Rick Warren, Jesus, money and heaven's gate

Joan Walsh, erstwhile commentator for Salon. com, tells about a tweet sent by the Rev. Rick Warren following the debt-ceiling commentaries by President Obama and Rep. Boehner.  The Rev. Warren, in godly guise, wrote thusly (in support of the Republican plan to zap the elderly, the poor, the disenfranchised and to support his many wealthy friends in high places):

"HALF of America pays NO taxes. ZERO. So they're happy for tax rates to be raised on the other half that DOES."

Ah, it's tough to be rich.  It's tough to be the only group in this country that pays taxes!  And isn't it terrible that the poor people get by without paying any taxes whatsoever? It's just not right to see people on or below the poverty line laughing and singing and dancing on their way to the unemployment office because it's only the rich that have to pay taxes!


Except the Right Rev. Warren is the Wrong Rev. Warren. As Ms. Walsh points out, Mr. Warren's comment is "absolutely false." She explains:

"Thanks to the Earned Income Tax Credit, a bipartisan innovation adopted under President George H. W. Bush and expanded under President Clinton, it's true many low-wage workers pay no taxes and may even get government subsidies to bring them above the poverty line. As many as 47 percent of workers today pay no income tax, a number that jumped substantially during the recession. They do, however, pay payroll taxes and of course the regressive sales tax, which disproportionately burdens the poor, so it's false to say they pay no taxes. ...

"The low-wage workers aren't the moochers; in fact, the subsidies [under EITC] benefit industries that profit from low-wage workforces."


Now, Ms. Walsh bends over backward to give Mr. Warren some credit for his "caring about poverty issues and his sometimes bipartisan posture." I don't and won't!

Even though Warren twitted this private message to Ms. Walsh: "I take zero salary & we feed over 2000 families a wk. ... "

Ok, they feed some families. That's a good thing. But the no salary thing is no biggie as Walsh points out. The guy is mega-rich from his "publishing empire."


The Wrong Rev. Warren is also anti-gay and anti-choice.

I wonder what Bible he reads. I wonder if he's ever read the Synoptic Gospels. In a letter to Salon, I wrote the following:

"So often so-called Christians neither know nor care about what their legendary Jesus said [or didn't say] much like the Apostle Paul, who never refers to the Jesus of the Gospels to make a point. He never knew the Jesus of the Gospels, of course, because that Jesus hadn't been created at the time Paul went about preaching his heavenly, mythical Christ and writing about this Christ in his letters to the 'Christ' churches dotting the Med. area.

"Warren is like most so-called Christians on the 'right' side of things: they worry excessively about matters which Jesus never addressed in any form or fashion and ignore those things he is reported to have felt strongly about.

"Warren is anti-gay. The Jesus of the Gospels said not a word about 'gays.' And it should be clear to Warren that if he had he would have been sympathetic as he was to all those who were abused by the system.

"Many right-wing Christians are opposed to abortion. Jesus never spoke about abortion.

"But Jesus did speak about wealth and riches and rich people." The bit about a rich man finding it harder to get into the kingdom of Heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle should give us a clue. Hyperbole, certainly, but it is very clear that so far as Jesus is concerned, rich people people don't have a chance to enter Heaven's gates.

Not a chance. In hell!

So, I've got to say, "Sorry, Mr. Warren. Your religion sucks, no matter your 'good' works of which you are so proud, much like the Pharisees who stood, in Jesus' day, preening on the street corners."

Maybe you ought to take Jesus seriously:  Go ahead!  Do exactly what Jesus told the rich, young man:  sell all you have, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow him.

Nah, you don't really believe that crap, do you?

Why don't you quit the Catholic Church?

Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

The GOP (God's Own Pissants) and the No Religious Test clause

There is, in our Constitution, a clause which says specifically that there shall be no religious test for anyone wishing to hold any public office in the United States of America.  It is found in Article VI and reads thusly:  "...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

Unfortunately, there are many ignoramuses in our nation, and not a few of those ignoramuses belong to the Republican Party.  The so-called tea party faction is comprised of 99.9% ignoramuses.  But worse than ignorance is the increasing tendency among the extreme right (which has successful co-opted the Republican Party and the political discussion in our country) to ignore the clear meaning and intent of the Constitution when it serves their purposes.

Thus, although the Constitution demands that there be no religious test for public office, a religious test has become a litmus test for anyone wishing to be elected to almost any position. There is not a chance in hell that an atheist or agnostic could win any election!

For Republicans, that poses no problem for they do not take the Constitution seriously anyway. In fact, they proudly shout out their religious credentials for they know the religious test is the most important test among a large percentage of American voters. Their god trumps the Constitution every time!

One of the latest to proclaim a calling from God to run for public office (in this case, the presidency) is good ol' Rick Perry, the moronic governor of Texas. Perry's been coy about his ambitions, but it's been obvious for some time he plans to throw his Stetson in the 2012 presidential ring. Just a week or two ago Perry said "he's getting more and more comfortable every day that this is what [he's] been called to do." He is, he said, "... what America needs."

Even for a Texan, that takes a lot of gall. "I am what America needs"? Let us invoke the Lord: Jesus H. Christ! Perry's run the state of Texas into the ground and he thinks he's what America needs?

Here's some of what Perry believes: The graduated income tax was the first step toward socialism; the direct election of U.S. senators was very bad; Social Security and other such programs upon which people depend for their very lives, were the second step toward socialism. Socialism, obviously, is bad, but we have no clue what Perry means by the word!

Perry and his cohorts in the Texas Legislature passed, at the last minute, bills which 1) makes a photo ID necessary to vote; 2) forces a woman contemplating an abortion to have a sonogram; and 3) gives local police the right to enforce national immigration laws.

This wacko governor is also a climate change denier and believes the theory of evolution is false. But there really was an Adam and Eve!

Most importantly, Perry believes that there is a god up there somewhere who can be conned into fixing all that's wrong with the good ol' U.S. All you need to do is pray. "There is hope for America," claims Perry, "It lies in heaven, and we will find it on our knees."



Then there's Michele Bachmann. It's hard to conceive of anyone as stupid and as confused as is this woman. God has called her to run for president, says Bachmann. And this is not the first time she's heard the deity's voice. Back in 2006, she proclaimed she had been in touch with God and after fasting and praying God called her to run for the U.S. House of Representatives.

As Matt Taibbi said in a Rolling Stone article: "Bachmann is a religious zealot whose brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions and paranoid delusions. She believes that the Chinese are plotting to replace the dollar bill, that light bulbs are killing our dogs and cats, and that God personally chose her to become both an IRS attorney who would spend years hounding taxpayers and a raging anti-tax Tea Party crusader against big government."


Bachmann's old friend and ex-governor of Minnesota (now not such a friend), Tim Pawlenty, is also running for president on God's say-so. The mythical Jesus H. Christ is Tim's "political hero." And God is "going to lead the way every day."


Let us not forget Herman Cain. Stop laughing! Cain is a pizza mogul. He's also a black man. Somehow he has forgotten the fact that a black man running as a Republican has about as much chance getting elected as Karl Marx!

Nevertheless, Cain last April, said God wants him to be president. In fact, God cured him of cancer so he could run president. Yes sir. Now ain't that somethin'?


Although it may appear that God has deserted dear Sarah Palin from Arizona (formerly of Alaska), that is not the case. I remember when a cult bishop from Africa laid his hands on Sarah which meant that in the world of goofy Pentecostalism, she had been designated God's choice for the Oval Office. And that designation has never been rescinded. Unless Sarah gets a last-minute notice from the deity, she's also gonna be running around claiming God wants Obama out, out, out and her in, in, in!


There are others contestants, too, who would have us believe that God is backing their plans to ruin the country. Newt Gingrich is one, but old Newt doesn't have much of a chance these days even though he says he's given up philandering and joined the Roman Catholic Church and become a right-wing zealot with no clear idea as to what the hell he believes. Gingrich is an afterthought, a flicker off in the distance getting smaller and smaller with each passing day.


Rick Santorum is another and is a fool, but a fool with a small following. Santorum actually looks as stupid as he is. And every time he opens his mouth, he proves it. The American left, says Santorum, hates Christians and the Christian church. Not only so, but he's talking to God and he's running in 2012 because he wants to defend "God's truth in the world," because God told him to do so! Notice, this pissant actually says, in public, that he intends to violate his oath of office which requires him to defend, not God, but the U.S. Constitution.


There are two other folks running for president in 2012. They come last 'cause they are both Mormons - members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. They are Jon Huntsman and Mitt Romney. Now, if you know anything about the beliefs of the Mormon religion, you know that anyone who actually believes that nonsense should be automatically disqualified for the presidency. The whole schema of Mormonism is even more bizarre than normal Christianity; it is completely irrational and unjustifiable. And even though Huntsman and Romney can claim to be Christians 'til the cows come home, the great majority of "evangelicals" won't believe them! Mormons are NOT Christians so far as most Christians are concerned!

So, ultimately, the religious test which should not apply, will sink both of their campaigns. I think. It's hard to know with the religious right, though, 'cause they are noted for changing their beliefs at a moment's notice if such change helps them meet their goals. The end almost always justifies the means for the religious right wing zealots.


Not so long ago the United States was finally rid of an ignorant Texas clown who claimed he spoke with God and was told that God not only wanted him to be president but to wage war on a country in order to obtain it's oil for his rich friends. Well, he didn't actually say that. At first he said the unprovoked invasion of Iraq was to take away Saddam's bad war toys - WMDs. But he lied. He knew Saddam didn't have any WMDs. So then he said it was to make Iraq free. That was a lie, too. It had to do with oil.

We don't need another such clown talking to his/her god whose "call" always seems to justify whatever it is the clown wants to do at the moment.

Our Congress is filled with additional clowns who believe in Jesus and God and the Holy Ghost but can't find it in their hearts to cooperate with others for the good of the country and who love to wage war all over the world because God, they believe, wants us to spread our peace and freedom to all peoples even if it kills them!


In spite of what the Constitution says, it is obvious we do have a religious test for political office. But maybe we can turn that around. Perhaps we could establish the following process:  Any candidate for political office who claims to speak with God or hear God speaking to him or her is automatically disqualified on the grounds of suspicion of insanity. Said person is then to be wrapped tightly in a white jacket and put in a rubber room until the election is over.

Thanks to Atheist Cartoons for the cartoons!

Why does anyone remain a member of the Roman Catholic Church?

Two thousand years of abomination and degradation, torture and murder, misogyny and sexual deviance have marked the Roman Catholic Church.  Its history is soaked in blood.  Still, it remains one of the largest religious institutions on earth.

The religious beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church are so irrational, so far from common sense, so soaked in religious hocus-pocus that sane and sensible people cannot comprehend its attraction to the masses.  Here's a sampling:    1) Babies are born in sin because of the mythical Adam and Eve who committed the "original" sin.  If a baby dies before it is baptized, it is doomed to eternal punishment.  2)  The Pope, who is just another priest elected by his fellow priests, is thought to be the voice of some eternal god and thus has the ability to determine right and wrong on earth.  3)  When the priest says the magic words during the Mass, the bread and wine actually turn into the physical body and blood of the legendary Jesus.  4)  A priest can forgive you of your sins.  5)  Non-Catholics are in danger of eternal hellfire.  6)  Abortion is a greater sin that pederasty.  7)  People who have committed "mortal" sins which they have not confessed go straight to eternal hellfire when they die, whereas people who have committed "venial" sins go to an imaginary place called Purgatory where they can work their way into heaven.  Their relatives can also buy their way out of Purgatory.  8)  Women are inferior to men and therefore cannot be priests.  9)  Celibacy is a worthier lifestyle than marriage.  10)  Contraception is wrong because God wants all sperm to have a chance to become a living being.  11)  The Bible can be interpreted properly only by Roman Catholic clergy.  And there's so much more of this kind of nonsense.

We wonder again, why do people remain in the Catholic church?

But it just gets worse!  In recent years, we have become aware of the fact that another mark of the Roman church is pederasty or child sexual abuse.  Literally thousands of priests, nuns and bishops all over the world have been involved in the sexual abuse of children.  What makes this even more difficult to deal with is that the Vatican - the headquarters of the Roman church - has been instrumental in covering up these horrific crimes.

One of the countries where the most virulent sexual and physical abuse was instigated by both priests and nuns is Ireland.  Ireland is a Roman stronghold.  According to the Huffington Post, the Roman church "still owns most schools and several hospitals" in Ireland and "state broadcasters still toll a twice-daily call to Catholic prayer."

But authorities in Ireland have had enough.  The Vatican is said to have "sabotaged efforts by Catholic bishops to report clerical sex abuse cases to police."  This lead Eamon Gilmore, Ireland's Foreign Minister, to tell the papal ambassador to provide an "official response" to said accusations.  The Vatican instead recalled the papal ambassador, supposedly to consult on what the Vatican's response should be.

If past is prologue, we can guess.  The pope and his minions will play down the controversy and claim they have done all they can to mitigate the problem, which is untrue.  We have learned long ago that statements from the Vatican are to be treated like any other political statements - as lies until proven to be true.

One reason we know this is because last January, the Associated Press published a "confidential 1997 Vatican letter" that "instructed Irish bishops to handle child-abuse cases strictly under the terms of canon law.  It warned bishops that their 1996 child protection policy, particularly its emphasis on the need to start reporting all suspected crimes to police, violated canon law."


This should not be surprising to anyone who has studied the history of the Roman church.  Historically, it has always protected the institution no matter what the cost in terms of human lives or human suffering.  World War II provides a good example of just that.

The question arises again:  In light of the history of the Roman church, and in light of the terrible, ungodly evil the church has perpetrated on its children via its official representatives, why would anyone remain a Roman Catholic today?

Lots of folks have a crush on Michele Bachmann

Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

Panera Break - a light in the darkness

 [Photo of Ron Shaich, founder of Panera Bread, from Business Week]

My wife and I like Panera Bread restaurants.  We like them enough that we patronize Panera Bread at least once a week.  The food is generally tasty and fresh, the service is generally good, and the prices are quite reasonable.

Now, we have another reason for liking Panera Bread.  Unlike many corporate leaders, the founder of Panera Bread, Ron Shaich, believes his main objective in life is not to accumulate as much money as possible no matter what the cost to those around him.  He has another vision.

Kelly McCartney has written an article for Shareable, reprinted at AlterNet, describing Shaich's vision for feeding the hungry.  McCartney notes how "Rare is the voice that speaks for the underprivileged."  Yet there is, "a little whisper out there in the distance."

Shaich's experiment began in Clayton, Missouri last year.  "He opened a Panera Cares pay-what-you-can cafe and it has been an unqualified success, so much so that he has since opened two more locations - in Dearborn, Michigan, and Portland, Oregon.  The goal, now, is to open one per quarter in diverse communities around the country - the geographical logic being that the folks with more means can help offset those with less."

Shaich says "'The vision for the Panera Cares cafe was to use Panera's unique restaurant skills to address real societal needs and make a direct impact in communities.  Thus, the Foundation developed these community cafes to make a difference by addressing the food insecurity issues that affect millions of Americans.'  More than 50 million, to be exact."

Fifty million hungry people in this country and our Congress blusters about non issues such as raising the debt ceiling.  And then, specificially, the Republicans constantly seek out ways to make it more difficult for those 50 million hungry people to find food, jobs, or health care!

McCartney goes on to detail how the Panera Cares cafes work.  And there's more.  "[...] with the Panera Cares Foundation, Shaich spreads the wealth one step further in an almost commons-based venture where food is a right, not a privilege.  Here, the stakeholders are valued alongside the shareholders.  But that's not all.  Shaich also aims to triple-leverage Panera's resources by feeding people who can't feed themselves, training and funneling at-risk youth back into the mainstream, and setting an example for other corporations to do more than simply write a check.  As a result, both private (funding) and public (people) assets are brought to bear in a successful partnership rooted in sharing."

Sounds almost too good to be true in this age of self-obsessed, self-absorbed, me-first, teapot crack-pots and other sundry crock-pots

There is much more and you can read all about it in McCartney's article here.

And you'll find background information on Ron Shaich here.

Joe Nelms, Baptist creature, preys at NASCAR

Another title for this post might be "Why Many Folks Consider Christianity to be Bullshit!"

Joe Nelms, who is said to be the pastor of Nashville's Family Baptist Church, gave the invocation at NASCAR's Nationwide Series in Nashville last Saturday night.

Joe Nelms should have stayed in bed.  Along with his "smokin' hot wife, Lisa"!

I looked for a Biblical passage to describe this "prayer" and finally found it:  "Jesus wept."

A false equivalency

The mainstream press, as usual, has failed miserably to do its job relative to the so-called "debt ceiling crisis."  Rather than report on what is actually going on, they simply restate Republican talking points, creating a false sense of equivalency.

The two parties are not the same.  They are not doing the same thing.  The Democrats are not failing in bipartisanship.  The Democrats are not bringing us to the brink of financial disaster.

We have today a Republican party that is insane.  Certifiably so.  It is a party willing to throw our country under a bus in order to make ideological points that are totally irrelevant because the debt ceiling crisis is a manufactured crisis by the Republican party.

There is no debt ceiling crisis.  There is no budget crisis.  We do not need, at this point in time, a balanced budget.  Government spending is not out of control (excepting as it pertains to the Pentagon and our ongoing Middle Eastern wars).  Social Security is not in crisis. 

Furthermore, what financial problems we do have could be solved by simply 1) reversing George W. Bush's tax cuts for the rich, 2) hiking the minimum amount of income subject to FICA, 3) closing the numerous loopholes which allow corporate entities to avoid paying any income tax whatsoever.


The Democrats led by President Obama are willing to do all of the above.  That is not equivalent to the Republicans who, like spoiled children, insist on special privileges for their rich friends; who demand the middle-class and the poor bear the brunt of our financial burden; who show clearly that their loyalty is neither to our Constitution nor to their constituents, but to the corporations who own them.

In the past, raising the debt ceiling has not been a partisan issue.  Congress has routinely raised the debt ceiling over 70 times.  Furthermore, reasonable and responsible people do not threaten the financial well-being of the entire country (and the world!) by withholding approval to raise the debt ceiling by holding the country hostage to their whims as directed by the lobbyists and by the crackpot teapot members who have hijacked the Republican Party.


Republicans, in spite of all their protestations, don't give a damn about our debt or our deficit or whether or not we raise the debt ceiling.  It is all a pretense.  They want to save tax cuts for the wealthy.  They want to cut the social safety net in our country, a net that has been built by blood, sweat and tears over the years.  The Republican Party has always fought social programs that benefit regular human beings.  If the Republican Party had its way back in the 30s and 40s and 50s, we would have no Social Security, no Medicare, no Medicaid.  Another obvious sign that the Republicans are not concerned with our debt or a balanced budget is their blanket approval for the Bush spending spree between 2000 and 2008.  Bush came into office with a huge surplus which he promptly decimated by cutting taxes for his rich friends and his war-mongering.  We have thrown over a trillion dollars down the toilet in Iraq and Afghanistan for no reason whatsoever.  That's why we have a huge debt at the present time.  It's a Republican problem caused by a Republican president and his Republican cohorts in Congress. 

Now, that we have a Democratic president who is also "black," the deficit suddenly becomes a problem.  And yes, I am calling much of the Republican opposition racist!  Racism in the Republican Party has raised its ugly head over and over again over the past two and a half years! 

Hypocritical is too nice a word to describe the Republican Party today.  Insane is more correct.  Dirty also fits.  Unconscionable is right on target.  Ignorant describes most Republicans. 


But we don't hear any of this from our news media.  Instead, we hear how bipartisanship has failed.  We hear how the Republicans AND the Democrats can't work things out.  We were told that weepy Boehner walked out twice on the president, but the sense was that he had no choice because the president was so intransigent.

The parties and their representatives are treated as if their discourse and demands are equivalent.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  For the Republicans, it's "my way or the highway";  it's "if I can't win, I'll take my marbles and go home."

We should let them do the latter.  One cannot come to agreement with people who have already lost all their marbles!

Michele Bachmann - Batshit crazy wannabe president!

Matt Taibbi is one of my favorite writers in these Last Days, when rational conversation and decency and our future lay dying in a gutter of smashed dreams, drowning from a torrent of corporate money abetted by criminal politicians and christianist charlatans who believe in and live by the art of deceit and corruption, indeed who promote deceit and corruption by claiming their mandate derives from the very peculiar American god - the deity upon which they insist (in spite of all evidence to the contrary) our deist (and non-Christian) founding fathers established the United States of America.

Mr. Taibbi, writing for Rolling Stone, is not easily frightened.  He has faced down such Christian soldiers as John Hagee and emerged without a scratch!  But Michele Bachmann scares him!  More so than does Sarah Palin!  Taibbi believes we dismiss Bachmann at our peril.

How can that be?

"Bachmann," says Taibbi, "is a religious zealot whose brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions and paranoid delusions.  She believes that the Chinese are plotting to replace the dollar bill, that light bulbs are killing our dogs and cats, and that God personally chose her to become both an IRS attorney who would spend years hounding taxpayers and a raging anti-tax Tea Party crusader against big government."

When you listen to Bachmann and you watch Bachmann, you may be tempted to laugh.  Taibbi says, "Don't do it. ... You will want to laugh, but don't, because the secret of Bachmann's success is that every time you laugh at her, she gets stronger."

Here's the problem, says Taibbi:  American politics is kinda crazy and so the crazy's have some potential.  It's "like having a big right hand in boxing; you've always got a puncher's chance.  And Bachmann is exactly the right kind of completely batshit crazy.  Not medically crazy, not talking-to-herself-on-the-subway crazy, late-stage Kim Jon-II crazy -- crazy in the sense that she's living completely inside her own mind, frenetically pacing the hallways of a vast sand castle she's built in there, unable to meaningfully communicate with the human beings on the other side of the moat, who are all presumed to be enemies."


Taibbi does not, however, expect us to take his word as gospel truth, so he provides a plethora of evidence.  He details Bachmann's background, from her finding Jesus at age 16 to her attending "one of the most ridiculous learning institutions in the Western Hemisphere, a sort of highway rest area with legal accreditation called the O.W. Coburn School of Law; Michele was a member of its inaugural class in 1979."

Today, this joke of a school is known as the Regent University School of Law, a special pet project of one of the worst of religious hucksters, Pat Robertson, and it's producing lawyers filled with biblical legalisms.  They may not know much law, but they believe every detail of that hoary old book of nonsense known as the Bible!

Backmann, says Taibbi, was "educated in an extremist Christian tradition that rejects the notion of a separate, secular legal authority and views earthly law as an instrument for interpreting biblical values."

In other words, in spite of Bachmann's claim to revere the Constitution of the United States, she undermines its secular nature at every opportunity.  And she is a danger, claims Taibbi, because she represents millions of Americans who believe the same things she does and who are just as crazy as she is!


But, you have to read the entire article to get the full picture as to just how batshit crazy she really is and what that might mean for the 2012 presidential election.

Matt's entire article is here.

The Truth About the Economy

This video features Robert Reich, a former Secretary of Labor.  Our thanks to Move On for making it available.

The Ryan Repugnican budget is NOT about the deficit!

[Photo from here.]

One of the things we must remember about Repugnicans:  They never mean what they say, and they never say what they mean.

The Repugnicans have engaged in class warfare.  It's the rich against the rest of us.  At the moment, the rich are winning.

The infamous budget proposed by the Repugnican representative in the House, Paul Ryan (R. Wis.), is not about reducing the deficit!  Just as the recent brouhaha in Ryan's home state made clear that the budget proposed by Governor Walker had nothing to do with the state deficit, but rather was about union-busting and establishing corporate power at the expense of the people of Wisconsin, so Ryan's budget, while having no impact on the federal deficit, will commence to fulfill the Repugnican wet-dream of so many years - to rid our country of the safety net for its most vulnerable citizens and create a permanent class of elites to rule over the rest of us.

Joshua Holland, writing for AlterNet, details the essence of Ryan's devastating plan in his article, "How Fraudulent Is the GOP Budget Plan?  It Wouldn't Even Make a Dent In the Deficit!"

It is so radical, says Holland, that "According to an analysis by the non-partisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), the plan would slash all public spending other than Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid by almost three-quarters by 2050.  And because the 'budget does not envision defense cuts in real terms,' what this means is that 'most of the rest of the federal government outside of health care, Social Security, and defense would cease to exist.'"

Holland continues:  "And it's not just a matter of bait-and-switch; the entire proposal is a fraud.  Just consider this:  while selling their plan to the public as a 'serious' and 'bold' attempt to reduce the federal deficit, Republicans are overstating how much it would cut the budget gap by ten-fold."

In other words, what the Republicans claim about their budget is not in line with reality!  And not only have they claimed reductions which are invalid from the start, but they've made several math "errors" to make the budget look better than it is.  For example, one "math error ... exaggerated how much we'd save in interest payments by $230 billion over the next decade - a number significantly higher than the amount of deficit reduction they'd get out of the plan."

The worst  of it, as Holland notes, is that "while the plan's deficit reduction is largely fantasy, the pain it would impose on working Americans is very real.  Almost two-thirds of the $4.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next 10 years come from programs that help those with lower incomes."

There is much more.  The main thrust of Holland's article is that, as usual, under any Repugnican plan, the rich get richer and the rest of us get screwed!  Royally.

Now, the original tea party folks didn't like getting royally screwed by the royalty in England.  Our tea party folks have been conned by our "royalty" here at home.  The Koch brothers, for example, operating in the shadows, have garnered an army of middle- and lower-income people to work against their own best interests.

Anyone who is not a multi-millionaire and votes Repugnican has a death-wish.

This is a class war and it's just beginning. 

Read all of Holland's excellent article here.

God Weighs In

Dennis Baxley, radical christianist theocrat of the American Taliban

[AP photo from Yahoo News.]

Dennis Baxley has been once again elected to the Florida Legislature.  He served in the House previously, where he perpetrated a variety of pernicious and dastardly legislation.

Baxley is from Ocala, which, while a nice place to live, is representative of the worst of redneck, right-wing, christianist politics. At one time, he headed up the Florida division of the theocratic Christian Coalition which has as its goal the overthrow of our current governments (local, state and national) and their replacement by christianist governments, based upon a fundamentalistic christianist interpretation of that hoary old collection of nonsense, the christianist Bible.

At various times, Baxley has fought the teaching of evolution in our public schools; he has fought for the right to carry weapons on to the property of one's job site; he has argued in favor of vouchers which would provide religious kooks taxpayer money to send their kids to parochial schools to be taught goofy religious delusions and mythologies, including Creationism; he has promoted the notion that a fetus is a person; he has claimed that Christians teaching on college campuses are being persecuted; he implied that perhaps President Obama's "Muslim" upbringing (which is a myth in itself) may lead Obama to go easy on Islamic radicals; he has further implied that Obama's former association with the infamous Rev. Wright casts suspicion on Obama's claim to be a Christian; and the list goes on and on. Baxley stands on the far right fringe of American politics: he is a theocrat; he is dangerous to our democratic system and to the ongoing viability of our Constitution.

Now, along with most every other Repugnican in the Florida legislature, Baxley is focusing on issues which have no relevance to a secular democracy and are of little concern to most of our citizens.  For example, because he is a right-wingnut christianist, Baxley thinks abortion is wrong. That's fine and that's his right. He shouldn't have one, then!

But because he is a right-wingnut christianist with a direct pipeline to his god, Baxley has concluded that he has the right to impose his religious views on every woman in the state of Florida! So, he is sponsoring an amendment to the Florida Constitution which would make it impossible for any woman to obtain any money from the state for an abortion, no matter what the reason.

What's really crazy about this is that it will cost over $90,000 to do the necessary footwork in Florida's 67 counties to get this amendment on the ballot in November. But in the last three-year fiscal period, the state of Florida spent about $3,000 on Medicaid abortions. Now this is the same guy who cries about deficits and how we must not raise taxes on the poor corporations, blah, blah, blah...but he's willing to toss about $100 thousand dollars of your money and mine to foist his particular religious viewpoint on the rest of us!

Baxley, probably because he's a man of some substantial financial means being part-owner of a funeral home is not concerned about jobs, housing and the homeless, the environment, saving the Everglades, global warming, health care, etc. or other issues that impact regular folks like you and me. Unfortunately, that is also true of most every other Repugnican in the Florida Legislature!

Baxley has said that this amendment, which is really about banning all abortions in the state and a means to get a foot in the door to reverse Roe v. Wade, is the most important thing he's ever done.


It's sick! When are the people of Florida going to stop electing these ass-hats to be legislators?

Yours and Mine

Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

Bradlee Dean, christianist weirdo, friend of Michele Bachmann, gives prayer in the Minnesota legislature

From Crooks & Liars:

Bradlee Dean, an evangelist preacher and death metal drummer who is known for his anti-gay rhetoric, was invited by Minnesota Republicans to deliver an opening prayer in the state House chamber Friday.

Praying before the Minnesota legislature in a track suit, Dean suggested that President Barack Obama wasn't a Christian.

"I end with this," he said. "I know this is a non-denominational prayer in this Chamber and it's not about the Baptists and it's not about the Catholics alone or the Lutherans or the Wesleyans. Or the Presbyterians the evangelicals or any other denomination but rather the head of the denomination and his name is Jesus. As every President up until 2008 has acknowledged. And we pray it. In Jesus' name."

The Minnesota Independent noted that Dean has a history of controversial remarks, "including advocating the incarceration of gays and lesbians, that the LGBT community is trying to usher in Sharia law in Minnesota, that gay men molest an average of 117 children “before they get caught,” and that Muslim nations that execute gays are more moral than American Christians."

Republicans were forced to call in the chaplain to redo the prayer after Dean left.

Republican House Speaker Kurt Zellers later apologized in a floor speech.

"I denounce him, his actions and his words," Zeller said.

The prayer came as Minnesota lawmakers were considering a constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage.

Dean is known to be close with Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann.

Why the hell can't we get rid of christianists praying in our state legislatures and national Congress?  I know there is historical precedent for this, but precedent be damned.  There was historical precedent for slavery.  That doesn't make it right.  

Religious leaders of whatever persuasion or cult have no place promoting their god in our political houses.  Let them pray in their own damnable houses!  

Michele Bachmann has some very strange and nasty friends.  You can read all about that and her special relationship with Bradlee Dean here at Mother Jones.

Noah has landed on the taxpayers in Kentucky!

There was no great flood.  There was no Noah's Ark.  There was no Tower of Babel.

These stories drifted down through centuries of mythological waters and ended up in the Hebrew Bible.  They are not factual.  They are, and always have been, myths promoted by ancient people to try to better understand the world in which they lived or their god who made life so damn miserable!

In the 21st century, millions of people all over the world continue to cling to the notion that these biblical tales represent real events from away back when.  And in the USA such ignorance is endemic to fundamentalist Christian culture.  Especially in the south.  Some southerners, usually fundy christianists, still can't get over the fact they lost the Civil War.  They can't even grasp the fundamental concept that the Civil War was about the enslavement of human beings.  And the Civil War happened a mere 150 years ago.  Thus, to believe in mythologies that go back about three or four thousand years, is no problem whatsoever.

In the US of A, you can believe such silliness if you so desire.  You have that right.  Neither the government nor any other human agency can force you to give up your beliefs no matter how stupid or unrelated to reality they are.

But it's unfortunate that so many live in an intellectual and historical void where darkness and ignorance reign.  These are the same people who refuse to accept the scientific theory of evolution even though all of science is built upon it.  These are the same people who disavow global warming even though the earth is already feeling its effects.  As one woman from Tennessee told me, people in Tennessee don't like Al Gore!  Why?  Because he's stirring up a lot of unnecessary trouble complaining about global warming.  Plus, he's a "librul."


It is no secret that our state legislatures are infested with christianist fundamentalists who think evolution is of the "devil," who refuse to accept the fact of global warming, who want to toss our Constitution and allow christianist prayers in public schools and the right to post their religious beliefs on courthouse walls and disallow abortions and stem-cell research because their christianist god, they think, opposes such things.  These are the people who trample our Constitution giving away taxpayer monies to various religious groups including parochial schools.

Most unfortunate is that the state of Kentucky has succumbed big time to their influence.  A group of christianist fundamentalists got together awhile back and decided they could make a lot of money by building an amusement park featuring "a full-size 500-foot-by-75 foot reproduction of Noah's Ark, a Tower of Babel, and other biblical exhibits on a 800-acre campus outside of Williamstown, KY.

They floated this idea around and suggested it would be much easier to do if the state of Kentucky gave them some financial incentives.

The state of Kentucky should have told them to go to hell!

But, noooo.  The state of Kentucky, rife with christianist fundamentalists who hold very weird beliefs, and actually think there was a great big ark a long time ago on which a guy named Noah collected two of each species so that life would be preserved while a loving god who was thoroughly pissed off at his creation went about the process of destroying most every person and critter on earth in order to get revenge on the people who had failed to heed his warnings about how to live, whatever they were.  Why all the animals had to die, too, was not explained.  I mean, really, what the hell did they do wrong?

The guv of Tennessee, Steve Beshear, who happens to be a Democrat (damn it!) thinks this biblical amusement park is a great idea.  The reason for that is because he believes the park will create a few jobs for which he can take credit.  Needless to say, he sees no constitutional issues whatsoever in the use of taxpayer money to help fund the park.


So on May 19, the State of Kentucky approved $43 million in tax credits for the park.  Not only so, but it is likely the people of Kentucky will also have to pony up another $11 million to "improve a highway interchange near the site."

The people of Kentucky are getting screwed!  Alex Seitz-Wald, writing at Think Progress, says that these "tax breaks for an amusement park come at a time when state leaders are asking residents to sacrifice as they cut important social programs.  'The state has gone through eight rounds of budget cuts over the past three years, [including cuts] to "education at all levels" and a pay freeze for all teachers and state workers."

Not only so, but Kentucky has cut funding for Medicaid by sending recipients to managed care plans which creates a bigger bureaucracy and makes it more difficult to obtain care and which will also increase costs by some 20 percent.


Many leaders in the scientific community are dismayed.  Dan Phelps, a geologist, said Gov. Beshear's support of this park "embarrassing for the state."  Americans United for the Separation of Church and State is threatening to sue Kentucky.  The Rev. Barry Lynn, who heads up Americans United says, rightly, that "The state of Kentucky should not be promoting the spread of fundamentalist Christianity or any other religious viewpoint.  Let these folks build their fundamentalist Disneyland without government help."

And all the smart people said "Amen"!

At the amusement park

Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

Florida - sinking in a swamp of greed under Rick Scott

[Rick Scott cartoon from here.]

Rick Scott is known for shady dealings.  Most people are aware of the fact that he should be in jail for his involvement in the most massive Medicare fraud in history.  Most of us are also aware that he used a portion of his ill-gotten gains ($73 million) to buy the governor's office in the state of Florida.

It is likely, I believe, that at some point this nogoodnik will overreach and the short arm of the law will catch up to him and he'll be indicted and convicted and impeached.

Another option would be a recall petition, but there is currently no mechanism to achieve this.  One of Florida's Democratic legislators has introduced a bill that would allow elected officials to be recalled but whether this will ever become law is problematic what with a Repugnican-controlled state house.

His amorality, however, as I suggest above, may ultimately prove his undoing.  One of his pet projects is to have all state employees and welfare beneficiaries in the state of Florida tested for illegal drug use.  One can't help but wonder why this suddenly has become an issue.  The reason is clear.  Scott was co-owner of Solantic, a company involved in drug-testing, among other things.  But when two conflict-of-interest complaints were lodged against him, he transferred his stake in Solantic to his wife's revocable trust and finally sold his interest.  Of interest, though, is that the Florida Ethics Commission threw out the two complaints saying there was not enough evidence against him.

There is a pattern here.  It appears he frequently operates on the edge of legality.  He claims authority that less worthy people lack.  He personifies the amoral corporate mindset in which profit is god and that the end justifies the means.


How many of the common folk of Florida are able to devote money and time to lobby the state legislature for laws favorable to their interests?  I don't know, but it doesn't take a genius to conclude that the number would be very few.

The corporations, however, along with the rich and powerful, spend big bucks to lobby the state legislature.  Kathleen Haughney and Aaran Deslatte, writing for OrlandoSentinel.com, note that "Florida utilities, casino operators, local governments and a host of other interests spent more than $55.1 million to lobby Tallahassee lawmakers and the governor during the first three months of the year [2011]..."

Specifically, $1.28 million of that total was spent by AT&T.  "For the past several years, the company has pushed for a bill that would deregulate land-line telephones, meaning AT&T and other telecoms that offer land lines could raise their rates without approval from the state.

"This year the bill passed."  Read that again.  And again.  Here's what the Florida legislature is telling us common folks:  "Screw you!  We don't give a damn about you!  You can't help us stay in office where we will become rich!"

The efforts of another lobbying group, this one dedicated to establishing Vegas-style casinos in Florida, came up short but they'll be back!

As we shall see, the Florida legislature is all about ensuring the rich get richer and the middle-class and poor  in Florida get screwed!  Jeb Bush was bad enough.  Rick Scott is a disaster!


If you are old and unwell in the state of Florida, the state legislature has made certain that your life will become a living hell!  Scott Maxwell, also writing for OrlandoSentinel.com, says "Florida is stepping back into the dark ages when it comes to nursing-home abuse and neglect.

"The industry is facing fewer regulations.  Staffing requirements are being lowered.  The watchdog program is being neutered.  The state is even trying to muzzle the watchdogs who dare speak up for the elderly.  And all of this is happening while cases of horrid abuse - the likes of which you would barely believe in a Stephen King novel - are on the rise.

Maxwell gives several examples such as the case of  a 71-year old South Florida "man with schizophrenia [who] died from burns he received in a bathtub.  At the same [nursing] home, staff failed to stop residents beating one another with 2-by-4s."

Maxwell notes that "Homes throughout the state are regularly caught using illegal restraints" and the elderly are "actually dying at a rate of nearly once [sic] a month as a result of abuse and neglect."

Since Scott took office, he threw out Brian Lee who led the state's watch-dog program who had also pissed-off the nursing home industry!

It's an incredible mess led by Scott and the Repugnicans!  Why?  To increase the profits of the nursing-home industry.  Anything goes in the name of the corporate god:  profit!


The above relates to what the St. Petersburg Times calls "Devaluing the lives of poor, elderly."  The Florida legislature passed "four bills that would it harder to bring personal injury cases and cap the damages that courts can award."  This means that "lawmakers have closed or curtailed access to the courts for thousands of injured Floridians ... [and] makes it far more likely that the cost of catastrophic injuries due to medical malpractice or a faulty vehicle design will shift to taxpayers."

The bad guys, in other words, get a pass and the rest of us get screwed!

Furthermore...the poorest among us will "no longer have their injuries due to medical malpractice compensated to the same extent as others."  In addition a cap of $300,000 on "pain-and-suffering damages" means that few attorneys will be willing to take malpractice cases as they are very expensive to litigate!

Another piece of stupidity is a bill (SB 1676) which gives "medical faculty at the University of Miami the same 'sovereign immunity' - or protection from major malpractice judgements - when teaching at Miami's public Jackson Memorial Health System."  The University of Miami, though, is a private institution and should not be shielded in such a manner.


The bozos in Tallahassee also passed a law that would, according to TBO.com (Tampa Bay Online), write "taxpayer-funded religious discrimination into our state constitution by incorporating an exemption to anti-discrimination laws ... for example, a house of worship hiring a cook for a taxpayer-funded shelter could advertise 'Catholics, Jews, Protestants or Muslims Need Not Apply.'"

Even scarier, under Joint Resolution 1471, "Florida could not bar funding to a religious group based on its anti-Semitic, racist or other extreme religious views.  Why?  Because 1471's affirmative language provides the unfettered constitutional rights to taxpayer dollars for all religious groups, including religious extremists, of which there is no shortage in Florida."

This Joint Resolution has not yet become law.  But it is part and parcel of a larger attempt, funded largely by ultra extremist right-wing christianists.  One of their dreams is to destroy public education and bills that they have written and underwritten are finding their way into state legislatures around the country, often reading the same, word-for-word.  We can expect a huge assault on our traditional values by these christianist extremists who are working day and night to get Creationism taught in our classrooms instead of real science; to push for  christianist prayer at public school events; and to press for an expansion of the "voucher" system would be a wonderful boon for all the wacky christianist fundamentalist schools in our state.  They could continue their nefarious education with taxpayer money!


Here's how things are already working out.  In November, thanks to the christianist fundamentalists in the Florida legislature and Rick Scott, "Voters will have a chance to repeal Florida's ban on state aid to churches and other religious organizations. ...

"The proposal would lift the threat of legal challenges to voucher programs that send disabled and low-income children to parochial and other private schools at taxpayer expense.

As to Medicaid, the elderly got screwed again.  Big time!  HB 7109 "makes major changes to the Medicaid program, putting the care of nearly 3 million beneficiaries into the hands of private companies and hospital networks."  If anyone should know how to screw the people and the government at the same time, it's Rick Scott.  He's had lots of experience.  HB 7109 is in the pipeline in spite of the fact that a pilot program was determined to provide "providers with big profits by scrimping on patient care."

Hello?  Is anybody listening?  Are the people of Florida going to rise up and throw these christianist bastards out of office?


The unemployed got hit hard.  Their maximum state benefits were cut from 26 to 23 weeks.

The teachers really got screwed.  Teacher pay would be based on "merit."  Hah.  As a former teacher I know from experience there is no way to do this!  Every classroom is different.  Every subject is different.  Most administrators know very little about what makes a good teacher.  This is a horrible assault on the teaching profession.

Not only so, but the tenure system has been abolished for new hires.  Well, good luck with that.  Anyone agreeing to teach in the state of Florida without some sense of security has got to be crazy.  Teachers are constantly under the gun by people who know nothing about education and if it wasn't for teacher unions and the tenure system our educational system would be even worse than it is now!

The Senate's budget cut $1 billion from our schools!  In Marion County, Florida, the superintendent is "demanding" a 4-day week under the threat of teacher layoffs.

Teachers and other public employees, for the first time, must pay three percent of their wages into their retirement fund.  What is so nasty about this is that public employees "gave up pay raises decades ago in exchange for full public funding of the [pension] plan.  Also, state workers now are going into a fifth straight year without an across-the-board pay raise."

Scott is pushing for more charter schools, even though there is no evidence these are in any way superior to the regular school system and some evidence they are worse!

Did you know that Eric Smith, Florida's education commissioner has resigned.  Scott has not found the time to meet with him.


The legislature did a reverse and over-rode former Governor Charlie Crist's veto to pass a law allowing our "legislative leaders to raise unlimited special-interest money and funnel it to the campaigns of their hand-picked candidates."

The legislature also made it much harder for women to have an abortion.

The gave cops the authority to ask for a person's "immigration documents" if the cop suspected he or she was in the country illegally!

A rather large deregulation bill was reworked because of consumer complaints, but it still deregulates moving companies and auto mechanics.  Another example of exactly how your elected officials work for - no, not you - their corporate owners!


Let's see how Gov. Scott and the legislature did on job creation.  You will remember that Scott ran for office saying he would see that Florida created a massive number of jobs.

He was lying.  Again.

What he's done is cut jobs!  Twenty-nine people are being let go in the Florida Department of Community Affairs.

According to Newsherald.com (Panama City, Florida), 650,000 state employees will find their paychecks cut in order to balance the budget.  The legislature didn't raise taxes.  They cut employees and wages.  In other words the people got screwed again!

"The budget will eliminate nearly 4,500 state positions, about 2,000 of which are vacant, while 1,700 jobs are in prisons slated to be privatized.  Schools districts also are anticipating layoffs and furloughs due to state spending cuts.

"Some private sector employees who depend on state funding, such as road builders and nursing home workers, also may get the ax."

Now, listen to this.  Corporate taxes were cut!!!  Also, "...lawmakers ... found enough money to cut taxes by $308 million -- mostly at the expense of water management districts - and pay for dozens of their pet projects.


Another bill, HB "7207 would make sweeping changes to the state's 25-year-old management system, substantially reducing state oversight of local land use decisions.  The bill shifts the burden of proof to citizens who file legal challenges and lift requirements that developers pay for needed roads and schools."

Scott, you understand, thinks regulations are bad because they keep companies from creating jobs.  It's a laughable position, and tragic, for it has been debunked over and over ever since Reagan the clown started our country on the road to financial ruin!

But for Scott, it's all a game.  The people are the pawns and the corporations manipulate them through their fully-funded legislators!  You see, "Scott threatened to veto the entire budget if lawmakers failed to cut Florida's corporate income tax."  They finally agreed on a $30 million cut, which Scott said was a "first step."


Perhaps Brad Ashwell, a spokesman for the consumer group, PIRG, said it best:  "The majority party, emboldened by a two-thirds majority, aggressively went after the courts, voters, labor groups, trial lawyers and anyone else they deemed a threat to their power.  Middle class Floridians will see higher insurance rates, higher phone rates, more sprawl, and more obstacles to having a voice in their elections."

Which reminds me we haven't even begun to discuss our return to the days of Jim Crow in Florida when it comes to voting.  But that's another article.

Evidence for an invisible sky friend

I

Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

Harold Camping is crazy and the world is not going to end on May 21!

[Photo of Harold Camping from here.]

If our media would refuse to give free publicity to the assholes in our midst, we'd all be a lot better off.

There's an ignorant and stupid old man by name of Harold Camping who resides in California and promotes his peculiar christianist nonsense and ignorance over the radio to a variety of poor souls who know even less than he does!

He considers himself a student of the Bible which is wildly inaccurate.  He has no clue what the Bible is all about.  Nevertheless, he has written a bunch of books on the so-called "Rapture," one of which predicted it would happen about the middle of September in 1994.

Obviously, his Jesus did not return to earth and there was no Rapture, and he is a failed prophet.  But that didn't stop the old fool from promising that now it will take place on May 21 of this year.  Yup, and you'd better believe it, 'cause it's gonna happen.  He won't brook any questions as to the authenticity of his prediction - "...God is not playing games," says this moldy old coot, as if he has a pipeline to some deity!

All of this crapola is based upon Camping's campy interpretations of obscure biblical passages which are almost impossible for anyone to decipher - even real biblical scholars - but none of them have anything to say about our time.

The Bible was written by men who were even more ignorant than 89-year old Camping; men who knew very little about the world, almost nothing about medicine, philosophy, the human mind, or the universe, and were  throwing sacrifices to their god(s) in order to influence these deities to be benevolent toward them because they believed their fate rested in the hands of what were inscrutable, horrible, and arbitrary gods living above the firmament which they "knew" to be a hard place high in the sky!

If you believe that there really was a Jesus such as reported in the Synoptic Gospels, then you ought to know enough to keep your damn mouth shut about when the world is going to end.  This Jesus is reported to have said that no one knows.  He didn't even know.  And he's the son of man.  Of course, in the Gospel of John he's God hisself!  So even God doesn't know when the end is coming.

But Camping does?

This is all really too silly.  Yet our newspapers pretend that Camping is saying something that people need to know about.  He's interviewed by our magazines.  Other christianist goofballs like Tim LaHaye are consulted as to whether they think Camping is onto something.


What a world we live in!  There is no evidence whatsoever for the old biblical tales of Abraham and Moses, etc.  The men who wrote the Bible lacked any scientific understanding of the world and the stories they concocted reflect that lack.  How can anyone still believe a great fish swallowed a man and then spewed him up to go preach to sinners in this day and age?  How can anyone believe in talking serpents?  How can anyone believe that a virgin had a baby after being impregnated by a spirit!  These kinds of things happen only in the realm of mythology.

Unfortunately, people who believe in all this nonsense and more are running our country.  The problem of Harold Camping goes far beyond Harold Camping.  Camping is not any crazier than most of our leaders, religious and otherwise.  He's just a different kind of crazy.  The Mormons believe the unbelievable and one of them wants to be president.  Catholics think that little cracker actually becomes the flesh of the mythical Christ (a spiritual being to begin with!) when the priest says the magic words!

But it might help if our media representatives didn't scratch and claw to best one another with an ever more sensational story.

Let Harold Camping and others of his ilk sulk in the cave of their ignorance.  Let the rest of us ignore them!

Now, if I had heeded my own admonition, I wouldn't have written this rant.  But I had to write the rant.  Someone needed to say these things!