WE MUST CALL IT WHAT IT IS: EVIL

Been reading a lot lately. One excellent book I have gotten a hold of is The Politics of Jesus: Rediscovering The True Revolutionary Nature of Jesus' Teachings and How They Have Been Corrupted.

A phenomenal book. Very quickly, I want to leave y'all with some thoughts pulled directly and shamelessly from Dr. Hendricks' book.

"...it is more important, it is our sacred prophetic duty, to
identify and call by name the policies, governmental officials, corporate
officers, events and developments, and greedy elites that are responsible for
the impoverishment of the people. Calling the demon by name is an integral
part of our vocation to treat the people's needs as holy. thus, we must
call by name every factor, condition, person, or persons that do not treat the
people's needs as holy. We must call the demon by its name:
evil.

We must call by name tax laws that favor the interests of the rich:
evil.

We must call by name corporate boards and executives who underpay their
workers while giving corporate executives annual salaries and bonuses so large
that it would take the average worker centuries of labor to earn as much"
evil.

We must call by name those who claim to hold the people's needs as holy but
in reality do not: evil.

We must call evil by name to remind the people that public officials are
supposed to be public servants, and remind public servants that it is the
welfare of the many that they are to serve, not the whims and wants of the
privileged few.

We must call the demon by name in our churches, call by name ministers'
crass materialism and their lack of prophetic engagement; must call by name
their collusion with forces that exploit and oppress those whom they are
supposed to serve.

We must call by name the perversion of Jesus' Gospel by prosperity
preachers who blame the people for their sickness and poverty, instead of
decrying the demonic mistreatment of the poor by those who hold only their own
needs as holy.

We must call evil by name when pensions are squandered, when
Americans are dispossessed of their livelihoods by greedy executives who export
American jobs to regions where they can better exploit workers'
desperation." (Bold mine) (Dr Obrey
Hendricks, Jr. The Politics of Jesus (Doubleday, 2006), pp
148,149

Dr. Hendricks goes on, I am somewhat pressed for time.

I will say this: The conservatives have done a great job in equating moral conservatism with political conservatism. The two have nothing in common.

If Political Conservatism had its way from the founding of the United States, the British would have never had to fight to keep the colonies. Breaking from Britain was a Liberal idea. The conservatives wanted to remain part of the crown.

If Political Conservatism had its way in the 1960's, Jim Crow would be alive and well. It was political conservatives that wanted to keep slavery and African-Amercians under the thumb of White America.

And now, it is Political Conservatism that wants to destroy bargaining rights in a number of states. It is political Conservatism that wants to repeal child labor laws in the State of Maine. It is Political Conservatism that seeks to deny children as well as adults in this nation a free education. It is political Conservatism that would have children go to bed hungry at night. It is Political Conservatism that seeks to deny equality to people based on their sexuality. It is Political Conservatism that seeks to destroy families of brown people that speak Spanish through the scapegoating of an entire class of people based on their ethnicity.

Make no mistake, Political Conservatism and Moral Conservatism are utterly antithetical, and they will never be reconciled.

I will leave you, Searchers with a quote from a Founding Father:

"As mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those
who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled
to the protections of the civil government. I hope ever to see America among the
foremost of nations in examples of justice and liberality."-George Washington

Peace, Searchers, I'm sure looking forward to having my laptop back...

HIATUS WINDING DOWN

• Long time, Searchers. I've been off for a while dealing with things I won't go into detail about here. Greetings to a Searcher, Jason of Illinois.
  
  Very quickly, as I'm taking care of other things at the moment, I wanted to touch base about two books I picked up from the Library the other day. One is by Deena Guzer, Divine Rebels American Christian Activists for Social Justice. The other is Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Krugman. Both are phenomenal.
  
  In Krugman's book, granted I am only a few pages in, he writes about the similarities between what he calls The Long Gilded Age, the period between 1870 and the 1920's. There is a table he inserts that appears on page 16 of the book, I will attempt to recreate it here:
  
  
  



• 
  
  
  Table 1. Share of High-income Groups in Total Income, Excluding Capital Gains



• 
  



• 
  
  



• 
  



• 
  
  
  Highest-income 10% Highest -income 1%



• 
  



• 
  
  



• 
  



• 
  
  
  Average for 1920's 43.6% 17.3%



• 
  



• 
  
  



• 
  



• 
  
  
  2005 44.3% 17.4%

In the table and the writing explaining the table, he discusses the inequality of income and the resemblance between the Nation in the 1870's and today, albeit a few years ago. Since 2005, it has not gotten better, it has gotten worse. As a direct result of the abysmal economic policies of the Republican party, including Ronald Reagan, and his political offspring, George W. Bush.

The Republicans are tearing down our Nation, make no mistake. Another quote from his book that appears on page 11 of Conscience of a Liberal:

Ronald Reagan, more than anyone else, showed the way. His 1964 speech "A time for Choosing," which launched his political career, and the speeches he gave during his successful 1966 campaign for governor of California foreshadowed political strategies that would work for him and other movement conservatives for the next forty years. Latter-day hagiographers have portrayed Reagan as a paragon of high-minded conservative principles, but he was nothing of the sort. His early political successes were based on appeals to cultural and sexual anxieties playing on the fear of communism, and, above all, tacit exploitation of white backlash against the civil rights movement and its consequences. (Bold mine.)

One key message of this book, which many readers may find uncomfortable, is that race is at the heart of what has happened to the country I grew up in. The legacy of slavery, America's original sin, is the reason we're the only advanced economy that doesn't guarantee health care to our citizens. (bold mine) White backlash against the civil rights movement is the reason America is the only advanced country where a major political party (the Republicans, this is inserted by me) wants to roll back the welfare state. Ronald Reagan began his 1980 campaign with a states' rights speech outside Philadelphia, Mississippi, the town where three civil rights workers were murdered; Newt Gingrich, (who by the way is running for President for the 2012 election, against President Obama, parenthetical commentary mine) was able to take over Congress entirely because of the great Southern flip, the switch of Southern whites from overwhelming support for Democrats to overwhelming support for Republicans.

Without a doubt, the Republican party is against American families, and against America herself.

Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan's dangerous plan to turn Medicare into a coupon or voucher program is but one of the many examples of the Republican nightmarish plans for our country. For those of you who don't know about his plan to destroy medicare, study up. Same for the plans by the now infamous Scott Walker, the current Governor of Wisconsin. He will be up for a recall vote one year after his term began. There are currently several Republican State Senators facing recall next month in Wisconsin.

The Republican party is not for America's families. They are attempting to haul us back to the time before the Great Depression, and they are trying to destroy the New Deal designed by FDR, as well as the middle class and the elderly, students, young families, American industry, the list goes on and on.

Listen, Searchers, get off your asses and get involved. It is time to take our country from the Right Wing of America that seeks to destroy it.

Peace-

By the way, I will write about a couple of comments I received a while back that come directly from the useless Flanagin rabble in the state of Arkansas. And, there is a circuit judge I will post about before long, also in Arkansas.


The table is kinda jacked up, I know, but figure it it. Better yet, go to your library or local bookstore and pick up a copy of Paul Krugman's book. I don't have the time to perfect the table right now, in the future I will work on it.

Till next time...
Where's my sitemeter?????? Must get that back on....

CLASS WARFARE? YOU BET YOUR ASS

I have swung from the right to the left; if you have read this at all you know. There was a time I supported big business, I believed the Republican and right wing Christian nonsense about profit, Capitalism, (God's own economic way, don't ya know) and the ability for the poor to get rich, because of "trickle down" economics. However, I have come to my senses. I was watching CNN yesterday and a commercial came on railing against taxes for energy companies. "Madness!" "Crazy!" and other such adjectives hurled at me by blue collar actor portrayals...and people are buying this crap hook, line, and sinker. Here is a story from Newsweek, CEO's are lamenting their poor abused status as the victimized rich.

The Book of James states in chapter 5 v.4: "Look! The wages you have failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you." NIV.

Let me take it a step further: The companies in the United States are on a wholesale robbery spree against the workers. The CEO's are empowered, the workers are weak. Such is the legacy of Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. They are stealing from us, and screaming about taxes. Wake up, a country cannot be operative without revenue, and that revenue comes form taxes.

I am working toward reversing this trend, and it begins with education. It is high time to end the utter exploitation of the worker, the farmer, the average person in the U.S.

Let me be clear: The Richest in this country are never going to come off their money unless forced to by the people. There has been a massive redistribution of wealth-from the bottom up to the top. The economic policies of Saint Ronald have done nothing except grow the coffers of the already rich. Reaganomics have failed, George W. Bush is a failure, and Conservative are morally bankrupt.

Listen middle class and poor-you are in the financial straights today as a direct result of the Conservative and Republican economic policy. And yes, Bill Clinton is to blame also.

In a few days I am going to post some pics of a little town in Arkansas that has gone completely in the shitter as a direct result of Conservatives and the Republicans. Home after home after home has been abandoned and houses are falling apart, yet the people are embittered against the left, and they are voting Republican to get even with Wall Street. (thanks Thomas Frank for putting that into perspective for me.)

Stuffing Their Pockets

For CEOs, a lucrative recession.

One of the most startling things about the post-crisis landscape is how tone-deaf the wealthiest Americans remain to outrage over their Croesus-like pay packages. The award for complete obliviousness would have to go to Blackstone cofounder Stephen Schwarzman, who earlier this summer compared government attempts to raise taxes on financiers such as himself to Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Silver medals should certainly be handed out to the many executives and corporate lawyers who were grousing last week about the new Dodd-Frank bill, which includes a rule requiring companies to disclose the difference in pay between their chief executive and their lowest-level workers. It would be a “logistical nightmare,” these titans of industry wailed, for firms to compile this information.

Well, maybe, but if you issue pay stubs, surely you can tally them up (and perhaps keep a few more workers on board to do just that). The real nightmare will be when the public sees the numbers, which will illuminate just how egregious the U.S. pay gap has become. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal think tank based in Washington, the average S&P 500 CEO takes home 263 times what his cheapest laborer does. While CEO pay is indeed down from its pre-crisis highs in 2007, it’s still double what it was in the 1990s, and eight times the level in the 1950s.

Meanwhile, American workers are taking home less in real weekly wages than they did in the 1970s. So much for the idea that the financial crisis would somehow even things up by wiping out a good chunk of the paper wealth of the plutocrats. Indeed, stock prices have surged so much since last year that many CEOs, who receive a good chunk of their pay in equity, are wealthier than ever before.

Such facts are inevitably followed by the impossible-to-answer question, do they deserve it? While the corporate world has certainly gotten more complex over the last 50 years, it’s hard to make the case that CEOs themselves have gotten any smarter, or that investors are doing a better job of judging a CEO’s success. Compensation levels are all too often driven by short-term thinking. The CEOs of the 50 firms that laid off the most workers since the onset of the economic crisis took home 42 percent more pay in 2009 than their peers did—largely because cutting workers boosts short-term profits and appeals to Wall Street. Yet a growing body of academic research suggests that downsizing doesn’t always lead to increased profitability over the longer haul, or even lower costs. There are many reasons for this, ranging from the fact that companies going into layoff mode often lose their best workers to competitors, to the toll taken on R&D spending, which is what produces the revenue and growth potential of the future.

While one can argue the merits of layoffs on a company-by-company basis, what’s striking is that the executives who are the most willing to ax workers also seem to be the least likely to tighten their own belts. Management guru Peter Drucker once noted that after CEO-to-worker pay ratios went above 25–1, major moral questions started to be raised. It will be hard to make employees believe that “we’re all in this together” when it becomes clear in public documents that company leaders have largely insulated themselves from any financial risk.

The larger issue of growing inequity in the Western world is a tough one to tackle; the forces of globalization that have led to stagnating wages aren’t going to disappear. But executive pay could be made fairer and more transparent. For starters, corporate America might take a page out of the European playbook. In countries like Germany, which boasts many of the world’s most competitive and productive companies, worker representatives often sit on corporate boards, providing a check against bloated pay packages.

On the other hand, U.S. corporate boards are full of very rich people who have no incentive to complain about each others’ pay. That’s why politicians might consider getting rid of tax rules that let companies write off unlimited amounts of corporate compensation. And whatever arguments there might be about the complexity of the Dodd-Frank rules, the notion of publishing pay numbers is a good one. If nothing else, it could be the starting point of a conversation in which America’s business leaders explain, to their shareholders and to the wider public, exactly why they need so much money to get the job done.

Thanks Newsweek-peace

RIGHT WING CHRISTIANITY AND THEIR WAR MACHINE

Gotta love Eric Prince, the sleaze behind Blackwater. It is amazing to see how the right distorts Christianity and how the Christians on the Right love to wage war. It's a growth industry, don't ya know, and Capitalism is God's own economy...Eric Prince is as anti-christ and unamerican as any Soviet era official...Pure Capitalism, the type the Christian Right wants to usher in, is as evil as Communism in its pure form...Check out Jeremy Scahill's excellent book "BLACKWATER." You won't regret it.

Thank you NYT again...

Blackwater won contracts with web of companies
Network let it obscure involvement from contracting officials and public

By James Risen and Mark Mazzetti

updated 9/4/2010 12:07:58 AM ET

WASHINGTON — Blackwater Worldwide created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq, according to Congressional investigators and former Blackwater officials.

While it is not clear how many of those businesses won contracts, at least three had deals with the United States military or the Central Intelligence Agency, according to former government and company officials. Since 2001, the intelligence agency has awarded up to $600 million in classified contracts to Blackwater and its affiliates, according to a United States government official.

The Senate Armed Services Committee this week released a chart that identified 31 affiliates of Blackwater, now known as Xe Services. The network was disclosed as part of a committee’s investigation into government contracting. The investigation revealed the lengths to which Blackwater went to continue winning contracts after Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in September 2007. That episode and other reports of abuses led to criminal and Congressional investigations, and cost the company its lucrative security contract with the State Department in Iraq.

The network of companies — which includes several businesses located in offshore tax havens — allowed Blackwater to obscure its involvement in government work from contracting officials or the public, and to assure a low profile for any of its classified activities, said former Blackwater officials, who, like the government officials, spoke only on condition of anonymity.

Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that it was worth “looking into why Blackwater would need to create the dozens of other names” and said he had requested that the Justice Department investigate whether Blackwater officers misled the government when using subsidiaries to solicit contracts.

The C.I.A.’s continuing relationship with the company, which recently was awarded a $100 million contract to provide security at agency bases in Afghanistan, has drawn harsh criticism from some members of Congress, who argue that the company’s tarnished record should preclude it from such work. At least two of the Blackwater-affiliated companies, XPG and Greystone, obtained secret contracts from the agency, according to interviews with a half dozen former Blackwater officials.

A C.I.A. spokesman, Paul Gimigliano, said that Xe’s current duties for the agency were to provide security for agency operatives. Contractors “do the tasks we ask them to do in strict accord with the law; they are supervised by C.I.A. staff officers; and they are held to the highest standards of conduct” he said. “As for Xe specifically, they help provide security in tough environments, an assignment at which their people have shown both skill and courage.”


Congress began to investigate the affiliated companies last year, after the shooting deaths of two Afghans by Blackwater security personnel working for a subsidiary named Paravant, which had obtained Pentagon contracts in Afghanistan. In a Senate hearing earlier this year, Army officials said that when they awarded the contract to Paravant for training of the Afghan Army, they had no idea that the business was part of Blackwater.
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While Congressional investigators have identified other Blackwater-linked businesses, it was not the focus of their inquiry to determine how much money from government contracts flowed through the web of corporations, especially money earmarked for clandestine programs. The former company officials say that Greystone did extensive work for the intelligence community, though they did not describe the nature of the activities. The firm was incorporated in Barbados for tax purposes, but had executives who worked at Blackwater’s headquarters in North Carolina.
The former company officials say that Erik Prince, the business’s founder, was eager to find ways to continue to handle secret work after the 2007 shootings in Baghdad’s Nisour Square and set up a special office to handle classified work at his farm in Middleburg, Va.
Enrique Prado, a former top C.I.A. official who joined the contractor, worked closely with Mr. Prince to develop Blackwater’s clandestine abilities, according to several former officials. In an internal e-mail obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Prado claimed that he had created a Blackwater spy network that could be hired by the American government.

“We have a rapidly growing, worldwide network of folks that can do everything from surveillance to ground truth to disruption operations,” Mr. Prado wrote in the October 2007 message, in which he asked another Blackwater official whether the Drug Enforcement Administration might be interested in using the spy network. “These are all foreign nationals,” he added, “so deniability is built in and should be a big plus.”

It is not clear whether Mr. Prado’s secret spy service ever conducted any operations for the government. From 2004 to 2006, both Mr. Prado and Mr. Prince were involved in a C.I.A. program to hunt senior leaders of Al Qaeda that had been outsourced to Blackwater, though current and former American officials said that the assassination program did not carry out any operations. Company employees also loaded bombs and missiles onto Predator drones in Pakistan, work that was terminated last year by the C.I.A.

Both Mr. Prince and Mr. Prado declined to be interviewed for this article.

The company is facing a string of legal problems, including the indictment in April of five former Blackwater officials on weapons and obstruction charges, and civil suits stemming from the 2007 shootings in Iraq.

The business is up for sale by Mr. Prince, who colleagues say is embittered by the public criticism and scrutiny that Blackwater has faced. He has not been implicated in the criminal charges against his former subordinates, but he has recently moved his family to Abu Dhabi, where he hopes to focus on obtaining contracts from governments in Africa and the Middle East, according to colleagues and former company officials.

After awarding Blackwater the new security contract in June, the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, publicly defended the decision, saying Blackwater had “cleaned up its act.”

But Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said she could not understand why the intelligence community had been unwilling to cut ties to Blackwater. “I am continually and increasingly mystified by this relationship,” she said. “To engage with a company that is such a chronic, repeat offender, it’s reckless.”

It is unclear how much of Blackwater’s relationship with the C.I.A. will become public during the criminal proceedings in North Carolina because the Obama administration won a court order limiting the use of classified information. Among other things, company executives are accused of obtaining large numbers of AK-47s and M-4 automatic weapons, but arranging to make it appear as if they had been bought by the sheriff’s department in Camden County, N.C. Such purchases were legal only if made by law enforcement agencies.

But defense lawyers say they hope to argue that Blackwater had a classified contract with the C.I.A. and wanted at least some of the guns for weapons training for agency officers.

RELIGION IS RELIGION IS RELIGION

This foolishness is no different than the nonsense from right wing christianity in the United States...

From the BBC:

Iranian Cleric Blames Qakes On Promiscuous Women

Women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes, an Iranian cleric says.

Hojjat ol-eslam Kazem Sediqi, the acting Friday prayer leader in Tehran, said women should stick to strict codes of modesty to protect themselves.

"Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray and spread adultery in society which increases earthquakes," he explained.

Tens of thousands of people have died in Iran earthquakes in the last decade.

Mr Sediqi was delivering a televised sermon at the Tehran University campus mosque last Friday on the need for a "general repentance" by Iranians when he warned of a "prevalence of degeneracy".

"What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble? There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam's moral codes," he said.

'Disappoint God'

Correspondents say many young Iranians sometimes push the boundaries of how they can dress, showing hair under their headscarves or wearing tight-fitting clothes.

Mr Sediqi also described the violence following last year's disputed presidential election - the result of which prompted thousands of people to hold mass protests - as a "political earthquake".

"Now if a natural earthquake hits Tehran, no one will be able to confront such a calamity but God's power, only God's power. So lets not disappoint God."

More than 25,000 people died when a powerful earthquake hit the ancient city of Bam in 2003.

Seismologists have warned that the capital, Tehran, is situated on a large number of tectonic fault lines and could be hit by a devastating earthquake soon.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said many of Tehran's 12 million inhabitants should relocate.

There are plans to build a purpose built new capital near Qom.


"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire

Peace-
oh- happy 420

RELIGIOUS RIGHT MOST LIKE TALIBAN IN THE UNITED STATES: CHRIS MATTHEWS OF MSNBC

I caught the video below on MSNBC, it's about 14 minutes long, but I found a 50 second clip on Huffington Post of the end of the segment with Ron Reagan and Frank Gaffney, they were discussing, of sorts, the situation in Afghanistan.

The focus of most has been on the insult Gaffney, a neocon, threw at Ron Reagan, the son of President Reagan and a radio host on Air America, you'll hear it at the end, Gaffney tells Reagan, "Your father would be ashamed of you."

Totally below the belt, and you have to expect that from a neocon, but the thing that really perked up my ears was Chris Matthews' comment at the end, I'll paraphrase it-the religious right are the closest thing we have to the Taliban in the United States, and I couldn't agree more. In parts of the U.S., the "religious right" doesn't necessarily mean those with Republican leanings. I know plenty of Democrats that are racist hatemongers.

Here's the brief write up from HuffPo:
Peace-

Right-wing neoconservative Frank Gaffney went on "Hardball" Thursday night to defend Dick Cheney but ended up just insulting his fellow guest.
After a long exchange with Air America host Ron Reagan on the war in Afghanistan, Gaffney gave up on arguing and went for a personal attack. "Your father would be ashamed of you," he told Reagan, whose father was the late president.


"Oh, Frank," Reagan replied, "you better watch your mouth about that, Frank.



And here's a brief write-up about Frank Gaffney from Steve Benen from the Washington Monthly:

Now, Gaffney probably knows he crossed a line of decency; in fact that probably why he said what he said. Gaffney's a right-wing nutjob whose job it is to say ridiculous things.


And that's really what matters here. Gaffney's insane rhetoric isn't the problem; the fact that he was invited onto national television (again) to share his insane rhetoric is the problem.

Gaffney probably isn't a household name, but inside the media establishment, he's a pretty well known figure, as evidenced by his joint appearance with Dick Cheney on Wednesday night. And when offered a major media platform, Gaffney takes full advantage.


In April, for example, Gaffney appeared on MSNBC to argue that whenever President Obama uses the word "respect" in foreign policy, the word is "code for those who adhere to Sharia that we will submit to Sharia." He wasn't kidding.

In June, Gaffney wrote a column insisting that President Obama might really be a Muslim. In March, Gaffney argued that "evidence" exists connecting Saddam Hussein to 9/11, the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, and the Oklahoma City bombing. Last September, Gaffney argued that Sarah Palin has learned foreign policy through "osmosis," by living in Alaska. (Bold is mine)

He's argued that U.S. forces really did find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but the media covered it up. He's used made-up quotes and recommended "hanging" Democratic officials critical of the Bush administration's Iraq policy. He even believes there's "evidence" to support the "Birthers," and once recommended a military strike on Al Jazeera headquarters.

So why is it, exactly, that MSNBC's "Hardball" invited Gaffney on to talk about foreign policy? What is it the viewing public can learn from listening to his unhinged perspective?
To be sure, Gaffney is certainly entitled to believe obvious lunacy, but that doesn't mean he deserves a microphone or the opportunity to convince a national television audience that his lunacy is legitimate.

Honestly, is there nothing conservatives can say that would force them from polite company? Just how nutty must far-right activists be before they're no longer invited to share their ridiculous ideas?

The right wing is getting more and more in the outfield, if any "wing" should be closely observed it is the right. And do not forget: Right Wing does not necessarily mean Republican. I cannot stress that enough.
Peace-

THE DEMON POSSESED BALWIN BROTHER (STEPHEN) APPEARED IN D.C.

The right wing oughta loves this- 'God Bless The Great White Right'-and all of the (my dad should love this)imps, John Boehner, Eric Cantor (when is he going to come out of the closet????) Carrie Prejean at the "values voter summit" as though no one has values unless they're banging their choir director...or has fake boobs, or can bring a gun to a Presidential Meeting...you should be proud right wing: now we all know how you operate, and we should make sure we watch you closely...

Peace-

TERROR IN THE HEARTLAND,MURDER IN CHURCH *UPDATE*

I left a message a couple of days ago with Liz from Planned Parenthood. She handles media requests. In light of the shooting in a church in Kansas of a doctor that provided abortions, I was curious as to how people involved with Planned Parenthood in my area were handling things, and if there was an uptick in threats, etc., from people here.

So it's been a couple of days since I contacted her, and she returned my call today.
I asked her how people were holding up and she indicated that support in Washington and Oregon remains strong, and they have in fact beefed up security at clinics, and I was under the impression that security, while always on their mind, was a renewed subject at the water cooler in the offices region-wide.

Liz indicated to me that they take security and threats against clinics and staff very seriously, and she made it clear that law enforcement on every level, Federal, State and Local have been extraordinarily helpful.

I asked Liz if there had been an escalation in threats since the attack last Sunday, unfortunately I failed to ask her if there has been an escalation in threats of violence since Obama's election, but if you read my Blog, Liz, feel free to comment and let me know! Regarding an uptick in threats here, she said aside from the usual protesters they encounter on a daily basis, there has not been a noticeable increase in Washington and Oregon, but she acknowledged that people here are generally more supportive of reproductive rights. She could not tell me if there has been an increase of threats of violence in other areas of the country. Be safe y'all...

I would like to drop this on you, Searchers: overall I do not like abortion. Like most pro-choice people, I do not like abortion. But the right wing and Fundamentalist Christians need to realize the fact that abortion is not going away. The right wing and American Christianity has these abortion blinders on and that is all they can see.

These dumbasses, (largely made up of what I like to call (with total sarcasm) the Great White Right), especially in the Bible racist Belt, vote on this one issue, and like true provincial thinkers focus on this while the schools are crumbling around them, hell, Mrs. Searcher's worthless pappy wasted tax payer money as a state rep for 11 terms, that's 22 years, and the schools in Forrest City, Arkansas at the time were some of the worst in the state.
Jobs are disappearing and Rural America is as broke and poor as ever, but the conservatives (and yes I mean you too, Conservadems, just cause you vote for Mark Pryor or Blanche Lincoln doesn't mean you're not voting Republican) want to vote their religion instead of common sense and decency. Not surprising, religion, especially fundamentalist christianity, evangelical, whatever the hell label you want to put on it, especially in the United States, is about dumbing people down, denying rights, education and health care, and discrimination and intolerance.

It is no wonder I switched sides. Peace, Searchers...

HOUSE REPUBLICANS UNVEIL NEW BUDGET, NO IT'S NOT AN APRIL FOOL'S JOKE

Unfortunately it's real. Some of the points:

Cutting taxes for the rich.
Cutting corporate taxes.
Manipulating medicare with a program that sounds suspiciously like Reagan's "block grants."

More of the same from the party that has failed utterly. More of the rehash from the Reagan era, policies that have given the United States the current economic, social, health, and welfare crisis we are currently in.

More of the same from the party that has brought the United States to the brink of being a Failed State, one that is neither capable nor willing to provide for its citizens.

More of the same from the party that starts wars that cannot possibly be won.

More of the same from the party that wants to round up brown people and keep blacks and the poor in economic shackles, while ensuring CEO's and the already-wealthy remain that way.

More of the same from the party that wants to take away food for children, healthcare for children, food and medical benefits and education for the needy in the United States.

More of the same.

Isn't it time to shut the right wing down for good?
Vote against the past and look toward the future.

Onward!

CRAZY MAN KILLS 4 COPS IN OAKLAND

Big story over the weekend out of central California, a 26 year old man shot up Oakland, killing 3 police officers outright, and leaving one officer brain dead.
As an individual that lived with violence in my home growing up, I detest violence. However, one may have to resort to violence to get one's point across. Having said that I do not agree with what this young man did. The police do have a place in our society.

However, before we jump the gun and relegate these cops to "hero" status, let us keep things in perspective. Here are some headlines from around the country regarding police actions:

From the Chicago Tribune:
Race may be factor in police shooting of unarmed elderly man
Seems in Homer Louisiana, an elderly Black man was hosting a cookout with his family, when the police showed up. According to the story, in a matter of moments Mr. Bernard Monroe, a throat cancer survivor, was shot dead through his screen door of the front of his house while his family looked on. It gets better. According to the Tribune, after these cops shot to death an unarmed elderly man that could not talk, they found one of Bernard Monroe's pistols and placed it next to the dead man while the family looked on and attempted to assert that Bernard Monroe, family cookout hoster, had been holding it when they murdered him. The fucking police were so ballsy as to plant a gun on the dead man while the family looked on. Mr. Bernard survived cancer, but he could not survive the Homer, LA police. Now the FBI and the State Police are all over the case. If these cops did in fact murder this man, the only appropriate punishment should be swift. Strap em in and let them ride 'Ole Sparky, or shoot em and let them die slowly. Fuck em. This is the new South? Please.

Michigan Teen Dies After Tasered by Cops
From Fox News.com. While I cannot stand Fox, I pulled this off of the Google News site:
So it seems in Bay City, Michigan police responded to a call about a fight last Sunday morning. Yes this happened this past weekend. So, the police show up and "two males" are fighting. According to the article the police said "one of them attempted to fight the officers." So the cops pull out their "non lethal" weapons and tase an adolescent kid. The kid is now dead at 15 years old. And the cop is on "administrative leave."
I have a 14 year old son. Let there be no mistake about what I would do to an individual that harmed or killed my child. Are you listening? It makes no difference to me what kind of job the individual did for a living before they killed my child. Whether doctor, lawyer, cop, judge, pot dealer, (are you listening pocahontas pot dealer?) it would not matter. Anyone that harms, threatens to harm or carries out threats to harm any of my children is fair game.

Remember, we are keeping the Oakland police shooting in perspective.

From the Willamette Week in Portland, Oregon:
Why Did James Chasse Jr. Die?
So it seems the police in Portland don't have a clue as to how to deal with people suffering from mental illness. Quite a disturbing idea, considering the statistical amount of people with mental illness in the United States. So James Chasse, Jr., had a confrontation with the police in the Pearl District. For those of you that do not know Portland, the Pearl is a swanky area of town, with costly apartments, houses, restaurants and boutiques. Not exactly the area Portland Police and politicians want a schizophrenic man hanging out. So, Mr. Chasse had a confrontation with police. they evidently didn't like his attitude, because they stomped the living shit out of him, literally, stuffed him in the back of a police car and left him to die, and die he did.

SIDEBAR: Cops should not be allowed to even fill out an application for employment as a cop before proving they have at least a bachelor's degree in Psychology, and carried at least a 3.0 in their Psych. classes. OK, let us proceed.

Florida Man Dies After Police Allegedly Shoot Him Repeatedly With Taser Gun
So a 45 year old man shows up at a friend's house, acting rowdy, and the friend calls the cops. The cops show up and now Kenneth Oliver is dead after being repeatedly electrocuted by the police. Do you see a pattern emerging?

Man, 24, Shot to Death by New York City Police on Night Before His Wedding

So, Sean Bell was about to get married to his sweetheart. He had been at a bachelor party at a strip club, (let's not get judgemental, dumbass self-righteous right wingers that are banging their choir directors in church), when the problems started with the police. Long story short, the cops claimed one of them had a gun, when that didn't pan out they said one of the party-goers tried to hit them with their car, so the police saw fit to fire 50 ROUNDS, 50 motherfucking bullets at this car killing the unarmed about to be married Sean Bell. Kinda reminds one of Amadou Diallo. Begs the question: What the fuck is wrong with the cops in the United States?

Man says NYPD officers sodomized him with antenna
Gotta love NYC's finest! So a Brooklyn man, Michael Mineo, was smoking a doob near the subway when he was jumped by five cops, held down, tasered and sodomized by the police with a radio antenna. The police say it didn't happen, of course. However, as the next headline will reveal, this is a pattern with the New York City Police. Michael Mineo was hospitalized with rectal tears and intense pain.
I have read an update: Evidently, DNA was found on the radio antenna, and indictments have been handed down.

New York City police assault, brutalize and forcibly sodomize a male Haitian immigrant, Abner Louima, with a plunger.

"The arresting officers beat Louima with their fists, nightsticks, and hand-held police radios on the
ride to the station.[2] On arriving at the station house, he was strip-searched and put in a holding cell. The
beating continued later, culminating with Louima being raped in a bathroom at the 70th Precinct station
house in Brooklyn. Officer Justin Volpe kicked Louima in the testicles, then, while Louima's hands were cuffed
behind his back, he first grabbed onto and squeezed his testicles and then sodomized him with a broomstick, causing severe internal damage to his colon and bladder that required several operations to
repair. Volpe then walked through the precinct holding the bloody, excrement-stained instrument in his hand, indicating that he had 'broke a man down.'"

Credit to Wikipedia
This case was so brutal that Amnesty International uses it as a case study in police torture and brutality.

San Francisco Transit Police Shoot to Death Unarmed, Cuffed 22 Year Old Man In The Back While Laying on the Ground
These stories are all to common. Seems itchy trigger finger transit cops cuffed a young man with a four year old daughter, read the article, it will break your heart, if you have one, and shot him in the back until he died. This happened in Oakland. I am eternally grateful that someone caught this on video:

Fuck. What a mess. There is another person dead, a man with a family, and cops that keep on getting leniency. What the fuck are transit cops doing with firearms any damn way? We have transit police here, and I'll be damned if I allow them to carry guns. Hell the worthless Portland Police Bureau (not to mention the sorry as multnomah county sherrif) cannot even do their jobs properly without help, this is why they have emplyed PPI, a private security firm. Huh? Have we not learned anything regarding privatization? What the fuck.

Well, Searchers, I could spend the rest of the day going over people who have been brutalized, raped, tortured, falsely accused, falsely imprisoned and more by the police, I simply do not have enough time. So, while I feel bad for the families of these officers killed in Oakland, especially if these officers had children, we have to keep things in perspective. The majority of white people in this country don't even remember Abner Louima, don't know who Oscar Grant was, and really couldn't care. I challenge you to prove me wrong.
As mentioned before, I feel for the families of these cops that were killed. However, the chance of getting shot at or shot down as a cop is part of the job description. I feel infinite sympathy for someone working a retail job that gets killed during work while being robbed or something. Totally different scenario. While I do not advocate violence, if you put on a police uniform you are inviting trouble. Anyone that thinks otherwise is either a damn fool, or they are completely blinded by their right-wing christian stupidity, I mean beliefs.

The police have become a para-military force. Check out the reports from protesters from the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis last summer. Hell, in Portland, some of the cops don't have their names on their uniforms any longer. It is time for the people to reign these cops in, otherwise we will regret it. There is a reason the framers of the Constitution made sure the citizens of the United States should have firearms: Not to keep "bad guys" out, just to make sure the government knows who is in charge. And the deterrent against the bad guys like the flanagins is pretty beneficial, too. (So if y'all want to show up, I'd be glad to help you out farting through a hole in your stomach.)

UPDATE: In Oakland, not everyone is shocked at the killings of the police, some see it as payback for Oscar Grant. Remember what Jesus said, Right-Wingers: You reap what you sow.

Peace-

MICHIGAN LEGALIZES MEDICAL MARIJUANA, NAZI WAR CRIMINAL DEPORTED

It's been a while. Finals, studying and all. I came across a couple of articles I found post worthy today. Here they are:



Legal pot debuts in Midwest from the Chicago Tribune:

"Legalized medical marijuana is about to make its debut in
Michigan, which becomes the 13th state and the first between the Rockies and the East Coast to embrace the controversial pain treatment. In a vote last November that defied the culture war/reefer madness connotation to the illegal drug, 63 percent of the state's voters—and a majority in every county—said yes to medical marijuana. 'This shows that, bottom line, medical use of marijuana is not very controversial with the public," said Wendy Chapkis, co-author of "Dying to Get High: Marijuana as Medicine."'Politicians are afraid to look soft on drugs, but the public understands that cannabis is not a problem for medical use,' Chapkis said."

Anyone who has read Searches knows that I am in favor of marijuana used for medicinal reasons. It is quite effective in pain relief, (Momma are you listening?) and it is an effective bronchodilator as well. Of course I have been a MMJ card holder with the state of Oregon. I had a very nice set up and grew some very good meds. I am for the complete legalization of marijuana, period.

During this economic crisis and the subsequent years after this crisis has passed it would behoove the United States to get its shit together and get its head out of the sand regarding marijuana. The notion that marijuana and not alcohol is the "gateway" drug is preposterous.

That is a myth forced upon children and believed by gullible adults perpetuated by police, politicians, and the alcohol industry.

Alcohol is the real drug problem in America, and the first hard drug children are introduced to. It was for me. My parents had an extremely well stocked liquor and wine cabinet, in fact they had three.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, 75,000 people will die from excessive alcohol use. That is not people that die from car accidents related to alcohol. Just people that drink themselves to death. A guy I worked with a couple of years ago lost his father to alcohol, and his dad was only 54 or 55 when he slipped into a coma and never came out. Too much alcohol. The article does say that marijuana is the most used illicit drug, but alcohol is not an illicit drug. It is my belief that children are first introduced to mind altering substances by their parents. Through alcohol.

So, it is time for the USA to get its shit together and legalize marijuana nationally. Put farmers back to work, cultivate both marijuana as well as hemp. The revenue saved by diverting police from marijuana to real crime would save over $10 billion a year. The tax revenue would reach into the billions as well. It is money the nation needs. It would put hundreds of thousands of people to work if we could open retail stores and cafes where one could enjoy toking on some bud...it sounds good, doesn't it? Don't lie! You know u loves some banging herbage!

We acquired some the other day, it was unbelievable, and instead of red hair, it was bright purple. Good stuff. Okay, next article:



From the New York Times:

Nazi Guard Deported to Austria



"An 83-year-old man who admitted that as a Nazi concentration camp guard he took part in a two-day killing spree in which 42,000 people were killed was deported to Austria Thursday from his home in Wisconsin, immigration officials said.
The former guard, Josias Kumpf, admitted that he participated in a murderous November 1943 Nazi operation that went by the code name “Aktion Erntefest” — Operation Harvest Festival — in which roughly 42,000 Jewish men, women and children were murdered at three Nazi camps in eastern Poland in two days.
Mr. Kumpf acknowledged his role was as a guard and an assassin at the Trawniki Labor Camp, where 8,000 men, women and children were shot dead in a single day, Nov. 3, 1943, Justice Department officials said.
He was removed earlier this week from his home in Racine, Wis., by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents."



There are no statute of limitations on some crime. Are you listening Flanagin? Okay. Genocide in all its forms is evil. I am reading Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee. An Indian History of the American West. It is an amazing book that outlines history from the vanquished people's point of view. Far different than what is taught in American schools. The US government is guilty of genocide. The treatment of the Native Peoples both past and present, is abysmal.

FACT:

The United States government has made it illegal for Natives to practice their religion, speak their languages, raise their families how they see fit.

FACT:

The government has packed the Natives into reservations where some live in tar paper shacks even today. TODAY.

FACT:

The United States Government has performed hysterectomies on Native Women against their will and against their knowledge, some recently.

FACT: The United States Government systematically destroyed the Native's food supply, to create starvation amongst the tribes.

FACT: Turns out Bison is a hell of a lot healthier than beef. Turns out the Natives aren't as dumb as the settlers.

FACT: There wasn't such a thing as "fry bread" until the government herded the Natives by force onto reservations, killed off the food supply, and then would not allow any foodstuffs to the Natives except for lard and flour. There wasn't such a thing as the "pudgy indian" pre-contact. There might have been overweight natives, but it wasn't because of lard and flour.

Genocide is alive and well in the 21st century from Darfur to the Yakima Indian Reservation.

Peace, Searchers, stay informed stay on top, we need systemci change in the United States.

Onward

"CONSERVATISM IS A EUPHEMISM FOR SOCIAL COWARDICE"

A great quote I picked up from somewhere, (shout out somewhere!) that I keep in my wallet. It is a lesson that was hard for me to learn, but I have learned it. Such is the shift from right to left for me. So bear that in mind Roy Ockert, jonesboro sun editor, when you tell someone like me that the poor in your region are just shit out of luck if they can't afford a generator, or shelter, or food, or heating oil. This is why I find it so troubling that you are an editor of a paper, especially one that is circulated in an area so consumed with poverty and despair.

For someone in your position, one who is charged with the dissemination of information, to have the glaring reality of the past eight years to look at as well as the downward spiral the nation has been on for 30 years, and not be able to see it but cling to your dead beliefs is very troubling indeed. You should be removed.

And Brian Smith, Night Editor (I got it now, for when I rip you to shreds next time!) at the Jonesboro Sun, I caught up with your comments earlier in the week. Please check it out this weekend regarding Mayberry, the South, and the "Gem" (what kind, cubic zirconia?) Arkansas is.

Onward!

THE DAILY SHOW'S CONTINUATION OF "CLUSTERF#@K TO THE POOR HOUSE

From Feb 9 show:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=217704&title=clusterf#@k-to-the-poor-house

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Funny Political News
Joke of the Day

If you watched it, maybe you can tell me why the always creepy Lindsay Graham from South Carolina still has a job in the Senate? What about the ridiculous Jim DeMint?

I guess Lindsay is finished sucking up to John McCain.

Sam Brownback from Kansas makes an appearance, another right wing tool that I am surprised is on the floor, I figured he was still stuck in Rod Parsley's ass.

The Reagan Revolution is dead. We need trickle-up economics, we've had enough trickle-down which is just a euphemism for pissing on people. ( shout out to Bill Maher)

Onward!

IRRESPONSIBILITY AT THE PENTAGON

Another example of mismanagement and disregard for common sense and decency:

A quick summary-Halliburton is a a major company that does contract work for the government. KBR is a spin off of Halliburton. KBR has done contract electrical work in Iraq, and they have been involved with plumbing contracts as well. Follow? Now here are some headlines, please bear in mind this is not an exhaustive list, there are more soldiers that have been killed because of such ridiculous nonsense:

OREGON SOLDIER'S DEATH IS UNDER INVESTIGATION
According to the AP, Spc. Chase Whitham was electrocuted while swimming in a swimming pool in Iraq at a US operated base. Whitham 21, was in Mosul, Iraq, when he died. Italics mine.


FROM THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW ON MSNBC:
Posted Feb. 9.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

ABC NEWS: HIDDEN DANGER: SOLDIERS DYING FROM ELECTROCUTION
Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth was 24 when he died. Here's a cut and paste.

"But little did the staff sergeant know that when he stepped into the shower at his military base in Baghdad two months ago, he was putting his life at
risk. Maseth, 24, of Shaler, Pa., outside Pittsburgh, was
electrocuted on Jan. 2 when an improperly grounded electric water pump
short-circuited and flowed through the pipes. Since the coiled hose was touching his arm, he was hit with an electrical jolt and went into cardiac arrest and died."

This kid was only 24, and he did not die in combat.

PENTAGON ADMITS TO MORE ELECTROCUTIONS IN IRAQ-KBR DENIES BLAME
Posted July 26, 2008
According to the HuffPo, Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania has been involved with Cheryl Harris, the mother of Ryan Maseth. The article states there have been 16 electrocutions.

This was in 2008.

CNN: SOLDIERS ELECTROCUTION "NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE"
Story highlights, pay close attention to the third point:
-Manner of death should be changed from "accidental," Army investigator writes
-U.S. soldier electrocuted while showering at his base in Iraq in 2008
-Investigator: Contractor didn't ensure electricians, plumbers were qualified
-No charges have been filed; soldier's family is suing contractor

If you've watched the video you know where I am going with this: last headline-

COMPANY GETS PENTAGON CONTRACT DESPITE DEATH INQUIRIES
From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON (AP) — A defense contractor has been awarded a $35 million Pentagon contract involving major electrical work even though it is under criminal investigation in the electrocution deaths of at least two American soldiers in Iraq.
The contractor, KBR, announced last week that it had won a $35.4 million contract from the Army Corps of Engineers to design and build a convoy support center at Camp Adder in southern Iraq. The center will include a power plant and an electrical distribution center. Bold is mine.

I have contacted my Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell regarding this development. I suggest you do the same. I cannot describe the outrage I feel regarding the complete lack or respect for the families of the soldiers that have died as a result of potential negligence on the part of KBR. What a slap. Furthermore, according to the AP via The Columbian in Vancouver, WA;

"The Corps of Engineers said KBR has earned $615 million on 30
contracts similar to the new one and that KBR has not been banned or suspended from winning U.S. Government contracts."

The utter waste of money that is Iraq is apalling. My family and I are having trouble keeping our lights on and keep food on the table and there are some in Congress that have cut, yet again, services for the needy. At the very, very least, KBR and Halliburton should be immediately suspended from contracts until the investgation is resolved.

Again, we have the dead notion of trickle-down economics. Ronald Reagan is dead. Let his failed policies and those of the christian right die with him. It is time for trickle up economics, spending money to the people, not the corporations. The people will spend the money and benefit everyone. It is a no-brainer. The right's ideas are failed. It is time for a systemic change in the United States, and the previous headlines regarding yet another debacle is yet more proof on the desperate need for change. Peace-

Here are some numbers for the people that represent some of you in D.C.

Washington State: Senator Patty Murray-202-224-2621 (You and Maria Need to Pay Attention!)

Sen. Maria Cantwell-202-224-3441

Oregon: Sen. Jeff Merkly-202-224-3753

Sen. Ron Wyden-202-224-5244

Arkansas: Sen. Blanche Lincoln-202-224-4843

Sen. Mark Pryor-202-224-2353

And last, here is a link that will provide US citizens contact for their Senators.

Onward.

ON REAGAN, THE POOR, AND HIJACKING

I wanted to post a comment I made on a website the other day:

I'm supporting Barack as a result of observing the
Church in the United States for 18 years. The Christan Right have completely
abandoned the teachings of Jesus. It says something about a Christian Sect and
political party that is against health care for children and million of others.
That rejects the basic tenant of caring for the poor. The Right has become
extraordinarily arrogant, callous, divisive, and hateful. None of these traits
Jesus displayed or advocated. In McCain and Palin we have proven liars and
frauds. Palin is a complete fraud in the traditional definition, but quite
genuine in the psycho definition. Having voted Republican for 21 years it is
safe to say I will never vote Repub again. The right couldn't care less about my
family and me.Peace! Obama '08http://www.mikesearches.blogspot.com/

Also, this comment make a beautiful statement courtesy of "J" a blogger that posted a comment on thefieldnegro:

"...This will be the true legacy of Reaganism:
hijacking the Republican party from the Goldwater standard of conservatism and
turning it over to the Christian Right (there's an oxymoron if I've ever heard
one). Somehow they've got socially-conservatives thinking that this election is
about women's rights, and marriage. This has and always will be a matter of
class warfare. To paraphrase GWB because he said it best: his base is the "haves
and the have-mores." Every American should open up their checkbooks and savings
account ledgers and ask themselves if you think he was talking about
you."

Just five days left. I hope we can get the trickle down theory finally put to rest. It does not work.

Peace-
Mike

SARAH PALIN GOIN' ROGUE-COURTESY OF THE DAILY KOS

This is a story I have been following the past day or so. With Palin being a right-wing charismatic dominionist nutjob, you, dear reader need always to keep in mind that John McCain, and his not so religious ass, supporting some Democrat policies, one that is loath to call Obama a terrorist, or Arab,(he's more than happy to let the bulldog do it for him), is considered an unbeliever and in the ranks of Satan to someone like Sarah Palin. It only makes sense that she would make a power play for his job. She believes he is the means to her fullfilment.

It is taught ubiquitously in the Evangelical Charismatic churches:

Moses was an Israelite (Jew) that was raised in the Devil's(Pharaoh's) house. God used the Devil to educate His kid and bring him to victory over His (his) enemies.
Just such a doctrine can be applied to modern day situations. Time and again I have sat in Pentecostal services and heard the comparison to the United States government and the Devil.

To think that Sarah Palin might not have any respect for John McCain, and believe that he is an agent of Satan is not to be dismissed. It is a tenet of her core religious beliefs, as with many other adherents to her religious philosophy:

If you're not for us you're against us.

Sound Familiar G.W. Bush?

Two peas in a pod.

Fuck McCain, and fuck Sarah Palin.

It is time for a systemic change in the United States.

I decided to post the entire article for your enjoyment. Listen, get involved. Let us marginalize the Christian Right, put them where they belong. Packing away dusty,useless Science equipment on the way to Chapel at Crowley's Ridge College.

CNN: Palin, McCain Split Goes Public
by SusanG

Sat Oct 25, 2008 at 02:15:04 PM PDT

This
is what implosion looks like:

(CNN) -- With 10 days until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP
vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain
have become so intense, they are spilling out in public, sources say.
Several
McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly
frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue."...

A second McCain source says she appears to be looking out for herself more
than the McCain campaign.

"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain
adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her
family or anyone else.

"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next
leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see
themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."

A furious, old, self-important reformist poseur stuck in the previous
century versus a young, ambitious, fundamentalist airhead "rogue" "diva" ... who
would have guessed a year-and-a-half ago that the wrestling match for the soul
of a dying and discredited political party would come down to this?
If both of them hadn't proven themselves to be such eager liars, it would
almost be worth pitying them. Almost. But not quite.

Peace- Love Y'all
Mike
LUKJ

Just to jog your memory I am going to repost the video from a few days ago regarding the "Holy Spirit-filled" Sarah Palin and the useless idiots that support her:



Italics, bold and stuff are mine.
Peace-

CHRISTIAN RIGHT CONTINUES TO SHOW ITS ASS & INTOLERANCE

Some excerpts from the HuffPo regarding the Christian Right and fearmongering tactics used by them to drive their willfully ignorant base (I could have posted the entire article and probably should):

Terrorist strikes on four American cities. Russia rolling into Eastern
Europe. Israel hit by a nuclear bomb. Gay marriage in every state. The end of
the Boy Scouts.
All are plausible scenarios if Democrat Barack Obama is
elected president, according to a new addition to the campaign conversation
called "Letter from 2012 in Obama's America," produced by the conservative
Christian group Focus on the Family Action.

Steve Strang, publisher of Charisma magazine, a Pentecostal publication,
titled one of his recent weekly e-mails to readers, "Life As We Know It Will End
If Obama is Elected."
Strang said gay rights and abortion rights would be
strengthened in an Obama administration, taxes would rise and "people who hate
Christianity will be emboldened to attack our freedoms."

Steve Strang is quite influential, and I have in the past received Charisma magazine. This bullshit gets better:

...among the strongest pieces this year is Focus on the Family Action's
letter which has been posted on the group's Web site and making the e-mail
rounds. Signed by "A Christian from 2012," it claims a series of events could
logically happen based on the group's interpretation of Obama's record,
Democratic Party positions, recent court rulings and other trends.
Among the
claims:

_ A 6-3 liberal majority Supreme Court that results in rulings like one
making gay marriage the law of the land and another forcing the Boy Scouts to
"hire homosexual scoutmasters and allow them to sleep in tents with young boys."
(In the imagined scenario, The Boy Scouts choose to disband rather than
obey).

_ A series of domestic and international disasters based on Obama's
"reluctance to send troops overseas." That includes terrorist attacks on U.S.
soil that kill hundreds, Russia occupying the Baltic states and Eastern European
countries including Poland and the Czech Republic, and al-Qaida overwhelming
Iraq.
_ Nationalized health care with long lines for surgery and no access to
hospitals for people over 80.

The reality is this:

Obama favors abortion rights and supports civil unions for same-sex couples, but
says states should make their own decisions about marriage. He said he would
intensify diplomatic pressure on Iran over its nuclear ambitions and add troops
in Afghanistan.
On taxes, Obama has proposed an increase on the 5 percent of
taxpayers who make more than $250,000 a year and advocates cuts for those who
make less. His health care plan calls for the government to subsidize coverage
for millions of Americans who otherwise couldn't afford it.

Obama will make a great pres, the Christian Right will be marginalized.

Jesus never taught fear, hate, and intolerance, yet these three traits as well as complete willful ignorance coupled with a health dose of a lack of intellectual curiosity identify the Christian Right extraordinarily. He must be so proud of the American Church.

We need systemic change in the United States. OfuckingBama '08

Peace-

Mike

LUKJ

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