Duck Dynasty’s Robertson and ISIS: Both will kill you if you don’t convert to their religion.

Both have said it straight out, Gentle Reader, so this is not Cranky hyperbole.  Let’s start with Ducky Daddy , OK? He said this to Sean Hannity just yesterday: “I’m just saying either convert them or kill them”. There’s video at the link if you don’t believe it.

ISIS, the “Too Crazy even for Al-Quaida Brigade”, kill people from other religions. And they have been doing it. Hopefully, Duckie Boy and his faux-redneck crew of TeaVangelicals aren’t doing THIS in their swamps (yet):

As previously reported, ISIS gave villagers the choice of converting to Islam or facing death. Everyone in the village, whose name is also spelled “Kocho,” chose conversion. Everyone, that is, except their sheikh.

The one man’s refusal was enough to push ISIS militants over the edge, Reuters reports. After looting the village, they loaded the men into buses and took them to the middle of the desert, where they shot them.

That, Cranky Nation, is exactly what “Christians” like Phil Robertson will do if they can take over. It’ll be “Kiss the Cross or be kissed by a sword”. Oh, and you had better be the RIGHT kind of Christian: Presbyterians are considered just as Hellbound as Moslems to crazy f***ers like the Ducksters, so this writer’s head would be rolling down the street, too. Likely yours would as well.

It’s time and past time to remind our country that we ALL have freedom of religion. Nobody should be threatened with death because of their faith. NOBODY. Nowhere. Never. Phil Robertson should take his Bin Laden Beard overseas and join ISIS. The murderous lunatic would fit right in.

Heck, he could star in the next video as he beheads a journalist. Even better propaganda value than a cowardly Brit who is too scared to take his mask off while killing bound, unarmed infidels.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Americans seem to be OK with terrorists, as long as they are white.

His name is not Abdul Ibrahim, it is Andrew Scott Boguslawski. He was caught with weapons, ammo, dozens of bombs, and other tools of the terrorist trade in Ohio a few weeks ago. He looks to be an average American on the surface. The media has been pretty restrained in their reporting, treating it like a normal criminal case. No one is freaking out.

His name is not Muhammed Bin Arjara, it is Mark Kulis. He is one of those “sovereign citizen” nutbars, and was also busted for having illegal weapons and explosives. The media has been pretty restrained in their reporting, treating it like a normal criminal case. No one is freaking out.

His name is not Abou Ben Adhem, it is Chris Christie. His administration put millions of Americans at risk by shutting down part of the George Washington Bridge (a known terrorist target) on 9/11 of last year. The media has been pretty restrained in their reporting, hardly even mentioning the al-Quaida connection at all. No one is freaking out.

But just imagine the hue and cry and universal brouhaha had any of these three mutts been swarthy males with “foreign-sounding” names. The “news” media would be in 24/7 panic-inducing, fear-mongering, hair-on-fire, freakout mode. The cops would be deploying all manner of special weaponry. Americans would be told to use extra caution, to look under our beds, to be “vigilant”.

But since these are honkie dudes with “normal” names, America pretty much yawns.

Gentle Reader, this is nonsense. The skin color of someone who does you harm makes no difference whatsoever when you are lying in an ambulance or morgue. And paying undue attention to someone’s skin color or religious background when trying to decide if they are a threat makes it far more likely that somebody else you aren’t looking at will blow you to Kingdom come.

Or, of course, the whole “Global War on Terror” schtick could just be a con job, a cynical manipulation of the public so as to enrich the rich and gull the gullible; and maybe we should just calm down and treat all terrorists as common criminals, like we are those two lily-white curs in Ohio… Naah. Couldn’t be.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Ooopsie! Benghazi WASN’T an Al-Quaida attack after all. It WAS about that stinking anti-Islam video.

The much-maligned Ambassador Rice had it right the first time. While Repubs like Grand Theft Issa howled about “cover-ups” and “obvious terrorist attacks”, and bashed the testimony of real experts, they were ignoring the facts on the ground. And it is truly sick that our government never published the truth – it took a newspaper to tell us what really happened.

Almost as bad is that our “representatives” are still refusing to believe the facts, clinging instead to their partisan witch-hunts and idiotic conspiracy theories. Because it is evidently more important that they be seen as right than it is for our nation to be protected. Yes, “Republicans” still care only about their images and agendas, not about being honest with the American people.

Just like the Reagan-financed mujaheddin turned into anti-American terrorists, so too have some of the militias we armed more recently in Libya. And those Libyans, like the Afghans before them, turned against us after perceived slights against Islam. In this case, an American-made anti-Islam video that caused a riot in Egypt shortly before the Benghazi attacks was used by radical imams to whip these militiamen into a frenzy, after which they slaughtered a load of innocents in and near an American diplomatic post.

None of this absolves the Department of State for f***ing up the security arrangements at Bengahzi. Nor does it absolve the Congress for cutting funding for said Benghazi security. Indeed, the NYT report doesn’t absolve anybody, because everybody f***ed up: the Administration, the Congress, the “news” media, and the citizens of both countries.

Many of the lessons of Benghazi are still to be written. But here are a few, for starters:
Number A: Congresscritters with criminal pasts (like Darrell Issa) should NOT be considered credible sources of information;
Letter 2: Complicated situations rarely have simple, quick or easy explanations;
Thirdly: Our Infotainment media is almost useless: it took months upon months for a single source to finally publish a well-researched bit of actual journalism that gave the lie to almost all of the other “coverage” that had been crammed into our ears since the event. But then, when they all got punked by a comedian’s fake Twerking video, are we really suprised?

Here’s this writer’s main takeaway from Benghazi: don’t trust anyone with a political agenda, or any “news” source that just repeats politicians’ talking points; and don’t rush to judgment when the facts aren’t known yet. You know, things that we all used to know, and things we all used to do. Let’s remember Benghazi and honor those killed there by thinking for ourselves and demanding real facts, instead of just mindlessly believing the crap we get from glory-hound politicos and faux “news” sources.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Domestic Surveillance isn’t just Wrong: It is Useless and Unnecessary

Think  back to 9/11, when America got our collective nuts kicked so hard, we had lumps on our necks for years thereafter. According to the 9/11 Commission report ( http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf ), our intelligence agencies already knew the terrorists were here and in training for the attack – the problem was that the Bushies didn’t listen to the experts who were warning them about an impending al-Quaida attack. This means that the whole raft of domestic surveillance programs that have been developed since 9/11 would not have helped one bit.

One more time: We already knew about the terrorists among us. So we never needed more domestic surveillance. And we still don’t. What we actually needed (and still need) was for our leaders to pay attention to data and protect our nation from real threats, instead of ignoring facts and using their own mistakes as excuses to spy on us and rob us blind.

So, why was it put in place, back during the reign of Bush The Dumber? One may theorize as one wishes, because none of the responsible parties is going to admit that the Domestic Surveillance State was  a boondoggle coupled with a violation of our Constitutional rights. This writer submits that the whole program was nothing more or less than a  “Republican” transfer of tax dollars to their corporate cronies, with a bone thrown to the Fundagelicals and Birchers in their party.

Consider the enormous number of private companies that have made billions of dollars over the past decade  by providing “contractors” to replace NSA workers (at a higher cost, with lower quality and less security [e.g. Snowden]). Where did they come from? Like mushrooms on a manure pile, they sprang up when “watered” by the Bushistas’ off-the books torrential downpour of secret cash.

So here we are: our rights have been violated, our privacy have been infringed, and our pockets have been picked clean for over ten years by a load of  perverts and con artists, bent on snooping into our private lives and taking us for every cent we earn. And all in the name of solving a problem that never existed in the first place.

If you’re not foaming at the mouth right now, you’ve not been paying attention.

The solution, Cranky Nation, is obvious: dismantle the un-needed and illegal parts of the Surveillance State, kick the greedy f***s out of the process, and by so doing restore our rights while helping to balance the budget. And all of that as soon as possible.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky