Cross-posted from AlterNet Every disaster that befalls a nation -- hurricanes, floods, terrorism, earthquakes -- constitutes God's punishment of a people gone astray, according to Pat Robertson, who famously blamed feminists for 9/11 and gays for Hurricanes Katrina and Andrew. In the case of Haiti's devastating earthquake, he blames an ostensible deal that black Haitians made with the Devil in order to win their emancipation and independence from the French colonials who enslaved them. So, in Haiti's case it might not be God who did the nation in, but rather the Devil calling in his chit. "True story," according to Robertson: [S]omething happened a long time ago in Haiti and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, uh you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the Devil. They said we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True Story. And so the Devil said "Okay,...
The most surprising thing about the current state of affairs in the House of Representatives — the inability of the majority party to settle on a winning House Speaker candidate — is that anyone is surprised at all. What we’re witnessing from the far-right #NeverKevin caucus has been the plan for some time; it’s just that too many political journalists and commentators too easily dismiss or ignore the utterances of political figures deemed “fringe” by the mainstream – regardless of the power held by those supposedly fringe players. You might think that given the prominent role played by former White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon in fomenting and organizing the insurrection whose two-year anniversary we mark today, political journos might pay more attention to what he’s saying to the MAGA crowd every day, but you’d be wrong. And you might surmise that major right-wing events such as the Conservative Political Action Conference might draw the interest of people tasked wi...
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