Quote of the Day: Republicans Are No-Shows at Civil Rights Anniversary

From civil rights leader Julian Bond, on why there were no Republicans at yesterday's 50th anniversary of the March on Washington: "They asked a long list of Republicans to come, and to a man and woman they said no."....Bond did credit Cantor for trying hard to find a replacement speaker, but, ultimately, the leader was unable to find a single Republican to attend the event. That last sentence is maybe the saddest of all. It's not just that Republicans didn't come. It's worse than that. Even with Eric Cantor twisting arms he couldn't find a single Republican willing to attend. I guess they were all afraid that Fox News would televise it and some of their constituents might find out they were there.

An open letter to the people who hate Obama more than they love America

Originally posted to MinistryOfTruth on Mon Jan 09, 2012 I meet you all the time. You hate Obama. You hate gay people. You hate black people, immigrants, Muslims, labor unions, women who want the right to make choices concerning their bodies, you hate em all. You hate being called racist. You hate being called a bigot. Maybe if you talked about creating jobs more than you talk about why you hate gay people we wouldn't call you bigots. Maybe if you talked about black people without automatically assuming they are on food stamps while demanding their birth certificates we wouldn't call you racist. You hate socialism and social justice. You hate regulations and taxes and spending and the Government. You hate. You like war. You like torture. You like Jesus. I don't know how in the hell any of that is compatible, but no one ever accused you haters of being over-committed to ideological consistency. You like people who look like you or at least hate most of the things that you hate. You hate everything else. Now, I know you profess to love our country and the founding fathers (unless you are reminded that they believed in the separation of church and state), but I need to remind you that America is NOT what Fox News says it is. America is a melting pot, it always has been. We are a multi-cultural amalgamation of all kinds of people, and yet you still demonize everyone who is not a rich, white, heterosexual christian male or his submissive and obedient wife. You hate liberals, moderates, hell, anyone who disagrees with Conservative dogma as espoused by Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. You hate em. Well, here are the facts, Jack. If you hate the Government then you are unqualified to manage it. If you hate gay people more than you love America than you should take your own advice and get the hell out. There are several countries that are openly hostile to gay people, but they are full of brown people and you don't like them much either from what I understand. It looks like you are screwed, but that's not what I am here to tell you. More rant below the fold . . . . Now that you have thrown everything and the kitchen sink at President Obama and it still hasn't worked you are panicking. Obama's approval ratings are still near 50% despite your best efforts to undermine the economy and America's recovery at every step you can. You tried to hold the American economy hostage to force America into default on its' debts, debts that YOU rang up under Bush, so you could blame it on Obama and it failed. You've used the filibuster more than any other Congress ever, going so far as to vote against providing health care access to 9/11 first responders. You remember 9/11, don't you, it's that thing you used to lie us into a war in Iraq, and then when Obama killed Bin Laden and ended the war in Iraq you told people that he hates America and wants the troops to fail. You monsters. You hate Obama with a passion, despite the fact that he is a tax cutting, deficit reducing war President who undermines civil rights and delivers corporate friendly watered down reforms that benefit special interests just like a Republican. You call him a Kenyan. You call him a socialist. You dance with your hatred singing it proudly in the rain like it was a 1950's musical. Frankly, you disgust me. Your hatred nauseates me. Your bigotry offends me. Your racism revolts me. Dear haters, I am openly questioning your patriotism. I think you hate gays, Obama, black people, poor people, all of us, women, atheists and agnostics, Latinos, Muslims, Liberals, all of us, I think you hate every one who isn't exactly like you, and I think you hate us more than you love your country. I think you hate gay soldiers more than you want America to win its wars. I don't even think you want America to win wars, you just want America to have wars, never ending wars and the war profiteering it generates. You love that kind of spending, you love spending on faith based initiatives and abstinence based sex education (George Carlin would have loved that one), you love spending on subsidies for profitable oil corporations, you spend like drunken sailors when you are in the White House, but if it is a Democrat then suddenly you cheer when America doesn't get the Olympics because it might make the black President look bad. But oooh you love your country, you say, and you want it back. Well listen here skippy, it isn't your country, you don't own it, it is our country, and America is NOT the religiously extremist Foxbots who hate science, elitist professors and having a vibrant and meaningful sex life with someone we love if Rick Santorum doesn't approve of it. Rick Santorum isn't running for America's fucking high school dance chaperone, he should probably just shut the hell up about sex, but he can't because he has nothing else to run on. Republicans can NOT win on the issues. They've got NOTHING. All they have is a divide and conquer class war that pits ignorant racist and bigoted people against the rest of us in a meaningless battle of wedge issues and the already proven to fail George W. Bush agenda again of tax cuts for the rich, deregulation, privatization and war profiteering and nothing else, so all they can do is blame black people, gays the government, anybody and everyone else for their own failings. The party of personal responsibility, my ass. But they love multi-national corporations, just ask a gay hating and racist religious extremist if they think Corporations are people and they will gladly agree, but if you ask them if gay people are people they aren't so sure. Dear haters, you are the cruel, heartless misinformed assholes who would sell America out to Haliburton in a heartbeat, you would rather pay ZERO taxes than you would see a newly born baby get access to quality health care, you cheer when we discuss denying health care to young people with preventable diseases, and you boo when we discuss the First Ladies plan to cut back on childhood obesity. You are a cross to carry and a flag to wrap yourself in away from being the people who Sinclair Lewis warned us about, but I guarantee that if Fox News told you to dress that way you would, because you are the same blind, ignorant and closed minded dunces who drove this country into a civil war years ago because you are bound to the notion that some men are more equal than others. In short, the reason I proudly wear my union army hat is because of seditious sell outs like you who constantly fuck over working class Americans so a foreign entrepreneur like Rupert Murdoch can get a bigger tax break. If corporations are people, they are neither American patriots nor capable of love. Just like you. So stop wearing your hate with pride. Stop celebrating your anti-science, anti-math ignorance. Stop using code words to mask your bigotry like "family values", especially when you hate my family and when you stand on the same stage as a guy who has had three marriages or if you share a seat in the Senate with a guy who cheated on his wife with hookers while wearing diapers. You should be ashamed. I know that you are just doing this to motivate your misinformed hate cult base because if they actually knew that your ideas will make them poorer than they are now, they would never vote for you. You are doing your best to impoverish your countrymen so rich people can get bigger tax breaks and you can keep on delivering corporate welfare to the special interests who have bribed you, and I am disgusted by the way you gleefully parade your hatred with aplomb. I don't think you do love America. At least, not as much as you hate everyone in America who isn't exactly like you. You should think about that, and maybe get some help. And for the record, I do not hate you. I am embarrassed by you and nauseated by your cruel and thoughtless behavior and your all consuming greed, but I do not hate you. I forgive you and I hope you can change someday, but I don't hate you. You have enough hate in you for the rest of us as it is.

Biscuits And Poor People Are Illegal In Raleigh

http://lovewins.info/2013/08/feeding-homeless-apparently-illegal-in-raleigh-nc/ — at Moore Square.

Right-Wing Governor Destroys Public Education With Insane Defunding

Public School Asks Parents to Pay $613 Per Student As Right-Wing Governor Destroys Public Education With Insane Defunding Pennsylvania's right-wing governor drains public schools of basic funds -- and the sickening details will shock you. Want to see a public school system in its death throes? Look no further than Philadelphia. There, the school district is facing end times, with teachers, parents and students staring into the abyss created by a state intent on destroying public education. On Thursday the city of Philadelphia announced that it would be borrowing $50 million to give the district, just so it can open schools as planned on Sept. 9, after Superintendent William Hite threatened to keep the doors closed without a cash infusion. The schools may open without counselors, administrative staff, noon aids, nurses, librarians or even pens and paper, but hey, kids will have a place to go and sit. The $50 million fix is just the latest band-aid for a district that is beginning to resemble a rotting bike tube, covered in old patches applied to keep it functioning just a little while longer. At some point, the entire system fails. Things have gotten so bad that at least one school has asked parents to chip in $613 per student just so they can open with adequate services, which, if it becomes the norm, effectively defeats the purpose of equitable public education, and is entirely unreasonable to expect from the city’s poorer neighborhoods. The needs of children are secondary, however, to a right-wing governor in Tom Corbett who remains fixated on breaking the district in order to crush the teachers union and divert money to unproven experiments like vouchers and privately run charters. If the city’s children are left uneducated and impoverished among the smoldering wreckage of a broken school system, so be it. To be clear, the schools are in crisis because the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania refuses to fund them adequately. The state Constitution mandates that the Legislature “provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education,” but that language appears to be considered some kind of sick joke at the state capital in Harrisburg. It’s worth noting that the state itself runs the Philadelphia School District after a 2001 takeover. The state is also responsible for catastrophic budget cuts two years ago that crippled the district’s finances. And in a diabolical example of circular logic, the state argues that the red ink it imposed, and shoddy management it oversees, are proof that the district can’t manage its finances or its mission and therefore shouldn’t get more money. Make no mistake, on the aggregate the district does not perform well. Only slightly more than 60 percent of students graduate from high school, with less than 60 percent proficient in reading and math. But put that in the context where 80 percent of students come from disadvantaged backgrounds while administrators struggle to cobble together enough cash to even open doors, let alone provide a safe, rich and comprehensive educational experience. Particularly noxious lawmakers are fond of spouting the ridiculous notion that money can’t help struggling schools, as if more and better-trained staff, better equipment and diverse programming wouldn’t make a difference in kids’ educations and their lives. The timing of this meltdown is unfortunate, as if there were ever a good time for the euthanasia of public schooling. According to the 2010 census, Philadelphia grew in population for the first time in 60 years, changing direction from decades of decline. Most of that growth came from immigrants who will rely on public schools — or not, as the case may be. Another area of growth was in young families, who will face a choice, once they have school-age children, to stay in the city or flee to superior suburban schools as previous generations have done.

Guess who has your number

I wonder how gun owners feel about this: The National Rifle Association has rallied gun-owners — and raised tens of millions of dollars — campaigning against the threat of a national database of firearms or their owners. But in fact, the sort of vast, secret database the NRA often warns of already exists, despite having been assembled largely without the knowledge or consent of gun owners. It is housed in the Virginia offices of the NRA itself. The country’s largest privately held database of current, former, and prospective gun owners is one of the powerful lobby’s secret weapons, expanding its influence well beyond its estimated 3 million members and bolstering its political supremacy. You'll recall last February LaPierre appeared on Fox news Sunday rallying against background check because it would lead to a national database of gun owners. Here we find that not only does the NRA practice what it expressly says it is against it is employing the very same tools that OFA has: Others in the business of big political data, however, say the NRA is using similar tools to those employed by the campaigns of its nemesis, President Barack Obama. They are indeed tracking people: While the organization took great umbrage in December when a newspaper published the names and addresses of gun owners in two New York counties, the group for years as been gathering similar information via the same public records as a matter of course. In Virginia, for instance, a North Carolina-based firm called Preferred Communications filed an inquiry with the Virginia State Police in July 2009 asking “on behalf of the National Rifle Association” as to whether the names of concealed-carry permit holders could be purchased. The e-mail was obtained by BuzzFeed by Freedom of Information Act request. They make money by getting these lists from states and adding them to their NRA database: “After people take a class, then you as an instructor, can send all their names to Washington and you get credit for that,” Weisser said. “If you can show you’ve taught enough classes, you can move up in the hierarchy as an NRA trainer.” Moving up in the hierarchy can mean being licensed to teach more types of gun safety classes and being able to charge more, he said. We have been busy having heated discussion with regard to the 4th amendment as of late. Is it ironic that the NRA is using private information to keep track of Gun owners to target them with an interest to increase gun sales? This is all allegedly being done to protect the 2nd amendment and yet private data is being used. In January, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre gave a speech to the NRA in Nevada and stated: Obama wants you to believe that putting the federal government in the middle of every firearm transaction — except those between criminals — will somehow make us safer. That means forcing law-abiding people to fork over excessive fees to exercise their rights. Forcing parents to fill out forms to leave a family heirloom to a loved one — standing in line and filling out a bunch of bureaucratic paperwork, just so a grandfather can give a grandson a Christmas gift. He wants to put every private, personal transaction under the thumb of the federal government, and he wants to keep all those names in a massive federal registry. There are only two reasons for that federal list of gun owners — to tax them or take them. FactCheck debunks that claim by bringing attention to a federal law called the Brady Act That’s because section 103(i) of the Brady Act specifically bars federal agencies from retaining “any record or portion thereof generated by the [NICS] system,” and it prohibits the “registration of firearms, firearm owners, or firearm transactions” of those who pass the background check. There is no Federally run database, however there is a private one owned by the NRA. One that can be used to track and cater to gun owners. Here's one example: A survey sent to Gun owners earlier this year. It's a push poll designed to make people paranoid about government and guns. It fails to mention the Brady act and misrepresents itself as truth. It also makes no mention that since 2005 the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS ) has gotten rid of all background check information after 24 hours. For this reason, the final rule was revised to conform to the legislative enactment setting a limit on how long the NICS may retain certain information on allowed transactions. The revised rule conformed to the 24-hour record retention provision in the Omnibus. 2nd Amendment uber-supporters eat survey's like this up like candy. They believe everything the NRA says and they react just as the organization wants them to. It isn't much different from what we are seeing with regard to the Snowden/NSA/Guardian affair and those that say the 4th Amendment has been abused beyond repair. People are claiming that government is the big bad monster in the room when it appears they are being manipulated by forces that may have questionable motives. Surely the truth with regards to both of these issues and the amendments that are being used in defense of the outrage can lie somewhere in between. Time will tell. In the mean time -- the NRA is doing the very thing they have railed rabidly against. Interesting times indeed. .

Well look whos back!

So what’s the big deal with making people flash a photo ID at a poll before they vote? You have to have a photo ID to buy beer; why shouldn’t you be required to have one to vote? And how dare you call it a racist Jim Crow law! Since I know I have readers who have thoughts like these in their heads when they hear the criticisms of the voting law NC governor Pat McCrory signed yesterday and because I love you and want to have a more productive conversation with you than just flaming and shaming, I thought I would try to calmly go through the problematic portions of the law and explain why I and other people see them as problematic. The first thing that needs to be said historically about Jim Crow voting laws is that they have never been (to my knowledge) explicitly racist. Even at the height of segregation, no law ever said that black people could not vote for being black. Jim Crow has always been about finding “justifiable” means (albeit fantastically ludicrous and farcical ones) of rigging the voting pool to the advantage of the party in power. In the segregated south, these means included poll taxes (since it costs money to count votes) and civics and literacy tests (since a democracy requires educated citizens). These laws were then enforced selectively so that poor whites did not get tripped up by them. In our present sociopolitical environment, it is no longer possible to systematically disenfranchise an entire race at the level that could be accomplished in the Old South. But what the new voting laws can accomplish is to suppress enough of a percentage of voters to tip the balance in a close election. If I were a high school debate team coach and I wanted to give my students an incredible challenge, it would be to argue that the new NC voting laws are anything other than a meticulously calculated means to make the electoral math as advantageous to NC Republicans as possible. If I were a national Republican strategist, I would have been on the phone with the NC state legislators begging them not to make all Republicans look like opportunistic cheaters who can’t win otherwise. Ultimately, the outcome of all this will be largely up to the decent conservatives with integrity in the Republican Party (who I’m willing to believe may be the silent, uneasy majority that hasn’t yet mustered the courage to tell the wing-nuts to sit down and shut up). If you are among those who believe that conservative ideas can actually win on their own merits, then it is critically important for both your own goals and your allegiance to the truth which is above all our goals to stand up for electoral justice before the blowback from all of these desperate measures causes the permanent demise of the Republican Party in this country, which is increasingly looking like the trajectory this thing is going to take. So here are the problems with the new law as I see them. 1) Photo ID’s Believe it or not, not everyone has or needs a driver’s license. In the middle class world of most people who have the time and technology to read my blog, it’s unimaginable that anyone would lack a photo ID. That’s why I think this conversation is exasperating for middle class conservatives, especially when the R word comes into it. It seems like a no-brainer that the way to ensure people are who they say they are is to require a government-issued photo ID. But many poor people don’t have photo ID’s, particularly elderly poor people who don’t drive. And if you don’t have a birth certificate or social security card because you never got them when you were born on a country farm in the thirties or you lost them because your home life hasn’t been very stable, then you can’t just go to the DMV and get a photo ID on the testimony of seven ladies from your church that you really are Mabel Evans even if you also have bills with your mailing address written out to Mabel Evans. If you were born in NC, the law is supposed to make it easier for folks to get a new birth certificate although such a thing would still be very daunting to a poor elderly person. But if you were born in a different state and you don’t have your birth certificate, then you’re in real trouble. Worse, what if you don’t even know which county you were born in? Again, a problem completely off the radar screen of socially stable middle class people like me. The ICE is not going to come to your house and deport you if you don’t have a birth certificate as long as you don’t look Latino or have a Spanish accent. If you live in the hood without a car, particularly if you’re a shut-in who only gets out on rare occasions, your life is not going to be on hold without a valid drivers license like it would be for any of us middle class people who misplace a driver’s license and go to the DMV that day to replace it because we could not imagine going anywhere without it. If you don’t have the paperwork to get a photo ID and you’re an elderly poor person without transportation and physical mobility issues, the navigation of government bureaucracies required for you to get legit is going to be insurmountable for you without a lot of time-costly help from a volunteer voting rights organization. It’s a very different level of effort for a volunteer to come to your house the day of an election and drive you to the poll and push your wheelchair while you carry a utility bill with your name and address on it to show to the poll worker. So while technically speaking, a photo ID law does not explicitly target black people, it creates a hardship for elderly poor people without transportation which disproportionately impacts black people according to the demographics of NC. So what about the problem of voter fraud this supposedly addresses? Think about the logistics involved here. The poll workers have a list of registered voters from your precinct that they’re checking off. To accomplish voter fraud as an individual voter, I would have to go up to the same table of poll workers multiple times giving them different names and documents, presuming that they wouldn’t recognize my face and gambling that I wouldn’t say the name of somebody who had already been checked off. I just don’t think the payoff is worth the risk for the individual voter which is why the actual cases of voter fraud that occur on the basis of individuals presenting false identities are very rare. If you’re going to attempt voter fraud, the place to do it is by hacking the voting machines so that a large mass of votes could be switched over. That’s how the Mugabes of the Global South do it; it’s way more efficient to accomplish fraud through the counting system than through individual voters. To be fair, I was happy to see the new law require voting machines to spit out a written record for every vote cast (assuming this happens in real time). Really, that’s the way to address any legitimate concerns about voter fraud as opposed to using “voter fraud” as the pretext for creating extra hoops for poor elderly people to jump through so you can gain a better electoral margin. 2) Stopping the college kids and other young voters from voting There are multiple measures in the new law that target college-aged voters. One is the refusal to accept college ID’s or out of state drivers licenses from college kids as their means of identification. This means that out of state college kids have to change their permanent residency to NC in order to vote here, which impacts their ability to stay on their parents’ auto and health insurance. When you’re a college kid, stopping at a table on the way to class to register to vote and then stopping at an on-campus polling site is a very different level of effort than navigating the intricacies of absentee balloting. Why shouldn’t you be allowed to participate in the political process where you’re living even if your permanent home is elsewhere? Why would anyone who actually believes in democracy and wants not to further alienate an already completely cynical generation try to keep kids from voting in their local elections? One of the most blatantly mean-spirited provisions of the law is what it does to the families of in-state students who register to vote where they go to college instead of jumping through the hoops for an absentee ballot or driving three hours back to their homes for Election Day. If you change your voter registration address, your family loses the right to claim you as a dependent on their tax returns. So it is literally a poll tax! For a family under a tight budget, this means choosing between voting or sorely-needed cash. Another aspect of the law that seeks to suppress young voters is to eliminate a program called Citizens Awareness Month by which high schools educated their students about voting and registered them en masse to vote en masse before their 18th birthday so that they wouldn’t be on their own navigating that hoop once they graduated. Again this is the kind of thing which tried to level the playing field for young voters who don’t have parents that are paperwork gurus like mine were. I don’t remember exactly but I’m sure that if my mom didn’t actually fill out my voter paperwork for me when I was an ADD trainwreck at age 18, she at least reminded me about it until I did it. Kids that don’t grow up with my privilege don’t have that kind of reinforcement. 3) Early voting and poll accessibility For people with white-collar salaried jobs, leaving work in the middle of the day to vote is no big deal. People who have to clock in and clock out at work have to budget their workday errands much more stringently if they’re even able to arrange their schedules to do them during the day at all. If you add into the mix the lack of a car, then the challenge of errands that are not within walking distance becomes even greater. For a blue-collar worker without a car who’s at the mercy of an irregularly running bus system, same day voter registration means only one day of lost wages instead of two. The more early voting options you have, the more likely you can find a time to vote when you’re off work. Additionally if you work in a different part of town then where you live, being able to take a lunch break and file a provisional ballot out of precinct (which will later be checked out with your precinct) makes a huge difference. Well the new law is a huge kick in the stomach to blue collar workers, because it cuts a week of early voting, same day registration, and out of precinct provisional voting. All of these things except for the elimination of early voting can be rationalized superficially as “voter fraud prevention,” but there’s no evidence that the provisions that were already in place were not adequately addressing the possibility of fraud. Neither same-day registered or out-of-precinct votes were getting thrown in the box with all the other ballots until after they went through an extra validation process that there’s no reason to doubt the effectiveness of. 4) Vigilante poll challengers The scariest part of the new law to me is the provision that allows for anyone in the county to challenge the legitimacy of another voter in that county as opposed to limiting it to the same precinct as in the past. This means that a volunteer group could sit down with the publicly available voter registration rolls and submit challenges against every opposing party’s voter, gambling that they could snag hundreds or thousands of votes that way on technicalities. Vote challengers may become as important to future political campaigns as attack ads and robocalls. Poor and younger people who rent apartments move around a lot more and tend to vote more Democratic than established middle-aged, middle class homeowners. If you change apartments and your driver’s license has your old address, it’s not a problem if you get pulled over, but it is a problem if someone throws up a “voter fraud” dragnet to go fishing for invalidating technicalities among a blanket group of apartment dwelling voters. Do you get fined for ludicrous challenges per invalid voter challenge filed since it costs poll workers time to investigate? I imagine not! How would it be possible to differentiate bad-faith challenges from good-faith ones? Think about an analogous issue in which the super PAC’s actually claim with a straight face that their attack ads are not at all about tearing down an opposing candidate but just supporting an issue they’re passionate about. Would there be any incentive not to file challenges against every registered Democrat in your county hoping to catch a few who moved apartments and didn’t immediately report to the DMV? This last piece is where the new law will accomplish exactly what it is purportedly designed to prevent. When the law is designed to create opportunities to subvert the choice of voters who have moved from one apartment to another or have some other technical glitch with their electoral registration, then the law itself is voter fraud. When politicians openly embrace an approach of cheating to win, it means one or more of two things: they either don’t really believe their ideas are beneficial enough to society to win peoples’ hearts in the public forum or they believe that the majority of people are too stupid to know what’s best for their society. Either of these attitudes are antithetical to democracy and exude precisely the same spirit about human community that motivated the Jim Crow laws of a different era.

GOP Congressman Displays Contempt and Ignorance While Blasting Food Stamp Recipients

As you read this story I would like you to know that seniors in Indiana receive $16.00 dollars a month for food assistance! We would love for the Fat cats in Washington to live on that long enough to begin to have a sense of empathy for the poor in America Congressman Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma (R) displayed a contemptuous attitude towards food stamp recipients and complete ignorance of how the program works when he blasted a couple who was “physically fit” as fraudulent criminals because they bought groceries with an EBT card in Crystal City, Virginia. His only evidence of fraud was that the couple looked “physically fit”. The story may be entirely apocryphal since Congressman Mullin said “everybody” in the store was using EBT cards. Unless he was going into each checkout lane and peering over each customer’s shoulder like a creepy stalker, it is not clear how Mullin came to this conclusion, except that it fits the narrative that he wants to convey. In his self-righteous diatribe against this alleged food stamp fraud Mullin remarks that he saw a couple and: they were both physically fit. And they go up in front of me and they pay with that card. Fraud. Absolute 100% all it is is fraud…it’s all over the place. And there you go, to the fact that we shouldn’t be supporting those who won’t work. They’re spending their money someplace. Apparently even though Mr. Mullin is a Congressman he believes that all people receiving food stamps do not work. Yet, many adults on food stamps do work for a living and in Virginia a couple can qualify for food assistance if their gross income is under 1640 dollars a month. If this couple has two children they could qualify even if they made up to 2498 a month. Based on no evidence to support his belief, Mullin just assumes that the couple does not work, but since he does not know their circumstances it is entirely possible that this couple not only works but that they are also supporting children. If they have two children and each parent works 30 hours a week at nine dollars an hour, they would still qualify for food stamps, because 540 dollars a week in Northern Virginia is not enough to pay for rent, day care and transportation. The couple Congressman Mullin observed might be physically fit from having to walk or ride a bike to work. They might not have a car or they might be choosing to conserve on gas money in order to stretch their food stamps far enough so they can buy healthy food on their limited incomes. This is no small task since their monthly food stamp allotment based on earning 540 dollars a week as a couple would come out to around 65 dollars a month allotment for food stamps, or two dollars a day for a family of four. Trying to buy healthy food for less than a dollar a meal is difficult, it would be easier for them to buy Ramen noodles and potato chips, but if they are saving on fuel costs so they can buy themselves and their kids fruits and vegetables, good for them. Of course, I do not know the couple in question so my hypothetical assumptions could be wrong, but Mr. Mullin assumes the worst in people, while I presume that the American people are by and large honest and hardworking. I also assume that people who are physically fit probably are not lazy. Keeping in shape especially on a limited income where plentiful junk foods are cheaper and easier to come by (compare the cost of a carton of orange juice or milk to a 2-liter of soda for example) is no easy task and a lazy person might not be up to the task. The truth is Congressman Mullin is the one who is being lazy, by jumping to unfounded assumptions that regard the American people as contemptible creatures bent on milking the system. Rather than giving them the benefit of the doubt, and thinking they might be trying to do all they can to keep their families fed and healthy, Mullin assumes they are lazy. He however demonstrates his own laziness instead by not researching the program he so arrogantly criticizes. The fraud rate in the SNAP program has been reduced to around one percent of cases, so there is around a 99 percent chance that the couple Markwayne Mullin saw was not engaging in fraud. This is nearly 360 degrees opposite Mullin’s claim that he thinks there is a one hundred percent chance they were committing fraud. In all likelihood, the only fraud standing in that grocery store was Congressman Mullin himself who routinely votes against increasing the minimum wage and then chastises the working poor for trying their hardest to stay fit and feed their families. Maybe the next time Congressman Mullin goes grocery shopping, instead of peering over the shoulders of his fellow citizens to see if they are using an EBT card, he can mind his own business and concentrate on what he needs to buy, rather than trying to disparage hardworking Americans for trying to eat. Perhaps he would prefer that we do not offer food stamps until men, women and children are completely emaciated and so weak they are unable to stand up without assistance. If so, perhaps he can convey that message to his constituents and see if they agree. The couple in front of him in line may have been physically fit, but the man standing behind them peeking over their shoulders hardly seems fit to hold elected office.

Republican Jesus

Or “How I Learned to Stop Thinking for Myself and Just Trust Republican Jesus.” When I was a kid, I was taught that the Pilgrims fled to the New World to escape religious persecution. Somewhere in there, I learned that we don’t have a national religion and people were free to practice whatever religion they wanted. That was kind of it as far as religion went in my history classes and overall education. Sure, Jews were mentioned in the context of the Holocaust but more as a race than a religion. I did, however, attend Synagogue for a few years as an adolescent. I viewed it more as learning my heritage as opposed to actively worshiping. Even then, I was not inclined towards belief. Probably because my parents were more interested in making sure I was curious about stuff instead of learning any particular dogma. Religion was, for me, just something that other people did. It would be many years before I understood I was an atheist and even more years until I stumbled across Dawkins, Hitchens, et. al and learned how to verbalize it. Through all of this, it never occurred to me that I would ever have to worry about a particular set of religious values being forced upon me. I always assumed that religion was a private thing, practiced in one’s home or place of worship. That was it. Even in college, I rarely came across any real religious zeal. I once took a trip down to Washington DC with the Young Republicans club because they were my friends and they invited me to go. I got to meet Oliver North (yay me?) who was so exact in his pose with each of us, from me at 6’2” to little Jen, all of 5’1”, that to this day, I cannot convince people the pictures are not of us next to a cardboard cutout. But even with the Young Republicans during that first Bush presidency, I wasn’t assaulted with any kind of religious politics. I did find a good deal of racism which gave me a big clue about how Republicans see the world. I was totally apolitical at the time and had no idea what the difference between a Democrat and a Republican was. I didn’t read, or watch, the news and no one had ever mentioned it in any of my classes. My political education was also sorely lacking. It irritates me when I think back on it. Fast forward to the George W. Bush years. I had been aware of the Evangelical movement back in the 80s but Creationism still wasn’t being taught in schools and Roe v. Wade hadn’t been overturned on religious grounds. But during Bush’s tenure, I started hearing the more than occasional remark about how not believing in God makes you a bad American and if you were a LIBERAL that didn’t believe in God? Scum of the Earth! Wait a minute. Not believing in God (or, more precisely, not believing in a very specific version of God) makes me a bad American? How does that even work? This country was founded on religious freedom and the explicit separation of Church and State, wasn’t it? And that’s when I became acquainted with Republican Jesus™. Who the hell is Republican Jesus™? Republican Jesus™ is very different than the Jesus you and I are familiar with. First off, he is White. Not just white, but White. Republican Jesus™ has a special place in his heart for America. Specifically, White America. Do you doubt this? Ask yourself why anyone who believes in a colorblind Jesus would even conceive of praying for the death of Obama? No, only those who follow Republican Jesus™ would even think that such a prayer could, or should, be answered. If you are currently thinking that racism has nothing to do with the unprecedented hatred of Obama, go away, I’m talking to the grownups. Republican Jesus™, by the way, is a big supporter of the Confederacy. Why he let them lose the War of Northern Aggression is a mystery. But all “real” Americans know that the South will rise again and Republican Jesus™ will lead the way back to glory. Or something like that. How the Northern and Mid-western Red states fit into this Southern revival is also a mystery. Republican Jesus™ loves guns. Loves them! Never mind all that silly talk of beating swords into plowshares! Every good member of the church of Republican Jesus™ should have, at minimum, enough armament to hold off an invasion by those commie Nazi liberal hordes that are coming any day now. Or the ATF, whichever shows up first. Or maybe just enough to wipe out a schoolroom filled with kids when their excellent parenting skills manifest themselves in the next Columbine tragedy. Remember, conservatives, to complain about anti-bullying programs being government overreach afterwards! Republican Jesus™ loves the rich. Ignore that whole “camel through the eye of a needle” garbage. Republican Jesus™ wants you to be prosperous! It’s called “prosperity theology” and it percolates throughout the conservative religious fervor. God rewards the faithful with material wealth. Very spiritual stuff. If your idea of spiritual is a McMansion. But Republican Jesus™ is not just about love. Republican Jesus™ also hates and, boy, does he hate! Republican Jesus™ hates the poor. This is the flip side of “prosperity theology”. If God rewards the faithful with riches, than the poor are obviously NOT of the faith and deserve what they get. This is, in part, why conservatives hate the social safety nets of welfare, food stamps and Medicaid. Those (and by “those” I mean those) people don’t worship Republican Jesus™ and are unworthy of being helped. Besides if you feed them, they’ll just breed! Republican Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer of South Carolina actually said that. And he meant it. Republican Jesus™ hates The Gay. They’re sinners, after all. It says so right there in the Bible next to the part about shellfish being an abomination. Nothing demonstrates the compassionate conservatives’ dedication to the teachings of Republican Jesus™ like blocking legislation for same sex marriage and calling homosexuals pedophiles while enjoying a nice shrimp cocktail before a delicious lobster dinner. Also, Republican Jesus™ gave us AIDS, and STDs in general, as punishment for homosexuality. Of course, this ignores the fact that lesbians (a well-known subset of homosexuality) have the lowest rate of STDs, including AIDS, among all adult population groups. So as far as punishment goes, half of the “sinners” are better off than the rest of us, statistically speaking. Maybe Republican Jesus™ likes him some girl on girl action? Republican Jesus™ hates Muslims. Muslims are scary because some of them do bad things to innocent people. That makes them all evil terrorists. This is not to be confused with White Christian Militia types who blow up abortion clinics or plot political assassinations in Republican Jesus’™ name. Those people are martyrs and heroes. Or they were crazy lone wolves having nothing to do with Republican Jesus™. It depends on which channel you’re interviewing on, Fox or MSNBC. Republican Jesus™ totally hates Liberals. Liberals are the pawns of Satan George Soros trying to destroy the greatest country ever made on this 6000 year old planet (conservative moderates are almost as bad and must be expunged!). Compromising with a Liberal is a terrible sin in the eyes of Republican Jesus™ and must not be tolerated. Finally, Republican Jesus™ hates science. With a passion bordering on obsession. And that’s the topic of my next ivory tower snobby liberal thesis: “Why DO conservatives hate science so much?” Or “How I learned not to learn and trust my beer gut instead.” Thank you my guest blogger

The great Wal Mart Obscenity

On The Ed Show, Sen. Sanders responded to the Republican claim that Wal-Mart can’t afford to wage employee wages with a few choice words for the Walton family: Ed, you want to hear one of the great obsenities of our time? The wealthiest family in this country is the Walton family. They’re worth about $100 billion. That’s more wealth than the bottom 40% of the American people. One of the reasons the Walton family the owners of Wal-Mart are so wealthy is that they receive huge subsidies from the taxpayers of this country. When you pay at Wal-Mart starvation wages. You don’t provide benefits. Who picks up the difference? The answer is that many of the workers in Wal-Mart end up getting Medicaid. They get food stamps. They get affordable housing paid for by the taxpayers of this country, while the Walton family remains the wealthiest family in the country. If that is not obscene, I don’t know what is. According to Wal-Mart Subsidy Watch, Wal-Mart has received, “More than $1.2 billion in tax breaks, free land, infrastructure assistance, low-cost financing and outright grants from state and local governments around the country.” A May 2013 study by the House Democratic Staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce found that single Wal-Mart Supercenter costs taxpayers $904,542 per year, and could cost taxpayers up to $1,744,590 per year in public assistance costs. As of July 2012, Wal-Mart had 4,253 stores. Wal-Mart’s refusal to pay their workers a living wage costs taxpayers millions of dollars a year. Republicans defend what Wal-Mart is doing as the free market, but there is nothing free market about taking billions of dollars from taxpayers while forcing those same taxpayers to support their employees, because Wal-Mart will not pay adequate wages. That isn’t the free market. It is corporate welfare. When Republicans oppose raising the minimum wage, they are supporting lining the pockets of the Walton family with your money. It doesn’t matter if you shop at Wal-Mart or not. If there is a Wal-Mart in your community, the Waltons are benefiting from the taxes that you pay. It is an unjust manipulation of our economy, and one of the great hypocrisies that supposedly free market champion Republicans continue to support and encourage Wal-Mart’s corporate welfare, while starving the working poor. If you want to force Wal-Mart to take responsibility for adequately compensating their workers, demand an increase in the minimum wage.