"God Told Me So": The Dangerous Delusions of the Religious Republican

by Nomad

It's strange that the typical conservative voter would reject in a courtroom the very thing they openly support in their presidential candidates.

Last week, as reported by local media,  the courts in Cobbs County, Georgia  heard defense of an 18-year-old woman Olivia Nicole Smith. She is accused of the horrific stabbing murder her step-cousin, 17-year-old high school Abbey Hebert. 

According to her testimony, Smith claimed to neighbors, right after the murder, that God had made her do it after she and her cousin smoked marijuana together. She explained that she had "an overwhelming feeling of God coming to her: and that God had disapproved of her behavior.
In response to this imagined judgment, the young woman had an argument with her relative. That argument somehow ended in a butcher knife of murder in the victim's front yard. Prior to this, both victim and accused murderer had been close friends.

The public was justifiably outraged by the sensational crime.   

Of course, it wouldn't be the first time that God (or Satan) has been the alleged accomplice/mastermind of some otherwise inexplicable crime. In fact, it's a pretty common thing.

Astoundingly, in the very same county in Georgia, back in 2008, then 36-year-old Donna Marie Redding told the police that her husband, Gary Dean Parnell, taken the Lord’s name in vain once too many times. 

(For those of you keeping score, that's Commandment Number 3 - taking God's name in vain- while the prohibition on murder is Commandment Number 6.)

Redding's religious sensibilities were utterly offended by all this loose talk, she claimed, and for this reason, Jesus commanded her to shoot her man with a 12-gauge shotgun in the stomach.

The Vitally Important Lessons that Syrian Refugees Have to Teach America

by Nomad

A recent article from Detroit reminds us that Syrian refugees have something important to teach all of us about where we came from, who we now are and what we will become.

The arrests of two Iraqi refugees on charges of providing material support to ISIS this week has provided new impetus for governors to attempt to block Syrian refugee efforts. Their crusade, which runs counter to their actual authority, has naturally met with some serious stumbling-blocks.
Those obstacles are unlikely to force them to stop. For  some time now we have all watched as Republicans seized upon the Syrian refugees as a political issue, stoking as much as possible public fears. 

One state, Michigan, has taken in about 200 Syrian refugees, one of the highest of all states in the U.S. In November, after the Paris attacks, Governor Snyder -like many governors- demanded a halt to accepting any further Syrian refugees. 

Snyder cited security concerns and the possibility of terrorist infiltration. Never mind that there were already rigorous checks and screenings. Never mind that in the Paris attacks, only one of the 13 terrorists was born outside of France and Abdelhamid Abaaoud was born in Belgium, not in the Middle East, and definitely not in Syria.

Facts, facts, facts, what untidy things they are.

Meanwhile we have armed militias dressed up as soldiers seizing federal property in Oregon and advocating rising up" against the tyranny of the federal government. Nobody on the Right, as far as I know, has suggested deportation for these louts.

Fake Life Savers: Turkish Police Raid Reveals the Extent of Exploitation of Syrian Refugees

by Nomad

The news out of Turkey about the refugees attempting to make the treacherous crossing into Europe just keeps getting worse. We can now add yet another danger: counterfeit lifejackets.

Police in Turkey's third largest city of Izmir raided an underground workshop this week,  seizing large numbers of unsafe lifejackets. The cut-rate jackets to be sold to refugees crossing the dangerous straits between Turkey and Greece.

According to the local reports  (linked below), the more than 1000 life jackets failed to meet recognized safety standards, and were filled with "packaging" rather than the proper materials needed to maintain proper bouyancy.

The workshop was found to be operating in the heart of the city. As if that were not bad enough, authorities also found that the workshop had employed unaged Syrian workers to help in the manufacture.

The news report noted that four people were found working in the workshop, including two young Syrian girls. Refugees are not permitted to work legally in the country where the unemployment rate among Turkish citizens is already high. 

Flatline: Why the GOP Has Become a Political Party that Deserves to Die

by Nomad

Is it time to ask whether we are actually witnessing the passing of a political party?

If you are beginning to feel like politics in the US has hit an all time low, you are not alone. 

Mike McCabe has seen the failure of the two-party system close up. 

As the executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan watchdog group that specializes in tracking the money in state elections, he has been achingly aware that the Grand Old Party isn't so grand anymore. 

While Progressives have had their share of doubts with the Democrats, the Republican Party could hardly get any more farcical and bizarre than it is at the moment. 

The days of Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower and even Reagan are long gone and what remains is little more than hucksterism, fleecing the 1% and appealing the worst aspects of American culture, such as intolerance, irrational fear, and willful ignorance.  

Ohio Draft Law Would Mandate Women to Pay for "Respectful" But Costly Fetus Disposal

by Nomad

Yet another attempt to create a legislative obstacle for   women trying to obtain a legal, safe and private abortion in Ohio.   

When it comes to the war on women and their reproductive rights, the pro-life opposition appears willing to stop at nothing, no matter how outrageous. 

Politically, it doesn't seem to make much sense. A Gallup poll from earlier this year found that 50 percent of Americans now call themselves pro-choice, including 54 percent of women and 46 percent of men. On the other hand, only 44 percent of respondents labeled themselves pro-life, the lowest response in more than five years.

That doesn't seem to make much difference to Ohio legislators, Republicans State Rep. Kyle Koehler, Sen. Joe Uecker, and Rep. Robert McColley. They have introduced a bill requiring women who have had abortions to complete an official form provided by the Ohio Department of Health.

This form would force women to indicate how they wish the fetus to be disposed of, that is, whether they would prefer to cremation or burial.

Clinics would be required to perform the designated method then could require the women treated to pay the cost, according to a Ohio Public Radio report.

There are just so many things wrong with the proposed legislation. For one thing, it is doubtful whether it would ever be considered constitutional. 

That's because the key factor in the landmark 1972 Roe v. Wade SCOTUS decision was its infringement by the state on the woman's right to privacy. Such an infringement was warranted only if there was some kind of credible justification for state interference in that right to individual privacy.