They Don't Give A Damn About Bad Sequestration

It's funny how everyone seems to have forgotten how sequestration came into our lives. And by "everyone," of course, I mean members of the Republican party.

It started with a bill to lift the nation's debt ceiling. Now, the debt ceiling was lifted a couple of dozen times during the administration of George W. Bush without incident. But once we elected a black man into office, it suddenly becomes a huge issue. Suddenly, the president who has actually spent the least amount of any president in recent history is "spending way too much" and our debt is "out of control." This, despite the fact that the prior administration spent way more and increased the national debt by far greater orders of magnitude than the current officeholder.

House Republicans threatened to vote against raising the debt limit; effectively arguing that the United States would not pay for the spending of the previous (Republican) administration, which predictably caused a drop in our national credit rating. Which House Republicans predictably blamed on the current (Democratic) administration. At the same time, the House failed to produce a budget that included a balance of spending cuts and revenue increases - an approach preferred by the the majority of U.S. voters.

So two major problems faced the nation; we were on the verge of defaulting on paying debt we had already incurred, and we were about to start the fiscal year without a budget.

A solution was offered; approve the debt ceiling, and as part of that approval, Congress would mandate a deadline with consequences: the Sequestration.

The consequences for the Democrats; spending would be cut from programs they supported, and no new revenues would be added. The consequences for Republicans; the spnding cuts would be across the board, equally, from every sector of the budget, including defense, long the sacred cow of the GOP.

Turns out that House Republicans don't give a shit about the consequences for the entire nation; economic collapse that will undermine what recovery we've made since the original collapse that occurred at the end of the Bush administration.

I'm reminded of The Mummy movies; the living mummy was cursed; he would be mummified alive, and remain conscious forever in his dessicated body. HOWEVER, it included a catch; if anyone ever freed the mummy for any reason (even unwittingly), he would gain the power of a god with the ability to destroy the entire planet. Which just goes to show that not only was Pharoah a vengeful tyrant, he was also a dumbass.

Which, when you think about it, is not unlike what we're getting; a penultimate punishment for Congress which does little harm to the members of Congress, but is now a threat to the livelihood of almost everyone in the nation.

What dumbass thought THAT was a good idea?

Jack Welch's Jelly Brain

On Friday, Welch seemed to be claiming that Obama or someone in his administration had manipulated the results of the recent jobs report on his twitter feed:


Obama is from Chicago, and had just lost his first debate with Mitt Romney - or so I'm told.  I don't bother with such pointless charades.

Well, as you can imagine, this created a minor uproar, with media outlets, politicians, and even business associates questioning the merit of such an accusation.  First, the report was actually published before the debate.  Second, all the raw data is available, so it's not something that can really be manipulated.  Experts basically concluded that Welch was talking out of his ass.

So on Sunday, Welch sent out a new tweet:


Well, maybe he didn't comment on the White House, but he certainly commented on the jobs report, and only moments before his claims that he hadn't made any comments about the White House.



That link he posted leads to a story on AEIdeas, the public policy blog of the American Enterprise Institute.  The article is titled "Economist: Unemployment drop ‘implausible … a statistical quirk’." 

Welch's claims are disingenuous, at best.

To accept Welch's comments, we have to find a plausible explanation for the first post; who are "these Chicago guys" that he's referring to, if it's not Obama, a former resident of Chicago?

Could he be referring to the band Chicago?  Did this jazz/rock fusion group fudge the numbers?

I know;

It's the Moon Furies.  Their website even says that they are "Chicago Guys."

Wait, he said they lost a debate.  So maybe it's...

...the Chicago Blackhawks!  Perhaps by "debate," he really meant "game.

But they weren't mentioned in the "interesting view" of the jobs report.

No, there's only one explanation of Welch's comment that makes any sense; he was, in fact, referring to President Obama, who has often been lambasted by conservatives for doing things "The Chicago Way," a reference to the violence and corruption of the government in the gangster era as depicted in The Untouchables.  Obama is from Chicago, and had just lost a debate, and certainly benefits from a positive jobs report.  This is the only context that fits.

Jack Welch is lying to us.  And he's doing a pathetically poor job of it.  It's almost as pathetic as believing he could get away with claiming that the POTUS influenced the numbers without offering one shred of supporting evidence.

If Jack Welch really believes that he can  simply wave away his comment by stating it wasn't about the White House,
he must be keeping his brains in this jar >

Putting Mitt in Perspective: PBS

For fiscal year 2012, PBS received $442 million dollars from the federal government.  That's an "m" in there. $442 million for the entire year.

That constitutes .012% of the entire Federal budget.  That's POINT zero one two percent, or less than 1/8 of 1%.


"But it's $400 million dollars" you say.  OK. Let's put that in perspective.

We're spending $300 million dollars PER DAY on the war in Afghanistan.  Obama is trying to remove our troops from Afghanistan in a safe and responsible manner.  Mitt says we shouldn't pull our troops out of Afghanistan just because it's expensive.

It seems to me that Mitt is saying we have to take Sesame Street away from inner city kids because we need to kill people on the other side of the planet.

Lyin' Ryan Sticks to the Broken Script.

What do you do when you have no legitimate issues to put forth with your campaign?  You lie.

And what do you do when your lies have been thoroughly debunked?  If you're Paul Ryan, you repeat the lie.  At least, that's what he was doing in Tampa yesterday.

“Here’s the dirty little secret about Medicare they don’t want you to know,” he said. “The  biggest threat to Medicare is Obamacare.”
--Tampa Bay Times, September 16, 2012

Of course, the truth about the Affordable Care Act is that it extends Medicare funding by eight years. 

It’s worth noting that there’s one area these cuts don’t touch: Medicare benefits. The  Affordable Care Act rolls back payment rates for hospitals and insurers. It does not,  however, change the basket of benefits that patients have access to.
-- The Washington Post, August 14, 2012

That's not entirely accurate: it also adds new benefits to to seniors currently enrolled in the program.  That's right; thanks to the Affordable Care Act, Medicare costs less, provides more benefits, and the funding lasts longer. Which is exactly the opposite of what Paul Ryan is claiming.

You see, back in 2003, the Medicare Modernization Act was passed, which underwrote the costs of many prescription drugs for seniors, and paid to put a number of seniors into private insurance plans, the theory being that by enrolling seniors in various private health plans, competition and market forces would lower the costs of care.  But costs for seniors in the private health plans rose, costing taxpayers an average of 117% compared to standard Medicare costs. 

The Affordable Care Act eliminates these over-payments to bring them in line with the rest of Medicare coverage costs by re-negotiating reimbursement rates to the insurance companies.  It also negotiated savings from health care providers, further lowering costs.  So there aren't any cuts in coverage, only cuts in costs; what you and I would actually call "savings" instead of "cuts."

The real "dirty secret" that the Romney campaign doesn't want you to know is that Paul Ryan  proposed to make exactly the same cuts in expenses.

...deciding who is cutting Medicare by $700 billion just requires looking at who is cutting Medicare by $700 billion. And at the moment, that’s both Obama and the Republican  budget.
-- The Washington Post, August 14, 2012

Well, not the only dirty secret.  They also don't want you to realize this:

What Romney/Ryan are saying is that they then take the money saved from their cuts to Medicare and put it toward deficit reduction while Obama takes that money and spends it on health care for poor people... But Romney/Ryan also add a trillion dollars to the defense budget. And they have trillions of dollars in tax cuts they haven’t explained how they’re going to pay for. So those decisions make future cuts to Medicare more likely.
-- The Washington Post, August 14, 2012

But this might be the most important thing Ryan has said so far:

"We're not going to spend the next four years blaming everything on everybody else. We're going to take responsibility," Ryan said.
--Tampa Bay Times, September 16, 2012

I have a great idea for you, Paul; why wait for the election?  Why don't you take responsibility for what Republicans have done to this country now?  Admit to three years of obstructing our economic recovery, own up to the damage done by the Bush administration and its record expansion of the national debt, accept that our current financial straits are the direct result of all the deregulation that the GOP has fostered over the last thirty years.

Why wait to take responsibility?  If you're truly proud of what Republicans have accomplished, start bragging - truthfully - about what you and your party have really been doing.

Jon Stewart: Eastwood fits GOP

Jon Stewart shows us that  Eastwood is actually a great spokesman for the GOP; not just because he's verging on senility.  Well, mostly that.

Part 1:

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Part 2:

The Daily Show
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Lyin' Ryan Protests Himself

Paul Ryan just can't seem to avoid lying to the American people.  This time, he's chastising President Obama for the budget cuts that automatically kick in if Congress doesn't stop its inane bickering in order to pass a proper budget.

The Romney campaign is up at arms, and posted a press release detailing the dire consequences of the plan.

President Obama Signed Legislation That Could Lead To More Than $500 Billion In Defense Cuts In 2013.
-- mittromney.com, August 23. 2012

While the memo mentions that President Obama signed a bill that had passed both houses of Congress, the real cheek is Rep. Ryan blaming the President for doing so.

“President Obama’s reckless defense cuts that are hanging over our cloud, hanging over the horizon..."
-- CNN. 8/22/2012

President Obama's "reckless defense cuts" that were voted on and approved in both houses of Congress.  Since there's only one President, and there are a total of 547 members of Congress, doesn't that really make it Congress' reckless defense cuts?

But Mr. Ryan doesn't stop there. ThinkProgress has posted a video of Mr. Ryan speaking before a crowd.

"We opposed it then; we oppose it now."
-- ThinkProgress.org, 8/23/2012

Except that he didn't oppose it.  He voted for it. 

Paul Ryan is blaming Barack Obama for signing a bill that Ryan voted for.  Mr. Ryan is lying his ass off when he says he opposed it. You don't oppose things by voting for them, you oppose them by voting against them.  That's the entire point of being able to vote against things.

And he wasn't alone; 174 of his fellow Republicans also voted IN FAVOR OF the same bill that RYAN ALSO VOTED FOR.

Surely, one way to keep Mr. Obama from signing a bill into law would be to vote against it so that it never made it to his desk.  But Mr. Ryan did not vote against it, he voted for it, which means that he approved of the bill, because when you approve of something you vote for it, which is what Ryan did.

Do Republicans Revere Rapists?

A little while back, we listed out some of the problematic things that the Republican Party has actively promoted; things like increasing the national debt, limiting our civil rights, violating the Constitutional prohibition against establishing religion in our government, de-emphasizing the sciences in education, and obstructing effective governance.

Sure, the GOP claims to be against all those things, but in fact they've been actively working to make all these things happen.

But we only touched upon the contempt that the Republican Party expresses towards women.  But it's out in the lime light, now that Tod Akin has blurted out a shockingly ignorant opinion - and elicited support from the more extreme fringes of the GOP - there is little room for doubt that today's Grand Old Party is setting out to deny women any rights over their own reproductive system.

BTW, the "ignorant opinion" is not the belief that a woman should be forced to carry a baby that is the result of rape to term - although I do find that a loathsome opinion.

No, it's the defense of that loathsome opinion with an argument knitted out of whole cloth and bolstered by bald-faced deception. 

“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Mr. Akin said of pregnancies from rape. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”
-- Fox2Now.com 08/19/012

Of course, there isn't a medical doctor worth his salt that would make such a ridiculous statement.  Millions of women wind up pregnant as the result of their rape.  There isn't a magic gate on her cervix; her body doesn't erect a barrier to sperm.

But please, don't take MY word for it:

Each year in the US, 10,000–15,000 abortions occur among women whose pregnancies are a result of reported rape or incest. An unknown number of pregnancies resulting from rape are carried to term. There is absolutely no veracity to the claim that “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to shut that whole thing down.” A woman who is raped has no control over ovulation, fertilization, or implantation of a fertilized egg (ie, pregnancy). To suggest otherwise contradicts basic biological truths.  
-- American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Akins then tried to clean it up.  He didn't mean to use the word "legitimate."

 "[I was] making the point that there were people who use false claims, like those that basically created Roe v. Wade."
-- ThinkProgress.org 8/21/12

So, he didn't mean that there's legitimate rape or to imply that sometimes rape is OK, he just meant that women usually lie about getting raped so they can get an abortion. 

And the sad part about it is that he really believes that that is not an offensive position; and worse, neither does a large number of Republicans in his home state.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Sharon Barnes, a woman AND a Republican AND a Missourian, came to Akin's defense, referring to the results of rape as "God's Blessing" of the violent act against one of his children.

“The congressman is totally, firmly, solidly pro-life,” Sharon Barnes, a member of the state Republican central committee, said, adding that Mr. Akin believed “that abortion is never an option.” ...she added that “at that point, if God has chosen to bless this person with a life, you don’t kill it.”

“That’s more what I believe he was trying to state,” she insisted. “He just phrased it badly.”
-- NY Times, 8/21/2012

No, Ms. Barnes, he didn't phrase it badly.  It's the belief that if you're the victim of a violent rape you should be forced to bear the rapist's child that's the issue.  Many of us believe that a woman should be able to choose what goes in and what comes out.  I understand that your religious views don't permit you to grasp this.  And really, that's fine.  As long as you don't try to force me to live according to your religious beliefs.

But the thing is, making the rest of us live by your religious beliefs is exactly what you're doing.

Huckabee's Right Hook

Conservative pundit and former Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee also defends Mr. Akin and his view that women should be forced to carry the child of the man who brutally attacked them.

“Ethel Waters, for example, was the result of a forcible rape,” Huckabee said of the late American gospel singer. One-time presidential candidate Huckabee added: “I used to work for James Robison back in the 1970s, he leads a large Christian organization. He, himself, was the result of a forcible rape. And so I know it happens, and yet even from those horrible, horrible tragedies of rape, which are inexcusable and indefensible, life has come and sometimes, you know, those people are able to do extraordinary things.”
-- latimes.com 8/20/2012

So, that makes rape just fine with Mr. Huckabee.  It's not a gross violation of a woman's body, it's a channel to bring really neat people into the world.

This isn't an issue that just popped up; the entire Republican Party is rotten with people who simply assume that women's views simply don't enter into the equation, and has been for quite some time

Any resemblance to Hannibal Lector is coincidental, probably

Back in March, Chuck Winder of Idaho, the sponsor of that state's "double ultra-sound bill" (raped women must undergo an invasive ultrasound procedure in which their vagina is penetrated and they are forced to look at the image of the result of the violence perpetrated against them before they can have an abortion), simply assumes that women lie about it.

"I would hope that when a woman goes in to a physician with a rape issue, that physician will indeed ask her about perhaps her marriage, was this pregnancy caused by normal relations in a marriage or was it truly caused by a rape. I assume that's part of the counseling that goes on.”
-- The Spokesman-Review, 03/09/12

Let's tally what these Republicans have said about rape so far:

• Women can't ever get pregnant from rape, because we don't understand the human reproductive system.
• And they are probably lying about getting raped to justify their abortion.
  
• When your rapist impregnates you against your will, it's a blessing.
• Even though you were raped, the child of the vicious thug who violated you might be a nice person.
• You weren't raped, you lying slut.
  

Something to consider about every statement made so far; not one of them address the actual victim: the woman who was raped.  Not one of these Republican pols seems to care about the woman who was brutalized; they only care about the child of a violent criminal.  Even though Mr. Akin did call for us to "punish the rapist," he concluded with "...and not the baby."  But what about the mother, Mr. Akin?  Why must she suffer?

And they haven't dealt with the reality of the results of being raped.  "Save the baby" is all they've considered.

Chicago lawyer Shauna Prewitt bravely steps into the fray, and recounts her own experience of being raped in college:

"You see, nine months after my rape, I gave birth to a beautiful little girl. You could say she was conceived in rape; she was. But she is also so much more than her beginnings. I blissfully believed that after I finally had decided to give birth to and to raise my daughter, life would be all roses and endless days at the playground."
-- CNN 8/22/12

Perhaps you think that she is justifying everything the Radical Right has been saying;  she accepted the life as a blessing, and moved beyond the origin of the seed.

But Ms. Prewitt learned what these politicians haven't been addressing; that even if you accept that life begins at conception, the story of a pregnancy does not end with a birth; especially not for victims of rape.

"It would not be long before I would learn firsthand that in the vast majority of states -- 31 -- men who father through rape are able to assert the same custody and visitation rights to their children that other fathers enjoy."
-- CNN 8/22/12

So even if a woman decides to accept "the blessing" and carry the child to term, to try to convert a sadistic act of humiliation and degradation into something postive, these same thoughtless legislators have done absolutely nothing to end the cycle of pain and abuse perpetrated by rapists.  How is it that felons can have parental rights to offspring they forced onto their victims?  Can it be that these misguided right wingers hope that the woman will come together with her abuser and create a family unit? 

It's time to recall that one of Paul Ryan's failed bills was one he co-sponsored with Mr. Akin.

Two peas in a pod.

Representatives Ryan and Akin, in fact, have voted in lockstep on abortion matters since Akin joined Ryan in the House in 2001. Moreover, they teamed up on a controversial bill defining life as beginning at conception.
-- Christian Science Monitor, 8/21/12

I am forced to conclude that yes, it seems that the Republican Party, or at least a significant part of it, appears to favor the rights of rapists over the rights of their victims.

Remember, when you vote for a party, you vote for everyone it in it, and support its entire agenda.  Be very certain who and what you stand for when you vote in the next election.

GOP Takes Stupid to New Levels

It's bad enough that Representative Todd Akin (R, Missouri) was so poorly educated that he believed that women who are raped can't get pregnant because "everything shuts down" and his defense was "I misspoke" instead of a retraction, an apology, and withdrawal from the congressional race.  Anyone who sits on a committee overseeing Science ought to know some science.

Now we have a choice; we can believe Bryan Fischer, speaking for the American Family Association, when he insists that Akin was right.  Fischer holds degrees in Philosophy and Theology.

Or, we can believe the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), who call Akin's remarks "medically inaccurate, offensive, and dangerous."  ACOG is the nation’s leading group of physicians providing health care for women.

So here it is, theology versus science.

A doctor of bible studies:

When you have a real, genuine rape, a case of forcible rape, a case of assault rape, where a woman has been violated against her will, through the use of physical force, there’s a very delicate and complex mix of hormones that take place that are released in a woman’s body and if that gets interfered with it may make it impossible for her or difficult in that particular circumstance to conceive a child.

Doctors specializing in women's reproductive health:

There is absolutely no veracity to the claim that “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to shut that whole thing down.” A woman who is raped has no control over ovulation, fertilization, or implantation of a fertilized egg (ie, pregnancy). To suggest otherwise contradicts basic biological truths.

Personally, I have to go with the ACOG and science, because it's based on, you know, reality.

Information for Tod "I'm an Idiot" Akin

Paul Ryan's So-Called "Record"

You might have seen a version of this latest meme making the rounds.  Basically, the claim is that Paul Ryan has only had two bills passed into law during the entire 13 years he's been in Congress.  Since that works out to .15 bills passed per year, that would be a truly lousy average, if it's true.

With Republicans slamming Obama so much about his "lack of experience" and claiming that he didn't get much done, it would be stunning hypocrisy if they selected a vice president with a less impressive record.

Which means it stands a good chance of being true.

We'd better check it out.

We'll start with Obama's record, just so we have a good idea of what the Republicans consider an inadequate measure.

Obama serve in the Senate from January 2005 through November 2008; or just over a month shy of four years.

He served on five committees, and eleven sub-committees, and an ad-hoc committee. 

He sponsored and/or co-sponsored the following bills that were passed into law:

1. the Secure Fence Act (signed into law)
2. The Lugar-Obama Initiative, an expansion of Nunn-Lugar (signed into law)
3. The Coburn-Obama Transparency Act (signed into law)
4. the Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act (introduced by Obama) (signed into law)
5. the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (signed into law)
6. A resolution commemorating the 44th anniversary of the deaths of civil rights workersPassed (passed - Simple Resolution)

That's about 1.5 bills into law per year.  So that's our metric.  If you only manage to pass 1.5 bills into law, you are an ineffective legislator, according to the Grand Ol' Party.

Let's see how Representative Ryan compares:

He was elected to the House in 1998.

In that time, he served on two committees, one sub-committee, and five caucuses; that's about half the number of groups that Obama participated in. 

He sponsored or co-sponsored the following bills that were passed into law:

1. An Amendment to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to modify the taxation of arrow components. (signed into law)
2. To Designate the "Les Aspin Post Office Building"  (signed into law)
   

Shit.  I thought that was bullshit.  But he really has only gotten two bills passed in 13 years. That works out to .15 bills into law per year.

   Ryan: 0.15
Obama: 1.5

OK, that looks bad.  But let's see if Ryan looks better when you summarize what their bills accomplished:  After all, quality, not quantity, is what we should value in a legislator.

• Paul Ryan made hunting arrows cheaper and got a post office named after the man who installed the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy into the armed forces.
• Barack Obama secured our borders, reduced the number of nuclear warheads on the planet, made government procurement procedures available to public scrutiny, help feed starving people,  forced elected and appointed officials to wait several years before they could become lobbyists, and honored civilians who died fighting for our rights.

So it looks like Mitt Romney has left no stone turned to find the best possible person to be a heartbeat away from running the country.

A Tale of Two Republicans

One set of facts, and two Republican politicians need them to prove different points.

Romney, who is the presumptive Republican candidate for President of the United States, needs to show that Florida's economy is a mess that needs cleaning up. Scott, the Republican governor of Florida with the lowest approval ratings in history, needs to show that Florida's economy is making a strong comeback.

A Romney campaign missive, for example, lists the statistics that make up “Obama’s Florida Record.” The list includes: “795,432 Unemployed Floridians Seeking Work; 676,535 Floridians Who Have Fallen Into Poverty; 105,000 Florida Jobs Lost; $3,369 Decline In Florida’s Median Income; and 45 Percent of All Mortgaged Florida Homes Underwater.”
-- The Miami Herald, August 12, 2012

The governor... tells audiences that “the number of unemployed has gone from 568,000 to 320,000,” “median home prices are up,” and Florida’s job growth rate “has been positive for 23 consecutive months.”
-- The Miami Herald, August 12, 2012

But we're doubtful about the ability to pull one set of facts into two directions.  In the end, what Romney and Scott are creating is the legendary Pushmi-Pulyu. 

And while they are struggling to distort the facts, it will force us to take a closer look at them, to discern the truth that exists beyond partisan politics:

When Obama took office in January 2009, Florida’s unemployment was at 8.7 percent, nearly identical to where it is today. It rose to 11.4 percent in January 2010, had dropped to 10.9 percent by the time Rick Scott took office in January 2011 and has been dropping somewhat steadily since.
-- The Miami Herald, August 12, 2012

So Romney is wrong, and Scott is right; things are getting better in Florida.  But it seems they've been improving in spite of Scott, not because of him.

The Latest Tea Party ''Tempest in a Teapot"

Apparently, the Tea Party's latest wholly manufactured scandal is "the fact that President Obama won't unseal his college transcripts."

In case you're wondering why they want these records unsealed, it's because people are clamoring for Mitt Romney to release more of his tax returns.  It's making him look bad.  And of course, there's Harry Reid claiming that Romney isn't releasing them because he hasn't actually paid taxes because of the nature of his income, which makes him look worse.

Since Mitt stubbornly won't release the information that would completely prove whether or not he paid taxes, that means the only thing left for his supporters to do is to make Obama look bad for not releasing his.  Which is problematic, because he's released decades of tax returns, and so has his running mate.

Obama has also released more copies of his birth certificate - both long and short - than Romney has released tax returns, so they have to come up with something else point at and accuse him of hiding.

But the fact is that we know a great deal about his performance in college from what is public record.

Here are the salient points we know about Obama's education; he transferred from Occidental to Columbia University, a tremendous step up academically. After his first year at Harvard Law School, he was selected as editor of the Harvard Law Review, a position of great prestige that must be earned through academic excellence and superior writing skills. During his second year at Harvard, he was selected to be President of the Review. There is no question that he was an excellent student; that is the only way he could have gained those positions.

"Demanding" his records isn't a search for the truth, it's just another pathetic attempt to make up a scandal where none exists. It's Birtherism 2.0.

We Coulda Been Talking about Tax Returns

A couple of weeks ago, you may recall Ann Romney said that she and her husband wouldn't be releasing any more of his tax returns;

"You know, you should really look at where Mitt has led his life, and where he’s been financially," she said in her interview with Robin Roberts. "He’s a very generous person. We give 10 percent of our income to our church every year. Do you think that is the kind of person that is trying to hide things, or do things?"
-- ABC News

Of course, this led me to ponder other things, since there weren't decades of financial disclosures to analyze.  And I mused about the secret goings-on of his religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

When the South Florida Daily Blog linked the story, some anonymous commenter tried to paint me as some kind of latter-day Nazi.

Anonymous said...

Man or maniac sounds just like the nazis did in the twenties and thirties. I'll bet he won't attack Islam like he attacks the LDS.

July 23, 2012 11:15 AM

And I replied to that remark, and in that reply I made an offer;

C.L.J said...

...I'll be glad to post more information regarding their activities that they don't want the general public worrying about. Like why they're so interested in Genealogy.

July 23, 2012 7:30 PM

But by pro-active use of procrastination (put off a task long enough, and it will finish itself), I find that other outlets have picked up the story.

Romney Keeps Mum on Mormon Baptism of Jews
Pressure builds to respond to baptism of Nazi-hunter's parents
A researcher discovered that the late parents of famed Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal were baptized in Mormon ceremonies in Utah and Arizona last month. "Can you believe it?" a stunned Wiesel asked on MSNBC yesterday. Wiesel was also placed on the Mormon to-be-baptized list.

That's right; the Mormons are baptizing dead people into their faith.  The story continues:

The Mormons believe people can be baptized after death, and baptized hundreds of thousands of Holocaust victims until they agreed to stop the practice in 1995. They have also baptized Anne Frank, Josef Stalin, and Adolph Hitler, notes MSNBC.

Technically, Mormons are only supposed to baptize ancestors, but obviously that has been loosely interpreted.

This is why they are so interested in Genealogy; once someone has been accepted into the faith, they trace that person's entire lineage so they can baptize every single one of their ancestors to make everyone in the family a member of their religion.

From  Mormon.org:

We learn in the New Testament that baptisms for the dead were done during the Apostle Paul’s time (see 1Corinthians 15:29). This practice has been restored with the establishment of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Because all who have lived on the earth have not had the opportunity to be baptized by proper authority during life on earth, baptisms may be performed by proxy...

Baptisms for the dead are performed by Church members in temples throughout the world.

Now, if you don't have any religious convictions, this probable sounds like much ado about nothing.  It's not like they're digging up graves, or desecrating tombs.

But if you take your religion seriously, then this is an inexcusable attack on the sacred dead.  It's nothing less than spiritual abduction; the dead are not consulted, they are simply taken.  It's kidnapping.  It's rape.

The church insists the deceased have "the right to choose" whether to accept Jesus Christ as their savior.
-- The Huffington post

Do they really?  I can't recall the last time a dead person actually made any informed decision outside of their Last Will and Testament. 

Tell you what, let's ask Harry Houdini, the great magician and close friend of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Doyle, as you may know, was an avid spiritualist, while Houdini was a skeptic who spent the last years of his life debunking Spiritualism and exposing the trickery used by mediums and mentalists to con their patrons.

"I've said everything I intended to say from beyond the grave to Arthur Conan Doyle."

"But Harry - you didn't say anything!"

"EXACTLY!"

Dead men tell no tales, and they certainly can't ask to be baptized into the secretive Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  Nor can the dead tell the Mormons to stop what they're doing.  That's part of the whole "being dead" thing. But that won't stop Mormons from doing it anyway.  After all, the dead are also very poor at holding public demonstrations.

Until the zombie apocalypse, that is.  
At which point, feel free to baptize as many as you can.

Right about now, I'll bet the Romneys are wishing they'd distracted us with two decades of tax documents instead of leaving us all this time to wonder about other stuff.

"All" that "You People Need To Know"

During a recent interview on ABC News, Mitt Romney's wife, Ann, had heard enough questions about her family's tax returns.

"You know, you should really look at where Mitt has led his life, and where he’s been financially," she said in her interview with Robin Roberts. "He’s a very generous person. We give 10 percent of our income to our church every year. Do you think that is the kind of person that is trying to hide things, or do things?"

"We've given you people all you need to know" she concluded. 

It seems that the Romneys are afraid that if we saw more tax returns, we'd come up with things that we could attack them on.  Of course, we already have reasons to question this.  She just told us something in this interview.

Ann wants us to remember that Mitt gives ten percent of his income - whatever it is - to his church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The Mormon church. 

"He’s a very generous person. We give 10 percent of our income to our church every year."

That sounds impressive, doesn't it?  So much more than the handful of bills that most members of the real ^those other^ Christian denominations throw into the collection basket when it's passed around the church; I doubt it's anywhere near 10%. 

it's still cheaper than a movie ticket.

But she's kind of glossing over the fact that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints requires its members to tithe 10% of their income to the church. So that 10% isn't, as Mrs. Romney would have us believe, due to his charitable nature.  It's a commandment of his religion, not a philanthropic act.  This isn't a demonstration of his generous nature, it's adherence to the dictates of his religion.

His is a secretive religion, doing secretive things with the 10% of whatever Romney earns in a year.  They build huge temples that look like Disney had a hand in designing, fairy-tale palaces forbidden to the likes of you and I. 

"Someday My Prince Will Come - and I will be one of his brides!"

They are forbidden to unclean outsiders like us because of the secrets they house.  Secret rooms, holding the secret golden tablets that Joseph Smith says he plowed up out of the ground, written in a secret language.  A secret language that issues secret commandments.

They even have secret underwear.  I am not making this up; the Mormons have secret underwear they put on while performing their secret rituals in secret places you and I will never get to see.

Even the pope doesn't have secret underwear.

He wears tighty-whiteys, of course.
No, really, that's what he wears.

Of course, if you go to the LDS website, they have this on their FAQ.  "It's not secret," the website reports.  "It's just sacred.  Not secret.  Sacred.  Like a yarmulke.  It's just a sacred garment worn during certain rituals"

Of course, they don't explain or describe the garments, or where to get them. They don't even allow pictures of the garments.

...unlike Yarmulkes, the totally not-secret sacred head-wear of the Jews.
And Muslims.  And some Catholics.

Thanks, Mrs. Romney, I'm glad you called our attention to your husband's ongoing financial contributions to underwrite the secret goings-on of your strange church that is so full of so many secrets.  I'm sure my fellow Americans will rest easy now that they understand that just because you're keeping some things secret, it doesn't mean there aren't a lot more creepy secrets about you that we didn't even think about before.

Republicans Were Wrong Again

One of the campaign planks the Republican Party has been standing on is that President Obama's economic polices are a disaster, that he doesn't understand business, and that he's doing more harm than good.

An example of this is the bailout of the US automotive industry.  Key Republicans told us that this was a terrible plan, one that might well end capitalism as we know it.

In case you've forgotten their opinions at the time,  ThinkProgress gathered a number of quotes from GOP leaders on the issue; here's a sample:

• Rep. John Boehner (R-OH): “Does anyone really believe that politicians and bureaucrats in Washington can successfully steer a multi-national corporation to economic viability?”
• Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC): “Now the government has forced taxpayers to buy these failing companies without any plausible plan for profitability. Does anyone think the same government that plans to double the national debt in five years will turn GM around in the same time?”
• Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ): When government gets involved in a company, “the disaster that follows is predictable.”

And who can forget this declaration from Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican candidate for President?:

"If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won't go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed."

-- Mitt Romney, New York Times, November 18, 2008

Read that bit again: "its demise will be virtually guaranteed."  Strong words.  But as the GOP will tell you, Romney is an expert in business.  So he should know, right?

And lo, four years later, his prophecy is born out...

GM adds third shift at Texas plant, 800 jobs

General Motors announced plans Friday to add a third shift at its SUV plant in Arlington, Texas, as the company continues to ramp up production after deep cuts during the financial crisis.

The additional shift will keep the facility running around the clock, and will generate roughly 800 additional jobs...

Now, with auto demand coming back, "lots of companies across the board are adding shifts and adding third shifts," Dziczek said.
-- CNN Money, June 22, 2012

Hey, wait a minute.  That's exactly the opposite of what Mr. Romney said would happen.  In fact, General Motors, whose demise was "virtually guaranteed," has added a third shift because they need to meet the demand for new cars.

I wonder what could be driving demand?  Maybe that's in the headlines, too -

Gas prices drop 14 cents in two weeks

Gasoline prices have fallen rapidly, dropping 48.9 cents from a high of $3.967 on April 6, survey editor Trilby Lundberg said on Sunday.

-- Chicago Tribune, June 24, 2012

Gas prices are down.  But according to "experienced businessman" Mitt Romney, Obama's been dead set on making gasoline more expensive:

Last week Mitt Romney told Fox News that Obama "has done everything in his power to make it harder for us to get oil and natural gas in this country, driving up the price of those commodities in the case of gasoline."

-- TIME, March 20, 2012

That's two strikes for Mitt.  I guess that magic underwear doesn't make him a prophet.

Of course, he's not as wrong as Newt Gingrich was:

"...the American people will know the President is still committed to his radical ideology, which wants to artificially raise the cost of energy."

-- TIME, March 20, 2012

Of course, the truth is that the President of the United States has very little ability to affect the price of gasoline, as reported by Fox News in 2008. 

The GOP has a history of being wrong about gasoline prices and the automotive industry.  While it's important to recognize that the GOP was wrong on this issue, we must also realize that had we followed their advice, it would have cost this country tens of thousands of jobs.

According to the Center for Automotive Research, “if the government had not invested in the automotive industry, up to 80,000 automotive jobs would have been lost, and General Motors alone would have lost one million units of sales in 2009. Once Chrysler and GM emerged from their ‘orderly’ bankruptcies, the growth of automotive sector employment has been strong, with 52,900 workers added since July 2009. Had GM and Chrysler not successfully emerged, those jobs would have been permanently lost.”

-- thinkprogress.org

Had the GOP had its way, we'd have lost all those jobs, the sales, and manufacturing capacity. Again and again, the GOP keeps claiming that it knows better than everyone else, and and time and time again, events prove that they are decisively wrong.

The Problem with "Anyone But..." Part 2

In a discussion about the Republican Party and its tendency to bolster its positions with whopping lies, the other party confessed that they didn't particularly care for Mitt Romney.  "But anyone but Obama will be a better choice."

This is a flawed argument, one only held by those too lazy to actually think it through.  So let's continue to examine the folly of voting for "Anyone But."  We've examined some of the fallout from Florida's gubernatorial election when people voted for "anyone but Alex Sink."  Now it's time to look at the bigger picture.

Anyone But Obama

"Anyone but" Obama is another disaster waiting to happen.

"...voting Republicans is not necessarily a vote for all of the above, it's simply a vote AGAINST Obama. I am in favor of women's right, prescription contraception, etc..."
 - my right-wing relative

Here's the thing; in the United States, we do not have a mechanism for "voting against" a candidate.  You can only vote FOR candidates. 

And when you vote FOR a candidate, you are not only indicating that you support that candidate, you are standing behind their party, and their party's platform.  All of it.  There's no cherry picking; when you vote for a turd, you're getting in bed with it. You are stating implicitly that your ideals are those of the turd. That's the system.

For now, we won't discuss the merits of Obama - and yes, he does have a list of accomplishments that should qualify him for a second term.  After all, Republicans are not actually repudiating any of them, they're just ignoring them and pretending they don't exist.  And for now, so will I.  And we'll save an examination of the Republican candidate for later; after all, the convention hasn't happened yet: it's remotely possible that they won't select Romney after all.



But let's take a look at what you're really getting with "anyone but Obama;" the Republican Party itself. Let's look at what the Republican Party REALLY stands for, not by listening to Romney spout off his nonsense, not by reading what they've put up on their website, but by looking at what they've actually been doing.



What The Republican Party Really Stands For:

Increasing the Deficit
Catches you by surprise, doesn't it?  They all keep saying that they're fighting the deficit.  But in fact, while they didn't create it, they've been supporting it since the 1970s. They call it "starving the beast," and the theory is that rather than reduce spending to save money, reduce revenue to force less spending.

"Let us remember that the basic purpose of any tax cut program in today's environment is to reduce the momentum of expenditure growth by restraining the amount of revenue available and trust that there is a political limit to deficit spending."
- Alan Greenspan to Senate Finance Comittee, July 14, 1978

"The focus of the fight to restrain government has shifted from limiting government spending to limiting government receipts..."
George Will, July 27, 1978

Think of it as a diet plan; the GOP was going to force America to reduce its deficit by starving it of revenue.  After all, you can't spend what you don't have, right?

Well, no.  As we've found, spending has continued.  Ronald Reagan, who rolled "starve the beast" into his Reaganomics package, embraced the cuts, but didn't curtail spending.  In fact, in his first term, federal spending ballooned to 23.5% of GDP.  By the end of his term, Reagan had realized that the approach wasn't working, and raised taxes through the rest of his administration, but the damage had been done.  Republicans have become programmed to believe that reducing revenue will lower the deficit, even though this is clearly not the case. 

We can demonstrate the fallacy of the approach; the Clinton administration pushed through a big tax increase, resulting in a drop in federal spending to 18.2% of GDP by the end of his second term, clearly disproving the notion that higher taxes lead to more spending.  But that didn't stop George W. Bush from slashing taxes, driving spending up 20.7%.  Other studies have since confirmed that lower tax rates actually increase spending and spending costs.

And before you blame the Democrats for not decreasing spending, you should be aware that the Republican Party has rejected Pentagon proposals to retire unnecessary aircraft and ships.  In other words, the military doesn't have a use for these vehicles, but the GOP wants them to remain in service anyway.  In fact, the Republican controlled House Armed Services Committee is pushing a budget $4 billion more than the Pentagon itself says it needs!

From Defense News, May 10, 2012:

Asked about the proposed missile defense site during the briefing, U.S. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “I don’t see a need beyond what we submitted in the last budget” and the current “suite of ground-based and sea-based interceptors” is sufficient.

At the same time, the House Appropriations defense subcommittee chairman C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla., has developed a 2013 defense spending bill that comes in $3.1 billion above the Pentagon’s request.

So clearly the Republicans aren't trying to cut down on spending.  If the GOP was really serious about reducing the deficit, they'd raise taxes, agree to budget cuts proposed by government agencies, and raise or remove the $100,000 cap on the Social Security contribution.  They'd also seriously consider ending the expensive and wholly ineffective War on Drugs.  By de-criminalizing drugs, we'd save the money spent trying to stop them, and gain revenue from new taxes on the production.  It worked for alcohol, there's no reason it couldn't work for drugs.

But the GOP isn't considering any of these things, therefore we can conclude that they are not interested in reducing the deficit, even though they claim they are.  Actions speak louder than words, and the actions are damning.

Government Intrusion
While they claim to believe that government must be limited, the Grand Old Party sure has put a lot of effort into pushing government into the most private moments of our lives.

A prime example of this are all the initiatives mandating invasive ultrasound procedures on women.  These procedures serve no medical purpose whatsoever.  They are intended solely to shame women out of having abortions, a private decision that is already difficult and painful enough for most women.  But the Republican Party has pushed laws in several states requiring that before they can undergo an abortion, they have to have a plastic wand shoved up into their vagina and view the resultant image.

Isn't this just what you want to have done to you following a rape?

It just doesn't get much more intrusive than being penetrated against your will in order to force you to see something you already know is there and have already decided to remove, in my humble opinion.  But it doesn't end there; Republicans in several state legislatures have been pushing "personhood," which defines human life beginning not at the moment a fertilized ova implants itself in a woman's placenta, but at the moment of fertilization.  Unstated is the fact that since most oral contraceptives work by preventing the ova from attaching to the placenta, most forms of female oral contraception could be declared illegal.

The GOP is getting right into our bedrooms, and literally forcing their way into a woman's private parts.

Limiting Equal Rights - They're Not For Everyone
Shockingly, 40 years after John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, which mandated that someone doing the same job should receive the same pay, Senate Republicans blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act, intended to strengthen protections against pay inequities.  It's hard to believe that anyone could reject the concept of equal pay in this day and age, but there it is.

“We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.”
― Thomas Jefferson

Republicans have also been working hard to disenfranchise voters.  In Florida, Governor Scott has been pushing for clerks to purge voters from the rolls using a badly flawed list of suspects; so far, less than 1% of the supposedly illegal voters have turned out to be actually illegal voters.  But that hasn't slowed him down any.  He's ignoring cease and desist orders from the Department of Justice, and has ordered a legal defense of his purge.

To date, 22 statutes and 2 executive actions have been approved in 17 states since 2011, and as many as 74 similar bills are pending around the country. 

As noted in the Washington Post, April 30 2012:

If photo ID laws were going to be the solution, though, Republicans had to invent a problem. The best they could come up with was The Menace of Widespread Voter Fraud.

It’s a stretch. Actually, it’s a lie. There is no Widespread Voter Fraud. All available evidence indicates that fraudulent voting of the kind that photo ID laws would presumably prevent — someone shows up at the polls and votes in someone else’s name — just doesn’t happen.

This is born out time and again; in Florida, for example, out of a list of about 1,600 suspected ineligible voters, only 13 were found to have actually been ineligible to be on the voters' rolls, and only 8 of those people had ever actually voted.

Republicans are also firmly opposed to the rights of gays to marry.  They call it The Defense of Marriage Act, but it does little to defend anything; all it does is prevent some people from enjoying rights enjoyed by millions of other Americans.  Worse, there are moves to amend the constitution to make gay marriage illegal in the handful of states that do allow it. 

The thing about our bill of rights; any amendment is supposed do one of two things, and preferably both: 1. It must protect a citizen from harm.  2. It must improve the life of a citizen, or allow them greater opportunities to have justice, domestic tranquility, safety, and improve their general welfare.  A ban against gay marriage does none of these things.  The only purpose of such an amendment would be to stop someone from having rights.  That is about as great an assault on American values as I can imagine; an amendment that exists for the purpose of preventing some people from having rights granted to others. 

"The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it."
--Thomas Jefferson to M. van der Kemp, 1812.

Fuck the Constitution, Let's Have a State Religion
Another problem with this movement is that the "traditional definition" the GOP adheres to is on derived from a religion; specifically Christianity.  Other religions have other definition; for example, they permit multiple spouses.  That means that in order to define marriage as "a union between one man and one woman," the state must adapt a specific religious view, a de facto violation of the First Amendment, which clearly states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

If we are to follow a strict Constitutional approach to the matter, the State should treat all marriages in the same manner as any contract under contract law; they should simply record the fact of it.

Time and again, Republicans seek to sneak Creationism, that is, the biblical story of where everything came from, into our educations system.  They feel that evolution, the scientific explanation of how life developed from simpler forms into the myriad organisms we have now, should be downplayed in favor of their religious views. 

Their tactics are actually as pathetic as they are blatant; try to diminish evolution by emphasizing that it's "only a theory" and elevate Creationism by claiming, well, let's quote Republican Senator Stephen Wise:

"If you're going to teach evolution, then you have to teach the other side so you can have critical thinking."

The flaw in this reasoning is that creationism isn't "another side."  It's a religious conviction, period.  It has no place in science, even if you substitute "creationism" with "intelligent design."  It's similar to insisting that children be taught the parable of the loaves and fishes as an alternative to "2+2=4".

Fuck Science, Too.
Here is what qualifies Evolution as a valid scientific theory; first, we can devise experiments to test it, and second, we can make predictions based on it.  You can't do that with Creationism. 

Evolution predicts that organisms adapt over time so they can survive; an example of that is the flu virus.  Each year, the Centers for Disease Control have to update flu vaccines because the various strains of the flu evolve so that they are not affected by prior versions.  We're having a minor crisis with infection due to the over-use of anti-biotics.  Dish soap may kill 99.9% of bacteria initially, but that leave room for the .01% to breed.  And sure enough, we're now seeing strains of bacteria that aren't affected by our current inventory of anti-biotics.

Creationism can't be tested in this manner; no predictions can be made using it, not even if you call it "Intelligent Design."  That's because it's not science, it's a religious conviction.

Republicans have expanded their pro-religion anti-science stance to the weather: I'm talking of course about Global Warming.  When a state appointed science panel issued a report warning that sea levels could rise as much as 3 feet, North Carolina Republicans responded by introducing legislation that would mandate that flood rates could only be calculated by a single state agency, and that that agency could only use the historical record back to 1900 to calculate those rates and would be forbidden from referring to the best current data on the subject.

Not since the Pope excommunicated Galileo for stating that the earth revolves around the sun have we seen such a misguided attack on science. 

Preventing effective Government
Politics has been described as "the art of the compromise." And in fact, Congress itself is the result of a compromise; half the founding fathers wanted representation based on the population of each state, which would result in states with larger populations having more sway than smaller states. The other half wanted each state to have an equal voice, allotting each state the same number of representatives, regardless of population.  In the end, both sides compromised, adopting both plans.

Larry David described compromise as "a solution leaving both parties equally dissatisfied."

But so-called Tea Party Republicans have deadlocked our government by refusing any compromise.  In years past, Democrats and Republicans would work with each other to come up with bi-partisan solutions, where each side compromised so that effective legislation could be enacted.

Of course, many Republicans will state that it's the Democrats who haven't compromised; but this is largely because Republicans aren't using the same definition as everyone else.

Republican Tea Party Senator Richard Mourdock is a clear illustration of this.  His take on what it means to be "bi-partisan" is intriguing, to say the least:

"I hope... that bipartisanship becomes Democrats joining Republicans to roll back the size of government, reduce the bureaucracy, lower taxes  ..."

Demanding that the other side adopt your point of view is  not bipartisanship, and it's certainly not compromise. 

As self-proclaimed conservative David Brooks noted, Democrats have compromised:

"The Democrats have agreed to tie budget cuts to the debt ceiling bill. They have agreed not to raise tax rates. They have agreed to a roughly 3-to-1 rate of spending cuts to revenue increases, an astonishing concession.
...
Moreover, many important Democrats are open to a truly large budget
deal. President Obama has a strong incentive to reach a deal so he can
campaign in 2012 as a moderate. The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid,
has talked about supporting a debt reduction measure of $3 trillion or
even $4 trillion if the Republicans meet him part way.
...
But we can have no confidence that the Republicans will seize this opportunity. That’s because the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party. Over the past few years, it has been infected by a faction that is more of a psychological protest than a practical, governing alternative.

The members of this movement do not accept the logic of compromise, no matter how sweet the terms. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch in order to cut government by a foot, they will say no. If you ask them to raise taxes by an inch to cut government by a yard, they will still say no. "
-- The New York Times, July 5 2011

The Washington Post was even blunter:

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.
-- The Washington Post, April 27, 2012

What "Anyone But Obama" Means For Us

So to sum it up, here's what a vote for "Anyone But Obama" is actually supporting:

• No end to the deficit.
• Government intruding into our personal lives.
  
• Renewed abuses of our civil rights.
• A de facto end to freedom of religion by advancing the causes of one religion over others.
• Stifling scientific achievement if it contradicts currently held views of the reigning party
• Ensuring that effective governance can't occur by refusing to work with the opposition.
  

Maybe this won't change your mind; maybe you even approve of the actual agenda of the Republican Party.  But one thing is certain; if you vote for "anyone but Obama," you'll be contributing to this glorious mess.

No, he's not sitting.