I was starting to think that Great Britain had locked up all the good political parties.
So imagine my delight to see that, in last night's New York gubernatorial debate, the only candidate who made any sense whatsoever was Jimmy McMillan of The Rent Is 2 Damn High Party.
Not only that, if you go to the party's website, you'll be greeted by the most danceable campaign theme song ever. A stone-cold jam.
From what little I could tell from the above video, The Rent Is 2 Damn High Party is the most entertaining thing to hit Western politics since this:
That's right, the rent is too DAMN high. Especially on landless peasants.
The following message is paid for by Outrage for Outrage's Sake 2010:
I think this videow showes the supposd "presiddente" Barak Hoosaine Obamma's treu collors!!! When the presiddentshul seel fell off the podiom, our Socshulist in Cheif thought it was funney!!!
"All of you no who I am." What arrogunce! Who does this Communiss impostur think he is? He thinkes he is funny and just has no respekt for the symmboles of our country!!!!!
This is bechuss, like a treu Muslin, he has no respekt for the offise of the presiddentcy and thinks America is a big Joke! THIS IS PRUFE THAT THIS MAN IS NOT A REEL AMERICAN-HE WAS BORN IN KENYUH!!!!!! He is juste like his Communiss African Father and thinks America is a Joke but thee last laufgh will be on him the Tea Party will take our Country back in thee elecshun!
And then thee peeople will overthrow his crooked Communiss dictator state in 2012!!! Palin-O'Donnel 2012!!!!
A crazed gunman walked into an Omaha hospital today, hours after leading police on a high-speed chase when lawmen foiled his mad scheme to gun down his in-laws.
And death roamed the corridors.
In the dark Nebraska predawn, the gunman assaulted his terrified wife at a hunt club they owned near a small northeastern Nebraska town. Who did she want to die first? Cold blue steel was pressed to her head.
Who did she want to die first, her mother or her sister?
It's midday in Omaha. The scene: a busy medical center near downtown. Two police officers find the man -- gun in hand -- standing at a pay phone near the hospital cafeteria. THEY CONFRONT him. He answered with a fusillade of hot lead. The officers are hit, but fate has spared them grievous wounds.
They return fire, mortally wounding Jeffrey Layten.
He could have been alQaida in a pickup, if not for the bravery displayed by American police officers in the line of fire. And Lee Terry -- CONGRESSMAN Lee Terry -- thinks he was a great guy:
"I have known Jeff for years and hunted on his property many times. Jeff has always been an easy-going person," Terry whined to the Omaha press corps, "and today’s episode is very out of character for him."
WHAT IS the "character" of a crazed would-be killer, Congressman? And what is the character of a gun-happy Republican politician who "hunts" with domestic terrorists?
Call Lee Terry's office at (202) 225-4155 and tell the congressman you're sick of his tolerance for domestic terrorism. Tell Lee Terry he's too extreme for law-abiding Nebraskans, and that his criminal-coddling ways will come to an abrupt end this November.
Stop Lee Terry before more of his "easy-going" friends put their blue-steel barrels of terror to your head.
* * *
This message is paid for by the One Good Turn Foundation, and Lee Terry should approve of our methods. We're just taking a page out of his playbook, after all.
So this is what Rep. Lee Terry was cooking up in our nation's capital when the pretty lady lobbyist got him "so drunk."
Latch on to that excuse, Congressman. The New York Post -- no friend to your political opposition -- will vouch for you.
The other explanation for this one is that Terry is a contemptible liar -- even by Republican-politician standards -- and has no honor at all. When one speaks of "no honor at all," it's usually referencing something like blatantly slandering the opposition in November's U.S. House race in Nebraska's 2nd District.
IN A FLIER aimed at pro-life Democrats, Terry alleges that state Sen. Tom White "supports taxpayer abortion on demand." In the strange, strange world of Lee Terry, this is what constitutes supporting using "your tax dollars to pay for abortions on demand":
White on Monday described the health care reform package approved by the House as "far from perfect, but better than continuing with the status quo."
That, he said, matches the assessment of Omaha investment icon Warren Buffett as well as his own experiences as a cancer survivor and small business owner.
"Now it's time for Congress to turn to fixing the economy, getting our fiscal house in order, and restoring the economic and job growth the country so desperately needs," White said.
(Lincoln Journal-Star)
I SUPPOSE there's room for Terry to go even lower in this election battle, but I don't know whether he could stay out of jail in the process.
The "abortion on demand" slur about health-care reform goes back to the epic battle over the legislation passed in March. And, frankly, the only people who buy it are GOP pols (for obvious, and cynical, reasons), their wholly-owned subsidiaries within the politicized "pro-life" movement and the nation's Catholic bishops.
To get there, the bishops and the "pro-life" groups had to make some pretty paranoid and wild assumptions about what the legislation would do. That ground has been well covered, including on this blog.
In brief, academics who specialize in health-care law have said the Republican pols, the professional pro-lifers and the bishops are nuts if they think what Terry and his ilk slur as "ObamaCare" provides taxpayer subsidies for "abortion on demand."
To be even briefer, what we have in this electoral silly season are lies, damned lies, and whatever Lee Terry is mailing out to pro-life Democrats. Actually, we knew it was coming. It was on the Politics Daily website just the other day:
With a state unemployment rate in August of 4.6 percent (the third lowest in the nation, thanks to a booming agricultural economy) and Omaha itself at just 4.9 percent, the 2nd District has been spared much of the I'll-never-work-again despair that shapes politics in most of America.
As Lee Terry knows all too well, he represents the most hotly contested individual congressional district in the 2008 presidential election. Because Nebraska awards an electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, the Obama campaign mounted a successful crusade to pluck off a surprise pickup in a state that has been stoutly Republican in presidential politics since 1964. Terry, whose victory margin was held to 52 percent amid the Obama upset, acknowledged with blunt honesty that the Democrats "had one heck of a ground game that got people registered and practically eliminated the Republican advantage in the district."
Comparatively inexpensive ad rates (about $75,000 a week for 1,000 gross rating points) allow White (who had $532,000 cash on hand at the June) to be competitive with the incumbent (who had $787,000 in the bank) on Omaha television. Both candidates, who went on the air late last month, have each committed to buying at least $400,000 in additional TV time before November. Terry plans to press his financial advantage through radio advertising and sending out about 300,000 mailings. For example, even though both candidates are anti-abortion in this roughly 40-percent Catholic district, the Terry campaign is readying a special direct-mail piece aimed at pro-life Democrats.
Two elements make the TV narrative here in the Omaha area slightly different than the cookie-cutter national norms. Because of the comparatively low local unemployment rate, the economic crisis that both candidates decry is the national debt rather than lost jobs. A Terry spot slammed his opponent for supporting the economic stimulus and the overall goals of the Obama health-care bill and claimed, as a result, that the difference between the two candidates was "2 trillion dollars" and that White intended to pay for it "with higher taxes and more debt." White's first ad began with the candidate starring directly into the camera and declaring, "When you look at the debt that both parties in Washington keep piling on our kids, it's just wrong."
White never identifies himself as a Democrat. Instead, in his ads he is vaguely identified as "a different kind of leader for Nebraska" and "Nebraska independence for Congress." Asked about a lack of a party label in his ads, White said candidly, "This is not a year where that's effective. Nor is it ever. You have to understand in my whole career, I have never run as a Democrat. The legislature is entirely non-partisan."
A national Republican strategist calls the 2008 bank bailout vote "the one symbol of anti-incumbency that has a chance of working against incumbent Republicans." Small wonder that Tom White has gone after his rival for his vote in favor of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in an ad that claims "Washington politicians like Lee Terry . . . voted for wasteful spending like the Wall Street bailout." Asked about the TARP vote, Terry said, "I really thought it would cost me the [2008] election."
AND I GUESS we all knew Terry would go as low as he did in slurring White as a radical pro-abort. All we had to do was remember what the Republicans threw at Jim Esch in the fall of '08.
White certainly figured Terry's GOP slime machine was warming up. Just after the Terry mailer hit this pro-life Catholic Democrat's mailbox this afternoon, this robocall from White hit my answering machine:
I SECOND that emotion.
And I grieve for the truth, murdered yet again by a "pro-life" politician who will do -- and say -- any damnable thing to keep sucking at the taxpayer teat on Capitol Hill.
And the question, says Carnac, is "Why are the Democrats going to lose it all?"
Seconds before tearing open an envelope bearing the question, the magnificent one had received an answer from the universal consciousness: "Because pointing out why the tea-party pol might be a crook is boring, and it won't make Democrats look cool to the bohos in SoHo."
AS REPORTED in The Washington Times -- the Moonie-owned, right-wing Washington Times! -- here's the real toil and trouble allegedly bubbling in the tea-party darling's cauldron. It's a real witches' brew, and it's at risk of dematerializing amid the progressive snarkfest over the religious-right "freak":
In one of the strongest condemnations yet against the "tea party"-backed Ms. O'Donnell, the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) Monday filed complaints with the U.S. attorney's office in Delaware and the Federal Election Commission accusing her of using campaign funds to pay for personal expenses and then lying about her expenditures on forms she filed with the FEC.
CREW has asked the U.S. attorney's office to start an immediate criminal inquiry and asked the FEC to conduct a full audit of all of Ms. O'Donnell's campaign expenses.
"Christine O'Donnell is clearly a criminal, and like any crook, she should be prosecuted," Melanie Sloan, CREW executive director, said in a written statement. "Ms. O'Donnell has spent years embezzling money from her campaign to cover her personal expenses. Republicans and Democrats don't agree on much these days, but both sides should agree on one point: Thieves belong in jail, not the United States Senate."
The O'Donnell campaign didn't respond to several telephone and e-mail requests for comment regarding CREW's accusations, but her campaign manager, Matt Moran, told CNN that he was "very confident that [the CREW accusations] will be dismissed as frivolous."
"And for the charges that need to be articulated fully, we have some lawyers that will be looking at that and addressing those concerns," he said.
PROVING THAT it's much better to be lucky than smart, the angry right is learning fast that with enemies like "progressives," who needs friends?
Scratch many "progressives," and what you'll find is . . . Glenn Beck tripping on Viagra.
Replace the "Ground Zero imam," Feisal Abdul Rauf with Christine O'Donnell, the Republicans' nominee for U.S. Senate in Delaware, and you basically have folks like Media Matters and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow doing Glenn Beck's schtick -- just not quite so craziliciously well as Beck does it.
O'Donnell is a tea-party candidate. She has Sarah Palin as a patron. She has a financially checkered past, with allegations of lying, hypocrisy and cheating former campaign workers thrown in for good measure.
That's a lot for a liberal to work with, politically. SO WHAT do "progressives" think O'Donnell's Achilles' heel is? She's against masturbation.
Well, so is the pope. It's called Catholic moral theology. In fact, lots of Christians are foursquare against pleasuring oneself, and fornication of all sorts. So are Muslims.
But you don't see Maddow, or Media Matters -- or, in fact, any other "progressive" voice -- crying out against Muslims' horrible intolerance of whacking off. What you instead hear is a cacophony of "progressive" voices condemning the likes of Beck, Newt Gingrich and all manner of tea-party nutjobs for their bigotry toward American Muslims.
You hear them condemning the intolerant right for holding Muslims, and their faith, in the same sort of contempt "progressives" reserve for the long-established, orthodox Christian approach to sexual ethics.
Americans, it seems to me, might take the left's pleas for tolerance a lot more seriously if "progressives" weren't such contemptible hypocrites.
And God save Angus X, wherever he might be after his unfortunate loss in the British national elections this spring. An old friend was musing about the present doings of Land Is Power -- the party annual meeting is coming up Saturday at an Edinburgh cafe -- so I wandered over to the website of Angus X and the landless peasants . . . and found an amazing video.
No, really. That's it above -- The Story of Stuff. Please watch it.
WHEN I was watching this amazing presentation by Annie Leonard, I thought "This is pure Catholic social-justice kind of stuff here. I'll bet Glenn Beck hates it."And sure enough. . . .
Gosh, I feel so dumb now. The conservative ubercapitalists quickly reassured me by saying market efficiency and ongoing miniaturization will solve many of the problems of the sustainability and disposal of our abundant stuff.
Besides, we have a whole planet to be mined. We've barely scratched the surface. Why, if we mine deep enough -- through the earth's crust and well into the mantle, which we could do as technology advances -- we could have all the raw materials we need to make more and more stuff.
This little fact -- in addition to making Glenn Beck even crazier than usual -- also is likely to dismay one of the film's producers, the Tides Foundation, which believes we can best care for the poor and powerless of the world by helping them abort their poor and powerless offspring.
Sigh . . . in a fallen world, nobody bats 1.000. Well, at least fetuses are biodegradable, right?
WE NOW return you to Angus X, who remains not safe for work . . . or the kids. But kind of spot on, nevertheless.
You want to know why reporters drink? It's because the jackasses they often have to cover make their brains hurt, and alcohol helps to deaden the pain. A little.
Take the Omaha World-Herald's Maggie O'Brien, for instance. She covers city government . . . and the people who try to blow up city government whenever they get in a toot about something. Usually, it's taxes.
LOOK AT what the poor girl has to deal with daily. If she's not at The Dubliner swilling black-and-tans right now, she's a totally amazing woman:
A group exploring the possibility of recalling Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle has launched a website that will take donations.
The site, mayorsuttlerecall.com, was launched Tuesday. Organizers said donations will be accepted online by Tuesday afternoon.
Last month, the Mayor Suttle Recall Committee announced it had raised $5,000 by Aug. 17, triggering the group to file with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission. The group plans to take out recall affidavits later this month.
IN CASE you've not apprehended the irony here, let me help.
The Mayor Suttle Recall Committee wants people who allegedly are so strapped that they can't pay another farthing in any kind of a tax -- no matter how dire the city's financial situation -- to donate money to them to recall the mayor. For raising taxes.
Because we're all broke.
But not too broke to give what you'd likely spend in higher taxes to a bunch of well-off cranks and cynics to blow up city government because you don't want to pay higher taxes.
Because you're broke.
Destitute. A $15 wheel-tax hike from losing your car to the repo guy, losing your house to the bank and being reduced to wandering the streets of River City filling a hijacked grocery cart with castoff aluminum cans -- which you desperately hope you can turn into enough cash to buy a Big Mac and a Budweiser tall boy.
JUST REMEMBER this one important thing, all ye poor, desperate, taxed-into-nothingness wretches of Omaha:
If you are concerned about having your name attached to the recall, donations of $249.00 or less do NOT have to be reported to the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission.
Since we're hell-bent on dragging Omaha back two decades into the bad ol' days of civic strife, dysfunction and stagnation, why doesn't the Recall Army just drop the Big One now and put us all out of the taxophobes' misery.
That's right, none of that Rodney King". . . can we all get along? Can we get along?" crap from back in the day. No, what Omaha needs now is some Lawrence King teenage mutant ninja buggery crap from back in the day.
Cut the police department's budget to zero, because you knowwhat police chiefs do with their paycheck in this Great Plains Gomorrah.
And who's Jim Suttle been sleeping with, anyway?
DAMMIT TO HELL, I'm too damned taxed out to go to the movies, and I want some entertainment value out of my municipal government -- just so long as it doesn't cost me anything. We need us some chaos right about now. Chaos -- now that's some cheap entertainment!
And all we need to do to get the ol' mayhem rolling is to start recalling everybody in sight. Hey, Alisha! Wasn't Suttle at some of those kinky hoop-de-doos? Think hard.
Ask Paul Bonacci. Maybe he can come up with something.
I mean, you got to give us something to work with here if we're gonna have us some chaotic kicks and giggles.
After all, you just don't recall a mayor over the budget and raising some taxes to balance the budget, do you?
A grass-roots group announced plans Thursday to explore a recall campaign against Mayor Jim Suttle.
A separate group took out recall affidavits Thursday against Suttle, as well as City Council members Jean Stothert and Pete Festersen.
I DUNNO, maybe you do. That's what the World-Herald is reporting. Then again, we know how the local rag likes to cover up the real reasons for stuff that goes on in this town.
Maybe Suttle has gotten to the "journalists" there. Maybe they only want us to think the recall efforts are actually over the budget.
Yeah, that's the ticket. Let's see what else the cover-uppers want the people to swallow whole. (Just like at those kinky parties, no doubt.)
The grass-roots group, the Mayor Suttle Exploratory Recall Committee, held a press conference at Anthony's Steakhouse. The event was planned quickly after the group raised $5,000 as of Aug. 17, which required it to file with the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission.
“The city could use new leadership,” said spokesman Jeremy Aspen, an Omaha real estate agent, who said the group is a grass-roots effort.
It includes some familiar faces: Pat McPherson, a longtime supporter of former Mayor Hal Daub, is a consultant. Also involved is Jim Cleary, a former Daub aide who spearheaded a successful recall against former Mayor Mike Boyle.
Aspen said Daub was not involved in the effort.
Aspen said the group organized out of concern about Suttle's financial decisions. The committee says Suttle didn't look hard enough at cutting costs before raising taxes. The committee also disagrees with the recently signed police union contract.
C'MON, PEOPLE! We need the truth. And some real live-and-local Jerry Springer-meets-Bob Woodward action to get us through these challenging times.
All together, now!
Where have you gone, Miss Alisha O? A city turns its lonely eyes to you (Woo woo woo). What's that you say, Mr. John DeCamp? "Alisha O has left and gone away" (Hey hey hey, hey hey hey).
I was all ready to start out this appeal for civic common sense with a high-falutin' reference to John Donne and "never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee," yadda yadda yadda.
Then it occurred to me, "This is Nebraska, stupid. John Donne? Really?" I mean, John Deere, maybe. But John Donne. . . ?
But I get ahead of myself.
The deal here is that Omahans' taxes are going up. Why? The city, like most cities these days, is tapped out. Broke. In the red. It's called a budget deficit.
To balancethe books, being that the city already has cut the budget to the bone the past two fiscal years, Mayor Jim Suttle proposed tax increases -- a property tax hike . . . a dining tax . . . a higher wheel tax, including one on those who work in Omaha but don't live here.
The city council made some additional budget cuts but passed the tax increases Suttle asked for, more or less.
And in this age of the tea party, it goes without saying people are furious.
The council should have cut the budget more! Government is too big! Balance the budget!
How? Who the hell knows, just do it. Cut off the freeloaders! Just not me and mine.
PEOPLE ARE so mad, there's lots of talk now about recalling Jim Suttle, as reported by KETV, Channel 7:
A group said Wednesday it will hold a news conference to announce the formation of a committee to explore the possibility of recalling Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle.
Under the title Recall Mayor Suttle, the group will announce its intentions Thursday morning at Anthony's Restaurant in Omaha.
The announcement comes one day after the Omaha City Council approved a budget plan that includes a new, 2.5 percent restaurant tax, a property tax increase of at least 2.3 cents, a wheel tax increase, and a wheel tax expansion, requiring those who live outside the city, but who work in Omaha to pay.
The Metropolitan Omaha Property Owners Association will attend the meeting. MOPOA said a poll it commissioned weeks ago showed dissatisfaction with the mayor's handling of the budget.
But political experts said such an effort likely wouldn't be driven by the masses.
"My sense is that it's more that maybe Suttle hasn't been responsive enough to some of the local business interests, and they want to make it clear that they really are calling the shots," said University of Nebraska-Omaha political science professor Dr. Loree Bykerk.
IT GETS BETTER. Says Joe Jordan over at Nebraska Watchdog, one of the people behind the latest recall effort aimed at Suttle is Jim Cleary -- the guy who spearheaded the last successful recall of an Omaha mayor, back in 1987:
Nebraska Watchdog has learned that at least part of Jim Cleary’s decision to work for the recall of Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle was made by the numbers, polling numbers.
On Monday Nebraska Watchdog reported exclusively that Cleary, who was one of the key players in the successful 1987 recall of former Omaha Mayor Mike Boyle, is now working behind the scenes with a group of Omahans who are in the early stages of formulating a strategy to recall Suttle.
Nebraska Watchdog is told that an early August poll was a key factor in persuading Cleary to get involved. According to the poll of 400 likely Omaha voters, 70% said the city was on the wrong track and 67% disapproved of the way Suttle, who was elected in May of 2009, is handling his job.
Those polled also strongly disagreed with Suttle’s 2011 budget plan which initially included a 9 percent property tax increase and a 4 percent restaurant tax. On Tuesday the City Council lowered the property tax increase to about 5 percent, trimmed the restaurant tax to 2.5 percent, and found an additional $13.5 million in budget cuts. In a statement issued following the Council’s decision the Mayor would not say if he intends to pull out his veto pen. ”I will review (the Council’s) changes to the recommended budget and will respond within an appropriate timeframe, “said Suttle.
According to several sources the recall group is expected to announce Thursday that it is forming an exploratory committee which will begin laying the groundwork for its anti-Suttle campaign.
That committee will examine the pros and cons of a recall effort, prior to launching an official petition drive. In order to recall Suttle, the Mayor’s opponents would first have to acquire the signatures of 26,642 registered voters in the City of Omaha. Those signatures must be gathered within 30 days. Sources close to the recall tell Nebraska Watchdog that a petition drive might be timed to coincide with Election Day November 2nd. That would allow those gathering the signatures to set up operations near polling places in Omaha where registered voters are casting their ballots.
Nebraska Watchdog contacted Cleary to ask him about several of these items but Cleary refused to comment.
WELL, I GUESS it was too much to ask that the national snit fit and every-man-is-an-island nervous breakdown (see, I worked in the Donne thing after all) would somehow bypass the place where I live. Insanity is afoot, and it's catching.
Nevertheless, the moment "calls for a stupid and futile gesture on somebody's part," and I guess I'm just the guy to do it. Here goes.
There is a fine line between a progressive, livable city and a dungheap that proves itself totally resistant to economic growth and successful self-governance. Indeed, civilization itself is a thin veneer over the barbarian rabble we once were . . . and could be again.
Over a couple of centuries, Americans have developed municipal services like police, fire departments, parks, libraries and social-welfare programs because we figured we needed them. Because we thought they made the places where we lived more orderly, more livable.
These things evolved all across America because we decided, for the overall good, that everyone should have a right to certain services, certain "safety nets" -- that by investing in our communities, we were investing in our, and our children's, future.
This is not the case everywhere in the world.
In some locales, those who have, keep it. All of it. And those who have not . . . have nothing. They're just flat out of luck.
Some such places we call the Third World. Other such places we call "banana republics."
They all got there when enough people -- at least enough people with means -- decided that "me" was a lot more important than "we." That is the thin line between "the American way of life" and the abyss.
I'M NOT getting through to you at all, am I? I completely lost you at John Donne, didn't I?
Well, this is Nebraska, so let me put it to you this way:
What do you think would happen if there was an "I" in "team"? Yes, I'm talking football.
What do you think would happen if Zac Lee and Niles Paul decided that giving Bo Pelini 100-percent effort was just excessive, and that instead, they'd give just 73 percent, but only when it would directly benefit their individual stats?
How do you think that would reflect on the Huskers' win-loss record?
Do you think Nebraska would be fielding a product worth the price of admission? You think anyone would care to take up residence, so to speak, at Memorial Stadium if the whole program went to hell in an every-man-for-himself hand basket?
What if bunches of first- and second-team players adopted the same attitude? Decided they were in football just for themselves? Rejected Pelini's expectations that they'd all do their bit in the name of the common good?
And what if Pelini came under suspicion for demanding players all do their part for the team?
WHAT IF Jim Cleary were Nebraska's athletic director and decided that Pelini was just a "tax-and-spend" football coach and recalled him? Well, you'd probably end up with a replay of the Bill Callahan era, that's what.
Which, of course, would be a lot like what happened to Omaha after Cleary engineered the recall of Mike Boyle -- several years of civic stagnation, instability and a revolving-door cast of mayors. And there's more!
With your electoral snit-fit, we'll include years of political mayhem and strife for free . . .all because we know you wouldn't pay for it anyway!
So, go ahead. Take care of No. 1. Recall that big-tax mayor who's so incompetent he can't do the fiscally impossible, and so arrogant he opted for the socially responsible instead.
Go ahead. Pitch a fit; sign a petition. I can't think of a better prescription for what ails us.
You know what Bob Inglis is? A socialist. A Republican socialist.
The veteran South Carolina congressman is a conservative-hating, Bilderburger-coddling, quisling traitor who's trying to kiss that crook Bill Clinton's ass while he runs interference for the communist "organizer" Barack Hussein Obama -- the Kenyan witch doctor now occupying (in the Nazi sense of the word) the White House.
Inglis is a hoity-toity little snot who thinks he's better than the people he's selling out up there in Washington, D.C., and now he's bitter because patriots saw through his "conservative" act and handed him his pinko-commie ass in the Republican runoff.
AND NOW the little traitor is showing his true colors, what with all his sour-grapes trash talking about God-fearing tea-party patriots to that godless commie rag Mother Jones:
During his primary campaign, Inglis repeatedly encountered enraged conservatives whom he couldn't—or wouldn't—satisfy. Shortly before the runoff primary election, Inglis met with about a dozen tea party activists at the modest ranch-style home of one of them. Here's what took place:
I sat down, and they said on the back of your Social Security card, there's a number. That number indicates the bank that bought you when you were born based on a projection of your life's earnings, and you are collateral. We are all collateral for the banks. I have this look like, "What the heck are you talking about?" I'm trying to hide that look and look clueless. I figured clueless was better than argumentative. So they said, "You don't know this?! You are a member of Congress, and you don't know this?!" And I said, "Please forgive me. I'm just ignorant of these things." And then of course, it turned into something about the Federal Reserve and the Bilderbergers and all that stuff. And now you have the feeling of anti-Semitism here coming in, mixing in. Wow.
Later, Inglis mentioned this meeting to another House member: "He said, 'You mean you sat there for more than 10 minutes?' I said, 'Well, I had to. We were between primary and runoff.' I had a two-week runoff. Oh my goodness. How do you..." Inglis trails off, shaking his head.
(snip) Why not give these voters what they wanted? Inglis says he wasn't willing to lie:
I refused to use the word because I have this view that the Ninth Commandment must mean something. I remember one year Bill Clinton—the guy I was out to get [when serving on the House judiciary committee in the 1990s]—at the National Prayer Breakfast said something that was one of the most profound things I've ever heard from anybody at a gathering like that. He said, "The most violated commandment in Washington, DC"—everybody leaned in; do tell, Mr. President—"is, 'Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor.'" I thought, "He's right. That is the most violated commandment in Washington." For me to go around saying that Barack Obama is a socialist is a violation of the Ninth Commandment. He is a liberal fellow. I'm conservative. We disagree...But I don't need to call him a socialist, and I hurt the country by doing so. The country has to come together to find a solution to these challenges or else we go over the cliff.
Inglis found that ideological extremism is not only the realm of the tea party; it also has infected the official circles of his Republican Party. In early 2009, he attended a meeting of the GOP's Greenville County executive committee. At the time, Republicans were feeling discouraged. Obama was in the White House; the Democrats had enlarged their majorities in the House and Senate. The GOP seemed to be in tatters. But Inglis had what he considered good news. He put up a slide he had first seen at a GOP retreat. It was based on exit polling conducted during the November 2008 election. The slide, according to Inglis, showed that when American voters were asked to place themselves on an ideological spectrum—1 being liberal, 10 being conservative—the average ended up at about 5.6. The voters placed House Republicans at about 6.5 and House Democrats at about 4.3. Inglis told his fellow Republicans, "This is great news," explaining it meant that the GOP was still closer to the American public than the Democrats. The key, he said, was for the party to keep to the right, without driving off the road.
Inglis was met, he says with "stony" faces: "There's a short story by Shirley Jackson, 'The Lottery.'" The tale describes a town where the residents stone a neighbor who is chosen randomly. "That's what the crowd looked like. I got home that night and said to my wife, 'You can't believe how they looked back at me.' It was really frightening." The next speaker, he recalls, said, "'On Bob's ideological spectrum up there, I'm a 10,' and the crowd went wild. That was what I was dealing with."
OOOOOOH. Tea-party patriots are scawy, scawy people. Ooooooh, the mean tea-pawty peoples aw gowing to huwt powah, powah Biwul Ingwiss!
The RINO sounds like Barney . . . Barney Frank! HAAAAAA!
And I'll bet some Jew put him up to saying tea-party people are anti-Semitic.
OH . . . get this! He says the Republicans will regret following the common-sense, freedom-loving patriots instead of the commie-libs and Bilderburgers!
Inglis is a casualty of the tea party-ization of the Republican Party. Given the decisive vote against him in June, it's clear he was wiped out by a political wave that he could do little to thwart. "Emotionally, I should be all right with this," he says. And when he thinks about what lies ahead for his party and GOP House leaders, he can't help but chuckle. With Boehner and others chasing after the tea party, he says, "that's going to be the dog that catches the car." He quickly adds: "And the Democrats, if they go into the minority, are going to have an enjoyable couple of years watching that dog deal with the car it's caught."
AND WE'RE GONNA enjoy watching you burn in hell with your communiss friends, you America-hating pansy!
You just don't get that sometimes you have to destroy the village to save it. Destroy it all!Destroy it so that the green shoots of freedom will emerge from the rubble of the socialist state, fertilized by the corpses of all the pinkos and the parasites.
Leave it to a conservative, God-fearin' enclave of flag-wavin' all-Americanism like Fremont, Neb., to turn itself into a Stalinist enclave in the name of . . . Americanism.
Because there are Hispanics in town, and because some of them might be illegal, a town's gotta do what a town's gotta do. In the case of the small city northwest of Omaha, that means "requiring renters to provide information to the police and to obtain city occupancy licenses," says an article in today's New York Times.
And people think Barack Obama's a Nazi. Or is he a totalitarian commie? I forget which . . . maybe he's both.
Now I'm wondering what America has to say about this brand-new, pint-sized police state on the Plains? HERE'S WHAT the Times said, anyway:
In Fremont, a meat-packing town of about 25,000 people, unofficial results from The Associated Press late Monday showed that 57 percent of voters approved a referendum barring landlords from renting to those in the country illegally, requiring renters to provide information to the police and to obtain city occupancy licenses, and obliging city businesses to use a federal database to check for illegal immigrants.
Opponents of the new law, including some business and church leaders, had argued that the City of Fremont simply could not afford the new law, which is all but certain to be challenged in court. In a flurry of television commercials and presentations by opponents in the final days before Monday’s vote, opponents said paying to defend such a local law would require a significant cut in Fremont city services or a stiff tax increase — or some combination of the two.
“There were a lot of tears in this room tonight,” said Kristin Ostrom, an opponent who gathered with others in an old V.F.W. building to await the results. “Unfortunately, people have voted for an ordinance that’s going to cost millions of dollars, and that says to the Hispanic community that the Anglo community is saying they are not welcome here. They thought they were coming to a small-town community with small-town values.”
AYE, THERE be the rub -- those "small-town values" again. What people forget is "small-town values" cut both ways.
OFTENTIMES, "small-town values" are dictated by small-minded people with big-boned fears of The Other. Like Mexicans coming into town to work at the packing plants for low wages and few benefits -- big-corporation "values."
This, of course, is more commonly known as "exploitation." And none of it can work without the diligent efforts of local managers who, no doubt, will wax eloquently all day long about how it's "small-town values" that make Fremont such a great place to work and live.
For all I know, some of the packing-plant brass might have voted for Fremont's little totalitarian scheme. It's no skin off their nose; their plants lie outside the Fremont city limits.
As residents of Fremont began considering what the decision would now mean, details of the new law were a new matter for debate. Some noted, with puzzlement, that the law would not apply to the area’s two biggest meatpacking plants (including Hormel, the largest employer) because they are just outside the city’s official boundaries, and that the law would also not apply to “casual labor for domestic tasks” around Fremont homes. But some said they believe the housing requirements — and new $5 occupancy license rule — might apply to people living in nursing homes.
SEE, THE LAW doesn't even cover the gardener. Is Fremont a great town, or what?
Still, you have to wonder how seriously anyone -- including what illegal immigrants may reside in Moscow on the Platte -- will take it when the person demanding "Your papers, please" is wearing a seed cap?
Because you people up there northwest of Omaha are so good at throwing hissy fits -- at using the law as an excuse for dehumanizing your fellow man -- you've ended up in The New York Times. And now the whole damned country knows about Nebraska's crazy uncle in the attic.
And it's all because of a stupid little ordinance that will be really good at stirring up hate and s***, but not so good at stopping illegal immigration one iota.
This is ordinarily a serene place with polite politics and votes that sail through City Hall 8 to 0. But in a special election Monday, residents will decide whether to ban businesses from hiring illegal immigrants and bar landlords from renting to them. Residents demanded the vote, fighting off challenges by some of their elected leaders all the way to the State Supreme Court.
The election has opened a rare and raw divide. There are awkward silences for some who fear offending their neighbors (whose position they cannot be certain of), and, for others, volleys of suspicion.
Wanda Kotas, who pushed for the special election, said her family’s cat, Mr. Sippi, was killed by a pellet gun not long after her efforts, an act she suspects is related. Kristin Ostrom, who has spoken against the referendum, said a rock was heaved through her front window, an old barbecue grill was dumped at her doorstep, and, this week, an e-mail message arrived promising in red letters to “shed blood” to take back the country. And Alfredo Velez, who once worked at one of Fremont’s meatpacking plants and now owns a Mexican grocery, received an anonymous letter accusing him of harboring illegal immigrants, and said someone screamed at him on these neatly kept streets: “Go back to Mexico!”
The Hispanic population, while growing, still makes up less than 10 percent of Fremont, yet some say they blame illegal immigrants for what they see as a rise in crime here, the loss of good jobs for local residents and a shift in the culture.
NAW . . . the loss of good jobs never could be the result of your living in Fremont, a small city pretty much like all small cities in the lack of staggering levels of economic opportunity. No, that could never be the problem.
Listen, you want an amazing, high-paying job? Get an MBA and move to Omaha.
Wait . . . on second thought, don't.
Some complain about shoppers speaking Spanish at the Wal-Mart, businesses with phone messages saying “Press 1 for English,” and the need for two interpreters last fall at the annual “kindergarten round-up” where children meet their teachers.
Perhaps these are ordinary growing pains for Midwestern cities like Fremont, anchored by meatpacking plants with many immigrant workers, some of whom residents here suspect of being in this country illegally.
But the struggle has taken an unusual turn. After Fremont’s political leaders rejected an ordinance intended to keep illegal immigrants out, residents fought back and insisted, finally getting approval in the Nebraska Supreme Court to take the matter straight to voters.
This is a legally complicated realm given the federal role in handling immigration; a lawsuit is all but certain if it passes. In other places where such immigration laws have been pondered (and often contested later), state lawmakers and local governing bodies have usually made the call, not citizens by referendum.
“In this very quiet little town where this hasn’t been an issue, it’s uncomfortable,” said Michelle Knapp, who opposes the anti-illegal immigrant law but acknowledges that she has at times only whispered her view. “You don’t know what people are listening.”
WELL, YOU can't say the fine, all-American folks of Fremont have accomplished nothing with their quixotic little campaign against Pedro.
No, it takes moxie and skill to turn a peaceful little Midwestern town into a fear factory where people are terrified to say what they think. And it takes real imagination on the part of those "patriots" earnestly looking forward to a future where the most uttered phrase in Fremont, U.S.A., is "Your papers, please."
"What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP.' I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. . . .
"And I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be somebody's fault instead of the fact that maybe sometimes accidents happen."
So imagine my delight to see that, in last night's New York gubernatorial debate, the only candidate who made any sense whatsoever was Jimmy McMillan of The Rent Is 2 Damn High Party.
