Saturday, August 7, 2010

The demographic hinge swings

Something somebody needs to pass this along to SC consultant/bloggers ( and its resident Christianist hater/bloggers):

But Republicans have good reason to leave the Prop. 8 debate alone, Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia, told Politico. “A modern party does not want a campaign that’s built around a crusade on gay rights. ...[I]t won’t work, for one thing, and for another, it’s so controversial that it would obscure the nonpartisan appeal of the economic issue," he said.

Ill-educated makes a good Constitutionalist

Teabaggers, shouting out of more sides of their mouths than you might have thought they had, call on US House members to collect their paychecks but not show up for work. Oh, and fire teachers:

“We’ve heard from [Tea Party] folks asking for information in a dozen states that we are aware of from coast to coast,” said Bill Wilson, president of Americans for Limited Government, which provides studies and support material to Tea Party activists.

Wilson and his Tea Party brethren argue that states have hired far too many teachers in the last decade and that they should be downsizing the pool of teachers rather than asking for a federal bailout.

“Why is there a rush to move this bailout right now?” Wilson asked. The impact on the overall economy would be negligible…This is seen as a cynical effort to help a few larger, heavily unionized states avoid that reckoning…at a time when this Democratic leadership needs to have its unions allies pumped up before the election.”

Wilson and local Tea Party groups are urging members not to show up for the special House session or asking them to vote against the state aid package. A vote could come as early as Tuesday.

News from the guest book

Welcome to our first reader from Iceland. Please return often, and comment is free.

- Cotton Boll Conspiracy and I have had a useful conversation this week about the dropping of the a-bomb on Hiroshima, 65 years ago.

Here as well.

We hew to the same view, if from slightly different directions. The Japanese warlords were perceived as being so fanatical that nothing short of a promise- more like a threat- of the skies raining the most awful destruction then imaginable, day after day- would get them to give up the fight. Doubtless the Allies felt internal pressures to wind down the Pacific Theater pronto after the war in Europe ended as well. The defeat of the Churchill government in Britain must have been a bracing blow.

So we did what we had to do, because, in some part, we had the means to do it.

But we are stuck with the residue of the effort. From the tiny reactor at the University of Chicago to Oak Ridge to the vastation of the Hanford Nuclear Plant's pollution of the region's groundwater (and the potential of infecting the Columbia River), to the fight between Nevada and everywhere on how and where to store nuclear plant waste that will take millions of years to become harmless, attended by- whom?- to the Eisenhower Administration's goofball idea that it could share nuke tech with states like India and no bombs would come of it, to the Cold War proxy battles that made it convenient to overlook Israel's and South Africa's nuke programs, to the latest debates in the Senate over missile reduction treaties- it's hard to imagine a single thing that so changed the world in so short a time. And with no real result. Despite the fear-rightly felt- of the power of nukes to incinerate the planet, we have more nations wanting them, not fewer. We chuckle at Dr. Strangelove; we shiver at Fail Safe. But on the merits, the main points, we- the United States- unleashed a genie upon the world to end a war but here we are, 65 years later- nothing resolved.

It's a pleasure to have this sort of discussion. Thank you, CBC.

-Another reader asked, of a report I ran on KY Senate candidate Rand Paul's membership in a loony toons medical association:

Why do you bother with this?

Good question.

I believe Ron Paul and Rand Paul are nuts. They shift their focus from right wing to Republican to libertarian depending on the climate of the time. At heart they are racists who dress up their racism in philosophical disquisitions that let them claim they just followed the logic train to its conclusion, it's nothing personal. The fact white males are always the winners in PaulWorld is just one of those things.

I believe Rand Paul in the Senate will be bad for democracy and bad for the Republican Party. I say so. For readers, it's like TV. One can always change the channel.

But thanks for keeping me on my toes.

- Over the fuss about rumors the Prop 8 federal judge is gay, and gay judges are part of the secret handshake, so only straight judges should decide issues to suit God, another reader wondered:

If both straight and gay judges are disqualified shouldn't only full on active bi-sexuals be allowed to judge?

- Still another reader wishes he'd been at this Fred Phelps rally:

While a San Francisco reader, considering my considered response to the first news of the Prop 8 ruling, said it's all very simple:

It's quite simple, really. 136 pages that can be summed up in five words:

PARTY IN THE CASTRO TONIGHT!

Irritatingly independent to the end

Anthony Judt, a historian who eventually annoyed everyone, was a hero of mine just for that reason.

He thought for himself, and late in his too-short life, at least he still had the ability to think. He died at 62 this weekend, a loss to the thoughtful world, but perhaps a blessing to him:

Not that he appeared to care what others thought. "I'm regarded outside New York University as a looney tunes leftie, self-hating Jewish communist; inside the university, I'm regarded as a typical, old-fashioned, white male liberal elitist," he said recently. "I like that. I'm on the edge of both, it makes me feel comfortable."

His view of history was unvarnished. "History can show you that it was one pile of bad stuff after another," he once declared. "It can also show you that there's been tremendous progress in knowledge, behaviour, laws, civilisation. It cannot show you that there was a meaning behind it.

"And if you can't find a meaning behind history, what would be the meaning of any single life? I was born accidentally. I lived accidentally in London. We nearly migrated to New Zealand. So much of my life has been a product of chance, I can't see a meaning in it at all."

Despite his illness, Judt continued giving public lectures without the aid of notes, granting interviews and writing for the New York Review of Books.

In one recent essay, Judt discussed the condition that had left him a quadriplegic, unable to perform almost any muscular action – including breathing – unaided. "There I lie, trussed, myopic, and motionless like a modern-day mummy, alone in my corporeal prison, accompanied for the rest of the night only by my thoughts."

Words, for Judt, were a way of making sense of his life and a weapon in his battle against his illness. "Words can make the illness a subject I can master, and not one that one simply emotes over."

Why are they skipping SC? There's some serious haters here who'd be all over a rally talk, even for 16 people.

Here's a report from the NOM's Atlanta marriage rally; Dr. Alveda King, the hater in the family, did her schtick.

We’re listening to a gospel singer sing a song called “Unity” by Vernessa Mitchell, who Brian Brown said performed at Clinton’s inauguration (one of the inaugural balls, it turns out).

It’s a beautiful rendition. The equality protesters are dancing and cheering, while NOM supporters are standing stoically.

“Unity that’s what we need…we need to show more love to one another,” the singer rifts.

Wow. That’s a new kind of messaging.

But the rest of the event has, so far, turned out to be the same old NOM.

Dr. King made a few short remarks.

“I don’t know about you but I’m not ready to be extinct,” King said to the crowd after pointing out that “it is statistically proven” that marriage between one man and one woman is the foundation of society.

Some would say that there are many more [equality] protestors here than [NOM] supporters,” Brian Brown said. “But what [about] the 70 percent of voters?” who banned same-sex marriage in Georgia.

“Children without a mom and a dad are 20 times more likely to commit a crime,” said Tonya Ditty, Georgia State Director of Concerned Women for America.

Ah, there’s the NOM we all know.

Technorati Daily

Ranking: 14243. Arrow: Up. Auth: 158. Arrow: Up. Trend: sideways.

One comes with the other

Cotton Bowl Conspiracy has made the case for the needfulness of the atomic bomb.

My case is that we've let the genie out of the bottle. 65 years on, we still deal with the endlessly morphing consequences:

At last we’ve apologised for Hiroshima – well, sort of. We’ve recognised the suffering our atom bombs caused –well, kind of. President Obama was showing off his anti-nuclear credentials in the killing grounds of Hiroshima, but this was not to be confused with saying sorry.

The presence of John Roos, the US ambassador to Japan, and the British deputy ambassador, David Fitton, at the site of the world's first atomic bombing was an odd appearance.

We are looking at the survivors' ceremony and recognising their suffering – how very Blairite of us – and even the British embassy's words were of Blairite insincerity. "This is the right move at the right time," it said. But the right 'move' for what? After all, we are really not apologising for the 220,000 dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hell, didn't we win the Second World War?

What it really comes down to is this. If you apologise for slaughtering civilians – or, at the minimum, causing their deaths – you have to do it quickly and for humanitarian reasons. Wait too long and do it for political reasons, and it will lose its effect. Germany was quick to start admitting responsibility for the Jewish Holocaust and now calls itself Israel's best friend in Europe. Turkey has never apologised for committing the Armenian Holocaust in 1915. But if it ever does, will anyone except the Armenians care?

On the surface, it's all very simple. Most of us seem to believe the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a war crime. I certainly do. The Japanese were already talking of surrender. That Caesar of British historians, AJP Taylor, quoted a senior US official. "The bomb simply had to be used – so much money had been expended on it. Had it failed, how would we have explained the huge expenditure? Think of the public outcry there would have been ... The relief to everyone concerned when the bomb was finished and dropped was enormous."

Taking his cue from the idea that Hiroshima and Nagasaki spared the Allies a bloody invasion of mainland Japan – a thesis which now appears to be completely untrue – Lord Louis Mountbatten remarked that "if the bomb kills Japanese and saves casualties on our side I am naturally not going to favour the killing of our people unnecessarily ... I am responsible for trying to kill as many Japanese as I can. War is crazy ... But it would be even more crazy if we were to have more casualties on our side to save the Japanese."

This, of course, carefully avoids the fact that Japanese soldiers – brutal and sadistic though they were – were largely murdering soldiers, while Mountbatten's men were slaughtering mostly Japanese civilians. And when will the Japanese apologise for Pearl Harbour?

Much more seriously – since most of the victims were civilians and it was a war crime of almost Holocaust-scale magnitude, so terrible that even a latter-day historian of the bloodbath committed suicide – why hasn't Japan apologised for the murder and rape of perhaps a million Chinese in the attack on Nanking, then the capital of nationalist China, before "our" Second World War broke out? Why should "we" apologise before the Japs do?

When I visited the Japanese war criminals' Shinto shrine in Tokyo – the darker the crimes of those honoured, I noticed, the fewer were captions to their portraits provided in English – there was even a restored steam locomotive in the shrine, the engine that hauled the first train along the Burma railway. It was carrying the ashes of Japanese soldiers who had died in battle. But building that railway line was Royal Marine Jim Feather. He had been rescued from HMS Repulse when it was sunk by Japanese aircraft in December 1941 but was subsequently taken prisoner when Singapore fell. Mistreated and sick, he was forced to work on the railway. He was six feet tall but in his last days his mates could lift him on their shoulders like a child, like a feather I suppose. He died sometime in 1942. Jim was the son of my Dad's sister Freda. So don't the Fisk family deserve an apology, too?

But what good would it do? Tony Blair could, in 1997, "recognise" the suffering of the Irish famine victims, he could say that the British Government did not look after their "own" Irish citizens. No apologies, mind you. Even though the famine had taken place almost 150 years earlier. Then the Brits waited almost 30 years to say sorry for the massacre by British paratroopers of 14 Irishmen on Bloody Sunday. Had they told the truth at the time – that they were shooting innocent civilians – Northern Ireland's civil war would have been far less bloody and men and women and children would be alive today who are, in fact, long dead. But no, we had to lie at the time and thus we helped the IRA's "recruiting sergeant".

But then there's the other argument about Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Our Axis enemies had bombed Pearl Harbour and Coventry and Belgrade and killed the Jews of Europe and murdered our POWs in Asia and – this is a bit of a hypocritical one – if the Germans and the Japanese had the atom bomb, would they have hesitated to use it on "us"? Besides, didn't we kill more Germans in Cologne by fire-bombing than in Hiroshima by nuclear bombing? Do we have to apologise for Cologne, too? And the RAF's mass carnage in Hamburg? And Dresden? Well, we did sort of apologise for the fire-bombing of the medieval city in February 1945 – the new cross on top of the restored cathedral was actually made by the son of one of the Lancaster pilots who bombed Dresden – but so long after the event that thousands of modern-day neo-Nazis were gathering at the mass graves to prove that the RAF were the war criminals.

Even now, we have no intention of apologising to the Iraqis for our illegal 2003 invasion. Ed Miliband announced only a few days ago in typical anthropological claptrap that it was "time to move on"; and we shall not mention Blair's arrogant performance in front of the Chilcot inquiry.

Yet it's intriguing to go back to what people said about Hiroshima at the time. Today, we might share these words. "This outrage against humanity ... is not war, not even murder. It is pure nihilism." And we might be appalled by a newspaper that found it possible to legitimise the use of the atom bomb because it was impossible to judge the morality of the bombing by the size of the bomb that was used. So for the paper, the slaughter was "entirely legitimate". But the first quotation comes from the venomous Imperial Japanese radio station in occupied Singapore. The second comes from a 1945 edition of what was then called the Manchester Guardian. And we might do well to note how the poet and novelist Vita Sackville-West reacted to Hiroshima. Her husband, Harold Nicolson, wrote in his diary that "Vita is thrilled by the atomic bomb. She thinks ... that it means a whole new era."

Well, yes, I suppose it did. But ever since the American journalist John Hersey revealed the terrible suffering of the people of Hiroshima – unlike Wikileaks, he didn't suck the stuff out of computers, he set off there, on his own, to find out the truth – the name of the city has become a symbol of the guilt of humanity. And rightly so.

"Why not take every position available? I'm term-limited. I WON'T be back."

Schwarzenegger raised eyebrows with his strong support for allowing gay and lesbian marriages as soon as possible. The governor remained neutral during the lawsuit and praised Walker's ruling Wednesday, but he has also said he believes marriage should be limited to a man and a woman.

He twice vetoed bills to legalize same-sex marriage, saying they contradicted the will of the people as expressed at the polls.

The Alvin Greene of Tennessee, or the Basil Marceaux of South Carolina?

The strange, spectacular rise of Basil Marceaux, the enigmatic man who referred to himself as "BasilMarceaux.com" when not referring to himself as "an international Internet celebrity and an international superstar and a dark-star candidate" -- as he did in a recent telephone interview -- has ended.

Bill Haslam, the current mayor of Knoxville, won Thursday's Republican nomination for Tennessee governor. Marceaux will fade into the annals of Internet memes, leaving everyone to speculate just what he had against gold fringe. And to eagerly await the next vessel into which we may pour our collective ironic support.

Vote for Pedro? Nay, Vote for Basil.

A few weeks ago, a brief clip began spreading on YouTube, eventually surpassing 1 million hits. It featured two Tennessee television journalists introducing a gubernatorial candidate as delicately as if they were handling an IED. The candidates the viewers would hear from that week would all speak "in their own words," warned one uneasy-looking anchor.

And then, gloriously slurring speech and swaying in place: a rumpled former Marine named Basil Marceaux.

His candidacy would be based on, he said, planting "vegetation in any vacant lot and selling it for gas," as well as removing "all gold-fringe flags and flying the real flags with three stripes." Everyone would be required to carry guns.

Visits to his Web site yielded more information on the candidate's beliefs. As governor, he would force the United States to do away with "measuring of the waist" and investigate "why Democracy invaded the U.S. State on July 16, 1866."

The typing public fell in love: "Basil Marceaux may be the most awesome human being in the history of the state of Tennessee," wrote one blogger.

Wonkette.com fell in love: "You have a new election boyfriend!" the site exclaimed elatedly.

Jimmy Kimmel fell in love and invited Marceaux -- who says he is unemployed but fighting for citizens on a freelance basis -- out to California to be a guest on his show. He later got an invite to Glenn Beck's program and a mention on Stephen Colbert's. Each public appearance yielded the same internal observation: This guy cannot be for real, unless he is the realest thing anyone has ever seen.

Would he be another Alvin Greene, a plain-spoken man no one had heard of, who went on to win South Carolina's Democratic nomination for Senate?

Reached by telephone Thursday evening, Marceaux was asked to comment on how the attention had changed his life.

"I hate to say this, but I set the Internet up," he said. "I set the Internet up so they would talk bad about me because it's the only way to get hits."

The Palmetto GOP's Pete Wilson?

Will Lindsey Graham's tack to the right shoot the GOP in the foot?

Altering the Constitution — especially an amendment that is dear to black Americans — is such a huge political proposition that few lawmakers thought Mr. Graham’s comments would lead to any action before November’s midterm elections.

But the episode was a sign of the pressures on Republicans over immigration, after a tough law they passed in Arizona put the party squarely on the side of cracking down on illegal immigrants. Mr. Graham’s move helped to shore up his credentials with some conservatives.

But some Republicans worried that the issue could backfire. “This type of position may help you win a few elections,” said Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, a group that tries to draw Latinos to the Republican Party. “But you are damaging relations with the Latino community.”

Friday, August 6, 2010

Toles' Road

Only in Noo Yawk

JOIN THE CROWD

Museum Of Tolerance Director Won't Tolerate 'Ground Zero Mosque'

You had to be there

Gov. T-Paw (the "P" is for "panderer") gets involved in Manhattan land use issues and gets welcomed by David Weigel:

I'm strongly opposed to the idea of putting a mosque anywhere near Ground Zero -- I think it's inappropriate. I believe that 3,000 of our fellow innocent citizens were killed in that area, and some ways from a patriotic standpoint, it's hallowed ground, it's sacred ground, and we should respect that. We shouldn't have images or activities that degrade or disrespect that in any way.

So he's in line with Sarah Palin, who wants "peace-seeking Muslims" to understand that the mosque is a "provocation." But Palin put it better, didn't she? The way she has it, there are good Muslims who should understand that mosques close to Ground Zero might offend people. The way Pawlenty has it, the very existence of a mosque would soil the "hallowed ground" of the Burlington Coat Factory-that's-near-Ground Zero. That's got to come as news to the families of Syed Fatha, Salman Hamdani, Sarah Khan, and the dozens of other Muslims who died on 9/11 totally unaware that they were ruining it for the rest of us.

Bless his heart, he just can't help himself-

There's really nothing one can add to this item, especially if you remember the Civil Rights movement:

TPM Editors Blog

Where'd They Get This Dude?

Josh Marshall | August 6, 2010, 8:38PM

Michael Steele gave a stemwinder today at the RNC meeting in Kansas City, even donning a bright red "Fire Pelosi" baseball cap as he kicked off his own six week national bus tour.

But he got so wrapped up in the moment that he tossed off what will have to end up as one of Steele's more memorable lines, declaring that he and his supporters were going to send Nancy Pelosi to "back of the bus."

Before this is over we'll have her drinking from a separate fountain!

If only everyone's job were as secure as Michael Steele's.

Did DeMint fill out the "God Is Not Government PAC" questionnaire? What did he say about the adoption and corporate money questions?

At MSNBC, Keith Olbermann leads with the AP story that Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle got the endorsement of a religion-oriented PAC whose questionnaire she affirmatively answered that gay couples shouldn't be able to adopt (today other media reported she also answered another question affirmatively that she'd have no contributions from corporate PACs whose parent companies have equality policies for gay employees.

The story's an interesting summary of the status quo, though with some typical over-the-top flourishes, like when WaPo columnist Eugene Robinson, in a colloquy over whether Angle also favors taking adopted kids from gay families (she hasn't said; it hasn't been tried), called the prospect "Gestapo raids" and Olbermann responded that presumably Angleites wold call themselves "liberators."

All unnecessary and extraneous to the newsworthy point: the PAC that offered the questionnaire, God Is Not Government, uses the answers it gets to make endorsement decisions. And they've sent it, Olbermann reported, to California Senate candidate Carly Fiorina (whose office says she didn't fill it out), US House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, and Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio.

I took a look at the PAC's website, and it's interesting to see the Senate candidates it has endorsed: J.D. Hayworth in Arizona; Fiorina; Jane Norton in Colorado; Rubio; Todd Tihart in Kansas; Roy Blunt in Missouri; Angle, and....Senator Jim DeMint.

DeMint's Senate Conservatives Fund has vigorously promoted Angle, Rubio and Norton's Colorado opponent.

Did DeMint answer the GingPac questionnaire? And how did he answer these questions? Seems like it's the kind of thing voters are entitled to know. One can kinda guess at answers, given that DeMint is robustly antigay (the idea of a gay rpesident makes him queasy) and he declared six years ago that neither gays nor unmarried pregnant woman should be allowed to teach school (before walking it back, saying his comments had been misconstrued from their complete clarity).

It's all kinda clubby. Here's the Olbermann clip, make of it what you will-

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Seems more like a dead heat with the Democratic Party

The best example of this is the series The West Wing, where the most liberal administration in the history of the universe had nobody gay on its senior staff:

There was much rejoicing in Hollywood yesterday following the ruling of a federal judge in San Francisco that Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage in the state of California, is unconstitutional. “This just in: Equality won,” tweeted Ellen DeGeneres. Ricky Martin’s joy was unconfined: “YEAHHHHH!!!!! #PROP8UNCONSTITUTIONAL MOVING FORWARD!!!!!!!!”

It’s a pity Martin didn’t condemn Proposition 8 in 2008 when it was first brought forward by anti-gay campaigners. As a role model for many Latino men, Martin’s opposition might have dissuaded some of them from voting for it. But then he hadn’t come out as a gay man at that point. He didn’t take that step until March of this year and some mean-spirited commentators suggested it was only because he had a book to promote. Up until then the successful Puerto Rican singer and actor had never disclosed he was gay and even fathered two children.

At least Martin has finally stopped living a lie. Hollywood celebrities are notoriously liberal, losing no opportunity to endorse Left-wing causes or trumpet their support of Barack Obama. Yet the entire showbiz community conspires to protect the carefully cultivated straight identities of its gay members, terrified that if word gets out their fans will turn on them. Indeed, not a few Hollywood publicists have built their careers on the ability to keep the private lives of their gay clients out of the press. Any journalist attempting to publish the truth about one of these figures will immediately be threatened, bullied and, if he or she persists, cast in to the outer darkness, as Tom Junod discovered when he addressed the rumours concerning Kevin Spacey’s homosexuality in an Esquire cover story in 1997. According to Maer Roshan, a gay New York journalist, “Reporters bitterly denounced Junod for violating Spacey’s privacy, and the actor’s agent, Brian Gersh, vowed that none of his other clients would pose for Esquire again.”

Like many openly gay men, Roshan is sick to the back teeth of the show business elite’s hypocrisy on this issue and wrote a furious piece for New York magazine in 2001 denouncing various entertainment industry figures who tried to conceal their homosexuality, including Barry Diller, Nathan Lane, Rosie O’Donnell and Sean Hayes. “Back in the fifties – when exposing people as homosexual would subject them not only to ostracism but also to violence and even jail – the gay cover-up made sense,” he wrote. “But these are vastly different times.”

Roshan is surely right. Hollywood films are constantly championing heroic individuals who take a stand against prejudice and discrimination at great risk to themselves. Indeed, one such film, Milk, which won numerous awards including two Oscars, celebrated the political career of gay rights campaigner Harvey Milk who was assassinated in 1978. Yet virtually no major stars are willing to jeopardise their careers by publicly admitting they’re gay. Proposition 8 only passed by 52 per cent of the vote and if more celebrities had been out of the closet at the time there’s a strong chance it would have been defeated.

I’m fed up with being lectured by Hollywood luvvies about the the evils of discrimination. Until they put their own house in order, what right have they to criticise anyone else?

He's quick, that one

August 4, 2010

DeMint Statement on Judicial Decision on California’s Proposition 8

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Today, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, made the following statement:

“Today’s wrongful court decision is another attempt to impose a secular immorality on the American people who keep voting to preserve traditional marriage,” said Senator DeMint. “Traditional marriage has been the foundation of civil society for centuries and we cannot simply toss it aside to fit the political whims of liberal activists with gavels. Marriage is a religious institution that was codified into law to protect it. Now, the courts are trying to deprive the majority of Americans who value marriage the democratic ability to protect it any longer. If our marriage laws are valueless, they will become meaningless. History and research have shown that strong nations depend on strong families, and that the best chance for a child’s success in life depends on having a family with a mother and father. I hope the Supreme Court will defend the democratic judgment of the people of California.”

Could he have really changed any of their minds?

Ousted Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) says he wishes he had more forcefully debunked conspiracy theories about President Obama when he was in the midst of a tough primary battle.

Inglis, who lost 71 percent-29 percent to a conservative challenger, told CNN he was too gentle in dealing with conservative activists who had over-the-top views of the president.

Here, for example, is what Inglis recalls hearing from some erstwhile supporters (as recounted in a Mother Jones article):

They say, 'Bob, what don't you get? Barack Obama is a socialist, communist Marxist who wants to destroy the American economy so he can take over as dictator. Health care is part of that. And he wants to open up the Mexican border and turn [the US] into a Muslim nation.'" Inglis didn't know how to respond.

Inglis says he regrets not knocking those theories down.

"What I should have said was, 'Over my dead body that's gonna happen. I can guarantee it's not gonna happen,'" the South Carolina Republican told CNN's Rick Sanchez. "That would have been the better answer, wouldn't it? Rather than the one I gave, which is, 'Well it's not quite that bad, let's keep it within the realm of facts.'"

You'd be disappointed if he wasn't a member, wouldn't you?

Here's a fun fact: It turns out that another Senate candidate is involved with the right-wing doctors group that has dabbled in such topics as birtherism, HIV-denial and opposition to Medicare. It's none other than Rand Paul.

As we posted earlier today, Sharron Angle will be headlining a Tea Party rally organized by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. They have stated that the establishment of Medicare in 1965 was "evil" and "immoral"; they have denied the link between HIV and AIDS; they have dabbled in birtherism; they have argued that President Obama may have used "covert hypnosis" to rally his crowds; and have suggested that the Food and Drug Administration is unconstitutional.

But it should be noted that Rand Paul is also a member.

Changes coming for SC prez primary

KANSAS CITY, MO -- The RNC has approved a resolution making dramatic changes to the way the GOP picks a presidential nominee, moving primaries to later dates and requiring states to allocate their delegates on a proportional basis.

The proposal will move the earliest nominating contests -- in IA, NH, SC and NV -- back from early Jan. to Feb. It will also require states that hold nominating contests in March to award delegates based on the proportion of votes candidates win, eliminating the prospect of an early winner-take-all state that would effectively end the nominating process.

Proponents said the measure would avoid the calamity of a national primary. Already, nearly 40 states have primaries scheduled for the first possible day in the nominating calendar.

Demographics at work

"In fact, in 38 states, a majority of those age 18-29 support same sex marriage, according to an analysis by Columbia University political scientists Jeffrey Lax and Justin Phillips. The 12 other states (except Utah) are all in the South, and in six of those states (Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, and Kentucky) more than 44% support gay marriage."

Sharron Angle: I won't take gay-tainted money

The other day, considering the vogue for corporate boycotts, I wondered why the anti-gay Minnesota candidate for governor who took $250k from Target/Best Buy didn't return the money after Dayton-Hudson, the parent company, said it was sorry its contribution conflicted with its otherwise pro-gay employment and operating policies.

Thank goodness Senator Jim DeMint's Nevada Mini-Me, Sharron Angle, is firm on the issue. WaPo's Plum Line picks up on something AP missed:

Sharron Angle has taken some extreme positions, but this one is remarkable even by her standards: She said on a candidate questionnaire that she would refuse political contributions from a private company that backs equal rights for gays and extends benefits to partners of gay employees.

Angle laid out this position in a candidate questionnaire that she filled out for the Washington-based Government is not God PAC.

In question 35A of the questionnaire, Angle was asked:

Would you refuse PAC money from those who are fundamentally opposed to your views on social issues?

Angle checked the Yes box. The questionnaire then asked:

In reference to question 35A, Intel Corporation supports "equal rights for gays" and offers benefits to "partners" of homosexual employees. Would you refuse funds from this corporate PAC?

Angle again checked the Yes box.

The questionnaire was first obtained by the Associated Press, which did a story about it without noting this question and answer from Angle. The AP story noted other eyebrow-raising answers in the questionnaire, such as her support for clergy making political endorsements.

A copy of the full questionnaire is right here. The answer to the question on gays was first noted in passing by Nevada Journalist Jon Ralston.

Angle's position is striking. It's one thing to oppose gay marriage, or to oppose equal rights for gays. It's quite another to refuse to accept campaign contributions from a company that chooses of its own free will to support gay rights or extend benefits to partners of its own employees.

Separated at birth?

Mr. Chait:

Excellent!

At least we don't have lava graffitti like Hawaii

People want to build walls to keep out the people from whom they've borrowed a death practice:

The frequency with which Americans are putting up the homemade memorials illustrates a shift in cultural mourning, Dickinson said. To some, the place where their loved one died -- where they believe the soul left the body -- is more sacred than a cemetery, he said.

Markers for the dead date back to prehistoric traders and can be traced to England beginning in 1290, according to Dickinson and Hoffmann. In the United States, the roadside marker phenomenon is thought to have originated in the Southwest, reflecting Hispanic customs, and only became popular in the last 15 years.

Crosses are the most common feature in roadside memorials, and markers typically are erected for the sudden and violent death of a younger person.

Slacking off?

A federal judge creeps past Senator No:

As a longtime trial lawyer. Gergel has often sued powerful business and health care interests. But he is known for putting together cases so well that defendants often settle rather than face him in court. Although he is a Democrat, Gergel had the backing of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and did not incur a “hold” by ultra conservative Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C.

Read more: http://www.thestate.com/2010/08/06/1407074/columbians-gergel-childs-confirmed.html#ixzz0vqjd1nn6

-and we thought he'd won a prize at a committee's earmark drawing

Senator Kent Conrad and his dog, Dakota-

Write your own headline

The fill-in-the-blank- joke state strikes again

Andrew Sullivan:

When Ruth Met Jerry

06 AUG 2010 12:16 PM

You're never too old to fall in love. But shouldn't this kind of thing be illegal in South Carolina because they have no way to procreate? Over to you, Robbie George.

Stick with the tried and true

As part of her surge in Georgia's gubernatorial primary, Karen Handel ran an ad reassuring voters how anti-gay she is.

Now her runoff opponent, Nathan Deal, is upping the ante.

Problem solved!

Here's part of the testimony of one of the two Prop 8 experts:

He testified that polygamy is really a two- person marriage because the husband has a one-on-one relationship with each wife.

Bork's still best in show, 42-58; Thomas, J. was Bork's flip side, 52-48.

A Daily Caller columnist creates a new category of political animal: the cypher in plain sight that only the Right can see (emphasis added).

Last summer, the 31 votes against Justice Sotomayor’s confirmation surprised liberals and conservatives alike in light of more modest expectations and the memory of a mere three votes against the elevation of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court. Opponents of judicial activism were able to build and even improve on that effort this summer, despite President Obama’s attempt to thwart opposition by nominating a stealth candidate.

Conservative groups and Senate Republicans – particularly GOP Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Ranking Member Jeff Sessions – worked hard to get out the disturbing truth about Elena Kagan. As a result, the number of senators voting against confirmation reached nearly 40, including the first Democratic senator to vote against an Obama High Court nominee. That’s the most votes against a Democratic Supreme Court nominee in more than a century.

The level of opposition was particularly impressive given the substantial obstacle posed by the delayed release of Clinton Library documents – Kagan’s only substantial paper trail – until shortly before her hearings began. By then, the mainstream media had already settled on a ‘nothing to see here’ storyline. If the White House deserves any points for political strategy, it’s for realizing that the value of selecting a stealth nominee accrues at the time of nomination, given the muted influence of any information about the nominee that comes out after the storyline is written.

Just what you'd hope to read at a site called "Refinery 29"

"There's no denying that these images from the oil spill editorial in Vogue Italia's August 2010 issue are beautiful. The 24 pages of Kristen McMenamy, shot by Steven Meisel, are realistic interpretations of images of injured, oiled animals that have inundated the news media since the Deepwater Horizon explosion in April. As beautiful and provocative as they are, we can't help but feel uneasy. Creating beauty and glamour out of tragedy seems quite fucked up to us, not to mention wasteful and hypocritical, seeing as thousands of dollars of luxury clothing was flown in, and then subsequently ruined for the shoot. Glamorizing this recent ecological and social disaster for the sake of "fashion" reduces the tragic event to nothing more than attention-grabbing newsstand fodder. But that's just us. Do you think this is appropriate commentary, or just tasteless?"

Haters put bounty on opponents' heads

Showing up at their public meetings and being against their views is threatening and mean, but they'll get you, my pretty:

“I definitely think it’s going to have an effect on the 2010 elections,” said Brian S. Brown, the executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, who called the decision the beginning of a “major national culture war.”

“You’re going to see ads, you’re going to see folks standing up on this issue, and the people that support Walker’s decision are going to pay a price,” Mr. Brown said.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

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Friday, August 6, 2010

JOIN THE CROWD

Where'd They Get This Dude?

Josh Marshall | August 6, 2010, 8:38PM

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August 4, 2010

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When Ruth Met Jerry

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