Haley Watch and assorted linkage

Governor Haley campaigns for her new BFF, Governor Scott Walker, in Wisconsin. Love Nikki's new frames... but I don't think they would have fit very well into her RECENT VOGUE SPREAD.





Last year I made a joke about Haley and the media-fawning that accompanies her everywhere; I said, what's next, Italian Vogue?

Astonishingly, she just settled on regular American Vogue. But I wasn't far off, was I?

I can assure you, as South Carolinians deal with seemingly-endless economic woes, what we all want to see is our Governor all decked out in designer duds that the rest of us could not even afford to LOOK AT. And neither could she, before she started (allegedly) cooking mom and dad's Sikh temple books. But that's another story, still quite unresolved. (I quickly added the "allegedly"--since the Sikh temple just filed a lawsuit against blogger Logan Smith of the Palmetto Public Record for his faulty reporting on the issue.)

It is unbelievable how much outright SLEAZE follows this woman.

Currently, oodles of fur flying in Wisconsin, over the Governor Scott Walker recall vote. The election is tomorrow and the place is stoked to a fever pitch. Our Governor, who obviously has nothing to do here at home except pose for fashion magazines, was up in Wisconsin throwing her designer-clothes-clad weight behind Walker (You can hear the chatter inside the governor's mansion now: If she's good enough for Vogue and Scott Walker, surely she is good enough to be Romney's VP?) A liberal group sent out mailers publishing voter histories, actually naming people who did not vote in various neighborhoods. (US News) I think that may be a first.

Meanwhile, fascinating quotes are being unearthed. The right-wing anti-union people seem to have forgotten that their patron saint, Ronald Reagan, was the president of a union. He once said, "where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost." Yes, he really did, and you can watch the whole speech on YouTube HERE.

~*~

Assorted linkage, as promised:

[] The gay-hating android from Bob Jones University who has been dogging me this weekend (see comments here) should really enjoy this link. This one's for you, Gregory A. Easton of Pensacola, Florida!: Matt Barber: My Family Member Dying Of AIDS Got What Was Coming To Him (Joe. My. God.)

This is the kind of thing they love to read.

[] Local preacher busted in prostitution sting! (WYFF) All the "loiterers" busted were male. You don't suppose this preacher was preaching the usual anti-gay crap whilst trolling Augusta Road after dark looking for male companionship, do you? (shock) I do not know what the Methodists, in particular, teach about homosexuality. I had believed they were fairly liberal, but then I found this:

While persons set apart by the Church for ordained ministry are subject to all the frailties of the human condition and the pressures of society, they are required to maintain the highest standards of holy living in the world. The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Therefore self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church

Uh oh, looks like somebody will have to get another job.

[] Who was all upset by MAD MEN last night? (Bitch Magazine) I was! It also started a rather long conversation in my domicile, about whether you would have fired Lane, too? (More from USA Today on the departure of Lane, who was played by gifted Jared Harris, son of veteran actor/singer Richard Harris.)

[] Romney's likely chief of staff is reaping profit from Obamacare while Romney pledges to repeal it (Think Progress)

[] During Birther Rant at NC GOP Convention, Trump Claims He Can't Be Racist After Hiring Arsenio Hall (Crooks and Liars) Yes, and the hits just keep on coming.

[] This has not been reported on any of the major news outlets, that I have seen. From Glenn Greenwald writing on Salon:

In February, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism documented that after the U.S. kills people with drones in Pakistan, it then targets for death those who show up at the scene to rescue the survivors and retrieve the bodies, as well as those who gather to mourn the dead at funerals: “the CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals.” As The New York Times summarized those findings: “at least 50 civilians had been killed in follow-up strikes after they rushed to help those hit by a drone-fired missile” while “the bureau counted more than 20 other civilians killed in strikes on funerals.”

This repellent practice continues. Over the last three days, the U.S. has launched three separate drone strikes in Pakistan: one on each day. As The Guardian reports, the U.S. has killed between 20 and 30 people in these strikes, the last of which, early this morning, killed between 8 and 15. It was the second strike, on Sunday, that targeted mourners gathered to grieve those killed in the first strike:

At the time of the attack, suspected militants had gathered to offer condolences to the brother of a militant commander killed during another US unmanned drone attack on Saturday. The brother was one of those who died in the Sunday morning attack. The Pakistani officials said two of the dead were foreigners and the rest were Pakistani.

Note that there is no suggestion, even from the “officials” on which these media reports (as usual) rely, that the dead man was a Terrorist or even a “militant.” He was simply receiving condolences for his dead brother.

Please read the whole thing.

And how was YOUR weekend?

"We're all birthers now": The Capricorn One faction of the GOP

While chatting with a Republican friend yesterday, I asked him jokingly if he was a birther now.

I was thinking of Dwight MacDonald's well-known quote from the 50s, often repeated: "We're all anti-communists now," which was a reaction to Stalin. It meant that one could readily admit the obvious truth, regardless of how zealously socialist one had been in one's youth (as Macdonald, former Trotskyist, had been).

My usually-reasonable friend shocked me, "I wish he [Obama] would just answer questions," he answered.

Oh dear God.

Answer questions about WHAT? My temper flared unexpectedly; I could hardly believe my well-mannered friend had been hanging out in the Area 51 of American talk-radio politics. What the hell is going on? ...John McCain, I sputtered, was born in PANAMA and nobody even mentioned it!

"John McCain isn't president now, or maybe they would," he replied, evenly.

Does anyone believe that?

Has any other president been expected to answer questions about whether they were born in the USA?

What are we going to do with these people?

The only thing that will totally satisfy them would be a Polaroid snapshot of a Hawaiian pediatric nurse holding up a baby Barack in a neonatal unit, under a sign that says "Welcome to Honolulu!" and a 1961 wall calendar.

Even then, I can imagine the birthers enlarging the Polaroid and deciding with various computer-aging technology: it isn't really him. Wrong biracial Hawaiian-born baby boy! (Lou Dobbs pointedly asks: Who is it really?)

The New York Times calls them fringe, but having once been on the (lefty) fringe, I know how fringe works. You just keep repeating the fringe-wisdom, until the people closer to the center pick up on it. Finally, the center-left or center-right latches on to it, and what is fringe is suddenly conventional wisdom and is treated seriously on "60 Minutes."

Or in the New York Times.

Well, maybe that's good, you say. A thorough investigation could put the matter to rest.

HA HA HA - are you kidding? Have you never seen Capricorn One? Do you know who the Sedevacantists are? Does anyone really believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone?

We are talking about FAITH, people, not facts. Faith transcends facts. Faith is about the need to believe.

From Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times (which is undoubtedly part of the liberal conspiracy):

There are no living family members to testify to the events of Aug. 4, 1961, at the Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital in Honolulu. The president’s parents are both deceased, as are his grandparents, who played a significant role in raising him.

But Mr. Abercrombie, who has represented Hawaii for nearly two decades in Congress, was a close friend of Mr. Obama’s parents, who were students at the University of Hawaii in 1961. The president’s father, Barack H. Obama Sr., was from Kenya, but Mr. Abercrombie said the suggestion that the Obama baby was born in Africa is an absurd impossibility.

“He was born in Kapiolani Hospital, right down the street from where I lived,” Mr. Abercrombie said. “They had no money. I can’t imagine how they would get to Kenya. It makes no sense at all. It’s an insult to his mother.”

Questions have been swirling around about Mr. Obama’s biography — largely on the internet and on conservative radio and television broadcasts — since shortly after he announced his presidential bid in early 2007. They were researched by his Democratic and Republican opponents alike, all of whom determined there was no legitimacy to the speculation that Mr. Obama was born in Kenya.

To satisfy the doubters, the Obama campaign released a copy of his Hawaiian birth certificate during the presidential race. But the fact that it was a copy and not the original, which according to Hawaii law cannot be released publicly, did not quell the furor. So the director of the Department of Health in Hawaii, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, released a statement last fall, and again last month, attesting to the authenticity of the president’s birth.

And this hasn't mattered a whit to the birthers. They remain unconvinced. Of course they are. As I said, this is about FAITH.

Zeleny mentions the recent skirmishes on MSNBC, which have given the birthers a platform--ostensibly to make them look like conspiracy-theory-wackos. Unfortunately, any time you give fringe-folks a platform, you increase their respectability and influence.

The number of birthers increases every time they get press and media.

Orly Taitz, a California dentist and lawyer who is among the leading voices in the anti-Obama movement, made her case in a combative interview on MSNBC.

“Obama is completely illegitimate as a U.S. president for two reasons — not only because he did not provide the place of his birth, but also because both parents have to be U.S. citizens,” Ms. Taitz said. “His father was never a U.S. citizen. He was in the United States on a student visa.”

The White House, awash in several real political challenges, has largely ignored the noise. Last week, the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, was asked by a liberal talk radio host, Bill Press, whether there was anything the White House could do to satisfy the critics and make the issue go away.

“No, the God’s honest truth is no,” Mr. Gibbs said, calling it “made-up fictional nonsense.”

“If I had some DNA, it wouldn’t assuage those who don’t believe he was born here,” Mr. Gibbs said as anger welled in his voice. “The president was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the 50th state of the greatest country on the face of the earth.”

I suggest the Capricorn One strategy: reduce these people to buffoons and laugh-a-minute conspiracy-theorists. Giving them a "fair hearing" has been completely wrong. Can we start talking about how the moon landing was faked, too? (And how about the Holocaust?) Will people be allowed on mainstream cable TV news-shows to discuss those views? And why not? I've heard those theories my whole life, why can't they get some exposure to the masses?

Because they are CRACKPOT BULLSHIT, is why. Leave the search for Erich von Däniken's alien ancestors to the Scientologists and the goofier cable channels, okay? There is no reason to litter up REAL NEWS STATIONS with stories of why the moon landing was faked.

Please stop fueling this. Stop the insanity!

Oh, and Happy Birthday, Mr President. Truly, you are Leo personified. Have a wonderful 48th year.

...


More on what I have decided to label the Capricorn One faction of the GOP:

Elected Birthers on the Hill (Huffington Post)

Anti-Obama 'birther' movement gathers steam (UK Guardian)

Obama Citizenship Poll: Things Get Weird In The GOP Base (The Atlantic)

How fact-free claims about Obama's citizenship gained mainstream currency (KansasCity.com)