I Thought Birtherism Was Stillborn -- But It's Alive! (part one)

Back in 2011, thanks to Donald Trump, Birtherism reached its zenith when he decided to pick up that freak flag, wave it high and make it the defining issue in his run for the Republican nomination for President of the United States of America.

Up until that point, the "lamestream" media had reported on the authenticity of Obama's Certificate of Live Birth when he produced that document (back in '08) in response to some of Hillary Clinton's supporters who questioned his eligibility to run for the highest office in the country. But because that document was authenticated by various sources (including the hospital that issued it and released a copy to the public) and says explicitly that "This copy serves as prima facie evidence of the fact of birth in any court proceeding", the Hillary supporters accepted it and then dropped the issue, and so did the press. For the most part.

However, the most rabid right-wingers in the country were not satisfied. They sensed that a perfidy of the highest order was being perpetrated on the American public. Evidence began coming to light that Obama was born in Kenya -- or was it Malaysia? A birth certificate finally surfaced that proved Obama was indeed born in Kenya!
That Certificate of Live Birth was a fake!

Unfortunately, the Kenyan birth certificate turned out to be the fake, not the Certificate of Live Birth.
The Birthers easily brushed aside the phony Kenyan birth certificate as they unleashed a slew of wild accusations about the Kenyan/Atheist-Muslim/Marxist/Socialist/America-hating racist and community organizer.

Every one of the accusations was thoroughly debunked by various fact checking organizations.
This only made the Birthers more convinced that Obama was born in Kenya and that the lying Kenyan commie was being protected by the liberal media complex. Dentist/lawyer Orly Taitz came to the rescue with a bunch of amazingly crazy accusations against Obama that included the allegation that he was a closeted homosexual who had all of his former lovers killed.
By this time the mainstream media had stopped paying attention.

All was not lost, however. There was still Fox News.
Then... enter Donald Trump.
The Donald had "read things" and "heard things" about this Barack Hussein guy. Really bad things.
As we've since discovered, The Donald is not the kind of person to let treachery of this nature stand.
At every press conference and at every opportunity he demanded that the first black President show us proof that he was born in the US. None of the evidence Obama or others had presented so far towards that regard was believable.
Only his long form Birth Certificate would do.

The Donald made such a big fucking deal over this that Obama actually took time out from being the leader of the free world to produce his long form Birth Certificate. But the Birthers immediately recognized the "Certificate" as a badly manufactured forgery! They had incontestable proof that this was so!
Despite this "fact," Obama's presentation of the Birth Certificate seemed to take the wind from Trump's sails. It also seemed to signal the end of Trump's campaign. He dropped out soon afterwards.

While never admitting that Obama's Birth Certificate was real and only acknowledging that its authenticity was in doubt, Trump stopped talking about the issue that, heretofore, he wouldn't stop talking about. He didn't continue the fight for truth, justice and the American way that others in the Birther movement pushed forward with.

Trump's surrender seems uncharacteristic, especially when you look back on it after seeing more of him in action over the past year. After all, this is a guy who has never met a false right-wing allegation that he hasn't bought lock, stock, barrel and promoted like it had his name on it. His modus operandi has always been to double down on whatever outlandish thing he says, even after it's been proven false by numerous sources.
He never backs down. That's one of the many things the rabid right loves about him.
He did back down on this issue, though. Not completely but mostly.

My theory as to why?
In the world of far right-wing conservativism, you have your "mainsteam", run of the mill, irrational and delusional right-wingers.
Then you have your lunatic fringe -- completely deranged right-wingers.
The former group, much larger, is the Fox News watching, Limbaugh loving types.
The latter group needs the really hard stuff for their fix.
They get their "information" from the Internet and conspiracy theory web sites like World Net Daily.

Fox News and the radio talkers, while sympathetic to the Birthers and always ready to give them a platform, never really embraced Birtherism with, say, the same gusto that they tried to make their audience think that people on food stamps could somehow afford lobster dinners, crab legs and filet mignon with the $1.80 per meal they get from the government.
They stopped talking about Obama's birth certificate, too.

So, without the backing of the "mainstream" right-wing media, Trump risked looking really kooky, even among this group of conservatives, if he aligned himself with the lunatic fringe.
Plus, he would be subjecting himself to the kind of ridicule that President Obama dished out to him at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner in 2011.
Let us relive that wonderful moment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8TwRmX6zs4
The look on Trump's face is priceless.

Despite the ridicule, I always thought Trump got off pretty easy considering the length, depth and breadth of his obnoxiousness during the whole birther affair. I thought he deserved to wear his birther allegations around his neck for the rest of his public life. I thought he deserved to be asked about "the unbelievable things" his investigators (whom he sent to Hawaii) were finding out about Obama with the same relentless persistence that he demanded to see Obama's Birth Certificate. This should have been an albatross for him.

Fast forward four years and here's Trump running again, this time exploiting conservatives' hatred -- no, wait. That's too strong a word. Not all conservatives hate. Some, I assume, are good people.
Let me rephrase that. ...exploiting conservatives' dislike of Mexicans and Muslims.

Now, by this time, the birther issue, regarding Obama, has faded considerably. And there is barely any mention of it. The few times the press has brought it up, Trump says that's in the past and he doesn't want to talk about it. Here's the thing, though. Ted Cruz is running for the nomination and he is now Trump's closest rival. Cruz's birth certificate says he was born in Canada and, so far, no one is claiming that it's a forgery.

Now, I can understand why the Birthers are keeping quiet about this because Cruz is the perfect candidate for them. You couldn't be any further to the right of him without being Attila the Hun. He's loud, hyperbolic and extremely obnoxious -- just like they are. He believes that the government is tyrannical and only wants to take away our freedoms (even though it is comprised of individual citizens, from all sectors of society, who attain office through open and fair elections, are subject to scrutiny and impeachment and must run for reelection every few years) just like they do.

What I find harder to understand is why Trump and the press are so quiet about this.
This puzzling question will be explored further in my next post.

Fox News Special on Food Stamps Exposes Massive Fraud: Part 3

Here is Merriam-Webster’s definition of FAIR:
1 : marked by impartiality and honesty : free from self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism
2 : treating people in a way that does not favor some over others
3 : not too harsh or critical

Here is PROPAGANDA:
1 : ideas or statements that are often false or exaggerated and that are spread in order to help a cause, a political leader, a government, etc.
2 : the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person
3 : ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause;

Which of these definitions do you think more accurately describe Fox News?
Not surprisingly, the overwhelming majority of Fox viewers believe that the word FAIR describes Fox News perfectly.
PROPAGANDA? That would be NPR.

These viewers don’t just believe that Fox is fair – and balanced – they believe it emphatically. This idea is so imbedded in their belief system that you’d think the Founding Fathers enshrined it in the Bill of Rights. During one family Thanksgiving Day get-together, I mentioned something I had heard on Fox News. I didn’t offer my opinion on the veracity of the information but its preposterousness must have been apparent because it provoked one of my conservative in-laws to assert vehemently that “Fox tells the truth!” The level of his vehemence was what one would expect of a devout Muslim from a suggestion that God might not be so great after all.

How masterful an application of Orwellian double-speak is it that Rupert Murdock and Roger Ailes could produce such devotion to the idea that Fox News is “Fair and Balanced” -- and the only network that can be trusted to report the news truthfully -- when it is so obviously a propaganda machine for far right-wing conservatism?

With practically no trouble at all, Fox News can get its audience to believe anything Fox wants it to believe, no matter whether it’s true or not.
How does Fox do it?

Well, the first prerequisite is a severe lack of scruples and integrity -- something Mr. Murdock and Mr. Ailes have famously demonstrated during their entire careers.
Fox’s target audience makes things easy, too.

When Fox was launched in 1996, there already was an audience available to them for exploitation. Thanks to right-wing talk radio, this audience had been groomed and conditioned to believe that liberals are the worst, most awful creatures on the planet. Throughout the years, I have heard Rush Limbag refer to “liberalism” as “the essence of evil.”

The anger generated from this image of liberals is kept burning with an endless drum beat of anti-left attack lines. This audience has been told for decades that these immoral reprobates have infiltrated every intellectual institution and control everything from our schools, colleges, scientific institutions, non-profits and, not least of all, the media.

We can get into bias in the media at another time, but isn’t it ironic that a bunch of extremely biased, ideologically driven right-wingers could saturate this so-called liberal media with their self proclaimed objective opinion that the very media they are using to convince people of its liberal bias is, indeed, liberally biased?

The widespread belief among conservatives that the mainstream media has a strong liberal bias and exists only to help the “Democrat” Party, is the foundation upon which Fox News was built.

Anyway, the “liberal bias” cliché works great for Fox and conservatives because anytime news is reported that contradicts right-wing propaganda, it can be easily brushed off as left-wing lies.

And then we have the right-wing think tanks. If you follow the conservative media as closely as I do you will notice how well coordinated the think tanks are with the right-wing talkers, Fox News and Republicon politicians. The job of these think tanks, as we all know, is to promote conservative principles. They do this by performing research and writing papers that advocate for the policies they want to inflict on the American people.

Despite the mainstream media’s “liberal bias” and its well known "agenda to suppress conservatives’ voices," right-wing think tanks somehow manage to get these results widely publicized in that very media. (As a matter of fact, right-wing think tanks are vastly overrepresented in the media [More on that in a later post])
And what these think tanks do with the right-wing propaganda-media-machine is a wonder to behold.

Whenever Republicon politicians need some “facts” to support their policies, they can be sure there’s a right-wing think tank ready with a study that gives them those “facts.”

We should always look at the results of studies done by think tanks (right, left or center) with a reasonable amount of skepticism. After all, a study is only as good as the job the researchers do on it. We need to apply even more skepticism, however, when the study is done by a think tank with a political ax to grind, either right or left. The further out on the end of the political spectrum, the more certain you can be that the researchers have cherry picked the “facts” that support the position they already hold and omitted the information that refutes it. When it comes to right-wing tanks in particular, that skepticism needs to be on high alert. I’m talking about code red.

I’m not saying that everything conservative think tanks put out is bullshit. I can see that they often times present good and important information. And I am willing to admit that some of their positions are well thought out and probably correct. And some of their other positions are valid enough to be at least arguable. The problem is what they do when the evidence goes against conservative ideology and propaganda. Hooh boy!

Like I said, left-wing tanks cherry pick data, too, and sometimes come up with badly done studies that exaggerate things in favor of the case they are trying to make. For instance, remember that study from a few years ago that claimed 48,000 premature deaths per year due to uninsured people? Conservatives claimed (like they always would whether true or not) that the methodology was flawed. Well, I looked into it and, I had to conclude, it was pretty bad.
Two other previous studies put the number at 18,000, so just that alone should have made people skeptical. But the left kept repeating that number (48,000) over and over again.

Two libertarian economists then did their own study and, surprise, surprise, came up with a much lower number. That number was “only” 3,300. Year after year. And of course, conservatives said, “see, ‘only 3,300.' We don’t have to reform healthcare. We have the best healthcare in the world. We’re the USA. We’re number one!”

Isn’t that something? After 9/11 when 2,996 Americans died, just that one time, the ‘cons were willing to have another 4,000 plus Americans (and still counting) die in order to turn the world upside down and have, who knows, 100 thousand(s) more people die (of the countries we were liberating for their own good) and put a trillion dollars onto our national debt, so they could get even with a small group of right-wing religious fanatics who were willing to sacrifice their own lives in order to brutally murder innocent Americans for the offenses committed by past right-wing American administrations.

But 3,300 Americans dying needlessly, year after year, because of Republiconservalibertarian's ideolgical obsession for "free market principals" and their mindless opposition to anything that can be construed as socialism??
Meh.

A universal single payer system would have covered all those 3,300, or those 18,000 or however many more thousands; plus every other person in the country, including the elderly, at 40 to 50 percent less than what we’ve been spending on “the greatest healthcare system in the world.” That would have helped to pay down the debt that the Reagan and GW Bush administrations purposely drove up with their “Starve the Beast” economic policies.
But for the Republiconservalibertarians it's better to just say we have “the greatest healthcare system in the world and there’s no need to change it.”

What I really found interesting about the libertarian study was the reason they gave for that number being “so low.” They said it was because of the robust safety net we have in this country!!
Imagine that. That’s the very safety net the Republiconservalibertarians have furiously been trying to dismantle since we first built it.

Now they’re going around saying that Medicaid actually kills more people than not having any insurance. Unfortunately, that claim undermines the libertarian study, which they used a few years ago to kill the public option, by arguing that there was no need to change the healthcare system.

So which is it? Does the libertarian study prove that the safety net saves lives and socialism works? Or are poor people better off with no health insurance at all, and we should take away Medicaid for their own good?

Which deceit do the Republiconservalibertarians cop to? Did they know that the safety net worked but refused to admit it because they hate socialism so much? Or did they know the current system was allowing people to die unnecessarily and lied just to stop the public option?

Well, apparently, they didn’t have to do either because the lame Democrats and the incompetent Obama administration never called them on it. Now they are letting the Republiconservalibetarians get away with their obscene and disgraceful “War on Food Stamps,” which is based on propaganda that is pure garbage. Which is exactly what Republiconservalibertarians would rather have the poor eat.

In my next post I will demonstrate how the right-wing think tanks work hand in glove with the conservalibertarian media to make us think that people on food stamps are living in luxury and feasting on lobster tails every night.

Fox News Special on Food Stamps Exposes Massive Fraud: part 2

In my previous post, as a preface to my review about Fox News’ special report on food stamps, I wrote about Fox’s own much vaunted reputation for being the only major news outlet that has the integrity to report the news without bias. According to Fox, they are just like a baseball umpire who has no vested interest in the outcome of the game. They’re just calling balls and strikes. After an accurate and evenhanded presentation of the news, the audience is left to decide the implications of Fox’s unbiased reporting.

But don’t just take Fox’s word for it. When Fox polls its own viewers, they agree overwhelmingly with Fox’s self-assessment.  Fox also has Rush Limbaugh’s endorsement. And as we all know, or should know, Rush is right 99.6 percent of the time (as documented by an independent auditing agency; that’s why he’s called America’s Truth Detector).  No wonder Fox’s audience is larger, by far, than any other cable news network. Ratings don’t lie.      

However, I also pointed out that this assessment is, by no means, universal. Fact checking organizations such as PolitiFact have documented numerous instances of false information, all of which just happened to go against Democrats and liberals. And these “honest mistakes” (as Fox always says they are) weren’t just trivial details (as you would expect from any news organization) but things that were pretty damaging to the reputation of those Dems and libs:      

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-21-2011/fox-news-false-statements

These critics also point out that practically every single program on that station is hosted by a hard right conservative whose primary goal seems to be to squeeze as many anti-left attacks as possible into their allotted hour while trying as hard as they can to make Dems and libs look despicably bad.    

Fox used to offer a very remarkable defense against these charges. They would point out the one single liberal who “co-hosted” a prime time show with the ultra aggressive Sean Hannity: human punching bag Alan Colmes. They would - get this - say that Bill O’Reilly is a moderate. And, hey, those other shows, which all have conservative hosts? They bring liberals on all the time. This is indisputable proof that the shows are “fair and balanced.”

Check out a previous post on Fox’s “fair and balanced” panels:      

http://liberalbabyboomer.blogspot.com/2010/02/limbaugh-hannity-beck-super-geniuses.html

But after years of ridicule for making believe that the obvious wasn’t the case, and after dropping token lib Colmes, Fox finally dropped their pretense, too, and admitted that OK, so every single one of their prime time “opinion” shows is hosted by a conservative. But, they say, this just means that Fox is like any newspaper, such as The New York Times, which reports the news and has an editorial page, as well. Their “straight” news reporting shows’ reputation for being without bias speaks for itself.

Well, you know, when you look at it that way, I would have to admit that Fox is absolutely right... that is, if The New York Times had their editorial opinions on the front page and the next couple of dozen pages, then had the news on the last two pages, and if those last two pages were laced with extreme one-sided opinions; then, yes, Fox News would be exactly like The Times.

Of the two non-prime time hours Fox devotes to “straight” news reporting, out of the 24 hour cycle, one is hosted by Bret Baier. Baier is Fox’s shining example of the unbiased and objective news reporter, the envy of journalists across the nation. Bret delivers the news with a very serious, no-nonsense demeanor that reflects the gravitas he possesses. His permanently furrowed brow tells his audience that this reporter is all business, knows what he’s talking about and demands respect. He reports, you decide.

Baier was the host of Fox’s special report on food stamps, which is the subject of this multi-part review. Bret’s objectivity is apparent by the very title of his report:
The Great Food Stamp Binge.
Now, you might think that the title seems to be “deciding” rather than just “reporting.” It seems to be implying that we spend way too much money on food stamps.
I take that back. It doesn't "seem" to imply. It's telling you outright: The government is flushing our tax dollars down the toilet. Which is exactly where all the food from those food stamps winds up.
Well, you have to understand that Bret knows that some things are just so obvious that it would be silly for him to go out of his way and title his report something like: "A Look at the U.S. Food Stamp Program."

And while the food stamp issue is very contentious and varying opinions about it are held among the public, politicians, economists and other experts; as Baier conclusively demonstrates in his report, the facts overwhelmingly support the view held by the most conservative and libertarian pundits and politicians, most of whom regularly show up on Fox News and/or host all of their shows.  

OK now, let me be as fair and balanced as I possibly can.

Fox News is the most dishonest and blatantly biased news organization I’ve ever witnessed. Saying Fox News is “fair and balanced” is like saying the Nazi Party was a Jewish anti-defamation league.

Fox News is, of course, the brainchild of media monopolist and multi-billionaire movement conservative Rupert Murdock. In his unending quest to control as much of the media as possible (in order to control the information for and opinions of as many people as possible) the ethically corrupt Murdock hired Roger Ailes to create the Fox News Channel.

What did Murdock see in Roger Ailes? Undoubtedly he saw as dirty and underhanded a political operative as there is in the country; someone with a proven track record of manipulating emotions and opinions in both the media and politics.

The key to success for Fox News is its ability to manufacture outrage by using a combination of tactics that are as old as politics itself. While these tactics have been around for centuries and are used by the left as well, I can’t see how anyone can argue against the proposition that Fox has brought the use of these tactics to a level never before seen in American history. If George Orwell were alive to witness this mastery of group-think and double-speak, he would need to find a safe place for his jaw to drop.

Some of these tactics include:

- Twisting, distorting and emphasizing certain facts in order to create a particular impression while omitting other facts that would present a “fair and balanced” picture.

- Repeating those distorted “facts” endlessly, and, in a way that provokes the most anger and outrage towards certain groups and/or policies.

- Reinforcing that anger and outrage with the use of “buzz words” that recall and trigger those same emotions (socialism, makers and takers, big government, tax and spend, taking away our ‘freedoms,’ death tax, death panels, Muslim terrorists, community organizer.)  

Of all the countless misrepresentations of reality Fox has perpetrated, this food stamp “investigation” is easily one of the worst (or best) examples of how far they will go and how low they will stoop to get people to believe something that isn’t true.  

Before I get to the “meat” of Fox’s food stamp “baloney,” I will need another post to finish some background information. I want to show how Fox works in concert with right-wing think tanks, radio talkers, bloggers and the rest of the Republiconservalibertarian media to saturate the country with talking points that are designed to manipulate Americans into accepting their false and misleading narratives.

Fox News Special on Food Stamps Exposes Massive Fraud: part 1

Fox News is, by far, the most watched cable news station in the country. They have achieved this viewership by building a reputation as the most unbiased, even-handed and accurate news reporting network around.
Many think Fox is the only such news show.
This thinking is not far-fetched, as it is a known fact that all of the other networks have an undeniable liberal bias. These stations have a secret and hidden agenda (which everyone knows about) whereby they manipulate their presentation of the news in a way that favors Democrats and disfavors Republicans.
Fox News’ only agenda is to report the news -- straight and as it is.
No bias. No secret agenda. They report, you decide.

Others think this image of Fox News is undeserved and contrary to the facts. They point to numerous instances of alleged false information being reported by Fox that, for some reason, all went against libs, Dems and the Obama administration. But these sceptics are liberal extremists whose words cannot be trusted, PolitFact’s confirmations of those allegations notwithstanding:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-june-21-2011/fox-news-false-statements

PolitiFact, big deal.
True, they seem to do a pretty good job of determining the accuracy of claims and statements by referencing relevant sources. And it’s hard to call them biased when they routinely make conclusions that go against both sides.
On the other hand, Fox News has two unimpeachable sources that carry much more weight than PolitiFact.

One is Rush Limbaugh. (He weighs at least 600 pounds.)
The other is The Free Market.

Rush says that an independent auditing agency has documented that he is right 99.6 percent of the time. He also says that, besides him, Fox News is the only other news source that can be trusted to give it to you straight. So the odds of Rush being wrong about Fox’s trustworthiness are miniscule.
And if you’re skeptical about the independent auditing agency because, like me, you couldn’t find out who they are after ten minutes on the google machine, just consider Rush’s simple yet ironclad logic:
Rush correctly points out that Fox’s slogan is “Fair and Balanced.” And Fox has the largest audience of any news channel. Ipso facto, the slogan is 100% correct. Market Forces prove it.
While Rush is near perfect, the Market is infallible.

Did you know that Fox has trademarked that slogan?
Makes sense. If you know you’re the only outfit that delivers the news in a fair and balanced way, why let anyone else make that claim? Former comedian and current US Congressman Al Franken learned the consequences of tampering with that trademark when he tried to use it on the cover of a book he wrote some years ago. Fox sued his ass.

Read this account of the lawsuit, which I am reblogging from a post by right-wing blogger Joe Lii over at:
America’s Truth Detector, a Wordpress.com site.

http://rushlimbag.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/who-does-this-liberal-baby-boomer-think-he-is/

Who does This Liberal Baby Boomer Think He Is?

I was surfing the interweb trying to find reliable information on the latest social/political issues. So I came across this blog titled “Fair and Balanced”. At first I figured that there must be some connection with Fox News because I knew that they owned the trademark for that phrase. This fact was clearly established seven years ago when Fox filed a lawsuit against Al Franken for the irreparable damage he caused to Fox News by stealing their very own phrase and using it in his book title, along with an unflattering picture of Bill O'Reilly; Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.

Predictably, the liberal activist judge denied Fox’s motion for injunction. Just as predictably, the left wing media gave Franken a ton of free publicity because they wanted his stupid book to sell a lot of copies.
Truly great writers like Bill O’Reilly don’t need the liberal media to help them sell a ton of books. That’s what Fox News is for.
Fox wisely dropped the suit after they realized that the stranglehold liberals have in the media and the court system could actually help Franken’s book sales. Unfortunately, Franken’s book still shot up to the #1 sales position on Amazon’s best-seller list from number 489.
But Fox still managed to get in some awesome zingers on Franken!

In an eight-inch thick legal filing Fox stated that Franken had “been described as a ‘C-level political commentator’ who is ‘increasingly unfunny’”, and claimed that the comedian was “shrill and unstable” and had “appeared either intoxicated or deranged”.
Yeah, way to go Fox!

Sure the filing cited only two sources for those quotes, one of which was a website to which Bill O’Reilly was a contributor, and the other was a website where anyone could contribute, but the way I looked at it was:
Fox News 1, Al Franken 0.

Getting back to this blog I stumbled across, titled “Fair and Balanced”, it’s written by a Joe Barton who I assumed to be the great Republican politician from Texas who had the courage and integrity to apologize to the BP CEO for the White House’s investigation of the Gulf Oil spill, calling it a “shakedown”.
What a great American, a true Patriot! I really admire great heroes like Joe Barton and Joe Wilson for having the guts to tell it like it is. The American people owe these fighters a debt of gratitude.

But after reading the content on this garbage blog site and noticing the url; liberalbabyboomer.blogspot.com,
I realized that this Joe Barton character is a complete fraud. He’s trying the same trick that Franken almost got away with. Does he think that people like me are a bunch of fools?
This site is nothing but a bunch of liberal claptrap. I’ve dedicated my blog to counter Barton’s baloney, which can be found at;
liberalbabyboomer.blogspot.com
Its stolen title is “Fair And Balanced”.
So stay tuned for future posts.

Yeah, Joe Lii, thanks for your thoughts.

Joe Lii is an intense Rush Limbaugh fanatic. If you want to know why his blog address is

http://rushlimbag.wordpress.com/

read his explanation @

http://rushlimbag.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/fair-and-balanced-my-ass/

Meanwhile, stay tuned at liberalbabyboomer.blogspot.com for my in depth examination of Fox’s expose on food stamps. It’s going to take several posts in order to review this incredible report.

An Honest Discussion About Race

Just about every day I dose myself with a heaping helping of right-wing opinion mongering. It’s like a bad acid trip. It feels like torture while you’re going through it, but the suffering helps you to achieve important insights. A feeling of catharsis then follows, like you’ve purged the demons from your soul.

In the wake of the Zimmerman trial, between Rush Limbag, Fox News and the rest, the right has done a lot of demon purging themselves. Well, actually, they haven’t been purging their demons as much as letting them out for a brisk walk and some fresh air. Then the demons are brought back home where they are comfortable and provide conservatives with the fuel they need to keep their anger and hatred burning.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I think conservatives have had a lot of legitimate things to say during this whole affair and the libs have been acting atrociously, as well. I just need to comment on the right-wingers’ comments on President Obama’s comments on the Zimmerman affair.

The cons are just livid. Outraged. There he goes again, using this as yet another opportunity to divide the country along racial lines by fomenting racial animosity. How dare the country’s first Black President try to explain the point of view of many Black people who have to go through life with the burden of being a ‘suspect’ (as Zimmerman described T. Martin.)

Yes. Dividing the country along racial lines. Fomenting racial animosity. It’s just like Barack HUSSEIN Obama, the Kenyan, Muslim, community-organizing, ACORN, Chicago ghetto, Food Stamp President -- who hates White people and is getting even for slavery by putting all Black people on welfare – to use race like that.

I had Fox News on the other day and I’m witnessing the symptoms of full-blown Obama Derangement Syndrome as the pundits describe the evil that lurks in the heart of the President. How dare he remind us that he’s Black by saying that something like what happened to Trayvon Martin could have happened to him thirty five years ago?

It’s amazing. Obama simply states something that is obviously and undeniably true in a calm and non-accusatory manner in order to present the point of view of most Black people, but those conservatives can only see a hateful race-monger. Meanwhile, those same conservatives constantly say racially charged things about the first Black president (see the second paragraph above) in angry, yelling tones that are obviously and undeniably false. Yet, the only racism they can see is coming from Obama.

Then there’s "The Wonder of Rush" (as his announcer occasionally reminds his audience.) Limbag took advantage of the opportunity the Zimmerman trial provided to have one of those honest discussions about race. Yes, the bloated blowhard gave his audience a ‘little history lesson’ on race and slavery. He said: “If any race of people should not have guilt about slavery, it's Caucasians”

Click here: Limbaugh: "If Any Race Of People Should Not Have Guilt About Slavery, It's Caucasians" Video Media Matters for
http://mediamatters.org/video/2013/07/22/limbaugh-if-any-race-of-people-should-not-have/194999

Now Rush wasn't dividing the world along racial lines, or fomenting racial animosity -- he was just giving the facts.
You see, the White race’s brand of slavery was way better than any other race’s, by far. “The white race has probably had fewer slaves and for a briefer period of time than any other in the history of the world.”

Mr. Oxycontin compared the White race’s slaving to the Chinese, the Arabs and Black Africans’ slaving. These races couldn’t even come close to the Whites. My gosh, folks, the Whites were better than the rest of the world combined. Whites had more better slavery in their little finger than the rest of the races had combined. In other words, when it comes to enslaving other races, the White race is the superior race.

Rush singled out American Indians as being particularly bad at the slaving. Rush has long resented the American continents’ original inhabitants’ undeserved image as "the embodiment of perfection." Over the years Rush has taught us that they weren’t ‘noble savages’ at all. There was nothing noble about them. They were just savages.

Now, unlike Mr. Dimbulb, I’m not an expert on the history of slavery. But I am skeptical about his self proclaimed vaunted historical knowledge. I feel this way, not least of all, because he seems to think that Caucasians’ participation in slavery began with the ‘discovery’ of the continent (which was already inhabited) that they named after an Italian explorer (after they named those inhabitants after the people of South Asia) -- and ended with the Civil War.
Also, during his presentation of the evidence for all the other races’ inferiority at slaving, he seemed to forget that the Romans were Caucasians.

Rush went on to credit Whites with being the only race to fight a war for the purpose of ending slavery.
That’s interesting. I always thought that Whites were the only race to fight a war with the purpose of preventing slaves from becoming free. But now I see that you can look at it the other way, too.

So half the country fought to end slavery and the other half fought to keep it.
Actually, at least half the country was OK with Negroes being slaves. Most of the other half didn’t give a shit one way or the other. The real credit belongs to the abolitionists (both White AND Black) and the free Blacks and slaves they worked with. Their efforts gave rise to the liberal intellectual elite that made the abolitionists’ goal a reality through the political system, despite ferocious opposition from the conservatives of the day.

So if Rush was born in the eighteen hundreds, what side do you think he’d be on?

Re: Dad, who are you voting for for mayor?

I haven’t written any posts since April 9th because of a realization that became apparent during the gun control debate which caused me to become very dispirited. I did write an article for this blog explaining how and why I became so dispirited but I have not posted it yet. I wanted to share this email correspondence with my daughter Jessica first.

She wrote to me asking who was I voting for for Mayor, then wrote the following:

I like de Blasio, and it's not just 'cause he's Italian, or 'cause he changed his last name to his MOM's last name, or 'cause he went to SIPA! or 'cause he's married to a black woman, or 'cause they send their kids to public schools. it's because he seems the most progressive.

To which I responded:

I like you, Jess. Does Bill not capitalize the 'de' in his name? Did you know that Weiner is thinking about single-payer med insurance for NYC? That would be wonderful, it would mean that your mother would not have to work forever before she's eligible for Medicare. If Bill 'of' Blasius (Blasio being a derivative of the Latin blaesus [stammering] which was used as a byname for someone with some defect, either of speech or gait. Gotta love those pejorative Italian surnames.) is also for single-payer then I guess I would have to base my vote on the other factors concerning these two candidates.
Do I go with the ethnic-pandering, ivy-league/ivory-tower one world government elitist, color-barrier crossing, practice what he preach, politically correct guinea dago wop?
Or do I go with the social media and sexting pioneer, Anthony Weiner?
Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Oh, by the way, Weiner is a surname originating in the German language (wein meaning wine) which was adopted by German Jews of Ashkenazic descent for reflecting the prominence of wine in the Jewish Scriptures and Jewish ceremonies. Interestingly,in English, it is also a slang expression that is used as a euphemism for a word that I am not comfortable using in an email to my daughter and for which I can find no other suitable euphemism other than the word 'weiner.'

What Happened to The Congressional Progressive Caucus's 'Back to Work' Budget?

First, I’d like to plug a few people, places and things.

Are you into spiritual readings? Check out Lena’s Facebook page @ https://www.facebook.com/CandleLightCustomReadingsWithLena?fref=ts
I promise you, she does a mean reading - you won't be disappointed - and it will be for a worthwhile cause.

Here’s an event worth checking out called: “I’m Tawkin’ Here: Storytelling with a New Yawk Accent”
Actually, it’s five events on five Wednesdays in the five boroughs of New York, and it’s free. Each event will feature a musical ode to the borough, plus true stories from three borough-natives and one “token” non-native storyteller. The evening will conclude with a sneak peek of “If These Knishes Could Talk,” the definitive documentary on the New York accent, which will premiere at the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival in May, and has been featured in the WSJ, NPR, NBC, CBS and NY1

The first one kicks off in Queens, this Wednesday, April 10 at 7:30 pm from the New York Irish Center at 10-40 Jackson Ave in Long Island City. Check out the websites below. The Facebook page has some very interesting facts about Queens. Here’s one from me; I can count at least eight Nobel Prize winners who are from Queens or were educated in Queens’s public high schools, including theoretical physicist, and one of the greatest geniuses who ever lived, Richard Feynman (Far Rockaway.)

http://www.fiveborostoryproject.org/

https://www.facebook.com/thefiveborostoryproject

https://twitter.com/FiveBoroStories

My next plug is for Alan L. Maki, Director of Organizing, Midwest Casino Workers Organizing Council. His blog is @ http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/

Alan and I had been having an email correspondence about an alternative to “sequestration.” He outlined some budget priorities in an email to the Occupy Wall Street mailing list. Anyway, I brought up the Congressional Progressive Caucus’s ‘Back to Work’ Budget and we discussed the merits of that proposal. Have you ever heard of it? Here’s how the Economic Policy Institute described it:

The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) has unveiled its fiscal year 2014 (FY2014) budget, titled Back to Work. It builds on recent CPC budget alternatives in prioritizing near-term job creation, financing public investments, strengthening the middle class, raising adequate revenue to meet budgetary needs while restoring fairness to the tax code, protecting social insurance programs, and ensuring fiscal sustainability.

You might have heard a little bit about it in the media two or three weeks ago. More likely, you must have gotten some emails asking to sign a petition to support it and urge your Congressperson to do the same. Whatever happened to that, anyway? I guess it was a little too little and a little too late, huh? I wonder what would have happened if the left had made half as much noise about that budget as the right did about the 47% of Americans who only take and do nothing to contribute to the economy or society. Oh, that’s right, there’s no such thing as ‘society.’ There’s only the economy and individuals. Just ask Margaret Thatcher’s ghost.