30 posts tagged “politics”

Assemblyman Mike Duvall on live mic talking about spanking, having sex with several lobbyists, and avoiding the media. Where exactly do fornicators fit in the whole family values scheme, again?

Oh yeah, it must be all of those gay marriages that make him fornicate and devalue his own marriage.

"If you think that it's somehow unhealthy [for your children to hear] the president say 'work hard and stay in school,' you're stupid."

Moment of clarity brought to you by John Harwood.

The REAL reason Texas parents "object" to having their children listen to the President's speech?

I've been pondering the differences between myself and most of my family (who are Republicans). Heck, even some of my friends are Republicans. One of them faithfully sends me little nuggets on Republicanism all the time (no, I'm not talking about religious or apolitical spam—you know who you are, so please stop sending those).

For instance, I got this the other day:

(This was billed as a quote from Marcia Segelstein.)

I have long thought that one of the striking differences between liberals and conservatives is this: Liberals believe conservatives are evil, while conservatives believe liberals are wrong.  Stein recounts something his friend Marlene told him, which makes the point.  "[S]omeone I've known for 27 or 28 years actually said to me, 'Marlene, I know you've worked with the mentally ill, so I know you care about people. But how can you be a good person and a conservative?'"

A) Let me just say that I've thought that last part often (about being a good person and a conservative).

B) Um, have we all been asleep the past almost decade while the Bush Administration ran roughshod all over our civil liberties? I'm talking about when engaging in political dissent was the equivalent of being unpatriotic. I'm talking about when Fox News and all it's outlets basically said that disagreeing with the President during a time of war should be considered treason. Anyone? Do you recall that at ALL?

C) I don't know what to do about how I feel when it comes to politics.
It is so important to me, and I am such a compassionate person who pays attention to current events that I cannot understand when people are not outraged by:

• losing their civil liberties (Patriot Act and all its revisions)
• wire-tapping American citizens
• children not having health care
• women losing control over their own, private health decisions
• blatant racism, sexism, and homo-phobia

So yeah, I don't understand the appeal of conservatism.

I remember being cornered at work (two lay-offs ago) by a RABID religious right nut job. I blogged about it, so refer to this entry for specifics and actual quotes.

He saw some of my political wall hangings and asked if I would vote for Obama. I said I would. He said that he wouldn't because he didn't want his tax dollars going for abortions. ... Um .... yeah. He was banging on about how welfare queens with 15 kids should just learn to keep their legs shut. (Wow ... seems kind of hateful to me.) I tried very calmly reasoning with him, but it didn't work. There was no understanding there.

I expect that from religious nuts. I really do. It's hard to use logic when one is a zealot. What I have a difficult time with is people whom I love and adore not listening to logic. How can you be like that? I simply do not understand.

So ... for now, I guess I'll remain discombobulated. (Again, please stop sending chain email spam to me. I really hate it.)

I have never been a fan of Glenn Beck ... mainly because  he's a hate-mongering, conspiracy-theorizing, wing nutter of Teh Far Rights.

Lately, advertisers have been calling Fox to have them pull their adds during the Glenn Beck show (right after he called President Obama a racist). I think if you advertise with the crazies ... and you don't want to be associated with THAT kind of crazy, it's clearly a quantifiable line. (Sure we'll go with Hannity, nutball that he is, but that Glenn Beck is to insane for our ad dollars.)

So ol' Glenn has been begging and pleading for people to watch his show, call their friends to watch, and tape it because it's too much CRAZY to absorb in an hour or so.

Now he's gone off the far-right deep end and he's frothing and slobbering and ranting in front of a chalk board that is conspiracy DELUXE! What a moe-ron!

Seriously ... it's time to put the chalk down, man. Just step away from the chalk ...

My favorite bit is when he's frothing on about the kinds of advisors who surround the President. Yet, I don't recall him being concerned at how close the House of Saud was to either Bush president ... (I guess it's ok because they are sort of capitalists and in the awl bidness and what not.)

Teh_crazy

I don't take glee in the fact that South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford got caught being an adulterer. I could care less about who he sleeps with. What strikes me as laughable is the fact that Republicans want to impeach for adultery. Wouldn't that decimate their own ranks?

What Sanford should be impeached for,  however, is his blatant misuse of state funds for personal and political travel. That is worthy of impeachment, not where he may or may not have placed his very married penis.

Sandford and Penis

I can understand why so many people are having difficulty understanding the term "public option" because there are a lot of liars and distorters out there.

SO ... in plain English, here's what the "public option" is all about:

If you want to stay in a traditional insurance program that excludes people using the phrase "pre-existing condition" and only makes the CxOs of insurance companies ridiculously wealthy (by not letting sick people get insurance), then you keep the insurance you have.

IF YOU DO NOT ... your OPTION is to go with the government insurance.

That's it, people.

Other countries, such as Germany, Denmark, England (and on and on and on) determined that there is a conflict of interest between public health and for-profit insurance companies. So what did they do? They went with government-subsidies insurance, and EVERYONE has insurance.

It's just that simple, people. What are you afraid of? That brown-skinned people will be able to participate in health care? Just curious.

OK, people, let's look at the facts using the actual verbiage contained within the proposed healthcare bill and not the rantings of people who are getting PAID by private insurance lobyists.

A guy has started a Facebook page about how the proposed plan would seriously compromise care for persons with disabilities. He specifically quoted Part 3, Subtitle D, so I READ all of that section.

*SIGHS*

Let me tell you what that section says (in plain English):

"You cannot enroll after the annual enrollment period (Jan. 1, 2011) [um, just like your insurance through work, IF you have it] UNLESS you / family member has been newly diagnosed with a qualifying condition."

SO ... just like PRIVATE insurance, there is an ANNUAL enrollment. If you, as a responsible adult or caregiver do not have the organizational capacity to enroll your child who needs insurance into this program by the deadline ... then you have failed (not the program). Oh, and UNLIKE private insurance, you CAN enroll past the deadline IF you have a NEW diagnosis. (Private insurance does not give you that courtesy. In fact, private insurance would DROP your disabled child because disabilities are typically PRE-EXISTING.

Just so you can read it yourself (and not rely on someone else to interpret the facts for you, here is the actual text of the specific section (I downloaded the PDF version of the bill; you should, too):

PART 3—TREATMENT OF SPECIAL NEEDS PLANS
14 SEC. 1176. LIMITATION ON ENROLLMENT OUTSIDE OPEN
15 ENROLLMENT PERIOD OF INDIVIDUALS INTO
16 CHRONIC CARE SPECIALIZED MA PLANS FOR
17 SPECIAL NEEDS INDIVIDUALS.
18 Section 1859(f)(4) of the Social Security Act (42
19 U.S.C. 1395w–28(f)(4)) is amended by adding at the end
20 the following new subparagraph:
21 ‘‘(C) The plan does not enroll an individual
22 on or after January 1, 2011, other than during
23 an annual, coordinated open enrollment period
24 or when at the time of the diagnosis of the dis25
ease or condition that qualifies the individual as

an individual described in subsection
2 (b)(6)(B)(iii).’’.

SEC. 1177. EXTENSION OF AUTHORITY OF SPECIAL NEEDS
4 PLANS TO RESTRICT ENROLLMENT.
5 (a) IN GENERAL.—Section 1859(f)(1) of the Social
6 Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395w–28(f)(1)) is amended by
7 striking ‘‘January 1, 2011’’ and inserting ‘‘January 1,
8 2013 (or January 1, 2016, in the case of a plan described
9 in section 1177(b)(1) of the America’s Affordable Health
10 Choices Act of 2009)’’.
11 (b) GRANDFATHERING OF CERTAIN PLANS.—
12 (1) PLANS DESCRIBED.—For purposes of sec13
tion 1859(f)(1) of the Social Security Act (42
14 U.S.C. 1395w–28(f)(1)), a plan described in this
15 paragraph is a plan that had a contract with a State
16 that had a State program to operate an integrated
17 Medicaid-Medicare program that had been approved
18 by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services as
19 of January 1, 2004.
20 (2) ANALYSIS; REPORT.—The Secretary of
21 Health and Human Services shall provide, through
22 a contract with an independent health services eval23
uation organization, for an analysis of the plans de24
scribed in paragraph (1) with regard to the impact
25 of such plans on cost, quality of care, patient satis-

faction, and other subjects as specified by the Sec2
retary. Not later than December 31, 2011, the Sec3
retary shall submit to Congress a report on such
4 analysis and shall include in such report such rec5
ommendations with regard to the treatment of such
6 plans as the Secretary deems appropriate.

Out of curiosity regarding whether or not the United States is a Christian nation and whether or not God is even in the founding documents, I have done some research today. I discovered the following facts by doing word searches on the text versions of these documents. The following documents have or no not have the various references to God and Christianity:

Declaration of Independence

God – 1 reference

Nature’s Creator – 1 reference

Christian – 0 references

Christianity – 0 references

Christendom - 0 references

Articles of Confederation

God – 0 references

Nature’s Creator – 0 references

Christian – 0 references

Christianity – 0 references

Christendom - 0 references

Constitution

God – 0 references

Nature’s Creator – 0 references

Christian – 0 references

Christianity – 0 references

Christendom - 0 references

Bill of Rights

God – 0 references

Nature’s Creator – 0 references

Christian – 0 references

Christianity – 0 references

Christendom - 0 references

The founding documents do not mention God as often as one might think. In fact, the only founding document to mention God is the Declaration of Independence, in the Preamble when Thomas Jefferson wrote “the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them” and then the second paragraph and:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights …”

Does this sound as if the Founders were setting up a Christian nation? No, and here’s why:

Article III of the Bill of Rights: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …”

The Founders did not create a Christian nation. I hate to disappoint you all with the truth, but there it is. What they DID do is ensure that you have a right to worship (or not) the way that YOU want, not the way the state wants.

So … ponder that for a while.

Judeo-Christian ethic … what does that even mean? Jewish-Christian ethics? I think if you ask members from either religion, they would agree that Jewish is NOT the same as Christian and vice versa (even the Jews for Jesus would have to acknowledge that fact). Some would say that Judeo-Christian is a tradition … “we come from the Judeo-Christian tradition!” they might exclaim.

Really? Both have been persecuted at the hands of the other goin’ on two thousand some odd years. Sounds more like the Punch and Judy tradition to me.

Why did the Founders deliberately omit religious references or setting up the United States as a Christian nation? Well, the MAIN reason was that citizens had come from countries where there was an established religion, and if you weren’t a member of that religion, persecution was your lot in life. The Founders did not want to set up one religion over the other. There were Baptists, Jews, Quakers, Catholics, Deists and a variety of other religions that the early citizenry followed.

Setting any one of those OVER the others would have been permission for the “established” religion to persecute the others. The Founding Fathers thought religious persecution was, frankly, a load of crap, and they didn’t want that crap in their new country. That seems pretty wise to me.

I have heard a lot of the right-wingers bangin’ on about how the United States was founded as a Christian country, and I know why they do that. It’s very politically expedient to align themselves with the ultra conservative Christians to get out the “grass roots” votes. But here’s the thing: It’s a falsity. (That’s a nice way of saying that it’s a big, fat lie.)

Most of the Founding fathers were not even Christians to begin with. They were Naturalists or Deists. They believed in A god, just not the Christian God or Trinity. Just wasn’t their cup o’ tea, as it were. Some of them were Christians, however. They just didn’t press their personal belief set onto all the rest of the United States citizenry, though. (I really appreciate that of them.)

To sum up: There is NO conspiracy to take God out of our history. None. Nope. Nada. Never happened. Consider this the opportunity to calm down and learn some history. And remember, whenever someone tells you something in a definitive fashion (such as “there is a WAR on Christmas!” always, ALWAYS check out the facts. Do some research. Google is your friend. And call them on it when they are wrong.