If cringing comedy is your thing, check out the latest offering from birther preacher James David Manning, who has a reputation even in birther-land for being, well, weird. Last week, he held a show trial at his Harlem church in which he accused "long-legged mack daddy" President Obama of having been born in Kenya. Not only that, he claimed Obama never actually attended Columbia University in the early 1980s, instead going to Afghanistan to fight for the mujaheddin against the occupying Soviets on behalf of the CIA. Wow, not even Orly Taitz at her loopiest ever said that.
To absolutely no one's surprise, Manning's little play court found Obama guilty of all charges. Of course, since it wasn't a real court, the legal value of this "verdict" is precisely zero. But since he was upset that no one apart from birthers and people who find comedy gold in birther antics paid any attention to him, he held a press conference at his church Friday afternoon at which he attacked the "bullying" media and Obama in equal measures.
All I can say is that Manning has a lot to learn about staging press conferences. The video shows about a dozen people, widely spaced out in the otherwise empty church, sitting quietly and listening. One woman asks him to clarify some of his accusations, particularly, "Why would Obama, with his Marxist background, be so eager to throw in with the CIA and go to Afghanistan and fight Socialists?" Manning, clearly irritated at having been caught in a rather basic contradiction, says the trial is over and refuses to answer. Another person, evidently one of Manning's own parishioners, asks if a day of prayer and fasting can make the "verdict" sink in. And so on.
Manning even claimed his fake trial was genuine because the police let it happen. "We have a verdict that is legal," he said. "Were it not so, we would have been arrested. You don't put the alleged sitting president of the United States on trial right in front of the police department if you don't have a right to do it."
Actually, it's more likely that the cops didn't interfere because holding a pretend trial is not a crime. Silly, yes, but not criminal. Now if Manning or one of his followers try to rush Obama and arrest him, the police might have something to say about that.
And so another birther bombshell is revealed to be a dud. Manning and his followers can rage all they like, but they're still just another bunch of conspiracy theorists, and their rage doesn't make it true.
5/24/2010
5/21/2010
Randbagged
Exactly one day after winning the GOP Senate primary in Kentucky, tea-party darling Rand Paul got into a lot of trouble. Going on NPR and MSNBC, he was asked about his previous writings that government has no power to ban discrimination by private businesses. He stuck by what he said and all hell broke loose.
You see, in Paul's world, private property rights trump everything. Restaurants can tell black patrons to take a hike. Housing associations can tell Jewish buyers to go back to the shtetl. Companies can tell people who can't get up the stairs to the office that they're on their own, or just refuse to hire them at all. This, of course, flies in the face of the American ideal that everyone must be treated fairly, and has not gone over well with people who have faced discrimination or whose families faced it.
Oh yes, and he said today that President Obama is "un-American" for criticizing BP's turning the Gulf of Mexico into a big oil slick. "Accidents happen," he said dismissively, in one fell swoop losing the support of people whose homes and livelihoods are in danger because they are now covered with oil.
In between bouts of whining over having been called out on his positions, Paul says that the magic of the market will drive discriminatory companies out of business because people won't go there. But guess what? It doesn't work that way.
He seems to have forgotten about two hundred years of American history, when businesses routinely discriminated against anyone who was "other" and prospered while doing it. Blacks, Jews, Irish, Catholics, Hispanics, Asians - the list of excluded people goes on and on. (As a straight white male Presbyterian, Paul has likely never been the victim of any kind of discrimination.) And these biases in private business finally stopped only when government stepped in and said, "you can't do that."
Paul says that freedom includes the freedom to discriminate. This is, of course, well known in his libertarian and tea-party circles, but this week's ruckus is the first time the wider public has heard of it. And from the public reaction, they don't think much of it. Even the larger GOP is backing away from him, knowing that there's simply no way to win this fight.
Paul needs to realize that while in a perfect world no one would discriminate against anyone, we do not live in a perfect world, and people do discriminate. Government has a widely recognized and very legitimate function in putting a stop to bigotry both public and private.
And the longer Rand Paul takes to realize that, the quicker he will be an ex-candidate.
You see, in Paul's world, private property rights trump everything. Restaurants can tell black patrons to take a hike. Housing associations can tell Jewish buyers to go back to the shtetl. Companies can tell people who can't get up the stairs to the office that they're on their own, or just refuse to hire them at all. This, of course, flies in the face of the American ideal that everyone must be treated fairly, and has not gone over well with people who have faced discrimination or whose families faced it.
Oh yes, and he said today that President Obama is "un-American" for criticizing BP's turning the Gulf of Mexico into a big oil slick. "Accidents happen," he said dismissively, in one fell swoop losing the support of people whose homes and livelihoods are in danger because they are now covered with oil.
In between bouts of whining over having been called out on his positions, Paul says that the magic of the market will drive discriminatory companies out of business because people won't go there. But guess what? It doesn't work that way.
He seems to have forgotten about two hundred years of American history, when businesses routinely discriminated against anyone who was "other" and prospered while doing it. Blacks, Jews, Irish, Catholics, Hispanics, Asians - the list of excluded people goes on and on. (As a straight white male Presbyterian, Paul has likely never been the victim of any kind of discrimination.) And these biases in private business finally stopped only when government stepped in and said, "you can't do that."
Paul says that freedom includes the freedom to discriminate. This is, of course, well known in his libertarian and tea-party circles, but this week's ruckus is the first time the wider public has heard of it. And from the public reaction, they don't think much of it. Even the larger GOP is backing away from him, knowing that there's simply no way to win this fight.
Paul needs to realize that while in a perfect world no one would discriminate against anyone, we do not live in a perfect world, and people do discriminate. Government has a widely recognized and very legitimate function in putting a stop to bigotry both public and private.
And the longer Rand Paul takes to realize that, the quicker he will be an ex-candidate.
5/20/2010
There's Gold in Them Thar Shills
Glenn Beck's long list of offensive and just plain bizarre antics, from calling President Obama a racist to fantasizing about poisoning Nancy Pelosi, have cost him many of his advertisers. One of his few remaining sponsors, Goldline, sells gold coins to the public as an investment - and indeed, Beck appears in Goldline's ads as a paid endorser.
Now, Beck has a long history of scaring his fans with hysterical warnings of imminent hyperinflation and economic collapse. (Stephen Colbert once memorably ridiculed Beck's overheated rhetoric by welcoming viewers to his "Doom Bunker.") And in every warning, Beck always claims that gold is the perfect investment, the ultimate hedge against the wave of socialist cannibal zombies that will doubtless overwhelm us all. Cut to a commercial for Goldline, which has ridden this wave of paranoia to estimated annual sales of more than half a billion dollars.
But the problem, as Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) charged this week, is that Goldline routinely sells their products at such a high markup that gold prices would have to double in order for buyers just to break even. In other words, they rip off their own customers. He also had harsh words for how Goldline works with Beck and other right-wing talkers to create a market for their product by scaring listeners and viewers.
Beck, ever the martyr, placed himself on - well, a cross of gold, portraying himself as the lone voice crying out in the wilderness against the inflation which will (any day now, it'll happen, Krusty is coming, Krusty is coming) destroy us all. He also hit back in his usual adult manner by launching a website called Weiner Facts, which appears to consist mostly of Photoshopped images combining photos of Weiner with photos of hot dogs. Even for someone of Beck's arguably doubtful mental stability, it's pretty inexplicable.
An article by the liberal Mother Jones found that Beck and Goldline form the perfect symbiosis, feeding off each other in an endless cycle of paranoia, high-pressure sales tactics and overpriced merchandise. It's a particularly sordid cycle - Beck terrifies his viewers with outlandish warnings of what he claims is to come and says they can live only by buying gold. Goldline runs ads selling gold at outrageous markups to these same viewers, then turns around and gives Beck a large sack of money for being a "paid endorser." Repeat.
There are, of course, legitimate gold dealers who make a living without using their customers' fears as an excuse to rip them off. But Goldline, aided and abetted by Glenn Beck, does not appear to be one of them.
Now, Beck has a long history of scaring his fans with hysterical warnings of imminent hyperinflation and economic collapse. (Stephen Colbert once memorably ridiculed Beck's overheated rhetoric by welcoming viewers to his "Doom Bunker.") And in every warning, Beck always claims that gold is the perfect investment, the ultimate hedge against the wave of socialist cannibal zombies that will doubtless overwhelm us all. Cut to a commercial for Goldline, which has ridden this wave of paranoia to estimated annual sales of more than half a billion dollars.
But the problem, as Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) charged this week, is that Goldline routinely sells their products at such a high markup that gold prices would have to double in order for buyers just to break even. In other words, they rip off their own customers. He also had harsh words for how Goldline works with Beck and other right-wing talkers to create a market for their product by scaring listeners and viewers.
Beck, ever the martyr, placed himself on - well, a cross of gold, portraying himself as the lone voice crying out in the wilderness against the inflation which will (any day now, it'll happen, Krusty is coming, Krusty is coming) destroy us all. He also hit back in his usual adult manner by launching a website called Weiner Facts, which appears to consist mostly of Photoshopped images combining photos of Weiner with photos of hot dogs. Even for someone of Beck's arguably doubtful mental stability, it's pretty inexplicable.
An article by the liberal Mother Jones found that Beck and Goldline form the perfect symbiosis, feeding off each other in an endless cycle of paranoia, high-pressure sales tactics and overpriced merchandise. It's a particularly sordid cycle - Beck terrifies his viewers with outlandish warnings of what he claims is to come and says they can live only by buying gold. Goldline runs ads selling gold at outrageous markups to these same viewers, then turns around and gives Beck a large sack of money for being a "paid endorser." Repeat.
There are, of course, legitimate gold dealers who make a living without using their customers' fears as an excuse to rip them off. But Goldline, aided and abetted by Glenn Beck, does not appear to be one of them.
5/19/2010
The Ultimate Birther Theory
Orly Taitz, Joseph Farah and other birthers like to claim that Barack Obama is not a natural-born citizen and so cannot be president. First they said his Hawaii birth certificate is a fake and he was actually born in Kenya. Then they said okay, we'll admit he was born in Hawaii, but he's still not a natural-born citizen because his father was Kenyan. After that, it kind of devolved to the point where they're desperately trying to avoid acknowledging that they hate Obama simply because he's a black man with a foreign name.
In doing so, they have fallen back on everything from channeling 18th-century political philosophers to arguing the significance of "certificate" vs. "certification" to (probably) reading tea leaves and goat entrails. Nothing has worked; courts have repeatedly ruled that Obama, having been born in Hawaii, is a natural-born citizen and thus eligible. Not that this has slowed the birthers down in the slightest - take, for example, their little pretend trial in Harlem earlier this week.
But I've got them all beat. Like the birthers, I have scoured Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution with a fine-toothed comb and have made a startling discovery. It appears that only ten presidents were eligible and thus everyone occupying the Oval Office since then has been an unconstitutional usurper. Including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
Here's how it works. The relevant section of the Constitution, which the birthers quote all the time, reads:
So in the proud tradition of the birthers, I proclaim that a Grand Conspiracy involving every historian, scholar, journalist, politician, civics teacher, etc must exist to allow so many people to have become president when they were not eligible to do so. And if anyone disagrees with me, that only means they're in on the conspiracy too.
Now, you know and I know that this is a load of dingo's kidneys, but it's just the sort of load that the birthers would embrace with open arms. And they'll probably take this little thought experiment and run with it too.
In doing so, they have fallen back on everything from channeling 18th-century political philosophers to arguing the significance of "certificate" vs. "certification" to (probably) reading tea leaves and goat entrails. Nothing has worked; courts have repeatedly ruled that Obama, having been born in Hawaii, is a natural-born citizen and thus eligible. Not that this has slowed the birthers down in the slightest - take, for example, their little pretend trial in Harlem earlier this week.
But I've got them all beat. Like the birthers, I have scoured Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution with a fine-toothed comb and have made a startling discovery. It appears that only ten presidents were eligible and thus everyone occupying the Oval Office since then has been an unconstitutional usurper. Including Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.
Here's how it works. The relevant section of the Constitution, which the birthers quote all the time, reads:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.Note the comma between the words "States" and "at." Under the rules of grammar, a comma is used to separate distinct phrases which can be removed from the sentence without rendering it unreadable. Given that, if you remove the "or a Citizen of the United States" section, you wind up with:
No Person except a natural born Citizen at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.So taking the commas into account, the phrase says that only people who were natural-born or other types of citizens, and who were citizens only when the Constitution was adopted in 1787, can be president. If the Founders had really wanted to add a grandfather clause allowing people who became Americans upon independence to be president, they would have left the comma out, and the phrase would have read:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.If that's the case (and by birther logic it must be) every president born after 1787 was not eligible for that office and thus every law enacted since the administration of John Tyler (born in 1790) is null and void. Except for Zachary Taylor, who's OK since he was born in 1784.
So in the proud tradition of the birthers, I proclaim that a Grand Conspiracy involving every historian, scholar, journalist, politician, civics teacher, etc must exist to allow so many people to have become president when they were not eligible to do so. And if anyone disagrees with me, that only means they're in on the conspiracy too.
Now, you know and I know that this is a load of dingo's kidneys, but it's just the sort of load that the birthers would embrace with open arms. And they'll probably take this little thought experiment and run with it too.
5/18/2010
Raising the Bar
I thought the birther pretend trial in New York was comedy gold, but it actually got eclipsed today.
Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), a holier-than-thou Bible-thumping family-values evangelical Christian conservative, resigned this morning after news reports exposed his affair with an office staffer. At first glance, it appears to be just another entry in the long, long list of mostly Republican moralists who claim a divine right to tell everyone else how to live their lives while being rather less than divine themselves, but this one has something just a little bit special.
Last fall, Souder's office released a YouTube video touting his participation in a 2008 Congressional hearing on abstinence education.
He's a big fan of this approach to sex-ed classes, blithely ignoring the many studies showing that it just doesn't work. But that's par for the course. What elevates the video from just another bit of hypocrisy to an instant classic is the fact that Tracy Jackson, the woman shown interviewing Souder, is the woman with whom Souder had an affair.
Yes, he actually made a video promoting abstinence outside of marriage with the very same woman he was shagging outside his own marriage.
You really can't make this stuff up. Souder has raised the chutzpah bar for everyone else. C'mon, all you self-righteous prudes, try harder!
Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), a holier-than-thou Bible-thumping family-values evangelical Christian conservative, resigned this morning after news reports exposed his affair with an office staffer. At first glance, it appears to be just another entry in the long, long list of mostly Republican moralists who claim a divine right to tell everyone else how to live their lives while being rather less than divine themselves, but this one has something just a little bit special.
Last fall, Souder's office released a YouTube video touting his participation in a 2008 Congressional hearing on abstinence education.
He's a big fan of this approach to sex-ed classes, blithely ignoring the many studies showing that it just doesn't work. But that's par for the course. What elevates the video from just another bit of hypocrisy to an instant classic is the fact that Tracy Jackson, the woman shown interviewing Souder, is the woman with whom Souder had an affair.
Yes, he actually made a video promoting abstinence outside of marriage with the very same woman he was shagging outside his own marriage.
You really can't make this stuff up. Souder has raised the chutzpah bar for everyone else. C'mon, all you self-righteous prudes, try harder!
5/13/2010
Punishing the Child
As the Catholic Church finally realizes that protecting child molesters while threatening their victims into silence might not have been such a great idea, and that dismissing the resulting outrage as "petty gossip" is an even worse idea, they clearly still have a ways to go.
St. Paul Elementary School, a private Catholic K-8 school in Hingham, Massachusetts, is currently in the news because they first accepted and then rejected a boy to enter the school in the third grade. Why? It's not because he has disciplinary problems or because his academics aren't up to snuff. It's because his parents are both women, and the Church says homosexuality is a sin.
Yes, the Church is actually pushing away an eight-year-old boy because it doesn't like his moms. And I thought the whole notion of punishing children for the supposed sins of their parents went out sometime in the 19th century.
The school claims they rejected the boy because "teachers wouldn't be prepared to answer questions her son might have because the school's teachings about marriage conflict with what he sees in his family."
Well, that's the teachers' problem, isn't it? I mean, they're supposed to be able to answer kids' questions. That's sort of the whole purpose of going to school. If they can't or won't answer a student's questions, they should pick another profession.
Now, to be fair, St. Paul is a private school and as such can set whatever admission criteria it likes. But they need to be consistent. If they're going to reject children of gay parents, they'd better be ready to kick out any kids whose parents are divorced, use birth control, are unmarried, eat meat on Fridays, conceived their children via fertility treatments, or commit any other violation of Church canon. Of course, that would make their enrollment plummet from the current 250 to - oh, about six or seven.
But we all know that won't happen. The Church will save its punishments for the children of gay parents. After all, it's so much easier to go after kids with a particular kind of "wrong" parents than to reconsider the doctrine which turns those parents - and their children - into sinners in the first place.
St. Paul Elementary School, a private Catholic K-8 school in Hingham, Massachusetts, is currently in the news because they first accepted and then rejected a boy to enter the school in the third grade. Why? It's not because he has disciplinary problems or because his academics aren't up to snuff. It's because his parents are both women, and the Church says homosexuality is a sin.
Yes, the Church is actually pushing away an eight-year-old boy because it doesn't like his moms. And I thought the whole notion of punishing children for the supposed sins of their parents went out sometime in the 19th century.
The school claims they rejected the boy because "teachers wouldn't be prepared to answer questions her son might have because the school's teachings about marriage conflict with what he sees in his family."
Well, that's the teachers' problem, isn't it? I mean, they're supposed to be able to answer kids' questions. That's sort of the whole purpose of going to school. If they can't or won't answer a student's questions, they should pick another profession.
Now, to be fair, St. Paul is a private school and as such can set whatever admission criteria it likes. But they need to be consistent. If they're going to reject children of gay parents, they'd better be ready to kick out any kids whose parents are divorced, use birth control, are unmarried, eat meat on Fridays, conceived their children via fertility treatments, or commit any other violation of Church canon. Of course, that would make their enrollment plummet from the current 250 to - oh, about six or seven.
But we all know that won't happen. The Church will save its punishments for the children of gay parents. After all, it's so much easier to go after kids with a particular kind of "wrong" parents than to reconsider the doctrine which turns those parents - and their children - into sinners in the first place.
5/05/2010
If the Bag Fits
If there's one thing teabaggers are very good at, it's getting offended. They can pour out personal abuse and name-calling by the bucketful ("Obambi," "Odumbo," "Obozo," "Obowma," etc) but say one thing about them and they carry on like a five-year-old girl whose pigtails have just been pulled.
Case in point is the "teabagger" name itself. The tea-party movement came up with it early last year, right after Obama became president, and it became very popular very quickly. It was everywhere, showing up in such forms as "Tea Bag Liberal Dems Before They Tea Bag You" and "Teabagging 4 Jesus," among others. One protester in Washington even threw a box of tea bags over the White House fence, much to the consternation of the Secret Service.
All that was before someone in the movement learned how to use Google and discovered the term's other meaning. And before you could say "George Orwell," they abandoned the term "teabagger" en masse, insisted they had never used it in the first place, and whined about how only mean liberals, Democrats and Communists called them that.
It didn't work. Liberal bloggers and pundits have long taken immense glee in pointing out how the teabaggers adopted the term as their own and then ran away from it as fast as they could.
But when the tea partiers have an opportunity, however ridiculous, to whimper and cast themselves as the victims, they grab on with both hands and won't let go. For example, in the new book The Promise: President Obama, Year One, Obama is quoted as saying that the Republicans' lockstep vote against the economic stimulus bill "helped to create the tea-baggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party to where it now controls the agenda for the Republicans."
Cue the screams of outrage in three...two...one...
The simple fact, of course, is that the tea-party movement originally called themselves "teabaggers," no matter how hard they try to forget it or bludgeon everyone else into forgetting it as well. Cloaking themselves in the political mantle of the original Boston Tea Party participants, the teabaggers loved calling themselves that and embraced the tea-bag image at every opportunity. Well, at least until they found out what it meant.
But hey, if the bag fits, wear it.
Case in point is the "teabagger" name itself. The tea-party movement came up with it early last year, right after Obama became president, and it became very popular very quickly. It was everywhere, showing up in such forms as "Tea Bag Liberal Dems Before They Tea Bag You" and "Teabagging 4 Jesus," among others. One protester in Washington even threw a box of tea bags over the White House fence, much to the consternation of the Secret Service.
All that was before someone in the movement learned how to use Google and discovered the term's other meaning. And before you could say "George Orwell," they abandoned the term "teabagger" en masse, insisted they had never used it in the first place, and whined about how only mean liberals, Democrats and Communists called them that.
It didn't work. Liberal bloggers and pundits have long taken immense glee in pointing out how the teabaggers adopted the term as their own and then ran away from it as fast as they could.
But when the tea partiers have an opportunity, however ridiculous, to whimper and cast themselves as the victims, they grab on with both hands and won't let go. For example, in the new book The Promise: President Obama, Year One, Obama is quoted as saying that the Republicans' lockstep vote against the economic stimulus bill "helped to create the tea-baggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party to where it now controls the agenda for the Republicans."
Cue the screams of outrage in three...two...one...
- Michelle Malkin: "Really. How many more selective civility police lectures can we take from this vulgarity-clogged White House?"
- Ian Lazaran: "Obama may be the most thin-skinned President we've ever had. It'll be funny to see him apologize for his crude, offensive, and juvenile language when this book officially comes out."
- Diane Student: "I for one appreciate the gay slur. Oh yes, Mr. President, thank you so much!"
- "Obama you ignorant arrogant individual !!!!! if you don't have something intelligent to say then you should keep that hole in your face shut !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
- "I would much rather be a 'TeaBagger', than a communist, socialist, marxist, arrogant, rude dumbass like our prez is? How's that for civility??"
- "Obama as always has NO class. For a president to use the gay slang 'teabaggers' tells you all about him."
- "STFU you racist muslim dirtbag"
The simple fact, of course, is that the tea-party movement originally called themselves "teabaggers," no matter how hard they try to forget it or bludgeon everyone else into forgetting it as well. Cloaking themselves in the political mantle of the original Boston Tea Party participants, the teabaggers loved calling themselves that and embraced the tea-bag image at every opportunity. Well, at least until they found out what it meant.
But hey, if the bag fits, wear it.
4/28/2010
So Much for the Latino Vote
"I think we should catch 'em [illegal immigrants], we should document 'em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going. I actually support micro-chipping them. I can micro-chip my dog so I can find it. Why can't I micro-chip an illegal?"
Pat Bertroche, running for the GOP nomination for a House seat from Indiana
High Times at the GOP
Back in 2008, some people who were hired by the community group ACORN to sign up new voters figured out they could pad their earnings by submitting fake registrations for Mickey Mouse and other fictional characters. ACORN submitted the registrations to the county clerks because they had to - most states require canvassers to submit all received registration cards regardless of fraud or error. (The reason is simple: to prevent gatherers backed by one party from arbitrarily discarding registrations for other parties based on made-up allegations.) The group alerted the clerks' offices, the fakes were caught and invalidated, and the dishonest canvassers were charged with voter registration fraud.
In other words, the system worked. But it was a huge scandal at the time, with the Republican Party and its media divisions (Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, etc) all screaming about how the election would be tainted by a flood of fake ACORN votes. It was one of the reasons why the national group went under earlier this year.
Final tally of proven fraudulent votes based on ACORN registrations: zero.
So now we have another tale of fake voter registration, but it's somewhat different than the ACORN one. Earlier this month, the Orange County Register reported that the county Republican Party paid "bounties" of as much as $8 per head to canvassers who signed up new GOP voters. So the canvassers went around asking people to sign petitions in support of beach cleanups, cancer cures and even marijuana legalization - but didn't tell them that by doing so they were registering as Republican voters. (Does that mean you have to be high to vote Republican?) Hundreds of complaints have now arrived at California state elections offices from people claiming they were duped in this manner.
One canvasser, who submitted three registrations from people complaining they were lied to, dismissed them as morons: "I can tell you that half the people out there don't know the difference between a Republican and a Democrat." (And Tom Tancredo says we should bring back literacy tests since President Obama was supposedly elected by stupid voters. Perhaps he was looking at the wrong party.)
It's tempting to brush this off as an ACORN rerun, but it's not that simple. You see, back in 2006, the newspaper received the same sort of complaints, did some digging and found the same sort of GOP fraud that would be uncovered four years later. Back then, eleven canvassers were convicted of falsifying voter registrations, and eight of them went to jail. So they're trying the same thing again. Add in the fact that the "bounty" was paid directly by the Republican Party via the signature-gathering firm they hired and this is getting serious. The county Democrats are now demanding that the local US Attorney investigate the charges.
I don't care what your position or party is - if you have to con people to get them to register as a member of your organization, you have no business being in politics. The Orange County Republicans still have time to fix the mess, but only if they do some major housecleaning:
In other words, the system worked. But it was a huge scandal at the time, with the Republican Party and its media divisions (Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, etc) all screaming about how the election would be tainted by a flood of fake ACORN votes. It was one of the reasons why the national group went under earlier this year.
Final tally of proven fraudulent votes based on ACORN registrations: zero.
So now we have another tale of fake voter registration, but it's somewhat different than the ACORN one. Earlier this month, the Orange County Register reported that the county Republican Party paid "bounties" of as much as $8 per head to canvassers who signed up new GOP voters. So the canvassers went around asking people to sign petitions in support of beach cleanups, cancer cures and even marijuana legalization - but didn't tell them that by doing so they were registering as Republican voters. (Does that mean you have to be high to vote Republican?) Hundreds of complaints have now arrived at California state elections offices from people claiming they were duped in this manner.
One canvasser, who submitted three registrations from people complaining they were lied to, dismissed them as morons: "I can tell you that half the people out there don't know the difference between a Republican and a Democrat." (And Tom Tancredo says we should bring back literacy tests since President Obama was supposedly elected by stupid voters. Perhaps he was looking at the wrong party.)
It's tempting to brush this off as an ACORN rerun, but it's not that simple. You see, back in 2006, the newspaper received the same sort of complaints, did some digging and found the same sort of GOP fraud that would be uncovered four years later. Back then, eleven canvassers were convicted of falsifying voter registrations, and eight of them went to jail. So they're trying the same thing again. Add in the fact that the "bounty" was paid directly by the Republican Party via the signature-gathering firm they hired and this is getting serious. The county Democrats are now demanding that the local US Attorney investigate the charges.
I don't care what your position or party is - if you have to con people to get them to register as a member of your organization, you have no business being in politics. The Orange County Republicans still have time to fix the mess, but only if they do some major housecleaning:
- Take all the crafty canvassers, and the party officials who gave them the green light, and throw them to the wolves.
- Contact all involved registrants and invalidate all registrations which were signed up fraudulently.
- Stop offering "bounties" to canvassers based on how many registrations they bring in and support state legislation to bar the practice.
- Promise never to pull such a scam again and submit to random checks to make sure they're being honest.
4/27/2010
Open Season
With Arizona's new anti-illegal-immigrant law SB 1070 making waves across the country and the world, state and local police now have blank-check power to stop and arrest anyone with a "reasonable suspicion" of being in the country illegally. Of course, this raises the question of just how to determine whether someone is an illegal immigrant, and it always comes back to racial profiling.
We all know the law will not be used against white people. It's aimed squarely at Hispanics, and it is Hispanics who will pay the price. It doesn't matter whether they were born in the US, have green cards or really are here illegally - if they have brown skin, they will be targeted. Leave your wallet at home and you run the risk of going to jail. It will be ugly.
(And is it just me, or do the same teabaggers who wave Gadsen flags and scream about "Obama fascism" think it's just peachy when that very same government stops people on the street at will and demands their identity papers? Gee, maybe all that stuff about freedom and tyranny is only for white people.)
But there is a potentially even uglier consequence to this new law, one which I doubt its authors intended: namely, that it is now open season on anyone who is in the country illegally. Yes, once the law goes into effect this summer, any illegal immigrant basically has no legal protections against anything. You can do anything you like to them - robbery, rape, murder, whatever - and they won't go to the police. Why? Because they know that the instant they pick up the phone to call 911, out come the handcuffs and clang goes the jail-cell door.
Basically, the law creates "nonpersons" in Arizona. Sure, there is nothing in state law which specifically excludes illegal immigrants from police protection, but that's the effect of SB 1070.
With various people now calling for an economic boycott of Arizona, the same people who shot their state in the foot now have a chance to undo the fiscal damage. Since undocumented immigrants will now essentially be fair game, why not profit off it? Set up a facility somewhere off in the desert where the most beautiful and handsome illegal immigrants will be sent and housed. Then invite in wealthy sickos to do whatever they like to these people, secure in the knowledge that no one will go to the police. Think of it as a real-life version of the 2005 horror-porn film Hostel.
Terrible idea? Sure it is. But so is the whole idea of making people criminal suspects based solely on their ethnicity. My advice to the Arizona legislature is to find another way of solving the problem, preferably one not so blatantly un-American.
We all know the law will not be used against white people. It's aimed squarely at Hispanics, and it is Hispanics who will pay the price. It doesn't matter whether they were born in the US, have green cards or really are here illegally - if they have brown skin, they will be targeted. Leave your wallet at home and you run the risk of going to jail. It will be ugly.
(And is it just me, or do the same teabaggers who wave Gadsen flags and scream about "Obama fascism" think it's just peachy when that very same government stops people on the street at will and demands their identity papers? Gee, maybe all that stuff about freedom and tyranny is only for white people.)
But there is a potentially even uglier consequence to this new law, one which I doubt its authors intended: namely, that it is now open season on anyone who is in the country illegally. Yes, once the law goes into effect this summer, any illegal immigrant basically has no legal protections against anything. You can do anything you like to them - robbery, rape, murder, whatever - and they won't go to the police. Why? Because they know that the instant they pick up the phone to call 911, out come the handcuffs and clang goes the jail-cell door.
Basically, the law creates "nonpersons" in Arizona. Sure, there is nothing in state law which specifically excludes illegal immigrants from police protection, but that's the effect of SB 1070.
With various people now calling for an economic boycott of Arizona, the same people who shot their state in the foot now have a chance to undo the fiscal damage. Since undocumented immigrants will now essentially be fair game, why not profit off it? Set up a facility somewhere off in the desert where the most beautiful and handsome illegal immigrants will be sent and housed. Then invite in wealthy sickos to do whatever they like to these people, secure in the knowledge that no one will go to the police. Think of it as a real-life version of the 2005 horror-porn film Hostel.
Terrible idea? Sure it is. But so is the whole idea of making people criminal suspects based solely on their ethnicity. My advice to the Arizona legislature is to find another way of solving the problem, preferably one not so blatantly un-American.
4/26/2010
Papers, Please
It's a scene out of a seemingly infinite number of movies. Someone is walking down the street and minding his own business when a policeman (secret or otherwise) appears out of the blue, demanding to see his papers. Something is not in order and the helpless hero is dragged away, never to be seen again.
Okay, so it's not quite like that in Arizona, even after Governor Jan Brewer signed SB 1070 into law late last week. The new law, officially called the "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act," allows Arizona police to arrest anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant - but just how does one determine that? Skin color? Accent? Clothing? I mean, people don't walk around with helpful signs saying "I'm In This Country Illegally." Maybe they will just demand to see the person's birth certificate. Is there anyone out there who makes a habit of taking their birth certificate when they leave the house?
We all know what will happen with this law. Someone who looks like an illegal immigrant (translation: Hispanic) will be stopped and required to provide proof that he is in the country legally. If said person can't immediately produce the right paperwork, he will be arrested, thrown in jail and maybe even shipped across the border to Mexico. High-dollar lawsuits will ensue and the law will eventually be thrown out as unconstitutional.
Or perhaps he will simply be killed by vigilante "border patrollers" for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Oh, and when Tom Tancredo - the immigrant-hater extraordinaire who last distinguished himself by demanding that people pass a "literacy test" before they can vote - says it's a bad bill, you've got a big PR problem.
Is illegal immigration a problem? Of course it is. Illegal laborers drive down wages for lower-rung workers and can commit identity theft by using other people's Social Security numbers to get work for themselves. Not to mention that illegal immigrants are more at risk for being crime victims.
But is criminalizing a vast swath of the population the answer, especially when it can all too easily ensnare many thousands of completely legal people at the same time? No. There has to be a better way.
Okay, so it's not quite like that in Arizona, even after Governor Jan Brewer signed SB 1070 into law late last week. The new law, officially called the "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act," allows Arizona police to arrest anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant - but just how does one determine that? Skin color? Accent? Clothing? I mean, people don't walk around with helpful signs saying "I'm In This Country Illegally." Maybe they will just demand to see the person's birth certificate. Is there anyone out there who makes a habit of taking their birth certificate when they leave the house?
We all know what will happen with this law. Someone who looks like an illegal immigrant (translation: Hispanic) will be stopped and required to provide proof that he is in the country legally. If said person can't immediately produce the right paperwork, he will be arrested, thrown in jail and maybe even shipped across the border to Mexico. High-dollar lawsuits will ensue and the law will eventually be thrown out as unconstitutional.
Or perhaps he will simply be killed by vigilante "border patrollers" for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Oh, and when Tom Tancredo - the immigrant-hater extraordinaire who last distinguished himself by demanding that people pass a "literacy test" before they can vote - says it's a bad bill, you've got a big PR problem.
Is illegal immigration a problem? Of course it is. Illegal laborers drive down wages for lower-rung workers and can commit identity theft by using other people's Social Security numbers to get work for themselves. Not to mention that illegal immigrants are more at risk for being crime victims.
But is criminalizing a vast swath of the population the answer, especially when it can all too easily ensnare many thousands of completely legal people at the same time? No. There has to be a better way.
4/22/2010
Authentic Frontier Gibberish
To quote Sam Cooke, Sarah Palin don't know much about history, not to mention energy, religion, economics, government, science and geography. She really is appallingly ignorant, not to mention incoherent (on a good day, she can make George W. Bush sound like an Oxford debating champion) and her popularity among the teabaggers says a whole lot more about them than it does about her. What she does know about, though, is how to cash in.
Last week, ABC estimated that ever since she got bored with being governor of Alaska and quit halfway through her term, Palin has raked in about $12 million (that's one hundred times her former gubernatorial salary) with most of it coming from her ghostwritten tale Going Rogue, her appearances on Fox News and especially her speaking gigs at a reported $100,000 a pop.
You'd think that at those prices, she can afford her own travel, but no. A contract unearthed by some enterprising California students requires anyone hiring Palin to provide either first-class plane tickets or a private jet which "MUST BE a Lear 60 or larger," not to mention deluxe hotel suites and bendy straws on her water bottles. It doesn't quite fit the folksy, "plain hockey mom" image she and her handlers try so hard to project.
Oh yes, and she is apparently so petrified of "real Americans" that she won't take any direct questions from them: "For Q&A, the questions are to be collected from the audience in advance, pre-screened and a designated representative...shall ask questions directly of the Speaker."
So what do you get for a hundred grand? Well, Palin spoke last week at a charity banquet for which 900 tickets were sold at $200 apiece. She isn't saying how much she made for this speech, but if it was her usual fee, she pocketed more than half of what the group collected. Charity begins at home, it seems.
Anyway, here's a sample of what she had to say:
The rest of her speech was only slightly less jumbled. I suspect that as Palin rhetorically wandered all over the place, committing various crimes against the English language, the charity organizers realized just how much of their reputations they had flushed down the drain in pursuit of their "big name" speaker and were backstage drinking hemlock.
A hundred thousand dollars for that? I am definitely in the wrong business.
Last week, ABC estimated that ever since she got bored with being governor of Alaska and quit halfway through her term, Palin has raked in about $12 million (that's one hundred times her former gubernatorial salary) with most of it coming from her ghostwritten tale Going Rogue, her appearances on Fox News and especially her speaking gigs at a reported $100,000 a pop.
You'd think that at those prices, she can afford her own travel, but no. A contract unearthed by some enterprising California students requires anyone hiring Palin to provide either first-class plane tickets or a private jet which "MUST BE a Lear 60 or larger," not to mention deluxe hotel suites and bendy straws on her water bottles. It doesn't quite fit the folksy, "plain hockey mom" image she and her handlers try so hard to project.
Oh yes, and she is apparently so petrified of "real Americans" that she won't take any direct questions from them: "For Q&A, the questions are to be collected from the audience in advance, pre-screened and a designated representative...shall ask questions directly of the Speaker."
So what do you get for a hundred grand? Well, Palin spoke last week at a charity banquet for which 900 tickets were sold at $200 apiece. She isn't saying how much she made for this speech, but if it was her usual fee, she pocketed more than half of what the group collected. Charity begins at home, it seems.
Anyway, here's a sample of what she had to say:
I'm wanting to, though, kind of shift away from the political. I'm just getting off the trough from doing a lot of Tea Parties across the US, man those are a blast. [applause] They're rowdy and they're wild and it's just another melting pot, there's just diversity there and all walks of life and all forms of partisanship and non partisanship just wanting good things to happen in this part of the world. It's been a blast. The shift from the political, so now that I have that shift from the political but still have that desire to talk about the economy and talk about energy and resources and national security and all those things. I was telling Todd, okay, this is like [inaudible] on the vice presidential campaign trail, where you never really knew what you were getting into when you get into that line before you were interviewed. Obviously, sometimes I never knew what I was getting into in an interview. Obviously!If anyone can extract any meaning at all from that mess, I salute you. I half-expected Olson Johnson from Blazing Saddles to stand up and say, "Now who can argue with that? Not only was it authentic frontier gibberish, it expressed the courage little seen in this day and age."
The rest of her speech was only slightly less jumbled. I suspect that as Palin rhetorically wandered all over the place, committing various crimes against the English language, the charity organizers realized just how much of their reputations they had flushed down the drain in pursuit of their "big name" speaker and were backstage drinking hemlock.
A hundred thousand dollars for that? I am definitely in the wrong business.
4/21/2010
GOPman Sachs
Even with all the tales of greed and fraud coming out of Wall Street over the last two years, the allegations against investment bank Goldman Sachs are pretty appalling.
The story so far: a big Goldman client named John Paulson packaged a derivative based on subprime mortgages and pitched it to Goldman as an investment opportunity for their other clients. Goldman agreed and sold it as such - but never told the buyers that Paulson deliberately designed the investment, named ABACUS 2007-ACI, to lose value. Knowing that the subprime market would tank, Paulson sold short, made a killing and left other clients holding the bag.
So where does Goldman figure in all this? Well, it seems they did one of two things:
But since the White House supports putting the crooks and connivers under control, the Republican Party must, by definition, be against it. Yes, the Party of No has once again emerged as the party of Wall Street, vowing to do everything it can - filibuster, offer endless amendments, hold its breath until it turns blue, etc - to derail the financial-reform bill. They evidently still don't realize that the American people are mad at Wall Street for very nearly sending the whole economy down the toilet, and are unlikely to reward its backers in November.
So now the GOP is weighing in on behalf of poor downtrodden Goldman Sachs, saying they're being picked on by that meanie in the big house on Pennsylvania Avenue. Yes, Senator Orrin Hatch went on the tube yesterday to complain that the SEC timed its lawsuit filing to fit the White House's legislative schedule and desire to pass the Wall Street reform bill. Fox News and other right-wing media outlets predictably ran with it, accusing the White House of "meddling" and darkly wondering whether they're "exploiting the charges to build the case for their financial regulatory overhaul."
Of course, the people doing all the shrieking and conspiracy-theorizing ignore two things: as an independent agency the SEC doesn't coordinate any enforcement action with the White House, and Goldman Sachs actually donated more money to Democrats than to Republicans. If the White House really was making an example of a Wall Street powerhouse, wouldn't they have picked one which supported the other side? Just sayin'.
Will the GOP realize that they're playing a losing game? Will they continue to sell their souls for Wall Street's tainted campaign cash? Of course they will. Expect the fall campaign to be especially nasty as the Republicans try and divert voters' attention from this simple fact.
The story so far: a big Goldman client named John Paulson packaged a derivative based on subprime mortgages and pitched it to Goldman as an investment opportunity for their other clients. Goldman agreed and sold it as such - but never told the buyers that Paulson deliberately designed the investment, named ABACUS 2007-ACI, to lose value. Knowing that the subprime market would tank, Paulson sold short, made a killing and left other clients holding the bag.
So where does Goldman figure in all this? Well, it seems they did one of two things:
- They were unaware that ABACUS was purposely meant to fail, in which case their lack of due diligence was criminally negligent, or
- They knew all along that it was a scam and sold it anyway, in which case they coldly ripped off some of their clients to make another one richer.
But since the White House supports putting the crooks and connivers under control, the Republican Party must, by definition, be against it. Yes, the Party of No has once again emerged as the party of Wall Street, vowing to do everything it can - filibuster, offer endless amendments, hold its breath until it turns blue, etc - to derail the financial-reform bill. They evidently still don't realize that the American people are mad at Wall Street for very nearly sending the whole economy down the toilet, and are unlikely to reward its backers in November.
So now the GOP is weighing in on behalf of poor downtrodden Goldman Sachs, saying they're being picked on by that meanie in the big house on Pennsylvania Avenue. Yes, Senator Orrin Hatch went on the tube yesterday to complain that the SEC timed its lawsuit filing to fit the White House's legislative schedule and desire to pass the Wall Street reform bill. Fox News and other right-wing media outlets predictably ran with it, accusing the White House of "meddling" and darkly wondering whether they're "exploiting the charges to build the case for their financial regulatory overhaul."
Of course, the people doing all the shrieking and conspiracy-theorizing ignore two things: as an independent agency the SEC doesn't coordinate any enforcement action with the White House, and Goldman Sachs actually donated more money to Democrats than to Republicans. If the White House really was making an example of a Wall Street powerhouse, wouldn't they have picked one which supported the other side? Just sayin'.
Will the GOP realize that they're playing a losing game? Will they continue to sell their souls for Wall Street's tainted campaign cash? Of course they will. Expect the fall campaign to be especially nasty as the Republicans try and divert voters' attention from this simple fact.
4/20/2010
Bring a Chicken to the Doctor
Having failed to stop the nation's badly broken health-insurance system from being reformed, the Republicans now say they want to repeal the entire law (including the parts which prevent insurance companies from yanking your coverage when you get sick) and start over - meaning, of course, to do nothing at all. Part of this latest GOP push comes from Nevada, where Sue Lowden, running against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, says that patients should barter with their doctors over the price of care.
I am not making this up:
Yes, your intestines may be falling out or your skull may be cracked, but you can still paint your doctor's house to make sure you get treatment.
With Lowden quickly becoming a laughingstock, her campaign tried to insist that she actually said "bargain" rather than "barter," but the video clearly shows her saying the latter. Bargaining isn't such an attractive prospect either; can you really imagine someone with a broken leg saying he'll hobble out the door and try getting a better price from the doctor down the street?
Apparently believing that she hasn't gotten enough flak ever since her comment came to light, Lowden yesterday doubled down on it. Appearing on the talk show Nevada Newsmakers, she fondly remembered the time before people had access to health care and said it's a great idea to just bring a chicken to the doctor's office when you get sick:
So in Lowden's world, instead of asking which insurance you have, do doctors ask whether you're bringing Original Recipe or Extra Crispy? I have this image of a doctor saying, "Sure, I'll take out that appendix, but I need my car's oil changed first."
You know, I suspect that she really doesn't want this job and is trying to find a way to sabotage her own campaign. She cannot possibly be this callous or this dumb. Every time she tries to get herself out of this hole she blasted and then jumped into, she just keeps on digging deeper.
Reid, who's facing a tough re-election fight, must be on his knees right about now, thanking God, Jesus and Brigham Young for this manna from heaven. If he has any political savvy at all, he will run ads mocking Lowden's health care "plan" until she drops out in disgrace.
It's going to be a fun campaign. Tastes just like chicken.
I am not making this up:
Yes, your intestines may be falling out or your skull may be cracked, but you can still paint your doctor's house to make sure you get treatment.
With Lowden quickly becoming a laughingstock, her campaign tried to insist that she actually said "bargain" rather than "barter," but the video clearly shows her saying the latter. Bargaining isn't such an attractive prospect either; can you really imagine someone with a broken leg saying he'll hobble out the door and try getting a better price from the doctor down the street?
Apparently believing that she hasn't gotten enough flak ever since her comment came to light, Lowden yesterday doubled down on it. Appearing on the talk show Nevada Newsmakers, she fondly remembered the time before people had access to health care and said it's a great idea to just bring a chicken to the doctor's office when you get sick:
So in Lowden's world, instead of asking which insurance you have, do doctors ask whether you're bringing Original Recipe or Extra Crispy? I have this image of a doctor saying, "Sure, I'll take out that appendix, but I need my car's oil changed first."
You know, I suspect that she really doesn't want this job and is trying to find a way to sabotage her own campaign. She cannot possibly be this callous or this dumb. Every time she tries to get herself out of this hole she blasted and then jumped into, she just keeps on digging deeper.
Reid, who's facing a tough re-election fight, must be on his knees right about now, thanking God, Jesus and Brigham Young for this manna from heaven. If he has any political savvy at all, he will run ads mocking Lowden's health care "plan" until she drops out in disgrace.
It's going to be a fun campaign. Tastes just like chicken.
4/19/2010
A Modest Proposal on Gay Marriage
For years now, the self-righteous wing of the Republican Party has insisted that allowing gays and lesbians to get married will cause all sorts of chaos, from earthquakes and volcanoes to, in the words of Bill Murray from Ghostbusters, "dogs and cats living together."
Well, same-sex marriage is now legal in five states (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Iowa and Connecticut) and the District of Columbia, and the world is still here. But the usual suspects keep shouting that allowing such weddings will doom us all, insisting that only men and women can get married because only men and women can reproduce.
Fine by me. Allow me to present a modest proposal to deal with this issue once and for all. If we're going to protect marriage, let's really protect it without all that mushy love business getting in the way. Since the right wing says marriage is only for making babies, let's treat it as such.
Well, same-sex marriage is now legal in five states (Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Iowa and Connecticut) and the District of Columbia, and the world is still here. But the usual suspects keep shouting that allowing such weddings will doom us all, insisting that only men and women can get married because only men and women can reproduce.
Fine by me. Allow me to present a modest proposal to deal with this issue once and for all. If we're going to protect marriage, let's really protect it without all that mushy love business getting in the way. Since the right wing says marriage is only for making babies, let's treat it as such.
- All couples who wish to get married must undergo fertility testing (at their own expense, of course) to see if they are mutually capable of making babies. If the test comes back negative, the marriage will be denied.
- No one who tests as infertile will be allowed to get married.
- No woman past the age of menopause will be allowed to get married.
- All couples who test as fertile and still wish to get married must sign a sworn statement promising to produce a child within three years of the wedding date. All marriages of couples who do not produce a baby within three years will be annulled.
- No divorce or annulment will be allowed for any reason other than the failure to produce a child.
- All babies born in the third year must undergo DNA testing to make sure they really are the biological offspring of their parents and not merely "borrowed" to beat the deadline.
- No one will be allowed to adopt who has not already made a baby the old-fashioned way.
4/13/2010
Bad Medicine
Dr. Jack Cassell, a urologist in Mt. Dora, Florida, doesn't like the new health care law. That's fine. He is quite vocal about it. That's fine too. This is, after all, America, where everyone is free to speak their minds, and I wouldn't have it any other way. But he went too far when he put up a sign on his office door earlier this month saying, "If you voted for Obama, seek urologic care elsewhere."
After a furor erupted, Cassell backtracked slightly, saying he hasn't actually told any Democratic-voting patients to go away, "but if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it." Since he evidently relies on his patients' identifying themselves as either real Americans or traitors, I wonder just how he plans to weed out one from the other. Will he put up a big poster of Sarah Palin to scare away pinkos as a crucifix scares away vampires? Or maybe he'll use such phrases as "socialist dictator" with patients and gauge their reactions.
Rep. Alan Grayson, the firebrand Florida Democrat whose district is home to Cassell's office, said he would file an ethics complaint with the state medical board on the grounds that refusing to treat Democratic patients is the same as refusing to treat black patients. He's wrong; the two are very different, and Grayson comes off as just trying to cash in on the fuss politically.
That is not to say that Cassell is acting professionally - quite the opposite. Even more so than in other fields, a doctor is expected to put his patients' needs above his own prejudices, and this goes double for something as (comparatively) unimportant as partisan politics. Telling sick patients who voted for the "wrong" candidate to get lost is, to put it mildly, extremely unprofessional, not to mention childish. And I would say the same thing had he put up a sign telling McCain voters to "seek urologic care elsewhere."
Cassell should rethink his choice of office decor. Either that or get a job which doesn't directly affect people's lives and health.
After a furor erupted, Cassell backtracked slightly, saying he hasn't actually told any Democratic-voting patients to go away, "but if they read the sign and turn the other way, so be it." Since he evidently relies on his patients' identifying themselves as either real Americans or traitors, I wonder just how he plans to weed out one from the other. Will he put up a big poster of Sarah Palin to scare away pinkos as a crucifix scares away vampires? Or maybe he'll use such phrases as "socialist dictator" with patients and gauge their reactions.
Rep. Alan Grayson, the firebrand Florida Democrat whose district is home to Cassell's office, said he would file an ethics complaint with the state medical board on the grounds that refusing to treat Democratic patients is the same as refusing to treat black patients. He's wrong; the two are very different, and Grayson comes off as just trying to cash in on the fuss politically.
That is not to say that Cassell is acting professionally - quite the opposite. Even more so than in other fields, a doctor is expected to put his patients' needs above his own prejudices, and this goes double for something as (comparatively) unimportant as partisan politics. Telling sick patients who voted for the "wrong" candidate to get lost is, to put it mildly, extremely unprofessional, not to mention childish. And I would say the same thing had he put up a sign telling McCain voters to "seek urologic care elsewhere."
Cassell should rethink his choice of office decor. Either that or get a job which doesn't directly affect people's lives and health.
3/24/2010
The Terror Begins
It's been three days since the House of Representatives passed the health-care reform bill and two days since President Obama signed it into law. If you believe the tea partiers, that's two (and possibly three) days since tyranny came to our shores and killed off the America we all know and love.
It is, of course, nonsense. But the scary part is not that the tea partiers believe it. The scary part is that some of them, goaded on by their leaders, are descending into violence.
The offices of Democratic representatives around the country have been attacked and vandalized, often with rocks or bricks thrown through the windows.
A number of Democrats have received explicit death threats, both at their Washington offices and at their homes. Many have had to request Secret Service protection, not just for themselves but for their spouses and children as well, who in many cases were also directly threatened.
Virginia teabagger leader Nigel Coleman posted what he believed to be Rep. Tom Periello's home address on his Facebook page, telling his equally rabid followers to "drop by" and harass the man at home. But Coleman didn't even bother to get it right - he posted Periello's brother's home address. Shortly afterward, the brother found a threatening letter in his mailbox as well as a slashed and leaking propane gas line on his barbecue grill.
Coleman's response to the vandalism was, if possible, even more reprehensible than his original actions. "Do you mean I posted his brother's address on my Facebook?" he wrote on his blog. "Oh well, collateral damage."
Collateral damage.
This is not political discourse. This is terrorism. It might be conducted by Americans instead of Arabs, but it's terrorism nonetheless.
When Democratic representatives were spat on and taunted with racial and sexual epithets, the Republican leadership grudgingly told their followers to cool it. A bit late in the game, especially since that same leadership had spent months twisting people's minds with lies about "death panels" and "Marxism," endlessly using the language of war and killing, recklessly stoking the fires of hate ever higher until the day when something truly ugly becomes inevitable.
That day has arrived.
The teabagger movement has long turned a blind eye to the racists and crackpots and haters in their midst, but they can hide no longer. The Republicans, from Sarah Palin and John Boehner on down, can't hide anymore either. Like Dr. Morbius' "monsters from the id" in Forbidden Planet, the demon of fear and hatred they created has started to run amok.
So what happens now? Will the Republican and teabagger leaders tell their followers in no uncertain terms that violence is un-American and will not be tolerated? Or will they continue to remain silent, unwilling to surrender their weapon of an angry mob even if someone gets killed?
Even if they speak out from pure self-preservation, they'd better do it, and damn fast too. The first murder will doom the Republican Party for a generation and destroy the tea party movement forever.
It is, of course, nonsense. But the scary part is not that the tea partiers believe it. The scary part is that some of them, goaded on by their leaders, are descending into violence.
The offices of Democratic representatives around the country have been attacked and vandalized, often with rocks or bricks thrown through the windows.
A number of Democrats have received explicit death threats, both at their Washington offices and at their homes. Many have had to request Secret Service protection, not just for themselves but for their spouses and children as well, who in many cases were also directly threatened.
Virginia teabagger leader Nigel Coleman posted what he believed to be Rep. Tom Periello's home address on his Facebook page, telling his equally rabid followers to "drop by" and harass the man at home. But Coleman didn't even bother to get it right - he posted Periello's brother's home address. Shortly afterward, the brother found a threatening letter in his mailbox as well as a slashed and leaking propane gas line on his barbecue grill.
Coleman's response to the vandalism was, if possible, even more reprehensible than his original actions. "Do you mean I posted his brother's address on my Facebook?" he wrote on his blog. "Oh well, collateral damage."
Collateral damage.
This is not political discourse. This is terrorism. It might be conducted by Americans instead of Arabs, but it's terrorism nonetheless.
When Democratic representatives were spat on and taunted with racial and sexual epithets, the Republican leadership grudgingly told their followers to cool it. A bit late in the game, especially since that same leadership had spent months twisting people's minds with lies about "death panels" and "Marxism," endlessly using the language of war and killing, recklessly stoking the fires of hate ever higher until the day when something truly ugly becomes inevitable.
That day has arrived.
The teabagger movement has long turned a blind eye to the racists and crackpots and haters in their midst, but they can hide no longer. The Republicans, from Sarah Palin and John Boehner on down, can't hide anymore either. Like Dr. Morbius' "monsters from the id" in Forbidden Planet, the demon of fear and hatred they created has started to run amok.
So what happens now? Will the Republican and teabagger leaders tell their followers in no uncertain terms that violence is un-American and will not be tolerated? Or will they continue to remain silent, unwilling to surrender their weapon of an angry mob even if someone gets killed?
Even if they speak out from pure self-preservation, they'd better do it, and damn fast too. The first murder will doom the Republican Party for a generation and destroy the tea party movement forever.
3/19/2010
The Tyranny of Health Care
The loudest voices opposing health care reform howl about how passing the bill currently in Congress (or any bill, really) will usher in a new era of despotic socialism. They warn of the approaching thud of jackbooted feet trampling all over us, poking into every nook and cranny of our lives, requiring us to exchange iceberg lettuce for arugula and buy a $59.95 Michelle Obama Triceps Cruncher.
I got into a scrape on Facebook yesterday with a friend (at least, I hope she's still a friend) who calls the bill "tyranny." She hates everything about it, from the requirement that we carry some form of health insurance to the (minimal) regulation of some of the insurance industry's worst abuses to the fact that the bill even exists, as she claims it to be unconstitutional. Every change to the bill, including the removal of a public option, has been met with the same response: it's tyranny. As she is very politically involved, I asked what I thought to be a reasonable question: since she rejects all proposed reforms, how would she fix the system? After all, having many millions of Americans with no reliable health care combined with medical and insurance costs rising far faster than inflation is a serious problem.
It's a fair question; one cannot say "no" to everything. Simply raging against fictional socialist death panels and demanding that Congress "kill the bill" doesn't fix anything. Proposing an alternative would be nice, especially since the status quo is so unsustainable.
She did not take it well. As we went back and forth, she mostly dodged the question and then eventually blew up, accusing me of presenting my case in "partisan terms." She even posted on her own blog a long screed saying I was a "distraction" using "talking points straight off of Moveon.org's playlist." Neat trick, since I don't follow MoveOn.
Silly me, I thought I was talking about the basic facts of the health care brouhaha: the yanking of insurance on the flimsiest of excuses, the high-deductible coverage which doesn't cover much at all, the penny-pinching, the denial of care, the use of pre-existing conditions, the fact that money spent on health care pays off (and then some) in the form of higher productivity and thus higher tax revenues, the fact that 62% of bankruptcies involve medical debt and that 78% of such bankrupts had insurance which didn't protect them.
It appears not. Despite Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which specifically allows Congress to levy taxes in furtherance of the nation's "general welfare," any insurance mandate is apparently unconstitutional and tyrannical control of our lives, and any requirement to treat people who can't afford care is socialist slavery.
This shows an ugly trend in this whole debate: the attitude of "I've got mine, so screw you" on display everywhere. Stories of how people lose their insurance based on made-up excuses are greeted with shrugs. If someone loses their life savings or their home, well, them's the breaks. It's your own fault for getting sick in the first place. Or you should have shopped around to pick the right hospital after your stroke. Being comatose is no excuse.
One particularly sickening video posted yesterday showed a man with Parkinson's disease being harassed by protesters who call him a Communist. One man sneers in his face that "if you're looking for a handout, you're in the wrong end of town." Another scornfully throws a couple of dollar bills at him, shouting, "I'll decide when to give you money!"
Their message is simple: Go ahead and suffer. Go ahead and die. I don't care.
And this illustrates the deep divide between our two philosophies of life. Progressives believe that we are all in this together and that what strengthens the nation as a whole strengthens each of us individually. The teabaggers reject the idea that we, via government, are our brother's keeper and claim that anyone who believes otherwise is an apologist for slavery.
But even if requiring us to carry health insurance is tyranny (and that's a Brobdingnagian if) is it not more tyrannical to live in constant fear of getting sick or injured, not knowing whether your insurance will really protect you? Is it not a form of slavery to be all too aware that should you lose your job, you would be unable to buy coverage on the private market because of a "pre-existing condition" in a loved one? Since the United States is the only developed nation in the world without some form of universal health coverage and where the obscenity of medical bankruptcy is allowed, does that mean we are the only free nation on Earth?
Back during the bad old days of the Cold War, we were told that we had to possess thousands of nuclear weapons because the Soviets had them as well and that our freedom depended upon remaining under the threat of mutual annihilation. Do we now have a 21st-century version of that atomic Sword of Damocles? Can we be free only if we live in perpetual danger of financial ruin for the crime of getting sick?
Not in my America. My America is a nation where we look after each other and where no one is condemned to exist in pain and suffering, or be forced out of their homes, because they can't afford to see a doctor. If others believe that represents tyranny, then so be it. We have to agree to disagree.
I got into a scrape on Facebook yesterday with a friend (at least, I hope she's still a friend) who calls the bill "tyranny." She hates everything about it, from the requirement that we carry some form of health insurance to the (minimal) regulation of some of the insurance industry's worst abuses to the fact that the bill even exists, as she claims it to be unconstitutional. Every change to the bill, including the removal of a public option, has been met with the same response: it's tyranny. As she is very politically involved, I asked what I thought to be a reasonable question: since she rejects all proposed reforms, how would she fix the system? After all, having many millions of Americans with no reliable health care combined with medical and insurance costs rising far faster than inflation is a serious problem.
It's a fair question; one cannot say "no" to everything. Simply raging against fictional socialist death panels and demanding that Congress "kill the bill" doesn't fix anything. Proposing an alternative would be nice, especially since the status quo is so unsustainable.
She did not take it well. As we went back and forth, she mostly dodged the question and then eventually blew up, accusing me of presenting my case in "partisan terms." She even posted on her own blog a long screed saying I was a "distraction" using "talking points straight off of Moveon.org's playlist." Neat trick, since I don't follow MoveOn.
Silly me, I thought I was talking about the basic facts of the health care brouhaha: the yanking of insurance on the flimsiest of excuses, the high-deductible coverage which doesn't cover much at all, the penny-pinching, the denial of care, the use of pre-existing conditions, the fact that money spent on health care pays off (and then some) in the form of higher productivity and thus higher tax revenues, the fact that 62% of bankruptcies involve medical debt and that 78% of such bankrupts had insurance which didn't protect them.
It appears not. Despite Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, which specifically allows Congress to levy taxes in furtherance of the nation's "general welfare," any insurance mandate is apparently unconstitutional and tyrannical control of our lives, and any requirement to treat people who can't afford care is socialist slavery.
This shows an ugly trend in this whole debate: the attitude of "I've got mine, so screw you" on display everywhere. Stories of how people lose their insurance based on made-up excuses are greeted with shrugs. If someone loses their life savings or their home, well, them's the breaks. It's your own fault for getting sick in the first place. Or you should have shopped around to pick the right hospital after your stroke. Being comatose is no excuse.
One particularly sickening video posted yesterday showed a man with Parkinson's disease being harassed by protesters who call him a Communist. One man sneers in his face that "if you're looking for a handout, you're in the wrong end of town." Another scornfully throws a couple of dollar bills at him, shouting, "I'll decide when to give you money!"
Their message is simple: Go ahead and suffer. Go ahead and die. I don't care.
And this illustrates the deep divide between our two philosophies of life. Progressives believe that we are all in this together and that what strengthens the nation as a whole strengthens each of us individually. The teabaggers reject the idea that we, via government, are our brother's keeper and claim that anyone who believes otherwise is an apologist for slavery.
But even if requiring us to carry health insurance is tyranny (and that's a Brobdingnagian if) is it not more tyrannical to live in constant fear of getting sick or injured, not knowing whether your insurance will really protect you? Is it not a form of slavery to be all too aware that should you lose your job, you would be unable to buy coverage on the private market because of a "pre-existing condition" in a loved one? Since the United States is the only developed nation in the world without some form of universal health coverage and where the obscenity of medical bankruptcy is allowed, does that mean we are the only free nation on Earth?
Back during the bad old days of the Cold War, we were told that we had to possess thousands of nuclear weapons because the Soviets had them as well and that our freedom depended upon remaining under the threat of mutual annihilation. Do we now have a 21st-century version of that atomic Sword of Damocles? Can we be free only if we live in perpetual danger of financial ruin for the crime of getting sick?
Not in my America. My America is a nation where we look after each other and where no one is condemned to exist in pain and suffering, or be forced out of their homes, because they can't afford to see a doctor. If others believe that represents tyranny, then so be it. We have to agree to disagree.
12/11/2009
Joy to the World - or Else
One constant teabagger refrain is that government is too big, too intrusive and too all-encompassing. So one California teabagger naturally wants to require schools to play Christmas carols and students to listen.
Yes, the annual War on Christmas and the teabagger movement have come together in Redding, California. Merry Hyatt, president of the Redding Tea Party Patriots, is so incensed by her local public school not bombarding kids with holiday tunes that she's starting a ballot initiative signature campaign to fix this. If the initiative passes, schools would be forced to play carols - even overtly religious ones - and those who refuse would be dragged into court.
Hyatt, who as a substitute teacher really should know better, said she launched the initiative to push a specifically religious means of getting students to clean up their act: "He's the prince of peace; he's the only one who can get these kids to stop being so violent." She is unapologetic about her intentions, saying, "Bottom line is Christmas is about Christmas. That's why we have it. It's not about winter solstice or Kwanzaa. It's like, 'wow you guys, it's called Christmas for a reason.'"
She seems to be missing the point about a few things - such as that not everyone celebrates Christmas, and that not everyone who does celebrate it does it the way she does. Somehow, I doubt that Jews or other non-Christians would appreciate being forced to listen to Christmas music. And oh yes, there's a little thing called separation of church and state. Blaring such specifically Christian music as "Angels We Have Heard on High" or "Joy to the World" in a public school most definitely counts as advocating religion. Even if the initiative passes - and that's a big if - it would last about four seconds before being struck down as unconstitutional.
And for a supposedly get-government-off-our-backs teabagger, Hyatt apparently doesn't realize that her initiative would put government in charge of forcing religious beliefs on people. Anyone who has ever studied the history of governmental religious doctrine knows that it always ends badly. People who follow the "wrong" religions - or even the "wrong" form of the "right" religion - always end up being discriminated against or worse.
Of course, she seems to have no problem with forcing her own beliefs on people. She is saved and pure while everyone else is a godless heathen, you see.
Yes, the annual War on Christmas and the teabagger movement have come together in Redding, California. Merry Hyatt, president of the Redding Tea Party Patriots, is so incensed by her local public school not bombarding kids with holiday tunes that she's starting a ballot initiative signature campaign to fix this. If the initiative passes, schools would be forced to play carols - even overtly religious ones - and those who refuse would be dragged into court.
Hyatt, who as a substitute teacher really should know better, said she launched the initiative to push a specifically religious means of getting students to clean up their act: "He's the prince of peace; he's the only one who can get these kids to stop being so violent." She is unapologetic about her intentions, saying, "Bottom line is Christmas is about Christmas. That's why we have it. It's not about winter solstice or Kwanzaa. It's like, 'wow you guys, it's called Christmas for a reason.'"
She seems to be missing the point about a few things - such as that not everyone celebrates Christmas, and that not everyone who does celebrate it does it the way she does. Somehow, I doubt that Jews or other non-Christians would appreciate being forced to listen to Christmas music. And oh yes, there's a little thing called separation of church and state. Blaring such specifically Christian music as "Angels We Have Heard on High" or "Joy to the World" in a public school most definitely counts as advocating religion. Even if the initiative passes - and that's a big if - it would last about four seconds before being struck down as unconstitutional.
And for a supposedly get-government-off-our-backs teabagger, Hyatt apparently doesn't realize that her initiative would put government in charge of forcing religious beliefs on people. Anyone who has ever studied the history of governmental religious doctrine knows that it always ends badly. People who follow the "wrong" religions - or even the "wrong" form of the "right" religion - always end up being discriminated against or worse.
Of course, she seems to have no problem with forcing her own beliefs on people. She is saved and pure while everyone else is a godless heathen, you see.
12/04/2009
Good Grief
When President Obama spoke Tuesday evening on his policy for cleaning up the mess in Afghanistan he inherited from President Bush, the various TV networks naturally bumped their original programming to make room for it. It was, after all, a major address on a major issue. It is therefore a depressingly common sign of the times to see how some people are turning it into something completely ridiculous.
Specifically, Russell Wiseman, the mayor of Arlington, Tennessee, thought he saw something sinister in the speech's timing - namely, to displace ABC's annual showing of A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Seriously.
On his private Facebook page, whose contents were promptly leaked, Wiseman griped:
I was going to say something along these lines, but DailyKos got there first:
If Wiseman is any indicator, it's probably the latter one.
Specifically, Russell Wiseman, the mayor of Arlington, Tennessee, thought he saw something sinister in the speech's timing - namely, to displace ABC's annual showing of A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Seriously.
On his private Facebook page, whose contents were promptly leaked, Wiseman griped:
Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch 'The Charlie Brown Christmas Special' and our muslim president is there, what a load.....try to convince me that wasn't done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation [sic] about it....w...hen the answer should simply be 'yes'....As Lucy van Pelt would say, what a blockhead. Out of all the bizarre stuff said about Obama, this ranks way up there - or down there, depending on your point of view.
I was going to say something along these lines, but DailyKos got there first:
Just imagine the scene in the Situation Room - the President, with his secret Muslim agenda, Pentagon officials and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pouring over the holiday TV schedule to determine what would be the perfect day to announce they were sending 30,000 more soldiers into harm's way and to [f-word] over Russell Wiseman's kids.Is there anything Obama's political opponents won't believe? Or will they happily continue to swallow anything which comes down the pike, no matter how crazy it is?
If Wiseman is any indicator, it's probably the latter one.
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