It isn't any secret although it would be nice to see the mainstream media point out to the country that Christian Republicans are not only just plain mean, but they do not like democracy and their actions betray their savior on a daily basis.
Democracy first. Democracy is government of the people, by the people, for the people. The assumption here is that it is of, by and for ALL the people, not just the rich, not just the "authorized" citizens, not just white people, not just religious or Christian people - but ALL the people.
Christian Republicans don't want that kind of democracy. It's obvious. That's why in state after state during this election cycle, CRs have attempted to stop legitimate voters from voting by draconian laws demanding ID information that is damn near impossible for many people to obtain. The CRs are trying to justify this by pointing to "massive voter fraud." In truth, and they know this, what voter fraud they've discovered has been miniscule.
Christian Republicans oppose democracy by shutting down or shutting out opponents at political rallies. This has been going on for years, but there have been two recent incidents worth mentioning. One involved a Ryan rally, where a woman protestor was knocked on the floor only to have Ryan laugh as she was carried out.
The other incident occurred in The Villages, an enclave of old folks in central Florida, most of which vote the straight Republican ticket. Every Christian Republican running for political office feels the needs to make a pit stop in The Villages. The people who own and run The Villages with a iron fist, do not like Democrats nor do they like democracy. So, while Ryan visits The Villages today, no counter rally by the Democrats is going to happen. Furthermore, no one wearing an "offensive" shirt will be allowed into the Ryan rally. Freedom of speech is not something Christian Republicans care to defend unless it is their freedom to tell grotesque lies about the Democratic Party or Democratic candidates.
Thus, the clown from Iowa, Steven King, can go on national TV and swear solemnly that the Affordable Care Act means death panels - that the government can decide whether or not to end your life. This continues to be one of the biggest lies Christian Republicans tell, but the hoi polloi believe it so they'll continue using it as long as it is effective!
The Christian Republican animosity toward democracy is also seen in the actions taken by a number of states to propagandize students in public schools with Christian fundamentalism. Thus, in Texas, students learn God created everything that exists in seven days, 6,000 years ago. The same is true in Louisiana, Kentucky, and other states, and where that is not yet happening a concerted effort is ongoing to make it so.
An amusing aside to the above has to do with the State of Kentucky. Students have been denied the truth of evolution in Kentucky in favor of Creationism. Teaching evolution, state leaders believed, would damage the young mind of their public school students. Well, a recent survey of college professors indicated that Kentucky kids come out of their educational system just plain dumb! It seems that if you want to pass biology in college you must have some knowledge of evolution!
Democracy has to do with telling the truth not fabricating religious or other propaganda and foisting that upon the public schools or any other public entity! Christian Republicans don't like democracy.
And they don't much like their Jesus who told his followers not to judge, to take care of the poor and the needy, to render unto Caesar (the government) what was due Caesar. Jesus didn't speak of the importance of war, warplanes, war budgets. Jesus would probably put people before the latest drone. Jesus would no doubt suggest that political operatives have an obligation to ensure their constituents enjoy clean water and clean air and be free from the results of Global Warming. Jesus would definitely not have given a damn whether the rich got another tax break, because he believed that rich people had put themselves beyond the reach of a loving God. Jesus also said the revenge belongs to God, to turn the other cheek, to not do to someone else what you wouldn't want them to do to you, to love your "brother" as yourself ...
So how do Christian Republicans act? How closely do they adhere to the teachings of their savior? They act very unChristian and they adhere almost not at all!
For example, one Christian Republican in the northeast refused to sell her baked goods to people on food stamps. Her "position is that the American taxpayer should not be footing the bill for people's dessert purchases." Can we call that mean and judgmental?
The Arizona governor, a wingnut by name of Jan Brewer, just signed a law "barring undocumented immigrants who qualify for temporary legal status in the United States from receiving any state of local public benefits." They are also barred "from obtaining an Arizona driver's license or a state-issued identification card," which means, of course that they can't vote (and most of them might vote Democratic!). Meanness personified! In the name of what?
Romney, in an interview with Fortune magazine, discussed his budget and it turns out that he'd cut all kinds of programs that serve the people, such as Amtrak, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Medicaid he would "block grant" and "send programs like housing vouchers and food stamps back to the states. That, of course, means that millions of people would immediately suffer as the states are already too strapped to meet their current needs.
Romney is not going to cut anything in the defense budget, though. He says he would cut defense spending by stressing efficiency and cost savings, but the money realized from this would be spent to increase the number of active-duty personnel, replace military equipment, and "invest in the coming technologies of warfare."
I can just see Jesus out in front, leading Romney from the White House to the Pentagon, beating drums for the military and war.
Romney also promises to repeal Obamacare, although he doesn't have that power. But essentially, his budget is such that the rich get richer, the warriors get more stuff to kill people with, and the rest of the country suffers even more than they're suffering now! Nothing in that budget about the nation's needs, about jobs, and our crumbling infrastructure, about strengthening our educational systems, preserving our environment, etc.
The Kansas governor, Sam Brownback, has called for truly draconian cuts in spending in his state. Agency heads have been instructed to cut their budgets by 10 percent! This at the same time as a tax plan goes into effect which "includes dramatic personal income tax cuts and the elimination of most business taxes."
Brownback's plan, supported by a legislature controlled by the Koch brothers, means the people of Kansas are going to be hurting big time, with social services and education taking, perhaps, the biggest blow.
All of this so the budget is reduced and the rich keep their good-gotten or ill-gotten gains.
What follows comes from the latest issue of Sierra magazine:
Consider our Congress and the matter of the environment. In the Arctic, CO2 levels have reached 400 parts per million. "Many climatologists say the level necessary to avoid climate disaster is 350 ppm."
Temperatures in the U.S. from June 2011 to May 2012 were the hottest in history.
"According to the National Research Council, global sea levels are LIKELY TO RISE 20 TO 55 INCHES by 2100."
When it comes to the environment, the "Republican-dominated 112th Congress ... is the most anti-environmental House of Representatives in history, exceeding even the 104th Congress, which under Newt Gingrich launched a 'war on the environment' in the mid-1990s."
Some stats:
247 anti-environmental measures have been passed as of mid-June.
77 votes have been cast to undermine Clean Air Act protections.
37 votes have been cast to block action on climate change.
94% of Republicans have cast anti-environmental votes.
85% of Democrats have cast pro-environmental votes.
Let us pray.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Friday, August 17, 2012
Excerpts from hell or the Texas 2012 State Republican Party Platform
I'm really not picking on Texas. I lived in Texas for years. We had fun in Texas. Texas is filled with fine people. Unfortunately, very few of those fine people are involved in Texas' political life. Texas is ruled by the Christian Republican Party and that has had dire consequences for the state. For example, the Texas education system is rated at the bottom of the barrel and the reason is the Texas State Board of Education is controlled by Christian Republican Party members who have yet to leave the Sixteenth Century.
To help us understand the mentality that drives Texas politics, which is, at the moment, overwhelmingly Christian Republican, we've excerpted material from the 2012 State Republican Party Platform.
1) From the preamble: "The embodiment of the conservative dream in America is Texas," and "We recognize that the traditional family is the strength of our nation. It is our solemn duty to protect life and develop responsible citizens."
Later in the document these words are clarified but as you might guess, they're opposed to gays, gay marriage, abortion, to discussion of climate change or the teaching of evolution in our schools.
2) In the 2nd section, titled, "Principles," these snarky Christian Republicans spell out some basics upon which they stand:
* Strict adherence to the original intent of the Declaration of Independence and U.S. and Texas Constitutions.
* The sanctity of human life, created in the image of God ... should be protected from fertilization to natural death.
* Preserving American and Texas Sovereignty and Freedom.
* Limiting government power ..
* Personal Accountability and Responsibility
* Self-sufficient families, founded on the traditional marriage ...
* Having an educated population ...
* Americans having the right to be safe in their homes, etc. and the unalienable right to defend themselves
* A free enterprise society unencumbered by government interference or subsidies
* Honoring all those that serve and protect our freedoms
* The laws of nature and nature's God as our Founding Fathers believed
Let's see how all this plays out in the detail of the document. I'm going to highlight things that caught my attention. Please understand there is much, much more involved.
Christian Republicans in Texas are opposed to the Census collecting any information other than the number of folks living in a building.
They don't want Sharia Law in Texas.
They don't want the District of Columbia to become a state or to add any more members to Congress.
They are opposed to a constitutional convention to rewrite the US Constitution.
They are against "the efforts of the extreme environmental groups that stymie legitimate business interests. We strongly oppose those efforts that attempt to use the environmental causes to purposefully disrupt and stop those interests within the oil and gas industry."
They don't like the Endangered Species Act and want it repealed immediately! They "believe the Environmental Protection Agency should be abolished."
No affirmative action. That's divisive.
No red light cameras. (I agree with that!)
For these Christian Republicans, property rights and the free market trump just about everything. So, they are strongly opposed to the government setting aside land for conservation purposes. "Conservation easements, involving watersheds, green areas and nationalization of lands should be resisted in the strongest manner possible."
Preachers ought to be able to preach political stuff from the pulpit without being afraid they'll lose their tax-exempt status.
They don't want any policy similar to the "'fairness doctrine' as terminated in 1967."
The Real ID Act should be repealed. (I agree with that!)
They are against ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination). Business owners ought to have the right to discriminate based on their religious views.
Re Judicial Restraint, they want judges to follow the original intent of the law, to interpret and not make the law. Really? Where were they when the Supreme Court stopped a legitimate recount to ordain their incompetent governor as president?
The rest of this document is pretty predictable:
Unions should not be able to make members pay dues which are used for political purposes.
Reduce voter fraud by requiring photo ID, etc., to be able to vote.
They support the Electoral College.
The Voter Rights Act of 1965 and 1973 should be repealed.
States ought to be able to disenfranchise convicted felons.
The McCain-Feingold Act re campaign finance reform should be repealed.
With regard to governmental use of religious symbols - no restrictions, prohibitions or removal of things like the Decalogue.
"In God We Trust" should be left in the Pledge of Allegiance.
American English should be adopted as the official language of Texas and the U.S.
No-fault divorce laws should be rescinded. No gay marriage. Homosexualty is evil and "tears at the fabric of society and contributes to the breakdown of the family unit..."
Women seeking an abortion must sit through an informational lecture on why abortion is bad.
They're against RU-486 and the "Morning After Pill." (Of course, Texas has the greatest incidence of unwed motherhood in the country!)
No public funding for Planned Parenthood.
Hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, etc., should not have to participate in abortions or the dispensing of contraceptives if such actions are against their religious beliefs.
No fetal tissue harvesting and no stem cell research using stem cells; no human cloning.
Welfare recipients should work.
Social Security should be phased out immediately and replaced with a system of private pensions.
The Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional.
Parents should not be required to vaccinate their children.
A multicultural curriculum in public schools is a bad thing because it is divisive.
Corporal punishment in Texas schools, which is legal and effective is affirmed.
Creationism should be taught in public schools.
Repeal all government-sponsored programs that have to do with childhood development.
No teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills because such teaching focuses on "behavior modification and [has] the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.
No non-citizens in our public schools.
Only abstinence sex education in public schools.
Students can pray and "engage in religious speech" in Texas public schools
Schools should emphasize our Judeo-Christian heritage.
Reproductive health care services should not be allowed in public schools.
The U.S. Department of Education should be abolished.'
Everyone has the right to keep and bear arms.
Abandon the TSA.
The U.S. is a Judeo-Christian nation. It is a nation under God.
Separation of church and state is a myth.
Repeal the Hate Crimes Law.
Capital punishment is affirmed.
Repeal the Sixteenth Amendment "with the goal of abolishing the I.R.S. and replacing it with a national sales tax collected by the States."
The so-called "death tax" is immoral.
Abolish the capital gains tax.
Abolish property taxes and shift "the tax burden to a consumption-based tax."
Oppose state income tax.
Oppose the Law of the Sea Treaty.
No government restrictions on drilling and production operations on public and private lands and waters; refineries; electric power generation and distribution; federal gas mileage standards [...] and fuel blends.
Eliminate the Department of Energy.
Support incandescent light bulbs.
Support the Keystone XL Pipeline.
Support "immediate resumption of deep water drilling and production in the Gulf of Mexico."
Support a national right-to-work law in opposition to unions.
The minimum wage should be repealed.
Well, there is more, but this is all so depressing. I would guess that ALEC and the Koch Brothers were instrumental in helping the Christian Republican Party put this platform together. I'd also guess that Christian Republican Party platforms in other states are almost identical, if not word-for-word the same.
Good luck, Texas. You're going to need it!
Ted Cruz, Agenda 21 and the wingnuts of the Christian Republican Party
One person who has heard of Agenda 21 is Ted Cruz. Just when you think Texas couldn't breed any dumbasses dumber than Rick Perry, etc., etc., Ted Cruz walks onto the national political stage. Cruz has won the Christian Republican Party's primary vote to become the Christian Republican Party's candidate for senator from Texas. And because there are a multitude of Christian Republican dumbasses in Texas who are allowed to vote precisely because they are Christian Republican dumbasses, it is almost certain that Ted Cruz will crawl from Texas to Washington come November.
Cruz is a tea pot crackpot who has, according to Salon.com, "received the endorsements of Sen. Jim DeMint, Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck." On Chris Wallace's show, Cruz stressed just how conservative he was by affirming he wanted to do away with government entities such as the Department of Education and the Energy and Commerce Departments. He also wants to delete the TSA and the IRS.
Cruz thinks the flat tax dream should become reality and Chik-fil-A chicken stuff is the crap du jour at his victory party. Not only so but he favors "freedom," and the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution which, as you know, authorizes every moronic and insane goofball to stockpile an arsenal of automatic weapons, and thus it follows that Cruz is a supporter of that great bastion of American principles, the NRA.
Mr. Cruz is a perfect example as to how someone can be smart and yet dumb as a doorknob. I mean the guy "graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law ... He is a partner in a prestigious law firm, and, as Texas solicitor general, he has argued several cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court."
But none of that matters because whatever smarts he has is trumped by ideology driven by religious and political fundamentalism. With tea pot crackpots, ideology trumps all. Truth, science, evidence, common sense all take a back seat to ideology.
It gets worse. Cruz, being a devotee of Glenn Beck, has agreed with Beck that the U.N.'s proposal, Agenda 21, "will force Americans to live in 'hobbit homes' and forcibly relocate residents from rural areas into densely populated urban cores."
Santiago Wills, in the article at Salon [link above] where most of this info came from, noted that Cruz's website makes the case against Agenda 21 in these words:
"Agenda 21 attempts to abolish 'unsustainable' environments, including golf courses, grazing pastures, and paved roads. It hopes to leave mother earth's surface unscratched by mankind. Everyone wants clean water and clean air, but Agenda 21 dehumanizes individuals by removing the very thing that has defined Americans since the beginning--our freedom."
Oh, dear. Agenda 21 does none of those things. Rather, it is a call for nations to gather together and address the critical problems facing our earth. The tea pot crackpots go nuts, of course, whenever someone mentions the world, "global." They seem to be afraid foreigners might make their friends in high places scale back their destruction of the environment in favor of unconscionable profits. That fear may not be misplaced for their friends in high places have created many, if not most, of the problems we face today, whether economic or environmental.
Wingnut politicos like Cruz love proposals like Agenda 21. It gives them something around which to rally their base. They can cry loudly "The end of the world is coming, the end of the world is coming," and their acolytes will fall at their feet and wail "Save us, Mr. Cruz! Save us!"
But, let it be said that Agenda 21 does not command the destruction of golf courses, grazing pastures or paved roads.
And if you don't believe me, check it out here.
And please, Texas, don't send this dumbass to Congress. We've got enough problems the way it is!
One last comment: We can see how far the Christian Republican Party has sunk into the bog of stupidity and inanity when Ted Cruz is scheduled to be a featured speaker at the Republican National Convention next week.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Ryan's Topsy-Turvy Universe
Let's see if we can figure this out. It's going to be difficult, because Republicans never say what they mean or mean what they say until they say they didn't say what they meant and didn't mean what they said. Got that?
Acccording to an article in the Huffington Post, Paul Ryan, the wannabe VP on the Romney bus, told a TV interviewer that he did not seek stimulus funds for his district even as he was complaining that the stimulus was a "wasteful spending spree." He d-i-d N-O-T d-o t-h-a-t!!!
Ok. That's pretty straight-forward: Ryan did not ask for stimulus funds while bitching about the stimulus program.
Oops. It looks like there may be a problem with Mr. Ryan's veracity and that gets us into the "didn't say what he meant and didn't mean what he said" business. The Associated Press has, in hand, letters to the Energy Secretary, in which Mr. Ryan had good things to say about the stimulus while at the same time asking for stimulus funds for his congressional district.
Whoa!
This is called "evidence," Mr. Ryan. I know that's not something you've bothered yourself about lately, being an advocate of Ayn Rand and now the Pope, neither of whom gave/give a rat's ass for evidence as to their convoluted theories, but in the real world evidence stands for something. Truth, for example.
This kind of topsy-turvy universe in which Mr. Ryan lives, is further brought to the fore by a spokesman in his office who said that if the congressman asked for stimulus funds, he was merely "providing a legitimate constituent service." The implication being, of course, that asking for funds is not really asking for funds. And praising the stimulus in private is the same thing as bashing the stimulus in public.
You gotta admit these Christian Republicans are not only fun to watch but a cagey bunch! It's sad to think that lots of folks out there in la-la land will listen to Ryan not mean what he says and not say what he means, nod their heads, and think, "He's a good man. I'm gonna vote for him. And even Romney's better than that black guy in the Oval Office."
May the gods help us!
The Huff Post article is here.
Ryan's Budget and the Christian Republican Party
Paul Ryan no longer wants to be held to his previous enthrallment with devout atheist and capitalist extraordinaire, Ayn Rand. He has disavowed Ms. Rand and her writings and her atheism. That's too bad, because he made such a good devotee of greed and self-centered cynicism.
Ryan has reclaimed his Catholic upbringing. Atheism is bad. People can't be good without the Christian god. Countries where people don't believe in the Christian god are liable to be torn asunder by evil and bad guys. Ryan wants to help make America a Christian nation again.
A recent segment on America Live on FAUX News compared Ryan to Reagan. That's how great FAUX News thinks Ryan is - he's great like Reagan. They can get by with such nonsense because most Republicans today either know nothing of Reagan or have forgotten what a bozo he really was, and how Reagan not only increased taxes during his somnolent reign but also grew mightily the size of the federal goverment!
On this segment Ryan said, "My dad died when I was young. He was a good and decent man. [Ryan didn't mention that his dad grew wealthy on the government's dime via special treatment and loans for his business!] There are a few things he would say that have just always stuck with me. He'd say, son, you're either part of the problem or part of the solution. [Whoa, shades of Reagan, right there!] Well, regrettably, President Obama has become part of the problem and Mitt Romney is the solution."
Oh, stop laughing. That's what he said. Yes, it is!
But Ryan had more to say along Reaganesque lines. Reagan liked to talk about the Christian god and suggested that said god was necessary for democracy and without that god good ol' America was a goner!
Ryan jumped right on top of that bandwagon, and you can see how far he's come after dumping Ayn Rand: "America is more than just a place, though. America is an idea. It's the only country founded on an idea. Our rights came from nature and God, not from government."
There's so much wrong with that statement that it would take a week to put it down on paper. What's the "idea" Ryan refers to? Our rights came from nature? Mother Nature? And they came from God? What god? Where is it written? Does our Constitution say anything about our rights coming from the Christian god?
No! The Constitution says "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Sounds like our rights come from the government which we, the people, created and which we have ordained "to form a more perfect union."
Not only so, but Mr. Ryan seems to have missed the part in the Constitution about how no religious test may ever be used for any political office in our land. They are both trying hard to pass the de facto religious test proscribed the religious right wing-nuts in this country! Ryan and Romney sound like they are running for Pastor in Chief what with all their religious allusions and illusions and delusions.
The above is prefatory to what follows. Romney is a Mormon and I don't know one single Christian denomination that would assent to the statement that Mormonism is "Christian." So, we're going to leave the non-Christian Romney out of the rest of this.
Ryan, as mentioned, has reclaimed his Catholic "status," and rejected Rand's atheism. Catholicism, is by most accounts, a Christian cult. Therefore, it would seem that someone like Ryan would try to put together a budget that reflected the values of Christianity: concern for the needy and the poor, concern for people's health, a rejection of the rich and their pretentious piety. One would think that Ryan would be hard-pressed to ignore the story Jesus told where he describes the questions God's going to ask at the Judgment. God's going to ask people why they didn't follow his commands and why didn't they show their love and concern for God while on earth. And they'll claim they did and point to their fine religious behavior and belief system. They will ask "When did we see you, Lord, and not tend to your needs?"
And God's accusing finger will knock all their rationalizations and justifications out of the water. I was sick and you did not visit me; I was in prison and you ignored me; I was hungry and you did not feed me.
Now Mr. Ryan, being a good, upstanding Catholic (at least for the past few weeks), should know all of this and his budget should reflect concern for the poorest and neediest in our society. Mr. Ryan, being a very wealthy man, should know that his wealth alone is probably going to bar him from entering the heavenly realm when he croaks. He should be very, very concerned - deeply concerned - that his actions represent his deepest beliefs. Because right now, just by being rich, he doesn't stand a chance in hell of getting into heaven. I didn't say that, Jesus did.
The Christian Republican Party, with the exception of Romney and other Mormons and a scattering of less-than-faithful believers, should also be concerned that their budget reflects Jesus' teachings. I mean, really, they proudly proclaim their godliness every chance they get! Let's see that godliness in action!
Unfortunately, godliness doesn't happen. Unfortunately, the Ryan budget, which 98 percent of all Republicans in Congress voted for, is ungodly and makes life more difficult for the elderly, the poor, the needy, and the sick, not to mention those in prison!
"[...] in April 2011, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office forecast that Ryan's scheme to convert today's guaranteed Medicare insurance program into an underfunded voucher system would dramatically shift the health care costs onto America's seniors."
There's more to all of this, of course. Rich Republican Christians reject their Jesus during the week but pander at his altars on Sundays. One of the greatest rejections of their savior is their budget plan, known as Ryan's budget: it is a disaster in the making for the elderly, the poor, the sick and most of the rest of the 99 percent!
And you can read exactly how it works out at Crooks and Liars here.
Pawlenty, when faced with truth, suggests Soledad doesn't understand English
What this video shows is that Romney/Ryan are despicable liars! The ad in its entirety is false! Everything in the ad is false. Obama did not cut the money from Medicare; instead it's a reduction in spending over 10 years. And none of this has to do with the health care act.
Furthermore, the ad lies about the Ryan budget: Medicare goes bye-bye to be replaced by a voucher system that will cost seniors $6,400-6,500 more than their Medicare plan, and they will receive less benefits!
The dishonesty on the part of the Christian Republican Party is palpable. Welcome to "1984," when you remember, traditional meanings of words were turned on their heads. Lies, according to Republicans, now means truth, and vice-versa.
It's a new world these Republicans want to build. But, I can guarantee you're not going to like it!
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Art Woodstone's "sketchy" tutorial on lying politicians
The photo of Karl Rove is used because he is probably the Republican most adept at lying for political advantage.
A Sketchy Tutorial on the Subject of Lying Politicians
Not thirty minutes ago, I heard Bob McDonnell, Virginia's Republican governor, tell a whopper on MSNBC.
When queried about Paul Ryan's plan to privatize Medicare, McDonnell snickered [yes, he did] and wondered aloud how any Democrat could possibly object when Democratic Senator Ron Wyden co-sponsored Ryan's proposed legislative changes [in case you've forgotten, Ryan wants "vouchers" and privatization to replace current Medicare; the Ryan plan would boost the cost to seniors about $6,400 a year].
It's a talking-point fabrication McDonnell borrowed from Romney. It was a lie when "Slytherin" said it originally and nothing made it truer simply because McDonnell smiled as he repeated it. And you can expect the lie to be repeated thousands of times between now and November by an army of new Republicans.
Wyden went ballistic:
"Governor Romney is talking nonsense. Bipartisanship requires that you not make up the facts. I did not 'co-lead a piece of legislation.' I wrote a policy paper on options for Medicare. Several months after the paper came out I spoke and voted against the Medicare provisions in the Ryan budget. Governor Romney needs to learn you don't protect seniors by making things up, and his comments sure won't help promote real bipartisanship."
The problem for Wyden is how many times can he go ballistic before he exhausts himself.
That politicians lie ain't nothin' new; they do it all the time. Even Democrats lie. Remember when LBJ fabricated a North Vietnamese attack on an American vessel in the Gulf of Tonkin so he would have an excuse to widen the war?
Mostly though, you can distinguish lying Democrats from lying Republicans because Democrats tend most often to do their lying in the confines of protected space.
I remember Bella Abzug [the Manhattan Congresswoman and one of my clients] tell me how much she loved and respected a female Democrat from upstate New York. Less than a week later her upstate colleague stole away one of her aides [me], and [possibly] forgetting what she had said to me originally, described her one-time buddy and now rival, thusly: 'That lying, no good bitch, I wouldn't trust her as far as you can throw me.'
And Bella was a big woman.
Frankly, I don't know which was the greater lie, the first or the second of her remarks. It doesn't matter. What does matter in this spotty retelling of the history of disinformation is that Abzug told her lies in private.
On the other hand [sad to say, there's always another hand in political reporting], the Republicans make the most outrageously dishonest claims in public. And here may be the key: unethical savages that they have become, they seem to know instinctively that the media will print and air any stuff and nonsense, and should there ever be a correction it will happen long after the lie has gripped the public mind.
Nixon lied all the time. What's that old gag--you know the guy's lying whenever he opens his mouth to speak?
I remember several whoppers, but the one I like to relate happened three days after his father's death in 1959. Nixon was campaigning in upper New York State. He first spoke the following words in Buffalo: 'My father used to say Buffalo was the most beautiful city in America. My father loved Buffalo.'
In subsequent visits the same day to Rochester and other cities in New York, the only word that changed in his set campaign speech was the name of the town he was in at that moment.
Nixon's father had never been east of the Mississippi, a fact easily checked if reporters cared enough to check. I later confirmed that the old man had never even been east of the Rockies.
The media published virtually all of the lies Nixon told throughout his career [yet most of them were transparent and easily disproved]. Nixon was, in my opinion, the first great Republican liear; he had a five of six year head start on Joe McCarthy.
There was a time, actually, when I could tell myself that Republicans like Ike, Prescott Bush from Connecticut and even Goldwater were men of honesty and honor. And I was right, but that was the old Republican Party.
Taking a page from Nixon and McCarthy, the new Republican Party emerged sometime in the mid-sixties after Goldwater's weask campaign pretty much destroyed the virility of the old GOP. The lies became conscienceless and public.
It was as if the Party's hacks had perfected a method for gaming the system, which relied on the short memories of the voting public and the easy complicity of the media.
So, keep this in mind: the second you see Romney open his mouth you can be sure he's lying. Don't blame him entirely; being a man of limited originality without the charm or oratorical gifts of a natural politician, he's merely following a fifty-year-old pattern of Republican deceit.
P.S. I did have one Democratic client who was congenitally incapable of lying, even in private. He lost the race to become Chief Judge of his state by an astonishing quarter of a million votes to an ambulance chaser who had endless cash of his own to spend on advertising and the unlimited capacity to boast of things he had never accomplished.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Romney and Ryan - Self-made men?
One of the mantras of the Christian Republican Party these days is that everyone can become rich and successful if they put their nose to the grindstone, pull themselves up by their bootstraps, or grab on to mommy's apron strings (as in the case of Paul Ryan).
Being poor, according to this mantra, is to be lazy, and God knows God doesn't reward lazy with the stuff of the American dream.
The mantra also stresses that one is responsible mainly to and for oneself. Successful people like Romney and Ryan (both of whom came from well-to-do families) want all of us who wannabe like them to know that they accomplished their great deeds all by their little selves! They didn't need no guv'mint to help 'em.
Or maybe they're blowing smoke up our behinds? You think? Would good politicos from the Christian Republican Party do such a thing?
We know that Romney's been on the government payroll as governor of Massachusetts, a state left in a state of disrepair after Romney's reign. We also know (but not to what extent, because he's not gonna let us see his tax returns) that Romney has taken advantage of every possible tax loophole to avoid paying his fair share. Some say he's not paid any income tax for ten years. He says the people who say that are liars. He says that Harry Reid should "put up or shut up." Harry Reid, says Mittens, should "prove" that Romney hasn't paid any taxes in the last ten years.
And isn't it fascinating how the Christian Republican politicos can turn just about anything on its head without blinking an eye. It isn't Reid who has to prove anything, it's Romney! But Mittens isn't going to release his tax returns because if he does, his chance to take up residence in the White House is blown out of the water, and then, who knows, maybe Mr. Ryan will indeed be "the next president of the United States" as Mittens said so famously in his speech introducing Mr. Ryan to the world.
We also know that Mr. Ryan has sucked at the government's teat ever since he was a wee lad of 24. And from what I've heard, he wouldn't need to take a dime of the government's money because his wife is worth millions. But, for some reason, wealthy people tend to think the government owes them a living as does Mr. Ryan. This same government that Ryan rails against has succored him for the last 18 years, providing him with a good wage, health care, retirement benefits to die for, and the applause of about five folks in Wisconsin.
But both Mittens and Ryan claim proudly to be self-made men. They climbed to the top of the heap all by themselves! They didn't need no welfare, food stamps, medicare!
Hah!
Sam Harris has recently published a small tome called "Free Will," in which he argues that what we usually think of as free will is an illusion. And, says Mr. Harris, that has "political implications." Toward the end of the book, in the chapter titled "Politics," Mr. Harris writes this:
"For better or worse, dispelling the illusion of free will has political implications--because liberals and conservatives are not equally in thrall to it. Liberals tend to understand that a person can be lucky or unlucky in all matters relevant to his success. Conservatives, however, often make a religious fetish of individualism. Many seem to have absolutely no awareness of how fortunate one must be to succeed at anything in life, no matter how hard one works. One must be lucky to be able to work. One must be lucky to be intelligent, physically healthy, and not bankrupted in middle age by the illness of a spouse.
"Consider the biography of any 'self-made' man, and you will find that his success was entirely dependent on background conditions that he did not make and of which he was merely the beneficiary. There is not a person on earth who chose his genome, or the country of his birth, or the political and economic conditions that prevailed at moments crucial to his progress. And yet, living in America, one gets the distinct sense that if certain conservatives were asked why they weren't born with club feet or orphaned before the age of five, they would not hesitate to take credit for these accomplishments."
It should be obvious that neither Mr. Romney nor Mr. Ryan are "self-made" men by any stretch of the imagination. They have been and are, however, damn lucky!
Note: The Republican Party as we have known it historically no longer exists. Because of internal changes within the Party, I have found that it is much more correct to now call it the Christian Republican Party.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Monday, July 23, 2012
Ronald Reagan is not George Washington
If you, like me, are sick of Republicans pandering to their mythological version of the B-grade movie actor turned sleepy president, you'll love this video!
Jason Alexander on Gun Control
Best known, perhaps, for his portrayal of George on "Seinfeld," Jason Alexander has put together a long, well-reasoned essay with regard to a ban on the so-called "assault weapons" which are currently perfectly legal to own in this country.
On Twitter, he wrote:
I'd like to preface this long tweet by saying that my passion comes from my deepest sympathy and shared sorrow with yesterday's victims and with the utmost respect for the people and the police/fire/medical/political forces of Aurora and all who seek to comfort and aid these victims.
This morning, I made a comment about how I do not understand people who support public ownership of assault style weapons like the AR-15 used in the Colorado massacre, http://en.wikipedia.ord/wiki/AR-15.
That comment, has of course, inspired a lot of feedback. There have been many tweets of agreement and sympathy but many, many more that have been challenging at the least, hostile and vitriolic at the worst.
Clearly, the angry, threatened and threatening, hostile comments are coming from gun owners and gun advocates. Despite these massacres recurring and despite the 100,000 Americans that die every year due to domestic gun violence - these people see no value to even considering some kind of control as to what kinds of weapons are put in civilian hands.
Many of them cite patriotism as their reason - true patriots support the Constitution adamantly and wholly. [The] (sic) Constitution says citizens have the right to bear arms in order to maintain organized militias. I'm no constitutional scholar so here it is from the document itself:
As passed by the Congress:
'A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.'
As ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State:
'A well regular militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'
So the patriots are correct, gun ownership is in the Constitution - if you're a well-regulated militia... [Emphasis is mine.]
...
Please read the rest of Mr. Alexander's essay here at Salon.com.
Friday, July 20, 2012
The greatest country in the world
The beginning of the new HBO show, "Newsroom."
h/t to my good friend, Art.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Boehner baby
This is from Crooks & Liars:
After John Boehner cried yet again, this time for a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony to honor the 19th century Italian artist Constantino Brumidi (I have no idea who he is, and probably Boehner didn't either) who came to the United States to seek fame and fortune, Jimmy Kimmel decides to poke more fun at Mr Waterworks.
After John Boehner cried yet again, this time for a Congressional Gold Medal ceremony to honor the 19th century Italian artist Constantino Brumidi (I have no idea who he is, and probably Boehner didn't either) who came to the United States to seek fame and fortune, Jimmy Kimmel decides to poke more fun at Mr Waterworks.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Nora Ephron - RIP
Nora Ephron died on June 26 at age 71. She brought so much drama and light and humor into our lives through her movies. She had the "touch," and knew how to push our buttons. She died too young.
One of her most famous scenes follows: the faux orgasm scene from "When Harry Met Sally." In a crowded diner, Meg Ryan as "Sally" lets Billy Crystal's "Harry" know loud and clear he really doesn't know as much about women as he thought he does.
An excellent article in tribute to Ms. Ephron is here.
One of her most famous scenes follows: the faux orgasm scene from "When Harry Met Sally." In a crowded diner, Meg Ryan as "Sally" lets Billy Crystal's "Harry" know loud and clear he really doesn't know as much about women as he thought he does.
An excellent article in tribute to Ms. Ephron is here.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Friday, June 29, 2012
The hypocrisy of Mitt Romney & Jim DeMint on health-care reform
The following is from an article by Andrew Romano writing at The Daily Beast.
Back in 2004, 2005, and 2006 a very intelligent, very meticulous man spent a lot of time studying health-care reform. Eventually, he concluded that universal private coverage would only be possible if people were required to pay a fee when they refused to buy insurance. “It’s a kind of mandate,” he explained. “Help everybody get in the pool. That brings down the cost, and at the same time [it] makes sure that people don’t have to worry about losing their coverage... We want everybody in the system. No more free riders.” His name was Mitt Romney. A year or two later, one of Romney’s fellow Republicans praised his Massachusetts reforms, saying “well, that’s something that I think we should do for the whole country.” His name was Jim DeMint.
Back in 2004, 2005, and 2006 a very intelligent, very meticulous man spent a lot of time studying health-care reform. Eventually, he concluded that universal private coverage would only be possible if people were required to pay a fee when they refused to buy insurance. “It’s a kind of mandate,” he explained. “Help everybody get in the pool. That brings down the cost, and at the same time [it] makes sure that people don’t have to worry about losing their coverage... We want everybody in the system. No more free riders.” His name was Mitt Romney. A year or two later, one of Romney’s fellow Republicans praised his Massachusetts reforms, saying “well, that’s something that I think we should do for the whole country.” His name was Jim DeMint.
Fast & Furious another name for Republican chicanery!
Mother Jones says:
The "Fast and Furious" imbroglio may have just gone sideways on House Republicans. Just prior to them leading a House vote for contempt against Attorney General Eric Holder on Thursday, a far-reaching investigation published by Fortune magazine poked major holes in the conservative storyline about the alleged gun operation. Claims that law enforcement engaged in a deadly plot to let Mexican outlaws smuggle US guns, the magazine reports, are based on allegations by a lone whistleblower who may in fact be the only person who did any illegal gun-smuggling. The real cause of violence and crime south of the border, it reports, is lax gun laws in Arizona and elsewhere pushed by Republicans and their friends at the National Rifle Association.
Read the rest of this enlightening article from Mother Jones here.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Monday, June 25, 2012
Giving millionaires one more tax break...the Ryan Plan
The following is from Crooks & Liars "Video Cafe" -
A conservative radio host says that the Catholic nuns who have embarked on a nine-state bus tour to protest the injustice of Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) proposed budget deserve to be beaten with a handgun because they "threw the first punch."
"There's a bus full of nuns headed towards Washington to lobby against the Ryan plan" radio host Jan Mickelson told Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA) last week. "Do you guys, do you have any power to pull the nuns on the bus over and pistol whip them>"
[Note the lack of civility, decency, common sense, or understanding of the freedoms guaranteed to the people by the U.S. Constitution. This seems to be representative of GOPers and their sharks in the media waters these days!]
C & L notes: "The non-partisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities found that nearly two-thirds of the cuts proposed in Ryan's budget would be to programs serving low-income Americans, while ... [his] tax cuts would largely benefit millionaires. People making more than $1 million a year would see a 12.5 percent increase in after-tax income but those making less than $20,000 would see ... [a] decrease of 0.2 percent or less."
A conservative radio host says that the Catholic nuns who have embarked on a nine-state bus tour to protest the injustice of Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) proposed budget deserve to be beaten with a handgun because they "threw the first punch."
"There's a bus full of nuns headed towards Washington to lobby against the Ryan plan" radio host Jan Mickelson told Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA) last week. "Do you guys, do you have any power to pull the nuns on the bus over and pistol whip them>"
[Note the lack of civility, decency, common sense, or understanding of the freedoms guaranteed to the people by the U.S. Constitution. This seems to be representative of GOPers and their sharks in the media waters these days!]
C & L notes: "The non-partisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities found that nearly two-thirds of the cuts proposed in Ryan's budget would be to programs serving low-income Americans, while ... [his] tax cuts would largely benefit millionaires. People making more than $1 million a year would see a 12.5 percent increase in after-tax income but those making less than $20,000 would see ... [a] decrease of 0.2 percent or less."
The Corporate Oligarchy rules. Heil to the Corporate Oligarchy!
The Corporate Oligarchy rules in these 50 states and thanks is largely due to the United States Supremes who made a decision not so long ago called "Citizens United" which basically gave away the political power in this country to those who have all the money...the corporate oligarchs!
Today, the Supremes went further:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday struck down Montana's century-old limits on corporate political spending, putting an end to the state's resistance to Citizens United and effectively expanding that controversial ruling to the state and local elections."
The State of Montana had a law in place to counter unlimited corporate spending on elections in that state. No more.
A dictatorship may arise from several different sources and for different reasons. A dictatorship run by oligarchs is just as bad as a dictatorship run by any other person or group. Money and power is what it's all about and money and power are the twin goals, fueled by greed, of the corporate oligarchs.
Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent in this 2012 election by ultra-rich, right-wing persons who, in cahoots with the corporate oligarchs, are committed to do whatever is necessary to bring President Obama down. The GOP nominee-to-be, Willard Romney, is or soon will be, meeting secretly with a number of the richest people/corporate representatives in the country to devise further strategies to elect persons who will destroy Obama and fulfill their dreams of total control.
This cabal of nogoodniks have very successfully convinced millions of Americans that the president is working against their best interests when, in reality, the reverse is true. Although it is hard to believe, a majority of Republican voters, still insist that Obama is a Muslim. Much of the credit for that must be laid at the feet of FAUX News and other sources funded by the Corporate Oligarchs.
Last evening our local NBC outlet aired an interview with Marco Rubio, the Republican nogoodnik from Miami (who once infamously claimed he and his family were part of those "poor" Cubans who snuck out of Cuba by the skin of their teeth, when in fact he came from a very well-to-do clan that had no problem bringing their wealth into the United States and who also seems to be a prime candidate for Mr. Romney's second-in-command) in which Rubio told lie after lie about President Obama with complete impunity! NBC, you see, is one of the Corporate Oligarchies!
Read the entire sad story as to how the majority of the U.S. Supremes (at least the ones appointed by G.W. Bush and his father) have sold out and are now controlled by the Corporate Oligarchy in this country and around the world. I say, "around the world," for we are not an isolated country in any sense of the word; we are tied tightly to most, if not all, of the countries, and the Corporate Oligarchs' reach extends through their business and financial holdings into the world of every Tom, Dick, and Mary in the United States and everywhere. U.S. Corporate Oligarchs are wedded to the Corporate Oligarchs in every other country!
What the Supremes have done is open a floodgate of secret funding of elections in the United States. U.S. Corporate Oligarchs are now able to buy any election they so desire. Corporate Oligarchs from, say Saudi Arabia, or perhaps Iran, are now able, through secret financial donations, to influence and perhaps control our voting booths.
The end result of this chicanery, set in motion by a majority of the U.S. Supremes, is yet to be discovered. You can, however, bet your last dollar (and it may well be your last dollar unless you're one of the 2% in this country) that you're not going to like it.
This may sound melodramatic - as did resistance to Hitler in the 1920s and early 1930s - but the American democratic experience is over. Our country is no longer "of the people, by the people, for the people," or however you want to express the fact that our Constitution invests the power of self-government in the nation's citizenry. Our country has been fundamentally changed from government by the people to government by the Corporate Oligarchy. As we write these words, representatives of the Corporate Oligarchy are writing laws for members of Congress to pass which provide them with the benefits they most desire. As we write these words, representatives of the Corporate Oligarchy are spending millions upon millions of secretly-donated dollars to promote the destruction of President Obama and more importantly, the country that we know and love.d
Lest you think the American corporate Oligarchy would never stoop so low, remember that during our war with the Nazis, known as World War II, the Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and IBM were among the American companies that provided technology, machines, and support for the Nazi war effort! The Holocaust as we know it would not have been possible without the assistance of International Business Machines! Remember that the head of the General Motors corporation devised several secret efforts to bring down the president of the United States during those war years!
The decision of the Supremes to strike down the Montana law is the latest example of how the Corporate Oligarchy rules.
Heil to the Corporate Oligarchy!
[Read all about the Montana decision here.]
Saturday, June 16, 2012
The Speech Obama Must Deliver...
"The speech Obama will never deliver, but unless he does, the way it looks today, he'll lose, in which event, we all lose."
And now, what Obama needs to say:
You out there: The Republicans have a plan: Get rid of the opposition once and forever, and that includes me. Their other plan--that especially brilliant second plan--calls for austerity: cut back sharply on government expenditures and give still more of a tax break to the one-per centers who, magically, will voluntarily share the money they save with the rest of us in order to create jobs and 'stimulate the economy.'
We're still waiting, waiting for over thirty years for the big moment. To use the phrase the Republicans now shy from using in their speeches because it's so embarrassing--waiting for this largesse to 'trickle down.'
Why are we waiting? Because it's a myth the Republican Party embraced in 1980 so they could elect a Republican to the White House. Within four [check that] months, the man who brought trickle down [also known as supply-side economics] to Ronald Reagan's attention publicly confessed it was a political gimmick--and that's all it every was. There was no reason to believe it would ever work.
So I ask you to think about this--think very hard about this--why do Romney and the Republican brain trust still insist that 'supply-side' is the magic cure-all for our profound and dangerous economic and employment ills?
The answer: there must be a few Republican politicians and some Democrats who honestly believe this is the solution, but to them, it can be no more than an article of faith rather than fact. It does sound so good.
That's the only complicated part of the explanation. The other part is very clear and simple: there are politicians, most of them, who know it's a cynical, useless plan but, as cynics, they also know you were raised almost from infancy to believe them because you and they belong to the same political party.
That's no way to vote and that is definitely no way to run a government, not in this country. Some Republicans in Congress have made it as clear as can be: their first objective is not to cure anything but instead to wipe out the Democratic Party 'forever.' That includes the likes of me; if you believe them, I wasn't even born in America.
It's one thing to believe in God, to believe in our church or temple or synagogue, it's quite another and quite frightening to blindly place your faith in a political party, any political party, convert from a party into a religion just because it has been your party and perhaps your father's party most or all of your life: Republicans are always in the right; Democrats always in the wrong. You can justifiably reverse that formula if you want, although the Democrats I know are a bit more forgiving...[smile] some of them, some of the time.
The saddest and most undemocratic part of all this is that today's Republican candidate for president and today's Congressional Republicans are determined to take absolute control of both houses of Congress as well as the White House. They want all the marbles, power for the sake of power.
They, the Republican candidate and his Congressional colleagues [many of whom dislike him but loathe me] insist that in the three and a half years I've occupied the Oval Office I have failed to improve the economy. That's a big wow, a whopper that so many of those who can reliably be counted on to vote Republican blindly accept as the one and only truth worth discussing.
Okay, let's discuss it. This shouldn't take long. A President, no President can turn things around all by himself. No one man, no one President, especially in these complex and critical times can turn government around. Not without the support of Congress. And that's as it should be...but isn't.
This is no longer one nation indivisible. Sadly, it's them against us; it's all-out war.
I haven't had the support of Congress--thanks to the intractable Republican members of the House and Senate who, for the most obvious and ill-tempered reasons of all, reject even items on the agenda that they once supported...merely because I now support them. I can anticipate the sneers and the accusations of me whining when they know full well how they have deliberately and maliciously stopped cold any progress toward solution of our enormous social and economic problems.
In the Senate, the opposition no longer has to exhaust itself filibustering. Under present rules, all Republicans have to do is threaten to filibuster--and legislation dies before it is born. Congress comes to a screeching half. That's been true throughout my presidency.
As to the House of Representatives, now controlled by the Republicans, they don't have to threaten. They are in charge and they don't want the opposition to have any say in governing...so long as they can help it. And it seem they aim to help it forever.
Reelect a Republican majority to the House but should they be displeased enough to see me re-elected as president, the likelihood is the nation will be treated to a lot more of nothing of items of life that over the last fifty years or so have proved vital, even precious.
Actually, if Mr. Romney replaces me, you can count on their voting at last...to diminish or destroy Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare and a fair wage. And, God help this nation, the Republicans, controlled by the right-wing of the party, will get their way unless you help stop them.
They've been lying all along about how 'unAmerican, how socialist, how communist' Social Security, Medicare, fair wage and now unions are.
Because of your blind faith in one party, you will probably go along with these wild claims...until it's too late to realize how seriously you've damaged your own futures.
Let's look at this a slightly different way: let's say you elect Mr. Romney and put a Republican majority in both Houses. It is safe to assume that they will enforce heavy government cutbacks; that means heavy government layoffs. Hundreds and thousands of layoffs. Do you think, as they claim, that will lessen our debt?
You'd be wrong: thousands, tens and hundreds of thousands of newly discharged government employees will be entitled to unemployment insurance, money that comes directly out of government coffers--directly out of your pockets--and when that runs out? One of two conditions will prevail. The worse? These unfortunate government employees, fired too early to qualify for adequate retirement benefits, will end up receiving welfare that they too would rather avoid as they would the plague. But, as a practical and humane matter, you've got to feed and house your family somehow.
Others laid off might have been prudent enough to have put something aside to assure minimun survival. But--BUT--they will no longer have the kind of expendable income needed to feed the economy. Net result, less economic recovery rather than more.
As for me, I have been wrong, at times terribly wrong, trying to accommodate a stubborn and unified band of men and women from the other party in my naive belief that they have the public interest foremost in mind when they act. My nature and upbringing made it impossible for me to believe they were not acting in good faith--not until now--not until now when it has become impossible to ignore that my opposition is far more enthusiastic in pursuing absolute power that in pursuing the health and well-being of the American people. I've had three and a half years to gather the evidence and it has finally sunk in.
I've been a wimp and maybe weaker than I should have been but, from now until Election Day, I shall make it my business to tell the naked truth about them, making it as clear as humanly possible that in opposing this White House's practical proposals in favor of lies, distortions and empty promises they are doing great harm to America and to democracy itself.
I beg you to put aside blind faith in one political party or the other in favor of using the common sense God did mean for you to use.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Texas new speed law
But let's start with Texas. A 2011 law, passed by the Texas legislature, allows for a speed limit of 85 mph on some highways. It appears that will be the limit chosen for a new toll road currently under construction.
This is about as stupid as stupid gets. When 3,000 of our citizens were killed by religious nutcases in Manhattan highrises in 2001, the nation went into deep mourning - which has yet to abate completely. But we kill over 30,000 of our citizens EVERY YEAR on our nation's highways and nobody gives a damn!
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, "Speeding is a factor in about one-third of all fatal crashes, killing 900 Americans every month in 2009."
In this country, people drive too damn fast! In the 1950s, Phillip Wylie, in his book, "Generation of Vipers," came down very hard on speeding drivers. A car is a missile, he said, and we have all kinds of morons, idiots, incompetents, bumblers, and haters pointing these missiles down the road creating piles of carnage. Today, speeding in the United States murders, on our highways, 10 times those killed by the religious nutcases who flew into the Twin Towers!
And murder it is! If you are exceeding the posted speed limit, or if you are driving too fast for local conditions, no matter what the speed limit, you are a criminal. You are disobeying the laws of the land! If we had enough highway patrol personnel, you'd be arrested. And if you run into another car and people in that car are killed, you are a murderer.
But speeding is "fashionable." Speeding is just what most people do. Try driving the speed limit on I-75 or any other Interstate Highway! The majority of drivers will drive by you so fast, you can't even make out the make of their cars! That's hyperbole, but you get the point!
And I'll bet a lot of these folks are good, religious folk who think the laws of the land should be obeyed. In fact, on a lot of these speeding cars, I see bumper stickers about "keeping Christ in Christmas," or I see the ubiquitous fish symbol which is an acronym identifying the occupants of the car as followers of Jesus. I'll bet many of these speeders are fine, upstanding Repugnicans who worry themselves sick over the nation's deficit or the non-existent voter fraud they're always blubbering about! Bah, humbug! Their religion is a sham, and their posing as concerned citizens is a cover for their own hypocrisy!
Speeding cannot be taken lightly. Speeding is not a joke. It is a serious and flagrant violation of not only the law but of common sense. Why would anyone with a sane mind direct a 4,000 pound missile down a road at 80-90-100 miles per hour. The slightest mistake, the slightest pull on the wheel, the slightest bump in the road can easily cause the driver to lose control and cause a catastrophe (NOT an accident!) in which people are killed.
If you crash because you are speeding, that is not an accident. If people are killed in that crash, you are a murderer!
But the great State of Texas, which has already dumbed down its educational system so that it's the laughingstock of the nation, is now about to allow people to drive even faster on their highways which means only one thing for sure: more people will die; more people will be murdered by speeders on Texas highways.
I'd suggest, if you must drive on Texas highways, you be very, very careful. Don't end up a mess on the highways of Texas!
Thursday, May 31, 2012
The Ed Show and the End of the MIddle Class
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
The Colbert Report - The Donald, the Birther
The Colbert Report
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Saturday, May 26, 2012
Early Christian Socialists
Christian fundamentalists declare their faith that their Bible is the holy, inspired word of God and that it is inerrant in every respect.
By and large, Christian fundamentalists in this country do not represent either the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels nor the Jesus of the Gospel of John (there is a large dichotomy between the between the Synoptic Jesus and John's Jesus.) Christian fundamentalists in this country are basically ultra-rightwing members of the Republican Party.
As such, one of the economic philosophies they hate the most is "socialism." Why this is so is an enigma, for the Jesus of either the Synoptics or John would have soundly denounced the Republican vision of the "good life" as it is presented today. For example, Jesus castigated rich people. In fact, he said explicitly that rich people don't have a chance in hell of getting into heaven! Jesus did not care about politics. He said to give to Ceasar what was due Ceasar (in other words, pay your damn taxes and stop complaining!) and get about the tasks he gave his followers - heal the sick, help the poor, visit those in prison, make sure that the children are cared for (universal healthcare, perhaps?), and tell everyone that there is a father-like God who loves them.
Interestingly enough, some early followers of this Jesus figure, tried to do those things. The New Testament book, the "Acts of the Apostles," is purported to have been written by the same person who wrote the Gospel of Luke. Probably not. Acts has all the characteristics of a book written more near the middle of the 2nd century, C.E. One sign is the fact there are many disagreements between Acts and the letters of Paul, the latter being written some 100 years earlier and to particular communities in the Mediterranean area.
Acts describes some of what went on in Jerusalem as the early disciples gathered together and tried to figure out what they hell they were going to do. Jesus had not shown up like he had promised. But they had heard tales that he had been resurrected and had floated off into the heavens and would come back soon and many people saw and knew about these things, but that didn't help them much because he had not returned to earth.
All of these early followers of Jesus were Jews. There was a certain amount of animosity between them and Jews who had neither heard of Jesus nor particularly cared to "follow" him. So Peter and others were said to have preached in the city of Jerusalem and many of the "Jews" were converted to this new faith and accepted the Jesus figure as the Messiah. In fact, one legend says that about 3,000 were "added to their number that day."
But what else did these early Jesus folks do? Here's what the writer of Acts says:
"They met constantly to hear the apostles teach, and to share the common life, to break bread and to pray."
Notice they shared "the common life." Sounds pretty suspicious, doesn't it? Especially to patriotic Americans who hate Communism and Socialism!
"A sense of awe was everywhere, and many marvels and signs were brought about through the apostles." Like most legends, you will note the lack of specifics in that phrase. But now for the best part!
"All whose faith had drawn them together held everything in common: they would sell their property and possessions and make a general distribution as the need of each required. With one mind they kept up their daily attendance at the temple, and, breaking bread in private homes, shared their meals with unaffected joy, as they praised God and enjoyed the favour of the whole people. And day by day the Lord added to their numbers those whom he was saving."
Ok, so the author of Acts went a little overboard. It is not the least likely these early Christians "enjoyed the favour of the whole people," especially when the Gospels report that this "whole people" not long before cried out for the head of Jesus!
But, notice they were COMMUNISTS! The "held everything in common." The sold their stuff and gave the money to everyone as it was needed! My God, if that ain't Communism, it sure is Socialism!
Actually, it is more like socialism. Communism is a political system. Socialism is an economic system. Acts is talking about an economic system in which the people took care of one another. Just think if we had that kind of a system in this country today! Think of all we could do. We wouldn't have One Percent of the people owning most of everything and 99% out of the loop financially! We wouldn't have 45 million people uninsured. We wouldn't have millions of kids go to bed hungry every night. We'd have decent schools and good teachers because we'd all chip in (especially the rich) to make that happen. We'd have good roads and bridges and cops and judges and politicians and doctors.
And so forth.
But who the hell believes the Bible these days? Sure isn't the Christians!
[Biblical quotations are from Acts, Chapter 2. You might also read Acts, chapter 4, beginning at verse 32, which describes further how "everything was held in common," how "they had never a needy person among them, because all who had property in land or houses sold it, brought the proceeds of the sale, and laid the money at the feet of the apostles; it was then distributed to any who stood in need." All Biblical citations are from The New English Bible.]
Bush, the Neocons and the clamor for war
Politicians, by nature, lie. It must be part of their DNA. I dare say such a thing because the lies of politicians occur daily and are duly noted, if lamely, by the so-called "Lamestream Media," most of whom are employed by corporations which provide their personal politicians the means whereby they can remain in office and continue to lie.
Georgi W. Bushki once commented to the effect it's better to err on the side of life (see photo above). Today, after thousands of American soldiers were killed via his orders, and multiple thousands of Iraqis lost their lives, we know Mr. Bushki to be an enormous liar. We know his concern was never to err on the side of life, but rather on the side of those who would control the oil reserves of the Middle East. Any contrived contriteness on the part of Mr. Bushki for those who died as a result of his illegal and immoral militaristic adventures was just that - contrived and phony: his tears were crocodile tears!
Currently, many of the neocons who clamored for invading Iraq and Afghanistan, are once again beating the drums for war - this time with Iran. Iran has lots of oil. Iran is engaged in becoming a nuclear power. For peaceful purposes, of course. Or so the Iranian leaders claim.
The neocons have no problem with India having the bomb, or Pakistan, or Israel, or Russia (which appears to be metamorphosing into the old Soviet Union), or China, or... So, what's the problem? Why pick on Iran? Is Iran more of a threat to the United States than these other countries (not counting Israel, of course)?
In case you have any doubts about this resurrected neocon vision for another war, just Google "Neocons want war with Iran."
Neocons lie! All of them. Especially neocons holding public office.
If they get their way, thousands, perhaps millions of human beings will die. And you can bet your life neither the neocons nor members of their family will be in the front lines. They'll happily send you, your wife, your children and your grandchildren into the maelstrom, but they'll hide out in D.C. bars, swizzling martinis while their apocalyptic vision of death by firestorm is carried out and your flesh and blood are seared beyond recognition.
Georgi W. Bushki lied. The neocons lie. They lie, we die.
How can this happen when the people oppose such action? Consider this quote; you may have read it before but it has become particularly pertinent in mid-2012:
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
--Hermann Goring at the Nuremberg Trials
Friday, May 25, 2012
The history of life on earth
Most home-schooling is of a religious nature. Home-schooling is for fundamentalist Christians (for the most part) a means of indoctrination, not education. What especially curls the hair of the fundies is the belief that Evolution is a valid method of understanding the history of the earth and its creatures.
Home-schoolers believe the Bible. Anything they deem contrary to the Bible must, ipso facto, be false!
In many states, a form of Creationism is being taught, often called Intelligent Design. This, in spite of the fact that the courts have struck down such teaching as religion is disguise! Nowhere is this misguided teaching more prevalent than in the Lone Star State. The majority of the Texas Board of Education are fundamentalist Christians who care little for education but are intent on indoctrinating young Texans in the mythologies and legends of the Bible. Thus Texas children are taught the earth is 6,000 years old, that humans walked with dinosaurs, that Adam and Eve were real people, etc.
And this is a cause for lament as well as legal action. The youth of Texas are heading into a world ill-prepared to compete because they lack fundamental knowledge of the nature of life and how life has evolved through literally millions of years!
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