Oklahoma: Doctors Lying To Pregnant Women Is Now A Legal Sacrament April 30, 2010

Oklahoma is not known for the high caliber of its political representatives. Witness the citizenry’s choice of James Inhofe to represent them in the United States Senate. Mr. Inhofe makes the proverbial box of rocks look like a Ph.D. candidate in advanced mathematics.

Apparently large majorities of the Oklahoma State Legislature are similarly inclined as well as morally bankrupt despite being in the so-called Bible Belt of the nation.

The Legislature, by large majorities, overrode the governor’s veto of a bill that encourages physicians to lie to pregnant women about the health of their fetus.

The relevant legislative summary of the law reads:

HB2656 creates a new law stating that in a wrongful life action or a wrongful birth action, no damages may be recovered for any condition that existed at the time of a child’s birth if the claim is that the defendant’s act or omission contributed to the mother’s not having obtained an abortion.

In sum, if your doctor thinks your baby may be born with a defect, any defect, and believes that if he tells you that the fetus is defective you will get an abortion, he can lie to you and say the fetus is healthy. When the baby is born, and it suffers, oh, say spina bifida, or some condition that will let it suffer in pain for a few hours before it dies, or face a lifetime of living as a mindless vegetable, you have no legal recourse against that doctor.

He can crow to his fundogelical friends and the doctor killers in the anti-abortion movement about his achievement in preventing you from killing a baby. And you, Mom, would have to take it.

Aside from the suffering, emotional and physical, that the doctor puts you through in such a case; aside from the suffering the doctor decided your infant should go through; aside from all that, there is the fact that now no doctor involved in women’s pregnancies can be trusted to tell his patient the truth about her condition. Your doctor has been given the legal right to lie to you.

The lies of doctors are now legal sacraments in Oklahoma.

No woman in Oklahoma can trust her doctor from this time on.

And she can thank the religious fundos for the legalization of this fundamental betrayal of her rights, of her health, of her family.

One author of the bill is Representative Daniel Sullivan, a Republican whose campaign site identifies him, in capital letters in large type, as a Conservative, and as Compassionate.

Representative Sullivan is on the board of directors of an organization known as the Tulsa Dream Center, whose site contains the following creed:

Our vision is to see thousands of people restored and empowered to achieve the dream that God has for them. The Tulsa Dream Center is about people – a place of unconditional love, acceptance and forgiveness. As people experience the love and compassion of God, a new generation will arise to lift their families and neighborhoods from poverty to prosperity, from crime to caring, from brokenness to blessing, from sickness to soundness, from fear to freedom!

Apparently the dream of Mr. Sullivan and the TDC Christians is to inflict as much suffering as possible on women who dare to create a defective fetus.

Mr. Sullivan can be contacted via email at danielsullivan@okhouse.gov. His phone number at the Legislature is (405) 557-7361.

Mr. Sullivan’s co-author is state Senator Brian A. Crain, also a Republican, and a Baptist, about whom The Lion could find little information. His email is crain@oksenate.gov, and his Legislative phone number is (405) 521-5620.

And one further note on the hypocrisy of the Oklahoma State Legislature. An earlier bill insisted that doctors provide ultrasound information to pregnant women. According to a Legislature news release quoting the bill’s sponsor, a Representative Lisa Billy:

"For women facing an unplanned pregnancy, there is often a sense of distress, panic and fear that can drive people to make hasty decisions without considering long-term consequences. This legislation will empower those expectant mothers by giving them as much information as possible – in advance – before they make an irrevocable, life-altering decision," said Billy, R-Purcell. "Women should have the choice to see that image, and to deny them that opportunity is baffling."

Research has shown that many women, after seeing an ultrasound, will opt to have a child.

"We simply should not deny women this important medical information," Billy said.

We should not deny women important medical information.

Except when it suits the religious preferences of an arrogant Legislature, the religious arrogance of the doctor, and the vast egos of both.

Then it’s the woman be damned, and so what if the infant suffers terribly.

Oklahoma’s ironic state motto is ‘Labor conquers all things’. How you Oklahoma pregnant women doing with that conquery thing now?

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Thanks to Spanish Inquisitor for legalese aid.

Technorati Tags: Oklahoma Abortion Law, Brian A. Crain, Daniel Sullivan, Oklahoma Legislature, Politics, Religion, Lying Doctors, Fundogelicals

Is Priestly Logic Not A Wonder To Behold? April 29, 2010

Gillian Flaccus of the Associated Press writes today of the former archbishop of San Francisco, named William Levada, who allowed a priest named Milton Walsh to remain in place at St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco after the Archbishop learned in 1995 Walsh had molested a boy in 1985.

Cardinal William Levada, then archbishop of San Francisco, said in a 2005 deposition obtained by the Associated Press that he did nothing and did not contact police because he trusted the Rev. Milton Walsh would not re-offend and his predecessor handled the case adequately.

Levada now heads the Vatican office that is supposed to remove pedophile priests from active ministry.

The Vatican’s lawyerly comment on Levada’s action, or non-action:

The Vatican’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lena, says Levada handled the case properly by the era’s norms, which have evolved significantly in recent years. The Holy See told bishops this month they should report abuse to police rather than keep cases quiet as had been the practice for decades.

“One thing the law teaches: It is fundamentally unfair to apply standards of conduct retroactively,’’ Lena said. “And yet, even if one were to do so, it must be acknowledged there was no re-offense by the priest. So in this case, the old approach did work.’’

It seems to The Lion that the standards of conduct in society in 1985 and 1995 were pretty much the same. Sexually molesting children was illegal then, it’s illegal now.

As for there being no re-offense by the priest, unless he was watched twenty four hours a day, there is no way the Vatican or Mr. Lena can say the priest didn’t do another kid. As society has learned to the sorrow of its children, the word of a priest is worthless. As worthless as the word of ex-priests who make it to the Pope’s chair.

To the Vatican child buggery is just politics and public relations. Don’t get caught. Wait for the storm to blow over. Obfuscate. Lie. Hide. These guys ought to work in the United States Senate, these days over on the Republican side.

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Technorati Tags: Pope Benedict, William Levada, Milton Walsh, San Francisco, Vatican, Pedophilia, Religion, Catholic Church

Bank Of America CEO Allowed To Wiggle Off The Hook April 29, 2010

Today’s Globe contains a story by Todd Wallack about the Bank of America annual shareholder meeting yesterday in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The news peg is that this was the first such meeting presided over by new CEO Brian T. Moynihan, whom Wallack says gave “an upbeat speech on the bank’s future and calmly field[ed] questions from impassioned investors and activists for more than two hours.”

The Lion believes that no CEO should be trusted any further than an infant can throw him. Moynihan is no exception.

Consider his non-answer answer here:

Referring to Goldman Sachs Group, which is being sued by the government over its investments in the housing market, several shareholders asked Moynihan whether Bank of America had bet against the housing market or its own home loans.

Moynihan did not specifically answer about the housing bets, but said, “Everything we’ve looked at so far we’re comfortable with.’’

And did no one stand up in the meeting and note that any competent psychopathic serial killer could say the same thing about murder?

Which is pretty much what these guys get away with at these dog-and-pony shows they put on for shareholders every year. After all, consider the cigarette companies. Every year executives got the shareholders together and boasted about profits and sales, conveniently ignoring the four hundred thousand people who died every year from smoking because those same corporate officers lied for decades about the effects of smoking.

And in the meeting yesterday nobody pressed Moynihan on his non-answer. They let him get away with refusing to answer the question.

Do Moynihan and his executives and BoA shareholders think no one got hurt by what the company did the past few years? Do they think no one died, that there were no suicides, no heart attacks, no deaths caused by the rapacious greed of these banks, the greed that brought down the economy, that drove people from their homes, from their jobs, that cost them their life savings, their health?

Betcha a dollar there wasn’t much talk about that in the meeting yesterday. 

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Technorati Tags: Bank of America, Brian Moynihan, Economy, Shareholder Meeting, Corporate Psychopathy, CEO

The Love of Gold, Man, Is The Root of Sacks of Evil April 28, 2010

Looking at the Goldman Sachs execs sitting all stiff and arrogant yesterday in the Senate hearing, The Lion wondered how much their suits cost. One suit must have been worth a few mortgage payments for some poor sap for whom the wheeling and dealing of Goldman had cost his house, his life savings, his job.

These guys, by Goldman’s own admission, are the best and the brightest that recruiters sucked out of business schools with the promise of lots and lots of personal wealth. Smart guys. No dummies among those suits.

“Come work for us, and we promise you’ll be a multimillionaire before you’re thirty. You’ll work your butt off, but you’ll be richer than you can even imagine,” say or imply or hint the recruiters.

It’s probably not too different from the way the mob recruits bookies. Work hard, do right by us, and you’ll earn big bucks. The difference is that if you screw up with the mob, you end up dead. Goldman and their ilk will just discard you to go live among the hoi polloi you spent your career screwing.

But these guys never see the masses. They no more see the damage their greed does than a  compulsive gambler sees the havoc he wreaks on his family and friends. They don’t even see their own greed, their own lust for gold. Money is the currency by which they measure their lives. The more they have the more worthwhile they are as a member of society.

They get the fancy penthouses. They get the fancy cars from Italy. They get the fancy women, but a million dollar woman is still a million dollar whore. And to keep it all coming they cook up more deals, more bets, more devious and complicated schemes to suck money from both sides of every bet they make, to suck money from the rest of society.

They don’t build anything. They don’t create anything, other than personal wealth. They don’t do anything about poverty and hunger and illiteracy, other than an occasional minor public relations stunt. They don’t create jobs: in fact they are largely responsible for American jobs going overseas while Americans sink deeper into impoverishment.

They’ll tell you they provide the cash that keeps business going in this country. They provide credit, they’ll say. But they barely do that anymore. They can’t make enough money to satisfy their lust for gold that way, and frankly, that sort of thing just isn’t exciting enough for them. Not when they can wheel and deal and make a million bucks in a couple of hours after lunch.

They’re parasites. They suck up the money, drain the economy, and thumb their noses at the people they’ve made homeless and jobless and hungry. They’re amoral. They live outside society in penthouses and mansions and gated communities. Their fingernails never get dirty, and their maids iron their shirts before the maids go home to families they can barely feed anymore. They’re parasites, and they are as clueless as lice feeding on the heads of kindergartners about the bigger world that they afflict, that they disease.

They steal from lesser beings and bequeath the spoils to themselves. There exist only two rules in their world: make money for the company, and don’t get caught.

They go for the gold for themselves, and they bring down the evil on everyone else.

But they do get to wear those nice, expensive suits. And there’s nothing like an expensive suit to impress the Congressional Republicans who stand with you against reform of the financial industry.

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Technorati Tags: Goldman Sachs, Economy, Politics, Corruption, Senate Hearings, Recession, Republicans

The Corruption Of Barack Obama By The American Military In The Far Hills Of The Asylum At Afghanistan April 27, 2010

The video linked to here speaks for itself as it demonstrates the corruption of American policy in Afghanistan. To continue this immorality, this utter stupidity, speaks to the continuing and degrading corruption of the American government and the decadence and degradation of the American military.

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan, United Nations, Politics, Military, Murder

Rachel Maddow Digs Up The Racist Roots Of Arizona’s Shiny New Anti-Latino Law April 27, 2010

Last night Rachel Maddow dug into the white supremacist connections behind Arizona’s shiny new law enshrining bigotry and racism on the way to pinning identifying chili pepper logos on Latinos in that state.

The people behind the law are pretty foul examples of white Americans. Racists, eugenicists, white supremacists, and a neo-Nazi hugger (literally) state Senator.

The immigration stuff starts at about a minute and a half into the six and half minute video.

So, yeah, Arizona is now officially a racist state. And Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, whatever she was before she signed the bill into law and made some really stupid comments, now she’s tainted forever with the filth and ignorance of white supremacy.

Score one for the white race. That’d be the race of fat old white politicians and pundits looking angry and uncomfortable when anyone dares question them and they try to sound intelligent, instead appearing like what they really, truly are: brain-dead, arrogant, ignorant slime that corrodes and destroys the structure of law and decency that holds this country together.

Technorati Tags: Arizona, Racism, Bigotry, Politics, Eugenics, Jan Brewer, Immigration Law, Immigration, Latinos, Mexicans, Rachel Maddow, MSNBC

ROTC Returns To Campus For Wrong Reasons April 26, 2010

Today’s Globe carries a piece by reporter Bryan Bender about the thaw in relations between the nation’s elite colleges and the Reserve Officer Training Corps, which was thrown out of most colleges during the Vietnam War’s spate of anti-draft foment.

(The Lion notes that while the entire Vietnam controversy was painted as anti-war, it was driven by college anti-draft sentiment, evidenced by the collapse of the large anti-war public movement following the end of the draft. Hence, anti-draft foment. Which is not to impugn those who were truly anti-war, merely those who were merely anti-drafters in sheepish clothing.)

Much is made in the Bender article of the significance of the recent loosening of the anti-gay elements of military policy as the reason for the warming in relations between college administrations, faculty, and students, and the ROTC apparatus.

But more telling is this bit:

Many professors, students, and administrators say the more welcoming climate is a result of growing support for the military since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

That is not a good reason to welcome the military back to campus. It’s dead wrong. It ignores the last nine years of history.

The military, albeit following the orders of a corrupt civilian bureaucracy, has wasted lives and money for nine years pursuing unattainable goals.

Almost a trillion dollars has drained into two useless wars that have claimed thousands of American lives, helped cripple the economy at home, destroyed two countries, one of which had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks, the other guilty of no more than hosting a terrorist organization but not supporting or engaging in the attacks.

Hundreds of thousands of innocent people are dead due to United States military policy. Millions have been made homeless, indeed, stateless. Tens of thousands have been wrongly imprisoned. Hundreds, if not thousands, have been tortured, and many of them murdered under torture by United States troops and intelligence operatives.

The actions of the military and the civilian government have brought disgrace and shame upon the United States, and nothing legitimate has been gained. The government of Iraq is a shambles, and is no more a democracy than a collection of squabbling religious and political factions clawing for a piece of the pie. In Afghanistan the Taliban, who were never the enemy, who are essentially a group of religious thugs out of the fifteenth century, continue to prove the impotence of the American military, which insists on empowering the Taliban by supporting a blatantly corrupt government in Kabul and by killing civilians at will, often, it would seem, for sport.

So while there may be reasonable reasons for bringing ROTC back to the elite college campus, supporting the military for its actions since September 11 should not be among them.

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Technorati Tags: ROTC, Politics, War, Elite College, Iraq, Aghanistan

What Obama Should Be Saying To Americans… April 24, 2010

President Obama needs to get out his rhetorical weapons and say to the American people:

The Republicans stand with Wall Street, and Wall Street stands on your neck.

Technorati Tags: Politics, Obama, Republicans, Wall Street

How To Break Arizona’s Police State April 24, 2010

Yesterday, with lots of fanfare and press coverage and noisy citizens on both sides of the issue, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed a draconian law that targets people with dark skin, Latino features, and dark hair.

The law says those people have to carry immigration papers and that Arizona police have to ask them to show those papers on demand.

It’s not really a big step from ‘Let’s see your papers, boy,’ to ‘Show me your papers, spic!’ to ‘Juden raus!’

According to the press there will be immediate court challenges. In the meantime, anyone who looks Hispanic is at risk of being accosted by cops, and anyone who looks Hispanic and is an American citizen is at risk of being accosted by cops, misidentified, and thrown in the slammer.

But Governor Brewer has a solution to the problem of racial profiling. According to the story in today’s Globe:

She said racial profiling will not be tolerated, adding, “We have to trust our law enforcement.’’

Yup. That’ll do it.

So what’s a Hispanic to do?

First thing is for Arizona Hispanics to get their act together, register to vote, and throw the fools out of office at the next election.

In the meantime, Latinos should all act guilty. Seriously. If everyone who looks Hispanic starts acting guilty, looking over their shoulder, walking the other way when they see a cop, how long can the law be viable? If everybody looks guilty to the cops, the cops will have to give it up. And the only criteria they have on which to decide who to harass is looks. So, Latinos, sidle a little, look over your shoulder, glance furtively a lot, avoid cops, pretend to be guilty of something heinous or even misdemeanorous, hang out where you know illegals hang out. Make the cops sweat.

The Lion wonders how the cops are going to feel when a Hispanic, decorated Iraq war veteran comes home with a case of PTSD, and being stopped by some donut-stuffed, macho, “Cops”-watching cop, goes off on him and gets killed by the cop, or vice-versa. The Lion suggests to Ms. Brewer and the legislators of Arizona that that’s pretty much a sure thing. Maybe they should be making those phone calls of sympathy now to the families of every Arizona veteran who looks Hispanic.

The Arizona power structure moans that the Federal government hasn’t done anything to help them deal with immigration problems, so that’s why they need to institutionalize racial profiling and codify it into law. Of course, in the next breath they’ll complain about socialist government, communists in the White House, and government interference in the rights of (white) man.

But of course the Feds do have responsibilities in the matter, but the yahoos and rednecks in suits that the states send to the Senate and the House have done their best to screw up every effort by the government to get a handle on the problem. They apparently want to treat everyone who’s not white as a subhuman, not worthy of respect or dignity, while taking a hands-off approach to the white owners and businessmen who provide jobs to illegals, along with gutter wages and ripoffs.

It’s amusing to see the fat old white men and women bitching about illegal aliens who come to America to commit crimes and take jobs and breed. It’s likely none of those complaining ever worked as hard as most of the illegals do, for as little money, under such adverse circumstances.

Setting up draconian requirements for the eleven million who are already here, demanding money they haven’t got, and back taxes on pay nobody can really account for, isn’t going to work either. A good many of them already pay taxes, just to appear legal.

They’re here. They’re working. Admit it, and admit that a good part of the reason they’re here is because the government has failed to act in a reasonable and effective way to deal with them. There’s no point in trying to punish them. Instead, consider them a resource. Set reasonable requirements: learn English, study for citizenship, pass tests. And make sure employers pay legal wages.

Beef up the border, but don’t turn it into a Berlin wall or an Israeli wall. Find another way. And don’t leave these people to die in the desert. They’re human. They want to work. They want to raise families. They want food in their bellies. They’re willing to work and work hard for their families, for their children. They’re not different from most Americans.

Except for that color thing, and that looking Hispanic thing, which is all that the Arizona legislature and governor can seem to see.

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Technorati Tags: Jan Brewer, Arizona, Racial Profiling, Immigration Law, Illegal Immigration, Arizona Border, New Arizona Law, Arizona Legislature, Politics, Race, Hispanics, Latinos, Illegals

Pope Jonny Rats: Crocodile Tears For The Gullible April 23, 2010

Yesterday’s Globe headlined an article ‘Pope promises action against abuses’, from the Associated Press, written by Nicole Winfield, in which the Pope’s meeting with eight abuse survivors in Malta is discussed.

The eight men with whom Pope Jonny Rats met were abused by priests when the men were children in a church orphanage.

Pope Rats is quoted:

“I shared with them their suffering, and emotionally prayed with them, assuring them of church action,’’ Benedict told the audience.

The Vatican public relations machine issued at the time of the meeting a statement “saying Benedict had told the men that the church would do everything in its power to bring justice to abusive priests and would protect children.”

The Lion might note, if he were at all cynical, that the statement, and a Pope’s involvement in a manner other than engaging in child abuse himself, are probably about fifteen hundred years too late.

But in the midst of all the spin and noise and teary redemptive blah-blah from Pope Rats, we might note the following:

“Pope Benedict is obviously anguished by sexual abuse in the church, as evidenced by his emotional meeting with victims in Malta,’’ said the Rev. Jim Martin, a Jesuit priest and author. “The personal impact on the pope should not be underestimated as a goad for continuing reform. But follow-up is paramount.’’

And:

Benedict met with them in the Vatican’s embassy for about a half-hour, praying with them and listening to their stories.

The devil, as they say, is in the details.

Eight men.

Eight lifetimes of living with the torment of being abused by priests.

And Pope Rats, who may have covered up child molestation by priests earlier in his career, gave those eight souls an entire half-hour, some of it filled with praying and assuring.

Thirty minutes. Let’s say twenty after RatMan did his praying thing and crocodile tear thing and made other faux sympathy noises.

That leaves a little over two minutes for each man to tell his story of abuse and how it affected his life.

Two minutes.

The only thing colder than trying to pass off this pathetic excuse of a meeting as evidence of reform is the long history of abuse and molestation that was deliberately hidden by these pathetic, sorry excuses for men hiding behind fancy robes and gold chalices as they spat on the words of Jesus.

These foul, sick men give a whole new meaning to the words “Suffer little children to come unto me.”

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Technorati Tags: Pope Benedict, Catholic Church, Religion, Hypocrisy, Pope Jonny Rats, Malta, Vatican, Child Abuse