Flag propaganda 3: Conyers, Georgia and Old Glory

We have, almost on cue, another couple of flag propaganda stories.  Flag propaganda stories are where the right wing propaganda 'machine' cranks out stories designed to gin up outrage, and to create an us vs them mentality.  This is essential for any call to 'take back America' to work in the 2016 election cycle, because unless there is a segment of America to hate, there is no one to oppose vehemently or violently.  The story and the propaganda agenda needs a villain, a bad guy, a Snidely Whiplash with a flag.

These stories are really not news; they are given a slant and an emphasis that the subject content does not merit, and then they are reported in a biased and incomplete and inaccurate way to create the desired manipulative effect.  They are generated on a regular basis, the predictable repetition of the big lie being told over and over until it is taken as true, when it is false.  I started looking for the 'next' flag propaganda story a week ago, figuring once the Easter holiday was over, given the candidate declarations (specifically the KIND of declaration they made) that we would be seeing more flag propaganda.

The right wing propaganda manipulators did not disappoint.

73-Year-Old Veteran Is Ordered to Remove His American Flag From Flag Pole Outside His Home–REFUSES

73-year-old Tony Cumberworth fought for our country in Vietnam and in his own words is a “proud veteran.” But that didn’t stop a homeowner’s association in his Georgia neighborhood from demanding that he remove his flag pole and U.S. flag from his yard.
Cumberworth’s flag and pole has been in his yard for 20 years and never once has he had a complaint. But this week the association sent him a notice that if he didn’t remove his flag and flag pole he would be charged $50 a day in fines until he does.
The veteran told the TV folks that he scoured the association’s contract and could find no mention of flags and flag poles in it.
And asked by a local TV news station, this proud veteran said he refused to remove his flag.
He also proudly proclaimed that he wouldn’t pay these people a penny for his flag.
When the local TV folks started asking members of the homowner board what they heck their problem was… well, unsurprisingly they refused to talk about it. But the did suddenly send Cumberworth an email saying…
Please disregard the code violation notice. It was sent to your home in error.
We truly thank you for your service in Vietnam and your American flag can stay in your yard as long as you desire.
Yeah. “A mistake.” BS. They just got called out is all.

This was never a real story.  There does not appear to EVER have been a notice sent to this man specifically about his flag or flag pole.

You can easily tell a real story from a fake story, because of the lack of details (we do not know for example if there was a mass mailing to HOA members about displays), and most of all because it will pop up exclusively on many right wing sources, always the same propaganda machine members, but not in legit news.  I was struck with this story by the absence of the content of the notice to Cumberworth, and the absence of an inquiry as to anyone else receiving a routine notice about displays.  It seems highly improbable to me that after 20 years, suddenly a flag and flag pole would be non-compliant with HOA rules; rather it is more likely this was a semi-regular generic notice.  It also explains why the HOA has no idea what this fuss was all about, and it is consistent with the pattern of flag propaganda.

 

Typically the way these stories go is that a false narrative is started on the right, on sites with no journalistic ethics or professional standards, and where accuracy and equal coverage of more than one side, and multi-sourcing are ignored in favor of a manipulative agenda that consistently misinforms and misleads.  Their hope is that legitimate media might notice, and then become curious -- which is what appears to have happened in this case.
 

Home Owners Associations are not a threat to America (however petty they might sometimes be.)  But they are not anti-American; rather they get tasked with issues like changing civil ordinances relating to boring, tedious issues like fire department access and other minutiae like the size and type of displays.  Home Owners Associations are not government, they are voluntary groups.  At no point did the HOA refuse to answer questions.  They offered to get back to the media with specifics because the person queried did not have an immediate answer available about this particular complaint.
 

HOA try to manage issues like dealing with how well maintained lawns are kept in order for everyone who belongs to the HOA to keep up the value of their properties.  This is about the people who annoy their neighbors by still having up their Christmas displays in July including scruffy looking snow men, or similar behavior, not insidious attacks on patriotism, or the favorite manipulative touchstone of the propagandist, the grumpy old veteran.
 

This should never have INVOLVED television crews.  There is no evidence whatsoever that the HOA was unreasonable or unresponsive in promptly correcting their errors; it would not surprise me to see that these emails are sent out routinely any time someone complains.  What does appear to be involved is that some old codger, who did not really have a significant problem, got undeserved attention for a non-issue.
 

There is no attack on America; there is no insidious movement of unpatriotic Americans (OR maybe secret foreigners like our falsely alleged Kenyan president) attempting to do dirt to the flag or those who are patriotic veterans.
 

THIS IS PROPAGANDA from the right; the right are gullible sheep who consume it, get angry, and want to shoot someone - or to give money to charlatans and crooks who take advantage of them after they are primed by this rubbish.  It is fake, it is a LIE, and NO ONE who is a person capable of critical thinking should find it credible, or act on the basis if this false version of events.

It's Friday - end of the week fun day

and along with the cartoon fun, enjoy a little Friday science geek, appropriately following the declaration of more candidates for the conservative candidacy for president.  This is applicable for multiple reasons, ranging from how this demonstrates evolution where right wing candidates have repudiated and denied evolution science, and because of the right wing nut move here and abroad to keep Europe (and apparently by extension, America) for Europeans, culturally, linguistically and yes, racially.  Our conservative candidates ALL believe some people are white because that's how Jesus made us, and that Santa Claus is white, too.  

Conservatives, and especially conservative candidates, are, in these areas as in most things, wrong on all counts.

From Science Magazine

Common European traits like pale skin evolved relatively recently in central and southern Europe.
How Europeans evolved white skin

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI—Most of us think of Europe as the ancestral home of white people. But a new study shows that pale skin, as well as other traits such as tallness and the ability to digest milk as adults, arrived in most of the continent relatively recently. The work, presented here last week at the 84th annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, offers dramatic evidence of recent evolution in Europe and shows that most modern Europeans don’t look much like those of 8000 years ago.
The origins of Europeans have come into sharp focus in the past year as researchers have sequenced the genomes of ancient populations, rather than only a few individuals. By comparing key parts of the DNA across the genomes of 83 ancient individuals from archaeological sites throughout Europe, the international team of researchers reported earlier this year that Europeans today are a mix of the blending of at least three ancient populations of hunter-gatherers and farmers who moved into Europe in separate migrations over the past 8000 years. The study revealed that a massive migration of Yamnaya herders from the steppes north of the Black Sea may have brought Indo-European languages to Europe about 4500 years ago.
Now, a new study from the same team drills down further into that remarkable data to search for genes that were under strong natural selection—including traits so favorable that they spread rapidly throughout Europe in the past 8000 years. By comparing the ancient European genomes with those of recent ones from the 1000 Genomes Project, population geneticist Iain Mathieson, a postdoc in the Harvard University lab of population geneticist David Reich, found five genes associated with changes in diet and skin pigmentation that underwent strong natural selection.
First, the scientists confirmed an earlier report that the hunter-gatherers in Europe could not digest the sugars in milk 8000 years ago, according to a poster. They also noted an interesting twist: The first farmers also couldn’t digest milk. The farmers who came from the Near East about 7800 years ago and the Yamnaya pastoralists who came from the steppes 4800 years ago lacked the version of the LCT gene that allows adults to digest sugars in milk. It wasn’t until about 4300 years ago that lactose tolerance swept through Europe.
When it comes to skin color, the team found a patchwork of evolution in different places, and three separate genes that produce light skin, telling a complex story for how European’s skin evolved to be much lighter during the past 8000 years. The modern humans who came out of Africa to originally settle Europe about 40,000 years are presumed to have had dark skin, which is advantageous in sunny latitudes. And the new data confirm that about 8500 years ago, early hunter-gatherers in Spain, Luxembourg, and Hungary also had darker skin: They lacked versions of two genes—SLC24A5 and SLC45A2—that lead to depigmentation and, therefore, pale skin in Europeans today.
But in the far north—where low light levels would favor pale skin—the team found a different picture in hunter-gatherers: Seven people from the 7700-year-old Motala archaeological site in southern Sweden had both light skin gene variants, SLC24A5 and SLC45A2. They also had a third gene, HERC2/OCA2, which causes blue eyes and may also contribute to light skin and blond hair. Thus ancient hunter-gatherers of the far north were already pale and blue-eyed, but those of central and southern Europe had darker skin.
Then, the first farmers from the Near East arrived in Europe; they carried both genes for light skin. As they interbred with the indigenous hunter-gatherers, one of their light-skin genes swept through Europe, so that central and southern Europeans also began to have lighter skin. The other gene variant, SLC45A2, was at low levels until about 5800 years ago when it swept up to high frequency.
The team also tracked complex traits, such as height, which are the result of the interaction of many genes. They found that selection strongly favored several gene variants for tallness in northern and central Europeans, starting 8000 years ago, with a boost coming from the Yamnaya migration, starting 4800 years ago. The Yamnaya have the greatest genetic potential for being tall of any of the populations, which is consistent with measurements of their ancient skeletons. In contrast, selection favored shorter people in Italy and Spain starting 8000 years ago, according to the paper now posted on the bioRxiv preprint server. Spaniards, in particular, shrank in stature 6000 years ago, perhaps as a result of adapting to colder temperatures and a poor diet.
Surprisingly, the team found no immune genes under intense selection, which is counter to hypotheses that diseases would have increased after the development of agriculture.
The paper doesn’t specify why these genes might have been under such strong selection. But the likely explanation for the pigmentation genes is to maximize vitamin D synthesis, said paleoanthropologist Nina Jablonski of Pennsylvania State University (Penn State), University Park, as she looked at the poster’s results at the meeting. People living in northern latitudes often don’t get enough UV to synthesize vitamin D in their skin so natural selection has favored two genetic solutions to that problem—evolving pale skin that absorbs UV more efficiently or favoring lactose tolerance to be able to digest the sugars and vitamin D naturally found in milk. “What we thought was a fairly simple picture of the emergence of depigmented skin in Europe is an exciting patchwork of selection as populations disperse into northern latitudes,” Jablonski says. “This data is fun because it shows how much recent evolution has taken place.”
Anthropological geneticist George Perry, also of Penn State, notes that the work reveals how an individual’s genetic potential is shaped by their diet and adaptation to their habitat. “We’re getting a much more detailed picture now of how selection works.”

My Favorite Quote This Week

Billy Graham, center, with President Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan, circa early 1980's

I don't want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.
Billy Graham - Parade (1 February 1981)

I have added this quotation to the permanent content of the blog, on the left hand column.

Billy Graham was the famously bi-partisan golf buddy and religious Christian guru to presidents for decades, in a very real sense he was one of the first really big televangelists, a sort of America's preacher. He was moderate conservative, unlike his rabid son Franklin, who has inherited his father's religious enterprise.


There really is no longer such a thing as a moderate Republican. There are only far right extremists, and fanatical far right extreme crazy right remaining under the umbrella of the GOP and the bastard subset of the Tea Party. Moderates were last seen in the GOP in roughly the 1950's and 1960's, with the likes of candidates like Eisenhower and leaders in Congress like Edward Dirksen, or the right wing political intelligentsia like William F. Buckley Jr. While Buckley held some abhorrent views in his day, including both racism and homophobia, he was a well educated man who evolved politically over time to less extreme positions, and who was significant in his day for driving out the crazies and the wackos such as the John Birch Society (founded by the father of the Koch brothers manipulating right wing politics today).


Sadly, too many on the right, even those who were active in it, back in the period contemporaneous with the elder Graham seem oblivious to the right's shift to the extremes, and the abandonment of the center for the lunatic fringes. Too few of the remaining right even acknowledge that political parties substantially change over time generally, as a fact of history, which in turn somewhat invalidates political party claims of legacy. Those parties themselves abandon their own legacy in favor of views, policies and political platforms which in fact repudiate those of earlier versions of their party. The GOP in the era of Lincoln was a largely liberal organization; the party of Teddy Roosevelt less liberal, but still more on the liberal side of the political spectrum than conservative. The party of Eisenhower was likewise, more conservative than Roosevelt, and Lincoln, but still relatively liberal and centrist in contrast to the party of Reagan to present. Even Ronnie Ray-gun was distinctly more liberal than any of the extant GOP. THAT is the important context for both the above quote and the accompanying photo.


That political parties change over time has been true going back to before the American Revolution in this country; it is not unique to the 20th and 21st centuries. This larger pattern of change in which the Billy Graham quote applies as a warning is not the factual version of history that the right would permit to be taught, deeming it unpatriotic because it does not serve their propaganda agenda. Instead the radical religious right would like to teach fake history in public schools, using it to insert religious doctrine, for example that Moses was one of the founding fathers, requiring it in textbooks for public schools.

On Friday [Nov. 21 2014] the Republican-controlled Texas State Board of Education voted along party lines 10-5 to approve the biased and inaccurate textbooks. The vote signals a victory for Christian conservatives in Texas, and a disappointing defeat for historical accuracy and the education of innocent children.

The textbooks were written to align with instructional standards that the Board of Education approved back in 2010 with the explicit intention of forcing social studies teaching to adhere to a conservative Christian agenda. The standards require teachers to emphasize America’s so called “Christian heritage.”

In essence, Christian conservatives in Texas have successfully forced a false historical narrative into public school textbooks that portray Moses as an influence on the Constitution and the Old Testament as the root of democracy.

Emile Lester, a professor of history in the Department of Political Science and International Affairs at the University of Mary Washington, claim the textbooks contain “inventions and exaggerations” about Christianity’s influence on the Founding Fathers and, by extension, the formation of American democracy.

Credible historians warn the misguided attempt to suggest biblical origins for the Constitution would lead students to believe that “Moses was the first American.”

Scholars claim the decision to include the biblical figure of Moses in social studies education is part of a concerted effort by Christian extremists to promote the idea that the United States is a “redeemer nation” – giving a divine justification for supposed American exceptionalism.

The proposed textbooks are deeply flawed, and have no place in a public school classroom.

Franklin is one of the worst of the modern day fundies, a professional bigot popular exclusively among the most radical of the far right, peddling an equally extreme version of religion. It is a shame that Billy Graham did not apparently teach the content of my favorite quote of the week sufficiently under his own roof for it to be internalized by his family members. This does not make the content of the quotation any less true.


This is significant in so far as every one of the declared or likely candidates running for president on the right appear to be basing their primary level contention for the nomination on securing the approval of the religious right, the Christian fundamentalists. Every potential candidate on the right is far removed from being a centrist, and most are of questionable rationality, replacing hateful respect for facts and science and diplomacy and even some modicum of basic integrity with an extremist ideology of intolerance and a toxic parody of legitimate spiritual belief. And this makes religion the justification for voting AGAINST not in support of every one of the conservative candidates in the 2016 election.

To the Theocrat Fanatic Right

The reason Conservative Economic Policy fails -- it is based on false premises Reich calls out the facts

Rand Paul Wants to Take America Back........to When?

2016 Rand Paul campaign button

That would make Jesus cry, and maybe a founding fatherl not Ron Paul --- Moses.

The questions the boring thinkers are asking are the obvious questions, which are the wrong questions.

Who does Rand Paul want to take America away from that has it, and what does he intend to do with it?  The obvious answer would seem to be the dominance of old white crabby flabby theocrats, given his previous positions on race and religion, economics and civil rights.  He wants life to be like the good old days, where those minorities and women stayed in their subordinate, subjective places, and didn't make waves about eating at every lunch counter, or controlling their own lady parts, or that voting stuff.  That is strictly for conservative Christian white men, and right thinking corporations to run government.

And definitely none of those false religions that other people in the world believe in.  No. No. No.


Definitely "no mo of the homo" either.  Absolutely no more science; we have too

Rand Paul, Tea Party pose

much of THAT already, and clearly there is a big PROBLEM with reality and all those facts leaning liberal.  Those have to go.

No, no voting or lunch counter sitting or equal pay or reproductive choice, no no no.  None of that modern stuff when Rand gets his hands on America for 'HIS' 'Murikans (good Christians all, the right wing fundie Evangelical kind only).


A better question to ask is WHEN does Rand Paul want to take America back?

Would he be aiming at 1950?

Or is pro-confederacy, pro-session, pro-white supremacy Rand Paul aiming to send us backward even further, to the 1850s?

Inquiring minds want to know, but only from curiosity.  WE do NOT want him taking America away from a broadly diverse America, with whom he and his fringie-bots do not want to share power, or to have the backward culture wars that make people second class citizens imposed on us by the delusional right wing nuts.

Rand Paul -- not back to the future, just backward, and downward.

Why Obama is better than secular right wing nut saint Ronnie Ray-gun

Happy Holiday of Choice to Our Gentle Readers

Happy Passover and Happy Easter, respectively, and an interesting comparative religious context beyond the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam).  It emphasizes, in an unusual way, how much our religions have in common,, where that is so often a source of division. h/t to the Witty Liberal for the image.

(And our very secular congrats to our next door neighbors on their Final Four victory.)

Freedom from the Crazy and the Freakishy Weird and the Bloody-Minded

Evangelical Conservatives are a small group of people who have tried to be very controlling of others. Do what they say, or they will make you pay, in whatever way they can.

They want to control the Republican Party. They want to control government by any means possible; if not through a majority, through obstruction.


They want to control -- and limit -- freedom and civil rights; always have. Before 'the gays' it was controlling and restricting minorities. They want to control what people do in their bedrooms as well. And when they don't get their way, when they don't get the control they want, they make threats. Threats that God will HATE America, threats of earthquakes, threats that global warming related droughts are GOD punishing everyone for not conforming to their religion. "Demons will getcha!" and other rubbish suitable ONLY for scaring foolish or very young children is their fall back position. These are people who fear children will 'catch the Gay' from Common Core, or who will 'catch the Hindu' from gym class, like it was athlete's foot lurking in the showers.

There is no rational limit on the scope of what crazy Evangelicals will try to blame on gays, or for occasional variety in their religious insanity, abortion.  Most of these Evangelical extremists are very flexible; they can flip between the two with gymnast-like agility.

It is not rational adult thinking; it is an irrational emotional position, one of ugly emotions, not nice emotions. It is vindictive and revenge driven. Losing the marriage equality battle, and most likely the entire culture war, they seek their last possible way to lash out, to hurt others. These are the people, these mean, mostly old, mostly white Evangelicals FROM WHOM WE NEED PROTECTION to ensure civil rights and true liberty. They are the people who want to create second class citizens, whom they can threaten with losing their employment, losing their housing, or being treated badly when they celebrate a happy life milestone. People should be free to believe whatever they like, reasonable or crazy, personally and privately; but it is also appropriate to draw the line at intruding the discriminatory or the freakishly weird into the public square and then imposing it on everyone else. This is NOT an attack on religion nor is it a criticism leveled at all religion; freedom of religion is freedom to believe whatever you like, but it is not freedom from criticism or freedom from reason.


One of the most apt statements I've seen so far is that Evangelicals desperately want religious freedom, they want YOU to be FREE TO FOLLOW THEIR RELIGION, not your religion (or absence of religion) of choice and conscience.


The most extreme of these people want to declare open hunting season on anyone they perceive to be LGBT, with it being legal to murder them at will. That was the legislation proposed in California by a particularly hateful bigoted Evangelical. Because...Jesus?

I could re-type in all the numbers, the breakdowns, but this analysis by both party affiliation, age, and religious affiliation does a much better, more dynamic job of it, and shows why this will be important in the 2016 election:



Individually, most of these Evangelicals are nice people, but their religion and their politics are ugly and hateful, and as a political movement, they should be repudiated and rejected. They use the word freedom, often; but they seek to stifle it and to control people, to coerce people to conform to their beliefs. They wail and rant against big government overreach and intrusion, but they seek to expand it. They smear lipstick on their pig,, discrimination, by calling it religion and freedom.

Instead of Being HAPPY, the Greater the Obama Administration's Successthe Greater AMERICA's SUCCESS, the Greater the Unhappiness on the Right

Same-sex Marriage, Law and Customs: the Minnesota Connection, and a Brief History

As we see the religious right take another hit or two on the chin from the masters of the conservatives -- Business, NOT Jesus, not conservative organized religion -- it is worth a mention of some of the history behind legislation against same sex marriage.

Conservatives want us all to take their sloppy scholarship view that marriage has always been exclusively between one man and one woman.  Apart from the painfully obvious facts that monogamy is not a societal or historical by any stretch of the imagination, the idea that same sex marriages have not been a fixture in human history is also a mistaken one. 

For those of you contemplating sitting across from crotchety old relatives as likely to be wearing a tin foil as wrapping up holiday leftovers with it, here is a bit of background for you, should you opt to present the facts to the minds inside those tin foil hats.

The current challenge for the legality of same-sex unions arguably can be traced to Hennepin County,  Minnesot, back in 1971, when two gay men attempted to get married.  The case went all the way to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which found that while there were no actual laws defining marriage one way or the other, they found instead that a basis for exclusively heterosexual marriage existed in common law.  That argument is still being pushed -- factually falsely -- by some conservatives, including the radical (one might say rabid) religious right.

From an article about the case, in the HuffPo back  in 2012:

Jack Baker And Michael McConnell, Couple In 1971 Minnesota Gay Marriage Case, Still United
"I am convinced that same-sex marriage will be legalized in the United States," Baker told a group of lawyers on Oct. 21, 1971, quoted then by the St. Paul Pioneer Press (in a story that described him as an "admitted homosexual"). But for years after the high court refused to hear arguments in Baker v. Nelson, its single sentence was cited as precedent by federal courts that ruled against same-sex unions.

.."The fear then wasn't that you'd be discriminated against, that was a given," said Jean Tretter, a member of FREE who went on to decades of gay activism in Minnesota. "You were a lot more afraid that someone might come after you with a shotgun."

Baker and McConnell – educated, clean-cut and handsome – contrasted with the typically scruffy counterculture activists of the era. But the Hennepin County attorney blocked their bid for a marriage license, a decision upheld by a district judge and affirmed by the state Supreme Court with reasoning that echoes in today's arguments against gay marriage: "The institution of marriage as a union of man and woman, uniquely involving the procreation and rearing of children within a family, is as old as the Book of Genesis."

It was a stormy time for the couple. Soon after McConnell relocated to Minnesota, the University of Minnesota's Board of Regents yanked his job offer because he was openly gay; the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his separate lawsuit to get it back. In April 1971, amid both legal dramas, Baker was elected and then a year later re-elected as president of the university's student government.

Two decades after the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed Baker v. Nelson, the Hawaii Supreme Court in 1993 ruled that homosexuals had a constitutional right to marry. It started the ball rolling on a movement that has seen many victories and setbacks since.

"Jack was the politician – outgoing and effective, manipulating the material world," said Roger Lynn, a retired Methodist pastor who performed a marriage ceremony for the men in 1971, and who remains in touch with them occasionally. "Michael was the librarian, detail-oriented, more introverted. They were a good match, and they're still making it work."

In a strange twist to their story, Baker wrote via email that he and McConnell would be personally unaffected if Minnesota legalizes gay marriage. In 1971, about 18 months after Hennepin County rejected their application, the couple traveled to southern Minnesota's Blue Earth County, where they obtained a marriage license on which Baker was listed with an altered, gender-neutral name.

That license was later challenged in court but was never explicitly invalidated by a judge.

So this was the first legally gay married couple in Minnesota -- well before any passage of same-sex marriage equality laws anywhere else in the U.S., and well before any 21st century law was passed here.

These men had a genuine reason to fear violence as well as sexual orientation discrimination in employment -- or housing, or anywhere else that might involve "public accommodation" with discrimination of services. On June 5, 1979, a gay man, Terry Knudsen, was beaten to death by three men in Loring Park, Minneapolis, Minnesota. On September 7, 1979, another gay man, Robert Allen Taylor, was stabbed to death in the same area, by a murderer who made the statement, "I don't like gays, OK?".

Baker and McConnell were not the only LGBT individuals attempting to marry legally in that period, which in turn seems to have been the catalyst for the codification in law of exclusively heterosexual marriage:

Another couple challenged same-sex marriages in 1971. Faygele Ben-Miriam and Paul Barwick applied for a marriage license in Seattle as a statement of equality between homosexuals and heterosexuals. The county auditor refused their application. However, other couples that encountered rejection took notice of their action, helping to spark a media flurry and the popular lawsuitSinger vs. Hara. Ultimately, the Washington State Court Appeals rejected their case with a unanimous decision in 1974.

Those two cases were among the first of many concerning same-sex relationships to emerge in the 1970s. In 1973, the state of Maryland banned same-sex marriage. In 1975, the Arizona Supreme Court invalidated a same-sex marriage license granted to a couple by reason of "trespassing biblical principles." In Colorado, a county clerk issued six same-sex marriage licenses, which, despite the efforts of a Colorado lawyer on behalf of the same-sex couples, later which became invalidated by state's DA's office later.

It's too bad that the scholarship back in 1970-71 was not what it is today; that court decision might have been very different.  Now we know that being gay is normal, not deviant - something established in this same era.  We also know that contrary to the statement about heterosexual marriage being the standard, the norm, cited in the legal decision on the initial attempt of Baker and McConnell to marry, that same sex marriage has existed across history, including within all branches of Christianity, and from pre-history to present in all parts of the globe.

From the LawyersGunsMoneyblog:

“If you have access via a library to the latest edition of the Journal of American History, I highly recommend Rachel Hope Cleves’ article on the prehistory of same-sex marriage. And if you can’t read it, she did a podcast you can listen to. She basically tracks down a long history of gay marriage, going back to berdaches among southwestern indigenous peoples through gold miners in 19th century California and to many cases throughout American history of people accepting marriage and marriage-like arrangements between same-sex couples."

And as also noted by Legal Match Law Library:

The Ancient Roman Empire did not shy away from same-sex unions, and there was widespread acceptance of homosexuality and bisexuality among the Roman citizens. Moreover, many of the early Roman emperors were in homosexual relationships. Nero, an early Roman emperor, was known for his homosexuality, and had been married to two men at different points in time.

Then there was the definitive work of the chair of the History Department at Yale, the late Professor Boswell, via the Anthropologist Live Journal:

Records of Christian same sex unions have been discovered in such diverse archives as those in the Vatican, in St. Petersburg, in Paris, in Istanbul and in the Sinai, covering a thousand-years from the 8th to the 18th century.

The Dominican missionary and Prior, Jacques Goar (1601-1653), includes such ceremonies in a printed collection of Greek Orthodox prayer books, “Euchologion Sive Rituale Graecorum Complectens Ritus Et Ordines Divinae Liturgiae” (Paris, 1667).

While homosexuality was technically illegal from late Roman times, homophobic writings didn’t appear in Western Europe until the late 14th century. Even then, church-consecrated same sex unions continued to take place.

At St. John Lateran in Rome (traditionally the Pope's parish church) in 1578, as many as thirteen same-gender couples were joined during a high Mass and with the cooperation of the Vatican clergy, "taking communion together, using the same nuptial Scripture, after which they slept and ate together" according to a contemporary report. Another woman to woman union is recorded in Dalmatia in the 18th century.

Prof. Boswell's academic study is so well researched and documented that it poses fundamental questions for both modern church leaders and heterosexual Christians about their own modern attitudes towards homosexuality.

For the Church to ignore the evidence in its own archives would be cowardly and deceptive. The evidence convincingly shows that what the modern church claims has always been its unchanging attitude towards homosexuality is, in fact, nothing of the sort.

It proves that for the last two millennia, in parish churches and cathedrals throughout Christendom, from Ireland to Istanbul and even in the heart of Rome itself, homosexual relationships were accepted as valid expressions of a God-given love and committment [sic] to another person, a love that could be celebrated, honored and blessed, through the Eucharist in the name of, and in the presence of, Jesus Christ.

All good -- and the right has NO alternative, much less one as good or better

It's Friday Fun-day!

I hope you will laugh at this as much as I did.

The moon will however have an effect on your life - it will affect the tides. The sun will have an effect on your life as well; if you go outside, you should probably apply sun screen.

Hobby Lobby and Citizens United

Citizen's United paved the way for Hobby Lobby, by declaring companies to be entitled to the protections of people, and Hobby Lobby declared the owners of a company can object, on religious grounds, to the expenditures of their company - in this case on contraceptives.

So, I have some other ideas.

I believe Caribou Coffee, which is owned by the Prince (Sultan) of Dubai, should refuse to employ anyone who eats pork, because pork is unclean.

Following the logic of the new Indiana "defense of religious freedom law", they should also be allowed to refuse to serve (and for that matter be exempt from having to employ) any woman who does not wear a burkha within sight of the store's employees.

Any company held by any aetheists (privately presumably, but if stock holders chose to vote that way, then those too), should be allowed to refuse service to anyone who wears any form of religious item into the store.  They should also be allowed to fire anyone (or at least not pay them from their "personal" funds) and so "protect" them from providing material support for a religious choice with which they don't agree and see as a fallacy, for any paycheck could at least in part, be given to a religious institution as a charitable donation.

Any business owned by Hindus should be allowed to refuse service to anyone who eats beef, and should be allowed to refuse to pay anyone who advocates or even discusses eating beef while on their premises. They should be allowed to quiz current employees to find out who is and who is not eating beef and refuse to pay anyone who may spend funds on beef.

This is fun, and far from the end of this stupid, asinine slope.  Feel free to add your own ideas of "religious protections" for business owners which are in fact nothing other than absurdly thinly veiled allowances of discriminatory practices and the use of corporate profits to sponsor political candidates the majority prefers.  Very VERY stupid and very dangerous.  Those of you who complain business runs the country and that's not good, if you voted for Republicans, you only screwed yourself, but hey, when you lose your paycheck because your personal choices "offend" the religious sensibilities of the owners, blame yourself.

Kansas --- Brownback and his administration are taking the state down the toilet

There's nothing but bad news in Kansas on revenue and their economy:

Kansas tax revenue $11.2 million less than expected in March

Weak sales, corporate income and oil tax revenue to blame

Tax revenue to the state of Kansas slipped $11.2 million below estimates in March, state officials said Tuesday.
Collection of sales, corporate income, and oil and gas severance taxes fell below forecasts developed by state officials in November. Projections were revised downward at that time to reflect diminished optimism about the state’s short-term economic future.

House Minority Leader Tom Burroughs, D-Kansas City, said sweeping state income tax reductions were marketed by the Republican-led Legislature and Gov. Sam Brownback as a “shot of adrenaline” to the heart of Kansas’ economy. After three years, Burroughs said, the GOP’s tax policy had been exposed as “more like an ax wound.”
“Kansas continues to bleed revenue as is evident by this month’s numbers," he said. "How we resolve this issue remains unknown as the legislative session is nearly over and we haven’t seen a comprehensive balanced budget.”

State revenue has fallen hundreds of millions of dollars since implementation of legislation approved by the 2012 Legislature and Brownback to repeal state income tax on owners of more than 300,000 businesses and to reduce individual income tax rates.

Kansas is in such bad shape, unable to manage the minimally necessary safety maintenance on its infrastructure that the state is starting to fall down in rubble.  You can be confident that the Republican majorities at the Federal level are doing the same slighting of infrastructure; they won't make up the gaps.  From the Wichita Business Journal:

No April Fools' Day Joke: 2,416 of Kansas's Bridges Need Structural Repair, New Analysis of U.S. Department of Transportation Data Finds

Federal Highway & Bridge Funding Facing May 31 Deadline

The analysis of the federal government data, conducted by American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) Chief Economist Dr. Alison Premo Black, shows cars, trucks and school buses cross Kansas's 2,416 structurally compromised bridges 787,632 times every day.  Not surprisingly, the most heavily traveled are on the Interstate Highway System, which carries the bulk of truck traffic and passenger vehicles

....The ARTBA analysis of the bridge data supplied by the states to the U.S. DOT also found:

• Kansas ranks 7th place nationally in the number of structurally deficient bridges—2,416.
• Kansas ranks 22nd place in the percentage of its bridges that are classified as structurally deficient—10 percent.

Sam Brownback's policies are literally jeopardizing the safety of Kansas citizens and anyone traveling in or through Kansas.

Sam Brownback has promised his policies would work given time.  The architect of those policies is failed Reaganomics trickle-down economist Arthur Laffer - famous, or infamous, for the Laffer curve.

Here is what Laffer was saying back in January 2015, and in 2012.

Back in August 2012, Laffer told a crowd at the Johnson County Community College, if Kansas would slash its income tax rates, it would result in “enormous prosperity.”
He told a reporter at the time that he had not produced an economic model on when Kansas will notice meaningful economic growth.
Two-and-a-half years later, Kansas is staring at a budget crisis, with more than a billion dollar gap between revenues and expenses projected in the current and next budget years. The state is also experiencing a low private job growth rate, as well as a slow-growing economy.
In a 45-minute phone interview, Laffer said while he is “not surprised,” he didn’t know why the deficits have occurred. He still believes adamantly in his supply-side economic theory: If you reduce income taxes, you will raise more revenue, not less.

...The 74-year-old former economist for President Ronald Reagan, who remains controversial among mainstream economists, was paid $75,000 to consult with Brownback and his staff before the tax-cut legislation passed in 2012. Some say Laffer was the inspiration for the Kansas tax-cut plan, if not its architect.
He has stayed in touch with Brownback. Laffer told me the two talked just before the November election.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/steve-rose/article7024256.html#storylink=cpy

No one in Kansas is laughing.  The state is swirling around on its final go-around down the crapper.  Kansas is severely under-performing the economies of adjoining states and the national averages, while facing a continuing severe revenue shortfall.  While Laffer -- and presumably Brownback -- want to wait to see results in ten years, the state doesn't have that long.  Further, there is ZERO evidence that following this economic model and policies will EVER produce the desired results.

These are the same policies touted in other red states, and by conservatives at the federal government level.  NEVER have these policies produced the promised economic results.  What they do produce is a more rapidly expanding instability from the enormously widening chasm of wealth and income inequality.

Like fictional cartoon figure Bullwinkle the Moose,  Governor Brownback continues with the line "this time, for sure!", believed only by the most gullible, the most credulous, and possibly a handful of toddlers.

The latest news refutes the promises and claims made by Brownback.

As noted by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities:

• The tax cuts delivered lopsided benefits to the wealthy.  Kansas’ tax cuts didn’t benefit everyone.  Most of the benefits went to high-income households.  Kansas even raised taxes for low-income families to offset a portion of the revenue loss; otherwise the cuts to schools and other services would have been greater still.
• Kansas’ tax cuts haven’t boosted its economy.  Since the tax cuts took effect at the beginning of 2013, Kansas has added jobs at a pace modestly slower than the country as a whole.  The earnings and incomes of Kansans have performed slightly worse than the U.S. as a whole as well.  (An exception is farmers, whose incomes improved as the state recovered from a drought.)  And so far there’s no evidence that Kansas is enjoying exceptional business growth: the number of registered business grew more slowly last year than in 2012, and the state’s share of all U.S. business establishments fell over the first three quarters of last year, the latest data available.
• There’s little evidence to suggest that Kansas’ tax cuts will improve its economy in the future.  No one knows for certain how Kansas’ economy will perform in the years ahead, but it isn’t likely to stand out from other states.  The latest official state revenue forecast, from November 2013, projects Kansas personal income will grow more slowly than total national personal income in 2014 and 2015.[1]

Evidence from other states and academic studies casts further doubt on claims that the tax cuts will cause the state’s economy to boom.  States that cut taxes the most in the 1990s performed worse, on average, over the course of the next economic cycle than states that were more prudent.[2]  And the academic literature overwhelmingly finds that states with lower personal income taxes perform no better economically than their peers.[3]

It's not just Kansas; every other Republican administered state with Republican majority or super-majority legislatures that emulated these policies is having similar problems.  Conservative Economics, like Republican Math, DO NOT WORK.  Today from Yahoo Finance News:

Why State Tax Cuts Aren’t Driving Job Growth

But the dramatic tax cutting doesn’t appear to have done nearly as much for job growth as promised. 

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says that Wisconsin ranked 35^th of the 50 states in job growth during the first three years of Scott Walker’s term, and dead last among its immediate neighbors, including, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Ohio.

Kansas hasn’t fared much better. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the state’s rate of job growth has lagged the national average since Brownback’s tax cuts took effect.

North Carolina, at least, matched the national average in job creation in 2013. But the total number of jobs added to the state’s economy in the second half of the year – when the tax cuts went into effect, was actually smaller than the total number added in 2012.

Repeat after me: REPUBLICAN ECONOMIC POLICIES SUCK, THEY DO NOT WORK, THEY DO NOT DELIVER AS PROMISED.  And if you're planning to travel to any of these red states, you might want to find routes that don't require any kind of bridge crossing.  That is, just to be on the safe side.

Conservative Economic Polices Are Epic Failures -- and have been since post-Eisenhower

Pence Continues to Blow It, and Blow It BIG

I predict that there will be no 'fix' changing this law; the only adequate 'fix' is repeal.

No Republican candidate, many of whom are embracing the Pence legislation, will ever be elected.

Denver station 7 hits PRECISELY on why this legislation differs from either the federal legislation that Pence keeps referring to, and differs substantially from the other 19 states with the legislation he refers to as well.

First of all, the claim that this was not intended to be discriminatory is not credible.

From abc 7:

Indiana ‘religious freedom' law is different – and here's why

Hobby Lobby paved the way, not Clinton-era law

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The backlash to Indiana’s new Religious Freedom Restoration law is growing but the bill’s opponents are blaming the wrong Hoosier. Indiana-born Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ role is far more important than Governor Mike Pence’s, even though Pence signed the law.

Here’s why:

You probably have heard that 19 states besides Indiana already have “a” Religious Freedom Restoration law and that all those laws “are based” on the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) passed by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993. That is true only loosely, only if the words above are in quotes.

Indiana’s RFRA law has new and different language than the other statutes and the federal law. And it has different legislative intent.

States began passing their own RFRA laws only after 1997, when the Supreme Court ruled that the 1993 federal law did not govern state laws.  States wanted to “protect” religious liberty just as the feds had (more on that later).

But all of that came before Chief Justice Roberts ruled last summer in Hobby Lobby v. Burwell.  That was the famous case that ruled that a business, Hobby Lobby, was being burdened in its free expression of religion by a provision of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare to its foes) requiring coverage for contraception. This was a revolution in defining religious freedom in this country.

The Indiana law is the first state RFRA to pass after Hobby Lobby, and it actually codifies its jurisprudence in two ways.

First, it explicitly states that for-profit businesses – and not just individuals – have a right to the free exercise of religion. As The Atlantic points out, the federal law has no such language, nor do 17 of the 19 existing state RFRA statues. In fact, Louisiana and Pennsylvania exclude businesses from being protected by RFRA.

Second, the Indiana law makes explicit that for-profit business’ free exercise of religion is a defense against discrimination claims made not just by the government but also by private parties, something that is murky in the federal law.

So the claim that Indiana’s new law is just the same as a bunch of existing laws is off base.

That claim is also disingenuous and phony in a much simpler way, and so is the claim that that RFRA laws are not being used to try to justify discrimination.

Guess Mike Pence DOES believe in Indiana Discrimination

Shall we start a betting pool on how long before Indiana - and Pence - cave on this?

Shall we be honest that this was always all about gay discrimination, as well as promoting "corporations are people", and that these jerks knew exactly what they were doing. And is it just me who notes these are white guys, and what looks to be pretty much only white guys running this show?

By way of FB

Just sayin' -- bigotry is bigotry is bigotry

Open Letter to Governor Pence of Indiana, and to conservatives in Georgia and in Arkansas

Dear Mike Pence,

You sir, Governor Pence, are a liar and a coward, and a bigot.

Do not pretend, Pence, conservatives, that your legislation is LIKE the federal legislation.  It is not.  Federal legislation supported religious freedom for individuals when infringed by government.  This treats businesses as people -- hello, anti-LGBT Romney -- and it facilitates businesses discriminating in public accommodation against individuals over sexual orientation.  It is not about freedom, it is just about facilitating dumb bigotry.

Let's just cut to the chase, and cut through your bullshit.  Your statement on the George Stephanopolous Sunday 'talking head' interview was dishonest, and it was nothing more than a clumsy tap dance trying to get around the truth.

It is significant that Pence is trying to tar both Bill Clinton (as a proxy for Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama, both of whom support LGBT rights) in advance of a potential presidential run.

ABSOLUTELY, "Hoosiers engage in discrimination." (see the video of the interview at the 10 minute mark); they not only engage in LGBT discrimination, they want it, YOU WANT IT, and they brag about doing it.  Do just give it up on having it both ways; you know this law you signed is entirely about religious anti-LGBT discrimination being given proactive and pre-emptive legal cover to let them do so where previously they did not have such legal advantage for discrimination.

The AFA was right there with you when you signed this; they pushed for it, they're candid about what it is: a pro-discrimination bill to legalize anti-LGBT discrimination. PERIOD. 

So quit lying about it; you're not any of you going to get away with having it both ways, a discrimination law AND not a pro-discrimination law.  You might as well pander to the bigots, Mikey; because you aren't fooling the rest of us.



From Mediaite:

The man, who only identified himself as Ryan, said that as a Christian he understands that some people have a different “lifestyle” than him, but he doesn’t want them coming into his place of business and making his customers “uncomfortable.”

The hosts did not let him off easy, asking directly if he has ever discriminated against gay people in his restaurant. “I have discriminated,” he said openly, explaining that he has pretended there was a problem with his kitchen in order to not serve them in the past.

“That makes you feel OK?” Rachel Bogle asked him. “I mean, when you get a bed at night saying, ‘I’ve discriminated against other human beings,’ you feel at ease with that?”

Ryan said he feels fine about it because he believes he should be able to do whatever he wants in his own restaurant. “We don’t want to have this in our place of business, it’s just not right,” he said. But while the caller was happy to share his story, he would not say the name of his restaurant.

Let me sort this out for you and for your bigot businessman restaurant owner. 'Ryan' wants to be able to tell people they can't eat at his place of business, but he doesn't want to risk losing the heterosexual $$$ of people who would not knowingly patronize the businesses that discriminate.

Let me point out Ryan, let me point out Governor Pence, that LGBT people pay taxes. Those taxes pay for the infrastructure and services that make it possible for this business owner to make money, to operate his business. Our armed forces have gay patriots serving in their ranks protecting this country, so that those businesses may operate, so that state, and all the other states and territories are safe and free.

So unless these businesses want to go somewhere else, outside this country, they have no damned right, no damned freedom to take all the benefits of taxation which includes the LGBT community along with the family and friends who support them being who they are as human beings who were born the way they are. There is no more right to do that, no more ethical or moral justification, no political justification to do that, than there ever was to deny service to a person of color, or a person who is of an ethnicity like being Jewish or Asian, or to deny someone service on the basis of a religion in which they were raised or chose to embrace.

This notion that there is some kind of religious legitimacy to discriminate is one we've seen before, used to try to prop up segregation of races. It was wrong then, and it is wrong now. That belief creates a second class group of citizens, and then tries to smear heaps of lipstick on that pig to pretend it is nothing else.

There will be a severe penalty for you Governor Pence, much larger than I believe you have calculated. Not the least of those penalties, those costs will be to the people in your state who support this law and who elected you. Personally however Governor, you can kiss good bye any hope or dream you might ever have, in 2016 or any other time in the future, to sit in the office of President in our White House.

Bigots are going bye bye. And you gentlemen --- all of you who contemplate and desire to enact laws like this, you damned conservative bigots, are as conservatives always are, on the wrong side of the arc of history. You consistently choose the role of the bad guy, and then you whine about it after you made the choice of your own will. Your values are flawed, your morality and ethics are dirty and ugly. YOU FAIL.

It is only a matter of when, not if, your law will be flushed down the toilet of shitty historic legislation, where it will end up on the dung heap of human hatred.

Dear Indiana -- it's called PUBLIC ACCOMMODATION

Conservatives LOVE LOVE LOVE our Constitution, except when they don't - especially the 1 A

If you follow right wing propaganda sources, like the World Nut(Net) Daily or the right wing Townhall, or the speeches by many conservatives, especially those who seek to be conservative presidential candidates, or the right wing nut megachurch preachers, there is a war on Christianity in this country.

Perennial candidates for president on the right, like Santorum, and Huckabee, want to put their extreme and highly controversial version Christian religion into public schools, on the taxpayer dime.

That is not true. The true threat to Liberty and religious freedom is not against Christianity, but from it,, against anyone and everyone who dares to refuse to conform to the religious right's bigotry and intolerance.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

from Conrell University Law School's Legal Information Institute:
The First Amendment's Establishment Clause prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” This clause not only forbids the government from establishing an official religion, but also prohibits government actions that unduly favor one religion over another. It also prohibits the government from unduly preferring religion over non-religion, or non-religion over religion.

It is consistently conservatives, who give loud but meaningless and empty lip service to loving and supporting our Constitution (hypocrites that they are) who persist in attempting to foist Christianity on the nation, attempting to turn us into a theocracy.

So for example, not only do we have a push for theocracy, we have a push to dumb down education -- PUBLIC education -- by not only a push to repeal testing and standards, but by removing qualified teachers from classrooms and then replacing them with unqualified cheaper babysitters, who could be expected to push garbage, like creationism.

from PoiticusUSA:
Republican anti-education efforts don’t get much worse than the Tea Party’s own Michigan State Rep. Gary Glenn’s (R-Larkin Township) House Bill 4394.

As Michigan-based Electablog explains,

If Glenn’s bill – House Bill 4394 – becomes law, schools can hire anyone they want. The criteria currently used would be tossed out the window. The bill literally strikes out all of the criteria. In addition, it removes the words grades “9 through 12″ meaning that schools could hire anyone they wish, with or without a teaching certificate, for any grade level. No training as an educator required.

And continuing from the same piece in Politicus:

Here is the thing, students who get a quality education -- which should include civics classes, which should include the 1A establishment (of no public religion) DOES create BOTH good citizens AND EMPLOYABLE CITIZENS, who can then support themselves, support their families, pay taxes, and be qualified if we need them to do so to serve in our armed forces. Lack of adequate education is actually a problem for armed forces recruiting -- and serving in the military, which is very much NOT a corporation, is a real and legitimate job choice/ career choice.

Further the notion that one can only be a good citizen if one is indoctrinated in and a current believer in religion -- and let's be candid here, by religion these nutjobs ONLY mean Christianity, they make a fundamentl error. People recognize and understand moral and ethical behavior WITHOUT RELIGION. Further, there are plenty of people who are believers in religion who do bad things, both as private individuals, and in their roles as citizens in the public sphere. So having religion is no guarantee of being a good citizen and not having religious beliefs does not present a risk that someone will be a bad citizen.

That is a right wing fantasy, part of their 'Us vs Them' orientation where they are dishonest about the faults of the 'us' and dishonest and unfair, and just plain bigoted about the 'them' of that equation. So apparently Todd Courser, like his buddy in the MI legislature, Gary Glenn (what is with the redundant consonants?) BOTh fail to grasp the appropriate role of government (which includes providing functional, not religious public education), but which also utterly fails to understand and loyally support the Constitution, notably the 1st Amendment.

This is appallingly unique to conservatives, who present an actual danger by these beliefs to our representative form of secular democratic government and who threaten our very real liberties.

More than that we have the Arizona legislator who would like (but at least does not expect) to coerce everyone in the USA to go to church (again, CHRISTIAN church, none of the Jewish, Muslim, or pagan religions like Hinduism or Buddhism) and again the presumption is this is essential for the success of the nation, and for proper soul-saved citizens. Never mind what the practical results on institutions of religion would be if citizens were actually coerced by the law to attend against their will.

From KREM2:

Arizona senator wants to make church mandatory

Allen, as You know, is a Republican from Snowflake, a Tea Party favorite who wants to pretend Arizona is an independent country rather than a state, and who believes government should stay completely out of people lives -- unless she can use her position to help out a son-in-law who got into some hot water over behavior with some of the inmates he was guarding at a women's prison.
But that's another story.
Anyway, Big Guy, they were debating a gun bill at a legislative committee meeting at the State Capitol this week so, naturally, Allen brought up religion.
(In Arizona, complete lack of logic is natural. But, you know that, too)
This was one of those crazy bills in which lawmakers want people to be able to bring concealed weapons into public buildings. Allen got upset because a few people expressed common sense opposition to the idea. Lawmakers here cannot abide common sense.
Allen said, "Probably we should be debating a bill requiring every American to attend a church of their choice on Sunday to see if we can get back to having a moral rebirth," adding "that would never be allowed."

The problem is that even when these right wing FASCISTS know that what they want is not allowed, as we see in Michigan and other states, they try it anyway. Because they do NOT love the Constitution and they do NOT love religious freedom.  They love coercion, they love religious conformity, so long as it is strictly to whatever shots they see fit to call in their ignorance, bigotry, and intolerance.

Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi (again with the redundant consonants) want to make the Bible their state book.

Mississippi conservatives want to make Christianity their state religion.  So do conservatives in North Carolina.  Both states have had actual legislation to do so, other red states have had discussions about doing so, or at least desiring to do so.

A poll by the HuffPo and Yougov back in April 2013 found that 1 in 3 Americans want to make Christianity the official NATIONAL religion.  Let us be clear, overwhelmingly, regardless of declared party affiliation, this is hugely more a problem from conservatives, attacking actual religious freedom.

From the Huff Po:

Although a large percentage of Americans said they would favor establishing a state religion, only 11 percent said they thought the U.S. Constitution allowed states to do so. Fifty-eight percent said they didn't think it was constitutional, and 31 percent said they were not sure.
...Republicans were more likely than Democrats or independents to say that they would favor establishing Christianity as an official state religion, with 55 percent favoring it in their own state and 46 percent favoring a national constitutional amendment.

We are not a theocracy.  Theocracies created second class citizens, and it has wisely been observed that the pernicious state religious promotion is the new Jim Crow.

Disclaimer, I've written in the past for both IVN and PoliticusUSA.

It's Friday Fun-Day!

And nothing is more fun than Mark Fiore animations. Fiore is easily one of the most brilliant creative minds of our generation with his satirical humor and wit. Cartoons are not just for kids, thanks you Mark Fiore! Since losing the Colert Report for laugh out loud funny bits that have that sting of truth(iness), all the more reason to appreciate Fiore for providing that gratification.





and before you gripe about our members of Congress leaving today for a two week vacation:





and remaining topical, here's Racist E-Z Cash -- if you look at the map in the background of the cartoon, our own Minneapolis is on it, and that is not an accident.






If you enjoyed these, check out Mark Fiore's channel on Youtube!

Laff(er)ing at Ted Cruz and his ridiculous flat tax proposal / end-the-IRS platform

So, now Ted Cruz joins past presidential candidate wanna-bees on the right in proposing a flat tax.  Flat taxes have been proposed by most recently Herman Cain and the Nut Gingrich, but have also been floated in the past as far back as Steve Forbes when he wanted to be the right wing nut candidate.

There is a problem with the Fat Tax.  It doesn't work, in that it does not offer the promised benefits in tax revenue or growth.  What it DOES do -- and why we should expect it from the right wing, hand maidens to the wealthy, is to benefit the rich and to expand wealth and income inequality.  It also tends not to have provided adequate revenue -- much the way the Bush tax cuts failed to produce adequate (much less increased) revenue and economic growth.  The flat tax also does not promote adequate revenue or optimal job growth, much the way we have seen the tax cuts in regressive states like Kansas and now Wisconsin have not produce either economic growth or job creation and increases in business growth.

There has been experimentation with the flat tax, mostly in formerly eastern bloc European countries and Russia.  Many of those countries, after implementing a flat tax, DID see economic growth, but for other reasons than the flat tax, and those countries have been hit hard by the 2008 global economic recession.  And another factor not generally noted - most of the countries that have implemented the flat tax have also been widely regarded as highly corrupt, with Russia being regarded as the MOST corrupt - one of the most corrupt in the world, which should be considered in any reference to increased tax compliance.

This is significant because Cruz also wants to abolish the IRS, making compliance apparently entirely on the honor system.

Yeah, like THAT is going to work.

So lets start with the famous IMF study of flat tax implementation and success / failure from 2006 -- before the big global economic collapse.  At that point the range of time during which there was evidence on the implementation of the flat tax ranged from ten years to two years in the countries examined.

From the 2006 IMF study of the flat tax

One of the most striking tax developments in recent years, and one that continues to attract considerable attention, is the adoption by several countries of a form of “flat tax.” Discussion of these quite radical reforms has been marked, however, more by assertion and rhetoric than by analysis and evidence. This paper reviews experience with the flat tax, seeking to redress the balance. It stresses that the flat taxes that have been adopted differ fundamentally, and that empirical evidence on their effects is very limited. This precludes simple generalization, but several lessons emerge: there is no sign of Laffer-type behavioral responses generating revenue increases from the tax cut elements of these reforms; their impact on compliance is theoretically ambiguous, but there is evidence for Russia that compliance did improve; the  distributional effects of the flat taxes are not unambiguously regressive, and in some cases they may have increased progressivity, including through the impact on compliance;  adoption of the flat tax has not resolved common challenges in taxing capital income; and it may have strengthened, not weakened, the automatic stabilizers. Looking forward, the question is not so much whether more countries will adopt a flat tax as whether those that have will move away from it.

So for those of you who either have forgotten the lessons of your economics classes or never took them, let's first review the significance of that bold typed part of the above study excerpt.  What is the Laffer curve and Laffer-type behavior? This is key to the selling of a flat tax by Cruz and other right wingers; it is the fundamental premise and promise of the flat tax, in  exactly the same way that it has been the promise for tax cuts generating economic growth and increased revenue -- in other words, a CON, a SCAM, a FRAUD, a HOAX, a LIE.

Conservatives are HYPOCRITES

I have to give Donald Trump credit for consistency at least, as an idiot birther. Wrong. But consistent.

Much as I hate to give him credit for anything, at least a few folks on the right are at least consistent in their birther insanity.  It should be fun to watch those same birthers struggle with the internal conflict in what they believe.......but they seem simply to ignore it.  THAT is the hypocrisy in the conduct and the ideology of the right, the blithe inconsistency, the overt and the incipient bigotry of it.  The application of a double standard of conduct is intolerable.  This is not a unique pattern to the legitimacy of President Obama.  It is systemic on the right.

Or perhaps 'the Donald' is just as much a bigot towards the Latinos as well as 'the blacks', as he calls them.

I couldn't have put it better than this image via Facebook via The Blue Street Journal. I can only wait for Hillary (or someone else from the left) to point this out should the opportunity arise (and it will) in 2016.

When, oh when, do we hear again from bat shit crazy Orly Taitz whinging away that Cruz cannot be President?  crickets....

Cruz to Lose!

'Cuz tea partiers all KNOW Canada isn't foreign, right?