Well, 9 8 RINO’s have made it pretty clear today that the GOP is in lockstep with the Democrats. Neither are a friend to fiscal conservatism, the proper role of Government, nor the scientific method.

Here’s list of the 8 GOP turncoats who sold this country down the drain with a thinly disguised central planning bill:

• Mary Bono Mack (CA)
• Michael Castle (DE)
• Mark Kirk (IL)
• Leonard Lance (NJ)
• Frank LoBiondo (NJ)
• John McHugh (NY)
• Dave Reichert (WA)
• Chris Smith (NJ)

Obama is a downright liar in saying that 95% of Americans will not see “one penny” of their taxes increased. He takes a very narrow view of “taxes” in this regard because it fits the narrative, it’s far more convenient. By “taxes” here, he clearly means only Federal income taxes. When he’s talking about the hard-working, middle class’s tax burden, he includes other non-income tax withholdings like Social Security and Medicare. It’s not that I don’t think these aren’t undue, burdensome taxes on individuals, but I think we should see some consistency here. And if those are taxes, then surely we should see as a tax an increase of $1,300 per household passed to them from the higher cost of energy that this bill introduces. Only a few years in, that’s exactly what households in Britain are enjoying.

Though we were promised the most transparent, open Congress and Administration in history, we’ve seen nearly the exact opposite. One could hardly argue the point given that we’ve seen sweeping legislation after sweeping legislation come through at the eleventh hour unread, undebated, and without presentation to Americans. It’s clear why: these are horrible bills that cannot stand up under the sunshine of public scrutiny. I’m getting tired of every piece of garbage legislation that comes through with Obama’s declaration of “fierce moral urgency” attached to it. Guess what? The world isn’t simply going to collapse if Congress takes the time to read the legislation it passes. TARP. The Stimulus. The Car Bailout. When will Americans stand up and shout, “NO! We’re not going to be bullied into this anymore! The fear-mongering stops NOW!” Legislation passed without deliberation by our representatives is fraud, plain and simple.

And this laundry list of fraud and abuses goes before we’ve even discussed this point: the whole Climate Change agenda is based on a completely ridiculous premise! It’s bad science! Carbon Dioxide is a pollutant? Does anyone really believe this? If so, I kindly ask you to save the planet: stop breathing now. We need to stop letting our politicians set the scientific agenda based on a wildly popular, wholly fallacious movie starring the most boring narrator in the world as Fear-monger #1.

Not only is carbon dioxide never been substantially tied to the cause of warming, it may be a sign of a healthier, more moderate climate. As in, effect, not cause. You see, the conclusions drawn from the statistically inaccurate hockeystick graph make an argument  based on the correlation proves causation fallacy. Al Gore and politically-invested scientists took a look at that graph and concluded that because carbon dioxide levels rose with the temperature, they must have caused it!!! Too bad that’s a terrible argument. We see that all the chatter about global warming climate change is really far more religious and far less scientific. We’re not allowed to debate it, apparently. The debate is over. There’s a consensus, I swear. Now just vote on it and shut up.

The true Gospel is a unique, life-altering thing. It is not merely some philosophical angle to which a person might direct his attention for a time. Not at all a high moral standard to which we must strive for redemption; this is just a new, impossible law. No, the Gospel is the truth of a doomed humanity, a God who requires perfection, and the reconciliation of two such disparate conditions that this very perfection-requiring God Himself has given each of us. (I have only far too recently realized that the often used analogy of a drowning man in woefully insufficient here. We are not merely drowning. We are not a man adrift to whom must be thrown a life preserver. In this imperfect analogy, it is much more like we are cold and dead on the sea floor, requiring something extraordinary enough to both retrieve us and bring us to life.) The “good news” of the Gospel is that God has come into time and space to take upon Himself, in our stead, the punishment that His very nature requires of us, justifying us in His presence.

What we see in the Gospel presented is the truth of God revealed, a man’s acceptance in faith of that now startlingly undeniable truth, and Christ’s free justification of that man. What follows is God’s transformative work of remaking that man with new desires, a new purpose, and a new mind. Can a person accept the Gospel and be left unchanged? I do not think this is possible. It is only since Christ yanked me from my depravity that I have experienced the inner struggle of desires and behavior that Paul refers to in Romans 7. I have never, since my conversion, not believed the Gospel; I have just spent my most painful hours actively ignoring it and wishing it weren’t so.

Another bit of comic genius from Iowahawk.