Minnesota's Moment

I’m very proud to live in Minnesota right now. Governor Dayton deserves praise for standing behind the marriage equality effort and signing it into law. Ours is an interesting state politically. At one point, we sent one of America’s most progressive senators to Washington, Paul Wellstone, and then turned around and elected one of the most conservative representatives in Michele Bachmann. Our politics, like our weather, is defined by extremes.

John Lennon was human. Imagine that.

Something called Listverse posted an article yesterday by Edward Benjamin titled, Top Ten Unpleasant Facts About John Lennon.

The list of John’s sins is dark, and includes, “wife beater,” “pathological liar,” “hypocrite” and other equally nasty attributes. Benjamin’s disdain for the late Beatle drips out of his prose like acid from a wounded Alien.

This type of article, the “So-and-so-was-not-the-great-person-you-think-he-was,” is truly the product of an unpleasant, unfulfilled writer. Whether the author is trashing Gandhi or Elvis or Martin Luther King, it’s a petty and childish form of gotcha that says much more about the author than the person about whom he is writing.

After all the categorizing and contempt, this hit piece boils down to the simplest of points: John Lennon was a flawed human being. Okay. Is it time for cocktails yet? The startling revelation that Lennon had many faults — was in fact like every other human being on our planet — is not news, and no one should get paid money to make such a mundane and pointless announcement.

Benjamin offers numerous examples of Lennon’s bad behavior throughout his life, and I don’t doubt that many of them are true. However, let’s take a moment to think about what your life would be like if you were instantaneously thrust into the public eye and regarded with almost god-like reverence by millions of people around the world. Everywhere you turn there are drugs to be had, beautiful women to sleep with, and sycophants granting your every wish. If you are honest, you know that your personal and private flaws would be magnified a million times and you might not look like the stellar individual you wish to think of yourself as in the eyes of your inevitable critics. And who would Benjamin put on the list of “healthy, well-adjusted superstars?” Michael Jackson? Elvis? Whitney Houston? Judy Garland? Kurt Cobain? Lennon is only one among many for whom stardom was a curse rather than a blessing.

I don’t even know to what audience Benjamin’s piece is directed. Lennon was a “Rock Star,” a phrase synonymous with drugs, sex and generally bad behavior. As far as I remember, Lennon never ran for Pope. Is there some subset of Lennon fans out there who think he was a flawless deity sent from Mt. Olympus? His fans don’t care that he used drugs or lied about his past. They care about the legacy of his music.

Then there is number five on Benjamin’s list: Talentless. “He wrote a handful of inspired songs,” the author concedes, but basically he was a hack as a musician. Average guitar player, poor lyricist, and in another section, Benjamin excoriates Lennon for being influenced by other musicians like Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison. Can you imagine that?

The absurdity of this assertion is mindboggling and I’m not even a huge Lennon fan. The man’s cannon of work speaks for itself. He was among the most influential musician/songwriters of the past 50 years, and to dispute that is to take a flat-earth position about modern music. Again, I would like a list of R&R stars past and present who were not influenced by others. I have no idea who would be on that list.

So to sum up, John Lennon was a flawed individual whose music was only sometimes brilliant. Careful Benjamin, with insights like that you could someday hit the big time, win a Pulitzer, and then, after you’re dead, some hack will write about what a horrible human being you were.

Today’s best news headline

Traveler from Saudi Arabia Arrested at Detroit Metro with Pressure Cooker

So here we have either the world’s stupidest terrorist or the world's most clueless international traveler.

If you are a terrorist, why would you bring a pressure cooker into a country where you can easily buy one, especially if you’re traveling from the Mideast going to the United States? 

“And why are you bringing a pressure cooker from Saudi Arabia?”

“Uh, I really, really like steamed vegetables. No? American pressure cookers are so cheap and badly made. Everyone knows this…. I’m going to start a falafel stand.”

“Come with me, Sir.”

"Oh, sure, and now I suppose you're going grill me about the sticks of dynamite strapped to my vest. It's because I'm Saudi Arabian, right?"

Donald Trump seeks crowdsource funding for biopic of his life

New York City — Billionaire entrepreneur, presidential candidate and TV personality Donald Trump is asking for the public’s help in financing a biographical film about himself. He is seeking $20 million in crowdsourced funds for a film that is tentatively titled, “The Donald.”

            Trump was  asked why a man as wealthy as he is would need to solicit money for a movie project.

            “I don’t actually need the money, but I wanted to give the public a chance to be a part of this monumental event. You see, the film isn’t just about me, although most of it is, but it’s also about America and the opportunities this great country provides for success. This is a theme that I think millions of citizens believe in and would want to be a part of. Plus, I want Scorsese to direct it and he don’t come cheap.”

            There has been a backlash from many independent filmmakers and others who think Trump is simply trying to get a film made on the cheap. George Bishop, president of the Independent Filmmakers of America said, “It’s absolutely the ultimate in narcissism for Trump to believe that average Americans are so in love with him that they would help pay to have a movie about him made. The guy is unbelievable.”

            Trump shrugged off the criticism. “No matter what you do in life, there are going to be whiners and complainers. This is going to be a film of historical importance and every donors name will be run in the credits. I don’t know why anyone would not want to be a part of this.”

            While a spokesperson for Trump declined to say how much money had been raised so far, a person close to the project said that after four days, they had taken in $27.00.

What the hell are Republicans so angry about?

A recent poll conducted by Fairleigh Dickenson University asked various audiences if they felt that armed revolt in the near future might be necessary to protect our liberties. According to the results, a surprising number of Americans, nearly 30 percent, said yes. When it came to Republicans, however, the number jumped to 44 percent. Almost half of the Republicans asked think we might need to don camouflage, load up the 12-gauge and take to the streets of Des Moines. Wha…?

Here’s my question. What the hell are Republicans so angry about? Yeah, they lost the last two presidential elections, but the previous eight years were all about them. Republicans own the House of Representatives and have stopped or stalled a good deal of Obama’s initiatives, including background checks. State governments around the country are working vigorously to turn back the clock to pre-Roe v. Wade America, and school boards across the South are rewriting school textbooks to include conservative fables in place of facts. Nearly 80 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians.

My guess is that a major source of strong negative feelings among conservatives is the palpable hatred of that socialist, Kenyan, America-hating Barack Obama. It doesn’t matter that the man is a very, very moderate Democrat, that he’s left in place many of Bush’s national security measures, that he’s gone so far as to accept Social Security cuts in his budget proposal, that he’s bombing suspected terrorists with drones across the Mideast, he’s a black man with a funny name sitting in the Oval Office.

Add to this the hysterical right-wing media machine attacking the President 24/7 and I guess you have a rebellion in the making. Not to worry. The revolution will never materialize. Go back and look at video of the Republican National Convention and scan the crowd. You’ll find a sea of overweight, silver haired white people who spend their evenings watching Dancing With the Stars, not reading revolutionary tracts and breaking down assault rifles.

Republicans may be angry, but it is a misdirected, personal anger that will not translate to an organized uprising. Somewhere deep down in the dark recesses of their psyche I think they realize they are losing the battle with progress, and while maddening, they understand that defeat is inevitable and armed resistance futile.

TZIF (Thank Zeus it’s Friday)

It’s May 3 and I’m sitting at my desk watching snowflakes swirl around the parking lot outside my window. Yesterday, some locations just south of the Twin Cities got 16 inches of snow. Global warming or the new Ice Age or both? It really doesn’t matter. It’s depressing either way.

Yesterday Clive Crook, a columnist for Bloomberg View, wrote a piece on economist Paul Krugman, essentially saying, “Hey Paul, love your work, but if you would just tone down the snarky and condescending attitude, more people might listen to you.”  The basic premise of Crook’s argument is highly dubious. People who dislike Krugman do so because they have fundamental disagreements with his economic philosophy, the snarky attitude is only icing on their ire cake. And why does Krugman occasionally snipe at his detractors?

Let’s say you have a friend who believes the earth is flat. You want to help your friend understand that all the evidence we have indicates the world is round. However, your friend says all of his ancestors believed the earth was flat and when he looks to the horizon it is flat. You show him all of the photos and maps and scientific studies that demonstrate the earth is round, but your friend still refuses to believe you. What happens? You become frustrated. Very frustrated. All of the economic evidence we have indicates that austerity is not the approach to take at this point in time. In his articles and blog, Krugman has been pointing this out in every way conceivable, yet European leaders and our own political elites refuse to alter their views. So he gets frustrated. Even if Krugman’s solutions are wrong, the fact that the world’s leaders continue to cling to austerity in the face of overwhelming evidence that it is not working will make a person frustrated to the point of…well, snarkiness.

The good news: The economy added 165,000 workers in April and unemployment dropped from 7.6 percent to 7.5 percent. The bad news: We are in the slowest job market recovery since WWII.

Drones: Terrorism U.S. Style

Long overdue Congressional hearings are underway examining the Administration’s use of drones in the Middle East. An article in The Verge highlights testimony from a Yemini journalist whose village was bombed only six days earlier in order to take out a single man suspected of having ties to al Qaeda. The strike succeeded in killing the suspected terrorist as well as six other people. Imagine that. You drop a bomb into a populated area and there is collateral damage.

An interesting point brought out in the article is that the Obama Administration claims that it uses drones only in cases where it is “unfeasible” to capture a suspect, but the Yemini witness says there was no reason why the alleged terrorist could not have been arrested by local authorities. I imagine this isn’t the first such case.

What is clear from the hearing so far is that part of the intended purpose of drone bombings is to strike fear in the hearts of would be terrorists. “You want to be a terrorist? Okay, but you’re putting your entire village in danger,” goes the thinking. The reality, however, is that it is magnifying the hatred of America among Muslims and it is being used as a recruiting tool by groups like al Qaeda. We seem to be under the delusion that terrorism actually works except when it is used against us.

All you have to do is look at what we are experiencing right here in the U.S. in the days since the Boston Marathon bombings. Dial up FOX News or Limbaugh or Hannity and you’ll get an earful of anti-Muslim hysteria. What we fail to understand is that their conservative counterparts in Yemen and Pakistan and Afghanistan are doing the exact same thing to stir up anti-American sentiments.

Drone bombings are wrong on many levels, but perhaps the worst consequence of their use is that they are helping plant the seeds of hatred among young Muslims who are growing up watching innocent people being torn apart by American bombs. 

When children run the nursery

Former Representative Gabrielle Giffords wrote an editorial for the New York Times expressing her disappointment in the Senate vote shortly after the attempt to expand background checks failed on Capital Hill. Their bile agitated, the usual right-wing suspects assaulted the survivor of gun violence from all angles, spewing personal attacks that questioned not merely her judgment, but her sanity. Of all the repulsive verbiage hurled at Giffords by the chorus of cowards, one word from Kevin D. Williamson’s tirade in the National Review Online stood out to me: Childish. Childish?

No sir, being childish is wanting to play cowboys and Indians beyond the age of 8 or 9.

Being childish is believing that more guns in the hands of more people will make America a safer place.

Being childish is throwing a temper tantrum and holding your breath every time someone utters the phrase “reasonable gun control.”

Being childish means you see the world in black and white, good and bad. Adults understand there are subtleties, shades of grey and trade-offs.

Being childish is to misunderstand the difference between justice and vengeance. Adults understand the distinction.

Being childish is being Ted Nugent.

Go home, Homer. You're drunk. No, wait....

An innocent life is an innocent life

I grieve for the victims of the tragic Boston bombings yesterday, but at the same time, it is incredibly hypocritical of Obama to talk about finding and bringing to justice the perpetrators as we continue to drop bombs from drones that kill innocent men, women and children. Where is the justice for them?

Our illegal and immoral drone program

Evidence continues to grow that America’s semi-secret drone program is far more complex and far more deadly than anyone in the Obama Administration has let on. The program has been justified over the years as one that only targets senior al-Qeada members, but evidence is mounting that a) targets are far more diverse, and include a variety of low-level Afghan and Pakistani militants, and b) the number of civilians killed is far higher than the Administration or CIA has admitted in public statements.

We are executing “suspected” terrorists who have not been tried and convicted of any crime, and murdering innocent civilians. This is outrageous and criminal.  We are doing it because there is no one on the planet big enough to tell us to stop.

Why is Obama condoning a program that murders innocent civilians? How is it that an individual as intelligent as Obama could be convinced this is a good idea? What if a drug lord from Mexico was hiding in Arizona? Would we tolerate the Mexican government sending over a drone to bomb his hiding place in a Phoenix suburb?

Our drone program is illegal and immoral and the Administration has been lying to us about it. It may have started under Bush, but Obama continues to defend and expand it. He should be shutting it down.  

Why aren't you angry?

Here's a rather graphic representation of the growth in income inequality in the USA since the 1960s; plotted on a chart where the income growth of the bottom 90 percent is represented by an inch-high bar; the growth of the top 10 percent needs a 163 foot-tall bar; while the top 0.01% need a 4.9 mile-high bar to represent their real wealth growth in the same period.

If you still aren’t convinced that the elite in America have rigged the game in their favor over the past several decades, here’s a startling graphic that should change your mind in a hurry.

Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing makes this observation:

“The top 1 percent enjoyed 81 percent of all the increased income since 2009. Just over half of the gains went to the top one-tenth of 1 percent, and 39 percent of the gains went to the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent. Ponder that last fact for a moment -- the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent, those making at least $7.97 million in 2011, enjoyed 39 percent of all the income gains in America. In a nation of 158.4 million households, just 15,837 of them received 39 cents out of every dollar of increased income.”

Aided and abetted by Washington, a thimbleful of Americans are hauling in truckloads of cash while the rest of us stress over paying the rent each month. And we shouldn’t fool ourselves into believing this is only a Republican failing. There are plenty of Democrats who are willing to play along. Who do you think finances their campaigns?

Why does this not anger us to action?

Good Friday

Arbitration: A lose/lose for consumers

One of my favorite Texans (and that’s a very small group) Jim Hightower writes a long, devastating critique of the arbitration clauses that are now a mandatory part of so many contracts we sign on a regular basis. Hidden deep in the fine print when we apply for a credit card, purchase an item or sign up for a service, very few of us even know these clauses exist until there is a problem, and then it’s too late.

Arbitration has been sold to us by companies and pro-business organizations as a fairer, faster and less cumbersome alternative to litigation, but in reality these clauses are a “Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free” card for corporations who, surprise, almost always come out on top. Hightower provides background on the slow and insidious way that corporate America rigged the system and left consumers virtually helpless when it comes to getting justice. 

Current Affairs Quiz

It’s time to play, “Guess the real headline.” They say truth is stranger than fiction, but who are “they” and why don’t they identify themselves? Anyway, one of the headlines below is the real deal, ripped from today’s news. The others will probably be real headlines in a day or two. For successfully identifying the authentic headline, a toothless hermit living in a Bavarian cave will light a candle in your honor.

1. North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un Says He Will Start WWIII If Adam Sandler Does Not Receive An Honorary Academy Award
2. Tea Party Boycotting FOX News for Being Too Liberal
3. Rick Perry Appoints Himself President of Texas
4. NRA Claims Guns Don’t Kill People, Bullets Do
5. Chicago Cubs Preseason Pick to Win It All
6. Ford Is Bringing Back the Edsel

(If you picked number 2, you spend too much time internetting)

Batty Bachmann Behaving Badly

Minnesota’s favorite loon, Congressperson Michele Bachmann, is facing a congressional ethics probe. The article in today's Daily Beast offers a laundry list of accusations being leveled against Bachmann from people who worked on her recent presidential campaign.

Shit happens when you live in an alternate universe. Confusing right-wing propaganda and slurs with facts, the Tea Party Darling is a living legend when it comes to jaw-dropping misstatements and hallucinatory pronouncements. If you have heard only a fraction of the ludicrous, fact-challenged utterances from Bachmann over the years, you know that she is a proud member of the unreality-based world. So it should come as little surprise that she would ignore the rules and regulations of a reality that she does not acknowledge.

One can only hope she is ultimately saved from herself and admitted to an institution that is equipped to deal with people who are untethered from the existence in which most of us find ourselves. Congress, unfortunately, is filled with far too many enablers.

Who are the adults in the room?

One of the interesting tendencies of many on the far right is to portray themselves as the adults (read “patriarchs”) in the room, while liberals and progressives are the noisy children with their heads stuck forever in the clouds. Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly et. al and countless Republican politicians have all used this metaphor at one time or another as a way of framing themselves as (to use Krugman’s words) Serious People.

The problem is, when you look at the evidence, a thing Serious People don’t have the time or inclination to do, you find that the metaphor doesn’t really pan out. Surprise, surprise. No. In fact, when it comes to childlike behavior, well, you know where I’m going with this. Ask yourself who more often displays these traits, the Loony Left or our friends on the far right edge of the scale.

• The schoolyard bully: Derides you if you don’t agree with him. If you prove him wrong, he becomes irrationally angry and hurls threats and insults. Likes to intimidate people. Believes violence is an acceptable way to settle disputes.
• The kid who claims he’s going to hold his breath until he gets what he wants: Doesn’t listen to reason, he only wants what he wants when he wants it. Won’t accept any alternative to what he feels he deserves. Sees himself as the center of the universe and his desires as more important than anyone else’s.
• The kid who laughs loudest when someone trips and hurts themselves: He lacks empathy and has a child’s sense of humor, which is broad slapstick that usually involves somebody getting hurt or embarrassed. Doesn’t have the intellectual capacity to appreciate subtlety or satire.
• Teacher’s pet: Slavishly worships authority. Will do or say whatever it takes to ingratiate himself with the person in charge. Has no moral compass, and will side with authority figures almost without question.
• The snotty rich kid: Feels those who are not rich are beneath him and deserve what they get. Refuses to believe that there are real-world obstacles that keep people poor and powerless. Only rarely says it out loud, but believes the majority of people are lazy and unmotivated and that he deserves what he as acquired because he is more gifted than most.

Here we go again. This time it's Syria.

On the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a totally unnecessary war that cost thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and trillions of dollars, we have a cadre of armchair generals in the Capital (both Republicans and Democrats) calling for America to intervene militarily in Syria based on second-hand reports of rebels using chemical weapons. Some are already calling for boots on the ground.

Jesus H. Christ. Where do these morons come from? Why are they in positions of power? Why do we keep sending soulless, callous, clueless dolts to Washington to vote on matters of life and death? No country that continues voting for people like Michele Bachmann, Lindsey Graham, and yes, even Dianne Feinstein, can stand the test of time.

Our elected officials seem determined to keep us in a state of never-ending war, constantly sending young men and women off to a jungle or a desert to die or be maimed for life to satisfy the blood lust of a fading empire and war profiteers who are already rolling in piles of gold.

I make a modest, but serious, proposal. Any elected official in congress who votes for war or any military action involving violence must either a) have served in the military or b) have an immediate family member serving in the military. They are so anxious to send off faceless, nameless Americans to die in foreign countries, maybe, just maybe, they might be a bit more reflective and cautious if they were involving someone they loved in the bloodshed.

It will never happen, but maybe someone has a better way to stop the war madness that plagues America’s elites. 

Ten Years After

On the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, this is Donald Rumsfeld's Twitter post for today:

"10 yrs ago began the long, difficult work of liberating 25 mil Iraqis. All who played a role in history deserve our respect & appreciation."

Thanks Donald. Here's what you deserve:

Beyond Atheism

They say as you grow older you tend to become more religious. This makes some sense as one draws closer and closer to life’s exit door. I’m just the opposite. Organized religion looks more and more childish to me as time passes and I wonder how anyone with any education can really believe such contradictory and unsubstantiated nonsense as that found in the Bible, Koran, etc. Religions are basically collections of stories, many of which have been passed down from the dawn of human consciousness. These stories are attempts to explain the unexplainable and ease the terror of those living in a world that on the surface makes very little sense.

 The questions are profound. Why do we die? Is death final? Why do good people fail and bad people prosper? Why must we suffer so much? Does life have any meaning? We still have no answers to these questions, but we do have stories, and if you believe they are true, they provide structure to the universe. God created us. Yes we die, but after our physical bodies fail, our spirits go somewhere else that is wonderful. In that spiritual world, good people are rewarded and bad people are punished. Life does have meaning if you follow God’s rules.

Comforting stories, but stories nonetheless filled with magic and contradictions. For instance, we are told in the Bible that Adam and Eve were the first man and woman, the seeds of the human race. They had two sons. Think about that. Make sense? It’s an origin story and there are hundreds more like it from different cultures and parts of the world. Stories of a great flood predate the Bible. Noah and the ark? Forget about it. So does rejecting organized religion make me an atheist? Not really.

I think science is slowly leading us to the realization that there are other realities that exist beyond, or perhaps alongside, the one which we experience. Just think about the past 100 years and the new worlds we have discovered from black holes to DNA to subatomic particles to the recent confirmation of the Higgs Boson, the so-called God Particle. We’ve unlocked all of these previously mysterious worlds in a mere century of scientific research. Think what the next century will bring.

What animates living things? Some call it a soul or spirit, but I call it energy. We exist in an animated form for 70 or 80 years and then we die, our physical bodies wear out, entropy, and our energy leaves our corporal being. The promising part of this scenario is that science tells us that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but only take another form, so the energy that animates us when we are alive is not destroyed when we die, but merely takes another form. It’s possible that our energy simply dissipates into the universe, but it is also possible it exists in another reality. Based on the trajectory of scientific discoveries, I think we will someday come to the realization that our reality is only one of many that exist in time and space.

Ironically, science is taking me beyond atheism. I don’t make any claims to know what exists beyond our own reality—no streets paved with gold or 72 virgins at my beck and call, and I think at this point it is unknowable, but I am growing convinced that our energy, that thing which animates us, exists beyond our physical death in some state. It doesn’t seem implausible to me anymore, but then, that exit sign is closer today than it was yesterday.

Crystal Ballz

I got an email today from something called Gold Psychics offering me a free opportunity to ask a psychic a question. I wrote back saying, “The answer is 32. What is the question?” Haven’t gotten a response yet.

Drones Over Peoria?

In the aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration began asserting the need for a stronger executive branch (dusting off their “unitary executive” theory) under the guise of the threat of terrorism. A president needed to act quickly and decisively to protect the country from another devastating terrorist attack, they argued, and, according to Cheney, Bush and Rumsfeld, that meant giving the president new powers to capture and kill real and potential threats to the U.S. So over the remaining years of his Administration, Bush, with the help of the Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act, assumed, more power to act unilaterally, resulting in Guantanamo Bay and black sites worldwide.

Of course, Bush’s second term ended in 2008 and a new President was elected. Unfortunately, the powers that Bush’s team coopted in the heat of a terrorist attack were quickly adopted by the new President, Barack Obama. And what would you expect? If you were the CEO of a company and your board of directors gave you sweeping new powers, would you, as the new CEO, rescind those powers? Probably not. One thing rulers are loathe to do is give up powers that they have. So fast forward to today, and you have the announcement that the Obama Administration believes it can use lethal force against American citizens on American soil under certain circumstances. This means if the President feels you are a threat, he can use drones to wipe you out. In Peoria or Denver or New Orleans. No arrest. No trial. No due process. Just “boom,” you’re dead.

Now Barack Obama seems like a sensible guy, and I’m sure others in his administration are just as sane and mentally stable as he is. They have all convinced themselves, and are trying to convince us, that of course no one is going to have to order the bombing of a house in Peoria. We’re sensible, rational people. You can trust us.

Uh, no we can’t. And that is why we have a Constitution. The Constitution is supposed to be our (the people’s) safeguard against the accumulation of too much power in the hands of too few leaders. That was the point of creating three branches of government as opposed to simply appointing a President (or king) to rule as he or she saw fit. Thanks to Bush and his posse of neocons, we now have an executive branch that thinks it has the power to be judge, jury and executioner under certain circumstances. And they get to determine the circumstances.

While Obama may be reasonable, what about the next President or the next? What if we elected a shoot-first-ask-questions-later cowboy like Rick Perry? Do you want him deciding who’s a threat to America and who isn’t? During the Occupy movement’s brief kerfuffle, the FBI categorized them as a terrorist group. The potential for abuse here is massive.

Defenders of the drone decision like to use hypothetical situations as evidence that the President needs this power. What about a guy strapped with explosives walking into a football stadium? That kind of thing. We are a nation of laws. The police already have the power and authority to stop a madman from hurting others, either by arresting him or, if the threat is imminent, shooting him. If there are people plotting terrorist attacks, they should be arrested and tried. Let the justice system determine their guilt and punishment, not a small cadre of government employees in a White House office.

The drone decision is frightening in its implications and we should all be letting Washington know that it is an unacceptable abuse of executive power.

Eight former Drug Enforcement Administration chiefs want the federal government to immediately sue states that legalize marijuana to nullify the legislation

News or Propaganda? Who Cares?

If you missed the story late last week, Breitbart.com editor at large Ben Shapiro broke a story indicating Defense Secretary nominee Chuck Hagel took money from a group called "Friends of Hamas.”  The “scoop” was picked up by FOX News and reported as fact. Unfortunately for everyone involved, there is no group called Friends of Hamas and the story was blown up from a joke made by someone to a GOP source. What’s interesting in the aftermath is that a) Shapiro and Breitbart.com reject the idea that they did anything wrong by publishing the story as an allegation, and b) FOX News had the sketchy editor Shapiro on a show acting as a knowledgeable Washington pundit.

What the Media Matters article fails to point out is that in the conservative media bubble, news and propaganda are the same thing. What we consider news; reasonably objective stories based on verifiable facts, is not what the conservatives consider news. For them, it’s only news if it embarrasses Obama, makes liberals look bad or makes America look good. Facts are not part of that equation. Studies have clearly shown that FOX News viewers are the least well-informed consumers of television news. So it should come as little surprise that Shapiro sees nothing wrong with his unfounded smear of Hagel. 

Worship me or I'll hold my breath until I turn blue

Iraq: An Unwelcome Anniversary Approaches

There has been a hew and cry over the past few years that no major Wall Street honchos have gone to jail related to criminal acts leading up to the 2008 financial meltdown from which this country is still trying to recuperate. And so there should be. However, as much as I think these white collar criminals should pay for their crimes, and as much damage as they did to ruin the financial futures of millions of Americans, they did not send our sons and daughters, husbands and wives, off to a foreign country to kill and die under false pretenses.  

Ten years ago this March 19, President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq. Aided and abetted by administration neocons Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Cheney and others, Bush lied us into a war that went on for nine years, cost $3 trillion dollars, and resulted in the deaths of nearly 5,000 Americans and over 100,000 Iraqis. There were no WMDs, and Saddam Hussein was not working with Al Qaeda. What a decade of investigative reporting has uncovered, is that far from the blundering incompetents they are made out to be by some, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others knew they were starting a war under false pretenses. They had planned to topple Hussein from the earliest days of the Bush Administration.

If anyone should be tried for anything, it should be Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for instigating a disaster of epic proportions that continues to have negative ramifications for our country a decade later. These people are war criminals and should be treated as such. They used 9/11 as a pretext to rain war down on a country that had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks on America, and had the gall to ridicule and marginalize those who disagreed with their rush to battle.

The roadblock to justice is that there was such widespread collusion among America’s elites and the media that no one wants to open up that Pandora’s Box of embarrassment. Not to mention that even though he opposed the Iraq war, President Obama seems to have no desire to pursue criminal charges against an ex-president, especially now that he has drone blood on his hands.

I’m afraid our only hope is that we will have history on the side of truth, but even then, it’s a toss up at this point as to what the “official” history of the Iraq war will be. George Orwell knew well the dangers of relying on history for truth when he wrote, “He who controls the past, controls the future; and he who controls the present, controls the past.”

2013

I want to write a sequel to Orwell’s 1984. I’m going to call it 2013. Clever, huh?  Basically, it’s set in a country where the citizens are under the influence of very subtle and sophisticated mind control techniques that, like a drug, lull them into believing they live in the greatest country in the world, when in fact the government is very evil and corrupt.  

I’ve been jotting down some notes about this fictional country. It’s an updated version of Oceania, where the techniques used to control society are much more modern and sophisticated. Here are some thoughts:

• Although the government does not control the media outright, the major media channels—newspapers, magazines, television, radio—are all owned by a small group of companies that tightly monitor content. Despite the appearance of a free flow of information, messages are limited to those that support unfettered capitalism, corporate ideology and the status quo. Alternative views and dissenting voices are marginalized and ridiculed. 
• A huge, bloated military establishment is sold to the people as necessary for the country’s defense. It is unpatriotic to criticize the defense industry or its budget. Small-scale wars are fought continuously around the world to justify the trillions of dollars spent on the military.
• Whistleblowers, those who speak out against government and corporate abuses and excesses, are punished.
• Groups opposing the status quo are treated as terrorist organizations.
• The richest 1% of the population, the true elites, control the vast majority of the country’s wealth.
• Elections are tightly controlled so that only candidates who support the status quo and the aims of the capitalist elites are considered serious contenders to be the country’s leader.
• Leaders of the country claim the right to kill suspected enemies anywhere in the world at anytime.
• Intelligence agencies routinely monitor citizens by tapping telephones, intercepting Internet communications and mail, and infiltrating organizations based on nothing more than hunches and guesses. Presumption of innocence no longer exists.
• The government operates behind a thick veil of secrecy, which people are told is necessary for the country’s defense.

So what do you think? Too outlandish? I realize it is a stretch to create a country like this where the citizens would allow such treatment and not rise up in revolt, but stranger things have happened. 

Look at Obama's Actions, Not His Words

Many liberal publications have gone ga-ga over the President’s SOTU speech last night. “A liberal agenda for his last term.” A progressive road map.” People, people, people. Haven’t we been through this before? Like, oh, the 2008 presidential campaign? Change. Lofty ideals. Progressive buzzwords. Changing the way Washington works. Transparency. Bring the troops home. Help for the middle class. What did we get? Drone wars. Less transparency than the Bush Administration. An administration stacked with Washington and Wall Street insiders. Capitulation. Half-hearted economic policies.

The SOTU was the classic Obama bait and switch. He presses all the liberal and progressive hot buttons in his speech, but when he gets back to the Oval Office it’s Washington business as usual — more war, candy for Wall Street and the head-smacking insistence on trying to negotiate with an opposition party fighting intellectual battles the rest of the world moved past in the nineteenth century.  

Obama is no liberal. As Chomsky noted, Obama would have fallen into the category of moderate Republican not too many years ago. It is way too premature to get excited over a speech with lots of pretty liberal words. The President has given many speeches. It’s his actions that are important. We can start by looking at whom he’s appointing to fill open cabinet vacancies. It’s hardly a bunch of liberal firebrands, but old Washington war horses who have zero interest in changing the way things work in the nation’s capital.

It was a nice speech last night, but Obama’s initial actions are not a promising start to a new term.

A Match Made in Hell

On the heels of his announcement he would be attending tonight’s State of the Union Address, rocker and NRA board member Ted Nugent made a startling revelation this morning that is sending shockwaves through the conservative pundocracy. According to a press release from Nugent’s publicist, he and author and right wing pundit Ann Coulter are engaged to marry.

According to Nugent, he and Ann met at a mock lynching of President Obama at a survivalist compound in Montana. “I have to tell you,” writes Nugent, “It was love at first sight. When she touched the barrel of my AR-15 I thought I was going to lose it. Fortunately, the safety was on.”

The Motor City Madman says that the wedding ceremony is set for August 15 and will take place at San Antonio’s Alamodome during halftime at the 2013 Monster Truck Marathon. “I’m a bit of a romantic,” says Nugent. “Everyone coming into the Alamodome will be given an air horn, and when Ann and I kiss after the ‘I do’s’, ten thousand air horns will go off. It’ll be epic.”

The press release also details the newlyweds honeymoon plans. Immediately after the ceremony, the lovebirds will fly to Haiti for a helicopter peasant hunt and then it will be off to Brazil for an adventure on the Amazon River stalking animals on the endangered species list. “It’ll be an awesome opportunity to kill things together and really bond as a couple,” says Nugent. Finally, the couple will fly to North Korea where they will be the guests of leader Kim Jong Un, who will detonate a nuclear device in their honor. “We have much to learn from these people,” said Nugent.

Attempts to reach Coulter for comments were met with death threats. 

Bush in the Bathroom

So someone hacked George Bush’s email and we are treated to two recent paintings by the former President, one of him in the bathtub, and one of him standing in a shower.

I am not a painter nor am I a psychologist, but that won’t stop me from looking at these paintings and asking WTF? Technically, the work is amateurish and almost childish, but, of course, that’s not what makes these pieces so interesting. It’s the subject matter.

Let’s just say that I had a hankering (we’ll pretend I’m a Texan) to start painting. After buying my canvases and brushes and paints, I need to decide on something to paint. Fine. What’s the first thing I think of? Perhaps a nice still life. You know, a vase with some apples and pears lying around on the table. Or a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Too boring? How about a nice landscape of the Texas hill country or the dramatic plains of West Texas? No? Okay, then what do you think of naked pictures of yourself in the bathroom?

You have to wonder what in the world George was thinking when he decided to paint pictures of himself lying in a bath and standing naked in the shower. Was it a joke? Is there some context to the pictures that we simply don’t get? Otherwise, huh?

Water, especially running water, is a symbol for spiritual cleansing. Think baptism. The water is running in both the tub and the shower pictures. In the shower painting, we see his face reflected in a small mirror. Cleansing. Reflection. Could these paintings be George’s inner desire to be cleansed for his past sins (of which there are so many)? Is he hoping the Almighty will forgive him if he washes his soul clean of his past worldly mistakes? Could he be suffering from a guilty conscience?

Not likely, at least not consciously. Perhaps the tub/shower paintings are part of a bathroom trilogy, and the third will feature Bush sitting on the toilet reading the latest issue of Guns & Ammo. Makes as much sense as any other explanation.

How Does Washington Work? It Doesn't.

Read a good Rolling Stone review of the book Bailout from one of my favorite political writers Matt Taibbi. Bailout was written by Neil Barofsky, the TARP Inspector General in the years following the 2008 economic blowout. What Taibbi finds most interesting about the book is not so much the procedural details involved in the bank bailouts following 2008, but Barofsky’s anecdotes about how Washington works; how people in positions of power do or do not interact with each other. As Taibbi notes in the article:

“… it's a bizarre, almost tribal mentality that rules our capital city – a kind of groupthink that makes extreme myopia and a willingness to ignore the tribe's ostensible connection to the people who elected them a condition for social advancement within.”

The article helped clarify my understanding of the idea that our government today is not really in the business of solving problems. Those of us in the outlands may think that our elected officials and the people they choose to run various government agencies are working night and day to fix things that are broken, but that is a naïve and simplistic view of how Washington actually works.

You see, solving problems means making decisions. When you make decisions, it means that there are going to be people who are happy and people who are unhappy. The question is always: Who will be unhappy with the decision I make? Who will I alienate? Now, foolish you might think that the primary question on the minds of our officials should be: Will this benefit the people of the United States or not? Silly person. As insider Barofsky makes clear, the real needs of the huddled masses outside the beltway are far down on the list of political priorities among our government bureaucrats.

If Washington is not about solving problems, what is it about? It’s about the appearance of trying to solve problems. Officials make adjustments, recalibrate, fine-tune, issue course corrections and modify policies in an attempt make it look like somebody is doing something, when in fact they are merely rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  

With the iceberg fast approaching, the captain and his crew are more worried about keeping the first class passengers comfy than steering the ship to safety.

Gun (debate) Control

Solid, straightforward, factual article in today’s Mother Jones refuting the top 10 pro-gun arguments you hear from the NRA and others. One of the problems in America with trying to have a reasonable debate on gun control is that the media, both FOX News and the mainstream outlets, allow opponents of gun restrictions to make outrageous claim after outrageous claim without challenging them to provide any research or data to back up their assertions. If you are not a well-informed viewer and you hear someone with a position of authority in the NRA or a congressperson make a statement as if it is a proven fact, you might be inclined to believe it is true. Anyway, the article is worth a read.

Civil Obedience

Thanks, Dan.

It's the Stupid, Stupid

It’s startling and apparently newsworthy when a prominent Republican says something that doesn’t sound like a quote from Forrest Gump’s evil twin. As the keynote speaker at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal chastised his party and its dismal performance in recent elections, saying, "We've got to stop being the stupid party. It's time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults. We had a number of Republicans damage the brand this year with offensive and bizarre comments. I'm here to say we've had enough of that."

Mmm, okay. Good luck with that.

Seriously Bobby, let me offer a simple observation: You will always be the stupid party as long as your party embraces stupid ideas. I’m afraid simply gagging the most obnoxious and outspoken Republican wingnuts isn’t going to quite do the trick. Just so you know I’m not merely a partisan hack, I am willing to offer you and your party some free advice that I believe will help you shed the, “I’m with stupid” vestments your party has worn since Lincoln…slept in Lincoln’s bedroom. Remember, don’t get discouraged. You have to start somewhere. Ready? Okay.

1.     The Economy: Trickle down economics doesn’t work. Gross income disparity is a bad thing. Policies that hurt the middle class are bad for the economy. Americans want to keep social security, Medicare and Medicaid financially strong entities run by the government, not private enterprise.

2.     Corporate America: Running the government and running a business are different. Government workplace regulations that protect workers are necessary. Unions have their place and should not be demonized. The private sector does not do everything better than government. It’s only right that corporations and billionaires pay their fair share of taxes.

3.     War and Peace: It is not in our best interests to be the world’s police department. We need to spend less on our military and more on encouraging peace. We should stop being the world’s leading exporter of weapons. Supporting brutal dictators because we believe it is in our national interest is always a bad thing. Drone bombings, indefinite detention, torture—these actions do not win the hearts and minds of people in other countries.

4.     Security: We should never give the American intelligence community carte blanche to spy on anyone at anytime. Fences don’t work. Suppressing legal dissent or treating protestors as terrorists is wrong.

5.     Social Issues: America is not, and should never become, a theocracy. Christianity is not the national religion. Imposing your religious beliefs on others through public policy as a bad thing to do. More guns is not a viable solution. Health issues should be between a patient and doctor; the government should not be involved. The War on Drugs has been a colossal failure and should be ended.

6.     Misc.: The world is not 6,000 years old. Religious beliefs should not trump science. Man-made climate change is real and should be immediately addressed. FOX News is not your friend.

Wow. That’s enough for now. I know your mind is reeling, Bobby, but if you really want your party to stop being considered “stupid,” this is your chance. Start spreading the news today. No need for thanks. Just know I’ve got your back. 

A Day of Irony

The beautiful irony of today is that we observe the inauguration of an African-American President on Martin Luther King Day. I think this would be a very bittersweet moment for King if he were alive to witness the day’s events. Could he have imagined a black man in the White House within 45 years of his death? Perhaps, but I think he would be pleasantly surprised to know that we went from Jim Crow to Barack Obama in a single generation.

At the same time, I think he would be dismayed to see what has become of America in the intervening years. Were he standing at the dais giving a speech today, he would certainly be speaking out against the intolerable income disparity that exists in this country, where a small cabal of billionaires controls the vast majority of the nation’s wealth. He’d lament the weakening of labor unions and the ongoing hemorrhaging of investments and jobs to overseas destinations. He would heap scorn on the greed and avarice of Wall Street as it continues to turn its back on Main Street.

 And I have no doubt he would lament the extremist security and national defense policies that have been implemented since 9/11. He would surely scold Washington for creating a perpetual state of war that fulfilled the Orwellian prophecy declaring war is peace and dissent is treason. Drones, Guantanamo, Afghanistan, a bloated defense budget, it would all draw King’s ire and condemnation. As others have pointed out, King was a radical both by 1960s standards and perhaps even more so by today’s. Calling Obama a socialist is laughable. Calling King a socialist would be much closer to the mark. In his later years, he was more and more critical of the abuses inherent in modern capitalism and accurately predicted were our greed and arrogance would take us as a country if the problems of economic disparity were not addressed. And of course, they weren’t.

I think King would take time to celebrate today’s inauguration, and would, if he were here, no doubt be a featured speaker. But he would tell us that as far as we had come, we have a very, very long way to go to fulfill the promise of the America he once foresaw in a dream. 

Killer Toys for 2013

The United States Department of Defense, in conjunction with the CIA, unveiled the first die-cast metal toy in a new line of products being sold on Amazon under the name, “America Owns the World.” The initial offering is the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) RQ-1 Predator shown here. This indiscriminate killing machine has seen combat over Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, and Yemen, killing and disfiguring women, children, and the occasional terrorist, since 1995.

On the schedule for release this spring is 1/12 scale replica of a CIA waterboarding operation, complete with paid mercenaries, buckets and leaders of the international community standing outside the facility covering their eyes and ears.

Future releases include a model black site prison in Bosnia (includes pliers and death metal CD), the Abu Ghraib hooded prisoner doll, and “My First Shredding Machine” with copies of the Constitution, Bill of Rights and other useless documents for your child’s shredding fun.

To Pee or Not to Pee, That is the Question

More and more states are considering drug testing as a condition for receiving unemployment benefits. Bills are being introduced in statehouses across the country by Republicans who offer a variety of muddled rationales for their actions that defy the simplest tests of logic. As civil liberty activists have pointed out time and time again, Republicans are spending taxpayers’ time and money addressing a non-existent problem.

This drug-testing frenzy is an interesting and telling contrast to one of the top stories of the moment, gun control. On the one hand, you have fervent gun owners who insist that any infringement on their right to own weapons is government intervention and intrusion of the worst kind, while on the other you have Republican state legislators wanting to know what you’re doing in the privacy of your own home while you collect unemployment benefits.

The irony is painfully apparent. Although Republicans claim to be the party of personal freedom and limited government, they have no problems using the federal or state government to pursue their ideological goals, whether it’s drug testing or abortion or prayer in schools.

Actually, I’m all for drug testing, if it includes our state and national political representatives. Pee away.

Barack, we hardly new ye

How are we to understand Barack Obama’s transformation from an idealistic, highly intelligent, progressive, socially conscious young American black man to today’s marionette of the industrial/military complex’s puppet masters? 

Today’s issue of AlterNet features and article by Alex Kane, “5 Ways President Obama Has Doubled Down on Bush’s Most Tragic Mistakes.” One of the primary reasons why many of us voted for Obama in 2008 was the clear indication in his campaign that his administration was going to move in a new direction AWAY from the previous eight years of secrecy, militarism, isolationism, antagonism, and aggression. However, as Kane points out in his article, not only has Obama extended many of Bush’s most reviled policies, in many cases he has expanded on them. Programs related to the use of drones, warrantless wiretapping, proxy detentions, Guantanamo and indefinite detention have all been expanded under Obama.

And now, as his second term administration begins to take shape, we see Obama once again going to an establishment-friendly, change abhorrent list of nominees like John Brennan, a Bush era supporter of that President’s most controversial anti-terror tactics, as new Central Intelligence Agency director, and conservative Republican former senator Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense. This was Obama's modus operandi at the beginning to his first term, as well, much to the dismay of his supporters.

Why? Why has this president gone out of his way to endorse policies and nominate cabinet members that so glaringly represent everything that was and is wrong with American domestic and foreign policy? I can’t explain it. There are days when I feel like I’m reading a Tom Clancy novel about an idealistic new president who is threatened into compliance by an evil cabal in Washington, D.C. to do their bidding. I’m not sure what other explanation makes sense. The Obama who sits in the Oval Office today is not the Obama I voted for in 2008. That person never made it to the White House.