I Likey, You More Better, Capisce?

Tags

Catholic Church, faith my style, Humor

When all else fails, I can always talk about myself. It’s my favorite subject after all. Okay, like three dozen people just ran off to call in this story to their editors. . . .hot off the presses, Sherry is gonna talk about herself. Cheeky? Arrogant? Full of self? Oh yeah, all that.

Who does she think she is?

I said it before. Like her, or not, there are few other alternatives. She ain’t tepid oolong or Earl Grey.

She is me, and I’m gonna go out on a limb and suggest that you probably got that.

I’m like a cat on a hot tin roof.

Or not. Mostly not.

If I were an animal which one would I be?

Polar bear mama?

Ponder that with your swayt tea. Yeah, we get that down here in New Mexico. I frankly hate that stuff. Sugar in tea? Are you mad?

People make me wonder. I mean take Bobby Jiggles Jindal. That man has no more chance of winning the GOP nomination than I do of winning a best in show at Madison Square Garden. Yet he twattles on.

Twattle, is a word conceived in sexual confusion. A cross between cunt and flapping lips of the face. See? Now you get it.

It’s a hell of a thing when your spiritual guru is a gang banger.

Well, not really, but sorta.

Yesterday I was a sittin’ in the pew when I noticed a young man with the usual accoutrements of style. . .ear-ring, sleeves cut out of the t-shirt. jeans, sneakers. He was sittin’ a few pews to the front of me.

Which made it convenient to watch.

So instead of concentrating on my own sinful self, I was bemused by this young man’s spiritual methodology. A very long time on the kneeler. No singing of entrance hymns. No murmuring of the “profession of faith” which is such a convoluted rattling of various Council pronunciations as to be indecipherable to all but the most religiously stringent of the faithful.

When that Gloria came along, oh good grief. It’s so badly written as to leave a normal believer astounded that given the whole of the Roman Catholic Church, no better rendition can be rendered but this? A squawky, akin to the Star Spangled Banner inability to keep the tune, sort of music that is painful to the ears and the senses.

My gangbanger, stands stoicly.

Mostly he sits with his head down, as if he’s there to beg atonement for a laundry list of crimes too numerous to mention. “Sorry God, but I shot somebody in a drive-by, and then celebrated with some blow, while threatening the mama of my baby for not having my dinner ready.” In the next breath, more sinful conduct is extruded.

Is any of this real? Oh probably not at all. The dude is probably a pediatrician, just out in his hoodie regalia which helps him calm down from the high intensity life of savior of children.

I jest?

Mostly.

It provided a handy excuse for not paying attention as Father explained all about the Holy Spirit and how we neglect it in our prayers.

Is that true for you too?

Do you pray to Jesus or the Father or the Holy Spirit? All the same yet different as they say.

Is it reasonable that Christian theology must be so convoluted? I suspect it works for theologians who like to think of themselves as pretty smart folks. And they are for the most part. Least they sound that way.

So, I’m sittin’ in the pew, figurin’ this guy is really doin’ it right. Most people don’t if you noticed. They are rushin’ around front to back, always with the obligatory bow to acknowledge that Jesus is layin’ on the altar, while we are talkin’ to our neighbor in the pew about a meat sale at the Carniceria.

So, I’m not talkin’, just praying me some Rosary until the bells ring and they remind everyone to shut the phones off. And I’m watching my mentor. I watch him with his own style of reverence, again on that kneeler when most everybody else is standing, because  the whole consecration thing is something to be knelt about.

And I wonder what the hell am I doing here?

Trying to recapture what once I had, yet which has so thoroughly departed. The devotion, the intensity, the It fuckin’ matters syndrome, it seems ephemeral after all this. Yet, I turn attention back. Jesus, I am not worthy to have you “under my roof” which is another of those John Paul/Benedict changes that is just change for change’s sake.

And he goes up for communion, but he is ahead of me, and I don’t realize until I get back to my seat, conveniently marked by my purse (what do men do to find their seat again?), that he has gone.

Guru man, you are of that ilk, (which I have never been) of those who in the confusion of people traipsing from pew to communion and back again, against the backdrop of a couple of hundred faces, working out their salvation with a wafer and sip, chooses to keep walking to the back and out the doors. Done! Got what I came for. Jesus is digesting in my belly and I’m roaring off in my Mazda to new Saturday night adventures.

I’m a bit chagrined by this turn of events. I wanted him to remain pious to the last second. Maybe be one of those stalwart types who continues laboriously to sing the closing hymn while people jostle  to get by and into the aisle, seeking the fastest route of escape past the priest who is taking a stand outside hoping to catch every last hand as it passes.

Alas, he has escaped and I’m chagrined, yet I’ve spent exactly three minutes of the sixty actually contemplating my own salvation. I don’t account all that bunk for much actually. I am, as they say, more of a Matthew 25 person. Get on with feeding the hungry and tending to the sick.

My spiritual guru seems made of common clay after all.

I sigh.

Whatever I’m here for, I seem to find. Not sure what exactly that is. But I feel better about everything somehow.

I don’t find it makes me kinder to stupid drivers though. I still yell at them from the safety of my car seat, taking satisfaction in the fact that I’m not stellar driver, but I am damn well better than that!

And I put it all aside, as I do every Saturday evening. Done! Mass obligation met. No need to think about that until next Saturday.

Which reminds me of the old guy at the pool, who apologized so deeply and long for not being able to sign my petition to open the pool at 8 because as he said, he could never come early, since he’s at Mass every morning. Alex, who recites the Rosary while he walks the water channel, did sign. No morning mass for him.

Too much piety for me. Except when I was in formation to be a nun.

Oh that’s news to you?

Fancy that. I prolly should yak about that sometime.

But not today. I don’t like to brag, unless I have a captive audience. God I know, I’m such a bitch. Which makes you even madder doesn’t it?

Remember this: happiness is the best revenge.

We participate occasionally and poorly in SoCS.

 

 

Just Send Them to a Psychiatrist

Tags

budget, cartoons, Catholic Church, China, Congress, espionage, GOP, gun control, Humor, immigration, NRA, religion, teabaggers

I finally figured it out. How stupid of me not to have seen it before. Nobody beats their head against a wall forever. The outcome does not change.

It is apparent that the GOP is suffering from a bad case of masochism. I mean a really severe case of it. I mean let me explain it by way of a baby.

Okay, you hold an animal cracker in front of an infant, and they will reach for it. You hold out four animal crackers and they will drop the one and grab for the four. Then hold out one, and they will drop the four and grab for the one. They don’t differentiate because they don’t know the concept of quantity yet.

Now the GOP sorta like this. You dangle a few teabibbers in front of them, and they will drop a legion of regular fiscal conservatives. They can’t seem to get the idea of counting. They give up the vast middle because the fraction dances a jig in front of them and threatens to go (where exactly?).

I think they get a perverse sexual kick out of it. Just a theory mind you. But you explain why they can’t let go of the crazies in favor of a really much larger middle.

The Chinese are busy stealing our intellectual property.

That used to be done by stealth by men and women sneaking into offices and jimming safes and taking pictures of formulas.

Cloak and dagger stuff. Something you could at least applaud for the sheer audacity of it.

Now? It’s all done thousands of miles away by geeky types with lips smeared with pizza sauce and button-down plaid shirts and cheap sneakers.

I am very sure that if you go to that building in Shanghai where the special section of the Chinese army is busy breaking into computers all over our land, that is what you will find.

I think we should shame them. I mean, “hey Chinese government, can’t you think up these things yourself? Are you so pathetic in intellect that you have to steal it? So much  for your much touted smarts!”

After all, it worked so well with Japan and South Korea.

It must be something in the rice that makes these folks so wily when it comes to cheating. Or again, it may speak to just how smart they really are.

In any event, we are getting screwed.

The GOP are messing up the immigration thing.

There is no way out for them.

Even if the “calmer” heads in the GOP (stop laughing!) prevail, do you think that the Latino population is going to forget the fight within the party?

When folks are talking about keeping them in guest worker mode forever as a way to insure cheap labor for the “dirty” jobs, well, I think you have already lost the battle no matter what the final outcome.

Perhaps the GOP needs a lesson in “shut the f**k up” when it comes to talking outside of very very closed doors.

It’s that masochism thing again I think.

It is lost on no one, that anything the President proposes, is “dead on arrival”. They actually use those very words.

So if the President proposes  some ideas on immigration, they call it “interference” and “political posturing”. If he leaves Congress alone, they call it
“unengaged” and “not leading.”

They also think we are too dumb to catch on.

They always think we don’t see the truth.

But to be fair, when you have been divorced from the truth as long as they have on almost everything, it’s probably pretty hard to know fact from fiction.

And they are still using the old Rovian playbook which states on page one: If you say a thing again and again, sooner or later, it will be taken as true.”

Of course that is only true if you keep a straight face and are talking to a Teabibber. Actually with a Teabibber, you don’t need the straight face. They are so wrapped in their own little alternative reality that the won’t know the difference.

Lord, things are getting wicked in the Vatican.

Now they are talking about a secret study that shows that the Curia is just chock full of backbiting intrigue, jockeying for power, and *gasp* homosexual liaisons.

Sounds like your average government to me.

Sounds like Benedict has buyers remorse.

Sounds like the Catholic Church is in for a very bumpy ride.

I sigh a lot. I’d even consider going back to the Episcopals, but here in my town, there are no liberal Episcopals only the conservative Anglicans.

It’s just about enough to make a person give up organized religion and just steer an independent spiritual ship. I’m sure Jesus gets tired too.

Once upon a time it used to be pretty easy to tell who was crazier.

Kim Dong Un, like his crazy daddy, Kim Jong Il, were just about the craziest of the loons on the globe.

But America does like to be first.

And we have been running that race into the ground lately.

I mean, like I said, it’s darn near impossible to pick a jackass of the week in Amerika any more.

There are people just standing in line for the honor of being named to that lofty pedestal.

A perennial finalist every week is Wayne La Pee Pee Pierre.

But I’m pretty convinced I’m gonna live long enough to see him placed in a lock box and buried. Better yet, he can be chopped up and put in the nose cone of every nuclear device we have. I bet he would like that.

They’re All Bums–Well Most of Them

Tags

Catholic Church, filibusters, gun control, Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell, pedophilia, President, senate, wacko right

Yeah, you heard me.

I try to get away from the idiots but they just keep coming. There is no end to the incompetent, self-serving bull crap going on in Washington. I mean it makes your head swirl.

First we got old Wayne La pee pee Pierre and his survivalist mentality. How’s this for logic: we can’t do background checks (which he FULLY endorsed in only 1999) because criminals won’t come in to submit to them.

Why shock me to death Whiney Wayne. I guess we shouldn’t have laws against bank robbery either, cuz you know, the bank robber he’s just not going to obey it.

Why can’t we have limits of the types of weapons that are sold? “Because we can’t trust these people,” according to Wayne. These people being the operative word here, as in “liberals” or “blacks” you know. Just because they say they won’t take shotguns and hunting rifles and regular handguns, “they” might just be lying.

Just as you Wayne lie to your constituents when you tell them that “who knows, the next disaster like a tornado the government might not show up, and well, people will have to defend themselves from marauding hoards.” Yeah you utter base excuse for a human being. That is so likely to happen.

If gun manufacturers can’t come up with better arguments than that, well, you deserve to be pistol-whipped boys.

BITE ME!

And then there is the king wimp of them all, Mr. Harry Reid, you know the soft-spoken little twit that Democrats are somehow forced to accept as Majority Leader in the Senate?

Why Harry, when asked about his support for gun safety legislation, says, “these are all things we need to take a look at.”

Take a look at ?

Where the hell have you been for the last two months you mealy-mouthed sucker on the NRA teat?

You’re the freakin’ MAJORITY leader. You’re in charge of what gets brought to the floor. You’re supposed to be a good guy remember? What is there to “understand” about high-capacity clips? Shall we ban anything over 10, or anything over 6? Boy that took a lot of time to “study.” And doesn’t it behoove somebody on your staff to have actually read Diane Feinstein’s bill? Is it so much different from the last one you enacted? What exactly do you do all day, other than feed lettuce to the Turtle Man?

Get off your stupid ass and DO something, and while you are at it:

BITE ME!

Speaking of whom, or what, or it, Turtle Man McConnell, I hear tell you are gonna filibuster the President’s nominee Richard Cordray once again to head up the Consumer Protection Division? This after you all admit there is not a damn thing wrong with his qualifications. This is solely because you don’t like the agency. Well that’s a new one.

Never in the history of the Republic has a party filibustered a nominee simply because they don’t like the agency he or she is going to head. Now we understand that those beholden to big business want no part of protecting consumers. No that would be wrong, You’re the party of rugged individualism. People have to take care of themselves. I mean it can’t cost too much to have a lab test done to find  that the damn medicine that  Pfizer produces won’t kill me, immediately, or grow hair on the bottom of my feet in two years.

This crap is absurd. And your pal Harry, God bless his stupid little head, was so scared of your wrath that he ignored the real opportunity to put an end to this insane misuse of the filibuster when he had the chance. Jimmy Stewart is crying in heaven today.

So Mitch?

BITE ME!

And Harry?

BITE ME AGAIN!

The President mentioned that he went skeet shooting at Camp David. Of course the insane Right, went insane, insinuating that the President was lying. Not because they hate him, of course, and if he cured cancer, they would see it as a Muslim Brotherhood Plot. No. Not for that reason. They don’t trust him, since he’s done so many darn things that were illegal and well everybody knows all of our FREEDOMS are hanging by a threat.

So he no doubt lied about the skeet shooting, for some reason, but reasons don’t matter, and are too hard to figure out, so let’s just say he lied, because well Black people have a habit of doing that, *nudge nudge*.

So the White House produces a picture of the present firing a gun that all agree is the type used for skeet shooting.

So of course, IT’S A FAKE!

It’s another conspiracy folks and the survivalists sure do love them some conspiracy.

BITE ME! ALL OF YOU!

Some of you may have heard of Archbishop Roger Mahony, retired from the archdiocese of Los Angeles in 2011 after having served since 1985. He and his top aide, Thomas Curry were both implicated in covering up child abuse by a series of priests. Just released documents show they actively attempted to protect priests from prosecution and withheld their names from police.

They have, in their retirement, been stripped of all public and administrative duties. This was done by now Archbishop  Jóse Gomez.

Children, we are told were threatened if they told the truth of what happened to them.

There was one way that a Church which claims to be the holder of the Keys of St. Peter and THE church of  Christ, (which you may or may not buy. I don’t and I am a Catholic), and that is to expose and drive out of the priesthood anyone who assaults a child. Period. End of discussion. You can offer them all your prayers and whatever, but first you REMOVE THEM FROM THE PRIESTHOOD. They are not fit to be priests. They are not some common sinners. They are predators of innocent children.

To all you who make excuses for my Church and it’s utter failing in this matter, I say:

BITE ME!

Oh, and I’m in a darn good mood today. The Ravens won, I walked the dog, the housework is done, the Contrarian cleaned the oven, and he’s taking me out to lunch. I’m happy as a clam. You don’t want to see me when I’m hot. No I suspect you don’t.

Related articles

• Will Harry Reid’s Filibuster Deal With McConnell Bite Him On the You-Know-What? (themoderatevoice.com)
• Photo of Obama Shooting Skeet Stirs Controversy (usnews.com)
• Harry Reid: “I’m not personally, at this stage, ready to get rid of the 60-vote threshold” (washingtonpost.com)

Titles Are So Pretentious

Tags

Catholic Church, contraception, Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Obama, tea party, teabaggers

‘Kay, this is pretty easy.

1. Within a couple of decades, Merika is gonna be more “colored” than not. More brown, more black, more ABW (anything but white).

2. White dudes have traditionally not had a good record of making nice with people who are OTW (other than white).

3. White dudes figure their “way of life” is in deep poo in the coming years.

4. Solution: gain control of them “others” right now, and force/train/indoctrinate them into “acting” white so we can still live like we “always have.”

5. Wrap all your evil machinations in words like freedom, the Constitution, Founding Fathers, God-given, liberty, free market capitalism,  and call all stuff you don’t like, commie, fascist, socialistic, Islamofascist, European, alien, nanny-state dependence.  Got it?

The Romney Horror Picture Show continues as our boy Willard continues to scoot further and further right in order to be “Mr. Conservative” or as he now calls it “severely Conservative.”

And worst of all, the conversation is not about the economy any more, but about social issues. And Ricky forces Willard to be more homophobic, and more anti-contraceptive with each passing day.

And in one week, the GOP has managed to offend the gay community and women in general.  Not that they haven’t offended before, but they really went out of their way.

Don’t tell them that “it’s the economy stupid,” cause they like to talk about sex a LOT.

That would be Newt, Ricky, Ron and Mitt.

They thought they might make a play for the mentally challenged.

Until somebody pointed out, that such folks probably don’t vote.

But, back stage, they still light to delight in the fantasy that they are super heroes, so they dress up.

They vehemently reject being called cross-dressers however.

Vehemently.

Vehemently. Seriously.

Democrats are serious bummed about one thing though.

The Republicans hold the record for the world’s longest held orgasm.

Yes they do.

It’s called CPAC.

And the crowning moment of ecstasy will be when Miss Sarah speaks. And they all wonder about what could have been. I mean they wonder, when they aren’t otherwise engaged with their “parts” doing stuff under the table with their junk.

I swear it’s true. Ask Ricky. He’s the head of Sex Matters.

Have you noticed that most of the panel discussions about the contraception mandate have been overwhelmingly male?

Are you aware that polling continues to show that women, Catholic or otherwise overwhelmingly favor contraception being part of a health care plan, whether offered in a secular business or one run by a religious organization?

Are you aware that some very savvy women are suggesting that the Obama administration is either incredibly lucky or they are brilliant in putting this forth where we could, (1) have a national conversation about whether a religious organization who receives federal monies under various grants, can deny coverage to the janitors, nurses, and teachers who wish it, and require they spend their own money? (2) declare a solution whereby the religious group is not required to pay for the coverage (3) require the insurance company to “pay” for the coverage when the insurance company is happy to comply because contraception coverage is a zero sum to them, prenatal and other pregnancy related services being vastly more expensive, (4) force the GOP to come out and virtually begin arguing that contraception is not a good thing, thus adding to their anti-women’s health persona, (5) come just in time to push Santorum to the front, thus forcing Romney to defense once again to stave off another challenger, pushing him even farther to the right, and thus setting up a perfect storm of crazy to run against? (6) and finally, proving to the great Independent voter that the GOP has little if any interest in jobs, but prefers to hang out with the tinfoil crew that is their base?

And tell me I shouldn’t  love this election year?

Go ahead, tell me.

And with that, my dear friends, enjoy your weekend.

Related articles

• “Obama Punks the GOP on Contraception.” (althouse.blogspot.com)
• Obama riled up Republicans on contraception, and then delivers a knock-out punch. (tribuneofthepeople.com)
• President Obama Announces New Policy to Improve Access to Contraception (whitehouse.gov)
• CPAC Attendees Learn How to Pick Up Women, Gay Men [Cpac] (gawker.com)
• CPAC First Impressions (thedailybeast.com)

Are We There Yet?

Tags

Barack Obama, Catholic Church, contraception, Election 2012, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Scott Walker, Wisconsin

I didn’t put much credence in this at first. The Contrarian brought it to my attention as an genius evil machination of the Obama administration. But I’ve now read it other places, and well, there could be something to it. At least the timing seems fortuitous.

I mean let’s face it, before Tuesday, it was hard to find a cartoon about Ricky S. He was a non sequitur. He was old “frothy mix”, an extraordinarily rabid right-winger outlier, who like Dr. Paul, was desirous of spreading the message rather than having any grand expectations of getting a nomination.

Well, times change, and the desire to find ANYBODY GOD, JUST ANYBODY BUT MITT, has led us to Ricky. And, if you believe that Obama and his team are seriously brilliant, the contraception “issue” was dragged forth at precisely the right moment to give Ricky a platform to spew his crazy religious mantras and light a match under the mostly apathetic crazy Right.

And thus: upset the Romney apple cart once more.

Now I don’t know if that is true, or even plausible, but it sure was convenient wasn’t it? Now the two, stand poised to speak to CPAC that joyful religious/reactionary love fest being held in Washington D.C. Romney, as we know, enters with fear and loathing, for these are not his people. This is not a case of “I know my sheep and they know me.” On the other hand, Ricky enters the convention coming near to walking on water. Two more different approaches could not be found.

And you can hear the love across the conservative air waves. The pundits, pretending to be fair all the while they are not, talk about how Ricky is just being Ricky, the tried and true, never-changing, beacon of C O N S E R V A T I S M. From David Brooks to Peggy Noonan to RushiePushie, they are all looking adoringly at the new “favorite son”.

Ya just gotta wonder. How does Mitt stand it? Being so despised by so many. It’s not hatred, it’s just YUCK. It’s that creepy crawly feeling of revulsion when you hear the name, when you see the dopey pasted on grin, when you see him stand with hand on hip, trying to look casual, when you are sure that he has a butt plug lodged tightly up his ass at all times as some sort of penance for God knows what. Mitt may just not make it folks. Money is still favoring him, but heck, Ricky has dealt a pretty nasty blow with virtually none.

¶

There is a rather long but very well done analysis of Obama and his Presidency to-date from James Fallows. He’s got some decent credibility and the piece is largely devoid of partisanship. I saw him interviewed last night, and I was impressed. He points out Obama’s strengths and weaknesses, I think fairly. You may not agree with all he says, and I didn’t, but I also thought it was well done.

¶

Wisconsin voters can feel secure that when they vote to boot out Walker this year, they are making a sound decision. As most of you have no doubt heard, the banks are paying out several billions of bucks in wrongful foreclosures. The monies are going to the states, as the result of the actions of 48 State’s Attorney’s General actions. Well, dear old hard-heart, is taking 25 million of their settlement (of a 140 million total) and applying it to the state budget deficit rather than give it to the afflicted homeowners.

I guess he figures it will be a better argument to claim he’s “balanced the budget” instead of helping out homeowners.

He’s a turd. I bet him and Karl float around in the same toilet.

¶

Well, it’s harsh, but I’ll say it. I agree. Under the LobsterScope points out that the moral outrage of the Roman Catholic Church is a fine diversion from its perennial moral deficit–the child abuse problem that won’t go away. The reason it won’t go away? Because the Church continues to try to sweep it under the rug as best it can, although the lump in the rug is so damn big, everybody notices. (My rant). And they talk about the immorality of contraception!

And while we are at it, where is their moral outrage when African women contract AIDs because they are not allowed to use condoms and their infected husbands turn a deaf ear to their pleas for continence. (My rant ended).

¶

Ricky, giddy with new-found appeal, is as anyone would know, already steppin’ in it. He’s so far said we are on the road to the apocalypse, compared the Obama-led America to France heading to the guillotine, suggested that Obama would force the Roman Catholic Church to hire women priests, reminded us that global warming is a hoax, suggested that Obama has a “wink, wink, nod, nod” relationship with Iran’s nuclear desires in return for getting some oil, claims that the recession was caused by high gas prices, and now suggests that women shouldn’t be in combat because of “other types of emotions.”

Oh yeah, bring on the Rickster! Heck Obama can stay home and play hoops.

Related articles

• Enough Of The Fake Outrage Over Contraception (angrydd.wordpress.com)

Getting on My Catholic High Horse

Tags

abortion, Catholic Church, contraception, Health care, reproductive health, Women's issues

Ok, so I’m getting on a lot of high horses today. This is an editorial comment and I’m thoroughly pissed.

For months, if not years, the GOP Ring-Wing blithering toads have served up red meat to a certain slithery segment of the evangelical crowd. Namely, the desire, usually in the name of JE-sus, to control women’s bodies.

Issues that have long been settled by decades of law and implementation are again being assaulted on a regular basis by Republican-dominated legislatures, by insane GOP presidential campaigns, and by all those evangelical whigs who seek to create a Pavlovian response in foggy heads around the country.

It comes under the guise of “big government dictating your lives, to religious freedom, to “right to life” and any other bell-ringer that they think might trigger a favorable response from those who are either unable or unwilling to actually learn the truth.

I have watched as GOP panderers have introduced and in some cases passed, legislation requiring women to view “sonograms” of their fetuses before proceeding with an abortion. Such legislation is ugly by its very nature, suggesting that women have no clue “what is in there,” and need be shown by benevolent men (in most cases) that “it’s a baby!” for God’s sake.

The Right has fought the use of “morning after pills” for those women who have been violently assaulted (in most cases) or otherwise find themselves compromised and unable for any of a hundred reasons to contemplate having a child. And they have attempted by every means to roadblock and delay women’s ability to seek abortive assistence.

While not a single person I know “favors” abortion, many of us are determined not to make that critical decision for someone else. It may be a religious issue for you, or a moral one, or neither. And it is not my right to decide, no matter my personal beliefs. Instead of helping women and girls to engage in practices that make abortion the last avenue of pursuit, the Right has sought to deny girls the right to learn about their bodies and contraceptive alternatives. They have insisted and successfully required that girls in some states be subjected only to “abstinence only”, a practice that is documented time and time again to not work.

Instead of working with “choice” people to help women in every way short of abortion, with the real result of their being less abortions, those opposed to abortion have dug in their heels and become even more draconian, denying abortive relief to victims of rape and incest. Some even question whether “the mother’s health” is a sufficient reason to terminate a pregnancy.

The Komen Foundation;s attempt to destroy Planned Parenthood was thinly disguised, apparently a result of their utter misreading of the public’s opinion. This, of course, is no new thing, as Republicans who have long supported Planned Parenthood and their life-giving assistence to women, especially poor women, have one by one, slipped into the more comfortable position of being against them. Comfortable I say, because it is a simple reponse to the rabid Right-Wing who has decided to make PPH the whipping girl for all their pent up anti-abortion hatred.

I need not report what is already well known. Planned Parenthood spends 3% of it’s budget on abortion services. The rest is largely spent on breast care, and other women’s health issues, providing women with no health insurance their only life-line to any health care at all in many instances.

Now we come to another “fake” crisis. That is the decision by HHS to require that all organizations, Catholic included, must provide contraceptive benefits within their insurance policy programs. This includes Catholic hospitals and universities.

First, some actual facts:

• 28 states already require that Catholic (or other religious) hospitals and universities provide this through their own insurance regulatory provisions.
• The mandate requires that the institution purchases a health care insurance that provides contraceptive care. It does not require any person to actually use it.
• Such hospitals and/or universities employ tens of thousands of persons across the country (1 in every 6 hospitals in the US is Catholic), and a good percent of them are not themselves Catholic and should not be denied normal benefits by their employers.
• Something in excess of 95% of all Catholics use contraception. It is disingenuous for the Church to claim that the government is attempting force them to “violate” their conscious. Contraception, right or wrong is considered to be a “matter of conscience” by the average Catholic, and they have so determined since the 60’s, when this issue first came forth. Tens of thousands of Catholics left the Church over precisely this issue, and the Church was seen to back off it’s insistance of compliance with a solution called “primacy of conscience.”
• Before Mitt and Newt start bellowing, both Massacusettes and Georgia are of the 28 states who already require such adherence by religious organizations.
• Note: by religious organizations, we do not mean the church. The offices of Dioceses and Archdioceses do not fall within the provisions.
• So called “morning after pills” are not included.

The fact is, that as to the HHS mandate, most Catholics could probably care less. This “outrage” seems to be coming only from the Catholic hierarchy–namely the priesthood and those extreme Right-Wing commentators such as Bill Donahue.

While the Catholic institution can be expected to carry on about this, it will be seen as an opportunity by the GOP Right (which apparently is all there is now) to screech on about government control of religion, wars on religion, ad nauseum, when of course it is anything but.

It is time, ladies and gentlemen to stand strong against the extreme right wing and their desire to drive us back to the stone age of health, and to stand strong against the blatant pandering that the GOP is engaged in simply to gain votes. Of course, they don’t, by and large, give a rat’s ass about any of this stuff anyway. It’s just a means to gain control of the government reins in order to further their economic plans to keep us all serfs. Love a woman today, support her right to health!

And that’s what I think.

Related articles

• George Will Lies About Contraceptive Mandate Including ‘Abortion-Inducing’ Drugs (crooksandliars.com)
• Matthew Dowd: Susan G. Komen-Planned Parenthood Debate Shows ‘Poisonous Part of Democracy’ (abcnews.go.com)
• Gov. Martin O’Malley: Catholic Church Is ‘Hyperventilating’ Over Contraception Coverage Reg (thinkprogress.org)

Lies, Lies, Damnable Lies

Tags

Bruce Braley, Carl Paladino, Catholic Church, Democrats, food stamps, fundamentalism, gay rights, GOP, immigration, Iowa, Latinos, Nazis, Newt Gingrich, Ohio, patriarchy, Politics, right-wing crazies, social issues, violence, women

Private monies funding attack ads are favoring GOPers about seven to one. And there are no reins on them either. Truth, Smuth. Who cares. It’s winning that counts.

Here in Iowa, they are out in force against Bruce Braley (D-IA), from the 1st district. The little dweeb running against him, just bought his first suit, or so it looked at their debate. Yet something like $800,000 is being spent by outside sources to defame Braley, telling Iowa voters that he is responsible for their individual taxes going up a cool $1600 per person next year. A bold-faced lie, but of course his opponent need only shrug and disclaim any responsibility.

This is taking place all over America. The GOP is not funding these “loser” races, because it cannot, but big business can. And they are. Further, as was noted on PBS News Hour, candidates in the future know what they will face.

Of course ads besmirching the character and actual policies and actions of  Democratic incumbents and candidates is only a part of the problem.

The other is the character and policies of the GOP-Teabagger candidates themselves. Paladino, in New York continues to try to walk back his ugly comments about gays.

”I just think your children and my children would be better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family, and I don’t want them brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option–it isn’t.”

What he included in his written speech but didn’t actually say, and later denounced was this:

“There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual. . .[which] is not how God created us.”

Paladino has since tried to walk back his comments claiming a great love for all things gay, except marriage,  but his campaign manager continues to defend his statements as “exactly equivalent to the Catholic church.”  As David Wilson points out in the Commonweal piece, whether Paladino is in line with Catholic teaching or not, is this the way it should be expressed? He asks whether the hierarchy owes some statement about the tone being set by Mr. Paladino.

It is no secret that the Catholic church does not support active homosexuality. In this I would argue that it is categorically wrong and probably on some level realizes it among its scholars at least. However, having painted itself it a corner on many of these issues (the Church being protected by the Holy Spirit and being incapable of error on matters of doctrine and morality), She is having a mighty hard time figuring out how to get in step with modern exegesis and ethics.

To hide behind the Church’s skirts, if you will, is no defense at all to Mr. Paladino. Two wrongs don’t make a right as they say.

***

I had to laugh yesterday when I was perusing the political blogs and came upon a reference to Cantor and his claim that the Ohio wannabe congressman who participates as a Nazi in WWII re-enactments had gone a bit too far. The writer, and I have no clue who it was now, suggested that FINALLY we have found something so outrageous that even Republicans are offended! Not the desire of such folks as Angle and Miller to disband and social security, medicare and Medicaid, and unemployment benefits. Nay, that is just forcing folks to look out for themselves. Not gay bashing, and treating undocumented workers as criminals who deserve hanging. Nay, that is just upholding morality and homeland security. But Nazi sympathizers? That just might be too much.

Cantor probably should speak to DeMint and the cuckoo clock in Delaware, I’m not so sure they would agree with him.

***

Oh Newt the Snoot is at it again. Newt is another of those GOPers who still doesn’t GET that what he said before is actually written down and SAVED. Newty is urging his fellow slugs to start calling the Dems the “party of food stamps.” Except there Newty, you forget! Perhaps there is a limited brain capacity of the average sluggo, and that explains Newty’s failure to recall how he supported  Bush’s rather blatant attempt to increase food stamps for immigrants in the hopes of enlarging the Hispanic vote for the GOPers. Oh Think Progress, don’t miss a thing!

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It seems to awful to be true, but it is true. And Ahab at Republic of Gilead has done a great job in investigating and reporting on the strong ties between violence against women and children to the religious right. Indeed, it is their screwy interpretation of scripture that endangers women and children every day in this country. Read this and know thy enemy.

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Hope the day is finding you well and happy.

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