Mitt Romney's Mormonism: Pastors Say Mormons Not Christians, But Defend His Right To Be Batshit Crazy Updated

Now with Bill Maher Robert Jeffress Interview: Mormonism is a Cult.

Shurely Shome Mishtake?



And don't think this fellow is any less batshit than the Mormons.





Not too much of a shocker is it? Not in a country where Catholics are barely Christian and Italians are barely white it's not.

''WE defend anybody's right to be batshit, because we're all fucking batshit.''

Mitt Romney's Mormonism: Pastors Say Mormons Not Christians, But Defend Candidate Against Attacks
by Jaweed Kaleem

The debate over whether a largely Protestant nation is uneasy with a potential Mormon president was reignited this week after back-to-back attacks on Republican front-runner Mitt Romney's Mormonism at the high-profile Values Voters Summit in Washington, D.C.

After prominent Texas megachurch pastor Rev. Robert Jeffress told audiences on Friday that Mormonism is a "cult" (shurely some mishtake?) and conservative Christian activist Bryan Fischer took the stage the next day to echo similar views, a new survey released Saturday afternoon says that three out of four pastors agree, at the least, that Mormons are not Christians.

As part of a larger survey conducted by Nashville-based Lifeway Research a year ago, 1,000 pastors were polled from around the country who represented dozens of denominations. Results, originally scheduled to be released in the coming weeks, were put out early after reporters requested data because of attacks on Romney at the summit, said Ed Stetzer, president of the Southern Baptist-affiliated organization.

"The view that Mormons are not Christians is the widely and strongly held view among Protestant pastors. That does not mean they do not respect Mormons as persons, share their values on family and have much in common. Yet, they simply view Mormonism as a distinct religion outside of basic teachings of Christianity. Many of these pastors may know Mormons who consider themselves Christians, but Protestant pastors overwhelmingly do not consider them such," said Stetzer. "I know this is an unpleasant question to many, and one that some will use as a hammer on evangelicals."

Mormons differ from most Protestants in how they view the Trinity. They also have scripture in addition to the Bible, such as the Book of Mormon, and believe in prophets such as Joseph Smith, Jr., who founded the Latter Day Saint movement.

While the Lifeway survey indicates that a majority of pastors may not support the Mormon religion, surveys on whether Americans would support a Mormon candidate are more mixed. A Pew Research Center survey from the summer said that one in four voters would be less likely to vote for a Mormon candidate and found that 34 percent of white evangelical Protestants held this view. A Gallup poll released in June also found that almost 20 percent of Republicans and independents would not vote for a Mormon president, compared to 27 percent of Democrats who said the same.

After the weekend's controversial statements on Romney's religion, prominent pastors are also coming to his defense. On Saturday, Rev. Myke Crowder, senior pastor of the Christian Life Center in Layton, Utah, and spokesman for the National Clergy Council, released a statement condemning Jeffress, who is a Southern Baptist.

"As an evangelical, born-again, Bible-believing Christian, and a pastor with more than 25 years' experience living with and ministering among a majority Mormon population, I find the comments by Pastor Jeffress unhelpful, impolite and out of place," he said. "I've been around long enough to remember when independent Baptists wouldn't pray with Southern Baptists, when fundamentalists called Southern Baptists compromisers and liberals, when Southern Baptists wouldn't keep company with Pentecostals and when Pentecostals wouldn't keep company with Catholics. That wasn't helpful to anyone. Insulting Mitt Romney adds nothing to the conversation about who should be president. We're picking the country's chief executive, not its senior pastor." huffpo with links

Spot the subliminal message, you wimin.

Previous: Mitt Romney's America: Even More of The Same

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Occupy Wall Street Democracy Now! Daily News Digest October 14

I shall be looking at these myself, but somewhat later.

Democracy Now! Daily News Digest
October 14, 2011

NYC Withdraws Cleaning Evacuation Order in Face of Defiant Occupy Wall Street Protesters Occupy Wall Street protesters are celebrating in Manhattan’s Financial District today after successfully defying orders to evacuate the encampment they have held for nearly four weeks. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had said Zuccotti Park, renamed Liberty Plaza by protesters, would have to be cleared by 7:00 a.m. following a request by its owners that it be cleaned. Thousands of people began congregating in the square overnight amidst concerns the cleaning order was a pretext for evicting the protesters. Hours later, New York City officials announced the request to clear the park had been withdrawn. We go live to Zuccotti Park to speak with Democracy Now!'s Ryan Devereaux. We also speak with New York City Council Member Jumaane Williams, who is one of many local officials who have lent their support for the occupation. Watch/Listen/Read

Constitutional Rights Lawyer Michael Ratner: Failed Occupy Wall Street Evacuation Order is Illegal Speaking from Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, attorney Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights says New York City’s efforts to displace Occupy Wall Street protesters in order to clean the park violates their First Amendment rights and would have led to a major confrontation. We also speak with an Occupy Wall Street organizer about plans for a global day of action tomorrow, October 15, called "United for #GlobalChange." Watch/Listen/Read

Alleged Inhumane Conditions for Post-9/11 Suspects Sparks Global Scrutiny of U.S. Detention Policies Ten years after the 9/11 attacks, detention policies in the United States are facing increasing scrutiny both here and abroad. American citizen Tarek Mehanna is set to stand trial this month on charges of "conspiring to support terrorism" and "providing material support to terrorists." He was 27 years old when he was arrested in October 2009 and has been held in solitary confinement since then. Meanwhile, the European Court of Human Rights is hearing a case on the legality of extradition of terror suspects to the United States on the grounds that inmates are subjected to inhumane conditions of confinement and routine violations of due process. To discuss detention policies since 9/11 in the United States, we’re joined by Tarek Mehanna’s brother, Tamer, and Gareth Peirce, one of Britain’s best-known human rights attorneys. Watch/Listen/Read

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Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Oh FFS!

One from the past. I was with them all the way until...... well you'll see. (Well not really, Max Mosley is a twat, but I didn't want to spoil my header.)

I did take the liberty of using my own graphics, one of which features a new crow.

A murder of crows, that's a funny old name for a bunch of birds.

Paul Dacre: self-serving and sanctimonious

The Mail editor’s attack on Judge Eady is nothing but a plea to be allowed to continue publishing lies

By Neil Lyndon

NOVEMBER 10, 2008

Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Mail, has effectively argued that democracy might collapse and newspapers like his own could go out of business unless they are allowed - without reprisal or punishment - to go on publishing lies.

That conclusion can be drawn from Dacre's speech yesterday to the Society of Editors' conference in Bristol.

Attacking the ruling of Mr Justice Eady that the News of the World breached the right to privacy of the Formula 1 boss Max Mosley in publishing details of his five-hour S&M orgy, Dacre said: "If mass-circulation newspapers, which, of course, also devote considerable space to reporting and analysis of public affairs, don't have the freedom to write about scandal, I doubt whether they will retain their mass circulations with the obvious worrying implications for the democratic process."

Max Mosley surely has justice more on his side than does Paul Dacre

Describing Mosley's acknowledged sexual tastes as "perverted, depraved, the very abrogation of civilised behaviour of which the law is supposed to be the safeguard", Dacre went on to argue that Mr Eady "has, again and again, under the privacy clause of the Human Rights Act, found against newspapers and their age-old freedom to expose the moral shortcomings of those in high places."

These pronouncements sound high-minded and public-spirited; but their elevated moral tone is in marked contrast with the practice of the press, not least in the case of Paul Dacre's own newspaper.

The reason why Justice Eady found for Max Mosley was that the News of the World had published an odious and indefensible lie. The paper had alleged that Mosley's S&M session contained elements of Nazi role-playing and that it had mocked the Holocaust and its victims. In his ruling, Mr Eady found "no evidence that the gathering... was intended to be an enactment of Nazi behaviour or adoption of any of its attitudes. I see no genuine basis at all for the suggestion that the participants mocked the victims of the Holocaust."

After the court case, Max Mosley announced that he would be setting up a fund to help less well-off people take legal action against newspapers which breached their privacy. He said: "I have learnt first-hand how devastating an invasion of privacy can be and how readily papers like the News of the World will destroy lives in the knowledge that few of their victims will dare sue them. I want to encourage a change in that practice."

In these observations, Max Mosley surely has justice more securely on his side than does Paul Dacre in his sanctimonious and self-serving moralisings.

Dacre’s elevated moral tone is in contrast with the practice of the Daily Mail

Everybody who has been the subject of coverage in the newspapers knows that they routinely, unashamedly publish lies and that - fearing no reprisal or punishment - they care nothing about the consequences of their untruths upon the lives of their victims. No case more amply demonstrated that indifference than the treatment of the McCann parents over the abduction of their daughter Madeleine.

Could any falsehood be more foul and loathsome than to allege, without any reason or evidence, that a child's parents had been culpable in her disappearance and/or death? The Express Group newspapers which profited for months from trading in that horrible fiction fully deserved the penalties that were meted out in court when the McCanns sued.

The truth is that our national press is a degraded institution - one which traffics in degradation with increasing desperation as its revenues collapse. If newspapers lose their mass circulation, as Paul Dacre fears, they will merely suffer the fate they richly deserve. thefirstpost

I did check out the owners of the paper, Dennis Publishing. They appear to be independent of the usual scumbags, and they do print Viz, so I guess I can make allowances.

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California Prisons: I wouldn't Put These Blokes In Charge of My Dog

Assuming I had one.

Mean, petty, vindictive, and possessed of infinitely more authoritarian attitude than brains, that I'll guarantee.

Mind you, the inmates are just as bad, if they had a brain between them they would put aside the infantile gang culture, bury their differences and join together to face the common enemy, the Department of Corrections. They might actually achieve a bit of something that way.

Gangs! I ask you, I gave up gangs when I gave up short pants.

What are they measuring here, his hight or his IQ?

Prisoner Health Deteriorates as California Clamps Down on Hunger Strike
by Julianne Hing
13/10/2011

Inmate health is deteriorating as prison officials clamp down on a hunger strike throughout California state prisons that’s entering its third week.

Inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison have been calling on prison officials to improve prison conditions and reform discipline policies that they say lead to the unfair and indefinite isolation of inmates into the notorious supermaximum security wing of the Security Housing Unit.

After staging what they thought was a successful hunger strike over the summer, inmates restarted their strike on September 26 out of frustration with the slow pace of talks between inmates, their advocates and prison officials. This time around though, prison officials have clamped down on the strikers, classifying the strike as a disturbance and removing visitor privileges for those who are participating. Inmate advocates say that prison officials have used new tactics, like blasting the air condition on in the middle of the night for prisoners, to retaliate against them.

They remove their property, and they’ve taken absolutely everything away from them, and even the ones that just went on the hunger strike just a week have been told they’re not going to get their property back until the whole thing is over,” said Dolores Canales, whose son John has been in the SHU for ten years.

“They’ve been punished and the [California Department of Corrections] is treating this like a disturbance as if there were a work strike, but it’s a peaceful protest.”

Prison officials confirmed that those who’ve been identified as organizers of the hunger strike have been moved to the so-called Ad-Seg unit, but say that their tough response to hunger strikers is motivated by concern for the safety of other inmates. Terry Thornton, a spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said that prison officials were taken aback by the second hunger strike.

“We’re frankly a bit puzzled as to why they started this action,” Thornton said. “After the first one, we fixed our inconsistencies. Everything we said we were going to do that we could do, we did, and everything we said we could look at we did.”

One of inmates’ top demands has been that the CDCR do away with a policy that allowed prisoners to confidentially label other prisoners as gang members in exchange for removal from the SHU. The policy, inmates said, gave prisoners the wrong motivation to unfairly and often inaccurately inform prison officials. The prison is evaluating this policy, Thornton said, and it’s currently going through an internal review with a wardens’ advisory group that should come up with a draft by next month.

Thornton said that unlike the first hunger strike, prison officials were given no notice that there would be a round two this fall. “This time around we are taking a different approach because we have done everything we said we were going to do,” Thornton said. “Engaging in this kind of disruptive activity is a violation of state law now.”

“If this wasn’t a crisis before, it’s been exacerbated by the health conditions of inmates and now you have the CDCR not responding positively to mediation and to the demands of prisoners,” said Isaac Ontiveros, an organizer of the Prisoner Hunger Strike network, a coalition of inmate advocate groups.

Ontiveros said that this time around, legal advocates for inmates had been locked out and that there had been no conversation between inmate advocates and prison officials. Thornton confirmed that there was no dialogue happening.

At its height, the hunger strike was said to be up to include 12,000 inmates, according to prisoner advocates’ estimates. But both sides say prison officials’ security measures against inmates have pushed some participating inmates to relent. “It’s been an attempt to freeze them out, as it were,” Ontiveros said. For some it appears to be working. As of Wednesday, 497 inmates in four prisons were participating in the hunger strike, including 68 in Pelican Bay, Thornton said.

For Ontiveros and Canales, their concern is the deteriorating health of inmates. According to Ontiveros, one participating striker at Pelican Bay had to be taken to an Oregon hospital after suffering a heart attack. Thornton, who would not comment on inmate health care, said the CDCR will continue to treat the hunger strike as a disturbance.

“They’ve endured this already for so many years,” Canales said. “We’ve heard from some prisoners throughout the state who have said they are going to go all the way and going to hold out to the end until change comes.” ColorLines

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Speaking of North Carolina, God's Own Little Bit of Country

Speak of North Carolina we may, (below) but not of my memory please.

I know for a fact, that somewhere on one of my blogs there is a reference to what is writ below. Quite possibly, and in light that no amount searches would bring the thing up, quite possibly then it is in the form of an extended comment somewhere. But where, I haven't a clue.

Not for the first time then, when I couldn't find something, I went and Googled a few key words, and viola! there it was. But not on any of my blogs I'm embarrassed to say. And that's the scary bit, I don't have the faintest recollection of ever writing this piece during my time as a guest writer at the blog, Vidiotspeak.

I don't think I want to travel further down that particular road, so I will just post the original article word for word. The only difference between then and now, I can now embed the video in question.

Yours truly
Leslie Welch!

Greensboro boy! Why Greensboro North Carolina Is God's Own Little Bit Of Country
posted by oscar wilde
March 25, 2007

It has lurked there for many a year, tucked away in the back of the mind, but still there none the less.
Not unsurprisingly then that it should be brought to the fore after my recent re-hash of "Dildos in South Carolina" article. I know the true heading should be "sex toys," if one were to be pedantic about things, but somehow the word dildo by far better captures the essence of the story, never more so than associating it with Davenport the sponsor of the sex toys bill.

A bill incidentally that would exact far greater penalties for selling a dildo (5 years + $10,000) than would be received for transgressing most of South Carolina's firearms laws,(section 16-23-20) scant few that they are. (That is some wicked amount of jail time.)
In fact one only has to have a brief scan as to how few controls are in place for gun purchase, that the very thought of it is enough to give us Europeans the heeby jeebies.

That said, given the amount of guns that are in circulation, the murder rate, the violent nature of American society and the disproportionate number of nutters that abound there, I too would want weapon, in fact I would want one for every day of the week and two for Sunday's, definitely two for Sundays, one should always make adequate provision for running foul of those suffering from extreme delusions.

I don't write as an anti-gun activist, after all the damage is done, the guns are out there already, little point then in trying to take away the legal ones, can't have a situation where it's just the black hats running around shooting up Dodge, old Hopalong wouldn't have lasted long under those kind of circumstances.

No not anti-gun at all, I couldn't be, not after being a keen skeet shooter myself, so keen in fact I look back and think about the amount of money I smoked down the end of a barrel and think small countries were run on a lesser budget. If that was the case with my skeet shooting, when I took up trap shooting as an added discipline, well, let's not go there shall we.

But there were reasonable controls in place for gun ownership, and after an incident with a nutter of our own controls went from reasonable to strict. Steel gun cabinets bolted to the wall became mandatory for shotguns, pistol clubs disappeared, in fact I don't think Joe public can own a handgun under any circumstances these days.

It was some time after this I had a wee brush with the law, getting pulled for a DUI, subsequently resulting in a riot act letter from the head honcho in blue. The usual yada yada as to my suitability to own a shotgun , the whole nine yards in fact. He sounded a biteen upset, I can't help but wonder how he would have sounded if he knew I had the gun in the trunk at the time of arrest.

You will have to forgive my little digressions, I quite enjoy going off on little tangents, it keeps my interest if not yours.

The late seventies saw me, my wife, and two small daughters living in Canada but tiring of the place somewhat and before our planned return to England a year later fancied a change of scenery, stateside seemed to fit the bill.
Securing a job wasn't a problem at all at all, held in high esteem are we toolmaking Brits, and soon narrowed it down between a choice of two, just let me at this juncture mention pay rates, for no other reason than to highlight how dismally low the minimum wage is at present.
I was making eight dollars an hour in Canada, one of the job choices was in Covina California, a place that was looking the favourite of the two, that rascal paid, albeit for fifty hours per week, twenty eight thousand a year, handy enough money by anybodies stretch.

Still sitting on the fence as to which job to accept I read a bit of something in the paper, not whilst sat on the fence of course. Some poor lass not too far from Covina had run afoul of a crazy who took it upon himself to cut the arms off this lass at the elbows, and really didn't have a reason other than he was an evil bastard, well as the parents of two pre-teen girls you can imagine how quickly the lustre of California tarnished. So there we were, mind made up for us.

I'd be thinking, I better check out just what kind of gaff the other place was. So I duly phone yer man down there and basically ask him if it's safe for my wife and kids to walk the the streets, you already know the reply:
Greensboro boy! Why Greensboro North Carolina is God's own little bit of country.

Not two days later the wife and I were watching the evening news and low and behold, an item of news from God's own little bit of country. Vid now below.

Never did get to the States.

Original post here.





And if you think that's bit of an eye-opener, Google 'Greensboro Massacre' and see how it played out. You gotta love that justice, in God's own little corner of the world.

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It's 2011 -- Why Is God Still Involved In American Politics? Speaking For God

I should have had this post out earlier in the week, but I have been in recovery. Not from too much grog, or even bad drugs, no something far more brain damaging than either of those. Mormonism! I've been reading about Mormonism, the tenets of Mormonism to be exact.

No linky for you just yet, because there is, once I've made myself a tin-foil hat, hopefully a post in the making. And if I can do justice to the thing, it should be of such incredulity, that you yourselves might have to retire to the bed chamber, quite possibly, with more than just a touch of the vapours. Of that though, another day.

Just a couple of paragraphs to get the feel, and then on to the article proper.

Things that used to be considered beyond the pale in politics, such as religious intolerance or ministers blatantly claiming they know who God supports in an election, have become normalized to the point where someone like Mitt Romney, who is odious in most respects but has never really made much of a fuss over his faith, is seeing religious tests becoming a major issue in his campaign.

Yes, just like the revival tent, going beyond the pale is just but a memory. But not so for those that speak for God; modern day Elmer Gantries! we got 'em coming out the woodwork. Ain't we Glenn? ain't we Pat?

Glenn Beck, Unhinged in Texas A read in its own right.

But it's this bit that's the cracker. Believe in the most outlandish batshit crazy stuff that you could possibly dream up and you are qualified to run for office. Believe in reality, and you haven't a snowball in hell's chance of being elected. Or if by some miracle (In the name of Noodles, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful) that you do manage to slip through the net, then beware, for "The Christians immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to him." (Not)

I think ministering angels are a bit thin on the ground in North Carolina, not unlike Christians I shouldn't wonder.

Atheists already face discrimination when it comes to running for public office. A number of states ban atheists from holding public office, even though the U.S. Constitution explicitly forbids religious tests for office. Of course, it’s difficult for an atheist to win enough votes to get office, so this conflict hasn’t been tested much, although one atheist city council member found himself under fire by religious bigots who wanted to use North Carolina’s ban on atheists holding office to push him out for not swearing his oath of office on the Bible.

I have embedded the short Rachel Maddow clip leading from the A number of states ban link. Perhaps it might be as well watching it first; whatever?

It's 2011 -- Why Is the Christian God Still Involved In American Politics?

The Mormon-bashing directed at Mitt Romney should concern everyone for what it reveals about the undue influence of religion in American elections.
By Amanda Marcotte
October 12, 2011

As an atheist and a liberal, it’s been tempting for me to simply laugh at Republicans fighting each other over the issue of whether or not Mitt Romney, a Mormon, gets to consider himself a Christian. From the non-believer point of view, it’s like watching a bunch of grown adults work themselves into a frenzy over the differences between leprechauns and fairies. But watching the debate unfold, I’ve become concerned about what it means to make someone’s religious beliefs such a big campaign issue, because it’s indicative of a larger eroding of the separation of church and state, which concerns not just atheists but all people who understand the importance of maintaining a secular government.

Robert Jeffress, an influential pastor who is the senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, went on "Focal Point" with Bryan Fischer and declared that one shouldn’t support Mitt Romney for president because Romney, a Mormon, isn’t a real Christian. This created a media dustup that was silly even by the usual standards of ever-sillier mainstream media campaign coverage. John King of CNN interviewed Jeffress, focusing strictly on the question of who Jeffress believes deserves to be called a Christian, and how firmly he believes that only people he calls Christians should hold public office. Candy Crowley of CNN dogged both Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann on the question of whether or not they believe Romney is a Christian, and then she got irate with the candidates when they refused to answer the question, claiming that it’s irrelevant.

These interviews are remarkable for what the CNN anchors didn’t discuss, which was the most important question of all: the separation of church and state. Even though our nation has a tradition of pastors staying out of partisan politics -- in fact, it is illegal for ministers to endorse candidates from the pulpit -- it seemingly never occurred to King to challenge Jeffress for overstepping his bounds by telling people that God wants an evangelical Christian who is a Republican for president. By making the story about whether or not Mormons are Christians, CNN left the viewer with the impression that only Christians deserve to hold public office, and that the only thing left to debate is whether or not someone “counts” as a Christian, making him or her eligible for office.

We’re a long way from the days when John Kennedy assured the public that he respected the separation of church and state and would keep his faith separate from his policy-making decisions. Now, even mainstream reporters take it as a given that politicians will let religion govern their actions, and the only thing left to debate on theology is how many angels any single politician believes dance on the head of a pin. Things that used to be considered beyond the pale in politics, such as religious intolerance or ministers blatantly claiming they know who God supports in an election, have become normalized to the point where someone like Mitt Romney, who is odious in most respects but has never really made much of a fuss over his faith, is seeing religious tests becoming a major issue in his campaign.

The ramifications for this shift affect more than conservative Mormons trying to win as Republicans. By not challenging the assertion that only Christians should hold office, mainstream journalists encourage bigotry against all religious minorities, including atheists. Atheists already face discrimination when it comes to running for public office. A number of states ban atheists from holding public office, even though the U.S. Constitution explicitly forbids religious tests for office. Of course, it’s difficult for an atheist to win enough votes to get office, so this conflict hasn’t been tested much, although one atheist city council member found himself under fire by religious bigots who wanted to use North Carolina’s ban on atheists holding office to push him out for not swearing his oath of office on the Bible.

There’s a reason the Founding Fathers wrote a national constitution that forbade religious tests for office and required the separation of church and state. It’s not just protection against the escalating religious bigotry we're seeing lately, but also because religion should have no place in politics in the first place. Neither atheists nor believers benefit when leaders are guided more by religious dogma than by rationality. Angels and demons might be a fine thing to worry about when you’re in church on Sunday, but when you’re trying to govern real people in the real world, it’s far better to rely on evidence and empirical facts, interpreted through reason and not through the guesswork of faith. This is why Kennedy defended himself against questions about his faith by saying, “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote.”

People like Robert Jeffress, when they propose religious tests for office--even ones held privately by voters--should face more challenges than reporters simply asking if they consider Mormons “real” Christians. They should be confronted with Kennedy’s words and asked directly why they disagree with our former president about the separation of church and state. They should be asked why they believe only a certain breed of Christians should hold office, and asked why they think it’s appropriate to demand that politicians put religious dogma before evidence-based and rational approaches to policy. Anything less than that is aiding the religious right in its mission to remake our secular democracy into a theocracy. It shouldn’t be tolerated. AlterNet

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Women's Reproductive Rights: America The Next Nicaragua

Generally speaking, men shouldn't be within a hundred feet of issues surrounding women's reproductive rights. Politicians shouldn't be within a thousand yards, and US politicians shouldn't be within a thousand miles of them. Because there is a no more disingenuous festering bowl of pus on this earth than the American politician.

One only has to remember the case of Terri Schiavo to have that confirmed. For those not familiar with that appalling spectacle; Terri Schiavo was a cabbage, a carcass kept functioning by purely artificial means. A carcass that is until she became cause celebre and political tool for every cheap huckster in congress. Congress in actual fact being recalled to make cheap politics over the affair. George Bush cut short his holiday to fly back to Washington to get involved, that should tell you enough, fuck me! he didn't manage to do that when Louisiana was drowning.

And the bottom line to all this, when they finally autopsied the woman? She had an atrophied brain the size of a walnut, she had been clinically dead for years. Government involvement in the Terri Schiavo case

Watch these three short clips and then tell me that men should debate women's issues. Nor for that matter, batshit crazy evangelical, concerned vaginas for America




Frist Diagnosing Terry Schiavo on Senate Floor

George W. Bush Discusses Terri Schiavo: Today millions of Americans are saddened by the death of Terri Schiavo. Laura and I extend our condolences to Terri Schiavo's families. I appreciate the example of grace and dignity they have displayed at a difficult time. I urge all those who honor Terri Schiavo to continue to work to build a culture of life, where all Americans are welcomed and valued and protected, especially those who live at the mercy of others. The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak. In cases where there are serious doubts and questions, the presumption should be in the favor of life. The most solemn duty of the American President is to protect the American people.

George W Bush on the value of life!

Michele Bachmann refers to Terri Schiavo as a "healthy" woman. The audience clearly disagrees.

Do I need to highlight the involvement of Satan's spawn in all this, the Holy Order of misogynist arse bandits, boy buggerers extraordinaire? No, one only has to read the Nicaragua post to lay the blame at the right door.

Congress Contemplates Brutal Anti-Abortion Law
By Rick Ungar
Oct. 12, 2011

In what would be a major and potentially deadly change in American healthcare policy, The House of Representatives will take up H.R. 358 —The Protect Life Act—this week. The bill would permit federally funded hospitals to refuse abortion services even to women who would likely die without the procedure.

As the law currently stands, hospitals are required by EMTALA to provide emergency care to anyone who walks through their doors. If a hospital is unable or unwilling to perform a necessary procedure, it is obligated to stabilize the patient and then transfer the individual to a facility that can perform the procedure and agrees to do so. As a result of the EMTALA requirements, the 600 plus Catholic hospitals in the nation who are unwilling to perform abortions on religious grounds, even in life-threatening circumstances to the mother, are obligated to transfer that patient in need of such a procedure to a hospital that agrees to perform the required operation.

If The Protect Life Act were to pass, this would no longer be the case. Hospitals that do not care to perform abortions, for whatever reason and even when the procedure is required to save the life of the mother, would be legally permitted to simply do nothing.

While one might anticipate that hospitals refusing to perform abortions would transfer a patient in life-threatening circumstances to a facility willing to perform the abortion, I wouldn't be so sure.

In 2009, a Phoenix-based Catholic bishop excommunicated Sister Margaret McBride, an administrator at St. Joseph's Hospital, for authorizing an abortion in the case of a woman who was suffering from pulmonary hypertension and was likely to die without the procedure. In stating his reasons for this extreme act, the Archdiocese issued a statement saying, in part:

An unborn child is not a disease. While medical professionals should certainly try to save a pregnant mother's life, the means by which they do it can never be by directly killing her unborn child. The end does not justify the means.

The direct killing of an unborn child is always immoral, no matter the circumstances, and it cannot be permitted in any institution that claims to be authentically Catholic.

Given this line of thought, should The Protect Life Act become the law, it seems unlikely that such a Catholic institution would voluntarily send a patient over to another facility knowing that an abortion was going to take place.

And the bill doesn't stop at allowing hospitals to let mothers face death. It would also deny federal funding to a health care plan that offers to pay for abortion services even in life-threatening circumstances.

Dawn Laguens, executive vice-president for communications at Planned Parenthood, summed it up quite nicely:

This is just a demolition derby for women's health care. To first say, 'We won't even treat you if you show up needing a life-saving abortion,' and then to eliminate health insurance that might have saved your family from bankruptcy is a real one-two gut punch to women in these tough economic times.

So, how is it that the sponsors and backers of this bill happen to be the same people who constantly rail against government intruding in our lives yet would now empower medical facilities to allow a woman to die if their respective religious beliefs do not match up?

Demolition derby, indeed. motherjones

Related: Of Abortion, and Women as the Ultimate Source of Evil by Arthur Silber

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A re-up from October 2007

"Here there is a lot of religiosity but only a little Christianity." : Nicaragua

Why I hate Religion, chapter Six Hundred and Sixty Six.


Last November it became a crime for a woman to have an abortion in Nicaragua, even if her life was in mortal danger. So far it has resulted in the death of at least 82 women. Rory Carroll reports on the fight to have the law changed

González was not stupid and did not want to die. She knew her chance of surviving the butchery was small. But being a practical woman, she recognised it was her only chance, and took it. The story of why it was her only chance is an unfolding drama of religion, politics and power that has made Nicaragua a crucible in the global battle over abortion rights. This central American country has become the third country in the world, after Chile and El Salvador, to criminalise all abortions. It is a blanket ban. There are no exceptions for rape, incest, or life- or health-threatening pregnancies.



Pope Benedict XVI welcomed the ban but added that women should not suffer or die as a result. "In this regard, it is essential to increase the assistance of the state and of society itself to women who have serious problems during pregnancy."more

And with those words washed his hands of all moral obligation to women.

it is essential to increase the assistance of the state and of society itself to women who have serious problems during pregnancy."

It's Nicaragua you disingenuous fuckdog, the second poorest country in Latin America.

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