The American Dream Is A Restless Night

Tip to anonymous blogger for the quote.

News from the alternative universe:

Newt Gingrich tells Politico Barack Obama only has a 20% chance of being re-elected. The House Republicans will pick up 40 seats and perhaps between 65 to 70, enough to take the House and make John Boehner Speaker. If the Republicans beat Barbara Boxer in California they will take the Senate. The former Speaker said that Obama does not understand change and argues that he--the Newt--will run for President if he can present a vision of complete change. He argues that the United States needs a complete wave of change from the school boards, city councils, county government and state legislatures. America needs to elect people who can get things done.

Dr. Glenn Beck will start exposing how Barack Obama is trying to take over "your church" through his faith-based initiatives. Beck will argue that the White House is compelling churches to embrace climate change and to make their physical churches energy efficient in line with progressive socialism.

Charlie Cook is wrong. Cao is not the only vulnerable Republican. Today, Indiana's Mark Souder announced he was resigning because of an affair with his female staffer.

Rolling Stone has an excellent article on Karl Rove's latest scheme of creating a parallel Republican Party of Fatcats because the wealthy donors don't trust Michael Steele but love Karl.

Steve Poizner, the right-winger challenging Meg Whitman, has another great ad attacking Meg. The ad titled "Adults Only" highlights Meg's creation of a separate Ebay for porn, which did become the internet's biggest porn site. Linking it to his previous Goldman Sachs ad, he concludes "Meg Whitman; Bad Judgment. Wrong Values." Dick Cheney came out of his crypt to endorse Meg.

Tom Campbell is cutting back his ad buys in his race against Carly Fiorina, while she's increasing her television spots. Observers can't figure out whether Campbell is overconfident or simply broke or both.

Rick "Secessionist" Perry in Texas is mired in a scandal of his own. Apparently, with his state budget with a huge whole in it, he's renting out a temporary governor mansion at over $300K a year and hosting political parties for his re-election using campiagn donations. With the Texas economic mess--remember he doesn't accept stimulus funds--this is getting traction.

The Arizona Governor continues her quest for excellence, firing teachers with pronounced accents. A little background, Arizona recruited teachers from South America for bilingual education in public schools. Now that the governor banned bilingual education, these teachers became vulnerable and now are expendable.

The Texas textbook scandal continues. The Guardian (U.K.) interviewed schoolboard member Cynthia Dunbar, an evangelical Christian lawyer, who is a major force behind the push to re-write history. Dunbar is a proponent of home and Christian private schooling and likens sending children to public schools like "throwing them in to the enemy's flames". Because of the sheer numbers of Texas textbook purchases, the changes will eventually reach most of the states in the union.

In her interview, she said, " In Texas we have certain statutory obligations to promote partiotism and to promote the free enterprise system. There seems to have been a move away from a patriotic ideology. There seems to be a denial that this was a nation founded under God. We had to go back and make some corrections."

On "In God We Trust", Lincoln's Secretary of Treasury inserted it as a sop to clergymen during the Civil War. "One Nation Under God" was inserted in the Pledge of Allegiance in the 1950s to show we were different from godless Communism. The Pledge of Allegiance came about originally as an instrument to assimilate immigrants and lack any reference to God. The National Prayer day was begrudgingly accepted by Eisenhower as a way to buy off the evangelicals in the 1950s.

So what are some of the changes Ms. Dunbar suggests:
The slave trade wasn't " some evil buying and selling of human beings, it was simply Atlantic triangular trade".
The Civil Rights Movement created "unrealistic expectations of equal outcomes" for minorities in America. And Martin Luther King, Jr. Pretty much a Black Panther.
Thomas Jefferson? Who has been eliminated from the American history book. "He was an insignificant ,God-hating heathen who made sure that the church and state remained separate."
The right to bear arms is essential to democracy and kids really need to learn this in school.
Joe McCarthy was right to go after Godless commies in Hollywood and Washington. He will be vindicated.
We have military technology to thank for America's successes in science.
Moses was a greater influence on the US Constitution than Thomas Jefferson.
America can only flourish economically through 'minimal government intrusion and taxation."

Advising Dunbar is Glenn Beck's and Newt Gingrich's friend David Barton, the founder of the revisionist group WallBuilders, whose stated goal is "to exert a direct and positive influence in government, education, and the family by (1) educating the nation concerning the Godly foundation of our country; (2) providing information to federal, state, and local officials as they develop public policies which reflect Biblical values; and (3) encouraging Christians to be involved in the civic arena."

Paul Krugman in a May 16 op-ed in the New York Times commented on how the defeat of Bob Bennett in Utah and the news of the Maine Republican Party underscored the extremism in the Republican party and that the media is finally paying attention. Krugman cited a paper by economists Markus Bruckner and Hans Peter Gruner on how economic crisis brings out right-wing extremism and nationalist political parties in both Europe and America. Krugman warns that we should not expect the Republican Party to escape the clutches of extremism anytime soon.

I have neglected returning to Mark Lilla's excellent piece in the New York Review of Books on the tea party phenomenon. Michael Kinsley has another one in this week's Atlantic. Just like Al Pacino in Godfather III, he just keeps getting pulled back--Bob Altemeyer has returned to his favorite subject,The Authoritarians, with very detailed analysis of both the history and psychology of the Tea Party Movement. Google it. It is well-worth reading.

I was wrong. I wanted to refrain talking about the Baked Alaskan because she is basically harmful to my mental health. When I saw she was negotiating a deal for a Reality show of her family, I thought this was a sign she was not going to run in 2012. Many moons ago I posted why I believe she is the incarnation of where the Republican Party is now. I also have written how while theocratic politics is in direct intellectual contradiction to libertarianism, it is being fused today in the tea party movement. Just look at James Dobson's embrace of Rand Paul in Kentucky. And then I have taken note of Sister Sarah's nomadic moves across our national landscape. Her recent appearance in Illinois, invoking Ronald Reagan,her fervent embrace of Jan Brewer in Arizona and her ditzy presentation to the NRA tell me she really is running in 2012.

The website Mudflats, my favorite Alaska news site, has been paying microscopic attention to the half-governor's every move. Yesterday they interviewed the author of the upcoming book The Lies of Sarah Palin, who reports that the internal memos he has shows she is preparing a race against Mitt Romney and is totally obsessed with Barack Obama and the loss of the 2008 election. And, of course, she feels that if she were allowed to continue to attack Obama as a terrorist-loving socialist McCain would have won. Her incessant twittering comments on everything the Obama Administration does or does not do (more often the case) indicates a compulsive nature, which will inform us that God told her to run.

The announcement of her second book is simply to say she like Obama has written two books. I thought it was the conservative syndrome of churning out books so that one can boost of the title "New York Times Best Seller"--a weird validation for people who hate liberals. But it's simply to show President Smarty-Pants that 'real Americans" can write books too.

To take a reasoned approach to this does not capture the fundamentally non-rational worldview of Sister Palin and her fundamentalist followers. All the usual political mechanics of campaign organization, staff, polling and fund-raising are tertiary to people who are divinely inspired. Right now she is the leader of the Tea Party Movement and she has the support of the Washington neocons, who advise her. Having a chief aide who is a scientologist and a minister who calls her Queen Esther are not encouragements to retire to a life making money. By the time she announces, she will have earned at least $25 million.

As I wrote before, the Republican primary schedule favors her over any other candidate. She would begin in evangelical country in Iowa and follow with a triumph in neo-confederate South Carolina. Romney might hold on to New Hampshire, but he will be behind until the middle of the race. I believe she really can win the nomination.

And I also believe she would choose a vice-president who would share her obsession with Barack Obama and restoring America's place as God's chosen country. Here Mike Huckabee is too weak because he likes Michelle Obama. Others are lackluster like Pawlenty, who has embraced creationism and just submitted a budget that would destroy Minnesota's rather progressive policies. She needs a Southerner since this is the regional heart of the Republican Party.

Enter the man whose next book is how to stop Obama's "secular-socialist machine"--Newt Gingrich. Newt can not raise the money to be a plausible presidential candidate and he is deeply disliked by older conservatives for everything from his treatment of women to his chaotic leadership style in the House. But he shares Palin's ambition, her cunning and her capacity of deceipt. Gingrich is presently touring the country with our Christian revisionist Dave Barton so he and Sister Sarah are perfect together. Newt would privately think he could be Palin's ideological svengali and his ambitions have never ebbed. I also believe that the choice of vice-presidential nominee would have nothing to do with reality-based politics, but totally on theological and ideological values.

I agree with Paul Krugman, there is no reason to believe that the Republican Party can escape the clutches of extremism-- certainly not by 2011 when people have to declare this candidacies for the presidential nomination.

Be forewarned, I predicted on radio the Palin choice by John McCain before little Billy Kristol or anyone in D.C. knew about her. So, defying all rational calculation, real-world politics and sense of commonsense, I predict it will be a Sarah Palin-Newt Gingrich ticket in 2012.

I am also absolutely certain that if, God forbid, she won that America would instantly cease to be a major power or force in the world. It would simply be folly for any other country to relate their policies to ours, especially in economic affairs.

And if I'm wrong, do I get to be an op-ed columnist at the Washington Post like torture man Marc Thiessen?