The Resistance: Calling Your GOP Reps Works

No, it wasn't the Orange Loser.  It was you and all your friends.

Think Progress:

The House GOP reversed course on Tuesday, deciding in a closed door meeting to abandon a plan approved less than 24 hours earlier to gut the independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE).

In an emergency conference meeting Tuesday morning, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) offered and the party approved a motion to restore the current OCE rules. The reversal came as members of Congress said their offices were flooded with calls from constituents angered by the decision.

Do it again. Harder.

How to Survive

The news about the fascist tangelo just gets worse every day.  It's easy to give in to despair, but don't do it. Get busy instead.  And keep your eyes on the prize: saving democracy.

Ian Millhiser at Think Progress:

Similarly, every American should read Yale History Professor and Holocaust scholar Timothy Snyder’s “20-point guide to defending democracy under a Trump presidency.” 

 

Among his most important words of advice are “do not obey in advance,” to be wary if the Trump regime attempts to use a terrorist attack or similar tragedy to consolidate its power, and to adhere — especially if you are a lawyer, judge, government worker or other individual who may be called upon to shepherd Trump’s goals into fruition — to professional ethics.

Ehtical Morality

Divine Irony:

(Source: forthelove-ofscience)

Gov. Lying Coward Ensures Watchdogs Can't Watch Him

The Executive Branch Ethics Commission caught and exposed Ernie Fletcher, but Matt Bevin has gutted the agency, leaving his administration free to wreak havoc with no accountability.

Adam Beam at AP:

As part of his proposed budget cuts, Republican Gov. Matt Bevin exempted what he considered to be key government services. Those not protected include agencies charged with holding him and his administration accountable.

Katie Gabhart, the executive director of the Executive Branch Ethics Commission, said the proposed 4.5 percent budget cut this year and the 9 percent cut over the next two years will devastate the agency. She said it would force her to lay off the agency's sole investigator and auditor, two employees who already work part time.

"We will be an investigative and auditing agency with no investigator and auditor," Gabhart told House lawmakers this week. "Public servants are going to violate the ethics code ... and if they know we have an ethics commission with so few resources that we can't enforce the code, then what is the point of having one?"

The cuts also include the Registry of Election Finance, the agency that makes sure politicians follow the rules when they raise and spend money for their campaigns. Executive Director John Steffen said the agency could not sustain a 9 percent cut and would not be able to hire an auditor. In response, House lawmakers suggested changing state law so fewer candidates would have to file disclosure reports.

"I don't know what statutory obligations can be changed and not render our entire agency meaningless," Steffen said.

 A single Democratic seat in the state House stands between Kentucky and the kind of all-repug government that has turned Kansas into Haiti.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/latest-news/article60012306.html#storylink=cpy

First Corrupt Bevin Appointee Resigns; Matt Bevin Doesn't Know What the Fuck He's Doing, Part Eleven

That's what you get when you stuff your administration with unprosecuted criminals from the last repug administration.


Tom Loftus at the Courier:

The man recently appointed as director of resorts for the Kentucky Department of Parks despite a past violation of the state government ethics code has resigned.

SNIP

The Bevin administration announced on Jan. 14 that Rittenhouse, who lives in Cadiz and previously managed two state park resorts, had been appointed as director of resorts – a job that pays $75,190 per year.

But the following day The Courier-Journal and cn/2 reported that just one year ago the ethics commission found Rittenhouse violated the ethics code. Rittenhouse admitted that evidence showed he violated the code and he paid a $1,500 civil penalty in a settlement with the commission last January.

Personal Responsibility

Speaking of people who use religion as an excuse to refuse to do their job if it they can't deny human rights to human beings ....

Divine Irony:

atheistcartoons:

When religion occurs in an individual without external ethical and philosophical checks to hold back the darker and more dangerous, more lethal aspects of a religion, it gives them a justification and a reason to indulge every atavistic, harsh, tribal, patronizing, judgmental, hateful, bigoted, self-righteous or murderous impulse they’re carrying around as evolutionary luggage. 

And it gives them a great reason to ignore the consequences: This Is What God Wants. The next life is more important, anyway. This world of dust is mere illusion.

Religion doesn’t necessarily make a good person any more good, but it can make a dangerous person a lot more dangerous, simply by obviating (rather than counteracting) personal responsibility.

Choose

ummagumma.co:


(Source: dharmaworks)

The Godless and Society

No wonder the freakazoids scream so hysterically that without god means without morals. They're frantic to prevent people from noticing that all the evidence is to the contrary.

From Divine Irony:

According to Federal Bureau of Prisons data, the number of responding people in prison acknowledging they were Catholic was 39 percent; Protestant, 35 percent; Muslim, 7 percent; Jewish, 2 percent; and godless, 0.2 percent (20 percent did not respond).

Since the number of godless is estimated to be 10 percent of the general population, all things being equal you would expect their prison population to be 10 percent.

If, as many people assume, the godless do not lead moral lives, you would expect the number to be greater than 10 percent. The fact that the actual number is 50 times less than expected can lead to only one of two conclusions: either the godless commit less crime than the religious or they’re too smart to get caught very often.

According to a Barna Research Group report, fundamentalist Christians have the highest divorce rate, followed by Jews and Baptists. The godless are tied with Catholics and Lutherans for the lowest divorce rate. It seems that some groups that claim to follow the Bible most strictly are not putting their money where their mouths are. The godless who are thought to be without morals seem to take their vows more seriously.

According to a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Survey, the least-educated Americans are Jehovah’s Witnesses, followed by black Protestants and fundamentalist Christians. The most highly educated are reformed Jews, followed by Unitarian Universalists and the godless.

Some groups seem to like their flocks ignorant so that pastors’ interpretations of God’s edicts are not questioned. Other groups prize scholarship and achieve more in their lives here on Earth.

In fact, a review of worldwide studies found that criminality and religion go hand in hand. The countries with the most religious people have the highest crime rates, highest sexually transmitted diseases and the highest teen pregnancy rates.

This is also true in the United States. The more religious a state’s population, the higher the crime, STD and teen pregnancy rates. The report does say that the religious are happier than the secular but posits that the ostracism of the latter may be a major cause.

So what conclusion can be reached? It is obvious that you do not have to believe in a higher power in order to live a moral and successful life. Quite the opposite.

I won’t attempt to claim a correlation of religion with crime, infidelity and ignorance. However, it is total hypocrisy for those in such groups to claim that the godless are not and cannot be moral. Yet in a recent study atheists were believed to be no more trustworthy than rapists.

In spite of this easily obtained information, the groups with the highest crime rate, the poorest marriages and the lowest education continually strive to force their beliefs on the nonreligious. And the politicians pander to them. Why else would they pass laws to put religion in the schools and on courthouse facades? And then they wonder why the godless could possibly be upset.

Source

QOTD

From Divine Irony:

"When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease … But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight. "

 - John Maynard Keynes

Kentucky Repugs: Setting an Unethical Record

Kentucky politics may be irredeemably corrupt, but at least we don't subscribe to the "look forward, not back" school of failing to hold former elected officials at all accountable.

Jack Brammer at the Herald:

Former Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer was charged Monday with 42 counts of violating the state ethics law, the most ever issued against an individual by the Executive Branch Ethics Commission.

SNIP
The charges against Farmer, a popular University of Kentucky basketball player in the 1990s, included misuse of state employees, misuse of state resources, improper use of grants and improper use of "Kentucky Proud" marketing funds.

Most of the charges stem from an investigation by State Auditor Adam Edelen last year that said a "toxic culture of entitlement" permeated the agriculture department under Farmer. The report found that Farmer had state workers build a basketball court in his back yard, take him hunting and shopping, mow his yard and chauffeur his dog between Frankfort and Louisville during the State Fair — all while on the clock.

He also used an extravagant 2008 convention for fellow agriculture commissioners from Southern states to stock his own gun rack and bar, at least partially at taxpayer expense, the audit found.

The ethics commission also made a few new allegations Monday. Farmer and his sister, Rhonda Monroe, face three counts of breaking ethics laws for allegedly conspiring to submit false records to the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance, where Monroe is the assistant executive director. The expense records allowed Farmer to collect inappropriate payments from his 2007 re-election campaign.

Brammer waits until the 11th graf to mention that Reetchie is a repug. Just two years the pride of the Kentucky Republican Party. Chosen for the GOP gubernatorial ticket to overcome the extreme unpopularity of Senate President David Williams. Long considered a lock for governor.

This is the face of the Kentucky Republican Party: corrupt shmuck Ritchie Farmer. Not Jamie Comer. Ritchie Farmer.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/03/18/2562888/richie-farmer-charged-with-42.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2013/03/18/2562888/richie-farmer-charged-with-42.html#storylink=cpy

The Ethics of Atheism

"Good without god."  That's the short version.

Both atheism and secular humanism posit that ethic and morality stem from basic human impulses far predating the invention of religion. It's simple and intuitive: Most human beings know that harmful behavior is wrong because it is harmful, and don't need an invisible sky wizard to tell us so. Those who don't know or care that harmful behavior is wrong can't be dissuaded by threats from an invisible sky wizard.

But I think a new effort to spell out the ethics of atheism has gotten off on the wrong foot with a fatally misleading label.

The title "Ethical Atheism" is misleading. It implies that Atheism in and of itself is at best neutral ethically and at worst unethical. Nothing could be further from the truth. Let's talk about atheistic ethics, or simply the ethics of Atheism.

PZ Myers:

Here’s the preamble:

In real life, atheism means more than mere disbelief in gods, or belief that there are no gods. If you disbelieve in gods, it necessarily follows that you also disbelieve that we get our ideas of truth and morality from gods. This is a significant approach to two central questions about life, in a world where most people believe the opposite.

This is a draft manifesto for ethical atheists who care about both truth and morality, and who want to promote reason, critical thinking and science; atheism over supernaturalism; natural compassion and ethics; inclusive, caring atheist groups; fair and just societies; secular government; and local, national and global solidarity.

Ethical atheism is more useful than dictionary atheism, because it applies the consequences of our atheism to real life. Ethical atheism is more precise than secular humanism, because religious people can be both secular and humanist, and because ethics affects all sentient beings and not just humans.

I like it, and it’s what a lot of us have been saying all along. I really don’t care what label you attach to it — secular humanism, atheism+, ethical atheism — as long as you support the values behind it.

 Those of us who are good are good without a god. Those of us who aren't good won't get good with one.

Meet the Man David Williams Wants to See Dead

It's better to be hated than ignored by Kentucky legislators, especially if your calling is protecting Kentucky citizens from corruption.

John Cheves at the Herald:

Richard Beliles sat in Gov. Steve Beshear's office foyer on a recent morning, staging his weekly protest of mountaintop-removal coal mining, when Senate President David Williams walked by and suggested that he kill himself.

"He said, 'Are you occupying the office?' I said yes. He said, 'Well, why don't you set yourself on fire? Why don't you immolate yourself?' And then he left," said Beliles, who is recovering from cancer treatment. "It was a strange thing for David to say. It sort of shook me up."

Through a spokeswoman, Williams later said he clearly was joking by suggesting the protest would be more effective with Beliles ablaze.

Beliles, who turns 78 on Tuesday, is a soft-spoken, genial man — and one of the more deeply resented figures at the Capitol.

He earned this animosity as chairman of the Kentucky chapter of Common Cause, a national advocacy group that describes its mission as "curbing the excessive influence of money on government and promoting fair elections." It's only one of his many causes (hence, his weekly coal-mining protests), but it's the one that most defines him.

For 22 years, without pay, Beliles has driven to Frankfort from his suburban Louisville home to lobby for stronger government ethics laws. He files ethics complaints, as he did to Williams in 2007 after the Republican senator sponsored a lunch where lobbyists were asked to help raise $50,000 in campaign funds in apparent violation of the law. (Williams said it was a mistake by his aides, and the complaint was dismissed). He is quoted as the scolding voice of integrity in news stories when politicians get caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

None of this has won him many friends in the crowd that runs state government.

Read the whole thing.

A Scientist on Morality

On Friday night, biologist and science blogger PZ Myers discussed morality with a Catholic priest and a communist. Unfortunately, the whole discussion is not available on video, but PZ's opening remarks cogently summarize the reality-based position on morality:

Here are the answers to our guiding questions that I gave (sort of) in my opening remarks.

1. Can science provide a morality to change the world?

NO.

Science merely describes what is, not what should be, and it also takes a rather universal view: science as science takes no sides on matters relevant to a particular species, and would not say that an ape is more important than a mouse is more important than a rock. Don't ask science to tell you what to do when making some fine-grained moral decision, because that is not what science is good at.

What science is, is a policeman of the truth. What it's very good at is telling you when a moral decision is being made badly, in opposition to the facts. If you try to claim that homosexuality is wrong because it is unnatural, science can provide you a long list of animals that practice homosexuality freely, naturally, and with no ill consequences. If you try to claim that abortion is bad because it has horrible physiological consequences to pregnant women, science will provide you with the evidence that it does no such thing, and also that childbirth is far more physiologically debilitating.

If you want to claim that homosexuals should be stoned to death because the Bible says so, science will tell you yep, that's what it says, and further, we'll point out that the Abrahamic religions seem to be part of a culturally successful and relatively stable matrix. "Science", if we're imagining it as some institutional entity in the world, really doesn't care -- there is no grand objective morality, no goal or purpose to life other than survival over multiple generations, and it could dispassionately conclude that many cultures with moral rules that we might personally consider abhorrent can be viable.

However, I would suggest that science would also concede that we as a species ought to support a particular moral philosophy, not because it is objectively superior, but because it is subjectively the proper emphasis of humanity...and that philosophy is humanism. In the same way, of course, we'd also suggest that cephalopods would ideally follow the precepts of cephalopodism.

So don't look to science for a moral philosophy: look to humanism. Humanism says that we should strive to maximize the long-term welfare and happiness of humans; that we should look to ourselves, not to imaginary beings in the sky or to the imperatives written down in old books, to aspire to something better, something more coherent and successful at promoting our existence on the planet.

Science wouldn't disagree. But it would be a kind of passive agreement that says, sure, nothing in that idea is in violation of reality, go for it. It would also be egging the cephalopods on, though.

2. Are science, religion, and communism complementary, conflictual or mutually exclusive of one another?

Science and religion are definitely in conflict. Again, science is only acting as a policeman, though: it's firing up the sirens and flashing lights to pull over the priests and tell them that claiming authority on the basis of an imaginary man in the sky is fallacious and discredits your entire paradigm. Rethink the basis of your beliefs, and maybe we can get along.

I think science and communism are also in conflict, but perhaps less dramatically so. There, we have to point out an empirical problem, that communist societies haven't fared so well. The concession I would have to make is that communism is a young philosophy, unlike religion, so it can be excused to some degree for being at the start of the learning curve. I find it a little hard to excuse some of the human costs of communism, but then science also has had human costs.

But science isn't a moral philosophy. I've proposed humanism as our tool; are communism and religion in conflict with that? And that's where the answer gets murkier, because more progressive versions of those philosophies all seem to converge on humanism, anyway. The quest for social justice is a humanist ideal, and it's also front and center in communism and liberal religion; you can be either of those and also be a humanist. I wouldn't exactly call them complementary, but I would call them compatible.

3. How will we motivate people, and with what moral paradigm to change the world?

As I've said repeatedly, science doesn't provide a morality. What it does provide, and what I optimistically and subjectively think will motivate people, is that it provides rigor and a path to the truth of the world. I know, I could be cynical and suggest that what people really want is delusions, distractions, and reassurances to help them hide away from reality -- but what I've noticed is that people who accept reality seem to be better able to deal with it, and are often happier and more content. And further, they are better prepared to change the actual world, rather than burying themselves deeper in their fantasies.

Morality is not the exclusive property of religion, and never has been. PZ regularly addresses this most dangerous and destructive of false beliefs.

July 2009:

Please, don't ever equate faith with ethics. They have nothing to do with each other, except, perhaps, that faith is a commonly used escape clause to get away from the requirements of human morality. Science itself is a tool, as amoral as a hammer, and it certainly can be misused, but don't go crawling to the priests for guidance. Let's hear from philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, and lawyers long, long before we consult with theologians—I can't imagine a worse fate for scientific ethics than for it to fall under the sway of a dogmatic Christian.

October 2009:

There is morality in my 'worldview'; don't confuse the fact that I state baldly that there is no external non-human intelligent agent that imposes morality on me with an absence of moral thought. I derive my sense of what is right and wrong from intrinsic properties such as empathy and other social impulses, and from acculturation in a stable, successful society that has expectations of parents to introduce their children to what constitutes reasonable behavior. I also derive it rationally from what I can see as a robust strategy for long term security and happiness within my culture — that is, robbing banks has a very poor long term return on the effort.

Morality and ethics grow from knowledge and humanity, not supernatural bribes and threats.

Sex/Money/Ethics Scandal Dooms One-Week-Old Beshear Administration

New Democratic Governor of Kentucky Steve Beshear is about to break criminal former governor Ernie Fletcher's record for Shortest Time Between Inauguration and Stupid Scandal That Dooms Administration.

Took Ernie 17 months to start the lying and stonewalling about illegal behavior by underlings; Steve Beshear took the first step down that road today - Day 7 of his administration.

Gov. Steve Beshear will let the state Personnel Board handle questions surrounding two hiring-related moves of former State Treasurer Jonathan Miller, Beshear's spokeswoman said today.

"There is no action necessary on behalf of the Governor,” spokeswoman Vicki Glass said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Beshear has appointed one of the employees involved in the potential inquiry to a position in the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet.

Rebecca Brooke Parker, who most recently served as Miller's deputy treasurer, is being appointed executive director of inter-governmental affairs at the request of Justice Secretary J. Michael Brown, Glass said.

On Saturday, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported that Miller -- Beshear's recently named Finance and Administration Cabinet secretary -- must clean up several mistakes his treasury office made in the hiring of a state merit worker and the awarding of raises to at least one of his aides.

Beshear, who campaigned on a platform of ethics reform, pledged in his inaugural address last week that all of his top appointees would receive training in state hiring laws and ethics laws.

"We need to get our own house in order before we can be trusted to do the people's business," Beshear said in his speech.

At issue with Miller are the October 2006 hiring of merit employee Michael Bates, who works in the treasury's printing department, and two salary increases in 2004 to Parker.

In Parker's case, (outgoing Personnel Cabinet Secretary Brian Crall) questioned two salary increases, amounting to a total of $566.92 a month, awarded in June 2004.

Overall, Parker saw her salary rise from $21,000 a year when Miller hired her out of college as a secretary in 2000 to $78,981 a year this year as deputy state treasurer.

Miller denied any suggestion that he gave Parker undue favorable treatment but said he has relied on her input regarding "personal business" matters such as future job opportunities.

For instance, Parker accompanied Miller on a trip to Las Vegas between May 14 and 17, just after Miller dropped out of the Democratic primary for governor.
"We had business meetings," he said. "On trips where I'm trying to look to my future and to develop my future business contacts, yeah, she would have been involved in that kind of activity."

Page One was the first to note that the HL's initial piece on this Saturday stopped just short of saying outright that Parker and Miller were having an affair.

The rumor of Jonathan Miller’s alleged affair has been swirling around Kentucky for months. It’s been such common knowledge that it’s no longer exciting gossip in political circles. So why are we beating around the bush by merely discussing his strange-as-hell trip to Las Vegas with Brooke Parker? Someone should just ask the questions.

Has Jonathan– Mr. Ten Commandments– been cheating on his wife (with whom he has two young children) with his Deputy? Did he abuse his power when providing a 380% raise for his alleged mistress? Did he do all of this while parading around as a man of such high morality that he could publish a book about it?

We don’t personally care if he’s a cheat. It’s up to him if he wants to do something disgusting and morally bankrupt. But Miller needs to come clean with the public if he expects to ever be taken seriously. Especially if he misused his office or position while galavanting around the country.

If he did abuse his power, should he be serving as a cabinet secretary? Of course not. So if he’s done something wrong it’s time to tell the Commonwealth. Because it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine that the Herald-Leader is moments away from tightening its vice grip. Moments away from embarrassing our new administration.

Miller needs to understand that no one cares if he’s having an affair. We only care if he’s abused his office to benefit his alleged mistress. It’s nothing personal.

Amen. But this isn't about Miller's utter lack of personal, professional, political and governomental ethics.

This is about Governor Steve Beshear's inability to deal swiftly and decisively with a subordinate who has probably broken the law.

Particularly six weeks after Beshear upset an incumbent repug who specialized in thumbing his nose at state hiring laws, this is beyond disappointing.

Fire Miller, Governor. Fire Parker. Do it now.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Piling-On Time

Because kicking a lying, hypocritical, criminal repug when he's down is despicable - but fun.

This website, which tracks the most-corrupt members of Congress, is blocked on state government computers.

Just too, too perfect that Ernie prevents state employees from viewing a website called - wait for it - Citizens for Ethics.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.