Eye Recommend --- The Republican Party is Driven by Two of the Most Destructive Forces in Human History

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS DRIVEN BY TWO OF THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE FORCES IN HUMAN HISTORY, by Allen Clifton -- 
http://www.forwardprogressives.com/republican-party-driven-two-destructive-forces-human-history/

"When it comes down to my issues with the Republican party, the root of most of my opposition lies in my belief that their ideology just doesn't make sense.  They talk endlessly about freedom and liberty, while simultaneously pushing for religious rule over our government...How can someone be 'free' if they're forced to follow religious rules that control people...especially if someone doesn't believe in that particular religion?...

...The same goes for their economic ideology.  The Republican party's economic beliefs are entirely predicated on the belief that 98 percent of Americans will be better off by making the top 2 percent richer.  Even now one of the biggest right-wing attacks used against President Obama is wage stagnation.  But...when they complain about stagnant wages...they're actually admitting that trickle-down economics doesn't work.

When you get right down to it, the two biggest driving forces behind the Republican party are greed and religion.  And those just happen to be two of the most destructive things human beings have endured throughout our history...

...But I don't just mean greed for money, but power as well.  Empires that weren't satisfied with what they had--they wanted more.  They had to conquer and grow.  It was no longer enough to simply be powerful and wealthy, they wanted to be the most powerful and wealthy...

...Then when you mix religion into all of that, it's a very dangerous and often deadly mixture.

That's what Islamic radicalism is really all about.  It's corrupt individuals using religion to justify their greedy desires for power.  It's all about control.  And let's face it, religion is the ultimate mechanism to use if you want to control large amounts of people.

Here in the U.S. Republicans use religion all the time to manipulate people into voting against their own interests.  The GOP has successfully managed to get conservatives to actually mix their politics and faith together...It's a whole lot of people who honestly believe that the only way to be a true Christian is to be a Republican.  And they'll never question the Republican party, because that's tantamount to questioning their faith...

...When you remove all the right-wing propaganda and rhetoric and get to the core of the Republican party, their social philosophies are built on religion and their economic ideologies are based on greed.  They want to create a society run by theocratic government where the rich and the powerful have unregulated control over practically everything.

And when you look through all of human history, those are the two things that have been the catalysts behind some of the most horrific acts every committed."

I have often said the Republican party believes no one should be in charge of anything--whether it's the White House, wages, the environment, religion, or a woman's body--unless it's them.  This Our-Way-or-No-Way philosophy is at the root of their focus on tearing down rather than building up.  They are seemingly incapable of formulating any original ideas until they are satisfied they have destroyed all vestiges of Democratic achievements. 

I see their lust for absolute power as a sign of a hollow core, a core so fundamentally weak that their fear of "the outside" has frozen any hope for progressive thought, leaving them clinging to an unsubstantiated belief in their own greatness and mired in a nostalgic yearning for a time that never really existed.  

In short, they are a party befouled by their own fecklessness.

January 19 - Monday Quote

Hard to argue with this comment on today's GOP.

monday quote:  Republicans know many things that aren't so, and no amount of contrary evidence will get them to change their minds.  (Paul Krugman, New York Times columnist, professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University, winner of 2008 Nobel Prize in economics, 1953-     )

Quick Note: Church Hosts then Halts Gay Woman's Funeral

Vanessa Collier, left with her wife, Christina Higley and their daughters

On Saturday, January 10, friends of Vanessa Collier gathered inside New Hope Ministries in Lakewood, Colorado for a funeral service to remember her and to celebrate her life.  New Hope Ministries had been chosen because it was non-denominational and its geographic location was central to Ms. Collier's widespread family and friends.

Following an hour of open viewing of the casket, where photos of Ms. Collier with friends and family were displayed, and minutes into the service, Pastor Ray Chavez halted the memorial and stated that it could not continue until all evidence of Ms. Collier's life as a gay and married mother were removed from the sanctuary.  Mr. Chavez said there could be no images of Vanessa with her wife Christina and no video showing this loving family's life together.

The photos and the video along with a check to pay for the service and the name of the minister who would officiate had been in Mr. Chavez' possession for a week prior to the day the memorial was scheduled, so Mr. Chavez could have quietly denied the request to use his church.  Instead, he chose to accept their money and falsely welcome them into his sanctuary in order to halt the service in a way that would impose the most pain and humiliation on the people who loved this woman.  

Those in attendance were in shock.  Eventually, they picked up their programs, the flowers and Ms. Collier's casket and carried them across the street to a funeral home where the service continued, albeit in cramped quarters with very little seating for the hundred or so mourners.

The Denver Post attempted to talk to "Pastor" Chavez, but he refused to comment, choosing instead to demonstrate his cowardice by hanging up the phone.

On Monday, about four dozen friends and family members of Vanessa Collier held a demonstration on the sidewalk outside New Hope Ministries.  They were kept from stepping onto church property by security guards hired by the church.

Ms. Collier's family is still waiting for a refund of the money they paid to Mr. Chavez and his Church-of-the-Holy-Hypocrisy for the use of his sanctuary.

Jesus wept.

Eye Recommend --- Despite Obama's National Economic Success, Republican State Economies Are Failing

DESPITE OBAMA'S NATIONAL ECONOMIC SUCCESS, REPUBLICAN STATE ECONOMIES ARE FAILING, by Rmuse --
http://www.politicususa.com/2015/01/15/obamas-national-economic-success-republican-state-economies-failing.html

Republican economic lies continue, Republican led states continue to falter and no one on the right wants to admit they might be wrong. (Any underlines are mine.)

"...(In 2014) Republicans ran on, and won big with their claim that the GOP is 'the party of solutions' founded on conservative pro-growth economic policies, deregulation, and tax cuts for the rich they claimed were more successful than anything 'hapless' Democrats or Obama could every hope to achieve.  This is despite the President's nearly five-year job growth record, world-leading GDP growth, and increased revenue paying down the nation's debt at a record pace."

Democrats, demonstrating a pathological fear of confrontation, ran timid campaigns, choosing to mollify their Republican foes rather than point out how successful Obama's policies, including his economic policies,  have been. 

"This column has given special attention to the trickle-down economic disaster in Kansas, but plenty of other Republican states' economies are failing miserably; especially states with Republican governors held up as the model for the nation in hopes of winning the White House...Republicans said throughout 2014 that Democrats and the President consistently offer up 'ineffective economic policies' responsible for the President's failed economic policies leading to increased income inequality plaguing the poor and middle class."

Conversely, the GOP has very little to say about how states with Republicans at the helm are faring under their policies of corporate tax cuts and reduced taxes for the wealthy.

A look at three states whose governors are hoping to become president in 2016.  

"In New Jersey, Chris Christie campaigned on and entered office on a pledge of balancing the state budget and 'replenishing the state's pension program.'  Instead, Christie's 'pro-growth agenda' of cutting corporate taxes drastically increased pension liabilities, created Kansas-style revenue shortfalls, and earned the state a record eight credit downgrades, a new mark for a sitting governor.  New Jersey is also, like Kansas, lagging the rest of the nation in creating jobs according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and while the national unemployment rate has been steadily dropping, New Jersey's is growing just over the past year."

Maybe it's because of all those people who lost their jobs over that bridge closing fiasco.

"In Louisiana, Republican Governor Bobby Jindal's conservative economic policies have the state facing 'a very large shortfall as we go into the spring session of 2015 because (the Governor) has been relying too much on...one time funds for recurring expenses' according to (Brett Geyman) a fiscally conservative Republican state representative.

The 'very large revenue shortfall' is in spite of 'the steepest cuts to education ever proposed for the state' that the Republican speaker of the Louisiana House has vowed to block because they 'will set us back generations.'  Jindal claims the steep education cuts are necessary to balance the state's budget even though with the drastic cuts, the state still faces a substantially large reveue shortfall.  Jindal wants to completely eliminate corporate taxes and raise them on the bottom 80% of the population...(because) eliminating business taxes will be 'a great benefit to big corporations.'"

In other words, screw the poor.  They don't vote Republican anyway.

"Republican Scott Walker of Wisconsin is also facing a 'pro-growth agenda' revenue shortfall this year to the tune of $2.2 billion as well as a record 'slower than average job and wage growth' compared to the national figures...Walker claims the facts are false, and that he will make up the $2.2 billion shortfall by 'adjusting funding priorities' that in Republican economic parlance means cuts to domestic programs and pension payments.  Walker already cut taxes for the rich and funded them partially with Medicaid cuts."

See comment above re: screwing the poor and add policeman, fireman and union members.

Common sense tells you that cutting taxes for the rich is not going to feed the economy.  Cutting a millionaire's taxes is not going to make him spend more; they have plenty to spend already. They can only eat out so many times a day, they can only buy so many cars or new suits or new dresses or new handbags.  A weekend in Bimini is not going to add anything to local coffers.  Give a millionaire an extra thousand, and it's going into their portfolio; or maybe into the re-election campaign of their favorite Republican candidate to make sure this largess keeps on coming. The only ones who profit by tax breaks for the rich are the rich and their politician toadies. It's a closed loop that only the wealthy and those who worship them are permitted to join.

But cut taxes for the middle class and they will spend more.  If a middle class family that has been pinching pennies to pay their bills suddenly finds it has an extra $25 a week, they are going to spend it--at a local restaurant, maybe on a movie night out or clothes that don't come from a thrift store.  Give a poor family $25 a week and they might visit a farmer's market or maybe make a down-payment on a washing machine.  This is money that goes directly into the local economy and supports small businesses that hire local employees--a self-feeding system of economic improvement open to everyone.

What is really depressing about red state economies and the economic fate of their citizens is that those citizens are so easily duped into believing their personal fiscal situation is entirely the fault of Democrats and President Obama.  They look around, they see their state spiraling down and down, just shake their heads and mumble "Obama."  And it angers me that Democrats in these states fail to stand up and fight this misconception.   

By failing to point out the truth about positive national economic indicators, by failing to offer examples of states that have raised taxes (hello, California!) and are now seeing their state economies booming, Democrats are allowing Republicans to continue to serve the kool-aide first offered  up by a George W. Bush aide in 2004 when he told Ron Suskind that it is wrong to live "in what we call the reality-based community (where people) believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.  That's not the way the world really works anymore.  We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."

He might have added, "and we don't care who we hurt as long as we stay in power." It would go a long way to explain why Republicans see education as expendable and unnecessary...no one on the right wants constituents who think.  

Someday--and may it come soon--citizens in these failing Republican led states are going to wake up, look at liberal states where the citizens are fat, happy, employed and covered by healthcare and realize they've been lied to.  I expect the blow-back will be swift and ugly.

Tea Party Signs - The Joke's On Them

Installment #15 of:

Dictionaries are a Liberal Plot

(and Grammar is Not My Cup of Tea Either)

Makes you wonder how this idiot passed the written part of the driver's test.

Quick Note: India Says It Will "Cure" Homosexuality with Yoga

The state of Goa in India is creating a program that, according to the Ramesh Tawadkar, Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs, will help young, gay people to lead "a normal life."  The state's government will set up "camps" where they will treat gay, bisexual and transgender young people.

"We will tell them what to do and how to get over same-sex feelings."

Along with counseling, yoga guru Baba Ramdey will bring his yoga institute to the camps where these young people "will be free from this habit most definitely."

Coming to a conservative church near you?! 

Putting aside how cruel this plan is, I couldn't help but picture a room full of gay men in yoga pants and wonder if Mr. Tawadkar and Mr. Ramdey had really thought this whole idea through.

Quick Note: Obama, Paris, Fox News, Social Conservatives & Misogyny -- Connecting the Dots

By now, everyone who doesn't live in a cave has seen photos and video of the massive demonstration of solidarity in Paris last weekend following the horrifying terrorist attack at Charlie Hebdo.  European leaders linked arms and marched through the capital joining millions of French citizens.  

Our Ambassador to France was there, but the President was not.  Fox News has been ranting about his absence non-stop since then.

Should President Obama have been there? Yes, I believe so; but Fox News would have been ranting anyway, because, well, it's what they do best.

In an interesting side-note,  an ultra-conservative newspaper in Israel published the iconic photo showing European leaders lined up together, but with one huge difference.  The Israeli newspaper edited out all the female leaders.  (Their newspaper photo department must have been a dull place to work during the Golda Meier years.)

This supports my belief that, no matter how you characterize yourself--Christian, Jewish, Muslim (or Republican)--when it comes to social issues, if you identify with the far-right, conservative spectrum of your rubric, misogyny is in your DNA.

And when you're weak, hate--whether it's directed at a President, another religion, a gay person, a magazine or women-- is a powerful crutch to mask your own fear.