Charlie Sykes

Charlie Sykes--the right-wing talk radio dude on WTMJ Milwaukee--now has three PolitiFact ratings in his resume:  one False and two Pants on Fire.

You might recall that Loose-With-The-Truth Sykes was a guest speaker at the Christian Life Resources (CLR) National Convention a year or two ago.  Oh wait...I forgot...CLR isn't interested in the truth as long as it agrees with their politics.

Are You a Lutheran?

Seen on a friend's Facebook page...You might be a Lutheran if you are watching a Star Wars movie and one of the characters says, "May the force be with you" and you respond, "And also with you."

Confessions of a "Conservative" Lutheran

I belong to what is generally regarded as among the most "conservative" church bodies in America:  the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS).  I put it in quotes, because I don't want the so-called conservatism of the church to be confused with political conservatism.  While it is true that the vast majority of WELS members are politically conservative, that's simply because they are a bunch of conservative Germans, not because our doctrine demands it.  Historically, the WELS has been meticulous about distinguishing between the heavenly and earthly kingdoms (kingdoms of the "right hand" and the "left hand"), but this changed with the Clinton administration and got even worse with the election (twice) of Barack Obama.  By now it is beyond dispute that the synod has become more politically active.  The vocabulary used demonstrates this, with an increasing use of language that is from the lexicon of right wing conservatism and the Tea Party.  This is most blatant from some of the affiliated organizations, such as Christian Life Resources, but it has also crept into sermons that I have heard now and then, as well as in Bible classes.  While most of the Synod pronouncements try to stay politically neutral, even official publications like Forward in Christ display an assumption that the reader is politically conservative.

With that background in mind, what follows below is a random and unorganized list of my own "confessions" from the perspective of a Lutheran who happens to be far to the left on the political spectrum (way to the left of Barack Obama).   You will not see these thoughts in Forward in Christ.

• I am 65 years old and I have never been discriminated against or persecuted because I am a Christian.
• My kids went to Lutheran grade schools for K-8 and then to public high school.  I've  never had to "unteach" anything from a religious perspective from the public school, but I have had to correct false  religious teachings that my kids brought home from Lutheran school.
• WELS President Schroeder went public, describing the HHS birth control mandate as an "unprecedented threat to...religious liberty".  I want to declare loudly and publicly that Schroeder does NOT speak for me.  My religious liberty hasn't been curtailed one iota because of this.  I worship and receive the means of grace the same as always.  This was never about religious liberty;  it was about money.
• In contrast to the phony "threat to religious liberty" in the last bullet, there are plenty of real infringements of religious liberty about which WELS has been silent. A few examples:  (1) When I was in the army, I was routinely in situations where I was expected to bow my head in prayer.  (2) Air Force Academy officers attempted to force their religion on cadets. (3) There are public events (like football games in Texas) where kids are coerced into praying or listening to prayers. (4) Under the Faith-Based Initiatives started by G.W. Bush and continued by President Obama, some "counselors" won't declare a patient "cured" until they declare certain religious beliefs.  See the pattern here?  Real threats to religious liberty in this country are overwhelmingly perpetrated by Christians.  I haven't heard anyone in WELS express outrage about these things.  Why?  I can only conclude that they are less controversial to WELS pastors because they are perpetrated by conservatives.  But the HHS mandate is identified with us godless liberals, so the world is coming to an end.
• I have been a WELS member since 1970.  I hear about abortion, evolution, and homosexuality almost every week in church.  I can honestly say that I don't think I have ever heard the word "racism" in a WELS sermon. 
• We rarely go to Bible classes anymore, because too often it ends up being about politics. I don't go to a Lutheran Bible class to talk about Glenn Beck or the Affordable Care Act.  Kind of ruins one's Sunday, so we just stay away from it.
• Politically-charged issues like climate-change denial, creationist "science", and intelligent design seem to be encouraged.  These are entirely political and have nothing to do with Lutheran doctrine, so the fact that they are encouraged--even tacitly--shows how far the WELS has come politically.

Small wonder that we find ourselves more and more questioning whether we are still in fellowship with the Wisconsin Synod.

Quote of the Day (10/25/2013)

"Fox News:  Rich people paying rich people to tell middle class people to blame poor people."

Seen on Daily Kos, but I don't really know who said it.

Poem of the Day (10/17/2013)

Hope I'm not breaking the law too badly by sharing this.  From Calvin Trillin (Deadline Poet) in The Nation:

Explaining Ted Cruz's Behavior

Does he have a plan that the others can't see?
Is this man as smart as the devil?
Or is he, to put it in carpenter's terms,
A guy who's a bubble off level?

Headline of the Day (10/16/2013)

From Mother Jones:

House Republicans Hold Hearing on Why Their Shutdown Shut Things Down

I Am Not Fooled

Republicans slashed veterans benefits during the Bush II administration.  Now they are falling all over themselves to get phony photo ops with veterans during the shutdown that they created, acting as if they are the great defenders of veterans or something.

This is one veteran who is not fooled by their hypocrisy.

Quote of the Day - Oct. 10

How We Got Here

Oh...so now the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, the National Retail Federation, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, and many Republican CEOs are bemoaning how the Republicans in Congress are acting.  Well, most of your money went to those candidates as well as to redistricting initiatives that created this monster.  If you are such Smart People, then how did you expect anything different?

No..you don't get off the hook that easy.  What is happening today is exactly what you wanted.  Now it's here and you don't like it?  If you want to know How We Got Here, just look in the mirror.  If you now want to help fix it, that's great.  Just don't blame this on anyone but yourselves.

What the rest of us need to do is ignore all these Smart People when CNBC trots them out one after another as if they actually know anything.

I Will Chip In

Thanks to Daily Kos. Rep. Stutzman wants to "get something" for funding the government. I will chip in for one of these.

Something I Never Knew

Here is something I never knew before Barack Obama became president (twice--yay!).  There are Constitutional scholars everywhere!  And most of them are most anxious to re-educate you about your ignorance.  They aren't bashful about it one bit.  Aren't you glad?

Here is a short list of some folks that I had no idea are among those Constitutional scholars:

• The guy who fixed my garage door (I will call someone else next time I think)
• The guy whose snowbird condo we used to rent in Alabama (not anymore!)
• Quite a few of my wife's Facebook friends
• The President of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS)
• Tim Thomas
• Victoria Jackson
• Pat Boone
• Kirk Cameron

I hope you will sleep better tonight knowing that these folks are protecting your rights.

Stupid Quote of the Day

"We're not going to be disrespected. We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is."
-- Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN), quoted by the Washington Examiner, on the government shutdown.

Quote of the Day for October 2

"What, US Chamber of Commerce, inveterate supporter of all things Republican and serial denouncer of President Obama and the Democrats for being anti-business, now you are having second thoughts about the monster you helped create?  Well cry me a river ..."

Steven D. at Daily Kos

You can read the entire post here.  It's pretty good.

A Simple Request

To my conservative friends:  I am more than happy for you to try to convince me that you are right about something and that I am wrong.  But you are not helping your cause by simply sending me links to The Daily Caller, or Glenn Beck, or American Spectator, or Rush Limbaugh, or Ann Coulter, or the Drudge Report, or...you get my point.  Most of those folks think I am a commie liberal leftist godless traitor (some of them have even written books with titles like that).  So I don't know why you think I give a rat's a$$ what they have to say about the Affordable Care Act or anything else.  Oh...and as my part of the deal, I will not try to convert you by sending you to Michael Moore's website.

Factoids

1. The Senate has had the courage to have an up-or-down vote on everything the House has sent to it the last few days.  The House has had no votes on what the Senate has sent its way.  (Reason:  in an up-or-down vote, the House would probably pass a "clean" continuing resolution.)
2. The House's idea of "compromise" is--in effect--for the Dems to scrap the ACA in exchange for six weeks of funding the government.  Are you serious?!
3. When I was in high school, I actually thought I was a conservative.  How embarrassing.
4. I am equally embarrassed for my conservative friends who--apparently with a straight face--contend that the "compromise" in factoid 2 above is actually reasonable.
5. In 2012, Democratic House candidates received something like 1.4 million more votes than Republicans.
6. Bush and the Republicans cut veterans benefits (presumably to pay for unneeded tax cuts for the wealthy) back in the 00's.  As a veteran, I consider it the height of hypocrisy for the Wingnut Republicans to try to use another phony bill in the House to play politics with the lives of the same veterans they turned their backs on during the Bush administration.
7. This is more an opinion (or suspicion) than a factoid:  If the Wingnuts in America are convinced that the ACA is totally despised and that it will be an utterly unsuccessful train wreck, why aren't they eager for it to roll out?  Then--if they're right--the public will demand repeal and will run the Dems out of town.  We'll have a Wingnut House, a Wingnut Senate, and maybe (gasp!) a Wingnut in the White House.  So, my (totally unbiased) opinion is that they must think it's going to succeed and be quite popular.  Just sayin'.

Quote of the Day for October 1

"If it turns out that President Barack Obama can make a deal with the most intransigent, hardline, unreasonable, totalitarian mullahs in the world, but not with Republicans, maybe he’s not the problem."

Jon Stuart
The Dailey Show