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Showing posts with label babies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label babies. Show all posts

28 September 2012

GOVERNMENT IS NOT GOD PAC's newspaper and other ads / e mails filled with falsehoods 27SEP12

THESE are pathetic, not only because they are such  obvious lies targeting the voluntarily ignorant and right wing racist, but also because they are run by right wing christian extremist who make a mockery of Christianity by deliberately lying and promoting hatred, fear and racism through manipulation, deception, and misinformation. In reality these people are as warped and twisted as those islamic extremist who have perverted Islam to justify their violations of that faith, the only difference is government is not god pac wants to impose christian sharia on America. From the govt is not god website "Government Is Not God is a political action committee for social conservatives founded in 1992 by William J. Murray who is currently the chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition. The mission of Government Is Not God - PAC is the election to Congress of men and women who hold conservative beliefs on both moral and economic issues." IF their beiefs are so moral, and they are moral christians why do they have to lie about their beliefs? From PolitiFact, a compilation of the lies, deceptions, and misinformation being spread by the government is not god pac......

PAC's newspaper ad filled with falsehoods

By Becky Bowers, Jon Greenberg, Angie Drobnic Holan, Louis Jacobson, Molly Moorhead, Katie Sanders
Published on Wednesday, September 26th, 2012 at 7:56 p.m.
Updated Sept. 27, 2012
A full-page newspaper ad running in swing states purports to reveal "the true agenda of Barack Hussein Obama." It says he will:

"Force Christian organizations to pay for abortions."

"Force employers to give illegal immigrants the jobs of U.S. citizens."

"Force police agencies to allow Muslim brotherhood to select staff."

" Force creation of a permanent government funded ‘underclass.’ "

It’s from a political action committee that operates under the name "Government is Not God," or GING-PAC for short. The group claims the ad has run in 19 newspapers in Florida, Ohio, Iowa and Pennsylvania.

Compared with other outside spending groups, GING-PAC is a relatively small player. It started in 1994 and has spent less than $100,000 in most elections, supporting Republicans such as House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and Missouri U.S. Rep. Todd Akin. (Akin is the Senate candidate who said women rarely get pregnant from "legitimate rape.")

The group’s latest ad found its largest audience when it ran in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune on Sunday. The Herald-Tribune, citing policy, would not disclose the ad’s cost. The ad has also reportedly run in Florida newspapers that serve Bonifay, Cross City, Gilchrist, Madison and Winter Haven.

The ad’s claims riled some voters in Sarasota, including Kindra Muntz, an activist who previously worked to get Florida’s electronic voting replaced with paper ballots. She’s organizing a protest in front of the newspaper’s offices Sept. 27, 2012.

"It’s an insult to people’s intelligence, really. ... It steps on just about everyone, and drags them into somebody’s hate agenda," Muntz said.

On Wednesday, the Herald-Tribune apologized in a note to readers, stating that the ad did not meet the newspaper’s "standards for fairness and accuracy."

Here at PolitiFact, we wondered if the ad’s claims had any merit. We looked into them, except one that was too vague to analyze, that Obama would "force creation of a permanent government funded 'underclass.'" All the ratings are here; some we've also expanded into separate fact-checks.

We contacted GING-PAC and asked for evidence for the group’s claims. William J. Murray said the group didn’t need evidence because it was making predictions.

"If a politician is willing to walk you halfway to hell, it is likely that he will walk you the rest of the way there," Murray said via email.

The ad's claims are not couched as predictions, however, but as representations of Obama's actual policies and proposals. We've fact-checked their points by comparing them with Obama's previous positions, his proposals for a second term, and his public comments.

"Force police agencies to allow Muslim brotherhood to select staff"

We found nothing in Obama’s stated policies or positions to support this claim. Still, we ran it by Phil Lynn, director of the National Law Enforcement Policy Center, a division of the International Association of Chiefs of Police. He said he’d never heard of the claim, and that most states and local agencies have boards that control hiring and firing decisions.

"Trying to force this on local jurisdictions would be irregular and out of place," Lynn said. "I would think many states would balk at it."

Such an idea is not only unconstitutional, it’s also ridiculous, said Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida.

"It just doesn’t make any sense," said Howard Simon. "It’s incoherent that a police agency would give an outside group the power to pick its own staff."

We found no evidence that Obama’s ever mentioned anything like this. We rate this statement Pants on Fire.
"Force doctors to assist homosexuals in buying surrogate babies"

Experts who follow issues involving same-sex couples and parenthood were perplexed by this one. "We have no idea what this claim is based on," said Eleanor Nicoll, public affairs manager for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

Plus, buying babies is illegal. We rate this one Pants on Fire.
"Force employers to give illegal immigrants the jobs of U.S. citizens"
This is a preposterous claim that, in one interpretation, suggests that Obama wants to deny jobs to U.S. citizens and give them to illegal immigrants. We’re not sure how that would even work. Would employers be forced to seek out illegal immigrants, verify their legal status, hire them and then confirm that they took the jobs of legal citizens?

If anything, the Obama administration’s record shows an increasingly tougher stance on the hiring of unauthorized workers. The number of employers hit with penalties rose more than 20-fold, from 18 in 2008 to 385 in 2011. In the same period, total fines increased from $675,000 to $9.2 million. Use of the electronic employee verification system, E-Verify, quadrupled, from 88,000 employers in 2008 to 354,000 in 2012.

GING-PAC points to the president’s executive order to defer deportation of illegal immigrants under 30 who have no criminal record, have graduated or are in school and have lived in the country for more than five years. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that 700,000 18 to 30-year-olds might be immediately eligible and could apply for the two-year work permits. Over time, the number would rise to 1.7 million. Bob Dane with the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that favors stronger immigration controls, said this could put these people in competition for jobs.

"The people will still be illegal," Dane said. "And they would be taking a job from a U.S. citizen."

Things could go that way. But there’s still nothing forcing employers to hire anyone except who they want. We rate this claim Pants on Fire.
"Force states to pay the college tuition of illegal immigrants' children"

This claim conflates several issues related to immigration. To begin with, children of illegal immigrants born in the United States are citizens. A federal court recently overturned a Florida law that denied in-state tuition to the citizen children of illegal immigrants who were Florida residents. Immigration experts said the federal government couldn’t force states to pay college tuition for immigrants -- or for any other students, for that matter. We rate this claim False.

"Force all states to permit same-sex 'marriages' "

The ad’s basis for this is the president’s opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act, the federal law that defines marriage as between a man and woman.

Is opposing the law the same thing as wanting to force all states to permit same-sex marriages? Not according to Obama. "I continue to believe that this is an issue that is gonna be worked out at the local level, because historically, this has not been a federal issue," he said in a May interview, adding, "I think it is a mistake to try to make what has traditionally been a state issue into a national issue."

Even if Obama changed his mind, he would have to introduce legislation in Congress to require states to recognize gay marriages. And even if that passed, it would likely be unconstitutional, according to Dale Carpenter, a civil rights professor at the University of Minnesota. "The court has explicitly said that family law is a matter for states to decide," he said. We rate the ad’s claim False.

"Force Christian organizations to pay for abortions"

Under the 2010 health care law, Christian organizations won’t be "forced" to hand over money for abortion procedures performed at clinics by doctors. But the law does expand coverage requirements for preventive care. And preventive care, as defined by the Obama administration, includes birth control, emergency contraceptives and sterilization -- and some people equate those services with abortion.

The administration created an exemption for religious organizations by requiring insurance companies to pay for those services. But anti-abortion groups say the exemption is just a shell game.
 
That controversy is real, but the ad’s claim creates a misleading impression. We rate the claim Mostly False.

"Force Christian schools to hire non-Christian teachers"

The only basis for this claim is a 2012 Supreme Court decision involving a teacher who said she  lost her job in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. She sued to get her job at a private Christian school back. The federal government supported her case, but the court unanimously ruled against her on First Amendment grounds.

The case, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School vs. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, did address the proper balance between the government and religious institutions in personnel decisions at schools. But even participants in the case say it had nothing to do with ordering schools to hire people. We rate this claim False.

"Force courts to accept Islamic Sharia Law in domestic disputes"

There have been isolated instances when U.S. courts have used sharia law. But we couldn’t find any instances of the Obama administration supporting that.

On top of that, the notion would violate the separation of powers, said Glenn Hendrix, an Atlanta-based attorney and past chair of the American Bar Association’s section on International Law. Hendrix said there’s no substance to the ad’s claim.

"Even if the administration were somehow pushing sharia law -- and of course it’s not -- the executive branch cannot force courts to accept any particular law," Hendrix said.

We rate the statement Pants on Fire.

"Force local authorities to allow Occupy protesters to live in parks"

Occupy Wall Street is a loosely organized movement that draws attention to income inequality. In 2011, it set up camp in New York City’s Zuccotti Park and then spread to other cities.

Protesters have a First Amendment right to peaceably assemble, but local governments are generally allowed to enforce time and place restrictions on those gatherings. A 1984 Supreme Court opinion said governments may outlaw sleeping in parks, even during protests.

We couldn’t find any evidence that Obama or his administration opposed existing law on this point. Also, a president can’t overturn a Supreme Court decision anyway. We rate this claim Pants on Fire.

Obama is "the only President in history who has deliberately removed the words 'endowed by their Creator' when referring to our Declaration of Independence, not once, but several times"

The ad ends with a tagline accusing Obama of taking some godless liberties with the language in the Declaration of Independence. And indeed, we did find video of him paraphrasing that famous line, leaving out the "creator." Several conservative websites appear to be tracking his omissions.

But there’s also video evidence of him saying those words -- the blog of the liberal group People for the American Way even put together a compilation video of Obama reciting the "endowed by their creator" language. And the site UrbandLegends.com dug up examples of other presidents paraphrasing the Declaration and omitting the "creator." Which presidents, you ask? Calvin Coolidge, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan.
We rate the statement False.
"Force military chaplains to perform same-sex 'marriages' "

To back up this one, Murray sent us links to articles from conservative news sites the Blaze and Breitbart.com.

The evidence? The White House’s Office of Management and Budget had opposed part of a defense bill that would, according to the Blaze, "protect military chaplains who refuse to perform gay marriage ceremonies against their religious beliefs." Seemed like pretty good evidence that the alternative might be true: in the White House’s preferred world, military chaplains wouldn’t be able to refuse!

The reality? The Defense Department already protects chaplains from performing ceremonies that contradict their religious beliefs. The defense bill provision (which didn’t pass) was much broader — which is why the White House opposed it. Meanwhile, a group that advocates for gay and lesbian service members hasn’t heard any inkling that the president would want to force chaplains to perform same-sex marriages.

"If that were true, it'd be absurd," said David McKean, legal director for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

We rate the claim Pants on Fire.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2012/sep/26/pacs-newspaper-ad-filled-falsehoods/

30 December 2010

Sermon on Herod and The Other Christmas Story from Sarcastic Lutheran 26DEZ10

THERE is nothing to say or add, just read it and think about it.....

Sermon on Herod and The Other Christmas Story

Flight_into_Egypt-2_lowf

Well, the tinsel is still falling to the ground, that plate of cookies left on the counter has yet to go stale and having just barely been blown out the candles we held while singing Silent Night still hold their red glow - while we gather now on this the first Sunday of Christmas and read aloud the Christmas story not of sheep or shepherds or angels but of the slaughter of innocent babies.  Yeah, That Christmas story.  Merry Christmas.  Merry Christmas indeed.  I’m not gonna lie.  Given the death of my Granddaddy on Thursday and the 3 whole days I’ve spent cooking for family and sitting at my mother’s side as she grieves I was secretly relieved when Matthew offered to preach his sermon from this morning at House for All tonight and the relief I felt was more than just “O good, now I don’t have to write a sermon”  It was O good, now I can avoid trying to figure out if there is any good new in the slaughter of innocent babies.  But in the midst of grief Herod was never far from my thoughts this week as though he was taunting me….daring me to give it a try.
So just to get it out of the way…no. There is no “good news” in the slaughter of the innocents.  There is only terror and weeping women.  But this story is not going to be removed from the Bible any time soon so I say screw it.  Let’s dive in deep.
You see, I think the trouble is that we’ve heard the Christmas story so many times that it’s not shocking anymore. It simply takes its place on a dusty shelf of over familiarity among all the other worn and tattered stories woven into our unconsciousness somewhere between George Washington and the Cherry Tree and Star Wars Return of the Jedi.  The Christmas story sits among other things we know so well and we brush it off once a year without even bothering to notice how shocking it really is.  But it’s ironic that we fail to be shocked by the story of Christmas - even though its ground shaking in it’s unfathomable beauty - and yet we hear the story of Herod and are shocked… even though innocent children suffer in our world as a result of human pride and greed and fear and hate every day.  Herod is nothing less than common.

But you know how we’re used to hearing Christians say “let’s keep Christ in Christmas” well, My friend Joy Carol Wallis, wrote an essay called “Let’s keep Herod in Christmas”
And after thinking about this text all week I have to say, I’m with her, because the thing is…the world into which Christ is born is not one of a Normal Rockwell painting….the world has never been that world.  God did not enter the world of our nostalgic silent night snow blanketed peace on earth suspended reality of Christmas.  God slipped into the vulnerability of skin and entered a world as violent and disturbing as our own.  Herod was the Jewish puppet king for Rome…and the wise men were honestly kinda stupid to show up at Herod’s doorstep and say “Hey where’s the child who has been born the King of the Jews” to the guy who is supposed to kinda sorta be king of the Jews.  What did they expect… that he would Mapquest it for them?  Whatever it was, I’m sure they didn’t expect infanticide on a large scale.  The murder of children by a scared little man trying to protect his feeble grasp on worldly power.  Here in this Christmas story there simply is no mistletoe and reindeer… this scene of a despotic ruler slaughtering children out of little more than his personal insecurity somehow never makes it onto wrapping paper and the display window at Macys….yet the slaughter of the holy Innocents is as much a part of the Christmas story as are shepherds and angels.
And if you do a little research you’ll find that Bible scholars are all a flutter about how there are no historical documents from that time that mention Herod killing all the babies in Bethlehem so it probably didn’t actually happen … as though this clever academic crap can keep away the reality that this has actually always happened and is actually still happening all around us.  Let’s just say I looked up the term ethnic cleansing on Wikipedia yesterday and wished I hadn’t.  Tyrants like Herod and Pharaoh and Pol Pot and Slobodan Milosevic have always taken that little Lord of the Flies instinct which is really within us all and played it out in three terrifying acts on the human stage.  And that thing which resides in the human heart, when unchecked and filled with power, demonstrates itself in killing fields and showers of gas and the slaughter of babies…that thing in the human heart is nothing less that the desire to be free from God so that we might be Gods ourselves.  And history has shown…we make lousy Gods.  And what makes it worse is that we tend to take the image of what we would be like as Gods (despotic, angry, wanting to be worshipped sycophantically, defensive, insecure, seeking vengence and retribution) then we take that stuff about us and project that on God….as though God must be as lousy at this being-God-business as we would be if given the chance.  And when God had had quite enough of our projections, quite enough of our characterizing God as being as vengeful and paranoid as we are - God’s Loving Desire to be Known overflowed the heavens and was made manifest in the rapidly dividing cells within the womb of an insignificant peasant girl.  And when the time came for her to give birth to God there was no room in our societies and institutions and business or any of the other things we are so proud of …and let me just say this: (as much as I love Joy to the World) I’m fairly certain that every heart did not prepare him room. Because we already thought we knew what God was like….and how can a heart prepare room for that which it cannot fathom?  So rather than waiting till our hearts were prepared instead God simply broke our hearts… like only a baby can do.        
So I guess I wonder if keeping Herod in Christmas might remind us that God did not wait till we as the human race got our collective crap together before joining us in the difficult reality of being human.  God didn’t just plop God’s self down into a Nostalgic Norman Rockwell painting but entered a world as violent and dangerous as our own.  And the weird thing is that God did this heart breaking thing to be with us. Even those who will crucify him. Even Herod.  Because the fact is that God is continually breaking our hearts so that the true nature of God can be known – so that in breaking our hearts God can replace them with God’s own.  Perhaps this is what is meant when we sing  O Holy Night.  Long lay the world in sin and error pinning till he appeared and the soul felt it’s worth.  May you all allow God to be God for you.  May your soul feel its worth.  Amen

21 August 2010

ATTACK OF THE TERROR BABIES & VIDEO OF REP GOHMERT'S (R TX) CNN MELTDOWN 13 AUG FROM MOJO

| Fri Aug. 13, 2010 4:36 AM PDT

Recently, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) has beens sounding the alarm about a new and insidious plot involving so called "terror babies." Infants are sometimes known to be terrors in their own right, but this diabolical plan involves terrorists sending pregnant women into the US to birth their America-hating spawns. The mothers and their kids then return home where, the congressman says, the children "could be raised and coddled as future terrorists"— and later, "twenty, thirty years down the road, they can be sent in to help destroy our way of life." Gohmert, a member of the newly formed Tea Party Caucus and a supporter of a bill stemming from the "birther" conspiracy about the president's citizenship, has used the far-fetched terror baby conspiracy to bash the Obama administration's immigration policy and its legal challenge to Arizona's draconian law. "They figured out how stupid we are being in this country to allow our enemies to game our system," he said during a debate on the House floor in late June. "We won’t do anything about it we’ll even sue a state that tries to do something about it."
Here's the thing: There doesn't appear to be a morsel of evidence to support Gohmert's terror baby tale, which the congressman says he learned of from a woman on a plane while en route to the Middle East and from a retired FBI agent. (The FBI says it has no information about such a plot. And former top bureau official Tom Fuentes has called Gohmert's claims "ludicrous.") So last night Anderson Cooper featured Gohmert and his terror babies plot in the show's "Keeping Them Honest" segment. What followed was about 9 minutes of high-quality crazy, courtesy of a congressman known for making outlandish claims and staking out unorthodox and outright bizarre positions.
Gohmert was in feisty form and quickly came unhinged ("you're going to keep me honest!" he thundered), blasting Cooper for calling him out for political fear-mongering. "You're attacking the messenger," Gohmert yelled. "Anderson, you're better than this. You used to be good. You used to find that there was a problem and go after it instead of going after the messenger." Gohmert grow ever more irate, as Cooper repeatedly pressed him to provide any credible information to back up his claims. "Sir, do you want to offer any evidence?" Cooper asked at one point. "I'm giving up an opportunity to say what research and evidence you have. You've offered none, other then yelling." Let's just say Gohmert declined Cooper's offer. Just watch this clip. You won't be dissappointed. And, while you're watching, keep in mind that Gohmert is a former district and appeals court judge.