A Few Facts

1. There are more Private Sector jobs today than there were the day Obama was elected president. In fact, corporate profits have been at or above pre-recession levels since the beginning of 2010.
2. Republican governors across the country have been laying off millions of our nation's most valuable human resources: teachers, firefighters, police officers, and many others. This is why, even with more Private Sector jobs today than when Obama took office, our nation's unemployment rate is at a shameful 8.2 percent.
3. Republican governors claim they had no choice but to fire those public employees because they were trying to fix their states' budgets. What they won't mention is this fact: Accepting an infusion from the federal government to tide them over while the private sector was shedding jobs by the millions and diminishing their revenue base would have helped their budgets get under control without having to sacrifice all those jobs.
4. While those same Republican Governors turned down federal help House Republicans fought tooth and nail to make the federal aid so small it wouldn't have had any impact at all.
5. Democrats have successfully led this country out of a near depression in spite of Republican obstructionism at every turn. The Obama administration did that in part by saving the American Auto Industry that Mitt Romney said he would have let go bankrupt.
6. Corporations have no patriotic incentive to use their profits to put Americans to work.They are currently sitting on over 1.9 trillion dollars instead of using it to pay their workers a living wage so they can afford to buy more things, creating more demand and by extension, creating a real need to hire more workers.
7. The country cannot enjoy a robust economy if the predominance of the nation's wealth is being hoarded in bank accounts by the Private Sector and not put back into circulation into the economy that allowed them to make it.
8. Public Sector hiring can return a troubled economy back to full stability, as history proves.

These facts are edited directly from Jill W. Klausen's blog and can be found in context and in original form at the link provided.

Reflections from the Deep South

Just because something is not politically correct does not mean it is not a belief, practiced or not. It might be politically incorrect to bring up racism, but believe me it is alive and well and can even be found within the church here in the deep south. Shortly after arriving in Arkansas from Arizona, I was privileged to preach in several small to medium sized congregations. I used the same line in sermons at each location; Please invite someone to service next week. It doesn't matter if they are black or white (shocked expressions could be seen throughout the all white congregations) male or female, gay or straight. (At one location a woman stood up and said, "If you bring a gay to MY church I won't be coming here any more and I won't bring my grandson either." - because all gays are pedophiles don'tcha know) I won't go into the events the morning a black woman came to service. Suffice it to say the reception was not a good reflection on Christ or the congregation. Yes, racism is alive and well in America.

If we were to be perfectly honest the problem is that America is still a very prejudice nation. Although it began around the time of the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans founded in the 1790s, the past eight years the 'we versus them' mentality was both nurtured and encouraged. Agree with me or you are 'un-American.' If your ideology opposes mine then you are a 'terrorist who will destroy my America' and are compared to Hitler. There is no respectful debate, only a twenty-four hour news cycle that promotes the basest of humanity in the name of ratings. Most people are sheep (sheeple) bleating the regurgitated pabulum they have been bottle fed from those who benefit most from multinational interests. Sheeple aren't even smart enough to use their brain for the most basic of functions let alone apply critical thinking skills. Motivated by fear they re-act rather then act, repeat rather than carefully consider, bleat, bleat, bleat ...

While it may not be politically correct to blame the blacks, Indians, Italians, or Mexicans, you can take all that savagery and irrational hatred, and apply it to the opposition party. (And, if you're Republican, you can get away with a LITTLE bit of racism, and claim it's only political. Simply justify your racism by saying, "I don't hate ALL Mexicans; just the illegals"… and it's not your fault if you can't tell the difference.) And just one more thing before I go on ... Fascists, Socialists and Communists are NOT the SAME!

Seeing as I am ranting ... For the "Pastor" of that baptist church in Tempe, Arizona, I pray for your salvation. If you have experienced the Christ event then I pray you let the Spirit of peace rule in your heart.