Bachmann and irrational fears of the census

Okay, if you’ve been paying any attention to the ultra-paranoid wingnut Rep. Michele Bachmann (R – Minn) or the late-night comedians who mock her, you’ve already heard that there are those on the right-wing fringe (also known as Republicans in good standing) who are objecting to the upcoming 2010 census as some sort of sinister left-wing plot.

A sinister left-wing plot mandated by Art. 1, Sec. 2 of that document of the radical left known as the U.S. Constitution.

Bachmann and others have announced their intention to boycott the census next year because…well, I’m a little unclear why, actually…apparently it has something to do with ACORN (the right’s favorite villain after Obama and the Clintons). And they are urging others on the lunatic fringe to boycott it as well.

Now, personally, I’m actually okay with large numbers of people in the red states boycotting the census, because the net effect if they do is that they will lose further representation in the House of Representatives, resulting in additional representatives being apportioned to the blue states. Fewer Republicans in the HoR? Sounds good to me.

However, I do feel obligated to point out to Rep. Bachmann that she might want to be cautious in her public statements about her intentions with respect to the 2010 census.

See, she’ll still be in office when it occurs (barring any revelations that she’s been hiking the Appalachian Trail like Gov. Sanford of South Carolina). And when she was sworn in, part of her oath was to uphold the laws and constitution of the United States.

And the census is required by both the laws and the constitution. As is participation in same.

Now, I’ve been known to criticize unjust laws and even engage in a little civil disobedience from time-to-time, in spite of my own oath to uphold the laws and constitution back when I was practicing law.

On the other hand, this blog (read by literally tens of readers) is about as high-profile as my own comments ever get. Nobody is pointing a microphone or a television camera at me.

Of course, they’d have to find me first, but that’s beside the point.

The point is, if Bachmann refuses to participate in the census, well, she’s pretty much giving a road-map to anyone who might be inclined to make an example of her by prosecuting or impeaching her for her refusal to participate every time she opens her mouth in front of a TV camera and announces her intent to boycott the census.

Just sayin’…

-jane doe

More on Iran

If you’re on Twitter (which I just joined a couple days ago in light of the Iran situation – @janedoe_tcm), I recommend following @persiankiwi for English-language “tweets” from someone on the ground in Tehran.

Intense and disturbing.

-jane doe

Doomed.

Matt Taibbi has apparently abandoned all hope. The system is completely fucked, and so are we. I’d leave, but where would I go? I’m taking suggestions, if anyone has any.

-jane doe

Bad craziness in Iran

Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or with my family), you know that there is some serious badness happening in Iran at the moment, as the public reacts to highly questionable election results.

The best English-language coverage I’ve seen so far is courtesy of Nico Pitney, who’s been liveblogging since the election results came out at Huffington Post. Definitely worth checking out.

He’s posted a music video put together by one of his readers. The music is Rage Against the Machine, but the images are all recent photos and videos coming out of Iran:

-jane doe

Where do I start?

Okay, yeah, once again I’ve been terribly negligent about updating this blog. Frankly, I had hoped that the need for this blog would go away after the shrub left office. I thought I’d feel better about things once the grown-ups were back in charge.

Silly me.

But where to start?

Dick Cheney’s All-Torture, All-The Time Tour?

The Obama White House’s insistence that we just accept that we don’t torture anymore so we should just move forward?

The whole same-sex marriage issue?

The screams of “Socialism!” from the far right in response to just about everything that Obama proposes?

The murder of Dr. Tiller?

So many things worthy of comment, I hardly know where to begin…

New theme song for the conservatives

Okay, it’s not an original piece, like Funk Vigilante’s excellent Worst President Ever, but the video matchup put together by blog The Full Ginsberg (apparently a reference to going on all five Sunday news talk shows in one day) is still pretty good:

Who would Jesus torture?

Just what are they preaching in evangelical churches these days?

A recent study by the Pew Research Center reveals that evangelical Christians are the most likely to support torture. The more often they go to church, the more likely they are to support such tactics.

Now, I don’t claim to be a biblical scholar. Because, hello? Buddhist. But I’m pretty sure Jesus would not be down with waterboarding.

Wasn’t he all about turning the other cheek? Treating others as you would have them treat you? Compassion? Letting he who is without sin cast the first stone?

And yet, that is the result of the survey. Regular churchgoers at evangelical Christian churches are more likely to support torture than any other group.

Questions? Comments?

-jane doe

The Republican Party disintegration continues…

…with this morning’s jaw-dropping announcement that Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter is leaving the Republican party to join the Democrats.

I say jaw-dropping, but really, it wouldn’t surprise me if we see a few more moderate Republicans follow in his footsteps.

With McCain’s resounding loss in November, the Republican Party has been lacking a clear voice and leader, leaving it increasingly vulnerable to the rantings of the more extreme elements within it.

People like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck. And let us not forget the extremely scary Newt Gingrich.

And the visibility of those more extreme voices further marginalize the party, causing more and more moderate Republicans to abandon their party for independent or democratic status.

Meanwhile, no matter how much the Faux News people want to holler about socialism, Obama has if anything brought the Democrats closer to the middle than they were before (something that pisses off liberals like yours truly, but whatever).

Given the apparent public distaste for the extreme positions currently adopted by many high-profile Republicans at the moment, one is forced to wonder about the logic of the proponents of such positions.

I have my own theory about this. Regular readers of this blog will not be at all surprised to learn that it relates to terror management theory. But I will save that speculation for a subsequent post … check back in a day or so for that.

Meanwhile, in other news, I think the Department of Justice should open a war crimes investigation into the activities of the Bush administration. Just sayin’…

-jane doe

A word on the teabag protests

Okay, I’d written this whole thing about how the wingnuts who want to teabag the White House really ought to consult UrbanDictionary.com before they embarrass themselves further, and pointing out the logical failings behind this supposed grass-roots protest, but really, David Shuster did a much better job last night on Countdown, so I’ll just let him say it:

In memory of Latte

Her name was French for “you paid too much for that coffee”, but the name came with her when we got her from an organization that raises guide dogs for the blind, and there was no changing it.

She was a beautiful yellow lab, though a bit heavyset in her later years as she became less active. She came to us after a brief stint with a blind person in California. She lost the guide dog gig because she never really shook the instinct to chase birds and squirrels, and that’s a really bad trait for a guide dog to have. But she was very loving and well-behaved outside of the birding tendencies.

For a number of years, she worked with my mom as a therapy dog at the local hospital, where patients and staff alike adored her. She would work with patients in physical therapy and would also visit children in the oncology unit on a regular basis, and always left smiles in her wake. She seemed to know which patients could play and which were more fragile and just wanted a little affection. Fuzz therapy, I called it.

One of her favorite things to do was go for rides in the car, and when the weather allowed it, she would often accompany my mother on her errands around town. Sometimes when my dad was restless, he and Latte would just go for drives up in the mountains or out in the country. She would also go on frequent walks through Garden of the Gods with me when she was younger.

Even in her later years, she remained good natured and affectionate. When my brother’s toddler would climb all over her, she would just kind of look at us with a slight doggy smile on her face, wagging her tail once or twice to let us know she was willing to suffer the indignity of being a climbing toy for a drooling 14-month-old.

When the end came, it was relatively quick, and she did not seem to suffer much. In her final days with us she was showered with love and affection, and when she stopped eating and was having trouble walking, we took her to the vet, who ended her suffering when it became clear that her organs were failing and this was not a temporary problem she could recover from.

She was a good dog, and she will be missed by all who knew her. She’s left a hole in our lives, but those lives were richer for having her in it for the time we had with her.

Rest in peace, Latte. If there’s a heaven for doggies, I know you’re there now, scaring all the birds in sight.

-jane doe

Conspiracy Theory Rock – watch it before NBC makes them take it down!

Okay, this video (which originally aired on the east coast broadcast of SNL in 1998 but was edited out of the west coast broadcast a couple hours later) has already been pulled from YouTube, probably because it was embedded over at Disinformation, but it’s still up at Google videos. Watch it quick before NBC makes them take it down for “copyright violations” (and not at all because it is critical of NBC).

-jane doe

Definition of hubris – bibliophile edition

Well, this is certainly a huge shock. In the current economic climate, largely the result of an almost complete lack of regulatory oversight of the financial markets and a host of poor policy decisions during his disastrous tenure in the White House, former alleged president George W. Bush is having trouble raising the nut for his $300,000,000 presidential library, to be housed at Southern Methodist University (much to the chagrin of the professors in the history and political science departments at that institution).

First of all, what could possibly justify $300 million for a library in honor of an alleged adult whose favorite book – indeed quite possibly the only book he ever read – was The Pet Goat?

Second, in the present economic climate, where is he going to find donors with that kind of cash lying around for such a purpose?

Think about it. Usually, in such instances, there is some sort of wall of donors in a prominent location in the structure, to stroke the egos of wealthy supporters. But even if you initially supported GWB, would you want to have your name memorialized in bronze in connection with what many historians have already labeled the worst president ever?

According to a recent story at Politico.com, George and Laura are hosting a series of dinner parties among their super-rich buddies, trying to drum up support. But, gee, they’re just having a hard time raising the necessary cash.

Doesn’t your heart just bleed for the man?

No?

Mine either.

I’m going to sign off with a video from a new group called Funk Vigilante. This song sums up my thoughts  about Bush’s presidency quite nicely…

-jane doe

Embarrassing Colorado Springs nonsense

Ordinarily, I focus on national politics in this blog.

There’s a good reason for that. See, I am currently living in Colorado Springs. Mecca for evangelical Christians and right-wing hotbed. Looking at local politics is just too damn depressing.

So for the most part, I ignore it, and focus on the national issues.

Every now and then, though, something from local politics intrudes on my consciousness, and I feel like I have to say something.

This is one of those times.

Our local embarassment of a state senator, Dave Schultheis, cast the only vote against a measure that would provide for HIV testing of pregnant women. The idea behind the bill is that it would allow doctors to take appropriate steps to prevent an infected mother from passing the virus on to her child during delivery (which is when infection of the child usually occurs).

Now, there may be good privacy-related reasons to argue against mandatory testing in other circumstances, though I think the health and safety of the child should trump privacy concerns, since knowledge of the mother’s infection status can allow doctors to take steps to prevent transmission of the disease to the child.

But Schultheis wasn’t making a privacy-based argument.

He was making an “AIDS is punishment from god for immoral behavior, and if the child gets the disease the mother will feel guilty” argument. In his own words:

What I’m hoping is that, yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up, but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that. The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity and it may make a number of people over the coming years begin to realize that there are negative consequences and maybe they should adjust their behavior. (Quote courtesy of the dead-tree edition of the Colorado Springs Independent.)

Nothing like condemning a child to life with an incurable and ultimately fatal disease in order to teach his or her parents (who are already similarly condemned) a lesson.

Forget the fact that many women with HIV were infected with the virus as a result of their husbands’ cheating. We have to PUNISH these women and make them feel GUILTY for their husbands’ behavior.

How utterly appalling.

The good news is, Schultheis was the only state senator to vote against the bill. It passed. Pregnant women and their doctors will have the information necessary to prevent HIV transmission to newborns, in spite of Schultheis’ moralistic myopia.

If you’d like to let Schultheis know what you think of his position, you can e-mail him at senatorschultheis@gmail.com

-jane doe