Way to Go, Arizona!

Trent Franks is a fucktard.




See?

How much of this rhetoric do we need before we see our first assassination attempt from the nutjobs who buy into this shit, do you think?

Help!

Via today's Daily Kos:

At the How To Take Back America Conference last weekend, conservative speaker Kitty Werthmann led a workshop called "How to recognize living under Nazis & Communists ..."

During her session, Werthmann went through a litany of examples of how President Obama is like Adolf Hitler. She noted that Hitler, who acted "like an American politician," was "elected in a 100% Christian nation." Although she failed to once mention Antisemitism or militarism, Werthmann explained how universal healthcare, an Equal Rights Amendment, and increased taxes were telltale signs of Nazism. Werthmann also warned the audience:

"If we had our guns, we would have fought a bloody battle. So, keep your guns, and buy more guns, and buy ammunition. [...] Take back America. Don’t let them take the country into Socialism. And I refer again, Hitler’s party was National Socialism. [...] And that’s what we are having here right now, which is bordering on Marxism."

We went ahead and renamed it "guano-insane."

Speaking of people brainwashing our school-aged children.....

(Oh, there's this, too.)

I don't even know what to say.

Two polls going around FB today:

1. Do you think President Obama should be allowed to do a nationwide address to school children without their parents' consent?

2. Do you think President Obama should be allowed to address the nation's school children without a response from the opposition?

Right now, most respondents say "no" to both these questions.


Just who the hell ARE these people and what is wrong with them? The fucking PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (you know, the one the MAJORITY of Americans voted into office last November) wants to go on TV and tell the kids to study hard and do well in school and people just go batshit crazy? Really? Viral emails are flying around encouraging parents to keep their kids home, or call their principals, or give Republicans a chance to present OPPOSITION? TO STUDYING HARD??

It's a good thing it's a three-day weekend or I might actually be stressing out over this.

UPDATE: Here is an (unnecessarily apologetic) email I just got:

________ School District Parents:

As you may know, President Barack Obama has announced he will give a special "back to school" message to children across America on September 8, 2009 beginning at 10 a.m. Mountain Standard Time.

We have been informed by the U.S. Department of Education that the text of the President's speech will be released on Monday, September 7, 24 hours prior to the broadcast. You may find the text of the speech on Monday at the following web sites:

www.whitehouse.gov/mediaresources

www.ed.gov

According to the U.S. Department of Education, the President will speak directly to the nation's children and youth about persisting and succeeding in school. The speech is expected to last 15-20 minutes and will air on CSPAN and online at www.whitehouse.gov/live/

If you would prefer your child(ren) not view the President's speech, you may contact your school to request your child(ren) opt-out of viewing the address. An appropriate alternative activity will be provided for your student until such time as the President's address concludes. You may opt-out by simply sending your school a note or email message.

Further information about the President's address may be found online at the following U.S. Department of Education web site:

www.edgov/print/admins/lead/academic/bts.html

Wow. Just...wow.

"I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty."





From a letter written by Thomas Jefferson concerning Shays' Rebellion (which nobody ever learns about in school).

I just want to go on the record as saying...

1. Insurance itself is a pretty socialist system. We all put money in a pool, and that pool is supposed to pay for others' injuries, property damage, or whatever, with the expectation that all the other premium payers help you when you need it. (After the Clinton "healthcare reform" in the 90s, though, it turned into just another big business.)


2. Medicare is a great example of a socialized medical system that delivers basic coverage and keeps costs down. If you don't agree with a public insurance option, write your congressman and tell him to oppose Medicare. That'll give his staff a giggle.


3. Veterans' care. See above.


4. How can you take seriously a congressman (congressperson?) who lobbies against a public insurance system when he himself is covered by such a system? I don't think any of them pull out their Aetna card when they go to their doctors. It bothers me that these people rely on a government-administered insurance plan can accept campaign money from insurance companies, then deny regular people even the option for such a plan.

Ugh. I'm writing this here because I'm tired of yelling it at my computer screen or people on the TV.

sigh

From my news feed on Facebook:

four score and 200 years ago, are [sic] fathers set forth to build this country on Capitalisim [sic]. I'll be damned if I'll sit by and let them turn it into a Socialistic [sic] society. See your asses in Europe!

Who ARE these people?

Thank GOD

we don't live in Texas anymore.

The best phrase in the English language

...has got to be "President Obama."

It keeps taking me by surprise--a moment where I realize the world really can be the place that, for the last 8 years, we could only imagine.  I feel a little leap in my chest, like when you wake up at 4:30 in the morning and realize it's Saturday so the alarm won't be going off in an hour and you can roll over and go back to sleep.

What impresses me most is the sheer number of people who share this feeling and who are also willing to answer Obama's call to service.  It feels like the trend toward apathy and inaction may be breaking down.  Today, a local paint store donated paint and supplies to repaint an elementary school.  Dozens of volunteers have signed up to help paint this weekend at USA Service, a site designed by the Obama team to connect volunteers with projects in their communities.

I think the Rude Pundit today put it best:

"If you think about it, this was what this America was poised to become after September 11, 2001, had the former administration decided to harness the power of unity. But, then again, it was never very good with alternative forms of energy."

This is exactly what we should have been doing after 9/11, and what were we asked to do instead?  Shop.  Go back to being good little consumers so we can keep playing this neverending game of money and politics.

I feel so much better now.

A different kind of patriotism

Those of you who know me would probably not use the word "patriotic" when asked to describe me. I don't say the pledge, or, if I do, it's just so my students will do it so I don't have to. I don't wear anything red, white, and blue--ever (it's tacky, no matter how much you love America). I don't have a flag, look forward to the fourth of July strictly for the blowing up of stuff, and only care about Veterans' Day because it means I don't have to go to work.

But lately I have been getting all sappy. First, the plane crash in the Hudson river last week made me all "Go America!" because we can sure do infrastructure. There may be problems with our government, but it is directly responsible for enacting the systems that keep us safe on a daily basis. It's like someone has child-proofed the entire country. I am still amazed that on September 11, only three-thousand-something people lost their lives, when places like Turkey or India can have earthquakes or mudslides that kill ten thousand. Then today, on the way to my test, NPR broadcast the entirety of Martin Luther King's speech on the national mall in 1963, pointing out how fitting it was that, the day after what would have been King's 80th birthday, Obama will take the oath of office.

(I still can't believe he's going to be president. It's like what I imagined democracy was supposed to be like back when I took government my senior year.)

Even better than my sappy feelings of goose-bumpiness and gushing, teeny-bopperish rhetoric about coming changes is seeing other people who are this excited, too.

Mathematics + Politics

= cartograms!

Morning in America

Courtesy of Cat and Girl.

My kind of fun!

This will be my first election to come out a winner!

It's fun!  Let's be sure to do this again!

Will you be watching election coverage on six different networks from your couch while also keeping an eye on the web? I will! This map will have real-time data on national and local races so you can feed your addiction to information practically intravenously.

This is why I'm voting Obama

Sounds like throwing in the towel to me...

So McCain "may" drop by his own election-night watch party at the Biltmore in Phoenix, but it looks instead as though he'll allow his campaign workers to contine busting their asses while they tally all those second-place votes while he addresses his elect on the front lawn.

A bit of a harsh goodbye to those who stood by him throughout the race.

Anyway, I have to go take an aspirin and break into a friend's house so their dogs can get fed and poop outside instead of on the kitchen floor.

I wonder how much they had to offer her to go on Hardball...

I haven't taken Government since my senior year of high school.  Granted, I may have been absent the day we learned about the executive branch, but I'm fairly sure the role of the Veep is not "to be in charge of the United States Senate."

Chris Matthews reduces Palin's spokesperson Nancy Photenhauer to a stammering mess in this clip:

On a related note, let's get the media to root out all the anti-Americans in Congress!

Having finally finished with the Puritans, my AmLit class is moving on to the Enlightenment.  I am making them read the introduction to The Assault on Reason by Al Gore and crossing my fingers that maybe one or two of them will get it.  And no, it's not because I'm voting for Obama and want to use my position of power to feed my liberal agenda to the impressionable minds of today's youth, but because that section has everything to do with what the Founders had in mind when framing the Constitution: that it was necessary for a conscientious, informed public to use reasoned, rational thinking to enact the best policy decisions.  The review from the NYT explains better than I could, and with quotes even:

Mr. Gore’s central argument is that “reason, logic and truth seem to play a sharply diminished role in the way America now makes important decisions” and that the country’s public discourse has become “less focused and clear, less reasoned.” This “assault on reason,” he suggests, is personified by the way the Bush White House operates. Echoing many reporters and former administration insiders, Mr. Gore says that the administration tends to ignore expert advice (be it on troop levels, global warming or the deficit), to circumvent the usual policy-making machinery of analysis and debate, and frequently to suppress or disdain the best evidence available on a given subject so it can promote predetermined, ideologically driven policies.

That's my rehash of recent politics.  Go nuts, kids.

That's Infotainment!