Because Freedom
(Because we think there's a problem. From June 11, 2015.)
(Photo By Mongo + Android / Photoshop)
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Showing posts with label Give Them Guns And Jesus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Give Them Guns And Jesus. Show all posts
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Reprint Heaven: Welcome To Target
Because Freedom
(Because we think there's a problem. From June 11, 2015.)
Friday, April 8, 2016
Because This You Must Know
Wherein We Call Auntie Em Like We See Auntie Em
Courtesy of The Soul Of America, this Faux Campaign image appeared in a slightly different guise at EyeOfTheStorm blog, where cheese fills the void created by a sudden avoidance of law enforcement, in the service of all sentient beings. Tasty, too.
We here at Before Nine (all three of the people who read it, and the Superintelligent Parakeet) thought it "buried the needle" on the Droll-o-Meter, and summed up my own general feelings about one of the two major Democratic Party candydates for Pestident. Thought we'd pass it along.
I haven't said much about the Democratic campaign to become candydate, except to give a nod to Senator Sanders' effort. He says things that makes my Ancient Lefty's Heart™ rise, while at the same time I slump in Dog Abjectness because I know he's a foil and part of the Potemkin Village backdrop to the Kabuki theatre play that is national politics.
Hillary's campaign I acknowledge only because, distastefully, I have to -- summed up in my description of her as Hillary The Inevitable !
How inevitable? If you watched Charlie Rose yesterday on CBS (he's got air time as occasional anchor of that network's 'Evening News', in addition to his regular gig on PBS with the syndicated Charlie Rose Show), then you saw Chukalicious go after Bernie with a meat cleaver on the national Tube. How far she'll go and how she'll enlist surrogates to do it for her was obvious.
However, please note -- the media is doing the same thing to Herr Trumpo. Not that the press savages Bernie in the same way they've gone after the Donald, but the similarities are enough to ponder. Not that we should weep big Crocodile tears for Trumpo; but a pattern of dismissive, Old-Man-Sanders-Got-No-Chance articles and 'Opinion' pieces, and talking head commentary on teevee is remarkable.
But, of course; Hillary; beyond doubt: She Is The Inevitable One, her time Come Round At Last, after being so cruelly shut out by Herr Obama eight years ago. Eventually, Bernie will give up. Won't he? She is The Inevitable; can't he see that? Stupid Old Man.
Apparently, no. And he seems to be garnering votes from people who find Hillary ! distasteful (and, gosh -- even if this weren't an electoral process led, and paid for, by the interests of The Few, why would people do that?).
She Who Comes At Last doesn't like this. So now, after Wisconsin, she went after the Old Man -- only, she's careful not to do it personally. Charlie (who fluffs a lot of Very Bad People by softballing interviews with them) volunteered to be the hired dildo for that job.
Over at Soul Of America, the Knez of Egoslavia has mentioned his encounters with a Hillaryite Colleague (HC) in their workplace -- which I reproduce here, more or less in order and more or less in unfettered glory because I agree, and because the Superintelligent Parakeet told me to:
As "Tough Hillary" emerges, this -- true now, as it was in The Olden Days.
We Scare Share Because We Care
We here at Before Nine (all three of the people who read it, and the Superintelligent Parakeet) thought it "buried the needle" on the Droll-o-Meter, and summed up my own general feelings about one of the two major Democratic Party candydates for Pestident. Thought we'd pass it along.
I haven't said much about the Democratic campaign to become candydate, except to give a nod to Senator Sanders' effort. He says things that makes my Ancient Lefty's Heart™ rise, while at the same time I slump in Dog Abjectness because I know he's a foil and part of the Potemkin Village backdrop to the Kabuki theatre play that is national politics.
Hillary's campaign I acknowledge only because, distastefully, I have to -- summed up in my description of her as Hillary The Inevitable !
How inevitable? If you watched Charlie Rose yesterday on CBS (he's got air time as occasional anchor of that network's 'Evening News', in addition to his regular gig on PBS with the syndicated Charlie Rose Show), then you saw Chukalicious go after Bernie with a meat cleaver on the national Tube. How far she'll go and how she'll enlist surrogates to do it for her was obvious.
CHARLIE ROSE: We also asked Senator Sanders why he said Secretary Clinton should apologize to the families of Americans killed in the Iraq War. And he addressed why negative attacks between the two of them have intensified. [To Sanders.] The tenor of this campaign has changed when you're questioning the qualification of a person to be president. Whether their questioning your qualifications, which they say they haven't.American media seems to describe Sanders' campaign in dismissive terms, like a Gene McCarthy Children's Crusade (if that name confuses you, ask your parents or grandparents if they Got Clean For Gene). He's cast as the scrappy old man, tilting at windmills, offering Pie-In-The-Sky Socialist boilerplate -- and he's facing Hillary Rodham Clinton.
BERNIE SANDERS: All I'm saying—
ROSE: — or you’re questioning their qualifications?
SANDERS: You're right. You’re right. Okay? But what I want to say is when I see the headlines, “Clinton questions whether Sanders is qualified to be president,” you know what? We are going to respond.
ROSE: But don't you owe it to yourself and those people who may vote for you to know more than simply look at a headline? You looked at a headline and then responded questioning her qualifications.
SANDERS: Oh, Charlie, it's not a question of a headline. Here, something else. I mean, after we won in Wisconsin, I think the Clinton campaign — that was our sixth victory in seven states. I think what they have said publicly is the tenor is going to change. They are going to go much more negative on us and they have. That's the fact.
ROSE: Take a listen to this. This is what you said. You said that Clinton should apologize for Iraq war deaths. Do you really —
SANDERS: For what?
ROSE: For Iraqi war deaths.
SANDERS: This is after I was asked to apologize for the tragedy in Sandy Hook. You know, put these things in the context.
ROSE: But, again, it's tit for tat.
SANDERS: It is tit for tat but I, you know, responding to attacks being made against me.
ROSE: I'm asking where the tenor of this campaign is going and is that going too far to say she bears responsibility for Iraqi war deaths?
SANDERS: Do I bear responsibility for the tragedy for the horrors of Sandy Hook? So, you know, let's get off that. Of course, she didn't bear responsibility. She voted for the war in Iraq. That was a very bad vote in my view. Do I hold her accountable? No.
However, please note -- the media is doing the same thing to Herr Trumpo. Not that the press savages Bernie in the same way they've gone after the Donald, but the similarities are enough to ponder. Not that we should weep big Crocodile tears for Trumpo; but a pattern of dismissive, Old-Man-Sanders-Got-No-Chance articles and 'Opinion' pieces, and talking head commentary on teevee is remarkable.
But, of course; Hillary; beyond doubt: She Is The Inevitable One, her time Come Round At Last, after being so cruelly shut out by Herr Obama eight years ago. Eventually, Bernie will give up. Won't he? She is The Inevitable; can't he see that? Stupid Old Man.
Apparently, no. And he seems to be garnering votes from people who find Hillary ! distasteful (and, gosh -- even if this weren't an electoral process led, and paid for, by the interests of The Few, why would people do that?).
She Who Comes At Last doesn't like this. So now, after Wisconsin, she went after the Old Man -- only, she's careful not to do it personally. Charlie (who fluffs a lot of Very Bad People by softballing interviews with them) volunteered to be the hired dildo for that job.
Over at Soul Of America, the Knez of Egoslavia has mentioned his encounters with a Hillaryite Colleague (HC) in their workplace -- which I reproduce here, more or less in order and more or less in unfettered glory because I agree, and because the Superintelligent Parakeet told me to:
... my anti-Clinton is not pro-Sanders - I will not be crossing the street to vote for Sanders on April 26, nor do I advocate his candidacy. My interest in Sanders is based on my anti-Clintonism, anti-Democratic Partyism, the fuckers, and how Sanders makes Hillaryite Colleagues angry.My only real commentary about Bernie and Hillary ! on the Intertubes has been posted elsewhere -- in particular, dialogue from a running commentary with my own HC at my own workingplace. Reproducing it here (at least) satisfies the Parakeet, whom I do not want to make angry:
HC said, when did you become a Sanders' advocate? ... I'm not, I said, Sanders is a tool too, just answer the question. HC said, it depends on whether Biden entered the race. Me: >> Affectless stare << Fuck you, said HC.
>> Affectless stare <<, nice, said my Hillaryite Colleague over a pint earlier in the evening. Sorry about my tone, I said. Fuck you, said HC. Look, I said, I am making an effort to not let things Clinton does that every politician does piss me off more with Clinton than it does with the others. You yourself said you didn't think Clinton should be held to a higher standard than anyone else. Fuck you, said HC.
... I like Bernie's rhetoric, but he won't become the candidate of the DNC. It will be Hillary, the Business-As-Usual, stiff as a waterboard in public, the Faux Friend of the People. I'd be all right with a Bernie Presidency -- but the idea of Hillary and Oily Billy back in Der Weissen Haus frightens me, because **she claims to be a thing when she is in fact some other Thing**, and deep in our guts we all of us know it.
I don't want Trumpo; his election to Leader is not impossible, just not likely. To rapturously want Hillary as the Inevitable Fate of Murrika is to engage in Cognitive Dissonance on a scale so huge as to be incomprehensible. So I... agree -- not crossing the street to vote for Bernie = 'anti-Clintonism, anti-Democratic Partyism, the fuckers, and how Sanders makes Hillaryite Colleagues angry'.
Here at The Place Of Witless Labor™, my own conversation with my very own Hillaryite.
HILLCOL:- Hey; lookit this (brandishes copy of USA TODAY)
DOG: Oh; this is the part where Mrs. Clinton asks Senator Sanders how he would break up large financial institutions?
HILLCOL: What'dya mean, 'The part where'?
DOG: What Mrs. Clinton implies in her question is, Senator Sanders' intentions are nonsensical -- that JPMorgan-Chase, BofA, Wells-Fargo, Citigroup, Goldman-Sachs and Morgan-Stanley CAN'T be broken up, because they're too powerful. Or they shouldn't be broken up. Because Freedom.
HILLCOL: She's not sayin' that.
DOG: By inference, she's declaring the Senator's position on American investment banks to be illogical, specious, and too radical.
HILLCOL: (Pause) What?
DOG: [Affectless Stare]
HILLCOL: Sanders is just stupid.
DOG: [More Of Same]
HILLCOL: Fuck you. You think you're so smart. It's people like you who'll get Trump elected.
DOG: (Pauses; licks self)
Re: Bernie and Progressivism, "Oooo, That's A Bingo!" Making a similar point with my very own Hillcol this morning (that The Fix Is In and the Game Is Rigged), they were confused. They thought I was some kind of diehard Bernie person.
And that's Jenga.DOG: No. I think the political and financial system is bent and irredeemably corrupt. Bernie gets up and criticizes it because he's allowed to. He's allowed on stage because he makes Hillary look reasonable and centrist.
HILLCOL: (Pause) So you don't like Sanders either?
DOG: It's not about 'liking'. National elections are orchestrated to celebrate and perpetuate myths about society. It's really about how certain people are allowed to be candidates -- and the winner has a limited amount of power. Ask yourself: what are the myths? Who does the allowing? Who benefits, and how?
HILCOLL: But Clinton is a progressive. She's a *woman*, for god's sake. Is that why you don't like her?
DOG: You're missing my point.
HILCOLL: No I'm not. You're gonna throw your vote away. You're gonna get Trump elected.
DOG: I'd tell you that, on one level, it doesn't matter whether Trump or Clinton, or Sanders or Cruz, or Kasich or Elmer Fudd gets elected -- but I think that would blow your circuitry.
HILLCOL: What the fuck are you talking about?
DOG: Bingo.
MEHR: ES KOMMT AUS 2008:___________________________________________
As "Tough Hillary" emerges, this -- true now, as it was in The Olden Days.
(Mr Fish, 2008)
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Stranger Danger
UK View: Can't Look; Can't Look Away
MEHR, MIT SALZ: Courtesy of the blog on the other side of the mirror, there is no better proof of the state of the Republican party and right-wing politics in America than that offered bythe cultural sinkhole mutant zone devolving state of consciousness Texas (where --and this, a local joke -- the Cockroach is the state bird):
"When you drive away all the reasonable people from your party," we are told, "you end up with Trump and the head of the Republican party in Travis County, Texas... [a state where] The lowest common denominator is very, very low."
UND JETZT: Gilding the Lily, or proving the point Susan from Texas made (via Reuters):
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MEHR, MIT SALZ: Courtesy of the blog on the other side of the mirror, there is no better proof of the state of the Republican party and right-wing politics in America than that offered by
"When you drive away all the reasonable people from your party," we are told, "you end up with Trump and the head of the Republican party in Travis County, Texas... [a state where] The lowest common denominator is very, very low."
The newly elected chair of the Republican Party in the county that includes the Texas Capitol spent most of election night tweeting about former Gov. Rick Perry’s sexual orientation and former President Bill Clinton’s penis, and insisting that members of the Bush family should be in jail.
He also found time to call Hillary Clinton an “angry bull dyke” and accuse his county vice chair of betraying the values of the Republican Party ...
... Morrow’s main complaint is with “establishment” Republicans, who he does not believe should hold elected office, he said. Last week, he tweeted that the Republican National Committee was just a “gay foam party.”Morrow has a long history of critiquing prominent state Republicans in vulgar, and often sexually explicit, terms...
... Travis County GOP...vice chair Matt Mackowiak [is] apoplectic. Mackowiak, a Republican strategist, immediately announced over social media that he would do everything in his power to remove Morrow from office... “I’m treating this as a coup and as a hostile takeover.”
“Tell them they can go fuck themselves,” Morrow told the Tribune.
The post concludes with a straight shot at what the emergence of Trump means, politically and culturally -- that in many places, America is much like Yeats' poem; A Box Full Of Bad Crazy That's Looking For A Way Out:
There will be many more mini-Trumps and Trump rallies just as there were many tea party rallies. The gun nuts and militia movement will join with them; the white nationalists already have.
Even if the right manages to take down Trump it is too late to take down his followers. The right has been stoking the fears and resentments of their base for decades and now they are seeing the result of their labors. They thought they could milk the followers forever without consequence. They were wrong.
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UND JETZT: Gilding the Lily, or proving the point Susan from Texas made (via Reuters):
One of Donald Trump’s sons appeared along with a white supremacist while giving an interview on a conservative radio show, adding to concerns that the front-runner in the battle to be the Republican candidate in November’s presidential election is willing to accept support from extremist supporters.
Donald Trump Jr., who is actively campaigning for his father, gave an interview on Tuesday on "Liberty Roundtable," a conservative Utah-based radio show...
During the show he was questioned by ... another radio host whose show "The Political Cesspool" is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a leading U.S. civil rights group, as "racist and anti-Semitic."
During the interview, conducted over the telephone, Trump Jr. talked about what a good father Donald Trump was and how his campaign is changing the Republican Party.
“It’s not a campaign anymore, it’s a movement,” he told his interviewers.
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Thursday, January 21, 2016
At Night They Dream Of Robot Nixon
Reepub Leakin'
Forget Donnyboy. Ignore Crazy Moose Lady and Greg Stillson. Put Randy Paul, Carly Cruella, Big Chris, Little Marky, Jebby ! and the rest of the Thug Boat Rat Pack on the Back Burner.
Real Americans™ respond to two -- and only two -- true candidates for the Republican Presidential nomination: The Zombified Ronald Rayguns, and Robot Nixon.
Real Americans™ want a leader who will Restore America without resorting to laborious steam-cleaning methods, use of smelly chemicals, or compromises with cheese-eating Surrender Monkeys abroad and Fifth Columnists here at home. Or as Crazy Moose Lady said on Monday, “How about the rest of us? Right-winging, bitter-clinging, proud clingers of our guns, our God, and our religion, and our Constitution.”
Yes; Murragh In Cans want a leader who is undead -- or, bound to a robot body so as to stomp our many, many enemies flat. As the poet says, Well, and then / funny, ha ha, not funny / but now what they’re doing is wailing / Trump and his Trumpeters / not conservative enough. Zombie Rayguns and Robot Nixon will give Merrycow back its Gravitas and its full-service gas stations, where the Beefalo roam.
They just know it to be true; so they will be coming, to a Primary state near you: Vote early, and often. Any questions, call Fat Karl. He has The math. A-roo.
Forget Donnyboy. Ignore Crazy Moose Lady and Greg Stillson. Put Randy Paul, Carly Cruella, Big Chris, Little Marky, Jebby ! and the rest of the Thug Boat Rat Pack on the Back Burner.
Real Americans™ respond to two -- and only two -- true candidates for the Republican Presidential nomination: The Zombified Ronald Rayguns, and Robot Nixon.
Real Americans™ want a leader who will Restore America without resorting to laborious steam-cleaning methods, use of smelly chemicals, or compromises with cheese-eating Surrender Monkeys abroad and Fifth Columnists here at home. Or as Crazy Moose Lady said on Monday, “How about the rest of us? Right-winging, bitter-clinging, proud clingers of our guns, our God, and our religion, and our Constitution.”
Yes; Murragh In Cans want a leader who is undead -- or, bound to a robot body so as to stomp our many, many enemies flat. As the poet says, Well, and then / funny, ha ha, not funny / but now what they’re doing is wailing / Trump and his Trumpeters / not conservative enough. Zombie Rayguns and Robot Nixon will give Merrycow back its Gravitas and its full-service gas stations, where the Beefalo roam.
They just know it to be true; so they will be coming, to a Primary state near you: Vote early, and often. Any questions, call Fat Karl. He has The math. A-roo.
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MEHR, MIT OBLIGATORISCH FOTO, VON NETTISCH KLEINE TIER:
Hoo Hoo Hoo; Es ist Natürlichkeit! Click Here To See More About This Little Guy.
Don't Forget To Bring Your Personal Injury Attorney.
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Thursday, January 14, 2016
Greg Stillson Neglects To Report Campaign 'Loan'
Doing God's Will (Well, Somebody's God, Anyway)
The New York Times reports that Greg Stillson (R - Canada), candydate for the Republican nomination as Empty Suit Front Man For The Owner Class™, hashidden failed to report as much as a $500K 'loan' arranged by the investment firm, Goldman-Sachs, which may have found its way into the coffers of his previous campaign for the U.S. Senate, raising questions about Stillson's ethics in seeking higher office.
Mr. Stillson's wife, Ilse, is employed by Goldman-Sachs as a Squid Wrangler, but is currently on leave to act as a helpmeet for her husband.
The New York Times reports that Greg Stillson (R - Canada), candydate for the Republican nomination as Empty Suit Front Man For The Owner Class™, has
Mr. Stillson's wife, Ilse, is employed by Goldman-Sachs as a Squid Wrangler, but is currently on leave to act as a helpmeet for her husband.
A giant, speaking toad spokesperson for the Stillson For Leader campaign admitted that the loan from Goldman Sachs (drawn against the value
of an investment account the Stillsons have with that firm), was a source of money for Stillson's race for the Senate
in his current breeding ground in the Mutant Zone state of Texas. "We had some media issues that had to be addressed," the spokesperson said.
However, failure to report the Goldman Sachs loan (for as much as $500,000) was
“just one of those things,” the spokesperson said, adding that corrected
reports would be filed, "and no one cares about this anyway. You should be getting right with god before you besmirch the beatific nature of the representative of Our Savior On Earth."
There were, the spokesperson added, no attempts to hide
anything. "But we will remember you who asked these trivial questions -- and on that great day when the Senator becomes Leader, those who are not pleasing in his sight shall be made to tremble."
Photo Of Stillson As A Child Preacher In His Native Canada
Mr. Stillson, a conservative former lay preacher and Amway distributor, campaigned for his Senate seat (the Times noted) "as a populist firebrand who criticized Wall Street bailouts and the
influence of big banks in Washington. It is a theme he has carried into
his bid for the Republican nomination for president."
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Thursday, June 11, 2015
Welcome To Target
Because Freedom
(Photo By Mongo + Android / Photoshop)
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Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Taliban
Someone Else Today. You Tomorrow.
This bill is not about discrimination... [the purpose of the legislation] is very simply to empower individuals when they believe that actions of government impinge on their constitutional First Amendment freedom of religion...
-- Indiana Governor Mark Pence, to ABC's George Stephanopolis
SB 101: Religious freedom restoration. Prohibits a governmental entity from substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, unless the governmental entity can demonstrate that the burden: (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering the compelling governmental interest... Specifies that the religious freedom law applies to the implementation or application of a law regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity or official is a party to a proceeding ... Prohibits a governmental entity from substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability... Specifies that the religious freedom law applies to the implementation or application of a law regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity or official is a party to a proceeding implementing or applying the law. Prohibits an applicant, employee, or former employee from pursuing certain causes of action against a private employer... (The RFRA, per the Indiana General Assembly)
I had intended to post a long rant on the perfidy and outright evil which characterize right-wing evangelism in America, but we'll just take those items as a given.
SB 101 isn't the first law passed in even recent memory allowing a minority in political control to enshrine their intolerance with the force of legislation -- in this case, evangelical christians (with a small "c") and their god-given (well, somebody's god, anyway) right to condemn -- in this case, LGBT Americans. And evangelicals love to condemn; being a True Believer seems to gives them the authority to do that, filled with Grace™ and love (and something else) as they are.
And our right-wing evangelicals want to be the dominant authority -- over women, over children, over education and art and sexuality. Our evangelicals, like the Taliban, would like to enact their own version of religious law in America -- and religious law is not about uplifting and empowering the human spirit; it's based on Thou Shalt Not.
Religious law of whatever flavor is based on the fundamental precept that Humans are bad, stained from birth with evil, who must be carefully watched by the Elders and restricted from committing more acts which The Elders believe are affronts against (somebody's) god.
And (as is always true in less democratic forms of governing), the force of religious law always rests on ultimate punishment. Those who break these laws are whipped and disfigured, have parts of their bodies crudely amputated; are tortured until they confess their crimes; are stoned to death, beheaded, or burned at the stake. And the entire community will be made to watch, or may be required to participate in a ritualized killing... as a religious requirement. As an object lesson.
And nations ruled by True Believers and their edicts -- religious, or political -- always become bankrupt cultures; shabby, frightening, and ultimately murderous places. Ask the Muslims of Serbia and Croatia. Ask the Tutsis of Rawanda. Ask the people of Cambodia. Ask the people of Afghanistan. Ask the Jews of Europe.
(A Dog has a long memory: The last member of my family had been a born-again evangelical; for a time, they were associated with a tiny sect, organized around a self-proclaimed 'pastor'. After a long illness, my family member died; at the funeral, I watched the 'pastor' turn what was a moment of grief and remembrance into his opportunity to tell a captive audience, at length, that their time on earth was short and everyone in earshot and beyond was hellbound and they'd better get right with the lord.
(He shouted and strutted; he preened -- a True Believer in full, in love with the power that act of condemnation gave him. Of passing judgement, and settling scores. I've found some of him in every individual I've seen or experienced since who claims to be 'moved' by an allegedly higher power. And the so-called "laws" associated with whatever freakshow delusion they're pushing which allow them to do pretty much whatever they want. Yes, they'll make fine leaders of America, or whatever they'll call their New Kingdom.
(Ask the members of the People's Temple at Jonestown. Ask the Branch Davidians at Waco. You might even ask the members of 'christian' congregations across America, listening to speeches made by their 'pastors' condemning other people as less than human and feeling such putrescent drivel is not only just fine but righteous.)
SB101 is not the last legislation of its kind that we'll see passed in America. And if an evangelical christian ever becomes President of the United States, we will see many more. The United States is, in the eyes of many, the country where political apathy is king; perhaps that's so.
If it is, then God help us all. In our torpor, ultimately we may find ourselves ruled by the same kind of strutting, egotistical monsters that a real pastor, Martin Niemöller, had in mind when he made the oft-quoted observation:
This bill is not about discrimination... [the purpose of the legislation] is very simply to empower individuals when they believe that actions of government impinge on their constitutional First Amendment freedom of religion...
-- Indiana Governor Mark Pence, to ABC's George Stephanopolis
SB 101: Religious freedom restoration. Prohibits a governmental entity from substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, unless the governmental entity can demonstrate that the burden: (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering the compelling governmental interest... Specifies that the religious freedom law applies to the implementation or application of a law regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity or official is a party to a proceeding ... Prohibits a governmental entity from substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability... Specifies that the religious freedom law applies to the implementation or application of a law regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity or official is a party to a proceeding implementing or applying the law. Prohibits an applicant, employee, or former employee from pursuing certain causes of action against a private employer... (The RFRA, per the Indiana General Assembly)
I had intended to post a long rant on the perfidy and outright evil which characterize right-wing evangelism in America, but we'll just take those items as a given.
SB 101 isn't the first law passed in even recent memory allowing a minority in political control to enshrine their intolerance with the force of legislation -- in this case, evangelical christians (with a small "c") and their god-given (well, somebody's god, anyway) right to condemn -- in this case, LGBT Americans. And evangelicals love to condemn; being a True Believer seems to gives them the authority to do that, filled with Grace™ and love (and something else) as they are.
And our right-wing evangelicals want to be the dominant authority -- over women, over children, over education and art and sexuality. Our evangelicals, like the Taliban, would like to enact their own version of religious law in America -- and religious law is not about uplifting and empowering the human spirit; it's based on Thou Shalt Not.
Religious law of whatever flavor is based on the fundamental precept that Humans are bad, stained from birth with evil, who must be carefully watched by the Elders and restricted from committing more acts which The Elders believe are affronts against (somebody's) god.
And (as is always true in less democratic forms of governing), the force of religious law always rests on ultimate punishment. Those who break these laws are whipped and disfigured, have parts of their bodies crudely amputated; are tortured until they confess their crimes; are stoned to death, beheaded, or burned at the stake. And the entire community will be made to watch, or may be required to participate in a ritualized killing... as a religious requirement. As an object lesson.
And nations ruled by True Believers and their edicts -- religious, or political -- always become bankrupt cultures; shabby, frightening, and ultimately murderous places. Ask the Muslims of Serbia and Croatia. Ask the Tutsis of Rawanda. Ask the people of Cambodia. Ask the people of Afghanistan. Ask the Jews of Europe.
(A Dog has a long memory: The last member of my family had been a born-again evangelical; for a time, they were associated with a tiny sect, organized around a self-proclaimed 'pastor'. After a long illness, my family member died; at the funeral, I watched the 'pastor' turn what was a moment of grief and remembrance into his opportunity to tell a captive audience, at length, that their time on earth was short and everyone in earshot and beyond was hellbound and they'd better get right with the lord.
(He shouted and strutted; he preened -- a True Believer in full, in love with the power that act of condemnation gave him. Of passing judgement, and settling scores. I've found some of him in every individual I've seen or experienced since who claims to be 'moved' by an allegedly higher power. And the so-called "laws" associated with whatever freakshow delusion they're pushing which allow them to do pretty much whatever they want. Yes, they'll make fine leaders of America, or whatever they'll call their New Kingdom.
(Ask the members of the People's Temple at Jonestown. Ask the Branch Davidians at Waco. You might even ask the members of 'christian' congregations across America, listening to speeches made by their 'pastors' condemning other people as less than human and feeling such putrescent drivel is not only just fine but righteous.)
SB101 is not the last legislation of its kind that we'll see passed in America. And if an evangelical christian ever becomes President of the United States, we will see many more. The United States is, in the eyes of many, the country where political apathy is king; perhaps that's so.
If it is, then God help us all. In our torpor, ultimately we may find ourselves ruled by the same kind of strutting, egotistical monsters that a real pastor, Martin Niemöller, had in mind when he made the oft-quoted observation:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out. -- Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)
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MEHR, MIT "ES GENUG IST !":
(Reuters) - Indiana's Republican Governor Mike Pence, responding to national outrage over the state's new Religious Freedom Restoration Act, said on Tuesday he will "fix" it to make clear businesses cannot use it to deny services to same-sex couples.
Pence, in a news conference, said the law he signed last week had been widely mischaracterized and "smeared" but he called on the state's Republican-controlled General Assembly to send a new law to his desk this week to fix it...
But Pence found support from conservatives including Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz and possible presidential contenders Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio...
Critics say Indiana's law went too far in potentially allowing businesses to deny services to gay couples, because they could argue that doing so went against their deeply held beliefs.
Same-sex marriage became legal in Indiana under an appeals court ruling last year.
Religious Freedom Acts in Georgia and North Carolina appeared to stall this week after Indiana came under fire. But the Arkansas House of Representatives is expected to approve this week an RFRA that has already passed the state's Senate.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Greg Stillson For President
Sen. Ted Cruz; June 6, 2014 (Photo: Texas Tribune / Bob Daemmrich)
We've all seen the news. Yesterday, Senator Ted Cruz of
As I watched him speaking in a number of film clips on mainstream news, I was suddenly reminded of a character in contemporary writing and film -- Greg Stillson, in Stephen King's The Dead Zone. If you've seen the 1983 film (possibly the best screen adaptation of any of King's books), then you've seen Martin Sheen playing the role of a local politician in Maine, a Huey Long-style populist who runs for Senator -- very much what would pass for a Tea Partei candidate today.
Stillson says he believes in America, and Values -- oh, and the truth, so long as he agreed with it. And, outwardly a confident and canny politician, King's character was written as an evangelical, too -- and very much convinced that it was his destiny to become President and Do God's Will (well; the will of somebody's god, anyway).
But the truth was that inwardly, Stillson was altogether not all he seemed -- and whatever it was people were voting for when they looked at him, what they got was very different.
It is possible the truth is, in the long, oily wake of the Scalia Court's decision in Citizens United, that America's elections are now the property of people like the Koch brothers, Addled Sheldon, and Little Rupert? Just another thing to be purchased. Because they can. Because Freedom.Stillson is introduced in the novel at the beginning of the book as a struggling traveling salesman for a Bible-printing company ... During a stop at a house in rural Iowa, Stillson is attacked by the absent homeowners' dog and, enraged, sprays ammonia in the animal's eyes before beating it to death. As he drives away, Stillson comes to the realization that he is destined for greatness. (Stephen King Wiki)
But, maybe not. Maybe that's not the truth. Maybe elections might be the last place where, when casting a vote, we are in fact all equal and anything is possible. The truth? We have a moral obligation to work against ignorance and malevolence, or we will get the leaders we deserve.
The truth, too, is that King's novel and the film it's based on are just that -- fiction. In the real world, people like the Senator from
I'd suggest going here and adding your name, and even spending a few dollars. And yes, this will be on the final.
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Saturday, December 15, 2012
Sandy Hook
(Photo: AP, via The New York Times)
There are no real words for what happened in Connecticut, yesterday. There is plenty to say about how it happened.
I overheard someone at work (a classic gun
On PBS' The News Hour, a professional psychologist asked to comment said (and I'm paraphrasing) that "It's important to say... this kind of tragedy doesn't happen every day... that schools really are safe places."
I reject the first comment. The second remark made me think: This fellow doesn't go to many Inner City schools, then -- massacres with 27 dead don't happen every day, that's true; but there are shooting incidents, and kids packing, and metal detectors, and education occurring against a solid backdrop of poverty and violence, every day.
The psychologist on News Hour was, I thought, trying to suggest themes parents might pass on to reassure their children (Don't worry, Timmy; It Can't Happen Here) -- that planes can crash, but the odds of going down in one, or having one crash on top of you, are hugely in your favor. And largely, that is true.
But planes do crash. Ships sink. Trains collide and buses plunge. Whenever that does happen, there are NTSB investigations, reconstructions and root-cause analyses. There are discussions with engineers and manufacturers about what to do to lessen the chances such a tragedy doesn't happen again.
Only in cases like Sandy Hook does our national debate begin and end with, "Guns don't kill people; the people using them do". And that's it -- Pilot Error, essentially, is the public finding; and any other meme is just filler in the media. That, and people repeating, "It doesn't happen every day."
I'm sure that fact is a comfort to the extended families of twenty children, who died because they were shot with high-powered handguns. Twenty children.
I grew up around guns. I've owned firearms; at various times because I was required to carry them, but afterwards had no sane reason to keep them. I don't want them in my home.
We live in a world of high anxiety, and there are persons who want to exploit those feelings of danger, threat, and imminent disaster: Gun manufacturers, and their lobby, the NRA, are at the top of the list. Mike Huckabee and the rest of his fellow Xtian evangelical ilk; there are 2012 World-Enders, predicting massive earthquakes and crustal displacement and 'coastal events', and ultimately few survivors.
There are White Power fascists, and Survivalists, and the people who manufacture and sell them freeze-dried food and plans for bunkers to shield against the EMP bursts from North Korean-launched warheads, detonating high above the USA.
What happened in Sandy Hook yesterday has happened before -- in Columbine, in Denver; In Virginia; in a mall in Seattle last week; at a Dairy Queen in the Northwest. There may not be massacres, but annually there are many multiple-victim, firearm homicides in America.
And they will keep happening, until something changes about how firearm ownership and possession is discussed, and regulated, in this country.
The debate is not about Operator Error. It's not about something that happened "over there" in another city or state. It's about twenty dead children.
Along those lines are two, other very pertinent observations -- one, a part of the discussion at TPM Prime (Subscription Required):
Memekiller: ...for me, it's all about the NRA. I'm anti-NRA, not guns, and am offended by the strangle-hold they have over our politics. And I'm angry that Democrats have ceded the issue, only to have the NRA, if anything, put twice as much effort into unseating Democrats and Obama who, if anything, loosened rules on guns ...
... And the gun culture the NRA fosters... Would the prevalence of guns be as frightening without the culture of paranoia and conspiracies they perpetuate? It's not just about freedom to own a gun. The NRA culture is a cult of xenophobia and insanity. They don't seem to be aiming their message at responsible gun owners so much as the disgruntled and those prone to paranoia. They are less about developing an advocacy group than they are about assembling a well-armed militia of the mentally unstable.
And the other, at The Great Curmudgeon :
BrokenOur discourse, that is. Fortunately, we have DDay trying to repair it.Just to pick at random, here are a couple headlines at the Hartford Courant site just from the past 24 hours: Woman Shot, Man Dead After Standoff In Rocky Hill. Armed Robbery At Hartford Bank, Two In Custody.It’s not that school shootings like this are abnormal. They are depressingly normal. The fact that there were no shootings in one day in New York City recently was seen as a major achievement, which shows you how desensitized we have become to gun violence as a normal occurrence of daily life.Just a reminder. The NRA is an industry lobby for the gun industry. The industry that makes consumer products largely designed to kill people. Not deer. Not rabbits.
People.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
An Offering Of Darkness
One-Trick Pony
(Original Photo: Jim Young / Reuters)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
They Became What They Beheld
A Reprint, Kind Of
So, it looks like we're on track to a Mitzy and Paulie kind of America -- you know, where Mitzy calls you into his office and says, in a very matter-of-fact tone, that your service has been appreciated, and it's very very very hard to tell you this -- but America has to let you go.
It isn't that you did anything wrong -- necessarily; we're just moving in a new direction and have to reallocate; we have to lower our expectations today so we can aim for the stars later (not literally, or course; we can't pay for NASA any more). But we just can't keep you on. Sorry.
Well, there's food stamps, Mitzy says; and Little Paulie grins that lopsided grin of his and says Nope. Oh Yeah Right, Mitzy says; we cut that program. And there's no unemployment insurance, either, Paulie adds helpfully. We cut that, too.
And it's nothing personal, Mitzy says; just the Business Of America. He glances at his watch; mumbles something about "having a meeting in here in a few minutes", and with the envelope that contains your final check, Mitzy offers you a handshake. Because he's compassionate. He says Bye-bye, and adds, "I know you're going to be okay" -- but what he really means is Don't make a scene. Don't spoil my day.
And Little Paulie is the one who takes your badge and company phone and your desk keys -- before walking you to the elevator, where he gives you that soulful, Doe-eyed Altar-Boy look when he says good-bye... and just as the elevator doors start to close, you see the beginnings of that creepy smile creasing his face. The doors close; you're fired.
Welcome to Mitzy and Paulie's America.
Here's a reprint of a post from August of 2010, which sketches the kind of Volk that are waiting for Mitzy's election, the kind of person who will be ascendent in the Mitzy's New America.
You already know them. They were riding high while we lived under eight years of Lil' Boots, their know-nothing, proud-of-his-ignorance, stuff rolled-up socks in his crotch wartimey leader. The kind of person who tried to play a guitar, and ate a birthday cake, while bodies floated face-down in the flooded streets of New Orleans, and his mother chuckled about how well things had worked out for the peasantry.
A place where the extremely wealthy, hidden behind smoked glass in limos and gated estates, run things through political surrogates and lobbyists, while the peasantry are manipulated through the miracle of Little Rupert's NewsCorp and the caperings of jesters like Lard Boy or Little Glenn Beck.
It will be a place of Austerity, where unemployment maintains a pool of desperate contract workers, ready to do anything to be able to eat. It will be an America of shabby cities which can't afford road repair or clean streets -- and plenty of poor and homeless, because State governments will be responsible for allocating what assistance there is. Republican Governors like Little Scottie Walker will make sure onlycrony conservatives and non-union shops deserving.programs receive funding
PBS may still be around -- in a reduced form, and with more programs funded by individual donors -- like Little David Koch, who will want to see less of Big Bird or shows about FDR, and more ten-hour documentaries about Ayn Rand by Dinesh D'Souza. And The News Hour (never very balanced to begin with) will more resemble Fox and Friends.
It will be an America where Roe v. Wade may as well have never existed, and a place where textbooks, part of education "modules" created by a News Corp subsidiary, tell children the sun revolves around the earth, which is only 6,000 years old, and teach them about heroic conservatives in our wonderful country's fabled past. And there will be prayer; lots of prayer. And lots of money for the Megachurch pastors, too; but that's just a sign of god's favor.
That's the America waiting for you. And the people in the post below are the kinds who will run it -- not lead, but manage -- because Mitzy's America will be handled more like a business, and not like a nation.
And the most interesting thing about these leaders in waiting is that they don't just hate the different lifestyles, or politics, or opinions which other people have. They hate the people who have those differences.
It isn't just about differing ideas. They hate the people ... you should think about that.
Red Land
August, 2010
Dinner With Bill, Sean, Mikey, Glenn, And Zeppo
A very mildly liberal christian friend, who had spent most of her formative years in Texas, just returned to California after a visit there, feeling bewildered and a little frightened.
At a restaurant dinner with the family of a close childhood friend, people around the table began questioning her about living in "that California": Wasn't there a lot of crime? Wasn't all that gay marriage stuff just terrible? So against god? What about "your illegals"; didn't she think we should do something about that?
Most of the people around the table had known my friend for at least a decade as she grew up in Texas and went to college. They lived in the same neighborhood. Their daughter and my friend have remained close over the twenty-plus years since; my friend is not a stranger to these people, and they're aware she's a christian.
My friend has also been unemployed for more than a year, raising three teenagers as a single parent, slowly spending her savings. She had nervously spent money to travel with her eldest son to see him ready to attend college this Fall (which he could do only because he had received a scholarship). Everyone at the table knew all of this, too.
She was a little nonplussed by their questions about California, and tried to answer noncommittally -- but it seemed that asking her these questions was just the family's way of introducing topics to monologue over:
My friend has a number of health issues, and takes several medications (currently paid for through an expensive COBRA plan, which she will lose as it's too expensive), and one side effect is a decreased appetite. The father in the family paid for everyone's meal; when handing the bill and a credit card to the waiter, he turned to my friend and said, "S'that why you didn't order any food? 'cause you don't have any money?" And, he was in no way kind when he said it.
What dismayed and frightened my friend was how angry her friend's family seemed. "I'm not all that liberal, but the more they talked, the angrier they got -- I was from California, so to them I had to be some kind of hippie radical.
"What was really frightening was their ignorance," my friend told me. "They weren't thinking for themselves; they didn't want to listen to anything except the kind of right-wing radio junk they were regurgitating."
Remember: Most of the family around the table had known my friend for at least a decade as she grew up and went to college. Their daughter and my friend have remained close in the twenty-plus years since; my friend is not a stranger -- but these people went out of their way to demean and insult her over perceived and assumed matters of ideology.
They thought she was a "California liberal", and treated her according to their own code of conduct. My friend, committed to her faith, did not protest. That would not have been my choice of response.
As she recounted what she'd heard said around the table in a public restaurant, my friend also remembered these people kept repeating phrases like, if we don't do something... somebody needs to do something... we'd better do something.
I have a very, very bad feeling about the future.
(NOTE: This post was edited on August 20, 8:07AM PDST)
So, it looks like we're on track to a Mitzy and Paulie kind of America -- you know, where Mitzy calls you into his office and says, in a very matter-of-fact tone, that your service has been appreciated, and it's very very very hard to tell you this -- but America has to let you go.
It isn't that you did anything wrong -- necessarily; we're just moving in a new direction and have to reallocate; we have to lower our expectations today so we can aim for the stars later (not literally, or course; we can't pay for NASA any more). But we just can't keep you on. Sorry.
Well, there's food stamps, Mitzy says; and Little Paulie grins that lopsided grin of his and says Nope. Oh Yeah Right, Mitzy says; we cut that program. And there's no unemployment insurance, either, Paulie adds helpfully. We cut that, too.
And it's nothing personal, Mitzy says; just the Business Of America. He glances at his watch; mumbles something about "having a meeting in here in a few minutes", and with the envelope that contains your final check, Mitzy offers you a handshake. Because he's compassionate. He says Bye-bye, and adds, "I know you're going to be okay" -- but what he really means is Don't make a scene. Don't spoil my day.
And Little Paulie is the one who takes your badge and company phone and your desk keys -- before walking you to the elevator, where he gives you that soulful, Doe-eyed Altar-Boy look when he says good-bye... and just as the elevator doors start to close, you see the beginnings of that creepy smile creasing his face. The doors close; you're fired.
Welcome to Mitzy and Paulie's America.
_________________________________________________________________________
Here's a reprint of a post from August of 2010, which sketches the kind of Volk that are waiting for Mitzy's election, the kind of person who will be ascendent in the Mitzy's New America.
You already know them. They were riding high while we lived under eight years of Lil' Boots, their know-nothing, proud-of-his-ignorance, stuff rolled-up socks in his crotch wartimey leader. The kind of person who tried to play a guitar, and ate a birthday cake, while bodies floated face-down in the flooded streets of New Orleans, and his mother chuckled about how well things had worked out for the peasantry.
A place where the extremely wealthy, hidden behind smoked glass in limos and gated estates, run things through political surrogates and lobbyists, while the peasantry are manipulated through the miracle of Little Rupert's NewsCorp and the caperings of jesters like Lard Boy or Little Glenn Beck.
It will be a place of Austerity, where unemployment maintains a pool of desperate contract workers, ready to do anything to be able to eat. It will be an America of shabby cities which can't afford road repair or clean streets -- and plenty of poor and homeless, because State governments will be responsible for allocating what assistance there is. Republican Governors like Little Scottie Walker will make sure only
PBS may still be around -- in a reduced form, and with more programs funded by individual donors -- like Little David Koch, who will want to see less of Big Bird or shows about FDR, and more ten-hour documentaries about Ayn Rand by Dinesh D'Souza. And The News Hour (never very balanced to begin with) will more resemble Fox and Friends.
It will be an America where Roe v. Wade may as well have never existed, and a place where textbooks, part of education "modules" created by a News Corp subsidiary, tell children the sun revolves around the earth, which is only 6,000 years old, and teach them about heroic conservatives in our wonderful country's fabled past. And there will be prayer; lots of prayer. And lots of money for the Megachurch pastors, too; but that's just a sign of god's favor.
That's the America waiting for you. And the people in the post below are the kinds who will run it -- not lead, but manage -- because Mitzy's America will be handled more like a business, and not like a nation.
And the most interesting thing about these leaders in waiting is that they don't just hate the different lifestyles, or politics, or opinions which other people have. They hate the people who have those differences.
It isn't just about differing ideas. They hate the people ... you should think about that.
_________________________________________________________________________
Red Land
August, 2010
Dinner With Bill, Sean, Mikey, Glenn, And Zeppo
A very mildly liberal christian friend, who had spent most of her formative years in Texas, just returned to California after a visit there, feeling bewildered and a little frightened.
At a restaurant dinner with the family of a close childhood friend, people around the table began questioning her about living in "that California": Wasn't there a lot of crime? Wasn't all that gay marriage stuff just terrible? So against god? What about "your illegals"; didn't she think we should do something about that?
Most of the people around the table had known my friend for at least a decade as she grew up in Texas and went to college. They lived in the same neighborhood. Their daughter and my friend have remained close over the twenty-plus years since; my friend is not a stranger to these people, and they're aware she's a christian.
My friend has also been unemployed for more than a year, raising three teenagers as a single parent, slowly spending her savings. She had nervously spent money to travel with her eldest son to see him ready to attend college this Fall (which he could do only because he had received a scholarship). Everyone at the table knew all of this, too.
She was a little nonplussed by their questions about California, and tried to answer noncommittally -- but it seemed that asking her these questions was just the family's way of introducing topics to monologue over:
>> Obama is "turning the country socialist", and "wants to build that mosque"; "Somebody should do something."My friend had sat uncomfortably at the table, and said little in response. Finally, the grandmother in the family stood up, looked archly at my friend and said (as if it were a rebuke), "Yesterday I went to my first Tea Party meeting" -- then abruptly walked out of the room.
>> Obama "is Muslim";
>> Many people on long-term unemployment are "lazy", and any extensions of benefits are just "coddling" them;
>> One of the women around the table told my friend Europe will be overrun by hordes of Islamists while the rest of the world stands by, paralyzed by liberal softness: The woman had been reading America Alone: The End Of The World As We Know It, a book by Rightist author Mark Steyn published in 2006. (Little Rupert's Fox hearts Steyn and his book.). In all seriousness, the woman told my friend, "He [Steyn] is the finest writer I've ever read";
(My friend [who had married a man from Jakarta, Indonesia, and has lived and worked abroad] asked the people around the table if they had traveled in Europe; the father in the family replied, "I've never been outside the United States".)
>> The threat of illegal immigrants is very real -- "They think Texas and the Southwest is still their land, and they'll try taking it back if we don't do something," a man said.
My friend has a number of health issues, and takes several medications (currently paid for through an expensive COBRA plan, which she will lose as it's too expensive), and one side effect is a decreased appetite. The father in the family paid for everyone's meal; when handing the bill and a credit card to the waiter, he turned to my friend and said, "S'that why you didn't order any food? 'cause you don't have any money?" And, he was in no way kind when he said it.
What dismayed and frightened my friend was how angry her friend's family seemed. "I'm not all that liberal, but the more they talked, the angrier they got -- I was from California, so to them I had to be some kind of hippie radical.
"What was really frightening was their ignorance," my friend told me. "They weren't thinking for themselves; they didn't want to listen to anything except the kind of right-wing radio junk they were regurgitating."
Remember: Most of the family around the table had known my friend for at least a decade as she grew up and went to college. Their daughter and my friend have remained close in the twenty-plus years since; my friend is not a stranger -- but these people went out of their way to demean and insult her over perceived and assumed matters of ideology.
They thought she was a "California liberal", and treated her according to their own code of conduct. My friend, committed to her faith, did not protest. That would not have been my choice of response.
As she recounted what she'd heard said around the table in a public restaurant, my friend also remembered these people kept repeating phrases like, if we don't do something... somebody needs to do something... we'd better do something.
I have a very, very bad feeling about the future.
(NOTE: This post was edited on August 20, 8:07AM PDST)
Saturday, July 21, 2012
The Return Of Crazy Lady
Somewhere, Joe McCarthy Is Drunk And Smiling
In A Different Job Life, A Conversation With Crazy Lady
Would Begin With I Need You To Step Out Of Your Vehicle
And Move Directly To A Field Sobriety Test
After running a campaign
To the extent that Crazy Lady can focus on anything, since returning to her anti-environment bunker in a remote deforested area of her consciousness, Grand Turtlebear Bachmann has focused on the Islamic threat -- and recently contacted federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, asking for an investigation of infiltration of the U.S. government by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Bachmann’s accusation came in a handful of letters to intelligence and national security agencies raising questions about the Muslim Brotherhood. The letters [were] also signed by four other Republicans...The other four
Most prominently, Bachmann focused on an accusation that Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was influenced by the Brotherhood. Abedin, she said, had three family members (her deceased father, her mother, and her brother) "connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations." Abedin's position with Clinton's staff "affords her routine access to the secretary [sic] and policy-making."
She also cast similar aspersions on a Democratic colleague in the House, Keith Ellison, who is Muslim. Ellison wrote to Little Michele on July 12th and asked for details supporting her allegations, and Crazy Lady responded almost immediately -- in fact, her response came the next day.
Beginning, "Dear Representative Ellison" it went on for 16 pages and 59 footnotes. Nowhere did it mention her suspicions about Ellison's alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood...One can imagine Crazy Lady sitting up all night to type that 16-pager, thinking I'm speaking for white America and for Jesus; praise god, yes I am...
In her... letter to Ellison, Bachmann cited as evidence reports in Arab-language media, including Al-Jazeera. She also cited a 2002 law review article that referenced Abedin's father, who died two decades ago, as a founder of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs in Saudi Arabia. That group allegedly had "quiet" but unspecified support of the then-general secretary of the Muslim World League, a group with "a longtime history of being closely aligned" with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Her letter closed politely by thanking Ellison and offering to "revisit" the issue once she got the answers to all her questions. "It is my intention to wait for the investigations to be completed to comment further," Bachmann wrote.
Grand Turtlebear Bachmann Channeling Norma Desmond
(Photo: MNProgressive Project)
Almost a week later on July 19th, she appeared on the radio show of Little Glenn Beck, four years old, and repeated her accusations. She also took pains to share with Glenny that Congressman Ellison had "a long record of being associated with CAIR [the Council on American-Islamic Relations] and with the Muslim Brotherhood."
"All we're doing is asking questions," Crazy Lady told Glenny -- a nod, I suppose, to Beck's similar, signature line (After delivering an incendiary tirade of accusations against 'The Left', Beck has asked if what he's just said is true, adding, "I don't know; I'm just asking the question").
The leadership of her own Rethug party responded as if she were a leper out of the Dark ages, wandering into their little Potomac village wrapped in rags with a bell hung around her neck, and ran as far away from Crazy Lady as they could. It's an election year.
Though the Republicans are the party of gutter-crawling Poll Tax racism and violent intolerance, its leaders in Congress had to be seen publicly repudiating Grand Turtlebear Bachmann. Senator John McCain (who already had his own experience with the deranged Moose Lady) appeared on the floor of the Senate and all but declared Little Michele a public Loon.
"When anyone, not least a member of Congress, launches specious and degrading attacks against fellow Americans on the basis of nothing more than fear of who they are and ignorance of what they stand for, it defames the spirit of our nation," McCain said...
Behind the scenes, [Congressional Rethug] leadership aides said they were shaken by the comments from someone as prominent as Bachmann.
Senator Guy Says Grand Turtlebear Should Only Say Specious
And Degrading Things About Obama
A 'prominent' Republican claims, in the spirit of long-dead-and-thank-god Tail Gunner Joe McCarthy, that our government is riddled with
In a season when the GOP's sorry excuse for a presidential candidate is an überrich empty suit with an expensive haircut, Crazy Lady is a reminder that the GOP is the party of Batshit Crazy. She's an unwelcome spectacle -- like a deranged aunt (whom they keep locked upstairs when company comes visiting) suddenly bounding into the living room, demanding that god purify the world of sin and cheese, while she urinates on the carpet.
In response to the avalanche of criticism about her remarks, Grand Turtlebear Bachmann said only that her letters were being "distorted" by the media.
I'd like to say this is an election year, and so, the 'Silly Season'... but Crazy Lady's pathetic attempt to grab the spotlight for another few minutes by pandering to hate and fear (so typical for persons like her), trying to divide Americans instead of finding ways to unify us around something other than consumerism... is frightening, despicable, and wrong.
MEHR: An earlier version of this article noted that also, too, Grand Turtlebear Bachmann had accused the wife of former Representative Anthony Wiener of New York as being influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood.
What I was too stupid to know at the time is, Huma Abedin, Secretary of State Clinton's deputy chief of staff, is Anthony Wiener's wife.
Police and federal officials have placed security around ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin, after a New Jersey man threatened her, law-enforcement sources said.But, the Grand Turtlebear can't be bothered with such little details. She has a country to save!
An individual, described as a Muslim man, made the unspecified threat after Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) last week claimed Abedin’s family had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and asked for a probe to see if she is helping the Islamist organization.
The man was questioned by the NYPD and the State Department and has not been charged, sources said.
People like Crazy Lady are never held accountable for what they set in motion. Never.
Noch Einmal, Mit Schwein: Frank Bruni in the New York Times Opinion section, reminds us of the wonders of The Grand Turtlebear:
What I find most fascinating about Michele Bachmann — and there are many, many more where she came from — is that she presents herself as a godly woman, humbly devoted to her Christian faith...
Does [Bachmann's faith] call for smearing people on the basis of flimsy conspiracy theories? That’s what Bachmann just did to Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, by essentially suggesting she might be a mole for the Muslim Brotherhood.
Does it endorse scaring young women away from immunizations that could spare them serious illness? Bachmann did that during her memorable presidential campaign, when she blithely drew an unsubstantiated link between a vaccine for the human papillomavirus and mental retardation.
Does it encourage gratuitously divisive condemnations of Barack Obama as “anti-American”...? And does it compel a war against homosexuality waged with the language and illogic she uses?
She has said that gay men and lesbians are dysfunctional products of abuse and agents of “sexual anarchy”... when the singer and songwriter Melissa Etheridge was battling breast cancer years ago, Bachmann helpfully chimed in:“This may be an opportunity for her now to be open to some spiritual things, now that she is suffering with that physical disease. She is a lesbian.”
Bachmann’s concept of Christian love brims with hate, and she has a deep satchel of stones to throw. From what kind of messiah did she learn that?
...Most of us distinguish, rightly, between Muslim extremists and other followers of Islam. Perhaps we should start noting the difference between Christians of real compassion and those of exclusionary spite.
Bachmann’s on to something: dangerous fundamentalists have indeed set up camp deep inside the capital. She can find one in her office. She need only look in the mirror.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Little Michele Bows Out
Crazy Lady Says Buh-Bye
The national press speaks of GrandTurtlebear Bachmann of the Church Of Crazy Lady™ as if they just aren't sure how someone who scored so well in the Ames straw poll in the spring could have ended their presidential aspirations by Augering In at the Iowa Caucus this week.
Pundits scratch their heads, talk about 'missed opportunities' or hint at misjudgements made by her advisers. But that's not the reason she's out.
The pundits are being very, very polite -- or very, very stupid: It's because she's a Loon. She's an obviously crazy person.
That, even now, anyone ever took her seriously as a candidate for the presidential nomination says a great deal about both the Republican party and the state of politics in America. None of it is good.
Auf Nicht Wiedersehen, Michele, you nutter. Over and Out.
The national press speaks of GrandTurtlebear Bachmann of the Church Of Crazy Lady™ as if they just aren't sure how someone who scored so well in the Ames straw poll in the spring could have ended their presidential aspirations by Augering In at the Iowa Caucus this week.
Pundits scratch their heads, talk about 'missed opportunities' or hint at misjudgements made by her advisers. But that's not the reason she's out.
The pundits are being very, very polite -- or very, very stupid: It's because she's a Loon. She's an obviously crazy person.
That, even now, anyone ever took her seriously as a candidate for the presidential nomination says a great deal about both the Republican party and the state of politics in America. None of it is good.
Auf Nicht Wiedersehen, Michele, you nutter. Over and Out.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Boxing Your Ears Day
Yes, They Are
When anyone says to you, "Oh, the Tea Partei Republicans aren't crazy," hand them this letter from current Big Iowa Favorite™ Ron Paul (via his campaign for the Rethug presidential candidacy), soliciting donations:mutant freakshow nutjob libertarian on your post-ExMass list.
(NOTE: Sudden increases in weight have been reporter with conservatism. An uncontrollable desire to beat children for their own good, and to tell complete strangers about a world-wide conspiracy involving reptilian aliens, black helicopters, the United Nations or the Tri-Bilderburg Commission, non-caucasians, and [eventually; always] Jews, have been observed. If you experience headaches, sensitivity to light and a desire to consume the flesh of the living, try and communicate this to your doctor, or simply attack and eat them. The ability to support views that have no basis whatsoever in scientific fact or common sense, spontaneous diarrhea and hair loss, speckles, and Bonzeiger's Syndrome are common side affects with conservatism. Just so you know.)
When anyone says to you, "Oh, the Tea Partei Republicans aren't crazy," hand them this letter from current Big Iowa Favorite™ Ron Paul (via his campaign for the Rethug presidential candidacy), soliciting donations:
I have unmasked the plot for world government, world money, and world central banking... officials... wholly owned subsidiaries of the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations. The FEMA plan to suspend the Constitution...Astronomical professionals are discovering new planets circling distant stars every day; can we give these loons a planet of their own? There may not be as much air as there is on Earth, but the first forty million dollars is tax-free. Sure to please the
I’ve been told not to talk, but these stooges don’t scare me. Threats or no threats, I’ve laid bare the coming race war in big cities. The federal-homosexual cover-up on AIDS ... The Bohemian Grove — perverted, pagan playground of the powerful. Skull & Bones: the demonic fraternity that includes George Bush and leftist Senator John Kerry, Congress’s Mr. New Honey. The Israeli lobby, which plays Congress like a cheap harmonica. And the Soviet-style “smartcard” the Justice Department has in mind for you..
... That’s why I must send you Surviving the New Money, the Ron Paul Investment Letter, and the Ron Paul Political Report... What’s a middle-class American to do? Gold? Silver? Platinum? Rare coins? Real estate? Gemstones? ... Some investments will protect you. Others are like walking into the IRS and saying, “Take me; I’m yours."
I fear there will be welfare riots in the big cities. Massive unemployment. The destruction of wealth. The erosion of personal liberties. Vicious economic controls. The exaltation of envy. The suppression of privacy. Authoritarian clamp-downs. Bank and S&L closings on a massive scale. A world dollar crisis...
Trouble is coming, and you must be prepared. Surviving the New Money, the Ron Paul Investment Letter and the Ron Paul Political Report will be your survival kit, and if you act now, you can get this $224 value for just $99 — 55% off!… For just $99, get all this wealth-saving intelligence...
(NOTE: Sudden increases in weight have been reporter with conservatism. An uncontrollable desire to beat children for their own good, and to tell complete strangers about a world-wide conspiracy involving reptilian aliens, black helicopters, the United Nations or the Tri-Bilderburg Commission, non-caucasians, and [eventually; always] Jews, have been observed. If you experience headaches, sensitivity to light and a desire to consume the flesh of the living, try and communicate this to your doctor, or simply attack and eat them. The ability to support views that have no basis whatsoever in scientific fact or common sense, spontaneous diarrhea and hair loss, speckles, and Bonzeiger's Syndrome are common side affects with conservatism. Just so you know.)
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Michele Bachmann Weiterhin Die Berufung Des Cthulhu Hören
Michele Bachmann Continues To Hear The Call Of Chtulu
TPM:
Do people like this even live in the same country we do? Ich Denke Es War nicht so..
TPM:
In an interview with ABC News, Rep. Michele Bachmann was asked for her thoughts on who should be the fifth president on Mount Rushmore. After giving the obligatory nod to Reagan, the Minnesota Congresswoman went off into somewhat more unusual territory.
First, she began angling up to answer James Garfield, apparently on the grounds that he was the last president to move to the oval office from the House of Representatives. However, just before concluding there, she switched horses to Calvin Coolidge on the grounds that “he got the country’s budget back on track.”
“He was a taking-care-of-business kind of guy,” she concluded.
Do people like this even live in the same country we do? Ich Denke Es War nicht so..
Friday, October 7, 2011
Alabammy Whammy
They Lovin' Them Some Freedom Down Theah
Via The Great Curmudgeon:
It's not very American and tolerant and fair-play and all, but if these crazy weasels want to secede from the United States, let them.
Yes, I know: These Klan-lovin' Mitwissers aren't supposed to be representative of what were once the Old Confederate states -- but, too, also, the people living in these areas who don't support this kind of thing should raise their voices in opposition. Strongly.
I'm tired of having to cater in any way to this racist, misogynistic, homophobic, You Better Get Raht Wit' Gunz-n-Jezus, Antebellum vision of Reality. It needs to be rebuked and rejected as any kind of vision for America... and if that's truly what the majorities want in these areas, let them go their own way in their own country.
You addled bunch of peacocks want to rebuild the 'Old South'? Want to put back the drinking fountains and bathrooms and separate seating in buses and theaters and at lunch counters for "Coloreds"? Want to restrict hiring and home ownership and college admission to Whites / The Right Kind O' Christian / Native-Born Only?
Then go ahead, you Troglodyte genetically-damaged inbred throwbacks -- here's your own little aryan nation; leave the rest of us alone. We have adult work to do. And when we restrict your coming back to the United States Of America, as 'tourists' or 'immigrants' or 'foreign guest workers', you can complain then, too.
Not to put too fine a point on it or anything.
Via The Great Curmudgeon:
Friday, October 07, 2011
Crazy And Evil
Welcome to Alabama.The Montgomery Water Works and Sanitary Sewer Board began enforcing a section of the new law on Sept. 1 by requiring new applicants for service to first prove they are legally in the United States, according to the filing. The water board suspended the policy after being notified that Blackburn had temporarily suspended implementation of the state law.
Allgood Water Works also posted a sign on its office that "to be compliant with new laws concerning immigration, you must have an Alabama driver's license or an Alabama picture ID card on file at this office before Sept. 29 or you may lose water service."
Freedom. Smell it.
by Atrios at 10:44
It's not very American and tolerant and fair-play and all, but if these crazy weasels want to secede from the United States, let them.
Yes, I know: These Klan-lovin' Mitwissers aren't supposed to be representative of what were once the Old Confederate states -- but, too, also, the people living in these areas who don't support this kind of thing should raise their voices in opposition. Strongly.
I'm tired of having to cater in any way to this racist, misogynistic, homophobic, You Better Get Raht Wit' Gunz-n-Jezus, Antebellum vision of Reality. It needs to be rebuked and rejected as any kind of vision for America... and if that's truly what the majorities want in these areas, let them go their own way in their own country.
You addled bunch of peacocks want to rebuild the 'Old South'? Want to put back the drinking fountains and bathrooms and separate seating in buses and theaters and at lunch counters for "Coloreds"? Want to restrict hiring and home ownership and college admission to Whites / The Right Kind O' Christian / Native-Born Only?
Then go ahead, you Troglodyte genetically-damaged inbred throwbacks -- here's your own little aryan nation; leave the rest of us alone. We have adult work to do. And when we restrict your coming back to the United States Of America, as 'tourists' or 'immigrants' or 'foreign guest workers', you can complain then, too.
Not to put too fine a point on it or anything.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Idiot Wind
They Got Nothin'
Crazy Lady Sings Hymns; Promises $2 Gas; Death To Unbelievers
Monsieur Le Gouverneur Placard: "He Just Looks Like A Leader"
Even if Crazy Lady or Mssr. Le Gouverneur Placard lost the race, the GOP would be forced to face the Taliban on their terms: You used us to 'get Out The Vote' for the GOP for years; you said you'd institute the social agenda we want, but you lied. Now we're gonna run things. Get right with Jesus or join the fags and liberals in the camps when we finally take back this country for our god, you blasphemin' Northern types.
It will no longer be a party run by the Old Boys In Washington, as it has been since the turn of the last century. It will be run by Old Southern Boys from their megachurches.
Anyway, until That Great Day comes, we can watch the antics of Crazy Lady and Mssr. Le Gouverneur Placard, and despair: Every nation gets the leaders it deserves. I wouldn't feel this way, except we don't seem to have much by way of leadership at present; no one on the Left seems willing to stand up to these Lumpenhunde; the MSM is either dominated by Little Rupert, or frightened of its own shadow.
An example is Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times, appearing on Friday, August 19th, on PBS News Hour's spinoff, 'Washington Week'. Zeleny noted that Le Governour Perry had made his comments about Bernanke (and the next day, Zeleny claimed, "stayed on script" and took no press questions at all), but that voters in South Carolina (presumably, Republicans) "were saying, '[Perry] looks like a leader'. " And, Zeleny simply let the remark he reported hang there.
Zeleny didn't contrast his reported view of Perry as 'looking like a leader', against Perry's remarks about Global Warming, or his clear cheap shot at Obama's patriotism.
No one in the alleged Mainstream Media wants to criticize the Right for fear of appearing 'too partisan'. Fox/News Corp, and Right Wing Hate Radio, pump out lies and misinformation, 24 X 7; it's been documented and reported by those dirty hippie bloggers -- but no one in the MSM will recognize it... for fear of being labelled "partisan"?
So the obvious manipulations of the Right are allowed to go unchallenged, repeated again and again by the Wingnut Echo Chamber, and finally become accepted as 'fact'. Way to go, Jeffy.
All of this, taken together, might be a place to begin a discussion whether the Democrats and the Rethugs, and the Mainstream Media, are simply different parts of a machine that really serves a thin crust of wealth ... but, that's not a conversation anyone considers seriously in America. More's the Pity for that.
Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Rant
The responses to much of this were relatively swift. Fat Karl Rove, proud owner of a new, fourth chin, called Mssr. Le Governour Perry's remarkes about Fed Chair Bernanke "un-presidential". Ronald Reagan's former domestic policy adviser , Bruce Bartlett, (Saint Ronald The Dim! Everyone Genuflect!) said to CNN, Rick Perry's an idiot, and I don't think anyone would disagree with that.
At the same time, Bartlett remarked -- accurately -- about Obama that "He has had open seats on the Fed [since 2009, which are to be filled by Presidential appointment], and I think that this sends a signal that he just doesn't care very much about what the Fed does".
Given how Herr Obama has Fluffed the Banksters since taking office, it's little surprise that he hasn't made any appointments to the Federal Reserve board; and, any such appointments would meet with Rethug opposition in Congress, which would drain political resources and "detract" attention from the President's true agenda -- only, he'd have to have an actual agenda first, wouldn't he?
The media have duly reported all this, and my Dog nose tells me that as the Party Of Jesus continues its parade through America, there will be huge piles of something left in its wake. We can smell it already.
Idiot windIt's been quite a week for the Dominionist christian wannabe-candidates, who (if chosen to run against Herr Obama) will complete the transformation of America's Republican Party into an organization dominated by Taliban evangelicals.
Blowing like a circle around my skull;
From the Grand Coulee Dam to the Capitol.
Idiot wind; blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot, babe;
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe
Bob Dylan, "Idiot Wind" (Blood On The Tracks, 1975)
Even if Crazy Lady or Mssr. Le Gouverneur Placard lost the race, the GOP would be forced to face the Taliban on their terms: You used us to 'get Out The Vote' for the GOP for years; you said you'd institute the social agenda we want, but you lied. Now we're gonna run things. Get right with Jesus or join the fags and liberals in the camps when we finally take back this country for our god, you blasphemin' Northern types.
It will no longer be a party run by the Old Boys In Washington, as it has been since the turn of the last century. It will be run by Old Southern Boys from their megachurches.
Anyway, until That Great Day comes, we can watch the antics of Crazy Lady and Mssr. Le Gouverneur Placard, and despair: Every nation gets the leaders it deserves. I wouldn't feel this way, except we don't seem to have much by way of leadership at present; no one on the Left seems willing to stand up to these Lumpenhunde; the MSM is either dominated by Little Rupert, or frightened of its own shadow.
An example is Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times, appearing on Friday, August 19th, on PBS News Hour's spinoff, 'Washington Week'. Zeleny noted that Le Governour Perry had made his comments about Bernanke (and the next day, Zeleny claimed, "stayed on script" and took no press questions at all), but that voters in South Carolina (presumably, Republicans) "were saying, '[Perry] looks like a leader'. " And, Zeleny simply let the remark he reported hang there.
Zeleny didn't contrast his reported view of Perry as 'looking like a leader', against Perry's remarks about Global Warming, or his clear cheap shot at Obama's patriotism.
No one in the alleged Mainstream Media wants to criticize the Right for fear of appearing 'too partisan'. Fox/News Corp, and Right Wing Hate Radio, pump out lies and misinformation, 24 X 7; it's been documented and reported by those dirty hippie bloggers -- but no one in the MSM will recognize it... for fear of being labelled "partisan"?
So the obvious manipulations of the Right are allowed to go unchallenged, repeated again and again by the Wingnut Echo Chamber, and finally become accepted as 'fact'. Way to go, Jeffy.
All of this, taken together, might be a place to begin a discussion whether the Democrats and the Rethugs, and the Mainstream Media, are simply different parts of a machine that really serves a thin crust of wealth ... but, that's not a conversation anyone considers seriously in America. More's the Pity for that.
- On Tuesday, August 16, Crazy Lady told a crowd in Spartanburg, S.C.:
Before we get started, let's all say 'Happy Birthday' to Elvis Presley today. We played you a little bit of 'Promised Land' when we pulled up. You can't do better than Elvis Presley and we thought we would celebrate his birthday as we get started to celebrating [the] 'Take Our Country Back' tour.
As every true American knows, The King died on August 16th. Perhaps Crazy Lady is a foreign-type, and ain't our kind; but this is the same person who celebrated John Wayne Gacy rather than John Wayne, and continually treats facts as inconvenient -- 'Oh, everyone knew what I meant to say'. And you want this witless [redacted] as a Presidential candidate? Seriously? - On Sunday, August 14, Mssr. Le Gouverneur Placard said to a crowd in response to a question about the economy:
If this guy [i.e. Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke] prints more money between now and the election, I don't know what y'all would do to him in Iowa -- we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. I mean, printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous -- uh, treasonous; in my opinion.
- A Bit Later, Le Gouverneur Placard walked away from another public appearance and was asked if President Obama 'loved his country'. "You'd have to ask him," said Mssr. Le Gouverneur with a smile.
- On Wedensday, August 17, Le Gouverneur Placard was asked at yet another public appearance about assertions in his book, Fed Up!: Our Fight to Save America From Washington, that deal with Global Warming, and responded:
I do believe that the issue of global warming has been politicized. I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. I think we're seeing it almost weekly or even daily, scientists who are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.
- On Wednesday, August 17, Crazy Lady told another crowd in South Carolina:
"What people recognize is that there's a fear that the United States is in an unstoppable decline. They see the rise of China, the rise of India, the rise of the Soviet Union and our loss militarily going forward.
- On Thursday, August 18, Crazy Lady told yet another crowd in South Carolina that "President Bachmann" would deliver gasoline at "2 dollars a gallon... It's going to happen."
While gasoline was at a national average of $1.79 a gallon when Obama took office in January, 2009, Crazy Lady's remark would be nearly impossible to acheive. The world's shrinking petroleum reserves; even all the Drill, Baby, Drill that Senator Old Man and Crazy Moose Lady wanted to do couldn't keep pace with America's demand for oil; and, even if U.S. oil production soared, OPEC would cut back their own production and intervene in the markets to keep oil prices at the level they want to see. 'President' Crazy Lady would have little power to influence that. - On Thursday, August 18, Le Gouverneur Placard was speaking about job creation and the economy at a 'Politics and Eggs' breakfast in New Hampshire; after, Perry was approached by James Mahoney, Director of Public Policy for BankAmerica Corporation, who could be seen on a C-SPAN video offering Le Gouvernor his hand, saying, "Bank of America. We'll help you out".
Bank of America spokesperson Lawrence Di Rita (formerly the press spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld) later issued this statement:
Bank of America does not endorse Presidential candidates. The reference was about following up on the substance of the speech about job creation and economic growth. Discussing policy issues that affect our company and our customers is something we do with policymakers of both parties routinely at the local, state, and Federal levels.
Right.
The responses to much of this were relatively swift. Fat Karl Rove, proud owner of a new, fourth chin, called Mssr. Le Governour Perry's remarkes about Fed Chair Bernanke "un-presidential". Ronald Reagan's former domestic policy adviser , Bruce Bartlett, (Saint Ronald The Dim! Everyone Genuflect!) said to CNN, Rick Perry's an idiot, and I don't think anyone would disagree with that.
At the same time, Bartlett remarked -- accurately -- about Obama that "He has had open seats on the Fed [since 2009, which are to be filled by Presidential appointment], and I think that this sends a signal that he just doesn't care very much about what the Fed does".
Given how Herr Obama has Fluffed the Banksters since taking office, it's little surprise that he hasn't made any appointments to the Federal Reserve board; and, any such appointments would meet with Rethug opposition in Congress, which would drain political resources and "detract" attention from the President's true agenda -- only, he'd have to have an actual agenda first, wouldn't he?
The media have duly reported all this, and my Dog nose tells me that as the Party Of Jesus continues its parade through America, there will be huge piles of something left in its wake. We can smell it already.
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