jonah and the beast

jonah escapes the belly of the beast, with a message for cap'n ahab ...

goodbye to all that:
reflections of a GOP operative who left the cult
by mike lofgren, retired GOP congressional staffer

barbara stanwyck:		we're both rotten!
fred macmurray:		yeah — only you're a little more rotten.
"double indemnity" (1944)

those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary america. both parties are rotten — how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? both parties are captives to corporate loot. the main reason the democrats' health care bill will be a budget buster once it fully phases in is the democrats' rank capitulation to corporate interests — no single-payer system, in order to mollify the insurers; and no negotiation of drug prices, a craven surrender to big pharma.

but both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. the democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.

to those millions of americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the republican party is so full of lunatics. to be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like robert k. dornan or william e. dannemeyer. but the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: steve king, michele bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), paul broun, patrick mchenry, virginia foxx, louie gohmert, allen west. the congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.

it was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on capitol hill. a couple of months ago, i retired; but i could see as early as last november that the republican party would use the debt limit vote, an otherwise routine legislative procedure that has been used 87 times since the end of world war II, in order to concoct an entirely artificial fiscal crisis. then, they would use that fiscal crisis to get what they wanted, by literally holding the US and global economies as hostages.

the debt ceiling extension is not the only example of this sort of political terrorism. republicans were willing to lay off 4,000 federal aviation administration (FAA) employees, 70,000 private construction workers and let FAA safety inspectors work without pay, in fact, forcing them to pay for their own work-related travel — how prudent is that? — in order to strong arm some union-busting provisions into the FAA reauthorization.

everyone knows that in a hostage situation, the reckless and amoral actor has the negotiating upper hand over the cautious and responsible actor because the latter is actually concerned about the life of the hostage, while the former does not care. this fact, which ought to be obvious, has nevertheless caused confusion among the professional pundit class, which is mostly still stuck in the bob dole era in terms of its orientation. for instance, ezra klein wrote of his puzzlement over the fact that while house republicans essentially won the debt ceiling fight, enough of them were sufficiently dissatisfied that they might still scuttle the deal. of course they might — the attitude of many freshman republicans to national default was "bring it on!"

it should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the republican party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century europe. this trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.

in his "manual of parliamentary practice," thomas jefferson wrote that it is less important that every rule and custom of a legislature be absolutely justifiable in a theoretical sense, than that they should be generally acknowledged and honored by all parties. these include unwritten rules, customs and courtesies that lubricate the legislative machinery and keep governance a relatively civilized procedure. the US senate has more complex procedural rules than any other legislative body in the world; many of these rules are contradictory, and on any given day, the senate parliamentarian may issue a ruling that contradicts earlier rulings on analogous cases.

the only thing that can keep the senate functioning is collegiality and good faith. during periods of political consensus, for instance, the world war II and early post-war eras, the senate was a "high functioning" institution: filibusters were rare and the body was legislatively productive. now, one can no more picture the current senate producing the original medicare act than the old supreme soviet having legislated the bill of rights.

far from being a rarity, virtually every bill, every nominee for senate confirmation and every routine procedural motion is now subject to a republican filibuster. under the circumstances, it is no wonder that washington is gridlocked: legislating has now become war minus the shooting, something one could have observed 80 years ago in the reichstag of the weimar republic. as hannah arendt observed, a disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself.

john p. judis sums up the modern GOP this way:

over the last four decades, the republican party has transformed from a loyal opposition into an insurrectionary party that flouts the law when it is in the majority and threatens disorder when it is the minority. it is the party of watergate and iran-contra, but also of the government shutdown in 1995 and the impeachment trial of 1999. if there is an earlier american precedent for today's republican party, it is the antebellum southern democrats of john calhoun who threatened to nullify, or disregard, federal legislation they objected to and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery.

a couple of years ago, a republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. should republicans succeed in obstructing the senate from doing its job, it would further lower congress's generic favorability rating among the american people. by sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

a deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. there are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. these voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good," further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and "the parties are like two kids in a school yard." this ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s — a distrust that has been stoked by republican rhetoric at every turn ("government is the problem," declared ronald reagan in 1980).

the media are also complicit in this phenomenon. ever since the bifurcation of electronic media into a more or less respectable "hard news" segment and a rabidly ideological talk radio and cable TV political propaganda arm, the "respectable" media have been terrified of any criticism for perceived bias. hence, they hew to the practice of false evenhandedness. paul krugman has skewered this tactic as being the "centrist cop-out." "i joked long ago," he says, "that if one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read 'views differ on shape of planet.'"

inside-the-beltway wise guy chris cillizza merely proves krugman right in his washington post analysis of "winners and losers" in the debt ceiling impasse. he wrote that the institution of congress was a big loser in the fracas, which is, of course, correct, but then he opined: "lawmakers — bless their hearts — seem entirely unaware of just how bad they looked during this fight and will almost certainly spend the next few weeks (or months) congratulating themselves on their tremendous magnanimity." note how the pundit's ironic deprecation falls like the rain on the just and unjust alike, on those who precipitated the needless crisis and those who despaired of it. he seems oblivious that one side — or a sizable faction of one side — has deliberately attempted to damage the reputation of congress to achieve its political objectives.

this constant drizzle of "there the two parties go again!" stories out of the news bureaus, combined with the hazy confusion of low-information voters, means that the long-term republican strategy of undermining confidence in our democratic institutions has reaped electoral dividends. the united states has nearly the lowest voter participation among western democracies; this, again, is a consequence of the decline of trust in government institutions — if government is a racket and both parties are the same, why vote? and if the uninvolved middle declines to vote, it increases the electoral clout of a minority that is constantly being whipped into a lather by three hours daily of rush limbaugh or fox news. there were only 44 million republican voters in the 2010 mid-term elections, but they effectively canceled the political results of the election of president obama by 69 million voters.

this tactic of inducing public distrust of government is not only cynical, it is schizophrenic. for people who profess to revere the constitution, it is strange that they so caustically denigrate the very federal government that is the material expression of the principles embodied in that document. this is not to say that there is not some theoretical limit to the size or intrusiveness of government; i would be the first to say there are such limits, both fiscal and constitutional. but most republican officeholders seem strangely uninterested in the effective repeal of fourth amendment protections by the patriot act, the weakening of habeas corpus and self-incrimination protections in the public hysteria following 9/11 or the unpalatable fact that the united states has the largest incarcerated population of any country on earth. if anything, they would probably opt for more incarcerated persons, as imprisonment is a profit center for the prison privatization industry, which is itself a growth center for political contributions to these same politicians.[1] instead, they prefer to rail against those government programs that actually help people. and when a program is too popular to attack directly, like medicare or social security, they prefer to undermine it by feigning an agonized concern about the deficit. that concern, as we shall see, is largely fictitious.

undermining americans' belief in their own institutions of self-government remains a prime GOP electoral strategy. but if this technique falls short of producing karl rove's dream of 30 years of unchallengeable one-party rule (as all such techniques always fall short of achieving the angry and embittered true believer's new jerusalem), there are other even less savory techniques upon which to fall back. ever since republicans captured the majority in a number of state legislatures last november, they have systematically attempted to make it more difficult to vote: by onerous voter ID requirements (in wisconsin, republicans have legislated photo IDs while simultaneously shutting department of motor vehicles (DMV) offices in democratic constituencies while at the same time lengthening the hours of operation of DMV offices in GOP constituencies); by narrowing registration periods; and by residency requirements that may disenfranchise university students.

this legislative assault is moving in a diametrically opposed direction to 200 years of american history, when the arrow of progress pointed toward more political participation by more citizens. republicans are among the most shrill in self-righteously lecturing other countries about the wonders of democracy; exporting democracy (albeit at the barrel of a gun) to the middle east was a signature policy of the bush administration. but domestically, they don't want those people voting.

you can probably guess who those people are. above all, anyone not likely to vote republican. as sarah palin would imply, the people who are not real americans. racial minorities. immigrants. muslims. gays. intellectuals. basically, anyone who doesn't look, think, or talk like the GOP base. this must account, at least to some degree, for their extraordinarily vitriolic hatred of president obama. i have joked in the past that the main administration policy that republicans object to is obama's policy of being black.[2] among the GOP base, there is constant harping about somebody else, some "other," who is deliberately, assiduously and with malice aforethought subverting the good, the true and the beautiful: subversives. commies. socialists. ragheads. secular humanists. blacks. fags. feminazis. the list may change with the political needs of the moment, but they always seem to need a scapegoat to hate and fear.

it is not clear to me how many GOP officeholders believe this reactionary and paranoid claptrap. i would bet that most do not. but they cynically feed the worst instincts of their fearful and angry low-information political base with a nod and a wink. during the disgraceful circus of the "birther" issue, republican politicians subtly stoked the fires of paranoia by being suggestively equivocal — "i take the president at his word" — while never unambiguously slapping down the myth. john huntsman was the first major GOP figure forthrightly to refute the birther calumny — albeit after release of the birth certificate.

i do not mean to place too much emphasis on racial animus in the GOP. while it surely exists, it is also a fact that republicans think that no democratic president could conceivably be legitimate. republicans also regarded bill clinton as somehow, in some manner, twice fraudulently elected (well do i remember the elaborate conspiracy theories that republicans traded among themselves). had it been hillary clinton, rather than barack obama, who had been elected in 2008, i am certain we would now be hearing, in lieu of the birther myths, conspiracy theories about vince foster's alleged murder.

the reader may think that i am attributing svengali-like powers to GOP operatives able to manipulate a zombie base to do their bidding. it is more complicated than that. historical circumstances produced the raw material: the deindustrialization and financialization of america since about 1970 has spawned an increasingly downscale white middle class — without job security (or even without jobs), with pensions and health benefits evaporating and with their principal asset deflating in the collapse of the housing bubble. their fears are not imaginary; their standard of living is shrinking.

what do the democrats offer these people? essentially nothing. democratic leadership council-style "centrist" democrats were among the biggest promoters of disastrous trade deals in the 1990s that outsourced jobs abroad: NAFTA, world trade organization, permanent most-favored-nation status for china. at the same time, the identity politics/lifestyle wing of the democratic party was seen as a too illegal immigrant-friendly by downscaled and outsourced whites.[3]

while democrats temporized, or even dismissed the fears of the white working class as racist or nativist, republicans went to work. to be sure, the business wing of the republican party consists of the most energetic outsourcers, wage cutters and hirers of sub-minimum wage immigrant labor to be found anywhere on the globe. but the faux-populist wing of the party, knowing the mental compartmentalization that occurs in most low-information voters, played on the fears of that same white working class to focus their anger on scapegoats that do no damage to corporations' bottom lines: instead of raising the minimum wage, let's build a wall on the southern border (then hire a defense contractor to incompetently manage it). instead of predatory bankers, it's evil muslims. or evil gays. or evil abortionists.

how do they manage to do this? because democrats ceded the field. above all, they do not understand language. their initiatives are posed in impenetrable policy-speak: the patient protection and affordable care act. the what? — can anyone even remember it? no wonder the pejorative "obamacare" won out. contrast that with the republicans' patriot act. you're a patriot, aren't you? does anyone at the GED level have a clue what a stimulus bill is supposed to be? why didn't the white house call it the jobs bill and keep pounding on that theme?

you know that social security and medicare are in jeopardy when even democrats refer to them as entitlements. "entitlement" has a negative sound in colloquial english: somebody who is "entitled" selfishly claims something he doesn't really deserve. why not call them "earned benefits," which is what they are because we all contribute payroll taxes to fund them? that would never occur to the democrats. republicans don't make that mistake; they are relentlessly on message: it is never the "estate tax," it is the "death tax." heaven forbid that the walton family should give up one penny of its $86-billion fortune. all of that lucre is necessary to ensure that unions be kept out of wal-mart, that women employees not be promoted and that politicians be kept on a short leash.

it was not always thus. it would have been hard to find an uneducated farmer during the depression of the 1890s who did not have a very accurate idea about exactly which economic interests were shafting him. an unemployed worker in a breadline in 1932 would have felt little gratitude to the rockefellers or the mellons. but that is not the case in the present economic crisis. after a riot of unbridled greed such as the world has not seen since the conquistadors' looting expeditions and after an unprecedented broad and rapid transfer of wealth upward by wall street and its corporate satellites, where is the popular anger directed, at least as depicted in the media? at "washington spending" — which has increased primarily to provide unemployment compensation, food stamps and medicaid to those economically damaged by the previous decade's corporate saturnalia. or the popular rage is harmlessly diverted against pseudo-issues: death panels, birtherism, gay marriage, abortion, and so on, none of which stands to dent the corporate bottom line in the slightest.

thus far, i have concentrated on republican tactics, rather than republican beliefs, but the tactics themselves are important indicators of an absolutist, authoritarian mindset that is increasingly hostile to the democratic values of reason, compromise and conciliation. rather, this mindset seeks polarizing division (karl rove has been very explicit that this is his principal campaign strategy), conflict and the crushing of opposition.

as for what they really believe, the republican party of 2011 believes in three principal tenets i have laid out below. the rest of their platform one may safely dismiss as window dressing:

1. the GOP cares solely and exclusively about its rich contributors. the party has built a whole catechism on the protection and further enrichment of america's plutocracy. their caterwauling about deficit and debt is so much eyewash to con the public. whatever else president obama has accomplished (and many of his purported accomplishments are highly suspect), his $4-trillion deficit reduction package did perform the useful service of smoking out republican hypocrisy. the GOP refused, because it could not abide so much as a one-tenth of one percent increase on the tax rates of the walton family or the koch brothers, much less a repeal of the carried interest rule that permits billionaire hedge fund managers to pay income tax at a lower effective rate than cops or nurses. republicans finally settled on a deal that had far less deficit reduction — and even less spending reduction! — than obama's offer, because of their iron resolution to protect at all costs our society's overclass.

republicans have attempted to camouflage their amorous solicitude for billionaires with a fog of misleading rhetoric. john boehner is fond of saying, "we won't raise anyone's taxes," as if the take-home pay of an olive garden waitress were inextricably bound up with whether warren buffett pays his capital gains as ordinary income or at a lower rate. another chestnut is that millionaires and billionaires are "job creators." US corporations have just had their most profitable quarters in history; apple, for one, is sitting on $76 billion in cash, more than the GDP of most countries. so, where are the jobs?

another smokescreen is the "small business" meme, since standing up for mom's and pop's corner store is politically more attractive than to be seen shilling for a megacorporation. raising taxes on the wealthy will kill small business' ability to hire; that is the GOP dirge every time bernie sanders or some democrat offers an amendment to increase taxes on incomes above $1 million. but the number of small businesses that have a net annual income over a million dollars is de minimis, if not by definition impossible (as they would no longer be small businesses). and as data from the center for economic and policy research have shown, small businesses account for only 7.2 percent of total US employment, a significantly smaller share of total employment than in most organisation for economic co-operation and development (OECD) countries.

likewise, republicans have assiduously spread the myth that americans are conspicuously overtaxed. but compared to other OECD countries, the effective rates of US taxation are among the lowest. in particular, they point to the top corporate income rate of 35 percent as being confiscatory bolshevism. but again, the effective rate is much lower. did GE pay 35 percent on 2010 profits of $14 billion? no, it paid zero.

when pressed, republicans make up misleading statistics to "prove" that the america's fiscal burden is being borne by the rich and the rest of us are just freeloaders who don't appreciate that fact. "half of americans don't pay taxes" is a perennial meme. but what they leave out is that that statement refers to federal income taxes. there are millions of people who don't pay income taxes, but do contribute payroll taxes — among the most regressive forms of taxation. but according to GOP fiscal theology, payroll taxes don't count. somehow, they have convinced themselves that since payroll taxes go into trust funds, they're not real taxes. likewise, state and local sales taxes apparently don't count, although their effect on a poor person buying necessities like foodstuffs is far more regressive than on a millionaire.

all of these half truths and outright lies have seeped into popular culture via the corporate-owned business press. just listen to CNBC for a few hours and you will hear most of them in one form or another. more important politically, republicans' myths about taxation have been internalized by millions of economically downscale "values voters," who may have been attracted to the GOP for other reasons (which i will explain later), but who now accept this misinformation as dogma.

and when misinformation isn't enough to sustain popular support for the GOP's agenda, concealment is needed. one fairly innocuous provision in the dodd-frank financial reform bill requires public companies to make a more transparent disclosure of CEO compensation, including bonuses. note that it would not limit the compensation, only require full disclosure. republicans are hell-bent on repealing this provision. of course; it would not serve wall street interests if the public took an unhealthy interest in the disparity of their own incomes as against that of a bank CEO. as spencer bachus, the republican chairman of the house financial services committee, says, "in washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated and my view is that washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks."

2. they worship at the altar of mars. while the me-too democrats have set a horrible example of keeping up with the joneses with respect to waging wars, they can never match GOP stalwarts such as john mccain or lindsey graham in their sheer, libidinous enthusiasm for invading other countries. mccain wanted to mix it up with russia — a nuclear-armed state — during the latter's conflict with georgia in 2008 (remember? — "we are all georgians now," a slogan that did not, fortunately, catch on), while graham has been persistently agitating for attacks on iran and intervention in syria. and these are not fringe elements of the party; they are the leading "defense experts," who always get tapped for the sunday talk shows. about a month before republicans began holding a gun to the head of the credit markets to get trillions of dollars of cuts, these same republicans passed a defense appropriations bill that increased spending by $17 billion over the prior year's defense appropriation. to borrow chris hedges' formulation, war is the force that gives meaning to their lives.

a cynic might conclude that this militaristic enthusiasm is no more complicated than the fact that pentagon contractors spread a lot of bribery money around capitol hill. that is true, but there is more to it than that. it is not necessarily even the fact that members of congress feel they are protecting constituents' jobs. the wildly uneven concentration of defense contracts and military bases nationally means that some areas, like washington, DC, and san diego, are heavily dependent on department of defense (DOD) spending. but there are many more areas of the country whose net balance is negative: the citizenry pays more in taxes to support the pentagon than it receives back in local contracts.

and the economic justification for pentagon spending is even more fallacious when one considers that the $700 billion annual DOD budget creates comparatively few jobs. the days of rosie the riveter are long gone; most weapons projects now require very little touch labor. instead, a disproportionate share is siphoned off into high-cost research and development (from which the civilian economy benefits little); exorbitant management expenditures, overhead and out-and-out padding; and, of course, the money that flows back into the coffers of political campaigns. a million dollars appropriated for highway construction would create two to three times as many jobs as a million dollars appropriated for pentagon weapons procurement, so the jobs argument is ultimately specious.

take away the cash nexus and there still remains a psychological predisposition toward war and militarism on the part of the GOP. this undoubtedly arises from a neurotic need to demonstrate toughness and dovetails perfectly with the belligerent tough-guy pose one constantly hears on right-wing talk radio. militarism springs from the same psychological deficit that requires an endless series of enemies, both foreign and domestic.

the results of the last decade of unbridled militarism and the democrats' cowardly refusal to reverse it[4], have been disastrous both strategically and fiscally. it has made the united states less prosperous, less secure and less free. unfortunately, the militarism and the promiscuous intervention it gives rise to are only likely to abate when the treasury is exhausted, just as it happened to the dutch republic and the british empire.

3. give me that old time religion. pandering to fundamentalism is a full-time vocation in the GOP. beginning in the 1970s, religious cranks ceased simply to be a minor public nuisance in this country and grew into the major element of the republican rank and file. pat robertson's strong showing in the 1988 iowa caucus signaled the gradual merger of politics and religion in the party. the results are all around us: if the american people poll more like iranians or nigerians than europeans or canadians on questions of evolution versus creationism, scriptural inerrancy, the existence of angels and demons, and so forth, that result is due to the rise of the religious right, its insertion into the public sphere by the republican party and the consequent normalizing of formerly reactionary or quaint beliefs. also around us is a prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science; it is this group that defines "low-information voter" — or, perhaps, "misinformation voter."

the constitution to the contrary notwithstanding, there is now a de facto religious test for the presidency: major candidates are encouraged (or coerced) to "share their feelings" about their "faith" in a revelatory speech; or, some televangelist like rick warren dragoons the candidates (as he did with obama and mccain in 2008) to debate the finer points of christology, with warren himself, of course, as the arbiter. politicized religion is also the sheet anchor of the culture wars. but how did the whole toxic stew of GOP beliefs — economic royalism, militarism and culture wars cum fundamentalism — come completely to displace an erstwhile civilized eisenhower republicanism?

it is my view that the rise of politicized religious fundamentalism (which is a subset of the decline of rational problem solving in america) may have been the key ingredient of the takeover of the republican party. for politicized religion provides a substrate of beliefs that rationalizes — at least in the minds of followers — all three of the GOP's main tenets.

televangelists have long espoused the health-and-wealth/name-it-and-claim it gospel. if you are wealthy, it is a sign of god's favor. if not, too bad! but don't forget to tithe in any case. this rationale may explain why some economically downscale whites defend the prerogatives of billionaires.

the GOP's fascination with war is also connected with the fundamentalist mindset. the old testament abounds in tales of slaughter — god ordering the killing of the midianite male infants and enslavement of the balance of the population, the divinely-inspired genocide of the canaanites, the slaying of various miscreants with the jawbone of an ass — and since american religious fundamentalist seem to prefer the old testament to the new (particularly that portion of the new testament known as the sermon on the mount), it is but a short step to approving war as a divinely inspired mission. this sort of thinking has led, inexorably, to such phenomena as jerry falwell once writing that god is pro-war.

it is the apocalyptic frame of reference of fundamentalists, their belief in an imminent armageddon, that psychologically conditions them to steer this country into conflict, not only on foreign fields (some evangelicals thought saddam was the antichrist and therefore a suitable target for cruise missiles), but also in the realm of domestic political controversy. it is hardly surprising that the most adamant proponent of the view that there was no debt ceiling problem was michele bachmann, the darling of the fundamentalist right. what does it matter, anyway, if the country defaults? — we shall presently abide in the bosom of the lord.

some liberal writers have opined that the different socio-economic perspectives separating the "business" wing of the GOP and the religious right make it an unstable coalition that could crack. i am not so sure. there is no fundamental disagreement on which direction the two factions want to take the country, merely how far in that direction they want to take it. the plutocrats would drag us back to the gilded age, the theocrats to the salem witch trials. in any case, those consummate plutocrats, the koch brothers, are pumping large sums of money into michele bachman's presidential campaign, so one ought not make too much of a potential plutocrat-theocrat split.

thus, the modern GOP; it hardly seems conceivable that a republican could have written the following:

should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. there is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. among them are h.l. hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. their number is negligible and they are stupid.

(that was president eisenhower, writing to his brother edgar in 1954.)

it is this broad and ever-widening gulf between the traditional republicanism of an eisenhower and the quasi-totalitarian cult of a michele bachmann that impelled my departure from capitol hill. it is not in my pragmatic nature to make a heroic gesture of self-immolation, or to make lurid revelations of personal martyrdom in the manner of david brock. and i will leave a more detailed dissection of failed republican economic policies to my fellow apostate bruce bartlett.

i left because i was appalled at the headlong rush of republicans, like gadarene swine, to embrace policies that are deeply damaging to this country's future; and contemptuous of the feckless, craven incompetence of democrats in their half-hearted attempts to stop them. and, in truth, i left as an act of rational self-interest. having gutted private-sector pensions and health benefits as a result of their embrace of outsourcing, union busting and "shareholder value," the GOP now thinks it is only fair that public-sector workers give up their pensions and benefits, too. hence the intensification of the GOP's decades-long campaign of scorn against government workers. under the circumstances, it is simply safer to be a current retiree rather than a prospective one.

if you think paul ryan and his ayn rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your social security and medicare, i am here to disabuse you of your naiveté.[5] they will move heaven and earth to force through tax cuts that will so starve the government of revenue that they will be "forced" to make "hard choices" — and that doesn't mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked.

during the week that this piece was written, the debt ceiling fiasco reached its conclusion. the economy was already weak, but the GOP's disgraceful game of chicken roiled the markets even further. foreigners could hardly believe it: americans' own crazy political actions were destabilizing the safe-haven status of the dollar. accordingly, during that same week, over one trillion dollars worth of assets evaporated on financial markets. russia and china have stepped up their advocating that the dollar be replaced as the global reserve currency — a move as consequential and disastrous for US interests as any that can be imagined.

if republicans have perfected a new form of politics that is successful electorally at the same time that it unleashes major policy disasters, it means twilight both for the democratic process and america's status as the world's leading power.

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[1] i am not exaggerating for effect. a law passed in 2010 by the arizona legislature mandating arrest and incarceration of suspected illegal aliens was actually drafted by the american legislative exchange council, a conservative business front group that drafts "model" legislation on behalf of its corporate sponsors. the draft legislation in question was written for the private prison lobby, which sensed a growth opportunity in imprisoning more people.

[2] i am not a supporter of obama and object to a number of his foreign and domestic policies. but when he took office amid the greatest financial collapse in 80 years, i wanted him to succeed, so that the country i served did not fail. but already in 2009, mitch mcconnell, the senate republican leader, declared that his greatest legislative priority was — jobs for americans? rescuing the financial system? solving the housing collapse? — no, none of those things. his top priority was to ensure that obama should be a one-term president. evidently senator mcconnell hates obama more than he loves his country. note that the mainstream media have lately been hailing mcconnell as "the adult in the room," presumably because he is less visibly unstable than the tea party freshmen

[3] this is not a venue for immigrant bashing. it remains a fact that outsourcing jobs overseas, while insourcing sub-minimum wage immigrant labor, will exert downward pressure on US wages. the consequence will be popular anger, and failure to address that anger will result in a downward wage spiral and a breech of the social compact, not to mention a rise in nativism and other reactionary impulses. it does no good to claim that these economic consequences are an inevitable result of globalization; germany has somehow managed to maintain a high-wage economy and a vigorous industrial base.

[4] the cowardice is not merely political. during the past ten years, i have observed that democrats are actually growing afraid of republicans. in a quirky and flawed, but insightful, little book, "democracy and populism: fear and hatred," john lukacs concludes that the left fears, the right hates.

[5] the GOP cult of ayn rand is both revealing and mystifying. on the one hand, rand's tough guy, every-man-for-himself posturing is a natural fit because it puts a philosophical gloss on the latent sociopathy so prevalent among the hard right. on the other, rand exclaimed at every opportunity that she was a militant atheist who felt nothing but contempt for christianity. apparently, the ignorance of most fundamentalist "values voters" means that GOP candidates who enthuse over rand at the same time they thump their bibles never have to explain this stark contradiction. and i imagine a democratic officeholder would have a harder time explaining why he named his offspring "marx" than a GOP incumbent would in rationalizing naming his kid "rand."

help us obi-wan, part trois

i think CNN may be trying to kill us. they have announced who has been invited to their september 12th debate, and it includes, rather inexplicably, two "candidates" who aren't currently even running for the office:

in a statement, CNN announces its line-up for the september 12 tea party express co-sponsored debate in tampa: gov. rick perry, rep. michele bachmann, gov. mitt romney, rep. ron paul, newt gingrich, herman cain, rick santorum, and jon huntsman. the network adds that rudy giuliani and sarah palin were invited: "giuliani declined the debate invitation, while a palin representative has yet to respond to it."

you've got to be kidding me, right? we're still pretending rick santorum is somehow worthy of inclusion over, say, gary johnson or buddy roemer, but somehow CNN is still so hard up for slots that they're inviting two republicans who aren't even running? are we all that hard up for sarah palin news, that CNN is desperate to generate some whether she's running or not?

she loves teaching

while i'm always eager to learn ...

(story and art by vanessa davis)

help us obi-wan, part deux

when we last looked on the GOP's slate for 2012, hope seemed all but completely lost. but what a difference a day makes!

... the man known as "joe the plumber" is back, and may run for congress. "i'm not ruling anything out," wurzelbacher told the ticket in an interview thursday. he added that he thought it was an "interesting idea" and that people have been asking him to run for office since he confronted obama four years ago. he's spent much of his time since then on the speaker's circuit, he said, encouraging others to run for office. "i like the idea of it — just regular americans running. if a regular guy runs, right away the media's going to attack him," wurzelbacher said. "what kind of education does he have? what does he know about this? my answer to that is, regular americans aren't experts, but dammit, look where the experts have gotten us. maybe we need some regular guys in there. that's what i've been doing the past two and a half years, just encouraging regular americans to run. tell the liberal media to go to hell and i don't care what you guys say about me, i'm going to try to fix this country." jon stainbrook, chairman of the lucas county republican party, told the blade he's hoping wurzelbacher jumps in. "he would make a fantastic candidate," stainbrook said.

marco rubio
paul ryan
tim pawlenty
chris christie
mitch daniels
donald trump
mike bloomberg
rudy giuliani
jeb bush
sarah palin
"joe the plumber" wurzelbacher

help us obi-wan

... and the search for the savior continues:

"i have no interest in serving as vice president for anyone who could possibly live all eight years of the presidency," rubio said, drawing laughter from crowded room. ... what happens in politics is the minute you start thinking there's something else out there for you, it starts affecting everything you do," he said. "all of a sudden, maybe you're afraid to take a position on a certain issue because it imperils your opportunity to do that something else. so the reality of it is, i'm not going to be the vice presidential nominee. but i look forward to working for whoever our nominee is."

marco rubio
paul ryan
tim pawlenty
chris christie
mitch daniels
donald trump
mike bloomberg
rudy giuliani
jeb bush
sarah palin

this is my hole

what if rod serling had produced manga?

(remember — the panels on each page read from right-to-left)

p10

p11

p12

p13

p14

p15

p16

p17

p18

p19

p20

p21

p22

p23

p24

p25

p26

p27

p28

p29

p30

p31

p32

(story and art by junji ito, 2002)

a michelle bachmann presidency

see also:

"a rick perry presidency"
"a herman cain presidency"
"a mitt romney presidency"
"a rick santorum presidency"
"a newt gingrich presidency"

a rick perry presidency

see also:

"a michelle bachmann presidency"
"a herman cain presidency"
"a mitt romney presidency"
"a rick santorum presidency"
"a newt gingrich presidency"

crazy but not insane

he's "slow", according to those who know him.

he's "hearing voices", according to his lawyers.

his crime is inarguably heinous, but does that mean levi aron's insane?

not according to the law.

in his own words:

aron says he brought [8-year-old leiby kletzky] into his house with the intentions of taking him back to his home the next day, but when he saw the missing [person] flyers he panicked.

"that is when approximately i went for a towel to smother him — in the side room. he fought back a little bit until eventually he stopped breathing. afterwards i panicked because i didn't know what to do with the body," aron said.

now if aron had said he killed leiby because either:

• "my toilet told me to ..."
• "i am abraham and was told not to spare issac ..."
• "i needed something to go with my fava beans ..."

... then he would have something on which to hang an insanity plea: a senseless motive.

but committing murder to evade getting caught for a crime is not senseless. the attempt to destroy evidence — nothing could be more pedestrian. it clearly demonstrates some understanding of right and wrong, a key benchmark when determining the appropriateness of an insanity defense.

at his arraignment psychiatrists determined that he is mentally competent to stand trial and that he understands the charges against him, but his defense team said it may still go with an insanity plea, reports cbs station wcbs.

the defense surely recognizes the weak tea they've been served. perhaps they think they can squeeze a plea of temporary insanity out of the word "panicked", but aron's panic led only to a horrible decision — not an insane one. so, unless they can get aron's confession tossed completely, aron's own words will convict him, easily.

a debt ceiling carol

now that all the shouting's over — for a few hours at least — i believe it's time in the program for our musical number ...

the undefeated*

and the reviews are pouring in ...

richard corliss, time magazine:

"divine"

[director stephen k.] "bannon applies so much idolatrous airbrushing to his portrait of the divine sarah that the movie might be called going rouge."

"may tempt even the most ardent conservatives to emulate their idol"

"the movie may tempt even the most ardent conservatives to emulate their idol's tenure as governor and walk out halfway through."

"the michael moore
of the hard right"

"bannon could be the michael moore of the hard right — if he had some saving sense of humor and if anyone paid to see his movies."

anna merlan, the village voice:

"glowing"

"the movie, which charts her career as mayor of wasilla and governor of alaska, is less a documentary than a glowing two-hour infomercial for sarah palin, presidential candidate to-be."

"without blemish"

"this cartoonish version of real life is paired with a just-as-caricatured view of palin, who in this retelling is entirely without blemish, physical or political, and incapable of missteps."

"honest"

"in one stump speech shown near the end of the undefeated, palin exclaims brightly, "there’s nothing wrong in america a good ol'-fashioned election can't fix!" that's about as honest as this piece of propaganda."

robert abele, los angeles times:

"dizzying"

"a troop-rallying campaign infomercial as imagined by michael bay: hero-worshipping, crescendo-edited at a dizzying pace, thunderously repetitive and its own worst enemy as a two-hour, talking-points briefing."

"a real person"

"visually, she comes off less like a real person and more like a feisty, smiling, news-clip spirit, thumping the walls via press conference/stump speech footage, minus the on-air moments, such as her gaffe-riddled katie couric interview ..."

"from-the-heart"

"... sound bites come off like well-rehearsed testimonials rather than from-the-heart tidbits from intimates and confidantes."

todd mccarthy, the hollywood reporter:

"a must-see"

"nothing about the film earmarks it as a must-see anywhere other than in the living rooms of die-hard loyalists."

"meaningful"

"once you realize the film is just going to be a string of encomiums against a backdrop of frantically edited archival material in which few shots are allowed to stay onscreen longer than three seconds, it's clear that no meaningful analysis of the woman's career or political agenda will be forthcoming."

joe leydon, variety:

"a history lesson"

"faster than the speed of thought, "the undefeated" is a history lesson designed for students with minimal attention spans."

"undefeated"

"political junkies eager to know more about palin's vice-presidential campaign are similarly out of luck. "the undefeated" gives the 2008 election only cursory treatment — maybe because she was, you know, defeated in that one ..."

---

* with apologies to mad magazine ...

gene colan, r.i.p.

award-winning hall-of-fame comic art methuselah gene colan passed away at the age of 84 on june 23th, ending an amazing 65-year career in the business. gene was a master of layout and shadow, who kept his style loose and flowing and his characters nimble, ready to spring (or ooze) off the page at the first sign of trouble.

stan lee:

gene (the dean) had been with us for many years, illustrating anything that needed an artist's deft touch and a movie-maker's eye. gene has long been one of our most cinematically-influenced artists. virtually every panel he draws gives you the feeling that you're watching a scene from a movie. a master photographer himself, gene colan is likewise a master at employing the photographer's art and translating it into the art of comicbook illustration.

... one other talent which gifted gene possesses in great abundance is the ability to make a quiet, static situation look alive and fraught with excitement. years ago, in the bullpen, we used to joke about one panel the genial one had drawn — i can't even remember which strip it was, although it may have been in a daredevil story — in which he merely showed a man's hand holding a doorknob, about to open the door. that's all it was — a hand on a doorknob. yet, because of the exotic lighting he gave to the panel, because of the perspective — the angle at which the hand was seen clutching the knob — because of the modeling of each finger that he drew, gene had made that panel as dramatic and as interesting as any other in the story. like i always say, if you've got a need for a hand clutching a doorknob, colan's your boy!

— son of origins of marvel comics, 1975

creepy #10, "thing of darkness" (1965)

eerie #4, "hatchet man" (1966)

(art by gene colan, stories by archie goodwin)

gene & adrienne colan:
tom:	what do you remember fondly about your time at marvel?
gene:	the beginning with stan, when we were allowed such unprecedented freedom ... that's what i remember. i'd talk with stan about a plot over the phone, and i'd tape record his whole idea — it'd just be a few sentences. "this is what i want in the beginning, the middle, and what i want in the end ... the rest is up to you." i had all the characters work for me, what they looked like was up to me — except those that were already established. but whatever i did, i could do. the one time stan tells about at conventions, because it's laughable, is when i drew a whole page of a hand opening up a door. i did it to expedite matters, [laughs] so i could get through with it, but he didn't like it, he thought i was ...
adrienne:	remember, he called, he says, "what are you doing?"
gene:	"what are you doing — a hand opening up a door? where's the interest in that?"
adrienne:	but stan loves to tell that story at conventions, and we've been there to witness him on panels, telling that story. he always says, "however, if there's anyone who can draw a hand opening up a door, and capture your attention for a whole page, [it's gene]," which is very sweet of him to say. and that's kind of ... that's what made that time very sweet for gene, because stan was wonderful to gene in that way. there was no fear; he didn't use that kind of tactic, even when gene was constantly destroying the pacing of plot. only on occasion would stan call and say, "gene!" it was kind of like that, like a brother begging another brother, "please! please!" but not with the idea like his job was at stake, or, "you don't know what you're doing."
— comic book artist magazine, 2001

daredevil #47, "brother, take my hand" (1968)

colan on "daredevil":

the idea was to choreograph his acrobatics ...

— comic book artist, 2001

(art by gene colan and george klein, story by stan lee)

colan on "captain america":

... the kind of man, like a gary cooper type, where you wish you could be like him, wish you knew him. that's how i looked at him, like someone i would've liked, or would have liked to have had the principles he stood for. i wanted to be like him.

— comic book artist, 2001

capt. america #601, "red, white & blue-blood" (2009)

(art by gene colan and dean white, story by ed brubaker)

ridicule is all they need

ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.
— thomas jefferson

under the classical definition of dramatic irony, the victim of this literary device remains completely unaware of his own victimhood. irony is intended for the audience to savor ...

Ridicule Is All They Have
AS BLOGGERS AND ALTERNATIVE MEDIA CONTINUE TO UNCOVER THE TRUTH ABOUT OBAMA
by Dean C. Haskins, ©2011

(Jun. 27, 2011) — "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage." — Saul Alinsky

My friend Gary Wilmott called me yesterday, mostly just to vent. He had just called Tom Sullivan's Radio Show, wanting to discuss what was on his mind. When Sullivan's call screener came on the line, Wilmott asked, "Why are you discussing Obama's failed public policy in Libya and ignoring the number one issue in this country?" The screener gruffly responded with, "Oh? What's that?" "The fact that Obama released a forged birth certificate to the American people," Wilmott replied. The only response the screener could muster was, "Have you been in a coma for the past two months?" The conversation eventually ended with Wilmott promising to email him some of the mountains of evidence, which I'm sure Mr. Screener will studiously and impartially consider.

Is there any evidence that this document is authentic?

The media appears to have done their job so well. They have worked overtime to condition everyone in this country they can to believe that the first, and only, response to any valid question about Barack Obama's eligibility is ridicule. And, the shallow-minded sheeple have fallen into line. As Saul Alinsky pointed out, "It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule," however, we must embrace one word in that statement: almost. About the only thing short of physical violence that defeats ridicule is truth — and that's the one place where these folks don't want to go, for they know they have no defense against the facts. That's why they invariably attack the messenger — they know that they have no substantive argument against the facts.

Recently, I posted a letter I had written to two public officials, in response to their statements that demonstrated that very line of reasoning — that ridicule can somehow defeat the truth. I had planned to leave these arrogant fools, and move on to the next batch of buffoons, but a response I received from the official in Montana was so blatantly denigrating and pompous that my wife insisted that the world needs to see this person for who she is. I thought about it, and decided that everyone needs to be reminded how these non-arguments work, and how to combat them. Oh, and when your wife insists ...

Before we get to the more serious of the two offenders, let me share how it went with the more benign Arkansas character.

Subject: RE: your emails
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2011 15:33:31 -0500
From: [AR State Senator Jimmy Jeffress]

Dean,

I unsubscribed to not have to read this drivel ... now, you are still e-mailing me with it.

Please drop my name from your address book.

To: [AR State Senator Jimmy Jeffress]
Subject: RE: your emails
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2011 20:00:27 -0400

Senator Jeffress:

This is me not writing back to you.

Please rest assured that you are not, nor have you ever been, on any of my email lists. I simply emailed you directly because of your insipid commentary on my article that was emailed to you by somebody else.

Ignorance is sometimes an unavoidable consequence of circumstances; however, willful ignorance is purely volitional. You now have a choice. The evidence I have provided you (and, believe me, there is much, much more available) is irrefutable. You may no longer claim circumstantial ignorance, as the truth has been shared with you. If you choose to be willfully ignorant about this matter, then that will be nothing less than shameful.

Choose not to be a disgrace, Senator Jeffress.

For our Constitution,

Dean C. Haskins

P.S. Oh yeah, you might enjoy this: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/37864

Subject: Re: your emails
From: [AR State Senator Jimmy Jeffress]
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2011 19:09:11 -0500

Dean,

The reason I am even responding to this is to tell you and anyone else who have written articles and sent me e-mails is that as a state-level legislator in Arkansas, I have zero input on being able to have any impact on the situation. For anyone to think otherwise is the height of ignorance. Now leave me alone, please!

To: [AR State Senator Jimmy Jeffress]
Subject: RE: your emails
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2011 20:16:54 -0400

Senator Jeffress:

You're obviously not familiar with a little thing called the Constitution, then, for your statement is erroneous — especially in light of the Supreme Court's recent ruling on the 9th and 10th Amendments: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-1227.pdf.

Also, the criminal code I cited applies to every citizen equally, and that includes state-level legislators in Arkansas.

So, I don't think I've yet reached the specific "height" you referenced. Do some reading, and maybe you won't either.

For our Constitution,

Dean C. Haskins

[snip]

Subject: Re: your emails
From: [AR State Senator Jimmy Jeffress]
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2011 20:53:00 -0500

Do you always believe everything you read? Please slink back into your cave and do whatever it is that you do whenever you are lonely. I'm tired of your little game. I actually have a life ... a wife and family and I plan to spend the week-end in uninterrupted bliss with them. Your e-mail address is in the process of being permanently blocked from my receiving it. Good night.

To: [AR State Senator Jimmy Jeffress]
Subject: RE: your emails
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2011 23:08:55 -0400

Do you even read? Why are you so afraid of the evidence? Do you believe Major General Paul Vallely should slink back into his cave as well? How about the experts who have proclaimed the piece of trash computer image to be a forgery?

Only an imbecile would reject evidence before examining it.

Of course, I had a difficult time sleeping last night knowing that my email address was being permanently blocked from this Einstein's inbox. But, let me ask, do you see anywhere in his communication that he was willing to have a frank conversation about the evidence? Oh, sorry. He's probably reading this, and the word "frank" invariably makes him think about Anthony Weiner, and it brings a tear to his eye.

And now, on to the other brainwashed liberal elitist. It's so amusing that they consider themselves to be so intelligent, but are not capable of discussing something as elementary as evidence.

Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2011 18:36:59 -0600
From: [MT Rep. Robyn Driscoll]
To: dean@deanhaskins.com; [AR State Senator Jimmy Jeffress]
Subject: Re: your emails

You and your ilk are, as my much beloved Governor would say, "bat-**** crazy." If you would spend as much time on the deep issues facing our country as you do on your loony ideas and so-called "proof" of your utter nonsense, you could quite possibly make a difference. Ever gone to a school housing our low-income students and volunteered to help them with their reading skills? Ever participated in a fundraiser for people with severe illness who can't afford medical care? If you weren't so pathetic, you would be every bit as laughable as you find me and the Honorable Senator Jeffress. Take your energy (and obvious fabulous research skills ... yeah right) and put them to use in positive, progressive ways. You will feel much better about yourself and others may begin to look at you as a legitimate member of society. I'll look forward to hearing from you after your first growing experience.

Robyn

To: [MT Rep. Robyn Driscoll]; [AR State Senator Jeffress]
Subject: RE: your emails
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2011 21:33:29 -0400

Representative Driscoll:

It's so amusing to see one vacuous liberal show that another vacuous liberal is an equally "deep thinker." Why am I not surprised that Governor Schweitzer's class reaches no higher than yours?

Apparently, to socialists like you, the Constitution doesn't qualify as a "deep issue," however there are multitudes of us out here who still regard it as the highest law in the land, and about the only thing that we have to try to keep political miscreants (read: liberals) from destroying our country. Barack Obama and his congregation have broken that law, and we will not be handily dismissed by anyone, let alone someone like you.

It is always so clear when someone is faced with evidence they cannot refute, for they will invariably attack the one who has presented the evidence to them. Let me reiterate — the evidence I presented you is irrefutable, regardless of the lies that you allow to lace your thought processes. But then, you wouldn't be a liberal if you didn't do that.

Your lofty sounding rhetoric sounds honorable, until one realizes that those "low-income students" are there largely because of tax and spend liberals like you; and, the moronic, unconstitutional health care legislation that was passed in the dark of night last year will simply make medical care that much harder to obtain for those "people with severe illness."

I do want to point out a glaring error in something else you said. Politically speaking, "positive" and "progressive" are actually mutually exclusive. Moreover, the rule of law in this nation is not based on how anybody feels about himself; and, I was born in this country to citizen parents, so I am a natural born Citizen, and that sufficiently makes me a legitimate member of society. Your warm and fuzzy feelings about me do not determine that.

As I just wrote Mr. Jeffress, "Ignorance is sometimes an unavoidable consequence of circumstances; however, willful ignorance is purely volitional. You now have a choice. The evidence I have provided you (and, believe me, there is much, much more available) is irrefutable. You may no longer claim circumstantial ignorance, as the truth has been shared with you. If you choose to be willfully ignorant about this matter, then that will be nothing less than shameful." I also urged him to choose not to be a disgrace.

However, it certainly appears that you are not only willfully ignorant, you are proudly ignorant, which makes you already a disgrace. I pray your political career is as insignificant as the depth of your intellect.

For our Constitution,

Dean C. Haskins

P.S. I shared this with your liberal friend, and you should enjoy it as well: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/37864

Just like her Arkansas counterpart, she never once actually discussed the evidence, other than to ridicule the thought of it. Of course, when ridicule is met as the first response, it's sometimes fun to fight fire with fire, and reply in kind. However, we need to make sure that we only pepper the facts with ridicule, and not allow ridicule to be the entire basis of our argument; otherwise, we will be reduced to their incipient level.

When you're faced with this type of argument, keep these things in mind:

• Consider the source (it's not personal — they hate the truth in this)
• Always present the facts (there are innumerable resources available)
• Trust in the truth (in the end, the truth must prevail for America to exist)

By the way, I have purposely included the email addresses of Jeffress and Driscoll. Their comments were not directed primarily to me, for they don't know me. They were leveled at you as well. You might want to take a moment and let them know how you feel about being called "crazy idiots." I have a feeling they might not be so quick to respond the next time.

---

Dean Haskins is a freelance writer, professional musician/producer, and the former chairman of Restore the Constitutional Republic, one of the original "birther" organizations. He can be reached at dean@deanhaskins.com, and his blog is here.

© 2011, The Post & Email.

(emphases and redactions mine)

photoshop disaster

screenshot from this morning's new york times website:

yes, i'd be horrified too if the top and side of my head were blown away by some overworked intern ...

birthers on books

who says birthers can't read? ^[1]

concerned citizen youtuber LoneStar1776, who provided some post-conviction pizzazz to the wrap-up of december's birther court-martial, has returned to the limelight (as a federal "person of interest", most likely) with a review and a question for preemptively debunked conspiracy author jerome corsi:

alright — hey guys, i hope everyone is doin' well. this is rudy.

hey, uh, see this book here? where's the birth certificate by jerome corsi? y'see that? ok, um, i've started to read it, i haven't read the whole thing yet. um, one thing i noticed, is that, uh, i looked in the index — i don't see lt. col. terry lakin's name. i don't see pastor james david manning's name. i don't see walter, ah, fitzpatrick, cmdr. walter fitzpatrick. i don't see cmdr. kerchner. i do see orly taitz and phil berg, which are two, uh, lawyers and so that's a good thing and i'm not here to get on jerome corsi's case, but ... y'know the title of this video is are you willing to die?, right, and that's what it's gonna take and so i hope jerome corsi is willing to die. because that's obviously what's it's gonna take to bring the tu— truth out in the atmosphere that we have today.

and a lot of people have asked me and i know a lot of you people, uh, like trump and quite a few of you people don't like trump. and so, you have to ask yourself, y'know — trump pushed the issue — he obviously released a forged, fraudulent piece of crap. anybody that knows anything about computers knows that that, uh, adobe pdf document is not a scan of a real document, that it's a computer-generated fraudulent piece of junk, right? but people have asked me what do i think about trump? well, trump did push the issue and he was very bold so there's only, there's one of two things: either he was in on it, right — that's one possibility, i dunno the man's heart — one possibility is that trump was in on it and that, uh, y'know, he's been promised some big payoff like he gets to built his casino somewhere, y'know, he gets some kind of government, uh, okay or whatever. i don't know what the big deal is with buildin' a casino somewhere, but let's just say that that was a possibility, that he was in on it and now he gets to build a casino.

the other option is — that they threatened him, right? that he actually was threatened. okay, either one of those options. either one of those options, whether he was in on it, right, or he was threatened ... i don't like donald trump. the reason i don't is, when he pushed the issue, to the point, uh, y'know, and, and got, and he took, took up the mantle and he stood on the backs of giants. he stood on the back of pastor james david manning. he stood on the back of lt. col. terry lakin. he stood on the back of orly taitz. he stood on the back of phil berg and he became, uh, the flag-bearer, for the birth certificate and the constitutional eligibility bearers. when donald trump did that, he shoulda been willin' to die. and if he was threatened and he backed off, then he's no leader of mine.

so, if he, if he's in on it, he's total scum, he needs to be hung, until dead, from the nearest tree, and if he was threatened and he backed off, he's still scum, because he shoulda been willin' to die.

now many of you people will say, "well, it's easy for you to get behind a youtube camera and to play mr. tough guy." and i would agree with you. it's easy for people to get behind youtube cameras and to play mr. tough guy. uh, but i would just offer for your consideration: it's up to you to discern whether somebody's bein' truthful or not. and i would offer that pastor james david manning has been at this for three years and i know, just from my association with him and following him that pastor james david manning is willin' to die and i would feel a whole lot more comfortable with pastor james david manning being the flag-bearer for the constitutional eligibility issue and also the, uh, birther issue. i would feel much more comfortable with him in the driver's seat, rather than this corsi guy.

is, is corsi a good guy? is he willin' to die? uh, i hope he is, because that's what it's gonna take. has he wroten a book and prost — and uh, progressed the issue? yes, and i thank doc, uh, dr. jerome corsi. i thank him for that. right? but i ain't gonna bow down to him if he's not willin' to die.

uh, we got people that are being deployed by a, uh, leader and a, ah, leader and thief, right? a constitutionally ineligible president that is the head of our military. that's deployin' our military around and engaging them in activities, and he's not even constitutionally eligible to be president. and, and, and, when you go, uh, address somethin' like that, you better, you better have it fixed in your heart and you better know with 100 percent certainty that you're right and you better be willin' to lay your life down.

and if you're not willin' to lay your life down, then get the hell outta the way and let somebody step up to the plate who is willin' to do what it takes and to risk what it takes, and to put their life on the line to do what's right! that's what i gotta say about that!

and if jerome corsi, if he's gotta, if he's got the heart for it, and he's, he's, and he's willin' to fight the fight, then i applaud him and i thank him. but if he's gonna back down when they threaten him, or if they threaten his family, then i'm asking jerome corsi to get the hell outta the way! GET THE HELL! OUT! OF! THE WAY! AND LET SOMEBODY GET UP TO THE MICROPHONE THAT'S WILLIN' TO DIE! THAT'S WILLIN' TO DO WHAT'S RIGHT! THAT'S WILLIN' TO, UH, TO RISK ALL THEIR TREASURE! ALL OF THEIR LIFE! ALL OF THEIR FRIENDS! TO BE RIDICULED IN THE MEDIA AND TO TELL THE TRUTH! AND JEROME CORSI, IF YOU'RE THAT MAN, I WILL APPLAUD YOU AND I WILL THANK YOU! BUT IF YOU'RE NOT THAT MAN, GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY AND LET PASTOR JAMES DAVID MANNING UP TO THE PLATE! LET CMDR. KERCHNER UP TO THE PLATE! LET, LET, LET LT. COL. TERRY LAKIN UP TO THE PLATE! BECAUSE THESE MEN WILL RISK EVERYTHING THEY GOT! AND I HOPE JEROME CORSI IS THE MAN OF HEART AND OF COURAGE AND OF TRUTH! AND IF HE'S NOT, THEN I WILL SPIT ON HIM BECAUSE HE IS A PIECE OF SHIT!

that's all i gotta say about that! god bless every one of ya and my question, my question to jerome corsi is: are you willin' ta die?

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[1] ok, like most folks, i may have said as much, to someone, somewhere ... somewhat often.

waiting for OMGodot

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dedicated to "squeeky":

i listened to the interview and it was certainly interesting. but i am starting to get that feeling i get when i watch destination truth or ghost hunter on TV. you know when they are out looking for werewolves in minnesota and right before the commercial somebody hollers OH MY GOD!!!

then you stick around through the commercial to see if they found the werewolf or big foot or whatever they are hunting for and when it comes back on, somebody tripped over a log or something or there was raccoon in the bush.

or if it’s ghost hunter the "spirit orbs" turns out to be dust reflecting lights. sooo, i hope if corsi* has something good, he gets it out in a hurry and doesn’t make this last through another few books or something. because i am not sure my heart can take all this.

* jerome corsi, shameless peddler of stillborn expose where's the birth certificate?

and acknowledgments to ray bradbury, whose title i stole from his 1951 short story about existential doubt — an astronaut loses his confidence in evidence or memory, his sense of object permanence, his belief in his own existence and, ultimately, his life:

i don't believe in anything i can't see or hear or touch. i can't see earth, so why should i believe in it?

... when i'm in boston, new york is dead. when i'm in new york, boston is dead. when i don't see a man for a day, he's dead. when he comes walking down the street, my god, it's a resurrection. i do a dance, almost, i'm so glad to see him. i used to, anyway. i don't dance any more.

... you have no mental evidence. that's what i want, a mental evidence i can feel. i don't want physical evidence, proof you have to go out and drag in. i want evidence that you can carry in your mind and always touch and smell and feel. but there's no way to do that. in order to believe in a thing you've got to carry it with you. you can't carry the earth. or a man, in your pocket. i want a way to do that, carry things with me always, so i can believe in them.

... there was always that gap of proof. that gap between doing and having done. what is done is dead and is not proof, for it is not an action. only actions are important. and pieces of paper were remains of actions done and over and now unseen. the proof of doing was over and done. nothing but memory remained, and i didn't trust my memory. could i actually prove i'd written these stories? no. can any author?

however, unlike the doomed astronaut, birthers aren't actually sincere in their endless demands for "evidence"; they simply hide behind such claims in order to deny the results of the 2008 election.

a day in june

as enjoyed by howard cruse in the june 1984 edition of heavy metal magazine: