It is a truth universally acknowledged that U.S. Representative Lynn Westmoreland is generally incoherent, so I suppose we should applaud his overcoming of such a handicap to become a member of the U.S. Congress.  Or is this one of those “necessary but not sufficient” situations?

This week I received an email from OpenCongress.org touting their new email system which allows you to hit both your Senators and your Representative with one click.  I hadn’t visited the website in a long time—in fact, I had forgotten I had ever joined—so I went over to check it out.

And there was H.R. 499, filed by Jared Polis (D-CO because of course), which removes cannabis from the federal drug schedule.  In other words, it would legalize pot in the United States.

Leaving aside for the moment whether the U.S. can do this in light of its signatory status of the U.N. 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (spoiler alert: Yes, it can.  See Bolivia (also) and Uruguay), I think this is an important step for Congress to take, and I told my elected officials so.  I expected boilerplate responses, and that’s what I got from Isakson.  (Chambliss must have his mailbox set on Ignore.)

Westmoreland’s response, though certainly boilerplate, was at least responsive.  I quote it here in full (except for the introductory and concluding blahblah):

On February 5, 2013 Representative Jared Polis (D-CO) introduced H.R. 499 which would remove marijuana from all schedules of the Controlled Substance Act. The bill also eliminates marijuana from the classification of a dangerous drug under the federal criminal code and does not allow marijuana to continue to be a ‘targeted drug’ with respect to anti-drug marketing campaigns. H.R. 499 directs the Treasury Department to issue and revoke permits for marijuana commerce purposes, as well as direct the Food and Drug Administration to treat and subject marijuana to the same authorities and provisions as alcohol.

The Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Raich regarding medical marijuana made it clear that the U.S. Congress has the authority to regulate the use of marijuana within the states. Any change to the drug laws to allow medical marijuana would require a change in law passed by Congress and signed by the President.

While I am a strong believer in personal freedom, I do not support the recreational or medical use of illegal drugs, regardless of whether the drug is marijuana, cocaine, or any other illegal substance. Congress has made decisions to protect our nation from certain illegal drugs, and allowing each state to make its own decision would adversely affect the protections that exist against those substances.

In any situation involving marijuana and other illegal substances, the Supreme Court has made clear that Congress has the authority to regulate the use of these substances at the state level, which supersedes state laws that may allow for their distribution. I am unable to support a piece of legislation that would attempt to overrule the Supreme Court’s decision and allow the protections around these illegal substances to be broken down.

I know, right?

tl;dr: “I can’t vote to make marijuana legal because the Supreme Court says it’s up to me to decide whether it’s legal or not, and it’s illegal so I can’t vote to make it legal.”

::sigh::

Then there’s the argle-bargle about states making a mess of things if we don’t keep a tight rein on them.  Yes, this is a states-rights politician telling me that we can’t let states make these decisions for themselves, like they do for every other commodity in interstate commerce.^[1]

(Also, too, Westmoreland may not be aware^[2] that there is already a patchwork approach to cannabis laws.  See here for all the 50 ways you might be punished for possession.)

You will have noticed, too, the sleight of hand with ALL THE DRUGS when H.R. 499 legalizes cannabis alone.

I don’t know about you, but I am forced to conclude that something this obtuse cannot be an honest response.

If I were of a cynical turn of mind—stop that snickering—I might imagine that this article might suggest a reason why our representatives hesitate to derail the War on Drugs juggernaut.^[3]

However, it would seem to me that there is a very simple solution to the budgeting woes of law enforcement agencies: convert the drug money to block grants for plain old law enforcement.  You might even consider embedding/combining social workers with law enforcement in order to treat drug issues as a public health problem instead of a criminal issue.  (I know—that’s crazy talk!)

At any rate, I find it very puzzling that a politician would buck a trend like cannabis legalization. Nationally, of course, a clear majority of U.S. citizens favor legalization, but even here in Georgia, 54% want pot legalized like Colorado.  It is only a matter of time before people like Westmoreland find themselves on the losing end of that election issue.

Oh well.  As I slide deeper into retirement, I figure I might as well pick up the Cudgel of Curmudgeondom and start belaboring my elected officials, none of whom are even close to representing my beliefs at the national level anyway.  For the time being, it keeps me off the streets.

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^[1] For example, buy a lemon tree in Texas.  Now try driving home to a) Georgia; and b) California.  Write a paragraph comparing your results.
^[2] When I say “may not be aware,” I mean “chooses to ignore.”

^[3] Yes, I am fully aware that the Juggernaut was not on rails.

Remember my post about conservative mindsets being based on fear and paranoia?

Exhibit A.

This was an elsewhere on the web ad link on one of the evil liberal blogs I read regularly.  For some reason, all those search paradigms that are supposed to be showing me cocktail recipes and cat videos keep pulling in the most incredibly stupid dreck.  And for some reason, I clicked on it this time.

Mercy.

No, I didn’t watch the video.  Yet.  It’s 34 minutes long, and I’m supposed to be writing an art song and/or an opera.

But I did scroll all the way to the bottom.  So much yummy craziness!  So much vague scariness!  So few links to supporting data!  As far as I can tell, in fact, there’s only this one page.  An ad.

Such a deal, though.  Seriously, aren’t you tempted to fork over $39 (plus s/h) for the opportunity to have all of this stuff to marvel at?

It’s porn, pure and simple, for the conservative nutjob mind.  They need to think that they will survive all on their own, striding manfully across the dystopian landscape while the weaklings are left behind.

Dangerous, dangerous thinking.  And yes, there are people who think like this.  Go search for interviews with the militia types who have swarmed to “support” Cliven Bundy.  It’s like listening to riled-up 10-year-old boys on a playground, or adolescent punks taking sides over some imagined slight.  Such tough, tough, super-lame chest-thumpings.

I have no solution, of course, other than to cede Nevada to them and make them all move there.

Remember our discussion about how the brains of conservative humans tend to operate from a basis of fear?  John Hagee, Christianist TV grifter extraordinaire, has exemplified the syndrome for us.

You are probably aware that last night was the first of four total lunar eclipses, popularly known as “blood moons” because of the color of the shadow cast by the earth onto our satellite.  Apparently, having four of them in six months intervals like that is unusual.

HOW UNUSUAL, you ask?  Let’s let John Hagee tell us:

“Is this the end of the age?” Hagee asked during a recent sermon, before quoting Acts 2:19-20: And I will show wonders in Heaven above and signs in the Earth beneath, the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.”

“I believe that the heavens are God’s billboard, that he has been sending signals to planet Earth,” he explained. “God is literally screaming at the world, ‘I’m coming soon.'”

Hagee predicted that the four eclipses were signaling a “world-shaking event that will happen between April 2014 and October 2015.”

“God sends plan[e]t Earth a signal that something big is about to happen! He’s controlling the Sun and the moon right now to send our generation a signal, but the question is, are we getting it?”

[from Crooks and Liars, 4/14/14]

I’m surprised he didn’t quote Joel 2:31, but perhaps he’s saving that for today’s live broadcast.  That and its analog from Revelation because of course he will.

Where to begin?

First of all, John, what exactly could you mean by “[god’s] controlling the sun and moon right now”?  Are you suggesting that he is causing them to move in a way that is creating these four eclipses at times that they would otherwise not occur?  Because that would indeed be FREAKING AWESOME SIGN FROM GOD, wouldn’t it?  The whole planet would be a-quiver with wonderment.  Tides would be disrupted; sunrise/sunset apps on our phones would be worthless.  Scientists would be roaming the streets in sackcloth and ashes, flagellating themselves for their disbelief.  Dogs and cats, etc., etc.

Because if that’s not what you mean, then here’s a simple question for you, John: How do you know about the four consecutive lunar eclipses in the first place?  That’s like 18 months of seeing into the future, you know?  ARE YOU A PROPHET, JOHN?  Because that would be a FREAKING AWESOME SIGN FROM GOD, wouldn’t it?

Oh, wait.

This is where I want Anonymous to hack into Hagee’s live broadcast and say:

The very fact that John Hagee knows about these four events 18 months in advance is because they are simply natural occurrences, just like sunrise and sunset.  The earth rotates, the earth orbits. So does the moon.  Like your windshield wipers and the song on the radio, every once in a while they will match up at exactly the right moment.  We know about these patterns, and we know when they’re coming.  That is all.  If you think that they are a sign from God, a portent, then you will need to consider the fact that the last tetrad was in 1967/68, and the one before that in 1949/50.  There have been two previous tetrads within John Hagee’s lifetime—did he ignore God’s message those two times?  Why are you afraid?

::sigh::

This is the kind of thing that drives me into impotent rages, shaking my tiny fists at the universe.

So Jim DeMint, former senator from South Carolina, goes on a Truth* in Action radio show and says that “no liberal is going to win a debate that big government freed the slaves.”

I’m not even going to get into a debate with this person about the historical record.  My concerns are rather with the framework here.  This man went on a radio show and stated point blank a lie so egregious that any elementary student could win that “debate,” and he did so without any fear of being called out on it.  He can say whatever he wants, and no one is going to say, “Hey, wait a second…”

My biggest fear for our nation is that this kind of lying simply breaks our citizens’ ability to remember history and apply its lessons.  A lie of this size simply pegs out the WTF-o-meter in most peoples’ heads; it goes sproing and they can never again distinguish truth from BS.

Indeed, now the right-wing Wurlitzer can use this lie as a statement in their own assault on an informed citizenry: “As Senator DeMint set the record straight in 2014, the federal government had nothing to do with ending slavery, and so the big government liberals should just back off pushing for legal protections for [insert right-wing boogieman du jour here].”

And to think that the Heritage Foundation used to have a plausible claim to status in the policy world.  Mercy.

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*for differing values of Truth

P.S. I hope everyone downloaded their paper cut-out My Little Cthulhu…

Today is the last day you can sign up for health insurance via the Affordable Care Act exchange.  Here’s the chart thrown up by Fox News:

Look at that!  LOOK AT IT!  Look at how far short “Obamacare” has fallen from its goal!  IT’S A TRAIN WRECK!  WE TOLD YOU SO!  ARGLE-BARGLE!

Argle-bargle indeed.

Let’s pretend we studied propaganda techniques in school and take a look at this chart.

Here we’ve isolated the chart and done some examining of the units of measurement so generously provided by Fox News Corp.

There are eight divisions.  I’m lazy, so I’m going to go with the 6,000,000 number since it’s even.  It takes up three of the divisions, which means that each division is worth exactly 2,000,000.

So for each line that the bar reaches, that’s another two million people who have signed up for health insurance on the ACA exchanges.

The second bar reaches just past the eighth line, which means that…

Hold on there, bucky, that can’t be right, can it?  The second bar reaches past the eighth line, but Fox News Corp. has labeled it 7,066,000.

But if each line is worth 2,000,000…

There, I fixed that for you, Fox News Corp.

Here’s what we tell the third graders: always look to see who is giving you information and what they’re trying to sell you.  Here we find that Fox News has deliberately distorted the comparison between the 6 million and 7 million columns so that it looks like “Obamacare” has fallen short of its goal by about eleventy-million.  (Either that or they are incredibly incompetent.  It’s the classic choice of “stupid or evil.”)

But there’s actually more lying to look at:

We see that as of last Thursday (March 27), the ACA had registered six million people, but that is short of the actual goal of seven million.

However, that’s a lie.  The 7,000,000 figure was the Congressional Budget Office’s original estimate of how many people would sign up for insurance via the federal exchange.  Because of the website’s bumpy start (sure, private industry contractors can always do a better  job…), the CBO revised that estimate downward to 6,000,000.  Again, this is not a goal, it’s an estimate.

So here’s the actual news:

Based on the CBO’s revised estimate, the Affordable Care Act goalpost of 6,000,000 people signing up for health insurance on the federal exchange was passed four days before the deadline.

Here’s what Fox News Corp. reported in its chart:

Obamacare has failed to meet its goal of 7,066,000 people by a factor of about 2.66.

Here’s the deal, O conservative acquaintances: we can differ on whether “Obamacare” is a good thing or not—personally, I think it is a waste of time: let’s go straight to single payer universal healthcare.  But you cannot pretend that Fox News Corp. has done anything but lie to you with this chart.  Not to me, darlings; I don’t watch that particular entertainment channel.  To you.

And so what you have to ask yourself is what I would teach third graders to ask: What are they trying to sell you, and why?

Feel free to respond in comments, but we’re only discussing the particulars of this chart.  Comments about the ACA and its legitimacy will be deleted.  There will be no Gish Galloping here.

(hat tip to Media Matters)

UPDATE

As of midnight last night…

There, I updated that for you, Fox News Corp.

Hey there—it’s a bonus late-night liberal rant!

As you may be aware, the Republican party tends to have issues with women voters.  (It also has issues with black voters, Hispanic voters, educated voters, and young voters, but let that pass.)

So in Texas, where local toadstool Greg Abbott is running for governor against the lady Democrat Wendy Davis, the GOP has started yet another PAC aimed at women voters to splain to them why voting for Republicans is not as horrible as they might think.

Yeah.

So the nice (R) lady in charge of this thing was asked about equal pay for women.  And lo: she did not disappoint.  You can go read that if you like, but for me, here’s the money quote.  After agreeing that Texas women “want and deserve equal pay,” honcho Cari Christman went on to say:

“But honestly, Jason, we don’t believe the Lilly Ledbetter Act is what’s going to solve that problem for women. We believe that women want real-world solutions to this problem, not more rhetoric.”

Ahem, as Delores Umbridge would say.  The Lilly Ledbetter Act is not rhetoric.  It is a real-world solution, otherwise known as a law.  “Real-world solutions, not more rhetoric” is what Aristophanes would identify as rhetoric.

Why aren’t these people tarred and feathered?

I’ll get back to Burning Man plans tomorrow.  Today I want to toss out a couple of links that have been sitting around waiting for me to share them.

People, there are crazies among us.  Lots of them.  Many, if not most, of them completely conservative wackadoodles.

Do not mistake me: I don’t like name-calling, and there are plenty of ways to be conservative/Republican and still make a valuable contribution to society. How and also ever, because of the internets we are now able to see into the deepest recesses of the fearful, unhappy lizard brains of the far right.  Worse, they’re able to put it out there where we cannot help but see it.  It’s really squicky.

I suppose we’ve always had these people around, but mostly they kept to themselves (and for reasons that will become clear in a moment).  If they published anything, it was apt to be typed and mimeographed and handed out at the lodge meeting.  Now, they have the magic of 21st century technology at their fingertips, and they use it.

Check out these links, and then we’ll chat.

• http://crooksandliars.com/2014/02/latest-government-conspiracy-theory-fake : Yes, that’s right.  Snowpocalypse was a government conspiracy.
• http://www.riseearth.com/2014/02/what-church-isnt-telling-you-about.html#.Uxh0pV7Vgq_ : How nice a guy can Pope Francis be if he’s concealing space aliens from us?

These next two are, scarily, not fringe lunacy:

• http://www.first-draft.com/2014/03/today-on-tommy-ts-obsession-with-the-freeperati-oh-so-do-mi-o-edition.html : The whole thing is worth the read, but scroll down to just past the Dante’s Internet graphic (cute) and read that huge block of type.  (‘SHTF’ is prepper for ‘Shit Hits The Fan,’ prepspeak for when it all comes undone.  (‘Preppers’ are those who are convinced that SHTF is inevitable and who ARE TAKING STEPS BY GOD TO PROTECT THEMSELVES AND THEIR LOVED ONES DAMMIT!!!1!))
• https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=771001902923833&id=135010313189665 : ::sigh::

I had another link, to a roundup of conservative religious reaction to Russell Crowe’s Noah movie, but I can’t find it.  And I could have clogged this post with dozens/scores/hundreds of similar websites.

So why do I find this display of human frailty endlessly fascinating?  I think it’s the absolute fearfulness with which these people view the world. It’s like they’re literally zombies, infected with some virus to which the rest of us are immune but which reduces them to paranoid automatons.  The first two links are just amusing crazytalk, but the last two are worth noting because of the twin responses to this virus, rage and fear.  The prepper is consumed with anger at the world; the endtimers retreat into fearful incantations and shibboleths.

Here’s the most important point: their fear is not occasioned by their worldview—they’re not scared because they see things to be scared of.  It’s the reverse: their brains seem to be hardwired to be fearful, and so they see things to fear.  And if they don’t really see things to fear, their brains organize the randomness of reality into some really scary shit.  Where you and I would see some domestic and international political problems that require our attention and teamwork to be resolved, these people see vast machines that are out of their control, and their main response is to run away.

It’s exactly like our little dog Mia.  Whenever the doorbell rings, she barks and barks and barks. Even when we invite the people into our home and talk amiably with them, she barks.  Even when it’s the cleaners who have come every week for years, she barks.  Is there a threat?  Not even, but she barks: her brain is so fearful that she has no choice.  (She flinches even when my lovely first wife, whom she adores, reaches to pet her.)

Why do their brains work this way?  Pleasure, pure and simple.  Just like most of us go see 3 Days to Kill or Captain Phillips or Non-Stop for the frisson of adrenalin we get from the fake fear, these peoples’ brains provide them with an emotional rush every time they think of black helicopters or the Anti-Christ.

All I can say is, bless their hearts.  It’s a hell of a way to live.  And there is no cure.

One of the most gobsmacking brainfarts on the part of the conservative side of America is the inherent contradiction in their positions on a) tax cuts; and b) social welfare.  In a nutshell, it says that if we give the rich more money, they will work harder (with undoubted benefit to all of us), but if we give the poor more benefits (even if temporary, as is the norm), they will just get lazy.  We laugh, but the right wing believes it.

How, you might ask, is this even possible?  The answer is essentialism, a term I encountered recently in this Slate article.  As amateur philosophers, we all recognize that things can be grouped into categories, and often we base those groupings on the essence of the individuals.  For example, as the article says, dogs are “doggy” and cats are “adorable, fluffy little jerks.”

The philosophical trap we fall into, however, is that we start to believe that many surface attributes are in fact essential when they are not.  This would include some physical traits, such as sex, race, etc., but it can also include social traits or abstract traits, like gender (not the same as sex—see what I did there?) or religion.

Or economic status.

The researchers in the article devised statements to test peoples’ sense of essentialism with such phrases as ““It is possible to determine one’s social class by examining their genes.”  In other words, that’s just the way “those people” are—they were born that way.

Rich people were found to be much more likely to believe that their class status and that of others is determined largely by essentials.  Poor people are poor because they’re… you know… poor people.  People like us, on the other hand…

None of this surprises me at all.  I’m just glad to have a name for it.  Now if we could just find a cure for it…

So, the founder of Domino’s has a sad.

One of the more offensive comments rightwingers make about employers not wanting to provide their female employees with perfectly legal medication as part of their healthcare is that if women don’t like the religiousy beliefs of their employers, they are free to seek employment elsewhere.

I have a counter-offer: if Tom Monaghan’s deeply held religiousy beliefs conflict with the law of the land, he is free to sell off his interests and go do something else.

I haven’t been getting blog posts out of my head onto the page for a while—a long while—and so last night I decided on a plan of action:

1. Move my WordPress app to the dock on my iPad, where it is always in front of me.
2. Stop waiting to formulate coherent thoughts into well-crafted essays.

So here we go. Fragments.

Today we have Bobby Jindal, the up-and-coming-Republican-who-totally-does-not-look-like-Kenneth-the-Page,^[1] totally solving the birth control issue. The birth control issue, you may recall, has nothing to do with women being afforded the opportunity to control their reproductive systems, but is all about the religiousy^[2] freedomy stuff. Corporations should not have to violate their religiousy freedoms by offering birth control when it conflicts with their deeply held religiousy beliefs.

First of all, before we get to Jindal’s Gordian solution, I have to say that I was unaware that corporations had deeply held religious beliefs. We all know that they’re people, at least since 1886, but do corporations pray? More on that in a moment.

Jindal, in the meantime, wants to help everyone out. And it’s so easy! Just make birth control available over the counter instead of by prescription! So easy! Now corporations don’t have to violate their deepliest held religiousy beliefs and provide contraceptives to their female employees—those slutty slut sluts can simply go buy it themselves! Thereby placing a financial burden uniquely on their female employees not borne by those other employees, i.e., men!

Oh, wait.

Here’s the deal on corporations’ deeply held religiousy beliefs. It’s bull. All of it. If the owner of Job’s Christian Widgets does not believe in birth control, he does not have to buy it. She does not have to buy it. Whatever.

But he/she does have to provide it in Job’s Christian Widgets’ health insurance as a matter of health. And why is this not a violation of Mr./Mrs. Job’s own personal deeply held religiousy beliefs? Because providing health insurance (which employees are at least in part paying for) does not keep Mr./Mrs. Job from worshipping freely. At all. Ever. In any way.

Matter of conscience, you say? Bushwah. Let us presume that Mr./Mrs. Job is a good old-fashioned Southern Baptist. Leaving aside the fact that Southern Baptists didn’t give a rat’s ass about contraceptives until about 40 years ago, we can guess that he/she is still completely opposed to the consumption of alcohol, and yet there is no movement afoot to support stripping JCW’s employees of their ability to have a cold one after work. (Or the deeply religiousy Mr./Mrs. Job themselves, for that matter. The corporation, on the other hand, might have difficulty doing shots with the gang after the shift.)

Mr. Jindal’s brilliant solution is just one more rightwing “tails we win, heads you lose” proposals.

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^[1] Totally a GHP alumnus, Theatre 90
^[2] My new word. Religiousy : Religion :: Truthiness : Truth