind of activity.  

Martin Luther King Was NOT a religious fanatic

As the nation observes Martin Luther King day this year, many people wish to subvert and co-opt his messages to advance their own agendas.  Some religious fanatics, and fundamentalists point with glee to the fact that King was a highly religious man.  But as this article demonstrates, King was not a religious fanatics, or a fundamentalist bible-beater, or a social conservative like they are.  MLK noted that, "my college training, especially the first two years, brought many doubts into my mind. It was at this period that the shackles of fundamentalism were removed from my body."  He likewise goes on to say, "This is why, when I came to Crozer, I could accept the liberal interpretation with relative ease."  Yet you will find people insisting that King was a religious fanatic.  Instead, King underscored how a person could be a religious "fan", without being a "fanatic".  It's kind of like the difference between someone who is a sports fan, versus someone who feels compelled to riot in the streets their his or her favorite team loses.  King may have marched in the streets, but he did not riot.  He left that to the fanatics who were often arrayed against him.

Anti-Abortion Extremists Lose Again In North Carolina

A federal judge has struck down North Carolina's recent extremist anti-abortion laws which had required medically unnecssary ultrasounds and the reading of religious propaganda . Religious fanatics in the state has sought to legislate their religious views by mandating that women wishing to get abortions view ultrasound images of the fetus against their will, while having a doctor, against his or her will, read an ideological statement prepared by the legislature.  The federal court rightly felt that compelling healthcare practitioners to read anti-abortion propaganda messages, as well as forcing women to view images and listen to the messages violated Constitutional rights.  North Carolina joins Oklahoma in having its latest anti-abortion legislative gimmicks struck down.  Not that such laws would have accomplished anything anyway.  They were simply more random obstructionism intended to inconvenience their political opponents, and increase the cost of obtaining this legal procedure.  Since they lack the ability to outlaw abortion they are instead attempting to curtail it with red tape, and cumbersome bureaucracy of the type that right-wingers usually swear on a stack of Bibles that they will never support.  But don't expect these people to have any consistency, or to even tell the truth in the first place.  Their cognitive dissonance is truly a marvel to behold.

When in doubt look up...but it won't help

Another annoying religious slogan one sees all the time is "When in doubt, look up".  Gee, if it was that easy then doubt would be extremely rare, since every single human who has ever lived looks at the sky, usually multiple times per day.  It still doesn't seem to resolve any significant issues, however. Looking up still doesn't convince atheists that there is a God up there in the sky, and looking up doesn't do anything to address whether Muslim, or Hindus, or Catholics, or Mormons are correct on matters of theology.

What this slogan really appears to be saying is that, when we doubt a religious idea we should "look to God" for answers, but that appears to be rather circular.  If we are doubting a particular religious belief, why would the answer be to introduce even more religion into mix.  That would be like saying that, if you break your leg that you should "look up" and perhaps try to break your neck as well.  Perhaps a better prescription would be to stop doing the thing that was creating the problem in the first place.

When all else fails...follow the instructions...or not!

There is a typical religious slogan that presents itself as clever by saying, "when all else fails, follow the instructions...The Holy Bible".  Of course, it conveniently omits the fact that most people don't bother with the directions because they are terribly written by someone who doesn't speak English natively, and following the directions often gets people even more confused than if they just attempted to figure it out themselves. This is certainly true, to the extreme, in the case of the Bible, as an "instruction manual", which is so terribly written, vague, and nonsensical that much of it is completely meaningless anymore, and certainly will not serve as an effective instruction manual for you to live your life in the modern world.  Following any random advice from the Bible would have you bathing in a dirty pool of water to cure your leprosy, or declaring your own private holy wars and slaughtering your neighbors, or kidnapping women and using them as sex slaves, all of which are routinely depicted in the Bible.  One certainly hopes that people don't follow these "instructions", and to the extent that they actually do as the Bible depicts, one hopes that they are arrested, tried, and imprisoned.

Dumbf*ck Dynasty Dimwit Phil Robertson Prevails

In case you thought that stupidity might not prevail, remember that this is reality TV we are talking about.  Most people watching Duck Dynasty, like the individuals on it themselves, are proud of being stupid.  That, more than anything, is their IDENTITY.  Of course they expected A & E to back down from the phony, contrived controversy that was ginned up in the GQ interview.  That was just for ratings anyway.  A & E never intended to actually enforce its contractual rights and make a redneck like Phil Robertson behave like anything other than...you guessed it, a redneck.  Now get out there and shoot at ducks that are probably smarter and more productive lifeforms than the ones aiming at them and pulling the trigger with blank stares on their id1ot faces.

Duck Dynasty Duckhead Lies Again about Fake Persecution

Duck Dynasty Duckhead Phil Lying about Just Quoting Scriptures
Phil Robertson, the fake yuppie poser who pretends to be a "redneck" for TV, was busy pretending again, this time claiming that he was being persecuted when  "all I did was quote from the scriptures" .  But, of course, that is a lie.  It's a lie because I'm pretty there is no scripture that says, "a vagina — as a man — would be more desirable than a man's anus".  What is that, the Book of PhilMeUp 2:69?  And how was he just "quoting scripture" when he claimed that he had never witnessed black people being mistreated in the South.  I think a guy named Martin Luther King, who knew the scripture far better than Robertson, would have disagreed.  So Phil is a liar, and according to his own scripture that means that he will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
And if he wants to get all technical, then he has a CONTRACT with A&E and Christians are supposed to keep their oaths.  Remember what happens to oathbreakers, Phil.
He knows perfectly well that his contract, that he agreed to in exchange for millions of dollars, doesn't allow him to just say and do whatever he wants in public, since it can damage the brand, viewership, and reputation of the show as well as cost producers a lot of money -- which is precisely what has happened. Most of the right-wingers defending him right now would normally be defending the absolute right of employers to fire employees for any reason, without cause, without union representation, and without appeal to courts or lawsuits. Furthermore, based on the article cited above, Phil is apparently continuing to break that contract, and continuing to make public statements that further damage potential viewership and his employer and believes that his employer has no recourse.  The rest of his family has similarly stated that they intend to violate their contracts as well.
If A&E were smart, they would cancel the show now, sue him for breach of contract, take back all the money they have paid to him and get a real show about hunting that actually involves people hunting and not just sitting around reading cue-cards that involve anything but actually hunting.

Daffy Duck Dynasty Fanatic Phil Supended for Bigotry

I must admit that I'm one of those who never thought they should have put Duck Dynasty on the air in the first place.  I have tried to watch an episode, and tried to read some of the books and articles about these guys, but it frankly isn't that interesting.  They want to talk about everything except Duck Hunting, it seems.
A case in point would be Phil Robertson who wanted to has made no secret of thumping the Bible that he knows little or nothing about.  His recent comments, which are the standard fare that could be found in about 99% of all evangelical churches across this country, have apparently taken A & E by "surprise" and resulted in his indefinite suspension from the show after he decided to shoot his mouth off in an interview with GQ. Why should A & E be surprised that a bible-thumping religious bigot would thump his bible and express bigotry?  Perhaps if the show was really about hunting ducks then there would not be much opportunity for such issues to arise, but there wouldn't be much to the show if all they did was shoot a few ducks.  It's not like it's that hard a thing to do.

For course Mr. Robertson also took an opportunity to claim that he never witnessed black people being mistreated in the South, and to spout other random Bible nonsense, condemning not just homosexuals, but drunks, and swindlers, and a host of the usual suspects that the bible claims to be against, but somehow doesn't tend to single out nearly as much as homosexuals.  For that matter, the Bible condemns all kinds of additional things, like eating shrimp and crayfish, but I kinda doubt that Robertson is overly concerned with those esoteric matters of biblical dietary law.

Nope.  He's mainly just worried about the good bits like sex, and drinking, and owning slaves, all of which is heartily indulged in when you read about "godly men" like King David, for example.

Westboro Baptists Picket Paul Walker Funeral

In yet another classy move, the "God Hates Fags" Westboro Baptist  Church is announcing that they intend to picket the funeral of Paul Walker.  Of course, their so-called "pickets" have nothing to do with anything that the individual might have done, but are just an increasingly desperate attempt to grab publicity by an ultra-rightwing fanatic religious group in the US that can't understand why nobody listens to them.   If Westboro Baptists weren't so crazy one would almost think that they were secretly being funded by Atheists or the Illuminati, just to make Christian Fundamentalists look like a bunch of raving loonies.  Fortunately, no shadowy organizations have to waste a penny to fake such a thing, because the genuine fundy nutcases do a so much more authentic job of looking crazy all by themselves.

Funny How Syrian chemical attacks stopped

Isn't it strange that there have been no more chemical weapons attacks in Syria.  That is highly mysterious, because Republican apologists for Assad absolutely insisted that it was the rebels who carried out the attack on their own people to draw in Western support.  See Republicans in the US were terrified that Obama would pull a "George Bush" and bomb Syria, thus gaining a boost in wartime popularity.  They couldn't allow that.  The freepers and  tea party loonies even did their usual mouth frothing about how Obama staged the whole thing.  But if the rebels or Obama had staged chemical attacks in Syria then why did they stop all of a sudden when Obama finally put his foot down and told Assad, "Do it again and I will personally F**k you up".  Once Obama said that, Assad aggreed to turn over his stockpile and "miraculously" there have been no more chemical weapons attacks for the Republicans, or the Russians for that matter, to try to blame on the rebels or Obama. But you would think, if the rebels or Obama had been staging these that the attacks would have continued.  Then they would have said, "look you can't trust Assad.  He's still committing genocide, and the West needs to intervene."  That didn't happen because the rebels and/or Obama were never behind the numerous chemical weapons attacks that were correctly blamed on the Assad regime.  That's called using your brain, and political/religious fanatics should try it once in a while.

Supreme Court to Hear Hobby Lobby Religious Lunacy

The Supreme Court has announced that they will hear the case of Hobby Lobby, which argues that they should have the constitutional "right" to impose their religious beliefs of their employees, by denying them medical coverage, on things like contraception, even if insurers offer it at no additional cost.  By their argument, a company run by a Jehovah's Witness should be able to tell employees that they cannot get blood transfusions.  A company run by Scientologists should be able to tell employees that they can't get psychological counselling.  Does the Supreme Court really want to do something this supremely stup!d and open the door to this boundless kind of superstitious lunacy?  We can only hope that a sane majority prevails on the court, despite the presence of some complete religious nutjobs like Thomas, Scalia, and Alito.

Obama Responsible for Broken Condoms

In a typical piece of broken logic, right-wing cartoonist A.F. Branco has decided that Obama is responsible for broken condoms everywhere.  That's right, in a recent cartoon that apparently is supposed to be "funny" if you're a republican, he actually tries to blame Obamacare for a guy getting an STD on the grounds that all the free birth control is going to make women sleep around more, and therefore contract more STDs.  Of course, if the guys were using condoms in the first place then these women wouldn't be getting STDs or be able to pass it on to men if they did have them.  But let's forget medical science, because it clearly has a "liberal bias". Clearly, Obama must be using the NSA to sabotage condom factories, so that more condoms will break, creating more STDs, so that more people will want to enroll in Obamacare.  Only, the cartoon has already anticipated that, because it complains that the healthcare.gov website doesn't work.  So it is also Obama's fault that this guy has never had government subsidized healthcare, which republicans fought against tooth and nail, but now he needs.  I seem to recall Mitt Romney trying to argue that you can't wait until your house burns down to buy fire insurance.  When even Mitt Romney makes more sense than the current batch of republicans then you know that their political philosophy is in trouble.

By the way, Mr. Branco also complains that the healthcare.gov website is not working, but then how did these women in his cartoon get their free birth control.  Furthermore, why are they complaining about not being able to get on the website when they opposed any kind of government healthcare in the first place.  If you work at a job that already provides healthcare, or if you make more than four times the poverty limit then you can't even qualify for this government healthcare.  So if republicans weren't all a bunch of trailer trash losers, and had real jobs then they wouldn't be worried about buying health care on the exchanges.  If republicans really were rich, as opposed to just always voting to give tax breaks to the rich and ship their own jobs overseas, then they would also be able to afford healthcare themselves without going to any federal website to buy it.

Historic Iranian Deal...with the Devil

A short-term deal, brokered by the US and UN, with the Iranian government over their nuclear program has been announced.  This marks the first time in over 30 years, that the US and the Iranian government have successfully engaged in formal diplomatic relations of any substance, and decreases the likelihood of an eminent military showdown.

Of course, a lot depends on whether Iran will be serious about complying. The usual complement of rightwing, chickenhawk, blowhards lined up instantly to condemn the deal before they had even read it, insisting that Iran can't be trusted, no matter what.  Similarly, even more rightwing theocratic blowhards in the Iranian legislature are similarly skeptical about a deal with the "Great Satan".  And, of course, nutty Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, immediately said he wouldn't recognize the agreement.  No kidding, considered that you weren't invited to the negotiations nor asked to sign it.  It seems that religious extremists in the US, Israel, and Iran all prefer conflict to diplomatic solutions, and seem to have vested interests in keeping their little holy wars going.

Student Body Prez at Northwest Christian U Is An Atheist

The Student Body President, Eric Fromm, at Northwestern Christian University admitted in the student newspaper that he is an atheist and has been one for a long time.  Predictably, some of his fellow students have complained, but so far, the school has not forced him to resign his position or to disenroll.  Certainly there are some "christian" universities that would run him out on a rail.  The school leadership doesn't sound happy either, but are expressing a grudging tolerance with condescending remarks like, "If we all had our wishes, we wish Eric would be a strong Christian man". 

Interestingly, Fromm indicates that he has found some support on campus, and that there may be a few closeted atheists like himself on the campus.  I suspect that, in actuality, there are huge numbers of people who don't believe in God, but realize that it is more advantageous to pretend.

In fact, I propose that many rational atheists are living a modified version of  Pascal's Wager, that I will dub Aaron's Wager. In my version, it is a safer bet, if you truly don't believe in God, to pretend publically that you believe at least superficially, because of the advantages that religiosity confers.  There is little or nothing to be gained from a rational Game Theory perspective, by professing your true atheistic views, by and large, unless you are trying to write a book like Richard Dawkins.  But for every Richard Dawkins, there are a ten thousand people who might think like him, but pretend to be religious anyway, because, for them it confers more advantages.  I would venture to say that many televangelists are actually atheists, but, if they admitted that, they would have to get a real job.  Instead, they can live on easy street, exploiting the gullible.  And is it really such a big deal to pretend to believe something that you know is nonsense.  You know what you actually think.  But it makes believers happy for you to pretend that you are one of them.  All kinds of people pretend to be religious in order to keep peace in the family.  And if you actually admitted your beliefs, all it would do is upset people for no reason.  You would not change any minds by admitting your views.  If there really is no afterlife then atheists still benefit more by pretending to be religious, and enjoying the benefits in this one and only physical world. 

HappyWeen Movement: a call to embrace the positive side of Halloween

I realize that Fall can be a gloomy time of year, with winter just around the corner.  Perhaps that is why many traditional cultures reflected on death and sorrow at this time of year, in events like Samhain (pronounced sow-ween--it's Gaelic), or Dia de los Muertos.  Yet even those festivals were not a time to give in to despair, but rather, a time to find new hope for the living while honoring the memory of those no longer here.

It is with that in mind that I say, I would prefer to emphasize and embrace the happier, more positive side of Halloween, where people do not transform themselves into scary, demonic looking beings, but rather transform into radiant, heroic, better versions of themselves. Halloween can be a time where we shed our limitations and aspire to more, instead of gazing into the pit of impending demise and forsaking hope.  I choose not to live my life with the dread of death circling my head like a bird of carrion.  I choose to be a happy person in general, and even at a dark time of year with winter nipping at our heels, I make my own sunlight.  Therefore, I recommend that people look for ways to be more positive this Halloween and choose not to consume the gloom.  Tell those around you that you would rather celebrate the life and vitality that you still have, precisely because it will not last forever.

Sarah Palin Sponsored Tea Party Nut Steve Lonegan Loses Senate Race to Corey Booker

Sarah Palin tried to jump into the New Jersey senate race recently and told Corey Booker "not to measure the drapes just yet", because she was going to help tea party nutjob Steve Lonegan pull a come from behind victory.  As usual, Sarah's false prophecy has failed to materialize, since Booker beat her pants off last night. Of course, crazy Steve had his own false prophecy that he had a plan to single-handedly defeat Obamacare and that "Obama would fold" in the government shutdown.  How's that working out for you, Steve?

Antichrist Paul Ryan Fails To Save Republicans From Shutdown Fiasco

Yet again we were told that Antichrist Paul Ryan was going to save Republicans by working some kind of deal with Obama that would avoid ignominious defeat for the GOP in their latest budget showdown.   Yet today the GOP, with their tail between their legs, accepted defeat and voted to reopen government, admitting that the whole shutdown had been for nothing.  I guess Paul Ryan is used to defeat at the hands of Obama, however.  Some antichrist he's turning out to be.  One would think that he could have at least worked a little voodoo magic on Obama or something.  I guess he primarily specializes in Voodoo economics though, not voodoo in general.

Mall Seige Continues. I hope Kenyan Army Kicks Somalian Rump

I can't believe that this military seige at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi is still going on.  It is great that some of the hostages have been rescued.
I hope that the Kenyan Army goes back into Somalia and kicks some major a$$ this time.  That is always the deal that should be made with arrogant terrorist extremists.  These Somalian scumbags claims they performed this attack in "revenge" for previous Kenyan military operations.  I would put them on notice that any action you take will be paid back 100 fold. You can't reason with them.  You can only demonstrate to them that they have no monopoly on the use of violence.  They are not the only people who can figure out how to pull a trigger or a grenade pin.  Perhaps next time they will at least know that the consequences of their actions will be disproportionately punitive against themselves and their backers.

Nairobi Mall Terrorists Need To Be Bombed Flat. No Negotiation.

Everyone says, "we don't negotiate with terrorists", when in fact they do.  Everyone tries to negotiate with terrorists, just like the Kenyan government tried to do with this mass-murdering Muslim mob of Somalian scum-bags who attacked a shopping mall in Nairobi.  If they really didn't negotiate then these "standoffs" would be over in 5 minutes.  They would just bomb the godd*mn mall flat and be done with it.  Of course we want to "save the hostages", but the fact is that these people are probably as good as dead anyway.  The odds that they will be successfully freed is remote at best.  We all know that the government won't let the terrorists get away, just as we know that the terrorists won't let their hostages get away.  There comes a point where you just have to write off some of those losses as unavoidable.

NeoCons Say Syria Was a False Flag But 9/11 Wasn't an Inside Job

It's kind of funny that, after 9-11 right-wingers insisted that anybody who claimed that Bush might have "Let It Happen On Purpose" (LIHOP) or that it had some of the trappings of a False Flag, Inside Job, meant to justify a "War on Terror" were *ABSOLUTELY INSANE*.  Yet within hours of Syria's equivalent of 9/11, where thousands of civilians were killed by chemical weapons, these same right wingers were screaming that this was-- wait for it -- a Setup, a False Flag, an Inside Job committed by the rebels against their own people (probably with help by Obama himself) to justify war with Syria.  Of course, the difference was that Bush did use 9/11 to justify a decade long "War on Terror" involving multiple wars, the passing of the Patriot Act, and the NSA surveillance that we are only learning about now.  Obama, on the other hand, resolved the situation without firing a single shot.  So which one seems more likely to have been the real False Flag....?

Obama Gets Syrian Victory Without Firing A Shot

A lot of dumba$$es are doing their mumble-mouth gloating about how "Obama sure screwed up on Syria...blah, blah, blah", but actually Obama got what was after without firing a shot.  Granted, it is unlikely that they will turn over everything they have, but the reality is that airstrikes probably only would have eliminated a small amount of the Syrian stockpile anyway.  As it is, larger quantities will probably be eliminated now, and any that is held back can always be used as a justification for further action later on, on the grounds that they broke the deal.  So it's really undebatable that Obama managed to come out of this otherwise no-win situation. Plus, he made it look like he actually did something in Syria without having to do much.  The actual implementation can be turned over to the UN, now that the Russians won't c*ckblock it.  In the mean time, he lets both sides of the Syrian conflict, neither one of which is friendly to the US, continue to duke it out and kill each other for us.

John McCain is America's Putin

Rage-aholic John McCain wants to write a column in Pravda dissing Putin.  I didn't know they accepted stick figure crayon drawings as columns.  Perhaps he will draw a picture of Sarah Palin watching Putin from her house in Alaska with an itchy trigger finger.  Boy, we really dodged a bullet when McCain/Palin lost by a landslide against Obama.  In many ways Putin and McCain have the same temperament.  Both are known to fly into rages and lash out at their opponents.  Both are tiny little blowhards who think they are far bigger and tougher than they really are.  Can we say Napoleon complex.  More like Napoleon Dynamite, but if the shoe fits.    Seriously though, what the hell is McCain doing writing to Putin.  If anyone should be writing anything it should be an actual world leader like Obama, not a washed up joke like John McCain.

Putin Your Footin Your Mouth. Vlad makes Obama's Plan Sound Good Again.

Perhaps if Vladimir Putin spelled his name Puttin', as in "Puttin' your Foot in your mouth" then he would be appropriately named.  As it stands, Obama's proposed Syrian intervention was pretty unpopular, but leave it to a guy like Putin to change that with his latest missive about how Americans aren't exceptional and should just look the other way when chemical weapons are used to commit genocide.  The man truly puts the *offensive* in "charm offensive".

And have you ever seen someone so self-consciously in love with himself, BTW?  Given is rather marked lack of diplomatic tact, it seems more than a little inappropriate for him to have such a high opinion of himself. Maybe if the guy spend less time staring the in mirror and more time working on his character then we might believe he cared about anything other than himself.

Furthermore, if he truly cares about preventing further chemical weapons genocide then why did he furnish these to Syria in the first place?  Of course he denies this, but he denied that the attack happened in the first place, or that Assad was responsible.  Now, he suddenly has maps of all the Syrian chemical weapons depots and is volunteering to turn them over.  Gee, I wonder how he got such precise information.  Maybe he saved the delivery receipts from when he shipped them to Assad.

I have to re-iterate this, so that people are sure to get it.  The Russians denied that chemical weapons were being used at all.  But it turns out they knew that was a lie.  They knew there were tons of chemical weapons all over the place in Syria.  And they knew exactly where to find them.  How else would they have been able to pledge to turn them over so quickly?  And why truly believes that they will turn over the really good stuff that they probably have in reserve.  They need that for survival, so what are the chances that Assad will give away that last ace up his sleeve?  

Oh, and if the rebels are the ones who are using the chemical weapons it sure is curious that none of Assad's soldiers have been killed by them.  What a lucky coincidence.  Syrian civilians haven't been so lucky.

War Criminal Vladimir Putin Says US Not Exceptional, Shouldn't Attack Syria

A man like Vladimir Putin who conducted brutal and illegal wars in Chechnya and Georgia now wants us to believe that he stands for "international law".  A man who ordered the poisoning of his own former FSB agent with radioactive Polonium 210, and the person who almost certainly supplied chemical weapons to Syria in the first place, now wants us to believe that he cares about these weapons not being used on civilians.  According to Alexander Litvinenko, the man Putin had killed, the Russia Apartment Bombings were orchestrated to bring Putin back to power. Yet, now he tells us that attacking Syria could unleash more terrorism.

But what really isn't believable is that Putin invokes an alleged belief in God, yeah right, and says that's why we are all created equal, in response to "American Exceptionalism".  Of course, Obama didn't say that Americans were created better than anyone else, but that we are different because of the choices we make, like when we intervene to stop genocide in Libya, or chemical genocide in Syria.

Hypocritical Opponents of Syria Strike Complicit In Genocide, Appeasement, and War Crimes

Newt Gingrinch, a man famous for his utter disconnection from reality, has predictably and hypocritically expressed his cowardly opposition to punishing genocidal maniac Bashar Assad, and holding him accountable for his multiple uses of chemical weapons against civilians that have causes thousands of deaths. This is tantamount endorsing his activities and will certain encourage him to redouble his genocidal efforts. Almost as if they were on ASSAD'S PAYROLL, or at least getting CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS, Republicans have almost universally lined up to endorse ASSAD'S war-crimes and thrown in with VLADIMIR PUTIN and IRAN in opposition to Syrian intervention, all because they hate Obama.  They hate Obama so much that they are willing to betray our national interests in order to score a political cheap shot.  It is clearly in the US national interest to knock Syria and their Iran Hezbollah stooges in the dirt.  The fact that Iran and Russia are Syria's biggest allies and are completely opposed to intervention is sufficient proof that the present Syrian regime needs to be toppled.  If Romney were president then they would be whole-throatedly screaming for an full-scale ground invasion.  But Romney got his a$$ kicked in the last election and Republican prostituted their souls to the highest bidder, who appears to be the Syrian despot. Even more ironically and hypocritically, Gingrich has previously been a cheerleader of attacking "islamofascism" where ever it could found, and if Assad and his Iranian Hezbollah buddies aren't Islamofascists then nobody is.

Their aid and comfort to the enemy Assad regime not only sells out our national security, but it stands in stark contrast to their knee jerk endorsement of reckless military adventurism in Iraq and Afghanistan. Man they couldn't get enough of ill-conceived military operations when Bush Jr was in the Whitehouse, and "the evidence was fixed around the policy" to achieve it, as the Downing Street memo famously noted. Now the little cowards are hiding behind Rand Paul's toupee saying lets give peace with a genocidal maniac a chance. As suddenly as they discovered "fiscal responsibility" after a decade long spending and tax-cut for the wealthy bender, they have likewise discovered isolationism and appeasement, despite their recent "kick their a$$ and take their ga$" cowboy foreign policy.  Of course, one of the major differences here is that Syria doesn't have massive oil reserves like Iraq did.  So they don't care to intervene.  It was the same reason that they coddled and appeased Libyan despot Mohamar Qaddafi under the Bush regime as well.  It fell to Obama to depose Qaddafi, and Republicans were so angry at the demise of their cash-cow dictator friend that they initiated the laughable Benghazi Witchhunt that persists to this day.  Recall that Qaddafi threatened genocide against the people of Benghazi, which is why we intervened, despite vehement and vociferous Republican objections.  If Republicans had their way then Benghazi would have just been the site of another major massacre of civilians, rather than the name they give to made up scandal because a few militants succeeded in killing our ambassador in the chaos of post-liberation.

Hopefully, Obama will take military action against Syria anyway, in spite of the small-minded, and utterly incompetent political games of "gotcha" politics that Republicans are attempting to play. Not punishing Assad is equivalent to telling him "keep up the good work" of murdering your countrymen.  If we don't stand against the use of chemical weapons in Syria then we can expect that, soon enough, emboldened Islamists like Assad's Hezbollah allies will attempt to unleash them on US soil.  With the anniversary of September 11th drawing near it is truly disheartening to see a betrayal of that memory on the part of Gingrich and the Teabagger extremists he represents.