Yoo's a viper

John Yoo called it a "Witch hunt" but he's lucky it wasn't. I have a feeling he'd have fared far worse had he been tried by a cross section of the American public who would have been more disgusted by his maintaining the legality of crushing an innocent child's testicles or murdering an unlimited of innocent bystanders by Presidential fiat in order to "keep America safe" than the actual jury of his peers -- other lawyers.

He hardly even seems grateful for having avoided the tar and feathers and the pillory, considering that he's upbraiding President Obama for not recognizing his efforts to allow a president to "keep America Safe" by exercising unlimited executive power under the aegis of a war he has the power to start for no other reason than to give him that power. Did any of our fabled founding fathers really envision such a thing except as the perfect opposite of an American President?

Yoo's image of an American president as unlimited by law, treaty or moral scruple to a degree not unfamiliar to Attila or Tamarlane or Ghengis Khan should be producing more widespread disgust than it is, but that no doubt shows the immense power of the massive, corporate sponsored, Republican organized eruption of noxious gas and poisonous accusations: a smokescreen the likes of which hasn't been seen since the close of the Permian.

No, Professor Yoo is claiming that even though the proceedings against him were initiated under the Republicans and he was let go by Democrats, he's a victim -- Obama's victim. That ungrateful man of sorrows who apparently is all things contemptible because with the power to do evil, we would surely be overwhelmed and conquered by a few dozen guys with explosive jockey shorts. He's a victim and it's because he loves keeping America "safe."

"an entirely false narrative of his own victimization." says Joe Mathis at the Philadephia Weekly. "Get this straight, the so-called 'smear job' came under the Republican president. The so-called 'vindication' came under the Democratic president."

Preposterous by the strictest definition of the word; the same problem with cause and effect that makes Obama guilty of Bush's economic train wreck.

Guilty of professional misconduct and poor judgment is a slap on the wrist considering that his support of giving the President the power to break constitutional law ad libidem as long as "there's a war on" might at one time have been punished quite severely. You'd think he'd just thank his luck and the corruption of justice that's become institutionalized in the US, but no, he has to be a victim, he has to vilify the administration that let him go free and he gets to keep his tenured job, his law license and most likely will have a great number of books bought up by CPAC and distributed for free to contributors so that he can be on the NewYork Times best-seller list and gloat about Democratic "Royalists."

There's a lot of money, there's a lot of safety in evil.

What's in a name?

After listening to the self-contradictory, incoherent, quasi-literate and massively hate-packed rhetoric emanating from CPAC, where we were told that the concept of progress was a Marxist idea, that Progressives wanted to progress toward Communism. Liberals were the enemy of freedom and most insane of all: "Royalists" It's hard to hold on to any hope that what's left of the American Right retains even a rudimentary grasp on reality or any commitment to any ideal in any way related to Democracy and the Rights of Man. Taxes are Communism, protection of the rights of minorities is Communism, secular democracy is communism, but collusion between corporations and government isn't, as Mussolini Defined it, Fascism -- it's freedom.

A party that won a solid majority in a free election is an "insurgency." Teddy Roosevelt, his opponent Woodrow Wilson and Adam Smith are all Communists who tried to destroy us and Glenn Beck got what he calls a "free" education, not by attending any private school, but by using taxpayer funded, government owned resources at the public library. Yes those of us who have pushed through legislation that finally allowed women and minorities to vote or own property or live like free men and women are simultaneously Nazis, Bolsheviks, Trotskyites, Maoists, and yes -- Royalists. Those of us who think vast sums of corporate money are corrupting the system are any wildly preposterous political epithet that comes to mind, but also Communists, Marxists, Trotskyites and the kinky sex partners of the Taliban. That they're not calling non-Republicans Irridentists or Scrooby Separatists is only the result of their neglected education, but of course those things are only another form of Marxist Islamofascism and Trotskyite lesbo-Feminism with a bit of royalism thrown in for flavour.

"Protect our precious Medicare?" Well that's not communism even tough it and Social Security were until the country voted for health care reform. Why? because Obama is a Fascist follower of Pol Pot, trying to corrupt our youth and a Communist, Muslim, illegal alien, soft-on-terrorism, cannibal none the less - and because any hateful insanity must be true if it vilifies Obama - he's a Royalist.

No accusation is too ludicrous whether it contradicts all the other accusations or not. It' s not important to make sense or to tell the truth; it's only important to pump up the accusations, pump up the hate.

After listening to John Yoo describe a Republican justice department according to which, an American president like the one he served has more power than any European Monarch did in the age before Democracy, including the right to wage wars, internal and foreign, suspend civil rights, amend laws, refuse to obey laws, to lie, misrepresent and fabricate and to justify any action by Presidential fiat, it's hard to believe we're not simply listening to cross talk between parallel but vastly different universes. Is it legal for the President to order that the testicles of an innocent child be crushed to make his parent talk? But of course says Professor Yoo! Do as the President says shall be the law -- but we're Royalists all the same.

It's not so much that the Republicans seem to have defined conservative values as Marxist and indeed almost everything including evil itself as its opposite, they're inventing their own paranoid psychotic reality permeated by gibbering, drooling and incoherent rage, it's that we're not in open revolt against them; that they have a huge, armed and vastly wealthy base of support.

And we just sit and listen.

God retarded my baby

Giving birth to a disabled child is God's way of punishing women for having had a prior abortion, says Virginia Representative Bob Marshall, R-13th.

“In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There’s a special punishment Christians would suggest.”

Yes it's redundant to mention that he's a Republican; a raging mob which for the last few decades has been the party of and a party to promoting such shameless indecencies. Of course some biblical scholars tell us that the story of Abraham and Isaac was a priestly way of moving away from a prior and very ancient practice of sacrificial infanticide, but indeed, the first born male lamb in the flock of a Hebrew shepherd was to be sacrificed and the first born son was at one, very pre-Christian time, dedicated to service in the Temple.

Of course there hasn't been a Temple since the 9th of Av in the year 70 CE, and Christians really don't hold with more than 9 or 10 of the 613 commandments and none of the Rabbinical laws, but that doesn't stop the kind of shoot-from-the-hip theology prevalent in these days of the senescence of American Christianity. Christians might suggest anything in truth, but if they're suggesting any such thing, it's a suggestion with no roots in the teachings of Jesus.

One might be tempted to ask Bob why, according to antique Jewish law largely set aside by Jesus and his followers, Christians who don't force their first born to become priests aren't subject to the same punishment, but his answer isn't very likely to enlighten us.

Surely anyone who still believes in a God with some tenuous attachment to decency if not actual justice will have trouble with the bloody Saturnine entity who condemns a child to a lifetime of pain and deformity because of something his mother did. But not Bob Marshall.

Some will have difficulty reconciling the position that it's indecent to mention that someone may be mentally retarded unless the mention is made by some pasquillant Republican creep like Limbaugh; but not Bob Marshall and probably not a large number of morally retarded, power hungry and profoundly ignorant Republican Theocrats who haven't bothered to consider that the enormously vast majority of children with deformities and defects and abnormalities are not born to mothers who aborted their first pregnancies.

Down Syndrome for one, seems more likely to affect children of older mothers. Conjoined twins, anencephalic babies, Spina Bifida, heart defects -- can anyone show any statistical correlation with sin? Of course not and anyone promising that virtuous people are less likely to give birth to lives affected by diseases and afflictions and deficiencies is likely to be a liar and an idiot, willing to use other people's tragedies to gain political power -- like Bob Marshall.

I await Sarah Palin's response to what could, amongst people who can actually reason consistently, be taken as an accusation of having had an abortion. I'm sure she'll choose to ignore it however, for fear of damaging the fabric of the alternate universe in which the ultra-right lives: where right and wrong, left and right, up and down are nebulous and interchangeable concepts and useful only to defame the enemies of these Insaneocrats and to yoke Jesus to their bandwagon like an ox.

1,000,000 Voices Virtual March for Health Care Reform

On Feb. 23rd -- that's tomorrow! -- and 24th. More information at DailyKos. Please join. You don't have to wait till tomorrow. Do it now.

SHOSHANA JOHNSON – QUIET COURAGE

As Black History Month draws to a close I thought I would end my little series with the story of someone more contemporary. Shoshana Johnson stands out not only for what she has endured but also what she has accomplished.

Most of us will remember the dramatic 2003 rescue of American POW Jessica Lynch in Iraq after her capture by Iraqis in the early days of the invasion, but little was reported about the six others also taken captive in that same ambush.

One of them was Specialist Shoshana Johnson, who would spend her 22 days in captivity with gunshot wounds to both legs. While the media frenzy was focused on the rescue of Lynch, the eventual rescue of the others by the Marines went largely unnoticed.

Ms Johnson, the first black female POW, came home but her troubles were far from over. While her physical wounds would eventually heal, her mental health was more precarious. To add insult to injury she not only suffered from PTSD but also had to endure being misaligned as being greedy for challenging her disability rating so that she could get better benefits.

But the true nature of Shoshana Johnson is seen in her refusal to give up and succumb to her illness. Instead she continued therapy and soldiered on. Today she and her 9 year old daughter are living in Texas where she is training to be a pastry chef so she can make wedding and birthday cakes.

"Even when I came home, I didn't think I'd ever get better. I didn't think the issues I had would ever ease," Johnson said in the (AP) interview. "But as time goes on and I stick with my therapy, it has gotten easier, and I know if I keep on the right track, I'll be OK."

Ms Johnson has written a book about her experiences called, “I’m Still Standing.” It is available at amazon.com.

The ambush in 2003 resulted in 11 deaths of US soldiers. Of the seven soldiers taken captive, Private Lori Piestewa would die of her mortal injuries just hours later.

The survivors who were all eventually rescued by the Marines are:
Jessica Lynch, Shoshana Johnson, Joseph Hudson, James Riley, Edgar Hernandez and Patrick Miller.

May they all find peace and happiness.

Who Will Hold Them Accountable?

CPAC is looking a lot like the national Tea Party convention in Nashville a couple weeks ago, which is to say, three days of hating on President Obama from the far-right fringe. And that’s pretty much all they’ve got.

The rhetoric that comes out of these conservative gatherings is alarming. At the Tea Party we had immigrant-bashing, gay-bashing, conspiracy theories, birthers, and a lot of anti-Obama anger framed in apocalyptic terms. CPAC follows the same script, it’s just different scenery. Here’s Darrell Issa, doing his best to fan the fear:

“I intend to use every resource of my office to make sure that this Administration does not escape serious, thorough, and consistent oversight of its policies, its use of taxpayer money, and its aggressive determination to impose a foreign ideological vision on the people of the United States," he says in his prepared remarks.

What “foreign ideological vision” would that be? We don’t know, because the reporter never asked, or if he did, he didn’t get an answer.

Now here’s Jim DeMint framing the national situation as

"a battle between the American people and Democrats.”

A “battle.” Huh.

What I heard on TV was DeMint call the Democrats to task for their “unprecedented power grab.”

What? You mean the election? The one your side lost?

This is nothing new. The conservative language is one of fear, one that incites action, and it’s well thought out. Here’s Jim DeMint from last year’s CPAC conference:

Earlier this week, we heard the world’s best salesman of socialism address the nation.

Obama had been president all of five weeks.

Five weeks.

Let that sink in for a minute. It certainly set the stage for the next eight months’ worth of “Obama is a Socialist” rhetoric.

How do they get away with this constant drum-beat of anti-Democratic Party, anti-liberal, anti-Obama bile at conservative gatherings? Back in 2004 I remember liberals being criticized--constantly--for being “too angry.”

How come no one outside of a few liberal bloggers and the occasional journalist points out this hypocrisy? How come no one ever calls these folks on their angry rhetoric?

How come no political leader--the head of the DNC, perhaps--ever steps up to say, “what are you people smoking? Socialism? You cannot be serious!”

You know, if no one on the national stage ever challenges this right wing lie factory, then the point has been ceded. You’re letting them get away with the lies. You have allowed them frame you.

Maybe it’s not the media’s job to call the CPAC/Tea Party crowd to account for their rhetoric (at least, not 100% of the time). But someone needs to. Liberals need to stop being so damn polite and worried about "decency" all the time and start realizing that it’s a damn war to the other side, so time to start acting like it’s a war on your side.

Are you afraid Rush Limbaugh will have a sad? Will Glenn Beck have an even bigger sad? Limbaugh said today that

Joe Stack "sounds just like any liberal Democrat," writings "almost word for word" like Obama, Pelosi, Reid

That's a pretty outrageous claim. Has no one stepped up and said, no, it's not true? Not close to true?

Glenn Beck poured “gasoline” and lit a match to demonstrate his take on what Obama was doing to “the average American.” This wasn't challenged because, I guess, of some lame idea that to address it was to validate it. But people, it's been validated already. It's out there.

This constantly-unchallenged over the top rhetoric is dangerous. It fans the flames of populist anger. We're dealing with a low-information populace, and if no one ever challenges the idea that “Obama is a socialist” then the talking point is left out there to fester. Ultimately it creates right wing nutballs who burn their McMansions down before flying a private plane into the IRS building.

It results in people like Warren "Gator" Taylor who took hostages at a Virginia post office.

It encourages the Timothy McVeighs and James Von Brunns and Scott Roeders and Eric Rudolphs. You can’t scream “Obama is destroying the country, Democrats are evil baby killers, everything wrong with the country is the fault of liberals” 24-7 and not expect something to happen.

So what I want to know is: who is going to counter this hate speech? Who is going to step up on the national stage and say enough already?

Why haven’t we done it yet?

Unnatural sexual behavior

People who seek to denounce or prohibit some particular form of sexual behavior often like to brand it as "unnatural", logically meaning that it does not exist in nature -- that is, among non-human animals -- and therefore cannot be normal for humans either. Oddly, the people who do this often tend to be those who reject evolution and thus do not believe that we are related to the other animals, but let that pass.

In most cases, in fact, they're wrong. Animal sexual behavior is very varied, and unsurprisingly, it's our fellow mammals who tend to be the most imaginative. Masturbation, promiscuity (in both genders), oral sex, foreplay, incest, rape, homosexuality (in both genders), erotic dances to whip up a partner's interest, sexual play among adolescents, and even lifelong commitment to a single partner -- all these things have been observed among other mammal species and are common enough in at least some to qualify as normal behavior for them. (Notice too that a couple of these examples remind us that blindly taking what occurs in nature as a guideline for what should or shouldn't be acceptable among humans would be rather dangerous.) Even people who think life was created by a deity should be able to see that activities in which so many species engage cannot be "unnatural" in the eyes of their alleged creator.

But there is one form of human sex-related behavior (indeed, one which the moralists consider an essential prerequisite to sex of any kind) which has no counterpart in nature. It's marriage. No naturalist studying any species on Earth has ever reported a case in which two animals who wanted to mate with each other insisted on finding a third animal to stand around reciting mumbo-jumbo at them first. Only humans do that.

Personally I've always found the concept a bit insulting. It seems to assume that the feelings two people have for each other are not enough in themselves, and need to be "legitimized" by bringing a third party -- the church or the government -- into the relationship to provide its stamp of approval.

In fact, if people feel motivated to be monogamous, they will be, with or without a piece of paper from the state. And if they don't feel motivated, the piece of paper won't help much -- as quite a few Republican politicians have recently demonstrated.

Of course, as a liberal I support the right of conservative humans to engage in their preferred form of unnatural sexual behavior. But they're on rather shaky ground calling anyone else names.

Civil Rights Movement: The Promise

Clockwise from left: the Rev. Joseph Lowery, the Rev. C.T. Vivian, Andrew Young and the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, all members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, at Martin Luther King, Jr.,'s church in Atlanta. Photo by Platon for The New Yorker magazine.

Continuing the theme of this month, I'd like to direct you to the multimedia portfolio at The New Yorker, titled The Promise, which features photographs of the civil rights movement's (willing and not so much) icons. The photos, also in the most recent issue of the magazine, are unforgettable, and so are the stories of their subjects.

As a bonus, watch Charlie Rose's interview with Platon, the photographer who took the pictures. A fascinating person himself -- talented, sensitive, and humble -- he describes his creative approach and how this particular project has changed his life.

Worth your time.

The GOP's close resemblance to a Psychrolutes marcidus

When I first read John Kass' article yesterday, I could have sworn he was describing Republicans.

He said, the cunning blobfish [Republican] is boneless [spineless], "a gelatinous orb hovering in the deep [shadows], covered in slime and mucus."

"A blobfish [Republican] looks like some fat, drunken judge [congressman] and may be highly intelligent. And therefore quite dangerous."

"It frowns. It leers. Sometimes, it even drools."

The blobfish [Republican] hovers just above the ocean [senate/house] floor without having to expend energy.

The blobfish [Republican] is becoming extinct.

As you've seen, Kass is talking about the spineless fish and not the dangerous Republicans. But you have to admit the similartities are uncanny.

A face only its mother can love.

THE RICH GET RICHER …

This article by David Cay Johnston, Tax Rates for Top 400 Earners Fall as Income Soars, is a damning indictment of economic inequities caused by Bush era tax cuts:

Since 1992, the bottom 90 percent of Americans have seen their incomes rise by 13 percent in 2009 dollars, compared with an increase of 399 percent for the top 400.

The annual top 400 report was first made public by the Clinton administration, but the George W. Bush administration shut down access to the report.  Its release was resumed a year ago when President Obama took office.

(…)

The top 400 reports understate actual top incomes because of deferral rules. For example, managers of offshore hedge funds who deferred their gains may not be counted in the top 400 reports, which are based on the figure on the last line of the front page of Form 1040.

At least three hedge fund managers made $3 billion in 2007. It is not known how much, if any, of their income they deferred.

(…)

The biggest source of income was capital gains, which are taxed at a maximum rate of 15 percent. Gains accounted for 66.3 percent of 2007 income for the top 400, up from 62.8 percent in 2006 and 36.1 percent in 1992.

(…)

The report shows that the number of the top 400 who paid an effective tax rate of 0 percent to 10 percent declined slightly, to 25 in 2007 from 31 in 2006. In 1992 only 6 of the top 400 paid an effective income tax rate of less than 10 percent.

Another 127 paid 10 percent to 15 percent in 2007, up from 113 in 2006.

Only 33 of the top 400 paid an effective tax rate of 30 percent to 35 percent, which is the maximum federal tax rate.

More tax cuts for the wealthy? Why isn't this called “socialism?”

BLACK HERITAGE TRAIL, BOSTON, MASS.

I took a nice long walk through the slushy streets of Boston today and was reminded of the Black Heritage Trail that winds around the West End and parts of Beacon Hill. 

The first Africans arrived in Boston in February of 1638, eight years after the city was founded. They were brought as slaves, purchased in Providence Isle, a Puritan colony off the coast of Central America. By 1705, there were over 400 slaves in Boston and the beginnings of a free black community in the North End.

I live in a section of the North End that is near to where the free black community was established--Copps Hill.  This part of the city was the least desireable because it was not near the docks and it was situated on a hill.

The two most famous blacks in colonial Boston were Phillis Wheatley and Crispus Attucks. Wheatley arrived in Boston as a frail, sickly slave girl, about 7 years old, directly from Africa. The family that bought her taught her to read and write. Phillis began to write poetry and for a times perhaps the most famous African born person in the world. She was set free, but never prospered from her poetry. She died in poverty.

On Being Brought from Africa to America

'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye
"Their colour is a diabolic die.
Remember, Christians, Negro's, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

                                             --Phillis Wheatley

Attucks, who also went by the name of Michael Johnson, became famous as one of the victims of the Boston Massacre. He was described as black and American Indian.








 
 
The American Revolution was a turning point in the status of Africans in Massachusetts. At the end of the conflict, there were more free black people than slaves. When the first federal census was enumerated in 1790, Massachusetts was the only state in the Union to record no slaves.

The all-free black community in Boston was concerned with finding decent housing, establishing independent supportive institutions, educating their children, and ending slavery in the rest of the nation. All of these concerns were played out in this Beacon Hill neighborhood.

Salome Thomas-El, A Breath of Fresh Air

A breath of fresh air swept through my church on Valentine’s Day as educator Salome Thomas-El inspired the true believers at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Delaware County (UUCDC) that we could indeed make a difference in the life of a child. Thomas-El, who grew up in North Philadelphia, is next to the youngest child of a single mom. She implored his elementary teachers to help Salome be the first of her children to get to college. The teachers made their mark, and Thomas-El went on to become a teacher, principal and author. Now he inspires others to influence youth to aspire and achieve.

At a time when folks in this country are hunkering down into corners and screaming at one another, it is refreshing to participate with a group of people who want to create positive change. People who see a bright future in helping children, largely minority, largely inner city, people who want to ensure that these children do have a chance to get their fair share of the American Pie. Speaker and audience alike looked for ways to help rather than hinder the upward mobility of some of this country’s most challenged children.

The presentation was made possible through monies from the Homer Jack Fund at UUCDC. Homer Jack was an activist UU minister who spent his final years as a congregant of our church.

Here are links to some organizations striving to help young people succeed. Rather than argue, blame, divide, and scream, how about if we all pick an organization and provide support to our young people?

After School Activities Partnership

Created in 2002 in response to a civic outcry for help with activities for the city’s youth during the critical unsupervised hours after school, ASAP/After School Activities Partnerships has provided after school recreational and enrichment activities to Philadelphia kids in some of the poorest and most dangerous areas of the city.

http://www.phillyasap.org/Home.aspx

The Achievement Project

TAP is a nonprofit organization that helps young people in Chester, Pennsylvania to succeed in high school; to apply to and be admitted to college; and to arrive at college having acquired the capacity to succeed there.

420 East 9th Street
Chester, PA 19013-5941
(484) 995-0828

www.tapofchester.org

Chester Eastside Ministries
Provides afterschool programs and summer day camps to children of Chester’s East Side
9th & Potter Sts.

Chester, PA 19016

610-872-4812

RevBerniceWarren@chestereastside.org

The Be Proud Foundation

The overall mission of the Be Proud Foundation is to provide experiential learning opportunities for youth targeted at exposing their thinking errors, misconceptions and gaps in knowledge thereby increasing their chances for a successful life.

(610)891-8808
Fax (610)891-8919
email: beproud@comcast.net

Peace in the Streets/Peach on Earth

Teaches conflict resolution techniques, primarily for Chester, PA youth.Contact Wanda Moore

Pspe2002@yahoo.com

Big Brothers/Big Sisters

The Big Brothers Big Sisters Mission is to help children reach their potential through professionally supported, one-to-one relationships with mentors that have a measurable impact on youth.

1341 N. Delaware Ave
Philadelphia, PA 19125

(215) 701-8100
Bigs@bbbssepa.org
http://www.bbbssepa.org

Fresh Air Fund

Since 1877, The FreshAir Fund, a not-for-profit agency, has provided free summer experiences in the country to more than 1.7 million New York City children from disadvantaged communities. Each year, thousands of children visit volunteer host families in 13 states and Canada through the Friendly Town Program or attend Fresh Air Fund camps.

http://www.freshair.org/top-links/about-us.aspx

NAACP Scholarship Fund

The NAACP is a leading advocate of equal access to quality education. In an effort to promote and ensure higher education opportunities for minority youth, the NAACP offers the following national scholarships: Earl G. Graves Scholarship, Agnes Jones Scholarship, Historically Black College & Universities Scholarship Fund, Lillian and Samuel Sutton Scholarship, Roy Wilkins scholarship, and the Hubertus W.V. Willems Scholarship. These awards help eliminate financial difficulties that may hinder students’ higher education goals. Scholarship award amounts range from $1,000 - $5,000 and are disbursed in two installments throughout a specified school year. Each scholarship contains its own set of requirements and students are encouraged to apply for each award that aligns with their eligibility.

Contact your local NAACP

http://www.naacp.org/advocacy/education/

Nationalizing Wal-Mart

So let me get this straight, President Obama, or if you're a Republican, just plain Obama, is a dangerous leader because when someone tried to blow up a plane he took hours before mentioning the magic word "War." That was bad. Never ever talk of criminal activity when you can describe it as an act of war, unless of course it's our criminal activity. The non-sequitur correlate of this principle is that no rules apply when the words are coming from on official right wing spokesman, like Rush or Sarah. So it's OK for him to call people "retards" on the air, but just disgusting for Rahm to use it in private. Likewise it's OK for Rush to insist there's no war on while all the rest of his party continue to justify each and every contradiction. Actually no rules apply to Rush at all, since he can get away with such statements as insisting that the President has already dealt the US a more devastating blow than we suffered in World War II without being called a liar, an ignoramus or the worst enemy Truth ever had.

But let's start at the beginning, Rush claimed yesterday that Wal-mart was lobbying heavily to keep "Obama" from nationalizing the company. Lord knows they have lobbyists, but it takes a certain kind of person to broadcast that there is any likelihood of such an action and a really special kind of person to believe it. Now why would that be something awful you might ask Rush? Because there's no war on, says he, driving home the point that whether there is or isn't is situational and specific to any particular argument he's trying to make. There's a war when you can attack the President with it and there isn't when you can attack the President with it and both times Rush will be right.

"The last time this happened was World War II, but that was because there was a war on and it made sense"

The last time what happened, Rush? It may make sense to him, but not only are we losing men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, we did not nationalize Wal-Mart then or ever, nor is anyone contemplating it but Rush.

"Country is under assault, more so than we were during World War II, other than the Japanese. But the Germans never attacked us, the Japanese did."

he continued and I'll leave it to you to figure out what alternate universe these "facts" come from. I suspect there are numbers of people who will simply accept that the current administration is more dangerous to our national security than what in the late 1930's was the most powerful military on Earth, will simply nod and accept that Germany didn't declare war on us and didn't over-run Europe and attack England and that we didn't lose almost half a million troops or that untold tens of millions of people didn't die -- Obama is dangerous and has already done us more harm than the Axis powers and without a doubt is going to nationalize Wal-Mart.

Does anyone reading this believe that Rush Limbaugh isn't stark raving mad with power, thinking he can invent alternate histories, create alternate realities and use them to attack the government and the people of the United States of America? There are millions who do and it may be that one or two of them will take it upon themselves to do Rush's bidding and rid us of the man who has already ruined everything for everyone.

Of course it's a United States of America where the president's imaginary "gun grab" has already taken place, where people who just got a tax cut are protesting an imaginary increase, where people who can't afford a check-up much less treatment for a serious illness are screaming about "Obama" taking away their ideal situation and somewhere, somebody is plotting acts of violence because after all, "Obama" is not only a Nazi, but a more dangerous one than Hitler. Thus spake Limbaugh.

EXPLORER, MOUNTAIN MAN, INDIAN CHIEF

James Pierson Beckwourth (1798-1866) would be a well known figure in the history of the wild west but for the color of his skin. In this month celebrating Black History, I’d like to draw attention to this adventurer, if only to make him better known among our blog readership.

Jim Beckwourth was a character such as the kind from which legends are made like Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hickok.
And like those men, Jim could tell a tall tale with the best of them. It was a favorite pastime, sitting around the campfire after a tough day, having a drink and telling stories. Unfortunately, such idle pleasures would be used to discredit his true accomplishments.

Jim Beckwourth wrote about his life with the help of a writer named Thomas D Bonner, who admittedly “polished it up”. Many people in those days would dimiss his story as lies.
But contrary to those beliefs, later evidence tends to support many of his claims.

His mother was a slave and his father was an Englishman who, although prevented from raising his son as he wanted, did ensure that he would be free by providing him emancipation papers.

Jim went west to work as a trapper and guide and was captured by Crow Indians. He was eventually embraced by the Crow and stayed with them up to eight years, facilitating trade with the whites and rising in rank to War Chief. But wanderlust called and even though he married an Indian woman, he simply could not stay in one place.

Jim Beckwourth would travel the country from the Florida Everglades to the California gold mines, looking for adventure and employment and is credited with discovering the Beckwourth Pass through the Sierra Nevadas, used by countless settlers headed for California.

Beckwourth returned to the Crow village where he died on October 29, 1866 at the age of 68. Even his death is subject to various mysterous stories; one claims the Crow poisoned him, another that he committed ritual suicide. Perhaps he just died in his sleep after years of hard living.

In recent years, there has been renewed interest in this historic figure and you can read more about this man's fascinating and colorful life HERE.

James Beckwourth embodies the American spirit of adventure and deserves a prominent place in American history.

You have the right to remain silent

Why is it that when Republicans only become creative when they run out of factual support? Lies, distortions, evasions, calumnies, falsehoods, fabrications, disinformation, distortions, propaganda, tall tales and slander; defamation, deceit, prevarications and mendacity: all kinds of colors in the "conservative" crayon box.

One lie I've heard far too much of from the Fox-poisoned Right, is how that lily livered, limp wristed, far-left Liberal and soft-on-crime Obama all but let Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab off the hook with his damned un-American insistence on justice and due process because he, having been read his Miranda Rights, immediately "clammed up." As is almost invariably true, the facts say otherwise.

The administration's timeline just released shows that the would-be murderer was removed to a hospital shortly after being arrested. There, he apparently began spilling the beans like a bratty one year old in a high chair until his medical condition deteriorated sharply - undoubtedly from having his genitals nearly burned off. The Miranda litany was recited only 9 hours after capture and after his condition was stabilized by four hours of surgery and questioning resumed but without response. How can you tell when the Republicans are lying? You don't need to, they always are.

Why is it that when Republicans only become creative when they run out of factual support? Sometimes they're so hard up for things to use to undermine our government, they just make them up from scratch or expand some minute and irrelevant mote into a universe of slime. If you haven't seen the latest chapter of Teleprompter Wars in your in-box yet, I'm sure you soon will. It's the one showing the President using two teleprompters to address a group of small children under the rubric of:

"Apparently there is no venue too small to require multiple teleprompters. I saw these pictures and first thought they were photo shopped, but it ends up they are actual pictures from Obama talking to an elementary school classroom. And they made fun of Bush's communication skills."

Well, no you didn't, the picture of the kids in the classroom and the President at a subsequent news conference in a different room do not show him using a teleprompter to address them and of course you know that. He was giving a speech to reporters who would be willing to use any misplaced word to attack him.

You know that he writes well, speaks well and is very much more able to communicate than his babbling, blathering predecessor and that looks bad for you -- and so you butter it over with lies and serve it up to your dogs for breakfast.

What do they hope to accomplish with such clumsy calumnies? Why are Republicans so desperate to believe anything that will make their visceral hatred of Democracy and uppity people of African descent seem to be less than the demented evil that it is? Why are they willing to sacrifice our country on some pagan altar of some bellicose god of war and conquest? Why do we sit by and let them do it?

OKTAPODI VALENTINE (back by popular demand)

Tying Abortion to Corporate Personhood

Conservative Cal Thomas says of the Supreme Court decision Citizens United v Federal Election Commission: "What makes the ruling and the march ironic is that the 1973 court...downgraded a human fetus to the level of nonperson, while the modern court has invested "personhood" in corporations. Does anyone else see a contradiction or at least a moral inconsistency in these two rulings?"

Thomas is a rare conservative to admit a problem; most say it's the greatest blow for freedom since Plessy v Ferguson. Thomas is also correct to suggest the decision is judicial overreach every bit as awful as he holds Roe v Wade to be.

The very name Citizens United is Orwellian doublespeak. The ruling culminates a decades-long campaign by conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation, corporate trade associations, and assorted right-wing think tanks. It is "grounded" in the 14th Amendment, which was specifically intended to establish the rights of former slaves.

And what of these corporate "persons?" For instance, when a person sells $40 billion of toxic waste that blows up the global economy, bets on who dies first, declares an emergency to accept government help, and amasses the world's largest fortune in the process, we generally hound them to the ends of the Earth and relieve them of their accounts. Yet this comic book supervillain has a name: Goldman-Sachs. The Supreme Court has announced this psychopathic "person" has the same rights accorded to me by the Constitution. Actually, it has more rights than we do: corporations quite literally get away with murder. Blackwater, too is now a "person."

This happy state of affairs comes courtesy of a movement Thomas has abetted his entire adult life. They said, 'be afraid of Big Brother!' while endowing little brothers with unelected and unaccountable power. To this end Thomas has said much of a "right to life;" but his movement has designed a world in which that right ends at birth, leaving us all on our own against the little brothers.

I find Cal Thomas to be a contradiction, or at least a moral inconsistency.


Adding: apologies for my lack of attention here lately. I've been busy.

Decision approaches in Uganda

The Ugandan Parliament now looks likely to pass the draconian anti-homosexuality law which has recently been widely discussed around the internet. According to Avaaz.org:

The bill proposes life imprisonment for anyone convicted of having same-sex relations and imposes the death penalty for “serial offenders”. NGOs working to prevent the spread of HIV could be imprisoned for up to 7 years for “promoting homosexuality”. Even members of the public face up to three years in jail if they fail to report homosexual activity to the police within 24 hours!

It is still possible that international condemnation could deter the Ugandan government from passing this. Avaaz's petition is here.

Thanks to DemWit for the information.

Tea-Partying, the Myth of Intellectual Progress, Bipartisanship, and Sister Sarah

What’s depressing about the Tea-Folk is how ahistorical they seem – in spite of all the Revolutionary War paraphernalia and symbolism, a lot of what I hear coming from them could only be the result of nearly total ignorance of American history, economics, and just about everything else. They evidently believe that their multidirectional ranting substitutes for genuine reflection. I call it what it is: fashionable cynicism spiked with jump-up-and-down-at-the-tinfoil-rally enthusiasm.

A contradiction at the heart of modern conservatism (allowing for some exceptions) is that the right almost invariably opposes any assertion of authority on the government’s part if it’s meant to help anybody, but they almost invariably support all assertions of authority on the government’s part so long as that authority is directed against the people. Provided that the feds are wiretapping or torturing or clandestinely imprisoning, they should be able to do it without having to deal with annoying chatter about rights or freedoms, but let someone propose to improve access to health care for ordinary citizens, and that’s a socialist projectile aimed at the heart our liberties. This contradiction renders much of what comes from the American right as incoherent in its articulation as it is pernicious and cruel in its tendencies. Libertarians may be naïve about the virtues of untrammeled capitalism, but at least they’re ideologically consistent; one can’t say the same about the Tea-Baggers.

The growth of ’Baggery as a movement shouldn’t surprise us. There is little or no progress in the history of ideas. It’s a mistake to suppose that any idea has ever been permanently consigned to the ash-heap of history: there’s always a new crop of people whose heads are as empty as a dry teapot and easily filled to the brim with the same old nonsense – in this case, the Randian myth of the absolute individual, the blockheaded assertion that all government is inherently evil and unnecessary, or the myth of the pure free market. The same stale rhetoric based upon outmoded ideas unmediated by historical experience is easily recycled for a new generation, and it works on millions since it hits them with the force of a newly articulated idea. How many of these guvmint-bashers and pro-marketeers do you suppose have ever heard of Adam Smith, much less knew that he was a moral philosopher or read his 1776 masterpiece, The Wealth of Nations?

Nothing could be more revealing about the Tea-Types than speaker Sarah’s use at the Convention of a line I think all of us have come to associate with Trollerei: to paraphrase, “So how’s that hope and change thing workin’ out for ya?” Since originally posting a version of this piece as a comment, I’ve read that the actual line was much better – “hopey changey.” That this woman is considered competent to run for national office by even a sizeable minority testifies to the poverty of our civic life and educational system. I have seen nothing in her performances that indicates comprehension or maturity beyond the level of a particularly unpleasant middle-school student. I don’t like writing in such terms about a public figure, but her repeated insults directed at the president – a man a hundred times her better in any number of ways -- compels me to call her conduct what it is: juvenile.

Finally, the same disdain goes out to the Republican Rogues’ Gallery in Congress. I wish President Obama would stop claiming to know that certain right-wing Republicans “love America.” Getting misty-eyed when the National Anthem is sung at a ball game isn’t enough: love of country demands genuine regard for your country’s institutions and for its actual inhabitants. The faction I’m referencing have made it clear by their conduct that they care nothing for the old woman who needs health care urgently, or the child whose future may depend on a decent education, or the consumer who’s been fleeced, or the worker who can’t find anything to do. The worst crime, as far as they are concerned, is not the excessive taxation they so often decry or the over-regulation they deplore, it’s to spend any of the vast wealth collected from millions of ordinary citizens on those same citizens or to try to keep corrupt monopolists from defrauding them.

The nation’s wounds, under such people’s tenure, would be declared the result of a pre-existing condition and denied Mr. Lincoln’s “binding up,” and the soldier’s “widow and his orphan” might as well pack their bags for the nether regions at once, for all the consideration they’re likely to get from such unconscionable, filibustering louts. I ask the president kindly to stop pretending that this gaggle of obstructionist buzzards are on our side or that they are even amenable to democratic process. Much more appropriate would be an FDR-style welcoming of their hatred and a determination to proceed on the mandate bestowed in 2008.

PS – this is an augmented version of a comment I made on Capt. Fogg’s recent post.

Hopey Changey

Can you believe there's a website called teleprompterpresident.com? The local trailer parks echo with teleprompter jokes, there are more teleprompter jokes clogging up blog comments than there are clumps of fat in Rush Limbaugh's arteries and that chattering little chipmunk Palin just can't let go of that chewy chestnut. I wonder was Abe Lincoln only a charismatic guy with some scrap paper? Yes, he was to be sure, but not only and the Small Government Conservatives slandered and murdered him anyway.

But of course the mini-skirt Moose Mom doesn't know, and doesn't care that you might know that the first time the electric note cards were used was at the 1952 Republican Convention by former President Herbert Hoover. It was the first one ever televised of course and he did it again in 1956. Whether he was charismatic or not I will leave to you and to Sarah Snickers, but Eisenhower used one from 1952 and virtually every other president, candidate and TV talking head pundit has used one too at various levels of charisma.

That's right, George W. Bush used a Teleprompter, there he is in the picture, although I'm told "that's different" by the snarksters and flim-flam bloggers and if you remember the TV Debates, Bush even wore some kind of device worn on his back. So it's hard to know what Governor Barbie had in mind, but it's clear she doesn't feel threatened by anyone who knows more than she does -- which is most of us -- because like most irresponsible pseudo-conservative snarko-terrorists, she's always surrounded by the like-mindless who think she's a genius.

Maybe if George had used one more often or had been able to read along with the moving words, he wouldn't have given us such delights as "the childrens is learning" but we'd be so much poorer without such things as part of our culture, or whatever remains of one.

So, yes The president is a charismatic man, which of course is required for political success in the age of Television, but that's a bit like saying he's a man who wears shoes. Compared to the most educated of recent Republican candidates he's a bit more than Charismatic and of course note cards or not , when he speaks he says something -- and in respectable English as well.

But when one really can't be described as anything more than political junk food, and that's the kindest thing I can say about Sarah Palin the human Twinkie; when you're a tasteless confection of sugar, oil and starch with no ability to do anyone any good, the best you can do is just what she does. Well never mind about the hope and change -- you're hopeless and intransigent. You abandoned Alaska leaving them with record debt and some incoherent story, but it was all about a better offer, wasn't it? So isn't that all you are -- a mendacious mediocrity and charismatic candidate for What Not To Wear -- with notes scribbled on your palm?

So hows that wiggly giggly thing working out for ya, Sarah?