Democracy Has Prevailed.

September 16, 2010

More On Christine O'Donnell

A clearer picture of Christine O'Donnell, that darling of the Tea Party, has been emerging since she defeated Mike Castle for the GOP nomination for Senate from the great state of Delaware.

She's a creationist.

New York Magazine had a piece out yesterday on her enlightened cosmological views. Have a taste:
This was during one of our country's periodic debates over teaching creationism in schools. In a discussion moderated by anchor Miles O'Brien, O'Donnell squared off against Michael McKinney, a University of Tennessee professor of evolutionary biology. Not only was O'Donnell in favor of teaching creationism alongside evolution, but she wasn't even sure evolution was real.
First there's this:
Well, as the senator from Tennessee mentioned, evolution is a theory and it's exactly that. There is not enough evidence, consistent evidence to make it as fact, and I say that because for theory to become a fact, it needs to consistently have the same results after it goes through a series of tests. The tests that they put — that they use to support evolution do not have consistent results. Now too many people are blindly accepting evolution as fact. But when you get down to the hard evidence, it's merely a theory.
Then there's this:
Well, creationism, in essence, is believing that the world began as the Bible in Genesis says, that God created the Earth in six days, six 24-hour periods. And there is just as much, if not more, evidence supporting that.
She's against masturbation.

From Talkingpointsmemo:
O'Donnell, it seems, is opposed to masturbation, and considers looking at pornography akin to adultery. And back in the 90s, though [on the video] the hair was different and Joan Osborne's 90's mainstay "One Of Us" played in the background, O'Donnell maintained a similar stance: "The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery. You can't masturbate without lust!"
She's got a problem with homosexuality.

From the dailybeast:
Toward the end of the Clinton administration, she protested the appointment of James Hormel to be ambassador to Luxembourg, a posting the religious right opposed because Hormel was gay. “The SALT was concerned about Hormel’s ties to the pedophile-rights movement,” her website said, though there was not a shred of evidence behind the slur. In 1997, in a clip recently unearthed by Talking Points Memo, she appeared on C-SPAN, where, looking fresh, lovely, and innocent, she objected to AIDS sufferers being called “victims” because the disease is the product of their own actions. In an appearance on Fox in 2000, she exclaimed over the horrors of New York’s gay pride parade: “They’re getting away with nudity! They’re getting away with lasciviousness! They’re getting away with perversion!”
On 'tother hand, one ex-aide of hers calls her a "complete fraud" and Bush's brain is on record saying she's said some "nutty things" and that she's unelectable.

Teh crazie. Tea-Party Palin style.

18 comments:

EdHeath said...

Seriously, what were Republicans in Delaware thinking?

cwv warrior said...

They were probably thinking that one more RINO is one too many.

Anonymous said...

Off topic, but Boehner is assuming that he will be Speaker of the House if the Republicans take over the House. Is that really a forgone conclusion? Wouldn't the tea partiers instead want to put one of their own nuts in charge?

Does everyone get a vote? Could there be a case where the Democrats and establishment Republicans put together a coalition to vote a moderate Democrat or Republican to be speaker just to keep someone like Michelle Bauchman from becoming speaker?

Anonymous said...

Something that's ironic - Teabaggers rail about how they don't want anyone telling them what to do but they are all ready to ram their ideological dogma down the throats of everyone who doesn't agree with them.

If they were for democracy, they wouldn't be all about purifying the party and excising those who are considered ideologically impure. They would recognize that you sometimes have to work with people who don't agree with you. Compromise is not a word in their vocabulary.

Of course, they want nothing to do with that sort of thing. I'm also trying to square the difference between dogmatic Teabaggers and dogmatic Republicans during the Bush era, who insisted on absolute party loyalty (even using reconciliation to pass disastrous tax cuts that didn't do one damn thing to improve our economic situation; they were just tax cuts for the sake of cutting taxes).

Take Jim DeMint for instance, who is going on about how gridlock is his objective and how he's all about small government. He had a 98% voting record with the Bush Administration and the Republican controlled Congress, meaning he voted for the budget busting wars and tax cuts and shitty Bush policies. In other words, he had a direct hand in creating the trillion dollar deficit we now face and the tripling of the national debt that occurred under Bush's watch.

Ask yourself this - have we ever had a small government Republican? Have they ever followed through with what they claimed to believe in?

Bush II - massive expansion of executive and intelligence powers plus record deficits, TARP, and, as I mentioned above, blowing up the debt.

Reagan - Nope. massive expansion of military industrial complex, financing tax cuts (primarily for the rich) with public debt, and record deficits and blowing up the debt (even though he raised taxes 7 of the 8 years he was in office).

Nixon - Nope. EPA, price controls.

Ike - Nope. Proponent of federal intervention to enforce desegregation, gave us our federal highway system.

So this pipe-dream of small government has never happened, at any point in our recent history. And yet they just repeat the script ever few years - We're for smaller government. Then they get into office and give us unprecedented expansions of the government.

Look at their current tax cut proposals, which would add $4 trillion over the next ten years and clowns like McConnell say they'll pay with it by freezing spending at 2008 levels, which amounts to about $300 bil in savings.

EdHeath said...

cwv warrior, one more RINO? By which I assume you mean any Republican who thinks that occasionally listening to what Democrats have to say is at least acceptable. That sometimes showing concern for abuses done to minority constituents as well as giving government money to wealthy constituents is somewhat acceptable. How many Republicans like that are left? Two? Three?

Is that what the Republican party is about now? You can't be a Republican unless you reject science (global warming), unless you always support the rich over the poor? Unless you practice the teachings of "big" Christianity as opposed to following the actual teaching of Christ?

Anonymous said...

The Republicans have moved so far to the right that EVERY Republican President in US history would be a RINO including their savior Ronald Reagan.

EdHeath said...

Republican politicians also all claim to be political neophytes. That's actually credible in the case of a Palin or an O'Donnell, but for McConnell or Boehner? I guess if Boehner and McConnell aren't actually novices at politics, perhaps they are newly converted to the Tea Party religion.

It really is something to hear John Boehner talk about what them folks in Washington do. 'cause, you know, he's jist a semple ole country boy ... with a tanning bed.

cwv warrior said...

Ed Heath-science? Which one global warming or climate change or the latest 'scintific" catch-all "global climate crisis"?? (never let a good crisis go to waste-Rahm Emanuel)Support the rich over the poor? Do you mean the "rich" who supply jobs so there are fewer poor people? Have you ever known of a poor person who provided someone else a job? Teachings of Christ? Like "...Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." Mt.22:21-NKJV. Generosity is personal, I don't want or need the government to tax my productivity in order to redistribute it to the unproductive.

rich10e said...

Mike, Ed, Jay,
If Christine O'Donnell was a Muslim, you wouldn't dare question her beliefs!!You'd be afraid of the retaliation!!

rich10e said...

btw...the Muslim creation story is very similar to Ms. O'Donnell's belief (but not mine)

EdHeath said...

cwv, your view of climate change pretty clearly indicates you are a real Republican. It's nice that you are willing to make the rest of us suffer for your beliefs.

As for the rich "supplying" jobs to the poor or anyone else, they seem to be doing a poorer job of it these days. Of course, the rich have cheerfully kept all the benefits of our increasing productivity (from technology and longer and longer hours) over the last forty years, but I suppose that is justified because of their "supplying" us with jobs.

And your view of charity is classic Republican. Of course (in your opinion) the government should have a bare minimum tax, if possible only a flat amount, with credits for charitable donations, to offset the "selfless" beneficence of the rich. Of course we can rely on their personal impulses, because they are constant and have served us so well so far.

cwv warrior said...

Ed-you seem to have me stereotyped so I'm not sure this response is worth it but here goes. You failed to answer my questions but instead went on the attack. Which global warming/climate change/climate crisis are we talking about? Forty years ago we were going into the deep freeze and now we're supposedly destined for hell. Again I ask how many poor people own businesses which are able to provide employment for anyone else? Just because there are not sufficient jobs to make you happy doesn't mean there are no jobs provided by the wealthy. Finally, my interpretation of charity is simply that it's not the government's job. I also don't approve of tax breaks for charitable donations.

Anonymous said...

Rich, it doesn't matter what religion she is. Given the nutty views she has, yes, I think all three of us you named would most certainly question her regardless of her religious affiliation (you obviously didn't read my comment because it wasn't about O'Donnell specifically but the Tea Party movement in general and the hypocrisy of Teabagger Republicans). You also seem to assume that because we don't subscribe to your brand of religious bigotry that none of us are Christians.

Not sure when folks like you and other conservatives became the judges of everyone's religious convictions.

The one's incapable of questioning her are the one's who simply hitch their wagon to whatever fringe freakshow spits out the most vitriol at Democrats and the President. All you've managed to to is a) make a sure GOP pick-up a competitive race and b) drive a massive wedge between the GOP's moderates and conservatives.

But, hey, have fun defending someone who has lied about her college education, who pays her rent with campaign contributions, who pays her mother with campaign contributions, who believes that US scientists have created mice with fully functioning human brains (from an interview with O'Reilly in 2007), who said in 1996 that Bill Clinton needed investigated for the murder of Vince Foster.

As to cwv - jobs are created when the middle class spends money, not by financing tax cuts for the wealthy with public debt. All that accomplishes is a massive transfer of the nation's wealth to the wealthiest among us. And that's exactly what Reaganomics is all about. Trickle down? More like trickle up.

But you conservatives go right on ahead and keep acting like you've already won, before a votes even been cast in the midterm. Keep telling the millions and millions of Americans that our votes don't count because Nov. 2 is a foregone conclusion.

Also, cwv - read a book. Climate and weather are not the same.

And, Rich, again, the Muslim creation story is similar probably because Christians, Jews, and Muslims all worship the same God and trace their origins back to Abraham.

Finally, just because you go around calling yourselves real Americans doesn't make it so. It just proves how deeply conservatives these days confuse love of self for love of country.

Anonymous said...

And, Ed, you are exactly right - what were DE Republicans thinking?

This went from a sure GOP pick-up to a long shot. Many of the state's moderate Republicans will now vote for Coons.

But, again, it reinforces the point I made earlier - while they cry about someone telling them what to do, they demand absolute fealty on every single issue. You cannot disagree with their dogma or you're out.

They want to tell all of us what our religious beliefs should be, what our political beliefs should be. The hypocrisy of the Tea Party movement is staggering.

Anonymous said...

cwv said: "Which global warming/climate change/climate crisis are we talking about? Forty years ago we were going into the deep freeze and now we're supposedly destined for hell. Again I ask how many poor people own businesses which are able to provide employment for anyone else"

That bit about how forty years ago it was about a deep freeze? That's conservative revisionism. And if you bothered to understand science even just a little, you would understand how a warming CLIMATE can lead to massive and disastrous changes in WEATHER.

As to your other point, the vast majority of jobs in this country are created by small business and the vast majority of small business owners make less than $250,000. But conservatives long ago stopped supporting mom & pops and ushered in an era of corporate dominance unseen since the Gilded Age that has stacked the deck against small business owners.

Do you know what the highest marginal tax rate was under Ronald Reagan? 50%, 15% higher than it is today. I guess that makes him tax & spend socialist, huh? Would you care to argue that that tax rate was job-killing?

Again, jobs are created by a robust middle class that spends money. And after 30 years of conservative fiscal policies, the gap between the rich and the middle class has only widened. It hasn't produced the results you believe it has. One need only look back at the effects of the Bush tax cuts between 2003-08. They didn't do one damn thing to prevent the recession and the job growth was pathetic. We lost 8 million jobs on Bush's watch.

rich10e said...

the hypocrisy and intolerance reeks here.....except if you're a Marxist, or Islamofascist!Then you're all slobbering on yourselves!!

Anonymous said...

Nice projection, Rich.

do you actually respond to the points people raise or just descend into the glib mindlessness that we've come to expect from conservative Teabaggers from the get go?

C'mon, big man. Why does a clown like Jim DeMint get to claim he's a small government conservative when he voted 98% of the time with the Bush administration to expand the powers of the executive branch and the intelligence community?

Why do you fucksticks get to get away with whining about federal spending when you're conservative heroes - George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan - are the two people most responsible for amassing the debt that this country faces?

By all means, like your Teabagger heroes Rand Paul, Sharron, Angle, Ken Buck, and Christine O'Donnell run away from any questions thrown your way and just demonize the opposition.

You're a fucking mealy mouthed moron who wallows in boilerplate conservatism.

This country is suffering and in the shitter PRECISELY because of people like YOU who are incapable of critical thought.

As long as some moron of a candidate hits the right buttons - xenophobia, racism hatred of the other - you couldn't care less. As long as you get to demonize people who aren't as Christian as you, who aren't as "American" as you.

Whatever. Who the fuck mad people like you the judge of patriotism and religious convictions? Huh, bub?

EdHeath said...

cwv, personally I would say you have repeatedly stereotyped yourself with the words and phrases you use. You may understand climate science and neoclassical economics, but you give no indication of that. Instead you parrot conservative/Republican scare mongering propaganda. I would try to have a serious discussion with you, but apparently we don't agree on what reality is (I base mine on what scientists and economists say, apparently you get yours from Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck).

No serious person who does not have contempt for science would ask what climate science is being discussed today. You are being insulting when you suggest the rich "supply" jobs, but ignore the facts while worker productivity has skyrocketed in the last forty years, wages have have stagnated (translation, the rich have stolen the benefits of worker productivity). And anyone who does not see the public benefit of a citizenry that worried about hunger and homelesness ... well, there I have no words for that kind of willful blindness.

Rich ... SQUIRREL!!!!