Afternoon coffee at the Last Manatee-Fall Edition

I decided to clean out my junk e-mail file this morning. 840 out of 850 were offers for Viagra and Cialis. Several of the remaining 10 were offers from Russian women. And only three were travel ads. It's not coincidental that I discovered the last time I did this that all sex e-mails were generated because of 'cookies" left by rightwing web sites.

On the book shelf this morning are two dreadful reads. The first is Dinesh D'Souza's The Roots of Obama's Rage, Regenery (2010). Dinesh channels his inner V.S. Naipul but only comes up with his own racism. Our President can't be understood unless you understand he's a Luo tribesmen with an anti-Colonial mentality. Dinesh travels territory I remember so well--Franz Fanon and Amilcar Cabral--and only comes up with something truly incomprensible. P.S. I voted for Obama particuly because of his Luo background. I always found the Luo to be one of the best technocratic tribes in Africa. And we sure needed one. Dinesh seems a little confused about the United States' historic attitudes toward colonialism. Born in Mumbai, D'Souza forgets that we didn't look kindly even on British colonialism.

The second is Tears of a Clown: Glenn Beck and the Teabagging of America by Washington Post's Dana Milbank (Doubleday, 2010). Apologies to Dana. Dreadful should refer to the subject. Milbank takes you on a tour of Beck's fixation with Woodrow Wilson, Adolf Hitler, and Barack Obama as well as his dependence of Mormonapocalyptic thinking and John Birch Society conspiracy theories. Thrill to the government's plan to put all conservatives in FEMA camps and the imminent demise of the United States because progressives are planning their Reichstag moment. The book raises the issue of what today's writer should focus on. Was it the advance to get one's kid through college? Was it that this would be an easy bestseller? But I wonder whether someone with Dana Milbank's talent should really exhaust his energies with this guy. I know it's very tempting. Anyone reading this blog knows I spend too much attention on this lunatic.

Shame on White women. The Christian Science Monitor reports that the enthusiasm gap among Democrats is rapidly ending. African-Americans and Hispanics are roaring back to levels usually unknown in mid-terms. The younger voter is coming back. But the one sector of our society in both parties not enthused by the elections are the White women. If there is one election where women's rights are truly threatened, it's the 2010 midterms. Reproductive rights, even the use of birth control, mammograms (unbelievably),single women teaching in schools, equal pay for equal work, childcare, child nurition, child healthcare--let alone adult healthcare. This is all up for grabs this year. Democrats are beginning to run ads against the slew of candidates against rape in the case of incest and rape--a no brainer in the rational world. You don't have to be enthused, just vote.

The DNC reported its monthly take, which was its best month so far--topping $16 million in small donations, 90% of which are $25. But the shadowy non-profits are laundering over $100 million from unknown donors. This is several times the amount in past elections thanks to the Citizens United decision.

James Clyburn's House numbers are Democrats retain with 234. That's like 30 more than Nate the Great. Clyburn pointed to several unexpected Democratic pick-ups in the offing. Keep that number in mind, knowing that he has to put the best spin on it.

Queen Meg canceled her next debate with Governor Moonbeam. She is following this year's Republican tradition of avoiding debates, especially if her polling goes down every time she opens her mouth.

I received another fund-raising letter from Sharron Angle this weekend. It said that Jim DeMint would be there for her when she comes to Washington. How horrifying is that! The neo-confederate (that's not a smear but an accurate description) DeMint this past week declared himself King of the United States. He wants prior approval of every bill before the Senate or he won't allow it to be debated or discussed. In a sick way, he can do this through a misuse of Senate rules. So we don't even have to a filibuster threat anymore.

Meanwhile Super-Christian Tom Coburn has put a hold on the $1 billion aid to Haiti because he fears that $5 million might be wasted. I guess he changed his mind since the Iraq War which saw billions on pallets disappear into the Mesopotamian night.

Remember how in Iraq and Afghanistan we were supposed to increase the ability of the State Department and USAID to handle post-war issues to faciliate a drop in our military presence. Apparently, Congress didn't get the memo--Republicans are trying to gut such aid because they still don't like the State Department or USAID. For once, Michael Gerson wrote a sensible column explaining how counterproductive such actions are.

You'll recall my cheers when Obama's Justice Department decided to settle the Indian Trust case, which has gone on for a generation. Big problem, the Senate doesn't want to pay. Well, not really, Senators have told Indian groups they want to pay but it's combined with the settlement of the claim by African-American farmers, which also has gone on a generation. The Senators told the Indian groups they didn't want to pay the black farmers because they thought too many of the cliams were fraudulent.

It used to be that the debate over minimum wage was whether to raise it or keep it at the same level. Now we have a new talking point--eliminate it. This is sweeping tea baggers and candidates like Linda McMahon in Connecticut. Joe Miller in Arkansas argues it's unconstitutional. I guess he never heard of the "general welfare" wording in the Constitution.

And Senator Feingold really is in political trouble.