People like the late Ronnie Reagan and other B-grade movie actors cum politicians enjoy pretending the guv'mint is bad and that we need less guv'mint interference in our lives. They say such things, not because they are stoopid, necessarily, but because they live on the basis of outdated credos and slogans geared to keep the hoi polloi in their place.
But, it ain't so. The guv'mint is not about size, it's about effectiveness. With more people and a more complicated society and with more white collar crooks out to steal billions from the rest of us it is important to have an guv'mint that does not aid and abet the crooks, but effectively protects us from these big-time predators, almost all of which carry the Republican nametag.
Unfortunately, sometimes the guv'mint, like all big organizations, gets bogged down by bureacrats who are themselves mired in minutae.
Here's a story how one man fought back against such bureacrats:
A New Orleans lawyer sought an FHA loan for a client who lost his house in Hurricane Katrina and wanted to rebuild. He was told the loan would be granted if he could prove satisfactory title to the parcel of property being offered as collateral. The title to the property dated back to 1803, which took the lawyer three months to track down.
After sending the information to the FHA, he received the following reply, and this is the actual letter:
"Upon review of your letter adjoining your client's loan application, we note that the request is supported by an Abstract of Title. While we compliment the able manner in which you have prepared and presented the application, we must point out that you have only cleared title to the proposed collateral property back to 1803. Before final approval can be accorded, it will be necessary to clear the title back to its origin."
This reply pissed off the lawyer. So he sent the following response to the FHA, and this is the actual letter:
"Your letter regarding title in Case No. 189156 has been received. I note that you wish to have title extended further than the 194 years covered by the present application. I was unaware that any educated person in this country, particularly those working in the property area, would not know that Louisiana was purchased, by the U.S., from France in 1803, the year of origin identified in our application. For the edification of uninformed FHA bureacrats, the title to the land prior to U.S. ownership was obtained from France, which had acquired it by Right of Conquest from Spain. The land came into possession of Spain by Right of Discovery made in the year 1492 by a sea captain named Christopher Columbus, who had been granted the privilege of seeking a new route to India by the Spanish monarch, Isabella. The good queen, Isabella, being a pious woman and almost as careful about titles as the FHA, took the precaution of securing the blessing of the Pope before she sold her jewels to finance Columbus' expedition. Now the Pope, as I'm sure you may know, is the emissary of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and God, it is commonly accepted, created this world.
"Therefore, I believe it is safe to presume that God also made that part of the world called Louisiana. God, therefore, would be the owner of origin and His origins date back to the beginning of time, the world as we know it AND the FHA. I hope you find God's original claim to be satisfactory.
"Now, may we have the fucking loan?"
Update: The lawyer got the loan for his client!
Our thanks to Bob Poris for this delightful story!
It is with deep regret, very deep regret, that we must retract our story of the other day in which we suggested that Sarah Palin's head exploded and her brain was now floating as a "giant black mystery blob" in Alaska's Chukchi Sea.
Well, I don't think we mentioned the Chukchi Sea, so we don't have to retract that, 'cause we never said it to begin with. Right?
Anyway, according to McClatchy's Washington Bureau, the "giant black mystery blob," or glob, which I believe is what we called it, has been identified as a "stringy batch of algae."
You may wonder, of course, what did happen to Palin's brain. I'm sorry to say we just don't know. Obviously, it no longer resides in her head as anyone with a brain can tell every time she opens her mouth. Some people think maybe she never had a brain. But I think that's probably going too far.
I think it's fair, though, if you look carefully at everything she's said and done over the past couple of years - especially since she was chosen by God to be McCain's running mate - to say that her brain hasn't been functioning in a normal physiological manner.
Now, with her resignation and her resignation speech and her article in the Washington Post, etc., etc., it is obvious the brain has disappeared entirely.
Perhaps the folks who found the giant black mystery blob, the Wainwright hunters, should continue searching, not only the Chukchi Sea, but all the Alaskan waters.
It is possible there could be another big black mystery glob with a big black "P" for Palin on it, floating around somewhere.
What's more important than the First Amendment? Senator Al Franken pushes Sotomayor, rightfully, on that issue. He also pressed her on another matter of great importance - the freedom of the Internet.
It is heart-warming to note that at least one Senator is unafraid to deal with matters of substance instead of merely pandering to the meanest of the hoi polloi out in the hinterlands, which has been the continuing (and inevitable) ploy of the Repugnican wingnuts on the committee.
Now it becomes clear why the Repugnicans fought so hard to keep Al Franken out of the Senate. He's not only smart, he is truly funny. Funny funny. The Repugnicans have proven themselves to be not only not smart, but funny strange.
McClatchy reported this morning on a "big blog of mystery" floating off Alaska's coast.
"Hunters from Wainright first started noticing the stuff sometime probably early last week. It's thick and dark and 'gooey' and is drifting for miles in the cold Arctic waters, according to Gordon Brower with the North Slope Borough's Planning and Community Services Department."
No it's not oil. Terry Hasenauer, a Petty Office 1st Class with the Coast Guard says "It's certainly biological. It's definitely not an oil product of any kind. It has no characteristics of an oil, or a hazardous substance, for that matter."
Actually, it's quite simple. Sarah Palin wrote (it was probably ghostwritten) an article about "cap and trade" which appeared in the nogoodnik Washington Post (that's the newspaper that sells space for politicos to present their point of view...)
Unfortunately (for her), even though she probably didn't write it, she did try to read it and...well...her brain exploded!
Her brain is now described as a big blog of mystery goo, which instead of residing in her skull, is currently floating off Alaska's coast.
Beyond the obvious hypocrisy inherent in GOP Senator and Promise Keepers member John Ensign's recently disclosed extramarital sexual affair, there's another notable aspect to Ensign's religious affiliations that has so far escaped public notice: exorcism. Senator John Ensign belongs to a Pentecostal denomination, the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, that promotes a new health care paradigm in which both physical and psychological maladies can be cured through the casting out of demons. In the new approach, individuals can even heal themselves by exorcising their own demons, through a process that a 2003 Associated Press story characterized as "do it yourself exorcism".
Yup! Bobby Jindal, Republican wingnut governor of Louisiana, does exorcisms within the confines of Roman Catholic theology, which is bad enough, but now we've got another Republican asshat, John Ensign, Senator from Nevada, most noted lately for his deviation from his marital vows (oh, also lying about that deviation - impeach! impeach!), who is into exorcisms, but this whack job believes in the "go it alone" approach.
You can read all about it here, in an excellent article by Bruce Wilson.
This is truly depressing stuff. Too many of our leaders are not only hypocrites but are religious freaks. They believe all kinds of moronic idiocies spouted by biblically and morally illiterate preachers that wouldn't make sense to a two-year old. And they are making decisions vital for the well-being of our country!!!
While there is no religious test for political office in this country, perhaps we could have a reality check and ask the question:
Do you believe that you and other people are controlled by demons which cause physical and psychological illness and which can be exorcised by reciting a bunch of religious mumbo-jumbo with your hand on a book containing ancient scribblings by ignorant middle Eastern tribesmen?
Finally, to put all of this into an even better perspective: John Ensign voted to impeach President Bill Clinton for lying about a sexual encounter. (So did Mark Sanford!)
This clip is not anything profound, but it does, I think, capture the sense of duty and the commitment to responsibility that moves Senator Franken as he steps into his senatorial shoes.
As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he speaks at the Sotomayor hearing...
We are a nation of laws, the pundits pronounce. They may even believe it. The trouble is our former president and vice president did not. Or, if Bush and Cheney did actually believe we are nation of laws, they also believed those laws were made to be ignored and broken.
This is old news. We have known for some time the Bushites routinely took actions which were illegal under the laws of the United States, and to cover their tracks hired flunkies they could coerce into devising some legal mumbo-jumbo that would cloud and justify their lawless machinations.
Now it seems the situation is much worse than we initially thought. That Bush approved a massive warrantless wiretapping program is well-known. The fact that he also approved other "secret intelligence activities -- which have yet to become public" is not so well-known.
In addition, a new report indicates that during the first Bush administration, Dick Cheney ordered the CIA to withhold from Congress information about the administration's "secret counterterrorism program." Again, that is not surprising, considering the fact that Dick Cheney is arguably the one vice president of the United States who would have been most likely to succeed as an aide to Adolf Hitler.
There has been a spate of articles in recent days as to whether these intelligence activities "paid off," or whether they provided "valuable" information about America's enemies. McClatchy, for example, carried an article titled, "Effectiveness of Bush wiretap program in dispute."
Such concerns are beside the point. The point is they were and are illegal, and violate the Constitution of the United States! The point is the Bush administration was up to its neck in illegal activities, engaged in spying and lying and needs to be called to account.
Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, the Obama administration is, according to Glenn Greenwald, working to "actively block any real investigation." Why is this, considering the fact we have proof that the Bushites were engaged in felonious activities which call for a prison term of up to five years along with a $10,000 fine for each offense? I don't know the answer to that. Obama has said he doesn't want to get bogged down in recriminations about the past, and that we need to look ahead to the future.
Maybe. But I'm suspicious....
Because in a real sense there can be no future without resolving the crises of the past. Unless said crises are resolved, their ugly heads are likely to rear up and bite the ass of those who think they can move, unmolested, into the future.
The past is this: a president and a vice president of the United States committed felonious actions. In other words, they are criminals. That's not a matter of opinion. It's not what I think, it's a matter of historical record - sealed, signed, and delivered. And we don't yet even have the entire record!
We cannot - and this is my opinion - allow these illegal acts, these felonies, to go unrewarded. We must not. In this country, no man or woman is above the law, even though most of those working for our government seem to think otherwise. And perhaps it's that latter fact that behooves us more than ever to bring the criminals to justice.
If there is no accountability, there is no justice, and no reason to follow the law. And if that's the case, then any politico with dreams of grandeur is free to assume dictatorial powers.
The American dream - and by that I mean the dream of people living free under the laws of the Constitution - was almost smothered between 2000 and 2008. And I don't think we know the half of it, yet. I think we will find, in the future, this country was within a whisker of turning into something most of its citizens would neither recognize or desire.
So, in this instance, Obama is dead wrong. As Greenwald warns, "In a Look-to-the-Future-Not-the-Past political culture, it's irrelevant how severe is the lawbreaking by high government officials. They know they will face no consequences even when, as here, they deliberately commit felonies -- which is precisely why criminality is so rampant in our political class."
Attorney General Eric Holder has threatened an investigation into the Bush/Cheney felonies. The media has posed this as antagonistic to what President Obama wishes. Maybe. Or, maybe Holder is merely playing a game to take the pressure off Obama. And even if he follows through, which I hope he does (but don't believe he will), Obama can stay removed, hands off, and lay the political fallout at the feet of his "disobedient" attorney general.
Isn't it amazing that the Congress of the United States could impeach a sitting president for lying about his sexual activity, but is unwilling to address the fact that a former president and vice president were on a regular and ongoing basis violating the Constitution and committing illegal acts?
We need a Special Prosecutor who is given all the power he/she needs to force full disclosure and complete testimony! Bush, Cheney and every creepo down the line who aided and abetted their felonious behavior needs to be called to account and brought to justice. No one is above the law.
You'll be delighted to know that Sarah isn't going to just go away quietly and shoot mooses up the northern hinterlands. Nah. She's going to travel around the country and bring all the good folks together in one party - the one's, you know, who like god, guns, and small guv'mint and teeny weeny taxes. Why, she'll even whoop it up for Democrats who believe like she does!
All of this is gonna take lots of money, of course, so her PAC has been busy, busy, busy. Dumbnuts all over this great befuddled country have sent in $733,000.
At first glance that might look like a big pile of cash. But think back to about a year ago:
That would buy just five outfits of clothes for Ms. Sarah!
Much is being written lately lamenting the fact that the American people are just plain dumb and getting dumber. For proof, if you need proof, consider the fact they elected George W. Bush not just once, but twice!
Anti-intellectualism has reared its ugly head and been crowned with glory. For proof, if you need proof, consider the fact that Sarah Palin, who is dumber than the wolves she shoots from helicopters, was actually nominated by the Republicans to run for vice-president on a ticket headed by a 72-year old cancer survivor who doesn't know the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.
Recently people in the know have complained that it is this anti-intellectualism, this dumbing down of America which has left most Americans just plain stupid when it comes to science and susceptible to the claims of biblical hucksters like Ken Ham who promote the notion the earth is a mere 6,000 years old, and do so in the face of overwhelming and irrefutable evidence that such a belief is a crock of religious shit!
Thus, a goodly percentage of our population refuses to accept the fact of evolution thinking that it's only a "theory," not having a freaking clue what the word "theory" means in scientific terms. A theory for these dumbnuts is when ol' Clem, after about six beers down at the Goodnite Saloon, says he thinks there really are little green men on the moon. Well, hell, anyone kin have a theory about thet stuff. Some folks got a theory those little green men were really blue! Don't mean nuttin!
What our scientific ignorance, perpetuated by ignoramuses at the highest levels of our government, has accomplished is to put us behind by about 20 years when it comes to effectively dealing with climate change and global warming. And that's just one example. We don't even know how much farther along we might be in terms of effectively treating certain diseases because our government ignoramuses, operating from religious and not scientific principles, cut off funding for stem-cell research!
The State of Texas, though, is a special place crawling with dumbnuts and wingnuts and christianist creatures of various mutations, and is creating generations of dumbnuts as year after year, Texas children stumble through Texas schools and out into the world where they find out they're just too goddamn dumb to do anything except be governor of Texas or president of the United States!
We've written before about the dentist from College Station, Don McLeroy, a christianist wingnut and evolution-denier, who was the chairman of the Texas State Board of Education.
He was bad enough.
McLeroy left for some reason. So Texas dumbnut governor Perry appointed another christianist wingnut to chair the Texas SBOE, one Gail Lowe. To give you an idea of what Texas children are up against, of the 15 members on the SBOE, chances are 7 or even 9 will vote as christianist fundamentalist creationists.
"Yes, teacher. I understand. Jonah was swallowed by a big fish and lived in that fish for a whole bunch of days."
"Yes, teacher, I will write down in my notes that the Christian God created everything that exists in six days, 6000 years ago, and anyone who says differently is an evil, satan-loving, god-hating, jesus-killing, atheistic, bible-destroying, rotten, no-good librul."
Much of this info comes form rackjite.com in Dumbutt, Texas. And, having lived in Texas for many years, and having great affection for the state and some of its people, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I'm still mightily pissed that Texas passed off their adopted moronic son, G. W. Bush, to the rest of the country as if he had a brain, when everyone in Texas should have known that wasn't the case!
Anyway, rackjite.com tells us that Texas just last week pulled Health Education from "the required list for Public School courses. Texas with the highest rate of child obesity, and close to the highest rates of teen pregnancies and STDs will no longer require students to learn how best to eat and how best to not get HIV and pregnant."
Then consider Gail Lowe: "She rejects the science of Global Warming and Climate Change, she will not tolerate gay friendly books in public school libraries and of course she not only believes that the Earth is 6000 years old and men live in gigantic fishes at the bottom of the sea, but wants to teach that to children in Texas Public Schools."
Finally, from Dumbutt, Texas this horrible news:
"Keepin in tune with an educational system of ever duller knives and larger guns we learn today that this same body [The State Board of Education] controlled by the Texas Taliban is planning on reducing or removing from Texas textbooks content about Abraham Lincoln (Yankee war criminal), Ceaser (sic) Chavez (Hispanic community activist) and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (Black attorney who won Brown v. Education which struck down segregation in public schools). ...
"This all in the face of an ever increasing Hispanic and Black populace. So say two of the six experts assigned to this project which includes Peter Marshall of Marshall Ministries - a Texas Preacher aligned with the Christian Constructionist movement which strives to REPLACE The Constitution with the Bible. ..."
Over at Think Progress, Ben Armbruster has enlightened us about the financial shenanigans of the Republican wingnut from Texas, Senator John Cornyn.
Cornyn, a rightwingnut christianist fundamentalist and member of the Church of Christ, has long been riding the horse of wingnuttery and in almost every case, you'll find him on the wrong side of the issue.
But, like so many of these christianist wingnuts, he pretends to be a god-fearing, loving, honest, ethical, blah, blah, blah. It's all a cover, of course. Like so many of these clowns, he's all about power and prestige and spending the taxpayer's money - either on himself or his corporate sponsors.
Here's just one example of his being on the wrong side of an issue: Back in 2005, when a certain amount of violence was perpetrated against a few judges in our country, Cornyn, with god on his side, announced that such violence was to be expected, considering that the judges were making the wrong decisions. In other words, Cornyn excused our home-grown terrorists on the grounds the judges deserved what they got because they were libruls! Read more here.
Now there's another fly in the Cornyn godly-smelling ointment. Mr. Armbruster has very thoughtfully pointed out that while Cornyn runs around pretending to be a fiscal conservative - which means that any government spending which would actually help real people he considers wasteful, stupid, reckless, perhaps even socialistic, or god forbid, communistic - the need to be fiscally conservative does apply to him; or at least to his travel expenses.
"Last month, Politico published a chart illustrating the transportation costs from the offices of all 100 U.S. Senators. Topping off the list was Cornyn, who has spent over $150,000 on travel costs during the first half of the 2009 fiscal year."
$150,000! In six months!
Well, says, Cronyn, Texas is a big state. Costs a lot of money to travel about this here big state!
It's true. That's what he said. In his own words:
"Oh yeah, not every state is the same. When you represent a state as big as Texas and traveling home from Washington, D.C. every weekend, it unfortunately costs some money."
Heh. Heh.
It's all bullshit, of course! The guy needn't go home every weekend, for one thing. He could take the goddamn train, for another. Or fly coach, not a private jet. Like real people. Who the hell does he think he is, a United States Senator?
Armbruster goes on to point out that Cornyn took his staff on a 3-day retreat to Maryland last February. This little jaunt cost $55,000. Yes, $55,000 for three days. Cronyn alone spent $17,353.
Ain't it wunnerful? Hell, a normal person could spend 17 months in Paris for $17,000!
Now, Cornyn is the fault of the good folks of Texas. They elected him because being good folks they thought it important to have a fiscally responsible, god-fearing, white guy in the Senate to watch over their interests.
Things are never going to change in this country until the people of this country wise up, learn the facts, stop believing the crap these wingnuts keep spewing out, and elect people who actually care about doing the right thing.
Mark Karlin, editor of BuzzFlash, refers to "The Family" as a "Skull and Bones like secret society of self-appointed 'Christian Super Men'..."
In an important and insightful article, Karlin excoriates the creepy christianists who inhabit the "church" on C Street.
"The members and residents at the 'C Street Family' home and spiritual warrior center forgive each other all sins, because they believe themselves supermen. They are the Leopold and Loebs of modern evangelical fanaticism, which absolves individuals who believe that they have been absolved by God from responsibility for their behavior."
Karlin points out that this is not some innocuous little group of fruitcakes playing out their religious insanity, but rather a frightening bunch of bozos who believe in their heart of hearts that their power and money is evidence that God has called them to lead the world, and because of that, any moral lapses they might incur are ultimately inconsequential and thus should be overlooked or quickly forgiven.
"The jig is up for democracy," says Karlin rightly, "if any of these men who use religion to allow for being above the moral and actual law becomes president. Bush, after all, thought he was chosen by God, when it was just the ethically defective and arrogant Antonin Scalia who put him in the White House."
The C Street Band, so named by Rachel Maddow, involves not border-line players in the game of American politics. Some of these ethically challenged lovers of Jesus and Hitler (oh, sorry, not Hitler, just Hitler's methods!) really think they can and should be president.
What we need, I think, is a complete list of everyone in the government affiliated with or in any way connected to this group. At this point, we have only a partial list: Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL), is a member; Hillary Clinton has attended "Bible studies" there. Other members include Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Ks), Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla), Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev), Gov. Mark Sanford (R-SC), and the freaky self-appointed "pastor" to Congress, Bob Schenck. But there many more of these ungodly and pretentious supermen and superwomen crawling through the halls of power who have ties to The Family.
And that is frightening!
Or, as Mr. Karlin puts it: "We endure them in elected office at grave risk to our Constitutional foundations."
Rachel Maddow follows up her reporting on the C-Street House and what secrets lie within it.
Maddow: But we start tonight with a mystery. A mystery that’s unfolding along side the two major political scandals of the summer. It’s a mystery that concerns this house, at 133 C Street Southeast in Washington D.C. I’m calling it a house because, that’s what it looks like to me and people do live there, but if you consult this building’s financial paper trail you will find that it’s actually considered to be a church. That designation makes C-Street a convenient tax free haven for the secretive organization that runs it. An organization that is known as The Family.
It also makes for some awkward tax and income questions for the at least five, probably seven members of Congress who live at the house in exchange for what appears to be substantially below market rent. As explained by our guest last night, Jeff Sharlet who secretly infiltrated The Family to write a book about them, the C-Street house is a former convent. It’s used as a sort of subsidized, really upscale dorm for members of Congress who are associated with this powerful, poorly understood religious group.
The Family and the house at C-Street have ended up reluctantly in the headlines now because of the two major politicians’ sex scandals that are embroiling the Republican party this summer, and that have taken two of their reported 2012 presidential hopefuls out of political contention.
Embattled Sen. John Ensign lives at the C-Street house. The husband of Sen. Ensign’s mistress says that prominent members of The Family and this religious group including the sons of the group’s founder, as well as other members of congress who live at C-Street were both aware of Ensign’s secret affair, and were involved in his efforts to pay off the mistress and her family as the affair was on again, off again, ending. Republican Sen. Tom Coburn lives at C-Street with Ensign. He has said he encouraged Ensign to end the affair, but he has denied the allegation that he specifically encouraged Sen. Ensign to pay the mistress off to the tune of millions of dollars.
South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford mentioned C-Street by name in his long public statement of regret about his affair with a woman in Argentina.
[…..]
Hard questions. Gov. Sanford said he was working with C-Street, somehow about his affair for months while the affair was ongoing, while it was still secret, and while Gov. Sanford continued to lie about it publicly. This is the first point about C-Street and The Family that makes the group more than just a cameo appearance in both of these sex scandals. In both incidences these powerful, family values preaching, conservative politicians who were themselves having adulterous affairs, say now that they disclosed those affairs to other members of congress, and other people affiliated with this secretive religious group for a long time, while the affairs continued, and while they were kept secret from the world at large. This organization was allowed to know but nobody was, nobody else was.
Zach Wamp of Tennessee is a Republican member of congress who says he has lived in the C-Street house for twelve years. Today he told the Knoxville News Sentinel that the members of congress who live there are sworn to secrecy. Quoting from the News Sentinel “The C-Street residents have all agreed they won’t talk about their private living arrangements, Wamp said, and he intends to honor that pact.” “I hate it that John Ensign lives in the house and this happened because it opens up all kinds of these questions,” Wamp said. But he said, “I’m not going to be the guy who goes out and talks.”
When you start looking into this organization and its members oaths to the secrecy and fidelity to one another, that “I’m not going to be the one who talks” here theme, looms very large. But last year, when Jeff Sharlet’s book about The Family first came out in hardback, the resultant buzz around the secrecy and high level connections of The Family and the C-Street house spurred NBC’s Andrea Mitchell to obtain sermons of the groups long time leader, Doug Coe.
In order to find out more about what this group’s agenda might be. Here’s some of what she found.
[…..]
Every American’s faith is her or his own business. It’s our constitutional inheritance as Americans. There’s no religious test for public office. There’s no official religion in this country. And every American has a right to believe or not to believe. To worship, or not worship as he or she sees fit. This is a private matter in this country. And religion is the organizing principle of many, many powerful interests in the United States, including this one, very connected, sworn to secrecy, ministry only to the powerful, that has had a key role in how two major Republican sex scandals have unspooled this summer, that has a theology of power that is poorly understood, and cites Hitler a lot, and that currently houses at least seven members of congress, in what it calls, a church.
Rachel followed this segment with another interview with Jeff Sharlet. It would be nice to see this whole story blown wide open and every member of "The Family" having to explain their membership. They sound more like members of the mafia with this secret society and their "cells" than anyone who should be running our government.
Ed McMahon died this week. He was a great entertainer, but prior to his stage accomplishments he was a distinguished Marine Corps fighter pilot in WWII earning six Air Medals. He was discharged in 1946 and volunteered to fly again in the Korean War. He joined the CA Air National Guard and was later promoted to the rank of Brigadier General.
Farrah Fawcett died this week after a long career in Hollywood as an actress. After she was diagnosed with cancer, she became an activist for cancer treatment and devoted her last remaining years encouraging people to seek treatment. She documented her plight on film and used it to encourage others to stay positive and upbeat despite their diagnosis and suffering.
Karl Malden died this week after a long career in Hollywood as an actor. He also served in the US Air Force during WWII and also served on the US Postal Service committee to review and recommend commemorative stamps. In 2005, the US House of Representatives authorized the US Postal Service to rename a Los Angeles post office the Karl Malden Postal Station.
Michael Jackson died this week. He was perhaps one of the greatest singers of modern time. He will also be remembered for his eccentric lifestyle that included sleeping with a chimpanzee, living in a carnival-like atmosphere at Neverland, his fascination with Peter Pan, and his numerous masks and costumes. He also admitted to finding pleasure sleeping with young boys and paying out millions of dollars in settlements to the families of these boys despite being acquitted by a court on one allegation of sexual molestation.
QUESTION 1) - Which of the above did the House of Representatives declare a moment of silence for today? (Hint - It wasn't the first three)
QUESTION 2) - Which of the above's family received a personal note of condolence from President Obama? (Hint - It wasn't the first three)
Everyone knew, of course, that Barack Obama would not live up to all the expectations of his supporters. But the planned nomination of Francis Collins to head the National Institutes of Health is quite disappointing.
Not that Collins is a raging fundamentalist, but he is a "true" believer who considers life on earth as a creation of the Christian god, and has referred to it as complex, beautiful and "God's most divine and sacred gift."
Not that Collins is not an intelligent man. As Liliana Segura writes, "Collin's claim to fame is having led the Human Genome Project, the ambitious scientific endeavor that achieved a landmark goal: unlocking the DNA code of humanity."
So, what's the problem?
The problem takes shape in this question: Can a person be considered a "true" scientist whose "science" is based upon the religious beliefs that 1) there is a god whose nature is encompassed by Christian theology, and 2) that this god is responsible for everything we observe and experience?
Here's how the problem rears its ugly head. Segura quotes a article from The New Scientist which discusses the BioLogos Foundation, described as "the brainchild of geneticist Francis Collins ... Along with 'a team of scientists who believe in God' and some cash from the Templeton Foundation, Collins, an evangelical Christian who is also a staunch proponent of evolution, is on a crusade to convince believers that faith and science need not be at odds. He is promoting 'theistic evolution' -- the belief that God (the prayer-listening, proactive, personal God of Christianity) chose to create life by way of evolution."
That way sound fairly sensible, but anyone on a "crusade" is worrisome! And as Segura points out:
"As the head of NIH, Collins will oversee a massive research budget; $37 billion in research grants and $4 billion on research programs ... With the years President George W. Bush spent mixing faith and politics (often at the expense of science), an all-too recent memory for many Americans, one might be forgiven for recoiling in horror at the thought of Collins heading up one of the country's most prestigious medical research institutions."
Collins is not a fundamentalist and is, in fact, opposed by the christianist wingnuts. Still, his nomination raises the hackles of those who really don't want to see another Christian "crusader" heading up another government entity - especially one that will direct where and how billions of dollars of research monies are spent.
If you have not yet read Jeff Sharlet's The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, it would behoove you to do so as soon as possible.
The following was copied from Crooks & Liars Video Cafe:
I was listening to the Thom Hartmann show the other day, and Thom was interviewing an author that caught my attention. Little wonder since the topic was "Is there a secret society of Christian crazies and is Mark Sanford a member?".
That author was Jeff Sharlet and after listening to to Hartmann interview, I wondered if anyone in the main stream media would put him on the air. Of course, Rachel Maddow, who seems to be getting all of the best guests lately-- or at least when the "news" hasn't been canceled all week for Michael Jackson's death and she mysteriously ends up taking vacation the same week-- ended up being the first one to have him on.
Sharlet is the author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. Scary, scary stuff for any of us that don't like the idea of our government being run by creepy, extremist, right wing Christain fundamentalists.
Sharlet also wrote a piece for Rolling Stone on Sam Brownback which is well worth the read back in 2006 titled God's Senator: Who would Jesus vote for? Meet Sam Brownback.
Maddow: As part of the research for the book, Jeff lived among the family and saw many of its actions first hand. [...] What is C-Street? I know it's a house on C Street in Washington. How is it part of the family?
Sharlet: Well, the C-Street house is actually a former convent and now it's registered as a church and it's run by The Family and used by them to provide housing for six to eight congressmen at any given time, and to provide spiritual counseling for these congressmen.
Which all sounds fine so far, but what makes it a little bit different than other Christian conservative organizations, two things, you said that it's secretive. Indeed the leader of the group describes, he says, the more invisible you can make your organization, the more influence it will have. And the other things is the nature of the influence they want to have.
I got to sit in on one of these spiritual counseling sessions between the leader of the family and Congressman Todd Tiahrt when I visited the C-Street House, I actually met Sen. Ensign there. As the leader of The Family was counseling Congressman Tiahrt, he had this very standard issue, bill of issues related to the Christian right. He said you've got to have a bigger vision of what we're talking about here. He called it Jesus plus nothing.
He said it's sort of a totalitarian idea of Christianity and he gave as examples men who he believed understood the way power should be wielded. He actually gave as examples, Hitler, Pol Pot, Osama bin Laden and Lenin.
Maddow: Wow. When I read your book, The Family, when it first came out in hardback, my notes on um, I write notes in the flyleaf about what I was thinking about. And my notes about it, I went back and looked, were that it was essentially to promote, it saw its role as promoting American power, world wide, unfettered capitalism with no unions, no programs to help poor people, all with this idea that godly powerful rich men should get as many resources as possible personally, and they should just privately help everyone else. That is the impression that I was left with. Was I close?
Sharlet: That's dead on the money. The family began, it's the oldest Christian conservative organization in Washington and it goes back seventy years. And the founder believed that god gave him a new revelation saying that Christianity had gotten it wrong for two thousand years and that what most people think of as Christianity, as being about, you know, helping the weak and the poor and the meek and the down and out, he believes god came to him one night in April in 1935 and said what Christianity should really be about is building more power for the already powerful. And that these powerful men who were chosen by god can then if they want to dispense blessings to the rest of us, through a kind of trickle-down fundamentalism.
Maddow: Well do you see a connection between that large sort of power theology and the fact that neither John Ensign or Mark Sanford for that matter, who's also affiliated with the group, aren't quitting despite these scandals. Is there something about this type of theology that tells these guys, hey don't worry about the affair, you know, big picture, you're good, stay where you are, it's important for you to stay in power?
Sharlet: Yeah, no, I think actually Gov. Sanford made it very clear when he cited King David as an example of the reason why he wasn't going to be resigning office and that struck a bell with me because I, the King David story, the core teaching of The Family, when I first heard it, I was living with The Family.
One of the leaders of The Family was explaining why King David was important and it's not because he was a good man. It's because he was a bad man. You know, he seduced another man's wife, he actually had the husband murdered and he once explained why this was a model and he said it to one of the men in the group. He said, suppose I heard you raped three little girls. What would I think of you? And this guy, being a human being says, you would think I was a monster. Well, the leader of The Family says no, not at all because you're chosen. You're chosen by god for leadership, and so the normal rules don't apply.
Maddow: When Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina talked about his relationship to this group, he's also lived at the C-Street House, he described the group to the AP years ago, six years ago by saying "We do have a bible study...somebody'll share a verse or a thought, but mostly it's more of an accountability group to talk about things that are going on in our lives, and how we're dealing with them". And you've written that members of The Family give each other veto power over their lives, which, with these two scandals, I mean looking at the John Ensign scandal, how does a group like that not veto putting the mistress' kids on the Republican party payroll? How does that not get outed by this group?
Sharlet: Well, because the responsibility of the other men in your accountability group, and I would say by the way, you don't have accountability behind closed doors, that's the opposite of accountability, what these other men are doing is they're saying, alright, we're going to look out for you. Sort of self interest by proxy and what they're calling accountability is a man might bring to the group for instance that he is having an affair with another woman, or the fact that he is perhaps corrupt in some way and so on, and these guys are going to deal with it internally.
Maddow: Wow.
Sharlet: Very much behind closed doors, and we as a group actually once said, what we do is, to use this pretentious Latin phrase, beyond the din of the vox populi. What it means is beyond the voice of the people.
Maddow: Jeff Sharlet is an editor at Harper's Magazine. He's also the author of the book The Family, and if you think this has incredible implications for domestic politics and hypocrisy and affairs, wait till you read about third world dictators and how these guys empower them.
Ms. Prissy Palin just ain't gonna win in a war of words with Dave Letterman. Hell, she wouldn't win in any war involving words with a 12-year old middle school student!
This swearing-in has been too long delayed by the alleged corrupt former senator from Minnesota, some guy by name of Coleman. Al Franken is a liberal, a thinker, an extremely intelligent man who will be a wonderful addition to this august body. He's also funny.
Many other senators are funny, too. But in their case, as we used to say when we were kids, they are funny as in strange!
As you watch this video clip, you might ask yourself why there are so many empty seats. The Republicans, also known as the disloyal opposition, seem to be absent. But aren't they the ones, with tears running down their chalky cheeks, who have been wailing about the need for "bipartisanship"?
Perhaps bipartisanship does not include the swearing in of a Democratic senator. Of course it doesn't. Silly me! Bipartisanship, in Republican terms, means the Democrats kiss the Republicans' collective asses and ask the Republicans how they can assist the Republicans in pushing the Republican legislative agenda through Congress!
Now that you've seen this truly evil and untrue advertisement for Jesus from Answers in Genesis, watch the video.
These are very sick puppies!
If you're interested in reading the truth about Sweden (and the other Scandinavian countries and their "godless" societies), pick up a copy of Phil Zuckerman's book, Society Without God.
Bishop Spong hits several nails on the head here. There is no hell; hell is an invention of the church. The church hates like hell to give up hell because hell is a means of controlling the hoi polloi and the church is in the business of controlling people!
This is appropos of nothing much, but it's truly funny. It's an Evian water commercial and in French, but the language is of no consequence. I got it from a friend in France who has thought about having another baby but after watching this is not sure that's a good idea.
This is all over the blogosphere, so it's not exactly news, but Bernie Madoff has hired a prison consultant to help find him the "best" or most appropriate prison in which to spend the rest of his miserable life.
What the hell's going on here?
There seems to be a consensus among "those that know" that Bernie will not enjoy the luxury of the so-called "country-club" facilities because he was a very, very bad boy!
But, he doesn't want to go to a really dangerous prison, either. My god, he's an old man and can't really defend himself, and can you imagine the damage some redneck white supremacist might do to him in the showers?
When Madoff received his 150-year sentence, the judge did recommend he not be thrown to the wolves in one of those famous hell-holes where the worst of the worst roam around foaming at the mouth.
But, the judge can only recommend. Now, if Madoff is allowed to say anything about his future, he can call up his consultant's recommendations and plead his case. But the ultimate decision is made by the Bureau of Prisons.
What the hell is going on here? Who gives a rat's ass what Madoff wants? While maybe not a violent serial killer, he sure ruined the lives of a lot of people!
He hires a prison consultant?
Please. May the BOP ignore his pleas and give the old nasty what he deserves. For 150 years!
"Abandoning your office and your state, while patting yourself on the back and framing your dereliction as some sort of selfless, patriotic act isn't narcissistic. It's pathological."
This is a summary quote of an excellent article on Ms. Palin's resignation speech. You can read it in its entirety here.
Jeb Bush, ex-governor of the state of Florida, has said previously on several occasions that he was not going to run for prezident of the United States.
Who could blame him, considering that his brother, George W., is the most disliked prezident in history and was such a massive failure that the history books will need to be greatly expanded just to summarize all his dirty deeds and his incomprehensible stupidity?
But blood, as they say, is thicker than water, and Jeb is a chip off the old block, as they also say, and daddy thinks he should run and would be a good prezident, so now it appears that Jeb may be considering, God help us!, to offer himself to the American people as a candidate for the White House.
According to Deeky at Shakesville, "Recent robocalls to Iowa asked potential voters which of the following they'd most likely vote for: Huckabee, Palin, Gingrich, Jindal, or Jeb Bush ... "
What a group, huh? Huckabee, the self-anointed spokesperson for God and righteousness, who believes in a fundamentalist Christian theocratic state; Palin, who's too damn stupid to walk upright without help; serial adulterer and now convert to the Roman Catholic institution, the ever nasty Grinch, Gingrich; Jindal, another convert to Roman Catholicism who does exorcisms in his spare time, never letting his substantial intellect get in the way of pious religious extremism...and then there's Jeb Bush.
You might think Jeb is less likely to lead America into a nuclear holocaust because he doesn't have a stupid grin on his face all the time like his dumber brother, but don't be fooled. Jeb is a dyed-in-the-wool right wing fanatic, and another Roman Catholic convert who tends toward theocracy, dogmatism and reliance on authority - his!
As governor of Florida, he screwed up the entire educational enterprise with a system of testing that did nothing but dumb down the school population. He was also a vociferous fighter for vouchers so parents could send their kids to private (read religious, read Catholic) schools on the public's dime. He further fought for the right of the religious right to impose their non-scientific "Intelligent Design" crap on our high school students - you know, on the basis that students ought to know about different interpretations as to how life came to be.
Jeb was also a big fan of providing private entrepreneurs (of which he is one, with the help of moneyed friends!) the ability to dip their grubby little hands into the public pot...and so we have, in part, a private prison system, which doesn't seem to have worked out too well!
Under Jeb, the rich got richer and the poor got poorer, 'cause the rich were granted the right to pay less taxes and the state's infrastructure went to hell -- Florida's bridges are, in truth, falling down.
And, well, we don't even want to begin to talk about 2000!
Jeb is just another Bush in a suit sans cowboy hat. He carries all the elitist baggage of the Bush family and if you haven't yet read Russ Baker's Family of Secrets - The Bush Dynasty, The Powerful Forces That Put It In The White House, And What Their Influence Means For America, get thyself to a bookstore!
You may think George was a nightmare. Jeb will make that nightmare look like a pleasant dream!
But, hey, Daddy think's he's a "good" man and would be a "good" prezident. The problem with that is that Daddy doesn't know the different between good and goofus.
He's baaaack! Sam or Joe the plumber showed up in Florida yesterday, July 4, at a Tea Party to protest the government's rapacious tax policies...I caught just the tail end of it, but I believe it was in the town of Apopka that the dimwit paraded his nonsense. There's a lot of nonsense "paraded" about on July 4th.
Sam (Joe), as you recall, is the unlicensed plumber who failed to pay his taxes, but was nevertheless put on a pedestal by the Republican Party as a symbol of the "average" working American for whom the Republican Party lives and dies.
Oh, stop laughing. That's true!
This empty-headed twit spoke yesterday about how the government is bad and taxes are bad and he has the answers. What are those answers? Hmmm. He did suggest that people ought to read the Constitution. Other than that, I'm not sure. Don't pay your taxes?
Now, Joe (Sam) admitted one time that he'd probably take "handouts" from the guv'mint when he retired, albeit reluctantly...even though, if he was truly a working man he would have paid in substantial monies to the government in order to get some of it back.
Sam (Joe) further failed to mention how he would pay for police and fire protection, construction and repair of roads, regulation of airplanes, trucks and railroads, prisons, schools, and lifeguards, etc., etc., if people didn't pay their taxes.
Nevertheless, the hoi polloi stood around, applauded his "stimulating" rhetoric, took pictures of his bald head, and generally acted patriotic. Patriotism comes alive on July 4th, you know. In Florida, all true patriots buy illegal fireworks (they have to lie to get them) and then proceed to blow up hundreds of dollars worth of the stuff in their driveways, threatening to burn down their neighbor's houses and drive the local animals into hiding.
Not so long ago, I read that Joe (Sam) might enter politics. It depends on what God tells him to do. But wouldn't it be nice to have a "real" Uncle Sam?
Sarah Palin has resigned as governor of Alaska and will leave office at the end of July. Lucky Alaska! Can you imagine this airhead in a national office? Once again, we're reminded of the fact we narrowly avoided a national meltdown. It seemed possible not so long ago that the next president might be the increasingly dotty John McCain and the next vice president might be the strident, nasal, whiny, nitwit from Alaska.
The gods must have been smiling on us.
Here's her resignation speech. I'd suggest one try to make some sense of it, but that would be like trying to understand the New Testament book of Revelation. It can't be done!
People like the late Ronnie Reagan and other B-grade movie actors cum politicians enjoy pretending the guv'mint is bad and that we need less guv'mint interference in our lives. They say such things, not because they are stoopid, necessarily, but because they live on the basis of outdated credos and slogans geared to keep the hoi polloi in their place.
