(from http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/new-nra-president-jim-porter-knocked-fake-president-obama/) about new NRA President Jim Porter. . .
". . . “Y’all might call it the Civil War, but we call it ‘the war of northern aggression’ down South,” Porter said. In that same speech, Porter also made it clear that there’s no love
lost between the NRA and President Obama, whom he called a “fake
president.” “His entire administration is anti-gun, anti-freedom anti-second amendment,” Porter said. And that was before Obama backed a new background checks bill and pushed for an assault weapons ban in Congress. . . "
To explore whether the statement represented an apology, we sent it to the four experts we interviewed for our previous fact-check on Romney's claim about Obama's apology tour. Here are the comments of the three who responded:
•John Murphy, a communications professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who studies presidential rhetoric and political language, said Romney was wrong to label it an apology.
"First, the statement does not use the word ‘apology’ or ‘apologize’ and does not use any synonym for that word. There is no statement here that says, ‘We are sorry.’
"Second, the grammar of the statement condemns the actions of a third party. An apology, to be pedantic, is when the first party says to the second party, ‘I have offended you and I am sorry.’ This statement condemns a third party -- misguided individuals -- that does not officially represent the United States. The term ‘individuals’ dissociates them from the U.S. Therefore, it's impossible to say that this is an apology from the U.S. to anyone.
"Third, the statement does not apologize for the right of free speech; it affirms it. It condemns those who abuse the right of free speech, but it claims that this is a universal right, as is religious toleration. So, the statement does not like what the misguided individuals said and did, but recognizes they have a right to do it."
"It's a condemnation," Murphy said, "not an apology."
• Lauren Bloom, an attorney and business consultant who wrote The Art of the Apology, said that Romney is "once again allowing his emotional allergy to apology to interfere with his judgment."
Bloom said that "if there's anything more central to American values than respecting each individual's right to worship as he or she pleases, I'd be hard-pressed to say what it might be. The statement that ‘respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy’ not only is true, but is as clear an expression of one of our most cherished values as I can imagine."
She said the embassy statement is "not an apology -- quite the contrary, it's a confirmation that the American people recognize the right to worship freely and will not accept religious bullying in the name of free speech. To say that someone who deliberately insults others in the name of religion has acted wrongly isn't an apology -- it's simply a recognition that those insults go too far."
• Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, a professor who studies international human rights and maintains the website Political Apologies and Reparations, a database of documents on apologies, said the statement is "not an apology."
Rather, she said, "it is a condemnation of ‘abuse’ of the universal value of free speech. A condemnation is not an apology. … The Embassy statement also reaffirms two American values: the American value of respect for religious beliefs and the American value of democracy.". . . "
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AMBIENCE & WINE
(rough draft of Dylan Ratigan's Constitutional Amendment)
No person, corporation, or business entity, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to an type of campaign for federal office. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, campaign contributions to candidates for federal office shall not constitute speech of any kind as guaranteed by the US constitution or any amendment to the US constitution. Congress shall set forth a holiday for the purpose of voting for candidates for federal office.
. . . paraphrasing a hitherto, unnamed blogger, but real nonetheless. (Is this like being 'ratcheted up'?)
"I can't wait to see what the Lord has planned for this world and my church. I love my church. It's something I can always look forward to. I can't wait to go to heaven. I wish there was some way to get everybody saved and then just go. I'm tired of this world. . . [Same guy. Apparently not well-adjusted.]
“I had a mother last night come up to me here in Tampa, Florida, after the debate, she told me that her little daughter took that vaccine, that injection, and she suffered from mental retardation thereafter.” [Presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann exhibiting a bit of gullibility.)
"Like so many of life’s varieties of experience, the novelty of a diagnosis of malignant cancer has a tendency to wear off. The thing begins to pall, even to become banal. One can become quite used to the specter of the eternal Footman, like some lethal old bore lurking in the hallway at the end of the evening, hoping for the chance to have a word. And I don’t so much object to his holding my coat in that marked manner, as if mutely reminding me that it’s time to be on my way. No, it’s the snickering that gets me down. . . What do I hope for? If not a cure, then a remission. And what do I want back? In the most beautiful apposition of two of the simplest words in our language: the freedom of speech." (Christopher Hitchens, journalist, author, philosopher, recently diagnosed with esophageal cancer.)
“I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail… There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark” (Stephen Hawking, educator, scientist, author)
"The best way to lose all is to cling with desperation to that which cannot possibly be sustained literally. Literalistic Christians will learn that a God or a faith system that has to be defended daily is finally no God or faith system at all. They will learn that any god who can be killed ought to be killed. Ultimately they will discover that all their claims to represent the historical, traditional, or biblical truth of Christianity cannot stop the advance of knowledge that will render every historic claim for a literal religious system questionable at best, null and void at worst." [Bishop John Shelby Spong, Episcopal (Anglican) Bishop of Newark, NY, in Resurrection: Myth or Reality?)
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