Starbucks In Politics


I don't patronize Starbucks, so I was unaware of all the talk about their liberal bias. To me, they are too expensive for my budget, and I don't particularly like most flavored coffees like the pumpkin mix that Dunkin Donuts advertises – just pure Colombian with half and half is what I usually want. I do make an exception for mocha. I also want plenty of coffee grounds in the brew – the one time I had a cup at Starbucks it tasted weak to me. One of my favorite places to get coffee is in Middle Eastern restaurants where the coffee is very strong with several spices and sugar in the mix, but no cream. Making a public stand on politics involving what could be considered “confronting” customers on their views is probably, as the writer below said, not good for business. “An issue as tough as racial and ethnic inequality requires risk-taking and tough-minded action,” said Howard Schultz. I'm glad to see that the owner of the company has stopped his “Race Together” policy. I think it was probably misguided as an effort to encourage helpful dialogue.

I am glad to see that the Starbucks management favors liberals, however. As long as the coal and oil companies are helping the Republicans, we should have businesses backing our candidates, too. I would still like to bring back the law against allowing mega donations from the wealthy and corporations, however. That way the Middle Class and the poor can have a comparatively greater chance at affecting the winning party. The following articles about libs and conservatives and Starbuck are all interesting reading. In case you're wondering about it, Starbucks calls it's workers “Partners.” Have a look.




http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/03/22/394710277/starbucks-will-stop-writing-race-together-on-coffee-cups

Starbucks Will Stop Putting The Words 'Race Together' On Cups
Sam Sanders
March 22, 2015

Photogrqaph – Larenda Myres holds an iced coffee drink with a "Race Together" sticker on it at a Starbucks store in Seattle. Starbucks baristas will no longer write "Race Together" on customers' cups starting Sunday.
Ted S. Warren/AP

The most visible part of Starbucks' campaign to get customers talking about race — putting the slogan "Race Together" on coffee cups — has come to an end.

In a memo sent to all Starbucks employees Sunday, CEO Howard Schultz wrote: "This phase of the effort — writing 'Race Together' (or placing stickers) on cups, which was always just the catalyst for a much broader and longer term conversation — will be completed as originally planned today, March 22."

The company received widespread criticism of its Race Together Initiative, which was announced last week. But Starbucks spokeswoman Laurel Harper told NPR that the move occurred right on schedule and was unrelated to the fallout. "This is not a change at all," Harper said. "We are not straying from what we set out to do, in fact, we are doing more."

The company says a number of Race Together activities will still take place over the next few months, including open forums and special sections in USA Today. Starbucks is also committing to hire 10,000 disadvantaged youth over the next three years and open new stores in communities with large minority populations.

Reporting on the large amount of criticism the Race Together Initiative received since it was launched last week,NPR's Karen Grigsby Bates said, "Some people think it's just a naked marketing ploy, kind of a catalyst for free advertising ... Other people think it was well-intentioned but really poorly executed." And our Code Switch blog noted that some people thought the campaign was unfair to Starbucks employees, who could face possibly awkward or offensive reactions.

But in that memo Schultz sent to Starbucks employees, he seemed to double down on the campaign. "While there has been criticism of the initiative — and I know this hasn't been easy for any of you — let me assure you that we didn't expect universal praise," he wrote. "We leaned in because we believed that starting this dialogue is what matters most. We are learning a lot."

He continued, "An issue as tough as racial and ethnic inequality requires risk-taking and tough-minded action. And let me reassure you that our conviction and commitment to the notion of equality and opportunity for all has never been stronger."

Whether reaction to Starbucks' continued focus on race will become more positive remains to be seen, but so far, the new push hasn't hurt the company financially. Starbucks stock actually went up in spite of last week's backlash to the Race Together Initiative — it started last week at 94.03, and closed Friday at 97.45.






http://patriotupdate.com/articles/39755-2/

Starbucks Howard Schultz: Liberal Intolerance at Its Worst
by David L. Goetsch
April 5, 2013

For all of my adult life I have heard conservatives labeled intolerant by liberal elites who believe their worldview is the only acceptable worldview. However, in recent years—like most conservatives—I have learned what liberals really mean by tolerance. When a liberal labels someone intolerant, it means the person in question holds views that differ from those of the liberal doing the labeling. Correspondingly, a tolerant person is one whose views comport with liberal orthodoxy.

Liberals, as it turns out, are not really tolerant at all. Oh sure, they tolerate homosexuality, entitlement, redistribution of wealth, abortion on demand, class envy, terrorism, and many other things that are destructive to a civilized society. But, as it turns out, liberals are not so tolerant when it comes to such things as the principles of Christianity, traditional American values, patriotism, and merit-based decision making in hiring and college admissions. And they are downright intolerant when it comes to black Americans who adopt conservative values.

One of the most egregious examples of liberal intolerance of late was recently provided by Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks. According to Joe Miller, Chairman of Restoring Liberty Action Committee, “At the Starbucks annual shareholders meeting…, CEO Howard Schultz sent a clear message to anyone who supports traditional marriage over gay marriage: we don’t want your business. After saying Starbucks wants to ‘embrace diversity of all kinds,’ he told a shareholder who supports traditional marriage that he should sell his shares and invest in some other company.” The shareholder in question had pointed out to Schultz—the individual responsible for maintaining and increasing the value of Starbucks stock—that the company’s support of a gay marriage referendum had resulted in a decline in sales revenue.

This episode is just another example of a liberal who is out of touch with the responsibilities of his position. Howard Schultz was hired as CEO of Starbucks to add value for shareholders and ensure the financial well-being of his employer, not to use his position as a bully pulpit for personal social causes. Schultz’s views on gay marriage are his business and he can vote anyway he chooses on gay-marriage referendums in his home state. But as CEO of Starbuck’s he cannot justify knowingly taking actions that are detrimental to the company’s bottom line. Before telling customers and shareholders who are traditional marriage supporters to get lost, Schultz should have considered the example of J.C. Penney following its disastrous pro-homosexuality ad campaign featuring Ellen DeGeneres. In the wake of a precipitous decline in sales, J.C. Penney’s CEO was given a stark reminder that his job is to protect the investments of shareholders in his company, not to use his position to espouse controversial social causes.

I predict that liberal intolerance at the top is going to cost Starbucks dollars on the bottom line. When this happens, Mr. Schultz will have no one to blame but himself. Schultz may not like the fact that there are still Americans who have moral and religious objections to same-sex marriage, but he had better get used to it and become more tolerant of their views. Many of these Americans drink coffee and Starbucks is not the only provider of overpriced drinks with names like Quadruple Grande, Soy, Decaf, Five-Pump, Vanilla, Extra-Caramel, Add Whip, 180 degree Caramel Macchiato. Coffee lovers can now get drinks like this in convenience stores for less than Starbucks charges and no one will even ask about their views on same-sex marriage.





http://news.starbucks.com/news/a-letter-from-howard-schultz-to-starbucks-partners-regarding-race-together

A Letter from Howard Schultz to Starbucks Partners Regarding Race Together
March 22, 2015  – Partner (Employee) Experience

Dear partners,

I want to offer my heartfelt thanks to every one of you for your fearless and energetic support of the Race Together initiative.  Our objective from the very start of this effort -- dating back to our first open forum in Seattle last December -- was to stimulate conversation, empathy and compassion toward one another, and then to broaden that dialogue beyond just our Starbucks family to the greater American public by using our scale for good.  

After a historic Annual Shareholders Meeting that focused on diversity and inequality, and an initial push for much-needed national discussion around these difficult topics, it is time for us to take stock of where we are, what we have learned from our efforts so far, and what is next.  

This phase of the effort -- writing "Race Together" (or placing stickers) on cups, which was always just the catalyst for a much broader and longer term conversation -- will be completed as originally planned today, March 22. 

But this initiative is far from over. We have a number of planned Race Together activities in the weeks and months to come: more partner open forums, three more special sections co-produced with USA TODAY over the course of the next year, more open dialogue with police and community leaders in cities across our country, a continued focus on jobs and education for our nation's young people plus our commitment to hire 10,000 opportunity youth over the next three years, expanding our store footprint in urban communities across the country, and new partnerships to foster dialogue and empathy and help bridge the racial and ethnic divides within our society that have existed for so many years.

While there has been criticism of the initiative -- and I know this hasn't been easy for any of you -- let me assure you that we didn’t expect universal praise. The heart of Race Together has always been about humanity: the promise of the American Dream should be available to every person in this country, not just a select few.  We leaned in because we believed that starting this dialogue is what matters most.  We are learning a lot. And will always aim high in our efforts to make a difference on the issues that matter most.  

I want to thank those of you who took time this week to share what you were seeing, hearing, feeling and thinking as we rolled out Race Together across the country.  An issue as tough as racial and ethnic inequality requires risk-taking and tough-minded action. And let me reassure you that our conviction and commitmecommitment [sic]to the notion of equality and opportunity for all has never been stronger.

Take care of yourselves and each other.  I am proud to be your partner. 

With great respect,   

Howard





http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/03/19/3636233/starbucks-race-together-employees/

This Is What Starbucks Employees Think About ‘Race Together’
BY BRYCE COVERT 
POSTED ON MARCH 19, 2015

“This isn’t the forum to have these discussions.”


That’s the opinion of Jaime Prater, a barista at Starbucks, of the company’s new initiativeasking its employees to start conversations about race with customers by writing things on coffee cups and using stickers. It’s not that Prater doesn’t agree with CEO Howard Schultz that race is an important topic in the country right now. But, he says, “It’s a very, very involved and in-depth conversation that needs a lot of time devoted to it. Having your baristas engaging in those conversations, it puts them in a very difficult position.”

Prater is himself half black and is also gay. “That’s something that I deal with in my life, it’s part of who I am,” he said. But the workplace is not somewhere he wants to be starting discussions — he said he worries that the initiative will invite uncomfortable remarks. That may also be a concern for the 40 percent of the company’s workforce that is of color.

Prater wants to have these discussions, just not at the workplace. “It’s a fascinating topic of conversation for me, I’m someone who enjoys deep conversation,” he said. And he says he’s had “some great conversations in Starbucks before, but nothing ever too deep.” He also thinks CEO Howard Schultz’s heart is in the right place. “He’s concerned about this country, and I think it’s a wonderful thing.”

Jamie, another Starbucks employee who asked not to use her last name, is white but also worries what kind of comments it invites. “Awesome idea, terrible implementation,” she said. “Yes it’s optional, but baristas are essentially being made to look like absolute idiots.” She noted that most people don’t think much of the those who serve them coffee. “People tend to think a bunch of idiots who couldn’t graduate college are working behind the bar,” she said. So they’re not necessarily open to having those baristas launch into a conversation about race.

Of course, Jamie and Prater’s views don’t represent the views of all of Starbucks’ employees, but it is a window into trying to implement such a complex initiative with individual employees.

They say there is still confusion among workers about how this will work. Prater and his coworkers spent the first day of the roll out wondering about the logistics. “My first reaction was, how do we go about this in the workplace? When I hand out a Frappuccino, I have 40 seconds to talk about race while I’m trying to make drinks,” he noted. “How long do you talk about this? What do you talk about?” He said not a single customer discussed race or the project with him or his coworkers. “This doesn’t seem like the venue for that kind of a thing,” he added.

He decided to write “I can’t breathe,” the words Eric Garner said while in a chokehold from police right before he died, on the side of a coffee cup instead. “Writing that on the cup was like, do I assert my opinion?” he noted. But he doubted it would work within the store. “That might offend someone.”

Jamie also pointed out that previously, the company has had an explicit policy that employees weren’t supposed to talk about politics on the job. “I remember when the Republican National Convention came through, just as an example, Starbucks sending something saying don’t engage in political conversations, when you’re wearing the green apron you’re representing the company,” she said. “But now we’re being told to do the exact opposite.”

She noted that many of the people her store serves are affluent and white and many not be receptive to the topic, or might even get angry. “The last thing I want is to have an irate customer and a long line of people behind them yelling at me,” she said. “That’s not at all the position I want to be in.” Yet, she pointed out, these are the very people who the conversations probably should be targeted at.

Prater doesn’t think the initiative, which he says “saddl[es] your store employees” with having these conversations, is the right way to go about it. “It’s not the environment to talk about this,” he said. “We have a lot going on and this is something that’s a very hot button issue in this country right now.”

Like Prater, Jamie agrees that Schultz does care about the issue. “I honestly think the guy’s got a heart for this,” she noted. But she also says it’s far too big a topic to bring into the workplace. “It’s as hot button an issue, for obviously very different reasons, as abortion or the death penalty,” she said. “These are things that people lose friends over because they don’t have the same thoughts on it.”





http://freebeacon.com/blog/starbucks-ceo-doesnt-fear-guns-he-fears-liberals/

Starbucks’ CEO Doesn’t Fear Guns. He Fears Liberals
BY: Sonny Bunch
September 18, 2013

Photograph – The big brew-haha* this morning revolves around the decision of Starbucks’ CEO to politely ask gunowners not to wear their six-shooters in his coffee shops. Wrote Howard Schultz:

I am writing today with a respectful request that customers no longer bring firearms into our stores or outdoor seating areas. …

For these reasons, today we are respectfully requesting that customers no longer bring firearms into our stores or outdoor seating areas—even in states where “open carry” is permitted—unless they are authorized law enforcement personnel.

I would like to clarify two points. First, this is a request and not an outright ban. Why? Because we want to give responsible gun owners the chance to respect our request—and also because enforcing a ban would potentially require our partners to confront armed customers, and that is not a role I am comfortable asking Starbucks partners to take on. Second, we know we cannot satisfy everyone.

Schultz cites pressure from outside activist groups as one of the reasons for making this extremely polite, extremely non-binding request of potential customers. What’s interesting to me is that it’s obvious Schultz has no fear of guns (nor should he; when’s the last time there was a mass-shooting at a Starbucks perpetrated by someone with an open-carry permit?). No. He fears the left. And he doesn’t fear the right.

These are all sensible positions for him to take.

Look, here are the facts of life, my conservative friends: We don’t do the politicized life particularly well. We don’t make our decisions about where to buy our coffee based on who Howard Schultz donates to in election campaigns or what sort of policy they have toward guns or how they accumulate their fair trade coffee beans. We care about taste, expense, and convenience.

The left, however, does the politicized life exceptionally well. They mount campaigns to pressure corporations to get what they want. They organize boycotts. They direct their complaints to gatekeepers who share their views and can influence policy. They blacklist artists with whom they disagree and pressure corporations to do the same. They control the levers of the media to add additional pressure from newspapers and television networks.

So there will be a lot of fulmination on social media from those on the right about rights and guns and the Constitution, and then a little less the next day, and a little less the day after that, until finally you forgot why you were mad at Starbucks and you stop tweeting and facebooking and kvetching and start buying pumpkin spice lattes by the bucketful and, in a moment of clarity, you’ll think about how silly it was for you to give up Starbucks in the name of something that literally never impacted you in the first place because you don’t have an open-carry permit.

The right is wired different than the left. It’s a healthier wiring, one that leads to far more enjoyment in life and far less heartache.

But it’s a wiring that leaves you particularly poorly equipped to wage these kinds of fights. It’s why you lose. It’s why you’re losing the culture. It’s why Howard Schultz doesn’t fear you.

It’s why Howard Schultz will never fear you.
*GET IT? 

Updated: I accidentally called Howard Schultz “George Schultz.” That egregious error has been fixed.





https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130824093200AAmix6F

Why do Conservatives associate Starbucks with Liberals?

Best Answer:  1. Because starbucks is a frequent target of angry rant comics. Many conservatives think that angry rant comics are conservatives, because they hate just like them. 

2. When conservatives start to wind up on a rant, they just pull out a laundry list of things people get angry over and just select anything they don't like or aren't involved in themselves. So things like paying child support are suddenly "liberal" because the gummint makes you do that. The PTA is Liberal, because they don't go to PTA. This is how they end up ranting about college sports being liberal and not being liberal, depending on if they watch them. 

3.Starbucks uses fancy words, which aren't always foreign, but they sure sound foreign. 

4.Starbucks was once trendy. Big chains are OK when they come out of Arkansas, but when they come out of Seattle or a "big city" they must be liberal. Thirty years ago, they'd have been griping about PIzza or Chinese food in this same manner, but don't these days because pizza is now made by a guy from rural michigan. 

5. Think you're better than me? Starbucks is based around being great coffee rather than OK coffee. The thing is, if you like coffee you have to admit it is better than the gas station coffee. However if you don't care about the taste, then someone who does care is "thinking you better than me?" This is also known as "acting white" in some neighborhoods. They get uncomfortable when someone implies they should question something they never questioned before. The idea of good and bad coffee never really entered their minds before. They might have a favorite car or hamburger, but quite often small towns mean no choices. 

6. Starbucks don't have TVs. Now in the old days, many places didn't have tvs, but today they're everywhere. If you're drinking in a bar which doesn't have multiple tvs, that is a deliberate choice against tv by the bar owner. Starbucks is filled with people not watching tv. Now admittedly, they're all usually still glued to an electronic device, but it's not the communal activity of "we're all watching the same thing." People in starbucks aren't a hive organism like a movie theater audience, some are even having conversations or reading. Individuality is threatening to conservatives, who by definition are natural herd animals. They're put off by the fact that there is a group of people, who aren't unified by a single pursuit. This is also why cities often confuse them. 

7. "Ultra-liberals love sitting on their laptops, pretending to look like intellects while drinking overpriced coffee." See? having a laptop somehow makes you liberal, you're an intellectual for having a laptop! Huh? Suddenly using a computer in public makes you intellectual? If that God derned dial up was good enough for my granddaddy, it's good enuf fer me!. Madge stop trying to use the phone, I got to git me on AOl and tell these liberals what is what! 

It's a computer, they're likely playing a dig dug simulator or watching netflix.

Smells like New Screen Names · 2 years ag2
2 comments
Asker's rating 


The intellectuals students and nerds usually hang out in coffee shops so I assume that is the connection. I do go to Starbucks because I like mocha latte but, usually use the drive up in the morning.
 tigeress · 2 years ago


Maybe because the CEO of Starbucks supported Obama in 2012.
Dennis · 2 years ago
 
Comment

And so Starbucks sales have gone down. Small coffee shops are being supported by conservative communities ala Chick-Fil-A. I haven't been in a Starbucks in almost 6 years and don't miss it one bit.

Source(s):Life.
Wanda Bagram · 2 years ago
 
Comment

Howard Schultz the CEO of starbucks announced on CNBC that Starbucks earnings were better than expected, that he is raising shareholders’ quarterly dividends by a whopping 24%, and he’s voting for Barack Obama. 

"He has the politics all wrong, in the characteristic centrist way: he makes it sound as if the problem was one of symmetric partisanship, with both sides refusing to compromise. The reality is that Obama has moved a huge way both in offering to exempt more high-earner income from tax hikes and in offering to cut Social Security benefits; meanwhile, the GOP not only won’t agree to any kind of tax hike at all, it also has yet to make any specific offer of any kind." - Paul Krugman written critique of Howard Schultz. Krugman is an American economist, Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, Centenary Professor at the London School of Economics, and an op-ed columnist for The New York Times. 

"You will also begin to see pyramids increasingly all around you, and the eye in the pyramid, and the eye alone. And you will see circles with the dot in the center. And you will see obelisks appearing all over the place. And these are not the only signs. There are many, many, many more. They are the signs of the religion Mystery Babylon, .... now that is a lie, folks. It means that it's OK for some of us to lay back and do nothing and reap the rewards of the labor of others. That’s socialism! That’s what it’s all about. Communism, socialism...it’s the same. And these people, the worshipers of Mystery Babylon, are the original Communists. They are international socialism. They invented it. It is their creation. It is their dream of a world Utopia -- a one-world, totalitarian socialist government." - Milton William (Bill) Cooper was an American conspiracy theorist, radio broadcaster, and author best known for his 1991 book Behold a Pale Horse, in which he warned of multiple global conspiracies. 

Communities Against Terrorism (CAT) program urges shop owners and others to report such suspicious activity to authorities like purchasing a cup of coffee using cash instead of a credit or debit card, using Google Maps to view photos of sporting event stadiums and large cities, and installing software to protect your internet privacy on your mobile phone. 

An Old Political Adage – “Politics Ain't Beanbag”


Is this how Republicans defend their habitual use of “dirty tricks” and “personal destruction?” They like to talk tough because it puts their unethical and very hostile activities in perspective – it's not beanbag, it's war. Democrats tend to be idealistic and philosophical in their personalities and platform, while Republicans are usually from a business background, the military or are simply very wealthy. Democrats wear a white hat and Republicans more often a black one.

Democrats fight for the poor, the brown skinned, the right for free thought, the Middle Class and the poor, more jobs at better wages, and small business over billionaire owned corporations. And of course, they do want to win elections, too. The Democrats are usually supported by unions, lawyer groups, the ACLU, the SPLC, etc. Republicans fight for more and more money, unfair tactics like disenfranchising poor voters, hardline government laws that destroy civil rights, union busting, racist policing and favoring the wealthy at all times. I don't trust many of them not to advocate military/police based oppression of the US citizen if he becomes to troublesome to the central government.

Whoever is in power at any given time, there are incidents in the news proving that the adage is a true one. I found a case from 2013 on the Net just now in which Obama used the “beanbag” phrase against Congressional conservatives. I am very party oriented, but human rights and a good life are my strongest beliefs. That's why I'm a strong party member – the individual human in our society won't win their case except by the occasional Supreme Court decision in their favor, and pursuing a case through all those courts costs mega money. That's why marches, boycotts, union activity, and fighting to maintain the “social safety net” are all important tools for me.

I don't mind the wealthy having six or eight houses and a luxurious life as long as the Middle Class and the poor don't have to go without basic needs, a good education, some travel and pleasures, equal rights in a court of law, or forgo the upward ladder toward the top – in other words, the “American Dream.” Being poor is one thing; having to stay poor is another. I do fear and am appalled at the “permanent underclass” that we seem to be developing in the US nowadays. I'm at a point myself that I feel like saying to the conservatives that they aren't playing “beanbag,” and that they should start cooperating in the march toward a just and prosperous society that includes all classes of people.




http://www.thewire.com/politics/2012/01/what-newt-and-mitt-mean-when-they-say-aint-bean-bag/47184/

What Newt and Mitt Mean When They Say 'This Ain't Bean Bag'
Elspeth Reeve
JAN 9, 2012 6:52PM ET

What was Mitt Romney talking about at the primary debate Saturday when he scolded Newt Gingrich for complaining about negative ads, saying "this ain't bean bag"? If you are certain age, you might have instantly thought of hacky sack, the game all the cute skaters played in eighth grade. But that seemed like a very unlikely reference for Romney to make. Then, on Monday, Gingrich used the phrase too, when Real Clear Politics noted Romney protested that calling him a corporate raider was unfair. Gingrich responded that President Obama's reelection campaign is "going to raise a billion dollars. They're not raising it -- as the governor himself said in your quote, 'This ain't bean bag.' They aren't going to raise a billion dollars for fun." Okay, guys, from context clues we can tell "this ain't bean bag" is sort of a synonym for "quit your moaning." But what is "bean bag"? We offer a young person's PSA.

Teagan Goddard explains that the quote is a reference to newspaper columnist Finley Peter Dunne, who in 1895 created the character Mr. Dooley. Dooley, an Irish-American, said things like, "Sure, politics ain't bean-bag. ‘Tis a man’s game, an’ women, childer, cripples an’ prohybitionists ‘d do well to keep out iv it." But that only explains what bean bag isn't (politics). What is it?! Urban Dictionary provides a lot of potential definitions, most of them dirty. We thought: maybe it's cornhole? That's what those perverts in the Ohio Valley call bean bag toss. Further investigation showed the term got really popular in the 1910s, according to Google's N-grams viewer, and began to die with flappers. But we still don't understand what bean bag is. 

Sifting through newspaper archives reveals that playing bean bag is something sissy girls do. It was apparently a girls' sport, played in teams, highest scorer winning. "The two contests were as far apart as regards the playing of the national game as bean bag is from a football contest," the Manufacturers and Farmers Journal wrote about one good and one bad game of baseball on August 5, 1907. Lesson: bean bag is not like football.

The New York Times reported on April 28, 1914 that the Giants and the Phillies "did not care what they did with the ball at the Polo Grounds yesterday. They tossed it around like a lot of girls playing bean bag." Lesson: bean bag is not like good baseball. The Times really liked this line, because it reported on July 15, 1915 that a game between the Giants and the Pirates featured some "weird fielding," as "The whole infield tossed the ball around like girls playing bean-bag..." Lesson: bean bag is not like good fielding.

Finally, a report from the Youngstown Vindicator from August 4, 1910, offers the most revealing explanation: "Bean bag jump (the girls standing in a circle and jumping over a bean bag which a teacher swung at the end of a rope under their feet) Sara Hadette, South Side, First; Irene Quail, Baldwin Kindergarten, second." Sounds like Skip-it. 

Conclusion: Bean bag is something wimpy little girls do, not manly men in politics. We wish Michelle Bachmann were still in the race.





http://news.yahoo.com/politics-ain-39-t-beanbag-then-sport-investigation-195300252.html

If Politics Ain't Beanbag, Then What Sport Is It? An Investigation
The Atlantic
By Philip Bump
January 9, 2014 2:53 PM

"Politics," Gov. Chris Christie said during his two-hour press conference on Thursday, "ain't beanbag." Fine, we get it, we've heard this a million times. So what sport or game is politics?

In order to answer that question, we should revisit what "beanbag" itself is, a topic The Wire addressed in January 2012. (At that point, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney were not playing beanbag in the Republican primaries.) Beanbag, it turns out, is a game that kids, mostly girls, played in the late 19th century. So when politicians say politics isn't beanbag, they're saying that it is not a game for wimpy Victorian-era girls in petticoats. It is, rather, a rough-and-tumble sport for tough guys like Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney.

Perhaps, then:

Politics is rugby.

There are few sports tougher than rugby. Burly guys throwing each other around in the struggle to carry or kick the ball past the goal line. (At this point I will admit that I don't really know much about rugby beyond that.) Players get covered in mud — like in politics — and they represent teams that gradually rack up more and more points — also like in politics. Bones are broken; fortunes lost.

RELATED: The Four Key Questions Chris Christie Didn't Answer at His Press Conference
Except that, you know, politicians aren't really all that tough. They love to pretend that they are, snarling about how they're going to punish their enemies and hear the lamentations of their constituents and so on. But winning a procedural vote while sitting in a high-backed chair is is a lot more beanbag than beanball.

So maybe:

Politics is football.

There you go. Some padding, some clearly defined rules, lots of refs. You still get to push people around, but then the whistle blows and, if you need to, you can head to the sideline for some Gatorade. And, unlike rugby, you can draw a crowd. The final contest each year (it is called the "Super Bowl") draws a massive audience, heavily laced with corporate sponsors. That sounds a bit like politics, no?

Well, except that we might be taking the "team" thing a little far. Politicians suit up in red and blue uniforms because it gets them into the game, but, as Romney and Gingrich showed, they also spend a lot of time fighting between themselves. It's as though the New York Giants lined up for the snap, and center Jim Cordle turned around and knocked Eli Manning right on his back (which he probably should have).

Since it's more often a one-to-one thing:

Politics is Olympic boxing.
 
Big padded helmets, big cushy gloves, but lots of opportunities to throw punches. Still a real opportunity to land blows. And at the end of the day, you're doing it for the greater glory of your country.

Although, politicians, with the exception of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, don't actually know anything about boxing. I get that the "beanbag" thing is supposed to be a metaphor, but there exist games and sports that are actually closer analogues to the world of politics, the deliberate, bloodless back-and-forth that sees incremental shifts in power and completely reversible damage. Like:

Politics is chess.

Checkmates, black-and-white, pawns. That sounds about right.

Strategy, foresight, intellect. That doesn't.

So maybe not chess. Something a little simpler, more reliant on chance.

Politics is Sorry!
 
Remember Sorry? In Sorry, you draw a card that tells you how far to move, offering the occasional chance to knock your opponents back to their starting places. Sometimes, you'll draw a "Sorry!" card, which lets you — like the unfeeling finger of God — simply pluck an opponent off the board. You're supposed to then offer a false apology — "sorry!" — which also seems fitting. Nearly everything is out of your control, but the things that are act primarily as ways of screwing over your opponents. Pretty on-the-nose. And it is fun to say "Politics is Sorry."

Except. Except that it also requires four players, ideally. It's not the one-to-one match-up we predicated this whole thing on. And, frankly, it's a little too wholesome. Perhaps, then:

Politics is cornhole.

Cornhole, you coastal elites (like me) might not know, is a game in which two or more drunk Ohio State guys go out behind the Sigma Alpha Mu house and try and throw a little sack through a hole cut in a board. It involves:

One-on-one competition or teams
Beer
Talking smack
Keeping track of the points you score
Psychological warfare
Wholesome real-America values

And there is zero percent chance you get hurt, unless you do it to yourself or get in an actual fistfight. Perfect.

But since "cornhole" as a term is still not widely known in the broader world, we just use the shorthand for those little sacks you toss. So:

Politics is beanbag.

Please inform any elected officials in your vicinity.

This article was originally published athttp://www.thewire.com/politics/2014/01/so-if-politics-aint-beanbag-then-what-it-investigation/356864/





http://www.talkleft.com/story/2012/3/7/153641/3685/otherpolitics/From-The-Politics-Ain-t-Beanbag-File

From The Politics Ain't Beanbag File
By Big Tent Democrat, Section Other Politics 
Posted on Wed Mar 07, 2012 at 02:36:41 PM ES

Kevin Drum considers whether fight from progressives might work:

If this is right, it's bad news for Bob, who's consistently argued against the Foxification of the left and for a tough but fundamentally factual approach to fighting the modern right. But Suzy is suggesting that although the key to success in Virginia was partly better organization, it was mostly about using more incendiary language. Likewise, in the case of Rush, the key to success had nothing to do with his odious point of view. It was all because we could highlight a single word — slut — that enraged people.

I don't know if this is correct. I'm just tossing it out for comment. But politics has always been about emotion, not cool logic, and maybe these two recent examples suggest that liberals are rediscovering that lesson. We'll see.

We'll see? We've SEEN. (To be fair, Kevin is asking whether Dems will remember this.) Fighting Dems and Fighting Progressives -standing up from a crouched posture, has always worked best. Kevin might want to revisit the debate on the "American Taliban".

Speaking for me only

Arm Wrestling – Earliest Mention And History



http://www.nzarmwrestling.co.nz/origin.aspx

New Zealand Arm Wrestling Federation
The Origins Of Arm Wrestling

ARM WRESTLING IN A NUTSHELL

Arm wrestling is a sport in which two opponents, positioned opposite each other and each with an elbow on a stable surface, grasp the other’s hand and attempt to push the opponent’s arm down to the surface. Competitive arm wrestling may be performed in either a standing or sitting position, and players may participate in both right- and left-handed contests. Played both casually and competitively, arm wrestling, also known as wristwrestling or arm sports, has roots that began in antiquity and continue today.

Arm wrestling, also known as Bras de fer, is a type of wrestling (a combat sport) with two participants. Each participant places one arm (either the right or left, but both must be the same) on a surface with their elbows bent and touching the surface, and they grip each other's hand. The goal is to pin the other's arm onto the surface, with the winner's arm over the loser's arm.-


ANCIENT TIMES

Arm wrestling originated at least 4,000 years ago with the discovery of what appears to be an arm wrestling contest painted on an Egyptian tomb, according to the Ultimate Arm Wrestling League. In modern times in the United States, arm wrestling developed from a variation of a Native American game in which competitors used their arms, legs or whole bodies to unbalance or pin all or part of their opponent's body. Practiced as a sport by high school and college students, arm wrestling was also a popular tavern game in the first half of the 20th century

1950’s
In 1952, journalist Bill Soberanes organized the first recorded arm-wrestling competition at Gilardi’s Saloon in Petaluma, Calif. As the contest grew in popularity, it represented first Petaluma, then northern California, and finally the entire state of California in arm wrestling. After 10 years, the tournament expanded and relocated to one of the largest auditoriums in Petulama.

1960's
When Soberanes, together with Dave Devoto, moved the arm-wrestling contest to the new venue in 1962, he officially named it the World Wristwrestling Championship. Adding to the tournament’s popularity was a series of comic strips created by cartoonist Charles Schultz in 1968.

In the 11-part series, Snoopy the dog travels to Petaluma to participate in the World Wristwrestling Championship; he is ultimately disqualified as he lacks the thumbs required to compete. The comic strip ran in dozens of languages throughout the world, states armwrestling.com, the official website of the United States Armwrestling Federation.

In 1969, Devoto spearheaded efforts to include the World Wristwrestling Championship as part of ABC’s Wide World of Sports, and the tournament appeared annually on the program for the following 16 years. During this time, the American Armsport Association came into being, representing more than 56 arm-wrestling groups across the United States.

In the early 1990s, the U.S., Canada, India and Brazil joined together to create the World ArmSport Federation, and, in 1992, the organization hosted its first worldwide annual championship tournament in Switzerland.

Today, men and women from more than 70 member countries, including the U.S. represented by the American Armsport Association, compete for the title of world champion. In addition, the World Wristwrestling Championship, now titled the World Wristwrestling-Armwrestling Championship, continues to hold its annual competition on the second Saturday of October in Petaluma.- Source: www.livestrong.com


ARM WRESTLING IN THE MODERN ERA

Various factors can play a part in one's success in arm wrestling. Technique and overall arm strength are the two greatest contributing factors to winning an arm wrestling match. Other factors such as the length of an arm wrestler's arm, his/her muscle and arm mass/density, hand grip size, wrist endurance and flexibility, reaction time, as well as countless other traits, can add to the advantages of one arm wrestler over another. It is sometimes used to prove who is stronger between two or more people. In competitive arm wrestling, as sanctioned by the United States Armwrestling Federation (USAF), arm wrestling is performed with both competitors standing up with their arms placed on a tournament arm wrestling table. Arm wrestling tournaments are also divided into weight classes as well as left and right-handed divisions. Furthermore, strict rules such as fouls given to penalties (such as the competitor's elbow leaving a matted area where the elbow is to remain at all times, or a false start), and trying to escape a possible arm pin by breaking the grip with the opponent may result in a loss at the table. Paraphrasing USAF rules, arm wrestlers must straighten their wrists without a time lapse of one minute during competition. 

The World Armwrestling Federation (WAF) is the universally recognized global governing body of amateur arm wrestling and comprises more than 85 member countries. 

Some noted top arm wrestling competitors include John Brzenk (hailed as the greatest arm wrestler of all time), Zaur Tskhadadze, Alexey Voevoda and Jerry Cadorette. Allen Fisher is of high acclaim, for he has won 26 world championships. He is one of the oldest multiple world champion title holders in the sport of arm wrestling at 55 years of age in the year 2011. Heidi Andersson is a female armwrestler from Sweden who has won nine world championships between 1998 and 2011. John Brzenk is known mostly for his array of techniques which change almost every time he is engaged in competition, even with the same opponent within the same match. As of Summer 2008, John Brzenk is ranked #1 in North America. Ron Bath is known for his use of the Top Roll technique which emphasizes a 'roll' of the wrist as he brings the opponent's wrist down. Travis Bagent, like Brzenk, is known for his wide array of techniques, coupled with his massive strength and explosive style. Many of Bagent's matches have ended in seconds. However, Bagent is most well known for his colorful remarks and rather rude comments against his opponents. Bagent is considered the best left-handed arm wrestler in the world and is currently ranked second overall in North America, as of summer of 2008. 

Other competitors such as Matt Girdner, Michael Selearis, Sean Madera, Marcio Barboza, Christian Binnie and Anthony Macaluso are known for their reliance on strength, coupled with the hook technique, where the wrist turns into a hooked grip after the referee has started the match. "The hook" or "hooking" is any move derived from the inside system of arm wrestling. The second generic system or style of Arm wrestling is known as outside arm wrestling "the top roll" or "top rolling", while the "tricep press", "shoulder pressing", or "shoulder rolling" is often described as the third generic system or style of arm wrestling. and certain arm wrestlers depend on the straps such as Jason Vale who won the 1997 Petaluma World Championships in the super heavy weight class at only 175 pounds using the strap technique. 

Many arm wrestlers will have a signature style or favourite technique, while others have enjoyed success by becoming extremely well rounded. Within each of the three broad technical systems of arm wrestling there are numerous clearly identifiable techniques which have been developed and enhanced over time. Great Britain's most successful Armwrestler and former two time European and World Middleweight Champion Neil Pickup is one of today's leading Armwrestlers widely recognized as having originated and developed techniques to suit the genetic make up of individual Armwrestlers. Neil Pickup has enjoyed an Amateur and Professional career spanning more than 20 years during which time he has won more than 60 International titles across 5 different weight classes on both his right and left arms, while also training numerous World Champions both male and female. This success has been largely attributed to his technical prowess, experience and understanding of the athletes whole body as a lever. The Filipino version is called "Bunong Braso". 

Associated injury
Arm wrestling puts enormous torque/twist on the upper arm's humerus bone to a degree seen in few other physical activities. Most people's bones are not accustomed to being significantly stressed in this direction, and injuries can occur. The arm typically fails because of a diagonal break at or below the midpoint between the shoulder and the elbow.- Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_wrestling

Various factors can play a part in one's success in arm wrestling. Technique and overall arm strength are the two greatest contributing factors to winning an arm wrestling match. Other factors such as the length of an arm wrestler's arm, his/her muscle and arm mass/density, hand grip size, wrist endurance and flexibility, reaction time, as well as countless other traits, can add to the advantages of one arm wrestler over another. It is sometimes used to prove who is stronger between two or more people. In competitive arm wrestling, as sanctioned by the United States Armwrestling Federation (USAF), arm wrestling is performed with both competitors standing up with their arms placed on a tournament arm wrestling table. Arm wrestling tournaments are also divided into weight classes as well as left and right-handed divisions. Furthermore, strict rules such as fouls given to penalties (such as the competitor's elbow leaving a matted area where the elbow is to remain at all times, or a false start), and trying to escape a possible arm pin by breaking the grip with the opponent may result in a loss at the table. Paraphrasing USAF rules, arm wrestlers must straighten their wrists without a time lapse of one minute during competition. 

The World Armwrestling Federation (WAF) is the universally recognized global governing body of amateur arm wrestling and comprises more than 85 member countries. 

Some noted top arm wrestling competitors include John Brzenk (hailed as the greatest arm wrestler of all time), Zaur Tskhadadze, Alexey Voevoda and Jerry Cadorette. Allen Fisher is of high acclaim, for he has won 26 world championships. He is one of the oldest multiple world champion title holders in the sport of arm wrestling at 55 years of age in the year 2011. Heidi Andersson is a female armwrestler from Sweden who has won nine world championships between 1998 and 2011. John Brzenk is known mostly for his array of techniques which change almost every time he is engaged in competition, even with the same opponent within the same match. As of Summer 2008, John Brzenk is ranked #1 in North America. Ron Bath is known for his use of the Top Roll technique which emphasizes a 'roll' of the wrist as he brings the opponent's wrist down. Travis Bagent, like Brzenk, is known for his wide array of techniques, coupled with his massive strength and explosive style. Many of Bagent's matches have ended in seconds. However, Bagent is most well known for his colorful remarks and rather rude comments against his opponents. Bagent is considered the best left-handed arm wrestler in the world and is currently ranked second overall in North America, as of summer of 2008. 

Other competitors such as Matt Girdner, Michael Selearis, Sean Madera, Marcio Barboza, Christian Binnie and Anthony Macaluso are known for their reliance on strength, coupled with the hook technique, where the wrist turns into a hooked grip after the referee has started the match. "The hook" or "hooking" is any move derived from the inside system of arm wrestling. The second generic system or style of Arm wrestling is known as outside arm wrestling "the top roll" or "top rolling", while the "tricep press", "shoulder pressing", or "shoulder rolling" is often described as the third generic system or style of arm wrestling. and certain arm wrestlers depend on the straps such as Jason Vale who won the 1997 Petaluma World Championships in the super heavy weight class at only 175 pounds using the strap technique. 

Many arm wrestlers will have a signature style or favourite technique, while others have enjoyed success by becoming extremely well rounded. Within each of the three broad technical systems of arm wrestling there are numerous clearly identifiable techniques which have been developed and enhanced over time. Great Britain's most successful Armwrestler and former two time European and World Middleweight Champion Neil Pickup is one of today's leading Armwrestlers widely recognized as having originated and developed techniques to suit the genetic make up of individual Armwrestlers. Neil Pickup has enjoyed an Amateur and Professional career spanning more than 20 years during which time he has won more than 60 International titles across 5 different weight classes on both his right and left arms, while also training numerous World Champions both male and female. This success has been largely attributed to his technical prowess, experience and understanding of the athletes whole body as a lever. The Filipino version is called "Bunong Braso". 

Gladiator Gatorade



I like almost any archaeological subject, but especially those which dig into how the people actually lived their daily lives. Often it is very similar to us today. One dig at the town of Pompeii uncovered, under the volcanic ash, some dishes of food, including two thousand year old olives and a kind of condiment they loved which was made from half rotten fish. I know. That's disgusting. They dipped their bread in it. I really love the choice of news articles I get on the NPR website. They think of the most interesting subjects, compared to most. This one is not important, really, but it's fascinating.





Gladiator Gatorade? Ancient Athletes Had A Recovery Drink, Too – NPR
by MARIA GODOY
October 27, 2014

After a hard day of bruising battle, ancient gladiators reached for a post-workout drink, according to an ancient account. New research backs that up.

So it's A.D. 150, and you've just had a long day at the gym (orludus), thrusting and parrying with your fellow Roman gladiators. What do you reach for to replenish your sapped strength? A post-workout recovery drink, of course.

Modern-day athletes often nurse their muscles with supplement shakes or chocolate milk after a workout. Similarly, gladiators, the sports stars of the Roman Empire, may have guzzled a drink made from the ashes of charred plants — a rich source of calcium, which is essential for building bones, researchers report this month in the journal PLOS One.

"Plant ashes were evidently consumed to fortify the body after physical exertion, and to promote better bone healing," Fabian Kanz, a forensic anthropologist at the Medical University of Vienna who led the research, said in a statement. "Things were similar then to what we do today."

Evidence for this ancient dietary supplement comes from a second-century cemetery for gladiators in what was once the great Roman city of Ephesus, in modern-day Turkey. Kanz and his colleagues have been studying the remains buried there to unravel how these athletes lived. To figure out what they ate, the researchers examined the remains of 22 gladiators using stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratio analysis.

Carbon can tell us about the plants these people ate, while nitrogen offers hints of their animal protein consumption. The gladiators were eating a pretty varied diet, the analysis showed. Some went heavier on the grains and greens; some ate more meat.

When the same tests were run on the remains of 31 regular folks from that era and region, they found the same sorts of variation. In other words, gladiators seemed to be eating the same way as everyone else.

But the researchers also decided to look at the trace elements of strontium and calcium in those old bones. And that's where a huge difference jumped out. Compared with the regular Joes, the gladiators had a much larger ratio of strontium to calcium.

"This is strong evidence that the gladiators were consuming something high in calcium to replenish their calcium stores that other people weren't and that didn't show up in the isotopes," says Kristina Killgrove, a biological anthropologist at the University of West Florida who studies imperial Rome through ancient bones.

The researchers wondered: If the gladiators weren't eating more meat than their contemporaries, then where was this calcium boost coming from? A nearly 2,000-year-old encyclopedia offered a tantalizing clue.

In his Naturalis Historia, published in the first century, Pliny the Elder wrote: "Your hearth should be your medicine chest. Drink lye made from its ashes, and you will be cured. One can see how gladiators after a combat are helped by drinking this."

Using ash in food and medicine wasn't limited to the Romans. The Hopis used ash from burned plant leaves and pea pods to prepare blue cornmeal foods like piki bread and bivilvikidumplings. The ash provided essential elements like calcium, manganese, copper and iron.

It's a neat bit of detective work, and it ties in nicely with historical accounts, Killgrove says, but the case isn't closed.

"It's entirely possible gladiators were drinking ash drink," she says, "but they haven't proven it." The problem? Dairy doesn't show up in isotopes, so the gladiators could have been chowing down on more cheese and yogurt than the rest of the population.

One other thing to note: Ancient texts don't always agree on the finer points of gladiator diets. For instance, Pliny credited the warriors' diet — a bean and barley mash was standard fare — for their endurance and toughness in battle. But Galen, a famous second-century physician who also did a stint as a gladiator doc, complained that this diet made the men soft and flabby.

The thinking is that gladiators loaded up on carbs to create a layer of fat to protect them from cuts and slashes in the arena, says Barry Strauss, a classics scholar at Cornell University and author of The Spartacus War, about the most famous gladiator of them all.

"Call it a spare tire, if you will," he says.

Hmm, that's a far cry from the rippling muscles Russell Crowe sported in the 2000 film Gladiator. So were these ancient warriors more hunky or chunky?

"By and large, we are seeing them with their armor on," Strauss says. "They're not showing their abs, so I don't think we know. We do know they were sex symbols — there's a lot written about noble women hanging out with gladiators."

Footnotes: Since we're talking ancient history here, it seems appropriate to include some footnotes. Thanks to Kathleen Coleman of Harvard University for confirming that translation of Pliny on the ash drink (it's a fairly obscure reference), and to Susan Mattern of the University of Georgia for breaking down some of Galen's thoughts on food and medicine for me. Her book on the subject is called The Prince of Medicine: Galen And The Roman Empire. If you're curious about what bone biochemistry can reveal about history, Kristina Killgrove's blog, Powered by Osteons, is a fun read.

The Assault On America
March 12, 2015
Commentary by Lucy Warner

America is moving toward a perilous future of control by the “1%” of our most wealthy citizens and corporations. It is occurring, however, on the grassroots level through a perversion of the concept of patriotism to mean a mindless “love of country,” hatred of those considered to be outsiders, and extreme materialism. Religious Dominionism is no longer a threat for the future either, but a day to day reality in the more conservative parts of our country. Hillary Clinton spoke of a shadowy “conspiracy” of right wing forces, which I didn't really take seriously at the time she said it, but since 9/11 it is becoming visible in small town life and attitudes around the country.

Three days ago 47 Republican senators actually wrote an open letter to the leaders in Iran who are in the process of working toward an international agreement to eliminate the threat of nuclear arms development there. This letter threatened that the President has no authority to conduct international agreements without Senate backing and that within “a few years,” Obama will be out of office and the newly elected president may do away with the agreement “with the stroke of a pen.” This letter came on the heels of a news article stating that Iran has expressed interest in a plan of dramatic reductions in the number of their nuclear centrifuges and stockpile of uranium, and the willingness to negotiate a pledge not to develop nuclear weapons. That should be all the Republicans want, after all.

Israel, however, under “Bibi” Netanyahu, is strongly concerned about Iran and its overall trustworthiness. They apparently fear armed attacks from Iran. CBS news last night also state that Saudi Arabia fears Iran as well. Interestingly the Iraqi government is accepting their aid against ISIS, even though it hasn't been too long since they were engaged in a war with Iran. Iraq, wisely, will accept any aid against ISIS.

The Republicans in Congress about two weeks ago also made an equally unprecedented move. They invited Netanyahu to speak to Congress – without so much as mentioning it to Obama beforehand. Both of these recent actions can be viewed in two ways – either they are so full of hatred toward Obama that they want to embarrass him as often as possible, even to the extent of destabilizing the US government, or they are moving toward an actual attempt to control the US government by unconstitutional and completely unethical means. Notably, not all of the Senate's Republicans signed that letter, but mainly because they thought it was a clumsy and ill advised move rather than because they disagreed. At least it does show, however, that there are a few Republicans who are not totally under the thumb of the Tea Party.

The real assault against our democratic traditions began at the grassroots level in the 1950's and '60s when school desegregation and the Civil Rights movement forced changes in state laws, which in nefarious ways such as the poll tax, had prevented blacks from voting freely and exercising all their guaranteed liberties. If that didn't work, the KKK was always there to step in and put those black folk who didn't “know their place” in fear of their lives. In 1954 Brown v Board of Education ended – theoretically at least – the segregated school systems throughout the country. The racist attitudes and behavior that had always existed were no longer sanctioned by the law. The South, West and Midwest white citizens were stripped of specialness and access to unbridled societal protection in matters of racial balance and fairness and their fury was profound.

The Republican party then began “colonizing” those formerly Democratic parts of the country, and the political philosophy of Barry Goldwater hit the public consciousness with a splash. Then came William F Buckley, a repulsively egotistical pundit who smirked constantly while mouthing the conservative viewpoints with what he hoped was the vocabulary of a Harvard professor. Many Americans were impressed by him. Also there was a rise in popularity of the author Ayn Rand. All of them had in common one thing – they were very close to being fascist thinkers. Ronald Reagan than popularized the “trickle down” theory of economics, which pleased those who thought of Social Security as “welfare,” and the recipients of welfare as generally black “welfare queens.” The assault on the social safety net was begun. The formation of the group now familiarly known as the Tea Party has driven the final nail into what may be the coffin of America as I know and love it.

I am watching the public reaction to this warning letter to the Iranians, however, both in this country and abroad. Many people, have voiced descriptions of the move as being ignorant and disgusting. No one, so far, has defended the 47 signers. I am greatly encouraged by this. A number of the Tea Party candidates have variously committed political errors, from recommending slavery as a modern day life style that would benefit blacks, to trying to introduce Christianity as the state religion and Biblical law as the basis of a new legal system. I keep waiting for those good honest citizens and Christians to stand up in the cause of fairness, and cast aside their new masters, the top 1% of net worth in this country and the Oil and Coal industries such as the infamous Koch brothers. That means vote the rascals out of office. Let 2016 see their defeat and the arrival of a US political philosophy that again values laws that aid the poor, educate all children equally, feed the hungry and treat all citizens with fairness and respect.






http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_States

Conservatism in the United States
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Historian Gregory Schneider identifies several constants in American conservatism: respect for tradition, support of republicanism, "the rule of law and the Christian religion," and a defense of "Western civilization from the challenges of modernist culture and totalitarian governments."[1]

Historians in recent decades argue that the conservative tradition has played a major role in American politics and culture since the American Revolution. However they have stressed that an organized conservative movement has played a key role in politics only since the 1950s. The recent movement is based in the Republican Party, but during the era ofsegregation, before 1965, many Southern Democrats were conservatives, and they played a central role in the Conservative Coalition that largely controlled domestic legislation in Congress from 1937 to 1963. The Southern white conservatives moved from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party (GOP) at the presidential level in the 1960s, and at the state and local level after 1990.[2][3][4]

The history of American conservatism has been marked by tensions and competing ideologies. Fiscal conservatives andlibertarians favor small government, low taxes, limited regulation, and free enterprise. Social conservatives see traditional social values as threatened by secularism; they tend to support school prayer and the Second Amendment rights of private citizens to own firearms and to oppose abortion and oppose same-sex marriage.[5][6][7][8][9] Neoconservatives want to expand American ideals throughout the world.[10] Paleoconservatives advocate restrictions on immigration, non-interventionist foreign policy, and stand in opposition to multiculturalism.[11] Nationwide most factions (except the libertarians) support a unilateral foreign policy, and a strong military. The conservative movement of the 1950s attempted to bring together these divergent strands, stressing the need for unity to prevent the spread of "Godless Communism."[12]

William F. Buckley Jr., in the first issue of his magazine National Review in 1955, explained the standards of his magazine and helped make explicit the beliefs of American conservatives:[13]

“Among our convictions:

It is the job of centralized government (in peacetime) to protect its citizens’ lives, liberty and property. All other activities of government tend to diminish freedom and hamper progress. The growth of government (the dominant social feature of this century) must be fought relentlessly. In this great social conflict of the era, we are, without reservations, on the libertarian side. The profound crisis of our era is, in essence, the conflict between the Social Engineers, who seek to adjust mankind to conform with scientific utopias, and the disciples of Truth, who defend the organic moral order. We believe that truth is neither arrived at nor illuminated by monitoring election results, binding though these are for other purposes, but by other means, including a study of human experience. On this point we are, without reservations, on the conservative side.”

President Ronald Reagan set the conservative standard in the 1980s; in the 2010s the Republican leaders typically claim fealty to it. For example most of the Republican candidates in 2012, "claimed to be standard bearers of Reagan's ideological legacy."[14] Reagan solidified conservative Republican strength with tax cuts, a greatly increased military budget, continuedderegulation, a policy of rollback of Communism (rather than just containing it), and appeals tofamily values and conservative morality. The 1980s and beyond became known as the "Reagan Era."[15] Typically, conservative politicians and spokesmen in the 21st century proclaim their devotion to Reagan's ideals and policies on most social, economic and foreign policy issues.

Other modern conservative beliefs include opposition to a world government, skepticism about the validity of environmental risks such as global warming.[16][17] They support a strong policy oflaw and order to control crime, including long jail terms for repeat offenders. The "law and order" issue was a major factor weakening liberalism in the 1960s.[18] From 2001 to 2008, Republican President George W. Bush stressed cutting taxes and minimizing regulation of industry and banking, while increasing regulation of education.[19] Conservatives generally advocate the use of American military power to fight terrorists and promote democracy in the Middle East.

Conservatism appears to be growing stronger at the state level. The trend is most pronounced among the "least well-off, least educated, most blue collar, most economically hard-hit states."[23][24]

Conservatives generally believe that government action cannot solve society's problems, such as poverty and inequality. Many believe that government programs that seek to provide services and opportunities for the poor actually encourage dependence and reduce self-reliance. Most conservatives oppose affirmative action policies, that is, policies in employment, education, and other areas that give special advantages to members of certain groups. Conservatives believe that the government should not give special treatment to individuals on the basis of group identity.

Conservatives typically hold that the government should not play a major role in regulating business and managing the economy. They typically oppose efforts to charge high tax rates and to redistribute income to assist the poor. Such efforts, they argue, do not properly reward people who have earned their money through hard work. However, social conservatives place a strong emphasis on the role of private voluntary charitable organizations (especially faith-based charities) in helping the poor.

Because conservatives value order and security, they traditionally favor a strong government role in law enforcement and national defense.





http://www.kansascity.com/news/government-politics/article11115413.html

Conservatives are changing Kansas law in ways that enshrine their power, weaken opponents
THE KANSAS CITY STAR
BY BRAD COOPER
02/25/2015 

Topeka – As the lobbyist for Wyandotte County’s Unified Government, Mike Taylor testified against a bill easing gun restrictions.

As he laid out his case, Taylor was put on the spot by state Republican Rep. Brett Hildabrand of Shawnee.

Hildabrand asked if Taylor knew a state law bars the use of public money to lobby for gun control. The legislator wondered whether Taylor violated the law.

Taylor countered that the law only applied to state money. He was on Wyandotte County’s payroll. Hildabrand later requested an opinion from the attorney general, who declined to weigh in.

It was a small dust-up a year ago, but it underscores how conservatives’ virtually unchallenged control of the Capitol opens the way for new policies that could undercut the influence of their traditional opposition for years to come.

Those efforts figure to weaken the lobbying efforts by cities, hamstring the power of teachers unions, limit how academics can speak out on public controversies and mold a more conservative judiciary.

“The reason why conservatives gained control of the House, the Senate and the governor’s office is because the people wanted us to,” said state Rep. Scott Schwab, a six-term veteran from Olathe. “If we get here and we don’t make the changes that the people sent us to do, then we fail them.”

But aggressive action on several fronts has triggered criticism — some of it coming from fellow Republicans — that the conservative majority might strip away basic fairness from the state’s political dynamics, especially with bills seen as targeting professors and the media.

“A lot of these legislators don’t like to hear opinions different from what they believe,” said Taylor, the Wyandotte lobbyist. “There should be room for robust debate and the ability to express contrary opinions in this building, of all places.”

Hildabrand describes himself as a “huge” free-speech supporter. The legislator said he was just uncertain about the law when he challenged Taylor last year.

He simply didn’t think taxpayer money should be used to advocate against gun rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

“I have absolutely no problem,” Hildabrand said, “with people being able to voice their opinion.”

Since coming to power in the last four years, conservatives have reshaped state government — cutting taxes, curbing abortion, tilting the workplace in favor of the employer and restricting the power of teachers unions.

Along the way, conservatives pushed new policies seen by some as stifling political dissent.

Public employee unions are now barred from deducting money from members’ paychecks to help bankroll political activities, which tend to be directed against conservatives. State money can no longer be used to lobby for gun control. And lawmakers have pushed repeatedly to overhaul the makeup of a state Supreme Court that’s ordered the Legislature to spend millions more on schools and that the legislative majority sees as hostile to the death penalty.

“There is an attempt to have a great deal of control and as much control as possible,” said state Rep. Barbara Bollier, a Mission Hills Republican. “That’s not unusual in government, but I think it’s escalated. I’ve been here five years, and I can see more of it.”

Conservative leadership doesn’t see it that way. Its lawmakers say they’re pressing good public policy that makes sense for many reasons — whether it’s saving tax dollars, encouraging higher voter turnout or making teachers more accountable in the classroom.

House Speaker Ray Merrick said in a statement that legislators must ensure that state laws are “fair and modern.”

“Oftentimes, that irritates people who are determined to maintain the status quo, but it certainly doesn’t indicate malice or retaliation,” Merrick said. “We have an obligation to examine the way things have always been done to make sure it’s still the most effective policy for the state.”

But Republican state Rep. Don Hineman of western Kansas said attempts to muffle dissent are “very, very real.”

“It’s an effort to more narrowly dominate the discussion of really important issues with viewpoints from one side of the political spectrum,” Hineman said.

Some lawmakers say this year has been particularly acute for legislation aimed at clamping down on opposing views.

▪ A pair of lawmakers are backing a bill prohibiting university employees from providing or using their official title when writing newspaper columns.

Critics said the bill was directed at a group of Kansas political science professors who’ve written critically of Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and the Legislature.

Republican state Rep. Joe Seiwert of south-central Kansas said some constituents have complained about critical columns.

“If you’re going to be a professional and use your professional title, then you (should) be professional and talk about the facts,” he said. “Don’t criticize somebody. That’s not professional.”

Constituents, Seiwert said, want to know if the opinions expressed by professors are their personal opinions or reflect the views of the university. “Do the universities approve of what these professors are saying?”

Seiwert has since proposed softening the bill to only require universities to make a policy for determining when a title should be used.

▪ One bill would move city and school board elections from the spring to the fall. The measure’s sponsor, Republican state Sen. Mitch Holmes of central Kansas, issued a news release suggesting the bill would dilute the power of teachers unions. “The teachers unions do not want to give up the majority they currently enjoy in low turnout, off-cycle elections.”

The senator, however, said driving down the influence of the teachers union was not the motivation of his bill. Rather, he said the legislation aims to boost voter turnout for local elections.

“I do want the majority to be the majority,” Holmes said, “but I don’t think that’s unfair.”

▪ Republican state Rep. J.R. Claeys introduced a bill allowing city and county governments to post their legal notices on the Internet instead of publishing them in newspapers. The bill was introduced after Claeys’ residency was questioned by a Salina Journal report last September. The bill could cost newspapers thousands but also would save taxpayers money.

Claeys said his bill is not connected to the newspaper report about his residency.

“I don’t know that any argument could be made,” he said, “that by changing the way legal notices are done it is somehow going to prevent the Salina Journal from printing lies.”

But overall, some political observers argue that dissenters have been punished, including a group of moderate Republican senators who were booted out office in 2012 with the help of Brownback.

“We are on the march toward this idea that dissent is treason,” said Mark Desetti, lobbyist for the Kansas National Education Association. “That’s troublesome.”

Conservative Rep. Jerry Lunn of Overland Park said the criticism over dissent is an outgrowth of the state’s political makeup.

“I don’t see it as a conspiracy,” Lunn said. “The state is very red and people may not like that, but that’s the fact.”




“Hildabrand asked if Taylor knew a state law bars the use of public money to lobby for gun control. The legislator wondered whether Taylor violated the law. Taylor countered that the law only applied to state money. He was on Wyandotte County’s payroll. Hildabrand later requested an opinion from the attorney general, who declined to weigh in. It was a small dust-up a year ago, but it underscores how conservatives’ virtually unchallenged control of the Capitol opens the way for new policies that could undercut the influence of their traditional opposition for years to come. Those efforts figure to weaken the lobbying efforts by cities, hamstring the power of teachers unions, limit how academics can speak out on public controversies and mold a more conservative judiciary.”

“We are on the march toward this idea that dissent is treason,” said Mark Desetti, lobbyist for the Kansas National Education Association. “That’s troublesome.” Conservative Rep. Jerry Lunn of Overland Park said the criticism over dissent is an outgrowth of the state’s “political makeup.” This Kansas fight over control by the far right rather than moderate Republicans is one of many in the US these days, especially in the South and West. Religion and political brass knuckles rule in those areas. Individual rights of people who aren't among the wealthy – except for gun issues of course – are being attacked repeatedly and fiercely.

Right wing elements are trying to do the things that dictators always do first – close down the more liberal newspaper voices and arrest or cripple the most educated people. Why? So they can eliminate dissent. They have proposed a law to allow political announcements to be made over the Internet (poor people are less likely to have computers) rather than in the newspaper and one to limit professors' authoritative voice.





http://www.politicususa.com/2015/02/25/57-republicans-dismantle-constitution-christianity-national-religion.html

57% Of Republicans Say Dismantle Constitution And Make Christianity National Religion
By: Keith Brekhusmore from Keith Brekhus
February, 25th, 2015

A Public Policy Polling (PPP) national survey conducted between February 20th and February 22nd of Republican voters, found that an astonishing 57 percent of Republicans want to dismantle the Constitution, and establish Christianity as the official national religion. Only 30 percent oppose making Christianity the national religion.

Although the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment clearly states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” GOP voters want to cast aside that provision and impose Christianity as the official American religion.

While a number of red states have passed statutes forbidding the implementation of Islam-based sharia law in their states, Republicans apparently have no misgivings about turning the United States into a Christian theocracy. The poll’s crosstabs reveal that support for making Christianity the official religion is strongest among Mike Huckabee (94 percent), Rick Perry (83 percent), and Ben Carson (78 percent) supporters.

Ben Carson is the preferred presidential candidate of those who want to impose Christianity on the nation with 24 percent support. Mike Huckabee and Scott Walker are tied for 2nd place at 16 percent. Scott Walker (35 percent) and Jeb Bush (22 percent) are the leading candidates among GOP voters who do not want to establish a national religion.

The PPP survey also found that 2/3rds of Republican voters do not believe in global warming, and 49 percent do not believe in the theory of evolution. Not only do they wish to establish a national religion, but it appears that their version of Christianity is one that is at odds with the scientific consensus in climatology and biology.

While a clear majority of Americans self-identify as Christians, most Americans outside the GOP, would be uncomfortable with conservative Dominionist theology. Dominionism calls for imposing a theocracy in America where Christianity is declared the official religion, and the nation is governed by “Biblical law”.

Republican voters seem all too eager to embrace Dominionist theology, even though doing so would violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Freedom of Religion is one of the bedrock principles established in our founding documents. Republican voters are gearing up to elect candidates who will undermine the First Amendment and take away our Freedom of Religion. Independents and Democrats must be prepared to stop any candidate who would dismantle the Establishment Clause, whether it be Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson or one of the other GOP presidential candidates.



http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/
The Constitutional Amendment Process

The Archivist has delegated many of the ministerial duties associated with this function to the Director of the Federal Register. Neither Article V of the Constitution nor section 106b describe the ratification process in detail. The Archivist and the Director of the Federal Register follow procedures and customs established by the Secretary of State, who performed these duties until 1950, and the Administrator of General Services, who served in this capacity until NARA assumed responsibility as an independent agency in 1985.

The Constitution provides that an amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures. None of the 27 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed by constitutional convention. The Congress proposes an amendment in the form of a joint resolution. Since the President does not have a constitutional role in the amendment process, the joint resolution does not go to the White House for signature or approval. The original document is forwarded directly to NARA's Office of the Federal Register (OFR) for processing and publication. The OFR adds legislative history notes to the joint resolution and publishes it in slip law format. The OFR also assembles an information package for the States which includes formal "red-line" copies of the joint resolution, copies of the joint resolution in slip law format, and the statutory procedure for ratification under 1 U.S.C. 106b.

The Archivist submits the proposed amendment to the States for their consideration by sending a letter of notification to each Governor along with the informational material prepared by the OFR. The Governors then formally submit the amendment to their State legislatures.... When a State ratifies a proposed amendment, it sends the Archivist an original or certified copy of the State action, which is immediately conveyed to the Director of the Federal Register. The OFR examines ratification documents for facial legal sufficiency and an authenticating signature. If the documents are found to be in good order, the Director acknowledges receipt and maintains custody of them. The OFR retains these documents until an amendment is adopted or fails, and then transfers the records to the National Archives for preservation. A proposed amendment becomes part of the Constitution as soon as it is ratified by three-fourths of the States (38 of 50 States). When the OFR verifies that it has received the required number of authenticated ratification documents, it drafts a formal proclamation for the Archivist to certify that the amendment is valid and has become part of the Constitution. This certification is published in the Federal Register and U.S. Statutes at Large and serves as official notice to the Congress and to the Nation that the amendment process has been completed.

In recent history, the signing of the certification has become a ceremonial function attended by various dignitaries, which may include the President. President Johnson signed the certifications for the 24th and 25th Amendments as a witness, and President Nixon similarly witnessed the certification of the 26th Amendment along with three young scholars. On May 18, 1992, the Archivist performed the duties of the certifying official for the first time to recognize the ratification of the 27th Amendment, and the Director of the Federal Register signed the certification as a witness.



"A Public Policy Polling (PPP) national survey conducted between February 20th and February 22nd of Republican voters, found that an astonishing 57 percent of Republicans want to dismantle the Constitution, and establish Christianity as the official national religion. Only 30 percent oppose making Christianity the national religion. Although the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment clearly states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” GOP voters want to cast aside that provision and impose Christianity as the official American religion.... Scott Walker (35 percent) and Jeb Bush (22 percent) are the leading candidates among GOP voters who do not want to establish a national religion. The PPP survey also found that 2/3rds of Republican voters do not believe in global warming, and 49 percent do not believe in the theory of evolution. Not only do they wish to establish a national religion, but it appears that their version of Christianity is one that is at odds with the scientific consensus in climatology and biology. While a clear majority of Americans self-identify as Christians, most Americans outside the GOP, would be uncomfortable with conservative Dominionist theology. Dominionism calls for imposing a theocracy in America where Christianity is declared the official religion, and the nation is governed by “Biblical law”.... Republican voters are gearing up to elect candidates who will undermine the First Amendment and take away our Freedom of Religion. Independents and Democrats must be prepared to stop any candidate who would dismantle the Establishment Clause, whether it be Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson or one of the other GOP presidential candidates.”

“Scott Walker (35 percent) and Jeb Bush (22 percent) are the leading candidates among GOP voters who do not want to establish a national religion.” As I read this I think about the entire early history of our country. We are an amalgam of Europeans who came here often specifically to escape the mandatory state religions where they were born. Not only were they required to worship as an Anglican or other national religion, but they were required to attend services actively, rather than quietly refraining from any religion. Up until King Henry VIII the English church was Catholic, and all dissenters had to hide from government persecution, or perhaps even end up dead. After Henry the state religion was declared the Protestant faith, which ended up being the Anglican/Episcopalian belief. Anybody who didn't want to practice the proper religion could go to the new colonies of America. As a result, the freedom from any established religion of any kind was one of the most important cornerstones on which our republic was founded.

Now 57% of the Republicans who were polled are actually desiring to change the Constitution to require membership in the Christian Church – or maybe just suffer some social consequences for abstaining entirely from religious participation, following Judaism, Islam, Unitarian Universalism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Agnosticism, Atheism, or simply speaking out publicly against fundamentalist Christianity. And this news article doesn't say whether the required form would be Catholic or Protestant, for instance. That inevitable conflict is enough to start a revolution in itself if we can judge from history.

Maybe dissenting individuals simply can't vote, can't hold office, can't own property or will have to pay a fine rather than actually being put in prison or killed as they were in large numbers in merry old England. We really need to combat this matter strongly. It would help if we Democrats were to close our primary elections to anyone except our own party. Or perhaps we could all officially switch to the Independent party, and then Republicans wouldn't know what our actual position on issues was. Republicans have been voting in the Democratic primaries to select the most conservative Democrats for years, just because our party rules allow it. We could also use the power of visible mass persuasion by taking to the streets. How many of us are actually willing to fight for our rights? This news article does leave me worried about what is happening in my country. Do I love America? You bet, I do. That's why I'm completely against this sweep toward a Neo-Nazi form of government that some Republicans would foster.


ABOUT THE KOCH BROTHERS

http://www.religionnews.com/2015/01/30/controversial-koch-brothers-give-big-catholic-university/

Controversial Koch brothers give big (again) to Catholic University
David Gibson
January 30, 2015 

(RNS) Billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch recently made headlines by pledging nearly $900 million to help elect candidates who support their libertarian strain of economic conservatism, but the industrialists are also nearly doubling their investment in the business school of Catholic University of America, which is overseen by the U.S. Bishops.

That’s despite the fact that many Catholics — including Pope Francis — say the kind of unregulated capitalism that the Kochs promote runs counter to church teaching.

The $1.75 million dollar grant from the Charles Koch Foundation, one of several nonprofits with ties to the industrialist brothers, is part of a $3 million pledge to CUA announced in January that includes $500,000 from the Busch Family Foundation and $250,000 each from three business leaders.

The donation to the Washington-based university comes just over a year after the Koch Foundation gave an initial $1 million grant that allowed CUA to launch its own School of Business and Economics. The school is run by Andrew Abela and it is dedicated to promoting what it calls “principled entrepreneurship.”

The grant fits with the Kochs’ strategy of funding business and other programs at universities around the country. (They are also generous underwriters of numerous cultural institutions.) But from the moment the first CUA donation was announced in the fall of 2013, many Catholic theologians and others raised questions about why the only pontifical university in the country would take so much money from the Kochs.

Dozens of theologians and academics wrote to CUA president John Garvey and Abela expressing concern that “by accepting such a donation you send a confusing message to Catholic students and other faithful Catholics that the Koch brothers’ anti-government, Tea Party ideology has the blessing of a university sanctioned by Catholic bishops.”

They renewed that criticism last February, saying the Kochs’ libertarian-leaning positions “are in direct conflict with traditional Catholic values.”

A few months later, at a conference sponsored by Catholic University’s Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies, the Honduran cardinal who is one of Francis’ top advisers blasted today’s free market system as “a new idol” that is increasing inequality and excluding the poor.

Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga was joined at the conference, and in his critique, by Bishop Blase Cupich, who in September was personally tapped by Francis to be the new archbishop of Chicago, the pontiff’s most important U.S. appointment to date.

Francis himself has focused on economic inequality in the nearly two years since he has been pope, repeatedly denouncing the current capitalist system and in particular the “trickle down” economics favored by many Republicans and libertarians.

Those statements have generated a great deal of friction and unusually direct and sharp criticism of Francis from Catholic conservatives, especially in the U.S. Some conservatives have responded by arguing that Francis is not talking about capitalism as it is practiced in the U.S., or that he simply doesn’t understand economics.

In a Jan. 22 statement announcing the new gift, Abela said that the donation will help the school create “a cadre of faculty dedicated to research exploring how we can make business and economics more humane.” As if anticipating criticism, he added that is also “a moral imperative that Pope Francis has been championing with great passion.”

That same day, Tim Busch, co-founder of the Busch Foundation and a Koch ally, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal arguing that “the principles behind this initiative and the principled entrepreneurship program are consistent with Catholic teaching.”

Critics said Busch was exaggerating that overlap and glossing over the real goals of libertarian free-market advocates, which they say are in no way compatible with church teachings.

While Busch is a practicing Catholic, the Kochs are not, and in fact David Koch supports gay marriage and abortion rights.

Critics of the CUA gift say it is ironic that the school would seek such massive support from a social liberal when Catholic charities are not allowed to take any money from any person or group that supports abortion rights or gay rights.




http://www.politicususa.com/2014/12/08/kochs-brothers-funded-religious-groups-eliminating-womens-rights.html

The Koch Brothers Fund Religious Groups That Are Eliminating Women’s Rights
By Rmuse
December, 8th, 2014

There is an idiom, “politics make strange bedfellows,” that generally means people who would normally despise and avoid one another will work together if they think it is politically advantageous. The so-called proverb is particularly prescient when considering that libertarians, noted for championing the abolishment of government they claim interferes in Americans’ private lives, are heavily funding extremist Christians intent on forcing biblical principles on Americans by government fiat.

It is beyond refute that the libertarian Koch brothers spend hundreds-of-millions of dollars to abolish government to eliminate taxation and regulatory agencies they claim interferes with their crusade for power and wealth. However, to accomplish their goal of controlling the government, they have had to climb in bed with fundamentalist Christians intent on using the government to control and subvert women’s rights and force adherence to biblical values on all Americans. The Kochs have claimed, on several occasions, that their interest in social and cultural issues, particularly religious attacks on women and gays is non-existent, but through their “Secret Bank” (Freedom Partners) they are heavily-funding Christian women’s groups whose stated mission is to eliminate women’s reproductive health choices and push “biblical values on all citizens;” not exactly a libertarian agenda.

In their drive to control the U.S. Congress, and soon the federal government, the Kochs left no stone unturned in backing organizations that challenge America’s so-called equality in issues of race, gender, and freedom from religious imposition, and whose stated goal is enforcing Christian moralistic teachings on all Americans. The Kochs’ funding vehicles, such as the Freedom Partners, is not forthcoming on where or how it allocates its untold millions to control Congress, but according to its most recent tax filing it is flush with anonymous money and doled out more than $40-million in just the past 12 months to bible-based groups intent on electing candidates who oppose women’s rights from abortion to private and personal healthcare choices to contraception use among many, many other control mechanisms.

Over the past two years to better influence Senate races, control Congress, and eliminate the government, the Kochs funneled tens-of-millions of anonymous dollars to groups such as Concerned Women for America, the Susan B. Anthony List, the Independent Women’s Forum, and untold other, less-prominent, Christian groups. All groups whose intent is dominating and controlling women, gays, and eventually the entire population by empowering a biblical government to police key areas of personal conduct that a traditional libertarian, and free people, would find intolerable. One group in particular, Concerned Women of America (CWA), makes no secret that besides outlawing abortion, it is fighting ferociously to criminalize same-sex marriage, pornography, and force mandatory Christian prayers in public schools as a prelude to a Christian theocracy.

The support of the Koch’s Freedom Partners for CWA is important because like most blatantly anti-women’s rights organizations, it does not garner much support from foundations according to data from the Foundation Center. In fact, CWA has only received support from a handful of foundations since 2003, and most grants are quite modest in size which is why, as is typical of extremist religious groups, it relies heavily on support from major individual donors with a specific agenda. As a so-called “non-profit religious organization,” it is virtually impossible to say who those donors are because CWA is not required to list its funders or publish an annual report. If not for the requirement for the Koch’s Freedom Partners to file tax documents, the Koch’s support for CWA and other anti-women’s rights groups would be hidden from the public.

Concerned Women for America is so entrenched in keeping women in biblically-subservient roles, it has made blocking the proposed National Women’s History Museum a major crusade on par with criminalizing abortion, gay marriage, and contraceptives. The CWA president and CEO, Penny Nance, wrote a patriarchal op-ed expressing her vehement opposition to the proposed museum to be situated on the National Mall. Nance did her best Republican, biblical patriarch, impersonation and warned that the National Women’s History Museum “baldly favors a liberal jaundiced view of history,” and would “disproportionately feature and elevate the histories of women who embrace such policies as the whiny ‘banbossy’ campaign and other phony feminist ‘battles’ of the American left.” Battles like fighting for equal pay for equal work, maternity leave, the right to vote, the right to use contraceptives, and to make reproductive healthcare choices the religious right opposes.

One prime example of the Kochs funding extreme anti-women candidates to win control of the Senate is Iowa fanatic Joni Ernst. At the Koch not-so-secret gathering last June, Ernst won wild plaudits for “exceeding the Kochs’ wildest expectations;” not because of her extreme position on abolishing women’s rights, but because her extremist anti-women’s rights stance would incite the religious right voting bloc to flock to the polls to elect a theocratic candidate. Ernst, like most Republicans in Congress, supports a federal personhood law to effectively ban abortion and criminalize all forms of “unnatural birth control” as defined by the Vatican’s Humanae Vitae.

This column has reported, ad nauseum, that for the past three years Republicans in the House overwhelmingly passed a personhood bill only to be thwarted by the Democratic Senate. It also reported that in each of those three years, the same House personhood bill was introduced in the Senate but failed to make it out of committee. Now that the Kochs bought control of the Senate by funding anti-women’s rights candidates, the anti-women’s rights Senate will, like the religious anti-women’s rights House, easily pass a personhood law and libertarians will get precisely what they claim to hate; a theocratic government interfering and controlling their wives’, daughters’, mothers’, and sisters’ personal life decisions. And the Kochs could not possibly care less because they will have leverage to begin eliminating the two agencies “economic libertarians” hate most; the Internal Revenue Service and the Environmental Protection Agency.





http://www.jewornotjew.com/profile.jsp?ID=1904

Jew Or Not Jew
Koch Brothers
(Charles Koch, David Koch)
1935 — , 1940 —
July 31, 2014

There will be two types of responses to this profile: 1) They finally profiled the Koch brothers!, and 2) Who the heck are the Koch brothers? Let's deal with the second one first.

The Koch brothers are billionaire siblings who are known for their numerous contributions to right-wing causes. There are four brothers altogether; however, when one says "Koch brothers", one only means Charles and David. We're not sure why the other two are excluded. We did catch one of the four on TV; he is apparently some kind of a collector who pays hundreds of thousands for a bottle of wine (and was sold bathtub swill in the process). In any case, their possibly Jewish last name raises the usual question. So here's the answer: no, they are not Jewish. German/Dutch/WASPy goys.

Now for the first part: why did it take us so long? Well, it's quite simple. We don't really give a rat's ass about the Koch brothers...

Verdict: Not a Jew.



ON THE ARTICLES ABOVE:

Religion News – “... but the industrialists are also nearly doubling their investment in the business school of Catholic University of America, which is overseen by the U.S. Bishops. That’s despite the fact that many Catholics — including Pope Francis — say the kind of unregulated capitalism that the Kochs promote runs counter to church teaching. … The school is run by Andrew Abel and it is dedicated to promoting what it calls “principled entrepreneurship.”.... But from the moment the first CUA donation was announced in the fall of 2013, many Catholic theologians and others raised questions about why the only pontifical university in the country would take so much money from the Kochs.... They renewed that criticism last February, saying the Kochs’ libertarian-leaning positions “are in direct conflict with traditional Catholic values.” A few months later, at a conference sponsored by Catholic University’s Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies, the Honduran cardinal who is one of Francis’ top advisers blasted today’s free market system as “a new idol” that is increasing inequality and excluding the poor.... Those statements have generated a great deal of friction and unusually direct and sharp criticism of Francis from Catholic conservatives, especially in the U.S. Some conservatives have responded by arguing that Francis is not talking about capitalism as it is practiced in the U.S., or that he simply doesn’t understand economics. .... While Busch is a practicing Catholic, the Kochs are not, and in fact David Koch supports gay marriage and abortion rights. Critics of the CUA gift say it is ironic that the school would seek such massive support from a social liberal when Catholic charities are not allowed to take any money from any person or group that supports abortion rights or gay rights.”

Mainstream Catholics are opposed to this huge gift by two socially liberal economic conservatives. They also are against the “trickle down” economic theory that we practice in this country today, as the church members who follow the Pope are against the increasing divide between the rich and the poor here. The university needs money, of course, and until last year it apparently didn't have a school of business such as the one that the Koch money funded. It is embarrassing to many good Catholics, I'm sure, that their primary university has so completely caved in just to get a few million dollars. Clearly money talks.


politicususa.com – “The so-called proverb is particularly prescient when considering that libertarians, noted for championing the abolishment of government they claim interferes in Americans’ private lives, are heavily funding extremist Christians intent on forcing biblical principles on Americans by government fiat.... to control and subvert women’s rights and force adherence to biblical values on all Americans. The Kochs have claimed, on several occasions, that their interest in social and cultural issues, particularly religious attacks on women and gays is non-existent, but through their “Secret Bank” (Freedom Partners) they are heavily-funding Christian women’s groups whose stated mission is to eliminate women’s reproductive health choices and push “biblical values on all citizens; not exactly a libertarian agenda. In their drive to control the U.S. Congress, and soon the federal government, the Kochs left no stone unturned in backing organizations that challenge America’s so-called equality in issues of race, gender, and freedom from religious imposition.... The support of the Koch’s Freedom Partners for CWA is important because like most blatantly anti-women’s rights organizations, it does not garner much support from foundations according to data from the Foundation Center. In fact, CWA has only received support from a handful of foundations since 2003, and most grants are quite modest in size which is why, as is typical of extremist religious groups, it relies heavily on support from major individual donors with a specific agenda. As a so-called “non-profit religious organization,” it is virtually impossible to say who those donors are because CWA is not required to list its funders or publish an annual report.... Concerned Women for America is so entrenched in keeping women in biblically-subservient roles, it has made blocking the proposed National Women’s History Museum a major crusade on par with criminalizing abortion, gay marriage, and contraceptives. The CWA president and CEO, Penny Nance, wrote a patriarchal op-ed expressing her vehement opposition to the proposed museum to be situated on the National Mall. Nance did her best Republican, biblical patriarch, impersonation and warned that the National Women’s History Museum “baldly favors a liberal jaundiced view of history,” and would “disproportionately feature and elevate the histories of women who embrace such policies as the whiny ‘banbossy’ campaign and other phony feminist ‘battles’ of the American left.” Battles like fighting for equal pay for equal work, maternity leave, the right to vote, the right to use contraceptives, and to make reproductive healthcare choices the religious right opposes.... Ernst, like most Republicans in Congress, supports a federal personhood law to effectively ban abortion and criminalize all forms of “unnatural birth control” as defined by the Vatican’s Humanae Vitae.”

Is all this transformation in American thought coming about because the South lost its iron-fisted control over the black race in 1964 and became so very angry that they are willing to completely corrupt our nation “of the people, by the people and for the people” in retribution? Could the Koch brothers really have bought local, state and national elections so fully that they are already now imposing their cynical views on the average everyday American Joe , so that he will vote these radical fascist-like changes into law? I used to have confidence in the wisdom of the US citizenry, but I no longer do. Hillary Clinton's statement that there is “a vast right wing conspiracy” at work is no longer preposterous to me, because it is beginning to look as though that is a correct statement.

As for the freedom of religion, I'm not saying that the fundamentalist Christians shouldn't have their churches and beliefs; but that the public school system should teach the following – literature, science, history, no mandatory religion at all, and the basics of our political philosophy, as based on our guaranteed liberties from the Bill of Rights and Constitution – freedom from government control of thought and speech, and that the right to the free press, freedom of dissent,the right to vote for all citizens, citizenship based on birth in the US rather than skin color or religion, and the freedom of association, political party and religious group, including Atheism. Any less than that is not a Republic, but oppression. I don't want to live under oppression whether it be in the form of one dictatorial leader, an overbearing church, or a group of very rich oligarchs. I especially don't want America the Beautiful, which I learned to love in my earliest years, to become an empty shell composed of patriotic propaganda under the actual control of the 1% of our wealthiest people.