Random Observations From My Seat in the Peanut Gallery 06.10.15

Obamas former press secretary, Robert Gibbs, was hired by McDonalds to help with communication. Not missing a beat, Gibbs said complaints about cold french fries or missing orders will now be blamed on the previous McDonalds administration under George Bush..

 John Kerry is telling sources that he was riding his bike just fine until he was swift-biked by some Republicans

 CNN's Erin Burnett suggested that Pamela Geller "relished the idea of being a target by Muslims." Obviously not as much as Erin Burnett relishes the idea that people think she is a credible journalist.

 Lindsey Graham has invited Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner to be a part of the Republican party. Graham will need a very strong VP candidate for him to even get close to the White House and he understands that Jenner has always been a strong runner.

 Jimmy Carter told the AARP this week that most Americans are white racists.
Carter, of course, spends his time thinking its still the 1970s, still hopes to get a second term, and is still trying to "catch them Duke Boys."

 Democratic presidential candidate Lincoln Chafee said that Hillary Clinton "is too corrupt to be president. " Chafee, of course, has no chance of winning the nomination. Not because he is so unknown, but because the Democratic Party does not nominate candidates who tell the truth.


 Hillary Clinton said last week that her candidacy will "restore faith and confidence and optimism in the future of the country we love." It's not clear which country on her donor list she was talking about.

 Truth be told, Hillary Clinton would be the best candidate the Democrats could offer. She clearly best represents everything sick, twisted, and fraudulent in the Democratic Party.

 ISIS should already be WasWas

 Why do we need guns? Because it's real hard to throw a rock 1200 feet per second.

 American Pharoah has won the Triple Crown. On Monday he will announce his 2016 candidacy for president.

Regardless of the rumors, American Pharoah does not have his own email server.

 Take notice, Tom Brady, American Pharoah won the Triple Crown without deflating any footballs.

Somewhere, Hillary Clinton is wondering how American Pharoah could have won without donations from the Clinton Foundation.

 Somewhere Karl Rove is very surprised that the Belmont Stakes wasn't won by Ohio.

The New York Times has made no effort to find any paper trail to uncover Benghazi, the IRS, or even Hilary Clintons emails. But they did find out that Marco Rubio and his wife have gotten 17 tickets. Next up: Did Ted Cruz turn in all his homework in 6th grade??..??

Anjem Choudary Clarifies "Religion of Peace" Law: Yes Pamela Geller Deserves to Die

Choundary makes it clear that under the Sharia Law (to which he submits) Pamela Geller "deserves capitol punsihment."

• Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary got into a fiery debate on Sean Hannity‘s show this week with Pamela Geller, in which Choudary came very close to outright saying Geller should face capital punishment for her “Draw Muhammad” cartoon contest.

• Choudary did another interview yesterday with Newsmax TV’s Steve Malzberg, who pressed Choudary on whether he seriously believes Geller deserves to die. Choudary argued that if she organized the cartoon contest with the express purpose of depicting the Prophet Muhammad in an insulting manner, she’s guilty of something that deserves capital punishment and should be brought before a Sharia court. [MediaIte]

I Never Submitted a Muhammed Cartoon Because I Couldn't Draw a Dune Buggy Very Well

Bosch Fawstins Winning Cartoon

I will admit I was a bit conflicted when I heard about the incident in Garland, Texas where the two gunmen were killed before they attempted to massacre cartoonists as part of a "Draw Muhammad Cartoon" Contest. I weighed a couple different arguments that were coming out of that by various pundits. One was that it is "Free Speech" and the purpose of the event was to to make a stand for "Free Speech" and the American First Amendment. The other side was the argument that doing it was simply provoking the Muslims, so maybe it was just a silly and not thought out very well gimmick.

A column by the Washington Post syndicated columnists Kathleen Parker changed my mind. Parker called it "abuse of freedom of speech" perpetrated by Pamela Geller to draw attention to herself (paraphrase, mine).

A couple sentences changed my mind when she wrote:

• A good cartoon isn't just a drawing but also offers layers of meaning that illuminate in subtly humorous ways. The best ones are often wordless and artfully combine more than one thought or event.  

So, Parker changed my mind, but not to her way of thinking, but rather in support of the draw Muhammad contest. I should give credit to the winner of the contest in Texas, Bosch Fawstin, also as I had seen his cartoon before I read Parker's column. I think Fawstins drawing was exactly what Parker's descriptive of what a good cartoon should be. So I agree with Parker on the above two sentences, but I have to wonder if she even took a time to look at any of the work before she drew her conclusion.

I think the idea of a "Draw Muhammad" conjures up pictures of people sitting in a room drawing silly pictures, similar to what you might see in a first grade class drawing nonsense pictures of whatever you could decipher out of them. But that really isn't so.

Parker understood that the First Amendment does protect Geller's and any future "Draw Muhammad" contests of the future.  Many other pundits from the right and left had imagined that there was some "hate speech" exception to the Constitution. Clearly there is not.

The Constitution does not protect us from being offended. In fact I think it probably promises that we will because the extent of the freedom it encompasses.

Defending speech that we like as protected "Free Speech" is easy.  The mature person who understands what the First Amendment is all about and what it means will protect speech that they totally disagree with or even find offensive. That is the test.

Sharia Law Does NOT Support the First Amendment. Free Speech Would Lead to Death

 Last night with Sean Hannity and Pamela Geller, Anjem Choudary said that Sharia Law would mean that Geller would face capitol punishment.

"We’re talking about people who deliberately had a competition to insult the messenger Mohammad… If you saw the cartoons that Charlie Hebdo drew you would understand the anger. And now this woman was to draw cartoons or have people draw cartoons to insult the prophet knowing full well that this carries the death penalty in Islam… She should be put before Shariah court and tried and of course she would face capitol punishment."  --Anjem Choudary

Southern Poverty Law Center Hates Pamela Geller; Which Means Geller is Probably Right

 Probably right about a lot of things.  I can't say I have spent enough time examining everything she has ever done but if she shows up on the SPLC radar and labeled an "extremist,"  then she's likely OK. 

From the SPLC profile of her:

• Pamela Geller is the anti-Muslim movement's most visible and flamboyant figurehead. She's relentlessly shrill and coarse in her broad-brush denunciations of Islam and makes preposterous claims, such as that President Obama is the "love child" of Malcolm X. She makes no pretense of being learned in Islamic studies, leaving the argumentative heavy lifting to her Stop Islamization of America partner Robert Spencer. Geller has mingled comfortably with European racists and fascists, spoken favorably of South African racists, defended Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic and denied the existence of Serbian concentration camps. She has taken a strong pro-Israel stance to the point of being sharply critical of Jewish liberals.

ISIS Declares War on American Soil

In a threat aimed at anti-Sharia Law proponent Pamela Geller, ISIS has threatened to kill Geller, but they also report that they have 71 trained soldiers in 15 states. If this is so, it would reveal that the concept of creeping sharia would be true which suggest that Islam will infiltrate American from within.

Pro-Islam Campaign in New York: Muslims are Coming with Hugs!

Pamela Geller's group, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, was given approval to run pro-Israel sign on the Manhattan MTA buses. The MTA initially refused them.

• A federal judge in Manhattan on Tuesday ordered the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to display an ad from a pro-Israel group on buses after the agency declined to run it last year. The group, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, sued the authority in October, saying it had infringed on the group’s First Amendment rights by rejecting the ad. The authority had argued that the ad could be seen as a call to violence against Jews. The ad shows a man with a scarf across his face next to the words, “Killing Jews is Worship that draws us close to Allah,” attributed to “Hamas MTV.” Below that, it reads: “That’s his Jihad. What’s yours?” [New York Times]

But,  "freedom of speech" oft times shows no mercy, and a pro-Muslim group is running their own signs to mock Geller's campaign (which they call "bigotry"). The Gothamist reports that:

• For now, though, a filmmaking duo plans to fight Geller's bigotry with humor, by launching their own "Islamic frittata" campaign, set to debut in the subway system today. The campaign is the brainchild of Negin Farsad and Dean Obeidallah, whose 2013 film The Muslims Are Coming! examines Islamophobia in the United States. Farsad and Obeidallah's posters combat Geller's hateful ads with phrases like "The Ugly Truth About MUSLIMS: Muslims have great frittata recipes," and " “Muslims Hate Terrorism! And people who tell you they went to an Ivy League within 10 seconds of meeting them, people who clip their finger nails in public, kale,” etc.