Conservatives Do Not Believe In States’ Rights

The most conservative judges on the Supreme Court since the 1930s issued a decision yesterday that said police could racially profile people in Arizona.  Some of the writings and statements made yesterday were overtly political – exactly what judges should not be.  The politicization of the Supreme Court by right wing extremists has reached new heights with this group.  That was the state of affairs forecasted to occur by non-partisan experts asked to comment on President Bush’s unqualified nominees.  And that is the state of affairs that has developed.  Based on the aforementioned writings, the conservative judges defended the so-called “right” of Arizona to “defend” itself against people that those in power don’t want in the state: brown people.

Is the immigration system broken?  Yes.

Are most government systems broken?  Yes.

Why are they broken?  Because those same right-wing extremists have put policies and personnel in place to ensure the systems don’t operate as they were designed.  The more they can wreck things, the truer their complaints that government doesn’t work rings true.  It’s called fulfilling their own prediction.

But hold on one moment.  Those same so-called “pro-states’ rights” folks are equally silent on the right of Montana to enforce a 100-year old law to keep corruption out of government.  Folks used to publicly pay for legislators – including U.S. Senators – to get the policies they individually wanted implemented.  The people of Montana stood up to that kind of nonsense.  Alito, Romney, Limbaugh and all the other right-wing nuts out there didn’t say word one about Montana’s right to pass a state law in the absence of national laws and a broken election system.

There are dozens of corporate media articles proclaiming Romney’s unwavering belief that states’ rights are paramount.

Except that it isn’t.  The corporate media is part of the problem.  If they sold themselves as stenographers, dutifully copying down everything fed to them by whatever source they could dredge up, that would be one thing.  But they continue to try to pass their industry off as legitimate.  The results?  Declining participation in a democratic process.  Disapproval of all branches of government.  These conditions won’t last forever.  Movements will arise and succeed in putting the ship back on course.  The wealthy and powerful won’t like it, but that’s not the real issue.

At the end of the day, conservatives believe in states’ rights.  Except when they don’t, which is more often than when they do.

Analysis of Occupy Groups Plain Wrong

I’ve heard a lot and read a little about the Occupy Wall Street groups that obviously started in New York City but have quickly spread to metropolitan areas across the U.S. since September.  A couple of things I read today warrant a small piece of my attention away from more homework than I know what to do about.

First up: Paul West’s “Is Occupy Wall Street a Tea Party for Democrats?“, which can be marked up as another sad example of crappy journalism in today’s corporate media dominated world.

Distinctions are drawn by liberals between the origins of the anti-Wall Street drive, which they say is more spontaneous and authentic than a Tea Party movement boosted into existence by Fox News, a favored news source for conservatives. Another difference: Tea Party followers were focused on one issue — cutting government spending — while Occupy Wall Street is amorphous in its aims.

Beyond that, there are broad similarities. Both movements are decentralized and nonhierarchical, driven largely by an alienated and outraged citizenry that favors the same two-word phrase: fed up.

It’s painful when these journalists parrots cannot distinguish between corporate astroturf groups (Tebaggers – they haven’t formally formed a party like the Greens) and organic groups (Occupy Wall Street).

It’s even more painful when their messages are purposefully misscharacterized.  Where were the Teabaggers when the Bush Regime was spending Trillions of taxpayer dollars and blowing up the debt and the deficit?  They were cheering the Regime on, saying spending wasn’t fast enough.  Why did they choose 2009 to start wailing about the spending they used to support?  Because there is a Black Man in the White House.  I call shenanigans.

The Teabaggers’ assault on the political scene in 2009 was orchestrated and paid for by the same ultra-wealthy entities that Occupy Wall Street is protesting.  It was anything but decentralized and non-hierarchical.  What happened when reporters tried talking to the Teabaggers at the beginning?  Amorphous and ridiculous commentary was offered.  The organizers quickly picked up on this and ensured their well-trained communications liaisons were the only ones talking to the corporate media.  There is no way that any disparate group of individuals getting together are well organized when they first form.  Occupy Wall Streeters prove that; the Teabaggers also prove that.

The Teabaggers are mostly right-wing extremists who should feel alienated – all extremists should.  The Occupy Wall Streeters are a much more diverse group who have rightful grievances against a government that is increasingly under corporate dominance.

Next up: an extremist extraordinaire, Jon Caldara, who offered up this nonsense that a different parrot dutifully made into “news”: “‘They wish (for) European-style socialism,’ he said.  ‘It’s not corporate welfare they hate.  They hate that it’s not all going to their causes.  When they want to end all corporate welfare, I’ll douse myself with patchouli oil and join them.’”

Always available for jack-assery, aren’t you Jon?  When the wealthiest 1% control over 50% of the wealth; when real take home income hasn’t changed for the bottom 99% since 1979 while it’s 240% higher for the 1%; when U.S. and foreign banks are loaned Trillions of dollars while millions of Americans lose their hard-earned jobs and homes, people in the 99% are eventually going to show how upset they are.  It has nothing to do with Jon’s obsession with European socialism.

When Jon and other “free-marketeers” stop free-loading off of the socialist infrastructure this country and its citizens built and operate for them on a daily basis (roads, water, air, police, fire, radio, on and on and on), then they should be quoted in the media.  The ridiculousness of quoting somebody who willfully refuses to live up to his own ideals is pathetic.

Keep going, Occupy Wall Street!

Republican Teabaggers Get The Constitution Wrong

That’s not terribly surprising to most of the country who watch the Republican Teabaggers screw up on issue after issue, proudly throwing their extremism into the rest of our faces.  But Newsweek has a good article on how Republican Teabaggers get the Constitution wrong.

Some People Never Learn

For some, ideology trumps everything.  Such is the case for thecons who backed George Bush’s abstinence-only sex education programs.  Funding for programs that included more than abstinence-only information, like how to have safe sex if you decide to have sex, was slashed.  Well, actions have consequences.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) monitors statistics like birth rates and sexually transmitted diseases for teenagers.  Take a wild guess at what happened to the statistics after Bush’s programs were funded and pushed onto the American public.  Birth rates and STDs were in decline from 1991 through the early 2000′s.  Those declines were halted and reversed by 2005.

Pregnancies among teenagers 15 years or older are up sharply.  The number of teenage girls with syphilis has risen by half.  Two decades of progress in gonorrhea infection rates has been reversed.  The number of adolescent boys with AIDS has doubled.

Oh, and 16,000 pregnancies were reported among 10- to 14-year old girls in 2004.  That’s a tragic statistic.  Nearly 16,000 10- to 14-years olds reported having an STD (which is an undercount, obviously).  That’s also tragic.

Earlier this year, a report was issued that demonstrated that children who signed up for abstinence programs had sex at the same rate as those who didn’t sign up for the programs.  A major difference between the two groups was the incidence of pregnancies and STDs.  The abstinence group had a much higher rate.  The implementation of a fringe ideology on a larger population has had very tragic consequences.  So how do abstinence-only supporters respond?

By saying there is still too little abstinence-only education.  I’m not kidding, though given the gravity of the situation, I wish I were.

“It is ridiculous to say that a programme we nominally invest in has failed when it fails to overcome the most sexualised culture in world history, said Kristi Hamrick, a spokeswoman for American Values, which describes itself as a supporter of traditional marriage and “against liberal education and cultural forces”.

Apparently, being the spokeswoman requires the ability to refuse to take part in reality.  Reality, Kristi, is recognizing that if your argument that our culture is the most sexualized in world history, then pregnancy and STD rates should be quite similar across the country.  Or, if we were to really believe your worldview, then places like the West and East coast should have the highest rates of pregnancies and STDs, correct?  I mean, after all, which portion of the country does liberal education supposed take place?  Not your portion, I bet.

So why, Kristi, are pregnancy and STD rates higher for southern states, those bastions of “family values” and “morality”?  Why, Kristi, are pregnancy and STD rates lower for other countries, such as European countries, than they are in the U.S.?  Because the CDC is part of your imaginary liberal conspiracy?  Because Coasters flock to the south and impregnate and infect your neighbors?  Because those evil liberals from Europe make sure to stop by the U.S. and knock our kids up and infect them with STDs as part of their liberal lifestyle?  No, Kristi, it’s because abstinence-only programs are taught more widely in southern states than the rest of the country (and world).  It’s actually quite easy to figure out what’s going on.  Children in southern states are being purposefully exposed to potentially harmful life situations to satisfy your sick desire to impose your ideology on them.  Ignoring reality and adhering to your ideology is harming real children, Kristi.  That’s not tragic, that’s disgusting.

Cons Don’t Want Democracy to Flourish in Iraq

That’s the only message I get from the following:

Additionally, Chris Hill’s nomination as ambassador to Iraq is still being held up by Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) at the behest of the right wing. This despite the fact that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently issued a rare statement on a diplomatic appointment saying, it is “vital that we get an ambassador in Baghdad as soon as possible.”

How badly do the Cons want democracy in Iraq?  Apparantly not enough to confirm ambassadors nominated by Democrats.  After all, it’s still party first and country second with these clowns.  That’s why they’re the minority party.  Brownback is a proud right-wing extremist, bent on obstructing anything and everything that would be good for America.

This nomination isn’t the only one that the Cons are holding up in Congress, as this Think Progress post details.  Which is funny really, when you consider the screaming those same Cons did when Democrats were holding up Bush’s psychotic reactionary judicial nominees.  Their battle-cry then: “Up or down vote!”.

Where is Chris Hill’s up or down vote, Senators?  Where are the up or down votes for the rest of President Obama’s nominees?  I thought in times of war, it was unpatriotic to hold back a President’s agenda.  We see just how much the Cons believe in their own stupid talking-points.

Sarah Palin is Unhinged

Maybe keeping her hidden from the public was a better idea.  Now that John McCain’s campaign is tanking in polls across the country, they’re letting Sarah be Sarah.  And it’s ugly.  Her role in the campaign is definitely to rally the base.  And rally them she is.

She’s making racist remarks about Sen. Barack Obama (this after insinuating questioning her qualifications was sexist), whipping crowds into such a bigoted frenzy that her audience members are offering up such brilliant suggestions as, “Kill him”, in response to her talking points.  And note that that’s all she has: she still cannot relate a policy stance with any kind of understanding or confidence.  As a result, she’s left with nothing except the kind of hate speech that other Republican officials and talking heads have found themselves.

Let me be crystal clear: it is unacceptable to incite anybody to violence.  Especially against a sitting U.S. Senator.  Especially against a Presidential candidate.

I have noted instances in the past involving violence against liberals.  The differences between Palin’s speeches and screeds produced by other extremists such as Malkin, Coulter, O’Reilly, Limbaugh, etc., are narrowing every day.  Folks, this is exactly why Republicans are losing races across the U.S.  Americans are tired of the inability of Republicans to take responsibility for their actions.  Unfortunately, Americans aren’t yet tired of the hate speech that fills the airwaves and bookshelves and political campaigns.  Too many Americans accept without thought the violence-inciting language of Palin and her fellow fringe lunatics.

Sarah Palin isn’t qualified to be Vice-President.  At this point, I doubt her qualifications to be Governor.  She is clearly showing America that she is unbalanced and hateful.  She is embarrassing herself and America.  Will Republicans – real Republicans, not the predators now destroying the herd – disavow Palin and other hate-loving CONservative figureheads?  Will real Republicans take back their party and shut down the extremists in their party?  Or will real violence strike more Democrats who have done nothing save proudly serve their country?