The Faiths of US Presidents

For better or worse, faith has a played a big role in the politics of our nation. Especially at the presidential level, people care about the faith of their presidents. I can remember how big a deal it was for JFK to become the first Roman Catholic president. And now we have the possibility of the first Mormon president in Romney. Here’s an interesting graphic from OnlineChristianColleges.com that covers Romney’s mormonism and discusses the faith’s of various US presidents.

Source: Online Christian Colleges

The first thing to note is that there have been no proclaimed atheists. That doesn’t meant there haven’t been any practical atheists in the oval office. But it is interesting nonetheless. And I had no idea that the majority of President’s were Episcopalian. I wonder if that’s more a reflection of British influence on the country or the convenience of the Episcopal denomination.

The Terrorists Among Us

In a Wichita, Kansas church on Sunday, radical anti-abortion wingnut Scott Roeder allegedly gunned down a physician named George Tiller in cold blood. Because Dr. Tiller provided abortion services to women whose right to decide whether or not to have a child has been the ‘Law of the Land’ since 1973. Roeder (and his ilk) don’t like it.

We know these murdering terrorists all too well, as Tiller isn’t the first doctor they’ve attacked and/or killed. The goal of killing doctors who provide legal medical services is not to end abortion. Abortion is as old as the hills. Safe medical abortion is relatively new.

Humans of course have more choices than bears and deer and burrowing critters who consume certain plants to induce abortion. Humans decide to have sex (most of the time), then they decide to have or not have a baby. It is apparently the freedom to choose that the antis so vehemently disagree with, so they engage in acts of terrorism with the intent to scare doctors away from providing the safe medical procedure.

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Hail to the New Year, Same as the Old Year

We begin the New Year with diminished expectations for the Obama administration in the face of worsening economic conditions following the Bushies’ End Game looting of the nation’s wealth. Predictions are now beginning to acknowledge that there’s not much hope for recovery until 2011 at least, credit card companies have jumped into the looting frenzy en masse to jump interest rates approaching 50%, juggled due dates and credit cut-offs even for cardholders and small businesses who have spotless records and pay off balances every month. Ranks of the unemployed continue to swell, reaching official levels close to 10% and unofficial levels over 15%. Citizens continue to die for lack of accessible, affordable health care, and states are now cutting their Medicaid and SCHIP coverage due to diminished income.

Nothing particularly happy about this New Year. Meanwhile, over in the Middle East where things have been decidedly unhappy for at least 4,000 years, Israel is at it again. Eight days’ worth of air bombardment of cities, towns and refugee camps have killed more than 400 Palestinians and injured more than 2,000 in retaliation for Hamas rockets fired into southern Israel across the border by that hopelessly terrorist enclave of perpetual victimhood and hate no other Arabic nations care to embrace for resettlement, knowing the players are incurable barbarians just like Israel does. After generations of forced incarceration in camps, this predicament was entirely predictable 60 years ago when the arrangements were made.

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Oh. My. God.

Janis Joplin once sang someone else’s song very poignantly – “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose…” – and that’s semi-true in my experience. We all make choices about what’s important in our lives, and usually become enslaved to that which we choose. At the low end of the scale there’s never enough, just paying the bills is a constant struggle. At the high end of the scale there is also never enough. The thirst for more and more and more rules lives and ruins them too.

As Wall Street melts down we’re suddenly informed we must Spend, Spend, Spend!!! They can never make up their minds. Either we’re not saving enough or we’re not spending enough, it’s always our fault. I call bullshit. Slave wages have not even kept up with the cost of living, they can’t have it both ways.

I read about a 50-something day care worker yesterday who a coworker noticed sitting in the corner crying. When asked what’s wrong, she finally said she couldn’t feel her face. The coworker was alarmed, saw one side of her face drooping as they were talking, speech slurring. She drove her friend to the hospital, but the woman just cried harder and wouldn’t get out of the car. Said yes, she must be having a stroke, but if she walked in the door she’d lose everything – house, car, meager income (job)… she was terrified. Her friend finally talked her into going, she is still in the hospital and her coworkers are trying very hard to raise the tens of thousands she’ll need to pay for the care. There is no insurance at that end of the scale.

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The Obamapalooza World Tour

Jerusalem and Berlin

Berlin

Jerusalem

Now, THAT’s how you woo the world! Our erstwhile allies are all pretty darned tired of being bullied. Maybe it’s not too farfetched to hope that Americans might finally get tired of being bullied too.

The Bushies (including John McCain) reacted to Obamapalooza just as everyone paying attention would expect. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice issued orders the night before Obama left to State Department employees in all the scheduled tour stops that they must not attend any speeches or events or aid Obama (or the other two US Senators on the tour) in any way when they’re in-country. But since assisting US leaders – or even arranging their events, as has been done for McCain’s travels – when they’re in-country is part of the diplomatic corps’ job description, most pointedly ignored the orders.

This is going to be a fun election.

Political Elephants in Black and White

As my household prepares to vote tomorrow in the NC primary, I’ll make note here of Frank Rich’s enlightening op-ed in the New York Times Sunday, The All-White Elephant in the Room.

Rich takes a refreshingly detached look at the current situation in the Presidential candidate fields on both sides of the party divide, that stupid game I like to call “Dueling Religious Bigots.” In particular, Rich dares to take on John McCain’s coveted endorsement by the right-wing religious ‘base’ wannabe spokesperson, the Reverend John Hagee. Who stars in the amazing (and highly disgusting) video below, that everyone who reads this should watch – if for no other reason than to remind you WHY Democrats very much need to win big this November…

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Holocaust Memorial Day

Israel Remembers

“We will never forget, we will never hide, and we will never stop asking ourselves every morning what we must do to prevent what happened to ever repeat itself.”

So said Israeli President Shimon Peres at the main ceremony marking Holocaust Memorial Day at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned his audience that anti-semitism is on the rise across the world today, and that insidious forms of Holocaust denial were asserting themselves even in nations that have every reason to remember with circumspection what occurred in Europe 63 years ago.

Iran’s quixotic dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claims the Holocaust is a “myth,” and hosted a revisionist Holocaust conference in 2006. Given that Israel and Iran are currently at a heightened state of tensions – complete with bravado from Hillary Clinton about “nuclear umbrellas” and US defense of Israel (which has plenty of its own nuclear weapons) – it’s worthwhile for those who weren’t born when this horror occurred to take a long, hard look at reality.

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Obama Steps In It, Hillary Jumps On It

…and the Dems now look like fools.

Speaking about the people of rural Pennsylvania – site of the next primary battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Obama said on Friday…

“…it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Aside from the fact that this statement is 100% true of small town and rural people as a general demographic – as one sociological reason that rural dwellers so often vote against their own best interests after being swayed by propaganda fluff from so many GOP “values candidates” who don’t practice what they preach – Clinton’s smear team was poised and ready to make as much hay as possible about how “elitist” Obama has revealed himself to be.

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Hate: When is Enough Enough?

On the last day of November, 2007, a tense standoff in Rochester, New Hampshire occurred when a man walked into Hillary Clinton’s local campaign headquarters, claimed he had a bomb strapped to himself with duct tape, and took two campaign volunteers hostage. It lasted for hours before he finally allowed the hostages to leave and walked out to unstrap the “bomb” to turn himself in.

There has been quite a lot of talk in the political blogosphere about how hate speech in the ‘normal’ course of politics as usual can incite unstable people to commit terrible crimes. And as people living near the economic edge begin to fall off, we aren’t seeing any slowdown of bizarre acts and mass murders. But in politics, the hate is just getting warmed up.

On the right (RedState and FreeRepublic) the denizens were hoarding popcorn and speculating that Clinton had arranged for this attention-grab herself, liberally (ha!) salted with the usual right-wingnut hate speech we’re so used to from that corner. Fox’s Bill O’Reilly has of course embraced “The Politics of Hate” as his theme for the election season.

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The Iowa Surprise Package: Analysis

Obama! …and Huck?!?

The Dems

For those of us who weren’t thrilled with the idea of revolving political dynasties – the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton mantra – Iowa’s caucuses came as a refreshing surprise. Given Hillary’s “brass balls” approach to belligerent foreign policy, obvious ties to Big Business and business as usual, and her penchant for dirty politics, I think she got what she deserved – a sound slap-down.

It’s not that I like Barack Obama that much either, or that the mostly rural, stoically rustic population of Iowa is a particularly good representative of America in general (or the political leanings of the nation). But when Hillary Clinton set her staffers on Obama with repeats of already established lies and smears, it’s gratifying that Iowans turned against her in droves. The *last* thing this country needs is just another dirty politician in a bad suit.

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