I know I’m probably a douchebag for taking pleasure in seeing Utah’s U.S. Senators make fools of themselves. No, I’m not talking about Orrin Hatch’s singer/song-writer career. I refer to the junior senator from Utah, Mike Lee. Who? Yeah…that’s what I thought.

Mike Lee ousted incumbent Bob Bennett in the 2010 Tea Party wave that washed over Utah (and much of the country). A “Constitutional lawyer,” he headed to Washington with pretty much a single message: stop spending money we don’t have and pass a Constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget. You see, Mike Lee believes that the federal government shouldn’t be allowed to spend on credit. In his opinion, if American families have to live within their means, then so should the government. Except…Lee doesn’t really believe that. Or, at least not when it’s his family we’re using as the standard bearer.

Yes, the same Mike Lee who insists the government live within its means and that the leeches of American society stop taking what’s not rightfully theirs recently was forced to disclose he sold his million dollar home in a short sale. Our distinguished Senator did not apparently properly plan for his significant drop in pay when he left private law practice to “serve the people,” and was forced to let his house go for a song. Although, it wasn’t Lee who suffered the loss; it was JP Morgan Chase that took the $400,000 hit. Lee walks away boo-hooing about his lost down payment, while the bank that took him at his word that he’d repay the loan takes the hit (please note the sarcasm and irony about the “poor” bank).

Lee, reluctantly speaking of the event, told the Salt Lake Tribune, “But you do what you have to do when income doesn’t match your outlays. You have to pare your outlays down.” Last time I checked, sticking someone else with a nearly half million dollar tab isn’t really “paring” things down. It isn’t the fact Lee and his family used a perfectly legal and sometimes unavoidable procedure to cancel their obligation. It’s that Lee regularly speaks out against living outside one’s means, planning for the future and being self-reliant. It’s that he looks down his nose at the people using food stamps, collecting welfare checks and relying on unemployment. It’s that he wants to restrict the federal government in such a way as to tie its hands behind its back, preventing it from reacting to ups and downs in the economy to offer relief to those who just need a way out…or a hold over until they can claw out on their own. Those are the things that piss me off about Lee’s hypocrisy.

And the next time he bitches about handouts and out-of-control spending, I hope someone at JP Morgan Chase picks up the phone and gives him a ring.

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Photo courtesy the reaction

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Once upon a time, there was a scholar named Faust. He was a professor and teacher, reasonably successful, intelligent, maybe even could be considered handsome, who lived in snug – but small – stone house in a little village in Germany. Over the years, Herr Professor Faust grew more and more dissatisfied with his life, his tiny house, his increasingly shabby clothing and frayed cuffs. He longed for power and riches. One cold, dark and stormy night, as the professor sat by his fireplace dreaming of wealth, a mysterious cloaked stranger pounded on the door. Faust opened his door a tiny crack, and the cloaked stranger pushed his way inside and stood, dripping on Herr Faust’s slate floor.

Herr Faust was understandably terrified; the stranger loomed over him, and it seemed to Herr Faust that his eyes glowed red inside the black hole of his hooded cloak. Nevertheless, even though he was terrified, Herr Faust, ever the gentleman and scholar, shook off his terror and offered the hooded stranger a seat at his fire and a cup of hot broth.

The stranger accepted and seated himself in the worn and shabby chair across the hearth from Herr Faust. He pulled back his dripping hood to reveal a darkly handsome face, sculpted with high cheekbones and deeply set, burning dark eyes framed by black curling hair. The stranger was richly dressed in velvet and furs, and wearing soft leather boots. Around his neck, he wore an intricately worked and jeweled gold chain and a heavy ring on the first finger of his left hand, set with a glowing faceted ruby so large that it looked, noted the bemused Herr Faust, to be the size of a hen’s egg. The stranger introduced himself as Mephistopheles, a fellow scholar and traveler of the realms of man.

Herr Faust and Mephistopheles chatted amiably for a few moments as the stranger finished his broth. Finally, Mephistopheles looked directly into Faust’s eyes. Faust found himself unable to look away as the stranger’s eyes began to glow with an eerie red light. In a deep voice, Mephistopheles began to speak. He spoke to Herr Faust of his life, how small, how squalid it was. He spoke to Herr Faust of his unappreciative students and the townspeople who laughed at him behind his back and scorned him as a puffed up pretender who had nothing worth having. He told Herr Faust the he deserved so much more. As he listened to the dark stranger’s voice, Herr Faust grew more and more angry at those who thought so little of him, and in his heart grew a desire for a means to exact his revenge on those who had wronged him.

No one knows just exactly how long the dark stranger continued to speak in his deep voice or the words he used, as the coal fire in the hearth slowly burned down to embers and Herr Faust continued to listen. Finally, the dark stranger ceased speaking. The silence deepened, punctuated only by the occasional crackle of the dying fire and the sound of rain hitting the shuttered windows. Herr Faust, still in the grip of the anger and desire for revenge that was now blooming like a dark, thorny rose in his heart, found himself staring directly into the stranger’s hypnotic eyes, unable to do anything but feel the power of the stranger’s gaze.

Finally, the dark stranger spoke again, and wonder of wonders, he offered Herr Faust exactly what he had been dreaming of for years: unlimited wealth and power. Faust had only a moment of doubt before he accepted the dark stranger’s offer – even before he asked the price. A gleam of satisfaction sparked in the dark eyes of Mephistopheles as he assured Herr Faust that the price he would have to pay would be a tiny one, a miniscule item, a trifle that Herr Faust would never miss: his soul.

Again, Herr Faust had a momentary pang of doubt, but, mesmerized by the flashing gleam from the giant ruby on the finger of his visitor, he accepted the offer. The stranger reached into the leather bag at his feet and pulled out a rolled parchment, a capped bottle of ink and a quill pen. The stranger stood. Herr Faust stood as well, and they walked together a few steps across the small room to the cluttered desk in what passed as Herr Faust’s “library,” a single shelf crammed with books and papers.

With an impatient arm, Mephistopheles swept the clutter to the floor, leaving only a single candlestick containing a stub of a candle. Mephistopheles made a single careless gesture and a flame sparked to life. Herr Faust’s eyes grew round in astonishment and he opened his mouth to speak… when in a series of flowing motions, the stranger opened the rolled parchment, smoothed it with his hand, uncapped the ink bottle, dipped the quill pen into the bloodred ink and handed it to Herr Faust. The stranger gestured to the parchment, and Herr Faust dazedly signed his name at the bottom. The stranger muttered a few words in a language Faust did not understand, and he saw the letters of his name glow with a red light which then faded into the parchment. A curl of smoke rose into the air, and Faust imagined that he caught the whiff of brimstone.

With a small sound of satisfaction, Mephistopheles rolled up the parchment and replaced it in his leather bag. He nodded once at Herr Faust, and with a wink, pulled up the hood on his cloak, turned to the door and was gone before Herr Faust could say a single word of thanks or goodbye.

In the years following that fateful night, Herr Faust rose in the world. He became a very wealthy and powerful man, respected far and wide in the village and the cities of Germany. He dressed in furs and jewels, ate delicious food and slept in a featherbed with silk sheets. His house was large and beautiful, filled with intricately carved furniture made of rare woods, and he ate on silver plates and drank from crystal goblets. Fountains played in the beautiful gardens behind the high walls of his house, which the poor could only admire from outside the ornate wrought iron gates. He forgot about that cold winter night when the stranger came to visit.

After many years, Herr Faust found himself growing old and increasingly frail. He began to imagine that he saw movement in the shadowy corners of his large house and heard footsteps in the middle of the night. He grew more and more afraid and hid himself behind the locked and bolted doors of his mansion. He began to obsess over his memories of the dark stranger with his parchment and quill pen.

Finally, on another dark and stormy night, as the aged, frail and stooped Herr Faust sat wrapped in his velvet robe and slippers by his fireplace, a mysterious cloaked stranger pounded on the door. In a quavering voice, Herr Faust told whoever was there to go away and not come back. The pounding came again, louder, and then in a burst of cold wind and rain, the door burst open and slammed against the wall. Once again, the cloaked stranger pushed his way inside and stood, dripping on Herr Faust’s now marble floor.

Herr Faust trembled in fear as the stranger pulled back the hood of his cloak to reveal the same gauntly handsome face, curling black hair and gleaming dark eyes of Mephistopheles. In his gloved hand, he held the rolled up parchment bearing Herr Faust’s signature.

“It is time,” he said.

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I’d like to ask these cops in Florida who arrested Marissa Alexander, the prosecutor who charged abuse victim Marissa Alexander, the judge who denied Marissa Alexander the right to use “Stand Your Ground” as a defense, the jury of three men and three women who convicted Marissa Alexander of aggravated assault after 12 minutes of deliberation, the judge who sentenced Marissa Alexander to 20 years in prison for assaulting a wall, and the judge who recently denied abuse victim Marissa Alexander a new trial, if they know what it’s like to dodge and duck and flee from an abusive male partner, if they know what it’s like to be frozen in place for fear the slightest movement will result in a fist to your face, if they have any clue what an abused woman goes through when she stays, and the heightened terror of a much worse scenario if she tries to leave. It’s doubtful that they know what it’s like to have to decide if the risk of calling for help is worth the backlash from the abuser that’s inevitable after the cops leave.

Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law is an abomination – especially since it serves as a defense for killers like George Zimmerman and fails to protect abused women like Marissa Alexander.  The law is simple:  If you fear for your life or safety, you have the absolute right to shoot your attacker in self-defense. The law defends your right to self-protection, and there’s no duty to retreat.  ”A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force.”  You don’t have to try to escape, or flee, shoot a warning shot into a ceiling, or do anything other than stand your ground, take aim, and fire.

Anyone reading the story of George Zimmerman – which would be most people on the planet – know that Zimmerman, who is currently relying on the “Stand Your Ground” law as a defense, not only had no reason to “stand his ground,” he actively pursued young Trayvon Martin before becoming embroiled in an altercation that left 17-year-old, unarmed Martin dead on the ground.  But for Marissa Alexander – the petite Florida woman who for years was the victim of domestic violence at the hands of her husband, Rico Gray, a woman who relied on the “Stand Your Ground” law and discharged a weapon in his vicinity, a woman who has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for defending herself against a serial abuser – the “Stand Your Ground” law became the “Shut Up and Take It” law.  Marissa Alexander hurt no one, killed no one; this terrified woman simply discharged a weapon into the wall to deter her enraged husband, and her husband – the abuser – called the police and made the claim that she fired a gun at him and his sons.  Despite his history of abuse, he was believed, and she, apparently, was not.  Marissa Alexander was arrested, charged, and ultimately convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon with no intent to harm.  She was sentenced to 20 years under Florida law; the judge recently denied her a new trial.

Speculation and a hypothetical seem to have driven this conviction.  The jury and the judge agreed that Alexander reacted in anger and not in fear, and prosecutor Corey pressed the possibility that the bullet Alexander fired as a warning shot could have hit the two children present. But since when are people convicted of what could have happened?  If a drunk driver kills three people in a car crash, he or she is convicted for killing those three people, not the hundred people he could have killed. And who’s to judge the mindset of Marissa Alexander when she fired those shots?  No one was killed.  No one was even harmed.  And yet, simply the potential for harm to the children drove an unjust conviction against a woman who is, frankly, a victim.

I believe Marissa Alexander is being treated differently from George Zimmerman, is being persecuted and prosecuted and prevented from relying on Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, because – in the minds of the prosecutor and the judge and the jury and the cops –  she returned to her abuser, husband Rico Gray, after a previous incident of domestic violence at his hands that put her in the hospital. She’s being punished because, in 2009, the court granted her a restraining order against Gray, but she – upon learning she was pregnant – asked the court to amend the protection order to allow contact. The law helped her once, but she evidently only gets one bite at the apple.  It’s a classic case of domestic violence, and it’s a classic case of a judgmental society that doesn’t understand the pattern of domestic violence – a pattern which includes women returning to their abusers. The expert on battered women who testified at her trial failed to convince the unsympathetic court of this very real phenomenon, battered women syndrome.

A man who has committed multiple acts of domestic violence, a man who smugly said, “I got five baby mamas and I put my hand on every last one of them except one. The way I was with women, they was like they had to walk on eggshells around me. You know they never knew what I was thinking or what I might do. Hit them, push them,” is not a credible source for cops or a judge to rely on, and is hardly a victim.  Self-defense against a man who admitted to “four or five” episodes of domestic violence prior to the date that his wife fought back with a loaded gun, which she shot at an inanimate object, is exactly what the “Stand Your Ground” law should be designed for.  It should not be designed to protect a predatory vigilante like George Zimmerman and leave an abuse victim like Marissa Alexander twisting in the wind.

No, Marissa Alexander isn’t being punished for discharging a gun into plaster – she’s being punished because of the much-repeated myth that “she must like it or she wouldn’t have gone back.”  She’s being punished by those with the mindset that returning to her abuser somehow makes it her fault.  She’s being punished by those who have, clearly, never been embroiled in the complicated relationship between an abuse victim and her abuser.  She’s being held responsible for the behavior of her abuser:  After all, according to the jury, it was her responsibility to leave when she had the chance (despite the fact that she didn’t leave because she’d forgotten her keys in the house).  Her actions in returning to the house, and not his in being a threatening presence, were what the jury focused on.

Marissa Alexander’s husband, Rico Gray, bragged about being an abuser; his machismo apparently found a welcome and sympathetic audience in the Florida cops who arrested Marissa Alexander and the jury and the judge adjudicating her case.

I wish she’d known then what she knows now, that shooting at a ceiling instead of her husband – an unapologetic menace to society – would have resulted in no defense under the “Stand Your Ground” law and a 20-year prison sentence.  If she were going to face prison anyway, she may as well have spared the wall the bullet and put it right where it belonged.

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Much has been written and said about this issue over the last few days, so I will be brief on the background. In some of the reporting, the implications of what Mitt Romney did almost fifty years ago have been sometimes rationalized as a “youthful indiscretion.” According to five of his former classmates, when Mr. Romney was an eighteen year old senior at Cranbrook, a prestigious prep school, he didn’t like the looks of fellow classmate John Lauber. Specifically, he didn’t like the length of Lauber’s bleach-blonde hair and was reportedly indignant about Lauber’s lack of both decorum and sense of conformity. Lauber was a relatively new student at the school, and was soft-spoken and thought to be gay. Ultimately, Romney and his friends grabbed him, held him down against his will and chopped off his hair with a pair of scissors. Romney was apparently the ringleader of the mission and was the one who did the cutting. The Washington Post described the scene as follows:

“They came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.”

As it turns out, John Lauber was gay. What’s not clear is if Romney and friends did what they did because they were aware of it. In some ways, it’s immaterial.

In a radio interview after the story broke, Romney actually chuckled as he denied remembering the incident as if the “hijinx,” as he has described it, sounded like fun and he was sorry he didn’t remember it. Still chuckling, he apologized if the story was true because it “may have gone too far.” If I’m not mistaken, the appropriate human response to discovering that you were an exceptionally cruel bastard in high school who tortured some gay kid should be horror, or at the very least, remorse. That seems to be the response of his former classmates when recalling the incident (which they state they will not forget), anyway. It is of course also curious how five of his classmates can remember the incident with such clarity, and he cannot even recall it. Although that is surely incredible, it’s not really the issue. It may be just a matter of being a politician to deny it, but it is clearly a matter of character to have done it at all.

Some have said that one should not be held accountable for a bad decision that took place so long ago. After all, it’s true enough that many of us made stupid mistakes when we were in high school. But there’s a huge difference between cheating on a test or stealing your parents’ car for the night, and purposefully being the cause of another’s misery. And, not to bring this up again, but seriously, who puts a beloved family pet on the roof of the car (in a kennel) when going on a long trip? And there are more stories of Romney’s “pranks,” like harassing other effeminate male students and leading a blind teacher into a wall. It’s ironic that the Romney campaign’s objective was to humanize him by recounting some fun tales of when he was apparently young and engaging. Needless to say, their plan has failed miserably. Instead of showing a more human and fun side of Romney, the stories that did eventually come out showed us a Mitt Romney who seems to be devoid of the capability to feel empathy or compassion for another, be it a human or a dog. If you consider this when examining his apparent absence of convictions and the verbal gaffes that more often than not are insensitive to less fortunate folks, it starts to add up.

According to many developmental psychologists, personality and character are pretty well formed by the time one is in Kindergarten, never mind a senior in high school. The more we get to know Mitt Romney, I suspect the clearer it will become that he remains just a spoiled rich kid with a huge sense of entitlement and little concern for anyone but himself.

Here’s a fun list of 100 dull and dim things that most conservatives think are true, despite any and all evidence to the contrary that they are lies:

1. The Earth is only 6,000 years old.
2. Humans, at one time, co-existed (and perhaps rode) dinosaurs.
3. God created the Universe in six days. Then he took a day off.
4. God is a Male, meaning God has male parts, although nobody really knows why God would need male parts.
5. Humans were created looking just like we do now.
6. Black people bear the Mark of Cain. That’s how we know they’re bad.
7. Black people are genetically inferior, although it’s impolite to say so when they can hear you.
8. Every worthwhile advance in humanity was created by Western Europeans.
9. Gays want to teach our kids how to be gay.
10. Gays in the military will be too busy trying to bother straight service people to kill the brown people they are ordered to kill.
11. Straight people in the military will be so busy trying to avoid being bothered by the Gays that they won’t be able to kill the brown people we order them to kill.
12. Women who use birth control are immoral.
13. Family planning is a sin.
14. Stem cell research is a sin.
15. “Self-abuse” is a sin.
16. Viagra should be covered by health insurance, birth control, no!
17. Women should have to get an OK from their doctor and their man before getting birth control.
18. Men do not have to prove they actually have erectile dysfunction, even though viagra can kill them.
19. God hates Gays.
20. Even though Jesus never said word one about the Gay, it is a sin because some guy who never even met Jesus said it is.
21. Christian charity is all well and good, but taxes are evil.
22. If you fire a public servant, you save tax money and the person who had the job disappears in a puff of smoke and doesn’t add to the jobless numbers.
23. Public schools should teach religion.
24. Religious schools do not have to teach social justice.
25. Social Justice is code word for Socialism.
26. Doing anything for anyone where they don’t have to pay for it is Socialism.
27. People who get themselves into trouble can get themselves out of it.
28. Our tax money should not be spent on other peoples’ needs.
29. If we give all our money to billionaires, we will be rich some day, too!
30. Rush Limbaugh cares about me as a person.
31. Rich people have our best interests at heart.
32. It’s the Unions’ fault that corporations are forced to outsource jobs and close factories.
33. It’s the Unions’ fault that police, firemen, teachers and other public servants are so grossly overpaid for risking their lives and teaching our children.
34. It’s the Unions’ fault that rich people don’t get richer faster, ensuring it will take longer for you to get some of that good “trickle down” that we just know is coming — someday.
35. The oil companies have our best interests at heart.
36. Saving energy is for wussies.
37. Recycling is for wussies.
38. Global warming is a liberal conspiracy to bankrupt industries.
39. The fact that it snowed in March means global warming is a myth.
40. If it gets up to 112 degrees in New York in August, hey! It’s SUMMER, dummy!
41. When bad things happen to cities that are populated by gays and blacks, it’s God’s judgement.
42. When tornadoes and earthquakes happen in red states, well, these things happen.
43. Liberals are responsible for most hate crimes.
44. There is no such thing as a hate crime.
45. The media is hiding all the black on white crime.
46. The media is overdoing all the white on black crime.
47. If a right winger goes nuts and kills his family with an AK-47, that doesn’t mean we have a problem with easy access to guns.
48. If a right winger wanted to kill his family and didn’t have a gun, he’d use a hammer. Or a knife. Or ropes. Or hot wax. Or something else.
49. President Obama wants to take our guns.
50. Even though President Obama has made no moves whatsoever to take our guns, that’s just because he’s waiting to be re-elected.
51. President Obama is from Kenya.
52. President Obama is from Kenya, but somehow his grandparents (or somebody) phonied up the Honolulu newspapers with birth announcements.
53. President Obama is a Muslim.
54. President Obama is a Muslim who went to a Christian Church for 20 years, but just because that’s where he learned to hate white people.
55. Michelle Obama wants to take over menu planning in your house.
56. Michelle Obama stuffs herself with French fries while insisting your kids eat carrot sticks.
57. Michelle Obama is fat.
58. Women have no business telling men what women can do with their own bodies.
59. If men want to get vasectomies, that’s their business.
60. If a woman gets pregnant, it’s her problem.
61. We’re pro life until the baby is born, then he’s on his own.
62. Medicare would be better if it were a voucher system.
63. Social Security would be better if it were privatized and based on the stock market.
64. If you don’t save enough for your retirement, then die.
65. If you can’t afford decent health insurance, you deserve to die.
66. Family values are sacrosanct.
67. Gay marriage will ruin the sanctity of marriage.
68. Divorce should be legal and has no effect on the sanctity of marriage.
69. Gay people should not adopt children.
70. Single parents are an abomination.
71. Better a single parent household than being raised by two gay people.
72. Trickle down economics is the only sensible economic system.
73. George Bush had the balls to act without dithering, not like Obama, waiting for a few months before killing Osama bin Laden.
74. Ronald Reagan never raised taxes.
75. Ronald Reagan was the best president ever.
76. George W. Bush stopped being responsible for the mess he made at 12 noon on January 20, 2009.
77. Barack Obama is responsible for the economy’s sad shape because he isn’t cleaning up Bush’s mess fast enough.
78. If Barack Obama reminds us of the state of the economy when he took over, he’s just Blaming Bush.
79. It’s OK to say that Bill Clinton didn’t leave Bush a surplus, even though he did.
80. It’s OK if a Republican does it.
81. If a Democrat does it, we’re outraged.
82. If a Republican has a sex scandal, we are understanding and forgiving.
83. If a Republican has an illness or dies, Democrats are hate filled for mocking that person.
84. If a Democrat has a sex scandal, we’re within our rights to remind you about it at inappropriate times.
85. If a Democrat gets sick or dies, we are within our rights to talk about what a bastard he was.
86. It’s OK if we “suggest” that “someone” should do “something” to Obama.
87. If someone actually DOES something to Obama, it won’t be our fault.
88. If we target a congressman or congresswoman with crosshairs, that’s just political speech.
89. if some nut shoots one of those congresswomen, it’s not our fault.
90. If we get fired for saying something outrageous, hateful, racist or homophobic, it’s a violation of our first amendment rights.
91. If a liberal gets fired for saying something we don’t like, good!
92. If we say something racist and you point it out as racist, then YOU are the racist.
93. If you think we are holding racist signs just because they say bad things about black people, YOU are the racist.
94. If we say anything against President Obama, you will say it’s racist.
95. If we say something racist about President Obama, that’s our first amendment right and not racism.
96. President Obama is a Marxist.
97. President Obama is a Communist.
98. President Obama is a Socialist.
99. President Obama is a Fascist.
100. President Obama is the antichrist.

I’ve been trying to put my finger on exactly why I dislike Mitt Romney for several months. Dislike might even be too strong a word. He seems like a perfectly nice robotic caricature of a rich dude with a nice coif and a socially awkward charm. I personally don’t care that he’s Mormon because, to me, all religion is creepy. But now I think I’ve figured it out. I now know what bugs me about the guy. It’s pretty simple actually. He’s an enormous phony.

Obvious, I know. I should’ve come to this conclusion a while ago. Sometimes when it comes to politics, I look past what is most evident in search of some elusive, deeper meaning. But that won’t work with Mitt. He’s just not that complex.

Mitt’s phoniness is staggering in its size, scope, and scale. I don’t think there is a single issue he wouldn’t be willing to compromise his true personal beliefs on if it meant getting elected. The truly astounding thing about his phoniness is it’s a matter of public record. It’s out there. It’s in print, on TV, on social media – it’s everywhere. Here are some of Mitt’s greatest hypocrisy hits:

On Health Care

Then – He signs RomneyCare into law in Massachusetts

Now – ObamaCare (the same thing) is EVIL!!!!!!!!!

On The Right to Choose

Then – In Massachusetts, he chased after the endorsement of Planned Parenthood like a lovesick puppy

Now – Planned Parenthood is EVIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On The Auto Bailout

A Few Minutes Ago – He swore he would have hung Detroit out to dry

Now – The auto bailout was his idea

On Gay Rights

Then – As a senate candidate in Massachusetts, he pledged to run to the left of Ted Kennedy. Ted Kennedy!

Now – Rainbow flags and Gay Staffers need not apply

On Stem Cell Research

Then – He was all for it.

Now – Not so much. EVIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shall I go on? I could. I really, really could. Maybe I should turn his phoniness into a weekly blog. Thoughts?

Can someone tell me when it became vogue in the GOP to be an utter, complete, total, lily-livered, namby-pamby wimp? And no, I’m not talking about “manliness;” I’m talking about moral character, of which Mitt Romney has zero, zilch, and zip.

Okay, look, I get it. I get what it takes to become a GOP nominee for president in this new Republican era where social engineering outweighs the need for jobs and economic stability, where defeating President Obama, and belittling or denying his accomplishments, is front and center. One must never, ever trip over one’s tongue and accidentally say a kind word about President Obama. One must be true to the party line, that President Obama is a socialist communist Muslim Marxist Jeremiah-Wright-loving terrorist-embracing Kenyan who will bring ruin to the country and lead us right into a society where FEMA comes for our guns and the IRS searches our homes for people we forgot to claim on the census, where the USDA steals our childrens’ peanut butter sandwiches out of lunch boxes and terrorists are housed at Great America. The right-wingers know that sinister President Obama is simply biding his time, waiting for his second term, to unleash the demons of drive-through abortion clinics, 99% taxes on millionaires, government-run banks and the Robin Hood mentality of taking all the rich peoples’ money and throwing it out of car windows on the south side of Chicago. Gold is being buried in back yards in the richest parts of our nation as we speak.

Yeah, yeah, I get it.

The teabaggers ushered in the social engineering era; what I’m trying to figure out is who ushered in the era where wimpy moral character rules? The “presumed” or “assumed” or “presumptive” GOP candidate, Mitt Romney, has the wimpy moral character thing on lock. Nobody can touch it; it’s the one (and only) thing he’s standing firm on in this 2012 election cycle. Nobody will make him bend toward strength.

Romney’s gay foreign policy spokesman, Ric Grennell, was a casualty of Romney’s wimp factor. Grennell – who was a former spokesman for neo-con John Bolton, for Pete’s sake – was forced to resign after pressure from social conservatives against Grennell and his homo-cooties, and, in particular, right-wing homophobe Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association.   And yet, even in right-wing circles, there seems to be a universal cringe factor over Romney’s failure to stand for, well, anything. Following Grennell’s resignation, Fischer laid down a scathing attack on Romney for taking his marching orders from a “yokel”: “If Mitt Romney can be pushed around, intimidated, coerced, co-opted by a conservative radio talk show host in Middle America, then how is he going to stand up to the Chinese? How is he going to stand up to Putin? How is he going to stand up to North Korea if he can be pushed around by a yokel like me? I don’t think Romney is realizing the doubts that this begins to raise about his leadership.”

It seems pretty obvious to those who aren’t in the ABO (Anyone But Obama) camp: Where there’s no spine, there’s no leadership.

John McCain ran a putrid campaign in 2008 because he folded and allowed the dimwit from Alaska to drive its rhetoric. But when the rubber met the road, he couldn’t allow a woman at a town hall meeting to call President Obama an “Arab.” Senator McCain pushed back, rejecting the woman’s accusation and telling her that then-candidate Obama was a “decent, family man.” (Although McCain’s heart was in the right place, I think it’s worth mentioning that one can be a “decent, family man” and an Arab too.  But I digress.) Romney can’t even rise to that level, refusing to push back against some blithering idiot woman at one of his town hall events who claimed that President Obama should be tried for treason (a crime that’s punishable by death). Mentally recalling, I’m sure, the hisses and boos that John McCain received for defending President Obama in 2008, Romney chose instead to take the spineless route, ignoring the comment and moving on.

Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a “prostitute” and a “slut,” and all this man who wants to be president could say was, “I’ll just say this, which is, it’s not the language I would have used.”   (Atta boy, Mitt, you tell ‘em.)

Instead of commending President Obama for capturing and killing the world’s most notorious terrorist, Osama bin Laden, Romney laid a mocking, bitchy smack-down on Jimmy Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, a giving, decent man, and a Naval officer, retiring as a lieutenant (where’s your military uniform, Mitt?).

Look, when a gay-hater like Bryan Fishcher thinks you’re a wimp; when the sitelords of the creepy, racist, homophobic website MofoPolitics.com think you’re a wimp; when the Obama campaign scores political points against you with its bin Laden ad and forces your camp to turn itself inside out defending you – a presumed hawk – on foreign policy issues; when all you can say against child-diddler and draft dodging Ted Nugent’s lunatic rant against President Obama (after chasing him down for an endorsement) is, “Divisive language is offensive” – then, dude, you’re a Class A wimp.

Presidential material?

As Margaret Thatcher once said, “I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air.”

Ah-men, Sister.

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In some states, Evangelical Christians comprise more than 50% of the Republican electorate. In addition, the Republican electorate is, in 2012, almost exclusively right-wing in ideology. It is therefore accurate to say that generally, right-wing Christians make up the majority of Republican voters. The question is, “Is the term or the notion of a right-wing Christian an oxymoron, either literally or essentially?” Put in another way, is saying the term right-wing Christian tantamount to saying something like “gay Nascar?” Alright, alright, give me a break! Of course there are gay folks who enjoy and even participate in that predominantly red-neck, macho sport, but you get my point, right? Would it have been more accessible to have said, “Straight Judy Garland fan” (for those still scratching their heads, Judy Garland is a gay icon — I don’t get that either)?  To clarify, my point is this: the words right-wing and Christian are often mistakenly juxtaposed, for few things are more poorly matched or antithetical.

To be clear, I do not pretend to be a biblical scholar or a theologian, but I am more than passively acquainted with those all important words in red. In addition, I am a politico-phile and on occasion have a more than pedestrian command of the English language. So let’s just say this: At least I believe that I have an informed opinion on this rather touchy topic. You may agree or disagree… and you may have clarity of thought or be defensively deluded. That’s your business.

Let us review some facts (even though they will be dismissed by right-wingers as having a liberal bias). First, let’s see what an objective source says about the two terms we often hear together… mistakenly, in my opinion. According to Dictionary.com, “right-wing” means conservative, which in turn means: disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones and to limit change. As evidenced by their behavior of late (like the past 32 years, for instance), we can safely characterize right-wing as the latter definition. When considering Rick Santorum’s desire to restore the tradition of clubbing your woman and dragging her into your double-wide cave if she gets uppity or demands too many rights, this makes perfect sense. To further define right-wing in the context of today’s political environment, we might consider its antonym, liberal (a word, incidentally, that would nicely precede the word Christian), which means free from narrow prejudice and bigotry.  On the political continuum of communist to fascist, right-wing or conservative and liberal are indeed opposite each other.

According, again, to Dictionary.com, the word Christian means: of, pertaining to, or derived from Jesus Christ or his teachings.  Ah-ha! Therein lies the rub: Jesus’ teachings, including his words and actions, were incontrovertibly liberal. Sure, RWC’s will vehemently negate that fact, but I would argue that being a follower of Christ, one who is Christian in more than name, would likely entail the belief that the words in red do not lie.

So, what did Jesus teach and do? Again, I am no authority on Jesus, but what I do know is that it takes but a brief moment of studying the New Testament to discover that Jesus taught and demonstrated love, tolerance, compassion, charity, truth, generosity… and free universal healthcare . And he specifically engendered all these wonderful traits when addressing the least among us, or, those in need. Furthermore, he made it crystal clear that paying one’s fair share of taxes is essential for civil society (…render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s…) and didn’t consider taxation a form of state-sponsored theft as do more and more on the far right. Considering these things, it only follows that utilizing tax revenue to administer to the sick, elderly and poor (the least among us) is the Christian thing to do.

Jesus also taught that is it is essential to welcome foreigners into your country and home, and treat them with the utmost respect, generosity and kindness. Consider the plethora of mean-spirited and draconian anti-immigration measures that have been proposed by Republican governors (again, a majority of whom are Christian) in the last few years. Jesus healed the sick and fed the poor, yet the Republicans have traditionally opposed Medicare and Food Stamp programs that do just that, and have proposed to slash funding for such in the recent House GOP budget. Jesus preached equality among men and women, yet the right-wing has historically sought to suppress the rights of all who are not white males, and has of late launched a soft war on women’s rights to reproductive healthcare. Jesus taught peace, yet most right-wing Christians are militaristic hawks. He warned against worldly riches, yet the GOP seems to put the pursuit of mammon above much else.  And the list goes on…

Here’s where RWC’s implore that they give to charity and give to their churches that in turn administer to the poor and needy. They insist that Jesus meant for individuals, families and churches alone to ameliorate the suffering of those in need. The problem with that sentiment is, Jesus made no such distinction. It would seem that achieving the objective is what is important, not necessarily the means. And while it is admirable, worthwhile and necessary for individuals, families and churches to perform such functions, there is infinitely more need than there is capability from such sources. The government is the only entity with the ability to adequately address the existing need in this country. If taxes are OK, then what’s wrong with helping folks in need with the proceeds? Answer: Nothing.

This is the point in the debate when RWC’s call all liberals baby killers. That, of course, is a non sequitir and a ridiculous assertion to boot….and clearly for another post!   

For a more expansive view of this issue, you may want to visit JesusWas Not a Republican, in which, it should be said, I have more than just a cursory interest (see my bio).

Today, Mr. Schmalfeldt yields his column space to guest writer Lester Smelgerson, Vice President of Communications from the Greater Regional Organization of Uninformed Citizen Hotheads (G.R.O.U.C.H.)

Lester Smelgerson of the Greater Regional Organization of Uninformed Citizen Hotheads (Picture public domain from Library of Congress)

What in the gosh, darn hell is wrong with these snot-nosed college kids we got today?  Do they think everything’s gotta be handed to them on a silk pillow, tied in a pretty little pink ribbon and bow?

These ungrateful little bastiches should be happy they’re in college in the first place, not sitting around whining about who’s gonna pay for it.  If you were my kids, you wouldn’t have even gone to college, ya little turdbaskets!  You woulda come right to work in the shop, if we still had the shop, which we don’t cuz it got bought up by this company owned by some rich guy from Massachusetts and they sent all the jobs to god damned INDIA!

So, since you wouldn’t be able to get a job at the shop, you woulda marched your god damn worthless asses right down to the recruiters and signed up for the Army. Not the Marines, not the Navy, not the friggin’ Air Force, but the god damned American Army!

But now, you little bastiches sitting there in your stinky clothes cuz mommy ain’t there to wash ‘em for ya, yer all sittin’ there with yer hands out.  “We want the taxpayers to pay for our college loans,” you whine.  “We want the world handed to us on a pink little fluffy cloud with ponies and fairies prancing and tippy-toeing around it.”

Well, too god damn bad, you little bastiches!  Mitt Romney‘s got the right idea. If you got rich mommies and daddies, tell THEM to give ya the god damn money.  And if you ain’t got rich mommies and daddies, then you either work your way through college by selling newspapers or flower seeds door to door or whatever kids do to raise money these days, or you don’t GO to college.  God damn it all straight to hello kitty!  You kids with your nintendos and your walkmans and your cassette tapes and your jungle boogie rock and roll music, you think the world owes ya a friggin’ living. But the world don’t owe you a tiny pile of hot horse squat, ya god damn little bastiches!

Now, do like Mr. Romney said. Ask yer mommies and daddies if you can have some money. And if they say no, which I hope to God they do, then get your ass out of college and get it in the god damn Army! We gots a WAR to fight, ya ungrateful little bastiches. God, ya make me sick.

I hope Mr. Romney gets elected.  Maybe he can find out who it was that bought out the shop, closed it down and sent all our jobs to them godless Hindoos what they got over there in India. God damn it.

Mr. Schmalfeldt’s column will return in its regular spot during his next scheduled appearance.  Thank you for your indulgences.

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We hear a lot every election cycle (particularly the federal elections) about lousy voter turnout. In 2010 (a non-Presidential election), less than 40% of the voting-age population actually showed up or walked to the mailbox to cast a ballot. The 2008 Presidential election brought a higher turnout, but it was still less than 60%. For a nation hell-bent on “love it or leave it” patriotism, voter apathy among Americans seems rampant. And, on the surface reeks of hypocrisy.

But are Americans really apathetic when it comes to exercising the right our leaders are so willing to send young men and women to die to protect? Or, given the the influence of corporate money over career politicians, do we feel as though our voices simply don’t matter?

In Utah, Senator Orrin Hatch will battle for his party’s nomination since the first time he ran for the office in 1976. That’s right, for 30 years Hatch has been able to skip the primary process thanks to Utah’s often maligned caucus system of selecting candidates for the general election ballots. If a candidate wins 60% of the delegate votes in the caucus, he snags the party nomination. In the recent caucus, Hatch failed to gain the 60% and will now head to a primary. Running scared after seeing another long tenured incumbent, Bob Bennett, lose his seat in the 2010 election (thanks to the Tea Party fervor that swept Utah), Hatch knows he must win the primary to keep his seat. The general election will be less an issue since Utah doesn’t elect Democrats to national office. Well, ok…there’s that Mattheson dude in the House, but he doesn’t really count.

So, what’s a career politician who won his seat 36 years ago by pointing out his opponent (a three-term incumbent…Hatch has now served six terms) had been in Washington too long and had lost touch with the real world to do? Spend like a Rockefeller, of course. And Hatch’s war chest is formidable. With no real opposition in 30 years, he has amassed nearly $6 Million in his campaign accounts. And, with the advent of super-PACs and political non-profits the sky is truly the limit. Freedom Path, a political non-profit supporting Hatch in his primary race, has already spent more than $550,000 on advertising in the state promoting Hatch. That number actually seems small when you consider his opponent, Dan Liljenquist, has been the benefactor of almost $800,000 in spending by FreedomWorks (WTF is with the Freedom thing???), a super-PAC.

Over a million dollars have been spent on on this battle, and most of it was spent by groups outside the state. Freedom Path is primarily run by a couple of guys in Nevada, and as a non-profit can accept donations in any amount from anyone and never has to disclose where the money originated. FreedomWorks can also accept donations in any amount; however, as a super-PAC it’s required to disclose. Of course, they’ve found some tricky ways around that by funneling money between groups and parent companies. After all, they shouldn’t be bothered by a little thing like disclosure or transparency.

One thing is crystal clear in this confusing mess of corporate “peoples” and out-of-staters meddling where they shouldn’t. This is a lot of goddamn money for one race. And it’s not even for a general election. So, maybe it’s not apathy that keeps people away from the polls. Maybe it’s complete and utter despair. A feeling of insignificance. A true-blue “who gives a shit” attitude. I know it’s how I feel. A couple years ago I sent an email to Senator Hatch imploring him to support legislation to curb oil speculation and market manipulation. Four months later I got a message back. He thanked me for my email and assured me that healthcare reform is a cause he cares deeply about, and that he would do everything he could to prevent the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act from passing.

Gee, thanks a lot, Orrin. Then again, what else can I expect as a lowly citizen without a receipt for a $50,000 donation to the war chest?

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Image courtesy David Castillo Dominici/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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7,700,000 American seniors living in poverty
16,200,000 American children living in poverty
21,600,000 Americans living in poverty
45,800,000 Americans receiving food stamps
49,900,000 Americans with no health insurance
12,580,000 unemployed Americans
14,000 Americans controlling 40% of America’s wealth

To the above, fold in Paul Ryan’s budget, cuts to Medicare, food stamps, unemployment insurance, welfare and Social Security benefits. Stir in more tax cuts for the 1% and the corporations. Add more defense spending and 2-3 conservative activist Supreme Court justices.

When well mixed, add in a war with Iran and deregulation of Wall Street, the banks, corporate polluters, food producers and consumer credit.

Season to taste with FOX News talking points, evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity, xenophobia, racism and homophobia. Add a pinch of extreme weather (tornadoes, droughts, floods, hurricanes) caused by climate change.

Let sit for 4 years.

Just when you thought they had all the various groups of vulnerable citizens adequately disenfranchised, the Republican Party decides to stick it to students as well (now, they are attempting to stick it to women and children instead. I’ll explain in a minute). How can these guys and gals possibly get re-elected? It’s a mystery to many thinking folks. I mean, they are anti-immigration (read: xenophobic and bigoted); most of them condemn gayness (that is a word!) as a social and un-Godly abomination; they want to slash Medicare and other safety net programs that are vital to the elderly, working class and poor; they want to repeal the Affordable Care Act which will provide healthcare coverage for tens of million Americans; they are engaged in a long-standing battle with the women of this country when it comes to sexuality, reproductive rights, healthcare and equality etc…; they routinely vote against unemployment benefits, increases in the minimum wage and workers’ rights; they are militaristic hawks but are always on the wrong side of providing decent benefits to veterans; Southern Republicans often times glorify the Confederacy, its motives and its flag… and the list goes on. It is very clear. The GOP caters to only two constituencies: Rich white men and corporations (who are just groups of rich white men). So, I rhetorically ask, How the hell can they get elected at all?? Perhaps I’ll address that in my next post. For now, back to the student loans…

Last week, the GOP was wholly content with the idea of allowing a law to expire that would result in the doubling of student loan interest rates from 3.2% to 6.4%. The rate hike would apply to an aggregate of one trillion dollars of student loan principal that exists out there among approximately 7 million borrowers (me included). That’s a lot of interest! When the President got word of this, he embarked on a whirlwind tour, speaking at colleges and universities in various swing states condemning the Republicans for their inaction. The President and the Dems proposed a plan that would extend the low interest rates, paying for it by closing tax loopholes for the wealthy.

Not to be outdone, House Republicans quickly sprung into action with their own plan that would also extend low interest rates for students; however, when addressing the issue of paying for it, it seems they asked themselves, “Well, let’s see…who else can we screw that has at least a reasonable propensity of not being able to afford it?” Some Republican, apparently thinking to himself WWJD?, replied, “Um, duh!  Children and women of course!” The caucus erupted in cheers and whoops! OK, I imagined that. But the House GOP answer was to raid the Prevention and Public Health Fund, funds earmarked for healthcare reform that would provide cancer screenings for women and immunizations for children, among other things. Not to be disingenuously shocked, but WTF are they thinking?? Of course, considering that they exclusively protect wealthy white men and groups of wealthy white men, it makes perfect sense.

I’ll leave you with this thought: It seems to me that both the Republicans, and many Democrats (not all), are missing the forest for the trees. It’s not about the interest on the student debt, it’s about the debt itself. Higher education should be free in this country for anyone who has the aptitude for it. We couldn’t make a better investment in the future of America. And it could be done for a relatively paltry sum. When considering a U.S. Defense Budget approaching $700 billion annually, we could provide free college tuition for anyone who qualified academically for approximately one tenth of that, or roughly $70 billion annually. As you can see from the chart below, attending college will soon be an exclusive privilege of the wealthy. When considering that as well as the ripple effects that free tuition would have throughout our culture and economy, it’s a no-brainer.

Ann Romney, wife of presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, told a group of women last week (Apr. 23) how happy she is that there are so many mommies out there who have to work outside of the house.

“I love the fact that there are women out there who don’t have a choice and they must go to work and they still have to raise the kids. Thank goodness that we value those people too. And sometimes life isn’t easy for any of us.”

Mrs. Romney, who has suffered more than any woman since Mary at the foot of the cross, told her tale of woe to a small cadre of cleaning women left to tidy up after the Connecticut Republican Party’s Prescott Bush Awards Dinner in Stamford.

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As several of the women went to help one of the cleaners who hurt her back when she slipped on a spilled bit of “Bananas Foster”, Mrs. Romney told of the many swords that have pierced her heart.

“It’s such an emotionally draining thing that you go through. And the person that you’re fighting for, that you love, that you cherish, you know that they are being maligned at times. You know that they are being misrepresented at times and you know that they aren’t getting the proper treatment at times.”

The workers tended to the uninsured injured woman, promising to help with her medical bills as much as their meager salaries would allow.  Mrs. Romney wept as she spoke of the challenges of raising five sons with only the sort of household staff that a quarter billionaire can afford.

“I know what’s like to finish the laundry and to look in the basket five minutes later and it’s full again.  And I know what’s like to struggle and to have those concerns that all mothers have.”

She talked about her husband’s legendary uncaring cruelty, relating an incident when he forced her to run with the Olympic Torch as she was recovering from a bout of Multiple Sclerosis.

“I could barely walk when I went out. And Mitt, unbeknownst, chose me to be his hero and to run the torch into Salt Lake City,” she said.

Mrs. Romney’s body shook as she sobbed until the ambulance arrived. She raised her tear-streaked face to the crowd and screamed:

“Why are you here? What made you come out of your house today to this event? And what do you think about the future?”

One of the workers strode toward Mrs. Romney with her fists clenched.

“Bitch!  We are here because these are the only jobs you asshole Republicans haven’t outsourced to China, you well-dressed, heartless…”

Secret Service agents tackled the 56-year old woman, cuffed her and dragged her from the auditorium.

This seemed to cheer Mrs. Romney, who beckoned to the remaining workers and led them into a nearby women’s bathroom. She took a fistful of $100 bills from her purse and dropped them into a filthy toilet. She took a hanky out of her purse so she wouldn’t have to touch the lever, flushed, and dropped the hanky into the toilet where it and the wad of bills immediately caused the toilet to clog and overflow.

“Whichever one of you feels like reaching down there and unclogging that thing can have the money,” she said, flipping her hair and flouncing out of the room.

Our pool photographer got this shot after several cleaning women reached into the toilet to unclog the money plug Mrs. Romney flushed. He also got $300. (Photo used for satirical purposes, licensed under Creative Commons 2.0 by "_Fidelio_" on Flickr.)

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It’s funny; all we’re hearing from the wingnuts lately is about the War on Religion. It used to be confined to Christmastime, this war; every year, rightwing bloviators like Bill O’Reilly could be reliably counted on to make wishing someone “Merry Christmas” the upfront and blatantly hostile equivalent of “make my day.”

The war started early this year, with the right’s latest bugaboo:  birth control. Now, I’m taking away my boss’ religious freedom if I want to take birth control pills and have it covered by my health insurance. If I don’t happen to have an employer, and thus, no health insurance, if I want to go to a Planned Parenthood clinic to get a low cost pap smear and a mammogram, I’m a babykilling, Satan-worshipping Christian-basher. If I believe that women have the right to control their own bodies and in equal rights for LGBT Americans, well, dirty atheist me – I’m kicking Jesus and Christianity square in the ass. I’m an insult and an abomination to pious Americans everywhere, and I’m persecuting them, sans lions.

Whut?

Christianity has never been bigger business than it is in America today.

Megachurches abound, complete with the slickest of slick advertising and websites, like Saddleback Church in southern California, which boasts franchises all over the country. Pastor Rick Warren has an estimated net worth of $14 million and legions of faithful followers who open their wallets every time he asks for money. Pastor Warren recently asked for $900,000 to “offset a deficit resulting from hard economic times.” He received $2.4 million. But of course, claims Pastor Warren, that deficit had absolutely nothing to do with management; the church was busy, busy, busy looking after the flock. Pastor Warren appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday, where he proceeded to tell  ABC news anchor Jake Tapper that basically, it’s wrong to help the poor (it “robs them of dignity”) and right to help the rich (he believes in “wealth creation”). Well of course. The Lord helps those who help themselves, right, Pastor Rick? And you have certainly helped yourself, big fella.

Pastor Warren has also involved himself in politics, setting himself up as the authority on how his flock can live a “purpose-driven life,” have a “purpose-driven” marriage and for whom his flock can cast a “purpose-driven” vote when they enter the voting booth. He is anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-stem cell research and was a vocal proponent of California’s infamous Prop 8, which put the civil rights of LGBT Californians up for a vote. Later, in a move that confused his supporters, Pastor Warren backpedaled and declared that stopping gay marriage was very low on God’s To-Do list.

Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church, according to Church Today is considered to be the largest and fastest-growing church in the country. Osteen just moved his church into the former Compaq Center, a 16,000 seat auditorium and claims 38,000 worshipers every Sunday, along with 7 million television viewers. Joel and his wife Victoria are worth an estimated $44 million and unapologetically live in a $12.5 million mansion. Pastor Osteen claims that to be apologetic about his wealth is an insult to God. That’s convenient, isn’t it?

Pastors Warren and Osteen are just the tip of the religion racket’s iceberg; plenty of other names come to mind: the disgraced Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker and Ted Haggard, the 2000 pound leg-presser and famous “Katrina-was-caused-by-the-gays-or-maybe-Ellen-Degeneres-or-abortion” Pat Robertson, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, Benny Hinn, John Hagee and many others. All of them live very high on the hog, thanks to their legions of wallet-opening faithful.

According to the gospel preached by these charlatans, their obscene wealth “proves” them worthy in the sight of God. The rich are God’s beloved children, and are showered with His blessings in the form of big piles of greenbacks, mansions, fancy cars and offshore bank accounts. And conversely, of course, because there always is an opposite, today’s “Teavangelicals” preach that if you’re poor, sick or unemployed, well, it must be because you aren’t right with the Big Guy in the Sky. But don’t despair, poor people! If you send Pastor Whozis a ten-dollar bill, God’s blessings will shower upon you, too! The more you send, the bigger the blessings! Hallelujah!

The New Testament is full of quotes from Jesus about riches. Jesus was very clear about how He felt about helping the poor and the sick, and sums it up nicely in Matthew 25:45, ”…I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.” In Mark 10:25, Jesus said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” Today’s Teavangelicals have stood His message on its head in an obscene corruption of the true message of Jesus and the real teachings of Christianity – with an eye to their bottom line and in justification of their ostentatious lifestyles.

God is very, very, very big business here in America, cash-heavy and regulation-light – right up there with smuggling illicit liquor during Prohibition and the cartels dealing in marijuana, heroin and cocaine. Religion has always been one of the most reliable fast-tracks to riches – especially since the churches, like illegal liquor and drugs, are tax-exempt.

I wonder sometimes that if churches were regulated and taxed like any other profitable corporation, there would be so many Bible-thumping CEO’s in their expensive suits with their manicured hands out for donations. I’d like to find out.

In one breath, they scream, “Class warfare! Class warfare!” In the next, “It’s statistically insignificant!” Well, which is it? They can’t have it both ways. The they to which I refer, is the ever-duplicitous and incessantly histrionic Republican Party. The it, is the Buffett Rule. If it is truly insignificant, then how can it be considered class warfare? As it turns out, it’s neither (for real class warfare, see Paul Ryan’s recent budget and my 3/26/12 post, Is the GOP Morally Bankrupt?). Of course, being misled by a disingenuous GOP is nothing new. These are, after all, the same folks who deride the Affordable Care Act as socialism and a “complete government take-over of healthcare,” when anyone with a double-digit IQ can clearly see that ObamaCares is a boon to the private-sector (insurance companies to be specific…Not that there is anything wrong with that!).

For those of you who have been living under a rock for the last several months, or perhaps just don’t give a shit (no judgment), the Buffett Rule is a progressive tax proposal coined and devised by President Obama and the Democrats that would make wealthy folks pay the same rate of income tax, that, for instance, their secretaries would pay. Specifically, the top 1% of income earners in the U.S., with annual earnings in excess of $1,000,000, would be taxed at a rate of 30%. Since the estimates of what the rule would actually yield in revenue are wildly varied from $47 billion to $300 billion over ten years, and contingent upon whether the Bush Tax Cuts expire or upon which argument the GOP is basing their hyperbole at any given moment, the truth remains to be seen.

A recent Gallup poll revealed that 60% of Americans support the Buffett Rule and want high income earners to pay their fair share of taxes. Predictably, the GOP is in vehement opposition to the proposal. The truth of their opposition, which is thinly veiled under the guise of not wanting to raise taxes on job creators, is very simple: the Republican Party is concerned only with the welfare of the wealthy, and of big corporations…the 99% be damned! To further characterize it, the Republicans will endlessly fight tooth and nail to keep themselves and their uber-wealthy brethren from absorbing a historically fair tax increase. Although identifying the GOP’s motives and constituency in such stark terms might be a hackneyed notion, it is worth repeating over and over and over again. And if their argument about hindering job growth had any validity at all, the data of job creation over the last ten years (since the Bush Tax Cuts), which of course was dismal, would bear that out. In addition, job creation went through the roof during theClinton years, when the top earners paid at least 30%.

Sometime today, the Senate will vote on the Buffet Rule, also known as the Pay a Fair Share Act of 2012.  And, sometime today, the bill will go down in defeat because the requisite sixty vote threshold to prevent a Republican filibuster is impossible to reach without Republican support. In a humorously transparent attempt to motivate GOP Senators to support the initiative or to at least allow it to have an up or down vote, the President pandered, “And if it will help convince folks to make the right choice, we could call it the Reagan Rule instead of the Buffett Rule.” Reagan taxed the 1% at a 28.4% rate, which is similar to the 30% rate the Buffet Rule proposes. In fact, the difference is statistically insignificant. 

The campaign to showcase the GOP’s “War on Women” has been a total success. Women are discussing everything from contraceptive coverage to long overdue membership at Augusta. And as women are becoming more engaged in the political system, looking carefully at candidates at every level, and educating themselves about what is really being proposed by conservatives – the President’s numbers are rising. Recent polls show he holds a 20 point lead over any Republican challenger among women voters.

Republicans are losing their minds. Reince Priebus, Chairman of the RNC, in an attempt to blame the media for the female fury, successfully compared women to caterpillars. Sen. Mitch McConnell has tried to dismiss everything as a partisan play, calling it a “manufactured issue“.  Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell said the War on Women was “false” and “political theater.”

Sadly, the attack on women is not false or manufactured. The conservative party in this country continues to show total lack of support, concern or respect for women and their needs. Republicans are working to  completely defund Planned Parenthood, an organization which provides STD testing, contraceptive counseling, pregnancy testing and other services to women who have limited resources. They have stated, regardless of a Supreme Court decision, a newly (if) elected  Republican Administration will repeal the Affordable Care Act, a law which expands the preventative care a woman can receive without copays, provides thorough contraceptive coverage, eliminates the ability of insurance companies to base health plan premiums on gender — and for the children these women raise — the act eliminates preexisting condition clauses for children under 19 and allows children up to the age of 26 to remain on parents plans.  The GOP has proposed a budget in the House that slashes funding for WIC, SNAP and Medicaid- programs that millions of women and their children rely on for nutrition and economic security. Republican led state congresses and Republican Governors are drafting and signing laws limiting health care services, forcing invasive testing, requiring women to disclose private medical histories and even authorizing termination from employment for using contraceptives.

So is this trend in the Democratic party, successfully rallying women around the Progressive movement “Political Theater?” Sure. And the show MUST go on!! Pull the curtain on the party of family values who only values families they deem worthy. Shine a spot light on how men are deciding how women receive treatment and what kind of care is acceptable. Unite the chorus in demanding the government stay out of our vaginas and choreograph a dance all the way to a reelection in the fall.

One minute, I’m proud as hell of this country, the good old U.S. of A. The next minute, I wish Jerry Garcia was still alive and we could all just float upon a cloud of patchouli while group-hugging all the way to drug-induced enlightenment. Sometimes, I get inspired thinking about how far we’ve come in such a short time (sans the drugs) in some respects; but as soon as I am again steeped in the issues of the current day, I want to grab this country by Florida and drag it out to the woodshed for a proper switching. Are we a beacon of light in this world of much oppression and intolerance, or are we a bigoted, backwater nation of which we educated folks who know better should be ashamed? Let’s face it, there is some validity to the Right’s characterization of us as the latte sippin’, Volvo drivin’, Hate America First crowd. We just love self-deprecation when it comes to our country and never miss an opportunity to kick the shit out of ourselves for the latest insult to our ideal of what we should be as a nation— should-ah, could-ah, would-ah…  To be clear, there are many reasons for us to be discouraged from an immediate perspective, but on paper, there are also some things that merit a little pride.

I don’t need to mention the latest assault on our sense of accomplishment, as we all know the unfortunate details of the Trayvon Martin case rather well at this point. There is something worth a brief mention regarding the matter, however: Isn’t it curious how lines of support are being drawn regarding this case much like a party-line vote in a Senate subcommittee? It seems that once again, Republicans ignore empirical evidence and arrive at their conclusions based on some trumped up fantasy that is inconsistent with the facts, and congruent with their ill-conceived ideology. As it turns out, many on the Right are siding with Zimmerman, a Hispanic, and the Left is generally on the side of Trayvon Martin, who happens to be black. I guess there are degrees of bigotry.  But I seriously digress…

Perhaps by the time I’m finished writing on this topic, some other egregious assault upon our national pride will have occurred (let’s hope not!) and really make my thesis a stretch. That said, this post will henceforth concern itself with the bright spots in our recent history that might suggest that something’s afoot in this country, despite the daily blemishes on our good name that rightly consume us.

There are a couple of areas in which there has been rapid and palpable progress in this country; one of them is on the issue of gay equality. In my lifetime (albeit, the very beginning of it!), homosexuality was still considered a disease and listed in the DSM as a psychological disorder. To be sure, there are still right-wing Christians (think Marcus Bachmann— that’s another story!) who believe that being gay is the result of succumbing to Satan and is a damnable offense that can be cured by prayer and behavior modification. However, from my perspective as a heterosexual (which, I must admit, may be entirely different than that of some gay men and women), the last two decades have brought us a ubiquity of gay culture, both on TV and in films, and in most other areas of our lives. Because many more gays were coming out to friends and family, it didn’t take all that long for those who needed to catch up to realize that some of the folks they loved and cherished were actually gay.

Beginning with Vermont in 2000, civil unions became sanctioned by the state, giving same-sex couples the same rights afforded to married couples. I must say, despite the temporary and shameful right-wing backlash that screamed out Take Back Vermont via lawn signs that peppered rural Vermont, I was proud to be a Vermonter that year (I am now a reluctant New Yorker— only because I miss Vermont so desperately). Now, same-sex marriage, which is legal in six states and the District of Columbia, allows same-sex couples to marry with the state’s blessing. In addition, I would argue that the Defense of Marriage Act, which was signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1996, would not get out of the Democratic Senate if proposed today. I would also argue that the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA), proposed in 2006 to ban same-sex marriage in the U.S. via a constitutional amendment, could get by the Congress only if their were huge, hateful (read: Republican) majorities in both Houses and would never go on to achieve ratification in the states if it did. As the year progresses, it seems that more and more Democratic leaders are supporting same-sex marriages. I am going to go out on a limb and make a prediction, right here on BNV: President Obama will be the first President to support gay marriage if he is elected to a second term. The only opposition that will remain will be the bigoted fools on the Right.

Speaking of our President, I would be remiss if I did not conclude this discussion of social progress with a mention that the electorate in this country has at least suggested that we’d like a nation where there exists unfettered equality for all and where irrational xenophobia is the exception. In 2008, we elected the first man of color (named Barack Hussein Obama no less) to lead a nation that was heretofore led only by powerful white men. That’s got to mean something, doesn’t it!? And it wasn’t a squeaker, either (so it wasn’t just us latte sippers that voted for him!). He won decisively. That was a proud day to be an American, and we should have all been singing that hackneyed country song, despite our innate distaste for effusive displays of patriotism and country music.

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Image: nixxphotography / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I have written quite a bit about the Republican presidential candidates. I mean, who could resist that certifiable and hapless bunch? From the rank hypocrisy of Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann (and the rest of them for that matter), to Rick Santorum’s misogynistic overreach, from Newt’s baggage (which would rival the contents of the cargo hold on a 747), to Ron Paul’s list of pathologies that likely appear in the DSM-IV, they have provided me with endless fodder upon which to opine….and about which to be horrified. But there is a conspicuous omission from this list of characters from which I’ve derived such reluctant and ambivalent pleasure: Willard Mitt Romney.

Alright, so the obvious question is, “Why would I take a pass on such low-hanging fruit?” The answer is in the question (of course, they were all low-hanging fruit, really). However, as Mr. Romney’s nomination becomes more and more likely (although, to be clear, I am not one who believes that this thing is necessarily over), it is my civic duty (and anyone else’s who has a venue in which to rant) to make sure this guy’s myriad foibles are exploited to the hilt. To that end, let’s have some fun!

Let’s first establish what type of guy Mr. Romney is. This one word sums him up quite neatly: chameleon. Even with the absence of a darting tongue, this much is apparent. By the way, chameleon, according to dictionary.com, can be defined as a changeable, fickle, or inconstant person.

Much has been made of Mr. Romney’s political shape-shifting and glaring lack of core convictions… and rightly so. He has flipped (or is it flopped?) on every major issue that he has been cornered to take a position on during this rabid, Republican primary season. In fact, he has shape-shifted and painfully pandered on more than a dozen issues…some momentous…since launching his candidacy for the last go around in 2008. In the interest of time and space, here are just a fatuous few that I would consider biggies:

Universal Healthcare (specifically, the individual mandate): We all know that Mr. Romney signed into law a version of universal healthcare coverage when he was governor of Massachusetts that is remarkably similar to the federal Affordable Care Act (which is incidentally facing a constitutional challenge in the SCOTUS with regard to the so-called individual mandate). Even as late as 2009, Mr. Romney wrote an op-ed during the national healthcare debate supporting the Massachusetts plan for the nation as a whole, and he specifically supported the individual mandate. He has distanced himself from his position to such a degree that he now criticizes the President regarding the same mandate for which he advocated, and he has vehemently pledged to “repeal Obamacare.”

Man-Made Climate Change: Mr. Romney once reasonably believed that the issue of man-made climate change was settled by the climate change scientists (as factual), of which 98% concur that man is contributing substantively to global warming. Not to be outdone by his primary opponents who now unanimously deride the idea of man-made climate change as a hoax, Mr. Romney now speaks eloquently (well, maybe not eloquently) the language of his right-wing cohorts.

Immigration: Once advocating for a path to citizenship for “illegals,” Mr. Romney has lurched so far right-ward in a transparent maneuver to out-flank his primary opponents, that observing his conversion could give you whiplash. He now proposes that the government round up the folks who are here illegally (all 12+ million of them!) and send them packing. What a douche…sorry. That was lazy…but it’s the truth, right?

Right to Choose: In 2002 while campaigning to be governor of Massachusetts, Mr. Romney stated, “I will preserve and protect a woman’s right to choose and am devoted and dedicated to honoring my word in that regard.”  Now, of course ever pandering to the right wing, he is ardently pro-life.  He does, however, magnanimously make an exception for the victims of rape and incest, unlike many of his brethren.

What will be so very fascinating to observe for we political junkies, will be Mr. Romney’s artful (or more likely, painfully inept) two-step back to the center in an attempt to appeal to the more moderate electorate in the general election. You really can’t pay for that kind of entertainment.

As we listened to the racist code words coming from the Republican presidential candidates, the “food stamp president,” the “gangsta president,” the “Chicago thug” president, my friends and I joked about setting up a pool to pick the date when one of the Republican presidential candidates would slip up and actually use the N-word.

As the weeks have gone by, the Republican candidates have been dropping like flies, leaving the field smaller and smaller. Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain dropped out. That left only 3.5 contenders for that dubious place in the Hall of Shame:  (Ron Paul is still here!), Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.

I always figured it was going to be either Newt or Rick; both of them spewed some pretty ugly racist crap during their campaign swings through the South, but only Rick Santorum skated right up to the edge when he said, “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.” Of course, afterwards, he claimed that he said “blah people,” but I think we all know better. Yeah, we all have to watch out for those dangerous blah people.

Well, we now have a winner in the pool:  March 27, 2012. At a campaign event in Janesville, Wisconsin, Rick Santorum was in full oratorical flight when he said this:  “We know the candidate Barack Obama, what he was like – the anti-war government nig …”

Now, I’ve already been called “insane” and “delusional” for telling people what I think Rick Santorum said.  Santorum was in his element, bloviating in front of an adoring crowd of his supporters (the Republicans don’t let anyone else into their campaign events), the folks who would gladly snap up any rotten red meat he could toss out – bashing Obamacare, socialism, atheists, liberals, illegal immigrants, slutty women on birth control, lazy slackers on unemployment or those “blah people” who are out to take nice white folks’ tax money to buy their bigscreen TVs – so he was very comfortable.

What he forgot is what happens when you get carried away by your own brilliance in a comfortable environment – that’s when you experience the dreaded phenomenon of the “ITE” (Involuntary Truth Emission).

Rick Santorum experienced an ITE on the night of March 27. He called the president a “government nig—” and was barely able to stop himself before that second fatal campaign-ending syllable fell from his mouth. He managed to execute a clumsy pivot to this: “America was a source for division around the world, that what we were doing was wrong.”

I know what I think he said. What do you think he said?

As Sarah Palin might say, “You betcha!”  Maybe that was too easy… Perhaps a better query is, “Should governance be moralistic?”  At least it’s a bit more challenging. Assuming that governance in the U.S. is all about “we the people”, and the “collective good” is the ideal, then the answer should also be a resounding “Yes!”  Of course, if we were talking about some right-wing dictatorship (that we, the U.S., were so fond of aligning ourselves with a few decades ago and are now in the business of removing at gun point — oops! I can feel a tangential rant coming on!) -then of course all bets would be off.  For the sake of clarity then, we’ll confine this discussion to the “we the people” paradigm of U.S. governance.

First, I’d better define morality since it seems to have lost a good amount of depth in recent years. I am not referring to the narrow conceptual definition of morality that the right-wing in this country considers almost exclusively. That puritanical version concerns itself largely with matters of personal sexuality and the ever-problematic rights of women, such as they are.  As we lefties are aware, there is a hell of a lot more to morality, if indeed personal sexual matters are issues of morality at all, than just whom we choose to sleep with and when, and how often and for what purpose we do it.  (Disclaimer: non-consensual sex and statutory rape are issues of morality. For the record, bestiality is not a moral issue, unless of course it is non-consensual. Go easy on me PETA!).

So, what is morality then? According to dictionary.com, the first definition of morality reads, “moral or virtuous conduct” and the second reads “moral quality of character.”  Admittedly, the third definition mentions “chastity,” but it’s third!

I would suggest that morality is truly about how we treat each other and how we treat our planet. More specifically, it is about how we treat our sick and our elderly and how we might treat a hungry stranger, how we conduct our business and how we raise our children. Morality is also about matters of war and peace, friendship, tolerance and humility…but most importantly, morality is about how we treat “the least among us.”  Jesus had a bit to say on that topic. I felt momentarily compelled to use language with which the Right might logically identify, but quickly realized that the Right is sooo Old Testament. It’s interesting how they seem to discount the New Testament, where Jesus teaches a broad notion of morality.

What compels me to write on morality at this moment is the shameful proposal put forth last week by Republican House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-WI (that squeaked out of committee in a 19-18, largely party-line, vote). Ryan’s budget, which would likely be the law of the land if the GOP controlled the Senate and the White House, is a surprisingly diaphanous attempt at upward wealth redistribution and top-down class warfare.  It should be required reading for any civic-minded American. In addition, its implications, as described below, should be considered a cautionary tale when pulling the lever in November.

According to Robert Reich, Mr. Ryan’s budget, would, in conspicuous fashion, upwardly redistribute the wealth in this country; specifically, he wrote, “This would give the wealthiest Americans an average tax cut of at least $150,000 a year… The money would come out of programs for the elderly, lower-middle families, and the poor.” To me, that’s just breathtaking on the face of it! What is so bothersome about it, and I would assume anyone who reads this will be similarly annoyed (unless of course you’re a proud and stingy member of the “1%”), is Mr. Ryan’s and the broader GOP’s unequalled hubris and complete indifference to those in need. Although several words come to mind to describe Mr. Ryan’s proposal, “immoral” seems to do it justice.

The moral to this tale of morality is thus:  We (the Left) must not cede the mantle of morality to the Right. We own it, because when we’re good, we walk it, live it and breathe it.  Let them cede the lion’s share of moral issues to the rest of us in their quest to serve a divisive few, and when they do, let’s call them on it!  Sooner or later, it may just catch up with them and the truth will be revealed.  And if you’ve read Mr. Ryan’s budget, it has been already.