Hi Planet,

I did it again. I really like Aphex Twin. Sarah is an inspiration for my creative process.

Cheers

One of Arizona’s most famous son’s is Barry Goldwater, a five term Senator known as “Mr. Conservative”.

Republican Senator Goldwater launched a bid for President of the United States against Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, and Goldwater was portrayed as reactionary, too right-wing and bat-shit crazy for his fights against the New Deal, unions and liberalism.

He lost the election to Johnson by one of the largest landslides in history, taking down several Republicans with him.

Goldwater was known as a ‘libertarian’ way back when, and in the 80′s when he saw the religious right’s influence with Reagan, Goldwater predicted that there would come a day when he would be labeled a “LIBERAL.”

Then there was Republican Evan Mecham, who owned a car dealership, and he won the election for governor of Arizona in 1986 and is famous for his recollections of folks calling African American children ‘pickaninny’ meant in an affectionate way.

Governor Mecham is also known for overturning the Martin Luther King Holiday and blaming working women for high divorce rates.

Governor Mecham was impeached by the voters of Arizona in April of 1988 for obstruction of justice and misuse of government funds, which he was later acquitted.

Then there was Republican Jane Hull, who bankrupted the state of Arizona with the alt-fuel fiasco, and perhaps lesser known, was that Governor Hull launched the bid of Texas Governor George Bush Jr. for President.

Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano was elected after Hull’s reign of errors, and in her first term as governor of Arizona, Governor Napolitano balanced the budget and got the state out of debt and into the black.

Governor Napolitano even managed to setup a “rainy day” fund, which has since been raided and decimated.

To be fair, midway though Governor Napolitano’s 2nd term, she did play with the numbers and credit and did leave her successor with massive debt, since no one in power saw the collapse of the housing market, which was Arizona’s main economic source.

Arizona’s State Legislature has always been Republican majority and Governor Napolitano did work with them and they would vociferously complain about her vetoes, yet she managed to get the job done.

President Obama scooped Governor Napolitano from Arizona by offering her the job as head of Homeland Security, and there were Republicans rejoicing that Janet was gone, and others saddened that she left, and others angered because she left Arizona in such dire straits.

Jan Brewer slipped into the position of Governor, as Arizona does not have a lieutenant governor, and Jan Brewer is a Republican that held the position of Secretary of State.

Governor Brewer is the fourth woman, the third consecutive woman to hold the title of governor in Arizona.

Governor Brewer, an unelected governor, has not been able to work with the Republican majority in the state’s legislature.

Following former President GW Bush’s example, the Republicans shut out the Democrats from all legislative meetings, Governor Brewer only calling on the Democrats to sign her bills when the Republican majority refused.

The Arizona Democrats refused to support the legislation, since they had no voice in forming the bills, and Governor Brewer led the Republican charge that the reason the state could not balance the budget was due to the Democrats and obstruction.

The Arizona Legislature under Governor Brewer have managed to pass some of the most liberal gun laws in the country, and once again to be fair, Vermont has similar laws.

Governor Brewer was very unpopular for being unable to work within her own Republican Party, but all that changed once Governor Brewer signed the anti-immigration SB1070 into law.

I do not need to share last night’s debate between the unelected Governor Brewer and the Democratic candidate Terry Goddard as it has gone viral on the Internet.

Due to Arizona’s ‘Clean Election Law’ voted in by voters in 1996, Governor Brewer was forced to do one debate and of course, the Republican legislature has been working hard on overturning the ‘Clean Election Law’.

Last night, the local CBS station did a story on Governor Brewer’s ties to private prisons in the state, and the money they are giving to her campaign for governor.

Governor Brewer was silent when 3 dangerous criminals escaped from a private prison in Kingman and when a woman tossed wire cutters over the fence, and then two of the escapees killed a couple from Oklahoma while they were camping New Mexico.

Governor Brewer is not happy with that expose and has pulled all her ads for governor from the local CBS channel 5 in Phoenix.

On another update of Arizona news is that the Department of Justice has issued fines against Sheriff Joe due to his non-compliance with 2 subpoenas for his records regarding a DOJ investigation into abuse of power and civil rights abuse in his jails.

I’ve researched subpoenas and what it means when a person refuses to comply and it is normal for 2 warnings to be given.

This is rare, as a sheriff’s office has never refused to cooperate with a DOJ and Grand Jury investigation since Mississippi in the 1960′s.

Isn’t it amazing that Sheriff Joe is refusing to “show his papers”?

It is a given that the party out of power picks up seats in the off year election.

Why is that? The logic would seem simple. American voters have the patience and vision of a nearsighted 3 year old. Every two years after they have decided that they want a particular party to run the country, they conclude, “Where’s the unicorn I wanted?” and decide that the other party might have a better unicorn ranch…even though the very reason they elected the current party was their dissatisfaction with the delivery of unicorns by the party that was previously in power.

So, first we have to begin with the concept that no matter what the American electorate orders from the menu of Democracy, when it arrives, they always want to send it back and just get the nachos instead.

As disappointing as that principle of American Democracy may be, it creates a paradox that is inescapable.

a. If a party wants to have power, it must win elections.

b. Once a party wins an election, it is held to an unrealistic standard by an impatient public.

c. The party in power, not being able to meet unrealistic expectations is eventually viewed negatively by the public.

d. In the following election, Americans vote for the party they last voted out because, since they are not currently in power, they provide an alternative to the party in power that has failed to meet unrealistic expectations.

e. Rinse and repeat.

What is kind of depressing is that Americans seem unable to commit to long term goals, too reliant on short term gratification to solve profound issues and build long term successes. Can you imagine if the American electorate was a building contractor? Every other month it would tear down the work that had been done all month and replace all the workers because it wanted the perfect house built in a month and that didn’t happen. This is the Sisyphus School of Construction.

This paradox does however necessarily trip up all that participate in it.

The Republicans, after having handed a near Depression to Obama, have executed a Party of No campaign since he was elected. Thanks to our thriving public education system and a fair and balanced MSM , the American Public instead blames Obama and the Dems for what the GOP has wrought. So, just one and a half years after recognizing how destructive the policies of the GOP are, their bi-annual amnesia has kicked in and they’re ready to proclaim to the Party of Destruction, “Thank you sir, may I have another?”

The Republicans will win many seats in Congress, perhaps enough to take over the House. What will that mean?

Well, Michelle Bachman and Darryl Issa have boasted loudly about spending the next two years in a Clinton-style witch hunt against Obama, times 100. Joe Barton, who apologized to BP for their being asked to compensate people for ruining their lives will be in charge of energy policy. And John Boehner who declared that HCR would bring the Apocolypse will be Majority Leader in the House.

Is there a way to give the American electorate an IQ test or at the very least, a consultation with a mental health professional?

But wait, remember the cycle described above? The silver lining to the Repubs possibly taking over the House is that…they will be in power. So now the unrealistic expectations will be projected on them by the Public. In 2012 they won’t be able to run as they are this year, as the outsiders who had no control over the last two years. Uh-oh!!! Yes, they will BS about how, “If only we had all the power in DC, we could bring you the unicorns you want!” but that’s a bit more complicated than just being able to say, “Blame them, we’re not in power, nothing’s our fault!”

And as we learned from a Repub House impeaching Clinton, not to mention the 8 years of Bush and 6 years of Repub control in Congress, give them a little power and they’ll hang themselves with it.

We should work as hard as we can this year to fend off Repub control of the House but if despite all of our best efforts, they win…it could be the big motivator for Dems to get out in 2012 and re-elect Obama and a Dem majority in Congress. We may have to give up two crucial years of gridlock for at least two more years of progress but that might be the best deal we can get.

It is nearly impossible for Obama and Dems to get credit for what they prevented from happening. If we had a President McCain, I think we would have plunged into a massive depression that would have set this nation back twenty years or more from where it is today (giving tax cuts to the wealthy instead of the stimulus spending would have been the nail in the coffin). But that concept is not concrete enough for many out there to appreciate. Nor are all of the other strides Obama has made.

And don’t get me started on the Purist Dems attacking Obama, I imagine many of them smugly watching Repubs win this year, pleased at how it harms Obama’s presidency. If there was a way to give a Wedgie of Mass Discomfort to all of them, I gladly would.

Ultimately, the pendulum that passes for the mass mindset of American Voters will have a chance to swing back to sanity by 2012 and while we can’t give an inch this year, if Repubs win back the House, I think there will be a silver lining to that sulfurous cloud that could descend on DC after this November.

Hi Folks,

I did a little work today. I had a Jones to put up another video of lovely sister Sarah. So without further ado, may I present

REAL AMERICA

On Saturday, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and spoke to tens of thousands of blindingly white, patriotically obese, special needs Walmart shoppers, claiming to speak for God and urging a return to the halcyon days of religious domination of our democracy which brought America such historic hits as morally justifiable slavery, the slaughter of “heathen” Native Americans, Manifest Destiny, women as second class citizens without the right to vote, prohibition and its resulting in the explosion of organized crime and teens having lots of oral and anal sex in order to honor their Promise Rings.

As a result, as Monty Python once sang, God got quite irate. So, as He is nowadays accustomed to venting his wrath, He blogged the following and asked me to post it for Him:

GOD’S BLOG – 8-31-2010

Let me begin by saying that neither Glenn Beck nor Sarah Palin speak for me. The tip offs are, I never use chalkboards, I don’t drop the last letter of “ing” words to be folksy and lastly, I usually make sense.

Being omnipresent, I couldn’t help but watch these two and their colleagues give their speeches on Saturday at the site and on the day of my dear friend’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Though I don’t see anything wrong with the way I’ve made male dogs mark territory as their own, it is a bit off putting when people use dogs as role models for that trait (wish they copied the unconditional love and loyalty stuff instead).

What can be a little frustrating about being all-knowing is that you never get to say, “What the hell is wrong with that guy?!”, you already know. I do see all living things as my children but some days, your kids can really drive you nuts, you know what I’m talking about?

Glenn claimed that his rally was about returning honor, going back to Me and less overtly, returning power in America to White Christians. That’s like urging people to come together to build and paint a majestic cross just so you can set fire to it.

Believe me, I don’t have an inferiority complex. I’m not stomping around Heaven, upset that people aren’t ruling more countries in my name. In fact, that’s exactly what would get me upset, have you seen what happens in most countries when people declare I chose them to be the leader (my lawyers did send George Bush a Cease and Desist).

Earth is for you folks to take care of and figure out how to run. I’ve totally delegated all executive decisions to all of you, I just want to be invited to the company picnics.

Glenn Beck also urged people to sublimate themselves to me, to get on their knees and make sure their children saw them doing so. I guess the best way to do that would be to get in front of the tv and pray…though I’d guess the kids would just crane their heads around to keep killing people in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

I think this could send the wrong message. First, kids may think that their parents are praying to the tv, that I am in the tv or that Tivo is God (which it is in some households).

Second, I think kids should see that strong moral beliefs are what make their parents stand up and become leaders in their own lives. Impressing subservience is like wiring a weakness into oneself or one’s kids that less principled folks than yours truly can then use to manipulate them to further unprincipled greed and lusts.

Which brings me back to Glenn Beck. He spoke of restoring honor…and did so by dishonoring one of the most honored Americans, Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement he did so much for. Next time, I assume that Glenn will want to campaign on protecting endangered species by hunting them.

So, we can put aside this clearly illegitimate claim as the purpose of this rally, along with a reverence for me because love and respect and power for all races and religions is my thing. Also, despite the claims in their prospectuses and press releases, I am not a wholly owned subsidiary of FreedomWorks, Fox News or the GOP.

I just wish such wolves wouldn’t use me as their sheep’s clothing. The ironic thing is that in order to be so comfortable in using me to promote a self-serving agenda, such people would have to not believe in me (they clearly have no fear that they’ll ever have to face me for their transgressions).

So my suggestion is, the more you hear someone use me or their love of me to justify their actions and schemes that benefit themselves personally, the more of an atheist they probably are.

And BTW, some of my best friends are Atheists (I tell them that whether or not they believe in me, I believe in them and they’ll usually buy me a drink anyway, nice folks) so that’s not a bad thing but it does lend a bit of perspective to these situations.

Satan plays the same game as Glenn but as a practical joke, after a while, he always blurts out, “Just joking! I’m not really speaking for God and there is no barbecue tonight!”

Too bad Glenn doesn’t even display the decency of Satan. Still, it will be hilarious in a number of years, when Satan gets the chance to pull that on Glenn! Man, will he freak!

Good Morning Planet,

I want to thank everyone for their warm welcome. I was over at the Huffpo under the cover of my new moniker. Apparently the IP address banning department isn’t being paid enough to do their job. So I decided to have some fun with a new identity and poke at the caged animals with my intellectual stick. Intellectual: now there’s a subjective term. Okay, I’m busted – you caught me. Yes – I admit it: I am going for blood and it’s purely a personal and emotional crusade that has nothing to do with intellect. Well, the Huffpo has nothing to do with intellect either; so it’s a good match I think.

My recipe for fun includes writing little post of pure random gibberish. I learned back in 2008 when I was antagonizing posters at our local newspaper, that I could write a few random words and get the Kool aid crowd worked up pretty good. You’d be surprised at how condescending and insulting people can be – wait – I forgot my audience here – sorry – I guess I ought to rephrase that. You know how condescending and insulting people can be (better) but when you exceed their threshold of rudimentary English skills and insult their pathetically minimal understanding of syntax and grammar, you can get a very fiery response. I demonstrated my most basic technique to a co-worker during the presidential elections. My method was quick and simple:

1. go to the web-page that has the infamous gibberish generator
2. cut and paste a trolls very own words into the generator
3. generate the gibberish
4. cut and paste the result into a comment box
5. post
6. check back later and enjoy

What I am doing over at the Huffpo isn’t so lowbrow as that. I am doing what is more like poetry – random yet fluid word association in rhythmic patterns. I guess it takes some effort to do it that way but I reviewed the results of last nights guerrilla posting and discovered that some mawd there didn’t appreciate my sense of humor. One of my carefully constructed post had been deleted. This only goes to prove one thing and that would be that Huffpo mawds are capricious and vain. Further proof that the site has been overrun by right wing Christian extremists. Seriously, gibberish is apolitical and -  – - -it’s gibberish. Are these people offended by nonsense? God, now there’s a double standard! Again more proof that the Huffpo is being run by right wing Christian extremists. Hey, not that I have anything against right wing Christian extremists. (insert tasteless humor about lions).

Cheers – and I’ll be baaaaaaack

Hi Folks,

Quwhellyicquid here. Some of you may have met me over at the Huffpo. Apparently some mawd didn’t like my snark so I got canned.

Hell, I had a great fan to comment ratio going too: 700 comments and 103 fans. Ef it anyway. It seemed obvious that the Huffpo had sold out

to the right wing MSM right? Like how stupid is it to put up an article about Dickhead Cheney being in the hospital and not let anyone post even a passive comment about how happy that made them feel.

Seriously, the sooner that war criminal goes to hell the better. However, all of the sappy posts that the mawds let through were “I’m praying for a speedy recovery” or some other bullocks like that.

Like this was the Huffpo, and I thought it was against the insanity of the right wing – and here they are having a little Cheney love fest going on. Purely nauseating.

Anyway, I’ll just my news from the BBC unless someone can suggest a better source. Until then, I’ll just have to deposit my snark here unless otherwise told to do otherwise.

Cheers

My neighbor asked me if I watched Glenn Beck. I told him I didn’t because I don’t have cable or satellite TV. Lucky for me he didn’t ask me if I wanted to come over to his house to watch Glenn Beck. If you really think about it, why would anybody want to listen to a mountebank? So today, Beck and Osarah bin Palin are in Washington at their “Restoring Honor” rally. Just whose honor are they restoring? It isn’t mine. I never lost my honor.

Do they mean “National Honor?” Did the nation lose its honor when Barack Obama was elected president? Please. Mr. Beck and Mrs. Palin are a few years late and a few dollars short. This nation lost its honor when voters allowed a B movie actor who rehearsed as the governor of California to become its president in 1980.

Now, Ronald Reagan was an honorable man. He just surrounded himself with dishonorable people who advised him how to redistribute wealth. Now, isn’t that what Mr. Beck and Mrs. Palin are against? The redistribution of wealth? Of course they’re against it. I’m against it too. It’s just that I’m against the reverse Robin Hood redistribution ideas of the Republican Party. Take from the poor and working middle class and give to the top 2% of income earners. So has President Obama surrounded himself with dishonorable people advising him how to redistribute wealth? Of course not. He is surrounding himself with mostly honorable people advising him how to deal with the worst economic recession in 75 years.

There will always be boom and bust cycles in free market capitalistic economics. That’s a good thing because flat line means you’re dead. That’s what happened in the old Soviet Union. But in order to promote the general welfare (it says so in the US constitution) the government has a duty to the people, not to the corporatocracy, to moderate the boom and bust cycles of free market capitalistic economics. How does the government do that? It’s called regulations, Mr. Beck and Mrs. Palin.

All ye who failed to believe my last blog concerning the REAL political leanings of Arianna Huffington, please take a look at the picture she recently tweeted below.

She’s on holiday in Italy, and whilst in Amalfi, just “happened” to run into an old friend and his wife. Guess who?

Unexpected encounters: in Amalfi, running into Newt Gingrich and his wife (even invited him to blog about his new book)

What’s the old Rod Stewart song say – every picture tells a story? She’s even asked him to blog. Huffington Post takes a sharp turn to the Right, with the man who likens Muslims to Nazis.

I feel vindicated.

Had the cutest and strangest experience this morning on the way home from our walk.
It was another miserable sweaty walk this morning and there are these tiny little gnats out that we’ve never seen before.
They’re teensie-tiny black flies and they bite!
And for being so amazingly small, their bite actually causes pain!
Not bad pain, but you can feel it and it feels like a pin-prick.
Very odd.

Anyway, while on the way home we saw an elderly couple that we haven’t seen for awhile on our walks.
We’ve been walking earlier, besides being gone, except today we got a late start so saw them again and they stopped to talk.

We ran into them at the local grocer the other day, and not sure they remembered us, but I smiled and said hello and asked them if they recognized us.
I told them about us always walking our little dog in the mornings and we always wave to them.

The wife said she thought she knew who we were but her husband couldn’t remember.

He’s a real talker, and explained that he has very early onset of Alzheimer so he’s accepted that he can’t remember things very well.

He was so funny in telling us his name – Irvine with an I not an E – and it was his mother’s maiden name and it’s not an uncommon name because there’s an Irvine, California, and that has an I and not an E, too.
Very cute.

His wife is a skinny little thing and perhaps a bit younger than her husband but not by much.
She’s very animated friendly and clapped her hands and smiled broadly while thanking me for stopping to say hello in the grocery store.

So, this morning on the way home from our walk, we saw them and they were so happy to see us with our little dog and yes, now they both recognized us.
Here’s just the cutest thing and funniest part.

They pulled to the side of the road and asked if we were registered voters and we said yes, and then they asked if we would sign a petition.
They got out and while sweating our butts off and swatting at them biting teensie-tiny flies, they explained that they are working to recall one of the Pinal County councilmen for breaking all his campaign promises.

Now, if we could recall politicians for breaking their campaign promises, we’d have to recall them all, wouldn’t we?

My husband asked Irvine if the guy was a Republican and he said yes and he wants to replace him with another Republican – a Tea Party Republican because that guy lives up here and he will keep his promises.
Irvine said they need 10,000 signatures and what the hell, we signed the petition because he only had 7 signatures!

My husband made it a point that he’s all for recalling Republicans!
But they sort of ignored that, even though they did say that “they’re all crooks!”
“And if they’re not crooks when they get elected, they turn into crooks soon after”.

Irvine does talk a lot and he rambles, so you have to pay close attention but he’s a very affable person, as is his wife.
I think they are Tea Partiers, but so unlike the Tea Partiers we see on the TV or read about.
They’re not angry old white people, but they are fearful.

I think their definition of the Tea Party is not the actual Tea Party people we all know and love.

Through one of Irvine’s ramblings – and I cannot remember his wife’s name but will never forget his – but he asked us if we knew who Sylvia Brown is.

Do you know who Sylvia Brown is?

She’s a famous psychic and the only reason we know who she is is because we used to watch the Montel Williams show a few years ago and she was one of his regular guests every Wednesday and Friday, which ended up being his highest rated shows every week.

FOX yanked Montel’s show when he started his mission of seeing Bush get out of office and that’s why we watched him because he did a fairly good job of getting the truth out.

As for Sylvia Brown, well, she was fun to listen to and entertaining and I actually liked her a lot, until she went totally nuts with talking about space aliens and that there were aliens even in Montel’s audience.

She predicted that we are near the “end of times” and that the world would end in 100 years, which is a pretty safe prediction because who’ll be around to say if she was right or not about that.

She would talk crazy about some sort of second or third level creatures from deep in the earth that come out and if you’re attuned you can catch them and even see faeries that sit on flowers.
She’s really out there about things.

But I really liked her and thought her harmless because most people who seek her out were in search of solace from the grief of losing a loved one.
She always provided comfort for distraught people that were deep in grief by telling them that the person is with God and in the light of Christ and that no one ever dies alone.
People come into the world alone, but guardian angels and keepers from the other-side help people cross over upon death.

She does not believe in hell, but said hell is on earth and that the dead walk amongst us always.

She’s harmless and comforting and she always spoke about God, Christ and the Holy Spirit and said there is no such thing as the devil, but that evil lives in man and makes earth hell for the living.

I would never buy any of her books or go see her because she does tour and I would never do that as I am a skeptic, plus she charges outrages prices to see her speak.

But, she is an uplifting, spiritual person and she may very well be a scam artist, but then so are Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and people pay good money to see them and Sylvia Brown brings people up and does good, whereby Palin and Beck are just plain EVIL, in my very humble opinion.

So, Irvine and his wife told us that they went to see Sylvia Brown when she was here in the valley and our first thought on that that we kept to ourselves was – these people are nuts.

Now, I have to share the story about another neighbor- the woman owns a horse named Bonita and just got divorced from her abusive, cheating husband – and she had contacted an animal psychic back east when she was struggling with the decision of whether or not to give her smaller horse, Sadie, away and whether or not Sadie wanted to leave and if Bonita wanted Sadie to leave.
She ended up giving Sadie to a friend who lives nearby due to that phone call.

And then there’s other neighbors who believe that Glenn Beck is some sort of truth-speaker and they buy his books and watch him religiously.

And then there’s yet another, who is a Democrat, but he listens to a right-wing religious radio station and he is against the SB1070 law and thinks Brewer will go to hell for it, but he can quote the bible and believes we are in the “end of times” and he likes Obama, but thinks that Obama is confused when it comes to religion, because he’s not sure if he’s a Christian or not.

Okay, so Irvine and his wife went to see Sylvia Brown and they said that if you paid more for admission that you could ask Sylvia a question.
They said that a woman asked Sylvia if Obama would win a second term.

Here’s where it gets strange.

Sylvia Brown, according to this elderly couple, said that no, Obama would not win a second term, because he will not even make it through his first term.

They said that she said that he will get a bit way through the second half of his first term, but then he would die.

The couple said that people gasped audibly throughout the auditorium and mayhem ensued with people wanting to know if he was going to suffer the same fate as JFK.

Sylvia Brown, according to this couple, said that the cause of his demise would be due to food poisoning and that would be the official reason for his death, but according to the couple, Sylvia implied that it wouldn’t be an accident.

Isn’t that strange?

It is strange, because if that’s true that Sylvia Brown predicted such a thing is that it’s not like the “end of times” prediction of 100 years, but something that she will be proven right on or wrong on within less than 2 years.

I’m stunned that she would dare to predict such a thing, since she has so very many loyal followers and she’s placing her reputation on the line with such a prediction.

And I pray that she is wrong.

And another thing, is that this is an elderly couple – grandparent-like – and first off, I could never imagine my mom or dad ever believing in Sylvia Brown – and secondly, wouldn’t you think that older people would be wiser?

I get it now that I just wrote that, as older people do seem to love FOX and all their pundits.

An elderly woman from my working days just loves Bill O’Reilly and the thing that really gets me about her, is that she continuously sends me these right-wing emails about Obama being a Muslim and about ignorant, anti-American Democrats and liberals, and I swear that I am so tempted to begin bombarding her email with emails from the left about the crazy right-wingers!

I just can’t bring myself to do that though, as it would be a waste of time and really, whenever I get her emails, I just delete them unless she writes me an actual email.
The thing about that though, is that she will write letters in her right-wing emails, so I miss out on a lot of her writings to me.

Does anyone else deal with these type of people?

Or do we really live in the Twilight Zone?

Arianna Huffington is the founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post. She fancies herself a powerful voice in the world of American Progressive politics, and I suppose she is, although I’ve always doubted the liberal credentials of someone who was closely-knit, literally and figuratively, into the framework of Newt Gingrich’s political philosophy throughout the 1990s. People change, yes, but lasting, believeable and genuine change is often of the calibre which occurs slowly, almost imperceptibly, throughout a number of years – much in the way the conservative former Supreme Court Justice, John Paul Stevens, evolved from a conservative jurist into the liberal conscience of the Court.

So pardon me, a natural secularist, if I found Huffington’s Damascene conversion from hardcore neocon and Gingrich neophyte into a fully paid-up member of the Progressive Populist club, practically overnight, more than a bit difficult to swallow.

Even harder to accept was the ease with which the liberal media readily accepted her within their fold. More than Mitch McConnell “taking the President’s word” that he’s a Christian, the media elite embraced this woman as one of their own.

She certainly has been making the rounds – from Morning Joe to various appearances on CNN, with stops in between on Ed Schultz’s and Keith Olbermann’s echo chambers, as well as a quasi-regular stint on ABC’s This Week – especially when there’s an opportunity to criticize whatever the President has said or hasn’t said, has done or hasn’t done, which hasn’t met her personal standard of excellence. And then, there’s always the opportunity for her particular brand of argumentum ad hominem. I believe her favourite reference to the President is “Nowhere Man.”

Don’t get me wrong. Politicians were made to be criticized, their feet being fashioned to be held to the fire by the people who elect them; but – Lordy! – according to Arianna Huffington’s political perspective, it’s amazing that the President is able to walk down the street and chew gum without tripping up. There’s criticism, there’s nitpicking … and there’s cherry-picking.

However, I’ve noticed, during yet another summer of discontent, that Madame’s been curiously quiet of late, starting right about the time of the Shirley Sherrod/Andrew Breibart incident.

In an interview printed earlier in the year in Wired magazine, Breitbart amply credited Huffington as being  his mentor, saying she’d taught him everything he knew about his particular type of journalism – which is, at best, described as “press hackery” and, at worst, as a variety of ratfucking: shady, oblique quotes from anonymous sources, phrases and sentences taken out of context and spun with a view to imparting a message completely different from the original, and loads of nuanced criticism, which never offers any alternative suggestions, but always ends with a sneer and more than a dollop of condescension.

Needless to say, the interview went viral in the age of the internet, and more than a few of the many people who comment regularly on Huffington Post were quick to point out, not only the association between Huffington and Breitbart, but also the fact that Breitbart was the co-founder of HuffPo, himself.

This guilt by association was just enough to jog some memories of Huffington the virulent neocon of the Nineties – neophyte of Newt and the founder of a website dedicated entirely to securing the impeachment of one President William Jefferson Clinton, Democrat. It was also enough, for awhile, for several commentators to slam accusations of “Breitbart journalism” against certain of her regular reporters, each time their “reporting” proved to be shoddy and inaccurate – which was quite a lot.

The dots were connected.

Huffington never referenced Breitbart, and, although her site offered many and varied articles concerning Shirley Sherrod, Fox News and the Obama Administration, with most of the blame being heaped heavily onto the President’s shoulders, she never offered up a word, distancing herself from this man and his shady practices, never reassured her adoring gaggle of fans that she totally condemned what he’d tried to do. She simply ignored the name Breitbart altogether, as if he didn’t exist in her fragrant world of expensive facials, debutant balls and speaking up for the “small people.”

It seemed as though Arianna, for once, had lost her mighty voice.

And now, with all the kerfuffle surrounding the Park51 incident in New York, all the not-too-cleverly disguised innuendo insinuating that Muslims, as a whole, are to be feared, vilified and persecuted, we’ve yet to hear Mrs Huffington expound upon this. The verbal attack on a construction worker, trying  to thread his way through the New York mob, who appeared to “look Muslim” didn’t raise a whimper of protest from Arianna’s throat.  Nor did the fact that recent polls reveal an increasing number of people seem to suspect our President is a Muslim. These are ordinary people who believe this, the sort of people for whom Arianna claims to speak, especially in her recent book, which has yet to climb onto the New York Times best-seller list.

Arianna, who always speaks the truth (according to her dittoes), should be guiding and enlightening these people to the contrary.

Instead, she’s uncharacteristically silent.

Sometimes silence reverberates more astoundingly than a plethora of loud and gratuitous criticism, and sometimes silence can be interpreted as tacit assent.

In days of yore, in the Nineties when the budget was balanced and everyone believed they had money in their pockets, Arianna was the First Disciple in the Church of Newt Gingrich. Now that Newt’s likening the Muslims to Nazis, one wonders if the sheets Arianna might be thinking of donning are made of designer-labelled white linen.

During last Friday’s Vox Populi, we were discussing how the GOP/Tea Party, assisted hugely by Fox, the MSM and corporations, has foisted this fraudulent series of racist and hateful “issues” on the nation and into our politics.

Pres. Obama, being a thoughtful man of reason, responds earnestly to accusations about mosques near Ground Zero, his being a secret Muslim, etc.

We arrived at a consensus that instead of this accomplishing anything, Obama’s responses merely validate and empower the GOP hate machine which is continuing to whip up more and more irrational fear and hatred against non-whites, non-Christians and any other group that can be portrayed as the evil “other”.

A legitimate concern is that such rabid, omnipresent and publicly sanctioned hate mongering is deteriorating social discourse and behavior as well as our democracy…not to mention increasing the likelihood of more terrible, hate-inspired incidents.

What Pres. Obama needs to do, in our opinion, is to bust this fraud wide open and expose the cynical greed for power behind it. Instead of playing defense in this rigged game, Obama needs to kick the board over.

We would like to see Pres. Obama make a speech from the White House to the American People, laying bare the racism and xenophobia being used to manipulate people to empower the GOP and corporate America. He needs to explain to the nation that the GOP’s blocking of everything that would help America recover from the GOP/Corporate-caused economic crash, purely for their political gain, is unAmerican.

By doing so, he could short circuit this dangerous scheme and turn the focus to where it belongs, on those who would betray the people for their own pursuit of power. Instead of standing by while the GOP propaganda machine continues spewing lies and hatreds that Obama needs to keep addressing, it’s time to put the GOP back on their heels and on the defensive for their ruthless and disgusting behavior.

And a bold, confrontational speech by Pres. Obama declaring that this campaign, by the GOP and the Corporations behind them, is about placing the greed for power above what’s best for the citizens of our nation would change the conversation profoundly from the manufactured accusations and divisive distractions from reality to the true reality we’re actually living in.

Such a speech could rally the nation.This country desperately needs to reverse the polarization and come together to confront and overcome the immense challenges facing us, not allow the GOP and Fox to increase the ongoing deterioration of this Union and its future because it’s to their own financial and political benefit.

So we came up with the idea of setting up a collaboration for folks here to offer their thoughts and suggestions on what Pres. Obama could say in such a speech and also what we should say to him in a cover letter to convince him to take such action.

Once we’ve had folks weigh in on this, we’ll draft a speech and a cover letter based on the comments below and post them so people can add their names (confidentially) as signatories to endorse them (and get the word out to try to gather as many people as we can to add their names). Then we will send the letter and speech to Pres. Obama for his consideration.

So please feel free to dive right in with any suggestions, please share your thoughts on what Pres. Obama should say in an address to the nation to defuse this mercenary campaign that seeks to further tear apart our nation and instead inspire people to come together for the common good.

With all the hype and furor being generated about making marijuana legal, there are a few points that have not heard from anyone other than me. And I’m still waiting for a coherent, fact based argument against passage of Proposition 19 that doesn’t involve emotionally charge ‘could happen’ scenarios about school bus drivers killing children by driving stoned or schools losing grant money because they can’t do drug testing on their employees anymore. I thought fear-based rhetoric went out with the Bush Administration but apparently it’s been recycled by the opposition. Why not, it worked so well the first time around?

First, for those of you who live outside of California, Proposition 19 would make it legal for citizens over the age of 19 to grow, use or transport up to an ounce of marijuana for personal use. However, it would still be a crime to drive under the influence, possess the substance on school grounds, use in public or while minors are present and commercial production for individuals is still forbidden. In exchange for making the use legal, local governments would be able to initiate a tax on sales which would generate an estimated $1.4 billion dollars in revenue. For a state that is $1.9 billion in the hole, this kind of income could prevent the legislature from continuing with the draconian cuts to schools, hospitals, police and fire personnel and could rejuvenate the much needed infrastructure projects that have been put on indefinite hold.

This is not just a victory for the potheads, or as I call them, the ‘Chips Ahoy Enthusiasts’ and passage of Prop 19 benefits more than just the state economy. According to an FBI report in 2008, there were 61,000 Californians arrested for misdemeanor marijuana possession while 60,000 violent crimes went unsolved. Inclusion of marijuana offenses in the War on Drugs has crippled law enforcement’s ability to focus on more serious cases such as methamphetamine abuse which is where the real crimes are committed. It’s been reported that 60% of drug cartel income comes from the illegal U.S. marijuana market. By cutting off such a large funding source, the drug cartels will be forced to take their business elsewhere and take the white powder they rode in on.

The fear of fellow Democrats is that the voting public is not in favor of taking such a bold step and by endorsing Prop 19, we are handing the Republicans ammunition to portray Democrats as pot-smoking slackers with a penchant for brownies. But I disagree. Medical marijuana has been legal in California and if I remember correctly, it passed with very little opposition or fanfare, although it did grab the attention of then Attorney General John Ashcroft who was unsuccessful at overturning the law. His next stop was the state of Oregon to overturn their Death with Dignity Act which he failed in that attempt as well. I think the voters are much more open to passage of Prop 19 than the naysayers give them credit for. Let’s be honest, the current financial situation has inspired an anything that works atmosphere which makes voters more open to out of the box options.

I will be voting for Prop 19 and keeping my fingers crossed that others follow suit. But I guess we’ll just have to watch and see what the voters are willing to support.

In my various meanderings around the whole of existence and parts of New Jersey, I have had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of God, Satan and other well recognized talking heads.

It’s been my honor to share their blogs here at The Planet.

As Fate would have it (if you knew Fate as I do, you’d know how Fate always has to have things its own way or else you get the silent treatment), during my most recent hike along the Existential Trail (I didn’t run into Mark Sanford), I happened to come upon one of history’s most horrific human beings, Adolph Hitler. Well, actually it was his ghost…wearing ethereal lederhosen and a “Romney 2012″ button.

He had heard of my sharing the blogs of other famous and infamous bloggers at The Planet and, after awkwardly trying to convince me that he had come to enjoy eating at delis, asked if I would share his blog here.

So, purely in the interest of openness, free expression and shameless exploitation, here is Hitler’s Ghost’s blog:

Adolph’s Blog – 8-18-2010

If only I had a Reich Mark for every time my name is mentioned in American politics, I’d put my pals at Goldman Sachs to shame…if they had the capacity for it.

Actually, it’s been quite annoying. You spend your entire adult life demonizing other races and religions in your pursuit of consolidating power under yourself then see yourself totally ripped off by a low brow American political party. Where I am now, there’s no shortage of lawyers so I am considering my options, at a minimum, I’ve got the GOP on plagiarism and theft of trademark.

What I don’t get is that they are copying mein approach to seizing power and yet, instead of giving me credit, they fling my name as an insult at a black man who opposes what we stand for. Talk about embarrassing, George Wallace’s ghost won’t stop ragging on me and it’s getting on my nerves.

I mean, come on, either you think whipping up a nation to fear and hate minorities in a time of financial insecurity, in order to marshal a mindlessly hateful mob that will sweep you into power is cool or it’s not! You can’t adopt my strategy than use my name as a synonym for “Arschloch” on other people. And BTW, using my name and “communist” or “Marxist” on the same person? Really? Where did they get their education of history, from Texas school books?

Still, I do agree with the list of targets the GOP has been building and how they’ve been portraying them:

a. Blacks are racists who are working to turn America’s government into an African socialist society…and lop off the heads of white people along the way as a preemptive measure against the popular resurgence of polka music.

b. Gays are child molesters who want bestiality legalized and want to infect heterosexuals with The Gay. As thrice married Newt Gingrich has explained, they want to destroy marriage by first adopting it then driving it up to the country and letting it out of the car to fend for itself.

c. Latinos are all illegal immigrants, stealing jobs and white people’s tax money in the form of social services. The highly sought-after positions of Strawberry Collection Specialist, Leaf Wafting Technician and more have been greedily ripped from the hands of American workers champing at the bit to establish these careers for themselves.

d. Muslims belong to a despicable “cult” but America should be a place where there is freedom for all religions…except the ones we don’t belong to and/or are afraid of.

e. Educated and intellectual people are elitist wimps bent on destroying our country and transforming it into Communist Russia. Real leaders don’t “think” or “research” or “deliberate”, they are “Deciders” who think with their balls…or a friend’s balls if they have trouble locating their own tiny ones.

f. The weakest and most vulnerable in our society are threats to it. Lazy, unemployed workers are responsible for our economy not recovering by greedily taking a fraction of their salary from insurance they’ve paid for over the years. The poor don’t pay their fair share in taxes, instead living it up working 3 jobs or signing up for the military. The elderly with their “entitlements” are draining the government of money that could be going to give the wealthiest 1% tax cuts which, as the end of the Bush Years prove, lead to exactly the kind of booming economy Obama inherited.

Okay, am I leaving out anyone?

Add to this…so, the Reichstag is literally burned down and Republicans are rhetorically burning down the institution of government and the SCOTUS…excuse me but are my royalty checks in the mail? I thought not.

And yet, despite the current GOP being a tribute to my work, I’m the Boogy Man to whom they constantly compare their enemies. You know, you slave for your kids, give them everything they have and then one day they steal your car for a joyride with their friends, talking smack about you the whole time to announce what a jerk you are while throwing up all over your fine Corinthian leather.

It’s no fun being ahead of your time. If only I had known my philosophy would have conquered half of America’s political parties 70 years later…I might have taken Eva out of the bunker for a movie that night.