reyonthehill

This weekend's Meet the Press, moderated by Buffalo's own Tim Russert, hosted a barnfight between two nutjobs and two semi-nutjobs. On one side was Jerry Falwell and Richard Land, and on the other, Al Sharpton and Jim Wallis (all are ministers/religious leaders).

Russert brought up Falwell's comments a couple days after the events of nine-eleven.

MR. RUSSERT: I want to ask Reverend Falwell about something and broaden the conversation. We talked about Iraq and the war on terrorism. Something that you said two days after September 11, when you were with Reverend Pat Robertson: "I fear... that [September 11th] is only the beginning. ...If, in fact, God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve ... I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle ... all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

And during the melee Russert stung Dr. Land with the following:

MR. RUSSERT: We can try to find common ground, but there are differences, and I want to see just how profound they are. The Southern Baptist Convention in 1998 passed this statement on the family: "...A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband... She...has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household..."

And, Reverend Land, you went on to explain it this way: "If a husband does not want his wife to work outside the home, then she should not work outside the home." Is that your vision of America?

And I am still trying to make sense of this one.

MR. RUSSERT: Why was it a responsibility, a duty of Christians to vote for George Bush?

DR. JERRY FALWELL: Because I'm a Democrat. I don't vote Republican. I vote Christian.

[...]

MR. RUSSERT: On "Desperate Housewives," Newsweek says that the creator of "Desperate Housewives" is a conservative, gay Republican.

DR. FALWELL: Well, the fact that he's a gay Republican means he should join the Democratic Party.

And while we are on the subject of "Desperate Housewives..."

MR. RUSSERT: Also "Desperate Housewives"... a widely viewed television series, particularly in the South. Why is it that the red states...

DR. FALWELL: Because the South doesn't belong to the New Testament Church anymore than the North.

MR. RUSSERT: Right.

DR. FALWELL: We have a responsibility to preach the Gospel. But I would take that poll a little further. Among born-again, Bible-believing Christians who take the Bible as the word of God, you'll find those stats are non...

MR. RUSSERT: They don't watch "Desperate Housewives"?

DR. FALWELL: I hope they don't.

DR. LAND: I don't...

DR. FALWELL: I have never watched it and I've...

DR. LAND: We're in church on Sunday night.

Yes, sure you are... with your mistresses.

Source: Meet the Press

Another priceless piece from ABC News regarding the Christian Right, now labeled as "evangelicals," and their delivered victory to Bush from the heavens above.

Evangelicals to Bush: Payback Time

Christian Conservatives Say They Gave Bush 'Moral Mandate'; Call Him to Act on Their Behalf

Nov. 29, 2004 - Among some conservative Christians, there is a belief that President Bush received a "moral mandate" to win the recent presidential election -- and they are calling on him to act on their agenda now.

"I believe Our Lord elected our president and I believe he put him in office and it is my prayer that he will sustain him in office," said one woman at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Another was asked if she believed that God intervened in the election. "Absolutely," she said.

"Values" voters delivered for the president, and the president must now deliver for them -- especially in the courts, said Gary Cass, head of a grassroots political organization affiliated with Coral Ridge, called the Center for Reclaiming America.

"It's about the next 40 years and how the courts are going to affect the world in which my children and grandchildren are going to be raised in," he said.

Cass wants a U.S. Supreme Court that will outlaw abortion and gay marriage. "Do you want to take your children to a National League baseball game for instance and have homosexuals showing affection to one another? I don't want my kids to see that," he said.

Risking God's Wrath

By one measure, conservative Christians comprised 12 percent of the electorate this year -- the same as four years ago. But they see themselves as a crucial piece of the president's political base.

They believe that if their agenda is not implemented quickly -- if their concerns are not addressed in a timely fashion -- God will be angry.

One leading evangelist recently warned, "God's patience runs out."

Dr. James Kennedy delivers sermons at Coral Ridge which are broadcast to 3 million homes. He said he knows of no timetable for God's wrath, but wants results fast.

He dismissed the concerns of people who worried about the impact of Christian conservatives on the U.S. government.

"Repent," he said with a laugh. "Repent. That's what I'd say."

People who are concerned about the influence of Christianity "have never really surrendered their life to God and submitted themselves to his commandments -- and if they did that they wouldn't have so much concern about some court saying again that it's wrong," he said.

Asked about the millions of Americans who are not Christian, or have a different interpretation of Christianity, Kennedy said with another laugh: "I couldn't care less. It's true."

"I think that the idea that the worst sin that somebody can commit is to offend somebody is ridiculous," he said.

Evangelicals say Kennedy may seem intolerant, but there's no greater love than upholding the will of God.

Source: ABC News

So much for the first-amendment-freedom-of-religion-thing we all learned about in school growing up. I guess those who didn't make it to public school didn't learn the same Constitution.

This issue is simpler than one may think. A state's decision (in this case, California) to allow possession of marijuana for medicinal purposes (the purpose is actually a nil-point) versus the statute of federal government that such an act (possession) is illegal. Well, we go to the Constitution, flip to the appendices, yes, Amendment 10... States have all rights not prescribed in the Constitution to the federal government. Oh I see. Case closed.

But don't take my word for it...

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Will a conservative Supreme Court, which has previously and illegally (Is it illegal if a judge does it?) handed the presidency to George W. Bush after the rightfully-contested stolen 2000 election was brought to their docket, refuse a states' right? Will they instead push for big government? Would they really consider trashing their legal opinions in order to appease the president? Or will they do their job and be a cog in the wheel of our system of checks and balances.

The Beatles had a song, okay it was George Harrison's, called "Taxman," in which they decry the ridiculously high tax rate in England. "One for you, nineteen for me."

But what about the United States? We never have had such high taxes, right?

In order to help pay for its war effort in the American Civil War, the United States government issued its first personal income tax, on August 5, 1861 as part of the Revenue Act of 1861 (3% of all incomes over US $800; rescinded in 1872). Other income taxes followed, although a 1895 Supreme Court ruling, Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., limited the sources of income that Congress could tax without apportionment. The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution removed the limitations, paving the way for the income tax to become the government's main source of revenue. In 1913 the tax rate was 1 percent on taxable net income above $3,000 ($4,000 for married couples), less deductions and exemptions. It rose to a rate of 7 percent on incomes above $500,000.

During World War I the top rate rose to 77 percent.

Following the war the top rate was scaled down (to a low of 25 percent).

During the Great Depression and World War II, the top income tax rate rose again, reaching 91% during the war; this top rate remained in effect until 1964.

In 1964 the top rate was decreased to 70% (1964 Revenue Act), and then to 50% in 1981 (Economic Recovery Tax Act or ERTA).

The Tax Reform Act of 1986 reduced the top rate to 28%, at the same time raising the bottom rate from 11% to 15% (in fact 15% and 28% became the only two tax brackets).

During the 1990s the top rate rose again, standing at 39.6% by the end of the decade.

In 2001 the top rate was cut to 35% and the bottom rate was cut to 10% by the EGTRRA, or Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act.

In 2003 the JGTRRA, or Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act, was passed, expanding the 10% tax bracket and accelerating some of the changes passed in the 2001 EGTRRA.

Source: Wikipedia

One striking prescient issue is that tax rates always increased during times of war. Bush has systematically reduced the rates on the wealthiest taxpayers, as well as large corporations, during the last years, a period of time in which he considers us as a nation at war. But then again, it isn't a real war, is it? Bush certainly didn't think so. He didn't send enough troops, he didn't garner enough assistance from our allies, and he didn't plan for the post-war occupation. (Incompetence at it's finest.)

Forty-one years ago, John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States under the Constitution, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The subsequent investigation (Warren Commission) resulted in the lone-gunmen theory, a theory that prescribed Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the killing. However, in the late 1970s, an official investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that Kennedy "was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy," contradicting the Warren Commission's findings. New evidence in the form of a digital model, presented by ABC News, conclusively finds that Lee Harvey Oswald was the only person who could have fired a rifle that infamous day. ABC News does not make any determination as to whether or not Oswald received any help, financially or logistically, in the assassination plot to kill the president.

Additionally, the Beatles released their first album in England this day in 1963 (the same day JFK was assassinated), titled "With the Beatles." When the album finally reached American shores, the album was re-tooled for American audiences and titled, "Meet the Beatles." Moreover, five years later, on November 22, 1968, thirty-six years ago, the Beatles released their self-titled album, "The Beatles," better referred to as the "White Album."

With all the talk of a "mandate" for the popularly-elected (finally; I guess one out of two ain't bad) President Bush, the news that hated-by-the-right liberal Senator Barbara Boxer (California) won re-election with an astounding 20-point margin was slow to make headlines for 17 days.

Little noticed in this month's election was that the nation's third biggest vote getter, behind only President Bush and John Kerry was Sen. Barbara Boxer a fiery California Democrat who proudly wears her liberalism on her sleeve.

In a campaign year when the GOP picked off most of its Democratic targets, Boxer sailed to a third Senate term Nov. 2 with 6.4 million votes, 200,000 more than Kerry got in the state. Ralph Nader's total for the country: 407,000 votes.

This from a San Francisco Bay Area liberal who's made a habit of exasperating the GOP, whether taking on the Pentagon over a $7,600 coffee pot — a fight she waged as a junior congresswoman two decades ago — or leading opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

"She's certainly one of the most liberal senators in the country, and one that Republicans love to hate," said Ken DeBow, a political scientist at California State University, Sacramento. "And they can't come close to touching her."

Boxer's success has several explanations: California's electorate leans stubbornly Democratic, even as voters nationwide hand victories to the GOP. She finished with 58 percent of the vote in a state where Democrats make up 43 percent of registered voters (35 percent are Republicans and 18 percent are independents).

Source: Yahoo!

I guess the Bush-mandate question is tricky. Californians explicitly renounced the policies of the Bush administration by electing Boxer with a very wide margin. New York voted to keep Senator Charles Schumer in his seat 71 to 25 percent over the Republican challenger. It is pretty tough to declare a mandate when two of the big three (New York, California and Texas) do not agree with you. And by a resoundingly large margin.

Yesterday Bush nominated domestic policy adviser Margaret Spellings to be the next education secretary. (Read: Administration insider.)

At the press event Bush seemed very interested in his nominee...

"Oh boy! I picked a nice one this time."

And then Bush made his move...

And let us not forget Tuesday's announcement that Dr. Condoleeza Rice is Bush's choice for Secretary of State...

Images: AP

For every occasion, a company somewhere makes shirts for it: the Super Bowl, the World Cup, and the latest pop culture fad, just to name a few. The latest election is no different. And the Bushies love their shirts.

Take this shirt for example, which ridicules the latest rumors of a secession by the blue states, an idea I support heavily.

Look a little closer.

This shirt reveals what the gist of the conservative majority (actually a minority if the youth exercised their right to vote) believes. They despise the left-to-center majority in this country; they despise the coasts; they despise intellectual centers and science; they insist Jesus is (or was, however that works) the christ and anyone who doesn't agree with that belief system is going to hell. These far-right religious fanatical conservatives make up the supposedly all-powerful and all-knowing middle-America ("the heartland," some call it). What they actually in-fact do make up, however, is "fly-over country."

Images: cafepress.com

Observe. Reflect. Contemplate.

As of this morning, six cabinet posts have been vacated, including a few big ones:

Secretary of State - Colin Powell (quite a shame - knew the facts and foresaw the quagmire with Iraq);

Attorney General - John Ashcroft (thank the lord almighty);

Education Secretary - Rod Paige (leave no child has been a disaster - even if it were funded, which it has not);

Commerce Secretary - Don Evans (old buddy from oil exploration days in Texas);

Agriculture Secretary - Ann Veneman (not even sure if the position is necessary);

and Energy Secretary - Spencer Abraham (highest gas prices in history).

Additionally, Bush has tapped failed National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice as the next Secretary of State, resulting in another opening for a near-Cabinet level position. (About that little thing that happened on September 11, 2001...)

History tells us that this is no big news: Reagan and Clinton changed seven cabinet positions for their second terms, and Richard Nixon made nine changes. However, Bush has now began a policy, reminiscent of Soviet Russia, in consolidating his power by filling vacancies with trusted staff allies and removing those with differing opinions on policy (namely Powell). Trusted ally, Alberto Gonzales, counsel to the president, has been named as the next Attorney General.