“We want our America back”
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This is one cry I have heard over and over at those Town Hall meetings when the wingnuts and ultra-right conservatives have gone there for the purpose of sabotaging public discourse and interrupting the democratic process.
I have news for them: You can’t have your America back because America belongs to all of us. I don’t care how hard you try to throw a wrench on the Health Care legislation by bringing up the abortion issue, or the gay rights issue, or the stimulus plan, or the claim that you kept us safe. You are not going to bamboozle the majority of the American people ever again.
As I was observing Congress and the Senate, CNN was showing the Republican side of the aisle and all I could see was males, white, Anglo Saxon. Heterosexuals. This was a group devoid of minorities and devoid of any sense of ethics and conscience.
These are the things that are gone and will not be coming back: MCCARTHYISM, THE JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY, A THEOCRACY, THE KU-KLUX-KLAN, PRIVITIZING SOCIAL SECURITY, ELIMINATION OF CAPITAL GAINS TAXES, SEGREGATION, PERSECUTION OF GAYS, HATE CRIMES AGAINST ANY MINORITIES, WOMEN AS SECOND CLASS CITIZENS, THE WELFARE STATE FOR THE RICH AND THE CORPORATIONS, THE TRAMPLING OF THE CONSTITUTION, THE EXCESSES OF THE EXECUTIVE POWERS, LACK OF BANKING AND WALL STREET REGULATIONS, AMERICANS WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE, ENGAGING IN UNECESSARY WARS, BEING ARROGANT TOWARDS THE REST OF THE WORLD, IGNORING GLOBAL WARMING, ATTEMPTS AT DESTROYING PUBLIC EDUCATION, ILLEGAL ABORTIONS, AND MANY OTHERS THAT THE REPUBLICANS HAVE EMBRACED FOR DECADES.
No Dorothy, you are not in Kansas anymore. The days of “Leave it to Beaver” are now gone for over fifty years and America belongs to each and everyone of us, not just MWASPH, male, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, heterosexuals.
To some people these idyllic good old days may have been the best, for some of us it was not. And now that they are in a minority, you can bet your ass that those days are not coming back as more and more people are recognizing Republicans for what they are.
That is why I advise those Republicans that still have a trace of decency and vestiges of fairness that they should vote to help fix the mess they left behind instead of obstructing it. Do vote your conscience and above all, do vote according to the wishes of the people who elected you to represent them, not to the wishes of the special interests who contribute heavily to your political campaigns.
Stand with Democrats against the powerful insurance lobby and their Republican allies who overwhelmingly voted no on health care reform. They have already launched a huge campaign filled with half-truths, distortions and misinformation in a desperate final attempt to scare the American people and undermine support for Congressional Democrats.
Insurance company CEOs know the days of maximizing their profits by denying care to the sick are numbered. They fear for their massive profits and obscenely large pay checks. And Republicans believe demonizing Democrats who voted for health care reform is the only way back to power.
I ask you one more question: What claim to legitimacy do the insurance companies have? What is it they are providing? What function do they have in our society? Do they even provide a service? They are nothing but the middle man who is standing between the patient and the doctor and charging an arm an a leg for what little risk they take, always excluding those who present a risk to their profits.
And what should insurance companies be if they are not a pool of resources that spreads the liabilities between many people rather than a few. If the insurance company’s whole reason for existing is to make a profit, then we have to put a collective stop to this unethical and immoral practice.
There are dark clouds hanging over the Republican Party. It seems to me that if they don’t stop the right-wing radicals they are going to be hopelessly fragmented and possibly split into two parties. It makes no difference if you are a moderate conservative because you will be purged from the party if this trend continues.
Advice to Obama on Closing Guantanamo
FindLaw columnist and human rights attorney Joanne Mariner argues that, in keeping his promise to close the detention center at Guantanamo, President-elect Obama should follow the counsel given in an open letter to him from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Amnesty International USA, Human Rights First, and Human Rights Watch, of which Mariner is a Director. Among the four groups' recommendations, as Mariner explains, is the contention that detainees should either be prosecuted in the federal courts or released to their home countries (unless they would suffer persecution there, in which case they must be resettled elsewhere). In support of this recommendation, Mariner points to evidence that the federal courts have a long history of the successful prosecution of terrorism cases. In addition, citing prosecutors' ability to bring charges such as conspiracy based on minimal evidence, Mariner contends that President Obama should not -- as some have suggested -- embrace a system allowing the preventive detention of some persons who cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have committed any crime. That would be a virtual continuation of the illegal and immoral Bush-Cheney policy that is so contentious and odious.
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani blasted the Obama administration on Friday for its decision to try five Sept. 11 suspects in New York, saying that such a trial would only encourage terrorists to target the city once again.
Earlier Friday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba would be transported onto U.S. soil to face justice in civilian court.
"After eight years of delay, those allegedly responsible for that attacks of September the 11th will finally face justice," Holder said. "They will be brought to New York – to New York – to answer for their alleged crimes in a courthouse just blocks away from where the twin towers once stood.”
PHOTO SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_Naval_Base
REFERENCE: E-MAIL FROM NEWSMAX, http://www.newsmax.com
QUOTE OF THE DAY
{Posted in Quote of the Day, The Republican Clown Car on November 14th, 2009 by Scott }
“The Right’s reaction to 
yesterday’s announcement — we’re too afraid to allow trials and due process in our country — is the textbook definition of “surrendering to terrorists.” It’s the same fear they’ve been spewing for years. As always, the Right’s tough-guy leaders wallow in a combination of pitiful fear and cynical manipulation of the fear of their followers. Indeed, it’s hard to find any group of people on the globe who exude this sort of weakness and fear more than the American Right.”
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On bail outs and stupid wars
Why do people seem to be so upset about all the bailouts and the Afghanistan situation? Dah, but first let’s put it into context. Because of the relentless and concerted efforts from Republicans and even some Democrats to deregulate and eliminate all the checks and balances that existed to maintain a healthy economy, banks, insurance companies and Wall Street lost all sense of reality and took not only unnecessary risks but they cheated their stock holders by misrepresenting their true worth.
Then we had to become involved in two wars, one we were told that it was because the Taliban and Al Quaida had a safe haven in that country, the other because the dictator possessed weapons of mass destruction which it was eminent was going to use against us and it was of extreme urgency that we invaded Iraq and took out Saddam Hussein.
What can you say at this point, other than the Bush administration and the Republicans lied to us until they were blue in the face. The shit stank so much that most people in America understood it and wanted a change. The great majority in the rest of the World was most eager to a return of sanity and the rejection of arrogance and stupidity from America.
I am irate that the first money Bush decided to dole out was to Wall Street, banks and insurance companies. It left no doubt that the rich and powerful would be benefiting long before the poor and the middle class. This happened as millions of Americans lost their jobs and had their houses foreclosed.
The catastrophic effect of an unnecessary war cost our country thousands of lives and a great deal of treasure. I only think of what this nation could have done with the trillions of dollars we just pissed a
way on the Iraq war. In retrospect, the ones who benefited greatly from the war and unrest in the Middle East have been the oil companies, stocks in these are believed to be held in great quantities by the Bushes and Cheneys.
Now, we are still in a holding pattern, a period of financial penumbra, the regulations that are needed are still not legislated, the privileged CEOs are still getting their undeserved bonuses and the economy is slowly recovering.
However, unemployment has yet to hit bottom and millions of us are miserable and suffering. I can’t stress enough that it is not Obama we should blame but the Republicans and the most incompetent president we ever had: George W. Bush. They own this mess, they created and now is no time to try to shift the blame and alter history, they can’t re-write it because they are entitled to their opinions, not to their own facts. 
If anything is obvious is that the fucking Republicans have absolutely no shame, no conscience and are devoid of any morals. They are taking great amounts of contributions from the insurance companies and opposing each and every one of President Obama’s attempts to fix this fucking mess Bush left us with. At the very least, their shame should be such that they should at least cooperate to fix the mess.
PHOTO SOURCE: http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/bliraqweekendqusay.htm
There is no freedom of religion in Cincinnati…
Two days after it went up, yesterday a Cincinnati billboard promoting atheism was removed after the landlord of its site received "multiple serious threats."
The group that funded the billboard, the United Coalition of Reason, was contacted by Lamar Advertising of Cincinnati. Lamar reported that the landowner of the site had been threatened over the billboard's message and wanted it taken down. "We weren't given the landowner's identity or precise details," reported Fred Edwords, national director of the United Coalition of Reason. "Nor did we pursue them. It was sufficient to learn that multiple, significant threats had been received and that Lamar would act quickly to alleviate the problem. Lamar was most apologetic to us regarding
the situation. It was a development they hadn't expected. Nor had we. Nothing like this has ever happened to us before." "Everything that has happened shows just how vital our message is," said Shawn Jeffers, co-coordinator for the Cincinnati Coalition of Reason. "It proves our point, that bigotry against people who don't believe in a god is still very real in America. Only when we atheists, agnostics and humanists come together and go public about our views will people have a chance to learn that we too are part of the community and deserve respect."
The billboard was moved to a less visible location, locals still aren't happy. "I think the sign needs to come down. Its atheist. Its going to cause problems around all the churches, not just Catholic, but Lutheran, baptist, all of them," said one man.
SOURCE: http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2009/11/cincinnati-threats-force-removal-of.html
And I thought that in America one had the freedom of religion and freedom from religion.
In your heart you know they are wrong….
This is what I think Republicans of the moderate persuasion should know. They should stop trying to follow the party line and not be intimidated by them because come 2010 if a Republican is a moderate they will be purged from the party. They no longer will be conservative enough or Republican enough. We have seen what happened in New York’s 23rd Congressional District.
If you are a Republican of that coloration, you will be thrown under the bus by the likes of Palin, Beck and Limbaugh. No questions asked, no explanations given. You are not fulfilling their agenda and that is that.
So, in my opinion, what any moderate Republican should do is vote their conscience particularly on the issue of Health Care Reform that includes a Public Option. If you are a Republican who is not receiving lewd amounts of contributions from the insurance companies then you should vote as your constituents would want you to vote and that is what an overwhelming majority of them do want: reform that includes a public option.
We saw one solitary Republican Representative from Louisiana break away from the pack and courageously cross party lines and voted in favor of the Health Care Bill. He will face untold admonishing in the months to come. So much so that he may even have to switch parties. But let’s be very clea
r on this, the Republican Party is well on its way to fragmentation and that will render those Moderates irrelevant in the 2010 elections and as a consequence will also render the new fangled conservative Republican Party also irrelevant as they will lose elections after elections.
So, if in your heart you know that these wingnut extremists are wrong, do vote your conscience and support what Americans have been clamoring for decades: an affordable Health Care Plan that includes a Public Option which will make the Insurance Companies compete.
Fort Hood and Americ
a weeps
The 13 killed at Fort Hood, were: Spc. Jason Dean Hunt, Sgt. Amy Krueger, Pfc. Aaron Thomas Nemelka, Michael Grant Cahill, Pfc. Kham Xiong, Staff Sgt. Justin M. DeCrow, Pfc. Michael Pearson, Russell Seager, Francheska Velez, Capt. John Gaffaney, and Major L. Eduardo Caraveo.
May they rest in peace and may we never forget them. They are heroes just the same not victims as if they were killed in an overseas battle.
PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.monstersandcritics.com
Pastors defend their 'right' to incite hate crimes against homosexuals
“File this under "makes me embarrassed to be human":
On November 16th, pastors and other clergymen (yes, clergyMEN. Get your feminist head out of the gutter.) will be congregating at our nation's capitol to publicly defame homosexuals, in order to "challenge" the Matthew Shepard Act, a congressional act which protects citizens against hate crimes committed because of the victim's perceived sexuality. The pastors don't have a problem with hate crime legislation itself, but specifically with this hate crime legislation, which limits their god-given rights to incite violence against gay people.
Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamantion League (oh, yes) had this to say about what happens when hate crime laws include homosexual victims:
"Christians are singled out for prosecution, with threats, imprisonment and fines simply for refusing to stop doing what Christ commands: proclaiming the truth."
In the interest of sympathy, let's put ourselves in these Christians' shoes. How tragic it is, that so many people devote their lives to spreading hatred, not because they are hateful people, but because they have been indoctrinated-- brainwashed-- with a bronze age story about the origin of the universe. When someone asks you, "Yeah, but what harm does religion do?" point them to examples like this.
Whenever we teach our children that groundless faith is a virtue, we pave the way for groundless violence.
Rest in peace, Matthew Shepard.”
And if we have a crossed-eye bigot declaring in Congress that the whole Matthew Shepard murder was a hoax, then I think that as a society we have very serious problems. Just look at the signs and how often they mispell words...can you say 4th grade drop-out?
SOURCE: http://its-raining-men.blogspot.com/
PHOTO: http://feministphilosophers.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/matthew-shepard-head-shot3.jpg
Like I have always said, these fucking Evangelicals are ok with a lousy economy, no healthcare for millions of Americans, two wars that make no sense, welfare for the rich and the corporations as long as they can have prayer in the schools, illegal abortion and the right to persecute and discriminate gays legally. FUCK THEM, if they think that having anti-hate crime legislation is stepping on their toes.
I really don’t know where they get this bullshit that Christ condemns homosexuals, never in my exploration of the Scriptures have I found reference to Christ admonishing them. I did find that Christ preached love and tolerance and on top of that he was the personification of forgiveness and the protector of the downtrodden. That is about one of the few things I find redeeming of the Christian religions. For them to say that Christ condemned homosexuals is ludicrous since it is even speculated that Christ may have been homosexual himself. Well, don’t be so surprised, take into consideration this: he was an ordained rabbi and by Jewish law a man should be married by age 28, which he was not. He ran around with 12 very close friends who worshiped him. But also take into consideration that in those days, intimate and sexual relationships between two young men was very much the norm.
It wasn’t until Constantine, the great homophobe, when we started to find rejection for all things homosexual. Before him, even gay unions was an accepted rite in the Church. Yes, I said gay unions, two people of the same sex had ceremonies performed and approved by the Church.
Prajean on Larry King shows her arrogance
Yesterday the dethroned beauty queen appeared on Larry King and the tape showed that the bitch does not want to talk to Larry about the settlement. That’s ok, but when a caller was put on, she started to leave, taking off the microphone and displayed behavior typical of the 4 year old spoiled brat she is.
Evidently, because she is so “sensitive and vulnerable” the cream puff fake tit bitch doesn’t want to be exposed to any criticism. You see, she is right and the whole world is wrong, and Larry was inappro
priate. No ifs, no buts, It is the world according to Prajean. Somebody has to slap the bitch across the face and tell her that this is the real world, her attitude is inmature and her hatred of gays is out of sync with the rest of society.
I say to Ms. Prajean, if you are so right, your convictions so strong, then you have to say “bring it on, I will stand by everything I did say”. But no, she wants to portray the paragon of virtues that she does not have, the poster girls of morality; yet she takes nude photos and makes naked videos. If you live in a glass house Ms. Prajean, you don’t throw stones, or put in more Scriptural languages you might understand, “he who is without sin, let him cast the first stone”.
No Ms. Prajean, the mean comments and criticism you have been getting are not even half as mean as what you propose and stand for: to take away gay people’s rights and relegate them to second class status because you believe that the only acceptable sex behavior is to stick a penis into a vagina. I wonder how you would react if somebody told you it was against the law to get married, to have over 1000 different rights denied to you because of your sexual identity.
PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.conservativelounge.com/images/carrie_prajean2.jpg
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