THE UNRAVELING OF THE MITTSTER

The week prior to the start of the Republican Convention served to outline Romney’s true character or lack thereof.  Missouri Congressman Todd Akin, a candidate for the U.S. Senate in an interview with a St.Louis News station made a statement which at first appeared to be isolated incident limited to his own campaign.  On Sunday August 19, 2012, Todd Akin, in response to questions on exceptions to bans on abortion such as rape or incest, the congressman said, “It seems to me, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it is a legitimate rape, the female body has a way to shut the whole thing down.” 

The statement is an abomination which can only stem from unmitigated total stupidity, in that it sought to define rape as being legitimate only if it was a “forcible rape”, and because of the utterly ridiculous comment regarding a woman being able to shut down a pregnancy due to a rape.

The Mittster and Mini Me Ryan quickly sought   to distance themselves from Akin,   but the reasons for their alarm were not immediately evident.

Last year, Paul Ryan, co-sponsored a bill in Congress, HR3, with Todd Akin, that would have narrowed the exceptions that allows Medicaid funds to pay for abortions for women who are raped. The purpose of the measure would have permitted the use of funds only to end a pregnancy resulting from “legitimate rape”.

The statutory rape of a child by an adult would not fit the definition the house tried to impose, nor would the rape of an unconscious women or a woman of limited mental capacity. Paul Ryan’s philosophy is that all abortions should be banned with no exceptions except the health of the woman.

Paul Ryan served for more than a decade with Todd Akin and had hailed him as a “great Asset” on Ryan’s budget committee, and an example of “exactly the kind of leadership America Needs.”

However Ryan did not want to dwell on this and may have wanted to keep the lid on their prior relationship, and personally called on Todd Akin to drop out of his race against Democratic Senator Clair McCaskill.  In fact, Romney, Republican Party Officials and El Rushbo himself have all called on Todd Akins to drop out of the race. Why all the fuss?  He is only one candidate among the many, right? Wrong the longer Todd Akin remains in the race, the longer the spot light remains on the Republican Party’s and Mitt’s position on abortion.

Ryan has been questioned on his position of “forcible rape” and has flipped once again and now just answers that “rape is rape, and let’s not split hairs, rape is rape”, repeating this over and over again.

End of story, not quite, Todd Akin was asked the name of any doctors who had advised him that a woman had the ability to shut down a pregnancy in the event of a rape and he came up with the name of Dr. John Willke, past president of the Right to Life Committee.   Lo and behold Dr. John Willke is tied directly to the Mittster.

The London Daily Telegraph reported on August 22, 2012 that Dr. Willke met with Mitt Romney in October 2011, endorsing his run for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. Romney had informed him that when elected he would enact anti abortion legislation.  The mittster released a statement in 2008, praising Dr. John Willkie.

As you may recall, one of the Mittster’s  prior flips was that he was pro choice and had supported Roe v Wade, before he ran for the presidency and then flipped to the right to increase his votes with the ultra conservative anti abortionists. His present position is that abortion should be banned for all pregnancies except in case of rape or incest, which differs from Ryan’s position. This in itself shows that the Mittster does not have the courage of his convictions and in fact has no definite convictions and will switch his conviction depending on which group he is addressing.

Romney had an opportunity to demonstrate his leadership by imposing his thoughts on abortion, However the Mittster  allowed the Republican Party to insert a plank into their platform banning abortion in all instances, including rape and incest.  This plank has become known as the Akins Amendment.

So the reason why the Mittster wanted to shut down Todd Akin was the fact that Ryan is closely associated with Akin. Mitt is associated with the doctor who provided the information to Akin about the supposed ability of a woman to shut down and avoid a pregnancy in the event of a legitimate rate. So the Mittster, Mini Mitt, Todd Akin and Dr. John Willke are all birds of a feather.

There’s one thing women’s bodies can shut down, and it’s called the Republican Party. Vote this November as if your life and rights depended on it because they do.

The Mittster on the Friday before the start of the convention revealed his true personality and inability to maintain his campaign above the mudslinging level. While in the past he has stated that there is no doubt that President Obama was born in the United States, he stated in a well rehearsed  speech in Detroit that his wife was born in one hospital there and he was born in another hospital there and that no one has ever asked to see his birth certificate. The crowd cheered, immediately grasping his meaning, and when questioned by the press he acted innocently, stating that it was just a joke.

You would have thought that the Mittster would have avoided this subject, since it might raise questions about the foreign birth of his own father, who was born in Mexico where his parent fled in order to avoid prosecution for polygamy. Romney still has relatives living in Mexico and there is still some question as to whether they still engage in the practice of polygamy.

Lets us hope that before the campaign is over that the true Mittster will be unraveled and that its sooner then later for the sake of the country.

Fist Bump

MITT THE TWIT

With the passage of time Mitt Romney has slowly revealed his common sense and ethics or lack thereof. On the first day, within hours of arriving on his European trip to develop some foreign policy skills he insulted his hosts, Great Britain and the City of London, by questioning whether they were prepared and ready for the Olympics. Basically he wanted an opportunity to tout his success in the Salt Lake City Winter Olympic that was marred by the corruption and bribes that had taken place in the first place for Salt Lake to get the winter games, but in doing so he needed to question whether they were ready and did this on the day before the games opened. Needless to say the mayor of London, Boris Johnson was agitated as he asked 60 thousand fans, “a guy by the name of Mitt Romney questions whether we are ready for the Olympics” “Are we ready and a huge roar of approval was heard.  It is interesting to note that the Mayor of London, later received kudos for running a  seamless, mostly problem free Olympics.

The Prime Minister of England, David Cameron stated “We are holding the Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active cities anywhere in the world; of course it’s easier if you hold an Olympic Game in the middle of nowhere.” Nice going Mitt, do you think they will remember you if you ever make a return trip.

This was not the only foot in mouth moment for The Mittster, he also managed to surprise his hosts by revealing that he had been granted a rare meeting with the head of MI6, Britain’s Foreign Intelligence Agency.  Mitt was like a preconscious child, just blurting out whatever came into his head. He also made the statement that looking out the backside of Number 10 Downing Street, he was able to see that London was prepared. In Britain the word backside is used to mean ass, so Mitt was saying he looked out the ass of 10 Downing Street.

The London Tabloids had a field day. The Daily Mall asked in headlines, “Who Invited Him?” Another tabloid carried the headline, “MITT THE TWIT”.  That is an appropriate title for this post, since it is so descriptive.

Not wanting further bad publicity, he told an interviewer that he did not know when his wife’s horse Rafalca, would participate in the dressage and would not be present, trying to avoid any questions about the $77, 000 expense to ship the horse to London.  Romney always tries to avoid any discussion about his wealth. The Los Angeles Times reported on August 6 in an article by Robin Abcarian that Romney purchased a home in La Jolla, California for 12 million, cash in 2008, and in 2009 he sought an exemption for his property taxes stating that the evaluation  be reduced to 6.8 million. It was eventually evaluated at 11.4 million, but. Nice try Mitt.  Romney in his daily stump speeches never fails to profess his love for this country, at times even singing a poor rendition of America the Beautiful, yet he does not hesitate to use every loop hole possible to avoid or lower his taxes. He knows that taxes are used to provide for the health and welfare of its citizens but does not consider it his responsibility. The Times actually gave an address for the La Jolla property, with its 61 feet of ocean front, 311 Dunemere, La Jolla, Ca. 92037. Feel free to review the property through Google.

The remainder of his International trip to enhance his foreign policy skills was just as disastrous. In Israel he praised the economy and the drive of the country, contrasting it with Palestine, saying Israel’s success was cultural, thus insulting Palestine. If a peace is ever achieved in the Middle East it will have to be as a result of negotiations and compromises and the insulting of one side will insure that peace will never be reached.

In Poland, reporters were trying to ask Mitt questions and as usual he was trying to duck the press and his press aide became exasperated and blurted out “”Shove it”, Kiss My Ass” “This is a Holy Polish site!” He later apologized, but nothing was heard from the Mittster about the incident.

Back in the US, he needed to change the subject and decided that selecting his running mate would do the ticket. He arranged for a clandestine meeting with Paul Ryan, the Congressman from Wisconsin in the home of staff member Bess Meyers.  Ryan was informed of his selection and an announcement would have been made sooner, but for the shooting that occurred in a Sikh Temple. Finally Mitt made his announcement on a Saturday Morning of all days; all the commentators are still wondering why he released the info on a dead weekend. Again it may have been that the Mittster wanted to change the topic again. On Friday morning, August 10^th, during an interview with Chuck Todd, NBC Political Analyst Mitt said that he would like to reach an agreement with the Obama Campaign that certain topics be off the table, such as family, business, and taxes, all of the subjects he has been avoiding and the flash back from such a statement would really give a clear picture of what the Mittster is all about. He just wants to talk about things that make him look good, like maybe his haircut, other than that, what else is there.

He is upset over the statement from Harry Reid, Senator from Nevada that Mitt didn’t pay taxes for 10 years, but he still refuses to release his tax returns. He still hasn’t released his return for 2011 and won’t release them until shortly before the election when he can argue that any criticism is just last minute lies.  His supporters were quick to label Reid as a “Dirty Liar” Again Mitt didn’t comment on Reid.

On August 16, 2012, in order to prove that he had paid taxes every year, he stated that he reviewed his taxes and had never paid less than 13% in taxes over the past ten years. If you are paying taxes on capital gains then 13 to 15% is appropriate, however if you are paying taxes on wages  then the rate would be 29%.  The past ten years takes us to 2002, the last year in which the Mittster filed with the SEC, indicating that he was the president, CEO and sole shareholder of Bain Capital. If he released his tax returns for those years, it would be possible to ascertain whether the money he received from Bain for 2002 could be classified as wages or capital gains.  It is not illegal to avoid taxes; it is illegal to evade taxes!

The question commentators are also asking is why Paul Ryan?   Because in selecting Ryan, Mitt has also endorsed Ryan’s Budget. Certainly Portman and Pawlenty would have been safer choices although slogans had already been picked out if he had, such as “The bland leading the bland.”

It is clear that the Mittster did not thoroughly analyze his decision because within 48 hours he was quickly distancing himself from the Ryan Budget, saying he has his own plan and that they would be running on his plan. The day after that he said he and Ryan’s plan differed.  Finally he flipped again and said that both plans are very similar in certain parts but that he had not compared them side by side. It is very clear that both plans will gut the Medicaid health program and turn Medicare into a voucher program.

Mitt quickly decided that it might not be prudent to take Ryan to Florida with him because of the large population of senior citizen voters who depend on Medicare and instead sent Ryan into Iowa, where he met hecklers at the Iowa State Fair, who were asking him about his plan to cut Medicare.

One has to question the Mittster’s common sense in his choice of Ryan, because along with the Ryan budget, Ryan also carries excess luggage that he has to sidestep.

Paul Ryan has had an attachment to Ayn Rand and her philosophy for a number of years and has made public statements about his admiration for her. At an Atlas Society meeting celebrating Ayn Rand’s life in 2005, Ryan said that, “the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand, and I grew up reading Ayn Rand and it taught me quite a bit about who I am and what my value systems are, and what my beliefs are. It’s inspired me so much that it is required reading in my office for all my interns and staff.”In response to criticism from Catholic leaders, in 2012 Ryan distanced himself from Rand’s Objectivist Philosophy, telling the National Review, I reject her philosophy. It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interaction down to mere contacts and it is antithetical to my world view”, and noting that his views were more aligned with those of Roman Catholic philosophy and saint, Thomas Aquinas than Ayn Rand.

When you mention Ryan's Catholicism and his 2012 Budget plan you have to note that he received criticism from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and from faculty and administrators of Georgetown University. In a letter to Rep Ryan, the Georgetown group criticized the Ryan budget as trying to “dismantle government programs and abandon the poor to their own devices,” going on to say that Catholic teaching “demands that higher levels of governments provide help---"subsidium"—when communities and local governments face problems beyond their means to address such as economic crisis, high unemployment, endemic poverty and hunger." The letter also criticizes Ryan for his attempts at "gutting government programs "and states that Ryan is profoundly misreading church teaching."

A statement issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops criticized the Ryan budget in similar terms. Ryan rejected the bishops’ criticism that his budget plans disproportionately cut programs that "serve poor and vulnerable people."

 The Jesuits were even stronger in their condemnation, saying that  " his budget  appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather then the gospel of Jesus Christ".
In the week since he was announced as Mitt’s running mate, Paul Ryan has been subjected to scrutiny by the media. Previously representing a rural congressional district in Wisconsin he was able to make some statements in Washington D.C. and an opposite statement on the same subject in his home district.  However being in the spotlight has exposed his flip flopping.


He has been questioned on why he opposes cuts to Medicare he once proposed. He was asked, “you’re criticizing President Obama, right now for taking money from Medicare to pay for Obamacare, when your plan calls for the same thing”.  He answered by saying he has voted to repeal Obamacare, so by making the cuts, he is in effect, repealing Obamacare. The $716 Million dollars that are proposed to be cut by the Romney/Ryan Budget will reduce the amount received by the health care recipients, because it will be used to offset revenues losses from the tax cuts for the wealthy.

 As for Medicare, they plan to destroy it via a voucher program, where a set amount of money will be given to each recipient to shop for insurance. If they buy a cheaper plan they get to keep the diffreence. If they chose a more expensive plan or the costs increase, the recipient pays for the increase out of their own pocket. Medicade will be completely gutted. Has the smell gotten to you yet? 
The Obama health care cuts, in reality are not cuts in benefits but rather the savings in costs that the  Congressional Budget Office projects over the next decade from reasonable provisions in the reform law. They do not reduce the amount of anyone’s health care coverage. The bulk of the $716 million dollars in reductions come from reducing government reimbursement rates for hospitals, nursing homes, and other care providers. The resulting savings were used by the Obama Administration to extend Obamacare to 2024.

Romney/Ryan are well aware of the disengenuineness of their ad aginst President Obama, "the alleged raid against Medicare" which is a polite way of saying they know that the ad is an outright lie and they have no qualms about continuing to run the ad, which says a great deal about their moral character. Both men insist that they would save Mediare by pumping a huge amount of money into the program but the idea is ludicris given their prior pledgr to repeal Medicare. The only thing known about the Romney/Ryan Budget plan is that they want to spend very large sums on the military and on tax cuts for wealthy Americans but this is not what they want to bring to the attention of the voting public.

He was asked why if he opposed President Obama’s Stimulus Bill, arguing that it would not work, would not create jobs and would add to the deficit, he had asked for money for his district?

He denied requesting money for his district and had previously denied doing so when he was interviewed on a radio talk show in Massachusetts.  According to a Los Angeles Times article of August 17, 2012, written by Alana Semuels, Ryan previously told Cincinnati’s WCPO-TV, that  he had never asked for stimulus money. “I don’t recall and I haven’t seen this report so I really can’t comment on it. I opposed the stimulus because it doesn’t work-it didn’t work, it brought us deeper into debt.
 It has been reported that Ryan requested and received 20 million dollars of the stimulus money for his district. It would be interesting to know what if anything the money did to stimulate the economy in  his district or help those  who received it, or did the cash just go to the owners?

 Ryan has to realize that he is no longer a small time pol who can deceive the public by making statements to pander to his audience. If Paul Ryan can not recall requesting and receiving $20 million dollars for his district then he should not be in charge of any budget!

So the Mittster has actually picked the right running mate for himself, a “MINI MITT”, who can
 flip flop and pander just like he does.


Fist Bump Time!

SOME CHEESE WITH YOUR WHINE MITT?

During his primary battles with Santorum, Ginggrich, and  Paul,  Mitt had no problem destroying them with millions of dollars in negative ads, giving no quarter and taking no prisoners . Now that he faces legitimate criticism over his financial dealings with and without Bain, he cries foul and demands an apology.  The Mittster can’t have it both ways,  either he created thousands of jobs with Bain or was not involved with Bain after 1999. However he continued to file documents with the SEC, through 2002 declaring that he was the CEO, President and sole shareholder and continued to receive compensation, although he says that he had no part in the management which outsourced jobs overseas. When the facts are as clear as this, he can’t claim that it is all a falsehood, the facts speak for themselves.

Within a week of complaining about what he considered negative ads, Mitt embarked on negative ads of his own. President Obama had given a speech in which he indicated in essensence that no man is an island and therefore success in business is not accomplished singlehandedly, that it takes a village which includes roads, electrical power, telephones and the internet as well as banks for an individual to start a business. President Obama even emphasized his meaning by summarizing and repeating his statement.

Mitt and his camp followers turned the meaning of the speech around to say that President Obama was against small business and of course his Fox lackies, followed in lock step, repeating that President Obama was anti small business. So Mitt is agitated when ads which he considers negative are lodged against him even when the ads have merit but does not hesitate to fabricate negative ads of his own. He can dish it out but can’t  take  it.

FIST BUMP!

AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL

Since Chief Justice made the momentous ruling on the Affordable Health Care Act, journalist from all facets of the political spectrum have written their interpretation of what it means for future social legislation. Some consider that the C.J. Roberts has given a warning to President Obama’s Administration that even though this ruling was favorable, that the ruling did not concern the merits of the act but whether the act itself was constitutional. The Chief Justice in his statement said, that it was not the Supreme Court’s job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices, in essence saying that he was not in favor of the law itself, but as far as its legality it was constitutional.

Some political pundits have ascribed a Machiavellian motive to the Chief Justice’s action, arguing that if he had voted with Kennedy and the arch conservatives, Scalia, Alito and Thomas in holding the entire act unconstitutional, this would have galvanized President Obama’s base into uniting to reelecting him to a second term. However by reaching out and finding that the individual mandate was a tax, and joining with the four other justices in upholding the act and mandate constitutional, he has given the far right the issue of the President passing a tax upon the middle class, while at the same time weakening the Commerce Clause which as a result of the finding, has lost some value for future legislation.

There were many headlines declaring this a victory for President Obama, but as Paul Krugman stated in an Op-Ed in the New York Times on Friday June 28, 2012, the real winners are ordinary Americans, people like you. Every American who would have found health insurance unaffordable but will now receive financial help and every American with a preexisting condition who would have been flatly denied coverage in many states now has insurance coverage. The winners from the Supreme Court decision are your friend s, your relatives, the people you work with, and very likely you. For almost all of us stand to benefit from making America a kinder and more decent society.

The campaign against health care reform is now in full swing with millions of dollars being set aside for ad campaigns denouncing the value of the health care bill with mispresentations and outright lies. Who can forget the rumors that the act had death panels?  The cost of the legislation will be exaggerated and while Republican Congressmen would not hesitate to increase defense spending by 50% and add a standing military of 100,000 as Mitt said he wanted to do, at an estimated cost of two trillion dollars over the next ten years, they question the cost of keeping American healthy.

Within hours of the Supreme Court’s upholding the constitutionality of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, a bill that historians will compare to FDR’s Social Security and LBJ’s Medicare, Mitt Romney and Congressional  Republicans pledged to intensify their efforts to repeal it. While members of congress rushed to portray it as a tax upon the middle class, Mitt Romney was unable to make this argument because as governor of Massachusetts he signed a similar health bill with an identical individual mandate which he labeled a penalty and not a tax.

As of July 11, 2012, the House Republicans have tried for the 32nd time to repeal the affordable Health Care act, which they know is a futile act since even if they were successful in the house which they weren’t, they would not be able to get it passed in the senate. Instead of wasting taxpayer money and time on frivolous actions, house Republicans should start working on the Jobs Bill that was sent to them last September. This Jobs Bill can immediately put state and local government workers back to work, along with construction workers who can start working on building and repairing public infrastructure. Are the Republican House members intentionally withholding support for the jobs bill during this election year in order to keep the economy weak and fragile? No they wouldn’t do that, would they?

FIST BUMP TIME

DAS MITT!

 According to the February 2012 Vanity Fair article, for Mitt being a Mormon is a duty where he accepts a code of conduct that places extreme value on families, heterosexual families, where men and women have their own defined roles.  He is comfortable around family and close Mormon friends, he is much less so among non Mormons especially those he does not know well, in a strict social order, and it’s us and them. That puts even those he has worked with for years, including co workers,   political aides, outside the bubble.  He therefore has many admirers but few close friends. For those outside his inner circle Mitt comes across as all business, colleagues at work are there to do the work not bond.

He has little patience for idle chatter, or small talk, he does not crave social interaction, often displaying little interest in knowing who people are or what makes them tick. He is not interested in people’s personal details or their kids or spouses said a former aide.
He was considered the Imperial Governor of Massachusetts with ropes that curtailed access to Romney’s office, the elevator settings also restricted access to his office. The tape on the floor told people   exactly where to stand during events. This was the controlled environment that he personally created. It was said that among legislators, he had no idea what their names were, because he was so far removed from the day to day operations of state government.    

In a front page story in The New York Times on May 20, 2012, Writer Jodi  Kantor writes, When Romney embarked in his first political campaign race in 1994, ( Romney continues to maintain that he is not a politician) he also slipped into  a humble new role in the Mormon congregation he once led. On Sunday mornings he stood in the sunlit chapel here teaching Bible classes for adults. Leading students through stories about Jesus and the Nephite and Lamanite tribes.  (Not familiar with the Nephite and Lamanite tribes?  I’m not surprised). The Book of Mormon as translated by Joseph Smith from the golden plates, narrates the history of an ancient Hebrew tribe, headed by a prophet named Lehi, who was an Israelite of the tribe of Manasseh who led his family out of Jerusalem, six hundred years before the birth of Christ. They journeyed to North America by boat that they were instructed to build by God. That during the voyage Lehi dictated revelations which were written onto metal plates which were later buried in the new world. The party of men, women, and children along with their animals settled down in their new community and lived peacefully until they  began quarreling when Lehi  chose his younger  son, Nephi  to lead the tribe, which caused friction with his older brother, Laman,  resulting in the tribe splitting into two rival groups, the Nephites and the Lamanites.

The  Nephites are described as fair skinned and upstanding , while their  bitter rivals, the Lamanites are described as a lazy people, full of  bitterness, whose behavior was so  adverse to  God’s will  that he cursed the whole  lot of them with dark skin to punish them .    

According to the Book of Mormon, shortly after the resurrection of Christ, Jesus visited North America to share his new gospel with both tribes persuading them to stop being antagonistic towards one another.  The tribes lived peacefully for several hundred years then the Lamanites, reverted to their prior deviant heathen behavior. The  Tension  between the two  tribes , escalated  into war around 400 A.D. which ended with  the  Lamanites  slaughtering  all 230,000 Nephites , (without leaving a trace of their ever having existed).  The Lamanites became the Native American but their past as a Hebrew Tribe was purged from their memory.
The Nehite/Lamanite history is accepted as truth by Mormons, although secular archeologists and historians have found no external evidence to corroborate the account given of Nephite history as given in the book of Mormon.   In 1996 The Smithsonian Institute issued a statement addressing claims made in the Book of Mormon , stating the text is primarily a religious text  and that archeologists affiliated with the institution found  “no direct connection between the archeology of the new world and the subject matter of the book.”

All religions require a leap of faith but do not require a person to be so gullible as to accept a fact that can be disproved or is unreliable or based on a disreputable source. To accept such facts and give them credence is to bring one’s own reasoning into question.

 Here’s a con man with a great pick up line, (God has chose you as my next plural wife and if you refuse or object you will be dammed forever). What 16 year old in their right mind could resist such a smooth line? This is the same individual who after being convicted of defrauding an individual by pretending to look at a stone and  finding  buried treasure, reports that an angel, informed him that he had been chosen to reveal a new and  the  only true and religious church,  because all the  other religions had gotten it wrong . He said that while in the woods an angel told him about buried gold plates, which contained   what he termed reformed Egyptian writing. Conveniently he was able to translate the plates by looking at a stone inside of a hat which was the same method that he had previously used to defraud people.

He spins a tale of the two Hebrew tribes sailing to North America from Jerusalem in a homemade boat.   That God appeared in the new world and requested the factions to live together peacefully  but in spite of God’s request war broke out among them, which resulted in one tribe completely slaughtering the other, 230,000 individuals without leaving a trace that they ever existed.

 Compound this with the fact that this individual from the inception of his new religion announcement has a revelation from a deity that plural wives or polygamy is one of the commandments that he is to follow.  That this individual keeps this to himself and practices the doctrine of plural marriage in secret before revealing it to an inner circle, which also practice it in secretly for years before finally  announcing it  to the remainder of the members.

 Add to this the Mormon Beliefs that that eternal life means becoming a God through exaltation and living in the celestial Kingdom with God, which only perfect sinless married Mormons can do.  Marriages must take place in the Mormon temple to gain the Celestial   Kingdom, but only selected church members may be allowed entrance to the temple. A local church grants admission to the temple (A “temple recommend”) to only those members who are tithing 10% of their income, and who agree that the President of the church is Prophet, Seer, and Revelator among other requirements. It is estimated that only 10 to 30 % of members have a temple recommend.

Finally add  the requirement that Mormons are required to wear at all times under their clothing   except while bathing sacred under garments , usually a two piece tight fitting undergarment  with symbols over both breasts, the navel and right knee which is supposed to bring protection to the wearer. 

 Top all this by the fact that although the church requires it’s members to be totally honest in their dealings with others, the church leaders disingenuously deny that Joseph Smith was ever convicted of fraud or disorderly conduct and that he and Brigham Young ever practice polygamy and to this day have not admitted their participation in the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

This is the Mormon Church. It is what it is, but for an individual who is running for the presidency of the United States and potential leader of the free world, to accept and practice this doctrine without question may explain why he is unable to relate to the common everyday man and why he has no qualms about earning money at the expense of others or excluding others who are considered unworthy of participation.  If you contributed 10% of your income to your church, which they used to build a temple, would you allow yourself to be excluded while the elite are permitted entrance?  Does this sound like the George Orwell, Animal House slogan “All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others?”

As the Vanity Fair article pointed out, he follows the code it is us versus them.   Mormons do not have paid full time clergy. Members in good standing take turns serving in leadership positions. Those called to serve as stake Presidents, bishops (all men) or leaders of local wards,  are fully empowered as agents of the church, and carry great authority. Romney’s first major role in the church was as a counselor to the president of the Boston stake.

 His responsibilities grew and he became a bishop and finally stake president of Boston, where he was forced to deal with resentment among progressive Mormon women in regards to their subservient status within the church.  Mormonism is male-dominated, women only serve in certain leadership roles and never as bishops or stake presidents.  A women’s group called Exponents ll, was formed to deal with the challenges of being a women in the male-led faith. Mitt demonstrated his rigidity and strict adherence to Mormonism in his role as a church leader.

 Romney as stake president was asked to call a meeting where issues could be discussed.  Romney was forced to strike a balance between those local expectations and the dictates out of Salt Lake City. Some believe he artfully reconciled the two, praising him as an innovative and generous leader who was willing to make accommodations, while others considered him a product of a hidebound, patriarchal Mormon culture, inflexible and insensitive in delicate situations and dismissive of those who didn’t share his perspective.   His leadership was not so rosy for everyone, clashing with women he felt strayed too far from the church beliefs and practice.  To them he lacked the empathy and courage that they had known in other church leaders.

 One of them was, Peggie  Hayes, who was raised in Boston with her mother and siblings and  had baby sat for Mitt and Ann’s children before her mother moved to Salt Lake City.  At age 18 she left Salt Lake to move to Los Angeles where She was married, had a child, and thereafter divorced, and relocated back to Boston, with her three year old. She worked as a nurse’s aide to support herself and child before again becoming pregnant.  She worked for Mitt who at that time had become bishop, earning some money while she organized their basement, as well as doing odd jobs for some other church members.  One Day, Mitt called to say he wanted to come over and talk. When he came over there was small conversation before Romney said something about the church’s adoption agency. At first, Hayes believed there was a misunderstanding but then Romney’s intention became clear, he wanted her to put the child she was expecting up for adoption. When she said that she had no intention of doing this he said “well that is what the church wants you to do, and if you don’t, then you could be excommunicated for failing to follow the leadership of the church.

The 23 year old felt threatened because this was saying that she would not be saved or ever see the face of God.  Romney would later deny that  he had threatened the young lady with excommunication but she felt that his message was clear.  After the child was born he required serious surgery at nine months. The bones in his head were fused together restricting the growth of his brain.   Scared and needing emotional and spiritual support Hayes, looking past their prior uncomfortable conversation called Romney and asked him to come to the hospital to confer a blessing on her child. Hayes was expecting Romney but instead he sent two other people who she did not know.  She was crushed because she needed him. It was very significant that he did not go.  Hayes decided that she was finished with the Mormon Church.

In the fall of 1990, the women’s group Exponent ll published an unsigned essay by a woman who had five children and some years earlier found herself facing an unplanned sixth pregnancy She could not bear the thought of another child, but the Mormon Church makes few exception for abortions such as when the health of the mother is seriously threatened, or when the fetus will not survive beyond birth. But even under those e circumstances the church does not automatically justify an abortion.  Then the woman was informed by her doctor that it was discovered that she had a serious blood clot in her pelvis, but with some risk to her life, she might be able to deliver a full term child whose chance for survival they put at 50 percent. One day she was visited in the hospital by her bishop later identified as Romney, though she did not name him in her essay. As your bishop he told her my concern is with the child. She felt that as an active dedicated worker and member of the church who was hurt and helpless with fear, trying to maintain her psychological equilibrium that his concern should have been with her. The women told Romney that her stake president had told her that of course you should have this abortion and then recover from the blood clot and take care of the healthy children you already have. She said that Romney told her “I don’t believe you. He wouldn’t say that, I’m going to call him”, and left. The women wrote that what she felt bad about was at a time when she was in need of nurturing and support from spiturial leaders, she got judgment, criticism, prejudicial advice and rejection.

The final anti women incident reported in Vanity Fair is an incident by a member of  Exponent ll , who had not been able to visit a temple because prior Mormon  regulation forbid entrance to anyone who had married a non Mormon . When the rule was changed she wanted to visit a temple outside of Washington to take out endowments, a sacred rite that commits Mormons to a lifetime of faithfulness to the church. She had never entered a temple before and was thrilled at the chance to affirm her dedication to a faith she had grown up with and grown to love.  She was eager to go but first she needed permission from her bishop and stake president.  After what she described as a lovely interview with her bishop and meeting with Romney’s counselors, she went to see Mitt. Despite Romney’s unwillingness to allow some changes when they met in 1993 and the clashes they had had over the church’s treatment of women, she believed she was in god standing with him. He said  I suspect that if you’ve gotten through both of the interviews there is nothing I can do to keep you from going to the temple. She responded, well why would you want to keep me from going to the temple? Mitt answered; well I don’t understand why you stay in the church. She asked him whether he wanted her to answer the question and he said, no, actually, I don’t understand it, but I also don’t care. I don’t care what you do. But I can tell you one thing; you’re not my kind of Mormon. With that he dismissively signed her recommendation for the visit and let her go.  She was deeply hurt. Although she and Mitt had their differences, he was still her spiritual leader and she hoped he would be excited over her yearning to visit the temple. She said she felt kicked in the stomach.  

Romney follows the strict Mormon code of conduct in which men and women have strict defined traditional roles. Women’s role is in the home, working outside the home is frowned upon.  In trying to sound like he valued a women’s opinion, Mitt said that he asked his wife, Ann for information on Women’s issues. When a democratic spokes woman said that Mrs. Romney had not worked a day in her life, the Republicans quickly struck back, saying that as a mother with five children Ann Romney had a full time job.  What the spokes woman meant to say of course, was that Ann Romney had never had an outside 9 to 5 job where she had to account to someone else and be responsible for earning a paycheck. This is not something that Mitt would ever allow her to do, even if she wanted to do so.

Mitt as indicated above has very rigid feeling about a woman’s place.  When he was asked about the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act, the first law that President Obama signed after his inauguration (allows equal pay for equal work, between men and women), Mitt said “I wouldn’t repeal it.”   Well that was nice of him. 

Romney’s  exclusive association with  members of his church  has  to some extent deprived him of common sense and not prepared him to deal  with  everyday  contacts with non Mormons  as has been shown by his remarks and behavior.   
From time to time he tries to act like a regular guy although he has no idea of how to do it.  In New Hampshire during the primaries, during a photo op with some waitresses at a café, with waitress on both sides of him he suddenly  laughed and lunged forward as if one of the waitress  had goosed him, and the waitress self consciously chuckled  and then repeated  this charade several times as if this was cute, or the thing to do.  When giving a speech in Detroit, wanting to avoid the auto bailout issue he was making off the cuff remarks and said, “I love the Lakes not just the great lakes but the small ones and I love the trees, they are all the same size.” He wants to portray himself more patriotic then the common man and has ended some speeches by reciting the words to the song “America. “  When he was asked what was his favorite vacation spot, he mentioned Paris, not saying that he had been there for 2 years doing missionary work but instead while on vacation.

There is no shortage of Romneyisms which demonstrate how out of touch he is in being unable to communicate unscripted.   He is clumsy and awkward in statements that draw attention to his wealth.  Who can forget his offer to bet $10,000 with Rick Perry, during a debate?

Who can ignore, Ann Romney wearing a $2000 tee shirt or Mitt having a home built in La Jolla California with an elevator for his cars. There is also Ann's dressage hobby where her horses costs $100,000 each. Mitt has claimed $77,000 on his income taxes for costs of transporting these horses.

Mitt wanted to show support the U.S. Auto industry and said “I drive a Mustang and a Chevy Pickup and my wife drives two Cadillac’s”.

 While at a NASCAR event he was asked if he was a fan and said, “I’m not as knowledgeable as some of the fans, but I know some NASCAR owners,”

 He said that he was not concerned about the poor because they have a safety net.  He tries to demonstrate a folksy persona, saying a man shouldn’t run for office if he needed to win to pay the mortgage

 In Mississippi he announced to a crowd, I’m learning to say y’all and I like grits. He added, “Strange things are happening to me

Laughingly he said that he could not understand how college age voters could supports democrats. He repeated this saying how can college kids vote for democrats? He never had to worry about student loans so he really doesn’t understand.  His college education at Stanford and Harvard were paid by his father. The reduced interest rates on student loans are due to expire in July and if they are not extended and allowed to expire, the interest rate will double.  His solution is to tell the college students during his speeches to be sure to shop around for their student loans. The Republican members in congress have said that will not extend the reduced interest rates and Mitt has not made any comments on the issue.

Recently when J.P. Morgan Chase reported a loss of two billion dollars in dealings that mirrored the same shady lending procedures that led to the 2008 Wall Street crash, Mitt said it was ok since it was private sector money, not federal money. The losses have now grown to 7 billion but Mitt has not made further comments.  He did not take into consideration how this affects the stock market and it’s investors as a whole, especially now with Europe as well as the U.S. struggling to regain an economic footing.

Who can forget Mitt speaking to teachers and saying the size of class rooms doesn’t matter. Maybe he was confused and was arguing the age old conundrum, size doesn’t matter. The teachers were too polite to challenge him, but common sense should tell you that a teacher has more control of a class room when they are teaching 26 instead of 40, but if you don’t have common sense  or just don’t plain care, it might not strike you as being relevant.  I’m sure that in his private school in Michigan did not have huge class sizes.

Romney’s former foreign policy advisor, Richard Grenell, who is openly gay, was forced to resign after pressure was put on Romney by a conservative radio talk show host, Bryan Fischer who claimed credit for the resignation. However Fischer then mocked Romney for succumbing to the pressure, saying how is Romney going to stand up to the Chinese or to Putin if he can allow himself to be pushed around and intimidated. The complaint about Grenell was that a gay marriage proponent in the Romney foreign policy shop was untenable. The Romney plan was evidently to muzzle him until he resigned was the worse possible way that this issue could have been handled. It guarantees that the issue will not go away, especially now that President Obama has personally endorsed same sex marriage. 

Romney cold rigid thinking is best illustrated by the story all of you have heard of occurred in 1983 when Mitt and the family were on a 12 hour trip in the family station wagon stuffed with suit cases, and his five sons. The family dog however, an Irish setter was inside of a dog carrier strapped to the roof, (Mitt had created some kind of a wind shield to make the ride more comfortable for the dog. Good old Mitt he thinks about everything. The only thing that caused the party to pull over was that the dog had relieved himself, with a brown liquid streaming down the rear window.  Good old Mitt pulled into a gas station, hosed down the vehicle, the dog and the carrier, strapped them back onto the roof and they continued on the remainder of the 12 hour drive. Common sense is what’s missing here. Why not put the luggage on the roof in one of those special carrier instead of subjecting the dog to ongoing torture from the howling wind that could be expected from such a ride.  Maybe it didn’t occur to Mitt,   after all it was just a dumb animal and it would take common sense.

A tenet of the Mormon faith is that its members have to be totally honest in their dealings with others and in touting his record as governor of Massachusetts, Mitt has misrepresented his successes by omitting key factors.  A January 9, article in the Los Angeles Times, by Michael Finnegan  states that by  Romney’s  account , his record as governor  shows how cutting  taxes and cutting spending spurs economic growth and takes credit for vetoing more than 800 spending items passed by the Legislature, wiping out unneeded programs, cutting taxes 19 times ,and building a $2 billion rainy day fund, while balancing the budget. He conveniently omitted the fact, that  the legislature overrode most of Romney’s spending cuts , State Spending rose by 22%  on his watch which , nearly doubling the rate of inflation. He increased corporate taxes and state fees by $750 million a year, outstripping the tax cuts.  

A major  focus of  Romney’s presidential campaign is that he is from the private sector and knows how to cut costs  and balance the budget and  has used his  term as governor as proof. The truth of the matter however is that Romney in his rigid, unwavering manner vetoed allocations for state police and local sheriff’s department.  He deleted spending on suicide prevention, emergency food aid job training, higher education, treatment for gambling addiction, and services for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence on his simple rationale that the state couldn’t afford it.  His rigid thinking could not compartmentalize that the state could not afford to let these vital functions go unfunded without injuring society as a whole. He was reluctant to engage with the Legislature in reaching compromises, making lesser efforts than his Republican predecessors to work with the opposition.

 During his initial 18 months as  Governor of Massachusetts,  Mitt  spent considerable time hammering out a  sweeping climate change plan to reduce the state’s green  house gas emissions, according to a Los Angeles Times article of June 13,2012, written by Neela  Banerjee and a New York Times edtorial of June 17th, 2012. However it appears that he did not completely understand the possibility of the climate change impact. He would make statements like “Climate change is occurring, and while the United States has the resources to handle it, but low- lying poor countries like Bangladesh would suffer greatly.” His cabinet members would look at him, like “what?” Romney pushed to close old coal fired plants, and encouraged the development of  renewable energy  and contain sprawl, steps similar to some President Obama has taken. But as he prepared for his run at the presidency he made an about face,  and now expresses doubt about climate science like the majority of his party. His official web site has no mention of environmental policy, except for reining in the Clean Air Act and the EPA.  It was almost as if a switch was flipped, a  true Etch A Sketch moment.

If elected, would you like to bet 10 thousand dollars over which position Mitt would take on climate change, especially since his top energy donors such as the Koch brothers are from the fossil fuel, coal and natural gas industries which are pouring hundreds of million dollars into Mitt's campaign to defeat President Obama.

In an article in the Los Angeles Times on June 24, 2012, written by Doyle McManus it states that Mitt wants to reduce the deficit and his formula for doing so is to decrease federal spending overall including medicare,while also lowering taxes, however he has said that at the same time he will increase defense spending massively by more than 50 % over current levels, which could mean almost two trillion in additional military spending over the next ten years,while at the same time balancing the budget. Even Houdini would have difficulity accomplishing this, it's just not realistic, but the Mittster thinks he can pull the wool over the voters eyes and promise whatever, to get elected. When questioned about his numbers his spokes person said that Mitt is serious about this goal but hasn't specified a date for reaching it. Good talking point, please give us a call when you come up with some specific details. That's Mitt for you, always kidding around, except this is serious business for you and me. 

On Thursday, June 28, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court issued it's long awaited decision in Human Health Services vs, National Federation of Independent Businesses (affordable health care) and in what will known as a momentous day in the history of our country, Chief Justice John Roberts stepped away from Justice Kennedy and the three stooges, Scalia, Alito and Thomas and joined with the more enlightened members of the court to uphold the individual mandate of President Obama's signature piece of legislation. The present supreme court has one of the lowest approval ratings (25%) with the American People who have seen their rulings to be politically motivated and not based on objective legal analysis and Chief Justice Roberts position is a step in the right direction in reversing this perception. The ruling is a victory for the white house but more important a victory for the American People, especially the 33 million people not previously covered by health insurance.

The Republican Party who did not vote or ever support health care reform has been quick to condemm the decision and vow to reapeal or replace the law citing the expected costs and questioning, how health care would be paid for. That's an easy answer, as stated above the Mittster has stated that he plans to increase military spending  by 2 trillion dollars over the next ten years. Why has no one questioned that? If we have 2 trillion to spend on defense, we can certainly afford to pay for the health and welfare of our citizens.

On the issue of immigration, during the Republican primaries, Mitt said he favored"self deportation" for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants who live and work in this country.  After President Obama  made the announcement on June 15, 2012 that he was halting deportation for some illegal immigrants. Specifically those who were brought here as children before the age of 16, had lived here for 5 years, were currently in high school, had a high school diploma or GED or in college or served in the military, did not have a criminal record and were under the age of 30, giving them an opportunity to apply for deferred action on deportation and for work permits which would be valid for two years and renewable. When Mitt was questioned about this he said he would support legislation that would allow some of those immigrants to stay, but refused to say whether if elected, he would countermand this executive order.

In a speech on June 21, 2012 to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, (NALEO) Mitt said that he would put in place his own long term solution that would replace and supersede the president's temporary measure. Again he was vague on the specifics except to say his his immigration plan would include a high tech fence and would not include a path to citizenship except for military service. This is the same Mitt who opposed the Dream Act and said that as president he would repeal it.
That's Mitt for you. This is the best he could come up with, 6 days after the president announced his plan on June 15, 2012.  All you can say about Mitt is that he is not too swift in time or rhetoric.  

It's seems like Mitt can't even rely on his own party for support. On June 14, the RNCLatino .com site posted a stock photo of what they thought were Latino children only to have it later pointed out to them that the children were Asian. The stock photo from Shutterstock tags the photo with keywords like, "Asia," "Asian", "Japanese" and "Thailand." You can be sure that the RNC is committed to presenting this site to Latino voters, as soon as they find out what they look like.

This is the true Willard Mitt Romney, a disingenuous, flip flopping vanilla, mom wearing  jeans individual, who at one time was proud to be pro choice because that was the platform his mother ran on in her bid for the U.S. Senate. He has once again demonstrated his  convoluted thinking process which prevents him from discerning and making decisive thoroughly conceived decisions and instead panders to any and all of his supporters, especially the higest bidders.

His latest flip floppin Etch A Sketch moment is the switch of now calling the individual mandate of the Affordable HealthCare Act a tax, whereas he previously called it a penalty. The Republican base however quickly siezed on the issue that  the individual mandate was a tax on the middle class. Five days after the ruling Mitt has finally joined his base and now calls the mandate a tax. However he insists that his mandate in his Rommneycare bill in Masschusetts is a penalty because he argues that states can legislate a penalty even if the federal government is unable to do so. The Mittster must have been absent when they discussed this in his con law class at Harvard.  Stae and Federal legislation are both subject to challenges of constitutionality, so if the federal mandate is a tax then the Masschusetts mandate is also a tax.

In a July 5, 2012 interview with Jan Crawford of CBS, Ann Romney who had accompanied the Mittster, indicated that a female candidate might be selected for his running mate as Vice President. Mitt agreed and said this was being considered. Mormonism, is a male dominated organization and women are never given leadership positions, so it appears that the Mittster is once again pandering to get the female vote. This will come to haunt him, when he fails to select a female candidate.

Are you ready to put him in charge of our country?

FIST BUMP TIME!     

         

BRIEF HISTORY OF MORMONISM !

The principal issue that Mitt has avoided discussing is his wealth and one way that other wealthy candidate has dealt with this issue is by discussing their philanthropic contributions to charity. Mitt has been unable to do so because his principal contributions have been to the Mormon Church, and he has been reticent to talk about it because some Americans still do not accept Mormonism.

It has been difficult for journalist to write about Mitt’s Mormon religion for fear of coming across as a religious bigot, but it needs to be addressed.

If a candidate for the office of the presidency was a snake or serpent handler it would be very important to discuss this if only to insure that his choice for a vice president was exceptionally qualified.

Snake handling is a religion ritual in a small number of Pentecostal Churches in the U.S.  Usually characterized as rural and part of the holiness movement. Most snake handlers are found in the Appalachian Mountains and other parts of the Southeastern United States, especially in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia and Ohio. In 2001 there were about 40 small churches that practiced snake handling, and in 2004 there were four snake handling congregations in the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, Canada.

Practioners are encouraged to handle snakes as evidence of salvation. Worshipers quote the Books of Mark and Luke to support the practice. Behold I give onto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any mean hurt you. Another key scripture used to support their belief is Acts 28:1-6, which tells that Paul while in Malta was bitten by a venomous snake and suffered no harm.  The snake story about Paul is interesting because there is no evidence of the existence of poisonous snake son Malta in the past.

The founder of modern snake handling, George Went Hensley, died from a fatal snake bite in 1955. In 198 snake handling evangel list John Wayne Brown died after being bitten by a timber rattler at a holiness church in Alabama. Another snake handler died in 2006 in a church in Kentucky. In July 2008, 10 people were arrested and 125 venomous snakes were confiscated as part of an undercover sting operation. The practice is legal in West Virginia, but the states of Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee have passed laws against the use of venomous snakes and other reptiles in a place that endangers the lives of others.

What if a candidate for the presidency was a Jehovah’s Witness, which is a Christian Denomination which like Mormonism has beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity?  Their beliefs are based on their interpretation of the bible with a preference for their own translation, “The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures.” The religion grew out of a bible study group which was formed in 1870 by Charles Taze Russell, who during the course of the study disputed many of the creeds, doctrines, and traditions of mainstream Christianity. They believe that the destruction of the present world system at Armageddon is imminent and that the establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth is the only solution for all of mankind’s problems.

They refuse military service,   do not celebrate birthdays, do not salute the flag, do not stand for the playing of the national anthem, and do not celebrate holidays like the fourth of July or religious holidays like Easter or Christmas which they consider to have pagan origins. They do not believe in blood transfusions for themselves or their children.

Another religion which would present some issues for a candidate for the presidency would be Christian Scientist which was founded in 1879 in Boston Massachusetts by Mary Baker Eddy, author of a book, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. The traditional bedrock of the church is healing through prayer without material means and their rejection of medicine. They deny the Deity of Jesus and teach that God is not the creator of the finite.

So a president who was a Christian Scientist would certainly would have no need for health care of any type for that matter any insurance companies since healing would be by prayer and medicine would be non essential.

By now you get the picture and I won’t have to discuss Scientology which would require volumes.

Mormonism

The Mormon Church states that in the early 1800’s, it’s first prophet Joseph Smith, had revelations that restored Christianity to it’s true path, a course correction necessary because previous Christian Churches had corrupted the faith ( so Matthew, Mark, Luke, Peter, Paul, Thomas, the Old and New Testament are incorrect, and therefore all other Christian Churches are incorrect). Smith bequeathed to the church volumes of revelations continued in scriptures   used only by Mormons: “The Book of Mormon, Another Testament of Jesus Christ,” ” The Doctrines and Covenants”, and “The Pearl of Great Price”.  Traditional Christians   do not recognize any of those as scriptures.

Smith taught that the Garden of Eden was on the American Continent, and near present Independence Missouri and that Adam built an alter there. The remains of the alter and a tower were allegedly found by Mormons in 1838. Smith prophesied that the Lord’s second coming would be in independence Missouri. The church teaches that Mormons existed in heaven with God, the Heavenly Father as spirits, before becoming human. Marriage is strongly encouraged as only married can reach the highest heaven, The Celestial Kingdom, the only heaven of the three heavens where one can live in the presence of God and live with their wives through eternity.

A New York Times article entitled, The Theological Differences behind Evangelical Unease with Romney, dated January 15, 2012, Stated that although Mormons consider themselves Christian, there are major theological differences between the Mormon faith and Christianity, with one of the most fundamental one being that traditional Christian believe in the trinity, that God is the father, the son and the holy spirit all rolled into one. Mormon’s reject this as a non biblical creed that emerged in the fourth or fifth centuries. Mormon’s believe that God,   the father and Jesus are separate physical beings, and that God has a wife whom they call Heavenly Mother. It is not just the Evangelical Christians that object to these ideas.

That’s just not Christian said the Rev. Serene Jones, President of Union Theological Seminary, a liberal Protestant Seminary in New York City, God Jesus are not separate  physical beings. That would be an anathema. At the end of the day, all the other stuff doesn’t matter except the divinity of Jesus!

Another major difference concerns the afterlife,  Early Mormon Apostles  gave talks asserting that human beings would  become like Gods and inherit their own Planets., language now regularly subject to ridicule by critics of Mormonism.  Kathleen Flake, a Mormon who is a professor of American Religious History at Vanderbilt Divinity School explained that the planet notion has been de-emphasized in modern times in favor of a less concrete explanation.  People who die embark on an” eternal progression” that allows them to partake in God’s glory. “Mormon’s think of God as a parent” she said, God makes the world in order to give that world to his children. It’s like sending your child to Harvard, (although they never have had much of a football team). God gives his children every possible opportunity to progress towards this higher life that God posse.  When Mormon’s say, “Heavenly Father,” they mean it. It is not a metaphor.  It is the blurring of the lines between God, Jesus and human beings that is hard for Christians to accept, Mormon Professor of Communications at BYU, Lane Williams explains, “It’s not that we’re right and they’re wrong kind of approach, but it’s as though we feel that we have a broader circle of truth.”

As part of having a broader circle of truth, Mormons believe that a person can be baptized after death and that a person can be converted to Mormonism after death without his or his relatives consent.

The Mormon Church announced recently that slain Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl was posthumously baptized last year by proxy in a Twin Falls Idaho, Temple. The practice of performing unauthorized posthumous baptisms of Jewish people led to a 1995 agreement between Jewish Leaders and the Mormon Church. But recently the church had to apologize after learning that the parents of the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal had been posthumously baptized. They also acknowledged that three dead relatives of holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel were almost baptized. President Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham was baptized after her death.  Posthumous baptisms are common among Mormons. The purpose is to ensure that ancestors can join church members in the afterlife, but church rules stipulate that only direct descendants of the dead can submit their names for the sacrament. The Mormon Church had previously announced that they had baptized Ann Frank, Elvis Presley and of all people Adolph Hitler. The Church also allows proxy marriages of deceased relatives so that they can be converted into the Mormon faith and be with the family in the afterlife. The Mormon Church has a well known collection of genealogical records for the purpose of tracing ancestroria l backgrounds which can be used to baptize and marry your ancestors, for a slight fee of course.

What puts this all into question is the fact that Joseph Smith was arrested in Norwich New York in 1826 and tried and convicted of being a disorderly person.  Joseph Smith was involved in a scheme where he would look into a stone and divine the presence of minerals or gold. Initially defenders of the church expressed plausible deniability because of the supposed lack of documentation. However arrest warrants, court transcripts, and legal bills from four separate charge filed against Smith have been produced showing his involvement in glass looking or treasure seeking. He was found guilty of parting a local farmer of his money in a less than honest scheme, commonly known as money digging or glass looking. In that hearing Smith admitted that his “peep-stoning” practice was all a fraud and he promised the judge that he would give it up and do honest work. The judge let him off based on his promise.

 It was reported that the activity brought rebuke from his soon to be father in law, Isaac Hale. It is also historically recorded that Joseph Smith was removed from membership in a local Methodist Church because of the activity and the trial results. Joseph Smith was a border in the home of Isaac Hale and he asked permission to marry Isaac’s daughter Emma but was refused permission because of Smith’s conviction and the type of work he was doing.

On January 18, 1827 Smith and Emma Hale eloped against her father’s wishes and when they returned Isaac Hale allowed them to live in an old cabin on his property. A few months thereafter, Smith began to tell tales of a vision in which an angel directed him to a buried book of golden plates, inscribed with characters which he called reformed Egyptian.  He claimed that he could translate them, according to his father in law by reading reflections in a seer stone at the bottom of his hat.  The manner in which he pretended to read and interpret the plate which at the time were hidden in the woods, was the same manner as when he looked for the money-diggers with the stone in his hat, according to an affidavit given by Isaac Hale.

On March 26, 1830, four years after his conviction he published the Book of Mormon and established the Church of Christ on April 6, 183o and in 1831 he and his wife moved to Jackson County, Missouri, where he planned to eventually build the city of Zion. In 1833 alarmed by the life style of the church, non Mormon settlers expelled them from Jackson County.  Smith then moved to Kirkland Ohio, where he began building a temple. The Kirkland era ended in 1838 after the failure of a church sponsored bank caused wide spread defections. Smith who was the treasurer of the Kirkland Anti-Bank                                                         was tried and convicted in October 1837 by an Ohio Jury for violating the 1816 Ohio Banking law.  He was fined $1000 (the equivalent of about $90,000 in today’s dollars.

During the fall of 1838 tensions escalated into what is known as the 1838 Mormon War. A Mormon Church council had expelled many of the oldest and most prominent leaders of the church, who were excommunicated for various reasons due to land purchases.  Smith believed that his faith’s survival required greater militancy against anti Mormons and Mormon traitors; a covert operation called the Danites was formed to intimidate Mormon dissenters and oppose anti Mormon Militias units.  Speeches were made and printed in pamphlets, promising a war of extermination if Mormons were attacked. This produced a flood of anti Mormon rhetoric in Missouri newspapers. Violence erupted on August 6, 1838 when non Mormons tried to prevent Mormons from voting. This was the start of the 1838 war.  Non Mormon vigilantes raided and burned Mormon farms.                                                                                                                                 

Meanwhile under Smith’s general oversight and command, the Danites and other Mormon forces pillaged non-Mormon towns. Mormons attacked the Missouri state militia in an attempt to rescue some captured Mormons. The governor of Missouri ordered that the Mormons be exterminated or driven from the state. Non Mormon vigilantes surprised and killed 18 Mormons in the Haun’s Mill massacre, effectively ending the war. On November 1, 1838 the Mormon's surrendered and agreed to forfeit their property and leave the state. Smith was court marshaled for treason and nearly executed but for the fact that it was argued that he was a civilian. He was transferred to a jail in Liberty, Missouri to await trial, escaping on April 6, 1839.

 Between November and April some eight thousand  displaced  Mormons migrated east into Illinois establishing a new city, Nauvoo(Hebrew meaning “to be beautiful”) in a swampland on the banks of the Mississippi River  Smith introduced Temple ceremonies meant to seal families together for eternity, as well as the doctrines of eternal Progression or exaltation . He created a council of fifty, which had the authority to decide which national or state laws Mormons should obey. They represented a future theodemocratic “Kingdom of God” on earth. He began revealing the doctrine of plural marriage to a few of his closest friends, including a benefactor, Dr. John C. Bennett, who began using it as a license for free love. When embarrassing rumors of “spiritual wifely” arose, Joseph Smith forced Dr. Bennett to resign his position as Mayor of Nauvoo.  In return Bennett wrote lurid exposes of life in Nauvoo.

By mid-1842 opinion had turned against the Mormons, with the editor of the Warsaw Signal, Thomas C. Sharp criticizing them for political and military aspirations. The City of Nauvoo had an autonomous Militia with actions limited only by state and federal constitutions, with Joseph Smith being the Lieutenant General and Dr. John Bennett being the Major General. After an unknown assailant shot at the Missouri Governor on May 6, 1842, anti Mormons in Illinois reported that Joseph Smith had predicted the Governors death.  Smith’s body guard, Porter Rockwell was suspected. He was arrested, tried and acquitted.

 The governor of Missouri ordered Joseph Smith extradited and Smith went into hiding believing that he would be murdered if he was taken to Missouri.  Smith avoided extradition when a U.S. Attorney for Illinois gave his opinion that the extradition was unconstitutional.  Another extradition attempt was made in June 1843 when the Illinois Governor, Thomas Ford agreed to turn Joseph Smith over to Missouri on the old charge of treason.  Smith was arrested by Missouri officers but released on a writ of Habeas Corpus. While this ended Missouri’s attempt to extradite Joseph Smith, it cause significant political fallout in Illinois.

In December 1843, Smith petitioned congress under the authority of the Anointed Quorum to make Nauvoo an independent territory with the right to call out federal troops in its   defense.  Smith then wrote the leading   presidential candidates and asked what they would do to protect the Mormons. When he failed to receive a response Joseph Smith decided to run for president as a third party candidate.  Joseph Smith asked the Council of Fifty to select a site for a large Mormon settlement where Mormons could live under theocratic law beyond government control, in effect establishing a global theodemocracy.  One of the council’s first acts was to elect Joseph Smith as prophet, priest and king of the millennial monarchy.

By the spring of 1844 a crisis developed between Joseph Smith and a half a dozen of his closest Mormon associates, including William Law, Smith’s trusted counselor and Robert Foster, a general of the Nauvoo Militia who said that Smith had proposes marriage to their wives. About eight of Smith’s wives were also   married to other men (four were Mormon Men in good standing, who in a few cases acted as a witness in Smith’s marriage to their wives).  Typically these women continued to live with their first husband, not Smith.  Some accounts say Smith may have had sexual relations with some of his other wives and fathered children by one or two of them.  These   dissidents published a newspaper called the Nauvoo Expositor on June 7, 1844 which criticized Smith and called for reforms within the church. The newspaper   decried Polygamy and Smith’s doctrine of exaltation and other controversial doctrines such as his new doctrine of many Gods. The newspaper gave   the opinion that Smith, as both mayor and president of the church held too much power and that Smith had corrupted women by forcing, coercing or introducing them into plural marriage. The newspaper   promised to present evidence of its allegations in succeeding issues.  Fearing exposure Smith and the city council declared the newspaper a public nuisance and ordered the Nauvoo militia to destroy the printing press.

Destruction of the printing press provoked a call to arms by Thomas C. Sharp, Editor of the Warsaw Signal, who stated the Smith had violated freedom of the press, and raised issues of inciting riot and treason.  Smith fearing an uprising called out the militia, an organization of 500 men  on  June 18^th and declared martial law. THe City of Carthage mobilized it’s small detachment of state militia. Illinois Governor Thomas Ford threatened to call a larger militia unless Smith and the city council surrendered. Smith initially fled across the Mississippi River but then returned and surrendered to the Governor, along with his brother Hyrum and fifteen city council members and some friends and were  charged with  inciting a riot.

Subsequently Smith and his brother were charged with treason. The members of the city council were each released on $500 bail, but Smith and his brother remained in custody since treason was a capital offense.

On June 27, 1844 a mob of some 200 men, their faces painted black with wet gun powder rushed the jail and killed Smith and his brother.  Five men, Thomas C. Sharp, Mark Aldrich, William N. Grover, Jacob C Davis and Levi Williams were tried for the murders.  All five were found not guilty by a jury. The defense was led by Orville Hickman Browning, who later served in the U.S. Senate and was one of the founders of the Republican Party.

After the death of Joseph Smith, a succession crisis occurred, Hyrum Smith would have been the logical successor but for his death.  Some members considered that Joseph Smith III should have been the successor. Brigham Young, president of the Quorum of twelve, claimed authority had been handed to him by Smith to the quorum of the twelve. Sidney Rigdon was the senior surviving member of the first presidency, a body which had led the church since 1832. At the time of Smith’s death, Rigdon had been estranged from Smith due to differences in doctrinal beliefs. James Strang claimed that Smith had designated him as the successor in a letter he had received a week before Smith’s death.

A schism resulted with each claimant attracting followers. The majority followed Brigham Young  and they migrated to the Utah territory after spending two years in Nebraska. Rigdon’s  followers  became  known as the Rigdonites  and some of them later established The Church of Jesus Christ . Strang’s followers established the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Joseph Smith III followers established the Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints, which later changed its name to Community of Christ.

Brigham Young and his band of followers  spent 2 years in Nebraska, before migrating  to the Utah territory where a territorial government was formed in 1850 with Young becoming its first governor.  The Principle of “separation of church and state” carried little weight. The laws of the territory reflected the views of only one person, Brigham Young.  He publicized polygamy the previously secret practice in 1852; he supported a theocracy and advocated the violent doctrine of blood atonement.

When drought and grasshopper infestation produced desperate economic conditions in Utah, Brigham Young concluded that the problem stemmed from the loss of righteousness   among his people. In early 1856 he launched the Reformation, a campaign to arouse religious consciousness.  Mormon leadership urged spiritual repentance and rebaptisms.  All those not willing to make the necessary religious sacrifices were invited to leave the Utah Territory.  The most troubling aspect of the Reformation was the doctrine of blood atonement.   Brigham Young asked his followers to kill Mormons who committed unpardonable sins. “If our neighbor…wishes salvation, and it is necessary to spill his blood upon the ground in order that he be saved, spill it.”  It is not surprising that practitioners of such a religion grow suspicious of persons outside of their religious community. The fanaticism led to violence and the infamous Mountain Meadow Massacre, one of the four largest mass killings of civilians in the United States. 

 By 1857, tensions again escalated between Mormons leadership and Utah and the federal government reached the boiling point, largely as a result of accusations involving polygamy and the theocratic rule of the Utah Territory by Brigham Young.  Worried that a federal army might be sent their way, the Mormon dominated Utah legislature enacted legislation reactivating the territorial militia, calling it the Nauvoo Legion. Federal officials in Utah complained of harassment and destruction of records by Mormon citizens. On April 15, 1857, a federal judge, the U.S. Marshall and the territorial surveyor fled the state, convinced that they were about to be killed.  

In 1857 President James Buchanan sent an army to Utah, which Mormons interpreted as open aggression against them and fearing a repeat of Missouri and Illinois, they prepared to defend themselves. Brigham Young embarked on an effort to rally Indian support for the Mormon cause, support that he saw as critical in the battle to come.
 On September 1, 1857, Brigham Young met with southern Indian Chiefs, encouraging the Indians to seize “all the cattle” of emigrants that traveled on the south route (through southern Utah to California). The meeting increased the likelihood of a violent encounter between Indians and emigrants. Young had been working on such a plan even before September 1, having sent George  A. Smith, south with instructions to let the Indians know that Young considered emigration through Utah a threat to the well-being of both Mormon and Indian residents of the territory.

In this period of paranoia, anger and hostility, a wagon train later known as the Fancher party  left Arkansas on what they planned would be a long migration to California. Two weeks before the wagon train left Arkansas , a Mormon Apostle, Parley Pratt,  (the great ,great grandfather of Mitt Romney),  was murdered  by a non Mormon angered over Pratt’s taking of his wife.  When this information reached the Utah Territory,  it inflamed  the hostility all ready existing against non Mormons  and some even accused the  Fancher  Party  not only of involvement in the murder but also in the killing of Joseph Smith and his brother.

On the same day that Brigham Young spoke with the Paiute leaders, the  Fancher Party consisting of 140, men women and children camped about seventy miles north of Mountain Meadows. Rumors spread that the Fancher Party had committed all sorts of manufactured sins and depredations: tormenting women, swearing, insulting the Mormon Church, brandishing pistols and even poisoning cattle.  Isaac Haight, second in command of the Nauvoo legion and President of the Cedar City Stake called a meeting,  where he stated that it was the ”the will of authority to arm Paiute Indians and incite them to “kill all or part of the party.

On the evening of September 6, 1857, the Wagon Train crossed over the rim of the great basin and encamped at mountain meadow.  The following morning, there was gun fire with the first victim being a child who was shot by a group of 40 to 50 Indians and Mormons disguised as Indians.  Gun fire was returned and and soon the gun fire turned into a siege which lasted three days.   Over the next three days Mormon reinforcements arrived on horseback and reported to Haight and his immediate superior, William Dame, the head of southern Utah forces. Dane reportedly reiterated his determination not to let the immigrants pass:  “My orders are that all the immigrants (except the youngest children) must be done away with.”

On September 11, Legion officers devised a plan to end the siege. Most of the Paiutes had grown tired of waiting and had left except for a handful.  Major John Higbee told John D. Lee and William Bateman to act as decoys to draw out the immigrants from the protection of their wagons. Carrying a white flag they marched across the meadow and spoke to the entrenched members of the Fancher party who by this time were exhausted from fatigue and thirst.  The desperate emigrants agree to the terms that they would not be harmed if they gave up their arms, wagons and cattle.

A member of the Nauvoo Legion took the reins of one of the wagons that was loaded with some of the youngest children.  Women and some of the most seriously wounded emigrant men were loaded into the second wagon.  John D. Lee positioned himself between the two wagons as they pulled out. Following the two wagons,  the women and the oldest children walked behind.  After the wagons had moved on, Higbee ordered the emigrant men to begin walking in single file.   An armed Mormon guard escorted each emigrant man.  When the escorted men had fallen behind the wagons and women and older children about a quarter mile, Higbee gave the order, “Halt, do your duty!” Each of the Mormon guards shot and killed the defenseless men at their side.  Meanwhile on the other side of the hill that the wagons had crested, Nelphi  shouted the order  to begin the slaughter of the women and older children.  Men rushed at the defenseless  emigrants from both sides . It was over in just a few minutes  and 120 members of the Fancher party were dead. The youngest children seventeen or eighteen in all with the oldest one being 6 years and 11 months  were gathered up, to later be placed in Mormon homes.  All but one were  later gathered up by federal authorities and returned to relatives.

 The next day Colonel Dame, and Lt Colonel Higbee visited the site  with John Lee and  Phillip Klingsmith. Lee in his confession described the field on that day. “The bodies of  men, women and children had been stripped entirely naked, making the scene one of the most loathsome and ghastly that can be imagined. The men agreed that Mormon participation in the massacre had to be secret.

The bodies were left  unattended and at the mercy of wild animals. In May 1859 the U.S. Army buried the remains of 34 bodies  in a rifle pit , and erected  a cairn at the site.

Aware of the sensitivity of the events at Mountain Meadow, Mormon officials  from Brigham Young  on down worked to shift the blame for the massacre to the Paiutes or the emigrants themselves. By November John D. Lee had completed  an account  of the massacre  attributing all the killings to the Paiutes and sent the report to Brigham Young . Young as Superintendent of the Indians along with his other duties  prepared a report.  

                                                                                                  
Federal troops  who were unable to control the Utah Territory without engaging the Utah Militia until June 26, 1858,  marched into Salt Lake under a deal brokered by Brigham Young which included a pardon for those acts considered part of the rebellion. However a U.S. District Judge, John Cradlebaugh ignored the former governor's report and pursued an aggressive investigation. After several months of the investigation the judge issued arrest warrants for John D. Lee, Isaac Haight, and John Higbee for the murders at Mountain Medows. Angered by his discovery that the massacre was ordered by order of council, the judge wrote a letter to President Buchanan seeking his commitment to secure convictions for the guilty.

The federal case was dropped when the U.S. Marshall was unable to serve the warrants without protection of federal troops which were not available.

On the eve of the civil war, the federal government had major issues to contend with and the prosecution of the Mountain Meadow massacre was placed on a back burner. In 1871 as a result of a series of newspaper articles on the subject, Phillip Klingensmith, a former Mormon Bishop appearing in a Nevada court, confessed about his role, swearing out a complete account of the massacre. Mormon control of Utah justice system however prevented any prosecution there.

It was only when the jurisdiction in the Utah Courts was redefined in 1874,  was it possible to proceed with the prosecution of those responsible. Arrest warrants were issued for nine men, Lee, Higbee, Haight, Dame, Klingensmith, a Stewart, Wilden and Jukes, however only John D. Lee was arrested on November 7, 1874. Dame was arrested shortly thereafter however, it was decided to try John D. Lee first since he was considered the most likely to be convicted.

The trial of John D. Lee commenced on July 23, 1875 in federal district court . Brigham Young provided four attorneys for Lee's defense team. These attorneys quickly became involved in internal conflict, with two of them wanting to provide the strongest defense possible even if it meant implicating higher Mormon officials while the two other attorneys wanted to protect all higher officials.
After a description of the massacre, witnesses described various aspects of a plan by Mormon Officials to make life difficult for emigrants travelling through Utah. Several witnesses testified that they had been ordered not to sell grain or provisions to the Fancher Party. Another witness testified that he had been excommunicated for trading cheese for a bed quilt. Other witnesses testified about the fiery sermons of George A. Smith and other church leaders, warning of threats posed by emigration through the state.The star prosecution witness was Phillip Klingsmith who described the entire scenario leading up to the massacre including the actual killing, with Lee and the other men acting on orders from Higbee. The Lee jury was unable to reach a verdict with eight Mormons and
one former Mormon voting to acquit and three non Mormons voting to convict.

Lee's second trial did not resemble his first trial with new witness with enhanced memories putting Lee in the middle of the killing. The prosecution no longer attempted to raise the issue that Lee was one of many, following the orders of higher ups.

The change in the strategy was that a deal had been brokered between a new U.S. Attorney with the understanding that someone had to be convicted of the massacre and that since a unanimous jury verdict could never be reached in the case without Brigham Young's cooperation.. The deal was that an all Mormon jury was to be empanelled , Brigham Young's deposition would be placed into evidence, present evidence that would tend to exonerate higher Mormon officials and after trying Lee, promised that no one else would be prosecuted.

Lee was found guilty after witness testified to what they had seen him do, but those same witnesses had no memories when asked to name other Mormons that had participated in the massacre.

On March 23, 1877, John D. Lee was executed by a firing squad at the site where the Mountain Meadow massacre had occurred. Lee wrote a confession and gave it to his attorney who had it published it and it became an immediate best seller.

Brigham Young  in 1877, died two months after Lee's execution from appendicitis  and thereafter he was followed by a succession of LDS presidents who resisted efforts by congress to outlaw polygamony or as the Mormons referred to it, plural marriages.  In 1878 in the case of Reynolds v United States, the Supreme Court held that religious duty was not a defense for practicing polygamy. In September 1890, Church presidentWilford  Woodruff issued a manefesto that officially suspended the practice of polygamy but did not dissolve existing plural marriages.  The practice continued after the manefesto and did not cease until Utah requested statehood and was required  to prohibit polygamy to gain admission. The church today seeks to distance itself from fundamintalists groups that continue the practice.

In 1999, a backhoe operator unearthed a mass grave , but before forensic anthropologists had an opportunity to study them the governor (one of the murders decendants) ordered the bones reburied.

In 1998, Gordon B. Hinckley, President of the LDS Church, decided to buld a monument at the location of the original cairn . On September 11, 1999, the monument which has the names of all the people who are known to have been killed there, was dedicated. President Hinckley told the assembled crowd, "The past cannot be recalled . It cannot be changed. It is time to leave the entire matter in the hands of God." That's as close an admission or an apology that has ever been given.

In 2011 the Site of the Mountain Meadow Massacre became a National Historical
Monument,as a result of request by decendents of the victims and members of the LDS Church.

So how does Mitt Romney fit into this? Well for starters:
Many Mormon  practitioners migrated to Mexico in order to continue
to practice polygamy including Mitt Romney's  grandfater, Miles Park Romney who had five wives.

Mitt's father, George was born in Mexico (when he ran for president in 1968, there was some concerns about his birth place but since his parents were U.S. citizens, the issues were resolved, however the birthers continue to raise the issue about President Obama even though he was born in Hawaii).

The story about Romney's relatives who continue to reside in Mexico was aired on Rock Center with Briam Williams on January 9, 20012.  Some 40 members of  the Romney family continue to reside in Chihuahua, Mexico. The question that was not asked is whether the clan continues to practice polygamy. Maybe that was a condition for granting the interview.
 Mitt has said that his family members had fled the United States for Mexico to escape persecution, when in fact they fled not because of persecution but prosecution for continuing to practice polygamy.

Fist Bump !