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Posts Tagged ‘REPUBLICAN PARTY’

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THE “ZANTI MISFITS” SOLUTION TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on June 25, 2014 at 3:39 pm

Except in times of war, no nation has ever been invaded by so many alien residents as the United States.

In recent months, tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors–all of them uninvited–have illegally entered the United States through the Mexican border.

They are backed up by an estimated 11 to 20 million illegal aliens now living more or less openly throughout the country.

Just as sheer numbers of Mexicans overwhelmed the defenders of the Alamo, this similar Hispanic tidal wave has overwhelmed immigration officials.

Arrested illegal aliens in Long Island, New York

It’s also forced the Obama administration to declare a humanitarian crisis and open three emergency shelters on military bases in California, Oklahoma and Texas.

The invasion is taking its greatest toll in cities that already have large numbers of immigrants–such as New York and Los Angeles.

Newly-arrived alien children and their relatives are flooding into schools and hospitals that are supposedly intended for American citizens.  No sooner do they cross the border than they aggressively seek legal aid in converting their illegal arrival into a lifelong legal stay.

For years, Republicans and Democrats have clashed over the subject of illegal immigration.  Each side has taken what seems to be an opposing position.

Democrats favor wholesale grants of unearned citizenship to the estimated 11 to 20 million illegal alilens who brazenly violated the law when they sneaked across American borders.

And Republicams favor beefing up security against future waves of such invaders.

But the brutal truth is that neither Democrats nor Republicans truly want to end these invasions.  Nor do they want to deport the millions of illegals who have already taken up residence here.

Each party has its own reasons for this.

Democrats, primarily governed by liberal ideology, believe it’s racist for whites to demand control of their own national borders.

They ignore the blunt reality that Mexico–America’s largest source of illegal aliens–strictly enforces control of its own borders.

Mexico has a single, streamlined law that ensures that foreign visitors and immigrants are:

  • in the country legally;
  • have the means to sustain themselves economically;
  • not destined to be burdens on society;
  • of economic and social benefit to society;
  • of good character and have no criminal records; and
  • contribute to the general well-being of the nation.

The law also ensures that:

  • immigration authorities have a record of each foreign visitor;
  • foreign visitors do not violate their visa status;
  • foreign visitors are banned from interfering in the country’s internal politics;
  • foreign visitors who enter under false pretenses are imprisoned or deported;
  • foreign visitors violating the terms of their entry are imprisoned or deported;
  • those who aid in illegal immigration will be sent to prison.

But there’s another reason why Democrats are keen to grant automatic citizenship to millions of illegal aliens: They see them as a huge constituency.

They don’t care that these illegals’ defiance of American immigration laws:

  • Floods the United States with millions of poor non-citizens who don’t speak English.
  • Overwlems the public school system with children–who also don’t speak English–who require bilingual education.
  • Overwhelms the public healthcare system–especially emergency rooms–with poor illegal aliens.  As a result, urgently-needed medical care is often denied to American citizens.

Click here: Cost of Unlawful Immigrants to the U.S. Taxpayers

But Republicans are equally guilty of refusing to take a hard stand against deporting those whose presence is a blatant affront to America’s immigration laws.

There are two reasons for this:

  1. Like Democrats, Republicans want to recruit them as knee-jerk voters.
  2. Republicans want them as low-skilled, low-wage fodder for their major campaign contributors–such as corporate-farms and retail outlets like Wal-Mart.

Unlike Democrats, however, Republicans like to feign outrage at the presence of so many illegal aliens within their midst.

It’s the Republican base that’s demanding an end to illegal immigration.

Those masses of alienated and angry whites who find themselves living in a nation that’s increasingly alien from themselves.

A nation where “Press One for English” is now the norm when contacting government agencies.  A nation where illegal aliens can obtain free medical care that’s denied to native-born citizens.

It was enraged citizens like this who, on June 10, cost Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor his bid for re-election.  Cantor’s 14-year political career crashed on the fury of Tea Party opposition to illegal immigration.

Still, the question remains: What should be done about the tens of thousands of illegals now swarming into the United States?

Democrats hasten to defend President Barack Obama’s refusal to deport en masse these violators.  They claim he is the victim of unpredictable circumstances.

But they don’t offer any solution that involves wholesale deportations of such invaders.  It’s as if they believe this onrushing tidal wave will somehow recede on its own momentum.

Meanwhile, Republicans essentially take the position of Mitt Romney, their failed 2012 Presidential candidate:  Self-deportation.

This way, the party doesn’t have to actually come out in favor of forcibly returning unwanted foreigners to their respective countries.

But there is a way the United States could deal with this unceasing tsunami of foreign invasions.  It might be called “The Zanti Misfits” solution.

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HERMAN CAIN’S NEXT (PRESIDENTIAL) FLING

In History, Humor, Politics on June 10, 2014 at 2:17 am

Herman Cain may run for President again.

Yes, on May 31, he told the annual Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans that he might once again take up the Presidential quest in 2016.

The kicker: if God calls upon him to do so.

“I do not know what the future holds,” said the onetime CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, “but I know who holds the future. And I trust in God.”

The last time Cain ran for President–in 2011–his campaign ended in scandal.  Multiple women came forward to accuse him of making aggressive and unwanted sexual advances.

Herman Cain

Cain’s longtime wife, Gloria, chose to stand by him.  But millions of female voters chose other candidates to vote for.

Cain dropped out of the race in December, 2011, before any actual votes were cast.

Unwilling to face the truth about himself, he still blames liberals for his dropping out of the 2012 Presidential race.

“The liberals thought that they had shut me up,” he told his cheering supporters at the Republican Leadership Conference. “I’m back!”

Perhaps Cain hopes that, in another two years, Americans will have forgotten the real reason he was forced to at least momentarily give up his Presidential ambitions: The “BJs for jobs” program he once offered Sharon Bialek.

Sharon Bialek

Bialek was an employee of the National Restaurant Association (NRA) where Cain served as CEO in 1997.

In mid-July, 1997, she asked Cain for help in finding a new job or getting her old one back.  She had been let go from her job with the educational foundation of the NRA.

Cain offered to help her and she traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet him.

As Bialek later recounted their meeting: “I met Mr. Cain in the lobby of the bar at the Capitol Hilton at around 6:30 p.m.  We had drinks at the hotel.”

Cain then took her to an Italian restaurant for dinner.

“While we were driving back to the hotel, he said that he would show me where the National Restaurant Association offices were.  He parked the car down the block.

“I thought that we were going to go into the offices so that he could show me around….

“But instead of going into the offices, he suddenly reached over and put his hand on my leg under my skirt and reached for my genitals.  He also grabbed my head and brought it toward his crotch.

“I was very, very surprised and very shocked.  I said, ‘What are you doing?  You know I have a boyfriend.  This isn’t what I came here for.’

“Mr. Cain said, ‘You want a job, right?’

“I asked him to stop and he did.  I asked him to take me back to my hotel, which he did, right away.”

Of course, Bialek never got her job back–or help from Cain in finding another one.

Bialek was the fourth woman to come forward to accuse Cain of making improper sexual advances toward her. And it was her testimony that sealed his fate as a Presidential candidate.

But that didn’t mean Cain lacked Right-wing supporters–such as Rush Limbaugh.

Rush Limbaugh

On October 31, 2011, Limbaugh blamed “the Left’s racist hit job” for Cain’s faltering campaign: “The racial stereotypes that these people are using to go after Herman Cain, what is the one thing that it tells us?

“It tells us who the real racists are, yeah, but it tells us that Herman Cain is somebody.  Something’s going on out there. Herman Cain obviously is making some people nervous for this kind of thing to happen.”

And on November 7, Limbaugh offered another “defense” for Cain’s behavior: Calling Bialek a “babe” and “the blonde bombshell,” he joked about Cain’s attempt to extort sexual favors via her need for a job.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha,” laughed Limbaugh. “That’s it.  Cain decided to provide her with his idea of a ‘stimulus package.'”

But Limbaugh wasn’t through: “Get this now. I have been wrong in pronouncing the fourth Cain accuser’s name as “Be-allek.” Gloria Allred [Bialek’s attorney] says that her name is pronounced ‘Bye-a-lick,’ as in ‘Buy a Lick.'”

To drive home his point, he made crude slumping noises over the microphone.

Actually, the name is pronounced “By-a-Lek.”

But even the venom of America’s most toxic Right-wing broadcaster couldn’t save Cain.   On December 3, 2011, he dropped out of the race.

Another Rightist who had only praise for Cain was the notoroious adulterer, Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House of Representatives.

Newt Gingrich

As soon as Cain dropped out, Gingrich saluted him: “I am proud to know Herman Cain and consider him a friend and I know he will continue to be a powerful voice for years to  come.”

Gingrich, then a Presidential candidate himself, had two reasons for not criticizing his former rival.

  1. Gingrich–who had loudly touted himself a champion of “Family Values”–had enjoyed more than his share of extramrital perks; and
  2. He hoped to inherit Cain’s supporters, not alienate them.

When considering Cain as a candidate in 2016, voters would do well to recall the line: “Birds of a feather flock together.”

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HERMAN CAIN: “IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT”

In Business, Politics, Social commentary on June 9, 2014 at 12:57 am

Herman Cain may run for President again.

Yes, on May 31, he told the annual Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans that he might once again take up the Presidential quest in 2016.

The kicker: if God calls upon him to do so.

“I do not know what the future holds,” said the onetime CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, “but I know who holds the future. And I trust in God.”

The last time Cain ran for President–in 2011–his campaign ended in scandal.  Multiple women came forward to accuse him of making aggressive and unwanted sexual advances.

Cain’s longtime wife, Gloria, chose to stand by him.  But millions of female voters chose other candidates to vote for.

Cain dropped out of the race in December, 2011, before any actual votes were cast.

Herman Cain

Aside from his apparent inability to keep his hands–and penis–confined to his marriage, there’s another reason why voters should think twice about voting for him.

At the Republican Presidential candidates’ debate in Las Vegas, on October 18, 2011, a telling exchange occurred between CNN journalist and moderator Anderson Cooper and GOP candidate Herman Cain.

COOPER: “How do you explain the Occupy Wall Street movement happening across the country? And how does it relate with your message?

“Herman Cain, I’ve got to ask you, you said–two weeks ago, you said, ‘Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks. If you don’t have a job, and you’re not rich, blame yourself.’”

“That was two weeks ago. The movement has grown. Do you still say that?”

CAIN: “I still stand by my statement, and here’s why.  They might be frustrated with Wall Street and the bankers, but they’re directing their anger at the wrong place.

“Wall Street didn’t put in failed economic policies. Wall Street didn’t spend a trillion dollars that didn’t do any good. Wall Street isn’t going around the country trying to sell another $450 billion. They ought to be over in front of the White House taking out their frustration.”

* * * * *

So, there you have it.  If you’re one of the estimated 14 to 25 million unemployed or under-employed Americans, don’t look to Herman Cain for help or even sympathy.

It’s all your fault.

It’s your fault that, today, more than 2 million Americans have been unemployed for at least 99 weeks—the cutoff point for unemployment insurance in the hardest-hit states.

It’s your fault that the longer a person is out of work, the less likely s/he is to find an employer willing to hire.

It’s your fault that corporations across the country are now sitting atop $2 trillion in profits. 

It’s your fault that their CEOs are using those monies for enriching themselves, their bought-off politicians, their families—and occasionally their mistresses.

It’s your fault that CEOs are using those monies to buy up their corporate rivals, throw even more Americans into the streets, and pocket their wages.

It’s your fault that CEOs are using those profits to create or enlarge companies outside the United States—solely to pay substandard wages to their new employees.

It’s your fault that the one expense CEOs refuse to underwrite is hiring their fellow Americans.

It’s your fault that CEOs want to escape American employee-protection laws–such as those mandating worker’s compensation or forbidding sexual harassment.

It’s your fault that CEOs want to escape American consumer-protection laws–such as those banning the sale of lead-contaminated products (a hallmark of Chinese imports).

It’s your fault that CEOs want to escape American laws protecting the environment–such as those requiring safe storage of dangerous chemicals.

It’s your fault that mass firings of employees usually accompany corporate mergers or acquisitions.

It’s your fault that many employers victimize part-time employees, who are not legally protected against such threats as racial discrimination, sexual harassment and unsafe working conditions.

It’s your fault that many employers refuse to create better than menial, low-wage jobs.

It’s your fault that right-wing politicians encourage corporate employers to extort “economic incentives” from cities or states in return for moving to or remaining in those areas.

It’s your fault that such “incentives” usually absolve employers from complying with laws protecting the environment and/or workers’ rights.

It’s your fault that many employers refuse to provide medical and pension benefits—nearly always in the case of part-time employees, and, increasingly, for full-time, permanent ones as well.

It’s your fault that crime rates are now rising, due to rising unemployment.

It’s your fault that such employers want, in short, to enrich themselves at the direct expense of their country. 

It’s your fault if you’ve forgotten that, in decades past, such conduct used to be called treason–and punished accordingly.

And it’s your fault if you vote for GOP politicians who support such corrupt and ruinous policies.

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WHY THE RIGHT WINS AND THE LEFT LOSES

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 12, 2014 at 12:00 am

Most Americans believe Nazi Germany was defeated because “we were the Good Guys and they were the Bad Guys.”

Not so.

The United States–and its allies, Great Britain and the Soviet Union–won the war for reasons that had nothing to do with the rightness of their cause. These included:

  • Nazi Germany–i.e., its Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler–made a series of disastrous decisions.  Chief among these: Attacking its ally, the Soviet Union and declaring war on the United States;
  • The greater material resources of the Soviet Union and the United States; and
  • The Allies waged war as brutally as the Germans.

On this last point:

  • From D-Day to the fall of Berlin, captured Waffen-SS soldiers were often shot out of hand.
  • When American troops came under fire in the German city of Aachen, Lt. Col. Derrill Daniel brought in a self-propelled 155mm artillery piece and opened up on a theater housing German soldiers.  After the city surrendered, a German colonel labeled the use of the 155 “barbarous” and demanded that it be outlawed.

German soldiers at Stalingrad

  • During the battle of Stalingrad in 1942, Wilhelm Hoffman, a young German soldier and diarist, was appalled that the Russians refused to surrender.  He wrote: “You don’t see them at all, they have established themselves in houses and cellars and are firing on all sides, including from our rear–barbarians, they use gangster methods….”

In short: The Allies won because they dared to meet the brutality of a Heinz Guderian with that of a George S. Patton.

This is a lesson that has been totally lost on the liberals of the Democratic Party.  Which explains why they lost most of the Presidential elections of the 20th century.

It also explains why President Barack Obama has found most of his legislative agenda stymied by Right-wing Republicans.

Consider this latest example: Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has warned Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that he will place a hold on one of President Obama’s appellate court nominees.

Rand Paul

David Barron has been nominated to the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals.  And Paul objects to this because Barron authored memos justifying the killing of an American citizen by a drone in Yemen.

The September 30, 2011 drone strike killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric notorious on the Internet for encouraging Muslims to attack the United States.

So President Obama authorized a drone stroke against him, thus removing that danger. Paul is demanding that the Justice Department release the memos Barron crafted justifying the drone policy.

Anwar al-Awlaki

Imagine how Republicans would depict Paul–or a Democratic Senator–if he behaved in a similar manner with a Republican President: “Rand Paul: A traitor who supports terrorists.  He sides with America’s enemies against its own lawfully elected President.”

To Bepublicans, “lawfully elected” applies only to Republican Presidents.  A Democrat who runs against a Republican is automatically considered a traitor.

And a Democrat who defeats a Republican is automatically considered a usurper, and thus deserves to be slandered and obstructed, if not impeached.

Unable to defeat Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, Republicans tried in 1998 to impeach him for getting oral sex in the White House.

Similarly, 2012 Presidential candidate Herman Cain, asked in a conference call with bloggers why Republicans couldn’t just impeach President Obama, replied: “That’s a great question and it is a great–it would be a great thing to do but because the Senate is controlled by Democrats we would never be able to get the Senate first to take up that action.”

In Renegade: The Making of a President, Richard Wolffe chronicled Obama’s successful 2008 bid for the White House. Among his revelations:

Obama, a believer in rationality and decency, felt more comfortable in responding to attacks on his character than in making them on the character of his enemies.

A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama is easily one of the most academically gifted Presidents in United States history.

But for all this, he failed–from the onset of his Presidency–to grasp and apply this fundamental lesson taught by Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern political science. In The Prince Machiavelli warns:

From this arises the question whether it is better to be loved than feared, or feared more than loved. 

The reply is, that one ought to be both feared and loved, but as it is difficult for the two to go together, it is much safer to be feared than loved….

And men have less scruple in offending one who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared; for love is held by a chain of obligations which, men being selfish, is broken whenever it serves their purpose; but fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails. 

Because Obama has failed to heed this advice, his enemies–which is what Republicans consider themselves to be–have felt free to demonize and obstruct him at every turn.

Nor is Obama alone in failing to learn Machiavelli’s lesson. For Democrats to win elective victories and enact their agenda, they must find theiir own George Patton to take on the Waffen-SS generals among Republican ranks.

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FANATICS AS VICTIMS: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, Law, Politics, Social commentary on March 3, 2014 at 3:51 pm

During the 12-year insanity of the Third Reich, Nazs labeled their acts of aggression as “self-defense.”  But they denounced acts of self-defense by others against Nazi assault or terror as “naked aggression.”

This remains the mindset and practice of American Right-wingers.

In Arizona, American Fascists had anticipated becoming victimizers of gays and lesbians.  But on February 26, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer dashed their hopes and vetoed Senate Bill 1062.

The legislation had been passed by the Republican-controlled State House and Senate.  It would have:

  • Allowed business owners to turn away gay and lesbian customers.
  • Allowed employers to deny equal pay to women.
  • Allowed individuals to renege on contract obligations.

And all of these actions would have been legally protected–so long as “sincere religious belief” was cited  as the reason.

American Rightists believed they had a God-given right to withhold their business services from gays and lesbians.

But they considered it unfair and even demonic for gays and their supporters to withhold monies from discriminatory Arizona businesses.

The Right had suffered a similar reversal-of-discrimination misfortune in 2012.

Karen Handel, vice president of public affairs for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, fashioned what she believed was a politically viable plan for Komen to pull its grant monies from Planned Parenthood (PP).

A fanatical anti-abortionist, she didn’t care that this money went entirely for breast cancer screenings for poor women.  She careed only that about 3% of all PP revenues went toward providing abortion services.

The official version, as put out by Handel and the top brass of Komen, went: “We’ve halted grants to Planned Parenthood because it’s under investigation by Congress for misuse of funds.”

Unfortunately for Komen, the public instantly saw through the lie.

Any crank in Congress can start an “investigation” into anything.

And PP was “under investigation” by a crank: Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

Stearns, a fanatical anti-abortionist, claimed he wanted to determine whether PP had spent public money on abortions over the last decade.

But Stearns didn’t hesitate to slander the patriotism of thousands of 9/11 “first responders”–the police, firefighters, construction workers and others who risked their lives to save their fellow Americans.

“First responders” at work at World Trade Center

He did so by demanding that they submit their names, birthplaces, addresses, government ID numbers and other personal data to the FBI to prove they were not terrorists. 

Only then could they receive federally-subsidized medical care for injuries caused by exposure to toxic dust and debris at the site.

Public outrage at Komen was immediate and overwhelming:

  •  More than 50 members of Congress signed letters asking Komen to reverse course.
  •  New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg publicly rebuked Komen and pledged $250,000 to PP.
  • Approximately 37,000 people from all over the country signed a petition demanding Handel’s resignation.
  • PP raised nearly $3 million in contributions.

Reeling before this onslaught of criticism, Komen issued a statement: “We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants.”

Having failed in their latest assault on women’s rights, the Right’s would-be predators now portrayed themselves as victims:

  • “The last time I checked,” Handel told Right-wing Fox News, “private non-profit organizations have a right and a responsibility to be able to set the highest standards and criteria on their own without interference, let alone the level of vicious attacks and coercion that has occurred by Planned Parenthood.  It’s simply outrageous.”
  • “Planned Parenthood campaigns to destroy anyone who questions them,” charged Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List.
  • “Their attitude is that of an immature teenager with an enormous sense of entitlement.  This is just more proof that Planned Parenthood will pulverize anyone who dares to question them,” Dannenfelser said.
  • “What Planned Parenthood did to that venerable and honorable organization [Komen Foundation] is nothing less than a Mafia-style shakedown,” said Steven H. Aden, senior counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund.  The Fund bitterly opposes abortion, gay marriage, birth control and the separation of church and state.

Many conservatives correctly defended Komen’s right, as a private charitable organization, to give–or withhold–its money as it saw fit.

But these same conservatives refused to grant PP’s outraged supporters the same right: To withhold their own contributions from Komen. 

National Review’s Daniel Foster called the backlash to Komen “disgusting,” attacking PP and “the Left” for their “gangsterism.”

During the battle for Stalingrad, in 1942, a young German soldier named Wilhelm Hoffman was appalled that the Russians refused to surrender.  In his diary he wrote:

German soldiers at Stalingrad

“September 26. Our regiment is involved in constant heavy fighting. After the elevator was taken the Russians continued to defend themselves just as stubbornly.

“You don’t see them at all, they have established themselves in houses and cellars and are firing on all sides, including from our rear–barbarians, they use gangster methods. ….Stalingrad is hell….“

What held true for German Fascists holds equally true for those in America: Oppose their efforts to enslave you–and you become a gangster.

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FANATICS AS VICTIMS: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on February 28, 2014 at 12:05 am

Chicago radio host and former Illinois Republican Congressman Joe Walsh knows why Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed Arizona Senate Bill 1062.

“The LGBT community has become nothing more than a group of constitutional terrorists,” tweeted Walsh.

Nor was that all Walsh had to say on Twitter.

“Stop saying she vetoed an ‘anti-gay bill.’  Stop distorting reality to advance your liberal agenda, media.”

“ObamasAmerica, where Christians must participate in gay weddings and Catholics forced to pass out birth control like communion.”

Joe Walsh

The legislation had been passed by the Republican-controlled State House and Senate.  It would have:

  • Allowed business owners to turn away gay and lesbian customers.
  • Allowed employers to deny equal pay to women.
  • Allowed individuals to renege on contract obligations.

And all of these actions would have been legally protected–so long as “sincere religious belief” was cited  as the reason.

The legislation was written by the Right-wing advocacy group Center for Arizona Policy and the Christian legal organization, Alliance Defending Freedom.

Gays and their supporters reacted by threatening a legal business and tourism boycott of Arizona.  And the business community and its supporters, alarmed, took notice:

  • Large businesses–such as Apple, American Airlines, AT&T, Delta Airlines, Verizon and Intel–publicly opposed the measure.
  • With Super Bowl XLIX scheduled to be played in 2015 at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee expressed concerns.
  • Arizona’s United States Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake publicly urged Brewer to veto the measure, citing worries about the economic impact on the state’s businesses.

Faced with a choice between monetary greed and ideological fanaticism, Governor Brewer chose to veto the legislation–and forestall a costly boycott.

During the 12-year insanity of the Third Reich, Nazis labeled their acts of aggression as “self-defense.”  But they denounced acts of self-defense by others against Nazi assault or terror as “naked aggression.”

American Fascists who anticipated becoming victimizers now similarly claim themselves to be victims.  Among their rants:

  • “CNN led full court media press to take away rights of Christians. Just the beginning. Using tolerance as weapon against us. Wake up.”  –John Nolte (@NolteNC)
  • “Not sure what the GOP stands for when it stands against religious freedom out of pure fear of political correctness.”  –Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro)
  • “Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer makes Christians in her state second class citizens.” –toddstarnes (@toddstarnes)
  • “A sad day for Arizonans who cherish and understand religious liberty.” –The Center for Arizona Policy 
  • “Freedom loses when fear overwhelms facts and a good bill is vetoed. Today’s veto enables the foes of faith to more easily suppress the freedom of the people of Arizona.”  –Alliance Defending Freedom

American Rightists believed they had a God-given right to withhold their business services from gays and lesbians.

But they considered it unfair and even demonic for gays and their supporters to withhold monies from discriminatory Arizona businesses.

The Right had suffered a similar reversal-of-discrimination misfortune in 2012.

Karen Handel, vice president of public affairs for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, had it all worked out.

She had fashioned what she believed was a politically viable plan for Komen to pull its grant monies from Planned Parenthood (PP).

Karen Handel

She didn’t care that this money went entirely for breast cancer screenings for poor women.  What she did care about was that about 3% of all PP revenues went toward providing abortion services.

Since being hired by Komen as vice president of public affairs, in April, 2011, Handel had been pushing to drop PP from grants.  More than anyone else at Komen, she was the driving force behind the decision.

And why not?  She had promised to de-fund PP during her failed 2010 campaign for governor of Georgia.

She believed that:

  • she could strip PP of future grants from the Komen Foundation, and
  • make the decision look as if it resulted from a legitimate tightening of eligibility criteria.

The official version, as put out by Handel and the top brass of Komen, went: “We’ve halted grants to Planned Parenthood because it’s under investigation by Congress for misuse of funds.”

Unfortunately for Komen, the public instantly saw through the lie.  And the results for Komen were as devastating as those that threatened to engulf Arizona two years later.

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NUREMBERG COMES TO ARIZONA: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on February 25, 2014 at 11:20 am

Hamza Kashgari, a 23-year-old columnist in Saudi Arabia, decided to celebrate the birthday of the Islamic prophet Muhammed in a truly unique way.

In February, 2012, he posted on Twitter a series of mock conversations between himself and Muhammad:

“On your birthday, I will say that I have loved the rebel in you, that you’ve always been a source of inspiration to me, and that I do not like the halos of divinity around you. I shall not pray for you.”

“On your birthday, I find you wherever I turn. I will say that I have loved aspects of you, hated others, and could not understand many more.”

“On your birthday, I shall not bow to you. I shall not kiss your hand. Rather, I shall shake it as equals do, and smile at you as you smile at me. I shall speak to you as a friend, no more.”

“No Saudi women will go to hell, because it’s impossible to go there twice.”

The tweets sparked some 30,000 infuriated responses. Many Islamic clerics demanded that he face execution for blasphemy.

Kashgari posted an apology tweet: “I deleted my previous tweets because…I realized that they may have been offensive to the Prophet and I don’t want anyone to misunderstand.”

Soon afterward, King Abdullah ordered his arrest.

Kashgari served a prison sentence until October, 2013, when he was released.

Outrageous? By Western standards, absolutely.

Clearly there is no tolerence in Saudi Arabia for the freedoms of thought and expression that Americans take for granted.

But before you say, “Religious oppression like that could never happen in the United States,” think again.

Right-wing American ayatollahs are now working overtime to create just that sort of society–where theocratic despotism rules the most intimate aspects of our lives.

One of these ayatollahs was/is GOP Presidential candidate and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum. In early January, 2012, he said that states should have the right to outlaw birth control without the interference of the Supreme Court.

Rick Santorum

In an interview with ABC News, Santorum said he opposed the Supreme Court’s ruling that made birth control legal:

“The state has a right to do that [ban contraception]. I have never questioned that the state has a right to do that. It is not a Constitutional right. The state has the right to pass whatever statutes they have.

“That’s the thing I have said about the activism of the Supreme Court–they are creating rights, and it should be left up to the people to decide.”

In the landmark 1965 decision, Griswold v. Connecticut, the Court struck down a law that made it a crime to sell contraceptives to married couples. The Constitution, ruled the Justices, protected a right to privacy.

Two years later, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, the Court extended Griswold by striking down a law banning the sale of contraceptives to unmarried couples.

Santorum has left no doubt as to where he stands on contraception. On October 19, 2011, he said:

“One of the things I will talk about that no President has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, ‘“Well, that’s okay. Contraception’s okay.’

“It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also…procreative.”

“How things are supposed to be”–according to right-wing fanatics like Santorum and the evangelicals who support him.

Like the Saudi religious religious zealots who demand the death of a “blasphemer,” they demand that their religious views should govern everyone. Both groups have far more in common than they want to admit.

The important difference–for Americans who value their freedom–is this:

The United States has a Supreme Court that can–and does–overturn laws that threaten civil liberties. Laws that GOP legislators–such as those in Arizona–clearly want to force on those who don’t share their peculiar religious views.

The Right is not waging a “war for religious liberty.”

It’s waging a bitter struggle to establish a government that uses force or the threat of it to impose highly conservative religious beliefs on those who do not share such religious beliefs.

And on atheists or agnostics, who share none at all.

These Rightists and their theocratic allies have more in common with Tomas de Torquemada (1420 – 1498) the infamous Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition, than with Jesus Christ.

Tomas de Torquemada

Christ never ordered the torture or death of anyone. Torquemada–claiming to act in “defense” of the Roman Catholic Church–presided over the deaths of at least 2,000 “heretics.”

For such people, Torquemada believed, the only road to salvation lay in being “cleansed” of their sins. And nothing burns away impurities like fire.

Men like Torquemada and the anti-gay legislators of Arizona do not seek a golden future.

They crave to return to a “golden” past–which includes the one-time power of Christians to forcefully impose their religious beliefs on others.

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NUREMBERG COMES TO ARIZONA: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on February 24, 2014 at 6:08 pm

One party, just one, not both, not together, just one, is the party that seeks to judge others, limit access to goods/services and promote hate in America.

The reasons behind this bill are no different than the Jim Crow laws of the 60s and other acts of bigotry.  If you vote Republican, this is you and your party across the nation.

–Scott Ackeridge

Scott Ackeridge wasn’t referring to the Nazi Party.  But he could have been.

On September 15, 1935, the Nazis–who had taken power in Germany in 1933–introduced a series of anti-Semetic laws at their annual Nuremberg rally.

Adolf Hitler addressing a Nuremberg Rally of the Nazi Party

Under the Nuremberg laws:

  • Marriages between Jews and German citizens were forbidden.
  • Extramarital relations between Jews and German citizens were forbidden.
  • Jews were forbidden to employ female German citizens under the age of 45 as domestic workers.
  • Jews were banned from employment as attorneys, doctors or journalists.
  • Jews were forbidden to use state hospitals.
  • Jews could not be educated by the state past the age of 14.
  • Jews were forbidden to enter public libraries, parks and beaches.
  • The names of Jewish soldiers were to be expunged from war memorials.

With anti-Semitism now codified in German law, the foundations for the coming Holocaust were firmly laid.

Now, fast-forward to February 20, 2014.

The Republican-dominated Arizona legislature sends a bill to Republican Governor Jan Brewer that:

  • Allows business owners to turn away gay and lesbian customers.
  • Allows employers to deny equal pay to women.
  • Allows individuals to renege on contract obligations.

All of these will be legally allowed–so long as “sincere religious belief” is claimed as the reason.

House Bill 2153/Senate Bill 1062 was written by the right-wing advocacy group Center for Arizona Policy and the Christian legal organization, Alliance Defending Freedom.

Specifically, the legislation proposes to:

  • Expand the state’s definition of the exercise of religion to include both the practice and observance of religion.
  • Allow someone to assert a legal claim of free exercise of religion regardless of whether the government is a party to the proceedings.
  • Expand those protected under the state’s free-exercise-of-religion law to “any individual, association, partnership, corporation, church, religious assembly or institution or other business organization.”
  • Allows any business, church or person to cite the law as a defense in any action brought by the government or individual claiming discrimination.
  • Allows the business or person to seek an injunction once they show their actions are based on a sincere religious belief and the claim places a burden on the exercise of religion.

Advocates often cited the case of a New Mexico wedding photographer who was sued after refusing to take photos of a same-sex couople’s commitment ceremony due to the photographer’s religious beliefs.

“We are trying to protect people’s religious liberties,” said Representative Steve Montenegro, R-Litchfield Park.

“We don’t want the government coming in and forcing someone to act against their religious sacred faith beliefs or having to sell out if you are a small-business owner.”

Arizona Representative Steve Montenegro

But opponents say the law would:

  • Protect a corporation that refuses to hire anyone who isn’t a Christian; and
  • Block gays and lesbians from access to nearly any business or service–including fire and police.

“The message that’s interpreted is: We want you to work here, but we are not going to go out of our way to protect you, to protect your rights, to protect your family,” said Representative Ruben Gallego, D-Phoenix.

Similar anti-gay legislation has been introduced by Republicans in other states:

  • In Kansas, lawmakers voted to exempt individuals from providing any service that was “contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
  • That bill passed the state’s House chamber on February 11, triggering national backlash.  It has since stalled in the Senate and is not expected to advance this year.
  • In January, South Dakota Republicans introduced a bill to allow businesses refuse to serve same-sex couples on the grounds that “businesses are private and that their views on sexual orientation are protected to the same extent as the views of private citizens.”
  • The bill–which was killed in February–would have made it illegal for a gay person to file a lawsuit charging discrimination.
  • A ballot initiative in Oregon would let business owners refuse to serve same-sex couples “if doing so would violate a person’s deeply held religious beliefs.”
  • The initiative could be voted on this year.

Ironically, many Right-wingers who support the right of Christians to discriminate fear that they will become victims of religious persecution if Islamic Sharia law comes to the United States.

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THE POLITICS OF SCAPEGOATING: PART THREE (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 28, 2013 at 12:00 am

With the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Republican Party went into a tailspin of dismay.

For almost 50 years, Republicans had conjured up The Red Bogeyman to scare voters into sending them to Congress and the White House.

But now that the “workers’ paradise” had disappeared, Americans seemed to lose interest in the Communist Menace.

True, the People’s Republic of China remained, and its increasing economic clout would challenge the United States well into the 21st century.  But Americans didn’t seem to fear the Red Chinese as they had the Red Russians.

What was the Republican Party to do to lure voters?

On September 11, 2001, the answer arrived–in two highjacked jetliners that crashed into the World Trade Center in New York and one that struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

Exit The Red Bogeyman.  Enter The Maniacal Muslim.

Consider:

  • Mike Huckabee – “If the purpose of a church is to push forward the gospel of Jesus Christ, and then you have a Muslim group that says that Jesus Christ and all the people that follow him are a bunch of infidels who should be essentially obliterated, I have a hard time understanding that.”
  • Herman Cain – ”I would not” appoint a Muslim in his administration.
  • Newt Gingrich – “I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they [his grandchildren] are my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists. …”
  • Rick Santorum – On supporting the racial profiling of Muslims: “Obviously, Muslims would be someone you look at, absolutely.”
  • Mitt Romney – “Based on the numbers of American Muslims in our population, I cannot see that a Cabinet position [for a Muslim] would be justified.”

And on July 13, Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) sent letters to the Inspectors General of the Departments of

  • Defense;
  • State;
  • Justice; and
  • Homeland Security.

“The purpose of these letters,” wrote Bachmann, was to “request a multi-department investigation into potential Muslim Brotherhood infiltration into the United States Government.”

Michelle Bachmann

Bachmann further asserted in her letter to the State Department that Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

And the evidence for this?

The Center for Security Policy’s claim that Abedin’s father (who died when she was a teenager), mother and brother are “connected” to the organization.

And what is the Center of Security Policy?  A private organization subsidized by donors to neo-conservative causes.

In a separate letter, Bachmann demanded to know how Abedin received her security clearance.

Among the co-signers of Bachmann’s letter to the Inspectors General were:

  • Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, who has said abortion has done more harm to blacks than slavery;
  • Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia, who called presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, ”uppity”; and
  • Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas, who claims that terrorist organizations send pregnant women into the U.S. so that their children will be American citizens–who can enter and leave the country at will as they are trained to be terrorists abroad.

When pressed for their evidence of “a vast Muslim conspiracy,” right-wing accusers usually refuse to provide any.

An example of this occurred during an August 13, 2010 interview between Gohmert and CNN’s Anderson Cooper:

COOPER: What research? Can you tell us about the research?

GOHMERT: You are attacking the messenger, Anderson, you are better than this. You used to be good. You used to find that there was a problem and you would go after it.

COOPER: Sir, I am asking you for evidence of something that you said on the floor of the House.

GOHMERT: I did, and you listen, this is a problem. If you would spend as much time looking into the problem as you would have been trying to come after me and belittle me this week –

COOPER: Sir, do you want to offer any evidence? I’m giving you an opportunity to say what research and evidence you have. You’ve offered none, other than yelling.

Nor did Gohmert offer any evidence that evening.

Of course, the ultimate Republican Muslim slander is that President Barack Obama–a longtime Christian–is himself a Muslim.

No doubt Republicans feel totally safe in making these attacks, since Muslims comprise only 1% of the American population.

This has long been a hallmark of right-wing attacks–to go after a minority that cannot effectively defend itself.

Thus, Adolf Hitler attacked the Jews of Germany.

And Republicans have successively attacked blacks, Hispanics and gays–until each group became politically influential enough to defeat Republican candidates.

Today, most right-wing politicians at least grudgingly court all of these groups.

When Muslims become a significant political force in their own right, the Right will court them, too.  And then move on to yet another helpless scapegoat to blame for America’s troubles.

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THE POLITICS OF SCAPEGOATING: PART TWO (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on November 27, 2013 at 12:05 am

“Judge not, that you not be judged.  For with what judgment you judged, you shall be judged, and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again.”

So warns the Gospel of St. Matthew, 7:1-2.  It’s advice that Right-wingers Joseph McCarthy, Robert Welch and George H.W. Bush would have done well to heed.

Joseph McCarthy, Wisconsin’s gift to the United States Senate, became infamous as the demagogue whose Red-baiting accusations terrified America from 1950 to 1954.

Joseph McCarthy

Elected to the Senate in 1946, he rose to national prominence on February 9, 1950, after giving a fiery speech in Wheeling, West Virginia:

“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”

Americans were already growing increasingly fearful of Communism:

  • Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had not withdrawn the Red Army from the countries it had occupied in Eastern Europe during World War II.
  • In 1948, the Soviet Union developed–and demonstrated–its own atomic bomb, an achievement U.S. scientists had claimed would not happen for at least a decade.
  • In 1949, China fell to the triumphant armies of Mao Tse Tung.

But anti-communism as a lever to political advancement sharply accelerated following McCarthy’s speech.  Republicans–resentful at being denied the White House since 1932–seized upon anti-communism as their passport to power.

No American–no matter how prominent–was safe from the accusation of being a Communist or a Communist sympathizer–”a Comsymp” or “fellow traveler” in the style of the era.

Among those accused:

  • Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who had overseen America’s strategy for defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan
  • President Harry S. Truman
  • Playwright Lillian Hellman and Arthur Miller
  • Actors Charlie Chaplin, Zero Mostel, Lloyd Bridges, Howard Da Silva, Edward G. Robinson and John Garfield
  • Composers Arron Copland and Elmer Bernstein
  • Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who presided over the creation of America’s atomic bomb
  • Actressses Lee Grant, Delores del Rio, Ruth Gordon and Lucille Ball
  • Journalists Edward R. Murrow and William L. Shirer, who had chronicled the rise of Nazi Germany
  • Folksinger Pete Seeger
  • Writers Irwin Shaw, Howard Fast, John Steinbeck and Dashiell Hammett

Even “untouchable” Republicans became targets for such slander.

The most prominent of these was President Dwight D. Eisenhower–labeled ”a conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy” by Robert Welch, who founded the John Birth Society in 1958.

Robert Welch

Welch, an independently wealthy businessman, used his money to publicize the Society and its views.  Welch saw even hardline anti-Communists like Vice President Richard Nixon and actor Ronald Reagan as dangerously liberal.

Meanwhile, McCarthy finally overstepped himself.  In 1953, he attacked the leadership of the United States Army as “a hotbed of traitors” and convened an inquiry through the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

But the hearings backfired, exposing McCarthy as the bullying demagogue he was.  A Senate committee voted to condemn his behavior, charging that he had “acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.”

Although McCarthy remained in the Senate another two and a half years, his political influence had ended.

Journalists who had raced to cover his latest slander now avoided him.  So did his Republican colleagues–many of whom had once sought his help at election time.

Yet even without McCarthy, Republicans rode the issue of anti-Communism to victory from 1948 to 1960.

After holding the White House for eight years under Eisenhower, they lost it in 1960 to John F. Kennedy and again in 1964 to Lyndon Johnson.

By 1968, with the nation mired in Vietnam and convulsed by antiwar demonstrations, Americans turned once more to those who preyed upon their fears and hates.  They elected Richard Nison–and re-elected him in 1972.

After Jimmy Carter won the Presidency in 1976 and lost it in 1980, Republicans held the White House until 1992.  Throughout that time, they continued to accuse their opponents of being devious agents–or at least unwitting pawns–of “the Communist conspiracy.”

Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant.

Their evidence: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow.

Thus, the Republican charged that he might have been “programmed” as a real-life “Manchrian candidate” to become, first, Governor of Arkansas–one of America’s poorest states–and then President.

What made this charge all the more absurd: The Soviet Union had officially dissolved in December, 1991.

Although Republicans continued to hurl “Communist!” and “treason!” at their opponents, these charges no longer carried the weight they had while the Soviet Union existed.

Right-wingers had to settle for attacking their opponents as “liberals” and “soft on crime.”

Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans–and their right-wing supporters–at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace.