America is getting more and more diverse — for instance, our Hispanic population grew by 43 percent in the past decade alone — but you’d never be able to tell it by looking at our Congress. Here’s what the House and Senate look like today, alongside what they would look like if they were demographically representative of our nation. Spoiler alert: There’s not a lot of color on the Hill.
They left out the gay demographic — […]
Left: Ad from Christian group attacking Republicans over Rand’s influence in the party; right: Democrats’ ad depicting Republicans tossing Granny off a cliff
Here’s a new and welcome twist. Christians are attacking Republicans on moral grounds, targeting the decidedly un-Christian influence over the party of Ayn Rand, a best-selling author of novels in which she advocated atheism and what she called the “virtue of selfishness.”
These Christians are particularly critical of the GOP’s 2012 budget bill which was authored by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, who is both a Catholic and an outspoken proponent of Ayn Rand’s cult of godless individualism. The Christians say Ryan based his “toss Granny off a cliff” kill-Medicare plan on Rand’s “every man (woman and child) for himself” philosophy.
Ryan’s bill passed in the House in April with 253 Republican votes. All the Democrats and three Republican members voted against it. It failed in the Senate last month with all Democrats and five Republicans voting against it and 40 Republicans voting for it. Despite the draconian cuts in Ryan’s bill, including its provision to kill Medicare for everyone 54 and younger, had it passed and been signed into law, it would have still added as much as $6 trillion to the debt over 10 years.
It’s about time that true Christians — that is, those who believe in Christ’s message of compassion and forgiveness and who follow his admonitions to care for the poor, homeless and sick — called out the Republican Party over its moral degeneracy on Christianity’s most fundamental values. The GOP and its tea party base make a practice of putting the interests of their corporate sponsors — for example, the health insurance industry — over the needs of their brothers and sisters — for example, the uninsured — all the while depending on the votes of right-wing evangelicals to cling to power.
On Friday, as Rep. Ryan left a right-wing religious conclave sponsored by Ralph Reed, the Christianist leader who was disgraced by his dealings with the Bush-era GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, he was caught on video being approached by a Catholic protester who tried to give him a Bible. Ryan refused to take it.
Amy Sullivan at Time Magazine:
Trump’s renaming of Lake Ontario has created a litmus test —
Yield, and rename it Lake America, at Donald Trump’s behest,
Like Google and Apple, which already capitulated,
Changing the name just like Dear Leader stipulated,
But there’s one defiant holdout — the original mapping site, Mapquest.
