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While contemplating the intersection of the GOP’s gun cult, racism, misogyny and “Christians” (see note below)…I came up with this thought:
“Pro-life” Means Valuing Guns More Than “Post-Born” Life
To quote George Carlin….
“Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to 9 months. After that, they don’t wanna know about you. They don’t wanna hear from you. No nothing! No neonatal care, no daycare, no Head Start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you’re pre-born, you’re fine, if you’re preschool, you’re fucked.”
If George were alive today, he would add to the list the total lack of concern about kids being killed with guns, because the GOP as a corrupted, cynical, cruel party does not worship life…it worships guns, the NRA and political contributions and, above all, power. A few “Democrats” also fall into this group…but, by and large…it is the vile Republican Party that is destroying lives every day. Does the Republican Party ever really use its power to actually do good?
I’m not going to bore you with a look at the role of Trump, evangelical white nationalist “Christian” churches, sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention or the Catholic Church, and witch-hunting “pastors.” Or quoting the unctuous Ted Cruz. But I will use the words of the Texas governor Greg Abbott as the prime example of how utterly debased/detached from humanity a person can be:
“I’m EMBARRASSED: Texas #2 in nation for new gun purchases, behind CALIFORNIA. Let’s pick up the pace Texans,” Abbott tweeted on October 28, 2015.
The insults to my intelligence have been coming especially thick and fast lately. But the wounding of my soul has been ongoing as I’ve observed the decline of the American “experiment.” Frankly, America is failing. Just my opinion, but one that is valid.
NOTE
“Christians” in the context of this post does not refer to the Christian faith as practiced by people who are not brainwashed into being part of the Trump/GOP cult of arrogance, racism and cruelty. I feel sorry for Jesus Christ. Would he condone the use of his name by these people?
Well, it was such a disappointing week, but on Friday, Obama’s Nancy Reagan faux pas brightened my day. Keep it up, Obama! Now, onto the roundup:
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From regular reader Leslie in Chicago…this GEM. She writes:
This is the photo on the front page of the Tribune’s “RedEye” free daily newspaper.
Beneath the photo in HUGE type reads:
AMERICAN ROYALTY
PS: Saturday’s web edition is more simple: just has a pic labeled just “Royalty.”
Camelot already?? Well, about the Royal Couple’s subjects …What happens when Obama doesn’t deliver whatever it is they expect to be delivered?
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This benign title masks a VERY disturbing video which might answer the question just asked. I haven’t been to Philly in a long time…I’m glad I didn’t show up in the middle of this…see Minute 3:15
Man Arrested for Wearing McCain Shirt at Obama Victory Rally
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Over the past week, we’ve had some excellent analyses of the election. Texas Hill Country (note the new address) sent out a letter to mailing list members which think I speaks for many of us:
The American public rejected the hard right swing that was part and parcel with the Bush Administration and, blinded by rhetoric, swung far to the left… but not the traditional Democratic left. This is a new Democratic Party.
In the wake of this election cycle, people should remember that:
It was Democrats that voted against GLBT rights in 4 states
It was Democrats that voted against two very strong and capable women
It was Democrats that attacked two very strong women with vicious sexism
It was Democrats that found the attacks on freedom of speech acceptable (truth squads)
It was Democrats that applauded unfair and unethical election practices (primaries)
It was Democrats that abandoned campaign finance reform
It was Democrats that conducted a questionable war on the sanctity of the vote (acorn, ohio)
And also that
It was evangelicals that failed to come out for the Republican Party
It was the evangelicals that turned out in higher numbers for the Democrats
No matter what the rhetoric, no matter what the politicians say, the Democratic Party has abandoned two of its’ key constituencies… women and gays. I shudder to thing what will happen when little bites begin to be taken out of Roe v Wade. I no longer have any confidence that the Democratic Party will protect women’s right to choose.
It is time for the Republican party to abandon the Neo-Conservatives. It is time for the Republicans to recapture the center and to become the party of Lincoln, Martin Luther King and Barry Goldwater once again.
It is time to remake the face of the Republican Party as the party of small government, both in business and in our daily lives.
It is time for the Republican Party to become the party of equal rights and freedoms for all.
It is time for the Republican Party to become the party that it once was. The party that fought to give African Americans the right to vote. The party that fought to give women the right to vote. The party that helped the first woman get elected to Congress. The party that fought for the individual against the crushing weight of the society and the government.
It is time for the Republican Party to abandon the path set forth by John Sears and Karl Rove and get back to its’ roots.
I am calling on the Republican Party to abandon the “Religious Right” that abandoned you.
I am calling on the Republican Party to abandon its attack on a woman’s right to choose.
I am calling on the Republican Party to abandon the attacks on the division between church and state.
I am calling on the Republican Party to abandon the injection of religion into social policy
I am calling on the Republican Party to allow people of any race, creed, color or sexual preference to associate in any way they deem appropriate… including marriage.
I am calling on the Republican Party to defend my rights as a citizen to live my life without interference from the government as long as my actions are not harming others.
I am calling on the Republican Party to stop being a RINO and start being Republican once again.
Over at Not Your Sweetie, Edge wrote a piece with some hard numbers that summarizes what happened on Election Day succinctly, with a focus on who stayed home and the price we’re all going to pay for it. Edge points out that evangelicals ministers kept their flocks home on the promise of Obama’s support for money and “their ability to hire and fire based on faith. For more background on what Obama was up to during the campaign, see these pieces:
Ministers weren’t the only problem. I heard Rush Limbaugh way just days before the election that “”we don’t want any moderate Republicans…social moderates”…in the Republican Party.” According to him, it has to be a purely “Conservative” party. What effect did THAT have on his listeners?
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I can’t let go of the “racial” crap…
How come when Rice and Powell were elevated to very powerful positions I didn’t see endless blather about how they were “post-racial”?…I didn’t see the GOP making it a big selling point, either. The editor of the “Pulse” section of the local paper (entertainment section) is a young woman who wrote that “Pulse” never got political..BUT she was so happy to see what she didn’t think she’d ever see in her lifetime…a BLACK president…Well, I zipped off GG’s post and challenged her to think about why that image was more important than seeing a woman in the presidency and why she seemed so oblivious/willing to accept as the norm the misogyny of this campaign??
Young women, wake up!!
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And this should help them…FROM BETTY JEAN KLING, THIS IMPORTANT MESSAGE. She needs some people to give her radio show site some hits. SEE BELOW. I listened and she’s GREAT and she needs our support! Play the archived 11/3 show for a few minutes…the guest is Dr. Lynette Long at about the 15:00 Minute mark…Betty Jean is great and will keep your fighting spirit up! From her Friday email:
Please do me a very big favor- go to this link http://www.blogtalkradio.com/FreeMeNowand download 11/3 show – don’t have to listen but I need 50 downloads – I changed from 6PM to 8 PM and NO One and I mean not one person showed up and I could lose my show so please I need 50 downloads to save my show. Every download helps please help.
Join BettyJean at the new Prime Time Slot 8 pm est.
Tune in Monday Night 8 PM EST- FreeUsNow Mavericks
Just in case you think we do not need a new woman’s movement
Think Again!
We cannot let what happened during this year’s election cycle—rampant sexism and misogyny—continue or ever happen again. I fear women might stop running for the highest offices. Why wouldn’t they stop trying? It’s dangerous and devastating for our daughters to see. Join us as we go straight at all that is wrong with the way women were treated by our party, our media, our opponents, and other women.
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Obama was talking dogs at his press conference and I have my own UPDATE on the stray that I talked about in my Election Day post on my miracle rescue dog, Slick. (See below.) I had just put out food and water in the hope of attracting him/her. A couple of days went by without any indication that he had passed by…then, on Thursday morning, I noticed that all the food had been eaten, but a treat I also set out had been left behind. On my dog walk in the afternoon, the treat was gone! Friday, night, I moved the dishes and once again the food was gone as well as the little treats I had left! Saturday morning I moved the dishes again to a sunnier spot on the opposite side of the driveway because the water had frozen in the other location. So, let’s see if the food is gone Sunday! This is the pattern I saw with Slick…probably an early morning visit. So far, the wanderer hasn’t returned in the afternoon like Slick did, but we’ll see. If the the dog finds the food in the new place overnight/in the morning, then I’ll start moving it further up the driveway. Stay tuned!
And in the garden: It turned very cold at night a couple of nights ago, reaching the freezing point so I’ve started covering up the plants with the sunshade material. I set up the mini-greenhouse and I’ll be transferring the geraniums into that any day now. Tonight I had a sweet potato pizza crust topped with swiss chard picked from the garden and drizzled with olive oil. Scrumptious!
It’s 44 days until the General Election as I write this and after a long and hard fought primary season the Democratic Party, and the Obama campaign specifically, are still unable to get over their terminal case of CDS. I can’t help but ask “Why”? For the uninitiated, CDS stands for Clinton Derangement Syndrome, usually defined as the uncontrollable impulse to rail against all things Clinton (Hillary, Bill, Chelsea, Hillary’s supporters, and basically anything connected to centrist positions).
Team Obama not only masterminded the overthrow of the Democratic Party to form the “New Democrats” (remember the May 31, 2008 coup when all semblance of the rules were overthrown at a behind-closed-doors meeting of the Rules and Bylaws Committee), they literally declared the nomination belonged to Obama despite the fact that:
Clinton suspended her own campaign, as she had promised during the primaries she began to campaign for Obama, she asked her fundraisers to jump to Team Obama, and eventually Clinton herself served as the conduit to end her historic campaign by interrupting a roll call vote at the convention to ask for Obama’s nomination by acclaim. Yet still the Oborg continues to harass Clinton supporters. Team O bloggers continue to infiltrate web sites that had been pro-Clinton. Commenters continue to compare John McCain and Sarah Plain to Clinton, who they now conveniently claim as one of their own. Web sites continue to be hijacked and crashed. The Main Stream Media continues to fawn over Obama as messiah, ignore every negative story posted about him on the Internet, and call anyone disagreeing with their views a racist. And Middle Class voters continue to be insulted, marginalized, and discounted.
So at this late juncture, one must ask why it is that so many of the Oborg continue to fight dirty against the moderate, centrist voters that refuse to support Obama, rather than to sensibly go after them? After all, Obama went after the right wing and evangelical voters with his votes on FISA and promises to continue funding George W. Bush’s Faith Based Initiative, so why not court the center? It only makes good political sense that once the cries of “you have no where else to go” and “you’ll fall in line eventually” were obviously falling on deaf ears that the next move would be to go after this significant voting bloc with gusto and speed. But with just over 6 weeks left, the taunting and harassment continues unabated.