Category: right winged

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Politics right winged

Right Winged Mega-Church Pastor Accused of Plagiarism – Video

Mark Driscoll, a right-wing megachurch pastor best known for his chauvinistic,bullying, anti-gay and domineering preaching style, is facing charges of plagiarism from his fellow conservatives. When talk show host Janet Mefferd confronted him about the plagiarism claims in an interview last week, Driscoll was offended that Mefferd dared to ask him such questions and told her that she was “grumpy,” “rude” and “not very Christ-like.”

He patted himself on the back for being “gracious and humble” through it all, adding that he couldn’t appropriately answer Mefferd’s questions because he had a cold and was doingher a favor by appearing on her show. Driscoll’s publisher similarly claimed that it was not Driscoll who was at fault but Mefferd for taking a “belligerent tone” with him, and supporters eagerly piled on.

Christian blogs have noted that Driscoll himself preached against plagiarism as a “Satanic issue.”

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Politics right winged

Arnold Schwarzenegger to Republican Leaders – Stop Being the Party of Right Winged Nuts

Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger looked at his Republican party and decided to write an op-ed column in the Los Angeles Times, begging for his party to go back to the days of Reagan, to forget the right winged nonsense and be more inclusive.

A recent decision by Nathan Fletcher – a Republican State Assemblyman and Republican State Legislator Anthony Adams to leave the Republican party and become Independents, prompted Mr. Schwarzenegger to write his piece.

“In the current climate, the extreme right-wing of the party is targeting anyone who doesn’t meet its strict criteria. Its new and narrow litmus test for party membership doesn’t allow compromise,” Schwarzenegger wrote.

It’s time for the Republicans who are so bent on enforcing conformity to ask themselves a question: What would Ronald Reagan have done? He worked hard to maintain a welcoming, open and diverse Republican Party. He would have been appalled to see Republicans like Fletcher and Adams conclude that they had no other option than to leave the party.

The former California governor called on his party to compromise and he used Reagan as an example. “To succeed, Republicans need to embrace true Reaganism,” he said, “and that means embracing the true Reagan, a brave and independent leader who believed in solutions and compromise.”

And he mentioned other prominent Republicans who worked together for the American people and who believed in compromise like Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon.

Teddy Roosevelt is still a hero among environmentalists for his conservationist policies. Dwight Eisenhower believed in the value of investing in infrastructure, and we can thank him for our highway system. Nixon, who originally attracted me to the party, nearly passed universal healthcare. He also created the national Environmental Protection Agency, which some modern Republicans want to close down.

Schwarzenegger offered this little piece of advise to the Republican leaders;

It’s time to stop thinking of the Republican Party as an exclusive club where your ideological card is checked at the door, and start thinking about how we can attract more solution-based leaders like Nathan Fletcher and Anthony Adams.

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Christian Politics right winged

The Conservative Wave Is Cresting: Next Comes the Crash

If you listen carefully, you can hear it gathering momentum, foam, vitriol, recrimination and self-serving hypocrisy. It’s the conservative wave roaring towards the beach, cresting and ready to crash. The 2012 election will be the beginning of the end for the far-right conservatives and, like the liberals who didn’t see their wave tumble in 1984, will likely lead to an even uglier aftermath. Republicans are angry now: Imagine what will happen if they lose another presidential election this year (and they will), especially if they’re able to hold on to the House and take back the Senate. So close, yet so far.

The conservative Republican era that began in 1980 and tilted the country to the right had a good run if you supported the cause, but it was never able to achieve its stated goals of severely scaling back government, ending the New Deal and Great Society programs, overturning Roe v. Wade, and ending the progressive tax structure (though they’ve come pretty close with this one). They built up the military and got a Democratic president to end welfare, passed a too-expensive Medicare prescription plan and raised taxes enough to begin to pay off the deficit, though that cost George H. W. Bush his reelection.

The era lasted because Ronald Reagan and both Bushes were able to tame the party’s conflicting passions. Reagan galvanized the economic old guard GOP while paying lip service to the religious conservatives led by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Reagan was never a religious person but he talked the talk well enough to keep the support of Christian conservatives, and really, where else were they going to go? That he was able to raise taxes, reform Social Security and work with liberal Democrats speaks to his political skills. The Bushes had a mixed record with the party’s disparate groups. George H.W. inherited Reagan’s mantle, but he was considered suspect on abortion. W. was more conservative, but still did not fight all that hard for the religious agenda.

Of course, the damage that all three presidents did with their hostility to government, marginalization of gays and women, and their Supreme Court choices will endure for many years.

The more recent history of the movement shows most conclusively that it is indeed on its wheezing last breath. The public still sees the Republican Party as the architect of the economic disaster of 2008, and as the economy improves President Obama will get the lion’s share of the rewards. More people support marriage equality than oppose it and the recent flap over contraception shows that the GOP is out of touch with the way most Americans, especially women, view both the birth control and religious issues.

That brings us to why this is the beginning of the end.

The far right wing of the Republican Party is driving the party’s agenda and there’s not one candidate who’s shown they can corral the competing factions. Conservative reaction to Mitt Romney ranges from suspect to hostile and none of the other candidates can claim the right’s support. Yet. That might change as Rick Santorum showed in winning three non-binding primaries last week.

If anything, the nomination battle has proven that the movement has splintered along economic, social and religious lines. Many of the proposals we’ve heard are meant to appeal to the far fringe Tea Party wing of the party (Ron Paul) or to the religious conservatives (Santorum and Gingrich). Romney’s attempts to appeal to the center while throwing the right some scraps on abortion and taxes have so far fallen short of gaining wide acceptance.

None of the candidates would take the deal that offered $10 in budget cuts for $1 in tax increases. Some in the party still question President Obama’s citizenship and religion, and the candidates accuse him of the most outlandish things: anti-religion, creating a communist state, forsaking Israel, and wanting Iran to get a nuclear weapon.

It’s an extreme agenda to say the least, and it will lead to the GOP’s crash. History shows that when you lose the middle of your constituency, you lose your mandate to govern. The Republican Party is on that path.

My sense is that this will all be exposed during the general election campaign and, combined with an improving economy, will result in Obama’s reelection. The 2010 Congressional elections resulted in redistricting that solidified the Republican’s majorities in the House, though Tea Party seats are certainly up for grabs in many districts, and the Democrats have to defend too many Senate seats to count on continued control of that chamber. Conservatives will still hold sway on many issues, but the wave is over. The United States won’t become more liberal, but it will become less conservative and less extreme. Most Republicans probably don’t see this trend coming, and it’s already too late to stop it.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives and Twitter @rigrundfest

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pat robertson Religion right winged

Pat Robertson Asks – Is Mac And Cheese “A Black Thing?”

Pat Robertson has never heard of “Mac and cheese,” and it took two black people to bring him into the light. The famous right-winged tele-evangelist from The 700 Club, in his effort to learn something new everyday, asked his co-host Kristi Watts about a recent interview she did with former Secretary of State in the Bush administration, Condoleezza Rice.

In the interview, Watts asked Rice, “What is your favorite Thanksgiving meal?” Rice answered “It’s Mac and Cheese,” to which Watts replied, “Sister, that is my dish, that is the one thing I can rock!”

With Kristi Watts back in the studio with Pat Robertson, Robertson wanted edification on the “Mac and Cheese” discovery. “What is this Mac and Cheese,” Pat asked, “is this a black thing?”

Any black person could see the shock on Watts’ face, and her first reaction was to put Robertson in his place. But as she opened her mouth to get ghetto on Robertson, she remembered the need for a paycheck, especially in this economic downturn. She replied;

“It is a black thing, Pat. Listen, and you guys, other people, the world needs to get on board with macaroni and cheese.” said Watts. “Seriously, I just… ok, Christmas and Thanksgiving, we have to have macaroni and cheese and it trips me out that you don’t.”

After a brief chuckle, Robertson concluded, “I really don’t, I don’t, and I have never.”

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Politics right winged United States United States Environmental Protection Agency

On Earth Day, More “Christians” Attack Environmentalists

Let’s look at the meaning of the word Environmentalist. According to the dictionary, an environmentalist is any person who advocates or works to protect the air,water, animals, plants, and other natural resources from  pollution or its effects.

Now, let’s see what the Bible says about Environmentalists and the protecting of our environment. There are many other scripture verses that remind us that God not only created the Earth, but also calls on us to protect it.

Psalms 104: 25-30 – There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number— living things both large and small. There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there. These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things. When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When you send your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.

This verse clearly asks us to be good stewards of the environment. It tells us that all living things, both large and small depend on us for protection, for with that protection, we “renew the face of the earth.”

Now, enter the far right winged “Christian” conservative. For some strange reason, these people believe any attempt to protect the environment from pollution is non-Christian.

See their video below.

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Democratic democrats Planned Parenthood Politics Republican right winged United States United States Environmental Protection Agency

Republicans Are Masters of The Game

It is an obvious game of chicken and well-played by the Republicans. The object of the game is to establish your position in a metaphoric staring contest, wait to see who blinks first, then take all you can and run!

Think about it. Every single policy that involves negotiations, Republicans take the most extreme right winged position available. They then go on the so-called “main-stream media” and repeat their extreme arguments over and over and over again, in essence brainwashing otherwise rational Americans into thinking these far-fetched positions are normal.

After a constant barrage of talking points from every congressional Republican who gets  in front of a microphone or camera, these extreme positions take on a life of their own, as everyday folks begin to consider the possibilities of enacting these policies. People take up positions, usually along party lines, and the pros and cons are measured.

Democrats too, hear these arguments, for they are repeated by every single congressional Republican verbatim. So when the time comes to negotiate, Democrats, who tend to start in the middle, move more and more to the right, a move seen by Republicans as progress in the negotiations, and the end result is a piece of legislation that is somewhere between center and far right.

Look at the most recent negotiations between Democrats and Republicans – the 2011 budget. Weeks before the deadline arrived, Republicans gathered all their talking points, memorized them and spewed them out on every cable and radio network. The most extreme positions were demanding a $100 billion budget cut, defunding Education, defunding Planned Parenthood and stopping abortions, with no regards to women’s health or how she conceived – whether it be through rape or incest –  and with no regards to the health or survivability of the fetus. They also got bombarded with news from across the nation that Republican governors were enacting some of the most extreme policies this country has seen in decades regarding union collective bargaining capabilities. All this was done in unison, as the full effort to modify America’s thinking had begun.

As the deadline to agree on a budget approached, Republicans dug in even further. They were relentless in getting their message out, everyone reciting the same scripts, some even protesting outside of Harry Reid’s office demanding that Planned Parenthood be abolished. Democrats were not immune to the Republican’s efforts, and instead of taking up what many considered to be  traditional liberal positions on the issues, found themselves being more centrist in order to avoid looking as left-winged extremists.

Starting from this centrist position was an automatic win for the Republicans, but they continued digging in until the eleventh hour – literally! Democrats gave a little more, and the total outcome was an agreement to continue funding the government for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, but considerable cuts to programs geared towards saving lives, like the EPA and local police enforcement, as well as some cuts to Education among others. Cuts totaling $38.5 billion.

Republicans are masters of the art of negotiation. Take the most extreme positions, and stay there until the other side flinches.

The same strategy will be seen in the next big fight – raising the debt ceiling. And the Paul Ryan Plan, which will ultimately transfer $4.2 trillion from the middle class to the wealthy, is the extreme right winged position they will be using to get more centrist-right cuts. And their position now is, if Ryan’s plan doesn’t go into effect, then the debt ceiling will not be raised. Turn on your cable news station, and you are almost guaranteed to see  Republicans preaching that “we don’t have a tax problem, we have a spending problem,” and “Ryan’s proposed budget is the only responsible plan to tackle America’s long-term debt,” or that they only “intend to vote for Ryan’s budget cuts.”

They are a well oiled machine. But this game is not solitaire, so  it requires an opponent. Democrats must stand up for the middle class, like they’ve done for decades.

Democrats know the game being played by the Republicans, and they must play accordingly. In the words of GI-Joe, a favorite American hero: “… knowing is half the battle!”

 

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