Today's paranoid: Obama said to be jockeying for one-world presidency
From a Time story about a Virginia gathering of Congressional candidates sponsored by a Tea Party group:
Feda Morton, the only woman in the race, has been a teacher, a state-championship basketball coach, a school board member and a Republican organizer. A diminutive mother of five sporting a sparkling flag pin, she fidgeted as she recited the merits of her candidacy in an interview with TIME. When the topic turned to Barack Obama, she confessed deep fears. "I don't think the President really cares about our health care," Morton says. "He's not trying to lead America. He's trying to position himself to be a leader higher up, and the only way he can do that is to bring America into the whole one-world order concept."
Obama, she adds, belongs to a plutocratic cabal that manufactures crises for personal profit, foisting scams like health care reform and global warming on U.S. taxpayers to depress the economy. "Look at who his czars are," she says. "He's tied very closely to George Soros, European socialist organizations, Howard Dean. These people all play into this one-world order, one-world money system. And it's to make money for them."
Wow! I love the expression "his czars" -- it's like a combination of the concept behind Jesus's admonition that no one can have two masters, with some neo-Red Scare ideology. Here is her website.
Today's fake: closeted Calif. state senator with anti-gay record arrested in DUI after leaving gay bar
Courtesy SFist: California State Senator Roy Ashburn, who represents a district starting in the lower San Joachin Valley and extending through the Mojave Desert, was arrested for DUI last night after leaving a Sacramento gay bar; he had a trick in the car with him.
The news angle? Ashburn has an anti-gay voting record, and is closeted. Not to mention the fact that he has a link to Mothers Against Drunk Driving link on the resources page of his official website.
This article on Streetsblog, a progressive pro-bicycle and transit website, is fascinating. The lengthy piece, worth reading in its entirety, explains how Streetsblog staff uncovered the identity of a hyperactive negative commenter with his own website, Commuter Outrage. Evidently the man behind Commuter Outrage, a twenty-something conservative who works in a civilian job at the Pentagon, was digging up material for his screeds during work hours using his employer's (and the government's) resources, and Streetsblog's questions about these practices quickly led the secretive fellow to disappear the entire Commuter Outrage website.
Instructive were the easy-to-understand steps taken by Streetsblog staff to uncover the man's identity, along with evidence that suggested he was blogging on his employer's time. Also interesting was the fact that the attacks by Commuter Outrage and its putative staff (really just this one fellow, apparently) were not some right-wing conspiracy, but just some really energetic (if error-prone) work by one angry little man. It's amazing how much one angry, energetic little guy can do on the internet.
James Dobson, founder and head of the Focus on the Family religious education and lobbying organization, is stepping down, the Associated Press reported.
The 72-year-old Dobson, who is a psychologist by training, has been one of the most powerful religious conservatives in the U.S. for decades. His Focus on the Family organization, despite a financial downturn in recent years, is one of the most influential right-wing Christian organizations. It was a major donor to California's anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8, and its daily radio program is heard on hundreds of religious radio stations around the country.
The new head of the organization is a retired Air Force general -- Colorado Springs is also home to the Air Force Academy, which has been the site of alleged proselytizing by evangelical Christians -- who is also a former executive with defense contractor Northrup Grumman.
Focus on the Fundies: Colo. legislator says homosexuality akin to murder
After an openly gay Colorado legislator introduced a bill to extend health care benefits to domestic partners of gay people, a Republican colleague alleged it was an attempt to whittle away at the anti-gay marriage law passed by voters and equated homosexuality with murder, saying "I'm not saying this (homosexuality) is the only sin that's out there. We have murder. We have all sorts of sin. We have adultery. And we don't make laws making those legal, and we would never think to make murder legal." There's much more disgusting bigotry quoted in the article.
If only the Chief Justice subscribed to the New York Post
Did you cringe when Chief Justice John Roberts murdered the Presidential oath of office when swearing in Barack Obama? If only he were a New York Post subscriber, he could have brought it as a cheat sheet:
Focus on the Fundies: Congressman, two others 'anoint' Capitol doorway
As workers readied the inauguration stage in front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 7, a right-wing Georgia congressman and two evangelical ministers prayed over and anointed with oil the Capitol doorway that President-elect Barack Obama and other dignitaries will pass through on Inauguration Day.
An aside: clearly, the thing to do if you're a right-wing Christianist "activist" and all-around media whore is not to have your own church, but to have your own non-profit foundation in Washington DC, so you can do things like anoint the Capitol and appear on Pat Robertson's CBN.
Don't invite Mahoney to any inaugration parties, as he is fasting until Inauguration Day in solidarity with poor people "as well as the 50 million innocent victims of abortion."
WEYRICH: Here is the real problem. It has been known for many years that Congressman Foley was a homosexual. Homosexuals tend to be preoccupied with sex. The idea that he should be continued -- or should have been continued as chairman of the Committee on Missing and Exploited Children is, you know, given their knowledge of that, is just outrageous.
NPR host Nichelle NORRIS: Now before we go on, I think I can say, Mr. Weyrich, that there are quite a few people who would take exception to the statement that homosexuals are preoccupied with sex.
WEYRICH: Well, I don't care whether they take exception to it. It happens to be true. I mean --
NORRIS: That is your opinion.
WEYRICH: Well, it's not my opinion. It's the opinion of many psychologists and psychiatrists who have to deal with them.
Focus on the Fundies: Still stuck in early stages of grief
The NYT did an article about hillbillies who are shocked at Obama's victory. Finding a remote county seat, they walked into City Hall and started chatter with "the" (sic) administrative assistant who, asked for his reaction to Obama's election, said:
This is a community that's supposed to be filled with a bunch of Christian folks. If they're not disappointed, they need to be at the altar.
That's one Don Dollar, in Vernon, Alabama, seat of Lamar County, where 76% of residents voted for John McCain -- a 5% increase over the number who voted for George Bush in 2004.
By "to be at the altar" he is not suggesting marriage, but contrition. Fundamentalist churches have "altar calls" in which people are invited to dedicate, or rededicate, themselves to Christ.
I think he's saying, "I thought everybody here was just like me. I can't believe almost a quarter of people aren't. And since I do everything I'm told, anybody not like me must be a sinner.
"Of course, they aren't so far like me that they don't share my religio-cultural context, so surely they belong to a church just like mine, with identical values. I fully expect them to feel they have sinned in not mourning the victory of the Democrat, and to repent of it."
The word "Deliverance" comes to mind -- the film, not the doctrine.
Focus on the Fundies: Dobson 'jubilant' over anti-gay election wins
Focus on the Family head James Dobson was "jubilant" over passage of gay marriage bans in Florida, California and Arizona, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported. While Dobson praised the election of Barack Obama as "historic," he also said he was concerned that Obama is "in favor of much of the homosexual agency" (sic -- don't know whether this is a typo in the news story or just a brain fart by the sexegenarian Dobson; he undoubtedly meant to refer to the well-known, if non-existent, homosexual agenda).
Dobson's group contributed half a million dollars to help pass California's Proposition 8, which intends to amend the state's constitution to disallow gay marriage. Pro-marriage groups sued Thursday to keep the vote from being enforced.
Look at this map from the New York Times, showing the change in voting, county by county, from 2004 to 2008. For example, it shows how Indiana changed from a red to a blue state.
But the most interesting thing it shows is which areas of the country got more conservative in the last four years: - hillbillies, who are bigots through and through - areas devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, where all the black people moved away
I was in the break room at work, where a TV was playing CNN. A slip showed Sen. Ted Stevens leaving an office building as Wolf Blitzer narrated, "One day after being convicted on corruption charges, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens says he wants to get back on the campaign trail."
A janitor was sitting there watching. "A crook, and he wants to campaign!" the guy said. "'Look at me, I just got convicted, vote for me.' He's just a big crook!"
I said something about how I guessed he already had his campaign donations in hand so why not get out there and spend them.
"That's all they're there for," the janitor declared. "Crookery!"
Obama is ACORN. ... When I see Obama, I see ACORN branded on his forehead.
What the fuck does that even mean? He sees black people with brands? He thinks that Obama is in thrall to this non-profit community development group? What he meant was: ""When you take a lurch to the left you end up in a totalitarian dictatorship," King said. "There is no freedom to the left. It's always to our side of the aisle."
Failing to take into account that Rocky was set up to lose and did, in fact, lose. For some reason Americans find this story reassuring; cf. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," the Chicago Cubs, etc. Well-known Republicans continued their predictions of doom.
But even before this development, someone has identified a new neurosis, maverick personality disorder, to describe the McCain-Palin identity.
It's Bad Behavior Thursday™! -- Emergency 911 edition
John McCain's brother was stuck in traffic, so he called 911 to complain. When the dumbfounded operator asked him "Sir, are you calling 911 to complain about traffic?" he yelled "Fuck you!" and hung up. So the operator called him back, got voice mail, and left a message. So he calls 911 again to complain about the operator who left him a message.
Joe McCain: Somebody gave me this riot act about the violation of police. Operator: Did you just call 911 in reference to this? Joe McCain: Yeah. Operator: 911 is to be used for emergencies only, not just because you're sitting in traffic.
Video at the link above. The traffic in question was on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge just south of Alexandria, VA near the nation's capital; amusing that only a few weeks ago the same Joe McCain said the area was "Communist", possibly reaching for the same sentiment a McCain campaign adviser was trying to express earlier this week when she said Northern Virginia was not "the real Virginia."
In other election news, a Politico columnist says the RNCC is running out of fingers and toes to count the dozens of House seats the GOP will lose this time around. And morale among McCain staffers is said to be so low as to resemble the classic formation of a cratering political campaign, the dreaded circular firing squad.
It came to me while I was viewing this comic strip (which has a great joke in the last panel, but -- warning to A. -- contains "the Z word"): strippers are the cowboys of today.
In the last century, the cowboy in his many guises -- sheriff, outlaw, drunk, cowhand, bandido, gaucho, cattle baron, oil baron, redneck -- was the blank slate on which politicians, artists, real estate developers and an infinite number of children drew their dreams, anxieties, pieties, and truisms. The object of, and receptacle for, nostalgia for all we imagined we had lost in the transition to mechanized, bounded society, the cowboy represented manliness, rebellion, independence, self-reliance, and strength. Ronald Reagan (an actor) and George W. Bush (scion of a rich east coast family) self-identified with this figure, and by applying the "maverick" label to himself, Republican presidential candidate John McCain attempts to do the same.
In the last ten years we've been seeing stripper culture saturate society -- as in the Bratz dolls, movies like Showgirls, weird institutions like strippers at birthday parties, and so on. It seems like everybody knows what a lap dance is, and -- in San Francisco, at least -- it seems like everybody knows somebody who has been or is a stripper, is dating a stripper, or at least fantasizes about being one.
The comic strip convinced me. Until now it has been: police versus the zombies, doctors versus the zombies, ordinary people versus the zombies; now strippers versus the zombies. Now this is the transitional moment. Instead of going on with the zombie meme, which I think has been completely played out (and yes, there has just been a movie about zombie strippers), from now on everything's going to be about strippers. Stripper lawyers, stripper crime-fighters, stripper real estate mavens, stripper executives, etc. They may not be actual strippers, just as the sheriff in a western film wasn't actually a cowboy; he merely embodied what were supposed to be cowboy values. The "stripper politician," say, might not really take her clothes off for pay, but she is going to embody stripper values.
And what are stripper values? In a way, a little like what were supposed to be cowboy values: independence, horniness, toughness, panache, daring; being sort of an outlaw even if you are, say, a cop (cf. Dirty Harry, Serpico, the Die Hard films, etc.) Substitute over-amped femininity for being macho, and voilá:
Sorry -- I guess that was even scarier than zombies.
By today, disgusted contributors from across the country had donated nearly $500,000 to her opponent, one El Tinklenberg, a former Methodist minister, mayor of Blaine, Minn., and state transportation commissioner.
Asshole RNC delegate's karma: robbed of over $100,000 by 'beautiful woman'
A Colorado delegate to last month's Republican National Convention who loves uttering jingoistic, aggressive statements was taken to the cleaners by an opportunistic prostitute to the tune of over $100,000. A sampling of his wit and wisdom:
Schwartz was candid about how he envisioned change under a McCain presidency. "Less taxes and more war," he said, smiling. He said the U.S. should "bomb the hell" out of Iran because the country threatens Israel.
Asked by the interviewer how America would pay for a military confrontation with Iran, he said the U.S. should take the country's resources. "We should plant a flag. Take the oil, take the money," he said. "We deserve reimbursement."
He said an attack on Iran was needed to protect Israel, and he offered how it could be accomplished through "strategical airstrikes. Hopefully, just bomb the hell out of them from the sky. No troops," he said.
Schwartz was asked if he had a message to the protesters who filled the streets of downtown St. Paul. "Get a job," he replied.
Or, just maybe, find some stupid Republican and take advantage of him.
It could have been better. It could have been a male prostitute.
Salon.com started a new blogging-cum-social networking realm called Open Salon, and I started a blog there. My first post is kind of obvious.
The Lord, as His minion Pat Robertson likes to claim, directs natural disasters towards sinners, and thus the destruction wreaked by Hurricane Katrina was punishment for American wickedness... As Hurricane Gustav approaches landfall, you have to wonder, then, why God has it in for the Republicans so bad that He sent a major hurricane to disrupt their convention.
It looks as though it will take two years for us to have adequate earning power again, so we are looking for people who will help us monthly for two years.... Between now and the end of the year, we have to find the people who want to help us transition into our future. So I am starting today to let friends like you know that we are raising money ...
The story goes on to say that Haggard is living in the same Colorado Springs mansion he lived in when running a magachurch there. And there are still five big cars in the driveway.
Environmental activists in the U.K. stopped a train carrying coal to a power plant and are prepared to occupy it for several days. They're offloading the coal shovelful by shovelful, which doesn't sound like a really fun way to spend your summer.
A woman who wrote a memoir about growing up in a dysfunctional family is a liar, say her parents, who published their claims on the amazon.com page for her book, and who went to a TV show where she was being interviewed and passed out leaflets "about what a 'tramp' their daughter is as the audience made their way to their seats."
Courtesy Wonkette, a former chairman of the Clark County (Ken.) GOP pled guilty to sex charges in a case where he woke up a friend by sucking his cock. "In addition to his position as Clark County chairman, he was chairman of the Young Republican National Federation." Hottt!
L.A. is just one of the cities where post-riot grrl feminism has expressed it self in a newly popular Roller Derby scene.
A 61-year-old American was deported from Cuba to face sex and pornography charges. Authorities in the affluent San Francisco suburb of Orinda say they found evidence in his home that he traveled to Costa Rica over three dozen times to have sex with minors. And in Sana'a, Yemen, a 10-year-old girl was granted a divorce from a man "three times her age" who beat her and forced her to have sex. Now that she is free from the abusive situation, the girl says she would like to become a lawyer.
In Minnesota, 40 cleaning supplies salesmen were kicked out of a hotel for being loud, rude assholes. Video caught a mugger in New York. One of the operators of the escort service that had Eliot Spitzer as "Client 9" pled guilty without "cooperating" and got three years in prison.
In the affluent SF suburb of Danville, a woman delivering newspapers ran over two 15-year-old boys who were lying in the middle of a residential street under a blanket in the middle of the night. No word on what they were doing there -- my guess is stargazing. (Update: sure enough.) The woman was not charged.
Cris and I had a talk this morning about the candidates. She thinks Clinton would have a chance to do more in office. A pragmatist, she said a political machine, such as the one Clinton is connected to, is a valuable tool. I countered by saying she may be too beholden to certain people and institutions and may have too many favors to repay. I guess it's two sides of the same coin. Yes, she would put very experienced, well-connected people in her administration. But who's to say such people wouldn't also flock to an Obama administration. "Kind of like a Camelot thing," Cris said thoughtfully.
I also don't relish the thought of the Rush Limbaughs of the world being able to gnash their teeth on the Clintons for another eight years. If Obama wins the nomination, it would at least set them back on their heels for a time. Maybe not long.
Meanwhile, if you want to see what a race to the bottom looks like, take a look at this article from the Colorado Springs Gazette, depicting the one-term incumbent COngressman and two Republican challengers in a competition to prove who is more "conservative" than the others. One man, the aptly named Crank, wants to defund Amtrak, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Dept. of Education. "Those are not things the government needs to fund," he argues, contrasting them with Kevlar vests required by soldiers. Yes, let's be a nation known by our Kevlar.
Courtesy MediaBistro, here is some of the worst, most entertaining writing I've seen. It's in a blog post by a former TV producer, who writes about his tortured relationships with Fox News fuhrer Roger Ailes, a blond assistant, his agent, his wife, and other characters. Despite the quality of the writing, it has all the ingredients for a Bonfire-of-the-Vanities style novel and/or memoir.
Some choice phrases:
My wife Gina was emailing strange men in foreign countries on the computer, a habit she seemed unwilling to break. I was fantasizing about the 23 year old blond, who that day walked into the elevator facing me, threw her shoulders back, projecting toward me her extraordinary breasts, stared at me, and backed up against the opposite wall, putting a sexual no-man's-land between us. ... She was blond and productive. Regardless, on the last day of production, the blond knocked on my door and asked if we could talk. ... I had lived at 1060 Park Avenue for 30 years. My adult life had played out on that stage. I loved it. I walked out along Park and wept. Everything was intolerable. But that which could not be changed had to be accepted. And I had to have the courage to change that which I could change. I moved to my mother's.
Some politically oriented pictures of Bush, Cheney and other administration figures in an exhibition of prints in the New York Public Library are creating controversy. The NYT's comments are spot-on, saying the mug-shot like images of Bush and his cronies would hardly be unusual on "The Daily Show," for instance, but in the context of a staid show at the library, they're electric.
At first I wondered who put al-Qaida (sic) in charge of the New York public library, but then of course remembered the American left is doing their bidding for them.
God, that shit is tired. I mean, images of Bush et al as criminals are almost as tired as that, but surely people who listen to right wing radio are getting tired of it, aren't they?
No, I guess they're immune to that. The left will get tired of anything and say "enough already" but rage junkies never get tired of their rage. Who could have imagined they'd still be demonizing Jane Fonda, for example?
The current issue (19 Nov 07) of Newsweek has this remarkable passage:
[As the Spring of 1968 began, President Lyndon] Johnson was bitter. "How is it possible," he repeatedly asked, "that all these people could be so ungrateful to me after I had given them so much? Take the Negroes. I fought for them from the first day I came into office. I spilled my guts in getting them the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress ... I asked so little in return. Just a little thanks. Just a little appreciation. That's all. But look what I got instead. Riots in 175 cities. Looting. Burning. Shooting ..." On and on, Johnson would rant, against the students and poor people who had turned against him, despite all he had done for them, "young people by the thousands leaving their universities, marching in the streets, chanting that horrible song about how many kids had I killed that day ..." ("Hey! Hey! LBJ! ...")
Johnson's worst dream, the most violent and diabolical, began with a twisted take on a cattle stampede. "I felt," Johnson later confided to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, "that I was being chased on all sides by a giant stampede coming at me from all directions." There were "the rioting blacks, demonstrating students, marching welfare mothers, squawking professors, and hysterical reporters. And then the final straw. The thing that I had feared from the first day of my Presidency was actually coming true. Robert Kennedy had openly announced his intention to reclaim the throne in the memory of his brother. And the American people, swayed by the magic of his name, were dancing in the streets."
How satisfying -- even 30 years later -- to hear a politician actually acknowledging the effect of protests. No wonder baby boomers are so full of themselves now -- they brought down not just Nixon, but Johnson as well.
As for now, can you imagine George Bush even being aware of -- much less being upset by -- the national mood of disgust with him?
Authors getting '10 percent of nothing' for foamer books
Five right-wing authors have sued their publisher for marketing huge lots of their books to book clubs and other outlets it owns at vastly reduced prices, meaning that instead of getting the usual 15% royalty on cover price, they get 10% of the publisher's net profit on the internally-marketed books, which is virtually nil.
Said one disgruntled writer: "You get 10 per cent of nothing because they basically give them away." Another complained:
The difference between 10 cents and $4.25 is pretty large when you multiply it by 20,000 to 30,000 books. It suddenly occurred to us that Regnery is making collectively jillions of dollars off of us and paying us a pittance. Why is Regnery acting like a Marxist cartoon of a capitalist company?
I'm not sure where the Marxist part comes into it, unless he's referring to the fact that these writers are already wealthy and the publisher, using the dictum "To each according to his needs," figured they didn't need the money.
Anyway, fun for all. Once you see what books they're talking about, you'll quickly lose any sympathy. The titles include such shit-bombs as "Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry" and "Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How Bill Clinton Compromised America's National Security."
Focus on the Fundies: Swinging pendulum hits foamers
This NYT magazine article on the changing political winds among evangelical (formerly hard-right-wing) Christian churches is fascinating. Finally disenchanted with the Karl Roves and Dick Cheneys and perhaps becoming more sensitive to what their religion actually says about caring for poor people and the earth, the denizens of meagachurches can no longer be counted on to vote straight Republican. The more politicized see no presidential candidate to vote for; the less politicized realize they've sold their silk purse for a sow's ear.
Important milestones in the disillusionment include the fall of Ted Haggard and David Kuo's book about Rove's manipulation of Christians for political gain.
I've always been fascinated with unusual jobs, and the NYT Magazine feature from tomorrow's issue, with portraits of those who cater to the very wealthy, is chock full of doozies. My favorite is the nutritionist who "'go(es) over the menus of restaurants they're expected to attend, say, in the upcoming week and tell them what to order,' says Klauer, also known as the Park Avenue Nutritionist. 'That way, there's no guesswork. Before they even step foot inside a restaurant, they know what they're going to eat.'"
One of the things I like about this is her weirdly inflated use of the passive tense: not "restaurants they plan to go to" but "restaurants they're expected to attend," as if a meal at a restaurant is, for the super-rich, always a matter of obligation. I also like this idea that being super-rich means paying someone to look over your shoulder and play the part of a superego, telling you what you are and are not allowed to do.
President Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkoszy had lunch yesterday at the Bush compound in Maine. Sarkoszy brought the brains. You don't believe it? Read for yourself:
Q Mr. President, could you say something in French?
PRESIDENT BUSH: No, I can't. I can barely speak English. (Laughter.)
Q Mr. President, what kind of lunch are you going to have?
PRESIDENT BUSH: We're going to give him a hamburger or hot dog, his choice. (Laughter.)
MRS. BUSH: A traditional family lunch --
Q Mustard or catsup?
PRESIDENT BUSH: It's up to him. We got it all laid out in there. He's got some baked beans, if he'd like some baked beans we've got that, as well.
MRS. BUSH: Native Maine corn.
PRESIDENT BUSH: Corn on the cob, real fresh this time of year.
MRS. BUSH: -- salad, fresh tomatoes.
PRESIDENT BUSH: If he feels like it, he can have him a piece of blueberry pie -- fresh blueberries up here in Maine.
Q Do you think he's bringing cheese?
PRESIDENT BUSH: I think he's bringing goodwill. He's bringing a good brain, good vision and goodwill.
I like that Barbara Bush is taking credit for the corn. She probably thinks her Mayflower ancestors gave it to the Indians.
Onward in the 21st century: surveillance without end
Courtesy Mitch Radcliffe, a story on a new Republican effort to force ISPs to archive users' searches, supposedly to aid in the search for child pornographers and so on. As Radcliffe points out, we already have enough law to pursue child pornographers. So the real agenda is probably just the Republicans' crazed quest to increase the power of the executive branch -- in this case the Justice Dept. -- and chip away at people's civil rights.
Ironically, this news comes on the same day a federal judge struck down the 1998 Child Online Protection Act, declaring it unconstitutionally broad and harmful to free speech. This was the case in which my friend Marilyn testified, reading into the record a couple of sentences from my pseudonymous porn novel Lesbian Camp Girls. See my previous post from Nov. 2006 when she testified and was interviewed, with her mother, by Nerve.com.
I didn't want to miss pointing to this AP story headlined Christian Right at crossroads, about how the movement's founders (Robertson, Falwell, Dobson) are etting up there and how there are few figures standing up to take their place -- especially now that Ted Haggard has been neutralized. Also see my post from March 7 on the same topic.
Otherwise, Bush and his rapidly shrinking administration are officially beleaguered, even if the President himself can't spell that. But there are other things to worry about -- I found the interview on "Fresh Air" Monday with the author of a book on Blackwater USA completely chilling. The author's thesis is that Blackwater and the other "security contractors" hired to protect civilian and government interests in Iraq, Afghanistan and other hot spots represent the outsourcing of the American military, with the object being to avoid Congressional oversight.
Never mind what the CIA and other security agencies are doing -- the Addingtons of the world are way ahead of you. Blackwater and its ilk can operate in complete privacy, ignore requests for information, ride roughshod over any notion of civil rights and the rule of law, with impunity. And author Jeremy Scahill's description of the secretive, powerful and far-right evangelical leaders of Blackwater is positively frightening. You really should listen to that "Fresh Air" segment -- if you're already depressed today, that is.
Very nice piece on Salon by Glenn Greenwald, talking about why Republicans love Ann Coulter and keep inviting her to speak at fundraisers and functions as she customarily drops bombs (like her recent "faggot" reference to John Edwards) -- she simply says what they're all thinking, namely that the Democratic party is mainly driven by gay people and that it's up to Republicans to protect the rest of the country.
I almost missed this, but a Google-alert link to a Daily Texan editorial tipped me off. There's a far-right christianist group, tellingly called the Council for National Policy, which meets every year to attempt to unite behind certain right-wing candidates and causes. They provided early support to G.W. Bush, for example, when Karl Rove pushed him out there in 1999 to begin his presidential run.
Well, this year they met a couple weeks ago and couldn't decide whom to support in the prexy sweeps. They know McCain and Giuliani can't stand them, and even deeply conservative Christian candidates like Sam Brownback are suspicious. Brownback isn't tough enough on immigrants, and he supports the growing pro-environmental movement among evangelicals. As for Mitt Romney, the "council" has decided he has held too many liberal positions in the past, though he's now trying to claim the mantle of Family Values Candidate and Ann Coulter loves him. So the "council" is bereft of choices.
What's really happening is a generational change. The founders of the Council for National Policy -- people like Jerry Falwell, James Dobson and Jerry LaHaye, are in their 70s. The new evangelicals are looking beyond the classic hot-button issues of gay rights and abortion to care for the environment -- even things that Jesus actually talked about, like feeding and housing the poor. They include people like Rick Warren, leader of one of the largest churches in the country and author of a book, "The Purpose Driven Life," which is hugely influential among fundies, Pentacostals and the suburbanites who pack the non-denominational megachurches, of which Warren's is one.
I have the feeling that power-hungry christianists like those in the "council" will figure out by the end of the year that they have to choose between Brownback (who could never win) and Romney (who is anonymous enough to squeak by under the radar, and besides, Ann Coulter...). Meanwhile I'm enjoying the notion that they're twisting in the wind.
That's Rep. John Boehner, who is something important in the House Republican leadership -- they're not in power now and they can't do anything, so who cares -- speaking on the non-binding resolution to oppose President Bush's troop escalation.
See, what you do, Boehner, is bring along a little ground beef, and when you see an insurgent, throw it on the ground and wait til he starts eating it. Then while he's distracted, run away.
it's Bad Behavior Friday™! -- bonus Republican Edition
Former congressman Bob Ney has been sentenced to 30 months in prison in a case related to the congressional influence-peddling scandal which -- almost as much as the war in Iraq -- was responsible for Republicans being swept from office in the elections last year.
In another Abramoff-related case, a California congressman, John T. Doolittle, promised Saturday to stop employing his wife as a campaign consultant, a practice which funnelled 15% of donations to his household. Doolittle, from the Calif. 4th district in the Sierra Nevada, somehow managed to win his district in 2006 despite being linked to the disgraced lobbyist.
For the record, Cris rejected this choice and ordered hers from the men's department. That's how she plays it.
Speaking of which...
That's my friend Alexis, on vacation from snowy Mlps in sunny PR. She calls it right: "Homage to Stanley Kubrick," missing only the cowboy hat.
I also loved her previous post about a passive-aggressive flight attendant:
After noticing my seatbelt was off while the fasten seatbelt sign was illuminated during flight, asking me about it, then hearing my explanation that I was just getting up to use the bathroom, she said "well, I guess that's your decision."
All right, on to our usual parade of depravity. Here's a very short news story; it's all in the headline: Woman found dead under Houston motel bed. That pretty much sums up Houston -- well, except maybe the Rothko Chapel.
In San Francisco, a man, whom the cops searched and found drugs on, ate the evidence off the hood of a police car while officers were struggling to handcuff him. Unfortunately the baggie wasn't sealed and the man went into convulsions and died on the spot.
The handsome wife of former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevy -- who appeared at his side when he revealed to media "I am a gay American" -- will tell all in a book now that their divorce has been finalized. Her book will give her side of the story McGreevy told in his own book from last year, and apparently she is a lot more pissed off than she's let on til now. So it should be good.
Finally, courtesy galleycat we have Today's Fake™: a woman who described a rape in court was lying about the incident to delay another court hearing about a huge debt she owed. This revelation casts doubt on the memoir she wrote about being a single mother who turned to prostitution.
Oy. Why does everything have to be a memoir? Wouldn't it have been better for her to just write the same book, put the words "a novel" after the title, and let readers wonder how much of it is true?
A Virginia lawmaker stunned colleagues when, in debate over whether the state of Virginia should apologize to African Americans for slavery, Delegate Frank D. Hargrove said "Our black citizens should get over it," adding, "are we going to force the Jews to apologize for killing Christ?" When a Jewish colleague, David L. Englin, rose to protest, Hargrove:
told Englin he didn't care about Englin's religion. "I think your skin was a little too thin," Hargrove said as lawmakers gasped and groaned.
He is 79 years old, has been a legislator since 1982, and in the last election in 2005, ran unopposed.
On the plus side, just think what a rad accoutrement that is. Could replace piercing and tattooing as the next frontier in body modification.
One Todd Shriber, who has served as a press aide to several Republicans and most recently to Rep. Dennis Rehberg (R. - Montana, Montana's only Congressman), has apparently been caughtadmitted trying to hire hackers to change his college GPA (courtesy Badger). The hacker -- or whoever was answering his plaintive emails -- got him to take pictures of squirrels and pigeons, which brings to mind the scamming the scammer tactics of a guy in Australia who got Nigerian 419 scammers to furnish him with strange objects such as "a wooden carving of UK characters from the Creature Comforts TV series, and a carving of a Commodore 64 computer keyboard."
A woman who was applying makeup while driving lost control of her vehicle and died when it went off the road in New York. Best quote: a policeman said, "There was makeup all over the air bag."
It's holiday time, and look what Santa has brought (via Wonkette): a "well-known GOP activist" in Seattle has been arrested for trying to arrange sex with a 13-year-old girl. There wasn't really a girl, it was just an internet sting run by the cops. But there really was a lonely, sexually frustrated 54-year-old Republican functionary looking for some trim. Bye, fella!
A Georgia man was arrested for trying to put his wife into an oven in front of his family on Thanksgiving. And in an obscure, unpronounceable New York town, a man broke into a barn on Thanksgiving and spray-painted three goats. What color? Orange. Glad you asked.
In a more extreme, if mundane, story a man in Oakland killed three family members during a Txg gathering -- in self-defense, he says. How do you kill three members of your family, at home, in self-defense?
Salon pulled out the stops Wednesday for Stephen Elliott's masochistical book My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up with a review and an excerpt. Coincidentally, the next day they published one of their literary travelogue pieces, this one on the Netherlands. The piece doesn't mention that Elliott's book contains an evocative chapter set in Amsterdam's sex underground.
Focus on the Fundies: no broad agenda, Chr. Coalition insists
For the second time in a year, the Christian Coalition has fired an incoming president before he took office. The erstwhile leader, a Rev. Joel Hunter of Florida, wanted to expand the lobbying group's agenda to include AIDS and global warming, but the board said no dice.
The action came after four state chapters broke away from the group in reaction to Hunter's positions.
In recent years -- and especially since the 2006 midterm elections -- some conservative Christian leaders have tried to moderate the their reputation for being only about abortion and gays, suggesting, for example, that Christian notions of "stewardship" justify caring for the environment. But not everyone welcomes the oppurtunity to enlarge the "tent" of religious fundamentalism, resulting in fractiousness.
The funny part about this is when center-right evangelicals use a term like "compassionate conservatism." As recounted by author David Kuo, the former staffer in the White House's Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, many conservative Christians supported Bush when he took this line -- but it turned out to be mere lip service. It's just a catchphrase invented by Karl Rove to snare religious right-wing voters; there is no commitment behind it. So to see well-meaning Christians still using the phrase, as if it actually means something, is pathetically sad.
Perhaps the last word on l'affaire Haggard -- or at least its political implications or lack of them -- is contained in a long, very interesting Colo. Springs Gazette analysis piece, in which the writer admits the scandal had little effect on local races but suggests fundies' political influence is waning:
The bad news for evangelicals who remain loyal Republicans is that their influence may wane in a party that is looking to swerve to America’s middle so that it can better compete with Democrats. The drubbing taken by Sen. Rick Santorum, the Republican evangelical Christian from Pennsylvania, underscored what looks like a big swing of the political pendulum. The looming question comes down to this: Did Republicans lose their religion or did they scare off moderates with religious zealotry?
"I think the big story of 2006 is the support for Democrats by religious moderates," said David Domke, a professor at the University of Washington who has written several books on the relationship between evangelicals and the Republican Party. "The GOP is not the only game in town for Christian voters," Domke said. "The Democrats have made tremendous inroads."
But did fundies ever really have that much influence in the GOP -- or did Karl Rove just make them think they did? Don't forget the analysis of David Kuo, whose disillusioned take on the relationship between Christians and the Bush White House, "Tempting Faith, accused Rove et al. of manipulating evangelicals for their votes.
Finally, this article from the center-right Christian Century outlines the "rehabilitation" Haggard is embarking upon.
Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, the unfortunately hyphenated American whose name voters in Tom DeLay's district were supposed to write in, lost the general election to Nick Lampson but, at the same time, won a "special election" to fill out the rest of DeLay's term. In the five days of this week, she managed to piss off DeLay's old staff so badly they all quit, leading the temporary congresswoman to demand an investigation!
Best: She has "ambitious goals for her seven week tenure... that include reforming immigration and cutting taxes." Good luck with that!
Andrew Fastow, one of the Enron felons, won't be serving his six-year sentence in the prison of his choice near Houston. Instead, he's going to Louisiana.
And remember that case where a reality TV crew was sued for staging a confrontation between a woman and her estranged husband, on whom she had previously gotten a restraining order? A judge threw out some of the criminal charges but the trial on other charges is going forward.
Police in New Mexico who were served pot-laced Whoppers are suing Burger King.
Modern-day celebrity pastors have Web sites, where they promote their books, along with the DVDs, TV shows and films they produce, while preaching internationally. With such high profiles, word of any wrongdoing will spread quickly, intensifying the damage to them and their congregations.
Haggard felt the impact firsthand last week.
So that's what they're calling it now -- "the impact." I can think of a few others who "felt the impact" this week, and they all have an (R) after their names.
"Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?" (the talk show host) asked.
"Well, it's a no-brainer for me," Cheney said. "But for a while there, I was criticized as being the vice president for torture. We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in."
Oh -- right -- "a dunk in water." Probably what Cheney was thinking about was those Dunk The Geek tanks at fundraising picnics, right?
In Orange County, eleven people are being charged with voter registration fraud after they turned in registration forms marked Republican -- though the people signing up were under the impression they were registering as Democrats! The case happened in the same congressional district where a Vietnamese-American candidate's campaign is being investigated for sending a letter to 14,000 Latino households falsely saying that it is a crime for immigrants to vote. Seems like somebody down there has been reading too many political thrillers and Nixonite memoirs.
In New York, a woman went to a shrink's office on a job interview and was groped "in a menacing and lustful manner." The shrink is the author of a book titled "How to Pick the Right People."
How much you want to bet the guy's lawyer will announce his client has just entered rehab?
Usually this feature focuses on mayhem, sex and drugs. What about a little tenderness?
Lance Armstrong, who lives on a spread in the Texas Hill Country, has riled neighbors by building a dam they say has ruined a famous local swimming hole.
See the tenor here? The Republicans have done our job for us, so we're taking it easy this morning.
A Massachusetts woman was in custody yesterday after she phoned in a threat to "kill the freshman football team," specifically four players, including her own son. The woman made the call from a pay phone across the street from the evangelical church where her husband is the pastor.
An octogenarian in Queens was scammed out of $500,000 by a "teen temptress," to use the Daily News's language. She didn't have to marry him or even fuck him, she just sweet-talked him out of the money over two years.
In New York they're agog over revelations that the state attorney general talked with her lover about bugging her husband's boat to discover evidence of his adultery. The AG is going on the offensive, demanding an investigation into how the conversation -- whether it rises to the level of conspiracy is yet to be decided -- became public. Typically for the eastern seaboard, the background of the players has all kinds of weird shit -- tax fraud investigations, personal attacks in books, etc. That's all so no one will pay attention to the fact that the Republican state attorney general was fucking someone not her husband. Because the Republicans are all about family values and 9/11.
I just know 9/11 is in there somewhere. Someone call Bernard Kerek.
Speaking of the cops, somebody shot a Brinks guard and hijacked the other guard and the truck this morning in Oakland. The interesting thing is that a police spokesman said:
It's very alarming, very scary to think that a suspect would have the audacity and gall to pull something as heinous as this in broad daylight.
What?! This is Oakland! That guard makes the 114th murder this year in Oakland -- a city of 600,000.
It's Bad Behavior Friday™! -- 'Republicans, the other white meat' edition
Rep. Bob Ney of Ohio has agreed to plead guilty to several federal charges in this year's Ambramoff-and-the horse-you-rode-in-on lobyying scandal. Ney withdrew from his congressional race earlier and the six-term congressman's 18th district is now rated a toss-up -- just one reason the Republicans are sweating this year.
Former prosecutor Nancy Grace, now a TV personality, badgered a guest on national television early this week. The 21-year-old guest, whose son's kidnappingg, was slow to respond to Grace's increasingly vicious line of questioning which implied that she had something to do with the boy's disappearance, and after the taping was over, killed herself. Then Grace aired the interview anyway.
Two pork companies in Oklahoma have agreed to pay $445,000 in federal fines for violating environmental laws. Quoting from the story: "The complaints filed against the companies accused them of allowing lagoons containing pig manure and urine and other waste products to leak into ground water at five Oklahoma farms. Seaboard also is accused of allowing the release of excess amounts of ammonia -- considered a hazardous substance -- from a central Oklahoma farm."
Somehow I have the feeling that the $445,000 is a drop in the bucket to the pork producers.
It's Bad Behavior Friday™! -- Impulse control edition
Houston is agog over a suburban woman who is accused of having an affair with a teenage neighbor boy; she may also have born the youth's child. In Missouri, a man was sentenced to 20 days in jail for breaking into his ex-wife's email account and sending her relatives dirty pictures of her they had taken when they were married. A Florida man was sentenced to six years in a software piracy case in Virginia.
People have boundary issues, don't they?
In Prince George Co., Maryland, a man was convicted on bribery and conspiracy charges for extorting money from a security firm seeking a government contract. In New Jersey, a construction contractor was sentenced in a wide-ranging bribery scandal involving the Paterson schools. And in Los Angeles, a former mayoral aide surrendered to face charges in another bribery scandal, this one involving Taiwan companies trying to score contracts with the city.
This is America, people. We don't just pay people off like in some banana republic. We hold fundraisers and have a democratic election, whereupon the people who wrote the checks get the business. That's how it works.
A New York chef who had just come home from work at a "ritsy" restaurant was strangled by an intruder who might be the same person who killed an aide to former NY mayor Rudy Giuliani -- both "were found naked and strangled."
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