You meet the nicest people in Hell

I'm not Yahweh, The Hulk or Captain America and I'm not into destroying countries with hellfire or even evildoers in hand to hand combat, but If I were, I have a feeling I would have a hard time finding enough good people to convince me to park the thunderbolts and volcanoes and floodwaters and let it all this American hate culture continue. Yes as a humanist and a non-believer, I have a hard time condoning that sort of world-drowning temper tantrum in the first place, but I sure as hell empathize with the old dude. We sure as hell deserve another dunking. Maybe in boiling water, this time.

Speaking of empathy. I walked into a shop today and as I was looking for some hardware, I chanced to hear the voice on the radio ( I think it was Rush) trying to twist the Oslo shooting story into some form where it seemed liberals ( who hate Christianity) were trying to portray the shooter as a Christian when he really was a "neo-Nazi" and they were just calling him Christian because he wasn't a Muslim. Funny how that doesn't work with Muslims not all being terrorists to inside the Rush Bubble, but never mind, amidst the tumult and the roar, I heard old anal-cyst for brains tell us "Barack Obama told us after 9/11 that we have to have empathy with Muslim terrorists"

the owner said to the clerk,

"Did you hear that? Obama told us to empathize with the terrorists" "Oops!"

Well, nail Jesus to the cross, sell your mother to a brothel, piss on everything holy, but never question Rush. It's too big a lie to deny, too tasty not to swallow. It's certainly too much work to check it out. Like so many people I'm becoming disgustingly familiar with, these nice people sit in their little store all day injecting hate, smoking hate, cooking up hate like some junky in a basement room with a needle and a spoon and who gives a damn if any of it is actually true?

Well did I pull out a gun and slaughter them? Drive back there with a car bomb? Did I even say, "no he didn't and Rush makes Satan look like Santa Claus?" Sorry to say, I didn't, not in this town, not in the gun toting, burn your house down, hide your body in the swamp Bullshit Belt. I just said, "have a nice day" and left and won't ever shop there again. I'm not proud. I'm not proud of seeing a fake statement from the First Lady saying she "will side with the Muslims" in another shop not far away and not saying anything. But I won't be returning there either.

Of course what Obama really said was:

"The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. "

The exact opposite. It's like saying "Jesus told us to hate our neighbors"

But you know, these are otherwise, friendly, nice people. The kind you'll meet in Church or civic organizations and out helping their neighbors in times of disaster: the kind Hell must be full of.

Hatred and ignorance and Rush Limbaugh, the primal ooze and petrie dish of evil. Was Brievik influenced by right wing religious intolerance or was he simply attracted to it. Should we call him Christian or a Freemason and should we call Osama bin Laden a real muslim and who gives a shit? This kind of mindless, relentless, evil dripping, malignant and malevolent propaganda is as delightfully irresistible to "felaheen America" as carrion to a buzzard and is as able to wrap itself around facts, digest them and turn them into shit as a snake.

God damn Limbaugh and all his friends and all his sponsors and all his words and all his lies and all his hate and all his wealth -- and that's as close to praying as I've come in these last 60 years.

Sending A Message To SC Rep. Tim Scott

I'm asking for your help to send a message to Rep. Tim Scott who has maneuvered himself into a pivotal position in the House of Representatives in the crucial debt ceiling and budget talks.

(I apologize for the Autoplay on the first video. I've changed the html code to autoplay=false, but that doesn't do the trick. Please, just mute your sound until you're ready to view the film)

The Washington Post published a piece today on The Fix naming five members of the House to watch today in  John Boehner's debt cliff/budget vote. One of those five is a Tea Party darling, a Palinist, and representative of my SC District 1, Tim Scott. I believe he was the first to call publicly for impeachment of President Obama if the Fourteenth Amendment was invoked to raise the debt ceiling without congressional support. He's determined to keep unions out of SC and keep Boeing in his district, so he's an active opponent of the NLRB.

I don't want to watch him; I'm embarrassed by his abandonment of the many Medicaid recipients and indigent members of District 1. But watch him I shall. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. I've been writing Scott almost daily, but I don't think he's listening. So I'm going to invite you to write him, because now he's not just my problem. He's yours, too.

Scott's website requires that you prove you belong to his district before he'll let you speak to him, despite the fact that he clearly wants to speak for more than his district. Let's get to know him a bit, take a look at what he stands for and why the WP thinks he's significant. Then, you leave your message for Tim Scott here in a comment and I'll include them all in today's letter to Scott.  The man wants to be on the big stage, he needs to hear from the big audience.

Tim Scott is a freshman Representative from the coastal district of SC that includes the ports of Charleston and Georgetown and The Redneck Riviera  the lovely tourist trap mecca of Myrtle Beach, where I'm currently stuck residing. (It's clearly going to be a challenge for me to do this post straight. The pull to sarcasm is worse than a Myrtle Beach undertow!)

Scott's district includes Charleston Naval Base, which supposedly establishes its conservative chops. District 1 has been a Democratic stronghold historically (no Republican had ever served a full term from this district since Reconstruction until Ronald Reagan gathered it into the fold!).

 "Most of Charleston's African-American majority areas were shifted to the 6th District in 1992, seemingly making this district unwinnable for the Democrats. However, in 2008, Linda Ketner came within two points of shifting this district back to the Democrats.  Representative Scott is one of two African American Republicans (the other being Allen West of Florida) to represent their respective states since Reconstruction. (Wikipedia)

Scott owns an Allstate Insurance Agency in Charleston, SC and is partner in a real estate firm there. He's taken unequivocal stances in the tea party mold: He is determined to see The Affordable Care Act (healthcare reform) repealed. He supports immigration policies in line with Arizona's notorious SB 1070 and wants to force all new immigrants to learn English. This spring he introduced legislation to deny food stamps to any recipient who participates in a union strike.  Tim Scott is the African American face of the Tea Party in Congress.

Here he is meeting with his "constituents" in Summerville on July 6th:




And here's Scott on CNN two weeks ago.



Why is Tim Scott on the Five Representatives to Watch list?

 Tim Scott: Scott is a tea party darling who, despite being elected in 2010, is already regarded as a rising star in South Carolina and nationally. He is reportedly leaning “no” (on Boehner's current debt ceiling/budget vote) but he is also one of two House freshmen — South Dakota Rep. Kristi Noem is the other — who were chosen as liaisons to the party leadership. If ever Boehner needed Scott’s vote, today is the day. (Washington Post)

In other words, he applied to have closer than usual access to Speaker John Boehner and he got it. If Boehner can't sell Tim Scott on this evening's vote to raise the debt ceiling under Boehner's latest plan, he can't get there from here. That plan won't make it past the Democratically held Senate and Presidency, but the slower this all goes, the closer we get to the US defaulting on debt and to the (I'm convinced) potentially devastating consequences of that.

Tim Scott wants to stand between me and you and a deal that let's us both sleep better  between now and August 3rd.

What would you like Tim Scott to know? I'll copy your comments and send them off, letting Rep. Scott know that if he wants more power and influence in Congress than his little district affords, he's going to have to listen to us all. If you don't get to this post before the vote this evening, send your comments on anyway. We'll be hearing from Tim Scott again and again, I fear, both in the near term and the long.

Billion Dollar Coins and Exploding Options -- oh my!

Maybe the President can't simply cite the 14th amendment and raise the debt ceiling, maybe he can -- but does the Constitution provide a paddle? Must he allow the Tea Party to shut down the government as the more mainstream Republicans attempted to do in 1995 during the Clinton administration?

You remember President Clinton, don't you, the guy that the snickering snarkmongers told us would only serve one term, who would destroy capitalism, plunge us into debt and start fake wars simply to allow him to become a dictator. I'm sure the parallels are coincidental. (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

But Obama, even if if no Clinton, ( for better or worse) may still have options, says Jack M. Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law at Yale Law School. The Constitution has as many loopholes as the Tea Party has loonies, although some of them are as arcane as something out of the Da Vinci Code. There's the Platinum Coin gambit and the exploding Option Strategy, for instance.

Even so, all may not be lost for 14th amendment solution protagonists, like Bill Clinton and a few others says Balkin.

"If the president reasonably believes that the public debt will be put in question for either reason, Section 4 comes into play once again. His predicament is caused by the combination of statutes that authorize and limit what he can do: He must pay appropriated monies, but he may not print new currency and he may not float new debt. If this combination of contradictory commands would cause him to violate Section 4, then he has a constitutional duty to treat at least one of the laws as unconstitutional as applied to the current circumstances."

Balkin likens this dispute to recent attempts to topple the president over his ability to use the military to protect the national interest or in emergencies.

"If the courts won't intervene in the Libya affair, they probably won't intervene here."

But regardless of your opinion on the best way to beat back the barbarians, (whichever side you think they're on, Balkin's CNN exclusive interview is great reading and gives a glimmer of hope that the Constitution will do what it was designed to do, protect us.

Taking the 14th

"The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."

14th Amendment, US Constitution
____________

Now, I'm no lawyer, which means that I generally take such statements at face value and have no knowledge of what pretzels they've been twisted into by various courts in various cases, but it seems to me that if congress can't question the validity of our public debt, then congress can't refuse to pay it or more importantly say it's only valid under a certain amount authorized by Congress after they've already deemed it legal. What do you think?

I hate to bring up the constitution at a time when the Tea Bag Patriots are pretending to worship it while claiming that those who would like to actually conform to it are "shredding it" but the situation is getting serious.

Of course this whole controversy is about "taking down" the president we elected by a good margin and replacing him with a Tea Party Republican of their choice hell bent not on reducing the debt, but killing Social Security, Medicare, all forms of welfare and any protection for the public against the health insurance cartel -- and all to make sure people like me can put an extra tank of fuel into the yacht every now and then thus creating jobs in the Bahamas and Taiwan.

After all they raised the debt ceiling every year a Republican was in office since the beginning of the Reagan administration and authorized Bush's massive debt explosion like a well disciplined private army. Remember when "debt doesn't matter" was the slogan? No? Well I do.

"Obama would be impeached if he blocked debt payments"

says Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and he'd also be impeached if he invalidated the debt ceiling based on the 14th amendment, says Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) Talk about a poker player with a 'tell.' Might as well lay the cards on the table.

It's all about impeachment and all about finding some flimsy excuse or forcing the president into a position where they will impeach him if he does and impeach him if he doesn't. No more revolting, I guess than impeaching one for asking his secretary not to tell his wife he was having an affair. Talk about insurrection and rebellion! No sooner did we lose the Cold War gravy train then we embarked on the Cold Secession.

President Clinton of course told us recently that he wouldn't hesitate to use the 14th to raise the debt ceiling and "force the courts to stop me." You'll remember of course the attempts to impeach him on any pretext and how the talk of the "failure of the Clinton Presidency" preceded the Clinton Presidency and how he would certainly be a one term president and how his tax policies would bankrupt the economy. They hope you won't remember, of course because we're hearing the same damned bullshit again.

"I think the Constitution is clear and I think this idea that the Congress gets to vote twice on whether to pay for [expenditures] it has appropriated is crazy.”

said Bill Clinton to The National Memo last week. No wonder slimy things like the Newt are challenging the constitutional basis for even having a Supreme Court.

Meanwhile that 3% extra tax cut I get on anything I earn over $250,000 is going to prompt me to create jobs for those struggling people now paying for the longest, most expensive wars in American history while losing their houses, jobs, medical insurance waiting for the Voodoo to kick in and save us all -- and all will be fine just in time for a Tea Party president. I can feel it in my bones.

Afternoon Update: A hat tip to Shaw at Progressive Eruptions for this graph that debunks another GOP mendacity:

The Obama administration has exercised remarkable spending restraint in accomplishing a lot, in contrast to the Bush years of gross mismanagement and fiscal profligacy.

The Greatest Country on Earth ???

If it were up to me, I would call us 'The Laughing Stock of the Galaxy.'  This is an open thread for all who care to vent (the full text of President Obama’s speech is copied under the fold - complements of DemWit):

The Oslo Massacre and the Zen of Venn

My Zen of Venn comment under Captain Fogg’s post (91 Dead in Oslo) was not intentionally directed at anyone in this forum, all of whom I count as among my closest and dearest friends and whose voices I cherish. Perhaps I should qualify what I said by mentioning this story at the CNN website, Who is the suspect in the Norway attacks? What struck me were the comments beneath the story … that were far more revealing than the story itself. Here are some noteworthy examples:

Mayaculpa: Religious belief -- of whatever stripe -- is the curse of the world. Mankind will never live in peace until he rejects all religious belief. [This is one of many comments that claim religion is the source of all violence in the world.]

Ralphlynn: I'm passionate about Christ and Christ alone, but true Christianity never advocates for violence unlike Islam. [Christian exceptionalism at its finest.]

DougLenatSux: Breivik works for Israeli intelligence and the attacks were in retaliation for Norway's statement that it would recognize an independent Palestinian state. [A pitchfork conspiracy theorist with a distinct anti-Israeli (and anti-Semitic) flavor.]

Ralphlynn: I say bring back the cruscades [sic] to knock off the uneducated … as they pose more of a threat than anyone. [A Christian Eliminationist in full regalia.]

JAYnLA: Why does this shooter remind me of Michelle Bachman?

ssa5: I bet the Tea Losers have already sent out invitations for this loser to join them. In fact I am sure Bachman and Palin are sending love letters at this very moment.

Ssearthquake: Breivik is nothing but a brain washed lunatic turned terrorist who is influenced by right wing fundementalists like the "Tea baggers" of the USA who will not stop until they see the US economy destroyed.

[As much as I loathe TeaHoos, these comments shocked me as examples of over-the-top hyperbole from our side of the partisan divide.  Suddenly, our own domestic politics are viewed through the lens of the Oslo massacre, as certain presidential candidates are erroneously and gratuitously equated with mass murder. Finally two more comments …]

Taddmike: As a Freemason in America, I was shocked to see the alleged shooter in Masonic gear. I just wanted to put it out there that any anti-Muslim sentiments the alleged shooter has are NOT indicative of the true tenets of our peaceful organization. With that said, I can safely speak for our international Brethren when I say we are heartbroken for the families of the victims. We pray for them all.

WhatARipOff1: Our ideology [note: mathematical 'greater than' sign does not reproduce in Blogger] your ideology. Gotta love politics.

It seems each of us, Democrat or Republican, left or right, has transformed the Oslo gunman into a demonic archetype with which to bash the other. Reading these comments gives me pause to consider my words more carefully before I wield them. If there are any lessons to be learned here, perhaps we should take an honest look at our anger and Venn before we vent.

91 dead in Oslo

People have made it very clear to me that Timothy McVeigh, who blew up the Murrah Federal building in 1995 was not a Christian, the connection between that vicious, inhuman act and the Waco, Texas incident notwithstanding. He couldn't be, you see, by virtue of the fact that he did such a thing.

It's too bad that Muslims who are horrified by terrorism aren't given the benefit of the same rationale, but I'm still waiting to hear about Anders Behring Breivik. Despite the initial prejudice that had the Oslo bombing and the murders at a Summer camp as the work of al Qaeda, it looks like Breivik, identified by a survivor as the attacker, was a Christian Conservative disturbed by the presence of other cultures, other religions, in Norway. Would he fit in with a spectrum of Americans, from the Aryan Brotherhood to the Tea Party, trying to promote our intentionally secular Republic as a "Christian nation" and perhaps an exclusively Christian nation?

How long can we go on pretending that religious tribalism of any denomination hasn't been and doesn't remain a potentially destructive, oppressive and communicable human vice?

What is wrong with Republicans?

How does a group like the GOP manage to become a leading force in American politics? This is a group of small-minded schemers so openly venal and opportunistic that they're a top hat and handlebar mustache away from being actual cartoon villains.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, openly campaigns on the fact that his number one priority is not fixing the economy or getting jobs for the unemployed; no, his only focus is making sure that Barack Obama is a one-term president.

Eric Cantor, the House Majority Whip, currently leading the talks to prevent the economy from completely tanking, is proud of having shares in a fund that will only pay off if the economy gets worse. And nobody considers this to be a conflict of interest.

The leading lights of the party are currently pushing the 2012 Goat Rodeo: a collection of ego-driven misfits and losers so actively insane that if you can remember to pull your dick out of your pants before you pee, you're considered a front runner. (And yes, I'm including both Sarah "Undefeated" Palin and Batboy Bachmann in that metaphor.)

Since Obama was sworn in as president, the best description of the Republican "strategy" is "Deny, Delay, and Do Nothing," in the hopes that if things get worse, Obama gets the blame.

And there's a significant portion of Republican voters who buy into that theory, because they're openly stupid. Oh, and because of brain damage caused by interesting chemicals that Republican policies allow to enter our food supply - you know, paint thinner, mercury, that kind of thing...

The GOP openly lies or obfuscates about every issue, and yet, despite the unwillingness in the press to call them on it, they consistently refer to the "liberal bias" in the media.

Remember death panels? What about "Obama is a Muslim"? Or "...socialist"? "...communist"? Or even "...terrorist"?

Does anybody remember James O'Keefe? Lied about ACORN? Tried to break into a congresswoman's office and bug her phone? Yeah, he's still at it. Still not in jail. Go figure.

Despite overwhelming evidence that birth control prevents abortion and teen pregnancy, when birth control is offered through the new health care law, what’s the right-wing take on it? "Obamacare will force insurance companies to pay for abortion!"

And it's not just at the national level. Here in New Mexico, we have Teabagging governor Suzanna Martinez, who (in a move completely at odds with the standard GOP theory that rich people are happiest when you throw money at them) made an effort to slash film industry subsidies, where moviemakers have a percentage of their in-state expenditures returned to them, and one of the only requirements is that they hire 75% of their crew from New Mexico citizens.

The State Legislature only agreed to cap subsidies, which is still a disincentive to filmmakers, who have brought billions of dollars and thousands of jobs to the state. And the plan still backfired.

New Mexico will shell out an estimated $20 million to $30 million more than expected in film rebates – around $95 million overall – after film and television projects rushed to beat a July 1 effective date for a new state cap on the subsidies.

So, where other Republicans are simply doing nothing to improve the economy, our governor is losing money, driving out industry and destroying jobs. So this is what "winning" looks like?

Facebook viral material

The wealthy have been on a roll since Reagan. The rest of the country has been on a slide, while China and BRIC have become the new economic leaders, thanks to America's wealthy shipping U.S. jobs overseas: outsourcing the work as they insource the profits. But of course, you all know this. So why don't the lower and mid-income Right not seem to know? Haven't they followed the bouncing line...?

National Abuse Syndrome: Endgame

Friday, July 22, 2011. Tonight, we learned of Speaker Boehner dodging telephone calls and refusing to meet with the President. How rude! How insolent and disrespectful to the office of the President! How derelict in his responsibilities to the nation!

What is it about the language of the Constitution that Speaker Boehner refuses to read and comprehend:

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned (14th Amendment).

All Congress Critters … including the Republican leadership and their Tea Thug colleagues (but NOT necessarily their proto-fascist benefactors) … have a constitutional obligation to honor the nation’s debts. When they swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, they swore an oath to follow this provision.

Bullying and holding the nation hostage for partisan gain is not my idea of protecting and defending the U.S. Constitution. So who or what holds more authority in this instance: The U.S. Constitution or Grover Norquist?

Former Republican presidents understood their Constitutional obligations. Previous legislatures, both Democrat and Republican, raised the debt ceiling 18 times under Reagan and 7 times under Bush … without conditions, exceptions or partisan hostage-taking. What makes this Republican legislature different from all others?

The Republicans refuse to govern alongside Democrats and have lost all ability to participate in a democracy comprised of diverse constituents and stakeholders. The Republicans have become a party of corporate interests that have no loyalty to the Constitution, the nation, the American economy, or the American People. In other words, the endgame is PROTO-FASCISM.