Unavoidable Conclusions To an Ongoing Train Wreck

Welcome to the Darkest Timeline (via Ken White at The Atlantic).

Federal prosecutors filed three briefs late on Friday portending grave danger for three men: the former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, the former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, and President Donald Trump...

In brief No. 1, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office argues that Paul Manafort breached his cooperation agreement with the government by lying to the FBI and the Special Counsel’s Office in the course of 12 meetings. The brief oozes a level of confidence notable even among professionally hubristic prosecutors: Mueller says he’s ready to present witnesses and documents, and that he gave Manafort’s lawyers an opportunity to refute the evidence but they could not. Mueller is sure he has the receipts.

According to the brief, Manafort lied about his communications with the reputed Russian intelligence agent Konstantin Kilimnik, whom Mueller has scrutinized as a possible conduit between the Trump campaign and the Russian government... Mueller also asserts that Manafort lied about some of the payments he received and about an investigation in another district—possibly, based on the context, the Southern District of New York investigation of Michael Cohen and the president. Finally, and of great concern to the White House, Mueller claims that Manafort lied about his contacts with the Trump administration before his guilty plea, and that text messages, documents, and witnesses prove that he was in contact with administration officials...

In brief No. 2, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York asks a federal judge to sentence the former Trump attorney Michael Cohen to a “substantial term of imprisonment”—meaning between three and four years...

The New York prosecutors blast Cohen’s “rose-colored view of the seriousness of his crimes,” accusing him of a “pattern of deception that permeated his professional life.” Prosecutors portray Cohen as stubbornly obstructing his own accountant to cheat at taxes, even refusing to pay for accounting work that raised inconvenient issues he wanted suppressed...  Cohen, they say, schemed to pay for two women’s stories (Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, we now know) in violation of campaign-finance laws in order to influence the 2016 election, and did so “in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1”—that is, the President of the United States...

And that brings us to brief No. 3: Special Counsel Mueller’s separate sentencing brief in Cohen’s lying-to-Congress case. He does not recommend a sentence but informs the court about the nature of Cohen’s assistance to his office. Mueller discloses that Cohen has “taken significant steps to mitigate his criminal conduct” by pleading guilty to lying to Congress and meeting with the special counsel seven times to discuss his own conduct and other “core topics under investigation.” That includes information about multiple cases of contact between other Trump-campaign officials and the Russian government, and about Cohen’s contact with the White House in 2017 and 2018, suggesting an ongoing inquiry into obstruction of justice...

Just to note, the Obstruction of Justice relates to trump firing James Comey for refusing to stop the investigation on Michael Flynn, a retired general and major trump campaign player who was in deep with Russians already and was tagged as a serious security risk.

Everywhere in this mess of trump scandal, there are Russians. Russian business partners. Russian contacts. Russian handlers and GRU agents. At some point we're going to find red trump hats reading Druzhishche (buddy).

How serious a breach of national integrity is this?

I normally don't quote from Wired magazine, and you wouldn't normally think it would have any political insight to give. But Wired is tied into network security issues - which is where all the Russian hacking/subversion of our national security comes into play - so they would have a reason to comment. Or at least Garrett Graff would:

WE ARE DEEP into the worst case scenarios. But as new sentencing memos for Trump associates Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen make all too clear, the only remaining question is how bad does the actual worst case scenario get...?

A year ago, Lawfare’s Benjamin Wittes and Quinta Jurecic outlined seven possible scenarios about Trump and Russia, arranged from most innocent to most guilty. Fifth on that list was “Russian Intelligence Actively Penetrated the Trump Campaign—And Trump Knew or Should Have Known,” escalating from there to #6 “Kompromat,” and topping out at the once unimaginable #7, “The President of the United States is a Russian Agent.”

After the latest disclosures, we’re steadily into Scenario #5, and can easily imagine #6...

In fact, what’s remarkable about the once-unthinkable conclusions emerging from the special counsel’s investigation thus far is how, well, normal Russia’s intelligence operation appears to have been as it targeted Trump’s campaign and the 2016 presidential election. What intelligence professionals would call the assessment and recruitment phases seems to have unfolded with almost textbook precision, with few stumbling blocks and plenty of encouragement from the Trump side.

Mueller’s court filings, when coupled with other investigative reporting, paint a picture of how the Russian government, through various trusted-but-deniable intermediaries, conducted a series of “approaches” over the course of the spring of 2016 to determine, as Wittes says, whether “this is a guy you can do business with.”

The answer, from everyone in Trumpland—from Michael Cohen in January 2016, from George Papadopoulos in spring 2016, from Donald Trump, Jr. in June 2016, from Michael Flynn in December 2016—appears to have been an unequivocal “yes.”

Mueller and various reporting have shown that the lieutenants in Trump’s orbit rebuffed precisely zero of the known Russian overtures. In fact, quite the opposite. Each approach was met with enthusiasm, and a request for more.

Given every opportunity, most Trump associates—from Paul Manafort to Donald Trump, Jr. to George Papadopoulos—not only allegedly took every offered meeting, and returned every email or phone call, but appeared to take overt action to encourage further contact. Not once did any of them inform the FBI of the contacts...

What we are uncovering - something I'd long noted and what Graff is highlighting now - is not only a Presidential campaign willing to break election laws but also willing to betray our nation to a foreign power, driven entirely by a lust for everything that foreign power offered them.

I admit to personal bias. I wholeheartedly believe with only the partial evidence shown of Worst Case Scenario #7: trump AS A RUSSIAN AGENT. Straight up treason.

But here's the upsetting thing. Scenario #7 isn't the breaking point. Scenario #5 - where Russians actively infiltrated a Presidential campaign and trump knew/should have known - is just as bad as #7. This is the level where any honest citizen would have stopped and said "No". This is the point where a legal campaign would have drawn a line. ANY foreign intervention into our internal decision-making - our elections - would be tantamount to betraying every American living or dead who stood for our own nation's sovereign status.

trump and his Inner Circle crossed that line. They never said "No," they said "Yes" and repeatedly. They did it with eyes open and arms wide. Violating national security protocols we have in place to prevent foreign meddling, to stop foreign espionage and spying. They propped the door and let every crook in, because they are crooks themselves.

We're openly seeing evidence of Scenario #5 for trump's campaign, and every bit of it points to acts of treason.

And Cohen's revelations point to Russia being involved since the damned PRIMARIES, when trump was kneecapping Republican candidates from Jeb to Rubio to Kasich to Cruz to every other wanna-be who were left whimpering on the sidelines wondering how the hell they were beat. How does it feel, Republicans? HOW DOES IT FEEL TO KNOW YOUR OWN PRIMARY WAS COMPROMISED BY PUTIN?

To quote my boss Betty Cracker at Balloon Juice:

But here’s what matters: If Trump isn’t brought to justice, the United States of America will cease to exist as a sovereign nation. It’s frightening to face that fact, but face it we must because a criminal gang has seized the executive branch. We and our fellow citizens will either root them out, or we’ll pretend accept that this is just how things are now.

Welcome to the Darkest Timeline. Welcome to the Second Civil War, between us and Putin's Puppets.

Get to work saving the United States. STOP trump NOW. STOP THE REPUBLICAN PARTY FROM STEALING THE REST OF US. 'Cause right now, it's not really trump or the Republicans profiting from this crime. It's Putin. And the United States is going to suffer if he wins outright.

A Tale Of Two Books (2015)

I need to get this review done before the year does.

I bought these two books at the same time.

This was back in July, when they were released to the public at roughly the same time.

Harper Lee's book was the more promoted and anticipated work. If you lived through high school American Lit, you read To Kill A Mockingbird. It was unavoidable: Lee's magnum opus about growing up in 1930s Deep South, a searing indictment of racism and cultural violence. It'd been rumored for decades that Lee wrote a follow-up book - it was in fact her original work, but her publisher talked her into re-writing with a focus on her main character's childhood and on father Atticus Finch - that had disappeared. It had actually been misplaced, and when it popped up there had been a bit of a legal and public scuffle over whether or not to publish Go Set a Watchman at all. Once the crying and the thou-shall-nots subsided, it went to market and broke several sales records... and quickly stirred up a whole new hornet's nest of trouble, which I shall discuss in short order.

Ta-Nehisi Coates' book had received some fanfare before release, due to Coates' growing reputation in the political punditry circles from his years of writing for The Atlantic and other publications, but his fame was nowhere near Lee's and his book Between the World and Me was a modest success compared to Watchman. But it received near-universal acclaim, won awards, and became the most-talked-about political essay - with people praising it or debunking it - of the year.

I bought both, and wanted to read both, and want to discuss both at the same time because both works deal with perhaps the key issue of the American idea of itself: the issue of racism, observed from differing points of view. From Lee's perspective as a liberal southern White of the then-Civil Rights struggle of the Fifties, and from Coates' perspective as an urban Black of the post-Civil Rights / Reagan era enduring the realities of a still-racist socio-political system.

Go Set A Watchman opens on the return of an adult Scout (aka Jean Louise) to the backwoods home town of Maycomb, Alabama. On a visit to see her aging father Atticus, Jean Louise confronts some of the still-standing cultural norms - the Jim Crow segregation - of the Deep South in the mid-1950s.

Watchman turns on a pivotal moment - Chapter 8 in fact - where Jean Louise discovers a shocking truth about her own father, someone she had viewed as a paragon among lesser mortals. Page 100 (of the hardcover) in fact, and Lee even gives us the time of hour when all illusions are shattered:

...Jean Louise was snatched from her quiet realm and left alone to protect her sensitive epidermis as best she could, on a humid Sunday afternoon at precisely 2:28 PM...

She discovers a pamphlet hidden among Atticus' reading materials. It's titled the Black Plague, and she takes some time to read it:

When she had finished, she took the pamphlet by one of its corners, held it like she would hold a dead rat by the tail, and walked into the kitchen. She held the pamphlet in front of her aunt.
"What is this thing?" she said.
Alexandra looked over her glasses at it. "Something of your father's."
Jean Louise stepped on the garbage can trigger and threw the pamphlet in.
"Don't do that," said Alexandra, "They're hard to come by these days."
(p.102)

That sound you heard when 500,000 readers got to those pages were a lot of hearts and souls getting broken all at the same time finding out that Atticus, dear old Atticus of To Kill A Mockingbird who stood up against the injustice of racism, was really racist all along.

It gets worse for Jean Louise as she hurries off to sneak into the meeting Atticus and his law partner Henry - and would-be suitor for Jean Louise - had scheduled that afternoon. She discovers it's a Citizen's Council meeting, and they're listening to a racist preacher espouse hatred to a nodding crowd. Confronting both Atticus and Henry about it, her outrage grows to the point where she plans on leaving the small town - and her family - forever.

Watchman has its flaws as a novel. You'd expect that from a publication that went to print without any editorial controls - we're essentially reading a rough draft because Lee's legal guardians were likely wary of having anyone "tweak" the novel and face accusations it wasn't really Lee's work - and with little realization how Watchman has continuity errors with Mockingbird. For starters, the centerpiece of Mockingbird - the rape trial involving Tom Robinson - turned out differently in Watchman where Atticus won the case - in 1930s Alabama?!?! - by arguing the "rape" was consensual. Someone with an eye towards making both novels fit their same histories would have fixed that to fit the more tragic ending in Mockingbird.

Where Watchman has a strength is its frank revelation of how pervasive racism was - still is - in the American Deep South.

One of the darker parts of the book is the final confrontation Jean Louise has, this time with her uncle - a doctor no less - who physically slaps her and then chews HER out for being prejudiced and narrow-minded judging her father. Domestic violence issue aside, a modern reader would notice the practice of "blaming the victim" here as Dr. Finch points out how Jean Louise has her own biases blinding her to how everyone has their own watchman, their own conscience, and that despite her realizations that Atticus is racist he still raised her to "set her own watchman" (hence the book title). The book ends with that tone, with Jean Louise reaching some kind of rapprochement with her father - Atticus expressing that's proud of her for standing her ground, Jean Louise admitting that Atticus has a point about the civil rights movement "moving too fast" and that she still loves him - although the events of the weekend have changed warmth to wariness.

It's a weak ending, but it's one that fits within the context of the 1950s when it was written. Racism was so ingrained into the cultural norms not only of the Deep South but across much of the nation. And it's not the blatant racism - the burning crosses, the hanging nooses - that Harper Lee is focusing on in this novel, it's the unthinking and reflexive kind that she brings up: the sharing of racist literature among the community, the public meetings of "councils" to discuss how to keep "outside" agitators like the NAACP from disrupting their segregated towns, the small-town mindset to "keep it in the community" and do things the way they've always been done.

To the modern reader, one who's lived through - been born after in a lot of cases - the civil rights movement of the 1960s and into the post-Jim Crow world of the late 20th Century, Watchman has a nostalgic aura but one that shines a light on the hypocrisy of that era. But it's also a light that shines on the hypocrisy of our own modern decade of the 21st Century... because Ta-Nehisi Coates' book highlights how all those sins Harper Lee wrote about back in the 1950s are still with us.

Between the World and Me is slightly misleading in that while the book is written in the style of letters from a father to his young son, BtWaM it's really Coates writing to the rest of us about how it was - how it still is - for a young Black child to grow up a Black man (or woman) in a United States where nearly every institution - the schools, the police, the law, the government, the businesses, the communities - viewed Black Americans as "property"... and how that property can be destroyed by the whims and needs of those institutions:

The new people are not original in this. Perhaps there has been, at some point in history, some great power whose elevation was exempt from the violent exploitation of other human bodies... But this banality of violence can never excuse America, because America makes no claim to the banal, America believes itself exceptional, the greatest and noblest nation ever to exist... I propose to take our countrymen's claims of American Exceptionalism seriously, which is to say I propose subjecting our country to an exceptional moral standard. This is difficult because there exists, all around us, an apparatus urging us to accept American innocence at face value and not to inquire too much... (p. 8)

Coates' work is coming at a pivotal time in modern America, as awareness to how Black lives are suffering at this very moment:

I write you in your fifteenth year. I am writing you because this was the year you saw Eric Garner choked to death for selling cigarettes; because you know now that Renisha McBride was shot for seeking help; that John Crawford was shot down for browsing in a department store.  And you have seen men in uniform drive by and murder Tamir Rice, a twelve-year-old child whom they were oath-bound to protect. And you have seen men in the same uniforms pummel Marlene Pinnock, someone's grandmother, on the side of a road. And you know now, if you did not before, that the police departments of your country have been endowed with the authority to destroy your body. It does not matter if the destruction is the result of an unfortunate overreaction... Resent the body trying to entrap your body and it can be destroyed... And destruction is merely the superlative form of a dominion whose prerogatives include friskings, detainings, beatings, and humiliations. All of this is common to black people. And all of this is old for black people. No one is held responsible. (p. 9)

Coates details for his teen son his own horrors of growing up, his own childhood fears, fully aware of the psychological breakdown that haunted his black community then and since. One incident in particular haunts Coates and appears often in BtWaM: the death of fellow Howard student Prince Jones, whose only crime was to drive through an affluent neighborhood in the DC metro and ended up shot to death by a county policeman (and outside of his jurisdiction). Angered by the injustice, Coates then had to come to terms with the facts that the cop who shot Jones was black, worked for a county government and chain of command with black leadership, and yet it all still marginalized and destroyed black lives. To this Coates sees a nation and a world of rules designed to take rather than liberate or restore:

This need to be always on guard was an unmeasured expenditure of energy, the slow siphoning of the essence... So I feared not just the violence of this world but the rules designed to protect you from it, the rules that would have you contort again to be taken seriously by colleagues, and contort again so as not to give the police a reason... this is how we lose our softness. This is how they steal our right to smile... It struck me that perhaps the defining feature of being drafted into the black race was the inescapable robbery of time, because the moments we spent readying the mask, or readying ourselves to accept half as much, could not be recovered... (p.90-91)

Where Lee's two books provided the view of America from the White perspective - where the American Dream of quiet neighborhoods with picket fences and happy singing birds, no matter how benign the intentions are to make this so - Coates' book provides the view from the Black perspective where the American Dream was founded, funded and built upon the destruction of black neighborhoods where intent does not matter, only the destruction does.

This is where racism becomes and remains the great original sin of the United States. Willing to divide ourselves, by those who profit and achieve power by those institutions that enforce such divisions, the United States cannot claim the purity of exceptionalism the nation claims as its identity.

Halfway through Watchman, Atticus takes on a case for a young black man charged with vehicular manslaughter who turns out to be Calpurnia's - the housekeeper for the Finches in Mockingbird - great-grandson. However, Jean Louise finds out he's only doing so to stop the NAACP from coming in and taking over the defense. Dismayed, she visits Calpurnia's family on her own to offer some form of condolences and try to put a positive spin on her father's taking the case, but the meeting becomes strained because Calpurnia knows why Atticus is doing what he's doing:

She looked into the old woman's face and she knew it was hopeless. Calpurnia was watching her, and in Calpurnia's eyes was no hint of compassion.
Jean Louise rose to go. "Tell me one thing, Cal," she said, "just one thing before I go -- please, I've got to know. Did you hate us?"
The old woman sat silent, bearing the burden of her years. Jean Louise waited.
Finally, Calpurnia shook her head. (p.160)

Calpurnia has to think it over before giving her answer. SHE HAS TO THINK ABOUT IT.

That's what racism does to this nation. It makes people like Jean Louise have to ask if she and fellow whites were/are hated, it makes Calpurnia have to sit there and think through the slights and wounds she had endured because of it, it's left Prince Jones and Tamir Rice and Trayvon Martin dead before their times, it's put a warning sign on Ta-Nehisi's son that all of this will happen to him.

This is a tale of two books. It is a tale of one nation divided into pieces over our nation's deadly sin.
 

Things We Learned in 2015

As the year comes to a close, these lessons:

• There is no such thing as Peak Wingnut. The Republican Party has gone so far Right Wing that there's no sign they can ever move back to any moderate stance on any issue.
• Any act of effective government actually angers the Far Right. They're already turning on the once-fair-haired-golden-boy Paul Ryan because as Speaker he actually avoided a government shutdown and passed a workable budget.
• Having the Presidential campaigns start in 2015 rather than its actual election year of 2016 gave us a whole year of sound and fury. On the one hand, all that fury has exposed the Republican voting base and the candidates they support as two separate yet equal groups of ill-informed hate-filled sociopaths. On the other hand, all this exposure is making them - both candidates and followers - act worse.
• Gun violence has become so ingrained into our culture that most Americans are resigned to the body count. This is horrifying.
• As of this last week of 2015, Obamacare works. So of course Republican governors are gonna keep trying to kill it.
• Mad Max Fury Road deserves to win every Best Picture award out there. Also Best Director, Best Actress, Best Fight Scene, and Best Catering.
• Canadians have declared war on my librarian blog. I'm not even a Royals fan, people.
• Florida politics are still screwed up.

Oh, and I'm thinking of putting some of the blog articles I've written into print format as a book. Think there'd be a market for it?

Looking Forward At the Coming GOP Madness, Looking Back To See How Long The Madness Has Already BEEN Here

So I'm reading Driftglass' blog today and come across an article where he calls to task David Frum - conservative pundit of intraparty renown - for Frum's refusal to own up for causing the modern Republican Party to slide into batshit insanity:

As a former Dubya speechwriter and author of such books as The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush and An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror (with the monstrous Richard Perle)  Mr. David Frum is well-positioned to write a long article for The Atlantic (where he is now employed as a Senior Editor, because that is how the world works) about how fucked up the Republican party is...

...without any unpleasant or inconvenient references as to how it got that way.

Mr. Frum's article gives the reader a decent snapshot of what is happening right now inside moldering corpse of the Party of Lincoln, but it is also carefully calculated to leave the impression that the GOP just wandered in from out of town sometime around 2009, fully formed and neatly bisected between a hapless, out-of-touch donor class... and just-plain-white-folks who have grown intractably bitter and cynical for some reason.

Driftglass then pulls up a commentary he left on another blog back in 2005 as an example how far back in current history the progressive left has been screaming about this oncoming storm of racist logic-defying ignorance:

For the Suburban Gated, the non-deranged gunnies and the Tax Cuts Uber Alles Republicans, it’s all jolly good fun having a romp with the Fundies…as long as they keep delivering the 20% margin the GOP must have to win anything and as long as they stay the fuck away from my house and family, its all just good kinky fun…

…until the sun comes up, and you realize that the Electoral Candy you were offered was just bait to get you into the Windowless Fundy Panel Truck. Oops.

And now you’re waaaay out in the country somewhere you don’t recognize without your pants, and you start to figure out that all the Burning Crosses and Swastikas and Apocalyptic Paraphernalia that tricks out the inside of the van isn't tatted-up Goth Chick posturing.

Which got me remembering, Hey back in 2004 I had been pointing out some of this crazy stuff myself.

I wasn't blogging back then, but I had been paying for webspace with an address and had posted a page or three about my political leanings (I let it fall to disuse because I lost my employment in 2008 and am still too poor to re-fund the domain ownership). During the run-up to the 2004 Presidential election, I made a two-column chart about who should and who shouldn't be voting for Dubya and the Republican platform. If I go to the Wayback Machine, let me pull that page up and copy it here:

Those With Reason to Support Bush		Those Who Want Bush Gone (or ought to)
Religious/Social Conservatives		Gays
Bush projects a public image of devout religious belief, using that to define his position of fighting as Good against the Evil of terrorism. He's promoting an amendment to define marriage as between a man and woman only (meaning gays/lesbians will be denied). He pushes a lot of 'faith-based' initiatives, and pushes for more church interaction with government services. He's on their side of the Culture War being fought in this country.		Are you kidding me? He's practically declared war on you! His Defense of Marriage amendment doesn't really defend marriage at all (uh, guys, where's the provisions on stopping adultery and divorce and domestic violence?). His pandering to social conservatives on this issue ought to let you realize which side of the Culture War he's on (hint: it's not yours). You're his favorite target outside of Saddam (you probably rank higher than that one guy whose name he doesn't even mention anymore). There's a reason why the Log Cabin Republicans openly refused to support the GOP candidate this year: they've backed the others even when they were being lambasted, but boy-o this time....
		Religious/Social Liberals
		There are faiths in this country that agree to the idea of the Separation of Church and State, and a good number of churches were appalled when the Bush/Cheney campaign recently asked them to forward their parish directories to the campaign for fund-raising purposes (seeming violation of that Separation concept). Not all Christians, and certainly not all faiths, are comfortable with the way Bush expresses his beliefs when it comes to political decisions (Muslims were outraged when he called the War on Terror a 'Crusade': it's still a sore point between Christians and Muslims).
The Immensely Wealthy		Fiscal Conservatives
"I call you my base." Bush was only half-joking, or even not at all, when he said that: he plays to and receives a lot of support from this particular group. His tax cuts benefit the wealthy most of all, and he pushes for more cuts (especially cutting taxes on dividends) that would generate more wealth. This group has already proven their devotion by helping raise more money for his campaign than any other Presidential campaign ever.		Fiscal Conservatives take one look at that deficit Dubya's been running for 4 years and suddenly start thinking socialist. While Fiscals like the tax cuts that Bush pushed, they abhor the massive spending that SHOULDN'T HAVE OCCURRED with the cuts that were made. Fiscals are thinking about how the economy is going to be affected 10 years, even 5 years down the road thanks to all the uncontrolled pork It's this group within the GOP party faithful that has been making the most griping noises without openly questioning Bush's competence, but it's there and the discontent is brewing (when Fortune magazine starts op-editing that the Dems should control either the White House or Congress to re-establish a balance of power with the checkbook, that's a huge honking sign of discontent among the Fiscals).
'Neoconservatives'		Pat Buchanan ('Paleoconservatives')
And why not? This has been their administration. 9/11 their Pearl Harbor. Aggressive foreign policy backed by the US War Machine. Who cares for subtlety and diplomacy? Old Europe, that's who. Meanwhile, WE'RE getting the bad guys: Iraq (done), Iran (next), Syria (on the list), North Korea (okay, so China's a bit of problem on that one), and...and...		Well, Pat's always been a bit bitter, but still... This group should actually be known as the Isolationists, the ones who think America shouldn't go empire-building/nation-building (in their minds one and the same). While they wouldn't have sat still after 9/11, they would have only stopped at Afghanistan and securing Osama's sorry butt for execution. They recognize foreign policy as a more demanding requirement in assuring the US doesn't get hurt again (an America First position), and actually do respect the Old Europe governments (on which they believe our government should be modeled). Buchanan has been the biggest non-Democrat to openly and consistently question Bush's war in Iraq, and clearly shows no love for the guy.
Ann Coulter		Democrats
Her position: Anything not Republican should be executed for treason. No, really, read her stuff, then wash your eyes with holy water.		Let's see: Bush steals the 2000 election thanks to a GOP-controlled Supreme Court; he claims to be a 'uniter' but shuts you guys out from providing any input; his buddies in Congress hack into your records and find out your talking points on issues, giving them an advantage in any debates you can muster; his buddy DeLay openly redraws the congressional voting districts in Texas to give the Republicans the advantage (in some cases drawing gerrymandered districts that would give mapmakers hissyfits); you've been labeled traitors and liberals and un-American by third-party proxy. Sure you don't want to vote Kerry all the way...?
		Blacks
		Al Sharpton is a blowhard, but he did get one thing right at the Dem convention: the Republicans have abandoned and ignored this voting block for years. The GOP's Southern Strategy has essentially turned the Republicans from the Party of Lincoln into the Party of Thurmond. Civil rights and social issues that are of paramount concern to Blacks are not on the list at all for this administration. Government spending has gone up (see deficit) but social services that minorities rely on have been slashed.
Saudis		Iraqis / Arabs
The specifics of this relationship are classified and deemed 'NATIONAL SECURITY'. Any attempt to request this data will have you identified as a threat to our security. You have been warned.		Sure. Saddam's gone. But there's a lot of people still dying in Iraq, either from bombing raids by US troops or from the inter-community fighting between various militia groups rising up to seize control of this city and that. Bush didn't really do a good job liberating your country, did he? In the meanwhile, if you're Arab in this country, expect your phones to be tapped, your refrigerator wired for sound, your job under surveillance, and your cousins and brothers locked away without warrant and without access to lawyers (unless you are already there in the undisclosed 'detention center'...but then you wouldn't be able to read this...or anything else while that potato sack is over your head...). Just keep the image of the Iraqi Soccer Team telling Bush not to use them for getting re-elected (and these guys really suffered under Uday) as a reminder of how Arabs REALLY feel.
		Hispanics
		Of the groups here, yours is the hardest to nail down as either/or. Hispanics tend to be more socially conservative than other minorities in the US. However, there's still a lot of Hispanics needing social services that Bush's administration doesn't take care of. There's also that illegal immigration policy he supported a while back that most illegal immigrants (as well as immigration experts) claimed made things worse. Of this group, when broken down to nationality, only the Cubans can be counted on to vote Bush/Republican (and even then, guys? He got rid of Saddam. Castro's still sitting there. Until Havana starts drilling up oil, Shrub ain't interested).
		Families of the Military and National Guard
		Bush has assigned your men and women, your sons and daughters, your mothers and fathers, into war zones. That was expected, after all, it's the military, it's their job. But the administration's mismanagement of the Iraqi invasion has forced your loved ones to extended tours far longer than expected, has brought shame on the image of the military by encouraging torture of Iraqi prisoners, and for National Guard families cut hard into your home budgets because those serving were also the primary bread-winners in most families (National Guard was/is reservist duty: these guys have other jobs and responsibilities after all). That same mismanagement of the war and occupation also means your loved ones are undersupplied, running out of vital materials or not even garnering access to needed equipment. The administration also isn't doing or saying much in the way of respect for the dead and wounded: the Bush admin is actively hiding the coffins of our honored dead, and when was the last time you saw Bush or Rumsfeld or Cheney or even an undersecretary visit the wounded for a photo op? There are now reports of troops being threatened to re-up with the army or else find themselves immediately transferred to units being sent to Iraq, which means they'll be forced to stay in the army anyway. Any surprise there? This will be much like the draft, when you had guys in the service not wanting to be there being forced to do stuff they didn't want to do. The resentment levels will be off the charts, and the quality of service will suffer. All because Rumsfeld and his 'experts' underplanned the war effort, believing they could do with less manpower than more, and now that they're stuck needing more manpower they're overusing the troops getting tired of it all.
		Veterans
		Oh, yeah, Bush has been showing the love, hasn't he? He's shown a lot of respect for McCain and Cleland and Kerry for the service they committed in 'Nam, hasn't he? And to top it off, there's been, what, how much money cut from veterans' benefits? Oh, yeah, he's really taking care of you guys...Dad, you're a veteran. Haven't YOU noticed anything wrong with your benefits yet...?
Sadists		Torture Victims
Hey, any administration that condones torture in some way ain't all that half-bad. By the way, are they hiring...?		Abu Ghraib. Plus the fact that evidence has shown the men photographed during torture turned out to be either common criminals (not terrorists) or utterly innocent (again, not terrorists). Plus the fact that his administration showed no respect for national/international law by finding ways to condone and encourage torture.
		Librarians
		This one isn't so much directed at Bush as it is his administration, specifically AG John Ashcroft. His campaign to classify government documents and pull them from gov't depositories and libraries ticks off a lot of librarians who believe open access to information is a right under the First Amendment. Especially when said documents aren't related to security issues but to litigation issues (why prevent people from knowing how to file civil suits?). But the fact the whole administration practices secrecy and evasion and refusal toward any information requests suggests this is a philosophy starting from the top dog himself. The biggest surprise is that there ARE librarians (???) supporting Bush's efforts to clamp down on knowledge. Sheesh. At least it's only 5 of em. The 100,000-plus rest of us are not amused by this shrub...
Halliburton Embezzlers		The Middle Class (what's left of it)
More no-bid contracts. More getting troops to spend money on food and supplies already paid for. More billing to the government on things done once but paid for thrice. More talking to other companies providing services into kicking back some fees to us. More money. More money. More money. Hey, let's hire that guy who used to work at Enron! He's good for business...!		See that tax cut Bush promised you? It's pretty much $800 per year, right? Considering the top one percent of the wealth holders get about $50,000 in tax cuts, you're getting bought off awfully cheap by this administration, aren't you? Oh, and by the way, we're going to have to let you go because it's cheaper to hire...nobody, we'll just get another tax break and corporate credit from Bush and live off the embez...uh, profits for a few years. Good luck using monster.com! If there's class warfare going on, guys, the upper class is winning in a shut-out.
		Job Hunters
		Losing jobs is nothing new: it's a part of the economic system we use in this country. Outsourcing jobs to other countries is inevitiable and a well-known fact (oddly, the jobs were supposed to be outsourced to Mexico, not India, but I digress). The deal is, there's supposed to be a steady form of job growth to keep up with the level of job loss to ensure people can stay employed (at good wages). Under Bush, there's been very little job growth, far below the projected growth levels. Enough experts have declared this to be one of the weakest job markets in years. Yet Bush doesn't have a specific plan on job creation/job growth (he's more into promoting investing, private ownership, and self-sufficiency).
Pharmaceuticals		The Elderly (Medicare)
Pricing fixing? Nah, never heard of it. By the way, we're going to get Bush to close down the border to Canada to stop you cheapskates from crossing over and getting a $200 US bottle of aspirin for $2.99 Canadian.		Wonderful Medicare package. Not only does it add more bloat to the deficit, it restricts your ability to shift to potentially cheaper or more reliable services, it adds more paperwork and card IDs to keep up with, does nothing to reduce the costs of pills and meds, and essentially ticks off everyone except for the drug companies. And that still doesn't include the fact that Bush's people LIED ABOUT THE COSTS when Congress considered the package...!
		Victims of neurological disorders (stem cell research)
		Bush's adamant opposition to expand the strict limits he imposed on stem cell research (he limited it to pre-existing strands, which turned out to be mostly useless) has hurt attempts to develop cures for Alzheimers and Parkinsons. His opposition comes purely from the fact that stem cells only come from fertilized eggs, meaning the extraction of stem cells a form of abortion. Other countries that do not share such concerns have begun work into stem cell research while the US, obstensibly the leader in science on the planet, has its collective thumbs tied. While a compromise of sorts is available (working with embryos from couples that have already successfully used artificial insemination to carry a child to term (thus fulfilling religious requirement to multiply), and that said embryos can only be donated to ensure people don't do it for money), his strict religious belief (and political support of that) refuses to let him even consider that.
Tom DeLay		Republicans in Congress who were repeatedly LIED TO over the Medicare package, Iraqi WMD, Abu Ghraib, and pretty much everything else
I'd include Zell Miller in this, but I don't want him challenging me to a duel so...		Okay, don't you guys get it yet? He doesn't respect you or your input. Even as leader of the party he should still respect you enough to listen to advise and commentary from the ranks, but outside of his Inner Circle he doesn't hear a damn thing. All he wants you to do is rubber-stamp his pork and his tax cuts and his War on Countries That Have Oil Halliburton Can Steal. He doesn't have exchanges of ideas, he issues marching orders. Try to remember: Leadership and Loyalty are earned, not enforced.
		Environmentalists
		The Kyoto accords: yes, it was unfairly tilted to already-developed countries such as the US, but we have yet to offer a reasonable alternative or stuck to our own environmental program. Scientific studies proving the increase of pollutants, and threat of such pollutants in our air and water, are routinely ignored, re-written, abused, shredded, filed under X for 'Lost', and then deemed classified by Ashcroft so that libraries can't shelve them. Then there's the arctic drilling that gets environmentalists into a tizzy. Bush makes James Watt look like a tree-hugger.
		Scientists and Doctors in nearly every field of knowledge
		See Environmentalists. Your studies into human health and psychology, the severe threat of Global AIDS, all of that...Bush won't read 'em unless you already tack to HIS view of things. Since a lot of experts DON'T tack to HIS view of things, said reports are filed under X for 'Lost' along with the environmental warnings.
		Educators / School children
		The No-Child-Left-Behind program seems to be leaving a lot of children behind. There is growing evidence that the school voucher system always promoted by Republicans isn't working the way they'd claimed, and even though Bush publicly supports his education programs he's been caught cutting funds to said programs (and yet we've got a big-ass deficit? Just where is the money going if not to our kids? Anybody got the accounting ledger?). Teachers wages' still stink, schools are still crumbling and outdated, and our kids kant speel anymore.
		Those who abhor incompetence
		The Bush administration makes far too many mistakes, shuffles the blame towards others rather than admit to their own, attack and accuse their critics rather than answer the questions, leak information on people to embarrass them (and in the process break the law), and claims effective leadership even when half the country, and most of the world, hates their guts for the bloodshed, misery and anger coming from all the mistakes they've made. Even Clinton never got accused of this level of incompetence. The last administration to look this sloppy, inept and corrupt?! Warren Harding's (hey, even Nixon did things right...well, other than Watergate...). Here's something you should be asking yourselves. All sitting Presidents running for a second term always ask this question: "Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?" Has anyone noticed that Bush/Cheny HAS NOT asked this question, or even answered it in any way? That's because we're NOT better off: the economy is too shaky, the job market too feeble, our military stretched thin, our national security weakened (and this is supposed to be their strong suit! The 'They've Made Us Safe' argument. Really? Are we? Just look at that Dept. of Homeland Security and its failures and understaffing...), our allies too few, and our future too dispiriting. And they're asking us to give them four more years of this crap?!?!

--

Again, that was what I wrote back in 2004, when I had become "disenchanted" with the Republicans and had dropped out to be NPA. Looking back, I really wasn't exaggerating about what I saw coming out of the GOP and their inept handling of nearly every issue - economy, social equality, environment, the war effort, the illegal use of torture, the sheer unpleasantness of the Bush the Lesser administration - and in some ways a lot of those sins have never been resolved.

And that was before the Katrina disaster truly exposed the Bush/Cheney people for what they were: uncaring, self-serving screw-ups.

And what I wrote in 2004 is still true today, only worse. Even in the face of gay marriage equality, the Republicans wage war against that. Even with the reality that our immigration policies need urgent reforms, the Republicans would rather pursue inhumane and wastefully expensive efforts in a racist, ham-fisted way. Even with our economy still shaky and our nation's personal debt woes left unanswered, the Republicans would prefer unleashing economic chaos that would bring back the horrors of the Great Recession of 2007-09. Even with the nation's citizenry becoming more left-leaning and progressive, the Republicans are convinced to go further right on every social and economic issue.

I'm looking at what I wrote for 2004 and see so much of it still applies in 2015: the Republicans are at war with immigrants and Hispanics, Muslims, women, the college-age, Blacks, the environment (hell, the totality of science and facts), our educational system, our civil liberties, our tastes in music and movies, our health care needs, our children's needs... hell, let me just list it as "The Republicans are at war with everything."

So why should it be any surprise to Frum - or to anyone else with the Republican establishment and media apologists - that their war is starting to cause blowback within their own ranks? That their war, using terms of absolute US vs. THEM, would devolve into shouting, racial slurs, and outright violence?

Driftglass is right about how everyone else in the Real World was calling this more than a decade ago. It's a pity we're facing a future of this all because now that the bill's come due Frum and his fellow conservatives aren't able or willing to pay the costs to fix their own wreckage.

The War On Saturnalia 2015: A Call To Defend (w/ Update)

Rise up, my fellow Unitarians and high school Latin students! There is a WAR ON SATURNALIA AND I CAN PROVE IT.

You never see Bill O'Reilly get mulsum as a holiday present, do you?! SHAME! Shame, America! WE CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS.

Confronted with this proof, we should file a protest with the Civil Rights office in DC and get Obama himself to sign off having Saturnalia listed as a national holiday. I'm sure the Republican Party won't object.

On personal notes:

This is the 197th blog post this year, the most so far. I can make it an easy 200 to round it out, so I don't want to over-blog if I want to top the year off there. Thing is, I shouldn't be that OCD about it.

My latest ebook Body Armor Blues was ranked 140th on the Amazon sales list for the Superheroes category... for about 23 minutes. I checked on the sales report for that day. I had two buyers. So if I can get five more by this weekend, I might rocket up to Top Ten.

On political notes:

Dear media elites: Stop trying to make Rubio happen. He's not going to happen.

If I had to, given a particular parlor game, make a choice between Trump, Cruz or Carson for the Presidency, I would choose the parachute for jumping out that particular airplane, Bob.

Ranking the candidates for the Republican nomination is a horrifying prospect: I'd personally put too many of them tied for 16th... out of a race that's been whittled down to 14 12 11 maybe. I kind of agree with how John Scalzi has his list of "terrible to troubling," but I just can't consider even the possibility of having to choose a Republican in 2016.

On comics notes:

Ta-Nehisi Coates is getting totally pumped over his Black Panther series starting up next year. Dude, he's getting Alex Ross to do alternate covers! Dude! I envy him.

And for Saturnalia, here I pray to the Lord of Saturning for my annual wish list of hope, and love, and presents. Ohmmmmmm... Ohhhhhmmmmmmm...

(Update) Well, there's one Saturnalia wish that's come true so far:

The FBI arrested the douchenozzle Pharma CEO who keeps raising the prices of life-saving HIV and cancer medications on security fraud charges. Granted, these are charges stemming from Martin Shkreli's previous hedge fund company: Considering how unrepentant and greedy Shkreli keeps acting in public, he deserves every karmic punishment that the universe can deliver unto him.

IO SATURNALIA.

Things To Note Heading Into GOP Debate for December 2015 (Fine, I'll Link To The Drinking Game Rules)

I've given up on creating new rules for the drinking game(s) needed to watch these blowfests, but if you want to crib notes from the previous ones I've got them here for

August
September
October
(I didn't create one for November because by then it had stopped being funny)

That said, here are the points to consider as we head into Tuesday night's winter horror show:

• The fear-mongering associated with the modern Republican Party is going to be higher than the previous debates, all because the ISIS-San Bernardino murder spree has ratcheted up the anti-Muslim hatred in our nation. It's getting violent in our cities towards Muslim communities, many of them made up of refugees fleeing the terrorist threats in the first place. Having the likes of Trump and Cruz rally support for hate-driven policy ideas - Let's ban all Muslims (uh, temporarily, that's the ticket)! Let's nuke ISIS until the sands glow (they're just in one city, right)! - is going to set a tone for the debate where the irrational candidates will likely shout down any of the rational (relatively speaking) ones. I am going on record that someone is going to cross the line concerning outright vigilantism.
• Trump remains in the lead for the most part - precariously in Iowa though - with Cruz revving into second place, Rubio idling to third and Carson crashing down to fourth. Jeb! remains rock steady in fifth place... averaging about 4 percent of the polls.
  For all the talk about how early polls are not solid/reliable indicators, and the fact that until we get actual voters standing at ballot machines realizing that sh-t is getting real (as the wise man Mike Tyson once noted "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.") that all this early chatter is just so, we are coming up to the Moment of Truth. If candidates are appealing to their base voters at a certain percentage, the odds are good that the primary voting numbers will reflect that. So if Trump is well in the lead, then...
• This explains why the speculation about brokered conventions went from being a pundit/blogger thing to an actual party leadership thing. And of course, the Republicans being incompetent about it, they let the world know. It's one thing to have someone like me - with seven readers, hi all! -  suggest the GOP is planning and praying for a brokered convention to save Jeb the party, it's another matter to have the people in a position to do something about it say so in public.
  Because now it gives Trump more ammo, not less. Now Trump can go to his anti-establishment supporters and say "See? I'm right because they're terrified of me." Now Trump can go to the media and whine "I'm not being loved by the back-room guys who's really wrecking the party, I'm gonna take my ball and run third party." Now Trump has the excuse he needs to keep his Id happy no matter what.
• Do not be surprised that everything will be Obama's fault. Everything always has been ever since history began January 2009. Apparently the disasters of 2005 or 1981 or 1918 or 1850 are all his fault too, if anyone can edit the high school textbooks to the Far Right's liking.
• We are still campaigning for these elections too damn early and too damn often. Instead of covering actual honest-to-God news of the day, nearly every major network has been non-stop campaign BS. This is not the real world. This is not solving the ills affecting voters right here and now. This is all madness.
  I'm not helping either. Blogging about fixing law enforcement to reduce excessive use of force, or about improving funding for schools, or about doing something about improving overall wages for all Americans, or something more tangible... That's what I should be doing. I'm not. I'm riding the rigged horse race, just like everybody else.

 I've got personal news as least, so stay tuned. Good luck, and Io Saturnalia!

Man Shoots First Amendment to Prove Second Amendment Is Flawed

We've bumped into Erick Erickson before. The fear-monger threw a conniption back in 2010 over the "invasive" nature of the U.S. Census - despite the fact we're required to have one every ten years and that it's never destroyed lives before - and threatened back then to greet any Census taker with a loaded firearm.

So here he is this weekend throwing another conniption, this time over the New York Times' front-page editorial over gun safety laws. For the first time in over 90 years, the paper of record put an opinion piece on its front page, highlighting the seriousness of the matter: End the Gun Epidemic In America.

But motives do not matter to the dead in California, nor did they in Colorado, Oregon, South Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut and far too many other places. The attention and anger of Americans should also be directed at the elected leaders whose job is to keep us safe but who place a higher premium on the money and political power of an industry dedicated to profiting from the unfettered spread of ever more powerful firearms.

It is a moral outrage and a national disgrace that civilians can legally purchase weapons designed specifically to kill people with brutal speed and efficiency. These are weapons of war, barely modified and deliberately marketed as tools of macho vigilantism and even insurrection. America’s elected leaders offer prayers for gun victims and then, callously and without fear of consequence, reject the most basic restrictions on weapons of mass killing, as they did on Thursday. They distract us with arguments about the word terrorism. Let’s be clear: These spree killings are all, in their own ways, acts of terrorism...

...It is not necessary to debate the peculiar wording of the Second Amendment. No right is unlimited and immune from reasonable regulation.

So what is Erickson's response to this? A blistering counterpoint? A debate on the merits of the Times' position?

Nope. He shoots the newspaper itself as though he's Standing His Ground:

The paranoid gun fetishist seems to be one of the people who SHOULDN’T own a gun. He clearly does not operate it properly with only the righteous intent of protecting himself. Instead, he is using it to shoot up a newspaper, and in essence, trying to silence the freedom of the press and freedom of speech by use of deadly force. Wouldn’t that be considered a terrorist act? After all, terrorism is defined as “the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.”

This seems to be Erickson's standard response: in the face of a moral quandary or something that annoys his political sensibilities, pull out his phallic replacement and act like he's a manly man deploying the most gross exaggeration of manly American stereotype. "If I don't likes it, I shoots it."

In the process he proves Junius correct one more time, and proves himself an Imposter instead of an Honest Man:

An honest man, like the true religion, appeals to the understanding, or modestly confides in the internal evidence of his conscience. The imposter employs force instead of argument, imposes silence where he cannot convince, and propagates his character by the sword.

See how Erickson propagates his (lack of) character by the sword, going for the gun as his answer to every argument he CAN'T win. And look at his audience, the ones who eat this all up like his act is the sweetest of cupcakes instead of the poison to the Body Republic that it is.

This is a major problem out of many that our nation is facing heading into a winter of discontent and divisiveness. Actually, it's reflective of several: not only the need for gun safety laws in the face of increased mass shootings, but also the need to repair the public forum that's fallen into toxic posturing, bullying, outright lies, and epistemic closures.

And Erickson's act proves one other thing: the Second Amendment can no longer co-exist with the rights and protections established by the First Amendment. The NRA's obsession of turning the Second Amendment from "well-regulated militias" into a license to shoot anybody they don't like now conflicts with the First Amendment's protection for Americans to peaceably assemble in public. How can we, when angry (mostly) men are able to legally purchase weapons of war they can then use in our workplaces, our churches, our schools, our shops and movie theaters?

How can we uphold the First Amendment's protections of a free press - where public opinion and reporting can be published - when Erickson seeks to intimidate that free press by using it for target practice, with direct implication to threaten that action on the people expressing that opinion?

The United States is now caught between two constitutional interpretations. We as a nation need to uphold the one that best serves the public trust - our rights to be at peace with each other, to assemble as citizens, to speak our minds without threat - and we need to reform if not remove the second position that seeks to grant the angriest and most violent of ourselves the power to shoot us all.

And to Erick Erickson: your gun does not protect you from your own flaws and failures. Remember that as you cower in fear, because that's all you've proven this day.

Happy Pagan Turkey Sacrifice Day 2015!

And on this day, the Good Lord let us witness this:

There are few other ways to celebrate this day of crazed, bird-carving ritual of dismemberment and consumption.

Well, there's always football.

Never Forget.

Republicans Are Cowards (update)

Update: Thank you Crooks and Liars audience for checking in from Mike's Blog Round-up. Please take a moment to glance about the blog, leave a comment if you wish, and don't forget this is NaNoWriMo month and I wanna see a word-count on your novel by 50,000 words at the end of November! I'm at 30,000-plus right now... Please check below for updated links especially the second one, thanks.

Update to the Update: Um, hello BoatBits? Getting a bit of traffic from that blog. Nice to see you. Stay for the veal, it's the best in the city.

--

In the wake of the terror attacks in Paris last Friday, our Republican Party leadership has shown its true colors.

Yellow.

From their Presidential hopefuls down to their Congressional leaders to their state governors, each and every Republican leader has shown themselves to be a bunch of selfish, uncharitable, graceless, hateful cowards.

A bunch of goddamn scaredy-cats using their fear, their racism, and their xenophobia to start throwing hissy fits about our nation taking in Syrian refugees. They are attacking and accusing families and children of being monsters, instead of humans trying to survive a four-year-old civil war that's shown no sign of stopping soon because of the political mess the entire Middle East region is.

The hypocrisy is disgusting.

These Republicans scream about Syrian refugees being a threat to our communities, that they are coming to kill us all.  But they don't say a goddamn thing about our communities already under threat by gun-wielding angry guys who keep shooting up our churches and schools and malls. Oh no, they dare not say or do anything about the thousands of dead we are inflicting on ourselves because THAT might upset their Gun-worshiping NRA overlords.

The religious bigotry is shameful.

These Republican leaders go all in describing Islam as a violent, hateful dogma, but these so-called Christians are the ones spewing the hate and promoting the violence.

How telling is it that these so-called Christians are denying even the most basic fundamental human gifts of grace, hope, charity, and aid to those in need?

Here's the teachings of Christ:

Matthew 25:35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.
37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me.’

THAT is the teachings of Christ when it comes to the sick, to the helpless, to families in need. And these Republican leaders are pissing all over that. They are the ones from 25:41-45, the deniers, the liars, the greedy, the abusers, the cursed.

What do you call someone who claims to be a Christian and yet denies the Word of the Son? What do you call someone who is the amoral and spiritless opposite of the Christ? You call them Anti-Christs. The lot of them.

The Syrian refugees are trying to survive, fleeing from a dictator killing his own nation and the terror extremists of ISIL eager to force Muslims into their world-view of Us vs. Them (and to kill the ones who won't).

These fear-monger Republicans, these Pants Wetting Hide-In-Our-Limo Commandos waiting in their media Green Rooms for the next Fox Not-News talk show to shill their hatred. They are playing right into the Absolutist, Us-Or-Them game the terrorists want to play. Because the more we act like xenophobic idiots the more they can sell THEIR fear-mongering to their populations.

All because the Republicans are more about FEAR now than they are about GRACE or HOPE or basic human decency.

The only thing to say about all this is clear:

NO FEAR.

America, we can and should be better than this.

Succumbing to the fear means we succumb to the hate, and from that we begin a whole new cycle of bloodshed that will never end until enough of us say "no more."

Stop listening to the fear-mongers.

Stop believing these Republican cowards.

Start being charitable, and honest, and hopeful, and listen to the Better Angels of Our Nature.

Update: Rude Pundit has a blunt and honest take on the Republican Cowards.

Also Update: On a positive note, Unitarians are offering support to Syrian refugees and can use a little help there, so donate if you can.

Things I Learned From The Democratic November 2015 Debate

1) That while Memphis is an excellent football team this season, Houston is still a dominant power and deserving of its current unbeaten status.

Wait a minute, hold on...

2) The talk about having Alabama in the playoff lineup is too early to confirm because there are still enough deserving unbeaten teams in Clemson, Ohio State / Iowa (one of them is going to win the Big 10), Oklahoma State, and Houston. I mean, there's also good one-loss programs out there like Notre Dame and Florida and Navy and... and... lemme start over.

3) The impressive improvement out of South Florida's program is the simple fact the Bulls have improved, recovering nicely from the debacle that was the Skip Holtz era and getting to where they have a balanced offense and an effective defense with talented players at key positions. Sure, the Bulls are likely going to an early December minor bowl game, but after the long drought of no postseason play we'll take anything and... and...

4) WHOSE IDEA WAS IT TO HAVE A POLITICAL DEBATE DURING COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAMEDAY???

Paris Tonight, 13 November 2015 (update)

Dear God.

Tonight in Paris, there is blood and pain and sorrow all because of men with rage and murderous intent.

From the BBC:

At least 100 people are reported to have died at the Bataclan concert hall in central Paris.
Gunmen took many hostages there before being overpowered by police.
Others died in a reported suicide blast near the Stade de France and gun attacks on city centre restaurants. Five attackers are reported killed.
Paris residents have been asked to stay indoors and about 1,500 military personnel are being deployed across the city.

The people getting killed are not soldiers, are not fanatics, are not evildoers or cardboard cutouts. They were going out on the town on a Friday night to enjoy the company of families and friends, and Dear God so many of them are dead now.

From Banksy: pardon me, this actually came from artist Jean Jullien.

Peace For Paris

When the Legend Becomes A Liability They Keep Printing The Legend

You see, the original line went "When the Legend becomes Fact, you print the Legend."

However, the Facts surrounding Ben Carson's growing pile of "embellishments," "exaggerations," and "misstatements" about his legend - a young black man in poor Detroit with a single mother growing up to become a skilled and respected neurosurgeon and current Presidential candidate - are nowhere near any semblance of Truth.

To Goldie Taylor at The Daily Beast:

...Carson’s exaggerations don’t go that far—his tales are far more pedestrian. But in story after story the iconic physician appears to embellish his life growing up in inner city Detroit. He certainly did not need to spin wild tales about his years as a young, gifted black boy raised by a single mother in urban America. That’s a story millions know and can relate to...

...For his part, Carson is playing along and seemingly has been for decades. He has leaned on (and sometimes added flourishes to) his backstory in order to expand his public platform. The truth is he has been building a personal narrative—whether true or weaved from whole cloth—about himself from the moment he leapt onto the world stage. He wasn’t just poor, in Carson’s telling, he was hard—the kind of hard that can get an otherwise promising young man into trouble. And while it might be customary in hip-hop, engaging in this kind of self “thugification” is new for politics...

Taylor is referring to the stories Carson has been telling about how during his childhood he was a violent fellow: getting into fights at school, pulling a knife on a friend in a disagreement over a radio, other such tales. It all has a happy ending in that Carson "wakes up" after that knife attack and confines himself to a bathroom with a Bible for hours until he finds his salvation through faith.

Problem is, there's currently no record or evidence of any of that. Considering the level of violence Carson is describing - he had bloodied the nose of one schoolmate with a rock on school grounds, for example - it is surprising that there doesn't even seem to be evidence of any kind of scholastic discipline or intervention. Media sources checking with neighbors and friends who grew up with Carson cannot recall a single incident of violent behavior out of him. And none of them seem to be able to point to anyone they would know who would have been Carson's victims.

Either Carson did a great job of hiding that rage and never got caught, or he's making part or most of those stories up.

It's interesting to note he's telling us what he did but he doesn't - and no one else is saying it - want to name the specific people he's supposedly attacked. You would think that one of his goals in coming to terms with his violent youth would be to find and approach his victims and pray for forgiveness and acceptance, and have them on hand as witnesses to his conversion. If anything, he'd be more specific about whom he did threaten with a knife and have that friend available for interviews with the media at some point (or at least have other friends and relatives who knew them both speak to their defense).

Carson's been a motivational speaker for decades now: one of the things these speakers like to do is have a person or three be on hand to testify to such stories and provide moral and narrative support. Other politicians and candidates who run on a "I once was lost but now am found" campaigns tend to have their witnesses on hand as well. But so far the only one verifying these stories first-hand is Carson himself.

What's equally troubling are other elements of Carson's personal narrative. The most current inquiry has been delving into the part of his popular autobiography Gifted Hands where he claims having met with General Westmoreland - freshly recalled from Vietnam - and getting an offer of a scholarship to West Point, which he turned down to accept Yale instead. The story makes it seem like Carson was a youthful talent who could have chosen an "honorable" career in the military, passing it up for a more "humble" and humane career in medicine.

Except for the fact that none of it is verifiable: the military academies do NOT offer scholarships (note: I know this personally because my older brother went Annapolis GO NAVY), and they require a detailed application process that goes through so  many hoops - medical exams, interviews, getting appointments via Congressional/Senatorial offices or special Executive branch lists - that you can write three whole book chapters about it. There are scholarships for ROTC programs to other colleges, but they have a prolonged application process as well (and that I have personal experience with).

West Point has no application process on file for Carson. There doesn't seem to be one for ROTC either.

At best, you could accuse Carson of embellishment, an attempt - and not a very clever one - to make himself seem more important and valuable to others. I've seen Twitter commentators compare it to adding questionable details to one's resume for job-hunting.

To Jamille Bouie at Slate:

...Did Carson “fabricate” his West Point story?

If you judge by the text of his book, as well as other statements about the same story, the answer is not exactly. Carson never claimed that he applied to the school. And while West Point doesn’t give scholarships, it’s not hard to see how encouragement from authority figures—You’re a shoo-in—becomes, after years of telling and retelling, the tale of an offer and a scholarship. It’s just how memory works.

Carson is guilty of run-of-the-mill embellishment. Still, it’s tempting to say that this will harm his campaign. Embellishing about entrance to a military academy doesn’t look good, especially for someone who has built his campaign on honesty and integrity. Some Republicans might just recoil from the former neurosurgeon, in favor of someone else...

But what's happening with Carson is pretty much a perfect example of the Republican Party's overall problem with Facts and Truth.

Ever since the "We Create Our Own Reality" moment in the wake of 9/11, this problem has gone global. The Republicans are so enamored of their self-created Narrative - brave and noble and well-meaning Conservatives caught in a war against Socialist Commie Librul evil-doers threatening us all with damnation and sin - that nothing can break through that insulated bubble of self-serving faith.

As Bouie notes in that article:

...But I doubt (Carson gets hurt). Carson is extraordinarily well-liked among Republican voters—it will take more than an exaggeration to tank his ratings with the grassroots. And indeed, the fact that Politico has had to walk back from its initial claims will work in Carson’s favor. Now this is another case of the “liberal media” on a witch hunt against a strong, conservative Republican.

Far from hurting Ben Carson, this whole flap may strengthen his standing with Republicans, as they rally to defend him. Carson may well stumble in the race for the GOP nomination—I think it’s inevitable—but it won’t be over old memories of college applications...

We are through a looking glass of Faith-Based Narratives that do not rely on a Real World anymore. In fact, that Narrative defies the Real World.

Which is a problem because EVERYONE - including the hypocrites of embellishment - lives in the Real World.  In the Real World embellishments do not last long.

And so the defenders of that Narrative dig deeper, moving from embellishments to avoidance and denial. There are already defenders of Carson's story-telling, going after the media for "racial bias" and "sinister" liberal purpose for even researching his own words and writings.

And the next step past this will be the outright lies. The need not only to keep the Narrative alive but stronger than ever, by adding more and more false details to it in an attempt to convince more and more people.

And lies have consequences. And consequences leave behind victims, usually people who had nothing to do with the Narrative in the first place.

I'm Trying Not to Pay Attention But Attention Must Be Paid

Getting deeper into the weeds with my NaNoWriMo challenge, and yet I can't ignore the current state of affairs in the political arena.

And so, without much comment, I present links to other news and blog articles of particular interest that I wanna share to the seven blog readers I'd like to keep maintaining an interest in this place.

Debate news: in the "finally happening" category, the next GOP debate THIS SATURDAY has weeded down two more names off the main stage - Huckabee and Christie - to the kids' table, and kicked off two other names - Graham and Pataki - from the debates altogether (which is weird because Graham has actually been scoring well in the prelim debate rounds and his polling isn't any worse than the other survivors).

Also: more attention getting paid to the down-ticket woes Democrats are suffering at the state elections level via Blog for Arizona.

Also wik: Pinku-Sensei came up with a debate drink for Lawrence Lessig just as Lessig dropped out of the Democratic primaries because he never had an invite to the debates in the first place.  Ah, well, it's a drink order peoples!

Considering how the Kentucky state election results turned out, Rude Pundit needs those drink orders from Pinku-Sensei...

Gerrymandering in Florida: The state legislature failed YET ANOTHER special session - costing taxpayers another hefty fee for NOTHING - to consider a new district map for the Florida Senate this 2016.  Senators refused to make appropriate changes because not enough of them were willing to relocate their "safe" seats into more challenging open districts. Straight up, Florida: these politicians' refusal to abide by YOUR state amendments for Fair Districts should disqualify ALL of them from any re-election effort. They are not doing ANYTHING to EARN those jobs.

And finally: WHAT THE HELL IS BEN CARSON DOING TALKING ABOUT THE ANCIENT PYRAMIDS?!  I mean, seriously, any X-Phile would tell you ALIENS, bro, ALIENS...

Now, I need to reach 15,000 words by Sunday afternoon or we are all DOOMED!  Well, that and I need to finish editing that superhero novella for pre-Christmas release and this short story for the writers group anthology and...

Jeb? Can't Fix This

So here I am, trying to claim I won't go blogging this month of November because of my NaNoWriMo efforts - P.S. please visit the Writing page on here and support a fellow American by purchasing a few ebooks... ow stop hitting me, what, a guy can't market his ebooks out here? - and while I'm pretty good on my word count so far on the novel effort, I just had to come back and blog about this ridiculous hare-brained marketing idea that the Jeb? Bush people have decided to go with to relaunch their troubled campaign.

(If you're worried about poor sentence structure just now, relax, this happens a lot when you're rushing out a 50,000 writing project)

Anyway.  The Jeb* people have come out with a brand new slogan for their boy to campaign on:

Jeb Can Fix It

Cough.  Heh.  Heeehahaha.  Snerk.  Guffaw.  BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHHHAHAHA gasp wheeze HAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAAAAA.

I am thinking back to that book about campaigning, the classic Selling of the President tome about the 1968 Nixon run for the White House.  Advertising is all about branding, about creating loyalty and love for a product, and intermixing that to political campaigning it means creating an identity for a politician that people can immediately use to picture who that candidate is and what he/she stands for.

Which is part of Jeb?'s problem right now.  His early attempts this 2015 to create an identity - starting off as The Front-Runner Establishment Guy that could not impress anybody, then as The Heir To the Bush Legacy by selling the "my brother Kept Us Safe" lie - have gone nowhere.

So here we are at Attempt Number Three to get Jeb><'s campaign "back on track"... by going with a quickie ebook release of materials - his political emails - already ten years old, and by crafting a slogan that sounds like someone watched Wreck-It Ralph or Bob The Builder too many times.

Just going by Twitter - a method of tracking the current mindset of the public awareness - this relaunch phrase is a disaster.

In a serious examination here: claiming that Jeb "can fix it" in a vague manner opens up that slogan to a myriad of interpretations.  It also allows for his critics to bring forth all the flaws and errors of his previous works - his broken promises as Governor, the sorry shape of the state of Florida as he left it, the terrible education record, his criminal repression of voting rights for minorities, his screwed involvement in the Election 2000 debacle, the Terri Schiavo fiasco...

Claiming Jeb "can fix it" while his poll numbers keep slipping is a joke of a premise, a disaster of a promise.

Trying to change a political persona this late in a campaign cycle after a public slide in voter confidence and support reeks of desperation.

And yet the Jeb? Bush Zombie Campaign slogs on.

When Next I Blog I Will Be Writing A Novel

Well, not on the blog itself, but I will be doing my NaNoWriMo novel attempt again this year.

If I do blog here during the month, it better be after I've earned by word count for the day - 1667 words a day equaling 50,000 words for the month - so you won't be seeing a lot of blogging this month anyway.  I am focused elsewhere.

With luck, this WILL be a novel I can finish all the way to publication, to join the ranks of self-published short stories and anthology collections that have published my works.

I will at least offer a warm Turkey Pagan Sacrifice Day greetings to all when the time is appropriate.