Tonight's the vote on whether to allow debate in the Senate on the health care reform bill. 60 votes are needed to begin debate….yes, BEGIN debate.

If you've been following this congressional soap opera develop…..in a glacially slow fashion…..you also know that it appears as if Senate Democrats will have the votes tonight to BEGIN debate. Joementum Lieberman (Lieberman Party-CT) will magnanimously (after consulting Yahweh directly) vote to allow debate to start,…so will, apparently, Ben Nelson (D-NE). Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Mary Landrieux (D-LA) are still playing coy, probably looking for the hand with the largest check amount on in….in order to decide.

Just think about what is happening tonight at 8 PM in the Senate. Democrats are being asked whether or not a Democratic health care reform bill should be introduced for debate. That's it. And trying to get an answer from Democrats on whether they'll even vote to allow debate has been like pulling teeth.

For tonight's vote to be so dramatic does not bode well for the future of the legislation.

The 40 Senate Republicans, having proven their high regard for fiscal responsibility during the presidency of Dick Cheney, naturally, will be voting no on allowing debate. Those 40 only want what's best for all Americans and are not simply attempting to bring about "Obama's Waterloo."

Will the bill eventually pass the Senate? How long will it take for obstructionist Republicans to exhaust their amendments, objections and stall tactics? Will the final bill….if there is a final bill…..be so mangled by corporate-pleasing Democratic senators that it will be totally impotent, except for increasing health insurers bottom lines?

Those are some of the unknowns….but The Reverend has predictions.

First….there will be no public option in any final Senate bill. Joe Lieberman, of the Joe Lieberman Party, will filibuster a final vote that contains a public option. Aside from carving out the entire state of Connecticut and designating it as the state of Lieberman…..Holy Joe will, once again, f*ck the Democrats over.

The Lone Republican Rangerette, Olympia Snowe (R-ME), said she MIGHT vote for a final bill which contained a "trigger" public option. A trigger assumes that health insurance and medical costs are not really that bad YET. Quite an assumption, but Snowe is still a Republican….and Republicans always know what's best for the vulnerable, poor and underprivileged. The trigger cop-out suggests that IF sometime down the road insurers and medical costs really, really get out of control…then, and only then, something else MIGHT be needed.

So…my prediction, all things being equal…is that a public option wll have to be sacrificed by progressive Democrats in order to get ANYTHING passed. That will protect corporate health insurers, thus pleasing the Republicans who will vote against it. Don't ask me….I never said it made sense.

Second…..This one is for the ladies. New far reaching restrictions on a woman's right to choose will most likely be included in any Senate bill with hopes of passing. The most likely outcome will be a harsh restriction on any "insurance exchange" plans from covering abortion, even though the majority of insurance plans today in America cover abortion.

This will drastically increase the scope of the odious Hyde Amendment which already prohibits tax money from being spent on abortion. Additionally,….though no Republicans will vote for it in the end,….further restrictions on a woman's right to choose will please Republicans. Republicans are in the minority and out of the White House, but America is really a conservative-Republican country in spite of having elected the most "liberal person in the Senate" as president, and putting 59 Democratic Senators in the Senate. If you can figure that sentence out…let me know.

Third….Sometime in early 2010, the Very Serious Senate will get around to calling a vote on whatever final piece of corporate-welfare and women-bashing legislation they've prepared. Having done everything in their power to please Republicans, except including a paragraph granting authorization to nuke Iran, Joementum, perhaps Snowe, the handful of ConservaDems and the rest of the self-loathing Democrats will get the 60 votes needed….TO BRING IT TO A FINAL VOTE!

Summary: If all that happens and something actually passes next Spring…..corporate-patriots of the health insurance variety will raise prices so high before the legislation finally goes into effect in 2013….that Democrats, who sought to please Republicans, just might be swept out of office in time for the GOP, America's Party, to rescind the whole thing.

Pat Robertson (Wingnut for God), Pete Hoekstra(R-MI), Chuck 'Pulling the Plug on Grandma' Grassley (R-KS), Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Sarah Palin (Celebrity)…..all have something very much in common.

Rachel Maddow explains…..

Bashing Muslims is back in vogue…..not that it ever fell out of favor within the more imaginative far right winger groups. But I find it remarkable that 2 GOP Senators think al-Qaeda "sympathizers" now work for the U.S. Justice Department. AG Eric Holder found it remarkable too…and worthy of a guffaw.

Having already alienated women, blacks, and Hispanics…I guess the only group left for xenophobic Republicans to offend is the .6% of Americans who are Muslim.

Do we absolutely have to retrace the ugliness of the Joe McCarthy red scare days? Can't Republicans learn anything? Ever?
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But if you can believe it……the new Muslim McCarthyism in the Republican Party is mild in comparison with the mighty moral warriors of the American evangelical kind.

The new "take it to Jesus" slogan for the evangelical nuts in America is Psalms 109.

Here's the new bumper sticker you can buy from zazzle.com…..

What would a person praying for President Obama on the basis of Psalms 109…be praying FOR?…..

8May his days be few;

may another take his place of leadership.

9May his children be fatherless

and his wife a widow.

10May his children be wandering beggars;

may they be drivend from their ruined homes.

Those righteous Bible believing Christians who pray FOR Obama on the basis of Psalms 109 would be praying for him to be dead and his two young girls to be homeless, wandering beggars.

These are the same folks who call the Prince of Peace and Love their Master and Saviour.

Shucks…it's all just good funnin'…..

ABC….

For many, the slogan is just a humorous way express disapproval for President Obama. It's been tweeted and retweeted by Obama critics with messages like "too funny" and "an excellent prayer for America."

See? In the minds of evangelical followers of Jesus, it's just "too funny" to pray for Obama to be dead and for Obama's children to be homeless. Humorous.

But it's those American Muslims who are threatening our nation.

Jesus.

The richest nation in world history has a problem…

About 14.6 percent of U.S. households, equal to 49.1 million people, "had difficulty obtaining food for all their members due to a lack of resources" during 2008, up 3.5 percentage points from 2007 when 11.1 percent of households were classified as food insecure.

…anti-hunger groups pointed to the huge increase from the preceding year when 36.2 million people had trouble getting enough food….

And then this adds a certain WTF quality to any discussion about Americans and food….

Depending on which study you believe, we squander between a quarter to a half of all the food we produce. Even by the conservative estimate, that adds up to more than 100 billion pounds per year.

The Department of Agriculture calculates that Americans waste 27% of their food….

96 billion pounds of food – or 27% of the 356 billion pounds of edible food available – is wasted each year in the U.S. according to the U.S, Department of Agriculture.

What's worse…..it costs us $1 billion per year to dispose of all the food we waste.

The U.S. is often referred to as the "last best hope" for the world, or something similar. If that's true, then world hope must be in decline.

A Balloon-juice blogger describes, accurately I think, how far American society has declined when it comes to our "collective" concern over issues like hunger….

It’s easy to romanticize the past, of course. But I distinctly remember that 20 years ago, things like sudden increases in the number of people going hungry were considered important issues. Nowadays to even muse about whether this is something we can do something about as a society marks you as an unserious hippie.

Briefly….over the last 30 years wealth in America has moved into the hands of fewer and fewer Americans. At the same time that more and more wealth has been accumulated by fewer and fewer Americans, taxes have been reduced to the lowest levels of my lifetime on those doing the accumulating.

Village-whore-media, since 1980, have been banging the rotted Reagan drum nightly insisting that "government is the problem." Add to that distortion the often repeated, "we just can't raise taxes on the rich, we must stay competitive" horsesh*t…..say it over and over again on national teevee…..and the results become predictable.

If all that is not bad enough….in the last 12 years or so…..conservatives in America have made a pastime out of attacking victims. Conservative coverage of Hurricane Katrina, for example, highlighted this new…"you deserve what you get", ugliness.

Most likely the significant increase in the number of Americans short on food will be used as yet another excuse to bash the poor and vulnerable and argue AGAINST any more government assistance to people in trouble. I'm sure that the argument will include variations of, "we just can't afford to spend any more money right now…..and, anyway, we're not socialists."

After all….that's what the Villagers, the Republicans and most conservatives are telling us about health care reform……aren't they?

What difference would it make to Villagers and conservatives if poor, vulnerable Americans died from malnutrition/starvation….or…lack of health insurance?

Wouldn't conservative, always-help-the-wealthiest, Americans…..and the Villagers who speak for them….tell the rest of us that if Americans aren't eating, just as they aren't buying health care insurance,…..it's their own fault because they aren't working hard enough?

Well…wouldn't they?

Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY)
Sen. Christopher Bond (R-MO)
Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY)
Sen. Thomas Coburn (R-OK)
Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)
Sen. Michael Enzi (R-WY)
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK)
Sen. Jefferson Sessions (R-AL)
Sen. David Vitter (R-LA)
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS)

Those are the Republican senators who voted against cloture on a bill extending unemployment benefits. Apparently, those Republicans do not care too much about the plight of those who are unemployed and whose unemployment insurance checks have run out. And why would they care? Most of those senators are wealthy. Why would they be in a hurry to help unemployed Americans?

Although last night the senate voted in favor of cloture on the unemployment extension bill by 87-13….there's still one more filibusterable step left before the extension is made law.

What are Republicans dragging their feet about here?

The Republican amendments include at least two provisions related to ACORN; one related to the E-Verify program; one to pay for the UI benefits with unspent stimulus money; and one providing tax relief.

Of course we know why ACORN is being used as an excuse to stall unemployment checks. Republicans are at war with blacks in America,….because blacks vote Democratic. Not personal, you understand, simply political. So, any bill to extend unemployment insurance, a necessary measure in our depressed economic environment, is a great opportunity, Republicans think, to hold hostage those unemployment checks to more FOX-style bashing of ACORN. Good luck with lowering that 5%-of-blacks-voting-GOP…..down to one percent.

E-Verify has to do with monitoring immigration through the crosschecking of citizenship on employment applications. Naturally, documenting immigration status has nothing to do with extending unemployment checks to, like, unemployed American workers…..but Republicans could care less about that. Republicans know that their political party takes a ridgid stand against undocumented workers….Republicans are tough border patrollers, don't ya' know. Nation protectors. "Amnesty" rejecters. Republicans rarely miss an opportunity to bash the "other" (see Jennings, Kevin) (see Sotomayor, Judge), and that's what they are doing with the unemployment insurance extension bill. If bashing "illegals" slows down the unemployed's checks, well….that's just the cost Americans must pay for the GOP's vigilance in it's fight against non-white skinned people. Undocumenteds threaten our very existence…or at least that's what FOX and Rush tell us….and they run the information-arm of the GOP.

The third "concern" of Republicans, which simply had to be addressed by stalling an extension of unemployment benefits, is paying for any extension with "unspent stimulus money." I got an extra special kick out of this one. Three Republicans in the Senate, Spector, Collins and Snowe voted for the stimulus package back in February. That's it….and Spector is now a Democrat. I just think that it requires big brass wingnut balls to stall unemployment extensions while those who voted against the stimulus tell the rest how that stimulus money should be spent. Big brass wingnut balls.

The last stall tactic is typical boilerplate Republican policy. "Tax relief." I mean, Jesus…..is there any piece of legislation….ever….that Republicans won't try to attach a tax cut to? Think about it. Republicans are holding up an extension of paltry unemployment checks in order to consider more tax cuts. Republican tax cuts during Bush cost the Treasury $1.5 trillion….enough money to pay for 10 years of national health care AND pay the unemployment insurance extensions needed now. BECAUSE cutting taxes radically for the wealthiest Americans didn't really create jobs, as the numbers demonstrate….it's particularly ironic that those who have lost their jobs and need those benefits are having those benefits held up, delayed, by yet another attempt to cut taxes.

Republicans can't govern….they've proven that beyond a shadow of a doubt with the Bush/Cheney administration. Still today, GOP'ers repeat Father Reagan's wingnut advice…."government isn't the solution, government is the problem", and when in power, do everything to prove that government isn't the solution.

Then when only the government can provide the "solution", as with unemployment insurance extensions, Republicans do their damnest to stop that "solution" from being passed.

The Republicans in office are obstructionists. They are not a loyal opposition. They are the disloyal opposition. They don't care about typical Americans having health insurance. You've heard them….they just say no to health care reform. They don't care whether an unemployed American runs out of unemployment checks. They have stalled and drug their feet at every turn to slow down any extension of unemployment for America's unemployed.

These GOP'ers are beyond shaming. They are shame-resistant.

Yes, Congress will pass an unemployment insurance extension. But it won't be because the Republicans didn't try to stop it.

More than a dime's worth of difference in the parties when it comes to this issue, I'd say.

Republicans don't take too kindly to trial lawyers. Not lawyers, as such….but "trial" lawyers. To hear conservatives and Republicans talk the way they do about them-there "trial" lawyers, you might be led to believe that, whoever they are, trial lawyers are just slightly less dangerous to our nation than al-Qaeda members.

One recent example of this we-hate-trial-lawyers craze has been the dropping of the occasional "tort reform" bomb during health care reform discussions. Though it has been clearly shown by neutral data compilers that medical malpractice lawsuits only account for somewhere between 1% and 3% of our total national health care costs…..Republicans, when they have offered anything at all, have always raised the idea of limiting, capping what those trial lawyers can win for their crippled, butchered or dead clients.

I've always recoiled from the ugliness of this Republican tic. Yes, I understand it…..the Republican constituency, after all, is big business, big money,….that's who the GOP represents. Anything that diminishes the profits of big corporations, like, say, being punitively fined for paralyzing one of your customers, must be controlled, limited or eliminated altogether. Ohio's Republicans, abhorrently, have successfully capped the punitive awards against doctors who might negligently kill one of your children.

That dehumanized and compassionless ugliness ain't nothin' in comparison with the subject of today's post. The F"cking Insane Gang-Rape Posse.

Unbelievable, yet true…

Jamie Leigh Jones was a 19-yr-old employee of defense contractor KBR (formerly a Halliburton subsidiary) stationed in Iraq who was gang raped by her co-workers and imprisoned in a shipping container when she tried to report the crime. Her father and U.S. Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.), worked together to secure her safe return to the United States, but once she was home, she learned a fine-print clause in her KBR contract banned her from taking her case to court, instead forcing her into an “arbitration” process that would be run by KBR itself.

Miss Jones was so brutally gang-raped that she required reconstructive surgery….and wasn't the imprisonment in the shipping container a nice touch?

On Tuesday, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) introduced an amendment guaranteeing victims like Miss Jones the right to have their day in court. Franken's amendment would stop funding defense contractors, like KBR, who deny assault victims that day in court.

Naturally, if that amendment passed, trial lawyers would have the right to extract financial punishment in court from companies whose employees, you know, gang-raped, another employee.

Enter the F*cking Insane Clown Posse.

Franken's amendment passed with 68 yes votes. THIRTY Republican senators voted no. 30 Republicans, insanely crazed by their partisan hatred of trial lawyers and Democrats voted for the gang-raping company and against the gang-rape victim.

In a theoretical hell, Lucifer, himself, couldn't turn the thermostat up high enough for these "values voters" politicians.

Often, conservatives and Republicans have said that their current disfavor with American voters is because they just can't get their "message" out properly, whatever-the-hell that "message" is. I categorically disagree. Indeed, the reason that voters are avoiding those R's on their ballots is because Republicans ARE getting their "message" out….and that "message" is ugly, viciously hateful, detached from real human life, intolerant, and defensive of all things Americans detest about cold-blooded corporations.

Tuesday, the Insane Gang-Rape Clown Posse delivered that "message" once again.

Tuesday, Al Franken did the late Paul Wellstone proud. This video is 10 minutes long, but I'm telling you, it's worth every minute. Though not often seen in the wilds of Washington D.C…..this is what a true Democrat looks like…..

The man in the above picture was arrested on September 15 and charged on September 25 with possession of child pornography…..

Ottawa police have issued an arrest warrant for a Roman Catholic bishop from Nova Scotia facing child pornography charges…….

(Bishop Raymond) Lahey was re-entering Canada at the Ottawa International Airport on Sept. 15 when members of the Canada Border Services Agency pulled him aside for a secondary examination, according to a release from Ottawa police. Officers found images on Lahey's laptop computer "that were of concern."

He was released at the time. The computer was seized and police said a subsequent forensic examination of the computer revealed child pornography.

As if that's not offensive enough, consider this….

The former leader of the diocese of Antigonish is perhaps best known as the man who helped broker a $15-million settlement with people who said they had been sexually abused by priests in the diocese, in some cases dating back to 1950. That settlement was approved by a Nova Scotia court on Sept. 10.

Jesus.

Just in case you missed this from last year….

In Ireland, reports into clerical sexual abuse have rocked both the Catholic hierarchy and the state.

The Ryan Report, published last May, revealed that beatings and humiliation by nuns and priests were common at institutions that held up to 30,000 children. A nine-year investigation found that Catholic priests and nuns for decades terrorised thousands of boys and girls, while government inspectors failed to stop the abuse.

On September 18, 2009…..

The UN Human Rights Council today published a written statement by IHEU on the role of the Holy See in the child abuse scandals that rocked the Catholic Church in recent years, and its failure to honour its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Commenting on the report, Roy Brown, IHEU Main Representative at the UN Geneva said: "The Holy See has been heavily implicated for decades in covering up cases of child abuse carried our by its clergy and religious orders, in obstructing justice, and in failing to deal appropriately with abusers. Yet for too long it has been given a free ride by the international community because of its presumed moral leadership. Our report is the first to bring the issue to the attention of the Council. We shall be referring to our report in the plenary of the Human Rights Council next week."

The Vatican's permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, responding to the report's findings that up to 5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child abuse, did the Christian thing…..and blamed others….

Children were more likely to suffer at the hands of relatives, family friends or babysitters than clerics, he argued.

Jesus.

And if that isn't bad enough, wait…there's even more….

The Archbishop also quoted research published in the Christian Science Monitor newspaper which suggested that most congregations affected by child sex allegations in the US were protestant churches while the problem was also common in the Jewish community.

'Yeah, 1 in 20 of our clergy are child-terrorizing fiends, but hey, what about those babysitters and those Jews and Protestants.'

Thoroughly disgusted yet? I've saved the worst for last.

Yesterday……………Cardinal Daniel DiNardo and Chief Justice John Roberts

An American cardinal on Sunday issued a plea for the rights of the unborn at a church service that included Vice President Joe Biden, six members of the Supreme Court and hundreds of members of the legal community.

Five of the six Roman Catholics on the high court – Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito – heard the homily by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo…..

What did the representative of this child-terrorizing religious cult have to say to enlighten America's vice-president and 5 other terror-cult members who just happen to be Supreme Court Justices?

Speaking at the annual Red Mass the day before the opening of the Supreme Court term, DiNardo said that people represented by lawyers are "more than clients. … In some cases the clients are voiceless for they lack influence; in others they are literally voiceless, not yet with tongues and even without names, and require our most careful attention and radical support."

Jesus.

High leaders of the United States of America, leaders of a country alledgedly fighting a "long war" against international "terrorists", seek moral guidance from a representative of an international child-terrorizing cult. A religious cult so morally depraved and so hypocritically twisted, it's representatives have the audacity to preach to America's highest legal representatives about our national morality in dealing with the "unborn", while dismissing and downplaying a scathing, yet factual, report of the cult's own centuries-old terrorization of underage boys.

It's all disgustingly maddening.

Yesterday, the House voted 258-163 to approve a non-binding recommendation prohibiting the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo to the U.S. for trial or imprisonment. 88 Democrats voted with the majority.

Here's the typical defense for continuing, indefinitely, American offshore gulags…..

"There is no reason these terrorists, who pose a serious and documented threat to our nation, cannot be brought to justice right where they are in Cuba," said Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Ky. "I certainly think that is where the American people stand on this issue —they don't want these terrorists in their hometowns."

Because these detainees have not had their day in court to hear charges against them and to defend themselves against those charges…there is no substantiation for the claim that they are all "terrorists." None. If it has not been proven (and it hasn't) that all of these detainees are "terrorists", then it is also not clear that they "pose a serious and documented threat to our nation."

Yes, SOME of the detainees being held in America's first torture gulag are guilty of planning or perpetrating crimes against the U.S. Khalid Sheik Mohammed proudly spouted off about being the mastermind of 9-11, for example. But with the other 240-some detainees…..guilt is not so clearcut. If the detainees have not been proven by the rule of law to be "terrorists" yet….then it follows that it also hasn't been proven that these detainees "pose a serious and documented threat to our nation."

258 House members, however, knowing full well that the guilt of these detainees has still not been determined, are willing to go on record in support of this unsupportable statement…."they (American people) don't want these terrorists in their hometowns."

The presumption by, in this case, a Kentucky Republican demagogueing dimwit, is that if detainees are taken from Guantanamo and brought to the U.S….they will simply be dropped off in the center of every major U.S. city to do as they will. That concept, naturally, is ridiculous…..but we live in very ridiculous times.

I've said it many times before…..American prisons, on American soil, CURRENTLY hold numerous convicted terrorists. Is there a threat to "hometowns" everywhere because convicted terrorists are being held, right now, in prisons located on American soil? Will it become necessary for America to send ALL violent, or potentially violent offenders to offshore secret prisons so those same prisoners won't threaten the stability of "hometowns?"

How ridiculous would that be? Or would it be ridiculous?

It's crystal clear what Republicans in the House are doing. Proven to not have any interest or competency in the job of governing when they were in the majority, the only interest GOP'ers have now is to destroy the current Democratic majority and be reinstalled (god forbid) as D.C's power group. Obama promised to close Gitmo in a year, and by god, Republicans will do everything to make sure Obama, as the RNC Chief Rush said, "fails."

It has also become clear what the spineless Democrats are doing….at least 88 of them in this case. Many Democrats, as in the ACORN defunding embarassment, are p*ssies (in the "weakling" sense of the word). Even though the "keep prisoners off U.S. soil" resolution is knee-jerk, guilty-before-proving-your-innocence, nonsense…..some Democrats are timidly fearful that mean, mean Republicans will accuse them of not being manly enough to defend their constituents should they vote to close down America's first Soviet-style gulag.

As much as I detest the current Republican nuts in Congress, I have only contempt for Democrats who instantly cave in to cartoon characterizations by dishonest GOP brokers.

The House "Operation Scaredy-Cat" resolution is even worse than what I've already described….

The vote also put House members on record as backing the Obama administration's refusal to release new photos showing U.S. personnel abusing detainees held overseas.

President Barack Obama has already said he would use every available means to block release of additional detainee abuse photos because they could whip up anti-American sentiment overseas and endanger U.S. troops. His powers include issuing an order to classify the photos, thus blocking their release.

This Obama-led nonsense is just as indefensible and stupid as the "we can't close Gitmo because we'll all die" p*ssy chorus. Does anyone believe that Muslims worldwide don't already know that the U.S. has violently and inexcusably tortured detainees? Anyone?

To comprehend how absolutely off-the-wall crazy Obama's, and now the House's, releasing "photos could whip-up anti-American sentiment overseas" statement is…..ask yourself this question: Isn't it true that for weeks, if not months now, every media outlet in the U.S., and virtually every federal government representative, have been talking openly about increasing U.S. troop numbers inside Afghanistan? Isn't that true?

Does anyone who believes that the release of torture photos (according to U.S. law) "could whip-up anti-American sentiment"…..not believe that open discussion of sending thousands more troops into Afghanistan might also "whip-up" the same "sentiment?" Anyone?

Obama refuses to follow the rule of law on the photos issue, just as George W. Bush did before him. Obama has decided to unlawfully deny the release of the photos to further protect George and Dick from any messy investigations or (gasp) prosecutions. You see, that would be looking "backwards."

In reality, Obama, by violating Freedom of Information laws and using idefensibly ignorant excuses to do so, is not only concealing damning evidence, but has also now become complicit in the war crimes of the Bush Gang. Republicans and p*ssy Democrats, on the other hand, have incestuously joined together in a resolution of raving imbecility….defending the permanency of Soviet-style gulags while jettisoning the rule of law altogether.

What's particularly galling about all this?…..These are the same folks who repeatedly spout off about how "exceptional" the United States is.

The imaginative Steve King (R-IA) says that gay marriage is a "purely socialistic concept."

Have you noticed how conservatives and Republicans see socialistic threats, like, everywhere? Damn odd, if you ask me.

Here's Rep. King in the House explaining how President Barack Obama is the "star of ACORN, the lead, chief organizer."

King is a wild and crazy guy, huh?

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Latest Times/CBS poll….

"Would you favor or oppose the government offering everyone a government administered health insurance plan — something like the Medicare coverage that people 65 and older get — that would compete with private health insurance plans?"

Favor 65%

Oppose 26%

Proving that facts still have a known liberal bias….OR….Americans want more socialism. Anybody want to break the news to Michelle Malkin and Sean Hannity?

Malkin yesterday on President Obama's UN speech….

"He (Obama) doesn't like this country very much." Obama is "the great Appeaser and the Groveler in Chief."

"..he (Obama) has solidified his place as the weakest of weak leaders of modern American history…..They laugh at us. He is a laughingstock."

That must be why, after Obama's appearance at the UN, that Russia is now considering new tougher sanctions on Iran. Russia's President Medvedev must have been laughing so hard over how weak Obama's leadership is that he couldn't help agreeing with America's New Weakling-in-Chief.

Later, Obama presided over the UN Security Council unanimously passing a resolution "that “urges” countries to put conditions on their nuclear exports, so that international inspectors would be authorized to continue monitoring the use of some nuclear materials even if a country withdrew from the nonproliferation pact."

Yep, Michelle and Sean,…..laughingstock.

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Next up….George W Bush's former speech writer Michael Gerson. Once again, the AB Journal insisted on printing Gerson's column. Gerson says that internet discourse in America is kind of like the Nazis using radio in the 1930's. Heil, Michael, you assh*le.

One sentence….

"The absolute freedom of the medium paradoxically encourages authoritarian impulses to intimidate and silence others."

As opposed, say, to the "absolute freedom" of Knee Pad Media members, like Gerson, whose neo-conservative "authoritarian impulses to intimidate and silence others"…..we witnessed in the main media's complicity in leading us into a war of The Dick's choosing. Extra smiley face stickers for blaming internet discourse for what his ex-boss did for 8 straight years…."intimidate and silence others"…resulting in 4400 U.S. dead soldiers. But it's the anonymous and dirty f*cking internet bloggers who possess those "authoritarian impulses."

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Little known info….

The Fox Network did not cover President Barack Obama's speech before the joint session of Congress. The Fox cable outlet, I understand, did cover it….but not the broadcast network. It's the first time a major broadcaster, using public airwaves, refused to televise a presidential address before Congress.

So, according to another Beacon blurb from the Dallas Morning News today, President Obama should go on Fox and be interviewed by the blackout boyz.

"…what should concern the president more is that Fox delivers a devoted audience that doesn't always hear from the president unfiltered."

Is it me, or does that sound like a very naive statement? Nothing ever presented on Fox is "unfiltered." My suggestion to Obama? Keep flipping the bird to Fox offers…..they are unworthy to be considered a legitimate media participant.

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Just in case you have been confused by the flaming wingnuttery recently over the non-profit group ACORN, Rachel Maddow had an excellent piece on the whole thing last night. And the imaginative one I referred to at the top makes an appearance too. It's worth watching…..but look out for those pesky facts flying….

Finally…..Glenn Greenwald lays out the rotted landscape in the mainstream media and the halls of Washington.

The Villagers have a very ugly habit of chastising and punishing the weak and vulnerable while praising and rewarding the corrupt and the powerful. ACORN is simply the latest example.

Former President Jimmy Carter…..

2:34

“I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he is African-American," Carter said.

“Racism … still exists and I think it has bubbled up to the surface because of a belief among many white people, not just in the south but around the country, that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It’s an abominable circumstance and grieves me and concerns me very deeply,” Carter told NBC News.

Is the former Democratic president correct?

If he is….does that mean that every TeaBagger and every Townhall Buster-Upper is a racist? Of course not. My blog friend King attended last Saturday's protest and I don't consider him a racist.

That said, do racial animosities play ANY role in what appears to be an organized and concerted effort to delegitimize America's first black president? Undoubtedly.

As I have observed the Tea Party opposition to virtually anything Obama it's been hard to rule out racial animosity as a major contributing factor.

Racial animosities played a role during the presidential primaries…..

From an ABC piece May 27, 2008….

In recent weeks, the role of race in the Democratic primaries has been increasingly discussed. And while racist caricatures and jokes about threats against Obama's life have been widely condemned, they seem to reflect an undeniable element of racism that still exists in the country and could play an unknown role in a general election.

……

The latest controversy centered on a depiction of Obama in the cross hairs of a rifle used that appeared on the cover of Georgia's Roswell Beacon newspaper. The controversy focused on the image, though the story, which included interviews with several white supremacists threatened by Obama's candidacy, reflected a deeper reality.

Racial animosities played a role AFTER Obama was elected president….

Arizona Daily Star, November 16, 2008…..

Cross burnings. Schoolchildren chanting, "Assassinate Obama." Black figures hanging from nooses. Racial epithets scrawled on homes and cars.

Incidents around the country referring to President-elect Barack Obama are dampening the postelection glow of racial progress and harmony, highlighting the stubborn racism that remains in America.

Ever hear the phrase, "we want our country back", from those at Tea Parties or Townhall Bust-up sessions?

Here's what the director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center said after the November election…..

Potok, who is white, said he believes there is "a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them."

Grant Griffin, a 46-year-old white Georgia native, expressed similar sentiments: "I believe our nation is ruined and has been for several decades, and the election of Obama is merely the culmination of the change.

"If you had real change, it would involve all the members of (Obama's) church being deported," he said.

Who can forget the Obama-dressed-up-like-Aunt-Jemima waffle mix and the numerous signs alluding to Obama's race?

Who can forget the hours of wasted time by main stream media anchors and talking heads microscoptically analyzing the black/white vote count in every primary? Why was that done? At the very least it was done because of an awareness that there is still a racial divide in the U.S.

How many times did we hear folks like NBC's Chuck Todd or Nora O'Donnell tell us that the black presidential candidate Obama was having trouble with white voters?

Why is it that still today a majority of southern Republicans believe Obama is not a U.S. citizen? Why the drumbeat, even now after 8 months of the Obama presidency, about Obama's father's native country of Kenya? Is that explained by some coincidental big-bang randomness theory? Or more likely, does that southern belief, one which Jimmy Carter understands and has experienced first hand, reflect a predetermined rejection of a black Democratic president, because he's black?

How can the intense focus on ACORN by Fox enthusiasts during the primary and general election campaign….and again now by the Teabaggers and Townhallers….be explained away as an innocent non-racially tinged focus?

Why the triumphant jubilation over the black second-tier appointee, Van Jones, resigning? Why the recurring use of the word "uppity" by so many opposed to Obama? Why the projectionist claim by Glenn Beck that Obama "hates white people", "white culture?"

Conservative culture warriors are more sophisticated than during the 1960's,….not all but most….and I'm thankful for that. Modern forms of racial animosity are more subtle and oblique. It's Obama's policies, opponents say, not his skin color, which riles them up. Policies that many opponents say will take stuff from them and hand it over to the undeserving, however, are just barely thinly-veiled jabs reminiscent of Uncle Ronnie's southern strategy baiting over fictitious Cadillac driving "welfare queens".

Yes, racial animosities play a significant role in today's unhinged attacks on America's first black president.

Can we overcome these animosities that still exist in America? Will the "we want our country back" crowd ever be content with a black president?

I honestly do not have an answer. I certainly hope so…..but I fear that yet another generation will have to die off before it happens.

I don't often take on one of the letters-to-the-editor appearing in the daily Beacon Journal. But, today, I'm going to….

Ms. Adrienne Appleby-Bures of MEDINA writes in explaining how she opposes President Barack Obama's planned talk to schoolchildren today. Medina School leaders have decided to censor the President's talk to make sure it's "safe" to show children. Medina citizens, like Appleby-Bures, are the reason why Medina district scool leaders are censoring the President today.

The Medina resident begins…

"Schools were to prepare students for President Obama's address today. I read the teacher-preparation materials, and I do not want my children to be part of this education. I informed their schools. I disagree with the socialist agenda embraced by our current administration.

To me, this includes the green movement, global warming, a positive portrayal of wealth redistribution, and the apparent belief that protections for individual liberties in the Constitution can be ignored."

I realize it does absolutely no good to point out that President Obama kept those private banksters private and didn't take them over, that his health care plan does not even mention a single payer socialist program and that even a public option plan is being called non-essential by the White House. Taxes have actually been lowered under Obama. Facts do not matter to folks like Ms. Appleby-Bures, her mind is made up.

"The following is from the teacher-preparation notes: Why is it important that we listen to the president and other elected officials, like the mayor, senators, members of Congress, or the governor? Why is what they say important?

My children are being taught that elected officials will represent them. They will not be taught to "listen" to those individuals, as if being elected gives a right to indoctrinate others in social and governmental re-engineering campaigns."

Those paragraphs channel Glenn Beck and the Limbaugh-like buffoons who make millions selling hate. The words "indoctrinate" and "governmental re-engineering campaigns" are part of Beck's and Limbaugh's daily scripts. Ms. Appleby-Bures is agreeing with the buffoons…..Obama is remarkably similar, these conservative buffoons say, to Adolph Hitler.

With this hateful mindset…umm…in mind, Appleby-Bures rants that she doesn't want her children involved in "social re-engineering" or government "indoctrination" efforts.

If you type the words, "social re-engineering by Obama" into the Google, you'll find a half a million entries. Anti-democratic conservatives, having lost the last two elections…and badly….can only work to smear and villify Democrats and Obama, compare them with Hitler, Stalin or Mao, or, you know, someone really, really scary. That's the purpose of Appleby-Bures hate letter. To spread fear, ugliness, and hatred. Appleby-Bures' letter is part of an orchestrated effort to spread fact-free and hateful propaganda about a Democratic president. Think…town hall buster-uppers…..letter-to-the-editor style.

The extremist Appleby-Bures, mercifully, finishes up….

"If there is a push for student participation in a national service day on Sept. 11, I will protest. My children participate in church, Scouts and charity work my family deems valuable. Sept. 11 should always be a day of reflection and remembrance.

If the president wants a day for volunteer service, I respectfully suggest he, his friends and family volunteer time on what is the most progressive and socialist holiday, Labor Day. I suggest he focus his own efforts on moving Tax Freedom Day back into the first quarter."

Yes, this letter-writer is unhinged from reality, and full of despicable hatred towards Democrats and President Obama. She is free in America, of course, to be unhinged from reality.

Adrienne Appleby-Bures despises even the thought of Obama asking students to participate in a national day of service. Yes, even mentioning service to one's country is more than the extreme right in America today can tolerate.

But Bures can't let it go at that. She can't be satisfied with just spreading her hate-bile and propaganda, you know, like Beck and Limbaugh do each day. She has to go on to insult American workers by mocking Labor Day, calling it "the most socialist holiday".

Let me be clear here….people like Ms. Appleby-Bures are not worthy to wipe the ass of those who fought and died for the rights of workers in America. Without labor unions our country today would look similar to any ordinary Latin American hellhole…..and with the killing off of the unions by conservative haters of workers, like Appleby-Bures, how long will it be before we are nothing but a third world country?

Be scared of this socialist Democratic President who wants to "indoctrinate" kids to work hard and stay in school to strengthen America. Be scared of a president who encourages service to the country, that's "social re-engineering." And if that president calls for a national day of service, tell him he and his communist buddies already have a "socialist holiday", Labor Day.

Ms. Adrienne Appleby-Bures……and the Medina horse she road in on.

UPDATE: Go here to see why the Obama-is-indoctrinating-our-kids screeching is simply about unhinged Obama-hate…and nothing more.

UPDATE II: Here's Obama's Mao speech to the kids today.

Here's the Hitleresque clincher….

" …. none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed."