Being Hard on the Bieber

I never dreamed the world would give me reason to blog about this kid:

"You guys are evil... Canada's the best country in the world. We go to the doctor and we don't need to worry about paying him, but here, your whole life, you're broke because of medical bills. My bodyguard's baby was premature, and now he has to pay for it. In Canada, if your baby's premature, he stays in the hospital as long as he needs to, and then you go home." — Justin Bieber in his recent Rolling Stone interview.

So my first thought is that our health care system must be pretty awful if a 16 year-old Canadian pop idol is speaking out against it.

No, wait, my first thought is why the hell should we care what Justin Bieber thinks.

My second thought is that our health care system must be pretty awful if a 16 year-old Canadian pop idol is speaking out against it.

My third thought is that Glenn Beck will now have to work Bieber into one of his grand conspiracies. Wait, maybe that was my second thought.

Okay, my fourth thought, and hopefully final thought on this topic, is how mean it is to ask these loaded political questions to a dumb kid. I'm really not sure how I would have answered the same questions at that age, especially that question about abortion. Bieber said, "I really don't believe in abortion. It's like killing a baby?"

When the reporter pointed out that sometimes women are raped, Bieber said, "Um. Well, I think that's really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I don't know how that would be a reason. I guess I haven't been in that position, so I wouldn't be able to judge that."

Well, many people including myself cringe at the idea that rape is somehow predestined and "happens for a reason," but don't overlook the last part of his statement, "I guess I haven't been in that position, so I wouldn't be able to judge that." I think that indicates a lot of empathy that is completely missing in our increasingly angry political atmosphere. And maybe his opinion isn't set in stone or he realizes that there is still a lot he doesn't understand.

Either way, I'm thankful my parents never pushed me out on stage with a microphone and a funny haircut.

Oh wait, I have a fifth thought! If the wingnuts sink to the level of attacking this kid on his pro-Canada health system views, then they better watch out. Just look what Bieber's rabid tween fans did when that obscure jazz singer Esperanza Spalding won the Grammy for best new artist! Don't mess with them!

A New Slogan

Who caught a glimpse of the new Fox News slogan on The Simpsons last night?


"Fox News: Not Racists, But #1 With Racists." Okay, so it's not really their new slogan. I don't know how a cartoon airing on Fox gets away with mocking the "news" channel owned by Fox, but maybe that's how they imagine themselves as "fair and balanced." There might be some puppet mastery going on at that network -- which Jon Stewart tried to diagram last week.

Anyway, watch that Simpsons episode if you haven't already. Dick Cheney makes an appearance in Simpsons form and reminds the television viewing public that he's evil and "likes to stack men, naked."

Signs of Sanity

"BREAKING: Comedy Central estimating the attendance at the #rallyforsanity to be somewhere between 1,500 and 4 billion." — Fake_Dispatch on Twitter.

I wish I could have been at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear yesterday, but I live all the way over in California. At least the best "protest" signs are on the internet. Oh, and of course, I was able to watch the rally on Comedy Central.

Which brings me to a rather cynical thought I need to get out of the way: it was sure nice of Viacom to allow this rally to happen. Come on, I doubt anybody is truly naive enough to believe that the rally was a grassroots phenomenon. It was not. And I'm sure that ultimately Viacom will benefit from this ratings boost.

But this doesn't negate the message. On the surface it was a mock debate of sanity vs. fear. However, the real message was largely a criticism of America's "24-hour-politico-pundit-perpetual panic-conflictinator." Those are Jon Stewart's words not mine. And I doubt any team of Viacom executives were lurking in the room when this rather serious speech criticizing political and media establishments was conceived:

(YouTube video.)

It's hard to believe that anybody can associate that message with a radical far-left agenda. And it's even stranger still that the far left cheers for such a staunchly moderate message.

However, I find it quite reassuring to know that Stewart and Colbert's mild-mannered crowd way outnumbered Beck's: an estimated 215,000 "restoring sanity" versus 87,000 "restoring honor" attendees.

These are "hard times, not end times." If we can all remember that, we'll be okay.

Libertarian Utopia

Apparently Tennessee is the Libertarian promised land. South Fulton firefighters stood by and watched an Orion County home burn down because the owners had not paid their $75 fire protection subscription fee. The homeowners offered to pay on the spot, but were refused. The family’s three dogs and a cat died.

Mayor David Crocker said, "if homeowners don't pay, they're out of luck."

Or we're all out of luck. Because if one house is on fire, the whole neighborhood is at risk. Fires are tricky devils and don't check policies or town hall records before igniting home after home. People who don't pay or can't pay -- for whatever reason -- endanger themselves, their neighbors, and even the firefighters -- it's easier to put out one small house fire than a neighborhood ablaze.

Likewise for highly contagious diseases. We can't protect ourselves piecemeal. We have to protect the entire herd equally.

Call it socialism if you want, but socialized fire care is an idea whose time has come... or came, actually, in the 19th century. The U.S. had private fire companies back then, and that system didn't work for shit. Time was wasted summoning the correct company, or none at all, and fires would spread. The public demanded some kind of central command of fire companies. Of course, I don't think anybody screamed "socialism" back then. It was just good common sense that taxes in a civilized society should go towards services for the public.

But thanks to the teabaggers and Glenn Beck, these matters are now some kind of modern debate in which compassion and the common good are open to ridicule and mockery.

Right Wing Radio Duck

You better watch this one before the Disney lawyers find it:

(YouTube video.)

Has Our Honor Been Restored Yet?

I simply didn't have the stamina to watch that bizarre Glenn Beck civil rights pantomime over the weekend. I've been out of it for a week, and I'm still under the influence of narcotics (see post below) and my prescription label says, "do not drive, operate heavy machinery, or watch Beck rallies." I'm sure some of you must have seen parts of it though?

So I ask you, did he cry? Did he tell us how much he loves his country? Did the Mormon shock-jock call for some kind of vague Christian revival? Was it self-indulgent? Was it pitiful?

I heard about the geese flying in a v-formation over the reflecting pool. I'm concluding from the many awe-struck replies on this YouTube video that most of Beck's fans flunked science, so let me share the secret: that's the way migrating geese fly! Shh!

And here's another little factoid: interpreting the will of the gods by studying the flight of birds is a pagan practice called augury. I think Beck's crowd reached a new level of confused religiosity.

Anyway, if there was a god who busies himself organizing geese, then those birds would have shat on Beck's head.

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This whole self-anointed messiah act is exhausting. I try not to react to every idiot comment coming from Beck, Palin, Limbaugh, etc., but liberals cannot ignore these people into irrelevance. They preach to the choir and their choir is devout.

A recent article by Matt Taibbi articulated the dangers of ignoring the media hate-fest:

In fact if you follow Fox News and the Limbaugh/Hannity afternoon radio crew, this summer’s blowout has almost seemed like an intentional echo of the notorious Radio Rwanda broadcasts “warning” Hutus that they were about to be attacked and killed by conspiring Tutsis, broadcasts that led to massacres of Tutsis by Hutus acting in “self-defense.” A sample of some of the stuff we’ve seen and heard on the air this year:

• On July 12, Glenn Beck implied that the Obama government was going to aid the New Black Panther Party in starting a race war, with the ultimate aim of killing white babies. "They want a race war. We must be peaceful people. They are going to poke, and poke, and poke, and our government is going to stand by and let them do it." He also said that "we must take the role of Martin Luther King, because I do not believe that Martin Luther King believed in, 'Kill all white babies.'"
• CNN contributor and Redstate.com writer Erick Erickson, on the Panther mess: "Republican candidates nationwide should seize on this issue. The Democrats are giving a pass to radicals who advocate killing white kids in the name of racial justice and who try to block voters from the polls."
• On July 6, the Washington Times columnist J. Christian Adams wrote an editorial insisting that "top [Obama] appointees have allowed and even encouraged race-based enforcement as either tacit or open policy," marking one of what would become many assertions by commentators that the Obama administration was no longer interested in protecting the rights of white people. "The Bush Civil Rights Division was willing to protect all Americans from racial discrimination,” Adams wrote. “During the Obama years, the Holder years, only some Americans will be protected."
• July 12: Rush Limbaugh says Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder “protect and represent” the New Black Panther party.
• July 28: Rush says Supreme Court decision on 1070 strips Arizonans of their rights to defend themselves against an “invasion”: "I guess the judge is saying it's not in the public interest for Arizona to try to defend itself from an invasion. I don't know how you look at this with any sort of common sense and come to the ruling this woman came to.” That same day, Rush says this: "Muslim terrorists are going to have a field day in Arizona. You cannot ask them where they're from. You cannot even act like we know where they're from. You cannot ask them for their papers. We can ask you for yours. Not them."
• July 29: The Washington Times asks “Should Arizona Secede?” and says the Supreme Court "is unilaterally disarming the people of Arizona in the face of a dangerous enemy” with the aim of creating a “socialist superstate.” The paper writes: "The choice is becoming starkly apparent: devolution or dissolution."
• July 29, Fox and Friends host Steve Doocy continues the Radio Rwanda theme, saying, "If the feds won't protect the people and Governor Brewer can't protect her citizens, what are the people of Arizona supposed to do?"

Taibbi concludes that conservatives really don't want a race war, but driving frustrated/broke white suburbanites into a race-hatred frenzy happens to be good business.

So -- though I'm still unsure what "restoring honor" means -- I'm guessing the restoration is not complete... because then Beck's gig would be up.

Gullibility

I'm sure these Facebook users really thought they uncovered something sinister. "Martial Law Plans Revealed?" the title declares with a Fox-esque question mark. Except the video is a 2007 piece from the Onion which somehow recently resurfaced as real news.

LOL! Those Obama haters sure are gullible!

Oh Wait? What's this about a USDA official wrongfully fired because of a selectively excerpted video on a conservative blog? Oops. The Obama administration and legitimate news outlets vilified USDA official Shirley Sherrod based on bits and pieces of a speech which supposedly revealed her to be a racist, and -- gasp! -- was going to be aired on Glenn Beck's show!

Wow, Andrew Breitbart and Glenn Beck are still dragging our country down by the balls with the same modus operandi they used to attack ACORN -- a collection of lies and video edits promulgated over and over again.

But nothing has been learned. Let me speculate how the conversation went at the White House... "Let's not get a full set of facts! Let's not take a few minutes to view the whole video. Fire her! Fire her! So we look decisive! So we don't lose our own jobs!"

Yeah, pretty much that's how it went:

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Kids, remember two things: Google is your friend, and when you hear something outrageously crazy, always consider the source even if it's me.

Goldmine for Goldline

A while back I wrote about The Lightning-Rod Man by Herman Melville:

Door-to-door salesman are not part of our modern world, but we can still recognize the lightning-rod man today. He comes during a storm, strikes fear with his stories, has something to sell, and has something to gain. The Lightning-Rod Man is an enduring parable about consumerism, religion, and politics. Buy me, pray to me, vote for me or you'll end up dead.

Or poor. Glenn Beck is the modern lightning-rod man, or snake-oil salesman if you prefer. The Fox commentator spins wild, paranoid tales of the the coming economic apocalypse and then tells his gullible audience that buying gold is the answer. See, first he scares you, but then he saves you!

Of course, Beck wants his viewers to buy gold from Goldline which is one of his few remaining sponsors. Now, whether you believe gold is the answer or not, one thing is looking clearer and clearer: Goldline is screwing consumers. Their average markup is 90% above melt value. Their highest markup is 208% above melt value:

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And Glenn Beck's audience must be a goldmine for Goldline. Beck's true believers faithfully follow the fallacies of his hallucinations:

One customer, whose name was redacted by the FTC, filed a complaint in February, writing, "Not knowing anything about buying gold, I called Goldline International, Inc. because of their advertisement on Fox News and the fact that Glenn Beck endorses them." Like Richardson, this customer originally wanted bullion, but the sales rep "absolutely insisted" on 20-franc coins, and the customer relented. Unable to get a refund, the customer reported paying $369 apiece for coins that could be bought elsewhere for as low as $208.

But now that Rep. Anthony Weiner is onto Goldline’s sleazy sales tactics and ties to right-wing pundits, what can Beck do? (Do I even need to ask?) He will weave an intricate web of conspiracies involving Van Jones, Jim Wallis, evil government agencies, and Media Matters -- all determined to take down Fox News!

And his fans will believe every deluded word even as he swindles them.

Nazi Tourette's

It's like the game "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon," except there's just one degree and Kevin Bacon is Hitler.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Back in Black - Glenn Beck's Nazi Tourette's
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Remember, "empathy leads you to very bad decisions many times," according to Glenn Beck. Well, that's one more twisted belief of the wingnuts.

Tea Party Ghost

And now it's time for a story. It's kind of like "The Night Before Christmas," but for tax day. From the creative mind of P.J. O'Rourke:

He stood on the stage bathing in the adulation of the assembled dignitaries. The Nobel Prize! At last, his body of work had been given the honor it deserved. As the standing ovation went on he thought of his critics. He knew they were watching. Did this great hall look like the rubber room where they said he’d spend the rest of his days bouncing? Ha! His struggle had been so worth the effort…

Glenn Beck was awakened from his dream of adequacy by the sound of a man clearing his throat. He sat up and, as his eyes adjusted, saw a glowing white Colonial ghost standing beside his bed.

“Who are you?”

“My friends call me Ben. We have been watching you for some time, and see how loyal you are to our cause. I have been sent to grant you the privilege of attending the real Boston Tea Party, that you may then be able to advance our cause with more familiarity and fervor. We haven’t much time. Touch my sleeve and join the cause.”

Read more...

I hope this story becomes a tradition.

Socialized Book Care

At CPAC last week, Glenn Beck encouraged his followers to educate themselves at our nation's socialized book care centers:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Rage Within the Machine - Progressivism
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Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor The Olympics

I'm not sure how people can watch Glenn Beck's mental patient impersonation for hours at a time, but apparently some people do, and they take him very seriously. If you caught the recent NYT article on the teabaggers, you probably noticed that Beck and his 9/12 project came up disturbingly often:

Most of the people there had paid only passing attention to national politics in years past. “I voted twice and I failed political science twice,” said Darin Stevens, leader of the Spokane 9/12 Project.

He sounds like a typical teabagger to me along with the 66 year old Mrs. Stout who is taking a Twitter class... I'm derailing a bit here, but I had no idea such a thing was needed or I would have hired myself out as a private Twitter tutor. Moreover, I think the existence of a Twitter class suggests that many people have been left behind as the world progresses without them. They probably feel insecure and rush to catch up, but their efforts include bogus classes and Glenn Beck books... which they'll have to buy at Borders once they figure out that the libraries are a socialist thing.

Anyway, George Packer explained it better. Mrs. Stout represents a certain type of person we've seen throughout US history:

There’s nothing new about Mrs. Stout. She’s a familiar figure in American life, always latent, but coming to the surface in national emergencies. Richard Hofstadter described her mental world in detail. In the seventeen-eighties she lived in Sheffield, Massachusetts, during a period of tight credit and land foreclosures and was sympathetic to the farmers’ uprising known as Shay’s Rebellion that began there. In the eighteen-fifties she was a non-voting constituent of Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. In the eighteen-nineties she was the wife of a Nebraska farmer who joined the People’s Party and voted for William Jennings Bryan and free silver. In the nineteen-thirties desperate poverty drove her to fall for the simple solutions of Huey Long’s left-wing demagoguery, or Father Coughlin’s right-wing demagoguery, which often sounded similar. In the nineteen-fifties she listened avidly to radio personalities like Fulton Lewis, Jr., and Walter Winchell, thought President Eisenhower was a knowing agent of the Communist Party, and was a passionate supporter of Senator Joe McCarthy. In 2001 she knew that the Bush Administration orchestrated 9/11. In 2008 she showed up at Sarah Palin rallies.

And that's the problem. Teabaggers think the answer to their discontent can be found in militias, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin.

Remember My Name

Glenn Beck is the #1 most loathsome American according to The Beast. Maybe I shouldn't pick on low-hanging fruit for quick laughs? Let me ponder that for 0.3 milliseconds. Nope, I'm still going to pick on him.

His latest tirade is awesomely kooky. It doesn't quite top his "oligarhy" sermon from last year, but it's funny... until you remember that millions of full-grown adults actually take him seriously:


(Media Matters video)

Here's the text so you can read it and weep (for our nation):

BECK: He chose to use his name, Barack, for a reason. To identify, not with America -- you don't take the name Barack to identify with America. You take the name Barack to identify with what? Your heritage? The heritage, maybe, of your father in Kenya, who is a radical? Really? Searching for something to give him any kind of meaning, just as he was searching later in life for religion.

So Beck is engaging in some very nutty speculations, but this is my first question: Didn't we already debate this? Yes! I remember, it was during the 2008 election! Pundits were screaming "Barack Hussein Obama has a funny name," along with much worse accusations. But what was the outcome? Oh, yeah... we elected him! Most Americans got over the foreign sounding name and elected Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th President of the United States!

But now, Glenn Beck wants to cast suspicion over Obama's name change -- when he went from his nickname "Barry" to his real name Barack during his college years. Never mind that Obama already explained it to Newsweek: "It was not some assertion of my African roots … not a racial assertion. It was much more of an assertion that I was coming of age. An assertion of being comfortable with the fact that I was different and that I didn't need to try to fit in in a certain way."

Now imagine what Glenn Beck would be saying if Barack was still going as "Barry." He'd accuse the President of hiding his heritage, being false and ashamed. It's bad enough Beck and other wingnuts shout Obama's middle name as if they're uncovering something big -- like Monicagate all over again.

"What's in a name? That is what we ask ourselves in childhood when we write the name that we are told is ours." — James Joyce.

I know Republicans are really into these purity tests, but my own name is Norwegian, both my sisters' names are English, and my brothers' are Germanic and Hebrew. What were my Republican parents thinking? But I guess conservatives only find African and Arabic names terrifying.

Or maybe they don't realize that what they assume is American isn't always American. Take the name America for example. It came from the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. That's right. Our country has a foreign name just like our President. Get over it Beck.

Au

Stephen Colbert explains how Prescott Financial and Glenn Beck help you by frightening you:

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Prescott Financial Sells Gold, Women & Sheep
www.colbertnation.com
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I want to tell Beck and his sponsors that I prayed on it before they preyed on me. God said I should avoid those guys and send my gold to Cats For Gold. I'm pretty sure they're legit -- why else would God recommend them? And I've been wanting a few cats anyway.

Dances With Smurfs

"I'm just a normal kid like you, except I ask questions." — Eric Cartman

I guess everybody can impersonate Glenn Beck now -- even a cartoon character. In last night's South Park episode, Dances With Smurfs, Eric Cartman turned his elementary school's morning announcements into his own punditry show slamming Wendy, the student body president, as a "a socialist dunghole." Sound familiar? Cartman even mastered the old Fox trick of a statement followed by a question separated by a colon.

In the end -- well, you really have to see it -- but it's kind of like if President Obama admitted to being an alien from another planet (like Lou Dobbs). But I digress. Watch the episode at least for the part where Butters runs with his pants down.

Fact Check This One

Saturday Night Live hasn't made me laugh since the last time Tina Fey impersonated Sarah Palin. But last night's SNL intro was funny in the same way -- a perfect imitation of a conservative (or a bunch of conservatives) is itself a good joke:

(Vodpod video)

That pretty much sums up the media's "off year" election coverage. It was so totally absurd it left me speechless for the last five days.

And I'm waiting on the edge of my seat for CNN to deliver a thorough fact check -- not of the election -- but the comedy sketch, of course.

I'll Have the H1N1 Omelet

I'm starting to feel a little guilty about my light-hearted swine flu posts earlier this year. I'm afraid that karma is going to bite me in the ass and it's really going to hurt this time.

In case you missed it last Sunday, 60 Minutes did an informative piece on the manufacture, distribution and safety of the H1N1 flu vaccine:


Watch CBS News Videos Online

The H1N1 vaccine -- just like the seasonal flu vaccine -- is produced by growing the virus inside eggs which come from secret farms. These farms are considered so important to national security that among the first to get the vaccine are the egg farmers themselves. I assume they don't object to the privilege.

Which reminds me, I'd like to thank 60 Minutes for not interviewing a single moronic celebrity for their report. Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelius put it bluntly, "I tend to like to get my health advice from doctors and scientists. And that's what we would urge people to do."

Yes, I agree with her, but a lot of people don't. Fear and skepticism about the vaccine is being fueled by the likes of Glenn Beck, Jenny McCarthy and Bill Maher. It was almost funny watching Bill Maher attempting to backpedal and debunk himself on the Realtime season finale two weeks ago. I wonder if his feelings were hurt by that open letter from the editor of Skeptic magazine.

Indeed it's not a laughing matter. A recent and excellent article in Wired explained how the antivaccinationists are creating a panic that is endangering us all:

The [Los Angeles] Times found that even though only about 2 percent of California’s kindergartners are unvaccinated (10,000 kids, or about twice the number as in 1997), they tend to be clustered, disproportionately increasing the risk of an outbreak of such largely eradicated diseases as measles, mumps, and pertussis (whooping cough). The clustering means almost 10 percent of elementary schools statewide may already be at risk.

This is the key to a public health catastrophe. People want the right to make individual choices, but the greatest protection comes from herd immunity: "in diseases passed from person to person, it is more difficult to maintain a chain of infection when large numbers of a population are immune. The higher the proportion of individuals who are immune, the lower the likelihood that a susceptible person will come into contact with an infected individual."

It's ironic that the parents who cavalierly refuse to get their children vaccinated never experienced the tragedy of a real epidemic because their own generation was vaccinated!

So when more H1N1 vaccines become available, I will try to get one, if that bad karma doesn't get to me first.

We're All Marxists Now

Imagine a world without the Internet...


I'm scaring myself and it's not even Halloween yet! Of course, nobody is talking about closing down the Internet, but what does seriously disturb me is Glenn Beck whining against net neutrality.

On his show yesterday, the lachrymose Fox pundit equated net neutrality with a Marxist takeover of the Internet. Yep. The Marxists are coming and they will stifle creativity, hurt competition, and control Internet content. As usual, Beck has it precisely backwards. Net neutrality is about maintaining a free and open marketplace:

The principle of net neutrality is about keeping the hands of several powerful network operators – AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast – off the Internet, preventing them from taking steps to change the basic open nature of the Net that has led to its success. Net neutrality keeps the Internet as a free and open marketplace, so that a small number of telephone and cable monopolies can’t choke off competition and innovation.

Net neutrality was a founding principle of the Internet, and was the law of the land until 2005. The courts and the regulators changed the rules in 2005 when they eliminated the nondiscrimination requirements that had applied for decades to phone service and, up to that point, to most residential Internet access. Implementing net neutrality is a return to the basic principles that make the Internet work for consumers and innovators.

Maybe Beck doesn't understand the word "neutrality." Maybe Beck doesn't understand the Internet. I know he doesn't understand freedom. But most likely Beck completely understands that he is working for those astroturf groups who will profit from a choked off Internet.

The odd thing about this issue is that it cannot be summed up as "big business versus the little guy." The opponents of net neutrality are mostly telecommunications companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner.

But the supporters include many big tech companies as well as small businesses and not-for-profit organizations. Hell, even the Christian Coalition of America is a supporter. But now, according to Beck, they all share the common bond of Marxism.

And why? Here are the FCC rules everybody is fussing about:

• Consumers are entitled to access any legal Internet content
• Consumers are entitled to use any Internet applications or services
• Consumers are entitled to connect to any devices that won't harm the network
• The same rules apply to cable/DSL and wireless Internet
• Internet providers can't block or slow competitors' online services

Wow! They took that right out of the Communist Manifesto!

Lazy Blogging Part 2

Going Rogue

I'm not really the outdoorsy type, but I do like to watch scenery and nature on TV, so I caught part of The National Parks series on PBS the other night. I had never really thought about it, but I guess national parks really are an American invention -- one of our best even.

The story of our national parks is about love of nature, conservation, preservation and democracy, but it's also about politics. Amazingly, this great idea, this great investment, flourished during a time of economic catastrophe.

Of course, I have to wonder how that could be? We're so damn cynical now that even our government hates government. I know our country had "yellow journalism" back then, but did we suffer through anything at all like Glenn Beck?

I was slightly impressed today when one Republican finally went rogue. No, not Sarah Palin. I'm talking about Senator Lindsey Graham. He had a few words to say about Glenn Beck and cable news in general:

"Can you imagine doing D-Day with cable television?" he asked. "Can you imagine writing the Constitution -- you know, O'Reilly says Ben Franklin's giving in on something. Can you imagine having to do that in this environment?"

Or could you imagine the government conserving beautiful forests and canyons so that all could enjoy them? Or employing 300,000 young men for a Civilian Conservation Corps? It couldn't happen now. Somebody would yell "socialism" and everybody would cower.

What we protect is what we value. We protect insurance industries, bankers, greed, and the status quo, but sometimes we have to take action for the greater good. Sometimes we have to try to make things better for all of us.

Sacrificing an Acorn

The attacks on ACORN began last year when Republicans accused the organization of voter fraud. This month, however, the opposition has turned into a full assault after a few low-level ACORN employees were caught on tape giving some really stupid advice to a guy in a badass pimp costume.

Well, tally another win for Fox's Glenn Beck. Apparently he can set the agenda for the entire country and swiftly take down a community organization whose mission is to advocate for affordable housing, affordable healthcare, higher minimum wages, and better schools. ACORN was also against predatory lending before it was cool.

In other words, ACORN's mission was staunchly against the interests of big business, and that's why nobody wants to be friends with them now. The media hates them and Congress hates them too.

So last week, while Congress was busy defunding ACORN for their transgressions, I stewed over all the other corrupt government contractors who have defrauded tax payers and are accused of rape and murder. Why can't we defund them?

Oh wait... We are?!

When our government shoots fish in a barrel, they like to use a bazooka:

The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to "any organization" that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.

In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.

Hysterical! I don't mind sacrificing an ACORN if it means we also defund the likes of Blackwater and KBR.

In a sane country, the Defund ACORN ACT would be declared unconstitutional as it is clearly a bill of attainder. But these days, the insanity doesn't end at Fox.