Soldier Chooses "Birther" Politics Over Career

This is kind of a sad story. It's the story of a man who is throwing his career away because he has bought into the lies of the teabaggers' "birther" politics. Lt. Colonel Terry Lakin is a doctor in the United States Army, and evidently a competent doctor, because he has served in that capacity for the Army for 18 years. He only had two years to go before he could retire with some pretty nice benefits.

But Lakin is in the process of throwing his career and retirement benefits down the drain. He is doing this because he has accepted the specious arguments of teabaggers that President Obama is not a natural born citizen of the United States. None of the repeated assurances by the state of Hawaii that Obama was born there has convinced Lakin. It's like he's made up his mind and is not about to be confused by any inconvenient facts. Either that, or he's a racist and cannot accept that America actually has a duly elected African-American president.

Lakin (pictured) said he first became aware of Obama's "questionable" natural birth in October of 2008. He claimed that at that time he was considering volunteering for duty in Iraq, but after Obama's election that November he stopped those efforts to volunteer.

He says he talked many times with friends and family seeking their advice. Then around the end of March 2009, he submitted an Article 138 against President Obama with his company commander, claiming Obama was an illegitimate president and commander-in-chief and it would be illegal for him (Lakin) to follow any orders from the president. He received a reply from the Pentagon saying his Article 138 was out of order because the president was not Lakin's commanding officer.

But Lakin was not about to accept the decision of his superiors at the Pentagon. He then contacted the offices of Senators Alexander and Corker, and Congressman Wamp. When that did no good as far as he was concerned, he filed another Article 138 in November of 2009 -- this time against General Casey, Army Chief of Staff. The Pentagon gave him the same answer again -- General Casey was not his commanding officer.

Again, the Pentagon decision was not good enough for the soldier-doctor. He has now informed his commanding officers that he will refuse a posting to serve in Afghanistan. He says, "I am today compelled to make the distasteful choice to invite my own court martial, in pursuit of the truth about the president's eligibility under the Constitute to hold office."

The Army has tried to deal with Lakin in a civilized way, but he seems determined to become a martyr for the "birther" cause. I don't know if he really believes this silly idea, or if it's just a cover for his racism, but he's willing to throw his career and retirement away for it. I hope he doesn't think this will make him some kind of hero, because most Americans will just consider him to be a fool.

He has left the Army no choice. He must now be court-martialed, punished and probably dishonorably discharged. The Army cannot let its soldiers pick and choose which president they will obey and which they won't obey. That would invite anarchy within the ranks.

I guess the Ft. Leavenworth Military Prison will be getting a new doctor -- and inmate.

Trust ?

Political Cartoon is by David Fitzsimmons in the Arizona Daily Star.

Each Week

Found at the hilarious blog of Atheist Comics.

Quotes On Religion For An Easter Sunday

Since today is Easter Sunday, the most important religious holiday in America for christians, I thought it would be a good time to review some thoughts on religion from some famous people. Some of you may consider christmas to be the most important religious holiday, but christmas is celebrated as a secular holiday by millions who have no religion or believe in a non-christian religion. Easter is not. It is purely a religious holiday.

Here are some quotes that will hopefully give you some food for thought:

"I like your Christ, I do not like your christians. Your christians are so unlike your Christ." - Gandhi

"I don't believe in God but I'm very interested in her." - Arthur C. Clarke

"I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs." - Frederick Douglass

"If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane." - Robert Green Ingersoll

"If I had been the Virgin Mary, I would have said 'No'." - Margaret Smith

"If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god." - Napoleon Bonaparte

"Morality is of the highest importance -- but for us, not for God." - Albert Einstein

"No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means." - George Bernard Shaw

"One man's theology is another man's belly laugh." - Robert A. Heinlein

"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." - Napoleon Bonaparte

"Religion is the idol of the mob; it adores everything it does not understand." - Frederick II

"The Bible is literature, not dogma." - George Santayana

"The christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness." - Dalai Lama

"We are punished by our sins, not for them." - Elbert Hubbard

"When lip service to some mysterious deity permits bestiality on Wednesday and absolution on Sunday, cash me out." - Frank Sinatra

"When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land." - Desmond Tutu

"You can safely assume you've created god in your own image when it turns out that god hates all the same people that you do."

I am an atheist. However I respect the right of every person to worship or not as he/she pleases. The search for religion (or the denial of it) is a personal journey, and each person should be allowed to conduct that journey on their own terms and in their own way. Evil does not enter the picture until someone tries to force their own religion on others through coercion, fear or law. Believe as you will -- just grant that same right to all others.

What Bible Is That In ?

Political Cartoon is by Pat Bagley in the Salt Lake Tribune.

Church Puts Foot In Mouth

Someone needs to tell the Catholic Church that when you find yourself in a very deep hole, the best thing to do is stop digging! After years of allowing child abuse to thrive, protecting the abusers, blaming the victims, and then electing a Pope who was complicit in the cover-up, I didn't think the church could make things any worse. I was wrong.

The church seems to be incredibly talented at bad publicity, because they found a way to make the situation worse. What did they do? They compared the current criticism against the Vatican and the Pope to anti-Semitism. That's right. According to the Vatican's own preacher, Father Raniero Cantalamessa (pictured), criticizing the church reminds him of hundreds of years of anti-Semitism and pogroms (not to mention the murder of millions during the reign of Hitler).

I have to wonder what this idiot was thinking. Could he really be stupid enough to think that was a valid comparison? Well, others weren't buying it. A spokesman for SNAP, the Survivor's Network of those Abused by Priests, called the comparison "reckless and irresponsible" and "morally wrong".

Then Stephan Kramer, head of Germany's Central Council of Jews, called the comparison "repulsive, obscene and most of all offensive towards all abuse victims as well as to all the victims of the Holocaust."

In fact, the outrage was so strong and widespread that the Vatican is now backing away from the words of it's own preacher. Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said Cantalamessa's remarks do not represent the Vatican's official view and that his comparison "could lead to misunderstandings." You reckon?

Making matters even worse, the preacher's remarks came as the embattled Pope is trying to arrange a trip to Israel. I can't wait to see what the church will do next to dig that hole even deeper.

What Should Happen

Political Cartoon is by David Horsey in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Republican Values

From the very funny website "What Now" Toons.

It's Time For The Pope To Resign

There's been a lot of controversy in the last few years with the Catholic Church and child abuse. It started in the United States, when it was learned that scores of priests were guilty of having sex with young children. At that time, the church was embarrassed when it was revealed that they knew of the abuse and had tried to hide it instead of reporting the criminal priests to the proper authorities.

The church refused at that time to admit just how widespread the problem was. They told the world this was only a problem in America, and tried to blame it on America's "permissive" society. Well, that excuse has been blown out of the water by recent revelations. It has now been revealed that the problem was just as widespread in other countries (like Ireland, Germany, etc.). It has become obvious now that this is a church problem, and not a problem with the countries in which the church is located.

And right in the middle of this scandal is the church's current leader -- Pope Benedict XVI. It is now known that while he was a Cardinal in Munich, the Pope covered up at least one priest's pedophilia and transferred him to another church, where he continued abusing children. Then after being promoted to head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the faith, where he had responsibility for disciplining priests guilty of bad conduct, he continued to cover up child abuse committed by priests.

There are now many people who believe the Pope should resign. I agree. If there is even a shred of decency and morality left in him, he should apologize for his serious misdeeds and then resign the papacy. The Pope is supposed to be the moral leader and guide for the church. How can he offer moral leadership after his own immoral behavior? And the harboring and protecting of child abusers is egregiously immoral behavior!

Some may believe that the Pope cannot resign since he is supposedly appointed by god to lead the church. That is just not true. It has been permissible by the churches own canon law for a Pope to resign since the late 13th century. In 1294, Pope Celestine V issued a decree making it permissible for a Pope to resign. Then he resigned.

In 1415, Pope Gregory XII also resigned. He did so in an effort to re-unify the papacy. At the time, there were three claimants to the papacy -- Pope Gregory XII in Rome, Pope Benedict XIII in Avignon and Antipope John XXIII.

It is even rumored that during World War II, Pope Pius XII drew up a document stating that if he was captured by the Nazis the church was to consider him as having resigned and choose a new Pope (although this cannot be verified since the church still refuses to release documents from that wartime period).

So it can be seen that the resignation of a Pope is not only permitted by canon law, but there are at least two (and possibly three) precedents for it. It is now time for the current Pope to live up to his moral responsibility -- and that moral responsibility demands his immediate resignation. Nothing less will do.

Out Of Luck

Political Cartoon is by Vic Harville for the Stephens Media Group.

Skirting The Hippocratic Oath

The picture above is not a photoshopped one. It is a picture of a real sign hanging in the office of a Florida urologist -- Dr. Jack Cassell of Mount Dora. It sounds to me like he's forgotten large parts of the Hippocratic Oath. It seems like Cassell is picky about who he will give medical care to and that doesn't include any of the 69,456,897 people who voted for President Obama.

Cassell barely remains within the bounds of the Hippocratic Oath by telling the Orlando Sentinental, "I'm not turning anybody away -- that would be unethical. But if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it." Personally, I don't think I'd want this teabagging fool to touch my body anyway.

I honestly don't see how the new health care reform law will hurt this right-wing doctor. If anything, it will provide him with more patients that have better insurance and are better able to reimburse him for the fees he charges them. How is that a bad thing? Frankly, I'm sensing the malodorous scent of racism. After all, He didn't say he didn't want to treat anyone who supported the health care reform law -- only the people who voted for President Obama.

Frankly, no one is forcing this nutjob to make his living as a doctor. If he doesn't like the health care reform, he could always quit and get a minimum wage job flipping burgers, like millions of other Americans have to do. I think most Americans would prefer a doctor who thinks more of his patient's needs than his right-wing politics anyway.

I think Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Florida) hit the nail on the head when he said, "Maybe he thinks the Hippocratic Oath says, 'Do no good.' If this is the face of the right-wing in America, it's the face of cruelty." Amen to that.

The Difference Is Political - Not Real

Political Cartoon is by Pat Bagley in the Salt Lake Tribune.

Hank Gilbert On Obama's Energy Policy

A few day's ago, President Obama introduced his new energy policy, which included both new drilling and a push to develop new affordable biofuels. Texas Agriculture Commissioner candidate Hank Gilbert (Democrat) issued the following statement regarding the policy. In it, he puts forth his views and the failings of his opponent (the incumbent). Here is his statement:

Although President Obama's plan to expand offshore drilling is garnering most of the attention, the real meat of the plan is in the renewed push to develop biofuels to supply America with a dependable and secure source of energy for transportation and related uses.

The development and production of more biofuels is an achievable goal and one which can be attained without negatively impacting food prices, or through the use of massive government subsidies.

As early as 2006, I proposed policies which would have, by now, provided a steady, secure, and reliable supply of biofuel feedstocks while allowing Texas farmers to dramatically increase their incomes.

My opponent, incumbent Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, has only recently taken any action related to creating a sustainable, secure biofuel industry in Texas-in spite of making this a hallmark of his campaign for this office in 2006. Further, my opponent only took such action after it was mandated by the Texas Legislature. In the interim, Texas lost out on major opportunities to become a national leader in biofuel production.

As Agriculture Commissioner, I will do more to insure that Texas does its part in helping our nation make the transition from non-renewable fuels to biofuels. Sugarcane, casava, and other crops Texas can produce ethanol and other biofuels affordably, providing a market driven counterbalance to already increasing gasoline prices.

Texas can become a national leader in the production of a sustainable, secure energy future for America. The farmers of this state can literally grow the fuel America needs.

Prescription Chocolate

Political Cartoon is by Mike Luckovich in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.