GOP House Judiciary Committee Votes to Put ‘In God We Trust’ on All 9,000 Federal Buildings – What Will That Cost? If Signs Cost $10,000 Each, That's $90 Million in New Republican Spending Jon Ponder | Mar. 22, 2011

Artist rendering of proposed GOP sign on the new federal building in San Francisco

Just four months ago the tea party Republicans won control of the House by campaigning on reducing the deficit and promising to focus on “Jobs, jobs, jobs." But in the 12 weeks since they officially took over, what they have shown is that, despite their new “tea party" branding, this current batch is no different from the GOP pols who ran Congress in the Bush and Gingrich eras.

Like typical politicians, the tea party Republicans have not even bothered to deliver on their campaign promises. They have done nothing to create jobs — they haven’t even held a hearing on employment. And their approach to reducing the deficit is to cut programs that help the middle class, sick and elderly or that are counter to their right-wing ideology, while adamantly refusing even to discuss raising taxes on the 400 American families that control $1.27 trillion of the nation’s wealth — that’s $3.175 billion per family.

Instead, the GOP House has resorted to the same sort of ideological gimmickry that was their predecessors’ hallmark. Since they took control of the House in January, the tea party has:

 

• Botched their own swearing-in ceremony
• Read the Constitution out loud, leaving out the icky parts about slavery and accidentally skipping entire sections, requiring a hasty do-over
• Wasted time voting to defund health-care reform without bothering to mention the “replacement" law they promised in their “Repeal and replace" campaign slogan
• Despite repeatedly claiming, “We’re broke, we’re broke," rammed through a $20 million subsidy for private religious schools in D.C.
• Wasted yet more of the taxpayers’ time passing a budget that the president would never sign, in part, because it would have killed between 700,000 and 1 million jobs and arbitrarily cut $61 billion from programs without regard to their effectiveness — ordering, for example, draconian cuts to the Poison Control Centers, Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, tsunami warning systems, job training programs and even the IRS, the primary government bureau that brings in revenue
• After drastically reducing IRS funding, debated putting the IRS in charge of investigating abortions — a measure that has 221 co-sponsors
• Defunded NPR because of yet another deceptively edited “punk’d" video by federal felon James O’Keefe
• Killed the U.S. Capitol’s composting program

And now comes this theocratic silliness:

[Virginia] U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes’ bill to reaffirm “In God We Trust" as the national motto and encourage its display in all public schools was approved by a House committee Thursday after a sharp partisan debate.

Opponents argued it goes too far in pushing one religious belief, while supporters said it acknowledges what they consider God’s role in the success of the United States.

A little background: In 1782, the Founding Fathers chose as the motto for the United States, “E pluribus unum," which means “Out of many, one." In 1956, at the height of the Cold War, Congress passed a law making “In God we trust" the official motto, a move that was primarily meant as an insult to the godless communists who ran the Soviet Union. Founders Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington as well as Abraham Lincoln, all of whom believed firmly in the separation of religion and the government and none of whom were particularly religious, have been spinning in their graves ever since.

Similarly, this new bill from Rep. Forbes is really just a political goad directed at Pres. Obama, *****cently cited “E pluribus unum" as the national motto.

Here’s more* on the intent of the measure from Forbes himself:

“This sends a clear message to all these government departments and agencies that it’s all right to put up the motto on our buildings and in our classrooms. And I think it will stop the tide of the chilling effect over the past several years. We’re not forcing anybody to do anything. But at the same time, we want to stand there to protect people who want to say God in a public building. And we don’t want some government agency telling them that they can’t put the national motto in their buildings or classrooms."

Rep. Forbes claims the law would not “force" the government to put signs on federal buildings, that it would merely make it “all right" to do so. But let’s not be naive about politicians’ reluctance to stand up to theocrats or about how the government works. Passing the law to approve the signs is step one. Step two would occur over the months and years after the law was passed, with enabling and funding legislation tacked on as amendments to bills totally unrelated to the signs. This legislation would lead to step three, ordering the manufacture and installation of the signs. And, obviously, if signs are created for federal buildings, they will be paid for with federal tax dollars.

Here’s how this same issue played out regarding signage on the most important federal building in the nation:

Forbes said that of all the events eroding the motto in public building, the cause “culminated in the case of the new Capitol Visitor Center." When the U.S. Capitol’s new Capitol Visitors Center was set to open in 2008, the motto “In God We Trust" was left off the building.

They tried to keep ‘In God We Trust’ out of the visitor’s center," said Forbes. “At first, they put in stone: ‘Our national motto is E pluribus unum.’ And then they did a mock-up of the Speaker’s podium. And where ‘In God We Trust’ is on it, they replaced it with just stars."

Outraged members of the House and Senators intervened on the issue, which came to a vote in the House in 2009. The bill which directed the architect of the Capitol to engrave “In God We Trust" in a prominent place in the building passed by a vote of 410 to 8. The Senate passed the same bill, and as a result, “In God We Trust" was engraved in the main foyer.

There are apparently about 9,000 federal buildings around the country, so as far as “jobs, jobs, jobs," goes, if it requires two signmakers to create and install a new sign for each building, that’s 18,000 temporary jobs, or, at the very least, work orders.

Way to create jobs, GOP! Hey, wait a minute. Isn’t it GOP dogma that government can’t create jobs?

But in terms of cutting spending this bill is a loser. It doesn’t lay out the specifications for the materials to be used to make the signs, but we can’t have cheap-ass plastic signs praising God on our federal buildings — nothing is too good for God, right? At the very least, the signs should be engraved in marble or cast in brass.

There won’t be definitive figures on the cost until the Congressional Budget Office does an analysis, but let’s say each of the 9,000 signs costs $10,000 to create and install. That puts the cost to taxpayers at $90 million.

What happened to “We’re broke?"

Let’s hope the independent voters who sent the tea party to Washington are paying attention to this nonsense — the claims that the United States is bankrupt and yet billionaires can’t be taxed to help close the gap; the failed promises on jobs; the reckless budget cuts; the hours and hours wasted passing bills that are nothing more than political sop to the right-wing fringe, now including a bill to post “In God We Trust" on 9,000 government-owned buildings.

Is this really what you wanted, swing voters?

Update: *Quotes from Rep. Forbes and background information were added in order to clarify the intent of the law.

"Its use is of patriotic or ceremonial character and bears no true resemblance to a governmental sponsorship of a religious exercise."[12]

 

(click me for wiki)

 

wait, what?

having state sponsored deities and using them in

'ceremonial character' has 'no true resemblance' to a

state religion?

The reason religion is being rammed down America's throat or up it's anus is to help sedate and lull society into a sense of complacency. Religion truely is the opiate of the masses. After all there is no manufacturing base anymore, as most jobs have moved or been outsourced overseas. Unemployment is realistically around 20% of the working age population. Banks and Wall Street with the governments approval is cheating Americans out of their savings. Over 80% of Americans are obese or overweight with the next generation already showing signs of being fatter. The health care system which is already a disaster will collapse when America's growing obese population reaches the age when their bodies start wearing out and require medical attention. Well at least America will have God. Smoke and mirrors is what God is to America, nothing more. A good hocus pocus trick. All great societies eventually fail and America is doing a great job of self destructing.

“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."

 Seneca

Army Of Clones: Religious Right Leader Colson Commissions ‘Centurions’ For The Culture War

March 22nd, 2011

By Joseph L. Conn

Charles Colson, Religious Right Research

Colson once criticized evangelical Christians for being inadequately militant, charging that too many of them “worship at the altar of the ***** goddess of tolerance."

The Washington Post featured a scary article today about Charles Colson, the Nixon-era hatchet-man turned Religious Right commanding general.

Colson, the newspaper says, is quietly training a cadre of fundamentalist true believers who will take their “biblical worldview" into every area of life, including American politics.

“They are called Centurions, a name that conjures battle-hardened Roman soldiers," the article reports. “They number 640, and their marching orders from their commander are clear — to expand Christ’s kingdom."

Says the 79-year-old Colson, “What this country needs is a movement."  (And we thought the Religious Right – sadly – has been filling that niche since 1980.)

One of Colson’s colleagues explained the goal.  Chip Mahon, a retired financial services executive who sits on the board of BreakPoint, the umbrella group for Colson’s various ministries, told The Post, “The point was to get more people to be like Chuck."

Personally speaking – and with all due respect – I don’t want more people to “be like Chuck."

The Post said Colson “doesn’t usually sound strident when he talks about hot-button social issues and is viewed more as the wise grandfather of the religious right."

Maybe The Post isn’t paying close enough attention.

As my colleague Sandhya Bathija reported last year, this is a man with a hard-right theocratic agenda.

Back in 2007, he attacked Islam, calling the religion a “vicious evil." As Sandhya noted, he blasted Islam’s theocratic tendencies and insisted that Christianity, in contrast, promotes “free will."  Yet, he went on to tell Southern Baptist pastors that their purpose should be “to take command and dominion over every aspect of life, whether it’s music, science, law, politics, communities, families, to bring Christianity to bear in every single area of life."

In June of 2009, Colson was the featured speaker at an Atlanta conference for the Association of Classical and Christian Schools, a group whose founder celebrates theocracy, defends slavery as biblical and expresses regret that the Confederacy lost the Civil War.

More recently, Colson has joined forces with Roman Catholic, evangelical and Orthodox leaders to push a document called the “Manhattan Declaration," which essentially urges Americans to defer to conservative religious leaders to make all decisions for the United States.

Colson once criticized evangelical Christians for being inadequately militant, charging that too many of them “worship at the altar of the ***** goddess of tolerance." He has even blasted the Girl Scouts for their sex education efforts, warning that “we need to be on the lookout for radical, destructive worldviews everywhere  – even behind the boxes of Girl Scout cookies."

Umm, not that grandfatherly, if you ask me.

I think tolerance is a good thing, I don’t think any religion ought to “take command and dominion" over American life and I like Girl Scout cookies.  I think the majority of Americans agree with me. Now, we have to make sure Colson’s cadres don’t triumph.

Chuck, bring on your Army of Clones; we’ve got our constitutional lightsabers ready.

i hope this turns out to be an urban legend and not for real.

Can we just shred the 90 mil $$ and use it as hamster bedding, instead?

We get what we vote for.  I knew **** like this would rear up pretty quickly after the sheep voted in the Je(sus)OP. 

Even if God appeared tomorrow and proved himself as real, this would STILL be a waste of money!!!!! There are so many other things this country needs!

WTF does this have to do with WLS??!?!  this is Effing ridiculas BS that was way to long for me to even read...

Hehehe...