Live and Learn

T'is the day after Christmas, and all through my head, not an issue is stirring, living or dead.

I gave Doc a copy of my book for Christmas last week. I still have a box full of them - vanity lives on for years - so a few people got one. It's a core sample of the articles that were posted on the old Heller Mountain website between the events of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. You can still find remnants of some of those rants, like this one:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x28998

Doc is a good guy. He ran for the Arizona legislature last November as a Democrat, which means he lost, but he at least developed a pathologist's view of American politics. There is no room for discourse, at least in Arizona, he says. It bears mentioning that there is also no room for a time machine here, and for the same reason: No such thing exists.

Our beloved "discourse" consists of like-minded people screaming inside their own echo chambers. Back-and-forth dialogue, with which the Founding Fathers had hoped to replace flying lead, is in no way a part of the game anymore.

Doc shakes his head when he talks about it. He's enjoying the book, though, calling it "stream of consciousness" and comparing my work to that of Hunter S. Thompson (who committed suicide). Good enough for me.

"But you don't blog anymore," he said. It wasn't a question. I half-agreed. Very little, I told him, and that prompted Doc to ask me why.

"Because I no longer feel sorry for the American people," I said. "They're getting what they asked for." Doc absorbed that by folding his arms, frowning and nodding his head in affirmation.

Back in the day, I wrote fifteen, twenty columns a month. Every day there was something to bellow about. It seemed to me that the American people were victims of something awful that was being done to our country. I wanted to warn them.

Maybe I just wanted to be able to tell them, later, that they had been warned. Well, here we are. It brings me no joy at all to say it: I told you so... Only now, I actually consider the American people complicit in the situation at hand.

It's no secret who the bad guys are in this passion play, this winding down of our once-well-intentioned empire: Conservatives, under the leadership of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist and a whole host of others, wrecked this country to the point where it may not be salvageable.

In response, the public shrugged, and put the GOP back in power. Has anything changed among those people since the crumbling of the nation all those (two) years ago? If anything, they've only gotten worse - louder, dumber and uglier.

Somehow, national amnesia (or something worse) caused the electorate to restore insanity to politics. I'm supposed to feel sorry for that?

Okay. Keep checking back in this space to see if I ever lament again for the citizenry the way I did when it mattered the most. And keep checking.

Merry Christmas, Doc.

pH 12.26.1o

Ah, What Did They Know?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. - The Founding Fathers

***

One can only wonder what George, Ben, Tom and the rest of that rabble would have thought of the TSA where their treasured Fourth Amendment was concerned. Only in our airports, atop the slippery slope, can a government agent unreasonably search a person's effects and papers without a warrant. They do this to every single person in line.

This somehow did not bother most Americans until this year, when the airport security apparatchik added "optical scanners" to their arsenal of efficiency. These full-body, big-screen X-ray vision machines have made people uncomfortable even in this high-definition Internet era.

But this is a free country, some still say, so one always has the option of not being bombarded with the equivalent of cancer-causing CT scans; one can opt for a "pat-down". Only it isn't a pat-down. It's the kind of frisking that most citizens only see on re-runs of NYPD Blue...

Except that such hands-on treatment is usually reserved for bad guys, or suspected bad guys. Not for someone who's just trying to get to a wedding in Florida. That's all a Michigan man was doing when a recent TSA "pat-down" caused his urostomy bag to break, spilling his urine all over him.

More disturbing is the selection of children to suffer this freakish anti-Bill of Rights ignonimity. Who wants to look at a little kid in full-body, big-screen X-ray vision? Worse than that, who's looking to feel up a little kid in an office just off the concourse?

All of this has caused something of a backlash. The public is, after all, a mighty and forgotten thing. We have the ability to screw things up just by acting like the sheep the authorities believe us to be. An online movement sprang up in the past week, with today being the busiest travel day of the year.

Everyone has been urged to take a pass on the optical scanner, to insist on a mild mugging from a blue-gloved security guard instead. This could potentially slow the lines down to the point where people would miss their flights, creating the kind of logistical nightmare that normally would only afflict the airlines on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

Sojourners, you have my blessing, and the blessings of the Framers of the Constitution. Force them to reconsider their ways. And anyone who whines that "this is all for our safety", well, I would call you a slimy, un-American coward who has no place left in the land of the free and the home of the brave, so why'n't you make your next flight a one-way?

Check it out: A crime is committed every day in this country involving a car and a gun and a dead body left behind. Do we have checkpoints at every intersection and freeway exit? No, we don't.

Read it again, and please try to understand. Try to understand that your rights are being violated every time you get on an airplane. Try:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It doesn't say, "Except..." And it sure as Hell doesn't say accept.

pH 11.24.1o

Lock, Stock and Both Barrels

Sometimes Christmas comes early.

That was the sentiment as my sweetheart and I swept into Tombstone, Arizona for Helldorado Days. The weather was sweet, the town was packed, and we truly had nothing better to do.

It sure adds up, though. Four pairs of jeans out of the Shady Lady. Cigars at the Smoke Shop. Fudge and fishnet stockings from Madame Moustache (right next to Big Nose Kate's Saloon). A period-piece silk dress from Trash-E Tricia's, complete with gloves, bustle and feathered hair clip.

That's just the money we spent on the lady. Never mind the barbecue beef sandwiches and beers at the Silver Nugget. Or more beers at the Crystal Palace. Or the tee-shirts that you can only get at the Tombstone Epitaph. Or that nickel-plated double-barrel shotgun. I'm sure I'll find a use for it.

Yeah, this trip set us back a little bit, but Tombstone is always worth it. So is our economy. There are two false axioms at play in our current economic climate, two things that you hear people saying, to our nation's collective detriment.

The first thing: "The economy is bad; I don't want to spend any money." The absolute lack of logic in that statement is stunning. It makes just as much sense to say, "I'm dying of thirst. I'd better not drink any water."

The second thing is more pernicious. I use that word because it is a thing most often said by pernicious people. They say that they can't do any spending, or any hiring, or any investing, or any lending, because of uncertainty of it all. What are they uncertain about? They're not sure...

What they're really talking about is the unlikelihood of the Bush tax cuts being extended beyond next year. It's nothing more than an excuse to pinch those pennies that have never really trickled down the way we were promised they would.

How can there be any uncertainty in that? Simply assume the worst - from the wealthy side of the ledger - and deal with it accordingly. I know it must be daunting to stare those Clinton-era tax rates in the face again, but is that the reason for sewing shut the corporate sow's ear? Or is it something else?

The fact is that corporations have trillions of dollars in cash stuffed under their mattresses right now. Banks have long since rediscovered their liquidity and their footing in the stock market. Productivity in the workplace is at an all-time high, so there is indeed work to be done.

So where are the jobs? Where are the loans? Why is Big Business shirking its responsibility to every American out there who wants to play in this rigged game we call the American economy?

Because they're Republicans, stupid. They support the Republican Party and Republican candidates. The Republicans, you may have noticed, have been on the downslope of the political landscape just lately, on account of their policies wrecked our national finances in the first place.

Had anything remotely resembling a normal economic outlook emerged during Barack Obama's first two years in office, it would have been the death knell for the GOP, and rightly so. They knew this. That's why we all witnessed the incessant foot-dragging in Congress over the past two years.

Tax breaks to incentivize hiring? Can't have that. Money for loans to small businesses? No way. Infrastructure spending? Forget about it. Every good idea that the Democrats came up with flew through the House of Representatives, and then was sucked out of the womb by conservative Senate abortionists. This happened time and time again.

Having effectively thwarted a full-scale recovery in this manner, they now expect the voters to return them to office, since the Democrats couldn't (ahem) fix the economy. By the way, watch how much corporate cash gets poured into TV ads trashing Democratic candidates, as opposed to hiring, investing and lending.

That, too, is an expensive gift from Republicans. Five of them. They sit on the Supreme Court. They have a track record, a history, a file as thick as a phone book. They all do.

Conservatives have routinely made our lives a living Hell for their own gain, using our misery to shape their upside-down worldview, which has yet to actually work for anyone except for themselves. And they'll do it again if given half the chance.

Like I said, Christmas comes early this year. What are you hoping to receive?

pH 1o.18.1o

Sick in What Way?

It is a scant three weeks before election day and the gloves have come off in the Arizona gubernatorial race. That unhappy fact is not unique in modern (or even historic) American politics, so on its face, it isn't worth the ink that was spilled onto page 2 of the Arizona Republic's Valley and State section this morning.

The content of the exchange, however, makes it worthy of closer examination. It all began when John Dougherty, the respected rapscallion who dutifully (and fearlessly) typed for the Phoenix New Times for all those years, floated an unsubstantiated Facebook rumor stating that incumbent Jan Brewer "is seriously ill and may not be capable of finishing a four-year term."

Brewer flatly denied the allegation, claiming to have had "a complete checkup" prior to the start of the race. It should have ended there, but in keeping with what we know about Brewer's judgment, it didn't.

Her campaign's top man, Chuck Coughlin, launched a cyber-missile of his own, using his consulting firm's website as the launchpad. He dredged up a 20-year old court transcript in which an unidentified subject suggested that Terry Goddard, Brewer's Democratic opponent, might be gay.

Not there's anything wrong with that - Coughlin's point was that there is no more validity, or relevance, to such a rumor than there is to Dougherty's rumor about Brewer's health. The two things are equal on the scale of media scrutiny, he claims.

There are only a few problems with his thinking on this. First off, Goddard didn't float the rumor about Brewer's health; John Dougherty did. Then there's the fact that being gay does not in any way impede one's ability to hold public office, whereas the same thing cannot be said about being gravely ill.

Most important, there's the fact that impugning someone for being sick is in no way a form of discrimination, but decrying one's sexuality can only be seen as such. So, memo to Chuck Coughlin and his sick boss, there are a few differences between the two things.

And that's natural, because there is also a difference between the two candidates. One would possibly make a fine governor for Arizona. The other is Jan Brewer.

pH 1o.13.1o

Mama Fizzlies

Two-thousand and Ten will go down in history as the Year of the Crazy Woman. Of course, the germination of this phenomenon took place back in Aught-Eight, when John McCain found the courage of his convictions and chose Sarah Palin to be his running mate.

The Palin factor caused mighty ripples to roll through the ranks of the Republican Party. It frightened away otherwise interested Independents, who prefer an even keel, but found no such thing in the rudderless McCain campaign. The current gaggle of would-be elected officials is almost certain to have the same effect.

This looks bad, very bad, for the GOP. Traditionally, a first-term president's Party will lose a considerable number of seats in Congress to the opposition. With that in mind, Barack Obama went for as many victories in his first two years as he could possibly get, with the ambition of his agenda equal to the pace of his pursuit.

This pushed many of those fickle Indies back to the fence upon which they so proudly straddle. Then came the primaries, fueled by the Tea Party activists, who rallied in droves at costume parties in which they alternately dressed up as Minnie Pearl and the distinguished-looking fellow of Quaker Oats fame.

The evidence bears out the fact that the Tea Baggers were not thinking with their brains. Exhibit A: Christine O'Donnell of Delaware. It's easy enough for a self-professed witch to win a Republican primary, just as it once was for a Grand Wizard to do so. In a general election for a seat in the U.S. Senate, though, she will pose more of a challenge to her own Party than she ever could to the Democrats.

In Nevada, Sharron Angle managed to wrestle the nomination away from another wild-eyed she-con, Sue Lowden, the one who seriously suggested that Americans could trade poultry to their doctors in exchange for health care. Angle is possessed with views so extreme as to make the John Birch Society collectively blush, all the way down to her "Second Amendment Remedies" rant. She has done the impossible - she made Harry Reid look palatable.

The madness, shockingly, has even infected California. There, Meg Whitman (of eBay fame) has spent tens of millions of dollars trying to rent the governor's mansion. Without delving too deeply into her psyche, consider that if one Googles the words "Meg Whitman Crazy", one will find roughly 400,000 results.

California Senator Barbara Boxer also faces a new dementian, another McCain girl, no less. Carly Fiorina, the hatchet-faced hack who ran the Maverick's campaign aground long before he squealed for Mama Grizzly's help, has also spent millions of dollars of her own cash in this race.

If you ever worked for Hewlett-Packard, chances are Carly Fiorina sent your job overseas. That's the zenith of her experience in life, firing the citizenry.

For conservatives, this should have been the season of incandescent hope, but it will instead be remembered as an electoral cycle of tremendous disappointment. Will there be some erosion in the bulwark of majority the Democrats have enjoyed for the last two years? Sure, but... but...

But a few months ago, there were expectations of a complete takeover of both Houses. With the current lineup of candidates standing before the electorate, they will probably end up with the smallest gains ever achieved in a first-term president's mid-term election. If it weren't such a good thing, it would be sad.

They will have only their fringe to blame. The American people may not know much, but they surely know better than to shoot themselves in the foot. Not when the other foot is still on the mend, still sore from the last time they stepped in that right-wing bear trap.

pH 1o.7.1o

Another Case of the Typical

"We are seeking to incite the (Islamic) nation to rise up to liberate its land and to (wage) jihad for the sake of God." - Osama bin Laden, June 1999

Somewhere in the swamps of Florida, a man of the cloth named Terry Jones is working hard, working very hard indeed to do the work of the world's most wanted terrorist. With the good sense of a snake-handler, and the righteous vigor of a snake-oil salesman, Jones has managed to thrust himself and his... gosh, scores of followers into the media limelight. How?

By announcing the first annual Koran Burning Day. Imagine that... Osama meets Hitler. It doesn't get a whole lot more Christian than that, does it? Naturally, this feel-good event is scheduled for September 11th.

With the clock ticking, the conservative movement is calving on this issue, with several notables now asking Mr. Jones to please not do that. This phenomenon took place after the revered Gen. David Petraeus mentioning that burning the Koran would likely incite considerable violence against our troops in Muslim countries.

Many Republicans, however, are not concerned with the sensitivies of Muslims in the United States or around the world. They play the little-kid card, conflating this lunacy with the Islamic community center that may someday be built two blocks from Ground Zero in Manhattan. It's about what one would expect from Grand Obstruction Party.

America was founded on freedom of religion. The concept was so important to the Founding Fathers that they listed it first on the Bill of Rights. The same amendment gives cover to people like Terry Jones, almost, since burning Korans could easily be construed as the equivalent to burning crosses - another Southern tradition that didn't pass free-speech muster.

So we all get to enjoy watching this utterly offensive freak show, this display of our worst behavior, this embarrassing insult to all those who have died (and will die) protecting a nation that used to value anyone's religious views, or non-views, for that matter. This is Terry Jones' contribution to our ever-evolving American discourse.

By the way, he'll also be in violation of the city's fire-safety code, so the YouTube crowd might be treated to hysterical images of the little church cookout being doused by the fire hoses of authority. Amen to that.

pH 9.o8.1o

Broken Branch

A man's home is his castle. That's about as conservative a mantra as you'll ever find. It puts a nice capsule around the trinity of American ideas that were so cherished by the Founding Fathers - life, liberty, property (some silly liberal actually changed that last one to "pursuit of happiness", whatever that means).

My castle has been invaded. Twice now, both times during what we used to call dinner hour, my phone has been blown up by a robo-call. Was it a sales call? No. Dial-a-Prayer bugging me again? Not that, either. It was a recorded message from Bob Branch.

Bob Branch is (I now know) running for Congress, hoping to represent the great state of Arizona. He made sure to mention, numerous times, that he's a Christian conservative. Because I can read and understand the establishment clause, it occurs to me that Bob may as well be a Shinto anarchist where the First Amendment to the Constitution is concerned.

He has no other credentials. Bob Branch lays out all of his inexperience on a website for us to read. Based on the number of fingers he has, Bob Branch lays out his ten-point plan for the United States.

Homeland Security: It starts with securing the border, of course. Never mind that all 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were in the country on visas. And he quotes "President Regan" (sic) as having said, "Government's first duty is to protect people, not run their lives." Perhaps President Regan was speaking of the Iraqi people; who knows?

Transferring terrorists to the United States: Don't do it! Of course, without actual trials, we don't really know if the detainees at Guantanamo Bay are terrorists or simple goat herders. Following Bob's path, we never will.

Education: Bob, a college professor with one of those elitist degrees with lots of letters in it, wants to eliminate summer vacation for the kids. And he wants to rearrange the timeline for completing their education. It is worth noting that the state he wishes to represent is dead last in education funding per pupil and leads the nation in dropouts.

Health Care: Bob, himself a rather overweight fellow, knows how to handle this one. His advice is to get a job. If you lose that job, you should be able to pay both your end and the employer's end of the bill to keep your health insurance until you get another job. The health care bill that was signed into law by President Obama is errantly referred to as "socialized medicine".

Balanced Budget: Bob wants to balance the budget. His many position papers, railing against the record deficits run up year after year by the Bush administration - which didn't even put the funding for two wars into the equation - can be found at... Hang on... I'll find it... Ah, never mind.

Same-Sex Marriage: Anybody want to take a stab at Bob's position on this one? He's against it, because he believes that the sanctity of marriage (and the joy of divorce) is reserved for one man and one woman. He also believes that marriage is a union blessed by God, further exposing his ignorance of (or contempt for) the separation of church and state.

The Right to Life: Bob doesn't agree with the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in America. He refuses to acknowledge that abortions have been declining for decades as a result of better birth control (which he also opposes). Wonder what other Supreme Court decisions he doesn't like?

Energy: Bob's first step to energy independence is literally taken from his website. "Drill, baby, drill". So original... With no more than 3 to 5 percent of the world's oil supply in our hands, and with the BP oil spill plaguing the Gulf Coast, Bob may as well take a Sharpie and write the word "Moron" on his own forehead.

Cap and Trade: Bob says that cap-and-trade legislation (effectively a tax on corporate polluters based on the amount of carbon they emit) "will kill us as a nation". So Bob Branch is either entirely delusional about this, or he's hoping to attract some corporate polluter money to his campaign. Or both.

The War on Terror: I actually expected him to say, "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out", but Bob's logic is even hazier than that. Clearly define our goals, he says, without doing so. Then provide the troops with the resources they need (while balancing the budget, mind you). Once the goals are achieved, we can bring them home to a grateful nation. In other words, he would do what Barack Obama has already done.

Looking at this raw tripe, anyone can see that Bob Branch is in no way fit to represent any state other than Arizona. For us, he's a true par. One thing, though, struck me as odd each time my dinner was interrupted by his telephone solicitations. The phone number that popped up on my caller ID came out of North Dakota.

Bob Branch, in his bid to represent Arizona, outsourced the job to North Dakota. Arizona has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. North Dakota actually has the lowest, at 3.9 percent, and now we know why.

Bob Branch for Congress, anyone? Anyone? That's what I thought. You never know, though, as elections are funny things. He may yet win one for the Giper.

pH 8.22.1o

Hard Hat Area

"Obama lacks leadership," my friend said, and it was not a criticism so much as it was a statement of dismay. "Where is he?"

That's a fair question. Not an hour has passed without our nation's 44th president being assailed like no other before him, in every form of media available, and from our Republican elected officials as well. There hasn't been one decision that has been met with anything so positive as a shrug. No matter what he does, it's either too much for one side or not enough for the other.

That's not exactly an environment conducive to grand-marshaling a national parade. There's also the matter of style to be considered. Barack Obama has proven to be a bit aloof, above the fray, cool and calm when others feel as if their heads are about to explode. That's just how he is.

Look at the situation in Arizona, where a federal judge has gutted the infamous SB 1o7o. This is one of the biggest stories in the country; why hasn't Obama come down here to see it for himself before having his Department of Justice throw Arizona into the defendant's chair?

Finally, decades after he left the scene, it seems as though Americans are pining for Lyndon Baines Johnson. His penchant for Capitol Hill skullcrackery was legendary. Everyone assumed that, because BHO came out of the rough-and-tumble political junkyards of Chicago, this president would be an ass-kicker along the lines of LBJ.

Even conservatives seem taken aback by his unwillingness to pull the gloves off. They are enboldened by his lack of bloodthirst. If leadership is measured by the same metrics as accomplishment, Obama is right up there with Kennedy, Roosevelt and Roosevelt. If it's measured by his left jab, then he's left his own base wanting.

Again, using Arizona as an example, just ponder for a moment what LBJ would have done to any state guilty of pushing a stick into his eye. Punishment would have been swift and certain and terrible. From civil rights to Medicare, he built a legacy that no Democrat since has wanted to rival. Can't we all just get along?

Were Obama to channel Johnson, the retribution would be righteous and personal. First, he'd head off these crazy Arizona confederates - sorry, conservatives by granting outright amnesty to every undocumented immigrant in the United States. It could be called the "Ronald Reagan Memorial Taxpayer Creation Act".

(He could embellish this properly by imitating George W. Bush's WMD farce, looking under the rostrum and saying, "Nope, no illegals there!")

Then he'd announce that Luke Air Force Base is no longer needed, because the F-16 is an obsolete fighter plane, and that we can just outsource the training to whatever countries have already purchased most of our F-16s. Davis-Monthan Air Force Base would be relocated to New Mexico, because they need the jobs more, and have more available land to boot. He could call it the "John McCain Honorary Base Re-alignment Act".

After that, he might consider laying federal hands on the Colorado River, nixing the Central Arizona Project Canal (which brings water from the river all the way to the Valley of the Sun). This only makes sense - the "American Riparian Conservation Act".

Closing the Grand Canyon would be the next logical step. It's expensive to operate such a vast national park. The 'Zonies can't say anything, because Jan Brewer and the GOP-led legislature have already closed most of the state parks. This would be known as the "Size and Scope of Government Reduction Act".

In fact, all federal funding could be halted, since Arizona has long been home to such conservatives as John McCain and Jeff Flake, who rail against earmarks as if they really mean it. As a result, we're already last in federal spending per capita. Call it the "This is What You Ingrates Can Expect Act".

Then, if President Obama were truly to channel President Johnson, he'd have Governor Jan Brewer audited by the IRS. Extensively. Same goes for Russell Pearce. And Cindy McCain.

As it stands, LBJ would probably be proud to see an African-American in the White House, no matter how he pulled the levers of power. His legacy stands, even against the kinds of stiff racist winds blowing today in places like Arizona.

It's been too long in coming for the man who had the decency to neither seek nor accept his Party's nomination in 1968: Hail to the Chief. It's just that... Where did he leave that billy club?

pH 7.29.1o

Letter to the Duh

I just got an e-mail, from someone who loves me, depicting a local Letter to the Editor. The tag line went, "What Has America Become". It was drearily predictable right-wing screed, hardly deserving of a response, but that's never stopped me before. So I replied.

***

Hey. I got your e-mail containing the hysterical rant about "what has America become", and just thought I'd take the time to refute some of this paranoid crap. To wit:

"If we lie to Congress it's a felony and if Congress lies to us it's politics."

Bank executives were less than forthcoming in Congressional inquiries about the ways in which they bankrupted our economy. Then they took bonuses straight from the taxpayer purse. BP's ability and willingness to dissemble has also been on recent display. But if we think our representatives are lying to us, we can easily un-elect them.

"If we dislike Blacks we're racist, but if Blacks dislike us it's their First Amendment right."

Blacks have historically not been merely disliked, but also enslaved, whipped and raped. Harry Truman desegregated the military in World War II; the South didn't follow suit until 20 years later, and only then under the gentle supervision of the National Guard. Blacks are routinely sentenced to longer terms of incarceration than Whites who commit identical crimes. By the way, Native Americans aren't so fond of us either, so maybe it isn't a Black thing after all.

"The government spends millions to rehabilitate criminals while doing nothing for victims."

Every single state has victim compensation laws, and has had them for decades. California's was enacted, for example, in 1965. We also have the highest incarceration rates, and recidivism rates, in the free world. Much of our prison system has been turned over to private-sector profiteers, who donate heavily to the GOP at election time.

"Schools can teach that homosexuality is OK, but they can't mention God in the process."

The Pledge of Allegiance is still recited in schools, and it still includes the phrase 'One nation, under God, indivisible'. The Declaration of Independence, also part of the curriculum, begins by saying that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. It does not say, 'unless they're gay'.

"You can kill an unborn child, but executing a mass murderer is wrong."

We are one of the only civilized nations that still executes people. For instance, Christian conservative Timothy McVeigh (the Oklahoma City Bomber) killed a good many born children, and was executed shortly thereafter. Beyond that, the state of Illinois had to put a moratorium on the death penalty because of the shocking number of innocent people found on Death Row. Meanwhile, pharmacists are allowed to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control (because it offends their morality), resulting in obviously unwanted pregnancies.

"We don't burn books in America, but we re-write them."

Conservatives, actually, burned Dixie Chicks CDs when that group disagreed with the Bush administration's misguided and illegal invasion of Iraq. Meanwhile, in Texas, schoolbooks are being written by conservative school boards that do not mention the name Thomas Jefferson. Wonder why.

"We got rid of Communist and socialist threats by renaming them as progressives."

Our trade deficit with Communist China increased tenfold under the Bush administration, which granted them Most Favored Nation status. This was long after Mao Tse-Tung had rid his country of artists, teachers, scholars and the like. Stalin killed over 30 million of his own people, chiefly through starvation. He also turned Siberia into a prison-state. Progressives tend to build HUD homes, give health-care to people, stuff like that. See the difference?

"We can't close the border with Mexico, but we protect the 38th Parallel in Korea."

The Mexican-American War ended with the Treaty of Hidalgo, in which we awarded ourselves the states now known as Utah, Nevada and California. Nevertheless, Mexico remains one of our biggest and most important trade partners. The Korean War never ended, but resulted in an armistice. North Korea (which developed nuclear weapons in the Bush-43 era) routinely threatens the U.S. and its allies in the region, and in March torpedoed a South Korean battleship, killing 46 sailors.

"If you protest Obama's policies you're a terrorist, but if you burned a flag or George W. Bush in effigy it's your 1st Amendment right."

Again the disdain for the First Amendment... Anyway, no protestors of President Obama's policies have been charged, to date, with terrorism or anything like it. Bush protestors, however, were penned up miles away from his public appearances in what were laughably called 'Free Speech Zones'. Many were arrested, and some were shot in the face with rubber bullets.

***

I could keep going, but reading this rote, redundant missive makes my forehead feel fat. Suffice it to say that he made absolutely not one single point, good or otherwise, but did reinforce the widely-accepted notion that conservatives are uninformed, backward, bigoted morons.

There's a lot to be said for the company you keep.

pH 7.24.1o

Long Hot Summer Nights

It's summertime, and the living's easy. This is especially true in Arizona, where the brutal desert heat actually wafts through your transom like a comfortable breeze compared to the hot air that erupts regularly from our public officials.

State Senator Russell Pearce, in between social engagements with white supremacists, remains active in the only game in town (immigration). The architect of the infamous SB 1o7o now trains his sights on newborns, to whom he would deny birth certificates if their parents happened to be undocumented aliens.

Got that? They would literally remain in the ranks of the unborn - the only form of childhood that seems to concern any conservative.

I know... The Fourteenth Amendment states very clearly that anyone born in (and subject to the jurisdiction of) the United States is an American citizen. Pearce apparently either cannot read or cannot comprehend the words at which he stares with slackened jaw; flip a coin.

He and other local right-wing yokels argue that, for all this time, we've just been misinterpreting that particular section of the Constitution. Those Framers who wrote it, they opine, did not intend to bestow citizenship upon the offspring of illegal immigrants.

I suppose they believe that. So what if the Supreme Court has historically disagreed? Chasing down their scattered logic, one might present the same case against much of the Bill of Rights.

The Second Amendment should be limited to flintlock muzzle-loaders, because the Founding Fathers could never have predicted the obscene power of the machine gun. The First Amendment should be scrapped, as well, because someone who merely discovered bifocals and electricity could never have envisioned the spectacle of the Internet.

The Fourth Amendment can go out the window, because hey, the signers of the Declaration didn't know squat about wiretapping. The Fifth Amendment, well, that just mollycoddles these obvious criminals in a manner unforeseen. And we don't need any of the other Amendments, either, because we're just too stupid to understand them.

This explains, in advance, why SB 1o7o will be found un-Constitutional in the coming days by a judge reviewing numerous claims against the State. We'll say she's an activist jurist. We'll say she doesn't understand. We'll say she's a liberal. And we'll devise a solution that ventures even further off the charts - Latino concentration camps, something.

The only jewels to be found in all of this garbage can be found in our demographics. A decade from now, hundreds of thousands of loony white-haired bigots (we've built entire cities in which to house them) will be dead. Replacing them at the poll booths will be young Hispanic voters, who will have grown up watching this ugly stage play.

Slow or not, it's suicide on the part of the Republican Party, and they don't want to be bothered while they're doing it. Let's all do them a big favor and oblige.

pH 7.2o.1o

Off With Her Head

It's hard to know, at this point, more of which has been spilled in the Gulf of Mexico since April 2o: Oil or ink. An impartial observer would have to say the former. The quantity of reporting has not left us wanting so much as the quality.

BP security guards have routinely turned away the press from public beaches. This is a first-rate affront to the Fourth Estate, which doesn't seem to mind, as it was trained so meticulously by the Bush adminstration. It is disappointing to see that the sons of the South have become so lax in repelling agents of a foreign country from our soil.

Southern spigotry is still alive and well, though, with all manner of regional Republicans trying desperately to blame BP's mess on President Obama. One lawmaker, Joe Barton of Texas, even had the gall to apologize to BP for the indignities they have endured by being asked to pay for their mistakes.

Through it all, the arrogance of BP has been personified by CEO Tony Hayward. First he said he wanted his life back. Then he said that Americans were inherently fraudulent and would try to weasel unwarranted money from the oil giant. His latest whereabouts: Sailing on a yacht in a race 'round the Isle of Wight, sponsored by the good people at J.P. Morgan.

So it becomes clear, what the proper response should be by the United States as it responds as best it can to the worst disaster to face us as a nation, worse even than 9/11. We must sack England.

These bloody snarky bastards have had it coming for a long time. Never mind that they "sexed up" the war in Iraq; they've been rather nasty to us ever since the Revolution. Look at the War of 1812. And whose side did they take in the Civil War? Only in World Wars I and II did they make nice, and that's because they were on the brink of defeat.

World War II would have been the optimal time to bring the Mother Country into the Union fold. They were beaten up. We were strategically placed. Churchill was too drunk to notice. Nobody would have cared. That doesn't mean it can't be done today.

A quick review of global defense spending tells us that any conflict would be brief, to be sure, but it would more likely be a bloodless coup. It's like our filibuster.

Whenever the Republicans don't want something to pass in the Senate (pick any example), they merely threaten to filibuster said legislation. They don't actually have to filibuster. Just the thought of Mitch McConnell speaking without end is enough to make the Democrats cave.

In the event that the British actually wanted to engage us in battle, well, it would be mercifully quick. It's not like they have any friends left in the world. Who would intervene? Ireland and Scotland? Those would be our forward operating bases. Germany? Please.

France would let us launch the big invasion from their side of the Channel. Only Australia would pose a problem, and they've already demonstrated their loyalty is for sale.

We'd be able to buy plenty of it, too, with all that royal plunder. How much is the House of Windsor worth these days, anyway? That would be the pound-sterling silver lining in all of this. Our economy needs the cash (especially at today's exchange rate).

Annexing the United Kingdom might just be the shot in the arm that America needs right now. We could easily absorb the real estate inventory. Our culinary institutes and schools of dentistry would thrive. And it would give us a much-needed island upon which to deposit our nuclear waste as we cruise out of the fossil-fuels era.

This is the Bush Doctrine. The people of England would no doubt herald us as liberators as we drove our tanks the wrong way down their streets. We could blast it from the bullhorns to our new citizens: Sam's your Uncle. We have killed your queen and you are free.

History would treat us kindly. Diplomats the world over would greet us with warm smiles on their faces. The tragedy in the Gulf would remain unresolved, but the military-industrial complex would be pleased. Everybody wins... Or at least everybody that matters.

pH 6.22.1o

BIg Oil Wins

Experiment: Go to your local auto parts store and pick up a case of motor oil. It could be Quaker State, Pennzoil, Valvoline, it really doesn't matter which brand. Actually, make it two cases. Take all of this motor oil down to the beach. It could be the ocean, the Great Lakes, the nearest river or local watering hole - it makes no difference.

Pull out a bottle of oil, unscrew the cap, and dump the oil all over the ground, right at the shoreline. Now do it again. And again. Until all of the oil is gone. Now wait for the authorities to arrive and see what happens.

There will be fines, oh, yes. There might even be jail time; if not that, then certainly community service. Littering and polluting, it turns out, are fairly serious crimes in communities all across America. Unless you're a corporation.

British Petroleum, a foreign company, has destroyed the Gulf of Mexico. Let's not be gentle about this anymore. We're fucked. The environment is fucked. The seafood industry is fucked. The charter fishermen are fucked. The sea turtles and dolphins and brown pelicans, they're all fucked, too.

"Corporate America" isn't just a catchy slogan anymore. It's a reality that tops all horror movies. The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are actually people, you see, extremely wealthy people to whom the laws of the land do not necessarily apply.

For instance, BP was ordered by the EPA to stop using the dispersant known as Corexit 95oo, which has an unpleasant toxicity to it that will certainly be deadly to marine life, perhaps to a greater extent even than the crude will. BP replied with a memorandum that read, essentially, "No, thanks".

When a major network sent a news crew out to report on the extent of the damage being done to the Gulf Coast, they were turned away by the Coast Guard, who explained that they were protecting the interests of BP. All of the cleanup data is being vetted, as well, through the watchful abacus of the giant energy company.

The ripple effects have been enough to elicit short barks of laughter through the tears. Blowhard conservatives, stuck for so long in their anti-big-government gear, are now blaming the feds for not managing BP's mess. Anyone else would get dizzy from such a thing, but not them. By now they are immune to their own hypocrisy, as if they had never chanted Drill, baby, drill.

Now it's the government's turn to drill. In the ultimate act of lip service, Attorney General Eric Holder has announced criminal probes into the explosion that caused the disaster, as if there were still a crime scene thereabouts to investigate. Still, even the threat of such an inquiry caused energy stocks to tumble.

The fact is, though, that our government is beholden to corporations. No other donors can cough up the kind of money needed to buy the television ads (from broadcasting corporations) that get politicians elected. You and I do not have lobbyists with briefcases stuffed full of cash to give to our representatives. Corporations do, and have been given the green light to bribe freely.

It is a guarantee, therefore, that oil gouting from the ocean floor will seem insignificant compared to the damage that will be done by corporations down the road. There is nothing to stop them. There is noone to hold them accountable. Ask the people of Prince William Sound. Big Oil doesn't care about wildlife or people or ecosystems or anything except their profit margins. Nobody disputes this.

Certain things, in the face of this atrocity, would seem to make sense. Nationalizing the oil industry makes sense. Putting BP into receivership makes sense. Breaking up the petroleum industry into separate categories (gas stations, refineries and drilling outfits) makes sense. None of it will happen.

Short of turning loose the Unabomber, there is no way for the American people to attain any measure of justice against our corporate masters. Slavery was abolished a century and a half ago, on the eve of the Industrial Revolution, and old John Brown lies a-mouldering in his grave. They might as well have wrapped his corpse in the American flag.

pH 6.o2.1o

Little Crow Peep

Frustration has given way to disgust in Arizona's great immigration debate. Basis for argument aside, any criticism is met (by conservatives mostly) with the same 18-letter response. It's like dealing with sheep. They all flock in the same direction. They all bleat the same thing.

"Ha-a-ve you read the bi-i-ll?"

Oh, I've read it. On paper, meaning without regard to the behavior and motives of each rugged individual out there, one cannot definitively say that SB 1o7o is a racist bill. No. It is, however, a stupid bill.

I understand its proponents when they say that illegal immigration has cost Americans their jobs, even though so many more have been lost to corporate outsourcing. Seldom is that concern followed logically, or we'd see more business licenses revoked, a thing rarer than a bighorn in these parts.

As with the war on drugs, conservatives have it backward on this issue, focusing on demand (people who want work) instead of going after supply (employers who willingly hire them). The new law mandates - sans funding - that any city, county or otherwise politically incorporated entity question the citizenship of anyone upon reaching the point of "reasonable suspicion" during any "lawful stop" or arrest.

Ask any cop how far he or she has to follow you before finding a reason to lawfully stop you. The one I asked said half a mile. As for what comprises "reasonable suspicion", we may as well ask former Bush administration attorney Kris Kobach of Missouri, who wrote the bill for the Republicans in the Arizona legislature (we know this because it was not written in crayon).

An accent. Fluency in English (or lack thereof). Certain clothing. The number of people in a vehicle. Stuff like that. Never the color of their skin, no. Or their national origin. Why would a cop need to consider one's national origin when determining one's status as a citizen? All of this takes place "when practicable", according to Kobach's legalese.

"Practicable", by the way, has two definitions. One is capable of being used or done. The other refers to a theater prop that is a workable part of a stage set. Alas, SB 1o7o doesn't specify.

These are not the only problematic vagaries in the bill - not hardly. The section allowing citizens to sue any agency they believe to be running afoul of the new law is meritless on its face. In order to sue anyone, one has to have legal standing. One has to prove one has been damaged. Judges will rightly consider this to be a waste their time, and worse.

The provision that denies any sort of plea bargain for an illegal immigrant is an outright assault on the judicial branch. It does provide a 20-30 day jail sentence for a misdemeanor offense of being here illegally (read: Three hots and a cot on the taxpayers' dime). It's ridiculous to the point that Esquire Kobach should be called before the Bar and made to answer for himself.

Even if this joke of a law somehow passes Constitutional muster, it creates layers of legal nightmares across the state, twisting the knife already buried deep into our economic aorta. The burdens that SB 1o7o places on the Attorney General's office should also be filed in the basket of really bad ideas. Like it says on the money, e pluribus unum - one out of many.

SB 1o7o makes it a misdemeanor for an illegal immigrant to apply for a job. It makes a criminal out of ordinary citizens for soliciting work from a non-citizen. How were you to know that worker's legal status? Doesn't say. Employers, however, will only be prosecuted (snort) when they "knowingly" hire an illegal immigrant.

If you get caught transporting illegal aliens, your vehicle will be impounded. It does not say anything about impounding your animal. To borrow a few peas from J.D. Hayworth's brain, one can just as easily smuggle immigrants in on horseback... Maybe that's just another corporate loophole.

(And why not? There are vast expanses of language throughout the bill that threaten to do what has never been done in Arizona before. The only thing left out by the lawyers were the actual words "wink" and "nod" in parantheses.)

SB 1o7o is filled, however, with lines that boggle the minds of even junior varsity legal scholars. Section 2, Title 11, Chapter 7, Article 8 explains that an officer may transport an illegal alien to la Migra, "notwithstanding any other law" (rape, murder, what have you). It does not allow us to sue said officer if we come become victims of a crime (rape, murder, what have you) while he or she is wasting his or her time doing that.

Section 6 begins with the words, "Arrest by officer without warrant". This is why those textbooks out of Texas don't put the words "Thomas" and "Jefferson" next to each other.

So, we can ask, is it fair to label Arizona's new law Jim Crow? Perhaps not. Still, it doesn't reflect well on us when the state pulls the wool over our eyes, fleecing us all with sheer stupidity. We should all be sheepish when asked, "Ha-a-ve you read the bi-i-ll?"

As for the poor folks who just want a better life than what they left behind in their home countries, well, they're on the lam now.

pH 5.26.1o

Drunk Legislating

It is an astonishing act to shoot oneself in the foot. It is another thing entirely to shoot oneself in the foot while standing in a rowboat. That has been the net effect thus far of Arizona's infamous Senate Bill 1o7o, which was signed into law by Republican Governor Jan Brewer, and has been the talk of the nation ever since.

It has been commonly referred to as the "Papers, Please" law, drawing overblown comparisons to Nazi Germany. Some have likened it to apartheid. Others label it ethnic cleansing. Whatever the analogy, this is not the stuff that travel agents' dreams are made of.

Indeed, the hole blown in our economy has been considerable. Hotels and convention centers are bracing for the worst. Los Angeles and San Francisco have both slapped boycotts on the state, costing Arizona tens of millions of dollars.

Even the GOP has decided to hold the Republican National Convention elsewhere; the event is believed to have the same regional impact as the Super Bowl. They must be worried about the Hispanic vote, and they should be: Statewide, 67 percent of Hispanics oppose the law.

Here in the 'Zona, the people and the press are suffering from denial. They consider criticism, boycotts and relocations to be meddlesome. They wish the money good riddance. Perhaps we could annex Blythe from California and change the spelling - not that many of us would notice.

So who comes riding in to save the day for Governor Brewer? Who else but Sarah Palin and her goodies-grubbing entourage. What advice could she possibly have given to our beleaguered Governor? Quit?

Whatever else she said, Palin expressed the need for Americans to say, "We are all Arizonans now." She also called the Grand Canyon State "ground zero" on the illegal immigration issue. Might as well be... We're already ranked at zero in that danged education category. We're dead last in annual personal-income growth.

Moreover, it would indeed be a shock for all Americans to suddenly be turned into Arizonans. First of all, we'd all have to carry concealed weapons. We'd have to ride motorcycles without helmets. We'd have to be able to tolerate (and function in) 120 degree heat.

We would all have to be able to "hold it" for long distances, as our rest areas on the highways have been closed. We'd all have to be content to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in the real estate market. And we'd all have to vote for Sarah Palin with the expectation that she might actually be able to win.

On top of all that, we'd also have to excommunicate ourselves from California. Not only are we on bad relations (which can only get worse with the Suns-Lakers series on the horizon), it is also understood that the California Highway Patrol will be pulling over all vehicles bearing Arizona license plates in order to conduct mandatory sobriety tests.

It's not profiling. It's called "reasonable suspicion".

pH 5.16.1o

Divine Introspection

As the first gooey blobs of oil hit the Gulf Coast beaches this week, one cannot help but wonder, why does God have it in for those Red States? After all, there are Republican governors in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. The only other state to ever suffer from an oil spill of this magnitude was Alaska (not exactly a bastion of liberalism).

The real obstructionist ass-hats in the Senate and the House also hail from those Southern states, which are also prone to hurricanes. And floods. And tornadoes.

It's funny how hurricanes never seem to strike New England. How flooding happens in Tennessee and North Dakota (Red States) but not water-rich Minnesota or Ohio (Blue States). How tornadoes will bedevil Texas and Oklahoma (Red States) but not so much Iowa or Illinois (Blue States).

Despite the fact that California exists on a shaky fault line, it has relatively few earthquakes. Hawaii, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, only very rarely suffers from a tsunami. So how could Alaska have suffered both in 1964, when an earthquake felled its cities and caused a tsunami that swept every stick of furniture off of Kodiak Island? Red State, Blue State.

Even the industrial accidents seem to plague those states than lean more conservative. They have coal mines in Pennsylvania and Maryland, but the bad accidents seem to happen more often in places like West Virginia and Kentucky. Red States. Blue States.

You hear of school shootings in places like Arkansas, Montana and Colorado, but not so much in Vermont, Rhode Island or Oregon. (Granted, Obama won Colorado in 2oo8, but Colorado was Red at the time of the Columbine tragedy, which occurred in an affluent Denver suburb.)

Doesn't anyone ever wonder why the temperatures in Arizona routinely reach the 120-degree mark in the summer - yet in next-door New Mexico, they don't? To break it down, one has to ask, why does God hate Republicans? I'm not saying that's so... I wouldn't presume. I'm saying it appears that way.

I can hazard a guess as to why. It's due to the fact that conservatives tend to take God's name in vain. That Commandment, by the way, doesn't mean "don't swear". It means not to seek your own glory with God on the front of your shield. When has any Democrat done such a thing? Every time you turn around, some Republican or other is doing exactly that.

Prayer might help. It didn't during the Civil War, though, when the Blue States had to quell the rebellion of the Red States. God let Sherman burn his way through the South with impunity despite the pleas and prayers of every plantation owner who ever flew the Stars and Bars.

Why doesn't God like Republicans? I could expound upon that but it wouldn't further my point. If you really want to know, ask Him.

pH 5.1o.1o

An Open Letter to Gov. Jan Brewer (R., AZ)

Dear Governor Brewer,

I know you've received a great deal of correspondence in regard to your position as our state's Racist in Chief. That must be taking up an awful lot of your time, but I hope you'll fit my letter into your busy schedule, because this isn't about that.

This is about the special election you wanted, the one wherein the citizens of Arizona get to decide whether or not to impose upon themselves a one-cent sales tax. With the threat of even more cuts to education and public safety held over our heads, it doesn't seem so much like a vote as participation (from the bad end of things) in an overt act of blackmail.

I'm actually one of those lucky people who gets to send in an early ballot. I just wanted you to know that I filled out that ballot today and will be sending it in tomorrow, a good two weeks ahead of schedule.

I voted 'no'. It's not just that, as a guy with no kids, I have no skin in the game. My decision was based more on principle than greed; I am, after all, not a Republican.

First of all, it's not as though Arizona is doing a very good job of educating our children, regardless of how much we spend (or don't spend). We're what, 49th overall? Thank God for Arkansas, I guess. I also believe we are over-policed, with multiple layers of law enforcement, each with bloated budgets and too much power.

The other thing is that I don't believe that you, or any of your conservative cronies in the state legislature, would really be so stupid as to cut education funding even deeper than y'all already have. It would be - even in a state with such a large retiree population - political suicide. If that would shorten y'all's reign of idiocy in Arizona, well, I'm all for that.

On the other hand, it almost seems as if you want to further slash scholastic appropriations, which would explain why you would foist this sales tax vote upon a public that is notoriously averse to taxation. But that would be giving y'all way too much credit.

I figure if the majority of voters agree with me, and I suspect they do, that you'll find that money elsewhere. Maybe it will come from property taxes, maybe it will come from an increase in corporate taxes, maybe you'll turn I-10 into a toll road. I don't really care how you do it, or if you do it at all.

Arizona already has one of the highest sales tax rates in the country. Now the City of Phoenix has implemented a 2 percent sales tax on food, I hardly think that now is the time for you Republicans to ride in on our backs to save education and public safety funding from the perilous position in which y'all have put them.

I hope this letter has, at least momentarily, taken your mind off the fact that the anti-immigrant bill you signed has made our beautiful state appear to be so terribly ugly on the national stage. And, ah, good luck in November.

Don't worry. It'll probably be okay. Thanks to generations of GOP efforts, most of us are just as dumb as you are.

pH 4.28.1o

Notes from Hell

Here in Arizona we like to say we have "taken our country back", but we never finish that sentence. More to the point, we have taken our country back about 50 years, with a new immigration law that places all people of non-White ancestry under an unnecessary - and probably unconstitutional - microscope.

By the way, beyond Charles Keating, this is the only way we've ever made the national news. It takes a governor, such as Evan Mecham, dumb enough to utter words like "pickaninny". Or a Senator, like John McCain, nasty enough to vote against Martin Luther King Day. Or some gun-toting nut at a protest.

That's macro, though, a bird's eye view of Arizona as seen by the rest of the Union. If one looks at it from the inside, one will notice that we're actually much more of a basket case than we seem on the surface. For instance, we've closed many of our state parks and rest areas, hoping to shave a few hundred thousand dollars off our $2 billion state budget deficit.

Yes, this is the home of Congressman Trent Franks, who called President Obama "an enemy of humanity". It's also the state that recently passed a bill requiring the president to present his birth certificate (cuckoo, cuckoo) in order to be on the ballot in 2o12... There go those precious 11 electoral college votes.

The same good ol' boy who brought us this immigration bill, Russell Pearce, recently wrote up a bill that did away with the need for Arizonans to have a permit to carry concealed weapons. Governer Jan Brewer signed that one into law, too; this stroke of genius came on the heels of a cost-cutting meausure that released some 17,000 mental-health patients onto the streets.

Brewer had a tough choice to make with this immigration bill. Sign it and she loses the bulk of the Latino vote come November. Veto it and she gets buried in the primary and November never matters. She made a choice based on political survival and nothing more. And she's the least of our worries.

We have a less-than-civic-minded Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, who wants to supplant her as governor. We have an ethically challenged former County Attorney, Andrew Thomas, who dreams of being Attorney General. We have a mentally challenged former Representative, J.D. Hayworth, aspiring to replace McCain as our senator.

In Arizona, the idiots get promoted. How do you suppose Brewer made it this far in the first place?

There's plenty more, but just from the few things I've mentioned, most reasonable people will come to the conclusion that Arizona has the greatest level of dysfunction among all 50 states. Politically speaking, it may even be worse off than our two occupied countries, Iraq and Afghanistan.

One consistent thread runs through these horror stories: The Republican Party. All of this and so much more can be laid directly on that sorry doorstep. Is Arizona an accurate reflection of unbridled conservatism?

Yes. But it's not like the usual one you'd find in a mirror. It's more like a reflection of the desert sun itself. Look at it long enough and your eyes will burn right out of your head - not so much physics, in this case, as a defense mechanism of the soul.

pH 4.23.1o

Flat Tires and Gun Rallies

Yesterday was another angry day in America, almost. On the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing the media was abuzz with interest in the rancor that has gripped this country since Barack Obama was elected some 500 days ago.

The bigots and malcontents that make up the so-called Tea Party were out in force, playing make-believe at "Second Amendment" rallies in and around Washington, D.C., even though there aren't really any Second Amendment issues to be heard in government these days. They showed up with their guns anyway, perpetual adolescents that they are.

Not a single hour has passed without a bombardment of bitter (and often hateful) criticism directed at our nation's first African-American president. It isn't going to stop, not until the FCC wakes up from its Rip van Winkle slumber, and realizes that there is a public-interest clause in all of those broadcasting licenses.

With the steady conservative drumbeat of anger, anger, anger (in the Bush years it was fear, fear, fear) pulsing in our heads, Americans have grown nervous. The breathy intonations of paranoid conservative pundits has driven us too far. The squealing minority with its faux Klan rallies has hindered our economic recovery as well.

Bill Clinton, finally, had much to say about this. He has expressed a fountain of concern just lately, using the McVeigh massacre to drive home the point - the fact - that stoking unbridled hatred of government can lead, and has led, to a level of violence that touches everyone. It might be too little, too late, but at least he can sleep at night knowing he tried.

Only the Republican Party has anything to gain from Americans rattling their sabres at each other. There have been no demonstrations conducted by left-wingers spewing acid about socialism, communism, Marxism, Maoism, statism, fascism and even terrorism. Conservative lawmakers have not been targeted with death threats and fake anthrax envelopes.

Most likely, the 82 percent of the population who refuses to be identified with the GOP has noticed, and will not reward the conservative movement with any augmentation of power in Congress. You have to earn such a reward, and they have been irresponsible in ways never seen before in our history, at least not since the Civil War.

And all of this is academic. I say that because of something I saw yesterday in the parking lot of a boring little shopping center in Mesa, Arizona. In the course of my busy day, as I backed out of my parking space, I noticed a Hispanic woman hunched down next to the right front wheel of her beat-up old minivan. She had a flat tire.

Her kids stood by, looking bored, as she fiddled with the plastic caps covering the lug nuts. The jack lay on its side next to the vehicle, waiting to be put to use, and it was a nice day for it. I have very few rules in life, but one of them is that I don't let women change tires in front of me.

I was just getting back into my parking space when a younger guy came cruising in on a bicycle. He was an African-American who wore his hair in dreadlocks. He stopped on a dime, hopped off his bike, and strode purposefully to the back of the minivan to retrieve the spare. With no hesitation, he crouched down in front of the disabled wheel, and proceeded busting the lug nuts.

That's when it occurred to me that America will be fine. We're going to come together and solve our problems. I have seen it with my eyes. The ordinary people will take care of things. The young people. The real people. Not the freaks on television and talk-radio.

The Tea Party is a creation of conservative media. It is a megaphone for the clueless. And it will soon enough fade into history, like hoop skirts and bobby socks, like 8-track tapes, and any violence that takes place will be forgotten because it will have made no difference. In another generation we will look back and wonder what the big deal was.

If you love your country you should act like it. If you don't, you'll have to pardon the rest of us as we swim around you on our way forward, paying you no more attention than you really ever deserved.

pH 4.2o.1o

Some Records Were Made to Be Broken

Humanity seeks. Our endless quest for knowledge and understanding has led us out of the primordial pudding and into every corner of the Earth and into the outreaches of space. We have tracked Bigfoot, cleaned out the Pyramids and hunted for D.B. Cooper's cash. Even with our Smithsonian bent we have yet to discover one great and elusive mystery:

Republican leadership. Where is it? A recent gathering of high-ranking conservatives in New Orleans brings us no closer to the answer. Judging from that pep rally, there are three basic categories of Republican leadership. There are the pea-brains, there are the broken records, and there are the shrieking shrews.

Newt Gingrich is a good example of a broken record. Glenn Beck is clearly a pea-brain. Sarah Palin is a shrieking shrew. Michelle Bachmann, that rare jewel, is an amalgam of all three.

One really has to wonder who the next presidential candidate will be. So far, the roster of hopefuls reads like a list of B actors, washouts and losers of past races. Mitt Romney couldn't get past the rudimentary stages of the 2oo8 Republican primary. Sarah Palin sank the McCain ticket like the human torpedo that she is.

Rudy Giuliani isn't interested because he knows America isn't interested in him. Gingrich has more baggage than an airline conveyor belt. Mike Huckabee is what the U.S. Navy would call an LST (large, slow target). Bobby Jindahl fumbled and fidgeted like a fifth-grader in his last turn in the national spotlight.

Mike Pence of Indiana? Okay. Eric Cantor of North Carolina? He'd be the embodiment of the Washington Generals against Barack Obama's Harlem Globetrotters. Am I missing anyone? Could a write-in candidate (say Porky Pig or Mickey Mouse) actually do better than this collection of misfits?

John Boehner is a blubbering mess. Mitch McConnell is one of the more confused people you will ever find holding public office. In any case, neither of them wants to leave their cocoons of Congressional power, and no wonder. That's why they're quietly recruiting Gen. David Petraeus - his record doesn't automatically paint him as a lunatic.

The GOP simply lacks leadership. Their most effective spokesmen happen to be talk-radio show hosts who seem more beholden to the masses than to the stuffed suits who hope to get elected despite their decidedly non-mainstream views. That's a good strategy for getting ratings and selling commercials, and that's about all.

Pea brains. Broken records. Shrieking shrews. Our endless pursuit of information cannot turn over anything other than that in the world of right-wing politics. That's why they're out of power today, and will remain so until they come up with something more to offer to the American people.

Who knows how long that could take? We may well find the Lost Dutchman's gold before then. At the rate they're going, conservatives would be lucky to elect a representative from Area 51. Or Loch Ness, which may be in another country, but can allegedly be seen from certain parts of Alaska.

pH 4.13.1o

The Best of Times, the End of Times

The end is near, I hear, and this time the doomsday prophets might just be right. Look at the spate of earthquakes lately and it's easy to conclude that God might indeed be angry with us. Lord knows He's got enough reasons.

I'm a Catholic, actually, and we have a direct line to God on matters such as this. So I checked it out, and He said, yes. The world's going to end. Soon. Of course, Heaven time isn't the same as Eastern Standard, or exactly in lockstep with the atomic clock. So "soon" could mean anything.

It's all over the place, this Rapture crap, taken out of the Book of Revelation (which was penned a century or so after the crucifixion of Christ). It amounts to the angry rants of an offshoot sect of Christianity, not unlike the Book of Jubilees, which was not allowed into the Bible by the men who produced it.

Since they'll apparently believe anything, conservatives who say they're ready to go "home" should know that they're off the hook now, all kinds of hooks in fact. You've already stopped paying your mortgage... Now it seems as though you don't really have to pay for anything anymore. Because, you know, these are the End Times.

Who would pay their bills if they really believed the apocalypse was upon us? That kind of eliminates the need to pay taxes, too; it's not as though the heathens and blasphemes in Washington are going to do anything good with that money anyhow. To hell with the law.

If you think about it long enough, you'll realize that the Ten Commandments today are just as obsolete as the tax code. After all, not paying your mortgage and bills amounts to stealing, so there goes the one about not doing that. And down the whole thing tumbles.

Ask David Vitter or John Ensign (or a host of other good GOP family men) about Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery. Conservatives admire those people and champion them as their leaders. Basically, with the Big Ten out of fashion and the End Times upon us, you right-wingers can feel free to cuss out your parents, carve Buddahs from soap and violate your neighbor's donkey.

Oh, and you'll get to kill, because that's the real message of Christianity anyway. No more prohibition on that, and just in time, right? It's so much easier than building an ark...

That must be what was going through the head of Charles Wilson, 63, of Selah, Washington, who was arrested for making multiple death threats against Sen. Patty Murray. That's absolutely what was in the minds of the Hutaree militia in southeast Michigan, which planned to murder police officers in hopes of starting some sort of revolution.

Word to the wise: For those who would revolt, it will surely be the end of the world as they know it. This is not Bill Clinton's national defense. The last administration made a blunder of Biblical proportions in the Middle East a while back, and as a result, the National Guard is kind of on the hard and edgy side now.

Take your chances if you must, in Jesus' name I suppose. Have fun. And don't forget your Saint Christopher medal.

pH 4.o7.1o

Republican National Clowns

Has anyone noticed the civil war going on in our midst? Not in the country. In the Republican Party. Right-wing pundits have worked the extemists of the Party into a teetering mess, bordering on the brink of terrorism. No tactic is considered off the chart because no candidate is conservative enough.

Then consider the embarrassing foibles of the Republican National Committee, with its donors' money spent curiously in bondage clubs and clothing boutiques, at liquor stores and on power-raves. As a result, the war chest is nearly empty, and the election cycle has barely just begun.

Even if RNC chairperson Michael Steele resigns (as many top Republicans have, ahem, suggested), what gives rank and file conservatives any confidence that their next hire won't be worse, say Liz Cheney or Bozo the Clown?

It all speaks to judgment and character. The GOP has displayed neither and shows no signs of doing so anytime soon.

Neither the daffy RNC nor the crazy Tea Party inspires much in the way of faith, and in those circles, faith equals money. In the minds of conservatives, God is mamman. That's why the money dried up.

The dip in private donations probably won't matter since the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are actually people, albeit ones dispossessed from - again - judgment and character (to say nothing of a conscience). So the cash will flow in to conservative coffers this summer, and their constituents will be even less served than they were before.

No matter what, political observers expect Republicans to pull in fewer seats than the usual minority resurgence allows in a midterm election. Democrats in November will be facing a roster of broke and tattered candidates following vicious primary races fueled by Tea Party hysteria.

Besides that, they're are saddled with a track record that didn't exist in the hallowed year of Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Four. Americans pretty much understand what was done to them in the first eight years of this millennium. Putting the GOP back in power would surely beget another war, further encroachment upon our civil liberties and a complete re-collapse of the financial system.

That's why not many Democrats, in or out of office, seem overly concerned as the calendar pages turn. The opposition has spent the last year and a half offering and doing absolutely nothing. Imagine these were your employees... Oh, wait; they are. Does anyone really want to support this bunch?

Be my guest (and, unlike the telephone numbers on various RNC begging letters, I swear this is not a porn connection):

https://secure1.gop.com/site/apps/ka/sd/donorcustom.asp?c=ouITL8MRJrE&b=5403197

Go ahead. I'm sure Michael Steele could use another rack of designer clothes, or some more whips and ball-gags, perhaps a few more gallons of booze. Or, most needed of all, a colorful little car to take him and all of his friends to the center ring one more time.

pH 4.o3.1o

The Roundup

Well, it came in the mail today. They always said it would, and it did. I was one who scoffed at their wild-eyed predictions, their doomsday scenarios, their dungeons in the sky. I would listen with a very small grin on my face as they spoke, picturing the obligatory tin-foil hats atop their pointy heads.

It came in the mail. How innocuous; really, what a paltry approach to this sort of thing. Give the bad news to a letter carrier and have it dropped in my mailbox. I didn't see it coming. I didn't see it arrive. And here it is in my hands, an order from my government.

Turn in your guns. By the end of the month. Not even a "please".

That's dicey for me, because I've bought and sold (or given away) an awful lot of guns in the past fifteen years. There was the 9mm I pawned, the .38 that went to the plumber as payment for service rendered, that horrible .41 magnum I sold to Tommy the Pressman. Then there was the .22 I gave to Roy for Christmas, the other .22 I swapped to Greg for a guitar, and the other .22 that went to...

Well, you get the picture. And those were just the handguns (the rifles - oh, God). Kind of hard to turn all that stuff in now. I sure hope Uncle Sam understands.

April Fool, by the way. But you knew that, didn't you? Seventeen months into his first term, President Obama hasn't bothered to take away my guns. Or your guns. Or anyone else's guns. Wait, let me guess; he just hasn't done it yet. Here's your tin foil.

The notion - no, the fear that a Democratic president is out to confiscate our weapons has been fomented by right-wing lunatics for decades now. Did Bill Clinton take our guns? No. Jimmy Carter? Nah. How about LBJ/JFK? Nope. Truman? Please. Roosevelt?

Anybody?

Never happened. It turns out that the same people who have been throwing that boogeyman under your bed every night are the same ones who told you that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. That stem cells were evil. That the rich needed tax cuts.

Now they say that Obama is a socialist. That he's not an American citizen. That health care is tyranny. That global warming is a hoax. And that the rich, of course, need even more tax cuts. It's so evident as to sting like a slap in the face.

Everything conservatives think, believe and know is wrong. That's why I support the new Obama initiative to open re-education camps for those in the minority who are so clearly headed in the wrong direction (and would like to take the rest of us with them).

Say, I did it again, didn't I? That's two pranks in one column - no fair. Oh, well. For some people, for some reason, it seems like every day is April Fool's Day.

pH 4.o1.1o

Re-peel

In the wake of health care reform, Republicans in Congress have drifted into a state of arrested development, a condition not likely to change anytime soon. It is doubtful, as well, that their constituents understand what that means.

Now that the health care battle is over, the losers have discovered a new mantra, which they hope will bolster their lagging fund-raising efforts: "Repeal Obamacare." Out of sheer common courtesy, let's examine that utterly senseless idea and see where logic leads us.

In order to repeal existing law, House Republicans would have to get a dozen or so Democrats to flip their votes on something they just passed. So, taking divine intervention into account, let's assume they do so. The bill would move on to the Senate, where one out of every six Democrats would have to also change their minds.

Assuming a 16-plus percent insanity rate, let's entertain that notion, too. The bill to repeal would then find itself sitting on President Obama's desk.

"Hmmmm," he might say. "Should I sign this bill, or veto it? On the one hand, it would... But on the other, I could... Uh, no." So he would veto the bill to repeal. Conservatives would be stunned, as they so often are.

At that point, in this wonderful system of government set up for us by the Founding Fathers, the Senate would then have the opportunity to override the president's veto. That would only take 67 votes.

The fact that every single Republican in Washington is pushing this idea, that the health care reform law could possibly be repealed, shows us one of two things. They're either insincere or they're stupid.

Whichever the case may be, these people are not to be taken seriously as the nation moves forward out of the economic malaise left behind by the previous administration. Neither insincerity nor stupidity can justify a policy focus that consists of a fantasy and nothing more.

pH 3.3o.1o

I'm Trying, Ringo

With health care reform in the books, one would think there would be a great American desire to move on to the next big thing, such as regulating banks or modernizing the electricity grid. While that has historically been our nature, one faction of the citizenry - conservatives - refuses to go forward with the rest of us.

I'm not talking about the GOP's lockstep opposition to, well, anything that the majority wants in this country. Such is bad enough unto itself, but the behavior of right-wing rank-and-filers has reached a screeching crescendo. Or so we had better hope.

Certainly even the most news-averse among us has heard of the mindless conservative rage being directed at Democrats for wanting us all to have health insurance. Bricks have been thrown through windows, racist and homophobic epithets hurled at lawmakers. Depictions of nooses (if not actual ones). Spitting. All of that was just on the day President Obama signed the bill.

Since then, things have gotten progressively worse, with the ugliness extending far beyond the usual threatening communiques. Just ask Rep. Tom Perriello (D., VA). Some Tea Party member, a 27-year old who still lives with Mom and Dad, posted what he thought to be Perriello's home address.

It was actually the address of the home owned by the Congressman's brother. And his brother's wife. And his brother's four little kids. It wasn't too very long before someone - a well-meaning pro-lifer no doubt - cut the gas line leading into their home.

They're sure to get plenty of sympathy from Rep. Anthony Weiner (D., NY), and his staff, and everyone else in his office building. All had to evacuate, and some had to be decontaminated, after an envelope showed up there today packed with white powder and a note saying (among other niceties) "Drop Dead".

This is strictly the stuff of Klansmen and second-tier terrorist outfits. That is what the tea-baggers have become, probably all they were to begin with. Is anyone surprised? Republican leaders in and out of Congress don't seem to be. Neither do they seem particularly interested in halting this stampede of idiocy. Sarah Palin (R., Nowhere) knows what I mean.

Then there's the case of Rep. Bart Stupak (D., MI), who held up the reform process for as long as he possibly could in the name of the unborn. Once he had secured an executive order from the White House that suited his tastes where federal funding of abortion is concerned, he abandoned his position of obstruction and voted for the bill.

His life has since become a living hell. His home and office have been bombarded with worst manner of televitriol. We're talking about the kind of language that would make Joe Biden blush. One gentleman caller went so far as to wish rectal cancer upon the Representative.

Yo, Bart. When you lie down with dogs, you come up with fleas. Nasty, bloodsucking fleas, who have the nerve to call themselves Christians.

I'm watching all of this take place, and I am mindful of the fears expressed by the African-American community long before the 2008 election, fears which have been justified by the manifold increase in death threats against our president. And I am reminded of a line uttered by Samuel Jackson in the classic Tarantino film Pulp Fiction:

There's this passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. "The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is The Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee."

I been saying that shit for years. And if you heard it, that meant your ass. I never gave much thought to what it meant. I just thought it was some cold-blooded shit to say to a motherfucker 'fore I popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this mornin' made me think twice. See, now I'm thinking, maybe it means you're the evil man, and I'm the righteous man, and Mr. Nine Millimeter here, he's the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or, it could mean you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. I'd like that. But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is, you're the weak, and I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm trying real hard to be the shepherd.

Real hard.

pH 3.25.1o

Rush and Roulette

What is it that they say? "Dittoes"? Or is it "mega-dittoes"?

Whatever it might be, America owes AM deejay Rush Limbaugh and his lost and lonely listeners another round of gratuitous applause. Thank you, sir, for leading your conservative audience and the Republican Party to a crushing defeat - again.

It's quite remarkable, this man's ability to motivate so many people to stampede in the wrong direction, a gift he never tires of demonstrating. Remember the 2oo6 election run-up, in which he mocked Parkinson's patient Michael J. Fox? Sheer brilliance. It only helped remove the GOP from power in Congress.

That was nothing compared to "Operation Chaosss". For those who choose to remain out of the loop, that was Rush's attempt to bleed Barack Obama in the Democratic primary, with conservatives registering as Democrats in order to push Hillary Clinton over the top. It was an abject failure.

Now he has achieved what was once thought to be impossible. Health-care reform had languished in the halls of Washington for a century before the Obama administration and the Democratic Party "rammed it down our throats". Rush fought on behalf of the insurance companies day in and day out whenever he wasn't on vacation.

Hope had actually dimmed after the election of Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, but there was Rush, pushing it over the top with his soulless remark to an 11-year-old boy: "Your mom would have died anyway." Barely a week later, the Senate bill was approved by the House; talent on loan from God, indeed.

Today, that landmark legislation will be signed into law, and the conservative movement's hysteria has been well-documented along the way. Reports of racial and sexual epithets being hurled at lawmakers, of protestors spitting on them, of a brick being thrown through an office window, all icing on the cake that Limbaugh baked halfway.

Look, he's just an entertainer, once described as a "circus clown" by John McCain. That roughly 2.9 percent of the country is entertained by this sort of thing tells you a little bit more about a society that slows down to gawk at traffic accidents. Still, I really have to ask his listeners, those pathological losers that call themselves "ditto-heads", a couple of quick questions:

Do you really consider yourselves in the mainstream anymore, considering the fact that you have followed this corporate shill into defeat after defeat? Considering that this man's views were (twice) deemed too conservative even for the National Football Leauge, do you believe that your world view - meaning Rush's world view - jibes at all with reality?

And, by the way, how would you know?

pH 3.23.1o

The Trappings of Office

Old John McCain is finally facing a serious challenger in the Republican primary. That's not to say that J.D. Hayworth is a serious person; not at all. He does, however, pose a legitimate threat to the Senate seat which McCain has occupied since Barry Goldwater left office.

As noted in a previous column in this space, Hayworth would not have much of a chance against the Maverick in a general election. The primary is a different beast altogether, dominated by the hardcore blood-drinkers of the conservative movement, the ones who have long considered McCain a RINO - Republican in Name Only.

In the past year, with the help of highly-paid lobbyists and GOP powerbrokers, those folks coagulated into a "grass-roots" movement known as the Tea Party. They strongly favor Hayworth and other candidates like him, whose anti-government and anti-immigration fervors mirror their own.

McCain is a wily creature, though. Just as he navigated to the center-left in hopes of staving off hope and change in the 2008 race against Barack Obama, he has spent the last few months listing to the right, burnishing his conservative bona fides ahead of a contest which (however illogically) he may well be destined to lose.

A funny thing happened on the way to the ballot box, though. Two of the most revered Tea Party heroes, Sarah Palin and newly-elected Senator Scott Brown of Massachussetts, have both endorsed John McCain. This is bad news for both Hayworth and the tea-baggers who love him.

The Tea Party had just shelled out over a hundred thousand dollars to Palin to deliver the keynote address at their convention. They loudly took the credit for Brown's victory over Martha Coakley, which broke the supermajority the Democrats had enjoyed in the Senate.

Palin's support for McCain was easier to rationalize; after all, for ill or for good, she was on the McCain ticket. What was she supposed to do? Brown, though, has already incurred the wrath of these so-called populists when he voted for a recent jobs bill (some were so incensed as to call him "Benedict Brown" on his facebook page).

Combined, the rejections of Hayworth by Sarah Palin and Scott Brown amount to acid being thrown in the faces of the Tea Party people. If they were just a little bit smarter, they'd have the good sense to feel used, in the seamiest sense of the word.

Oh, well. In all their brilliance, they'll no doubt take out their frustrations on someone like RNC Chairman Michael Steele. All they have to do is find out who's running against him in the next election.

pH 3.o5.1o

Bunning Scared

The word "arrogant" has been aimed like a dart at President Obama's back by conservative pundits thousands of times since he took office. It's a synonym for "uppity", of course, but it doesn't really stick. If conservatives (or anyone else) would truly like to see a walking, talking example of arrogance, they can look to Republican Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky.

It is Bunning, after all, who has put a hold on a Senate bill that would extend unemployment benefits to some 400,000 American workers. Bunning's obstruction has also laid off 2,000 federal highway workers. The same bill he stands athwart also delivers satellite signals to those in rural communities. And his stance cuts off COBRA recipients whose health insurance went out the door with their jobs.

There are ways around Jim Bunning. He doesn't actually possess the sort of muscle he's trying to flex in Washington. This is an expedited bill that would have dovetailed the new benefits with the ones that have just expired. When the entire bill goes before the Senate for a vote, he's going to be on the "yea" side, just as he was last time.

So what's his deal? Kentucky is a state that suffers from unemployment to the tune of 10.7 percent, higher than the national average, so why is he doing this to his own constituents? Nobody really knows, not even him. He'd like us to believe that he wants this spending bill to be deficit-neutral, but when the Senate wanted pay-as-you-go rules, Bunning was against that.

Whatever his problem might be, he's certainly not going to exhibit even an ounce of class as he works it out. On the floor of the Senate, while under pressure from his Democratic colleagues to release his stranglehold on the bill, Bunning responded with words that would have made Dick Cheney proud. "Tough shit," he said.

Got that? Tough shit.

On Monday, ABC News caught up with Bunning, who ducked into a "Senators-only" elevator to avoid the scrutiny which he has brought solely upon himself. The questions asked by reporters were not complicated. They just wanted to know why he was holding up the bill. He would not answer them, repeatedly yelling "excuse me" instead. As he made his escape he extended to them his middle finger. Everyone knows what that means.

Fuck you. Understand?

That has been the message from Jim Bunning, and all Republicans, to the American people for well over a year. Some will say Bunning's just a gruff guy, made so by his years in Major League Baseball (back before there were lights in stadiums). That's a hard case to make, though, since his fellow Kentucky Senator is Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

If Bunning's approach wasn't the strategy of the GOP, McConnell would tell him to knock off the playground antics and let the bill proceed. That isn't happening. This is all a very calculated game that they're playing with our livelihoods. Lost your job? Tough shit. Don't like it? Fuck you.

These next few elections, like the last few, have come to represent more than just which Party should govern from the pilot's seat. The politics of the moment are really nothing less than a struggle for America's soul.

One Party wants to care for the sick, wants to feed the hungry, wants to shelter those who have no home. The other is the Party of Tough Shit. The Party of Fuck You. The Party of No.

As always, both Parties would like you to reward them for their actions, or punish them, accordingly. There's an old tradition in American politics. It's called voting your conscience. It only applies if you have one. Take yours for a test drive today: Jim Bunning's phone number in Washington is 202-224-4343.

pH 3.o2.1o

Shaking the Speare

"Reagan proved deficits don't matter." - Dick Cheney, 2004

Tell that to the tea-baggers. While you're at it, explain to them that Ronald Reagan's deficit spending represented a far greater percentage of GDP than today's cost overruns. Of course, then you'd have to explain what GDP is, and you'd soon be wasting your time.

So what's with these people, anyway? Who the hell do they think they are? That's not a rhetorical question; they literally don't seem to know. On any given day they're apt to describe themselves as independents, conservatives, libertarians - whichever hat suits them at the time.

They're not honest, whatever they might be. If they were, they'd face certain truths, like the fact that our economy boomed under marginally higher tax rates on corporations and wealthy individuals. If they were, they'd appreciate that President Obama is keeping an honest accounting of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, unlike his predecessor.

So far, the best assessment I've heard of this self-described movement is that the tea-baggers are "angry at government". I can hear a smattering of beads rolling around in all the heads that are nodding at that one, so if you are a tea-bagger, I'd like to take this opportunity to ask you a few easy questions.

Where was this anger at government when George W. Bush was in office and his Republican cronies were in control of Congress? Where was the anger when they rolled out tax cuts for the top one percent? Where was the anger at the runaway deficits of the last decade?

Where was this single-minded fury when Bush's Treasury Secretary presented a three-page explanation for a policy that gave nearly a trillion dollars to the same investment gurus who had just driven our economy into bankruptcy? Did it hide in the same place it hid when Bush used signing statements to effectively legislate from the Oval Office?

Why was there nary a peep of discontent when the greatest failure of national security in U.S. history took place on September 11, 2001? Where was the anger when the response to said failure was to attack the wrong country in Iraq? Where was the anger when thousands of American troops were killed in that ghastly mistake of a conflict?

I wonder where the anger went when the executive branch wiretapped our phones. Or when it sifted through our e-mails. Or when they asked us to spy on each other. How much ire was raised when Bush pushed for the greatest expansion of government ever seen in this country in the name of "homeland security", ripping the 4th Amendment right out of the Constitution?

Who got pissed off when Bush slipped (not one but) two activist judges onto the Supreme Court, thereby tilting it toward corporate supremacy? Who was peeved when Bill Frist and the GOP wanted to blow up the filibuster, which has since been employed a record number of times by the same GOP?

Whose nose got out of joint when a conservative government attempted to step in and make all the health care decisions for Terri Schiavo? Or when Bush limited the kind of stem-cell research that might have helped that poor woman? Where was this anger then?

Where was the anger when the Republican Party created the largest prescription-drug giveaway in history, which was signed into law without any funding mechanism whatsoever by a Republican president? Now you're all of a sudden angry?

I guess there was no anger back then, only madness, despite all of those foibles and a few dozen more I haven't bothered to mention. So what's different today? Anything? Can you name one thing that has changed since the disastrous era of George W. Bush and Republican rule? I think most people can.

For centuries, humanity has looked to William Shakespeare for guidance in times of trouble. It doesn't really help matters, but it gives us a point of reference, a sense that we've probably seen all this before. I hope old Bill won't mind my paraphrasing one of his finer points as I make it to every one of the tea-baggers today:

Methinks thou dost protest too much... racist.

pH 2.1o.1o