Tennessee incubator

Tennessee has become quite the incubator for Republican values over the past few years. And with that, it becomes quite the incubator for crazy, as well.

County GOP organizations (where the crazy is stepped up several notches) are passing resolutions taking issue with the Republican governor, who is not quite crazy enough for them. They want him to fire Democrats and replace them with Republicans. And they're really hopping mad because he hired a Muslim to an economic post.

Here's the funnest passage:

“To date, the Haslam Administration has displayed an unfortunate ignorance to the threat of Shariah,” (Kevin Kookogey, chairman of the Williamson County Republicans,) said in an email to TPM. “They seem willing to accept the claims and defense of the Muslim Brotherhood at face value, refusing to even consider that, perhaps, those bent on destroying Western Civilization might just be infiltrating our institutions. … It is not like this has never happened before. The Muslim Brotherhood is following the blueprint of the Communists, who infiltrated the highest levels of government and society in the 1950’s. Shariah, however, is an even greater threat, because it has cloaked itself under the auspices of a religion, thus confusing the uninformed.”

Awesome! And while some of the other counties mentioned in the story are podunk outposts where you'd expect crazy to thrive, Williamson County is actually a suburban Nashville county.

Another highlight, from the Williamson County resolution, is the misspelling of "offered":

“Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam has elevated and/or afford [sic] preferential political status to Sharia adherents in Tennessee, thereby aiding and abetting the advancement of an ideology and doctrine which is wholly incompatible with the Constitution of the United States and the Tennessee Constitution,” the Williamson resolution, dated July 10, 2012, states.

What's good for me...

Here is a problem that cuts both ways: folks in the U.S. don't understand that their specific situation isn't the same as everyone else's.

This is part of a much larger problem with our overall psyche, but this particular part of it has helped the Republican Party stay legitimate. If people really understand how policy, etc., affected them, the GOP would be relegated to a 30 percent stake in this country, mostly made up of the top one percent of earners and libertarians (who would be wise to start their own party in that case).

I've long known that conservatives like to exploit the middle class dream of becoming rich -- many among the middle class sympathize with those much wealthier than them when it comes to raising taxes, because the American Dream is just around the corner, and you, too, will be making $250,000 any day now.

But this story made me realize that it cuts the other way, too. I always thought the rich had all gotten the memo about using the middle class' hopes and dreams to further their own goals, but it appears that for at least some of them, they also don't fathom that what is good for them isn't particularly good for all.

A quote, excerpted from TPM:

A New York City donor a few cars back, who also would not give her name, said Romney needed to do a better job connecting. “I don’t think the common person is getting it,” she said from the passenger seat of a Range Rover stamped with East Hampton beach permits. “Nobody understands why Obama is hurting them. 

“We’ve got the message,” she added. “But my college kid, the baby sitters, the nails ladies — everybody who’s got the right to vote — they don’t understand what’s going on. I just think if you’re lower income — one, you’re not as educated, two, they don’t understand how it works, they don’t understand how the systems work, they don’t understand the impact.”

Maybe, in some cases, they do understand the impact. And in that, maybe there is some hope, yet.

Values?

A study by Pew Research shows that during the 25 years of their polling on "values," people of all stripes are coming more together on many issues -- all except for two stripes, that is....

The divide between Republicans and Democrats has grown greatly, especially during the past two presidents. On issues like the environment and welfare, the difference in opinion at the end of the Reagan presidency was narrow; now, they are among the defining issues separating the parties.

This is not a surprise, but why has it happened? I blame the Republicans, oddly enough. George W. Bush won a controversial election and governed like the cowboy he is, and it rankled liberals much more than Reagan or Bush the First ever did. And Republicans hate Obama because he's black (it's not that simple, but it almost is). So they've been polarizing figures, each in his own way.

It also is interesting to note that on welfare and environmental issues, the Democrats have stayed pretty true to the numbers from 1987, while the Republicans have flocked away from such views -- proof to me that they are the ones who have become more polarized. One area where Democrats have changed more: religiosity.

If you can't spell, how can we trust you to run it?

Oops.

And what adds to the fun is that changes to apps in the Apple Store take a while to get approved.

Real news

I skim Deadspin headlines for interesting sports stories, and I generally dismiss 90 percent of what they write. However, interestingly this story has a legitimate opinion that veers into politics, slightly.

The AP Is Gay For Stupid

The point the writer makes is that in a story the AP does about the UConn hockey team doing a PSA about homophobia and not bullying homosexuals, the reporter felt the need to get an opposing viewpoint.

He says it well:

What is this shit?

I'm not even talking about Peter Wolfgang, who by all appearances is just a dime-a-dozen bigot wrapping his boring old chauvinism in cheap faith and whiny grievance. I'm talking about the AP, which feels compelled to phone up that dime-a-dozen bigot to get his side of a story with which he has fuck-all to do. This is like covering a flower show and asking a Boston Terrier for his opinion. Why does Peter Wolfgang get to toot his own stupid bugle for two paragraphs? The answer: "Balance." "Objectivity." Gayness is a "controversy," you see, and all controversies have two sides.

I know it's just two throwaway paragraphs in a wire story—it's a small miracle for the industry that the AP is even willing to send a reporter to Storrs, Conn.—but this kind of craven shit is how the weasels get invited into the national living room. This is how we get a little bit dumber. A reporter or editor somewhere decides that all real knowledge can be found only at a point equidistant between two competing claims, no matter if one of those claims deserves as much attention and respect as the guy with the shopping cart screaming at the contrails in the sky. Crazy gets normalized. Stupid gets a hearing. You know how you can tell we're in an election year? Even the sportswriters are acting like Politico.

Kudos to Deadspin for hard-hitting commentary.

Tennessee, aka the Republican Law Incubator

So Tennessee's latest crazy Republican-created law

prohibits students from exposing “underwear or body parts in an indecent manner that disrupts the learning environment.”

A law for this? Really?

OK, I'm guilty of poking fun at the way kids dress, and think saggy pants are silly. I also think sweatpants and Uggs look bad on a girl (or guy, for that matter). But in my day, we wore blue jeans with all kinds of holes in them -- the more holes you had, the cooler they were. How dumb was that?

This is just another case of picking on what is thought of as "thugs." Guys who were saggy pants are stereotyped, and now we're bullying them with laws.

The best part of this actually was Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam taking the media to task for focusing on some of these silly laws instead of more "substantive" issues. But if it's worthy of spending time debating a passing a law, isn't it substantive.

The GOP is the Great Wizard of TN....pay no attention to the man behind the green curtain.

Stupid things Tennesseans do...

So this Gibson County High School student decides to wear a Confederate flag dress to her prom, and it denied admittance. She is, of course, shocked at the controversy. They always are.

Oh, and her name? Texann. She was born for this role.

There are other names for folks like this, none of them good, however.

Turning back the clock

The Tennessee legislature continues turning back the clock while it's in charge. The latest to become law is a bill allowing the teaching of creationism.

It always works this way

Isn't it interesting how traditionally red states always rank lowest in things like birth rates among teenagers?

The list from 2010 is a who's who of traditional poorer, mostly Southern states (New Mexico is second, which was a little surprising to me).

What's not surprising is that the highest traditionally blue state is Illinois -- coming in all the way down at 25th. And bringing up the rear -- where you really want to be -- are solidly blue states from 42 to 50.

So, how are them family values working out for ya?

Turning back the clock

Isn't it interesting that the state where the Snopes' "Monkey Trial" occurred, Tennessee, is now trying to undo that very precedent?

Critics Decry Tennessee’s ‘Monkey Bill’

Really, what's more surprising to me is that the Snopes trial ever took place in Tennessee. Maybe the state really is getting more backward as time goes along.

The alternate GOP reality

OK, so the reality is that Republicans probably know that if the economy at least appears to still be improving in November, it's going to mean a second Obama term (and ARMAGEDDON!!!!) and maybe even heavy losses in the House (and forget the Senate).

So, knowing that's the playing field, maybe you can't blame then for a quote like this after the unemployment rate dropped for the third straight month, with employers adding 200,000 jobs for the third straight month.

“Today’s jobs report is yet another reminder that far too many Americans are out of work, and the situation is clearly not improving,” RNC Chair Reince Priebus said in a statement.

The first part of that compound sentence is true (at least, the second half of the first part is). But "the situation is clearly not improving"? That kind of anti-logic might garner nods from conservatives, but the independents (who will decide the election) will know that statement doesn't pass the smell test, that it's a desperate attempt to change reality.

And with summer will come more hiring, so the outlook continues to trend upward. No, it's not where we need to be (and there are still huge fundamental problems with the wealth gap that need to be reversed if we are to sustain anything long-term), but you don't recover from "The Great Recession" overnight.

Maybe in Obama's second term he can truly become the socialist all Repugnicans believe him to be, and fix that wealth gap.

Yeah, but, his second term will be worse...

Jon Stewart took the GOP to task Wednesday night for something I've recently found intriguing, namely, the fear-mongering about a second Obama presidential term.

We're talking about a second term here, remember.

Prior to the 2008 election I saw it all over my Facebook, how we would descend into chaos under an Obama presidency. He would mark the end of 'merica as we knew it, eat our newborns, etc.

Stewart pointed out the ridiculousness of Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and other stalwarts of the party using quotes like, "as soon as he's re-elected..." So why haven't the predictions from pre-November 2008 come true? Well, I'm sure according to many, they have. Some are mighty sore about the health care bill, which they hate primarily because Obama was for it, and they see it as their worst fears realized. Overall, they look around and see something different than the majority of the public sees, namely, that nothing has changed that dramatically.

Except we seem to be recovering from the recession the last president led us into. Oh, and Osama bin Laden is dead.*

* Stewart added the interesting note that Obama's administration has deported more illegal immigrants than Dubya did, suggesting that he wants to allow them to rest up in their home countries to prepare for an invasion during his second term.

The fear-mongering about a second Obama term is going to play well to the GOP base. But the idea that as soon as he's sworn in for a second term he's going to unleash his true Islamo-socialist agenda? Sure, he'll probably become more aggressive with some policies, as most second-term presidents/governors do. But the fact of the matter is, if the economy is at least continuing its current trajectory in November, the Republicans -- and their narrative -- don't have a chance; it will go from a question of "can we win the presidency?" to "can we hold Congress?"

Bad news behind the $ for Romney

As Talking Points Memo points out, the source of Mitt Romney's donations for his presidential campaign should be a source of concern for him and anyone who wants him to be elected President.

TPM has graphed the amount of money that comes from small donors, those under $200, and the numbers are staggering; nearly 90 percent of his donations come from those donating above this number ($56.4 million of  a total $62.4 million). Obama is getting around 40 percent of his money ($42.6 million of a total $106.3 million) from these smaller donors, who are much more likely to turn into voters (and volunteers, etc.); it just shows a more broad base of support. Interestingly, both Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich have raised substantially more from these smaller donors than Romney has (Paul has almost doubled him).

The Republicans have themselves a candidate who is buying the nomination, but will he be able to buy the general election?

Their craziness still sometimes amazes me

NPR likes to talk about "driveway moments," those times when you sit in the car even after you've reached your destination, because you need to hear the end of the story. 

I had a variation yesterday -- more of a road rage moment. They were interviewing Repugnicans at a Romney rally, and played an interview with a guy who said that Detroit's recovery had nothing to do with Obama, that such things were cyclical and they would have recovered on their own.

This caused me to laugh out loud, and yell at my radio. I think what I yelled was, "You must be insane!"

Of course, it really goes without saying.

Some fiscal conservative he is

The Washington Post has a project where it is "mapping the earmarks," showing earmarks "to dozens of public projects for work in close proximity to commercial and residential real estate owned by the lawmakers or their family members."

Kentucky Republican Hal Rogers, a borderline Tea Partier, is featured. It seems he's earmarked $7.1 million for a project to beautify the area around his home in a residential area in Somerset. 

Rogers is no stranger to such pork, as there are a number of things in and around Somerset named after him or that he at least appropriated money for. 

How in the world can Tea Partiers possibly stomach this guy? This is an example of exactly the kind of stuff they're supposed to be against.

Republican "logic"

So the Republicans have unveiled a plan to stave off automatic cuts in defense spending that were triggered when the "Super Committee" failed last year to come up with mandated cuts.

Part of their plan includes a way to save some of the social programs dear to Democrats, in an effort to woo them over to the dark side. Of course, Democrats are actually fairly united in their idea for saving those social programs -- raise taxes on the "wealthy" (whatever the definition of that is).

According to the Repugnicans, though, raising taxes on the wealthy is bad because it would cost jobs (a dubious argument, but...).

"We're not going to use a millionaire tax to fix every problem around here," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) added. "We have a problem with that because we think it's about jobs."

So, what do we need to do in order to stave off these job-killing tax increases on the wealthy?

Cut jobs.

Yeah, that's right. Only a Repugnican could come up with such a brilliant plan (it's very reminiscent of George W. Bush's "Healthy Forests Initiative" that was based on cutting trees down). What they want to do is cut the federal workforce by five percent, and freeze their wages.

Here is the follow-up question from Talking Points Memo:

Why are the jobs that would supposedly be lost as a result of a millionaires tax better than the ones that will be lost by phasing out federal jobs? Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) finessed the question.

"We're not laying anybody off, we're not proposing to fire anybody," Kyl said. "We're simply saying as people retire or quit and go to another job in the private sector or for what ever reason they leave the federal workforce, we don't have to replace all of them -- we can replace two out of every three."

But, as TPM goes on to point out, those are still jobs lost. But that's actually not entirely true...you see, the Repugnicans always accuse the Dems of being socialists and wanting to "redistribute" wealth. But they are just as guilty of it -- it's just harder to pick up on when the wealth is moving the other direction.

Graham:

"It's a spot not filled in the public sector. That doesn't mean it can't be filled in the private sector. We believe that the growth of government has been too large.... That's something we should do apart from defense. I would want to do that no matter if you had a defense problem."

What Repugnicans hate at all levels of government is people getting decent salaries straight from the government -- whether it's a teacher or some under-secretary to an under-secretary in the Department of Gravel Roads. Their problem with the bloated bureaucracy isn't that there are all these needless jobs being performed -- it's that needless jobs are being performed without the private sector getting a cut off the top.

So fire the government worker making $50,000 per year and bring in a contractor who can pay someone $40,000 to do the same job, while taking $10,000 for themselves.

It's not unlike what their likely 2012 Presidential nominee did as a private equity investor...

Crazy Things Politicians Say

...aka, "I'm reposting something I saw on Facebook as a bill in my legislature."

It seems Ralph Shortey, an Oklahoma state legislator, has introduced a bill banning aborted human fetuses in food.

OK, so I saw a story someone linked on Facebook referring to this fetuses-in-Pepsi story. The genesis of what is little more than an urban legend comes from some additive company that uses a stem cell line established in the early 1970s to test the sweetness of some of its additives. This guy saw the same story and wrote a bill about what he translated it to mean.

Word is that his next bills will ban hypodermic needles in McDonald's ball pits and people peeing on your steak when you send it back to be cooked more.

What separation?

There is little doubt that as long as this country exists, we'll be fighting over the blurry line that is the separation between church and state, a line that has certainly moved more towards the proper center position as the country (and its law) has matured.

But with the wave of Republicans who have swept into legislatures across the country, you can bet the pushback is going to be strong. Take, for example, South Dakota, where they just passed, with little opposition, a non-binding resolution encouraging schools to teach Bible study courses in school.

This particular bit of legislation is typical of the right in that it's toothless, likely because they know it would never stand up constitutionally (even if they say it's because of that other Great Conservative Truth, the desire that no larger governmental body should ever tell any smaller governmental body what to do). They wanted it only to be a "legislative green light." And what this silliness will no doubt end up in is expensive lawsuits for local school boards who have no business wasting taxpayers' money tilting at windmills.

The whole matter of the right's indignation over supposed removal of religion Christianity from schools has always fascinated me, because it really does come down to a matter of freedom of my religion -- it's not forcing your religion on someone else if you are right. As is typical of the right on a gamut of issues, neutrality is not enough; as Faux News has proven, if you're not with us actively promoting our agenda, you're against us.

As evidence of this, here is a quote from Republician State Rep. Steve Hickey (who also happens to be a "pastor"), who sponsored the South Dakota bill:

 “I would tell those who fear this, now you know how Christians feel when they send their kids off to a public school that is overtly hostile and propagates secular humanism,” Hickey said. “The pressure from that perspective to teach secular humanism in high school and college is far, far greater than proselytizing in a Bible course.”

The problem? Secular humanism isn't a religion -- hence the "secular." The humanism part is more of a philosophy, while the secular part is simply a statement that the humanism isn't bound to religion (there also is such a thing as "religious humanism"). What secular humanism promotes is no religion, not Islam, Judaism, Baha'i, snake-handling, etc.

The separation of church and state doctrine really comes from the goal of "no establishment of religion," so secular humanism would seem to toe the line. But that's not what some people want -- again, freedom of religion means "freedom of my religion." So, if you're not promoting my religion, you are being "overtly hostile" to me.

Crazy Things Politicians Say

In today's episode of "Crazy Things Politician Say":

Asked this week by WPIX reporter Mario Diaz what he would do for the Latino community, East Haven, Connecticut Mayor Joseph Maturo said he “might have tacos when I go home.”

Awesome.

The biggest weapon in the arsenal...

...is this.

Romney's past as a private equity manager will haunt him in the general election, guaranteed. Frankly, several other things, both fair (his past moderate-by-most-Republican-standards views) and unfair (he's a Mormon) will come into play.

However, the election will probably still come down to how the economy is doing on the second Tuesday in November.

The Oracle of Omaha

A quote from Warren Buffett, via Time magazine.


"We need a tax system that takes very good care of people who just really aren't as well adapted to the market system, and to capitalism, but are nevertheless just as good citizens, and are doing things that are of use in society."

Even for Tennessee, this is pathetic

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120110/NEWS02/301100076/1969/NEWS

Republicans are ramming through dramatic changes in redistricting in Tennessee. Put them in power, and they behave like third-world dictators. Because that's what they want to be.

It's not bullying if they're lesser than me...

Ah, Tennessee. I can always count on you for stuff like this. The gist: a GOP legislator trying to allow exceptions in bullying laws for religious beliefs.

My favorite part of this story?

“The purpose is to stop bullying, not create special classes of people who are more important than others,” Fowler told the Times Free Press.

Actually, I think the purpose is exactly that.

How can any sane person think this is right? Answer: they can't.

Celebrity "news"?

OK, I'm not big on so-called "news" about celebrities, since their world is a largely manufactured one that barely fits the definition of newsworthy, but what struck me about this story in the UK's Mirror was its obvious bias toward its own homegrown Russell Brand after the announcement of his impending divorce with the very American Katy Perry.