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This perfectly sums up what the whole problem is with our government today.

We’re at a big turning point in America.

We have plenty of money. America is not broke. It’s how we’ve chosen to spend it that is causing so many problems. We have a big disconnect on what economics works and what fails.

There is the Republican/Tea Party faction that wants spending cuts, no new taxes, lower the taxes we have, and stopping America from doing great things. They don’t even want to put enough into the country to keep it a civilized society.

There are the progressives who are willing to dream big, to win World War II, to put men on the moon, to build an international space station, to rebuild Europe and Japan after World War II, to build the interstate highway system, to create the best public school system in the world, and to build the modern infrastructure we enjoyed for three generations.

Our greatness was hijacked by the Reagan administration, when he refused to continue investing in this country, over-spent on defense, and tripled the national debt.

I want pre-Reagan (Carter) America back. I want our greatness back. I want America to do great things again. We have a choice. We can do better. Let’s choose a greater American future.

Technorati Tags: Lean Forward campaign 2011, MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, TRMS

November 2010 seems like a distant memory. If I recall correctly, the election of Nov. 2010 was supposed to be about jobs and the economy. Remember? Jobs, jobs, jobs?

30 Seconds of Rachel Maddow on the 2010 election:

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After 187 days, 19 hours, (as of this writing) the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has presented absolutely no jobs bills. In fact, they’ve changed the conversation to completely exclude jobs, other than harping that tax increases of any kind will kill jobs growth, and if that happens “so be it”. Oy!

I wrote about tax cuts and the economy previously: If tax cuts work so well, why aren’t we rich? All they want to argue about are a bunch of social and ideological issues, tax cuts, the national debt, the budget deficit and national debt ceiling.

Republicans want us to be afraid of a lot of things that have nothing to do with our own bread and butter issues. They’ve changed the conversation away from jobs, wages, benefits and workers’ rights. Republicans were elected to deal directly with those issues. They have only harmed us. They’ve done nothing to help.

Republicans are succeeding at making us afraid of each other and for our Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits, which we paid for through payroll taxes. Those programs had nothing to do with our current fiscal disaster and must be left alone.

The only current issues are increasing taxes on the rich and corporations, and increasing the debt ceiling. The House should pass a bill to increase the debt ceiling to a reasonable amount to keep America’s debt obligations paid while allowing for the federal government to spend, create jobs and grow the country out of this recession.

You can’t cut your way out of a recession. When you need more money, more money has to come in. At home, we call that getting a second job. In government, we call that raising tax revenue by several means (increasing taxes, ending subsidies and deductions, etc.). Taxes on millionaires and billionaires should be raised to at least the pre-Bush tax cut rates. They will expire at the end of 2012 anyway, and shouldn’t be renewed under any circumstances.

No deal should have to be struck to raise the debt ceiling. This tactic is holding the middle class, the country, and the world economy hostage so Republicans can get tax cuts for their fat-cat supporters. They are willing to flush the full faith and credit of the United States of America down the toilet for their corporate overlords.

Fortunately, if no reasonable deal can be made in time, the 4th section of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution can be invoked by the president to meet all our debts:

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.

It shouldn’t take such a measure to get Congress to do its job, but it’s there if we need it.

The debt and deficit are not current issues. They eventually must be dealt with, but right now, today, we need to increase the debt ceiling and work on getting Americans back to work making middle class salaries so we can pay our middle class taxes, grow the economy, and make it possible to reduce the budget deficit and national debt in the near future.

The Democratic Progressive Caucus has the only budget plan that deals with today’s problems and sets the budget up to be balanced in about 7 years, and reduce the national debt from that point onward. I’ll write more about deficits and debt in another post. There is a lot to it.

Subsidies to large corporations need to be cut off completely. That would raise a fair amount of revenue immediately. High profit corporations don’t need the money, and the rest of the economy does. Those subsidies would make some great jobs programs.

It’s time to stop all the arguments about social issues, ideological issues, tax cuts and debt reduction. It’s time to work on jobs, jobs, jobs!!! I implore you, Americans, vote for the country’s fiscal well-being in 2011 and 2012.

I ask you again, Speaker Boehner, where is your jobs bill? Where are the jobs?

Anyone else have a question for Speaker Boehner? Write it here and I’ll forward a message to his office with all your questions and comments.

In the meantime, if you’re American, please write or call your Congressperson: 202-224-3121.

Technorati Tags: employment difficulties, House Republican Majority Leader, jobs, John Boehner, national debt, national debt ceiling, Rachel Maddow, taxes, U.S. economy, wages

This article is part 16 in a multi-part series about the Ugandan anti-homosexuality bill of 2009, better known as the Ugandan kill-the-gays bill. It is still alive and on the Ugandan Parliament agenda for debate at the end of 2010 or early in 2011.

This interview with the sponsor of this horrible legislation is enlightening on a very deep level. Being able to discuss Mr. Bahati’s bill directly with him is an extremely rare opportunity, and provides a clear and frightening picture of what he is trying to accomplish in Uganda with the gay population there.

The first 15 articles can be accessed at the following links:

• Part 1: Born in the USA
• Part 2: Horrific Details
• Part 3: American Silence is Deafening
• Part 4: HIV-AIDS Statistics in Uganda
• Part 5: State Dept Must Make US Policy Clear
• Part 6: Richard Cohen and debunking gay cure
• Part 7: Evangelicals were for it before they were against it
• Part 8: Rick Warren forced to oppose Ugandan bill
• Part 9: Condemn the bill to Uganda’s President
• Part 10: The Family finally condemns bill
• Part 11: Not to become law
• Part 12: Family leader Bob Hunter interview
• Part 13: Now it’s the imprison-the-gays-for-life bill
• Part 14: Obama Speaks of Ugandan bill at U.S. Family National Prayer Breakfast
• Part 15: Archbishop Orombi still supports draconian bill

American history: foundational myths about being gay:

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“Gays can’t reproduce so they must recruit”. What a crock. Gays and lesbians are born that way, usually as the product of straight parents. We don’t exactly know why that is, but there a few strongly-supported theories being studied that may explain what we see in nature.

Ten percent (on average) of all mammalian species are homosexual, not just humans, therefore, homosexuality exists consistently in nature and is a normal variant within populations.

Gays and lesbians can reproduce and/or parent adopted children. Egg and sperm donors and surrogate mothers allow couples of both genders to have children biologically related to one or both partners. Children of gay and lesbian parents (biological or adopted) generally turn out straight, not always, but most of the time.

David Bahati Interview (part 1):

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David Bahati says, “I don’t hate gays, I love them”. But he’ll kill every one of them to protect the Ugandan children. According to Mr. Bahati, telling children or teens that a man sleeping with a man is okay is tantamount to recruiting kids into being gay.

He also believes that gays do not deserve human rights protections.

David Bahati Interview (part 2):

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Mr. Bahati doesn’t want to stop at keeping gays away from children. He wants all gay Ugandans punished, no matter where they are in the world. He wants gay Ugandans extradited back to Uganda to stand trial for homosexual behavior whenever it occurs outside of Uganda.

God’s Law and Homosexuality

In the Bible, we first encounter homosexual gang rape in Genesis 18-19 in the story of Lot and the city of Sodom. Gay sex is listed as a sin in Hebrew law (Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13), it is called an abomination, and the penalty is death. It doesn’t say anything about lesbian sex.

In Deuteronomy 22:5, cross-dressing is forbidden. A woman may not put on a man’s clothing, and a man may not put on a woman’s clothing. All of we women who wear pants are definitely in violation of this law.

These laws were specifically designed by God to prohibit the Children of Israel from imitating a variety of acts practiced by other tribes and nations surrounding the Israelites. (See Deuteronomy 18:9).

There is the whole story of David and Jonathan possibly being bisexual lovers. David had many wives. But the story of the relationship between these two men is quite suspicious (See 1 Sam. 20:17), and David got away with a lot of bad stuff and still ended up with a sterling reputation. He could have gotten away with a homosexual relationship, too.

Mr. Bahati gives his own opinion of God’s law as well as saying Jesus preached the same prohibitions against homosexuality. Jesus never preached anything concerning homosexuality specifically, but his Apostle, Paul, did. On the subject of adultery, Jesus stopped the stoning of a woman for adultery, saying “he who is without sin, cast the first stone”. Jesus saved the woman’s life by reminding everyone that no one is without sin, and mercy and forgiveness should be shown over strident application of Hebrew law. Jesus preached love, mercy and forgiveness, and I do not believe he would have considered today’s gay or lesbian couples to be abominations.

People of that time were ignorant of a homosexual nature with which a person is born, a nature involving romantic love of another person of the same sex. Their experience was limited to the sexual religious practices of the Canaanites and other local tribes that would have been pretty appealing to the Israelites. (Imagine orgies instead of church).

Mr. Bahati is correct that the Bible has prohibitions against homosexual sex, but the laws were not meant literally for a modern world. They were meant to keep the Israelites from participating in the practices of worshiping the gods of the other nations surrounding them (including idol worship, cultic prostitution, incest, homosexuality, bestiality, and infant sacrifice).

If one wants to talk about rampant sins, adultery is a very big problem in African cultures as well as most of the rest of the world. We no longer punish adulterers with stoning or scarlet letters or banishment. That is seen as ridiculous. Since homosexuality and adultery are discussed in the Bible in the same passages on laws about sex, homosexuality laws in the Bible should also be seen today in the same light as adultery.

To date, Mr. Bahati has sent nothing to The Rachel Maddow Show showing any facts supporting his allegation that gays recruit children into homosexuality.

David Bahati Interview (part 3):

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Mr. Bahati does not understand that there is such a thing as international law and punishment for human rights atrocities, and imprisoning and executing gays for being gay would certainly be an atrocity.

Jeff Sharlet Reports

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Conservative American supporters inside The Family and out, are exporting the fight against homosexuality to Uganda and David Bahati. When/if he wins the war there he will bring the lessons of the victory back to America to restart the conservative war against homosexuality in America and try again to win it.

Fortunately, I believe, and so do many others, that gays and lesbians will have full and equal civil rights as all other Americans by the time Uganda gets done with their bill.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has already been repealed. Joe Biden sees a path clearing for legalizing same-sex marriage all over the country, and even President Obama is beginning to see same-sex marriage as the institution that will be instated rather than civil unions.

Over the past 21 months of working closely with gays and lesbians on DADT, it seems President Obama has come to see their lives and relationships as much more similar to straight relationships than they are different from them. I say bravo for the President.

You can watch the full, unedited interview here on MaddowBlog.

Technorati Tags: C Street, David Bahati, Jeff Sharlet, kill-the-gays bill, Rachel Maddow, The Family, The Fellowship, Uganda