Catholic Nuns Send Letter To Romney Challenging His ‘Woeful Lack Of Knowledge’ About The Poor

The article was sent to me several times by people I know and decided to take the weekend to think about what I wanted to say about the article and the Romney campaign now Romney/Ryan campaign.  Paul Ryan is the author of this budget these Catholic Nuns are talking about in this article along with the mean spirited   ad on welfare by the Romney campaign.  The Romney camp has been calling on Obama to pull the ad by the steelworker but that ad was done by a Super PAC for a fundraiser and according to the head of the Super PAC they never bought any ad time.  First of all the Obama campaign cannot coordinate an ad with a Super PAC which the Romney camp should know but it was never aired except when it went viral on the internet and news programs.

Anyone who was part of the primary this time knows all about Super PACs and how they actually aired some of the nastiest ads I have ever seen that were filled with innuendos, falsehoods, and outright lies which were aired on TV/radio in primary states.  Just so happens those belonged to Romney's Super PACs and his people from the campaign were in and out of the Super PACs moving around at will but there was no coordination if you take Romney's word for it.  Pigs are flying by my window as I write that last sentence.

Republicans want to know why a lot of people are disgusted including Republicans look no further then the tax laws that permit offshore accounts which are estimated at over $1T+ that are costing the government billions in tax revenue each year at the same time House and Senate Republicans want to gut programs that are a safety net for millions of Americans including veterans, seniors, the poor, and students.  I used to scoff at Democrat rhetoric when they said the Bush Tax Cuts were for the wealthy, but I was wrong.  Those little details got me.

Now we have a team where Romney no matter what he says now embraced wholeheartedly the Ryan Budget which was passed by the House in 2011 and a version that wasn't much better in 2012 where the wealthy are favored along with the big donors from the defense industry which I know a little about through being around it for over 30 year with my husband.

When did the Republican Party decide that those most vulnerable in our Country are going to be used to help pay for the wealthy to maintain their tax cuts and other loopholes?

Catholic Nuns Send Letter To Romney Challenging His ‘Woeful Lack Of Knowledge’ About The Poor

By Travis Waldron on Aug 10, 2012 at 1:15 pm

The group of Catholic nuns who launched the Nuns On A Bus tour to shed light on the effects the House Republican budget would have on the poor turned its attention to the GOP’s presidential candidate this week, challenging Mitt Romney to join them for a day to learn about the plight of the poor. 

NETWORK, a Catholic social justice organization, issued the call on Wednesday and was joined yesterday by the Franciscan Action Network, an organization of friars and sisters.
The nuns have now sent a letter to the Romney campaign, asking the candidate to join them during his current swing through Ohio. The letter again challenges Romney’s misleading television ads about welfare reform, which the nuns say “demonize the families we serve and reflect a woeful lack of knowledge about the challenges faced by tens of millions of Americans”: 

We are deeply troubled by your campaign’s recent advertisements and statements about welfare, which we believe demonize the families we serve and reflect a woeful lack of knowledge about the challenges faced by tens of millions of Americans. By accepting our invitation, we hope that you will have the opportunity to see firsthand the struggles of those in need and have the compassion to desist your campaign’s harsh attacks.

We are all God’s children and equal in God’s eyes. Efforts to divide us by class or score political points at the expense of the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters reveal the worst side of our country’s politics. Please accept our invitation to witness and to serve. 

The letter is signed by NETWORK’s executive director, Sister Simone Campbell, who told ThinkProgress this week that Romney “doesn’t have a clue” about the situation facing America’s poorest citizens or the effect his policies would have on them. “He thinks they’re lazy,” Campbell said Wednesday. “It is hard work to keep things together when you’re poor. He doesn’t have a clue. Let him talk to them, and maybe they’ll touch his heart. And his mind too.” 

Source:  http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/10/672391/catholic-nuns-send-letter-to-romney-challenging-his-woeful-lack-of-knowledge-about-the-poor/

Found over time you have to be careful when using stories from liberal sites but then I discovered this last year that conservative sites have the very same problem -- the difference being that a lot of stories from more liberal sites have links to back up their story.  I am not a liberal but a conservative who believes in helping people who are less fortunate and don't have some of the advantages my family has.  I have this old fashioned notion that you give back to the community where you live.  Now that community of people is being threatened by the money policies of today's Republican Party that has had a seismic shift to the far right where social issues of abortion and gay marriage are the most important.


First when I heard about the Ryan budget, I thought cutting Government was a great idea and made sense but the devil is in the details.  All of a sudden the poor, veterans, education, student loans, women, teachers, fire, police, Federal civil service, construction workers who fix our infrastructure, senior citizens through social security and medicare/medicaid, and the poor were all being targeted.  That safety net was being pulled out from under some of the most vulnerable like our veterans and the poor while the Defense Department was going to be given more then they asked including a tank the Army doesn't want.  Then you have the tax structure where wealthy would pay a lot less and the middle class and poor more.  Decided it wasn't such a good deal after all.  I can read and don't need liberal or conservatives sites to interpret what I read -- can do that myself.  The further I went in the bill kept saying OMG they cannot be serious.

Will someone please tell me why we need a cut in capital gains for multi-millionaires who over the last ten years have gotten much wealthier while the middle class is losing?  Seems the Bush tax cuts when you really look at them were tax cuts for the wealthy with a bone thrown in for the rest of us.  Why are investment earnings taxed so much less than earnings from a job?  Romney pays less than 15% on his taxes while we pay 28%.


When it comes to the economy, infrastructure doesn't seem to matter as the defense department is much more important.  Romney wants to give the Defense Department a $2.3 trillion dollar increase over a decade.  That money has to come from somewhere to pay back the big donors from the Defense Industry starting with Lockheed and Northrup because our Country spends more on defense then at least the next ten countries combined (hint it is more than that).  Where is the money for DoD going to come from?  It is coming out of the children on Medicaid, the working poor, senior citizens, veterans, middle tax payers, women's health, education, teachers, fire, police, federal civil service.  Ironic isn't it that the Romney plan calls for massive cuts in Defense Department Civil Service while increasing the budget for contractors who will take over those jobs so their CEO's can make $25 - 28M a year.

The hate and bigotry I see from the far right including the religious right is so far over the top I have to wonder where these people have gotten their information and why all the hate.  All of us in this Country can track our ancestors back to other countries.  I am sure the Indians considered the Pilgrims to be here illegally in "their" Country.  As the United States moved west moving the Indians out of their Homeland, I am sure if the term "illegal alien" would have been around, they would have used it because whites took their land and told them to go elsewhere.

Welcome to the Republican Party of 2012 where money is the end all be all and empathy has been tossed under the bus by this duo.  When did it become wrong for a conservative to care about what happens to others who need a lift up?  There are heads of families working minimum wage who cannot make ends meet without help.  They are not sitting there waiting for a check from the Federal Government -- some have two and three jobs to try and make ends meet.  Up until now, many of them could not even get health benefits at work because companies like Walmart would make sure they only worked part-time under 40 hours a week so they would receive no benefits.  They made too much money to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to buy health insurance on the open market.

Will someone please tell me where the Republican Party lost its way and why?

• When did we become the party of  hate and bigotry from the right when we were the party of civil rights?

• When did we become the anti-education party for all that only the kids whose parents can afford to send to college can attend because that is what gutting the student loan program does?

• When did we become the Party of private Charter Schools and Vouchers so you can teach the religious right version of science and history?

• When did we decide to turn our backs on veterans with the huge proposed cuts to the Veterans budget under the House Republicans Ryan Plan?  These are the men and women who fought for this Country.

• When did we become the social conservative Party where women's healthcare is trashed and compared to the worst tragedy since 9/11 and Pearl Harbor?

• When did we become the Party of the wealthy donors like the Koch Brothers and those whose names are kept secret who are allowed to run the Party today because of their massive wealth that has increased tremendously since the Bush Tax Cuts?

The list could go on and on and it makes you wonder how long the Republican Party can survive before there is a major split of the far/religious right who now welcome John Birchers, and those who believe we were conservative who have common sense and most importantly empathy for our fellow Americans.  Will end this post with the words of Thomas Jefferson:

“The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.”  

― Thomas Jefferson