Religious right takes credit for GOP election gains

“(politicians who) voted for health care reform, which the groups inaccurately stated will fund abortions. ”

Note that these people lost because of a lie, as simple as that. Which ever side you are on, don’t you think that the truth of the matter is more important than groups making false claims? Or doesn’t truth matter to these organizations?

(I’m also curious how with George Bush and his complete control of Congress for 4 years of his administrations did absolutely nothing to hinder abortions… why? Perhaps because it is too useful a vote getting tool for Republicans?

“I’m also curious how with George Bush and his complete control of Congress for 4 years of his administrations did absolutely nothing to hinder abortions… why?”

That’s not true.

“As he has in the past, President Bush reminded Senate lawmakers this week that he will veto a foreign aid bill if it includes language overturning his policy against funding groups that perform or promote abortions in other countries.”

http://www.lifenews.com/2005/07/21/nat-1465/

Oberstar lost because he voted for Obama’s health care reform, which includes tax funded Abortions.

Oberstar made the biggest mistake of his career when he voted for Abortion and with Obama. Oberstar’s vote tells us that he is willing to compromise the life of millions of babies, for favor with his political pals. Who will ever forget this?

Okay, so we can’t have sex education or contraception or abortion. Then we’ll let all the resulting babies die for lack of health care coverage because health care coverage is socialist or someone might think it pays for an abortion (even though it doesn’t). Now that really sounds christian to me. Just what Jesus would have done. I’ll throw in my lot with the atheists. They’re nicer people.

Wait until the christianists find out that companies don’t want to expand or relocate to areas populated with bible-thumping morons. This conservative legislature is going to be a disaster for the economic recovery of this state. The middle class and poor are going to be beaten to a pulp (yes, I know, you see that as a good thing).

I’m guessing that my job will be gone within the next year. I’ve lived in this state for 56 years, but I’ll have no regrets about leaving MN if that happens.

Tim, you are lying and you know it. Tax funded abortions are not in the health care bill. Wait until you realize how much of an impact Oberstar had on the economy of his district. The social issues conservative who replaced him isn’t going to help keep people employed. In a year’s time, people are SO going to regret that Oberstar is gone.

keep god out of government plain and simple.

@gbear – You may be right, I don’t know much about Oberstar’s replacement or his plan to create jobs. But I do know that Abortions are part of Obamacare and that is why Oberstar lost.

But in the end, the economy always follows morality. So a vote against Abortion will eventually lead to a better economy. Besides our nation in on the path to soon stop all Abortions. And we need the additional workers to pay the tax, social security, medicare, etc. So you should join the pro-life cause for the sake of funding entitlements.

Tim, I’m speechless. I hope you’re laughing at your own cleverness because it is unimaginable that someone could have written that comment with serious intent.

Tim,

Are you paid to spread misinformation? Health Care Reform does not pay for abortions. Saying it over and over does not make it so. Please educate yourself and stop looking like a fool. Oh, and good luck with that ecomony always follows morality thing. It’s probably one of the dumbest things I ever read on the internet.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Christianist right is responsible for the election results we saw yesterday. Let’s take a look at how the Christianist right is doing in saving souls: not very good. The number of people belonging to churches and attending is declining rapidly and largely depending on age. I’m a Christian and I have to ask how the pandering of churches to politicians and vice versa is advancing the Kingdom?

As far as George W. Bush doing anything to hinder abortions, the answer in not much. All politicians do by defunding abortions or making them illegal is put more women and their health at risk. Every study that has ever been done has shown that the rate of abortions n countries where abortion is illegal is not much different than where it is safe and legal. It’s all about legislating morality, which the right wants to deny they want to do. Hence the flimsy pretext about “protecting the unborn.”

And the Stupak amendments in the Health Care reform bill which excluded abortion coverage is one of the things which so upset progressives about the HCA. The HCA does not cover abortions.

I really wish you Cowardly Little Christian Nazi’s would stay out of my political system.. There is nothing more pleasing to me then the thought of ME smashing my 6’5″ 250 lbs. fist into your frikkin faces and watching you cry and squirm like the little cry babies that you are..

Well… I don’t agree with Marcus’s face-smashing. We’ve had enough abusing of people’s heads this election.

But Andy, I’ve never known you to just repeat the silliness of your right-wing subjects! The MFC can crow that they elected this crop of Republicans, but they’ll eat that crow in 2 years. These candidates rode in the anti-incumbent wave, and they’ll ride out when the tide turns. They just can’t fix everything in 2 years, but they’ve stoked expectations up well beyond what they can accomplish.

I suspect they’ll play the game that too many Dems have played with LGBT voters: dangle a few treats, but let it die in the process. They know a marriage ban on the ballot would bring all the progressives out in 2012.

MFC’s hopes will wither on the vine.

…or maybe not. After Tuesday, I’m done with trying to predict this state’s politics!

@gbear
I do not think the corporations will have a problem with these people because they are not real Christians. It is true that they are religious zealots, but their sole focus is on controlling the bedrooms and wombs of America. They couldn’t care less about real live human beings or the world in which we have to live. The corporations will still be free to prey on the people and destroy the environment without interference from Christian America.

I call them the Religious Reich, Marriage Nazis, or American Taliban. There isn’t one of them who would respect the Constitution as the “supreme Law of the Land”.

They pick and choose from the Bible just as much as they pick and choose from the Constitution. They also hide behind both. Whatever reinforces, rationalizes, and protects their prejudices.

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
- Sinclair Lewis

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
- Sinclair Lewis

What would you expect a godless communist to say?

If these “christians” want people to see morality from their point of view, they should convert them to their religion. But that would be too hard. It’s easier to resort to political tricks and enlist the uninformed to vote for people who will make their religion the law of the land. There’s a reason you folks aren’t converting much of anybody to your so-called faith. It stinks, and you are very bad company.

“What would you expect a godless communist to say?”
You mean commercially successful author and Nobel Prize winner, Don’t you?
Or maybe, like the current excuse for a republican party, you prefer demonizing your critics to honest self-reflection and exercising “eternal vigilance”.

Dennis

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
- Sinclair Lewis”

Wow, you’re first true quote!

Your problem, Dennis, is that you think fascism needs the swastika and the uniforms, it doesn’t. Here’s the Wikipedia definition: Fascism (pronounced /ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology.] Fascists seek to organize a nation according to corporatist perspectives, values, and systems, including the political system and the economy”

One need only look at the new “corporate owned” Republican congressmen who will be looking out for their corporate masters rather than the citizens. Texas Rep Joe Barton is a prime example. He’s the guy who apologized to BP because they were being called to be responsible for the Gulf oil spill. That’s how fascism happens.

In ranking the factors that explain this year’s election results, it is overly simplistic to state that “factor X is the reason for conservative gains”. Whatever “factor X” you chose to explain the GOP legislative gains, you have to then ask the question “Why did factor X not carry the GOP candidates for constitutional offices to victory?”

If the religious right wants to claim credit for GOP legislative gains, then do they claim failure for the governor’s race (Emmer short, heading to recount), Secretary of State (Severson very religious compared to Ritchie) and Attorney General (Barden would have been key to Minnesota rejecting Obamacare).

No, I believe the main factor in explaining GOP legislative gains and executive/constitutional losses/stalemates is an electorate mentality of “kick the bums out”. The electorate voted AGAINST the DFL legislature and AGAINST GOP Pawlenty, flipping both branches and keeping us in gridlock.

The TEA party activists, who started out as non-religious and non-partisan, drove the results. The politically fickle and traitorous social conservatives (left and right) are merely trying to inflate their holey (misspelling pun intended) sails with the fiscal conservatives momentum.

Bwahahahaha.. the religious right was directly responsible for the nomination of losers Buck, Angle, Miller, and all the other seats that could have gone GOP but for extremist social policy ideas.

What cc5 said. If the national economy was doing better, the legislature wouldn’t have flipped — and the House only flipped by 700 votes all told.

If Obama had spent the effort he wasted on a WellPoint-VP-composed health care bill (http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/03/29/baucus-thanks-wellpoint-vp-liz-fowler-for-writing-health-care-bill/) on using the reconciliation process to push through a stimulus package big enough to do the job (as every economist worth the name had begged him to do), then the unemployment rate would be half what it is now and Republicans wouldn’t have won diddly. As it was, teabaggers and religio-racist-right candidates lost twice as many races as they won (http://my.firedoglake.com/phoenix/2010/11/03/teabagger-fail-tea-party-gopers-sucked-at-the-ballot-box-last-night/). In fact, the Tea Party Republicans’ electoral leprosy is what’s going to keep John Boehner from letting Bachmann shake him down for a leadership job in the next Congress.

@Zera Lee – Fascism is a real problem. Socialism is also a real problem. We cannot focus on one and let the other gain power. Both must be addressed. The solution is a culture that upholds Christian values.

Business leaders that have been told about the love of Christ and why we should all strive to follow God’s command for the good of all humanity are compelled to resist business transactions that harm others. The power of understanding who Christ is and what he did is the only thing strong enough the keep business leaders honest so that they do not take advantage of their workers or investors. The spread of Christianity reduces that spread and strength of fascism. No government can control fascism, only a culture of Christian ethics is capable of this feat.

In the same way, Christianity can do what no government can with regard to wealth creation and distribution. That is to convert evil people into righteous people that are driven from within to live by faith in the one and only true God, the source of provision and protection. It is impossible to organize a group of people into a government that is capable of replacing an active relationship with the sovereign God. Ever attempt throughout history has failed and led to economic disaster. No government can create or distribute wealth; only a culture of Christian ethics is capable of this feat.

Therefore you should join the conservative Christians who are fighting to preserve our nation and our Christian culture that is the source of our freedom, liberty and the economy. Even if you’re not a Christian, we will be helping to preserve our nation’s freedoms, liberty and economy.

This is why the economy always follows morality.

I am on record (see http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/11/03/morlan/) as claiming that Oberstar’s defeat represents the great awakening that the old economic models are no longer valid. We have only a few short months to convince the Rs that their future lies in supporting freedom and fiscal restraint, rather than less freedom and more fiscal pandering. 2010 was much more about “anti-Obamanomics” than it was about being “pro-social agenda” and if the Republican fail to recognize that they will be irrelevant in 2012. The election cycle is already starting, let us not waste this opportunity.

Tim/Dennis

You seem to be on the anti abortion band wagon so please answer me this…how can a fetus have more rights than the woman carying it and when does the fetus relinquish these rights?

Hmmmmm

Look at that. Tim/Dennis will not answer. You are both cowards.

@Tim
Socialism is not the threat that partisan conservative fear-mongering would have people believe. The HCR that republicans are calling a government takeover started life (including the mandate) as the republican counter to “HilliaryCare” The only reason that republicans object to it now is that the Democrats made it happen. The liberals consider it a sell-out to private interests. HCR sets new rules that bolster consumer rights, but there is no medical practice, hospital, drug or medical device company, or insurance company that was transfered to government management.

The current system is failing. It has been failing for years. General practice, family practice, and rural medicine are all disappearing in favor of more profitable specialization. It is a system designed to fail. It is also what the conservatives want to fully embrace. The republican ideas I have seen so far would accelerate that failure without any meaningful short-term benefit beyond their own political ambitions.

Likewise, the so-called government takeover of the auto industry bore no resemblance to socialism. The government invested heavily in GM and Chrysler in order to save the 1M+ jobs that would have been lost if they had failed. They used their authority as a major investor/stockholder to oust some top management, then they butted out and let the private sector be the private sector. People directly involved were amazed at the business-like approach instead of the governmental approach. Only when dealerships started squawking to their Congressional representation did the government (but not the administration) lobby a business decision. Both the companies and the government want to sell the government stake to the private sector as soon as practical. Selling too much stock at once would devalue the stock too much, so it will take a while, per free-market rules.

Fascism, on the other hand, is a far more immediate problem. Theocracy and oligarchy have made huge strides in undermining democracy and government by the people.

If the Tea Party really wanted to take the country back, they should be trying to take it back from the churches and corporations that are taking the government away from the people instead of helping them separate people from their own government.