Another tip of the tam to Matt Taibbi

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi is a spirited writer and his The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire delivers a powerful punch. Covering Congress to the wing nut Church of John Hagee to ... Taibbi is wickedly funny and yet appropriately outraged. I'd forgotten about the Westen Energy scandals involving Tom DeLay, Joe Barton, Billy Tauzin ... I loved this portion as Taibbi examined the nuttiness of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Taibbi writes,

"It completely misunderstands the nature of American government - fails to see the old maxim about "the business of America is business" is absolutely true, that the federal government in this country is really just a low-rent timeshare property seasonally occupied by this or that clan of financial
interests, each of which takes its four-year turn at the helm, tinkering with the tax laws and regulatory code and the rates at the Fed in the way it thinks will best keep the money train rolling."

Amen! John Gunn

Total tip of the tam to Fred Kaplan

I recently finished Fred Kaplan's Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power. I had high hopes yet the book proved even better than I imagined. This is one serious book. It is written in a highly readable style. Slate's War Stories provides a two part series with excerpts from the work. Bu$hCo and his neo-conservatives/Vulcans will be judged harshly by history yet those in the press and political arena that allowed them to apply their daydreams deserve scorn as well. John Gunn

Bama Governor Bob Riley remains a stubborn ass

The B'ham News opines Alabama Gov. Bob Riley should order DNA tests for Tommy Arthur, who is scheduled to be executed July 31. They've done a good job in covering the illogical positions that Governor Riley has taken on the Tommy Arthur execution in the past. The B'ham News reliably supports the Governor and the GOP. They are viewed by many as leaning to the conservative side on nearly every issue.

I've posted on the Governor's stubborn stand several times but I'll share just this one link. I've also posted on how the legislature ought to also step up on crafting a law on DNA testing, like pretty much every other state now has, that could prevent a state sanctioned killing coming down to an Executive that is seemingly more interested in showing he is a manly man than a compassionate and cautious soul. Not in my name Bob! John Gunn

Alabama's Troy King is "predictably inappropriate"

The Decatur Daily opines We think King doth protest too much in his reactions to the recent United Nations report on Alabama's flawed death penalty systems. The DD writes, "we would expect a responsible public official to ..." instead of choosing "to dismiss the report and attack the messenger" but that first assumes Prince Troy is responsible. He has long been a right wing reactionary, even while a student at the U of A.

The B'ham News weighs in on the UN report with The United Nations' look at Alabama's death penalty practices highlights unsavory facts, and our state's blithe acceptance of them. I wasn't aware Alabama had "the highest rate of executions per capita in the country". I was aware of the American Bar Association's recent Alabama Death Penalty Assessment Report yet Prince Troy dismissed their concerns as well.

It seems like in Lee County officials are equally dismissive of the UN's concerns. The O-A News Katie Stallcup provides the reporting where she writes,

Lee County District Attorney Nick Abbett said he hadn’t read the full statement, but he thought the critique was harsh.

"The death penalty serves as a deterrent to crime,” Abbett said. “I’m for the death penalty. I really don’t think the U.N. ought to have a lot to say about what we do in the state of Alabama ..."

Actually the jury is still out on the death penalty being a deterrent. I think it is a question of morality that the state should not kill. Add in concerns of racial disparities, costs, how wealth/poverty of the Defendant often determines "justice", ... and that is enough for me. The undeniable fact that many souls have been released after serving many years for crimes they didn't commit thanks to DNA testing and it seems reasonable to think innocents have been or may be executed.

Ms. Stallcup also gives Circuit Judge Jacob Walker a chance to enlighten us. She writes,

Alston said when Alabama judges override jury verdicts, they almost always increase the sentence rather than decrease it.

Circuit Court Judge Jacob A. Walker said he thought that statement didn’t coincide with his experience. He talked with one judge who overrode a jury’s sentence from death to life in prison, he said.

Actually Judge, your experiences aren't that relevant. The Equal Justice Initiative reveals More than 80 People Sentenced to Death in Alabama as a Result of ‘Judge Override’ where they claim "In 2006, 30% of new death sentences were imposed by judges who rejected jury verdicts for life without parole." Reckon Ms. Stallcup could have shared this apparent contradiction?

With Alabama "leaders" like Bob Riley, Prince Troy King, ... maybe I expect too much from reporters and others on this sensitive subject. I appreciate some papers trying to move the debate toward a better understanding yet Alabama voters keep electing these goobers. Finally, I agree the United Nations is hardly without their own troubles. Still, that doesn't mean this report is without merit. John Gunn

First stab on the death of NC's Jesse Helms

Adam Hichberg of NPR reports Longtime Sen. Jesse Helms Was Conservative Purist. Across the pond, Steven A. Holmes supplies his obituary for the IHT. His world view was Southern Baptist influenced. He was surely of the South, or at least a good part of her history. Lindsay Beyerstein noted that he may have been the very first vlogger. I found a piece that suggested he's been in poor health for some time. He was 86. RIP Senator.

When he finally hung up his spurs in 2001 many in the media downplayed his racism and other nastiness and I suppose this will be even more certain on his passing. Speaking ill of the dead might be poor form and yet he represented so much that was wrong about his "hard edged conservatism".

Betty Bowers has a revealing summary of some of his quotes. In 1995 Eric Bates of MoJo provided What you Need to Know about Jesse Helms. Like politicians such as Alabama's own George Wallace (and certainly consultants like Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, ...)Jesse Helms knew the power of divisiveness. He wasn't about focus groups and centrism but rather boldness. He won elections. Perhaps Progressives could still learn a thing or two from his playbook? John Gunn

UPDATE ~ Noonish on July 5, 2008 - With a tip of the tam to Thomason Tracts I'll send you to to Jesse Helms: American Garbage from Ken Layne who describes Senator Helms as "a hero to bigots and the cigarette corporations". One of his best portions follows:

Once in Washington, Dixiecrat Helms became the new, stupid face of the Republican Party, the party that left behind intellectualism and civil rights and took up the Southern Strategy of pandering to bitter white losers while actively working against that same white working class. Helms was the perfect hack, the kind of lifelong fraud who made his career on the ignorant resentments of the same people he screwed so hard by always representing the mill owners and the tobacco corporations.

Karl Rove connected talent rises in Team McCain

The image is credited to AP/Karin Cooper showing St. John and Karl Rove in August of 2007 before their separate appearances on CBS's "Face the Nation". Adam Nagourney of the Gray Lady provides a good summary of the developments.

The Guardian's Michael Tomasky reports A familiar face atop McCain's campaign yet he openly questions the wisdom of promoting Steve Schmidt up the the top of the campaign effort. If, and unfortunately that's a big if, Team Obama knows how to fight and frame then I agree this development can be a positive for Progressive hopes.

The NYT's Paul Krugman shares Rove’s Third Term in today's paper where he begins with, "Al Gore never claimed that he invented the Internet. Howard Dean didn’t scream. Hillary Clinton didn’t say she was staying in the race because Barack Obama might be assassinated. And Wesley Clark didn’t impugn John McCain’s military service." That these non-events so often become accepted by all to many are regretably a problem for good Lefty types.

The media has some blame but also I fault people like those appearing in this recent Annenberg focus group that I stumbled across via C-SPAN. The WaPo's Robert G. Kaiser plumbs this spectacle. Some of these Pennsylvania voters were among the stupidest souls I've observed. And yes, the truly weak minded on this panel were turning toward St. John McCain. Dick Polman lamented the willfully ignorant when Peter Hart spend some time with a few down in Virginia and I'd think those in his own Pennsylvania would bother him even more.

Last but not least, Slate's David Greenberg shares Waving the Flag where he examines how "patriotism" has been used through modern campaigns. He leads with a priceless, "John McCain isn't a scoundrel, but in a presidential race in which he now trails Barack Obama, patriotism is shaping up as his last refuge."

Finally, will the Vietnam War play a part in yet another election? Perhaps in twenty of forty years Iraq will also impact elections but at least I could see how consequences of this mis-adventure could actually impact our world even decades into the future. John Gunn

Troy King rails against "Corporate Manipulation"

The Montgomery Advertiser reports late in the day that Jury Favors Alabama in Drug Suit regarding the State's latest effort to recover overcharges to our Medicaid agency. Prince Troy thinks 79 pharmaceutical companies engaged in "massive overcharges". Prince Troy is quoted as saying,

“The people of Alabama can be reassured that grave injustices are being made right, that public funds taken by corporate manipulation schemes are being recovered, and that the Office of Attorney General is discharging its duty to hold accountable anyone, no matter how powerful and wealthy, who would take advantage of our state and our citizens.”

"Corporate manipulation schemes" nearly sets my heart to fluttering Troy. Does that means you'll no longer carry water for the modern GOP and perhaps even the centrist weenies on the Democratic side of the house? John Gunn

Montana's Max Baucus delivers for Big Timber

K Street's Favorite Democrat hit a home run today. And while I'm tempted to cheer that The Nature Conservancy and The Trust for Public Land managed to make some good from evil, it surely seems that the rich get richer. The NYT's Kirk Johnson reports Deal Is Struck in Montana to Preserve Forest Areas where he gives a good summary of the legislation that has helped put this deal together.

Plum Creek Timber based out here in Seattle is Big Timber with their REIT being a tremendous tool for the fat cats in avoiding taxes. That Montana might need their fair share of that revenue to educate their children and do other good is certain.

How they, or those first that exploited/extracted on this land and eventually became PCT, were given this land by the federal government way back in the day is an interesting tale. Before we had "welfare" we seemed to have had Corporate Welfare. Via a a new "tax-credit bond mechanism" in the new bloated farm bill Uncle Sam will now put up half of the $500 million plus PCT will be getting for this 500 square miles. Giving them the land and then buying it back seems rather noteworthy yet I've not yet noticed this oddity in any of the reporting.

Connected indeed is PCT. Note the way Montana's real Democratic Senator John Tester has questioned PCT's closed door access to Bu$hCo's Forest Service.

Once again it seems that those with access and money win. The deck is stacked against regular folks and populism remains an uphill battle. And this will continue until Joe and Jill Sixpack realize that most in the GOP and all too many in the Democratic Party are mostly all about doing the bidding of the Big Mules. John Gunn

UPDATE ~ Evening of July 4, 2008 - You could almost know there'd be more to this story. MSNBC/WaPo reports Feds' closed-door deal could ease development: New Forest Service rules could let largest private owner convert land.

Michael Ciamarra's "thinking" on higher education

Michael Ciamarra gets space in today's Montgomery Advertiser for ALABAMA VOICES: Keeping college affordable and actually makes some sense. However, his radicalism seeps out. I've posted on this Alabama Policy Institute VP before. Note his role as Alabama's Chair for Newt's American Solutions. Yet is Michael suggesting he's on the outside with his lament that legislative activities "somehow escape the notice of the pundits" as he examines efforts to provide tuition assistance for Alabama college students?

Michael is correct to lament the dreadful costs of higher education yet tax cuts for the elites and trashing of the middle class do have consequences Sir. The Bu$hCo reductions in student aid options has occurred as tuition has risen.

Indeed it is great to get a degree and yet over the last few years real income for people with college degrees has dropped. And is higher education about creating workers or thinkers? I've asked this before when Alabama's own Dr. Gregory Fitch of ACHE seemed to suggest it was all about preparing future workers.

Michael cites "educator" Margaret Spellings efforts and I presume he's shilling for her corporate loaded commission that recently called for "a nationwide system for comparative performance purposes, using standard formats." Once again, how can standardized testing measure anything without a national curriculum? What should students know? Is this the measure of true learning? Reckon there might be some profit opportunities here for the big education companies? I've mentioned how dreadful a job these testing providers often do with the blessed data and how they still rake in the money.

Terrible tenure receives an obligatory bashing. Newt never could get tenured so obviously the concept is for the incompetent and unproductive.

I could moan and groan on and on about the state of education policy, and pretty much everything else, yet strongly believe the conservatives have had their decades of rather strong dominance in the arena, media, think tanks, ... John Gunn

Mobile Press-Register~ Just let the lawyers decide

I found The Failure of Corporate Law: Fundamental Flaws and Progressive Possibilities by Kent Greenfield thanks to the Mobile Press-Register. It might be a touch off topic for my interest yet when I read its description, which I'll share below, I thought it relevant. On June 24, 2008, the MP-R opined Alabama needs to flee 'tort purgatory' where I'll admit they got it right to suggest our method for electing judges is flawed. I've mentioned the Missouri Plan long ago and continue to think it wise policy.

The MP-R didn't send me to the book I referenced but rather transmitted the positions of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, their Institute for Legal Reform, and corporate defense counsel to their readers. In that I'd read this New York Times piece just a few days before I was under the impression big business was pretty much winning the "tort war".

The MP-R's logic in their concern follows ... "The short answer is that they [corporate counsel] can influence some of the key decisions of the businesses they represent, such as where those companies locate or choose to do business." Wouldn't the vast majority of the concerns of those about to set up shop in Alabama relate to workmen's compensation laws and thus completely distinct from "tort" troubles? And aren't we doing OK attracting some rather high end companies? As for choosing to do business, as far as goods in the stream of commerce, I'd suggest we hardly have a limited amount of choices for consumers. And if we didn't, isn't that according to the market MP-R? Don't you guys think the markets solve everything? So you want the markets to apply to public education but not to business?

The MP-R also opines

The state hasn't gone far enough in limiting punitive and non-economic damages. This isn't just an abstract observation based on the opinions of corporate lawyers. It's backed up by actual cases such as the wrongful death suit in Baldwin County that produced a staggering $50 million jury award last year.

Aren't all wrongful death cases about punitives in Alabama? That might be relevant to share to the readers I'd think. Since Dale Krantz lived for five days with severe burns over 90% of his body after a faulty water heater blew up and since his wife and kids were due something then I guess compensatory damages kicked in. Maybe they were moved by the nature of his injury and his family experiencing the tragedy? Perhaps the jury was frustrated or insulted by a defense that argues it was a gas leak that caused the harm and even if they thought it was the water heater then a million was all this husband and father was worth? If two other defendants settled for one million each, presumably their insurance limits, that might suggest this was a solid case.

I also note no mention was made of a verdict in Mobile later in 2007. That case involved businesses (Halliburton being one of the companies popped!) suing each other and was surely worthy of twice that of what the Krantz jury rendered. After all, this first case involved merely a human life. And the right in Alabama is all about a "culture of life" isn't it? Finally, I'd be willing to bet those business tort numbers eventually make into Chamber/IfLR propaganda!

Back to the book ... Here's a "product description":

When used in conjunction with corporations, the term “public” is misleading. Anyone can purchase shares of stock, but public corporations themselves are uninhibited by a sense of societal obligation or strict public oversight. In fact, managers of most large firms are prohibited by law from taking into account the interests of the public in decision making, if doing so hurts shareholders. But this has not always been the case, as until the beginning of the twentieth century, public corporations were deemed to have important civic responsibilities.

With The Failure of Corporate Law, Kent Greenfield hopes to return corporate law to a system in which the public has a greater say in how firms are governed. Greenfield maintains that the laws controlling firms should be much more protective of the public interest and of the corporation’s various stakeholders, such as employees. Only when the law of corporations is evaluated as a branch of public law—as with constitutional law or environmental law—will it be clear what types of changes can be made in corporate governance to improve the common good. Greenfield proposes changes in corporate governance that would enable corporations to meet the progressive goal of creating wealth for society as a whole rather than merely for shareholders and executives

The MP-R thinks corporate lawyers ought to influence how we structure our systems of justice in rather broad ways. It's shocking how radical an idea this is and yet they are willing to serve up with no shame. I, and hopefully others, cringe when I hear "corporate". Perhaps this is from reading and learning. I can also get a plug in for The Corporation here as well.

Finally, I find it interesting that the MP-R is so reliant on "corporate counsel" as I guarantee we'll soon have attacks from the right on the Democratic nominee for his lawyering. They've done it for pretty much every candidate in my memory as I think all but Jimmy Carter and Al Gore have been lawyers. Michelle Obama's ties to the corporate world as their "corporate counsel" will be noted in the most negative ways. "Those smarty pants lawyers ought not to be telling us how to ... "

The MP-R falls hook, line, and sinker for a clearly biased, methodologically flawed "study" from the Chamber of Commerce. John Gunn

Some stenography for anti-teacher union group

AP/MSNBC delivers Superintendent: Bad teachers hard to fire - Some say teacher tenure rules need to be overhauled to address problem yet I can't imagine for whom. In the piece The Foundation for Education Reform and Accountability is mentioned and I'll send you to how they describe their effort. Also covered is The Center for Union Facts and I'll send you to how they describe their work.

As for the Foundation they've been given Bradley money and there is a Heartland Institute connection to boot. Dig a little deeper and it seems clear these jokers are on the wingnut welfare. If you've got money you can do pretty much anything in America can't you? The Nation has called the CUF The Center for Selective Facts. Source Watch describes them as part of a larger set of front groups.

I'll admit that I've seen some dreadful teachers and yet most were more about getting along with the administration and then doing little for the students. I'll stack the evil done via Bu$hCo's NCLB and other "accountability" or "reform" via vouchers and the like against the teacher's unions any day of the week. I can accept that educators reaching "tenure" might still need to be put out to pasture. I can also imagine a world where patronage determines who gets and keep a job. In rural Alabama and Georgia I ask my thirty to sixty readers to imagine the need to please those in the central office.

AP/MSNBC could have surely covered the issue without the stenography or at least with some background on the groups that fed them this propaganda. Then again, that might have required some journalism. And that is increasingly in short supply. John Gunn

Troy King shows how easy it is to be a dick

Alabama Attorney General Troy King is often a dick. Does he have an easy button? Prince Troy was Captain Bama's very first Outlander of the Day over two years ago. Still, I know that in Alabama his dickness might actually get him votes. So ... I was pleased to see the B'ham News opine It's easy to demagogue the U.S. Supreme Court barring the death penalty for child rapists - and Alabama Attorney General Troy King wasted no time. It's easy when you're Prince Troy! John Gunn

Another of Bu$hCo DOJ's God Squad violates law

First there was Monica Goodling. After reading Ideology-Based Hiring at Justice Broke Laws, Investigation Finds from the WaPo's Carrie Johnson it would seem that we now have Esther Slater McDonald. Pensacola Christian College is where she earned her undergraduate degree. TBogg examines “Optical intercourse”, the same apparently being an expulsion offense down at PCC.

I posted Willingly Ignorant Regent Law/GOP Defenders? after looking further into Monica Goodling's career at DOJ. In that post I looked Pat Robertson's Regent Law, where Ms. Goodling was "educated", and noted his very own "a regent is one who represents Christ, our Sovereign, in whatever sphere of life he or she may be called to serve Him." Reckon Ms. McDonald thought she was doing her part for Him? Or Him? Perhaps both?

Micheal Elston was apparently up to his eyeballs as well in the various DOJ scandals yet it appears he's landed on his feet. Many on the right do their dirty deeds and then move on to bigger and better it seems. As for this latest, "just grand political theater" you say President Bu$h? John Gunn

Is Bama's Artur Davis just "another political tool"?

The Birmingham Weekly's Courtney Haden serves up The weak in review: Artur Davis disses the Fourth Amendment where she rightly skewers Representative Davis for rolling over for Bu$hCo and Big Teleco on the FISA legislation. Then again, Jerry McNerney, a man I worked 7o to 80 hours a week for in the fall of 2006, voted wrong as well. However, Jerry was in another hard fight in a GOP-leaning District while Rep. Davis was coasting in his election. Maybe he's looking forward to Alabama's 2010 election of her Governor?

The Black Commentator has been examining the rise of Artur Davis for several years. He's a DLC "New Democrat" and you should always follow the money before assuming that set is operating under Progressive ideals. Seldom are they so bother not with assumption.

A proud centrist weenie, long before he rose to a leadership position, Rep. Davis is usually trying for Republican Lite. It would appear that Barack Obama is going down that route with his own failures on FISA. Here's what Senator Obama said early in the year and here's what he did this week. Adding in his pandering on the Supremes striking down Louisiana's law allowing the death penalty for the rape of a child and I'm disgusted with his candidacy right now.

Perhaps Representative Davis and Senator Obama will be able to recover? Today's lecturing of David Addington, Cheney's new Chief of Staff replacing Scotter Libby, and John Yoo, a former Justice Department official now toiling away in academia, rather than wasting time on questions toward these two radicals was a start for Artur Davis. I'll need much more however. John Gunn

UPDATE ~ Evening of June 26, 2008 - Digby and Glenn Grenwald examine the myth of "Getting Things Done" under the the "Village fetish for bipartisanship".

Richard Viguerie has my email address

I've posted on the "funding father" of Conservatism before yet to have an unsolicited email from him in today's junk mail was enough to merit another mention. In a special message to conservatives, which I'm hardly, Richard sent me $4.00 Gas is a Teaching Moment for Conservatives: America’s energy problems have been brought to us courtesy of the environmental movement and their political allies –liberal Democrats and timid or complacent Republicans. I missed the Democratic "proposals for socialization of the oil industry" Richard. Follow that link and you'll find Liberalism has caused our energy crisis: Free markets are the solution. To answer this rant would take far too long for me this evening, and I'm beat, so I'll merely close with a claim that this effort will rank high in the history of wing-nuttery. For me and other thinking people to dispareage him so harshly likely bothers him not. Like Liberace, he's long been crying all the way to the bank. John Gunn

Emory Professor Drew Westen's The Political Brain

Dr. Drew Westen's The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation is a must read. Democratic leaders and strategists ought to study it closely yet I'd submit good Progressives need to as well. A good preview of his book comes from Winning Hearts and Minds: Why Rational Appeals Are Irrational If Your Goal is Winning Elections, a HuffPo piece he put up back in the middle of 2007. A Professor of Psychology at Emory, he also has a consulting effort going up there in Atlanta. John Gunn

Bama GOP thinks we need more convicted leaders

Dan at Daily Dixie tells us that today's "Good Morning Democrats" from the Alabama GOP contained language stating, "We need convicted leaders in Congress, not Pelosi pawns whose ..." Although I've certainly been at the mercy of early mornings, I do see an opening here.

The Alabama Democratic Party ought to remind Alabama voters of Ohio Representative Bob Ney, California Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham, and Idaho Senator Larry "Wide Stance" Craig as merely an opening salvo.

I'll give them Louisiana's William Jefferson and his various relatives yet only if they let me have Tom "The Hammer" DeLay's charges. Indeed various Democrats here in Alabama like E.B. McClain aren't without fault as well. Still, they are hardly leaders like "Hot Tub" Tom has been, and perhaps remains with claims that Obama is a Marxist, to the GOP.

In the House, California's Jerry Lewis is under investigation as is Alaska's Don Young, Arizona's Rick Renzi, and Florida's Tom Feeney. In the Senate, Alaska's Ted Stevens and Lisa Murkowski face inquiries. New Mexico's Senator Pete Domenici isn't running for office again after revelations that he made improper phone calls to a U.S. Attorney. Then again, our own Richard Shelby once leaked classified information.

Who can forget Florida Representative Mark Foley. Thanks for 2006 Mark!

John Albaugh, Chief of Staff to former Oklahoma Representative Ernest Istook and now a Distinguished Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, just entered a guilty plea. That Istook "basically asked what we want in the Transportation Bill" might not bode well for his future. "Murky process of appropriations" would seem to be an area of his expertise.

Don't leave off Scooter Libby, Claude Allen, Alabama's own Lester Crawford, J. Steven Griles, David Safavian ... working in or closely with Bu$hCo's White House. Bernard Kerik would have been there yet that appointment was pulled. There's Black Jack Abramoff as well, with his Alabama efforts being relevant perhaps. Homeland Security's Brian Doyle can't be left off. Neither should Kyle "Dusty" Foggo be forgotten.

Don't omit phone jammer Allen Raymond and others involved in the 2002 New Hampshire scandal. Those many phone calls on Election Day from New Hampshire to the White House remain rather intriguing. That Bu$hCo's DOJ delayed an investigation until after the 2004 election is likewise fascinating.

Monica Goodling remains under investigation the last I knew for the partisan firings of various U.S. Attorneys.

The CIA's Jose Rodriguez was being looked at for destroying torture tapes that would damage the Bu$h White House.

There's former Illinois governor George Ryan as well. Bu$h Pioneer fundraiser Thomas Noe merits mention also.

When the dust settles I'd suggest the years of Bu$hCo will easily outpace the corruption of Grant's administration yet this goes well beyond the White House. The cronyism and outright corruption that we know of in the modern GOP is certain. Once the clock runs out on Bu$hCo the secrets will really start flowing. Is this really a conversation the GOP wants to have? With this opening, I'd surely make them. John Gunn

A new Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life report

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has released a brand new U.S. Religious Landscape Survey that has some interesting data to drill down into. Matthai Kuruvila of The San Francisco Chronicle shared thoughts of Professor D. Michael Lindsay, a sociologist and religion demographer at Rice University, suggesting, "Religion in America is 3,000 miles wide, but it's only 3 inches deep. ... The issue is not that Americans don't believe in anything. It's that they believe in practically everything. It's possible for Americans to hold together contradictory beliefs at the same time." So should we be excited about tolerance or concerned about ignorance? That I'm in the 8% camp naturally pleases this contrarian. John Gunn

Opportunity in the swift boating of Barack Obama

I love this image from the GOP's 2004 convention and figure it will work as good as any for news that David Freddoso, with his a National Review Online and Human Events pedigree, Regnery Publishing, and Creative Response Concepts are teaming up for a negative book on Senator Obama. FDL's Blue Texan is right to scold Politico's Jonathan Martin for not adding "that a) the Swift Boat Liars are liars; b) that McSame called them liars; and that c) everyone but people like Jonathan Martin knows they're liars." Still, there's opportunity here.

Kate Zernike's Saturday NYT's reporting Still Fighting the ‘Swift Boat’ Battle is timely. I'd posted on the T. Boone Pickens vs. John Kerry back in the fall of 2007. Ms. Zernike wrote,

... Extensive media accounts undermined the Swift Boat charges in 2004, pointing out that some of the Swift Boat critics had written statements during Vietnam lauding Mr. Kerry for extraordinary bravery in the incidents they later said he made up. (One accuser in particular had become upset by his portrayal in a Kerry biography in 2004.) One critic had himself received a medal for heroism during a hail of gunfire he later claimed Mr. Kerry had concocted to win his third purple heart.

But that did not blunt the political impact. ...

Amen! One can only hope that the Obama campaign is ready to attack this book at its Regnery roots. To nip, nip, nip it in the bud I'd like to see them go after the right wing's message machine yet I might be hoping for far too much. Forget John McSame Blue Texan as the Obama campaign has a great chance to use this development to their advantage. Reminding the electorate of how fear and lies were a staple of the 2004 campaign can only help the Democratic nominee. John Gunn

UPDATE ~ Afternoon of June 23, 2008 - This old 2006 post referencing Eight Easy Steps for Conservative Authors later came to mind.

The American Petroleum Institute's ad blitz

As a news junkie I often see the same commercials over and over. I've been noting API's ads for some time and had even been pondering a response. There's no need however as Kurt Cobb has at least tackled one theme of API's Energy Tomorrow effort. I found Mr. Cobb via Common Dreams yet his own blog "Resource Insights" is here. His Clever and Deceptive: The Oil Lobby’s New Ads makes sense to me. I note API is pushing back against "The 'Idle' Oil Field Fallacy".

As I've done this post I've seen an Exxon ad that was slick. Liz Cheney is now on MSNBC defending Dad's closed door energy policy. No mention was made of Big Oil being at the table. Andrea Mitchell (Mrs. Alan Greenspan) let her do a Tim Russert remembrance and then she claimed the White House policy was never a secret. Liz said you can go to the White House website and see the policy so how can it be a secret. She claims the Cheney task force started with conservation. I recall conservation being a personal virtue to Dead Eye Dick. In fact, number one through three of the four involved drilling or using oil shales.

I couldn't help but think of the film The Corporation while reading on this latest example of corporate propaganda. I would have sworn that I'd posted on the documentary yet can't find it if I did. Another project ...

The image above was located via Jim Hightower. I can't figure out a more appropriate credit. The ability of the powerful to craft and then spread a message seems rather a given. I'll suggest between the corporate media and the off the chart profits Big Oil has plenty of opportunities to distribute their propaganda. Being able to produce and put out slick ads is just a small piece of their power. It will be hard for the corporate media to call them on their misrepresentations I'd think. John Gunn