Radical Camera - the New York Photo League

If you enjoy this, I encourage our readers to check out other work by EoK; you can follow this link or watch for new posts on our blog roll, and follow a link to them that way.

I found re-reading this a special pleasure after my day of civic service helping to open the polling place, serve as an election judge, and after enjoying country conversation on the comparative drought resistance of corn versus soy beans and discussing lambing season. (No, seriously, I LIKE that stuff.)

Apparently, after the solemn declaration that the polls are open, it is NOT customary to do a little shimmy, and call out "whoooooo hoooooooo, let's get this party started'.  However, in a dignified and relaxed way, voting is a very community socializing event, which is part of the pleasure of participating in it.  While the polls haven't closed yet, as of this hour I'm confident that no primary election voter fraud took place, and is unlikely to occur.

cross posted with the kind permission of the author, Engineer of Knowledge:

“The Radical Camera,” a History in Images of New York’s Photo League

Today I went to the Columbus Museum of Art and viewed “The Radical Camera, a History in Images of New York’s Photo League” exhibit.

Every so often people need to be reminded of the tectonic shifts and the exploding world that photographers can cause with just documenting and forcing everyone to face and truly view their world around them.
This is such the case of what the New York’s Photo League. The Photo League was a cooperative of amateur and professional photographers in New York who banded together around a range of common social and creative causes. Most of the members were first-generation Americans who strongly believed in progressive political and social causes.
The League was active from 1936 to 1951 and included among its members some of the most noted American photographers of the mid-20th century. Their 1936 thru 1951 collection of the most innovative, culturally relevant and influential photographers who took to the streets and showed us life as it had been rarely explored before.
Photographers like Lisette, Model, or Weegee, Avedon, Leipzig, Orkin and Weston and other photographers are genre-defining photojournalists who created stark and unwavering images that offered unique glimpses into a world that until their, groundbreaking work, was infrequently or not even explored by mainstream photography. Instead of posed photos of images by families, the New York’s Photo League documented rampant social change, the great divide between classes, racial issues, and images of New York City in the 40s. By photograph and documenting the uglier side of what life was like to others, these men and women with cameras were soon being labeled as “Communists” by the US government and others of the extreme right wing conservative aspects. In short, we have these artists to thank for the way that photojournalism has evolved today.

In 1947 the League was formally declared subversive and placed on the U.S. Department of Justice blacklist by Attorney General Tom C. Clark. At first the League fought back and mounted an impressive “This Is the Photo League exhibition in 1948”, but after its member and long-time FBI informer Angela Calomiris had testified in May 1949 that the League was a front organization for the Communist Party, the Photo League was finished. Recruitment dried up and old members left, including one of its founders and former president, Paul Strand, as well as Louis Stettner. The League was forced to disband in 1951.

The New York’s Photo League had become a casualty of the Cold War, and the McCarthyism purge or red scare which targeted left wing activists. When the Photo League closed its doors in 1951, after being listed as a subversive organization by the U.S. Attorney General, it had already enjoyed an historic 15 year run, which helped to change the direction of American photography, and counted amongst its members some of the leading photographers of the twentieth century.

In conclusion the New York’s Photo League which had been inaugurated at the height of the Great Depression, the loose knit League turned their cameras on a world that had not been the subject of serious photography before. Freed to shoot quickly and unobtrusively the ordinary life on the streets and in the workplaces of America, many seized the opportunity to document the inequities which hard economic times had brought into stark relief.

The show today does nothing but touch’s us with the nostalgic power of their witness to another age. Times such as when America’s cities were more like extended villages whose social life was still conducted on the stoops, sidewalks, and playgrounds.

It's Primary Election Day Today - August 14th

Go Vote.

First though, do your research on the candidates -- not only the congressional candidates, which have received a lot of attention, but especially on the MN Supreme Court candidates.  There are some exceptionally far right extremist candidates.

In the interim, in the unlikely event that there are long lines, and you are checking in on Penigma content while waiting to vote, enjoy this:

Gun Violence is a Public Health Issue

The following article appeared in the STrib over the weekend, from the AP. It compares gun violence to problems in our society from tobacco, auto accidents, alcohol, unwanted and teen pregnancy, and viral illnesses.  When this many people are killed or injured, gun violence becomes a legitimate public health issue  rather than ONLY an issue of individual rights.
Whenever a substance or a product as much as any microbe is a problem resulting in death and serious injury or illness, it appropriately belongs in the sphere of public health as the target for public policy.  The reason? Because as much as it may appear to be something which strictly involves individuals on a person by person basis, the actual costs and impact goes far further, in a ripple effect. Another example would be when individual parents choose not to vaccinate their children, resulting in epidemics of preventable diseases, which is increasingly a problem.  Not only are the unvaccinated children becoming ill and even dying at an unprecedented and completely avoidable rate, but the more virulent muttions of those illnesses become a greater threat to the immunity of those who are vaccinated, and place a greater burden on our schools, and on our community health resources.
When working people are ill, for example, they affect others in the workforce, their absence or an inability to perform at optimum level affects the labor force generally and their employer specifically.  That is as true of the effects of firearm violence as it is the flu. So that general welfare concept in our U.S. Constitution has a capitalist facet.
Absenteeism is extremely costly to our economy, for example:

American businesses lose an average of 2.8 million work days each year due to unplanned absences (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). In dollars, these absences cost upwards of $74 billion.   

'Presenteeism' is the "impact of at-work lost productivity.  Off-task workers cost businesses an average of $250 billion a year, or approximately $2,000 per worker.

When businesses have  these kinds of economic issues, we have less growth, and we are less competitive in the global economic market.  It affects tax bases, it affects so many other aspects of our society generally in terms of very real costs, and our economy and governments very tangibly.  That ripple effect that goes far beyond the individual or family is the reason for the U.S. Constitution to have MULTIPLE references to General Welfare in the context of not only federal government, but the term also occurs in charters and constitutions of state and local governments in the United States.

Notably the preamble of the U.S. Constitution declares:

"We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

and Article I, Section 8 states:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; 

So clearly there was an understanding and awreness of how are success is interconnected, and should be regulated, and that there should be nationally funded efforts on the part of our government, as conceived by the founding fathers to promote and ensure that larger welfare of us as a larger group entity rather than to treat us ONLY as separate, unconnected individuals.  Gun violence harms all of us, without any upside other than empty claims that we are free.  The u.S. Constitution was never intended to be a suicide pact, it was never intended to enact the 2nd Amendment to kill and injure our citizens in such enormous numbers, or to make it so easy for convicted criminals, drug users and abusers (including alcoholics), domestic abusers and stalkers, those who as members of hate groups are a violent danger to their fellow citizens, or those who are known to those around them to be dangerously mentally ill and a danger to others or themselves. 

More than that, given the beliefs of our founding fathers, there is on doubt that they never would have accepted the rate of suicides we have in this country from firearms; clearly numerous studies have documented that firearms suicides are more lethal, and far more a weapon of impulse than any other method of self-destruction.

As a nation, we desperately need a rational and pragmatic approach to firearms, rather than the prevailing very destructive and unsuccessful emotional basis for how we deal with firearms and firearm violence.  We especially need to end the exploitation of the highly emotional attitudes towards firearms that takes place by those who profit from that gun violence.

From the AP by way of the STrib:

Doctors target gun violence as a social disease

• Article by: MARILYNN MARCHIONE , Associated Press
• Updated: August 12, 2012 - 7:40 PM

MILWAUKEE - Is a gun like a virus, a car, tobacco or alcohol? Yes, say public health experts, who in the wake of recent mass shootings are calling for a fresh look at gun violence as a social disease.
What we need, they say, is a public health approach to the problem, like the highway safety measures, product changes and driving laws that slashed deaths from car crashes decades ago, even as the number of vehicles on the road rose.
One example: Guardrails are now curved to the ground instead of having sharp metal ends that stick out and pose a hazard in a crash.
"People used to spear themselves and we blamed the drivers for that," said Dr. Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine professor who directs the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis.
It wasn't enough back then to curb deaths just by trying to make people better drivers, and it isn't enough now to tackle gun violence by focusing solely on the people doing the shooting, he and other doctors say.
They want a science-based, pragmatic approach based on the reality of a society saturated with guns and seek better ways of preventing harm from them.
Hargarten. He found himself treating victims of the Sikh temple shootings at the emergency department he heads in Milwaukee. Seven people were killed, including the gunman, and three were seriously injured.
It happened two weeks after the shooting that killed 12 people and injured 58 at a movie theater in Colorado, and two days before a man pleaded guilty to killing six people and wounding 13, including then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in Tucson, Ariz., last year.
"What I'm struggling with is, is this the new social norm? This is what we're going to have to live with if we have more personal access to firearms," said Hargarten, emergency medicine chief at Froedtert Hospital and director of the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin. "We have a public health issue to discuss. Do we wait for the next outbreak or is there something we can do to prevent it?"
About 260 million to 300 million firearms are owned by civilians in the United States; about one-third of American homes have one. Guns are used in two-thirds of homicides, according to the FBI. About 9 percent of all violent crimes involve a gun — roughly 338,000 cases each year.
Mass shootings don't seem to be on the rise, but not all police agencies report details like the number of victims per shooting and reporting lags by more than a year, so recent trends are not known.
"The greater toll is not from these clusters but from endemic violence, the stuff that occurs every day and doesn't make the headlines," said Wintemute, the California researcher.
More than 73,000 emergency room visits in 2010 were for firearm-related injuries, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates.
At the same time, violent crime has been falling and the murder rate is less than half what it was two decades ago. And Gallup polls have shown support for stricter gun laws has been falling since 1990. Last year 55 percent of Americans said gun laws should remain the same or become more lenient.
Dr. David Satcher tried to make gun violence a public health issue when he became CDC director in 1993. Four years later, laws that allow the carrying of concealed weapons drew attention when two women were shot at an Indianapolis restaurant after a patron's gun fell out of his pocket and accidentally fired. Ironically, the victims were health educators in town for an American Public Health Association convention.
That same year, Hargarten won a federal grant to establish the nation's first Firearm Injury Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin.
"Unlike almost all other consumer products, there is no national product safety oversight of firearms," he wrote in the Wisconsin Medical Journal.
That's just one aspect of a public health approach. Other elements:
_"Host" factors: What makes someone more likely to shoot, or someone more likely to be a victim. One recent study found firearm owners were more likely than those with no firearms at home to binge drink or to drink and drive, and other research has tied alcohol and gun violence. That suggests that people with driving under the influence convictions should be barred from buying a gun, Wintemute said.
_Product features: Which firearms are most dangerous and why. Manufacturers could be pressured to fix design defects that let guns go off accidentally, and to add technology that allows only the owner of the gun to fire it (many police officers and others are shot with their own weapons). Bans on assault weapons and multiple magazines that allow rapid and repeat firing are other possible steps.

_"Environmental" risk factors: What conditions allow or contribute to shootings. Gun shops must do background checks and refuse to sell firearms to people convicted of felonies or domestic violence misdemeanors, but those convicted of other violent misdemeanors can buy whatever they want. The rules also don't apply to private sales, which one study estimates as 40 percent of the market.
_Disease patterns, observing how a problem spreads. Gun ownership — a precursor to gun violence — can spread "much like an infectious disease circulates," said Daniel Webster, a health policy expert and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore.
"There's sort of a contagion phenomenon" after a shooting, where people feel they need to have a gun for protection or retaliation, he said.
That's already evident in the wake of the Colorado movie-theater shootings. Last week, reports popped up around the nation of people bringing guns to "Batman" movies. Some of them said they did so for protection.
___
Associated Press writer Pete Yost in Washington contributed to this report.
___
Online:
Violence prevention research: http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/vprp
CDC injury prevention: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/nvdrs/

Quote of the Weekend

Headline: Ryan will enrich the presidential debate

Response: Only if he can find a way to put even more money in the pockets of the 1%
while debating.

and Sack nails it again:

Latest Study: More Proof There's No Voter Fraud

The only fraud in elections is the claim of voter fraud, made pretty much exclusively by the Republicans in order to try to justify voter suppression and to legalize election tampering by Republicans.

I am particularly pleased with the timing of this study, because it addresses the crazy extremist nut jobs who have made unfounded claims about 200 convictions for voter fraud in Minnesota elections, saving me from having to fact check them AGAIN.  They have not ever delivered on their fraud claims; this proves that their failure record remains unbroken. (The claim by Minnesota Majority/Election Integrity of 200 convictions for voter fraud in Minnesota is a giant load of dung.)

The report below comes on top of the state of Pennsylvania, going into court over Voter ID stipulating there was no voter fraud, there is no voter fraud, and there is no expected voter fraud.  Wherever voter ID has been enacted, a Republican campaign claiming voter fraud or the dangerous potential for voter fraud, has been used to justify the change to Voter ID - the EXPENSIVE change that disenfranchises voters and makes voting less efficient by adding an additional step and requirement.

In case you can't read the small print, depending on what size screen you're reading this on, it reflects a study done in WISCONSIN, by the Republican Attorney General, as well as the Brennan Center. I don't believe anyone in Wisconsin, on either side of the political aisle, would consider their AG a moderate Republican.

It is not just Pennsylvania; it is EVERY state that does that bait and switch, EVERY state where conservatives have used that propaganda to lie, to cause fear, and pretty much to justify the UnAmerican action of denying legal voters the right to vote in ways which are racist in their effects.  In every case Voter ID is used to prevent voters from minorities from voting as a group because they tend to vote Democratic.  There is NO justification for taking, in the case of Minnesota, an estimated 20 million dollars away from better use, like repairing falling down bridges.

This was true under the Bush administration where the distinctly right wing Ashcroft tried to find voter fraud - but didn't. This has been true of the Brennan Law Center which has done exemplary studies on voter fraud over many years.  NO ONE finds any voter fraud; the only groups making those claims from crazy incompetent fringies who can't back up their claims, and the GOP and Tea Party ONLY during their campaigns to enact disenfranchising voter ID, to try to win elections through voter suppression.  No one finds voter fraud, not conservative attempts to do so, not bipartisan attempts to do so, not NON-partisan attempts to do so  (including academic research),  and not investigation by more liberal entities.  Only crazy amateur extreme fringies claim to find it, and they can't produce any credible proof when held to account, (certainly our Minnesota version of the nutjobs can't).

News21 appears to fall squarely into the non-partisan academic category of research.  If anything, the University of Arizona can be considered a conservative leaning academic institution.

News21 is a program of the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation that is helping to change the way journalism is taught in the U.S. and train a new generation of journalists capable of reshaping the news industry. It is headquartered at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Since 2006, nearly 500 top journalism students in the U.S. have participated in the landmark national initiative

I would point out that this study precedes and includes our contested Minnesota 2008 elections.  I couldn't help but notice that they make note of yet one more in-person-with-ID case of REPUBLICAN voter fraud, in addition to our 2008 case of a Coleman/McCain voter, and the Secretary of State of Indiana.  Now we have this one as well, which suggests a certain projection by Republicans of voter fraud onto others.

The News21 database shows one of the rare instances of voter-impersonation fraud occurred in Londonderry, N. H., in 2004 when 17-year-old Mark Lacasse used his father’s name to vote for George W. Bush in the Republican presidential primary. The case was dismissed after Lacasse performed community service.

And that there are some interesting questions about the GOP presidential candidate's voting integrity. Somehow I just don't see Mittens as the unfinished basement living kind of guy.... do you?

The crazy fringe groups are notorious for just plain making stuff up. The   far right wing media and blogosphere claim it, regularly and often, but they can't show it they just know it in their gut.  In other words, these are the same conspiracy crazies who like to embrace the birthers, truthers, tenthers, deathers  and secessionists, and a lot of the other right wing hate groups.  This is really just a thinly disguised hate bias for trying to legalize discrimination.  Hate movements always claim patriotism and saving the country, as we have seen from the white supremacist rhetoric connected to the Sikh temple domestic terrorist attack.  The uglier the position or the act, the more often you can expect to see claims of nobility and high mindedness used to try to disguise the reality.  Protecting elections from non-existent voter fraud is a classic example of fake claims of patriotism to undermine the premise of we the people representative government and one person / one vote.

It is singularly ugly, UnAmerican and profoundly dishonest.  It is deliberate and calculated, and it is profoundly conservative in its racist intent to only allow people to participate who are perceived to be 'us' and not 'them'.

A classic example is the attempt in Ohio to restrict voting days and hours for Democratic leaning precincts, but expand voting in Republican leaning precincts.  The political right has become tragically dirty and corrupt and ugly in their desperation, giving the lie to their claims of representing ethics and values.  The right should be ashamed of being this desperate to win, and of being this morally and ethically bankupt.

The study was done from all 50 states, and the elections officials responding included those REPUBLICAN election officials in the 37 states which enacted voter ID claiming voter fraud when they knew it did not exist.  This is further proof the GOP and Tea party LIED to constituents about voter fraud to sell voter ID, and knew all along there was no voter fraud.

Here is the latest evidence that there is absolutely no need whatsoever for voter ID.

From News21:
New database of US voter fraud finds no evidence that photo ID laws are needed

By Natasha Khan and Corbin Carson, News21

A new nationwide analysis of 2,068 alleged election-fraud cases since 2000 shows that while fraud has occurred, the rate is infinitesimal, and in-person voter impersonation on Election Day, which prompted 37 state legislatures to enact or consider tough voter ID laws, is virtually non-existent.

In an exhaustive public records search, reporters from the investigative reporting projecdt News21 sent thousands of requests to elections officers in all 50 states, asking for every case of fraudulent activity including registration fraud, absentee ballot fraud, vote buying, false election counts, campaign fraud, casting an ineligible vote, voting twice, voter impersonation fraud and intimidation.

Analysis of the resulting comprehensive News21 election fraud database turned up 10 cases of voter impersonation. With 146 million registered voters in the United States during that time, those 10 cases represent one out of about every 15 million prospective voters.
“Voter fraud at the polls is an insignificant aspect of American elections,” said elections expert David Schultz, professor of public policy at Hamline University School of Business in St. Paul, Minn.
“There is absolutely no evidence," Schultz said, that voter impersonation fraud "has affected the outcome of any election in the United States, at least any recent election in the United States."

The News21 analysis of its election fraud database shows:

• In-person voter-impersonation fraud is rare. The database shows 207 cases of other types of fraud for every case of voter impersonation. “The fraud that matters is the fraud that is organized. That's why voter impersonation is practically non-existent because it is difficult to do and it is difficult to pull people into conspiracies to do it,” said Lorraine Minnite, professor of public policy and administration at Rutgers University.
• There is more fraud in absentee ballots and voter registration than any other categories. The analysis shows 491 cases of absentee ballot fraud and 400 cases of registration fraud. A required photo ID at the polls would not have prevented these cases. “The one issue I think is potentially important, though more or less ignored, is the overuse of absentee balloting, which provides far more opportunity for fraud and intimidation than on-site voter fraud,” said Daniel Lowenstein, a UCLA School of Law professor.
• Of reported election-fraud allegations in the database whose resolution could be determined, 46 percent resulted in acquittals, dropped charges or decisions not to bring charges. Minnite says prosecutions are rare. “You have to be able to show that people knew what they were doing and they knew it was wrong and they did it anyway,” she said. “It may be in the end" that prosecutors "can't really show that the people who have cast technically illegal ballots did it on purpose.”
• Felons or noncitizens sometimes register to vote or cast votes because they are confused about their eligibility. The database shows 74 cases of felons voting and 56 cases of noncitizens voting.
• Voters make a lot of mistakes, from accidentally voting twice to voting in the wrong precinct.
• Election officials make a lot mistakes, from clerical errors — giving voters ballots when they’ve already voted — to election workers confused about voters’ eligibility requirements.

It's Ryan! Yippeee!

The Republicans are doubling down on their over-reach, and proving once again their inability to do real math.  Instead they do 'Republican Math'.

Ryan and his budget, his attempts to end medicare are a large part of why the Republican 2010 elected House has the WORST approval ratings and the HIGHEST disapproval ratings in the history of Congress.

Ryan and his budget and his attempts to end medicare are costing sitting Republicans who supported it, both in the House and in the Senate, their seats.  It has been true in special elections, it is true in the primaries.  Ryan and his ideas are an absolute albatross around the necks of the right.

Sure.....he's better than the popsie Palin, who lacked any substance whatsoever, and who couldn't be presidential on her best day as the person running as the understudy for that job.  But the same words are being said of Ryan that were said of her--- gives clarity to the ticket, generates excitement.

Yeah.......but probably NOT the clarity or excitement they want!  There's a phrase that is rapidly becoming a political kiss of death.  It will focus clarity on past political votes and policies, and generate more excitement pushing for R-money and Ryan to get detailed about their policies, and top push Mittens to show us the money -- the money he claims to have paid in Taxes that is.

Poor Mittens on R-money; he isn't doing at all well.  In swing states like Ohio they are trying to expand voting hours in Republican districts while reducing them in Democratic leaning districts.  The GOP and the Tea Partiers FEAR voters, whom they have badly disappointed.

Remember that promise of no culture wars, Jobs Jobs Jobs?  Apparently the Righties forgot it immediately, which makes sense since they were never sincere about that anyway. Instead they made war on women, war on reproductive rights,war on voting rights, war on everything but unemployment.  They caused our credit rating, nationally and in the states where they had any power, to go down down down.  

I couldn't be happier.  Mittens may appeal to the base that he has been unable to excite, but he will more definitively than ever alienate the majority of voters, who are NOT the Tea Party.  The choice of Paul Ryan will not only give Obama an advantage in the Presidential election, it will give the Democrats a leg up in the elections for House and Senate. 

Romney Lies in Welfare without Work Attack Ad

In the post-truth world where candidates like Mitts on R-money can just make shit up, and expects to get away with it, he ignores that we have records - paper records, Internet records, video records. Mittens Etch-a-sketch thinks he can just lie, shake and rattle, and no one will notice anything from before. Just 'poof' and it's alllllllll gone. Except it isn't.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Mittens doesn't want to talk about his time as governor of Massachusetts, because he sucked, except for Romneycare. Mittens doesn't want to talk about his taxes or his off-shore money parking. Mittens doesn't want to talk about putting his taxes in a blind trust, run by his wife, because he's said publicly that people actually still control them, and that it's for suckers. Up until just now, Mittens wanted ONLY to talk about how important his so very successful business career has been -- if you only measure it by how much money he made. Except that every time it comes up, issues of government hand outs and corporate welfare are raised, and he won't document exactly how many times he outsourced jobs or bankrupted successful long existing companies with impossible debt loads while sucking all the cash out of them, leaving them with underfunded pension funds and no benefits, and communities that were badly damaged economically. Every single one of the Romney ad 'we built it ourself, without help' ads has run, it turns out all those Romney supporters had the same kinds of assistance, and relied heavily on government contracts and government business welfare. So, boohooo hoo, NOW Mittens doesn't want to talk about his business practices either. When Mittens says he only wants to talk about issues, the problem is, he won't give any details. His policies consist of more corporate and personal welfare for the rich, more taxes on the poor and middle class, and no details whatsoever on how he plans this economic explosion of growth he promises but which experts consistently assert is an impossible promise. We're just supposed to take his assurances on his taxes, and on his economic policies that it will all happen. Don't ask how he plans to pay for anything, don't ask for specifics of any kind. Just shut up. Because Mittens doesn't want to talk about it. Mittens tells us we don't need to know. What that really means is Mittens doesn't want us to know, about any of it, because it is all bad.

Shhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!  He DOESN'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!  Really!

TOO DAMNED BAD.

His Gain Would Be Our Loss:That Steel Plant Ad, and Romney and other Businesses 'Built on their Own'

There has been a lot of controversy about the recent ads (there are two) where a former Steel company employee faults Mitts on R-money for the plant closing, for loading it up with debt, taking lots of profits OUT of the plant, and then having it fail.

While there were definitely other factors that contributed to the plant closing, leveraging the plant with crushing levels of debt was clearly a strong contributing factor in that business failure.  That debt leveraging took place when Mitt Romney was running Bain, and had direct daily control of the business.

The argument that Romney LEFT Bain in 1999 to go to work on the Salt Lake City Olympics is a strongly contested one, and the controversy stems from Romney's own flippity floppity positions.  During that time, Mittens filed tax returns in Utah, claiming Utah as his primary residence.  He received significant tax benefits from doing so. During that time, in interviews with the Boston Globe, Romney claimed to still have a strong ownership interest AND to still be running Bain Capital PART TIME.  NO ONE held a gun to his head to get him to make those statements about his involvement in Bain, which included claiming regular phone calls to supervise from a distance and flying back periodically to attend meetings.

However WHEN when he wanted to run for Governor of Massachusetts, which requires as an old provision in the state constitution that candidates must reside in the state for seven years before running, Mittens told the press that he had done that.  He specifically and voluntarily made the statement, REPEATEDLY and in campaign content, that he had filed taxes in Massachusetts as a FULL TIME RESIDENT of the state.  Except that he got caught, tried to blame a local auditor with an exemplary record in Utah for the 'mistake' that he made (auditor treasurers don't file your taxes, OR advise you on taxes hint hint) and he then amended his taxes to reflect that he really lived in Massachusetts, not the house he bought and shared with his wife and kids out in Utah.

This set one of the examples that Mitt Romney will lie, publicly and often, without a second thought about it, regarding his actions at Bain, where he lives, and especially about his taxes.

So we have Mitt HIMSELF contradicting the story about whether or not he was running Bain during the time in question relating to the steel plant.

What we also know from the time where Mitt called the steel mill shots was this, from factcheck.org:

The company also reneged on pension and other benefits it had agreed to in 1997. The U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. later determined the company had severely underfunded its pension, and the federal agency covered the cost of basic pension payments.

Mitt made MILLIONS on sticking this company with crushing debt, grabbing the profits and running with them.  But he stuck the GOVERNMENT with the costs of underfunded pensions and benefits.

THAT is not what I consider building a business 'on your own'.  It is much closer to taking corporate welfare while getting rich, sticking the government with his responsibility.  If you take a look 1997 comes before 1999 in chronological order.  This is part of a larger pattern in Mittens making -- or grabbing -- his money out of deals, while sticking other people with the bills for them.

There is no doubt that while Mitt got 'his', everybody else in that company, and in that town, and ALL OF US who paid tax money that went into the federal agency that cleaned up the mess left after Mitt 'got his' were harmed by this, lost money they should have had if the company was not crushed into failure by debt.  Bain businesses make a lot of money for the Hedge funders side of the equation, but they have left the other side of the equation holding the bag for the Hedge fund failures in the form of bankruptcies, closing plants and leaving under similar debt leveraging, bond issue problems, job outsourcing, and in one case $100 Million dollars in fines for Medicare fraud. 

His start up funding came from South American right wing death squad operators.

Romney's business dealings are not squeaky clean; they are simply exploitative.  Romney maintains close ties and receives contributions to his run at the presidency from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a connection he emphasized in speaking to the NAACP earlier this year.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is one of the key players in job outsourcing, and has been accused of funneling foreign funds illegally into American political campaigns.  Romney was apparently on a fund raising tour in part during his recent trip to the U.K., Israel and Poland.  He would have done better to keep his hand out, and his mouth shut.

The proverb has the devil in the details; that was never more true than when looking at the business dealings of Mitts on R-money.  Mitt Romney doesn't like to run on his track record while governor, and he hides more from his one claim to success - Romney care - more than any other performance criteria. 

The reality is that as the chief executive in a government role, Romney wasn't very good, and Obama has been better.  Romney came up with a silly little scorecard to compare job performances, but it was badly flawed, as this

Here is the fact checking done by the WaPo:

The Facts

Jobs and Unemployment

Data from the Bureau of Labor statistics shows that Massachusetts added 50,000 jobs during Romney’s tenure in office. But that number represents only 1.5 percent growth for the Bay State, compared to a higher 5 percent increase for the nation as a whole during the same period. (We used seasonally adjusted data for our comparisons).

The scorecard indicates that Obama’s jobs numbers declined, which is true if you count his entire term to date, during which employment has dropped about .2 percent. But most of the job losses occurred while the president was trying to reverse a severe recession — one that he inherited.

Since the downturn ended in June 2009, the United States has added about 2.7 million jobs. That represents an increase of 2 percent, which is nothing to gloat about, but a positive trend nonetheless.

In terms of combined underemployment and unemployment, the level in Massachusetts decreased from 241,000 to 223,000 while Romney was in office, representing a decrease of 7.5 percent. That’s compared to a drop of about 15 percent for the country as a whole.
(Note: We found state “underemployment” data on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ geographic profiles page, while data for the United States is available through Table A-8 of the bureau’s historical data on Current Population Surveys. The term “underemployment” covers individuals who worked 35 hours and couldn’t find full-time work because of economic conditions.)

As for Obama, the nation’s combined underemployment and unemployment level has risen by 4.7 percent since he took office. But it’s fallen by 11.6 percent if you start counting at the end of the recession.

With unemployment rates, Massachusetts dropped .9 percentage points under Romney, while the United States fell by 1.4 percentage points during the same period.

You can see the recurring pattern here. Massachusetts’ numbers improved under Romney, but the Bay State didn’t keep pace with the nation as a whole.

Under Obama, the U.S. rate has risen .5 percentage points since he took office. But it’s down 1.2 percentage points since the end of the recession.

You can expect one thing, and one thing only, if Mitt Romney is elected president in 2012.  Mitt Romney will become significantly richer, at the expense of all of us, and his 'investors' in the election will become richer too, by a huge amount.  There will be more unemployment and more corporate welfare, and the government - as in we the people - will be left paying the bills for Romney and his friends getting richer.  And more people will die without insurance or health care, while Mitt blames everyone else, no matter how little they had authority or responsibility for HIS actions and decisions.

And Mitt will tell you how he and his friends made all their money strictly on their own while we're left paying for HIS bills, HIS mistakes, and HIS losses.  His gain would be our loss.

Fiore Nuns for Friday Fun

And the usual Fiore Friday masterpiece........  you can't help but cheer for the nuns!

Friday Fun - Stephen Colbert Mocks Michele Bachmann

Colbert's comment about Bachmann and her dumbbuddies as the Mensa of congress is funny, for how opposite the reality is. They're notorious for their fact free stupidity in and outside Congress.  That goes double for the Nut Gingrich.
For those who are interested, the comment made here by the Nut that the McCarthy hearings uncovered a lot of real dangerous communists is inaccurate. It is right wing tea partier revisionist history. The McCarthy hearings smeared a lot of people with suspicion but had no substantive evidence. There were a small group of Communists who were involved with the Manhatten project and who did supply espionage-gathered material to the Soviets, notably the executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, her brother David Greenglass, Klaus Fuchs, Harry Gold and Martin Sobell.
They were all caught through an FBI investigation, not through the House Unamerican Activities hearings. The McCarthy hearings did NOT turn up the promised numerous dangerous communist spies.  The Nut is wrong here, but then facts are his nemesis almost as much as they are Michele Bachmann's.
 In the case of Ethel Rosenberg, the testimony against her by her brother was subsequently recanted, and there is some question as to how significant the actions of these spies were. However there was never any credible or substantive evidence that McCarthy's witch hunt investigations were based on anything whatsoever that was substantive. The very term witch hunt defines these kinds of investigations as based on suspicion, superstition, and fear rather than fact. I find it ironic that given the connotations of red with communism it is embraced as the identifying color of the conservatives today - who seem to favor a similar abuse of freedom and limiting of rights, like the right to vote.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Followed by this excellent interview with Keith Ellison, whom Bachmann has acused, still without evidence, of being a radical muslim terrorist supporter and government infiltrator. It continues to amaze me how two contiguous districts send such completely different and opposite people to Congress. You have to wonder what is wrong with CD6 that they keep sending the crazy woman as their representative. Although, this election cycle might be different! Bachmann is raising a lot of money on her Muslim baiting from the tea party paranoiacs. But she is raising far less from within Minnesota and from within her district this time around. I think Michele has finally pooped once too often in her own sandbox, alienating and embarrassing her constituency. In contrast, Keith Ellison is much more popular in his neighboring district with his constituents, and consistently wins election by wide margins.  But then -- he has a much better record of serving HIS constituents and being factual.

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

In the U.S., People die every 30 minutes from lack of health care and lack of health insurance

There is a great deal of right wing outrage over a current ad running that correctly accuses Mitts on R-money of vulture or vampire capitalism practices that lead to the closing of a steel plant, the bankruptcy that bilked the plant's creditors while Romney and Bain investors looted the assets, and the loss of jobs and benefits, including health insurance and pensions that resulted in the death of a man's wife.  It also resulted in a LOT of other harm to other people, and to that community.
It was entirely due to galloping greed and the very worst excesses and abuses of capitalism, and Mitt Romney made the decisions.
I'm sick of reading and listening to conservatives running around like screaming pre-teen girls at a slumber party over the health care reform they call Obamacare. 
I'm sick of conservatives failing to make the distinction between universal health care that in various forms (including some very similar forms to the ACA) is found in EVERY industrialized and developed country as if it were the worst excesses of a dictatorship like socialism of the Stalin-era Soviet Union. They are not the same or even remotely similar.
Especially, I'm sick of the claims by conservatives like the one I saw this evening on Current TV, but that I've seen by many other conservatives, in this case, by Jack Burkman, a Republican strategist.  Burkman was commenting on the new ad how Mitt Romney during his Bain tenure was responsible for closing a steel mill, depriving a long term employee of both health care benefits and retirement benefits, that in turn contributed to his wife dying of cancer due to lack of health care and lack of health care insurance.
Burkman made a statement that was TOTALLY FALSE, offensively so, that there are no people in the United States, NONE, who are denied medical care or who die from lack of available medical care, including lack of cancer treatments like chemotherapy. 
This has been the claim of a variety of rightwing liars, from Governor Rick Perry of Texas, in his rejection of ACA benefits for the HUGE uninsured and untreated lower income and below poverty level population of Texas.  Texas has the WORST record of untreated and uninsured people, dead last of the 50 states and DC.  Burkman, and too many of those who screech about Obamacare make the claim that this kind of health care reform and helath care provision id unnecessary because we ALREADY have health care for everyone. 
Here is what Burkman said: "Where I disagree with you, Cenk, is that you are giving the impression that because she didn't have health insurance, there was no treatment available for the cancer.  That's never been the case in the United States, or at least not in the last 50 years or so."
That is total BULLSHIT.  IT IS HORRIFICALLY FACTUALLY INACCURATE.  PEOPLE ARE DYING AT THE RATE OF 1 EVERY 30 MINUTES FROM LACK OF HEALTH CARE AND LACK OF HEALTH CARE INSURANCE.  THAT was why there was a desperate need for health care reform.  In NO other civilized country does that happen.  In every civilized country which is AHEAD of the United States in any measure of performance, including economic measures, those countries do better than we do because they have a healthier population, due to better, less costly, widely available health care.
The people in those countries are not less free, by any SANE measurement, because of having a health care system in which their national and regional or state-equivalent governments play a role.  The screech that this is "OHMYGOD Socialism!!!!!!!!!!!!" or "OHMYGOD the Government is taking over HEALTHCARE!!!!!!!!!!!" or "OHMYGOD This is the end of our country and our representative government as we know it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  or "OHMYGOD! Death panels will harm my special needs son or pull the plug on grandma!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" is crap,  it is without factual accuracy and it is without any substantive or even superficial merit whatsoever.  Those are deliberate, intentional lies and exaggerations, of the propaganda variety.
We do NOT have the best health care system in the world, and we have increasingly fewer and fewer people who have access to the care that we do have.  The reality is that we have large numbers of people who cannot afford health care, or who have to go into bankruptcy and /or lose their homes to try to afford care for treatable illness.  We have the worst cost management results, with the least and worst care of any comparable country.  Our communities, including businesses and the local economy generally, as well as the tax base for government is DESTABILIZED by this.  Even our ability to provide people to our military is adversely affected, which in turn weakens our ability for national defense.
But most of all, we have a lot of people who do NOT receive care, cannot seek care because of financial reasons, and who die as a result.  I refer you to the statistics associated with the free C.A.R.E. clinics like those put on by the National Association of Free Clinics (N.A.F.C.), when resources permit, all over this country.  While terribly important, the best that these clinics can do often is to provide a one day / one visit stopgap to a 365 days a year problem. It helps, but it is not the same as the kind of cancer treatment an ill person needs long term, like the woman in the ad who died.
From the Harvard Gazette:
Nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance, according to a new study published online today by the American Journal of Public Health. That figure is about two and a half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2002.
The study, conducted at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance, found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993.
“The uninsured have a higher risk of death when compared to the privately insured, even after taking into account socioeconomics, health behaviors, and baseline health,” said lead author Andrew Wilper, M.D., who currently teaches at the University of Washington School of Medicine. “We doctors have many new ways to prevent deaths from hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease — but only if patients can get into our offices and afford their medications.”

The study, which analyzed data from national surveys carried out by the Centersfor Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), assessed death rates after taking into account education, income, and many other factors, including smoking, drinking, and obesity. It estimated that lack of health insurance causes 44,789 excess deaths annually.

Deaths associated with lack of health insurance now exceed those caused by many common killers such as kidney disease. An increase in the number of uninsured and an eroding medical safety net for the disadvantaged likely explain the substantial increase in the number of deaths, as the uninsured are more likely to go without needed care. Another factor contributing to the widening gap in the risk of death between those who have insurance and those who do not is the improved quality of care for those who can get it.

Steffie Woolhandler, study co-author, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a primary care physician at Cambridge Health Alliance, noted: “Historically, every other developed nation has achieved universal health care through some form of nonprofit national health insurance. Our failure to do so means that all Americans pay higher health care costs, and 45,000 pay with their lives.” “The Institute of Medicine, using older studies, estimated that one American dies every 30 minutes from lack of health insurance,” remarked David Himmelstein, study co-author, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a primary care physician at Cambridge Health Alliance.
“Even this grim figure is an underestimate — now one dies every 12 minutes.”

Update on the Flaming Cheerios Protester

UhOH!  I'm guessing laughing boy homophobe and cheerios burner Michael Leisner might not be giggling quite so loudly now as he did during his little stunt at General Mills.

The latest, circa the City Pages, is that Leisner has been let go from his employer, who was not as amused as Mr. Leisner by his behavior.  I have to admit that I can appreciate how individuals and corporations involved in real estate transactions might be less than enthusiastic with doing business with someone who shows such a lack of respect for the legalities of trespassing and vandalism. 

It has also been a bad financial move for those businesses, like Chick-Fail-ure, to commit in very public ways to homophobic and religious political positions that have nothing whatsoever to do with their business activities.  There has been a consistent pattern of such right wing positions backfiring, both for profits and for non-profits, such as the Komen Foundation.  Bigotry and intolerance are just not good for business.

So it makes even more sense that Leisner is free to expound on his thoughts without encumbering his employer further with the embarassment of knowing him.  But embarrassment is a plus, for The Smoking Gun reality tv, 'World's Dumbest' -- maybe it's time for a new audition tape!  Word of advice though - do it at home next time, and maybe do a test run before making a video of it.  Although you should be forewarned, at least one existing host of the reality show is openly gay.

One might even say flaming....

From City Pages:
Michael Leisner's blundering brand of scorched-grass homophobia has cost him his job.

Leisner, the 65-year-old "mastermind" behind the hilariously clumsy Cheerios-burning General Mills protest video, worked as a real estate broker for Greater Midwest Properties -- until they decided to cut him loose yesterday.

According to the Joe. My. God. blog, Greater Midwest yesterday began emailing the following statement to folks leaving complaints on the company's contact page:

Thank you for your comment. Greater Midwest Properties does not condone or support the actions of our independent contractors. Also, Greater Midwest Properties does not support the alleged destruction of property. Therefore, the agent's license will be returned to the Minnesota Department of Commerce. Greater Midwest Properties has no involvement in this incident and it is unrelated to us serving our clients in a professional manner. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. - Greater Midwest Properties.

Do Republican Believe Being Poorly Educated Will Help You Go to Heaven?

Earlier in this campaign cycle, we had Rick Santorum arguing that college was bad for you because thinking and examining a wider range of ideas would make you less likely to believe in Jesus.  He blamed the cause on liberal professors.  Of course, Santorum was wrong; the objective reality, which the right flees and fears, shows us that those who DON'T go to college fall away from church attendance even more dramatically.  From the article which fact checked the fact-averse Santorum:

According to religious sociologists Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker (1), "64 percent of those currently enrolled in a traditional four-year institution have curbed their [church] attendance habits."
When one looks at young people who did not attend college, the decline in church attendance is even greater with 76 percent saying that their religious attendance had fallen.
(Incidentally the numbers actually losing their religious affiliation are much smaller with 13 percent of four-year college students renouncing their religious affiliation compared to 20 percent of those who did not pursue college).

The article goes on to elaborate that it is not level of education, per se, which has a causal relationship to religious beliefs or a lack of them.

When nations become highly developed, and when individuals feel secure in the sense of having a reliable income, high life expectancy, little fear of violence, and so forth, they lose interest in supernatural solutions to their problems, focusing instead on practical improvements to the quality of life.
This view of secularization has long been controversial in academic circles but has recently survived rigorous scientific tests. The precise role of education in the loss of religious belief remains unclear but college education, as such, cannot be a large factor.
 It has far more to do with quality of life and economic security.

Another article by the same author on the subject shows us why the right not only is sabotaging our education system, but could be sabotaging our economy as well.  The right is seeking to use our tax dollars not only to create an ignorant majority who are economically disadvantaged, by their redistribution of wealth to the 1%, they want to use our tax dollars to enforce their versions of Christianity, turning us from a democracy into a theocracy, possibly modeled on the preference given to Judaism in Israel, where non-Jews are second class citizens. There are some right wing politicians who appear to want everyone who isn't Christian to be second class citizens.
The article elaborates on secularism versus religion:

Atheists are heavily concentrated in economically developed countries, particularly the social democracies of Europe (Barber, 2012). In underdeveloped countries, there are virtually no atheists. Atheism is thus a peculiarly modern phenomenon. Why do modern conditions produce atheism?

First, as to the distribution of atheism in the world, a clear pattern can be discerned. In sub-Saharan Africa there is almost no atheism (Zuckerman, 2007). Belief in God declines in more developed countries and is concentrated in Europe in countries such as Sweden (64% nonbelievers), Denmark (48%), France (44%) and Germany (42%). In contrast, the incidence of atheism in most sub-Saharan countries is below 1%.

Whatever the cause, the role of secularism is one that terrifies the right; it is a common theme for the ignorami like the Nut Gingrich in pandering to the extreme right.  The notion that in order to save our souls, it is reasonable to ruin the planet with global warming makes a lot more sense when you have the religious extremists on the right believing that fires, floods, famines and drought, and other climate derived disasters will send us back to Jesus.  It also explains a lot about why the right has pursued educational ignorance more actively in poor southern states where a larger segment of people don't know any better and are less capable of critical thinking or fact checking. 
Remember, studies like the one done by Arkansas psychologist Scott Eidelman linked 'low effort thinking' with conservative views; low effort thinking means not questioning what one hears or sees.  Further low IQs tend to produce greater conservative views, and more racism and other bigotry, and to equate to greater alcohol use, and greater resistance to change.

The red states are rejecting the benefits to their public health systems which would provide assistance for the health care and health insurance for the currently uninsured in southern states, who are badly under served medically, especially children.  This isn't only about the right wing contempt for the disadvantaged, or overly rigid ideology; it could be they hope that by blocking medical care they will keep their populations less intelligent.  Intelligence has an hereditary component, but there are many environmental factors, ranging from problems like mercury contamination, to the level of enrichment in the stimulation of children impact their later intelligence.
Apparently conservatives like Santorum and Jindal are convinced that therefore, thinking and education are bad for you, and that one's faith will not survive a healthy and thoughtful challenge. 

I'm not sure which is worse in that context, the presumption that one cannot be both an intelligent and educated person with a rich spiritual life, or the presumption that it is better to be ignorant, and uneducated in critical thinking skills, and instead hold a blind and uninformed faith.  Both premises are badly flawed and tragically ignorant and uninformed.
It should alarm people across the political spectrum that this appears to be a premise of the right wingers that is actively being inserted into public policies, and is not unique to Santorum.

For example, in the sadly backwards state of Louisiana, right wing potential VP choice Republican Governor Bobby Jindal signed a controversial voucher program into law. 
Voucher programs are part of the right wing efforts to gut public education.
The GOP plans for education has a two-fold intention; on the one hand it helps the religious right extremists to promote their creationist teaching agenda that promotes junk science to disguise their efforts to ignore objective reality in favor of religious based stupidity.  These are the folks who are teaching that the Loch Ness monster is real, an example of a living dinosaur, in order to deny the science of geology, and of course to try to discredit the many branches of science that support evolution.  The right wants to require us all not only to believe literally in Genesis but to deny the validity of science. 

There is an entire right wing war on science, of which this is just a part, as well as a war on literature and history.
Then there is the other component of the anti-education efforts on the right, which is to dismantle public education in favor of for PROFIT education, so that all education will become privatized, including through their Charter Schools initiatives, making it easier to insert right wing propaganda into it, at the expense of the quality of education, while enriching select right wing political donors.  Unfortunately, just like their other tactics, this results in very bad educational outcomes.

Religious indoctrination, which means Christianity not just any God or God(s) generally, and more redistribution of Money into right wing hands is the effective focus of the GOP for education, instead of quality education.  They want to subvert public education funding, text book content, and curricula requirements.

Too many conservatives are of the 'turtles, turtles all the way down' variety of non-thinkers.

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"—Hawking, 1988 from  "A Brief History of Time" 

So now we have Louisiana, which usually ties with Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas for dead last in academic accomplishment, economic success, and public health statistics, and where they have some of the worst environmental pollution like mercury contributing - among other factors - to low IQs, doing their darnedest on ideological and religious grounds to sabotage the education of children in their states, to save their souls and to ensure they stay stupid Republican.

The Jindal voucher system uses public funds to try to make it easier to funnel public school students to religious schools where there is substandard academic accomplishment, but plenty of teaching of religious anti-science curriculum, and revisionist history that is equally factually wrong.

Mother Jones identified some of the more glaring inaccuracies taught by the religious right parochial schools, using materials provided in part through Bob Jones university, a pseudo-academic institution which receives the support of right wingers ranging from Michele Bachmann to Mitts on R-money.  This is what the GOP is trying to do in Louisiana; and this is what the religious right insanity would like to do across the country.  We need to resist this in all its forms. Here are ten from the Mother Jones article.

1. Dinosaurs and humans probably hung out:  Bible-believing Christians cannot accept any evolutionary interpretation. Dinosaurs and humans were definitely on the earth at the same time and may have even lived side by side within the past few thousand years."—Life Science, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2007

2. Dragons were totally real:
"[Is] it possible that a fire-breathing animal really existed? Today some scientists are saying yes. They have found large chambers in certain dinosaur skulls…The large skull chambers could have contained special chemical-producing glands. When the animal forced the chemicals out of its mouth or nose, these substances may have combined and produced fire and smoke."—Life Science, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2007
 3. "God used the Trail of Tears to bring many Indians to Christ."—America: Land That I Love, Teacher ed., A Beka Book, 1994
4. Africa needs religion: "Africa is a continent with many needs. It is still in need of the gospel…Only about ten percent of Africans can read and write. In some areas the mission schools have been shut down by Communists who have taken over the government."—Old World History and Geography in Christian Perspective, 3rd ed., A Beka Book, 2004
5. Slave masters were nice guys: "A few slave holders were undeniably cruel. Examples of slaves beaten to death were not common, neither were they unknown. The majority of slave holders treated their slaves well."—United States History for Christian Schools, 2nd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 1991
6. The KKK was A-OK: "[The Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross. Klan targets were bootleggers, wife-beaters, and immoral movies. In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."—United States History for Christian Schools, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2001
(I find the attempts to put lipstick on the KKK pig particularly disturbing as part of the larger embracing of white supremacist extremists and hate groups such as the John Birch Society founded in part by the father of the Koch Brothers, as occurs at CPAC,  to be especially disturbing in view of the mass shooting at the Wisconsin Sikh temple earlier this week.)

7. The Great Depression wasn't as bad as the liberals made it sound:
 "Perhaps the best known work of propaganda to come from the Depression was John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath…Other forms of propaganda included rumors of mortgage foreclosures, mass evictions, and hunger riots and exaggerated statistics representing the number of unemployed and homeless people in America."—United States History: Heritage of Freedom, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1996
8. SCOTUS enslaved fetuses:
"Ignoring 3,500 years of Judeo-Christian civilization, religion, morality, and law, the Burger Court held that an unborn child was not a living person but rather the "property" of the mother (much like slaves were considered property in the 1857 case of Dred Scott v. Sandford)."—American Government in Christian Perspective, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1997
9. The Red Scare isn't over yet:
"It is no wonder that Satan hates the family and has hurled his venom against it in the form of Communism."— American Government in Christian Perspective, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1997
10. Mark Twain and Emily Dickinson were a couple of hacks:
"[Mark] Twain's outlook was both self-centered and ultimately hopeless…Twain's skepticism was clearly not the honest questioning of a seeker of truth but the deliberate defiance of a confessed rebel."—Elements of Literature for Christian Schools, Bob Jones University, 2001"Several of [Emily Dickinson's] poems show a presumptuous attitude concerning her eternal destiny and a veiled disrespect for authority in general. Throughout her life she viewed salvation as a gamble, not a certainty. Although she did view the Bible as a source of poetic inspiration, she never accepted it as an inerrant guide to life."—Elements of Literature for Christian Schools, Bob Jones University, 2001

Some readers may remember that in the effort to discredit Planned Parenthood, when the always-fact-averse right-wing educated Michele Bachmann asserted on the floor of Congress that Health Care Reform fear mongered her fact-free claim that the ACA aka Obamacare would result in this;

"What does that mean?" Bachmann said. "It means that parents will never know what kind of counsel and treatment that their children are receiving. As a matter of fact, the bill goes on to say what's going to go on — comprehensive primary health services, physicals, treatment of minor acute medical conditions, referrals to follow-up for specialty care."
"Is that abortion?" Bachmann continued. "Does that mean that someone's 13-year old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back, and go home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser. They don't know any different."

So it should be a surprise, but then again maybe not, that the voucher system that Jindal signed into law would give money to a Charter School that requires girls to take pregnancy tests to stay in school.  This is a medical test that is not offered by Planned Parenthood -- but also is done by the school, without first seeking the permission of the parents or the students. 
This violates federal law, specifically Title XI.  The school did not know about the basic of the laws regulating education; apparently so long as they love Jesus they don't believe they need to know anything about actual education.  Somehow, so long as it doesn't have any connection to Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, or Muslims, I don't think the bigoted Bachmann would care about a charter school giving students pregnancy tests without parental permission, or for that matter care about a school which penalizes pregnancy instead of assisting students to deal with the additional challenges and difficulties. 
The right after all just LOVES to interfere and dictate the sexual values and behavior of other people, even as they engage in more porn, strip joints, etc. than liberals.  The right is all about do as I say, not as I do.

It doesn't matter to the right if you pass those academic subjects, so long as you pass your pregnancy tests!  It doesn't matter to them if you can read or write or do math, or if you know history or literature, so long as you vote Republican and love Jesus when you grow up.  It is the religious right that claims that diseases like HIV, or earthquakes, floods and other disasters are sent by God for failing to make us a Christian theocracy.  I would characterize that thinking as a form of superstition rather than legitimate religion, but then I learned critical thinking and like to be fact based and operate in objective reality, not an alternte right wing universe where our conduct results in plagues, and other Biblical punishments.

The right winger profiteers and religious crazies are plague enough.

World's Dumbest? Was the Flaming Homophobe at General Mills REALLY just an audition, not a protest?

An inept protest against  'teh flaming gay' has gone viral, although I doubt the guy has the intellect to appreciate the irony of setting himself and the grass on fire as a gay metaphor.
One has to wonder what kind of ill-advised choice of accelerant was used on the cheerios, since they are obviously not usually so flammable.  It raises the question if beverage alcohol was involved, and not just on the cheerios to make them light but on the inside of the protester.
What sort of person thinks it is clever to make a video while wearing a wrinkled, slovenly and so very gay pink shirt in front of the headquarters of Pillsbury, and then posts it to Youtube?  What kind of really STUPID bigot tries to set fire, with a small blow torch, to cheerios while pouring them into a tacky PLASTIC BOWL? 
HOW DUMB IS THIS GUY? Does he NOT know plastic melts? Did he think that he wouldn't be identified?  His tremendous cowardice, as they do this ...........and then RUNS AWAY!!!!!!!!!!! in an unintentionally comedic self-rout is far from an example of moral courage.
I think we have the answer to our questions!  It is a combination anti-gay protest and audition tape!

If one is making a corporate protest..........make a corporate protest!  This appears to be either dawn or dusk, not a protest made while anyone is around to see it, and  intended to avoid and evade any corporate security.
Make a peaceful protest where the company can take notice of your actions, and the larger public can take notice of your actions, and where you own those actions with pride.  Doing something clandestine and then running away giggling like first grade girls is silly; it lacks any moral conviction. 
Why run away, when clearly if you post it to Youtube, people are going to know what you did anyway? This action hardly persuades someone who might be undecided or still open to considering both sides before making a decision that the cheerios flamer is an intelligent, thoughtful, or ethical human being.  This 'protest' is more in line with teenagers drunkenly toilet papering someone's house and then running away giggling, not making a 'righteous' protest.
It serves this guy right that for setting the General Mills lawn on fire, and then running away instead of taking responsibility, the Golden Valley police have opened up an investigation.
According to the site, The Smoking Gun:

Cops in Golden Valley, home to the food conglomerate, are probing Michael Leisner’s recent blowtorch-aided demonstration next to the entrance to the firm’s corporate campus.

Golden Valley Police Department Chief Stacy Carlson said the “ongoing investigation” began yesterday and could take a couple of weeks. She declined to say whether cops have spoken with the 65-year-old Leisner (seen at right). Nor would she comment on what specific crimes are being investigated.

It is worth noting that 'The Smoking Gun" site is part of the same "The Smoking Gun" that produces the cable series of programming "World's Dumbest" on TruTV:

TheSmokingGun.com is part of Adult Swim and the Turner-SI Digital Network.

If you're not familiar with 'World's Dumbest', this guy fits right in:

"World's Dumbest showcases the dumbest of the dumb - pathetic partiers, outrageous outlaws, brainless brawlers and beyond. Led by a hilarious cast of celebrity commentators who know a thing or two about stupid, including Danny Bonaduce, Leif Garrett, Judy Gold, Tonya Harding and Todd Bridges, this series will have you laughing, cringing and freaking out through our countdown - and begging for more."

When his career as a part time Youtube religious bigot tanks, or maybe lands him in the proverbial jail 'tank', he would be perfect as an alternate host on The Smoking Gun's cable shows.  Apparently the 'star' of this Youtube stupidity is a guy named Michael Leisner, who likes to promote his religious ignorance and intolerance on other youtube videos and in the past on radio, so clearly he fancies himself as a performer. 

What he does for a living reportedly involves some sort of commercial real estate dealings.  While the religious right likes to send their business to those who take the same stands as they do, as was the case with busing in people to Chick-Fail-Hey's restaurants, this guy is so clearly a puts and an idiot, that I don't think being a bigot will be enough to attract new business, even from the idiot right homophobes.  Most people don't like to risk the kind of money involved with real estate with incompetents and losers who screw up and then take so little responsibility for their actions.  Leisner does not inspire confidence; but he's good for a laugh --- ha ha!! Look at the flaming homophobe!

Yup! He'd fit right in on World's Dumbest!  His stunt has already gotten him an interview by them. 

Can a star turn on peopleofwalmart.com be far behind?