Leftista

Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick…

Okay.  This is how you do it.

Last week, we called for full US ratification of the ICC in The Hague.  We’ve got the process started, it’s moving along nicely and gathering momentum… Well done, all.

This week, we segue rather appropriately into a call for the re-opening of the investigation into the Iraq War.  But not that tired, worn out investigation that was shoved awkwardly on a public altogether too willing to look the other way.  No.  This time we call for a genuine investigation replete with lots and lots of  subpoenas and open-door sessions.

The two concepts – recognizing The Hague and re-investigating the Iraq War – work hand-in-hand and one is insufficient without the other.  (Really…did you think we would work towards ratification of the ICC in The Hague just for the fun of it?  Nah.  There’s a reason behind this rhyme.)

Full recognition of the jurisdictional authority of the ICC in The Hague is the required precursor to re-opening the Iraq War investigation.  Again, one is insufficient without the other.

Our new Iraq War Investigation must include everything:  the propagandized run-up to the invasion and why it was pushed so hard on a conveniently naive American public sans any hard evidence; Bush administration insistence upon acceptance of the Iraq Hydrocarbon Bill (and who really authored and benefited from it Wolfowitz); the widespread use of torture as an interrogation technique; rendition; the public-private partnership that resulted in public payouts on no-bid Iraq contractor agreements; the insistence on the expulsion from Iraq of UN Weapon Inspector Hans Blix whose evidence ran contrary to the Bush propaganda machine, et. al.

Where fussier schools of political thought might have required concrete evidence prior to an Iraq invasion, the Bush administration was never hampered by such.  In the final analysis, the Bush administration illegally invaded a foreign regime.  The act was illegal because the regime had neither attacked nor overtly threatened us.  And illegally invading a foreign country is, well, illegal…. at least in the eyes of the ICC in The Hague.

So here is The Cure for the wound that will not heal:  Step 1) Recognize The Hague + Step 2) Re-open a real Iraq War investigation, the combination of which results in Step 3) Identification and punishment of Bush administration War Criminals.

It’s time for the majority to rule…and looking the other way – pretending an illegal invasion was somehow justified – will no longer work. It’s time to get this job done.

Ideas can no more flow backward than can a river. 
~Victor Hugo

The Republican-led 113th Congress, with fustian fingers pressed futilely against the dyke of history, have advanced their agenda of spending tax payer funds to maintain discrimination and inequality.

Repugs, it would seem, are incapable of waking up and smelling that delicious aroma of fresh-brewed java.

So here it is:

In 2012, the Republican-led 112th Congress, while happily discussing killing Big Bird, spent upwards of 2 million on payments to the wily DC-based Bancroft PLLC (notorious for their involvement in design of the Patriot Act), as well as the Republican former Solicitor General Paul Clement, to defend the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

DOMA Redux:

Yesterday, one of the very first acts of the new 113th Republican-led Congress, whose very mantra has been that of states’ rights and fiscal conservatism, voted to reauthorize spending scarce tax payer dollars on the dismal Defense of Marriage Act.

In way of background, DOMA is the legislation that seeks to define federally-recognized marriage as between a man and a woman only. In the smallest of GOP nut-sacs, Republicans look to continue to deny rights to American citizens based on whom they happen to love.  Not good, not smart…

Furthermore, with DOMA, these self-proclaimed “small government” Republicans want control – at the federal level – to override marriages performed at the state level.

Why, one might ask, would these selfsame advocates of states’ rights want – antithetical to their cause – the ability to override the state?  Because the GOP is beginning to wake up and smell the coffee…and they’re afraid:  voters at the state level are increasingly in favor of marriage rights for all people, regardless of sexual orientation…and the witless GOP believes the only way to stop the trend is by controlling it at the federal level by way of DOMA.

The Leftista challenge:  Take a peak at yesterday’s final vote roll call on DOMA.  Check it now. Find your Congressperson on the list.  (If you’re not sure which is your Congressperson, check here.)   Now, if you’re being wrongly represented by a Yea vote on DOMA, PICK UP YOUR PHONE AND CALL NOW.  Your mobile phone is right there (be honest, it’s practically an extension of your hand these days) so you can do this right now.  Pick up the phone and simply call your Congressperson. 

Let your Congressperson know that DOMA is wrong, that you do not favor spending tax payer funds on DOMA, and that their vote does NOT represent you.

After what can only be described as fairly acerbic back-and-forth debate on the issue, we at Leftista would like to welcome Chris Christie to the Democratic party.

We first saw glimpses of this man-in-the-wrong-party when he stood by our President in the aftermath of Sandy.  Tired, disheveled, and fleece-garbed, he made us look up and take note.  And what really grabbed our attention was the tone behind the words.

In the wake of Sandy, Chris Christie appears to understand what we’ve been saying for a long, long time:

Real suffering is not an abstract concept that you can Ayn-Rand away.
~Leftista.com

While real suffering is definitely the home toppled by an angry Sandy, it is also the young mother in her apartment enduring the biting cold of winter because she cannot pay her gas bill.  Real suffering is her husband’s tooth ache that, after the last year of unemployment, has now spread to gum disease.  Real suffering is their bare pantry and the cries of their two small, hungry children.

Real suffering is not an abstract concept.

Real suffering is scores of bright young Americans denied a promising future because they cannot afford the costs of for-profit higher education.

Real suffering is not an abstract concept.

Real suffering is the rape victim in the police station having to explain over and over again the details of her rape, all the while hoping against hope that she is not pregnant.

Real suffering is not an abstract concept.

Real suffering is the deep dull ache of bone cancer while not being able to afford a single doctor’s visit.

Real suffering is not an abstract concept.

In clear contradistinction to the rest of the Republican party, Chris Christie seems to get this.  Last night Christie went so far as to note that “there’s only one group to blame … the House majority.”  We’ve been saying this for years, Chris.  As such, Christie is truly more of a Democrat than a Republican.  Crist opened his eyes and you can too.  Come on over, Chris….it’s time.

It is tact that is golden, not silence.  ~Samuel Butler, author 1835-1902

Fact: The NRA needed four days of silence before responding to the Newtown mass killing.

NRA Cowards

Cowards.

Four days of silence for the NRA to calculate and devise their spin…

Cowards of the lowest order:

A) It should never have taken four days of silence before making a statement.  Not even close.

B) Whereupon the statement itself was pathetic, suggesting that the NRA’s four days of silence was “a matter of common decency”.

After something as catastrophic as Newtown, four days of silence in no way denotes decency.  Rather, it makes clear to all that the NRA is comprised of weak-kneed cowards looking desperately for the best way to contrive and frame their spin.

In the spirit of fairness however, we’ve worked hard, hammer and tongs, trying to find anyone else as close to this issue as the NRA that also required four days of silence before admitting that the Newtown killings were wrong.

Additionally, we’ve tried to find anyone whose initial response, like the NRA, was the immediate removal of their Facebook page.

Shockingly, we’ve come up empty-handed.  Except for the NRA.  Cowards.

Too often government responds to the whispers of lobbyists before the cries of the people. ~Andrew Cuomo

Newtown, Connecticut.

Site of the saddest act of violence we’ve seen in a long, long time.

Site of the most senseless act of violence we may ever see.

Site of more heartbreak than our nation should be forced to handle.

More heartbreak than our nation deserves.

We are, in the aftermath of Newtown, feeling very much broken.

And the question here at Leftista is this: do we all not share in the blame?  By failing to ostracize the NRA, by not communicating forcefully enough with our lawmakers…by not insisting on the outlawing of fully automatic weapons are we not collectively to blame for Newtown? Does our silence, then, not share equally in the blame?

It must be noted and should be argued that any nation that allows the rampant oversell of automatic weapons and armor-piercing ammo is a loaded powder keg….with more Newtowns just around the corner.

Add to this the fact that we allow NRA lobbyists full and complete access to our elected officials – without requiring written minutes of all meetings (which, by the way, is something that must be changed immediately) – and you’ve got the makings of disaster the likes of that witnessed in Newtown CT.

Our thoughts are with the survivors, as well as communities all across the nation, touched by this horrendous event.

Our thoughts are equally focused on not letting this lesson go unlearned:  Call your congressperson.   Just do it.  Tell them in no uncertain terms that you expect them to cease all interaction with the NRA.  Let them know that you will know if they side with the NRA.

After Newtown CT, NRA be damned.

“Ecclesiastical establishments tend to great ignorance and corruption, all of which facilitate the execution of mischievous projects.”
~James Madison, Father of the United States Constitution

Religion, truth be told, is the root of all weirdness.

This week we have the Bristol University Christian Union stating that if you possess a vagina you are not permitted to speak at their meetings.

Adding yet more absurdity to this christian weirdness: if your vagina is being chaperoned by an attendant husband, then you will be permitted to speak.  (Clearly the vagina on its own is far too dangerous and can be held in check only by the presence of a conjugal penis.)

Keep in mind, people, that this is 2012.  Not the middle ages.  Not even the 1800′s. This is NOW.

This is not the Taliban we’re talking about.  This is not the Muslim Brotherhood.  These people are christians.  At a place of higher learning, no less.

As readers of Leftista know, we are no fans of things religious.  Never have been.

Which leads us to one of our great concerns:  Under the administration of George W. Bush (43) a massive push was made to channel public funds into faith-based, predominantly christian groups.  Ignoring completely the doctrine of separation of church and state, one of the first things George did was to establish the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI). Sub rosa, Bush made an executive order to establish the OFBCI as part of the executive branch and actually gave office space in the White House for his new creation.  After all, Bush asserted, the constitution prohibits Congress – not the executive – from making law respecting the establishment of religion.  It was this interpretation that allowed him to illegally circumvent the Constitution.  But he should have known that there is nothing more divisive than religion, especially in a country with as many diverse faiths as the USA.

Infuriatingly, President Obama has spent more on faith-based initiatives than Bush ever did.  

Fact: American tax-payers under President Obama are spending more to fund religious groups than ever before in the history of the United States.   Frustratingly, during these times of cutbacks & austerity talks, our lawmakers have no problem with the concept of killing off NPR and defunding Planned Parenthood, all the while giving more and more of our money to religious groups.  While religious groups receive literally billions of dollars, our lawmakers have the audacity to suggest cuts to much needed federal programs.

We need President Obama to fully comprehend that funding religious groups with tax payer money is wrong.  Our Founding Fathers went out of their way to ensure that this could not happen.  Mr. President: Close the executive branch’s Office of Faith-based funding now.

This is ugly stuff, people.  It’s wrong. And it can’t be allowed to pass unchallenged.  Call your Congressperson. Call your Senator.  Email the White House.  And the next time anyone brings up the subject of austerity cuts, tell them: sure, no problem, as long as the first austerity cut eliminates faith-based funding.