Why I Still Talk to Jesus -- In Spite of Everything
WAR
If Republicans gain the Senate majority in November, President Barack Obama will face pressure from Congress to send ground troops into Iraq and Syria.
“Frankly, I know of no military expert who believes we are going to defeat ISIS with this present strategy,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said at a Pacific Council on International Policy conference on last Saturday.
“We may be able to ‘contain,’ but to actually defeat ISIS is going to require more boots on the ground, more vigorous strikes, more special forces.
The Arizona senator has been campaigning in support of GOP candidates for the upper chamber, and has indicated that he is eager to lead the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The GOP never met a war it didn’t love!
McCain and Republican candidates on the campaign trail are framing Democratic candidates and President Obama as weak on foreign policy and national security. Meanwhile, super PACs like the so-called Concerned Veterans for America, which is backed by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch, are spending millions on new scare-tactic national security-related ads for GOP candidates.
LGBT
According to the GOP, LGBT people are “gremlins.”
Take Republican challenging Rep. James Clyburn (D) in South Carolina.
“Same-sex couples that seek to destroy our way of life and the institution of marriage are NOT cute and cuddly but rather (for those of you that are old enough to remember the movie), Gremlins that will only destroy our way of life,” the GOP hopeful wrote last Tuesday in a Facebook post…
“These people, like my opponent SC-6 Congressman Jim Clyburn who OPENLY supports same-sex ‘marriage,’ seek to destroy the traditional family and the values we cherish,” Culler’s post continued. “For years this insidious plan has been in the works.”
Culler says LGBT people who wish to wed are “bullies” of a “hateful nature” who have capitalized on apathy to win the right to marry. He asks “the silent majority” to vote anti-gay on Election Day.
COMPASSION
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) announced on Monday that he plans to introduce legislation that would ban U.S. visas for nationals from African countries affected by the Ebola outbreak.
Rubio said in a statement that he plans to offer the legislation when the Senate returns to work in November. The ban would apply to nationals from Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, and would extend to other countries where the virus has spread. The GOP is spreading fear through their FOX News proxy and adds.
IMMIGRATION
NumbersUSA – a group that advocates to “reduce the number of immigrants in the U.S.” (Koch money) – is pushing the anti-reform movement. The group announced a seven-figure ad buy that will run on local news stations in the weeks leading up to Election Day in Kentucky, North Carolina, Arkansas, Alaska, Georgia, Massachusetts, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire and Kansas.
NumbersUSA will, like the entire GOP, also stoke fear about border insecurity and Ebola.
“Finally, the economy is starting to crank out new jobs, but who should get those jobs?” the narrator asks in one NumbersUSA/Koch ad. “Government data show nearly all job growth since 2000 has gone to immigrant workers, so should Congress continue adding 1 million immigrants every year to compete for jobs?”
In the Arkansas Senate race, Republican Rep. Tom Cotton has gone on offense, painting his Democratic opponent, Sen. Mark Pryor, as against American workers and for giving immigrants who are living in the U.S. illegally access to Social Security.
“Liberals in Washington want to let illegal immigrants get Social Security for work they did with forged identities, and when they needed one vote, they got it from Sen. Mark Pryor,” the narrator of a Cotton ad says. “On illegal immigration, Mark Pryor never takes your side.”
CLIMATE
President Obama, having failed to pass a sweeping climate bill because of GOP opposition, has used executive actions to regulate pollution by automakers and power plants. Combined, the actions would make a significant dent in carbon emissions in coming decades.
Obama would veto any stand-alone law to neuter his policies. Knowing this, Mr. McConnell has said he would embed restrictions on the Environmental Protection Agency in broader budget bills. “I assure you that in the spending bill, we will be pushing back against this bureaucracy,” Mr. McConnell recently told Republican donors. If Mr. Obama vetoed those budget bills, the government would shut down.
WALL STREET
McConnell said he’ll try to undercut Wall Street regulation.
HEALTH CARE
McConnell said he’ll try to undercut the health care law through budget bills.
LAW
Republicans have gone further than Democrats in blocking court appointments. Among Mr. Obama’s nominees to the District Courts, 16 percent have not been confirmed, according to Russell Wheeler of the Brookings Institution.
If the Republicans take the Senate America will go backward.
Frank Schaeffer is a writer. His latest book —WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD: How to give love, create beauty and find peace
Available now on Amazon
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