Although best-selling author David Barton is held in high esteem by Republican pols like idiot queen Michele Bachmann (to whom he’s a “national treasure”) and Chick-fil-A booster Mike Huckabee (who calls him “the single best historian in America today”) as well as by conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck (who went even further out on a limb than Huckabee, calling Barton “the most important man in America”!) anyone with half a brain who has followed the career of David Barton knows that he is little more than a shameless rightwing Christian fabulist, making things up out of thin air and then claiming that they actually happened. Some people, who don’t know any better, i.e., his readers, actually believe him.

David Barton, you see, is the historian of the Tea party. There is practically nothing his audience of goofy ignoramuses won’t swallow hook line and sinker from him, even though it’s easily demonstrable bullshit. If you know your ass from your elbow, you would be highly suspicious that there was very little of scholarly value in Barton’s “research.” (Barton says of his critics: “I don’t know if it’s jealousy or liberalism.”)

Some of Barton’s greatest shits include claims that Jesus Christ would have been opposed to the minimum wage and socialized medicine, that the Constitution quotes the Bible “verbatim” and that Thomas Jefferson sent missionaries to convert the Indians to Christianity!

His biggest fib, of course, is that the Founding Fathers were all devout Christians and that America was founded on Christian principles to be a nation for Christians, and governed by Christians.

What percentage of Americans, do you think, would know the truth of the matter anyway? A depressing thought, of course, for most of us. For David Barton, however, these knuckleheads are his bread and butter!

Barton specializes in pulling “facts” out of his ass to bedazzle the folks who show up for his WallBuilders sermon/lectures around the country with amazing things they never knew about American history. Amazing things that never actually happened! But. again, what do they know? When David Barton is introduced to them as a best-selling author—and indeed he IS one—he would have certain presumed bona fides to an audience that is almost always comprised exclusively of white, evangelical Christians who vote Republican. Even when what Barton has to say is complete nonsense, his audience, taking their cues from the solemn heads nodding in agreement all around them, have no way of knowing that what he is telling them is bunk and so Barton’s “assertions” becomes history to them.

It’s pathetic. No wonder Glenn Beck holds Barton in such high regard. They’ve got similar shticks.

As with Beck, Barton’s entire career of telling historical lies, is predicated on the necessary ingredient of an audience of Billy-Bobs Bojangles who “don’t know much about history” (as in next to NOTHING) who just want to hear their “ideas” about stuff confirmed in a room full of people who look and think just like they do. Barton’s talent is telling an audience of not very bright people (I’m not being unkind here) who are predisposed to want to hear something that sounds like something they already believe (like the Founding Fathers were religious) so as to confirm that not only are God and Jesus on THEIR side, the Tea party, Christian team side, but George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams as well.

The Jefferson Lies was recently voted the “Least Credible History Book in Print” by the readers of the History News Network. There’s no surprise why “fact improviser” Michele Bachmann likes it so much, is there? Sen. Marco Rubio and Newt Gingrich are also fans.

However, it’s been a very bad couple of days to be David Barton. First there was the hilariously brutal—yet strangely polite—takedown of Barton yesterday on NPR’s “All Things Considered” program.

Several Cincinnati-area African-American pastors announced that they were boycotting the Thomas Nelson company—the world’s largest Christian publisher—for publishing David Barton’s Jefferson book, claiming he “whitewashes” Jefferson, a well-known slave owner.

Then World, a Christian news website, ran an article sharply critical of Barton as well. From “The David Barton Controversy”:

Jay W. Richards, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, and author with James Robison of Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family, and Freedom Before It’s Too Late, spoke alongside Barton at Christian conferences as recently as last month. Richards says in recent months he has grown increasingly troubled about Barton’s writings, so he asked 10 conservative Christian professors to assess Barton’s work.

Their response was negative…

And then the unthinkable happened: Thomas Nelson dropped The Jefferson Lies, as World reported today in a follow-up:

The Thomas Nelson publishing company has decided to cease publication and distribution of David Barton’s controversial book, The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed about Thomas Jefferson, saying it has “lost confidence in the book’s details.” (See “The David Barton controversy,” Aug. 8.)

Casey Francis Harrell, Thomas Nelson’s director of corporate communications, told me the publishing house “was contacted by a number of people expressing concerns about [The Jefferson Lies].” The company began to evaluate the criticisms, Harrell said, and “in the course of our review learned that there were some historical details included in the book that were not adequately supported. Because of these deficiencies we decided that it was in the best interest of our readers to stop the publication and distribution.”

Ouch, ouch and double ouch.

David Barton will be a special delegate from Texas to the Republican National Convention. Of course!
 

 
Redditor RegBarc posted a scan of the seriously misguided letter that his father sent him when he revealed that he was gay on reddit/r/atheism:

“5 years ago, I was disowned via letter when I came out to my father. This is how hate sounds.”

If you’re having trouble reading the letter, you can find a larger version here.

The most popular response came from the father of an adopted gay son, who goes by the handle, newvideoaz, apparently his first post on reddit. I think you’ll agree that it’s a pretty remarkable retort:

RegBarc,

I’m the adoptive dad of a kid who came out when he was about 15. Yeah it’s sometimes difficult when this happens because no parent wants to see a kid we love get hurt - and like it or not - being gay can mean some people will wish you ill simply for who you are.
And that’s hard for any parent. But it’s no excuse.

As an adoptive parent, I’m not my kids “father.” That’s biological. But I am his Dad. Because “Dad” isn’t something that’s actually biological, it’s something you have to earn.

With my son , I started to earn it the day he was born, but it was pretty easy until his second year when he had an accident and got hurt. The doctor in the ER strapped him to the “papoose board” to immobilize him and was about to start stitching up his head when he told me it was time for me to let go of his little hand. He looked up at me and whatever he saw in my face, he instantly said “or you can stay I guess.” I have no clue what he saw, except the fact that getting me to let go of that tiny hand was about as possible one of us jumping up through the ceiling to the moon.

The lesson for me that day is that any idiot can be a father (and clearly many are) but you’ve got to EARN being a Dad.

When my son came out to us, same deal. I was concerned, because I never had to deal with it before in someone I love. But we simply hooked him up with 1 in 10 and went on with our lives.

So here’s the opinion of someone who’s been in your dad’s shoes, but didn’t have his sad mental baggage.

Your dad failed a really huge parenting test. Period.

So now he’s self selected to be your father, but not to be your Dad. That sucks. And the really sad thing is that he has absolutely no freaking clue about the real value of what he’s tossed away.

He’ll always be your father. That’s biology. But biology is fickle. We know this because while he has perhaps passed a lot to you via DNA, he did NOT pass along intolerance or stupidity. He can “disown” you in his brain all he likes, but that doesn’t mean much because he’s already proved that whatever his strengths might be, he’s allowed his thought processes and natural instincts to become seriously flawed. How you feel about him. Hurt, sad, angry, disappointed, that’s yours to shuffle as you see fit.

But trust me, this is about him, not you. I actually hope that someday he gets a change to look deeply in his heart and comes to understand how horribly, terribly he screwed this up. If so, he’ll maybe have a chance to start some personal redemption and healing. But he needs that. You don’t.

Cuz there’s nothing wrong with you. At all.

Stay strong. Take care. The world is changing fast. And for more people than ever, gay and straight, it’s changing more toward love and away from fear - at least in this particular area.

Take care.

As they say on the Internet: ONIONS!

Of course, reddit being reddit, a couple of quipsters threw in some zingers:

“You should to his funeral and read that letter as your speech.”

“This would be the greatest ‘fuck you’ ever. Oh my god I’m so giddy right now.”

“And have it buried with him.”

“Burn it. And while it’s on fire, throw it in his casket. That guy doesn’t deserve the casket he’s in.”

Can’t say I disagree. What a fucking small-minded dickhead. I sincerely hope that he is made aware of how he’s being ridiculed. He, at the very, very least deserves that knowledge.

 
That graphic speaks volumes, doesn’t it? Via Gay Rights Maps.

If you haven’t seen this hilarious and epic anti-Chick-fil-A rant from former HUGE Chick-fil-A fan Jackson Pearce, you have to watch it. Stay with it all the way to the end. This woman is a star. Jackson Pearce could conceivably be the “new Molly Ivens.” She’s that good.

It was Pearce’s call for protesters to videotape their interactions with Chick-fil-A that caused Arizona man Adam Smith to be fired from his job when he posted a YouTube video of his low-key, innocuous—yet ultimately misguided—protest. Smith has since had to go into hiding with this family (including two adopted special needs children) due to all of the death threats he is receiving, many of them coming from readers of the white supremacist website Stormfront.

Jon Stewart’s commentary on the Chick-fil-A controversy, “Fast Feud Nation” last night on The Daily Show was Stewart at his very best.
 

 
Via Joe.My.God.

 
*There are, of course, exceptions to this. I would be remiss in not mentioning that my very own parents, who are super religious, do in fact run a soup kitchen. (Having said that, I have no doubt that they probably ate at Chick-fil-A yesterday if they were anywhere near one).

Thank you, Ruth Waytz!

 
What’s equally as depressing as the fact that this video even exists in the first place is that there are some people out there who would watch it and think it’s pretty nifty.

These same people are probably eating mor chikin than usual this week, if you know what I’m talkin’ about and I think you do…
 

 
Rick Santorum trolls for Chick-fil-A on Twitter, gets trolled right back.

Meagan for the win!

Join in the fun, yourself.

 
After Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and The Jim Henson Company criticized the fast-food chain Chick-fil-A for their political donations that went to anti-gay rights groups and then the push back from conservatives like Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum (who trolled about eating at Chick-fil-A on his Twitter feed) upped the ante even further, now LGBT advocates are arranging a “kiss in” protest on August 3rd. The protest will take place just two days after Huckabee’s proposed day for conservatives to “affirm a business that operates on Christian principles.”

Chick-fil-A president Dan Cathy recently told The Baptist Press that his company is actively opposed to gay marriage. “Guilty as charged,” as he put it. In 2010 alone, Chick-fil-A reportedly donated nearly $2 million to religious advocacy groups that oppose gay marriage.

Last Thursday, after the controversy initially flared up, Chick-fil-A management said that “going forward, our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.”

It’s a little late for that. And now they’re going to get a much-deserved taste of their own shit sandwich. This is not a religious issue, it’s a civil rights issue. It’s time that Christian conservatives understood the difference.

Here’s the National Same Sex Kiss Day at Chick-fil-A page at Facebook

 
Frank Bruni took a much-deserved swipe at Michele Bachmann in the New York Times op ed pages this morning.

From “The Divine Miss M”:

What I find most fascinating about Michele Bachmann — and there are many, many more where she came from — is that she presents herself as a godly woman, humbly devoted to her Christian faith. I’d like to meet that god, and I’d like to understand that Christianity.

Does it call for smearing people on the basis of flimsy conspiracy theories? That’s what Bachmann just did to Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, by essentially suggesting she might be a mole for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Does it endorse scaring young women away from immunizations that could spare them serious illness? Bachmann did that during her memorable presidential campaign, when she blithely drew an unsubstantiated link between a vaccine for the human papillomavirus and mental retardation.

Does it encourage gratuitously divisive condemnations of Barack Obama as “anti-American,” one of many incendiary phrases in her attacks against him in 2008? And does it compel a war against homosexuality waged with the language and illogic she uses?

She has said that gay men and lesbians are dysfunctional products of abuse and agents of “sexual anarchy,” and when the singer and songwriter Melissa Etheridge was battling breast cancer years ago, Bachmann helpfully chimed in: “This may be an opportunity for her now to be open to some spiritual things, now that she is suffering with that physical disease. She is a lesbian.”

Bachmann’s concept of Christian love brims with hate, and she has a deep satchel of stones to throw. From what kind of messiah did she learn that?

OUCH! Nicely put, Frank Bruni!

Bruni concludes by wondering if we should “start noting the difference between Christians of real compassion and those of exclusionary spite.”

Again: OUCH! There needs to be more like this. A flood of them to drown the stupid out.

And have you heard about the goofball Teabagger in Arizona, promising to launch a recall effort against Sen. John McCain for daring to defend Huma Abedin on the floor of the Senate? Even principled chivalry from a war hero gets no respect from these people?

From Huffington Post: “Wes Harris, Arizona Tea Party Leader, Seeks To Recall John McCain Over Huma Abedin Defense”:

Wes Harris, the founder and chairman of the Original North Phoenix Tea Party, now says McCain’s words have given him grounds to mount an effort to unseat the longtime senator.

In an interview with the Arizona Capitol Times, Harris called McCain an “embarrassment,” before laying out a variety of unapologetic anti-Islamic sentiments.

“Have you ever read the Quran? I suggest you do so, because anyone that is a Muslim is a threat to this country, and that’s a fact,” Harris told the Times. “There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. If they are Muslim they have to follow the Quran. That’s their religion and that’s their doctrine.”

According to the Times, Harris believes Muslims are incapable of being loyal to the U.S., because he claims that their faith in Islam and the Quran trumps any other allegiance. He also apparently believes Muslims shouldn’t be able to serve in the State Department at all.

“Is [Abedin] a Muslim? Is she an active Muslim?” Harris asked the Times. “I rest my case. That’s all she needs to be.”

Did you feel your brain cells dying as you read that?

It smells like burning hair.

For good effect, Harris told Senator McCain:

“Go to hell, Senator, it’s time for you to take your final dirt nap.”

By now, even a life-long Republican like McCain is probably thinking “These people are fucking nuts” and his own sense of vanity (if nothing else) will probably see him distance himself more and more from his party’s most embarrassing and outspoken dimwits like Bachmann, Louie Gohmert and Steve King (King’s the asshole from Iowa gloating that he’s been able to monkey-wrench animal cruelty laws! HOORAY FOR ANIMAL CRUELTY. Wha???).

It’s obviously only a matter of time before McCain’s own daughter leaves the GOP.

And look at John Roberts. Does anyone really think he’s going to be more conservative after the insane hatred unleashed in his direction after the Obamacare ruling?

Forget Republican vs Democrat, or Liberal vs Conservative, what’s shaking out in America is more like Smart vs. Dumb.

This is what it’s coming down to, is it not?

The all-out total implosion of the Republican Party cult is something that is both nauseating on one level (it hurts to admit that we live in an Idiocracy cum oligarchy doesn’t it?) and hilariously funny on another. It’s getting really intense. The flailing form the right seems so much more frantic as the election year rolls on.

From where I’m sitting, in the liberal stronghold of Hollywood, California, I’m thinking, hey, it can’t happen to a nicer bunch of flaming fucking assholes. A Republican Civil War would make my day, every day. So far Bachmann has shown no signs that the numerous denunciations of her latest stunt from fellow Republicans have slowed her “crusade” down even a little bit. I hope she keeps it up, with her pedal to the metal.

As a non-believer, and an avowed Marxist, I believe that, in the scheme of things, Michele Bachmann has a VERY SPECIAL ROLE TO PLAY.

She’s the best!!!

Bert & Ernie, together since 1969

The Jim Henson Company has severed their partnership with fast food chain Chick-Fil-A. The company’s “Creature Shop” toys are being given away with kid’s meals, but that’s coming to an end, due to Chick-Fil-A’s conservative Christian President-CEO Dan Cathy’s anti-gay public statements.

The Jim Henson Company posted this statement to their Facebook page:

The Jim Henson Company has celebrated and embraced diversity and inclusiveness for over fifty years and we have notified Chick-Fil-A that we do not wish to partner with them on any future endeavors. Lisa Henson, our CEO is personally a strong supporter of gay marriage and has directed us to donate the payment we received from Chick-Fil-A to GLAAD.

The comments are fascinating.

Meanwhile Boston mayor Tom Menino has publicly stated his opposition to a Chick-Fil-A opening in Beantown. It’s not like a mayor can single-handedly decree something like this, but Menino can make damn sure that opening the Boston branch of Chick-Fil-A is a very, very slow and expensive process for Dan Cathy and his crew.

Not eating at a Chick-Fil-A is an easy way to send a message that this kind of thing won’t be tolerated in your community, either. Why give Truett and Dan Cathy your money to fight marriage equality? Bigotry = bad business. It’s time Chick-Fil-A’s stockholders and franchise owners realize this and kick Dan Cathy to the curb. He’s a PR disaster.

 
Charming, eh?

It’s available for purchase here and is called “Warning: Christian with Gun Infant Bodysuit.”

Via Christian Nightmares