The Golden Rule is NOT christian

I understand what Nancy LeToureau is trying to do here, but she's as dead wrong as every other religious person who thinks religion has anything to do with morality.  It doesn't.  The Golden Rule has nothing to do with Jesus.  It's not in the bible.  Go ahead, look it up yourself (your pastor is lying to you about that as about everything.)

The Golden Rule - do unto others as you would have them do unto you - and the Veil of Ignorance are, in fact, the foundation of Human Morality.  Which evolved with humanity itself, and became the basis of moral human behavior tens of thousands of years before a bunch of greedy, power-grabbing misogynists invented religion to subdue and impoverish their fellow humans.

The path to restoring the Golden Rule leads far away from the greed, arrogance and IMmorality of religion.  It leads back to human morality, treating others as we want them to treat us.  That is the only thing that matters.  That is the only rule we need.  Religion can't restore the Golden Rule but religion is what kills the Golden Rule.  Make human morality our goal, and fuck this religion shit.

Oh, and the real "reason for the season" is axial tilt.

It has become common to complain that we have forgotten “the reason for the season” when we celebrate Christmas. A theology professor once said something that helped me understand how that happened. He pointed out that Christians tend to celebrate the birth and death of Jesus, but don’t pay much attention to how he actually lived.

That is why my one tradition during these holidays has been to reflect on something kid oakland wrote years ago about the life of the man whose birth so many people celebrate tonight.

SNIP

That does a good job of capturing why so many Christians have abandoned the idea of focusing on how Jesus lived his life. He was a radical—not in doctrine or politics—but in how he treated others.

Throughout history, prophets from every major religion have been telling us the same thing, as Karen Armstrong pointed out.

What we need is a new kind of religious discourse that goes back to the core values of the religion: every single one is based on compassion and on the golden rule, first propounded by Confucius 500 years before Christ: do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you. Look into your own heart, discover what it is that gives you pain, and then refuse under any circumstance to inflict that pain on anybody else… This is civilization. The golden rule is the basis of civilization.

More than anything else I can think of, that is the antidote to the poison that has infected our system these days. My hope for everyone reading this is that you find a moment of peace to look into your own heart and contemplate your core values.

My core values are religion-free values of human morality.  What are yours?

Can you stand another cool holiday story?

Of course you can.  This one from the Herald is not at all sentimental but will choke you up anyway.

It was lying on its side in the grass between the sidewalk and the street near Two Keys Tavern on South Limestone.

When Robert “Shorty” Eads found the ring in August he knew the owner would want it back. The 2011 Georgetown College football Final Four ring was more than just jewelry — someone had worked hard for that ring.

“I know it meant something to somebody,” Eads said recently. “If it was the last thing that I did, I was going to get that ring back to its owner.”

So Eads spent the next three months trying to find its owner. He called Georgetown College’s athletics department. No one called him back. He got on the internet and searched Facebook. 

Nothing.

Eads, a former electrician who has been homeless for eight years, had his backpack — where he keeps everything he owns — stolen four different times over the next three months. He lost everything. But not the ring.

“I always kept it on me,” Eads explained.

 

Eads has worked on the city’s End Panhandling Now jobs van almost since the program began in May 2017. The program puts would-be panhandlers to work picking up trash and litter and pays them. Frustrated that no one would call him back, Eads asked Jarrod Jones, the supervisor of the jobs van, for help in November.

Jones, a retired Lexington police officer, posted photos of the ring on Facebook. Other retired police officers saw Jones’ post and got on the case. The ring itself had clues. On one side was “Schmitz” and the number 15.

Don Schmitz was at home in Union in Northern Kentucky when his phone rang a week or so before Thanksgiving.

“I almost didn’t pick it up,” Schmitz said. It’s usually a telemarketer.

But he did. On the other line was a police officer. Was Mr. Schmitz related to a Georgetown College football player?

“I said, ‘Wait, did you find the ring?” Schmitz said.

SNIP

Don Schmitz drove to Lexington one Sunday before Thanksgiving and met Jones and got his son’s ring back. He gave Jones $100 to give to Eads. Schmitz said he would have given him more, but he is temporarily out of work right now because he needs a shoulder replaced.

“I would have liked to have met him,” Don Schmitz said of Eads. “I can’t thank him enough. It was a Christmas gift to all of us. There are still good people out there.”

Eads could have pawned the ring.

“If anybody needed the money, it’s him,” Don Schmitz said. “Instead, he kept it and the diligence and the homework it took to get it back to us... He really made our Christmas.”

Tyler Hurst, executive director of the New Life Day Center, the homeless day shelter that oversees the jobs van program, said people often equate morality with wealth. Eads doesn’t have a home. But he never lost his moral compass, he said.

“Robert is a great guy,” Hurst said. “People sometimes only see who that person is today. They don’t know about that person’s past. And they don’t see who they can be.”

The van gives people like Eads a chance to have a job. So many give up and think they can’t get work or no one wants to hire them, Hurst said.

“This gives people purpose,” Hurst said.

The program has also cut the number of panhandlers on Lexington streets, according to recent counts. In May 2017, there were between 150 to 160 panhandlers on Lexington streets within a 12 hour period. In November 2018, there were 21, 11 of whom were picked up and given a job on the van.

The city of Lexington funds the van but also relies heavily on donations to Lexgive. com to pay the would-be panhandlers.

Eads has been a longtime employee on the van. Hurst said they are working to get him off the street.

Just keep reminding yourself what they are and why

No, you don't have to be nice to them on "family holidays."  That shit is over.  But do be aware that they are probably armed.

Digby:

The mostly white, evangelical Trump base believe he can do no wrong. And there are a lot of these folks. It appears to be around 40% of the country who identify that way. And I firmly believe they are motivated almost entirely by their loathing for the eggheads, the racial minorities, the non-Christians, the city folk, the uppity women, the immigrants. They do not think they should have to share this country with anyone who isn't like them.  In fact, they are livid about it.

But I think we also have to acknowledge that right wing propaganda on television, radio, and social media has fed these impulses and created such an insular information environment that many of these people simply don't have any idea that Trump is failing on an epic scale. They think the only problem is the "fake news media" that is sabotaging him. They are living in an alternate universe in which only good news about their idol is real and the bad news is all made up. As far as they know, everything's going great!

I do have them in my immediate family.  But even before Benedict Donald, we banned discussion of religion and politics at family get-togethers.  It's a tense and stressful peace, but peace nonetheless.

How to Train Cops Right

This isn't the comprehensive Guardian training that should replace the counter-productive and lethal Warrior training American cops get now, but it's a start.

Crooks and Liars:

Prince George's County is just north of Washington, D.C. in Maryland, and home to the wealthiest majority-minority population in the United States. It also just elected it's first woman as County Executive, Angela Alsobrooks. Their school system educates the largest number of students with disabilities in the state. This makes the partnership between Prince George's Police Department and the Maryland Department of Disabilities so fitting, and such an encouraging move forward.

WAMU reported,

Police officers in Maryland are required to get training on how to handle interactions with people with disabilities. But the law doesn’t say how police academies should achieve that goal. Starting this fall at Prince George’s Community College, people with disabilities are doing the teaching — and they’re doing it through improv.

During one recent training, trainers acted out a short play in front of a small audience: A mom can’t get her teenage son to stop playing video games. Things escalate, and soon the son threatens to hurt her. She calls the police. When they arrive, she tells them her son has autism. Eventually, he opens his bedroom door for the officers, who take the time to calm him down. The mother, son and police officers in the play were all acting, but some elements feel real: The scene was unscripted, the officers are actual police officers and the man playing the son does have autism.

According to the ACLU, "in 2018 alone, police have shot and killed 64 people with mental health disabilities." There are laws that guide how police are required to proceed when dealing with those with disabilities, and when they don't, consequences are tragic and deadly. Rarely are officers held accountable for such deaths.

SNIP

The program is considered "best practices" because it includes people who have disabilities, rather than simply hiring people without disabilities to portray them in the role-playing situation. This creates a more authentic scenario for the police officers, and helps them practice patience, deescalation, and calm. All the while, the person with a disability who has been hired has been trained thoroughly, reassured, and understands this is a role-play situation, and that they are safe.

Repugs Rejecting Democracy

And getting rid of Benedict Donald won't stop it.

 

Krugman on the endgame:

So how do people who think and behave this way respond when the public rejects their agenda? They attempt to use their power to overrule the democratic process. When Democrats threaten to win elections, they rig the voting process, as they did in Georgia.

When Democrats win despite election rigging, they strip the offices Democrats win of power, as they did in Wisconsin. When Democratic policies prevail despite all of that, they use apparatchik-stuffed courts to strike down legislation on the flimsiest of grounds.

As David Frum, the author of “Trumpocracy,” warned a year ago: “If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.” That’s happening as we speak.

So Pelosi was right about Reed O’Connor’s ruling being a symptom of a “monstrous endgame,” but the game in question isn’t just about perpetuating the assault on health care, it’s about assaulting democracy in general. And the current state of the endgame is probably just the beginning; the worst, I fear, is yet to come.

GOP delenda est.

"Inept, arrogant and weak"

Joe Gerth at the Courier nails Gov. Sociopathic Narcissist:

With the stunning failure Tuesday night of Gov. Matt Bevin’s special session, the Louisville Republican cemented his place in the history books as the most inept, most arrogant and one of the weakest governors in Kentucky’s history.

It was his ineptness that caused him to pick fights with the General Assembly that didn’t need to be fought.

It was his hubris that caused him to call the legislature into session without its consent.

And it was his weakness that allowed the General Assembly — of which his Republicans hold supermajorities in both houses — to walk out on him after being in session less than 24 hours.  

There hasn’t been a weaker governor since the Democratic legislature stripped powers from Republican Gov. "Flim-Flam" Flem Sampson in the 1920s and gave them to a three-member commission composed of Sampson and the Democratic lieutenant governor and attorney general.

Bevin still has considerable power that comes with being governor — especially in a power vacuum created when the legislature goes home — but compared to other governors, he's now the 97-pound weakling in an old Charles Atlas ad.

He’s weaker now than former Democratic Gov. Paul Patton was following the revelation in 2002 of an affair with a Western Kentucky nursing home operator that almost toppled him during his second term.

Weaker even than former Democratic Gov. Brereton Jones was after he appeared on KET during the 1994 legislative session to denounce Democratic leadership when his budget and health care proposal appeared dead.

SNIP

The state's festering budget crisis was built over decades by politicians of both parties, and is by no means solely Bevin's fault.

But the feckless and arrogant decision to call legislators into session without their consent — just one week before the Yuletide? That's all Bevin's.

Lege spanks Baby Bevin, sends to room without dinner

Bevin is KY repugs' dream come true.  That they have defied him this way bodes very ill for Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You's re-election campaign next year.

From the Herald:

Ignoring the pleas of Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, the Kentucky General Assembly voted Tuesday night to end the surprise special legislative session Bevin called Monday afternoon to address the state’s ailing public pension systems.

In a passionate speech to the House of Representatives, Speaker Pro-Tempore David Osborne, R-Prospect, said the decision to go home without passing a bill reflected a lack of time and conflicting opinions among the Republican caucus about how exactly to change the pension systems.

“We cannot shirk this, we cannot run from this. But this was not a problem that was created overnight ...” Osborne said. “We cannot solve it within the confines of a 5-day session.”

His announcement was greeted with applause from audience members in the gallery.

Osborne then promised to preside over the “ultimate solution to this problem,” presumably during the regular 2019 General Assembly, which begins January 8.

Outside his office, Bevin told reporters the legislature’s inability to pass a bill could put retirees’ pension checks in jeopardy.

“It should be of great concern to the taxpayers,” Bevin said. “It should of great concern, certainly, to the people who worked for the state and who were promised a pension. The odds of them getting that pension just went down dramatically tonight. It has got to be a priority or those people are up the creek.”

No state has ever defaulted on its pension system. Public pension experts say the most likely course is that all other state funding would be squeezed to honor the obligations.

Bevin's a lying motherfucking piece of shit.  Public pensions are constitutional obligations in Kentucky.  They'll shut down every agency of state government before they stop pension checks.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article223287120.html#storylink=cpy

Defeated Bevin Cheating Again

Gov. I Got Mine Fuck You is not going to let some state Supreme Court decision stop him from fucking over teachers, state workers and everybody who is not as obscenely rich as he is.

He doesn't have the votes legally and in broad daylight, so he's scurrying around in the dark to get the vile deed done before his targets can get organized.

From the Herald:

Kentucky lawmakers rushed to Frankfort Monday evening for a special legislative session that started at 8 p.m., just four hours after Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin made a surprise announcement that he would convene them to deal with Kentucky’s struggling pension system.

“I am going to use the powers that have been granted to me to call the legislature into special session that will be effective tonight at eight o’clock,” Bevin said in a brief statement. “They will be coming in.”

Shortly after 11 p.m., two pension overhaul bills were introduced, both sponsored by Rep. Jerry Miller, R-Louisville, the chairman of the House State Government Committee. The committee will hold a hearing on the bills Tuesday at 1 p.m. Miller said there will be no vote taken Tuesday on the bills.

Also from the Herald:

School teachers, public employees and their supporters quickly mobilized Monday after Republican Gov. Matt Bevin called a special session of the Kentucky legislature to make changes to the state’s pension systems, giving them only four hours notice.

“I think we’ll see at least as good a crowd as we did the night they passed the sewage bill in the first place,” said Jessica Hiler, president of the Fayette County Education Association.

Advocacy groups said they were scrambling to get their members to the Capitol in time to protest the special session, which was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. Anyone who couldn’t make it to Frankfort was urged to call their lawmakers and demand that they adjourn immediately, the groups said.

It would have been better had lawmakers waited until the 2019 General Assembly convened in three weeks so an open, deliberative process involving all interested parties could be used to craft a better pension bill, the groups said.

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article223225420.html#storylink=cpy

Bevin and Republican legislative leaders evidently hope to rush a recycled pension bill through the legislative process the week before Christmas before most Kentuckians can understand its contents, said Nema Brewer, co-founder of KY 120 United.

“This is how cowards run a government,” Brewer said. “They’re just raw because they got their hands slapped by the Kentucky Supreme Court for passing a pension bill the last time that was unconstitutional. But we’re headed to Frankfort. We’ll have a presence there. And we’re not happy.”

Read more here: https://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article223225420.html#storylink=cpy

Legal to Rape in KY, As Long As the Bitch Had a Drink First

This is fucking bullshit.  Shame on you, Lexington grand jury members.

From the Herald:

Rape and sodomy charges against the son of Franklin County Sheriff Pat Melton were dismissed by a Lexington grand jury this week, according to court documents.

Patrick Melton, a 22-year-old University of Kentucky student, was accused of “sexual and deviate sexual intercourse” without the consent of the alleged victim on July 7 at his residence on University Avenue in Lexington, his citation stated.

He was arrested in August. The woman allegedly tried to squirm, push and kick Melton, according to his original arrest citation.

Multiple witnesses confirmed the victim’s statements that she was intoxicated and passed out prior to the incident, his citation stated.

The grand jury met Tuesday and dismissed Melton’s first-degree rape and first-degree sodomy charges, according to court documents.

It's Justice Rapey McLiarFace's world now.  We just live in it.

Truth About the War on Christmas

From El Jefe at Juanita's place:  

Alternative

From Wonkette commenter Shanonigan:

The Wrong Way to Legalize Pot

After trillions of wasted dollars and millions of wasted lives, the repugs are finally giving up on the War on (Some Classes of People Who Use Some) Drugs.  But not before they make sure all the profits from legalization will keep going to already filthy rich white repug men.

Zandar:

Michigan voters overwhelmingly approved the legalization of marijuana earlier this month in order to gain tax revenue to pay for schools and roads.  But Republicans in the state's lame duck session are making sure that tax money goes to cops instead, with nothing for students, and that the profits go to corporate growers with both deep ties and deep pockets to give to lawmakers.

A bill proposed by outgoing Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, R-West Olive, would significantly change the voter-approved recreational marijuana program in Michigan, including by drastically lowering the tax revenue the state is set to receive.

Proposal 1 passed with 56 percent of the vote Nov. 6. It will take effect next week.

Meekhof, R-West Olive, introduced the bill Thursday.

In addition to lowering the tax rate from 10 percent to three percent, the bill cuts out Michigan's schools and roads from receiving tax revenue from legal marijuana. The state's six percent sales tax would still apply, said Amber McCann, Meekhof's spokeswoman.

"It's disrespectful to the political process and it's disrespectful to the voters of Michigan," said Josh Hovey, spokesman for the coalition behind the ballot proposal, of Meekhof's bill.

"The people of Michigan have spoken. They knew what they were voting on."

Tax revenue from marijuana sales could reach $287.9 million by the time the market matures in Michigan under the tax structure in Proposal 1, according to a Senate Fiscal Agency analysis. It's unclear how much revenue Meekhof's proposal would draw.

Under Proposal 1, Michigan has one of the lowest tax rates on adult-use marijuana in the country. Under Meekhof's proposed bill, Michigan would have the lowest tax rate in the country. The bill redirects the revenue to municipalities (25 percent), counties (30 percent) and county sheriffs (5 percent) that have marijuana facilities, and 30 percent for state police, police training and first responder disability benefits.

Meekhof's bill, Senate Bill 1243, proposes other major changes to the voter-approved Proposal 1; including eliminating the ability for individuals to grow marijuana at home and cutting out a micro-grower's license.

Proposal 1 allows for individuals to grow up to 12 plants at home, and up to 150 plants at home with a micro-grower's license.

Republicans have such a huge majority in Michigan thanks to gerrymandering that there's a chance that this passes, but it'll take Democrats too because the measure would need a 75% margin to pass. But sending all the tax money to counties with state-approved growing operations (all rural, natch) means Detroit gets zero, and it means that the growing can become yet another industry in the pocket of corporate owners and donors.

That was the plan all along, and it's dank as hell.