Democracy: The Process is More Important than the Outcome

Fair and eloquent assessment of the current impasse in Congress of the USA by Fareed Zakaria:

This U.S. Election

Amazing what some states are approving, especially related to marriage equality. 

Click on this to read it better. From Upworthy, which I first saw on Facebook.

God and Politics

Thanks to Crystal on the RevGals FB site for this idea of God enduring our election process!

Anti-Abe ad in 2012

Abraham Lincoln has always been a hero of mine. Today I came across ways he would be denigrated if he was running for election in 2012. It is a sad reflection on how distorted today's political ads are from both parties.

Flack Check.org (University of PA) has a series of videos of possible "ads" against Abraham Lincoln if the today's advertising methods had been used to proselytize against him back in 1864:

How I feel about politicians

With thanks to Terri who found it at The Progressive Pragmatic's FB page.

Newt

From two years ago, but just as true today. . . .

Texas and guns

Doesn't this image startle you? It seems to be the image many Texans endorse with the prospective law (in the Texas Senate) that concealed weapons may be carried by students and professors on university campuses. More than half the members of the Texas House have signed on as co-authors of a measure directing universities to allow concealed handguns. And probably most of those members of the Texas House are "Christians."

Christians or not, it is ridiculous and stupid to allow students and professors to carry weapons on campus (and elsewhere). For protection? Or for a "final say" in a dispute? Adolescent fury coming forth at the drop of a hat?

It doesn't help that Texas has a governor who likes to shoot off his mouth and guns.

In this April 15, 2010 file photo, Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry fires a six shooter filled with blanks as NASCAR driver Colin Braun looks on at an event in downtown Fort Worth, Texas. Texas is preparing to give college students and professors the right to carry guns into their classrooms, adding momentum to a national campaign to open up another prominent part of society to firearms. (AP Photo/Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Rodger Mallison, File)

"University of Texas President William Powers has opposed concealed handguns on campus, saying the mix of students, guns and campus parties is too volatile.

"Guns occupy a special place in Texas culture. Politicians often tout owning a gun as essential to being Texan. Concealed handgun license holders are allowed to skip the metal detectors that scan Capitol visitors for guns, knives and other contraband.

"Guns on campus bills have been rejected in 23 states since 2007, but gun control activists acknowledge it will be difficult to stop the Texas bill from passing this year. "Things do look bleak," said Colin Goddard, assistant director of federal legislation for the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence, who was in Austin recently to lobby against the Texas bills."

Go here for the rest of the article.

Also, Dating God blog has a more inspirational take on "Guns and Christianity."

Power of the People

By Mike Peters
Found here.

To receive a free daily cartoon from Center for American Progress, sign up here.

FOX News

My naivete is showing in that I only learned today that FOX News pays Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, so FOX interviewers are asking questions of fellow employees of FOX. . . I would expect slanted questions to be queried. . . .instead of impartiality.

Paul Krugman wrote a recent editorial about this.

"With Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee all making moves indicating they may run for president, their common employer is facing a question that hasn’t been asked before: How does a news organization cover White House hopefuls when so many are on the payroll?

"The answer is a complicated one for Fox News. (See: GOP's struggles play out on Fox)

"As Fox’s popularity grows among conservatives, the presence of four potentially serious Republican candidates as paid contributors is beginning to frustrate competitors of the network, figures within its own news division and rivals of what some GOP insiders have begun calling “the Fox candidates.”

"With the exception of Mitt Romney, Fox now has deals with every major potential Republican presidential candidate not currently in elected office.

"The matter is of no small consequence, since it’s uncertain how other news organizations can cover the early stages of the presidential race when some of the main GOP contenders are contractually forbidden to appear on any TV network besides Fox."

Above comes from a September 27, 2010 article by Jonathan Martin and Keach Hagey.

I am a Social Justice Christian!

Tell Glenn Beck: I’m a Social Justice Christian

by Jim Wallis 03-10-2010

Glenn Beck says Christians should leave churches that use the word “social justice.” He says social justice is a code word for communism and Nazism.

But since the Catholic Church, the Black Churches, the Mainline Protestant churches, and more and more Evangelical and Pentecostal churches including Hispanic and Asian-American congregations all consider social justice central to biblical faith, Glenn Beck is telling all those Christians to leave their churches. Of course, Christians may disagree about what social justice means in our current political context — and that conversation is an important one — but the Bible is clear: from the Mosaic law of Jubilee, to the Hebrew prophets, to Jesus Christ, social justice is an integral part of God’s plan for humanity.

Beck says Christians should leave their social justice churches, so I say Christians should leave Glenn Beck. I don’t know if Beck is just strange, just trying to be controversial, or just trying to make money. But in any case, what he has said attacks the very heart of our Christian faith, and Christians should no longer watch his show. His show should now be in the same category as Howard Stern. Stern practices pornography and Beck denies the central teachings of Jesus and the Bible. So Christians should stop watching the Glenn Beck show and pray for him and Howard Stern.

Beck also said that if his church was about “social justice” he would report his church to the church authorities. What authorities? Church bodies as diverse in their theology as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Association of Evangelicals have explicitly endorsed social justice as a biblical imperative.

So here’s an idea: how about reporting ourselves to Glenn Beck as church members and pastors who practice and preach social justice.

Since Sojourners’ mission is “to articulate the biblical call to social justice,” I’ll be the first to turn myself in. And I invite you to join me in turning yourself in to Glenn Beck as a Christian who believes in social justice. Let’s send him thousands of names.

Jim Wallis is the author of Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street — A Moral Compass for the New Economy, CEO of Sojourners and blogs at www.godspolitics.com.

It is embarrassing to me that Glen Beck went to my husband's and my high school in Bellingham, WA. I am speechless with outrage! (Jan)

Waltons return home due to the economy

By Mike Lukovich

From Center for American Progress

Although my oldest son DC lost his job (related to construction) last June, he and his wife are still living in Austin. Luckily, his wife AA has a good job. Prayers for all who need jobs.

Public Option Explained

Change or else

Jim Winkler, General Secretary, General Board of Church & Society writes a column every week for Faith in Action, which shares "News and Views from the United Methodist Board of Church and Society."

This week he wrote about "The Other War."

"A lesson to be learned from these past eight years is that the church of Jesus Christ in the United States must devote itself to changing our intensely angry and violent society to a culture of peace before we destroy ourselves. Right now, destruction is exactly the path we are on."

I so feel he expresses what many of us feel is happening in the the United States. Go here to read the short article.

Bill Moyers Journal

From Bill Moyers' Journal, Sept. 4, 2009:

BILL MOYERS: The editors of THE ECONOMIST magazine say America's health care debate has become a touch delirious, with people accusing each other of being evil-mongers, dealers in death, and un-American.

Well, that's charitable.

I would say it's more deranged than delirious, and definitely not un-American.

Those crackpots on the right praying for Obama to die and be sent to hell — they're the warp and woof of home-grown nuttiness. So is the creature from the Second Amendment who showed up at the President's rally armed to the teeth. He's certainly one of us. Red, white, and blue kooks are as American as apple pie and conspiracy theories.

Bill Maher asked me on his show last week if America is still a great nation. I should have said it's the greatest show on earth. Forget what you learned in civics about the Founding Fathers — we're the children of Barnum and Bailey, our founding con men. Their freak show was the forerunner of today's talk radio.

Speaking of which: we've posted on our website an essay by the media scholar Henry Giroux. He describes the growing domination of hate radio as one of the crucial elements in a "culture of cruelty" increasingly marked by overt racism, hostility and disdain for others, coupled with a simmering threat of mob violence toward any political figure who believes health care reform is the most vital of safety nets, especially now that the central issue of life and politics is no longer about working to get ahead, but struggling simply to survive.

So here we are, wallowing in our dysfunction. Governed — if you listen to the rabble rousers — by a black nationalist from Kenya smuggled into the United States to kill Sarah Palin's baby. And yes, I could almost buy their belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, only I think he shipped them to Washington, where they've been recycled as lobbyists and trained in the alchemy of money laundering, which turns an old-fashioned bribe into a First Amendment right.

Only in a fantasy capital like Washington could Sunday morning talk shows become the high church of conventional wisdom, with partisan shills treated as holy men whose gospel of prosperity always seems to boil down to lower taxes for the rich.

Poor Obama. He came to town preaching the religion of nice. But every time he bows politely, the harder the Republicans kick him.

No one's ever conquered Washington politics by constantly saying "pretty please" to the guys trying to cut your throat.

Let's get on with it, Mr. President. We're up the proverbial creek with spaghetti as our paddle. This health care thing could have been the crossing of the Delaware, the turning point in the next American Revolution — the moment we put the mercenaries to rout, as General Washington did the Hessians at Trenton. We could have stamped our victory "Made in the USA." We could have said to the world, "Look what we did!" And we could have turned to each other and said, "Thank you."

As it is, we're about to get health care reform that measures human beings only in corporate terms of a cost-benefit analysis. I mean this is topsy-turvy — we should be treating health as a condition, not a commodity.

As we speak, Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, has been fined a record $2.3 billion dollars as a civil and criminal — yes, that's criminal, as in fraud — penalty for promoting prescription drugs with the subtlety of the Russian mafia. It's the fourth time in a decade Pfizer's been called on the carpet. And these are the people into whose tender mercies Congress and the White House would deliver us?

Come on, Mr. President. Show us America is more than a circus or a market. Remind us of our greatness as a democracy. When you speak to Congress next week, just come out and say it. We thought we heard you say during the campaign last year that you want a government run insurance plan alongside private insurance — mostly premium-based, with subsidies for low-and-moderate income people. Open to all individuals and employees who want to join and with everyone free to choose the doctors we want. We thought you said Uncle Sam would sign on as our tough, cost-minded negotiator standing up to the cartel of drug and insurance companies and Wall Street investors whose only interest is a company's share price and profits.

Here's a suggestion, Mr. President: ask Josh Marshall to draft your speech. Josh is the founder of the website talkingpointsmemo.com. He's a journalist and historian, not a politician. He doesn't split things down the middle and call it a victory for the masses. He's offered the simplest and most accurate description yet of a public insurance plan — one that essentially asks people: would you like the option — the voluntary option — of buying into Medicare before you're 65? Check it out, Mr. President.

This health care thing is make or break for your leadership, but for us, it's life and death. No more Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. President. We need a fighter.

That's it for the Journal. I'm Bill Moyers. See you next time.

5 Biggest Lies in the Health Care Debate

The latest issue of "Newsweek" has a young Teddy Kennedy on the cover and has an article by Sharon Begley about "The Five Biggest Lies in the Health Care Debate."

1. You'll have no choice in what health benefits you receive.
2. No chemo for older Medicare patients.
3. Illegal immigrants will get free health insurance.
4. Death panels will decide who lives.
5. The government will set doctors' wages.

Go here to read this interesting article.

Their August 14th issue has "Seven Falsehoods about Health Care."

Obama and Gay Rights

My daughter AE has written a fact-filled post about Obama's pre-election promises about gay rights that he is breaking as president. Go here to read it.

I am not as well-read as she is and I appreciate her posting about issues I should know more about. One of her daily sources is Americablog, which I forget to look at.

She motivated me to look on Google, where I found this editorial in yesterday's New York Times, A Bad Call on Gay Rights:

"The Obama administration, which came to office promising to protect gay rights but so far has not done much, actually struck a blow for the other side last week. It submitted a disturbing brief in support of the Defense of Marriage Act, which is the law that protects the right of states to not recognize same-sex marriages and denies same-sex married couples federal benefits. The administration needs a new direction on gay rights.

"A gay couple married under California law is challenging the act in federal court. In its brief, the Justice Department argues that the couple lack legal standing to do so. It goes on to contend that even if they have standing, the case should be dismissed on the merits.

"The brief insists it is reasonable for states to favor heterosexual marriages because they are the 'traditional and universally recognized form of marriage.' In arguing that other states do not have to recognize same-sex marriages under the Constitution’s 'full faith and credit' clause, the Justice Department cites decades-old cases ruling that states do not have to recognize marriages between cousins or an uncle and a niece.

"These are comparisons that understandably rankle many gay people. In a letter to President Obama on Monday, Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights organization, said, 'I cannot overstate the pain that we feel as human beings and as families when we read an argument, presented in federal court, implying that our own marriages have no more constitutional standing than incestuous ones.' "

Read the rest of the editorial here.

I am saddened and disappointed.

How crazy it is in Texas!

I had to have my daughter in Seattle point out that Rick Perry, the TX governor with BIG hair, babbled about seceding from the union. He is ridiculous.

"Texas Gov. Rick Perry riled up the “anti-government protesters” at an Austin “tea party” rally Wednesday, said Michael Landauer in The Dallas Morning News. But later he uncorked some truly “over-the-top radicalism,” calmly suggesting to reporters that Texas might secede from the United States. People are angry, but stirring up the “Republic of Texas nuts” to potentially “dangerous levels” won't help."

And this shows Perry's clarity and eloquence:

"There's a lot of different scenarios," Perry said. "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that."

The rest of the article is here.

Obama's Thoughts

I found this at Pundit Kitchen, a link sent to me by my daughter.

Obama's Inaugural Speech

From my daughter's blog

Gene Robinson

New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson, a vocal gay rights leader, will open President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration with a prayer on Sunday's kick-off event at the Lincoln Memorial.

"I am writing to tell you that President-Elect Obama and the Inaugural Committee have invited me to give the invocation at the opening event of the Inaugural Week activities, We are One, to be held at the Lincoln Memorial," Robinson wrote in an email to friends.

From The Huffington Post

Rejoice, as urged in the post below!