Tag Archives: politics

May 13, 2011 · 12:28 pm

Good Without God: Why “Non-Religious” Is the Fastest-Growing Preference in America | | AlterNet

Very interesting article….

My theory is that Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and the Religious Right have made Christianity appear so hard, judgemental and unforgiving, that they made it safe for Americans to be open to alternatives.  In the long run, they did more to hurt the “moral majority” than to help it….

Add to that, the expansion of our ability to easily access information on the Internet, increased travel and the internationalization of the world economy that exposed Americans to other cultures and beliefs and we have a much more open society.

Currently more than one billion people around the world define themselves as agnostic, atheist or nonreligious — including 15 percent of Americans. Perhaps more striking, “nonreligious” is not only the fastest growing religious preference in the U.S., but also the only one to increase its percentage in every state over the past generation.

Phil Goldberg and Greg Epstein have provocative perspectives on who these people are, what they believe, and how they arrived at their worldviews and their moral codes.

In February, 1968, the Beatles went to India for an extended stay with their new guru, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. It may have been the most momentous spiritual retreat since Jesus spent those 40 days in the wilderness.

With these words, interfaith minister Goldberg begins American Veda, his look at India’s impact on Western culture. From Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman, succeeding generations absorbed India’s “science of consciousness,” and millions have come to accept and live by the central teaching of Vedic wisdom: “Truth is One, the wise call it by many names.”

Acccording to Greg Epstein, the humanist chaplain at Harvard University, recent bestsellers from Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris stress the irrationality of belief and what’s wrong with religion, while offering few positive alternatives. In Good without God, Epstein explains how humanists strive to live well, build community, uphold ethical values, and lift the human spirit…all without a god. “It’s not enough to just ‘discover’ the meaning of life. Humanism is concerned with one of the most important ethical questions—what we do once we’ve found purpose in life.”

via Good Without God: Why “Non-Religious” Is the Fastest-Growing Preference in America | | AlterNet.

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May 12, 2011 · 10:00 pm

Rand Paul: ‘Right to Health Care’ is Slavery

I still can’t believe this man is a U.S. Senator….

He’s a pompous, self-important, ignorant jackass- so that may mean he is qualified to be a Senator in today’s Senate…

Still, I somehow don’t find it funny for a rich white man to compare himself to a slave…

A hearing of the Senate HELP Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging looked at emergency room use and took an odd turn Wednesday when Sen. Rand Paul compared the “right to health care” to slavery.

“With regard to the idea whether or not you have a right to health care you have to realize what that implies. I am a physician. You have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. You are going to enslave not only me but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants, the nurses. … You are basically saying you believe in slavery,” said Paul (R-Ky.), who is an ophthalmologist.

Paul, who is the subcommittee ranking member, said he believed that the notion of expanding federally funded community health centers to ensure that everyone had a “right” to care was not constitutional and would enslave doctors. Doctors, he said, should care for patients because of their own moral code.

“Our founding documents said you have a right to pursue happiness, but there’s no guarantee about physical comfort. When you say you have a ‘right’ to something there is an implication of force. … I will always treat people who come into the ER because that is what we always have done and because I believe in the Hippocratic Oath.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who chairs the subcommittee turned to one of the hearing witnesses, Dr. Dana Kraus and asked her if she believed she was a slave working at a federally qualified health center.

“I love my job. I do not feel like a slave,” Kraus said.

via Rand Paul: ‘Right to health care’ is slavery – Kate Nocera – POLITICO.com.

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May 12, 2011 · 5:44 pm

Catholic Scholars To GOP Speaker Boehner: Your Agenda Defies ‘Church’s Most Ancient Moral Teachings’

I’m glad to see more and more religious leaders focusing on the hypocrisy of the Republican Budget process.

The GOP has counted on the Religious Right and Right to Lifers – including Catholics- to get them into office for years…

Then they ignore them and serve the Rich…

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will give the commencement address at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. this weekend. Ahead of the visit, dozens of faculty members from the school and other other Catholic universities are writing to Boehner — who is himself an observant Catholic — challenging his willingness to “gut” social programs while protecting “new tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.” “Mr. Speaker, your voting record is at variance from one of the Church’s most ancient moral teachings” of caring for the poor, they write:

“Your record in support of legislation to address the desperate needs of the poor is among the worst in Congress. This fundamental concern should have great urgency for Catholic policy makers. Yet, even now, you work in opposition to it.”

“The 2012 budget you shepherded to passage in the House of Representatives guts long-established protections for the most vulnerable members of society. It is particularly cruel to pregnant women and children, gutting Maternal and Child Health grants and slashing $500 million from the highly successful Women Infants and Children nutrition program. When they graduate from WIC at age 5, these children will face a 20% cut in food stamps. The House budget radically cuts Medicaid and effectively ends Medicare. It invokes the deficit to justify visiting such hardship upon the vulnerable, while it carves out $3 trillion in new tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.”

More:   ThinkProgress » Catholic Scholars To Boehner: Your Agenda Defies ‘Church’s Most Ancient Moral Teachings’ On Helping Poor.

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May 12, 2011 · 8:00 am

Liberals in Southern Arizona Seek to Form New State

From a political standpoint, I find Arizona a very scary place….

That’s one of the many reasons I could never live there….

I can understand where these folks in Tucson are coming from….

TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) – A long-simmering movement by liberal stalwarts in southern Arizona to break away from the rest of the largely conservative state is at a boiling point as secession backers press to bring their longshot ambition to the forefront of Arizona politics.

A group of lawyers from the Democratic stronghold of Tucson and surrounding Pima County have launched a petition drive seeking support for a November 2012 ballot question on whether the 48th state should be divided in two.

The ultimate goal of the newly formed political action committee Start our State is to split Pima County off into what would become the nation’s 51st state, tentatively dubbed Baja Arizona.

via Liberals in southern Arizona seek to form new state | TPM News Pages.

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May 12, 2011 · 5:30 am

Koch Fueling Far Right Academic Centers At Universities Across The Country

Lot’s of interesting information at ThinkProgress.org today…

Seems the Koch Brothers Campaign to buy America has gone beyond buying the Government to trying to buy the Higher Educational system as well.

These are some seriously scary people….

Yesterday, ThinkProgress highlighted reports from the St. Petersburg Times and the Tallahassee Democrat regarding a Koch-funded economics department at Florida State University (FSU). FSU had accepted a $1.5 million grant from a foundation controlled by petrochemical billionaire Charles Koch on the condition that Koch’s operatives would have a free hand in selecting professors and approving publications. The simmering controversy sheds light on the vast influence of the Koch political machine, which spans from the top conservative think tanks, Republican politicians, a small army of contracted lobbyists, and Tea Party front groups in nearly every state.

As reporter Kris Hundley notes, Koch virtually owns much of George Mason University, another public university, through grants and direct control over think tanks within the school. For instance, Koch controls the Mercatus Center of George Mason University, an institute that set much of the Bush administration’s environmental deregulation policy. And similar conditional agreements have been made with schools like Clemson and West Virginia University. ThinkProgress has analyzed data from the Charles Koch Foundation, and found that this trend is actually much larger than previous known. Many of the Koch university grants finance far right, pro-polluter professors, and dictate that students read Charles Koch’s book as part of their academic study:

MORE:   ThinkProgress » REPORT: Koch Fueling Far Right Academic Centers At Universities Across The Country.

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May 11, 2011 · 10:49 pm

Florida’s Bestiality Law May Have Accidentally Outlawed Sex Entirely

Posted without comment…..

Via The Huffington Post:

There may be some terrible news to report out of Florida today, depending on how the state’s residents have collectively decided to apply the basic science of biological classification to their lives. Last week, we noted some good news: The Florida legislature had finally passed a law that would outlaw bestiality and preserve the innocence of Florida’s native fauna.

At the time, I posited that only shiny-pated grifter-Governor Rick Scott could possibly foul up the effort. But over at Southern Fried Science, blogger “Andrew” points out that the law’s wording has basically outlawed sex entirely:

An act relating to sexual activities involving animals; creating s. 828.126, F.S.; providing definitions; prohibiting knowing sexual conduct or sexual contact with an animal; prohibiting specified related activities; providing penalties; providing that the act does not apply to certain husbandry, conformation judging, and veterinary practices; providing an effective date.

Click here for a handy visual provided by Southern Fried Science that elucidates the fact that human beings are smack dab in the middle of the animal kingdom — by which he means the “group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia” and not the horse that won the 2011 Kentucky Derby (being “smack dab in the middle” of a thoroughbred horse is a situation the law originally intended to prevent).

Andrew ends with a quip:

So if you’re living in Florida on October 1, 2011 and would like to have sexual intercourse with a consenting adult, please check with your veterinarian or local livestock breeder first to make sure you abide by “accepted animal husbandry practices, conformation judging practices, or accepted veterinary medical practices.”

via Florida’s Bestiality Law May Have Accidentally Outlawed Sex Entirely.

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May 11, 2011 · 10:30 pm

An Average American Pays A Higher Income Tax Rate Than ExxonMobil

An interesting fact that I’ve pointed out before…

Bears repeating…

All around the country, Americans are feeling the pinch of high gas prices. Yet one group that is not only not feeling the pain of these prices but is profiting off of them are the big oil companies.

In fact, ExxonMobil, “the largest American oil company,” raked in $30.5 billion in profit in 2010, “making it the most profitable Fortune 500 company for the eighth year in a row.”

The Center for American Progress’s Valeri Vasquez has put out a new report titled “Exxon Mobil Dodges the Tax Man,” which finds that the effective income tax rate for the average American is higher than the effective rate for the oil giant over the past few years. The effective tax rate for the average American in 2007, the last year for which data is available, was 20.4 percent. The annual Exxon federal effective rate between 2008 and 2010, meanwhile, was 17.6 percent:

via ThinkProgress » GRAPH: An Average American Pays A Higher Income Tax Rate Than ExxonMobil.

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May 11, 2011 · 9:51 pm

Gay Donors Fuel Obama’s 2012 Bid

The Gay ATM is back in business…

Funny, when we all stopped giving last year because of the seeming lack of commitment to our issues, the Obama administration suddenly became very active in supporting equality….

Again, in Politics, money talks and that’s all they really listen to….

President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign is banking on gay donors to make up the cash it’s losing from other groups of wealthy supporters who have been alienated and disappointed by elements of Obama’s first term.

Pleased by an all-out White House push to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell,” gay donors have surprised campaign officials with the extent of their support. And the campaign’s new fundraising apparatus appears designed to capitalize on their enthusiasm: Obama’s finance committee included one gay man in 2008; there are 15 this year, a source said.

The Obama campaign finance director, Rufus Gifford, was a top California gay fundraiser; the DNC treasurer, Andrew Tobias, is gay; and the White House social secretary — traditionally a key, if unofficial, fundraising job — is also a gay man, Gifford’s former partner Jeremy Bernard.

The spur for the gay community becoming an anchor for Obama’s reelection fundraising is a series of policy shifts in 2010. After a year of rocky relations and suspicion from Obama’s gay supporters that he wasn’t really committed to their issues, the last year saw a surge in activity. Along with the high-profile repeal of the military ban, Obama’s Justice Department recently refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act. And the administration has taken smaller steps, like gay partner hospital visits and hate crimes legislation, concrete and important gestures that simply weren’t made during the Bush administration.

“It’s ironic — a year ago there was no constituency more unhappy. There was a sea change,” said David Mixner, a veteran New York gay activist, who said that White House actions during the past year had swayed restive gay donors. “You not only will see a united community that will contribute to Obama, but they will work their asses off.”

via Gay donors fuel Obama’s 2012 bid – Yahoo! News.

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May 11, 2011 · 8:30 pm

Poll: Obama’s Approval Rating Hits Two-Year High

Now, if he can just keep it up until next year’s elections….

Fully six in ten Americans now approve of President Obama’s job performance, according to an AP poll released Wednesday morning, the highest level recorded in their surveys in exactly two years.

In addition, the poll showed the president’s reelection prospects getting a boost too, as it found that more Americans now think Obama deserves to be reelected than the percentage who said the same two months ago.

In the poll, 60% of respondents said they approved of Obama’s job performance, compared to 39% who disapproved. That’s the best rating Obama has received since May 2009 when, riding high after his inauguration, 64% of Americans approved of his job performance.

The poll is the latest in a flurry of surveys conducted since the death of Osama bin Laden that have shown the president getting a boost to his approval rating. Prior to the news of bin Laden’s death, the TPM Poll Average showed Obama’s approval rating slightly underwater. But now, the average finds him nearly cracking the 50% threshold, as it shows that 49.4% of Americans approve of his job performance, compared to 45.0% who disapprove.

via Poll: Obama’s Approval Rating Hits Two-Year High | TPMDC.

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May 11, 2011 · 7:17 pm

Meet The Workers Who Make Your iPad: 100 Hours Of Overtime, No-Suicide Pacts, Standing For 14 Hours A Day

It’s not just Apple.  These conditions are not unusual in overseas factories…

This is the type of environment most U.S  companies actually accept, if not encourage to get cheap labor overseas.  At least until they get caught and the media publicizes it….

These practices would not be tolerated in the US- and should not be tolerated anywhere.

There is a price to pay for the large Corporate profits we are seeing.  It’s being paid here with loss of jobs and overseas with intolerable job conditions.

It’s just wrong…

Oh, and even more evidence John McCain is either senile, uninformed, stupid or intentionally misleading people.   Take your pick…

Back in March, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) astoundingly claimed that the iPad and iPhone are “built in the United States of America.” This news must have been a great surprise to the Chinese workers who work for Taiwanese-based manufacturing giant Foxconn, which is notorious for the poor conditions at its factories and the wave of suicides at its plants.

After much of the international media covered the abuses at Foxconn’s factories, the company, along with the major American corporations it supplies — like Apple and HP — announced that it would be reforming its practices.

Yet a new report from Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM), a Hong Kong-based advocacy and research group, finds that many of the practices that led more than a dozen workers committ suicide continue to live on. SACOM conducted a comprehensive study of practices at several Foxconn factories over the months of March and April and found that a number of shocking policies are in place. Here are some of the highlights of their study:

More:   ThinkProgress » Blog Archive » Meet The Workers Who Make Your iPad: 100 Hours Of Overtime, No-Suicide Pacts, Standing For 14 Hours A Day.

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