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Gut-wrenching social issues return to forefront of Campaign 2012

By DOUG THOMPSON
February 10, 2012



Abortion protest in Washington (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)


This was supposed to be an election where America’s struggling economy takes center stage.

Then social issues got in the way.

Republican strategists know they can’t win on the economy.

“We’re weak on economic issues,” a GOP strategist admitted to Capitol Hill Blue this week. “The modest rebounds we’re seeing right now will most likely increase in the coming months and those improvements will help Obama, not Republicans.”

But the Obama administration handed the GOP a gift: A return to the gut-wrenching social issues of abortion, contraception and gay marriage. The administration’s decision to force insurance for birth control on Catholic organizations brought the highly emotional social issues back to the front burner and gave the rabid right something to rally around.

Now abortion opponents can scream “murder” and wave signs with photos of aborted fetuses and pontificate about “God’s will” through the illusion that a deity really gives a damn about what happens in the American political process.

Tea party activists lick their chops over the prospect of an election centered around social issues. The faux “grassroots” movement funded by the billionaire Koch brothers was on the verge of irrelevancy. Now the tea party zealots have a a familiar old cause.

“Clearly, this could energize the Republican base,” says another GOP consultant. “We’re seeing the emergence of issues that favor candidates like Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.”

Politics, in many ways, follows an old rule called Lawyer’s Law. It says:

When the law is against you, argue the facts.

When the facts are against you, argue the law.

When both the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and call the other side names.

I am "hoping" that not only the "Koch brothers" but "that little feller a.l.e.c" will soon have "a smidge" of "the exposure" that American Idol has!

Gotta find something that will unify and engorge the emotions of the base.... Given Romney and Gingrich's history, health care is not gonna do it.

And, it is pretty hard to play out a blue collar story line with million dollar historians, etc.

Why would the Obama administration piss off the Catholics in an election year? It doesn't make any sense.

or...


Slate

Again, not a single candidate running for office had a concern for individual freedoms. Both sides of the aisle are catering to an occult vision of a great God in the sky to be appeased at all costs.

I am throwing in the towel and hereby declare America as being 100% under the thumb of the Vatican. Why fight it? The stress for equality is not worth the fight. The Congressional elections and the White House are stacked against anyone who is not a white Christian Straight man.

Our equality has been thrown out of the equation by fools who demand a world made up of a soothing sound of a violin. Does Hos have any idea why that sound eases his stress? or it is too difficult to give it even a quick thought? He will leave it to someone else so he can wallow in his state of peace.

After the first two days of the CPAC conference, I have given up any desire to improve American values. The Vatican won the fight for even a small amount of individual freedoms for anyone in America. Every word from that conference smacked of who believes in the Vatican and who is just a phony Christian?

What really destroyed my American values was how the conference was discussed at MSNBC. I remember when Bill Gates helped design the MSNBC news channel and how another point of view would always be found. The pressure from the Vatican won the fight. Even the most religious cast of Jews folded up under the Pope and the assault of Catholic news readers held the reins.

If President Obama folds again to the Pope we will see a President Santorum and our Constitution will read like Armageddon and we all will be cast into hell. Maybe had I stayed in the church I could get some comfort in this end of times.

MSNBC failed to brain wash me and instead pissed me off in their blatant assault against my individual rights. No, I am not a member of any minority and because of this I can speak out against the assault for those who refuse to stand up for right over wrong.

Over the years, my only hope for America has been found in those third party candidates who tried to stand up for a single voice.

America has no future under those horrible hypocrites who spoke yesterday. Now we can listen to the other side of the hypocrites and watch the Democrats try to buy off the religious right. I finally reached the end of my rope and can honestly say I don't give a damn what happens in America. Just like the Vatican won in Spain, France and Italy, the Vatican will win in America.

You all will be drug tested before your Social Security checks gets issued because your super pious government does not trust you. Christians never trust others. Under the rules of a Christian Government, anyone who has black blood will be in a special category of being a minority. The churches will never get over America having elected a black President. It will never happen again.

For Hos, go find an youtube of Bach's Air on a G Sting and no it is not a burlesque act.

Schlack, I believe you may have the truth of it. Perhaps President Obama has finally learned how to work with the Republicans.