On swearing in Mitt Romney

By Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon—Now that the GOP Presidential buffoon-o-rama is coming down to just one left standing, and while it’s all good that Mitt Romney is full of ideas about what he thinks he’s going to do on Day One of a Romney presidency, there is one small issue that will certainly stir up a humongous discussion well before that crisp day in January comes around:

Which Bible would a Mormon prefer to be sworn in with? The New, Improved Mormon bible, or the Bible that the Mormons have built their entire mock-Christian religion around denying is truthful in all its translations, King James et al? They are deep into insulting every non-Mormon form of the Bible.

That’s a good question, worth talking about. Romney could resort to the stack-of-bibles approach, including all of the current versions used by various Christian churches, but those would be the same churches that the Book of Mormon refers to throughout as “whores” or “the Great Whore of a church.” Wowie! That issue should spark a discussion too!

Another good question is where would a Romney Western White House be located? Salt Lake City? Close to the Utah Throne? Near the only guy in the world that God speaks to, according to the Mormons?

And here’s another one, related to the preceding question: How similar to theocratic Utah would a Mormon Presidency be? That’s worth exploring in great depth. Utah is the one state in the nation where state and local government is controlled by a religious sect, the system that Romney says is the center of his life.

There will be more good questions like these down the road….

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Sean Cruz writes about child abduction and the loss of his four children in a Mormon kidnapping/shunning at www.blogoliticalsean.blogspot.com


He is the father of four children who disappeared into Utah in a Mormon abduction in 1996, organized by a group of Mormon extremists that his former wife had fallen in with, in retaliation for his criticism of LDS church policy.

In 2005, he led the Oregon Senate workgroup that crafted Oregon’s landmark child abduction statute, Senate Bill 1041, known as “Aaron’s Law”, after his late son Aaron, who died in Payson, Utah as a result of this church-sponsored abduction.

With Aaron’s Law, Oregon became the only state in the nation where child abduction creates a civil cause of action. Without a civil cause of action, a parent of a kidnapped child has no basis in law to hold a kidnapper accountable for the damages the criminal causes.

Under Aaron’s Law, victims can reach those who provided planning, logistical or financial support to their abduction. This is especially significant in cases with multiple perpetrators, as a church-sponsored shunning.

Without a civil cause of action, the parent of a kidnapped child has only two courses of action: the family law system or the criminal system, both of which routinely fail the child and the family in abduction cases.

The U.S. Department of Justice documents more than 200,000 cases each year of parental and family abductions, year after year, and many of those children are never recovered.

Aaron’s Law passed the Oregon House on a unanimous vote, the last stop on its way to the Governor for signature into law, but is still in need of amending and refining in order to be truly effective in both preventing and resolving abductions.

Aaron’s Law should be modeled in other states, eventually becoming the law of the land.

With Aaron’s Law, my son’s death is not for nothing, and his life not without honor.

On the Mormon core of Mitt Romney

By Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon—

“Instead of obsessing over whether an element of humanity might disqualify Gingrich with some Iowa voters, the media would be better served focusing on whether out-and-out lying should disqualify Romney with all voters.” –Arianna Huffington

The Romney and Huntsman presidential campaigns will draw a level of public scrutiny to Mormonism unlike anything the secretive, polytheistic, mock-Christian sect has ever experienced heretofore, and the Mormon church is ultimately not going to like the results.

Although his campaign portrays him as a businessman, Mitt Romney, a former bishop, is a product of the Mormon institution, and in the social values of the church is the only place where he can be counted on to have a core, the loci of his few absolute values.

The problem for shape-shifting Romney is that Mormonism itself waves in the wind, has a particularly loose grip on facts and is packed full of hypocrisy and some of the weirdest ideas on the planet.

The Mormon church is as against polygamy and the raising of child brides today as it was for its practices not so long ago, and its officially racist doctrine about people with dark skin tones was changed in just the past twenty years, to cite just two examples of major flip flops on fundamental values.

The Mormon church has a gigantic investment in erasing its own past. It’s future growth (and cash flow) is nearly entirely dependent upon teams of skilled missionaries working one on one in their prospects’ homes, feeding information in a carefully controlled program, not out in public in group settings. You never hear the details until you’re in.

Through the nomination process, the public is about to learn much about the details of Mormonism and how it controls its members, particularly women and children, who have no real power in the organization, and who hold no positions of authority in the church.

Romney’s attitudes toward the place of women (it’s in the home), is fundamental to Mormon society, as is the Mormon church’s antipathy towards independent-minded women.

But Romney is going to tell you that he can be on both sides of these issues at the same time, with no sense of hypocrisy.

As chameleonesque Mitt Romney pursues the GOP nomination, many ponder the question “Is the country ready for a Mormon president?”

But that’s the wrong question. A better, more-informed discussion would be had should we consider whether the country is ready for a president whose beliefs and character are based in a white-male-dominated, highly secretive, polytheistic, mock-Christian sect with extreme right-wing social views that is openly hostile to all other faiths and that comprises less than 3% of the US population.

That’s a long question, but it gets to the real heart of the matter. Romney’s success depends on the public remaining largely ignorant of the tenets and practices of Mormonism, and tolerating its hypocritical weirdness.

My views were formed by direct experience, including the abduction of my four children and the death of my son Aaron in the course of a Mormon kidnapping.

Oregon’s landmark 2005 anti-kidnapping “Aaron’s Law”, Senate Bill 1041, is named for my son. The statute addresses the failures of both the criminal and family law systems to protect my family, and with Aaron’s Law Oregon is the only state in the nation where kidnapping a child creates a civil cause of action.

You can thank the Mormon church for inspiring the law….
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Posted on Arianna Huffington’s blog, Nov 29, 2011:

Mitt Romney Brazenly Lies and the Media Lets Him Slide

By Arianna Huffington

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/mitt-romney-ad_b_1117288.html

On Mitt Romney and the Mormonism controversy

by Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon--

My four children disappeared into Utah in a Mormon abduction more than 15 years ago.


Mormon officials in three states conspired to abduct and conceal my kids in a series of remote Mormon enclaves in order to immerse them in a completely Mormon environment, despite an order for joint custody.


Oregon's landmark 2005 kidnapping law is named "Aaron's Law" after my late son Aaron Cruz, who died in Payson, Utah. Aarons Law is designed to remedy several common failures of the criminal and family law systems in preventing and resolving cases of child abduction.


Mormons divide the world into "Members" (Mormons) and "Non-Members" (everybody else), and they carry a huge thin-skinned “Us vs Them” persecution complex that influences their relationships with non-members unlike any mainstream religion in America.


Mormonism’s essential tenets put it at odds with every branch of Christianity on the planet, along with the Mormon doctrine that every other church or belief system is fundamentally evil.


If your child marries into the Mormon church, you can say goodbye to any plans you ever had to see your child’s wedding. The Mormon notion of the family unit and their willingness to sever families based on their membership status should be part of this public policy discussion.


Personally, I’m glad Romney’s in the race. The more people understand the ins and outs of Mormonism, the more will reject it. Bring it on, Mitt!

On Sarah P.T. Palin

By Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon—

Sarah Palin is the 21st century political epitome of P.T. Barnum’s classic dictum “Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the American public.”

In this sense, and to paraphrase the great huckster and circus master Phineas Taylor Barnum, Sarah Palin is never going to a lose a dollar by underestimating the intelligence and common sense of a diminishing percentage of the American public.

The moose-fed former half-term governor of Alaska is having way too much fun and making way too much money to ever want to have a real job with real responsibilities ever again.

And, in the real world, the only set of circumstances in which Sarah Palin could ever be elected President of the United States would be if she happened to be the last person surviving the apocalypse. Even she understands this fact.

And, even if she does eventually enter the presidential race, it will be all part of the riff.

She doesn’t need the job; in fact, Palin doesn’t want the job. The job means work; and she hasn’t had any of that to do since she quit the governorship mid term. What she is doing right now is much better than actually being President, where she would have to think and read actual books and stuff. You can’t lead a nation by “going rogue” day after day, after all, even if God is drawling in your ear (this is a note to Bachman and Perry as well)….

She’s getting paid real well, crazy well, just for talking, and that is where she has found her niche, talking, nattering really, about practically anything that falls into her mind, anything that sets her dim bulb to gleaming, to gatherings of nitwits, and no one attending is any the wiser; that, she can (and does) bank on….

While it is likely that Barnum never said “there is a sucker born every minute”, he appears to be stuck with it in the collective American memory, and this is where Sarah Palin really shines, because there is definitely at least one sucker born-again in this country every minute, which is where Bachmann and Perry come into the picture. For all of their glaringly obvious faults, Bachmann and Perry
actually want to put in a day’s work, although not necessarily good or sensible work. This may be their one actually positive quality….

Sooner or later, the crowds she draws will find something better to do back at the trailer park, but Sarah P.T. Palin is going to milk this baby to the last drop of tea.

John Kitzhaber proves he's ready to lead; Dudley offers mumbo-jumbo

By Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon--

Former basketball player Chris Dudley confirmed throughout his debate with former Governor John Kitzhaber that, while he can manage a mouthful of rhetoric, he cannot manage it over the course of an entire hour without a prepared script.

He did especially poorly when he took questions from the audience, such as this one:

Q. “Where do you stand on taxation of food and beverage and also tobacco and liquor?”

Dudley:  “Well, we have, I mean, in addition to what we already have in place?"

A. “Yes.”

Dudley: “So, what we have, I have not brought up changing what we have in place and, uh, so I think we should continue it, and that is something, by the way, that our cities and counties rely on as well, uh, for their funding and so, it’s not something that I’ve talked about changing.”

I listened to Dudley’s response to this question in semi-stunned silence, because not only is it complete gibberish, but one of his big “new ideas”, championed on his website and in his several multiple-pointed Plans to Make Everything All Better in Oregon, is his determination to privatize the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, and “put a fee” on the sales and distribution of liquor in Oregon.

It’s his own plan, it’s right there on his website, been there for months, that he wants to “put a fee” on the sale and distribution of liquor to make up for the loss of revenue supporting local governments that privatizing the OLCC would cause.

The more Dudley spoke, the worse it got, and it is appalling to think that we could possibly have to listen to this mumbo-jumbo beyond the first week of November.

If this was a boxing match, they’d have to ring the bell every fifteen seconds to keep this man on his feet.

KGW could perform an important public service by rebroadcasting this debate at different times and dates. If this is the only debate we've got, then it won't hurt to see it several times.

We all have too much at stake to allow Oregon to fall victim to the Tea Party mentality that is at the root of the Dudley campaign.

John Kitzhaber is clearly ready to lead the state through this critical time.

Oregon needs a leader ready to come to work, not a person whose principal accomplishment is being tall and reasonably athletic, and certainly not a candidate who cannot remember his own rhetoric.

Oregon GOP Candidate Chris Dudley offers 20-point Tea Party plan to create one job

by Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon--Once again, GOP candidate Chris Dudley tosses out a randomly numbered “plan” that contains no cost information at all, but lots more free ponies!

Throughout its tedious length, Dudley’s “Jobs” plan identifies only one job that the plan would create: the new Budget Manager position that would be part of his super-sized office of the governor. The Budget Manager’s job would be to explain the budget to Dudley.

Chris Dudley's supporters want to put a man who cannot be responsible for his own decision making regarding his personal finances, and who has no experience managing anything at all, in charge of a multi-billion dollar state budget, and at a time when the state and the nation is in grave economic crisis.

They want to put a man who cannot give clear answers about just about anything he's asked, whether personal or political, even about his campaign "ideas" promoted on his own website; a man who cannot be clear even on his residency, into a position that demands transparency and accountability, and real personal commitment to the state of Oregon.

They want to elevate a man whose campaign strategy depends upon his avoidance of any open discussions about the problems facing the state, into a position that requires its occupant to discuss those problems openly and on a full time basis.

They want to support a candidate who says he wants to shrink government and control spending, but whose plans call for a drastic enlargement of the office of the governor, the creation of new state government positions, open-ended new spending, and the imposition of new fees and taxes, all stated on the Dudley campaign's website.

That makes perfect sense to the Tea Party mentality driving the Dudley campaign, the same mentality supporting the fringe candidates haunting GOP primaries in pockets around the nation.

These candidates, like Chris Dudley, aren't offering real solutions, in large part because their supporters don't care whether they do or not.

They can't be bothered with solutions, they just know what they don't like.

Chris Dudley reveals his 26-Point Plan, a true measure of cluelessness

by Sean Cruz

Portland, Oregon--Oregon GOP candidate for Governor Chris Dudley revealed more than his 26-Point "Plan to Control Spending and Reform Government" yesterday.

He put in writing a true measure of how poorly prepared both he and his campaign staff are to deal with the state's problems and issues.

More a list of dreams and statements of ideology in numbered paragraphs than an actual plan, the document does not describe either how Dudley will accomplish his goals or how he will pay for what he proposes.

Where actual cost information would be provided in an actual plan, Dudley only provides additional rhetoric.

For example, he continues to claim that he will privatize the OLCC "without sacrificing existing revenue streams" but fails to explain how he "plans" to get that done. A real plan would identify those revenue streams and describe why they are important and how they would be maintained under Dudley.

Dudley's website states that he plans to put a fee on liquor sales and distribution, but that fact is completely omitted from his 26-pointer. A real plan would include projections on how big that fee is going to be, where it will be collected and from whom.

One of Dudley's key "new ideas" in his plan is that "Oregon's two-year biennial budgets should be built based upon forecasted revenues."

Two points to make here: (1) Oregon's budgets are already built based on the revenue forecasts. That's why the forecast reports are so crucial, especially the May forecast. That's why everyone with an interest in how the state budgets its resources pays close attention to the reports; and (2) "Biennial" means "two-year." Look it up!

Dudley's 26-Point Plan runs aground right at the beginning, with Point #1.

Dudley wants to create a host of new positions, commissions and committees, beginning with his desire to create a new Office of Budget and Management in the Governor's Office, easily a multi-million dollar budget item itself, and staff these offices with his political appointees.

The work of the Dudley Budget Team, other than to duplicate non-partisan work already performed by the legislative revenue and fiscal offices, will be to explain the budget to Dudley.

At the same time that Dudley claims he will attract top talent to work in his much-enlarged Governor's Office, it is worth noting that Dudley Plan Points 7, 8 and 9 are going to be hard news for their pay and benefits. State workers are already taking unpaid furlough days.

In Point # 5, Dudley plans to ask Oregon voters to change the Constitution to give him and any future Governors more power. Hahahahah hahaha hahahahah....

Point # 6 is simply ludicrous: "Legislators lack an independent evaluation of a law's ability to create costs or regulatory burdens on the private sector." Actually, the private sector, through its lobbyists, provides the information most important to them to the legislators directly, and those arguments are heard in televised committee hearings.

In Dudley's plan, legislators are going to get "an independent evaluation" from his political appointees, at public expense, with PERS benefits.

In a nutshell, there are fewer than 26 actual points in the Dudley plan, and the plan's success depends on these three:

(1) Dudley drastically enlarging the Governor's Office staff with new positions, commissions and committees with no discussion at all of how much they will cost or how he will pay for them; and

(2) Events that are already occurring; or

(3) Like amending the Constitution to grant this rookie more power than the governor's office already has, are impossible.

Dudley's 26-Pointer makes the point most clearly that both he and his team lack the most basic understanding of Oregon's system of government, and that they believe that replacing it with an imaginary system is a real solution, and it makes that point again and again.