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(Billy James Hargis - you would think butter didn't melt - the butter had different ideas)

It's endless - the parade of hypocrites masquerading as "People of God". The Pious, the righteous, the smug - all doling out edicts under the premise of "being chosen" while ingratiating themselves in the acts they so claim to despise.

So another one shows up in the history books - maybe forgotten now, but in the 1960s railed against all the godless fornicators, the infidels, the non-believers. Billy James Hargis, bible thumping anti-communist conservative, built up a sizable congregation of followers, a daily radio show and an empire until it came crashing down, as so many others have done before and since, with widespread allegations of sexual misconduct - in his case, a very public outing via Time Magazine.

But in the late 1960s he was still going full steam, as is evidenced by this interview (supposedly debate but the debater seems hopelessly challenged) where Hargis offers a few bon mots:

Hargis: “Now look at the Jewish people, this is a prime example. I’ve never seen a hungry Jew. I’ve never seen a Jew begging. I’ve never seen a Jew without work. That religion takes care of their people. They don’t ask the state for help, they take care of their own. And we believe that Christianity is nothing more than a continuation of this Jewish concept of . . .with the gospel of Christ relating to salvation being added to that concept.”

Hargis: “I doubt very sincerely that those things (the riots in Detroit and Newark in 1968) were the results of people being mistreated. I think it was results of people maybe being treated too well by the state. They were told they didn’t have to work. They were told they didn’t have to provide for their own. They were told they could get security from the cradle to the grave and these people wanted more and more and more. We’re covetous by nature. We want more and more and more. We see someone with something we don’t have we covet it, we want it. The bible warns against covetesness. Christ told us never to covet somebody else’s. They worked for it, they were entitled to it They had a right to it.”

Hargis: “I’m telling the Negro people to quit whining. I’m telling the poor white people to quit whining. Quit whining about injustices, real or imagined. But get out and better your situation. Stand up on your own two feet. Don’t wait until someone comes along and gives you life on a silver platter.”

The arrogance, as always, is mystifying. That it comes under the guise of compassion is bizarre. That it continues in exactly the same way is astonishing.

Welcome to the Religious Right.

Do you want to know how Republicans really feels about "teh Jews" in the world?

Here goes:

Two South Carolina County Republican Party chairmen stepped up to rebut criticism of Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) in a newspaper editorial Sunday. But their defense of the senator might be overshadowed by their use of an anti-Semitic stereotype to praise him.

After a Democratic state senator wrote in The State that DeMint didn't bring enough money back home, Bamberg County GOP Chairman Edwin Merwin and Orangeburg County GOP Chairman James Ulmer responded that he was just looking after the nation's pennies -- like a Jew would.

"There is a saying that the Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves," Ulmer and Merwin wrote in a joint letter published by The Times and Democrat.

They later apologized, but those quotes say it all. Anti-Semitic stereotypes like that reveal their true colors, because these clowns probably took hours to come up with their defense of DeMint.

Ulmer said in his apology:

Ulmer, the Orangeburg County chairman, said the remark was "truly in admiration for a method of bettering one's lot in life" and he meant nothing derogatory.

Yeah, using racial sterotypes as a compliment is not derogatory at all. I was going to come up with a few new quotes for these GOPers, but I was too busy over cooking my pasta. And talking to my Don.

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(Jerusalem 1948 - Same as it ever was - Same as it ever was)

With the recent news of the attempted kick starting of talks between Israelis and the Palestinians, I was reminded just how long this entire odyssey has been going on - a lot longer than many people have been on the planet, for one thing.

But it seems there was a time when the U.S. had actually considered sending troops over to the region, acting as a sort of buffer between factions. The notion that we'd still be over there, some sixty years later gives pause as to how it could end up with us now in Afghanistan. When, during the election John McCain entertained the possibility of the U.S. being in Iraq for a hundred years, everyone recoiled. But in retrospect, it appears we're rather good at suggesting those sorts of things. Thank God we don't act on our instincts all the time.

But in 1948, with the British getting ready to leave the region and fighting between Jews and Arabs going full tilt, the Chicago University Roundtable hosted a discussion, featuring several pundits (aka: "experts"as they were called at the time) to venture an opinion on whether our involvement in the Middle East was a good idea or not.

The opinions ran the gamut, although it's interesting to note that no one actually from the region (i.e. Arab or Jew) was included. So there is something of a strange bias to be had going into this discussion, one of an "armchair" viewpoint rather than one actually on the ground, with the possible exception of Arthur Creech-Jones who was Colonial Secretary in charge of Palestine at the time. But times have changed. I don't think this type of discussion would take place today (unless it was Fox). But it's interesting to see what factors formed an opinion some sixty years ago.

John A. Wilson: “First, Palestine cannot survive economically if it’s carved into two zones. Second, a policing and occupying army does not bring a country together. It rather pulls it apart. Let’s look at the other countries which have been carved apart and held apart by force. Germany and Austria have been arbitrarily divided into zones, cutting off the normal and traditional flow of goods. Four enforcing armies hold Germany apart and prevent normal economic life. In Asia, Korea is in exactly the same situation, cut by an arbitrary line into two zones. A drastic surgical operation divided India into a Muslim state and a Hindu state at a cost of perhaps a quarter of a million lives. Partition is bad economy in Germany, Austria, Korea and India. It will be bad in Palestine. Imagine American and Russian military contingents inside Palestine. Would they bring the country together? Or would they push it further apart? How soon could they leave? It is not a pleasant outlook. American and Russian troops eyeing each other in Palestine for our lifetime. Everyone who argues a population increase in Palestine has done so on the basis of potential water power there. Well certainly, a Jordan Valley Authority like our TVA would be a marvelous asset to Palestine.

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Talk about a terror plot! You got your faux jihad, you got your inadequate health insurance (nothing single payer wouldn't fix!) and you got an FBI informant who supplied a motive. Now, I wonder how they thought all of this would play in court? I mean, we were planning to try these people, yes?

"My insurance wasn't good enough," said Lord McWilliams, 20, who has a deadly liver disease.

His brother, David Williams, wanted money "to speed up the process," McWilliams said. "Medicaid only goes so far."

He dismissed as "crazy" federal accusations that Williams was a Jew-hater who wanted to wage jihad.

McWilliams said the FBI informant who lured his brother and three other hapless petty criminals into a plot to blow up synagogues and shoot down a plane promised enough money to take care of his transplant.

"[My brother] told me, 'Don't worry, when you go to the doctor, tell them you got money,'" McWilliams said.

McWilliams, who has already had his spleen removed, said his brother told him he would have $20,000 for the operation.

Their mother, Elizabeth McWilliams, said her older son had told her he would be able to give her a wad of cash Thursday, which was the day after the terrorist plot was to have been carried out.

"He was a loving, sweet kid. He took his brother's illness worse than me," she said.

Lord McWilliams said the informant, who often drove his brother to the hospital to visit, even promised to take him to Universal Studios when he was well again.

"He said I didn't have to pay for nothing," McWilliams said.

Federal prosecutors say Williams, 28; James Cromitie, 44; Laguerre Payen, 27, and Onta Williams, 32, all of upstate Newburgh, were militant Muslims caught on tape railing against Jews and plotting to blow up Jewish temples.

They were arrested last Wednesday while planting what they thought were plastic explosives outside two Riverdale synagogues.

They also had a Stinger missile - phony, supplied by the FBI - with which they allegedly planned to shoot down a military plane. Family and friends say the four were down-on-their luck ex-cons who apparently thought they would be paid by the FBI informant.

In dozens of interviews around Newburgh, no one can remember hearing any of the four talk of Jews or jihad. They had converted to Islam in prison, but they drank beer, ate pork and rarely prayed, family members said.

I hardly know what to say. What's worse: A healthcare system where someone is so desperate, he'd blow up buildings to pay for his brother's treatment, or an FBI that thinks nothing of setting people up so they can claim they caught some "terrorists"?