10th Circuit slaps Oklahoma anti-Sharia law down like bug on a wall

JISHOU, HUNAN — Oklahoma’s anti-Sharia law violates the US Constitution, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.

The ruling states that the law — which amended the state constitution — violated the Establishment clause of the First Amendment by singling out one religion, Islam. In addition, the court noted that the proponents of the law, which passed November 2010 in a state referendum, could not identify one occasion in which Sharia was used in Oklahoma.

Too bad courts can’t comment on the stupidity of laws, too.

Oklahoma’s Islamophobic factions took the lead nationally in pressing for such a law, creating a nontroversy about “creeping Sharia” and Muslim infiltration of the USA. After the Sooner State’s successful ballot initiative, other states jumped on the bandwagon, fabricating Muslim threats from whole cloth.

The 10th Circuit got to the heart of the matter in its ruling: “Sharia? What Sharia?”

Appellants do not identify any actual problem the challenged amendment seeks to solve. Indeed, they admitted at the preliminary injunction hearing that they did not know of even a single instance where an Oklahoma court had applied Sharia law or used the legal precepts of other nations or cultures, let alone that such applications or uses had resulted in concrete problems in Oklahoma. See Awad, 754 F. Supp. 2d at 1308; Aplt. App. Vol. 1 at 67-68.

Given the lack of evidence of any concrete problem, any harm Appellants seek to remedy with the proposed amendment is speculative at best and cannot support a compelling interest.15 “To sacrifice First Amendment protections for so speculative a gain is not warranted . . . .” Columbia Broad. Sys., Inc. v. Democratic Nat’l Co., 412 U.S. 94, 127 (1973).

In other words, it’s a bit like locking the barn door to keep the horses from escaping before they are actually inside. Except in this case, there aren’t any horses, either. So, it’s both stupid and crazy.

Isn’t all bigotry like that?

Occupy Wall Street in Chinese eyes

[Cross-posted at the Daily Kos]

JISHOU, HUNAN –Chinese observers seem to draw two opposing conclusions from the Occupy Wall Street movement in the USA. The more common (state-approved) conclusion is: capitalism is bad, Marxism is good. The more thoughtful conclusion is: if the Chinese government doesn’t deal with widespread corruption, China might see similar protests in the not-too-distant future.

Recently, one of my friends asked me what Chinese reactions to OWS were. So, I’ve spent some time poring over Internet reports and blogs to get a sense how OWS is playing over here. Since my grasp of Mandarin is weak still, and my access to movers and shakers is limited, take my comments here with a grain of salt.

Official Chinese news coverage tends to characterize OWS as a confrontation between the very poor and homeless (the victims of heartless capitalism) and the rich and powerful (heartless capitalist dogs). The Communist Party is using OWS as an object lesson in the superiority of China’s Marxism.

Comments to an article about the clearing out of Zucotti Park in New York City are representative of netizen reactions. Several comments are rabidly anti-American and pro-Chinese, leading other commenters to accuse those writers of being paid pro-government trolls. (The Party reportedly pays people 5 mao, or 0.50 yuan, to post pro-government comments on the Internet.)

The more staid party publication, Global Times, predicts OWS will amount to nothing in the end and China should just wait and see what happens.

The Global Times, a widely read Chinese tabloid published by Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily, noted in an editorial that “western countries can withstand street demonstrations better, since their governments are elected”.

“The conflicts may be minor or serious, but it will not bring significant change,” it added. “China needs to stay calm and observe how the street movements in the Western world develop and to make the rights choices for its own good.”

(From The Telegraph, Oct. 17.)

Lost in this state-approved presentation are several salient truths about OWS. It’s not just a poor people’s movement. OWS draws supporters from the middle class, too, including retired police chiefs, Iraqi war vets, housewives, grannies and working stiffs, as well as scruffy looking students. Chinese media ironically play up police roughly dealing with OWS protesters (subtly implying it’s a government crackdown), while obscuring the freedoms of assembly and free speech that permits OWS to be so widespread.

No one in the current government would dare remind anyone here of the 1989 Tian’anmen Square protests, which brought out thousands of students and intellectuals to rally for civil rights and resulted in a quick and brutal reaction by the Chinese police and military. Most of my students, in fact, know very little about that episode in Chinese history.

As an example of how the message of OWS has been skewed, we can look at a street protest in Zhengzhou by supporters of OWS. Some of them included cadres (important workers who are party members) who seemed to believe that OWS was a rally in support of Marxist ideals and against capitalism. Perhaps the protest was Party-sponsored.

Earlier this year, when the Jasmine Revolution was underway in North Africa and the Middle East, the government here quickly acted to foil any similar movements in China. The usual suspects (likely organizers) were rounded up and detained for several months, the Internet was “harmonized” — scrubbed of any rallying cries for a Jasmine Revolution in China — and official media portrayed the successful Arab Spring people’s movements, as yet more evidence for the superiority of the Chinese Way.

Ironies of ironies, you may be thinking, since China was after all founded as a people’s republic after a people’s revolution against a repressive government. That was before all those “peasants” ended up in power themselves, of course.

It’s that bitter irony that other Chinese recognize. The Party and its economic policies of the last 30 years have enabled China to become a major player in the world’s economy and allowed enterprising Chinese citizens to become rich beyond Mao’s imagination. Meanwhile, freedom of expression is tightly controlled, the Internet and media are closely monitored and censored (I had to use a network proxy to search for “Jasmine Revolution,” in fact), and government officials and business magnates help each other become fat cats.

To help grow the economy quickly, the State has given favored businesses considerable freedom to operate as they see fit (another irony, laissez-faire economic policy), sometimes at the expense of the common citizen, whose protests, when allowed, are ultimately pointless. We hear reports of entire city neighborhoods being evicted and razed for a new construction project, of a miner’s widow being denied access to her husband’s remains and being forced to accept a cash payment as compensation for his death, of bad food resulting from lax regulation, poor construction practices, and environmental disasters.

Many have resulted from the close personal and economic relationships that have developed between government officials, who look the other way, and the favored business leaders, who pay them to look the other way. Having given businessmen an inch, China’s political leaders have seen big business take a mile, and become a troublesome barrier to reform.

This is precisely the same message of OWS, which has not been lost on more thoughtful Chinese observers, who warn that China may yet have its own Occupy movement. As long as China can keep its growing middle class content and comfortable with material wealth, protest movements will gain no traction, however. China has largely been insulated from the economic crises of the USA and EU.

But, if the Chinese economy goes sour and middle class folks lose their jobs, homes and comfy lifestyle, China’s leaders will have an enormous problem that all the ‘Net harmonizing in the world will not solve.

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You might also check out this reports.

Stratfor Analysis

Bloomberg analysis

Campaign flyer fail

So, what’s wrong with this photo? It came from a campaign mailer from Patricia Phillips, who is a Loudon County, Virginia, Republican running for a state senate seat.

OK, but thanking a US veteran might be more appropriate.

The keen-eyed and quick-witted will note that this distinguished old officer is — or more accurately, was — not a member of the US Armed Forces. He’s a Soviet naval officer. You know, our enemies back in the day.

I propose that Phillips’ campaign staff is neither keen-eyed nor quick-witted. And her opponent must be laughing his ass off.

It’ll be one hell of a party — {{yawn}}

UPDATE OCT. 7, 2011 — A few things have changed since I wrote this post. Texas Gov. Rick Perry is no longer listed as a speaker. Three new speakers are now listed: Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, President of NHCLC, Lila Rose, President of Live Action and John Stemberger, President of Florida Family Policy Council. And the deadline to get the low, low price on the viewing party kits has been extended to Oct. 14.

JISHOU, HUNAN — By way of Right Wing Watch, I came across this announcement, which encourages folks to host viewing “parties” for a televised “premiere event.”

Now on sale! Just $9.95 if you act before Sept. 30!

The lineup of speakers* includes two guys running for the Republican presidential nomination (only one of whom has a ghost of chance of winning the nomination), a former congressman, a man who lies about American history, and the former head of an influential conservative Christian media empire.

[*Speakers have been invited, but are not yet confirmed. -- Footnote at the bottom of the webpage.]]

Three hours of talking heads telling us that the USA is a Christian Nation™, that the USA is going down the tubes because of the liberals, the gays, the atheists, the Muslims and (by the way) President Barack Obama, and that viewers need to bring God back into America where He belongs, instead of taking care of the whole universe like He’s supposed to.

Gripping TV at its best.

For a special price of $9.95, you can buy a home party hosting kit. The church hosting kit is $49.95. (Both prices are only good until Sept. 30, so order now! Operators are standing by.)

If the viewing kits included coupons for a keg or two, and suggestions for drinking games (chug a mug when you hear the word “Jesus”), these “parties” might be mildly entertaining. As it is, three hours of listening to these guys rehash the same old arguments and diatribes against the Bill of Rights would seem, even for a believer in such nonsense, excruciatingly painful.

I’m betting this media event of the century will tank. Just a hunch.

Another conservative jumps on “only property-owners should vote” bandwagon

JISHOU, HUNAN — Just days after Matthew Vadum of American Thinker proposed the dubious analogy that letting the poor vote was like giving crooks burglary tools, another brilliant mind pops up with similar cutting edge 18th century political ideas.

This time the mind in question belongs to John David Dyche, a Republican lawyer in Louisville, Kentucky. He wrote an opinion piece for the Courier-Journal entitled “Property rights crucial to voting rights.”

He begins with another dubious analogy — doctors this time, not second-story men.

Some bemoan Kentucky’s 10 percent voter turnout in recent primaries. But quantity hardly assures quality in making important choices.

If you had a serious disease would you open your treatment to everyone or confine it to a few specialists? A free society’s biggest decision is how it shall be governed. The Founders therefore placed prudent limits on participation in it.

After offhandedly suggesting that it was probably a good idea to let blacks and women vote, Dyche then takes us to the good old days when only the landed gentry could participate in politics or governance. You know, the situation that encouraged some demented landed gentry types to create an entirely new nation sometime around 1776.

Unlike Vadum, who draws his arguments from paranoia-scented thin air, Dyche dresses up his anti-democratic broadside with lots of quotes from historical figures — none of whom lived after the 1850s — with whom he happily agrees. Must be that law school training.

First he quotes a figure from the Puritan Revolution in England, Commissary General Henry Ireton (1611-1651), who advised that the men participating in government should be free from dependence on others. In other words, only rich guys should run the government. That didn’t work all that well at the time.

(The leader of that revolution was Oliver Cromwell, and it should be noted here that Ireton was Cromwell’s son-in-law, which benefited his political career greatly. But he was independent. Really. After the monarchy was restored in 1660, King Charles II had Ireton and Cromwell’s bodies exhumed and mutilated in a symbolic execution. Ouch.)

Now that Dyche has introduced us to one of the shortest lived political philosophers of the 17th century, he dismissively mentions the efforts of those left-wing radicals, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, to expand suffrage to the “common man.” Then he quotes more great conservative minds.

James Kent (1763-1847) was a lawyer, judge and legal scholar in the State of New York. During the 1821 state constitutional convention, he argued against universal suffrage. Dyche quotes just a bit of Kent’s passionate speech. Here’s a longer quote:

The apprehended danger from the experiment of universal suffrage applied to the whole legislative department, is no dream of the imagination. It is too mighty an excitement for the moral constitution of men to endure. The tendency of universal suffrage, is to jeopardize the rights of property, and the principles of liberty. There is a constant tendency in human society, and the history of every age proves it; there is a tendency in the poor to covet and to share the plunder of the rich; in the debtor to relax or avoid the obligation of contracts; in the majority to tyrannize over the minority, and trample down their rights; in the indolent and the profligate, to cast the whole burthens of society upon the industrious and the virtuous; and there is a tendency in ambitious and wicked men, to inflame these combustible materials. [Dyche's quotation is in boldface here.]

Short version: The rabble will take over government, and civilization as we know it will crumble into dust. Demagogues will whip them into a frenzy, and we rich guys will be in big trouble. Remember what happened to Louis and Marie Antoinette?

Now we hear from Daniel Webster (1782-1852), a somewhat better known figure in US History. Dyche quotes Webster as saying:

Those who have not property, and see their neighbors possess much more than they think them to need, cannot be favorable to laws made for the protection of property. When this class becomes numerous, it grows clamorous. It looks on property as its prey and plunder, and is naturally ready, at all times, for violence and revolution.

Sounds like Webster also had the French Revolution in mind. Like Ireton and Kent, he unequivocally opposed universal suffrage, and lobbied against it (unsuccessfully) during the Massachusetts constitutional convention of 1820.

A more extensive quote from Webster will help put his argument in context. These remarks Dyche quotes come from a commemorative address at Plymouth, Massachusetts, 200 years after the Pilgrims landed. Webster expounded on the American political system, noting that it depended on laws regulating government, the military and the “descent and transmission of property.”

The freest government, if it could exist, would not be long acceptable, if the tendency of the laws were to create a rapid accumulation of property in few hands, and to render the great mass of the population dependent and penniless. In such a case, the popular power would be likely to break limit and control the exercise of popular power. Universal suffrage, for example, could not long exist in a community where there was great inequality of property. The holders of estates would be obliged, in such case, in some way to restrain the right of suffrage, or else such right of suffrage would, before, long, divide the property. In the nature of things, those who have not property, and see their neighbors possess much more than they think them need, cannot be favorable to laws made for the protection of property. When this class becomes numerous, it glows clamorous. It looks on property as its prey and plunder, and is naturally ready, at all times, for violence and revolution.

The qualifying words, which Dyche omits, I have put in boldface. Webster was in fact saying, if property laws allowed a small minority of landowners to control most of the property, the “outs” would eventually rise up in revolution. (Like France, 1789, for example). We could therefore also use Webster’s address as an argument against letting the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, but Dyche appears not to consider that possibility. Nor have most of our Congressional leaders, for that matter.

Next, Dyche pulls out another “modern” political theorist, John Randolph of Roanoke (1773-1833), whose words could have come from the mouth of anyone of the current Republican presidential candidates.

Look at that ragged fellow staggering from the whiskey shop, and see that slattern who has gone there to reclaim him; where are their children? Running about, ragged, idle, ignorant, fit candidates for the penitentiary. Why is all this so? Ask the man and he will tell you, ‘Oh, the Government has undertaken to educate our children for us. It has given us a premium for idleness.

We don’t need public education. We don’t need a social safety net. Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?

Randolph made these remarks in 1830, during the Virginia state constitutional convention. Like a lot of modern day Tea Party members, he favored “small government” and the self-sufficiency of the population. As you can see, he did not favor public education, unlike his fellow Virginian, Tom Jefferson.

Randolph, a wealthy plantation owner with many slaves, was also fervently against rule by the masses — “King Numbers,” he called them. He believed that men were not created equal, and some should by right of birth be in positions of power. He lost those arguments in his own time, as did Kent and Webster, which Dyche and others seem to forget. There are after all certain reasons why old political ideals are no longer currently in fashion. Like the divine right of kings, they were discarded long ago, and should stay in the trash heap.

But nevermind, the definition of the conservative mind is hold onto the old — or dig it out of the trash heap — and reject the new (until it later becomes old). Now that Dyche has built up this bulwark of “modern” conservative political theory, he now comes to the crux of the matter.

Roosevelt and his New Deal, Johnson and his Great Society, President Obama, and the Congressional Democrats — all bad, bad socialists. Doom approaches. Revolution! Blood in the streets! Run for your lives!

Dyche continues:

These misguided liberals seem oblivious to the reality of America’s current fiscal crises and cultural decline. Their excessive generosity with other people’s money has bankrupted the country and helped rot its moral core.

Let’s review some basic facts here. When Bill Clinton (a Democrat) left office, the USA had a budget SURPLUS. When George W. Bush (a Republican) left office, the USA had a ginormous budget DEFICIT. Why? For a start, he cut taxes, mostly for the wealthy few at the top and the big corporations, a trend which continues even under Obama’s administration. He escalated one war, and started another, at the same time. He cut revenues and increased spending. The Dems in Congress were complicit in this financial mismanagement, but for Dyche to pin the current economic crisis on liberals misses the culprits by a country mile.

I won’t even go on about lax regulation of the banking, mortgage and investing industries, which trampled the property law system that Webster extolled in 1821. If we still had property ownership as a requirement for voting, there would be hundreds of thousands of people without homes and the right to vote. But remember, it was the liberals’ fault.

Nor will I gloss on the “cultural decline” and the rotting “moral core” that Dyche refers to. I can only guess what he means.

Dyche invokes fear as a reason for clamping down on suffrage. “King Numbers may take to the streets in violence choreographed by social media (referring to the Arab spring, I suppose) and encouraged by thuggish labor leaders (referring to Teamsters boss James Hoffa, who told union members to ‘kill’ those guys at the polls). It is a recipe for despotism, the Founders’ foremost fear (referring obliquely to the Nazis — no political column nowadays can omit some allusion to Hitler).”

And he concludes with these terrifying words:

That dread day draws nigh. We have forgotten the Founders’ carefully considered conclusion that broader voter participation (especially from the half of American households paying no federal income tax) could hasten it.

And how much tax did General Electric pay last year? Zero. Cry me a fucking river.

What is the point of bring all this up now, anyway? What do Dyche and the paranoid Trotsky-doppelganger Vadum propose, seriously? Tell one-third of the voting population they can’t vote anymore? (I’m extrapolating from census data. The home ownership rate in the USA in 2009 was 67.4%.) That will go over well, I’m sure. Renters, the unemployed, retirees, college students, as well as welfare recipients, would have no vote and no chance to run for office. It would mean I could not vote either.

Maybe counselor Dyche might re-read Webster’s remarks at Plymouth again. If we allow the rich and powerful to get more rich and more powerful, and increase the number of the people in the lower classes, then the USA will be in big trouble — a larger version of a banana republic, without the bananas. Rather than seeing universal suffrage as a threat, Dyche should see it for what it is — one of the principal strengths of the American Republic. Blacks, women, non-property owners did not seize political rights by force; they acquired them after long years of an evolving democratic political process. And the Nation still stands.

Time moves on, counselor. Kent, Webster, Randolph and their unlucky English predecessor Ireton were in the minority, even in their own time. Maybe you need to propose some new ideas.

Voters in Queens: hand this putz Turner his walkin’ papers

[UPDATE: Well, nevermind. The putz won the election with 53% of the vote. Hope you like what you got, Brooklyn and Queens.]

This is an actual campaign flier sent out by the New York Republicans on behalf of NY-9 candidate Bob Turner. I can’t think of a more crass exploitation of the 10th anniversary of the Twin Towers attack than this.

Vote for me, the bigot!

Turner is running against Democrat David Weprin in a special election to fill the seat of Rep. Andrew Weiner (D-NY-9), who resigned his seat after a sexting scandal. It’s supposed to be a tight race.

I hope this flier backfires on Turner big time. Aside from the obvious bigotry, it lies like a dog. The Park 51 project is not at the site of World Trade Center (the so-called Ground Zero), is not a mosque, and doesn’t look anything like the gold-domed edifice in the flier. The project additionally does not violate any laws, local or national, and has even been approved by the local community zoning board.

Turner is a putz. Look it up at urbandictionary.com if you don’t know what it means.

Beware of demons? Beware of David Barton

JISHOU, HUNAN — David Barton is a loon, a dangerous loon.

I’ve blogged before about David Barton’s peculiar version of American history. He teaches that the USA was deliberately conceived as a Christian nation, despite considerable evidence to the contrary. Barton misquotes the Founding Fathers, twists and quotemines historical documents, and when all else fails outright lies about history to support his cockeyed ideas.

The Religious Right adores him. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who is vainly trying to be the presidential nominee of her party, invited Barton to teach the Constitution to newly minted Representatives. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who at one point was considering a presidential run, famously said:

`“I almost wish that there would be, like, a simultaneous telecast, and all Americans would be forced–forced at gunpoint no less–to listen to every David Barton message, and I think our country would be better for it. I wish it’d happen.”

The Atlantic Monthly had a lengthy analysis of Barton’s appeal and his peculiar methods of historical research. There is no doubt that Barton’s religious belief drives his interpretation of history, but what kind of beliefs does he have?

Here’s a clue. Right Wing Watch posted this excerpt of Barton’s appearance last year on televangelist Kenneth Copeland’s “In God We Trust” video series. Barton is talking about the need for Christians to get involved in public affairs.

I’ll tell you one of the things too we’ll never get right until we understand this, it is a spiritual battle. We’re told in Ephesians, it’s not flesh in blood, we’re dealing with spirits. And I’ll tell you out of Daniel, praying, why did that answer get delayed for twenty-one days? Because the Prince of Persia fought against it. There are principalities that sit over certain areas.

And I can tell this in the U.S. Capitol. When I walk from the House side to the Senate side, I cross the middle line of the Capitol, I can feel a different principality because they have jurisdictions over different things. And there are principalities that sit over different government entities that cause them to think really goofy and you can’t get prayers through, they get delayed twenty-one days because the principalities are up there fighting in the Heavenlies.

Because we’re not fighting flesh and blood. And if you don’t understand this is a spiritual battle, and if you don’t understand there are really big principalities and powers sitting over places of power, whether it be banking, or education. There’s principalities that sit over schools to keep those kids from getting knowledge, there’s principalities that sit over financial institutions. They sit over households. That’s why you have principalities in powers, that gradation, you have the corporals, and you have the sergeants, and you have the lieutenants, the captains and the generals, and the generals have a bigger principality and those little corporals may have control over the house but it’s a spiritual battle.

It’s a spiritual battle and we’ll never win until we understand that.

Demonology 102 there. I’ll summarize Demonology 101, in case you cut the entire semester.

Barton is referring to Ephesians 3:12, in which the author (presumed to be Paul) tells the church in Ephesia that they are battling not flesh-and-blood enemies, but evil, spiritual powers. The Daniel allusion refers to a 21-day period when Daniel prayed, and subsequently got a message from God.

The idea of “principalities” originally referred to an order of angels in a complex medieval hierarchy. Principalities were the angels who were messengers or guardians on Earth. Evangelicals later appropriated the term to refer to the angels’ adversaries on Earth. For every order of angels, there is a corresponding order of demons.

I had to do some googling, since I’m not up on demonology. I found this explanation:

Principalities are small insignificant irritating little demons. They are the kind of demons that put thoughts of temptation in the minds of man and cause irritations. They do not have much power and there are millions of them. They are the peasants of Satan’s kingdom if you please. They are the Privates in his army and the ones that do all his grunt work. In the Spirit I normally see them pictured as little monkeys.

Flying Monkeys? I wonder.

From the same website, we have a gloss on the allusion to Daniel:

In Daniel 10:12 we read that Daniel had been praying and fasting and waiting on God, and he had waited 21 days.

After that an angel appeared to him and said, Daniel 10:12 Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to chasten yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come because of your words. 13 But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty one days: but, look, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia. (GMR)

The prince of the kingdom of Persia was a demonic prince that was in charge of the whole kingdom that Daniel was in. Before that angel could come and get through to him, he was opposed by this high level demonic power in the heavenlies, a demonic prince of darkness.

Satan has set up his system over this world, and he has princes of darkness over every single area. There are princes of darkness in charge of your country. There are princes of darkness in charge of your city. There are princes of darkness in charge of your community. They have all been allocated responsibility to oversee the principalities, powers and rulers of darkness that are in that area.

So, basically speaking, David Barton believes that demons (agents of Satan) have control over Business, Government, Family, Church, Education, Media and Entertainment/Arts — the so-called Seven Mountains that some Christians want to take over to make the USA into the Christian Nation they believe it was destined to be.

People like Michele Bachmann, Mike Huckabee, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), probably Sarah Palin, and other declared or wannabe presidential contenders. They are not just running for political reasons; they’ve got religious reasons, also (to varying degrees, I’m sure.)

Perosonally, I find all this demonology stuff befuddling. Though I am now an atheist, I was taught to believe there is a God, who is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. Satan entered the picture only when talking about the serpent in the Garden of Eden and Jesus’ temptation in the desert. Ditto for angels and demons — not a lot of stress on these critters, since they generally just have walk-on parts in the Bible. God was basically The Guy in Charge, though at times it did seem like he was having one too many “power lunches,” sipping ouzo with Zeus, in between smiting entire cities and putting reluctant prophets inside big fish.

So, from a theological standpoint, I can’t fathom why some people like Barton and Les D. Crause, whom I have quoted twice here, give these demons, or principalities, so much power. What happened to God’s omni-whateverness?. For many of these Christians, there is a demon for every affliction, every kind of behavior they don’t like: cancer demons, drug demons, homosexuality demons, rock music demons — the list goes on.

And these demons are not imaginary or allegorical. When Barton says two principalities have separate control of the House and Senate, he means that literally — demons are in fact sitting on top of both legislative bodies, making the people’s brains all fuzzy and confused.

Sounds mighty like polytheism to me. Or a story arc from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

So, if you read or hear about anything David Barton says about American history and our Christian Nation™, keep in mind that this is the kind of crazy-ass Christianity he’s talking about, not your mainstream go-to-church-on-Sunday kind. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Universal suffrage is an un-American, left-wing plot, says right-wing tool

JISHOU, HUNAN — A long time ago, only white, male property owners could vote. Then the property ownership rule was dropped, followed by the whites-only rule, followed by the men-only rule, followed by a reduction in the legal voting age to 18. So, in the USA, there is near universal suffrage, which most people would consider a really good thing.

Not Matthew Vadum of the oxymoronically named American Thinker blog. He believes we need to turn back the calendar a couple of centuries to those good old days when only rich white guys could vote. Or be President, I reckon.

Vadum says registering the poor to vote is un-American. Seriously. Because encouraging the poor to vote means they will vote for their own interests, unlike rich folk, who always vote for the poor’s interests.

Sayeth he:

Why are left-wing activist groups so keen on registering the poor to vote?

Because they know the poor can be counted on to vote themselves more benefits by electing redistributionist politicians. Welfare recipients are particularly open to demagoguery and bribery.

Registering them to vote is like handing out burglary tools to criminals. It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country — which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote.

Ah, Obama the Boogeyman again. Reading further, you will find that Vadum manages to also connect (a la Glenn Beck) ACORN, Leon Trotsky, Nelson Rockefeller and George Romney with this blight called universal suffrage.

(For you youngsters, Rockefeller and Romney — that’s Mitt Romney’s dad — were a breed of Republican that is now nearing extinction … moderates. Vadum calls them “liberal Republicans.” I wonder about his take on Barry Goldwater.)

The comments are worse. Check this priceless piece of illogic from someone named pavan (What kinda name is that, anyway? Sounds east Indian to me.)

From when the Constitution was written until about 1850, only white male property owners could vote. After 1870, former slaves could vote. Then in 1920 we had woman suffrage. In the 1960s, it became illegal to require voters to be literate. The motor voter law was passed in 1995. In 2008 it became de facto legal for Black Panthers to intimidate voters at the polls. Is anyone noticing a trend here? When the country started, voting was restricted to citizens who had a financial stake in small government. Now anyone with a pulse can vote. Eventually, you might have to fight your way into the polling place through a gauntlet of government dependents who will decide if you look like someone who will support big government candidates.

And how did this steady expansion of voting rights happen, pavan? PEOPLE VOTED FOR IT! White guys let non-property owners vote, then they all let former slaves get the vote. Then, the men let the women vote. I tell you, it’s a fucking conspiracy, this whole voting thing!

America, I worry about you. But not for the same reasons that Vadum and pavan do.

The next Congressional sex scandal?

After all, why just send boring cellphone pix?

Sarah Palin and the Case of the Disappearing Bus Tour

JISHOU, HUNAN — Like a moth to a flame, I can’t resist reading about the latest Sarah Palin escapade. The Attention-Monger with a Short Attention Span™ has put her cross-country bus tour on hold and canceled a well publicized trip to Sudan.

For jury duty.

** [UPDATE: In case you're worried, she hasn't been told to report yet, according to the Alaska Dispatch.] **

The only way anybody gets any news from the Palin camp is through her Facebook page. Her bus tour itinerary is kept more secret than a presidential motorcade’s timetable. So after the bus tour abruptly stopped, the media immediately began to wonder if she had quit the tour in midstream. Not that she’s ever quit anything in midstream before …

Palin then ran to the ramparts and shot off one of her folksy Facebook updates.

Imagine our surprise when reading media reports today that the “One Nation Tour” has been cancelled. Why didn’t anyone tell me? Oh, wait, that’s because it hasn’t been cancelled. (Good ol’ media… you never cease to amaze!)

As I said myself at the end of the east coast leg of the tour, the summer is long, and I’m looking forward to hitting the open road again. The coming weeks are tight because civic duty calls (like most everyone else, even former governors get called up for jury duty) and I look forward to doing my part just like every other Alaskan.

I wouldn’t think it to be such a slow news day that, what with numerous wars and serious economic woes concerning Americans, a bus is driving news stories today. The next leg of the tour continues when the time comes. In the meantime, no one should jump to conclusions – certainly not the media with their long track record of getting things wrong or just making things up.

Sigh. Sarah, you made your bed, now lie in it.

Her whole game plan for the bus tour (a so-called family vacation in a rolling advertisement tour bus with a Fox News reporter in tow) has been to tease the media. They don’t know her itinerary, so when the bus moves (at quite a clip, from some reports) the reporters and photogs give chase. When the bus is idle and the occupants missing, who ya gonna call? Not Palin, for sure, because she doesn’t talk to the media (except for Fox News).

With no official explanation, a news organization has to report something. So, some outlets jumped to the conclusion that Palin might have called the tour off, perhaps because she tired of it, or saw a shiny object somewhere.

Of course, the only bad publicity is no publicity, so Palin let the media stew for a while before issuing her aw-shucks Facebook missive castigating them for not being able to divine her impeccable rationale. At the same time, she pulled out her now-timeworn complaint that the media are out to get her. “Poor me! I stopped the bus tour because I saw something shiny, and I didn’t tell anyone, and now the media are saying I’m quitting the tour, but I’m not, and it’s so unfair. Nobody understands me. Boo hoo hoo! They’re such poopyheads. I hate them!”

[Note to the reading disabled: The sentences in quote marks in the previous paragraphs are not actual quotes by Sarah Palin. She to my knowledge has never uttered those words in anyone's presence, much less mine. I am taking poetic license, as a writer. If you think I have made her sound immature and idiotic, too bad. She's a public figure. Get over it.]

[Note to the puzzled about the previous note: Earlier this month, two writers at Politico imagined what was going through Palin's head (aside from the wind) and put a surmise in quotation marks. Palin Loyalists jumped on Politico faster than hungry wolves on a crippled deer, forcing Politico to change the punctuation to show it was not a real Palin quote and issue a retraction.]

Now, about that jury duty excuse. It’s admirable that she wants to fulfill her civic duty, but does she really have to put her life on hold? It seems just maybe she does.

I was basing my initial skepticism on my own experience. I’ve been on the voter registration rolls of one state or another since I was 18 (that’s when Nixon was in office, btw). Not once was I called up for jury duty, until I left the country. Two years ago, Jefferson County, Kentucky, summoned me to jury duty, but I asked to be excused, per my legal rights, as returning to the US for jury duty was an undue burden. I was also a registered voter in Indiana, so even by that measure I would have been disqualified, I think.

There are different laws in each state regarding jury duty, so I went to the source: Alaska’s jury duty FAQ.

First of all, anyone who has received money from Alaska’s socialist revenue-sharing fund is on the list of potential jurors.

Potential jurors are selected randomly by a computer from the list of all adults (18 years of age and older) who apply for the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend.

Must she respond? You betcha.

The summons to jury service is an official court summons. If you do not respond, you could be held in contempt of court.

Now, that would be a headline: “Palin skips jury duty, found in contempt of court.” Talk about real bad publicity.

Can she postpone her service? Yes, if jury duty would cause hardship.

If jury service at the time for which you are summoned will cause hardship, you may request deferral of service to another time within the next ten months. If you need to seek a deferral, you should do so as soon as possible. Do not wait until the time you are to appear. To reschedule your jury service, follow the instructions for question #12 on the Jury Questionnaire. If you have already sent in your questionnaire, call the jury clerk as soon as possible for instructions.

You can also be excused for up to a year if you are a judicial officer, in poor health, or a teacher in an underperforming school. Alaskans over 70 or those with severe disabilities can ask to be permanently excused.

So, if Palin really wanted to put her media circus road show ahead of jury duty, she could have, if she were able to convince the court that halting her tour would have caused hardship. That would truly be a lame excuse, because the One Nation Tour, despite all its trappings, is officially not part of an official campaign to seek the Republic presidential nomination. The Palins prefer to call it a “family vacation,” and calling off a vacation is hardly a hardship.

Besides, the media would have a field day if word got out that Palin was purposely evading jury duty to barrel around the lower 48 in her cushy tour bus.

How long will she have to put the tour in hiatus? Since she’s a rural resident of Alaska, she might be on a call for up to a year, having to call in periodically to see if her number is up.

In other courts, your term of service is either 30 days, 90 days or 1 year depending on the population of the area. In these courts, you may have to call in several days each month, and you may be selected to serve on more than one trial. The most days you might actually have to be present in court is 30 per year. However, you must complete any trial for which you are selected to serve as a juror regardless of how long the trial lasts.

This is all assuming she’s been called for service in a state court trial. For a federal jury (and she’s not sayin’ if it is), the rules are different. Bascially, though, she’d still have to serve under the federal hardship rules.

Unlike a famous sitcom with a troubled drug-addled lead actor, the One Nation Tour can’t run without Palin as the Superstar. We’ll just have to wait with bated breath for the next episode.

The jury call also seems to have scotched Palin’s visit to Sudan for its July 9 independence celebration. She had made plans to accompany evangelist Franklin Graham and her pet puppydog reporter, Greta Von Susteren, to the war-ravaged African nation to boost her international expertise. Or something.

Per her aforementioned Media Avoidance and Control Syndrome, we are only left to guess why she called off the Sudan trip. From the Washington Post:

A Palin spokesman, Tim Crawford, declined to comment on any of her travel plans, whether to Sudan or across the United States.

Teasing us, as usual.

Anyway, Graham plans to continue his visit. Von Susteren called hers off. No Palin means no story for good old Greta. I mean, have you ever seen Paris Hilton’s dog without Paris Hilton?