ALERT! SHARIA POSTPONED

Yes, I was looking forward to sharia law being imposed by our President. There would be no interest charged on credit cards and mortgages and car loans so the US could get out of this Great Repression rather rapidly. I admit my wife would have to wear a Burka for a while but in the name of getting out of debt I'm sure --not really--she'll agree.

Well, it seems that Missile Defense Agency really didn't change their logo. They just decided to print a three color logo for handouts and publications. 3 color was cheaper than 5 color. And no, the Obama Administration didn't do this. It was all ordered during the Bush Administration. So no, it really doesn't imitate the Obama campaign logo either. And if another military officer has to answer these crazy questions, yes, we will have no missile defense system. Can you imagine government officials having to answer this nonsense! They do all the time but still.

Horrendous News from Chile as a 8.8 earhquake rocks the country--that's said to be hundreds of times stronger than the one which hit Haiti. Early photos show places I remember well in Santiago destroyed. I'm beginning to take all these natural disasters personally. It's like my mental landscape is being destroyed bit by bit. The entire Pacific Rim is on Tsunami Alert and Hawaii is preparing to evacuate. Climate Change anyone?

South Dakota has passed a law requiring teachers to say that climate change is a scientific theory, not a fact and that there are many reasons for it--including astrological. So, it's the Year of the Tiger--hence alot of tsunamis and earthquakes. What about theological? Jesus is coming; these are the days of tribulation and rapture is around the corner.

Tony Perkins--not the actor, he's dead-- of Focus of the Family was booted from the president's prayer breakfast at Andrews Air Force base because he attacked President Obama after the state of the union address for wanting to get rid of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. The Catholic representative at such prayer breakasts said that Tony's religious rights were being violated, a constant theme of the religious right. I don't think this crowd would make great Christian martyrs--they're big bunch of whiners.

Rev. Wallis of the Sojourners finally woke up after a long nap. He finally expressed the religious view that the Republicans were wrong about health care from a theological point of view and that their favoritism to the rich over the poor and the lower middle-class was against the Gospel. Given the energy the Religious Rights has poured into the debate, I have wondered why normal Christians hadn't been more forthright in supporting health care and suppport for the poor. Hopefully, this is the first shot across the bow.

Meanwhile, Utah passed a law that " miscarriage was an act of homicide". 50% of all pregnancies in Utah end up in a miscarriage. Under this law, women will be prosecuted for what most consider a tragedy. Are there any women legislators in the state?

Arizona's Trent Franks weighed in yesterday that blacks in America now have it worse than under slavery. He claims that 50% of black children are aborted. Actually it's about 30% and we don't know the number of viable fetuses but that has never stopped the so-called pro-life crowd in tallying numbers. Pat Buchanan previously this year said the best thing to happen to blacks was being forced to come to America. And, somewhere, Randy Newman is playing "Sail Away".

I received a fund-raising letter from the Hannah Giles Legal Defense Fund, which claims that Hannah, who was the female partner of Mr. Acorn pimp on Fox News, is being hounded by Barack Obama's ACORN thugs. It's like Ollie North's great fund-raiser," Mu'ammar Qaddafhi wants me Dead! Send money." Hannah and her partner apparently are being sued for manipulating the videotape they showed and taping illegally. But what price do you put on Freedom!

With the tea party's about to celebrate their first anniversary, some smartass decided to create the Coffee Party. Count me in!

If we have lived through enough right-wing madness recently, the Tenthers are holding a national summit in Atlanta under the auspices of the Tenth Amendment Center, featuring great Patriots like Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice and gubernatorial candidate Roy Moore and Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano. This is the third of the conservative conferences which are called Obama Resistance conferences. Nearby the NAACP held a rally, which was greeted by members of the KKK. History never dies, like Faulkner said,"it isn't even past."

Some of the things the tenthers are against--federal highway system, health care reform, the New Deal, desegregation and the federal income tax. Tenthers assert the rights of states to secede from the union. Even Fat Tony Scalia, reactionary extraordinaire, wrote this month that the civil war ended these issues once and for all.

Thomas DiLorenzo will lecture on Abraham Lincoln as an enemy of the constitution, now saying that the first Republican President was the original progressive despot and that Jefferson Davis was a beacon of freedom, defending liberty. Thomas Woods, the author of the Politically Incorrect Guide to History, a popular book among conservatives, will talk about conservatives' traditional sympathy for the American south and its people and heritage. Dr. Woods was at the founding of the neo-Confederate Organization, League of the South,which advocates "independence of the Southern people" from the "American empire."

The Tenth Amendment movement has sponsored so-called "state sovereignty resolutions", which ,depending on the state, call for states to secede if the federal government intrudes any further on (you fill in the blank). Georgia's state sovereignty resolution called for secession that further infringements on the right to keep and bear arms, including prohibitions of type and quantity of arms or ammunition' would trigger secession. The resolution also reserved for Georgia the right to judge "how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom". Similar resolutions have passed in Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Idaho, Louisiana and Alaska. Sarah Palin signed Alaska's bill right before she resigned office. And, of course, the Texas Governor Rick Perry is a Tenther.

The good news for all of us is that all the states who have signed so far received far more federal money than they put into the national treasury. So we could sue for past compensation and probably halve the budget deficit. We could prevent stimulus money from going to these states--none voted for president Obama--and we could start withdrawing major federal projects like NASA from Texas and created thousands of jobs in states with patriotic Americans. It's a win-win. As I told a Texan friend of mine, who was mouthing this nonsense, then Texas would become part of Mexico.

The Queen of the birthers, Orly Taitz, Moldovan, Israeli and American, has petitioned the United Nations Human Rights Council for protection against the American government. The crime was that a federal judge finally fined her $25,000 for her nonsense in filing all the nuisance suits on Barack Obama's birth certificate. The Free Republic drummed her out of the wingnut movement because she appealed to "world government", which is a step more evil than President Obama.

John McCain got off a smart ad attacking J.D. Hayworth as a birther. It would work anywhere but the very state he is running. Over half the Republican Legislators are birthers and they persuaded their party to vote a resolution that in 2012 Obama must produce his birth certificate in order to get on the ballot. Since this is a closed primary, John may become the first real victim of the birthers. But never fear John still on Meet The Press--once again--in an exclusive. I'm sure he will trash Obama because he needs to be more right-wing than Republicans in his state.

Charlie Crist claims he will not run as an independent in Florida as Marco Rubio amasses a large lead in the primary. Crist also hasn't backed down from accepting stimulus money. Neither did Arnold Schwartzeneggar. The CBO said the stimulus either saved or created 2.1 million jobs. The problem as I've said repeatedly and Paul Krugman and Bruce Bartlett,the father of supply side economics agreed, was that it was too small.

President Smartypants in his Saturday address said that if we all were as united as we are in routing for our American olympic athletes, we can pass health care. He said he would compromise if the Republicans would. (But the time is up on Wednesday--he didn't say that.) Nice touch--that's why I support the guy.

On the Human Rights front. The House has passed a resolution to assist Argentina through the release of documents about the " dirty war" to locate the dispappeared.

The deleted torture number 12 of the lawyers' memos from Yoo was "mock burial". Yoo also wrote that a President could order the massacre of villagers, crush the tesicles of a son of a detainee to make him talk, order troops into mainland America (hence the legal rationale for Dick Cheney's planned invasion of Buffalo, New York), and the fake burials of detainees. Rep. Nadler has sent these documents to the appropriate Bar Associations asking them to disbar both Yoo and Bybee.

Speaking of the massacre of villagers, human rights violations linger far beyond the time when they were committed. It has been twenty-four years since I was on the OAS' Human Rights Commission and one of the last situations I dealt with was the disappeared in Guatemala. Last year, some brave souls actually found lists and locations for the disppeared. While we were investigating these killings, we never could obtain any documents about who, where and why these people were killed. And this is extraordinarily rare--since repressive governments always document the killing of their enemies. Today, the Guatamala Forensic Foundation begins excavation of a cemetary where they believe over 200,000 bodies may be buried. These bodies are from that time over two decades ago. Yet their families never knew what happened to them.

Last week, neo-Nazis wanted to commemorate the firing bombing of Dresden, an awful event that provoked a series of sermons from my grandfather and a novel from Kurt Vonnegut, who was there. Even in Just Wars, criminal acts are done and human rights are violated. That's why one hopes to protect human rights. We don't want the people who would violate them in the future to embrace victims of the past as justification for their future deeds.

Now for some lighter news. Carly Simon has revealed that "You're so Vain" was written about David Geffen, who was infatuated by his new star Joni Mitchell. In my view, Joni's Geffen albums were the best musically she did--that was her jazz stage. Get well, Joni. She suffers from a truly horrible and grotesque skin disease that forced her to cancel touring and recording last year.

To impress your friends and family, I provide you with a bit of trivia I only discovered reading Patti Smith's Just Kids. For the hip among you, you'll remember the Holy Modal Rounders, who used to play with the Fugs. Their great song was "I've got a daughter, she's half-grown; jumps on a man, like a dog on a bone. Hey, Black-eyed Susie." Now their drummer was----the great playwright and movie actor San Shepard. I know you're thrilled.

I have not mentioned J.D. Salinger's death because frankly I never cared for him. OK, Catcher in the Rye was about adolescence everywhere. The interesting issue is how many books did he leave behind. Here we have a literary recluse whom we are told wrote everyday from dawn until noon and by letters in the mid-1960s we have been told he had at least two finished manuscripts. This could be a literary case where the author actually left behind more finished manuscripts than he ever published in his lifetime. It would mean his whole work would have to be re-evaluated. That's neat.

Finally, Wayne Newton. Yes, Wayne Newton, las Vegas entertainer and compulsive gambler, returned to Virginia this past week to push the state to recognize his Indian tribe, the Powhatans. While Disney can make a film about them, our government can de-legalize them as they have with many Indian nations. Strange as it seems, the Powhatans were legally obliterated and Wayne came to seek a correction to this injustice.

Gonzo America--The Crazy, the Demented and the True

It's been a busy week as the incoming has been hot and heavy. The birthers or Orly Taitz or Oilie Taint acting as attorney had their case thrown out by a District Court because Orly never signed the papers. A woman medic in this brief likened President Obama to Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and Francois Duvalier and was seeking to apply for conscientious objection because Obama has not shown his birth certificate.

The Tenthers-- the new Tenth Amendment movement--is trying to change the Georgia state constitution to prevent health care reform. Tenthers claim that Medicare and Social Security are unconstitutional--something real constitution scholars deny. I would like them to succeed in their effort so when healthcare reform passes, they'll find their effort will have literally no effect--nada, zippo, the big goose egg.

Gover Rick Parry of the Republic of Texas resents President Obama planning to address the nation's school children on the first day of school. He insists that Obama should have talked to school principals about what he's going to say. The problem,Gov. Rick, is that President Obama points in the speech are already on the Department of Education website and a letter already went out to all schools. Stay informed! Stay Classy! The Florida Republican Party has denounced the speech as Obama's effort to indoctrinate children with socialism. South Carolina and Georgia are making it optional for students to attend school because of parental protests. Even here in Virginia, Loudon County with the wealthiest of Republicans will forgo the President's speech. Christians have petitioned some counties in California and in Colorado to prohibit the broadcast of the President speech.

So let's get this straight. The President, who has been a constitutional law professor and graduated law school magna cum laude, would be a bad role model for children. Having heard him on education before, he comes off like a nerdy guy emphasizing all the usual bromides of attend school, study hard, do your homework and eat healthy foods and get your sleep. The very stuff of socialist utopias. All the criticism and censorship of the speech will only make it more attractive for kids. Somehow all the protesters forget the speech will be on C-Span, WhiteHouse. gov and Youtube in case the children want to disobey their parents.

The question really is why the media actually give these morons any publicity. If anything, most of these characters protesting the President of the United States talking to the nation's students should be declared unfit parents. The head of the Florida Republican Party in his television appearances implies that he prohibits his children from ever watching the President. In my ancient youth, all parents encouraged children to listen to the President, whether they voted for him or not, because it was all a part of civics.

Levi Johnston, the once future son-in-law of Sarah Palin, has brought high entertainment back to politics this past week. Levi claims that Sarah was not the best homemaker, didn't know how to shoot a gun even though she kept one under the bed, tired of the Government's job because it was "too hard" and just wanted to make money. Levi hopes to be a male model and pose for all the gays reading Playgirl. Meanwhile, Sarah is in an undisclosed location, occasionally phoning into her family. She is"writing her memoir" and has been asking her dad about how many points she scored in basketball,when they went to the Boston Marathon and other exciting sports-related questions.

Republicans are scouting around for future Presidential candidates. Among them are General Petraeus, whom no one will remember, especially after we leave Iraq in ruins. Another is Joe Scarborough of Morning Joe fame. And another still--a favorite of the base and gays is Rick Santorum. As we all remember, Dan Savage of America's greatest sex advice column "Savage Love" had a contest about what sexual reference should be "Santorum". The winner was the bodily fluids excreted after Anal Sex. This has immortalized Rick Santorum to millions of Americans.

The Left is going bonkers over every statement or cryptic reference coming from the White House and Democratic leaders concerning whether the 'public option" is in or out of the healthcare proposals. As of this Friday before Labor Day, it's still in, although people are afraid that President Obama is negotiating a "trigger" option with Senator Olympia Snowe.

During the past week, our ace media have missed several pro-health reform rallies where thousands have gathered in support of the President's plan. Instead, the big story was a healthcare opponent having his finger beaten off by a pro-healthcare supporter. We were even treated to the drops of blood on the sidewalk.

The press continued their superb coverage by criticising the President for going on a second vacation to Camp David. OK, now President Bush spent a total of 3 full years at his ranch without a great deal of criticism. President Obama's vacation on Martha's Vineyard was something less than relaxing. He re-annouced the appointment of Ben Bernacke to the Fed, wrote and gave a statement on Senator Kennedy's death, flew to see the Kennedy family and gave a eulogy. The networks even got around to criticising him for not sticking around for the family-only funeral.

The radical Right Christian communities have topped themselves by coming out against healthcare reform. I understand one could have criticisms but a church coming out against the whole thing. Amazing. The Archdiocese of St Louis gave the reactionary Catholic voice by saying the Church does not endorse socialized medicine. One really has to get in the weeds to find anything remotely socialist in anything being proposed. It is incredibly disconcerting for religious organizations to come out against health coverage for the poor and uninsured. To put it mildly, it's theologically disturbing. A great Pastor in Tempe, Arizona, which must breed more nuts per acres than anywhere in the U.S., called for Obama to die and go to Hell. Not for anything he did, mind you; it's because the Pastor admits he hates him--something that strikes me as anti-Christian.

The great lover and fundamentalist Governor of South Carolina Sanford is being pressed to resign by the state's GOP. The Lt.Governor Andre Bauer has offered to sit for the remaining term and promised not to run for election. It appears that some of the Governor evangelical friends soon circulated rumors that the gay community has confirmed that Mr. Bauer has had gay affairs. Local evangelicals, who support his very heavy family values approach and his leadership in getting a variety of Christian slogans on license plates, had an amazing response. "Just because he had sex with men doesn't mean he's gay." "It was probably some sort of mistake." Wow!

The Head of the Board of Education selected by loverboy Sanford has been upholding family values. She home-schools her children and has introduced a consevative curriculum in the school system. At night she likes to play on line suggesting she would really like to be in a threesome and looks forward to some girl-girl action. She even dabbles in writing erotica and likes to show up at political functions and show off her sheer underwear. That might make the South rise again.

Lawrence O'Donnell, who has been ably defending Democratic views on MSNBC, appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and claimed that President Obama was desparate on the health care issue and was pessimistic about it passing. It was an unusual statement in a week of unusual events. Strip away all the noise and polling on healthcare reform remains fairly consistent when people are asked about the particulars of the plan. My gut tells me something substantial will be passed.

Margaret and Helen, America's oldest bloggers, have been unkind on the subject of Republican criticisms of the health care reform. In their eighties, they promise everyone they'll live as long as they want and will spend the grandchildren's inheritance doing so. The ladies warn Americans about congress types who claim God speaks to them. They particularly aim their arrows at Michelle Bachman of Minnesota, who loves to boast she is the most hated Republican woman in America--after Sarah Palin. Michelle Bachman urged her supporters to slit their wrists this week and create a blood bond to prevent healthcare reform from passing. She also promised that even though Democrats want to elect the first woman President, God will decide on a Republican. Pretty strong stuff. Margaret and Helen dished about the lack of education of some of the Republican luminaries such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, both of whom dropped out of college. They did say at least Palin got her degree after six years and five colleges later.

And speaking of Glenn Beck--he continues to infuriate me because of his colossal ignorance. The other night he decided to "decode the architecture of Rockefeller Center" as an allegory of progressive-fascist-communist conspiracies somehow linked to the Rockefeller Family and --ergo--Obama (?) The history of art in Rockefeller Center is well-documented with such pyrotechnics as Diego Rivera creating a fresco with Lenin and a lampoon of Rockefeller as part of a pay dispute. This is so well-known you have to be truly ignorant to make up your own history without any reference to it.

Advertisers continue to flee Glenn Beck, which only fuels his self-aggrandizement as the sole purveyor of truth. In Washington, we look forward to the grand finale of his 9-12 project, which somehow believes the United States was created during the Revolution and then time-travelled to 9-11, which in Beck's perverse world we became as One--sort of like a post-modern Woodstock built on tragedy. And the fine country that existed then is being taken away from us by the fiendish black man Barack Obama. The 9-12 project is to conclude with the gathering of the tea-baggers, who I guess will wait the Rapture. On the 13th then, we are to see the March on Washington of all those for healthcare reform.

This non-stop insanity since September shows no let-up. Birthers, Deathers, Tenthers, Gun nuts and the Ayran Christs make a very dangerous brew. Dan Savage was quite correct that these people want the President dead--no iffs, no ands or buts. You would have to go back to the tail-end of the Eisenhower era, when the extreme right emerged to accuse Ike and his cabinet, which included General Marshall, of being fellow travellers and Comsymps. When JFK was elected, this underbelly of our society put the train in motion that fueled the assasinations of JFK, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, even though the assassins themselves had a variety of politics. They legitimized violence as a way to settle disputes in our democracy. The same is going on today. What is striking is that there are no mature adults emerging on the Right to neutralize this. Instead we have Senator Jim Inhofe claiming "all our institutions are under attack today. And the President is thinking about letting terrorists free in our country" And you can make your own list of elected officials that re-iterate this nonsense ad nauseum.

I'm tempted to give it rest myself. These people are so certifiable, it is anxiety provoking just to follow their rantings. In the next posts, I'll talk about some good books that have been printed--some even by socialists.