Genghis's blog

First Press: How Bill O'Reilly Saved Christmas

Genghis — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:18:11 +0000

Readers, I apologize for my slow posting lately. I've been hunkering down to work on my upcoming book, How Bill O'Reilly Saved Christmas. But I'm popping my head up briefly to announce my first piece of press, a blog article at the Washington Post. Check it out to see me answer probing questions like "What is the single most resilient myth you will crush in the book?", "How will conservatives react to your analysis?", "Is it true that you once saved the nation of Liechtenstein from an army of Ann Coulter clones?"

I've also just discovered, via self-googling, that my book is now available on Amazon. Sign up now for the pre-order sale price. (And yes, I will be flogging my book at every opportunity for the rest of the year.)

Feature video:

Include this post in the featured videos

Liberals Disappointed that Pentagon Gunman Was Not a Right-Wing Extremist

Genghis — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 16:33:44 +0000

After their slam dunk with anti-tax kamikaze Andrew Joseph Stack, liberals hoped to rack up more political points with another right-wing act of terror. When the news broke of a gunman loose in Washington, breathless liberal bloggers and political email spammers burst into action.

According to blog enthusiast cheneyMUSTdie, who subscribes to over 1500 blogs and frequently posts the same comment on each of them: "OMG TEH WINGNUTS ARE KILLING AGAIN!!! THIS IS AWESOME!!!!!!"

The first sign that liberal hopes would go unfulfilled was the target of the attack. The gunman had attempted a frontal assault on the Pentagon, an atypical choice among right-wing terrorists.

According to Dr. Hannibal Venkman, Professor of Psycho-Politics at Georgetown University,

The selection of a high profile military institution, such as the Pentagon, would be very unusual for a conservative extremist. Conservatives tend to prefer nondescript bureaucratic offices in remote locations, accessible by van or light aircraft. The Pentagon is more popular among Islamic terrorists and the fictional masterminds of evil spy agencies.

Typical of the new breed of domestic terrorist, the gunman, J. Patrick Bedell, published his heartfelt opinions on the Internet, carefully concealing his identity under the screen name "JPatrickBedell." Bedell had developed a revolutionary theory of "information currency" to prove that the apparent suicide by Colonel James Sabow in 1991 was in fact a CIA assassination to cover up its involvement in the drug trade. He continued:

My desire for justice led me to violate what I think is one of the most unjust laws, cannabis prohibition, by growing 16 cannabis plants on my balcony in Irvine, CA from March 2006 to June 2006.

According to Professor Venkman, civil disobedience through cannabis production is almost unheard of on the right. It is more commonly used by antiestablishment college students to "rationalize their pot habits."

Some liberals have not given up. A progressive blogger at TeaFarty.com argued that the JPatrickBedell blog had been faked by "right-wing CIA-backed Teabaggers to cover up the cover up of Colonel Sabow's alleged suicide."

Conservatives, for their part, reacted with relief. Right-wing blogger RedButNotInASocialistWay sighed, "I don't think that I could have gone to bat for yet another homicidal maniac so soon after the last one."

Feature video:

Include this post in the featured videos

Why Do Liberals Hate Beauty Queens?

Genghis — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:25:05 +0000

What is the most persecuted demographic in the nation? It's not the blacks, the Jews, or the Hispanics, and certainly not the gays. One victim stands out in the gruesome annals of discrimination: the Beauty Queen.

The latest sacrifice to the bottomless hunger of the gay liberal hate monster is Miss Beverly Hills, Lauren Ashley. Ashley simply quoted an innocent line from the Bible:

If man lies with mankind as he would lie with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death and their blood shall be upon them.

It's the Bible, you liberals. When you persecute Lauren Ashley, you are persecuting God! And beauty queens!

Most people have no idea how long beauty queens have been suffering from discrimination by liberals and gays. In 1977, former Miss Oklahoma and Florida Citrus spokeswoman, Anita Bryant tried to stop gays from getting special privileges in Miami, like the privilege of not getting fired. You'd think the gays would be happy that they weren't getting stoned. Well guess what, when you give gays special privileges, you're really just discriminating against beauty queens. This is what Anita Bryant wrote:

If this ordinance amendment is allowed to become law, you will in fact be infringing upon my right or rather DISCRIMINATING against me as a citizen and mother to teach my children and set examples or point to others as examples of God's moral code as stated in the Holy Scriptures.

Well then the gays got mad, and they started DISCRIMINATING against Anita Bryant even more by boycotting orange juice and sending her postcards that said, "We are switching to prune juice, and we will send you the results." Poor Anita had to hold a hold a press conference and refer to herself in the third person to say that "the blacklisting of Anita Bryant has begun."

It's been open season on beauty queens ever since. When Miss California, Carrie Prejean objected to gay marriage, they called her names and took away her crown. Then they gave it back and took it away again just to be jerks. Bill O'Reilly reported that the "spirit" of Carrie's First Amendment rights were violated by the "unbelievable attacks, personal attacks." Violating the spirit of people's rights is even worse than violating their actual rights.

But the most abused beauty queen of all time is, of course, Sarah Palin. She has been "reviled," "hated, "detested," "intensely disliked," "targeted," "smeared," "ridiculed," "patronized," "distorted," "looked down on," "hacked," "attacked," "opposition researched," "assassinated," and worst of all, "sarah-palined." Like Rush Limbaugh said, "They are literally trying to destroy not just her career, but her reputation."

I call on the government to put a stop to this genocidal discrimination against beauty queens. We need to expand the Federal hate crimes law to remove sexual orientation and replace it with beauty pageant participation. Don't talk to me about Matthew Shepard's suffering, not while Sarah Palin's life and career is being destroyed before our very eyes.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm currently writing a book, How Bill O'Reilly Saved Christmas: A Fairly Balanced Account of Right-Wing Persecution Politics, to be published in October. For more lurid tales of discrimination and suffering, read my persecution politics series at dagblog.com.

Feature video:

Include this post in the featured videos

Who Hijacked Yahoo Mail?

Genghis — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:03:43 +0000

This morning, I emailed everyone I know to try to sell them Viagra. Ex-bosses, ex-friends, ex-random-people-that-I-met-once-in-a-cafe, and ex-girlfriends (who really don't want to hear from me, let alone buy Viagra from me).

Sorry.

I didn't mean to. In fact, I don't remember doing it. But the incriminating evidence is sitting in my Yahoo "Sent Mail" folder. Six emails sent collectively to everyone in my contacts list between 10:09 and 10:10 am. All hocking Viagra.

How could this have happened? After several hours of research and several more hours of head scratching, not including a quick lunch break, three bathroom trips (#1, #1, #2), and half-an-hour to figure out how to change my email password, I've narrowed it down to five possibilities:

1. My computer has virus. This might seem like the most likely possibility, since the newly discovered Kneber bot apparently loves to steal Yahoo email passwords. But the Kneber bot targets PCs, and I have a Mac. Moreover, the only known Mac OS X virus is a pathetic iChat trojan horse that wouldn't recognize a Yahoo email password if you tweeted, "Hey virus, my yahoo email password is onenutgenghis73."

2. I got hacked. Unlikely, since I don't give my password out and certainly don't publish it on the Internet where some Viagra-spammer could find on it. Plus, it has numbers and other confusing things in it.

3. Yahoo got hacked. Possible, especially since my Mac-owning ex-girlfriend also tried to sell me Viagra last week via Yahoo mail. But you'd think that Yahoo getting hacked would be all over the news, and I've found nothing so far.

4. I checked my email from an infected PC. In all seriousness, this seems the most probable cause, given the Kneber bot's password-stealing proclivities, even though I rarely check email from other computers.

5. I was drunk. Possible but unlikely, even for me, at 10 in the morning. Hocking Viagra would also be atypical behavior for me to do while drunk. Had my emails included pictures of my head photoshopped onto the bodies of various celebrities, porn stars, and furry animals, it would be a different matter.

So the mystery continues. If your email or facebook account has been hacked recently, please speak up in the comments so that we can get to the bottom of this.

And if you just want Viagra, please send me a private comment. I'll add you to my contact list.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update 3/12/10: So I've been going back and forth with Yahoo Customer Care to try to find out how my account was hacked. I faxed them written permission, answered security questions, etc. Customer Care then accessed my account and did nothing but reset my password. That's a bit strange in itself because I'm sure that Yahoo doesn't need written permission to reset a password.

In any case, I was looking for information, not a password reset, so I explained, again, that I wanted to find out how my account had been hacked and requested any information that they had.

Now here's the punchline--they won't tell me. To get information about my own account, I have to go through the legal department and may require a subpoena. This is starting to smell.

I'm going to get some legal advice and will follow up when I get more information. The edited email chain is below.

--------------------------------

Hello, Michael

We'd like to apologize for any inconvenience that has been caused while
you help us verify the information that is listed on your account.

We've created a temporary password which will help you regain access
right away!

Your new password is: ***************

Again, we do apologize for the inconvenience this situation has caused.
Please let us know if there's anything else we can do.

Your patience is greatly appreciated.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Account Services.

Regards,
Jake

Account Security E2ENG

Yahoo! Customer Care

New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - better than ever!

--------------------------------

Hello, Jake. Thank you for looking into my problem. However, resetting
my password was not the issue. I did that myself as soon as I realized
that my account had been compromised.

I contacted Yahoo to determine how my account had been hijacked in
order to make sure that my information is safe. Were you able to
determine how the hackers gained access to my account? As I mentioned
in my email, I use a Mac, and I don't believe that there are any Mac
viruses that can capture passwords from keystrokes.

Thanks,
Mike

--------------------------------

Hello Mike,

Thank you for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.

We apologize for the previous misunderstanding.

It is our understanding that you would like information from Yahoo!
regarding access to your account.

State and Federal laws strictly limit the information that online
service providers, like Yahoo!, may disclose about subscribers. If you
are seeking to obtain account information on a specific subscriber, we
will need a subpoena or a court order.

If you have obtained a subpoena or a court order for the release of
information, please mail it to:

Yahoo! Custodian of Records
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Customer Care.

Regards,

Jane

Yahoo! Customer Care

New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - better than ever!

--------------------------------

Hello Jane, I'm very confused now. I asked for information about only
my own account. My mail account was used by a third party to send
soliciting emails without my knowledge or consent. I would like to
know how a third party gained access to my account so that I can
protect myself from the loss of privacy. I am a paying yahoo customer,
and I think it's reasonable to request any information you have about
how my account was hijacked without my having to obtain a subpoena.

Thank you for your assistance,

Mike

--------------------------------

Hello Mike,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Account Services.

We'd like to apologize for any inconvenience that our process for
attaining the information you've requested may cause.

If you would like to attain access logs and activity records for your
own account, we will need you to contact our Yahoo! Custodian of Records
department. Unfortunately, our Yahoo! Account Security team does not
have access to these records.

To disclose log information and access data, we may require a subpoena
or other legal documentation. Send all such requests in writing to:

Yahoo! Custodian of Records
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089-1019

For information regarding subpoenas or court orders, please call:

(408) 349-3687

If you prefer, you may fax questions to the Yahoo! legal department at:

(408) 349-7941

or submit them to us by mail to:

Yahoo! Inc.
Attn: Legal Department
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089

Again, we do apologize for the inconvenience this situation has caused.
Please let us know if there's anything else we can do.

Your patience is greatly appreciated.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Account Services.

Regards,

Jake

Account Security E2Y

Yahoo! Customer Care

New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - better than ever!

Feature video:

Include this post in the featured videos

Sailing

Genghis — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:22:09 +0000

I've been trying to write this follow-up post for some time. It's long and personal--only for those who are curious about what happened to me since April.

Last spring, I wrote about leaving. Professionally unfulfilled and socially disconnected, I agonized over whether to flee my adopted home of New York City...

My ship has been quietly slipping from the harbor these past two years. I can't stay out here in the open sea. Shall I tack back to port or sail on? Even the idea of leaving makes me miss the city, but I cannot even remember my last New York moment.

In the end, I decided to leave. New York had gone cold and sour for me. I packed my few belongings into a sterile white rental van and embarked for Philadelphia to live with my brother and his family while I decided whether to settle there. It was without question the loneliest, most heartbreaking move I've ever made. As I emerged on the New Jersey side of the Holland Tunnel, I started sobbing.

Living with my brother was therapeutic, and I'm grateful to have had his warm support. The time spent with him, his wife, and my absurdly cute nephew helped me to reconnect with the world after my period of isolation. But my brother's house was like a cozy rest stop that has sold out all its maps. It was not my destination, and I was still lost.

I'd left a lover in New York, so I traveled back each week to visit her. Paradoxically, the distance brought us closer. Living in the city, it was all too easy to keep the relationship at arms length. I used to take the subway uptown to stay with her a couple of nights a week, but I refused to let her sink in or interfere with my routine. But when you visit from out of town to spend days at a time in your lover's home, there is no avoiding interference. She starts to sink in. You begin to miss her whenever you're away.

Last spring, I wrote about the solace I took in blogging: "Writing has been for me like a hot fire in a cold dark room." Deeply unhappy with my technology career, I had resolved to become a writer, though I was unsure how to go about it and cynical about the possibility of success. I had begun writing a book, The Heretic's Bible, which I'd hoped to complete in Philadelphia...until another well-established author came out with a similar book. Seeking advice, I showed what I'd written to a friend's literary agent. She felt that the idea wasn't marketable enough and recommended that I drop the project. So I did.

I spent the spring and summer kicking around book ideas, but none felt right--I kept kicking. I applied for a couple of journalism jobs--fruitless. I kept working technology projects that I could barely stand to look at. Finally, in early August, I stumbled on something. Researching a blog post on the separation of church and state, I was struck by right-wing complaints of Christian persecution. At the same time, someone forwarded me a video of Pat Buchanan raging about Judge Sotomayor's racism against white people. A light flickered in my head. I began to research the right wing's "persecution complex." There were blog references galore and an article or two (there have been many more written since), but no one had dedicated a book to the topic.

I scribbled the idea into an email and sent it to the agent I had spoken to before. She asked to speak to me by phone the next day. I was in New York at the time, working at a coffee shop far from my girlfriend's place. I strained to think of a quiet place to talk where we wouldn't be interrupted by the gurgle of cappuccino machines or wailing sirens from the street. Finally, I walked out to a park on the east river and called the agent from my cellphone under a drizzling rain. The conversation was brief. She offered to represent me.

By the end of the call, it had started to pour. I took refuge under an overpass by the highway. I called my girlfriend, my parents, and my brother. Then I stood there waiting for the rain to pass, feeling a sensation that I had not felt in a long time--hope.

I spent the next three months developing the book proposal and juggling technology projects. The process brimmed with joyful creation and agonizing uncertainty. Finally, the proposal went out to some twenty publishers. Most of them passed on the project. Weeks went by without a word from my agent. I grew despondent and began to think about what I would do if no one published the book.

My girlfriend had to spend the month of December in Seattle for work, and I went with her. It would be the longest time that we had spent together. We stopped first in San Francisco, where I used to live and have many close friends. Two days before Thanksgiving, I gave my girlfriend a walking tour of the city. As we were walking down a pretty tree-lined street in my old neighborhood, my agent called. I had received an offer--with an advance. The publisher, my agent said, was very excited.

Seattle is a beautiful city, ringed by snowcapped mountains and tree covered islands. My girlfriend and I rented a little house near the University of Washington. We spent evenings exploring the city and weekends exploring the countryside. I did research in the university library and began to write my book in the coffeeshops. At the end of the trip, we talked about living together.

I'm back in New York now, writing at my favorite coffeeshop in the East Village where I once lived. I'm sitting by the window with a warm pot of tea. There is fresh snow on the ground, already gritty from traffic and soot. The sky is bright blue with translucent stripes of high white clouds. I love my work. I'm in love with a woman.

Sometimes you have to leave in order to return.

Feature video:

Include this post in the featured videos

Why Are Liberals So Condescending?

Genghis — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 21:14:41 +0000

Dear Mr. Alexander,

Thank you for your important and original editorial, "Why are liberals so condescending?" I had no idea that I been guilty of employing tired and contemptuous stereotypes of my conservative brethren. I realize now that my partisan arrogance has limited "our national conservation on critical policy issues" and that if I and my fellow liberals had just been a little more charitable towards conservative sensibilities, the Republicans would be working with us to move the nation forward in harmony instead of being forced to filibuster every bill, nomination, and procedural motion on the Senate floor. All I can say is that I'm sorry, and I will try to be better.

Since your essay explained the many ways in which liberals are condescending but didn't actually answer your own question, I'd like to help by explaining why we liberals are so arrogant.

We're not really bad people, but our feelings have been hurt too. I wish that all conservatives were reasonable people like you who offer helpful constructive criticism. But I've been hearing so much lately about how evil I am and how I hate the Constitution, it's hard not to take it personally. I know that you said Glenn Beck is just "a marginal figure and a media gadfly," and I keep reminding myself of that, but he's sold millions and millions of books, which is way more than any of the liberal writers that you cited. I don't think many people have heard of Thomas Frank, the Edsalls, or even (no offense) Alexander Gerard, but Glenn Beck is everywhere.

Still, I know that Beck doesn't speak for most conservatives. In your editorial, you mentioned a poll by Markos Moulitsas which shows that only 23% of Republicans believe that their states should secede from the Union. That doesn't seem like too many. But you know, I looked at the survey, and it also shows 63% of Republicans think that Obama is a socialist. They probably mean that in a good way, but it just seems like a lot. And it makes me wonder, with no disrespect, how well most Republicans understand socialism.

But I'll try to forget about Glenn Beck. He's just one guy. There are probably many other bestselling conservative books that are far more positive about liberalism. Like Michelle Malkin's Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies and Dick Morris's Catastrophe: How Obama, Congress, and the Special Interests are Transforming. . .A Downturn into a Crash, a Recession into a Depression, and a Disaster into a CATASTROPHE . . and How to Stop Them and Ann Coulter's Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and their Assault on America and Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change.

I'm sure that you're familiar with all these books. You probably also read Coulter's: Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right when it came out 8 years ago. She wrote that "the more Conservative the Republican, the more vicious and hysterical the attacks on his intelligence will be." That's sort of close to the point of your editorial, isn't it? She also wrote that "much of the left's hate speech bears greater similarity to a psychological disorder than to standard political discourse." I have to confess that these words sound a little condescending.

But I'm sure that hardly anyone reads Ann Coulter and those other people. And anyway, Republican politicians are much more reasonable and open to liberal ideas. For instance, George W. Bush always consulted Democrats about their concerns. But it did bother me a little when Dick Cheney suggested that Democrats "are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States" and when Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) said that Obama "is obsessed with turning terrorists loose in America."

I also thought that Tom DeLay was slightly disdainful when he wrote that "liberals have finally joined the ranks of scoundrels like Hitler." But most Republicans don't go that far. I believe Rep. Paul Brown (R-GA) when he said that he wasn't comparing Obama to Adolf Hitler, though it was weird when he added, "What I'm saying is there is the potential of going down that road." I wonder if he talked to Rep. Steve King (R-IA) because he suggested that we might "end up in a totalitarian dictatorship." Could that be why Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) called Obama "an enemy of humanity?"

Anyway, shame on Thomas Frank for writing that working-class Republican Kansans care more about abortion than their own economic interests. Who does that guy think he is? I was so disgusted by his condescension that I re-read part of his book. I'm sure that you remember the bit about conservatives' propensity to "take offense, conspicuously, vocally, even flamboyantly" and how they complain that "the virtuous are persecuted by the 'sanctimonious,' by the arrogant, by the falsely pious, by the corrupt" and the part where he writes, "Everything seems to piss conservatives off, and they react by documenting and cataloging their disgust."

Had Frank read your brilliant editorial, I'm sure that he would never have written such nonsense.

Sincerely,
Genghis

Feature video:

Include this post in the featured videos

Persecution Politics: Conservatives Challenge New Hate Crime Law

Genghis — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:14:46 +0000

A conservative "civil liberties" group has challenged the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act. The Michigan-based Thomas More Law Center is suing U.S. government on behalf of three pastors and the president of the American Family Association of Michigan. The suit alleges that the law violates the plaintiffs' freedom of speech and freedom of religion under the First Amendment, the equal protection guarantee of the Fifth Amendment, Federal jurisdiction constraints of the 10th Amendment, and, for good measure, the Constitution's Commerce Clause. That's three Amendments and one Clause, which is an awful lot of unconstitutionality for one bill.

According to Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, "the sole purpose of this law is to criminalize the Bible." It's other sole purpose, he claimed, is to use the threat of prosecution "to silence Christians from expressing their Biblically-based religious belief that homosexual conduct is a sin." It's other other sole purpose is to elevate "persons who engage in deviant sexual behaviors," i.e. perverts, "to a special protected class of persons." And it's other other other sole purpose is to "pay off" homosexual advocacy groups for supporting Obama in the last election. That's an awful lot of sole purposes for one bill.

Robert Muise, who is handling the case, explained that the new law "creates 'thought crimes' by criminalizing certain ideas, beliefs, and opinions." This position is shared by the James Dobson who has warned, "If you read the Bible a certain way with regard to morality - you may be guilty of committing a 'thought crime.'" It's also shared by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), whose office has produced talking points declaring that "The Hate Crimes bill creates a new Federal 'Thought Crime.'" Actually, a lot of right wing folks share this view. Just google "homosexual thought crime" for hours of surfing pleasure.

But to jump straight to the heart of the matter, listen to Andrea Laffery, director of the Traditional Values Coalition: "The goal is to undermine the First Amendment and persecute Christians who oppose homosexuality."

If you're not a right wing zealot or a gay fascist, you may be wondering why anyone thinks that the hate crime bill, which is designed to combat violent against homosexuals, persecutes Christians. In his famous essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," Richard Hofstadter notes that political paranoiacs tend to project their own qualities and aspirations onto others. Thus, members of the religious right project their own hatred and intolerance of homosexuals onto the homosexuals. This act of projection enables them to feel justified in their hatred and intolerance. As Freud writes in his analysis of paranoia, "He hates (persecutes) me, which will entitle me to hate him."

In fact, the religious right has a long history of trying to reverse the intolerance equation. For instance, Anita Bryant, a former pop singer and beauty queen, famously campaigned against a 1977 Miami ordinance to guarantee equal employment and housing rights for gays by stating, "If this ordinance amendment is allowed to become law, you will in fact be infringing upon my right or rather DISCRIMINATING against me as a citizen and mother to teach my children and set examples or point to others as examples of God's moral code as stated in the Holy Scriptures." [Emphasis hers.]

Tim LaHaye, who created the bestselling Left Behind series, argued that "when all job discrimination for homosexuality is removed...teachers can be expected to brainwash our children with the 'blessings' of the unhappy gay life."

But the award for Best Projection in Homophobic Literature goes to Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams, authors of The Pink Swastika, for attempting to prove that the Nazis were not intolerant of homosexuals; they were homosexuals. Scott Lively, incidentally, has just made the news again for speaking at a conference in Uganda about the evils of the "gay agenda." After the conference, the Ugandan Parliament increased the penalty for homosexuality to death by stoning. That should stop those intolerant homosexuals from criminalizing the Bible.

And by the way, Matthew Shepard, the murder victim for whom the hate crimes bill was named, was not killed because he was gay. According to Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), it was just a robbery. The accusation of homophobia is "a hoax that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills." Obviously, no one would ever murder people because of their homosexuality.

I'm currently writing a book on right wing persecution politics titled How Bill O'Reilly Saved Christmas, to be released in October. For more on the topic, see my Persecution Politics series.

Feature video:

Include this post in the featured videos

Inappropriate Behavior Rampant During Obama's State of the Union

Genghis — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:58:10 +0000

The media's focus on Justice Samuel Alito's head shaking dissent during President Obama's State of the Union address has overshadowed many other breaches of decorum from both sides of the aisle. State of the Union expert Dr. Isabel Strong called the reaction to Obama's speech "the most indecorous since President William Henry Harrison's infamous 'the state of the union is phlegmatic' speech of 1843."

While it is not unusual for legislators to react with subtle expressions of disapprobation to presidential utterances, Strong noted that Republican facial reactions bordered on disgust. She recorded an unprecedented number of scowls and glares directed both at the President and legislators across the aisle. Democrats, for their part, countered glare for glare, delivering an average 42.3 glares per minute to the Republicans' 47.3, the highest on record since analysts began measuring in 1913. By contrast, Republicans were almost four times more likely to scowl than their Democratic counterparts.

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) delivered the most glares of any legislator, averaging 89.3 per minute. His glares were directed at Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Leader Harry Reid, and an unknown woman in the balcony. The count is disputed, however, by facial expression expert, Dr. Shayna Punnem, who argued that some of the alleged glares were in fact leers.

In addition to scowls and glares, Dr. Strong listed many other examples of inappropriate behavior. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) yawned fifteen times during Obama's criticism of Senate inaction, and Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) appeared to pick his nose during Obama's discussion of the Federal deficit. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) twitched every time Obama said the word "economy," though many analysts believe that the twitches were involuntary. During Obama's spirited defense of his health care plan, Rep. Mike Simson (R-ID) licked the ear of Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), twice. At 23 minutes into the speech Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) shot a spit ball across the chamber that hit Rep. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) in the eye. She was rushed to Bethesda Medical Center immediately afterward where she is reported to be in stable condition. In addition, Reps. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and Ted Poe (R-TX), dressed as telephone repair men, attempted to tamper with the cell phone of Sen. Mary L. Landrieu (D-LA) and were quietly escorted from the chamber.

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) who received notoriety for shouting "You lie!" during Obama's last State of the Union, was tightlipped and stone-faced throughout the speech, but those sitting next to him reported hearing a quiet high-pitched squeal from his vicinity, and there are unsubstantiated reports that he bit off his own tongue.

Other than Justice Alito's head shake, the Supremes were respectful and expressionless throughout the speech, but bystanders witnessed a spirited debate afterward, with Justices Ginsburg, Stevens, Breyer, and Sotomayor nodding as Justices Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito shook their heads furiously. Justice Kennedy reportedly just bobbed his head from left to right.

Feature video:

Include this post in the featured videos

Tea Party Threatened by Capitalist Menace

Genghis — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:03:38 +0000

The Tea Party, a potent collection of dyspeptic right-wing populist groups, was on the verge of national conquest. Having defeated a Republican candidate in a New York House election and a Democratic candidate in the Massachusetts Senate election, it seemed that there was no stopping this crew of tax-rejecting, socialist-hating, health-care-not-wanting defenders of the Constitution and all that is good in America.

But on the eve of triumph, the Tea Party's first ever national convention is collapsing in acrimony, having been sabotaged by a devious Capitalist conspiracy. According to news reports, the organizer of the event, a for-profit company called Tea Party Nation, secretly planned to make money by charging $500 per ticket. Tea Party Nation had also colluded with guest speaker Sarah Palin, who reportedly plotted to charge a $100,000 speaking fee. Some even suspect that Tea Party Nation had a secret relationship with Tea Party Express, an organization that is controlled by Capitalist corporations and the Republican Party, a well-known Capitalist front. Erick Erickson, who runs the right-wing blog, RedState.com, called the whole event "scammy."

Tea Party Nation has not responded to our attempts to contact them. We can only conclude that they are deep inside an insidious Capitalist plot to destroy the Tea Party. We encourage Teapartiers to make use of their excellent protesting skills to protest their own convention. We also call on President Barack Obama to reign in these devious Capitalists with legislation that would make it a crime to make money by charging poor people exorbitant fees--except for health care of course.

Feature video:

Include this post in the featured videos

Hurling Thunderbolts for Health Care

Genghis — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:55:05 +0000

Yesterday's Massachusetts' election affects me personally. I'm self-employed and have a cheap health plan. Within the first few months of beginning a new plan, I'm already involved in a dispute with the provider, Golden Rule, a subsidiary of UnitedHealthcare. My health plan, I recently discovered, doesn't cover preventive care in the first three months. I don't know why they have this restriction. It would not be a big deal except that no one told me about it, not when I signed up and not when I called to confirm that my physician was in network. I learned of the restriction only when I received the bill for my annual check up, which happened to come two-weeks before the three-month limit. But I'm sure that it's written in my contract somewhere.

Nonetheless, my dispute is minor, a few hundred dollars. Many people far less fortunate than me with serious diseases and hospital bills running hundreds of thousands of dollars have been left desperate and hopeless because of contractual technicalities. Others have no insurance contacts at all.

Now it seems likely that the health care bill, which seemed at long last close to passage, will fail like the others. The Democrat-controlled House can't agree with the Democrat-controlled Senate. America will continue to boast the worst health care in the industrialized world. American people will continue to suffer.

I have an urge to blame voters in Massachusetts, who already have state guaranteed health care and left the rest of us to fend for ourselves. But why should Massachusetts' historical liberalism make the state more responsible than any other? If I blame Massachusetts, I may as well blame Georgia, Oklahoma, Alaska...

I have an urge to blame Republican legislators, who have put politics ahead of humanity. They know the system is f-cked, but they would rather let people suffer than lose an opportunity to attack the President. They have enthusiastically exploited the ignorance and fear of their constituents for political points. But I didn't vote for those legislators, and they don't give a damn what I think or what I say

And so I'm left with my own party, the people that I canvassed for, raised money for, and voted for. The Democrats have squandered the greatest mandate that they've had in decades. They will not see 60 Senate votes again for a very long time, and they may find themselves all too soon back in the minority. I stood by them as they permitted the twisted abortion amendment. I stood by them as they dropped the public option. And now I sit horrified as Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama throw their hands in the air.

I need a threat, a penalty, some figurative thunderbolt that I can hurl at the Capitol. But if we Democrats turn against the leaders of the party, when we Democrats turn against the leaders of the party, we will throw the nation into the waiting arms of the oily Republican leaders who gleefully wring their hands in anticipation.

Nonetheless, unless the Democrats get their act together soon, I see no alternative. The Democratic Party is not a blue hat that you get to wear in November. It's not a rich uncle who hands out plum subcommittee assignments. For elected officials, Democratic Party membership comes with responsibilities. The most important of those, in 2010, is to pass a health care plan. That, more than any other reason, is why we elected you. If you can't do that, take off your blue hat and hand over your subcommittee. Come back to us when you're ready to lead.

And for those Democrats who don't sit around quibbling haplessly in historic legislative chambers, call your Representative.

Feature video:

Include this post in the featured videos