Delineation: A Tangled Nest I wouldn't go so far just yet. As we move closer to actual votes being cast in the primaries, a thousand micro-threads will pop up about this or that moment of clarity, stunning lie, or jawdropping stupidity. We played with "candidate file" threads in 2008; I like the idea of having a general overview of each candidate. However, that doesn't do so much to explain the idea that pretty much everything I post about, say, Herman Cain equals some form of bad news: He's not scary to me in the sense that I will ever have to seriously consider the phrase, "President Herman Cain". He can't win. To the other, yes, a potential Cain presidency seems more fraught with dread than seeded with hope. But Cain is also exemplary of a problem with the GOP and, in the end, possibly voters as well. Like he said last year, he can "take the race card off the table" by telling people to vote for him because he's black. This seems a bit of a contradiction. Then again, it's the GOP. For some, that's indicative of, well, something. As Constant has noted, it seems Cain is trying to lead the Republican Party to a "post-racial" conclusion that favors white supremacists. Favors white supremacists? one might ask. Well, that's kind of like how "conservative feminism" pandered to men. With Sarah Palin, the argument seemed to be, "You're sexist if you don't set a lower standard for her to achieve." We heard about sexism and gotcha-media when Katie Couric, who obviously just hates women, had the audacity to ask Palin so inappropriate a question as what she reads. I mean, how dare Couric be so misogynist! Or after her debate with Biden, conservative pundits essentially celebrated that she didn't stutter, or have any particular "deer in the headlights" moments. As cartoonist David Horsey explained, in 2008: But she didn't crumble. It took only minutes before one of the Obama fans cast a worried glance around the table and whispered under her breath: "She's doing really well." The babbling ignorance Palin had displayed in her interview with Katie Couric had been coached out of her during the debate prep sessions in Sedona and she was now quick with a response to every question from Gwen Ifill and every challenge from Joe Biden. Actually, she didn't respond to questions as much as she said what she had been coached to say. Palin avoided answers to queries about the current meltdown in the U.S. financial system and instead rattled off a pitch for her expertise on energy issues. The liberals at the table noted her blatant evasion but they also knew, as we all have known since John F. Kennedy charmed his way past Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential debate, that what is said in these appearances matters far less than the image a candidate projects. And Palin, the former television sports anchor, looked straight into the camera and projected confidence, good humor, a folksy style and, well, something that very few candidates for high office ever project: sex appeal. Rich Lowry caught it. The National Review columnist has been lampooned mercilessly in the last few days for writing this: I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it. Yes, for some people, Palin's constant smile, her winks, her head bobs, her dropped "G's" at the end of words — thinkin', doin', fightin' — her shout out to elementary school kids back home in Alaska and her spurning of formality may show a disturbing lack of seriousness at a time of national peril. But those winks and that smile, combined with those high heels, tight skirts, nice legs and long hair, have clearly got Rich Lowry and a few million other American males thinking things they've never thought about a political candidate before. And it's not just conservatives. After the debate, I talked with TJ, a female friend of mine with close ties to heartland voters. I like to check in with her for an angle on politics that differs from the view from urban Seattle. Unfortunately, she had missed the debate, but her ex-husband had caught it. He's a tree-hugging, Stanford-educated, bleeding heart liberal, but his reaction to the debate was: "She's hot." TJ was disgusted. "Men are so predictable," she told me. For Sarah Palin, doing well was not an exercise in policy comprehension or expository depth. It was whether or not she could keep her beauty-pageant poise and speak without stuttering or forgetting her lines. Whether or not her words had any relevant substance to consider was a separate question indeed. And we're seeing it again in 2011 with Michele Bachmann. Of candidates like Palin, Bachmann, and last year's failed imitation, Christine O'Donnell, comedian Bill Maher, in crowning them the "lovely milfs of the new right", explained, "these women represent something [old white] men miss dearly—the traditional idiot housewife". Much like Palin pandered to an older, uglier, "more traditional" aspect of the Republican Party, Herman Cain seems vying for some sort of acknowledgement or resigned vote from the supremacist factions of the GOP. And this is insidious. Playing to the comfort of racists, saying, "I might be a Negro, but I'll be your Negro!" is so 1852. To reiterate Constant's point: There's something much more insidious than that about the Cain candidacy, and it's such a delicate subject that most members of the media are too polite (or frightened) to mention it. To untangle the secret of Cain's success, we first have to start with teabagger House freshman Joe Walsh, a Republican from Illinois, and his comments to Salon about Barack Obama late last month: Why was he elected? Again, it comes back to who he was. He was black, he was historic. And there's nothing racist about this. It is what it is. If he had been a dynamic, white state senator elected to Congress, he wouldn't have gotten in the game this fast. This is what made him different... [The media] was in love with him because they thought he was a good liberal guy and they were in love with him because he pushed that magical button: a black man who was articulate, liberal, the whole white guilt, all of that. Nobody is really color-blind; it would be idiotic to suggest that race had nothing to do with the man who Barack Obama has become. But some right-wing radicals really do believe that Obama became president based solely on his blackness. Consider all the right-wing jokes about President Obama's reliance on teleprompters, even though every modern president has used teleprompters when giving prepared speeches, and even though Obama has proven time and again—particularly on January 29, 2010, when he nimbly debated congressional Republicans about health care and the economy with no teleprompter in sight—to be a gifted extemporaneous speaker. Consider the conservative pundits—including best-selling right-wing mudslinger Jerome Corsi—who believe that Barack Obama's memoir, Dreams from My Father, was ghostwritten by white academic (and 1960s revolutionary) Bill Ayers. Consider the insane, and thankfully discredited, crusade to prove that the president of the United States wasn't even an American. Republicans refuse to give Obama any credit as his own man; they believe he coasted to the presidency because of the color of his skin. That's why Republicans keep pushing men like Michael Steele and Herman Cain for prominent positions. They believe that voters—especially black voters—will get confused if they're faced with more than one black guy on a ballot. (A similar line of thinking led to the fiery ascendance of Sarah Palin: McCain staffers believed that putting a woman on the ballot could confuse female voters upset over the failure of Hillary Clinton's campaign.) And not only is Cain a black guy, but he's a black guy who came out of virtually nowhere to run an outsider's campaign, couched in the language of Martin Luther King Jr. and propelled by a media praising him for the high quality of his public speaking. (The 1994 Newsweek article that credited Cain with a role in torpedoing Hillary Clinton's universal health care plan also unfortunately referred to Cain as "articulate.") Sound familiar? He's a twisted mirror image of Obama riding high on the cresting wave of a bunch of white folks who can't manage to believe they lost the election in 2008 to a black man. Cain's candidacy is ultimately powered by nothing more than ignorance and hate. (Boldface accent added) Now, there is an obvious retort to all of this, that folks like Horsey, a Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist; Constant, a book review editor for Seattle's "gay weekly" newspaper; and myself, a generally useless cyst on the metaphysical hindquarters of America, are all reading too much into the situation. That is, one can tell Horsey to stick to his two-panel, one-liner cartoons. One can remind Constant to shut up and get back to reviewing books that nobody else under the sun is going to read. And one can certainly offer me all sorts of interesting prescriptions involving my head, my ass, and getting a real job selling cigarettes all night at the Plaid Pantry so that my opinions can be given more credibility for having less thought put into them ... er ... right. Anyway. Yeah, so there it is. Meanwhile, as Cain avoids the race card by playing it, how can anyone escape the context? And when conservatives check in to praise Cain's ignorance as an asset? Perhaps when Cain says Obama isn't a "real black man", he just means that the president is too damn uppity. That's what it looks like to anyone who isn't already sold against Obama for whatever strange reasons. Oh, please do fill us in. Many will read that and simply shrug, saying, "Well, yeah. We got the best Republican president we've had since Bill Clinton." And, well, you know. It's like Alan Greenspan said. Bill Clinton was the "best Republican president we've had in a while". Right up there with Nixon, apparently. One thing I've noticed is that when it comes to policy and politics, very few people actually seem to like President Obama. To the other, I also find it significant to consider why. Because as the Tea Party screams about Kenya, anti-colonialism, Nazis, Jews, communism, and all that, actual liberals are left scratching their heads and trying to figure out where the guy they backed in 2008 went. A lot of critics rely on the "Chicago machine" to explain their dissatisfaction with Obama. To the other, how many of those would accept if I wrote off Herman Cain simply because he's from Georgia? ____________________ Notes: Horsey, David. "Sarah Palin's wink factor". SeattlePI.com. October 4, 2008. Blog.SeattlePI.com. July 5, 2011. http://blog.seattlepi.com/davidhorsey/2008/10/04/sarah-palins-wink-factor/ Maher, Bill. "New Rules". Real Time With Bill Maher, #193. HBO, Los Angeles. October 15, 2010. HBO.com. July 5, 2011. http://www.hbo.com/real-time-with-b...aher/episodes/0/193-episode/article/new-rules Constant, Paul. "Hard to Choke Down". The Stranger. June 28, 2011. TheStranger.com. July 5, 2011. http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/hard-to-choke-down/Content?oid=8845058 Greenspan, Alan. Interview by Neil Cavuto. Your World With Neil Cavuto. FOX News, New York. September 18, 2007. Transcript. FOXNews.com. July 5, 2011. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297250,00.html
I think the Chicago machine has a particularly duplicitous history, and is fraught with systemic fraud and mob control. That's a lot different than just being a guy from the south with a lousy education. At least to me.
Notes on The Hermanator™ But it's still a cultural expectation of results based on some perception of geographic origin. I upset one of our Sciforums neighbors last year in running with an anti-Georgia theme voiced by a former governor of that state: Republicans, according to former Gov. Ray Barnes, are "losing Georgia jobs, and making the state a national punchline". Of course, Georgia is a political machine that last year included state legislative hearings into an alleged covert DoD program to insert microchips into the "vaginal-rectum area". It's kind of like the problem with syllogisms; they do not need to reflect reality in order to function correctly: • Chicago is a corrupt political establishment. • Barack Obama is from Chicago. ∴ Barack Obama is corrupt. To turn that onto Georgia? • Georgia is a national punch line. • Herman Cain is from Georgia. ∴ Herman Cain is a laughingstock. I would think that, in either case, corruption or foolishness would be more evident in how the individual conducts himself. That is, to what degree does Obama's inherent corruption as an American politician rise above and beyond the usual and generally accepted? (To wit: It's not so much that former Gov. Blagojevich did anything others haven't done; he just happened to get caught. The idea of buying votes and appointments is hardly new, though one might suggest that the Chicago influence means people were a little more casual about it, thus allowing federal prosecutors a chance to get it on tape. To the other, Rep. John Boehner once handed out campaign contributions from tobacco companies on the House floor in advance of a subsidy vote. Yes, we know there is corruption in politics, but what about Chicago in general, or Obama specifically, is so notably unique?) Cain's foolishness is evident insofar as Paul Constant describes it: Whenever Herman Cain opens his mouth, something stupid comes out of it. In this case, we might look at the longstanding, seemingly contradictory theme Herman Cain has been pushing: Take the race card off the table! Vote for me because I'm black! And this sort of stuff is why it's fun to watch Cain. Like I said at the outset: So many jokes, so little time; an adventure in the eternally tasteless. I mean, when you can start off with a bumper sticker alluding to both biblical murder and common rhetoric among black men (e.g., "To kill a brother?"), you know it's going to be a hell of a ride. I mean, think of a quality of life argument: What can Herman Cain do for the economy? The standing examples are Burger King and Godfather's Pizza. You know, there are a lot of people around the country who, upon hearing that Herman Cain was the CEO of Godfather's Pizza, thought, "Really? Godfather's still exists?" Burger King is second-rate at best. Godfather's is absolutely bottom shelf. They're not necessarily good metaphors if one hopes to boost Cain's credibility as a candidate. We don't need to look to Georgia to explain Herman Cain. Capitalism suffices, and if not, just listen to what the guy says. Again, reiterating Constant: He has proudly announced that no Muslims will be allowed to work in a Cain administration. Let's set aside the illegality of that for a minute and admire the shit that Cain backed into when asked about his no-Muslim policy at the second Republican presidential debate: First, the statement was "Would I be comfortable with a Muslim in my administration?" not that I wouldn't appoint one. That's the exact transcript. And I would not be comfortable because you have peaceful Muslims and then you have militant Muslims, those that are trying to kill us. And so when I said I wouldn't be comfortable, I was thinking about the ones that were trying to kill us. Translated: He can't tell the difference between someone who wants to kill everyone in America and a normal human being. Replace the word "Muslims" with "African Americans" or "Asians" or, hell, "Scientologists," and you have a media hurricane of career-ending proportions. But because Cain attacked the bogeyman of the moment, every presidential candidate on that stage, with the exception of Romney (who issued self-interested boilerplate about religious freedom), let his statement stand unchallenged. Cain also admitted in an interview with John J. Miller for conservative newsmagazine National Review that he doesn't know anything about the wars in Libya and Afghanistan; our free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea; or what George W. Bush's immigration policies were. That last hole in Cain's knowledge is especially problematic because he has praised Bush's administration as practically flawless—when pressed to name a single mistake George W. Bush made, Cain said that Bush should have moved forward on his stated desire to privatize Social Security. (Obviously, if our Social Security accounts were tied up in stocks during the economic collapse of 2008, old people would have been diving headfirst into traffic.) Diving into traffic? The traffic-choking pileup that is The Hermanator™ makes for a rubbernecking paradise. It's a purist's dream exercise in fourth-frame humor. If one wrote Herman Cain's campaign as a complete work of fiction, having never even heard of the guy, who would believe a depiction of such astounding ineptitude? As a work of fiction, Herman Cain would be denounced as the racist product of a vengeful, black-hating liberal. Meanwhile, Iowa voters recently gave Cain a third-place nod, behind Romney and Bachmann. The Real Clear Politics average presently has Cain in fifth overall, but third among declared candidates (both Sarah Palin and Rick Perry are polling better than Cain). If nothing else, this gives us some insight into the Tea Party and other factions that are netting Cain between five and twelve percent of respondents. Of course, the season is young, so it doesn't say a whole lot that Cain is polling ahead of Tim Pawlenty. And one wonders whether Mitt Romney will satisfy certain sectors of the Republican Party. But I think it an interesting question whether or not Herman Cain will survive 2011 as a serious candidate, drop out, or emerge in 2012 as the voice of dissent, representing those who just aren't ready to concede the ticket to a Romney or Pawlenty. I don't imagine Cain dropping out until it's well past over for him. He's in the first wave of replacing staff that have, for whatever reasons, abandoned ship. He lost three in Iowa, one in New Hampshire, and a regional coordinator. Former Iowa organizational director Tina Goff told CNN that Cain "wasn't willing to make the commitment to Iowa necessary to win the [Ames] straw poll". Even more cryptically, Charlie Gruschow, an Iowa Tea Party ally, told Politico, "I'm still optimistic about Herman and the campaign. But I honestly didn't feel right about everything." Meanwhile, the campaign is hiring new staff; spokeswoman Ellen Carmichael told reporters the changes were "miniscule", and explained that the campaign is "in great shape". Which means we get at least the rest of the summer to witness The Hermanator™ in action. ____________________ Notes: Constant, Paul. "Hard to Choke Down". The Stranger. June 28, 2011. TheStranger.com. July 5, 2011. http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/hard-to-choke-down/Content?oid=8845058 Jacobs, Jennifer. "Iowa Poll: Romney, Bachmann in lead; Cain third; others find little traction". 2012 Iowa Caucuses. June 25, 2011. Caucuses.DesMoinesRegister.com. July 5, 2011. http://caucuses.desmoinesregister.c...-lead-cain-third-others-find-little-traction/ Real Clear Politics. "2012 Republican Presidential Nomination". (n.d.) RealClearPolitics.com. July 5, 2011. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ep.../republican_presidential_nomination-1452.html Schwarz, Gabriella. "Cain hires new staff". Political Ticker. July 5, 2011. PoliticalTicker.Blogs.CNN.com. July 5, 2011. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/05/cain-hires-new-staff/ Summers, Juana. "Herman Cain loses key Iowa tea party backer". Politico. July 5, 2011. Politico.com. July 5, 2011. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0711/58344.html
Transpond This? I should probably make some sort of smart-ass comment about the "lamestream" media, since then we can just say it's something that Jim Galloway of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution made up for lack of anything useful to write about. In truth, I never looked up the hearing transcript, so it might be a satire article that I just didn't catch: We often say that insanity reigns at the state Capitol. But when we do, we do not literally accuse the people inside of letting their grip on reality slip. We simply mean that our ability to fathom their motives, or their ability to express them, has fallen short. Referring to a politician as delusional is simply entertaining hyperbole. But it is something that becomes much less funny when a truly tortured soul bears her torment. Last Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee entertained SB 235, the bill sponsored by Sen. Chip Pearson (R-Dawsonville) to prohibit the involuntary implantation of microchips in human beings. Three states, according to Galloway, had already passed such laws when Georgia's bill came up. In Virginia, the law apparently has Biblical overtones, though Sen. Pearson explained last year that the Georgia bill was intended to keep a step ahead of developing technology, so that legislators wouldn't be caught flat-footed when everything goes wrong. Gallow continued to explain: At the House hearing, state Rep. Ed Setzler (R-Kennesaw), who is shouldering the legislation in the House, spoke earnestly for better than a half hour on microchips as a literal invasion of privacy. He was followed by a hefty woman who described herself as a resident of DeKalb County. "I'm also one of the people in Georgia who has a microchip," the woman said. Slowly, she began to lead the assembled lawmakers down a path they didn't want to take. Microchips, the woman began, "infringe on issues that are fundamental to our very existence. Our rights to privacy, our rights to bodily integrity, the right to say no to foreign objects being put in our body." She spoke of the "right to work without being tortured by co-workers who are activating these microchips by using their cell phones and other electronic devices." She continued. "Microchips are like little beepers. Just imagine, if you will, having a beeper in your rectum or genital area, the most sensitive area of your body. And your beeper numbers displayed on billboards throughout the city. All done without your permission," she said. It was not funny, and no one laughed. "Ma'am, did you say you have a microchip?" asked state Rep. Tom Weldon (R-Ringgold). "Yes, I do. This microchip was put in my vaginal-rectum area," she replied. Setzler, the sponsoring lawmaker, sat next to the witness – his head bowed. "You're saying this was involuntary?" Weldon continued. The woman said she had been pushing a court case through the system for the last eight years to have the device removed. Wendell Willard (R-Atlanta), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, picked up the questioning. "Who implanted this in you?" he asked. "Researchers with the federal government," she said. "And who in the federal government implanted it?" Willard asked. "The Department of Defense." "Thank you, ma'am." To the other, the bill has not moved since Galloway wrote about it last year. The "Microchip Consent Act of 2009" isn't dead yet, but seems to be in something of a coma. I'm not sure what to tell you, beyond that. ____________________ Notes: Galloway, Jim. "Delusions, the Legislature and an implanted microchip". Political Insider. April 19, 2010. Blogs.AJC.com. July 5, 2011. http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insi...s-the-legislature-and-an-implanted-microchip/ Georgia General Assembly. "SB 235 — Microchip Consent Act of 2009; prohibit requiring a person to be implanted with a microchip". April 14, 2010. www1.Legis.GA.gov. July 5, 2011. http://www1.legis.ga.gov/legis/2009_10/sum/sb235.htm
Think about that. In order to get one crazy constituent off his back and/or to get publicity, a guy tries to pass a law. As if such an act wouldn't already be illegal (it's called battery). Although this is a really extreme example, that's how we have been trained to think. We skip directly over existing remedies and move to "We need new gov't action." Like running to mommy.
Antifederalism in the Twenty-First Century I think part of it is playing to the audience. Of all the crazy constituents a legislator might offend the audience by trying to duck, I don't think people are going to come down too hard on a politician for ducking sex abuse fantasies. And I know that's a harsh phrasing, but that's what it is, a sex abuse fantasy. Incubi? Extraterrestrial abduction and rectal probing? That's the tradition government conspiracies to insert tracking devices into our rectogenital regions descend from. In truth, I would be quite fascinated to have access to the paper trail: "The woman said she had been pushing a court case through the system for the last eight years to have the device removed." I mean, you have a foreign object in your body that you don't want. My own doctor declined to remove a piece of pencil lead that has been stuck in my leg for over twenty years on the grounds that it isn't causing any specific trouble, which thus treads into the realm of unnecessary surgery. If it gives me a problem, he'll take it out. But I'm not certain that's really what's going on in Georgia. And that's what the paper trail would show us. Eight years of pushing a court case? There has to be something. A filing of some sort. So what is this court case? Is it that doctors are somehow refusing to remove a known foreign object from someone's body for personal ethical reasons (i.e., unnecessary surgery)? Are they willfully participating in the conspiracy, thus knowing the device is there, and refusing to remove it because they haven't received their secret world-domination tribunal authorization to end this poor woman's exploitation? Or are they part of the conspiracy because they're "doctoring" (if you'll excuse the uh ... er, never mind) the imaging to conceal the fact that there is a tracking device in her ass in order to make her sound like she's crazy? Because the thing is that I can see this kind of law having some appeal in the us/them context of a state politician posturing against the big, evil federal government°. That is, I recall in the days before the internet, a woman sued God for striking a tree with a bolt of lightning that resulted in the tree toppling onto her house. Now, I know that part is true; I picked it up from a compendium somewhere when I was a kid. What might be urban legend is that the judge found for the complaint, but left it up to her to collect, kind of a tongue-in-cheek, "Have it your way," decision. Regardless of truth or legend, though, I don't see the electoral appeal of holding hearings and pushing a bill that intended to outlaw EBE abduction and forcible implant of tracking devices, nor allow the indictment of angels who tell parents to kill their children, and so on. Part of the appeal of this bill is to rally up the supporters against the federal government. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Yes, I know it's Texas, but still .... Jeff Danziger, March 3, 2010 I do not disagree that there are already plenty of ways to prosecute DoD forcible implants, including illegal detention, battery, and even whatever malicious or illegal surgery counts as. So, yes, there is an element of "skip[ping] directly over existing remedies", but I don't think it's so much a nanny or mommy idea. Rather, it's grandstanding against the federal government. To the other, though, here's the really strange part. If I genuinely believed the federal government was sending DoD teams around to install tracking devices in American citizens°, then I would would keep an eye toward the way in which the federal government has been passing laws and what those laws are intended to do. From my vantage, looking across at what I consider the more paranoid elements of libertarianism, I do not doubt that they are very much fretting about how close the United States is to an era of secret laws that we do not know we have broken until the government officially "disappears" us. I mean, Abu Ghraib and black-site prisons shocked nobody from the Cold War era who remember all that spy versus spy and filthy proxy war stuff. But I suppose we all had to pretend we were shocked, or something, since the issue came so clearly front and center in the public discourse. Still, though, I can see the utility in passing a pre-emptive law against federal government intrusion. But just barely, because I would also point out that if we officially enter an era of secret laws, it won't matter what bulwarks the states raise. Ultimately, it's an exercise in futility. And all of that attempt to grant the Georgia legislature some credit against derision. In truth, I think it's probably more a case of conservative-libertarian grandstanding against the federal government because that sort of performance does find an affirmative response among a certain voting bloc. But, no. It does not help Georgia's reputation much, does it? ____________________ Notes: ° state politician posturing against the big, evil federal government — That proposition in itself is fraught with philosophical peril, but ... well, to be honest, I'm not certain what that catch is. There are several viable options. But it doesn't matter to the voters such histrionics are intended to impress. ° tracking devices in American citizens — Part of the question I've always had, whether it be angels, aliens, or the DoD, is the shadowy implanters' strange obsession with people who are far removed from centers of power, or even simply of considerably lesser influence. Think of author Whitley Streiber; some people I knew discounted his story specifically because he was a scary story writer, but not based simply on his skill in craft. Rather, I knew people who argued the point of whether it was wise to abduct and abuse a well-known writer, or if that was actually a sly ruse because nobody would believe it wasn't just another of his weird stories. Maybe it's just jealousy: What gives? What makes a large woman in DeKalb County so special? Or perhaps the DoD program is still in beta testing. Who knows? But that's what happens when we step through this looking glass.
When you say " I do not doubt that they are very much fretting about how close the United States is to an era of secret laws that we do not know we have broken until the government officially "disappears" us." it brings to mind another way to accomplish this, though accidentally. In litigation, it is common for litigants, when responding to requests for production of documents in order to find evidence held by the other side, for the producing party to dump huge amounts of paper on the requesting party in the hope that it will take too much time, effort and concentration to find the important stuff in the midst of the garbage. If you have ever tried to look for such a needle in such a boring haystack you will understand how effective that strategy can be. I say this only to illustrate that the rate of production of regulations and laws is now so high, and the rate at which they are eliminated is so low, that the sheer volume of rules we are supposed to follow is impossible to comply with. Any one of which can be used for a targeted prosecution if a prosecutor gets the motivation, which often happens for political reasons (which is one of the reasons the wealthy contribute to every candidate that might win-protection). But one of the saving graces of the currently existing sheer quantity of regulation, is that even the enforcers of these rules don't/can't/won't know them all or how they interact. For example, the IRS. But as I say, if you become the focus of governmental or prosecutorial ire, you will most likely have done something illegal. All they have to do is keep digging.
Cain Developing a Reputation Raising Some Cain Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! And you can take that to the bank .... The capitalist criticizes the moneymakers. The tag line on the YouTube page reads, "President Obama might raise $1 billion. But we're going to raise some Cain!" Some puns should be left to rot. When running for president, invoking the world's most infamous fratricide just doesn't seem wise. Setting that aside, though, Jamil Smith notes something obvious: His latest ad, "Priceless," mimics the famous MasterCard ads in order to make the pitch that a campaign raising a lot of money is somehow a bad thing. Mr. Cain attacks fellow GOP candidate Mitt Romney for raising over $10 million in one day in May. He also says Mr. Obama claims he'll be able to raise $1 billion, with a "b," for his campaign. (There was no such prediction, in the Washington Times article Cain shows in the ad, or otherwise.) Smith is correct about the Washington Times article; the billion dollar prediction actually comes from a couple of college professors: "Just given the base he begins with and the ability to go out and raise money online now, I expect he will end up being the first billion-dollar candidate," said Anthony J. Corrado Jr., a government professor at Colby College. At the same time, Mr. Corrado noted, the task won't be "as easy as people suggest" given that presidents running for re-election historically experience drop-offs among previous donors .... .... One fundraising factor beyond the president's control is the Republican presidential nominee. The GOP could pick a "mainstream candidate or they could pick a goofball," said University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato, adding that it's a lot more likely that Mr. Obama will surpass $1 billion if the GOP nominee "scares" Democrats. Playing the role of the outsider is a classic challenge, and for Mr. Cain it is no different. He must simultaneously work the system while denouncing it; publicly disdain the moneygoround while rallying financial support. Personalizing it, as he has from the outset, can win powerful responses, but in his clamor to challenge President Obama so directly, he exposes himself to the simple and obvious criticism that facts just aren't so important to him. There is a certain, undeniable tactical benefit if Cain can focus the 2012 election on himself versus the big, bad President Obama, but if his reputation for playing so loose with facts comes to identify him, it is all for naught. ____________________ Notes: Smith, Jamil. "Herman Cain is so over that money thing". The Maddow Blog. July 13, 2011. MaddowBlog.MSNBC.com. July 13, 2011. http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/07/13/7074855-herman-cain-is-so-over-that-money-thing Rowland, Kara. "A president worth a billion dollars?" The Washington Times. March 23, 2011. WashingtonTimes.com. July 13, 2011. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/mar/23/a-president-worth-a-billion-dollars/
Ignorance is bliss. We is us. Citizens. I guess it's possible you may be excluded. Example from 3 minutes ago. Coincidentally. http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/07/14/un-bee-lievable-nyc-fines-man-2000-for-not-watering-his-hive/ Just found this: So the total number of Federal crimes as of the end of 2007 exceeds 4,450. And this: Regulatory page counts. One of the most commonly used yardsticks of regulatory activity is the size of the daily Federal Register, which reports regulatory changes. Before any new federal rule can be finalized, the agency proposing the rule must have it published in the register. In 2008, the Federal Register hit a record 79,435 pages for the year.[6] In 2009, the number dropped to 68,598. Such a decrease is not unusual in presidential transition years. The size of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) provides a second yardstick of regulatory activity. Unlike the Federal Register, which is a catalog of regulatory changes, the CFR is a compendium of all existing regulations. In 2008, the CFR weighed in at 157,974 pages, having increased by 16,693 pages since the start of the George W. Bush Administration.[7] In 2009, the page count hit a record high of 163,333. So I guess the question is: Did you read those 5300 some-odd pages of new regulations added in 2009 to see if you were continuing on the path of righteousness? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! How about the 2010 batch? That's a lot of homework. And that's only your Federal responsibilities. How about the state laws, criminal, civil and regulatory? I better cut down on my naps. You know, that 3 page limit is starting to sound more reasonable. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Cain Clarifies His Unfitness to be President Hermanating the First Amendment Let us first start with the oath: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." (United States Constitution, II.1.8) The Oath of Office of the President of the United States, according to the supreme law of the land, the Constitution of the United States. Herman Cain wants to take this oath. He wants to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. With no trace of irony, Cain said he thought building the mosque was “an infringement and an abuse of our freedom of religion,” declaring that “this isn’t an innocent mosque”: ”It is another example of why I believe in American laws and American courts,” Cain said. “This is just another way to try to gradually sneak Shariah law into our laws, and I absolutely object to that.” A little background: The proposed mosque in Tennessee became a target of arson and vandalism in September of last year, not long after the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” became the freak show story of the summer. A local group tried to block construction, claiming that Islam wasn’t actually a religion. The plaintiffs’ attorney argued that Muslims aren’t entitled to the same rights as others because “these are the same people who flew jets into the World Trade Center on 9/11,” and said the whole thing was an effort to bring Tennessee under Taliban-style Islamic law. The whole controversy prompted the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department to file a brief noting that Islam is in fact, a religion. As with Cain’s unconstitutional religious test however, the problem for him and other mosque opponents is not sharia law. It’s U.S. law. There are both federal and state laws on the books that prevent local zoning laws from being used to block construction of religious institutions, which is why opponents argue that Islam isn’t a religion. At both the federal and the state level, those bills were the work of Republicans — it just didn’t occur to them at the time that “religious freedom” applied to Muslims. The judge, not surprisingly, agreed that Islam is a religion and let construction go forward. (Serwer) It would seem that, according to the Hermanator™ ... well, okay, there is no way I can encapsulate any theory of the thinking behind his position that doesn't sound farcical. I mean, what does it sound like if one says, "Herman Cain wants to protect and preserve freedom of religion by prohibiting religions he does not like"? It sounds like a bad joke. Of course, this is Herman Cain we're talking about. Accurate descriptions of his campaign rhetoric often sound like bad jokes. There is one thing to be said for playing to a market sector, but quite another of a presidential candidate who publicly and proudly declares his opposition to the very Constitution he wants to swear to protect, preserve, and defend. • • • Update: Tim Murphy of Mother Jones covered the same story, but check out this opening paragraph: GOP Presidential candidate Herman Cain has an Islam problem. The former Godfather's pizza godfather put his foot in his mouth early in his campaign when he told Think Progress he wouldn't appoint any Muslims in his administration (which would be unconstitutional), and again when he said Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) wasn't loyal to the Constitution because he's Muslim, and again when he said he has never encountered an American Muslim who is loyal to the Constitution, and then again when he denied ever saying any of those things and blamed the media.____________________ Notes: United States Constitution. 1992. Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School. July 16, 2011. http://topics.law.cornell.edu/constitution/overview Serwer, Adam. "Herman Cain winning the anti-Muslim primary hands down". The Plum Line. July 15, 2011. WashingtonPost.com. July 16, 2011. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ry-hands-down/2011/03/04/gIQAP7IVGI_blog.html Murphy, Tim. "Herman Cain Takes on the First Amendment". Mother Jones. July 15, 2011. MotherJones.com. July 16, 2011. http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/07/herman-cain-building-mosques-violates-freedom-religion
Hey Tiassa! . . . aren't you a moderator on Sciforms? . . . .Don't think YOU should be expressing your political views here . . . you should know better!
All of the mods here have views and opinions and they do express them. And there is nothing wrong with that as long as they are fair and consistent and enforce forum rules. And Tiassa is always fair and consistent in his enforcement of forum rules.
All of the mods here have views and opinions and they do express them. And there is nothing wrong with that as long as they are fair and consistent and enforce forum rules. And Tiassa is always fair and consistent in his enforcement of forum rules. Comment: Tiassa may be consistent . . .but "fair"? . . I think NOT! Certainly lowers my expectations from Sciforums moderators!!
Mod Hat — Let us stay on topic, please Mod Hat — Let us stay on topic, please In the interests of keeping this thread on topic, I have brought the question of moderator participation in general discussions to SFOG. Further input on this matter should be directed to "Inquiry: Should Moderators Just Shut the Hell Up?" Thank you.
Tiassa: GREAT that you're taking control of MY thread (Cain Train) via your own! . . .your behavior confirms my suspicions that YOU ARE A MODERATOR WITH A POLITICAL AGENDA . . . it's O.K. for 'members' have such agendas - members deal with that incessantly on many threads . . . MODERATORS should have more class and exhibit fairness . . . you appear (to me) to lack such skills and prefer to control the fora much like other social networks. wlminex
The Rise of Herman Cain The Rise of Herman Cain The Christian Science Monitor today offers an analysis of Herman Cain's rise to potential frontrunner status in the wake of his CPAC straw poll victory: Herman Cain is on a roll in the GOP presidential sweepstakes, and it’s not hard to see why. The former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza is an affable, upbeat outsider with a record of success in business. Most important, he is focused on the issue voters care about most – the economy – with his “9-9-9” tax plan. When Texas Gov. Rick Perry stumbled in debates and descended from his front-runner perch, Mr. Cain was there to pick up the slack. He notched a surprise victory against Governor Perry in the Florida straw poll Sept. 24, and Cain is now second in national polls, behind former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. In CBS News’ latest survey, he and Mr. Romney are tied for first. The fact that many disaffected Perry voters went to Cain and not Romney – the Republican who polls best against President Obama – is telling. Romney also has an economic proposal, his 59-point jobs plan. But he has allowed himself to get caught up in point-scoring with Perry over Social Security and immigration, and away from his core economic message. And many conservatives still don’t trust Romney, who continues to defend his Massachusetts health-care reform, a model for Mr. Obama’s reform. Political analysts still call Cain a long-shot for the GOP nomination. But the race remains fluid, and now is his opportunity to build on his momentum. "There’s a door open such that people are willing to look at him and his accomplishments,” says Republican pollster David Winston. “Voters want candidates who say what they’ll do and try to lay out solutions.” To the other, Cain has also endured "moments of distraction", including his anti-Muslim statements and, in the last few days, his criticism of Rick Perry. Cain has backed away from both of those issues, holding a publicized meeting with prominent Muslim figures and offering an apology, and also waffling on "Headgate", the controversy about the Perry family hunting camp. And, as the Monitor notes, there is a rising controversy about Cain's book tour, though one wonders how the scandal of a politician promoting a book can possibly have legs. Meanwhile, Cain's appeal to win conservative votes might hurt him in the long run. As Republicans in general lament protests occurring on Wall Street and in cities across the nation as "class warfare", Cain's offering to the right wing seems a bit dangerous politically. ABC News reports: Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said the demonstrators are coming across as "anti-capitalism." The former CEO of Godfather's Pizza said the Occupy Wall Street protesters are trying to distract the country from President Obama's "failed policies." "Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks, if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself!" Cain said. "It is not a person's fault because they succeeded, it is a person's fault if they failed. And so this is why I don't understand these demonstrations and what is it that they're looking for." While it is easy enough to blame voters for a lack of vigilance in politics, it seems something of a risk to denounce the American people as solely responsible for their individual conditions in society. Certainly, there are plenty who have simply failed to haul themselves up by the proverbial bootstraps, but there are many who will pause to wonder, "Wait a minute. You mean it's my fault I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth?" And, of course, there are others who will remember things like the Drug War and say, "It's my fault that my family and community were wrecked by demonstrably racist law enforcement policies?" Or, "It's my fault I went to a bad school where I spent my days trying not to get beaten or robbed? Because my father went to jail, or ran out on me, or my mother was a drug addict? Because my parents couldn't afford to send me to a better school?" And perhaps some of the bootstrap failures do blame other people; and there are certainly those in poor communities who are willing to assert that the extra burdens of poverty, social instability, and dysfunctional schools have nothing to do with any disparity in performance. It is not that these are illegitimate issues, but Cain seems to brush off those complexities in order to offer a simpler outlook that, while it might play well among some conservatives, risks unsettling a broader spectrum of voters. What effect does he believe his statement will have among those who are jobless not because they did their jobs poorly, but because their bosses blew it, or Wall Street failed? Did Cain just give Americans the rhetorical finger? What does he expect people to think of his argument? Let us take one of his own enterprises as an example: Godfather's Pizza. There are two Godfather's Pizza restaurants within fifty miles of me. They are both abysmal places. The one I'm most familiar with actually looks like it has been allowed to decay for twenty years. Is the decision to not improve the restaurant's appearance, with the effect that there are plenty who would not eat there because it literally looks like a dangerous place to eat really the fault of a minimum-wage pizza cook who shows up to work every day and does his job according to instructions? And are the decisions to present lower-quality food that looks less appetizing and, indeed, less safe, really the fault of minimum-wage workers who made the food according to the specifications laid out by the corporations? And if the employee who shows up to work every day and does his job is fired because nobody wants to eat repugnant-looking food in a repulsive-looking establishment with the result that the company lays people off in order to balance its books, just whose fault is that? I once worked for an insurance company that was very badly run. Let me note that I do not resent the cuts of over ten percent of the workforce for myself; I quit before they could send me packing because I couldn't cope with the sheer stupidity of what was going on. Hell, I would have been one of the last people out the door; indeed, I might have been the one to shut out the lights and close the door when I left. But the company bought out another, and then decided that in order to retain customers, it would maintain the premiums on those policies instead of raise them. This cost the company a lot of revenue. And then the company spent over a hundred million dollars putting its name on a baseball stadium. The first effect was that the rank and file employees lost their bonuses, company-wide. The message was, "You did your job, but it wasn't enough to recover the money we wasted with a bad takeover, poor executive decisions about managing the rolls, and extraneous advertising, therefore you don't get your performance bonus but we do." Company executives played an aggressive growth strategy that blew up in their faces; there was no way to grow policy sales enough to cover the hole they blasted in the books. Moves intended to make a solid, regional insurance company into a national player backfired. The company dismissed its CEO, called in a headhunter, cut about eleven percent of its workforce at the very least, and then paid the headhunter an incredible parachute—twenty-eight million dollars—when he left to run for Senate. Eventually, the faltering company was bought out, and the formerly prestigious regional insurance company became a subsidiary of a national player. Herman Cain would look at my division's underwriters and claims adjusters and tell them that it is their faults that the executives blew it. How does Cain expect that sort of message to resonate with voters? It just seems that as his fortunes rise in the GOP contest, he is hurting his chances with a broader spectrum of voters should he actually win nomination to the general election. One unnamed Republican strategist told the Monitor that while he thinks Cain "absolutely" will not win the Republican nomination, the restaurateur "has positioned himself so that he will remain in the conversation for a little while longer". Seemingly antagonizing general election voters, though, might be an ill-conceived approach. ____________________ Notes: Feldmann, Linda. "The Herman Cain surge: why he rose (not Mitt Romney) as Rick Perry slid". The Christian Science Monitor. October 6, 2011. CSMonitor.com. October 6, 2011. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Electi...hy-he-rose-not-Mitt-Romney-as-Rick-Perry-slid Bingham, Amy. "Herman Cain Tells Occupy Wall Street Protesters to 'Blame Yourself'". ABC News. October 5, 2011. ABCNews.Go.com. October 6, 2011. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/cain-tells-occupy-wall-street-protesters-blame/story?id=14674829
And you are not? All of the potential Republicans are of interest, not just Cain. And they are all a pretty scary crop. I think that is why you have Republican money masters running aroung behind the scenes trying to get others to run. Just exactly what is the Chicago Machine? And just what are Obama's connections to the Chicago Machine?
