Posts Tagged ‘liberal’

Mitt Romney wins the Nevada caucus by a wide margin

Feb 5th, 12 / 0 Comments

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Mitt Romney wins the Nevada caucus by a wide margin

Mitt Romney wins the Nevada caucus by a wide margin, The Raw Story, February 4, 2012, by Megan Carpentier, copied verbatim: Logos57: A Caring Community is pleased to partner with The Raw Story to bring you cutting edge news, Image via Gage Skidmore on Flickr, Creative Commons licensed:

Former governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) scored his most decisive win to date in the Nevada Republican caucus tonight, winning the race by more than 15 percent and leaving former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) to battle for second place again with former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) again a distant fourth.

Creative Commons photograph of Mitt Romney on the campaign trail in Nevada by Gage Skidmore

But despite Paul’s expectation that the caucus format would benefit his campaign, Paul looked to place a significant distance behind Gingrich.

Romney took the stage just before 10:40 ET, introduced again by his wife, Ann, to thank supporters and slam Obama, reminding voters that Obama encouraged people to avoid coming to Nevada for conventions and meetings. Romney then took aim at Friday’s encouraging unemployment statistics, suggesting that the “real” unemployment rate was closer to 15 percent, a nod to the underemployment rate, which is down from 17.2 percent in January 2010.

In what is now a frequent refrain, Romney told his audience, “This president began his presidency by apologizing for America, now he should apologize to America” adding that the president should stop making excuses for the ongoing economic crisis. “Our vision for the future could not be more different from his,” Romney said, promising to cut government, reduce the government’s share of the total economy and balance the federal budget without raising taxes. In another statement common to his speeches, Romney said that Obama “demonizes and denigrates” entrepreneurs that his Administration would promote. And, of course, he promised to repeal “Obamacare” and rescind the recent Obama Administration ruling that forces employer insurance to provide coverage for birth control, which has been under fire from religious employers and religious groups — a point Romney made in his Tuesday night speech after the Florida primary. He then asked people to remember that their ancestors came to American “for the pursuit of happiness, not the pursuit of hand-outs,” and asked them to vote for him in November, making this one of his shortest speeches to date.

[This post will be updated as results come in.]

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Megan Carpentier is the executive editor of Raw Story. She previously served as an associate editor at Talking Points Memo; the editor of news and politics at Air America; an editor at Jezebel.com; and an associate editor at Wonkette. Her published works include pieces for the Washington Post, the Washington Independent, Ms Magazine, RH Reality Check, the Women’s Media Center, On the Issues, the New York Press, Bitch and Women’s eNews.

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Paying For Cancer Treatment for Children in America With a Car Wash, Bake Sale and Fish Fry

Feb 4th, 12 / 0 Comments

Logos57: a Caring Community

 

Paying For Cancer Treatment for Children
in America With a Car Wash, Bake Sale and Fish Fry

Paying For Cancer Treatment for Children in America With a Car Wash, Bake Sale and Fish Fry, Common Dreams.org, February 3, 2012, by Wendell Potter, quoted verbatim:

“It shouldn’t be this way,” read the subject line of an email I received Friday morning from a conservative friend and fellow Southerner. “People shouldn’t have to beg for money to pay for medical care.”

At first, I thought he was referring to my column last week in which I wrote about the fundraising effort to cover the bills, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, that the husband of Canadian skier Sarah Burke is now facing. Burke died on January 19, nine days after sustaining severe head injuries in a skiing accident in Park City, Utah. I noted that had the accident occurred in Burke’s native Canada, which has a system of universal coverage, the fundraiser would not have been necessary.

beautiful inspiring image of an empty wheelchair at the bottom of a toplit flight of stairs

But my friend was not writing about Sarah Burke. He wanted to alert me to another fundraiser, this one on Alabama’s Gulf Coast, to help pay for the mounting medical expenses for a beautiful 13-year-old girl fighting for her life at USA Children’s & Women’s Hospital in Mobile, Ala.

In late November, Caroline Richmond was rushed to the hospital after collapsing on the way home from school. Doctors quickly determined she’d had a stroke and required immediate surgery. The bad news just kept coming. The stroke had been caused by leukemia.

In the weeks following brain surgery, Caroline had to undergo chemotherapy. She later became so ill that she was put on a ventilator and had to be fed through tubes. Although she is still listed in critical condition and faces a bone marrow transplant, Caroline has made progress. She was taken off the ventilator and tubes last week, and is now eating solid food for the first time since the stroke.

As it turns out, Caroline is one of more than 50 million men, women and children who do not have health insurance in the United States, which is why her family is in the same predicament as Sarah Burke’s. Caroline’s father, Dallas, is self-employed and, like millions of other Americans who do not work for a company that offers health benefits, has not been able to find affordable coverage for his family.

A friend of the Richmonds, Robin Smith, told me Dallas is one of the hardest working people she’s ever met. She said he owns a coin-operated laundry and has “two or three” other jobs to make ends meet. “He works round the clock,” she said. “You never see him when he’s not working.”

Knowing that Dallas and his wife, Christy, are worried not only about their daughter but also about the real possibility they might be forced into bankruptcy and lose their home because of the medical bills, Smith has joined other friends of the family to raise money. Caroline’s classmates and teachers have put “Cups for Caroline” in all the homerooms at Fairhope Middle School, where Caroline is an eighth-grader. They’ve also held car washes.

Last night they were scheduled to host a bake sale and fish fry at the American Legion Post in Fairhope. It was that event, also posted on a Facebook support page, that my friend brought to my attention. Until then, I had never heard of Caroline Richmond. I suspect you hadn’t heard of her either. I am writing not only to spread the word, but also to ask that you think for a moment about walking in the Richmond family’s shoes.

It is important to understand that almost all of us who do have health coverage through the workplace are just a layoff or plant closing away from joining the Richmonds among the uninsured. Those of us who are self-employed like Dallas Richmond or who work for small businesses that can no longer pay for coverage are increasingly unlikely to find decent coverage that we can afford.

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Hundreds of thousands of families file for bankruptcy and lose their homes every year nationwide because of medical debt. Many of those people actually have what they thought was adequate insurance, but find that they still have to pay far more out of their own pockets to cover thousands of dollars in bills than their budgets will allow.

My column on Sarah Burke provoked many comments, some from people who essentially wrote, “too bad, so sad.” In their opinion, Burke shouldn’t have been taking risks on the ski slopes in Utah in the first place. She should have bought coverage that would have protected her in the U.S.

Maybe so. But I wonder what those people, all of whom condemned “Obamacare,” will say about Caroline Richmond. When the reform law is fully implemented in a couple of years — assuming it goes forward — the Richmonds should be able to find coverage at an affordable price. That’s what reform was all about. To make sure that American families don’t have to lose their homes when someone gets sick and to make sure that insurance firms can no longer engage in practices that have swelled the ranks of the uninsured and underinsured.

Caroline’s story is not unique. Tragedies like her’s occur so often, in fact, that they rarely make the news anymore. But it is precisely because they are an everyday occurrence that health care reform was so urgently needed. We have been led to believe by opponents of reform that our health care system is the best in the world. The reality, of course, is that, while we do indeed have some of the world’s best doctors and hospitals, the system in which they operate has become increasingly dysfunctional and unnecessarily expensive. This is why the reform law, despite its flaws, must go forward.

To learn more about Caroline Richmond and how to make a donation, visit the Facebook page established by her family’s friends.

Wendell Potter is former Vice President of corporate communications at CIGNA, one of the United States’ largest health insurance companies. In June 2009, he testified against the HMO industry in the U.S. Senate as a whistleblower. He is now the Senior Fellow on Health Care for the Center for Media and Democracy in Madison, Wisconsin.

Also See When Medicare Isn’t Medicare, The Huffington Post, December 26, 2011, by Wendell Potter.

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Newt Gingrich: Down in Florida and On the Way Out

Jan 31st, 12 / 0 Comments

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Newt Gingrich: Down in Florida
and On the Way Out


If (or When) Gingrich is Eliminated
From this race, it won’t be for lack of funding

Logos57: A Caring Community, January 31, 2012, news on the Florida primary compiled and with commentary by Paul Evans:

NEW! Election Results: FL Primary Results: Mitt Romney Scores Huge Florida Win, But Primary Looks Far From Finished, The Huffington Post, January 31, 2011, by Jon Ward:

…Romney’s overwhelming win here Tuesday night was a big moment for the former Massachusetts governor that fully restored him to frontrunner status, and dealt a major blow to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Romney won convincingly, with 47.5 percent to Gingrich’s 31.2 percent, with 51 percent of the vote counted. Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) trailed behind, with 13.1 and 6.9 percent, respectively.

NEW! See Bolstered by Latino Vote, Romney Poised to Regain Momentum With Florida Victory, ABC News on Yahoo News, January 31, 2012, by Matthew Jaffe.

NEW! See Mitt Romney leads exit polls in Florida, KSDK, January 30, 2011, by NBC:

(NBC) – Mitt Romney’s sounding like he’s already won Florida and the GOP presidential nomination. … A half million Floridians have voted early, and Romney leads two-to-one in exit polls.

>
Commentary by Paul Evans: In the Florida primary, in my opinion, the contest will end most of the opportunity for Gingrich to get the nomination. There is plenty of news around the web that is pointing that way. We’ll start off with the NPR and The Huffington Post and then move along to Mother Jones and then Politico. (Everything you need to know from four sources!) Even if we left it at that, it appears likely that Newt’s chances are fading. The more I read about this guy, the more I can’t understand exactly how he got to be a serious candidate for the Republican nomination. So put on your thinking caps and hold on: it’s not hard to find articles from the last day or so which underline my contention:

For starters, see Logos57: A Caring Community’s own article Accused of ‘Grandiosity,’ Gingrich steps back and …proposes a moon base (Updated). This contains news coverage on the Florida election from yesterday and the day before. Pay special attention to our excerpt from Obama Vs. Gingrich? More Reasons GOP Fears The Matchup, NPR, January 30, 2012, by Liz Halloran. This article offers compelling evidence about the general election, specifically, match-ups of either Romney or Gingrich vs. Obama. Romney is in an electoral college dead heat with Obama, while Gingrich probably would get “clobbered:”

Rothenberg’s latest presidential race calculations show that Gingrich would get clobbered by Obama in the tally of all-important state Electoral College votes, 328-180, with only 30 votes seen as tossups. Those estimates are unchanged since Rothenberg’s similar analysis a month ago.

There are a total of 538 electoral votes; 270 are needed to secure the presidency.

Paul Evans: And, it turns out, the whole moon colony proposal of Gingrich isn’t the only news item which really gives you pause. You have to ask yourself, “Should this man really get the Republican nomination, or wouldn’t he (and the Republican Party) be a lot better off with Newt quietly professing these weird ideas of his in some well funded think tank somewhere?” Here is what we mean:

See Newt’s New-Age Love Gurus: This article reports on some really strong aspects of Gingrich’s past which social conservatives would really be appalled by, if they knews the facts. The article’s introductions states that “Gingrich’s intellectual mentors are former Marxist organizers who envisioned a future full of serial marriages and open relationships.” Amazing. Of course, Gingrich is on his third wife now, with some proven …indiscretions, shall we say.


If (or When) Newt’s Campaign “Goes Down,” It Won’t Be for Lack of Funding

Remember when Gingrich’s billionaire friend pumped $5 million into his campaign as the election in South Carolina entered its final week? Well, here we gio again. This will be truly last minute funding, but at a level of $10 million. You can buy quite a bit of TV airtime with $10 million, if South Carolina is any example:

See ‘Joe Kennedy helped his son,’ Gingrich funder says, Catholic Online, January 27, 2012, by Catholic Online (News Consortium):

Billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson who is bankrolling Newt Gingrich’s super PAC to the tune of $10 million, says he isn’t trying to “buy” a presidency. Adelson says he’s just following in the footsteps of another powerful business tycoon, Joseph Kennedy, father of President John F. Kennedy.

…

The 78-year-old Adelson has a personal fortune estimated at $21 billion, according to Rogich, “plays to win” and “puts his money where his mouth is.”

Adelson and his Israeli-born wife Miriam have pumped $10 million in the last three weeks into the Winning Our Future Super PAC. The cash has provided crucial cash infusion that helped revive Gingrich’s candidacy, bankrolling attack ads against Mitt Romney in South Carolina and now Florida.

Paul Evans: OK, 1.) How do socially conservative Republicans feel about Gingrich getting his funding via a billionaire casino owner and 2.) as a Democrat and a liberal, I find the comparison between Joe Kennedy’s funding JFK’s campaign and this billionaire casino type offensive, don’t you?

Watch a video on Gingrich’s unethical behavior when he was Speaker of the House, here. This is a devastating attack ad that Romney is saturating Florida with currently.

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Here’s a side note Here’s an article you may want to pay attention to, especially if you are a Latino. See Gingrich and Romney Want to Say Adios to Bilingual Ballots, Mother Jones, January 30, 2012, by Adam Serwer. So, both these guys including the more socially reasonable Romney want to disenfranchise maybe a million or so Latinos? Liberals have been trying to tell the Hispanic community that this is the basic way all Republicans feel about voters rights. Some time ago the Tea Party types were actually proposing that voting should be a privilege that only those Americans who own property should have. It’s simple. The more you cut poor and underprivileged citizens out of the voting picture, the better the Republicans do in elections everywhere. Florida Pay Attention?

Also See The Newt I Know, Politico, January 27, 2012, by Joe Scarborough:

Yeah, yeah. I know. Newt Gingrich had a lousy week and will probably lose the Florida primary on Tuesday. But for those tempted to once again predict the speedy collapse of his campaign, consider yourselves forewarned. I’ve known this guy long enough to realize that the only three species destined to survive a nuclear holocaust will be cockroaches, Cher and Newton Leroy Gingrich.

Important: See Final PPP poll: Romney 39, Gingrich 31 in Florida, Politico, January 30, 2012, by Burns and Haberman.

Finally, See The Daisy Commercial of 2012, Huffington Post, January 30, 2012, by Adam Hanft:

As Romney’s lead in Florida solidifies, and an unfocused Gingrich rages in all directions — he’s his own attack dog — I want to come right out and say it. Romney’s Brokaw commercial is one of the most devastatingly effective negative spots I’ve seen in years. I believe it will go down with the LBJ “Daisy” spot in the annals of fatal, thunderbolt blows.

…By contrast (to LBJ’s commercial), the Brokaw spot’s strength – it’s called, in deadpan fashion, “History Lesson — springs from its unconstructed simplicity. It opens on a television screen with a super that reads “NBC Nightly News, January 21st, 1997.”

Brokaw intones the following, in a voice that if not dripping with irony, is certainly maximally saturated:

“Newt Gingrich, who came to power, after all, preaching a higher standard in American politics, a man who brought down another Speaker on ethics accusations, tonight he has on his own record, the judgment of his peers Democrats and Republicans alike, by an overwhelming vote they found him guilty of ethics violations, they charged him a very large financial penalty, and several of them raised serious questions about his future effectiveness.”

That’s it. It doesn’t parse perfectly, but it wounds deeply. Every word Brokaw utters is deadly for Gingrich; the devastating indictment hurtles from the past into the mental decision box that has been in such Floridian turmoil for the last two weeks.

Paul Evans: Well, that’s a sampling of some of the “dirt” on Gingrich, in fact just from four websites, with commentary — NPR, Huffington Post, Mother Jones and Politico. I’m sure you can find lots of live reporting on the election results later today. We’ll try to provide a link one here, later today.

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Soros: Not much difference between Obama and Romney

Jan 26th, 12 / 1 Comment

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Soros: Not much difference
between Obama and Romney

Soros: Not much difference between Obama and Romney, The Raw Story, January 25, 2012, by Eric W. Dolan, used with permission, quoted verbatim: Logos57: a Caring Community is pleased to partner with The Raw Story to bring you cuttiing edge news.

Billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros told Reuters Global Editor-at-Large Chrystia Freeland that he still supported President Barack Obama, but predicted voters would not be very enthusiastic about the 2012 elections if former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was nominated by Republicans.

Soros on Romney vs. Obama

“Well, look, either you’ll have an extremist conservative, be it Gingrich or Santorum, in which case I think it will make a big difference which of the two comes in,” he said. “If it’s between Obama and Romney, there isn’t all that much difference except for the crowd that they bring with them.”

But he acknowledged that a major difference between Romney and Obama would be their potential Supreme Court nominations and their stance on taxation.

“That is the big difference, and that has led my hedge fund community to abandon Obama in favor of any Republican because they don’t like to be taxed,” Soros explained. “I personally believe that when it comes to policy, you shouldn’t be pursuing self-interest, but the public interest. And I think that the income differentials are too wide and ought to be narrowed.”

Soros has been demonized by some, most notably Lyndon LaRouche and Glenn Beck, for his liberal views and influence. He has donated millions to the Center for American Progress, MoveOn.org and the Drug Policy Alliance.

“Are you one of Lenin’s useful idiots in the view of your fellow hedge fund billionaires?” Freeland asked.

“Well, I suppose so,” he replied. “I am a traitor to my class.”

Comment by Paul Evans: It does seem to me that Ms. Freeland, the interviewer, went too far when she refered to Soros as “one of Lenin’s useful idiots.” The man courageously advocates for a fair and progressive system of taxation. That hardly makes him anyone’s “useful idiot.” As to the comparison of Romney with Obama, the fact of Obama’s advocacy of a fairer system of taxations has ramifications through much of the budgetary process. If a more progressive system of taxation could somehow be put in place, for example, the political pressure to cut entitlements would be much less (and the Democrats’ ability to succesfully oppose such cuts would be stronger). To liberals and progressives everywhere, this should be understood as a huge difference. Obama only advocates bringing the level of taxation back to what it was under Clinton. It may be noted that Clinton balanced the budget and that during his Presidency the economy grew at 4 percent per year. For the very rich, it was in fact not much of a burden at all.

Recommended: Feeling Heat From Gingrich, Romney Enters Attack Mode, The NY Times, January 25, 2012, by Michael D. Shear.

Also Recommended: Candidates Scramble to Win Hispanic Votes in Florida, The NY Times, January 26, 2012, by Michael D. Shear and Trip Gabriel.

Watch Colbert: ‘Gingrich would totally win a wet t-shirt contest’, Comedy Central on The Raw Story, January 25, 2012, by Andrew Jones — Paul Evans: That’s the funniest claim I’ve heard yet this year, maybe longer. Gingrich? Win a wet t-shirt contest??? ROTFL… The guy is about as ripped as a stuffed elephant!

Also See: Obama and GOP candidates offer a campaign preview, AP News on CenturyLink, January 26, 2012, by David Espo.

Also See: Obama Calls for Wealthy to Pay More Taxes to Restore Fairness, Bloomberg Businessweek, January 25, 2012, by Catherine Dodge and Kate Andersen Brower.

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Our Internet: Stop SOPA and PIPA Now

Jan 20th, 12 / 1 Comment

Logos57: A Caring Community
January 21, 2012

 

Our Internet
Stop SOPA and PIPA Now

Logos57: A Caring Community, January 21, 2012, complilation by Paul Evans:

  • End Piracy, Not Liberty, Google, with petition, ongoing:

    Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.

    The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.

  • End American Censorship, Write Congress Now!, another petition.
  • How SOPA affects you, FAQ, CNET, January 18, 2012, by Declan McCullagh.
  • PIPA, SOPA put on hold in wake of protests, CBS News, January 20, 2011, by Stephanie Condon. (latest news)

Please also visit http://stopthewall.us

Our Internet
(YouTube video, 1:53)

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Rethinking the Abortion Debate from a Liberal Christian Perspective (Updated)

Jan 8th, 12 / 5 Comments

Logos57: A Caring Community
January 8, 2012

 

Rethinking the Abortion Debate
from a Liberal Christian Perspective (Updated)

By Placing Obsessive Emphasis on a Fetus’ Life
Many Christians Demean Women and Potentially Weaken Our Society

Logos57: A Caring Community, Rewritten and edited, January 8, 2012, originally published May 13, 2011, by Paul Evans:

I have been searching my soul and re-examining the whole debate on abortion for the last couple of years, and thought it was time to let my readers have my thoughts on this divisive issue.

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In the past, Evans Liberal Politics has generally but conditionally come out on the side of life, as Christian opponents of abortion generally understand the term. Let me go back to an article we featured on May 28, 2010, TN GOP proves that “pro-life” ends at birth, which was from Daily Kos, by benintn. At that time, I was basically holding a liberal sort of conception of an anti-abortion stance, and I said:

This article gets at the heart of the reason I have a problem being anti-abortion (as I have been), even though a developing fetus has a measurably human brainwave at eight days after conception. If we eliminate first trimester abortions, this will dump about 300,000 unwanted infants annually, into the social services pool. Caring for that many children is a huge burden on the system. However even though I remain basically anti-abortion insofar as my own personal ideas, I believe that something so personal as abortion should be a matter between a woman, her counselor of choice, and God. In other words, upon reflection, I would let Roe v. Wade stand.

I generally cannot STAND these righteous Republican moralizers who rant against abortion, or incite or threaten violence over the issue. These are the last people on earth who would be willing to cut out one of their vacations each year in order to pay for the costs of caring for the infants who would be born if there were no abortion. They rave on against abortion, but they are not willing to pay the social costs for not having it. It’s truly root hog or die with these hypocrites. That is NOT to say that many Republicans aren’t willing to pay these costs, but the Grand Old Party is kneejerk and lockstep in opposition to programs to care for our people. (So far as I can see, Republican’s major push, as it has been for several years, is to slash entitlements, and then put the money saved into tax cuts for the rich and very rich.)

Far from wanting to alleviate suffering in the worst economic turn-down since the Great Depression (voting almost in lockstep against extending unemployment benefits any further), Republicans are now preparing an onslaught against tried and tested safety net programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Watch for this one folks: right wingers are now saying we can’t afford to pay for these programs and it will be a big campaign issue in 2012.

So if I were to speak my own conclusive summary on abortion, I might say: “If you want to do the crime, ya got to do the time (and pay for the social, costs).”

I have been doing a lot of soul searching, as a person who is both very liberal and also committed to Christianity, and I also did a lot of reading on the subject around the net. We are in the midst of a big time austerity push where Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as currently constituted are under determined attack by the wealthy in this nation, and their agents, the GOP, as well as some conservative Democrats.

I can’t see America ever putting out the kind of resources it would take to care for 300,000 unwanted infants in any kind of coordinated, funded program that would establish federal rules for these infants to be cared for by society. Nor will the individual states deal with abortion fairly or at all uniformly. If society doesn’t care for the newborn infants, who will? Are we going to sell them? To whom? It is simply a fact that there are not that many people willing to adopt and care for that many unwanted infants each year. To think otherwise is wishful, delusional thinking.

I have always put the mother’s life first. Forcing a mother that is the victim of rape or incest to carry an unborn fetus to term is highly morally repugnant to me. I also think that forcing a 15 year old to carry an developing fetus to term is not something that should be legally required. It should be up to the parents, in consultation with their doctor and any spiritual advisers they wish to consult. And for God’s sake, let’s have realistic sex education as early as junior high school, realizing that these kids have bodies which are in many or most aspects adult and will engage in adult sexual behavior. While we’re at it, let’s give high school kids condoms through the agency of the school counselors or else the kids’ parents. All this to me has always been moral, realistic as well as Christian in its direction.

The real hang-up I have had is over more “standard” first-trimester abortions, and in the past, I have been generally against them after eight days after conception, because at that time a fetus develops a recognizably human brainwave, as scientifically measured. Yet the fact remains, looking at the matter stone cold realistically, society is not going to expand the social safety net to care for the additional 300,000 infants a year that would result if first trimester abortions were outlawed.

I guess it’s that simple to me. I look at it in terms of a sort of “overall misery index” and at this point, very reluctantly, I would let Roe v. Wade stand and continue with first trimester abortions staying legal. By the way, I would make free “morning after pills” available all over the place and have the government pay for them.

There are those fundamentalist Christians who go so far as to say that birth control itself should be illegal since it might deny a potential life that would come to be if birth control were not available. And there are those pharmacists who will not fill prescriptions for the morning after pill or even birth control, citing religious grounds. Moreover, some state laws have supported a pharmacist’s right to refuse this to people. Thank God, this is not prevalent and we do not live in a theocracy yet. And I DO mean “thank God.”

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I’m going to let my arguments and thoughts end at this point, providing some of the articles I have read which helped bring me to my current viewpoint. To summarize the reasons for my position, it is driven by 1.) the compassion I feel for all living beings, in this case putting the life of the pregnant woman ahead of that of the unborn fetus, 2.) a general conclusion based on what is possible politically to care for potential unwanted infants and thus 3.) an overall feeling of compassion and regard for the misery versus the health of women and unborn fetuses as well as society. For those of you who might question my credentials as a true Christian, I suggest you read my article, My Christian Religious Views.

I also have one last thing to say: abortion is a very difficult issue. I KNOW the seriousness of aborting a fetus and I have thought about this a lot. I can honestly say, I don’t know what’s right, yet these are my thoughts on the matter. It really bothers me that a fetus has a scientifically measured, recognizably human brainwave at eight days after conception, but I am not really convinced that this means that aborting such a fetus is killing a human being. It is alive, it has a human brainwave, but is it a human being? I guess such fetuses… well we need to think long and hard about this as individuals before we would decide to have an abortion. I might make some kind of law requiring counseling, but then the question is, who does the counseling, for that would determine what gets done, wouldn’t it? And finally, it has to be a woman’s right to choose an outcome. Although I have written this article from logical and compassionate analysis from one man, it is women who must make such difficult decisions, and so for the first trimester, I would leave it up to them.

I pray to God that my thinking here has some kind of decent validity and moral correctness. But I don’t really claim to know for sure. We certainly shouldn’t kill each other over this, nor threaten violence. Here are some of the articles which have contributed to my viewpoint on abortion:

I have been thinking about this for a long time. See The Rise of the Religious Left — Why Christianity Isn’t Just for Conservatives, AlterNet on Evans Liberal Politics, October 17, 2009, by Anna Hartnell.

See The Human Sacrifice Encouragement Act of 2011 (Updated), Daily Kos on Evans Liberal Politics, February 5, 2011, by dengre: In this bill, Republicans wanted to turn pregnant raped women who are about to die during pregnancy away from hospitals and out in the streets rather than allow abortion of any kind, ever. I’m not quite sure what ever happened to this legislation.

See John Stewart on Sen. Kyl’s ‘political strategy known as lying’, The Raw Story on Evans Liberal Politics, April 12, 2011, by Kase Wickman:

… one of the last sticking points in reaching a budget deal to avoid government shutdown was whether Planned Parenthood would receive federal funding or not. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) argued that abortion is “well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does,” when abortions actually account for only 3 percent of PPFA’s services. When confronted, his office said that it was “not intended to be a factual statement.”

One of the best religious articles I read on the subject of abortion was Liberal Christians and Abortion, Anitra.net, no date:

One thing to understand about Liberal Christianity is that it tries to adhere to the spirit of scripture and not necessarily to the letter. There are often no specific scriptural texts on a particular subject. Or the specific texts may say the opposite, taken literally, than what a Liberal Christian would understand to be the spirit of scripture as a whole.

If you ever go back to look at the 19th century debates about abolishing slavery, you will see what I mean. Not a single text in the bible says that slavery ought to be abolished. On the contrary there are specific instructions to slaves to be diligent and obedient to their masters. So the supporters of slavery had lots of scriptural backing for their position, and the abolitionists had very little. But the abolitionists based their case on what the bible teaches overall about the nature of human beings, and God’s love for each and every one, and drew the conclusion, in spite of what a surface reading of scripture seems to say, that slavery was morally wrong and ought to be abolished.

When it comes to abortion, I cannot speak for all Liberal Christians, but this is my take on it.

1. Every conception creates a human life and God loves and honors that human life and wants it to develop to its full potential. Every abortion is tragic insofar as it ends a human life.

2. Every woman’s life is dear to God as well. God loves the mother as much as the child and wants childbearing to be a joy for her. God never values the child above the mother (as most anti-choice advocates do) nor the mother above the child.

3. In some circumstances, bearing a child would bring great hardship to the mother and to others in her family. In such a case, one may have to weigh whether the cost of bringing a new life into the world is justified when the impacts on other lives are considered. This is a never a judgment to be made lightly, nor is there a simple rule one can follow, as the circumstances vary so much from one situation to another. All things considered, in some circumstances it is better not to continue the pregnancy. (Just as, in some circumstances it is better not to continue a marriage.)

Also see Sex and the Liberal Christian, National Sexuality Resource Center, July 10, 2006, by Timothy F. Simpson.

Also see Abortion Access: Current beliefs by various religious and secular groups, Religous Tolerance.org, no date, which has a pretty complete listing of mainline and liberal Christian denominations which support a woman’s right to choose.

Also see Abortion Issue Again Dividing Catholic Votes, September 16, 2008, by David D. Kirkpatrick, which discusses how the abortion issue contributed to splitting the Catholic vote in the Presidential election of 2008.

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For many Americans, jobs crisis to last many years

Jan 7th, 12 / 0 Comments

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January 7, 2012

 

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For many Americans,
jobs crisis to last many years

For many Americans, jobs crisis to last many years, Reuters on The Raw Story, January 7, 2012, by Reuters: Logos57: A Caring Community is pleased to partner with The Raw Story to bring you cutting edge news:

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) – – Despite an upswing in hiring during 2011, the jobs crisis could last many more years as millions of Americans struggle to find work.

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In Orlando, Florida, Brenda Solomon lost her retail job last May at a department store and was unable to find even temporary work during the holiday season.

“I’ve tried and tried and tried,” Solomon, 58, said on Friday while visiting a job center.

Earlier, the U.S. Labor department said employers added 200,000 jobs during December, many more than expected by Wall Street. In 2011 as a whole, 1.64 million jobs were created, well above the 940,000 in 2010 and the best showing since 2006.

But the amount of jobs in the economy is still about 6.1 million lower than before the brutal 2007-2009 recession. At December’s pace of gains, it would take about 2 1/2 years just to get back to pre-recession levels of employment.

That means many people will be in for an agonizing wait.

In December, 5.6 million of the nation’s unemployed had been out of work for at least six months, the Labor Department data showed, only slightly lower than the previous month.

Laquanda Carmichael has been without work for just over a year and has seen no improvement in the labor market.

“It’s been the same to me. I have a lot of discouraging days,” the 39 year-old former science teacher and hospital worker said.

“I’m looking for anything right now. Warehouse processing, hospitality, anything.”

While jobs creation certainly picked up in the United States during the end of the year, economists point out that even a gain of 200,000 underwhelms considering constant growth in the population and the still-high 8.5 percent unemployment rate.

Princeton University economist Paul Krugman said that at December’s pace it could take a decade for the labor market to recover from the recession.

In a back-of-the-envelope calculation, Krugman was considering that the country’s growing population adds at least 100,000 people to the workforce every month.

“We need much faster job growth,” he wrote on his blog. “It says something about how beaten down we are that this (jobs report for December) is considered good news.”

The unemployment numbers reflect a persistent difference between those with a higher education and those without – especially in certain sectors like engineering.

Nearly 90 percent of 2011 graduates from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts got jobs or attended graduate school – almost the same level as before 2008.

Jeanette Doyle, director of the school’s Career Development Center, said there was a 7 percent uptick in late 2011 in the number of companies at the school’s fall recruiting event, and 17 companies were on a wait list to get in.

For lower-paid Americans, the picture is very different.

Construction worker Richard White, also at the job center in Orlando, has not had steady work in the last three years, and gets by on occasional stints doing electrical work or carpentry.

In December, the construction industry added 17,000 jobs. But that sector, devastated by a burst housing bubble that helped trigger the last recession, has even farther to go than the rest of the economy before it can recover.

There were still almost a third fewer construction jobs in December than at the industry’s pre-recession peak in August 2006.

As for the December’s advance, White said: “I’m not seeing it.”

(Additional reporting by Jilian Mincer in New York; writing by Jason Lange in Washington; Editing by Diane Craft)

Comment by Paul Evans:

In my town of Wooster, Ohio, which is only 25,000, but is the marketing hub for 130,000 people, I am seeing a little bit of a thaw, as some jobs are opening up. Still, this is the most lopsided so-called recovery I have seen or read of. It seems that, given the greed of the rich and the ability of technical computer programs, I actually truly believe that this recovery is only of, by and for the rich, and that it was engineered that way very deliberately. If you are poor but informed, you already know this. This recovery is for the multinational corporations, investment banks and the very rich. By no means for the ordinary person trying to get by.

The best measure of this I have found backing up my claim is that, as of last February, the unemployment rate for those making $100,000 or more was 3.2 percent, while the unemployment rate for those making $20,000 a year or less was 31 percent.

Try to understand: for the very rich, your welfare or the lack of it is irrelevant. YOU are irrelevant to these people. The only way we can take back America is to get the right candidates nominated and then build up enough of a cooperative network of organizations to get them elected, on a mass scale. Yes, we progressives have been and are very discouraged: the very rich control our government, and they aren’t about to let go of that control without a bitter fight that I personally do not see happening.

Voters seem to not be aware of what is in their own interest. Right now, the lowest 80 percent of us in wealth control only 17 percent of the wealth of America. This is not a pretty picture. ~ Paul Evans

Obscenity of the day: The best paid hedge fund manager makes more money in a year than the entire group of 80,000 New York City school teachers do in three years, according to Paul Krugman. Something is incredibly immoral about that.

See For Working People, Evans Liberal Politics, May 29, 2011, by Paul Evans.

See Editorial: Waiting For Recovery, NY Times, January 7, 2012.

See Income Inequality: Too Big to Ignore, The New York Times, October 16, 2010, by Robert H. Frank.

See Obama to Businesses: Bring Jobs Home, The Raw Story, January 7, 2012, by Reuters.

InformIT (Pearson Education)

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http://evans-politics.com/for-many-americans-jobs-crisis-to-last-many-years.html

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Robert Reich: The GOP Ticket in 2012: Romney-Rubio

Jan 4th, 12 / 1 Comment

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January 4, 2011

 

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Robert Reich: The GOP Ticket
in 2012: Romney-Rubio

The GOP Ticket in 2012: Romney-Rubio, RobertReich.org, January 2, 2012, by Robert Reich, used with permission, quoted verbatim:

Since my New Year’s prediction that Obama would select Hillary Clinton for his running mate in 2012 (and Joe Biden would become Secretary of State), I’ve been swamped by requests for my GOP prediction. Here goes.

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You can forget the caucuses and early primaries. Mitt Romney will be the nominee. Republicans may be stupid but the GOP isn’t about to commit suicide. The other candidates are all weighed down by enough baggage to keep a 747 on the tarmac indefinitely.

For his running mate, Romney will choose Marco Rubio, the junior senator from Florida. Why do I say this?

First, Romney will need a right-winger to calm and woo the Republican right. Tea Partiers are attracted to Rubio – an evangelical Christian committed to reducing taxes and shrinking government. Rubio’s meteoric rise in the Florida House before coming to Congress was based on a string of conservative stances on state issues.

Rubio is also a proven campaigner, handily winning four Florida House elections starting in 2002, and then beating popular incumbent Republican governor Charlie Crist in 2010 — with the help of Tea Partiers.

Moreover, he’s only 40, thereby giving the GOP ticket some youthful vigor.

And he’s Hispanic – a Cuban-American – at a time when the GOP needs to court the Hispanic vote.

Rubio’s only baggage is the “son of exiles” controversy – his suggestion that his parents were refugees forced out of Cuba by Castro when in fact they moved to the United States before the Cuban revolution.

But this isn’t the sort of slip that would keep him off the ticket. In fact, Romney has defended Rubio, saying “I think the world of Marco Rubio, support him entirely and think that the effort to try to smear him was unfortunate and bogus.”

Finally, and most critically, Florida is a crucial swing state. Rubio would help deliver it.

So it will be Obama-Clinton versus Romney-Rubio.

And what’s my prediction for Election Day? Obama-Clinton hands down.

I warn you, though. Political predictions, economic forecasts, and astrology differ in only one respect. Astrology has a fairly good record of being correct.

Robert Reich was the nation’s 22nd Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton and is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations. In 2008, Time Magazine named him one of the Ten Most Successful Cabinet Members of the century. He has written eleven books, including “The Work of Nations,” which has been translated into 22 languages. His recent book is “Supercapitalism.” For Professor Reich’s book page for Supercaptialism at Amazon, go here. Reich’s newest book, Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future has been released September 21, and is available for ordering at this link (Amazon.com). The above article is from Reich’s new blog, and can be viewed here.

Robert Reich’s commentaries are available for listening to at Publicradio.com. Watch the video Aftershock: The next economy and America’s future (about his new book). Thanks to Professor Reich for permission to publish his articles on an ongoing basis.

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