HAVE A HAPPY EASTER

For those of you celebrating an Easter with families; whether it is getting together for a belated Passover, or just a nice spring day, I hope you enjoy the Holiday/  For those who have to work, I hope you enjoy the extra pay or the day off to ma ke it up.  I hear that the Easter Bunny is living with the Tooth Fairy.  I knew the birds and the bees couldn't make all those colored eggs so prettily..

ENFORCEMENT OF AIDING AND ABETTING A FELON IS VAGUE

Aiding and abetting a felon, knowingly, it being an accessory to a crime.   Click here for some small clarification.  It is my understanding from the media that a 22 year old woman made a straw purchase of a gun purchase for a felon, knowingly.  The gun was later traced to the murder of a Colorado prison chief by the felon to whom she passed the gun.  Media said there is no law to make straw purchases of guns for felons, a felon.  While the straw purchase itself may not be seen as a felon, she took a risk that he would use it as he did so, shouldn't she be responsible?  Click here.  It was pointed out that a bartender is held responsible if he sells an intoxicated man a drink who then has an accident or hurts . Why should a straw purchase of a murder weapon be any different?

Republicans are playing fast and loose with the safety of our government, economy, and lives.  I guess I do not understand the function of the Attorney General.  Shouldn't Attorney General Holder be involved in some of these grossly unfair practices such as redistricting for which I read states must ask Federal permission before they act to make changes that influence voting unfairly.

Who is minding the store?  Is there a recourse for laws being unenforced.  Is that a factor influencing the Republicans pushing the budget to pay for fewer police?  

Will th damage done to middle class people in the past eight years ever be made up to them?

WE HAVE BECOME A SELFISH AND UNKIND COUNTRY

We can no longer afford charity though we give it everywhere in the world but our own country.  They say 'charity begins at home'.  The charity in the US is coming from individuals rather than our government.  While I do not see the primary task of our elected officials in government as being charitable, that is what Republicans have been calling it when we are trying to rescue our own people. Those who pulled us into the war by promising that we would not have to pay anything drove us into being close to bankruptcy.  In fact, not only have they freed themselves of responsibility financially but also from responsibility for the more than four thousand who died and over 30,000 wounded whose lives have been changed forever. Today, Republicans see our saving our citizens from the result of their poor governance and criminal handling of the war, as charity.

My personal story would suggest otherwise. During the great depression, my father  (who had worked his way up as an immigrant) used profits from his farm to  a house in Boston near stores and offices in a building he had bought.  As a result of the depression, stores and offices were remaining empty.  He could see that he would lose the building and probably his home if he couldn't pay the mortgage as many others were seeing for themselves.  Unlike others, however, he borrowed more money and bought a farm. The two totally different properties served him well with totally different sources of income.  He survived the depression and the war and was eventually able to move back to the city home he had built when he was getting too old to farm.

The Republicans who are trying to balance the budget and curb spending seem not to understand that there will be fewer jobs and far more personal suffering.  They do not understand the old saying, "It takes money to make money". Those who say our government is broken are wise.  It is.  We have  too many people voted into office on lies who have no idea about how a government runs.  They are only there to be self-serving, though they are being paid to serve forces out to destroy our government.  They no longer care at all about what their constituents think or want and expect to con their way back to re-election.

Sweden is more humanitarian.  Perhaps they can afford to be ion that they didn't bankrupt their economy with a useless war. For details about their handling of medical needs of strangers as well as citizens, click here.

HOW SUPREME IS THE SUPREME COURT?

When the colonies were started in America, the blend of ethnicities, spoken languages, and religions made us  a 'melting pot'.  However, as we understand our biology better, we should include in that melting pot group all races, and all humans, regardless of condition granted by birth or Nature.

 All day, we the public, were offered sound bites and bits of what was happening in   Court as Prop 8 i California was being evaluated.  It was my understanding that the task for which the Justices are appointed is to evaluate the constitutionality of whatever is before them.  Since it was the media that chose what we were allowed to see, I presume, we shown some rather ridiculous exchanges between the Justices and the lawyers.  It was rather disappointing as I have seen mock courts by high school students with more ability to stick to their task.  Justice Scalia made it sound as though he thought he should be evaluating whether there as sufficient  on research to prove there will be no harm to heterosexuals and children.  It does not require a rocket science degree to know that it is not a relevant question. 

Brett LoGiurato writing for Business Insider has an interesting article on the question Justice Scalia asked.  Click here for the whole article.  Perhaps in keeping with his being an 'originalist', he asked when did it become unconstitutional for homosexuals to marry.  Attorney Olsen said he had no answer for that but focused on P{rop8 which had been voted in by California voters, despite it had previously been permitted and there are many 'married' homosexual couple married in California today.

We will be watching for the similar questions which must be raised as the court considers the Defense of Marriage Act (DOM).  To someone who thinks back to the least common denominator, as a rule, it seems pretty simple to me.  Our constitution says all men are created equal and gives us all the same rights.  While there is homosexuality observed among animals, we are limiting our Supreme Court to judging only for humans.  Therefore, homosexuals are human and should have equal basic rights with all other humans in our country.

 

CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN ANYH OF THIS??

When laws are made with the intent that they will become obsolete at a particular time, like the tax to the rich during GW's tenure in the White House, the Republicans did not want to end it and treated it as though a tax was being added.

When abortion was the law of the land (and actually still is that) states have decided to find ways to get rid of it by getting rid of the clinics which perform them.  The numb brains behind this have short memories.  They have forgotten that abortion was made legal to prevent illegal abortions which were killing too many women.  If these elected officials care about life, in truth, why would they try to make abortion illegal again.  What possible ideology can be behind that?  They claim to respect the constitution.  They claim it is against their religion.  No one is forcing anyone to have an abortion.  If it their religion is at stake, they violate the constitution by injecting religion into our legal system

We have always considered it treason to want to bring down our government.  How is Grover Norquist not brought to task for publicly stating he wants to shrink our government small enough to frown it in a bathtub?

President welcomed servicemen and women as citizens today.  We should be proud of all of them in that group.  They had incredible investment in this country and have achieved remarkable service to it.

How can we solve any problems when we have a majority representative in the House who follow Norquist and want to stop Obama and the government at any cost to the country?

ATHEISSTS VERSUS 'BELIEVERS'

     Religion has always been like the 'Emperor with no clothes' to me.  Many of the masses 

see that he is naked but do not dare to be alone to speak up.  It took children with no prejudices or investment if they said something other than that which all others did not dare to contradict the majority.  I believe it is that way in Washington still today.  Republicans, in majority, see that the party has no clothes', no platform that coincides with the wishes of its constituents.  No one dares to break rank.  They fear not holding the fat cow they currently have and little realize the party is quickly losing ground and so will they.

     Don Merico (CNN) has written an article which heads:  "The money man behind atheism's activism"  To read this in entirety, click here.   Todd Stiefel is from Raleigh , North Carolina.  He is a former Catholic but, more importantly, he has enough money to fund the Stiefel Freethought Foundation.

     “What I am trying to accomplish is multifold, he told CNN. “I consider myself working on the next civil equality movement, just like women’s rights, LGBT rights and African-American Civil Rights. We are still in the early stages of eliminating discrimination against atheists and humanists. That is something I really want to accomplish.”  At Duke University, taking a class in the Old Testament, he said: " he saw a flawed logic in the Old Testament. In particular, he said, he began to see much of the Old Testament as unoriginal stories that had been told in many pagan traditions.“

'Wait a second, is what I believe in really the truth or is it really the accumulation of myths bundled in a package?’” Stiefel remembers asking himself. “That was the end of my faith right there.”

     That is how most begin to question what various churches teach.  It is easier to find people with whom to discuss this today, though most are still hiding in the closet.  Especially in government, because the religious right is not tolerating the anti-religious,  it is more difficult to openly question and retain office. Though our Constitution asks to separate church and state we are not following that in our government today.  Hopefully, some day as the curtain revealed the Wizard of Oz as a fake, religion as a business, well-funded, will morph into what it should have been all along...a place for socializing, a place where children can be brought with their parents and mingle with other children well supervised, and a place that will foster  an understanding of morals and integrity no stipulated by fanatics, paranoids, and celibates ho do not accept that we are 2000 years after Christ and do not wish to live in the dark ages of society and reason.

GUNS ARE A TOOL USED BY PEOPLE TO KILL OTHER PEOPLE

It i beyond me how anyone can be against controlling guns in our country when they have all been assured that their second amendment rights will not be forsaken.  While I cannot be more sympathetic to the children who were lost in Sandy Hook, I am equally sympathetic to all the children who have lost parents, as well as parents who have lost children.  I am sympathetic to all whose lived were prematurely snatched and for all those left behind to grieve them, not only lost loved ones but, at times, lost bread winners.

The religious right is basking in their hypocrisy. They claim they want a smaller government yet want to crawl into the wombs of pregnant and non-pregnant women.  They have been voted into elective office on their lie and, as soon as they gt there, they try to take away women's rights to health care and choice about their own bodies.

They claim to represent constituents but, in fact, follow the NRA and others who drum for them.  Since Sandy Hook, less than a hundred days ago, there is a shocking number of deaths by shooting in our states.  For a shocking truth about the number and a picture-of just where these occur, click here.  As soon as you read the first screen, hit next to the right of the title.