THE REINCARNATION OF THE DARK AGES

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None Dare Call It RELIGIOUS FEUDALISM - 12.27.09



complete at http://tpjmagazine.us/adams36


The king taxed the peasants to poverty while the royals were exempt from paying any. Reason? Unjust tax codes were a design of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. That was the “targeted tax-cut” which invariably became law. “He who hath the gold maketh the rules.” ...learn more>>


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Consider this ominous fact: The average American’s income has remained flat since 1977 — 33 years ago, while the income of the richest 1% has more than tripled — 228% (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities). CEOs (corporate executive officers) incomes rose 400% in the 1990s to $10.6 million annual income per capita, while take-home pay for the average American, the 80%, rose zero percent.

Real life experience bears it out. Most Americans don’t enjoy the purchasing power they once did when a one-income family could raise children, purchase a home, car and college education for their kids. Now both parents work (if lucky enough to have a job) and still can’t keep up, resulting in less quality education, poor family relations, rising crime, and an eroding moral foundation.

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They hide their greed behind such noble causes as “individualism,” “patriotism,” “character & family values” and “national security,” but all the while their ultimate aim is the same. Proudly they wave the flag and claim to be the lead standard bearers for patriotism; all the while we recall they’re missing in action when it really counts; wealthy family ties shield them from risk. Only the rich initiate wars, mostly the poor fight them. The double standard of justice comes from obscene wealth. Principles can be compromised at a price. And so can religion, their primary weapon of choice.

In similar manner, they buy off religious organizations and congressmen, hire the best lobbyists, and manipulate enough voters through the religious system to change laws for their benefit. Their aim? To further concentrate the wealth and leave the rest of the country destitute if need be. Their “compassionate conservatism” is hypocrisy cloaked in a sound-bite.

OKC School Board a Group of Slow Learners

Photo of Oklahoma City Public School teacher, Joe Quigley
courtesy of KWTV

Remedial Reading Would be Justified

by James Nimmo

(OKLAHOMA CITY) I want to remind readers that the Oklahoma City School Board's atrocious behavior towards Joe Quigley was about trying to shut him up in order that the Board would NOT have to make the vote they made on Monday, December 14. A public apology will never happen, so the closest Quigley can come to one will be the dropping of all legal action against him brought about by the vindictive attitude of the majority of the Board.

It has taken over twelve years for this Board to acknowledge the need for GLBT-inclusive language to be added to the District's student handbook. The Board now claims it was the passage of the Shepard Hate Crime Law that prompted them to do so. A quip was made in the story below about having one's head in the sand regarding the discrimination directed at gay/lesbian students. I would suggest the collective heads of the Board have been somewhere else "where the sun don't shine."

Quigley has been found by an Oklahoma County judge to be innocent of any improper or unprofessional activities in the class room.

However, I find Gail Vines, Dist. 2 representative, to be guilty of voting twice against Quigley: the first time at Quigleys kangaroo hearing when she improperly abstained, stating to me that she felt she did not know enough about the case. For that opinion I feel she should have left the room before the vote was taken or voted in favor of Quigley because it is accepted legal precedent that in the event of doubt about guilt one does not vote against the defendant. The second time was when she voted to continue legal action against Quigley when he was found innocent of the charges brought against him by the Board, violating the spirit and intent of the trial de novo guidelines.

The negative opinion of Gail Vines who was once thought to be the sole openly gay-friendly member of the Board, and whose business, Flip's Winebar and Tratoria, is the subject of an informal boycott has been seen to be justified.

Phil Horning, who is quoted in the Oklahoman story below as saying he'd die before voting no against the inclusion of GLBT-protective language is, using his own hyperbole, to be whistling past the graveyard. I was present during Mr. Horning's vicious questioning of Quigley's attorney during the original kangaroo hearing: it was evident he had made up his mind and would not allow evidence to steer him from his course. As Minnesota Senator Al Franken said recently during debate: "We are entitled to our own opinions; we are not entitled to our own facts."


complete at: http://www.newsok.com/oklahoma-city-school-board-passes-protection-for-gay-pupils/article/3425049

or http://tinyurl.com/yas2trh

Oklahoma City school board passes protection for gay pupils
Board member says the amended rule is ‘ahead of the curve’ in Oklahoma
BY MEGAN ROLLAND
Published: December 15, 2009

The bullying or harassment of gay, lesbian and transgender students in the
Oklahoma City School District will not be tolerated, school board members
said Monday with a vote amending the district’s policy.

"This is an opportunity for us to get a little bit ahead of the curve, not
very far I’ll admit,” board member Phil Horning said. "You cannot live in
central Oklahoma and not admit that there is a tendency to discriminate
against gay and lesbian individuals. You’d have to have your head in the
sand not to admit it … I’ll die before I vote no.”

complete at: http://www.newsok.com/oklahoma-city-school-board-passes-protection-for-gay-pupils/article/3425049

or http://tinyurl.com/yas2trh

Uncle Proud Liberal's Guide to Handling Rightwing-Nuts Online

http://ranting-liberally.blogspot.com/2009/12/uncle-pls-guide-to-handling- rightwing.html

or http://tinyurl.com/yfj3sbl

Where in the Constitution is there an orientation test?

Graphic from: http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=35608


(OKLAHOMA CITY) Various fundie homo-hating religious denominations have been doing a great deal of proselytizing the last few years. We've all been converted by proxy whether we knew it or not. No, it's not the Mormons in this case, though they do have their own ways--that's for another story.

I'm choosing two Catholic abuse stories that got my attention recently.

By allowing far-right wing homo-haters to set beliefs taken from their religious books into the civil law books everyone in this country is an honorary member of the Catholic religion, vassals of the Pope in Vatican City.

This means all of us are party to the enabling of child abusers even as these religious corporations enjoy a vast tax-free financial fraud, endorsed by the IRS.

These tax-sheltered frauds are as crooked as Bernie Maddof has been proven to be. They have entered the public arena advocating for their particular religious dogma, using it to overturn or prevent the recognition and implementation of civil rights for all of this country's taxpaying citizens.

Where in the Constitution is there an orientation test one is required to pass in order to receive the rights, benefits, and privileges guaranteed to all citizens under the law?

However, there is a First Amendment requiring that civil law does not recognize religious dogma, period.

Below is a link to a story about a relatively cheap monetary settlement made by the diocese of Maine to close the book on one abuse case even as the diocese spent over twice that amount to make sure Catholic dogma rules the private lives of not just the gay/lesbian residents of Maine, but all of us regardless of where we live.

Joe Sudbay of http://gay.americablog.com wrote recently:

The Catholic Diocese of Maine has been doling out a lot of money lately. There was that $550,000 spent on the anti-gay campaign. And, there was another $200,000 paid to the victim of a sexually-abusing priest:

A lawyer has confirmed that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland made a $200,000 settlement on Nov. 5 with his client, who said she was molested by a priest in 1976 in the rectory of St. Michael's Church in South Berwick.

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The settlement money came from insurance, said Sue Bernard, spokesperson for the diocese. The diocese received its first complaint about Vallely in 1978 and took action.

Took action? The Church leaders enabled abusers for decades. Yet, these same abuse-enabling church leaders are setting social policy for America. That's sick.

( http://tinyurl.com/yd29uxb )

And then there's the stalling by the former archbishop of New York City when pressed in a deposition as to why he did nothing to investigate a child abuse complaint brought to his attention when he was a mere bishop, not a prince of the church, in Connecticut--

"Cardinal Edward M. Egan, then a Connecticut bishop, ...was questioned about cases of child molestation committed by priests under his supervision. When a lawyer taking Egan’s deposition asked why the bishop had failed to intervene immediately in cases involving complaints about a predatory priest, Egan told him, "I didn’t make a decision one way or the other. I kept working on it until I resolved the decision." " ( http://tinyurl.com/ykkwyow )

Such preaching and teaching about the sanctity of marriage from an institution that knowingly shuffled child abusers around in a holy shell game of deception is beyond the overused word of hypocrisy. It's more clearly described as a license--a permit to do what it pleases in regard to civil criminal activity, above the law, and above the clouds in their minds, wreaking emotional and physical damage on innocent people. Just how christ-like is that?

Inaugural Invocator & Oklahoma's Senior Senator Involved in Uganda's Final Solution

Guernica by Picasso, painted in response to the bombing of the Spanish town of the same name by Fascists during the Spanish Civil War




Rick Warren, the invocater at Obama's inauguration, calls Uganda which is considering its own final solution to end its leaders's problem with gay people, a "purpose-driven nation".

Oklahoma's senior senator, Jim Inhofe, refuses to comment on the Uganda Parliament's final solution even as his membership in the "C" Street Family shows extensive missionary-like support for Uganda for years, at least since 1986.

History has shown that the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s was a laboratory for new war-making techniques such as the use of airplanes and bombing being developed by the Nazis. Is Uganda going to be the white man's farm team for developing public tolerance of the twisted use of the legal process to create "legal" discrimination?

Rachel Maddow has the latest lowdown on this extended threat to
gay people in Africa. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/34214774#34214774



Inhofe is up to his neck in what seems to me to be influence retailing.

A news article appearing in the Oklahoman on Dec. 21, 2008, said that Inhofe had made at least 20 trips to Africa. Yet seven months prior to that story Inhofe revealed he’d just made his 97th visit to Africa. As his trips began in 1999, that averages out over the then 9-yr-period to a visit every five to six weeks instead of the twice a year trips the newspaper claims. There are other notations easily found where Inhofe recites the 97th visit claim in April 2008, so it’s unknown how the Oklahoman was so far off in their count. As Inhofe readily admits his travels to Africa are funded by American taxpayers, questions arise on the total cost of 96 such trips. The Oklahoman interviewed Inhofe for the report, so it seems odd that they would’ve gotten the number of trips and their costs so far off.

http://smack.gossip-boy.com/2009/12/01/has-sen-jim-inhofe-found-a-new-way-to-make-aids-a-death-sentence.aspx

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