America Defunded

A Federal shutdown is nothing new even when most of us are acting as if it is the end of the world. For the last 37 years there has been a total of 18 Federal shutdowns, including the one we are experiencing now.

Every one of the previous shutdowns were due to differences of opinions about spending, about funding bills that were to be passed… none of them were about bills that were already law. President Carter experienced 5 shutdowns mostly because the Senate and the House couldn’t agree if Medicaid should pay for abortions or not. There were 8 Federal shutdowns during President Reagan’s presidency; most of them were because the Senate and the House couldn’t agree regarding increasing or decreasing the defense budget and funding the Nicaraguan Contras. This is the first time in history that there’s a Federal shutdown because the House wants to defund a law, not a bill but a constitutional law. This is the first time that Republicans in office have said repeatedly, since 2010, of their desire for a Federal shutdown and this is what makes it not only different but dangerous.

These same Republicans have been threatening about allowing the United States economy to crash to get their wish. They have tried to obstruct raising the debt ceiling before, they even accomplished our credit rating to drop for the first time. Raising the debt ceiling is less than two weeks away and we all know they will use it once more as an extortion tool to defund the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. These new Republicans, aka the Tea Party, are constantly manipulating the more seasoned Republicans in Congress who have become their puppets to fulfill their wishes. These new breed of Republicans do not care about the country, they couldn’t care less about our good standing or credit rating and have no understanding of what governing is all about. They claim they want a smaller government and I would think they wished there was no government at all if it wasn’t because they are part of the government they say they hate so much, if it wasn’t because they keep thinking of more government intrusion to regulate and control women, minorities and the poor. They want to create more government but not for corporations or the wealthy – they protect those. That is the part of government they want to shrink, the one that regulate businesses, the one that prevent these corporations from abusing us even more than they already do.

If they use extortion again, we will once more default on our obligations and lose our credit rating. This will negatively affect not only the United States but also the world, which is already suffering from the austerity imposed by their government. The Tea Party can’t grasp that raising the debt ceiling in order to pay our debt is a must, non-negotiable and their constitutional obligation and definitively it’s not a choice.

You watch them laughing and practically celebrating every time they pull one of these “pranks.” They feel so proud of obstructing and destroying this country while screaming at the top of their lungs how much they love America and that they want to return America to its glory days.

What many people don’t realize is that the “glory days” they’re talking about has absolutely nothing to do with the economical prosperity of its citizens. They couldn’t care less if people are sinking more and more into poverty, which is not their concern and some of them have openly said it is not their problem. The “glorious” days they want to return to are the days where blacks were segregated, where women had no voice and where white men, especially the wealthy, ruled.

That’s their vision and their goal.

It is up to us, the American citizen to stop it and to prick their delusional bubble and clean house in 2014. No matter how difficult they have made it in Red States we should vote in masses. We have a little over a year to plan and organize. We must make sure that every single voter votes, if they don’t have transportation, we must rent buses and get them there. If they don’t have all the documents needed, we should help them get those papers. If it is the last thing we do, we must unite and save our country and ourselves from these traitors that wrap themselves on the flag while holding the bible instead of the Constitution.

I'm Resolved to Steal (IRS)

I am a Liberal, a Democrat Liberal but before being a political person, I try to be a righteous individual and I will not do what Conservatives do: excuse whatever wrongs those in my Party are caught doing. I said “caught doing” because I am certain that all politicians are crooks, some more than others, but not all have been caught, yet.

The Cincinnati IRS scandal is one of the latest political scandals to hit the airwaves last week. Republicans and obviously the Tea Party – who was the IRS’ target – are all up in arms about it and demanding for heads to roll, and rightly so.

I’ve heard that the reason the IRS targeted Tea Party’s organizations was because after President Obama was elected, and before the elections of 2010, there was an overwhelming number of Tea Party organizations applying for section 501(c)(1), which would provide them tax exempt status and having so many applications, it made their job easier to pin point those that seemed to be political in nature rather than organizations involved in social welfare or charities. Chris Hayes, from MSNBC, showed a graph where you could see that the number of political organizations doubled while the IRS employees decreased in that period of time.

According to many news groups and even on publications so reputable such as Times, the scrutinized organizations applied for 501(c)(4) and if this is true, then the IRS had every right to investigate them because section 501(c)(4) its for organizations whose primary activity is social welfare and not political ones.

Now, why would these political organizations apply for this exemption when there is one that will allow them to do everything they want, legally, and with the tax exemptions they seek?

I understand that for members of the Tea Party what they are doing, in their minds, is for the social welfare of the citizens but anyone with an ounce of gray matter can identify their activities are political, not social. They campaign to have members of their Party elected to office. What social welfare or charity do they engage in to claim exemption on 501(c)(4)? What they should have filed under was 527(e)(2).

What’s wrong here is that the IRS targeted them, but then again, if you have 500 applications and 450 are from the same Party chances are that there will be more applications selected for audit or questioning than from any other group, it’s simple math. But the IRS admits to look for organization’s names that had “Patriot” or “Tea Party” in it, and that is selective scrutiny and no matter how you slice it, it is wrong.

I doubt the President or any other member of Congress – from any Party – were informed of what the IRS was doing. One must keep in mind that the IRS has a special relationship with government, almost as loving as with us mere mortals. While they enjoy almost every perk government officials do, they are not part of the government as the FBI or the CIA is.

I blame Lois Lerner, the person in charge of overseeing the Department of Tax-exemptions. She should have been aware of what was going on and stop it. As I said before, the IRS was right in investigating the applications because they were applying under the wrong section, but targeting a group based on the name of their organizations was and is wrong.

One way to fix this is to end, once and for all, Citizen’s United. Citizen’s United has made of an already corrupt political system a mockery of democracy, where individuals cannot compete with the funds provided by these organizations to support their candidates or agenda and where sooner rather than later, the wealthy will be the ones placing their puppets in the Oval Office and when they do this, it will be the end of America as we know it.

The political party should provide the campaign funds to their candidates and this amount should be a set amount for all candidates of all Parties, as an example a Republican candidate will be given 100 thousand for his or her campaign, the rival will be given the same amount by his/her Party. Ads should be provided by the media, free of charge and as a tax deductible for the media and providing equal space and/or air to each of the candidates. We must make the system work if we are to continue being “We the People.”

In Their Image

Ephesians 5:22-33

22 Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

For many, it is difficult to understand women serving at State or Federal levels who are diligently working against what took decades, if not centuries, for women to attain. No one can understand why these women are working against their own gender and benefit.

What everyone seem to overlook is that these women are religious fanatics, they will not object or go against men in their circle. Ephesians 5:22-33 is a clear example of what these women have been taught to believe since birth.

Many Republicans and all the members of the Tea Party are religious fanatics and in States where they have secured the Governorship or the majority of the State Legislature they are working frantically in passing laws aimed at crushing and destroying women’s rights.

They haven’t stopped at State level, but thankfully the Senate is still under the control of the Democrats and they haven’t been able to push their agenda nationwide.

These Republicans like to think they are “holier than thou,” most call themselves pro-life but in reality they are pro-fetus or as someone said, pro-pregnancy because most of them don’t give a damn about a child once it has been born. Perhaps it’s the proximity of the child to the vagina during birth that repulse them and make them lose interest on what once was their only objective; all I know is that while it was a zygote, an embryo or a fetus it was sacred but once is born it loses importance. If the mother is poor, then it is seen as a parasite or an excuse for the mother “to live in the lap of luxury” thanks to the government and their tax dollars. I don’t know which is it, all I know is that once the child is born, is no longer significant for them.

These people say that they want small government, if anyone mentions any restrictions on guns, as simple and logical as a background check, they’ll scream that the government wants to infringe on their rights and on their privacy – they’ll go berserk over a piece of metal – but they see no problem whatsoever in telling women what they can or can’t do with their bodies or their decisions. They have thought of everything imaginable to control what happens in a woman’s womb: ultrasounds, probes, mandatory waiting periods… you name it, they’ve thought of it and presented their ideas to the legislature in the form of a bill. If it involves a vagina, then it’s game and they believe it’s perfectly reasonable for them to have the right to decide, to invade and intrude a woman’s vagina, a woman’s life and a woman’s decision… Talk about rights and invasion of privacy!

These people are also against same-sex marriage.

Their hateful agenda doesn’t end with women, even when women are their main point of interest. No, their focus is also on same-sex marriages. These politicians like to think of themselves as righteous and God-fearing people. They are quick to mention the sanctity of marriage – even when some of them have been married several times (dragging that sanctity in the mud), even when some have been caught with prostitutes or some have even had a mistresses for years; it doesn’t matter because these politicians always find a way to excuse their behavior, by falsely apologizing with a well rehearsed speech then in an amazing act of general amnesia, they will at unison, forget the sins of their counterparts and rapidly transpose those “sins” onto a Democrat who they will viciously and inexorably try to destroy.

They compare same-sex marriage to incest and bestiality, they call it an abomination and they are keen to read passages from the Bible to validate their opinion. Leviticus is their favorite.

22 Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. Lev. 20.13

The Religious Right is crazy about that verse; they bring it up every time someone is debating same-sex marriage. As it’s common among these people, they pick and choose what remains unchangeable in the Old Testament and what has changed thanks to Jesus.

They completely ignore the following verses:

11 Ye shall not steal, Ex. 20.15 · Deut. 5.19 neither deal falsely, Ex. 20.16 · Deut. 5.20 neither lie one to another. I don’t think I need to dwell on this, we all know politicians break this law. 

13 Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning. Deut. 24.14, 15.  Should I mention that Republicans are against increasing the minimum wage? 

15 Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment; thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor. Ex. 23.6-8 · Deut. 16.19.  They only obey the part about not respecting the poor, but they waste no time in revering the wealthy!

33 And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. Most of them are against Immigration Reform and the Dreamers Act, and many of them simply hate undocumented immigrants.   

34 But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: Ex. 22.21 · Deut. 24.17, 18 ; 27.19 I am the LORD your God. Should I remind anyone about the electric fence?

No, none of the other commands found in Leviticus are to be observed, the first thing they’ll tell you is that Jesus came to change all that… all, except Leviticus 18:22. It is ironic that Jesus never said a single word about homosexuality, but we must believe that Jesus was a hater, just like they are. These people adore a God made to their image, completely ignoring that is supposed to be the other way around.

Let’s play ball!

It is incredible how many people are still protesting against the Health Care Reform Act and carrying big signs denouncing the unconstitutionality or their outrage for this bill.

I can understand up to a point that the people feel upset that they will be forced to get health insurance. What I can’t understand is their outcry that they don’t want government to get involved in their health issues… That outrage of course lasts until they reach their golden years and retire. The sad thing is, these seniors and retirees that are screaming that they don’t want government “making their health care decisions” have Medicare, and God forbid that someone takes that away from them! What do these people think Medicare is? Medicare is what all of us would have been entitled to if it wasn’t for all the morons that were against single payer or public option. The stigma of the government involved in our health issues was greater than the benefits we could have enjoyed.

Since we couldn’t get the public option or single payer because of all the false allegations that the political liars used to instill fear on the elderly and the gullible, we now have to pay for private insurance… because the rights of the health insurance companies were far more important than our own personal interests.  We have the Tea Party and Republicans to thank for that one. The same people that didn’t want to have a single payer or public option and don’t want to be forced to get health insurance claiming it is unconstitutional. Why is health insurance unconstitutional and not, let’s say, automobile insurance? Why is it that health insurance is an evil thing that government shouldn’t mandate or impose on all of us when not having it affects us ALL yet, it is OK to be forced to have auto insurance for every single vehicle we own?  Why is it OK for one type of enforced insurance but not the other?

When a person that doesn’t have health insurance is hospitalized and can't or won't pay the bill, we end up ‘picking up’ that tab. Every year hospitals nationwide ‘lose’ millions of dollars in unpaid balances incurred by uninsured people incapable or unwilling to pay their debt. The reality is that no hospital really loses money, they just increase the price of their services making all of us that have insurance to pay for those that didn’t. And all of us, those that incurred in the bill and those who see their premium increase pay again in the form of taxes, the government assumes a lot of those loses... kind of a bail out for hospitals.

If you have an automobile or motorcycle and you have a traffic accident, chances are that there will be two cars involved.  Usually, the person that hits pay for the repairs or medical needs of the injured through their insurance and their insurance premiums most likely will increase when they renew their policies.  Automobile insurance companies raise the premiums nationwide according to the accident ratio within that city or state.  Most of us hate them, but since it is the law to have it, we conform... Except if you live in New Hampshire where having automobile insurance it's an option, I think I will move there!

It seems that for Americans protecting an object is far more important than protecting themselves.  We hear people say all the time when their vehicles have been stolen things like "thank God I had insurance!"or "I don't worry because I'm insured."  Why don't they think the same way when it comes to their own person, their own bodies?  Once again, an object is far more important than a person.  No wonder they granted "personhood" status to corporations and we, the workers, have become the property of these corporations!

And now, here we are again fighting against the “Obamacare” as it has been "baptized". This bill has been taken to the Supreme Court to deem it unconstitutional.  It is sad that most likely they will win and repeal the law, after all the Supreme Justices enjoy having Public Option until the day they die.

I believe that is a shame. Many people that could be insured with preexisting conditions will  have no insurance and that includes babies and children. These people once again will have no insurance and perhaps due to being uninsured they may lose their lives.  We can place this injustice on those same people that are constantly yelling how precious every life is: the pro-life people. Once again they have proven that the only life they care for are the one before it passes the birth canal, once you take a breath you are on your own!

I suggest that all the judges and politicians that are fighting and claiming Obamacare as unconstitutional to have their insurance revoked. No more government insurance for them since it is so evil. We progressives and liberals are always trying to work for the people and if these people don’t want insurance especially insurance provided by the government, then we should take that burden away from them. The same can be said about all the senior citizens that have fought so vehemently against government subsidized insurance; let’s cancel their Medicare, Medicaid and food stamps. What do they think those are, manna?  I am sure they will be thrilled since in their opinion they do not use any government assistance and want government out of their lives, let’s be nice and give them what they want.

Let’s repeal Obamacare but do what I suggest above. All congressmen that are against Obamacare, revoke their insurance. Every citizen that has signed anything against Obamacare, let’s cancel his or her government provided insurance. Let’s start playing their game. Let's begin by automatically canceling health insurance of all the fat cats in Congress that have done nothing but inflict fear in their constituents and of all the seniors that claim that government should stay away from their health insurance.  When they stop getting these benefits, they will be begging for the Single Payer Option, not Obamacare which is the watered down version of what was original intended… Let the games begin!

Changing Course

I love this country and it hurts to see the downward path in which it’s going thanks to the Christian Fundamentalists.

During the last thirty years or so, slowly at first and rapidly during the last ten years, the country has seen the Christian Fundamentalists; exercise their influence in Congress, ignoring our Constitution for their personal religious gain, while claiming that they want to honor the Constitution. These Fundamentalists, now better known as the Tea Party, will rally behind any white politician that is willing to dance to the tune they play, which it’s usually anything that is against science, technological advances and respecting every individual’s right to choose, whether this choice is to have a family or to choose a spouse of the same sex. If the Fundamentalists aka The Tea Party doesn’t like what you like, too bad for you. They feel they have the right to interfere in your personal life, in who you choose to love, whether you choose to have a family or terminate a pregnancy for whichever reason you may have; no one chooses an abortion lightly the woman that chooses to terminate a pregnancy does so after serious thoughts about that action, it is always a hard and difficult decision but it should always be a personal decision, not a government decision or a community decision. But to the Fundamentalists, it doesn’t matter that you might be an atheist and therefore you have no fear of the afterlife or if you will burn for eternity in the fire pits of hell – the Fundamentalists believe that their God is a vengeful god and apparently they have a direct line to the almighty where He tells them what to do and who can do it and you, a mere mortal, have no saying in the matter – out the window goes the ‘free will.’ They believe in Judgment Day but, they have decided that their God might not be a very good judge to ‘prosecute’ you so instead; they have decided to be judge, juror and executioners. This same group of Fundamentalists while Liberals make fun of them, have shown they’re smart enough or at least their leaders are, to invade our political system, manipulated it in their favor and now they even have members of Congress that proudly claim to be part of The Tea Party. Fundamentalists long for the good old days, where white mobs were free to lynch black people without being brought to justice, they long for the Victorian age, they long for the time where Civil Rights were nonexistent or were only applied to white people. They want to live in the past, no matter how obscure this past was, for them it was the ‘Golden Age.’

It is time to fight fire with fire. It is imperative that we elect Obama in 2012 and that we get more liberals and progressives to fill the House and the Senate; we must kick out from Congress as many Fundamentalists, Republicans, Blue Dogs and “Teapers” as we possibly can; We, as a nation, must continue fighting to maintain the position as leaders of the Free World, the country of all. The only country whose Preamble to the Declaration of Independence clearly states “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.” We can’t allow these words to lose their meaning. We can’t allow Fundamentalists to choose who is an equal or who is entitled to Life, Liberty and above all, pursuit of Happiness. They yearn for a past long gone and we should never look back; it is our duty to look optimistically and work towards a better future for ALL. We should never go back in time, it can’t be done, and it’s futile. We can't continue to look backwards, not to the preceding administration nor to the previous century; the time is well overdue to set our eyes in the future, no nation has ever advanced while immovable, no nation can be in the past and pretend to be leaping forward, the future always lays ahead, never behind... The choice should be clear that in order for this nation to continue leading the world into the future, it must learn from its history but never remain a slave of the past.