Religion Run Amok: Old Hatreds, New Hatreds, Uniquely Florida Religious Right Hatreds

If burning or otherwise desecrating and destroying other individuals religious texts accomplished something, anything constructive, this would have worked in the past.
It never has.
It was bad then, it is bad now, and that it is done by people who claim religious authority is less excusable.
This old picture, from 1855, is courtesy of Fightingreligiousintolerance.org; Portraits of Hate, Lessons of Hope, from their anti-Catholicism section.

Bibliographic Information: Edward Beecher, The Papal Conspiracy Exposed, and Protestantism Defended, 1855

From their text under the artwork on this excellent site:

Catholic Bible Burning

This image shows Catholic priests burning a stack of Bibles. Who would accuse Catholics of Bible burning? Why? The crowd looks on with expressions of worry and fear on their faces. In the picture, the various priests and their helpers burn the Holy Books despite the pleas of the crowd, many of whom kneel in a penitent position. This juxtaposition implies that the crowd surrounding the priests rejects the burning of the Bible, a situation that further undermines the credibility of the priests in the picture. By bringing a superstition and misunderstanding to life—that Catholics do not believe in or use the Bible—this picture legitimizes Protestant derisions of Catholics as “un-Christian” due to their perceived failure to treat the Christian Bible properly. What makes the Catholic Church open to this kind of attack from Protestants? This image focuses on the widely held Protestant belief that Catholics shun the Bible and only recognize the authority of their tradition. The misconception that Catholics would engage in such an action stems from Martin Luther and his use of Scripture as the sole source of authority (a belief adopted by the Protestant Tradition). The image stimulates discussion over the position given extra-Biblical authority by striking at the heart of the Catholic Church and their view of authority, which includes scripture and tradition. To Protestants, this image emphasizes their dependence on the Bible for authority, while demonstrating their misunderstandings of Catholicism.

If the name Edward Beecher sounds familiar from American history, it is because he was the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin.  The Beechers were part of a very religious clan of noted preachers and abolitionists.  Here is an excerpt of Beecher's bio from Wikipedia (also source for the portrait)

Edward Beecher (August 27, 1803 – July 28, 1895) was a noted theologian, the son of Lyman Beecher and the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher.

He was born August 27, 1803 in East Hampton, New York. He graduated from Yale College in 1822. After this he studied theology at Andover.
In 1826, he became the pastor of Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts. He married Isabella Jones in 1829 and together they had eleven children. In 1830, he became the first president of Illinois College at Jacksonville, Illinois, where he remained president for 14 years. He was a close friend of Elijah P. Lovejoy and helped organize the first anti-slavery society in Illinois.
He returned to Boston in 1844, where he was the pastor of Salem Street Church until 1855, when he returned to Illinois and became the pastor of the First Congregational Church of Galesburg. In 1871 he settled in Brooklyn, New York, where from 1885 to 1889 he was pastor of the Parkville church and he died there on July 28, 1895.
He was senior editor of The Congregationalist (1849—1855), and an associate editor of the Christian Union from 1870.

The Papal Conspiracy Exposed is one of Edward Beecher's ten books.

It should be noted that of course, the book for which the above picture appears to be an illustration, was not factually accurate, and was in fact horribly bigoted and intolerant.  In those regards it is no different from Terry Jones in Florida, except that Beecher was better educated, more successful, and clearly a more legitimate member of the clergy.  Beecher didn't actually burn books, but rather he inaccurately disseminated the notion that Roman Catholics did so to create anger, outrage and rejection of Roman Catholicism in the mid-19th century.  For all I know, Edward Beecher may have genuinely believed this occurred as part of his efforts.  It doesn't matter if he believed it; it was wrong, and Beecher was wrong.  This was hateful, this was disrespectful of religion, and it represents the terrible harm that is done when self-righteous people believe they are the only source of what is right and true, and that anyone who differs is any way large or small is not only wrong, but going to hell.

When the  idiot bigot, yet one more fanatic religious fringie who is not legitimately a member of any real clergy burns Korans, he is not genuinely representing Christianity.  All he does is to perpetuate the same hatreds, intolerance, factual misinformation that is the antithesis to genuine spirituality and religion.  It is Un-American, and it should be condemned; and after condemnation we should turn our backs on the man and his group.  We DO need to recognize that facts matter, that religious freedom matters, including the right to practice whatever religion - or no religion - we choose as an act of conscience.  Equally, it is our right to disagree with factual errors or omissions or to be critical and analytical in determining our own conscience. What is NOT an American right is to lie, or to commit hate crimes in the name of religion.

When you read the news report below, ask yourself how effective burning Bibles would be.  Would it get anyone else to stop burning Korans?   I would posit here the wording of the Bible passage from Matthew 7:12 (New International Version)   So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.  and Luke 6:31  Do to others as you would have them do to you and the related New Testament verses, Romans 12:10 and Galatians 5:14 respectively :  Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.   and, in reference to Leviticus 19:18, For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

 Looking at the two images - left is a photo of Jones from Reuters - there is an unpleasant similarity in appearance of the two factually inaccurate 'experts' on religious book burning.  I think there can be no doubt that Jones seeks to harm people by burning copies of the text they hold sacred.  Just as there can be no doubt that Jones is not doing unto others as he would have them do, and there can be no doubt that what Jones does is harmful, given the outraged reaction he sparked last time he burned something.  Jones should not be ticketed for burning improperly; he should be hauled into court for committing a series of hate crimes.

From Yahoo News and the AFP:

US pastor burns Korans to urge Iran clergyman release

A controversial Florida pastor has burned copies of the Koran and a depiction of the prophet Mohammed to protest the imprisonment in Iran of a Christian clergyman Youcef Nadarkhani.

The burning, attended by 20 people and streamed live over the Internet, was carried out by pastor Terry Jones' church in Gainesville, Florida on Saturday, The Gainesville Sun said, and video of the burning was uploaded to YouTube by the pastor's supporting group "Stand Up America Now."

The Pentagon had urged Jones to reconsider, expressing concern that American soldiers in Afghanistan and elsewhere could be put at greater risk because of the act, according to the newspaper, but Jones insisted to go ahead with the protest in the name of the release of the Christian pastor in Iran.

Nadarkhani was arrested in October 2009 and condemned to death under Islamic sharia law for converting to Christianity when he was 19.
Now 34, he is a pastor of a small evangelical community called the Church of Iran. Iran's supreme court in July 2011 overturned the death sentence and sent the case back to the court in Nadarkhani's hometown of Rasht, in Gilan province.
His retrial took place at the end of September 2011 with no verdict made public.

Several Western countries, including the United States, Britain, Germany and France, condemned the death sentence and said they feared it could be carried out soon.

In March 2011, the US pastor's assistant burned a copy of the Koran and broadcast the ceremony on the Internet, with the images inciting violence in northern Afghanistan, in which at least 12 people were killed.

Moments after the burning on Saturday, the Gainesville fire department issued the church a citation for violating the city's fire ordinances, the report said.
Jones is an idiot; and he is no legitimate man of God --- not any God.  I rather imagine God is wanting Mr. Jones to get off his side, so to speak (and not for the first time, or for the first person behaving badly).  I have no doubt that if he is still alive, the last thing that a former Muslim would wish is for the Koran to be burned.  I have no doubt that if he is still alive, that Nadarkhani wishes nothing whatsoever to do with Jones, and repudiates him.  It is more likely that if Nadarkhani is still alive, the actions of Jones could get him killed in Iran, as well as being a catalyst for the deaths of more Americans  and allies in foreign countries.

Also in the news today was the discovery of the mutilated body of a man who demonstrated tremendous courage, and who demonstrated a greater conformity to the core teachings and values held in common by the great religions of the world, including the three Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  The life of the victim of kidnapping, murder and mutilation was that of a more godly man than Mr. Jones in Florida.  Dr. Dale was reported by the UK news source the Guardian as having been a Muslim convert for more than 30 years.  Dale was murdered by the Taliban, the Islamic equivalent in Afghanistan of Jones in Florida.

From the Guardian:

Kidnapped British doctor found beheaded in Pakistan

Body of Red Cross worker Khalil Dale found dumped by roadside in region afflicted by separatist and Taliban violence

The beheaded corpse of a British aid worker has been discovered in the Pakistani city of Quetta, almost four months after he was kidnapped.
The body of Khalil Rasjed Dale was left on a road outside the city, in southern Baluchistan province, with a note attachedwhich said he had been killed because a ransom had not been paid to his captors.
Dale, who had been working for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), was kidnapped in January while driving near the organisation's Quetta office.
He was abducted by gunmen as he made his way home in a clearly-marked ICRC vehicle on 5 January. His assailants are said to have bundled him into a car about 200M from an ICRC residence.
At the time, police in Quetta said Dale was abducted by unknown assailants driving a Landcruiser following a visit to a local school. He was travelling with a Pakistani doctor and a driver, who were not seized.
Quetta police chief Ahsan Mahboob said the killers' note read: "This is the body of Khalil who we have slaughtered for not paying a ransom amount."
Dale had been a Muslim convert for more than 30 years.
William Hague, the foreign secretary, said "tireless efforts" had been made to secure Dale's release and the British government had worked closely with the Red Cross.
"I utterly condemn the kidnapping and killing of Mr Dale and send my deepest condolences to his family and loved ones as they come to terms with their tragic and distressing loss," he said.
"We are devastated," said ICRC director general Yves Daccord. "Khalil was a trusted and very experienced Red Cross staff member who significantly contributed to the humanitarian cause.
"All of us at the ICRC and at the British Red Cross share the grief and outrage of Khalil's family and friends."
Separatist militants and the Taliban are extremely active in Quetta, which is just a couple of hours' drive to the border with Afghanistan's Kandahar province, where the Taliban is battling US forces.
The ICRC has working relations with movements such as the Taliban, but its staff remain vulnerable to criminals and kidnappers.
Retired nurse Sheila Howat, a former colleague of Dale's at Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary, said: "It's dreadful what has happened to him, really awful. The world has lost someone who really cared for others."

Many of the Few Democratic Legislators Belonging to ALEC Decide to QUIT

Democratic legislators are leaving ALEC even faster than corporations continue to do so.  While I predict they will be much slower to come to their senses and abandon such egregious corruption, I believe that the conservatives in the face of rising outrage at allowing out of state obscene special interest money sources to draft legislation, will find themselves in uncomfortable positions defending their actions to the living breathing not-special-interest constituents who elect them.  There comes a point where no amount of money will guarantee a conservative an election, when people are knowledgeable enough, and angry enough about what they know. 

The electorate should be angry - very angry.  We the people are getting the shaft while the big money that pays off our legislators gets richer, makes bigger profits, unfair, unequal and disproportionate profits at our expense.  Simply put, we do not like it when the party which promises transparency meets and drafts legislation in secret - often outside the state where it is passed.  We do not like our legislators being paid off, either directly or indirectly by entities competing with our interests and the service of our legislators.

Right wing culture war agendas are unwelcome, and unpopular.  In record breaking numbers, the legislation by the right is being undone or overturned, and those elected to government are being thrown out with deliberate haste.

I used to have respect for conservatives; I used to BE a conservative.  Now they are fact averse, anti-education, anti-science, and selling out to an unprecedented degree since the late 19th / earliest part of the 20th century to corrupt big money.  Their arrogance since the latter 20th century and the first decade of this century is unprecedented in my life time.

Here is the latest on the legislators leaving ALEC.  If the Corp-o-rats are the businesses, like Koch and WalMart (and others), and lobbyists for big money entities like the NRA interceded for gun manufacturers, then the legislators are the crew of the sinking ship, heading for the exits -- and the dinghys.

From the Nation:

Meet the 28 Lawmakers Who Have Quit ALEC This Month

Zaid Jilani

April 26, 2012

 

Editor's Note: This article was first published by RepublicReport.org.
 
The exodus of major corporations from the corporate front group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) has made headlines nationwide as the group’s agenda has been increasingly scrutinized by the general public.

But as these corporations have fled ALEC, there has also been one other little-noticed exodus from the group: that of legislators. SourceWatch and Keystone Progress have been tracking the defections of lawmakers. Here are 28 who have left so far:

- Sen. Nan Orrock (D-GA): “As a member of the American Legislative Exchange Council for several years, having joined ALEC with the primary goal of better understanding the corporate-dominated organization, I know first-hand that ALEC is not the innocuous organization it claims to be.” [4/17/12]
- Sen. Greg Cromer (R-LA): “‘It has been brought to my attention that there have been meetings and/or activities with ALEC staff members within the state of Louisiana that I have not been privy to,’ Cromer wrote in his resignation letter that went out as an email to key lawmakers and staffers.” [4/17/12]
- Sen. Mike Colona (D-MO): “‘Their agenda is radical and wrong for Missouri. I was a member and saw firsthand the sort of extreme legislation they push on state legislators around the country,’ Cromer said in a statement to the organization “Progress Missouri.” [4/12/12]
- Pennsylvania Reps. Kate Harper (R), Sandra Major (R), Mark Mustio (R), Harry Readshaw (D), and Sen. John Pippy (R) [4/26/12]
- Sen. George Muñoz (D-NM) [4/20/12]
- Rep. Ted Vick (D-SC): “Recent revelations concerning ALEC’s funding sources from radical elements have proven to be the final straw for me. ALEC has become too partisan and too extreme.” [4/24/12]
- Nebraska Senators Danielle Conrad (D), Tony Fulton (R), Health Mello (D), and Jeremy Norquist (D) [4/26/12]
- Texas Democratic Party Reps. Alma Allen, Armando Martinez, Dawnna Dukes, Hubert Vo, Harold Dutton, Chente, Quintanilla, Eddie Rodriguez, José Menéndez, Ruth Jones McClendon, Eric Johnson, Tracy King, Ryan Guillen [4/2012]
- Rep. Jennifer Selig (D-UT) [4/9/12]
- Rep. Kevin Van De Wege (D-WA): “My membership status is increasingly becoming a divisive issue this year, and I prefer to put my time and energy into efforts that unite our district rather than divide it.” [4/11/12]

We applaud these legislators for leaving the corporate front group, which has been responsible for pushing destructive special interest legislation, from climate change denial in schools, to anti-union and anti-consumer bills, to the controversial Voter ID and Stand Your Ground laws.

the ALEC money corp-o- ' Rat'

 

Dan Savage was Right; the Bible Gets Many Things Wrong

Depending on which version of the description you read on this video, or which news article you see about it,  Dan Savage is 'cursing' Christian teens (he is not) and 'ripping' the Bible.
I think the phrase 'pansy ass' is rude, but on the spectrum of offensive terms it is a rather mild epithet of the many disparaging phrases often applied to gay people. It is perhaps mildly insulting, but hardly rises to the level of cursing.
The comments Dan Savage makes regarding the content of the Bible, as well as the use of the Bible to justify the legality of slavery in the U.S. Constitution and the use of the Bible by the slave owners and their supporters in the South in the Civil War is factually accurate. It is an unpleasant and 'incovenient' fact about which Southerners have mixed feelings. But it is factual. Christians owned Christians. Whites owned blacks and bi-racial or multi-racial people, who were often not so very genetically different than themselves, sometimes slaves who were even quite closely related to themselves.
Pointing out that fact, pointing out that we have no qualms whatsoever in agreeing universally that slavery is wrong, and that therefore the BIBLE IS WRONG on this point, or that it is now obsolete not to eat pork, or shrimp or crab meat. The Bible prohibits eating meat and milk together; according to the Bible, it is wrong to have a hamburger AND a milkshake or carton of milk in the same happy meal. But you won't see any of these kids protesting someone disagreeing with THAT, which makes them hypocrites.

Just to be clear, either these kids who are leaving are in fact apparently ignorant of these passages in the Bible, which is quite likely, or they have been mislead into thinking, wrongly, that it is not permissible to challenge those parts of the Bible like slavery.  Wikipedia has an entire entry on the Bible and slavery.
Here are some of those passages. You decide if YOU agree with them. 

As you contemplate the passages, consider how you wold feel as the owned party described, not just the owner.   As the following passage shows, the word slave is the accurate translation, not servant.  The wording used refers to one person owning another.  It clearly describes breaking up families through buying and selling children, specifically.

However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you.    You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

Slavery applied to wives and children when a man was a slave.  What do you think of the morality of giving someone the choice of their own selfish freedom or their family?  Remember, if someone does choose to be a slave to be with their wife and kids.......there is no guarantee whatsoever that they will not be sold, or the wife and kids won't be sold after he makes that choice.  Is the Bible MORAL in this respect? I don't think so, and I don't believe they think so either.

"And if a man sells his daughter to be a female servant, she shall not go out as the male servants do. If she does not please her master, who has betrothed her to himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has dealt deceitfully with her. And if he has betrothed her to his son, he shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters. If he takes another wife, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, and her marriage rights. And if he does not do these three for her, then she shall go out free, without paying money."

—Exodus 21 7-11

Then we have the issue of sex trafficking intersecting with slavery in the Bible. Once you were a slave, if you were female, it appears permanent even if you were Jewish but did not become a permanent slave by your own choice.
Do you condone selling women for sex?  Do you agree with men  being allowed to sell their daughters (or sisters)?  It is clearly part of the Bible; these are not sections disputed by either Judaism or Christianity as authentic.  With the exception of some weird ideas among the more extreme conservatives about women being submissive to men, it is generally accepted worldwide, that women are equal to men not submissive to them -- contrary to the Bible -- and that sexual exploitation of women or girls is wrong.  No 'ifs', no 'whens', no excuses, justifications or anything else.  Women must consent to sex, and any non consensual sex is wrong.  A woman clearly cannot say NO to a person who is legally allowed to rape, or beat or even kill her.

When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are.  If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment.  (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT)

And lets not forget that the Bible makes it acceptable and legal to beat people who are owned property even if they are beaten so brutally they die from their abuse. Lets not pretend that kind of a beating is anything but Biblically approved BRUTALITY and ABUSE that we now define as murder. The whole 'thou shalt not kill' thing in the ten commandments -- there is an exception for slaves, if you feel like it.

When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property.  (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

BOTH the old testament and the new testament allow ownership of people who are like oneself in ethnicity AND religion.  Humanity be damned, business is business and people are allowed to be property like chickens, goats, cattle, tables and chairs.  well, except that you aren't allowed to have sex with the chicken, goats, cattle, tables and chairs.  You can damage or destroy all of those, just not have sex with them.  Savage is factually correct in his criticism of both the Old and New Testament passages in terms of them being wrong in what we now recognize clearly are the most profoundly core values of fundamental human rights.
While many of us are not comfortable with acknowledging the practice of masturbation, it is not just a very normal aspect of human sexuality, it is a normal aspect of primate sexuality, of our entire branch of the evolutionary tree.  With the exception of some badly archaic and sexually repressive and oppressive teachings by the Roman Catholic church which puts masturbation in the same category as the very worst possible sins - such as murder - no sane, rational person now believes that masturbation is a terrible sin.
As a woman, I can tell you categorically that EVERY woman I know would be deeply offended to be told she has to move out and live in a different building - as required by the Bible, - or that she is 'impure' and therefore could not go to work or classes or engage in basic experiences we take for granted such as shopping, eating out or going to a movie, playing a sport, or visiting friends, OR GO TO CHURCH during menstruation.  I would hope that every female student who left the Dan Savage presentation makes an effort to learn what he was talking about, because he was correct in pointing out that we reject, quite emphatically what the Bible states on this subject.
No one in their right mind thinks that women who are not virgins, either by choice or against their will, should be stoned because of their sexual status.  It is a facet of the Bible that we widely reject, recognizing that the reasons for when and how and with whom one experiences sex is more complex, and that aspect of sexuality is not a commodity, not something to be consumed by a husband or anyone else.  It is certainly not a justification for a violent murder, whatever the Bible states (or the Quoran or any other religious text).  We do not practice double standards for men and women regarding this aspect of sex any longer.  In this regard, whether the students leaving the Savage presentation acknowledge it or not, we broadly reject the Bible.  Sexual abstinence until the right time which may or may not be marriage is desirable for a number of important reasons, which may include spiritual purity choices; but fear of rejection by a future spouse or being stoned to death are NOT among them, and should not be. 
We emphatically reject the Bible's restrictions on mixing fibers, and on hybrids of many kinds.

"'Keep my decrees. "'Do not mate different kinds of animals. "'Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. "'Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material. " Leviticus 19:19

That rules out any blended fiber content clothing - cotton polyester, etc.  We do so with combinations of natural fibers, and we do so with natural and synthetic blends all the time.  The single fibre content garment is far less common than any blend of two or more fibers.  This part of Leviticus also rules out any number of domestic plants used for food.  I'm sure all or nearly all of the readers of this post have at one time or another eaten a hybrid fruit - broccoli for example.  Modern broccoli is a hybrid of a more cabbage like form of broccoli and cauliflower; it did not originally have fleurettes.  I'm sure many if not all readers have eaten fruit like Tangelos, a hybrid of tangerines and grapefruit; we hybridize many fruits and vegetables and grains.  We have hybridized different kinds of animals for years, either different breeds or varieties of the same species, or entirely different species such as horses and donkeys to create mules.  In doing ALL of the above, we emphatically reject the teachings of Biblical texts. 
I would bet that all or at least most of the students who are taking umbrage with Dan Savage DARING to point out what is wrong with the Bible, what we reject emphatically in the Bible, in fact agree with him.  I'm sure that all of them believe slavery is wrong.  I'm sure all of them reject the idea of women as subordinate to men or that women should move out of their homes during their menstrual cycles or be denied the right to come and go freely.  I'm sure that most of those students are wearing or have recently worn at least one or more articles of clothing containing a mixture of two or more fibers.  I'm sure that every one of these students eats fruit or vegetables or grain products that have resulted from some form of hybridization.  I'm sure that there is not a single student who objected to Dan Savage pointing out that the Bible is wrong and obsolete on a wide variety of subjects who would assert that anyone who breeds mules (or hinnies - look it up) or Labradoodles is going against God's word in the Bible.
Their exodus (pun intended) from Dan Savage's presentation was wrong.  It was ignorant, and it was intolerant.  Most if not all of the opposition to efforts to eradicate bullying in our schools especially of LGBT students on religious grounds are trying to institutionalize hatefulness, they are trying to make it acceptable for Christianity to be reflected in intolerant and abusive behavior.  In using the Bible to justify denying full equality to people by rejecting legal marriage equality they do the same thing.  Just because something is in the Bible, or just because a religion has embraced an attitude because of a Bible passage is NOT ENOUGH.  It does not and should not replace moral judgment and critical thinking or ethical evaluation SEPARATE from the Bible. 
We do it all the time, rejecting the Biblical position on human rights issues, on food and clothing and sexuality.  Being a person of faith does not require you to check your brain at the church door and leave it there.  The Bible is a wonderful book, but it is not the only word on anything, and often is not a good word on many things.  Dan Savage was correct, and the students who left, who would not engage on important but perhaps uncomfortable facts but instead ran away - they were wrong. 
Dan Savage used the wrong word when he called them pansy -ass.  The correct term is coward, moral and intellectual cowards, because these students were afraid to face and confront facts and ideas that they didn't like and which made them uncomfortable.  That is part of education, and it is part of a responsible adult life.  It is not acceptable to have anyone else, not an individual, not an institution, do our thinking for us.  Growing up, I was taught to believe that we should challenge our own beliefs, and we should embrace such challenges by others.  As my family pastor used to say, if your belief cannot stand up to a challenge, if it does not grow and change as a result of such challenges it is a weak and worthless thing.  Weak and worthless is what 'pansy ass' is a more slang term to express.

Another Torture Report: Dick Cheney Is a Liar, Torture Doesn't Work

The day before yesterday, Reuters released the following news article; later today, 60 Minutes is going to expand on this.  We will update with the 60 Minutes content when it becomes available.  The Senate probe appears to confirm everything else that has been said demonstrating the utter failure of torture as an intelligence technique.  Right wing candidates for President are willing to continue the Bush era mistakes, because they do not learn, and because it appeals to the conservative emotion rather than logic approach to decision making.  That represents not only a problem with making policy, it represents a lack of morality and ethics on the right.
From Reuters:  Exclusive: Senate probe finds little evidence of effective "torture"

By Mark Hosenball

Fri Apr 27, 2012 7:03am EDT

(Reuters) - A nearly three-year-long investigation by Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats is expected to find there is little evidence the harsh "enhanced interrogation techniques" the CIA used on high-value prisoners produced counter-terrorism breakthroughs.
People familiar with the inquiry said committee investigators, who have been poring over records from the administration of President George W. Bush, believe they do not substantiate claims by some Bush supporters that the harsh interrogations led to counter-terrorism coups.

The backers of such techniques, which include "water-boarding," sleep deprivation and other practices critics call torture, maintain they have led to the disruption of major terror plots and the capture of al Qaeda leaders.

One official said investigators found "no evidence" such enhanced interrogations played "any significant role" in the years-long intelligence operations which led to the discovery and killing of Osama bin Laden last May by U.S. Navy SEALs.

Republican MASSIVE Economic and Policy Failures in Wisconsin - Factcheck.org busts the lies on the right about their own poor job performance

Scott Walker is an ugly piece of work; in many ways he epitomizes all that is bad and wrong and discriminatory, all that is corrupted in government by big right wing big money running politics.
That Walker, and some of his political colleagues in elected office have faced recall elections is an indication of the Republican arrogant overreach that consistently characterizes their assumption of majority in government in recent years.  The right has not acted responsibly, they have not served the electorate, they have served big outside money and they have waged culture war instead of focusing on more legitimate legislation that was actually important and necessary.  What they did was divisive and served only a narrow point of a segment of the people of Wisconsin, not the interests and belief of the entire state as a whole.  That is bad government; that is the GOP and Tea Party.  They have been radical and extremist, and now they are being thrown out, and their legislation rejected because it is BAD.  The recall of Walker and his lieutenant governor and of multiple legislators is a referendum rejecting Republicans, including BY a significant segment OF Wisconsin Republicans.
So here is what Factcheck.org has to say about the recall of Governor Walker and the reality, not the spin, of his exceedingly lackluster job performance:

The Whole Truth in Wisconsin Air Wars

Sorting out the facts in the recall election for governor
Summary
If using partial truths in political advertising is an art, then ads in the Wisconsin recall election for governor should be in a museum. Former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett are among the Democrats seeking to unseat Republican Gov. Scott Walker in a race that has attracted national attention. And Wisconsin’s airwaves have been filled with political ads largely funded by out-of-state money. But viewers who want the whole truth are advised to ask themselves, “What am I not being told?”

Colbert Brilliance; Right Wing Bigotry and Their 'Science' Lies

The utter failure to accomplish the level of reason one would expect from anyone with a more developed intellect than an above average 4 year old epitomizes the problems with the right wing thinking in the anti-immigrant propaganda below.  The inconsistency and hypocrisy that global warming doesn't exist when it comes to fossil fuels and the manipulation of big oil money, but it does exist when it comes to immigrants from south of the border, that is classic right wing thinking.  That someone on the right would spend significant amounts of money to make a slick ad like this on such an obviously flawed premise, and run it is a classic example of irresponsibility with money as well as an indication of a total lack of integrity.

That it makes sense to the right wing extremists is sad, and a little scary; that they are involed in deterimining issues of government with such flaws in their thinking and belief systems is far more terrifying.  It continues to boggle my mind that the right neither sees the flaws in their thinking, nor the hateful bias, nor understands that they are not operating at the level of critical thinking the rest of the world practices.  This makes sense to at least some on the right, the more extreme fringies.  It should not pass with anyone as making sense.

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The Religious Right Wants to Rot Your Brain

Two articles from the Science section of the HuffPo bring together the conflict of logic versus illogic.
The first addresses the utter fallacy of creationism and intelligent design.  At issue is the essence of whether we base our lives on fear and fallacy, or on curiosity and the daring to challenge our world, all of it, internally and externally.

Lawrence M. Krauss

Director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University, author of 'A Universe from Nothing'

A Universe Without Purpose

The illusion of purpose and design is perhaps the most pervasive illusion about nature that science has to confront on a daily basis. Everywhere we look, it appears that the world was designed so that we could flourish.
The position of the Earth around the sun, the presence of organic materials and water and a warm climate -- all make life on our planet possible. Yet, with perhaps 100 billion solar systems in our galaxy alone, with ubiquitous water, carbon and hydrogen, it isn't surprising that these conditions would arise somewhere. And as to the diversity of life on Earth -- as Darwin described more than 150 years ago and experiments ever since have validated -- natural selection in evolving life forms can establish both diversity and order without any governing plan.
As a cosmologist, a scientist who studies the origin and evolution of the universe, I am painfully aware that our illusions nonetheless reflect a deep human need to assume that the existence of the Earth, of life and of the universe and the laws that govern it require something more profound. For many, to live in a universe that may have no purpose, and no creator, is unthinkable.

Red State Voters = Obese, White, Low Education WalMart Shoppers? (so the study says)

I have been writing a series of humorous (at least to me) NRA profile stories about bad shootings by individuals who match what appears to be the NRA membership demographic - old, white, flabby and crabby (my definition of crabby - wanting to be allowed to shoot people over minor infractions and then call it self-defense).
I came across two ostensibly scientific studies by academically credentialed researchers that piqued my interest.  One was the web site "What is a Red State" Verification of Bush State Stereotypes, by Associate Professor of Cognitive Science Benjamin K. Bergen, and the other was a more dubious ALEC 'Report card on American education. K-12" by a Dr. Matthew Ladner, which had a very dubious ideological premise for awarding high ALEC marks in education.
I had been thinking about returning to writing about the differences between red states and blue states after the passage and signing in Wisconsin of more of the failed abstinence only; ignorance only sex ed that seems to characterize conservatives repressive attitudes towards sex.  That dovetails with the trend to educated Republicans (and other conservatives) distrusting science and experts.
States with abstinence only Sex ed have double the rate of unplanned teen pregnancies of states with real education.

Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle found that teenagers who received some type of comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to get pregnant or get someone else pregnant. And in 2007, a federal report showed that abstinence-only programs had “no impacts on rates of sexual abstinence.”

So clearly, when conservatives push so very strongly for ignorance only sex ed, it's because they think that if you don't tell kids how sex happens, and if you don't tell them about how to prevent pregnancy, they just won't have sex...........never mind how much evidence that is not true accumulates.  Conservatives are repressive prudes about sex, they want to control people's sexuality and they demand that the rest of the world thinks it is bad, disgusting, and dirty like they do (apparently).
The criteria in the ALEC 'report card' on education reform was not higher graduation rates, better test scores in standardized testing or SAT/ACTs, or achieving a higher level of education.  The standard that was being measured by the ALEC grade was a disturbing dog whistle term of responsiveness to "parental choice in education".  In looking at what ALEC rewards with high marks, the real measurement is how well conservative parents are doing in taking control of the education of children away from teachers and experts and standardized criteria of education, and instead putting a priority on teaching subjects like creationism instead of evolution, an anti-science, anti-education, pro-conservative measure.  This is an attempt to exalt the idiot conservatives on the Texas School board who tried to politicize their text books in ways which were fact averse, and to encourage the dumbing down of our education nation wide by the terrifyingly ill-educated Tea Partiers of Tennessee who wanted to require the worst kinds of revisionist history (and science, economics, literature, ad infinitum) to their curricula.  This is not about REAL ACADEMIC achievement.  This is entirely about promoting the anti-education policies of the far right.  Policies like those espoused by Mr. Potatohead wannabe Rick Santorum who believed that we shouldn't encourage students to go to college because they might learn things which contradict conservatism - no surprise, given how fact-averse conservatism so often is - and because it might cause students to QUESTION THEIR BELIEF IN GOD.  So........the far right conservatives, notably including those in the Tea Party, would much prefer the American public to be dumb, ignorant, ill educated but GOD FEARING sheep who do not learn facts which are inconvenient, and who do not question, ever, what they are told to believe.  This is the classic Right Wing Authoritarianism which is defined by three things:
Right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) is a personality and ideological variable studied in political, social, and personality psychology. It is defined by three attitudinal and behavioral clusters which correlate together:^[1][2]

1. Authoritarian submission — a high degree of submissiveness to the authorities who are perceived to be established and legitimate in the society in which one lives.
2. Authoritarian aggression — a general aggressiveness directed against deviants, outgroups, and other people that are perceived to be targets according to established authorities.
3. Conventionalism — a high degree of adherence to the traditions and social norms that are perceived to be endorsed by society and its established authorities, and a belief that others in one's society should also be required to adhere to these norms.^[3]

Right wing politics appears to be entirely about promoting fact averse ideological conformity.  Where conservatism intersects with education, that appears to be entirely about finding ways to gain control of the education system to teach biased and badly flawed ideology that has the greatest chance to produce badly educated non-critical thinking conformists who don't ask uncomfortable questions or challenge those biases.  When I look at some of the statements and beliefs espoused by our conservative Minnesota legislators, views which are NOT challenged by other conservatives, my mind boggles.  A classic example is anything said by the far right wing conservative dullard, drunkard, and Minnesota Majority stooge, State Rep. Buesgen, who appears to be one of the most bone ignorant, ill educated individuals ever to hold elective office - shame on the electorate who voted him into the legislature!


Buesgens, a former math teacher, must have only learned Republican math, where the numbers don't relate in any meaningful way to objective reality or accepted academic or functional practice. It is not surprising to find that schools in Jordan, the district that Buesgens represents, ranked in the bottom half of Minnesota schools in performance, as indicated here, and here, and here.
It is shocking to me that anyone - even a Republican - would have such a poor understanding of mathematics when assessing public policy and legislative decisions.  Given the poor performance of his own school district, one has to wonder at this.  (The only explanation I can come up with involves excessive use of alcohol....)  [It is worth noting here that financial investment in education does not appear a significant part of right wing evaluations.  In the case of ALEC, their focus appears to be on privatization so as to make money for their member corporations off of education, not providing a competitive high quality education.]  Dumbing down our state and national education to maximize conformity and to advance conservative propaganda seems to be the only goal.

From MNPublius:

Buesgens (R-Jordan) proposes 20 percent cut to schools [UPDATED]

Mark Buesgens, a leading conservative and one-time chair of the Tom Emmer campaign, has made a budget proposal that would be absolutely devastating to Minnesota’s public schools. His proposal would make a 20 percent cut to school funding, and would not pay back the $1.4 billion we owe our schools to pay back last biennium’s school shift.
Buesgens’ plan claims to “freeze” spending at the current levels. In reality, it ignores shifts that were made and Federal money the state received, and actually drastically reduces school funding. Buesgens’ proposal will result in schools getting $1.9 $2.4 billion* less this biennium than last, at a time when enrollment is increasing and they’re actually due to get a $1 billion $500 million increase in funding. This cut of nearly $3 billion is approximately 20 percent of the forecast school funding [PDF].
Before the session even started, I warned that the MNGOP might do this, and explained why it would mean real pain for our schools. Here’s a short summary of the problem:

School funding in the last biennium was temporarily reduced by $1.9 billion as part of the school funding “shift.”  In addition, we took $500 million from Federal stimulus aid. This made our spending look artificially low in FY2010-11. We promised schools $13.8 billion in spending, but we only spent $11.9 billion immediately counting the Federal aid. But that was never real savings — it was just a postponement. School funding was still supposed to be $13.8 billion, and schools have been taking out loans waiting for the rest of the money ever since.

Along comes Mark Buesgens. He looks at the budget, ignoring the school shift, and says to himself okay, we spent $11.4 billion on schools in the last biennium. Let’s freeze it there. In reality, that’s $2.4 billion too low. Plus, it doesn’t consider the extra $500 million schools are expecting because of an expected influx of 15,000 new students. This would be an absolute disaster for our schools.

So when I read Professor Bergen's web site which identified Red States as Bush States, which had a correlation to four factors, I was intrigued, as one of the factor he correlated was education.

What characterizes states that vote for George W. Bush?

An analysis of voting patterns reveals that their populations tend to:

1. Lack a college education
2. Be White
3. Be obese
4. Shop at Walmart

Main findings:

The more educated the population of a state, (as measured by the percentage of the population with a Bachelor's degree or higher), the less likely that state was to vote for George W. Bush in the 2000 Presidential Election (p<0.001).

In addition, the higher the rate of obesity in a state, the more likely that state was to vote for Bush (p<0.01).
If education or obesity correlates with race, then it could be race, rather than education or obesity that is actually the strong predictor of voting behavior. What we see is that the more Caucasian a state is, the more likely it was to vote for Bush (p<0.01).
The number of Walmart stores per capita in a state also correlates with votes for Bush (p<0.0001).   [It is worth noting that Walmart and the Walton family are core members of right wing unregistered lobbyist and government corruption entity ALEC, which expends obscene amounts of money to elect right wing politicians who will subsequently serve their financial interests - DG]
When racial makeup, education, obesity, and Walmarts are all included in a multiple regression, race (b=0.225; t(49)=2.118; p<0.05), education (b=-0.386; t(49)=-2.911; p<0.01), and Walmart concentration (b=0.331; t(49)=2.618; p<0.05) are all significant factors.

Sources for the numbers:

• Obesity data are from a report by the non-profit American Public Health Association, as reported here
• Education data are from a 2003 supplement to the 2000 U.S. census, as reported here
• Voting data are from the federal register
• Race data are from the 2000 U.S. census
• Walmart numbers are from the Walmart 2004 Annual Report

This suggests strongly to me that I was on to something more than my superficial and flippant characterizing initially believed in categorizing the NRA membership as old and white, flabby and crabby, given the racial and age distribution of the NRA members.  When one takes into account both the lower educational levels, and the promotion of conformity and propaganda over genuine education involving verifiable facts and critical thinking skills, the right wing agenda is glaring.
That it should be vehemently and aggressively opposed by thoughtful and principle conservatives, independents and those further left should be evident.  It explains the punitive right wing culture war of coercion, it explains the deliberate efforts by the right to keep our population stupid and ill-educated in order to be more easily manipulated and exploited.  Right wing thinking is simply not very good thinking.

I was struck by the following from the Jacksonvill Florida Times Union on the myths of right wing thinking, from last year:

Politics: Four big myths of right-wing thinking

Posted: March 28, 2011 - 12:00amMarch 28, 2011 - 12:00am

Politics: Four big myths of right-wing thinking

It seems there are four powerful myths that form the foundation for much of right-wing thought.
- Myth No. 1: Punishment.
Through the years the idea has been allowed to develop that asking the wealthy to pay a higher percentage in taxes is "punishment."
It seems that the days of President John F. Kennedy's "ask not what your country can do for you" has fallen completely out of fashion.
- Myth No. 2: Warfare.
Any attempt by the government to balance budgets by progressive taxation is "class warfare." Such speech seems to border on blasphemy.
Are we to take seriously a comparison between someone being asked to pay a few percentage points more in taxes to actual physical warfare endured by military members in the defense of their country?
- Myth No. 3: Free market.
Markets must have rules and regulations; they must operate in an environment.
Some countries may allow toxic waste to be dumped in a nearby river; they may have no minimum wage and no concern for the health and welfare of their workers.
Other markets in more civilized and advanced societies are not going to allow these things to happen.
They will insist on a minimum wage, on safety and environmental regulations.
What is meant by "free market?" Does it mean companies have the right to seek out the cheapest labor, the most lax regulations?
If so, how are advanced countries like the United States supposed to compete?
- Myth No. 4: Laziness.
This is the idea that people who find themselves on the bottom of the economy simply deserve to be there.
This myth ties in nicely with the "free market" idea that everyone gets what they deserve.
Yet, it's clear many unemployed people are not lazy. They may have worked hard for many years only to fall on hard times.
And, once unemployed, they are excluded by many companies who have made a practice of not hiring people who do not currently have a job.
Finally, part of the "laziness" myth is the idea that those at the top deserve to be there; that they certainly got there by hard work.
Yet, it's a fact that two-thirds of all wealth is inherited.
We must break through the four powerful myths that have been allowed to grow strong in our society if we are to make the sort of political progress that will send us toward a future we can look forward to.
We have a choice in our politics, in our positive and constructive decision to be educated people who are fact based and who engage in critical thinking.  Or, we can be conservative conformists, which appears to be a grim and dystopic alternative.  I don't know if I will receive a reply, but I dashed off an email to Professor Bergen, suggesting he might want to correlate abstinence only / ignorance only sex ed policies, and numbers of NRA memberships into his existing data on red state patterns.  We need to get rid of the dead wood of bad thinkers in our legislature.  Mark Buesgens is far from the only, and may well not be the worst, by a considerable margin.  Rather, he typifies the problem with poor thinkers who don't work well with facts and numbers.  Otherwise just waiting for the old conservatives to die off, given their lack of success with conservative wedge issues like homophobia among younger people will not be sufficient --- not if the people who are approaching voting age are given a bad conservative-dictated education that ill prepares them for participation in a representative form of government, or any other aspect of life for that matter.

Update: Vengeance is Not Justice - Alabama Beating NOT Related to Trayvon Martin

As I had suspected, the attempt to create a tie between this very tragic beating and Trayvon Martin was a forced connection that does not really exist.  Rather it appears that the man who was beaten had gone after local teens with a couple of knives, along with making threats that prompted the beating in reaction.  This was not the first or only incident; it appears to have occurred after a long, long line of incidents.   However, whatever the provocation, it is not right for people to take the law into their own hands.  I have to wonder, if like Sanford, Florida, there might be some serious problems with the quality of the policing being adequate.  Vigilantism by ANYONE, is not how a law abiding rule-of-law not rule-of-individual-acts-of-violence society works.

From the HuffPo: 

Matthew Owens Beating Not A Hate Crime, Not Related To Trayvon Martin, Mayor Says

The Huffington Post | By Andy Campbell Posted: 04/25/2012 11:38 am

The mayor of Mobile, Ala. said Tuesday that the brutal beating of Matthew Owens was not a hate crime, as new details emerge implicating the victim as the instigator.
About 20 African American adults beat Owens into critical condition on Saturday night after an argument between the victim and some kids at a local basketball court, witnesses said.
One person claimed that Owens spewed racial slurs at the group and even pulled out two knives, according to WPMI.
"It was like kitchen knives," witness David Dinkins told the station. "They were long."
Another witness, Lemicka Whisenhunt, quoted Owens as saying "he's going to lynch all the black kids, he hates black n---ers, he hates that we moved on this street."
Police aren't saying much about the incident Saturday, but they and mayor Sam Jones said the attack is not being investigated as a hate crime, or even a race issue.
"Wait for the facts as far as we’re concerned right now," Jones told Fox 10. "But, I would caution people to not jump to conclusions right now. This is really very divisive in communities throughout the country, and I don't think we have any reason to be divisive here because I don't see any evidence of that."
He said the fact that one of the attackers allegedly said, "Now that's justice for Trayvon" has been "blown out of proportion."
The February death of Trayvon Martin has received international attention after George Zimmerman allegedly killed the 17-year-old boy in what he said was self defense.
Owens reportedly has a long rap sheet in the area, the station reported. He's been booked on charges of assault, domestic violence, harassment and public intoxication in the past.
No arrests have been made in the attack.

Affinity Scam Part 10 - the Trial begins: Gerald Durand and Chris Pettengill, and their relationship to David Strom

In January 2011, a member of the Minnesota U.S. Attorney's office attended an investment seminar produced and conducted by Chris Pettengill and Gerald Durand, and some of their new 'associates'. That attorney concluded, based on the content verbally presented at the seminar and a review of the printed materials from it, that Pettengill and Durand were conducting (with only minor alterations of names) the same Affinity Scam as the one they participated in with Trevor Cook, and that this was only the most recet iteration of that scam, apparently the third.  As a result of attending that seminar, a search warrant was sought and executed.   Chris Pettengill cooperated with the U.S. Attorney's office, he pled guilty in June 2011 to securities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering.
Dan Browning of the Star Tribune has impressed me deeply with his fairness, his thoroughness and his competence as an investigative reporter.  Having become more familiar with his reporting is an unexpected benefit of having researched and written about this Affinity Scam.  I encourage anyone coming lately to the story to read our earlier entries in this series.  While Dan has written about the original scam, our interest has focused more on the ancillary subsequent bogus investment scams, how they relate to right wing political figures and how they relate to the further exploitation of conservatives in Minnesota and elsewhere.

The trial appears to be the result of a very careful and methodical, detailed accounting of how Trevor Cook, assisted by Chris Pettengill, ripped off people through radio shows and investment seminars.  Cook and Pettengill have pleaded guilty, and to varying degrees have cooperated with the feds in exchange for sentences that will allow them to avoid dying in jail. 

Pettengill and Durand split from the Cook ponzi scheme in July 2008; from that time onward, they appear to have received a monthly payout of at least $15,000 a month to avoid competing for the same scam victims while Pettengill and Durand operated a nearly identical (allegedly) bogus investment scheme separately.  Another party to the group, Bo Beckman appears to have kept a foot in both camps, but also seems to have continued to scam primarily conservatives.  Pettengill and Durand used the conservative Salem communications stations, which share a manager, apparently to operate their new version of the affinity scam - an affinity scam is where someone uses a common interest or connection, in this case being conservative politically, to gain the trust of investors they were fleecing. The similarities were the use of radio to attract people to their bogus investment seminars for recruitment, the use of numerous similarly named false front business that never existed in any physical location, and the representation of themselves as qualified by exaggerated experience and credentials to give investment advice.  The investments promoted by their seminars do not appear at any time to have been legitimate.

They first operated on the Golden Valley Salem station KYCR, and then moved to  sister station WWTC.  According to David Strom, the manager of the stations hooked Pettengill and Durand up as sponsors for the David Strom show beginning in December 2008,  with broadcasting beginning in January 2009.  Regular guests from the Minnesota Free Market Institute and the Taxpayers League of Minnesota appeared, apparently on Gerald Strom's crooked nickel, adding to the ultra-conservative cred sought by Durand and Pettengill to lure new investors to their seminar.  This doesn't appear to have discouraged the Minnesota Free Market Institute, who put Strom back on their payroll after he had bounced around from the Emmer campaign, to the legislature, and then on to another job apparently for being right wing, Politics in Minnesota, which also produces the Capital Report.
In other words, David Strom was perfectly connected to give political cover and credibility to Durand and Pettengill, as well as access to their schemes to solicit investors for their bogus investment seminars.

In addition to his right wing cronies to provide conservative credibility and respectability, Strom not only had Durand and Pettengill as his regular 'guests' without identifying them as the people actually paying for the show to run - if you can be a guest when it's your party - he also promoted the investment seminars as a front man, on his radio show, in person at the seminars, and on his web site.  The reality is that while Strom and his wife, the producer of the show, listed a fake entity as the shows sponsor, an entity that appeared to be a non-profit educational organization based in Colorado, there was no such entity.  Following a pattern that was used repeatedly in the Cook ponzi scheme affinity scam,  the entity had a name that was similar to a genuine non-profit financial education entity that was well known and widely regarded.  I double checked by having my local library reference librarians check to see if they could find the entity listed by Salem and the Strom show.  They believed because of the similarity that it might be the same entity, but could not confirm it  My co-blogger Pen contacted the legitimate entity to confirm that they were NOT the sponsors of the David Strom show; it required only a very brief phone call of a few minutes, and a matter of seconds in an internet search.
Strom promoted this false entity that was a misleading name, with an announcement at the beginning of every show and on his website for the show.  His explanation for not correcting it for nine and a half months was that it was an unimportant correction that he never bothered to make.  At one point, he blamed his wife for not correcting it. 

The reality was that Gerald Durand wrote the checks, checks which did NOT come from an entity but came from him.  The station knew the information was incorrect; Strom knew the information was incorrect.  Durand  appears to have used the money from the $15,000 a month paid to him by Trevor Cook out of the ponzi scheme to front the show as a vehicle to troll for fresh victims to fleece.  Neither Pettengill or Durand had any active,  valid financial credentials pertaining to the content of the show, but they were consistently represented to the listeners by Strom to be experts, to be reliable authorities.  A quick check of state records in an online public data base that took less than 2 minutes showed that the businesses only existed on paper, and were formed the day before the first broadcast with Strom.

In point of fact, Strom represented to us that he and his wife didn't check out their new partners adequately.  Not before doing business, not when they clearly were aware that the entity they listed as sponsor wasn't the entity writing the checks, and not even after those checks stopped following the revelation of the affinity scam investigation in the Star Tribune.   From statements made in conversation, it was clear that Strom did not correct statements made by Durand and Pettengill that Strom knew to be false.  David Strom appears to have been perfectly willing to go along with Durand and Pettengill, so long as he was getting paid.  Sometimes that was willful ignroance, effectively a deliberate sticking his thumbs in his ears while going la-la-la-la and other times it was a deliberate sin of omission, of remaining silent in support of a lie.

I do believe that despite his writing on tax policy, in reality David Strom is bone ignorant on most areas of economics, but none more so than the financial industry sector of the economy.  That didn't stop him from pretending to a greater knowledge on the air than he really had, which assisted Durand and Pettengill's appeal to gain investors to attend and possibly put money into their bogus investment seminars.  While Strom may not have fully known or understood that Pettengill and Durand were running a fake investment opportunity in their seminars, it was obvious to my co-blogger Penigma and myself that the investment scheme and the statements made on the radio show were bogus.  The element of risk was conspicuously understated, and frequently omitted from their radio statements.
That Strom and his wife were choosing to look the other way became even more evident when they hung up on the Trevor Cook ponzi scheme victims seeking to speak with Durand and Pettengill during the radio show.  Even after the money stopped flowing from Durand and Pettengill, per the records seized from Durand through the execution of search warrants, the documents coming out in the press from the Browning investigation indicated a range of financial misconduct by Pettengill, notably instances of home equity stripping from unqualified elderly investors.   In an interview with us, Strom insisted that at no time did he ever do any research or feel a need to do research on his show partners.  His explanation that he assumed because he was hooked up by the station manager that they were good guys, nice men who would never take advantage of anyone persisted despite the newspaper accounts of victims describing their relationships with Durand and Pettengill as well as his refusal to speak with the victims. 

I would argue that any reasonable and prudent person would at least check the credentials of their partner, and that moral and ethical responsibility at the very least requires doing more than asking someone if they are a crook or not.  Clearly, no crook is going to admit that they are swindlers, if it would make continuing to operate more difficult.  What made much more sense was that Strom was continuing with Pettengill and Durand because he was trying to get paid after the money stopped, money that had been paid by Trevor Cook to Durand and Pettengill to keep them away from the Cook scam 'investor' victims, a sort of non-competition-among-crooks payment, up until July 2009.
Strom continued to promote the investment seminars introducing Pettengill and Durand, and by his appearance and his radio show, continued to give his approval and endorsement to people who knew Strom's very public conservative credentials from his regular appearances on KSTP television, and on various other news / current events programming in Minnesota.  The last seminar of which I am aware was in August 2009.  Strom had been a very public face for several conservative entities as well as speaking on a range of conservative political activities as an authority.

Apparently at NO time, in his efforts to get paid by continuing on as if nothing was wrong, did Strom or his wife give any concern to the risks to listeners who were being recruited to attend Pettengill and Durand's seminars.  The radio show existed so far as Durand and Pettengill were concerned SOLELY to generate fresh investors, as they had used radio programming with Pat Kiley when they worked the same scam with Trevor Cook.  The only interest in continuing with Durand and Pettengill that Strom had, in my opinion, was to try to get as much money out of the deal as possible, and anyone else, rank and file conservatives who would be assured by his endorsement and encouragement be damned.  Strom made it very clear to Pen and I that it was not his responsibility to act in the interests of his listeners or investors.

Caveat Emptor! Buyer beware!

Too damned bad for anyone who trusts what they hear or the assurances of someone as an expert or authority vouched for by a public figure.  While it is not the responsibility of public figures to sort out truth from lies for the public, it is a different thing in my opinion actively to assist in misleading them.  The assurance of how expert Durand and Pettengill represented themselves was one such misrepresentation; that they appeared to be acting on behalf of an old and established very highly regarded non-profit financial education institution was another.

I think it is morally and ethically bankrupt - not unlike the MN GOP  appears to be morally and financially bankrupt - for David Strom to use his name and reputation, substantially to misrepresent the credentials of crooks week after week, and then claim you have no responsibility for people attending bogus investment scheme seminars you are promoting , claiming caveat emptor. 
When you become part of the scheme, no matter how peripheral, when you legitimize it, you have a role in gaining the understanding and trust of those people.  It does become your moral and ethical responsibility if you are assisting someone to mislead people who you have encouraged to rely on your authority, especially if doing so puts them in a situation to be exploited or swindled. 
The court appointed Receiver for the victims of the original Cook/Kiley/Beckman/Pettengill/Durand ponzi scheme has been pursuing claw backs, successfully.  I have been speaking with the victims, although those who are testifying this week and last week at the trial are having to be circumspect in their comments for a little while longer until their turn on the stand is completed.  I hope to be speaking at greater length as well with the Receiver, about pursuing a claw back of the money that appears to have gone directly from the Ponzi scheme funds from Cook, through Pettengill and Durand to David Strom and his wife and Salem radio.  Salem should not be allowed to keep the ill gotten gains of scam artists who swindled the money from conservative victims.  Their callous greed in looking the other way at Durand and Pettengill for so long is consistent with far too many other (alleged) scam artists and financial frauds they allow to broadcast on their stations to their conservative 'pigeons', figures like Robert Chapman of the 'International Forecaster' who has run afoul of the SEC for stock manipulation scams involving penny stocks the SEC claims he promoted, artificially inflated the market price, and then dumped, ripping off the people he had persuaded to buy the worthless stock he sold at an enormous profit. 

It took no great expertise to recognize that Durand and Pettengill were not legitimate, listening to their appearances on the Strom show.  It took no great expertise as a researcher to discover the disciplinary problems in the past for illegal and unethical conduct, as well as their lack of current credentials at the time they broadcast, or that one-time credentials that had been lost due to their conduct.  It took no great research either to discover that the financial entities used as fronts by Durand and Pettengill were fakes, convenient fake fronts that did not stand up to even casual scrutiny very well.  It took very  little expertise or effort to discover that Pettengill and Durand had created no less than 18 or 19 entities with similar names, consistent with their previous scam pattern of creating fake entities that were intended to be confused with legitimate ones. 

I checked out the address personally for those multiple businesses that didn't exist in the office of a suburban insurance office where Pettengill nominally worked.  The insurance office owner's name appeared with Pettengill's and Durand's in the documents of the rip-offs of the affinity scam victims.  But it was just as easy to discover that these were entities without so much as a business telephone number either.  What legitimate business lacks any telephone number, much less a published  one?

I am not employed as a professional researcher, nor did I have a financial interest in the activities of Durand and Pettengill.  But I found out more in less than 10 minutes, and with only the most minimal efforts, than David Strom and his wife did over a period of months where their reputations and income were involved, as well as other people who were their audience  potentially at risk.  It is a reflection on the ethical standards of the Minnesota GOP (or lack thereof) and their political. cronies and associates that two people who worked so hard at willful ignorance out of apparent greed could be so consistently rewarded with cushy good paying jobs AS RESEARCHERS after their deliberate lack of research, and lack of telling every day ordinary conservatives, like their audiences the truth. Pettengill or Durand, even after a grand jury was empaneled to review their involvement.  This was not an example of giving anyone the benefit of the doubt.  it was entirely about trying to extract every possible dime, and anyone else be damned.

According to testimony in the trial given today, approximately $120,000 a month was being spent on just radio time at the peak of the Trevor Cook led Affinity Scam.  According to the U.S. Attorney's office, which appears to have an airtight case, Chris Pettengill and Gerald Durand were key players in running the scam and in profiting from the swindled investors.  It was a very lucrative swindle; none of the defendants, previous or current, appear to have been successful either for a period of time before the scam began, or after leaving it other than their attempts to run subsequent bogus investment seminars using radio shows to gin up interest.  They all appear to have had expensive tastes, including vices such as routinely consuming excessive amounts of alcohol to the point of passing out, and spending large amounts of money gambling, particularly at poker, and on strippers and prostitutes.
Looking at the current disarray of the MN GOP, particularly their financial disasters where the leadership appears to have spent money, including on salaries, that they did not have.  Some individuals seem to have made out like the proverbial metaphorical bandits.  Some like David Strom and his wife appear to have gone forward without anyone looking askance at their misadventure with swindlers.  Maybe it was even considered a plus in order to work for the GOP, to have such vivid evidence of a calloused and non-functioning conscience.  Because I'm not aware to this day of David Strom or his wife having apologized to or shown the slightest concern for those people they helped sucker for swindlers.  I'm not aware of them having expressed any concerns for the apparently dirty swindle money that went into their pockets that was conned from the victims of the Affinity scam.
They just seem to go from one political patronage job to another, preferably ones on the taxpayer nickel, since the MN GOP is so deep in debt.

As the trial plays out, each of the swindlers claims that they weren't responsible.  No one held a gun to their heads - Gerald Durand, Pat Kiley, or Bo Beckman - to give pretty lying speeches to investors or in some instances to go on the radio and lie.  As the trial is playing out - I provide the links below to the STrib and PiPress coverage of it - I am reminded of those other people who were quite willing to blame someone else for their own participation instead of taking ethical responsibility, other people not on trial who were perfectly willing to profit from the exploitation and straight up swindle of others so long as they could gain from it. 

Whether it is the ALEC corruption of unregistered lobbying, and big corporate money directly and indirectly benefiting conservative legislators to pass legislation written by the corporations it is intended to regulate or tax, the word principled doesn't belong with the word conservative in terms of the people involved in our politics and our government.

Here is the Dan Browning coverage of the trial; I would encourage you to read this and the earlier articles on the scam. 

Investors testify how they lost money in massive fraud

• Article by: DAN BROWNING , Star Tribune
• Updated: April 24, 2012 - 5:48 AM

Trevor Cook's Ponzi scheme attracted sophisticated investors as well as financial novices.

Investors ranging from a retiree living on Social Security to a former top executive with Valspar Corp. told jurors in a Minneapolis federal courtroom Monday how they ended up investing in what turned out to be a massive Ponzi scheme run by since-convicted fraudster Trevor Cook.
Marguerite Witte, 73, of Meadview, Ariz., said she first learned about Cook's currency investment program from a radio program hosted by defendant Patrick Kiley, 73, of Minneapolis. Kiley's program, "Follow the Money," promised that investors would profit despite the chaos of the marketplace, she said.
"I felt kind of fearful," recalled Witte, whose husband died in 2005.
The investors appeared on the second day of testimony in the trial of former Cook associates Jason "Bo" Beckman, Gerald Durand and Kiley, all of whom blame Cook for the fraud. Cook is serving 25 years in federal prison after pleading guilty.
Read the whole story; keep a box of tissues with you.  What happened to these people is heartbreaking, in the way they were lied to and frightened into handing over their money.

Here is the PiPress coverage:

The PiPress also has multiple articles on the topic.
Trial testimony: Returns in foreign-exchange scheme didn't add up

By John Welbes
jwelbes@pioneerpress.comcities.com

Posted: 04/23/2012 12:01:00 AM CDT

April 24, 2012 3:16 AM GMTUpdated: 04/23/2012 10:16:47 PM CDT

The first victims to testify in the trial against three associates of Trevor Cook accused of operating a $194 million Ponzi scheme were relatively unsophisticated investors.
But the scheme also pulled in more experienced investors, like Robert Pajor, 75, the former president and one-time chief operating officer of Valspar Corp., a large, publicly traded Minneapolis-based paint company. He ultimately lost about $2.1 million investing with Jason "Bo" Beckman, he testified Monday, April 23.
Beckman, 42, is on trial with Gerald Durand, 61, and Pat Kiley, 73, in federal court in Minneapolis. They are charged with wire and mail fraud, money laundering and conspiracy. They were all associated with Cook, who pleaded guilty to fraud and tax charges two years ago and is serving a 25-year sentence.

This article also continues at greater length.