Bigots in Arizona cheered as their state legislature passed the nation’s toughest law against tolerance, understanding, and equality.
“Finally, we can discriminate against gays and lesbians,” say the bigots, who had been doing that for years anyway. 
The law allows businesses to discriminate for religious reasons. So if you are a person who really believes in the Bible and thinks that it says you should treat gays as subhuman, you’re in. This is your day.
“It’s great,” said Marcus J. Kellington, a Christian supporter, while eating shellfish and showing off his new tattoo. “Now I can abide by my religious beliefs without government interfering by taking the side of actual, caring and feeling human beings.”
“The part about how evil gays are is right there,” he said, pointing to the Bible, after passing by the parts prohibiting the eating of shellfish and the wearing of tattoos. “Wait a minute, sorry. That’s the part where Jesus says we should love one another no matter what. It’s in here somewhere. Give me a minute.”
Satanist Deathblade Bloodshatter (not his real name), a barista at an Albuquerque Starbucks, is also pleased. “Dude, now I can refuse to give Christians their morning latte because I don’t like what they do.” Some Muslim organizations said they would kick out any women not covered from head to toe, and a Scientologist who owns a bakery in Flagstaff will require all who enter his place of business to vow service to Xenu, Grand Dictator of the Galactic Federation, or be denied cupcakes.
“This is what America is all about,” said Governor Jan Brewer. “The freedom to deny basic human rights and to be assholes to anyone not like us.”
The idea that the Founding Fathers were god-like and that their words are carved in stone is out there, and I’ve ranted against it many times (here and here and here, for example). People who have this idea are political fundamentalists who, like their religious counterparts, know exactly what the (insert one: Constitution/Bible) means and amazingly it always lines up exactly with their own views. 
But to say that “God wrote the Constitution” — well, that’s just delusional.
Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay believes it, though. Apparently God, through his angels on earth, wrote the Constitution, including all those parts justifying slavery, not to mention those parts that prohibit the establishing of any religion in this country. Even more amazingly, God chose a bunch of deists to this. Prominent among them was Thomas Jefferson, who had edited the Bible to remove all the fantastic miracles he didn’t believe in.
I could ridicule this forever, but the point is this: People who are convinced that God guides American politics and that they personally know exactly what God wants for America are a huge problem. It’s why it is impossible to compromise with these radicals. God is against abortion, so therefore anyone who has a different position isn’t just on the other side of the political aisle — they are agents of the Devil. Any sort of compromise will surely place the compromiser in Hell. This gets expanded to the point that any view that the “Devil politician” stands for has to be fought, because if they like it, it must be evil. Higher taxes? Has to be Satan’s plan. No compromise!
Maybe the root of many of our political problems isn’t in politics as much as it is in religion.
You don’t have to search hard to find lots of quotes from conservative politicians about how important it is for government to not get involved with the business world.
You also don’t have to search hard to find quotes from these exact same conservative politicians ranting and raving about how government should get involved to tell unions they shouldn’t form.
Volkswagen opened a new plant in the south and thanks to lots of lobbying from these same hypocrites, the workers voted not to unionize even though Volkswagen wanted the union. It may have been because Senator Corker said that if the union was passed, then VW would not open more factories in the south. In other words, he said the exact opposite of the truth. Let’s see, what do we call that again? Oh yes. A LIE. (Republicans have that as their motto lately.)
Unions help keep the peace between workers and management and keep employees happier. Volkswagen knows that happy employees are good and loyal employees. Volkswagen wanted the union. They made it perfectly clear.
“Ha ha!” these conservatives yell, not caring once again about facts. “We showed them! We support businesses!”
Except they don’t. This didn’t help businesses at all, and Volkswagen has now announced that any new factories they build will not be in the south.
Yeah, good job shooting yourselves in the foot there, geniuses.
In a finding that surprised absolutely no one with any common sense, Missouri’s homicide rate rose 23% since they got rid of background checks in order to purchase a gun.
This does not correlate with a similar rise nation-wide or with neighboring states.
It did, however, affect the neighboring states, as criminals went to Missouri to bring back guns and cause more crimes in the surrounding states. 
(The little map to the side shows how many guns were used in crimes in other states that could be traced back to Missouri.)
You know, I could go into a big editorial here, but what’s the point? You and I know that background checks are good; this study from Johns Hopkins confirms it; other studies have found the same thing; and 92% of Americans and 85% of NRA members think it’s a good idea.
But the gun lobby (which owns the NRA) gets their way, and the paranoid gun fetishists among us scream loud enough to drown out the voices of reason.
So more criminals with guns = freedom. Hey, just like in Syria!
Next time your conservative friend talks about how much Obama has destroyed the economy, point out:
The Dow was at 7,949 when Obama took office. It’s now at 16,130.* 
Under Obama, the Dow keeps setting new records.
Unemployment was at 7.8%. It’s now at 6.6%.
GDP growth is harder to quantify. I am not sure where the image here got its numbers. From what I can tell, it averaged around negative 3.1 under the last year of Bush and has averaged around 1.7 under Obama. Not great numbers, but certainly an improvement. (There was one quarter where it was 4.1% but using the best number and ignoring the others is misleading.)
The fiscal deficit, which is the gap between expenditure and revenue, was at 9.8% of the GDP under Bush, and was 4.9% for last year.
Consumer confidence under Bush was at 40.0% when Obama took over. It is now at 80.7%.
So anyone who tells you things are going downhill is just plain wrong.
Then again, anyone who tells you were are doing great is also just plain wrong. Almost all of that economic gain has gone to the 1%. The rest of us are still floundering, and the middle class is dying. Unemployment is still too high and wages are still too low. And the debt keeps rising.
Bottom line: Obama is not destroying the economy. You’re thinking of Bush. However, he has not solved everything either, so Obama supporters who try to sugar coat things are exaggerating.
Had the Republicans passed a jobs bill, maybe we would be in better shape. Our infrastructure is falling apart, and we could be hiring millions of people to fix roads and bridges for a fraction of what we give away to the 1% in tax breaks and subsidies they don’t need. Investing in people as well as our infrastructure is wise and pays off dividends in the long run. If we had a Republican President, there is no doubt in my mind we would be doing this now. However, the Republicans have repeatedly said that they will stand in the way of anything Obama wants. They don’t want him to claim successes for anything. The interests of the party outweigh the country’s needs, after all.
That’s the real economic scandal.
* all numbers are as of February 18, 2013, updated from the illustration accompanying this, to the best of my ability. (Some sources were difficult to interpret and I am not an economist.)
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