So let me get this straight...

Christians are feeling PERSECUTED? We're 70% of the freaking US population, and we're PERSECUTED? Gimme a frickin' break!
And all this comes from the recent hate crimes legislation passed by Congress. It has spawned a new wave of irrationality from the religious right, fearing it's an assault on freedom of religion.

My views on this were well summed up by Nance Greggs on Democratic Underground:

A rightwing acquaintance recently sent an email with a link to the following, “Christians on high alert over hate crimes passage”, adding the query “Is this one more nail in the coffin of Christianity?”

Well, the answer is yes and no, depending on what kind of “Christian” one is these days.

The first line of the linked article – “A hate crimes bill sent to President Obama for his signature raised a red flag for Christians” – sadly, and oh-so-ironically, speaks for itself.

For those of us raised as Christians back in the day, it would seem that enacting laws that prosecute and punish the propagation of hate towards one’s fellow citizens, hopefully reducing same in consideration of the consequences thereof, would be right in keeping with Christian values and the promotion of increased civility and understanding among us.

But that was, as I’ve said, back in the day – before the new, improved, narrow-minded, homo-hating, sword-wielding, the-end-justifies-the-means Jesus hit the shelves, currently being marketed at a pulpit in your area (action accessories, e.g. “Jesus hates Faggots” placards, home addresses of abortion providers, etc., sold separately).

“On Thursday, the U.S. Senate passed a hate crimes bill that Christian leaders have warned for years could greatly infringe on the rights of those who speak to loudly about their religious views. Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel agrees with most observers that President Obama will sign the measure -- adding that the president desires to "throw a bone to homosexual activists because they have been breathing down his neck...and this is a way to hold them off."

Ah, yes – the “homosexual activists”, those nasty immoral people who Jesus railed against continually. One need only look to the New Testament to read quote after quote by the Prince of Peace himself to know that – oh, that’s right. He was completely silent on the topic. I guess he had more important things on his mind. There’s also the fact that Jesus’ dad left any mention of “thou shalt not” out of the Ten Big Ones when it came to homosexuality – and bein’ God and all, one would imagine he could have gone with Eleven Commandments if he’d been of a mind to. (Hey, it’s not like He couldn’t foresee a problem, if He thought one existed).

As for the statement that Mr. Barber “agrees with most observers” – who are said “observers”, and what are their names? Inquiring minds really DO want to know these days.

“Barber views the legislation as something akin to a muzzle. ‘Unfortunately, it places Christians – people of faith, people who have traditional values relative to sexual immorality – in an untenable position,’ says the attorney.

Yes, the position IS untenable – if you’re taking the position that spewing hate is part and parcel of Christianity, and shouldn’t be “muzzled”. That would appear to be, on its face, as untenable as it gets.

If modern-day followers of the New Improved Jesus see anti-hate-crime legislation as being somehow anti-Christian, one has to ask exactly what it is they are seeking to “protect” as their God-given right (pun definitely intended) to say, do and promote as part of “free speech” or “freedom of religion”.

It would seem that speaking to “traditional Christian values” would include the oldies-but-goodies – like being thy brother’s keeper, tending to the sick and homeless in His name, treating the least among us as we ourselves would hope to be treated – and wouldn’t be subject to, by any stretch of the imagination, being “muzzled” by government fiat.

But this, of course, is the underlying problem. The current crop of hypocrites behind the New Improved Jesus movement know that what they seek to be exempt from prosecution for is becoming more and more blatantly a matter of hatred disguised as moral rectitude; what is being sought to be “protected” is not the right to speak freely, but the right to hide behind religion while spewing intolerance against those who refuse to conform to the New Fangled Christianity being espoused by those who want to hold on to their prejudices and still be recognized as part of the flock.

“Barber explains that Liberty Counsel intends to challenge the constitutionality of the hate crimes legislation.”

Well, you do that, Mr. Barber. I wouldn’t want to think you and your ilk are wasting time challenging the constitutionality of torture, or the involvement the past administration in war crimes, or the moral reprehensibility of withholding medical care from those who can’t afford it – things that the Old Time Jesus would, no doubt, have had something to say about were he still here.

Apparently Mr. Barber thinks that the lefties, the progressives, the Democrats, are too wacky to know the difference between the freedom to publicly acknowledge one’s religious beliefs and hate speech – which is pretty rich considering the out-and-out wackiness of the “religious right” we, as a nation, have had to endure for far too long.

I have no doubt that if the speech and/or actions Mr. Barber fears will fall squarely under the grounds of a hate crime under the new legislation included loving one's neighbor as one's self, he'd have a legitimate argument. But it doesn't, and he doesn't, and there you have it, plain and simple.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for spewing hatred and intolerance in the Lord’s name – for they shall inherit the Earth.”

I don’t actually recall that as being one of the Beatitudes – but it’s a whole new world under the New Improved Jesus.

I just wish the Old Jesus was still in vogue. He was someone worth meeting, getting to know - too bad Mr. Barber never had the pleasure.

Oh my LORD, no...

This is a slideshow on HuffingtonPost for the most inappropriate Halloween costumes. Some of the adult costumes put me in mind of something an Air Force buddy once told me:
"The things you see when you don't have a gun..."

A new, unexpected player in the healthcare battle:

Consumers Union, publisher of the popular magazine "Consumer Reports", has jumped into the battle for health care reform with an ad BACKING Obama's plan.

Said President Jim Guest: "You may wonder why we are injecting ourselves so publicly into a heated debate that has generated an enormous amount of concern and confusion... We are in the business of providing information and advice that helps consumers. We don't make campaign contributions. We don't endorse candidates. And we don't care who gets the credit for fixing the problems with health care -- we just need them fixed. Doing nothing about health care is not a solution."

(video at link)

The next Billy Joel...?

My 7-YO son Colin at his recital this past Saturday night. ALL the kids studying under this music teacher performed - some were quite good! After Colin got done "freelancing" (which had me tearing out what's left of my hair), he got down to business:
I have NO idea where this "hamminess" of his comes from... ;-D Check out the FULL "performance" on YouTube... (link when my wife gets to uploading it...)

On edit: My wife WUSSED! she, too, cut out the free-lance portion...but it's here.

On FURTHER edit(9/25/09): She un-wussed. You can see the free-lance portion here.

The evidence against ACORN is overwhelming...

This is from my friend "Grantcart" at Democratic Underground:

Its a little long but the evidence against ACORN requires it.

First let us establish the point of context.

What is fraud in the context of the federal government?

Well sitting in CA 49 we consider ourselves something of experts on fraud. When we find somebody that is really good on the subject we send them to Congress.


First we sent Duke Cunningham to represent us but Duke being somewhat stupid didn't set up a finance committee and pay his wife $ 250,000 a year to run his shakedown, he met government contractors in restaurants and actually wrote down how much his commission would be for each contract he could get. Then he kept the notes.

Second we then sent Brian Bilbray. He became Mayor of Imperial Beach. He has never lived in this district but being the aficionados of fraud that we are we sent him to Congress anyway.

Now fraud, criminal enterprise and personal debauchery have not been isolated in CA 49 it has spread evenly throughout the US, we just have a predilection of not beating around the bush when it comes to our Congressman. We put it up there for everyone to see.

Before we get to the evidence against ACORN we have to say that we see that serious crimes have become common even among our clergy, corporations and communities. Now we didn't send cameras into all of those Catholic and Evangelical Churches to get them to do pedophilia or sleep with prostitutes, these are crimes that became so endemic that they became virtual class action lawsuits.

We have Governors hiring prostitutes and using state money for overseas affairs, Senators having sex in public bathrooms and well we don't have time to continue with all of their crimes. Now we didn't have cameraman punk all of these people, their misbehavior became concrete because well it became public.

Now when it comes to working with the federal government it is critical that sub contractors work to a higher standard than that of our Congressman and Senators (who are all involved in legal bribery), our clergy, our community leaders. They should also work to a higher standard than the government itself. Every branch of the government has had corruption in the form of embezzlement or other abuse. The CIA, FBI, each branch of the service, and so on.

We are currently involved in a great debate about what to do about Health Care. This is an industry that is basically involved in a criminal enterprise to sign contracts and then find frivolous means to back out of claims. The first step of the reform process should have started with empaneling a grand jury.

But when you are a sub contractor working for the federal government you must work to a higher standard than all of these.

Take for existence the record of General Electric in working as a sub contractor for the United States Government

A Brief List of criminal, civil, political and ethical transgressions

1949 General Electric deliberately released radioactive material to see how far downwind it would travel.

1986 the United States and General Electric had conducted experiments on hundreds of United States citizens. One of GE’s most gruesome experiments — disclosed in the Markey hearings — was performed on inmates at a prison in Walla Walla, Washington, near Hanford. Starting in 1963, 64 prisoners had their scrotums and testes irradiated to determine the effects of radiation on human reproductive organs.

GE is wholly or partially liable for at least 78 federal Superfund sites.

+ On September 29, 1998, General Electric agreed to a $200 million settlement in principle of environmental claims resulting from pollution of the Housatonic River and other areas by chemical releases from GE’s plant in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The claims result from a long history of GE’s use and disposal of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other hazardous substances at the plant, which GE no longer uses for manufacturing.

+ On March 26, 1998, General Electric agreed to pay a $92,000 fine for previous violations of environmental reporting requirements for toxic releases at its silicone manufacturing plant in Waterford, New York,

+ On September 15, 1995, General Electric agreed to pay $137,000 in fines and expenses and to clean up a hazardous waste dump at a former plant where it repaired and rebuilt transformers.

+ October 1993, investigators swooped down on the GE Apparatus Service Center in Brandon, Florida with search warrants to take soil samples and confiscate computer records and files. Inspectors found 30 violations,
GE closed the facility in December 1993.

+ On March 13, 1992, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a $20,000 fine against General Electric for violations of regulations at the fuel fabrication plant in Wilmington, North Carolina.

+On May 29, 1991, GE personnel accidentally moved about 320 pounds of uranium to a waste treatment tank. The danger of the mistake was that the size and shape of the waste container caused unsafe concentrations of uranium, which could have led to a nuclear accident. The NRC dispatched a special incident investigation team the same day and an inspection began two days later. The NRC found that the mistake was the result of lax safety controls.

+At an April 22, 1998 shareholder meeting, GE CEO Jack Welch claimed: “PCBs do not pose adverse health risks.” Testifying in Albany on July 9, 1998, EPA Administrator Carol Browner stated: “GE tells us this contamination is not a problem. GE would have people of the Hudson River believe, and I quote: ‘living in a PCB-laden area is not dangerous.’ But the science tells us the opposite is true ... And concern about PCBs goes beyond cancer ... The science has spoken: PCBs are a serious threat...”

Defense Contracting Fraud

+ On July 23, 1992, GE pled guilty in federal court to civil and criminal charges of defrauding the Pentagon and agreed to pay $69 million to the U.S. government in fines — one of the largest defense contracting fines ever.
General Electric said in a statement that it took responsibility for the actions of a former marketing employee who, along with an Israeli Air Force General, diverted Pentagon funds to their own bank accounts and to fund Israeli military programs not authorized by the United States.Under the settlement with the Justice Department over violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, GE paid $59.5 million in civil fraud claims and $9.5 million in criminal fines.


+ GE is a repeat offender when it comes to Defense Department fraud. The company has repeatedly violated the False Claims Act — a measure originally proposed by Lincoln to protect federal coffers. When the Project on Government Oversight surveyed defense contractors, it found that General Electric was responsible for 15 instances of fraudulent activity in just a four year period (1990-1994) — more than any other defense contractor. GE:

1. Paid $7.1 million to settle a qui tam suit alleging that the company failed to satisfy electrical bonding requirements for its jet engine contracts, thereby creating a safety risk.
2. Paid $5.87 million (along with Martin Marietta) to settle a qui tam suit associated with improper sales of radar systems to Egypt.
3. Paid fines between 1990 and 1994 ranging from a $20,000 criminal fine to a $24.6 million civil fine for a variety of defense contracting frauds, including: misrepresentation, money laundering, defective pricing (2 incidents), cost mischarging (3 incidents), false claims, product substitution, conspiracy/conversion of classified documents, procurement fraud and mail fraud.
4. Was convicted on February 3, 1990 in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia of defrauding the government out of $10 million for a battlefield computer system.
5. Pled guilty on May 19, 1985 to charges of fraud and falsifying 108 claims on a missile contract.
6. Was convicted of defrauding the Air Force out of $800,000 on the Minuteman Missile Project.
7. Was convicted of bribing the Puerto Rico Water Resources Authority.
artial rebates to buy new GE dishwashers.

Recidivistic GE
What distinguishes General Electric is not merely the number of crimes committed — or the dollar amount of the crimes — but a consistent pattern of violating criminal and civil laws over many years.

Exacerbating the situation, General Electric has been a leader in using political influence to attempt to overturn the environmental and defense contracting laws that it persistently violates.

excerpts taken from http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2001/01july-august/julyaug01corp4.html.

Now, despite this record of continual fraud by General Electric no one has ever called for the Federal Government to stop contracting with General Electric.

Again these are crimes that became evident. No one went into General Electric with a camera and tried to see what crimes a local manager might do.

And now we come to the case of ACORN.

The evidence is overwhelming.

Now it is clear that when it comes to the question of voter fraud all of the charges against them have proven baseless. Irregularities with either silly or fictional voter registration is marked by ACORN and submitted to voter registrars as required by law.

Surprisingly, despite all of the efforts by FOX to undermine the election with baseless charges of election fraud, not a single case of voter fraud has been substantiated.

So now FOX has cooperated with provacateurs to go into dozens of ACORN offices and see if they can't get people to take some stupid bait and get involved in improper actions.

And now the call goes out to "defund ACORN". Every organization in or out of the government has had some malfeasance. Even the Church is filled with it.

And yet only ACORN is expected not simply to identify wrong doers and implement corrective systems; they are to be wiped out of existence.

Now what is the evidence against ACORN? What is the essential element that makes them unique that they must be exterminated. Are they more corrupt than General Electric?

No. The evidence of ACORN is that they are there to help poor people. They are there to advance social justice.

Listen to 30 seconds of this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGFXzPNtH3g

The Fox Host asks the undercover reporter "You're not a pimp; you're just playing one on our show, and you played it on those tapes"

Reporter's response "I AM ONE OF THE WHITEST GUYS EVER"

ACORN's crime is that they work with the poor and minorities and so because of that "crime" they will be treated differently than every other contractor who has ever done business with the government and had some of its employees act improperly.

Poor people aren't stupid, or more inclined to impropriety, or more filled with hatred.

Poor people are simply poor. And shame on this country that it has no moral ambition to face its poor, embrace them and find ways to end their poverty. We would rather send rich kids in to see if we can't find some to be ridiculous and then hold up the people who work with the poor to public ridicule.

Where are their defenders?

This from a Retired General

...in today's Ft. Worth Star-Telegram:

By BUD KENNEDY

bud@star-telegram.com

A retired Air National Guard general called Thursday with three worries.

"Something bad’s gone wrong in this country," said retired Brig. Gen. Tom Daniels, 62, of Fort Worth.

"Something’s wrong in Arlington. Something’s wrong in Austin. And something’s wrong in America."

He flew missions in Vietnam. In the Pentagon, he served proudly under President George H.W. Bush — "whom I loved," he added.

"Now our country chooses a black man as president — and suddenly, the governor is talking about secession? And Arlington is boycotting the president? They won’t even let children see him in school?"

Eight years removed from 9-11, Daniels feels a chill.

"Look how united we were!" he said in his booming command voice. "Now — look how we’ve squandered it!"

He didn’t even have to mention U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson:

"We’re hollering at each other now," Daniels said. "We hate each other."

And he sees that as dividing our heroes in uniform.

"I talk to military guys all over the world — white, black, brown," he said. "They’re asking, 'If it was unpatriotic to talk this way about the last president, isn’t this unpatriotic?’ They’re concerned. This is nothing but open, unabated racism. Nobody’s saying that."

I know what some of you are going to say. It’s political, not racial.

But I also can’t imagine people acting this way over, say, a President Harry Reid or even President Al Gore.

"All I know is, the black guy wins, and suddenly these nuts are out there on TV and radio preaching to long-haul truck drivers all over the country," Daniels said.

"Somebody needs to start talking back. Where are the moderates in the Republican Party? Where are the people like George [H.W.] Bush who made sense? They’re letting the nuts lead them around by the nose."

He is particularly steamed that Arlington schools still refuse to replay Obama’s address to schoolchildren yet will bus fifth-graders to hear George W. Bush on Sept. 21 at a Super Bowl event at Cowboys Stadium. "I’ve always called Arlington a true all-American city," he said. "I love the parks. I love how they stuck their neck out to get baseball and football."

He lives near the Arlington border and shops in the city.

"But now they’re one of the few cities in America boycotting the president’s speech? That’s wrong."

Daniels reserved special vitriol for Gov. Rick Perry.

"He’s Air Force. He should be ashamed," Daniels said. "I’m ashamed of him." Perry "should know better" than to float talk about Texas leaving the U.S., Daniels said.

"Even for a campaign, it’s the wrong thing to talk about," he said. "That’s not our Texas. We love our country. We’re not going anywhere. We don’t believe in secession."

He had one final question.

"When is somebody in Arlington or Austin going to stand up to these people?"

It’s his mission.

Joe Wilson (R-SC) - our shouter at the health care speech last night...

Joe Wilson's Dirty Health-Care Secret
Newsweek

By Adam Weinstein


Poor Joe Wilson. The conservative Republican representative from South Carolina stepped in it Wednesday night when he broke with centuries of decorum by screaming, "You lie!" at President Obama during his health-care speech to a joint session of Congress.

Cut the man some slack. He's passionate! I know this because he told me, in the sole message that blazes across his campaign Web site: JOE WILSON IS PASSIONATE ABOUT STOPPING GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE!

Except that he's not─at least not when it comes to his, and his family's, government-run health care. As a retired Army National Guard colonel, Wilson gets a lot of benefits (one of which, apparently, was not a full appreciation of the customs, traditions, and courtesies that mandate respect for one's commander in chief). And with four sons in the armed services, the entire Wilson brood has enjoyed multiple generations of free military medical coverage, known as TRICARE.

Yes, it's true. As politicos and town-hall criers debate the finer points of the public option, employer mandates, coverage for undocumented immigrants, and who's more Hitler-like, they seem to miss a larger point: the United States has single-payer health care. It covers 9.5 million active-duty servicemen and women, military retirees, and their dependents─including almost a 10th of all Californians and Floridians, and nearly a quarter of a million residents of Wilson's home state.

Military beneficiaries like Wilson who, as a retiree, is eligible for lifetime coverage─never have to worry about an eye exam, a CT scan, a prolonged labor, or an open-heart surgery. They have access not only to the military's 133,500 uniformed health professionals, but cooperating private doctors as well─whose fees are paid by the Department of Defense. It's high-quality care, too: surveys from 2007 and 2008 list TRICARE among "the best health insurer(s) in the nation" by customer satisfaction. Yet Wilson insists government-run health care is a problem.

To be fair, Wilson has been consistent in his policymaking if not his personal life: according to his last congressional opponent, Wilson voted 11 times against health care for veterans in eight years, even as he voted "aye" for the Iraq War (during the debate on the war vote, he even called one Democrat "viscerally anti-American"─several times). He voted to cut veterans' benefits─not his own─to make room for President George W. Bush's tax cuts. He repeatedly voted for budgets that slashed funding to the Veterans Administration and TRICARE. And perhaps most bizarrely, he refused─repeatedly─to approve Democratic-led initiatives that would have extended TRICARE coverage to all reservists and National Guard members, even though a disproportionate number of them have served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan─and many lost access to their civilian work benefits when they did so.

There's one other notable exception to Wilson's tough-on-government record: In July, when the health-insurance debate just started heating up, he offered an amendment that would exempt TRICARE from any system of employer mandates in a health-care bill. It's not clear whether this is necessary, since most such bills in Congress keep government benefits exempt from the rules as a matter of course. But Wilson took the opportunity to make his stand.

"As a 31-year Army Guard and Reserve veteran, I know the importance of TRICARE," he said in a press release. "The number of individuals who choose to enroll in TRICARE continues to rise because TRICARE is a low cost, comprehensive health plan that is portable and available in some form world-wide." He went on to call TRICARE "world class health care," concluding on a personal note. "I am grateful to have four sons now serving in the military, and I know that their families appreciate the availability of TRICARE," he said.

What does that mean? Nothing except that Joe Wilson was against government-run health care before he was for it. And now he's against it again. Just not when it comes to his own flesh and blood.