For Your Consideration: From MrRealityfromtheleft

• By Marty Susman
• America’s political system is totally broken. The House of Representatives has been so manipulated by zealots supported by huge money interests that is no longer able to function. The Senate has by virtue of it’s concept is totally out of step with the 21st century with States like Wyoming or the Dakota’s having the same power to legislate as Texas, New York & California. The Supreme Court has become nothing more than a rubber stamp for whom ever has selected more judges & the judges have to answer to no one meaning as corrupt as they have become, nothing can be done. Lastly the Presidency itself has become nothing more than a position that has been bought by huge money interests from the Banks, Energy/Oil/Gas, Wall Street, Insurance/Drug companies & by the biggest interest, the death manufactures or as they are known, Military Defense Complex, the people that must continue constant wars in order to keep their profits up.

  The whole of Washington D.C. does nothing but make speeches using mostly fear to get the pitifully few people to vote. Half of them are low information voters getting their marching orders form multi millionaires on Faux TV along with right wing radio talk bigots. The vast majority of white men who fear they will no longer be the majority in our country are weighted down with bigotry & fear & hate everything that is not white & Christian. The religious right who hammer their followers about the pretend god Jesus who supposedly hated the poor, the sick & the downtrodden are mostly made up of lower middle class to lower class white Americans who aside from fearing death are too ignorant to understand that the votes they cast are votes against their own interests & votes that will keep them enslaved to the monied interests who dictate to them.

  The present day war on women is another example of just how sadly ignorant the white male religious men have become. All over the globe it has been proven that the more educated the women are the better the society is. Educated free women are the backbone of every enlightened society & yet here in America the mega money interests are eradicating the very freedom women have had for decades. This Congress actually vetoed the bill that would have mandated equal pay for men & women who performed the same tasks & yet they continue to be elected. The Republicans in every State House in the Nation have brought forth more than a hundred bills taking the very thought of females freedom away from them. State House after State House that is controlled by Republicans has selectively stripped women of the right to control their very own bodies & put them under the thumb of the white male elected haters & bigots.

  Fear & hatred of anyone who is not white & Christian is permeating though out the former treasonous Confederate States as well as the States whose white male Christian population has become so dumbed down as to believe in the propaganda spread by the money & church interests. The dogma being spewed out by the church’s with the help of Faux TV & right wing talk radio is talk of fear, hatred of anyone of any color, anyone who is not a white Christian, anyone with a higher education, anyone who believes in the facts of science, anyone who believes in freedom, anyone who believes in no more wars, anyone who believes health care is a right, food is a right, education is a right, honesty & decency is a right & so on.

  This Country will surly become nothing more then a 3rd world Nation of have’s & have nots, a Nation of silent workers & a Nation of super rich that has thousands of Nukes, tanks, planes, gun’s bombs & assorted killing machines that are in place to not only control the globe but to keep our own citizens living in fear of the world in general thereby enabling the billionaire manufacturers to continue to suck our nation of it’s own natural wealth & freedoms.

  America needs it’s own “American Spring”. America needs to move off the couch’s, out from under it’s TV’s, away from it’s car’s & into the streets by the millions. America needs to send tens of millions of people into the streets demanding change, real change not pretty speeches, not pretty faces but changes in how the elected criminals now in charge need to be thrown out of office, changes that will show the world that America still stands for freedom, changes that will make the so called American Exceptionalism stays of our country mean something, mean health, education, decency & peace, rather the profit, war & the destruction of the planet by the energy companies. Not until tens of millions of Americans take to the streets will anything good come to our children & grandchildren, of that you can be sure. You can either read this & do nothing, or you can read this & send it on to everyone you know & have them send it on to everyone they know or, you can go back to your football games, baseball games, your TV & fantasy sports, religious cults & have fun while the future of America dims even more, the choice is yours.

  If you agree with the above, PLEASE send it along with my page to all your friends, ask them to send it on & so forth…Doing nothing will get us nothing… https://www.facebook.com/MrRealityfromtheleft

Charley Reese’s Final column!

July 21, 2013

READ, WEEP, PRINT AND KEEP!

This should be on the front page of every newspaper.

Charley Reese‘s Final column!

A very interesting column. COMPLETELY NEUTRAL.
Be sure to Read the Poem at the end..

Charley Reese’s final column for the Orlando Sentinel… He has been a journalist for 49 years. He is retiring and this is HIS LAST COLUMN.

Be sure to read the Tax List at the end.

This is about as clear and easy to understand as it can be. The article below is completely neutral, neither anti-republican or democrat. Charlie Reese, a retired reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, has hit the nail directly on the head, defining clearly who it is that in the final analysis must assume responsibility for the judgments made that impact each one of us every day. It’s a short but good read. Worth the time. Worth remembering!

545 vs. 300,000,000 People
-By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.. ( The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.)

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House?( John Boehner. He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. ) If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to. [The House has passed a budget but the Senate has not approved a budget in over three years. The President’s proposed budgets have gotten almost unanimous rejections in the Senate in that time. ]

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it’s because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan ..

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.
Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses. Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees… We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

What you do with this article now that you have read it… is up to you.
This might be funny if it weren’t so true.
Be sure to read all the way to the end:

Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table,
At which he’s fed.

Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.

Tax his work,
Tax his pay,
He works for
peanuts anyway!

Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.

Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think.

Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries
Tax his tears.

Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his ass.

Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won’t be done
Till he has no dough.

When he screams and hollers;
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He’s good and sore.

Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in
Which he’s laid…

Put these words
Upon his tomb,
‘Taxes drove me
to my doom…’

When he’s gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply
The inheritance tax.
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service Charge Tax
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Sales Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, & our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world.

What in the heck happened? Can you spell ‘politicians?’
I hope this goes around THE USA at least 545 times!!! YOU can help it get there!!!

GO AHEAD. . . BE AN AMERICAN!!!

 

Pat Robertson urges LGBT people to ‘come out’ as straight

By Stephen C. Webster
Thursday, July 11, 2013 13:25 EDT

 

Appearing on “The 700 Club” Thursday, television preacher and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Robertson assured his viewers that gay people are not really gay, they’re just confused due to “chromosomal damage” they suffered as children, and urged his LGBT viewers to “come out” as straight people.

“I am very pleased that we have many, many, many homosexuals watching this program and many of them are looking for love and acceptance and help,” Robertson said., “And I’m glad to report that we have thousands of these people who are saying, ‘Yes, we want to follow Jesus. We’re not happy with the lifestyle we’re in and we want to have a better way.’ I think it’s wonderful that that’s happening.”

Robertson went on to explain that these thousands of gay people who supposedly tune into his program are not actually gay. “It’s not something that is natural,” he said. “And when people reunite with the Lord, the Lord will get their priorities the way it is supposed to be.”

Then Robertson continued: “A lot of people are into this homosexual thing because they’ve been abused by a parent, abused by a coach, abused by a sibling, abused by a friend. They’re little boys and little girls and they don’t know any better. And then they somehow think, ‘Well, I must be gay.’ They aren’t. They are heterosexual and they just need to come out of that.”

“There are others, maybe they’ve got some chromosomal damage, that’s different from heterosexuals,” he added. “And that’s of course what they claim in the homosexual movement. They say, ‘Hey, you can’t come out of this under any circumstances.’”

This video is from “The 700 Club,” aired Thursday, July 11, 2013, as clipped by Right Wing Watch.

http://youtu.be/3vneeD87uzw

Florida may have accidentally banned access to the Internet

By Steve Benen

Back in March, an ugly scandal unfolded in Florida, where Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll (R) was forced to abruptly  resign from office, after her company was accused of helping oversee a fraudulent veterans’ charity and using gambling at Internet cafes to launder money.

A month later, Florida Republicans, who control every branch of the state government, were eager to distance themselves from the accusations surrounding Carroll, and approved a statewide ban on Internet cafes where gaming has been common. It had the desired effect — as the Tampa Bay Times reported, an estimated “200 operators of adult arcades, more than 1,000 Internet cafes and hundreds of Miami’s maquinitas have been forced to close down across Florida.”

But a new lawsuit, brought by a business owner shut down by the ban, is raising the prospect of the law’s unintended consequences (via the Huffington Post).

The lawsuit filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court on behalf of Incredible Investments, LLC, owned by Consuelo Zapata, alleges that the Legislature effectively applied the ban to all computers when it defined illegal slot machines as any “system or network of devices” that may be used in a game of chance. The state effectively made every smartphone and computer an illegal device, the plaintiff argues.

“They rushed to judgment and they took what they saw as a very specific problem and essentially criminalized everything,” said Justin Kaplan of the Miami law firm of Kluger, Kaplan, Silverman, Katzen & Levine, which is representing Zapata.

The argument, crafted with the help of constitutional law attorney and Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, is based on the assumption that the definition of illegal slot machines is now so broad that an illegal game could be potentially played on every computer. Under the law, the Legislature’s own computers, “the ones they used to draft this legislation, are illegal,” Kaplan said.

The Miami Herald posted the complaint online here (pdf). I’m no lawyer, but on the surface, the plaintiffs seem to have a point — Florida’s prohibition on any “system or network of devices” that can be used in a game of chance is remarkably broad, and would apply to every computer, tablet, or smart phone with the ability to go online.

Only Florida could accidentally ban Internet access.

Thank you to the Maddowblog for this story.

James Gandolfini Dead: ‘Sopranos’ Star Dies In Italy

The Huffington Post  |  By Kia Makarechi Posted: 06/19/2013 7:28 pm EDT  |  Updated: 06/19/2013 7:47 pm EDT

James Gandolfini has reportedly died while in Italy, according to Deadline.com.

According to the website, the “Sopranos” star was in the country for a film festival. Variety also initially reported that he suffered a fatal stroke, but both the trade site and Deadline.com updated the cause of death to a heart attack.

Gandolfini was 51 years old and is survived by a wife and two children. He became a household star for his portrayal of mob boss Tony Soprano on “The Sopranos,” a role which earned him three Emmys on six total nominations. He starred in a number of movies over the past few years, including a memorable turn as the CIA director in “Zero Dark Thirty.”

Thank you to The Huffington Post for this developing story..

 

Country Singer Slim Whitman, Known For His Yodel, Dies

Country singer Slim Whitman, whose yodel helped sell millions of albums in the United States, died overnight on Wednesday in a Florida hospital, his family tells the BBC.

He was 90.

While Whitman was at some point known as “America’s Favorite Folksinger,” he was actually far more popular overseas. As the BBC explains, in 1955 his hit Rose Marie became the longest-reigning No. 1 single until it was knocked off the perch by a Bryan Adams hit in 1991.

The AP adds:

“Whitman’s tenor falsetto and ebony mustache and sideburns became global trademarks — and an inspiration for countless jokes — thanks to the TV commercials that pitched his records.

“But he was a serious musical influence on early rock, and in the British Isles, he was known as a pioneer of country music for popularizing the style there. Whitman also encouraged a teen Elvis Presley when he was the headliner on the bill and the young singer was making his professional debut.

“Whitman recorded more than 65 albums and sold millions of records, including 4 million of ‘All My Best’ that was marketed on TV.”

Whitman was introduced to younger audiences by the film Mars Attacks! Aliens were taking over the Earth when humans discover that Whitman’s yodel in Indian Love Call destroys them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-MhgnMX73Pw

We’ll leave you with one of his biggest hits, Rose Marie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ROq4YFsiP1Y

Busted! Rick Perry Using “Nonprofit Corporation” Run By Governor’s Office to Create Slush Fund

June 12, 2013 By Allen Clifton

It’s no secret that I believe for most Republicans being a hypocrite is almost a required trait to be a member of the GOP.

After all, these are the “small government fiscally conservative” individuals who seem to always want to expand government encroachment on the private lives of Americans, and haven’t had a president from their party balance the budget since the 1950′s.

So it was no surprise when I heard about Rick Perry using tax dollars to fund measures that seek to lure businesses to Texas.

Oh, but if you ask him he completely denies that any of the $5 million that’s been spent to lure businesses to Texas from “blue states” like Illinois, California and New York has come from tax dollars.

And we should believe him, right?  I mean, it’s not like he bragged about a balanced budget, while using 2009 stimulus funds to balance that budget—a 2009 stimulus that he publicly slammed and denounced.

Oh wait, that’s exactly what he did.

See, there’s an organization called TexasOne that collects “donations” from —well anyone—to fund Rick Perry’s trips so he can claim taxpayers aren’t footing the bill for these expenses.

Nothing quite like blatantly legalizing kickbacks from wealthy people, or big corporations, through the guise of “donations” to “build the Texas economy.”

Perry claims TexasOne is a nonprofit corporation—that just happens to be managed by the governor’s office.  The board is appointed by Perry and there’s absolutely no legislated system of checks and balances for oversight of the money that’s “donated.”

And then there’s the previously mentioned hypocrisy of Rick Perry.  While Perry claims no tax money has been used for his travels, the Houston Chronicle calculated that at least 45% of the $4.7 million collected over the last three years (or $2 million dollars) has been funded by local sales taxes.

Mr. “Small Government” Perry is using millions of taxpayer dollars to fund his extravagant trips, while bold-face lying about his use of these tax dollars.

And while he makes these hefty claims about “job creation,” what these trips essentially do is raid other states, attempting to bring jobs from their states to Texas.  Now, I know Perry isn’t the smartest guy around, but even he should understand you can’t “create” jobs that already existed.  Shifting 1,000 jobs from California to Texas doesn’t “create jobs,” it just moves them.

But none of this will matter.  Republicans prove time and time again when they vote this guy into office that it doesn’t matter what he does, they’ll eat big spoon fulls of his bullcrap and do so with a smile.

Even if the thing he’s done is create his very own slush fund to get around state laws which prohibit corporations from directly giving him donations—a slush fund he operates and oversees.

While still using millions of dollars from taxpayers to foot the bill for the expenses his big corporate buddies didn’t cover.  It’s a scheme so corrupt, I’m willing to bet organized crime leaders wished they had come up with it.

Then again, Rick Perry might just be the biggest organized crime leader in the United States.

Paul Krugman Rips ‘Ugly, Destructive War Against Food Stamps’

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: May 30, 2013

 

Like many observers, I usually read reports about political goings-on with a sort of weary cynicism. Every once in a while, however, politicians do something so wrong, substantively and morally, that cynicism just won’t cut it; it’s time to get really angry instead. So it is with the ugly, destructive war against food stamps.

The food stamp program — which these days actually uses debit cards, and is officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — tries to provide modest but crucial aid to families in need. And the evidence is crystal clear both that the overwhelming majority of food stamp recipients really need the help, and that the program is highly successful at reducing “food insecurity,” in which families go hungry at least some of the time.

Food stamps have played an especially useful — indeed, almost heroic — role in recent years. In fact, they have done triple duty.

First, as millions of workers lost their jobs through no fault of their own, many families turned to food stamps to help them get by — and while food aid is no substitute for a good job, it did significantly mitigate their misery. Food stamps were especially helpful to children who would otherwise be living in extreme poverty, defined as an income less than half the official poverty line.

But there’s more. Why is our economy depressed? Because many players in the economy slashed spending at the same time, while relatively few players were willing to spend more. And because the economy is not like an individual household — your spending is my income, my spending is your income — the result was a general fall in incomes and plunge in employment. We desperately needed (and still need) public policies to promote higher spending on a temporary basis — and the expansion of food stamps, which helps families living on the edge and let them spend more on other necessities, is just such a policy.

Indeed, estimates from the consulting firm Moody’s Analytics suggest that each dollar spent on food stamps in a depressed economy raises G.D.P. by about $1.70 — which means, by the way, that much of the money laid out to help families in need actually comes right back to the government in the form of higher revenue.

Wait, we’re not done yet. Food stamps greatly reduce food insecurity among low-income children, which, in turn, greatly enhances their chances of doing well in school and growing up to be successful, productive adults. So food stamps are in a very real sense an investment in the nation’s future — an investment that in the long run almost surely reduces the budget deficit, because tomorrow’s adults will also be tomorrow’s taxpayers.

So what do Republicans want to do with this paragon of programs? First, shrink it; then, effectively kill it.

The shrinking part comes from the latest farm bill released by the House Agriculture Committee (for historical reasons, the food stamp program is administered by the Agriculture Department). That bill would push about two million people off the program. You should bear in mind, by the way, that one effect of the sequester has been to pose a serious threat to a different but related program that provides nutritional aid to millions of pregnant mothers, infants, and children. Ensuring that the next generation grows up nutritionally deprived — now that’s what I call forward thinking.

And why must food stamps be cut? We can’t afford it, say politicians like Representative Stephen Fincher, a Republican of Tennessee, who backed his position with biblical quotations — and who also, it turns out, has personally received millions in farm subsidiesover the years.

These cuts are, however, just the beginning of the assault on food stamps. Remember, Representative Paul Ryan’s budget is still the official G.O.P. position on fiscal policy, andthat budget calls for converting food stamps into a block grant program with sharply reduced spending. If this proposal had been in effect when the Great Recession struck, the food stamp program could not have expanded the way it did, which would have meant vastly more hardship, including a lot of outright hunger, for millions of Americans, and for children in particular.

Look, I understand the supposed rationale: We’re becoming a nation of takers, and doing stuff like feeding poor children and giving them adequate health care are just creating a culture of dependency — and that culture of dependency, not runaway bankers, somehow caused our economic crisis.

But I wonder whether even Republicans really believe that story — or at least are confident enough in their diagnosis to justify policies that more or less literally take food from the mouths of hungry children. As I said, there are times when cynicism just doesn’t cut it; this is a time to get really, really angry.

Thank you to The NY Times for this story.

‘All in the Family’ Star Jean Stapleton Dies at 90

Jun 1, 2013 5:40 pm

 

Jean Stapleton, the actress best known for her role as Archie Bunker’s wife Edith in the groundbreaking 1970s television series “All in the Family” died of natural causes at her home in New York City on Friday. She was 90.

Stapleton’s son, John Putch, confirmed his mother’s death to ABC News.

“Being the children of a beloved Mother on Television means sharing the spirit of who JEAN STAPLETON was with her friends and fans. It is with great love and heavy hearts that we say farewell to our collective Mother, with a capital M. Her devotion to her craft and her family taught us all great life lessons,” John Putch and his sister Pamela Putch said in a statement released today.

Despite a successful acting career, Stapleton did not attain fame until she was nearly 50 years old when she took on the role of “dingbat” Edith Bunker, softening Carroll O’Connor’s bigoted, brash Archie in the CBS series produced by Norman Lear. Stapleton won three Emmys for her portrayal.

“The benign, compassionate presence she developed made my egregious churl bearable,” O’Connor wrote of Stapleton in his 1998 autobiography.

When the series wrapped in 1979, Stapleton moved on to new roles in television and in film, most notably for her portrayal of Eleanor Roosevelt in 1982′s “Eleanor, First Lady of the World,” for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe.

Stapleton was married to William Putch, a producer/director of the Totem Pole Playhouse in Fayetteville, Pa., where she appeared for many season, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He died in 1993.

Stapleton is survived by her daughter, Pamela Putch, and her son, John Putch.

Thank you to ABC News for this article.

Let ‘Em Die: TEApublican Quotes Bible To Justify Letting Poor Starve To Death

May 20, 2013

In a disgusting display, even by TEApublican standards, Stephen Fincher (R-TN) quoted the “Book of Thessalonians” to justify letting the poor starve.  Fincher smugly stated on the House floor:

The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.

Of course, it’s a well-known attribute of conservatives to see things in black and white while often missing more nuanced aspects of real life.  In Fincher’s warped mind, people that need help are just lazy moochers who should simply pull themselves up by their bootstraps, even though, as most liberals know, many of these people don’t even have boots–or functioning  feet in the context of this analogy–for that matter.

We have three points to make to Mr. Fincher and anyone else who buys into this absurd and disturbing way of thinking.

1. Most people on SNAP are not “unwilling” to work.   Food insecurity is a real problem in America, but indolence is not to blame.  From a Center on Policy and Budget Priorities (cbpp.org) piece titled, Contrary to “Entitlement Society” Rhetoric, Over Nine-Tenths of Entitlement Benefits Go to Elderly, Disabled, or Working Household:

Some conservative critics of federal social programs, including leading presidential candidates, are sounding an alarm that the United States is rapidly becoming an “entitlement society” in which social programs are undermining the work ethic and creating a large class of Americans who prefer to depend on government benefits rather than work.  A new CBPP analysis of budget and Census data, however, shows that more than 90 percent of the benefit dollars that entitlement and other mandatory programs spend go to assist people who are elderly, seriously disabled, or members of working households — not to able-bodied, working-age Americans who choose not to work.  This figure has changed little in the past few years.

 

 

Conservatives have also proven to be shameless lying hypocrites in many cases.  Take Mark Sanford, who just won a congressional seat in South Carolina, for example.  After much finger-wagging, Mr. Sanford voted to impeach President Clinton over the Lewinsky sex scandal, yet asked for forgiveness–without any sense of irony–after being caught romping with his mistress in South America on the tax payer’s dime.  It would seem Rep. Fincher also fits this mold.

2. Hypocrite Fincher took millions in farm subsidies. From AlterNet:

The reason this is even more egregious than the usual Republican class warfare is that Fincher himself is a poster boy for government dependency. It’s not just that he’s benefited here and there from some government help. That sort of low-level hypocrisy is almost to be expected from these types. But Fincher has received millions –  $3.2 million as of June 2010 – in federal crop subsidies. The people who refer to themselves as  Tea Partiers threatened to derail his candidacy over this, but then they realized that they have no principles, and supported him anyway. He’s now a member of the “Tea Party Caucus,” which, amazingly, is something that actually exists. Fincher’s brother and father also snatched another $6.7 million in subsidies as Stephen geared up to run for Congress on a platform of eliminating “wasteful government spending.” The “wasteful spending” that he had in mind, of course, was that which serves policy aims with which he disagrees, such as keeping poor people alive.

And, finally, let’s examine the TEApublican’s penchant for cherry-picking documents to suit their agendas.  Whether it be the Constitution or the Holy Bible, these folks love to take what fits into their preconceived narrative and leave the rest behind.  Fincher is clearly no exception.

3. The Bible also says:

The Old Testament

Psa. 82:3  Give fair judgment to the poor man, the afflicted, the fatherless, the destitute.

Prov. 14:31  Anyone who oppresses the poor is insulting God who made them. To help the poor is to honor God.

Prov28:27  If you give to the poor, your needs will be supplied! But a curse upon those who close their eyes to poverty.

Prov22:9  Happy is the generous man, the one who feeds the poor.

The New Testament

Isa. 58:7  I want you to share your food with the hungry and bring right into your own homes those who are helpless, poor, and destitute. Clothe those who are cold, and don’t hide from relatives who need your help.  Isa. 58:8 If you do these things, God will shed his own glorious light upon you. He will heal you; your godliness will lead you forward, goodness will be a shield before you, and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind.  Isa. 58:9  Then, when you call, the Lord will answer. ‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply.  All you need to do is to stop oppressing the weak and stop making false accusations and spreading vicious rumors! Isa. 58:10  Feed the hungry! Help those in trouble! Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you shall be as bright as day.

Doesn’t exactly sound ambiguous, now does it?   False accusations and vicious rumors, Mr. Fincher–THAT is was you’re spreading, as it’s obvious that your assertions quickly dissolve when bathed in the light of facts.   It’s not children, elderly, disabled and working poor Americans who get food assistance that should be ashamed of themselves; it’s you and the rest of your factually-bankrupt, judgmental TEApublican ilk who should.

Bible quotes sources: 

http://www.friendships.org/Scriptures.html

http://www.worldvision.org/content.nsf/learn/g8-bibleverses

Thank you to AATTP.org for this story.