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Planned Parenthood is Winning by Republican Default

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When congress left Washington without a vote on the budget, an old bill defunding visits to women's clinics expired. This means the funding restarts . Anti-abortion groups are steaming mad. Anti-abortionists have always tried to demonize Planned Parenthood. It was as if Planned Parenthood was the reason there are abortions. The reason there are abortions, of course, it because women want them. If it weren't Planned Parenthood running clinics it would be someone else. In fact there are groups right now that would step up if the market needed them. One of the things that has always annoyed anti-abortion is that Planned Parenthood provides medical services to poor women. Anti-abortion assumes that revenue from these services funds abortions. So far as I know this is not true. It is just another preoccupation anti-abortion needs to get over. Republicans in Congress went on break without reauthorization of the bill that harmed Planned Parenthood and poor women. It is obvious most of...
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Trump at Mt. Rushmore: Communists are Back

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In what borders of parody, Trump railed against "communists" at Mr. Rushmore. None of the four faces in Mt. Rushmore were against communists nor against government. All were responsible for some government expansion. Washington gave the green light to the government growth of Alexander Hamilton. Before the, Washington chaired the Constitutional Convention establishing a stronger federal government over interstate commerce. Lincoln decided all states must knuckle under, so he defeated the South.  In the link's report of his speech, Trump hints that immigrants are communists. Pope Leo gave an address recently where he admonished the continents of Europe and America to welcome the newcomer. This is the opposite of Trump who likes to hint immigrants are not the right race, creed or loyalty. I'll admit it's creative to bring back "communists" as the villain. Trump noted the original Russian version of communism saw Christianity as an enemy of Communism and wo...
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Tucker Carlson's 3rd Party Already Exists

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There has been news recently that personality Tucker Carlson will "help" build a third political party. My observation of talk show hosts, and it's not true of all of them, is they like to make sweeping generalizations and leave out the details. Sometimes the details are facts, sometimes intellectual content. In Tucker's case it seems both. There is a huge third party already. It has been growing. It is called "swing voters," "independent voters" and "undecided voters." Every election cycle, networks and columnists feature pieces with the lead-in, "Let's to into real America and find out what voters are thinking." They interview a few people then feature one or two from every perspective. We never learn what "the public" is thinking. Invariably a person or two will say something like, "I'm very particular about who I vote for. Neither party has put up a candidate good enough for me." Such self-importa...
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Talarico Looks Like an Obama II

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We all have our ideas about what is good or smart politics. I'm no different. Those who read this blog have to hear mine. My thinking is millions of voters will go to the polls in the next two elections for the specific purpose of voting against Trump. Most of these voters, however, will not admit that is why or how they are voting. They will have convinced themselves they are voting for some reason more idealistic and loftier. An example of what they might say to themselves is, "I'm voting for a better country." The job of Democrats, Libertarians, Socialists and whomever is to give those voters something that ends the sentence, "I'm voting for someone other than a Republican because..."  The sentence will not end in "...I hate Trump." It will be something else. That is what Texas Govitorial Candidate Talarico is doing so well.   Talarico is telling Texans their state is too big and too important to yield to the narrow views of the far right. T...
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Which Myths are Most Accurate? Written in Stone or Verbal History

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In Peru is a statue carved in stone. It is engraved with a text which says that particular location was, or remains, the center of the universe. In the Bible we have the Garden of Eden, thought to be in today's Iran. The Bible says that is where history began, i,e, center of the universe. The statue in Peru and the story in the Bible date to about the same time, some years BCE. Which is "the truth?" The term "written in stone" indicates power and longevity. Unfortunately, the god of the stone did not last forever and, like all the other gods, is lost in the sands of time. It could well be that god lasted longer than our current on in Christianity will last. It exists due to oral history and what sins that god condemns changes regularly. It could be that if Christians had written the Bible on stones instead of on pieces of papyrus that are long gone the faith would not continue to change. The wealthy Green family of Hobby Lobby funded the Museum of the Bible. I a...
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Dems Chant, "We Are Going to Hell," May Go Nationwide

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Perhaps is stems from Ron Reagan's unscripted trailer, "I'm not afraid of hell." Wherever, Texas dems at their convention chanted, "We are all going to hell." It seems like the perfect kind of ridicule for today's young voters. It makes light of Christianity's weaponized mythology. The stage was set for "not afraid of hell" by polling. It seems to me and to many others the percentage of people who actually thought of themselves as Christian, who said they pray and who said they believed the Christian God really existed, has always been overstated by social pressure. People don't want to offend others, so they have often answered polling by saying what they thought other wanted them to say. As time continued it became more accepted to say, "I don't believe in any religion." These today an called "nones." That it is OK to claim "none" perhaps made it OK to ridicule "hell." To critics of this vie...
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New Mayan Site in Mexico from 1500 BCE

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History doesn't care what you or I think, it's just there for us to study. What I have read about for 50 years, and never tire of, are the pre-invasion societies of Mexico, Central and South America. I should hedge my use of the term "pre-invasion" because those societies may have invaded and conquered previous ones.   Christianity came to Europe from the Middle East, then it came with white invaders to the America. I think there is general agreement white people came to dominate because of disease and guns. It wasn't because Europeans were superior in intellectual or physical qualities. The societies of the Americas were ahead to some respects but behind in guns. A new discovery has just been made in Mexico of a Mayan city that dates back to 1500 BCE. The city was organized for a productive society with a social life. It had literate members who inscribed events in stones that have remained. This particular site is different than most others because it is so diff...
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