Support Melissa Montoya for the California State Senate in the 17th District « Enlighten the Vote

EnlightenTheVote supports the write-in candidacy of Melissa Montoya for the California State Senate in the 17th District. (High Desert, Antelope Valley, Castaic, Fillmore, Palmdale, Lancaster, Quartz Hill, Lake Elizabeth, Lake LA, Llano, Little Rock, Three Points, From the Ocean to Hesperia.)

Ms. Montoya is a political Independent and outspoken Atheist.

For more information please click here to send donations to Ms. Montoya and help get her elected to office.

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Tax The Churches Or Do Without

The Religion News Service is reporting that Mission, Kansas is now being sued by the Catholics and Baptists for imposing a Transportation Untilities Fee on all business including churches. Churches should be paying property taxes like all other privately owned property is required to do. To get around the law in all 50 states and DC that exempt churches from paying property taxes, cash-strapped cities are now looking to invoke fees for services used by churches as well as all other private businesses.

The fun part of the story is watching the conservative lawyers for the churches go into court and argue that the fees are a violation of Church State Separation. You know, that thing they continually keep harping is not in the Constitution. Well it certainly is a live and doing well when a state or locality needs funds from them.

Don't you just love churches that argue there is no separation of Church and State when the issue is them receiving money from governments for faith-based intiatives and they argue they need to discriminate on the basis of religion and sexual preferences, but there sure as hell is a separation of Church and State when the State needs money from them. All of sudden they know all about the Lemon test and US Supreme Court interpretations that are also judge made law and not in the Constitution. Why, cause it is their ox that is getting gored.

SH

In God We Trust, But The Bankers Don't

The sign in the picture says Judgment Day on 21 May 2011. I think it really means foreclosure on that day for some houses of worshiop. It seems thousands of churches are in financial trouble. Their congregations are getting laid off and subsisting on unemployment insurance which really drops the tithing and makes paying all those expensive loans a real problem.

I like the part where the Wall Street Journal reporter says the Banks don't really like foreclosing on God, but did you notice it doesn't bother them enough to stop. Gee, and they have no problem foreclosing on the rest of us at all.

We Live In The United Industries of America

Scalia and Thomas May Have Conflict of Interest, Common Cause Says - NYTimes.com

The conservatives are united in ways that progressives will never be organized. There unity is so strong that it is even illegal. The majority of our Supreme Court have upheld the right of Koch Industries to fund the election and elect those politicians who champion the Koch brothers issues of energy and pollution makers in the Citizens' United decision last year that paid for the new majority in the House of Representatives.

You should go to Palm Springs later this month. That is when the Koch brothers will be holding a political retreat on how to get rid of the black guy in the White House. And their guests include the most conservative Supreme Court Associate Justices Scalia and Thomas. Common Cause has filed a complaint with the Justice Department over the obvious conflict of interest demonstrated when two Supreme Court justices who decided a case that presented their hosts with so much additional power for their wealth in the election and running of our country. Welcome to the United Conservatives of America.

SH

A CPA Compares a Normal Taxpayer to a Minister

Bet you can't guess who comes out on top? That's right the Minister. Even if the normal taxpayer was the director of a labor organization that helped thousands of workers or some other non-profit organization like the Red Cross that provides real aid to people, see how Ministers unfairly fare better than us.

One note though on the writer's statement about how Ministers can opt out of paying FICA but then can't get benefits. This was raised in a New York Times article a couple of years back that reported that when a large enough number of Ministers from really poor churches reach retirement age and are forced to go without social security benefits, they have successfully lobbied Congress to grant them benefits without ever paying into the plan.

Outer Brightness » Blog Archive » Ministers and Federal Subsidies

SH

The Wingnuts and the Two Travelers ~~ A Fractured Aesop Fable

Two men, one who always spoke the truth and the other who told nothing but lies, were traveling together and by chance came to the land of Wingnuts. One of the Wingnuts, who had raised herself to be queen, commanded them to be seized and brought before her, that she might know what was said of her among men.

She ordered at the same time that all the Wingnuts be arranged in a long row on her right hand and on her left, and that a throne be placed for her, as was the custom among men. After these preparations she signified that the two men should be brought before her, and greeted them with this salutation: "What sort of a queen do I seem to you to be, O strangers?" The Lying Traveler replied, "You seem to me a most mighty queen." "And what is your estimate of those you see around me?" "These," he made answer, "are worthy companions of yourself, fit at least to be ambassadors and leaders of armies." The Queen Wingnut and all her court, gratified with the lie, commanded that a handsome present be given to the flatterer.

On this the truthful Traveler thought to himself, "If so great a reward be given for a lie, with what gift may not I be rewarded, if, according to my custom, I tell the truth?" The Wingnut quickly turned to him. "And pray how do I and these my friends around me seem to you?" "Thou art," he said, "a most excellent Wingnut, and all these thy companions after thy example are excellent Wingnuts too." The Queen of the Wingnuts, enraged at hearing these truths, gave him over to the teeth, claws and Second Amendment remedies of her companions.

Can we give God back his gifts?

Sam Brownback is Kansas' two term Christian Republican 'C Street House' resident Senator and now is their Religious Far Right Zealot Governor. The boy even declared his inauguration day a 'gift from God' and his faith would heal the state's financial  and social problems.

Now I've heard of conceited, and I've heard of monumental egos before, Hell, I've even heard that the kind of pride or vanity expressed by Governor Brownback is a deadly sin, but to openly declare yourself a gift from God? Now that takes a kind of vanity that can only stem from a conceited monumental ego so large even God couldn't imagine it.