It turns out that devout French Catholics may have been committing blasphemy for the last half-century when saying the Lord’s Prayer. It appears that the official French translation of the line “Lead us not into temptation” was translated into French in 1966 in a way that could be wrongly interpreted. [Read more…]
So it is the morning of the 16th day of the shut down and the stalemate over that and the debt ceiling continues. As is almost universally accepted, this is entirely due to the efforts of a minority of members within the Republican party who seem to be driven by a fervor that has seized on the Affordable Care Act as some kind of demon possessing the body politic that must be exorcised or the nation will plunge over the cliff like the pigs in the Bible. They say they will not accept anything less than a major undermining of the ACA. [Read more…]
One of the interesting things about the current government and debt ceiling impasses is that some of the harshest criticisms of Republican party tactics are coming from conservatives who can’t seem to believe how rapidly their party is going downhill. Here is Rod Dreher writing in The American Conservative asking, “Is this what American conservatism is turning into?” He cites a memo about what a focus group of Republicans revealed about what is driving the Republican party extremism. [Read more…]
The headline on this article in today’s Washington Post says it all: “Senate leaders’ talks on shutdown, debt limit stall as sides await market’s reaction”. Apparently, the leaders in Congress are waiting to see what happens to the stock market today to see if there is a crisis that will force them to act. [Read more…]
In all these discussions over the Affordable Care Act and its Medicaid provision, the Republican party talks in high-minded terms of the cost, and they sigh regretfully that any adverse consequences for the working poor are the unfortunate side effects of the sacrifice we have to make for the sake of our children and grandchildren. Those hurt now are collateral damage, if you will, and need to suck it up. [Read more…]
Martin Longman provides a helpful summary of the current state of affairs. It is pretty complicated. [Read more…]
In his grandstanding against the Affordable Care Act in particular and president Obama in general, the rhetoric of US senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has been getting more and more extreme. In a speech to the Values Voters Summit, the annual gathering of all the right wing religious nutcases (take a look at the list of invited speakers), he said that Obama is seeking to void the entire Bill of Rights, facetiously including the little known Third Amendment which prevents the government from requiring people to put up soldiers in their homes. [Read more…]
Republicans have a lock on all statewide elected positions in Ohio and have comfortable majorities in both legislative bodies, with the exception of the US senate where Sherrod Brown is one of the senators. So they can do pretty much what they like and one of the things they like to do is restrict women’s health options by passing legislation that “defund Planned Parenthood, block grants to rape crisis centers that refer women to abortion clinics, and prevent abortion clinics from transferring patients to public hospitals in the case of severe complications.” [Read more…]