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Mixing religion and politics? How dare he!

Outraged! Right wing columnists and reporters are outraged that the Pope is speaking out about inequalities in our system. papaOutraged that he thinks governments should do more to stop the huge divide between rich and poor.

Rush Limbaugh warned of this Pope promoting “pure Marxism.” Fox News’ Stuart Varney criticized the Pope’s mixing of religion and politics. Sarah Palin called the Pope the worst name she could think of: “Liberal.” All of them said that the Pope had no business discussing politics.

You all remember how mad these right-wing pundits got about religion intermixing with politics when churches lobbied for laws against abortion, fought to prevent gays from getting married, and pushed to have creationism taught in public schools? (If you do remember, please remind me, because I can’t think of a single example — but clearly there must be, or else these people would be raging hypocrites now, wouldn’t they?)

Meanwhile, the Pope, ignoring them all, is doing his job, which includes sneaking out at night dressed as a normal priest and administering to the poor. Clearly, he is an evil, evil man that must be stopped.

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Editorial cartoon of the day

An old cartoon, but still relevant.

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President Ahnold will Terminate the Constitution

Republicans hate immigrants, clearly. They come here and steal all our jobs (like actor and Governor).

And if there is one thing they really hate, it’s when foreigners aren’t born in ‘Murica. That Kenyan-born guy, for instance. Should never have been President. There’s a reason the founders required all Presidents to have been born on American soil.

What’s that? Ted Cruz, born in Canada, wants to be President? And now Arnold Schwarzenegger, born in Austria?

Well, that’s an elephant of a different color! Ahnold would be a great President, they say. (Let’s leave out the part where, under Arnold, California went into terrible debt and how, in the few years since the Democrats took over, it has turned itself around and now has a budget surplus.) pd_arnold_schwarzenegger_conan_jef_121026_wmain

Ahnold now says he wants to run in 2016, where he will his crush his enemies, see them driven before him, and hear the lamentation of the Democrats. He says he will “file legal paperwork to change the rules” to allow him to run.

I am not making this up. A man who wants to be President knows so little about the United States Constitution that he thinks he can “file legal paperwork” and get to run.

The only way he could do this is by changing the Constitution, which requires 2/3rds of both the House and the Senate to approve of the wording of the amendment, and then 2/3rds of the states to pass it. And he only has a few years in which to do it. He’ll have a big problem convincing a Senate controlled by Democrats to give him what he wants.

Mind you, I think the Constitution should be changed in many ways, and this is one of them. There is no reason someone born in another country shouldn’t be able to run for President. Maybe Arnold’s quest may allow this to finally happen — but after the election, when it won’t benefit him personally.

Editorial cartoon of the day

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Bacon is good for you, says interwebs

It’s on the internet, so it has to be true!

The latest article flying around Facebook claims that scientists have found that bacon is good for you, just like eating your fruits and vegetables (but with more grease).Bacon

Of course, if you read the article a bit, you’ll notice it says no such thing. The article points to research done by Professor Michael Ristow that indicates that niacin (vitamin B3) will help you live longer.

Aha, says the interwebs. Look, there’s lots of B3 in bacon; therefore, logically, bacon must be good for you! If you eat lots of bacon, you’ll live forever!

Or at least until all the fat in bacon clogs your arteries and gives you a heart attack when you’re fifty.

Basically, this guy fed worms niacin and found that they lived a tenth longer than the control worms. (“Control Worms” would be a good name for a band.) Worms. Not humans. Professor Ristow hopes to test this on rats next, but even then — and here’s the point — he’s not feeding them bacon. The word “bacon” is not found in his study anywhere.

Yeah, I know. All you bacon-lovers out there are saying, “Why rain on our parade?” I’m not telling you to stop eating bacon if that is what you really want. I’m just pointing out that too often, we read something on the internet that we want to believe so much that we accept it without question. This is especially true in politics, where Republicans gladly seize upon every lie about Obama floating around and Democrats do the same with articles that make Republicans look bad.

Just be smart about the internet. There is no Nigerian Prince giving you money (in fact, there are no princes in Nigeria), Obama isn’t an atheist Muslim (which logically cannot exist), and bacon doesn’t help you live longer.

Editorial cartoon of the day

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Look! A reasonable Republican!

With the official view of the Republican party that providing health care for people is a Terrible Thing That Must Be Stopped, it’s nice to see that there are some Republican politicians who are saying that there may be some good things in the law.

Jack Kingston, A Republican politician running for the Senate from Georgia, stated recently that he believes in working with the other party, compromising, and recognizing that there are good and bad parts of Obamacare.

In other words, he just killed his chance of getting the nomination from the GOP, where you must oppose Obama even if he speaks out for puppies, sunshine, and apple pie.

“A lot of conservatives say, ‘Nah, let’s just step back and let this thing fall to pieces on its own.’ But I don’t think that’s always the responsible thing to do,” he said. “I think we need to be looking for things that improve healthcare overall for all of us. And if there is something in Obamacare, we need to know about it.”

He pointed out that he had received letters from people telling him about how Obamacare helped them keep their special needs children on insurance, and he said this is something we should be encouraging. We can fix the law without getting rid of it completely.

Mind you, this guy had consistently voted to repeal Obamacare and thoroughly supported the government cry-baby shutdown over it, so why is he now saying these things? Did he see the light?

I think he was visited by three ghosts one night …

Editorial cartoon of the day

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Can the Pope change American politics?

American conservative leaders have often argued that greed is good, and controls on capitalism are ungodly.  The logic is thus:  Stalin was an atheist.  Stalin liked socialist policies.  Ergo, socialism is against religion.

This, of course, makes no logical sense whatsoever but the Powers That Be in the economic world gladly used it in the same way Stalin used communist promises to keep the people in their place.  The right used religion to further its aims.  People who believed that abortion and gay rights were against God could easily be swayed to also believe that welfare and controls on capitalism were also evil, since look, the same people who are on God’s side are also on the side of the bankers and billionaires. papa Clearly, therefore, all bankers and billionaires were Godlike.

Well, this new Pope is throwing all that out the window, and boy, is the right wing up in arms.  Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh are now attacking religion with a fervor never before seen, and are apparently claiming that they have more authority than the Pope about what Jesus would want.  (You remember Jesus — that guy who threw the moneylenders out of the temple and said that the rich could not get into heaven?)

For years, the right has proclaimed that we are a “Christian nation” (despite all evidence to the contrary) and yet now, when the leader of the largest Christian organization in the world tells us what we should be doing, suddenly Christian values are not important to us.

“As long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems,” the Pope said.  He’s talking about uncontrolled capitalism, about markets that crash and hurt the poor because the rich are gambling with our future, about the ridiculous idea that money “trickles down” to improve everyone’s lot.

Maybe it’s time that the Christian right started acting like Christians.

Editorial cartoon of the day