The Face of War (Don’t Look!), 1 in 5 homeless people are veterans, Canada’s Evangelical Christian Problem & more

• The Face of War (Don’t Look!): “You’d think that people always seeking “lessons” from war would draw one from our latest wonder weapon, which fights our wars for us without an American in sight.  I’m talking, of course, about the drone aircraft that have, in recent years, become a signature form of American war-making.  They represent truly advanced technology, with ever newer generations of them in production and on the drawing boards, ones that might some distant day be able to fight actual Terminator wars more or less on their own.”

• Seattle Demands President Obama Stop Repression of Anti-War Activists

• How Can The Unions Be The Reason Why Jobs Are Being Outsourced When They Make Up Such A Small Percentage of the Work Force?: “In 1995, American union membership had declined from its peak of 35% of the work force in 1955 to 18%. Fifteen years later, it has further declined to 12%, of which only 6% are in the private sector.”

• American Corporation Taking Stand For Human Rights in NOT allowing it’s products to be used as Tools of Destruction: “The Israeli press is reporting that Caterpillar is withholding the delivery of tens of D9 bulldozers-valued at $50 million-to the Israeli military.These are weaponized bulldozers that are used to illegally destroy homes and orchards of Palestinian families. And they are the very same bulldozers as the one that killed a 23-year-old American Citizen Rachel Corrie seven years ago when she tried to protect the home of the Nasrallah family in Gaza.”

• 2010 midterms, and Twelfth Amendment, could decide 2012 presidential race – literally

• Washington’s Wars and Occupations: U.S. Shadow Wars: Surveillance,  Subpoenas & State Secrets: “Shadow wars assault life, liberty and privacy under a fog of state deception.  Like the shape-shifting U.S. military, they do their dirty work in many ways. Take just this month: The FBI raids peace activists’ homes and offices. Government agents infiltrate mosques.  CIA drones kill civilians in Pakistan and patrol the U.S.-Mexico border. A torture victim is denied his day in court because truthful testimony would “threaten national security”.

• To homeless veterans, retiring Dallas VA psychiatrist is a hero: “For Dr. Joel Feiner, homeless veterans are “not details” as some politicians say, they’re human beings. Over the years, as many as 200 homeless veterans visited Dr. Joel Feiner’s cluttered office at the Dallas Veterans Affairs Medical Center -They came from cardboard boxes under bridges and from shelters. They suffered from severe depression, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and addictions. One in five homeless people is a veteran, according to a count by the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance.” (RELATED: Republicans Object To Bill For Homeless Veterans http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/29/republicans-object-to-bil_n_629332.html)

• BOOK REVIEW: ‘Marx at the Margins’ (2010) by Kevin Anderson: “Marx was increasingly interested in understanding the ways in which movements of opposition to colonialism might make a direct contribution to the renewal of revolutionary movements in the capitalist metropolises and the ways in which the workers’ movements might advance the cause of freedom from national oppression.”

• Coroner will hear evidence about the death of a man shortly after he was Tasered 28 times by police last year

• Fraudulent Voting Re-emerges as a Partisan Issue: “In 2006, conservative activists repeatedly claimed that the problem of people casting fraudulent votes was so widespread that it was corrupting the political process and possibly costing their candidates victories. The accusations turned out to be largely false, but they led to a heated debate, with voting rights groups claiming that the accusations were crippling voter registration drives and reducing turnout. That debate is flaring anew. Tea Party members have started challenging voter registration applications and have announced plans to question individual voters at the polls whom they suspect of being ineligible.”

• Evangelical Christians, Zionist Jews and the Harper government: “In what is supposed to be a secular democracy, with a clear separation of church and state, one has to wonder how a Canadian evangelical Christian leader named Charles McVety has come to have such influence with the Harper government.”

Breast Pumps Not Covered Under Health Care, But Denture Adhesive Is & more stupid ass crap in the USA

• Breast Pumps Not Covered Under Health Care, But Denture Adhesive Is: “Another way that the new and improved health care system has hung women out to dry. Thanks to health care reform, individuals can now take care of personal health needs with IRS-sheltered flex accounts. Unless they’re breast-feeding moms. While the accounts cover things like denture adhesive, acne medication, and astroturf for allergy-prone kids, they exclude breast pumps, a groundbreaking innovation which has allowed countless working moms to feed their infants healthy breast milk.”

• Media Matters: The real story of the 2010 election: ” By most accounts, the Democrats stand to lose seats in both the House and Senate this coming Tuesday. There are, of course, a wide range of explanations for why this is the case. However, in endeavoring to explain how the GOP has seemingly managed to reverse its political fortunes in such a short amount of time, media outlets would be remiss not to mention one of the most important factors. In fact, we don’t need to wait for Tuesday’s results to pinpoint perhaps the most significant development in the country’s political landscape over the past two years. One of the two major political parties in the country is run by a “news” network.”

• Just Some Actions From the “Right” (Source: People For the American Way):

In Kentucky a campaign supporter of Senate candidate Rand Paul’s knocked a woman to the cement, and stomped on her head, landing her in the hospital with a concussion and multiple sprains.

In Alaska Senate candidate Joe Miller’s paramilitary security team manhandled, handcuffed, and illegally detained a journalist who was trying to ask the candidate a question.

In Florida a violent motorcycle gang was hired by Republican Congressional candidate Allen West, leading to the harassment and bullying of Democratic staffer attempting to video a public event.

• Why Conservative Women Like Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell Are Giant Hypocrites: “There is a huge double standard for Sarah Palin and the “Mama Grizzlies” between the policies they want to impose on other women and the choices they want for themselves.”

• One factor will determine the outcome on Nov. 2: Who votes. That’s why Presente.org and ColorOfChange.org teamed up to make this video, reminding us of all the people who will be going to the polls on Tuesday — and why you should be one of them:

• Rightwing Multi-Millionaires Seek Take-over of Congress: “An activist group called SpeechNow.Org is running ads against Senator Russ Feingold. It blames him for the deficit and claims that clean election laws he spearheaded are “attacking free speech.” But who’s really behind SpeechNow’s folksy, cartoon attack ads? The Money Bags: One funder is multi-millionaire Fred Young, the heir of the Young Radiator fortune in Racine. He sold his Wisconsin company for over $70 million in 1998 to a group that quickly merged with Wabtec Corporation, a multinational with a history of outsourcing jobs to make goods in China and elsewhere. But even before Young sold the company, he worked to ship well-paying Wisconsin jobs out of state. Back in 1991, Young Radiator closed its Racine plant and fired 120 Wisconsin workers in order to boost his profits by outsourcing work to Iowa and Tennessee plants that did not give union-negotiated benefits. Young donated over $100,000 last month to fund attacks against Feingold, constituting the bulk of the funding. With millions in profits from helping to sell out Wisconsin’s industrial base and time on his hands, Young has become involved in Washington, D.C.-based groups, like SpeechNow.”

• How Tea Party Candidates Like Joe Miller and Rand Paul Benefit From Armed, Right-Wing Militia Groups: “Conservative candidates walk a fine line between getting the political support of militias, while avoiding charges of extremism unpalatable to the mainstream. Throughout the election, members of Alaska’s Citizen Militia have rallied behind Tea Party-backed GOP nominee Joe Miller. They’ve shown up at his town hall meetings, and posted “Vote for Miller” signs around town. Norm Olson, a prominent Michigan militia leader in the ’90s who now commands Alaska’s militia, explains they have to walk a tightrope. “If we put on uniforms and do a parade, it might look like 1936 Germany,” Olson told AlterNet. They avoid “stomping around in uniform” under their militia banner.”

• America’s Army, A Tale Of Misuse And Abuse: “American troops, raring to go, punish the terrorists, find the weapons of mass destruction, root Al Qaeda out of Iraq are older now, wiser, many are dead, hundreds of thousands damaged, many beyond repair and most of all, they feel exploited, misused and abused. American troops didn’t sign up to be part of a force of occupation, there is no honor in that.  A key component, in fact the primary component of these “wars” has been “counter-insurgency” or “irregular warfare” or whatever buzzword the Pentagon is using today to describe people fighting against Americans exactly the same way Americans fought against the British at Lexington and Concord.  If the Minutemen had IEDs and RPGs, they would have used them and been seen as heroes for it.  Anyone who thinks our own troops aren’t faced by this irony on a daily basis are underestimating their intellect.”

• The Supreme Court Sold Out Our Democracy — How to Fight the Corporate Takeover of Our Elections: “The history of corruption that led up to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling. Election 2010 is being fought on a wave of campaign dollars unleashed on the American people by the Supreme Court in its Citizens United v. FEC decision. The court, led by a majority of staunch right-wingers, struck down limits on third-party “electioneering” ads based on a tortured interpretation of the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. Thomas Mann, a Brookings Institution scholar, wrote that the decision “will likely go down in history as one of the Supreme Court’s most egregious exercises of judicial activism.“ Rep. Peter Fazio, D-Oregon, told the Huffington Post last week that “the Supreme Court has done a tremendous disservice to the United States of America… They have done more to undermine our democracy with their Citizens United decision than all of the Republican operatives in the world in this campaign.” DeFazio said he is “investigating articles of impeachment” against Chief Justice John Roberts for committing perjury when he promised he wouldn’t be a judicial activist during his Senate confirmation hearings.”

• U.S. Army says: It’s not war; the “risky behavior” of our troops at home drives them to suicide (Source: Army Searching for Suicide Prevention Program)
  

• Irrational Anger vs. Courage: Tiller Documentary Showed Faces of “Culture Wars” : “Rachel Maddow’s documentary, “The Assassination of Dr. Tiller,” was a very rare hour of prime-time coverage which was sympathetic to the pro-choice position in “the culture wars.” It accomplished this by attempting to clearly show how extremists on the anti-choice fringe choose to make those culture wars, as Maddow herself put it, into an actual war by turning their rhetoric into violence–or more perniciously by allowing more deranged members of their movement to do their violence for them.”

• Monsanto and Agent Orange Kill On : “For those of you who do not know, Monsanto was not only the largest producer of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, but the components of Agent Orange Monsanto produced are composed of the highest concentration of dioxin – which is one of the deadliest poisons known to man. Monsanto is the maker of Round-up. Monsanto was the maker of Aspartame. Monsanto is now the world’s largest producers of GM (Genetically Modified) seeds in the world.  Aside from trying to play God and manipulating life at its very core, Monsanto strong-arms farmers to buy their seeds, and if they do not, the farmers are sued, taken to court, caused to file bankruptcy – and in the case of India, hundreds have committed suicide as a result.”

U.S. Military Promoting and Endorsing Glen Beck, Mind of the American Authoritarian & More

US Chamber of Commerce: another tool to ensure ruling-class control

This Is What the Tea Party Looks Like

Principals Who Circulated E-mail About Muslims Won’t Be Punished

US occupation fails to pacify Afghanistan

The Terrible Boy – Remember Bullies? There’s now a movement to eradicate them, legislate them out of existence. The movement got a lot of its momentum from the Jonathan Miller. He hit a boy. The boy died. Jonathan’s doing life. This is a story about what children do to other children and what happens when we decide that children deserve to be treated precisely like adults.

Christian father made abused daughter pray for forgiveness

Taking the Tea Party Seriously

Tea Partiers Don’t Mind Their Own Leaders’ Elitism

Should the U.S. Military Be Promoting and Endorsing Glenn Beck?

Anti-Gay Christian Hate Groups Issue Joint Statement Denouncing Bullying Education

‘Heart Transplant’ a passionate lesson about bullying RELATED: Read John Seven’s entire article, “Andrew Vachss: Fighting Bullies One Book at a Time”

David Broder Wants a Disastrous War with Iran to Boost the U.S. Economy

The wretched mind of the American authoritarian

Pot Shrinks Tumors; Government Knew in 1974

“We Put Our Foot on Hawaii… We Will Rule”: GOP Candidates at Christian Supremacist Event

The UPS Terror Flight From Yemen That Never Was!

• ‘Obama’s “scare the Americans into voting Democratic” plan is already in trouble: “The official story on Friday October 29th was that an unnamed ally issued a warning for British authorities to be on the lookout for a suspicious package sent from Yemen to Great Britain on a UPS flight. A search of the UPS flighty on the ground in Britain yielded a package containing a printer toner cartridge sprayed with a white substance that looks like plastic Christmas tree snow.”

• Americans United Arkansas Chapter President Pastor Bob Klein, of the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Little Rock, stood up Saturday morning with the Arkansas Interfaith Alliance in support of bullied gay and lesbian teens. He was joined by several other religious leaders who believe using religion to expand hate is “unconscionable.”

• Republican Sex and Marriage Advice: Juvenile Erectile Dysfunction

• Halloween is Too Evil to Fall on a Sunday

• REPORT: More Than 30 Fox Newsers Support GOP In 600-Plus Instances During Midterms
  
  
• Pre-Blessed Food!

• Stimulating Hypocrisy: 114 Lawmakers Block Recovery While Taking Credit For Its Success: Socialism is good for the wealthy politicians of the USA, just ask these 114 folks, (mostly Republicans, Conservative Christians and or T-Party members)

• Civil rights commissioner blasts conservative panel’s “hatchet job” attack on DOJ: “During its meeting on Friday, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was denied a chance to vote on its report attacking the Obama Justice Department over the phony New Black Panthers scandal by a walkout by Democratic Commissioner Michael Yaki, which left the commission without a quorum. In a statement to Media Matters, Yaki ripped the conservative majority that controls the commission, saying that it “has manipulated the process in a manner designed to exclude myself and Commissioners [Arlan] Melendez and [Abigail] Thernstrom, who have opposed this farce from the beginning”

• The GOP’s Drive to Tear Down the Wall of Separation

• Watch This Video and You’ll Totally Find God

ABC News now plans to have Breitbart participate in their Election Night coverage, despite his history as a deceitful operative who distorts, lies, and race-baits

ColorOfChange.org:

Remember Andrew Breitbart?  He was the man who used selectively-edited video to paint Shirley Sherrod as a racist, to smear the NAACP, and to accuse the Obama administration of reverse racism.  It was all a big, premeditated lie.¹

Unbelievably, ABC News now plans to have Breitbart participate in their Election Night coverage, despite his history as a deceitful operative who distorts, lies, and race-baits.²

ABC’s decision is a slap in the face to Shirley Sherrod, to Black America, and to everyone who believes in the value of telling the truth. It’s unacceptable. Please join us in calling on ABC News and its parent company Disney to drop their plans to include Breitbart now:

http://colorofchange.org/abc/?id=2533-143765

The distorted video pushed by Breitbart showed Ms. Sherrod telling a story about how she once was asked for help by a White farmer, and how she didn’t “give him the full force of what [she] could do” to help him, because of his race. In reality she was telling the story of how working with that family to save their farm helped her to lose her racial preconceptions.

Breitbart touted the video as evidence that the NAACP and the Obama administration tolerated racial discrimination against White people, saying that it showed Sherrod’s “federal duties are managed through the prism of race and class distinctions.” Breitbart’s doctored video and false storyline moved quickly to FOX News, where on-air personalities called for Sherrod’s firing.  The day that the story became news, Sherrod was forced to resign from her post at the USDA.

The truth is that Sherrod was telling a 25-year old story about her work for a non-profit organization whose mission was to help Black farmers. Discrimination against Black farmers was rampant, and she described how she was first reluctant when approached by a White farmer named Roger Spooner for help (in her speech, Sherrod connects her reluctance to the fact that her father was killed by a White farmer 45 years ago). But after seeing that no one wanted to help Spooner, she worked to save his farm, and eventually became good friends with his family.

Once the full tape was obtained, it became clear what Sherrod was trying to do, and what Breitbart had done. But even after he was exposed, Breitbart refused to apologize, and continued to lie, as well as attack the NAACP and the Obama administration. Sherrod is now pursuing a lawsuit against Breitbart.

All this was actually nothing new for Breitbart — this is what he does. Posing as a journalist, Breitbart promotes and concocts fake stories and peddles them as news. It was Breitbart who showcased heavily doctored video showing two people posing as a pimp and prostitute supposedly getting services from ACORN (among other accusations). Of course, once it had been determined by legal authorities in several states that the tapes alleging misconduct had been altered and the storyline was completely fraudulent, it was too late: ACORN — which had a history of registering more low-income African-Americans to vote than any other organization in the country — had been destroyed.

After controversy began on Friday about Breitbart’s planned participation in ABC’s Election Night coverage, an ABC spokesperson confirmed that Breitbart would be participating in the coverage.³ Then, Saturday afternoon, after criticism grew even stronger from inside and outside the company, the executive producer of ABC News Digital indicated that Breitbart’s role might be even more limited. But ABC is still giving him access to their media platform and endorsing him as a legitimate journalist in the process.⁴

We understand how Breitbart operates, but we expect more from ABC. Their decision to have Breitbart participate is shameful and irresponsible. It’s important to have opinions from across the spectrum, but we would expect a news organization to at least try to make its platform available to those with some baseline of integrity. In this case, they’ve sought out someone who has clearly has none — and whose shenanigans in the Sherrod episode forced almost every major news organization to issue retractions and apologize.

It’s not too late for ABC to do the right thing. Please join us in demanding that they do:

http://colorofchange.org/abc/?id=2533-143765

Thanks and Peace,

– James, Gabriel, William, Dani, Natasha and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
October 31st, 2010

 

References

1. Sherrod: Andrew Breitbart is ‘a liar’, CNN, 7-22-2010
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/533?akid=1663.94958.Wm61Lb&t=7

2. Failing Upward: Breitbart To Be Featured in ABC’s 2010 Election Coverage, Media Matters, 10-29-10
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/530?akid=1663.94958.Wm61Lb&t=9

3. Source: ABC’s newsroom upset with decision to tap Andrew Breitbart, Washington Post, 10-30-10
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/531?akid=1663.94958.Wm61Lb&t=11

4. Analyze this: ABC News clarifies Andrew Breitbart’s role, Washington Post, 10-30-10
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/532?akid=1663.94958.Wm61Lb&t=13

 

Conservative Christians Help Write Law That Kills Gays In Uganda, Funded by American Tax Dollars and the Republican Party

State Dept: Offer Visas to LGBT Ugandans

OCT 2010

Last week a Ugandan newspaper published a list of the “Top 100 Homosexuals” which included their full names, pictures, and addresses and called for their hanging. Since the list was released, there have been a number of personal attacks and property damage towards some of the listed individuals.

One year ago, a Ugandan parliamentarian introduced an “Anti-Homosexuality Bill” that if passed, would impose the death penalty on LGBT HIV-positive citizens found to be having sex. The bill also would impose life imprisonment for other LGBT Ugandans found to be sexually active.  This bill is an example of the blatant homophobia Ugandans face every day in their homeland. And if this weren’t enough, it justgot worse.

Earlier this month a Ugandan newspaper published a list of the “Top 100 Homosexuals” which included their full names, pictures, and addresses and called for their hanging. Since the list was released, there have been a number of personal attacks and property damage towards some of the listed individuals. One can only imagine what may happen next.

TAKE ACTION

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Death penalty for gays will be law soon, Ugandan lawmaker says

October 28th, 2010

The Ugandan cabinet member who introduced a bill last year that would see gays executed in some circumstances says the bill will become law.

David Bahati, Uganda’s minister for ethics, told CNN he believes the bill will become law “soon.”

“We are very confident,” he said, “because this is a piece of legislation that is needed in this country to protect the traditional family here in Africa, and also protect the future of our children.”

Bahati and his boss, Ugandan President Yoweri Kugata Museveni, are reportedly members of the American Christian group The Fellowship, also known as The Family.

MORE

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Six Reasons Why Americans Should Care About What is Happening in Uganda …and its not only about protecting the rights of gay Ugandans whose lives may be in jeopardy.

Oct 14, 2010

A May 2010 Vanguard documentary, ‘Missionaries of Hate‘, shows the impact of a conference in Uganda featuring Scott Lively and the “kill the gays” bill proposed in their Parliament, but it took more than one conference to demonize Uganda’s gay population.  For years there has been a multi-faceted effort by western politicians and evangelists to promote a politicized Christianity in Uganda.  Jeff Sharlet exposed the role of The Family in his book by the same name and his newly released ‘C Street House’.

Kapya Kaoma produced a report on western evangelical involvement in Uganda in ‘The Public Eye’. Charismatic evangelicals, now organized under the authority of apostles, have declared Uganda as a prototype in ‘Transformation’ movies. The situation for gay Ugandans is dire, but for the groups who have helped to bring this about, Uganda is a prototype to be replicated in countries around the globe.  Following are six reasons why we should be paying more attention.

MORE

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Globalizing the Culture Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African Churches, and Homophobia

2009

Groundbreaking PRA Investigation Exposes Influence of U.S. Religious Conservatives in Promoting Homophobia in Africa.

U.S. Christian Right also mobilizes African clerics in U.S. “culture war” over ordination of LGBT clergy

Sexual minorities in Africa have become collateral damage to our domestic conflicts and culture wars as U.S. conservative evangelicals and those opposing gay pastors and bishops within mainline Protestant denominations woo Africans in their American fight, a groundbreaking investigation by Political Research Associates (PRA) has discovered.

‘Globalizing the Culture Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African Churches, and Homophobia‘ (PDF) , a new report by the Rev. Kapya Kaoma, PRA Project Director, exposes the U.S. Right’s promotion of an agenda in Africa that aims to criminalize homosexuality and otherwise infringe upon the human rights of LGBT people while also mobilizing African clerics in U.S. culture war battles. U.S. social conservatives, who are in the minority in mainline churches, depend on African religious leaders to legitimize their positions as their growing numbers makes African Christians more influential globally.

The investigation’s release could not be timelier, as the Ugandan parliament considers the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009. Language in that bill echoes the false and malicious charges made in Uganda by U.S antigay activist and Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively that western gays are conspiring to take over Uganda and even the world.

MORE

The government isn’t going after these people (Goldman, JPMorgan etc.) because these people have become the government – and they’re setting up to do it again

You might be a Republican IF…..

By Loren Adams, 13 June 2010

You might be a Republican IF…

You think toilet paper should come in Q’uran and NYT print.

You find nothing contradictory about your sign that reads “Hands Off My Medicare” next to a “Government Run Healthcare Makes Me Sick” sticker on the bumper of your gas guzzling Humvee,

You think that affirmative action is only acceptable for Michael Steele and Marco Rubio.

You don’t like being called “The Party of NO” but instead like being referred to as “The Party of HELL NO!” only because Sarah Palin suggested it.

You think “Semper Fi” should be changed to “Git R Done”

You think your Tea Party posters are not misspelled that read: “I am Joe the Plummer,” or “Make English Americas Offical Langage.” Or “Say No to Socilism.”

You think Stem Cell research is what killed Terri Schiavo

As part of your boycott of all names French, you change the name of your favorite sex toy to “freedom tickler.”

You think the 2000 election was fair & square when Bush stole the White House but the 2008 election was stolen by ACORN for Obama.

You’ve ever announced your gratitude to our troops for fighting for your freedom to drill baby drill and spill baby spill.

You feel your duty in the war on terror is to hunt down Mexicans crossing the border. (Then you hire undocumented workers to do your lawn and housework.)

You’ve ever complained about abuse of welfare while depositing earnings in an off-shore tax-sheltered account or you cash your disability check before heading to the gym.

You think WMD are still in Iraq but hidden by liberals to make Bush look bad.

You think Mark Felts should have been executed for treason before dying of natural causes, and Gordon Liddy should get the medal of freedom.

You’ve ever blamed anything on “Activist Judges” while supporting the Supreme Court decision to reject corporate spending limits on political campaigns.

You think Glenn Beck is a prophet.

You think Sarah Palin is a goddess.

You think Rush Limbaugh is the greatest broadcast journalist ever.

You watch only one news channel, FOX, because it’s the only one fair and balanced.

You firmly believe Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Or Indonesia. Or anyplace outside the USA.

You think Barack Obama is the Antichrist.

You think Barack Obama is Muslim.

You think Barack Obama is Socialist.

In honor of Terri Schiavo, you kept the deer you shot alive for twelve days.

You think there should be a “constitutional exemption” at home to shut your wife up.

You feel the only acceptable time turning left is at a NASCAR race.

You think Capitol Hill should be re-named “Six Flags over Jesus.”

You think gay marriages would somehow taint the sanctity of your six failed marriages.

You make your wife wear a “no spin” t-shirt during sex.

You think that listening to three different conservative talk shows and FOX gives you all the variety you need.

You name your testicles “shock” and “awe.”

You wear a strapped-on assault rifle to a President Obama event but would never consider doing the same to a Bush or Palin or Limbaugh or Beck or Hannity rally.

You think that Healthcare Reform includes government death panels designed to kill your grandma.

You’ve ever considered your finest point in an argument to be, “Oh yeah, well, you hate America!”

You feel the “culture of life” should be the standard – that every life is worth the same (except Muslims, Mexicans, gays, Africans, liberals, activist judges, and anyone for gun control).

You think Civil Rights acts were unnecessary and should be repealed, or at least sections of them – the parts dealing with private businesses refusing to serve “coloreds” and the Fair Housing Act.

You think “American exceptionalism” means God singled the US out as the most favored, thus all others are inferior and not divinely blessed.

You’ve ever yelled “Hell yeah, man, I agree!” while Sean Hannity was speaking.

You’ve ever experienced an erection watching Sarah Palin on TV.

You stand and salute when George Bush or Dick Cheney is on the air, even though you’ve never served in the military, but you flip the bird at the TV screen every time Barack Obama appears.

You’ve ever twittered Sarah Palin or Michele Bauchmann  love notes.

You registered to vote at a Tractor Pull.

You boycotted your local convenience store because the clerk let it slip he voted for Obama (even though you had bought all of your NASCAR apparel there.)

In honor of Bush, you donate to his new “LIBARY” in Texas: two cartons of crayons.

You think the U.S. Treasury should replace Ulysses S. Grant’s picture on the $50 bill with Ronald Reagan’s and exchange George Washington’s on the dollar for George W. Bush’s.

You’ve ever answered a gun-control issue with “when they pry them out of my cold, dead hands.”

You think that fetuses have a right to life but newborn babies don’t have a right to healthcare even if their parents pay for it.

You consider BP, Halliburton and Transocean Ltd. eco-friendly companies.

Your solution to the BP spill in the Gulf is to nuke ‘em.

You don’t believe in global warming but believe it’s a leftist plot to turn America socialist.

You think scientists that endorse global warming should be arrested and tried for treason.

Your strongest defense for the reason Bin Laden wasn’t caught during the Bush years is “Because they all look alike.”

You think the only solution for the Middle East peace is to bomb them all to hell. (Then let God sort them out.)

You think all Democratic presidents should be impeached.

You think the only three campaign issues that matter are “God, gays and guns.”

You think the imposition of government regulations caused economic meltdown and, oh yes, Barney Frank.

You think the Bush years were glorious, but Clinton and Obama ruined America.

You think that budget deficits began only after January 20, 2009.

You approve Arizona’s “papers please” bill but demand the government uphold constitutional freedoms and stay out of your personal life.

You think GOP stands for “God’s Only Party.”

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Bedding Down With The Devil in Indonesia – Dispatches From The Edge: “History demonstrates that providing training and other assistance only emboldens the Indonesian military to violate human rights and block accountability for past injustices.” This pattern is not confined to Indonesia. A recent study by the Fellowship for Reconciliation found that Colombian army units trained by the U.S. were the troops most likely to be associated with human rights violations. “There are alarming links between increased reports of extrajudicial executions of civilians by the Colombian army and units that receive U.S. military financing,”

Is Bart Simpson Catholic? “A Vatican spokesman recently made this amazing claim. Can you believe it? I never suspected Bart was Catholic. Homer, maybe. While there is a mathematical possibility that this announcement means someone in that cloistered establishment in Rome has developed a sense of humor, I’m going with another hypothesis – that the church is desperate for every member (soul) it can get. If I’m right about this, nobody is safe from being accused of Catholicism – not even a cartoon character. 

The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001-2022: “The book’s principal purpose is to show how fascism can be gradually introduced into any country, even the world’s greatest democracy, by constitutional means. The lessons for our time are that the maintenance of constitutional democracy requires eternal vigilance and that those forces whose aims are essentially fascist in nature must never be allowed even one bite of the apple of governmental power. For once they have bitten into it, they will eat the whole apple, core and all. No sharing and no returns. Regurgitation only by the application of extreme force.”

Brasscheck: “I’ve been tracking the criminality on Wall Street and in banking for over twenty years. The 2008 meltdown was not only not a surprise to me, I just wondered why it took so long. The mystery and the question I’ve been asking myself is: “Why aren’t these people in jail yet?” An extremely well done new documentary “Inside Job” answers this question…The government isn’t going after these people (Goldman, JPMorgan etc.) because these people have become the government – and they’re setting up to do it again. See “inside Job” and you’ll understand why not only are we not out of the woods, we’re going in even deeper.” Video: http://www.realecontv.com/page/651.html

Silence Of The Lambs: “America prevented dictatorship throughout its history by the practice of “checks and balances” established by the framers. With that foundation, only one other ingredient was necessary to sustain liberty: “An informed citizenry that will maintain vigilance to guard against the encroachment of tyranny,” as Thomas Jefferson outlined. Now we are beset by another dishonorable movement poised to take over in a few days….Not only have they vowed to tear down government, they’ve promised to take down the President. Republicans will investigate the hell out of Barack Obama, find nothing, but continue probing until he’s out of office. They’re committed to making life miserable in America.”

Congressman Considers Move to Impeach Chief Justice John Roberts : “….the Supreme Court has done a tremendous disservice to the United States of America,” DeFazio told ‘The Huffington Post’ last week. “They have done more to undermine our democracy with their Citizens United decision than all of the Republican operatives in the world in this campaign. They’ve opened the floodgates, and personally, I’m investigating articles of impeachment against Justice Roberts for perjuring during his Senate hearings, where he said he wouldn’t be a judicial activist, and he wouldn’t overturn precedents.”

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

Road to Corporate Serfdom: “It was Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist, James Carville, who in 1992 created the election slogan: “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” For the 2010 Congressional campaigns, the slogan should have been: “It’s Corporate Crime and Control, Stupid.” But notwithstanding the latest corporate crime wave, the devastating fallout on workers, investors and taxpayers from the greed and corruption of Wall Street, and the abandonment of American workers by U.S. corporations in favor of repressive regimes abroad, the Democrats have failed to focus voter anger on the corporate supremacists….

Thomas Jefferson—“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

Abraham Lincoln in 1864—“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. …corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.” (1864)

Theodore Roosevelt—“The citizens of the United States must control the mighty commercial forces which they themselves call into being.”

Woodrow Wilson—“Big business is not dangerous because it is big, but because its bigness is an unwholesome inflation created by privileges and exemptions which it ought not to enjoy.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt—“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.”

Dwight Eisenhower, farewell address—“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

Theodore Dreiser—“The government has ceased to function, the corporations are the government.”

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

Natural News 10/31/2010:

Popular diabetes drug linked to vitamin B12 deficiency

Thanks to chemicals in the food supply, girls are now reaching puberty as young as age 9!

When Medicare cuts payments to doctors, those doctors simply find an excuse to “treat” more patients!

And here’s a heart-warming piece on the many benefits of cultivating micro-gardens.

George Bush thought 9/11 plane had been shot down on his orders

George Bush thought 9/11 plane had been shot down on his orders.

Exorcism a Routine Event at Colorado Republican’s Addiction-Recovery Clinic

• Exorcism a Routine Event at Colorado Republican’s Addiction-Recovery Clinic, Says Director – Thu Oct 28, 2010. Over the last summer in Colorado, as covered in the Columbine Courier News and the Colorado Independent a controversy broke out concerning Colorado-area Teen Challenge addiction recovery centers overseen by Colorado State Representative and Assemblies of God pastor Ken Summers, when Columbine Courier news reporter Emile Hallez Williams reported that Summer’s centers practice “reparative therapy,” an evangelical euphemism for attempts to “cure” people of homosexuality.

• Website Compiles List of 50 US Cities with ‘Worst’ Divorce Rates

• Your Guide to Defending Democracy Challenging the Right– Looking Beneath the Slogans – “Based on PRA’s twenty years experience monitoring the Right, Defending Democracy provides facts and analysis on the threat the Right poses to democratic principles, diversity and equality.  While the Right claims that it represents a more fair and direct form of democracy, this kit documents how it has closed economic opportunities, denied equal protection of law and limited individual rights for many people.”

• Is the Minimum Wage Unconstitutional? Two Republican/T-Bagger Senate Candidates Think So - “Senate candidates John Raese of West Virginia and Joe Miller of Alaska argue that Congress has no power to adopt a minimum wage.”

• Globalizing the Culture Wars – U.S. Conservatives, African Churches, and Homophobia. A groundbreaking investigation by Rev. Kapya Kaoma of Political Research Associates exposes how the U.S. Right mobilizes African Protestant clergy to protest any movement towards LGBT equality in U.S. mainline churches while promoting an agenda that criminalizes homosexuality in Africa. (RELATED: October 28th, 2010. Death penalty for gays will be law soon, Ugandan lawmaker says – The Ugandan cabinet member who introduced a bill last year that would see gays executed in some circumstances says the bill will become law: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/death-penalty-gays-law-soon-lawmaker/)

• Wash. State Justices’ Remarks About Black Criminals, ‘Poverty Pimps’ Stun Audience

• AP on Conservative Catholic Bloggers - The Associated Press has a nice run down on the growing influence of conservative Catholic bloggers.

• Entire Supreme Court Should Decide Recusal Due to Activist Wife – “Justice Clarence Thomas may find himself in a controversial position when the health-care reform issue reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, most likely in 2012. Thomas’ wife, Virginia Thomas, is a leading opponent of health care reform legislation that passed this spring, law professor Steven Lubet notes in a Chicago Tribune opinion column.”

• Political Research Associates: Anti-Obama Anger, Right-Wing Populism & Tea Parties

Tea Parties, Right-Wing Populism, & Scapegoating

What is Right-Wing Populism?

How did the Tea Party Movement emerge?

Anti-Obama Anger, Populism Rage, and Conspiracy Theories by senior analyst Chip Berlet for In These Times

Taking Tea Partiers Seriously by senior analyst Chip Berlet for the Progressive

USA’s Veto Power at the ‘International Criminal Court’ Assures No President Will Ever Be Held Accountable for anything & More Uplifting Store

• Demand Resignation of Anti-Gay Arkansas School Board Member Clint McCance – “Being a fag doesn’t give you the right to ruin the rest of our lives. If you get easily offended by being called a fag then don’t tell anyone you are a fag. Keep that shit to yourself, it pisses me off though that we make a special purple fag day for them. I like that fags cant procreate. I also enjoy… the fact that they often give each other aids and die.” ~ Clint McCance, School Board member at Midland School District in Arkansas.

• UPDATE:  Arkansas school board member to resign over anti-gay post :

“A school board district member in Arkansas who came under fire for an anti-gay post on a social networking site regrets the comments and will resign his seat, he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday.

“I’m sorry I’ve hurt people with my comments,” Clint McCance, vice-president of the Midland School District in Pleasant Plains, Arkansas said. “I’m sorry I made those ignorant comments and hurt people on a broad spectrum.”

McCance wrote on his personal Facebook page that he wanted gay people to commit suicide, according to The Advocate, a newspaper focusing on gay news.

McCance used the terms “queer” and “fag” repeatedly, promised to disown his own children if they are gay and stated that he enjoys “the fact that [gay people] give each other AIDS and die.”

On Thursday, he disowned the comments.” MORE

 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

• DEATH PENALTY FOR GAYS LAW IN UGANDA. American taxes fund conservative Christians to travel the world warning of the evils of gays, for decades: October 28th, 2010 The Ugandan cabinet member who introduced a bill last year that would see gays executed in some circumstances says the bill will become law.

• Incentives in US health care bill for employers to drop coverage – “In an October 21 opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, Philip Bredesen, the Democratic Governor of Tennessee, provided an example of how this might play out in practice. In 2014, Tennessee would have about 40,000 direct employees participating in the state’s health plan. If the state dropped coverage for these employees, and compensated them for the increased costs of purchasing insurance on the exchange, the state would incur estimated costs of $114 million. The state would also be fined approximately $86 million for not providing insurance, for a total of about $200 million in increased costs. However, if Tennessee kept its existing insurance plan for its workers, the cost would be about $346 million. The state would therefore reduce its annual costs by some $146 million by dropping coverage for its employees and shifting them onto the insurance exchange.”

• The SBA List’s ‘Pro-Life’ Lies

• The Voter Guide: Seven key distortions of the campaign – “After examining hundreds of claims in the 2010 campaign, we’ve seen some patterns in how candidates — and outside groups — have twisted the facts.”

• Democracy for Sale – “On October 6, amid the tidal wave of corporate cash flooding the 2010 campaigns—which could attach a $5 billion price tag to the most expensive midterm election in history—Bill Moyers told Common Cause that money in politics is “the dagger directed at the heart of democracy.” He had just warned that “the activist reactionary majority on the Supreme Court…has opened the floodgates for oligarchs and plutocrats to secretly buy our elections and consolidate their hold on the corporate state.”

• The 2010 elections, the working class and the Democratic Party – With only a few days remaining in the 2010 election campaign, one thing is certain: the Obama administration and the Democratic Party are preparing a further lurch to the right.

• WikiLeaks and War Spending – Iraq Veterans Against the War, of which McCord is a member, said “We believe that real national security is created where government transparency and accountability, free press, and an end to spending on illegal wars and occupations are the norm.”

• US government undervaluing losses on AIG bailout

• The Fifty Most Influential Progressives of the Twentieth Century “The radical ideas of one generation become the common sense of the next. View the last of three slide shows in which Peter Dreier honors the people who pushed progressive ideas in twentieth-century America from the marginal to the mainstream.”

• The Extremist GOP – “The GOP’s lurch toward extremism extends far beyond the ideological cleansing of moderate RINOs, “Republicans in Name Only.” Ideas once considered beyond the fringe could have high-profile champions in the next Congress, and absurd premises and proposals are likely to have their own caucuses. The vast majority of the GOP Senate candidates, for example, reject the overwhelming scientific consensus on the human causes of climate change. Joe Miller, running strong for an Alaska Senate seat against Murkowski, supports repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment, which provides for the direct election of senators; wants to privatize Social Security; and is against abortion even in cases of rape or incest.”

• Key witness in Khadr case based testimony on work of anti-Muslim bigot - “A forensic psychiatrist serving as a key witness in the case against Omar Khadr, the former child soldier currently on trial for war crimes in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has based his analysis of the young prisoner on the work of a psychologist who is openly bigoted toward Muslims.”……”On Wednesday, Khadr’s defense attorneys had the opportunity to cross examine the psychiatrist. The attorneys were able to expose the fact that Welner had based his assessment of Khadr and radical Islam largely on the work of Danish psychologist Nicolai Sennels, an outspoken anti-Muslim bigot and the author of Among Criminal Muslims. During questioning, Welner admitted speaking with Sennels by phone before making his final assessment of Khadr. The psychiatrist also confessed to sharing some—but not all—of Sennels’ political views.”

• Judging the War Crimes Tribunal – “In 1998, after long negotiations, 120 nations adopted the Rome Statute (named for the city of its birth), and the International Criminal Court (ICC) came into existence. Four years and sixty country ratifications later, the court was preparing to open for business. In 2003 a prosecutor was sworn in: Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina, a human rights lawyer and prosecutor whose résumé includes bringing to trial senior Argentine junta commanders from the period of army rule in the 1970s and early ’80s. More recently he had been a visiting professor at Stanford and Harvard”

“Many people have petitioned the court to open cases. Between July 2002 and mid-August of this year, the prosecutor received over 8,700 communications from more than 140 countries. A majority of those requests were from people in the United States, Britain, Germany, Russia and France.”

“Under the first route to trial, there is no way that a case will be brought against any of the five permanent members of the Security Council, which hold veto power. Three of those P-5—China, Russia and the United States—are not full members of the court……This means that a case cannot be referred directly by those countries, which are, in any case, further protected by “complementarity.”"

Mother, mother, there’s too many of you crying Brother, brother, brother, there’s far too many of you dying……

Mother, mother, there’s too many of you crying

Brother, brother, brother, there’s far too many of you dying

- Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On, 1971

“It’s almost 40 years since Marvin Gaye added his haunting ballad to the already massive upsurge of protest against the Vietnam War. That his lyrics are as timely today as they were then is a painful reminder of how urgent – and how long haul – the fight for peace is.”

~ War Times http://war-times.org/

• Month in Review, September 2010: ‘THE ALCHEMY OF EMPIRE’ - “Standard Operating Procedure: The U.S. deposes governments considered unfriendly to Washington’s interests and replaces them with new, more cooperative regimes. It’s not easy to do that without some measure of support – or at least acceptance – from the U.S. people. So the country’s majority has to be kept in the dark about the real reasons “regime change” is always on the D.C. agenda. In the government/media 24-hour-a-day misinformation bombardment, it’s never about oil or geo-political advantage. It’s always about the U.S. fighting for freedom and democracy.”

• U.N. running from Afghanistan; war means higher U.S taxes or program cuts - “The United States built up a globe-spanning military capacity in the 1940s to fight simultaneous wars against Germany and Japan. We kept such a capacity in place to face down the Soviet Union. Today we’re doing … what, exactly? Not nothing. But considering that Afghanistan’s entire gross domestic product is only $14 billion per year, it’s hard to believe that spending $5.7 billion each month on the war is a cost-effective way of doing business. If our allies’ problem in Afghanistan is really the Taliban’s awe-inspiring operating budget, it should be possible to level the playing field for a fraction of total current spending.  The out-of-whack costs of the war have implications not just for Afghanistan but for the entire American military posture around the world. Spending hundreds of billions a year to maintain a worldwide military presence whose main job is now posited as fighting ill-financed insurgent groups in sundry backwaters simply doesn’t seem very sensible. … More money for defense means higher taxes or less for other programs. Ignoring that point has been key to the politics of national security for the past 15 years, but it’s nonetheless true. …”

• Millionaire Spends Big Bucks Defeating DA Who Investigated Sexual Abuse at His Shady Nursing Home

• The campaign for a Colorado amendment disturbingly compares abortion to slavery.

• Towards Martial Law in America: Authority to Deploy Troops Domestically – “Earlier this month, the United States Coast Guard upheld its self-declared status as a ‘special’ branch of the military with the ability to prosecute civilians in military tribunals. This startling declaration, unreported in the media, came in a Decision on Appeal related to the case of Lieutenant Eric Shine, a commissioned Naval officer in the Merchant Marines and a graduate of Kings Point Military Service Academy, and was penned by the Vice Commandant of the Coast Guard.”

• Foreign-Funded U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Tries to Weaken Law Against Bribing Foreign Governments

• How Resource Scarcity Threatens Democracy

• How Much Does It Cost To Buy a Vote? Somewhere between $5 and $175

• “Crisis is an Opportunity”: Engineering a Global Depression to Create a Global Government – “As a further indication of the coming ‘third world’ status of America, in June of 2008, in the midst of the financial crisis, the United States Federal Reserve was audited by the IMF for the first time in history. As part of the investigation, “the Fed, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the major investment banks, mortgage banks and hedge funds will be asked to hand over confidential documents to the IMF team.”  Simon Johnson, former Chief Economist at the IMF, wrote an article in May of 2009 explaining that the problem with most third world nations (“emerging market economies”) is that the governments are so closely tight-knit with the corporate and banking elite that they form a financial oligarchy, and that this is essentially the same problem in the United States. He wrote that, “the finance industry has effectively captured our government,” and “recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform.”

• Arkansas School Official Spews Hateful, Homophobic Rhetoric

• Companies Fight to Keep Global Warming Data Secret

• Campaign Cash: Sen. Jim DeMint’s Making a Mint with Corporate Cash

• What Happened When I Yelled Back at the “Christians” Calling My Wife a Murderer

• Tea Party Fascists: Joe Miller used active duty troops in security detail

• Placebo fraud rocks the very foundation of modern medical science; thousands of clinical trials invalidated

• The Tea Party think tank run by Justice Thomas’ wife counts among its friends the far-right Catholic group Tradition, Family and Property.

• Franklin Roosevelt’s Second Bill of Rights – “Roosevelt called his proposal “security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these happiness and well-being” measures in the interest of democracy, humanity, fairness, justice, and a nation discharging its responsibilities for all its citizens equitably. Today, these ideas are lost at a time of an unprecedented wealth gap, and officials ignoring essential needs by growing millions, on their own and out of luck because both major parties spurn them. Instead they focus on imperial wars, handouts to bankers and other corporate favorites, repressive laws, and eroding freedoms, destroying them one at a time or in bunches, creating banana republic harshness in their place.”

• Pennsylvania Homeland Security called coal documentary a security threat - A 2009 documentary on modern day coal mining is almost as threatening as anarchists and “international jihadists,” according to a document uncovered by Discovery Channel’s Treehugger website.

• Why Germany Has It So Good — and Why America Is Going Down the Drain – Germans have six weeks of federally mandated vacation, free university tuition, and nursing care. Why the US pales in comparison.

• GOP Senate hopeful: Bush official ‘lied’ on Iraq – Republican US Senate candidate Mark Kirk said Wednesday the Bush administration “lied” to the public on intelligence leading up to the Iraq war.

• Teachers Spent $9M On Cosmetic Surgery in 2009 -  The state-appointed authority overseeing Buffalo public school finances says taxpayer-covered cosmetic surgery rung up by the city’s teachers totaled nearly $9 million in 2009.

• Fascist America: Is This Election the Next Turn? – It’s not fascism yet; but if the Tea Party manages to get its hands on the levers of power, it will be.

• BP, Halliburton knew Gulf oil rig cement was faulty: commission

• Sen. John Kerry says conservative talk show hosts and Republican political leaders are creating a “period of know-nothingism” in the country.

• Indiana tells parents: Drop disabled kids at shelters – Indiana’s budget crunch has become so severe that some state workers have suggested leaving severely disabled people at homeless shelters if they can’t be cared for at home, parents and advocates said.

• Constitutional law professor predicts Supreme Court will give Ashcroft absolute immunity - The Supreme Court Give Ashcroft Absolute Immunity For 911 Abuses?

(Thanks to Matthew J Burrier for the following)

Bush admits that Iraq Had Nothing To Do With 9/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_A77N5WKWM

“The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq, Saddam and al-Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-…Qaeda .”
-G.W. Bush
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k89BMjzkThA

Iraq Resolution (formally the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002)

“Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq ;”

“Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;”

“Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations;”

http://uspolitics.about.com/od/wariniraq/a/jt_resolution.htm

T-Baggers are Even Bigger Liars than the ‘Run o’ the Mill’ Republicans:

Republicans Object To Bill For Homeless Veterans: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/29/republicans-object-to-bil_n_629332.html

Republicans block healthcare for 9/11 first responders: http://thedemocraticdaily.com/2010/07/30/house-republicans-block-bill-to-pay-the-healthcare-for-ill-911-responders/

What the Conservative do not talk about publicly when on Sept. 23 2010, presenting to the world the ‘Pledge For America’ is that VA Hospitals will be Privatized and Veterans will be forced To buy Insurance: http://mediamatters.org/research/201009230020

Red State Socialism and the Politics of Stimulus:
http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/001439.htm

Republican Conservative Christian Sarah Palin enthusiastically practices socialism, Alaska-style: http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/581484.html

Republican Conservative Christian Rep. Bachmann’s clinic takes in thousands from “socialized medicine”: http://www.americanindependent.com/bachmann%E2%80%99s-clinic-takes-in-thousands-from-%E2%80%9Csocialized-medicine%E2%80%9D/

Alaska Republican-Tea Party Conservative Christian Senate candidate Joe Miller, who claims Government is too big and Socialism is bad, admits taking farm subsidies: http://alaskadispatch.com/dispatches/politics/6880-alaska-senate-candidate-joe-miller-admits-taking-farm-subsidies

Joe Miller also relied on technicalities to obtain a low-income hunting and fishing license from the state of Alaska: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/homeowning-lawyer-joe-miller-sought-low-income-hunting-and-fishing-license-in-alaska.php

Joe Miller also thinks federal unemployment insurance is constitutionally questionable. But it turns out his wife benefited from it in the early part of the decade — after she left a job working for him: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/10/joe-millers-wife-received-unemployment-benefits-miller-called-not-constitutionally-authorized.php

Anti-Government Tea Partier Conservative Christian Sharron Angle Gets Health Care from the Federal Government: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/09/28/anti-government-tea-partier-sharron-angle-gets-health-care-from-the-federal-government/

The Most Hypocritical States are Usually “Red”: http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2193/1/?newsmaker=109&redirectURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thedailybeast.com%2Fgalleries%2Fnewsmaker%2Fpolitics%2F

Despite Saying Government Intervention Puts Industry In A ‘Coma,’ Raese’s Biz Takes Millions In Taxpayer Funds – http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/25/raese-government-contracts/

Two Santa Clauses or How The Republican Party Has Conned America for Thirty Years, by Thom Hartmann, January 26, 2009
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/26-0

The Two Santa Claus Theory, by David Dayen, Apr 30, 2009
http://www.calitics.com/diary/8718/the-two-santa-claus-theory

The US Gov Can’t Find Osama Bin Laden or “Win” anything….So WikiLeaks Will Have to Do For Now.

October 28th, 2010 Thursday:

• Anti-Immigration Candidate’s Ties to Anti-Gay Church of Rwanda

• By assigning covert action roles to the Central Intelligence Agency(CIA), it is as if the White House and Congress had legitimized the Ku Klux Klan to operate globally - “That’s because the CIA today resembles nothing so much as the “Invisible Empire” of the KKK that once spread terror across the South and Midwest. Fiery crosses aside, that’s what the CIA is doing globally.”

• WikiLeaks proposed as first public target for U.S. govt cyberattack

• “It’s only scary if you don’t accept Jesus.” - The Fear is Real: A New View of Halloween “Hell Houses” – A 90-minute walk through the South Georgia woods, as part of this year’s Tribulation Trail offers violence, fear, and an Obama-like Antichrist.

• Writer Claims Associating Minorities With Crime Is Normal

• Wikileaks Puts Spotlight Back on Continuing War Crime in Iraq

• Fetus as Person Initiative Approved by Mississippi Judge

• Rather than call police when their drinking partner fell — or was pushed — off a nearly 200-foot cliff, two students at a Redding Bible school tried first to reach the severely wounded man and pray him back to life, a lawsuit alleges.

• Top 10 Racist Limbaugh Quotes

• Democracy: For Sale by Owner

• Mormonism a campaign issue in Nevada, Idaho

• A father claims Narconon International and the Association for Living and Education International are fronts for Scientology, and that he paid them $35,500 for “essentially worthless treatment” for his drug-addicted son.

• Tea Party Rep Al Reynolds, who is considered the Tea Party candidate in Illinois’ 52nd District says: “Black Men Prefer Drug Dealing To Education”

• Easily treatable rotting disease kills at least 20, sickens thousands in Uganda

• Racist Taxi Driver Confronted By Woman He Drove By

• The US Religious Right and the LGBT Crisis In Uganda

• Prosecutors asked a judge Tuesday to send a white former transit officer to prison for the 2009 videotaped shooting death of an unarmed black man on an Oakland train platform.

• Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority ordered an Italian ice cream company to stop running a print ad showing two hot male priests about to kiss passionately before sharing a tub of ice cream.

• Whose God in America?

• Uganda Newspaper Calls For The Hanging Of 100 Gays – The legislation was drawn up following a visit by leaders of U.S. conservative Christian ministries that promote therapy they say allows gays to become heterosexual.

 

 

Fighting the terrorists !

Mohammed AL-Saedi, Oct. 22, 2010

Who are the terrorists ? USA ,,, CIA USA ,,, CIA USA, this was the slogan that the protests were chant-ing years ago.

The continuation and supporting the continuation of the armed resistance in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the armed resistance of the Islamic State of Iraq as well as the resistance in the pakistan is the only way thats guarantee the continuation of the most robust defensive frontline to prevent criminal America warmongers from continuing its aggressions on the world.

Its almost, more than 9 years ago when the criminals-warmongers ignited wars on the world, wars on the freedom and wars on the mankind which are all aimed for depopulations and for disaster infliction on the planet. Criminals-warmongers began war on the Afghanistan as a first step and then began another war on Iraq as further step and already had planed to go on for igniting more wars everywhere else !

At the earlier stages, everything went out of the expectations of the warmongers. Criminals-warmongers were confronted by the most fierce and the most intensive armed resistance in the both countries in which the military capabilities of the warmongers were wrecked and are no longer properly functional.

Reference:

• Eternal War For Imperfect Mankind “For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world.”  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16503

• American Threats: Building a Pretext to Wage War on North Korea? http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=20227

• Stop NATO’s orientation is anti-militarist, international and internationalist. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/

• U.S. intelligence, criminal espionage agency, penetrated the heart of the Ecuadorian police force. http://www.granma.cu/ingles/ouramerica-i/7octubre-40intel.html

• A third US sponsored coup d’etat against a member state of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Americas. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=21267

• Gloria La Riva: ‘U.S. behind coup in Ecuador, details will come’ http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/298400

• The terrorism activities by the criminal espionage agency CIA. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QYZBMIBOck

• Death Squads in Iraq http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdbOjT4MW8M&feature=related

• Ex-C.I.A. Aides Say Ayad Allawi Helped Agency in 90′s Attacks http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0609-02.htm

• Media Disinformation and Death Squads in Occupied Iraq http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1230

• New Death Squad in Iraq http://www.thenation.com/article/iraqs-new-death-squad

• CIA-Sponsored Child Abduction & Prostitution http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD0Bw5HqvlE

• CIA, criminal espionage agency, crimes http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17061

• Unreported war is being waged by the United States, and Britain, to restore power to the privileged classes. http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=485

• The Secret Wars of the criminal espionage agencies CIA. http://www.serendipity.li/cia/stock1.html

So Clint McCance, Arkansas School Board Member Can’t Be Fired For Wishing ‘Fags’ Just ‘Commit Suicide’?

October 27, 2010 by Gay Agenda News Team

Demand Resignation of Anti-Gay Arkansas School Board Member

 

Churches Should Take Over Universal Pre-K Education, Why God Isn’t Necessary, Theocracy, The True History of American Church/State Separation & More

THEOCRACY IS A REALITY IN COUNTRIES LIKE IRAN AND SAUDI ARABIA. KEEP IN MIND, RIGHT HERE, IN THE USA, MANY, MANY PEOPLE IN POLITICALLY POWERFUL POSITIONS WOULD LIKE TO MAKE THE USA A THEOCRACY TOO, A CHRISTIAN THEOCRACY!

I suggest you ALL watch the following DVDs & Videos:

‘Imagine If All Atheists Left America’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbef07aQtB8

‘Constantines Sword’:
http://www.ConstantinesSword.com

‘Theologians Under Hitler’:
http://www.vitalvisuals.com/?q=node/19

‘The God Who Wasn’t There’:
http://www.TheGodMovie.com/

‘A brief rundown of the cost in human lives exacted by religion and religious warfare’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq0oMhR3OgI

The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense founded on the Christian religion – Many Religious Right activists have attempted to rewrite history by asserting that the United States government derived from Christian foundations, that our Founding Fathers originally aimed for a Christian nation. This idea simply does not hold to the historical evidence. Of course many Americans did practice Christianity, but so also did many believe in deistic philosophy. Indeed, most of our influential Founding Fathers, although they respected the rights of other religionists, held to deism and Freemasonry tenets rather than to Christianity.

Source: http://www.nobeliefs.com/Tripoli.htm

I tell every one to support those who fight for ‘Separation of Church and State’. These are a few I’ve been supporting for years;

Americans United for Separation of Church and State: http://www.au.org/

Freedom From Religion Foundation: http://ffrf.org/

Military Religious Freedom Foundation: http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/

The Interfaith Alliance Foundation: http://www.interfaithalliance.org/

Helpful quotes;

“The United States of America should have a foundation free from the influence of clergy.”
~ George Washington

“Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.”
~ Thomas Jefferson

“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” ~ Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a letter to John Adams (April 11, 1823)

“All national institutions of churches whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. … My own mind is my own church.” ~ Thomas Paine ‘The Age of Reason (1794)’

“As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”
~ Tripoli of Barbary. Art. 11. – Authored by American diplomat Joel Barlow in 1796, the following treaty was sent to the floor of the Senate, June 7, 1797, where it was read aloud in its entirety and unanimously approved. John Adams, having seen the treaty, signed it and proudly proclaimed it to the Nation.

“The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion”.
~ Thomas Paine

“The number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood and the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church and the State.”
~ James Madison a.k.a. ‘The Father of the Constitution of the United States of America

Quotes from the The American Taliban;

“We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren’t punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That’s war. And this is war.” ~ Anne Coulter

“Yes, religion and politics do mix. America is a nation based on biblical principles. Christian values dominate our government. The test of those values is the Bible. Politicians who do not use the bible to guide their public and private lives do not belong in office.” ~ Beverly LaHaye (Concerned Women for America)

MORE: http://adultthought.ucsd.edu/Culture_War/The_American_Taliban.html

Recent news:

Bullied: A Student, a School and a Case That Made History – ‘Bullied’ is a documentary film that chronicles one student’s ordeal at the hands of anti-gay bullies and offers an inspiring message of hope to those fighting harassment today. It can become a cornerstone of anti-bullying efforts in middle and high schools.

Afghanistan: Malalai Joya — `for our people, Obama is a warmonger, like another Bush’ – “In the United States, many looked to the ballot box and hoped for real change when Barack Obama was elected president in 2008. To be honest, I never expected that he would be any different for Afghanistan than President George W. Bush. The truth is that Obama’s war policies have turned out to be even more of a nightmare than most people expected. Obama talked a lot about hope and change, but for Afghanistan the only change has been for the worse. After almost two years of Obama, the number of US troops occupying Afghanistan has more than doubled. And the number of drone attacks in Pakistan has increased. Obama’s so-called surge of troops has resulted in increased Afghan civilian deaths.”

Conservative Christian Fundamentalist Extremist Say Yoga Will Destroy the USA -  Evangelical leaders are increasingly warning that yoga is dangerous and that Christians must choose between Christianity and yoga. The very fate of our nation depends on it.

What is a happy athiest? – “What a stupid question. Who the hell knows the answer to that. Personally, I am happy as an atheist because I used to be (blush) a fundamentalist born-again evangelical Jesus-lover. I’m actually embarrassed (nay, ashamed) to admit it to my bible-believing past. But there it is. I’m ‘out’, as they say.  Perhaps in another post, I’ll detail my intellectual journey out of the slavery of Christianity. Suffice to say, I had drunk the Kool-Aid at age 18 and lost the best part of a decade to the infantile, puerile, anti-intellectualism of fundamentalist Churchianity.”

Why Catholicism is Child’s Play – “None of the twenty thousand who were slaughtered at the Massacre of Béziers by Papal instruction could have dreamt of a time when the Holy See’s authority would be reduced to a symbolic figment of an ignorant past. Yet the indoctrination and violent imposition that shaped dark age Europe and resisted the development of our secular modern societies so violently still retains much of its grotesque authority. The self righteous egotism that tolerated Pope Pius V’s claim that “the Pope and God are the same, so he has all the power in Heaven and Earth”, reached it heights at the time when Popes were carried in a velvet throne on the shoulders of men, a symbolic idiocy of self-grandeur that bizarrely survived well into the 20th century. The Roman Catholic Church is unrecognizable, either from the monstrosity of its medieval rage or the hermit of its 19th century vacillation, it is a hollow shell of primitive simplicity.”

Churches Should Take Over Universal Pre-K Education – South Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate, Nikki Haley, wants to solve an education crisis by creating a constitutional one. State Rep. Nikki Haley, the Sarah Palin-endorsed Republican candidate, responded to a question about whether or not South Carolina should implement a universal pre-K program for four-year-olds in the state. Haley emphasized that the state can’t afford such a program right now and if elected she would look to faith-based organizations to take over that responsibility.

Tell Congress that religious bias has no place in public school curicula – See Sean Faircloth’s video message on a new resolution supporting fact-based education and take action.

Why God Isn’t Necessary – “So rather than try and argue whether God does or doesn’t exist, I have decided to attempt to prove that a decision to have a God in your life is simply of no benefit, and hence completely unnecessary.”

The True History of American Church/State Separation – Smithsonian Magazine has an interesting article on the subject by Kenneth C. Davis — he argues that our knowledge of that doctrine contains a lot more myth than we think: “From the earliest arrival of Europeans on America’s shores, religion has often been a cudgel, used to discriminate, suppress and even kill the foreign, the “heretic” and the “unbeliever” — including the “heathen” natives already here. Moreover, while it is true that the vast majority of early-generation Americans were Christian, the pitched battles between various Protestant sects and, more explosively, between Protestants and Catholics, present an unavoidable contradiction to the widely held notion that America is a “Christian nation.”

Morgan Freeman: The Power of Words – This video is a Webby Award winner. Amnesty International supporters have used the power of words to demand freedom and justice for countless human rights defenders around the world. Our words are proof that when you stand up for human rights, you never stand alone. RELATED: Visit “Being Human” -blog at http://beinghuman.blogs.fi if you are looking for a bit deeper analysis on things relating to humanism, secularism and atheism. See “The Little Book of Humanity” for the best ideas of the past philosophers, scientists or writers at http://thelittlebook.blogs.fi.

Religious right – “……look at the evidence as to where Christian ethics have led in America’s bible belt, the deep south. Use of the death penalty against the poor and blacks, slavery and then the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and the lynch mobs, to say nothing of its support for war and its equal opposition to things like welfare and any state-provided medical provision. And also the Protestant fundamentalist president of Guatemala, Rios Montt, who presided over the slaughter of over 100,000 Amerindians in the war against communism. The proof of the pudding is in the eating and the religious pie leaves a lot to be desired! In fact, most of the barbarities in history have been sanctioned by ‘ethical’ religions or, as Dylan wrote, in every war god is on ‘our’ side.”

“A Universe from Nothing” - Here’s a great video by Theoretical Physicist Lawrence Krauss explaining how our universe comes from “nothing”

Capitalism across the world is in crisis. The ongoing horror of wars, environmental destruction and poverty is all too apparent. This crisis is not simply down to the greed or corruption of individuals but is integral to a capitalist system in decline. The need for a higher form of society based upon human need as opposed to the needs of capital is more obvious than ever

Space Elevators, Genocide, “Free Market” = No Accountability, VA GOP Chair compares blacks to dogs on welfare & more coffee chat

• The Space Elevator – It’s Not as Crazy as it Sounds

 

Scientists propose that a space elevator made of carbon nanotubes could be cheaper and safer than rockets. They’d like to create a 22,000-mile cable elevator between the Earth and the Moon, that could transport people and payloads. NASA recently funded a competition, to encourage young people to start solving this puzzle. VIDEO: http://www.forbiddenknowledgetv.com/page/444.html Source: BrassCheckTV.com

 

• Genocidal Results of the Failed American Indian Policies of the United States Government:

 

• GOP candidate killed two unarmed Iraqis and ‘shot them 60 times’ – A Tea Party-backed candidate who allegedly murdered two unarmed Iraqis could win a seat in the House of Representatives.

• Virginia Beach Republican Party chair Dave Bartholomew Compares Black People to Dogs on Welfare – Bartholomew is under fire for forwarding an e-mail comparing African Americans to dogs on welfare:

MY DOG

I went down this morning to sign up my Dog for welfare.At first the lady said, “Dogs are not eligible to draw welfare”.

So I explained to her that my Dog is black, unemployed, lazy, can’t speak English and has no frigging clue who his Daddy is.

So she looked in her policy book to see what it takes to qualify…

My Dog gets his first check Friday.

Is this a great country or what?

• Rand Paul’s head-stomping supporter served with summons – Tim Profitt admits to attacking a MoveOn activist at Monday’s debate, insists it wasn’t as bad as it looks

• Tea Party leader: Defeat Ellison because he’s Muslim – Founder of Tea Party Nation wants to defeat Keith Ellison because, he suggests, Muslims do not belong in Congress

• Wall Street’s best friend: The Tea Party – The fruits of right-wing populism: Free rein for the financial sector greed, irresponsibility and disaster

• Afghan security problem: Poorly built police stations - “…….concludes that conditions at the stations are so hazardous that “inadequate concrete and foundation work calls into question the structural integrity of the buildings and raises the risk of total building collapse in the event of a significant earthquake.” The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers nonetheless passed up chances to penalize Basirat and paid it almost $5 million of the $5.5 million contract price, according to the report.”

RELATED:

U.S. contractor accused of fraud still winning big Afghan projects 9/19/2010

Government has let Blackwater, KBR off the hook, too 9/19/2010

United States is a democracy, The free market is an illusion, America’s mad-hatter politics & 23 Things They don’t Tell You about Capitalism

“Many Americans appear to believe that our constitution has been a model for the rest of the democratic world.’ Yet among the countries most comparable to the United States and where democratic institutions have long existed without breakdown, not one has adopted our American constitutional system. It would be fair to say that without a single exception they have all rejected it.”

From:

‘How Democratic is the American Constitution?’ “A book by political scientist Robert A. Dahl that discusses “undemocratic” elements of the United States Constitution. The book originated in the Castle Lectures which Dahl delivered at Yale University in 2000. The book defines “democratic” as alignment with the principle of one person, one vote, also known as majority rule. The author praises the Framers of the Constitution as “men of exceptional talent and virtue” (p. 7) who made admirable progress in the creation of their republican government……The Framers created a representative democracy because they were fearful of direct democracy. Dahl says this is a result of underestimating the ability of the American people as a whole to guide the country on a stable, free-market path that would have respected the property rights of land owners.” MORE

What the Framers Couldn’t Know – Undemocratic Elements in the Framers’ Constitution – “It was within these limits, then, that the Framers constructed the Constitution. Not surprisingly, it fell far short of the requirements that later generations would find necessary and desirable in a democratic republic. Judged from later, more democratic perspectives, the Constitution of the Framers contained at least seven important shortcomings.”

Amazon.com: “In this slim, accessible volume, Yale political science professor emeritus Dahl (On Democracy) takes a critical look at our Constitution and why we continue to uphold it, though it is “a document produced more than two centuries ago by a group of fifty-five mortal men, actually signed by only thirty-nine, and adopted in only thirteen states.” As an instrument for truly democratic government, Dahl argues, it fails.”

More Dahl’s works include: (1961) – Who Governs?: Democracy and Power in an American City, (1989) – Democracy and Its Critics

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Gore Vidal, from his book The Decline and Fall of the American Empire:

“In almost every case [where the United States has fought wars] our overwhelming commitment to freedom, democracy and human rights has required us to support those regimes that would deny freedom, democracy and human rights to their own people.’

“The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity-much less dissent. “

” Television in the early 1950s ceased to be a novelty and became the principle agent for the simultaneous marketing of consumer goods and of national security state opinion.”

“Every four years the naive half who vote are encouraged to believe that if we can elect a really nice man or woman President everything will be all right. But it won’t be. Any individual who is able to raise $25 million to be considered presidential is not going to be much use to the people at large. He will represent oil, or aerospace, or banking, or whatever moneyed entities are paying for him. Certainly he will never represent the people of the country, and they know it. Hence, the sense of despair throughout the land as incomes fall, businesses fail and there is no redress.”

” The war on drugs has nothing at all to do with drugs. It is part of an all-out war on the American people by a government interested only in control.”

” The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric bronze-age text known as the Old Testament, three antihuman religions have evolved — Judaiism, Christianity, and Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, lliterally, patriarchial — God is the omnipotent father — hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delagates.”

” When the white race broke out of Europe 500 years ago, it did many astounding things all over the globe. Inspired by a raging sky-god, the whites were able to pretend that their conqueats were in order to bring the One God to everyone, particularly those with older and subtler religions.”

” Another of our agreed-upon fantasies is that we do not have a class system in the United States. The Few who control the Many through Opinion have simply made themselves invisible. They have convinced us that we are a classless society in which everyone can make it.”

” Thomas Paine, when asked his religion, said he subscribed only to the religion of humanity.”

” “Liberal” comes from the Latin liberalis, which means pertaining to a free man. In politics, to be liberal is to want to extend democracy through change and reform. One can see why that word had to be erased from our political lexicon.”

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

• As a geophysical force, the human species wields a new kind of agency unaccounted for in familiar narratives of the history of capitalist growth

• The meaning of peace in the 21st century – “An essential lesson of the age is that governments acquire their legitimacy through votes of people and respect for human rights, and that this is the best guarantee of security.”

• “……we saw it also, though of course in a different way, in George W. Bush’s de-regulated and privatized US, where investment bankers, hedge-fund managers, private military contractors and many others benefited from financial deregulation and from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while the majority of Americans bore the brunt of the economic crisis as well as the human and financial costs of wars in far-away places.”

• Days of rage: the Tea Party & America’s right – “The rise of the Tea Party movement in the United States in the first twenty months of Barack Obama’s presidency is shaking the political establishment, an effect reinforced by the victories of its candidates in Republican Party primaries. But where has the movement come from, and what is its inner life? Max Blumenthal, author of “Republican Gomorrah”, enters the heady world of the Tea Party to unravel the mix of driven personalities, feverish rhetoric, toxic hatreds, and flirtation with violence that fuel its sub-culture’s insurgent activism.”

• The populist radical Right: A pathological normalcy – New research showing that far-Right ideology is a radicalization of mainstream values has a major impact on how populism is understood.

• While the past is still painfully present in Auschwitz, the future of the former concentration camp is under pressure – “Nearly seven decades after the war the ravages of time are becoming a serious problem. The need for a long-term conservation plan is pressing, says Dr Piotr Cywiński, director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.”

• “the free market is an illusion. If some markets look free, it is only because we so totally accept the regulations that are propping up that they become invisible” Ho-Joon Chang, 23 Things They don’t Tell You about Capitalism, Allen Lane, 2010

• “How does the European Union stand in relation to this complex? The population and output of the EU exceed that of the US, and compose a mosaic of social models widely considered more humane and advanced than the American.”

• The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins tells NPR that gay teens know they are “abnormal,” which makes them suicidal – Tony Perkins, president of the evangelical Family Research Council, says gay activists are exploiting the concern over bullying — and twisting the facts. “There’s no correlation between inacceptance of homosexuality and depression and suicide,” he says.

• “Earlier this year a Republican candidate for Florida state House of Representatives was caught on tape stealing his opponents sign from a yard before the Republican primary.”

• Arkansas School Board Member Says Gay Students Should “Get AIDS and Die” – Clint McCance is a school board member at Midland School District in Arkansas. And he has some absolutely troubling and disturbing views when it comes to homosexuality. McCance took to his Facebook page last week, to blast what became known as Spirit Day, a day where all around the country, people wore the color purple to remember those LGBT students who were victims of bullying or suicide. For McCance, this was nothing more than a day of honoring “sin.” “Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers committed suicide. The only way I’m wearin’ it for them is if they all commit suicide,” McCance said, in one of the most ugly outbursts in recent memory. “I can’t believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed themselves because of their sin.”

• Resist-Reclaim-Restore: Militarism No More – “Reflecting on the human and financial costs of militarism in terms of the prospects for democracy, sustainable living and peace presents a bleak picture.”

• The United States is a democracy. Its citizens have the right if they wish to spend twice what any other countries spend on healthcare, and receive in return an overall inferior service. – But it is worth asking why – since Lyndon B Johnson’s introduction in 1965 of Medicaid (for the poor) and Medicare (for the elderly) – the clearer failures in the delivery of healthcare have been so hard to remedy. An important factor is undoubtedly the extraordinary influence of special interests at several points in the political system. “Interests”.

• U.S. Dept. of Education Gets It Right on Bullying – “Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, has taken bold stands against bullying and is willing to stand up for the rights of all students to have a safe educational environment. Earlier this month he issued a great press release responding to the wave of gay teen suicides. Now his department is sending letters to all U.S. schools reminding them that failure to respond to bullying is a violation of federal law. This is the kind of leadership we need to stop bullying (and passive tolerance of it) at all levels in our educational system.  Given the recent high-profile cases of anti-gay bullying and Islamophobia in the media, this warning is timely and much needed.”

• America’s mad-hatter politics – “The rise of the populist Tea Party movement is dominating the United States’s mid-term election campaign. Yet its significance escapes the country’s political and media class”

• White House Tells Groups: “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell” During DADT Meeting… – “As LGBTQ groups were gathering at the White House this afternoon to discuss a possible legislative appeal of the military’s discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Policy, leaders were warned not to discuss the legal suits that brought the practice to a screeching holt earlier this month.”

• “Fundamentalists are active at grassroots, national and regional levels, and within international arenas, they are becoming increasingly influential – stalling efforts on rights treaties, diluting rights-based discourse and creating alliances to immobilize the international human rights system.  Survey data in Religious Fundamentalism on the Rise: A case for action was based on an extensive online questionnaire circulated to AWID’s networks. Over 1,600 completed responses drew the following results when respondents were asked “Over the last ten years, how has the strength of religious fundamentalisms changed in each of the following contexts?”; 60% felt that religious fundamentalisms had increased “in the context of their work”, and 76% felt they had increased “globally”. When asked to rate the relative influence of a range of fundamentalist actors in their work, 62% of women’s rights activists named NGOs and charities with fundamentalist tendencies or links. Indeed, the establishment of ‘pro-life’ NGOs is a crucial fundamentalist tactic.”

REMINDER FOR DUMB ASSES WHO BELIEVE OBAMA IS A SOCIALIST AND FOR THOSE WHO THINK T-BAGGERS ARENT LYING SACK OF SHIT:

Obama’s No Socialist. I Should Know: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/13/AR2009031301899.html

Is Obama A Socialist? Not if You Ask One: http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=28645

Obama is not a socialist: http://www.thedmonline.com/obama-is-not-a-socialist-1.899275

A Socialist Talks About Obama: http://www.socialistwebzine.org/2010/10/socialist-talks-about-obama.html

List of left-wing articles critical of Barack Obama- http://eng.anarchopedia.org/List_of_Left-Wing_articles_critical_of_Obama

Obama….Socialism? Hardly, Say Socialists: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/may2009/db20090522_329825.htm

Ask the card-carrying socialists: Is Obama one of them?: http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/14/Obama.socialist/index.html

Red State Socialism and the Politics of Stimulus:
http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/001439.htm

Republican Conservative Christian Sarah Palin enthusiastically practices socialism, Alaska-style: http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/581484.html

Republican Conservative Christian Rep. Bachmann’s clinic takes in thousands from “socialized medicine”: http://www.americanindependent.com/bachmann%E2%80%99s-clinic-takes-in-thousands-from-%E2%80%9Csocialized-medicine%E2%80%9D/

Alaska Republican-Tea Party Conservative Christian Senate candidate Joe Miller, who claims Government is too big and Socialism is bad, admits taking farm subsidies: http://alaskadispatch.com/dispatches/politics/6880-alaska-senate-candidate-joe-miller-admits-taking-farm-subsidies

Joe Miller also relied on technicalities to obtain a low-income hunting and fishing license from the state of Alaska: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/homeowning-lawyer-joe-miller-sought-low-income-hunting-and-fishing-license-in-alaska.php

Joe Miller also thinks federal unemployment insurance is constitutionally questionable. But it turns out his wife benefited from it in the early part of the decade — after she left a job working for him: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/10/joe-millers-wife-received-unemployment-benefits-miller-called-not-constitutionally-authorized.php

Anti-Government Tea Partier Conservative Christian Sharron Angle Gets Health Care from the Federal Government: http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/09/28/anti-government-tea-partier-sharron-angle-gets-health-care-from-the-federal-government/

The Most Hypocritical States are Usually “Red”: http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2193/1/?newsmaker=109&redirectURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thedailybeast.com%2Fgalleries%2Fnewsmaker%2Fpolitics%2F

Despite Saying Government Intervention Puts Industry In A ‘Coma,’ Raese’s Biz Takes Millions In Taxpayer Funds – http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/25/raese-government-contracts/

T-Baggers Attack…literally, Texas oil companies fund California climate fight, GMO Monster ‘Monsanto’ pays farmers to spray its rivals’ herbicides & more

Rand Paul Supporter Stomps Head Of Female MoveOn Member Outside KY Debate (VIDEO) Brian Beutler | October 25, 2010, 11:29PM

Josh Green flagged an incident that occurred outside of the Rand Paul-Jack Conway debate in Lexington, Kentucky Monday night that’s already dominating the news in Kentucky and could easily make headlines nationally. As the candidates arrived, a group of Paul supporters pulled a female MoveOn member to the ground and held her there as another Paul supporter stomped on the back of her head and neck. According to the Louisville Courier Journal, “Lauren Valle of MoveOn.org approached Paul and tried to give him an “employee of the month award” from Republicorp…a fake business MoveOn created to symbolize what it says is the merger of the GOP and business interests controlling political speech.” Source: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/10/male-rand-paul-supporter-stomps-head-of-female-moveon-member-outside-debate.php

After Citizens United: A Look into the Pro-Corporate Players in American Politics -  “Our new report profiles some of the lavishly funded groups trying to buy the midterm elections to prevent Congress from enacting common sense legislation.”

Preparing for a Republican comeback? – “IT’S BEEN obvious for more than a year that the Democrats can expect a beating at the polls in the November midterm elections. For months, most leading opinion polls have shown the Republicans tied with, or leading, the Democrats in voters’ preferences for congressional candidates. And even more ominous for Democrats, President Obama is now more unpopular than popular, with an average of 50 percent saying they disapprove of his performance, compared to the 45 percent who say they approve, according to polling averages Pollster.com compiles.”

TELL CONGRESS: Stand Up For Fact-Based Education – “Tell Congress that religious bias has no place in public school curicula. See Sean Faircloth’s video message on a new resolution supporting fact-based education.”

Helping Pets + Domestic Abuse Victims – “Domestic violence and animal abuse are often closely linked. Various studies have documented that nearly 48% of domestic violence victims say they would have fled their abusive situation sooner only if they had a safe place to leave their dog or cat. Most shelters for battered women do not allow animals and more than half of women in crisis centers who own pets report that their spouses abused or even killed their animals, as they were unable to take their pet when they fled from their homes. Understanding the wrenching dilemma facing domestic abuse victims, Hart and Senatori founded Sheltering Animals of Abuse Victims” or SAAV, because they did not want domestic abuse victims to ever have to “choose” between their own safety and the safety and well-being of a beloved animal companion. A Madison, Wisconsin-based organization, The SAAV Program is a network of temporary homes, shelters, farms and ranches, all in confidential locations.”

Latest Reagan Revolution Price Tag: A $313 Billion Wage Cut – “There’s another chapter to add to the narrative my colleague Dave Johnson sketched out some weeks ago about how the Reagan revolution has come home to roost, based on sobering statistics uncovered this morning by David Cay Johnston at Tax.com about how The Great Recession has harmed working families while worsening income inequality. New data compiled by the Social Security Administration reveals that the total wages earned by American workers fell by a total of $313 billion from 2007 to 2009, Johnston writes. That’s a 5 percent cut, and is measured in 2009 dollars. In one year alone, from 2008 to 2009, wage income declined $215 billion.”

The Tea Party Movement: Deluded and Inspired by Billionaires – “By funding numerous rightwing organisations, the mega-rich Koch brothers have duped millions into supporting big business. The Tea Party movement is remarkable in two respects. It is one of the biggest exercises in false consciousness the world has seen – and the biggest Astroturf operation in history. These accomplishments are closely related.”

Republican candidates are talking tough about spending cuts they can’t – or won’t – explain – “Republicans Cut and Run on Spending Cuts. When it comes to cutting the federal budget, talk is cheap. But as the New York Times is just the latest to report, across the country Republican candidates are talking tough about spending cuts they can’t – or won’t – explain. Yet even as they promise another $700 billion Treasury-draining windfall for the wealthy, the budget-busting Republicans remain silent on where their painful cuts would come.”

The ‘Personhood’ Movement – “The “personhood” movement is a recent off-shoot of the “pro-life” movement. It is motivated, energetic, and idealistic. To understand its likely impact on American politics and law, we must review its origins and recent political activism.”

Why Is Everyone Ignoring Juan Williams’ Bigotry? -  “As is usually the case when it comes to talking about racism, folks have the tendency to quickly change the subject, and I find that infuriating. There has certainly been more than enough talk about the bigoted, anti-Muslim remarks made by Juan Williams, words which lead to the veteran newsman getting swiftly canned by National Public Radio (NPR) and just as quickly, generously rewarded by Fox News.”

Austerity in Europe and the U.S. Teach Us a Lesson About Republican Plans to Cut and End Social Security – “Do you know what’s been going on in France lately? There has been a public outcry over pending pension legislation. There are protests in the streets because the government seeks to raise the retirement age to 62. The bill passed the French Senate last week and heads to the National Assembly. The National Assembly previously passed a similar bill, so the current version is likely to pass. There is a lot of support for a general strike in France when the bill becomes law, about 70% support strikes and protests.”

Is the Tea Party Real or Just a New Variation of the Same Old Bullshit? - “What has happened to the US dollar and our financial health as a nation simply takes my breath away.  Like Wimpy, the infamous character of Popeye comic’s fame; we have borrowed our country into financial chaos from which we will never recover. “I will gladly pay you on Thursday if you would buy me a hamburger today.” So goes Wimpy’s famous line.”

Explaining the crisis – “As recently as 2004–2005, even before he became chairman of the United States Federal Reserve, Bernanke was talking about the tendencies toward instability as muted and as nothing to worry about. Conventional economists have an understanding of society that is about what they would regard as a tendency toward equilibrium, that when the market is operating properly within the right institutional framework—which includes some degree of regulation of contracts and private property rights—it should produce a condition of equilibrium. So conventional economics is always talking about the tendency toward convergence, toward equilibrium, and that equilibrium is possible provided the right mix of policies and as long as there isn’t anything external that disrupts the whole system. External problems would be so-called natural disasters, wars, geopolitical conflicts, and protectionism. Crisis would then arise because of these external interventions, which take us away from the path to equilibrium, which is always possible.”

Ignorance is bliss in America.  We relish our vacuity – “The roots of this disdain for learning and, critically, the learned, go way back.  The Anti-Federalists argued that the Federalists, a “privileged, sophisticated minority,” were out to tyrannize America, a theme echoed over the years by other supposed spokesmen of the common man, including, most recently, Tea Party standard-bearers.”

Obama administration launches campaign against anti-gay bullying – “The US Obama administration has launched a campaign against homophobic bullying. The new advice for schools and colleges comes shortly after President Obama recorded a video for the It Gets Better project, which aims to encouraged bullied gay teenagers.”

Voter intimidation & suppression is in full swing in FL. A GOP poll watcher in FL is entering voters personal data into cell phones when they early vote – “While I waited, which was about another ten minutes I observed a gentleman standing behind all the voting officials with an “I Voted” sticker on and his cell phone open. He was recording data into his cell phone. Then, cell phone open he would walk over to the open computer screens with all the voter data displayed and record more data, then walk around the table to look at the info the Haitian man in front of me had written down on his registration form then back to his open cell phone to record more data. This happened to ALL of the people sitting at all four computers gathering info.”

Catholic bloggers aim to purge dissenters – “Pressure is on to change the Roman Catholic Church in America, but it’s not coming from the usual liberal suspects. A new breed of theological conservatives has taken to blogs and YouTube to say the church isn’t Catholic enough. Enraged by dissent that they believe has gone unchecked for decades, and unafraid to say so in the starkest language, these activists are naming names and unsettling the church.”

Why Monsanto is paying farmers to spray its rivals’ herbicides – “Monsanto’s ongoing humiliation proceeds apace. No, I’m not referring to the company’s triumph in our recent “Villains of Food” poll. Instead, I’m talking about a Tuesday item from the Des Moines Register‘s Philip Brasher, reporting that Monsanto has been forced into the unenviable position of having to pay farmers to spray the herbicides of rival companies.”

Holding the “lesser evil” accountable - “If Democrats lose ground in this election, they have no one to blame but themselves. We shouldn’t support them out of fear of a GOP takeover.”

Fascist America: Is This Election The Next Turn? – “In August 2009, I wrote a piece titled Fascist America: Are We There Yet? that sparked much discussion on both the left and right ends of the blogosphere. In it, I argued that — according to the best scholarship on how fascist regimes emerge — America was on a path that was running much too close to the fail-safe point beyond which no previous democracy has ever been able to turn back from a full-on fascist state. I also noted that the then-emerging Tea Party had a lot of proto-fascist hallmarks, and that it had the potential to become a clear and present danger to the future of our democracy if it ever got enough traction to start winning elections in a big way.”

Right-Wing Rage Drowns Out Massive Obama Tax Cut – “…the New York Times asked, “What if a president cut Americans’ income taxes by $116 billion and nobody noticed?” As it turns out, that question neatly sums up the sad dynamic at play in the 2010 midterm elections. On the one hand, President Obama and his Democratic allies have utterly failed to tout the tax cuts delivered as promised to 95% of working households. On the other, Republican mythmaking and Tea Party fury have succeeded in drowning out both the Democrats’ message – and the truth.”

Tea Baggers, Fundamentalists, and Other American Dumbasses of the New Millennium – “Funny, but in the new millennium, we actually have a candidate on the presidential starting blocks, Mike Huckabee, who raised his hand and said on live camera that he did not believe in evolution.  Huckabee, one of the major contenders for the GOP presidential race in 2012, makes the “Flintstones” less fictional and more of a reality.  At least to him and his Fundamentalist brethren.  You see, Fred Flintstone, the caveman, provides the Religious Right with a viable history of planet earth where Homo sapiens actually did have pet dinosaurs like Dino.”

The World Liberal Opportunists Made – “The liberal class, which once made piecemeal and incremental reform possible, functioned traditionally as a safety valve. During the Great Depression, with the collapse of capitalism, it made possible the New Deal. During the turmoil of the 1960s, it provided legitimate channels within the system to express the discontent of African-Americans and the anti-war movement. But the liberal class, in our age of neo-feudalism, is now powerless. It offers nothing but empty rhetoric. It refuses to concede that power has been wrested so efficiently from the hands of citizens by corporations that the Constitution and its guarantees of personal liberty are irrelevant.”

When corporations ruled the earth - “This country is being run for the benefit of alien life forms. They’ve invaded; they’ve infiltrated; they’ve conquered; and a lot of the most powerful people on Earth do their bidding.”

BP, other European polluters, pump money into Senate campaigns - “The way things have been going in the U.S. Senate, you wouldn’t think enemies of climate change legislation would need any extra help. However, an analysis by Climate Action Network Europe found that big European polluters are voting with their dollars euros for climate zombies running for the Senate.”

A Worse Record Than Saddam’s – “It could fuel terrorism, recruitment into jihadi cells, suicide bombers and ugly attitudes towards the West. But keeping the stories hidden was always wrong.”

Tea party activism tied to extremists turning violent – “The tea party and its Republican Party handlers have been linked to extremist and openly racist organizations.”

Suicides and deaths soar among vets, again, and again…. – “An analysis of official death certificates on file at the State Department of Public Health reveals that more than 1,000 California veterans under 35 died between 2005 and 2008. That figure is three times higher than the number of California service members who were killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts over the same period. The Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs said they do not count the number of veterans who have died after leaving the military.”

Can Rich Foreigners Buy Citizenship? Yes - “Every day investors around the world choose to put their hard-earned cash into the U.S. Billions of dollars flow in the form of foreign direct investment, as when a group of Brazilians bought Burger King, and foreigners purchase hundreds of billions of U.S. stocks and bonds, as measured by the Treasury’s TIC data. But a small number of investors show up on these shores drawn by something more valuable than financial returns: the prospect of U.S. citizenship. You can’t simply purchase an American passport (at least not legally). But since 1990, foreigners with as little as $500,000 in cash have been able to invest their way to a quick green card, putting them on the path to citizenship. Quick, somebody call Lou Dobbs! Yes, the U.S. government lets people with cash to jump the line for a green card through the EB-5 program.”

Texas oil companies pump new round of cash into California climate fight – Tesoro and Valero, the Texas oil companies that are largely funding Prop 23, contributed $1.5 million to the campaign on Friday. It was the first seven-figure donation since Sept. 2, when the billionaire Koch brothers dropped $1 million into campaign coffers, according to California Secretary of State records.

A New and Improved Pledge of Allegiance, If We Must Have Such A Thing – “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.  The Pledge of Allegiance is a dreadful, nonsensical ritual that professes falsehoods. Furthermore, it is offensive to many Americans. The divisive pledge, ill-conceived when created by a Baptist minister in 1892, was rendered odious in 1954 when a campaign by the Knights of Columbus led Congress to add under God to the Pledge. President Eisenhower signed this change into law and the Pledge has since been a religious profession.”

New stage in the war on dissent – “The president of the Center for Constitutional Rights on the escalating assault on civil liberties in the wake of the FBI raids on antiwar and socialist activists.”

Eight False Things the Public “Knows” Prior to Election Day & 25 more fun articles

Eight False Things the Public “Knows” Prior to Election Day – “There are a number of things the public “knows” as we head into the election that are just false. If people elect leaders based on false information, the things those leaders do in office will not be what the public expects or needs.”

Obama Talks Left To Move Right, As Wall Street Criminals Are Given A Free Pass And Reforms Are Watered Down – “… even as he was feigning left, he and his main economic operative, Tim Geithner, were moving right, to kill off amendments that the bankers hated, like Senator Bernie Sanders’s proposal for a deep audit of the Federal Reserve Bank and the Brown-Kaufman Amendment that would have broken up the six biggest banks in America.”

Has Obama Created a Social Security ‘Death Panel’? – “If the press doesn’t ask tough questions and stand up for the little guy, the powerful interests stacking President Obama’s deficit commission will use it to cut the social programs that most help the middle class and the vulnerable.”

The Secret War Between Wikileaks, the Pentagon and the Mainstream Corprorate Press 10/25/2010 – “It happened on a Friday, the anniversary of the first US casualties of the Vietnam War  way back in l957.  It was also the anniversary, in l964, of French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre’s announcement that he was turning down the Nobel Prize. He later sat as a judge on Bertrand Russell’s Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal, which indicted that conflict’s carnage and lies. It was the day this year that the often shadowy Wikileaks, chief nemesis of the Pentagon, maybe their worst nightmare-considered perhaps even more dangerous than the Taliban– surfaced again with the largest public drop of secret military documents in history. Wikileaks is a public web site run by the Sunshine Press, a non-profit group. For understandable reasons, the Pentagon is at war with its information war against the war-literally.”

The Truth About Civil Servants The shiftless paperpusher fattened on your tax dollars doesn’t really exist. – “An analysis of New England public employees by the Center for Economic Policy and Research and Political Economy Research Institute dispels the myth of the “spoiled” government worker. Researchers found that the region’s state and local workers are comparatively disadvantaged.  After accounting for variables like age and education, “state and local workers actually earn less, on average, than their private-sector counterparts.”

ADL Sidles Up to Anti-Muslim Bigots -  “The Anti-Defamation League has drifted from fighting all bigotry to fronting for Israeli government policies, writes Morgan Strong. For decades, the Anti-Defamation League was a respected voice against anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry. However, over the past several decades, especially under the leadership of Abraham Foxman, the ADL has transformed itself into an advocacy group on behalf of Israeli government policies, even feeding anti-Islamic prejudices.”

Socialism? The Rich Are Winning the US Class War: Facts Show Rich Getting Richer, Everyone Else Poorer – “The rich and their paid false prophets are doing a bang-up job deceiving the poor and middle class. They have convinced many that an evil socialism is alive in the land and it is taking their fair share. But the deception cannot last – facts say otherwise. Yes, there is a class war – the war of the rich on the poor and the middle class – and the rich are winning. That war has been going on for years. Look at the facts – facts the rich and their false paid prophets do not want people to know.”

Why the threat of cyber-warfare is being exaggerated – “In an assessment of the dangers posed by cyber-warfare and while noting that the threats posed by cyber-warfare and cyber-espionage are repeatedly being conflated, Seymour Hersh points out that the interests of the National Security Agency and those of hackers coincide: both want communications networks that remain open to interception. But John Arquilla, who has taught since 1993 at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, argues that privacy and security are complimentary. “We would all be far better off if virtually all civil, commercial, governmental, and military internet and web traffic were strongly encrypted,” he writes in his book, ‘Worst Enemies‘.”

War, Politics and the Economic Crisis: Why We Barely Know What’s Going On – “In war as in Politics and finance, the real “action” is now covert hidden from the public — deceptive and dishonest. Defending America covertly has become an ongoing theme for one more TV series. Salute the flag and praise NBC (GE) for its latest effort to persuade the population to accept the kind of secret operations that now drive the war in Afghanistan.  Their latest show is called “Covert Affairs” and airs on the patriotically named USA Network.”

America’s Founders Were Deistic Liberal Humanists Whose Core Beliefs the Likes of Glenn Beck Hate – “This is a Greco-Roman nation, gathered in a Hodenosaunee longhouse. As they wrap themselves in the Constitution they mean to shred, that is the self-evident Truth the Tea/GOP Party ultimately cannot face. Our legal godfathers–the ones Glenn Beck loves to conjure–were Deistic liberal humanists whose core beliefs he hates. They dumped that tea because they despised the corporation that owned it and the idea of empire it (and today’s corporate-military right) stood for. The very first phrase of this nation’s defining document, the Bill of Rights, says: “Judaeo-Christian?  Not a chance.”

“Plunder: The Crime of Our Time‘ is a hard-hitting investigative film by Danny Schechter. The “News Dissector” explores how the financial crisis was built on a foundation of criminal activity uncovering the connection between the collapse of the housing market and the economic catastrophe that followed.”

Campaign Cash: How Citizens United Will Change Elections Forever – “Undue corporate influence over U.S. elections has been a serious problem in American politics for decades, but this year’s Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission made things worse. Worst of all, we may never know the extent of the damage.”

Undercounting the Iraq War Dead – “The U.S. news media has used low estimates of Iraq War dead, but new data points to a higher total, notes Nicolas J S Davies. Counting the dead from modern war is inherently difficult – and fraught with ideological bias. For instance, the Western media embraced the highest estimates of Cambodian dead blamed on the Khmer Rouge, adding in victims of disease and famine, while applying much more stringent methodologies when the U.S. government is to blame. Such double standards have applied to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan where the mainstream U.S. press corps has insisted on counting only the dead who were killed by direct military action, yet even then the new WikiLeaks documents reveal a systematic undercounting, as author Nicolas J S Davies notes in this guest essay.”

Records Cast Doubt on Iraq ‘Surge’ -  “WikiLeaks’ disclosures on the Iraq War suggest other factors — besides the “surge” — lowered the violence, says Robert Parry. Besides offering new details about the horrors that George W. Bush’s invasion unleashed on Iraq – where a severed head could be casually tossed into a busy intersection – the nearly 400,000 pages of secret U.S. military records released by WikiLeaks show that a variety of factors beyond Bush’s much-touted “surge” in 2007 contributed to the gradual drop in violence.”

Canada: Boy Scout exposed at UN – “Canada’s international do-gooder image was shattered when it lost its bid for a UN Security Council seat, amid back-stabbing, maple syrup bribes, and Israeli-dictated cover-ups.”

Manipulation of social consciousness through mass media – “Information is an important part of modern human life. Information is becoming a more significant element of modern life along with education and the way people interact with information today to a greater extent defines the level of their existence.”

New Report: Racism Still Pollutes Tea Party Ranks – “Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (R-MN), head of the Tea Party Caucus in Congress, constantly dismisses charges about racism roiling within the ranks of the Tea Party, despite her fingerprints frequently appearing on racism-tinged stink bombs.”

Bailing out banks drains Social Security and Medicare – “Recession Drains Social Security and Medicare was a headline from the New York Times that seemed to me a distortion of facts in order to scare people. After all, what caused the recession but the criminal behavior of predatory mortgage companies and banks who made unfair subprime loans, collateralized them, shipped them downstream to investment banks that securitized them and sold them knowing what junk they were to investors. That combined with a shark tank of hungry salespeople who went at the assets of poor and not so poor homebuyers with time-bomb mortgages whose interest exploded at some point, scattering them into massive indebtedness. Neither Social Security nor Medicare did this.”

The Tea Party: At Last a Citizen Movement the Corporate Media Can Love – “Citizen movements are hardly ever front-page news, even when they have clearly identifiable political agendas and broad public support. But the Tea Party movement—an amorphous, politically incoherent umbrella designation for various strands of opposition to Obama, much of it beset with racism and backed by less-than-grassroots deep-pocket Beltway lobbying groups—has managed to buck that trend, getting the fervent support of conservative media and wide, often uncritical coverage in the corporate media.”

Mystery of American Political Madness – “Many outsiders looking in at the United States during Election 2010 are perplexed at the craziness and know-nothing-ism that has gripped American politics, though anyone who has followed the arc of U.S. media and governance over the past three decades would be less surprised.In this guest essay, Bernard Weiner of The Crisis Papers tries to explain the new unreal American reality to friends, Wolfgang and Jacqueline, on the other side of the Atlantic.”

2 in 3 The number of Americans who believe that churches are partly responsible for gay teen suicides – About four in ten also believe that, “the message coming out of churches about gay people is negative.”

A Perjurer on the US Supreme Court – “In late 1998, when the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to impeach President Bill Clinton for lying under oath about a sexual affair, many on the Right insisted that the issue wasn’t the sex but the perjury. They are now confronted with a parallel case in which U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas quite clearly perjured himself to get his seat on the bench.”

Tea Party Thuggery as Election Nears – “Sadly but predictably, the two years of economic pain and the anger over the first African-American president are combining for a particularly nasty election as Tea Partiers see, within their grasp, their goal of “taking our country back.” The 2009 phenomenon of armed protesters threatening to unleash violence against Washington over health-care reform has morphed into Tea Party candidates surrounding themselves with thugs determined to silence reporters and intimidate opposition voters, as Michael Winship notes in this guest essay.”

Bagman Boehner Launders Bucks from Bailed Out Corporations into Donations to Tea Party Candidates Opposed to Bailouts – “Here’s how it works. First, Speaker Wanna-Be John Boehner and the GOP take donations from bailed out corporations. Then he deposits the funds — along with donations from Washington lobbyists — into his Friends of John Boehner slush fund, from which he writes checks to tea party candidates who are running against bailouts and lobbyists in their campaigns.”

Fox News: The spin stops and the lying, distortions, and insults begin – “Fox News has created the finest propaganda machine since the glorious days of that favorite Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. And did it in the time-honored Republican way, using big bucks provided by the crowd whose sole interests they will pursue: the idle and greedy rich.”

The New Democrats: The Coalition Pharma and Wall Street Love – “As Congress entered the final weeks of its struggle to overhaul regulation of Wall Street in May, several hundred friends and colleagues slipped out of Washington for a private weekend on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Most were lobbyists for large banks, pharmaceutical firms, insurance companies, and big-ticket trade groups. However, 28 were members of Congress, and 29 were legislative staffers, all part of a coalition of House Democrats with a business-friendly agenda. The retreat was held in honor of the New Democrat Coalition, a group of 69 lawmakers whose close relationship with several hundred Washington lobbyists has made their organization one of the most successful political money machines since the Republican K Street Project collapsed in 2007.

Preparing for War with Iran. The $60 billion U.S. arms deal with Saudi Arabia is directed against Iran & more light reading

The shaming of America

Robert Fisk 10-24-10

Our writer delivers a searing dispatch after the WikiLeaks revelations that expose in detail the brutality of the war in Iraq – and the astonishing, disgraceful deceit of the US

As usual, the Arabs knew. They knew all about the mass torture, the promiscuous shooting of civilians, the outrageous use of air power against family homes, the vicious American and British mercenaries, the cemeteries of the innocent dead. All of Iraq knew. Because they were the victims.

Only we could pretend we did not know. Only we in the West could counter every claim, every allegation against the Americans or British with some worthy general – the ghastly US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt and the awful chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, come to mind – to ring-fence us with lies. Find a man who’d been tortured and you’d be told it was terrorist propaganda; discover a house full of children killed by an American air strike and that, too, would be terrorist propaganda, or “collateral damage”, or a simple phrase: “We have nothing on that.”

Of course, we all knew they always did have something. And yesterday’s ocean of military memos proves it yet again. Al-Jazeera has gone to extraordinary lengths to track down the actual Iraqi families whose men and women are recorded as being wasted at US checkpoints – I’ve identified one because I reported it in 2004, the bullet-smashed car, the two dead journalists, even the name of the local US captain – and it was The Independent on Sunday that first alerted the world to the hordes of indisciplined gunmen being flown to Baghdad to protect diplomats and generals. These mercenaries, who murdered their way around the cities of Iraq, abused me when I told them I was writing about them way back in 2003.

CONTINUE

=-=-=-=-=-=

Preparing for War with Iran. The $60 billion U.S. arms deal with Saudi Arabia is directed against Iran

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others asked that an investigation take place looking into the war crimes and human rights abuses outed in the latest Wikileaks data dump.

Four More Years of War

Behind the Washington Consesus on School Reform Is the Washington Consensus on Poverty

19 Reasons Pot Should Be Legal

A Top Ten Of Badly Behaved Lawmakers

Tea Party Inc.: The Big Money and Powerful Elites Behind the Right-Wing’s Latest Uprising

Firms That Got Bailouts Aid GOP

What the Wikileaks dump tells us about the Iraq surge

Tea Party Candidate Thinks People Should Fend for Themselves Against Salmonella Outbreaks

In Defense of Elitism

How Long Until French-Style Riots Come to America?

Why the U.S. needs to be more like Britain

“Work Harder to Earn Less”: Why the French Are Raising Hell in the Streets

Our perjurious Supreme Court

America’s Smartest (and Dumbest) Cities

Vatican Banking Fraud Probe Widens: Church ‘Astonished’ It Must Adhere to Money Laundering Laws

Democrats Responsible for Drug War on Black and Latino Men, Ruining Countless Lives

New Details on Church Abuse in San Diego

Invasion of the Democracy Crushers: Oil Industry Monsters Work to Destroy the Planet

Tentherism: The Bizarre Ideology Behind Tea Partiers’ Plans to Kill Social Security and Child Labor Laws

Cash-strapped governments ramping up tax-collection efforts

USA: Fired Teacher who burned crosses onto students drops lawsuit: sought $1 million arguing that his free speech and civil rights were violated & 15 more fun articles

• Cross-Branding Science Teacher Drops Lawsuit Without a Settlement – “John Freshwater, the middle school science teacher who was accused of burning crosses into his students’ arms and teaching Creationism……sought $1 million in the 2009 lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Columbus, arguing that his free speech and civil rights were violated. He also asked a judge to reinstate him to his position as an eight-grade teacher.”

• Thank God for France – “Thank God for France. While American liberals tremble at the idea of sending an angry e mail to congress for fear that their name will appear on the State Department’s list of terrorists, French workers are on the front lines choking on tear gas and fending off billyclubs in hand-to-hand combat with Sarkozy’s Gendarmerie. That’s because the French haven’t forgotten their class roots. When the government gets too big for its britches, people pour out onto to the streets and Paris becomes a warzone replete with overturned Mercedes Benzs, smashed storefront windows, and stacks of smoldering tires issuing pillars of black smoke. This is what democracy looks like when it hasn’t been emasculated by decades of propaganda and consumerism.”

• Some Spooked Cities Ban Teenage Trick-or-Treating Too old for trick-or-treat? Some spooked cities ban teens from going door to door on Halloween

• We Should All Support Atheist Organizations – Blair Scott (American Atheists) recently posted an excellent reminder of why it is so important for atheists to join at least one of the fine atheist organizations that works to protect church state separation and advance atheist civil rights. He described the refusal of a city council in King County, NC to remove a Christian flag from a veteran’s memorial. It did not bother the council one bit that displaying this flag was unconstitutional. It was only when they realized that it would cost them $300,000 to fight it in court that they backed down.

• Mini-Documentary on the Post-Hearing Speeches – “This site has been set up in support of the RNC 8 to fight the criminalization of dissent in Minneapolis and St. Paul during the 2008 Republican National Convention and to respond to the actions of the government in the Twin Cities before, during and after the RNC 2008 protests.”

• A Christian Who (Almost) Gets It -  Jim Wallis, the leader of the “Religious Left,” says something I wish I heard Christians say more often in regards to the bullying of gays and lesbians: … to paraphrase Christ, if you oppose bullying, what reward will you get? Isn’t everybody against it? If all you do is say that you shouldn’t harass someone until they kill themselves, are you really doing more than others? The fact that bullies target gay and lesbian people should mean that Christians give extra attention to protecting and standing up for them. The fact that any community or group of people is regularly the target of harassment and hate means Christians should be on the front line of defense against any who would attack.

• Rep. Louie Gohmert explains in Newmax – how everything in America would be fine if only Christians would stand up and take control of the US government, just like God commands. (Source: http://www.religiousrightwatch.com/2010/10/gohmert-god-has-ordained-christians-to-run-the-country.html)

• War victim? Haven’t got a prayer – “Prayer in itself may be a good thing. It can bring comfort and optimism, which in itself may have therapeutic health benefits. Much the same benefit for the immune system and mental health is claimed for meditation. But divine intervention is a different claim altogether. Terminally ill people need hope. But if faith in the healing power of prayer deters them from seeking proper medical help, or finalising their affairs, or produces, at the inevitable end, feelings of bitterness and betrayal or guilt, then it is not benign but potentially cruel. People only ever believe prayer can cure cancer or heart disease or similar conditions. They have little faith in its power to cure paraplegia, or to regrow the limbs of amputees, even though such a miracle should not be beyond the creator of the universe.”

• Morals Without God – “Perhaps it is just me, but I am wary of anyone whose belief system is the only thing standing between them and repulsive behavior. Why not assume that our humanity, including the self-control needed for livable societies, is built into us? Does anyone truly believe that our ancestors lacked social norms before they had religion?”

• European court fines Russia for banning gay parades – The European Court of Human Rights has fined Russia for banning gay parades in Moscow, in an important victory for the country’s gay community.

• Sex abuse vicars allowed to work – Two vicars were allowed to work at churches in East Sussex following serious sex abuse allegations, a BBC South East investigation has revealed.

• Doubting Jesus’ Resurrection: What Happened in the Black Box? – “This book considers the historical veracity of Jesus’ resurrection with special emphasis on the rise of the earliest known Christian beliefs and traditions: Jesus died for our sins, was raised on the third day, and appeared to many people (1 Corinthians 15:3-7). “A Great Introduction to the Topic.”

• What Happened to Change We Can Believe In? – “President Obama, the Rodney Dangerfield of 2010, gets no respect for averting another Great Depression, for saving 3.3 million jobs with stimulus spending, or for salvaging GM and Chrysler from the junkyard. And none of these good deeds, no matter how substantial, will go unpunished if the projected Democratic bloodbath materializes on Election Day.”

• Court battle continues to end ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ – Struggle for equality in the imperialist military – “The the beginning of the end for the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that bans openly gay or lesbian people from serving in the U.S. military?”

• The Nature of Information: A Doorway to a Postreligious World – “All belief in God constitutes and embodies, at its heart, a worldview; it accounts for those aspects of the world of our experience that we cannot explain or understand. God provides us with an answer to the mysteries of the universe and our place in it that creates a spiritual comfort zone for us. We need to know what life is all about and what our part in it is. We need closure. And belief in a god provides that. But for those of us who do not or cannot believe in a god, no comparable worldview exists to enable us to understand the ultimate nature of the universe and our place in it.”

• Iraq War Logs: Secret Order That Let US Ignore Abuse -  “Mistreatment of helpless prisoners by Iraqi security forces included beatings, burning, electrocution and rape.”

Read History….Not Fiction

 

Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light [Paperback]

Sept. 2010

Valerie Tarico Ph.D.

Product Description – Most Evangelical Christians earnestly strive to worship the God of Love and Truth. But a belief that the Bible is literally perfect puts them in the odd position of defending falsehood, bigotry, and even violence. What do Evangelicals believe? And how do these beliefs subvert humanity’s shared moral values, including the compassionate ministry of Jesus in the New Testament? Trusting Doubt provides a clear picture of this variant of Christianity, which has risen to political prominence and now threatens individual rights and collective stability. Raised in a staunch fundamentalist family and educated at Wheaton College–home of then Billy Graham Center for Evangelicalism–Valerie Tarico speaks as a former “insider.” Trusting Doubt offers alternative biblical explanations that are compatible with contemporary Christianity. Gratefully, Tarico’s unique voice as a former Evangelical provides a scholarly yet accessible path away from faulty fundamentalism and toward Christian clarity–a path based on logic, love, and the quest for spiritual truth.

About the Author – Valerie Tarico, Ph.D., is a former fundamentalist Christian and graduate of Wheaton College, a bastion of Evangelical education. She holds a doctorate in counseling psychology from the University of Iowa and completed postdoctoral studies at the University of Washington. Trusting that “All Truth is God’s Truth,” Dr. Tarico committed to follow her spiritual questions wherever they might lead. Ultimately they led her away from Evangelicalism. Currently, Dr. Tarico writes for the Huffington Post and ExChristian.net. She also hosts a television series in Seattle, Washington, on “Moral Politics.” Not satisfied with spending all her energy critiquing Christianity, Dr. Tarico promotes interfaith dialogue and the shared values that link all humanity. She speaks to churches and secular groups on topics such as moral development, the psychology of belief, and wisdom convergence. She also manages WisdomCommons.org, an interactive website that allows users to find and discuss information on values that are shared across secular and religious wisdom traditions.

 

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (Plus) [Paperback]

February 6, 2007

Bart D. Ehrman

“The popular perception of the Bible as a divinely perfect book receives scant support from Ehrman, who sees in Holy Writ ample evidence of human fallibility and ecclesiastical politics. Though himself schooled in evangelical literalism, Ehrman has come to regard his earlier faith in the inerrant inspiration of the Bible as misguided, given that the original texts have disappeared and that the extant texts available do not agree with one another. Most of the textual discrepancies, Ehrman acknowledges, matter little, but some do profoundly affect religious doctrine. To assess how ignorant or theologically manipulative scribes may have changed the biblical text, modern scholars have developed procedures for comparing diverging texts. And in language accessible to nonspecialists, Ehrman explains these procedures and their results. He further explains why textual criticism has frequently sparked intense controversy, especially among scripture-alone Protestants. In discounting not only the authenticity of existing manuscripts but also the inspiration of the original writers, Ehrman will deeply divide his readers. Although he addresses a popular audience, he undercuts the very religious attitudes that have made the Bible a popular book. Still, this is a useful overview for biblical history collections.” ~ Bryce Christensen

 

How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok [Paperback]

May 15, 2006

Glenn Greenwald

Product Description – Glenn Greenwald was not a political man. Not liberal, not conservative. Politicians were all the same and it didn’t matter which party was in power. Extremists on both ends canceled each other out, and the United States would essentially remain forever centrist. Or so he thought. Then came September 11, 2001. Greenwald’s disinterest in politics was replaced by patriotism, and he supported the war in Afghanistan. He also gave President Bush the benefit of the doubt over his decision to invade Iraq. But, as he saw Americans and others being disappeared, jailed and tortured, without charges or legal representation, he began to worry. And when he learned his president had seized the power to spy on American citizens on American soil, without the oversight required by law, he could stand no more. At the heart of these actions, Greenwald saw unprecedented and extremist theories of presidential power, theories that flout the Constitution and make President Bush accountable to no one, and no law. How Would a Patriot Act? is one man’s story of being galvanized into action to defend America’s founding principles, and a reasoned argument for what must be done. Greenwald’s penetrating words should inspire a nation to defend the Constitution from a president who secretly bestowed upon himself the powers of a monarch. If we are to remain a constitutional republic, Greenwald writes, we cannot abide radical theories of executive power, which are transforming the very core of our national character, and moving us from democracy toward despotism. This is not hyperbole. This is the crisis all Americans—liberals and conservatives–now face. In the spirit of the colonists who once mustered the strength to denounce a king, Greenwald invites us to consider: How would a patriot act today?

About the Author – Glenn Greenwald is a Constitutional law attorney, and author of the political blog, “Unclaimed Territory.” Greenwald has written for American Conservative magazine and appeared on a variety of television and radio programs, including C-Span’s “Washington Journal,” Air America’s “Majority Report” and Public Radio International’s “To the Point.” His reporting and analysis have been credited in The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Salon, Slate and a variety of other print and online publications.

 

Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics [Paperback]

October 7, 2008

Glenn Greenwald

From Publishers Weekly – “With this provocative book, Greenwald, a former constitutional lawyer and author of A Tragic Legacy and How Would a Patriot Act, purports to expose the rank myth-making and exploitation of cultural, gender and psychological themes by the Republican Party. The author begins his attack by targeting John Wayne, whom he sees as a template for right-wing notions of American courage and conservative manliness. Wayne’s avoidance of military service and his string of divorces, both at odds with his public image, are emblematic in this account of a fundamental hypocrisy implicit in conservative mythologies. Greenwald goes on to argue that prominent Republicans from Ronald Reagan to Mitt Romney display the same hypocrisy in their public ideologies and personal lives. Shouldering much of the blame are the press and the media, including Matt Drudge, Ann Coulter, Chris Matthews and even Maureen Dowd, all of whom propagate popular attitudes about virile Republicans and effeminate Democrats. Despite the antipathy the author feels for Coulter, his writing is much like hers. More a partisan screed than a reasoned argument meant to persuade undecided readers, this repetitive text frequently devolves into personal attacks and vast generalizations.”

How Religion Infects Our Lives and Culture
December 5, 2009

By Darrel W. Ray, Ed.D. [Athiest Nexus Page]

“The God Virus, presents the reader with a telling analysis of religious belief as a memetic force that behaves in a manner similar to a biological virus, working within the infected host, individual and collective, to further its own survival and propagation, often to the detriment of that host. This metaphor is uncannily apt and illuminating. It illustrates that, no matter what its genesis in human evolutionary development or the reasons for it, religion has become a force inimical to the best interests of modern cultural cohesion, scientific and ethical enlightenment, and individual human happiness. Alienation, guilt, fear, social and sexual dysfunction, moral extremism and bigotry, personality disorders, divisiveness within family and nations, are only some of the adverse symptoms produced by infection with the religious virus.” ~ Earl Doherty author of ‘The Jesus Puzzle’

 

The Blue Pages

November 2009

Angie Crouse & the Center for Responsive Politics

“The Blue Pages includes valuable information on political contributions to each major party, employee benefits and labor practices, lawsuits and investigations, and community and charitable programs.”

 

 

Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists

September 2008

By Dan Barker
Foreword by Richard Dawkins

“After 19 years as an evangelical preacher, missionary, and Christian songwriter, Dan Barker ‘threw out the bathwater and discovered there is no baby there.’ Barker, who is now co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (America’s largest organization of atheists and agnostics), describes the intellectual and psychological path he followed in moving from fundamentalism to freethought. The four sections in Godless–Rejecting God, Why I Am An Atheist, What’s Wrong With Christianity, and Life is Good!–include chapters on bible problems, the historicity of Jesus, morality, the Kalam Cosmological argument, the unbelievable resurrection, and much more. Barker relates the positive benefits from trusting in reason and human kindness instead of living in fear of false judgment and moral condemnation. Godless expands the story told in Dan’s 1992 book, Losing Faith in Faith–the two books overlap about 20%–but a lot has happened in 16 years, and Dan updates the story with four new chapters, including ‘The New Call’ (lessons from the debate circuit), ‘Adventures in Atheism,’ and ‘We Go To Washington’ (FFRF’s Supreme Court lawsuit, in which Dan was a plaintiff). (Godless updates and expands on Dan’s 1992 book Losing Faith In Faith, with some overlap in the deconversion story, but many new chapters written since then.)”

 

Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault on Religious Freedom

October 2006

Barry Lynn

“The Reverend Barry Lynn explains why the Religious Right has it all wrong.

In the wake of the 2004 presidential election, the Religious Right insisted that George Bush had been handed a mandate for an ideology-based social agenda, including the passage of a “marriage amendment” to ban same-sex unions, diversion of tax money to religious groups through “faith-based initiatives,” the teaching of creationism in public schools, and restrictions on abortion. Led by an aggressive band of television preachers and extremist radio personalities, the Religious Right set its sights on demolishing the wall of separation between church and state.

The Reverend Barry Lynn is a devout Christian, but this propaganda effort disturbs him deeply. He argues that politicians need to stop looking to the Bible to justify their actions and should consult another source instead: the U.S. Constitution.

When the Founding Fathers of our great nation created the Constitution, they had seen firsthand the dangers of an injudicious mix of religion and government. They knew what it was like to live under the yoke of state-imposed faith. They drew up a model for the new nation that would allow absolute freedom of religion. They knew that religion, united with the raw power of government, spawns tyranny.

Yet the Religious Right now seems distrustful of those principles inherent in the Constitution, viewing the separation of church and state only as a dangerous anti-Christian principle imposed upon our nation. In reality, the separation between church and state has been an important ally to religion: with the state out of the picture, hundreds of religions have grown and prospered. Religion doesn’t need the government’s assistance, any more than it is practical or appropriate for religious doctrine to be fostered in the government or taught in public schools.

As an explicitly religious figure speaking out against the Religious Right, Lynn has incurred the wrath of such personalities as Pat Buchanan, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson, who once said Lynn was “lower than a child molester.” Lynn has continuously taken on these radicals of the Religious Right calmly and rationally, using their own statements and religious fervor to prove that when they attack the constitutionally mandated separation, they’re actually attacking freedom of religion.

In Piety & Politics, the Reverend Barry Lynn continues the fight—educating Americans about what is at stake, explaining why it is crucial that we maintain the separation of church and state, and galvanizing us to defend the honor of our religious freedom.”

 

Ecology and Socialism

Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis

June, 2010

Chris Williams

“Around the world, consciousness of the threat to our environment is growing. The majority of solutions on offer, from using efficient light bulbs to biking to work, focus on individual lifestyle changes, yet the scale of the crisis requires far deeper adjustments. Ecology and Socialism argues that time still remains to save humanity and the planet, but only by building social movements for environmental justice that can demand qualitative changes in our economy, workplaces, and infrastructure.

“Williams adds a new and vigorous voice to the growing awareness that, yes, it is our capitalist system that is ruining the natural foundation of our civilization and threatening the very idea of a future. I am particularly impressed by the way he develops a clear and powerful argument for an ecological socialism directly from the actual ground of struggle, whether against climate change, systematic poisoning from pollution, or the choking stream of garbage. Ecology and Socialism is a notable addition to the growing movement to save our planet from death-dealing capitalism.” ~ Joel Kovel, author of The Enemy of Nature

ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism

March 2, 2010

Yves Smith

Why are we in such a financial mess today?  There are lots of proximate causes: over-leverage, global imbalances, bad financial technology that lead to widespread underestimation of risk.But these are all symptoms. Until we isolate and tackle fundamental causes, we will fail to extirpate the disease.  ‘ECONned’ is the first book to examine the unquestioned role of economists as policy-makers, and how they helped create an unmitigated economic disaster.

Here, Yves Smith looks at how economists in key policy positions put doctrine before hard evidence, ignoring the deteriorating conditions and rising dangers that eventually led them, and us, off the cliff and into financial meltdown.  Intelligently written for the layman, Smith takes us on a terrifying investigation of the financial realm over the last twenty-five years of misrepresentations, naive interpretations of economic conditions, rationalizations of bad outcomes, and rejection of clear signs of growing instability.

In ‘eConned’, author Yves Smith reveals:

–why the measures taken by the Obama Administration are mere palliatives and are unlikely to pave the way for a solid recovery

–how economists have come to play a profoundly anti-democratic role in policy

–how financial models and concepts that were discredited more than thirty years ago are still widely used by banks, regulators, and investors

–how management and employees of major financial firms looted them, enriching themselves and leaving the mess  to taxpayers

–how financial regulation enabled predatory behavior by Wall Street towards investors

–how economics has no theory of financial systems, yet economists fearlessly prescribe how to manage them

 

538 Ways to Live, Work, and Play Like a Liberal

July 1, 2010

Justin Krebs

This new book by Justin Krebs — co-founder of the Living Liberally network and Drinking Liberally happy hours – is about the little ideas for embracing your progressive values everyday life, as well as the big ideas of what it means to be a “liberal” in America today. Start a conversation, join a movement, share a drink, engage your neighbors — and begin by reading the book.

War Logs, Sharks, and Crocodiles Oh My…. & Hang the Gays while your at it

 

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WarLogs.Wikileaks.org is a website which provides an easy way to search through the Iraq War Logs, which were made public by Wikileaks on 22nd October 2010. The documents are a set of over 391,000 reports which cover the war in Iraq from 2004 to 2009.

From here, you can browse through all of the documents that have been released, organized by type, category, date, number of casualties, and many other properties. From any document page, clicking on the green underlined text will open a popup that links to other documents that contain those phrases, making it possible to see important search terms and connections that you might not otherwise notice.

Our hope is that this tool will be helpful to reporters and researchers who are interested in learning more about the US’s war in Afghanistan and making sense of this important database. If you wish to support this work, we encourage you to make a donation to wikileaks.

War Logs: Browse the diaries, rate and comment the reports.

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‘Hang them’: Uganda paper publishes photos of gays

The front-page newspaper story featured a list of Uganda’s 100 “top” homosexuals, with a bright yellow banner across it that read: “Hang Them.” Alongside their photos were the men’s names and addresses.

In the days since it was published, at least four gay Ugandans on the list have been attacked and many others are in hiding, according to rights activist Julian Onziema. One person named in the story had stones thrown at his house by neighbors.

A lawmaker in this conservative African country introduced a bill a year ago that would have imposed the death penalty for some homosexual acts and life in prison for others. An international uproar ensued, and the bill was quietly shelved.

But gays in Uganda say they have faced a year of harassment and attacks since the bill’s introduction.

The legislation was drawn up following a visit by leaders of U.S. conservative Christian ministries that promote therapy they say allows gays to become heterosexual.

“Before the introduction of the bill in parliament most people did not mind about our activities. But since then, we are harassed by many people who hate homosexuality,” said Patrick Ndede, 27. “The publicity the bill got made many people come to know about us and they started mistreating us.”

More than 20 homosexuals have been attacked over the last year in Uganda, and an additional 17 have been arrested and are in prison, said Frank Mugisha, the chairman of Sexual Minorities Uganda. Those numbers are up from the same period two years ago, when about 10 homosexuals were attacked, he said.

CONTINUE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/19/AR2010101903438.html

RELATED:

• The US Religious Right and the LGBT Crisis In Uganda -  It’s not just fringe figures

• Anti-Gay Fervor in Uganda Tied to Right-Wing US Evangelicals: “Human rights activists in Uganda are warning that the lives of gay people are in danger after a newspaper published a front-page story featuring the names and photographs of what it called Uganda’s 100 “top” gays and lesbians alongside a yellow banner that read “Hang Them.” We look at the ties of the anti-gay movement in Uganda to the far-right evangelical movement here in the United States with Jeff Sharlet, author of ‘C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy‘.”

• Speaker at one of Obama’s shin digs and supporter of “Kill The Gays Bill” in Uganda, until he got too much attention and was forced to make a public statement against it, (which did not please his Ugandan counterparts), Pastor Rick Warren Tells Passive, Fake Christians to Find Another Church

• Bios of American and Ugandan Leaders in “Transforming Uganda” – “Bruce Wilson’s “Transforming Uganda”(video) demonstrates the significance of the Transformations movies and the International Transformation Network (ITN). There has been little press about either….

• Six Reasons Why Americans Should Care About What is Happening in Uganda – …and its not only about protecting the rights of gay Ugandans whose lives may be in jeopardy. A May 2010 Vanguard documentary, Missionaries of……

• GOP’s New Prayer Guru Lou Engle Helping Incite Near-Genocidal Antigay Hatred in Uganda

• Palin to an evangelical women’s group: “Prayer Warriors all across the country — and I know some of you are here tonight”It’s a movement whose followers played a significant role in the battle over Proposition 8, California’s anti-same-sex marriage initiative, and Uganda’s infamous proposed Anti-Homosexuality Law, more commonly associated with the Family, a religious network of elites drawn from the ranks of business and government throughout the world. But the movement we’re imagining encompasses the humble and the elite alike, supporting a network of “prayer warriors” in all 50 states, within the ranks of the U.S. military, and at the far reaches of the globe — all guided by an entire genre of books, texts, videos and other media.

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Church attacked after paedophile priest jailed for sexual abuse – The Catholic Church was criticised in court as a paedophile former priest was jailed for a campaign of sexually abuse against young boys that spanned four decades.

Controlling the Oil in Iraq, BP Disaster and Katrina – “The works and ideas of one of the best investigative journalists of our time; Greg Palast is interviewed in this edition of The Autograph. Palast has done undercover reporting for The Observer and the BBC.”

Sam Harris Speaks Out AGAIN! ‘The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values’ (Sam Harris/Free Press; Oct 5) – “Using his expertise in philosophy and neuroscience, along with his experience on the front lines of our “culture wars,” Harris delivers a game-changing book about the future of science and about the real basis of human cooperation.”

Taiwanese woman to marry herself A Taiwanese woman has decided to marry herself in an elaborate ceremony due to a lack of potential suitors.

AK-47s – Not a WMD – “Every now and then, journalists and some scholars feel compelled to talk about AK-47s (or automatic rifles in general) as “weapons of mass destruction” because so many people have died as the result of its employment in the Third World. It generally bothers me as a defense professional, because it abuses and lessens the definition of a WMD”

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“WILD” ANIMALS/FISH MEANS JUST THAT !!!

Shark kills body boarder in US Authorities said the victim of a deadly shark attack in central California was a body boarder whose leg was bitten off.

 

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Aircraft crashes after crocodile on board escapes and sparks panic A small airliner crashed into a house, killing a British pilot and 19 others after a crocodile smuggled into the aircraft in a sports bag escaped and started a panic.

33% Believe Religious Messages Contribute To Gay Suicides & Republican congressional candidate and Pastor, says violent overthrow of government is ‘on the table’

• Friday, October 22, 2010

• New Survey Says 33% Believe Religious Messages Contribute To Gay Suicides – “A survey released yesterday by the Public Religion Research Institute in Partnership with Religion News Service shows that 33% of Americans believe that messages from places of worship are contributing “a lot” to higher rates of suicide among gay and lesbian youths. 42% gave places of worship a grade of “D” or “F” on their handling of the issue of homosexuality. However 75% of white evangelicals gave their own church an “A” or “B” in its handling of the issue. Young adults and Democrats are more likely than older Americans and Republicans to be critical of messages from religious groups about gays and lesbians.”

• US offers Pakistan $2 bln in military aid – “The United States will offer two billion dollars in fresh military assistance to Pakistan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday, hailing Islamabad’s efforts against extremist groups.”

• The Rise of the Religious Right in the Republican Party – “This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy.” ~ U.S. Representative Christopher Shays, R-CT, (New York Times 3/23/05)

• The Myth of the Tea Party – “To be a member of the Tea Party means that you contain multitudes: passionate and guaranteed future turnout, but uninvolved in the political process until this point. Reliably Republican, but completely independent of the party. Overwhelmingly middle-aged or older, white, and male, but somehow…new. The Tea Party is like having a second Republican base that emerges from the sea on a conch shell like Aphrodite, pure as the driven foam and ready to erase the lessons of 2008 from demographic reality.”

• Republican congressional candidate and Pastor, says violent overthrow of government is ‘on the table’ – “Republican congressional candidate Stephen Broden stunned his party Thursday, saying he would not rule out violent overthrow of the government if elections did not produce a change in leadership. In a rambling exchange during a TV interview, Broden, a South Dallas pastor, said a violent uprising “is not the first option,” but it is “on the table.”"

• Why Young Adults Reject Conservative Christianity – “…the public face of American religion turned hard to the right in the 1980s. Political ties and religious practices became closely entangled. The result, among other things, was both religion and politics became more polarizing.”

• FBI an agent of repression in Puerto Rico – “The U.S. antiwar and solidarity activists under attack by the FBI are facing repression of the sort that many other fighters for freedom and justice have had to face. The movement for Puerto Rican independence in particular has suffered egregiously at the hands of the FBI.  Indeed, since the 1930s the grand jury has been one of the U.S. government’s key tools in suppressing activists fighting for a country that has been under American dominance since 1898. In the 1980s Puerto Rican Independistas were thrown in jail after refusing to testify before a grand jury. One victim, Norton Cintron Fiallo, a former president of the Puerto Rican Workers Union, was jailed for 11 months in a facility in New York City for refusing.”

• Lillian McEwen breaks her 19-year silence about Justice Clarence Thomas – “…says that Thomas often said inappropriate things about women he met at work”….”He was always actively watching the women he worked with to see if they could be potential partners,” McEwen said matter-of-factly. “It was a hobby of his.”

• Tax Exemption – Not a Right But a Privilege – “And in order to enjoy that privilege, it is necessary to play by the rules. If endorsing candidates is more important to these religious leaders than the tax exempt status they enjoy, all they need to do is give up tax exemption.”

• Separation of Church and State – “In 1773, the Rev. Isaac Backus , the most prominent Baptist minister in New England, observed that when “church and state are separate, the effects are happy, and they do not at all interfere with each other: but where they have been confounded together, no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have ensued.”

• Does it matter that the Constitution never uses the phrase “the separation of church and state”? “The phrase “the separation of church and state” is a metaphor. It is a shorthand description of a much more complicated interpretation of the constitutional text. As such, whether it appears literally in the words of the Constitution’s text is not terribly important. What is important is whether this metaphor accurately captures the meaning of the constitutional guarantee that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

• Documentary Interviewees Take on “Trickle Down” -  “So we have not seen tax cuts for the rich rain down prosperity on all of us…..There is no data to support the stance that the way you grow the economy is to cut taxes on the wealthy and support corporate giveaways, in fact, all the data runs the opposite. Trickle-down has never worked, the data are compelling. Our economy grew its best late ’40s, after World War II, ’50s and ’60s, up until 1970, when low-income working families and middle-income families had their greatest growth in income, in real terms, after inflation, these families were getting paid more every year. And by getting paid more, they could spend more in the local economy and in the national economy.”

• A Tea Party of populist posers – “A movement of the plutocrats, by the political professionals and for the powerful: Now that’s something Tea Partyers should be mad about.”

• Film review: The myth of charter schools – “Diane Ravitch writing at The New York Review of Books: “Davis Guggenheim’s Waiting for ‘Superman’ . . . arrived in late September with the biggest publicity splash I have ever seen for a documentary . . . The message of these films has become alarmingly familiar: American public education is a failed enterprise. The problem is not money. Public schools already spend too much. Test scores are low because there are so many bad teachers, whose jobs are protected by powerful unions . . . The movie asserts a central thesis in today’s school reform discussion: the idea that teachers are the most important factor determining student achievement. But this proposition is false.”

• Love America or leave it? Maybe we should consider the exit – “If we stop and think rationally, we may someday decide that the place we now call home is no longer as loveable as it once was, and go shopping for a new address that puts more effort into earning our affection.”

• America as (not) a Christian nation – “America is not a Christian country and has never been, for historical, theological and philosophic reasons”

• Efforts to Prosecute Blackwater Collapse – Nearly four years after the federal government began a string of investigations and criminal prosecutions against Blackwater Worldwide personnel accused of murder and other violent crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the cases are beginning to fall apart, burdened by a legal obstacle of the government’s own making. In the most recent and closely watched case, the Justice Department on Monday said that it would not seek murder charges against Andrew J. Moonen, a Blackwater armorer accused of killing a guard assigned to the Iraqi vice president on Dec. 24, 2006.

 

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Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican 

By John Gray – Published by TvNewsLies.org – July, 2004

Joe gets up at 6:00am to prepare his morning coffee. He fills his pot full of good
clean drinking water because some liberal fought for minimum water quality standards.
He takes his daily medication with his first swallow of coffee. His medications are safe
to take because some liberal fought to insure their safety and work as advertised.

All but $10.00 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because
some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance, now Joe
gets it too. He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs this day. Joe’s bacon is
safe to eat because some liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing
industry.

Joe takes his morning shower reaching for his shampoo; His bottle is properly labeled
with every ingredient and the amount of its contents because some liberal fought for his
right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained. Joe dresses,
walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some tree
hugging liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He walks to the
subway station for his government subsidized ride to work; it saves him considerable
money in parking and transportation fees. You see, some liberal fought for affordable
public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day; he has a good job with excellent pay, medicals benefits,
retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some liberal union members fought and
died for these working standards. Joe’s employer pays these standards because Joe’s
employer doesn’t want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or
becomes unemployed he’ll get a worker compensation or unemployment check
because some liberal didn’t think he should loose his home because of his temporary
misfortune.

Its noon time, Joe needs to make a Bank Deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe’s deposit
is federally insured by the FSLIC because some liberal wanted to protect Joe’s
money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the
depression.  

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae underwritten  Mortgage and his below market federal
student loan because some stupid liberal decided that Joe and the government
would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his life-time.

Joe is home from work, he plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the
country. He gets in his car for the drive to dads; his car is among the safest in the world
because some liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood home. He
was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers Home Administration
because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electric until
some big government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded
rural electrification. (Those rural Republican’s would still be sitting in the dark)

He is happy to see his dad who is now retired. His dad lives on Social Security and his
union pension because some liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe
wouldn’t have to. After his visit with dad he gets back in his car for the ride home.

He turns on a radio talk show, the host’s keeps saying that liberals are bad and
conservatives are good. (He doesn’t tell Joe that his beloved Republicans have fought
against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day)  Joe agrees, “We
don’t need those big government liberals ruining our lives; after all, I’m a self made man
who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have”.

Conservatives pro-family…I think not, Survivng an attack of a swarm of bees means God needs you still & 26 more brain juice stories for the water cooler

MY POSTED COMMENT IN RESPONSE TO THE VIDEO BELOW: “When I heard a half black President actually believed he has a right to open his trap about gays, you would think I wouldn’t be stunned by now. Not until people like Obama, realize it is open, liberal, left-leaning, gay-friendly, non-racist and pro-choice folks who have made it possible for someone like him to be the president, will they will “get my ear”. Until then, it IS people like you President Obama who have blood on their hands. You offend me more than you know, and you SHOULD know!”

• Uganda Paper Publishes “100 Top Homosexuals” Hit List

• The US Religious Right and the LGBT Crisis In Uganda -  It’s not just fringe figures

• The Defense Department’s system for collecting data on domestic violence within military families is flawed, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

• How a neuro-toxin became “food” – What happens when dishonest scientists, crooked politicians and corporate America join forces to “make life better” for you?

• More Special Rights For Religious Folks…You Don’t Say: April 2010 If a theist objects on religious grounds to the provisions of the recently passed health care bill, it seems that he or she can opt out. If an atheist objects, however, sorry. Unless that atheist happens to also be an Indian, an inmate, or a special hardship case, NO exemption.

• Candidate who shot Iraqis brags about gun skills – “North Carolina Republican House candidate Ilario Pantano isn’t the first politician to hold a fundraiser at a gun  range. But he probably is the first who became famous for shooting two unarmed Iraqi prisoners at close range up to 60 times with an assault rifle.”

• Tea Partiers and the Mega-Drought

• Three Die In Religious Ritual – Africa, Oct 2010 – Tired community residents were fed up with the boys’ claims they were moved by the Holy Spirit to get into the fire and come out alive.

• Why Do Mormons Side with People Who Don’t Like Mormons?

• Negative Church Messages Contribute to Gay and Lesbian Suicides

• Why I Got Fired From Teaching American History – “I showed them that during the American Revolution drunkards, laggards, prostitutes, and pirates pioneered many of the freedoms and pleasures we now cherish — including non-marital sex, interracial socializing, dancing, shopping, divorce, and the weekend — and that the Founding Fathers, in the name of democracy, opposed them. I argued not only that many white Americans envied slaves but also that they did so for good reason, since slave culture offered many liberating alternatives to the highly repressive, work-obsessed, anti-sex culture of the early United States.” (RELATED: Thaddeus Russell: 11 Freedoms That Drunks, Slackers, Prostitutes And Pirates Pioneered And The Founding Fathers Opposed.)

• Dying Girl Victim of Cyber-Bullying

• Burning Down the House: Sept. 2010 Sixteen parents will answer charges of malicious damage after razing down houses belonging to three alleged witchcraft teachers

• Cheerleader Kicked Off Squad for Refusing to Cheer for Rapist

• Is Vicky Hartzler, who’s running in Missouri’s 4th Congressional District, the Most Anti-Gay Candidate in America? – She’s hitting her Dem opponent—an architect of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”—for caving to the “extreme agenda” of the “gay movement.”

• Miss A Parent-Teacher Conference? Go To Jail!

• The New York Times reports that during President Obama’s upcoming visit to India, he will not visit a Sikh temple because he might be perceived as Muslim.

• Americans Say Religious Messages Fuel Negative Views Of Gays

• Immigration Laws in Arizona Leave Children Without Parents

• Vatican Pitbulls Make Cardinal – How do you rise to the level of cardinal under Pope Benedict XVI? Two new American cardinals reveal a pattern.

• From Global Depression to Global Governance The role of the corporate elites’ secretive global think tanks

• Women Face Hurdles Worldwide in Quest for Gender Equality

• Baptism Can Be Hazardous To Your Health – (NOTE: Stated after being attacked by a swarm of bees when performing a Baptism) “God spared my life because my work isn’t done,” he said. “That’s why we later went back to the village and celebrated. We realize that happened for a reason. All our suffering has a purpose. If I go through that, I can help you if you’re going through that, too.”

• Small Town Islamophobia: Sidney, NY Town Supervisor Refuses to Apologize to Muslims, Ignites Firestorm

• United Arab Emirates Federal Supreme Court: Spousal/Child Abuse is A-OK Within Limits

• How Religion Is Killing Our Most Vulnerable Youth

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Republicans: Start Respecting Women! Republican Linda McMahon is running for the US Senate, and she’s funding her race with the millions she earned peddling the “entertainment” you just watched. Sadly, McMahon is not alone on the GOP ticket:

Sharron Angle, running for Senate in Nevada, suggested that women who are raped – including teenage incest victims – shouldn’t be allowed to consider an abortion. Instead, they should just turn “a lemon situation into lemonade.” Outrageous.

As a district attorney, Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck refused to prosecute a rape even though the accused rapist admitted to police that the woman said no multiple times. He said a jury could think she just had “a case of buyer’s remorse.”

Republicans are running candidates who have an utter lack of respect for women. Urge RNC Chairman Michael Steele and his party to start respecting women and women’s issues! CONTINUE

We all share something in common – a self-awareness of deception, After just five yrs Congress folk can retire at 62, get lifetime pensions, health benefits, etc. & 33 other fun stories

‘Lawless Nation – Congress’, By Michael Collins Part II of III (Part I)

“WASHINGTON – Placed in office through legalized bribery, supported by public funding for their every need, protected against the laws that we’re expected to obey, Congress represents the epitome of lawlessness; lawmakers who have no regard for the law. (Image)

Members of Congress are different. They get to retire at age 62 with lifetime pensions and health benefits. To qualify, they need just five years of service. They get free phone, mail, and other communications plus paid domestic and foreign travel. Supposedly, they’re not allowed to take gifts but the list of exceptions offers plenty of room for luxurious appreciation.

The biggest gift of all – a six to seven figure job with a major corporation or lobbying firm right after retirement – is still fair game for any member. The revolving door never stops.

But supposedly Congress passes laws for the public benefit. They come to power based on contributions from their patrons, usually large donors. Then members resolutely deny that these contributions translate into legislation favorable to the donors. If pressed, member’s state that the contributions merely buy access not votes.”

MORE

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• Australian Union President Questions 9/11: Prime Minister Julia Gillard Responds 10/20/2010

• This is what class war looks like–for now: Why the socialist class war is heating up

• War Is Hell, Especially for Women: “In many of today’s conflicts, women are disempowered by rape or the threat of it, and by the HIV infection, trauma and disabilities that often result from it.”

• Lack of Regulation Continues for Shallow Drilling in the Gulf: “The dangers of shallow water drilling are acknowledged in a new report stating, “there is a fire once every three days on offshore oil facilities…Including 16 on Mariner Energy’s platforms since 2007”. 10/19/2010

• 12 days to go: The election depends on you!

• An Oct. 9 Associated Press article on declassified documents demonstrates once again the militaristic and aggressive nature of the U.S. military and government towards the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Korean people.

• Another Round of Toyota Recalls Toyota Motor Corp : It is recalling 1.53 million Lexus, Avalon, and other models, mostly in the US and Japan, for brake fluid and fuel pump problems.

• U.N. Urged to Confront Rising Tide of Homophobia: Nearly two years after the Declaration on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity was proposed to the United Nations General Assembly, many civil society groups say that little has been done to safeguard the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people around the world. In a perverse commemoration of the U.N.’s failure to adopt the declaration, the past two months have witnessed a wave of homophobia across the United States, which has led to nine teen suicides and countless hate crimes.
  

• Anti-Gay Fervor in Uganda Tied to Right-Wing US Evangelicals: “Human rights activists in Uganda are warning that the lives of gay people are in danger after a newspaper published a front-page story featuring the names and photographs of what it called Uganda’s 100 “top” gays and lesbians alongside a yellow banner that read “Hang Them.” We look at the ties of the anti-gay movement in Uganda to the far-right evangelical movement here in the United States with Jeff Sharlet, author of ‘C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy‘.”

• Troops ‘overwhelmed and cannot defeat Taliban’:”The Taliban have ”overwhelmed” foreign troops and cannot be defeated by military means, one of Australia’s top combat soldiers has warned.
  

• Women Are Dying From Hormone Therapy; Why Is Pharma Still Allowed to Push It? Big Pharma is still pushing its hormone therapy for women, despite the fact that it increases women’s risk of cancer and other health problems. 10/21/2010

• U.S. Military Aid Far Outpaces Democracy Assistance: Desperate to secure supply routes to Afghanistan, the United States has been spending at least six times more on military aid for the mostly authoritarian states of Central Asia than on efforts to promote political liberalisation and human rights in the region, according to a new report released here by the Open Society Foundations (OSF).

• How the United States and Britain Lost the Bogus Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?: “Wars are planned, financed and fought by governments, not by groups or ordinary people. Wars are based on political agendas bent on complete control over resources, people and territory. Most wars have multiple reasons, domestic, foreign and global outreach. The U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are fought to maintain US domination worldwide, to occupy the untapped natural resources of the Middle East, in particular oil and gas, and to protect the value of U.S. dollar as a stable international reserve currency.”

• Please send an email to the Department of Justice: Please stand in solidarity with the anti-war and international solidarity activists whose homes were raided by the FBI on Friday, September 24, 2010. RELATED: StopFBI National Meeting in New York City, Sat. Nov. 6

• Think Progress Publishes Invitation to Secret Planning Meeting of Rightwing Billionaires, Astroturfers, SCOTUS Justices & Media Con-men: “Think Progress has a great report today on the billionaire industry titans, U.S. Supreme Court Justices (including Scalia and Thomas), infamous front-group astroturfers and Rightwing media scammers who meet in secret twice a year — as they did last year in Aspen and will again this January in Palm Springs — to plot how they will spend their billions to keep “liberty” and “freedom” available to all (of them) and to plot the 2010 and 2012 elections for Republicans.

• PEOPLE NOT PLACES: MC Invincble tackles Zionism – From the newly-launched ‘Emergence Travel Agency’: Docu-music video by Invincible (Ilana Weaver) about Zionism, Birthright Israel and the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland. Nora Barrows-Friedman assisted in filming some of the interviews. Click Here! Then scroll down to the video under the “People Not Places” banner.

• Cuban Socialism: Fact or Fiction?

• Stimulus opponents sought money out of public view: “Rep. Pete Sessions, the firebrand conservative from Dallas, Texas, has relentlessly assailed the Democratic-passed stimulus law as a wasteful “trillion dollar spending spree” that was “more about stimulating the government and rewarding political allies than growing the economy and creating jobs.”

• Obama Secretly Deploys US Special Forces to 75 Countries Across World 6/16/2010

• Guatemala to Investigate Human Experimentation by US Doctors: A high-level commission has been set up to look into appalling medical experiments carried out by U.S. researchers on hundreds of Guatemalans in the 1940s, and the government of this Central American country is debating alternative ways for the United States to make reparations.

• Suppressed History – “When Wall Street tried to bring the Holocaust to America: The Morgan Fascist Coup Plot and How FDR Defeated It: “The plan was in motion, a veterans group, bankers, Nazi’s all, dictatorship, concentration camps and an end to American democracy.   It almost happened in the 1930s as it could still happen in America today.  This is history, the real history no American child is taught, history no university has in its library…..only the truth can keep America free.”

• Exporting an Epidemic: “A global network of lobby groups has spent nearly $100 million since the mid-1980s to preserve the market for asbestos, a carcinogen now banned or restricted in 52 countries.”

• Anti-Choicers Hide Their True Aim: “Jailing Women Who Have Abortions Chances are that if an actual ban were to be instated, anti-choicers would eagerly seek to punish women caught having abortions.” 10/21/2010

• Project Censored “censored” because of Stance on 9/11 Truth!

• Taliban History: “Life, death and the Taliban seeks to enhance America’s understanding of Taliban history in Afghanistan and Pakistan. At this crucial time in the U.S.-led war against the Taliban, Charlie Sennott recaps the group’s rise to power and looks at current political and counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan. Photographer Seamus Murphy, who has long chronicled the shifts of power in Afghanistan, accompanied Sennott to Kabul for this report.”

• Visas No Guarantee for Migrant Worker Rights in USA: “Mexican Alberto Rivero joined the ranks of seasonal workers in the United States in 2005, and for the last three years he has had to pay all the expenses associated with his visa, transportation and housing, although the law states that these are the responsibility of his U.S. employer.”

• Media Democracy in Action: The Importance of Including Truth Emergency Inside the Progressive Media Reform Movement: “While news outlets were obsessing over Smith’s death, most big media giants were missing a far more important story.  The US ambassador to Iraq misplaced $12 billion in shrink-wrapped one hundred dollar bills that were flown to Baghdad.  This garnered little attention due to the media’s morbid infatuation with Smith’s passing.”

• US Military Aid to Columbian increases Civilian Deaths: “When Colombian military units receive an increase in U.S. aid, they allegedly kill more civilians and frame the deaths as combat kills, according to a new report.”

• War’s Hidden Death Toll: After Service, Veteran Deaths & Suicides Surge : “As of this month, over 5,700 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. That count does not include those veterans who commit suicide or die from war-related issues after returning home from military service. Well, a new investigation into California veterans and active service members reveals that three times as many veterans are dying soon after returning home than those being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. According to the report published in the Bay Citizen and the New York Times, more than 1,000 California veterans under 35 died between 2005 and 2008.”

• Capitalist media and imperialist foreign policy: “Many people, perceiving the news as an objective truth, fail to see the extent to which “all the news that’s fit to print” comes into play with a class bias, and not just in what the media does print (and broadcast), but in what they do not print (and broadcast) as well. Nations in the crosshairs of U.S. foreign policy like Cuba are a perfect example of this phenomenon. Virtually every country in the world, including the United States, has political prisoners. Yet with the exception of Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, political prisoners are rarely if ever in the news, unless it concerns Cuba, where every development regarding so-called political prisoners is dutifully reported by the U.S. media. Yet a story that has a very direct impact on millions of Americans—that Cuba is building a major new plant to increase production of its important anti-cancer drug called Nimotuzumab (http://lefti.blogspot.com/2010/09/cuban-science-on-down-low.html)—goes unreported by the U.S. corporate media. What is “fit to print” or not has nothing to do with the interests of the readers and viewers. It has everything to do with the interests of the U.S. ruling class.”

• Massive Increase in Poverty In US: “More than 15 million Americans are unemployed, homelessness has increased by 50 percent in some cities, and 38 million people are receiving food stamps, more than at any time in the program’s almost 50-year history. The rise in poverty rates from 2009 show the biggest year-to-year increase in recorded history. An additional 5.7 million people were officially poor in 2009. That would bring the total number of people with incomes below the federal poverty threshold to more than 45 million.” 10/18/2010

• Report Details Tea Party Ties with Hate Groups: “The TeaParty.org faction is led by the executive director of the Minuteman Project, a nativist organization that has in the past been associated with the murder of migrant Mexican workers as part of its vigilante ‘border operations.’ Roan Garcia-Quintana, ‘advisor and media spokesman’ for the 2010 Tax Day Tea Party and member of ResistNet, also serves on the National Board of Directors of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC), the lineal descendent of the Council of White Citizens. In Texas, Wood County Tea Party leader Karen Pack was once listed as an ‘official supporter’ of Thom Robb’s Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a modern-day white supremacist organization.”

• Collapse in Living Standards in America: “More than 15 million Americans are unemployed, homelessness has increased by 50 percent in some cities, and 38 million people are receiving food stamps, more than at any time in the program’s almost 50-year history.”

• Philadelphia school cafeterias unsafe: Capitalists profit from poor nutrition

‘Why Do People Think They See Mary or Jesus on Windows and Toast?’, “What are you going to do, you fucking n*gger? You are a fucking f*ggot.” & Everything (34) in between

• ‘Why Do People Think They See Mary or Jesus on Windows and Toast?’

• Government statements in parliament have confirmed that, despite massive spending cuts to public services being announced later today, large funding for ‘faith’ groups is to continue. (NOTE: Seems the USA does this too. Wouldn’t this mean that the USA favors helping those who follow recognized religions, most likely three big ones; Christianity, Islam and Jew, and not those who do not wrap themselves up into the religious culture in the community they live in, to benefit fro “Faith-Based Initiatives? I’d say YES.

• Anti-Gay Chants At Football Game, A video has emerged from the stands of the game on Thursday  where  North High School students can be heard chanting  ”powder blue, faggots”  during the pregame moments.

• Time to Flee Toxic Churches and Clergy

• Study: Why Are Evangelical Kids Abandoning Jesus?

• Al Qaeda leader dined at the Pentagon just months after 9/11

• Being gay is like alcoholism and rape victims have “buyers remorse” – So says Ken Buck -  Ken Buck, the Republican challenger to Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), is facing a backlash for declaring — in a nationally televised debate with Bennet — that, although “birth has an influence” on sexual orientation as with “alcoholism,” homosexuality is a choice.

• Former Employees: Racism & Abuse in ‘American Family Association’ the Leading Religious Right Organization.

• Gay Should Have Guns But Not Rights,  October 19, 2010

• IRS Should Investigate Minnesota Church For Electioneering – “Pastor Brandon has pulled his tax-exempt church into partisan politics in blatant violation of federal law, this a clear-cut case, and the IRS should act.”

• Atheist Bus Ads Spread to More Countries
  

• No ‘Christian Compassion’ in Tony Perkins’ Response to Anti-Gay Bullying, Suicides. Oct 18, 2010

• Court rejects Vatican bid to unfreeze funds – An Italian court has rejected a bid by the Vatican bank to free €23m of its funds frozen by the Italian judiciary as part of an investigation into a suspected breach of money laundering regulations.

• CIA sues ex-employee for publishing book

• Dissing God and Gay People

• Democrats are failing to say the “buck stops here.” They’re passing the buck. And not often, but still too often, Democrats are now asking voters to take some of the blame. Presidents are expected to lead people out of the wilderness, not blame the public for being lost in the woods. Americans don’t want to be lectured on how they got lost. They want a way out.

• Anti-Gay Iowa Pastor Starts Website

• Campus Crusade for Christ International (CCCI), Uses Miner Tragedy To Promote “Jesus” Film

• The Bible and Homosexuality

• Phoenix clergy protest Catholics stance on gays

• Pope bans the wife of president of France from the Vatican

• Another Anti-Gay Assault in New York, October 18, 2010 -“….while yelling at the man, “What are you going to do, you fucking n*gger? You are a fucking f*ggot.”

• A Saudi prince has been found guilty of murdering his servant at a hotel in London

• Arrest in Two More West Village Gay Bar Attacks Ty’s, Julius’ incidents follow assaults at Stonewall Inn and in Chelsea, horrific crimes in the Bronx, October 19, 2010

• Young kids can’t help believing what they’re told – (NOTE: In other words, a child can believe in Jesus as easily as he believes in Santa clause)

• The mission arm of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) plans to send out a letter of apology for the sexual and physical abuse that was endured by dozens of people out on the mission field. The denomination had received 85 reports alleging abuse – incidents that spanned a 40-year period and on ten different mission fields.

• Government Moves to Block Gay Recruits

• Christians Urged to Wake Up to Reality of GLBT Agenda

• Being Gay is a Gift From God

• Government Unconstitutionally Forced Idaho Inmate To Participate In Religion – “Janene Cowles was given the choice of participating in a “discipleship/recovery” program at the Boise Rescue Mission or continuing to serve a one-year sentence in the Ada County Jail on a drug conviction. Cowles enrolled in the program, but was kicked out — and returned to jail — when she failed to convert to Christianity.”

• Father Beck argued in The Tablet, the influential Catholic weekly, that “if a couple is not in any kind of married relationship, they are not living according to Catholic teaching … Parents in this position should not, as a matter of justice, displace married parents if a school is popular.”

• Religious Right “Compassion” and Other Lies

• First Amendment includes Separation of Church and State – “Once a widely shared article of civic faith in U.S., phrase has become flash point for culture-war debates over role of religion in American public life.” 10.20.10

• Atheism Becoming the New Religion, Evangelicals Warned

• Speaker at one of Obama’s shin digs and supporter of “Kill The Gays Bill” in Uganda, until he got too much attention and was forced to make a public statement against it, (which did not please his Ugandan counterparts), Pastor Rick Warren Tells Passive, Fake Christians to Find Another Church

• Why Anti-Gay Bullying is a Theological Issue – And the moral imperative of anti-bullying preaching, teaching, and activism



A Clash Over ‘Lesser-Evil’ Voting, Could a Leak Have Stopped 9/11?, Religion being pushed on soldiers with PTSD in lieu of traditional treatment & more

• Obama Team: “We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Messages” – By Robert S Becker. “What Obama continues to prove is that bad messaging isn’t only about compromised intentions, but missed, historic opportunities and incompetent politics, refusing to learn from his own administration mistakes. Will an election thumping change that mindset?”

• Pope refers to clergy sex crimes as “recently” emerging in speech to trainee priests, ignoring centuries of abuse

• U.S. soldier held after Afghan detainee’s death Military says criminal probe launched into apparent fatal shooting 10/19/2010

• Thugs on the Right - “What do the Tea Party ideologues mean when they speak of liberty and freedom and the Constitution that they supposedly revere? Sometimes they are described as libertarians, but the behavior of their leading candidates betrays an authoritarian streak just beneath all the sonorous rhetoric. The latest example is Joe Miller, the Republican Senate candidate from Alaska, whose private guards roughed up, handcuffed and detained an online journalist covering one of his campaign events last week.”

• Can Theists Be Trusted With Children?

• A Clash Over ‘Lesser-Evil’ Voting -  By Robert Parry October 20, 2010. “It seems I upset a lot of people with my recent article looking at the four previous times in modern U.S. politics when many on the Left chose to punish the Democrats by casting ballots for third parties or not voting, a tactic under consideration again this year.”

• Dead Sea scrolls going digital on Internet

• What Do Empires Do? – By Michael Parenti. “The purpose of all this killing is to prevent alternative, independent, self-defining nations from emerging. So the empire uses its state power to gather private wealth for its investor class. And it uses its public wealth to shore up its state power and prevent other nations from self-developing.”

• Religiously inspired disdain and hatred of gay people leads to bullying and death of vulnerable youth

• Pentagon Releases Tally of Dead Iraqis – “The Pentagon quietly reversed its longstanding refusal to disclose the U.S. tallies of Iraqi war dead, observes Rory O’Connor.”

• U.S. announces $60 billion arms sale for Saudi Arabia

• Could a Leak Have Stopped 9/11? – “Leaking clues about the impending 9/11 attack might have changed history, write Coleen Rowley and Bogdan Dzakovic.”

• Why Business Doesn’t Trust the Tea Party The Tea Party’s small-government slogans may be appealing, but its policies could throw the U.S. economy into chaos

• Lost Faith in CIA Intelligence Analysts – “President Obama escalated the Afghan War without asking CIA analysts to prepare a formal assessment, says Melvin A. Goodman.”

• NY legislator accepts admissions position at Family Foundation School which is under investigation for child abuse

• “Is the military feeding traumatized soldiers in need of counseling to proselytizing evangelical chaplains, instead of mental health professionals? You bet, says Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), which has been tracking what Weinstein likes to call the ‘Fundamentalist-Christian-Para-Church-Military-Corporate-Proselytizing-Complex’ for five years. More recently, there’s been ‘increasingly frequent and alarming’ charges that religion is being pushed on soldiers with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in lieu of traditional treatment on the battlefield.”

• How HRC is Profiting Off Bullying Deaths

• Awe of Military vs. Free Speech – “A tiny right-wing church’s grotesque behavior pits free-speech principles against reverence of the US military, notes Ivan Eland.”

• Utah law professor uses Mormon polygamists as example of how religious extremism leads to deliberate child abuse

• Pre-Cradle To Post-Deathbed Control Freaks – How the Catholic Church continues to tell people how they ought to reproduce.  Here’s a story that reveals the degree to which it continues to try to tell people what they deserve after they’re dead.

• America’s trouble with Islam

• Your taxes at work: Guns for election-stealing thugs -Rethink Afghanistan- Election Fraud

• Who is the Real Anti-Christian: the Atheist or the Fundamentalist Christian?

• Treating Detainees Like Guinea Pigs – “The Bush administration’s use of torture followed rule changes on human experimentation, write Jason Leopold and Jeffrey Kaye.”

• In thrall to a cult: how the unwary fall victim to mind control

• Negotiating While Fighting in Afghanistan – “…the United States has had plenty of experience negotiating while fighting; its involvement in both the Korean and the Vietnam Wars ended that way, with two years of negotiations in the former conflict and five years in the latter. The War of 1812 also ended that way—despite the slowness of early nineteenth century trans-Atlantic communications, which resulted in the Battle of New Orleans being fought after a peace treaty had been signed.”

• A group of Ohio ministers has asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate the organization that sponsors the National Prayer Breakfast because it received money six years ago from an alleged Islamic terrorist organization trying to finance illicit lobbying.

Outlawing Abortion/Contraception, Dinosaurs Alive in South America, Health care for pets but not same-sex couples & more…..

• Hawaii Candidate For Governor Claimed Membership in Group That Burns Native Art – Running against former Democratic Congressional Representative Neal Abercrombie to be Hawaii’s next governor, Republican Lt. Governor James “Duke” Aiona has disavowed his relationship with an international evangelical ministry called the International Transformation Network, whose leaders advocate burning religious artifacts and native art. But in newly discovered video footage from 2008, Aiona enthusiastically stated that he was indeed a member of the ITN’s Hawaii chapter, Transformation Hawaii. ITN leaders claim to fight “witchcraft” and burn native art, depict non-charismatic Catholics as damned, try to cure HIV and AIDS with faith healing, and allege homosexuals are possessed by demon spirits. RELATED: New Apostolic Reformation Leaders Burn Native Art

• Corporate Cash Secretly Funneled to Extremist Tea Party Candidates Who Want to Outlaw Abortion — Even Contraception

• “We Are Destroying Life on Earth,” UN Conference Claims

• Dinosaurs probably live in remote regions in South America and just have not been seen lately

• What the Founding Fathers called corruption, depravity, venality and vice, many of us would call freedom.

• The Perfect Storm That Threatens American Democracy

• Is Atheism a Belief?

• UK Government urges councils to stop giving tax breaks to Scientology

• “Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?” The audience exploded in laughter.

• Christian Right Insiders Reveal Racism, Virulent Anti-Immigrant Attitudes and Homophobia in Prominent Religious Group

• Federal Workers Can Get Health Insurance for Pets But Not Same-Sex Partners

• “Kicked, Set on fire, Beaten to Death”: Shocking Rise of Violence Against America’s Homeless

• Joe Miller’s “Security Guards” Were Active Duty Military (NOTE: Joe Miller is running for Governor of Alaska and is also one of the many T-Baggers who claim to be for ‘small government’ while taking more money from the government than most folks) (SEE: Red States, Conservatives and T-Baggers Love Socialism when it benefits them)

• Pastor Challenges IRS Non-Profit Limits With Endorsements From Pulpit

• Cult leader Sun Myung Moon marries thousands in mass wedding (NOTE: Close friend of Bush family, just like the Bin Laden family)

• In Tennessee, some go to court to prove that Islam should be classified as a political or ideological movement, not a religion, and that the proposed mosque is not a house of worship.

• The End of the World & the New World Order Black Helicopters, Hong Kong Gurkhas, Global Conspiracies & the Mark of the Beast

• The anti-masturbation witch says the Constitution says nothing about the separation between church and state

• Georgia’s Republican State Rep. John Yates Illegal immigrants are like ‘Hitler’, and should be shot

• Anti-Choice Video Equates Obama With Angel of Death

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The Truth About Terrorism, and the U.S. Government

by Scott Lazarowitz

My writing this was inspired by Paul Craig Roberts’s great article The War on Terror, in which he tells the truth about what’s really going on, and I wanted to expand more on this terrorism subject.

There are many reasons why the U.S. government needs to place itself on the Terrorist Watch List, but since there isn’t enough space to include all that here, I’ll just touch on the most important points.

To begin, millions of Americans report their income and employment status to the U.S. government out of fear, and for no other reason. It certainly isn’t out of the goodness of their hearts (except for the most naïve amongst us). Most Americans who are required to pay a certain percentage of their income to the feds aren’t really paying – it is being taken from them under the threat of various intrusions, such as garnishing their wages or putting a lien on their homes (like a lien on one’s home really matters anymore now in the time of ForeclosureGate). For many Americans, the taking is automatic, directly from their paychecks. So employers as well as workers must submit to the threat of brute force if they don’t comply with the demand for information on employment status and payment. Millions of Americans are terrorized by the federal government, not only for what might happen to them if they don’t comply with the demands, but if a mistake is made. There have been horror stories told by many Americans of what happened to them because a mistake was made – including mistakes made by the government.

And many owners of businesses, especially of small businesses, are terrified that they will be persecuted by some government bureaucrat for not following one of the many thousands of regulations that businesses must obey, regulations that exist for no good reason – only to protect larger businesses’ profits. (Thanks, Herr Lincoln.) And especially because of the unstable economic environment now, millions of businesses are afraid to take risks, make any new investments, or hire new workers because they don’t know what the situation will be for them even months from now, let alone years. And Congress won’t even let people know whether or not the Bush tax cuts will be extended or allowed to expire after January 1^st, 2011. No one knows what to do. (I’m sure businesses and workers all across America would prosper, if we could only abolish Congress.)

Regarding the War on Terrorism and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), I am now terrified of flying. This is not because a terrorist might hijack the plane, but because of the intrusiveness of what people now have to endure when going through security checkpoints: the pornographic X-rays, the frisking and groping, the searching of my clothing and belongings, the harsh interrogations. Out of their blind faith in the State, the American sheeple have assumed that there should be no alternative to the State’s monopoly in territorial protection, and have passively accepted the constantly growing intrusions by the State against the people and their Liberty. As an experienced pilot has suggested, the airlines should be responsible for their security, not the government. And arm the pilots as well. And arm the passengers as well. In the meantime, I won’t fly.

And then there are the anti-civil liberties, anti-Due Process presidential powers that the Bush Administration had usurped, and that the Obama Administration seems to enjoy having, of apprehending and detaining individuals without actual suspicion, of extraordinary rendition, torture, even presidentially-directed assassinations of individuals deemed by the president and his agents to be “terrorists” without due process or trial. And, given that the whole world, including U.S. territory, is considered to be part of the Global Battlefield in the Global War on Terror, and given that Homeland Security secretary Janet Napolitano has issued warnings against “right-wing extremists,” essentially those who disagree with Obama’s policies, and given that I happen to be one who disagrees with just about all of Obama’s policies from his war crimes to his communist social policies, then obviously no place in America is safe, and it really is terrifying now.

And regarding the federal government’s intrusions into Americans’ private health matters, I know someone who has said that, because of the new ObamaCare medical intrusions, he will not have his follow-up medical procedures as long as ObamaCare is in place. He just doesn’t want his medical details being scrutinized by government officials. And I also have some health situations for which I rely very much on OTC vitamins and supplements. But, because the Obama FDA wants to crack down on OTC supplement makers, that really is a direct threat to me. I am literally terrified that these bureaucratic misfits in Washington want to take away my only real means of keeping me in (somewhat) good health, and all on behalf of Big Pharma. It’s disgusting how so many people in various federal agencies are on the boards of large pharmaceutical industries, and the cahoots between Big Pharma and Big Government, with lobbyists and campaign donations to legislators to vote Big Pharma’s way, is downright scary.

Also, because the U.S. government has done nothing but provoke Muslims in Middle Eastern countries to act against Americans, I am terrified of another major terrorist attack in the U.S. It would be solely because of what the U.S. government has been doing, especially since 1990. The U.S. government’s actions of terrorism against innocents in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other parts of the Middle East, and its intrusions into just about every aspect of daily life, have been making me less safe, as well as all other Americans.

Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Bush’s father George H.W. Bush actually should all be tried for war crimes and terrorism, especially against Muslims in the Middle East. The IRS, the FDA, the TSA, and other extensions of the federal Leviathan also need to be held accountable for their actions. If we can’t have that, then at the very least, the U.S. government must place itself on the Terror Watch List, as it is the one organization that has been most responsible for terrorizing the most people, ever.