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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.

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choicelady
Member

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.

SallyT
Member

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!

SallyT
Member

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

choicelady
Member

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”.

kesmarn
Admin

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.

Kalima
Admin

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.

KillgoreTrout
Member

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.

SueInCa
Member

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.

choicelady
Member

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.

Nirek
Member

Ad, you hit the nail smack dab on the head. The GOP cares about life if it helps their cause, otherwise , not so much.