Conservative Family Values and Reality: The Secret Ted Cruz's Mother Tried to Hide

by Nomad

The Party of Personal Responsibility

Recently, during the Republican debates, Presidential candidate, and Senator Ted Cruz, while taking a swing at front-runner Donald Trump, attempted to employ his brand of divisive politics by slighting New York values, presumably as a contrast to the true values of the heartland.

Along with faith and patriotism, one of those values Cruz says he prizes above all else is family. As defined by conservatives. that's a mother, father, and children under the same roof. Except for abstinence-endorsing Bristol Palin, single mothers with children born out of wedlock are strictly unwelcome. This is, after all, the party of personal responsibility.    

That's why the details of Cruz's family history come as a bit of a shock. Although the facts have been camouflaged and dates have been skillfully blurred or altered if one account is correct, the unofficial story is a different -and much more interesting- one.

The Starkville Enclave: How a Mississippi Town is Defying Failed GOP Policy

by Nomad

When it comes to searching for good news, Mississippi is probably the last place anybody would think to look. Mississippi has been called- for so many reasons- America's Third World.
However, even in failed state, there are pockets of positive news. You just have to know where to look.

The Showcase of Conservative Policy in Action

Nobody will argue with one thing about Mississippi. The Magnolia State is probably the most conservative state in the country. For decades now it is and has been almost totally under the near absolute control of Republican, from the governor to the chamber of the state legislatures. It is the closet thing America has to a one-party system.

And like a lot of one-party nations, the results are appalling. 

Mississippi should have been a conservative showcase.,, if Republican policy actually worked It should have been the one place where conservatives could have held as a model of success  in order to exalt their brand. 

Yet, of  all of the states, Mississippi is a testament to the failure of conservative policy. 

Need evidence?

In general, the South has long been crippled by the sort of poverty that is handed down from generation to generation. Nine of the top 10 poorest states are found in the South. Some have tried to make the case that the South has never recovered from the Civil War. 

That's possible, but then that was an awfully long ago. Europe was rebuilt in less than a generation, Japan and Russia were both devastated following a war but quickly managed to rise from the ashes. Besides, as every  narrow minded conservative would tell you, you shouldn't constantly blame the past for the present lack of initiative, right? Whose fault is it if you haven't become a success? Right? (Wasn't it conservative Michele Bachmann who said that all cultures were not equal? She wasn't talking about the Southern culture. of course.) 

But, even by the South's own low standards, the situation in Mississippi is a cryin' shame.

Economically of all states, Mississippi  comes in dead last in terms of per capita income. The primary reasons are pretty basic, a lack of  secure employment, decent wages, and healthcare.  

Poorest Area of the Poorest State

The Mississippi Delta region is the poorest area of the poorest state and it is the kind of poverty that should have compassionate legislators working overtime. Unfortunately not so in Mississippi.

Christopher Masingill, joint head of the Delta Regional Authority, a development agency. puts it this way: “You can’t out-poor the Delta." Masingill points out that the people of the Mississippi Delta have a lower life expectancy than in Tanzania; other areas do not yet have proper sanitation. 
And like a Third World, the people of the region have given up hope and many are concentrating their efforts not in building but leaving. 

Since 1940, the region’s population has fallen by almost half. Ask any Third Worlder why they risk (and often losing) their lives coming to Europe or America. It will be the same as answer from those leaving the Delta. It's hopeless to keep trying where there is no opportunity. The system has been built to keep people down.

Why Limbaugh's Attacks on Pope Francis are an Assault on Christian Faith

by Nomad

When radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh castigated the Pope for being "Marxist," the hate radio DJ didn't mention that Pope Francis' statement on economic inequality was actually based on long-established Christian doctrine.

Those principles go back to the origins of religion. In criticizing the head of the Catholic faith, Limbaugh was attacking the very foundation of the Christian faith.

The other day, Rush Limbaugh passed his own judgement on Pope Francis' papal statement, entitled 'Evangelli Gaudium" (The Joy of Gospel). Limbaugh told his radio audience that the pope's words were straight-out Marxist. Shocking!

This is just pure Marxism coming out of the mouth of the pope... And to hear the pope regurgitating this stuff, I was profoundly disappointed. The idolatry of money, urging "politicians to 'attack the structural causes of inequality' and strive to provide work, health care and education to all citizens."

Limbaugh suggested that the Pope's remarks must have been written for him by a liberal. He also blasted the Pope's analysis on the so-called "trickle-down" economics.

So reading what the pope's written about this is really befuddling because he's totally wrong -- I mean, dramatically, embarrassingly, puzzlingly wrong.

Here's another excerpt. "Pope Francis said that trickle-down policy..." We hear about trickle-down policies? "Pope Francis said that trickle-down policies have not proven to work."Oh, but they have.... Trickle-down is human nature! Trickle-down is exactly what happens when you engage in economic activity.... Trickle-down is the magic, and yet here's Pope Francis saying that "trickle-down policies have not been proven to work and they reflect a 'naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power.'"

Promoting the magic of trickle-down economics, (even when the dismal effects are destroying the lives of millions of Americans) is not a very convincing counter argument. Trickle-down economics has surely had enough time to prove its validity and all it has shown is that the wealthy can protect their riches better than the rest of us.
Calling it human nature is hardly an excuse when most religions seek to reform nature of humans. Of course, uplifting the human spirit from the animal level isn't really something Limbaugh knows much about. Obviously.

Harvard Economist or university graduate ... or authority on Christian doctrine.. conservative talk show DJ Limbaugh has decided if it worked for him and all his friends, it's worked for the whole country. Never mind the people who got in the way.

Actually, some of the people who got in the way worked beside Limbaugh.  Clear Channel, Limbaugh's boss, laid off 1,850 workers -9% of its work force- in 2011.
Another trickle down success?

Henry Wallace and The Last Progressive Party

by Nomad

(image courtesy of MoveOn.org)

In the Midst of all These Riches

The quote on the right comes from Henry A. Wallace's book, “Democracy Reborn.”
Today the book is not so easy to find and Wallace's name means very little to most Americans.

Nevertheless, I think the man deserves a little attention because, when you look over his words and ideals, Wallace seems- in some ways- ahead of his time.

For example, he also wrote:

“Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion."

That sounds achingly familiar to the speeches made during the Occupy movement.

Henry Wallace was the 33rd Vice President of the United States under Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was the closest he ever got to the White House. Before that, Wallace had served as Secretary of Agriculture during the dust bowl days which saw Americans desperately fighting for survival.

The Republican Party’s Problem Child: We Need to Talk about Mitt

by Nomad

I f you have been following the latest campaign news, you have undoubtedly heard that the presumptive nominee has finally got himself in what I call, the classic liar’s bind. 

That is, he has told so many different lies to so many people (and under oath as well) that there is now no possible way that any of them can be plausibly fit together into a “workable” truth. In short, the man the Republicans are counting on to put them back into power is an unmitigated mess. 

His timeline about when he left Bain Capital has recently been cast in significant doubt. Again. 

From the latest news, it seems as though he has lied under oath to either the SEC or the Massachusetts Ballot Law Commission. And if those reports are true that he was still involved in the decision making at Bain Capital, it opens a whole Pandora’s Box of problems. Bain’s corporate behavior after 1999 regarding closing of American companies, firing of American workers and outsourcing to China and Mexico will all undermine his claims of being a job creator. (For a examination of that issue click here and here.. and here.)

You Cannot Deny Women..

https://twitter.com/#!/ANomadicView/status/172104667277438980

The Sudden Death of the Living Wage: ACORN 3/3

by Nomad

In the previous posts (Part One) (Part Two), we have looked into the meaning and importance of the living wage movement. We have also examined both the Conservative argument against and the history of the movement. In the final part of this three part series, we will examine at the more recent attempts at establishing a living wage and the organization that was destined to achieve some impressive results.  

The Rebirth of the Movement

One organization took up the cause of campaigning for a living wage and throughout the 1990s, won unprecedented successes. It was called “the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families, working together for social justice and stronger communities" with the name the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known as ACORN.

Ilyse Hogue, writing for The Nation, gives this summary about the important role that ACORN played.

ACORN was unique as an organization that served our nation’s poor people. Wrangling with life’s common challenges like mortgages and housing forms, ACORN employees built trust by offering help person to person, neighborhood by neighborhood. They then leveraged that trust to lobby for federal legislation to address the root causes of the crises facing these people—predatory lending, lack of community investment and stagnant wages.