Why is the GOP so stubborn?

Climate Change

Over the past years and even with emergence of the Pope Francis on the world stage, there has been one constant, the Republicans absolute intransigence on the subject of climate change.  The attitude expressed in public is ‘it does not exist, there are no problems, the scientists don’t know what they are talking about’ and of course Jeb Bush’s decision to ignore Pope Francis’ scientific education.

Marsha Blackburn, who ranks second on the House Energy Committee, said prior to the Pope addressing Congress, “I don’t think you will see me being persuaded.” Why is that Rep. Blackburn? Is it more important that you and your friends be right than to admit that we humans are destroying this earth and you and your kind are leaving your descendants a rapidly dying world?

Planned Parenthood.

It must be because Planned Parenthood is and has been a source of healthcare for women for over 60 years, and the GOP misogynists do not believe that women should have adequate healthcare, or it could be that they provide birth control and the men of the GOP want women to be eternally barefoot and pregnant. Or it could be that they provide abortions, and the GOP is dedicated to safe guarding the lives of the unborn, while simultaneously not giving a damn about them after birth.  Whatever the reason, they are determined to destroy the organization and so have blithely ignored any evidence that does not support the tampered videos. Yesterday, another state (Missouri, it is the 6^th to report) announced that after their investigation that there is no evidence of wrongdoing. (Of the 59 clinics only 2 are engaged in fetal tissue donation)

No matter, ‘we will shut down the government, (continue to collect our pay, while furloughed Federal employees do not.) unless PP is defunded.

President Obama

The story goes that on the day of his first inauguration the leaders of the GOP, led by Mitch McConnell, decided that to show their deep displeasure with the election results, they would block any and all initiatives and bills presented by POTUS.

And so they have. Speaker Boehner’s favorite comment was “Where’s the jobs?”  He has been Speaker for 5 years and has not passed one jobs bill.

They fought against the ACA, misleading the members of their party by using the name Obamacare to encourage them to hate the President rather than embrace the fact that they can now get health insurance, cannot be refused because of pre-existing conditions, etc.

There has been no immigration bill passed, including the Dream Act, which was first introduced in 2001. The House has however, voted over 50 times to repeal Obamacare.

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Any person, organization, political party or government that does not grow, learn and change is doomed to failure. And the GOP as currently constituted is doomed.

The Pope and the very Far Right

This past week, a large majority of us spent our time following Pope Francis’ trip to the US.

For many of us, regardless of religion, Roman Catholic or not, it was a wonderful experience.  To paraphrase the old Levy’s Rye Bread Ad, You don’t have to be Roman Catholic to like Pope Francis.

For the Religious Right and American Intellectuals it was not wonderful.

The Pope represents and spoke of all that the current GOP and their masters are not interested in hearing or doing.  So we had the usual calling of names.  I did not think it was possible for the Right to find someone whom they dislike as much as they dislike POTUS, but they did.  This short video will give you a sense of their feelings.

So Pope Francis is now safely back in Rome and the insanity that is our government continues to careen down the same crazy path.

The Sunday morning shows were of course the showcase for the madness.

The Speaker said that the Right wing of the GOP was “unrealistic” in expecting to pass conservative legislation when there is divided government. Translate that to as long as the veto pen is in the hands of a Dem they will be whistling Dixie and I will say if the pen is in the hand of a GOP President, he will not need to use it, because their crazy ideas will never reach his desk as long as there are Democrats and “moderate Republicans” in the Chambers.

He also said there will not be a shutdown over defunding Planned Parenthood.  I am certain that he knows, like those of us who are paying attention, that those videos were heavily edited to show a narrative designed to destroy Planned Parenthood.

Carson jumped into the Speaker Boehner resignation story, telling George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week “…[he] has served our country for many years and I certainly don’t see any reason to denigrate him in any way, but it is time probably for new leadership,”

“There’s a lot of unrest and people who really feel that a lot of people have been sent to Congress over the last few elections but nothing really has changed and they want to see some results,” Carson added. (It maybe time for new leadership on the Hill, someone who is willing to tell the lunatic fringe to stick it, but it is also time for Carson to go home.  Like the other members of the Clown Car, he is a menace to this country.)

Rep Tom Cole has had the Speaker’s back for years and did again on Fox News Sunday.

He defended him against the attacks by Cruz (I am counting the days to his (Cruz’) downfall, pols are usually slimy, but he is closer to the creature in STNG episode “Skin of Evil”). 

Cole went on to say “This is a guy that for 25 years had a distinguished record in the House — I’m talking about Boehner, certainly not talking about Sen. Cruz — again, who got real tax cuts, real spending reductions, real entitlement reform in divided government.”

Cole said that the Freedom Caucus does not understand how our government works. I believe they do know, but since it does not fit the Tea Party narrative, they choose to ignore the checks and balances that are the bedrock of our form of government.

One last comment, Carly Fiorina was on Meet the Press and continued to stand behind her “live fetus on a table” story. I firmly believe that at some point way before 11/1/2016, she will rue the day she told that story, and then decided to continue to make statements like this one. “That scene absolutely does exist. And that voice saying what I said they were saying, ‘We're going to keep it alive to harvest its brain,’ exists as well’.”

cha chink

I want to thank one of my followers for allowing me to share this poem.

And again, as I read this poem, I was reminded to thank God that the slave ship carrying my ancestors stopped at a port in Barbados.

written by Cheryl Sellers

54 Years Living in America, Part 3

In the fall when the program in Brownsville ended (the Anti Poverty Program) it was time to move on to a new adventure.

I went to the NYS Employment Agency. The counselor had 2 openings that she thought I was qualified for and might interest me. An admin position at Newsweek or a similar position with a non-profit organization headquartered in NYC. I chose to interview with the non-prof and began a journey that lasted until I retired.

That job was a grand adventure. I traveled from sea to shining sea and to Canada as well.

In retrospect I realize I lived out of a suitcase. wearing the style of those days. Mini skirts*, short shorts and flowing gowns** for business and pleasure evenings on the town.

*My daughter tells her friends about the dress I wore which was so short it came with matching knickers.

**My favorite was ankle length, open from the hemline to the waist and, yes, also came with matching shorts.

In the first few months that I worked for the organization, there was non-stop chaos. The Director who hired me was fired, and her replacement and the board declared war on each other almost immediately after he was hired.  His tenure was short.  He had several shortcomings including paranoia.  He decided that 3 of the staff including me were reporting to the President and fired us.

He was fired the next or maybe it was the same day and I was rehired and promoted to Director of the International Office, which was headquartered in New York City, at the grand young age of 24.  (That Barbadian education reared its lovely head at every turn in my young life.)

I moved my family from Brooklyn to Queens to what at the time was an upscale apartment complex.  My children’s school looked liked a mini UN, since many employees of the UN lived there. The kids had a carefree, monkey bar, bike-riding childhood. Skinned knees etc. with teachers who cared and actually taught the children.

I am so grateful for my parents, who took care of my children.  I was able to work, to travel and party. (NY was Party City) From small dinner parties to evenings at Lincoln Center to restaurants from downtown to midtown, I experienced it all.  I met so many interesting people from all walks of life from Major League Baseball players to British Dames.

As I mentioned earlier the job kept me on the move. At one point for about a year I commuted weekly to Washington D.C.  Computers were first coming into use and because we had a huge database, the company made the change from index cards to data processing using that era’s punch cards, and I supervised the changeover

In the early 70s the decision was made to move the headquarters from NY to DC, I decided not to move.  My plan was to take the summer off and go back to work in the Fall. That plan lasted about a month, when a friend, the owner of a printing company, called and asked if I would work for him that summer for a couple of weeks since he was short staffed. That was the beginning of a career that lasted until I retired in the middle of first decade in the 21^st century.

In the 1970s when I started out in the printing industry, there were very few women working in plants and they were usually relatives of the owners and worked as either the bookkeepers or receptionists.

My first exposure to what that meant was when I walked into a plant and one of the men announced that the new “stripper” had arrived.  The men all stopped working to look at me and shower me with wolf calls. I informed them that none of them could afford my show and kept walking. This was obviously long before Anita Hill and sexual harassment was rampant and accepted.  I learned to give as good as I got. If some man called me “babe” I called him “swheetheart” and that got their attention. No “babe” the next time they saw me.

I agreed to work for 2 to 4 weeks in the office, somehow that 2-4 weeks became several years, as the owner offered me a full time job working in production. I was one of the few women in an industry that was dominated by men.  One day in the winter, a woman who worked in sales, had to see a client. She borrowed a trench coat (she had worn a fur that day) from another salesman. Why? The client she was seeing did not like to give her business.  He felt that she was taking income away from men, who had families to support. She was a single mother with a daughter, but in those days the “find a husband to support you” was the prevailing attitude. Sound familiar?  Today, we cannot be told to our faces what he said to her, but based on the comments and behavior of members of the GOP, the attitude of barefoot and pregnant is alive and well.

To be continued…

BOEHNER TO RESIGN

Speaker of the House, John Boehner will resign from Congress at the end of October, according to his aides.

As I watched him tear up during the Pope's address to Congress, I wondered how he squared his conscience as a practicing Catholic with the demands of the extreme wing of his party.

The Pope preaches helping the poor, Congress has done nothing to ease their burden in the past few years, in fact, Congress and GOP held houses throughout this country have successfully increased the pain and suffering of millions of Americans, including Veterans.

If this is true and he is leaving, perhaps his departure will cause the leaders of the GOP to start looking in the mirror and seeing themselves for what they have become -- heartless, money grabbing excuses of human beings.

If they do not, when the history of the GOP is written, this period will be shown as the beginning of the end of what was once the Grand Old Party.

If he resigns, I hope he will spend his time helping to repair the damage to our country that his ambition to be Speaker allowed him to condone.

Pope Francis’ Homily at St. Patrick’s Cathedral

“There is a cause for rejoicing here”, although “you may for a time have to suffer the distress of many trials” (1 Pet 1:6). These words of the Apostle remind us of something essential. Our vocation is to be lived in joy.

This beautiful Cathedral of Saint Patrick, built up over many years through the sacrifices of many men and women, can serve as a symbol of the work of generations of American priests and religious, and lay faithful who helped build up the Church in the United States. In the field of education alone, how many priests and religious in this country played a central role, assisting parents in handing on to their children the food that nourishes them for life! Many did so at the cost of extraordinary sacrifice and with heroic charity. I think for example of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, who founded the first free Catholic school for girls in America, or Saint John Neumann, the founder of the first system of Catholic education in the United States.

This evening, my brothers and sisters, I have come to join you in prayer that our vocations will continue to build up the great edifice of God’s Kingdom in this country. I know that, as a presbyterate in the midst of God’s people, you suffered greatly in the not distant past by having to bear the shame of some of your brothers who harmed and scandalized the Church in the most vulnerable of her members… In the words of the Book of Revelation, I know well that you “have come forth from the great tribulation” (Rev 7:14). I accompany you at this time of pain and difficulty, and I thank God for your faithful service to his people. In the hope of helping you to persevere on the path of fidelity to Jesus Christ, I would like to offer two brief reflections.

The first concerns the spirit of gratitude. The joy of men and women who love God attracts others to him; priests and religious are called to find and radiate lasting satisfaction in their vocation. Joy springs from a grateful heart. Truly, we have received much, so many graces, so many blessings, and we rejoice in this. It will do us good to think back on our lives with the grace of remembrance. Remembrance of when we were first called, remembrance of the road travelled, remembrance of graces received… and, above all, remembrance of our encounter with Jesus Christ so often along the way. Remembrance of the amazement which our encounter with Jesus Christ awakens in our hearts. To seek the grace of remembrance so as to grow in the spirit of gratitude. Perhaps we need to ask ourselves: are we good at counting our blessings?

A second area is the spirit of hard work. A grateful heart is spontaneously impelled to serve the Lord and to find expression in a life of commitment to our work. Once we come to realize how much God has given us, a life of self-sacrifice, of working for him and for others, becomes a privileged way of responding to his great love.

Yet, if we are honest, we know how easily this spirit of generous self-sacrifice can be dampened. There are a couple of ways that this can happen; both are examples of that “spiritual worldliness” which weakens our commitment to serve and diminishes the wonder of our first encounter with Christ.

We can get caught up measuring the value of our apostolic works by the standards of efficiency, good management and outward success which govern the business world. Not that these things are unimportant! We have been entrusted with a great responsibility, and God’s people rightly expect accountability from us. But the true worth of our apostolate is measured by the value it has in God’s eyes. To see and evaluate things from God’s perspective calls for constant conversion in the first days and years of our vocation and, need I say, great humility. The cross shows us a different way of measuring success. Ours is to plant the seeds: God sees to the fruits of our labors. And if at times our efforts and works seem to fail and produce no fruit, we need to remember that we are followers of Jesus… and his life, humanly speaking, ended in failure, the failure of the cross

Another danger comes when we become jealous of our free time, when we think that surrounding ourselves with worldly comforts will help us serve better. The problem with this reasoning is that it can blunt the power of God’s daily call to conversion, to encounter with him. Slowly but surely, it diminishes our spirit of sacrifice, renunciation and hard work. It also alienates people who suffer material poverty and are forced to make greater sacrifices than ourselves. Rest is needed, as are moments of leisure and self-enrichment, but we need to learn how to rest in a way that deepens our desire to serve with generosity. Closeness to the poor, the refugee, the immigrant, the sick, the exploited, the elderly living alone, prisoners and all God’s other poor, will teach us a different way of resting, one which is more Christian and generous.

Gratitude and hard work: these are two pillars of the spiritual life which I have wanted to share with you this evening. I thank you for prayers and work, and the daily sacrifices you make in the various areas of your apostolate. Many of these are known only to God, but they bear rich fruit for the life of the Church. In a special way I would like to express my esteem and gratitude to the religious women of the United States. What would the Church be without you? Women of strength, fighters, with that spirit of courage which puts you in the front lines in the proclamation of the Gospel. To you, religious women, sisters and mothers of this people, I wish to say “thank you”, a big thank you… and to tell you that I love you very much.

I know that many of you are in the front lines in meeting the challenges of adapting to an evolving pastoral landscape. Whatever difficulties and trials you face, I ask you, like Saint Peter, to be at peace and to respond to them as Christ did: he thanked the Father, took up his cross and looked forward!

Dear brothers and sisters, in a few moments we will sing the Magnificat. Let us commend to Our Lady the work we have been entrusted to do; let us join her in thanking God for the great things he has done, and for the great things he will continue to do in us and in those whom we have the privilege to serve.