Thoughts on the election (yawn).

I realize I've really not blogged anything about the election in general. Perhaps that is because there is nothing to get excited about—absolutely nothing.

Obama has alienated a huge percentage of voters. Even those individuals who are voting Democrat aren't excited about the man. He has failed to perform almost completely in any area where his campaign promises were good and decent. Where he promised bad things he has delivered and then some. This blogger considers Obama worse than President Shrub, and that says a lot.

Just as Geogie Jr. horrified the majority of voters and drove them into the Democratic camp last time around, Obama is driving them right back to the Republicans. Yet, the voters are not happy with the Republicans which doesn't mean they are happy with the Republicans either. And believe me, the system is so rigged by all this so-called "campaign finance reform" and other election laws that it is virtually impossible for anyone to challenge the two-party duopoly. Given how each screws over the public for special interests we may as well assume we live in a one-party state. Regardless of which party is in the White House the occupant of that building will be more like Mugabe than like Jefferson.

The one alleged ray of hope, for less intrusive government, was supposed to be the misnamed Tea Party. But look at the sort of creeps that are considered the leading TP candidates: Sharron Angle, Christine O'Donnell, Carl Paladino, Ken Buck, Joel Miller or even Randal Paul.

Not a one of them actually wants to get government intrusion into the personal lives of people reduced. If anything these clowns want more religion-based policies to control how you live your life. We were told that the Tea Party had a "libertarian" bent to it. Right, these guys were so libertarian (NOT) that they managed to make Wayne Root even look libertarian in comparison—and believe me, Root is no libertarian.

Angel, O'Donnell and Paladino are complete whackjobs, but then so is Miller. Randal Paul is just another power-hungry politicians who sees principles as bargaining chips, something that can be traded away when power is at stake. He is as bad as his father, on those issues where Daddy Paul is bad, and where Daddy Paul is good, junior falls to perform. Daddy went over to the lunatic Religious-Right some years ago and Randal is sucking up to these theocratic creeps even more. Randal will win, in my opinion, but then his opponent actually managed to look ever more crazed with his "aqua Buddha" commercials.

My guess is that the Tea Party candidates won't do as well as people assume they will. And I actually think they gave the Democrats more than they took from them. People are disgusted with the fake in the White House and his party but the Tea Party fringes are making a lot of voters think twice about voting Republican.

Certainly the Republicans had a shoo-in seat in Delaware before Christine O'Donnell won the Republican nomination. What was a safe Republican seat looks to me as one that the Democrats will pick up. The Democrat, Chris Coons, has had a steady and healthy lead over O'Donnell from the beginning.

California's Barbara Boxer was vulnerable, and with good reason. Sure the Democrats have been advertising heavily against Republican Carly Fiorina. But from what I've seen of the ads, which have been pretty brutal and, in my opinion, dishonest, the most effective strategy the Democrats have is the Tea Party. They are trying to paint Fiorina as "too extreme for California." But this "too extreme" campaign is one the Democrats are playing around the country.

They are doing so because the Tea Party types that did win Republican nominations are actually rather extreme whackjobs. The TP gave the Democrats about the only strategy that would work for them in this election.

Face it, the Democrats can't run on keeping campaign promises. The one big promise they kept, the take-over of health care, is the one that has voters infuriated. And the Democrats don't want to bring up campaign promises anyway—since they did so badly on them. Consider various reports that gay voters are now more likely to refuse to vote than ever before because Obama has talked like Lady Gaga but performed like Georgia Jr. on issues that concern the gay community. Given how bigoted the Republicans have been regarding gays, this constituency ought to be safely Democratic. Obama has been so miserable on those issues that he alienated the most secure voting block the Democrats had outside of black voters. Only the hard-core, brain-dead Obamatrons continue to make excuses for the man in this area.

The Tea Party types are scary and certainly not advocates of small government by any means. They are the worst elements in the Republican Party, not the best. About the best Republican around is Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico. I believe Johnson is fundamentally a libertarian—more so that Ron Paul for sure. I've questioned him and listened to him carefully. Even Jon Stewart, when interviewing Johnson, said, "But you're a libertarian?" Johnson smiled and said: "You think!"

I saw Johnson at a huge Tea Party rally trying to interest these Know-Nothings with his libertarian message. The response he got was deadly silence. What did get them salivating, and then foaming at the mouth, was anyone who got up and bashed Mexicans. I swear a heavy insult directed at brown people gave many in that Tea Party crowd the first orgasm they had in about six decades. Just the thought of it sends shivers down my spine. There is one good thing I can say about the Tea Party types I saw: the average age was just shy of death. A good number of them would be lucky to make until Tuesday.

Yes, the Republicans will make gains. And some big gains. But they couldn't help but do that since Obama handed them the election last year. The Tea Party probably dulled those gains somewhat. The TP movement is, in my opinion, a flash-in-the-pan and I doubt it will have any lasting impact.

The voters will continue to move in a mushy libertarian direction. The political system will continue to be "reformed" in order to prevent any real political challenge to the Democrats and Republicans. And that is the central issue in American politics today, one that no one is really talking about. The voters are moving in one direction while both parties are continuing to ignore the sentiments of the voters preferred instead to cater to their core members: left-wing loons and Right-wing bigots. Voter discontent is growing and the major parties have rigged the system so that they keep power in spite of that discontent.

Consider the "campaign reforms" that have been pushed in several places which prohibits any more than two candidates on the general election ballot for any one office. Those laws explicitly ban choice at the polls. Campaign finance reform was geared to protect incumbents from challenges, not to keep elections clean.

So, with rising voter discontent there is almost no way to fix the problem at the ballot box. The Demopublicans have made solutions illegal in order to continue their hold on power. In a third world country that would be a recipe for revolution. What it means in America is any one's guess.

Utopian libertaians and the fantasy tea pot

This blog has argued that the so-called Tea Party movement is nothing for libertarians to get excited about. But many libertarians don't listen, particularly the Utopian types who believe that some radical libertarian agenda is going to sweep America. Sorry, but that is simply moronic. It isn't going to happen. This doesn't mean that a libertarianish vision may not come to dominate American politics but the types who imagine some radical vision of that libertarianism are not going to find it happening in their lifetime, or even that of their great-great-great-great grandchildren.

Since these types simply ignore the reality of the situation they find succor in imagining libertarian successes where they aren't. Yet, ironically, they ignore libertarian reforms where they are. Witness how they still cling to the illusion that Ron Paul is a libertarian. Or, even worse, that Randal Paul is libertarian. But the wackiest bunch are those who honestly think the Tea Party movement is libertarian.

We have seen phenomenal successes in watching Americans become more tolerant of gay people, with support for equality of rights rising at a rate that pollsters find astounding. Normally social values change slowly but in that area there has been rapid change. One reason is that the equality movement often argues their case on the basis of traditional American values about the individual's right to equality before the law.

Quite honestly, where the hell are the libertarians? Now and then some libertarian puts out a press release. But all these Utopian frauds are silent about this issue. They can imagine healing the world and yet can't get their brains around a single issue where libertarians could be leading a successful charge against the power of the state. Instead, these libertarians are embracing the knuckle-draggers in the Tea Party movement.

Why? The reason is simple, simpletons don't look any deeper than the surface. Polls show that Tea Party members want "smaller" government, so do most Americans actually. Tea Party activists loudly talk about that and the crank issues like auditing the Fed—which won't accomplish a thing.

The rhetoric of the Tea Party can sound vaguely libertarianish provided you don't actually bother to look at any of the other beliefs held by these people. I reported here about my visit to a Tea Party rally, which I argued was filled with hateful xenophobes who were more worried about bashing Mexicans than they were taxes. But they would get up and say they want smaller government and the libertarians would drool in response—like mindless Pavlovian dogs.

What did this smaller government mean? Talk to the "patriots" and they want government regulating the workforce heavily to prevent Mexicans from getting jobs. They want government to go after landlords who rent to Mexicans. They want Mexicans stopped from opening bank accounts. How do they accomplish all of this—with a system of rigid controls to monitor the ID of people seek jobs, try to rent apartments, or open bank accounts. The particularly inane libertarians will even applaud the bigots for wanting to "protect the borders" (from maids, busboys and gardeners) but urge them to ignore the ID requirements. You can't have the one without the other. The xenophobia of the loony Right fuels the laws that libertarians are find onerous. Yet libertarians applaud movements that throw gasoline on the fires that libertarians say they want put out.

Now we have a survey of Tea Party movement activists. The Public Religion Research Institute looked at the make-up of Tea Party activists, who they are, and what they want. And guess what? They aren't libertarians by any stretch of the imagination.

Who they most closely resemble are the worst elements of the Religious Right. They have more in common with the Neanderthals in Christian fundamentalism than they do with libertarians. A survey of Tea Party activists shows that they say they support small government—not this is what they claim they want but their other values betray that claim.

About half of all Tea Party activists told the pollsters that they are active in the Religious Right. They are almost exclusively Republican in party preferences and they are less libertarian on social issues than average. Realistically they are less libertarian than the average American not more so.

What the survey found was that the Tea Party was mainly a white, evangelical movement. These are people who think Fox News is a source for accurate information and who think Sarah Palin is the messiah.

Here are a few of the findings regarding the Tea Party.

First, only about 11% of all Americans consider themselves as part of this movement.

Second, they are not politically independent as they are often portrayed. According to survey: "More than three-quarters identify with (48%) or lean towards (28%) the Republican Party. More than 8-in-10(83%) say they voting for or leaning towards Republicans candidates...." In the general population about one-third of Americans identify with the Republican party, one-third with the Democrats and the rest are independents. These Tea Party types are more Republican than about any other group, right up there with fundamentalist Christians.

Third, the survey found that: "Americans who identify with the Tea Party movement are mostly social conservatives, not libertarians on social issues. Nearly two-thirds (63%) say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, and less than 1-in-5 (18%) support allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry. In other words, on these issues they are actually less libertarian than the average voter.

When the survey looked at the demographics of the Tea Party they found a "striking similarity between the demographic of Americans who consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement and Americans who consider themselves part of the Christian conservative movement." The survey found: "On nearly all basic demographic characteristics, there are no significant differences between Americans who identify with the Tea Party movement and those who identify with the Christian conservative movement." The only significant difference was the fundamentalists were more likely to be women and Tea Party activists were more likely to be men.

Tea Party activists are more likely to say they are conservatives, than do fundamentalists. They are more likely to say they are Republicans than do fundamentalist Christians. In this sense the Tea Party is actually worse than the Republican Party.

When compared to the general population the Tea Party nutters are more likely to be white evangelicals (36% to 21%). About one-third of the American people imagine that the Bible is the "literal" word of God. With the Tea Party it is 47%. Only 64% think God "is a person with whom one can have a relationship" but 71% of the Tea Party believe that. When it comes to the delusion that America was, or is, a Christian nation the Tea Party types are actually more deluded that evangelicals or the public. About 42% of all Americans buy into the "Christian America" theory, about 43% of evangelicals do, but 55% of the Tea Party thinks that way.

And, as I have argued, the Tea Party movement is far more antagonistic to minorities than the general public. Asked if government has "paid too much attention to the problems of blacks and other minorities" 37% of public says that is true. But for the Tea Party members agreement with the view is 58%.

Where immigration has divided the general public it has unified the Tea Party. About 48% of Americans think immigrants are a burden while 44% say they make the country better—almost an even split especially if margins of error in polling are taken into account. But 65% of Tea Party members take the anti-immigrant view, which is similar to the view that evangelicals take on the matter (64%).

When it comes to marriage equality rights for gays the Tea Party is on par with evangelicals in their fervent opposition. When given three choices for gay couples, about 37% of the general population opt for full marriage and 27% support civil unions, with one-third wanting no legal recognition for gay couples at all. But only 18% of the Tea Party movement support marriage equality, a statistical tie with the 16% of evangelicals who do.

The survey found that 58% of the general public think undocumented immigrants should have a means by which they can become legal citizens. Evangelicals are not quite so supportive with only 48% favoring such a move. The survey quite naturally found that the most anti-immigrant group around, even more anti-immigrant than Republicans in general, were Tea Party members, were 61% said they opposed immigration reform.

What it comes down to is that the Tea Party advocates want small government for themselves and organized state oppression for groups they dislike. These people are not libertarians and this survey shows that. So when will these deluded libertarians wake up and realize that?

Mushy libertarianism vs the religious impulse.

One of the themes that I periodically pay attention to is what I call the mushy libertarianism of the American mainstream. I wrote that the mainstream politics in this country is libertarian but "not consistent" and "not principled." I have called this mushy libertarianism a revival of the Mugwumps.

A new poll from Associated Press backs up my general analysis. Over and over the dominant opinion, among Americas, leans in a libertarian direction. Here are some of the details:

Three-quarters of the public say that the US Constitution "is an enduring document that remains relevant today." Sixty percent say that that the "rule of law" should come first, even if it does at the expense of public safety.

The Religious Right regularly argues that the rights of gay people should be subjected to a majority vote. The majority doesn't agree. Just 35% say, "If a majority of people want something to happen, the rights of a few shouldn't stand in the way" and 62% agree that "the rights of everyone should be protected, even when that means saying no to something majority of people want to happen."

Only one in four Americans would support giving the president more power, even if it would improve the economy. Three-quarters of the public opposed the idea. Half the public say "it is up to each individual to secure health insurance" and less than half say the government ought to provide it. But 83% oppose the central feature of Obama's health care plan, government mandates requiring people to buy health insurance.

Half of all Americans say they favor a way for illegal immigrants, already in the country, to legalize their position, while just under half oppose the idea. Seventy-percent agree that "people should have the right say what they believe even if they take positions that seem deeply offensive to most people."

A clear majority, 58%, now believe that same-sex couples are entitled to same benefits as opposite-sex couples and that government should not distinguish between them. In 2008, 51% agreed, in 2009 it was 54%. While support rose by 7 points opposition declined by 5 points. Even more encouraging, from a libertarian point of view, is that a majority of Americans now believe the federal government ought to recognize gay marriages: 52% to 46% opposed. This is the second national poll in recent weeks showing a majority of Americans now support gay marriage.

Fifty-one percent of Americans say that gun control laws "infringe" the right to keep and bear arms. A plurality, 42%, say that the government restricts too much information from the public.

One area where the majority goes wrong is that 64% do not thinking that banning minors from violent video games is a proper function of government. One thing you can be sure of is that if people are afraid their children are at risk they turn into raving maniacs willing to lynch anyone. This is the sort of irrational fear that the National Organization for Marriage relies upon with their anti-gay scare commercials.

Other results of interest include the fact that 43% of the public are not confident in the federal government, only 10% are strongly confident in the feds. Similarly 37% are not confident in state governments, where 10% are, and 49% are not confident in Congress, where 7% are. Other areas with high levels of distrust are: banks, 52%; large corporations , 42%; labor unions, 41%; the media, 38%; blogs, 54%; organized religion, 35%; and public schools, 37%.

Other matters of interest is that 36% of the public consider themselves to be born-again Christians and 24% say they don't belong to a religion.

A different poll indicates that almost all opposition to equality of rights for gay people is rooted in religion, and not based on other concerns. Sixty-percent of conservatives admit that they oppose same-sex marriage because of their religion. All the evidence shows that opposition to legal equality exists because people want their religion legislated onto others:

Almost six-in-ten regular churchgoers (59%) say their clergy speak out on the issue of abortion, higher than for any other issue in the survey except hunger and poverty (88%). Despite divided opinions on abortion among Catholics as a whole, seven-in-ten Catholics (70%) who attend church at least once a month report that their clergy speak out on the issue of abortion. Similarly, 65% of white evangelical Protestants and 55% of black Protestants who attend services at least once a month report that their clergy talk about abortion, while fewer mainline Protestants (39%) say this.

Among those who attend religious services at least once a month and say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, two-thirds (66%) report having heard about the issue from their clergy. Among regular worship attenders who think abortion should be legal in most or all cases, fewer (50%) report having heard about this issue from their clergy. Half of those who say their clergy speak out on abortion cite religion as the most important influence on their views on abortion, compared with 29% of those who do not hear from their clergy about the issue.

On the issue of same-sex marriage, about four-in-ten Americans (41%) say they favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally while 48% are opposed. A slight majority of Democrats (52%) favor same-sex marriage, while independents are evenly split (44% favor, 45% oppose) and two-thirds (67%) of Republicans are opposed. Democrats are divided sharply along racial lines; 63% of white Democrats favor same-sex marriage, compared with just 27% of black Democrats and 46% of Hispanic Democrats.

This sort of theocratic viewpoint applies even to laws forbidding gay people to openly serve in the military—something the Republican Party just killed in the U.S. Senate with unanimous support from their caucus. In other words, not a single Republican Senator voted to allow gay people to serve in the military.

On the matter of gays in the military 60% of all Americans support equality. Even a slim plurality of Republicans, 47-43%, support equality. Of all the various subgroups the only group to oppose allowing gay people to serve in the military are white evangelical Christians, where a plurality 47-43% oppose the measure. Most blacks support equality here, most conservatives do, most independent voters do—only white born again Christians oppose the measure and that appears to be the ONLY group in American politics that Republicans listen to.

Families: united by love but divided by hate.

In discussing the terrible tragedy of two teens driven to suicide by anti-gay bigotry—which I advise you read if you haven't done so)—I said to the bigots: "But they could be your children." Of course, we know many examples when they have been their children. Certainly Bobby Griffith was tormented by his own mother and family and church until he killed himself. Mary Griffith realized what she had done, but it was too late to save Bobby. Since then she has campaigned to end the prejudice.


This is what must terrify the anti-gay bigot in ways that can't torment the racist. A Klan leader is not going to discover that the white son he has known his entire life is going to announce he's really black. But no anti-gay bigot with children can have that confidence throughout their entire life. There is always a time when they simply don't know. And many remain clueless their entire lives. But many of them do find themselves facing down their own children and hating them for being gay.


As often happens in politics two powerful political families are united when their children marry. Both families are very conservative, both are Mormons and of course, they are Republicans. Matthew Salmon was Republican state senator in Arizona, he ran for governor and he was a U.S. Congressman. Jeff Flake in the Congressman from Mesa, another conservative Republican and like Salmon, another Mormon. The Flake and Salmon families have been a foundation for the Right-wing Republicans in Arizona. And now they are united by romance—though neither of them are particularly thrilled by it.

Matt Salmon is named after his father, the former congressman. At 14-years-of-age he told his mother he was gay, which didn't stop his family from campaigning against gay people. His partner is Kent Flake, the second counsin of Congressman Flake.

Matt followed the teachings of the Mormon sect and went through therapy to change. It failed, as might be expected.

Kent is from Snowflake, Arizona. Snowflake was a small town founded on orders of Brigham Young, the alleged Mormon prophet. Young sent William Flake to found the town and Apostle Erastus Snow was put in charge of colonization. These polygamists were the founders of the town and when Mormons to name it after Flake others wanted to honor Snow. The name Snowflake was how they honored both simultaneously.

Of course each young man knew of the others family. Matt befriend Kent on Facebook and soon they started dating. At this point Kent told his family he was gay. But under pressure he broke up with Matt and tried to go through church therapy to cure himself of being gay. Matt and Kent had an argument about Kent's attempt to change and faced with a final decision Kent decided to stay with Matt and to resign from the Mormon cult. Matt was sitting in church one Sunday in the summer of 2008 when the minister, following orders from the church heirarchy, was urging everyone in the Arizona congregation to send money to defeat marriage equality in California—that is donate to Proposition 8. The minister told the congregation that all homosexuals are promiscuious and their relationships are selfish. That was when he decided to quite Mormonism completely, and today compares it to some of the outlandish teachings from the cult of Scientology.

Flake is getting the worst of it. He rarely sees his family anymore, hasn't had a real conversation with his father nad has been told that his father doesn't want Matt around his family or his grandkids. Kent's sister told has publicly said that she called them "fags" and "pedophiles" but insists they still love him, they just don't want "to see him in a gay couple." The same is true in Salmon's family. He was told that his family still loves him but that Kent is not welcome in their home. Matt's own siblings dropped him as a Facebook friend in protest over his being gay.

One cousin, Krista Gohus, still is friends. She recently left the Mormon sect as well and considers herself a libertarian, not a Republican. She told the Phoenix New Times: "Matt and his boyfriend, Kent, have been to my home many times, and my 10-year-old son knows Matt and Kent are a couple. I'm teaching my children that being gay is just like being left-handed or being born with curly hair. It's not right or wrong, it's just the way you were born."

Photos: Matt (L), Kent (R).

A good example of how adults encourage bullies.

First, watch the video and then read.

In my previous post I discussed two teens who killed themselves after being harassed by other students who perceived them as gay. I said that these kids don't just invent this hate, they adopt it from adults in their lives. The hear this hate and repeat it. Hear is a perfect example of an adult asshole encouraging the very sort of anti-gay hate that kids emulate at school, sometimes driving other kids to killing themselves.

The assistant attorney general in Michigan is Andrew Shirvell, a whiny voiced Right-wing Republican who really hates gays. He goes out of his way to send nasty emails to people he doesn't know, if they are gay. He has created a blog to attack a Chris Armstrong, a student at the University of Michigan because he was elected student body president and is gay.

When conservative Michigan blogger Joe Sylvester admitted that he was gay he received a nasty email from Shirvell, who he did not know. He wrote Sylvester: "I saw your stupid interview... Wow——you need help, Joe. Good luck with living a disordered life."

When a Michigan campaigner for equality of rights for gay people left for a job in North Carolina, Shirvell published a web article calling the man "a zealous promoter of bizarre lifestyle choices" and the "most visible proponent of the radical homosexual agenda" whose new job means he "will no longer earn his living by indoctrinating children with his perversity." Since the man took a job with a group working to keep abortion legal Shirvell, a fundamentalist Catholic, wrote: "I guess if he can't recruit the children of God-fearing Americans to his bizarre lifestyle, he wants them dead." Shirvell claims that gay people who support the libertarian position on abortion does so because "they despise 'breeders,' a.k.a normal people." Shirvell says: "The pro-abortion and radical homosexual movements are merely branches of the same rotten tree known as the Culture of Death. It is impossible to embrace one movement without embracing the other."

Shirvell's obsession with hating gays extends to their family as well.

Shirvell seems to target gay young people for attacks particularly. He trolls Facebook looking for anything he can distort. He claims that one gay student, John Oltean "believes he is above the law" and says this young man "foams at the mouth with hatred for his Creation, Christian believers and the unborn." Then Shirvell says that John's younger brother, David, joked about his "half-birthday" meaning he he 19 1/2 years old. The mother of the boys, Patricia, joked about it saying: "Happy Half Birthday, Dave! still another year and a half to go to throw away your fake ID."


Shirvell then launches an attack on the mother about this joke. He calls her the "wealthy and well-connected Patricia Oltean" and says he is celebrating "her son's lawbreaking and posts her contempt for the law right on FB!" Oddly Shirvel has complete contempt for laws that allow abortion——being a Far Right fundamentalist Catholic he wants state control of every uterus. Anyone who doesn't have contempt for some law simply is incapable of thinking for themself.

He says that anonymous sources tell him that Patricia and her son's have a relationship that is "'bizarre' and 'weird.'" He claims that a post they made on Facebook proves it. In that post one student asked David "Is Patricia your mom." David replied" Yes, Leonard, Patti is my mother." Shrivell says that the fact that David used his mother's first name proves something is wrong and claims that Patricia's joke shows her to be "the type of mother who obviously condones her underage son's possession of an illegal fake ID! It's no wonder that John and David Oltean are as screwed-up as they are: their wealthy mother is more interested in being their friends than being the parent they desperately need." Shirvell also attacked David as harboring "racist sentiments against Native Americans." His proof: David complained that class on Indian culture he was taking was painful. He didn't say anything about Indians, just about a class. One of the worst classes I ever took was by a free market economist who I agreed with, but who was a horrible teacher. I quite the class but not because I hate markets.

Out of this "evidence" Shirvell jumps to the conclusion that that Armstrong and his friends are "privileged, disrespectful, law-breaking, racist, anti-Christian, radical homosexual fanatics." Shirvell published dozens of attacks on just Armstrong alone. Shirvell told right-wing readers that Armstrong "is actively recruiting your sons and daughters to join the homosexual 'lifestlye.'" The mere fact that one thinks you "sign-up" to be gay is an indication that you are either dealing with someone who is incredibly stupid, or mentally obsessed with gay people.

When Armstrong said to students that there time at university "is as much about your own self-discovery as it is about your career" Shirvell spins that as meaning that he told student "to be entirely self-absorbed and seek self-gratification at all costs." He claims the remarks is "a thinly veiled attempt to cause sexually confused, and perhaps some impressionable, 17-and-18-year-olds to experiment sexually with members of their own gender."

When Amrstrong house mates had a party (Armstrong wasn't there) Shirvell said the aim of the party "is to liquor-up underage freshmen and promote homosexual activity."

Shirvell is entirely dishonest and completely obsessed. He uses the Internet to harass gay students at university, and to harass their families. He makes bizarre and dishonest accusations against them repeatedly.

So,to return to my previous post: Where do you think the kids who harass kids they perceive as gay, driving those kids to suicide, get the idea that harassing people is justified? Answer: Andrew Shirvell is one source.

This is an adult, a top office-holder for the Republican Party, who is harassing gay college students and their families, on a regular basis.

Kids learn hate from bigots like Shirvell. And when those kids use that hate and push another child in the desperate act of suicide it is men like Shirvell who ought to step up and take responsibility. No doubt Shirvell would say the only good queer is a dead queer.

I think it is time that people inundate the Attorney General, Mike Cox with emails of protest. Cox hired Shirvell into his position and had Shirvell as his campaign manager. The hypocrisy is that Cox is leading a campaign against "cyber-bullying" while one of his own top assistants engages in the very act of it. Attorney General Mike Cox can be contacted at miag@michigan.gov.

Put on your best sheets—the GOP rides tonight.

Jane Brewer, the Grand Wizard in Arizona, also known as the governor, has come out with the most absurd statement of her campaign yet.

You must understand that Brewer was doing quite poorly in the polls because she had pushed through some major tax hikes, during a recession when people couldn't afford it. Republicans hate taxes, except when they get to spend the money. But the rank and file Republican was unhappy and Brewer's poll numbers took a nose dive. In response Brewer decided she only had one drum left to beat that would rally the party faithful to her side: hatred for immigrants. So she started crowing about the brown menace. Her poll numbers approved among Republicans who are quite willing to forgive tax increases provided you are hateful enough.

Brewer has now claimed that the majority of immigrants coming into the U.S. without bureaucratic permission slips "are under the direction and control of organized drug cartels and they are bringing drugs in." This is better than it could have been. She might have alleged they were under the control of the Learned Elders of Zion. She claimed: "The majority of them in my opinion, and I think in the opinion of law enforcement, is that they are not coming here to work. They are coming here and they're bringing drugs. And they're doing drop houses and they're extorting people and they're terrorizing the families."

Previously this geriatric Barbie doll claimed that undocumented workers were putting Arizona under a "terrorist attack" by coming in.



Brewer just makes this shit up. Yet, as you will see below, she simply claims "we all know" that immigrants are all drug dealers. All blacks are lazy, all Jews are cheap, all gays molest children, all blonds are stupid, all women are bitchy, all sports players are dumb, etc.. Folks get out your best sheets the GOP rides tonight!



I am very opposed to violence, especially violence against women, but I can't say I would have been too upset if someone bitch-slapped the old moron, just hard enough to knock off a couple of inches of the make-up.

The head of the union that represents border guards says that the experience of border agents doesn't correspond with the racist remarks of Brewer. T.J. Bonner said, "The majority of people continue to come across in search of work, not to smuggle drugs. Most of the drug smuggling is done by people who intend to do that. That's there livelihood.

Attorney General Terry Goddard, a Democrat, said that Brewer "does not understand the difference between illegal immigration and the organized criminals who are members of the violent drug cartels who pose a very real danger." False, Brewer ad her fellow Republicans do know the difference, but this is campaigning and you scare the public in order to secure votes. So, while they know the facts, they prefer to lie, the truth is not politically advantageous.

The Republican klavern seems to ignore the reality of the war on drugs. It is the illegality of drugs that creates massive profits and massive drug smuggling. Every so-called victory in confiscating drugs merely pushes up the market price making it more profitable to smuggle drugs and thus encouraging the very thing they wish to stop. In this sense drug smuggling is like socialism, the more of it you have the more counter-productive it becomes.

If there has been one clear tactic of the Republican Right in Arizona it has been to purposed conflate the results of the war on drugs with immigration. But then Republicans are wrong on both counts.

And this brings us to the Washington Post basically forcing David Weigel out of his post as a blogger about Right-wing politics. Privately Weigel had post remarks about the rampant bigotry in the American Right today. He said it more strongly but it reflected things he has said publicly all along. Some Right-wing web sites took the remarks and claimed this proved that Weigel was biased and demanded his firing. Of course, he is biased—just like every god-damned reporter on the planet, including the conservative ones. There is NO SUCH THING AS OBJECTIVE REPORTING.

I don't like Weigel, I don't like his writing and I don't care for him as a person. I have read his descriptions of events I witnessed and thought he did a piss-poor job of getting his facts straight. He once put words in my mouth that hadn't come out of my mouth. I stopped reading him because I didn't like his style and didn't trust his "facts."

But, what put the Right into a frothing, foam mass of hysteria was that Weigel called them bigots. For once Weigel gets his facts straight and he's punished for that!

March of the Theopublican Loons

I read the current issue of Reason magazine today, where Brink Lindsay, from the Cato Institute, makes the case for why libertarians shouldn't ally themselves with the Right. I agree whole heartily. He pointed to the bigoted Tea Party types as one example of why this strategy is bad for libertarians. Matt Kibble tried to pretend that Brink's view is merely based on "liberal" media distortions. Sorry Matt, it is precisely the sort of rampant bigotry that I personally witnessed at one of the largest Tea Party rallies in recent months.

The other day I was invited to speak to a small group of people. The host was a friend, who was at the Tea Party rally as well. He made a point of telling me how disgusted he was with what he witnessed there. His observations were the same as my own, as were two other libertarian friends at the same meeting. All four of agreed that the Tea Party is not for libertarians.

And neither are Republicans. Consider this tidbit from the Theopublican Party of Texas, in their 2010 platform. They claim to believe that "Realizing that conflict and debate is a proven learning tool in classrooms, we support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories, including, evolution, Intelligent Design...." Intelligent Design is theology not science. But that aside, do the Republicans of Texas really believe in debate and equal treatment of all sides? The same platform says: "We oppose any sex education other than abstinence until heterosexual marriage."

So they want open debate when theology pretends to be science, but demand closing all debate and conflict as a "proven learning tool" when it regards sex. They are the typical conservative frauds, the typical conservative hypocrites. They only want open debate for their side until they control an agenda and they want to stifle debate and discussion entirely.

They claim to believe in, "the sanctity of human life, created in the image of God, which should be protected from fertilization until natural death." So, all human life is sacred and must be protected until natural death? Well, no. "Properly applied capital punishment is legitimate, is an effective deterrent, and should be swift and unencumbered." Hell, why even bother with a trial? Clearly not "all human life is sacred" and some lives must be ended unnaturally by execution though all life must be protected "until natural death." Of course, they are Republicans. They see it completely natural for governments to kill people.

As for sex offenders, well, they want to turn a large percentage of teens into criminals. First, they demand that an "'affirmative defense' when there is less than 36 months of age difference" be abolished. That way all teens who have consenting sex with one another are deemed sex offenders if they are the same age. Second, they demand that age of consent in Texas be raised to 18, so that even more kids will be classified as sex offenders. And they claim to be pro-family. It's enough to make one vomit. This is under they "sexual assault" section and the first thing there says they demand punishment options "should include death." More of that all life is sacred bullshit.

Yet, while they are busy demanding laws to incarcerate kids for sex, and perhaps execute a few of them, they claim they are in favor of limited government. Really? Limited by what principle?

How limited is the small government they claim to believe in? Here are a few more clauses from the platform showing exactly how big they want government to be.

We encourage state and federal governments to severely prosecute illegal dealers and manufacturers of addictive substances and pornography.

We urge the Legislature to rescind no–fault divorce laws.

We support legislation that would make it a felony to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple and for any civil official to perform a marriage ceremony for such.

We are opposed to any granting of special legal entitlements, refuse to recognize, or grant special privileges including, but not limited to: marriage between persons of the same sex (regardless of state of origin), custody of children by homosexuals, homosexual partner insurance or retirement benefits. Note: notice that they claim that adoptions, buying insurance, having retirement benefits voluntarily offered, are "special rights" in their view.

We oppose the legalization of sodomy. We demand that Congress exercise its authority granted by the U.S. Constitution to withhold jurisdiction from the federal courts from cases involving sodomy.

We urge our governmental bodies to enforce laws regarding all forms of pornography. We urge more stringent legislation to prohibit all pornography including virtual pornography and operation of sexually–oriented businesses.

We urge the FDA to rescind approval of the physically dangerous RU-486 and oppose limiting the manufacturers’ and distributors’ liability.

We oppose sale and use of the dangerous “Morning After Pill.”

We believe rental of a woman’s womb makes child bearing a mere commodity to the highest bidder and petition the Legislature to rescind House Bill 724 of the 78th Legislature.

We support legislation that requires doctors, at first opportunity, to provide to a woman who is pregnant, information about the nervous system development of her unborn child...

Furthermore, criminal penalties should be created and experimenters prosecuted who participate in the cloning of human beings...

We support a ban on research that alters human DNA in living human beings at any stage of life, including the altering of artificial, manufactured, and natural genes and chromosomes.

We support raising the age of consent for consensual sex to 18 years.

We also believe that no homosexual ... should have the right to custody or adoption of a minor child, and that visitation with minor children by such persons should be prohibited but if ordered by the court limited to supervised periods.

Moreover, we oppose any further legalization, government facilitation, or financial guarantees relating to any type of gambling including casino, riverboat, video lottery terminals (VLTs), slot machine, video keno, eight-liners, multi-state lotteries, and other games of chance including on Indian reservations.

The real kicker is that these morons claim to support individual rights and individual freedom.

Republican: Separation of church and state is Nazism!

The Republican in this video is Glen Urquhart, a Republican running for Congress in Delaware. Listen as the history teacher said that the phrase "separation of church and state" came from a letter. Urquhart denies this, says it isn't true, and then makes the claim that Hitler originated the term! Actually the letter Thomas Jefferson sent to the Danbury Baptists said: "I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

Where did this theocrat get this idea? From another theocrat, of course. They rarely think for themselves. The source for this claim is Bryan Fischer, of the American Family Association. You will remember we had a video of him claiming the Nazis were really all gay because Hitler couldn't get straight people to be so violent and vicious, only homosexuals are so nasty as to push Jews into gas chambers.

Fischer outrightly says that the slogan "separation of church and state" does not come "from Thomas Jefferson or from the mind of the Founding Fathers" but "straight from the mind of Adolph Hitler" Jefferson's authorship of the term "a wall of separation between Church & State" is not questioned by any historians.

Another Republican, seeking the same office, Kevin Wade, said: "My jaw dropped when I heard it. And he was emphatic about it—it was not like a slip of the tongue. He got applause from half the crowd, and that disturbed me. I'd say half the room was stunned and the other half applauded." This was to a Republican audience and indicative of just how uninformed and ignorant Republicans are these days. They welcomed fundamentalists with open arms and are ow controlled by morons.

I wonder what Mr. Urquhart would say about these photos:

Surprising what a little honesty can do.

We put Mr. Ashburn on the skewer when his hypocritical behavior was revealed. I noted that his votes were wrong, even if he were not a hypocrite. That said, it is refreshing to get a little honesty out of a politician for once.

Antigay Republican confesses he's gay.

The anti-gay Republican state senator from Bakersfield, California, Roy Ashburn, has admitted he's gay. He was the guy who got too tipsy at a gay bar in Sacramento and was weaving his way home. The police picked him up for drunk driving, he was in the company of a man he apparently met at the bar. After his arrest became news numerous individuals informed the media that Ashburn, who has voted against equality of rights for gay people, was in the gay bar.

Ashburn went into hiding for several days. With that information in all the media, Ashburn was pretty much pushed into a corner. During a radio interview he admitted: "I am gay... those are the words that have been so difficult for me for so long." Press reporst say that Ashburn "said he is drawing on his Christian faith, and he asked people to pray for him." Perhaps that is one of the reasons he had so much trouble saying those "words."

I wonder what the "gay-is-a-choice" conservatives will tell the antigay Ashburn? Will they tell him that he just decided to become gay? Will they claim he is demon possessed (which for a Republican today seems fitting)? How many times do they have to witness such sad cases before they realize that there gay-is-a-choice theory is wrong? My guess is that the fundamentalist types will never admit the reality because it goes against their view of the Bible. And for them, reality has to be forced to correspond with their faith, no matter how disfigured reality becomes as a result.

Ryan Sorba: are you watching? We are all waiting to see what happens with you.

How surprising is this? Not much, really.

California State Senator Roy Ashburn, a Republican, "has reportedly voted against every gay rights measure in the state senate since taking office", says KGPE news in Fresno, the local CBS affiliate. Ashburn was arrested last night for drunk driving. Of course, there's more.

Ashburn was pulled over, driving a state issued vehicle (as if State Senators can't afford their own cars). Ashburn was pulled over because of erratic driving. It was around 2 am. He failed a field sobriety test and his alcohol level later was shown to be .14. Ashburn was not alone. He had another man in the car with him, who has not been identified because he was not arrested.

Various media outlets are reporting that Ashburn, and apparently his male friend, had just left a well-known gay club in Sacramento. However, the manager of the club says she doesn't remember seeing him there. Ashburn, a divorced "family values" Republican, has admitted he was drunk. He has said he was sorry for his actions. But so far, he has not said a word about the reports that he and his male friend had just a gay club together. Ashburn didn't show up on the floor of the legislature today and is not returning phone calls. As of this morning, Monday, March 8, Ashburn admits he is gay.

UPDATE: Apparently we need to look at the Vatican, which is now tangled in another gay sex scandal. Angelo Balducci held the Vatican post of The Gentleman of His Holiness, an elite position within the Vatican. Balducci apparently used Ghinedu Ehiem, a member of the choir for St. Peter's Basilica, within the Vatican, to secure prostitutes. Actually it appears that the young men so procured were not necessarily prositutes but did prostitute themselves. Some of the men were studying for priesthood, others appear to have been choir members, and others were immigrants desperate to secure legal status in the country.

Other sources say that Ehiem, and his assistate at the choir, Lorenzo Renzi, both helped secure males for sexual purposes. One wiretap, set up during a corruption investigation, has Renzi telling one male "You'll get up to 2,000 euors... Do not touch his balls. You need the money. Put on some music, take out the [inaudible], swallow the Viagra, and adelante." European papers are reporting that Ehiem has admitted he pimped men for Balducci and instructed "to do it in great secrecy."

Bigot backdowns, admits lack of evidence.

A couple days ago this blog reported on the absurd lies of State Rep. Nancy Elliott, a conservative Republican in New Hampshire. Elliott is one of those newfangled "libertarian" Republicans who thinks bigotry is "libertarian" and gets applauded by the Republican Liberty Caucus for doing so.

Elliott made claims in the state legislature that the Nashua school district, as a result of same-sex marriage, was given 5th grade children naked photos of gay men having anal sex—for the record, Elliott is obsessed with anal sex, it is one of her favorite topics. I presume from her conversations on it that she assumes it is not something that heterosexuals couples ever do. To top things off, she claims the school told the kiddies that they might want to try anal sex themselves.

This blog noted that Elliott had zero evidence. Her entire proof for this absurd claim was that some unnamed individual told her it had happened at some unspecified school. After being told of the story, Elliott was never curious enough to verify it. She sought no evidence to substantiate the story but then shot off her mouth making the claim public. Now she admits there is NO evidence for it.

Elliott said she wants to apologize and that if the future she "will try much harder" to "verify fully my statement." Well, that should be pretty easy since she made no effort at all to verify the first claim. She says she went back to her unnamed source and "found that I could not confirm the accuracy of the information."

Elliott, the fake libertarian, said: "I was told shortly before the hearing on HB 1590 that what I later said had happened and I firmly believe it to be so." Really? Why "firmly?" Considering that she was told an outlandish story, with zero evidence offered, exactly why was she so firm in her belief? She never says why she was so firm in her belief about this ridiculous claim.

Let me tell you why she was so firm. She was firm in her belief for precisely the same reason that any derogatory claim about a black man is considered true by the Klan. She was firm in her belief for the same reason that Julius Streicher was firm in his belief about the evil nature of Jews. Elliott was firm in her belief that the statement was true, not because she had evidence, but because it confirmed a pre-existing prejudicial viewpoint that she holds firmly. She didn't try to confirm the story because she didn't care if the story was true. It told her what she wanted to hear and that was good enough for her.

The only reason she has backed down was that she created a storm with the claim which was harming her career. She could have backed down quicker but didn't. I suspect her prejudicial beliefs are so firmly entrenched that she was also firmly convinced that the claim would be confirmed. I would even bet there is a decent chance that she still believes it was true, just that the evidence was covered up so she can't find it. She's probably a "Gay Truther:" that's someone who believes absurd and silly claims about gay people the same way the lunatic fringe believes absurd and silly claims about 9/11.

Will this hurt Elliott's career? In a rational world, it should. But she's a Republican and the GOP is far from a rational world these days. It is the last refuge of Neanderthal fundamentalists, Truthers, Birchers and other bigots and morons. So, within the dark recesses of the Republican Party her lying claim will probably help her. Her challenge will be convincing voters in general that she isn't crazy, while convincing her Republican constituency that she is.

When you lack facts—LIE!

I am always astounded at how the Religious Right will resort to open deception and dishonesty in the name of morality. Apparently, in their stinted, little world, morality is exclusively focused on what one does with one's own genitals, and has little to do with the old fashioned virtues of truth, honesty, kindness, etc.

This was most recently obvious in the campaigns against marriage equality, where Christian conservatives ran television ads that were filled with blatant lies and distortions, as part of a strategy to scare voters into supporting Bible-based bigotry and religiously-induced hate.

Now the Republicans, having abandoned any desire to fight for limited government anymore, in New Hampshire are trying to repeal marriage equality there. One Republican legislator, Nancy Elliott, was speaking in favor of a bill to repeal gay marriage and she made some astounding claims in the process.

She claimed that fifth-grade students in Nashua were show photos of naked men and taught how to engage in anal sex, presumably by their school. Of course, this is unrelated to the marriage issue, even if it were true. But what evidence did Elliott have to substantiate this extreme claim.

Her entire evidence was that she claimed to have a phone call from a Nashua parent informing her of this form of sex education. That's it! She didn't make any effort to verify whether the claim was true or false. It was extreme, it was scary to parents, and it was politically useful. Why should truth matter when you have political battles to win? This is Republican, Christian morality at work.

Elliot was quite clear. She told the legislature that kids "were given as part of their instruction naked pictures of two men showing a presentation of anal sex." Elliot went on to explain why she made this unsubstantiated claim: "Because we have made a marriage of same sex, they are now teaching it in public school. They are showing our fifth grades how they can actually perform this kind of sex. And they are condoning, they are saying this is normal and this is something you may want to try." Of course, since male/female marriage is allowed we have the schools showing kids how to give blow jobs or use a vibrator on a woman. Get real. The logic is pathetic and Elliot has no facts. So she lied.

The only evidence she offered was a claim that an unnamed person told it happened in an unspecified school. But Elliott, finding the claim useful, made it public without any attempt to verify it. The Nashua school district was shocked by the claim and superintendent Mark Conrad says he has contacted every school principal asking them about the incident. He says he has been unable to find evidence that this ever happened and that not a single parental complaint has been received.

Conrad also called Elliot and left a message for her, as well as emailed her, asking for any information. So far she has refused to reply. Conrad said: "As a state representative, if she became aware of a concern from a parent about inappropriate subject matter, I would think she would have a responsibility to call us. To my knowledge, she hasn't done that."

Consider Elliot's actions: Is she acting the way a person would who has evidence? She is acting the way a liar acts. She makes the claim, refuses to substantiate it, and then refuses to answer questions about the claim. If pornographic photos were being shown to children, because gays are allowed to marry in New Hampshire (a totally bizarre claim) then why didn't Elliott report this to the school district itself?

Conrad says that the entire claim is strange since the school district doesn't have any classes that deal with sexuality or marriage at the elementary school level. He says they have health and nutrition classes but nothing on relationships.

Based on the evidence, I would have to suggest that any sex involving Elliott would be, by definition, anal sex. After all, an ass is an ass.

By the way, you may remember we have discussed the so-called Republican Liberty Caucus, which purports to promote libertarian ideas within the GOP. They list Elliott as as "Republican Liberty Caucus Elected Official" on their web site. I've argued before that this Republican group is not libertarian. Apparently the "libertarians" in the Republican Party aren't much better than Republicans in the Libertarian Party—just witness Root and Barr as examples.

I find I can even like a Republican—sometimes.

There are two species that I have not been overly fond of: politicians and Republicans. So it is not highly likely that I would have some positive things to say about a Republican politician who is NOT "officially" running for President, which, in political newspeak, means he is running for President. But I do have some good things to say about one of them. That one is Gary Johnson the former governor of New Mexico.

Recently I was invited to a small get-together of people with Johnson. I listened with interest. And while Johnson isn't exactly where I'm at politically, he seemed to consistently be "almost there" on most issues. I am happy to attribute the "not quite" there views as necessary concessions in the political marketplace. Johnson is almost libertarian across the board. In that sense I think he is far superior to Ron Paul, who was clearly unlibertarian in several ways.

Johnson, for instance, says on immigration: "Fences don't work and won't work." Ron voted for the wall on the border. Johnson wouldn't go as far as I would on immigration but his view isn't bad. He wants to make it easier to "document workers" coming to the US, make it easier to come and doesn't like throwing out people who have lived here and established a life for themselves as productive individuals. I'd go farther but this is a damn good start.

In 1988 Ron Paul was "personally" against abortion but didn't campaign for state control, something he changed views on when he last ran for office (as he changed his positions on immigration as well). Johnson says he is personally opposed but "the decision is best left to the individuals involved." I can live with that as well.

Republicans go bonkers on war. Johnson says he is against the war in Iraq and opposed it as governor. He says that the "should resort to military action only as provided for in the Constitution." Again, I can live with that—and so could billions of other people.

I told Johnson that there are three issues that divide libertarians from conservatives in the current political debate: drugs, immigration and equality of rights for gay people. So I put him on the spot about the one he had not addressed that evening. He immediately said he would support civil unions for gay couples. Again, that is about 80% there. But compared to other candidates, a consistent 80% there on issues is pretty damn good.

I asked him about the Defense of Marriage Act and his first inclination was to oppose repeal. I mentioned the law denies equal rights in ways that libertarians ought to be concerned. The father of our host for the evening asked me to clarify. So I pointed out the obvious case that a heterosexual American can marry a non-citizen and bring their spouse to America to live with them but that gay Americans are denied that right by law. Johnson didn't seem to realize that was the case and that the Defense of Marriage Act prevented a policy of equality. But he was a governor not a federal legislator so I can excuse that lack of awareness. Johnson immediately said he may have spoken too soon and said what I mentioned, "just doesn't seem fair." Hey, that's a better answer than you can get out of Ron Paul or Bob Barr.

But his immediate rethink tells me he is someone who has basic principles down and if new information is provided is open to reconsidering his views.

Interestingly Johnson gets a point I've made in this blog several times. Recently I argued the election of Brown in Massachusetts was not an endorsement of Republican views, anymore than the election of Obama was an endorsement of nationalized health care or Obama's views. Only a few days ago Johnson told the Union Leader in New Hampshire that it would be a "a mistrake for Republicans" to view the Brown victory "as some sort of mandate." He said all voters were doing was showing "a real disgust with those in office. It isn't a shift to Republicans. It's just, 'Get whoever's in there out." That is barely different than what I said.

As governor Johnson vetoed 750 different pieces of legislation that crossed his desk. Compare that to Dubya who never met legislation that he didn't like. As governor of New Mexico Johnson vetoed more legislation than all 49 other governors combined. That reminds me of the joke about what do you call a 100 lawyers at the bottom of the sea: a good beginning. I don't know how many laws Johnson didn't veto but 750 is a good beginning.

While I was unimpressed with the Ron Paul of 2008, and only moderately happy with the Ron Paul of 1988, I feel a bit more comfortable with Johnson. I'm not comfortable enough to give an unqualified endorsement—I doubt I ever would be. But I am comfortable enough to say he deserves some attention by individuals who, like myself, believe in less politicial interference in markets as well as in the social sphere. If you are sick and tired of the Ayatollahs from evangelicalism running, and ruining, the Republican Party then Gary Johnson may be the man for you, especially if you still want someone who understands the need for free markets and low taxes.

I am 90% confident, based on the conversation with Johnson, that he will be running for president. He can't declare his candidacy now because of the way the government regulates his group, Our America. But it appears, like most other issues, that when it comes to official declaring his presidential ambitions he's 80% of the way there. And that's also good enough for me. Give him some thought.

Photo: Yes, that is Johnson. The snow gear was necessary since this is him recently climbing Mt. Everest. When he wants to do something, he does it. And he does want to run for president.

Hates "deviate" sex — you know what that means.

To paraphrase someone: Before you point out the deviance in your brother's sex life remove the kink from your own. Not exactly what was said, but it is the same principle. Unfortunately the political Right seems to have a hard time learning that lesson.

Take the antics of Rod Jetton. Jetton is the former house speaker in Missouri and a conservative Republican. His father is a Southern Baptist minister, Jetton attended a Baptist university (oxymoronic as that may sound). After leaving office he started something called Common Sense Conservative Consulting. Jetton is now known for two incidents.

The first incident was in 2007. Jetton had the chair of the Committee on Crime Prevention and Public Safety removed from his position as punishment. The chair, Scott Lipke, had included a revision in a law that revoked the law making it a criminal offense to have gay sex in Missouri. Like your typical Southern Baptist Neanderthal, Jetton explained in great detail why he had to punish Lipke.

He wrote Lipke "chose to use the bill to delete 14 words from our laws in order to repeal the gay sex ban in Missouri. Thanks to that deletion, it is now legal to engage in deviate sexual intercourse with someone of the same sex here in Missouri. This law had been on our books for decades."Jetton bragged: "I have fought attempts by liberals to repeal the gay sex ban for years..." It should be noted that gay sex was legal regardless since the Supreme Court ruled sodomy laws unconstitutional. But don't pay attention to the facts. I suspect that Jetton regrets using the term "deviate sexual intercourse."

It appears that Mr. Jetton is no stranger to "deviate sexual intercourse" himself. Here is how the story goes so far, in regards to the second incident.

Jetton, who divorced his wife (in violation of what Southern Baptist's call Biblical principles) was having sex with a woman. Actually he was having a "deviant" one-night stand with the woman that combined violence with sex. The woman says that he gave her some wine that he brought (another sin by Southern Baptist standards) which she thinks included a date rape drug as she started losing consciousness. Jetton began hitting her and choking her while having sex with her.

One newspaper blog says: "The woman says that she and Jetton talked about having sex when they were on the phone earlier in the day, but that she and Jetton had never dated or been in relationship before the night of Nov. 15. She told the detective that... she and Jetton agreed on a safe word of 'green balloons' to use to stop sexual relations."

Okay! Now let's unravel this for a second. First, safe words are something used by people into sadomasochism. To each their own, but dude, that isn't your everyday sexual intercourse. It's pretty "deviant" by most standards—not that I care if people voluntarily inflict pain as a form of pleasure. But it didn't seem so voluntary here. So, Jetton had made it clear, in advance, that he preferred violent sex thus requiring a "safe word" for the woman to use to stop the violence when it went too far. But the woman says that because she was unconscious from the wine Jetton provided that she couldn't use the word to stop his violent intercourse. That makes it rape as well as kinky.

As tolerant as I am on such matters, I do find it disturbing that a man enjoys choking a woman while having sex with her.

After the incident, when the woman complained about what he had done to her, he allegedly told her: "You should have said 'green balloons.'"

Let us also note that the couple had not previously met. That indicates that they "hooked up" through some sort of sex hotline, Internet group, or ad that caters to people seeking sex. So this wasn't even a relationship, just a screw. Again, if adults want to do that, it's not my business. I just note that it violates the Christian conservative values that Jetton was so hot about. Add in the violent nature of his sex life, which most conservative Christians would find appalling, and it becomes clear that Jetton is a major hypocrite.

Just the fact that Jetton had thought of using "safe words" in his sexual encounters implies that he was experienced in violent sex, or at least spent some time researching how to have sadomasochistic sex.

We have someone who divorced his wife, in violation of Baptist morality. He pushed wine on a woman, also a violation. And it may have been wine that he drugged. He was not married to the woman but went there to have sex, again in violation of Biblical morality. And his sex involves violence and choking the woman. And this man had the audacity to preach against "deviate sexual intercourse" for gay people!

Like so many hypocritical, sexually-obsessed conservatives Jetton immediately announces that now that he has been arrested he will "spend more time with his family." How predictable. Why do these conservatives assume their family wants them to spend more time with them just because they got caught violating the very "biblical morality" that want to impose on others? Of course, we now know why Jetton wants to use state power to force his sexual values on others—he likes combining sex and force. You could say that he gets his sexual kicks imposing his will on others. So all this time, when people thought he was standing up for God, Country, Mother and Apple Pie, he was really proposing the use of force because that's how he gets his rocks off. Lovely man.

Photo: His booking photo from his arrest.

Wishful thinking at its best.

The recent off-year elections seemed to favor the Republicans. Of course, the Republicans immediately chimed in that this was approval by the American public for their policies.

Nope. Once again that is wishful thinking.

When Obama won fairly handily it was claimed that this was because Americans wanted a dose of of Big Government policies, as a cure for the Big Government polices of Georgie Boy. Wrong again.

Very few Americans are voting for anyone, or for anything. They are voting against the status quo.

Americans couldn't stomach Georgie, and with good reason, he was repulsive and dangerous. Because they were disgusted with him they fled the party that he represented. The Democrats want to believe it was because everyone is clamoring for socialized medicine, higher taxes, bigger deficits, and lots more regulations. But this was nothing more than scared boys whistling in the graveyard to pretend they aren't afraid. The whistle stops them from thinking about how scared they are and helps cover up any sounds that might send them off in terror. The Democrats whistled their tune to convince themselves that the public really, really, really does love them and wants more of their policies.

But Americans tend not to be masochists. They don't yearn the Democratic leash anymore than they want the Republican one.

The American electoral system is rigged from start to finish to make sure that a duopoly will continue to control the country. Each party stays in, screwing over the public in particular areas until the public, disgusted by them, tosses them out. Then the other party comes in and starts the process all over again.

The Democrats come in and screw people over with economic regulations galore. They make a lot of noise about civil liberties and war but they never really do anything to turn back Republican regulations they find repulsive. After the voters have stomached as much of this as they can, the Republicans get elected.

They come in and ignore the economic regulations of the Democrats and try to strip away as many civil liberties as possible. Remember when the Democrats started the federalizing of education by creating a Department of Education, during the reign of Jimmy Carter. The Republicans get elected on a platform of repealing the department. That was 30 years ago. It's still there. Even when the Republicans controlled the Presidency and both house of Congress they did nothing to repeal the measure.

The damn department was barely weeks old when Reagan got elected but nothing happened to repeal it. If anything the Republicans ended up using it to further their goals of trying to control the private lives of Americans by pushing "abstinence education."

At best the parties engage in token repeals of legislation passed by their opponents. But most the time they merely use the legislation for their own benefit. But the public gets screwed over.

How Obaman and the Radical Left are creating a Republican resurgance.

The socialist Left, as opposed to the classical liberal Left, is apoplectic about the criticism concerning Obama’s health care power grab. There are two reasons for this. First, they really, really want to nationalize health care so public opposition to their take-over is upsetting to them. Second, they stupidly assumed Obama’s electoral support was support for the candidate’s more authoritarian measures.

This blog argued that Obama was supported by independent voters for one reason: they were sick and tired of Bush and the Republicans. Any right-thinking person was sick and tired of the fumbling Dubya and his Jesus-drunk Amen chorus in the Republican Party. I prevously wrote that the Democrats were being foolish to interpret disgust with Bush as the same thing as support for Obama’s more extreme policies. Democrats don’t listen so they assumed the world was rallying around Obama, as opposed to rejecting Dubya.

When their first big power grab came up they expected it would be a cakewalk. They imagined that most voters worship the water that Obama walks on. That's just not the case. Polls continue to show that the bulk of the voters are NOT supporters of Obama’s health care legislation—whichever version of it may be current at the time.

So the statist Left has been foaming at the mouth and screaming that opposition to Obama is a “fringe” movement. To them it has to be “fringe” since they remain convinced that Obama was elected to expand state control of health care. Their initial error, in assuming that votes for Obama meant support of Obamacare, is leading to their current error: assuming that only “fringe” nut cases can oppose their regulatory orgy. That is leading to a second error in tactics.

Because the statist Left assumes the opposition is just the fringe, they are insulting the opponents of Obamacare. Instead of grappling with the concerns of the majority of the public the Left is attacking them. But, opposition to Obamacare wouldn’t go anywhere it if were limited to Republicans. The bulk of American voters see themselves as independents and the independents, by the standards of the classical liberal, are pretty decent folk.

When polls investigate the independent voter certain things stand out. They do tend to like low taxes and don’t want big government. They sound pretty conservative. But they also tend to support marriage equality and don’t want to enforce Biblical law, unlike the theopublicans. In other words, the independent voters tend to drift in a libertarian direction, and not toward either the authoritarian Left or the authoritarian Right.

The strategic error the Democrats are committing is that in insulting and attacking these people they are laying the groundwork for a Republican resurgence in next year’s Congressional election. Independent voters are not pleased by either the socialist Democrats or the theocratic Republicans. They aren’t drawn to either party. But they still vote, so they tend to look at which party disgusts them the most, and then vote for the other one. Bushian Republicanism absolutely nauseated them, so they voted Democrat. But now the Democrats are attacking them for not supporting Obamacare. My prediction is that this desperate strategy to save socialized medicine will push the independent voters back to the Republican Party. How long they stay there will depend on whether the Republicans are stupid enough to take that resurgence as support for their campaign to Christianize America.

One of the methods used to demonize opponents of Obamacare has been to not just insult the opponents to this care but to claim that they have been violent. Mary Katharine Ham, at The Weekly Standard, investigated these claims. She notes that there were more than 400 town hall meetings in August. Yes, there was violence in a only handful of these meetings. But most of that came from the statist Left, not from critics of Obama. Ham writes of one incident:

In St. Louis, several video cameras captured an altercation between Kenneth Gladney, who was selling "Don't Tread on Me" flags and buttons outside, and several purple-shirted SEIUGladney, who is black, was addressed by an SEIU member using the "n-word," who then assaulted him. Gladney went to the hospital with minor injuries, and two SEIU members, including the local SEIU public service director Elston McCowan, were among the six people arrested in St. Louis that night. An unidentified female was arrested in connection with the same altercation. A video of the event shows her approach an Obama critic filming the Gladney incident, and then smash the camera into the filmer's face. The female assailant was later cuffed by police at the scene, also on tape. The SEIU later claimed that Gladney was the aggressor, but a video shows a different picture. Gladney is outnumbered and visibly shaken as one SEIU member yells on tape, "He attacked America!" before challenging Gladney's defenders to a fight and hurling profanities at the filmer.

Ham itemized other such incidents. At a Pelosi meeting: “A Denver Post photographer caught one of those sign-bearers, a grim-faced woman in a "HOPE" Obama shirt, ripping a homemade anti-Pelosi sign from Obama critic Kris McLay's hands as she yelled in protest. The Obama supporter declined to be identified for the photo.” In Durham, NC, an Obama opponent was punched in the face for speaking against Obamacare. His attacker was from the local union.
Ham outlined all the documented cases of violence at these town hall meetings:

That's the full list of documented violence from the August meetings. In more than 400 events: one slap, one shove, three punches, two signs grabbed, one self-inflicted vandalism incident by a liberal, one unsolved vandalism incident, and one serious assault. Despite the left's insistence on the essentially barbaric nature of Obamacare critics, the video, photographic, and police report evidence is fairly clear in showing that 7 of the 10 incidents were perpetrated by Obama supporters and union members on Obama critics. If you add a phoned death threat to Democrat representative Brad Miller of N.C., from an Obama-care critic, the tally is 7 of 11.

To mischaracterize these few incidents as part of the strategy of Obama critics, and to attack those unhappy with the so-called “reforms” of health care as extremists, only strengthens the Republican Party. The far Left in the Democratic Party is doing what the Far Right in the Republican Party did – drive the great middle of American voters into the arms of the other guy.

One year after Obama’s election, let me quote this blog to remind you of my predictions regarding Obama’s performance in office.

I don’t expect Obama to make any major withdrawal from Iraq. In other words, I don’t expect he will end this illegal and unconstitutional war. Equally disastrous will be the likely “reluctant” support he will give to keeping the authoritarian Patriot Act in place. Do not expect Obama to do much to protect civil liberties, or to reclaim those stolen by the Bush Administration. What you can expect is lots of speeches with the same unspecified, vague rhetorical flourishes that Obama loves. What he won’t do is give any substance to them. George Bush was a bumbling speaker who gave specifics -- although his specifics were almost entirely evil. Obama will be a brilliant speaker who will use his florid style to cover up his lack of substance. I do think Obama will try to implement some policies -- all of them bad. I fully expect him to put bureaucrats and politicians in control of more our medical care than ever before.

So far I have no reason to revise advance estimation regarding Mr. Obama and his disastrous term in office. What has changed has been how badly the White House has bungled things. I expected them to be smoother than they have been. The shrill response from the Democrats has been a godsend for the Republicans.

I will reiterate my view that the Republicans, if they want to be a party of government for the long term, will still have to scuttle their links to the Christian lunatic fringe. Of course, the Democrats could do the same thing if they rejected the old tax, spend, regulate policies of their socialist ideologues. Until one of the two major parties wises up, and abandons the ideological albatross around their neck, the independent voters will swing the elections. But that is not necessarily a bad thing since these are people who tend to want sound economics, aren’t interested in Christian moralism, and aren’t too keen to police the world.