Star up them Wars! Obadi Wun Kalookus says we’re in for it in 2012.

 

He recalls, “George Lucas sits down and seriously proceeds to talk for around 25 minutes about how he thinks the world is gonna end in the year 2012, like, for real. He thinks it. “He’s going on about the tectonic plates and all the time Spielberg is, like, rolling his eyes, like, ’My nerdy friend won’t shut up, I’m sorry…’

George Lucas genuinely believes the world will end in 2012.

For which MSNBC has published 10 essentials for surviving Doomsday 2012

I’ve checked out the list, looked at our budget, refinanced the house, sold off our giant cat for cash and come up with the following preparations:

1. A concealed bed safe to store the $76.37 left after buying the 2012 stuff. It will also hold weapons, such as my bb-gun, my ceremonial sword, staple gun, etc. plus sentimental family items. Check it out.

Concealed Bed Safes Total hidden protection for firearms and other valuables is a reality, using this 1300 lb secure 78”x 60”x 14” (queen size) 10 gauge steel strongbox fitted with ¼” thick steel 140 lb. hinged doors. BedBunker Safes are available for any size bed. King and Queen size beds can be fit with a single safe with two adjoining storage supports on either side for complete concealment from all angles. Bedbunker safes are approved by the California department of justice for storage of firearms and are guaranteed for life!

2. Blast Boxers – Helps prevent blast and fragment injuries to the groin. Keep them family jewels and related hardware safe.

• perineal protection
• comfortable
• anti-odour material

3. Giant Swiss Army Knife

A good knife and a nice set of tools are what a survivor can really use when faced with the collapse of civilization, which is why you'll want this oversized Wenger Swiss Army knife. It holds the Guinness record for most multifunctional pen-knife, thanks to its 87-tool capacity. Seriously, if MacGyver was the last man standing, he could use this to build a rocketship to Earth-like planets in other solar systems.

4. Bio Lite camp stove

You are going to need a way to cook your meals without modern appliances. This BioLite stove not only uses wood for fuel, it also has the added benefit of a thermoelectric generator that will turn the heat from the flame into electricity that can be transferred to your portable gadgets via a USB port. That's perfect for small radios, GPS units or the iPod you filled with songs from Glee, just before you realized that it would be the only music you would listen to for the rest of your life.

5.  Tactical Bacon

Now that you have a means of cooking your food quickly, you are going to need to stock up on non-perishable food items like this "tactical" canned bacon. It lasts for 10 years in the can and holds up to 18 servings. Let's face it, if most of us were given a choice to bring just one type of food along into the post-apocalyptic living hell that will be Earth, bacon would probably be it.

6. MusucBag Wearable Sleeping Bag

Needless to say, a wearable sleeping bag might come in handy on those cold nights spent huddled in a bomb shelter or boarded up in an abandoned house on the outskirts of town. It keeps you warm and mobile — and it's thick enough to put a little distance between your flesh and the infectious bite of a zombie

7.  Soular Powers Backpack

Obviously, a bag of some sort will come in handy while wandering the barren landscape looking for a community of survivors willing to take you in. The Soular Powers line of backpacks is a little more practical than most because it uses a solar panel to collect energy that can be transferred to your portable gadgets. Of course, it won't be of much use in a nuclear winter scenario that blots out the sun.

8.  Lifesaver Jerrycan

Access to potable water is going to be the single most important factor in your ability to survive. The Lifesaver jerrycan can hold 5 gallons of water after treating it with a filtration system that removes bacteria,viruses, cysts, parasites, fungi and other pathogens — and it can process more than 5,000 gallons of water during its lifecycle. There's even a handheld bottle version for added portability. Just steer clear of any green water that's glowing. I'm not sure if the Lifesaver is equipped to handle nuclear waste.

9.  Gorilla Torch Blade

A flashlight is another one of those indispensable tools that no survivor can do without. However, the GorillaTorch Blade goes above and beyond traditional flashlights thanks to bendable, wrapable legs with magnetic feet that allow you to get hands-free light where you need it most. Plus it can be recharged via USB (something you can handle thanks to your BioLite stove and Soular Powers backpack). Hands-free is always good — especially since you'll need both arms to fight off mutants and zombies.

10.  Knight XV Armored SUV

I can’t buy this one … will have to obtain via other means

Anyone who has seen the Mad Max series knows that you are going to need a capable vehicle to survive in an inhospitable wasteland. The Knight XV is certainly more capable than most in this scenario with features like a 6.8-liter, bio-fuel powered, 400-horsepower V-10 engine, a fully armored exterior and undercarriage, ballistic glass, built-in oxygen survival kit and an onboard black box system. Plus, the interior is more plush than most high-end luxury cars — just because it's the end of civilization doesn't mean you can't be civilized. Of course, it probably doesn't do very well on fuel economy, so if gasoline is hard to come by, it may just end up being a bomb shelter.

 

There you have it. But …if Roland Emmerich, who made the 2012 blockbuster fillm has any prognosticatability, we’ll all be wet toast under water, burnt toast by fire or lost-in-space toast.

Do we really need to be dragging all this stuff around post-apocalyptically? 

Especially in a $400,000 SUV we would have to steal since nobody will sell me one based on my not-so-massive retirement income?

The Bait, The Switch ... Oh but he's just being "honestly frank" with you and me and fondling his wallet.

Who was that smiling congenial man who gave the opposition party rebuttal to the State of the Union address by the president?

He's the ranking member, Committee on the Budget. He has published a plan that is his notion of what is best for America during this time of financial crisis. You can find it online at the following website.

As for his post-SOTU rebuttal speech, I also noted the following as written in the Washington Post Business section:

Ryan managed to get through the speech without mentioning, or even alluding to, his Roadmap. Nor did the words "Medicare" or "Social Security" pass his lips. It was like watching Colonel Sanders give a speech that never mentioned chicken.

Now we're not all Tea  Party types who think the slogan of cutting spending is enough rather than promoting actual items to be cut. We are not all Democrats nor Republicans whose partisanship leaves us in front of cable TV talk shows or faux news programs.

But we are angry, upset and feeling more and more disillusioned by all the smiling talk from presidents and congresspersons.

• We did not make the mess we are  in
• We didn't spend the country into record deficits. 
• We didn't start two wars with money we did not have.
• We didn't agree to give huge tax cuts to the rich. 
• We aren't the Wall Street business professionals whose greedy judgment caused the collapse of our economy. 

Mr. "Trust Me and My Smile" appeared after one long frustrating presidential litany of hope and promises but he could only come up with the usual partisan nonsense. 

Mr. Ryan essentially described the problem, then said it was all the Democrats' fault. 

He in so doing also implied that his own party 

• - the one that looked the other way while the mounting derivative and unjustified mortgage loan investment programs of the Bush years - careened over the cliff at maximum speed. 
• His party, the George Bush Republican majority Congress (House and Senate) rubber stamped the Wall Street lobby with reckless abandon.

He'd like you to believe that his own party was not to blame ... well, not as much to blame two years after the Bushco holocaust as the Democrats.

But he can't blame irresponsible spending, foreign policy decisions and catering to corporate interests at the expense of mom and pop on the Democratic Party alone.

So in truth was not Rep. Paul Ryan and his party - like reformed drunks who themselves only recently are pretending to have gotten on the wagon - making the faulty promises most addicts in recovery make?

... that they would fix everything, make it all right?

Ryan and his corporate welfare buddies have a  plan ... per Rep. Jan Schakowsky:

In it was his simple plan for health care reform: destroy Medicare as we know it by giving seniors a fixed dollar voucher and sending them off to find an insurance company that will cover them. That's after raising the age of Medicare eligibility. He also revives the discredited idea of privatizing Social Security and raising the retirement age. Good luck, Grandma!

Now this smiling good son does have some positives in his roadmap plan regarding what's best for ALL of us.

• Cut taxes for the wealthy, 
• Completely eliminate the corporate income tax
• Create a value added tax. 
• Raise taxes for the bottom 95 percent of American wage earners and cut taxes for the top five percent. 
• The top 0.1 percent would see an average tax cut of $1.7 million -- every year! 

Again from the Washington Post,

Ryan and the Republicans have an increasingly odd relationship: They need him as protection against the claim that they're a party of objections, not solutions. But his solution is much too radical for them, particularly now that they're in power. 

So they've embraced him and his reputation for tough choices and fiscal real talk, but not the plan that reputation is built on. And he's going along with it. But that's meant spending down a lot of the credibility the Roadmap gave him. 

As the Economist's Greg Ip lamented, it increasingly seems that as Ryan's "prominence in the party has risen, he has morphed from a principled fiscal hawk to an old-school ‘starve the beast’ Republican for whom lower taxes always trump deficit reduction."

And, like many politicians of both parties who are in place because of their ability to raise the necessary funds to run for re-election once in office, Mr. Ryan's bathwater is as cloudy as the next.

Here's a report of Ryan's top 20 political contributors as most recently reported:


1 Northwestern Mutual
2 AT&T Inc
3 Blue Cross/Blue Shield
4 PricewaterhouseCoopers
5 Investment Co Institute
6 Honeywell International
7 National Beer Wholesalers Assn
8 Indep Insurance Agents & Brokers/America
9 Koch Industries
10 Home Depot
11 Aetna Inc
12 Harris Assoc
13 Credit Suisse Group
14 New York Life Insurance
15 National Assn of Home Builders
16 National Electrical Contractors Assn
17 General Electric
18 Abbott Laboratories
19 Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance
20 KPMG LLP
20 National Venture Capital Assn
20 Boeing Co

Total donated and accepted by Ryan from the above list= $ 1,427,820.


 At the site you can see a list of the Ryan's top 100 contributors

There ain't a Mr. or Mrs. mom and pop from Wisconsin on that top 100 list. But you'll find among the rest

• Fedex
• AFLAC
• Humana
• UPS
• National Assn of Realtors
• Lockheed Martin
• GlaxoSmithKline
• Morgan Stanley
• Bank of America
• Walmart
• Microsoft
• Ford 
• Goldman Sachs.

So how is it that Ryan's roadmap essentially involves the reduction, elimination, drastic change of spending programs directed toward you and me and mom and pop?

How is it that Ryan's plan creates massive opportunities for greater wealth and profit of those 100+ donors who don't need access to medical coverage, 

who don't need personal retirement stability 

and who don't have a political voice equal to the money-speaks-louder-than-common-sense of all those corporate non-human "persons?"

Schakowsky:

It's a two-way street between Ryan and his Wall Street pals -- but the shrinking middle class, the poor, and others who benefit from bedrock American support programs including seniors and those with disabilities just keep hitting road blocks.

The Republicans led by Ryan are determined to keep serving only their wealthy constituency and push the rest of America down a dangerous road that threatens what has long been a consensus vision of our country as the land of opportunity for all.

Religious Right: There ain’t no dang separation of Church and State! Except when …

A city wants a church to  help maintain the roads to and from the church …

"It makes no sense to tax churches and to limit their ability to provide their services, and it does damage to the constitutional separation between church and state," argues Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing Catholic and Baptist churches in the city of 10,000. He acknowledges that church-state separation is generally not an argument made by his conservative Christian law firm; but in this instance, he says, "There should be a separation here."

 

Them there Founding Fathers meant for Amerika to be a Christian Country and we should pass laws against anyone who says otherwise.

 

The Alliance Defense Fund is the Religious Right equivalent of the ACLU … in their own venue as active in court as any advocacy group in the U.S.

 

One of their hallmarks has been seeking legal recourse to deal with the persecution complex many political religious celebrities regularly cry foul about.

 

But not in this case …

 

in this case to the Religious Right separation of church and state is the lesser of two evils.

Perhaps the most significant legal motion inside this country in the past 50 years

 

Out there in New England, Vermont is proving itself to be wiser than 49 other states and the Supreme Court.

Vermont Measure Calls for Revoking Corporate Personhood

Published on Tuesday, January 25, 2011 by Democracy Now!

In Vermont, a landmark measure has been introduced to revoke the granting of personhood rights to U.S. corporations.

The bill calls for a constitutional amendment declaring "corporations are not persons under the laws of the United States." The measure's introduction Friday came on the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision on the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which opened the floodgates for unlimited corporate spending on election campaigns.

That’s it Mr. Edison, your incandescents are on the way out.

MSNBC, Going Green: Consumers Not Yet Warming to New LIght Bulbs

Under federal law, incandescent bulbs are being phased out beginning next year when American manufacturers no longer will be allowed to make 100-watt bulbs. By Jan. 1, 2014, the only incandescents left on the market will be three-way bulbs, plant lights and appliance lamps – plus the final, old-school stragglers from 2013 assembly lines which could become pricey novelty items.

We have several of those on the right in an assortment of locations in our home. They definitely last and our primary expense is replacing the incandescentts.

Regular, LED’s and CFL’s

The CFL’s start dim and brighten up. We’ve had the same one over our kitchen sink now as well as the walk space into the bathroom for at least three years.

In fact, we bought a nine-bulb box that still has one left since we have preferred incandescents in the lamps where most burnouts occur.

“In their final months of retail life, incandescents still dominate market share, accounting for about 82 percent of sales, followed by compact fluorescent lamps, at 17 percent, and light-emitting diodes at about 1 percent, according to some estimates.”

So … why the new law?

Congress bans incandescent bulbs: Massive energy bill phases out Edison's invention by 2014 – World Net Daily, 12/2007

In addition to raising auto fuel efficiency standards 40 percent, an energy bill passed by Congress yesterday bans the incandescent light bulb by 2014.

President Bush signed the 822-page measure into law today after it was sent up Pennsylvania Avenue in a Toyota Prius hybrid vehicle. The House passed the bill by a 314-100 vote after approval by the Senate last week.

Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the legislation will boost the energy efficiency of "almost every significant product and tool and appliance that we use, from light bulbs to light trucks."

The phase-out of incandescent light is to begin with the 100-watt bulb in 2012 and end in 2014 with the 40-watt.

All light bulbs must use 25 percent to 30 percent less 2014. By 2020, bulbs must be 70 percent more efficient than they are today.

Australia was the first country to announce an outright ban by 2010.

So there you have it … we’re going mucho more greener at least in the new way we’ve found to replace the old way that replaced candle and gas lights in our homes.

… cept of course when disaster strikes and we are left with candle and kerosene.

A “gay exorcism” and imprecatory prayers asking God to take his opponents out.

RD Magazine: Former Navy Chaplain Worries Ending DADT will End “Gay Exorcisms”

Gordon Kingenschmitt, former Navy Chaplain, describes the process on the David Pakman show.

Klingenschmitt: As a chaplain I prayed with a young lesbian sailor who came to me and said, “Chaplain, I don’t like the way I’m feeling. Can you help me with this?”

We prayed with her and she renounced her sin, she invited Jesus Christ to be the first man in her life that she trusted. We had a wedding ceremony. She wept as Jesus moved into her heart and got the devil out of her…

Pakman: So you’re saying that you believe a gay exorcism is a legitimate and worthwhile thing to do in these cases?

Klingenschmitt: Well, it’s the only spiritual solution to a spiritual disease. I looked into her eyes and said “You foul demon of lesbian homosexuality, come out of this woman in Jesus’ name” she began to weep and she loved Jesus.

As RD reports, the wedding ceremony was to “marry the woman to Jesus.”

Klingenschmitt: "She got baptized and started dating boys."

Now from a strictly moral standpoint, if Catholic nuns are married to Jesus, they become brides a Christ.

This from a former nun:

Before we became novices, we marched down the church aisle in bridal attire to become "brides of Christ".

Nothing much was said about Jesus as we prepared for this event. Rather, our emotions were at high pitch over the changes in our names.

I went from Miss Mary Ann to Sr. M. Laurian, O.S.B. I was a bride of Christ, and I knew little about Him other than He was the Son of God.

Klingenshcmitt is not Catholic but if this former gay-exorcised lesbian is now married to Jesus at the same time she is dating boys, what has really been accomplished?

Has not one “evil” been replaced by another of equal seriousness in the eyes of God?

Who is Klingenshchmitt? RD reports that,

“Klingenschmitt claims he was drummed out of the Navy because he wanted to pray in the name of Jesus. In fact, he got tossed out for being insubordinate” as he violated military regulations forbidding servicemembers from wearing their uniforms to partisan events.

His discharge from the military has made him a hero to the religious right, a role he has embraced.

So how does he support himself?

The former chaplain is busy making his living on the fringes of the religious right in the US. When challenged by Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, and Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Klingenshcmitt responded by asking God to take Weinstein and Lynn out.

IMPRECATORY PRAYERS AGAINST ANTI-JESUS BARRY LYNN AND MIKEY WEINSTEIN:

“Let us pray. Almighty God, today we pray imprecatory prayers from Psalm 109 against the enemies of religious liberty, including Barry Lynn and Mikey Weinstein, who issued press releases this week attacking me personally.

God, do not remain silent, for wicked men surround us and tell lies about us. We bless them, but they curse us. Therefore find them guilty, not me.

Let their days be few, and replace them with Godly people.

Plunder their fields, and seize their assets.

Cut off their descendants, and remember their sins, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Listen below! And call & ask your local Christian radio station to broadcast this 60-second prayer many times throughout the day on Saturday April 25, 2009.

What shall we do with the likes of Gordon Klingenschmitt.

I agree with Candace Chellew-Hodge, author of the RD article:

I suggest an exorcism for Klingenschmitt.

“You foul demon of bigotry, come out of this man, in Jesus’ name!”

A little too eager ain’t ya, Jesse?

 

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

 

Via Think Progress: So Can I Run Again?

According to Arizona Capitol Reports (subscription-only newsletter), Jesse Kelly is so antsy to challenger her again, that he requested a legal inquiry as to whether he could run again if Giffordslost her seat:

Attorney Lee Miller, who serves as legal counsel for the Arizona Republican Party, told our reporter Kelly’s campaign contacted him earlier this week to find out how the seat would be filled if Giffords couldn’t serve.

"Yesterday’s item about Jesse Kelly exploring a special election for the CD8 seat in the wake of Giffords’ shooting created waves in Tucson political circles, one source from south of the Gila said today. 'I think Jesse Kelly has more problems than just dealing with a Yellow Sheet story. It’s probably going to be picked up by Politico,' said the source.

Let me get this straight, the Republican who recently ran against Gabriel Giffords on the above theme is already salivating about his new opportunity take her place.

Then of course this theme from one of his campaign ads last June:

Both parties obviously are looking at what might be necessary without a hard-charging let’s-jump-on-it-right-away mind.

And … you guessed it. Politico picked it up

Gabrielle Giffords' 2010 challenger finds himself in an extremely delicate position, as a forwarded report from Arizona Capitol Reports indicates.

He just canceled his expected announcement of another campaign:

“Everything’s been cancelled. Everything’s on hold. We just don’t want to discuss politics at a time like this,” Kelly’s campaign spokesman, John Ellinwood, said.

Put the gun down, Jesse.

Chances are that in your next campaign photo, if or when it is every needed, a gun in your hands might be the best way to lose the election.

Voters – by the way – are capable of changing their minds when sufficiently affected by events.

Only the smart gullibles in the country feast on Beck ... right!

Glenn Beck Target Frances Fox Piven Gets Death Threats

This is here and this is now ... not something Beck did in the past ... this speaks directly to this month's events.

"There are a lot of intelligent people who respect what Glenn Beck has to say," so I'm told.

Really?

Why and for what?

Frances Fox is a 78-year old educator who wrote a letter in 1966 from which Beck 45 years later is trying irresponsibly to make a buck. In reality, it's his irresponsible audience that encourages his popularity that ultimately have the power to make it change.

Excerpt:

In the past few years, though, she has received multiple death threats as a result of Beck's attacks on her, as she told The Progressive magazine:

"I got e-mails that said, 'Die You C-nt,' and 'May cancer find you soon.' And people are posting my address on the Internet with their messages that are really crude and ugly and violent."

In its letter, the Center for Constitutional Rights ran through some of the violent comments that readers of The Blaze have left on articles about Piven. They include:

"Maybe they should burst through the fron door of this arrogant elitist and slit the hateful cow's throat."

"We should blow up Piven's office and home."

"Big lots is having a rope sale I hear, you buy the rope and I will hang the wench. I will spin her as she hangs."

CCR asked Ailes to "order Mr. Beck to cease and desist."

If a tavern blowhard repeatedly insults the intelligence of the other patrons, guess who will wind up on his backside on the curb.

That's what I'm advocating ... and quite openly I confess ... no need for anyone to read between my lines and guess as to who I'm talking about and who needs to land on his ass.

Constitutional Scholar out of Utah talks as if he has yet to read it.

Mike Lee Suggests FEMA, Federal Poverty And Food Safety Programs Are All Unconstitutional

Ian Milhiser, Think Progress:

Of course, Lee’s bizarre ideas call into question whether he has actually even read the Constitution. As ThinkProgress has explained, the Constitution gives Congress broad authority to regulate interstate commerce and to raise and spend money to benefit the “general welfare.” These two powers easily enable Congress to regulate the national food market and to provide a basic safety net to the poor and the unfortunate, regardless of what Lee may claim.

For the folks at home who are keeping track, this means that Lee has now suggested that child labor laws, FEMA, food stamps, the FDA, Medicaid, income assistance for the poor, and even Medicare and Social Security violate the Constitution. Like Joe Miller before him, it turns out that there’s only three things Mike Lee likes in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and “unconstitutional.”

Lobbyists more sacred than citizens for Scalia and Thomas?

Group: Supreme Court Justices ‘Participated in Political Strategy Sessions’ Before Citizens United 


I have not been impressed with either Cisco or Pancho,  Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas for a longer time ... even prior to their unconstitutional interference in our electoral process that resulted in placing someone who lost the presidential election in office.

Scalia's after-the-fact justifications have repeatedly and grossly fallen short, despite their confident arrogance in terms of his pretended "strict" view of the Constitution. Thomas, on the other hand has been little more than a tag-a-long sidekick to the more celebrated and respected conservative court colleagues.

Now it seems that Cisco and Pancho have been playing around with the wrong crowd at the same time they have been pretending to strictly uphold wise Constitutional concepts.

The entire Citizens United decision was bogus from the get go and effected solely based on a majority defined by partisan political values, not to mention obvious lobbied funding.

Citizens United essentially supports the idea of a corporation as a person with the same legal rights that I as an American citizen have. In reality the ruling supports the practice that a corporate "person" having access to massive financial resources, is not comparable one-to-one with little old me with my access to severely limited financial resources.

Lobbying equality on the part of greedy corporate "persons" and vulnerable individual human citizen persons in the United States of America would be a laugher if it wasn't so tragic.

The ruling was bogus and I'm  wishing Common Cause all the success in the world.

On the first anniversary of the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United, which overturned nearly a century of restrictions on campaign spending, a progressive group has asked the Department of Justice to look into "conflicts of interest" two justices may have had when issuing the ruling.

In a petition to be sent to the department this week, Common Cause will argue that Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas should have recused themselves from the campaign finance decision because of their involvement with Koch Industries, a corporation run by two conservative activists who many say directly benefited fromCitizens United.

"It appears both justices have participated in political strategy sessions, perhaps while the case was pending, with corporate leaders whose political aims were advanced by the decision," the letter alleges, as quoted at Politico.

The group will urge the department to disqualify Scalia and Thomas from the ruling. If that were to happen, the Supreme Court could vacate the ruling, effectively returning the campaign finance restrictions that existed until 2010. But, as Common Cause itself admits, the odds are against it.

And how about an accurate second opinion on the Citizens United Supreme Court Majority Voters?

Justices Alito, Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas

Charges: Their majority opinion in Citizens United v. FEC was the worst decision since Scalia instituted SCOTUS Hot Pants Fridays.

In lifting a century-long restriction on corporate campaign spending, the Justices flouted a firmly-ingrained precedent and finally provided examples of the nefarious and mythical “Activist Judge.”

The original case dealt with the very narrow issue of whether Citizen’s hit-piece/documentary Hillary: The Movie was “electioneering communication” under McCain-Feingold. A district court panel ruled that it was and, hence, could be regulated. Citizens appealed, and the Roberts court took it upon itself to hear the case and inexplicably broaden its scope into a corporate free-speech issue.

This is the very definition of “legislating from the bench” and ensures our elections will be dominated by well-funded Swift Boating for the foreseeable future. If democracy was an experiment, this case blew up the lab. - Murphy, The Beast Blog

More details in the Common Cause  filed with the DOJ

The letter refocuses attention on a series of investigations conducted by ThinkProgress about the Supreme Court’s right flank — Justices Samuel Alito, Thomas, and Scalia — and their relationship with the corporate right:

– In November, ThinkProgress interviewed Justice Alito as he entered the annual fundraising gala for the American Spectator, attended by then-RNC Chairman Michael Steele and top Republican donors. Alito told us that his attendance to the fundraiser was “not important.” However, as we noted, Alito was the main draw for donors when he headlined the same event in 2008. The American Spectator is nominally a magazine; in the 90s, it served as a slush fund for wealthy donors to pay opponents of President Clinton, and recently, it organized a lobby group called the “Conservative Action Project” to orchestrate opposition to President Obama.
– In 2009, while the Supreme Court heard arguments regarding the Citizens Unitedcase, Justice Thomas was featured at the annual fundraiser for the Heritage Foundation — and sat at a table for donors with investment banker Thomas Saunders and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). After the Citizens United decision, Heritage created a new nonprofit called “Heritage Action” to run attack ads against Democrats.
– In 2009, while the Supreme Court heard arguments regarding the Citizens Unitedcase, Justice Alito headlined a fundraiser for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute(ISI) — the same corporate front that funded the rise of Republican dirty trickster James O’Keefe and anti-masturbation activist Christine O’Donnell. According to the sponsorship levels for the event, Alito helped ISI raise $70,000 or more from law firms like Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP. ISI is run partially by lobbyist James Burnley, who also is on the board of FreedomWorks.

– Last year, Justice Thomas helped headline a fundraiser for the National Association of Broadcasters, a lobby group representing News Corp, Cox Media Group, and other media companies. The event raised hundreds of thousands for NAB’s charity from a host of corporate sponsors, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, PhRMA, and CBS Corp. 

I need my choir to be impressed with me … no matter who gets dissed.

It doesn't get any sillier than this ... and an example of why Christians have a lot of clean up work to do ... I wonder if 2000 years ago the first Christian (Jesus) accepted Jesus as his personal savior.

Yesterday: New Governor: Non-Christians not my brother, not my sister

He's known to be devout and once said that he felt he had been put in the position of Governor by divine will. He told the Birmingham News that "I don't feel obligated to anyone except the people who voted for me."
But his literalized attitude is merely a 19th and 20th century pentecostal notion.

That was yesterday. Today …
Well thank goodness for repentance, one of the hallmark Christian practices ...

I didn’t really mean what I said. I forgot that the governors podium is not a preaching pulpit.

The president of the national Interfaith Alliance, the Rev. Welton Gaddy, said Bentley went too far.

"I thought that with his statement he created two classes of citizens in Alabama, those that were his brothers and sisters in Christ and everyone else. As an elected official, he has the responsibility to serve all the people and treat all the people equally,'' 

The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish group that fights discrimination, said it sounded like Bentley was using the office of governor to advocate for Christian conversion. ADL regional director Bill Nigut:

"If he does so, he is dancing dangerously close to a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which forbids government from promoting the establishment of any religion,'' 

Christian supporters outraged that this evangelical fundamentalist politician would be challenged for his religious beliefs, might ask, "What's the big deal?"

No big deal so long as the wisest point of view in retrospect is that of  Retired University of Alabama political scientist William Stewart,

"I don't think the governor needs to get into things like who is going to be in the kingdom and who isn't going to be in the kingdom.''  

No matter the intensity of personal belief and desire that this be a country founded on Christian beliefs, it's not. The governor speaking as governor needs to talk government talk and avoid the mixing in the theology of his own beliefs that make him sound both devout and arbitrarily separating his constituency into two camps of differing worthiness.

That is not freedom of religion in America, but the very thing that early evangelical activists pushed Thomas Jefferson to work toward, a separation that does not permit the rise of one religious point of view "authorized" by a secular government.

 

 

You think Washington has problems? Texas's solutions to a larger gap.

 Seattle TImes:  Public education in Texas faces massive cuts 

Texas is facing a $15 billion revenue shortfall, and few corners of state government were spared in the draft proposal for the next two years. The Texas Constitution requires a balanced budget, and Republican leaders have vowed not to raise taxes.

Nope, no new taxes. However ... what's the difference between a "tax" and a "fee?"

• State employees and retirees who smoke would pay a $30-a-month "tobacco user monthly premium surcharge"  
• an "annual child support service fee," 
• a "monthly child support processing fee" and an "electronic filing of documents fee."

Nope, no new taxes. However ... wouldn't it be interesting to know how many voting skinflints are really out there and how many would agree with the reduction choices?

Now wasn't that big-mouth governor going on and on a while back about Texas seceding from the union? They're still taking federal money but want to reduce the amount of expense sharing they owe:

The proposal also would reduce reimbursement rates by 10 percent for physicians, hospitals and nursing homes that participate in Medicaid - a decrease that could eventually dry up participation in the health care program for poor and disabled Texans. In all, $2.3 billion would be cut from Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program and other health and human services.

Republican party: We ain’t got a Health Plan but we’re taking away the one you do have.

Would you trust these guys to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity?

This from Alex Seitz-Wald at Think Progress

On Fox News Sunday today, conservative Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol could offer only the vaguest of promises about the replacement. When Fox News contributor Juan Williams challenged Kristol to explain “what are you going to replace it with?”, Kristol told Williams not to worry, because there would be hearings in a few months and Republicans would probably come up with something by then.

… The Washington Post’s Amy Goldstein reports that “according to GOP House leaders, senior aides and conservative health policy specialists, Republicans have not distilled their ideas into a coherent plan”:

So Republicans want to get rid of the family cow and haven’t figured out where the magic beans are.

GOP Lacks a Clear Health Care Plan

On the cusp of undertaking this work, the GOP has a cupboard of health-care ideas, most going back a decade or more. They include tax credits to help Americans afford insurance, limiting awards in medical malpractice lawsuits and unfettering consumers from rules that require them to buy state-regulated insurance policies. In broad strokes, the approach favors the health-care marketplace over government programs and rules. [...]

In the absence of a plan, Republican leaders nevertheless are eager to convey that they have ideas about health care – and are not merely trying to knock down those of the Democrats. As a result, they have drafted a resolution to accompany the repeal legislation. It lays out broad, long-held GOP health-care goals, but no specifics, and directs four House committees to develop proposals. [...]

The range of current thinking in the House is not entirely clear, with 87 Republican freshmen and nearly half the members of the influential Ways and Means panel new this year.

Come on guys!!!

All that talk

… so little honesty

… so little wisdom

If they mean it ... then good on them ...

GOP Rep. Campbell Wants ‘Huge’ Cuts To Defense Budget Beyond What Gates Proposes: ‘This Is Just The Beginning’ - Think Progress blog

 

If Campbell and other lawmakers are looking for ways to rein in the defense budget, they can reference the Sustainable Defense Task Force (SDTF) report released earlier this year. The SDTF — which was chaired by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and staffed by some of the nation’s leading defense and budget experts — identified nearly $1 trillionin waste and unnecessary programs that can be cut from the defense budget over the next ten years simply by eliminating outdated Cold War-era programs. They could also reference a recent report by Center for American Progress experts Lawrence Korb and Laura Conley that lays out $108 billion in defense cuts in the current 2015 budget forecast.

A failed attempt to speak with maturity

Our President reminded us in Tucson this week that we as human beings can always strive to be better people.

The most prominent talk-show conservative donned his mantle of statesmanship and maturity and gave this response today on his radio show:

LIMBAUGH:

What I don’t like about this is the assumption that we are no good! The premise that we are no good! Yes that’s true. We really stink 

We have to work a lot harder to become better people. We are going to really have to work harder to become better than we are.

Who are they to castigate all the rest of us?! If they want to categorical some of us as not good enough, fine and dandy! But who are they? 

Why do we have to listen to these people tell us we’re not as good as we can be?

What message are we supposed to hear here? What’s the message that we have to – we’re all ready for improvement?

The GOP is supposed to capitulate? That’s how we get along with everybody?

Cinderella Seahawks headed for midnight and loss of glass slipper in cold Bear Ballroom

Next round of NFL playoffs up Saturday and Sunday
 8 teams in match ups worth watching.

Arthur's predictatory betting line (whatever that is)

Saturday 1-15-2011
TV: 1:30 PM CBS
Baltimore 12-4 at Pittsburgh 12-4

Pertinencies:
Bet experts say Pittsburgh by 3 1/2
Steelers beat the Ravens 13-10 on Dec 5 in Baltimore

These are probably the two meanest teams in the NFL with reputations for tough and timely playoff performances.
Baltimore is 7-3 in road playoff games. Steelers are 18-8 at home, 5-3 since 2001.
Every time I pick against the Ravens they win. I am not a Steelers fan.
Ravens to win by 3 in a game where total points will be no more than 30.
----

Saturday 1-15-2011 

TV: 5:00 PM FOX 

Green Bay 11-6 at Atlanta 13-3

Pertinencies:

Bet experts say Atlanta by 1 1/2

Falcons beat Packers Nov 28 at home 20-17

Green Bay has gotten better since the 28th despite losing to Detroit 3-7, the Packers pounded the Giants by 28 pts, defeated the Bears and lost a 27-31 game to mighty New England. Last week they beat the Eagles in Phillie.
Atlanta since 11/28 won three easy games (2 against Carolina and 1 against Seattle) by a combined 96-18. However the Falcons barely squeaked by Tampa Bay by 4 and lost to the Saints.
I have a bias in what looks like a tossup game.
If the Packer defense comes to play, Aaron Rogers will out duel Matt Ryan.
Packers 24-21
-----

Sunday 1-16-2011 

TV: 10:00 AM FOX 

Seattle 8-9 at Chicago 11-5

Pertinencies:

Bet experts say Chicago by 9 1/2

Seahawks surprised the Bears 23-20, Oct. 17, 2010 and last week took out the Saints at home.

Ain't no 12th man gonna help the Seahawks in the cold outdoor Chicago stadium.

Other than the 3-10 loss in Green Bay and a blowout loss at home against New England 7-36, the Bears have overpowered everyone else in the past month.

I'm still undecided on Pete Carroll's rah rah ways which reflect the hot-this-week-cold-next-week Seahawk pattern but the Hawks may be fired up enough to make this game competitive. If the defense can bother Cutler and limit Forte's running success they might win.

But I don't think so.

Bears 28 Packers 14

-----

Sunday 1-16-2011 

TV: 1:30 PM CBS 

NEW YORK JETS (12-5) At NEW ENGLAND (14-2)

Pertinencies:

Bet experts say New England by 8 1/2

Patriots beat Jets 45-3, Dec. 6 at home

I don't like picking against the Patriots who play at home for this game. 

In December the Jets beat Pittsburgh 22-17 but lost the following week to Chicago, giving up 38 points.

The Jets also smacked Buffalo but got smacked by New England and also lost in December to Miami 6-10.

Had to hang on against the Colts last week playing indoors to win barely by 17-16.

The Patriots over the five Sundays in December did the following:

Beat the Jets in a home game 45-3

Beat the Bears in Chicago 36-7

Beat Green Bay at home 31-27

Beat the Bills in Buffalo 34-3

Followed by a 38-7 home win over the Dolphins.

I'm not picking against the Pats

NE 35 NYJ 17

My disagreement with you makes you an enemy of my country.

If you convince enough people that an enemy of the American way is setting up a system that could kill them, the violent hatred will take care of itself.

All this talk about cross-hairs maps and 2nd amendment solutions is perhaps a matter of blame-throwing that actually misses the mark. In truth such charges fail to address the bottom line issue of civility in public discourse.

In retrospect in seems that  – going back 30-40 years – a change of political tactics, efforts more directed at personalizing differences of opinion has arisen. It’s a personalizing in most instances that deliberately avoids a discussion of issues in the interest of demonizing supporters of views opposed to your own.

Demonization: [Merriam Webster] includes the following: b : a source or agent of evil, harm, distress, or ruin

Our entrepreneurial honesty suggests that if we can provoke readers and listeners on the left and right in such a way as to get them to come back for more, we have found another way to make a living … to earn money. But does a free-market capitalism imply justification for the elevation of revenue and profit above the value of common good, common well being and of course common sense.

Lots of communicators have followed the money using as a tool, inflammatory charges that are pretended to be civic discourse. However, Civic Discourse seems to get  left standing at the starting gate after the bell has rung while Inflammatory Charges are running neck and neck into the final turn and already coming up the backstretch.

As author Robert Wright has said,

The point is that Americans who wildly depict other Americans as dark conspirators, as the enemy, are in fact increasing the chances, however marginally, that those Americans will be attacked.

… But the more incendiary theme in current discourse is the consignment of Americans to the category of alien, of insidious other.

So if I as an American citizen have a problem with other Americans or non-Americans who disagree with me, am I justified in consigning those who disagree to a status lower than my own civil-liberties protected life?

Am I justified in condemning those who disagree with me to a status of “less-than”, “not as worthy” and “deserving of destruction?”

Again from Robert Wright,

If you convince enough people that an enemy of the American way is setting up a system that could kill them, the violent hatred will take care of itself.

This is the core of the problem.

Contempt, rejection and advocacy of the termination of ideas as things viable in civic discourse is fine so long as it addresses ideas.

But can you personalize your contempt and rejection of what you believe are harmful ideas and transmute that personalization into a public advocacy of termination of persons who are the targets of your contempt and rejection?

The backbone of civic decision-making is compromise of ideas, plans, and actions … spiced with the attitude that the will of the people is not represented by any one political perspective or absolute.

The back-breaker is the notion that one perspective is holy, sacred and able to withstand any challenge to its ideology and that any other perspective – and it’s supporters – need to be eliminated.

We might take umbrage at the idea, but does not the recent violence make us look like someone other than who we think we really are and what we are about?

… protests were violent, in which death threats were issued to Salman Rushdie, including a fatwā against him by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, on February 24, 1989.

“Arthur”, one might ask, “how dare you compare us to our most hated enemies?

One more from Robert Wright,

My own view is that if you decide to go kill a bunch of innocent people, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re not a picture of mental health. But that doesn’t sever the link between you and the people who inspired you, or insulate them from responsibility.

Wright source: First Comes Fear

Death threat to Baird and Republican outrage

NOTE:  Republishing this blog entry which was first published here in August, 2009. I think it is topical and appropriate given current events.
Are you conservative readers tired of this yet ... tired of my harping or tired of the stampeders' public evasion of contributory negligence?

08/22/09
Is this the best we can hope for from the other half of a two-party system?

First Pacific County Republicans demanded an apology from Brian Baird for his remarks about lynch-mob mentalities at town hall meetings.

Although having offered no viable or sensible alternative health care reform plan, Republicans apparently have no time to create something like that. They are too busy resorting to political attack.

And now someone has actually made a death threat against Representative Baird for his town hall meeting scheduled in Vancouver.

What  constructive, helpful and civic-minded response was made by Clark County Republicans?
This is apparently what comes out of their brave new world from the Vancouver Columbian:

The death threat, delivered to Baird’s Washington, D.C., office in a phone message Aug. 10, said, approximately,

"You think Timothy McVeigh was bad, there is a Ryder Truck out there with your name on it,"

But after Baird alluded to the threat during brief introductory comments to the Rotary Club of Vancouver on Wednesday, Clark County Republicans denounced him for invoking the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

County Republican Party Chairman Ryan Hart called the reference to domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh’s use of a Ryder truck to deliver explosives to the Alfred R. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City "just unbelievable."

"You would think he would have learned a lesson or two over the past two weeks," Hart said.

What lesson is that?
The content of the threat?
A better health-care plan?
Appropriate civic participation?

We need a two-party system with real and viable alternative points of view.

Currently we have one party plus a noise and deception club that doesn’t have but one plan and one strategy

… neither of which is constructive nor has socially redeeming value.

How about them neighbors who don't speak English?

 

If you are thinking- challenged and haven't found something popular to be mad about, how about your neighbors who don't speak English?

There is nothing dumber than the statement that "My immigrant ancestors had to learn English and these are no better."

Those immigrant ancestors who managed to  learn English did so as a matter of expediency, need and genuine willingness to adapt and enter our society.

They did it as the wisest practical solution -  and not because candidate and pundit fat heads made tough speeches about forcing people to learn English and requiring the government to print no forms in anything but English.

It almost makes you wish that some particular immigrants - those whose descendants have become unreasonable jingoists or mindless bigots -  had not come here back then.

The American Dream might be more alive and well rather than a nation's biggest lie.

... as if speaking English then entitles immigrants to the total respect of all the angry white folks who think Fox News is fair and balanced

... as if those viewers - demands met - would then welcome anyone who is "not-U.S." to be with "U.S."

Those immigrant ancestors who did manage to learn English (and there were many more who never did) didn't do so because American jingoists (I know that's a big word for people entirely raised or entertained by four-letter English words) refused to talk to them.

I was asked to teach a conversational Spanish class for business and  health care persons in the local community college. Class never got held cause enrollers were too few.

Ten years ago, through my church, we started an ESL (English as a Second Language for all you English-speakers who get stuck after 4 letters) primarily aimed at local Hispanic families.

When the number of those who signed up reached 46 the college saw $$ in fed funding and actively started recruiting me to turn the class into a college-based course. They wanted to learn English but had to balance the demands of a local job market and economy where many English-speaking white folks refused to do the minimum-wage labor in seafood canneries that support the entire community.

More of the immigrant problem lies in hearts of sons and daughters - both elected and unelected - who are descendants from immigrants and who think that every one of THEIR particular ancestors learned to speak English as fluently as the liars on Fox News do now.

Shoe Still Fits

Cartoon is Steve Benson's, Arizona Republic

I’m just a liberal whiner … why Rush and the dittoheads are right and I am wrong

 I just flat out read too much.

It’s a problem I’ve been stuck with most of  my life … reading too much which is then followed up the equally destructive addiction of thinking too much about what I’ve been reading.

I’ve recently been given to more fully understand that the solution to all the problems in our country are essentially encountered in the simple (or was it simplistic?) minds of the simple (or was it simplistic?) followers of national conservative thinkers like Messers Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, O’Reilly and other members of that broadcast think-tank fraternity.

The key is in reducing complex issues into powerful straight forward but brief clarifications.

For example, unfounded concerns about climate change, pollution and ozone layers has been reduced to the straight forward clearing up of any confusion with Limbaugh’s  dismissal of my concerns as the “neurotic hand wringing of tree hugging ‘environmentalist whackos.’"

Can it be any clearer than that?

And how could I have ever forgotten those years in the 80’s when I too was a devout dittohead and when Rush dismissed female equality issues as mere notorious “feminazism?”

Is there not something irrationally appealing about living in a world dominated by black-white certitude; where such things as nuances have no impact? That’s the beauty and loveliness of simple (or simplistic?) life in Right Country,

There has to be security in that psychic foreclosure stuff ... what psychoanalyst Erik Erikson called the state of psychic foreclosure.

Foreclosed persons are easily attracted to the beguilingly simple, one-size-fits-all belief systems of powerful others that they adopt as their own so as to avoid the sometimes lonely rigors of personal searching. 

The foreclosed are the ready disciples of demagogues in every age. – Psychologist Paul Ginetty

It really isn’t about logic or common sense. 

It really isn’t “I just wannabe loved.”

It’s more of “I want to be singing in the same choir and on the same page as somebody who is simply (or simplistically) famous, influential and popular among my friends.”

No matter that I sacrifice my individuality and intellectual integrity so long as I am loved and respected by all my fellow sacrificers. We are they who willingly shout “Amen!” to the simple (simplistic?) profound declarations of the national blowhards - those talkers who willingly admit to never having read up on or pursued knowledgeable command of the topic they wish to deride.

It’s not about that kind of sacrifice … its about inclusion and a “brothers-in-uninformed-arms” intimacy with a voice on a radio.

As psychology professor Paul Ginetty wrote,

They get a chance to feel real smart when the master seems to agree with them, failing to see that it is actually they who are agreeing with him.

Yes, if I want to calm down and retire to a life of ignorant bliss I should repent, reconvert to dittoheadedness and join the Republican Party so that I too can enjoy a life of simplistic simple-mindedness.

… maybe even stake out a booth at the local Elk Snout Tavern where as a disciple I can spread the shallow gospel of simple arrogant ignorance

Dare we criticize their refusal to acknowledge their contribution to the violence and the making of a selfish society?

I reread the transcript of Bill Moyers' review of the Tennessee Church murders  where a man influenced by long-time vilification of liberals as everything from political traitors to persons who are not human and in need of extermination and like our current infamous assassin, acted on it.

A liberal ... that would be me ... who has – among other social attitudes - an admitted liberal perspective. But also someone who has no self-accusing sense that I deserve extermination - particularly at the hands of someone hypnotized by liars.

We know which liars don’t we?

The ones who imply that liberals are sub-human and less worthy than radical self-named "conservatives." Many of these are tragic people who in reality have become pawns in a political battle. They’ve compliantly accepted someone else’s mass-issued value judgments - “values” that ought to have no place in churches that profess a relationship with “the living God and Christ Jesus” as someone recently said to me.

I consider myself an active spiritual human being – not liberal and not conservative – but one trying to include Jesus’ God of Compassion in how I approach life.

I flat out disagree with any who somehow believe the Jesus was a social conservative and that He taught that wealth is a sign of God's favor or disfavor.

I see nothing in His words that even suggests that political conservatism is equal to godliness. Social conservatives tend to think of themselves as "optimists" in wordage that smacks of self-righteousness - the sort of prayerful pride portrayed by Jesus in Luke:

God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.

Speaking then in terms of what actually amounts to free-market religious capitalism, these supposed religious economic experts equate conservatism to a willingness to work; that a willingness to work is more naturally present in the socially and politically conservative mind.

A liberal mind, in this regard, must be lazy - but not too lazy to be working hard to get something for nothing. The whole point then suggests strongly that productivity as a spiritual test has to do with the self-proclaimed attribute of industriousness and self-reliance driven by political philosophy.

Apparently one must not be able to be industrious, self-reliant or contribute to the overall national well-being if one has liberal thoughts.

In that regard, I ask about the greatest evangelical conservative self-publicizers who have enriched themselves by merely talking about work, industry, and the spiritual efficacy of hard work. They have enriched themselves through talk and promises, all the time waiting for someone else to send them money … 

Espousing the religious free-market system, political evangelical talking points emphasize the primacy of people needing to take personal initiative and work towards achieving self-support and self-reliance.

Good ideas, but not particularly applicable when explained by the self-righteous as  necessary in a society that blindly worships and believes the American economy is actually based on universal free-market opportunity, participation and competition.

This admirable view also only makes conservative sense if one believes in an imaginary cookie-cut world where each and every soul is identical in ability, potential and circumstance.

That such a world does not exist seems to mean little to folks bent on self-serving justifications for defending themselves against those of us who would criticize their judgmental minds and question their degree of genuine compassion.

Having equated liberalism as giving away the economic farm to those who are lazy and refuse to contribute, many who deem themselves social conservatives have accepted the liberal straw man spawned out of talk show and talking-points propaganda.

Lazy refusers-to-contribute come in all sorts of social attitude packages. 

However, in my professional experience as a social worker in the public assistance system, the more outspoken among the lazy are those who describe themselves as “conservative” and  who blindly insist that they would work if immigrants, other minorities or the crooked poor had not stolen their jobs.

Someone has certainly made available to these souls an assumption that constitutes  justifiable vindication of their own laziness.

Many political and social conservatives have run afoul of Christian teachings and historical practices of honest, love-based charity that intends in its acts practices of love, compassion and generosity.  Is it because the conservative idea of charity seems to limit itself to determining just who might qualify as the "worthy poor."

Those are the poor defined by publicity-minded social conservatives as those toward whom measured and tight-fisted conservative charity will bring the greatest public rewards to the givers, not the receivers … those charity cases that will drive up production, prices and CEO bonuses.

Such is the precise hypocrisy described in the Sermon - acting publicly to be seen by others as righteous.

When a conservative quotes the old proverb

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day — teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime,”

the twist to this is that all who do not know how to fish, have insufficient resources to fish, or do not live near a fishing hole may be given –through genuine conservative morality - two loaves and seven fishes; and that's all.

A conservative’s duty to charity has been met.

“We told you how to fish and it isn't our problem if you have no boat, don't know how to build one and have to go fishing from your wheel chair. Now show some initiative!”

According to conservative propagandists, liberal ideology reveals in its thinking a version of government that is overly generous and that exercises far too much compassion on behalf of it's citizens.

These propagandists insist that government can actually and with confidence hand off the compassion obligation to everyone else. A nation of compassionate conservative citizens will take care of our own poor “privately” through altruistic compassion – the very attribute of liberal social justice that they themselves seem to oppose.

There aren't enough compassionate conservatives among us who have demonstrated the validity of this particular notion.

Free-market capitalism by definition is opposed to such a notion since aggressive competitiveness underlies any ability of the market to provide affordable whatevers to the populace.

An economic bottom-line theology would never permit giving away all one has - as Jesus suggested - to help the poor without a consideration for turning a profit; perhaps even getting a receipt for the willing and faith-based donation as proof to God of one’s goodness.

If among social conservatives there is such a massive compassion, why would we ever  encounter a single mother with a food assistance card in the grocery store?

If her full time minimum-wage job won't pay living expenses and feed her children at the same time, what would an ideal generous and altruistic social conservative do about that?

What happens most of the time is an almost whispered declaration that she somehow deserves her lot because economic and religious free-market politics says God expects her to succeed to self-reliant mode all on her own faith and initiative.

If a conservative wants to teach someone to fish, rather than give away a fish - which apparently is so repulsive - what harm would there be in some conservative evangelical hero stepping up to the plate  and hiring that single mother who is willing to work, but pay her twice the minimum wage as long as she works hard?

Not practical?

Couldn't do that for everybody?

Then why make public insistence in the holiness of godly conservative free-market hypocrisy that such is possible and that generous citizens will do so?

I may be wrong, but I doubt that the Living God and Christ Jesus would proudly pat the self-interested purveyors of social and political stinginess on their tiny little minds and say,

“Well done thou good and faithful servant.”