MItt Romney Loves Communism! Huh! What?

Most people remember Mitt Romney's disastrous 47% speech during the 2012 election. One portion of the speech garnered little attention. 

Sadly, it speaks directly toward the current business mentality in America (and China) although Romney was too clueless to know it did. How did the GOP candidate explained to an audience what happened when he visited China a few years prior to purchase a factory. What did Mitt see when he journeyed deep into the heart of a communist land, hoping Bain Capital could pile up a tidy bundle? 

Transcript by Mother Jones magazine:

"And, I remember going to, ah, uh. Sorry to bore you with stories. When I was back in my private equity days, we went to China to buy a factory there. It employed about 20,000 people. And they were almost all young women between the ages of about 18 and 22 or 23. They were saving for potentially becoming married. And they were in these huge factories, they made various, uh, small appliances. And, uh, we were walking through this facility, seeing them work, the number of hours they worked per day, the pittance they earned, living in dormitories, with, uh, with little bathrooms at the end of maybe 10, 10 room, rooms. And the rooms they have 12 girls per room. Three bunks on top of each other. You've seen you've seen them."

(Someone in the audience: "Oh...yeah, yeah.")

And, and, and around this factory was a fence, a huge fence with barbed wire and guard towers. And, and, we said Gosh! I can't believe that you, you keep these girls in! They said, no, no, no. This is to keep other people from coming in. Because people want so badly to come work in this factory that we have to keep them out. Or they will just come in here and start working and, and try and get compensated. So we, this is to keep people out. And they said, actually Chinese New Year as the girls go home, sometimes they decide they've saved enough money and they don't come back to the factory. And he said, So on the weekend after Chinese New Year there will be a line of people hundreds long, outside the factory, hoping that some girls don't come back. And they can come to the factory. And, and so as we were experiencing this for the first time, going to see a factory like this in China some years ago. The Bain Partner I was with turned to me and said, You know, ninety-five percent of life is settled if you are born in America. This is, uh, this is an amazing land [the USA, he means] and what we have is unique and fortunately it is so special we are sharing it with the world."

If you prefer to listen to the tape, the discussion of China comes around the 6:52 mark:

Mitt Romney and the Green State Strategy to Win

IT'S LOOKING A BIT SADDER for Mitt Romney with each passing day. No, no. He's still got his megabucks. His hair still looks great. The Mrs. seems nice. He has all those homes. And a car elevator would really be cool. But, hey, we all know money can't buy happiness, although short of happiness, as someone once said, it's Katie bar the door.

 

Lately, it's starting to look like money can't buy a chair in the Oval Office, either.

 

When last seen Mitt was making stupid comments about Egypt and Libya and being attacked for his stupid comments, even by members of his own party. Meanwhile, he's still rummaging around in the attics at his various homes, trying to find his old high school year book, and maybe his 2007 tax returns. Nice fellow, Mr. Romney. Maybe kind of an empty suit.

 

Still, America's bazillionaires love him and they're doing what they can to save a campaign that has all the spice and real substance of tapioca pudding. The Koch brothers, David and Charles, sons of Fred C. Koch, one of the founding lights of the John Birch Society are all in. (The Bircher motto goes like this: "Communism is Terrible; Everything We Don't like is a Communist Plot, Including, but not Limited to, Democrats, Labor Unions and Fluoridated Water.) So is Sheldon Adelson, owner of gambling casinos all over the world, the old codger whose company may soon be under investigation for money laundering.

 

Adelson, alone, has epressed a willingness to spend $100 million to defeat Barack Obama in 2012. Because we all know if Obama wins the Commies win and Adelson will have to cough up 3% more in taxes. In related news, the stock market hit 13,539.86 yesterday, on positive reports for U. S. home builders. That's right. More proof the Commies in the construction business are winning.

 

So: How's it going for Mr. Mitt Romney? Actually, according to RealClearPolitics, it's not going so good. Even the last Fox News opinion survey had President Obama up my 5 percentage points, 48% to 43%, which had to have Gretchen Carlson and all the blond Fox Talking Puppets spitting out their Wheaties when they reported the news. Worse yet, the blue-state tide seems to be rising faster than the GOP can shovel red-state cash to stop it. Gallup has Obama up 7, CNN/Opinion research 6. The other polls are closer, but all are currently showing blue. Well, no, not Rasmussen. They had the incumbent trailing by 1 point Wednesday, but Rasmussen was the one poll, in 2008, that consisitently understated Mr. Obama's chances of winning.

 

If you believed Rasmussen four years ago you kind of figured Sarah Palin was already picking out drapes for her White House office.

 

WE ALL KNOW IT'S NOT OVER until the Fat Bazillionaire sings--and we know money is still power. But Mitt is in trouble, sinking if possible under the weight of his own vacuousness. Obama has sizeable leads in 18 states and the District of Columbia, which would give him 237 electoral votes (270 needed to be elected). Romney lead in more states, 23, but with only 191 votes. He is likely, however, to sweep the coveted Dakotas. Yes, yes! Three electoral votes each!

 

That means nine swing states are almost certain to decide the election. Romney's best chance right now seems to be to turn those nine purple states green. Pour in the money. Or, possibly, supress the vote. How does it all look as of today?

 

Florida (29 electoral votes): It's close; but Obama is ahead by 0.6 percentage points, admittedly a margin as thin as a few hanging chads.

 

North Carolina (15): Betting men would say Mr. Romney's going to take the state, although the last poll did show a bit of blue.

 

Virginia (13) is balanced to go either way, although Obama leads in the Commonwealth, too, especially if you discount a poll taken by Gravis Marketing, which sounds like a telemarketing operation. But call this state red if you like Mitt.

 

Ohio (18): The Buckeye State is blue by 2.6 points.

 

Wisconsin (10): Blue, but not Paul Ryan's eyes blue; Obama by 1.4 points.

 

Iowa (6): Call it "too close to call." Blue by 0.2 points

 

New Hampshire (4): Obama up 4.

 

Colorado (9): Polling shows the president up 3.6.

 

Nevada (6): More blues for Romney, maybe; blue for Obama by 3.3 points.

 

Here's what's even more interesting, though. Intrade Markets, which takes bets on just about any subject, including the 2012 presidential election, has Obama a heavy favorite, with a 64.9 probabliity of victory to Romney's 35.1. Nate Silver, on his site FiveThirtyEight, handicaps the election this way: Obama predicted to win 312.5 electoral votes, Romney 225.5.

 

IT'S STILL POSSIBLE FOR THE STORMIN' MORMON to make a comeback, of course; but there's at least one other worrisome trend if you're an angry white guy or a fan of the GOP, which are pretty much the same things. When asked if they have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of President Obama, 51.2% of likely voters say favorable, 44% the reverse, positive by 7.2 points. For Romney the numbers are uglier: 44.0 to 44.6, putting him in negative territory by 0.6 points, in recent polling. It almost makes you think he needs to look a little harder for those tax returns.

 

A sarcastic individual might suggest checking the car elevator.

 

You never know.

 

 

P. S.: If you're on the same side as Mitt and his Band of Merry Bazillionaires you can still hope Geoffrey Chaucer was right when he said: "And wel knowen ye, that by moneye and by havinge grete possessions been all the thinges of this world governed. And Salomon seith: that 'alle thinges obeyen to moneye.'"

 

 

Mitt Romney Channels His Inner Obama

FOR GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE MITT ROMNEY the last few days have been packed with red, white and blue fun and flag-waving excitement. During a campaign stop in Virginia last week the Governor broke down the Pledge of Allegiance for an admiring crowd, explaining how, line-by-line, President Obama was against it, while he, Governor Romney, loved every word and even the punctuation.

As the New York Times reported, Mitt is for God. Mitt is for America. Mitt wants to save our nation's endangered coins:

"The promises that were made in that pledge are promises I plan on keeping if I am president, and I’ve kept them so far in my life,” Mr. Romney said, standing among old airplanes in a hangar at the Military Aviation Museum here. “That pledge says ‘under God.’ I will not take ‘God’ out of the name of our platform. I will not take ‘God’ off our coins, and I will not take God out of my heart. We’re a nation bestowed by God.”
 

 Romney/Ryan 2012:  We'll keep your penny jar safe from attack!

Speaking of pennies and dollars and trillions in federal spending, Batman Romney and Robin Ryan are having a little trouble lately with basic arithmetic. That shouldn't be a surprise. Mitt can't make his income taxes add up; and the buff GOP VP candidate can't get his own marathon time straight, claiming he once ran 26.2 miles in two hours and fifty minutes, an outstanding six-and-a-half minute-per-mile pace.

A little checking turned up a more modest truth. And what did checking reveal? That Ryan's mouth runs faster than his feet. The only marathon he ever completed was the aptly named Grandma's Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota in 1990.

His actual time:  4:01:25. A far more pedestrian nine-minutes-plus-per-mile pace.

Regardless, let's focus on Mr. Romney. It turns out, during the Republican primaries, he might have made a few statements he wants to forget. In an interview yesterday on Meet the Press, Romney, who scoffed at Obama in the spring, implying he was weaker than Jimmy Carter, now admits taking down Osama bin Laden was “a great accomplishment.” “Using the drones to strike at Al Qaeda targets” also wins his approval.

Gregory wanted to know about the federal budget deficit the Governor says he knows how to fix. Well, sure. He's going to need time to clean up the present mess. President Obama has had nearly four years to balance the budget and hasn't been able to do it; but if we elect Mitt, he'll get down to business. Mitt knows business! He ran Bain Capital! So, he wants us to know he can balance the budget in...well...maybe eight years.

No, maybe ten.

What about starting by trimming the defense budget? Romney told Gregory he'd never do that. This is America we're talking about, "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." You can't be dividing Americans, as Romney says Mr. Obama likes to do. You can't be pitting defense contractors against billionaires who hide wealth in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying the same kind of taxes us ordinary schlubs do. No way can you cut any of the $700 billion spent for defense. We need to be sure, Governor Romney insists, that we have the world's strongest military when he takes his seat in the Oval Office. We need to be sure because we need to fight more wars, in Syria and Iran, for starters, as Governor Romney also insists.

Besides, we're talking Romney Dollars. They possess strange magical powers--and you can be sure they carry the slogan:  "In God We Trust." A dollar cut from defense does nothing to reduce the federal deficit. Cutting defense spending means killing jobs. But cutting spending on roads and bridges, and cutting spending on nutrition programs for kids, those dollars do reduce the deficit. A dollar spent for a bomb is a Romney Dollar. That's a good dollar. An Obama Dollar spent to upgrade or expand national parks?

That's a bad dollar.

Don't worry, though, because Romney and Ryan have all kinds of ideas for eliminating federal debt. First, they're going to cut taxes on everyone, including suffering American billionaires. In other words, they're going to put more magical Romney Dollars into play. Then they'll make up the difference by closing all kinds of tax loopholes, mostly used by the middle class, but which ones and when they aren't in the mood just now to say.

Well, then, what about that trillion-dollar-mistake known as Obamacare? Mitt now admits he likes socialized medicine up to a point. (Like in Massachusetts?) He loves Medicare, for example, and he and Ryan are going to save it just as it is, even if they have to turn it into a voucher program, even if Medicare is, by every possible definition in every language known to man, already socialized medicine.

Now Governor Romney says he plans to keep certain elements of Obamacare in place. (Obamacare Lite?) He might be for socialized medicine, for instance, if it means individuals with pre-existing conditions, like Ann, his wife, are guaranteed coverage. Yes. He'd be for that.

SUDDENLY, MITT IS CHANNELING his inner Obama.

When Granny finds out what Paul Ryan plans, Ryan had better be ready to run fast!

Forget the Terrible Towels: NFL Players Voice Support for Gay Marriage

IF YOU MISSED IT THERE'S SUDDENLY renewed hope for those who favor legalization of gay marriage. No, no. Mitt Romney is still against it. And Paul Ryan is still opposed. He's all about Catholic teachings and he's sure that unmarried priests are a great idea. After all, what could possibly go wrong with that?

Well, now, who cares what Mitt and Paul think?

So what if Pat Robertson says we're going to bring down the wrath of God around our ears if we accept gay people as equal? You know:  humans?

Don't worry right-wingers!
If gay marriage is legalized
you won't stop ogling cheerleaders.

Suddenly, players in the NFL are coming "out" in favor of gay marriage. This game day morning, Cheeseheads in Wisconsin awoke, rubbed their eyes in disbelief, and found themselves asking, "Does it really matter if same-sex couples marry?" Who Dat Nation stopped worrying about player suspensions and Steelers fans quit waving their yellow towels and had to carefully consider the issues.

If you missed the story, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo has been supporting gay marriage for some time. This support finally caught the eye of Emmett C. Burns Jr., a Maryland lawmaker; and a riled up Burns fired off an angry letter to Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti. Basically, he asked the owner to see that his linebacker shut up.

Burns' letter angered Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe, in turn, and the kicker responded brilliantly, in a scathing missive. First, Kluwe wondered if Burns had ever read the U. S. Constitution, with its First Amendment protection of free speech.

Second, he reminded Burns (an African American and sadly a Democrat, too) that brave stands taken by sports figures can matter.

Jackie Robinson was mentioned.

Finally, he assured Burns (and here we might offer the same assurances to the men at the top of the GOP ticket) that even if gay marriage were to become a reality, he (they) would still be perfectly safe:

I can assure you that gay people getting married will have zero effect on your life. They won't come into your house and steal your children. They won't magically turn you into a lustful cockmonster. They won't even overthrow the government in an orgy of hedonistic debauchery because all of a sudden they have the same legal rights as the other 90 percent of our population—rights like Social Security benefits, child care tax credits, Family and Medical Leave to take care of loved ones, and COBRA healthcare for spouses and children. You know what having these rights will make gays? Full-fledged American citizens just like everyone else, with the freedom to pursue happiness and all that entails. Do the civil-rights struggles of the past 200 years mean absolutely nothing to you?
 

The standard response from the right is entirely predictable. Marriage is a holy institution. You can't mess with God's plan. It has ever been so:  marriage is between one man and one woman. You can almost hear Burns and his type saying, "And...perhaps most importantly, gay marriage gives me the creeps."

So, let's add a little to what Mr. Kluwe has already said so eloquently. First, Mr. Burns should be ashamed of himself not only for failing to read the U. S. Constitution but also for failing to grasp the meaning of the Declaration of Independence. He might also kick himself for forgetting about the United States Supreme Court decision in the case of Loving et Ux. v. Virginia. You don't have to go too far back in history to discover that, well, marriage hasn't always been just a matter of one man and one woman. Hardly. In 1924 Virginia lawmakers passed what became known as the Racial Integrity Act, limiting marriage to one white man and one white woman, or one black man and one black woman, and that rule remained in effect until a unanimous Supreme Court struck it down in 1967.

TODAY, THE RIGHT-WING HATERS will tell you that it must remain the same way. They will insist they have thousands of years of tradition on their side, not to mention the Bible and Founding Fathers. Yet, we know societies evolve. (Sorry, right-wingers:  we know how much you hate that word.) For centuries, of course, arranged marriages were the rule. In the time of Shakespeare, for example, Frances Coke was offered in marriage, along with £ 10,000, to a wealthy nobleman. When the fourteen-year-old girl tried to resist she was "tied to the Bedposts and whipped" (more than once), according to eyewitnesses.

As late as 1753, the age of consent in England was twelve for a girl. And in the Thirteen Colonies, in the days when the Founding Fathers were born, marriage customs and attitudes still had a long way to go before you could say they matched today's mores and values. Call it the "good old days," if you're Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan--but Puritan lawmakers in New England required all those found to have engaged in premarital sex to marry. Sex, itself, was forbidden on Sunday; and homosexuals caught in the act at any time could be punished by hanging. The law was also clear when it came to adultery and male masturbation--in places like New Haven, Connecticut, capital offenses. But we grew. Don't you see?

In the end, Burns and Romney and Ryan might be wise to read the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government.
 

Back in 1776, a new nation had a long way to go before anyone could argue that we had lived up to Thomas Jefferson's ringing ideals. Still, the cause of liberty grew. Slavery was ended. Women won the right to vote. In 1924, Native Americans officially became U. S. citizens. Meanwhile, states raised the minimum age at which a girl could marry, with parental consent, to sixteen, or eighteen without a mother or father's approval. And, yes, The Racial Integrity Act was finally declared unconstitutional.

Gay marriage is coming, sooner or later. Romney and Ryan and Burns can only temporarily stand in the way. They can stare at the Declaration of Independence as long as they want and hope to see some kind of optical illusion. But stare as long as they will:  the words "homosexuals not included" are not ever going to pop out of the background.

History shows that when gay marriage does become law our great Republic will survive. History acknowledges human progress.

Lying Scientists Claim to Have Proof of Dramatic Arctic Melting! Still Can't Find Obama Birth Certificate

OKAY, FAR RIGHT Fox News fans. Here's what you missed, while you were cleaning your guns and hunkering down for that U. N. invasion of Lubbock, Texas.

The tree huggers are up to their tricks again, what with their science and evidence and advanced college degrees and crap. Yep:  more lying scientists have gone on record today, warning about ominous new signs of global warning.

And where do we find these lying scientists doing their lying? Smack dab in the middle of the lying New York Times. Why, Bill O'Reilly was just talking last night with Bernie Goldberg about all the liberal lying that goes on in the Times. Bill is the man. And, boy, don't we miss Glenn Beck. He'd set those scientists straight.

Used to be a radio disc jockey, you know.

What are these green freaks up to now? Well, with two months still left in the melting season, satellite photos show that only 30% of the Arctic Ocean is covered in ice. Satellites! Photographs! NASA! How low can these "libertards" go? Noah's Ark. Sure. Glenn and Bill believe in that. But where does it mention melting Arctic ice in the Bible? Tell me that, left-wing Eco-Nazis. The polar ice caps may be melting at a record rate. But you will have to pry my cold, dead fingers off my assault rifle before I give up my Second Amendment right to shoot any polar bears heading south.

Well, here's what scientist claim. They say polar ice in the north has been reduced by 40% since 1979, when the first detailed photographs were taken. They say evidence points clearly to human activity and greenhouse gasses. Ignore those scientists. Let's hear what a great leader like Sarah Palin has to say:  "I can see Russia from here! I once read an entire book although it was filled with pictures. Drill, baby, drill!"

Stand up for the U. S. Constitution, patriots with teabags hanging from your hats! Tell Commie Obama, "You can take away my right to drive my Giant Land Roving Mark XII Escalade SUV when you pry my cold, dead fingers off the steering wheel." The Founding Fathers never mentioned global warming now did they?

Oh, yeah, big deal. According to the New York Times, scientists (a.k.a. "liars") predict a day is coming when the Arctic Ocean will be totally ice free in summers. More Eco-Nazi talk. The Times story goes on and on, letting scientists spew more of their stupid facts: “It’s hard even for people like me to believe, to see that climate change is actually doing what our worst fears dictated,” said Jennifer A. Francis, a Rutgers University scientist who studies the effect of sea ice on weather patterns. “It’s starting to give me chills, to tell you the truth.”

What does some college egghead with chills know? Don't you hate elitists with their knowledge and shit.

Todd Akin. Now there's my man. Knows the scoop about sperm and egg and rape.

Meanwhile, the Times absolutely spews falsehoods. Michael E. Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State, says climate-change risks are greater than even most scientists feared. Elitist. Tree hugger. If he's so smart, why doesn't he show us Obama's birth certificate?

Can't find it? That's what I thought.

Mann might explain to reporters:  “In this case, the models were almost certainly too conservative in the changes they were projecting, probably because of important missing physics.” But, we don't fall for his tricks. See what he says about conservatives!  He's saying we hate physics. Mann and his fancy terms:  like "Arctic amplification." He says it has something to do with less white snow and ice to reflect sunlight back into space. Says melting, itself, is causing an increase in melting. We're way ahead of Mr. Bigshot Science, though. We know polar bears don't care about louder music.

Dr. Francis--oh, big deal, a doctor--warns that changes in climate may already be altering weather patterns farther south, including the United States. "She has published research suggesting that air circulation patterns are being altered in a way that favors more extremes, like heat waves and droughts."

 

Drought? Ha. Not gonna happen.

 

When Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan take over we're going to win "The War on Christmas" (even if the holiday isn't as white as often as it was back in 1979). Mitt will stop global warming by offering tax cuts to billionaires. Ryan will save the planet by privatizing Medicare. If the ice sheet sitting on top of Greenland begins to melt, which scientists predict, even if we cared, even if that meant ocean levels might rise dramatically and force the abandonment of several Micronesian nations, we're going to be ready. We'll still have our guns and we'll stop those Pacific Islander refugees at the beach.

      

Walt Meier, a researcher at the National Snow Ice Data Center, a government-sponsored research center, might explain, “Parts of the Arctic have become like a giant Slushee this time of year.”

 

Well, we're way too smart to fall for that. Science. Government sponsored science isn't the solution. It's the problem. Drill, baby, drill!

And watch out for those U. N. boys, too.

 

Just because evidence shows the polar ice is disappearing,
that doesn't mean Fox News viewers have to believe it.

 

Cheney and Romney to Reminisce at $30,000 Per Plate Dinner

GOOD NEWS, FANS OF IRONY. Today, two giants in the annals of American patriotism get together for dinner.

Dick Cheney, the man who never saw a country he didn’t want to bomb, even if it meant bombing the wrong country—the same man who dodged any chance to serve his country when he actually had one (five draft deferments)—hosts Mitt Romney, the “Mormon Mauler,” at a $30,000-a-plate fund raising dinner, at the Cheney home in Jackson, Wyoming.

No doubt, Mitt will be wearing the requisite flag-lapel pin to telegraph his unflinching patriotism. Maybe the “Mormon Mauler” will even talk to reporters about all the fighting he did for this country. On second thought—maybe not. He might want to stick to safer subjects. Like how trees in Michigan are just the right height. He certainly isn’t likely to bring up all his hidden bank accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands, or agree to release his recent tax returns, either, although he swears he has nothing to hide.

Mitt loves this country. He talks about it all the time. He just didn’t want to fight for it, maybe muss up his perfect hair, or damage his rugged good looks. Mitt doesn’t want to pay taxes to support the U. S. government, either.

He just wants to lead it.

Perhaps you’ve forgotten what bold deeds Mitt performed while carrying the “Stars and Stripes” high overhead into battle?

Pretty much the same kind of heroism displayed by his new buddy, the tough-talking former VP. Mitt kind of checked out during the Vietnam War. Went to France as a Mormon missionary.

Didn’t have to dodge bullets there.

Might have dodged the occasional flying croissant, however—if religious discussion heated up. Could have been clubbed with a loaf of French bread. Bold deeds, Mr. Romney, bold deeds.

The Washington Post reports that Cheney, the man with no heart, and Romney, the man with no spine, have not had a close relationship heretofore. Perhaps that will be changing:

“Cheney has generally shied away from politicking and he remains controversial, in part because of his hawkish foreign policy stances, including his support for interrogation techniques like waterboarding.

“Still, Romney has embraced Cheney in the past. Last year, he told an Arizona town hall that Cheney’s ‘wisdom and judgment’ would provide a model for choosing his own vice president.”

So far, during his campaign, Romney has avoided the mere mention of George W. Bush by name. You might fondly remember Bush and Cheney, however.

Implemented huge tax cuts.

Promised the economy would boom as a result.

Got us into two fearfully expensive wars, one of them totally unnecessary. Put the entire cost on the national credit card.

Couldn’t find Osama for eight years, and tried to say it didn’t really matter.

Crashed the entire economy in 2008.

Yeah. You remember.

Perhaps Mitt and Dick will have a glass of very-expensive wine after dinner. You can imagine them reminiscing. Cheney and Romney, sharing war stories, getting misty-eyed, thinking about the quick passage of time. How they were young and virile and brave once, in the 60s, when both had the chance to serve. They might stop a moment to recall the 58,000 lives lost in those same years, all the patriotic young men who did serve, who did go, who did die in Southeast Asia, while they stayed clear of danger and went on with their sheltered lives.

Something like 6,000 more good young men and good young women have died bravely in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003. Tens of thousands more have been badly wounded or maimed. Now GOP leaders tell us we have to bomb Iran and jump head first, without looking, into what is shaping up in Syrian as a complicated, bloody civil war.

You’d think “hawkish policy” might not be as popular as it was. You’d think Cheney and Romney might have learned something.

Well, it seems they have. They’ve learned not to worry. Put on a flag-lapel pin every morning. Talk tough when it comes to foreign affairs. You never had to serve in combat. Neither did your kids. So, send some other poor family’s son or daughter to carry out your wars instead.

Let’s offer these two heroes some how-to-beat-President Obama advice. It’s a photo op we’re suggesting, one that’s sure to resonate with voters. Let Cheney and Romney get together this November, a few days before the presidential election and lay a wreath at the Vietnam Memorial Wall.

What better way to remind us all what patriots they truly are.

"Teach us to distrust and despise those clamorous patriots

whose courage dwells but in the tongue." 

Washington Irving

Buy One Senator, Get One Free

IF YOU'RE LIBERALLY-INCLINED and don't usually read the Wall Street Journal, you probably didn't see the editorial, Money and the 'Appearance of Corruption', which ran June 14.

If you're a liberal--or even a living, breathing, thinking American--you might be worried about the toxic effect of the odious 2010 U. S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. You might be concerned about the torrents of money now unleashed and flooding our political system, tens of millions offered up to politicians by individuals like Sheldon Adelson or the Koch brothers, Charles and David. You might fear that tens of millions, donated by giant corporations, will inevitably warp the democratic system.

You might be concerned, as an earlier U. S. Supreme Court decision put it, about the "appearance of corruption." 

Ha, ha, don't fret. No way. Don't be ridiculous, thinking Americans! Remember what mom used to say:  "Money can't buy happiness--or politicians."

That's the position taken by Paul Sherman in an editorial defense of the U. S. Supreme Court in the Citizens United case. While many observers might tell you this was the Supreme Court's worst decision in a decade (actually the worst decision of the staunchly conservative, five-vote, John Roberts-led wing), Sherman, an attorney at the aptly named "Institute of Justice," a conservative group which litigates campaign-finance cases across the nation, begs to disagree. He begins by noting that the State of Montana is challenging the ruling based on laws passed at the turn of the 20th century and designed to deal with a rash of cases of political corruption. (What! Money can't buy politicians!! You people in Montana, in 1916, you must have been fooled by the lamestream media into thinking it could!)

Sherman called Montana's position untenable and in the deepest recesses of a conservative soul prayed that the U. S. Supreme Court would "double down on Citizens United and reject, once and for all, the flawed justification underlying much of America's failed experiment with campaign-finance law--the so-called appearance of corruption standard."

That standard, set in 1976, in Buckley v. Valeo, held that Congress and the states could pass laws to address "corruption and the appearance of corruption." Sherman called that decision misguided and dangerous:

The "corruption" half of that ruling is uncontroversial--few seriously dispute the validity of laws proscribing conduct like offering or accepting bribes. But the power to regulate the "appearance of corruption" has proven dangerously open-ended, leading inexorably to greater government control of political speech.

Sherman offered no examples of this chilling government control; and given the skill with which both the Tea Party on the right and Occupy Wall Street on the left have stirred political discussion in recent times (and rightfully so), his worries seemed clearly misplaced. Sherman took note of the original justification for the appearance-of-corruption standard (that "a deregulated system of campaign finance would lead to public cynicism and distrust of our democratic process") but then made it clear he was having no part of such lame judicial reasoning.

In fact, the opposite was true.

Sherman is an advocate of untrammeled freedoms. This nauseating sense we might get when we hear that huge corporations and insanely rich individuals can now pour tens of millions into political campaigns, effectively drowning out the opinions of others...why, don't be silly. There's no need to fear any appearance-of-corruption: 

That argument ignores that a healthy distrust of government is vital to ensuring that government stays within its constitutionally limited role. Campaign-finance proponents want to grant government the power to restrict political activity for the purposes of managing its own PR. The result of doing so is that government still has the same amount of power to abuse, but fewer people will notice or be concerned. That is a great way to promote big government but a lousy way to promote trustworthy government.

Yeah. Trustworthy government! That's the ticket! And thank god for guardians of our precious freedoms, stalwarts like Paul Sherman. Thank god for the unbiased positions of the Wall Street Journal when it comes to Big Business influence in government. Thank god, Sherman has reminded us that our campaign-finance laws, under Buckley v. Valeo, have created a mess that another WSJ editorial described as a "half-dead monster."

Sherman notes--one editorialist for the conservative paper agreeing with another--that the awful monster "keeps shambling forward, wreaking havoc on the First Amendment." You read that, and you almost want to shout, "Save us, save us, big corporations and insanely rich individuals!"

"Dump huge piles of money on the monster and kill it!"

*****

THE EDITORS OF THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, now reduced to servants of Rupert Murdoch and his vast corporate empire, and writers like Mr. Sherman, would have you imagine that this is a clarion call in the name of liberty!

In fact, Sherman's piece is a pile of steaming horse manure, dressed up in conservative logic in a vain attempt to make road apples, as we used to call them, look like fresh-baked apple pie.

Really, what do we have to look forward to if the decision in Citizens United stands, or worse ends up extended? Even Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate who leads all individual contributors in this election cycle, with $35 million donated (we must stop Mitt Romney, he's unfit! not conservative enough! vote for Newt; no, wait, Newt can't win; we must elect Mitt Romney! he's actually a great American and I have the money to prove it!) has said he doesn't necessarily agree with the Supreme Court decision but as long as it's legal he's going to spend as much as $100 million to defeat President Obama.

So where does it all end?

Consider a story in today's New York Times, about Swiss bank UBS and its efforts to curtail activities by Robert Wolf, one its own top New York executives, a leading fund-raiser for Mr. Obama? Why does a Swiss banking institution care about a U. S. presidential election? It might have to do with the fact the federal government forced UBS in 2009 to pay a $780 million fine and divulge the names of 4,450 super-rich Americans  who were hiding tens of billions in secret accounts to avoid paying income taxes. You know. The kind of Big Business heroes you can trust to donate unlimited sums of money to politicians. Probably loyal readers of the Wall Street Journal and staunch conservatives who love America more than liberals do, who just don't want to give America any money to meet its needs--stupid stuff, like national defense, health care for seniors and disabled children, roads, bridges, you know, stuff like that.

In fact, conservatives seem to believe they're the only ones with a healthy distrust of government. But every liberal who can remember back to Watergate, to cite but one example, has his or her own healthy distrust of government.

It's just that liberals have an even healthier distrust of government when they think it's going to be taken over, lock, stock and barrel, and run entirely by Big Business interests.

Sherman doesn't dare touch that topic with an editorial ten-foot pole. But most Americans see the obvious danger. If one individual or one corporation can donate unlimited sums, how do we stop them from buying up politicians wholesale? Washington, D. C. is already swarming with lobbyists, like teenage girls at a Justin Bieber concert. It's not like Big Business can't already make its voice heard.

What happens next, if the wishes of the editors of the Wall Street Journal come true? Do big drug companies start pouring tens of millions into campaigns for the U. S. House of Representatives? Does Pfizer adopt a dozen Republican lawmakers, maybe a Democrat or two, and avoid unpleasant situations like the one the company faced in 2009:  coughing up $2.3 billion to settle civil and criminal complaints for the illegal marketing of Bextra, a pain-killing drug? Do these bought-and-paid-for legislators push for more of a "pro-business" stance at the Food and Drug Administration? Maybe they vote to curtail federal protections for whistle-blowers, too, since whistle-blowers at Pfizer exposed the company to begin.

Or maybe a few bought-and-paid-for members of the U. S. Senate lean on the FDA to go easy in its investigations of the harmful side effects of all-metal hip joint replacements, now failing at alarming rates, often shedding steel flakes into surrounding tissue. You know:  a lot of conservative politicians already believe tort reform, making it harder to sue for medical malpractice, is the real key to "health care reform."

And, aw, shucks, so what if grandma's hip replacement is causing her excruciating pain!

If the Supreme Court stands by or expands its Citizens United decision the possibilities are endless. (Mr. Sherman might even turn to a few news items in the Wall Street Journal if he'd like to see examples!) What! You say ING Bank has been fined $619 million for laundering money for Cuba and Iran, in violation of U. S. sanctions? Time for ING to buy, no, donate to the campaigns, of two or four or six U. S. senators and put them to work fighting Dodd-Frank regulations. Huh? You say Big Sugar, as the Journal itself labels corporate agri-business interests, want to protect billions in farm subsidies? Let them donate $5 million to the reelection campaign of three members of the House of Representatives for Louisiana and get the right kind of men and women into office, you know, fans of sugar. Watch Wal-Mart spread around $50 million to politicians in all kinds of local races in ten different states; because what do we know first and foremost about Wal-Mart? That all Wal-Mart executives care about in the end is expanding freedom! And all Wal-Mart asks is that the politicians they purchase help pass laws to make it harder to organize unions. The politicians get elected and if Wal-Mart likes their work, refinanced, and re-elected. Wal-Mart clerks still earn $11 per hour and still sometimes qualify for food stamps.

And see what happens now when UBS forks over $10 million during the 2012 presidential race. Watch Mitt Romney take a stand against increased federal regulatory power! Watch Mitt opine that President Obama doesn't understand how to run a business! Watch Wall Street bankers, in their enthusiasm for the First Amendment, dump hundreds of millions into Republican coffers! Watch the banking industry prove, as it did in 2008, that only businessmen and businesswomen know how to run a business! Watch the politicians sit idly by; squint a little, and if you look at it just right, it makes a UBS donation seem like a wise investment.

Especially if they can avoid a few hefty fines next time around.

You might say, "This has the appearance of corruption to me." But you would be stupid and probably a socialist and the editors at the Wall Street Journal would insist you were secretly a foe of all human freedom, anti-American at heart, as well, and say that you hated god and your mom and that apple pie, too.

TRUST PAUL SHERMAN on this one. After all, he's a lawyer.

Money can't buy happiness or politicians.

Mitt Romney Takes on Teachers' Unions!

I WOULD ARGUE THAT TWO RECENT STORIES ABOUT Mitt Romney and his family have a direct bearing on the subject of U. S. education.

The first focused on Ann Romney's love of horseback riding. The other outlined her husband's first big speech about schools, and the policies he would implement if elected president, to address America's supposed "education crisis." Governor Romney, who once famously said that he loved Michigan because all the trees were "just the right height," wanted his audience to know that when it came to schools, he was less sanguine. Apparently, America's teachers aren't the right height or don't have enough leaves.

In any case, Mr. Romney's main points can be boiled down as follows:

A. teachers' unions are really, really bad (and, by the way, support President Obama)
B. all parents are really, really good (and should vote Republican) and totally committed to their children's education
C. therefore, we can fix everything if we set up more charter schools and have more parent choice
D. ...because, if we didn't already mention it, all parents are really, really good and committed to their children's education
E. and teachers' unions are really, really bad and frankly, most of their members are scumbags
F. so, we should grade all schools; then parents, all good, all committed, can choose schools wisely, and, of course, all parents will choose wisely, because, well...you get the idea
G. and since private enterprise is always good, and because unfettered business cures all ills in all societies, it would be great if we turned public schools over to for-profit companies, which would mean we'd end up with nothing but "A+" schools, because companies could break teachers' unions (which support President Obama)
H. and have we mentioned yet that teachers' unions are responsible for every problem in U. S. public education?

NOW, DON'T GET ME WRONG. In most stories I've read, Governor Romney comes across as a gentleman. He's a devoted husband, good father, regular church goer, a good human being. Ann Romney seems like a likeable, lovely woman. But it would be stretching the truth beyond recognition to assert that people like the Romneys understand the kind of  realities that confront families farther down the economic scale, teachers who work with children of those families, public school teachers, in general, or the issues that most affect America's public schools as we enter the coming election season.

Indeed, like so many others who claim to want to fix the public schools, Mr. Romney's family long ago decided that the public schools weren't quite good enough for their son and sent him off to an elite prep school at the end of seventh grade. So Mitt never had to walk down a high school hallway, in some city, say Detroit, and rub elbows with any gang members. Not many homeless kids could afford tuition at Cranbrook School, where young Romney was insulated from contact with society's less fortunate individuals. And you can bet he wasn't hanging around with classmates who came to school hungry in the morning, or who went home to neighborhoods crawling with drug abusers at night.

The problem now, when Mr. Romney talks education, is that his isolation from reality is complete. He and his loved ones live in rarified air, and Mrs. Romney, for example, is able to indulge her love of horses. She competes in riding events at an elite level. She has a dressage tutor, who helps her with form, a top man in his field, so successful he has been known to serve guests at his riding school from $4,000 bottles of wine. In fact, on their tax returns for 2010, the Romneys were able to claim a $77,000 loss related to part ownership of a horse named Rafalca.

That's more money than most families see in a year.

Meanwhile, Mitt and Ann's four sons, raised in a home where they had every possible advantage, including good parents, fared well in school. But a recent study by John Hopkins University tells us that not all students come from the same kind of homes. Instead, 15% of U. S. students have problems with chronic absenteeism.

That is:  they miss 10% of all class time, or more.

I taught in a fine district until I retired. But I could explain to Mr. and Mrs. Romney, rather quickly, that not all parents are good, no matter how fine the district. Not all parents are like them, or like Mr. and Mrs. Obama, or the majority of moms and dads I met. I had Abe in class one year. Abe was absent or tardy 107 times in a 180-day school year. When he did arrive, often late, for first period history, I had trouble educating him not because I was a member of a teachers' union, but because Abe had a devil of a time staying awake. I remember once when he told me his mother let him play video games until four a.m. the night before.

So, Abe's mother wasn't an Ann Romney. She wasn't like the mothers Mitt Romney has in mind when he talks about fixing U. S. education. Abe's mom soon added several lines to her goofy parent resume when she came down to school to pick up her older son, who happened to be getting suspended for fighting, and got into a battle with our school resource officer, leading to her own arrest.

THIS MAN, ROMNEY, WHO WANTS TO BE PRESIDENT, who says he knows how to fix the schools, sees the world through the green-tinted glasses of the top 1%. My wife, a speech therapist, still working in the public schools, could reveal grimmer truths. She once worked with a child with severe emotional disorders who lived in a rusted out automobile with Uncle Buster, a regular marijuana user, but still his best option, because mom and dad were long gone from the family photo. She worked with a nine-year-old boy, a victim of sexual abuse by his father, who had what medical people call encopresis, or leakage from the anus, around partially-formed stool, a common problem in cases of abuse. So he had accidents at his desk almost every day. On yet another occasion a mother "interested" in her child's education came to school to see the principal. Mom was carrying a butcher knife and said she was "tired of being followed." Then she chased the principal down the hall, out of the building, and across the parking lot.

It's not just anecdotal evidence Mr. Romney might consider. Take Chicago, where in 2010, the average student missed 26 days of instruction. We know that tens of thousands of teens in the Windy City belong to gangs; and in one twelve-month period 245 school-age kids were killed or wounded in gang-related violence.

What solution does the Governor offer for that?

Let's grade schools!

Mr. Romney might even pick up a newspaper and see what he could discover. It's never hard to find sad examples, of parents who fail; but here's one of my "favorites," a story I stumbled across in 2008, involving a Pennsylvania mom named Elizabeth Ann Fox. Ms. Fox was charged with child endangerment after leaving two sons, ages 4 and 2, home alone for hours. Police were notified when the boys managed to crawl out a bedroom window. One officer entered the home but was driven back immediately by the overpowering smell of garbage and human feces, which littered the kitchen floor. A second officer located mom--at a fast food restaurant, of all places--where she was enjoying a hamburger and a shake.

Mr. Romney ought to try to work those kind of examples into his next speech about what must be done to fix America's schools.

In the end, Governor Romney is blind to all the ugliness, because he travels only in circes of wealth and privilege. Or perhaps, because he hopes to score political points, he doesn't care to look for any ugliness.

Too bad, too, because we know there are 1.6 million homeless children in the United States today. We know that in 2010 more than 70% of black children were born to single mothers. We know on certain Indian reservations poverty, depression and hard drinking add up to mean that one in four children will be born with fetal alcohol syndrome. We know that here in Ohio, one out of every ten children in Scioto County, where illegal use of painkillers has spread like plague, is born with illegal drugs in their blood streams. And we know that at any given moment, 1.5 million American children have a parent in prison.

If Romney and the critics wanted to see the full picture they wouldn't stop there. What about parents who kill their children? Even these stories are not hard to find; and nothing Mr. Romney has to offer, so far, when he talks about education, would ever do the unluckiest children in our society the slightest bit of good. Consider one example, out of many, a case from West Palm Beach, Florida. It involves Jorge Barahona, accused of murdering his stepdaughter, Nubia, and for the attempted murder of Victor, his ten-year-old son. The boy showed evidence of prior injuries: broken collarbone, broken arm, burn scars on buttocks and abdomen, rope marks on wrists. Emily Rodriguez, Victor's first grade teacher, later told reporters she remembered how Nubia used to visit her class at the end of the day to see how her brother was doing.

Does Mr. Romney really believe the key here would be to focus on Rodriquez because she's in a teachers' union?

YET, THERE THE GOVERNOR WAS, telling an audience last week:  "Wouldn't it be great if we could look back on the last four years with confidence that the [school] crisis had been confronted and we'd turned the corner toward a brighter future?"

Nope. The problems won't go away. Blame it on President Obama. And blame his evil allies, the teachers' unions.

They just can't seem to alter harsh realities.

I am pleased to say that this post was viewed almost 13,000 times on AddictingInfo.Org.

Teachers are getting fed up with all the attacks we face.

Mitt Romney and a whole lot of others who criticize us have no clue.

North Carolina Minister Calls for Concentration Camps for "Queers"

I'm never sure why some posts catch on while others languish. Recently, I tokk Mitt Romney to task over his stance on gay marriage. One Romney supporter reacted angrily, called me a "liar," and said I was thinking with my "groin."

I can't say I ever realized my groin had powers of cogitation. So I tend to do my thinking with my brain. I'm in favor gay marriage, not because my groin is doing any thinking, but because no matter how hard I try, I can't see why we deny equal rights to American citizens because they're gay; and I can't see how their marriage would be a threat to mine marriage or my children's or anyone else's.


Then a friend shared a link on YouTube and I had a chance to hear Pastor Charles Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in North Carolina. Worley says God is agin' gay marriage. He says the Bible is agin' gay marriage. And he says he's agin' it, too. I don't quite understand how Worley rates with God and the Bible, but let that pass. Reverend Worley has the solution for the "problem" of gays who want to marry. He says, "No."  He's agin' it. And while he's at it he has another idea rattling around in his head and he just has to spill it. He says we should lock them all up in concentration camps.

I think he thinks Jesus would approve.

Here's how this man of God puts it in his sermon:

"Build a great big large fence... put all the lesbians in there... Do the same thing for the queers and the homosexuals and have that fence electrified so they can't get out..."


"...And you know what, in a few years, they'll die out... Do you know why? They can't reproduce."

I listen to the tape; and I'm surprised, if Worley wants to follow the path the Nazis took in 1933, that he ignores some of their most effective measures. He fails to suggest that we make lesbians and queers wear pink triangles on their uniforms.

He fails to mention tattooing them on the arms.

So, is Worley right? He claims the Bible is his bedrock. And the Bible is clear about this issue. I'm sure Worley would be happy to quote Leviticus: 20:13: "If a man lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death: their blood shall be upon them."

The question, really, is why Reverend Worley refuses to pursue his reading of the Bible to a logical end.


He isn't going to be a weasel and back down from the truth is he? Let's have the blood.

As a liberal, I respect people of faith, all faiths. I respect good Christians and I know plenty. But if Worley is going to take a stand on Leviticus he can't be such a wimp. All those people who sat in church and "amened" him (if you watch the video) and didn't have the slightest inclination to stand up and walk out in disgust, I say make Jesus proud! Come right out of the hater's closet and admit your feelings. Let's not stop with stopping gay marriage.


Let's have some killing.

Don't stop there, either, Reverend. Don't stop there, people of Providence Road Baptist Church. Be proud of what you believe. Call for execution of witches and wizards. That's in the Bible, too. Preach a sermon about that, Mr. Worley. Quote from Leviticus:  20:27. Come, come, Mr. Worley and all you fine parishioners. Let's copy Islamic fundamentalists and stone adulterers. Let's have death in Jesus's name. Leviticus: 20:10. Let's end the plague of children who curse parents. Let's kill them, too, as suggested in Leviticus:  20:9.

Don't pick and choose your verses, Mr. Worley. You're an expert on the entire Bible.

You've already suggested a fence 150 miles long. That's more barbed wire than the Nazi's had at Auschwitz, Buchenwald or Treblinka. Take your thinking further. Stop the abomination of gay marriage before our nation lies in moral ruin. The Nazis tried horrific medical experiments, including chemical and medical castrations, to "cure" the gays. Surely, a man like you, a man known for his understanding of the teachings of Jesus Christ, could twist some text in the Good Book to justify a little human mutilation! In fact, Reverend Worley, I'm surprised you turned out to be such a coward when it came to your interpretations of the Bible. I'm surprised you stopped with the fencing. I'm surprised you failed to say, "Bring on the gas. Bring on the Zyklon B."

And you call yourself a Christian minister!

What's Mitt Romney's Stand on Witchcraft?

With gay marriage back in the mix as a political issue for 2012, I've been thinking a lot about religion, morality and human rights. I've been thinking a lot about Mitt Romney.

I'm a liberal and I support gay marriage.

That doesn't mean I'm some "godless" communist, as the crazies on the far-right like to put it any time they encounter someone with whom they happen to disagree. I'm just some ordinary guy, doing the best I can to understand the world around me.

So it sparked my interest when the New York Times ran a story about rhesus monkeys and how they're overrunning New Delhi in India, biting pedestrians and stealing groceries out of bags as people stroll along the streets. Monkeys, it turns out, are believed to be the living representatives of the Hindu god Hanuman and tradition holds that Hindus should feed them accordingly, Tuesdays and Saturdays, every week.

There was a similar story about Mr. Romney in the Times not long ago. Not about monkeys. No. Romney is a good Mormon. His church teachings hold that ancient Israelites fled to America many centuries before Christopher Columbus arrived. These ancient Israelistes developed their own civilization, which later fractured in a bloody civil war, involving two groups, the Nephites and Lamanites, the latter triumphing in the end and going on to become the people we call today the "Native Americans."

Conservatives tend to be sure they're right because they have (or think they have) religious truth and the U. S. Constitution on their side. Liberals, of course, tend to skeptical. So I might not buy the Hindu take on monkeys. I might not buy Mormon teachings about Nephites and Lamanites, either. Yet, as a good liberal, I understand that what Mr. Romney chooses to believe in no way harms or influences me.

Now we hear voices raised in certain conservative circles, warning that we must not allow gay marriage. Some Christian extremists (and all religions breed occasional extremists) insist, "God hates fags." If we allow gay marriage, Reverend Pat Robinson likes to warn, God will punish our great nation. It's right there in the Bible, they tell us. See Leviticus: 20:13:  "If a man lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination:  they shall surely be put to death:  their blood shall be upon them."

I'm a liberal, see. And if nothing else, I'm skeptical about putting homosexuals to death.

Now, let me say, that some of the very finest people I have known are Christians, or were, including my mother, a devout Roman Catholic until the moment she passed away. I hope they all get to heaven in their own fashion; and if conduct and compassion are a guide, I believe they will, and so, in whatever manner God intends, I hope they'll all be happy. With a bit of luck, I might even join my Mom and Mr. Romney.

But I do wish, if people were going to base their entire stance against gay marriage on Biblical principles, that they would explain their position on other issues the same way. If Mr. Romney is against gay marriage based on ancient religious teachings, shouldn't he also take a stand against witchcraft, and not just change his position whenever it suits him to gain a little in the wiccan vote? This matter is addressed in Leviticus, too, 20:27:  "A man or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death:  they shall stone them with stones:  their blood shall be upon them."

I'd like to hear him address the plague of children cursing parents in troubled modern times. Mr. Romney doesn't curse much, himself, according to reporters. He has a reputation as a fine father, too, and his children probably don't do much cursing, either. If other boys and girls do, however, what would be Dad Romney's stand when we look at Leviticus 20:9?  "For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death:  he hath cursed his father or his mother; his blood shall be upon him."

In the end, if you're going to base your case for intolerance toward homosexuals on what men and women were originally taught two or three thousand years ago, then I'd have liked to have seen someone ask during the Republican primaries this spring:  "Mr. Romney, Mr. Gingrich, you both oppose gay marriage. What is your stance on adultery?"

I'd like to have seen Mitt lay it on Newt, and watch Newt squirm, when Mr. Romney quoted Leviticus yet again (20:10):  "And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adultress shall surely be put to death."


I don't think it makes me a godless communist to admit I'm puzzled by such matters. I can't see how gay marriage is a threat to me, or to my my wife's happiness or mine, or how it harms my straight neighbors if they mind their own business. If Mr. Romney wants to sit in church and study his particular version of the truth, I don't see where that would be my concern, or anyone else's, be they observant Jew, devout Baptist or practicing Muslim.

If a loving pair of men or loving pair of women want to go to a different church and stand up before God and marry, and maybe later adopt and raise good kids, I don't understand how society has a right to block their way.

I'm just your average liberal.

That means, as far as I have the capacity to understand these questions, that I'm for religious freedom and personal liberty, too, as far as both can be extended in any society, without harm to the common good.

If you want to feed the monkeys, that's your business, too.




P. S. Based on one angry conservative reaction (so far), let me note again the sentence above that says I am for "religious freedom and personal liberty" both. You do me no harm, no matter what you believe, Buddhist, Tao, Fulan Gong, Presybterian, Methodist, Sunni, Shiite, etc.

I'm just a guy who can't figure out how gay marriage hurts ME.

I think the angry conservative needs to stop seeing mirages; or maybe take reading lessons. If my writing is unclear, I apologize for that.