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anti-rush limbaugh

In Defense Of Lois Lerner

You’d think she killed somebody.

Lois Lerner, who on Wednesday invoked her right against self-incrimination, is being attacked, by nearly everyone in the country who knows who she is, for her role in the IRS v. Tea Party “scandal,” which, of course, isn’t quite a scandal yet, but Republicans keep trying. Some of the most vicious attacks are coming from Constitution-loving right-wingers, who can’t believe Lerner would actually use something other than the Second Amendment to protect herself. I Have Not Done Anything Wrong: IRS Official Lois Lerner Invokes 5th Amendment Right

MSNBC’s conservative gabber, S.E. Cupp, who provides a damn good reason not to watch that network’s afternoon show “The Cycle,” took to tweetin’ yesterday to say,

So, Lois Lerner is either a coward or a criminal, right? Tell me where I’m wrong.

Apparently, S.E. Cupp studied the Constitution at the Rush Limbaugh School of Law, which ought to be enough right there to tell her where she’s wrong.

And speaking of Professor Limbaugh, he said about Ms. Lerner:

Okay, let me tell you what happened today at the IRS hearings. Lois Lerner, who ran the whole kit and caboodle and was… By the way, this was the first time I had a close-up look at her. This is an angry woman. You have to be very careful in making judgments about people based on physical appearance, although I’ve gotten really good at it. I can spot people out there and I can tell you who the libs are pretty much by just what I see. But, in this case, I already know that she is.

I already know that she’s a liberal, I know that she is in the same mode as Barack Obama, and now I know this is a woman who’s angry…This is a woman obsessed with the Christian right, Lois Lerner. This is a woman obsessed with religious people.

Okay. So, from two popular conservative commentators (there are a thousand more to choose from) we know that Lerner, by refusing to testify, is an angry, Jesus-hating woman who is either a criminal or a coward. All because she dared to avail herself of a constitutional right. Hmm.

The honcho of the Republican National Committee, the insufferable Reince Priebus, himself issued a Tweet regarding his discussion with Sean Hannity about this mess:

…it’s lawlessness and guerrilla warfare and Obama is in the middle of it.

Yikes! Obama is a gorilla, uh, guerrilla!

In any case, Priebus, appearing on Morning Joe today, commented on Lois Lerner’s right-invoking committee appearance:

You don’t need to plead the Fifth if you have done nothing wrong…

Obviously, Priebus also attended Rush Limbaugh’s law school. Even though he was aggressively challenged by Morning Joe regular John Heilemann, Priebus didn’t back down. In Priebus’ strange and disordered mind, pleading the Fifth is tantamount to an admission of guilt, don’t you know. Damn those Founders!

But right-wingers aren’t the only ones saying such stupid things. This morning on Morning Joe, which prejudicially carried a graphic characterizing Lerner’s brief statement as “defiant,” I heard Andy Serwer, managing editor of Fortune magazine, for God’s sake, say this:

What an unsympathetic position. We just saw her pleading the Fifth. This is something that mafia chieftains do in front of Congress, not public officials, not someone from the IRS. Obviously everyone just wants to know the real story, we want her to come clean. How bad could it be? I’m sorry, “You need to tell what’s going on here,” and, you know, to just do otherwise is just ridiculous, and the IRS is just going to continue to be a piñata. And obviously is not’s just right-wing groups who are upset with this, but every American citizen should be upset with this.

Mafia chieftain? Wow. So much for presumed innocence. I remind you that the man who said that is a, gulp, journalist.

Well, I may be the only one in the world who has sympathy for this woman, but I can’t help it. I still happen to believe in the noble and once-American concept of innocent-until-proven-guilty. And I really do believe in the Constitution, which also includes the Fifth Amendment’s right to remain silent should someone try to compel any person “to be a witness against himself.”

Republican legislators, who, like all Tea Party-drunk conservatives, claim to love, cherish, and lustily sleep with the Constitution, were upset on Wednesday when Ms. Lerner invoked Lois Lerner her Fifth Amendment right just after she made a plea of innocence and after Darrell Issa, headhunting chairman of the House’s Oversight and Government Reform Committee, talked her into authenticating a document.

I watched as Trey Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor who now represents right-wing folks in South Carolina’s 4th congressional district, forgot that he was not in a federal courtroom but at a congressional hearing and insisted that Lerner “ought to stand here and answer our questions.” Uh, she was actually sitting at the time, but then, hey, maybe being a former prosecutor and current zealot entitles one to demand that witnesses stand during the inquisition. Heck, why not go the whole way and roll out the rack? Bones cracking would make good TV.

But that’s beside the point. Gowdy said of Lerner,

You don’t get to tell your side of the story and not be subject to cross-examination.

Whoa, cowboy. Settle down there. (Some folks in the gallery were applauding at Gowdy’s prosecutorial grandstanding, and Issa did nothing to stop them, by the way.) Lerner didn’t actually tell her side of the story. There’s a lot of story to tell, if she ever tells it, and she didn’t even come close with these words:

I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee. And while I would very much like to answer the committee’s questions today, I’ve been advised by my counsel to assert my constitutional right not to testify or answer questions related to the subject matter of this hearing.

After very careful consideration, I’ve decided to follow my counsel’s advice and not testify or answer any of the questions today. Because I’m asserting my right not to testify, I know that some people will assume that I’ve done something wrong. I have not. One of the basic functions of the Fifth Amendment is to protect innocent individuals, and that is the protection I’m invoking today.

After initially and correctly telling everyone that they should respect Lerner’s Fifth Amendment right without prejudging her, Issa later put on his big-boy Tea Party pants and now agrees with Gowdy and others who believe she lost her constitutional right not to incriminate herself. He’s going to call her back to appear again. Whoopee! More good cable TV to come! Maybe next time they really will crack her bones!

As with so many things in this litigious world of ours, there are at least two sides of this Fifth Amendment “controversy.” There are those lawyers who think she did not waive her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by offering a brief statement of her innocence. Of course, those lawyers did not attend the Rush Limbaugh School of Law, so what do they know?

And, of course, as Reince Priebus indicated, this all comes back to President Obama. Conservative Republican Joe Scarborough said on MSNBC this morning,

Why is the president allowing this to go on? This IRS story is another great example of just sheer incompetence at the White House to get their story out in a clean, effective way…

Yes, the Prez should simply strip Ms. Lerner of her constitutional rights, force her to tell Darrell Issa what he wants to hear, and then impeach himself after it’s all done. That, and only that, will satisfy the mob.

Finally, the truth in all this just may be found in a little article on The Daily Beast published today. The story quotes a man who used to hold the same position Lois Lerner now holds:

“It was inevitable something was going to happen,” said Marcus Owens, who served as director of the IRS Exempt Organizations Division from 1990 until he retired in 2000. That was the same year that the 1998 IRS Restructuring and Reform Act was implemented, ushering in, he said, a culture of disorganization and miscommunication.

“Virtually all IRS executive positions were re-aligned and re-evaluated and a lot of field offices positions were eliminated. The channels of communication between field offices and the Washington headquarters were muddied,” Owens said. “Instead of having clear, hierarchical oversight, Cincinnati was given the responsibility to handle things that would normally be handled by the better-equipped Washington office.”

He went on to say,

“This is a case of funding problems and management problems. Everyone is thinking that the IRS was hunting down conservative organizations with bloodhounds or something when what they were really doing was opening the morning’s mail… The IRS is really a collection agency for the government. Tax returns that generate revenue must be accurate, but those that don’t generate revenue receive less attention,” he said. “That’s just the way it is.”

I doubt very much if we hear a lot from Marcus Owens or hear a lot about the IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998. But we should. (By the way, only two U.S. Senators voted against that bill, including that great progressive, the late Paul Wellstone, so that ought to tell us something.) The likelihood that we won’t hear much about Owens or that 1998 law tells us something very important about the state of journalism these days, perhaps something more important than a prominent journalist going on TV and comparing a Fifth Amendment-invoking IRS employee to a “mafia chieftain.”

_____________________________

[photo credit: Getty Images (top) and AP (bottom)]

3 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on May 23, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Darrell Issa, irs, IRS Scandal, Lois Lerner, mafia chieftain, Morning Joe, Reince Priebus, rush limbaugh, S. E. Cupp, Tea Party, Trey Gowdy

Posted by R. Duane Graham on May 23, 2013

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/in-defense-of-lois-lerner/

The U.S. Government Bombed The Boston Marathon, Or Just Another Day In The World Of Right-Wing Nuttery

I only listened to a little Glenn Beck on Wednesday morning because, frankly, a little Glenn Beck goes a long way in terms of destroying brain tissue, and, to be honest, I don’t have that much brain tissue to spare these days.

Naturally, since Glenn Beck specializes in peddling conspiracy theories for cash, Glenn Beck has a conspiracy theory regarding the Boston Marathon bombing, which, as far as I can tell, involves Barack and Michelle Obama and Joe Biden and the Saudi Arabian foreign minister and the Saudi ambassador and Janet Napolitano, who will, when this plot is unraveled, be “the first to fall,” says Beck. Oh, yeah, I think the pigmented comedian Dave Chappelle is involved too, because he converted to Islam in 1998 and since then, well, the world has gone to hell.

Because he is a capitalist without a conscience, Glenn Beck won’t let a terrorist attack go to waste without least attempting to make a profit from it. And this latest conspiracy theory—involving a Saudi man who police—and, for Allah’s sake, even Fox News’ Bret Baier—says was merely a victim of the bombing and not a suspect or participant on behalf of the government, is so stupid and unbelievable that, of course, it has legs in the world of right-wing nuttery. (You can see Beck’s take on Bret Baier here.)

Let me tell you that the evening of the Boston Marathon bombing, I was at a local high school baseball game watching my kid play. Standing beside me was a dad of another player on our team. I knew this guy to be a right-wing fanatic (chances are, around these parts, someone you are standing next to at a ball game is a right-wing fanatic), and, it happens, a Glenn Beck fan. He was checking his phone for updates on the bombing and, lo and behold, he told me that “they” just found out that the perpetrator was a “Saudi national.” “Who could have guessed that?” he said sarcastically.

Playing along, I said, “Of course!” Who else, I said only to myself, would want to kill spectators at a marathon but those damn Saudis! They’ve always hated long-distance runners, especially long-distance runners from Ethiopia who win, and they hate people who would stand and applaud their efforts. Kill the infidels!

Needless to say, I later found out the truth about the Saudi national and that Matt Drudge and Alex Jones and Glenn Beck and others were trying to make a buck off the whole thing. And I sort of felt a little guilty for not telling the guy at the baseball game that he was, dammit, out of his mind for believing anything that came from his right-wing “sources.”

In any case, all of this embarrassing nonsense leads me to post the segment below from Wednesday night’s Rachel Maddow Show, which, in case you think this conspiracy stuff is harmless fluff, will change your mind about how pervasive, sick, and thus, dangerous, it is in terms of our national well-being. Because people like Alex Jones and Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity can, thanks to Fox “News,” talk radio, and the Internet, reach millions of folks, they are making us dumber as a society.

As Steve Benen wrote:

…let’s not overlook the fact that last week, Beck used his Internet show to push a bogus claim about a Boston suspect, but his arguments quickly drew attention from the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, the chairman of the House subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency, the chairman of the House subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, and the chairwoman of the House subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security — all of whom are Republicans, and all of whom took Beck’s nonsense seriously.

There’s a strain of madness running through contemporary Republican politics…

7 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on April 25, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Boston Marathon, Bret Baier, conspiracy theories, glenn beck, Janet Napolitano, rush limbaugh, Saudi Arabia

Posted by R. Duane Graham on April 25, 2013

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/the-u-s-government-bombed-the-boston-marathon-or-just-another-day-in-the-world-of-right-wing-nuttery/

The “Average Person” Is A Liberal

Wonkblog published a very interesting piece (“No, the 2012 election didn’t prove the Republican Party needs a reboot”) by John Sides, an Associate Professor in the Political Science department at George Washington University.

Sides essentially argued that much of the Republican hand-wringing over the last election, which has caused some of the party architects to think they need to reorient the party toward more (relatively) centrist positions in order to win national elections, is unnecessary. He suggests that things are not so bad for Republicans as the Romney defeat might indicate.

Let me say from the start that I don’t give one good damn about the reformation of the Republican Party. As far as I’m concerned, given what it has become, I hope it wanders forever in the wilderness of doubt and uncertainty about itself. I hope the so-called civil war within the party continues unabated for at least as long as it takes our sun to convert its last atom of hydrogen into helium and swells into a red giant that will swallow up the earth, sort of the way Newt Gingrich attacks the all-you-can-eat buffet on the campaign trail.

Any political party whose leaders have to, say, appease pale-faced zealots like Rush Limbaugh before they can endorse sensible immigration reform (as Marco Rubio, a Limbaugh butt-sweat slurper, is doing right now) is not a party worth saving.

But I do want to take issue with something that Professor Sides claimed in his article, to wit: Even though Mitt Romney moved far to the right in the GOP primary, that ideological move did not hurt him as much as most of us thought:

…it does seem true that Romney had to tack right in the primary. But when the general election rolled around, who did voters perceived as ideologically closer to them, on average: Romney or Obama? Romney.

Sides uses a YouGov survey from January 2012 until election day to make that rather startling point:

Sides says:

Although over time both Romney and Obama were perceived as moving farther away from the average voter, Romney was still closer to this voter on Election Day. The candidate who would have benefited most from a shift to the center was Obama.

Naturally, since I perceived Barack Obama as having shifted to the center on so many—too many, for my particular tastes—issues, I was quite surprised by Professor Sides’ claim here.

Could it be that the far-right Mitt Romney, the one who embraced a harsh stance on immigration reform that only Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh could love; the one who was called a “vulture capitalist” by his own GOP competition; the one who made that repulsive 47%-of-the-country-are-moochers comment in front of fat-cat donors; the one who picked the extremist, Ayn Rand-loving Paul Ryan for his running mate; could it be that that Mitt Romney was closer to the “average person” than Barack Obama?

Hell no.

What we are dealing with here are the way people, when asked in polls or surveys, interpret the words “liberal,” “moderate,” and “conservative.” Notice how the “average person” in the graph plots himself or herself right there in that comfortable “moderate” range. Why is that? Because most people like to think of themselves as not too hot or not too cold, and people generally don’t perceive their political beliefs to be anywhere near one of the ideological poles, even if they obviously are.

When I was a conservative, I heard conservative commentators tell me all the time that the majority of Americans were “with us,” that we represented the “average person.” Now that I am a liberal, I hear the same thing. Americans are “with us” liberals. And both of those claims can’t be true.

So, what is true?

Notwithstanding the arguments of Professor Sides, and other political scientists who rely way too much on the self-perceptions of survey respondents in taking the ideological temperature of the country, we have one fairly reasonable way of gauging the ideological proclivities of voters: how do they respond to specific issues?

Let’s take a look at several of them:

GUN CONTROL:

GAY MARRIAGE:

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS:

**SOCIAL SECURITY (a liberal program par excellence):**

MEDICARE (another liberal program):

MEDICAID EXPANSION UNDER OBAMACARE:

TAXING THE RICH:

Mitt Romney was on the wrong side of all of those issues. The Republican Party still is. A majority of Americans, despite how much they want to perceive themselves as “moderates,” actually support liberal programs and policies.

I suppose something can be said for the fact that people who support liberal ideas consider that support to be the very definition of “moderation,” which is bad news for a Republican Party that is still waging war on women’s reproductive freedom, homosexual rights, and the well-being of the poor; which is still protecting above all else the interests of the moneyed class; which is still trying to repeal the New Deal, and which, as we speak, is threatening to derail even the most mild form of gun control legislation.

7 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on April 1, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged conservative, George Washington University, ideology, liberal, Mitt Romney, rush limbaugh, YouGov

Posted by R. Duane Graham on April 1, 2013

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/the-average-person-is-a-liberal/

The Tea Party, Ted Nugent, and The Republican Renewal

Tonight, Marco Rubio, a far right, Tea Party Hispanic Republican, will act as first responder to any fire Barack Obama’s State of the Union address might ignite.

This morning on The Daily Rundown on MSNBC I heard a lovely Republican pollster, Kristen Soltis Anderson, exalt Rubio this way:

I’m looking forward to him getting this national exposure. I think he’s the right person at the right time to lead the Republican Party into this period of renewal.

Period of renewal? Rubio is the leader of a Republican renewal? The man who had to prostrate himself before Rush Limbaugh’s prostate in order to get the broadcaster’s blessing on immigration reform? That Rubio? Come on, lovely Republican pollster. Slurping perspiration from between Limbaugh’s butt cheeks isn’t Republican renewal, it’s old-school Republican politics. Rush was Tea Party before Tea Party was and wasn’t cool.

And speaking of the imaginary Republican renewal, tonight Senator Rand Paul will also give a response to Barack Obama, a president so politically hot he needs two Republican first responders to put out his fire.

Rand Paul, whose Tea Party extremism was first exposed on television by Rachel Maddow, recently fantasized about being president, which is one of the scariest thoughts in the world, next to being struck by a beam of gamma rays. No, wait. I’ll take the gamma rays.

Pretending to be president wasn’t the only time Paul fantasized about being in charge. In 2006, he imagined himself being the governor of Kentucky. And, to boot, he was the governor of Kentucky with an ethics scandal. His solution: he would pardon himself! Case closed, people!

Marco Rubio and Rand Paul will not, however, be the best representatives of the Republican renewal on display tonight. That honor belongs to Texas congressman Steve Stockman.

Stockman is the one who made news recently by offering to do the GOP’s dirty work of impeaching President Obama over his executive orders related to gun violence. That, of course, made him a Fox “News” hero. Tonight he will attend the SOTU address accompanied by another proud Republican renewalist and Vietnam War draft-evader, Ted Nugent.

Now, I’ve written about NRA board member Nugent before and offered numerous quotes from him that prove he has been infected with an extra-terrestrial form of Obama- Clinton-hate. Here is an example from 2007, addressed to dupes dumb enough to pay money to watch him perform:

I think that Barack Hussein Obama should be put in jail. It is clear that Barack Hussein Obama is a communist. Mao Tse Tung lives and his name is Barack Hussein Obama. This country should be ashamed. I wanna throw up. …Obama, he’s a piece of shit. I told him to suck on my machine gun. Hey Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch.

From a Detroit radio interview in 1992:

Foreigners are assholes; foreigners are scum; I don’t like ‘em; I don’t want ‘em in this country; I don’t want ‘em selling me doughnuts; I don’t want ‘em pumping my gas; I don’t want ‘em downwind of my life-OK? So anyhow-and I’m dead serious…

From an interview in 1994:

About Hillary Clinton: “You probably can’t use the term ‘toxic cunt’ in your magazine, but that’s what she is. Her very existence insults the spirit of individualism in this country. This bitch is nothing but a two-bit whore for Fidel Castro.”

About national health care: “The government must stay out of my life. If there are weenies who are in the liability column of our nation, tough shit.”

About Social Security: “To be forced to have a Social Security number in this country is illegal. It’s against the Constitution. I can’t tell you the specific language, but I reviewed it, and I know it’s illegal. The clusterfuck that is Social Security insults people who work hard for their living.

In our culture, such people as Ted Nugent are normally promoted by sleazy characters out to make a quick buck from a freak willing to be publicly outrageous for fifteen minutes.

But tonight, at the State of the Union address, a Republican congressman will apparently show up with Ted Nugent, a man who was recently investigated by the Secret Service, on his arm.

And you will not hear one word from Republican leadership in the House or Senate or anywhere else. That, my friends, is the real Republican renewal.

A renewal of the GOP’s vows to extremism.

_____________________________________________________________

19 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on February 12, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Barack Obama, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, rush limbaugh, State of the Union address, Steve Stockman, Ted Nugent

Posted by R. Duane Graham on February 12, 2013

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/the-tea-party-ted-nugent-and-the-republican-renewal/

To Hell With The Republican Party

“GOP dying? Good!“

—Glenn Beck

kay. I’m warning all of you who don’t like profanity to click away.

On Tuesday I heard yet another segment on television—perhaps the millionth by now— about what Republicans need to do to reform themselves.

Finally, I am here to say: Who gives a damn? Who cares what Republicans need to do to reform themselves? I used to. I used to care. Now I don’t. You know why? Because the party is beyond reform, that’s why.

As we get some bad economic news today—the economy didn’t grow last quarter—just think about why that is. The Republican Party has done its best to sabotage the economic recovery, mostly just because it hates Barack Obama and loves political power.

And think about this: My own senator, Roy Blunt, practically begged for funds for his constituents in Joplin, after a tornado ripped through our town in 2011. But then, when a super storm named Sandy ripped through the northeast, where all those goddamned liberals live, he said to hell with the goddamned liberals. He, and thirty-five other Republicans—most of whom have taken federal funds for disasters in their own states—voted “no” on Sandy relief.

Well, to hell with him, to hell with them, and to hell with the Republican Party.

I don’t like the GOP. I hate what it stands for. I want it to die and go away. I don’t want to waste time worrying if it can reform itself because those who mean to reform it sometimes sound as ridiculous as those who want it to remain the way it is, or, God forbid, make it worse.

Example: David Brooks is by all accounts one of the most reasonable Republicans on the planet and one who liberals love to cite. But when he can say that there ought to be a “second G.O.P.” and that this new G.O.P. would “be filled with people who recoiled at President Obama’s second Inaugural Address because of its excessive faith in centralized power,” there is no real hope for the party.

Did Brooks even watch that inaugural speech before he wrote that “excessive faith in centralized power” phrase? Are you kidding me? President Obama, in that speech, said this:

Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone. Our celebration of initiative and enterprise, our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, these are constants in our character.

Can David Brooks hear? Can he read? Is he having a love affair with Rush Limbaugh’s brain? Brooks said the new reformed group of Republicans would be one that “recoiled” at the “excessive faith in centralized power” that Obama expressed in his speech. Except that Obama expressed no such a thing.

What the President did do was explicitly acknowledge our national “skepticism of central authority” and called government-only solutions a “fiction,” and celebrated “initiative and enterprise” and “hard work and personal responsibility,” which he called “constants in our character.”

Maybe David Brooks thinks only Republicans can seriously use language like that, I don’t know. But I do know there is something seriously wrong with a political party when a moderate member, one who gets accolades from Democrats like me for not being a crazy conservative, can grossly mischaracterize a Democratic speech and remain a respected “moderate.”

Okay, I admit I could tolerate a party full of David Brooks types, even if they say stupid things like “excessive faith in centralized power” when there was no excessive faith in centralized power.

But I can’t tolerate a party that would put a man like Reince Priebus back in charge. Priebus has been reelected as Republican National Committee chairman. He’s once again the official spokesman for the party.

Someone explain to me why a political party that supposedly wants to reform itself would put one of its most disgusting leaders of all time back on top. Oh, let me remind you of what this slimy bastard said while the tragedy in Benghazi was still warm:

If there were a God who gave a damn about this world, Reince Priebus would be putting out fires in hell about now. But instead, the creep has been put back in charge of the Republican Party, which may amount to the same job.

Not only is Priebus the leader of the Republicans’ War on Decency, he recently was auditioning for a part in the GOP’s War on Democracy. He favors Republican-controlled states “looking at” an outrageous scheme to thwart the will of the people by changing the way those states allocate Electoral College votes.

As if the Electoral College isn’t stupid enough without the Republican Party devising a way to make a future 47%-of-the-vote-getting presidential candidate the winner. Does anyone think a party that would even contemplate such a thing is redeemable? Huh?

Want more? I finally heard about remarks made last Saturday by newly elected Tea Party Senator Ted Cruz. The remarks were about two of President Obama’s picks for cabinet members, Democrat John Kerry—who has three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star and a Bronze Star from his service in Vietnam—and Republican Chuck Hagel—who has two Purple Hearts and flesh-wrapped shrapnel from his time in Vietnam.

Here’s how HuffPo reported the remarks Cruz made on Saturday:

“Okay, we’ve got two pending nominations, John Kerry and Chuck Hagel,” he said in responding to a question at the National Review Institute summit in Washington. “Both of whom are very prominently — “

Cruz took a pregnant pause. “Anti-us?” said a moderator.

“Less than ardent fans of the U.S. military,” he continued.

Can you believe that? Can you believe a man would first tolerate the moderator’s disgusting “anti-us” remark and then say that combat veterans and war heroes were not fans of the military? I can. That’s what this goddamned party has come to.

You can Google “Ted Cruz military service” and you will find that the arrogant SOB never served a day in the military, let alone won any medals, as did Kerry and Hagel. Cruz was, however, a champion debater at, uh, Princeton. Good for him, the brave asshole.

Lest you forget, Ted Cruz is one of the bright lights in the Republican Party. Political strategist Mark McKinnon, who like David Brooks gets credit for being a “moderate” Republican, called Cruz, “the Republican Barack Obama.”

That, my friends, is from the lips of a moderate Republican. There’s no hope for the party, is all one can conclude.

And there is no hope for a party that encourages law enforcement officials, in this case sheriffs, to disobey the law. All over the country these “lawmen” are saying they will not obey any of Obama’s executive orders related to guns. Here in Missouri, the Republican-drunk legislature may soon entertain a bill introduced by a gun-slinging legislator,

making it a felony to enforce any executive order or federal law that bans the possession of a semiautomatic firearm, among other provisions.

You tell me if such lawlessness by a political party can be fixed.

Finally, I will end this tirade with more on the gun issue and with what happened to Neil Heslin, whose six-year-old boy was killed at Sandy Hook. Heslin was testifying emotionally during a public hearing in Hartford, Connecticut. He was in favor of doing something positive, like changing our insane gun laws, sort of as a way to memorialize the dead.

Initial reports on Tuesday were that Heslin was “heckled by gun nuts” in the audience. That heckling meme made it all around the country in no time. Then what followed the heckling meme was another meme pushed by right-wingers:

No, a Sandy Hook parent did not get “heckled by gun nuts”

Well, I have seen the video. I watched Neil Heslin’s face. I heard his tortured words. I felt his pain. He was obviously still stunned by the death of his little boy. He was understandably full of emotion. ‘THAT WAS THE LAST I SAW OF HIM’: Neil Heslin dropped off Jesse yesterday morning and planned to go back in the afternoon to help him make gingerbread houses. He was trying to find something good from the tragedy. He asked a rhetorical question,

Why anybody in this room needs to have one of these assault style weapons or military weapons or high capacity clips?

Greeted with appropriate silence, Heslin then said,

And not one person can answer that question or give me an answer.

At that point, more than one person mouthed out ridiculous statements like “Second Amendment shall not be infringed” and “you will not infringe our rights.” Real classy folks.

Now, I don’t give a damn what you call this, whether you call it “heckling” or whether you call it something else. What I call it is indecent. And it is the Republican Party that has made the world safe for extremist gun freaks who don’t have the decency to respect a still-grieving father in a moment like that.

And it is the Republican Party that not only enables such indecency, but also enables those gun freaks who demand that they have the right to play with military-ish guns and fantasize about how they need those big-ass guns and clips to combat a tyrannical government. The Republican Party makes that possible.

Add all this up and more—I didn’t even mention the party’s still hot War on Women or that Marco Rubio had to kiss Rush Limbaugh’s ass and get his blessing on immigration reform—and, as far as I’m concerned, the once-great party of Lincoln is irredeemable, hopeless. And I don’t want to hear any more bullshit about its agonizing efforts to reform itself.

____________________

To sort of follow up on my outburst, I present below a stunning “Rewrite” segment from Lawrence O’Donnell’s Tuesday evening show. It’s about what happened to Neil Heslin:

33 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on January 30, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged David Brooks, Electoral College, glenn beck, Reince Priebus, Republican National Committee, Roy Blunt, rush limbaugh

Posted by R. Duane Graham on January 30, 2013

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2013/01/30/to-hell-with-the-republican-party/

Why Conservatives Need Rush Limbaugh’s Permission To Pass Immigration Reform

There are a lot of conservatives out there in denial about the racist component of the fierce and sometimes weird opposition to President Obama. I’ve written about it often, and while I obviously don’t think all or even most of the opponents of Barack Obama are outright racists, there is a rather large group of folks on the right, the white right, who resent the browning of America.

Along those lines, Mother Jones, which has been doing great journalistic work, published today this article:

You can read the article and draw your own conclusions, but I have argued that a lot of the fuel that fires up the irrational hate-Obama movement is a fear that white culture—whatever that is—is being overrun by a foreign one, or many foreign ones.

Defending a white nationalist group, one of the conservatives featured in the Mother Jones piece, James B. Taylor, said:

You’ve got the NAACP and B’nai B’rith. Why not something for white people?

That nationalist group that Taylor was defending is this one:

Here is part of the NPI’s “about” page:

Look at that nice white American family, those beautiful white children. The white culture these images are meant to represent is what a lot of people on the right are fighting for, indeed, have been fighting for long before anyone ever heard of Barack Obama.

And although the cultural angst that some white folks feel didn’t start with our black president, unlike any American president before him he has the pigmented credentials that serve so well to feed the fear and paranoia that is today a part of the conservative movement.

Speaking of that fear and paranoia, isn’t it ironic that Republican Senator Marco Rubio, whose parents were Cubans and whose ethnicity Republicans are strategically, if not cynically, using to appeal to a broader base of Americans, today had to go before none other than Rush Limbaugh, the whitest of white Obama-hating conservatives, to essentially get his blessing on immigration reform.

And Limbaugh during his interview on Tuesday seemed to give Rubio permission by saying,

Well, what you are doing is admirable and noteworthy.

Ain’t that nice?

But Limbaugh asked him after that :

LIMBAUGH: This legislation that you’ve admitted is not written, but you’re here on the radio today, you’ve been doing a lot of media, who are you trying to reach with this?

RUBIO: In terms of the –

LIMBAUGH: The bill. You talking Hispanics, illegals, are you talking the American people, who are you talking to?

Ahh. You see? “The American people” and “Hispanics” are not really the same thing in the mind of Rush Limbaugh, a man so powerful in the Republican Party that its most prominent Hispanic leader feels the need to get the radio host’s permission to pass immigration laws.

5 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on January 29, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Barack Obama, Marco Rubio, Mother Jones, National Policy Institute, rush limbaugh, white angst, white nationalism

Posted by R. Duane Graham on January 29, 2013

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/why-conservatives-need-rush-limbaughs-permission-to-pass-immigration-reform/

Shyst!

“Let’s just call Beck and Limbaugh FreedomWorks’ whores and be done with it.”

—Crooks and Liars

don’t know how many of you out there caught the following from Media Matters, but it is just too sweet to ignore:

Former FreedomWorks chairman Dick Armey says the conservative outlet that helped launch the Tea Party paid Glenn Beck at least $1 million last year to fundraise for the organization, an arrangement he said provided “too little value” for the money.

“The arrangement was simply FreedomWorks paid Glenn Beck money and Glenn Beck said nice things about FreedomWorks on the air,” Armey, the former House majority leader, told Media Matters Friday. “I saw that a million dollars went to Beck this past year, that was the annual expenditure.”

Armey, who left the organization this past fall after a dispute over its internal operations, said a similar arrangement was also in place with Rush Limbaugh, but did not know the exact financial details.

I urge you to follow the Media Matters link and read it all. And if anyone out there, and I am talking to conservative lurkers, doubts that much of the conservative movement these days is nothing more than a vehicle for shysters to, well, shyst and enrich themselves, then, as usual, scribble your doubts in the margins of a $100 bill and send them to me.

I will get back to you with more evidence in due time.

5 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on January 4, 2013 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Dick Armey, FreedomWorks, glenn beck, Media Matters for America, rush limbaugh, Tea Party

Posted by R. Duane Graham on January 4, 2013

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/shyst/

Surreality

How surreal it all is:

♦ First, there was teapartier Sen. Jim DeMint’s announcement of his new gig as president of the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank. That’s “think” tank. You know, where real thinking is supposed to happen. DeMint, though, first publicly explained his new thinking job on Rush Limbaugh’s show, where thinking goes to die.

♦ Then there was Sen. Mitch McConnell, who tried to embarrass Democrats by proposing a vote—an up or down vote without a filibuster—on legislation that would allow President Obama to extend the debt limit all by himself, without first getting congressional approval. McConnell obviously thought Harry Reid would nix the idea. But Reid embraced it, which caused the creepy McConnell to have to essentially filibuster his own bill. Yes. He proposed something and then said he would filibuster his own proposal.

♦ All of which caused Missouri’s Claire McCaskill, who at the time was acting as Presiding Officer over the floor exchange between McConnell and Reid, to let slip from her astonished mouth: “Got whiplash!“

♦ And speaking of Claire McCaskill, now it turns out that her election opponent, Todd Akin, actually received secret last-minute cash—$760,000—from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which had publicly pledged not to support the evangelical pseudo-gynecologist.

♦ Then there is the prospect that a Democratic administration, one led by a man who conservative Republicans have determined is a wildly radical leftist, is, in the words of The New York Times:

considering plans for legal action against Colorado and Washington that could undermine voter-approved initiatives to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in those states, according to several people familiar with the deliberations.

Yes, President Obama, Choomer-in-Chief, might actually put the kibosh on cannabis lovers.

♦ Then there was the distasteful Ann Coulter explaining to the even more distasteful Sean Hannity that Republicans lost the election and they should let taxes on the rich go up.

♦ Then, just when we thought Republicans were coming around to the idea that the rich would have to cough up more dough, The New York Times tells us that a significant number of rich folks will still be able to avoid them.

♦ Then there is today’s jobs report. While most experts expected the number of jobs created last month to be restrained, mainly due to Superstorm Sandy, the jobs were actually up. Up enough to drop the unemployment rate to 7.7%, its lowest mark in four years. There were 146,000 jobs added.

♦ In the mean time, right in the middle of all the muddle about fiscal cliff-diving, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman says there is no “fiscal crisis,” only a “job crisis.” He says we should spend more not less:

So why aren’t we helping the unemployed? It’s not because we can’t afford it. Given those ultralow borrowing costs, plus the damage unemployment is doing to our economy and hence to the tax base, you can make a pretty good case that spending more to create jobs now would actually improve our long-run fiscal position.

♦ Finally, the guy who killed Florida teenager Trayvon Martin is, uh, suing NBC. George Zimmerman alleges,

NBC News saw the death of Trayvon Martin not as a tragedy but as an opportunity to increase ratings, and so set about to create the myth that George Zimmerman was a racist and predatory villain.

In the mean time, Trayvon Martin doesn’t get to sue anybody.

4 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on December 7, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Claire McCaskill, fiscal cliff, george zimmerman, Harry Reid, Jim DeMint, Mitch McConnell, rush limbaugh, Trayvon Martin

Posted by R. Duane Graham on December 7, 2012

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/surreality/

Fiscal Cliff Negotiations—So Far, So Good

Here is President Obama’s initial fiscal-cliff-avoidance proposal he reportedly offered to Republicans:

$1.6 trillion in new revenue (including restoration of top marginal rates, higher taxes on capital gains and a return to the 2009-level estate tax, which itself is way too generous but not as bad as today’s)
~~$400 billion~~ [correction:] $600 billion in additional entitlement cuts, which when added to the almost $1 trillion discretionary spending cuts already a part of law and a similar amount of “savings” from shutting down the two wars, makes well over $2 trillion in total spending cuts
About $200 million in additional stimulus, including an extension of unemployment benefits (which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office acknowledges would add 300,000 jobs) and an extension of the payroll tax holiday and some money to invest in infrastructure improvements as well as some money to help still-stressing homeowners modify their mortgages
A delay in those pesky automatic spending cuts to Defense and entitlements for one year
Ending congressional approval of raising the debt ceiling, a silly technical requirement that in Republican hands has become fiscally dangerous

Here is how Huff Po’s Ryan Grim reported the Republican summary of Obama’s proposal:

The proposal is based on a two-step plan that would decouple the high-end tax and capital gains rates from the middle-class rates, extending only those for the middle class. It would revert estate taxes to their higher 2009 level, and raise an additional $600 billion in taxes elsewhere, according to the GOP summary. It then proposes tax reform required to raise at least as much as the tax hikes, and entitlement reform that would trim $400 billion from the programs.

Here’s how Fox’s favorite conservative pundit, Charles Krauthammer, reacted, uh, overreacted, to the President’s proposal:

It’s not just a bad deal, this is really an insulting deal… Robert E. Lee was offered easier terms at Appomattox and he lost the Civil War. The Democrats won by 3% of the vote and they did not hold the House. Republicans won the House. So this is not exactly unconditional surrender, but that’s what the administration is asking of Republicans.

There not only are no cuts in this, there’s an increase in new spending with a stimulus – this is almost unheard of. I mean, what do they expect? They obviously expect the Republicans will cave on everything. I think Republican ought to simply walk away.

Here is that other intellectual of the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh, and his reaction on Thursday:

walk away rush

This is, unfortunately, one time that we can count on Republicans not taking Limbaugh’s advice. They won’t walk away. Their greasy fingerprints—the grease courtesy of their fat-cat donors—will be all over what happens, either a deal or an adventure into short-term fiscal uncertainty.

Finally, here is Ezra Klein’s analysis of Obama’s proposal that should make liberals breathe a little—I said a little—easier, as we worry about our side’s negotiating prowess:

We’re seeing two things here. One is that the negotiations aren’t going well. When one side begins leaking the other side’s proposals, that’s typically a bad sign. The other is that Republicans are frustrated at the new Obama they’re facing: The Obama who refuses to negotiate with himself.

That’s what you’re really seeing in this “proposal.” Previously, Obama’s pattern had been to offer plans that roughly tracked where he thought the compromise should end up. The White House’s belief was that by being solicitous in their policy proposals, they would win goodwill on the other side, and even if they didn’t, the media would side with them, realizing they’d sought compromise and been rebuffed. They don’t believe that anymore.

Perhaps the key lesson the White House took from the last couple of years is this: Don’t negotiate with yourself. If Republicans want to cut Medicare, let them propose the cuts. If they want to raise revenue through tax reform, let them identify the deductions. If they want deeper cuts in discretionary spending, let them settle on a number. And, above all, if they don’t like the White House’s preferred policies, let them propose their own. That way, if the White House eventually does give in and agree to some of their demands, Republicans will feel like they got one over on the president. A compromise isn’t measured by what you offer, it’s measured by what the other side feels they made you concede.

The GOP is right: This isn’t a serious proposal. But it’s not evidence that Obama isn’t serious. He’s very serious about not negotiating with himself, and his opening bid proves it. Now that they’ve leaked his initial offer, the next question is obvious: What’s their offer?

4 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on November 30, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged budget negotiations, Charles Krauthammer, debt ceiling, fiscal cliff, Robert E. Lee, rush limbaugh, unemployment extension

Posted by R. Duane Graham on November 30, 2012

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/fiscal-cliff-negotiations-so-far-so-good/

He’s In Over His (Black) Head

First, look at this image, which I found on the Rush Limbaugh website the day after the first presidential debate:

See that determined white guy whippin’ that black man’s ass? That is the image that Obama-hating conservatives, particularly Obama-hating quasi-racists like Rush Limbaugh, have been begging for from their suspicious paleface champion, Mittens “The Truth” Romney.

The jubilance over Romney’s debate performance, for some on the right, is rooted in the fact that somebody finally put the Uppity Negro in his place.

Limbaugh explained on Thursday why the President lost the debate:

The guy’s a community organizer, an agitator. He had no experience. He wasn’t prepared for this job ever. He’s not prepared for this job now…Obama hasn’t been prepared ever for this job. He’s not qualified. It’s above his pay grade. He is in over his head.

I will translate the above: That trouble-making Negro is too dumb to be president.

Romney, who has never found it in him to criticize anything Limbaugh has said or done, has offered a version of the same thing several times:

…we’ve learned who Barack Obama is, what he’s capable of doing, that he’s over his head and he swimming in the wrong direction.

He too thinks the Negro is too dumb to be president. If you doubt me, read the context: “we’ve learned who Barack Obama is…”

John Sununu, the co-chair of Romney’s presidential campaign, a man who, if there is a hell, will have an entire ego-roasting chamber to himself, had this exchange on Thursday with Andrea Mitchell:

SUNUNU: What people saw last night, I think, was a president that revealed his incompetence, how lazy and detached he is…

MITCHELL: Governor, I want to give you a chance to maybe take it back. Did you really mean to call Barack Obama, the President of the United States, lazy?

SUNUNU: Yes. I think you saw him admit it the night before when he delivered the pizzas. He said, “You know they’re making me do this work.” He didn’t want to prepare for this debate. He’s lazy and disengaged.

So, President Obama is not only a dumb and incompetent Negro, he is a lazy and dumb and incompetent Negro, a charge Sununu has made before.

Thus it is that our president, a man who graduated from Columbia University and Harvard Law School—and another prominent if cartoonish Romney supporter, Donald Trump, has also openly questioned Mr. Obama’s education credentials—a man who was the first African-American to head Harvard’s Law Review, a man who taught constitutional law as a professor at the University of Chicago, a man who got into politics at the bottom and worked his way up to become the most powerful leader in the world, is really just an incarnation of all the stereotypes that racists harbor about black folks: they aren’t very bright, they don’t want to work hard, and they want to make life more difficult for whites.

And Romney’s loudest supporters have openly appealed to the angst behind those stereotypes without so much as a peep from him. And as his “over his head” comment suggests, that may be because Romney needs to use that appeal to racial angst to get whites to vote for him in historic proportions. Otherwise he has little chance to win.

As Ron Brownstein wrote:

Romney’s camp is focused intently on capturing at least 61 percent of white voters. That would provide him a slim national majority—so long as whites constitute at least 74 percent of the vote, as they did last time, and Obama doesn’t improve on his 80 percent showing with minorities.

That 61% “would equal the best performance ever for a Republican presidential challenger with that group of voters,” Brownstein says, which is why Romney can’t afford to alienate one single white voter, not to mention a buffoon like Limbaugh, who is a spokesman for white cultural angst.

But as sad as that reality is, there is coming a new one, albeit one that will be forced on the GOP:

Republican strategists clearly feel the weight of trying to assemble a national majority with so little support among minorities that they must win three in five whites. “This is the last time anyone will try to do this,” one said. A GOP coalition that relies almost entirely on whites could squeeze out one more narrow victory in November. But if Republicans can’t find more effective ways to bridge the priorities of their conservative core and the diversifying Next America, that weight will grow more daunting every year.

14 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on October 5, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Andrea Mitchell, Barack Obama, John E. Sununu, Racism, rush limbaugh, white angst

Posted by R. Duane Graham on October 5, 2012

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/hes-in-over-his-black-head/

George Will Channels Rush Limbaugh

Wow.

I thought I could anticipate all the conservative excuses, should President Obama remain President Obama after November 6. But damn, I didn’t expect this one from conservative intellectual George Will:

Perhaps a pleasant paradox defines this political season: That Obama is African American may be important, but in a way quite unlike that darkly suggested by, for example, MSNBC’s excitable boys and girls who, with their (at most) one-track minds and exquisitely sensitive olfactory receptors, sniff racism in any criticism of their pin-up. Instead, the nation, which is generally reluctant to declare a president a failure — thereby admitting that it made a mistake in choosing him — seems especially reluctant to give up on the first African American president. If so, the 2012 election speaks well of the nation’s heart, if not its head.

Get it? Folks don’t want to see Their Negro fail in his first job! Oh, my, God. The condescension is, uh—let me catch my breath—breathtaking. Will is saying that if Barack Obama weren’t black, he’d be toast in November! Americans are engaging in a “pleasant” bit of affirmative action!

If this reasoning sounds familiar, it should. It is very similar to the reasoning Rush Limbaugh used in 2003 on ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown—and which lost him that inexplicable gig as a commentator and which later kept him from buying into an NFL franchise—regarding quarterback and African-American Donovan McNabb.

McNabb, you may remember, had three consecutive Pro Bowl appearances and had led his team to a couple of NFC championship games before Limbaugh, during pre-game commentary nine years ago, said this:

Sorry to say this, I don’t think he’s been that good from the get-go. I think what we’ve had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn’t deserve. The defense carried this team.

Limbaugh resigned under pressure soon after those remarks, but was always defended by the right-wing as a victim, since it is hard for palefaced conservatives to see the condescension and offense embedded in them.

Perhaps George Will thinks it is career-enhancing to channel Rush Limbaugh, when trying to explain why Obama might win. And given the state of the conservative movement in the Age of The Scary Negro, perhaps it is.

6 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on October 2, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Donovan McNabb, George Will, rush limbaugh

Posted by R. Duane Graham on October 2, 2012

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/10/02/george-will-channels-rush-limbaugh/

One Fine Day

Well, I said yesterday that Romney’s attack on President Obama for “sympathizing” with those who attacked and killed American diplomats on Tuesday—I still can’t believe Romney made it necessary to write that—would require a “multitude of relatively sober Republican leaders in Congress” to step forth and “call this for what it is” or else “the Republican Party is truly beyond redemption.”

Okay, so let’s look at what happened.

Joe Scarborough, who has his hear tuned to the weird frequency congressional Republicans use to broadcast their bullshit, tweeted:

He was “inundated,” he said. Some inundation. Quiet as could be.

No Republican that I could find openly condemned Romney for suggesting not once but twice that President Obama essentially sided with those attacking American embassies in that he felt the need to “apologize” to them. Not one Republican.

Oh, to be sure, there weren’t that many Republicans willing to go all-in with Mittens, but neither were they rushing to call him out for his recklessness or his questionable patriotism.

Of course, I didn’t expect they would. But I did expect people like Richard Lugar, a veteran Republican who gets credit for being sensible on foreign policy matters, to strongly criticize Romney’s irresponsibility, especially since Ambassador Chris Stevens worked as a staffer for Lugar on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

But no criticism of Romney came from Lugar. Only rightful praise for Chris Stevens, whose priceless service and sad death Romney stomped all over with his viscous and opportunistic attack on the Commander-in-Chief.

What about John McCain, who fancies himself, depending on what day it is, the de facto Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, and sometimes even the de facto President of the United States. What did he have to say?

Well, I saw McCain twice on Thursday morning defending Romney. And I mean defending him. Here’s how NBC wrote up his appearance on the Today show:

A day after he and many fellow Republicans showed restrained reaction to the White House’s response to the deadly attacks against American diplomats in Libya, Sen. John McCain on Thursday ripped into President Obama for “feckless foreign policy” he said is harming Middle East relations.

See? Romney lies about and attacks the Commander-in-Chief before McCain’s dead “friend” Chris Stevens is cold, and McCain, statesman that he is, rips Obama—the man who ordered bin Laden to the bottom of the sea—as “feckless.” Thank Allah that guy never actually became president.

What about Rob Portman, who was a Paul Ryan cowlick away from being Romney’s VP pick? What did he have to say about Romney’s unpatriotic overreaction to a statement from our embassy in Cairo? On CBS This Morning, he said this:

I think for Governor Romney, having seen that statement, to react as he did is the reaction that most Americans would have…which is that at a time when we have this kind of violence against American territory, the thing to do is to condemn it and not to begin by issuing an apology…

Are you bleeping kidding me? Huh? First, Governor Romney is not just one of a breed we call “most Americans.” We don’t want a man in the White House who will react like Most Americans. We want one who actually gets all the facts right before he runs his mouth, a running mouth that will run all over the world.

Second, Portman, as interviewer Norah O’Donnell tried to point out to him, is simply spouting off without knowing the chronology of events. For the millionth time, the statement—not cleared by the White House but completely acceptable given the circumstances—issued by a staffer in the embassy in Cairo occurred about six hours before the breach of American territory happened, and Secretary Hillary Clinton was quick to condemn the violence after it became clear what was going on.

Dammit, get it right. You’re a bleeping U.S. Senator for God’s sake.

I saw Allen West, congressman from a place in Florida where facts are apparently manufactured for convenience, repeat to the Three Stooges on Fox and Friends this morning the same lie Portman and Romney are still pushing:

We should not have made some type of conciliatory, apologetic stance in the middle of our embassies being attacked…

The fact that there was no apologetic stance at any time, let alone “in the middle” of an attack on our embassies, didn’t bother the Three Stooges, as they nodded in agreement with that lying fool from Florida, in all but pigmentation a perfect representation of today’s GOP.

I saw Jim Inhofe, the loopy senator from Oklahoma, aggressively defending Romney on Fox this morning, embarassing himself, and if it is possible to further embarass that God-forsaken and embarrassing state, Oklahoma.

I read a statement released by Senator Jim DeMint, the real father of the Obama-loathing, reactionary Tea Party, not only defending Romney, but also picking up Romney’s lie about the President, whom he hates with a Christianly, Waterlooish passion:

Governor Romney is absolutely right, there is no justification for these deadly attacks and we should never apologize for American freedom. Islamic radicals will use any pretext to justify their hatred of America and our freedom.

It was disheartening to hear the administration condemn Americans engaging in free speech that hurt the feelings of Muslims, while real atrocities have been repeatedly committed by Islamic radicals against women, Christians, and Jews in the Middle East.

How do you begin to describe a party whose leaders say stupid and dishonest shit like that?

And speaking of stupid and dishonest shit.

Rush Limbaugh, who just a day earlier said Romney “may as well be Elmer Fudd,” since conservatives weren’t voting for him but “against Obama,” was on Wednesday all gooey-eyed and Viagra-hard over Mittens:

And after all this happens, guess who the bad guy is? Mitt Romney, who is the only guy that looked presidential in all of this, who had the guts to go out and characterize this statement from the embassy accurately. And the media is now saying that Romney jumped the gun, launched a political attack before the facts of the embassy violence were known…

Stupid and dishonest shit is what that is. But there is plenty more, which I won’t go into, except for what was revealed about Romney’s motives by none other than Laura Ingraham, the nasally, hysterical talk show host and Fox “News” regular, who hates Obama almost as much as she loves her converted-Catholic Jesus.

On Tuesday, before the events in Libya and Egypt, Ingraham said this about Mittens:

This is a gimme election, or at least it should be. If you can’t beat Barack Obama with this record, then shut down the party. Shut it down. Start new, with new people.

Ingraham was expressing the frustrations conservatives were feeling over Romney’s declining poll numbers. But on Wednesday, things had changed. After playing a clip of Romney’s presser in which he doubled-down on the initial lie about Obama and the embassy statement, Ingraham said:

Excellent. Mitt Romney is gettin’ his groove on…He did not back down one iota. That’s exactly how he should conduct this campaign. Keep these people back on their heels…Maybe this will just spur Obama to get a pair as well…

Her first caller after that stellar commentary was a spectacularly ignorant gentleman from New Albany, Indiana, who confessed that, “Obama makes my skin crawl,” after he chimed in with this:

This is what I’ve been waiting for. This-is-what-I-have-been-waiting-for. In one press conference, Governor Romney looked more presidential than any press conference I’ve seen Barack Obama conduct in four years…

Now, one would have had to see that pathetic Romney press conference to know just how disturbed is this gentlemen’s perception, but his comment does reveal the real reason why Mitt Romney behaved on Tuesday like Glenn Beck instead of a candidate for high office. He was trying to get people like Limbaugh and Ingraham and that low-information, bigoted American from Indiana to love him.

Because nothing makes palefaced folks say “I love you” like a factless attack on our feckless, Muslim-loving, hyper-apologetic, terrorist-sympathizing, Kenyan Commander-in-Chief.

And if Republicans want a party that only right-wing know-nothings on the radio and TV can love, then that is what they will have.

And one fine day they will have it all to themselves.

2 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on September 13, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Cairo, Chris Stevens, embassy, Jim DeMint, Jim Inhofe, John McCain, Laura Ingraham, Libya, Mitt Romney, rush limbaugh, ser

Posted by R. Duane Graham on September 13, 2012

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/one-fine-day/

It Wasn’t Just A Joke

Mark Halperin is Time magazine’s senior political analyst and also a regular “contributor” on MSNBC. His job at the “liberal” network, as far as I can tell, is to tell liberals things they could hear on, say, Fox.

Today was no different. He told Andrea Mitchell:

I think Mitt Romney was making a joke. We’ve seen, particularly when he’s in Michigan, when he jokes about the heights of trees—and the left is gonna say I’m making a huge excuse for him.

Well, at least he got that last part right. And for her part, Andrea Mitchell, interviewing Jen Psaki, Obama’s traveling press secretary, compared the Romney birther appeal to President Obama’s real joke about Romney strapping his dog to the top of his car for a 12-hour ride:

He made a joke about Seamus the dog the other day…that was another ad-lib kind of thing…

Yeah, I suppose you can compare a joke about a dog crapping on himself in a crate on top of Mittens’ car to, uh, the black President of the United States not being a proper American. I can see the similarity there, can’t you?

Look, the truth is that Romney, after jumping on the Throw Todd Akin From The Train bandwagon this week, has to show the many crackpots in the GOP some love.

Their feelings have been hurt and there’s nothing like a racist joke to raise their spirits.

About the Romney birth certificate reference, king of the crackpots, Rush Limbaugh, initially said, “Right on! Right on!” and then later got a little more nuanced:

As you can imagine, the media is in a tizzy. The media is in a tizzy…Romney gets up to the microphone. It’s his turn to speak, and he test-drives that line about nobody’s ever had to ask to see his birth certificate…I’m going to tell you what. You know, I’m gonna make a prediction for you. It’s going to be fascinating to watch. The Obama-bashing at the Republican convention is going to be delicious. It’s going to be five-star-restaurant type stuff. I mean, you’re going to love it. You are going to eat it up, all the Obama-bashing. And I’ll bet you what’s happening right now is the networks are trying to figure out how they can avoid airing any of it.

So, to Limbaugh, Mr. I Hope He Fails, what Romney did was no joke, but a test-drive of “all the Obama-bashing” that will go on at the Republican convention.

“You’re going to love it. You are going to eat it up,” said the beefy, bigoted broadcaster.

And that, my friends, is why what Romney did was not merely a joke.

8 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on August 24, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Andrea Mitchell, birther, birther joke, Mark Halperin, Mitt Romney, rush limbaugh, Seamus

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 24, 2012

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/it-wasnt-just-a-joke/

The Problem Is That Romney Hasn’t Attacked Obama’s “Ideology.” Huh?

“He’s defined by liberalism or Marxism, socialism, whatever you want to call it.”

—Rush Limbaugh

lthough this may cause you to upchuck your last meal, today Rush Limbaugh said he was “near orgasm” over Charles Krauthammer’s latest column. Okay, I’ll give you time to get that thought out of your mind.

Back? Good. What could Krauthammer say that would so delight Limbaugh? Oh, not much, except that he thinks Romney Hood ought to attack Obama not only on his “stewardship” of the economy, but on his “ideology.” Yep, Krauthammer thinks Obama, who has been called a socialist, Marxist, and communist by Republicans, hasn’t been hammered enough on his alleged radical ideas. If only Romney will “make the case” that Obama is a lefty, he will win back the White’s House. He wrote:

The ideological case…is not just appealing to a center-right country with twice as many conservatives as liberals, it is also explanatory. It underpins the stewardship argument. Obama’s ideology — and the program that followed — explains the failure of these four years.

(Try to ignore that last comment about “failure,” because Krauthammer suffers from “too many years of neurologically hazardous punditry,” a charge he once made against Bill Moyers and Paul Krugman. Go to The Center for American Progress and listen to Michael Linden explain the success of the stimulus.)

Krauthammer said this is “a center-right country with twice as many conservatives as liberals.” I hear that nonsense a lot. And it almost always comes from folks like Krauthammer, who then go on to explain just how far left Mr. Obama has gone. At the end of his column, Krauthammer wrote:

If Republicans want to win, Obama’s deeply revealing, teleprompter-free you-didn’t-build-that confession of faith needs to be hung around his neck until Election Day. The third consecutive summer-of-recovery-that-never-came is attributable not just to Obama being in over his head but, even more important, to what’s in his head: a government-centered vision of the economy and society, and the policies that flow from it.

Now, it probably never occurred to someone as smart as Charles Krauthammer gets credit for being*, but someone with less brainy talent can easily see that if the country is “center-right,” if truly there are “twice as many conservatives as liberals,” and if Mr. Obama is a wild-eyed leftist in over his head, then there’s no way that we ought to have seen this headline in today’s Washington Post:

Three polls show Obama widening lead over Romney

The story:

Three polls released in the last 24 hours show President Obama widening his lead over the former Massachusetts governor to as much as nine points. The surveys of registered voters, all conducted sometime between Aug. 2 and 8, also have Romney’s unfavorable ratings headed north. Two of the polls show his support among independents slipping.

The biggest surprise among those three polls perhaps was the Fox “News” poll, which shows Romney Hood trailing the left-wing Marxist by 9 points.

Krauthammer, of course, would attribute that spread to an ignorant public, who, despite four years of incessant ranting from folks like him, doesn’t yet know that the guy they favor is such a radical. It would never occur to him and other conservatives that a possible majority of the voting public simply might not buy into the often deranged attacks on their president.

And speaking of derangement, Krauthammer, who was trained as a psychiatrist, famously and churlishly bragged about discovering a new psychiatric illness among selected liberals in 2003 that he labeled “Bush Derangement Syndrome.” Since self-diagnosis of mental disorders may be problematic for obvious reasons, and given the presidential polling trends, I would suggest that Mr. Krauthammer get to a doctor before November 6.

_______________________________

*Even smart people make dumb mistakes. In the column, Krauthammer noted:

The Congressional Budget Office reports that Obamacare will incur $1.68 trillion of new expenditures in its first decade.

If you follow that link he provided, you will find that the actual estimate from the CBO is 1.168 trillion, which means Krauthammer overstated the number by, oh, a half a trillion!

9 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on August 10, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Bush Derangement Syndrome, Charles Krauthammer, Obama, rush limbaugh

Posted by R. Duane Graham on August 10, 2012

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/the-problem-is-that-romney-hasnt-attacked-obamas-ideology-huh/

Is Romney A Decent Guy?

Responding to my post, “Romney: Champion Of Ugly Americans Everywhere!” a thoughtful commenter named Treeske wrote:

…one feels almost sorry for this, probably very decent guy’s clumsiness, or is it truly arrogant ignorance (like you mentioned) the elite so often fall victim to?

Tree,

You know, I hear the description of Romney as a “decent” or “nice” guy all the time—mostly from Democrats who then go on to bash his brains out!—but I’m not so sure what kind of guy he is in terms of being decent or nice.

I mean, is Romney’s decency defined by his willingness to say literally anything to achieve the presidency?

Is Romney being a nice guy when he tells lies constantly about Mr. Obama and suggests he is less than an American, helping to legitimize the weird fantasies of amateur and professional right-wing Obama-haters?

Is his decency indicated by an unseemly eagerness to carve up his belief system so as to make it compatible with the extremists in the Republican Party, extremists who seek to alienate large swaths of society?

Is Romney’s niceness defined by a willingness to custom-make his principles in order to get the approval of creeps like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter?

Does a nice guy do the things that Romney has done, like the the dog incident or the haircutting incident or the haircuts he gave workers and their pensions when Bain took companies over and loaded them with debt in order to make a profit? Do good guys do that stuff?

Was Romney being nice when he brought health care reform to Massachusetts but now is being doubly nice when he opportunistically attacks the same reform when Obama fought to bring it to all Americans? Huh?

Is it decent of a guy to store some of his dough overseas in order to shield it from taxes that help support our country? How many roads weren’t built because Romney’s ~~beer~~ money is resting in Bermuda?

Does a nice guy have offshore companies the financial and moral significance of which are kept secret from potential voters?

Does a decent guy keep his tax returns hidden from the millions of taxpayers he seeks to govern?

Look, obviously I don’t know Mitt Romney personally. And I admit to some prejudice in the matter, being a drinker, a Democrat, and an opponent of fundamentalist religion, especially the kind of freakish fundamentalism at the center of Romney’s life that keeps him clothed in special skivvies and away from alcohol.

I can only know Romney by what comes out of his mouth, like the many lies he has told and keeps telling about Mr. Obama, or by what kind of policies he says he will pursue should, God forbid, Americans make the mistake of putting him in charge.

And while judging his personal decency by his religious aversion to the drink or by what comes out of his mouth might sound like I’m swimming at the shallow end of the pool, I do have some Romney-approved company:

Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.

16 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on July 28, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Ann Coulter, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, rush limbaugh

Posted by R. Duane Graham on July 28, 2012

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/07/28/is-romney-a-decent-guy/

The Good, The Bad, And The Morally Ugly

Last Friday, President Obama had the unmitigated gall to say of the horrific shooting in Colorado:

My daughters go to the movies. What if Malia and Sasha had been at the theater, as so many of our kids do every day? Michelle and I will be fortunate enough to hug our girls a little tighter tonight, and I’m sure you will do the same with your children. But for those parents who may not be so lucky, we have to embrace them and let them know we will be there for them as a nation.

Sunday evening at the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora, our President said the following:

Scripture says that “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And when you have an opportunity to visit with families who have lost their loved ones — as I described to them, I come to them not so much as President as I do as a father and as a husband. And I think that the reason stories like this have such an impact on us is because we can all understand what it would be to have somebody that we love taken from us in this fashion — what it would be like and how it would impact us.

Now, if you, a normal person, saw or heard or now read Mr. Obama’s remarks, the last thing you would think was that they were motivated by a selfish person, by someone trying to take political advantage of a murderous tragedy. Mr. Obama has two daughters, and naturally he relates the senseless death of murdered, mostly young people to the landmarks in his life, Sasha and Malia.

But, I said, a “normal person” would not think a thing about those remarks in political or diabolical terms. Rush Limbaugh, however, is not a normal person. He is a certifiably disturbing human being, who profits from publicly hating Democrats, those profits coming from sycophants who hang on his every wretched word.

I quote the following at length because it is important to understand that Limbaugh, and the millions of people who continue to make him rich, are morally ugly—goddamned ugly—people. He said of Mr. Obama’s remarks:

Look, I’m mayor of Realville. I deal in the literal. First off, did he say, “My two daughters go to the movies, what if they had been in that theater that night?” Did he say, “I wonder if”? Even if he said, “I wonder if my two daughters had been,” trying to relate to average, ordinary peons just as they might be asking, “Gee, what if my daughters had been there?” Well, without those daughters, would he have a different reaction? What’s the deal here? If his daughters weren’t there, would he have a different reaction? If Trayvon Martin hadn’t been black, would he have had a different reaction to a son that he didn’t have looking like Trayvon Martin? When I read that, when I read that note, I thought, well, this is very typical, this is an egomaniac who really thinks that the people of this country think he is more important than any other human being alive in this country.

And then I said, can he only relate to this through his own flesh and blood? Can he not relate to this with simply the loss that people in that theater have experienced? Folks, I don’t know about you. When I first heard about this, and I don’t have kids, so I didn’t think, “Well, what if my kids had been there?” But I also didn’t think, “Gee, what if my brother had been there? What if my nieces had been?” I’ve got nieces and nephews, I did not think, “Gee, what if they’d been in there?” It wasn’t about me, I guess is my point. Why does everything have to be about this guy, and why does he have to turn everything of noteworthy consequence in this country around so that it’s about him? “My daughters go to the movies. What if Malia and Sasha had been at the theater, as so many of our kids are each day? Michelle and I will be fortunate to hug our kids.” I don’t know. I just don’t know how many people made this about them. That’s my only point.

And my only point is that if you think Rush Limbaugh’s remarks above are appropriate, then you too are one disturbed and disturbing human specimen.

5 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on July 23, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Aurora, Barack Obama, Co., Malia, movie mass murder, rush limbaugh, Sasha

Posted by R. Duane Graham on July 23, 2012

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/the-good-the-bad-and-the-morally-ugly/

The Spirit Of Ayn Rand Versus Obama

Please tolerate the length of this essay. Hopefully you will be rewarded by staying with it:

othing causes conservatives more consternation than hearing the truth about what actually makes human societies flourish.

Such a truth was spoken by President Obama last week during a campaign stop in Roanoke, Va., and what he said has driven already hateful right-wingers even further into the abyss of Obama-hate. Here is the part of his speech you usually hear critics play:

That one phrase is played or quoted again and again, including on Tuesday by Mitt Romney:

If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.

So, what was Mr. Obama’s point? Oh, I’ll let him tell you, in context and as as part of the rest of what he said:

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don’t do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. That’s how we funded the GI Bill. That’s how we created the middle class. That’s how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam. That’s how we invented the Internet. That’s how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for President — because I still believe in that idea. You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.

Wow. What a controversial idea! We’re in this together? Nobody can do it alone? Are you kidding me? No wonder Rush Limbaugh said this about Obama’s words:

Somebody who loves America, who loves the founding, who understands it and knows everything about it, this is a declaration of war against the country. This is a declaration of war from the White House. This is a declaration of war against what this country’s always been.

And Limbaugh said this:

I think it can now be said, without equivocation — without equivocation — that this man hates this country. He is trying — Barack Obama is trying — to dismantle, brick by brick, the American dream.

Now, it is easy to dismiss an ideological prostitute like Limbaugh. But rising Randian star Paul Ryan—who Romney is considering as a VP pick—had something to say about Obama’s remarks too:

This is not a Bill Clinton Democrat. He’s got this very government-centric, old 20th century collectivist philosophy which negates the American experiment, which is people living in communities, supporting one another, having government stick to its limits so it can do its job really well … Those of us who are conservative believe in government, we just believe government has limits. We want government to do what it does well and respect its limits so civil society and families can flourish on their own and do well and achieve their potential.

Gawd. As an aside, you gotta love the right’s recent embrace of Bill Clinton (see here for Romney’s version), a man some of them accused of drug trafficking and murder just 15 short years ago. But beyond that, look at what Paul Ryan said more closely. He contrasted “collectivist philosophy” with “the American experiment, which is people living in communities, supporting one another…” Isn’t “living in communities, supporting one another” what collectivist philosophy ultimately entails? Huh?

Ryan said,

We want government to do what it does well and respect its limits so civil society and families can flourish on their own and do well and achieve their potential.

How, you have to ask yourself, can civil society and families flourish “on their own,” if it is conceded that government is necessary for them to do that? I have discussed before the incoherence of the anti-collectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand (and Ryan is a Rand devotee, despite what he claims now), but the incoherence here is stunning.

But perhaps the most stunning thing I saw related to Obama’s common-sense comments about success was on MSNBC on Tuesday. S. E. Cupp, who used to spout Obama-hate on Fox and other places, is now a regular panelist and rotating host on a show called The Cycle. Today she offered an incoherent commentary that included an on-screen quote from none other than Ayn Rand:

Cupp began,

According to President Obama, you don’t get anywhere through your own hard work or ingenuity. Every success you have is thanks to the collaborative work of thousands from the people who collect your taxes to the people who pave your roads. Well, of course that’s true in that most folks have a kind friend, a nurturing relative, a wise mentor or, well, a paved road to drive. We’re all products of an American community that helps each other out from time to time. But that generosity of spirit is the very reason the president thinks we should abandon the notion of the American dream and individual success in favor of collectivism, that incredibly inspiring belief that success is shared and the state alone can make all your dreams come true.

Besides the shocking incoherence of this paragraph—she is criticizing Obama’s remarks even though she admits, “We’re all products of an American community that helps each other out from time to time”—Cupp lies about what Obama said. He did not say, ”you don’t get anywhere through your own hard work or ingenuity,” nor did he say, “we should abandon the notion of the American dream and individual success in favor of collectivism.” What he actually said was a variation of what Cupp herself admitted:

…when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.

You see, the problem with the right-wing punditry and the right-wing political class in the Age of The Scary Negro is that even a simple declaration that we’re not in this world alone, that we can and do depend on others for help—something that conservatives gladly admit—becomes on the lips of the right-wing’s black devil, a thing of disgust, of hate-inducing hysteria.

When these hysterical reactionaries, most of them Christians, invoke the name or reference the ideas of Ayn Rand, they are endorsing a strange and silly philosophy, one which completely misunderstands how mankind has engineered success against the vicissitudes of nature.

Ms. Rand’s heroes were “the men who produce,” those,

who think and work, who discover how to deal with existence, how to produce the intellectual and the material values it requires.

These “forgotten men of history,” she said,

are first to discover any scrap of new knowledge, are the men who deal with reality, with the task of conquering nature, and who, to that extent, assume the responsibility of cognition: of exercising their rational faculty.

“The task of conquering nature” is given to those producers and everyone else is a parasite, living on their efforts. The “rational faculty” is man’s “unique reward,” his instrument of survival, his means of conquering nature:

…animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself. If a drought strikes them, animals perish—man builds irrigation canals; if a flood strikes them, animals perish—man builds dams; if a carnivorous pack attacks them animals perish—man writes the Constitution of the United States.*

Ah, there’s the obvious silliness, the unmistakable flaw in Rand’s elaborate, self-created philosophy she called “Objectivism.” In that Constitution she praises, in that document she regards as the product of man’s reason designed to combat the “carnivorous pack,” are the words,

We the people…a more perfect union…common defence, general Welfare…

In the preamble to our Constitution those collectivist words represent the secret of man’s tentative success, the only hope he has of conquering nature, of overcoming the carnivorous pack. Our Constitution, with its appeal to collectivism, is perhaps the last best hope of mankind for conquering the worst angels of our nature, of making a civilization out of competing individuals, of ensuring that “success” includes all of us, not just a fortunate few.

And in their obvious and embarrassing hatred for Barack Obama, conservatives are willing to attack the premise of our American civilization, so eloquently expressed by the President:

We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that’s the reason I’m running for President — because I still believe in that idea. You’re not on your own, we’re in this together.

___________________________________

* All of the Rand quotes are from my copy of For The New Intellectual.

18 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on July 17, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Ayn Rand, Barack Obama, Paul Ryan, rush limbaugh, S. E. Cupp, scary negro

Posted by R. Duane Graham on July 17, 2012

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/07/17/the-spirit-of-ayn-rand-versus-obama/

Limbaugh Has Mittens Right Where He Wants Him

Good for Big O, who is nailing Romney for flopping around madly on the health care law’s insurance mandate. In a too-clever-by-half move, Romney, after years of defending the mandate against the charge that it was a tax, has now joined the rest of the right-wing horde—and against his own top adviser—in claiming the mandate is now a tax, via Justice John Roberts judicial alchemy.

About Romney’s reversal, Obama told WLWT in Cincinnati:

“The fact that a whole bunch of Republicans in Washington suddenly said this is a tax — for six years, he said it wasn’t, and now he suddenly reversed himself. And so, the question becomes ‘Are you doing that because of politics? Are you abandoning a principle that you fought for for six years simply because you’re getting pressure for two days?’” Obama said.

Where was the pressure coming from? Big O nailed one of the culprits, as the Associated Press reported:

Obama says in an interview with NBC affiliate WLWT in Cincinnati that Romney supported the individual mandate as Massachusetts governor but “has suddenly reversed himself.” Obama says it raises questions over whether Romney is abandoning a principal after “getting pressure for two days from Rush Limbaugh” or other critics.

Obama is right of course. Mittens is worried that folks like Limbaugh will turn on him, should he tell the truth about the mandate, or anything else for that matter. Limbaugh has Romney in his back pocket, and Mittens has to hope that the beefy broadcaster doesn’t sit on him one day and squish him like a bug.

Now, that is leadership, my friends.

1 Comment

by R. Duane Graham on July 6, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Barack Obama, mandate, Mitt Romney, rush limbaugh

Posted by R. Duane Graham on July 6, 2012

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/limbaugh-has-mittens-right-where-he-wants-him/

The Light And Dark Of Conservatism

I chose to listen to the immediate reaction to the Supreme Court’s ruling today on Fox “News” Channel. And, of course, I wasn’t disappointed. The spin began immediately, particularly the idea that this is really a win for Romney, who will find his base newly “energized,” just like in the 2010 election.

Well, that may be right, but what struck me about the right’s reaction to the ruling is just how far conservatism, as a philosophy, has strayed from its parenting.

If political conservatism has any legitimacy at all, that legitimacy is found in conservatism’s traditional respect for, and interest in maintaining, social stability. This implies a resistance to radicalism and opposition to those who would seek to disrupt an otherwise stable social order.

That traditional stance of conservatism is what originally attracted me to it, way back when I called myself one. And it is that centuries-old conservative posture that radicals and extremists like Justice Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and Rush Limbaugh have undermined, if not completely eradicated. In short, what we see from the right these days would shock conservatism’s father, Edmund Burke.

I say all that to say that it turns out that the real conservative, among those on the Supreme Court who generally are called conservative, turns out to be John Roberts.

Justice Roberts joined the four “liberal” justices (more about that another day; judging by this decision, I see only two consistent “liberals” on this court, Ginsburg and Sotomayor) in the decision to uphold the constitutionality of the insurance mandate in the Affordable Care Act.

Granted, Roberts found the constitutionality of the mandate by essentially not interpreting it as a mandate at all, but as a tax levied on those who choose not to buy health insurance. And it is in that interpretation that Roberts actually exercised the restraint that conservatives are famous for advocating, but infamous for failing to honor when it goes against their political preferences.

Roberts wrote of the ACA:

We do not consider whether the Act embodies sound policies. That judgment is entrusted to the Nation’s elected leaders. We ask only whether Congress has the power under the Constitution to enact the challenged provisions.

That, my friends, is the stance of a conservative jurist, one who is willing to honor his principles even if it means offending his own politics, or his own party. Cited in the majority opinion today was Hooper v. California, which included this language:

…every reasonable construction must be resorted to, in order to save a statute from unconstitutionality…

Again, that is how a conservative should look at his job of interpreting a law passed by the people’s representatives, the Congress. That is the opposite of a Scalia, who pretends to adhere to some lofty principle of originalist interpretation, but who really is a radical who refuses to find any construction of a statute that would save it from unconstitutionality—if he doesn’t like the statute in question. And we knew he didn’t like it from the oral arguments, during which he absolutely embarrassed himself as a jurist.

It would have been remarkable, and a small step towards getting extremists like Rush Limbaugh to sober up a little bit, if Scalia—one of Limbaugh’s intellectual heroes—had railed against the law all he wanted, but found, as Roberts did, a legitimate constitutional hook—and the taxing power of the federal government is legitimate and constitutional—to hang the ACA on.

But, no, the heavy lifting was left to John Roberts, who in his conservative reading of the Constitution rejected (wrongly, in my view) the government’s first rationale for the mandate (the Commerce Clause) and its second rationale for the mandate (the Necessary and Proper Clause), but found merit in its third rationale for the mandate, the taxing power of the government.

In other words, Roberts gave deference to the Constitution itself, which prioritizes the will of the people as expressed through the people’s Congress, instead of his own policy inclinations and judgments.

If that kind of conservatism were the kind dominating the Republican Party today, this country would be a much better place to live, and would have a much greater hope of maintaining a stable—and ultimately just—social order.

Alas, as Fox “News” and Mitt Romney and the right-wing punditry make clear, as they drone on about this dark day, conservatism itself is in a very dark place.

5 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on June 28, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged ACA, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, conservatism, John Roberts, Obamacare, rush limbaugh, Supreme Court

Posted by R. Duane Graham on June 28, 2012

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/06/28/the-light-and-dark-of-conservatism/

Keeping An Eye On The Rush Bust

Perhaps you have heard:

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Missouri House has spent more than $1,100 in taxpayer money on a security camera to keep watch over a new bronze bust of conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, the House clerk said Thursday.

Now, I have not written much about the embarrassing fact that Rush Limbaugh, whose colossal intolerance is robust enough to give bigotry a bad name, is now firmly ensconced in the Hall of Famous Missourians, thanks to Missouri House Speaker Steven Tilley, a Republican from Limbaugh’s part of Missouri.

Recently calling a college student a “slut” and “prostitute” for daring to speak her mind on the availability of contraception, Rush apparently upgraded his credentials for admission into what we will now definitely have to call the Hall of Both Infamous and Famous Missourians.

When Rush was officially inducted this week, the event, which traditionally is open to the public, was a secret affair attended only by Republicans—because only Republicans were invited! That’s some honor! Congratulations, Rush! You’re such a special Missourian that only other special Missourians understand what you mean to the state. The rest of us just understand that you’re mean.

In any case, as police stood guard to make sure the orgy of adoration was not interrupted by reality, Limbaugh, never missing an opportunity to show off his Missouri humility and humanity, said of his critics:

They’re deranged. They’re literally deranged.

Ah, a proud moment in Missouri history!

Finally, I learned today that not only will taxpayers foot the bill to keep Rush’s marble head under surveillance every minute of every day, it is the only marble head in the place that actually needs a security camera! Kudos, Rush!

House Clerk Adam Crumbliss told the Associated Press:

We recognize that there was a level of controversy around it, and we want to make sure that property is protected.

No, no, no. That’s not what the camera is for. It has nothing to do with “controversy.” As everyone knows, marble is susceptible to acidic substances, and I have it on good authority that the real reason for the camera is to keep adoring Republicans from making love to Rush’s mug when the lights go out.

Smoooooch!

10 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on May 25, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Hall of Famous Missourians, Missouri, rush limbaugh, Steven Tilley

Posted by R. Duane Graham on May 25, 2012

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/05/25/keeping-an-eye-on-the-rush-bust/

A Collective Hallucination

“A collective hallucination is a sensory hallucination induced by the power of suggestion to a group of people. It generally occurs in heightened emotional situations, especially among the religiously devoted.”

—The Skeptic’s Dictionary

ow that conservative evangelicals have lost their favorite Catholic, Rick Santorum, who was essentially crushed by Mittens’ money-guzzling campaign bus, the logical question becomes: will the right-wing evangelical movement ever fully embrace their Mormon champion?

That question was posed today to a leader of the movement to bring Christian sharia—complete with transvaginal probes—into your life, Tony Perkins, president of the Dobsonian Family Research Council. If anyone would know what contemporary right-winging Bible thumpers are thinking, he would.

But before we get to the question he was asked and his answer, let’s look at Perkins. He was born and raised just about half an hour west of Tulsa, the epicenter of cocksure Midwestern evangelicalism. He ended up in Baton Rouge where he won a seat in the state legislature and where he began his sharia crusade. Here’s how Right Wing Watch characterized his earlier career in politics:

Perkin’s Louisiana legislative background includes:

author of legislation requiring public schools to install filtering software.

author of American History Preservation Act, which “prevents censorship of America’s Christian heritage in Louisiana public schools.”

authored legislation providing “a daily time of silent prayer in Louisiana public schools.”

author of the first Covenant Marriage Law.

In 1998, Perkins founded the Louisiana Family Forum due to his concern for “increasing influence of the homosexual community on public policy issues.”

So, you can see why the Family Research Council—a Christian sharia lobbying group—hired Perkins to be its president. And if you bother to check into it, you can also see why the Southern Poverty Law Center famously labeled the FRC as an anti-gay hate group. The short of it is that Perkins has, among other things, promoted the idea that gay men are a threat to children. Taliban, anyone?

In any case, Luke Russert on MSNBC asked Perkins if conservative evangelicals would embrace Romney or “stay home.” The Christianly Perkins, bearing false witness, said this:

No, I don’t think they’re gonna stay home. That’s not the question. I mean, you have the backdrop of Barack Obama, which clearly when you look at his policies—not theoretical but practical—that he has imposed upon this nation, both socially and economically, that is an anathema to social conservative voters, so they’re gonna vote for Mitt Romney. There’s not a question there.

The question is the level of enthusiasm and intensity. It’s turnout…will people be voting in great numbers for Mitt Romney, will they be working for him…that’s going to be the key in terms of who’s going to win this next election.

Now, that’s not exactly a Hallelujah Chorus endorsement of Mittens, but it suggests how most conservative Christians will likely approach the polls in November: with a Bible, a nose clip, and an I-hate-Obama-more-than-I-hate-the-Mormon-cultist determination.

But I want to return to what Perkins said about a fellow Christian:

…you have the backdrop of Barack Obama, which clearly when you look at his policies—not theoretical but practical—that he has imposed upon this nation, both socially and economically, that is an anathema to social conservative voters…

Obama “imposed” his policies on the country? Imposed? That word was no accident. Perkins didn’t just misspeak. He meant to suggest that Obama is forcing his will on the American people. He meant to use that word because it reinforces the arch narrative about the President that conservatives never tire of pushing. Try something: type in “Obama is a dictator” into your search engine. See?

Here is one example that comes up:

‘THE MAN IS A DICTATOR’: BECK BLASTS OBAMA’S MOVE TO CIRCUMVENT CONGRESS

Think that is just an extremist website pushing that headline? Nope. The Blaze is now mainstream conservative journalism.

Another mainstreamer, Rush Limbaugh, routinely uses the loaded term “regime” to describe the Obama administration. Sometimes he calls it “The Lawless Obama Regime” for spice. Here is a gem from that monologue:

Folks, it is clearly lawless. If you regard the Constitution as law, this is lawless behavior by an out-of-control, rogue executive. This is what happens in banana republics, tinhorn dictatorships.

Sean Hannity regularly—and without complaint from conservative Christians—refers to the President as “The Anointed One,” a term for the Messiah. Hannity defends himself (and misses the point) by saying that he “respects the office of the president,” but that those nasty liberals called Bush bad names, too.

Dick Morris, a very regular contributor to Fox “News,” published a video under the title,

Obama Assumes Dictatorial Powers

Introducing that video he said,

In this video commentary, I discuss how, in a March 16th Executive Order, Obama asserts his power to socialize America, even in peacetime!

What can explain this hysteria? I never much believed in the explanatory power of the term “collective hallucination,” but what else explains a movement that far and wide believes the President of the United States, whether he be a foreigner or a marginal American, whether he be a Muslim or a nominal Christian, is a despotic socialist with a Messiah complex?

1 Comment

by R. Duane Graham on April 11, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged a collective hallucination, Barack Obama, Family Research Council, Mitt Romney, rush limbaugh, sean hannity, Tony Perkins

Posted by R. Duane Graham on April 11, 2012

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/a-collective-hallucination/

The “Thugfather”

“The vehemence they displayed was totally inappropriate. They seemed to adopt the tea party slogans.”

—Charles Fried, President Reagan’s solicitor general commenting on the tone of the Supreme Court’s conservative justices during oral arguments on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act

uch ado was made over President Obama’s uncharacteristically maladroit remarks* on the possibility that the Supreme Court might overturn his health care reform legislation:

And I just remind conservative commentators that for years what we have heard is that the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint; that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step…

Ultimately I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.

The Wall Street Journal was “astonished” at the remarks and wondered if the former constitutional law teacher ever taught Marbury v. Madison. Conservative Joe Scarborough found the remarks “unbelievable” and “disturbing.” He accused the president of “attacking” the Supreme Court and essentially undermining our judicial system’s independence.

The thundering Voice of the GOP, Rush Limbaugh, called the President a “thug“—yep, he did— saying:

…he says things in these sound bites…and they’re chilling to me. “The court has to understand…” “The court must understand,” is one of his sound bites. No, the court must not — does not have to — listen to you. What is this, “The court must understand”? That is a threat! How many of you think it possible that Obama will make a trip to the Supreme Court before the vote, before the final vote? Can you see it happening? I can.

I can too. I can see Mr. Obama serving up a can of presidential whoopass to Justice Scalia. Yes, anyone can see that.

Here is a classy graphic posted as part of Rush’s transcript from Tuesday:

As I said, I can see that Obama busting the kneecaps of Antonin Scalia. I sure can.

There was also an orgy of Obama hate Tuesday night on Hannity—featuring constitutional scholar Sarah Palin! The learned Alaskan said (it is damned hard to transcribe her eruditeness),

So, how much more evidence does an American voter need to understand that this president is not only, just merely, over, in over his head [sic], as a constitutional scholar—this is the community organizer in him coming out.

How much more evidence do all of us need to understand that we cannot afford this “flexibility” that he is seeking in his next four years that he’s asking for, for his ineptitude the next four years, we cannot afford to go down this road.

Sarah Palin referencing someone’s “ineptitude” represents a special kind of chutzpah, don’t ya think? Call it arctic audacity, but whatever you call it, she is sitting on a pile of cash that such garish gall has wrought.

For all the outrage on the right about Mr. Obama’s remarks, one would think that there had been no history of right-wing attacks on the Supreme Court. Does Roe v. Wade ring a bell? Anyone remember the “Impeach Earl Warren” movement across the South?

The John Birch Society, now once again on friendly terms with movement conservatism, wrote in 1963:

It is obvious that the Warren-led Court intends, step-by-step, to declare the whole Constitution of the United States unconstitutional.

Is that an attack on the Court?

How about this, from William F. Buckley, the father of modern conservatism:

The Supreme Court of the United States discovers every year or so something in the Constitution not only that hasn’t been discovered before, but something which the formulators of that particular article or amendment to the Constitution specifically rejected. But it becomes law. This is called casuistry, and casuistry is one of the diseases of a decadent order in which people refuse to rely on basic cognitive skills, and have no faith in sequential argument.

Hmm. That was written in 1977. I suppose the Supreme Court has recovered from “one of the diseases of a decadent order,” since conservatives are now so eager to come to its defense.

In any case, the right-wing hysteria over Obama’s remarks is interesting, since a) they don’t worry too much about disrespecting the executive branch these days, and b) I never thought I would live long enough to hear right-wingers so enthusiastically defend the Court’s honor.

The truth is, though, that they don’t have much respect for either the executive branch or the judicial branch (or for that matter, the legislative branch) unless those institutions are peopled by conservatives.

Example: A totally unsubstantiated rumor has been floating from conservative brain to conservative brain: “Does Obama Know How the Supreme Court Voted?” The deal is that some liberal justice leaked the bad news to Big O and he was trying to intimidate the conservative justices into submission, sort of opening up a long-distance can of whoopass.

Hannity brought it up last night and Limbaugh mentioned it earlier in the day (he speculated that it might be Justice Kagan).

I ask: Is suggesting that a sitting justice (they are the only ones allowed in during the vote) of leaking the result of last Friday’s conference tally—purely for political reasons—showing proper respect for the Court?

In the case of conspiracy-minded Rush Limbaugh, any leaking of the outcome—positive or negative—would do:

It’s easier to understand that somebody leaked to him that the preliminary vote went against him and that the mandate fell by whatever the preliminary vote was and that explains his attitude yesterday. But I can see him saying what he said if the vote went in his favor as well, as a means of further intimidation, making sure they don’t change their minds or whatever.

It must be nice to live in a world where all the roads lead to your destination.

But my favorite example of the newly-found (at least since Bush v. Gore in 2000) and quite fraudulent conservative respect for the Supreme Court was from Joe Scarborough. After bashing Obama for not showing proper deference to the Court, he said this:

I think Justice Kennedy is a conservative justice with a small “c.” He’s worried about his legacy more than the law that’s in front of him—just to be really harsh about it. And I think he’s going to be afraid to do the bold thing, even if the bold thing is the right thing.

Now, that, my friends, is real respect for the integrity of the Supreme Court.

_____________________________

*The President better explained himself on Tuesday during the Q & A after his AP luncheon speech:

MR. SINGLETON: Mr. President, you said yesterday that it would be unprecedented for a Supreme Court to overturn laws passed by an elected Congress. But that is exactly what the Court has done during its entire existence. If the Court were to overturn individual mandate, what would you do, or propose to do, for the 30 million people who wouldn’t have health care after that ruling?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, let me be very specific. We have not seen a Court overturn a law that was passed by Congress on a economic issue, like health care, that I think most people would clearly consider commerce — a law like that has not been overturned at least since Lochner. Right? So we’re going back to the ’30s, pre New Deal.

And the point I was making is that the Supreme Court is the final say on our Constitution and our laws, and all of us have to respect it, but it’s precisely because of that extraordinary power that the Court has traditionally exercised significant restraint and deference to our duly elected legislature, our Congress. And so the burden is on those who would overturn a law like this.

Now, as I said, I expect the Supreme Court actually to recognize that and to abide by well-established precedence out there. I have enormous confidence that in looking at this law, not only is it constitutional, but that the Court is going to exercise its jurisprudence carefully because of the profound power that our Supreme Court has.

8 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on April 4, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Affordable Care Act, Antonin Scalia, BarackObama, Charles Fried, rush limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Supreme Court

Posted by R. Duane Graham on April 4, 2012

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/the-thugfather/

“Censoring Thugs” And Other Good Americans

There is panic in Limbaugh Nation. The parching heat of exposure must be sucking the life out of the money tree.

On Wednesday, “show spokesman” (since when does anyone speak for Rush?) Brian Blicklich wrote an op-ed for Politico viciously attacking David Brock of Media Matters for daring to use the (gasp!) free market and First Amendment to call attention to the talker’s hate-filled shtick.

On the same site on Tuesday, Mr. Brock, a former right-winger himself, had written:

At Media Matters for America, we have monitored “The Rush Limbaugh Show” every day since our founding in 2004. There is no example we can recall in which Limbaugh, or any other media figure, levied attacks of the tone and duration of those leveled against Fluke.

It is for that reason that Media Matters, along with numerous other groups, have begun to educate advertisers about the damage their financial support of Limbaugh’s program can do to their brands.

For having the audacity to use his free speech right in the town square, Brock earned himself some Limbaugh-size contempt from Attila’s spokesman:

This is Brock’s cynical marketplace of ideas. He will fail, as every censoring thug has in this country. Americans are smart enough to make our own decisions about what media to consume. We don’t need self-appointed monitors. Black-list censors are some of the most reviled characters in U.S. history.

One day Media Matters will join that list as an advocacy that lost sight of its mission, which was to promulgate a point of view, in order to adopt a darker one, which was to deny that right of expression to others.

“Censoring thug“? Hmm. All of this sounds very familiar to me, as I have been similarly attacked by local right-wing bloggers who believe they have an unfettered right to dump whatever shuddersome waste they want right here in my space, their own Globe-sponsored blogs not being enough “free speech” for them.

As far as Limbaugh is concerned, apparently there are people out there who believe that he has some kind of inviolable right to have advertisers support his radio show no matter what he says or does. It’s as if the many advertisers who have abandoned his show are stepping all over his First Amendment rights because they don’t want to be associated with a buffoon who would call a college student a slut or prostitute or suggest he wants to watch her have sex on the Internet.

And obviously, since advertisers are constitutionally bound to keep supporting Limbaugh, anyone urging those advertisers to withdraw their support of his show—as David Brock and others have done in the strong tradition of peaceful protestation (see the history of Charles C. Boycott)—is a “thug.” No, uh, I mean a “censoring thug.”

The truth, though, was stated quite well by Mr. Brock:

We are not a government entity attempting to stifle Limbaugh’s speech. Instead, we are using our right of free assembly to join together and raise our voices against Limbaugh. We are, in fact, engaging in the marketplace of ideas, one in which people, examining all of the facts, can choose whether it is in their financial interest to support hate radio.

For someone to label that very American act as thuggery says a lot about how effective it has been and how much it is co$ting those who have profited wildly from marketing malevolence.

7 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on March 22, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged boycott, David Brock, Media Matters for America, rush limbaugh

Posted by R. Duane Graham on March 22, 2012

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/censoring-thugs-and-other-good-americans/

Frank Rowland, R.I.P.

“We have lost our finest friend and mentor. He saved the world from a major catastrophe: never wavering in his commitment to science, truth and humanity and did so with integrity and grace.”

—Kenneth C. Janda, physical sciences dean at UC Irvine

More than nine miles over your head is the ozone layer.

As the authors of an article on NASA Science put it:

Think of the ozone layer as Earth’s sunglasses, protecting life on the surface from the harmful glare of the sun’s strongest ultraviolet rays, which can cause skin cancer and other maladies.

If the ozone layer is Earth’s sunglasses, think of American scientist Frank Sherwood Rowland, who died Saturday at his home, as earth’s eye-doctor.

Rowland, in reality, was a professor of chemistry who won a Nobel Prize for his work in explaining how the ozone layer is depleted through chemical interactions in the atmosphere, including chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) used by humans as refrigerants and in products like the old aerosol deodorants and hair sprays that were used commonly all over the world before his work.

And his work did not go unchallenged.

According to Radio Free Europe, DuPont, the leading manufacturer of CFC, “took out full-page newspaper advertisements indirectly questioning Rowland’s credibility,” and a magazine called “Aerosol Age” went so far as to say that “Rowland must be a Soviet KGB agent to promote such a wild idea.”

Despite this pushback, by 1987 an international agreement was signed to eliminate CFC products and, according to the NASA Science story, things have improved:

In the upper stratosphere (above roughly 18 km), ozone recovery can be explained almost entirely by CFC reductions.

And while “the jury is still out” on the causes of the much-better recovery below 18km, “other sources of natural or manmade variability may yet prove to be the cause of the lower-stratosphere’s bonus ozone”

So, we have Frank Rowland, who spent eight years doing research in radiochemistry at the University of Kansas, at least partially to thank for the improvement, and we can thank him for his integrity as a scientist. He said in 1997:

Isn’t it a responsibility of scientists, if you believe that you have found something that can affect the environment, isn’t it your responsibility to do something about it, enough so that action actually takes place?

I’m going to end this tribute to Mr. Rowland in an unusual way, by quoting from Rush Limbaugh, who via his radio show teaches climate science to gullible conservatives and who wrote in his book, The Way Things Ought to Be, about the ozone and “the environmentally obsessed“:

Mother Nature has been attacking her own stratospheric ozone for millions of years and yet the ozone is still there, and in sufficient quantities to protect Democrats and environmentalist wackos alike from skin cancer.

If you tell environmental wackos this they say, “That makes it even more imperative that we cut back on whatever amount of fluorocarbons we do create.” But what they really want to do is attack our way of life. Their primary enemy: capitalism. We are supposed to feel guilty about our lifestyles.

I quote from Limbaugh’s Book of Ignorance because it is important to understand that a talk-show host like Limbaugh undoubtedly is much more famous than a dedicated scientist like Rowland was or ever will be.

And it is for that reason—that our modern culture tends to promote mountebanks and intellectual grifters—that we should go out of our way to honor the Frank Sherwood Rowlands we have, as well as the ones we have lost.

Remarks And Asides

Pat Robertson, in touch with God, has a question for Joplin residents and others who live in tornado zones:

Why do we build houses where tornadoes are apt to happen?

Only God knows, I suppose.

________________________________________

By the way, I apologize for making Rush Limbaugh say nasty things about a college girl. I promise I won’t do it again.

________________________________________

Speaking of apologies, I previously excoriated Cal Thomas for saying nasty things about St. Rachel Maddow. It turns out that not only did Cal Thomas immediately apologize, he wanted to break bread with the very liberal Rachel so as to express his sincerity. And because she is a saint, she graciously accepted it. ”To be forgiven by one you have wronged is a blessing, it’s even cleansing,” Thomas convincingly wrote.

That, my friends, is the way it is supposed to work.

________________________________________

More evidence that Mittens was for the federal insurance mandate before he was waging an unseemly war against it surfaced in a piece by Sam Stein featuring quotes from a 2008 GOP primary debate (“No, no, I like mandates. The mandates work.”). Stein made a good point about the apparently easy-to-find evidence:

It also shows how poorly staffed the rest of the GOP field has been with respect to opposition research. The fact that it’s taken this long for these quotes to surface could end up making a huge difference with respect to the Republican primary outcome.

And the candidates, losers all, deserve their fate.

_______________________________

Speaking of Mittens, his wife, Ann, is obviously charming and well-spoken. But she said something that is utterly out of touch with reality:

We can be poor in spirit, and I don’t even consider myself wealthy, which is an interesting thing. It can be here today and gone tomorrow.

I don’t know why the Romneys have such trouble acknowledging the obvious. Look, if you have a couple hundred million smackers in the bank or resting in a tropical paradise, along with a $40 million dollar yearly income and a Cadillac in every port, then you, by all means, consider yourself wealthy.

She went on:

How I measure riches is by the friends I have and the loved ones I have and the people that I care about in my life, and that’s where my values are and that’s where my riches are.

Sure, everyone’s riches are ultimately found in their friends and loved ones. But it helps to have some friend$ and loved one$ in once-$ecret fund$ in the Cayman I$land$.

____________________________________

Growing Pains star, actor Kirk Cameron, now spends his time crusading against Charles Darwin and promoting an Iron Age meme, part of which includes a rather unhappy assessment of homosexuality:

I think that it’s – it’s – it’s unnatural. I think that it’s – it’s detrimental, and ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization.

He could have said that about Growing Pains.

______________________________________

Speaking of Christian actors on TV, Kristen Chenoweth, of ABC’s GCB (according to Wikipedia, GCB formerly stood for “Good Christian Bitches”), related this story about The Gay:

Even as a young child, I thought, ‘Why is being gay bad?’ I didn’t understand it. So I asked my grandma, who is the best Christian I ever knew. I’d say, ‘What about my friend Denny, he’s gay, is he going to hell?’ She told me, ‘I read the Bible like I eat fish. I take the meat that serves me well but I don’t choke on the bone.’”

Baptize me in the Church of Kristen Chenoweth’s Grandma.

______________________________________

Phil Brooks, whose column appears in the Joplin Globe, said it all about Missouri governor and Democrat Jay Nixon, when he compared him to former Democratic governor Bob Holden, “an unapologetic liberal“:

Nixon is significantly more moderate. Facing a budget crisis similar to that of Holden’s era, Nixon flatly has ruled out tax increases. Instead, he champions an idea supported by many Republicans: business tax breaks for economic development.

In Missouri these days, you see, most of us liberals have to live with the fact that almost all of the Democrats are one teabag short of being Republicans.

3 Comments

by R. Duane Graham on March 5, 2012 • Permalink

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged Cal Thomas, Charles Darwin, Kristin Chenoweth, Rachel Maddow, rush limbaugh

Posted by R. Duane Graham on March 5, 2012

http://duanegraham.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/remarks-and-asides-39/

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  The plan, first announced last year, would break up the company's publishing and entertainment arms, and satisfy investors who are put off by the slow growth of its newspapers.
- Health Insurance At 'Good Prices' Coming To Calif. Exchange
  It's the first disclosure of prices in the nation's most populous state for individual health insurance that complies with the Affordable Care Act. The menu of affordable options surprised some consumer advocates and analysts who had been expecting premiums to be much higher.
- James Joyce Coin-troversy Reportedly Could Have Been Averted
  Irish banking officials should have known there were problems with the controversial 10-euro coin commemorating James Joyce, according to Ireland's RTE News. The coin misquotes the author's Ulysses, and bears an image of Joyce that his estate did not approve.
- What Has Been Driving Stock Prices Up?
  The U.S. stock market indices are up 15 percent so far this year. Renee Montagne talks to David Wessel, economics editor of The Wall Street Journal, about the week in stocks. What's behind the broader rally this year, and why did things get rocky this week?
- 9-Year-Old Girl Chastises McDonald's CEO
  At the McDonald's annual shareholders meeting in Chicago Thursday, Hannah Robertson told CEO Don Thompson, "It would be nice if you stopped trying to trick kids into wanting to eat your food all the time." Hannah and her mother were part of a contingent from a watchdog group.
- Viewers To Decide If Amazon's Sample Shows Make The Cut
  Amazon is piloting 14 possible shows for its streaming video service. The audience will vote on which shows it likes best. TV critic Eric Deggans says the process and the shows would like to be breaking ground for a new media — but they aren't.
- Former CEO To Resume His Post At Procter & Gamble
  A.G. Lafley will replace Bob McDonald immediately. Procter & Gamble is behind names like Crest toothpaste and Tide laundry detergent. The 175-year-old company has been struggling to grow in emerging markets.
- Insurers Picked For California Health Exchange
  In a key test of the federal health law's ability to draw competitive bids from health insurance companies, California has unveiled plans and prices that will be available next year to millions of residents shopping for individual coverage on its new insurance marketplace.
- Can This Man Bring Silicon Valley To Yangon?
  A Stanford MBA who used to work for Google returned to Myanmar to be an Internet entrepreneur. But it's tough to start an Internet company in a country where the power goes out every day.
- This 9-Year-Old Girl Told McDonald's CEO: Stop Tricking Kids
  Over the years, McDonald's has gotten a lot of flack for marketing to kids. At a shareholders meeting Thursday morning, Hannah Robertson, age 9, took the fast-food giant's CEO to task.
- Being Blind To Financial Need: Is It Worth It?
  Millions of students rely on loans and grants for their studies. But with universities strapped for cash, fewer schools are able to admit students regardless of their financial need. Host Michel Martin asks the President of Iowa's Grinnell College, Dr. Raynard Kington, why his school considered putting a halt to need-blind admissions.
World
- Toronto Mayor: 'I Do Not Use Crack Cocaine'
  Rob Ford responded to a video that surfaced last week that The Toronto Star says appears to show him smoking the drug.
- Ex-Guatemalan President Extradited To U.S.
  Alfonso Portillo was taken from a hospital bed in Guatemala City and flown to New York to face charges of laundering $70 million through U.S. banks.
- Toronto Mayor Dodges Accusations Of Crack Cocaine Use
  Melissa Block talks to Jeff Semple of the CBC about the video that appears to show Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine.
- Elected Leadership Struggles To Rule In Libya
  In Libya, guns are still everywhere and the elected leadership is struggling to rule as militias use guns and intimidation when they don't get their way. Most recently they surrounded two ministries and state television to force through a political isolation law that bars former members of Moammar Gaddafi's regime from government posts.
- Print Media Thrives In Myanmar Where Internet Is Limited
  Although print media is often seen as past its prime in the U.S. and Europe, in many Asian countries such as China and India newspapers are thriving and expanding. One example is Myanmar, also known as Burma, where only 1 percent of the people have access to the Internet, and private daily newspapers are rushing into print after decades of being banned.
- James Joyce Coin-troversy Reportedly Could Have Been Averted
  Irish banking officials should have known there were problems with the controversial 10-euro coin commemorating James Joyce, according to Ireland's RTE News. The coin misquotes the author's Ulysses, and bears an image of Joyce that his estate did not approve.
- 2 Men Arrested After Pakistani Jet Is Diverted Over U.K.
  Something happened aboard the flight from Lahore, Pakistan, to Manchester, England. Royal Air Force fighters were scrambled and the plane was ordered to land at an airport in Essex.
- British Soldier Hacked To Death Was 'Our Hero,' Family Says
  As Lee Rigby's family struggles with grief, they're speaking about the young man's love of life. He was killed Wednesday. Witnesses heard — and recorded — the attackers saying that they were angry about the deaths of Muslims during the wars in Iran and Afghanistan.
- Explosion, Gunfire Reverberate In Kabul
  Witnesses say the blast happened in the late afternoon. The sound of shots followed. As night fell, at least two attackers were dead. A small number of civilians had been wounded. Offices of the International Organization for Migration appear to have been targeted.
- Assad Regime Agrees To Attend Peace Conference, Russia Says
  Russia and the U.S. have been trying to set up talks aimed at ending more than two years of brutal fighting in Syria. What's still unclear, however, is who would speak for the opponents of President Bashar Assad's regime.
- China's Air Pollution: Is The Government Willing To Act?
  There is some political willingness, but because China is highly decentralized politically, the Communist Party has only limited influence over provincial governments and how they regulate their dirty factories. The powerful state-owned oil companies have also resisted pressure to produce cleaner-burning fuel.
- Iranian Council: Ex-President Rafsanjani Unfit To Run Again
  The Iranian presidential election is just weeks away, and voters are faced with a very narrow range of pro-regime candidates to choose from. All the high-profile or independent candidates have been eliminated by the Guardian Council. One man considered unfit to run has already held the post of president.
- Can This Man Bring Silicon Valley To Yangon?
  A Stanford MBA who used to work for Google returned to Myanmar to be an Internet entrepreneur. But it's tough to start an Internet company in a country where the power goes out every day.
- Four Arrested After British Soldier Hacked To Death In London
  The two men charged with killing a British soldier in south London on Wednesday were apparently on a government watch list, raising questions about why authorities were unable to prevent the attack.
- One Of London Attack Suspects Had Troubled Past
  Robert Siegel speaks with Sandra Laville, crime correspondent for The Guardian, about what's known about the suspect in the Woolwich attack in London on Wednesday.
Philosophy Bites
- Leslie Green on Same Sex Marriage May 11, 2013
  Is there any reasonable objection to same sex marriage? Les Green discusses this controversial issue from a philosphical perspective with Nigel Warburton for this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast.
- John Mikhail on Battery and Morality April 27, 2013
  Hitting someone, throwing a ball hard at someone's head, spitting at someone: these are all examples of harmful acts, called 'battery' in Tort Law, and most of us judge those who do such things without the victim's implied or actual consent as morally blameworthy. Could widespread aversion towards such acts be due to some kind of fundamen […]
- Noel Malcolm on Hobbes' Leviathan in Context April 14, 2013
  Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, published in 1651, remains one of the great works of political philosophy. Noel Malcolm has recently published a 3 volume scholarly edition of this book, based on decades of research. In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast he discusses how a better understanding of the context in which Hobbes was writing can lead to ne […]
- Mark Rowlands on Philosophy and Running March 29, 2013
  Is there any connection between philosophy and running. Mark Rowlands, who began running to exercise his pet wolf thinks there is. Find out why in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast, which was recorded at the 2013 'Words by the Water' Literary Festival at Keswick. Philosophy Bites is made in association with theInstitute of Philosophy. […]
- John Gardner on Constitutions March 17, 2013
  What are constitutions and how are we to interpret them? John Gardner addresses these questions in conversation with Nigel Warburton in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. Philosophy Bites is made in assocation with the Institute of Philosophy.
- Fiona Macpherson on Hallucination March 3, 2013
  What is a hallucination? How does it differ from an illusion? Fiona Macpherson of Glasgow University discusses these questions with Nigel Warburton in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy.
- Jeff McMahan on Gun Control February 17, 2013
  Jeff McMahan argues against the private ownership of guns in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy.
- Colin McGinn on Descartes on Innate Knowledge February 2, 2013
  Descartes believed that we can have knowledge that was independent of experience. In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast Colin McGinn makes a case for there being some such knowledge. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy.
- Tom Sorell on Surveillance January 25, 2013
  What, if anything, is wrong with surveillance? Why value privacy? Tom Sorrell answers these questions in conversation with Nigel Warburton in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. Philosophy Bites is made in assocation with the Institute of Philosophy.
- John Campbell on Schizophrenia January 8, 2013
  What can philosophers learn from schizophrenia? In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast John Campbell discusses this intriguing question with David Edmonds. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy.
Arts & Life
- More Time Together, Though 'Midnight' Looms
  Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke return for the third in Richard Linklater's loosely peerless Before series, and they've never been more persuasive — nor has the storytelling. (Recommended)
- A Race Against Time To Find WWI's Last 'Doughboys'
  In 2003, Richard Rubin set out to talk to every American veteran of World War I he could find. With help from the French, he tracked down dozens of centenarian vets and recorded their stories in a new book called The Last of the Doughboys.
- Are Women Really Missing From Film Criticism?
  Are women really being shut out of film criticism? One recent study claims that they're worse off in the online world than they were in print.
- The Great Charcoal Debate: Briquettes Or Lumps?
  Does the kind of charcoal you use really make a difference when it comes to grilling up a tasty steak or other food on the grill? Yes — but deciding which one to use depends on what you're after. Both briquettes and lump charcoal — aka "natural" hardwood charcoal — have their advantages and disadvantages.
- This Time, It's A Dull Ache Of A 'Hangover'
  In dumping his formula, director Todd Phillips has thrown out just about everything else that made the surprise-hit first movie even a little likable.
- Can Eyewitnesses Create Memories?
  Forensic psychologist Scott Fraser studies how we remember crimes. He describes a deadly shooting and explains how eyewitnesses can create memories that they haven't seen. Why? Because the brain is always trying to fill in the blanks.
- How Do Experiences Become Memories?
  Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman goes through a series of examples from vacations to colonoscopies. He explains how our "experiencing selves" and our "remembering selves" perceive happiness differently.
- Can Anyone Learn To Be A Master Memorizer?
  Some people can memorize thousands of numbers, the names of dozens of strangers or the precise order of cards in a shuffled deck. Science writer and U.S. Memory Champion Joshua Foer shows how anyone can become a memory virtuoso, including him.
- Memory Games
  Memory is malleable, dynamic and elusive. When we tap into our memories, where's the line between fact and fiction? Can our memory play tricks on us? Can we train it to be more accurate? TED speakers discuss how a nimble memory can improve your life, and how a frail one might ruin someone else's.
- Young Adult Fiction
  You may have a New York Times brain, but we know you've still got a Scholastic News heart. Ophira Eisenberg feeds some of your favorite childhood books through the Five-Dollar Word Machine for our contestants. Can you figure out the original titles without your thesaurus?
- Celebrity Cross-Breeds
  Celebrities like to intermingle. This next game imagines some creative combinations of the rich and famous that make "Brangelina" look tame. For example, if you merged the singer of "Candle in the Wind" with the mobster nicknamed the "Dapper Don," you'd get Elton John Gotti. Saturday night's alright for fighting, indee […]
- Compound Interest
  Quick, what word goes before the following: man, model, market? If you guessed "super," you may be the exact kind of super-genius who will enjoy this next game, wherein our own John Chaneski challenges contestants to find the common link to create three compound words.
- We Will Rock You
  When your house musician has the guitar chops of Brian May and the fourteen-octave vocal range of Freddie Mercury, you can't pass up the opportunity to sneak "We Will Rock You" into the set. We've embedded clues about famous rocks (yes, rocks) in the iconic Queen song, and Jonathan Coulton takes the lead. Plus, a rendition of "We Are […]
- Initial This
  FWIW, you've probably spent a lot of time on AOL Instant Messenger, or were forced to decipher jargon from a family member who did. This next game is for you. John Chaneski conducts this Ask Me One More final round in which contestants must decode Internet shorthand FTW, from the common (BRB) to the obscure (IANAL).
- Rosie Schaap: What Are You Drinking?
  Everyone has a go-to drink, but only the real heavy-hitters get theirs named after them. (Would Tom Collins have thirsted for his eponymous drink, had he existed?) V.I.P. and bartender Rosie Schaap knows a thing or two about a good cocktail--having clocked over 13,000 hours in bars--so we test her mixological know-how against one of her regulars.
Opinion
- Week In Politics: Obama And Drone Strikes
  Melissa Block speaks with political commentators E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and Brookings Institution and David Brooks of The New York Times. They discuss highlights from the national security speech delivered by President Obama on Thursday.
- Dear Tiny Desk: Miss You
  In which we consider our relocated desk and miss an old pal.
- Who's The Best Drinker? Dogs? Cats? Or Pigeons?
  You, you with your lips, throat, cheek muscles and hands, you, with no effort can drink a glass of water. But what about your cat? Your dog? They don't have the advantages you do. Nor do pigeons. And yet, through ways both brilliant and mysterious, they too can drink. Here are their secrets.
- Military Moms: A Bond Born From Shared Loss
  Two mothers whose sons were killed during the first Gulf War talk about how they became friends after their sons died. The past 22 years would have been tough without the friendship, because, as one tells the other, "what's in our hearts we share."
- 'Plimpton!': A Fond Look At A Man Of Letters
  An affectionate documentary portrays the Paris Review founder as a man devoted to illuminating how talent and creativity work — both for himself, and for the rest of us.
- Breakin' The Rules: 20 General Principles Suspended In 'Fast And Furious 6'
  There are many principles of day-to-day life that don't make their way into the Fast, Furious universe.
- Pitbull Gets 'Epic': 'You Constantly Have To Defend Your Success'
  Armando Christian Perez — better known as Pitbull or Mr. Worldwide — has sold five million albums and had No. 1 hits in more than 15 countries. He tells NPR's Michel Martin about using music as an escape and playing a well-dressed toad in the animated film Epic.
- Douglas, Damon Illuminate HBO's 'Candelabra'
  Steven Soderbergh's latest film is a showbiz story about Vegas icon Liberace and his secret lover — played, respectively, by Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, both terrific in their roles. It premieres Sunday on HBO.
- 'Before Midnight': Jesse And Celine Are Older Now, And So Are We
  It took Jesse and Celine 18 years to find themselves back where they started in the lovely third installment of the series that began with 1995's Before Sunrise.
- Living In Two Worlds, But With Just One Language
  Elysha O'Brien calls herself a "Mexican white girl." Not just because of her ethnically ambiguous appearance, she says, but also because she can't speak Spanish. Fearing their children would experience discrimination if they spoke Spanish, her parents chose not to teach them their native tongue.
- Letters: Stories From Moore, Okla.
  Robert Siegel and Melissa Block read emails from listeners about reporting on the tornado in Moore, Okla.
- China's Artist Provocateur Explores New Medium: Heavy Metal
  In 2011, police detained Ai Weiwei for 81 days. Now, he's released a song that's turned the experience into a heavy metal protest song, along with a dystopian nightmare video. The lyrics are explicit and angry. Ai says his music is for the many political prisoners who remain jailed.
- Cannes Diary: Delusions Of 'Gatsby' (And Dreams Of Notoriety)
  All is Gatsbyish excess on the Croisette, where the Cannes Film Festival's early tone might well have been set by Baz Luhrmann's lavish film — and by Sofia Coppola's accomplished The Bling Ring.
- The Inevitable Question?
  Confronted with the amazing advances made by science, why do so many still cling to God as a creator? Could the answer be that we need to be created in order to be special? Or are we afraid of our own unique place in the Universe? Marcelo Gleiser knows what he thinks.
- How Benjamin Franklin Invented A Weight Loss Program, Using Balloons
  "Someone asked me," Benjamin Franklin once said, "what's the use of a balloon?" They don't do much. They just float. What are they good for? And Franklin replied, "What's the use of a new-born baby?" They just sit there. They don't do much. You have to imagine possibilities. This is Franklin, in the 1780s, th […]
Economy
- LA Bluejeans Makers Fear Their Business Will Fade Away
  Los Angeles is home to a large slice of the world's bluejeans trade. But as the U.S. apparel industry continues to shrink, the city's high-end bluejeans business faces a threat. The European Union has imposed a nearly 40 percent tariff, which could cripple the city's jean business.
- Battered Jersey Shore Pins Recovery Hopes On Summer Season
  Seven months after Hurricane Sandy slammed into the Jersey Shore, Asbury Park is still waiting for insurance and federal aid money. In the meantime, it borrowed $10 million to repair the waterfront in time for the critical Memorial Day weekend.
- Housing Market Recovers Though Economy Lags Behind
  Robert Siegel talks with Adam Davidson from Planet Money team about this week's cluster of positive data on the health of the U.S. housing market. Davidson says the strength of the housing sector is now irrefutable, even though a broader economic recovery is still years away.
- What Has Been Driving Stock Prices Up?
  The U.S. stock market indices are up 15 percent so far this year. Renee Montagne talks to David Wessel, economics editor of The Wall Street Journal, about the week in stocks. What's behind the broader rally this year, and why did things get rocky this week?
- Being Blind To Financial Need: Is It Worth It?
  Millions of students rely on loans and grants for their studies. But with universities strapped for cash, fewer schools are able to admit students regardless of their financial need. Host Michel Martin asks the President of Iowa's Grinnell College, Dr. Raynard Kington, why his school considered putting a halt to need-blind admissions.
- Production Of New Vehicles Predicted To Hit 2002 Levels
  Strong new-vehicle sales lead industry analysts to revise their forecasts for North American production levels in 2013, with J.D. Power & Associates and LMC Automotive predicting 16 million units will be produced — a mark not hit since 2002.
- Jobless Claims Drop, But Stay In Recent Range
  There was more of a decline than economists expected, but the weekly pace hasn't really changed much since late 2011.
- Goldman Sachs Is Doing Well. So Is Its CEO, Lloyd Blankfein
  Big bank Goldman Sachs holds its annual shareholder meeting Thursday. Five years ago, during the financial crisis, Goldman's CEO Lloyd Blankfein was a poster boy for overpaid executives. To find out how much he is making now, Renee Montagne talks Neil Weinberg, editor in chief of American Banker.
- When Will Fed Officials Ease Off The Accelerator?
  Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Wednesday that the central bank is not ready to scale back on economic stimulus. But he suggested the Fed may start to pare back bond purchases if the economy picks up momentum. Stocks fell following Bernanke's remarks.
- Bernanke: Economy Still Too Shaky To End Low Interest Rates
  Over the past several years, the Federal Reserve has added trillions of dollars to its balance sheet, purchasing bonds in order to stimulate the economy. Many investors have been concerned that when the Fed starts selling off those bonds it could create turmoil in the markets. But in congressional testimony Wednesday, Fed Chief Ben Bernanke said the Fed migh […]
- Go East, Young Marijuana Dealer
  A San Francisco dealer quadrupled his income by moving to New York after California legalized medical marijuana.
- Powerball? America Already Hit The Jackpot
  Host Michel Martin says America deserves a Bentley for peoples' dedication to do the right thing. She shares her thoughts on wealth and the American dream in her regular 'Can I Just Tell You' essay.
- Bernanke Hints That The Economy Still Needs Help
  The Fed chairman cautioned Wednesday that if interest rates were to start rising now, the economy could slump. Meanwhile, the National Association of Realtors said sales of existing homes rose — and would have been even stronger if not for tight inventory.
- Instead Of Snoozing In Savings, Let's Put $5,000 To Work
  It's a hard time to be a saver. The return on a savings account doesn't even keep up with inflation, and that has led many savers to ask: What should I do with my money? NPR's Uri Berliner takes $5,000 out of his own personal savings and explores various investment opportunities.
- Young People Cast Out Of Italy's Welfare System
  In Italy, the youth jobless rate is nudging 40 percent, a record high in post-war history. Demographer Stefano Rosina says the Italian welfare system has always been skewed toward the middle-aged and elderly, leaving Italian youths with no political or trade union representation.
Law
- Court Rules That Arizona Sheriff Engages In Racial Profiling
  Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's department violated the rights of Latinos in its crackdown on illegal immigration, a federal judge says, issuing an injunction against the practice.
- Ex-Guatemalan President Extradited To U.S.
  Alfonso Portillo was taken from a hospital bed in Guatemala City and flown to New York to face charges of laundering $70 million through U.S. banks.
- Can Eyewitnesses Create Memories?
  Forensic psychologist Scott Fraser studies how we remember crimes. He describes a deadly shooting and explains how eyewitnesses can create memories that they haven't seen. Why? Because the brain is always trying to fill in the blanks.
- Jury Deadlocks On Jodi Arias Sentencing
  The jury that convicted her of first-degree murder earlier this month in the brutal killing of her ex-boyfriend were unable to decide whether to give the death penalty.
- Srinivasan's Confirmation First For D.C. Circuit In 7 Years
  The partisan war over judicial nominees has accelerated in recent years. It took nearly a year to win Senate confirmation for Sri Srinivasan to the important federal appeals court for the District of Columbia, though he had no formal opposition.
- Head Of IRS Tax-Exempt Division Reportedly Placed On Leave
  Lois Lerner has been at the center of a scandal over the tax agency's targeting of conservative groups.
- Justice Sotomayor Takes Swing At Famed Baseball Case
  The Supreme Court justice and noted Yankees fan showed her baseball acumen Wednesday while presiding over a re-enactment of the 1972 case that challenged the sport's antitrust exemption.
- Transcript: Obama Addresses Counterterrorism, Drones
  President Obama spoke at the National Defense University on Thursday about his views on the next stage in combating terrorism. Read his speech as released by the White House.
- Sick Inmates Dying Behind Bars Despite Release Program
  Federal prisoners can request compassionate release if they are terminally ill, but a recent investigation found that many die while their requests drift through the system. Now, prison leaders say they will simplify the approval process and start tracking requests electronically.
- In Raw Milk Case, Activists See Food Freedom On Trial
  Activists say the case against Wisconsin dairy farmer Vernon Hershberger is about raw milk — and much more. His supporters have turned the case into a rallying cry for personal food freedom and the rights of farmers and consumers to enter into private contracts without government intervention.
- FBI Shoots And Kills Man Tied To Boston Bombing Suspect
  The man, Ibragim Todashev, had known one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings. Agents were apparently interviewing him overnight when things turned violent.
- Go East, Young Marijuana Dealer
  A San Francisco dealer quadrupled his income by moving to New York after California legalized medical marijuana.
- Oregon's Cash-Strapped Counties Reject Public Safety Levies
  Two Oregon counties have reportedly rejected property tax increases that would have funded law enforcement and public safety services. The counties once received federal timber subsidies, but those days are over — and now they're scrambling to pay for essential services.
- Why Urban Dictionary Comes In Handy On The Witness Stand
  The use of slang in court proceedings can be tricky, especially in criminal cases where an uncommon slang term used by a witness can make a difference in a case. New York Times tech reporter Leslie Kaufman and law professor Greg Lastowka talk about how judges and lawyers have turned to sites like Urban Dictionary to help define slang terms and the legal impl […]
- The Argument For Stop-And-Frisk
  Arguments in a court challenge against New York's stop-and-frisk policy wrapped up earlier this week. Critics say the policy promotes racial profiling. But host Michel Martin speaks with Heidi Grossman, New York City's lead attorney in the trial, to hear the Police Department's side of the story.
Religion
- Minister To Lose Job After Performing Same-Sex Marriage?
  When Methodist minister Reverend Thomas Ogletree officiated his son's same-sex marriage, he didn't think it would cause a stir. But now some New York United Methodist Church ministers are threatening to defrock him. He speaks with Host Michel Martin about the controversy and why he feels he's being singled out.
- An Ancient Religious Pilgrimage That Now Draws The Secular
  The 1,200-year-old European pilgrimage route known as the Way of St. James is undergoing a revival. Tens of thousands of people are walking across France to the Spanish coastal city of Santiago de Compostela, and the relics of St. James. Once a religious affair, it's now a cultural and social phenomenon as well.
- Pope Francis Puts The Poor Front And Center
  Shunning the formalities of his office and focusing on poverty, Pope Francis is drawing a sharp contrast between his 2-month-old papacy and those of his predecessors.
- Are Buddhist Monks Involved In Myanmar's Violence?
  When tightly controlled societies open up, long-suppressed sectarian tensions can flare. That's been happening in Myanmar. And the twist is that Buddhist monks, widely viewed as pacifists, are part of this rising Buddhist nationalism.
- Pope Francis Denounces 'Cult Of Money'
  In his first major statement on the global financial crisis, the pontiff calls on world leaders not to forget the poor.
- Twitter Users Risk Damnation, Saudi Religious Police Say
  Sheikh Abdul Latif Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh said anyone using social media sites — and especially Twitter — "has lost this world and his afterlife." Many Saudis have turned to social media sites for news and to discuss issues they might otherwise not be able to bring up.
- Boston Bombing Suspect Buried In Secret At Virginia Cemetery
  After a funeral director's two-week ordeal to find a place that would accept his body, Tamerlan Tsarnaev is buried at a Muslim cemetery in central Virginia.
- Making Peace With The Bible By Writing It Out Word For Word
  Reading the Bible from cover to cover might seem like a heavy task. But what about writing it? Host Michel Martin speaks with Phillip Patterson, who is just two verses away from writing out the whole King James Bible. He talks about how he kept the faith in spite of loss and illness.
- Elizabeth Smart, Sexual Assault, And The Mormon Church
  There's relief this week after three abducted women were found in Ohio. It's an ordeal that kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart knows all too well. She said that abstinence lessons she learned as a child made her feel worthless after being raped by her captor. Host Michel Martin discusses those comments with a Mormon blogger.
- Bishops Remain Missing After Capture In Syria
  As orthodox Christians across the world celebrated a late Easter this year, Christian communities in Syria and neighboring Lebanon postponed all celebrations. Instead they gathered in churches only to pray for the safe return of two bishops kidnapped outside of Aleppo last month. While their whereabouts are still unknown, the Syrian opposition and the Assad […]
Covers.com: MLB News and Stories
- Oakland A's pitching keying hot under run
  Once upon a time, the Oakland Athletics were cashing in for over bettors at a record setting pace. The A's started the season with a blistering 25-7 O/U record and were as close to a sure thing as you could find.
- Three pitchers with value for under bettors Friday
  Following a relatively quiet Thursday in the major leagues, action picks up with a full slate of games Friday. There are a number of pitchers taking the hill who have been hot under picks in their most recent starts. Here is a look at three of them.
- Numbers show underdogs with high totals worth a look
  The folks over at SportsInsights have been advising readers to take underdogs with high totals for some time now. A recent article shows they have collated such numbers over the course of the past eight-plus MLB seasons and the data certainly backs u...
- Pujols goes from moneyline MVP to obsolete odds
  Pujols has been a bust since taking the money and running to Los Angeles in 2012 and is nowhere near the draw he was while winning MVP honors in St. Louis. He’s no longer a must-see at-bat each game and has also fallen in value when it comes to the M...
- MLB Top 3: Best home/away total bets in baseball
  Chicago isn’t the only club with decisively different over/under counts at home and away. Here are three other MLB teams presenting value to total bettors depending on the scenery:
- Five teams that have dramatically improved their MLB futures odds
  We’re over 40 games into the MLB regular season and many teams have dramatically improved their futures odds since the beginning of the 2013 campaign.
- Yankees at Orioles: What bettors need to know
  The Baltimore Orioles face their first real adversity this season, losing the last five games at home including two in the ninth inning. The Orioles look to change their fortunes when they host the first-place New York Yankees on Monday to start a th...
Covers.com: NFL News and Stories
- Covers Experts' football forecast: Texans at Ravens Week 3
  Odds are out for the biggest and best games of the upcoming NFL season. Covers Expert Sean Murphy gives you his insight into some of these marquee matchups and predicts where the odds could move before kickoff.
- Loss of WR Crabtree won't move 49ers' futures, spreads
  San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree has a torn Achilles tendon and will require potential season-ending surgery.
- Covers Experts' football forecast: 49ers at Seahawks Week 2
  Odds are out for the biggest and best games of the upcoming NFL season. Covers Expert Sean Murphy gives you his insight into some of these marquee matchups and predicts where the odds could move before kickoff.
- NFL 2013 betting breakdown: New Orleans Saints
  We take a look at the 2013 NFL futures odds for the New Orleans Saints.
- LVH Superbook releases 2013 NFL Games of the Year spreads
  The LVH Superbook in Las Vegas posted their NFL Games of the Year spread for select matchups this upcoming football season. Here’s the list of the NFL games available for betting this spring:
- LVH SuperBook releases 2013 NFL season win totals
  The LVH Superbook is the latest sportsbook to unveil its 2013 NFL season win totals.
- Seahawks DE Irvin suspended four games for PEDs
  Seattle Seahawks defensive end Bruce Irvin has been suspended for four games for violating the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancing substances.
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Three polls show Obama widening lead over Romney

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