Dick Cheney "George Bush Selling the Iraq War" .

We were lied to by The Bush administration Dick Cheney was responsible to sending more 4000 of our soldiers into a war we didn't neede to start.

Republican Senator warns our Government lied about the War

Can I get an Amen?



Dear Gentle Readers,


There is a tradition in  black churches named “call and response.” It’s simply the experience of the preacher “calling” and the congregation “responding.” I’ve always loved it. When you’re preaching in a black church, and the congregants begin to actively and vocally respond, your sermon can actually get better, stronger, deeper, and more powerful than it might have been if everyone just sat there. Sermons get interactive. Congregations can be inspired by the preacher — and the other way around. Ideas grow, get taken further, and even develop during and after the sermon. And it can make things change.



After his first year in office, I sent a letter to President Barack Obama humbly suggesting he needed “the political equivalent of the black church’s call and response.” Just talking to and in Washington was never going to get important things done. Washington just sits there and mostly makes sure that things don’t change — and that the special interests that buy, shape, and control this city usually have their way.


I recalled something Obama said right after the 2008 election — that he would need “the wind of a movement at my back” to get anything really important done. He would have to go over the heads of Washington, to speak directly to the people that had elected him and also those who didn’t. He would have to have public debates about the common good and not just debate in Washington.


I saw him do that in this week’s State of the Union speech. Barack Obama was speaking over the heads of the senators and members of the House — who were just sitting there, standing up only in partisan moments — right to the 33 million people who were watching. He was making his case to the American people, appealing to public opinion on behalf of things he wants to do — instead of just reaching out to Washington, as many pundits said he ought to do.


In Washington, the Congressional debate is about debt, deficits, spending, and taxes, and almost nothing else. Many Americans, including many of us in the faith community, agree that massive debts are a moral issue and not something we want to leave for our children. But most Americans also believe that how you deal with deficits is a moral issue. And they don’t believe, as the deficit cutters in Washington often say, “with trillions and trillions of dollars in debt, it is time to” cut most of the programs that help poor and vulnerable people. That is what the budget proposals of the deficit hawks would do, even if they don’t admit it. We believe that is immoral, especially when the same people still defend grossly unfair tax loopholes and benefits for the wealthiest and best connected. They oppose more revenue from wealthiest — those special interests who have bought Washington — and never show the courage to take on the government's worst waste, fraud, and abuse in the Pentagon’s massive spending. What Washington never really admits is how it helps those at the top of the economic order much more than those at the bottom.


Let’s start that conversation.



The president also said what most Americans know is true — that rising healthcare costs and retiring baby boomer needs will require serious reforms of our healthcare system and crucial programs like Medicare. There are special interests in Washington that don’t ever want to admit that or accept the changes we will need while still protecting seniors in need.

What most Americans think makes sense is a balanced approach between increased revenues and careful spending cuts. Most Americans think that the political brinksmanship of moving “from one manufactured crisis to the next” is not the way to find a responsible and balanced path to fiscal sustainability — that deficit reduction alone is not a plan for economic growth.



President Obama also spoke the “p” words that people in Washington almost never want to talk about — “poverty” and “poor” people and children. With more people in poverty than any time in the last 50 years and economic inequality at record high levels, it is time to talk about it. It’s time for the president to say that no one who works full time in the wealthiest nation on earth should have to live in poverty; they ought to have a living wage. Most Americans believe that.



They also believe, as virtually all our educators do, that quality preschool should be available to every child in America if we want stable and successful families.

What especially resonated with many people in the president’s speech is that our “North Star” should be creating more good-paying jobs in America, and helping to educate and train people for them.


The president said what most Americans believe — that we should not reduce the deficit by cutting crucial investments in education, infrastructure, science, medical health, clean energy, or programs for the most vulnerable — while enabling the richest to become even wealthier than they have been in years. And whoever is willing to protect the poor and vulnerable in our fiscal debates and commit to overcome poverty with new opportunities will find the faith community at their back, at their front, and on both their sides.



Most Americans now believe that the time has come to pass comprehensive immigration reform that includes a responsible path to earned citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants who have lived and worked here responsibly for decades. The faith community, in particular, has come to believe this is a moral and biblical issue — it is to “welcome the stranger” among us. Because of the outside pressure of the faith community, the law-enforcement community, and the business community, even Washington is finally coming to admit that our broken immigration system needs to be fixed. The standing ovation when the president called for it was the biggest moment of bipartisanship exhibited Tuesday night.

Outside pressure is the only way to change Washington’s decisions, whether is it the historic need to deal with climate change, or change our nation’s failed war policies, or finally address the issue that became the most emotional moment of the president’s Tuesday night speech — America’s gun violence.



The president said the victims of gun violence “deserve a vote” on necessary and commonsense gun laws, and that the Washington politicians deserve accountability for their votes. Public opinion is clearly for such reforms, while those who have bought Congressare now preventing public opinion from dealing with our horrible national gun violence.


So it’s a good thing that the president is ready to issue “calls” to the American people, over the heads of the Washington politicians and pundits.



It’s time for our response.

Can I get an Amen?

Where Religion becomes wrong

Malala Yousafzai nominated for Nobel Peace prize

Malala Yousafzai has released two videos in the past few days, one before her surgery to put a plate in her skull, and after she came out of the successful operation. She announced that she has created a foundation to promote the education of girls. She also spoke of her ordeal and said that she was willing to be shot all over again for her cause.




In the pre-operation video, she said,





“Today you can see that I am alive. I can speak, I can see you, I can see everyone and … I am getting better day by day. It’s just because of the prayers of people. Because all people – men, women, children – all of them have prayed for me.



“And because of these prayers God has given me this new life … and this is a second life. And I want to serve. I want to serve the people. I want every girl, every child, to be educated.”



Malala was shot in the forehead last October by a young member of the Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat Valley after she stood up publicly for women’s education there. Although there is no discouragement in mainstream Islam for the education of women, the weird Taliban ideology, born in the maelstrom of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and its aftermath, is highly misogynistic. The early Muslim community transmitted what it believed were sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, one of which says, “Seeking knowledge is a duty of every Muslim, man or woman.”



The Pakistani Taliban had taken over Swat, formerly a green, beautiful tourist attraction, in 2008. In spring of 2009, under pressure from the incoming Obama administration, the Pakistani military cleared the Taliban from the valley and garrisoned it. But some young men there still have Taliban ideas and loyalties. Many supporters of the Taliban are desperately poor, having lost farm land to big landlords.

Meanwhile, Labor Party members in Norway have formally nominated Malala for a Nobel Peace Prize. (Thousands of people are permitted to make nominations, so at this point it is little more than a gesture).




The federal government in Pakistan spends 7 times more on the military than on schooling.



Pakistan has 5 million children who should be in school but aren’t, the second highest in the world. Two-thirds of those unschooled childred are women (i.e. 3 million). 1 in every 12 school-aged children in the world who are not in school are Pakistani.



Pakistan has made some progress in basic literacy. Among young women from their teenaged years through their late 20s, some 61% are literate. Some 79% of young men in that age cohort are literate. Older women are much less literate.



Despite Pakistan’s progress in attacking illiteracy, the country is not doing enough to educate its children, and in rural areas there is resistance to girls’ education past a certain age, for fear it will make it difficult for her to find a husband. There is also a pervasive fear that if young women are not married off young, they might lose their virginity to a classmate. Solution? No schooling, no classmate. Given Pakistan’s rapid population growth and enormous youth bulge, the government needs vastly to expand the resources it devotes to education, both of girls and boys.

Ted Nugent says gun control is two bullets through the same place

                        

 When is enough enough?  Conservative rocker Ted Nugent believes the Newtown, Conn., shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School is the result of pervasive "spiritual bankruptcy" and a "politically correct" mentality in American culture.




Nugent penned a response to the Sandy Hook shooting, which left six school employees and 20 children dead, in an editorial for The Washington Times. In the piece, Nugent shifts blame from lax gun control, poor mental health programs, inadequate security at schools and violence in the media to the moral decay of society.



Via The Washington Times:



The ugly and dangerous truth is that we live in an embarrassing, politically correct culture that exalts and rejoices in the bizarre; aggressively promotes an “anything goes” value system; and vilifies, condemns and mocks traditional societal values and customs at every opportunity.

We’ve embraced a culture of contempt that attacks the very institutions that make for a healthy and strong society, and then we’re shocked when it spirals out of control. The only thing I’m shocked about is that anybody is shocked.





In the wake of the Newtown shooting, the call for stricter gun control laws has steadily increased, particularly against the sale of semi-automatic weapons like the Bushmaster .223 used by gunman Adam Lanza.



Nugent, a gun owner, is disgruntled at the possibility of harsher gun laws.

You can't fix Stupid!

This week, the Republican leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives did something that you wouldn't think is even possible: they introduced (and then the House passed) a five-page bill that, despite its brevity, may violate two separate provisions of the U.S. Constitution.




The bill increases the debt limit by some unspecified amount, but only for those expenditures "necessary to fund a commitment by the Federal Government that required payment before May 19, 2013." What does "necessary" mean here? I don't know, and the bill doesn't say. What about "commitment" and "required" - what do they mean? Don't know; doesn't say. Given sovereign immunity, I'm not sure that any payments by the federal government are ever "required" per se. What if the Government said, "Are you going to make me?"



Up until now, the federal debt limit has been a number. Now it's a concept, and an undefined one at that. I find it hard to square that vagueness with Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which states that: "The validity of the public debt . . . shall not be questioned."



Not content with establishing that constitutional dilemma alone, the Republican leadership then made Congressional pay dependent on passing a budget. The bill says that if the Senate doesn't pass a budget, then Senate pay (which is monthly) is postponed to the first week of 2015. Specifically, it changes pay from $14,500 a month to zero per month, and then something like a $300,000 lump sum on Jan. 2, 2015.



I imagine that the polling on that looks good, but what about the 27th Amendment? The 27th Amendment provides: "No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened." The Republican leadership bill "varies" Senate compensation by postponing it for two years. (It also sticks a finger in the eye of the Senate, but what else is new?)



If you follow Tea Party yammerings, as I do, then you recognize that this "no budget, no pay" idea had been floating around in the Tea Party porcelain bowl for several years now. Right after it was introduced, the Republican Chairman of the Government Operations Committee (who presumably knows a thing or two about government operations) pointed out that this postponement would violate the 27th Amendment to the Constitution. (As Texas Gov. Rick Perry would say, "Oops.") Then he said he was mistaken. But maybe when he said that he was mistaken, that's when he was mistaken.



For goodness sake,  Members of Congress all swore to uphold the Constitution just two weeks earlier. The leader of the House Republican Caucus actually administered that oath to them. Couldn't they at least have waited a little longer?



To make things even worse, just a few days before this bill came up, the House Republicans arranged to have Members of the House read the Constitution out loud on the Floor of the House. Were they all wearing earplugs?



And yet these right-wingers keep telling us that they are "constitutional conservatives."



Fakers.



Anyway, Some voted "no." Because there is no way to vote "this is absurd."



Tea Party Republicans, please don't propose any bills that directly contravene the plain wording of the Constitution. If you were capable of embarrassment, you would be embarrassing yourselves.



Courage,