A soup of ignorance and stupidity

Once upon a time I had a friend.  Then I found out he's truly unhinged.  Something is wrong with his mind and his ability to reason.  He lives in San Francisco.  He has a blog.  After Tuesday's election he posted a stylized picture of the president, in red, complete with hammer and sickle upon which was imposed the word, "Obamunism."  He's nuts!  He's not my friend anymore.

But he provides an example of the kind of hatred of Obama that exists in this country; a hatred that is frequently race-based, irrational, unreasonable, and very dangerous.  I often get the feeling that someone opened the doors of the insane asylum and let all the inmates run loose.

Some of these crazies are well-known.  But many are reprehensible nobodies from backwater towns in the southern states - places like Texas, Mississippi, South Carolina, etc.

For example, in Lubbock, Texas, a judge predicted last summer that Obama's re-election could lead to a civil war.  Another Texan and GOP official said he wants an "amicable divorce" from the "maggots" who voted for Obama.  He opined that Vermont and Texas had very little in common.  My inclination is to let him go, along with all the other teapot crackpots in Texas and elsewhere.  Let Texas become a loony bin, a collection of all the scum in our land.  That means, of course, that the good people in Texas will have to find another place to live, but maybe we could help because it would certainly benefit the country as a whole if the crazies had their own place to hide out.

Then there's Ted Nugent, he of foggy voice, a brain deficit, and a job as a mouthpiece for the National Rifle Association, who has concluded Mr. Obama won because "Pimps, whores and welfare brats voted for economic and spiritual suicide."

Ann Coulter just couldn't quite understand what happened, "there is no hope," she said.  But she's certain that if her first choice, Chris Christie, had been nominated, the election would have been a different story.

Mary Matalin, who has gone totally off the rails, said that the president was a "political narcissistic sociopath."  I wonder if she even knows what that means?  Is she angry because he had the audacity to seek a second term?

Victoria Jackson, of SNL fame, wept.  "I can't stop crying," she said, weepily.  "America died." 
The Cincinnati Tea Party also said after the election that the nation was dead.  I must have missed that.  And ever since I read that comment I've been checking, but I find that America is very much alive.  

In Ohio, the Lebanon Tea Party went into mourning following Obama's re-election.  We've lost our country, they moaned, and we're going to be a socialist nation within months.

Well, which is it?  Is the nation dead or heading toward socialism?  And why didn't Obama make us a socialist  nation already?  I mean he's had four years.  If he couldn't do it in four years, how do they think he's going to do it in months?

Ron Johnson, who lost his seat in Wisconsin claimed that Obama won because voters were ignorant.  Ignorant of what?

Robert Stacy McCan wrote in the American Spectator that "The list of fools who have brought this disaster upon us certainly will include New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the gelatinous [ouch!] clown who (a) hogged up a prime spot at the Republican convention to sing his own praises; (b) embraced Obama as the hero of Hurricane Sandy; and (c) then refused to appear at campaign events in support of Romney's presidential campaign."  Christie, says McCan, engaged in a "perfidious betrayal."

Heh, heh.  It was all Christie's fault!

Karl Rove, on the other hand, the go-to guy for Republicans who want to engage in devious chicanery to win elections, but really blew this one and about $400 mil of the one percent's cash, said Obama won because he suppressed the vote.  No, I'm serious, that's what he said, even as Republicans in almost every state in the Union worked day and night to suppress the vote of those they thought might vote against them.

And the fat addict, Rush Limbaugh, noted sadly that he went to bed thinking "we'd lost the country."  I wonder who he includes in that "we" and did he really think that "we" group had owned the country?

Neal Boortz, a syndicated conservative radio talk show host, "twittered" that Obama was the same as al-Qaida.  "Congratulate Obama on his victory?  Let's congratulate Al Qaeda while we're at it.  Same goals."  Now someone who writes this is not merely stupid, but also crazy.

I've saved the best for last.  Another so-called conservative radio talk show host by name of Michael Graham, opined on FAUX News that Romney lost because the Obama campaign tried to convince female voters that Romney would put them in "rape camps."  More insanity!


We have a real problem in the U.S. of A.  Although the good guys won this election, we still have a large percentage of people who are not only ignorant but are prejudiced against anything that falls outside of their very limited brain space.  These people are not amenable to reason.  They listen, day in and day out, to FAUX News, to Limbaugh, to these other radio commentators.  And they believe what they see and hear.  That means they are never introduced to the truth.  Worse, they've been inoculated against the truth.

For example.  In Ohio, only 38% of Republicans believe that Obama is more responsible for the death of Osama bin Laden than Romney!  Fifteen percent think that Romney is more responsible for bin Laden's death than Obama, and 47 percent say they don't know!

Ignorance and stupidity reign.  Still, Obama won the state of Ohio!  

Maybe there is a god?

Greed and Jesus with Obama in the Middle

He's the CEO of a big company.  He's a good Christian.  He loves Jesus.  He begs forgiveness from his Lord as greed overpowers his religious intuitions.  He wants Jesus to know that he can't help himself even as he bears false witness against the president and sends employees out into the cold because he thinks his profits will shrink if he is forced to provide health care for all of his employees.

The fact that he should not need to be prodded by the government to provide health care for his employees, especially if he wishes to be identified with Jesus, has obviously not occurred to him.  The fact that Jesus cared not a whit for wealth or anyone's desire to become rich and that his attempt to claim the Lord helped build his business is wildly unbiblical has not crossed his mind.

Like so many on the extreme right, this CEO (Robert E. Murray of Murray Energy), has linked political ideology with his fundamentalist version of the Christian faith.  These extremists, many of whom were convinced that their man would prevail in Tuesday's voting, have been slapped back down to reality.  The American people, by a clear majority, were having none of such nonsense!

Murray provides a sharp portrait of how this political/religious confluence has taken shape in the United States.  On Wednesday, November 7, he called his staff members together at which time he expressed concern as to the direction the country would take under Obama and then read this prayer:  "Lord, please forgive me and anyone with me in Murray Energy Corp. for the decisions that we are now forced to make to preserve the very existence of any of the enterprises that you have helped us build."

Conceit upon conceit.  Profound hypocrisy.

Murray is forced to do nothing.  What changed between Tuesday and Wednesday?  Nada!  Murray obviously has issues with Mr. Obama but the notion that he would have to layoff people because of the election is pure blarney!

The Washington Post (from which much of this information was taken) has printed the prayer in full:

"Dear Lord:

"The American people have made their choice.  They have decided that America must change its course, away from the principals of our Founders.  And, away from the idea of individual freedom and individual responsibility.  Away from capitalism, economic responsibility, and personal acceptance.

"We are a Country in favor of redistribution, national weakness and reduced standard of living and lower and lower levels of personal freedom.

"My regret, Lord, is that our young people, including those in my own family, never will know what America was like or might have been.  They will pay the price in their reduced standard of living, and most especially, reduced freedom.

"The takers outvoted the producers.  In response to this, I have turned to my Bible and in II Peter, Chapter 1, verses 4-9 it says:  'To faith we are to add goodness; to goodness, knowledge; to knowledge, self control; to self-control, perseverance; to perseverance, godliness; to godliness, kindness; to brotherly kindness, love.

"Lord, please forgive me and anyone with me in Murray Energy Corp. for the decisions that we are now forced to make to preserve the very existence of the enterprises that you have helped us build.  We ask for your guidance in this drastic time with the drastic decisions that will be made to have any hope of our survival as an American business enterprise.

"Amen."


Mr. Murray is delusional.  And, if he doesn't know that all of this is BS and merely a rationalization to get rid of employees by blaming his own mess upon Mr. Obama, then he is not merely deluded but a fool and perhaps a crazy fool.

Certainly he is a partisan and typically a fundamentalist Christian who has been convinced that because he has accepted Jesus he can do pretty much any damn thing he desires.  Such a notion is called "cheap grace."  And it doesn't work.

The WaPo notes that the New Republic reported Murray Energy required employees (miners) to attend a Romney campaign event.  Murray says that's not true.  Furthermore, it was "reported that Murray Energy employees have given more than $1.4 million to Republican candidates for federal office since 2007."

That's OK, of course, unless the employees were "directed" to do so or otherwise compromised.

The worst of it, though, is that Murray Energy has had an environmental problem.  "Notably, the company has spilled coal slurry into a creek on seven different occasions."

I suppose Mr. Murray would argue that God put that creek there for him to use which is one way God helped him build his company.


What is especially frightening is that if Romney won, such maggots would be crawling all over our political space, devouring those things which we hope will always most represent our country:  honor, integrity, freedom, inclusiveness, and a dedication to build a society in which everyone, as Jefferson put it, has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Mr. Murray is unhappy with the way the election went.  I'm not sure why.  Perhaps it will cost him more money in terms of health care for his employees.  But there's more to it.  His hatred of Obama is palpable.  Thus in his prayer he not so subtly implies that the Obama administration is unAmerican and something foreign, dangerous.

Mr. Murray desires not to come to grips with the facts.  Obama,  for one thing, is a Christian, and exemplifies Christianity far better than anyone I've heard of or seen who's part of the fundamentalist spectrum.  Mr. Obama has lived a life of dedication to the highest ideals of this country.  He is our duly elected and legitimate president; he was not chosen, in opposition to the majority of the American people, by the Supreme Court.

Obama believes, and perhaps this is what sticks most in Mr. Murray's craw, that this nation belongs not just or especially to the rich or the whites or those of one particular political stripe, but to everyone and he understands the meaning of commonwealth, whereby we recognize we that we're all in this enterprise of building a society and a nation together and we have a responsibility to one another, and those who have been more fortunate or more successful should have a greater responsibility to those less fortunate and less successful.

God didn't help Mr. Murray build his company.  If he'd read his Bible and stop trying to find quotes to justify his perversity, he'd know that the God of his Jesus doesn't care at all about Mr. Murray's company with these exceptions:  He cares that Mr. Murray do all he can to ensure that his employees are treated with respect by providing superior working conditions, that they are given a decent wage and have the best health care available.


Damn.  That's hard.  And that's why the world is full of phony Christians who spout Scripture to avoid the truth.  Like Robert E. Murray.
  

Pres. Obama discusses growing the economy...

Outrage and Seeking Solutions

[Photo from digitaltrends.com]

This is a guest post by my good friend, Art Woodstone.


To Liberals and other Good People:

Don't let our part in Obama's re-election go to our heads, because we are not often that smart; because most of the time we allow ourselves to be politically neutered, restricting ourselves to narrow choices, such as selecting a president.

The question now becomes:  Will we now put serious thought and energy into facing hard facts and into utilizing solutions already available to obviously universal problems?

An illustration:  Most people, or at least those of us with a liberal bent, recognize the immutable connection between oil consumption and global warming, but now that we have developed the ability to frack the enormous store of oily rock lying inches below the surface of American soil, it seems that there is no longer much serious or organized interest (if there ever was) in ending our dependence on oil.

Why is that the case?  Greed, convenience, and stupid, excessive pride all play a part.  And isn't it great that now Americans have, within their borders, the capacity to outproduce all twelve members of OPEC at once?  Of course, "fracking" carries with it another whole set of problems, and we'd have to convince China and Russia and other industrialized nations that it is essential we stop polluting the environment before it's too late.

It may, unfortunately, already be too late, but we don't know that for sure, so why abandon hope?

But let's move on to another problematic issue, to which the solution requires no complicated outside support or complaince:

Drugs.  "Illegal" drugs.

We permit ourselves the luxury of feeling helpless against the forces of ignorance and piety and the self-perpetuating instruments of government and law when it comes to legalizing illegal drugs.  We talk "big" but lack the essential element of change:  outrage at the utter, self-righteous stupidity of it all.

The legalization of drugs has many benefits:

1.  It would go far toward lowering the national debt.
2.  It would certainly diminish, even eliminate, the vast profits realized and laundered by the drug lords.
3.  It would enable the government to tax what were formerly illegal drugs and thus beyond the reach of the tax man.
4.  It would force the disestablishment of the Drug Enforcement Agency.  (While I don't recall exactly how much this agency costs us every year with its investigative and enforcement activities, but it's in the billions of dollars!)
5.  It would dramatically reduce the number of incarcerated people, again at a vast savings to the both the U.S. and state governments.  (A large portion of people languishing in our prisons are there because of drug-related crimes.  I know some people who were imprisoned 20 years after found with a smidgen of marijuana!)
6.  And perhaps the most important thing - it would dramatically lessen the murder rate in the U.S. and around the world.  The human cost of our insane drug policies is incalculable.

While murder will always be an element of human behavior, the same is true of stupidity, ignorance and bias.  And that is why none of the above is likely to happen in our own lifetimes.

But there is hope.  Two states have legalized recreational use of marijuana, which is a good sign because for the first time the barrier between stupidity and sanity has been knocked down which may well lead other governmental entities to re-think drug policies which have had such a deleterious effect on our country.

There is hope, if we move toward that essential element of change - the outrage we feel!

Boehner and McConnell - A Cause for Weeping

The Republican leaders in Congress are children. The United States is being led by people who know not how to act as adults. The limp-wristed McConnell, Senate Minority Leader, and the weepy John Boehner, House Majority Leader, have once again exhibited the kind of behavior that most of us left behind on the elementary school playground!

According to the New York Times, on election night, when President Obama was certain of victory, he immediately reached out to these two members of the other party (or should we say the Opposition?) in an attempt to mend fences and begin working on the problems our country faces, in particular the one represented by the term, "fiscal cliff."

In both cases, these Republican nogoodniks refused to take the call of the president of these United States. They were "sleeping," the president was told. It's hard to imagine a more deliberate snub, a more childish response to the election, at least by two men who are supposed to be responsible persons and who have in their hands the power to help fix many of the problems that we face as a nation.

For four long years, these two men have neglected their sworn duty in order to feed and maintain a vendetta against the first "black" president of this country. For four long years, these two men have sold their souls in a misguided and futile attempt to oust this first "black" president and regain absolute power. 

Notice I'm using the word, "black," as I am convinced that the hatred and animosity shown for Mr. Obama as president is fueled by racism, and is unparalleled in the history of our country, even taking into consideration the hell that Mr. Clinton received at the hands of the same Republican Party.

But whatever the reason, we are stunned that these two Republican leaders would give the president the "finger". Not surprised, but still stunned. And we are discouraged. For several seconds we thought that with a decisive Obama victory, they would realize that their failure to lead and their pursuit of a vendetta against the duly elected president of the United States was rejected by the majority of the people of this land and they would change their ways.

There was a hint this might be possible when, shortly after the election, Boehner commented to the effect that the Affordable Care Act was the law of the land and while it may need some adjustment, he would not work to repeal it. As soon as this slight mention of possible cooperation and bipartisanship was made public, he "walked back" those words!

Boehner and McConnell have the spines of jellyfish. Yellow must be their favorite color as they are both cowards! I don't know why Boehner cries all the time, but he certainly gives the nation cause for weeping.

The New York Times article is here.

Rachel Maddow - Time for the right to leave the bubble

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Party of NO knows now: "The best is yet to come"

When President Barack Obama was elected in 2008, Republican leaders in Congress - such as O'Connell and Boehner and Cantor - and elsewhere vowed that their main goal for the next four years was to ensure Obama's defeat in 2012.  They would, they said, do everything in their power to achieve that goal!

To this end, they instructed Republican members of Congress to vote as a bloc in opposition to Mr. Obama's agenda.  They voted "No!" on almost everything.  They obstructed programs suggested and people nominated by Mr. Obama.  Hundreds of judges and other officials, remain waiting in the wings yet to be confirmed.

For four long years, the needs of our country have been held hostage by the petulance of a political party which today seems increasingly irrelevant.  Or, as Brian Williams, put it when speaking about the unspeakable Donald Trump, he and they "have passed the last exit toward relevance."

Even though many members of the media, and I'll mention Chuck Todd as an example, have tried to paint a picture of shared guilt for the gridlock that has stifled any possibility of progress in this nation such a picture is out of focus.  Todd was wrong as were other pundits who said the Democrats were just as recalcitrant to compromise and just as partisan as the Republicans.  That's a false equivalence.  It is not true.

What is amazing is that the President, in spite of fully-funded hatred of his very being, was able to accomplish a huge number of things in his first term as we have reported here previously!  The list goes on and on.  Click here.

We must ask ourselves what kind of people have such a need for power they ignore the needs of the country for political gain?  Many of the Republican leaders claim to be devout, "born-again" Christians.  But their religion is a sham!  How could anyone, elected by the people to represent them in Congress, leave their constituents in the lurch to fend for themselves because of a political vendetta? 

We're speaking of matters of morality, of ethics, of justice, of an understanding of what "commonwealth" means.  These Republican leaders fall short in every category!  Their morality, ethics and sense of justice must be disavowed.  They have failed those who put them in office, their peers in Congress, their president, and their country.


The fallout from the election reflects discontent with Republican rule.  The election shows the Senate retaining a Democratic majority, albeit a slim one.  And we know there are several DINOs (Democrats in Name Only) who would probably be happier in the Republican Party.  They can be useful at times, however, if they can be pressured to vote for the people and not against the people.

Unfortunately, the House of Representatives remains under the control of the extremist Republicans.  It is hard to believe that Michele Bachmann retained her seat.  The people residing in her Minnesota district must have serious unresolved ethical and moral issues, for this woman is a freak of nature and does not belong in any legislative body!


But there's much more to consider.  John Amato, in his article, "America Elects A Liberal Agenda," published today at Crooks and Liars, says this about the election:

"America repudiated conservatism completely after the smoke began to clear. ... [P]resident Obama withstood terrible odds of reelection after the rise of the Tea Party and their rout in the 2010 midterms.  Conservatives were licking their chops in anticipation of 2012 and [...] they left with their tails between their legs.  Most of the right and some in the media said that Obama didn't put out an agenda for reelection, but he did propose a program built on liberal ideology...

"Obama ran on regulations for Wall Street.

"Obama ran on defending Social Security and Medicare.

"Obama ran on immigration reform and the Dream Act.

"Obama ran on raising taxes on the wealthy.

"Obama ran on letting the Bush tax cuts expire.

"Obama ran on income equality for the working class.

"Equal rights for the LGBT community."

[...]

"President Obama won a mandate with this victory and don't let anyone say otherwise. ...


So we begin another cycle.  Two important questions are:  1)  Will the president carry out the liberal agenda, standing strong, even in the face of hostility and opposition?  2)  Will the Republican Party realize that Americans have decisively rejected their partisan politics and their disdain for compromise and change their ways?

Perhaps Mr. Obama has given us a signal, a sign, a light with which to view the direction he will lead the country.  In his acceptance speech, he said "The best is yet to come."

The best is yet to come.  The best is yet to come.  The best is yet to come!

Is it possible that, at long last, our dream for this country - a dream where all people count, where  people come before profits or politics, where war becomes a last resort and not a means of securing oil fields or banana plantations for American corporations, where people are free to love whom they wish, to believe what they wish or to believe nothing at all, where the government is not seen as a problem but as a means of working together to accomplish goals which benefit all the people and not mainly the rich?

The best is yet to come!  YES!

The Silver Spoon

Do you hear the sound of cheering? 

It's all over the world!  People are cheering.  Except for Mittens, Karl Rover, Donald Trumped, the Kochy Brothers, Huckabuckabee, Billy Grahamism, the neocons and others of that neanderthalic tribe.

The good guys won!

The people won!

Women won!

The sick won!

Old people won!

Young people won!

Hispanics won!

Blacks won!

All colors won!

Gays won!

And peace has a chance.

Mittens was born with a silver spoon. The "good life" was handed him on a plate. It's no wonder he took so long to concede. How could he lose? He was supposed to win.

What happened to his god? Where was his god? Joseph Smith had predicted his presidency long ago. And what about the prayers of all those evangelical/fundamentalist Christians he fooled?  God must have gone to sleep early last night!

It's hard, when you're born with a silver spoon, to have it yanked unceremoniously from your mouth.

Maybe Mitt can move to Mexico like grandpa. He could have as many wives as he wants. And more kids. He could run for president of Mexico.

The Party of NO lost.

Adios, Mitt!

Christian Fascism Threatens the U.S.

Fascism is defined thusly:  "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

Notice the word, "typically."  That word opens the door for variations on the theme.  German fascism under Hitler in the 1930s was different from Italian fascism under Mussolini, or Spanish fascism under Franco.

Today, in the United States, we are seeing a broad and well-funded movement toward our own specific type of fascism which agrees with the above definition but adds a component ever more dangerous - religion.

It is fascinating to observe that the Roman Catholic Church has combined with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and Protestant fundamentalists - some being independent, others connected to the Southern Baptist Convention or the Presbyterian Church, USA, or other conservative/fundamentalist denominations, to form a coalition in order to elect a president other than Mr. Obama.  It has less to do with liking Mr. Romney or believing Mr. Romney has the ability to be a good president, than it has to do with the fact Mr. Obama is black and a Democrat and they cannot push him around or force him to change his political stance to suit their desires.

Fifty years ago in the United States, the Protestant majority was appalled at the thought of a Roman Catholic president.  A Mormon presidency would have been utterly impossible by any stretch of the imagination.  Mormons were and are, as described even today by most Southern Baptists and Billy Graham, a cult.  And the word, "cult," is not a positive description.  Mormons were out of any mainstream.  They were weird and believed weird things and their theology could not be called "Christian" by any stretch of the imagination.

Southern Baptists and fundamentalist Protestants fifty years ago had no use for the Roman Church.  If anything they believed the Roman Church to be of Satan and a blot on Christendom and the antithesis of what the Christian church should look like. 

They still believe that!  Not only so, but Roman Catholics and fundamentalist Protestants still believe that Mormonism is a cult of the devil and is not only not Christian, but anti-Christian.  You cannot make me believe that millions of people identifying as Catholic or fundamentalist Protestants have suddenly make a major, earth-shaking reversal in how they view the Mormon organization in just a few months!

The Roman Church has insisted throughout its history that Protestants were doomed to spend eternity in hell.  Their cry was always "No salvation except through the Catholic Church!"  Protestants, especially the fundamentalists, were just as adamant with their beliefs:  Catholics will burn in hell forever and ever for they have paganized the Christian faith with their saints and candles and crazy beliefs such as that the cracker and wine change physically into the body and blood of Christ when the priest says the magic words in the mass.

Both of these groups thought the Latter Day Saints were so far beyond hope that it wasn't worth much discussion.  After all, what sane person could possibly accept the Book of Mormon?  Who could stifle reason to conclude that an uneducated character named Joseph Smith "discovered" some gold tablets on a hillside (which no one else ever saw) and that these tablets were the word of God, telling how some Jews ended up in the area known as the United States and that that's where Jesus would return to earth to establish his kingdom?

Every group thought the other groups believed nonsense and were outside the pale of salvation.


So what happened?  These disparate groups have coalesced for several reasons.  One, they dislike Barack Obama.  A great deal of this dislike is racist in nature.  White fundamentalists in the southern part of the U.S. still have large pockets of people who dislike blacks, who would like to redo the Civil War and enslave blacks once again.  The Mormon church disallowed blacks into the priesthood or full membership in the Mormon organization until relatively recently.  While you might not find such overt racism in the Roman church, you would certainly find it among Catholics in the south. 

There is a distinctive feeling "out there" that a black person should not be president or is, by virtue of his color, unqualified to be president. 

Secondly, there remains a fear of "Communism" in this country, although many, if not most people, could not even define the term.  But "Communism" becomes significant because it is seen as anti-religious, or even anti-Christian, in spite of the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church survived the worst of Communism as it developed in the Soviet Union.  The extreme right in the United States, controlled to a large extent by large corporate entities (Koch Brothers) and church leaders have used this fear of Communism to great effect, portraying President Obama as either a Communist, a Marxist or just a plain dupe who is used by the Marxists to instigate their plan to take over the country.

Thirdly, all three of these religious entities share some common beliefs relative to abortion, birth control, separation of church and state, etc.  The Republican Party has become an extreme right party which has adopted extreme views on all of these issues.  Thus, members of the various religions have common ground on which to stand - the Republican Party - against a president who they have been taught to perceive is anti-religious and anti-democratic. 


Paul Ryan is one of the most vicious liars ever to run as a vice president in either party.  Ryan is a Roman Catholic although his beliefs owe more to Ayn Rand than the Pope!  According to the Huffington Post, Ryan, yesterday evening, "in a town hall-style call, warned social conservatives "that 'Judeo-Christian' values were at risk if President Barack Obama is reelected.

"'This is a huge election,' said Ryan.  'Please know that Mitt Romney and I understand the stakes.  We understand the stakes of where this country is headed.  We understand the stakes of our fundamental freedoms being on the line, like religious freedom -- such as how they're being compromised in Obamacare.'"

Then he said "that Obama's vision was 'a path that grows government, restricts freedom and liberty and compromises those values -- those Judeo-Christian, Western civilization values that made us a great and exceptional nation in the first place.'"

You can see how Ryan is playing to the fears of the hoi polloi.  Barack Obama is a Christian.  He is a believer.  He is a far better Christian than Paul Ryan will ever be!  But that's all beside the point.  This is not a Christian nation and we're not electing a pope!

Everything Ryan said in that speech is a lie!  Everything!  


But what is happening is not so obvious to people who believe the crap that spews from the mouths of Republicans in this election.

Today, November 4, Sarah Palin finally got around to "endorsing" Mitt Romney.  Why did it take her so long?  Well, no one knows how Palin's mind works, or if it works at all.  But we do know that she is an ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalist extremist who was, a few years ago, anointed to become the Christian president who would usher in a new Christian government in which the Bible as interpreted by her confederates in an international Pentecostal coalition would become the basis for our law.

Sarah Palin, as a Christian, must choke on the fact that a Mormon might actually become president. 

But she, as many other extreme right Christianists, has made her peace with that fact because Romney is more likely than Obama to carry out the Christian extremist agenda and perhaps even pave the way for a "true" Christian president in the future.


All of this is brewing and fomenting in our country as we head to the polls.  There is a monumental push to break down the wall of separation between church and state.  Religious groups, Christian or otherwise, are forbidden by law to endorse candidates for public office.  Partisan political activity threatens their tax-exempt status.

Unfortunately, nobody seems to care much anymore.  The IRS, it seems, has given up on enforcing the law!  Again from the Huffington Post:  "...[A]ttorneys who specialize in tax law for religious purposes, as well as advocacy groups who monitor the cases, say they know of no IRS inquiries in the past three years into claims of partisanship by houses of worship..."

Which means that churches now feel they can do whatever they wish without fear.  Even Billy Graham and his Association has taken out full-page ads in newspapers around the country telling people, not who to vote for, but to vote for the one who promises to best keep extremist promises relative to abortion, contraception, church/state separation, etc.  Which means Romney, wink, wink!

Megachurch pastors have often bent this law and now are emboldened to state from the pulpit who their parishioners should vote for.


None of this bodes well for our democracy.  Our democracy has been dramatically weakened in this election cycle by the infusion of dirty money from groups with an extremist agenda hidden from public view.  We know that in our country, state and business leaders have come together and monies from the latter to the former have paved the way for laws to be written which favor, not the people, but the corporations.  The oligarchy has so much power in hand that a dictatorship of the extreme right is not only possible but probable or may have already taken place and remains hidden until its power is concentrated to the extent it cannot be struck down.

The extremist religious groups are joining hands with this budding dictatorship for their own purposes. 

It may all fall apart under the stress of conflicting needs and desires, but there's always the chance (as we have seen) that the various parties will be able to join to rule if they are given enough incentive...thus the dictatorship of the extreme right [purchased with secret/dirty money] will rule (indeed their rule may be validated tomorrow!) and strengthen its power by allowing the extremist religious coalition to achieve their social and religious goals. 

Then, my friends, we will have become officially a Christian fascist country! 

Republican Witness Protection Program

h/t to Bob Poris