Good Christians in Action

I saw this photo on Facebook and it was too good to pass up.  It illustrates the backbone that the mainstream denominations need to find to successfully challenge the hate filled messages of the Christofascists and their puppets in the Republican Party.

Read More

Anti-Abortion GOP Congressman: Fetuses Masturbate, Ban Abortion

Just when you think that the GOP simply cannot get any nuttier and insane, along comes a GOP member of Congress who proves that the insanity that permeates the GOP seemingly has no limits.  How else to explain the statements by Michael Burgess (R-TX, pictured above) on Monday wherein he asserted that he had witnessed male fetuses pleasuring themselves as early as 15-weeks after conception.  His point?  That fetuses feel pain and pleasure and, therefore, the GOP House approved anti-abortion bill was justified.  Left unaddressed was how this apparently natural behavior squares with the Christofascists hysteria against masturbation and sex in general (at least outside the confines of their secret viewing of Internet porn, something most prevalent in the Bible Belt).  What makes the whole affair more bizarre is that Burgess is leading member of a House subcommittee focused on public health and biomedical issues.  Raw Story looks at Burgess' statements:

Representative Michael Burgess (R-TX) on Monday asserted that he witnessed male fetuses pleasuring themselves as early as 15-weeks after conception, RH Reality Check reported.

His comments came during a House Rules committee debate on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortions nationwide after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The fact of the matter is, I argue with the chairman because I thought the date was far too late. We should be setting this at 15-weeks, 16-weeks.”

“Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful,” he continued. “They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to think that they could feel pain?”

Burgess said the Supreme Court would be forced to reconsider its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling due to legal fights over anti-abortion legislation like the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. He suggested the justices would be far less permissive of abortion thanks to modern sonogram technology.

For the record, I am not pro-abortion.  I do believe, however, that there need to be meaningful exceptions for rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother.  While the bill purports to contained exceptions for rape and incest and would permit abortion to save the life of the mother, critics said the exceptions were narrowly written and would prove problematic if implemented.  As always, it is amazing to see GOP white males passing legislation to govern the lives and bodies of women. And one has to wonder how the Catholic clergy will react to masturbation being a natural behavior - many must be having a severe case of the vapors.

Read More

Another GOP Disaster: Virginia Could Pay Up to $2 Billion If Tolls Ruling Stands

Outdated and Inadequate Midtown Tunnel

As if Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonald did not already have enough problems between the ongoing FBI investigation of his cozy relationship with Star Scientific and ripping off taxpayers for personal expenses, a new article in the Virginian Pilot lays out the potential cost to Virginia of the idiotic "public-private" deal struck to build a second tube for the Midtown Tunnel.  By "public-private" the terms in reality means that select private interests get to screw the public with GOP blessing.  It's all part of the Virginia GOP's refusal to raise taxes in a meaningful way to address the state's increasingly inadequate highway system.  With a recent court ruling striking down the McDonald/GOP give away to private interests, all of us may be about to be royally screwed.  Here are story highlights:

Virginia Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton painted a bleak financial picture for the state if a May court decision striking down planned tolls for the Midtown and Downtown tunnels is upheld, saying it could cost at least $700 million and potentially jeopardize other toll projects.

Testifying before state legislators Monday, Connaughton estimated that Virginia would be out $706 million in damages and costs incurred if it terminated the $2.1 billion contract with Elizabeth River Crossings to upgrade and operate the tunnels.

And the liability could be much higher if Virginia and its private partners move forward on the project but aren't able to collect tolls.

In that scenario, Connaughton said, Elizabeth River Crossings could pursue annual payments of $169 million for 57 years to recover lost revenue, an amount exceeding $9.6 billion. But it's unlikely Virginia would be on the hook for that much, he said, citing a worst-case figure closer to $2 billion if the state didn't terminate the deal.

Last month, Portsmouth Circuit Judge James A. Cales Jr. ruled that the General Assembly exceeded its authority by giving the state highway department broad power to set toll rates.

Del. Johnny Joannou gave voice to those frustrations Monday. His questions about the real-world impact of the tolls drew applause from audience members.

"You're talking about a lot of money from a lot of citizens. We're not just talking about money the state is putting out," he said, complaining about toll costs coupled with the lack of new capacity on the Downtown Tunnel.

Citing a still-fragile economy, Joannou criticized a deal he said would affect the lives of "a lot of people that are struggling out there to make a living."

The Virginia GOP can worry about micro-managing women's vagina's and Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli can obsess over maintaining Virginia's unconstitutional sodomy statute, but these folks cannot exercise leadership in a key area of government: maintaining the state's transportation infrastructure.

Read More

Evangelicals to GOP: Don't Betray Us Or Else

The so-called GOP establishment continues to struggle to control the Frankenstein monster that it created in the pursuit of short sighted expediency when it allowed the evangelical Christians - the Christofascists, if you will - to begin their infiltrating of the local city and county committees 15 to 20 years ago or more.  Now, the anti-modernity, open embrace of ignorance and religious based hate and bigotry of the Christofascists is making the GOP non-competitive at at least the national level.  Yet, the Christofascist continue to demand that the GOP surrender to them and push their extremist agenda.  Nowhere do we see this more than on the issues of abortion and gay rights.  In the context of abortion, it is the Christofascists who are ultimately responsible for the GOP's war on women.  The same holds true for opposition to any rights for gay Americans even though more than 50% of young Republicans - or at least those who haven't yet fled the GOP - support gay marriage.  As Politico notes, on abortion, the swamp fever ridden Christofascist (perhaps rabid dogs is a better analogy) are threatening the GOP if it doesn't continue to do their bidding.  Here are story highlights:

After Todd Akin last year and Trent Franks this week, abortion is about the last topic many national Republicans want the political conversation to focus on.

Yet social conservatives in town this week for the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference say the GOP would be making a grave mistake to ignore the hot-button culture war issue. To the contrary, they believe it’s key to the party’s fortunes in the 2014 midterms and beyond.

The Republican National Committee’s 100-page “autopsy” report in March, packed with recommendations for how the party can recover after its 2012 losses, did not make reference to abortion. “When it comes to social issues,” it stated, “the Party must in fact and deed be inclusive and welcoming. If we are not, we will limit our ability to attract young people and others, including many women, who agree with us on some but not all issues.”

Still, some GOP politicians are responding to the call of social conservatives to take a more aggressive stand on abortion — even as Democrats sound the alarm about a Republican “a war on women” and after Mitt Romney lost by double digits among female voters.

Next week the House will debate a bill that would ban most abortions after 20 weeks, even though the measure could never clear the Senate or receive the support of President Barack Obama.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a likely presidential candidate, is poised to sign a law requiring women to undergo an ultrasound before being allowed to go through with abortions. Ohio’s Republican legislature passed a budget last week aimed at making abortions more difficult.

[E]vangelicals in town for the three-day faith conference warned that the party must give them reasons to mobilize in 2014.   “If they want to just run on economic issues, you’re not going to get the church people,” said Bob West of Tallahassee, Fla., wearing a yellow tie with the words “Choose Life” on it. “That’s the bottom line.”

The rank-and-file believe the steadfastness of the party’s opposition to abortion is a reflection of its character.  “If they back away from that, they’ll never win another election,” said Regina Brown, the national prayer coordinator for the Faith and Freedom Coalition. “Our numbers are in the church.”

The pervasive belief among speakers and attendees at the conference is that not talking about social issues hurts more than the occasional gaffes that get such intense media attention.

Having been actively involved in the GOP when the Christofascist takeover began, I have no sympathy for those in the GOP who are now reaping what they sowed.  The evangelical base is down right insane, worships ignorance and bigotry, is theocratic and anti-democratic, and is a clear and present danger to constitutional government.   They are not nice people and they deserve no deference, especially from anyone who has taken an oath to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution.

Read More

Virginia GOP's E. W. Jackson - A Growing Train Wreck

The entertainment factor and ongoing exposure of just how insane the Virginia GOP base has become just goes on and on in the form of GOP Lt. Governor candidate E. W. Jackson.   The man is a train wreck.  And what must remembered is that despite the efforts of Ken Cuccinelli and Mark Obenshain to distance themselves from Jackson, all three hold virtually the same anti-gay, anti-women and anti-modernity positions.  They are the face of The Family Foundation and the religious extremists who hijacked the Republican Party of Virginia.  In a press conference yesterday, Jackson admitted drug use in his past - and not just marijuana - filing bankruptcy and claimed to have taken course at Harvard that Harvard has no record of.  Jackson is exhibit A as to why the GOP ticket needs to be thoroughly defeated in November.  Here are highlights from a Virginian Pilot piece:

The Republican nominee for Virginia lieutenant governor acknowledged Wednesday that he used marijuana and experimented with other controlled substances in his youth, and that he was forced to file for bankruptcy.

Jackson sought to get out front on his past on Wednesday. He said during his speech that he used marijuana as a youth, and when questioned after the speech, acknowledged that he experimented with other controlled substances, but did not go into detail. 

He spent a lot of time discussing his 1993 bankruptcy filing, which he said came after nine years of work to make a go of an AM gospel radio station in Boston. He said many of the difficulties came from extended battles with the Federal Communications Commission  .  .  .  .

He also talked about his transition over time from lawyer to minister. He said that while he graduated from Harvard Law School, he took several classes at the divinity school, even though Harvard apparently has no record of it.  "They were not teaching what I believed to be orthodox Christian biblical theology but rather a liberal version of that. I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture; they did not," Jackson said of the Harvard divinity classes.

He acknowledged that he was asked to leave his first ministerial position in 1982, after two years at a Baptist church in Cambridge.

Jackson said many of his statements have been taken out of context to try to make it sound as though he believes that birth defects are caused by parents' sins or that yoga leads to Satanism.

"I do not believe that birth defects are caused by parents' sin unless, of course, there's a direct scientific connection between the parents' behavior and the disabilities of the child," he said, giving the example of birth defects that might result from a child born to a mother addicted to heroin.

He added, "I do not believe that yoga leads to Satanism. One of my ministers is a yoga instructor. What I said was that Christian meditation does not involve emptying oneself but filling oneself ... with the spirit of God. That is classic Biblical Christianity."

The uproar over yoga came last week when the National Review posted an excerpt of a book that Jackson had written in which he wrote, "When one hears the word meditation, it conjures an image of Maharishi Yoga talking about finding a mantra and striving for nirvana. ... The purpose of such meditation is to empty oneself. (Satan) is happy to invade the empty vacuum of your soul and possess it."

The man is a nutcase and any party that could nominate Jackson for Lt. Governor is simply unfit to govern.  Between now and November Virginia voters need to realize that Cuccinelli, Jackson and Obenshain are all cut out of the same cloth.

Read More

GOP War on Women Continues: GOP Congressman Says "Incidence of Rape Resulting in Pregnancy areVery Low"

One has to wonder whether or not the GOP is sending its elected members of Congress to some sort of "Stepford Wives" treatment center or simply giving them a lobotomy followed by mind control programing.  Or do they simply need to fail an IQ test before being vetted as a candidate?  How else to explain yet another GOP congressman shooting off his mouth with no supporting data or justification and claiming that rape rarely results in pregnancy.  One can only assume that Congressman Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) - who is pictured above - was speaking from some talking points provided by some right wing anti-abortion (and likely anti-gay) "family values" organization.  But then again, look at the Virginia GOP's statewide ticket.  They are all crazy extremists.  Politico looks at the latest case of verbal diarrhea to overt the GOP.  Here are excerpts:

A House Republican pushing for a 20-week nationwide ban on abortions said Wednesday that the incidence of pregnancies resulting from rape is “very low” — then scrambled to clarify his comment after it went viral with comparisons to former GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin.

“The incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low,” said Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) as the House Judiciary Committee debated his bill to ban abortions nationwide after 20 weeks including in cases of rape and incest.

Franks’s comments immediately stirred comparisons to the controversies during the 2012 elections, when Akin and other GOP candidates made a series of statements about abortion and rape, or questioned whether abortion was ever needed to save a woman’s life. In several states — notably Missouri and Indiana — the remarks and their aftermath played into the larger Democratic theme of the “war on women” and helped Democrats win those seats and keep control of the Senate.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) challenged Franks when he made his comment in committee, saying his assertion was “astonishing.”

“The idea that the Republican men on this committee think they can tell the women of America that they have to carry to term the product of a rape is outrageous,” Lofgren said.

It wasn’t only Democrats who objected. Gabriel Gomez, the Massachusetts Republican Senate candidate, told ABC News: “I think that he’s a moron and he proves that stupid has no specific political affiliation.”

The House Judiciary Committee ultimately passed Franks’s bill, which would ban abortions nationwide after 20 weeks based on the controversial assertion that a fetus can feel pain at that point. It is scheduled to get a vote in the full House next week, a spokesman for Majority Leader Eric Cantor said.

In addition to voting down a Democratic amendment along party lines that would provide an exception in cases of rape or incest, the committee voted down amendments to provide a full exception to preserve the life or health of the woman and a more detailed amendment that would provide an exception if the pregnancy could result in lung disease, heart disease or diabetes.

Note how even an exception in the bill to save the life of the mother was voted down by the GOP.   With two daughters of my own, I certainly do not want decisions that could threaten their lives being made by political whore to Bible beaters who glorify ignorance and reject modern medical knowledge. Today's GOP has become something very, very ugly.  It is also noteworthy that whenever to GOP supports bad legislation, the fingers of the "godly Christian" crowd are often all over it.

Read More