Sunday, August 21, 2011
Cliff Stearns, Rep (R.Fl.), and the most important issues
Cliff Stearns, who hails from central Florida, and has, unfortunately, been elected too many damn times to the U.S. Congress by the teapot crackpots who dominate politics in this area, is a typical Repugnican water-carrier for the powerful and the wealthy.
Stearns, representing the rich and the religious right of Florida's 6th Congressional District is very concerned about certain issues which almost invariably work against the poor and the middle-class, and which often constitute an attack on our Constitution.
1) Just recently, Stearns was delighted to learn that a federal judge had ruled that White House visitor logs should be made public. Stearns wants to know who visits President Obama and officials in the White House, how long they stay, and, if he had his way, what they talked about. The Secret Service had opposed this notion claiming that it would possibly compromise national security.
In reality, Stearns' involvement in this issue was just another way to harass President Obama by intimidating that he and his staff may be hiding some anti-American friends in the sacred halls of the West Wing.
2) Not so long ago, Stearns was able to get an attachment to the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 which forced the FBI to screen thousands of emergency responders to the events of 9/11. Stearns is terribly concerned that some of these first responders might have terrorist ties. And he just doesn't want such terrorist tied people to receive federal funds.
Thus far, the FBI has screened over 60,000 first responders and hasn't found a terrorist among them.
But there's some other things people need to know about Mr. Stearns. Right this very minute he's hard at work restoring our economy. And how is he going to do this? With tax cuts for the rich! Of course. Everyone knows that when the rich get tax cuts they run out and start new businesses and hire lots of unemployed people and everyone is happy again!
It's the typical Repugnican bullshit, but it works too often 'cause so many dumb asses and low wage-earners really believe that they, too, will someday find the pot of gold at the end of the American rainbow.
Stearns voted to kill health care for all Americans. He's very concerned that no taxpayer money be used to fund abortions. If he had his way he would outlaw all abortions. (He's all for freedom, of course, unless that freedom is used to do something against his religion!). He likes guns and thinks there should be reciprocity for concealed weapons carriers across all state lines. He also believes and supports the idea of a Fair Tax, which would shift the rest of the tax burden from the already wealthy to the already poor!
Stearns voted Nay to increase the debt limit and keep our nation from defaulting. He voted Aye on the Cut, Cap and Balance Act, which was simply another Repugnican gimmick to cut out the social safety net in our country. As already noted, he voted Aye to repeal the Health Care Law. He voted Aye to continue tax breaks for the rich. He voted Nay on repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell (this also because he thinks sexual freedom should be limited by his religious beliefs!)
Religious freedom is important to Stearns. But what he means by that is that his religion - a very conservative version of Christianity - should be the law of the land. Thus he sponsored one bill which would amend the Constitution to restore "religious freedom." That, of course, has nothing to do with freedom but rather with giving the government the right to impose Christian beliefs on the rest of us!
One gets a better understanding of Mr. Stearns' beliefs by noting that he introduced a resolution in the House to "honor" the life of Dr. James Kennedy. Dr. James Kennedy was an ultra-right wingnut from Coral Springs, Florida. Kennedy pastored a large church there for years which had a huge television audience. Kennedy was a Dominionist, which means he intended to "restore" Christianity as the religion under which all Americans lived and that the Christian Bible would replace our Constitution as the law of the land.
When one reads about Stearns and his career in Congress, and when one realizes that there are many other representatives in Congress who are just as goofy or more goofy than he is, it becomes clear why our nation is bogged down and going nowhere.
We need jobs. We need revenue. We need to shrink the military and the Pentagon's budget and bring our imperialistic forces home from the Middle East and most everywhere else in the world. We need to begin restoring our infrastructure which is rapidly and dangerously deteriorating. We need to tackle global warming which is creating huge climate changes/disturbances right now. We need to work on new ways to create clean energy and get rid of our reliance on fossil fuels. We could decrease our deficit considerably by cutting out subsidies to the oil companies! We need to build newer and better PUBLIC schools. We need to stop privatizing everything under the sun. We need to support and build up our postal system. We need to do a thousand things and we need to do them now.
But too many people in Congress like Stearns are more interesting in imposing their religious views on the nation than in helping the nation get backs on its feet. Too many like Stearns play to the fears of the great unwashed rather than try to deal with the real problems that we have. Too many people in Congress like Stearns are bought and paid for by corporate overlords and thus have sold their souls and are no longer capable of representing the people of their districts or states.
This becomes immediately and vividly clear when you consider all the recent Repugnican blather about the deficit. The deficit is not Obama's fault. Mr. Obama inherited an economy devastated by two unpaid-for wars, by huge deficit spending on the part of Bush and the Repugnicans. Just about every single proposal made by President Obama over the past two years to deal with the problems of our country have been fought tooth and nail by Repugnicans and their leaders who from the outset of Obama's term declared their one goal was to make sure Obama was defeated in 2012.
In other words, for eight years under Georgi Bushki II, nary a peep was heard from the Repugnican side of the aisle as to the incredible waste of taxpayer dollars on illegal war-mongering, on spending projects which benefited the red states, or on wasteful spending which decimated the huge budget surplus left Bushki by President Clinton.
All the hew and cry about the deficit is 1) a Repugnican smoke-screen to obscure the real problems in this country, and 2) an attempt to make the deficit appear to be Obama's fault and thus bring to fruition the Repugnican goal of bringing Obama down in 2012!
There's more on Stearn's attempt to root out 9/11 terrorist responders here.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
God's own poohbahs (the GOP) corrupted by cold, hard cash
In the latest issue of Sierra magazine (September/October 2011), Carl Pope, the former executive director of the Sierra Club, writes the following in an article titled "Hostile Takeover of the GOP - Polluter cash sets the Republican environmental agenda."
After eviscerating several of the so-called GOP candidates for the Republican nomination for president in 2012, he says:
"The sad fact is that the GOP has been subjected to a hostile takeover by the oil-and-gas industry--and particularly by Koch Industries, the conglomerate owned by ultra-right-wing brothers Charles and David Koch. It wasn't grassroots fear of solar cells that turned Republican candidates into boosters for climate change. Instead, think tanks funded by the Koch brothers, ExxonMobil, and others took advantage of the decline of fact-based media to transform climate change into a partisan issue.
"The virus that has undermined the GOP and is weakening U.S. democracy is corruption. Our Supreme Court has made the United States the only democratic nation where bribery is constitutionally protected, where corporations have the privileges of citizens but none of the obligations, and where money is equated with speech. Dirty Energy has bought the party of Lincoln and now calls the shots."
I agree with Mr. Pope but would argue that the GOP was not so much corrupted in a hostile takeover by the oil and gas industry, as it was a willing participant, offering its soul for the cold, hard cash that slithered into its bank accounts.
In addition, I would say that while the Democratic Party remains the only standing member of the
Decency and Common Sense Club in Washington, too many of its adherents have also succumbed to the wiles of filthy lucre.
Change is desperately needed. Change can come only when money is removed from the political equation. Unfortunately, that's likely to happen only when an imaginary hell freezes over!
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
The Scary Pastor Perry: Texas maniac
Mr. Bernanke was appointed by Georgi Buski. The stimulus money was to provide assistance to our struggling population. Rickie Perry used stimulus money in Texas even while he was railing against it (as did Bachmann in Minnesota)! And does Perry understand the meaning of "treasonous"?
This is over-the-top even for a maniac from Texas.
Pastor Rickie Perry, the Texas maniac, is just another Repugnican hypocrite. But you knew that! According to Teagan Goddard's Political Wire, Perry has now reversed himself on requiring girls to be vaccinated against HPV.
That was in 2007. Perry must have received instructions from God because he was absolutely certain he was doing the right thing by issuing an executive order in February of 2007 requiring all girls entering the 6th grade to receive the vaccine "unless their parents completed a conscientious objection affidavit form."
It's always interesting when these wingnuts holler about "freedom" and as soon as they get some power they attempt to stifle the freedom of their constituents. All in the name of their god, of course!
Now, Mr. Perry doesn't say he was wrong, but rather that he was "ill-informed" and shouldn't have made that decision on behalf of all 6th-grade girls and their families in Texas. You think? I think God better be very clear when talking with Perry as Perry seems to think God says what Perry wants to hear!
The hypocrisy of Perry, the Texas maniac, continues. Perry thinks spending is "out of control" in Washington (meaning, of course, those damn Democrats just have no fiscal sense). Because Perry thinks thusly, he opposes federal subsidies to the agriculture industry. Ah, but it wasn't always so.
Nope. As Salon reports, the Feds gave $9,624 to keep Perry from farming his 40 acres in Haskell Country in the 1990s. In addition, Perry's "tax returns from when he was in the [Texas] Legislature show he received $72,687 in agricultural program payments between 1987 and 1989, when he was farming his land." Perry's father also received federal monies. "As for his 40-acre farm, Perry sold it in 1998. Perry claimed a $17,693 loss on his federal income taxes for that year."
I think that Mr. Perry ought to return all federal subsidies and other monies that he has received personally and all federal subsidies that the state of Texas has received since he has been governor. We want a president who is consistent in his beliefs and willing to take the consequences of his actions.
Not so long ago, the governor of Texas, Pastor Rick Perry, urged his constituents to pray for rain. Pray, pray, pray! God has promised He will hear the prayers of his people. We desperately need rain, cried Perry, so pray! Well, hell, God didn't answer those prayers. Half of Texas burned to the ground and the state is currently in the midst of one of the worst droughts in history! Shame on God!
But Pastor Perry is undeterred. If God didn't answer with rain, well maybe he'll help our nation recover from the terrible beating it took under George W. Bush, er, Barack Obama. Perry seems to think the mess we're in is Obama's fault and that his old Texas sidekick, Georgi Bushki, had nothing to do with it.
Thus, Perry called for a Texas-size prayer rally (that means really beeg!) to be held in Reliant Stadium in Houston. Coincidentally, by the time the rally was held Perry was well on his way to become a candidate for the GOP nomination for president. That worked out fine, 'cause most folks don't question god's failures, and so Perry got about 30,000 Texas plus assorted religious freaks from across the country and spent a day haranguing the good Lord to do something, please, about the state of affairs in their beloved ol' U.S. of A.
Try to imagine Pastor Perry at the podium, eyes closed, but pointing skyward, where his god lives, pleading with his imaginary deity: "Father, our heart breaks for America...We have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us, and for that, we cry out for your forgiveness." Pastor Perry thinks that if the country becomes truly "christian" God will fix everything that's wrong. That's why Pastor Perry wants to be president; so he can personally roll in the golden age!
Well, sorry Charlie, but Perry's piddly-ass little deity didn't do anything about the much-needed rain, but rather increased the drought and you can be sure as a Texas thunderstorm he ain't gonna bother hisself trying to fix America when it was Perry and his ilk that brought the country to its knees in the first place! What's frightening (if you believe in this stuff) is that Perry's god may make conditions worse in the U.S.
We're going to be looking very closely at Perry's so-called accomplishments and the real state of affairs in the state of Texas, but a note should be made about Perry's claim of economic success. Right now, he's claiming that Texas is leading the nation in job creation. Well, maybe. But almost all of those jobs are crap jobs!
Time magazine put it this way: "...lurking behind Perry's record of job creation are substantial caveats. Perry largely inherited from George W. Bush the state's business-friendly environment [and that's another story in itself!], with no income tax, an abundant energy supply and a steady influx of cheap labor. And the state is hardly a workers' paradise. Nationally, Texas ranks at the bottom in terms of health-insurance coverage; many of the jobs he has created are low-wage positions, and many of the jobs he has lured from other states have required public money and tax subsidies. Moreover, Perry has made fiscal missteps. He had to scramble to close a $27 billion budget shortfall earlier this year. A superhighway he proposed was killed after howls of protest state-wide, and he created a public-private business-development fund that has opened him up to charges of cronyism."
Perry is a teapot crackpot, and sometimes really stupid. It was a couple of years ago at a Teapot rally in Austin that he threatened secession "if Washington couldn't get its act together." Secession sounds "treacherous" or even "treasonous" don't you think? This was said by a guy who has a habit of hanging around folks who still cling to the treasonous convictions of the Confederacy!
Finally, one has to wonder how many people are going to vote for a man who lies as a matter of course, and truly believes that God has called him to run for the presidency. And, if God has indeed called him to run for the presidency, that must mean God wants him to become president.
Oh, wait. Georgi Buski lies as a matter of course and he also said God called him to become president. And how many poor, deluded souls voted for him? I guess it didn't matter much the first time around. The Supreme Court voted him in as president even though the majority of the voters wanted Al Gore!
It's scary, though!
More on the scary Pastor Perry later!
Rachel Maddow - Iowa straw poll irrelevant...
...Michele Bachmann won because she bought the most votes (at $30 a crack!).
But Rachel has more to say about Rick Perry. Perry is scary! Does he think Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional? YES!
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Rachel Maddow - Could Rick Perry be the conduit for a Christian takeover of the U.S. Government?
At the recent prayer fest in Houston, The Response, Texas governor, Rick Perry, surrounded himself with a number of loony-tune preachers who are part of the New Apostolic Reformation - a rapidly-growing Pentecostal type movement with the major goal of taking over the U.S. Government (among other things) and establishing a form of fundamentalist Christian "sharia" law based on the Old Testament. Now, he didn't merely surround himself with these nutcases, they were "endorsers" of the prayer event! It appears that a couple of years ago, Perry may have been "anointed" to represent these "true believers" in the race for the presidency in 2012.
Consider also that Perry talks to God. That's not so bad, a lot of people talk to their imaginary friend in the sky. But Perry, crazy as he is, actually believes this imaginary friend talks back to him and tells him things like he should run for president because Obama is a curse upon the earth, and because Perry, as president, would be in a position to undermine/overthrow the Constitution and make this nation truly a "Christian" nation!
Rachel provides specifics and details and offers some important thoughts and questions related to the Perry candidacy.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Rick Perry's Prayer Ralley Dwarfed by Back-to-School Event
From Crooks & Liars:
Here's Rick Perry's Texas for you: While it seems his controversial prayer rally didn't go over so well, you can't say the same for a back-to-school event held just seven miles away the same day.
From Democracy Now:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry Leads Controversial Prayer Rally
Texas Gov. Rick Perry led 30,000 people in prayer at a controversial rally in Houston this weekend titled "The Response: A Call to Prayer for a Nation in Crisis." The seven-hour gathering was designed by Perry and sponsored in part by the American Family Association, which opposes same-sex marriage and has condemned Muslims. The event, which drew 30,000 participants, was also backed by the International House of Prayer, whose evangelical founder argues Oprah Winfrey is a Satanic religious leader. Though billed as an apolitical day of prayer for a nation in crisis, the response was filled with calls for an end to abortion and gave Perry the opportunity to appeal to Christian conservatives. Perry is widely expected to soon announce his candidacy for U.S. president. Critics denounced the gathering for blurring the lines between church and state.
Texas Rally Dwarfed by Back-to-School Event
The Response was dwarfed in comparison to Houston’s first-ever, citywide back-to-school event held just seven miles away on Sunday. An estimated 100,000 people showed up to receive free backpacks, school supplies, uniforms, haircut vouchers, immunizations and fresh produce. The demand for the much-needed supplies was so great officials were forced to shut the event down at 10:00 a.m. and turn people away.
And it looks like Perry is about to finally announce his candidacy this week -- Report: Rick Perry To Announce Presidential Run Saturday.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
New Expose Tracks ALEC-Private Prison Industry Efford to Replace Unionized Workers with Prison Labor
Thanks to Heather from Crooks & Liars for this important post!
From Democracy Now, more on the latest coming from ALEC thanks to the good work being done by The Nation's Mike Elk -- New Exposé Tracks ALEC-Private Prison Industry Effort to Replace Unionized Workers with Prison Labor:
Many of the toughest sentencing laws responsible for the explosion of the U.S. prison population were drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which helps corporations write model legislation. Now a new exposé reveals ALEC has paved the way for states and corporations to replace unionized workers with prison labor. We speak with Mike Elk, contributing labor reporter at The Nation magazine. He says ALEC and private prison companies "put a mass amount of people in jail, and then they created a situation where they could exploit that." Elk notes that in 2005 more than 14 million pounds of beef infected with rat feces processed by inmates were not recalled, in order to avoid drawing attention to how many products are made by prison labor.
As Susie already noted in her post that's up now, you can read Mike Elk and Mark Ames article at The Nation here -- The Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor.
Full transcript below the fold.
AMY GOODMAN: "The Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor" is our next segment. Lisa Graves, of the Center for Media and Democracy, in New Orleans. I wanted to turn now to the article I just referenced, which begins: "The breaded chicken patty your child bites into at school may have been made by a worker earning twenty cents an hour, not in a faraway country, but by a member of an invisible American workforce: prisoners."
Mike Elk is our next guest. He’s a contributing editor to The Nation magazine and has done this exposé with Bob Sloan in The Nation.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Continue on this story.
MIKE ELK: So, one of the—by far, one of the most perverse effects that ALEC has had on American society is the dramatic increase in the amount of prisoners incarcerated in this country. In 1980, there were only a half a million people incarcerated in this country. Now that number has quadrupled to nearly 2.4 million. One out of every 100 American adults is in prison, the majority of them for nonviolent drug offenses. You know, the United States has four percent of the world’s population, but yet we have 25 percent of the world’s prisoners in this country. And a big part of the reason for that is ALEC. Starting in the 1980s, ALEC, with the sponsorship of, you know, the Corrections Corporation of America—
AMY GOODMAN: And let me just remind people, ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council.
MIKE ELK: Yeah, ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, started passing bills in individual states to privatize prisons. So now, state—there’s prison companies that could make money by keeping people in prisons. So then ALEC—what they did after that was they got states to pass tougher drug laws, tougher laws that would put prisoners away for a long time. In fact, one of the first bills introduced in 1995, by then-Wisconsin State Representative Scott Walker, was an ALEC bill, where he cited ALEC statistics, and he was an ALEC member, where he drew his inspiration. So they put a mass amount of people in jail, and then they created a situation where they could exploit that.
And now what we’re seeing is the incredible rise of prison labor, where you have prisoners making as much as 20 cents an hour, making everything from the electronic components in guided missiles, that are being used in Libya, to breaded chicken patties that your children are eating at school, to, in fact, maybe even these office chairs we’re sitting in now. We have over 100,000 prisoners employed, working for private corporations. And before the 1990s and ALEC, this did not occur in this country.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to another clip of the interview that Terry Gross of NPR did with the ALEC chair, Noble Ellington, for an example of legislation that was introduced and passed recently in state legislatures based on model legislation drafted by ALEC members. Noble Ellington mentioned legislation on prison reform.
REP. NOBLE ELLINGTON: Well, they may start out in cooperation together, the corporations and the ALEC members. They may start out together, but only—only legislative members approve model legislation, not the private sector advisory board. And yes, in—and I’ll give you Louisiana. This year, working with the Pew Foundation, we introduced some legislation working on prison reform, trying to stop recidivism and make the time that the prisoners have to serve, attempt to shorten that.
AMY GOODMAN: Noble Ellington, the chair of ALEC, on Terry Gross’s program on NPR. Mike Elk, your response?
MIKE ELK: Well, the response now is, there are so many states that are looking to get prisoners out of prison, because it’s expensive. So what happened is, ALEC found another sponsor that could make money off of getting prisoners out of prison. So what ALEC wants to do now is reform the parole system in this country, privatize it. So now prisoners have to put up bond, with private bail bond companies that are owned by big Wall Street firms, where they have to pay outrageous fees in order to get out of prison. And this is something that we haven’t seen before.
So, ALEC, no matter the issue, can find a corporate sponsor. Look, for example, at the Arizona immigration law. My colleague at In These Times, Beau Hodai, showed that ALEC arranged meetings between the Corrections Corporation of America and the Arizona state legislators sponsoring the anti-immigration bill, because having more immigrants detained means more prisons. So, on just about any issue, ALEC can find a way that there’s a corporate partner that can profit off of it.
AMY GOODMAN: If you were at the conference in New Orleans right now, what would you be asking?
MIKE ELK: I would be asking, why are so many corporations, you know, turning to prison labor, of all things? You know, it’s become incredible in this country. You know, you see so many corporations now that going to China isn’t cheap enough anymore. You know, it’s expensive to ship stuff across seas. So they’re coming to the only source of labor that isn’t more expensive than China, which is U.S. prison population. Why are they doing that? Why is ALEC keeping so many people in prison that could be doing something more productive? We spend $60 billion a year in this country keeping people in prison. And having a captive labor workforce that corporations can profit from is just going to make it tougher to have prison reform in this country.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, the issue of prison labor versus union labor?
MIKE ELK: Well, as we saw already in Wisconsin, you see now prison labor replacing, you know, unionized public workers, where the prison labor, you know, working in road crews in Racine, Wisconsin, is not getting paid anything. So we’re seeing that come in. We’re seeing factories close down in this country that were employing unionized prison labor, and instead we’re now shifting to prison labor. For instance, in the state of Florida, the largest printing company is Prison Industries. So, now there’s not even a market anymore. So we’re seeing increasingly American workers having to not compete just against Chinese labor that’s forced and exploited, but forced and exploited labor in this own country.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, we have to break, and then we’re going to go back to another story in New Orleans, but we’ve just been talking about the processing of meat. Talk about the story from 2005 around prisoners and meat.
MIKE ELK: My co-author, Bob Sloan, who’s an ex-offender, who actually worked in Prison Industries and has dedicated his life to unveiling, you know, the tragedy of Prison Industries, showed how ATL Industries, back in 2005, had 14 million pounds of beef that they knew was infected with rat feces. Now, many people raised the alarms, and they were even trying to pressure ATL Industries to recall the beef. However, the USDA wouldn’t let them recall the beef, even through a voluntary recall, because they didn’t want to draw attention to how much meat and how many other products in this country are being made by prison labor. So, we have an industry, prison labor, for example, in '95, the U.S. government passed a law, the federal government, that now the regulating body for Prison Industries is not the Department Justice, but the National Correctional Industries Association. This is sort of like turning over bank regulation to the American Bankers Association. So we're seeing an industry that’s basically completely unregulated and poses a great threat, not just to American workers, but to the mouths and health of, you know, American children and adults.
AMY GOODMAN: Mike Elk, I want to thank you very much for being with us, contributing editor at The Nation magazine, exposé in The Nation called "The Hidden History of ALEC and Prison Labor." We’ll link to it at democracynow.org.
Jesus, Rick Perry, Jackasses, Braying
Bray: The loud, harsh cry of a donkey.
Today's the day! It is the day of The Response, "an evangelical day of prayer and fasting seeking divine intervention for America."
Rick Perry, the jackass governor of Texas, has called this gathering. He has invited other governors of the various states to join him in this quite incredible violation of the United States Constitution. Perry wrote:
"I sincerely hope you'll join me in Houston on August 6th and take your place in Reliant Stadium with praying people asking God's forgiveness, wisdom and provision for our state and nation. There is hope for America. It lies in heaven, and we will find it on our knees."
No, you're not living in the 16th century. It just seems like it. Not a few people around the world have been "progressing" backward. God, heaven, prayer - all are aspects of a futile mythology that has ill-served the people of earth for untold generations! But the governor of the state of Texas doesn't get it. He's a "believer."
Not only so but this "call to prayer" is without question a "Christian" event. More than that, it is an "evangelical" Christian event. Mainstream Christians, Roman Catholics, Unitarians, and other "fringe" groups should stay home, thank you very much. Non-Christians? Fuggedaboudit!
And an event like this, of course, constitutes an "official" recognition of a religion by the state, which is expressly forbidden in the U.S. Constitution. Not that that makes any difference to the likes of Perry and his ilk. They are quite upfront about their desire and intention to remake the United States into their version of a "Christian" nation, the Constitution be damned!
Then, there's the question of the efficacy of prayer. Numerous studies have been done dealing with whether or not prayer is effective. The answer has been emphatically "No!" In fact, if sick people know they are being prayed for, they become even sicker. The evangelical right have been on their collective knees for years bemoaning what they consider the immoral and unchristian policies of these United States - the disallowing of prayer/evangelizing in public schools, their inability to erect copies of the Ten Commandments in courthouses, the legality of abortion, stem-cell research, the sale of contraceptives, blah, blah, blah. But nothing's happened! You would think they'd conclude that either God doesn't give a damn or he/she doesn't exist. Not so. The jackasses conclude they need to pray/bray harder. In public.
But another question also arises: why the hell does Perry care about any of this? He's not a lover of our nation. He doesn't much like our Constitution. He hates the federal government. He's even threatened to take his beloved Texas and secede from the Union!
It appears that Perry, like Palin and Bachmann and other stupid goofballs who are too dumb to know they are too dumb to hold any public office, thinks he has been sent by God to turn this country into a right-wing religious freakshow.
If there really were a god, Perry would have been struck down by a lightning bolt a long time ago!
It appears that Perry and his friends on the religious right either do not read their beloved New Testament or they read it, don't like what it says, and thus ignore it.
In the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark & Luke), the writers have fancied and created a legendary Jesus much different than that proclaimed by the religious right or the politicians who claim to have Jesus on their side.
The Synoptic Gospels tell us of a Jesus who had nothing to say about homosexuality, capitalism, abortion, debt-ceilings, or balanced budgets, but who did make inflammatory and hateful comments like "feed the poor; love your neighbor; forgive your enemy; take care of the foreigner and the immigrant; visit those in prison, don't pray in public!" and this really reactionary and subversive command - "pay your taxes!"
So, in Houston on this August 6, 2011, we will have a large group of jackasses who don't want to follow Jesus, but rather, having recreated Jesus in their own image, gather in Reliant Stadium to pray to their imaginary Jesus in the hopes that Jesus/God will intervene to correct all the terrible mistakes these jackasses have made in his name so they don't have to get their own hands dirty by actually doing what Jesus said to do!
All of which means, we have, in Houston today, a large group of jackasses who have come together to bray!
Note: As of August 3, only 8,000 people had signed up online for this jackass event. The stadium holds over 50,000. Thus, it is not quite the response that Perry, the pompous, pious, jackass governor of Texas was hoping for.
But prayer isn't what this event is all about. It was planned in order to give Perry national exposure and make him credible as a GOP candidate for president among the teapot crackpots and other far-right christianist members of the Repugnican Party!
And here is a link to an article detailing the creepy religious folks who stand in the shadows of Perry and this event.
Update and correction: According to an article at the Huffington Post, about 30,000 people attended this Houston brayer event. The stadium seats over 71,000.
Friday, August 5, 2011
The Congressional Reform Act of 2011
Once in a blue moon I get something via email that is worth a second look. A friend sent me a piece about amending our Constitution in such a way as to make Congress more representative of and more responsive to the needs of the people. I do not know the author.
This is supposed to be a country of the people, by the people and for the people. The Constitution begins with the phrase, "We the People of the United States..."
Unfortunately, we have become a country of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations. The rich and the powerful rule. Ironically, the teapot crackpots, who supposedly represent the "common" folks are funded and directed by such as the Koch brothers who have turned the so-called tea party movement into a corporate ploy to destroy both the national and state governments in order to seek even greater riches unimpeded by nasty laws against such things as bad products and pollution of the environment!
Two disclaimers first:
1) There is no tea party. The teapot crackpots do not comprise a political party. They are simply the far right wing of the Republican Party. The fact that they exist and that a number of them were elected to Congress is an indication as to how far the Republican Party has shifted toward the right in recent years.
2) We must reject the false equivalence of Republicans and Democrats! During the recent wholly-contrived debt-ceiling controversy, the media has created a false equivalence between Republicans and Democrats, treating both parties as if they were equally responsible for the breakdown of responsible government. Nothing could be further from the truth. Unfortunately, there are some Democrats in Congress who are just as crazy and stupid as the Republicans, but the Republican Party as a whole has given up on governing and exists simply to maintain and increase its power in order to use the government for its own purposes which most often means breaking down the legitimate authority of the government in order to rid corporate power of any restrictions as it amasses ever more wealth. The Republican Party has lost its soul. The Republican Party will do literally anything, including rewriting the Constitution to maintain and increase its power. When the Republican Party talks about the "commonwealth," it refers not to regular folks but to the rich and powerful! There is no "common" in the Republican commonwealth!
While the teapot crackpots and other Republicans pretend to be concerned about the financial status of the country (e.g., the deficit), that's a smokescreen. In fact, their actions, in every case, increase the deficit. The debt-ceiling compromise will increase the debt substantially. The failure of the Republicans in Congress to deal with the FAA controllers will have the same result. In the latter case, the Republicans are trying to defeat unionization.
What can be done?
Someone or some group has come up with a suggestion called the Congressional Reform Act of 2011. I agree with most of what this act (or Constitutional amendment) would accomplish. The verbiage and grammar have not been changed. My comments are contained in the parentheses.
Here are the provisions:
1. No Tenure/No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
[I'm not sure that Congresspersons have "tenure" as tenure is usually understood. They are elected for a specific term and then must run for office again. I agree with the "no pension" clause because of what follows below.]
2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.
[Yes! No pensions for those who serve in Congress. All men and women in Congress are placed into the Social Security system just as regular citizens. Especially important is the mandate that Social Security funds are never to be used for any other purpose!]
3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
[Obviously, "all Americans" don't purchase their own retirement plan. But they are responsible for planning for their own retirement. Social Security was never intended to provide all the funds necessary for retirement. Regular folks must see they have sufficient funds beyond what they receive from Social Security. And so should anyone who is serving or who has served in Congress.]
4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
[I wouldn't want to get into a debate here on the amount of Congressional pay raises, but I agree that members of Congress should not be able to raise their own pay, but that it should be tied to some financial index, perhaps the same as Social Security.]
5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
[This is most important. If this should pass, we would have an excellent comprehensive health plan for all Americans in no time at all! I'm also in favor of the people voting for or against all of the other "perks" that Congress has established for its members down through the years!]
6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
[I think this is true now and may be superfluous.]
7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves Serving in Congress in an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.
[I'm a little confused by the meaning of this provision, or to which "contracts" it refers. If it's speaking of any special favors members of Congress have voted themselves, I agree. If it refers to lifelong pensions and health benefits for someone who served in Congress a mere two years, I agree. From what I've seen, members of Congress are treated as kings and queens, as if they are different somehow than the rest of us with an incredible number of "perks." All that should change!]
At the moment the Congress of the United States is out of control. Our system of checks-and-balances is threatened. It is frightening to note how many truly ignorant and stupid people are serving in Congress. Many of them do not "believe" in evolution or in global warming! My God, these things aren't up for debate! They're not a matter of "belief"! Many of our members of Congress are religious freaks, and operate from a religious ideology that belongs in the Dark Ages! And these people have the power to destroy our country! The fact that people like Michele Bachmann or Newt Gingrich or Sarah Palin are given any credibility at all is beyond comprehension. In any sane world, they would be objects of ridicule!
Change is needed. Maybe a Constitutional amendment incorporating provisions like the ones above is the way to go.
Let the debate begin!
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
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?
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)