What?

From Princess Sparkle Pony's Photo Blog:  Pundit With Issues.

Changes

African American community becoming more accepting of gay people.  With personal testimony.  By Terrance of Republic of T.

"No, No, No, No, He's Outside, Looking In"

• Eighteenth century skeleton in a twenty-first century world.  
• Nineteenth century economic and social ideals in a twenty-first century world, or why I wouldn't let Ron Paul take out my garbage, much less represent me in Congress.
• Fast-food workers on strike.

  Fast food workers in New York City earn just below $9.00 an hour on average, and rarely receive health care, paid sick days or other benefits that make it possible to live in an expensive urban center like New York City. These workers are also often given only 20 or 30 hours of work a week, which keeps their annual income far below the poverty line. According to organizers on the campaign, many workers have to resort to collecting public assistance, eating at their restaurants to save money and sometimes even living in homeless shelters--necessities that not only make their lives incredibly challenging but also put intense strain on the city’s social safety net.

  Mind you, this writer forgot Wisconsin's troubles earlier this year.  But that's a quibble.

I'm Just a Singer in a Rock and Roll Band

Yes, I'm on something of a Moody Blues kick.  How could you tell?

Obsidian Wings is running an interesting symposium on wages, labor, MBAs, profit, and what has gone wrong with business since the '80s, beginning with an essay by Doctor Science and running through the comment section (only one attempt at standard conservative victim-blaming), viewpoints, history, etc.  A chunk of business woes seems to be bad management and being rewarded for bad management, for example the Hostess bankruptcy:

But what’s the big risk for Hostess if it doesn’t offer bonuses that average about $100,000 per person? That they’ll quit and the company will go broke? That business will suffer? That the Hostess image could be tarnished?

Hostess is already bankrupt. All that’s happening is a sell-off and winding up. It has no image other than as a once-profitable enterprise with universally-recognized brands that was driven into bankruptcy through a combination of lousy management and bitter unions. While managers may blame workers for driving the ultimate stake through its heart, it would be more than a little disingenuous to suppose management actions had nothing whatever to do with the decline. Unions, dumb as they can be, don’t kill healthy companies for fun.

While requesting permission for the bonuses, Hostess’s lawyers also reported that it can’t pay retiree benefits, and quit contributing to the pension plan more than a year ago.

(Kelly McParland at National Post.com; emphasis in original.  Via skippy.)

Additionally, education seems to be unnecessary for many jobs (although it's not really the education; it's the hiring filter).

Hmmmmm.  The impression one might get is that corporate America only wants to hire young healthy kids fresh out of college/university with advanced degrees for $10/hour.

It's one of the reasons strong unions are needed.  Another has to do with how labor gets organized in the US; Jane McAlevey talks about that and other matters in an interview with Sarah Jaffe at AlterNet.  (I managed to mislay the URL; thankfully, Avedon linked to it today.)

And incidentally?  Florida Republicans come clean; they don't want you to vote.

...And Fill His Mouth With Garlic

Apparently Mr. Norquist is not worried.

Terrance (Republic of T) on the "fiscal cliff," Norquistism, and risk:

The stakes are different for Democrats, because the stakes are different for Democrats’ constituent groups. It’s unlikely that wealthy Americans are will go hungry or go without medical care if their taxes increase. But it’s very likely that many elderly, disabled, low-income, and middle- and working-class Americans will face such choices if Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are subject to deep cuts. These groups have traditionally supported Democrats, because the party could be counted on to defend these programs. That will change if they’re convinced that they can’t count on Democrats — or anyone else — to defend programs that are important to them[.]

In Memoriam

Marvin Miller, Major League Baseball Players Association.

All His Sins Remembered

Back in 2008 or some distant past, either I or Avedon discovered Bruce Bartlett and mentioned him to the other because he seemed to make sense for a conservative and then there was this election and we kind of forgot about him.

(People of the "left" do not think about people of the "right" nearly as much as people on the "right" seem to think.)

This is where he's been.

I’ve paid a heavy price, both personal and financial, for my evolution from comfortably within the Republican Party and conservative movement to a less than comfortable position somewhere on the center-left. Honest to God, I am not a liberal or a Democrat. But these days, they are the only people who will listen to me. When Republicans and conservatives once again start asking my opinion, I will know they are on the road to recovery.

I got that link from Driftglass, who lets Messrs. Bartlett and Sullivan have it with both barrels.

Honestly, what can you say about someone who has salvaged his own career as a Fearless, Truth-Waving Conservative by frantically bootlegging virtually the entire Liberal critique of Conservatism while at the same time maintaining his media credentials by joining the media embargo on acknowledging that Liberals even exist?

AlterNet's Alex Kane summarizes for those who don't want to read the actual article.

And Melissa McEwan at Shakesville suggests that absolving the man of prior opinions may be premature.

No More Mister Nice Blog has some good links, too, although not to Mr. Bartlett.

Viewing With Alarm, Part n

• The Murder Program, presented by Arthur Silber.
• "Push to step up domestic use of drones."

  The drone makers have sought congressional help to speed their entry into a domestic market valued in the billions. The 60-member House of Representatives' "drone caucus" - officially, the House Unmanned Systems Caucus - has helped push that agenda. And over the past four years, caucus members have drawn nearly $8 million in drone-related campaign contributions, an investigation by Hearst Newspapers and the Center for Responsive Politics shows.

No point in lighting the beacons; it's raining too hard.

I Didn't Like the 19th Century the First Time, Either

"Christian" poultry supplier (in horrific conditions for the workers) donating turkeys to a Missouri Air Force base:

According to a 2008 Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety hearing, "House of Raeford has repeatedly been cited by State and Federal occupational safety and health agencies: 130 serious safety violations since 2000, among the most of any U.S. poultry company." And it appears that the violations continue, as with this one from June 2011 where OSHA found that House of Raeford "did not furnish to each of his employees conditions of employment and a place of employment free from recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm to employees, in that employees were exposed to extended exposure to anhydrous ammonia due to improperly maintained/fitted doors where the broken doors allowed emergency ventilation of the atmosphere in the engine rooms to be reduced."

Read the rest, please.

Nibbling Away at the Privacy You Don't Have

Monitoring for lower rates, the surveillance state buy-in.

Hey, You're Welcome

A thank-you note from Meteor Blades at Daily Kos to the opponents of voter suppression, from those who did the research and publicized and educated, to those who stood on line for hours waiting to register, waiting to vote.

(Via private email list.)

Note to incipient fascists:  Do not mess with old women.  They know about older and fouler things than you.

Let the River Run

A little something about copyright and its purpose.  (Mercury Rising.)

There has been a certain pressure to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian fighting.  Folks, this blog snarks about politics.  The Middle East is not a snarkable situation.  Sorry.

In Memoriam

Larry Hagman, actor.  Announcement via Driftglass, who provides a video clip from Fail-Safe.

The Rest of the Cake

• That's Billie Holiday on the old MacBook.  Mmmmmmm, Billie Holiday...
• Lincoln, buddies with railroad magnates (which isn't in the movie).
• Fewer men are into casual sex than is generally believed.
• Nudism, the movement.
• College admissions and the stacked deck.
• Republic of T on a group encouraging clerks to avoid issuing marriage licenses for same-sex couples.

  I’ll keep this simple.
  
  First, once you decide its against your religion to carry out the duties of your position, it’s time to find a new job. Voters in these states have spoken, and marriage equality is the law. If you have a religious objection to serving certain people in the course of doing your job, you don’t belong in that job. Period.

  Further, that group has its own brewing scandal.  The only variation here is that the attorney is female.  Otherwise, Hypocrisy 101.
• Pat Robertson (yawwwwnnnnn) starting up the creaking machinery for the war on Christmas.  Really, Pat, just hang tinsel from yourself.

Last Few Drops of Milk

I hope.

• From lionization to not-even-a-bag-of-chips, the arc of Mr. Petraeus' reputation, by Mikey Weinstein at AlterNet.  
• David Simon (also at AlterNet) decries the American journalists' preoccupation with sex.  (Also, he independently seems to have discovered what I think of as the Michael Jackson rule:  Unless you're going to have sex in real life with someone famous, that person's orientation and sex life are only points of information, not exciting gossip.)

Jeremiad

Terrance at Republic of T explains to conservatives/Republicans, mostly using very small words simple language, why "minorities" won't vote for them.  With instances.  It is a spanking, and they won't read it, unfortunately, because they're chicken since Terrance's analysis is spot-on.

The reason that African Americans, Latinos, Asians, Women, gays, young people and a whole lot of white people didn’t vote for your party is simple. You spent much of the last four years insulting these groups with your rhetoric, and adding injury to insult with your policies. The biggest surprise after your shock at losing the election is your anger at all of these groups for not voting Republican. Your expectation that any of these groups would vote your way, and apparent belief that you’d given them any reason to do so, is beyond mystifying.

And then the Republicans get detailed like a '75 Chevy.

Future Reference

"An American Feminist Literary Canon." Links to several feminist/womanist essays in one place (Echidne of the Snakes).

"Just a Wanderer on the Face of This Earth"

From nbcnews.com, via Rising Hegemon, via Avedon's Sideshow:  The Benghazi hearing.

Why yes, that is "Legend of a Mind" playing in the background.

Ackerman went on to say that Republicans had "the audacity to come here" when the administration requested, for worldwide security, "$440 million more than you guys wanted to provide. And the answer is that you damn didn't provide it! You REDUCED what the administration asked for to protect these people. Ask not who the guilty party is, it's you! It is us. It is this committee, and the things that we insist that we need have to cost money."

In New York, the word we use is "chutzpah."

Chicken McNuggets

• The Rude One found an adult Republican.
• Paul Krugman at truthout on privatization mania, via nagasvoice at Dreamwidth.
• Amazing article (with video) on Dock Ellis, who should be better known for different things.

Truth and Collywobbles

• Harper's has made this article available to non-subscribers:  "How to Rig an Election."

  Since the American Revolution, election fraud has been attempted by every major political party, with frequent intraparty allegations, such as the claim of Ron Paul delegates that the rules were rigged against them at this year’s Republican National Convention. To say that Democrats haven’t committed their fair share of what were once quaintly called “shenanigans” would be disingenuous. Huey Long was a Democrat, as was virtually every candidate ever floated by Tammany Hall, not to mention Lyndon Johnson—whose election to the U.S. Senate in 1948, according to Robert Caro’s Means of Ascent, relied on flagrant vote tampering. Still, the main beneficiary of recent trends in election stealing seems to be the American right.
  
  This is no accident. As the twenty-first century unfolds, American politics continues to veer precipitously to the right, even as the demographic base for such a shift—older white conservative males—keeps shrinking. The engine of this seismic movement is a strategic alliance of corporate interests promoted by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. empire and orchestrated by Karl Rove and the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council. And meanwhile, the American right has in recent years been empowered by a slew of upset victories that range from unexpected to implausible, and that have frequently been accompanied by technical failures and anomalies, which are swept under the rug as rapidly as possible.

• You have no privacy.  None.

  But "privacy"? You don't have any. You haven't had any for a long, long time. And this latest story? Fodder for conversation, and outraged posts and articles of course, for a week or two, perhaps three. Then everybody will forget about it. There will be another BIG STORY to talk about, another BIG CONTROVERSY. It's a circus, with flashing lights and lots of colors. Oh, the beautiful colors!

• Harry Shearer (yes, that Harry Shearer, on leave from the comedy gig) on what New Jersey (that whole area, actually) can learn from New Orleans.
• The Petraeus business as Shakespearean.  See also Glenn Greenwald's take on the press coverage.  ETA:  Greenwald on the Surveillance State, via albatross in a comment at Making Light, reinforcing the second point above.  

But Wait! There's More!

Rich Abdill at Wonkette (remember Wonkette?  It's still out there) has what would have been the Spy magazine take on the Petraeus affair if that magazine still existed.

The .gif is a hoot, but there was this:

We also knew that Petraeus and Broadwell then broke up, ending the first ever documented case of someone in the military community being unfaithful to their spouse. Then, Petraeus sent her “thousands” of emails, because he, apparently, is quite a dork, and somehow not at all busy running the Central Intelligence Agency.

Isn't it time for a Kardashian to have a "wardrobe malfunction" or something?

ETA:  Via giandujakiss on Dreamwidth, who actually sees Wonkette.

EFTA:  The best headline ever!  If there's a tag for this, that will be it.  Also, a brief tutorial about the security aspects.

2001

There are, apparently, more questions in the Petraeus affair.  Because there has to be a conspiracy in there somewhere.  (There may well be--there are certainly unexplained coincidences and a shenanigan or two--but what I'm seeing is "We haven't milked this dry yet!")

ETA:  Double-backflip-secret plan (Borowitz.  Not the conspiracy you're looking for).

EFTA:  No More Mister Nice Blog sniffs at the original investigation and the inaction of a Republican.

Apparently this mess does have legs.  Hairy legs.  Also, somebody will talk.  They can't help it.  I can't help wondering what's being concealed by all this smoke and mirrors.  Are the budget talks going that badly?

"And Lying, She Knew, Was a Sin..."

So, morality.

(I'm more of an ethics person--ethics largely overlap morals, but there are some differences.  For example, a case can be made [although don't look at me; I won't make it] that it is moral to marry someone you do not love.  It is not, however, ethical.  Morality is mostly associated with religion, though it need not be; people who insist that you must be religious to have morals are [to paraphrase somebody or other] trying to sell you something.)

Ideally, morals should be used as a guideline to living a life that harms no one and respects your neighbors as people with their own lives trying to do the same.  The enforcement mechanism of morality is shame, with occasional removal from society for serious infractions.  This works reasonably well in small communities in which the members, children to ancient ones, know the other members.

Largely because there's not much privacy.

The problem comes in with the human desire/need to be superior in some way to other people.  Theodore Sturgeon devoted some paragraphs in Venus Plus X to how that worked in regard to sexism.  (Which means that Mr. Sturgeon's unconscious sexism becomes painfully evident by the time one finishes the book.)  In the area of morality, one gets serious moral actors, who appear to be living highly moral lives, following the dictates of the moral system, and expecting you to do the same and tsk-tsk-ing when you fail.  There are people who believe that all others need to be pressed into one moral Jello mold, whether or not other people possess the same sense of right and wrong.  There are people who insist on rigid adherence to a set of moral beliefs that they themselves ignore.

Yes, gentlemen-who've-been-caught-with-prostitutes-and/or-boys, I'm talking about you there.  Yes, "pro-life until your daughter needs an abortion," I mean you.  Yes, "small government and fiscal responsibility" chickenhawks who lied us into a wholly unnecessary war (lying and bearing false witness?  Immoral), I'm giving you epic side-eye.  It came to the point about two scandals ago that I assume that "conservatives" who harp on "morality" are a scandal waiting to happen.

The politically conservative Religious Right which isn't in the US would be the Jello mold people; they focus their moral spotlight on abortion and sexuality.  They got a big surprise on election day:

That claim — that framing of these issues as right vs. wrong, good vs. evil, biblical vs. unbiblical, moral vs. immoral — was asserted and accepted for most of the religious right’s 30-year run.

But not any more. That claim is still being asserted, but it is no longer being accepted.

Part of what happened on Tuesday was that millions of people rejected that claim on moral grounds. This was not just a political or pragmatic disagreement that preserved their essential claim of godly morality. It was a powerful counter-claim — the claim that the religious right is advocating immoral, unjust and cruelly unfair policies on both of its hallmark issues. Knee-jerk opposition to legal abortion and to gay rights weren’t just rejected as bad policy, but as bad morals — as being on the wrong side of right vs. wrong, good vs. evil, biblical vs. unbiblical, moral vs. immoral.

OK, how about marital infidelity? CIA head David Petraeus resigned suddenly, and it turned out he'd had an affair.  With his biographer.  And it was discovered by accident.  Oooh, moral panic!

Nope.

He's already resigned, rather than spending time denying the whole thing.  His boss expressed disappointment.  It's less the adultery than the security problem--the CIA always feared that gay agents could be blackmailed (that shame thing), and here's the chief engaging blah blah blah. No legs.  If it's remembered six months from now, I will be astonished.  (10@10, during the airing of 10 songs from 1997, slipped in what sounded like a conversation in a bad romcom, and only at the very end did I twig to who those women were and who was under discussion, because I have largely spaced the timing and the details of that scandal, although I have to wonder how my former employer [who was a staunch Republican and very shocked] took the news that the head caller-for-impeachment was, at the time, doing the very same thing.  I suppose it depends on which side one butters one's politician.)  As for the other party in the affair, Mr. Somerby at The Daily Howler compares her behavior to the press corps' fawning on (some of) the political candidates in 1999, minus the sex.  Which, ew (the fawning.  Not the sex).

Arthur Silber, who has been calling out the evils of people in power for years, has a long essay on the prime and uncalled-out sin of murder (what?  You thought morals were only about sexual improprieties?  That's what they want you to think!) of the First Nations/Native American peoples and enslavement (what?  Slavery has been accepted in the past, but it's never been moral.  And don't even try to slide libertarian or BDSM arguments at me.  Not having.  Period) of indigenous people/Africans.

Although systematic, deliberate murder on a vast scale -- murder of an ungraspable number of innocent victims -- is woven into the very fabric of America, we have managed to convince ourselves that it was "necessary" and "justified," that we represent "civilization" and have no choice but to eradicate those "barbarian," "subhuman" forces that threaten us. We have managed to avoid the fact that, with comparatively very rare exceptions, no threat has ever existed until we intentionally provoked it. We learned these strategies of avoidance and self-deception from the beginning; today, they are central to our national mythology, a mythology that is false in every significant respect. This system of lies now operates with staggering effectiveness, blanketing the country and most of its population in a fog of unreality.

I don't believe in American Exceptionalism, except when I do ('50s-'60s childhood and a touch of High Ideals will do that), and over time I have come to understand that we are a country, like any other, with a history and a civic religion (not to be confused with spiritual religion), which other countries also possess (different ones, to be sure), and humans behaving like humans.  That is, both well and badly.

I don't think Americans should quit trying to be moral.  I think we should recognize, however, that a lot of "moral actors" are acting in bad faith, and that people who whine about morality do not have your best interests at heart.  (Also, we need to dump the "I'm squicked"="That's immoral" take on sex.  But that's just my opinion.)  It's time for adult conversation about morality.

(I heard that.)

PS:  This is the 2,000th post.  Yay!

Historic Accomplishments

This isn't 1968. The hippies are punching back.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, ladies and gentlemen.

Infinite Forgettery

So let me get this part out of the way:  I don't read Daily Kos.

(Yeah, you say, but what else is new?  You do Blogroll Amnesty Day.  You deliberately link to not-so-well-known writers who happen to write rings around most of the New York Times overpaid opinion floggers.  Why would you bother with the Great Orange Satan?  And is that Fleetwood Mac in the background?)

Well, I didn't read it even back in the day.  That is just the sort of dork I am.  I respect it as a blog, but it's huge and generates its own gravity.  And I'm not sure any good writer has come from there since the late Steve Gilliard.

I don't read Eschaton, either, unless I get pointed at something specific (although there was the time somebody pointed me at the "Total Eclipse of the Heart Literal Version," which caused Deth by Laphter--and which was several pages away two days later).

All that to explain that delux_vivens at Dreamwidth linked to this essay by HamdenRice -- at Daily Kos.

...[T]here were dueling diaries over the weekend about Dr. King's legacy, and there is a diary up now (not on the rec list but on the recent list) entitled, "Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Dream Not Yet Realized." I'm sure the diarist means well as did the others. But what most people who reference Dr. King seem not to know is how Dr. King actually changed the subjective experience of life in the United States for African Americans. And yeah, I said for African Americans, not for Americans, because his main impact was his effect on the lives of African Americans, not on Americans in general. His main impact was not to make white people nicer or fairer. That's why some of us who are African Americans get a bit possessive about his legacy. Dr. Martin Luther King's legacy, despite what our civil religion tells us, is not color blind. [Emphasis in original.]

Now. I have to say that this article grabbed me by the throat, largely because of the situations he later describes (and the fact that many of those conservatives/libertarians out there would like very much to return to this state of affairs), but mostly because --

Well, a lot of the struggle has been ... forgotten.

Yes.  Good Old American Historical Amnesia.  The struggle is dusty footage and old folks now.  A candidate for anything other than dog-catcher who can say "Oh, I would repeal that," and remain unpelted by rotten tomatoes exists.

Of course only the feelgood parts remain.

NB:  I am going to post this, a year later (originally written in September, 2011), but I still think it needs research and work.  The "feelgood parts remaining" is a human thing.  We are not angels, and we're actually closer to the animals than we'd like to think.  The "Drafts" folder is now largely cleared out.

Hi!

Just a quick shout-out to my Indonesian audience.  Nice to see you!

(See, that's why I don't "play" to a "demographic.")

It's Official

No, I didn't stay up biting my nails.  I don't do that anymore.

The New York Times has the story.

President Obama won handily.  (And what brings the blub is that people waited on lines for hours in order to vote.  Hours.  Four years ago, I said that if you could do that for a movie, you could do that to vote.  And we have.  Not that there were no shenanigans, you understand.)  The rape-apologists (I was thinking of a different epithet, but let that go) were spanked defeated.

Other news:  same-sex marriage approved by voters in Maine and Maryland; marijuana legalized for recreational use in Colorado and Washington.

There were some changes in the House of Representatives, but it's still majority Republican.  So we'll see.

But I will sleep better tonight.

Gooooooooooooood Morning, Vietnaaaaam

Round-up of Republican Satanic panic voter suppression stories, courtesy of Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast.  (And why am I not surprised that the "True the Vote" people are crooks?  And that's just one of the links.)

ETA:  Reports from Mercury Rising, Southern Beale, and Vagabond Scholar. Further updates as warranted.

Oh, and I've already voted.

Republicans?  That's a lollipop.  You do know what to do with a lollipop, right?

The Tea Leaves

I don't expect Tea Party stalwarts to get the joke.

• Jesse Curtis makes some predictions.
• Pamela Merritt reflects on voter education ... and wolves.
• AlterNet:  Republicans trying to introduce the specter of rigged electronic voting machines.  Er...anyone remember who owns those machines?  And which way Republican Satanic panic voter fraud has been running?
• ETA:  Speaking of voter fraud--Echidne of the Snakes on the threats to democracy from both sides.
• Some quotes on the election, from Anna van Z.
• Something Obama should be promoting.
• Ohio voting problems.
• "God bless the people who stand on lines for simple justice..."  (Florida early voting.)
• No More Mister Nice Blog:  An inappropriate simile from Peggy Noonan quoting Walker Percy.
• Some pseudo-Seuss for your entertainment.
• Why stolen elections matter.  ("Stollen" elections come down to which filling you prefer.)

  Which candidate gets your vote is not our concern here. As Americans, we agree on one thing: all citizens must have their right to a ballot and to have it counted. In the long run, our one best hope for a sustainable future is the power of an fully enfranchised people.

Extra credit For future reference:  Article in AlterNet about understanding the South.  (It reads like special pleading to me, but I could just be twitchy today.)

ETA:  Why activism is ineffective (because I just saw it.  There's a lot of stuff at AlterNet, and I don't always jump on intriguing titles).

Wee Bit o' Snark

Bribery in Ohio.

Stuff

Mercury Rising special.

• Reality says GOP is lying.
• Reasons to vote NO on voter restrictions.
• Another voter fraud case not involving anyone Republican Satanic panic Voter ID would prevent from voting.

Of A Saturday Morning Before 9 AM (!)

• Vagabond Scholar (Batocchio) on the "civility vs. honesty" cage match.  And why honesty must win, or we're all in trouble.  (Via skippy.)
  

  In today's political landscape, clutching one's pearls and bemoaning the lack of "bipartisanship" is like praying for less arson while voting to defund firefighters. Or praying for less crime while voting to defund cops and after-school programs. Or praying for better education while firing teachers to balance the budget and attacking the teachers that remain as lazy, incompetent, overpaid slackers. (Oh, wait, the last one especially is actually happening. Funny, that.) The biggest problem in American politics is not a lack of "bipartisanship" – it's the preponderance of bullshit. It's that low-information and middle-information voters, and the entire corporate media empire that caters to them, cannot and will not call out extremism and irresponsibility.[Emphasis added.]

• I linked to this on the other side, but Daisy's also put it up: The Whedon "endorsement" of Zomney.
• Business Week's reaction to Sandy.  Via Southern Beale.
• Roger Ebert on his occasional forays into political writing and some reactions to that.
• Jesse Curtis endorses Obama with reservations.
  

  Now here's where the movie I've been watching is even more different: I voted for John McCain in 2008. And as Obama's presidency began I had a favorable view of the Republican Party. These past four years have been my political education, as I graduated college and started to follow the news closely. I was shocked by what I saw, especially last summer. I had not imagined that a political party could be as reckless and unpatriotic as the Republicans in congress have been these past four years. While I acknowledge a significant evolution in my views, it is important to note the extent to which I retain many of my traditional beliefs but have been revolted by the extremism of the Republican Party. And that has made me appreciate President Obama's calm, pragmatic governance all the more. I detest radicalism, and that fact points pretty clearly to voting for Obama on Tuesday.

• Let's talk about income inequality and watch conservative punditti squirm.
  

  And his demand, that people who discuss inequality go after root causes and tie those to specific outcomes, is a deliberate effort to muddy debate. Cowen can’t pretend not to know that inequality is the result of numerous causes, including tax, education and employment policies, and social safety nets. And it’s not hard to notice how he makes a not very subtle appeal to prejudice, with his evocation of angry poor urban people (those brown and black underclass types!) as problems in and of themselves.

  Naked Capitalism. Because it's about the money.

"Move 'em On, Head 'em Up"

As sung by Frankie Laine, who also sang the theme for Blazing Saddles.

• I have the itch that NaNoWriMo supposedly scratches. It just won't stay in one place long enough to scratch it to satisfaction.  Also, I trumped up some background that now just sits there going "You can't make me assimilate, ha-ha!"  Also, murdering the obnoxious cousin is too easy.
• Charles II at Mercury Rising with a different reason for the Electoral College.
• Apparently, Republicans are trying to delegitimatize Nate Silver (of 538).
• The voter suppression anecdote being used to prove the need for voter suppression--excuse me, tightening the laws against in-person voter fraud--appears to come from another country, and besides, the wench is dead.  Sunlight disperses vampires, does it not?
• It wasn't only Puritans:  the Founding Fathers' discouragement of pleasures.  (AlterNet excerpt from A Renegade History of the United States.)
• Via AlterNet, Stephen Colbert's video rant about Sandy-the-storm.
• What a "Biblically-governed" nation might look like:

  Only within the last 50 or 60 years, now that they've finally accepted they have no realistic hope of changing it, has the religious right flip-flopped and started claiming that the Constitution meant to establish a Christian nation all along. This staggeringly dishonest, wholesale rewriting of history has become their stock in trade, to the point of having full-time propagandists who obscure historical fact and promote the Christian-nation myth. These falsehoods filter into the political mainstream, until we have absurdities like Rick Perry claiming that the United States, a secular and democratic republic, was based on the legal code of an ancient theocratic monarchy. We, as liberals and progressives, should know better than to accept this falsehood. We have every reason to speak out and uphold America's proud history as a secular republic founded on reason and governed by the democratic will.

  AlterNet, including attempts over the years to claim Christian-nation status.
• The Protestant Work Ethic as a Menace 2 Society.
• Echidne of the Snakes on misogynists and their assumptions:  Part I.  Part II.  Part III.  It is probably best to have a hot shower standing by for this, not because of Echidne's deconstructions, but for the sludge she has to go through to do them.
• Jesse Curtis wades through Dinesh D'Souza's impenetrable piece of propaganda so you don't have to.
• And twistedchick gives Mr. Romney both barrels.