Newts just don’t change their spots:
Happened to pick up Newt Gingrich’s newsletter today and can’t help but get a chuckle at the old nut case’s grasp on dumb.
He immediately praises the killing of Osama Bin Laden by saying: “I commend both President George W. Bush who led the campaign against our enemies through seven long years…”
Wait a minute! He commends Bush? What for, the failure to get the guy he was after? Bush started two wars just to kill Bin Laden (Oh yeah, and to get oil, we won’t even mention WMDs) and neither of those wars has yet to accomplish anything except add to our debt and kill a lot of our kids. Only in a Newtish world is that grounds for commendation.
Then the sucker almost hooks me in, (I’m not a smart as I like to think I am.) when he declares that unemployment, not the deficit, is the big problem. He actually goes on to state accurate unemployment statistics and speak about the huge problem of African American unemployment. Then, unfortunately, he comes to the solution part and lo and behold… Trickle down economics.
I know he can read because he got those statistics from someplace, so why didn’t he read about the epic failure of trickle down economics over the almost forty years they have existed, as part of the Republican excuse for cutting taxes to the rich. When you cut a millionaire’s taxes he doesn’t start another company, he buys a bigger boat and a new diamond necklace for his mistress. This does not create significant new employment. This is the easy stuff, Newt. If you can’t follow this just give it up and go back to watching Swamp People.
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I’ve tried over the life of this blog to avoid the subject of religion but like Michael Corleone, they just keep dragging me in. Yes, I spent 22 years in Catholic schools before deciding that no one needs organized religion to speak to God.
One of the reasons I feel that way is the fiasco currently talking place in Rome where the current Pope is trying to turn a previous Pope into a saint, possibly in the hope of having one of his successors return the favor.
I have nothing against Pope John Paul II but from everything I learned in my long trek through the halls of Catholic education, it appears that no one in a position of such political power could ever qualify for anything close to sainthood. I don’t think John Paul II, who made some very touchy decisions that involved protecting Holy Mother Church from scandal at the expense of protecting her most vulnerable children from in-house predators is even close to the qualifications of sainthood as described in my many years of Catholic education.
John Paul II was certainly a great political motivator when it came to encouraging those behind the Iron Curtain to rise against their masters. This is a heroic stance but not in the least Christ-like. Christ-like would have been a serious crackdown on those priests who had made an almost institutional process of abusing children. Those priests and the Bishops who failed to deal with the problem should have been prosecuted not protected and as my old grandmother used to say, the fish stinks from the head.
This was a massive betrayal of responsibility, and of the faithful who depended on him for leadership, and it alone should stand in the way of any consideration of John Paul II for sainthood.
I know the Vatican Square is always filled with miracle seekers but any reasonable person knows that the inexplicable, often extraordinary variations from nature that some like to call miracles are actually nothing more than natural phenomena that have varied from their normal predilections. The miraculous cure of some nun’s cancer isn’t because she prayed to John Paul II, it’s because like so many other medical “miracles,” s— happens, sometimes for the good.
Like any other big organization, the church, from time to time needs affirmation and good press. Obviously nothing fits that schedule better than finding a new saint to promote, but finding a Pope who fits that mold is almost impossible. The Pope’s job is basically to be CEO of a huge business. A look at history will tell us that when faced with a choice between Church and faith or between Church and flock, the Pope has always chosen Church, just as John Paul did with abusive priests, just as Pius XII did with Hitler during WWII, just as countless others have done before them.
Pope John Paul II did a lot of things right but he also did a lot of things wrong… right up until he died. This makes him a man like many other men… maybe even a good man… not a saint.
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That nutcase Teabagger preacher Terry Jones is still on the loose spewing hatred and misinformation wherever he goes. In burning the Koran this moron demonstrated that he is too stupid to understand the concept of actions having consequences and now a dozen or so people are dead because of his ignorant actions.
I truly believe in free speech but I believe just as firmly in responsibility for our actions. Burning a Koran is just as inflammatory (no pun intended) as yelling fire in a crowded room. Everyone knows what an unstable force certain followers of Islam are. There is no reason why Jones shouldn’t be prosecuted for the deaths that occurred as a result of his actions. He is no different than the Southern preacher who rails against the actions of some poor black man who then gets lynched or the guy who hires someone else to commit a murder for him. Free speech is a basic element of the way this country lives but it won’t stay free if we refuse to take responsibility for what you say.
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I think we should all rejoice (silently) that Osama Bin Laden is dead but the out of control celebrations that went on were not our greatest moment. Try to remember how we felt when we saw one of our brave soldiers dragged through the streets of a Somalian city by the disrespectful slime who killed him. That was the work of sub-human beasts and our, over the top celebration, while not stooping to that level, was at best in bad taste.
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The Republicans like to advertise themselves as the party of fiscal responsibility and defense of the realm. But are they really?
When Clinton left office in 2001 the CBO predicted that in ten years we would have wiped out the entire national debt and have something like a two trillion buck surplus. Talk about whistling in the dark. What we actually have ten years later is a ten trillion dollar debt mostly because of tax cuts two wars and free drugs for elders, all caused by Republicans and handed to Obama when he walked into office. And in a very Republican fashion, they turned around and started screaming that since he had won the election, it was now his fault. Talk about right wing thinking on the wrong side of the brain.
On the defense front they are in at least as bad shape. Let’s not forget that 9/11 happened on Bush’s watch, after the World Trade Center had already been hit once and after a clear warning had been given to Bush about Al Qaeda’s intentions. So let’s see, the worst invasion of our shores ever, was during a Republican administration. Then to solve the problem and find Osama Bin Laden, Bush invades Afghanistan and when we don’t get him there he invades Iraq, a country that had also been trying to kill Bin Laden. Even Ollie North would find this logic a little shaky. The rest of us certainly did.
So now, in order to defend the country from a six foot five Arab carrying a dialysis machine on his back, we are in two wars that have nothing to do with the defense of the country because everyone except Condoleezza Rice knows that Bin Laden isn’t in Afghanistan anymore. In fact by early 2008 Christiane Amanpour was telling Bill Maher that Bin Laden was stashed away in a comfortable villa in Pakistan. Does anyone in the Bush administration pay any attention to this? Of course not, they’re too busy water-boarding prisoners who are smart enough to tell them anything they want to hear as long as it isn’t the truth.
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House majority leader, Eric Cantor has come out very vociferously against raising the Debt Limit, trying to use his position to blackmail the Democrats into allowing no tax raises for the rich. But Eric Cantor voted to raise the Debt Limit every time it came up during the Bush years. How come it’s different now Eric? Is your position based on the economy or just politics? Or do you know the difference?