You want a be good Christian? Vote for the guy who wants to help the jobless make it through hard times. Vote for the party that didn’t present false information in order to justify a war. Vote for the guy who is concerned about the land, the water, the air, and the creatures over which God gave us dominion. Vote for the party that didn’t put the Catholic Worker on a terrorist watchlist because they’re against violence. Vote for the guy who didn’t earn millions putting others out of work, and didn’t hide his money in a foreign bank to avoid rendering taxes to his own nation. Vote for the guy who actually is ‘Concerned About The Very Poor’. Don’t vote against most of your believes just to support a man who is more interested in proving how Christian he is rather than doing the good deeds that Jesus asked us to do.

Of all of the Christian rules to put above the others, this is one of the stupidest. Jesus said nothing about homosexuality. And based on what he said about marriage, if we don’t allow gay marriage then we should outlaw adults living with their parents, and outlaw men remaining single. Homosexuality is only forbidden in the Old Testament, not the New, But enforcing Old Testament rules would mean no bacon, no lobster, no work on Saturday, and bringing two doves to temple every month to atone for menstruation.

Does God want us to enforce a two thousand year old set of rules or does God want us to understand the morality and responsibility that he was trying to teach us with those rules? When I was raising my children, I had rules about what we watched on TV, when we ate dinner, who was allowed in the house. I also taught my children to be compassionate and responsible. It was not specific rules that I was trying to teach them. I would be disappointed if my children adhered strictly to old rules; I want them to make their own rules, as long as they do so with compassion and responsibility in mind. Here’s another analogy; imagine a mother leaves with strict instructions not to get water on the new carpet. But then a fire breaks out, and the baby sitter grabs a bucket of water to douse it while the children yell, “No, Mom said ‘No Water’!” God hasn’t sent us a babysitter in a long long time. The circumstances have changed. Perhaps God expects us, by ourselves, to start acting like adults.

To push my idea further, Jesus came and said that the old laws are still in effect, but then he went and changed them, which is why Christians can eat pork and lobster. I’m not Christian, but I believe in the wisdom that Jesus taught. What is meant by not changing the laws while changing them? I say it’s that some laws must be changed for others to remain. God gave Man dominion over the earth and also told us to be fruitful and multiply. But today overpopulation, consumption of resources and pollution are our biggest threats. Perhaps in order to maintain God’s commandment of dominion we must change the rule about men taking wives and producing lots of children.

Whether you agree with my conclusions or not, you cannot legislate all of your beliefs. And you shouldn’t fool yourself into thinking that either Obama or Romney will let you do so. Pat Robinson said, “you don’t have Jesus running against someone else. You have Obama running against Romney.” In his perverse way, he’s spot on. We have a choice between two men, each of whom will satisfy some of your Christian desires. One will shout to the world what a Christian nation we are with high-profile displays of Christian rule enforcement. The other will help feed the hungry, care for the sick, and try to ensure we don’t destroy the planet over which we have dominion.

I know my choice, but I’m not Christian. You have to make yours. Make the right choice.

One of those reasons is Eduardo Saverin’s despicable decision to renounce his U.S. citizenship, thus avoiding taxes on Facebook’s initial public offering. He does this after earning billions thanks to the hard working people who support the infrastructure that helped him rise to his position of wealth and fame.

As the Pando Daily points out, Saverin owes the U.S. “Nearly Everything”.

Would Eduardo Saverin have been successful anywhere else? Maybe, but not as quickly, and not as spectacularly. It was only thanks to America—thanks to the American government’s direct and indirect investments in science and technology; thanks to the U.S. justice system; the relatively safe and fair investment climate made possible by that justice system; the education system that educated all of Facebook’s workers, and on and on—it was only thanks to all of this that you know anything at all about Eduardo Saverin today.

But Mr. Saverin doesn’t see it that way. He’s going to take his ball and go to Singapore; a ball he built with the help of hard working Americans.
According to The Atlantic, more and more wealthy are leaving America, balls and all. So what are we to do? Right wing tax reformers say we need to become more like the countries to which our ingrate billionaires are fleeing. Like Singapore.

Singapore is a nice place for billionaires. But for average workers, their hours have risen while their take-home pay has been falling, and many parents don’t have money for their children’s lunch.

As income inequality in the U.S. increases, we may soon catch up to Singapore in the CIA’s GINI index of family income distribution. Singapore’s a little worse than El Salvador, and we’re not far behind. This is the direction the right wing wants us to go in order to beg selfish, arrogant billionaires to stay with us. But it’s absurd to think we can compete with countries that disregard the needs of their poor. No matter how far we lower the tax rates for billionaires, there will always be nations with lower taxes. The right wants us to be more like those nations, even as they accuse Obama of wanting to be more like Western Europe.

They tell us that if we stop taking money from our “job creators” and stop coddling the non-working, our labor force will be more productive and we’ll all live better. But looking at Singapore tells us that our poorest laborers would work more hours for less pay and the income gap will be even greater than it is now.

So, our choice is to lose billionaires to tax havens or become more like the nations to which they’re so attracted. It’s a nasty choice, like continuing to use Facebook or relinquish a tool which is no longer optional in promoting important causes. Those are the choices that our fleeing billionaires have left us.

But it’s the silly protesters who are waging class warfare.

Those who discriminate against homosexuals do so not because they love God but because discriminating makes them feel superior. The rules that we naturally love are the ones that we can easily follow while others struggle to do so. Those of us who are straight men are not straight because we’re law abiding or disciplined or moral. We’re straight because we like pussy. Does that make us more godly? Closer to Jesus? We share a quality that we share with most roosters, billy goats, and male dogs. I can think of no quality that I share with a billy goat that makes me feel morally superior to people who don’t share that quality. I might if I were a vegetarian.

Discriminating by sexual preference is as abhorrent as discriminating by race. Supporting laws against homosexuality doesn’t make you a good Christian, supporting religious doctrine doesn’t make you a good American, and liking pussy doesn’t make you a good man. All Americans, and especially Democrats, should support the president, support marriage equality, and stand against discrimination.

Coupling Romney’s failure to recall what some would consider a pretty memorable experience and his failure to recall his own statements and positions, it almost seems as if his problem is memory blackouts rather than dishonesty. But there’s much more evidence to suggest dishonesty, including is Swiss bank account.

I believe that people can improve and I believe in second chances. But I don’t see much improvement in Mitt Romney. He will say and do whatever he thinks will best accomplish his goals, whether it’s lying, flip-flopping on policy issues, or torturing fem-boys, and if he’s elected he will continue to pander to whomever he thinks will help him increase his own wealth and power. I don’t think we can count on him pandering to the middle class or people struggling to find work.

To review: The ACORN voter scandal was not a hoax played by ACORN but one played on ACORN by temporary workers who turned in fraudulent applications instead of doing what they were hired to do, which was to register real voters. More importantly, even if undiscovered, the fraudulent registrations would never have resulted in a fraudulent vote. That’s because Micky Mouse, Superman, and even more realistic made-up names cannot take physical form and show up at the polls. Still, Mr. Fund taps into the still believed lies about ACORN and refers to “an ACORN-style group registering thousands of illegal or nonexistent voters” as justification for tighter voter ID laws.

Moving on to the next lie, Fund tells us that James O’keefe’s latest in a series of misleading videos “demonstrated just last month how easy — and almost impossible to detect — voter impersonation can be”. In the video, a young, White, O’keefe operative presented himself as someone named “Eric Holder”, in the Attorney General’s polling station and without any challenge was offered Mr. Holder’s ballot. But true to form, O’keefe’s video doesn’t show what right wing alarmists say it shows. The operative left without taking the ballot. Had he taken it, the real Eric Holder would have had to use a special ballot, an investigation would have been triggered, the fraudulent vote discarded, and the operative would have faced serious election fraud charges. In order to pull off voter impersonation fraud, the impostor must use the name of someone who is registered to vote but will not show up, and has to risk five years of prison and a heavy fine just to cast one single vote.

Fund discusses statistics about people who are worried about voter fraud. But he doesn’t talk about how many of these worried people are worried about ID fraud rather than about rigged or faulty voter machines, lost ballots, doctored counts, and voter suppression. It was a miscount in Iowa, not voter ID fraud, which gave Romney early momentum during the Republican primaries to the relief of Republican strategists who feared Santorum might win the primaries but loose the general election. Lost ballots and insecure voting machines have been serious issues in recent elections, and are more legitimate concerns for voters worried about the integrity of the elections system than hundreds of impostors trying to sway an election one vote at a time.

Voter ID fraud may exist, but if so, it exists in tiny numbers because of the high penalty of getting caught and small payoff of success. Still, if there weren’t actual people, such as those with accessibility issues who live far from government offices, who will be turned away from the polls due to more stringent voter ID laws, then the laws would be fine. But such people do exist, and voter ID laws have a greater effect of blocking these legitimate voters than of preventing fraud. If we want elections that closely reflect the will of the people, we should not deny these votes in order to fight a problem that is already under control with existing laws.

I would take the concerns of those claiming to want truer elections more seriously if they were to concentrate more on proven elections issues, rather than focusing like lasers on a less worrisome potential problem and promoting a solution that will sway elections away from the interests of the poor and poorly connected.

So apparently, Obama should sit quietly while pundits at CNN suggest that Obama was not in charge and idiots like Ben Shapiro accuse Obama of not even knowing what the mission to get Bin Laden was. Indeed, a dignified response to the accusations would be no response at all. I’m sure if he refused to respond to the lies, the right would show the same respect they did for all those months during which Obama refused to respond to the lies about his birth certificate.

Nor should Obama suggest that anyone else, especially Romney, would not have made the same decision. Romney said, ‘Any thinking American’ would have done the same. Except, Romney would have done things differently, as would many of Obama’s top advisors.

Romney’s level headed response,

“It’s totally appropriate for the president to express to the American people the view that he has that he had an important role in taking out Osama bin Laden,” Romney said after visiting the lower Manhattan fire station with Rudy Giuliani, who was mayor when terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center’s twin towers and killed nearly 3,000 people.

“I think politicizing it and trying to draw a distinction between himself and myself was an inappropriate use of the very important event that brought America together,” Romney said.

was, at least, not nasty and doesn’t suggest that Obama is taking credit for other people’s work. But considering the barrage of misinformation that Obama is fighting against during this campaign season, it’s appropriate for Obama to take credit for the decisions he has made as well as it is to distinguish himself from his opponent, who is now trying to distance himself from statements he made in the past.

So I don’t agree that Obama should keep quite about Bin Laden just to avoid politicizing his accomplishments when everything he does or doesn’t do is going to be politicized anyway.

Barack Obama is justified to take credit for his role in killing Osama Bin Laden and in pointing out that Romney was against the strategies that Obama used. The president is not suggesting that he was on the ground in Pakistan with a hunting knife or that Romney didn’t care about Bin Laden. He’s only trying to set the record straight, and is under no obligation to sit quietly while right wing pundits spread lies.

When deciding who the heroes are, the committee does not test for politics. This year, one of our honorees will likely vote for Mitt Romney in November. But this woman volunteered for years at the Tidewater Free Clinic and has distinguished herself by helping desperate people receive vital medical services while treating each of her clients, despite their social and economic status, with the same courtesy and respect with which one would treat a friend.

In the next few months many of us will get into emotional arguments with friends and strangers about economics, war, the power of government, the use of lethal force, and host of other vital topics, and we may feel that those who disagree with us are selfish, stupid, or crazy. But in the end, good people don’t necessarily believe what you believe or what I believe, and can hold views that we find to be outrageous.

By all means, argue. I have opinions and I’m not afraid to use them. But in the end, remember to recognize the goodness of those people around us, despite our strongly disparate views.

Tickets next week’s event are $25 and you can contact me or visit the SDC’s site for more information.

Dear Racist FB Friends: I know that black people kill white people, just like white people kill black people. It’s OLD NEWS. Old, ancient, boring, sickening news. Can we please focus on loving one another instead of spreading hate and discontent and fomenting racism? Every time I see one of you post *yet another* status about black-on-white crimes, I feel a little sicker and even more disheartened about our world. Move on.

At the time she wrote this, I hadn’t seen many posts or comments about the black-on-white vs white-on-black crime ratio, but since then it’s become ubiquitous.

I image there are people who don’t understand why black-on-white crime statistics aren’t relevant to the outrage over the delay to arrest George Zimmerman. The following is an attempt to explain it.

I am White. There exist violent thugs who are White. Those thugs do not represent me. They are not my agents. I get nothing from their crimes. When a White murderer kills innocent Black people, the White race does not get a point. And I am not personally responsible for George Zimmerman’s actions.

The same would be true if I were Black, in reference to Black criminals. Black criminals don’t act on behalf of law abiding Black people. The Black race gets no points for crimes against Whites. There have been Black people committing violent acts against White people in retaliation for Trayvon Martin, but most Black people have nothing to do with them, and are not responsible for their actions.

The outrage over Mr. Zimmerman is not about the actions of criminals. It’s not even about George Zimmerman. The outrage is about the apparent approval of Trayvon Martin’s death by the lawmakers and enforcers who are supposed to keep us safe. It’s about the feeling of some law abiding citizens that race and demographics, rather than deeds, determine who gets punished for crimes and who gets to go free.

Gun ownership is much higher among White people than Black people, so stand-your-ground laws do not provide equal protection. While laws and attitudes which encourage vigilantism might increase the amount of people who kill criminals, they also increase the amount of people who mistakenly kill innocents who they assume to be threats. People who fear falling into the “assumed threat” category don’t see this as a fair trade-off.

Some White commenter’s have asked, since so many Black people kill so many White people, why isn’t it White people who are protesting against Blacks? But White people have protested, and the result has been laws and attitudes which enabled George Zimmerman to track down Trayvon Martin and start a confrontation with him while armed and ready to kill.

One particularly mean spirited writer suggested that Blacks and Whites should call it even, considering the balance of racial oppression against the violence of Black criminals. But again I emphasize, criminals are not agents of law abiding citizens, and should not be treated as their representatives.

Instead of Blacks protesting Whites and Whites protesting Blacks, law abiding citizens should protest criminals. And instead of laws which promote confrontations, we should have laws that reduce crime. These laws include youth programs, police outreach and increased patrols (by which I mean more cops, not more overworked cops), better education, safe public transportation, and perhaps even increased gun ownership.

The protests aren’t about equaling the balance of cross-race crimes or the desire to protect Black criminals as equally as White criminals. The protests are about equal protection of the law and and a desire to protect law abiding citizens.

Being progressive doesn’t mean always defending the Black guy. It means looking at the facts and not jumping to conclusions. It means not retaliating against people just because they remind you of others who did you wrong. It means not convicting unless you’re sure beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime, while at the same time trusting facts and logic to guide you towards getting it right more often. And it means considering mitigating circumstances, even if the subject is a crotchety old White man beating a Black guy with a stick.

Edit: I added “by two White men” in the first sentence for clarification.

Update: Soon after I added “White men” I read that Mr. England is Native American. For now, I’ll leave my words up there as written.

Copied from Real Clear Politics, here’s what the president said in response to a question about health care and the Supreme Court:

With respect to health care, I’m actually — continue to be confident that the Supreme Court will uphold the law. And the reason is because, in accordance with precedent out there, it’s constitutional. That’s not just my opinion, by the way; that’s the opinion of legal experts across the ideological spectrum, including two very conservative appellate court justices that said this wasn’t even a close case.

I think it’s important — because I watched some of the commentary last week — to remind people that this is not an abstract argument. People’s lives are affected by the lack of availability of health care, the inaffordability of health care, their inability to get health care because of preexisting conditions.

The law that’s already in place has already given 2.5 million young people health care that wouldn’t otherwise have it. There are tens of thousands of adults with preexisting conditions who have health care right now because of this law. Parents don’t have to worry about their children not being able to get health care because they can’t be prevented from getting health care as a consequence of a preexisting condition. That’s part of this law.

Millions of seniors are paying less for prescription drugs because of this law. Americans all across the country have greater rights and protections with respect to their insurance companies and are getting preventive care because of this law.

So that’s just the part that’s already been implemented. That doesn’t even speak to the 30 million people who stand to gain coverage once it’s fully implemented in 2014.

And I think it’s important, and I think the American people understand, and the I think the justices should understand, that in the absence of an individual mandate, you cannot have a mechanism to ensure that people with preexisting conditions can actually get health care. So there’s not only a economic element to this, and a legal element to this, but there’s a human element to this. And I hope that’s not forgotten in this political debate.

Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress. And I’d just remind conservative commentators that for years what we’ve heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint — that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident that this Court will recognize that and not take that step.

I’ve read this a few times but I keep missing the big warning.

Of course a warning can be implied, like a boss telling an employee, “I’m confident you’re not going to use the company car for personal business”. But unlike the boss and his employee, Obama can’t fire the Supreme Court. He can’t get Congress to fire them and can’t get the American People to fire them. There is nobody in the world with better job security than a Supreme Court justice, and few who are as unaccountable for their decisions.

So I can’t figure out what hundreds of Right wing politicians, reporters, pundits, and bloggers have in their heads whey they accuse President Obama of “warning” or “trying to intimidate” the Supreme Court.

The president’s words are not unprecedented either. As the Daily Beast aptly points out:

In words echoed by Obama this week, Reagan reminded Americans that “in our democracy, it is the elected representatives of the people, not unelected judges, who make laws.” And Reagan warned what would happen if justices ignored that civics lesson: “If that happens,” he said, “the words of the documents that we think govern us will be just masks for the personal and capricious rule of a small elite.”

In those quotes, President Reagan was not referring to a specific ruling, but those words were still as much a description of the president’s expectations as Obama’s were.

President Obama did, by the way, correct his mistake about the precedence of the Supreme Court overturning congressional law, and explained that he was referring to laws concerning the commerce clause. Without that modification, the suggestion was absurd.

But despite that slip, there’s nothing unprecedented about a president stating how he expects the Supreme Court should act. His words were mild compared to some of those before him, and all this nonsense about the president’s warning is another dishonest effort to invent nefarious meanings hidden behind the president’s actual words.