Big Oil’s Last Stand, Right’s Ideological Pushback Amid Worst Environmental Disaster in U.S. History

As the BP environmental catastrophe unfolds in the Gulf of Mexico, observers struggle with words to describe its enormity. One called it “America’s Chernobyl;” another described it as “a teaching moment;” and President Obama said “your government will do whatever it takes for as long as it takes to stop this crisis.” Environmentalists are stunned. Curiously muted, their minds a jumble of tasered synapses trying to wrap around this calamity and make sense of it, contextualize it.

Republicans and Democrats in-name-only were quick to come to the rescue –- of BP and Big Oil, their biggest donors. DINO Hall of Fame inductee Mary Landrieu, senator from Louisiana, the state whose ecology and coastal economy lies in the path of devastation, along with Republican governors Rick Perry of Texas and Haley Barbour of Mississippi spoke up for their corporate constituents.

A Confederacy of Oil Barons Serving Transnational Corporations

Senator Landrieu said, “you’ve got to put this accident in perspective. The last thing we have to do is shut the oil and gas industry down.” Her first instinct as a politician was to shelter BP and Big Oil instead of her constituents, her people, the state’s coastal economy and ecology, which could be devastated for decades. Louisiana’s other senator, Republican David Vitter (better known for his diaper fetish and extreme right wing views) lamented that “BP is spread too thin.”

The fishing industry alone in the Gulf region accounts for about 20 percent of U.S. commercial fishing. It provides about 1 in 17 jobs in the region. Fishers are particularly vulnerable and this crisis may drive many into bankruptcy. They were barely recovering from Hurricane Katrina when the oil spill disaster struck.

Secessionist Texas governor Rick Perry called the oil spill “an act of God.” Barbour went further: “I think the most important thing is for people not to panic and not to assume the worst. Some in the news media keep forcing this on the public as the equivalent of Exxon Valdez. Well, the difference is just enormous.”

Really? The Exxon Valdez spill released 10.9 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, of which only 10% of the oil was recovered and the ecology and wildlife remains devastated. The three leaks in the BP oil disaster have been releasing an estimated 5,000 barrels of oil a day (Coast Guard estimate). Skytruth, a nonprofit organization tracking the oil spill estimates it’s more like 26,000 barrels of oil a day, based on satellite imagery and scientific studies.

On May 1, eleven days into the Gulf crisis, according to Dr. Ian McDonald of FSU, estimates of the oil slick indicated that 12.12 million gallons of oil, at a minimum have been released into the Gulf of Mexico, surpassing the Exxon Valdez spill. Five days later, at a rate of 1.1 million gallons a day, the spill will have reached 17.6 million gallons released into the Gulf, tragically making the Exxon Valdez oil spill a distant second.

This catastrophic disaster is entirely man-made, not Perry’s and the industry’s “act of God.” It was not caused by nature, high seas, a hurricane, or any other phenomenon that could properly be ascribed for purposes of assigning liability to “an act of God.” Perry wasn’t being pious; he was protecting his corporate donors/owners and Texas’s oil and gas polluters.

BP/Halliburton Deadly Pollution Record (Only the Most Recent)

• In 2005, an explosion at BP’s Texas City refinery (third-largest in the country) and fires ripped through the giant site, killing 15 workers, injuring 180 others, as 43,000 people fled for their lives into indoor shelters. The investigation determined the blast was caused by failure “at all levels of the BP Corporation” including, significantly, repeated cost-cutting safety and maintenance violations. A “criminal investigation” by the Bush-Cheney Justice Department resulted in a $50 million fine against the company for violating the Clean Air Act. One EPA administrator said the fine was but a slap on the wrist, a “laghingstock” for a company with profits in excess of $17 billion in 2007. The Justice Department slammed the door on EPA continuing a criminal probe of BP.

• In 2006 BP was at it again, drawing criminal investigations from the EPA and Justice Department for two massive corroded oil pipe leaks into the Alaskan tundra of 200,000 gallons of oil. BP’s contemptuous “compliance” with the Alaska U.S. Attorney’s office request for a “surgical” release of documents was to scan 62 million pages. EPA Special Agent in Charge Scott West remembers thinking, “Holy shit, I cant breathe.” If he and his woefully understaffed three or four people printed out all of the pages “it would have filled a warehouse.”

• In 2009 an oil rig exploded into a fireball off the coast of Australia, dumping thousands of barrels of oil into the pristine fishing waters of the region over a ten-week period. The cause, as suspected in the Gulf oil disaster, was a faulty cementing job by Halliburton. The World Wildlife Fund called the spill one of Australia’s worst environmental disasters, ruining 80% of the catch for some fishermen.

The Halliburton-Cheney Connection: Cheney’s Katrina

Where is Dick Cheney? One of the more curious aspects of this environmental catastrophe is the absence of Big Oilman Dick Cheney from the public eye. In the first days of the crisis, Cheney’s surrogates fanned out in a full-court media press to spread disinformation and propaganda, even trying to deflect blame onto President Obama by calling it “Obama’s Katrina.” This charge is so patently absurd and irresponsible that it fell of its own weight when the media, for once, did a good job debunking it. Cheney’s fingerprints are all over the misinformation campaign, but he remains out of sight, hunkered down in an undisclosed location.

Cheney has cause to lay low. His filthy fingers may be all over the right’s propaganda campaign, but the truth of Cheney’s responsibility and potential criminal liability is far more sinister.

The explosions in both the BP Australian and Gulf oil rig (operated by BP subcontractor Deepwater Horizon) increasingly point to Halliburton as the main culprit for faulty cementing. The process is meant to prevent oil and natural gas from escaping by filling gaps between the outside of the well pipe and the inside of the hole bored into the ocean floor. The wife of one of the rig workers killed in the explosion has filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming Halliburton is culpable: The company “prior to the explosion, was engaged in cementing operations of the well and well cap and, upon information and belief, improperly and negligently performed these duties, which was a cause of the explosion.”

Halliburton confirmed it had finished cementing 20 hours prior to the Gulf rig explosion, just as it had finished cementing the Australian rig when it blew on August 21, 2009. As the Australian government inquiry into what is called the Monera spill continues, a Halliburton cementer with 20 years on the job testified: “Q: have you been taught in, training or otherwise become aware that problems with cementing are the number one cause of blowouts?” A: “No, I wasn‘t aware of that.” From 1996 to 2006, 18 of the 39 offshore blow-outs have been caused by bad cementing, according to the U.S. industry regulator, the Minerals Management Service (MMS), an agency of the Interior Department.

Why is this significant?

Halliburton’s alleged criminal negligence was aided and abetted by former CEO Dick Cheney’s even more valuable service to the energy industry as a powerful poison pill government insider gutting the very regulatory agencies (Interior-MMS) responsible for public interest oversight and regulation of these transnational corporations. Cheney bagged $44 million during his five-year tenure with Halliburton before becoming Vice President. As Vice President Cheney remained on the company’s payroll. After all, he is a valued corporate asset, having ensured that Halliburton’s entrails reach into every nook and cranny of Iraq-Afghanistan war profiteering.

Deregulation by the Numbers: An Avoidable Catastrophe

Burn this into memory, deregulators and global warming deniers and laissez-faire capitalist ideologues and limited government libertarians: Based on the facts, proper industry safety standards, oversight, and regulatory protocols would have prevented the catastrophe inexorably poisoning the Gulf. The craven history of Cheney’s secret meetings with energy industry tycoons -- to divvy up the deregulatory spoils, line his pockets with present and future IOUs, and gut the Interior Department and its industry enforcement arm, MMS, staffing them with cronies and (literally) industry whores -- leads directly to the Gulf oil disaster.

• In 2000 MMS requested industry advice on problems related to the cementing used around deep sea well caps to stop blowouts. The oil industry never produced recommendations, and no regulation was put in place. When the Bush-Cheney oil regime took office, they put the brakes on comprehensive safety regulation by MMS, which considered a safety redundant device, called an acoustic trigger “essential” and proposed to mandate them on all Gulf oil rigs.

Acoustic triggers, are mandated for major offshore rig operators off the coast of Brazil and in Norway’s North Sea operations. BP has voluntarily installed this safeguard in its North Sea rigs. All the world’s major companies use the device. It is a remotely triggered shutoff switch that activates when the manual switch fails. This device, which costs $500,000 was not installed in the BP Deepwater Horizon rig. It could have prevented the BP Gulf oil disaster.

• The number of drill site inspections carried out by the MMS fell by 41 percent between 2005 and 2009, even as the number of drill rigs operating in U.S. waters increased. The number of penalties issued by MMS for regulatory violations fell from 66 in 2000 to 20 last year.

• Illustrating BP’s awesome political clout, In June of 2009, the MMS, now under Interior Secretary Ken Salazar (whose appointment was criticized by environmentalists for being too cozy with the oil industry) exempted BP from producing a legally mandated environmental impact study for the site where Deepwater Horizon would drill. Obama was earlier warned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that MMS studies approving offshore drilling were not reliable.
  

“Chocolate Milk”

To hear the industry shills describe it, the oil spill poisoning the Gulf waters as it makes landfall is as benign, warm and cuddly as “chocolate milk.” Rep. Gene Taylor, one more Mississippi Democrat in the pocket of the oil and gas industry, said: “A lot of people are scared and I don’t think they should be” because “What I want people to know is, this isn’t Katrina, this is not Armageddon. The farther you get from the spill, that chocolate milk looking spill starts breaking up into smaller pieces.”

That’s like saying you’ll take your almond coffee mocha with almond-smelling cyanide and that “chocolate milk” chemical dispersant. In yet another outrage perpetrated on the public, epecially affected populations in the direct path of the oil slick, BP has refused to disclose the composition of the dispersants used in the spill, because it is a competitive trade secret protected by law. But if it’s Corexit or a product of similar composition, it contains 2-butoxyethanol, a compound that causes headaches, vomiting, and “reproductive problems in high doses.”

Aside from its devastating, long-term impact on marine life and the delicate ecosystem in the Gulf, a review by the Alaska Community Action on Toxics determined that a version of Corexit, widely used in the Exxon Valdez spill “was later linked with health impacts in people including respiratory, nervous system, liver, kidney and blood disorders.” According to the Pro Publica article reporting on the oil spill’s chemical health hazard, “the evaporation process can also concentrate the toxic compounds left behind, particularly oil-derived compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs.”

In contrast to Rep. Taylor’s upbeat “the good news is it’s not in the marshes where the juvenile shrimp are, and it’s tending to break up naturally,” a Coast Guard crew described the smell emanating from the oil spill at the mouth of the Mississippi Delta as “nasty.” Reports are starting to come in from Florida, in Kissimmee and Orlando that a “strange scent in the air” was detected which wasn’t there four hours before. In St Petersburg, a “heavy oil smell hung in the air. Wind was coming from the NNW. At first it smelled like a tiki-torch, but by 11 pm it was overwhelming. It gave me a horrible headache, and the people I spoke with had headaches as well. It was thick enough to taste in the air.” Similar first-person accounts are surfacing all over the region. Follow them here.

The Right’s Response to Catastrophe: Despicable and Irresponsible

No sooner had disaster struck in the Gulf of Mexico that the right wing propaganda machine went into full coverup and mobilization mode in a rush to absolve BP and the oil industry of any responsibility while, absurdly, shifting the blame to President Obama. Here is a synopsis of the right wing’s fierce industry-protectant propaganda campaign, unmatched by any legitimate media outlets:

Blame Obama. So what else is new. After the absurd charge (even for the right) that this was “Obama’s Katrina” fizzled, Dick Cheney surrogates Dana Perrino (Bush-Cheney’ s certifiably ignorant former press secretary) and Michael ‘Helluva job’ Brownie (the disgraced FEMA administrator when Katrina struck) were dispatched to Fox “News” to spread despicable accusations and rumors. Claiming, falsely, that President Obama’s response to the oil spill was delayed, Brown told Neil Cavuto of Fox: “It’s pure politics. This president has never supported big oil. He has never supported offshore drilling. And now he has an excuse to shut it back down.”

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs replied:



Embrace the Conspiracy. Dana Perrino doubled down on Rush Limbaugh’s wild conspiracy that “environmentalist wackos” blew up the oil rig because they were upset with the “timing” of the President’s drilling announcement “so, what better way to head off more oil drilling and nuclear plants then by blowing up a rig? I’m just, I’m just noting the timing here.” Perrino: “I’m not trying to introduce a conspiracy theory, but was this deliberate? You have to wonder if there was sabotage involved.”

Minimize the Damage, Shift Blame to Environmentalists. Saying tasteless and insensitive things is nothing new for Rush Limbaugh. Neither, for that matter, is spouting flat-out irresponsible lies. To sound authoritave, Limbaugh keeps repeating “British Petroleum,” unaware that the company changed its name to “BP” to represent a more PR-friendly “beyond petroleum” public image. A small point, perhaps, but illustrative of what a damn fool the imbecile blowhard is.

He said: “oil has a tough time surviving. This many gallons of oil seeps from the floor of the Gulf every day. It never surfaces because it gets eaten alive. But it seeps from the ocean floor at this amount, not as concentrated as what is coming from this well.” Absolute nonsense, followed by, “[Some] people are saying, don’t panic, the sea will take care of the oil spill, [meanwhile rather than work with] British Petroleum, they are enemy.” Well, one can’t work with “British Petroleum” because that company does not exist -- it is now listed as “BP.”

Maintain Strict Media Silence About Who the Real Culprits Are: The Bush-Cheney Regime. How many stories has right wing media done about the gutting of Interior-MMS under Bush-Cheney and the rampant deregulation that may have a direct causal connection to this massive environmental catastrophe by not requiring installation of a $500,000 redundant acoustic switch? Answer -- almost none. One notable exception is the Wall Street Journal. Still, the right wing media has been silent on the Cheney connection, after a brief flurry of trying to blame President Obama.

Double Down on the Outworn and Discredited Slogan, “drill, baby, drill.” According to Media Matters, “Fox News has long history of aggressively advocating for offshore drilling.” And it shows. Sister Sarah posted on her juvie Facebook page, “How could I still believe in drilling America's domestic supply of energy after having seen the devastation of the Exxon-Valdez spill? I continue to believe in it because increased domestic oil production will make us a more secure, prosperous, and peaceful nation.”

She fails to mention the 2006 BP oil spill on the Alaskan tundra, the impact of global warming on her state, and the fact that oil is a fungible commodity which continues to fuel our enemies and adversaries. We cannot drill our way out of dependence on foreign oil. Essentially, offshore drilling is a profit-gouging government subsidy to line the pockets of Big Oil transnational coporations like BP, with a horrific, irreversible toll on our environment.

Finally, Coordinate the Message. From Limbaugh to Fox, these operate as propagandists for Big Oil, with coordinated talking points meant to create a narrative friendly to BP, that minimizes the catastrophic damage this company and its powerful cronies are causing to the environment, limits liability, and promotes offshore drilling. Guess who’s behind this? The Chamber of Commerce (last seen running racist ads against Blanche Lincoln opponent, Bill Halter) and -- none other than Teabagger undrewriters, Dick Armey’s astroturf front group, Freedomworks.

A (Very) Brief History of Corporatism v. Environmentalism

In 1962 Rachel Carson published her seminal work, Silent Spring, which sounded the alarm against the lethal threat to animal life and humans posed by the widespread use of pesticides in our environment. Carson was viciously attacked by a concerted chemical industry campaign that spent more than a quarter-million (real money in 1962) to discredit her. In many ways the attacks continue to this day; attacks by libertarian laissez-faire ideologues whose small government mantra spurred the deregulation craze.

“Carson was violently assailed by threats of lawsuits and derision, including suggestions that this meticulous scientist was a ‘hysterical woman’ unqualified to write such a book. A huge counterattack was organized and led by Monsanto Company, Velsicol, American Cyanamid — indeed, the whole chemical industry — duly supported by the Agriculture Department as well as the more cautious in the media.”
-Time Magazine, 1999

When Ralph Nader published his 1965 bestseller, Unsafe at Any Speed, an indictment of the U.S. auto industry’s abysmal safety standards, GM’s response was to aggressively try to smear Nader. GM hired private detectives to tap his phones and look into his past, and prostitutes to entrap him. Nader sued, winning a decision that expanded tort law to cover “overzealous surveillance.”

Sound familiar? Corporate malfeasance and criminality is exposed, industry responds with campaign to attack the messenger, limit its liability, feed pocketed politicians and right wing media its propaganda talking points, spend whatever it takes to distort the truth and fool public opinion. BP said it will pay compensation for “legitimate and objectively verifiable claims for property damage, personal injury and commercial losses.”

BP has placed a price tag on its responsibility for devastating the Gulf states coastal economy: $5,000. BP representatives descended like locusts on the region circulating a “settlement agreement” among Gulf Coast residents offering payments up to $5,000 in exchange for signing a waiver in which the victim agrees not to sue the company. When the media got wind of this, BP CEO Tony Hayward backpedaled, claiming it was a “misstep.” Indeed. A misstep with at least six missing zeros.]

Congress to the Rescue -- NOT!

This week BP, Halliburton and Deepwater Horizon executives prepare to be grilled by three Congressional committees. In a preview of what we can expect, PolitiFact rated statements by Lamar McKay, chairman and president of BP America, on ABC News’ This Week as “barely true.” McKay claimed his letter to MMS recommended improvements around safety regulations, but most of the letter, said PolitiFact, “suggests ways of making regulation less of a burden for BP. Certainly this is an ‘improvement’ from BP’s perspective, but we don’t see how it makes safety ‘the number one priority.’”

Predictably, perhaps, the Democratic members will posture for the cameras and ask tough questions, while the industry executives dissemble and express contrition. Even Republicans may get into the act of sounding tough. The question is, what will happen when the gavels bang the hearings closed? Federal Law limits BP’s liability to a measly $75 million drop in the bucket. Florida’s Bill Nelson is one of three Democratic senators introducing legislation to raise that liability dramatically to $10 billion, retroactively applicable to BP.

What the public needs to assess from Congress is, (1) will the Nelson legislation pass; and (2) will Congress enact tougher regulations and controls on deep-sea offshore oil drilling, at least to come in line with standards imposed for North Sea and Brazil offshore rigs. BP is the ultimate insider’s insider corporation, greasing every wheel from the President to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on down to the most junior representative. Unless there is a groundswell of public support and outrage, a public campaign demanding stringent environmental controls and fines on polluters, the chances of BP skating as devastation continues in the Gulf are about 70-30 percent.

Paul Krugman said, “antigovernment ideology remains all too prevalent, despite the havoc it has wrought. In fact, it has been making a comeback with the rise of the Tea Party movement. If there’s any silver lining to the disaster in the Gulf, it is that it may serve as a wake-up call, a reminder that we need politicians who believe in good government, because there are some jobs only the government can do.”

Is This Still Our Land?

Georgianne Nienaber said: “Words alone cannot express how dire the situation is for all life in the Gulf of Mexico.”

In 1945 or thereabouts, Woodie Guthrie wrote a song that Bruce Springsteen, a great troubador of our time, described as “the greatest song ever written about America.” He said:

“It gets right to the heart of the promise of what our country was supposed to be about. If you talk to some of the unemployed workers … or a lot of people out there whose jobs are disappearing … I don’t know if they’d feel like this song is true anymore. I’m not sure that it is, but I know that it ought to be. [W]ith countries, just like with people, it’s easy to let the best of yourself slip away.”

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND
words and music by Woody Guthrie

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the Gulf stream waters

This land was made for you and me.

As I was walkin', I saw a sign there
And that sign said no tress passin'
But on the other side it didn't say nothin!

Now that side was made for you and me!

Is it still true? It’s slipping away as surely as that gusher of black death continues to spew its poison into the Gulf. Death in the color of chocolate milk. But one thing I know. It’s still worth fighting for. And fight for it we must, with every last fiber of our being.

Whose America is it, anyway?

Dedicated to Rachel Maddow, After Watching Her Barf Bag MSNBC Promo

Ah, I feel better already . . .

Nazi Cop Tasers Phillies Fan . . .

Question is, how come the trigger-happy fascists haven't tasered this critter?

The Goldman Sachs Slam: Wall Street's Love Letter to America

“We are Wall Street. It’s our job to make money. Whether it’s a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of fake paper, it doesn’t matter. We would trade baseball cards if it were profitable. I didn’t hear America complaining when the market was roaring to 14,000 and everyone’s 401k doubled every 3 years. Just like gambling, its not a problem until you lose. I’ve never heard of anyone going to Gamblers Anonymous because they won too much in Vegas.

Well now the market crapped out, & even though it has come back somewhat, the government and the average Joes are still looking for a scapegoat. God knows there has to be one for everything. Well, here we are.

Go ahead and continue to take us down, but you’re only going to hurt yourselves. What’s going to happen when we can’t find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: We’re going to take yours. We get up at 5am & work till 10pm or later. We’re used to not getting up to pee when we have a position. We don’t take an hour or more for a lunch break. We don’t demand a union. We don’t retire at 50 with a pension. We eat what we kill, and when the only thing left to eat is on your dinner plates, we’ll eat that.

For years teachers and other unionized labor have had us fooled. We were too busy working to notice. Do you really think that we are incapable of teaching 3rd graders and doing landscaping? We’re going to take your cushy jobs with tenure and 4 months off a year and whine just like you that we are so-o-o-o underpaid for building the youth of America. Say goodbye to your overtime and double time and a half. I’ll be hitting grounders to the high school baseball team for $5k extra a summer, thank you very much.

So now that we’re going to be making $85k a year without upside, Joe Mainstreet is going to have his revenge, right? Wrong! Guess what: we’re going to stop buying the new 80k car, we aren’t going to leave the 35 percent tip at our business dinners anymore. No more free rides on our backs. We’re going to landscape our own back yards, wash our cars with a garden hose in our driveways. Our money was your money. You spent it. When our money dries up, so does yours.

The difference is, you lived off of it, we rejoiced in it. The Obama administration and the Democratic National Committee might get their way and knock us off the top of the pyramid, but it’s really going to hurt like hell for them when our fat a**es land directly on the middle class of America and knock them to the bottom.

We aren’t dinosaurs. We are smarter and more vicious than that, and we are going to survive. The question is, now that Obama & his administration are making Joe Mainstreet our food supply…will he? and will they?”

Anonymous

Stop whining, Mr. Shitty. You guys are so predictable. You produce nothing, build nothing, contribute nothing of value. We will survive just fine without your conspicuous consumption and pathetic insecure whines. Before they come for you and your band of sociopaths, your ignorance of Democratic Party history (thank you) dooms you to the same fate as your shitty little forbears; to be controlled and regulated and sent scurrying into the dark corners and away from the disinfecting light like so many roaches:

“The moneychangers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit. Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.”

- President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Inaugural Address/March 1933

(And he was your worst nightmare for, oh . . . a generation or so, before Truman came along, at which point you were, like, docile and potty trained. The same pattern obtains here. If you’re lucky you might even share a cell with fellow psychopath Bernie Madoff, Wall Street boytoy.)

This Oil Catastrophe in the Gulf is so Devastating we Need Some Comedy Relief . . .

Jon Stewart to the rescue:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Beyond Awful
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

The Beck-Matthews Mind Meld: Please Don’t Say ‘NAZI’ (Whine . . .)

Trekkies will tell you that the Vulcan mind meld is a telepathic link between two individuals, also known as a psionic (telepathic) technique for “synaptic pattern displacement” generally not used on “aliens” in which “those in meld share consciousness in a kind of Gestalt.” Well, it’s happened in the psionic world of bioelectric energy fields modulating delta wave frequencies to meld the minds of MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and Fox’s psychotic dark energy madman, Glenn Beck. They may not be Vulcan, as both are quite often illogical and irrational, and one, at least, is clinically insane. Yet what other explanation is there for this:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth . . .

First, let’s define our terms. There is a common derogatory derivative of “Nazi” which means a thug or a person who holds extreme racist and authoritarian views and acts out those views with brutality. It is also a 60s derogatory term for law enforcement that was of that generation and is practically alien (pun intended) to most anyone under 40 or so today.

Then, there is the proper historical reference to the Nazi Party of 1930s Germany, which advocated right wing authoritarian nationalist government (fascism) based on a racist ideology, anti-Semitism, and a belief in the superiority of the Aryan race or, as the founder and board member of FAIR, the group that boasts authorship of the Arizona legislation, prefers to say: “European-American society and culture.”

Based upon the historical reference, the term “Nazi” as applied to this law “is a very fair comparison,” according to Colorado Congressman Jared Polis (D), who is Jewish. “I hope that we’re not headed on the same trajectory that Nazi Germany was,” he said. “But this was a very recent experience for Jewish Americans and Jews worldwide and it’s something that when we see similarities we start ringing alarm bells.”

Let’s tick off the similarities, shall we, Chris: (1) authoritarian – grants law enforcement unconstitutional authority to detain citizens without proper identification; (2) racist – despite claims to the contrary by the Governor, it codifies racial profiling, which is illegal and unconstitutional precisely because it’s racist; (3) nationalist – not only in intent which is to empower the police to determine nationality (who is and is not an American) based on appearance or other factors, such as behavior, and criminalize those persons unable to prove their citizenship.

These are all characteristics common to the Nazi regime of the 1930s, before the mass killings and exterminations, and of most authoritarian fascist regimes whose methods of maintaining order and squelching dissent began with expanded police authority to detain, question, and jail citizens precisely for reasons such as not having proper identification.

Speaking for this blog, the term “Nazi” is used solely to reference the Arizona law -- not the person of the governor or any law enforcement officer or any other person -- and appropriately so. In his semi-coherent rant, Chris conflates “Nazi” with “Hitler” or “Hitlerian,” which is strictly a right wing canard against President Obama. But it isn’t used in any references to the Arizona law as a Nazi law that I’ve seen and are linked below, because it doesn’t apply. This isn’t about a charismatic dictator or hurling derogatory terms about.

Not surprisingly, Chris Matthews is completely wrong. But don’t take my word for it. Some time ago, Chris said the person he’d most like to have dinner with was the Pope. In light of recent events, would you care to revise your remark, Chris? Might I suggest the less pontifical Cardinal Archbishop of LA Roger Mahony. He said of the Arizona law:

• “I can't imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation.”

Other references to the Arizona law as “Nazi” include:

• Reverend Al Sharpton was “one of many speakers at the rally to compare the law to apartheid, Nazi Germany and the segregation-era South. Sharpton said he would mobilize people from across the country to march in Arizona and get arrested if necessary to fight the new law.”

• Rep. Connie Mack, Republican of Florida: “This law of ‘frontier justice’ -– where law enforcement officials are required to stop anyone based on “reasonable suspicion” that they may be in the country illegally –- is reminiscent of a time during World War II when the Gestapo in Germany stopped people on the street and asked for their papers without probable cause. It shouldn’t be against the law to not have proof of citizenship on you.”

Last night on her show, Rachel Maddow timorously (or was she being ironic?) felt the need to clarify Mack’s statement, which was perfectly clear to begin with. Why? Was she afraid Chris would be lurking backstage ready to crash her gig and rap her knuckles if she uttered the “Nazi” word outside quotation marks?

Chris Matthews has a habit of saying ridiculous things. Once he analogized President Obama’s clash with political opponents to “cowboys and indians.” When the Frank Luntz lies were finally exposed on his network, after more than a year of giving Luntz and his memos a pass, and then only because the President mentioned it, Chris boosted Luntz’s “recognition” with great merriment, not once noting that Luntz is an admitted and proud LIAR. Nor did he draw the distinction between honorable political consultants who “spin” but have scruples and unscrupulous punks like Luntz, who LIE for a living.

Discussing the Nevada Senate race, Chris boasted of having met Republican Sue Lowden and talked her up, until one guest correctly pointed out that Lowden repeatedly touted bartering chickens for healthcare as a viable proposal. Chris called it a “blow to the midsection” as if mentioning what she said and reiterated somehow distorts her views. Why?

Matthews should worry less about how blogs and alternative outlets of information that he disdains choose to report the news, and more about the restrictions imposed by his own network on its news readers and assorted commentators, such as a virtual prohibition on using the words “Nazi” and “fascism” and “liar.” If Chris consumes less inside-the-beltway POLITICO gossip from rumormongers who drag themselves onto Hardball or Andrea Mitchell looking like they’ve been on an all-night binge, he might even catch that scent of donuts-and-coffee fascism wafting across the fruited plain.

I believe in calling a spade a spade. The use of euphemistic language only clouds our political discourse and can lead to hideous consequences. The radical right wing has never had a problem using hate speech, distortions, and propaganda -- all techniques developed by the Nazis and other fascist or authoritarian states -- to promote a dangerous, divisive, racist and violent agenda. We cannot effectively oppose the radical right wing with euphemisms and civil discourse. When Republicans and wingnuts lie we should call them liars. When they make bigoted or racist remarks we should call them bigots and racists. And when they pass laws reminiscent of Nazi Germany we should call them Nazi laws.

This country was never immune from the influence and appeal of fascism and the Nazi ideology. From experiments in eugenics to racist exhortations of right wing radio demagogue Father Coughlin (the Rush Limbaugh of his day); from the America First movement to neo-Nazi rallies in Madison Square Garden headlined by Charles Lindbergh (the Sarah Palin of his day); from McCarthyism (fascism by another name) to the militias and Oklahoma City bombing; from the Birchers to the Birthers to the Teabaggers -- fascism in all its manifestations, from neo-Nazi racism to extremist right wing xenophobia, has been a dark and sinister stain on this nation's fabric.

When fascism rears its ugly head, we are compelled to call it out. We cannot count on the corporate media to do what it has not done since the days of Watergate -- which is to be a watchdog of our democracy.

THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

Glenn Beck TV Audience Down by One-Third Since January

Good news for America’s average IQ! (See inverted chart below, tracing this nation’s growing intelligence.) Imagine that, millions of people actually spending more time with their families, perhaps reading a good book instead of watching the insanely paranoid carney crier . . . That big spike happened the day after passage of healthcare reform. Our tweet of the day said:

“GOP posts FAQ, Q: What will tomorrow be like? A: A blue sun, lava on ground, and demons flying around everywhere.” When Armageddon didn’t happen, most Beckistas came to their senses; he must be down to the true believers. First, major advertisers dropped this maniac. Now, as viewership drops precipitously, even Fox “News” is distancing itself from their house loco.

Indications are the Teabagger rabble is going south (metaphorically speaking, of course) as fast as this idiot’s ratings.

Republican Parasites in the Senate Block Senate Vote on Financial Reform for Third Time

The United States Senate cannot at this moment be called “the world’s greatest deliberative body” -- a reach at the best of times -- but rather America’s whorehouse, in which Senate Republicans en masse line up to service the 1,500 lobbyist vultures who have descended on Capitol Hill. So far only one DINO, Senator Ben Nelson, has joined the kept Senators in their House of ill-repute, which makes it 29 lobbyists for each Republican Senator.

Madam Mitch McConnell, Wall Street's sock puppet, continues to preach the Orwellian line that the $50 billion liquidation fund to permit the orderly failure of financial institutions, firing of management, with shareholders taking the loss, is a “taxpayer bailout” per Frank “Goebbels” Luntz’s BIG LIE talking point. Obviously, even the most obtuse taxpayer understands that a fund financed by Wall Street banks without a nickel of taxpayer’s money for purposes of an orderly liquidation, analogized by NJ Democratic Senator Menendez to a funeral fund, is not a taxpayer bailout. Quite the contrary, (to the second argument by Republicans, that such a fund encourages risky behavior) existence of such a fund actually discourages players from engaging in risky behavior. Once the players realize there is a process in place to liquidate “too big to fail” institutions, it is no longer an abstraction in which bailouts or else are the only options left to governments and taxpayers held over the barrel of another financial collapse.

Madam McConnell is the Senate’s most dedicated disciple of George Orwell. Quick rule of thumb to decipher McConnell-speak: Everything Mitch says is the opposite of what it means, a kind of yin-yang word association. When Madam Mitch says:

“Wall Street” he means “Main Street”; “taxpayer bailout” means “Wall Street bailout”; “small business” means “BIG banks and transnational corporations”; “unintended consequences” means “intended consequences to my biggest corporate donors”; “written by a few guys in a room” means “Republican obstructionism and non-cooperation”; “jammed through the Senate” means “60-vote supermajority”; “massive” means “comprehensive”; “President Obama said the biggest beneficiaries of this bill are on Wall Street” means “President Obama said that by setting out clear rules of the road and ensuring transparency and fair dealings, we will actually promote a more vibrant market”; “supporters of this bill have locked up the support of Goldman Sachs” means “Wall Street elites, banks, and hedge fund managers held a secret meeting with moi, Madam McConnell to pay me mucho diñero to prevent regulations that stop bailouts”; “traditional derivatives” means “synthetic derivatives does not mean traditional derivatives”; “homeowners and small business owners in Kentucky” means “transnational corporations and Wall Street banks”; “recent performance of the Democratic Majority” means (petulantly) “how dare you call me on Frank Luntz talking points”; “a lot of people want more than a verbal assurance, they want proof” means (projection) “take our word for it, Wall Street doesn’t need more regulation, they’ve given me verbal assurances, a wink and a nod and (have I mentioned this?) mucho, mucho diñero”; “the Fertilizer Institute and Kentucky farmers will be punished by this bill” means “straw man, Wall Street will be punished by this bill”; “Americans want this bill fixed” means “Wall Street wants this bill killed or watered down”; “verbal assurances” means “written regulatory rules of the road”; “Consumer Financial Protection Agency” means “massive government overreach”; “U.S. Chamber of Commerce means Goldman Sachs and Citigroup (don’t be fooled by Republican bait-and-switch -- Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, shameless denizen of the best little whorehouse in Texas), and all the umbrella organizations cited by Republicans” means “Wall Street, transnational corporations, right wing Astroturf groups such as Freedomworks, the major Republican Party business, anti-financial (kill the bill) regulation donor base”; “Americans expect us to prove we’re doing what we say we’re doing” means “stop kvetching, Democrats, I’m only doing what my Wall Street donors expect me to do”; “I don’t blame them one bit” means “I don’t blame them (“Wall Street ”) one bit”; “after all, isn’t that how the legislative process is supposed to work” means “we’re gonna shatter the all-time filibuster record in the service of our corporate owners, and we don’t care because the SCOTUS ruling corporatizing the U.S. government will give us one-party rule, i.e. fascism, without accountability or consequences”; “major legislation is proposed, the American people get to take a look at it, they let us know how it would affect them, and then we weigh those concerns against the various problems at hand” means “major legislation is proposed, Wall Street lobbyists get to take a look at it, Wall Street lobbyists let us know how it would affect them, and then we weigh those Wall Street lobbyist concerns against the various problems at hand”; “The authors of this bill may believe some of these concerns are misplaced. But they’re going to have to prove it” means “FILIBUSTER TODAY, FILIBUSTER TOMORROW, FILIBUSTER FOREVER! (Insert Rebel yell.)”

A typical Senate floor speech by Madam Mitch McConnell, deconstructed. Oh, and “My constituents” means “not Kentucky,” but a certain street in New York City. Any questions? Teabaggers?

Arizona Law Knifes GOP in the Back: THANK YOU, Governor Brewer and Gramps McCain!

It’s already starting: The Nazi anti-immigration law passed in Arizona threatens to rip the Republican Party to shreds months before the November election. A law that most astute political observers (with the cynical focus lacking in the public at large) recognize as the mother of all voter suppression statutes may, if it stands, artificially boost Republican turnout by intimidating non-white Democratic voters from showing up at the polls. Any law that compels voters of a certain caste to produce proof of citizenship will surely have a dampening effect on turnout for Democratic (non-white) constituencies.

Here’s the political context. Politics, as they say, is local, until it becomes nationalized. Here, the interests of Arizona’s right wing Republican extremists stands to heap disaster on the national party. Governor Jan Brewer, Arizona’s former secretary of state, ascended to the state’s highest office after it was vacated by Janet Napolitano, President Obama’s current Homeland Security Secretary. Brewer is locked in a tight election for governor with Arizona’s Democratic Attorney General, Terry Goddard. It was a tight race, that is, until the Wicked Witch of the West unleashed her Flying Monkey Right police to terrorize Arizona citizens.

Since Arizona’s Nazi bill was signed into law, Goddard jumped ahead of Brewer, 47 to 44 percent. Latino voters are flocking to Goddard. His support among Latinos more than doubled since September. Goddard now leads Brewer among Latinos by 71 to 25 percent. Even among party-identified voters, Brewer trails Goddard: 73 percent of Republicans favor Brewer to 88 percent of Democrats for Goddard.

Arizona is turning into a pariah state that is increasingly toxic to the rest of the nation:

• In New York, Mayor Mike Bloomberg said: “[M]any people from around the world may think twice before visiting Arizona and subjecting themselves to potential run-ins with the police. As a city, New York may well benefit from another state undermining its own international competitiveness -– we’re happy to have those businesses and tourists come here.”

• Colorado Congressman Jared Polis, who is Jewish, said the law is reminiscent of Nazi Germany: “I think it’s a very fair comparison and I hope that we’re not headed on the same trajectory that Nazi Germany was. But this was a very recent experience for Jewish Americans and Jews worldwide and it’s something that when we see similarities we start ringing alarm bells.”

• In San Francisco, Mayor Gavin Newsom announced a moratorium on official travel to Arizona. A measure was introduced in the city assembly condemning the Arizona law as an “affront” to our Constitution.

These examples from each coast and the middle of the country are emblematic of the growing outrage and opposition to what is occurring in Arizona. Others include truckers hauling produce who agreed to bypass Arizona. Nationwide protests are gearing up, and multiple lawsuits to block the law from ever taking effect are in the works. Attorney General Eric Holder is questioning the legality of the law.

Welcome to “Jaime” Crow, 2010. If Jim Crow laws in the 50s and 60s were all about making African Americans jump though hoops to exercise their right to vote, Arizona’s anti-immigration law is a tacit recognition of the growing influence and importance of Latino voters, particularly to the Democratic Party. With this Arizona law –- which was drafted by an out-of-state Birther, Chris Kobach, who is running for secretary of state in Kansas -– the extremist controlling right wing of the Republican Party has written off the Latino vote and will focus instead on suppressing Latino turnout in November.

This calculation spells doom for Republican hopes of retaking the House or Senate. Most objective political observers, in either party, recognize this strategy as a train wreck of immense proportions for the Republican Party. In fact, many Republicans are running for the tall grass and away from the Arizona law as fast as they can. Marco Rubio, darling of the Teabaggers, is compelled to protect his Latino flank as the son of Cuban immigrants and oppose the Arizona law in a pretzel-like twist that also criticizes President Obama. Rubio can only pray that the Teabaggers who saw him as “such a nice young man” before SB 1070 won’t now turn on him as the ultimate Beckista mole, secret friend to invading hordes south of our borders. Jeb Bush, whose brother’s single progressive domestic initiative was a sincere effort to enact comprehensive immigration reform, has come out against the Arizona law. As has the despicable political sharpie Karl Rove.

Illustrating just how serious a political mine field this Nazi law is for Republicans, even former Colorado Congressman and presidential candidate Tom Tancredo, who ran on an anti-immigration plank and was a featured speaker at the Tea Party Convention, worries the Arizona law has gone too far. Meanwhile, Gramps McCain is deciding on yet another political facial to make it look as if he’s for the law at the same time that he’s against it. Blaming the President after you introduced the immigration reform bill you’re now running away from won’t cut it, Gramps.

Which brings us to the Teabaggers. This rabble of scared, angry, low-information white voters has caused mini-electoral convulsions within GOP ranks throughout the country. In Florida they backed Rubio and threaten to force moderate Governor Charlie Crist to run for the Senate as an independent. In Utah, distinguished conservative Senator Bob Bennett is threatened with political decapitation by a know-nothing Teabagger insurgency supporting nonentity candidates. Senator Bennett’s crime? Apart from not being a wingnut, his length of service and seniority in Washington -- a tradition dating back to the first days of the Republic -- is suddenly a career-ending political liability. In Idaho Teabaggers endorsed a Democrat, giving Republicans there conniptions.

The Republican Party does not handle chaos and disorganization well. Indeed, the Democrats hold the advantage in this area. But when Will Rogers famously said, “I don’t belong to an organized political party. I’m a Democrat,” he could not have anticipated the state of disarray the Republican Party finds itself in today.

RACIST ARIZONA

Here’s an eye-opener for those of you who may be fence-sitters, or misinformed, about Arizona’s anti-immigration law, SB 1070. The individuals who drafted and introduced this heinous Nazi legislation present the profile of the most despicable racists (not proto-racists or bigots) populating the dark, filthy underbelly of this country. Russell Pearce, who introduced the bill, is a declared Holocaust denier and palled around with a neo-Nazi. Chris Kobach, who authored the bill, is a Birther linked to the hideously anti-American organization with the oh-so benign acronym “FAIR” (Federation for American Immigration Reform).

Founded by opthalmologist (M.D.) John Tanton in 1979, FAIR traces his racist ideology to Nazi eugenics monsters like Dr. Joseph Mengele. FAIR has received more than $1 million in contributions from a group called the Pioneer Fund that was formed “in the Darwinian-Galtonian evolutionary tradition and the eugenics movement” to fund research that shows the “superiority” of white people and promotes genes of people “deemed to be descended predominantly from white persons who settled in the original thirteen states prior to the adoption of the Constitution.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Tanton frames the immigration issue in survivalist terms for whites: “to govern is to populate … Will the present majority peaceably hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile? … As whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion?”

Decades before Oliver Stone’s “JFK,” an obscure gem of a film about President Kennedy’s assassination opened in 1973 to substantial controversy. “Executive Action” was told entirely from the conspirators’ perspective, postulating a military-industrial complex conspiracy by transnational capitalist tycoons with ties to black ops CIA operatives. “Executive action” is a term used by the CIA at the time. The amoral, unemotional tone of the narrative enhances the chilling impact of the film. In his last role as a Texas oil baron (lead conspirator Robert Foster), Robert Ryan delivers a sinister monologue, one whose words seem lifted straight out of Tanton’s sick writings: “I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority and a clear one at that.”



Needless to say, Foster’s insane racist nightmare never came to pass, but Vietnam cost the lives of 58,000 Americans. The film is a cautionary tale of speculative nonfiction about the tragic consequences of extremist ideology driving government policy.

The Olbermann Chronicles: UFO Conspiracy & Coverup

In an intriguing statement concerning the possibility of contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life, distinguished British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking said it is likely alien life exists, but a visit by an advanced alien civilization might be hazardous to our existence. “If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans. We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.”

Dr. Hawking, whose position has “evolved” on this topic, warned in a Discovery Channel special: “I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced ... nomads [would look to] conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.” Conspiracy theorists would knowingly point out that DSC Channel is linked to ABC, which broadcasts “V” –- a show about nomadic reptilian extraterrestrials in massive ships looking to conquer and colonize Earth. Hmm . . . But “V” producers are surely delighted by the seemingly coincidental shoutout from the world’s most famous scientist.

Reporting Dr. Hawking’s provocative statements about the risks to Earthlings of encountering extraterrestrial life, Countdown’s Keith Olbermann called upon Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, for some perspective. Unfortunately, the segment devolved into the usual snickering about aliens eating us (famous Twilight Zone episode, “To Serve Man”), to which Dr. Pitts replied, “I really think, Keith, we have several hundred million years before we really need to worry about that. But just in case, I think we need to get rid of all of the ketchup on the planet.” It’s almost a reflexive reaction that any serious consideration of this issue, even when it’s raised by the world’s pre-eminent scientist, becomes a mirth fest lacking factual context.

Certainly, Dr. Pitts’s rote reply to the question about possible alien contact is safe, solid, and unimaginative: “The fact of the matter is we have no documentation whatsoever of any kind of contact. There‘s so much speculation, Keith, it‘s enough to keep the movie industry and the book industry and science fiction going for a very long time. It‘s sort of great to play around with this idea, but the only problem is that whenever you make these extraordinary claims, as you heard Dr. Sagan say, you need extraordinary proof. We have none of that whatsoever.”

But Keith also asked the question: “Has anybody ever, to your knowledge, either scientifically or in some semi-governmental way, contemplated the defense plan, other than the old duck-and-cover thing, bend over, head between your knees and kiss your planet good-bye?”

Dr. Pitts: “As much as we know about aliens somewhere else in the galaxy or the universe, we are much more concerned with the immediate problems we have from some country across the border, rather than worrying about some aliens coming here to eat us. We figure that at least we‘ll have a few million years‘ warning, so there‘s no need for us to become concerned about that. So I don‘t think there‘s any plan around, other than, you know, I‘ll set up my insurance company, let me know what you need, I‘ll provide it.”

Either Dr. Pitts was genuinely unaware of their existence, or he was being artfully dodgy about this 1960 Brookings Institution Report for NASA entitled “Implications of a Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life;” or a 1968 RAND Corporation internal paper entitled “UFOs: What to Do?” Not to speak of a very recent 1999 French “COMETA” report by the Institute of Advanced Studies for National Defense, entitled “UFOs and Defense: What must we be prepared for?”, which was sent to then-President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin before its public release.

The 190-page Brookings report states, “The consequences for attitudes and values are unpredictable, but would vary profoundly in different cultures and between groups within complex societies; a crucial factor would be the nature of the communication between us and the other beings.” The report continues: “Societies sure of their own place have disintegrated when confronted by a superior society. (This is an interesting source of agreement with Dr. Hawking’s statement 50 years later) Others have survived even though changed. Clearly, the better we can come to understand the factors involved in responding to such crises the better prepared we may be.” Although the research group did not expect any immediate contact with extraterrestrial beings, the discovery of intelligent space races “could nevertheless happen at any time.” The report strongly suggests that contact with extraterrestrials could be disruptive to humanity, and raises the possibility that such contact be withheld from the public.

What was that again, about “has anybody ever, either scientifically or in some semi-governmental way, contemplated the defense plan” . . . “So I don’t think there’s any plan around” thing? In 1999, Dr. Hawking stated on C-Span: “Of course it is possible that UFOs really do contain aliens as many people believe, and the government is hushing it up. I wouldn't like to comment on that.” Hmm . . . Perhaps Dr. Hawking (who is actively discouraging contact with extraterrestrials) and Dr. Pitts (who is artfully debunking it) know more about this than they’re authorized to disclose.

Ha! Keith Olbermann, Derrick Pitts, and Stephen Hawking are now officially part of the Vast UFO Conspiracy & Coverup.

Quotable: Community of Faith Stands Ready to Defy Arizona Law

“The law signed by Arizona Gov. Brewer is a social and racial sin, and should be denounced as such by people of faith and conscience across the nation. It is not just about Arizona, but about all of us, and about what kind of country we want to be. It is not only mean-spirited –- it will be ineffective and will only serve to further divide communities in Arizona, making everyone more fearful and less safe. This radical new measure, which crosses many moral and legal lines, is a clear demonstration of the fundamental mistake of separating enforcement from comprehensive immigration reform. Enforcement without reform of the system is merely cruel. Enforcement without compassion is immoral. Enforcement that breaks up families is unacceptable. This law will make it illegal to love your neighbor in Arizona, and will force us to disobey Jesus and his gospel. WE WILL NOT COMPLY.”

Reverend Jim Wallis, President Sojourners

Passage of Arizona’s “Sieg Heil” Law, AZ SB 1070, Does Not Come Without Consequences

Only days after unelected Governor Jan Brewer wielded the zealot’s pen, fallout from the signing of Arizona’s draconian “let me see your papers” anti-immigration law, AZ SB 1070, has begun. “I firmly believe that God has placed me in this powerful position of Arizona’s governor to help guide our state through the difficulties that we are currently facing,” she told a religious gathering last year. In light of Arizona’s dire financial straits, and the likelihood the law will further exacerbate the state’s economy, straining its already burdened law enforcement resources to the breaking point, the Governor may be seeking a lot more divine intervention in the days ahead.

In remarks that veered from the strange to the bizarre, Governor Brewer said she will “not tolerate racial profiling or racial discrimination in Arizona” while signing a law that does just that. The central provisions of the law make it a misdemeanor to lack immigration paperwork and compels police officers to determine immigration status if they form a “reasonable suspicion” that a person is in the U.S. illegally. As legal experts have noted, the constitutionality of “reasonable searches and seizures” has engendered mountains of case law and precedent.

Recognizing the glaring unconstitutionality question, the Governor has issued an executive order “to develop training to appropriately implement SB 1070” including “what DOES –- and DOES NOT –- constitute “reasonable suspicion” that a person is not legally present in the United States.” (Emphasis mine, CAPS the Governor’s. Blogging is one thing, but capping words in an official document makes one wonder about the competence of the (un)elected official.)

That Brewer should deem it necessary to issue an executive order to clarify the law only begs the question as to its constitutionality, noted Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva. Mr. Grijalva added that he would be a prime target of this law if he were to be stopped without proper identification papers. Evidently, the state’s top Republican has already instructed law enforcement on what to look for:

“Illegals are intentionally causing accidents on the freeway,” said Senator McCain. Presumably, if someone who “looks” and “talks” a certain way (i.e., like an illegal) is rear-ended on the freeway by a Caucasian who claims the accident victim “caused” the accident by driving slowly, the victim with the illegal “look” must prove legal residence or be arrested. And the accident victim with likely be charged with causing the accident, because Arizona’s senior senator said so, for driving while looking “reasonably” illegal. Congressman Brian Bilbray of California, elaborates: “trained professionals” will “look at the kind of dress you wear, there is different type of attire, there is different type of -- right down to the shoes, right down to the clothes.” Apparently, Bibray’s powers of discernment can tell Rep. Grijalva is in this country legally, simply by looking at his clothes and shoes. Or is it because Rep. Grijalva is an elected United States Congressman from Arizona?

In a sharply worded rebuke to proponents of the law, LA’s Cardinal Archbishop Roger Mahoney called it the “country’s most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law,” based on the “flawed reasoning” that immigrants come to our country “to rob, plunder, and consume public resources.” This law, he continued, cries out for comprehensive immigration reform. “We have built a huge wall along our southern border, and have posted in effect two signs next to each other. One reads, ‘No Trespassing,’ and the other reads ‘Help Wanted.’ The ill-conceived Arizona law does nothing to balance our labor needs.”

Archbishop Mahoney said, “I can't imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation. Are children supposed to call 911 because one parent does not have proper papers? Are family members and neighbors now supposed to spy on one another, create total distrust across neighborhoods and communities, and report people because of suspicions based upon appearance?”

Think again, Father. To be sure, most Arizonans will not behave like Nazis, perhaps, but history also teaches us that once fear of the “other” and authoritarianism take hold, Nazi-like behavior is not restricted to a certain people or culture; it is universal. The Teabagger rabbles are prime examples of proto-fascism impelled by xenophobia, racism, and Beckista-fed paranoid fear. Currently, there are some 1,000 similar statutes introduced in other state legislatures, most by Republicans. Immigrant-bashing is well underway. In a recent poll, 82 percent of self-identified Tea Party supporters said illegal immigration was a “very serious” problem. That poll also found that Teabaggers constitute about 18 percent of the voting public, are primarily white, older, more affluent males who vote overwhelmingly Republican.

Can the Democratic Party do without this rabble? The answer is YES, principally because the vast majority of Teabaggers never supported the President and Democratic candidates in the first place. Can the Democratic Party dismiss its Latino constituency? The answer is a resounding NO. As the fastest-growing demographic in this nation, Latinos wield increasing political and economic influence, Arizona notwithstanding.

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The Republican Party has largely made its bed on the immigration issue; now it must suffer the consequences of sleeping on its bed of thorns. With erstwhile pro-immigration reform candidate Gramps McCain leading his Republican colleagues down the lily-white brick road, the question for Democrats is to make them pay for it, with their votes against immigration reform, and their sharp tack to the right as the party of older, ultra right wing, mostly white males. If Republicans believe that an immigrant-bashing message and lies about our economic recovery will deliver them the House or the Senate in November, they are sorely mistaken.

When the face of the Republican Party is represented by an aging hypocrite with multiple political facials, an Arizona state senator (once photographed with a neo-Nazi) considered “an eccentric firebrand” and “politically incorrect embarrassment” by more moderate members of his party, one of whom lamented Arizona is “going to look like Alabama in the ’60s,” not to speak of Teabagger darlings Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann -– Democrats have reason to be optimistic about retaining their majorities in Congress come November.

On the question of immigration reform, Democrats plan to reintroduce the bipartisan legislation sponsored by John McCain (before his reincarnation as a non-maverick, goose-stepping wingnut) and the late Senator Ted Kennedy, with support from George W. Bush. Then they will dare Republicans to vote against it. That bill, introduced in 2005, would implement guest-worker programs and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

The largest arrow in the quiver of the U.S. Latino population, aside from the moral one, is economic. Nowhere have such laws succeeded in this country after the heavy economic cost on the community was realized. The lessons of 60s Alabama, for the Republican who mentioned it, for all the violence and confrontation, is that civil rights defeated apartheid in the United States. Such will be the fate of Arizona, as it tumbles down the rabbit hole of history, 1930s Nazi Germany style.

This grotesque law granting the police extra-constitutional authority to trample the Fourth Amendment rights of U.S. citizens, will not stand.

Bill Maher's Challenge to Teabaggers: Cut Defense Spending

Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican does so, in his platform . . .

What Taxation Without Representation REALLY Means to the Teabaggers

AT LAST! Republicans Release Viable Healthcare Plan

Calculate how much your medical procedure will cost in fowl here:




Sue Lowden's plan to pay for health care: Bring a chicken to
Uploaded by MrTemperatureable. - News videos hot off the press.

TEABONICS: Caint No Bodee Speek Teh Englis Langague Aroun Hear?

Memo to Virginia Governor Bob McConnell: You might want to rethink your literacy test for voting by extending it to the entire voting public of your state. It's only fair, Governor. No, wait! You'll end up disenfranchising your Virginia Teabagger and militia constituency. Oops.

Happy Earth Day! With Beautiful Time Lapse Photography of Terra by Tom Lowe

Shoutout to Telemann for this. There's plenty more gorgeous videos at Tom Lowe's site.

Death is the Road to Awe

Learning to Fly



5D Mark II Test Shoot at Beach



Day to Night at Joshua Tree

Best Anti-Teabagger Sign: “Can’t We All Just Agree That It’s Because He’s Black?”

Messing with the Teabaggers’ ID: “In Freudian theory, the division of the psyche that is totally unconscious and serves as the source of instinctual impulses and demands for immediate satisfaction of primitive needs.”

Teabaggers: In Their Own Words

This jaw-dropper needs no commentary. None.

Kudos to New Left Media for an illuminating report.

Hey Doc, How Many Chickens Will it Take to Pay for My Open Heart Surgery?

This is simply unbelievable. Apparently the frontrunner for the Republican Senate nomination in Nevada, Sue Lowden, has proposed a barter system to pay for healthcare: Chickens, paint the doctor’s house?!? Hey Sue, have you gotten your ASS OUT OF THE 19TH CENTURY YET? Hello, this IS THE 21TH CENTURY!



Whatever Nevadans may feel about Harry Reid, folks, to place this woman ahead of Harry in the polls is to have your collective heads up your arses!

GEICO Fires Voiceover Man for Insulting Freedomworks, Teabaggers

Lance Baxter, a.k.a. D.C. Douglas, was fired by GEICO for insulting Astrotruf Teabagger group Freedomworks in a voicemail (why am I always reminded of the Nazi concentration slogan “Work Makes Freedom” when Dick Armey's group comes up? Hmm . . .). Douglas asked, “What percentage of people that are mentally retarded who are working for FreedomWorks and who are following it.” He also questioned how the Teabaggers will “spin it when one of your members does actually kill somebody, wondering if you've got a PR spinning routine planned for that or are you just gonna take it when it happens.”
Douglas recognized his impulsiveness with the first comment and expressed his regrets:

“. . . Yeah, I know -- STUPID! And certainly not constructive. But venting calmly with a twist of humor soothes my liberal soul. Plus, homophobia and racism are my Achilles heal. Unfortunately, in my haste, I used the phrase “mentally retarded” which, ultimately, drags me down to their level.

My first question was an unfortunate choice of words and I regret it. But my second question was the more pertinent one.”

He is right about the second statement. It was made in response to the homophobic and racial slurs hurled at Reps. Barney Frank and John Lewis, and the numerous threats made to any member of Congress who voted for healthcare reform. Douglas continued: “Now, my calling them, my choice of words, and leaving my number were all mistakes, and I accept responsibility for them. But what happened next was way beyond an appropriate response. It was downright sleazy, unethical and most likely illegal.”

After discovering his association with GEICO, Freedomworks President and CEO Matt Kibbe posted Douglas’ cell (home) number in the right wing blog biggovernment.com instructing readers to “Feel free to contact Lance. He was so kind to provide his number in the voicemail. Call his employer too… Let them know that you, in fact, are not a mentally retarded killer, but that you are now in the market for car insurance.” The result was a flood of phone calls with GEICO making a “quick corporate decision to drop” Douglas ten hours after Kibbe’s blog post appeared. Douglas said, “I did not post my views in a large public forum. I did not publicly campaign against them. I left a calm (albeit impulsive) phone message ONCE. FreedomWorks responded with napalm.”

And so, D.C. Douglas prepared “A Dedication: Matt Kibbe Can Kiss My Pimply Ass” for Matt Kibbe and Freedomworks Chairman Dick Armey --

“To celebrate my LOVE of ALL ethnicities, sexualities, genders; my belief in a woman’s right to choose, a gay/lesbian/transgender couple’s right to marry, an Atheists right to seek office; an impetuous actor/voice over guy’s right to leave a voicemail message – I give you my Tea Bagger Boogie Video, constructed from FreedomWorks followers who left me voice mails (though I will not identify anyone nor list their phone numbers – that would be kinda sleazy and illegal):”

And here's Dick Armey reacting to a woman, Joan Walsh, who has the audacity to talk back at him:

Arizona Is One Step Closer to Becoming a Police State. Literally.

All that is required for this to happen is the governor’s signature. She has roughly four days to affix her “John Hancock” (shoutout to the Teabaggers) to a law criminalizing all Latinos who live, or traverse, in the state of Arizona and anyone who looks Latino, which means, as Joan Walsh pointed out, she might get pulled over for driving while having a tan. The bill that cleared the Republican-controlled Arizona Senate and awaits the governor’s signature would expand police authority to arrest individuals who may “look” or “sound” like an “illegal” (however that is defined) and cannot provide ample proof of citizenship or legal residence. In one more display of ‘suck it up and follow the wave’ Arizona Senator John McCain, instead of providing leadership on behalf of Latinos, blamed federal government inaction for this bill and said illegal aliens are driving people off the road on Arizona’s highways!

Such draconian measures are what police states, totalitarian/authoritarian governments, and fascist regimes do, not democracies. Republican state Senator Russell Pearce, who authored the bill, said “We're going to take the handcuffs off of law enforcement, we're going to put them on the bad guy. Illegal is not a race, it's a crime.” Estimates are that between 400,000 and 500,000 undocumented workers are currently in Arizona. Does Mr. Pearce intend to arrest all of them? That is, after they strip the roughly 1.3 million Arizona citizens and legal residents of Hispanic origin of their due process rights under the U.S. Constitution –- an 88% growth since the 2000 Census. As it is, the laws already on the books aren’t being enforced by companies that employ undocumented workers, the lettuce and fruit pickers, because it would devastate their economies. These economies, by the way, that are the vestiges and heirs of the slavery-based economy of the United States, in the South, West and territories, before it was outlawed. But not eradicated.


To listen to the Caucasian callers to hate radio as Noam Chomsky has, in his disturbing assessment that our country is going the way of the pre-Nazi Weimar Republic -- “I don’t want to hear Rush Limbaugh. I want to hear the people calling in. They are like [suicide pilot] Joe Stack. What is happening to me? I have done all the right things. I am a God-fearing Christian. I work hard for my family. I have a gun. I believe in the values of the country and my life is collapsing” -– is to get a flavor for the pervasive anger waiting for release, for lashing out, that these right wing white people who gravitate to militias and the Tea Party feel. It runs much deeper than illegal immigration. They look at Latinos –- whom they call “spicks” and “wetbacks” –- and they feel threatened and angry.

Said Chomsky:

“What are people supposed to think if someone says ‘I have got an answer, we have an enemy’? There it was the Jews. Here it will be the illegal immigrants and the blacks. We will be told that white males are a persecuted minority. We will be told we have to defend ourselves and the honor of the nation. Military force will be exalted. People will be beaten up. This could become an overwhelming force. And if it happens it will be more dangerous than Germany. The United States is the world power. Germany was powerful but had more powerful antagonists. I don’t think all this is very far away. If the polls are accurate it is not the Republicans but the right-wing Republicans, the crazed Republicans, who will sweep the next election.”

With demographic change comes uncertainty for whites who feel squeezed and threatened. With economic collapse comes despair and anger. With anger comes violence. Chomsky’s vision may be more lucid, but many commentators have said that the climate today is eerily similar to that preceding the domestic terrorist bombing of the Murrah Building at Oklahoma City. This nation may be at a crossroads. The time has come to push back. This means first, that Latino groups, not only in Arizona but throughout the country, must mobilize and unite to oppose Arizona’s assault on our basic freedoms and civil liberties. They must be joined by a nationwide coalition of progressive groups to speak with one voice against the institutional scapegoating of one class and race of people. At the same time, vigilanteism and violence-prone militia activity should be called out and discouraged. Mobilizing for a strong turnout in November is a must.

Finally, the fact is that today Latinos command substantial financial and political clout in this nation. It’s time to exercise it in creative ways. Year after year we see more and more Latino athletes fill the rosters of Major League Baseball. Where are their voices in all of this? I would rather see less piety by athletes, e.g., from evangelical members of ‘Athletes for Christ’, who stage proselytizing demonstrations for Jesus in front of the cameras, than to see all the Latino members of the Arizona Diamondbacks take the field and stand side-by-side in front of the camera box wearing headbands that say, “REPEAL AZ SB 1070 NOW!”

Noam Chomsky’s dystopian vision need not become reality. It is not too late to turn back the dark forces of right wing reaction and creeping fascism.

Notes From the Fringe

Madness at the Mall. The armed insurrectionist militias or as Fox would call them, 2nd Amendment “enthusiasts” among the Teabaggers (most of them), rallied at the Washington D.C. Mall to demand their “freedoms” and “gun rights” on the 15th Anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. Which tells me these people have little sense of decorum, history, much less irony, and taste . . . that goes without saying (to quote a Confederate secessionist governor). Here they are, in bizarro pictures, with captions!

The Company You Keep. In his ironically titled Hardball commentary, “Let Me Finish,” Chris Matthews said, “Some of the Tea Party people support loosening up on gun controls, but two-thirds have no problem with store owners telling people they can‘t walk into their stores openly carrying a gun. No, they‘re not crazy.”

Um, Chris. Let me put it this way: Let’s say you belong to a social club that purports to be against high taxation (a LIE, but let it be), in which fully one-third are “crazies,” 2nd Amendment nuts who hold the views of unbridled gun use you’ve described, carry crazy signs, and scream nasty, crazy, racist things. At this point your two-thirds have two options:

(1) PURGE the crazies from your club whose beliefs are anathema to your club’s charter; or

(2) Silently ACCEPT the crazies, or at most give them the option to moderate their expressions –- pretty, pretty pleeease? (See wringing hands!) If you accept such views in your club through intimidation, or perhaps because you don’t find them so objectionable after all, you will become INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM THE CRAZIES.

This reminds me of an exchange from “Judgment at Nuremberg” (for the movie buff, Chris):

Enrst Janning (Burt Lancaster): “I… Judge Haywood... the reason I asked you to come: Those people, those millions of people... I never knew it would come to that. You must believe it, you must believe it!”

Judge Haywood (Spencer Tracy): “It came to that the first time you sentenced a man to die you knew to be innocent.”

Comrade Teabaggers. Ah, this is SO rich! If this were a Hollywood script it wouldn’t pass muster -- too unbelievable! The Teabaggers’ chief financial backers, secretive billionaires Charles and David Koch, inherited a Koch family fortune made working for Stalin’s Bolsheviks in the 20s and 30s. No wonder Teabaggers in their rallies are high on bad Trotsky (rhymes with Alinsky), but hardly carry any signage of the biggest Soviet Communist monster of all, genocidal murderer of millions, Joseph Stalin. What gives? I know, I know, I’m giving these idiots who don’t know their own history, let alone 20th century world history, too much credit. But it’s not inconceivable that word trickled down from the Koch family that Stalin signs are strictly VERBOTEN! Hitler Sí, Stalin No!

Teabagger Family Values. Not only are the Tebaggers dumb, their choice of candidates for November is not so discriminating. Just fill out a form saying Obama’s a socialist from Kenya who’ll take your guns away and you’re in the money with the Tebagger endorsement. Racism (manageable), but porn and bestiality? Teabaggers, you have a problem. One of many.

Quotable: Bill Clinton on the Lessons From Oklahoma City

“What we learned from Oklahoma City is not that we should gag each other or that we should reduce our passion for the positions we hold -- but that the words we use really do matter, because there's this vast echo chamber, and they go across space and they fall on the serious and the delirious alike. They fall on the connected and the unhinged alike. One of the things that the conservatives have always brought to the table in America is a reminder that no law can replace personal responsibility. And the more power you have and the more influence you have, the more responsibility you have.

But remember, words have consequences as much as actions do, and what we advocate, commensurate with our position and responsibility, we have to take responsibility for. We owe that to Oklahoma City.”

President Bill Clinton - Oklahoma City Bombing 15th Anniversary