the mojowire

Monday Links.

Welcome to Edu-Monday! Special SoCal edition!

To bring up to speed those of you outside the Southern California Security Zone, The Los Angeles Times has been running a series of articles about the application of value added metrics to teacher performance in the LAUSD. The results yieled from that data have not been disclosed or applied in any way by the District. Union resistance, questions about how to apply this data and about what does it actually measure all come to mind in this issue. I see it as a microcosm of the larger issues about collecting and applying measurement data to education and teachers.  Check it out.

The incomparable Sara Mead offers her view on the value added issue. Why aren't reading her regularly hippie!.. Are you Mooslim? Why don't you go and sit over on that bench called Group W. NOW KID!

Another useful perspective from the Seattle Times.

 

 

 

 

Sunday Open Thread... actual Sunday edition!

Good afternoon wirelings!

What's on your mind this grand Sunday?

As for me, I have been reading this Frank Rich piece in yesterday's New York Times.

In it he details the similarities between the American Liberty League of the early 1930s, the John Birch Society of the 60s and 70s and today Tea Party activists.

The common thread? Billionaire bankrollers who are really pushing corporatism/fascism and will gleefully press these useful idiots into reactor shielding once they have served their political purpose.

Yes, this is populism at its worst/best!

So howse about all y'all, what's up this Sunday?

And how about those Saints, huh? Ready for another run at the Super Bowl, you ask me...

 

mojo sends

Welcome to the Fish Bowl, Joe! UPDATED!

UPDATE BELOW

So I guess it would take something like this to shake me from my anti-blogging entropic stupor of late.

But it looks like extremist nutjob Joe Miller is going to be the GOP standard bearer in Alaska's U.S. Senate race in November, unseating Sen. Thank-You-Daddy...errr... Lisa Murkowski. (Yeah, I nicked that line from Jon Stewart. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... sue me.)

Those who might be remeberéd of it, though, Joe Miller has been on our radar for a while, even if the radar set has been set to low gain recently.

You see, Miller's biography has been a point of inquiry for me. Simply put, he seems to have graduated from West Point, gone on to be a Desert Storm Bronze Star winner for "leadership in combat" and a Yale Law School graduate in the years from 1989 to 1995.

To my mind that's a very short period of time to have done all this.

Yet, we know he did graduate from West Point in 1989 and was awarded his Yale JD in 1995. My problem is the amount of time it takes to do those things, such as a post- West Point mandatory five year hitch in the Army. That would have been a minimum term of service to 1994, the year h  switched residence from his home in Kansas to Alaska.

But to get his Yale JD, he had to start law school in 1992. Yale is a three-year JD program. Period.

As far as I can tell he didn't get out early for being injured. He is not on any online registry for the Purple Heart or disabled veterans, so what's the deal. Moreover, I can not find him in any online registry for Bronze Star recipients.

There may be perfectly innocent answers for all of this. In fact, there probably is; there's likely to be some piece of obscure information that I'm missing that will be the thing that explains away my suspicions.

But I'm having a hell of a time finding it...

UPDATE #1: On Joe Miller's official campaign website, there is a section that purports to be .pdf files of his personal records including an Honorable Discharge certificate dated 1992 and a Bronze Star certificate from 1991. Assuming these documents are not fraudulent, how did he get out of his Army hitch two years early?

Moreover, why doesn't his name appear in online registries for the Bronze Star recipients that include awardees as recent as Iraqi Freedom

UPDATE #2: It also occurs to me that if he really wanted to be complete about it, he could have posted his actual service record forms like his DD214 and his page 7 for his discharge and Bronze Star instead of just the certificates. He had no trouble posting glowing pages from his fitness reports, so why not those other pages as well?

Going to stop here on this line of inquiry, though until I get something more solid. I feel like I'm getting dangerously close to sounding like I'm using "birther/sekrit mooselim" logic...

mojo sends

Mojo is Pimp in the Box: Voting "Tea Party?" Let Them Know Why!

I'm voting tea party... and here's why!

Make a bold statement on why you believe that the Tea Party agenda is right for our country... let us all know what you want to do with the country once you take it back!

Yeah, that'll learn 'em... the site's founder has a pretty good take on all this:

Jeremy Kalgreen said the tea party's posters inspired him to create a line of T-shirts  that mock the movement.

"I think it's really amusing and fascinating in how they choose to represent themselves," he said, describing his own politics as left-leaning.

The shirts that debuted this week feature sarcastic reasons for joining the tea party. Those range from Obama not nuking Canada to him allowing gays to vote.

Kalgreen holds some strong beliefs about the movement he calls grossly misinformed.

"I don't want anybody who agrees with these shirts to buy them," he said. "My concern was just how to push them into the over-the-top realm so that I won't be feeding the fire."

This is mojowire approved merchandise, y'all! Get over there and show this boy some love!

mojo sends

Prop. 8 Ruling Stay Lifted, Same Sex Marriage Resumes Next Week

Well, Judge Vaughn R. Walker did what I kind of thought he would do in Perry v. Schwarzenegger's post trial phase.

Remember, an injunction is based mainly on the likelihood of success of appeal at the next level and the chance of irreparable harm done to the appellants without the stay during the appeal process. However, neither of these things create an iron clad right to stay on appeal.

I hate to sack-tap a bigot while I they're down, but I believe I did tell you so:

Proponents replied that they have an interest in defending Proposition 8 but failed to articulate even one specific harm they may suffer as a consequence of the injunction.

[...]

Based on the trial record, which establishes that Proposition 8 violates plaintiffs' equal protection and due process rights, the court cannot conclude that proponents have shown a likelihood of success on appeal

That was some pretty weak tea y'all brought into open court. Not that you had much in the way of reasonable legal arguments to begin with, but what you guys did was the equivalent of taping a "kick me" sign on your back.

I'd wish you guys good luck at the Ninth, but frankly, I'd be lying and moreover, I'm not sure you'd have it anyway...

mojo sends

St00pidest Things Ever Said: Cosmology Physics Theology Roulette Edition

First the scientists said the Earth was not the center of God's creation...

Next they said we were a bunch of monkey progeny...

Now, (well, really, about 100 years ago) they said that time was a relative concept, the speed of light was constant and that energy released from matter was equivalent to that speed of light squared times the mass of the matter converted.

Bastardos! God-hating, cheese-eating, tax-and-spending, terrorist-supporting, French-loving, atheist-pinko-bastardos!

Or so says this week's Michael-Steele-St00pidest-Things-Ever-Said-Tin-Foil-Chapeau winner. He loves long walks on the beach, good homestyle cooking; turnoffs include negative people and rainy days, please give a warm mojowire welcome to Andy Schafly.

Take it away Andy:

The theory of relativity is a mathematical system that allows no exceptions. It is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world.

[...]

See, e.g., historian Paul Johnson's book about the 20th century, and the article written by liberal law professor Laurence Tribe as allegedly assisted by Barack Obama. Virtually no one who is taught and believes relativity continues to read the Bible, a book that outsells New York Times bestsellers by a hundred-fold.

Let's start with the easy part. Uh, Andy? The "Theory of Relativity" and the "liberal moral relativism" that makes your ass twitch are not really related the way you think they are related.

Oh, by the way wireheads... that name – Andy Schafly – sound familiar? Well, it should. He is the monkey progeny of one of our all time favorites here on "St00pidest Things Ever Said," the Queen Ant Herself, High Kahuna-ess Phylis Schafly.

Yes, before Sharron, before Sarah, before Rush, Glenn and Bill-O, even before Tea Parties and Christian Coalitions, there was Phylis and her movement conservative psychonauts of the Eagle Forum.

Here's the thing. The Conservapedia entry for "Counterexamples to Relativity" is what we're discussing in this context.

Now, from Andy's commentary, as well as his actual work on the entry, it would appear as if he's trying for the "there are scientific questions and problems with Relativity, and therefore God hates fags."

Here's are some of the "30 counterexamples; any one of them shows that the theory is incorrect":

1. The discontinuity in momentum as velocity approaches "c" for infinitesimal mass, compared to the momentum of light.
2. The logical problem of a force which is applied at a right angle to the velocity of a relativistic mass - does this act on the rest mass or the relativistic mass?
3. The observed lack of curvature in overall space.
4. The universe shortly after its creation, when quantum effects dominated and contradicted Relativity.
5. The action-at-a-distance of quantum entanglement.
6. The action-at-a-distance by Jesus, described in John 4:46-54.
7. The failure to discover gravitons, despite wasting hundreds of millions in taxpayer money in searching.
8. The inability of the theory to lead to other insights, contrary to every verified theory of physics.
9. The change in mass over time of standard kilograms preserved under ideal conditions.
10. The uniformity in temperature throughout the universe.
11. "The snag is that in quantum mechanics, time retains its Newtonian aloofness, providing the stage against which matter dances but never being affected by its presence. These two [QM and Relativity] conceptions of time don’t gel."
12. The theory predicts wormholes just as it predicts black holes, but wormholes violate causality and permit absurd time travel.
13. It is impossible to perform an experiment to determine whether Einstein's theory of relativity is correct, or the older Lorentz aether theory is correct. Believing one over the other is a matter of faith.
14. The theory predicts natural formation of highly ordered (and thus low entropy) black holes despite the increase in entropy required by the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Uh, Andy? I have never been more than an armchair physicist, but I watch the Science Channel, too... and if I were in your shoes, you know, wanting to show the Bible was the literal and infallible word of God and that dirty fzcking scientists are all going to burn in hell, I'm not sure I'd be going to the Quantum Mechanics/'Brane Theory card.

And, Andy, no insights have ever been produced from the Theory of Relativity? Are you really that intellectually crippled or just that academically corrupt?

Yeah, current research in cosmology physics is showing the flaws in Relativity, as well as classical Newtonian physics and the Standard Model, which we've all understood for a while was incomplete.

And even Einstein, himself, knew the Relativity was incomplete, which was why he and Niels Bohr would have knock-down drag out physics smack downs and why he was working on a unified field theory up to the time he died.

But I gotta tell you, I'm not thinking that your literal interpretation of the Bible and it's take on creation is going to get a lot scientific support now that Relativity has to contend with 11 dimensional 'Brane Theory and the LHC scratching for Higgs Boson scat in near light speed collisions of protons.

Although, my favorite part of this, and what puts it over the top for STES consideration is his disdain for relativity because he thinks that because he heard somewhere people stop reading the Bible after reading Einstein, that they stop reading the Bible because they were reading Einstein.

Nice logical causal leap, there, Mr. Wizard... outstanding work, really...

The barely literate spewage of examples he claims counter relativity, including Jesus' working of quantum entanglement and the work of another "scientist" who somehow thinks that because the universe is apparently all the same temperature, the Big Bang is false.

Memo to Andy and his fellow "scientist": The 3-degree background radiation found in every direction of the sky is actually one of the strongest physically observable indications of a "Big Bang." Also, Relativity as a theory has been experimentally confirmed on several levels, in spite of your ignorant assertion to the contrary.

The vapid attempt to somehow tie current physics research regarding cosmology and the problems with Relativity into some sort of cultural referendum of Biblical literalness is dumb on a level that one normally ascribes to "Creation Science" idiocy and attempts to "de-liberal" the Bible...

You know, it really does make me wish I was more of a scientist so that I could do the proper deconstruction ass-kicking this nimrod truly deserves...

But of course here's the actual punchline to this whole sad joke:

I have enjoyed personally teaching more than 185 homeschooled teenagers in 13 different courses since 2002. These classes have been open at low cost to everyone, including persons with learning disabilities. My courses covered the material for a full-year public school course in just one semester, meeting only one day a week.

Home schooling... shocked, just shocked.**

Yeah, I'll bet you teach kids with learning disabilities. Only the intellectually handicapped could possibly buy any of the crap you unload on them as true or in any way constituting any sort of "education."

And while I'm thinking about it, you really are just dumb enough to brag about the speed of your "education." A full semester in just one day a week? Well, sure, if you skip all that unnecessary reading, and all those darn facts and that whole critical thinking thing... why I am sure you could knock out a high school education in just six or seven months... eight tops if you include P.E.

It reminds me once of a commercial S9 and I saw while engaged in a round of the TBN drinking game, before he memorialized it as the "700 Club Drinking Game."

The ad in question was promoting Bible based home schooling materials and showing actual examples of the smartness one would be buying for their offspring. During the math example, they were demonstrating addition of a column of four numbers... and they were small enough numbers in the example to easily see the answer they demonstrated was wrong...

And they were oh so proud of it...

mojo sends

**My housemates are home schooling their two kids and I know several other kids who are being home schooled. They are good, smart kids of intelligent, sophisticated parents. I have a regular weekly D&D game with one of these kids, whose company I enjoy and of whom we have all become very fond.

So, no, I am not dissing on home schooling as a whole, but on that subset of home schoolers who think keeping their kids out of the "socialist, Godless public education system" is somehow creating an intellectually superior, educated breed of adult...

Memo to Robert Gibbs: There's Always Room for One More in the Airlock...

Hey Rahm, I gotta partner for your adventure in the vacuum of space...

Robert Gibbs, come on down, you're the next contestant on "You're Not Helping, You Asshole!"

Raw Story this morning reports on White House Press Flunky Robert Gibbs as saying we "Crazy Liberal Critics" need to be drug tested...

Here's the nut:

I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested," Gibbs said. "I mean, it’s crazy."

The paper described the president's spokesman as "simmering with anger" and "in furious disbelief" over some of Obama's liberal detractors, from whom he has faced regular criticism for not pushing a progressive agenda more authoritatively.

“They will be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon," Gibbs retorted. "That’s not reality.”

Hey numbnuts... any of this sound familiar: off shore oil drilling, corporate welfare, extrajudicial execution of American citizens without due process (in fact, due process is expressly being prohibited in some cases), warrantless wire tapping, TALON...errr... I mean FICOR?

The list gets even longer, but you should be getting the point right about now.

And by the way, I, nor anyone I know, have ever said "He's just like George Bush." However, the continuation of certain Bush/Vader policies, and the discussion of continuing others like the economy-eviscerating tax-cuts is worthy of criticism from those of us on the left under the impression that this Administration wasn't going to do stupid shit like that.

Seriously, criticizing the President's continuation of Bush/Vader policies on the reduction of civil liberties is tantamount to saying we want the Pentagon abolished? Really?

Complaining that the President and the Democrats in Congress caved to political expediency and didn't include even a nominal public option in Health Care Reform is tantamount to saying we want "Canadian health care" (and are you really dumb enough to think that's an insult...)?

Look, I am still down for Obama; frankly he's way better than any version of McJackalope/Caribou Barbie would have ever been on their best day in the best of all multiverses...

But you are dangerously close to alienating the people you are going to need the most in a couple of short months, and moreover, using feeble rhetorical devices like that weak-ass argument from hyperbole makes you and your boy Rahm "F'n, Retarded" Emanuel more suited for a Tea Party rally than the reasoned discourse we were all counting on from this administration.

You guys need to check your bearing.

Look, I'm an ideologue, but I'm also a pragmatist. I get that I am pushing for a particular set of views, but I also understand that I don't always get my way. I don't mind that not everything has not played out specifically the way I wished, but that doesn't mean I am going to stop agitating... that's how American Democracy works, Bobby.

But when the people I support  start openly disrespecting me and my opinions, then you are going to catch one in the neck... rhetorically speaking, of course...

In the immortal words of M.C. Hawking: "Don't test! Because the Hawkman will wreck your shit!"

mojo sends

The New Divide...

First a couple of disclaimers:

1. Sorry about the lateness of the post... had some non-bloggy related stuff come up since Saturday afternoon... hope it was worth the wait.
2. I am a cranky leftist blogger and represented myself as such to the people I met, so I don't want to hear "he lied and infiltrated his way into our rally" etc... Yeah, I was there partly just to see the freak show,  and it did not disappoint.
3. I have a bit more patience for the Tea Party than a lot of other cranky lefty bloggers, so in that vein I also wanted to find someone to have an actual conversation with, and get a real sense of what their various issues/beefs are with the way the country is moving. And, somewhat to my surprise, I was not disappointed on that score either.
4. See this Flickr set for some photos of the event...

The world is my expense / The cost of my desire
Jesus blessed me with its future / And I protect it with fire
– Sleep Now in the Fire, Rage Against the Machine


Sharron Angle, running against Harry Reid in Nevada for U.S. Senate (the people's seat as she erroneously called it) was delivering the usual tea party pablum:

• "Obamacare" is unconstitutional
• The Tea Party is "mainstream America."
• SB 1070 in Arizona is apparently a "10th Amendment stand on the border"

Here's an example of the meaningless rhetoric being spewed from the dais that had these people in near orgasmic paroxysms in support and agreement:

We understand our Constitution and that our Founding Fathers had it right they knew that the answer to the problem, the solution to the problem, was not the government, the government is not the solution, the government is the problem, it's we the people that are the solution. And that's why they gave us a constitution that allows we the people to say a few things about our laws; it allows us to make the law, we the people..."

Can someone tell me what this is even supposed to mean?

Yes, I'm not completely thick, I know she's trying to make the whole "rights reserved to the people" argument, even if she's doing it inelegantly. But a lot of the time, that argument sounds less like reasoned political discourse and more like a pissed off 6-year-old who didn't get the cookie they felt they were promised.

We don't need Elena Kagan, we need senators who will vote 'no' on activist judges..."

Allow me to translate: "We need senators who will  only vote for conservative activist judges who meet the strict litmus test of the movement conservatives."

Once I got up to the main body of the rally, it took me less than a minute to find a heckler surrounded by a group of people shoving various recording instruments in his face and trying to argue with him.

Yeah, this is what I came here to see...

It quickly devolved into one of those "I know you are but what am I" and "I can totally kick you ass" arguments. (Although the guy who actually said he could kick the anti Tea Party heckler's ass, claimed he was not picking a fight: "That was just a declarative statement"... weak!)

The level of cowardice, dishonesty and fecklessness from some of the tea party people trying to argue with this guy was pretty stunning. They're essential argument with him was "shut up, that's why!"

So, I'm trying to get a reasonable question in and asking "Fine, take your country back and do what with it?"

The answers, all shouted at me at once, ranged thusly:

• "Like we've always done for 200 years, freedom and the liberty."
• "Sound economy and fiscally responsible."
• "Take it back to the Constitution that we afforded from the... that our Founding Fathers...(illegible) and our rights, and not to manipulate it because it was based on principles not laws,  It was based on principles and principles don't change although this government seems to think that's what they need to do, is change the Constitution."

All the while Sharron Angle was providing a opaque and rambling discourse on Obama, socialism, Harry Reid, we the people, the Constitution, etc...

The way people would jump from one point to the other on what was happening right there, often contradicting themselves in the process was stunning to watch. Frankly, these were folks on the edge trying to hold it together and not being at their rhetorical best.

As I listen to the recordings, the more I hear, the more I am convinced that at least some of these people are spoiling for a fight, and while they may not admit it at church, were fervently praying someone would do something they could willfully misconstrue as physical intimidation.

So give me reason to prove me wrong, to wash this memory clean
Let the floods cross the distance in your eyes
Give me reason to fill this hole, connect the space between
Let it be enough to reach the truth that lies across this new divide
– Linkin Park, New Divide

Oddly enough, the person who gave me the longest rambling bit about what she thought she was taking back ended up calming down a little bit and we actually had a pretty decent conversation about the Tea Party and her own personal journey "up the river" politically, as it were...

First, and I must stress this, she (who will only be identified as "Mrs. Tea," sorry, you refused to give your name, so I get to make one up...) was careful to say, several times that she was only speaking for herself and not for any of her colleagues, which was probably for the best, because at the end of the day, she was probably more moderate than a lot of people there...We spoke at some length about the defensive nature of the Tea Party. They feel put upon and dismissed by the news media and the political establishment at large. There may be many reasons for that, and I will let others speak to that.

But the truth is, a lot of these people feel bullied, or at least, I believe, would like to because being oppressed would certainly give more moral justification to their bunker mentality. However, this is at odds with Sharron Angle's assertion (also made by many other Tea Party folks, including Mrs. Tea herself) that the Tea Party is a mainstream American movement.

How can they be both oppressed political outsiders and simultaneously represent the American mainstream?

Not a rhetorical question. They do have an answer: It's the media. Now, to be honest, none dared call it conspiracy while  I was there, but I don't know how many different ways there are to say it without using the C word."You can see how we're a little bit defensive, with the mainstream media for the last year and a half trying to manipulate and make it something that it's not," Mrs. Tea said.

Further, she was critical of the more extreme elements often found at Tea Party gatherings saying that these are not the people she would like to see in the movement and they are actually destroying the movement.

Another observation that kind of surprised me.  There is an essential mistrust of all politicians. Sure they hoot and holler when they get on stage and say things people want to hear, but that does not confer any faith in these people whatsoever.

The words "accountable" and "arrogance" came up several times. There is a belief that once candidates get elected, they catch the quickest ride out of town, get settled in the state capitol or D.C. and never look behind them, even just phoning in their re-elections because "hey, what're they gonna do, vote for the other guy?"

In this particular, they are little different from progressives who do share a belief that a certain arrogance and callousness has become the hallmark of many of our elected officials and institutions.

Moreover, Mrs. Tea expressed this in some very progressive terms (even if she didn't think she was being progressive). Warrantless searches and wiretapping, extrajudicial execution of American citizens, the Patriot Act... these things make her very uneasy about the direction of government.

Again, stressing she was only speaking for herself, she said that she came to her political awareness in fact during the late Bush/Vader years, and it was the movement towards suppression of civil liberties that was the beginning of her discontent.

What pushed her over the top was the concept of "no." She and several friends were observing that despite the "will of the people" government was often charting it's own course. 
The other phrase that seemed to come up quite a bit was "over-reaching government."

If you had to distill the Tea Party down to a single idea, as far as you can, I think it would be this. It's something I generally disagree with in most regards, but in general it's not a crazy or "out there" proposition.

A lot of people drawn to the Tea Party movement are scared that government is over-reaching it's bounds on American life.

Another surprise, not many people I spoke to seemed interested in make the Tea Party a national organization or institution like the Republican Party or other such group. Again there is a mistrust for large, top-down organizations and the concern that the less localized the Tea Parties become the more unaccountable and vulnerable to corruption they would become.

Agenda 21

Look, I understand why they might feel defensive, and yet the Tea Party is the perfect example of the "unexamined life." At no point in any of the argument or debate did anyone seem to stop and think "what do I want to communicate with this slogan/sign/picture and what am I actually communicating?"

Not only is that question not being contemplated, it would seem like to even ask that question would be an anathema to the party line.

Moreover, they get angry when the extreme elements of the group get more media, but when their rhetoric of mistrust of government and distinguishing between the "patriotic, mainstream Americans" and the "others" without making a floor on how far down that can go or taking the responsibility upon themselves to police the movement, then you are going to get guys like the Agenda 21 guy.

This guy is going around informing people how the UN's Agenda 21 is a plan for eugenics in the United States and how Obama is a socialist UN tool bent on destruction of the Republic.

Here is an some example of  written material being distributed:

From the Nick Popaditch for Congress camp: "Progressive is code for socialism... [The Congressional Progressive Caucus's] agenda has been Obama's agenda before Obama became Obama. A socialist state controlled society."

And they wonder how guys like Agenda 21 show up and give the party more of a radical bent than some people maybe really comfortable with? Sorry guys, you lie down with dogs you are going to get fleas. Trust me, I'm a Democrat, I should know...

And how about the almost unintelligible rhetoric coming from Chelene Nightingale, the anti-Meg Whitman conservative candidate for governor:

What can we do to change the system, we are telling them we don't want their socialism. The other thing we can do as a people, that I can do,  is to encourage preventative medicine. The FDA has not been doing their job. They were supposed to protect our food, but instead they are battling raw milk? Raw milk are they serious? Raw milk is a crime? They're trying to put vitamin and alternative medicine industries out of business like that's a crime? But instead they allow (unintelligibile) and additives to our food that I can't even pronounce..."

Comedy gold. Sorry, but this lady is simply an ignorant boob who doesn't understand half the crap she rants about, and you wonder why people have a hard time taking the Tea Party seriously? Equating the FDA's push to keep bad dairy products, and snake oil fake medicine off shelves and ensuring the nutritional content of food is somehow with a concerted effort to kill American liberty is simply crazy.

Here's a simpler example. Mrs. Tea and I were discussing the Prop. 8 ruling discussed at some length here in previous posts. While she said she had not really read the ruling yet, her basic take was that a single judge was able to overrule the "will of the people."

Even understanding the need to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority, she nonetheless was against the ruling even after admitting that gay marriage did not effect my marriage.

Now instead of taking those positions and maybe evolving politically, there was another, easier way to keep the paradigm in tact.

Gays and lesbians are being used in an attack on Christian religious life in America. The object here, apparently, once gay marriage is legalized, is to force churches to marry gays and lesbians at the point of a law suit, thereby making teaching anti-gay theology prohibited in the United States.

[/crickets]

Even trying to convince her with a legal argument that such a lawsuit, if it were ever to be filed, would find no purchase in any court in America, much less survive any kind of constitutional challenge was not accepted. It comes down to a matter of belief, based more, I think, on fear, than any kind of sound reasoning.

"Us" versus "Them"

Nick Popaditch is running for Congress, and boy is he steamed. Complaining about the greed factor in American health care and having the government take an active role in stemming that is tantamount to dissing on the corpsmen who saved his life after being shot in the head by an RPG in Iraq.

Obama is out to take away our freedom and out to create socialized medical care.

And this from a guy who's got socialized medicine, in the TriCare and VA system he was so proud of and of whose people he was so praising.

And here's where we get to the point, if any Tea Partiers present want to know: I'm just going to say that I disagree with Popaditch; his honorable service to his country notwithstanding, his experience neither confers moral force or factual impetus to his statements.

Yet, he ended several statements about what he didn't like about the Obama administration with "not in my country."

Question, Gunny: what about my country? What about the country of the millions of people who voted for Obama, with a clear understanding that he was going to be liberal, or at least more liberal than you are comfortable with?

Whether you mean to or not, when you say things like "not in my country" you are implying that by disagreeing with you, I am no longer, in your eyes, a part of this country, and you hold my citizenship less than people who agree with you.

The turgid rhetoric about "us" vs. "them" is what most people focus on, especially when you have such a difficult time actually describing real policies. Moreover, when someone points that out, then instead of a little self examination, the easier thing to do is to claim they are out to get you.

They want respect, but absolutely refuse to treat their political opponents with any, and the best reason many of them can come up with is "well, they started it..."

The world view is one of large institutions beyond their control that are simply out to rule their lives for their own greedy and nefarious ends. And yet, oddly, this distrust doesn't see to translate to large corporations, but we've already discussed that in another post.

This is what happens when you get half-thought out conspiracies and fear of the unknown altogether. It makes a fertile ground for people with easy answers as to why they can't seem to get ahead in life.

Like it or not Tea Party, you play right into the fringe of the patriot/NWO conspiracy movement, a bizarro otherwhere whence UFOs, 9/11, Nazi Alien Grays, Black Helicopters, the Vatican, the Freemasons, et al. all come together in a search for a kind of grand unified field theory of conspiracy.

You see there are the four forces of conspiracy: the Left Force, the Right Force, the Rich Force and the Alien Force. There is also a suspected fifth force called the God Force, although it is suspected that it's really just an extra dimensional extension of the Alien Force; like the Alien Force with extra Lie Groups... The problem is that the conspiracies of the very small (Whitewater, Cannibis suppression) can not be made to fit with the conspiracies of the very large (Orion Reptilloids creation, shepherding, and ultimate plans for Humanity). Sites like the afore-linked are kind of the Large Hadron Colliders of conspiracy theory.

They seek to take disparate conspiracy particles and smack them together at relativistic speeds in the hope of creating new conspiracy theory particles that will be the final piece to the standard conspiracy model puzzle.

And without anything to replace it, these kinds of conspiracies become very easy to believe and accept, unless you ware willing to come out of your own ideological bubble, which is nearly impossible for hard core activists/believers of any stripe to do.

Final thoughts...

So what did I take away from this today? Well, first, let me say that I understand the basic premise of many of the people there: an ossified and callous government is over-reaching their bounds and threatening their liberty as Americans.

Got it.

I don't necessarily agree, but I understand. As Mrs. Tea said: "We disagree, it doesn't make you wrong, it doesn't make me wrong..."

But this...

...isn't helping your cause.

The sarcastic, dismissive, racially charged (and yes, a lot of the stuff you see at the Tea Party rallies is racially charged), even violent rhetoric is a turn off.

Mrs. Tea had even hinted at one point that I was being brave in representing myself as what I was since some people there might be moved to unpleasantness if I tried to talk to them.

And whether you believe it is justified or not, until the Tea Party folks who claim to be mainstream want to be taken seriously, then you have got to police your team and dial down the stupid. That's assuming that the majority of the mainstream Tea Party movement don't really buy into the extreme rhetoric.

After being at this rally, I'm not taking that bet...Sorry Mrs. Tea, you seem pretty reasonable, even if we disagree on stuff, but I remain unconvinced of the rest...

mojo sends

Pardon the Interruption...

I will be bringing you the tale from yesterday's Tea Party rally... (there's really quite a bit to tell) but I simply have some other stuff that has come up (like a friend in hospital) that I must attend to...

But fear not my legion of loyal readers; please, there is no reason to contemplate doing an outrage to yourself, I shall return this afternoon with the narrative (complete with pictures and maybe even some audio actuality of the horror of Agenda 21!).

Until then dear fans, until then...

mojo sends

What We're Following Today: Physician Screw Thyself...

For reasons that utterly elude me, there is a Doctor's Tea Party in San Diego starting in about an hour. Sharron "teen rape is all part of God's plan" Angle is going to be there. Wo0t!

I'm gonna go get some photos, talk to some folks and embrace the horror.

Talk to you later.

mojo sends

P.S. Should something go horribly wrong, my wife has the contact info for my lawyer... (not that I'm contemplating needing a lawyer...)

Anatomy of a Tea Bagger: Bunker Life in the Kingdom of Fear

With so much coming out about "Tea-baggers this..." and "Tea Party that..." I thought it might be a good idea to try to get a cross section view of what is and is not considered to be "Tea Party."

From what I have read, so far the main thread that seems to run through it is dread terror. It is Hunter Thompson's "Kingdom of Fear" writ on a scale the good Doctor all too presciently imagined. Here is wisdom:

"There is an eerie sense of Panic in the air, a silent Fear and Uncertainty that comes with once-reliable faiths and truths and solid Institutions that are no longer safe to believe in..."

P1. A Little Knowledge...

In her tremendous post of 10 July, the mighty Digby, writing about the formal investiture of a "Tea Party Caucus" in the House of Representatives breaks down some of the known demographic data about the tea bagger phenomenon:

• 86 percent of Tea Party supporters and activists identify with or lean to the Republican Party.

• 79 percent identify as conservatives.

• They are among the most pro-big business segments of the electorate: 54 percent rate it warmly and 20 percent cooly.

• The Tea Party movement is not particularly blue collar. Tea Party supporters are slightly less likely to be college-graduates than the likely electorate (41 percent, versus 45 percent), and the activists more so (48 percent). And 85 percent of the supporters are white. [emphasis mine, ed.]
  

That's some good data, but what's the information? Let's start with that last bit; education level of most self-identified tea baggers*. There seems to be a fair amount of college education in the tea bagger ranks, although, to my mind the number I want to see is tea baggers "with some college education not resulting in degree."

The Gallup Poll study of the Tea Party Movement last April revealed that 34 percent of respondents claimed "some college," with numbers falling within the margin comparing them to the American society at large.

What the hell is going on in our colleges?

Well, lest I get mistaken for a tea bagger, let me tell you. Remember these people come from a mainly conservative background that is rooted in a deep mistrust of intellectualism and academia, so it comes as no surprise that combining the simplistic world view of the movement conservatives with "a little knowledge" can produce people who believe that Denver's push for more bicycles on the road is "a United Nations plot to destroy the country."

It's the most dangerous kind of thinking there is; knowledge without context, the half-read book, the cliff notes, the lazy thinking and grasping at easy answers.

P2. WalMart is Your Friend

Back to Digby's stats for a moment. A hefty 54 percent of these people heart them some big business. Why is that, when the demographic data from Gallup places them squarely in the lower to middle rungs of the middle class being soundly rogered by big business?

Large corporations aren't stupid. Take WalMart, for example: Even though a majority of tea partiers are in the middle class, and that probably represents a moderate to high number of entrepreneurs and small business owners, their unremitting love for companies like WalMart, which is driving their businesses under, is unabated.

WalMart and other companies have started directly marketing to the demographic they want to indenture. The Exception Magazine had a piece on the new strategy being employed by WalMart to capture more tea bagger dollars:

We've noticed that the company's marketing team has purchased the terms "Rand Paul" and "Tea Party" as part of its Google Adwords campaign. In Google's online advertising program, a business such as Walmart bids on key words and if a user is reading about those terms on a Google page or one of its partner sites, the business's ad may automatically appear next to that relevant content.

The ad's headline says "Rand Paul, Tea Party" and the copy says
Read Book Ron Paul Calls Crucial
Save Money. Live Better.
www.Walmart.com

If you click on the ad, it takes you to a page on Walmart's site to buy the book "Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics," a $10.54 tome by Henry Hazlitt, a libertarian economist who passed away in 1993.

They know what these folks want to hear and are more than happy to supply it to them.

P3. Fear and Loathing

Let's take a look at the numbers again: 86 percent conservative Republican, 41 percent college educated ("some college" and "degree" combined). That says a couple of things to me.

The general conservative mindset is above all a fear of change and "the other." A fear based partly in the scarcity principle and partly on societal notions of ranking (i.e. "we" are better than "them.") Next, for the past 30 or 40 years, the movement conservatives have waged a non-stop war on traditional American democracy and pluralistic society.

As conservatives, they are used to having the received wisdom conferred on them by "The Authority," whether that's church, FoxNews, hate radio or Newt Gingrich... Second, as Conservatives there is an inherent mistrust of authority.

There's a bit of cognitive dissonance in that paradigm that keeps tea baggers living on the extremes. Which is to say they trust the authority that already reinforces a particular world view and they accept that authority without question, while simultaneously mistrusting and hating anything that is "different" or authority that does not jibe with their world view.

The problem is that their world view is being shaped by people who don't necessarily have their best interest at heart, and to point that out to a tea bagger is to invite the worst kind of invective.

Think of the harshness of the health care debate. Those talking points originated out of large insurance companies, but were promulgated by the conservative "authority." Therefore: "healthcare reform is death panels and Obama is a socialist bent on destruction of the American way of life."

We all used to get a kick out of the ads on NewsMax and Rush for "Buy Gold Now Against the Coming International Economic Collapse" and "The Cure for Cancer the Government Doesn't Want You to Know About"...

These are examples of how the fear peddling skull farmers of the right work. This model has been adopted, wholesale, if you will, by the same forces that brought us the anti-health care reform propaganda and who are using it to sell mainstream commercial Americana to the tea party rubes.

But their not doing it through traditional ad memes.They are using the political process as a market creation tool to feed on the fear of these people.

The world seems complex and hostile to tea baggers, and the institutions in which they place their faith have turned out to be their enemies and how do you know who you can trust in this day and age... we have to make sure we have ours first before we can worry about anyone else, and in fact, anyone else who says different is clearly out to get us.

This has lead to a certain bunker mentality among the movement conservatives and tea baggers. It was the same for the liberals of the late 70s and 80s, and to an extent of the the Bush/Vader years. But the bunker mentality has not "taken a hold" of the tea party movement. That's where these folks have been living from the beginning.

It's only now, that they are finding that they are sharing bunker space with far more people than they thought, and even that is leading to infighting among the tea partiers, since their basic default is to trust no one but the guy on your left and your right, unless they are darker than you, believe in a different god or no god, voted for the other guy, have better fashion sense, and even if you make the grade, they are down to measuring the length of their crew cuts...

So I've tried to get a demographic glimpse of the tea party movement here and tried to glean some useful information. I'm not sure I've succeeded, but I think at least I've got the beginnings of a picture starting to form... hope this helps...

mojo sends

*I know, I keep sarcastically using the phrase "tea baggers" to describe these people. I am expecting any day to get a letter from the "National Association of Testicle Play Advocates" or some such saying "hey, you asshole, stop calling those people tea baggers. We may have a non-traditional sexual kink but those people are truly dangerous political perverts!"

Perry v. Schwarzenegger: Anatomy of a Beat Down

 

After reading the Perry v. Schwarzenegger decision and re-reading the decision and reading some other commentary, I am ready to offer my essential take on the public ass kicking handed down by Judge Walker in Perry yesterday.

P1. I have never seen a district court judge write a decision like this.

Weighing in at almost 140 pages, this thing is obsessively detailed. Sure, I've seen judges write passionate opinions, detailed opinions and lengthy opinions, but this, with it's level of minutiae from the trial, the professorial pursuit of the author's train of logic and use of evidence, this takes trial court ruling to a whole new level.

It augurs, quite simply for the fact that the judge clearly expects this to be in front of the U.S. Supreme Court at some point, and he doesn't want anyone misrepresenting what he did in court.

In appellate court, there are really only three main issues on which the judges can rule:

1. mistakes in the law, e.g. the judge didn't seem to understand or misapplied the authority he used to decide the case,
2. judicial misconduct or miscarriage of justice like inadequate counsel or other violation of the rights of the parties, and
3. a novel legal question, such as do the Fifth and Ninth amendments to the Constitution really confer a right of privacy, for the purposes of consenting adults obtaining birth control. (Griswold, 1965)

And remember, this is not a mulligan; they got play the ball where it lies.

Attorneys don't get to go into the appellate court with "new evidence" or a newly discovered legal authority, or some other dramatic bit of Perry Mason lawyering. All they have to appeal from is what happened in the original trial and what's there as part of that record.

This leads to lawyers often going to the appellate panel with: "Well, we just aren't sure what the judge was really thinking when he wrote this...personally we feel he didn't consider a, b, c and only considered d..."

No one is going to be able to say that in our instant case.

Walker carefully, nigh on pathologically, breaks down the trial from the statements of the parties, to the discovery, to the credibility of experts to the law cited and gives a truly blow-by-blow description of the trial and his approach to what happened there are how he reacted to it.

There will be no second guessing of the judge on this one. Oh sure, they'll try, and it will be publicly humiliating for them when they do.

P2. Walker knows his audience

This is where it gets really wonky-cool. Unless you are credulous of the issues and the parties involved, you would have to know that this thing wasn't going to be finalized in the trial court. Neither side was going to walk away from this as the losers saying "well, what the hell, we gave it our best shot... let's get down to The Irish Bank before closing, I'm buying..."

Walker had to know this, moreover, he had to know that this may well become one of those Supreme Court decisions that people end up knowing by name and unfortunately end up misquoting or politically abusing when they get their law on.

His writing is geared, as previously noted, to make sure that no one who reads it can come away not understanding how he came to his decision. Moreover, it puts the appellants in a box, of sorts, not allowing them any kind of wiggle room for trying to twist his ruling into saying something it doesn't.

But here's the best part. Anyone following the Supremes knows that Anthony Kennedy is generally considered the swing vote. Even as Kennedy swears he hates being publicly relegated to that role, his record has been one of a genuine scholarly conservative academic and honest broker who has often broken with his more ideological colleagues and followed the dictates of his own intellect.

Some of Kennedy's greatest hits:

• Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003); Texas law criminalizing homosexuality is unconstitutional.
  
• Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996); Law can't prohibit anti-discrimination laws for homosexuals.
• Heller v. Doe, 509 U.S. 312 (1993); Relation to rational interest test for law targeting suspect group.
• Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, 561 U.S. ___ (2010); School can require groups to admit gays.

And in that last one, CLS, Kennedy was the swing concurrence that put it over the top.

Besides pissing off movement conservatives and distinguishing him from the The Dread Judge Roberts, Fat Tony Scalia, Sammy The Gavel Alito and Long John Thomas,  what do all these Kennedy opinions have in common?

They are all used, several times, as the legal authority underpinning Walker's decision. Sure, he quotes a lot of case law, but I think if you were to add up all the Supreme Court justices who authored all the opinions he cited, I would bet a crisp new $100 bill that I don't actually own yet, that Anthony Kennedy's name would be the one most often seen, and not by a narrow margin.

Court watchers have been saying for some time now that the 4-4 split on the court (assuming Elena Kagan sides with the progressives on this) is not going to be easily swayed by arguments on either side. The real guy you have to convince here is Anthony Kennedy, and whether he likes that role or not, it is something of which I believe he is keenly aware.

In some ways, I believe this decision is almost a legal memo to Kennedy saying, "all right boss, you got us here, now let's see if you have what it takes to get us all the way home..."

And no one is going to be able to go up in front of Kennedy and say, "well your honor, I don't know if that's really what the trial judge meant when he said that, because the case law he cites..."

Don't be fooled by his understated, almost folksy demeanor. Kennedy will come over that bench and cut a bitch!

P3. Remember that scene from Ghostbusters 2?

Tully: "I don't think it's fair to call my clients criminals, because once I turned into a dog and they helped me..."

Remember the look on the judge's face after that; a mixture of shock, disbelief and the internal struggle of muted rage that, unchecked, would allow one to commit unspeakable acts of violence against the ignorant and unwary?

There is an entire section of the decision, 10 pages, pp 25-35 that is entitled "Credibility Determinations."

Now in legalese, that is a term of art. Experts, when they are deposed before trial go through a whole thing where they lay out there credentials and essentially make a case for why they should be considered an expert on this case and why their opinions should be given weight as actual evidence.

See Kumho Tire v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (1996), General Electric Co v Joiner, 522 US 136 (1997) and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993) for more on how experts in court get to be experts and how and why their opinions get admitted as evidence.

Well, bad news for the experts testifying for proponents of Prop. 8, like "Family Life Expert" David Blankenhorn.

We'll let Judge Walker make his own point on this one:

Blankenhorn offered opinions on the definition of marriage, the ideal family structure and potential consequences of state recognition of marriage for same-sex couples.  None of Blankenhorn’s opinions is reliable.

[...]

Blankenhorn gave absolutely no explanation why manifestations of the deinstitutionalization of marriage would be exacerbated (and not, for example, ameliorated) by the presence of marriage for same-sex couples.  His opinion lacks reliability, as there is simply too great an analytical gap between the data and the opinion Blankenhorn proffered.

[...]

Blankenhorn’s opinions are not supported by reliable evidence or methodology and Blankenhorn failed to consider evidence contrary to his view in presenting his testimony.  The court therefore finds the opinions of Blankenhorn to be unreliable and entitled to essentially no weight.

His little asshat pal, Claremont-McKenna College Professor Kenneth Miller, an alleged expert on American politics fared no better in his attempt to paint gays and lesbians as a major political force compelling the public to accept their lifestyle:

Plaintiffs cross-examined Miller about his knowledge of the relevant scholarship and data underlying his opinions.  Miller admitted that proponents’ counsel provided him with most of the “materials considered” in his expert report.

[...]

Miller explained on redirect that he had reviewed “most” of the materials listed in his expert report and that he “tried to review all of them.”  Tr 2697:11-16.  Miller testified that he believes initiatives relating to marriage for same-sex couples arise as a check on the courts and do not therefore implicate a fear of the majority imposing its will on the minority.

[...]

The credibility of Miller’s opinions relating to gay and lesbian political power is undermined by his admissions that he: (1) has not focused on lesbian and gay issues in his research or study; (2) has not read many of the sources that would be relevant to forming an opinion regarding the political power of gays and lesbians; (3) has no basis to compare the political power of gays and lesbians to the power of other groups, including African-Americans and women; and (4) could not confirm that he personally identified the vast majority of the sources that he cited in his expert report, see PX0794A.  Furthermore, Miller undermined the credibility of his opinions by conceding that gays and lesbians currently face discrimination and that current
discrimination is relevant to a group’s political power.  

[...]

For the foregoing reasons, the court finds that Miller’s opinions on gay and lesbian political power are entitled to little weight and only to the extent they are amply supported by reliable evidence.

Memo to the movement: Look, you want to just make shit up out of whole cloth to sell to your people, that's your own business. But when you bring that crap into a court of law, it becomes all of our business and you will get your ass handed to you if don't come correct.

In the immortal words of Jim Rome: Have a take, do not suck or you will get run.

Unfortunately for you, you had no real take and you did, in fact, suck with a mighty and most terrible wind and you got run.

That's the thing about the "experts" you hear guys like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck citing. They just make this shit up and then spooge it into the echo chamber where it becomes the received wisdom in a grotesque parody of intellectual rigor and academic review.

And the gomers just swarm all over it like starving dung beetles.

But get these guys in an open court where they don't control the forum, and they fold faster than a deuce-seven off suit at the final table of the World Series of Poker.

They have no game and they get spaced out the airlock everytime.

Endgame:

So if you've read this far, thank you and please, go find something to do outside for a while... this concludes my basic take on the Perry decision and why I feel pretty confident that we are going to see the proper progressive outcome when all this shakes out.

From the level of thinking and detail in Walker's writing to the pathetic weakness of the Prop. 8 proponents' case, to the fact that the decision seemed tailored to bring the Supreme Court's swing vote into line with the trial court, I am optimistic.

I need a drink... talk to you later...

mojo sends

Federalist No. 10: In Case of Mob Rule, Break Glass

Well, it's been a bit of day here at the wire, between the movement asshats discussing how to repeal the 14th Amendment to the 14th Amendment's revenge in today's ass kicking... errr... ruling on Proposition 8 and the future of pluralistic American society.

Time to step back and just take in the events of the past couple of days and maybe get some perspective.

And part of doing that is breaking out that plastic baggy with the black tarry lump of incongruity, loading it into the irony bong and sparking that bitch up...

One of the major push backs against today's Perry v. Schwarzenegger ruling from the usual suspects has been the expected chorus of "black robed tyrants disregarding the will of the people...judges aren't supposed to make law, they have to respect the voters..."

Seriously, do I even have to provide the links? 

Oddly enough, it is often those folks who are first to go to the "original intent of the framers" card in debates like this. In fact, that was part of the defendants' argument in Perry; that our nation's legal traditions relative to marriage going back to the founders have only included notions of heterosexual relationships.

Well, forget the fact that those assertions were destroyed during the trial... let's talk for a moment about the original intent of the founders relative to the will of the people. Because the principal framer of the Constitution, James Madison, had a few choice things to say about the voters and vox populi in general.

Federalist No. 10 explains why direct democracy is not such a great thing, given the whims of the mob, namely the "dangerous vice" of factions:

Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true.

[...]

By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.

[...]

From this view of the subject it may be concluded that a pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority of the whole; a communication and concert result from the form of government itself; and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party or an obnoxious individual. Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of government, have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.

It was this kind of fractiousness and mob rule that Lincoln was addressing in his famous Lyceum speech of 1838 where he almost presciently seems to predict the coming Civil War, and exactly that kind of mob mentality that Madison was warning against and trying to empower the newly formed republic to resist.

And it was in this spirit that the 14th Amendment was passed; a post bellum clarification of the relationship of citizens to the state and vice versa and a clear statement of the protections afforded by the state to the rights of individuals.

In many ways, it really is the "evil" that many movement conservatives claim it is: a recognition of the moral equivalency of all Americans regardless of the birth, station, religious belief or lack thereof, skin color, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, etc... The short hand is that no American is inherently better or worse than any other in the eyes of the law, period.

Like, John Rawls veil of ignorance, we Americans theoretically exist as a tabula rasa, with no bias for or against us in civil society, as long as we follow some pretty basic rules, e.g. don't take shit that doesn't belong to you, don't make everyday life more dangerous or complicated for your neighbors than is already necessary, etc...

Today's Perry decision was a reaffirmation of that principle in no uncertain terms. It was Madison's desire for a moderating influence on the winds of popular opinion and the operation of the 14th Amendment as the graphite rod in the populist reactor that pulled California back from the brink of gross stupidity today.

So no, Red State, just because you voted for it doesn't necessarily make it so. The framers of the Constitution managed to see to that explicitly.

Not that the "will of the people" has ever been all that important to the movement conservatives. What we see in the reactions from the right are simply the political expediency of bumper sticker politics. The real issue is more subtle, and at the same time more audacious.

The modern American conservative movement, as previously noted by Dr. Strych9 is simply incompatible with American democracy. The unremitting hatred of pluralistic society and the intellectual freedom and personal opportunity that it represents is the real enemy of the conservative movement.

Judicial rulings like Perry, based on laws like the 14th Amendment represent a direct insult to everything the current conservative movement believe. It is an affirmation of the moral equivalency of all Americans, regardless of your background, belief or genetic makeup.

Yeah, that just makes them pea-soup-spitting, head-spinning crazy... they just go nuts...

mojo sends

UPDATE 1: Breaking! Prop. 8 Ruled Unconstitutional!

UPDATED BELOW

It is being reported that Prop. 8 has been overturned by the trial court.

It's going to take some time to digest the Perry v. Schwarzenegger ruling once we get it off the court's public document server but I think the the basics are clear. The Fifth and 14th Amendments to the Constitution say – pretty clearly – that everyone, I repeat, everyone, in America has the right to be free of government sanctioned discrimination.

You can not be denied protection or benefits of the law because people don't like your lifestyle, the end.

And xtians, put a sock in it... a gay couple tying the knot is in no way harming you. No, don't even bring that shit here, because you will get run under a hail of cold mockery, pointed questioning and a vicious rhetorical beat down.

We will  be updating this as we get more information...

UPDATE 1:

Here is the full Perry decision.

Although it's 138 pages of pretty tight legal writing that deconstructs the anti-gay bigotry of Prop. 8 at every (and I mean every) turn, it's basis is really simple. Here's the nut:

That the majority of California voters supported Proposition 8 is irrelevant, as “fundamental rights may not be submitted to [a] vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.” West Virginia State Board of Education v Barnette, 319 US 624, 638 (1943). Under strict scrutiny, the state bears the burden of producing evidence to show that Proposition 8 is narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest. Carey v Population Services International, 431 US 678, 686 (1977). Because the government defendants declined to advance such arguments, proponents seized the role of asserting the existence of a compelling California interest in Proposition 8.

[...]

As presently explained in detail, the Equal Protection Clause renders Proposition 8 unconstitutional under any standard of review. Accordingly, the court need not address the question whether laws classifying on the basis of sexual orientation should be subject to a heightened standard of review.

Although Proposition 8 fails to possess even a rational basis, the evidence presented at trial shows that gays and lesbians are the type of minority strict scrutiny was designed to protect. Massachusetts Board of Retirement v Murgia, 427 US 307, 313 (1976) (noting that strict scrutiny may be appropriate where a group has experienced a “‘history of purposeful unequal treatment’ or been subjected to unique disabilities on the basis of stereotyped characteristics not truly indicative of their abilities” (quoting San Antonio School District v Rodriguez, 411 US 1, 28 (1973)). See FF 42-43, 46-48, 74-78. Proponents admit that “same-sex sexual orientation does not result in any impairment in judgment or general social and vocational capabilities.”

It looks like a motion to stay the decision pending appeal has been temporarily granted, pending arguments for and against such an order to be heard by August 6.

We'll have more on this later...

mojo sends

Dred Scott? You're soaking in it?

Repealing the 14th Amendment, GOP?  We're now talking about jumping off that ledge? 

The reason why GOP wants to do this is simply amazing.  From S.C Senator Lindsey Graham via Politco:

I may introduce a constitutional amendment that changes the rules if you have a child here,” Graham said during an interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake ...  We should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child's automatically not a citizen.” {...}

People come here to have babies,” he said. “They come here to drop a child. It's called "drop and leave." To have a child in America, they cross the border, they go to the emergency room, have a child, and that child's automatically an American citizen. That shouldn't be the case. That attracts people here for all the wrong reasons.”

Did you get that?

The Illegal Immigrant horde is sending its Drone Queens to our E.R.s to lay their eggs by the thousands.  Presumably once they hatch they will use their citizenship to establish the Alien/Predator liberal Utopia they have been scheming to create since at least Ridley Scotts 1979 Documentary.

The Know-Nothing-esque immigration mythology aside, Graham’s argument is a perfect example of why the citizenship clause was placed in the 14th Amendment in the first place.  Can you say Dred Scott?

Creating a definition of citizenship that isn't subject to popular whims and majority predjudice was the whole point.  Taney and the pro-slavery justices in the Scott case exploited the lack of such a definition in the Constitution as a way to not only settle the violent conflict over expanding slavery into the territories, but to unravel the Missouri Compromise and the entire idea that Congress had the power to ban or limit slavery anywhere in one blow as well.  It is the gold standard of Judicial Activism and overreach.   

And seriously, what are we going to do this for?  To appease the paranoid fantasies of a group of cranks who think their shitty economic prospects are the fault of the immigrants?  Ummm..lets not.

The 14th Amendment is one of  the foundations of Modern American society.  From Brown vs. Board of Ed to the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act to virtually every law that requires states to apply their laws equally .  Attacks like this on the 14th are an utter scam, and for some a dog whislte for the sorts of racist douchebags who want to restore Jim Crow and elevate their pathetic selves over someone else.   Not to mention that there is not a shred of actual evidence that a) there is some mass influx of egg laying immigrant women trying to seed the country with their non white offspring b) that a motivating factor for illegal immigration is citizenship.  Instead, what we've seen is immigration, both legal and illegal, rise and fall almost exactly in regards to economic conditions in the U.S.   

One of the cruel ironies for GOP politicians who play the appease the crank game is that if such an idea really did get traction, a very powerful constituency would get very upset, Corporations. Santa Clara Country vs. Southern Pacific Railroad is the basis for the natural personhood of corporations, which has profound implications for the legal, political and economic structure of our economy.  The whole idea is on pretty shaky ground to begin with, and I seriously doubt any laywer representing a corporation in the U.S. is eager to have the whole idea become the subject of litigation.  Something that would undoubtably happen if the citizenship clause was repealed.

I won't even get into the implications for Griswold and Roe.  Let's just say that this whole idea is so terriblly insane and intertwined with the racist and ahistorical threads running through the TeaParty numbnuts and their Fox and GOP enablers that it cannot be smacked down hard enough.  But lets try anyway.

And Lindsey, please borrow a quarter and buy a clue. 

Speechless

Oh. My. Ghods.

Words fail me.

mojo sends