Mitt Romney Solidifies His Candidacy for President of the United 1% of America by Picking Attila the Hun Paul Ryan as his VP Running Mate

The Destructive Duo

In a move reminiscent of a terrifying episode on the Twilight Zone, Mitt Romney  - the poster child for greed, dishonesty hypocrisy and the end of the American Dream – picked Paul Ryan, a callous cut throat politician with ethics a notch underneath that of a child molester, and whom Obama accused of favoring a ”thinly veiled social Darwinism“, as his presidential running mate. And with that an unholy alliance; a match in political hell, is born.

Romney couldn’t have picked a better person for the job, as Ryan personifies every bit the things Romney stands for but is just too clumsy and inept to put in a coherent sentence.

So in a nutshell, here are some facts about Paul Ryan which, one can only hope, the American people will take into account when casting their vote this November.

• Paul Ryan’s role model, philosophical inspiration and muse is psychopath Ayn Rand, a 20th-century libertarian novelist best known for her “philosophy” that centered on the idea that selfishness is “virtue.” Rand described altruism as “evil,” condemned Christianity for advocating compassion for the poor, viewed the feminist movement as “phony,” and called Arabs “almost totally primitive savages.” Though he publicly rejected “her philosophy” in 2012, Ryan had professed himself a strong devotee. “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,” he said at a D.C. gathering honoring the author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. “I give out ‘Atlas Shrugged’ as Christmas presents, and I make all my interns read it. Well… I try to make my interns read it.”
• Paul Ryan favors tax increases for middle class wage earners to basically make up for trillions in tax cuts for the wealthy. His infamous budget — which Romney embraced — replaces the current tax structure with two brackets — 25 percent and 10 percent — and cut the top rate from 35 percent. Federal tax collections would fall by about $4.5 trillion over the next decade as a result and to avoid increasing the national debt, the budget proposes massive cuts in social programs and “special-interest loopholes and tax shelters that litter the code.” But 62 percent of the savings would come from programs that benefit the lower- and middle-classes, who would also experience a tax increase. That’s because while Ryan would extend the Bush tax cuts, which are due to expire at the end of this year, he would not extend President Obama’s tax cuts for those with the lowest incomes, which will expire at the same time. Households earning more than $1 million a year, meanwhile, could see a net tax cut of about $300,000 annually. 
• Ryan’s budget would semi privatize Medicare and turn it into a voucher program, increasing seniors’ costs by up to $6,350 per year. In essence what the program does is give seniors a voucher worth around $6,000 a year with which they then go “shop around” for private plans or traditional fee-for-service Medicare, because we all know how much insurance companies are just dying to insure the elderly. In reality, no insurance company will insure a senior citizen with pre-exiting condition for $ 6,000 a year, which effectively would leave those elderly without health-care, unless they can come up with whatever the difference is between the $6,000 from medicare and what the insurance company demands as annual premium.   This program would effectively end medicare in the United States as we know it. Not to mention that for most people this equals a death sentence.
• Paul Ryan wants to end social security, which he refers to as a “ponzi scheme”. In September of 2011, Ryan agreed with Rick Perry’s characterization of Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme” and since 2005 has advocated for privatizing the retirement benefit and investing it in stocks and bonds. Conservatives claim that this would “outperform the current formula based on wages earned and overall wage appreciation,” but the economic crisis of 2008 should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers who seek to hinge Americans’ retirement on the stock market. In fact, “a person with a private Social Security account similar to what President George W. Bush proposed in 2005″ would havelost much of their retirement savings.
• Ryan’s budget would result in 4.1 million lost jobs in 2 years. Ryan’s budget calls for massive reductions in government spending. He has proposed cutting discretionary spending by about $120 billion over the next two years and mandatory programs by $284 billion, which, the Economic Policy Institute estimates, would suck demand out of the economy and reduce employment by 1.3 million jobs in fiscal 2013 and 2.8 million jobs in fiscal 2014, relative to current budget policies.
• Paul Ryan wants to eliminate Pell Grants for more more than 1 million students. Pell Grants, which help cover tuition costs for low-income Americans, are on Ryan;’s list of cuts, which he wants to cut by $200 billion, which would ultimately knock more than one million students off the program over the next 10 years
•  Paul Ryan supports $40 billion in subsides for big oil. In 2011, Ryan joined all House Republicans and 13 Democrats in his vote to keep Big Oil tax loopholes as part of the FY 2011 spending bill. His budget would retain a decade’s worth of oil tax breaks worth $40 billion, while cutting billions of dollars from investments to develop alternative fuels and clean energy technologies that would serve as substitutes for oil. For instance, it calls for a $3 billion cut in energy programs in FY 2013 alone and would spend only $150 million over five years — or 20 percent of what was invested in 2012 — on energy programs.  Ryan “and his wife, Janna, own stakes in four family companies that lease land in Texas and Oklahoma to the very energy companies that benefit from the tax subsidies in Ryan’s budget plan,” The Daily Beast reported in June of 2011. “Ryan’s father-in-law, Daniel Little, who runs the companies, told Newsweek and The Daily Beast that the family companies are currently leasing the land for mining and drilling to energy giants such as Chesapeake Energy, Devon, and XTO Energy, a recently acquired subsidiary of ExxonMobil.
• Paul Ryan opposes a woman’s right to choose.
• Paul Ryan supports an amendment to the Constitution that says life begins at fertilization. Ryan joined 62 other Republicans in co-sponsoring the Sanctity of Human Life Act, which declares that a fertilized egg “shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.” This would outlaw abortion, some forms of contraception and invitro fertilization
• Paul Ryan supports making the coverage of birth control illegal based on religious views
• Paul Ryan wants to end medicaid on a federal level and turn it into a state program, which would mean the end of medicaid for the poor  - the ones who need it the most.
• Paul Ryan voted against legislation aimed at erasing pay discrimination against women. 
• Ryan, like Romney, favors the flawed theory that new budget-busting tax cuts for the wealthy, while placing greater burdens on the middle class and seniors, will somehow deliver a stronger economy.
• Ryan rubber-stamped the reckless Bush economic policies that exploded our deficit and crashed our economy.
• Paul Ryan voted for two wars that were unpaid for.
• Paul Ryan voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for.
• Paul Ryan voted for the prescription drug bill that wasn’t paid for.

So here is Paul Ryan for you. A contemptible jerk who loves to go after the poor and the unfortunate. A cowardly, callou fresh of the boat rodent ready to ruin the United States, one legislation at a time and a smirk on his face.

 What Romney and Ryan, the Dystopian Duo, want is really a return to the Robber Baron age of unregulated capitalism and social Darwinism where millions suffered in extreme poverty without access to food or medical care and where elders were forced to live with their children or in extreme poverty.

Moreover, the trickle down economics he so much favors used to maybe work at a time when people didn’t have to be billionaires. In today’s economy, however, nothing trickles down but more work with less pay.

The assumption, of course, is that the American people are wise enough to understand the truly disastrous and detrimental direction these two will take us and thus not vote for this ticket.  Given two terms of George W. Bush that ultimately ruined our economy and just the systematic way people in this country keep voting against their own self interest, that is an assumption I am not willing to make so easily.

Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!

Having no inhibitions to benefit from a tragedy, such as the shooting in Colorado last night that left 12 people dead and more than fifty wounded, Representative Louie Gohmert from Texas used this opportunity to push his agenda of gun wielding religiosity on everyone by stating that the shootings were a result of “ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs.” 

“You know what really gets me, as a Christian, is to see the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and then some senseless crazy act of a derelict takes place,” Gohmert said.

He also questioned why nobody else in the theater had a gun to take down the shooter:

“It does make me wonder, with all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying a gun that could have stopped this guy more quickly?”

He went on to say that “some of us happen to believe that when our founders talked about guarding our virtue and freedom, that that was important. Whether it’s John Adams saying our Constitution was made only for moral and religious people … Ben Franklin, only a virtuous people are capable of freedom, as nations become corrupt and vicious they have more need of masters. We have been at war with the very pillars, the very foundation of this country.”

He concluded that the shooting in Colorado was a “a terrorist act” that could have been avoided if the country placed a higher value on God.

Did I miss something? Was there a part omitted in the Bible that says “And the Christ did whippeth out his gat and did just righteously blow Judas awayeth”? 

If a loving, forgiving Christian with a gun would have stood up and blown him away with the all loving god guiding the bullet through his Kevlar, that would have been divine intervention? Really?

Religious people never fail to amaze me with their capacity for unsurpassed, shameless hypocrisy.  Especially in this country, I have never encountered such a truly callous group of cowards. In my opinion, evangelical Christians are just about the worst human kind has to offer.

The Founding Fathers did not say that we ought to protect our freedoms as laid out in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence with guns and violence. If they wanted people to walk around armed to the teeth, they didn’t need to write the Constitution of the people, by the people, for the people; they could have just declared martial law.

Secondly, one does not guarantee and secure the kinds of freedoms the Founders talked about with guns and violence. That was the whole point of the revolution and of walking away from the yokes of tyranny and oppression in Europe. America is an idea, a dream, a vision and it never included gun wielding jingoists with nervous trigger fingers running the country.

Moreover, Jesus never advocated violence: he was a peaceful man who believed in forgiveness and turning the other cheek. He did not believe or even preach in walking around with deadly weapons to take down opponents and threats. I am stunned this man claims to be a Christian since there is nothing Christ like in anything he utters.

Finally, does he or anyone really think that if everyone in that dark room had a gun, the outcome would have been better? It would have been a shoot-out of epic proportions with lots of innocents in the cross-fire, and the perpetrator probably would have been missed.

It is also ironic that he would say that more god in everyone’s life would have prevented such a tragedy, generally leading to a peaceful society, when in fact more people have died in the name of religion, with Judeo-Christianity taking a lead, than in the name of any other ideology. From the Crusades, to chasing of “heretics”, witch hunting and burning, religious wars for the past two thousand years, antisemitism, the killing of Native peoples, to various events in the twentieth and twenty first century, including the massacre in Rwanda, the occupation of Palestine, 9/11 and suicide bombers.  This is in addition to policies enacted (covert violence as opposed to overt violence) that are informed primarily by religious doctrine, such as halting stem cell research that could save millions of lives, to defunding of Planned Parenthood whose primary work consists of disease prevention and health screenings and not, as the religious Right has been telling, abortion. For Gohmert to say that more god and religion would be better for everyone is beyond ignorant and intellectually comatose.

America: A Culture Obsessed with Violence 

The truth is that America has an infatuation, an obsession, a fascination with violence, the culture of violence, the instruments of violence and war; all to to a degree that vastly exceeds that of any other developed country; actually any country. We love executing, we love going to wars, the DOD is overfunded, our gut reaction to any international incidence is bomb them to the ground, ask questions later.  That is why on one talks about guns being bad. This is something not even Obama dared to tackle. And why? Because it is off limits, a taboo. God forbid, pun not intended, anyone limits the ability of Americans to own an arsenal of weapons and ammu to defend “freedom.”

Ironically, those Americans who are the most vocal “Christians” are the ones who have the greatest infatuation and obsession with the aforementioned. And Louis Gohmert believes that embracing this American Christian culture of violence worship will prevent massacres like this?

I say, fuck you Representative Gohmert.  I’m not a Christian or religious so your comments mean absolutely nothing to me you political hack. Stop trying to profit from this tragedy by once again infesting the public with your backwards religious, “Judeo-Christian” beliefs – which you shouldn’t be doing anyway  because your bony, bigot ass is paid for by tax payer dollars.

And for those of you who are unfortunate enough to be religious or Christian, I say:  if you believe in a god, know that he’s telling you to stay the hell away from people like Gohmert. He supports guns, guns, and more guns. There is nothing intelligent, divine or Christ-like in what this guy says. He is part of the problem.  There always has been and will always be the mentally ill who will murderously go off the deep end with little or no warning. The question is why does this society make it easier for them to accumulate an assault weapon arsenal than to own a car and get a drivers license. If that’s the way we want it, then this is what will, from time to time, happen.

Stupid Things People Say: Obama is a Closet Atheist

In what was yet another speech full of lies and high class bullshit uttered in a world of his own, fiber glass coif Mitt Romney accused Obama of essentially being an atheist, stating that Obama wants to “establish a religion called secularism.” 

As if that was a bad thing.

But I must admit that I am pretty stunned that everyone is treating atheism as some kind of a  terrible insult. Being an atheist in the US ranks high up there with pimps or drug dealers.

Controversial billboard paid for by the North Iowa Tea Party

What’s wrong with this country? Since when has rationalism and a life based on knowledge and fact as well as a desire to learn and find out about the world we live in and our place in it from more than just the confines of dogmatic religions,  become an accusation; an intolerable liability.

The President has been called many things, from likening him to Hitler or calling him a socialist, but atheism has become a huge party favorite among the faithful members of the hate and bigot party, also known as Republicans.

It is utterly ridiculous.

If Obama is an atheist, he should be proud and he would certainly have my respect.

The United States is Not a Country Founded by Christians, for Christians 

Someone should brief Romney that atheism is not a religion, but that in fact atheism is the absence of religion; it is irreligion.

America is also not a Christian nation per its Constitution and while it protects citizens from persecution based on their religious faith, it does not allow for its integration into laws and legislation, which is exactly what Romney and Santorum have in mind.

Furthermore, nowhere does it say in the Constitution that anyone running for office, but especially the President, must be either Christian or religious for that matter.

Article VI, paragraph 3 of  the Constitution states that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” In fact, the words “Jesus Christ”, “Christianity”, “Bible”, “God”, “Creator” and  ”Divine” are never mentioned in the Constitution.  The only time religion is mentioned in the Constitution is in exclusionary terms. The term In God We Trust was adopted as the official motto of the United States in 1956 as an alternative to the original, and more appropriate motto of E Pluribus Unum - and that only to set us apart from those allegedly godless evil communists. McCarthy era anyone?

When the Founders wrote the nation’s Constitution, they made sure not to leave any room for religion to come back and make the claim of being the official, national religion, such as England had. Giving equal citizenship to believers and non-believers alike was a radical concept in those days and apparently it still is today.

The Declaration of Independence gives us important insight into the opinions of the Founding Fathers, who  were men of  The Enlightenment, not men of superstition, intolerance and Christianity. They had learned the lessons of humanity as it played itself out in Europe for centuries and vowed not to repeat those mistakes.

Thomas Jefferson wrote that the power of the government is derived from the governed. That is because up until that time, it was claimed that monarchs ruled by the authority bestowed to them by God. The Declaration was a radical departure from the notion that the power to rule over other people comes from god or anything divine. The Founding Fathers made it clear in their letter to the Crown that power they wanted in the colonies was to be derived by the people, for the people. In fact, escaping the corrupt oppressiveness of the church and religious institutions and leaders was he driving force behind the creation of this nation.

When I hear Republicans, including supposedly educated men like Romney and Santorum,  go on and on about how this is a Christian nation where somehow being religious and Christian were the required prerequisites to run for office – or do anything else for that matter, including creating legislation, it makes me cringe, because obviously this is a lie.

Mitt Romney is a liar.  Rick Santorum is a liar. Gingrich is a liar. Republicans are liars.

The truth is that if you are asking a politician to talk to you about his faith,  you are just asking to be lied to. And America has been asking to be lied to for decades now.

Another American Exceptionalism Bullshit Argument

Regardless of the facts and intentions of the Founding Fathers that laid down the law of the land clearly barring religion from playing any part in it, America – since its foundation – but in particular since the end of World War II – has been increasingly viewing itself as a religious nation entrusted with a special mission from god.

The only thing America is exceptional at is promoting ignorance and greed

The fight against communism – a philosophy always falsely associated with atheism, as if there was some sort of a causality or correlation between them – has further aided in entrenching religion deeply into our society, much to the detriment of rationality and rational people who have to constantly run around apologizing for their rationality and refusal to let fairy tales and anecdotes and the unfounded belief in a divine be used as the basis of governance and decision making in this country.

Ultimately, America’s self-righteous views, as well as the war on communism, have managed to  portray atheists as a godless enemy, a fifth column either for Satan or for totalitarian communism.

Ironically, religion in this country has never been a bigger opium for the masses, manipulating people to vote against their own self interest much in the same way fascists (i.e. the totalitarians from above) did, including in Germany in 1933 with the burning of the Reichstag and granting Hitler more power than an absolute monarch.

Imagine how much better things would be in this country if the President were an atheist…

Rush Limbaugh Is a Vile, Unevolved Swine

Calling him a pig is an insult to the pig

Everytime I think it is impossible for the Republican Party and their spokes-whores to degrade themselves and those they offend any more, something like this happens, reaffirming my notion that there are no holes deep enough these sanctimonious right wing nut jobs won’t sink into.

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh sunk below the deepest layer of prehistoric frog shit at the bottom of a New Jersey scum swamp when he, on Wednesday, called Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University law student, a “slut” and a “prostitute” for publicly advocating that employers cover contraception in their health plans.

Sandra Fluke

Fluke’s testimony in the hearing was not, as Limbaugh claimed, about the fact that she’s “having so much sex she’s going broke buying contraceptives.” Fluke told the story of her friend who had an ovary removed because the insurance company wouldn’t cover the prescription birth control she needed to stop the growth of ovarian cysts.

Limbaugh concluded his vile rant by insisting that if his tax dollars go to provide health care to citizens, they should be forced to also make sex tapes to provide him with plenty of jerk-off material.  I don’t even really want to repeat the despicable words that came out of his mouth, I am sure people can look it up everywhere.

Obama Calls – Republicans Reluctantly Follow Suit 

President Obama ended up calling Fluke on Friday, thanking her for speaking out on the issue.  Apparently cry baby John Boehner took a brief break from lying and also condemned the remarks. But at this point it seems more like an afterthought, like something he was compelled to do because the Republican PR machine advised him on this strategic move that would make Republicans appear less like barfinating biles of vomitous bigots. It is almost like he is checking off a pesky task from his to-do list so he can move on already and stop being bothered for apologizing for his beliefs. And I have no doubt that Boehner probably has more in common with Limbaugh than with Obama. They are all made of the same canvas.

What I don’t understand is why Obama did not make an official public announcement condemning what that worthless human being said and instead just sort of only called her up. Why not also publicly declare in a press conference that such behavior is unacceptable. I have never understood what virtue is to be found in being a doormat giving credence to hatred and bigtory. What is so heroic and classy about that?

Limbaugh, who has made a career and millions out of insulting people and spreading hatred, defamed this women in the worst possible way and those words of defamation reached all of his 20 million listeners, not to mention that he – together with fascists like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman – have been the unofficial spokespeople for the Republican party, and in particular the Tea Party, for the past four years, setting the direction and tone of the debates and policies we are having right now.

This man is a driving force behind all the bigotry and hate Republicans have been cultivating like a malignancy and which has ultimately been translating into public policy; he is not some minor player whose words are inconsequential. It’s bad enough that there has not been much Republican criticism and rebuke of this, they have stayed mum on the issue more or less and only “condemned” it as sort of a pesky afterthought, like it was a chore to get over with;  but it is just incomprehensible to me why Obama would not take his balls out of his wife’s purse and just make a public announcement already, stating firmly that as the President, he does not condone such behavior.

There is nothing honorable in staying really low-key and silent when you see injustice and hate against another human being. Limbaugh is a contemptible, sorry excuse for a human being and he should be fired for instigating and spewing such despicable hatred. This isn’t even an issue of free speech, this is pure, cold, unadulterated hate-speech and slut-shaming of a person who has had the unmitigated temerity to assert her right to participate in the public sphere.

Remember How We Thought We’d Have Flying Cars by Now?

Who would have thought that in 2012, basic contraception would be the major election issue.

There is a war going on against women and it is happening on all spheres and levels, subtle and overt, small and big, large scale and small scale.

A few days ago, in my review of the Season 2 episode of The Walking Dead, I recited the offensive nature with which women are and have been portrayed throughout the show, such as a bunch of incompetent bimbos and doormats incapable of tying a shoelace apparently without a big strong man around to guide and supervise them through it.  In this very last episode, Lori, who I am going to nickname Michelle, based on her role model Michelle Duggar, was giving Andrea shit for basically possessing insufficient skills to be dude property and every woman on the show who has made her own decisions this far has ended up regretting it five minutes later.

Women – Doing Laundry Even During the Zombie Apocalypse

A couple of weeks ago, the biggest doormat of them all, Michelle Duggar published her advise list on how to basically be a functioning doormat for your husband (the fact that women themselves advocate misogyny is disturbing and subject for another post).

And just last week the Virginia senate approved the ultra sound abortion bill, setting a precedent for other states to follow by requiring that a woman be probed with an ultra sound prior to getting an abortion, thus not only creating an unnecessary barrier between women and a lawful medical procedure but to also, in the finest tradition of oppression, humiliate a woman by patronizing her into taking a look inside, as if she didn’t know what she was doing and had to be sort of reminded.

Women are being knee-capped everywhere and all this is nothing but an underhanded attempt by men and religious people to shame and humiliate a woman into carrying a pregnancy they chose to abort, to term (remember how Rick shamed Lori into not getting rid of that baby from hell?).

Republicans piss and moan about government invasion into their lives and infringement upon their religious beliefs all the time, but they have no problem shoving their backwards religious beliefs, literally, up my vagina and uterus. It is like the King saying that the demands of his subjects for equity constitute an infringement upon his rights to oppress them.

Truth is that it in fact has been religious people and their beliefs that have been infesting the public sphere and public policy for decades now to unimaginable levels, such as defunding stem cell research  that could provide a cure for a myriad of currently incurable diseases, insisting on school prayer and  on teaching Creationism and Intelligent Design in public schools, infringing upon a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body and reproductive organs, prohibiting gay people from exercising their civil rights to get married and even going so far as to putting it on a ballot for others to vote on. The recent debates with respect to defunding Planned Parenthood, whose primary role is health promotion and disease prevention, and finding ever newer ways to shame and humiliate women at every turn they can, slowly eroding their rights, are just a couple of examples to the point.

Rick Santorum’s rant on how sex for any purpose other than procreation constitutes some kind of a moral problem in our society and Limbaugh’s recent slut-shaming of Sandra Fluke  and calling on her to make a sex video for him already to give him his money’s worth (and Ari Fleischer’s shameless defending of Limbaugh in some sort of a “what’s the big deal?” way)  are just the tip of the iceberg with respect to the kind of infestation of public policy we’ve had to endure at the hands of these self-proclaimed pious, god fearing people.

Liberals, atheists, feminists and gays are being constantly held responsible for the moral decay and all the ills of our society, when in fact it has been religious people and their beliefs that have caused a lot of grief for everyone. Until the devil makes himself known, we’re always a handy substitute and there certainly is nothing like an unembarrassed hypocrite from the Right.

I conclude this post by acknowledging that, of course, not all religious people are bigots. But if you are a bigot then chances are you are religious.