Just let it die

“Well what I want them to know is just like, John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa. That’s the kind of spirit that I have, too,”

-Michelle Bachmann on Fox News-

John Wayne, I never really liked him; not as an actor and particularly not as something he attempted to portray off the stage: a patriot. No, the only uniform he ever wore came from the costume department at Republic Studios, the folks who got him his 2A draft status during WW II because it would have meant lost profits had he followed so many actors into the military.

But of course by the time the Vietnam war became a tragi-comic opera, he was a Hollywood soldier of long standing, fond of telling many of us we weren't real Americans because we didn't quite see the glory of the whole thing.

So leave it to Michelle Bachmann to claim she's channeling his "spirit" -- whatever that might be. Whether that consists of telling us we're not real Americans because we dare to measure the age of things or don't accept the Biblical nonsense about the "waters" above and below the Earth I don't know, but there are few things that amuse me more than the trolls, public and private, who present their limitations and disabilities and delusions as their strength. Haven't we all had people tell us ungrammatically how stupid we are and spell stupid wrong? Petty irony it is indeed, but then such little moments of irony may provide the most satisfaction one can expect in our kind of times. It costs too much to care any more.

So should we laugh at Michelle for confusing Winterset, Iowa, birthplace of John Wayne (nee Marion Morrison) with Waterloo, Iowa, birthplace of John Wayne Gacy who strangled little boys and buried them in his crawl space? The entire pandemonium of journalists, bloggers and blowhards has been going at it since yesterday morning. Go ahead and join in, but I'm beyond laughter or tears for that matter. When it comes to giving a shit, I don't. I'm all out of givadamn and I'm not shopping for more. As I said, it just costs too much these days.

But that I burn much more in boiling sweat

See that white tent, just past the SUV that photobombed me? That's a fireworks tent set up in a parking lot.. It's got balloons, one sad little "Fireworks!" banner (that's the orange thing off to the right), no air conditioning, and a cheap plastic roof (whatever they're making cheap tents out of these days).

The person behind the plain wood counter in the tent is smoking. I didn't go in to look. They just always are.

We live in a desert. The temperature is going to be in the high nineties all week.

See that sign in the building beyond it? Looks like a number one? That's the logo for Page One Books, the largest locally-owned bookstore in Albuquerque. Which happens to be 30 yards away from the fireworks tent.

Because people are stupid.
___________

I'm not a big fan of fireworks, as it turns out.

The Wallow Fire, the largest wildfire in Arizona history, spread into New Mexico around the Luna, NM area. As of today, it's 80% contained.

Los Alamos was evacuated because of wildfires today. The fires have, in fact, crossed over into the boundaries of the Los Alamos nuclear lab, if you're curious; that's called the Las Conchas fire, and as of today, it's eaten about 45,000 acres of the Santa Fe National Forest, and as I write this, it is zero percent contained.

The 346 Fire in Belen, NM (named after the Highway 346 Bridge, currently its northern boundary) is a mere 150-acre fire; it's destroyed 3 houses and several outbuildings, and is threatening about 150-200 more. Earlier today, they suspected that they'll have it contained by Wednesday. Of course, they weren't taking into account the 25 mph winds (with 40 mph gusts) that are kicking up.

The Horseshoe 2 fire in southeast Arizona never made it to the New Mexico border. It destroyed 223 thousand acres, but is now considered contained, as of Saturday. Crews will be downgrading to a Type 3 team Wednesday, if nothing goes wrong.

The Pacheco fire, north of Santa Fe, has only destroyed about ten thousand acres. It's been going a week and a half, and it's currently about 10% contained.

State law in New Mexico prevents them from implementing a ban on fireworks, even during one of the worst fire seasons ever.

Oh, and in case you missed it, next Monday is the Fourth of July.

Politics, Presidents and Marriage Equality -- a View from the Jurassic

The president attended an LGBT fundraiser in New York this Thursday, and of course that visit came in the middle of the now-successful push to legalize marriage equality in that state. Many LGBT people (and indeed anyone who supports the same rights for all citizens) have for some time now expressed frustration with the president's irksome, if politically astute, repetitions that he is "evolving" on the issue of marriage equality.* (Read full post after the jump....)

FAUX NEWS ON YOUR SIDE!

The media outlet of the right that is all about economic growth did their bit to help destroy the plans of a hard working entrepreneur to expand his business and may, in fact, bring about his eventual demise.

Fox Network’s Arnold Diaz, a reporter whose reports titled "Shame, Shame, Shame" are aimed at uncovering deceptive business practices that harm consumers, was named in the lawsuit filed by Matthew Prince.

And what harmful deception was Mr Prince visiting upon the good and unsuspecting people of Long Island, NY that the intrepid Diaz managed to expose? (At great personal risk I’m sure)

It’s all about ICE CREAM!!!! Seems Mr Prince has a chain of ice cream stores called D'Lites Emporium. He recently opened 3 new stores in Long Island and had plans for further expansion – that is until Arnold Diaz came to the rescue.

D’Lites claims their ice cream is low in sodium, sugar, fat, and carbohydrates but Diaz had lab findings that proved the ice cream was more unhealthy than it claimed….

But there’s a catch: Prince contends that the laboratory tested unfrozen, concentrated ice cream mix, which does not reflect the frozen, aerated, relatively diluted product served to the customer. He says the laboratory used by Diaz's team conceded the point, and issued a supplemental report that agreed with D'Lites' own nutritional claims.

Of course, in true Fox fashion: The lawsuit names parent company News Corp and FOX 5, alleging the makers of the broadcast knowingly ignored the laboratory's corrected verdict for the sake of good television.
A spokeswoman for Fox 5, who responded to Reuters' request to News Corp for comment, disputed Prince's claim. "FOX 5 stands by Arnold Diaz's story," the spokeswoman said in an e-mail.

Mr Prince may get his day in court, some day, after all the legal wrangling and stonewalling that FOX can afford to do. But it probably won’t come soon enough to undo the damage they have done to this man’s business or his reputation. He says that as a result of the broadcast hundreds of customers have stayed away and that his business expansion plans have been derailed.
The full story is HERE.

A crashing Boortz

Radio talk-show host Neal Boortz picked up a little press last week, and now he's complaining about it. So this week, he gave a big ol' non-apology. I'm going to reprint a big chunk of it here (interesting punctuation issues and all) to be sure I'm not taking him out of context.

As examples we'll use the Huffington post, a well known leftist website, and another named ournewsnow.com, a website with the slogan "The revolution will not be televised; whatever in the world that means, that titled their little bit about me thusly: "Atlanta Talk Show Host Codes Race Killings." Both of these websites printed the following quote from me:

"This town is starting to look like a garbage heap. And we got too damn many urban thugs, yo, ruining the quality of life for everybody. And I'll tell you what it's gonna take. You people, you are - you need to have a gun. You need to have training. You need to know how to use that gun. You need to get a permit to carry that gun. And you do in fact need to carry that gun and we need to see some dead thugs littering the landscape in Atlanta.

Well ... that wasn't exactly all I said. Here's the part they left off:

"We need to see the next guy that tries to carjack you shot dead right where he stands. We need more dead thugs in this city."

These websites, you see, wanted to portray me as having called for people to simply get guns and start killing blacks. They didn't include the beginning of my comments where I referenced two violent carjackings in Atlanta, nor did they see fit to include that part of my statement that related to self defense. No surprise. If you have an agenda to push, you do whatever editing is necessary to keep your message on point...

OK, so there's his basic message, or so he claims. It's all right to kill somebody, if you think they're robbing you. You know, basic libertarian, Second Amendment stuff. This isn't a healthy trend (ask Bernie Goetz), but I digress.)

Now Boortz takes a while complaining about his treatment by the "liberal media," until we get to this.

(Ed) Shultz picked up on my comments from Media Matters and then ... before he played it on his MSNBC show ... he did a little creative editing. My comments related to self defense, but Schultz, like other critics, needed to get the self defense aspect out of the way so that he could portray me as, in his words, as "reckless, stupid and racist" and to tell his audience that I had "advocated murder in the streets of Atlanta." You can't say that I was advocating murder if it's clear that I'm talking about defending yourself from a carjacker --- so that part was taken out. Here, again, is what I said:

You need to know how to use that gun. You need to get a permit to carry that gun. And you do in fact need to carry that gun and we need to see some dead thugs littering the landscape in Atlanta. "We need to see the next guy that tries to carjack you shot dead right where he stands. We need more dead thugs in this city."

See? That makes it all better.

He follows that with more whining about how badly he's mistreated by the "liberal media," and he'd like an apology. And he's not a racist, but he doesn't care if you call him one.

And then he says this.

Here's a nasty little secret for you. Pretty much every time the Atlanta media reports a violent crime in the city; whether it's a rape, an assault, a shooting, a carjacking or the murder of three people who worked in a car wash that doubles as a rap music recording studio, (no kidding this happened last week), one of the first thoughts that will cross most people's minds is that the perpetrators were young black males. I'm sure this is the case in most other large urban areas. Sometimes these initial impressions will be false, but not that often. Are these thoughts racist? Do these first impressions occur because of some deeply held belief that young black males are genetically predisposed to commit crimes? Hardly. These initial impressions are brought about by recognition of the fact that young black males are engaged in criminal activity in numbers way out of proportion to their percentage of the population - a recognition that there is a culture of crime and violence in the urban community. Yes, I can give you some statistics. You might not like them, but they're there for you to develop on your own, if you care to, using FBI crime data.

See? He's not racist! Everybody is, and he's just saying it for them!

And then he abuses statistics for a while, to show that most crime is committed by blacks and hispanics. Now, it would be rude of me to point out that these are the same statistics used by Klansmen to show that they aren't racist, they're only protecting their own kind!

And burning crosses (but that's just a hobby).

Instead, I'm just going to ponder the statistics he didn't use. The one from the Atlanta police, that shows that crime in Atlanta has been dropping steadily. In fact, crime in all of Georgia has been dropping for the last 30 years (a few indicators spiked in the early 90s, probably due to the influence of Vanilla Ice).

What other statistics does he ignore? Well, how about the fact that two-thirds of the population of Atlanta is black. So, just off the top of my head, I'd say that there's a good chance that two-thirds of the criminals are black. But that's just me.

And the rest of his statistics are equally idiotic. They're debunked or explained on a regular basis, but they're still quoted. By racists, who refuse to admit that their statistics are crap.

Nor is this the first time Boortz showed his racist side (and again, nice long quotes to let you get everything in context).

So, yeah, I think I'm more than happy to label him as a useless, bigoted fucknozzle, and racist to his evil little core.

The Significance of the Walmart Decision

A Facebook friend asked for input from lawyers about the Walmart v. Dukes opinion recently issued by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). I'm still recovering from a series of 14 and 15 hour days as our state legislature rushed (for no apparent reason) to end the session by June 18. Except, it's not really ended, just on recess until July 13 (more on this topic on another day). My response to his inquiry is below. Nothing fancy. My brain is muffled in cotton.

There were two major questions for SCOTUS to address in this case.

First Question: I concur that the 9-0 vote on the procedural question, certifying the plaintiffs as a class, is not an issue. The group was far too large and lacking in commonality to certify as a class. The proposed class was too broad; it would have included every female Wal-Mart employee since late 1998, and it's a stretch to assume that they were all victims of gender bias.

Second Question: However, SCOTUS split 5-4 on the question of sending the case back to the trial court to determine whether it could proceed in a narrower form. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a member of the minority on the latter question, warned that the Wal-Mart ruling would leave legitimate bias cases “at the starting gate.” Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Breyer, and Kagan all dissented from the majority on this second question. Ginsburg wrote the dissent.

Justice Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion, significantly restricts the rules defined by Congress for class-action lawsuits. Scalia argued that plaintiffs can gain a court’s certification of a class to pursue job-discrimination claims only if they can show “some glue holding the alleged reasons for all these decisions together.”

In other words, they must show that they are likely to win their case, to meet the “glue” test, a term that Scalia leaves undefined. What does it mean? How will it be determined that the "glue" test has been met? It appears that alleged victims of discrimination will, in the future, have to meet this test before they even will be allowed to certify as a class. It appears from the opinion that if discrimination is alleged in a wide enough variety of employment categories and locations, the plaintiffs cannot make a showing of commonality,without such a showing, they can't be certified as a class.

The other legal analyses of this case that I've read conclude that such a standard makes the cost and difficulty of bringing a class-action suit virtually prohibitive. So the Wal-Mart employees who want to continue to pursue their case will have to sue the company individually, if they can afford to do so. Or they can give up. This is what all the concern is about, not the decision that there were too many members and not enough commonality to certify them as a class.

In my legal opinion, the Supreme Court has increased the difficulty of seeking redress for illegal discrimination by employers through the use of class action lawsuits.

The entire opinion, including the dissenting opinion on the second question may be found at: Walmart v. Dukes.

What you could've said, but didn't.

So, it's amazing the number of places I live in the country. 11 different states today alone. I got my list from here, of the first eleven people from the House of Representatives to step on their metaphorical (and Weiner's pictorial) dicks.

Their latest trick, by the way, is to demand your nine-digit zip code, but that's not hard to get around. Look up a map of their Congressional district on Google (I like these, but that's just me), find a business in whatever city is completely inside that district. That gives you an address and phone number, and if you don't already have the full Zip+4, look it up.

Dear (insert Congresscritter here)

You made at least one major misstep in the last two weeks.

Would you please stop and think for a second, and ask yourself why the Republicans have managed to build up their power base for the last two decades? It's actually not hard to figure out: message discipline and solidarity. The Republicans work together.

Now, Anthony Weiner had his little scandal, and what did you do? You called on him to resign. Think about that for a second. What are you going to do if he's replaced by a Republican?

Please point out to me what laws Anthony Weiner broke. Or which women he had sex with? You can wave your hands around and say "Well, it was a distraction" all you want, but you know what? Now he's resigned. And it's still a distraction.

If he was going to resign in embarrassment, he would have done that anyway. If you needed to tell him how you felt, you could have closed the door and told him in private. Do you really think that standing in front of a microphone and telling the world how you felt did a damned thing? Really?

Anybody who might have been swayed by your declaration of "family values" (or whatever that was) wasn't going to vote for you anyway.

If you wanted to say nothing, you could have gone with something like this:

"This is a distraction. I have better things to talk about."

"Weiner did something stupid. I think his voters should be allowed to decide how they feel about it."

If you wanted to say nothing and still get some airtime for it, you could have made a slightly stronger statement, maybe something with an edge to it.

"Weiner's penis doesn't reach into my district."

"This is between him and his wife. Come back to me when Weiner commits a crime, OK?"

Or maybe you could have made a point out of the whole situation.

"I feel sorry for his wife, but I don't see what this has to do with the Republicans trying to destroy Social Security and Medicare."

"Have you asked Senator Vitter his opinion? You didn't? Well, when you do, follow it up by asking if he's embarrassed to say things like that."

"It's interesting that this comes up when the Congressman was trying to investigate the conflict of interest case of a Supreme Court justice. I also think it's interesting that you'd fall for this obvious distraction. Do you chase little toys on a string, too? Are you distracted by shiny objects?"

"Any chance we can get back to a subject that matters? No? OK, how about this? I'll worry about a sex scandal when the Republicans stop hiring hookers and paying off husbands."

Or you could even have made an entire comedy act out of it.

"Are you still on Weiner's penis? Really? Why are you so interested in another man's crotch? Are you proud of the work you're doing? When you go home at the end of the day and your wife asks 'What did you do today, dear?' do you respond with 'Well, I was all over a congressman's johnson! I reached right in there, and I groped around, but I didn't really find anything new today. Nothing juicy, anyway.' What does your editor say about this fixation of yours? Is he a supporter? 'I want more penis! We need 24-hour coverage of Anthony Weiner's crotch! This is big! Really big! I want to work this story until it explodes!' Do you have any questions about something important, or can you not think of anything today except penises?"

You know what this really would have taken on your part? A little courage. That's all. You could have stood up to the forces trying to tear apart our country, instead of turning around and attacking the people on your own side.

To put it more bluntly, Anthony Weiner showed the world that he has balls. What did you show?

Father's Day

Things change, everyone gets older. You start to wonder how many more father's days will pass while you still have a father to spend it with. It's good then, to see how some things never change; things like the bitter, miserable, vicious lies that spew from the GOP. Take the current Elmer Fudd of the Party, John McCain, the tortured war hero who didn't have the courage to stand up to the party's support of torture. Take John, who is making this Father's Day so much happier by blaming the Arizona wildfires on illegal immigrants rather than on the drought.

But he has substantial evidence, which he will, no doubt, reveal eventually, or not reveal or simply forget about after the wildfire of hate has got beyond control. Remember when Mexicans were bringing leprosy across the border? Many will long remember Lou Dobbs' accusations but not the lack of evidence and perhaps the wildfire libel will stick long after McCain's slide into dementia becomes all too obvious.

Well thanks John, for all you do and for reminding us of Republican fathers long gone like Joe McCarthy with their vaporous claims of "evidence" and I'm sure your legacy will stink long after you're gone.

Memes from the Wingnuts

A very common attitude among the right-wing websites is a dismissive attitude about anyone who points out when the economy went to hell - "Oh, you can't stop blaming Bush, can you?" The term "all Bush's fault" is often used as a perjorative to indicate someone is blindly liberal, and is particularly common in the comments.

This is a meme they've been trying to push since January 21, 2010: scorn for anyone who suggests that Bush might have been involved in tanking the economy. Even though Bush isn't particularly popular among conservatives, it's difficult for them to let go.

After a decade (or more) of upper echelon conservatism pushing for a united front (even against all logic), it's hard to break ranks and argue against core positions. So they continue to make excuses and avert their eyes.

It's all about core positions: if Bush was wrong about the tax cuts for the rich, then the tax cuts should end. But if tax cuts created jobs, Bush would have had record low unemployment, instead of hemorrhaging jobs. If deregulation was a good idea, then the free market would fix itself, instead of collapsing.

To admit Bush was wrong, conservatives have to admit they were wrong. So, instead, the idea is treated with scorn, in the hopes that it will go away.

But sadly for them, it hasn't worked:

...the American public isn’t blaming Obama for the current economy, with more than six in 10 respondents still saying he inherited the country’s economic problems from his Oval Office predecessor.

Also, while a combined 47 percent believe George W. Bush and his administration are "solely responsible" or "mainly responsible" for the current economy, just 34 percent in the poll say the same of Obama and his administration.

It's very sad. All that work, for nothing.

Meanwhile, this dates back to the inauguration, but it fits.

War or not a War

"If it looks like a war, it's a war"

said Dennis Kucinich to CNN, but he's wrong. Many things look like wars and many things have been sold to us as wars that aren't wars. Johnson's War on Poverty? The war on Drugs? calling it a war doesn't make it so nor does saying it is when it isn't. The 1968 Democratic convention looked and smelled like a war -- maybe it was, maybe it wasn't.

Of course invoking the War Powers Resolution of 1973 finally gives the dogs something to bark about and they've been looking for impeachment arguments since election day, but is the current hoopla about our support of NATO actions in Syria based on concern for the law or another congressional burlesque show attempt to overturn an election they lost for good reason?

It looks like a war to the Republicans too but then, Birth of a Nation looks like history to them. Reagan's invasion of Granada and Bush's invasion of Panama looked pretty much like wars as well, but although both those presidents did report to Congress under the War Powers Resolution they did so without citing section 4(a)(1) which would require approval to continue after 60 days. In both cases hostilities ceased before the 60 day period even though troops remained in Panama and the question was deemed moot.

The question then hinges on whether American forces and personnel are still involved in hostilities 60 days after the initial air strikes and are still substantially in harms way. Obama argues that they are not, that they are only providing support for an embargo. His opponents disagree, but then they disagree with his presence in office and everything he says or does even when it mirrors their own sentiments. Scandal has been cried more often than Wolf, but while I tend to see the argument in similar light as the White House does, I Wish he could have done what Bush did by taking action when Congress was out of session, but not having had that option, I wish he would simply remove this issue from the spotlight and allow Congress to have their way. If nothing else it would take my Representative Tom "Looney" Rooney off the soapbox and out of my inbox for a while.

I think NATO can do without us and if this is so important to the Arab League, they can use some of that firepower we sold them.

It is possible that a certain amount of brain damage is of theraputic value. (Dr. Paul Hoch, 1948)

Does anybody remember how newly-elected Kenyan-Marxist-in-Chief Barack Hussein!! Obama took our young children and brainwashed them, turning them into politically-correct socialist zombies? Well, neither do I, but it was one of the many fascinating fancies falling from the fetid, feculent field of fantasy which we laughingly call the "mind" of Michele Bachmann.

I believe that there is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service. And the real concerns is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums.

So, why do I bring up this particular Ambien-fueled nightmare? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because of this.

Tea party group offers summer camp

TAMPA — Here's another option now that the kids are out of school: a weeklong seminar about our nation's founding principles, courtesy of the Tampa 912 Project.

The organization, which falls under the tea party umbrella, hopes to introduce kids ages 8 to 12 to principles that include "America is good," "I believe in God," and "I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable."

See? Good Christian values. Remember when Jesus said "No, that’s mine, and I don’t have to share it with you!" (I think it was in the Book of Newt somewhere.)

Why isn’t the Left Wing freaking out over this? Well, possibly because we’re not paranoid and delusional.

But what kind of high-quality teachers will they be learning from at Camp Teabagger?

"We want to impart to our children what our nation is about, and what they may or may not be told," (conservative writer Jeff) Lukens said. He said he was not familiar with public school curriculum, but, "I do know they have a lot of political correctness."

You have to admire the honesty, anyway. "I don’t know what they’re learning, but here’s what I think they’re learning. Because I listen to Michele Bachmann."

And they’ll be doing fun activities, too!

Children will win hard, wrapped candies to use as currency for a store, symbolizing the gold standard. On the second day, the "banker" will issue paper money instead. Over time, students will realize their paper money buys less and less, while the candies retain their value. "Some of the kids will fall for it," Lukens said. "Others kids will wise up."

Not that any of the children will be tempted to eat their "gold." Meaning that the paper money will buy more than the "gold," if only because there’s more of it around.

Another example: Starting in an austere room where they are made to sit quietly, symbolizing Europe, the children will pass through an obstacle course to arrive at a brightly decorated party room (the New World). Red-white-and-blue confetti will be thrown. But afterward the kids will have to clean up the confetti, learning that with freedom comes responsibility.

Actual lesson learned? Don’t throw confetti.

Still another example: Children will blow bubbles from a single container of soapy solution, and then pop each other's bubbles with squirt guns in an arrangement that mimics socialism. They are to count how many bubbles they pop. Then they will work with individual bottles of solution and pop their own bubbles. "What they will find out is that you can do a lot more with individual freedom," Lukens said.

And they’ll learn this because.... um... Jesus!

(Let’s be honest: I have no idea what the hell that little exercise is expected to teach these kids. Except that they’ll probably make them clean it up like they did with the confetti, because, remember, with great idiocy comes great responsibility.)

"We've had classes for adults," said Karen Jaroch, who chairs the Tampa 912 Project.

"And for some reason, the confetti didn’t go over as well as we’d hoped."

Jaroch said the group might try to bring its curriculum to the public schools during Constitution Week in September.

"We definitely teach the Constitution, especially during Constitution Week," said Linda Cobbe, a school district spokeswoman. She said the district would need to make sure (the Tampa 912 Project) does not have a political agenda

Yeah, so that will go over well, right? How could a project started by Glenn Beck possibly have a political agenda, right?

Five Reasons Michele Bachmann is a Serious Threat

photo credit: the original Jeff Martin

Prior to last night's GOP "debate" you could count me among those who hoped cheerfully for a Bachmann nomination on the grounds that she'd be an easy beat, but I am now reconsidering that position. It wasn't much of a debate, if anyone was expecting any kind of ideological breadth, but it did give us a glimpse of Bachmann's range, which has a much wider appeal than previously suspected.

Reason One: Formally announcing her candidacy during the debate was a definite P.R. coup, effectively insuring she would receive major coverage in the news stories that followed. She has reportedly hired Ed Rollins (a seasoned political veteran and the architect of Reagan's 1984 win) to run her campaign. There's a decent-sized demographic of conservative traditionalists who have a bad taste in their mouth from the Bush/Cheney/Rove era, but harbor serious nostalgia for beloved St.Ronnie.

Reason Two: Solid support from the Tea Party, even the fringier elements, with their stellar record of turning out at the polls, combined with her new-found ability to dial down the crazy after only a short period of intensive coaching from her new advisers. Not everyone is a political junkie who follows the daily antics of their favorite political heroes and villains, so the new audience she reaches may not be as acutely aware of her erratic track record.

Reason Three: She's female. The misogynist tendencies of the GOP aside, if you look at the older population, the demographic skews heavily female, and consists of women whose mothers and grandmothers were first-generation voters. As long as she stays away from Social Security and Medicare, she has a potentially strong core of mid-century American women whose biases include wanting to see a woman President in their lifetime.

Reason Four: If she gets the nomination, the Koch machine will be a driving force in her campaign, or at least keeping the gas tank full. She already shares their core economic values and there is an established network of astroturf PACs already in place to keep the propaganda flowing.

Reason Five: Complacency. The biggest danger in 2012 isn't tough old broads or rich white men or misty-eyed Reaganites, it's disaffected progressives. Dismissing a Bachmann candidacy as a non-threat increases the chances that this group will sit home on election day rolling their eyes and emitting exasperated sighs, bickering amongst themselves. You'd think that the clear and concrete evidence that the 2010 collapse in voter turnout yielded some truly disastrous results would have shaken this group up, but no.

I have personally spent my share of time snarking about Bachmann's various gaffes and her sketchy relationship with facts. I may have even called her stupid, based in part on her apparent failure to surround herself with smart people whose job it is to keep her from screwing up like that. I used to consider her in the same basic category as Palin, a Tea Party spokesmodel with questionable substance; however, there is one very major difference: Bachmann appears to be capable of learning from her mistakes.

If Bachmann continues to listen to her handlers and accept their coaching and counsel, she may turn out to be a more formidable candidate than previously expected.

Schadenfreudian Tendencies

On Sunday, Gabrielle Giffords' team released several photos of the congresswoman, looking radiant and focused, no make-up, no wig to hide her scars. The photos offered a couple of angles which show clearly the damage (to satisfy our curiosity) but also show how amazingly whole and beautiful she is, a scant few months after such a devastating injury.

These photos were released only when Rep. Giffords was well enough to decide she was ready, all previous photos were very, very respectful of her privacy, which remained intact throughout the duration of her hospitalization. This left me wondering how in the world they managed that in this age of WikiLeaks and Lulz Security and the WeinerPhone of Doom. Think of the number of people who worked in the various medical facilities, her trip to watch her husband's space shuttle launch, all the opportunities to get that tantalizing photographic glimpse that probably would have carried a six figure price tag to the right tabloid, and yet that did not happen. Certainly the professionals entrusted with maintaining her privacy have a duty to do so, but this sort of duty is often for sale if the price is right. I'm completely in awe of the way Giffords and her family were able to pull off this nearly unheard-of level of privacy in these intrusive modern times of ours, however they managed it. Editorials are already calling into question what remaining privacy Giffords has a right to, but as a public servant injured in the line of duty I think she deserves at least enough time to recover sufficiently in order to present a positive impression in her first public appearance.

This actually kept me up last night, contemplating the TMZ-ified times we live in, and how our culture of celebrity has warped our ideas of privacy. How easy it would have been for a Drudge or a Breitbart to justify publishing photos that violated medical privacy, claiming the public's right to know outweighed the expectation of confidentiality and the family's wishes. How socity and the media have come to expect, even demand unfettered and unlimited access into every aspect of our public figures' lives. The ubiquity of pocket-sized devices capable of recording and transmitting images and video has expanded the theoretical level of this access, and we have adjusted our expectations accordingly.

I don't know how to find the fine line between our right to know, and our Schadenfreudian tendency to want to know. Do Giffords' constituents have the right to monitor her recovery? Do Anthony Weiner's constituents need to hear from every comely coed who has gazed upon a digitized version of his chiseled abs (or ... whatever)? On the surface these two situations seem almost opposite, but it all comes down to boundaries. We seem to be headed in the direction of breaking them down -- do we need to put some of them back up?

Cicero on Fox News

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague."

Marcus Tullius Cicero

The Best Information to Come Out of Sarah Palins Emails...

is the fact that Palin ALWAYS depends on a teleprompter even when she's on her friendly FAUX NOOZ show and especially when she's asked pre-screened questions. Palin made much snark out of the fact that Mr. Obama uses a teleprompter, and her followers thought she was massively cute and incisive by making fun of the president. But like all hypocrites, Palin mocked while doing EXACTLY the same thing.


The only time we can be sure Palin is NOT using a teleprompter is when she reveals herself in the mangling of the English language and American history. When that happens, we're looking into the heart of Palin's darkest and most sincere ignorance.

All modern presidents use and have used the teleprompter--even St. Ronnie, The Great Communicator. Why Palin, who also used the teleprompter when she was governor, felt she needed to denigrate Mr. Obama for doing what she routinely did, is not a mystery. As surely as patriotic family vacations require national bus tours and media attention, mean-spirited and petty people like Palin try to mask their own inadequacies and short-comings by ridiculing those who are their betters, using lies and misrepresentation to shore up their small-minded deceptions.

Except now we know that Palin was all moose and no antlers when she made fun of Mr. Obama's teleprompter use.

The rest of Palin's emails seem to be, like her, unexceptionally mundane and boring.


"Gotcha: Sarah Palin’s Emails Confirm She Needs Teleprompter For Interviews

And now, for a little...levity in the Palin email saga after the dark seriousness of the earlier revelations regarding Palin’s use of these emails to intimidate critics: It’s always nice to have confirmation in writing from the source. As I’ve been explaining for the last year, Palin uses Teleprompters in interviews and as a “contributor” on Fox News. This isn’t a terrible sin, but since she bashes Obama for it every chance she gets, this is just one more example of Palin’s values failure (of which there are too many to enumerate here).

The worst part about Palin’s use of Teleprompters, though, is that she doesn’t even draft her own answers. Everything you hear her say is scripted. The only time she’s unscripted, we get “Paul Revere warning the British” and the Bush Bailout “so important for the healthcare” type answers."

A horse of the same color

Take Herman Cain -- please. Take him far away from any office that allows him to rule and ruin other people with his beliefs; allows him to substitute his beliefs for law and invent crimes at will. Cain, you see, says that homosexuality is a "choice" and is a sin and he believes it because he believes it and that makes it true.

“I believe homosexuality is a sin because I’m a Bible-believing Christian, I believe it’s a sin,”

he says and yes, that's just the sort of thing Republicans like to pass off as reason and package this fear of retributive and divine bogeymen with fear of communism and common decency like Wall Street packages bad loans.

Sin, Mr. Cain, is not crime, it's a tool used to tyrannize the mind and because the sin of one frame of reference is not the sin of another and because we are a government of laws and not of prophets and because those laws are designed to protect liberty and property and not to protect your tangled web of beliefs or promote them or ennoble them or sanctify them or elevate them to the status of law and permit them to persecute others: and because sir, you are a man like the rest of us, neither better nor worse nor more to be obeyed because of your beliefs, you should save them for Sunday and leave the rest of us the hell alone with your damned arrogant beliefs. No man is elevated by standing on Bibles.



Preacher Cain of course would be a good choice for the GOP at this point -- evidence that they're not really racists and have only set the dogs on that other black man because he's not Christian enough or as concerned with the things God hates like Medicare or the Minimum wage. A different shade of black man and one more easily used as a tool to get things back to the way they used to be when there was a place for everyone and everyone was in his place.

Weiner done wrong

Excerpt from Michael Baden's piece on the Psychology Today website:

"There's only one legitimate reason to be upset with Anthony Weiner, and that's because his behavior and its discovery has taken away a bold and effective voice in the Democratic party. Everything else you think and feel about him is bull.

"By bullshit, I mean it has nothing to do with him, and also little to do with broad generalizations made nowadays about the sex and powerful men. The first is too personal and private for anyone to ever know. And the second is so abstract as to be useless in understanding any individual situation. What it does have to do with is you and me, with all of us, who are repeatedly enticed to either buy-in to or create fictive stories about sexual scandals that are little more than projections of our own forbidden or feared desires..."

For more go to: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-is-he-thinking/201106/everything-said-about-anthony-weiner-is-wrong

So, the question is, is it?

How Bush-Era Tax Cuts Damaged America

Still moving house, I don’t have time for a longer post with commentary, but this issue is important enough to merit a consciousness-raising discussion. You can read the source document here. The graphs are self-explanatory:

Meanwhile, the current gaggle of GOP presidential candidates are repeating the same Reagan to Bush-era catechism as if they have learned nothing from history and still can't read a balance sheet.

Koching up some trouble

By Capt. Fogg

"Good Lord. These are truly evil people"

says The Impolitic and it's hard to disagree. Of course the people that thought it would be a "conservative" thing to do; giving struggling Detroit homeowners fake foreclosure notices, don't think they're being vandals trying to destabilize civilization and built a "conservative" Utopia on the ruins. In fact the Koch brothers who seem to be behind this prank have a vision for the future that more resembles an Orwellian horror with the part of Big Brother played by corporate robber barons like them and the sinister, black menace portrayed by Barack H. Obama. Their lackeys see it otherwise, I'm sure. A step in the final solution of the "colored problem" that the Liberals and do-gooders brought upon Detroit and a reaction to the stunning affront of ACORN having forced a black president on us -- a man nobody voted for, of course. The new North. It's the old South without the sheets.

It's truly hard to describe this sort of thing in the way we describe rational human conduct, because it isn't any more rational than drunken football hooliganism or beer hall riot -- and a hell of a lot more dangerous. It's all the more dangerous for the lack of attention given. CNN.com today provides a bright colorful farrago of sex scandal, new Facebook features, the exploits of rappers and little else. Indeed what else concerns us?

American "exceptionalism"?

Well, Rick Santorum, everybody's favorite frothy mixture, came out a few days ago to explain how "America was a great country before 1965."

Now, in context, he chose 1965 because that was the year that Medicare and Medicaid were put in place. Funny how that was the same year that America passed the Voting Rights Act of (weird how that works) 1965, and Martin Luther King's march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery.

Yes, children, Sesame Street is brought to you today by the word "dog-whistle."

I suppose I could also bring up the Fair Housing Act of 1968, but flogging that horse won't make it run again, will it?

I mean, it's an easy speech to fisk, full of lies and misquotes, but, you know, on second thought, there's a whole line of horses lying there, and maybe one will be motivated to stagger a few steps.

Until 1965 and Griswold v. Connecticut, there were still parts of America where it was illegal for married couples to use contraceptives (of course, Frothy probably thinks that was a sign of America's decline).

Until 1963, it was still legal to pay women less than men for doing the same job (as opposed to sneaking it in, like they do now).

In 1964, the US passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, and in 1965, we began air raids in North Vietnam and Communist-controlled parts of the South; on March 8, the first American combat troops arrived in country (I think my father began his first tour there two years later).

Malcolm X was assassinated in 1965, but I have no evidence that Santorum would admit to supporting it.

Leslie Ann Warren made her TV debut in Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella in 1965 (as if that wasn't bad enough, it cleared the way for her to co-star in the Christopher Atkins disco vehicle A Night in Heaven almost 2 decades later, and that is unforgiveable).

At the Newport Folk Festival in July 1965, Bob Dylan went electric, which many saw as the death of folk music (others accept that it had already died a horrible death three years earlier when Peter, Paul and Mary recorded Lemon Tree).

And Lyndon Johnson signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 in October, which prevented the US from using racial quotas to determine immigration policy; maybe that was what whipped Santorum into a froth.

In general, I'm having a hard time seeing what was so wonderful about America before 1965. Unless you were a white male.

Like Rick Santorum.

Albuquerque skies

The sky was gray again tonight. It's been going on almost a week now.

We first noticed it Thursday evening. As we got out of the car, I sniffed and said, "Huh, somebody's grilling." (As a life-long allergy sufferer, if I can smell something, it's strong.)

The Wookie shook his head. "No, there's a housefire somewhere in town. We were smelling it at the store." We shrugged in unison and went in.

But the smoke didn't go away.

As it turns out, Arizona's on fire. The third largest fire in Arizona history is over 200 miles away, and is still managing to screw up our lives.

I smelled smoke all evening Thursday, and then on Friday, I noticed a fine layer of pollen on everything. Until I took a deep breath, and realized that it was from trees that would never throw out pollen again.

It was interesting on Friday. Irritating on Saturday. And sincerely annoying on Sunday.

Guess what? We're going into Tuesday now.

I suspect that this is what it was like in Venice when Pompeii went down for the count: all the irritating smoke, but none of the exciting lava and fear for your lives.

It's giving people health issues, it's causing flights to be diverted away from the airport. Health officials are warning asthma sufferers to stay indoors. Not that everybody can.

I went out to help the Trophy Wife (an asthma sufferer) get into the house, and got soot in my eyes, blinding me for a few seconds. And it's not as bad here as some parts. The west side of the city (including places like Rio Rancho and Belen, who really don't want to admit that they're suburbs of Albuquerque) apparently has ash falling like snow in places, according to people who live there.

And the sky is gray, every morning and every evening.


It's basic physics, really. As the sun rises, the particles in the air warm, and can rise into the sky with the breeze and blow elsewhere. The sky clears. But as the sun goes down, things cool off and the particles sink.

And everything is gray once again.

Perhaps it's a metaphor for life.

And death.

Feeling Pretty Sheepish

I'm actually surprised that I was so surprised by Weiner's near-tearful confession today. After all, as a female who is very, very actively social on the internet, I can't tell you how many times I've had to fend off earnest males I hardly know who wish to send me a picture of their junk. I don't know what it is about the internet, and the existence of camera phones, that causes this phenomenon. I don't recall this in the pre-internet days (and I did not lead a sheltered existence by any means) -- it's just that I never had anyone make this particular offer in the course of a casual conversation.

But give a guy a couple of beers and a smartphone (or just a smartphone, really) and all of a sudden it's like he's found his "special purpose" and he just can't wait to show and tell you about it, he's just so proud of it.

It's not that I specifically believed Weiner was framed -- but I did have strong suspicions in that area. Who can blame me for equating the name Breitbart and the concept of deceptive misinformation campaigns against individuals and organizations with the intent to damage their image? And Rep. Weiner's high-visibility attacks on conservative nonsense meant he was a likely target for a smear campaign. This is why circumstantial evidence is a bad thing which should be disregarded even if it tends to agree with your worldview. Especially if it tends to agree.

As I've commented before, I do believe social networking is an important tool for almost all modern public figures who wish to reach their audience. But with anything this new, we haven't yet come to the place where the average non-geek has the requisite skill level to navigate the potential minefield of being in charge of their own digital brand. It takes a delicate combination of authenticity and restraint that seems like it should be a no-brainer, but trust me, it's much harder than it looks.

Speaking of that, does anyone know which reporter, at the end of Rep. Weiner's press conference, shouted the question about whether the wiener in question was fully erect or not? What kind of question is that, really? I'm not sure whether to be more disappointed in Weiner's confession, or concerned that our level of national discourse really is the 6th grade.

(More) Adventures of Octopus

My humble cephapologies for playing hooky these past few weeks. Rest assured, Octo has not abandoned my fellow beachcombers.

My moving experience has been interrupted by a brief remodeling project. It seems the carpeting in my new abode is unsuitable for cephalopod habitat, so I am replacing the rugs with plush beach sand and hanging kelp and sargassum wallpaper before the furniture arrives. Ahh, the comforts of home!

The remodeling project and moving experience should be completed by early July at which time I will return with some truly shocking stuff.

Meanwhile, here is a story for the seafarers among you:

A large and beautiful ship sails across the Atlantic. Men in elegant tuxedos and women in luxurious evening gowns are gathered in the grand ballroom.  Suddenly, the Captain interrupts the festivities:

Captain: Ladies and Gentlemen, I have good news and bad news. Which would you prefer?

Voices in the crowd: The good news ... the good news!

Captain: We will win 11 Academy Awards.

See you all in July.

Whose side is this guy on? (+ video is back!)

The man in the video is ex-American Adam Yahiye Gadahn (formerly Adam Pearlman - go figure), spokesmodel and operative for al Qaeda. If the sound is a little muddy, I suspect they had to keep editing out the sounds of NRA members spontaneously combusting.

The NRA has always opposed keeping guns out of the hands of terrorists, and closing the gun-show loophole.

Why does the NRA hate America? Why are they working with terrorists to destroy our country?
_________________

Update: Apparently, Youtube took down the video for violating their terms of service. (And, really, I suppose that telling people to go to gun shows and buy guns to wage jihad should be a violation of their TOS...) Fortunately, it's hosted elsewhere. Crooks and Liars, for instance.

The Sesame Manifesto

By Capt. Fogg

It's impossible for me to watch a Fox "panel" chew on a story without thinking of an alligator feeding frenzy or a bunch of mean dogs fighting for possession of a bit of rawhide. Actually it's impossible for me to watch Fox News at all, but for those of a tougher breed, here's a prime example of that ruthless war on reality called Fox.

Listen carefully and you'll spot the message that Sesame Street aims at lower income, Urban kids and you'll smell the racism and you'll hear the Republican anthem that the fraction of a cent per taxpayer that this show costs is "on principle" too much and especially because it tries to elevate the underclasses in direct contravention of Divine Law and Ayn Rand, whichever is the more powerful.

Does anyone really believe that Big Bird is a Communist or that Sesame Street is ruining America and the morals of its children? (perhaps Doctor Spock fans can sigh with relief now that they've moved on to a new chew toy.)

Perhaps you do, perhaps you watch Fox anyway. Perhaps you're a malicious idiot with delusions of persecution, but here it is again:

Weiner's wiener

Dear Representative Weiner,

I appreciate everything you've done for America, and more so since Alan Grayson was pushed out: you’re outspoken, you aren’t afraid to call a lie what it is, and you aren’t scared to stand up for your convictions. We can't afford to lose you.

You’re probably aware that your penis is in the national news right now. See, this is the kind of "news" that even the less-partisan networks love – it's got strippers, it’s got scrotal references, it has somebody in a position of power looking bad. They're not going to let it go easily.

So the word is that you tweeted a picture of Weiner's wiener to a coed. I don't care what the reality is, the rumor is that your cock is flopping across the internet. You should probably deal with that.

And unfortunately, you're hurting yourself a little bit, too. Dealing with this like the Republicans do (deny, shuffle your feet and feign outrage) would only work if Democrats had a dedicated network pushing their agenda (* cough * Fox) and a battery of top-rated right-wing radio blowhards lying to the public.

I'll admit, the fact that Andrew Breitbart was the first person to air the story makes me instantly assume that it's a lie. Unfortunately, you aren't really coming across in interviews well with your "I can't win answering questions" attitude. And I've got to say, when you go on Rachel Maddow's show, and instead of saying "that's not me," you say:

"Well, it could be or it could have been a photograph that was that's taken out of context or manipulated or changed in some way... So, maybe it did or maybe it's a photograph that was dropped into an account from somewhere else, I mean, I can't say. I don't want to cast this net wider by saying it's someone else."

That just doesn't look good. Kinda makes me itchy, and I'm on your side.

Instead, perhaps you should point out the following fascinating information, turned up by Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs.

Apparently it’s possible for anyone to post a picture to anyone else’s account at the yfrog.com picture hosting site — without a password. The trick is to email a picture from a Blackberry to the user’s yfrog.com email address, with the word “@subject” in the text. This results in the picture being posted at yfrog — and a tweet being posted at Twitter with a link to the picture....

It turns out that you don’t have to email from a Blackberry — you just need to use MMS to send the picture, from any device that supports the protocol. I’ve now confirmed that this technique also works on an iPhone... It also turns out that this is not really a security hole in yfrog; it’s a documented feature that’s been public knowledge for at least 2 years.

Interestingly, yFrog has since closed off access to this particular "feature."

There's more to it, but I'll let you do your own research. In the meantime, stay strong, and for the love of G_d, just say "That's not me. I have a penis, but that one isn't mine."

See? Was that so hard?
__________

Update: No answer (not that I expect one - they never call, they never write...), but I'm finding my eye drawn to more stories about the Crotch of Doom, which I'd been ignoring up to now.

For instance, Joseph Cannon has some interesting points, on lawsuits, the origin of the picture, and why the GOP is pulling this particular chain as hard as they are (you know, outside of the obvious...)

The Horror

By Capt. Fogg

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow-

________________

I had pretty much made up my mind that I wasn't going to grant Sarah Palin any more free publicity or waste any more stress-filled time reacting to the Idiot's Princess, but like the safety valve on a boiler, I have my set limit. Pop goes the weasel, or at least the blogger.

I read her garbled soliloquy yesterday, about how the immigrants who built this country up from an agrarian economy to an economic giant had a terribly hard time gaining entrance and getting citizenship and could not favorably be compared to those today who were raised in the USA from infancy, got an education and became part of our society only to be expelled on some error in their parent's papers. She's right, you can't. It took a matter of hours to go through Immigration in the Ellis Island days and if you weren't Chinese, you were all right. No English required, no guaranteed job, no nothin' -- and they came by the millions. Today it takes years, of course, but we're dealing with Sarah Palin, congenitally stupid product of a fourth tier higher educational system and a lifetime of reading nothing. She's dumber than a pre-schooler and she's a Republican front-runner.

My mother read me that Longfellow poem when I was little more than an infant and I don't think any of my contemporaries did not know by early grade school of that somewhat mythological event, but no, not Sarah Palin who seems to think that the famed Boston silversmith was a spokesman for the NRA and a right wing, saber rattling blowhard whose main concern was promoting gun rights in the American wilderness.

“…he who warned the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringin’ those bells and, um, makin’ sure as he’s ridin’ his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free. And we were gonna be armed.” You betcha, gol durn it!

The fact that this perky little peanut brain couldn't graduate 5th grade much less pass a citizenship test -- or even apparently, read a newspaper, isn't just obvious, it's horrifying and what these daily enormities we're subjected to say about her is still less horrifying than what this says about America.