There are around 35,000 Americans killed every year in this country by guns, 1 million Americans have been killed by guns since 1980.
4 Americans were killed in Benghazi, Libya last year by foreign terrorists.
Guess which number of deaths are an outrage to Republicans? Yep. This is how you do Republican math (you don’t even want to know how to do Republican science, it involves the Bible and a DVD of “The Best of the Flintstones”):
If 1 million American deaths are caused by products from an industry that finances our election campaigns
and
If 4 American deaths can be used for political purposes to attack a President and potential President from the other party
then
4 > 1,000,000
It really is “simple math” (by simple-minded people). For many Republican politicians, there is a rulebook as to which American lives matter and which Americans’ deaths are of no importance. The single principle of the rulebook is, “If they further our quest for power, deaths matter. If they don’t, they don’t.”
So it was a no-brainer (or as known in Republican circles, a “Gohmert”) for Republicans to vote against background checks, an assault weapons ban and a gun magazine limit. And it was just as easy for them to continue to be “outraged” by the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi.
But it’s not unique to those two issues. All down the line, it’s the same story.
Republicans will howl self-righteously against abortion, quoting The Bible and the Ten Commandments that “Thou Shalt Not Kill”…while they coincidentally benefit from affirming and energizing their Right Wing Religious base but when it comes to the death penalty, well, they discover an asterisk to that inescapable commandment from God (He needed a better lawyer when he was drafting the Ten Commandments to close off the loopholes).
Here’s a section of the above mentioned Republican checklist for deaths of Americans that matter and don’t matter:
Republican Checklist – Deaths That Do and Don’t Matter
|
|||
| DEATHS THAT MATTER | WHY | DEATHS THAT DON’T MATTER | WHY |
| 4 killed in Benghazi | Could have helped ruin Obama’s re-election, undermine his second term and harm Hillary’s campaign for President. | 1,000,000 killed in the U.S. by guns since 1980. | Campaign checks from the NRA always have the intoxicating aroma of spent gunpowder. |
| Imagined elderly deaths from “Obamacare” death panels. | As Sen. Jim DeMint said, if Republicans can beat Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo and break him. | 45,000 American adults and children dying annually due to a lack of health coverage | Campaign checks from the health insurance industry come with a gift box of Oxycodone. |
| Embryos that may or may not grow into people. | Our Right Wing religious base says they matter so to fire them up to vote Republican, we do too. | 6,518 Americans in the U.S. Military killed in Iraq and Afghanistan (41,000 wounded and up to 200,000 non-U.S. civilians) | Campaign checks from the U.S. Military Industrial Complex help us build Campaign Defense Shields. |
| Terminal patients living each day in agony | All life is sacred (ain’t that right Religious Right?). | Criminals sentenced to the death penalty | Campaign checks from the U.S. Prison Industry come with Get Out of Jail Free cards (and it makes us look Tough On Crime). |
What may be a bit ironic is that it was Republicans who exaggerated fear over the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) by claiming a group of people would decide over which Americans’ lives mattered and which didn’t.
It seems now that their outrage may have been more that of professional jealousy.
I AM SO FURIOUS!!! The IRS did its job investigating the claims of the Tea Party to have tax exempt status. The GOP WROTE THOSE LAWS – and now the IRS is bad for enforcing them???? EVERY ONE OF US in the non profit world has crawled over broken glass to get our tax exempt status – we’ve jumped through hoops, proven we do not use tax-deductible donations for political work but the BAGGERS are being PERSECUTED??? Then we have to set up a 501-c-4 in order to do NON partisan advocacy – did they? Some years ago we got a visit from the IRS telling us to do that – or else.
The Tea PARTY is clearly riding a thin line – they ARE often partisan, so being investigated to make sure they are not abusing other tax payers is ESSENTIAL.
If liberal groups have to endure this – what the HELL is wrong with making sure Baggers have to prove their status, too?
The RW wants selective enforcement of the law. They want to have special privileges and a free pass on all they do.
NO MORE! I HAVE HAD IT WITH THE DOUBLE STANDARDS IN AMERICA. The conservatives are the ones doing the persecuting and are NOT victims. They are grifters looking always for a free ride. They are the TAKERS. May they rot in hell.
You tell them, CL! The IRS was doing their job. They always have used key points (words) to pull tax returns to audit. If you have a home office, that is a key point and very often looked at and may result in an audit. I have been audited because another thing is the use of your 40lK funds for emergencies. I am still waiting on the IRS to review and perhaps refund the penalty I had to pay. (we are now on our 3rd year of waiting) I saw on Lawrence O’Donnell tonight other words they used and easily liberal organizations would have been pulled, too. It is just because there has been so many new conservative ones in the last few years that so many of them have been looked at. And, that is all they have done at this point! None have been audited! I just hope this won’t cause the IRS to be gun shy and not continue to investigate if there is really tax evasion going on with these guys. (OF COURSE THERE IS!) Citizen United is the cause of all this and so much more! Something has to be done!
IRS Fallout: The Real Scandal Is Secret Money Influencing US Elections
Read more: http://www.thenation.com/blog/174320/irs-fallout-real-scandal-secret-money-influencing-us-elections#ixzz2TITApLFh
More deaths today that don’t matter to Republicans:
http://news.yahoo.com/sheriff-rural-california-man-shot-wife-2-girls-220940580.html
REPUBLICANS: “The life of the unborn is sacred. But once the rugrats are born, who cares what happens to them as long as I can have all the guns I want!”
Sick bastards.
I do have to disagree with one thing: I don’t think “Gohmert” is a no-brainer.
I think it is a rude digestive noise as in “he cut a Gohmert at the table last night”.
Then again, there’s a reason why dog owners carry plastic bags with them when they walk their dogs, to pick up the “Gohmerts” their doggies leave.
Eeeuuuwww – probably right, but ick.
AdLib, this article is a brilliant demonstration of a skill that Texas is trying to abolish in its school system: higher order thinking skills. Otherwise known as “HOTS” in the hell that is called Texas (except for the small realm of AB’s friends and family).
I just read the comments below on the TX death panels and have to say I’m really aghast. And if the Catholic Church there actually supports this, I would say it’s time for the Nuns on the Bus sector of Catholicism to split off and form its own church. Enough is enough.
I realize it’s a ridiculously rhetorical question to ask, but: how can these people call themselves pro-life, oppose abortion rights, and support this? Unbelievable.
Hey Kes, thanks!
Texas is truly in a race to the bottom in every sector that impacts the majority of its population…that is, what population remains after their death panels get through with them.
Education:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/education/texas-considers-reversing-tough-testing-and-graduation-requirements.html
Not to mention the political corruption of their textbooks by the religious and Republican fanatics on their school board.
Jobs:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/16/1007494/-Rick-Perry-s-Texas-miracle-is-built-on-minimum-wage-jobs
Health Care:
http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2012/07/texas-health-care-quality-is-worst-in-the-nation-according-to-federal-study/
It’s the model state for the Kochs and the GOP, this is how they want all of America to be.
Oh, and the Repubs in The House passed a bill today allowing employers to get rid of overtime and instead give “flex time” at regular pay. Gues what anti-union state is drooling at this prospect? Cut workers’ pay even more by no longer paying time and a half for overtime AND get rid of vacation time, force workers to work overtime just to get some time off at a fraction of what overtime used to pay.
Repubs may like to suffer, Progressives don’t. I think as the economy recovers more and more, there will be a migration of people from the deteriorating quality of life in the red states to the blue states.
What a litany of misery, no? AdLib, I don’t know if you remember the ad campaign years ago to try to boost Texas tourism. The slogan was: “Texas: A Whole Other Country.”
They just neglected to mention that it was Somalia.
Ohio just had to push back — yet again — on another union-busting bill proposed by the GOP here. This was after citizens had gone through all the effort to initiate and pass a referendum less than two years ago to stop them from attempting to do the same thing! They were trying to get a “right to work” (for slave wages) law passed here.
Like many toddlers they just don’t get the meaning of the word “no” unless they happen to be the ones saying it.
Very funny, Kes! Somalia indeed!
Texas also is one of the worst states on teen pregnancies, high school grads going onto college and on and on. They are only a role model to failed states.
As for the bad guys in OH, what we know now is that no battle is ever over on any issue. Politics to Republicans is a game of Whack-A-Mole, you knock them down, they just come right back up with no concern that the voters don’t want what they’re pushing.
The thing is, they really don’t care about the people, they just want to shove their class warfare on the nation and won’t ever give up.
So we can’t.
You have painted a direct and honest picture about the GOP party, spot on article AdLib.
Anyone waiting for the much hyped Republican transformation of it’s image has to look no further than their gun control vote, their constant support of the wacky NRA and their supporters, their continued obstruction of bills meant to improve the lives of ordinary Americans, like the ACA. Their goals of making abortion illegal throughout the land, and now their attack on something they gave the false impression of being in agreement with; immigration reform.
Lindy Graham and McCain are still looking up from their feeding bags to snarl with their yellowing teeth about Benghazi, and yet seem quite content with the deaths of so many children and adults from guns. How these hypocrites can show their faces in public is beyond me.
Shame on the few Republicans who wanted to vote yes but were afraid of losing their cushy, overpaid jobs in politics. I wonder what it’s like to go through life without a conscience, and I’m glad that I’ll never have to find out. This is not the way most Christians behave.
I can identify strongly with this lack of compassion they show because it is happening again with the Conservatives in the U.K. and the atrocious way wounded veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan were treated when they returned home. Or the fact that more than one million children go to bed hungry each night and it doesn’t move them at all.
Concerns about the deficit is just a smoke screen as they plan to take from the poor, the children and the elderly to give to the rich. They don’t care what state they leave the economy in when they are defeated because to them it’s just a game of winning more for those who already have more than enough.
The media reporting that they are making efforts to improve their image is pure fiction, and more to the point, outright lies. If I, living so far away can see this, why then can’t more Americans see it too. They only way to stop them is to vote them out of office. Personally, I can’t wait for the next GE in the U.K. in 2015, but feel sorry for the next lot that will have to put the country back together again as with every aftermath of a Tory government. “Stick that austerity where the sun doesn’t shine” should be a popular song around the world right now. Oh wait, I think it already is.
Kalima, you’re so right, there is no transformation coming for the GOP, when you’re mentally petrified, you’re just not capable of such flexibility. As we’ve been saying from the start, it was and always has been about manipulating the public into thinking they were changing into a more reasonable and moderate party. They’ve said since Obama’s re-election, “It’s not our message, it’s our messaging and our messengers.”
Their problem that they can’t keep their hands out of the “hate candy” when a plate of it is placed too close to them. So this facade of reasonableness was always doomed from the beginning, since it was just a scam anyway.
Indeed, you saw my Republican math above, when they can exploit the deaths of 4 people in pursuit of political advantage:
4 deaths > 1 million deaths
Amb. Thomas Pickering, co-chairman of the State Department’s committee investigating of the Benghazi attack, just stated on MSNBC, “I think the notion of a cover up has all the elements of Pulitzer Prize fiction attached to it.”
I think it is very apparent to a majority of Americans that the Republicans are a hateful, cruel party that want to destroy the lives of the 99% to benefit the top 1%.
They are an intellectually and morally bankrupt party with only hate, fear and lies as their tools to get people to vote against their own interests and for them. I think it will be a long time until Republicans can win the Presidency again and I think that after 2014, which is a year when the most vulnerable Dems outnumber Repubs, in 2016 and on, the Dems will win more and more governorships, state legislatures and Congressional seats.
The GOP is a dying party and until they hit rock bottom, losing control in Congress and most states for a while, they will just try to put thicker lipstick on their own pig lips.
Like George Carlin famously said, if you’re pre-born you are valuable. If you’re pre-school, you’re fucked….until you become of military age! Republicans want women to be brood mares for the state.
It makes me sick to see RWers trying to blow Benghazi and the Boston bombings into giant proportions, while completely ignoring 911 and the death and destruction in Iraq. They even try to blame Clinton for 911, saying he didn’t do enough to stop bin Laden. Clinton gave the incoming Bush administration several serious warnings about al Quida and bin Laden preparing to strike within the US. Of course this is selective memory for the GOPers. They only choose the reality that serves them best. All else is just figment of liberal imagination.
KT, Carlin was a genius! He’s really missed!
So true, because it was a Republican in the WH, the Repubs did all they could to whine, “Now is not the time for finger pointing!” and minimize that Bush and Co. ignored a report from US Intel titled, “Bin Ladin to Attack America”…which resulted in over 2,000 innocent American deaths here and over 6,000 military deaths and 200,000 civilian deaths in Iraq…and Benghazi is the real outrage?
The Repubs have no credibility on this, the American people didn’t buy it when they tried to ride on the backs of these 4 dead Americans to elect Romney and it looks even worse today.
It won’t work for them, it won’t hurt Obama or Hillary and I think it will only affirm what lying, treacherous slimeballs they are.
The GOPer always bring up Benghazi and Ft. Hood as examples of Obama being “weak,” on terrorism. They NEVER mention Aurora or Sandy Hook or the shootings in Pheonix. They don’t mention these because it doesn’t really serve their cause. They could care less about 20 school children and their teachers being mowed down in cold blood by a nut case with an assault rifle, but damn, let 4 people get killed in a highly dangerous nation and they all act like it’s the end of the world and the “Muslim,” Obama is trying to cover up the whole thing.
I’m really not a violent person, but I would love to slap the shit out of these morons.
Great piece Adlib. Did you know Texas has a DNR order where doctors can make the decision over the protests of the family? So much for those gol durn death panels. But then you know there is always going to be hypocritical talk coming out of the Party of Batshitcrazy.
Indeed you’re correct, Sue. And when he was Gubnor, George W. Bush directed that fragile neo-nates, those ‘precious post fetuses’ would just have to DIE if their parents had no insurance.
I was a colleague of one of those killed in Benghazi. He would NOT be appreciating being made into a political football. Even Romney pretended to know him, such a despicable appropriation and one apparently false, so disgusting that our colleague’s parents demanded Romney STFU.
The truth is clear – yes indeed the funding for state department security was cut by the GOP, and as a result there were insufficient forces present to help stop the upheaval. And yes, it is clear that this was organized but that the thugs rushed in taking advantage of the craven Christian in FL burning the Q’ran. They were waiting for an excuse, and that jerk handed it to them. But are we hearing anything about THAT? Noooooo.
Four lives, all used wrongly and disgustingly to promote an anti-Obama, anti-Clinton agenda, but everyone else’s worth? Not obvious at all.
Sue, as we’ve seen,when Republicans have control over the lives of other, they drop the whole pro-life thing, that’s only used to get more power. How many deaths were the “pro-life” Republicans responsible for under the Bush Presidency? Well over a quarter of a million people in the Middle East alone. Add on all the deaths by guns, death penalty, etc. and that number just keeps leaping up and up.
I remember you mentioned this on Vox about the TX death panels. So is their scheme to prevent family members from letting a terminally ill person who’s suffering from having a death with dignity and forcing them to live day after day in terrible pain until they die?
Actually it is the opposite. Doctors can make that decision to not save a life if in trauma. There was no mention about a family having a DNR, this was pure state decision via doctors in their hospitals. They have a code for it at hospitals, I cannot remember right now what it is, but it means no efforts are being made to revive a patient.
Sue, I just researched this and I am disgusted. There is a bill pending in the TX House, already passed by the TX Senate, that gives hospitals and doctors the right to force a DNR on patients even if they and their families refuse or don’t know.
http://www.aapsonline.org/index.php/site/article/stop_texas_bill_sb_303_harmful_to_patients39_rights/
This is sick and what else is sick is that it’s endorsed by Catholics Bishops in TX!
Insane! This factually gives corporations (hospitals) the decision making power to kill you or your relatives for ANY reason when you’re seriously ill with no recourse. They can “allow” doctors to stop treating any patient and providing any care because it can put “undue emotional burdens” on doctors to keep treating them! Oh, and of course “forcing” doctors to keep treating patients can go against their medical ethics. Yep, you heard me right, they’re claiming that doctors who take the Hippocratic Oath to “First do no harm” are “suffering” by not following their medical ethics when they don’t kill patients who can’t keep payig for their care.
If you really want to get mad, here’s a statement from the mafia-like, fascistic Texas Medical Association that has been using its big money and corrupt association to shove through many laws stripping patients of rights and now…even the right to life!
http://www.texmed.org/Template.aspx?id=26762
Adlib if I said what I really think, you would have to close your daughter’s ears because even she would hear it, without accessing this page.
Sue, the Repubs constantly lie about how Obama or Dem policies will ruin Americans’ lives but here we have a very Repub state being the only state where a Repub government passes a law that allows strangers to kill you or your relatives with no real recourse.
Republicans are voting to kill their own voters and their lemming-like voters keep voting for them!
Imagine, even if you could recover from a condition, a corporation, the hospital that is, can decide to kill you because you’re not giving them enough profit.
If corporations are people, they’re sociopathic murderers in TX.
Adlib
You don;t know how badly I would like to confront Nailin Palin with this information in front of an audience. Crickets from her on this, in fact she loves Perrytales.
Ad, you hit the nail smack dab on the head. The GOP cares about life if it helps their cause, otherwise , not so much.
Nirek, so the real conclusion is that the GOP DOESN’T care about life. When they are claiming they are, it’s just cynical politics.
If being the pro-death party would win them power, they’d flip in an instant.
Hey Ad, they are pro death as far as war, the death penalty and insurance death panels go, as you have so neatly stated already.
No amount of “rebranding,” by the use of soft language is going to make the GOP seem less hypocritical and treacherous as they really are. The GOPers continually think that everyone in America is blind deaf and dumb. They continually underestimate the intelligence of progressive Americans. This is because they are so used to their own dumbed down constituency. That attitude will continually lead to their loss of elections. conservatism is one thing, outright denial is a different animal indeed.