Palm Beach Post, January 17, 2012…..

Florida Republicans say the latest voter registration and absentee ballot figures point to a GOP enthusiasm advantage over Democrats heading into the 2012 presidential election.

The election "enthusiasm gap" talk is a relatively new entry in the game of bullsh*t played by the Very Serious People every 2 years. How does one actually measure enthusiasm? For my money, the way to measure how enthusiastic voters are is to, pardon the simplicity, count the number of votes after the election. Even then, any claims of higher or lower enthusiasm on behalf of voters is nothing more than pure speculation.

In Florida, before Tuesday's primary, 446,000 Republicans had requested absentee ballots compared with only 307,744 in the 2008 primary….140,000 more. In 2012 the gap between Democratic registration in the state and Republican registration found Democrats leading by 4.3%. In 2008 Democrats led by 5.8%.

Those numbers were seen as evidence that Florida Republicans were hot to trot to get out to vote and get on with the business of taking their country back from the foreign President Obama. The "enthusiasm gap", it is being called…..and by jimminy, this year Republicans are really, really enthusiastic about the upcoming election. You may have heard something about all this from one of the millionaires reading a teleprompter while pretending to be a journalist on teevee. The oft-repeated messaging?…Republicans, when we're talking this fall's general election, are 'roided up on enthusiasm.

So how did all that enthusiasm work out in Tuesday's Florida primary? Using The Reverend's enthusiasm measuring stick….how many Republican voters actually voted in Florida on Tuesday…..we find that 1.660,000 Floridians voted in the GOP primary. In 2008's Florida primary 1,940,000 registered Republicans voted in the GOP primary. I suppose 15% fewer GOP primary voters in 2012 as compared to 2008 could, somehow, demonstrate greater GOP voter enthusiasm this year than 4 years ago…..but you'll have to forgive me for not seeing it.

Furthermore….even though I concede that Republicans in 2012 are really, really, really angry, angry, angry at Obama and the Communists he brought in with him to the White House….exit polls from Florida's Tuesday GOP primary demonstrated that 38% of those enthusiastic GOP voters down in Florida would like "someone else to run for the nomination." Someone else other than Romney and Gingrich, the candidates who finished first and second, respectively, on Tuesday.

To boot, only 51% of Florida GOP primary voters who voted for the eventual winner, Mitt Romney, said that they were "satisfied with the Republican candidates." All chubbed up on enthusiasm and nowhere to go, I suppose. Or as Jimi Hendrix once put it…"I know what I want but I just don't know."

So, once again, whatever this "enthusiasm gap" Republican voters are supposed to have opened up on Democratic voters……color me skeptical. I'm not seeing it…..no matter how many times conservative-pumping teevee anchors and guests repeat it.

What I see is a political party in peril. At war with itself. Teetering more closely to the edge of fragmentation each and every month we go forward. Out of touch with the American public yet still holding on for dear life to their shredded, rotted, and proven-failure-policies of out-of-touchness.

Republicans are experiencing their own little civil war this primary campaign. That's why Johnny Mac McCain called recently for an end to any more GOP candidates debates. Too embarrassing to the party. Too divisive. Making the GOP look as if they are not united.

For the last number of years the GOP has been purging their party of candidates who have shown a willingness to compromise with the Communists Democrats in order to promote the general welfare of the American people. The clamor from the Tea Party has advanced that purging process.

Eventually….I'm hoping this election cycle…..the Republican Party will implode from their misguided, self-imposed purification process….and start to rebuild their party by jettisoning their extremist elements.

Contrary to Village lore….America is not a conservative-right nation. A conservative-right nation would not be in favor, by 70-75%, of increasing taxes on only the rich. A conservative-right nation would not prefer, by 54%, to have abortion remain legal. A conservative-right nation would not be moving ever closer to legalizing marriage for gays.

Republicans and angry conservatives can insist all they want that America is a conservative-right nation…..just as they have been insisting that Republican voters are way more enthusiastic than Democratic voters about this year's election cycle.

But just like in Tuesday's primary down in Florida….it's only the evidence that counts.

Many times I've heard Village spokespeople rhetorically ask…why did we go into Iraq? Why the Iraq war? These Village talking heads know the answer to that question, but in typical Village fashion, cannot explain it to the unwashed masses because then people like Bill Kristol, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and the rest of the PNAC (Project for the New American Century) gang….all respected Villagers themselves…would be embarrassed, put on the spot, perhaps even arrested. Village members simply can't be treated that way.

So Village media personnel act as if the reason the U.S. attacked the non-threatening nation of Iraq is still a mystery….something better left to future historians. Sure, Villagers will tell us that WMD were not found there, lots of people died, Saddam was killed and so forth….but corporate media, to this very day, still refuses to explain the real reason why we invaded Iraq.

Perhaps corporate media Villagers missed this from General Wesley Clark in 2007…..

After recounting how a Pentagon source had told him weeks after 9/11 of the Pentagon’s plan to attack Iraq notwithstanding its non-involvement in 9/11, this is how Clark described the aspirations of the “coup” being plotted by Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and what he called “a half dozen other collaborators from the Project for the New American Century”:

Six weeks later, I saw the same officer, and asked: “Why haven’t we attacked Iraq? Are we still going to attack Iraq?”

He said: “Sir, it’s worse than that. He said – he pulled up a piece of paper off his desk – he said: “I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense’s office. It says we’re going to attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years – we’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”

Clark went on to relate a conversation he had with Paul Wolfowitz in 1991….

Clark said the aim of this plot was this: “They wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down, make it under our control.” He then recounted a conversation he had had ten years earlier with Paul Wolfowitz — back in 1991 — in which the then-number-3-Pentagon-official, after criticizing Bush 41 for not toppling Saddam, told Clark: “But one thing we did learn [from the Persian Gulf War] is that we can use our military in the region – in the Middle East – and the Soviets won’t stop us. And we’ve got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet regimes – Syria, Iran [sic], Iraq – before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.”

The answer to the question, why did we attack and occupy Iraq beginning in 2003?…is found in the long wishlist of a handful of hyper-hawks who make up the membership of PNAC, and apparently, much of the leadership of our military-industrial complex.

The following people signed on to PNAC's "statement of principles" in the 90's…..recognize any of the names?

Elliott Abrams
Gary Bauer
William J. Bennett
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush
Richard B. Cheney
Eliot A. Cohen
Midge Decter
Paula Dobriansky
Steve Forbes
Aaron Friedberg
Francis Fukuyama
Frank Gaffney
Fred C. Ikle

Donald Kagan
Zalmay Khalilzad
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby
Norman Podhoretz
J. Danforth Quayle
Peter W. Rodman
Stephen P. Rosen
Henry S. Rowen
Donald Rumsfeld
Vin Weber
George Weigel
Paul Wolfowitz

After 9-11, with so many PNAC members working for the Bush administration, it doesn't take a Mensa member to figure out what happened. PNAC members took 9-11 as the opportunity they had been praying for….a "new Pearl Harbor event"….and the rest, as they say, is history.

The obvious problem with all of this is that no one bothered to explain to the American people why the PNAC'ers inside the Bush administration were leading us into what they were leading us into. Instead, the Bushies made stuff up to scare us with….WMD, al-Qaeda affiliation, etc. And the reason is obvious. The American people were rightfully exercised over 9-11…..but would the American people agree to accept a "long war" of middle east conquest and domination meant to pre-empt any future enemies from controlling the shipping lanes and valuable resources under the sands of the middle east?

The Bushies decided to make stuff up rather than explain what the PNAC Brotherhood was really up to. They calculated that they would have a better chance of getting what they wanted by tricking the American people and Congress using fear and lies…..and it worked.

This all helps in explaining recent comments by John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman over President Obama's removal of U.S. military forces inside Iraq. To the neo-cons who understand and embrace the principles of U.S. Empire as outlined by PNAC….leaving Iraq is, like W. said, "the only reason we could lose Iraq is if we leave"

The purpose of invading Iraq was to initiate the PNAC middle east policy of endless war. It was to begin with Iraq and spread, as Wolfowitz clearly told Wesley Clark, to at least 7 countries there. According to the PNAC outline, the U.S. was to dismantle regimes, set up U.S. military bases and proceed to project U.S. power throughout the region.

Neo-conservatives still dominate our foreign policy and defense departments. And now they have set their sights on Iran.

Agreement between congressional Republicans and Democrats, authentic bipartisanship, is rarely witnessed today. But there is one part of U.S. policy where the D's and the R's completely agree. Endless war and indefinite detention…even of U.S citizens. Yesterday the Senate passed a $662 billion defense bill 93-7. Nothing passes the Senate by such a wide margin any more. The Senate action is a clear illustration of what our Leadership holds dear. Unquestioned bipartisan approval to fund America's Worldwide Empire…..and to continue, indefinitely, our worldwide "war" against a tactic.

American Leadership stands united on one thing and one thing only….waging endless war against radicalized Islam. "The Long War." A doubling of defense spending has not been enough to bring the unsophisticated and stateless extremists to justice. Ten years of killing, ten years of bombing, ten years of expanding the Empire into many middle eastern nations has not been enough for our Leaders. We must press on to finally destroy the tactic of killing one's self in order to kill and terrify others. An accomplishment that is entirely impossible to attain.

Inside the lengthy defense spending bill, in section 1031, Congress has laid out new detention of detainee guidelines which include indefinite incarceration of U.S. citizens without the muss and fuss of constitutional guarantees against depriving U.S. citizens of due process. Guantanamo is not just for foreigners anymore…..

Sen.(Rand) Paul: “My question would be under the provisions would it be possible that an American citizen then could be declared an enemy combatant and sent to Guantanamo Bay and detained indefinitely.”

Sen. McCain: “I think that as long as that individual, no matter who they are, if they pose a threat to the security of the United States of America, should not be allowed to continue that threat.”

Here’s what Sen. (Lindsey) Graham said in the Senate on Nov. 17:

“1031, the statement of authority to detain, does apply to American citizens and it designates the world as the battlefield, including the homeland.”

For those who actually still believe that our government Leaders are prohibited from depriving citizens of their constitutional rights….as Ron Paul and I do….here's the Doc's take…

Rep. Ron Paul calls this bill “one of the most anti-liberty pieces of legislation of our lifetime.” He says it’s “destructive of our Constitution.”

And Ron's son…

His son Sen. Rand Paul says, “There is one thing and one thing only protecting innocent Americans from being detained at will at the hands of a too-powerful state – our constitution, and the checks we put on government power. Should we err today and remove some of the most important checks on state power in the name of fighting terrorism, well, then the terrorists have won.”

Well, Rand…the "terrorist have won". But really…hasn't that been clear for a long time now? Box cutter wielding international criminals have forced the U.S. to take once-guaranteed rights away from every American citizen. Our Leaders over the last 10 years have convinced us that sacrificing our rights is part and parcel of the way we'll "defeat the enemy."

The Pauls, especially Ron, have given the neo-cons in his party and in the Democratic Party a fit. He's a thorn in the side of Empire Expanding Neo-Cons because he keeps bringing up that "goddamn piece of paper" which used to be the American contract, the American charter. But as yesterday's vote proves, our Leaders no longer view the Constitution as binding.

If the Senate bill is reconciled in the House and signed by Obama (he has threatened a veto, probably won't)….any U.S. citizen, on U.S. soil, who the President deems an enemy combatant, and only on his say so….can be taken into custody and transferred to Guantanamo prison and possibly never heard from again. And that's if the President at the time doesn't order that citizen's assassination first. No trial, no charges, no lawyers, no due process…..nothing. Indefinite detention of a U.S. citizen and without any thread of due process as guaranteed under the "goddamn piece of paper."

So while the Village continues to stoke the bogus argument every day that Obama and the Democrats are orchestrating a huge government takeover of all things involving economics…..Democrats and Republicans are working together to…well…orchestrate a huge government takeover of our Constitutional rights.

If TEA Party supporters were as diligent at protecting citizens from the threat of indefinite detention without due process…as they are about protecting citizens from the threat of taking responsibility for their own health insurance…..maybe the TEAs, the ACLU and OWS could have stood together to fend off yesterday's huge governmental power grab.

200 to 1. That was the final offer to Democrats from Republican members of the Super Committee. $200 in spending cuts for every $1 in new revenues. Take it or leave it.

As of this morning….everyone is leaving it.

The task of the 12 member Super Committee was to make the "tough" decisions that the other members of Congress refused to make for fear of political backlash. The Super-Dupes were formed after August's GOP hostage taking incident over raising the debt ceiling. The extra-constitutional panel was supposed to come up with $1.5 trillion in debt reduction which Congress would then vote for, either up or down…no filibusters. If passed the deficit reduction would go into effect January, 2013.

If the Super Committee failed to come up with an agreement….which now is the case….a "trigger" was to be pulled which automatically began cutting defense and discretionary spending. Despite failure…I can almost guarantee readers that that trigger will not be pulled. Some Senate members have already said that they wouldn't have to abide by the trigger mechanism and suggested they could change any cuts to defense spending through a new congressional vote.

Here's Johnny Mac November 9th…

McCain said he would introduce and support a law to undo the Budget Control Act of 2011, which codified the deal to raise the debt ceiling.

"We'll do everything we can to prevent [the trigger] being implemented," McCain said. "You can't bind future Congresses."

So, there you have it. No deal. No action on the deficit. And that is just fine with me because we should not be cutting government spending anyway, if predictions of economic growth in the U.S for the next five years are anywhere near accurate.

"Investors" are prepared to sell off today in light of the failure of the deficit committee which, most likely, will result in the beginning of a new mini-economic downturn going into 2012….just as the Republicans would have it.

The Republican party has only one goal leading up to next November. Make Obama fail as miserably as possible in dealing with the domestic economy. I suppose that's one way to seek regaining the presidency, even if endless thousands more Americans lose their jobs and homes in the doing. Politics ain't beanbag….and if millions of American voters need to take it on the chin to rid ourselves of the Muslim, Kenyan anti-Christ with the funny name….it's just time to buck up.

But let's review shall we? Last December, Republicans refused to consider raising income tax rates on millionaires and billionaires and brought the country to the brink of total chaos…insisting that unemployment checks to laid off workers, payroll tax cut extensions and the Bush income tax rates for all working Americans would be held hostage until the communists in the Democratic Party dropped any notions of increasing income tax rates on the GOP's only constituents rich Americans.

Naturally, the bipartisan Obama caved and Republicans got what they wanted. No new taxes to help deal with the debt and deficit. The GOP mantra a year ago…the same heard today…is that we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem. This despite reputable economists from both sides of the aisle claiming the need for both revenue increases as well as spending cuts to actually attack our long term debt problem.

The obstruction continued. In August, GOP intransigence over raising the nation's debt limit…….led directly to the formation of the Super Committee gimmick…which now has failed.

Now what? There is no..now what. Next is the presidential election…..and then the GOP obstruction will begin all over again to kick off Obama's second term. Been there, done that. Expect an Obama impeachment proceeding between 2013-1017….without merit, of course….just like in the 90's. Impeachment is simply another GOP tool in the obstructionist toolbox.

One final comment on the 200 to 1 GOP offering in the Super Committee. The Simpson-Bowles and the Rivlin-Domenici committees came in at 2 to 1, and 3 to 1 ratios, spending cuts to new tax revenues, respectively.

Several Democrats on the Super Committee offered up a more Republican-friendly ratio of 6 dollars in cuts to every 1 dollar in new revenues. But that wasn't good enough for obstructionist Republicans who are only focused on making Obama a one term president.

And that explains why the final offering from the Republicans on the Super Committee included a 200 to 1 ratio, spending cuts to new revenues. Not 2-1, a compromise favoring GOP ideology. Not 6-1, a compromise favoring GOP ideology with prejudice…..but instead, Republicans want 200 dollars in spending cuts for every 1 dollar of new revenue.

In other words, Republicans do not want a deal….that's how very serious they regard the nation's debt and deficit situation.

The Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, has been killed. The Anglo war led by NATO against the dictator has been successful in it's objective: regime change. Although the U.S. president told us that regime change was not the objective when he announced the U.S. involvement in the effort….that was the objective all along….just as in Iraq.

Regime change. It's what we do.

In Iraq…the excuse was WMD. In Libya….the excuse was "Gaddafi is slaughtering his own people."

Question. Ever see any evidence before or after Saddam Hussein's head was ripped off that he possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction? How about evidence that Gaddafi was slaughtering his own people? No doubt Gaddafi was a violent and thuggish dictator….but it's not like we haven't known that for…umm…40 years, or anything.

The U.S. coordinated NATO forces in order to remove Gaddafi from power….it was always about regime change.

So be it. No love lost here over the nutty, often violent, and now dead, Libyan dictator. Naturally, the question comes….what's next? Just like with Iraq, the U.S. leadership has no idea what comes next. Our leaders are making it up as they go along. I hope everything works out like in the movies and Athenian democracy breaks out like a rose all over Libya, unlike, say, what has happened in Iraq.

After President Obama announced 8 months ago that the U.S. would lead NATO in an effort to stop Gaddafi from mass murdering his own people….(still no evidence)….I blogged about the real reasons why Gaddafi had to go. Libya is the 9th leading oil reserve country in the world. France and Britain get a lot of oil from Libya…and Gaddafi, after normalizing relations in 2005 with the U.S. during the Bush administration was still reluctant to open his country to new and broader oil rights for foreign oil companies.

Through WikiLeaks, we learned that foreign oil company executives had been complaining through the State Department about Gaddafi's dithering in allowing those oil companies to gain access to Libya's more promising reserves. Gaddafi insisted the Libyan people, not foreign capitalists, should be benefiting from their nation's own oil and was demanding more from these oil companies. There was fear in 2008-2009 among some diplomats and oil executives that Gaddafi would actually nationalize the oil industry, thus preventing capitalist exploitation of their country's assets.

Libya's oil needed liberated….in the same way that Iraq's oil needed liberated. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying. The U.S. and other Anglo nations did not steal Iraq's oil, nor will we steal Libya's oil. We liberate the oil. Our mighty military makes it possible for the oil in foreign nations to be set free from socialistic or dictatorial controls.

God has ordained that all marketable oil on earth be liberated…liberated to travel the free market unencumbered by concerns over whose oil it belongs to. That oil belongs to the divine hand of the free market….and the U.S. is only doing god's work setting the black tea..free.

Many readers disagree we me on this…and that's fine and all…..but Senator Lindsey Huckleberry Graham (R-SC), a member of the Three Amigo Diplomats, McCain, Lieberman, & Graham, who visited Mr. Gaddafi in 2009…..agreed with me yesterday….

One of the problems I have with “leading from behind” is that when a day like this comes, we don’t have the infrastructure in place that we could have. I’m glad it ended the way it did. It took longer than it should have. If we could have kept American air power in the fight it would have been over quicker. Sixty-thousand Libyans have been wounded, 3,000 maimed, 25,000 killed. Let’s get in on the ground. There is a lot of money to be made in the future in Libya. Lot of oil to be produced. Let’s get on the ground and help the Libyan people establish a democracy and a functioning economy based on free market principles.

"There is a lot of money to be made in Libya. Lot of oil to be produced…" Notice here, these are not my words. These are the words of one of the members of the Three Amigo Diplomats who traveled to meet with Gaddafi in August 2009.

You see, in 2009 the 3 Amigo Diplomats thought Colonel Gaddafi was A-OK.

Lieberman called Libya an important ally in the war on terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends.

The 3 Amigos even told Gaddafi they would try to help provide the military equipment he needed….can you imagine?

He (McCain) stated that he understood Libya’s requests regarding the rehabilitation of its eight C130s [a transport plane] and pledged to see what he could do to move things forward in Congress. He encouraged Muatassim (Gaddafi's son) to keep in mind the long-term perspective of bilateral security engagement and to remember that small obstacles will emerge from time to time that can be overcome.

Apparently…access to Libya's oil fields was not a "small obstacle."

Today, again, we are hearing from one of those 3 Amigos…Huckleberry Amigo…and he is telling us that with Gaddafi now gone, there's a lot of money to be made by U.S. companies through Libyan oil exploitation.

Free at last, free at last, hallelujah, Libyan oil is free at last.

I watched about 20 minutes of the Freakathon known as the Google-Fox GOP presidential candidates "debate" last night. All I could stand to watch was 20 minutes.

The Reverend's take after 3 GOP debates…..

It appears as if the GOP now has a two person race. Mitt Romney versus Rick Perry. The RealClearPolitics.com site has Rick Perry up an average of 7 points over Romney….an average of 28.4% to 20.6%.

Those favoring the also-rans, Ron Paul (8.9%), Michele Bachmann (7.7%), Newton Gingrich (6.6%), Herman Cain (5.6%), Rick Santorum (2%), and Jon Huntsman (1.4%),…..will wind up telling the tale in the actual GOP primaries next year. For my money, I'm guessing that support for Paul, Bachmann, Santorum and, perhaps, Gingrich…..will be thrown to Rick Perry. Call it the Crazed Tea Party Effect….but if a Republican primary were held today with only Perry and Romney on the ticket…..I believe Perry would win.

So, will Governor Rick Perry be representing the Republican Party in next year's matchup against President Obama?

Not likely.

Although Perry is loved by the self-radicalized Tea Party bunch…and Romney not so much (once was pro-choice, he's a Mormon, the Massachusetts Romneycare thing)…..Perry, with his likeness to W., his authoritarian ways, his view of Social Security, his glibness about secession and the Constitution….is unelectable.

The only way Rick Perry could be elected to the presidency is if our national economy falls into depression between now and next November. In a perfect storm….purposely caused by congressional Republicans….where unemployment spiked to over 10% and the markets fell further…..I suppose it would be possible for Perry to be elected by a worn down and disgusted electorate.

But not likely.

That leaves the "electable" Mitt Romney. If you've been paying attention, you know that Republican establishment figures like Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and MSNBC's resident establishment Republican, Rick Scarborough……favor Romney over Perry because of the electability factor. If you also remember the 2008 GOP primary race, you'll know that Mike Huckabee offered pretty strong competition to John McCain in the early primaries, deadlocked with Johnny Mac as late as June 2008. Yet, McCain was ultimately determined to be the most electable 2008 GOP candidate.

Something similar will most likely play out this cycle.

Which, I think, will leave self-radicalized malcontents in the Tea Party….unimpressed. Despite the unity of purpose within the insurrectionist, Know Nothings to remove Barack Obama from the presidency, Mitt Romney is simply not going to excite the excitables. Also, too….there's the Mormon thing.

Evangelical Christians vote Republican. In the 2010 midterms, 78% of evangelical voters voted for Republicans. Evangelical Christians, no matter what Village assh*les on teevee tell you, consider Mormonism to be a cult….unChristian. It's a matter of faith. And if anything is true today about the Republican Party…it is that the Fox-imbibers who turn out to vote for Republicans are faith based.

What's a wingnut political party to do?

Romney is the only candidate who may be electable. But his potential voters would have to ask Jesus for forgiveness if they voted for a Mormon. And that leads me to what I suggest will be a very big story after the 2012 GOP primaries. The GOP's vice-presidential pick.

Johnny Mac, foolishly and embarrassingly, chose the empty-headed, opportunist, Sarah Palin to be his running mate. The reason then was obvious. After Bush, Republican establishment characters, like McCain, did not really enthuse the grassroots faith-basers. McCain's political advisers knew that without a bit of catnip for wingnuts on the ticket, Republican voters might just stay home. With a true winger on the ticket, the establishment McCain at least had a chance.

The same dynamic, I suggest, will be at work this coming election cycle. With a Mormon at the top of the ticket….which seems to me to be inevitable….Romney's vice presidential choice will actually be more important this time around than McCain's choice of the Quitter was in 2008.

The perfect vice presidential candidate will be a bonafide Winger who makes evangelical voters forget about the bad Mormon taste in their mouths from voting for Romney. The GOP vice presidential candidate cannot be another establishment Republican, like, say, Rob Portman (R-OH), who is often mentioned in lists of potential GOP vp candidates. It could be young Marco Rubio from Florida, but I think young Marco is waiting for 2016, when he will dash onto the scene as the face of the "new and improved" GOP.

I'm looking at Governor Nikki Haley from South Carolina. Attractive, young, and a true evangelical winger. Like Palin, but with some self-discipline…and not so silly or ignorant. In today's teevee-dominated culture a Romney-Haley ticket would bring forth all of the worst from our corporate overlords in media. The posing and the gushing, and the unbearable, tedious bullsh*t from the Village will, most likely, be enough to gag a maggot…..but inevitable from a corrupt, inside-the-Beltway bunch who are wired to favor (tax-cutting) Republicans.

I still think Obama will be re-elected. But if the Perfect Storm being brewed up right now by congressional Republicans to damage our national economy further hits us head on leading up to next November…..Mitt Romney could be our next president. But the only way for that to happen is if a full-throated, faith baser with telegenic skills, like Governor Nikki Haley, is chosen as Romney's running mate.

What say ye?

One of John McCain's most embarrassing moments during his 2008 presidential run was when he stood in front of a microphone while commenting on the conflict between Russia and the former Soviet state of Georgia….

McCain said….. "that I know I speak for every American when I say….today, we are all Georgians."

Pure political silliness rivaled only by McCain's later decision to suspend his presidential campaign in order to rush back to Washington to solve the Wall Street blowup crisis. Remember those good times?

Well, the presidential campaign season is descending on us again….and the silliness is back….

“Corporations!” a protester shouted, apparently urging (Mitt) Romney to raise taxes on corporations that have benefited from loopholes in the tax code. “Corporations!”

“Corporations are people, my friend,” Romney said.

Some people in the front of the audience shouted, “No, they’re not!”

“Of course they are,” Romney said. “Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people. Where do you think it goes?”

"Corporations are people."?? Really?

If, as Mitt Romney, the GOP presidential frontrunner for 2012, says…."corporations are people"….then why wouldn't those same corporations be allowed to vote in our elections? Correct me if I'm wrong, but no one shows up on election day claiming to be, like, Coke, or IBM, or Exxon-Mobil…demanding that they be allowed to cast a ballot. How, then, can corporations be people? American citizens have the right to cast ballots in an election…..corporations do not. If corporations are people, as Romney declares….why can't corporations vote?

If corporations are people and not just a business-organizational tool that people use for a variety of reasons….why is it that corporations never stand trial? American citizens who violate the law and are caught….are tried, convicted and sentenced. Far as you recall, did Enron, or WorldCom, or Pfizer or any other corporation whose business dealings were found to be illegal….ever stand trial? I'm talking about the corporation, itself. Has Mr. or Ms. Corporation ever sat in the witness chair and answered questions?

I'm not talking about the people who work for the corporation….I'm talking about the corporation, itself. The corporation which Mitt Romney claims is a person. If corporations are actually people, then why would it be that those "people" can't sit in the docket and answer questions? To ask the question, of course, is to answer it. Corporations are not people……corporations are an invention by people, a business organizational tool for people to exploit. A legal framework around which real people organize their business activities.

Notice Mitt Romney's difficulty in explaining what has become a John Roberts and Wingnuts faith-based doctrine….

"Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people."

Talk about your basic disconnect. I used to own a crane arm machine…you know the ones, stuffed animals, claw comes down, cost a quarter. I placed it in a roller skating rink. That crane arm machine earned money. At all night skate nights, kids would put over $200 in that quarter crane arm machine. All the money that the crane arm machine took in….earned….went to me and the skating rink owner, you know, the people.

But the crane arm machine was not a person. When I emptied the money box of the crane arm machine, I didn't say stuff like, "crane arm machines are people"…..because, obviously….that would be crazy. Just because a construct or tool of business makes money which "ultimately goes to people"…does not make that construct or tool a "person."

Like McCain in 2008, this was not the Mittster's finest moment.

But then the Republican mascot, cheerleader-opportunist Sarah Palin, an employee of Fox News, was asked about Mr. Romney's strange definition of corporations, whether she agreed that "corporations are people". Her response? "The people pay the taxes."

The people who work for a corporation pay the taxes for the corporation…so, therefore, the corporation and people are indistinguishable? If that is true then maybe the biggest TeaNut in the Tea-Nut-Bag…Kentucky GOP Senator, Rand Paul…is correct here…

KEYES: What did you make of Mitt Romney’s statement today that “corporations are people”?

PAUL: Corporations are collections of people. I think we’re all corporations. To say we’re going to punish corporations like they’re someone else. All of us are corporations.

Naturally, this brings us full circle back to John McCain's embarrassing claim from 2008…"we're all Georgians." The 2012 twist from GOP candidates for president? "We're all corporations now."

KEYES: I think people might argue that corporations can’t be sent to jail.

PAUL: I think those arguments can be made, but I think the fact that a lot of times people want to vilify corporations, saying they’re someone else, that they’re these other rich people. They’re us. They’re the middle class. We all own parts of corporations.

Set aside for a moment the fact that only 50% of Americans own stock in corporations. Republican presidential candidates, like Romney…..and TeaNuts, like Palin and Paul….are making their loyalties known. Rand Paul doesn't like the idea of real people "vilifying corporations." And that's the point. Republicans and the Radical John Roberts Court have made it their lot in life to defend the powerful and the wealthy. Average Americans? Not so much.

In order to defend corporations, and the billionaires who own them, from sharing in any sacrifice needed to right our national economic ship…..we are being told by Republican leaders that corporations are not really tools which people use to bypass taxes and accountability…oh no….corporations are people, just like you and I.

Now excuse me while I go and register my crane arm machine to vote.

Remember how invading the sovereign nation of Iraq in 2003 had nothing to do with Iraq's huge oil reserves? Nothing whatsoever.

Once the WMD-in-Iraq bullsh*t meter pegged out….the reason for attacking a nation which posed no threat to the United States became clearer. You see, what Iraq was always about was the Iraqi people. Freeing those poor Iraqi people for…well…freedom.

So when our sophisticated Joint Commanders ordered more bombs dropped on Iraq than were dropped during the entire WW2 campaign, killing over 100,000 Iraqis and driving millions more out of their country in the process….it was really, honestly, truly because….we were bringing freedom, liberty, democracy and the kingdom of heaven to those Iraqi civilians.

Freedom bombs…..they're called. We drop 'em…..freedom spreads like wildfire.

But by god…..when our freedom bombs were blowing Iraq into smithereens, spreading a form of freedom that looked like total destruction, but, of course, couldn't possibly be because our patriotic god-like leaders told us so…..the one reason for spreading all that freedom that never crossed the minds of those divine U.S. leaders….was all the oil reserves that Saddam had not exploited yet. Nosirree….nothing to do with oil. Shame on anyone who thought that way.

The fact that Iraq's proven oil reserves are the world's second largest, behind Saudi Arabia….had zip, zero, zilch to do with why America attacked a nation which had not threatened us in any way.

And if some one explains to you now, after America has finished spreading it's freedom all over Iraq, that….

Iraq has raised the level of the oil reserves it claims to own by 24% in its first revision since Saddam Hussein fell from power.

… the revision means that Iraq now has bigger oil reserves than its neighbour Iran.

…that still doesn't mean that the oil had anything to do with the U.S. decision to drop freedom bombs all over Iraqis. Anyone who says that oil had something to do with freedom spreading in Iraq either needs drug-tested or wants the Pentagon closed. That's all.

And so, as western powers voted yesterday to spread more freedom, this time with freedom bombs designated for Libyan civilians bad guys….you can rest assured that oil, once again, is the furthest thing from these freedom spreaders minds.

Today's NY Times….

But diplomats said the moral imperative of protecting civilians from Colonel Qaddafi and the political imperative of United States not watching from the sidelines while a notorious dictator violently crushed a democratic rebellion had helped wipe away lingering doubts.

Prime Minister of England, David Cameron……

“This is about protecting the Libyan people and saving lives,” Mr. Cameron said.

“Any decision to put the men and women of our armed forces into harm’s way should only be taken when absolutely necessary,” he said. “But I believe that we cannot stand back and let a dictator whose people have rejected him kill his people indiscriminately. To do so would send a chilling signal to others.”

Are you getting dizzy yet from the deja-voodoo? Rest easy…..knowing that we are the Good Guys in this freedom-spreading endeavor….which has nothing whatsoever to do with oil…..

Oil reserves in Libya are the largest in Africa and the ninth largest in the world with 41.5 billion barrels as of 2007. Oil production was 1.8 million barrels per day as of 2006, giving Libya 63 years of reserves at current production rates if no new reserves were to be found. Libya is considered a highly attractive oil area due to its low cost of oil production (as low as $1 per barrel at some fields), and proximity to European markets. Libya would like to increase production from 1.8 Mbbl/d in 2006 to 3 Mbbl/d by 2010–13 but with existing oil fields undergoing a 7–8% decline rate, Libya's challenge is maintaining production at mature fields, while finding and developing new oil fields. Most of Libya remains unexplored as a result of past sanctions and disagreements with foreign oil companies.

If you need further proof that the still-to-come dropping of freedom bombs on Libya has nothing to do with oil…..just as the freedom bombing of Iraq had nothing to do with oil….just peruse the 12,900,000 website locations Google produces for the search command, "oil spikes on fears of Libya." That should settle it once and for all…..when those freedom bombs start falling on the heads of Libyans…..it's not because of their oil, it's because we care so deeply for them, you know, as fellow human beings.

What is even more reassuring should be knowing that Very Serious People, like John Kerry, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and, naturally all the Bill Kristol neo-conservative freedom spreading crowd….just as they reassured us before freedom bombs fell on Iraq….are once again reassuring us that freedom bombs designated for Libya are actually altruistic freedom bombs unblemished by thoughts of oil reserves.

Hope everyone feels much better now. Libya will simply be an exercise in spreading freedom to now-threatened civilians……civilians whom we never gave one sh*t about up until now.

Back in 1919, Oliver Wendell Holmes, associate Supreme Court Justice, made this saying popular…..

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.

I bring this up in light of the not unexpected blowback from American conservatives fearful that progressives and others are using the Arizona slaughter to silence conservative voices in America.

Justice Holmes stated that when it came to protected speech in America, such expressions of speech as a man falsely shouting "fire" in a theater, thus causing a panic……should not be protected. Holmes was suggesting that there is a limit to what speech we will protect under the first amendment guarantee.

The key word….and the word which is rarely included in the repetitive use of…'shouting fire in a theater is not protected speech'…..is the word, falsely.

Consider.

The specific speech which Holmes said shouldn't be protected was speech uttered by someone who was cognizant that the words he spoke were untrue. The word "falsely" is vital to the idea.

A theater is full of people relaxing, being entertained. A person shouts "fire", knowing full well there is no fire, just to create chaos, panic, injury and death. Speech like that, speech which places innocent people in a chaotic panic of immediate danger, speech which the speaker knows is false….according to Holmes…..was not protected speech.

The flip side here is "responsible" speech. Obviously, it would be irresponsible to shout "fire" in a crowded theater when you knew there really was no fire. In fact, the very purpose of shouting "fire" in a crowded theater when the shouter knew there was not a fire…..at least it seems to me…..would be to create chaos, destruction, injury and death, the very definition of irresponsibility.

In the crowded theater example, the crowd doesn't know any better. They don't know whether the theater is on fire, or not. Far as they know, everything is fine. The shouter, however, does know better. In fact, he has calculated in his mind what will ensue if he shouts "fire"…..chaos, injury, death…..and THAT is why he shouts "fire". He wants what he anticipates will happen…confusion, panic, fear….to happen.

Note that this is entirely different from a theater goer who shouts out "such-and-such actor is a putz", or similar crankery. Rude? Obnoxious? Yes. But not purposely shouted to induce panic and destruction.

I realize that I'm going to catch hell by going where I'm going next…..but I catch hell regardless, and I have no fear of hell anyway, so here goes….

Much of the political speech and imagery we've heard and seen over the last 2 years has been like shouting "fire" in a crowded theater when the shouters knew the theater was not on fire. Irresponsible speech….knowingly spoken in anticipation of the chaos, fear and panic which would ensue as a result of saying the words enough times.

Two examples….

During the 2008 campaign, John McCain was confronted with a confused and fearful woman who said…..

"I can't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's not, he's not uh — he's an Arab. He's not — "

Here was a woman who had heard or read the false speech of shouters in the political theater. She didn't know any better…..but she had heard and read irresponsible speech while actively engaged in the process of political theater….and she was obviously panicked and fearful as a result.

McCain, to his great credit, spoke responsibly in his answer….

"No, ma'am. He's a decent family man [and] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues and that's what this campaign's all about. He's not [an Arab]."

And McCain didn't leave it at that…..

"We want to fight, and I will fight," McCain said. "But I will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments, and I will respect him."

At which point he was booed again.

"I don't mean that has to reduce your ferocity," he added over the jeers. "I just mean to say you have to be respectful."

On the other hand, we have an opposite example from McCain's former running mate, Sarah Palin. When Palin shouted out during political theater performances that Obama "palled around with terrorists"…..she knew that what she was shouting was untrue. Obama has never "palled around with terrorists", but that wasn't the objective of Palin when she said it, and kept saying it. Her objective, unlike McCain's in his exchange with the woman, was to create chaos, panic and fear about Obama.

As the health care reform discussions began in earnest, once again, Sarah Palin shouted out on her Facebook and Twitter pages that Obama was setting up "death panels." Palin knew that what she was saying was untrue, false….before she shouted it….but she shouted it anyway to provoke a response of fear, panic, and chaos in those who don't know any better.

I could offer many, many more examples.

Without doubt, there will be those who attribute what I've said here to some desire I have to silence the free speech of conservatives. That, of course, is ridiculous. Scan any of my comment threads and you will find a healthy, no holds barred, exchange with all comers…..far rightists, leftists and everything in between.

The point I'm feebly attempting to make is the distinction between responsible speech and irresponsible speech…..the same point, I think, Justice Holmes was making when he made the "no shouting fire falsely in a crowded theater" famous.

Yesterday, all Republican Senators voted to block the Military Authorization Bill from being debated in the Senate. Two Democratic Senators, Pryor and Lincoln, both from Arkansas, joined the Republicans. The final vote to move the bill to the floor for debate was 56-43. Democrat Harry Reid, in a procedural vote which will allow him to reintroduce the bill, also voted no. 60 votes were needed to kill the GOP filibuster.

The Defense Authorization Bill contained the Dream Act provision and a provision to end Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT). The Dream Act is all about granting a pathway to citizenship for a small number of immigrants who were brought to the U.S. when they were children.

While the Dream Act is controversial with the wilder-eyed, extremists of the conservative persuasion, it is favored by 70% of Americans. So, it must have been the ending of DADT that isn't popular with Republican voters…..because that's what elected officals do, right?….represent the will of the people?

Not quite. Senator John McCain and his permanently attached sidekick, Senator Lindsey Graham, whined and moaned that everyone simply must wait until the military review suggesting how ending DADT would be implemented, is finished….as if the military, and not Congress, dictates the rules of lawmaking. But that was all a smokescreen by the Maverick and the Huckleberry. Defense Secretary Gates and the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mullin both agree that DADT should end.

The yearly Defense Authorization bill had never been filibustered before yesterday. So, why did it happen this time? Susan Collins (R-ME) blubbered on, as she often does, about that mean old man Harry Reid not allowing her and her GOP buddies to bring up amendments. A blubbering that contained not one iota of truth. Today, Collins is sobbing that Harry Reid just won't allow ENOUGH GOP amendments….poor dear.

Senators are narcississtic assh*les, aren't they?

Some might say that Republicans blocking the Defense Authorization bill were responding to their constituents who are against permitting gays to serve openly in the military. The problem with that is GOP voters are not against ending DADT. Republicans polled out at 62% in favor of ending DADT. Among all other groups of voters the numbers are closer to the 80% range.

So, why the GOP filibuster?

It's the Rush Limbaugh rule. Republicans and conservatives have been operating under Rush's rules for the last two years. After Barack Obama was elected President, Rush went up Mt. Sinai to commune with god. When Rush came down fom the mountain on Obama's inauguration day, he carried with him the new divine law. That law only had one commandment. That commandment was "Thou shalt make Obama fail."

Republican Senators blocked DADT from being voted on with the Defense Authorization bill yesterday because they do not want to allow President Obama to fulfill a campaign promise just before an important midterm election. Rush's rule. Wanting Obama to fail. Making it look like Obama is failing.

I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

Let's hope that Reid brings DADT and the Dream Act up again in the lame duck session after the election….and both pass. A vast majority of Americans, after all, want both measures to be passed into law.

So, how's that Rush commandment working out for Republican hopes of retaking Congress?

Glad you asked…..

Above are the results of Pollster.com's latest national congressional ballot polling. If you look closely at the last week or so, you will see the trend line moving upwards for congressional Democrats while the Republican-favoring line is trending downwards.

But it just gets better and better.

Congress' next step is to introduce difficult-for-Republicans tax legislation. GOP Senators are enraged about being forced to vote against tax cuts for 98% of Americans (Rush's commandment) ….while simultaneously feeling exposed by their intention to shill for the top 1.9%. Quite a pickle for Republicans, especially immediately before the midterm.

I'm sure Rush will know what to do.