Sunday, 4/20/14, Public Square

Wednesday, 2/20/13, Public square

Sunday, 2/3/13, Public Square

Sunday, 4/22/12, Public Square

Troy Davis must die.

At 6:00 PM CDST this evening, Troy Anthony Davis will die for a crime that he likely did not commit. 

All of the arguments are over. All of the pleas have been dismissed. All of the evidence has been filed away. Tee shirts and signs and editorials will focus on a new issue, a new problem, tomorrow. The world will forget about Troy Davis. Few will remember him after today.

Well, some may remember, quite vividly. The seven ‘witnesses’ that testified against Davis that later recanted their testimony may remember him. The police department and prosecutor might think about him now and then. The family of the slain police officer may wonder if they executed the right man.

Redd Coles may think about Troy Davis. Coles was there the night the officer was killed and several eye witnesses say that it was Coles that did the shooting. Coles testified that it was Davis that fired the fatal shots. Coles is one of the two ‘witnesses’ that has yet to recant his testimony. Troy Davis never owned a gun, but Redd Coles did. It was the same caliber of the gun that killed Officer MacPhail.

No murder weapon was ever found.  No DNA evidence ever linked Troy Davis to the slain officer. There was no forensic evidence presented at the trial. All that the prosecution had was eye witness accounts, but that was enough to secure a conviction for capital murder against Troy Davis. And now, Troy Davis will die.

And so it is with justice in America. The Right Wing cheers the Texas Governor that brags of executing 234 inmates during his tenure in the Statehouse. Opinion pages are filled with comments from death penalty supporters that claim that Davis has had enough time to prove his innocence. All of the standard arguments for capital punishment have been discussed, refuted and discussed again. It’s all over now. The proper authorities have spoken clearly – Troy Anthony Davis must die.

William Stephenson Clark

Jeb Bush: The GOP’s Man in 2012?

Yep!  Read it here.  If you’ve gotten this far and still could stomach more, see ten reasons why someone thinks this should happen here.  🙂

Homosexuality Part III

I am a straight white man, so my view of discrimination is only what I can observe or read about. The closest that I have come to experiencing discrimination was in my “Hippie” years, when my long hair prompted an increase in attention from the local gendarmerie.

Perhaps it is because of that, or maybe in spite of that, I have little understanding of the thought process that leads to discrimination. I don’t think that I am in the minority, yet I see anti-gay marriage constitutional amendments regularly passed by seventy percent margins.

Truthfully, I do not understand that level of bigotry in a country that makes a claim of being “a beacon of freedom in the world.” Perhaps most hypocritical to me is DADT.

“You can fight and perhaps die for our freedom but you just sure as Hell can’t have any of it for yourself?”

It has been often said that discrimination against gays is the last acceptable form of bigotry. That is pretty close to the truth. Anti-gay rights people and politicians have a host of excuses for their bigotry that they can hide behind.

“The Bible says being gay is an abomination!”

“I am not anti-gay, I am just for traditional marriage!”

“Gay sex is so disgusting!”

Well, gay sex may be disgusting to you, but it is not to those that practice it, and, by the way no one asked you to join in. The Bible, Leviticus in particular, makes a lot of rules that are not regularly followed. When was the last time you heard about someone being stoned to death for working on the Sabbath? When is the last time you read about a man selling his daughter into slavery?

Leviticus is the often quoted passage for being anti-gay rights, but choosing that verse and ignoring the others is strictly hypocritical. So is quoting  Corinthians, written by the so-called St. Paul, who many biblical historians think was gay himself.

Using the Bible to justify discrimination is a direct contradiction of the words of Jesus who said:

“Love your neighbor as you love yourself”

Does that not mean, also, extending to your neighbor the same rights that you too enjoy?

Ironic, that a 33 year old never married man, that traveled the country with twelve also single males and a female prostitute, would most likely be considered by today’s Christians to be gay.

Hypocrites, one and all.

Thoughts?

William Stephenson Clark

Run Sarah Run, See Sarah Run

This newly released SarahPAC video has already had almost 400,000 views.  As of June 30, SarahPAC had more than $1 million cash on hand.  It all hints that Palin plans to run for POTUS in 2012.

She stands a good chance of winning the nomination of the GOP.  Can she win the general election?  If she decides to run and doesn’t win the nomination, will her fervent fans support another nominee?  If Palin runs, wins the nomination and then loses the general election, she could leave the Republican brand in pieces.

If Palin is smarter than she is ambitious, she will not run in 2012 — she has fame, fortune, and multiple platforms to leverage for years to come.  Who wants to speculate on whether she is more ambitious than smart?

fnord

How radical are Republicans?

A new poll conducted by Research 2000 and commissioned by the liberal activist site DailyKos found that:

* 63% of Republicans believe Barack Obama is a socialist.
* 39% of Republicans believe he should be impeached.
* 36% believe he was not born in the United States (22% are not sure)
* 31% believe he is “a racist who hates White people”
* 24% believe President Obama “wants the terrorists to win” (33% are not sure)
* 23% say they want their state to secede from the Union.

Obviously, DailyKos is a questionable source for such a damning poll, so I looked skeptically at the methodology. It seems sound – more than 2,000 people were surveyed by telephone over the last ten days of January. The questions, while geared toward confirming the worst stereotypes, were presented straightforwardly. Looking through the cross-tabs, young Republicans were not significantly more liberal-to-libertarian on most issues – and those age 30 to 44 seem particularly radicalized against President Obama.

Continue reading here.

AVATAR – JUST A MOVIE OR PROPAGANDA?

How The World Works Conservative backlash against “Avatar”
A right-wing nightmare: The free market has spoken — anti-American lefty green propaganda sells!
By Andrew Leonard

A still from “Avatar”A movie as big as “Avatar” deserves more than one blog post, and I’m afraid I just can’t resist poking at the hilarious spectacle of conservative movie critics launching into thermonuclear hissy fits at the anti-American, greenie pagan leftist propaganda embedded in the politics of James Cameron’s epic. The Los Angeles Times has a great story by Patrick Goldstein rounding up the outrage.

To say that the film has evoked a storm of ire on the right would be an understatement. Big Hollywood’s John Nolte, one of my favorite outspoken right-wing film essayists, blasted the film, calling it “a sanctimonious thud of a movie so infested with one-dimensional characters and PC cliches that not a single plot turn, large or small, surprises. . . . Think of ‘Avatar’ as ‘Death Wish’ for leftists, a simplistic, revisionist revenge fantasy where if you … hate the bad guys (America) you’re able to forgive the by-the-numbers predictability of it all.”

John Podhoretz, the Weekly Standard’s film critic, called the film “blitheringly stupid; indeed, it’s among the dumbest movies I’ve ever seen.” He goes on to say: “You’re going to hear a lot over the next couple of weeks about the movie’s politics — about how it’s a Green epic about despoiling the environment, and an attack on the war in Iraq… The conclusion does ask the audience to root for the defeat of American soldiers at the hands of an insurgency. So it is a deep expression of anti-Americanism — kind of. The thing is, one would be giving Jim Cameron too much credit to take ‘Avatar’ — with its … hatred of the military and American institutions and the notion that to be human is just way uncool — at all seriously as a political document. It’s more interesting as an example of how deeply rooted these standard issue counterculture cliches in Hollywood have become by now.”

Lilacluvr

The health-care reform bill ISN’T enough pages!

A constant whine of congressional Republicans about health care reform is that the legislation is just too long and too complicated. “All you need to know is there are 1,990 pages,” griped House Minority Leader John Boehner about the House bill. “It is longer than ‘War and Peace’ and not near as funny,” said Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX). As the Washington Times has noted, Republican senators have “rotated three other copies of the bill among their desks so a giant stack is never more than a desk or two away from any senator who wants to thump it, poke it, or heft it for viewers to see.” But today, Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) opened the 11th day of Senate debate by arguing that the bill is not long enough:

And we talk about 2,074 pages, which seem like a lot, and it would be for a normal bill that you could debate in a limited period of time, which is what we’re being asked to do. But 2,074 pages isn’t nearly enough to cover health care for America. So why is it only 2,074 pages?

Watch it:

Dick Cheney — Will save Republican Party

In a Newsweek article Jon Meacham states his case for “WHY DICK CHENEY SHOULD RUN IN 2012.”

He says, “A campaign would also give us an occasion that history denied us in 2008: an opportunity to adjudicate the George W. Bush years in a direct way. As John McCain pointed out in the fall of 2008, he is not Bush. Nor is Cheney, but the former vice president would make the case for the harder-line elements of the Bush world view. Far from fading away, Cheney has been the voice of the opposition since the inauguration. Wouldn’t it be more productive and even illuminating if he took his arguments out of the realm of punditry and into the arena of electoral politics? Are we more or less secure because of the conduct of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? Does the former vice president still believe in a connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda? Did the counterterror measures adopted in the aftermath of the attacks go too far? Let’s have the fight and see what the country thinks.”

Other questions we might be able to settle —

• Would his war criminal record be a selling point with today’s new anti-war right?
• Since he embodies the America of old white men, could that myth be dispelled?
• Can Cheney prove he is actually alive?  It’s rumored he died of his last heart attack and some are saying they’ve seen his long-form death certificate — complete with the seal!
• Is he truly devoid of knowledge of recent U.S. history, history over which he himself presided?  He led the charge into Iraq in 2003 even after having warned in 1991 that such a strategy would lead to a quagmire.  The U.S. wars of the last six decades (including the four for which Cheney shares responsibility) have all been marred by mishap, bad intelligence, flawed geopolitical analysis—and lack of necessity.
• Is it true he supported the McCain / Palin ticket because he knew only that keystone cops duo could have made the tragic incompetence of the previous fools look good in the history books?

What would be his campaign promises and slogans, would he emphasize his lack of civility, his well-known health problems, would he continue to loudly defend torture?

fnord

IT’S OFFICIAL: THE REPUBLICAN PARTY HAS SELF-DESTRUCTED!

New York’s special election is now split three ways, and I’m not talking about a Ménage à trois. It appears the Republican Party has officially split into the GOP and the Conservative party, with people like Sarah Palin endorsing the Conservative candidate. No surprise there. Poll numbers  show Democrat Bill Owens with 33%, Republican Scozzafava with 29% and Conservative Hoffman with 23%.

This section of New York is heavily Republican, and if they joined forces, would gain a Republican seat easily.  But with the split, could lose the seat. This split has gone so far as to put out a call for all Conservatives to refrain from sending any money to the RNC. The Democrats could win huge on this split if they can get their collective together and figure out a plan to use this to their advantage. I have my doubts about their being capable of it, though.

With the Republican Party’s numbers the worst they’ve been in over 25 years, a split sounds like a losing proposition. Meanwhile, Rush is saying Obama is ruining the Democrats . . . Rush fiddles while Republicans burn.

What’s your thoughts?

jammer5

Arrest A Preacher Today!

I want to arrest a preacher today!  But only after I give legal cover to as many pedophiles as I can!  These patently absurd arguements are being provided by the religious right as to why GAY people should not be given Hate-Crime protections.  It is tantamount to saying:  “I will lose my religious freedoms, if I am not free to hate!”

I mean this would really piss me off if it wasn’t such stupid crap!  No, stike that.  It pisses me off BECAUSE it is such stupid crap!

Read more here.

1 John 4:8
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

iggydonnelly

Halleujah, Brother. And Pass those Green Backs: The Prosperity of Prosperity Preaching

So, we’re in a recession?  Not true, for “prosperity preachers”.  These Bible thumpers preach the gospel of giving money to them, so that God will return it, multiplied, to the giver.  According to this interesting  sect, God wants people to get rich, for such is His reward to those who follow the plan.

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland and associates preach the gospel of following the word of God which leads to riches.  Such certainly did “work” for them in that their estimated yearly income is $100 million.  The central premise in the Copeland wealth generation plan is send them the money.  To reap the benefits of God’s love in greenbacks, all one has to do is to have faith in God and the Bible AND generously donate to the Copelands, the next thing you know you will be in Greenback heaven.

A vocal critic of the Copeland’s, “Professor Walton called the prosperity preachers ‘spiritual pickpockets.’”“’To dismiss and ignore the harsh realities of this economic crisis,’ he said. ‘is beyond irresponsible, to the point of reprehensible.’”

Read more here.

iggy donnelly