The Real Romney

I was thinking about it today and Romney is a triple personality. He is the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man, and Scarecrow who never met the Wizard and thus he remains heartless, timid, and brainless. With George Bush people like to quote Molly Ivins, I think it was, on how he was born on third base and thought he hit a triple. Romney was born on third base had pinch runner get to home on a wild pitch whose team lost a meaningless game because it was in the cellar yet insists that his home run won the World Series. He is a man who has no idea what truth or honor or decency mean and should he win we are all so screwed that words cannot express it.

Last night he was enthralled with his own lies and viciousness that he all but jumped out of his skin enraptured with his ability to  tell one lie after another. The mind boggles that anyone thinks that that lying liar won the debate.

The real Mitt Romney is a national disgrace and more evidence, should more evidence be needed, that successful business folks are immoral monsters driven to "win" even  or especially if winning necessitates trampling decency and humanistic values in the mud.

Dog Whistlled

The Germans have been watching the current Romney/Ryan festival of lies and have decided, at least the non-Neonazis among them, that their message is "too closely tailored to white men," which pretty much sums it up.

When the foreign press is doing a better job of honest analysis of our Presidential election, it might wake up the various outlets that have so far refused to point out Romney/Ryan's lies and dog whistles.

A Debate

The internet and the rest of the world is all in a whirl about Akin's insane notions of human biology; meanwhile the Republicans prove that they don't care if a woman secretes a secretion  during rape that makes fertilization impossible. Or maybe not. After insisting on a Party platform that demands a "personhood" amendment to the US Constitution. In the past these amendments effectively ban abortion for whatever reason by declaring eggs people.

Today, however, the Republicans are trying to deny that they are in fact deranged ideologues on moral matters best left the conscience of our fellow citizens and their medical providers.

The Republicans, in other words, like Mitt Romney on everything and Paul Ryan on most things want to have it both ways. Each opposes something rhetorically but understands that the thing they oppose, mandates, stimulus spending, auto bailouts, etc, is actually good policy and, consequently they rail with the one side of the mouth while the other asks for seconds.

So lets have a debate in this election. The Republicans ought properly stand or fall on their deranged social, economic, and political ideas. Man up boys said loud and proud: I am batshit crazy with only a tangential connection to reality.

Akin did and it looks like he might win.

Ryan as Rorschah

Last night a relative whose name may or may not begin with b insisted that low information voters love Paul Ryan. Other with whom I have spoken repeated the line about how Ryan, who look like a stick figure insect howdy doody fellow, is a sexy beast of a serious wonk, have insisted that the Ryan pick was inspired need to deal with the fact that his policy preferences are hated by most American who refused to believe the Romney would destroy the tattered remains of the safety net in the service o giving people like Romney more money.

In short, in the plutocracy's long held desire to recreate the 19th century, most Americans say no way. This is another data   point that proves that Conservative ideas are not only unpopular but deeply bug shit crazy. It is, furthermore, evidence that both the top and the bottom of the Republican ticket are horrid little men who think that the answer to life's misery is yet  even more misery.

Intellecutually Bankrupt

Over to the Crooked Timber there are a series of post dedicated to the proposition that Libertarianism is load of bullocks. The last link is especially fun as it  makes clear that, as I have mentioned, Tyler Cowen is a horrid little man.

Points Tipped

Remember when John Kerry decorated war hero ran for president and the Republicans "swift boated" him? It would seem that calling a double-amputee from injuries sustained in one or another of our current conflicts not a hero is a bridge too far.

It remains, obviously, to be see what the actual fall out this event it; but by gosh by gory if it leads to the end of the Republicans and the Right more generally being able to lie and traduce at will the world will be a slightly better place.

Here In Wisconsin

Scott Walker is liar, creep, and hates democracy, which makes him an ideal Republican. He has refused to follow the ACA. First because he expected it to be ruled unconstitutional and now because he expects its repeal when Romney wins.

I was not aware that fidelity to the rule of law and reverence for the Constitution were tempered or could be held in abeyance by the possibility that something might change in the indefinite future. On this logic, Walker could ignore, OSHA, the EPA, Federal Child Labor Laws, etc.

At what point do the people who support this kind of thuggish anti-Americanism finally decide that the dishonesty has gone far enough.

The ACA's opponents have lost the political and judicial battles over the law and now, it seems, they are going to replay nullification and, one supposes, fire on Fort Sumpter when they again lose that battle.

Lies

The Commerce Clause gives the Congress the power

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes

Ronald Dworkin, with Justice Ginsburg concurring, argues that there is no constitutional limit to the state's power to regulate but rather political and practical limits only. The state in its regulation of commerce can only do what it can get away with.

David Brooks, who really is a horrid excuse for a man, praises Roberts' intellectually dishonest decision to support ACA on the wrong grounds as a shining example of "Burkean minimalism and self-control." It really isn't. This is something that Brooks must know as he accepts that the Roberts decision is a radical change in understanding of the scope and meaning of the CC as developed in Supreme Court decision. He argues that

[o]ver the years, the commerce clause in the Constitution has been distorted beyond recognition, giving Congress power to regulate all manner of activity (or inactivity). Roberts redefined the commerce clause in a way that limits the power of Washington. Congress is now going to have to be very careful when it tries to use the tax code and other measures to delve into areas that have, until now, been beyond its domain.

What is odd here is that the CC gives the state the power to regulate commerce, which meant and means much more than economic activity, and over the years the Courts have found that the state has the ability to regulate commerce under a clause designed to  give the state the power to regulate commerce. How is it Burkean  minimalism or humility to radically redefine a Constitutional clauses meaning?

What Brooks here seems to mean is that yes the radical wing of the Republican Party and its judicial enablers are one step closer to overturning the 20th century and returning the us to the 19th century.  What is odd here is the extent to which Brooks' notion of minimalism and humility are really stalking horses for radical reaction designed to ensure that the rich rule and poors suffer. I suspect, but do not know, that Brooks secretly endorses Tyler Cowen's argument that

[w]e need to accept the principle that sometimes poor people will die just because they are poor. 

For the nonp-Burkeans amongst the nonsocipathic segment of society, the fact that  radically unequal societies necessarily cause unnecessary deaths among the least amongst us is a sad reality. For Cowen it is a principle and this case it seems he means principle to function as a natural law.

Brooks pretends that an unelected official curtailing an enumerated power is not an example of judicial overreach; Cowen pretends that the results of human created misery and inequality are natural and, consequently, just. Both men are either liars or deluded and both are horrid little men.

Post Racial

There is some good news to come out of the Derbyshire debacle.  While I disagree with the NRO's decision to fire him, I agree with his childrens' reaction to his "talk." As he explains

[b]oth took it with some skepticism, even some disgust in my daughter's case. Both have been through the public-school system and taken in a lot of the left-liberal PC indoctrination in which that system is marinated. So I'd have to say they weren't very receptive. Was there ever a time when kids listened to their parent's advice? But at least they've heard it, and know that there's another point of view besides the PC flapdoodle, a point of view held by non-crazy persons. One does one's best.

Derbyshire's wife is Chinese and, oddly enough, his "bi-racial" children find his advice to behave as if more often than not black Americans wanted to either rob, kill, or something them because they are, you know, racial inferior scientifically speaking. While there is all manner of positive representations of Asian Americans as a ideal minority this is a new development. Might it be that the PC public education that Derbyshire denigrates taught his kids the actual history of anti-Chinese, anti-Japanese racialist thought in these United States? Might it not be that there skepticism and disgust arose from that set of facts?

Here In Wisconsin

Scott Walker continues his laser-like focus on jobs and the economy by signing laws that have nothing to do with anything useful but do, in fact, take Wisconsin further down the road of religious wackadoodle misery and pro-business, which is to say anti-minority, nonsense. To wit:

– A ban on abortion coverage in policies obtained through a health insurance exchange, set to be created under the federal health care reform law starting in 2014. The only exceptions would be in cases of rape, incest or medical necessity.
– A woman seeking an abortion must undergo an exam and consult with a doctor alone, away from her friends and family. The doctor must determine whether someone is pressuring the woman into the procedure. Doctors who break the law could be charged with a felony.
– Teachers in schools that offer sex education must stress abstinence as the only sure way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Declares that sex education teachers do not have to address contraception. That’s a dramatic shift from current state law, which requires teachers to instruct students on birth control options.

Feh, Meh, And Bite Me

The NR has "fired" John Derbyshire. Fine but read the post and remember that Derbyshire has made a career out of being a racist, homophobe, and misogynist asshole with the NR's blessing for low these many years. Rich Lowry claims that

Derb is also maddening, outrageous, cranky, and provocative. 

No he isn't; he is a racist, homophobe, misogynist asshole who has benefited from the Rights embrace of racists, homophobes, and misogynists. This firing changes nothing and the Right and the NR in particular need to atone for using their rights to free speech to behave like neanderthals and thugs.

Every "culture warrior" is engaged in the same despicable speech act as is Derbyshire and their supporters ought either embrace Derbyshire or reject a "cultural war" built on lies, vituperation, and vile rhetoric or get out of the "cultural warrior" game. And that includes the vicious scum bags Santorum and Romney.

UPDATE:
Derbyshire defended by Jeff Goldstein.

Post Racial

John Derbyshire, who has admitted he doesn't think, has an article up proving that he can't. Using "math" and "science" he "proves" that black Americans hate white Americans, kill at the drop of a hat, that most are dumber than the 10% of dumbest white Americans, and, among other horror show nonsense, if reasonable bright and presentable the most favored of all Americans. In the comments, on of his supporters, of whom there are many, takes him to task for not mentioning that black American males are sexually aggressive

What a horrid little man.

UPDATE:
It seems that there are calls for the NRO to fire the "Derb."  This needs to stop; the Right in the USA is racist and sexist.  They need to acknowledge this.  Making a case for not reading the NRO because it is filled with batshit crazy Religio-Fascists and related nutters is the way forward.  They are all of them crazy, liars, and horrid little people.  The "Derb" isn't an outlier.

 UPDATE:

Rich Lowry has a post up distancing himself and the Right from the Derbyshire debacle.  Oddly enough the comments are off. I suspect they are off because, being a race baiter himself, he is fully aware of the extent to which his readers are foaming-at-the-mouth racists.

Remember the bullshit, in the Frankfurtian sense of bullshit, about no one cares about black on black violence is bullshit, evidence that the speaker is absolutely ignorant of the reality of black Americans lives, and yet more bullshit.

UPDATE:
In 2003 Derbyshire said of himself that

I am a homophobe, though a mild and tolerant one, and a racist, though an even more mild and tolerant one, and those things are going to be illegal pretty soon, the way we are going.

For 8 years he has been an important part of the NRO and the Right wing noise machine.  Not only ought they not fire him but they should all come out and admit that they supported and support "mild" homophobia and racism.

What Is Wrong With The World?

Victor David Hanson. He laments the woeful awfulness of those who seek to use the Treyvon Martin murder for their own ends. Yet he writes that

[w]hile it is natural that African-American activists need answers as to why the armed assailant Mr. Zimmerman was not charged in the shooting

they need to demand the same answers for all the black on black crime or they are hypocrites.

In the  answer to the first we all need answers as to why Zimmerman wasn't arrested after shooting an unarmed kid about whom he knew nothing other than the kid was black.

In answer to the second 1) it's a different issue and 2) really?

This is what is wrong with the world, instead of considering the possibility that shooting an unarmed kid about whom all the shooter knew is that he was black is a sign of mental derangement and that not arresting him is a sign of institutional mental derangement, Hanson wants us to think that thinking that situation is wrong and troubling is a sign of hypocrisy unless we condemn all crimes committed by blacks, that bear no relation to the event under consideration, everywhere.

It's a horrid worldview and one predicated on the notion that only blacks care about injustices concerning blacks.

Hatefilled

There have been a flurry of attempts to paint Treyvon Martin as a thug in an attempt to justify his mindless  murder. Here's one example from the fetid pen of Robert VerBruggen of the NRO. Here's another line of attack from the same horrid little man, Martin was winning a fistfight Zimmerman initiated for no good reason therefore he had to shoot the 17 year-old, about whom who knew nothing other than he was black, kid.

It really is beneath contempt.  Purveyors of the first line of attack seeks to dehumanize Martin by painting him as the kind of criminal we can do without. Advocates of the second would have you believe that a cretinous, authoritarian racist who defied police orders and not only followed but confronted a kid who had done nothing wrong but be black was forced to kill the kid because, as it turns out, cretinous, authoritarian racists aren't, in fact, the Batman nor yet even Robin.

Obviously the VerBruggens of the world aren't interested in making sense of the event or working to avoid it recurrence.  Why? Who really knows.  It may be that they are horrid little men and women bent on making the world less salubrious. Or it could be that they see the tactics deployed by the neoliberals for the past 30 odd years have created a world they want to inhabit, i.e., where violence or its threat is endemic, where inequality reigns, and where opportunity is a function of genealogy -- which is another way of saying the rich get richer and the poor starve.

One thing we can know for a fact is that there is no way to square the current reality with the promise of morning in America.


UPDATE:
It seems that Trayvon Martin called 911; one suspects this ends badly for Zimmerman and the brigade of horrors.

via.

How to describe

Geraldo Rivera's  comments on the Treyvon Martin tragedy. Grotesque? Heartless? Cruel? Ignorant? Disgusting? Vicious? Vile? Lies? Distraction? Beneath Contempt?

For god's sake a boy was murdered for no good reason and the vile, horrid little man insists that the decision to wear a hooded sweatshirt is as much to blame as the horrid little man who ignored police orders to follow and then confront a kid whose "crime" was being black.

Think about that for a minute.

Crazy Talk

Ross Douthat has a Op Ed up in which he "argues" that Republican voters aren't either crazy but rather just being good citizens as they desperately seek someone who isn't Mitt Romney. This might be true were it not for the fact that the Republican candidates have been spewing lies about Obama, crazy talk about Iran's invasion and contraception. On the whole, the primary has been a vile and horrid affair in which the candidates are willing to pander to the 27 percent. The voters are crazy and the candidates either crazy or uninterested in governance and truth.

Race, Racism, and the Right

 The next video is unwatchable. Deranged maniac conservatives at CPAC babbling about nothing sensible laugh when the Black man walks out after one of the horrid little men use the N-word.



Here is a CSpan call in:



The nut cases on the Right have no idea what horrid little men and women they are. When they speak in their natural voices they sound like the horrid little men and women they are and 99 % of us cringe in that weird combination of horror, loathing and disbelief that this horrid wretchedness calls forth.