The below editorial diatribe was sent to me in an e-mail by a dear friend who thought I might have a strong reaction to it. He was right!

 

Obamacare Should Remind Us We Are Not 'Subjects,' We Are People
Laura Hollis is a professor at the University of Notre Dame
November 20, 2013|10:42 am

"The unveiling of the dictatorial debacle that is Obamacare absolutely flabbergasts me. It is stunning on so many levels, but the most shocking aspect of it for me is watching millions of free Americans stand idly by while this man, his minions in Congress and his cheerleaders in the press systematically dismantle our Constitution, steal our money, and crush our freedoms."

There is more of this article, but this is what you need to see. A Catholic  business professor complaining because a lawfully enacted piece of legislation may actually do some of the things her Pope has called, “humane and necessary” Ya think her agenda has to do with the birth control issue? “Steal our money, crush our freedoms??” Would that be the freedom to let the poor die?

And of course, all of this is indicative of the tactic, honed by Gingrich, Atwater and their ilk - the great lie. In this case the great lie is that all the concern about health care and all the legislation has been done by one person, acting alone, not a Congress, not the majority of Americans who believe it's a good thing, one person who is evil incarnate. That sounds stupid because it is.

Like it or not, and some (but not a majority of voters) don't, the majority of Americans believe that the Affordable Care Act is a good thing. The reaction of the lunatic right to the Affordable Care Act, is very much like the reaction to (and the glitches are similar to) the Bush initiative (also passed by Congress and also derided by some) of Medicare part D (drug coverage). In fact their reactions  were as vocal (and as wrong) over Medicare/Medicaid in general and Social Security before that. There are certainly things in the legislation that will bother some, since powerful economic forces have opposed this legislation with a massive lobbying effort based on corporate greed of the Insurance and drug lobbies. There are also compromises in the bill because of special interest pressures which were satisfied to get a passable law.

The fact that the AMA approves it matters little to those like Palin, Cruz, etc  who have actually succeeded in convincing some of their poorer sycophant acolytes that this legislation which, in actuality, is to their benefit, was drafted by Satan and fine tuned by  Hitler, Stalin and Jack the Ripper. I especially love the resurrection of the "death panel" shibboleth by this Notre Dame business professor. She implies that any refusal to cover any condition amounts to a "death panel". What the hell does she think Insurance companies do now? You want to see a death panel dramatized, but realistically portrayed - read Grisham's "The Rainmaker."

     As in all these scurrilous writings, check the credentials of the author. This lady is a business teacher at the flagship Catholic College in the World, and as a Catholic is probably really upset that a Catholic owned business might actually have to provide a medical plan that would allow a Protestant employee to have birth control coverage if their MD so prescribed. Why should any employer's personal religious tenet be allowed to get between an employee and their doctor. I guess it's sort of "Medical doctor patient relations are privileged , unless of course, as your boss, I disagree with your doctor." Sound stupid and retrograde when stated like that, doesn't it, yet some Catholics are right there. Another analogy might be an employer who was a Christian Scientist (oxymoron alert!) who would only pay for prayer and anointing as medical coverage!

 And last, as to her opening salvo about the President acting in an authoritarian manner: Most Americans didn't want to go to war in Iraq in 2000, no matter how many lies they were told (and we know they were lies now), but since a majority of Congress “signed off” on it, misle4ad by a President who had another agenda from the day of his inauguration (see Bob Woodward’s book) to war we went. The Affordable Care Act will save some lives and improve others. The War in Iraq, which really was the result of a President acting as dictator, has cost over 4000 American and over a million Iraqi lives. I guess the risk here is listening to business teachers who have an agenda instead of historians who have a perspective.

 

 

Disabled from the back drop skull crusher?

As yesterday's blog and post clearly indicate, I am not a fan of Walmart, and I firmly believe that if they advertise "low price matching" they should abide by that policy. Having said that, I wondered about the "disability" of the behemoth who is at the center of attention here.

 

 

 

 

http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7370473917446055103#editor/target=post;postID=988785464913934156

 

As it happens he is "disabled" from continuing his career as a professional wrestler - period. He isn't mentally handicapped, or unable to do most ordinary work. The use of the word "disabled" makes... Walmart's actions sound even worse than they are, but it is understandable that an employee might be threatened by an unhappy 300 pound man mountain.

I guess what bothers me is that the word disabled seems to be applied more and more to persons who are totally capable of earning a living, but either choose or are allowed to claim disability instead and live on someone else's dollar. My late father in law couldn't walk from the age of three, but would have been mortified to take public money or consider himself disabled. By contrast, Joe Cantrell is only disabled to the extent that he can no longer sustain a career as a professional wrestler.

We are bombarded by ads for attorneys urging you to come see them and they will get you "disability." There is a huge difference between genuine disability (whatever the origin) and simple unwillingness to suck it up and even retrain if necessary and work. Disability and workman's comp, originally an absolute necessity in my opinion, have become increasingly corrupted by persons seeking a continuing income without continuing effort. I would write more, but I have an appointment with my attorney, who says he can get me declared disabled for my job as an NBA center, as I have "white men can't jump" syndrome and am 71 years old.

Mister Sam would be ashamed

        Just how wealthy is the Wal-Mart Walton family?

 This from Politifact:

     On Nov. 27, 2013, a Madison-based liberal advocacy group used a mass email to promote protests that were planned against Walmart stores for two days later -- Black Friday.  The demonstrations aimed to "expose Wal-Mart’s shameful labor practices and support workers," according to One Wisconsin Now, which then made this claim: "The Walton family, which owns Wal-Mart, controls a fortune equal to the wealth of the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined."

     That reminded us of a March 2011 claim by filmmaker and liberal activist Michael Moore.  He said in a Madison speech that 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined, a statement we rated True.  Based on online hits, it became one of our most popular fact-checks ever. So we wondered about the Walmart claim.

     In the days before and after Black Friday, leaders no less prominent than President Barack Obama and Pope Francis decried the extent of income disparity in the United States and around the world. Obama called the growing income gap a "defining challenge of our time." The pope said that while the earnings of a minority "are growing exponentially, so, too, is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few."

Walmart, of course, is a big target.

    According to Forbes, as of May 2013 the international retailer had $469 billion in sales and 2.2 million employees, including 1.3 million in the United States. The corporation has been criticized for low wages; and in December 2012, PolitiFact National rated as “Mostly True”  a claim that more Walmart employees are on Medicaid and food stamps than other companies.

     Walmart was founded by the late Sam Walton, who opened the first store in Arkansas in 1962. Walmart incorporated in 1969 and became a publicly traded company a year later. So, Wal-Mart is not family owned, but rather owned by its stockholders; on the other hand, according to Bloomberg and other news reports, the Walton family members still have control of the company, owning about half of the shares.

Using the Forbes 400 list for 2013, that the wealth of six of Sam Walton’s descendants has continued to grow. Here are their rankings and their wealth:

No. 6 Christy Walton (daughter-in-law), $35.4 billion
No. 7: Jim Walton (son), $33.8 billion
No. 8: Alice Walton (daughter), $33.5 billion
No. 9: S. Robson Walton (son), $33.3 billion
No. 95: Ann Walton Kroenke (niece), $4.7 billion
No. 110: Nancy Walton Laurie (niece), $4 billion

             Total Walton family wealth: $144.7 billion.

Our (Politifact’s): rating

     One Wisconsin Now wrote: "The Walton family, which owns Wal-Mart, controls a fortune equal to the wealth of the bottom 42 percent of Americans combined."

For comparison purposes, the latest data available, for 2010, the figure is 41.5 percent.  We rate the statement True

I post this to say the following with evidentiary backup:

 There are wealthier Americans than The Walton heirs. There are

some of them (rhymes with Koch Brothers) who spend huge

amounts of it on political campaigns to support political whores

they hope will be inclined to produce legislation or fight regulation

that might reduce their (the Koch’s)  humongously bloated personal

balance sheets. Then there are Bill and Melinda  Gates, Warren

Buffett and others (like the builder Arnold Fisher, building

traumatic brain injury centers for vets)  , not necessarily “liberal”

but genuinely  humane Americans who realize how well off they

are and at the same time how disparate are their lives and those of

the average citizen. These humanitarians have given away literally

billions of their personal wealth to help deserving causes, here and

around the globe.

I defy anyone to show significant charity and/or compassion shown

by the Walton heirs. Other than large political contributions to far

rightists, they are largely invisible. What is truly troubling to me is

that Mister Sam Walton was, by all accounts a sweet, gentle and

compassionate man. The first Walmarts proudly proclaimed “Made

in America” on large signs over displays of merchandise.  Just try

to find one now.

Instead of supporting American companies,  Walmart has driven

some of them (Rubber Maid is an excellent example) to shift

manufacturing overseas. Shame on them, and shame on Mister

Sam’s greedy, do nothing heirs.

I’ll close with part of another article on these spoiled wastrel

children:

“Quite a few billionaires, including Warren Buffett and Bill Gates,

have pledged to give away almost all of their fortunes to charity.

The Waltons take a different approach. They have decided to hoard

as much of their fortunes as possible. They have decided to use

each and every tax loophole possible in order to keep their money

in their own family, and not to allow the public to claim a single

dollar more in taxes than they absolutely have to. In Bloomberg

today, Zachary Mider has an excellent in-depth report today on the

strategies the Walton family uses to avoid estate and inheritance

taxes on their fortune, which has been built on the backs of

extremely low-paid workers. One of their favorite techniques:

establishing a type of charitable trust that can shelter money from

taxes, and later put that money back into the pockets of family

heirs. Sometimes, with a profit!

 If the trust’s investments outperform that benchmark rate, then the

extra earnings pass to the designated heirs free of any estate tax.

With a big enough spread between the actual performance and the

IRS rate, this trust can theoretically save so much tax that it leaves

a family richer than if it hadn’t given a dime to charity...

     So the next time you hear about how fabulous the Walton family's opulent new art museum is, or how much money the Walton family has given to land conservation, remember that all of that charity is part and parcel of a structure designed expressly to hoard billions of dollars within this one single family, and to avoid paying the normal tax rates that have been levied for the purpose of a tiny step towards equality. And also remember that all of the millions and millions of workers who made those billions and billions of dollars possible are trapped in a world of low wages, and are prevented from unionizing and bettering their own situation by the zealous efforts of Wal-Mart.

The Walton family's very existence is an insult to the American dream.

The loss of a truth teller

 

The reason for this blog is the following article from MSNBC:

 

            Martin Bashir resigns from MSNBC after Sarah Palin slam

 

Dec. 4, 2013, 2:46 PM EST

By L.A. Ross
TheWrapMSNBC host Martin Bashir resigned from the network Wednesday, two weeks after making the graphic suggestion that someone defecate in former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's mouth.
MSNBC president Phil Griffin released the following statement:

Martin Bashir resigned today, effective immediately. I understand his decision and I thank him for three great years with MSNBC. Martin is a good man and respected colleague -- we wish him only the best.

Here is Bashir's statement, via Mediaite:

After making an on-air apology, I asked for permission to take some additional time out around the Thanksgiving holiday.
Upon further reflection, and after meeting with the President of MSNBC, I have tendered my resignation. It is my sincere hope that all of my colleagues, at this special network, will be allowed to focus on the issues that matter without the distraction of myself or my ill-judged comments.
I deeply regret what was said, will endeavor to work hard at making constructive contributions in the future and will always have a deep appreciation for our viewers -- who are the smartest, most compassionate and discerning of all television audiences. I would also wish to express deepest gratitude to my immediate colleagues, and our contributors, all of whom have given so much of themselves to our broadcast.'

 Here is what Bashir actually said (or at least the part to which the usually foul and insulting Tea baggers, et al, took issue:

MARTIN BASHIR: One of the most comprehensive first-person accounts of slavery comes from the personal diary of a man called Thomas Thistlewood, who kept copious notes for 39 years. Thistlewood was the son of a tenant farmer who arrived on the island of Jamaica in April 1750, and assumed the position of overseer at a major plantation. What is most shocking about Thistlewood's diary is not simply the fact that he assumes the right to own and possess other human beings, but is the sheer cruelty and brutality of his regime.

In 1756, he records that "A slave named Darby catched eating canes; had him well flogged and pickled, then made Hector, another slave, s-h-i-t in his mouth." This became known as Darby’s dose, a punishment invented by Thistlewood that spoke only of the slave owners savagery and inhumanity.

And he mentions a similar incident again in 1756, this time in relation to a man he refers to as Punch. "Flogged Punch well, and then washed and rubbed salt pickle, lime juice and bird pepper; made Negro Joe piss in his eyes and mouth." I could go on, but you get the point.

When Mrs. Palin invoked slavery, she doesn’t just prove her rank ignorance. She confirms that if anyone truly qualified for a dose of discipline from Thomas Thistlewood, then she would be the outstanding candidate.

 

 

This is unfortunate, in that no one should feel compelled to leave their job for telling the truth about Sarah Palin. Although I lament the fact that Martin Bashir lost it to the point of using profanity on the air, he did so in utter frustration at Palin's analogizing China's investing in US T bills with slavery. He also called her a "world class idiot" and I will defend the rectitude of that opinion to the death! Palin-Limbaugh-Bachmann-Beck-Hannity and their idiot acolytes, use a strategem, well described previously elsewhere by my brother, of making inflammatory statements, which they know to be false, because they also know that their target audience, apparently unable to read or think critically, will believe them.

Palin's claim, like Jeb Bush's claim re: moving the US Vatican embassy, is calculated to smear and demean political opposition, and has no basis in fact. It is as goofey as her "Obama death panel" statements during the 2008 ca...mpaign. Her irrelevance increases daily, and I suppose we should not be surprised that her desparate distortion of fact follows that trend in reverse. The troubling aspect of all this is that a portion of persons who get their news (if they get it at all) get it from one source and refuse to even countenance the possibility that they are being blatantly and intentionally lied to or that there might be a more credible opposing point of view.

When one looks at even a self identified conservative fact checker like Politifact, it becomes obvious that the claims rated as egrigious lies are of essentially two types. The first is a statement of intent and/or program goal which in the final analysis wasn't followed through, or was done in a manner which fell far short of expectations. The vast majority of Pants on Fire ratings come from the far right, but unlike the Left, most of whose issues are of omission or inadequate performance, they are of a second type. That is, they are untruths told by persons who knew when they said them that they were lying. The first page of "Pants on Fire" ratings on the Politifact site identifies the 20 most recent such ratings. 18 of those 20 are from far right sources and about 10 of them are of the "They knew they were lying when they said it" category. Sarah Palin and her prevaricating posse are unworthy to carry Martin Bashir's laundry to the cleaners. What a shame!

And we Floridians thought Jeb was the "smart brother"

            ‘Tis the season to make claims about holy matters.

      First, as a Floridian, let me say that we may not have loved ole Jeb Bush, but we did at one time claim that we had “the smart one”, although, admittedly,  the competition was his mentally shortchanged male sibs, Neal and “W.”  Apparently Jeb took leave not only of the mansion in Tallahassee, but of his senses. What follows in another Politifact check rated “Pants on Fire” (as in “liar, liar”) It is noteworthy that Politifact is run by the newspaper which glowingly endorsed and supported Jeb as governor!

     “Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is Catholic, tweeted on the day before Thanksgiving, "Why would our president close the embassy to the Vatican? Hopefully, it is not retribution for Catholic organizations opposing Obamacare."

     Did President Barack Obama close the embassy to the Vatican as a way of sticking it to them over Obamacare? That sounds like some un-divine intervention. But is it the truth? (It would be a venial sin to omit a hat-tip to the Washington Post Fact Checker, which ran a check on this earlier today. CNN also did a fact check earlier.)

     The Vatican maintains diplomatic relations with more than 175 countries. In 1984, the United States and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations, and the Senate confirmed the first ambassador. (Prior to that the U.S. had diplomatic relations on and off.)  No country has an embassy to the Holy See within the Vatican City proper -- all of them are located within the city of Rome, according to the State Department. The current United States embassy is in a converted residential property in Rome, about 1.9 miles from the Vatican.

     The U.S. Embassy to the Holy See has seven U.S. diplomatic personnel, plus support staff. Its budget is just over $3.5 million, not counting costs associated with the local guard force, state department spokeswoman Pooja Jhunjhunwala told PolitiFact.

     "The U.S. Embassy to the Holy See is, and will remain, among the largest foreign missions to the Holy See," she said.

     While discussions about embassy security have increased in the wake of the deadly attack on a United States facility in Benghazi, Libya, the idea of relocating the embassy to the Vatican had been considered as long ago as 2005, after the addition to a building at the U.S. embassy compound in Rome, according to an Inspector General report in 2008, when George W. Bush was president. (Ed note:  in what has become

a nauseatingly familiar theme, rightists continue to blame President

Obama for everything from dandruff to low thyroid, even if the

impetus and background didn’t happen on his watch. It is thinly

veiled political assassination, nothing less.) Currently, the embassy

to the Vatican isn’t at the same spot as our embassy to Italy.

     One of the report recommendations for the embassy to the Vatican was to "relocate as soon as possible, with an eye towards cost savings, improved security, and maintaining as much as possible its separate identity to include a separate street address."  Under-Secretary Patrick Kennedy signed a memo approving the move in March 2013, but news about it swelled suddenly in November as some conservative news outlets criticized the plan. The National Republican Senatorial Committee created a petition to tell "President Obama to leave the American embassy at the Vatican." (NRSC took down the petition about five days later. That drew some fire from liberals, but NRSC spokesman Brad Dayspring said that’s a normal amount of time for the group to leave up such a petition.)

     An article in the National Catholic Reporter quoted several envoys who objected to the state department’s plan, including former U.S. Ambassador James Nicholson, a former secretary of Veterans Affairs in the Bush administration and a former chair of the Republican National Committee. He described the move as a "massive downgrade" in United States-Vatican ties. "It's turning this embassy into a stepchild of the embassy to Italy," Nicholson said. "The Holy See is a pivot point for international affairs and a major listening post for the United States," he said, "and to shoehorn (the U.S. delegation) into an office annex inside another embassy is an insult to American Catholics and to the Vatican."

     "I see no diminishing in the importance of the relationship at all," said current U.S. Ambassador Ken Hackett. And Miguel H. Diaz, a former ambassador under Obama, defended the move, saying, "This was done for security and financial reasons, not in any way to undermine and diminish the importance of the Holy See," CNN reported.
  
     Two days before(Jeb) Bush’s tweet, the State Department held a conference call with reporters to respond to the news reports. (The State Department didn’t name the official on the conference call.)  The official stated that a few years ago, the government purchased land to expand an existing government compound in Rome and now plans to move the embassy there. The compound will have three separate buildings, each with their own entrances on different streets.  The physical separation of the entrances is key because the Vatican requires embassies be separate from a country’s mission to Italy.   The move was made due to cost and security, the State Department official told reporters. By consolidating operations at one compound, the state department expects to save about $1.4 million a year.
 
    The current embassy to the Vatican lacks "the kind of physical security protection that we would like it to have," the official said. "It doesn’t have the setback from the street that is available in its new compound, and … it does not have the level of other security protections, including Marine security guards that are available at the combined U.S. Government compound." The State Department official emphasized that the move does not represent any downsizing of the United States diplomatic assets.  "There is no reduction in diplomatic staff, there’s no reduction in ambassadors, there’s no reduction in mission," he said. "There is simply a reduction in overhead."
  
    Shaun Casey, the special adviser for faith-based community initiatives at the State Department, described security as the No. 1 reason for the move.  "The United States is moving the location of the embassy to a building that is safer, bigger, and architecturally more appealing," Casey wrote. "It also is slightly closer to Vatican City. Let me repeat that point: It's closer to Vatican City than the current location."
    
     To be precise, the new site will be located about one-tenth of a mile closer than the current site. It is expected to open in 2015.

     Our efforts to reach a spokesperson for the Vatican were unsuccessful, but a spokesman for the Vatican told CNN that "the move was well within the Holy See's requirements for embassies and that relations with the United States are far from strained. ... Another Vatican official, not authorized to speak on the record about diplomatic relations, told CNN the Holy See understands security concerns are an issue for some countries and this move is "an exception, not the ideal, but not the end of the world."

     Meanwhile, we found no evidence to support Bush’s speculation that the relocation might have had something to do with the battle between Catholic bishops and the federal government about contraception requirements in Obamacare. (Despite the contraception fight, the bishops have long backed the broader concept of universal health care.)

     "The Vatican itself said closing this location is not ideal," Bush spokeswoman Kristy Campbell told PolitiFact. "Governor Bush does not believe this move reflects appropriate respect for the U.S. relationship with the Holy See." (Ed note: Jeb Bush is a maverick in the Bush clan, having converted to Roman Catholicism, presumably to marry his Hispanic  wife.) So what to make of the conflicting accounts about whether the move is a slight to the Vatican?

     "I think it’s not a big deal," Stephen F. Schneck, director of the Institute for Policy Research & Catholic Studies at the Catholic University of America, told PolitiFact. Schneck, who has been to the embassy, called it an "ugly, modernistic residential structure." (Schneck told us he is close to the current ambassador and a couple of past ambassadors, including those that served under Obama and Bush.)

"While I wouldn’t actually call it unworkable, it's on a corner so it’s very accessible to street traffic," Schneck said. "I certainly understand the security concerns."  Schneck emphasized that the roots of the move predate Obama, since it stems from an inspector general recommendation during Bush’s tenure. And he was dubious of the suggestion that the embassy move is retaliation for the Catholic bishops opposing the contraception mandate in Obamacare.

    "I stand with my Catholic bishops in support of the lawsuits on the contraception mandate," Schneck said, however, "The embassy-Obamacare connection is a ridiculous effort, one of those crazy conspiracy theories to connect dots that make no sense at all." ( ed. note: except,  to Jeb Bush,  

apparently struggling to become relevant again. He would do better

to remain in the private sector, as any renewal of his political

ambitions will subject both his smuggler (customs fraud cheat) wife

and addict daughter to the glare of media again)

Our (Politifact’s) ruling

     Jeb Bush said "Why would our president close the embassy to the Vatican? Hopefully, it is not retribution for Catholic organizations opposing Obamacare."
    For starters, the United States is not going to "close" its embassy -- it’s relocating it to a place that’s closer to the Vatican and that is more secure, less expensive and more architecturally distinctive. In addition, the move didn’t originate with Obama. It has been in the works since George W. Bush -- Jeb Bush’s brother -- was president. Finally, we found no evidence to support the idea that the relocation was related to battles over Obamacare. We rate Bush’s claim Pants on Fire!

Another Liar - failed former congressman Allen West

Another “Pants on Fire rating by Politifact, my favorite conservative (but honest) fact checker”

     "Back door gun control is in full effect in the United States" due to "Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency." - Allen West wrote on Monday, December 2nd, 2013 in a blog on his website.  West blames 'Obama's EPA' for closing a smelter as evidence of 'back door gun control'

       So who the hell is Allen West? He’s a failed (one term and out)  former Republican Florida Congressman who has taken aim at a surprising gun control villain: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  "It seems that back door gun control is in full effect in the United States. Why? Thanks to Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), we can no longer smelt lead from ore in the United States. ...," wrote the Republican and retired Army lieutenant colonel on his website Dec. 1. "So America, back door gun control is moving forward and while we are all distracted with Obamacare and Iran nuclear negotiations, our Second Amendment rights are undergoing an assault by clandestine infiltration."

     West’s “explanation” in brief:  The Doe Run lead smelter in Herculaneum, Missouri will close its doors this month due to air quality restrictions. "What this all means," West wrote, "is that after December 2013, any ammunition that will be available to US citizens will have to be imported, which will surely increase the price and possibly come under government control."

Is West correct to conclude that the EPA’s actions are "back door gun control"? A reader asked us to check West’s claim, so we did

       Lead’s dangers: Lead is a serious health hazard. According to the Mayo Clinic, "even small amounts of lead can cause serious health problems. Children under the age of 6 are especially vulnerable to lead poisoning, which can severely affect mental and physical development. At very high levels, lead poisoning can be fatal." Lead contamination can be found in air, water and soil as well as homes from old paint. Lead-based paint and lead-contaminated dust in older buildings are the most common sources of lead poisoning in children. Adults who work with batteries, home renovations or in auto repair shops also may be exposed to lead. The health dangers prompted the U.S. to phase out leaded gasoline in the 1980s. (my note: during the Reagan Administration!)

       As Doe Run announced at the time, the company reached a settlement with the EPA and the state of Missouri in 2010 which included paying fines and ceasing smelting operations in Herculaneum. But the news is gaining fresh attention now because the actual closure date of Dec. 31 is fast approaching. .

        West’s blog cited an Oct. 29 post by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton on noisyroom.net which slammed the feds for "back door gun control" in driving the plant to closure. ( West’s initial post failed to cite noisyroom but later updated with attribution.)  Monroe-Hamilton sent us to a post she wrote Dec. 3 in response to the controversy, in which she said what she wrote was an "opinion piece." (ed note: Monroe-Hamilton is hard to track down, even Google has no pictures of her, but a brief read of any of her “opinion” pieces shows her ability to tell “The Big Lie” is about on a par with Hitler.

       The long history of lead-control efforts casts serious doubt on the idea that the closure was driven by anti-gun concerns. Ever since the EPA was created in 1970, one of its missions has been to limit pollution from smelters which are "terribly toxic sites," said David Rosner, a professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University who studies the politics of pollution. The Doe Run smelter, he says, was shut down because it was a major polluter -- not as a way of curbing guns. "It had nothing to do with gun control or bullets," Rosner told PolitiFact. "The idea of linking this to an issue of gun control or a surreptitious way for the government trying to shut down the gun industry is nuts. This was an EPA decision because of children who were being poisoned by what had come out of that plant."

     While West, who represented South Florida for one term, pointed the finger at "Obama’s" EPA, the EPA’s case against Doe Run actually began decades ago. The St. Louis area failed to meet federal clean air standards for lead in 1987 -- during the Reagan administration -- due to emissions from the smelter, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported in 1989. Reagan wasn't the only Republican president to advance the anti-lead effort. In 2008, under President George W. Bush, the EPA adopted tougher air quality standards for lead that were 10 times more stringent than the past. It is, in fact, the tougher Bush era standards which are forcing the closure!

     In 2010, the EPA reached a settlement with Doe Run. In November, Doe Run issued a news release about the closure: "Although the United States is home to a number of secondary lead smelters, which recycle lead from various sources, the Herculaneum facility is the last primary lead smelter in the United States," according to the release. The release explains that the company isn’t shutting down entirely. While the company is closing its primary smelter, which extracts lead from ore, it will continue to operate as a secondary lead smelter -- essentially a recycler for lead contained in other products.

     According to the company, more than 80 percent of all lead produced in the United States is used in either vehicle batteries or in stationary batteries for backup power used by the military and in telecommunications and medical applications."In the U.S., the recycle rate of these batteries is approximately 98 percent, making lead-based batteries the most highly recycled consumer product," the company release said. "These batteries are recycled at secondary lead smelters. We own such a smelter in southern Missouri."

The company added that lead is used in ammunition and other materials. Doe Run spokeswoman Tammy Stankey emailed PolitiFact to say that the company "will continue to supply our ammo customers using secondary lead."

Michael Bazinet, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, confirmed that lead used for ammunition made in the U.S. comes almost exclusively from recycled sources.

     "While no one should ever be pleased about the closure of any industry, in this case there should not be a noticeable effect on consumers.  ... We should not see any effect on the civilian marketplace," Bazinet told PolitiFact. The foundation’s general counsel, Lawrence Keane, echoed that view in an interview with the Washington Times. Others agree. While Doe Run is the last "primary" lead smelter in the U.S. there are plenty of "secondary" processing of lead in the U.S., Richard Lowden, a research engineer at the U.S. Department of Energy Oak Ridge National Laboratory told PolitiFact in an email.  "Primary lead is of higher purity and is needed for specialty applications such as unique types of lead-acid batteries," Lowden said. "Secondary lead is slightly less pure and is used in most applications -- over 80 percent of domestic consumption, including bullets. The U.S. imports very little lead, with the main foreign sources being Canada and Mexico. I do not  believe shooters have to worry about a source of lead for bullets." Florida Bullet, a Clearwater-based company (across the state from West’s former district) that supplies ammunition to most law enforcement agencies in Florida, isn’t worried about the smelter’s closure. The bullets the company sells, made by Federal and Speer, "use reclaimed lead, so this is not going to bother us as far as production goes," said the company’s president, Tom Falone. "We don’t foresee this being a problem for us."

When asked  why he blamed Obama if the EPA had zeroed in on the smelter long before Obama was president,Michele Hickford, West’s spokeswoman  responded with one of the most illogical and partisan explanations we have heard in a while: "The plant closed under Obama. Regardless of what this lead plant is used for, the EPA net is tightening on the entire industry, and if you follow it to its logical conclusion, the industry will be shut down eventually. This is yet another example of the Obama administration circumventing the legislative process to achieve its goals."

Our (Politifact’s)  ruling:

West wrote that "back door gun control is in full effect in the United States" due "to Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency."

There is no evidence that it was a clandestine effort at back door gun control. Rather, the EPA’s settlement with Doe Run -- which concluded a case that began years before Obama was elected president -- had to do with emissions of a chemical that can cause serious injury and death to adults and children. And ammunition experts shot massive holes in the notion that the smelter’s closure would cut production, reduce supply or raise the cost of ammunition. Pants on Fire!

So why post this article at all? I do so because it shows yet again

 the lengths of innuendo and outright lies to which the far right,

including a former Congressman (did I mention he’s also African

 American?)  will go to slander this president. All of the

initiatives regarding primary lead smelting began under Nixon, who

to his credit, established the EPA, and continued through the

present. Blaming any president for this action is ultra-partisan,

ludicrous and infantile – which come to think of it, describes the

Tea partiers fairly aptly.

Rush limbaugh Vs the Pope - a steel cage match!

I see that Rush Limbaugh, that paragon of virtue and insight, has announced that the Pope is a “Marxist.”  As usual, Limbaugh betrays the true sentiments of himself and many other professed Christians, the more fundamentalist, the better,  by his criticism of others.

          Far be it from me to do scriptural analysis, but since Christians seem to live, or claim to live, by the gospels it seems only fair to analyze their collective actions through that lens. Essentially every description of the lifestyle of  Jesus (or Jeshua Bar Joseph, or whatever; the name Jesus is Latin, not Aramaic) and his band of followers seems to be precisely Marxist as far as shared resources, equal treatment of all, disdain for personal wealth, etc. So what is Limbaugh really saying? It comes out sorta like this: “In claiming that The Church,  and Christians in general, should be more like Jesus in their/ its actions, the Pope is endorsing the beliefs of  Karl Marx, who preached the absence of God in human society (“pie in the sky when you die”)”  Confusing , huh?  Well, if Limbaugh has ever made sense to you, then I cannot help you in any event.   

          Of course, what really disturbs Limbaugh are several things.  He hates positive media coverage being given to a Roman Catholic, whom he as a professed Protestant Christian (if Ann Coulter can claim it, so can he) dislikes because he is a religious bigot and professional hater. Secondarily, he fears anyone who calls for social equality, spiritual, economic or whatever. In an economy run on the basis of need or merit, Limbaugh would be cleaning urinals. Obviously America and the rest of the industrially developed world has long ago split their view of Christian economic behavior from a scriptural one. World empires with either theocratic governments or state churches with significant influence have all been paragons of enforced inequality of condition and, usually opportunity as well. Italy, Britain, Russia pre1917, France, and to a somewhat lesser degree, the USA have all built their economies on the back of cheap, and sometimes slave, labor 1800 years after Jesus declared the brotherhood and equality of man.

          Realizing the threat to wealth and control this credo posed is not a recent occurrence. Very early on the heads of The Church made sure to do a number of things. The first was to convince secular heads of state of their (the Church’s) positional authority and power in the state. The second was to endorse the erasure of the myth of social equality by gender and by economic status, which the gospels depict. The third was to dismiss as invalid a number of contemporaneous scriptures which depict a story different from the big four. Fourth, in the late 700s, Charlemagne’s father Pepin, sold his soul to Rome for the Pope’s endorsement, which resulted in Charlemagne being crowned Holy Roman Emperor on his accession. These perks of wealth and position were perpetuated with scarcely a blink of an eye after the Reformation in the newly Protestant nation states of Europe.

          So, by about 800 AD, the concept of divine right of kings, state sponsored religion, enforced social stratification and access to holy writ limited to those who could read, which meant almost exclusively priests, was well established. Building on this framework, the gap between haves and have-nots grew, fueled by greed, lust for personal power and endorsed and enforced by the religious establishment. It is the loss of this which men like Limbaugh fear, since if forced to work for a living, his fat ass would starve in a refrigerator box in an alley.     

          Clearly, a true Marxist world (true social equality) would not work in our world. The only place a truly communal society can exist is out in the desert where several hippies with a bong could probably get along for a while until they ran out of either pot or Fritos. Limbaugh simply fears the loss of his “stuff” as do we all. Unfortunately, but predictably he has seized on the legitimate call to compassion for all mankind by the most human and humane Pontiff in decades to fire off a barrage of venal and transparent criticism. Fred Phelps would be proud.