Georgia Joins The WTF Gun Brigade: The Mentally Ill Can Carry Guns.

In the WTF department of today's gun control dialogue, the state of Georgia may come out as the leader of the pack when it comes to crazy:

       ATLANTA (AP) -- While some states push to tighten gun control laws after the Connecticut school massacre, lawmakers in gun-friendly Georgia want to ease rules preventing some mentally ill people from getting licenses to carry firearms.
"Simply being hospitalized doesn't make a person a criminal or a threat," said Rep. Rick Jasperse, R-Jasper, the bill sponsor, in a statement. The legislation now heads to the state Senate.

But we can rest easy that as Georgia goes, does NOT go the rest of the nation:

Politico:

       Three senators potentially facing tough re-election challenges next year introduced NRA-endorsed legislation Wednesday that would bar more people from buying guns due to mental illness.

At the head of the gun control debate, Sen. Lindsey Graham from neighboring South Carolina, has noted that he owns an AR-15, opposes most gun control legislation, but stops when it comes to matters of the mentally ill. 

       “We need to fix this major flaw in the system,” Graham told reporters Wednesday. “There are lot of emotion around the gun violence issue, but I am hopeful this is one area where we can find tremendous bipartisan support to fix what I think is a gaping gap in our law.”

Even the NRA endorsed the measure.

So why is Georgia so dead set on giving guns to potentially dangerous people? Possibly because the mentally ill issues is only part of the larger scheme of the Georgia gun debate: the overall plan of mastermind organization GeorgiaCarry.org would allow guns to be carried in churches, bars and college campuses. However, the mix of alcohol, sex and immaturity, as one state representative put it, creates a worrying piece of legislation.

The Five-Year Rule

The National Council of State Legislatures has the breakdown on state and federal laws concerning possession of firearms by the mentally ill. Some state laws state that a five-year rule applies:

   [District of Columbia] Section 7-2502.03 requires that the Chief [of police] confirm that the applicant:

• Within the 5 years immediately preceding the application, has not been acquitted of any criminal charge by reason of insanity or has not been adjudicated a chronic alcoholic by any court;
• Within the 5 years immediately preceding the application, has not been voluntarily or involuntarily committed to any mental hospital or institution. (DC)

Ironically, it's the gun-lovin' state of Texas that has the most specific rules determining gun possession fitness, covering everything from bipolar disorder to "antisocial personality disorder" - the latter which could include a substantial portion of the state.*

The Federal law is less specific:

       Under 18 U.S.C. § 922(d), it is unlawful for any person to sell or otherwise dispose of any firearm or ammunition to any person knowing or having reasonable cause to believe that such person “has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution.”

GeorgiaCarry.org

Possibly the scariest part of the Georgia situation is the organization GeorgiaCarry.org. It's contentious website is headed with: "The Leader In The Fight To Reclaim And Expand Our Right To Bear Arms." It further proclaims its distrust in politicians who have not voted to put firearms into the hands of every two-year-old in Georgia:
We are not interested in “access” or being “inside players.” We will not protect or make excuses for politicians who say they are our “friends” and then demonstrate otherwise by voting against us.

Some Right-wing leaders have whispered "Civil War" over the issue of gun control, while GeorgiaCarry.org fairly screams it: it wants absolutely everyone carrying a gun no matter who they are. Adam Lanza could have walked into the organization and asked for anything he wanted - and get it, no questions asked.


So could Jared Loughner, and James Holmes.


* The secessionist-possible state seems to dislike anyone who is not a Texan these days.

Well, It IS Texas: Horrible Story of Homophobic Child Abuse Hits The Net

This just in from Dallas-Fort Worth:

“My cousin at the time he was 18. My son he was 15 and I had walked in the room on [my cousin] giving oral sex to my son and I started whooping my son, and I’m the one who got in trouble as a result of me whooping him,” she said. “When I walked in I saw my son, it was just disgusting to me, the way he was looking and my cousin was looking, and my cousin immediately ran out the door. And I’m just like what the?!? You know, is you serious? So that was my reaction because it disgusted me.”

Listen to the audio: the woman sounds stereotypically illiterate, but you have to wonder just how many of her are still out there.

And wonder about the first policeman who said "I would have shot them both."

The Exigencies Of Mooching: Navigating For Survival In A Right Wing World

Even in California, the way of the moocher is fraught with anxiety: there are so many benefits, so little time. 

Right.

Ever since my partner died and only left me memories, I have been struggling to keep my stuff, my identity ... and my sanity: the last 20 months' journey has been a series of puddles and potholes, not deep enough to suck me in completely, but not too healthy either. Month after month eviction has loomed and month after month I've sought surcease through agencies and charities. I've navigated through a plethora of acronyms and  eligibility questionnaires. 

Now I'm navigating for two.

I met Chris nine months ago at a bar on the evening of my 65th birthday and noticed something immediately: we fit. He lives in Sacramento, and with only one exception, has commuted to my side every weekend. By Christmas we made the leap from "boyfriend" to "partner" and have not looked back since. Hell, we must look forward, we're too much in love to have any other choice! 

Chris works part-time at a job that belies the fact that he has Asperger's Syndrome: he works retail - at a Barnes & Noble bookstore. Yeah, the behemoth bookstore chain that just announced a future of massive closures. His hours have been cut considerably (8-12 hours per week). Like other products of The Great Recession, he works to keep his medical benefits. 

And he worries about me.

Acronym, Acronym, Who's Got The Acronym?

America is awash with helpful acronyms - organizations, charities and government agencies with three to five capital letters, all recognizable, but at the same time, confusing in what they actually do, and in California, it is common to run into AEF, SFAF, SSI, SSA, SDI, SSDI, ADAP, CCSF, ALRP, IHSS and AHP to name a few (especially if you are HIV+, which we both are). These supplement other organizations and agencies like Healthy San Francisco, Shanti, Open Hand, Medicare, Medi-Cal, San Francisco Tenant's Union, and ... well, you get the idea. 

The morass of benefits contingent on this and that, the eligibility requirements, the confusion all make for a frustrating existence while wondering if you'll be able to make it to the end of the month. Don't get me wrong, you needn't get out the waaaambulance: whining is not the style of people truly in need of services and benefits. Searching for advice and foraging for ideas are too tiring to whine about. We're here, we need to avail ourselves of benefits and services to survive. Get over it. 

Moochers All

Of course, we are the 47% Mitt Romney complained about during his Presidential bid. We are the losers and loafers Romney's Republicans and Tea Partiers warned the country against. It makes no difference that I was a publisher and broadcaster for years, the recipient of a Jefferson Award for community service, or that Chris has been working steadily for the past thirteen years at the same Barnes & Noble. We are moochers. We are taking what is not rightfully ours. We are a drag on the economy. We have no right to ask for anything, let alone expect it. 

What do you think?

Is Pat Robertson The Ultimate Hypocrite? Environmental Religious Fanatics? Really?

It would seem so with this video.

Pat Robertson, as everyone knows, has been blathering on blissfully, enraptured by his own senility this past decade. His "wisdom" has focused on demonic Halloween candy and clothes from Good Will, slatternly wives being the greatest cause of divorce and the assassination of Hugo Chavez (the death of whom, yesterday, must have been bittersweet - Chavez didn't die the want Robertson would have liked). His righteous arrogance may be cloaked in pudding-faced humility, but it oozes out of his pores just the same.

It is the kind of righteous arrogance that helps him make statements like the one in the video below

He calls environmentalists "crazy" and calls their goal to "destroy everything they think is polluting ..." a religion. Watch it.

And while you're at it, picture the bulk of his followers: little old ladies in nursing homes touching their TV screens in hopes that Pat Robertson will cure their hemorrhoids.

Hair Buffs: Mark Twain Shirtless - And He Was A Redhead!

A pile of chest hair marked Mark Twain. Samuel Clemens was always slim and he fostered his public image very carefully. Chances are, however, today he would have approved - as well as some guys in today's bear culture. OK, he was really an otter.

What I Feel Like Doing To Some People (OK, Not All The Time)

Foreclosing On The Prosperity Gospelers: Are They Really Christian?

The Good News: Financial problems are plaguing America's prosperity megachurches.
The Bad News: It's not happening fast enough.

     MUNSTER | While the Family Christian Center was spending millions of dollars annually on leadership compensation, travel, meals and jet fuel, it was falling behind on its mortgage payments and racking up a list of past-due bills, a Times investigation found.

We could forgive prosperity gospel ministries if it weren't for the awful architecture. And the gaudy showmanship. And the cult-like congregations. 

And the un-Christianlike greed.

There are millions of Americans who are in need of money, struggling Americans who still manage to help their friends as best they can, still helping others to survive. They do not gamble on the Lord providing future wealth or prosperity. For flights of fantasy, they occasionally buy lottery tickets. After all, the results are just as good as any prosperity cult, maybe even better, since prosperity preachers take in everything and return very, very little. 

       According to mortgageorb.com, Pastor Munsey only informed his congregation of the 2011 lawsuit last summer, explaining that he never told them earlier because he "really didn't know what to do but trust God."

Foreclosing On The Prosperity Gospel

Although Senator Chuck Grassley (IA - R) helped focus on the excesses of prosperity gospel preachers in 2007, he didn't go far enough:

       According to the report, only two of the six ministries – Joyce Meyer Ministries and Benny Hinn's World Healing Center Church – fully cooperated with the investigation and even implemented financial reforms.

The other four ministries, meanwhile, did not provide responses or provided incomplete ones to inquiries made by the Senate Finance Committee. These groups include Creflo Dollar's World Changers Church International, Eddie Long's New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, Kenneth Copeland Ministries, and Without Walls International Church – formerly pastored by both Randy and Paula White, who are now divorced. The Florida megachurch is currently being led by Paula White.
Despite their lack of cooperation, no penalties were handed out.

And why not? 

Capitalism Is As Capitalism Does

America, as a capitalist society, must come to terms with capitalist leaders of capitalist religious cults. We have the freedom of religion - religion that panders to the greed of the 1%. Although his political positions have been helter-skelter (to say the least) on many issues, Grassley's dedication to capitalism cannot be stressed enough. Then there is his link to The Family, the controversial, covert quasi-religious operation, and his 100% approval rating by such organizations as the Family Research Council. In order to keep those good graces, it may have been necessary for him to back off on the prosperity preachers.

Meanwhile, Back At the Scandal Trough...

There is no denying that Eddie Long has a cult on his hands: despite financial and sexual scandals, people still keep going to his church and witnessing a outpouring of ego which is over-the-top, even by today's televangelist standards. Now Long is embroiled in a new lawsuit:

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

        Bishop Eddie Long has been sued by former New Birth Missionary Baptist members who say the megachurch pastor encouraged them to invest money with a company despite being told the investor was running a $3 million capital deficit.

Too Big To Fail?

While not a prosperity megachurch per se, the enabler of prosperity churches nationwide is Trinity Broadcasting Network, owned almost exclusively by Paul and Jan Crouch. With revenues of over $95 million per year and proposed expansion of satellite venues into countries such as Russia complementing its formidable presence in Latin and South America, Trinity Broadcasting Network is the largest Christian media in existence today. 

According to a whistleblower granddaughter, however, the entire media empire of the Crouches could come tumbling down because of the Crouches' lavish lifestyle and the diversion of as much as $50 million into their private accounts in the last ten years.

Catholic Online:

       The Trinity Broadcasting Network, self-proclaimed as the world's largest Christian network is currently embroiled in a legal battle. Some of allegations of massive financial involve the purported purchase of a $100,000 motor home for dogs.

How much does Trinity Broadcasting Network actually donate to other charitable causes? Actually, no one knows: the network lacks transparency. Additional ministries that lack transparency: Creflo Dollar Ministries, "Bishop" T.D. Jakes Ministries, Benny Hinn, Paul White, Ken Copeland, and, of course, "Bishop" Eddie Long.

From Ministry Watch:

       However, how can a “Christian Ministry” “glorify God” if they are not open? Are not organizations that hide things characterized as cults? Should not Christian ministries lead by example? Besides being characterized as a steward, Christians can be characterized as ambassadors and as light because God is light. Just these few summary ideas indicate that Christian ministries should be open and transparent. In addition, responsibility to God is linked to responsibility to government and mankind.

The Final Judgment

Prosperity megachurches will definitely be the products of their own undoing: the excesses are toppling ministries and their lack of social justice are eroding their reputations. In effect, they are forcing their own foreclosures. The question that remains, however, is how long will it take them to fade into the abyss of religious cults? It can be argued that as long as their are people desperate and gullible enough to rely on false promises, prosperity gospel churches will always exist, but we can only hope that they will be recognized for the facetious cults they really are.