Day: December 21, 2010

The Tea Party Nation, Religion, And America’s Presidents!

Ronald 1 Comment

Judson Phillips, the founder of the Tea Party Nation, a specific Tea Party group, has condemned the Methodist Church for supporting the DREAM Act for children of illegal immigrants, for backing Obama health care which he considers “socialism”, and he says the church is the “First Church of Karl Marx”!

Realize that Mr. Phillips used to be a member of the Methodist Church, but left the church because it is involved in what he considers interference with separation of church and state!

It is alright if a religious group of the right gets involved in taking political stands, apparently, but if a more open minded, liberal church takes leadership on political controversies, that somehow is a sin!

Going on that basis, it means a third of our Presidents must have been “socialists” or followers of “Marxism”, as they were involved in faiths NOT conservative in their doctrine, or not connected to organized religion at all!

Let’s go through the list of 15 Presidents who do not fit Judson Phillips’ satisfaction on religious beliefs!

Four Presidents were Methodists, including James K. Polk, Ulysses S. Grant, William McKinley, and George W. Bush, plus Rutherford B. Hayes, who was unaffiliated and then Methodist later in life.

Three were unaffiliated throughout life, including Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, with Grant and Hayes unaffiliated at times, and also Barack Obama.

Four Presidents were Unitarian, very far from traditional Christian religion, including John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore, and William Howard Taft.

Also, we have had two Quaker (Society of Friends) Presidents, also out of the mainstream of Christianity–Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon.

So apparently these 15 Presidents were heretics “in league with the devil”, because they had a more open mind on organized religion, and took a more compassionate, social justice view of what religion is all about!

This is exactly what we need, a President who believes in tolerance and concern for those less fortunate, as no one can be considered truly “religious” who has a narrow minded, intolerant view of those who are different than them, or less fortunate in economic circumstances!

Senator Arlen Specter’s Farewell Speech: Condemnation Of Chief Justice John Roberts And Associate Justice Samuel Alito On Judicial Activism, And Of Right Wing Republicans! :(

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Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania is retiring after a distinguished 30 year career, plus having served in local government, and on the staff of the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of President John F. Kennedy almost a half century ago.

Specter, often seen as a difficult man to work with, and possessing a large ego, lost his Senate nomination race to Joe Sestak after switching back to the Democratic Party that he had long ago been a member of, until he converted for a long time to the Republican Party.

Specter was head of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the hearings for the nominations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito, and today he denounced both Justices for violating their testimony during the hearings, which indicated they believed in precedent (stare decisis), but then proceeding to use judicial activism and violating the separation of powers doctrine, particularly in the Citizens United Case in January of this year, allowing unlimited spending by corporations after nearly a century of strict regulation by Congress of such actions.

So Specter joined the criticism of President Obama, enunciated by the President in his State of the Union Address, which annoyed both Roberts and Alito, with Roberts making a clearcut statement of dissent, amid hints that neither Justice might attend future State of the Union Addresses, which if actually done, would be highly inappropriate.

Specter also condemned right wing Republicans such as Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who worked against moderate Republicans in a number of states, causing the loss of seats for the party.

One thing about Specter–he does not worry what others think of him, and his leaving Congress will make it a less interesting and principled place for sure!

Tim Scott And Allen West: New Black GOP Congressmen Creating Headaches For Speaker Of The House John Boehner! :(

Ronald 1 Comment

Next month, John Boehner of Ohio becomes Speaker of the House, and he has been tearful about the fact that he has risen to the top from a difficult economic circumstance as a child.

But he may be doing more than being tearful, once he has to deal with the Tea Party favorites that have been elected in many House districts.

Already, the two freshman Black Republican Congressmen, Tim Scott of South Carolina, and Allen West of Florida, are causing grief with their statements and intended actions! 🙁

Scott and West both have spoken up against raising the debt limit when that unpleasant issue occurs in the spring, an action which if pursued by enough other Republicans in the House and Senate would cause the bankruptcy of the government, and lead to a world wide economic collapse.

Both Congressmen-elect talk about cutting hundreds of billions of dollars in spending as an alternative, which it is not, as to cut spending drastically at a time when most cities and states are already in bankruptcy or close to it, would cause human suffering and mass unemployment on a scale unseen since the Great Depression. 🙁

And the fact that these men are from minority background, and refuse to recognize that it is precisely people of their own race who are suffering the most when it comes to unemployment, bankruptcy, home foreclosures, hunger, and poverty in this economic downturn, makes them truly disgraceful, and is a sign of their truly loony and wacky behavior, in many ways worse than that of their white counterparts who are so far to the right that one wonders if they have basic humanity as part of their nature! 🙁