Vote, or get teabagged - your choice

Haven't voted yet? What the hell is wrong with you?

I believe I've mentioned the media narrative that certain parties (* ahem * GOP) are trying to promote. And if you believe that nonsense, you'll believe anything.

Other people are trying to push the "common wisdom" of voter apathy (and, sadly, there's some evidence to back that up).

And they'll try anything, up to and including trying to push the false narrative that you shouldn't vote to "send a message to Washington."

Let me tell you what happens if the Republicans gain a solid majority. First, they continue to do nothing - that's your tax dollars getting wasted by Republicans who want to prove that government doesn't work.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. On the eve of midterms elections that could make him House Speaker, John Boehner announced, "This is not a time for compromise." His lieutenant Mike Pence (R-IN) echoed that line, declaring that with a new Republican majority "there will be no compromise" with President Obama and the Democrats. Of course, with their record-setting use of the filibuster, unprecedented obstruction of presidential nominees, and unified no votes on almost every major piece of legislation, the past performance of Congressional Republicans is a guarantee of future results.

On the other hand, what can happen if they don't get a stranglehold on the government?

Well, we can get this oligarchical Citizens United ruling changed. Can DADT get canned? A little more difficult - but Obama can just do it unilaterally in his second term. Comprehensive immigration reform? Not going to happen under a Republican.

Now, go to this website (apparently set up by Tony Soprano), find your polling place, and do it! Don't let the idiots win.

"Obama Hasn't Accomplished A Damn Thing": Oh Yeah?

Proudly lifted from NEWS JUNKIE POST:

There are a few excellent resources where the victories of Change and Reform have been assembled on the internet, including the Democratic Change Update (reposted on News Junkie Post), the 244 Accomplishments of Obama, and the Things Obama Has Done page on Facebook.

While the mainstream media narrative has been dominated by right wing and Tea Party talking points, many of the fundamental changes in direction of this country have not received the attention they deserve. Now in one day, the very politicians who venomously opposed these reforms, the very people who want to take America back to the days of Bush are poised to retake the US House of Representatives. They are banking on the short attention span of voters, so share this list liberally!

Following are the "chapter headings" with categories further defined under each heading - by the bucket fulls.
And being good liberals, there are links to back up each and everyone of them.

Banking and Financial Reform
Civil Rights
Commerce, Trade and technology
Conservation
Economy
Education: College
Education: Health of Children
Employment: Jobs
Energy: Green
Energy: Old
Energy: Oil
Foreign Affairs and International Relations
Government Efficiency
Health and Wellness
Health Care Reform (See also Taxes)
Housing
Humanitarianism
Immigration
Infrastructure
Labor
Law and Justice
Medicaid/Medicare/Social Security
Military and National Security
Military Veterans and Families
National Disasters and Emergencies
National Service
Scientific and Medical Research
Space Exploration and Space Station
Taxes
Transparency and Accountability
Recovery, Progress and Change
Miscellaneous



IMPORTANT NOTICE: DEMOCRATS WHO DON'T VOTE ARE NO BETTER THAN YELLOW BLUE DOGS. IF THE CRAZIES WIN, THE ENTIRE COUNTRY LOSES. DINOS ARE TO DEMOCRATS WHAT THE TEA PARTY IS TO LOVE AND HONOR.*

VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT NEAR YOU

IT IS YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY

This is just my opinion and may not reflect the views of The Swash Zone. TnLib

On Moderation: KO, Jon Stewart and the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

I'm usually supportive of Jon Stewart and I like Colbert too, but I want to offer a few thoughts on their rally at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.  And then there are those feisty tweets about the rally by none other than Keith Olbermann, to which I'll refer very briefly below.

The runup to the Restore Sanity event was predicated, I think, on the notion that if we could only get the extremists on both sides to pipe down, we could have a civil conversation about matters that are important to individuals and to the country as a whole. That's unavoidable as a justification of Stewart's brand of comedy -- he can't appear to support one political party or movement exclusively. He talks to people as if they were rational adults with the capacity to appreciate the silliness of political posturing and cheap rhetoric. While I don't for one minute credit the notion that an overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens are rational adults -- too many of them seem poised to vote for manifest imbeciles, ignoramuses, bigots, homophobes, and wild-eyed promoters of secession or worse to make that supposition believable -- if one doesn't posit something similar at least as an ideal or goal, we might as well admit that we can't hope to govern ourselves, that the grand experiment of the Founders was pointless. I don't suppose many of us would be pleased to make such an admission. Churchill's witticism about democracy being "the worst form of government except for all the others" still resonates with us.

One brief segment of Stewart's The Daily Show during the runup was instructive -- a series of vignettes in which six people chosen to go on a bus tour to the rally fail to transform themselves for the cameras into the sort of hacks and ogres whose ranting makes for good political fare. (Nice people may go to the theater just as Ian McKellen says, but they don't make for very good theater themselves.) Staged as it was, the series made Stewart's point: whatever the percentages, many people, at least, aren't ultrapolitical goons or raving fanatics; they're willing to treat their fellow citizens like equals and would prefer not to savage or dehumanize them. They have decent manners, want others to like them, and don't care for confrontation or violence. That characterization applies to the people in my own circle, and honestly, I haven't run into any full-on crazies lately (outside my television screen).

Still, if you don't mind a bit of contradictory meandering, another segment of the same show seems equally instructive: the one in which Stewart's editors put together an audio-video montage of all those supposed extreme-talkers on the left and right, neatly equalizing them. The trouble is, they are not anything like equal. That is where I must agree with the audacious KO, Keith Olbermann and his persnickety tweets about the logic underlying Stewart's rally: Olbermann and Company are not the equivalent of the motor-mouths coming at us from the extreme right. Outspoken liberals sometimes exaggerate and make much of little, but the right-wingers fabricate without conscience or remorse; liberals are in general eminently sane and humane, while the rightists are little more than squirming bags of appetite, irrationality, and, at times, even bloodlust. They betray no signs of consistent lucidity.

In this sense, the Great Middle Hypothesis is flawed because it posits that you can calculate a genuinely moderate position between two extant extremes raving at you through your TV box or laptop screen. If you follow this notion, you'll end up doing rhetorical battle with both hands tied behind your back. If you denounce or mock the patent absurdities of the other side, you'll be labeled an extremist, and of course (as KO reminds us) that other side will by no means "tone it down." It will just scream louder and play the bully with ever greater ferocity. Whenever the far right sounds reasonable, it's merely a tactic, sort of like a boxer's feint just before he clobbers you. Fundamentally, these people's worldview is cruel, paranoid, and illogical; for them, reason never is, nor can it be, anything more than a ruse. We forget that at our peril.

So while I like Jon Stewart and appreciate his wit, his persistent calls for middle-America-style "sanity" and moderation seem to me too easily transformed, tamed, or translated into our fabled liberal wishy-washiness in the face of an ill-intentioned opponent. Nice people are petrified of being labeled radicals, while rightists embrace such definitions. They have that over low-talking, reasonable libs. All of this is why I'm careful not to put too much intellectual stock in the rhetoric of civility and moderation, even though I don't want to dismiss it.

But I'm just a predatory dinosaur with huge, jagged teeth. What do I know about civility? What do you think?

HAPPY CEPHALAWEEN!

ANOTHER SWASH ZONE HALLOWEEN

Artist Ray Villafane began carving pumpkins on a lark for his art students in a small rural school district in Michigan. The hobby changed his life as he gained a following online and unlocked his genuine love of sculpting. Here are images of pumpkin carvings Villafane created over the years:

WHAT A TANGLED WEB WE WEAVE…

I was sent a link to an article (h/t to my brother Frank) that absolutely floored me. I shouldn’t be surprised as I have lately been ruminating over the corporate takeover of America. But this is so blatantly obvious it is shocking. For those of you who followed my previous articles on Arizona Draconia Part 1 and Part 2, I asked the rhetorical question, “What DID prompt the Draconian measures enacted by the Arizona governor and legislature?”

Laura Sullivan, investigative reporter for NPR has given me the answer and it is horrifying. Ms Sullivan has done a thorough job of tracking this story and doing all the background research HERE.

Glen Nichols, city manager of Benson, AZ gives an account of being visited last year by a couple of guys from the private prison industry.

‘Nichols said. "He's a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman."
What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants.
"They talk [about] how positive this was going to be for the community," Nichols said, "the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate."’

To his credit, Nichols turned them down but that didn’t curb the enthusiasm of state legislators, including Sen. Russell Pearce (R-Mesa) who was instrumental in drafting Arizona’s immigration legislation.

All of this was orchestrated by a shadowy group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) whose members include state legislators and powerful corporations like Reynolds American, Exxon and the NRA. This group is also responsible for bringing together Sen. Pearce and Corrections Corporation of America last December in a Washington, DC hotel.
While Sen. Pearce is in “deny, deny, deny” mode, there is mounting evidence that “Thirty of the 36 co-sponsors received donations over the next six months, from prison lobbyists or prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America, Management and Training Corporation and The Geo Group.”

Part 2 of Ms Sullivan’s article is an indepth follow up on ALEC and how it operates.

This is so reminiscent of actions taken by tyrannical regimes through the ages which always resulted in tragic consequences. It is scary and depressing.

Welcome to Corporate Amerika!

I thought it fitting to end this post by paraphrasing George Santayana, a Spanish born AMERICAN author:

“Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.”

ARMAGEDDON REDUX

(Note:  This is an encore post, not by request or popular demand,

but for the sheer hell of it. Tuesday is Election Day. Need I say more.)

Armageddon is getting a bad rap these days, and perhaps it is time to stop the gratuitous and shameless stereotyping of all things apocalyptic. First, I must correct a common misconception. All usages of the word ‘Armageddon’ assume there can only be one final cataclysmic event followed by no other; hence the word is capitalized and singular in every instance. If you don’t believe me, trying turning the word into a lower case plural without getting an error message in rude red MS Word underscore. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

In fact, there is much diversity in the Kingdom of Armageddon whose inhabitants come in all shapes and sizes, all denominations, all affiliations and persuasions. There are armageddons [sic] of the Earth by tremor and magma; armageddons [sic] of the sky that rain meteors and boiled frogs; and armageddons [sic] that emerge from the sea in the stealth of night and leave telltale hickeys.

There is the Armageddon of healthcare reform that will eat your baby and kill your grandmother; the Armageddon of imbedded microchips hidden under folds that beep in the night; the Manchurian Anti-Christ who will seize your guns and confiscate your property; and Armageddons of war, famine, Bird flue, Swine flu, fast foods and soda pop, anorexic Barbie dolls, and rock-n-roll. Finally, don’t forget the End Times of Apocalypstick Palin, Human Mouse Brain O’Donnell, the Swastika Cross Dressing Id-Iott, and ubiquitous Kochroaches everywhere!

Shall we fear the dreaded Armageddon? It lives among us in our towns and villages. It fills our church pews and voting booths. Perhaps we should accept Armageddon as merely one more force of nature that sends human lemmings over the cliff and restores the natural balance. Armageddon is plagiarism masquerading as hyperbole, and the night will sweat with terror as before we rubbed shoulders with delusional nincompoops hearing voices in their heads.

Bring on the dreaded Armageddon!  Why put off the inevitable!  Besides, you can always hedge your bets and invest in Plutonomy Stocks. *

* A hat tip to His Edginess.

John Shelby Spong

There have been times when I've sided with some of our 'founding fathers' in contempt for the religious practitioners who have conflated that poor, unsuccessful, would-be Jewish leader into a re-incarnation of Thor and the mouthpiece for their own miserable and ignorant minds. Ok, it's been more than many times and the Jesus I hear about most often is merely the blunt instrument in the hands of the angry and the ugly and the stupid.

Yes, I've read Dom Crossan and the Jesus Seminar people, but since he still implies that I'm the village idiot for not believing that the man he portrays as a man is more than a man, he only gets a partial pass from me. But then, on occasion, I bump into people like Bishop Shelby Spong who would restore that humanism, that tolerance that was amputated when Christianity was refashioned in the age of Constantine onwards, to its original place.

Of course I disagree profoundly about the nature of things, but about the nature of what we think and do and do to others, he restoreth something in me, even if it's not quite faith.

Sergeant Dino's Lonely Votes Club Band, or, the Case of the Simple Saurus v. the Professor

Economics Professor Casey B. Mulligan of the U of Chicago has published a blog entry in the 10/27/2010 NY TIMES entitled, "Assessing the Power of One at the Polls."  Now, I am only a simple dinosaur and not an economics professor, but I would suggest that one's analysis can be correct in terms of stats and probabilities, but still leave much to be said. The gist of the article is that while a sense of civic responsibility or even enjoyment may be valid reasons to get out and vote, candidates are talking foolishness when they insist that they can't win without your lonely little vote.

The professor is right, of course: your favorite candidates aren't likely to win or lose by a single vote. They're probably more likely to get hit by lightning on a sunny day or bitten by a shark in the community swimming pool. But here's the thing: when you join a political party or even register as an Independent, you're being asked to consider yourself not simply as an individual but instead as a member of a much larger unit. In this "group-think" context, motivation matters a great deal -- high motivation generates turnout, which is what determines the electoral fate of candidates. Voting is a collective endeavor in which masses of individuals, together, generate a large effect. The party that motivates its members to realize this Simple-Dino fact will probably win.

Perhaps everyone is unique in some ways, but we are not unique in the context I'm talking about here -- millions of our party's members may wake up on election morning tired, frazzled, dispirited, overworked and underpaid, influenced by the dire (or sunny) projections of various news outlets.  In other words, we'll feel much the same way for the same reasons. And millions of us will face the same decision -- "am I going to vote, or let the day pass?" (I'm leaving aside the early vote option, but there's no real difference -- you'll either do that, or let the chance slip by in slow motion.) How we decide as a group will generate an impact thousands, even millions, of times larger than that of any individual's choice. So if you care about whether or not your party (or the party you lean towards) ends up constituting the majority, make your decision in favor of taking part in the process, and don't worry about whether your one vote matters.

SHOCKING INCOME INEQUALITY REPORT DROWNED BY MEDIA NOISE

As our mainstream media continues to abuse us with nonsensical blow-by-blow accounts by blowhard headline-grabbing louts, this story received scant attention:

Scary New Wage Data

As millions of Americans lost jobs, homes, and life savings in the Great Recession of 2009, the highest-paid earners saw their average incomes rise more than five-fold in a single year. According to new data, the 74 highest income earners – the uppermost income bracket as measured by the Social Security Administration -- saw their average incomes skyrocket from $91.8 million in 2008 to a staggering $518.8 million in 2009:

These 74 people earned an average of $10 million -- per week. Meanwhile, half of all American wage earners, or about 75 million people, earned less than $505 per week.

An abrupt change in tax and economic policies started under the Reagan administration, conflated by Bush era tax cuts, made this possible. Three decades of Reaganomics have crippled the base of the income ladder while adding a burdensome weight at the top. The result is an unstable and unsustainable structure awaiting collapse.

Meanwhile the Republican Party and their tea party rabble are clamoring for more tax cuts and an indiscriminate dismantling of the social safety net for middle class Americans.  If our mainstream media had done a better job of informing the public, perhaps voters would be making more intelligent choices this November.  Fat chance!

Gays R Us

No, really, gays are us. No matter which stereotype one insists fits a group as disparate as mankind in general, it's impossible to separate it from one's own prejudices. If there's any appearance of unanimity, it may be that people tend to vote their own interests and support candidates that promise to advance those interests, but Gays are conservative, liberal, libertarian and any other blurry concepts we use to muddy the political waters. So when AP rattles our cage and asks us to worry that the dissatisfaction of gay Americans with the lack of progress the current administration has made with respect to protecting their equality will cause them not to vote at all or commit political seppuku by voting for Republicans, I have to wonder if they aren't trying to create a self-fulfilling prophecy here or at least cashing in on the fear of jumping back out of the pan and into the fire.

"Some fear that gay voters angry over pace of gains might sit out election"

blares the headline. Some fear the Andromeda galaxy will smash into us any day now. That's a cheap ploy more worthy of Fox than AP, as is the use of quotes from a handful of individuals to stand in for the voice of a huge group that doesn't speak unanimously anyway -- but still, we all know there is frustration.

Will that frustration provoke people for whom DADT is a thorn in the side or who advocate the right to marry one of the same sex to choose candidates in the same main stream that opposed voting rights for women and minorities, the right to marry outside one's race, to get a room at The Breakers or a seat in the front of the bus? Perhaps one of those right wingers who blame every storm, every shift in tectonic plates on allowing gay people the right not to be stoned in the public square?

Gay people also care, I would presume, about the economic charade that collapsed the economy, the lawless and predatory markets, the wars and the erosion of rights that they were meant to justify. They care about government intrusion into our privacy, government control by corporate interests and all the other things we all, rightly or wrongly care about. They care about pulling the economy out of the nosedive the previous pilot put it into as much as any American. If they have an "agenda" as the bigots assert, it sure looks like it involves life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as much as anyone elses and the agenda of those selling the idea that they are different and dangerous certainly has to do with something completely different.

Teabaggers everywhere

So, as we approach November, everybody's watching the biggest clowns - the Nazi fanboy in Ohio, the militia supporter in Alaska who has reporters beaten for asking questions, and (certainly my favorite) the Delaware Trainwreck herself, the performance-art-made-flesh, Christine O'Donnell (I mean, can you beat a 40-year-old unmarried woman who's vocally, violently opposed to masturbation? She's either a liar, or more twisted than a Catholic priest in a room full of altar boys).

As time goes on, the Teabaggers are gradually proving themselves to be both blatantly racist and the last true descendants of John Birch. (I mean, come on! This is the public face of the Tea Party - what is it that they aren't willing to say in public?) But what midgets are hiding behind the massive sacks of crap in the front?

Well, for that, we should probably turn to that unfettered fount of fecal matter, Sarah Palin. So what lesser-known candidates does she like?

Sean Bielat for Massachusetts’ 4th Congressional District

It's hard to tell much about Bielat. He stays pretty well under the radar. He has been smart enough to release a viral video about Barney Frank, but that's about it.

Of course, Barney Frank is every Republican's worst nightmare. He's an effective, sarcastic, openly-gay Democrat - he gives them nightmares. They'd pretty much back Satan Himself against Frank, if they thought He had a chance of winning. ("Of course He's a good church-going person! Just ask his minister, the Reverend LeVey!")

(Are you supposed to capitalize the pronouns referring to Satan? I'm not even clear where you'd go to look that up, but I suspect you don't...)

Butch Otter for Governor of Idaho

Wow. So the man's first elected position was two terms with the Idaho House of Representatives. Then he was on the Idaho Republican Party Central Committee and Chairman of the Canyon County Republican Party. He served four terms as Lieutenant Governor, three terms in Congress, and he's been governor of Idaho since 2007. I thought the Tea Party was opposed to career politicians?

You know, as a convicted drunk driver himself, he's awfully hard on aides who get caught for the same offense. But it's obvious why Sarah likes him: he gets off on killing wolves too.

Stephen Fincher for Tennessee’s 8th Congressional District

An interesting choice for Ms. Palin. He takes potentially illegal campaign loans, but considering Palin's history with campaign funds (and, you know, $150,000 wardrobes that are still unaccounted for), that one would be easy for her to overlook. Fincher has refused to comment. On any issue.

But then, Sarah supports that idea, too. Because it was when she actually spoke to people that she got in trouble. Better to avoid speaking entirely...

Randy Hultgren for Illinois’ 14th Congressional District

Randy is another cipher. He talks a great game, but...

See, here's the thing. He's running against Bill Foster. An acknowledged science wonk, known for being a true centrist, more interested in the people and the result than in sheer partisan bickering. To most people, you'd think this would be a good thing. But to Sarah Palin, he's the Black Hole of Evil.

A true centrist is the last thing she wants. Someone who pays attention to the realities of a situation, and not the political implications? She can't have that! We must have strict partisan divides!

This is pretty much what Sarah does. She supports ciphers who've said they support any kind of stupid right-wing crap, as long as it gets them elected. But Sarah doesn't always go with that "due diligence" thing. You know, like in an earlier list, where Sarah plugged a "great" West Virginian candidate, John Raese.

She supported Raese for a while now (you know, despite the fact that even his wife won't be voting for him), although... well, OK, she was giving her support to him for a race where he wasn't running. She thought he was from Pennsylvania, as it shows in this Twitter post that she has since scrubbed from her website.But it's an understandable mistake. After all, for Raese's West Virginia political ad, he went to Philadelphia, and put out a casting call for "coal miner/trucker" types with "a ‘Hicky’ Blue Collar look."

(Apparently, those types of people are thin on the ground in West Virginia.)

The Unholy Trinity: Beck, O'Donnell, and Palin

A fellow blogger who goes by the handle of Capt. Fogg inspired what began as a comment on his post, Masters of Mendacity, but grew into a post of my own. The Captain's post adroitly dissects the fallacies at the heart of the ongoing proclamations by Palin, O'Donnell, and Beck that feed the clamor from the Tea Party of, "We want our country back." The basic reasoning appears to follow the lines of, "America is a Christian nation, founded by God or at the very least endorsed by God and it (America) must be saved from liberals." One of Palin's latest proclamations is that  that the Constitution tells us that our "Unalienable rights" come from God. Christine O'Donnell has declared that the Constitution isn't merely a legal document but a covenant based on divine principles. Glenn Beck appears to have anointed the Constitution to be his Gospel, and himself as the Second Coming.

They aren't just liars, they are flat out wrong. There is no mention of God or unalienable rights in the Constitution; perhaps Palin, et.al. have confused the Constitution with the Declaration of Independence. That document states, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

What fascinates me about the language regarding unalienable rights is that Jefferson's concerns weren't about worshipping a particular God but about declaring that there were rights inherent to being human that could not be usurped and that the purpose of government was to protect those rights as opposed to curtailing them or taking them away. I think that his use of the term Creator reflected the broader concept that such rights were natural rights, innate rights that were not given but existed without being conferred or bestowed by any government.
Beck, Palin etc. have chosen to harp on this language as proof that this is a Christian nation. Based on the varied writings of Jefferson, Madison and others, I'm of the opinon that the furtherest thing from their intent was founding a Christian nation. I think that a modern debate on this matter fails to understand the worldview of the founders. These men were readers of Locke, Rousseau,Hobbes, and Aristotle. They struggled with the philosophical concepts of who are we and what is our purpose, not some fight over whose God was better. They actually thought about the purpose of government and concluded that it was to serve the people and that the power of the government came from the consent given by the governed.

It was a revolutionary idea, Certainly the English Monarchy didn't recognize its power as coming from the people but viewed its power as God given and superior to the will of the people. The Declaration took that philosophy on with its bold proclamation about unalienable rights endowed by the Creator. It was an assertion against the then ruling idea that the government decided which rights to grant the people and which ones to deny them. It wasn't a proclamation supporting Christianity but a declaration against tyranny.

As for attributing such language to the Constitution, it just raffirms my belief that most of the people shouting about the Constitution as being a covenant based on divine principles have never read the document with even a modicum of comprehension. The Constitution is a secular document that establishes the practices and laws governing the operation of the government. The Preamble states the purpose of the Constitution clearly and succinctly: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. (There are many sites on the Net with info on the Preamble and the rest of the Constitution. I cited to Wikipedia here because it was the best of about a dozen sites that I checked. Up to date, and fully documented.)

Citing the United States Constitution as a religious text makes about as much sense as declaring that my telephone book contains the secrets of the universe.

Masters of mendacity

Sarah Palin says that the Constitution tells us that our "Unalienable rights" come from God. They don't, nor does the Biblical God deviate from the endless list of things he'll incinerate you for long enough to get into life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Ask the Amorites. We're commanded to kill their children or be destroyed by old God-O-love. Ask Job. "Shut up or I'll kill you along with your wife and kids" is far more typical. Freedom to worship or not worship your own gods after your own custom? Freedom to choose your own government? Fughettaboutit. That the authority of Government comes from God and not from the governed is as antithetical to our constitution as an electron is to a positron and as Palin is to Jefferson.

But it's more than just stupidity on her part. It's more than ignorance. It's more than the will to power and the lack of conscience that might prevent a better person from playing upon the passions of the ignorant rabble who listen to her, it's a slap in the face to those who after mankind's long struggle with God appointed kings and heresy trials, the persecution of variant religions, divinely justified genocide and slavery, managed to found a government free of the notion that only God or his self appointed agents can found a legitimate government. Far from being behind the 1789 Constitution, religious conservatives who hadn't already fled to Canada and the Bahamas or back to England, opposed it for Biblical reasons. To oppose George III, rex Dei gratia, was to oppose the will of God and the Bible is the source of that idea, not the enlightenment philosophers of the era.

Sharon Angle says the constitution isn't even about government. "Government isn't what our founding fathers put into the constitution" she says. dumb questions are hardest to answer and dumb assertions of this magnitude are virtually unassailable and those who make them are ineducable, so why try?

But if it's a race for the Master of Mendacity degree, Glenn Beck is ahead of the pack. Commies like Franklin Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson separated us from our history -- were trying "to separate us from our Constitution and God" he tells us -- hoping, I suppose that putting the words next to each other will generate the illusion that a document banning state recognition of religious institutions is somehow the product of religious belief. Are we trying to separate anyone from the law, by interpreting it as supporting freedom of religion, freedom of speech, the freedom to protest and petition and discuss? Are we trying to invent a new history by reading the source documents? Are we trying to separate Beck from whatever bizarre religious beliefs he has or from the magic underwear he wears? Only in his paranoid fantasies.

We're trying to keep him and his cronies and his bronze age taboos out of our religious lives, which although that may be a slap in the face to his imagined God, it's what mine approves of. It's hard to know whether such conniving, power seeking serpents truly believe the apple they offer us is good to eat, but the audience of both these creatures is uneducated, opinionated and as chock full O' nuts as a New York coffee shop. What they don't know is dangerous. What they think they know is calamitous.

What the constitution is about, what it says, what it was meant to accomplish and what the motivations for it were is not a mystery. It's meant to be flexible; to be able to change to suit changing times, but none of the claims made by the dime store revolutionaries in tricorn hats are remotely true. Their concept of freedom resembles the tyranny Jefferson was so passionate to oppose. Their concept of history is a mythology written by enemies of freedom.

Land of the free and the home of the...bully

Is the United States of America going to hell in a hand basket? Have we strayed from the ideals and values which made this country what we like to think it is today: a beacon shining brightly illuminating a world otherwise cold, dark and fearsome? I can't really say. I'll leave discerning the nuance of the zeitgeist to the professionals. I only know about tectonic shifts in our culture and body politic long after they've taken place. But I know for certain that we each of us chooses how we behave and we decide each and every day, multiple times, how we treat one another.

I live in Seattle. Downtown Seattle to be precise, literally across the street from my place of business. My wife is a practicing architect and painter who maintains a studio/office a few blocks from our, yes it's true, loft. We are likely picture postcard worthy examples of Seattle urban liberalism. No car. No kids. Bicycles. Public transit. Enthusiastic recyclers. Avid farmers market habitues. Active in local politics and not-for profit board work and wired into the local music, literary and fine arts communities. Worse yet. But unknown to most, both of us have some background in leftist politics including (but not limited to) collective book stores, cutting sugar in Cuba and various 'do-gooder' experiences working in orphanages in India and Mexico, homeless shelters and soup kitchens. You know the type. Live and let live. Go to work. Pay your taxes.

In other words, irredeemable Stalinist/collectivist/Maoist/tree hugging/weak willed/over-feminized/secular parasites poorly equipped to deal with that great cultural phenomenon growing larger and more powerful day by day.

Real Americans.

My wife visited the Virginia Mason Medical Center first thing yesterday morning for a bit of blood work. Of course before drawing blood medical types prefer the patient fast for twelve hours. And that works better for some than others. Seems a few of us need our morning coffee and toast more than most. Blood sugar levels have behavioral effects. At least I'd like to think so. Cock-eyed optimist I am I'd hate to think some of my fellow citizens are merely assholes.

Sitting quietly in the lab waiting area along with a few others waiting their names called for various procedures, "M" (my spouse), was taking that all too rare opportunity to catch up with People magazine when the scene, shall we say, shifted.

The concept of a man and his cellphone like a man and his car like a man and his gun like a man and his castle is sacrosanct. It's the American way.

So into this quiet waiting room enters seating themselves next to M enter a man and his wife. And his cellphone. The man is a building contractor and one of his jobs (apparently he's a successful building contractor as it almost immediately established there are multiple jobs) has problems. This is shared at rather high volume with the others sitting in the lab waiting area as the man immediately embarks on a series of calls checking up on his minions in the field.

"What do you mean we can't access the site until Tuesday? Assholes! I can drive my truck onto the motherfucker right now if I want"!

"Fuck no. We're done when I say we're done"!

Really. These are a couple of the highlights as reported by M.

Naturally this behavior attracted looks from the folks in the waiting room. They were of course intrigued by this display of one of the newer theories in physics, that is, the center of the universe is not a fixed point but rather a series of points in constant motion depending on where this contractor happens to be at any given moment in time. Multiply this by some as yet incalculable factor as the contractor is not the only agent acting in this manner and one quickly sees the enormity of the problem

M is tough. While she is likely the friendliest person I know who (she likes to make one new friend of a stranger at every social event she attends) nonetheless is not shy about speaking her mind. She, like me, is also a bit of a stickler when it comes to manners and behavior in public places. Call her old-fashioned (or worse as it turns out) but talking loudly on the cellphone in public really is...rude.

So M politely asked Mr. Contractor to please take his conversation outside.

"Mind your own fucking business, bitch!" Now I appreciate as well as the next business person that in today's work harder to earn less cutthroat economic environment one is under a lot of pressure. Still his response strikes me as a bit extreme.

Things got worse. M turned in her seat to pick up her belongings in order to leave when the guy smacked her upside the head with a rolled-up newspaper. His wife got up out of her chair and moved in as well. Standing by your man is a character trait of this breed.

In the nick of time a security guard arrived. Within seconds backup appeared and everyone from the lab had come out to the waiting room to see what the hubbub was. The security guys separated Mr. Contractor and his frau from M and began the task of sorting the mess out. Not leaving well enough alone Mr. Contractor started in on the security guy.

"I'm an American and this still is a free country. And I have a right to use my cellphone. Jesus I hate having to come into Seattle and put up with this shit."

The security guy informed the constitutional law expert that he could switch off the phone and tone things down right then and there or he could leave the hospital property under escort. He then asked M if she wished to press charges.

Of course the answer to that question was no (rats!). The situation defused, folks settled in with their books and newspapers and the volume decreased dramatically. M went in and had her blood drawn and all seemed once again right with the world.

After, M, having fasted for going on fourteen hours went downstairs to the clinic cafe for coffee and a muffin. Sadly, Mr. Contractor and his wife soon appeared in the near empty cafe. They choose a table immediately next to where M was having her breakfast and seated themselves, Mr. Contractor extracted his mobile from a pocket and punched in a number.

I'm just sayin'

I know a country that one would think was a Capitalist paradise. No income taxes. No property taxes. A weak central government. Restrictive, nativist, immigration policies that effectively keep minorities from working legally or getting citizenship. There's a "Christian Values" clause in the constitution. Banking regulation is extremely lax.

It's the Bahamas and it's a third world country. Most of the nation's wealth is owned by a small handful of people and the obligatory multinational corporations. Nothing trickles down but the rain and there's little of that in the dry season. There's not as much reason to invest when it can just sit there and accumulate tax free. The basics like food, water and shelter are quite expensive, unemployment is tremendous.

I'm just sayin'. . .

But of course they do have a certain level of government backed health insurance for those who aren't privately insured and a Social Security like program, so that must be why they're an underdeveloped and poverty stricken country, right? I knew I'd find a reason.

REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE CALLS FOR VIOLENT INSURRECTION

The biggest problam facing America today. .

. . . is pornography. Well at least it has been according to orators at several Republican national conventions in recent memory. It's possible that such things are motivated by a Christian analogue of another right wing obsession: Sharia law, and it's possible that it was a smokescreen to divert attention from other core policies like borrowing on the promise of self funding tax cuts. One thing is clear, Politicians tend to be a randy lot, but Conservative males love porn the way they love money and women: they want it all for themselves.

Remember Ken Starr who wanted to make it a crime to use the word "breast" on the Internet but spent millions and wrote endless words, even on the Internet, about Bill Clinton's penis, Monica Lewinsky's cigar and related subjects? Yes, I know, Democrats like porn too and cheat on their wives and are hypocrites and all that as I'm sure someone will assure me to obscure the fact that they haven't been on a moral crusade for those nebulous but normative "family values" for decades. I've had all the contrived and deceptive equivalences I need for now, thank you.

Which brings me to Clarance Thomas. It was the equivalent of a lynching, said he when accusations were leveled by another conservative that he'd offered her a Coke with pubic hair on it, even though she had little reason to lie and had complained to the FBI only in private. Anita Hill was branded a Liberal, although she wasn't and isn't, in a fashion far more evocative of a lynching than the sworn testimony against Justice Thomas. It seems now that Lillian McEwen, a former girlfriend of the distinguished Justice says he was "obsessed with porn," and often made inappropriate sexual comments about and unwanted advances toward women in his office and she's kept quiet until now. She confirms, for instance, that he asked women about their breast size when at work.

McEwan was, in fact, given as a character witness by Thomas, to show that he had a regular relationship and wasn't the rude, sex-obsessed, predatory little creep he was alleged to be by more than one accuser. Too bad she wasn't called to testify under oath because, as we read in the Washington Post: in her soon to be published memoir, she confirms our suspicions.

Perhaps it was knowledge that the book contained such damning information that prompted his wife's odd early morning call to Anita Hill, but I don't think she need fear that he'll lose his job or reputation when the accusation of LIBERAL still carries the power that the accusation of WITCH used to have in centuries past. We're stuck with an overgrown adolescent and liar on the highest court. We may all have his pubic hair in all the wrong places and we don't have a hell of a lot of choice but to drink from the can.

Kristian Kraziness In Karolina

This has been pretty much a local event which most of us are used to here in the Bible Belt so I haven't paid it too much mind until I read about it HERE on Yahoo news and realized, like the nutjob in Florida, we have gone national.

Since it has hit a national audience, I guess it is time to comment. The city of King is located outside the city of Winston Salem, NC. Neither city is that large but they are both bustling little communities. They are also the kind of towns where you'll find supporters of God, Country and Glen Beck in abundance.

The little town of King has a public war memorial where names are engraved and flags fly. Not long ago a veteran noticed the so-called "Christian Flag" flying at the memorial and he complained about it to the ACLU. This brave man who fought for his country thought the local government should uphold and honor the First Amendment separating church from state. The city, when faced with a lawsuit they would most assuredly lose, took the flag down.

And then the firestorm began as the Kristian Krazies came out of the woodwork spouting off about losing their religious freedoms (although I haven't seen one church shut down or one church event cancelled) and their constitutional freedoms (ironic isn't it that they wish to quell the very Amendment which gives them the right to annoy the rest of us).

So now they are camping out at the site, flying their flag on a wooden pole and having a regular party out there. At least they're all in one place where the law can keep an eye on them.

I need an alternative universe...

THE NEW JIM CROW: PROJECTION, PROPAGANDA, AND ACCUSATIONS OF VOTER FRAUD

Projection is a standard propaganda technique: Accuse your opponents of misdeeds (the ones you are doing but not your opponents); accuse your opponents first to catch them off guard; and repeat your accusation in public enough times to imprint the message and give yourself political cover. It is the SOP of the GOP raised to a fine art and reiterated during every election cycle: Accuse the Democrats of voter fraud (as you fraudulently and illegally disenfranchise minority voters who are most likely to vote for Democrats).

Dick Armey is the master manipulator of projection and propaganda:



As Talking Points Memo explains:

Appearing on Fox News this afternoon, he told Neil Cavuto that Democrats vote early because there's "less ballot security," creating a "great opportunity" for fraud. He also claimed that such fraudulent early voting is "pinpointed to the major urban areas. The inner city."

Republicans and others on the right, as we've reported extensively, often make high-pitched claims of Democrat-operated voter fraud, arguing that Dems focus on minority areas. Such claims rarely bare out, but the fear of voter fraud can lead to voter suppression.

This is the same Dick Armey, the same infamous astroturfing puppet master of the Tea Party movement, who taught thugs and hooligans how to disrupt town hall meetings, intimidate citizens, and shut down public debates.  As one of those early voters, I am OFFENDED by his remark, and I want Dick Armey to feel the rage boiling inside of me in reaction to the tea party rage that he unleashed ... to abuse us.  Indeed, I feel abused and more than ready to lash out in kind.

Meanwhile, his foot soldiers commit voter fraud with impunity.  Here is what Dick Armey’s propaganda campaign has accomplished, Eyewitnesses Report Intimidation By Texas Poll Watchers:

"The two poll watchers hovered behind, and then after the poll worker left to let the woman vote, both of the poll watchers stood behind this woman the entire time while she was voting," Haver explained.

That's the type of tactics that poll watchers are accused of in Harris County, where other news reports had said poll watchers were accused of "hovering over" voters, "getting into election workers' faces" and blocking or disrupting lines of voters who were waiting to cast their ballots.

This is the SOP of the GOP: Accuse your opposition of election fraud while caging voters and using intimidation tactics to rig elections. Accuse your opposition first to cover your tracks. Repeat the message loud enough and long enough on Fox News to rile the village idiots bearing pitchforks. The time is long overdue for the Civil Rights Division of the DOJ to show some spine, investigate, expose, and prosecute the low-life scum.