Citizens United against democracy

Some days it doesn't feel like it's worth getting up. I was hoping to sleep late this morning, but I was awakened at 8:01 by the phone and being too groggy to check the caller ID which would have told me it wasn't anything I should answer, I picked up.

Of course it was yet another seditious Republican hate group calling itself Citizens United trying once again to vilify the president by conducting a "brief poll" which of course consisted of a minute's hysterical rant by David Bossie ( who brags about having investigated the Clinton Administration and has written vituperative and not too factual books on Al Gore and John Kerry) about how Obama is destroying America and heaps praise on Limbaugh and Fox News. A fulsomely perky female voice returned and asked me which is more damaging for America:

1. Obama's massive tax and spending increases,
2. or his inexperienced, naive and weak foreign policy agenda?

Well, I won't mention my reaction to the cheerful little twit . I was not my usual kind self, and there were questionable expletives amongst my lecture about forced choice questions and dishonest polls and dishonest politicians attacking Democracy, I must say, but I'm sure she had me down as choosing one of the above despite my tirade about Bossie being a seditious enemy of all I hold dear.

Like everything else about the Republican sleaze machine, it's based on deception anyway and their "polls" have no actual validity. Of course I wasn't my usual kind self to the folks representing Newt Gingrich or his "poll" of leading questions last week either. Fake polls seem to be the way to get us, exhausted by the 18 months of hysterical telephone opinion shouting, to participate. Everyone wants his opinion heard: not everyone is smart enough to realize he's being used.

Newt, surprisingly, is no friend of Bossie. According to the Washington Post, when he was fired from his job as an investigator working for Representative Dan Burton (R-IN) on the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee in 1998, Speaker Gingrich said to Burton of Bossie's behavior:

"I'm embarrassed for you, I'm embarrassed for myself, and I'm embarrassed for the [House Republican] conference at the circus that went on at your committee."

Indeed, even George H. W. Bush said of Bossie:

"We will do whatever we can to stop any filthy campaign tactics"

and W, himself no stranger to sleazy campaign tactics and not known for his sense of shame, asked his supporters not to support him as well.

But such is the fever of Obama Derangement Syndrome that this turd has again floated to the surface of the cesspool and who knows, perhaps will emerge from your telephone while you're trying to catch up on your sleep or eat your dinner or watch TV of an evening. But why wait?

If you have time on your hands today, try calling 866-635-8661 and ask Citizens United about their opinion of people who try to undermine our government "in time of war" or perhaps throw any of their other nauseous accusations back at them. Tell 'em Fogg sent ya. Tell them you're taking a poll.

Torture, Cheney, and Spineless Democrats

First, the good news. Chicago-based conservative radio host Eric "Mancow" Muller underwent waterboarding in an effort to silence critics of the procedure by showing, once and for all, that it is not torture (no, that's not the good part). But, as it turned out, Muller decided waterboarding is torture. I'm thrilled for Mancow's revelation; hopefully his words rang true in the ears of torture excusers across the land.

Here's the video:



Now some more good news. A former 14-year interrogator thoroughly rebuked last week's remarks by former Vice President Cheney on torture. The interrogator has overseen more than 1,000 interrogations and conducted over 300 himself in Iraq, including the interrogation of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. And guess what? He did it all using traditional methods - no torture. Here's the video (a quadruple-level, immediate must-watch):



And now even more good news (we're on a roll). General Petraeus has endorsed Obama's close Gitmo/no more torture decisions.

I have long been on record as having testified and also in helping write doctrine for interrogation techniques that are completely in line with the Geneva Convention. And as a division commander in Iraq in the early days, we put out guidance very early on to make sure that our soldiers, in fact, knew that we needed to stay within those guidelines.

With respect to Guantanamo. I think that the closure in a responsible manner, obviously one that is certainly being worked out now by the Department of Justice -- I talked to the Attorney General the other day [and] they have a very intensive effort ongoing to determine, indeed, what to do with the detainees who are left, how to deal with them in a legal way, and if continued incarceration is necessary -- again, how to take that forward. But doing that in a responsible manner, I think, sends an important message to the world, as does the commitment of the United States to observe the Geneva Convention when it comes to the treatment of detainees.

That's pretty staunch support from a very prominent military leader (and one who has been praised up and down by all manner of conservatives).

And now the bad, yet unsurprising, news. The Democrats are wimps. I know, I know. It's a shock. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in particular, is a wimp. The Nevada senator reportedly led the charge against the bill to provide funding to close Gitmo out of a concern of appearing too "liberal". Reid is, justifiably, afraid of losing his senate seat. But maybe, instead of trying to play politics with issues as important as national security and torture, he should do his job. Just a thought. It is nothing short of astounding that even though the Democrats control both houses of Congress and the White House and have at their helm the most charismatic, pragmatic leader in a generation (that being Obama) they are still bowing to Republican ideology at every turn. Furthermore Obama has already paved the road for them by taking very early stands on torture and closing Gitmo. All they have to do is follow. Yet they are completely inept at doing even that. Someone mentioned to me the other day that the Democrats are still acting like their in the minority (and the Republicans, unfortunately, think they're still in the majority). Mr. Reid, grow a pair or get out.

--

Originally posted at The Political Panorama.

THE CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT DECISION ON PROPOSITION 8: COWARDICE, STUPIDITY, OR CLEVERNESS?

California’s highest court hath spoken (perhaps “stammered” might be a better word choice). Here is the background. Last year (May 15, 2008), the same high court struck down a law passed by the legislature that banned gay marriage. In the language of the decision, the court raised sexual orientation to the same level as race and gender in weighing discrimination claims. Within months, the empire struck back with Proposition 8, a ballot initiative to amend the California Constitution and neutralize the court’s earlier decision. Prop 8 passed by 52% of the popular vote.

This time, California’s highest court caved to voters in a ruling that raises more questions and contradictions than before.  Here are excerpts of the ruling:

Regardless of our views as individuals on this question of policy, we recognize as judges and as a court our responsibility to confine our consideration to a determination of the constitutional validity and legal effect of the measure in question (…) setting aside our own personal beliefs and values [p. 3].

Contrary to petitioners’ assertion, Proposition 8 does not entirely repeal or abrogate the aspect of a same-sex couple’s state constitutional right of privacy and due process that was analyzed in the majority opinion in the Marriage Cases — that is, the constitutional right of same-sex couples to “choose one’s life partner and enter with that person into a committed, officially recognized, and protected family relationship that enjoys all of the constitutionally based incidents of marriage” (...) Nor does Proposition 8 fundamentally alter the meaning and substance of state constitutional equal protection principles as articulated in that opinion [p. 7].

Finally, we consider whether Proposition 8 affects the validity of the marriages of same-sex couples that were performed prior to the adoption of Proposition 8. Applying well-established legal principles pertinent to the question whether a constitutional provision should be interpreted to apply prospectively or retroactively, we conclude that the new section cannot properly be interpreted to apply retroactively. Accordingly, the marriages of same-sex couples performed prior to the effective date of Proposition 8 remain valid and must continue to be recognized in this state [p.13].

If I understand this ruling correctly, 18,000 gay couples get to keep their marriages but no future marriages will be recognized in California unless the State Constitution is amended yet again or the decision is struck down by a Federal court. In other words, some gay couples end up more privileged than others, but, somehow, the ruling does not violate equal protections under the State Constitution or the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution. What an amazing feat of twisted logic!

If one fully appreciates the internal contradiction of the ruling, perhaps the California high court has cleverly inserted self-destruct language that will eventually deconstruct the ruling. Cowardice, stupidity, or cleverness? How do you see it?

Sotomayor

The Jeffrey Toobin article at CNN was only 55 seconds old when I read the comment claiming she

"is just the person to carry this administration’s water when it comes to re-writing laws from the bench."

Gentlemen, launch your swift boats, fire up the all-purpose pejoratives, let the sleazewars begin. Why look for real-world examples when we can invent them and have them now?

Her resume is impressive and she was appointed to the Federal Bench by George H.W. Bush, but any Obama appointee will be treated as an opportunity for the reactionary turkey coop to air the same old "farleftliberal" gobble.

Whether she is indeed a far left Liberal, whatever that means, or a moderate Liberal, if you can sum up anyone that easily: even if she is "carrying water" for the administration, if you'll pardon their cliche', she isn't likely to be carrying all those sacks of reeking fascist shit that have been piling up in the halls of justice during the Republican Dark Ages and that, to me, means far more than gender, ethnicity or any label the pinhead Republicans can pin on her.

This Just In!

Fox has announced their verdict. Sonya Sotomayor is the “most liberal” of any of his candidates and was chosen to “appease the far left.”

Still no word on why the "most Liberal Senator in American History" has yet to prove he isn't a conservative, but hey - it's Fox, how wrong can they be?

Kiss our American asses, world!

I haven't posted in a while, having been preparing for and then recovering from a rather ill-conceived and harrowing nautical excursion over the weekend. I was hoping to be far away and in another country and thus to avoid what has become, like the War on Christmas, another contrived anti-American battle. But the sea pays no attention to our ambitions and acts of arrogance and there was no escape for the old captain this time.

The war on Memorial Day is a bit different, but no less insidious than our religious wars. We're long since used to being chastised for our lack of piety in not spending the event in self flagellation and the worship of the American messianic mission that some would pass off as appreciation for those who have died in Military service. We've never been asked however, at least not to my knowledge, to express our ritualized regret for the premature deaths of the 60 to 70 million who died in WW II alone, but only for the US soldiers who won it without assistance from the unappreciative world -- and I've long suspected that the War on Memorial Day has become the sole reason for the holiday itself.

If it were an expression of the wish that no more people would die in wars, it would be more likely to please the dead, could they be aware of it, but what it is supposed to be about has been, at least to those who write viral e-mails, a celebration of soldiering; the glory, the rituals and all the self worship and vainglorious bluster America can muster. It's the day of unmitigated, unalloyed arrogance, unrestrained by fact or reason and often not even by sanity or decency.

Of course in these latter days, when we have a President whose rationality and lack of shamanistic display require that we simply make shit up in order to preserve our military/religious complex, the War on Memorial Day is become the war that is Memorial day. It's now a war against Obama and Obama's honest assessment of what we have done, what we are doing and what we should do beyond waving flags, setting ourselves up as the world's sole and only begotten savior, puking up beer and burgers and getting discounts on foreign made goods at the big box stores.

Apologize for what? asks the e-mail. What follows is a sequence of pictures of US military cemeteries in Europe all entitled "We apologize." It ends with

"Apologize to no one. Remind those of our sacrifice and don't confuse arrogance with leadership. And we have to watch an American elected leader who apologizes to Europe and the Middle East that our country is "arrogant"! HOW MANY FRENCH, DUTCH, ITALIANS, BELGIANS AND BRITS ARE BURIED ON OUR SOIL, DEFENDING US AGAINST OUR ENEMIES?? WE DON'T ASK FOR PRAISE ... BUT WE HAVE ABSOULUTELY [sic] NO NEED TO APOLOGIZE!!"

No, it's not just the typical American arrogance about the world needing to kiss our feet every day. It's not just an illustration of our stunning ignorance of history, it's just another rabble rousing attack on a president who had the honesty to say that we have often of late been perceived as arrogant and we've often been unfair to those who disagree and that others have likewise been unfair to us. It's actually one of the best things Obama has said, in my opinion, and they're not going to let him get way with such heresy; not while there remains one pitchfork wielding and furiously ignorant psycho-patriot to arouse.

American Patriotism is a large and dense forest in which more scoundrels than we can count have taken refuge. I'm afraid there isn't enough Agent Orange and enough napalm to force them out or do away with them. I'm afraid that soon enough, Memorial Day will be the day some of use remember that there used to be an America that stood for something; something that contained a lot of good before the bastards flushed it down the toilet.

A Tree Offensive

I've had. I am fit to be tied.

I would like to propose (insist upon) new federal legislation. Against JUNK MAIL. I would like to insist (propose) that all purveyors of junk mail must plant a tree for every pound of junk mail that they inflict upon our mailboxes. The worst offenders are credit card companies, cable companies & phone companies. This past month I received the same soliciting junk mail from the same phone company THREE TIMES! Each of the three pieces of mail was exactly the same. Loathing junk mail I put it aside & cull the pile about once a month. Yesterday I found the THREE duplicate SPECIAL OFFERS from the same phone company. Enclosed in a white envelope was a GLOSSY (i.e. not terribly recyclable) advert. AND!! The real kicker is that it's my phone company! I am already a customer!

Then there are the credit card companies with their special needs, i.e. shredding. As we all know, we must open up these stupid offers & shred them - which means using electricity to protect our privacy. More wasted resources. Now granted - one shredding machine doesn't use that much power. But - think about adding up all of the power used in the US to shred all of the privacy invading credit card offers.

An Amendment to my proposed Federal Legislation - 2 trees per pound for credit card companies.

Then their are the cable companies. Same deal as the phone companies. Extra mailing CONSTANTLY from my own provider. They could at least include the junk in their monthly bill. But no - they do EXTRA paper wasting mailings throughout the month.

As for the US postal service's potential howling over business lost (they love largely non-recyclable catalogs as well, I hear tell), let's face it - the USP is facing major restructuring anyway since most of us pay our bills on line & converse through email not snail mail.

And yes - while I've mentioned the catalog sending business - think about all of the dear little saplings that would be planted if THEY were required to plant one per pound. It's truly mind boggling to consider the landfill acreage that is continually expanding to try & swallow up the glossy, usually non-recyclable, catalogs of the world.

No - wait a minute - due to the problematic non-recyclable nature in most of the country of glossy catalogs - THEY have to plant THREE trees per pound.

Tress are good for the earth - this we know. Junk mail isn't.

Enough already.

IT’S BERRY TIME! HOORAY!

Every year my mother-in-law gets strawberries and blueberries from a small grower nearby. Today was our day to pick up the strawberries and, as you can see from the picture, they were luscious!

I put up about half of them in the freezer for later use but picked out the ripest ones for eating fresh with plenty of sampling as I worked. My husband hovered nearby, begging me not to eat them all. “You’re as bad as a little kid!” And when it comes to berries, he’s right, I am.

I have always loved berries; any kind as long as they were ripe, juicy and sweet. When I was maybe nine years old, I used to ride my bike all over, exploring my town and its environs.

There was a place with a fenced pasture and a friendly palomino horse. I frequently visited, bringing him treats of apple or carrot. I liked horses, still do, but that wasn’t the REAL draw. What brought me back again and again was the promise of a bumper crop of black mulberries. That farmhouse had a huge mulberry bush that stood about six feet tall and its thicket of branches draped gracefully to the ground, forming a tent like structure. When the berries were finally ripe, I would crawl inside those branches and eat mulberries until my face and hands were stained purple-black. And, of course, the resulting tummy ache would torture me all night, but it was worth it.

Currently I’m keeping a close eye on my red raspberry tangle that it huge and overgrown on the edge of the woods. Every year I think I will trim back the canes and make a path through it to make it easier to harvest. But, I just can’t bring myself to disturb what nature has so thoughtfully provided. Soon, I’ll put on boots and get scratched and caught up in the briars, but the resulting reward of fresh raspberries will be well worth the few drops of blood, although it’s a bit embarrassing to be a 50+ woman going around all scratched and skinned up like a kid.

And then there will be blueberries! When I hear the lyrics, “I found my thrill on Blueberry Hill.” It’s not amore I’m thinking about, but sweet little blue orbs like the ones pictured here, providing a burst of heavenly flavor on my tongue.

BERRIES! Imagine the taste! Imagine the desserts!

On Libertarianism

Since some have been discussing the Ron Paul phenomenon, I thought I might add a few thoughts about the general direction from which they are coming. Libertarianism is something I was introduced to as a kid, and since that time I've become much acquainted with this movement's philosophical roots. At base, as I see things, they're supporters of a relatively unhistoricized, idealistic version of capitalism that considers "the free market" pretty much the answer to all problems.

On the one hand, I find it odd that some people think you can apply economic notions from centuries ago (before the Industrial Revolution even got going – Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations in 1776) without any significant modification. That is naïve, and it ought to be clear that an amoral system such as "the market" cannot be the answer to all problems, even though it works remarkably well in some areas of life. Most of us, I suspect, would insist that ethics must sometimes supplement pure economics – if capitalism doesn't ensure that everybody has access to good health care, for instance, some other set of values must be invoked to make sure people get access to it. A lot of things can be adequately dealt with by saying that money and property are their measure, but some of the most vital things in life cannot. If you tried to extend the market philosophy and system to everything, I fear, you would end up with something more like a Hobbesian state of nature than a truly civilized society – one in which everybody recognizes that there's something more valuable about human connections than is implied by the transitory "cash-nexus" that makes capitalism go.

As the free-marketeers suggest, charitable concern for our fellows can be monetized or commoditized to some extent, but it probably cannot be sufficiently commoditized so as to ensure genuine civility. That's no doubt an indictment of us all, but the question is "what kinds of social and political forms will encourage people to behave humanely towards one another?" And I'm suggesting that while unmodified capitalist economics may generate wealth for a considerable number of people, it shows little regard for ensuring that everybody has the basics of life. So it needs supplementation from values beyond its own reserves if it is to help us live well.

On the other hand, some of what libertarians believe is worthy of admiration – they are among the few people around, it seems, who believe that except in very extreme cases likely to cause harm to all, it's none of their business what others are up to in the areas of sexuality, drug use, and so forth. What a breath of fresh air in comparison to a certain element (unfortunately, it appears to be just about the only one left at present) within the Republican Party that thinks we can wiretap, torture, render, surveil and moralize our way to nirvana. Such people confound religion and politics to the point where they become indistinguishable, and apparently have no problem supporting even the most extreme "statist" measures. The libertarians oppose such impositions, and for that I think they deserve some regard; perhaps the better side of this philosophy will become a source of regeneration within the Republican Party.

Finally, the problem I see with the libertarian philosophy remains a big one: the good and the bad may be inextricable since libertarian defenses of individual freedom are deeply bound up with their understanding of competition, wealth, and property. Their social philosophy stems from their economic philosophy, and the latter seems unrealistic and very likely to produce unintended consequences of a destructive and destabilizing kind.

Show me the money

Sometimes I think Ron Paul's ideas may be too simplistic. This isn't one of them. In a Forbes editorial last week, Congressman Paul called for an audit of the Federal Reserve Bank. Paul of course, doesn't buy the idea that the Fed is necessary to keep inflation low and to promote growth. Truth be told, I've been of the opinion that it has played a part in all but eliminating the 10 - 15 year cycle of boom, panic and collapse that has plagued our economy since the Washington administration. Maybe it has but maybe, as the Congressman claims, it's been the cause of inflation and a drag on growth. Maybe there's a better way and I'm the first to admit I don't know.

The idea of an independent Fed is a fallacy, says the man from Texas. The allegedly independent Fed has

" far too much authority to make agreements with foreign governments and central banks, or create temporary liquidity facilities"

and of course the Chairman and governors are appointed by the President and will reflect his politics, but the question of whether it is a good solution, a bad solution and more importantly whether we should have a Federal Reserve Bank at all isn't easy to answer and it isn't easy to discuss because of the political passions and partisanship involved. Everyone thinks he's an economist these days. Of course, supporter or detractor, we really don't know exactly what the Fed is doing anyway, not even today with the huge amounts of money being moved around in the dark.

'Let's have an audit' is Ron Paul's simple suggestion and one would think that at a time when the government has the power to audit anyone; to investigate, spy on, wire tap, seize assets and records, imprison without charges and even pour water up your nose, the answer would be "why the hell not?"

"What possible arguments exist against this bill? Who opposes an audit of the Fed's activities and why?"

asks Glenn Greenwald in Salon.com. "It would interfere with the Fed's independence" says Forbes in rebuttal and stresses that monetary policy is too complex for simple minded congressmen. Maybe it is, but maybe it's too complex for the Fed too and more than maybe; the lingering appearance of impropriety, if not incompetence, can finally be confirmed or dispelled by a little bit of transparency.

I wouldn't dare pass myself off as an economist and I'm not going to see this along party lines because I don't trust either side, particularly in this atmosphere of secrecy, but if an "independent" Fed means a Fed that operates in the dark, according to its own rules and politics, I'm with Congressman Paul. I want to see the books and you're going to have a lot of 'splainin to do to talk me out of it.

Perhaps I can use the words of surveillance supporters against the government for once: if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear.

WHAT’S UNDER THAT KILT?

The AP has put out this story under the headline:

Utah school forces student to change out of kilt

WEST HAVEN, Utah – The principal of a Utah middle school has been asked to apologize for forcing a kilt-wearing student to change his clothes.

Weber School District spokesman Nate Taggart says Craig Jessop has been asked to extend an apology to 14-year-old student Gavin McFarland of Hooper after the school official's comments Wednesday.

Gavin says he wore the kilt twice in the past two weeks to Rocky Mountain Junior High as a prop for an art project. Jessop told the boy that the outfit could be misconstrued as cross-dressing.

Taggart says the district recognizes the kilt as an expression of the boy's Scottish heritage and that the kilt was not inappropriate.
Kilts are traditional Scottish apparel generally worn by men for formal or special occasions.

Now, I have two dear friends from Scotland and they had a very traditional Scottish wedding with him wearing his family tartan following a long historic tradition of all Scotsmen that I suspect even some pinhead in Utah must know about even if he hasn’t seen Braveheart.

More disturbing was the comment by the principal that this could be misconstrued as cross dressing. So what? You know, our young people, by the time they are in high school, are no longer the innocent babes that need our constant vigilance for fear they might be “exposed” to the world around them.

If we want responsible young adults, capable of navigating successfully through a complex and ever changing world, would they not be better served by allowing them to decide what they find acceptable or not?

We can only hope the Jessops of the world will fade away to make room for wiser, more compassionate and more intelligent replacement.