Far East Cynic

I have been accused from time to time, of being over the top when it comes to taking out my anger at the spoiled children who inhabit the halls of the US Congress. They do reprehensible things every day and yet I am not allowed to call for their march to the wall. 

“Think about it: We have a sequester looming, one that could wreak havoc at the Pentagon; a coming series of budget confrontations that create real challenges in the management of the Defense Department; and an ongoing war.

And a little group of willful men and women, including those who have been the loudest critics of the sequester, are keeping the next head of the department from getting into office and beginning the hard job of managing the turbulence ahead.

That’s only the first on a list of irresponsible acts. 

Until they actually feel real fear, deep down in their hearts fear,  for their positions-we will still have to deal with this nonsense year in and year out.  I despair deep in my heart of their being any positive improvement in the Congress of the United States.  These men behave irresponsibly on important issues and they get away with it. Its only about insignificant things that they get run out of town on a rail-like who they sleep with.  But when they do political things that threaten real damage to the country, like the sequester, NO ONE seems to be able to hold them to account.

Sometimes I wish the President had the power to dismiss Congress and call for new elections-as they do in a Parliamentary system. Something has to be done-its only February and we have had two graphic demonstrations of how a minority subverts the will of the majority.  What is it going to take to get them to behave responsibly?

Charles Johnson has observed on several occasions that while the late, not so dearly departed, Andrew Breitbart was well and truly one of the United States' biggest morons-the children who write in his stead can top it.

Sure enough, Breitbrat Ben Shapiro’s moronic attack on President Obama’s Thanksgiving address was rapidly picked up by the rest of the right wing Fake Outrage Machine. The Daily Caller has this article based on Shapiro’s post: Obama Thanksgiving Address: Calls to Unite Behind WH, Doesn’t Thank God.

Watch how the Daily Caller’s Christopher Bedford blatantly slants the story against President Obama, saying he “urged the country to unite behind his administration” twice, even though the actual quote from Obama’s speech says no such thing.

 

And true to form-the members of the Liars Club, led by Jim Hoft; the "Dumbest Man on the Internet" picked right up on it.

John Hinderaker, Jim Hoft, William Jacobson, the Town Hall Harlot: Michelle Malkin-who is spending the weekend looking down on Wal Mart protestors for having the audacity to publicly point out the company could do more for its workers-and of course lets not forget the collective stupidity that is Breitbart. They are all contemptible people. As stupid and vile as you might expect.

John Hinderaker and the rest of the contemptible cocksuckers  members of the Liars Club, are all up in arms over an offhand remark that Obama made in a stump speech a day ago. In a speech Obama mentioned his opponents and the crowd quite understandably began to boo-and Obama said, "No, no, no — don’t boo, vote. Vote. Voting is the best revenge.”

Hinderaker and the rest of the echo chamber seem to think that shows some sort of "dark side" to Obama. In the twisted universe they inhabit, only supporters of Rmoney are supposed to have emotions and proud convictions. They are all up in arms about it, making a huge issue over nothing.  Obama was right.

I got news for Mr. Hinderaker, worthless bit of slime that he is, in a democracy governed by laws-voting is the only revenge. As much as they might deserve more. And as much as I would like to see them receive some well deserved suffering for the damage these folks have done to American political discourse-in a proper society that simply is not done.

I voted by absentee some two weeks ago. And yes I voted for Obama. Because he is the guy on the ballot, and a vote for him is a vote against dismal view that Hinderaker constantly sets forth. As my favorite news magazine points out-in far better form than any word Mr. Hinderaker has ever written:

Many of The Economist’s readers, especially those who run businesses in America, may well conclude that nothing could be worse than another four years of Mr Obama. We beg to differ. For all his businesslike intentions, Mr Romney has an economic plan that works only if you don’t believe most of what he says. That is not a convincing pitch for a chief executive. And for all his shortcomings, Mr Obama has dragged America’s economy back from the brink of disaster, and has made a decent fist of foreign policy. So this newspaper would stick with the devil it knows, and re-elect him.

When I voted for Obama, it was a clear knowledge of the things he hasn't done that I wanted him to. A clear knowledge that he has not gotten out of both stupid wars Bush got us into-he's gotten us out of only one, and that was only with the help of the worthless Iraqis themselves; with the clear knowledge that he has been stymied for the last two years by a group of worthless people in Congress, all of them Republican, who were more concerned about torpedoing the economy for their own political advantage ( witness the debt ceiling debacle);  with a clear knowledge that the ACA while a great step forward is not the best legislation that could have been produced-and had the American people and the Republicans in Congress not been so stupid we could have had much better. I voted knowing all of these things. But in the end the choice came down to this and this alone:

This election does not represent a choice between left and right. It represents a choice between balance and a new, extreme form of conservatism. This new conservatism cannot accept any tax increases as part of a deal to reduce the deficit. For all his attempts to sound moderate in the campaign’s closing days, Romney has not altered the response he gave during a Republican-primary debate rejecting a hypothetical deal involving a 10-to-1 ratio between spending cuts and tax increases. This refusal to acknowledge the need for more revenue is a recipe for eviscerating government—and the cuts, as Ryan’s budget shows, would fall disproportionately on programs for Americans with the lowest incomes.

The new right has broken with conservatism’s past—and our country’s most constructive traditions—by adopting a new and radical individualism that largely ignores our country’s gift for community.

 

 

Hinderaker and the rest are, in part, responsible for that extremism. Being the grifters that they are they are, they live to keep everyone stirred up so that more money flows into their pockets. By voting against the things that he advocates and for a vision for the country that accepts the world is changing-no matter how much  William Jacobson refuses to accept it-I am getting my revenge.  They deserve it too-and if it makes their cherished "conservatives" take a hit, then I will have done my civic duty well.

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UPDATE! It would seem the money grubber in Chief, old Mittens himself is jumping onto this line. "For revenge. Instead, I ask the American people to vote for love of country,". Ok. Fine.

For love of country, because I don't want it screwed up by yours and the "zombie eyed granny starver's" twisted vision of it, and for revenge on the stupid people who enabled the hollowness of your ideas. Either reason works for me-so long as Mitt Romney loses.

Whenever I get depressed about the sad state of American politics-which in the month of October is just about every day-I don't have to look far for people who should be held to blame for polarizing our politics.

The collective group of idiots who populate the Liars Club.

To review, the Liars Club is that group of conservative bloggers,who no matter what the subject is, will ensure that whatever story they post on their blog is casting the current President of the United States in the worst possible light-and casting themselves in a light of "brilliance". Or at least that is how they want you think they are. They consist of the National Review, Powerline, Gateway Pundit AKA Jim Hoft, also known in saner circles as the "dumbest man on the internet", William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection, Weasel Zippers, Jammie Wearing Fools ( the last word is a correct title-they are fools),  any Town Hall author-but especially Hugh Hewitt. And last but not least, the emotionally crippled children who carry on the legacy of their thankfully expired namesake-Andrew Breitbart.

All of them are quite useless and all of them to figuratively to be beaten to death with a Louisville Slugger.

When they can't find anything news worthy to tar and feather the President or any other Democratic Party member about-they just make shit up.

What probably depresses me the most is that -one can just know when one reads a tag line by them on Memeorandum, that they are completely and certifiably insane. While they all have different day jobs-some are professional   hacks "journalists", others are part time writers-but they are all certifiably stupid. I hate them all with a well deserved passion.

They are as John Cole describes it, Serious Persons:

Serious Person- Also frequently appearing as “Very serious person,” this is applied to a person held in great esteem by The Village, who is repeatedly entirely wrong about everything, usually with tragicomic results. Conversely, those who have pretty much been right about everything the last twenty years are referred to as “not serious.” Serious persons believe the only solution to any foreign policy issue is bombing brown people (preferably Muslim, when at all possible), and the only solution to domestic affairs is cutting entitlements and demanding that the poor and working poor “sacrifice.” 

In other words, they have no fucking clue what they are talking about. Nor do they have any idea at all the world has changed and its not going back to the 80's-EVER.

Why do I hold them to blame? Because they write for an audience that clearly is as ignorant as they appear to be. Notice I say appear to be-because deep down they know what they are doing. They have no desire to have an honest discussion about anything. Their sole purpose in writing is not to celebrate the joy of communicating a well thought idea. And to take the time to do some research about it. Or to even pause to write about the truly beautiful things in life that have nothing to do with politics.

No they do what they do for the purpose of getting people angry. They want their supporters to be angry at the nasty black man in the White House. They want people like me-smarter than any of them-to get angry in return. And then if I write something that actually catches them in their lie-or points out again how they love to lie-they will simply turn up the volume and make it about me and/or some aspect of my personal life.  They truly are reprehensible people.

They exert too much influence in American politics today-and sadly the news media by and large seems to take cues from them. In the case of Fox News, they appear to get story lines from them.

And they get away with it. They shouldn't but they do-because too many Americans are stupid. Right Charles Pierce?

The threat to the country, and to its commitment to self-governing democracy over the previous decade, and especially at the end of it, when the institutions of self-government seemed powerless to stop a cascade of destruction brought down on all of us by the institutions of private capital, the strength of which most of us never had begun to guess. That, through lassitude and a nearly bottomless thirst for snake oil, we had been complicit in the coring out of the strength of the institutions of self-government seemed terribly beside the point at the time, given the ruin that seemed to be looming to all points of the compass. But now, in the first real election conducted entirely after the crisis, and after the depths of the recession that it caused, we do not have that luxury anymore. The stakes are plainly clear. The decision, at this point, may well be irrevocable, and the first opportunity to make that decision is in the simple act of voting, and of explaining to ourselves why we vote. We vote because it is something we do together, for one another. We do not vote to take something back from someone else. We do not vote in a bubble, even if we think we do. Voting is communal, whether we want to look at it that way or not. We will have a self-governing political commonwealth or we will decide not to have one. And, right now, 20 days out, you'd have to be crazy or Nate Silver to think you know what which way that decision will fall.

The lies of the aforementioned members have a lot to do with that. And so I place the blame squarely on them-and hate them with a fervor that will be a flame unrequited until they are exposed as the charlatans they truly are.

Facebook sentiments are a rather inaccurate measure of public opinion to be sure. But if the views of my more conservative Facebook "friends" are any measure-all of the people who are pronouncing Romney's campaign "dead" based on his rather infamous "47 percent of the country is irresponsible" remarks, are acting pre-maturely. About this years Presidential race, I am totally pessimistic. Romney will come back from it, and there are more than a few people out there who wish to delude themselves about their relationship with their government. Even as the Treasury makes monthly deposits in their bank accounts.

I think that depresses me the most. Hearing people who are equally, if not more a recipient of governmental largess whine and complain about how their fellow citizens are "parasites" and other even less complimentary terms.Paul Krugman was right,

"For the fact is that the modern Republican Party just doesn’t have much respect for people who work for other people, no matter how faithfully and well they do their jobs. All the party’s affection is reserved for “job creators,” a k a employers and investors. Leading figures in the party find it hard even to pretend to have any regard for ordinary working families — who, it goes without saying, make up the vast majority of Americans.

 

That is the simple truth-a lot of people buy into the myth-because it makes them feel superior and better about themselves. That they are 100% wrong is not a possibility they are prepared to acknowledge. Because to do so is to acknowledge they are both selfish and heartless. For that reason I reprinting this post that explains what the tax numbers really mean-and why no sane person wants to be a part of them if they can avoid doing so. The "lucky duckies" are not so lucky-in fact their lives are downright hard. Pity the two top members of the GOP ticket don't see that.

The story behind the story.

One of the most popular mantra's of current conservative thought is the theme that I call, "Freddie the Freeloader". Namely that part of teabag orthodoxy that holds that the nation is literally full to brim with people more than content to live off of "welfare" and do nothing for themselves or society.

It frequently manifests itself every few months or so, as the Lucky Ducky statistic. Lucky duckies is a term that was used in Wall Street Journal editorials starting on 20 November 2002 to refer to Americans who pay no federal income tax because they are at an income level that is below the tax line (after deductions and credits).

It does not tell the whole story, and if anything it should not serve, as it is so often done, as an indictment of the worth and character of the individuals who fall in that 43%-than as an example of the law of unintended consequences- of well meaning tax law provisions balanced against wages that have been essentially flat lined for the past ten years.  If the number of "non income tax payers" has gone up in the past two years ( which it has) it highlights a statistic I'm not so sure the connessiurs of Lipton really want to be highlighting. Wages are not growing in the US-they are flat for all but a very few. Second-unemployment is twice what it was when the Wall Street Journal first coined the term. Prices for everything-have gone up though.

 The federal income tax is only one of several taxes Americans pay. Other taxes, like excise taxes, sales taxes, and especially the payroll tax (a.k.a. FICA),  are not refunded or zeroed out. They get paid regardless of ones standing on the income graph.  If you include payroll taxes in that total number of tax units computation I mentioned earlier, the percentage of people with zero income tax or payroll tax drops to 11.6%.

And that does not include state taxes-or sales tax.

Furthermore, the tax protestors have neglected to tell you an important piece of economic demography: 90% of those with zero tax liability made less than 25,000 dollars cash income last year.  In a family of four, factoring in both the poverty threshold of 21, 800 and the income tax entry level of 26,000 ( before taking the earned income tax credit), I’m not so sure they have a lot to brag about. The popular number of a person making 44,900 paying no income taxes is only valid for a filer who can take Child Tax credits on two children and an earned income tax credit. A single filer, has already jumped on board the taxpayer train a long time ago.

Ask your self this, what would happen to the number if the home mortage exemption went away? It would probably drop significantly-to the detriment of a lot of people-including people who do pay taxes and complain about it.

Consider this example: A man makes 50,000 per year salary, he has three kids, a job, a wife who takes care of said kids and two cars. Lets just sat for arguments sake he has a relatively small house. (Say between 175000 and 200000).  At 50,000 a year, that man is starting off making 4166 a month before taxes. Throw in say 6% into a 401K means that he is starting out before anything else comes out of his check at about 3850. The guy is going to start his tax return at about 9,862 in taxes. Subtract deductions for his family, his mortage, and his state taxes-he's probably getting money back. But he's working hard just to stay afloat-is this really the person you want to make fun of?  He's supposed to be the core Republican demographic.

And lets not even ask the question of what percentage of corporations pay no taxes shall we?

The simple truth of the matter is that a lot of lower income Americans are paying taxes and not getting ahead in the process. If there is to be any type of tax reform-it has to start from the facts, not simply the fictions people want to believe.

Is that group of increasingly reprehensible bloggers who make up the "professional right wing blogosphere". (Membership names listed below).  Besides the fact that they generally have their facts wrong-they are just about universally a group of douchbags loathsome group of people to be around. Their blogs are essentially interchangeable, fact free-and in general-poorly written and edited.

So imagine my surprise when , this guy paid them a visit last week:

NEW YORK — In an effort to reach out to conservative media, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney and wife Ann met for two hours Wednesday with several dozen conservative bloggers, reporters and columnists in an off-the-record gathering at a private Washington, D.C. club, according to attendees.

Romney, who struggled with some members of the conservative media during the Republican primary, is banking on their support in his campaign against President Barack Obama, regardless of whether they were previously in his corner or not.

The attendees came from numerous conservative sites and right-of-center publications, including National Review, Daily Caller, American Spectator,Washington Examiner, Human Events, RedState, Right Wing News, Powerline, Townhall, Ace of Spades, RiehlWorldView, White House Dossier and PJ Media. RNC chairman Reince Preibus also attended.

Details of the Romney meeting did not previously leak out because of the off-the-record ground rules…

As to why he was not invited, Andrew Breitbart could not be reached for comment.

But rest assurred, his snot nosed, idiotic, children where there.

The meeting, which included writers from RedState and Breitbart.com as well as a list of conservative publications reported by Huffington Post — National Review, Daily Caller, American Spectator, Washington Examiner, Powerline*, Townhall,, RiehlWorldView, White House Dossier, and PJ Media (though not, as an early report had suggested, the conspiracist site WorldNetDaily). RNC chairman Reince Preibus also attended.

Notably, the meeting also included some grassroots bloggers with no real institutional ties to the Washington Republican Establishment, including the Twitter virtuoso Ace of Spades and John Hawkins of Right Wing News.

John Hinderaker and his blog Powerline, are especially vile-especially given the fact that in this election, as in the last, he is something of a special pleader:

[* Powerline Proprietor John Hinderaker is the newest Koch installation on the Cato Institute Board of Directors, his firm does work for Koch and the blog was prominent in the takedown of Dan Rather via blogswarm. This memory will be important below.]

 

I despise John Hinderaker-and everything he and the rest of that crowd represents. If you want a great example of why I am down on American politics-look no further than this: The GOP nominee having to grovel before this group of lunatics.

PS-If you want a pretty good accounting of what a loons Hinderaker and his supporters are-look no further than here.

I'm tired of seeing your vile trash everytime I open up Memeorandum.

UPDATE! Greetings Legal Insurrection readers! Comments are closed on this post. If you wish to comment you have to go here and read this first.

William Jacobson is a worthless piece of shit. shrill.

In his latest post on his blog-which attracts such high quality readership as would read that other font of conservative wisdom, Andrew Breitbart, he has decided to blame the entire Middle East problem on Obama. In essence-he is re-running the "Who lost China?" argument-only this time he is saying we "lost" the middle east.

Like it was ever ours to lose. And to argue that Obama "lost" the Middle East without specifcally noting the role that multiple failed wars-all started by Obama's predecessor-played in destroying American influence in the region, is to completely ignore the root cause of any  such decline.  And also in setting the pre-conditions for the surge of groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.

Your boy Bush caused all this trouble-and now Obama is simply carrying on his flawed policies, you idiot. But never let the facts get in the way of a strawman argument.

Maybe you should listen to Juan Cole-who knows more about the region than you ever will-who has pointed out again that ignorance of what is really going on in the region is rampant-as is evidenced by this post and others you have written over the years.

If we are losing the Middle East-it is primarily because of policies that you support. Like starting stupid wars for worthless people.

What's probably the worst is that people actually read what you write and believe it. When's the last time you were actually there-idiot?

James Fallows has been pelting the media about its need-in response to idiotic criticism from some pretty stupid people-about the "both sides do it mentality". In reality only one side is doing it to any great degree and that is the side which makes league with whores like Michelle Malkin and imbeciles like the late Andrew Breitbart. ( Whose successors have proven that they could take his particular form of lunacy to an entirely new level of stupidity.). One of the big areas that the deluded members of the Tea Party nation love to rail about is saving over 1.5 million American jobs with about 1/11th of the money it took to bail out greedy bastards like Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and his contemporaries:

As Nocera points out, Fox News has repeatedly presented it that way. There was even a Volt-ish allusion in some of the argument against the Obama health care plan before the Supreme Court last week. If the government can force me to buy medical care, why shouldn't it force me to buy not just broccoli but also an electric car? After all, as former Solicitor General Paul Clement pointed out in his anti-Obamacare argument, other people's failure to buy electric cars makes their price higher, by eliminating economies of scale. Why isn't that just like people who decide not to buy health insurance?

You can go to the transcript to see how Justices Sotomayor and Breyer dealt with that analogy. But what's the truth about the Volt itself? Nocera could have said in his column: "Critics claim that the Volt is a governmental boondoggle that typifies an administration bent on imposing its do-good agenda on the nation. Administration spokesmen deny the charges." Here is what he actually says:

 

What is the connection between President Obama and the Volt? There is none. The car was the brainchild of Bob Lutz, a legendary auto executive who is about as liberal as the Koch brothers. The tax credit — which is part of the reason conservatives hate the car — became law during the Bush administration.(Emphasis mine-SS)

"It's nuts," said Lutz, when I spoke to him earlier in the week. "This is a significant achievement in the auto industry. There are so many legitimate things to criticize Obama about. It is inexplicable that the right would feel the need to tell lies about the Volt to attack the president."

 

It helps that Nocera was able to get the highly conservative Lutz — shown with his Volt, at right — to go on the record this way. But it is nice to see someone lay it out so plainly.

 

The simple truth of the matter is-that there is a sizeable chunk of America that wants to see the country fail-so long as it gives their fair haired conservative heroes a political advantage. The world needs alternatives in energy and in transportation, and places with good public transportation are a lot more liveable and better places to be than those with reliance on automobiles. ( Reason 537 why  I need to go back to Japan). The only way to keep these idiots from gaining the upper hand is to call them out on their lies each and every time. I can't tell you the chagrin with which I watch friends who should know better-parrot the stupid Fox line on Facebook. I just want to reach through the computer screen and shake them by the shoulders-hard.

In a proper world-and an evil man like Paul Ryan would have a horde of people hovering over him-all with Louisville Sluggers in hand threatening to teach him the real consequences of selfishness. Paul Ryan is not a reasonable man-he is a man who appears to be good,  but has made league with the worst forces. I agree with Paul Krugman when he writes:

What these people need is reasonable Republicans. And if such creatures don’t exist, they have to invent them. Hence the elevation of Ryan — who is, in fact, a garden-variety GOP extremist, but with a mild-mannered style — to icon of fiscal responsibility and honest argument, despite the reality that his proposals are both fiscally irresponsible and quite dishonest.

Because the more I read the stupidity of most so called "conservative" commenters on the subject of having insurance companies do their job-the angrier I get. If you want yet another example of why America is failing-and stupidity is rampant-go here.  If you want yet another reason why I am down on American politics, and remain fundamentally disappointed in the land of my birth's inability to rise to it's potential-this stupid and ignorant argument about contraception is it.

Let's go over the basics again, shall we?

This is not a new rule. It was in effect during the entire Bush administration-actually about 12 years now. And most Catholic hospitals have been complying.  In December 2000, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that companies that provided prescription drugs to their employees but didn’t provide birth control were in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prevents discrimination on the basis of sex. That opinion, which the George W. Bush administration did nothing to alter or withdraw when it took office the next month, is still in effect today—and because it relies on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, it applies to all employers with 15 or more employees Employers that don’t offer prescription coverage or don’t offer insurance at all are exempt, because they treat men and women equally—but under the EEOC’s interpretation of the law, you can’t offer other preventative care coverage without offering birth control coverage, too.

Instead of re-evaluating its attempt to turn contraception into a wedge issue—after all, Fox News (yes that Fox News) published a poll that found 61% of Americans approve of “requiring employer health plans to cover birth control for women.” —the GOP, led by Missouri Senator Roy Blunt (R-Crazytown) has decided to double-down on the War on Women. Blunt has introduced an amendment to the PPACA which would allow employers to deny any preventive health services (including breast cancer screening, depression screening, and diabetes screening), under the guise of religious freedom and respecting the right of conscience of insurers, plan sponsors and healthcare providers, among others. Apparently, that’s the new meme: Insurance companies are now having their religious freedom infringed. Somebody save them!

And I am the one who gets accused of being a misogynist. 

The point here is simple. While birth control costs more than nothing, it costs less than an abortion and much less than having a baby. From a social point of view, unless we're not going to subsidize consumption of health care services at all (which would be a really drastic change from the status quo) then it makes a ton of sense to heavily subsidize contraceptives. Now of course sometimes the economically rational course of action (kill everyone in Alberta and steal their oil) is immoral (killing is wrong) and therefore we don't do it. But just on the dollars and cents subsidizing birth control is a no-brainer. The unfortunate thing is that under the American setup the subsidies tend to be passed through the employer, which has set the stage for this controversy.

And its really sad-because I admire the Catholic Church on so many things. But I won't go with them on this.  Especially since the church's teachings on sex are totally screwed up.

The President offered up a rhetorical solution in response to their rhetorical freak-out over language in a new health insurance rule and the fiction that their objection was about religious freedom was exposed as bullshit. They could walk away, but instead they are pumping up the volume to keep the issue alive. It is a political play that has more to do with Republican politics than almost anything else.

The Bishops are demanding an end to any rule that requires any insurance company to cover any contraception or family planning as basic health issues for women. This is just the latest iteration of a centuries old objection to women having control of their bodies, their lives, their happiness and their liberty by the conservative power-focused elites running the Roman Catholic Church. This objection manifests itself in screeds against anything that treats sex as an activity separate from breeding and/or free from the dictates of Church Law.

And yet, I don’t think this latest play is about sex or even the Church trying to control the lives of women—I think it is about power and that sex, women, gay marriage and a host of other culture warrior issues are the pathway that they see as the golden road.

For anybody who has looked at the history of the Catholic Church (and any organized religion for that matter) a key part of their activities over time becomes how to maintain power, privilege and influence—and all the goodies that come with it. Eventually that is all that matters for the institution. The greatest success in this effort always comes when political leaders bow to the dictates of the Holy Roman Church and agree to make State Law subservient to Church Law. Back in the days of Kings and Queens you only had a handful of elites you had to work with and the mutual pursuit of power inspired many of them to treat Church Law as State Law. It worked for a long while and then came the Reformation, Protestantism, King Henry, the Enlightenment, Democracy and eventually a desire by more and more people to make their laws free of religion and the dictates of any Church.

The United States of America was founded on the belief that Church and State are separate and that the Laws of this Nation trump the laws of any religion—including the Roman Catholic Church. As you can imagine, this has made the conservative wing of the Catholic Church quite sad. For over a century they have been on the losing end of many political fights—especially when it comes to women in America. The Church opposed suffrage for women and any effort over the years that might free women from the Church sanctioned role of breeder. The Church has fought every form of contraception and lost most battles. They also have lost the battle of finding any American politician who was willing to embrace the idea that US Law should be subservient to Church Law—until now.

Living here in Europe where they have national health insurance-and thus what is covered or not is none of the church's business-the issue seems even more ludicrous. If the US had a national health insurance program this would be a non-issue. But don't kid yourself, this is just the beginning, the moral lunatics will extend the rules to other venues, end of life care being the one that most readily comes to mind. Fuck that.

 

I don’t watch Meet the Republicans, This Week with the GOP or any of the other Sunday shows, but reliable sources report that Jack Lew went on Face the Conservatives and State of the Right Wing with Candy Crowley yesterday and told the bishops that clowntime is over:

 

Mr. Lew said the president put out a solid plan, and when asked whether there is more room for compromising said, “No. This is our plan.”

 

In an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Mr. Lew said, “We’re going to go ahead and implement it.” He said the White House has “broad consensus – not universal consensus – that this is an approach that’s right.”

 

Rick Santorum was on next, and his face got red as he cried, bunched up his little fists and pounded the table saying that in his ideal world women would be constantly pregnant, but until he can raise up his new caliphate, he’ll accept that sluts can take their shame to a pharmacy and get the pill, but those roundheels should have to pay for it. Or words to that effect.

And is it just me, or do any of you detect a bit of a post-coital flush coloring Mitch McConnell’s pronouncement on Bob Scheiffer’s Old Man Show that not only Catholics, but any employer, should be able to decide not to pay for contraception as long as they dispense Viagra like a holy sacrament? My guess is that Mitch just renewed his Rx for the little blue pill for free on his Congressional health plan.

Insurance companies are supposed to be bill payers-nothing more. When you empower them to make value judgments on peoples lives-you are doing nothing but giving them yet another excuse to fuck people over. The religious conservatives are advocating a  fantastically broad standard – including the "toll on others" who have nothing to do with the Catholic organizations at all but who might just infer that contraception is OK – essentially ending any idea of the law as a neutral means for citizens with radically different moral views to choose for themselves what is good or bad. The law must reflect morality and that morality must be based on Catholic "natural law" . The stupidity and basic immorality of that position should be plainly evident to anyone with a brain.

Of course by that standard-just about all tea party supporters are not included. Since they lost the ability to think cognitively a long time ago-as evidenced by their support for Santorum and this stupid position.

That there are people who actually defend Andrew Breitbart.

Especially after the unbelievable freak show that was CPAC this year-and we got to see the bearded maniac come completely unglued:

And people show up with torches and pitchforks and accuse me of ignorance-for simply pointing out the Navy is cheap publicity hungry.

Now either Breitbart is really drunk here ( a distinct possibility)-or he is just that stupid. He taunts the crowd to behave themselves-yet it is Breitbart who gets pulled away by the police. And it seems to me-that this particular demonstration was orderly. Until his exalted beardeness pours gasoline on the fire.

The point should be clear-the protestors at CPAC have the same rights as the morons inisde the hotel-or for that matter that the Tea Party douchebags members exercised themselves a couple of years ago. Breitbart knows exactly what he is doing. He will have an editied video on the streets within a few days-and his legions will simply eat it up. .

"Never wrestle with a Breitbart. The Breitbart just loves it and all that happens to you is you get really tired and dirty."

Some problems never go away-they just resurface with different troublemakers.

There is an e-mail link on this blog for a reason. If you can't find it-hit compatibility view-and I am sure you will. Some conversations are better held off line-or better yet, not at all.

Like Ronald Reagan said-I am paying for this microphone. I control the content here-and I expect my rules on commenters and what to call a commenter to be respected. If you can't do that-go play with yourself, not my editor.

And for God's sake-read the entire post. Not just the parts you think you read.

Be dumber than George W. Bush. But apparently Rick Perry has gone and accomplished it.  By claiming that Turkey-a NATO ally- is run by "Islamic terrorists", Perry has really shown how ignorant of the world as it is-he really is:

Governor Perry might want to notice that there are many differences between Turkey and Iran. For instance, look at this pdf report on Turkish-US military cooperation and see if that sounds like Iran to you. Turkey still hosts that Incirlik Airbase where the young Rick Perry says he was stationed but where he apparently did not bother to learn anything about his host country. If anything, US-Turkish military relations are on an upswing...Ironically, Perry is doing what he accuses Obama of– making an ally nervous and uncertain. Whereas Obama hasn’t done that, at all.