The False Premise of Conservatives - Lessons Learned from Chick-fil-A

We see it every day. Conservatives frame every important discussion in America by establishing a completely false premise first. The most recent example is the "Chick-fil-A" fiasco.

Conservatives framed the issue as, "Dan Cathy is merely exercising his First Amendment right to free speech," or, alternatively, "Dan Cathy is just expressing his religious views." If you believe this lie, then if you take exception to Chick-fil-A's activities (and that's what they are, activities, not speech), then you are somehow against freedom of speech and/or freedom of religion.

Let me suggest, if Dan Cathy had merely said in an interview, "I believe in the traditional definition of marriage," or "I believe in the Biblical definition of marriage," and that was the extent of it, there would be no controversy. But that is not the extent of it.

First, part of what Dan Cathy said was, "I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,' and I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to try to redefine what marriage is about." So he didn't just state his position on traditional marriage or the Bible, he went on to use some pretty strong language directed at the gay population in our country. Okay, so we are still in the free speech category, although the speech is a lot stronger than some would think because I had to search to the second index page of Google to get this quote. It seems that, even after the fact, conservatives are still redefining the argument. The first 11 Google hits when I searched the string "Dan Cathy quote" were stories in "Christian" publications that claimed Dan Cathy is being misquoted, then go on to omit the above quote that was in the original news stories and only quote the "soft" part of his interview.

Second, Dan Cathy didn't just speak, he donated millions of dollars in corporate profits that had made their way to his Winshape Foundation to fund the cause of depriving gay Americans of their rights. So now we have moved from speech to action. And some of that action (money) went to a group called the Family Research Council that has been identified as a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center for, among other things, making statements that some gays should be exported out of the United States and that those remaining in the country should be criminally prosecuted for their behavior, specifically sodomy. Sodomy laws were ruled to be unconstitutional by a decision of the US Supreme Court called Lawrence v. Texas in 2003.

So now we have framed the real issue...Dan Cathy was not merely exercising his freedom of speech or religion, he was making negative statements that were directed at a part of our society and he was donating money to groups that were actively working to deprive that part of society of the same rights other Americans have. Starting to make a little more sense why gay Americans and their supporters were upset enough to take action, in this case, organizing a boycott to deprive Dan Cathy of the money he was using against them, isn't it? Also, starting to make a lot more sense why "Christian" leaders needed to falsely frame this argument. It would have been much harder to stage a "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day" if the cause was to support hate speech and to take people's rights away. They would have gotten a few people to turn out, but not the masses.

Conservatives have been doing this for 30 years, and getting better and more refined about it all the time. For example, no conservative will utter the words "Democratic Party" ever, they have renamed it "Democrat Party," even though that is not its name. They have taken it so far that even I had to look up the name of the Party to be sure...they are changing what reality is...because to most people perception is reality.

It is getting harder and harder all the time in this age of electronic overload to maintain truth and sanity.

That is why I am here for those who care!

Republicans Should Be Ashamed for Voter Suppression!!!

Following is summary of testimony from the trial in Pennsylvania regarding the voter photo ID law passed by Republicans to suppress the votes of Democrats. The same stories can be found around the country where Republicans have launched a concerted effort to steal elections by depriving Democrats of their voting rights based on lies and distortions that they are addressing a voter fraud situation that does not exist. Every Republican involved in this evil effort should be ashamed of themselves. Every person who does not raise their voice against this terrible plan to steal elections should feel the guilt of knowing that they do not believe in democracy. Nothing is more fundamental to being an American.

Today's testimony from four plaintiffs, Tia Sutter, Danny Rosa, Joyce Block and Bea Bookler, provided poignant stories from many of those cross sections.

Sutter, a former attorney who worked as a Philadelphia assistant district attorney for more than 10 years, is a registered voter who had tried for years to get photo ID. She is 61, doesn't drive and her only photo ID is from when she was a college student in 1978. Her Social Security card is under the name Tia Sutter. Her New York-state birth certificate is under the name Christine Sutter. She has been told that she cannot get a state issued ID because her names don't match. "I thought I knew my legal name," she said. "I'm not sure anymore." To change her name on her SS card, she was told she would need a court order, which would cost $400 and would take months. "My roots and my future are all in Pennsylvania," Sutter said, choking up with emotion. "It's hurtful to me that this is now a question of 'papers please.' If your papers aren't in order, you can't vote."

Danny Rosa, 63, of West Chester is the son of a Puerto Rican woman and was born in New York. He doesn't know why his birth certificate identifies him as Danny Guerra, his grandmother's maiden name. But since he was a boy, he has always gone by the surname Rosa, the name of his stepfather who raised him. Rosa was the name on his night school diploma and it was the name on his Air Force honorable discharge certificate, which hangs on a wall in his living room. "You're proud of that?" plaintiffs' attorney Marian Schneider asked him. "I am proud," he said. "It's about the only thing I ever completed." A regular voter, he wanted to comply with the new law. So he spent the better part of a day gathering his paperwork and making two trips to the local PennDOT driver's license center where he waited about an hour each time. (He doesn't drive and had to get a ride.) "I showed him (the technician) my birth certificate and he told me my name's no good," Rosa said. "I served in the service for four years," Rosa said. "I don't do it (vote) just for kicks. It means something special to me. I think it should be important for everybody."

Because the next two plaintiffs were not physically able to make the trip from their homes to Harrisburg, their video depositions were played in court in lieu of testimony.

Joyce Block, 89, was born in Brooklyn, the daughter of vaudevillians. She married in the 1940s. She is Jewish and her marriage certificate is in Hebrew. Her Social Security card and her birth certificate are in her maiden name, "Joyce Altman." She never got a driver's license "because I felt everyone was safer without me on the road." Since registering to vote when she was 21 - she voted for FDR - she has not missed an election. In 2010, ill and in the hospital, she was determined she was not going to miss the election and refused to vote by absentee ballot. "I wanted to make sure I voted," she said. "And I carried and carried on until they let me take a wheelchair and I voted." When she heard about the new law, she had her granddaughter take her to the PennDOT center. She was told that because her Social Security card and birth certificate were in her maiden name, she could not get photo ID. She showed the technician her marriage certificate. He said he couldn't read Hebrew. Block has a large family and a great support system. She is politically active and complained to her state senator, who called PennDOT. When she returned the next time to the center, there were no problems. But she agreed to be a plaintiff because she wants to make sure that others without such a support system are not disenfranchised.

Bea Bookler, 94, was born one year before the ratification of the 19th Amendment, guaranteeing American women the right to vote. Today, she seldom leaves her room at the Devon Senior Living Center. She spends her days reading and watching television.The only times she goes out anymore are on rare and special occasions, when her daughter will take her out for lunch. Also, she goes out twice a year to the election polls, which are next door to her home. Bookler is unsteady and shakes during her testimony and says it's just too hard to get around anymore. Over the years, she has lost her Social Security card and her birth and marriage certificates. While she could sign a form attesting that she has no identification and be granted a special ID used solely for voting, it would still take a trip to PennDOT, something she is physically unable to do. "It's too hard," she said. "You can see I'm not exactly mobile. I get dizzy and shaky." During her testimony, Bookler was asked why, if it's so hard, she bothers to go to the polls. The question seemed to confuse her. "I would never not vote," she said. "How proud I am to live in a country is a real democracy. And anything that prevents people from voting is taking away our democracy. "Democracy is only real if we all participate."

We must not let this country turn its back on democracy!

Simple Solutions

American businesses are sitting on $2 trillion in cash. Republicans say that if we cut taxes, particularly on what they refer to as "job creators" and slash regulations, businesses will magically be willing to put this capital at risk. The problem is, no amount of tax or regulatory cutting will incentivize a business to hire an additional worker when there is no additional demand for their product. That would be stupid, and American businesses are not stupid. It seems most likely that the result of cutting taxes on "job creators" is that American businesses will be sitting on $3 trillion in cash. The first step is to identify the problem. The problem right now, at this moment, is lack of demand caused by the consumers in this country simply not having money to spend. They don't have money because: 1) they don't have jobs; 2) they are underemployed; 3) they are being paid less than they used to be paid. In order to address this, several steps should be taken immediately: 1) cut taxes on the middle class; 2) institute real infrastucture spending. Additionally, the tax code should be reformed to accomplish several major policy goals: 1) stop rewarding businesses for moving jobs "offshore;" 2) reward businesses for hiring more employees. Simple solutions...things all Americans should agree on.

When Did We Stop Abiding by "The Rule of Law"

Okay, let's see, we just survived the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression...and yet, for the first time in modern history when an economic meltdown has occurred, no one was charged with a crime...even though millions of Americans lost trillions of dollars due, in part, to lies by financial folks. We just went through a period of time when our friends and neighbors know that some of us tortured prisoners in the "War on Terror." In fact, Jose Rodriguez, former head of the CIA's clandestine services, who destroyed the videotapes of some of the torture said, "I was concerned that the distinction between a legally authorized program as our enhanced interrogation program was, and illegal activity by a bunch of psychopaths, would not be made." Yet no one was charged with a crime. We claim to be a country guided by "The Rule of Law." My question is, was that ever true, and if it was, when did it stop being true? Was it true when President Clinton was impeached by Republicans in the House of Representatives for lying in a deposition about an extra-marital affair that obviously had nothing to do with his role as President? Or was it true when President Nixon was pardoned by a Republican for his role in a criminal conspiracy to undermine our democracy through the coverup of political crimes that had everything to do with his role as President? Finally, is it true when young inner-city men get life sentences for a few ounces of cocaine, yet many financial thugs who commit billion dollar crimes do not face prosecution, from Republicans or Democrats? It seems we have abided by "The Rule of Law" by making corruption legal.

Why I am Sad...

It seems like white men over 50 are becoming more mean, hateful and bitter day by day. Why is this so? Maybe it is because they feel their power and dominance slipping away. Maybe it is just as simple as they are mean, hateful, bitter human beings. Go to any right-wing (I prefer to call them wrong-wing) blog or website and the hatred is unbelievable. I think they were always hateful, it is just easier to see in this techo-world. Why am I sad? Because they think I am one of them. I hear comments all the time from other old white men who think, because I look like them, that I am like them. I asked a new liberal African-American friend who had seen me for months, what he thought my politics were. He replied "let's see, old white guy with short hair from the south who used to be in law enforcement - yeah, conservative." I am not like them.

Sam Donaldson - My New Hero!

Neil Munro of the Daily Caller interrupted President Obama's speech yesterday, an act of rudeness and disrespect for a President I have not witnessed in my 50 years of political observation. Munro's boss, Tucker Carlson, defended his reporter's actions by comparing it to Sam Donaldson's tough questioning of previous Presidents. Donaldson took exception to this by pointing out that he never interrupted a President's speech and only asked questions during the appropriate time for questions. Donaldson's response follows: "Never once did I interrupt a president in any way while he was making a formal statement, a speech, honoring awardees or in any other way holding the floor. Yes, almost always when he was finished in the Rose Garden or in the Briefing Room or at a photo opportunity with other world leaders I tried to question him (only rarely was it a shout on the rope line, more often a more normal tone of voice) and other reporters of course did the same thing along with me. What this man did yesterday is something new, to me wrong and unusual. I think it is probably the result of the growing incivility of the times, the competition among reporters and news organizations to be noticed not only for the work product but for the theatrics of the gathering…and there is one more factor, let’s face it: Many on the political right believe this president ought not to be there – they oppose him not for his polices and political view but for who he is, an African American! These people and perhaps even certain news organizations (certainly the right wing talkers like Limbaugh) encourage disrespect for this president. That is both regrettable and adds, in this case, to the general dislike of the press on the part of the general public. For Tucker Carlson to say that he would if he can give this man a raise for this rude attempt to interrupt the president is reflective of what I’ve said above and, to me, lowers my opinion of Tucker." Sam Donaldson had the guts to challenge the conservative lie - they can't stand having a black President. Let's face it, they treated President Carter terribly, then they treated President Clinton even worse, but nothing comes close to the disrespect they have shown President Obama. They should all be ashamed of themselves.

Let's Talk Facts About Global Warming

Updated on 12/2/2019

Did you know...a gallon of gas weighs 6.3 pounds, yet burning it produces almost 20 pounds of carbon dioxide?

Gasoline is basically 87% carbon and 13% hydrogen. When gas burns, carbon is released and combines with oxygen in the atmosphere to form CO2 (hydrogen is also released and combines with oxygen to form water and water vapor, but this does not create the same problem as CO2 formation). Carbon has an atomic weight of 12; oxygen has an atomic weight of 16; so CO2 has an atomic weight of 44. Therefore, each new CO2 molecule weighs 44/12, or 3.7 times as much as the original carbon atom. 87% of 6.3 = 5.5; 5.5 X 3.7 = 20...that is 20 pounds of CO2.

The average person on earth produces 4 tons of CO2 per year (counting everything we do...burning gas, burning wood, deforestation, etc.); multiplied by 7 billion people means that, in addition to naturally occurring carbon dioxide, we add 28 billion tons of CO2 to the atmosphere per year. Although this may not sound like a lot since naturally occurring CO2 amounts to 700 billion tons per year, the earth can handle the naturally occurring CO2, and it can even handle some of the man-made CO2, but it is the portion of the excess we create that is not being naturally "exchanged" that we must be concerned about. Part of the problem is that the "half-life" of CO2 is about 27 years, so although about half of the CO2 humans are currently creating is "exchanged" or absorbed by the earth, half is not. Due to the fairly long "half-life" of CO2, the result is the level of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased from 280 ppm (the level it has been fairly stable at for the past 10,000 years) to 415 ppm since 1750. Almost two-thirds of that increase has occurred in the past 50 years, so the level of CO2 measured in the atmosphere appears to be accelerating. The level of 415 ppm has not been seen in the past 20 million years. You may have heard lies like, "The volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo released more CO2 than all of man's activities in history." In fact, average volcanic activity produces less than 1 billion tons of CO2 each year, and, according to volcanologists, the super eruptions like Pinatubo or Mount St. Helens added the equivalent of CO2 produced by humans in one day.

We know that CO2 can increase temperatures, especially night-time lows and winter temperatures. We know that increased temperatures can result in climate changes, including melting of glacial ice that can increase sea levels. We know that if the temperature on the planet increases at the upper range of scientific forecasts, we could see dramatic (as in bad) changes in agricultural production, mass species extinctions, flooding of low-lying coastal areas, weather extremes and even challenges to our very survival on the planet within the next 100 years.

These are the kinds of scientific facts we should be considering as we plan the future of this planet for our children and grandchildren and discuss the causes of "global warming" and what we can and should do about it.