“Hang Atheists”

This is what peace looks like. Brought to you by Islam

Well, it’ s good to know that Islam is a peaceful religion that is merely misunderstood. Just look at how misunderstood nearly 200,000 people were in Bangladesh last month when they stormed the streets of Dhaka rioting, injuring and even killing people, asking that atheists and all those who offend Islam be hanged or else executed  I totally feel the love here. Don’t you?

Officers were forced to use stun grenades to break up a rally by the group Hefazat-e Islam (Protectors of Islam) that so far has left at least 15 people dead and more than 50 injured.

According to police, more than 200,000 protesters marched the city centre to demand the government take a more Islamic stance on domestic policy. Many of the protesters had come into Dhaka from rural villages, making their way to the city’s largest mosque. However, the gathering quickly turned into a riot as shops and cars were set alight, government building attacked and police officers targeted. Clashes outside the mosque saw police react to stone throwing with tear gas and rubber bullets fired from armoured vehicles.

Kamrun Nahar mourns in front of a morgue as her husband Shaheed Hossain, 45, an activist of Bangladesh Awami League, died in a clash with Hefajat-e-Islam in Dhaka

According to the AFP, the protesters were heard chanting: “One point, one demand, atheists must be hanged.” Sky News reported a protester, saying: “This government does not have faith in Allah. This is an atheist government; we will not allow them to live in Bangladesh. Muslims are brothers, we must protect Islam.”

In contrast, how many people went on the streets in this very same city protesting the death of over 700 workers,  many of whom made little more than the national minimum wage of about $1.20 per day under horrible, 16 hour day working conditions? A few hundred people? Compared to 200,000 who marched on the streets asking that atheists and those who disagree with them be killed?

Yes, I can see all the love shining through the smoke, and soot and smell of dead bodies at the hands of god-fearing and also god-loving believers.

Food Stamps in the Way of Republican Plans to Increase Entitlements for Military

Paul Ryan’s plan for helping the poor is to cut programs for the poor.

Now this is the kind of logic and policy advise Mary Antoinette and Louis XIV could have used to prevent having their heads chopped off: in order to help the poor suffering from lack of opportunity and destitution, keep cutting programs aimed at helping them out of poverty. Now why didn’t they think of that back in 1789 when people were starving and instead said something intelligent like “let them eat cake.” This is much more effective. And smarter.

See folks, being poor is a pleasure and choice many people consciously and willingly make. As we all know, there is nothing more fun than being poor and struggling to make it and being at the mercy of anyone without much choice or autonomy. And yeah, nothing beats that $200 a month in food stamps, which means something like a whopping $7.21 a day for food. Now that is what I call taking advantage of the system. Those food stamp recipients are getting away with highway robbery. After all, there ain’t nothing better than sitting on your ass getting those great food stamps sent to you so you don’t starve.

And as we all also know, welfare recipients in a country with a practically non existent safety net already have it so good: they get to send their kids to top notch schools on tax payer dollars, they live in the best residences in the best neighborhoods in this country, also funded by tax dollars, they have the best health due to the immense and affordable health care resources at their disposal and let’s not even mention those food stamps they use to eat and not starve.

Since they do so much better than anyone else could ever imagine, we have to put a stop to that; we have to put a stop to these people living in the lap of luxury wanting food, health care and jobs. We need to do such things so we can give more tax cuts to people making $250k or more a year and millionaires, since clearly they need the money while these poor mooches don’t. They worked for it remember, while most people don’t work for it.

So what you live in a poor neighborhood and go to a shitty, underfunded poor public school with 100% racial minorities and metal detectors at the door; you can totally move upward if you put your mind to it. This is America.

You are hungry from not having enough money to pay for your food at the school cafeteria? Go ask daddy to dip into your trust fund and help you out (by the way you should remember this for when you get into that Ivy league school with those amazing grades you totally had the chance of getting in a school falling apart at the seams and metal detectors at the door – if you can’t pay for it, just ask your parents, silly). This is America.

The thing is, our military needs more money and we need to take that money off the back of those pesky food stamp recipients referenced above.  It is not enough that we have a military spending that is greater than that of the next ten nations combined. We need more.

Think of all the defense contracts we will get to issue to places like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon  - corporations that pay little to no taxes while posting record profits – to build more weapons and ships we don’t need, but which we can sell to other nations so they keep killing people we do not approve of.  Or heck even to people we do not know anything about. Business is business and war is great for business. Food stamps aren’t. Why spend money feeding the poor and children or any human beings for that matter if we could spend that money to wage wars and take lives? Don’t you know what America stands for? We are a peace loving nation.

You have to understand that the Republican efforts to slash the food stamp program is based upon the conservative belief that low paid soldiers will fight harder for their starving families.

Poor defense contractors not being able to make the payments on their yachts or refurnish their second dream homes on the private islands that they own, on the other hand, is the real tragedy here. It is a real shame to ask the rich to be responsible enough to provide food for the starving among us. We really would not want the rich to suffer because they deserve so much.

So what you have become ill and had to stop working, have no insurance because no one will insure you for any amount and lost everything – going from a $60,000 a year income to something like maybe $14,000 a year and now have to feed yourself on less than $200 a month in food stamps. So what you walk into the grocery store and eat a mostly non-meat diet since meat is so expensive for someone who has a less than $200 budget for food every month and become anemic. And so what the $14,000 you do make are considered “too much income” for all those cozy benefits they want to slash becasue “lazy” people do not know how to be responsbile and starve to death with dignity.

Go beg rich people to help out and be at their mercy for a loaf of bread, access to health care and a roof above your head. We do not need to have compassion and a safety net for our hard working fellow Americans in need of those benefits becasue of the policy decisions the likes of Ryan and Romney push for.

In addition to waging wars against a number of nations on our hit list of nations we do not approve of, it is especially fun to wage wars against decency, women, reason, Hispanics, blacks, freedom, gays, democracy, students and the 99%. Paul Ryan is a true Christian and human being in that regard.

Remember, we cannot place any burden on the wealthy. Sure their causes and policies are what created the recession but that doesn’t mean we cannot go after the elderly, the poor, the Medicare recipients, those damn starving parasites on food stamps,  hard working middle class wage earners and students to clean up and pay for the mess the wealthy created. This is totally what Jesus would have done.

Paul Ryan’s Christ Like Path to Prosperity Begins With Throwing Everyone but the 1% Under the Bus 

So as Paul Ryan suggests, to avert the above mentioned from happening,  cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as food stamps, in place of looming cuts to defense spending are necessary and just the first step because the buck doesn’t stop there.

Here are some of Paul Ryan’s truly humane and conscionable cuts everyone in the lowest tax bracket, hedgfund millionaires, the 1% and Jesus himself completely endorse:

1) Paul Ryan’s most recent budget proposal would save those making between $20,000 and $30,000 just $246 in taxes, compared to savings of $265,011 for those who make over $1 million, according to analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

2)  The “Path to Prosperity” would cut $2.4 trillion from Medicaid and other health care programs for people with low or moderate incomes, according to analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

3) Under Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” as many as 44 million fewer people would be covered under Medicaid, according to CBS News

4) Ryan would raise the age of Medicare eligibility from 65 to 67. If the Affordable Care Act was repealed, something Romney has pledged, that means many 65- and 66-year-olds would be left uninsured, theCBPP reports..

5) Under Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity,” senior citizens would have to pay as much as 68 percent of their health care coverage, up from 25 percent today,

6) Ryan’s proposed “Path to Prosperity” includes $134 billion in cuts to SNAP, according to analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, CBS News reports.

7) A single mother of two working full time at the minimum wage would have her Child Tax Credit cut by more than $1,500, assuming she made $14,500 a year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

8) Compared to the most recent White House budget proposal, Ryan’s budget spends 33 percent less on education, training, employment and social services according to the Washington Post reports..

9) The current government worker pay freeze would be extended under the “Path to Prosperity,” meaning public-sector employees wouldn’t get a raise until at least 2015, the Washington Post reports

10) Ryan also plumps for his Medicare reforms as a solution to inequality. As you’ll remember, his budget proposes converting Medicare into a voucher system where seniors would be given a check and sent into a regulated private market to purchase insurance. The plan saves money because the check would grow at the rate of inflation, while health-care costs often increase three times faster than inflation, so, quite quickly, the check would cover only a small portion of an individual senior’s costs.

For rich seniors, this wouldn’t much matter. They could easily afford the cost of private insurance. For middle-income seniors, or lower-income seniors, it would be a disaster. Ryan offers them some subsidies, but not nearly enough. The cost of coverage would quickly outpace the resources many of them have to pay for it.

Republicans Aren’t Pro Life For No Reason

We are a government that deeply cares for its citizens, after all, we need them to pay taxes so the rich and corporations don’t have to, we need their kids as soldiers in wars that the rich kids don’t have to go to (that is, by the way where being anti abortion and “pro life” comes in handy *wink*), we need them as low wage workers in corporations whose stockholders and corporate executives are enriched by their labor, and if they get sick, hungry, disabled or become homeless well… tough luck. This is America, don’t you know.

Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney are both deeply religious, god fearing  men to whom life is precious and begins at conception.  Exploiting people is the American Dream and the Christ like thing to do.

And if you end up not being able to pull yourself by the bootstraps you do not have, well then your demise is collateral damage for the wealthy and smug politicians who always get the best health care, nice pensions and benefits paid for by those warm bodies we call the middle class and the poor.

Do not mistake the GOP’s hostility toward the majority of the population as a sign of them not caring. They do. They want you to not abort a child so there is one more source of tax revenue for them to pay for all the programs that benefit the 1%. They need you to work long hours without benefits so they can keep getting richer at your expense. This is all part of the compassionate path Paul Ryan keeps endorsing.

So see you insolent fools, the real enemy here are starving people on food stamps and single mothers and college grads, not to mention the elderly. We do not want to create a society where people have rights, are well fed, get an education without going bankrupt, have access to quality and affordable health care and job prospects with fair wages and benefits. Such a world would make it so hard for the wealthy to keep exploiting everyone – which is their god given right after all. Remember, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god“…er, no wait.

Just remember that all the Republican policies referenced above  are nothing but a sign of love and care and respect for the American people and this grand nation, this beacon of light at the end of the tunnel, under the flag, guns and a cross.

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.

Tax Evasion is Unpatriotic, Mr. and Mrs. Romney

Republicans, but Americans in general, are big on patriotism. The platform that Romney is running on for president is steeped in classic Americana  of the “Leave it to Beaver” kind: mom and apple pie, the flag, guns, Christian values, and a lot of other things that evoke pride in and ask for devotion to the United States of America.

But devotion to one’s country also requires personal sacrifice for the larger good, including paying your taxes. For Romney to preach the Republican gospel from the top of a mountain while privately amassing a fortune by evading taxes is deeply hypocritical and unpatriotic.

Based on his track record, the only use Mitt Romney has ever seen in the government apparently is the extent to which it can be manipulated and molded to cater to the needs of corporations and the wealthy, at the expense of everyone else. Outsourcing jobs, which effectively means paying very little for labor overseas while at the same time depriving Americans of the opportunity to earn a living, is completely in line with the aforementioned credo.

Mitt Romeny’s past with respect to Bain Capital are at the forefront of the debate in this upcoming presidential election and campaign, seriously questioning his fitness to be the President, not CEO as he seems to think, of the United States. Swiss bank accounts and offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda for the purposes of tax evasion as well as his refusal to release his financial statements and tax documents seriously bring into question Mitt Romney’s integrity and most importantly fitness for the office of the presidency. They also seriously bring into question Romney’s alleged patriotism.

Furthermore, questions about Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital and the fortune he earned there have dogged the former Massachusetts governor as Obama and his allies have said the Boston-based firm shipped jobs overseas. Romney insists he left the company in February 1999 to take over the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, but documents suggest he was still in charge as late as 2001.

“He actually retired retroactively at that point,” Romney adviser Ed Gillespie said. “He ended up not going back to the firm after his time in Salt Lake City. So he was actually retired from Bain.”

Yet there are documents that show his signature past the date he allegedly left Bain. A second adviser, Kevin Madden, said Romney had no choice but to have his name listed on Security and Exchange Commission documents as he sought to transfer the company’s leadership to partners.

“The reason that there is a document that had … his signature is because, during that transition from 1999 to 2002 … there was a duty to sign those documents,” Madden said.

The exact role Romney played at the firm between 1999 and 2001 is important not only because critics have raised questions about his truthfulness, but also because Bain was sending jobs overseas during that period. For someone who is running as President of this country and who has been accusing Obama of outsourcing, the question as to his role in Bain capital, especially pertaining to sending jobs overseas while he was in charge, are completely and totally relevant just as questions about his personal fiances that show a man who has been working hard to doge paying taxes in the country that houses and supports him and his activities, are relevant.

No one is questioning Romney’s right to create wealth through private equity or by putting his money into offshore bank accounts. What is in question here are his personal beliefs and judgment and thus ultimately his goals. If Romney is going to stand on a platform of patriotism and love of country, siphoning off his wealth from American shores to save on taxes which the United States desperately needs is no way to do that.

It is disturbing to think that a potential president of the United States would consider it acceptable to direct money into offshore bank accounts in order to shield that money from taxes. Taxation, unpleasant as it might be, is the primary funding mechanism for our nation; without it we would be reduced to a wasteland of crumbling infrastructure, non-existent public services, and anarchy. Taxes fund most of our crucial public functions from road repair and public transport, food inspection,  to the police force, welfare, and even trash collection. Why then would a highly educated, politically conscious, and ostensibly patriotic Romney go out of his way to minimize his own share of taxes?

At best it shows a greedy mentality, and at worst demonstrates a disregard for the welfare of his country. According to a 2011 report from the California Public Interest Research Group, offshore tax havens cost the US government roughly $100 billion every year.

Romney’s general unwillingness to take responsibility for his actions and much less own them further creates a chasm bringing into question his already-withered-down-to-a-toothpick ethics and sincerity. Gillespie said Romney may have been listed as “part-time” in Bain after 1999, but that he had no role in the firm’s day-to-day affairs, a point the campaign has attempted to make repeatedly in order to separate him from Bain’s activity related to outsourcing during that period. Romney has said he left the company completely in 1999 when he started working to plan the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Romney: Dishonest and Unpatriotic

A couple of months ago I reported on the groundbreaking levels of dishonesty Mitt Romney had crossed. That was right after he took credit for the automobile industry bail out, even though he had been caught on record asking for Detroit to go bankrupt already:

“If General Motors, Ford and Chryslesr get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye,” Romney wrote. “In a managed bankruptcy, the federal government would propel newly competitive and viable automakers, rather than seal their fate with a bailout check.”

I didn’t think it was possible for Romney to be any more dishonest than he already is, but what do you know: there is always room for more lies, shameless accusations that have no basis in reality and the kind of insincerity that makes politicians who have the ethics a notch underneath that of child molester, seem like a fountain of integrity.

So you understand that it is beyond hypocritical of Romney to be calling Obama out on alleged dishonesty when campaigning, accusing him of saying anything to win a second term and demanding he apologize for attacks on the Republican’s successful career at a private equity firm.

“No, we will not apologize,” the president responded, adding that if Romney wants credit for his business leadership, he also needs to take responsibility – a word which apparently is not in Romney’s vocabulary.

Furthermore, if Romney has really nothing to hide and is in fact the person he portrays to everyone, then why not release his taxes? Why not disclose those financial documents?

The truth is that Romney has, in fact, a lot to hide. And he knows it. He knows that those tax records, unlike him, don’t lie and show a side of him he has been working hard to gaslight everyone into believing is not true.

Finally,  Romney should be the last person to accuse anyone of dishonesty when not only his entire campaign but in fact his entire life is based on deception and dishonest practices to accumulate riches. He is a liar and dishonest man who got wealthy taking over companies, loading them up with debt, driving them into bankruptcy and laying people off.  He changes his “mind” depending on who he is talking to and what he thinks they want to hear and he took undue credit for the car bailout – that turned out to be a success – even though he is seen on record opposing it. He is not a successful businessman, unless you call stealing from and bankrupting others while taking jobs overseas being a successful businessman.

That he has the audacity to accuse Obama of dishonesty or foul play is just another testament to this man’s not only minuscule mind but just sheer insincerity and greedy disposition.

No one is saying that you cannot be successful and wealthy in the US. What people are angry about is Romney’s complete lack of forth-right behavior and air of superiority. It is as though no one can question him. He  is running for President of this country – that runs on taxes – yet he evaded paying taxes for decades.  And every time someone shows evidence of a problem that seriously questions his fitness to be president, he says it is not true and that people should should just believe him. In fact, “take my word for it” has become Romney’s response to a lot of this nation’s problems.

He was the CEO, chairman and president of Bain yet he insists that he was not responsbile for what Bain did. And everytime anyone asks these relevant questions, he goes on the defense accusing the other side of begrudging him his business success.

It is apparent that Mitt Romney will will say and do anything to get the highest office in the land – even if it means demeaning the highest office in the land. And to add insult to injury, he and his useless mere figure-head of a wife pretend to relate to people who have to work for a living, trying to spin how the garbage policies they propose and which are aimed at redistributing wealth upwards, are in any way going to make their lives better.

Stealing and Bankrupting Others, Tax Evasion Are Not Hallmarks of Success

Mitt Romney is proud of Bain Capital’s “success” and feels that he and Americans in general should not be ashamed of  said success. However, if “success” means putting people out of jobs and outsourcing and forcing companies into bankruptcy for personal gain, as well as evading paying taxes, then yes, we all should be ashamed of that kind of “success.”  Amassing wealth through theft (of the white collar kind) and dishonest practices is not success or anything anyone in this country should emulate. The fact that a lot of Romney’s supporters, especially the middle and working class ones, think it is, is the truly disconcerting part.

Since Mitt Romney claims to be such a pious man of god who holds himself and everyone else to the highest moral standards,  I conclude this post by citing a verse from his very own holy book – which he apparently failed to take into account when making those “successful” decisions at Bain and then later as Governor of Massachusetts:

“To him whom much is given, much is expected.” - Luke 12:48