Happy 4th of July!

The words of the President are so true from our founding fathers that all men are created equal and it is imperative that we all keep that in mind.  The color of a person's skin, their religious beliefs, their background of where they or their family came from should not matter -- what matters is that we are all Americans and time for racism to be sent packing once and for all from our political campaigns and government.  If someone wants to be a racist,  get out of politics and quit trying to tell the rest of us what to believe or what to do.  
From the Thomas Jefferson Memorial:

On the panel of the northwest interior wall is an excerpt from "A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, 1777", except for the last sentence, which is taken from a letter of August 28, 1789, to James Madison:

Almighty God hath created the mind free...All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens...are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion...No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion. I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively.

Just maybe the SCOTUS needs a refresher course in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution since five of them seem to think that a business is a person and are taking the Court hard right into the land of religious right who have the common sense of a gnat.  With ruling that a Corporation is a person it opens up all kinds of scenarios and a for-profit can be a religious organization opens up even more.

Does that now mean that there will be no more corporate tax breaks since they are people just like us? If businesses are people then we can start sueing them as they are no longer protected as they are now just an individual person -- no more limited liability companies?  If a for-profit business is now a religious entity, then time to quit making religious organizations tax exempt.  This SCOTUS is opening up Pandora's Box like no other to pay back the benefactors and forgot  that SCOTUS is to rule on the law not overturn years of precedence and make new law in order to make the Court hard right.  

On this 4th of July we all need to pledge to return common sense to Congress and the Supreme Court and reject this nonsense we are seeing out of SCOTUS to protect the wealthy just like the House Republicans.  Hobby Lobby is not a Church or a religious organization -- it is a for profit company which the hard right on the SCOTUS cannot get through their heads.  Monsanto and Koch Industries are not people no matter how many times SCOTUS says a corporation is a person -- it is not!  People run corporations with board of directors but the corporation itself is not a living, breathing person. Koch's have gotten their money's worth with this SCOTUS since Scalia and Thomas attend their events and with Monsanto, Thomas used to be their attorney but none of them recuse themselves?  Why not?

Now we are discovering that Justice Alito lied during this hearings but so did Chief Justice Roberts. Worst part is that Jonathan Turley nailed the current Chief Justice for hiding (lying about) his hard right agenda but the Democrats led by Harry Reid wouldn't listen to the person most of us believe is the most honest commentator we have when it comes to the law.  Majority Leader Reid refused to call people who would have stated how far hard right Roberts was preferring to keep his head buried in the sand. What a mess Bush 41 and 43 made of their Supreme Court picks to make the Court despised instead of respected.  Like everything else Bush 43 touched, it is a mess.

We need to choose our candidates carefully because they hold the future of our Nation in their hands and right now we have a hard right SCOTUS making it up as they go and a hard right House GOP who are nothing but obstructions with a Speaker who now wants to sue the President for doing his job. You cannot make this stuff up.

If Democrats keep the Senate which I would bet they will, then Harry Reid needs replaced for a host of reasons starting with confirming Supreme Court Justices of Bush 43 without having real hearings and that beyond ridiculous filibuster that requires 60 votes to pass almost anything.  Reid let the American people down and time for him to step aside and let someone who has a backbone run the Senate because he seems to have a hard time finding his.  Wrong person for Democrats to have in charge of the Senate.  My question is does Harry Reid listen to the Mormon Church or fellow Democrats and American people because if he listed to us, he wouldn't have cut a deal with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on the filibuster where McConnell won.

It is the 4th of July and if you do only one thing this year for the Country, vote out the hard right who are supported by the Koch Brothers.  The Koch Bros "My Way or No Way" people in charge of the GOP across the Country want a Christian Nation where we have to worship at their churches and other religions are not recognized not to mention only white males should vote or be elected to office.  They have said it enough times I believe them.

Many Americans fail to realize that true believers, particularly religious true believers, are convinced it is their mandate from god to transform America into a religious state with forced compliance to biblical edicts. There is a strongly-held belief among evangelicals, and Republicans perpetuate the idea, that there is a war on Christianity because the religious right is prohibited by the Constitution from imposing their beliefs on the people. Americans must understand that until there is rigorous response to the religious right’s war on the Constitution, their relentless attacks will continue including passing legislation teaching creationism as science, legalizing discrimination against gays, and mandating public school teachers force Christian prayers on our children.

Time to end this nonsense in November with voting out the hard right all across America.  Our Nation and its people deserve better representation than what they are getting as more than 2% of the Nation do matter -- every citizen matters but the wealthy donors should not be allowed to try to buy elections. Time to show the Koch's and others they may have over $200M to spend, but we have the voters!

Happy 4th of July - pledge to turn this Nation back to We the People -- all the People not just white males!

 

NRA Takes off the Mask to Officially Become an Extremist Group

Glenn Beck leads the way during the NRA Convention to show Americans how extreme and out of touch the NRA has become.

Reading the article from Media Matters on the NRA started me thinking back and remembering some of the statements like 'jack-booted thugs' coming out of NRA members in Texas.  The militia in Kerville were always touting their NRA membership as if it made them legitimate as part of the mainstream.   In Oklahoma in 2010, a candidate for Republican Governor wanted the militia to become the military arm of the Tea Party as part of the 2nd amendment.  I thought he was nuts but looks like he wasn't the only one as the NRA has been playing to the militia movement according to Media Matters:

The NRA was forced to make a choice. Would it be a fiercely ideological yet mainstream organization? Or would it side with its worst demons and become the Washington trade association for anti-government militias? 

NRA board member Ted Nugent gave us a clue to the answer at the beginning of April when he reiterated his pre-election statement that "if this America-hater, if this freedom-hater, if this enemy of America becomes the president again I'll either be dead or in jail" and tied it to background check legislation that subsequently failed in the Senate.

For decades the NRA toyed with the violent extremes of America politics, reaping members and dollars. After this weekend's annual meeting there should be no confusion about what the NRA is - a group fully controlled by the rhetoric of anti-government extremists.

What has changed that Glenn Beck felt free to run this attack on Mayor Bloomberg during his speech?  Seems the NRA has decided to stop wearing two masks by jettisoning the one for mainstream America on gun safety with backing some form of background checks.  Today they have chosen to take off their other mask permanently to showcase they are a group who caters to the hard right including militia types of this Country.  Looks like the internet and other sources of news have finally outed the real NRA that was being hidden from public view.



Comparing Mayor Bloomberg to Hitler is not mainstream America - it is extremism that is permeating the hard right today with their conspiracy theories. IMHO it is harmful to America because some people actually believe what the hard right out of touch people are saying.  That defies my belief that even Beck would go that far but truthfully I should be more surprised if Beck said something that was not radical.  Beck and Sarah Palin made a good pair on their visits around the Country several years ago playing to the hard right.  Palin was also back at it at the NRA Convention.  Wonder if they paid her as she has been trolling for dollars since even Fox News cut her like they did Beck.

Leading the charge of the hard right was none other then Glenn Beck according to Media Matters:

Beck Exposes The NRA As Anti-Government Extremists
ARI RABIN-HAVT, 6 May 2013 

This weekend former Senator Evan Bayh echoed the beliefs of many in the media that the National Rifle Association has only recently moved to the fringe, telling Politico "their position is now in the end zone, not at the 40-yard line." 

These extremes were on display at the NRA annual meeting this weekend where Glenn Beck, during a keynote address just days after the announcement that  New York's Cablevision would soon begin to carry his Blaze network to millions of households, displayed on the screen a poster-like image of Michael Bloomberg giving the Sieg Heil salute. To equate the Jewish mayor of New York City to Nazis used to be beyond the pale in American politics. 

One could say this outrageous hate speech was Beck acting like Beck, demonstrating his herculean effort to prove Godwin's Law, but Nazi comparisons have been part and parcel of the NRA's rhetoric for decades. 

In 1995, former President George H.W. Bush resigned his lifetime membership in the organization after Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre signed a fundraising letter that claimed the Assault Weapons Ban passed earlier that year "gives jackbooted Government thugs more power to take away our constitutional rights, break in our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property and even injure and kill us." 

Bush told the organization, "your broadside against Federal agents deeply offends my own sense of decency and honor; and it offends my concept of service to country." 

The rhetoric might have been new to Bush, but the organization had freely referred to law enforcement officials as "jackbooted thugs" for years. It was only in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing that previously ignored communications, such as direct mail pieces, were scrutinized by the media, outing this disgraceful language. 

Likewise Beck's Nazi rhetoric is nothing new for the NRA. In 1994, a year before Bush resigned from the organization, LaPierre claimed in the organization's magazine The American Rifleman that Federal agents "are scarier than the Nazis -- who at least never concealed their faces." This was after writing that "it may be that this is a valid comparison" to "compare the behavior our uncontrolled Federal agents to that of the Nazis in the Third Reich." 

Is the rhetoric coming from the NRA and its allies today any more extreme?

The difference is, in an age of communications transparency created by the internet, the organization can no longer maintain two faces. While they've long used language designed to appeal to militia members and other anti-government extremists they depend on to fill their membership roles, they used to also employ  more moderate language designed to appeal to lawmakers and the media - in 1999 the organization claimed to support background checks at gun shows - and even some left leaning Democrats could formally claim an alliance with the organization. 

Read more about the NRA at MediaMatters.org   

NRA adopting a resolution from World Net Daily, home of the conspiracy theories, shows just how far out of the mainstream the NRA is today.  No wonder they have lost a lot of common sense members who don't want to be associated with this organization.

NRA Adopts WND Columnist's Resolution Opposing All New Gun Laws
May 4, 2013 5:18 PM EDT ››› MATT GERTZ

The membership of the National Rifle Association has unanimously adopted a resolution proposed by a WND columnist expressing opposition to any and all additional restrictions against guns during the session of its annual meeting. This position puts the activists in attendance out of step not only with the American people, but with the broader membership of the organization. 

The resolution was offered by fringe gun activist Jeff Knox during the open session of the May 4 meeting. Knox is head of the Firearms Coalition, a hardline organization that promotes the "unencumbered right to arms" and opposes "any moves toward more restrictive and/or intrusive gun laws." He also writes a column about gun policy for WND, a discredited right-wing website known for its conspiracy theories. Knox's father Neal is credited with leading NRA hard-liners to crush the group's moderate wing in the 1970s and 1990s, helping to establish the organization as a no-compromises right-wing lobbying powerhouse. 

The text of Knox's resolution cites its necessity as "a public repudiation of the lies and distortions from the media and politicians suggesting that the majority of NRA members support the expansion of gun control laws as clearly and unequivocally we do not." Polling indicates that the public -- including self-described NRA members -- overwhelmingly support at least one proposal to strengthen gun laws, the expansion of the background check system.

Excerpt:  Read More at Media Matters  

On  July 4th, there is a 1,000 (sponsor wants 10,000 now) loaded rifle carrying man march planned on the Capitol which is in violation of the DC laws which prohibit open or concealed carry.  These hard right gun people don't care about laws as any law on guns doesn't apply to them because they believe there should be no gun laws.  Would like to see the whole bunch thrown in jail after being arrested, have to post bond, and fined big time by the District.  A lot of people go to DC for the 4th of July festivities that have to do with celebrating the birth of our Country who don't want to be around a group of rifle carrying gun nuts who believe their rights supersede our right to live a peaceful life.

It was announced Sunday that over 900 gun enthusiasts have RSVPed for a July 4 march on Washington, D.C. where the protestors plan to carry loaded rifles. 

While it is against the law to openly carry a gun in D.C., libertarian radio host Adam Kokesh, the organizer of the event, said the march is an act of "civil disobedience" that attempts to prove gun advocates’ point in the “SUBTLEST way possible.” 

The event's Facebook page is describing the planned march as nonviolent, “unless the government chooses to make it violent":

This is an act of civil disobedience, not a permitted event. We will march with rifles loaded & slung across our backs to put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated & cower in submission to tyranny. We are marching to mark the high water mark of government & to turn the tide. This will be a non-violent event, unless the government chooses to make it violent. Should we meet physical resistance, we will peacefully turn back, having shown that free people are not welcome in Washington, & returning with the resolve that the politicians, bureaucrats, & enforcers of the federal government will not be welcome in the land of the free. 

There’s a remote chance that there will be violence as there has been from government before, and I think it should be clear that if anyone involved in this event is approached respectfully by agents of the state, they will submit to arrest without resisting. We are truly saying in the SUBTLEST way possible that we would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.

Protests over gun control are heating up. 

There is only a guess as to whether or not the march will even take place, as Kokesh has said he wants 10,000 RSVPs to make it happen, and it may be that he thinks there will be strength in numbers. With the NRA pushing for a "stand and fight" response from its members this weekend, Kokesh may end up getting his troops. 

Many people feel that brandishing a loaded firearm is a recipe for disaster. It has been done before. On August 17, 2012, thirty gun-toting activists stormed a public library in Virginia, scaring adults and children. 

They were protesting the library's concealed carry policy. One sentence sparked the ire of the Virginia Citizens Defense League.

Excerpt:  Read More at the Examiner 

Tide is already starting to turn against the NRA but they refuse to admit that their bought and paid for members of Congress are getting all kinds of heat from the 90% of us who support background checks.  Like so many on the hard right they are living in denial and refusing to face reality that times are changing and people are fed up with the NRA, along with their bought and paid for politicians who refuse to take action in the Senate.

We are marching to mark the high water mark of government & to turn the tide

How arrogant is that statement from the Facebook page for the march?  They are about to find out in 2014 that a lot of Americans are fed up with the NRA and their puppets in Congress.  A lot of Republicans are saying no to the hard right and yes to common sense candidates from the Democrats.  Hard right is systematically destroying the Republican Party and the NRA is a willing accomplice.

We need to oust the hard right NRA members from Congress who are running for reelection in 2014.
NRA has overstepped and time for us to fight back.  Let's make sure our children are safe from guns by starting to enforce child endangerment laws when there is a loaded gun in the house available for children to get their hands on to shoot.  Time to put restrictions on the age that children can be given guns as five is way too young.  The little five year old that shot and killed his sister will have to live with that the rest of his life.  Is that what the NRA wants with no laws on guns?  Never figured out why gun locks are not required by the law in homes with children.

Time for common sense to prevail over NRA gun extremists.

Happy 4th of July 2010

God Bless the United States and our troops around the world who protect us 24/7. On this Independence Day pledge as part of We the People to Take Back our Nation from those who ignore The Declaration of Independence, Our Constitution, and the Rule Law. When the House Democrats 'deemed' a budget was passed, they broke ranks with the patriots who founded this Country and the many men and women who died for our freedoms by ignoring the Rule of Law.

It time to show the World that America's best days are ahead not behind and our allies that once again we will stand with them not enemies. Vote on November 2, 2010, for those candidates who will stand up for all of us and our Freedoms by honoring The Declaration of Independence, Our Constitution, and the Rule of Law.