“He's making the world a much more dangerous place as he continues to pull America back and allow those who seek to do harm to freedom, those who seek to oppress -- yes, evil forces around the world.”
- Rick Santorum bashed President Obama today, lamenting, apparently, the end of the two wars, and the drawing down of the American military presence in parts of the world.
Santorum made this particular comment on February 5, at the Grace Bible Church in Columbia, Missouri. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family (the Christian organization which was the subject of Jeffrey Sharlet’s book “The Family”) and a Santorum supporter (Dobson endorsed Santorum), moderated the forum.
Santorum claimed that in the Netherlands, the elderly are euthanized without their consent:
“In the Netherlands people wear a different bracelet if you're elderly and the bracelet is 'do not euthanize me.' Because they have voluntary euthanasia in the Netherlands, but half the people who are euthanized every year, and it's 10 percent of all deaths for the Netherlands, half of those people are euthanized involuntarily at hospitals because they are older and sick. And so elderly people in the Netherlands don't go to the hospital, they go to another country, because they are afraid, because of budget purposes, that they will not come out of that hospital if they go in with sickness.”
As you might imagine, his inaccurate and patently false comments regarding a law regulating end of life procedures in the Netherlands, caused quite an uproar in the Netherlands.
First, let's review the law. The 2001 Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide (Review Procedures) Act allows Dutch citizens to end their lives if they are suffering from a medical condition that causes "unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement." There are two end-of-life procedures: euthanasia, where a doctor administers a fatal drug, or assisted suicide, where the doctor prescribes the fatal drug and the patient administers it. The law took effect on April 1, 2002.
According to a publication distributed by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, doctors must be satisfied that the patient's request is "voluntary and well-considered," and that there is "unbearable suffering with no prospect for improvement." The patient's doctor must consult at least one other independent doctor, who is responsible for ensuring the "due care criteria" is met.
After the termination of a patient's life, the death must be reported to the government and reviewed by regional committees composed of, at a minimum, a doctor, ethicist and legal expert.
Now, let's look at Santorum's three claims. We'll begin with a stunning claim that the elderly are so afraid of being euthanized for "budget purposes" that they wear "do not euthanize me" bracelets. We were told by a government official and a representative of a Dutch physicians' association that this is simply not true.
When we contacted the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, public health spokeswoman Inge Freriksen told us that "a bracelet asking not to be euthanized doesn't exist." Patients would only be euthanized after they followed the set of guidelines as outlined above.
“Defeating Barack Obama becomes, in fact, a duty of national security. Because the fact is, he is incapable of defending the United States.”
- On President’s Day, Newt Gingrich told a crowd of 4,000 at Oral Roberts University that we must defeat President Obama because he won’t keep us safe. Or something like that.
I imagine that Osama Bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (the underwear bomber) and Muammar Gaddafi would have something to say about that, Newt. Just sayin’....
Ya know, there is always a lot of mud slinging in politics, but modern Republicans have gone way off the edge with the stuff they’re slinging since the black man took office.
Case in point, here’s the whiny little evangelical nightmare, Rick Santorum, questioning Pres. Obama’s faith as if we’re supposed to believe that Santorum’s repugnant remarks are anything more than yet another dogwhistle, words which might make us think that the black man is simply different from “us” [white folks].
The “president’s agenda” is “not about you,” he said. “It’s not about you. It’s not about your quality of life. It’s not about your job. It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology,” Santorum said to applause from the crowd. “Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology, but no less a theology.” [...]
Although Santorum criticizes the president daily on the campaign trail, this is the first time he has used this rhetoric or said the president has a “different theology.”
In a statement, Santorum’s campaign said the candidate was not actually talking about Obama’s religion but rather his belief in secularism, adding, “The President says he’s a Christian and Rick believes that and has even said so publicly many times.”
Santorum appears to be on a mission to be a one-man Council of Trent, the 16th Century Catholic ecumenical council that defined Protestants as heretics. In a 2008 speech rediscovered this week, Santorum said Mainline Protestants — about 45 million Presbyterians, Lutherans, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Methodists and others — are “gone from the world of Christianity as I see it.”
As conservative Presbyterian blogger John Schroeder wrote, Santorum’s “truly intolerant comments concerning Obama pretty well disqualify him from holding office. It is simply not the president’s job to be judging whose theology is correct and whose is not.”
John Schroeder is right. Rick Santorum is unqualified to be president. Not just for the reason cited by Schroeder, but for others as well. In fact, Santorum shouldn’t even be wasting our frickin’ time and taxpayer money by running.
Santorum warns that Obama will lead us to execution of the religious via decapitation:
Rick Santorum continued to rail against President Obama’s so-called war against religion during a town hall in Plano, Texas Wednesday night. The former Pennsylvania senator — who has spent the last several days criticizing the government’s requirement that insurers provide contraception coverage and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal’s decision striking down Proposition 8 — accused the administration of “crushing” religion and setting the United States on the path towards executing religious people by decapitation:
SANTORUM: “They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is the government that gives you right, what’s left are no unalienable rights, what’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine.Ladies and gentlemen, we’re a long way from that, but if we do and follow the path of President Obama and his overt hostility to faith in America, then we are headed down that road.”
And, according to the latest polling, this guy is the new favored leader of the Republicans. Seriously.
- Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) during the opening of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) today.
Huh. I guess this means that Republicans don’t share our goal of a safe and prosperous United States, Sen. DeMint? Or our goal to keep our country free from terrorism? Or one of the many other goals which we should certainly all share regardless of political affiliation.
Wondering where all their fake patriotic fervor went.
“This decision does not end this fight, and I expect it to go to the Supreme Court. That prospect underscores the vital importance of this election and the movement to preserve our values. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and, as president, I will protect traditional marriage and appoint judges who interpret the Constitution as it is written and not according to their own politics and prejudices.”
Newt Gingrich just can’t stop using that old canard, the Southern dog whistle, that code for the term “welfare queens” (which don’t even exist in reality). Here’s Newt when asked what he would say to the NAACP if given the opportunity:
“More people are on food stamps today because of Obama's policies than ever in history. I would like to be the best paycheck president in American history. ... And so I'm prepared if the NAACP invites me, I'll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.”
Really, Newt, really?
Give me a freaking break. Calling President Obama the “food stamp president” and insinuating that black people are all on food stamps, i.e., too lazy to get jobs thus live off food stamps, for Christ’s sake, is old, racist, and not based in truth. [Gingrich’s association with truth is always tenuous, but this is to the point of utterly ridiculous.]
Yes, enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has increased during the Obama administration, but as experts continually point out, and which Gingrich continually ignores, this is because of the near depression caused by the policies of Bush and company, a deep, deep recession which continues today, necessitating assistance to many more people than would be the case during better times.
Watch Fox News amplify Gingrich’s message:
So did President George W. Bush preside over the highest number of food stamp recipients in history? Thus far, yes. 11 Alive in Atlanta [emphasis mine] fact-checked Gingrich:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition service tracks month-to-month figures dating back to January 2001. The numbers show that the total of food stamp recipients rose to 14.2 million during President Obama's administration.
The highest in history so far is President George W. Bush. The number of food stamp recipients grew to nearly 14.7 million while he was in office. But, that's eight years in office, compared to President Obama who has not finished his first term.
It's possible that when the figures for January 2012 are available they will show that the gain under Obama has matched or exceeded the gain under Bush. But not if the short-term trend continues. The number getting food stamps declined by 43,528 in October. And the economy has improved since then.
One out of seven Americans is currently getting food stamps, according to the Department of Agriculture.
The figures also show the rise in food stamps began before Obama took office, and accelerated as the nation plunged into the worst economic recession since the Great Depression.
The economic downturn began in December 2007. In the 12 months before Obama was sworn in, 4.4 million were added to the rolls, triple the 1.4 million added in 2007.
So, who gets food stamps?
The most recent Department of Agriculture report on the general characteristics of the SNAP (food stamp) program's beneficiaries says that in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2010:
-- 47% of beneficiaries were children under age 18.
-- 8% were age 60 or older.
-- 41% lived in a household with earnings from a job - the so-called "working poor."
-- The average household received a monthly benefit of $287.
-- 36% were white (non-Hispanic), 22% were African American (non-Hispanic) and 10% were Hispanic.
Oh, and by the way, Newt and Fox liars, the state with the highest number of Americans eligible for and receiving food stamps is Nevada. [Nevada, where if I had to venture a guess, I’d say that there might be maybe fifteen whole black people living in the entire state of Nevada.]
Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-IN), a prominent supporter of the food stamp program:
“People now see that it’s necessary to have a strong food stamp program.”
“I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.”
- Rick Santorum derides poor black people in Iowa last week, using a racist dog-whistle that has become typical of GOP talking points during this election cycle. Santorum should know that only 9% of public assistance recipients in Iowa are actually black. 39% of public assistance recipients are white.
Santorum should probably switch to an attack on poor white people. Or hey, maybe he could make gay people (another group for which Santorum has no love) out to be the major recipients of government assistance.
“I’ve looked at that quote, in fact I looked at the video. In fact, I’m pretty confident I didn’t say black. I started to say is a word and then sort of changed and it sort of — blah — mumbled it and sort of changed my thought.”
- Rick Santorum on CBS with John King [after being called out by civil rights groups], denying his racist comment of the day before, ridiculously claiming that he didn’t say ‘black’ people, he said ‘blah’ people.
Ahem.......the ‘Blah’ community is rightfully outraged by Santorum’s inaccurate and racist remarks.
It’s little wonder that Mitt Romney, the cofounder of private-equity firm Bain Capital, has banked more than $1.1 million from the financial-services industry for his presidential run. Romney still has strong ties to Wall Street, and each year his own bank account benefits to the tune of millions of dollars, per his retirement agreement with Bain.
On Wednesday, President Obama surmounted three years of GOP obstruction by recess appointing a director to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau yesterday. The Hill:
Earlier in the day Obama announced he would circumvent the Senate and make a recess appointment to put Cordray in charge of the bureau. That decision comes in response to Republicans refusing to hold confirmation hearings for Cordray [just as they refused to do so for Elizabeth Warren for three years] until the White House modified the bureau so it has more oversight and is run by a small panel rather than one director.
“Instead of working with Congress to fix the flaws in this new bureaucracy, the president is declaring that he 'refuses to take no for an answer’ and circumventing Congress to appoint a new administrator,” Romney said in a statement. “This action represents Chicago-style politics at its worst and is precisely what then-Sen. eleObama claimed would be ‘the wrong thing to do.’ Sadly, instead of focusing on economic growth, he is once again focusing on creating more regulation, more government and more Washington gridlock.”
The fact is that President Obama has tried for three years to get the obstructive 111th & 112th Congresses to confirm a director. They have refused to do so because they want the regulatory agency to die.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce the One Percent stands with Romney for the 1 percent, against the 99 percent, threatening a lawsuit against the Obama Administration.
Oh, and just so we’re clear, Republicans have no problem whatsoever with recess appointments when they are the party in power. Adam Serwer:
According to reports from the Congressional Research Service, during their time in office President Ronald Reagan made 240 recess appointments, President George H. W. Bush made 77 recess appointments, President Bill Clinton made 140 recess appointments, and George W. Bush made 171. Obama's first term has seen a paltry 28.
Rick Santorum wants to determine what your values should be, and if you’re not heterosexual, he doesn’t care to see America make laws that would be more inclusive of you, and afford you full civil rights as a citizen.
Why? Well, because Santorum thinks that the gay lifestyle doesn’t reflect Judeo-Christian values, and he thinks that the values of all Americans should be reflected in laws which are based only on that religious foundation. Allowing you to marry...well, that would “destabilize the American family”.
In other words, Santorum put forth a crock of complete and utter shit to defend his bias against gay people:
“People should have the right to live the life they want to lead. But that doesn't mean that we have to adopt as matters of public policy, policies that change the basic value structure of our country to accommodate that lifestyle, if you will.
And, so, I've always said, you know, look, I've had people who actually worked for me who were gays, and they did their job like anybody else, and we were able to work together and we did work together. So, it's not a problem.
I'm against discrimination for people who should not be discriminated against because of their sexual orientation. If they can, and do their job, they should. But that doesn't mean that we should change the laws of this country......to destabilize the American family, to change the way we look at religious liberty in this country, to accommodate a different value structure.
It's not about them, it's about values. It's about what America's basic moral American values should be that would be reflected in the laws.
And so, I've taken the position that the moral values reflected in the laws should be the moral values that built this country, which is the Judeo-Christian values, and that the laws should try as much as possible to comport with the higher law and also should comport with what reason would dictate. And what reason dictates is that children need mothers and fathers. … Some say well, through technology, same-sex couples can have children. Well they can, through either adoption, or artificial insemination…but they don’t get the mother and a father.”
Watch:
From a December 6, 2011 talk he gave to a crowd in Spencer Iowa, during the Republican primaries - election 2012.
From the Archives, I originally published this piece last summer, but felt it deserved a second publication since Rick Santorum has become competitive in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
Regarding the “miscarriage” of Karen Santorum in the 1990s, Karen and Rick Santorum have said that they did not induce labor. However, Karen Santorum said she would have induced labor if it were necessary. From Santorum's account of her second trimester pregnancy, by Steve Goldstein, Philadelphia Inquirer, May 4, 1997:
Karen, a soft-spoken red-haired 37-year-old, said that “ultimately” she would have agreed to intervention for the sake of her other children.
“If the physician came to me and said if we don’t deliver your baby in one hour you will be dead, yeah, I would have to do it. But for me, it was at the very end. I would never make a decision like that until all other means had been thoroughly exhausted.”
The fetus was delivered at 20 weeks, at least a month shy of what most doctors consider viability.
So, according to Rick and Karen Santorum, it was purportedlynot induced. However, Karen Santorum admits that she would have allowed it to be induced if necessary, thus making a choice that Rick Santorum seeks to deny to other women.
Indeed, if Rick Santorum has his way, abortion will be criminalized, and the same procedure that Karen Santorum would have had to save her life, will not be available to you or I.
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