Pooped out Pope out

While the mainstream media were pandering to the Vatican and slobbering over Ratzinger's sudden decision to retire for "health reasons", the facts are that "God's Rottweiler," as he was known in Germany,  has suffered a number of colossal and humiliating defeats.

Ratzinger's ferocious opposition to marriage equality  laws has been defeated again and again.  Since 2001, eleven countries and parts of three others, including several American states, allow same-sex couples to marry.  Bills legalizing same-sex marriage have been proposed, are pending, or have passed at least one legislative house in ten countries.

Then Ratzinger's efforts to cover up and downplay the pedophile priest scandal in at least a dozen countries--including his own complicity in the German  coverup--was another colossal and humiliating defeat--a defeat that cost the Catholic church in the U. S. alone $1.269 billion dollars in compensation to victims of the pedophile priests between 1994 and 2009.

Next, lest we forget, Vatican money laundering.  The Vatican has had a decades-long reputation for financial corruption.. In 2010, Italian prosecutors took custody of 23 million Euros belonging to the Vatican after they became suspicious of potential money-laundering.  And, finally, The U.S. State Department  added the Vatican to the list of countries that are possible targets for money-laundering last year, according to the Financial Times. And in the ultimate coup de grace,  Italy's central bank banned credit card use inside Vatican City because of financial irregularities.

But all the above pales when one considers that, because Ratzinger and his henchmen have obstinately opposed contraception and abortion,  they are guilty of crimes against humanity because tens if not hundreds of millions of unwanted children are brought into the world and condemned to a wretched life of poverty, hunger, violence, disease and squalor.

The ultimate colossal defeat for Ratzinger: attendance at Catholic churches worldwide is plummeting as parishioners, disgusted with the Pope and his corrupt amd perverted cronies, are abandoning the Catholic church in droves and stampeding to practice real Christianity elsewhere.

I guess the old fool finally read the handwriting on the walls.  But no matter who replaces him, the movement for Marriage Equality will continue, there will be more revelations and more million-dollar payouts in the pedophile priest scandals and the stampede away from Catholic churches worldwide will accelerate.

Jagor

How Mitch McConnell Profits from His Filibusters

The citiizens of the Commonwealth of Kentucky are eagerly looking forward to ridding the United States Senate of Republican Mitch McConnell, who is up for re-election in 2014.

Already, surveys show that McConnell the most unpopular senator in America, and enormously unpopular back home.

According to a recent Public Policy Polling [PPP] poll, 55% of Kentuckians disapprove of "Senator Filibuster," and only 27% support him.  PPP reports that "McConnell now has the worst favorable/unfavorable rating of any senator, snatching the dubious title from Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE)." S
 
But there's more!

McConnell has broken all records for calling filibusters. Official Senate statistics show that from 1917, when filibusters were first introduced, up until McConnoll's takeover as Senate Minority Leader, there were usually no more than one per year, rising to double-digits in the last third of the 20th century. But starting in 2007 with the 110th Congress, when McConnell became minority leader, the number of filibusters skyrocketed to 139 in the 110th Congress, 137 in the 111th and and 115 in the recently-ended 112th Congress.
 
Now what's the purpose behind these filibusters aside from McConnell's announced--and unsuccessful--goal to prevent Obama's re-election?

The answer: money! Big money!

The Public Campaign Action Fund issued a report whose title explains everything: "Cashing in on Obstruction: How Mitch McConnell's Abuse of the Filibuster Benefits His Big Money Donors" 
 
Highlights:

• On the very day debate began on a bill to repeal subsidies to Big Oil, an astonishing $131,500 in campaign contributions passed from the hands of oil donors in Midland, Texas into Mitch McConnell’s re-election war chest. Three days later the bill failed by filibuster. 

• Companies that lobbied against bringing jobs back to America and ending tax breaks for offshoring have given McConnell one million dollars to win his elections and look out for their interests. Big McConnell donors such as GE, Microsoft, and Exxon Mobil also have billions in untaxed profits stashed overseas.

So now you can start to understand why Mitch "Mr. Filibuster" McConnell is the most hated senator in the nation and why the voters of the Commonwealth of Kentucky are going to throw this corrupt and venal bum out of office on November 4, 2014.

Jagor