Talk about having your bad night, politically speaking.

Incumbent Arizona Governor Jan Brewer engaged Democratic candidate and Attorney General Terry Goddard in a debate Wednesday night. She began the evening by freezing like a deer in the television headlights when asked to recite a perfunctory, self-laudatory greeting. That alone is talk of the political world today: a gubernatorial candidate that couldn’t manage her own opening statement.

Perhaps she hadn’t done enough to embarrass herself.

During the debate, Goddard called on Brewer to recant a lie she had told, one meant to drive up the hysteria surrounding the evil immigrants and the destruction of her precious Arizona: they had been killing and beheading people out in the desert. Goddard correctly pointed out that it was absolutely false and that it made Arizona look like a haven for lurid violence. Brewer just ignored the call.

Until she got confronted by the press after the sorry event. Christina Boomer from ABC 15, among others, confronted her: Why haven’t you admitted the beheadings never happened? The press were in agreement — it’s not a trivial matter, do you really still believe the rumor to be true? Oops, now Brewer was stuck.

Or was she?

Naw, no problem.

Back in the old days, politicians were much more in agreement about things like this . . the public were always owed the truth. It was so universally embraced as a political tenet that even a single lie, especially left unaddressed, could easily and justifiably derail a candidacy. A politician’s scrupulous honesty might have been the one thing that both parties demanded from their people, with almost no exception.

Times have changed. Jan Brewer doesn’t owe you a thing.

Here comes the worst introduction to a debate by a major national politician I can remember.

Sure, all sorts of people, the mortals, will geek in the middle of a debate when they’re trying to recall certain facts, numbers and statistics. When an opponent attacks, sometimes you might frustratingly freeze while searching for the vital ammo you need to fight back. All the pressure, the lights, the cameras, the endless amounts of esoteric info — they take their toll.

But the intro?! Your own self-prepared statement?

She couldn’t manage “Hello, my name is Jan Brewer, and I fight for the people of Arizona”? Or “Arizona is a leader in business, technology and innovation”?

A professional politician can’t begin with anything better than this? . .

“I have, uh . . . . . . . . . . done so much, and I just cannot believe that we have changed everything since I be-ha-come your governor in the last 600 days. Arizona has been brought back from its abyss. We have cut the budget, we have balanced the budget, and we are moving forward. And we have done everything that we could possibly do . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *laugh* . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . We have, uh . . . . did what was right for Arizona. I will tell you that I have really did the very best that anyone could do. We have pushed back hard against the federal government, we have filed suit against Obama healthcare, and, and, we have passed Senate Bill 1070, and we will continue to do what’s right for Arizona. I ask for your vote, thank you.”

“I have really did the best that anyone can do”? That’s the person that will end up as Governor of Arizona? C’mon, being Governor is a very big deal — governorships are where Presidents are born. Governor Ronald Reagan, Governor Jimmy Carter, Governor Bill Clinton, Governor George W. Bush.

It’s one thing to end up in the office by default, but to be voted in by the citizens? Jan Brewer? Wow.

Why do right-wingers demand to be lied to?

Glenn Beck this weekend: “I know that many in this country think that I’m a fear-monger. It is not a . . it is not a label that, I think, applies . .”

Glenn Beck previously:

–“I think what’s coming is horrific. I don’t even want to speak it out loud . .”

–“I can tell you there will be rivers of blood . .”

–“Are we headed for a one-world government . .”

–“A global economic holocaust is coming . .”

–“It’s September the Eleventh all over again, except we didn’t have the collapsing buildings . .”

–“If you haven’t done your homework yet — what is it going to take? I urge you to catch up on it, and catch up on it fast. It’s kind of important, for a couple of reasons. One . . uhh . . the whole end of time thing . .”

Ah, yes, the end of time. It’s on Obama’s agenda.

All Glenn Beck’s ever done to become one of the biggest and richest media figures in this country is lie from the minute he gets on camera to the second the credits roll. Now that he wants to be a civil rights leader, ushering a radical new era in American history, all he did this weekend was lie some more, including lying very obviously about his lying.

Why do right wingers want and need to be lied to? My father, a right-winger, who passed away a few years ago, had a life-long friend of his we’ll call Jim. Jim is the salt of the earth. He would never lie to you in almost any reasonable circumstance, I can’t fathom it. As a businessman, he carries the same reputation he does in private life, not a dishonest bone in his body.

But as soon as politics comes up, he can’t stand to listen to anybody who isn’t lying to him: Limbaughs and Hannitys and such. When he brings up one of their gems of ‘truth’ while around me, and I’m in the mood to shoot it down (he’s an awfully nice man, after all), he’s genuinely shocked that it might not be true.

That contrast is so stark, it’s shocking really. You’d have to torture the guy to get him to lie, and yet, of politics, he would never apply even a wisp of that behavioral standard to the media figures he trusts.

I mention this to point out how people get and indulge their politics, especially those on the right: it is a drug. It provides the sort of visceral reaction or catharsis that a decent drug would. For them, the veracity of a political thing is secondary — the primary thing is the buzz it delivers.

So your Glenn Becks are the biggest drug dealers, they deliver the best shit. They know how to distill their message so that just a little bit of it goes a very long way. And that’s why they’re all filthy rich, too, like a bunch of drug dealers. There is a hungry, jones-ing market for political smack, and the Bill O’Reillys will deliver as long as they’re able. If you can deliver the high, you get rewarded with power.

Which brings me to this, the President’s interview with Brian Williams:

“I can’t spend all my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead,” Mr. Obama told NBC’s Brian Williams in an interview in New Orleans. “The facts are the facts. And so, it’s not something that I can I think spend all my time worrying about. And I don’t think the American people want me to spend all my time worrying about it.”

He’s wrong there, I think.

A CBS News poll conducted in April found that 20 percent of Americans believe the president was born outside of the United States. Those numbers rise among self-identified Republicans and Tea Partiers. Mr. Obama was born in Hawaii. Meanwhile, a Pew Research Center poll released earlier this month showed that 18 percent of Americans incorrectly said they think Mr. Obama is Muslim. Another 43 percent said they didn’t know the president’s religion, while just 34 percent correctly said he is a Christian.

I can’t imagine a whole fifth of the country buying outrageous lies about any Republican president. Obama is wrong to believe that it’s only silly ridiculousness. Huge sections of the country are walking around with heads full of Glenn Beck’s Terrorist Purple Haze. At some point, as it is with any drug that distorts perception and reality, if enough people are under the influence, bad things will happen.

You can’t seriously believe this has no deleterious effects upon the political environment and the tenor of the times. When one side of the country believes things wildly untrue and is getting very well rewarded for doing so, viscerally and psychologically, you are setting the nation up for some serious stress at some point. You may even be headed towards violence. You can’t ignore so many people and think it will help you, as a President or a nation, in the long run.

As the first seriously contending Black presidential candidate, you may have been able to run by ignoring the lunatics on the right, but you’re the President now. You’ve got to attend to the whole nation. If you don’t start seriously pushing back at these caustic lies, you’re running a dangerous course for everybody involved.

. . Plans are for the facility to include a 500-seat auditorium, theater, performing arts center, fitness center, swimming pool, basketball court, childcare area, bookstore, culinary school, art studio, food court serving halal dishes, September 11th memorial, and prayer space for 1,000–2,000 Muslims. It would replace an existing 1850s Italianate building that was damaged in the September 11 attacks, and is located two blocks (about 600 feet, or 180 meters) from the World Trade Center site in Manhattan . .

Although the building is currently used for Muslim worship . .

That’s right — the dirty Muslims have been praying there for a while. Nonetheless, the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ bigot-o-rama continues to rally. Or the rallies continue to bigot, as seen in this video I caught on Rumproast where the pack animals close in on what they thought was a Muslim. He was just a local carpenter.

And your big-time politicians are hardly pretending to be nuanced any more. What’s the problem? Muslims are the problem.

Newt Gingrich: “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor.”

All Muslims = uniformed soldiers of foreign countries at war with America. Well, that’s simple enough to understand. These brown Americans, they are murderous traitors.

Christians would be our Army, incidentally. The Pope must be one of our Generals. He, if I remember correctly, used to be an actual Nazi, and now we’ve come full circle. Use a Nazi to beat a Nazi?

As long as we’re being ridiculous, here’s my funny little addition. This is not Americans in their finest hours, this is brazen, bold-faced bigotry. It’s disgusting. I’m tired of all the crap people are foisting upon the public to justify their ugliness. And there’s no reasoning or logic to support these ‘positions’, this is utterly mindless.

Consider Dennis Rader, the BTK serial murderer. He bound, tortured and killed 10 people in and around Wichita, Kansas. He speaks of his unspeakable crimes, here.

He was a devout Christian, a member of his local Christ Lutheran Church. Heck, he was President of their Congregation Council. What does this say of devout Christians? And how should Lutherans be treated? How should we now allow them to behave in our society?

140 miles from Wichita, consider the Westboro Baptist Church. These are the ‘God Hates Fags’ people. These are also the folks that show up at the funerals of military people and yell at the mourners that their loved one, the soldier, or Marine, or airman, deserved to die. This is God’s way: it’s divine retribution for Americans tolerating the abomination of homosexuality.

This is not just Christians acting badly — this is their faith. Nothing less, nothing more. They are called upon to do this in the name of God and in the name of Jesus Christ.

How are we to deal with Baptists now? What should we allow them to do? Where will we now tolerate their building community centers, or churches?

Consider the Church of Latter Day Saints, they have a 9/11 all their own. Paranoid Mormon settlers, fearing outsiders and annihilation by the U.S. Government (familiar?), attacked a Mountain Meadows, Utah, wagon train of California bound settlers. The attack led to a stalemate, a siege. When the attackers, though they were disguised as Paiute Indians, realized that the defenders were aware they were actually Mormons, the local authority ordered them all to be killed lest survivors’ stories reach Washington.

Told they would be given safe passage outside of Mountain Meadows if they threw down their weapons, the defenders did. All but the children were summarily slaughtered, 120 of them. The children were whisked off and given to Mormon families to be raised as their own. September the 11th, 1857.

What are we now to do with the believers in Christ? How are we to deal with the Mormons? What should they be allowed to do?

Aren’t Republicans generous with black Democratic politicians? Aren’t they sympathetic and understanding of their travails? Why, lordy, yes they are! Can’t you just sense their fairly vibrating in psychic harmony with those future leaders of . .

. . OOPS! Nothing to see here:

June 14, 2010 12:15 P.M.
The Beauty of Alvin Greene
Jim Geraghty | National Review Online
‘His fairy-tale mystery victory is refreshing, because it subversively suggests that everything we think we know about campaigning is wrong.’

---

How the heck did Alvin Greene, an unemployed veteran who lives with his parents and who had no discernable [sic] campaign activity, not only win the South Carolina Democratic Senate primary, but win by a wide margin? . .

It’s called “election fraud”. You can look that up in the “Encyclopedia of Ducks.” It’s a comprehensive source, divided into three parts: looks, quacks and waddles.

Still, an FEC investigation of what, precisely? Does anyone actually want to stake his reputation on an accusation of a vast conspiracy to commit ballot fraud, for the sole purpose of getting Alvin Greene instead of Vic Rawl on the ballot against Jim DeMint? Are we really supposed to think that a South Carolina GOP incumbent, elected with 54 percent of the vote in 2004, who has raised $6 million and is running in a good year for Republicans, was quaking in his boots at the thought of taking on a former circuit-court judge who came out of retirement to be elected to the Charleston County Council?

Well, that settles it. Of course, this sort of crap happens in South Carolina all the time, but, if there’s no point in even running a Democrat, if it’s just a stupid pantomime, then we can all pack up and go home now. First, though, a minuscule bit of whimsy: it’s a big, fat crime. Right, nothing to see here.

Bee-tee-double-yoo, I tried to look up “Jim Geraghty With His Tongue In His Cheek” in the duck book, but I couldn’t find it, so I’m left to assume he’s just dumb.

Of course, “Al Green” is the name of a famous gospel and soul singer. Beyond that, the candidate probably was helped by the fact that he had an exceptionally common name, and thus many voters might mistake the name on the ballot for some other “Al Green” they know.

. . and now I’m bereft of assumptions. Thanks, Jim.

How many guys in South Carolina are known to friends, neighbors, associates, and acquaintances as “Al Green” or “Al Greene”? According to public phone records, there are at least six residents named “Al Green,” five named “Albert Green,” three named “Alvin Green,” and four named “Alan Green.” How many voters saw the name and thought, “Oh, I know him?”

OH YEAH. Alvin-next-door, the guy who used to sit on his couch and watch TV with his hand down his pants, eating pork rinds and farting so loudly it shook our blinds. Of course! Looks like he got around to running for the United States Senate! Good for him.

Continue Reading »

Stop calling it weird. Or mysterious. Stop calling it a surprise.

Sen. Nominee Was Kicked Out of Army, Has Felony Charge Pending
By DEVIN DWYER and STEVE OSUNSAMI
MANNING, S.C., June 9, 2010

Alvin Greene, the surprise South Carolina Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, was kicked out of the Army last year and is facing a pending felony charge, according to court records obtained by ABC News.

Greene, who has yet to enter a plea or be indicted, was arrested in November and charged with “disseminating, procuring or promoting obscenity” in Richland County, S.C., and faces up to five years in prison if convicted.

The U.S. Senate candidate was captured on video surveillance Nov. 4 trying to show “obscene photographs from a website” to a female victim on the University of South Carolina campus and go to her room without her consent, according to the affidavit . .

Greene has been unemployed and living in his rural hometown 60 miles south of Columbia. He doesn’t own a cell phone and there is no computer in his house . .

Greene shocked South Carolina Democrats Tuesday when he won a commanding victory over four-term state lawmaker Vic Rawl in the primary without the help of a war chest of campaign cash or an orchestrated effort to win voters across the state. In fact, there is little evidence that he campaigned at all.

There’s a good reason for that. He didn’t do any campaigning.

So stop calling Greene’s landslide victory in the S.C. Dem Senate primary anything other than what it was: massive right-wing election fraud. They found the perfect stooge to cheat into the Democratic spot so that the ultra-conservative Jim DeMint would win. And HERE WE ARE . .

. . and barring something righting the wrong, like finding out who pulled it off and prosecuting them or Greene’s stepping down (which the pawn has refused to do), the Senate election in South Carolina will be a laugher.

Because nobody is going to vote for this howling dog. And I am putting it lightly: this (below, sadly) is the confused mutt the Democrats supposedly nominated, by the thousands, to become a member of perhaps the most powerful political body on the planet:

Contrast Greene’s senatorial “campaign” with those of California’s Republican gubernatorial candidates in the primary that also got settled on Tuesday. Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner spent more than $90,000,000 on their race. Poizner put in at least $24,000,000 and lost. Alvin Greene put in . . $2,000. And won huge. Errh, ‘ching’?

Well, let’s chat: if no one would dare vote for this loser in November, how did he end up as the nominee? Why did they vote for him on Tuesday? They didn’t.

South Carolina’s electronic voting machines merely said they did. The fraud was and is so obvious that there’s little drama attached to the whole thing, actually. Someone programmed the machines to choose this naked donkey, so — voila — the Democrats get unemployed molester Alvin Greene to back in November.

Greene’s far-favored opponent in the primary race, state legislator and professional politician Vic Rawl, and his campaign people have plenty of evidence of the crime.

First of all, understand that Alvin Greene did NO campaigning, none. He showed up on filing day with a personal check for the hefty fee ($10,400), was told he had to file with a committee check, ran out and came back with a counter check with “Alvin Greene for US Senate” handwritten on the top. Then he utterly disappeared. No website, didn’t show up at any events (including a big one in his hometown), no signs, no nothing. I was tracking him, just in case, because of general paranoia, but never had any reports of activity.

Ridiculous, comical evidence. The most glaring came in comparing the absentee ballots with the election-day ballots. The key: absentee ballots were not counted by the hacked ES&S machines:

In Lancaster County, Rawl won absentee ballots over Greene by a staggering 84 percent to 16 percent margin; but Greene easily led among Election Day voters by 17 percentage points.

In Spartanburg County, Ludwig said there are 25 precincts in which Greene received more votes than were actually cast and 50 other precincts where votes appeared to be missing from the final count.

“In only two of 88 precincts, do the number of votes Greene got plus the number we got equal the total cast,” Ludwig said.

Greene also racked up a 75 percent or greater margin in one-seventh of all precincts statewide, a mark that Ludwig notes is even difficult for an incumbent to reach.

A man who is completely unknown to anybody, who got kicked out of the Army, who has a lurid felony hanging over his head, who mysteriously enters a federal Senate campaign, but then collects or spends no money, and never actually campaigns, never posts a website or Facebook or Twitter account, never surfaces to trash or lessen or debate his opponent, he — slack-faced Alvin Greene — routs the South Carolina Senate primary?

I’m starting to wonder if the law will ever be implemented. Governor Jan Brewer and the anti-immigration mob are so smitten with their precious statute that God forbid the cat should sit on it.

Arizona’s Attorney general, Terry Goddard, is no fan of the law. But he is a professional and will defend it should he need to because, well, that’s his job:

Goddard Urges Federal Government Not to File Immigration Lawsuit, Vows Vigorous Defense if Suit is Brought

(Phoenix, Ariz. — May 28, 2010) Attorney General Terry Goddard today urged lawyers from the U.S. Justice Department not to file a federal lawsuit against Arizona’s new immigration law.

In a meeting at the Attorney General’s Office, Goddard told the federal government’s lawyers that Arizona “needs solutions not lawsuits.” He said that if the federal government decides to bring a lawsuit, “Arizona will fight back.” The new law will take effect July 29.

The Justice Department lawyers came to Phoenix to meet with state officials as a precursor to possibly filing a suit that would challenge the constitutionality of the law, also known as Senate Bill 1070. The federal lawyers made clear that no final decision has been made about filing a suit.

The political nobody, Jan Brewer, who inherited the top position after Obama asked then-Governor Janet Napolitano to run the department of Homeland Security, has seen her popularity explode after signing the bill. The wave of anti-immigrant ill will poses her as a shoo-in for election and for continuing as Governor of the state.

So this law appears to be precious property of the Governor. So much so, it seems, that she’s gotten maybe a little paranoid and bug-eyed over it. Especially since she’ll be running against a familiar name in the controversy over the legislation: Terry Goddard.

The meeting between federal officials and the Arizona AG proved to be too much for Brewer to wonder about — she just barred her own Attorney General from getting anywhere near her meal ticket:

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer abruptly suspends state’s attorney general from illegal immigrant law defense
May 28, 2010 | 11:22 pm

A sudden new twist in the ongoing rhetorical and legal struggle over Arizona’s tough new law to round up illegal immigrants.

Late Friday night as the Memorial Day weekend began, Arizona’s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, in effect, suspended the state’s Democratic attorney general from defending the new law in upcoming legal challenges. The measure, known as S.B. 1070, is due to take effect this summer and, among other things, allows local police under federal guidelines to check the immigration status of people they stop . .

“Due to Attorney General Goddard’s curious coordination with the U.S. Department of Justice today and his consistent opposition to Arizona’s new immigration laws, I will direct my legal team to defend me and the State of Arizona rather than the Attorney General in the lawsuits challenging Arizona’s immigration laws . .”

When federal law enforcement officials, likely at the behest of Eric Holder, meet with the Arizona Attorney General to discuss the law, it’s a “curious coordination” to plot against Jan Brewer. Or so Jan would have you think.

No offense to our sexy pink-tittied pals . .

May 18, 2010

Newt Gingrich calls Obamunism a threat equal to former Nazis and Soviets
By Arlen Williams

From his new book, To Save America, as Chris Wallace confronts Gingrich with his own words:

“The secular-socialist machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union once did.”

Nazi-precipitated World War II killed 55 million people. The Soviet Union subjugated 300 million, killing millions and millions more. Obama’s a level threat. Totally.

Overall, one suspects the media will try to ignore a statement such as this, for as long as they can. That is because, whether they believe, or understand it, or not, they know it will resonate. They know it is detrimental to their cause, for Americans to hear such a thing from the former Speaker of the House. It threatens the “fundamental transformation” and the machine.

Two things seem clear: 1. Speaker Gingrich wants America saved from this threat, 2. he wants to be president.

Two things seem clear: 1. Speaker Gingrich wants to demagogue a path to the Oval Office. 2. He’s a fucking moron. Hey — remember the time he lobbied America to take out a North Korean missile launch with a laser?

I wanted to post this for two reasons:

1.) The Conservatives’ traditional ability, on display, to deny reality seconds after it occurs.
2.) The picture.

– Newt Gingrich calls Sonia Sotomayor racist, calls for her withdrawal.
– Tom Tancredo calls Sotomayor racist, calls for nomination to be blocked.
– Rush Limbaugh calls Sotomayor a racist, a hack and a danger.

. . as long as President Obama (and other Democrats like him) continue to seek judges based on their policy preferences rather than their commitment to interpreting the Constitution as written and intended by the Founding Fathers (and as ratified by the people), the post of Supreme Court Justice will inevitably be a political one. And so – like it or not – Republicans have no choice but to follow the Democrats’ example of treating judicial nominees like political punching bags, rather than as decent, accomplished – and presumptively impartial – jurists.

Hmm, perhaps her memory is a bit sketchy? Perhaps because she is a COBALT-PEEPERED ZOMBIE DISTRACTED BY THE SIGHT OF YOUR BRAIN?

Biden’s Botox Infects Obama
by Jason Mattera
05/11/2010

Now friends, it’s bad enough that the vice president of the United States has a forehead that you can break a brick over, but now Biden’s Botox is contaminating Obama’s drinking water.

How else do you explain our Dear Leader’s insistence that Elena Kagan holds enough experience to be our next Supreme Court justice?

Yes, yes, the brother is a liar, after all.

OOOOH YEAH, Bro-Ham Jason. Lay it on us. Preach, cracker-pot.

But still, the arguments the Obama Administration has ginned up in support of Kagan are mind-bogglingly pathetic.

So just for you, I’ve waded through the stories and found the Top 3 dumbest defenses of Elena Kagan.

OKAY, wingnut — let’s see it.

1. Courtesy of Politico, “[Kagan] is ambitious, restless, intellectually acute and even shares the president’s love of a good, grinding pick-up basketball game.”

Say what? She enjoys a “grinding pick-up basketball game”? Well now, that settles it then. Bust out the basketball trunks, throw on a jersey, and move yourself straight to the front of the line for a lifetime position on the most powerful court in the land!

Mattera seizes upon Politico’s dropping a detail like ‘playing basketball’ as a defense of the nominee. Mentioning she might be a centrist would be akin to building a phalanx of rickety atomic bombs around her. Saying Kagan is a nice person would be pretty much shooting Jason in the face with a bazooka. Perhaps reading a humanizing bit about the woman is too much to take for the screaming ‘You’re all Joseph Mengele!’ types? Politico, of course, is the liberal media.

What could go wrong? As an aside, can you even imagine Kagan “grinding” on the court? Ugh, I just think I lost my appetite.

Where would you peg the maturity of Mattera’s intellect? Pick a grade. No, pick a school, then a grade. It’s pre-college. I’m going with middle high school, about junior year. Alternatively, Antonin Scalia’s “grinding” would be incisive, brilliant and Federalist beyond reproach. Actually, that little jibe back at The Editor is surely lost on him: why would he try that particular smack with a male nominee? We are so stupid.

2. From the mouth of Barack, a Kagan court would be “more reflective of us as a people than ever before.” And if by “reflective,” the president means that most Americans go from Princeton to Oxford to Harvard to the University of Chicago…

. . okay, fine. She didn’t go to Roger Williams University. The Seventh Best Baccalaureate College in the U.S. (sub-region: ‘North’). Behind Cooper Union, the United States Coast Guard Academy, the United States Merchant Marine Academy, Elizabethtown College, Messiah College and Elmira College. How tragic for the country.

3. “Elena is the granddaughter of immigrants,” Obama touted of his pick, which is to say that Kagan’s parents’ parents immigrated to this country. And that makes her special how?

Awwww, Fail. That makes her like us, which is what the President pointed out. ‘We’ are almost all descended from immigrants (excusing our Indian friends, as they would have to go back a few thousand years), and more than half of ‘us’ are women. I don’t think the President’s speech was so hard to understand, really.

Now that we have those gems out of the way, enjoy the rest of your afternoon thinking about Elena Kagan in her booty basketball shorts, “grinding” on the court

Naw, let’s think about Sarah Palin instead. There’s a ‘nominee’ the 17-year-old Mattera could fantasize about, which is the whole point of politics.

YEAH. He’s upset that Arizonans like something. He’ll be back after he disagrees with your 2011 Oscar picks?

YEAH. WAIT — voters?! I think you projected a bit there.

Maybe these folks have been going about their little law-abiding lives for years? Maybe you’ve been demonizing them all the while? Maybe you realize the federal government will never enact some jillion-dollar Gestapo-like program to snare and permanently deport hundreds of thousands of your neighbors? Which means that it’s likely, at some point, they’ll be given a path to citizenship? Which they’ll surely take? And you won’t be able to recruit these regular folks into the Republican party because you’ve been screaming that they’re all monstrous criminals? Hmm?

Friday, May 07, 2010

Death’s Progress
by Dr. Paul Kengor

. . Here’s the essence of the problem with contemporary progressives and their movement, which is a gigantic problem for America: One of the only things we really know about progressives, and that they know about themselves and their ideology, is that they favor constant “change,” “reform,” an ever-shifting, ongoing “evolution,” or, yes, progression. And therein is an inherent, significant difficulty: progressivism offers no clear, definable end.

You right-wingers were furious over the pull-out of Iraq because the “definable end” was . . . ? What? Hullo?

Blacks get their civil rights. BONG. *end* Latinos, Indians, GAYS get their civil rights. BONG. *end* America pulls out of Iraq. BONG. *end*

The goal-post is always moving, forever pushed further away. Ends are never ends; they always “progress,” with culture and society, banking on the ludicrous assumption that the changes are always (or largely) good.

Stupid. BONG. *end*