Remembering Frank Kameny

We owe an enormous debt to Frank Kameny.  He was a trailblazer, a visionary, and he gave us all hope when there was no reason for any.

Mr. Kameny was one of the founding members of the Mattachine Society of Washington D.C.

His conscious decision to live his life openly, and to lead through his activism should be a beacon with which we continue to strive to achieve the goal of rights for all people.  For a life of humanity to be granted not to a few, but to every one of us.  No matter our color, our religion, nor who we love.

Mr. Kameny lived in a time that our kind was to be shunned.  Ours was truly the love that dare not peak its name in his youth.  Anyone willing to take such a courageous stand should be well honored, nay revered by those of us who have so richly benefited by his life.  

 The time in which he lived held incredible advances, and crushing defeats.   But through it all he held to his beliefs and his convictions and inspired new generations to stand and demand their human rights.  He risked imprisonment simply because of who he loved and that he was willing to take a stand against the inherent oppression in our society.

If it's possible we should all stand, our hands over our hearts, and observe a moment of silence during his funeral.  He helped us all.

Frank Kameny was a man. He was also a hero. He died on National Coming Out Day.

Longtime gay activist Frank Kameny dies

October 11, 2011 | 

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Frank Kameny (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

Franklin E. Kameny, one of the nation’s most prominent gay rights leaders, died in his home today apparently from natural causes. He was 86.
The death came less than a month before the planned celebration of the 50th anniversary of Kameny’s founding of the Mattachine Society of Washington, the first gay rights organization in the nation’s capital.
LGBT rights advocates Charles Francis and Bob Witeck, who were longtime friends of Kameny’s and established the project to preserve Kameny’s papers over a 50-year period, said they would be announcing soon plans for a memorial service to honor the gay rights leader’s life.
Timothy Clark, Kameny’s tenant, said he found Kameny unconscious and unresponsive in his bed shortly after 5 p.m. on Tuesday. Clark called 911 police emergency and rescue workers determined that Kameny had passed away earlier, most likely in his sleep. Clark said he had spoken with Kameny shortly before midnight on the previous day and Kameny didn’t seem to be in distress.
Kameny is credited with being one of the leading strategists for the early gay rights movement — beginning shortly before the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York’s Greenwich Village and continuing afterward.
Born and raised in New York City, Kameny served in combat as an Army soldier in World War II in Europe. After the war, Kameny obtained a doctorate degree in astronomy from Harvard University.
He went on to work as an astronomer for the U.S. Army map service in the 1950s and was fired after authorities discovered he was gay. He contested the firing and appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, becoming the first known gay person to file a gay-related case before the high court. The Supreme Court upheld the lower court ruling against Kameny and declined to hear the case, but Kameny’s decision to appeal the case through the court system motivated him to become a lifelong advocate on behalf on LGBT equality.
Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said Kameny “led an extraordinary life marked by heroic activism that set a path for the modern LGBT civil rights movement.”

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“From his early days fighting institutionalized discrimination in the federal workforce, Dr. Kameny taught us all that ‘Gay is Good,’” Solmonese said. “As we say goodbye to this trailblazer on National Coming Out Day, we remember the remarkable power we all have to change the world by living our lives like Frank — openly, honestly and authentically.”
Chuck Wolfe, CEO of the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund, said Kameny’s death marked the “loss of a hero and a founding father of the fight to end discrimination against LGBT people.”
“Dr. Kameny stood up for this community when doing so was considered unthinkable and even shocking, and he continued to do so throughout his life,” Wolfe said. “He spoke with a clear voice and firm conviction about the humanity and dignity of people who were gay, long before it was safe for him to do so. All of us who today endeavor to complete the work he began a half century ago are indebted to Dr. Kameny and his remarkable bravery and commitment.”
Chad Griffin, board president for the American Federation for Equal Rights, the organization behind the federal lawsuit against Proposition 8, said “America has lost a hero” with the passing of Kameny.
“Out and proud, Frank Kameny was fighting for equality long before the rest of us knew we could.” Griffin added. “Because there was one Frank Kameny, trailblazing and honest enough to speak out 50 years ago, there are now millions of Americans, coming out, speaking out and fighting for their basic civil rights. His is a legacy of bravery and tremendous impact and will live on in the hearts and minds of every American who values equality and justice.”

Know fear

So really what's the difference now between Somalia and the United States? We're apparently no longer going to prosecute people for crimes...Because we can't afford it.

It really is all about money isn't it?

Those who've been charged with domestic battery aren't always guilty, just as those who commit other crimes aren't always guilty.  But the investigation needs to take place to determine that. And that's our responsibility, just as it's our responsibility to  take care of those marginalized by society.  i.e. see to it that they have adequate food and shelter.  

But the current mindset in our culture is to make them fend for themselves, therefore we have more homeless, more people waiting until they're too sick to be helped by medicine at all, and families not able to protect themselves mow apparently will have mo champion.

Kansas...as bigoted as you think!

Unless, of course, you can pay for it yourself.

 

Topeka considers decriminalizing domestic battery

Posted by Ben Palosaari on Fri, Oct 7, 2011 at 1:49 PM 

In news that seems more likely to be coming out of Somalia than Kansas, Topeka's City Council is considering repealing the city ordinance regarding domestic battery. Yes, they're looking at decriminalizing domestic battery. But don't worry! They're doing it for a good reason: to save money. See, Topeka still wants abusive family members to be charged with crimes, but Topeka just doesn't want to pay for prosecuting these jerks. If domestic battery is no longer covered under city law, then arrested asses would have to be charged by the Shawnee County District Attorney's Office. Problem is, the DA says it's too broke to try wife beaters, too. Really. This is happening in America.

The whole kerfuffle over footing the bill to carry out justice for battered family members started in September when Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor announced that the county could no longer afford to pursue misdemeanor charges in Topeka, including domestic battery. This left the city to take on the cases, and with a tight budget and a city attorney's office that hasn't handled a domestic-violence case in more than a decade, it was ill-prepared to do so. In the first week after Taylor made his announcement, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that 30 domestic-battery cases were rejected, and three suspects were released and presumably returned home because no charges were brought. Really. This happened in America.
Taylor told Topeka that his office would resume handling domestic-violence cases if the city gave his office $350,000. But he can't make that kind of arrangement without the Shawnee County Commission's approval. That's the entity that slashed Taylor's budget by 10 percent to set up this disaster. So, that has left the Topeka City Council to consider the work-around of decriminalizing domestic battery, leaving Taylor to take the cases without the budget to handle them. Mayor Bill Bunten told the council: "The question is who prosecutes them, the municipal court or the district court, and who pays for it, the city or the county or a combination?" Really, we're bickering over who pays to protect battered family members. In America.

Loss

As we all know due to much of the technology he helped create, Steve Jobs has died.

The loss will be felt only to a few of his closest friends, his family, and those who worked with him during his incredible career.

But we will be poorer for it.  There are few men or women today who demonstrate the foresight, the tenacity, and sometimes the balls to do the things Jobs did in his life. 

The  simplicity of most of his devices made us aware of their elegance, hence the dedicated development process behind them.

We thank you for your contributions to our world Mr. Jobs, may you rest in peace.

Occupation

Those that are making the sacrifice to spend their time occupying Wall Street and make our voices heard have my utmost respect.

This is not an easy task, it's not made easier by the inappropriate actions of the police, the government and the laissez-faireattitude of the very people who are the target of these demonstartions.

It's not an easy task to sit in a sidewalk in New York while New Yorkers are trying to get to work.  They're taking huge risks with their safety, their own finances, and their future should the coty or the federal government decide to clean up Wall Street of those damn protestors. 

So if an opportunity comes to support them show it.  If you get a chance to participate in a local demonstration do so.  If you can get out your voice and be heard no matter how small the step you make, you WILL make  a difference.  And if you don't it's a good reminder by those bent on turning this country into what it was 100 years ago that we do live in a free republic and they cannot silence our voices forever. 

New York (CNN) -- Several unions endorsed the two-week-old Occupy Wall Street movement and plan to join the protesters' street theater in New York on Wednesday, labor leaders said.
"It's really simple. These young people on Wall Street are giving voice to many of the problems that working people in America have been confronting over the last several years," Larry Hanley, international president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which has 20,000 member in the New York area, told CNN.
"These young people are speaking for the vast majority of Americans who are frustrated by the bankers and brokers who have profited on the backs of hard-working people," Hanley added in a statement. "While we battle it out day after day, month after month, the millionaires and billionaires on Wall Street sit by -- untouched -- and lecture us on the level of our sacrifice."


Transport Workers Union Local 100 spokesman Jim Gannon said the Occupy Wall Street movement, which denounces social inequities in the financial system and draws inspiration from the Arab Spring revolutions in Africa and the Middle East, has advanced issues that unions typically support.
"Their goals are our goals," Gannon said. "They brought a spotlight on issues that we've believed in for quite some time now.... Wall Street caused the implosion in the first place and is getting away Scot-free while workers, transit workers, everybody, is forced to pay for their excesses.
"These young folks have brought a pretty bright spotlight," Gannon added. "It's kind of a natural alliance."


President Michael Mulgrew of the United Federation of Teachers, the sole bargaining agent for most non-supervisory New York City public teachers with 200,000 members, said he was "proud" to support the Occupy demonstrators, who have been camping out in New York and elsewhere across the nation.

'Occupy Wall Street' protests spread

"The way our society is now headed it does not work for 99% of people, so when Occupy Wall Street started ... they kept to it and they've been able to create a national conversation that we think should have been going on for years," Mulgrew said.
The labor officials couldn't provide a projection on how many of their members will take the day off from work Wednesday and join the protests.
The demonstrators have bivouacked in the park in New York's Financial District, calling for 20,000 people to flood the area for a "few months."
The protest campaign -- which uses the hashtag #occupywallstreet on the microblogging site Twitter -- began in July with the launch of a simple campaign website calling for a march and a sit-in at the New York Stock Exchange.
Over the past two weeks, demonstrations have addressed various issues, including police brutality, union busting and the economy, the group said.
Occupy Wall Street is a leaderless movement made largely of twentysomethings upset with the state of the economy, the state of the war in Afghanistan, the state of the environment, and the state of America and the world in general.

In less than three weeks, the movement has become a magnet for countless disaffected Americans at a time when an overwhelming majority of U.S. adults say the country's on the wrong track.
Occupy protests have been held in Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle and Boston.
Occupy Wall Street and its offshoots have clear strains of liberal economic populism -- a powerful force in U.S. history during various times characterized by growing economic stress. That said, it could be a mistake to label or tie the movement to a specific agenda, said Susan Olzak, a Stanford University sociology professor.
"It's difficult to classify a social protest movement early on in its history," Olzak told CNN. "Clearer goals could eventually emerge, but there's no guarantee."
"Many movements fizzle out. Others become more organized," she said. But "I think we run a risk (by) taking a snapshot at any one point in time, and trying to categorize the movement in any one way based on that snapshot. The only way to study these protest movements is to follow them over time."

And so it goes:

Why then oh why can't I?

Well mostly you can't because if you live in Kansas and you're unemployed, you've been cut loose.  The state government doesn't care about you at all..at ALL...AT ALL!

The following article demonstrates that though Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon  perhaps does care about is constituents, he's a bit misguided in his efforts.  Because not everyone is cut out for health care work.

It's long hours, sometimes longer.  It's dealing with people at their worst...when they're sick. And it's dealing with fluids and bodily functions that many people cannot deal with.

Personally, I found it enthralling, but after they started teaching my particular field at the Brown-Mackie College I decided I'd rather not be associated with it.  Besides my particular expertise was a young man's job. i.e. long periods of boredom, punctuated by short bursts of panic.

But at least Gov. Nixon is trying something.  Governor Brownback...well, he's trying stuff...he's trying to starve the state government so the Koch Brothers can take it over.

Dick.

So without further ado, here's the article, and a picture I find priceless in it's stupidity.

from governor Nixon's own website-

September 26, 2011

Missouri community colleges receive major competitive grant, application efforts coordinated by Gov. Nixon's administration

Missouri community colleges to invest $20 million to train Missourians for health care careers, Gov. Nixon announces

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Gov. Jay Nixon announced today that Missouri community colleges will invest $20 million through MoHealthWINS, a statewide effort to educate 4,600 more Missourians for health care jobs and careers.  Under Gov. Nixon's leadership, Missouri's 12 community colleges and Linn State Technical College collaborated with the Missouri Department of Economic Development and the state's Workforce Investment Boards to apply for these federal funds to retrain unemployed Missourians for jobs and careers in growing health care fields.
The colleges estimate that MoHealthWINS will provide educational opportunities for approximately 4,600 additional Missourians.  The grant specifically targets unemployed adult learners who are seeking new career opportunities.
"From the moment I became Governor, we have worked closely with Missouri's outstanding community colleges to train more Missourians for the jobs and careers of tomorrow and to get folks back to work," Gov. Nixon said.  "Missouri's health care industry is growing quickly, and hospitals, clinics and other employers need more nurses, lab techs and other workers with the right education and skills today.  By expanding educational opportunities for Missourians in these fields, we'll open the door for employment for more folks and keep our economy growing.  This is a strategic investment in the growth of our economy and the future of our state."
Individual colleges will use these funds to develop or expand training programs in the health services and health sciences industry, which is a targeted industry under the Missouri Strategic Initiative for Economic Growth.  The application focused on this industry because it offers immediate and long-term employment opportunities and relatively high-wage jobs.  Training will target specific occupations within this industry, including:

• Health information technologist
• Information systems
• Certified nursing aide
• Certified medical technician
• Licensed practical nurse
• Associate nursing degree
• Pharmacy technician
• Hearing instrument technician
• Medical lab technician
• Phlebotomist
• Radiologic technician
• Maintenance technician
• Mechanical technician

These competitive funds were made available under the U.S. Department of Labor's Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Grant Program.  When the grant process was announced, Gov. Nixon brought Missouri's community colleges together to submit a joint, comprehensive application.  In the application, the colleges looked for ways to develop collaborative and targeted programs that would capitalize on the unique resources of each college, avoid duplication, and save money.  Colleges will share equipment and faculty, emphasize online and distance learning and take other steps to expand access, improve efficiency and reduce redundancy.
Throughout the application process, senior leaders within Gov. Nixon's administration worked closely with community college and Workforce Investment Board leaders to develop and craft the grant application.  In April 2011, Gov. Nixon submitted a strong letter in support of the application, noting that this investment supplemented his "Big Goal" for higher education: Increasing the percentage of Missourians who hold a postsecondary credential from 37 percent to 60 percent by 2020.  Gov. Nixon also discussed the importance of this application directly with federal leaders, including Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
"This grant is a major step forward for our community colleges in our efforts to expand opportunities for adult students across this state," said Zora Mulligan, executive director of the Missouri Community College Association.  "Throughout this process, Gov. Nixon has been a steadfast partner, and his leadership was instrumental in making our application so successful.  We look forward to continuing to work closely with Gov. Nixon and with the state's Workforce Investment Boards to turn this grant into real learning opportunities for folks in every corner of Missouri."
Gov. Nixon will visit several community colleges in the coming days to detail specific programs that will be developed or expanded as a result of this grant.

And then there's this:

 Just in case no Americans have demonstrated to you how stupid they actually are today.

Quo Vadimus?

Dear God

I don't know how to respond to this.  -ed

Leaving Kansas? Sam Brownback thinks income taxes are the reason why

Posted by David Martin on Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 8:15 AM

When Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback thinks of a typical Kansan, he imagines somebody like Tiger Woods. Woods, a California kid, moved to Florida when he turned professional. Why would he leave one warm-weather state for another? Florida has no state income tax. Brownback seems to think regular people act like money-worshipping superstar athletes. The governor is of the mind that Kansas will be a bright prairie flower on the withering Plains if it lowers income taxes. “You’re going to see the middle of the country — our area will be the one that will grow,” he said last week at an annual dinner of the Kansas Policy Institute, a free-market think tank, according to The Wichita Eagle.
The notion that tax burdens have a big influence on migration patterns is far from settled, however. One study, for instance, looked at New Jersey after the state introduced a “millionaire tax” in 2004. The study, written by Cristobal Young of Stanford University and Charles Varner of Princeton University, found that tax had “minimal effect.”
The New Jersey study squared with other studies that indicate tax increases don’t cause people to put “for sale” signs in their yards. In an e-mail, Young says he hasn’t looked at tax decreases, which is what Brownback is contemplating. “But I can’t think of a compelling reason why people would be sensitive to a tax decrease when they are not sensitive to a tax increase,” he writes.
Still, don’t go waving your fancy university studies around the Brownback administration.
“Be careful when these theoretical guys, who haven’t been in the real world, start splitting hairs based on statistical databases,” cautions Steve Anderson, the governor’s budget director.
Anderson is a certified public accountant from Edmond, Oklahoma. Before he joined the administration, he worked as a consultant for Americans for Prosperity, a group bankrolled by the super-rich and ultraconservative Koch brothers. In 2009, he worked on a “model budget” for Kansas that, among other things, recommended higher tuition at public universities. “There is no reason to tax the majority in the state who do not have children attending a state institution in order to subsidize those who do, especially when there is evidence it is the more affluent citizens who are more likely to have children enrolled in higher education,” the document said.
To Anderson, the evidence is clear. Florida, Texas and other states that don’t tax income are growing. Therefore, tax cuts lead to growth. “What I have seen is that income taxes change behavior,” he tells The Pitch. “It’s just as clear as the nose on your face.”
Anderson likes things that are plain as noses. Because he doesn’t fully trust those college professors with their tweed jackets and standard deviations.
“There really is no punishment for them if they put something out that doesn’t really have any validity,” Anderson says.
He's a real-world guy. “My clients don’t pay me to take wild guesses," he says. "Which is why I’ve always thought that college professors that have never practiced should get out and practice awhile. They might be surprised what they’d learn in reality. Things are much different when you get off the college campus.”

Quo Vadimus?

The Depersonalization of...us

"I hope that individual is able to overcome his issues."

"The individual in question is in custody..."

"Apologies to that individual."

Those are just the incidences of depersonalization  I heard yesterday on the radio, and I doubt I was paying enough attention to notice them all.

The power of language is seldom recognized.  We use language as a tool to communicate, but we seldom take the time to think about the impact of the words we speak.

Language effects us emotionally, mentally, and ultimately physically.  It's the music of language that makes it so effective I think.

But this colloquial fad of referring to each other as "individuals" is a symptom of the rampant narcissism in America. It's robbing us of our dignity as well.

"What I want is the most important thing in the world right now and I'm going to get it."  Is the attitude of most Americans today.

This malaise is reflected in the existence of the Tea Party as well.  Holding victim assistance as hostage to their desire to slash governamnt spending is unconscionable, yet their constituents elected them to do that very thing.  Unless, of course, they're the ones need ing the assistance.  Case in point, Billy Long of Missouri. 


Representative Long is a freshman member of the House, and he represents the fast growing Tea Party movement in the United States.  His platform was reform.  Then the tornado struck.

Mr. Long instantly became a cheerleader for  FEMA. 

via NPR:

Billy Long is a Tea Party stalwart who ran for Congress as a man fed up with Washington.
Long won in a landslide and now represents Joplin, Mo., where he fired up a Tea Party crowd in April pretending to auction off the national debt.
Five weeks later, Long was back in Joplin, this time in the dark and rain, surveying the aftermath of an apocalyptic tornado. And this time, the federal government was his friend.
"FEMA called as soon as I got there and said, 'Congressman Long, we're on the way. We'll have boots on the ground in an hour or two,' " he says. "And I said, 'No you won't; they're already here.' "
What followed, Long says, has been a superb relief effort.
"The president came in, he was great. [Homeland Security Secretary] Janet Napolitano came in, she's been great," he says. "[House Minority] Leader Pelosi came up to me on the floor, hugged me and said, 'Billy, anything the people of Joplin need they'll have.' "
And that's just what they've gotten: FEMA has spent close to $100 million on the cleanup, and an additional $19 million plus on rent and home repairs. Napolitano was back in Joplin on Thursday, praising Joplin's "can-do attitude" and Long.
"He's worked well with our office, with our shop," she said. "When he was asked about FEMA, to rank it shortly after the fact, on a scale of 1 to 10, he said he'd give it a 12."
Doing It Locally
This kind of talk doesn't square with some of Long's constituents. Bloggers say he's "shredding his Tea Party stripes," drinking the "Potomac Kool-Aid." He's portrayed as just another politician bellying up to the trough.

Children cope with the aftereffects of the tornado and what the loss did to their parents.

Perhaps surprisingly, some of this grief for helping tornado-ravaged Joplin has come from ... Joplin.
"Joplin would be, some people would use the phrase, 'the buckle of the Bible Belt,' " says John Putnam, who leads a Tea Party group here. "It's very conservative. I think the bottom line for most of us is that we can do it locally."
Putnam says volunteers, local folks hit by the tornado and tens of thousands of people streaming in from across the country — many evangelical Christians with ties to Joplin's numerous churches — have done most of the work. But Putnam, unlike some in the blogosphere, is willing to give Long a pass.
"I think this is the system we operate under, and as long as we're under this system, it's fine for him to try to maximize FEMA's contribution," he says.
A Sense Of Priority
At a gas station just outside the destruction zone in Joplin, Ed Cryts, a local contractor, says he's grateful for the help and mightily impressed with FEMA, but not with the rest of the government.
"As far as helping people, FEMA has done a good job, but as far as what the people at the top are doing, I'm not too happy," he says.
Long insists the tornado hasn't altered his views, either.
"Budgeting is about priorities," he says, "and you certainly have to prioritize for situations like this."
Long says he's confident that whatever tough choices may have to be made, Uncle Sam's not going to skimp on helping people laid low by a natural disaster.
As for the government, there are still a lot of things Long aims to change, but it's less likely you'll hear him complaining any more about being "fed up."

A lesson in the need for dignity shouldn't be so hard.  But as has been said, "if history has taught us anything, it's that we learn nothing from history."

And so it goes.

True Courage

I'll let Airman Phillips do the talking. He's good at it. And so it goes.

When will we make this stop?

This young man is dead. He took his own life because he was bullied to death. Who is going to make this stop? Where are you? When will you come forward and help these kids? His name was Jamey Rodemeyer. And so it goes.

The younger take on Social Security

 It's amazing what has been accomplished by the GOP in one generation.  They've controlled the conversation for so long that people no longer think their government is secure.  I agree with quite a bit of what this guy says, but I find it amazing that the thinking is so radically different. 


Editor's note: LZ Granderson, who writes a weekly column for CNN.com, was named Journalist of the Year by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. He is a senior writer and columnist for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com and a 2010 nominee and the 2009 winner of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation award for online journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @locs_n_laughs. Watch him on CNN Newsroom Tuesdays at 9 a.m. ET.
Grand Rapids, Michigan (CNN) -- I think I stopped trusting the U.S. government right after learning that for 40 years, instead of treating a small group of poor, uneducated people officials had identified as having syphilis, officials not only withheld the diagnosis from them, but the cure as well, just to see what would happen if the disease went untreated.
This was done even if what would happen was eventually death, which is why burial insurance was given to the unsuspecting victims as if the government was doing them a favor.
And this didn't happen a very long time ago either.

LZ Granderson
In fact, the first wave of Gen Xers were out of diapers while the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment was still going on.
Once you see how hard Uncle Sam sucker punches people he identifies as expendable, you learn to keep your guard up whenever he comes around.
It is for this reason that Social Security is nowhere in my retirement plans.



Call me crazy, but the idea of trusting the government to take care of me, to provide me with "security" when I'm old and frail is far more frightening than the thought of me trying to make it on my own.
I'm not yet 40, so theoretically I still have plenty of time to have my own plan in place. Yes, I've paid into Social Security. No, I don't expect to benefit from it, at least not at the level those who are currently collecting are benefiting. And I don't know anyone in any line of work my age or younger who does.
We are not as mad about this switcheroo as much as we are mad that the reform can keeps getting kicked down a road that's getting shorter and shorter by a bunch of politicians who know better but are too afraid of losing voters who won't be around when the money's all gone anyway.
Anybody with a high school diploma and a calculator can see how entitlement programs are damaging the economy and that some sort of reform is necessary to ensure their long-term solvency. And yet during budget and debt ceiling talks, Democrats such as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid responded as if the Republicans wanted to sell voters' first-born babies into slavery.
On Monday, President Barack Obama introduced another plan without touching Social Security. The Democrats won't even support the modest changes recommended by the president's own debt commission, including phasing in a two-year increase in the retirement age over the next 65 years and raising the ceiling on payroll taxes. They keep mocking us with talk of protecting the middle class when in reality protecting the middle class would have been passing a budget and introducing entitlement reforms before the extras from "King of the Hill" got into Congress.
But just as GOP presidential candidates are saying whatever they can to appease their base (except for Jon Huntsman, which is why he is in last place), the Democrats are just as guilty of pandering to the home crowd, even if the desires of that crowd aren't nearly as much to blame for the economic trouble the country finds itself in as the Bush tax cuts and relaxed Wall Street regulations.
It's all a game, and election after election, we keep getting played.
Remember Obama didn't say he and the members of Congress might not get paid if the debt ceiling wasn't raised, but that Social Security and military checks may not go out. And he's the one being accused of being a socialist. Can you imagine what the rhetoric of a good ol' fashion free-market capitalist would sound like?
Here's a hint: Rewatch the video from the CNN/Tea Party Republican Debate last week in which Wolf Blitzer asked if society should let an injured 30-year-old man without health insurance die. Much was made about the cheers that could be heard coming from some of the crowd, but I was far more disturbed by the lack of chastising that came from the stage immediately after the cheers. You mean to tell me the possible next leader of the free world doesn't have an instant rebuke to people who cheer at the mention of uninsured Americans dying?
And I'm supposed to trust that person to have my best interest at heart when I'm at my most vulnerable?
The Great Depression gave birth to Social Security.
The Greatest Generation fed it and made it strong.
Today the sheer number of the baby boomers is slowly strangling it to death.
And because politicians continue to use Social Security as one of its many chess pieces to manipulate people to vote a certain way, one day we'll speak of it much in the same way we speak of dial-up Internet access. Only instead of laughing at how long it used to take to log on, we'll be shaking our heads, reminiscing back to the time when government actually cared.
Except for me.
As I hinted earlier, my faith in government went out the door the moment I found out it was controlled by people.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of LZ Granderson.

And so it goes:

This guy isn't altogether wrong.

 

via bbc news magazine-

A Point of View: The revolution of capitalism

Karl Marx may have been wrong about communism but he was right about much of capitalism, John Gray writes.

As a side-effect of the financial crisis, more and more people are starting to think Karl Marx was right. The great 19th Century German philosopher, economist and revolutionary believed that capitalism was radically unstable.
It had a built-in tendency to produce ever larger booms and busts, and over the longer term it was bound to destroy itself.
Marx welcomed capitalism's self-destruction. He was confident that a popular revolution would occur and bring a communist system into being that would be more productive and far more humane.
Marx was wrong about communism. Where he was prophetically right was in his grasp of the revolution of capitalism. It's not just capitalism's endemic instability that he understood, though in this regard he was far more perceptive than most economists in his day and ours.

Find out more

• A Point of View is on Fridays on Radio 4 at 20:50 BST and repeated Sundays, 08:50 BST
• John Gray is a political philosopher and author of False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism

More profoundly, Marx understood how capitalism destroys its own social base - the middle-class way of life. The Marxist terminology of bourgeois and proletarian has an archaic ring.

But when he argued that capitalism would plunge the middle classes into something like the precarious existence of the hard-pressed workers of his time, Marx anticipated a change in the way we live that we're only now struggling to cope with.
He viewed capitalism as the most revolutionary economic system in history, and there can be no doubt that it differs radically from those of previous times.
Hunter-gatherers persisted in their way of life for thousands of years, slave cultures for almost as long and feudal societies for many centuries. In contrast, capitalism transforms everything it touches.
It's not just brands that are constantly changing. Companies and industries are created and destroyed in an incessant stream of innovation, while human relationships are dissolved and reinvented in novel forms.
Capitalism has been described as a process of creative destruction, and no-one can deny that it has been prodigiously productive. Practically anyone who is alive in Britain today has a higher real income than they would have had if capitalism had never existed.
Negative return The trouble is that among the things that have been destroyed in the process is the way of life on which capitalism in the past depended.
Defenders of capitalism argue that it offers to everyone the benefits that in Marx's time were enjoyed only by the bourgeoisie, the settled middle class that owned capital and had a reasonable level of security and freedom in their lives.

Marx co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels

In 19th Century capitalism most people had nothing. They lived by selling their labour and when markets turned down they faced hard times. But as capitalism evolves, its defenders say, an increasing number of people will be able to benefit from it.
Fulfilling careers will no longer be the prerogative of a few. No more will people struggle from month to month to live on an insecure wage. Protected by savings, a house they own and a decent pension, they will be able to plan their lives without fear. With the growth of democracy and the spread of wealth, no-one need be shut out from the bourgeois life. Everybody can be middle class.
In fact, in Britain, the US and many other developed countries over the past 20 or 30 years, the opposite has been happening. Job security doesn't exist, the trades and professions of the past have largely gone and life-long careers are barely memories.
If people have any wealth it's in their houses, but house prices don't always increase. When credit is tight as it is now, they can be stagnant for years. A dwindling minority can count on a pension on which they could comfortably live, and not many have significant savings.
More and more people live from day to day, with little idea of what the future may bring. Middle-class people used to think their lives unfolded in an orderly progression. But it's no longer possible to look at life as a succession of stages in which each is a step up from the last.
In the process of creative destruction the ladder has been kicked away and for increasing numbers of people a middle-class existence is no longer even an aspiration.
Risk takers As capitalism has advanced it has returned most people to a new version of the precarious existence of Marx's proles. Our incomes are far higher and in some degree we're cushioned against shocks by what remains of the post-war welfare state.
But we have very little effective control over the course of our lives, and the uncertainty in which we must live is being worsened by policies devised to deal with the financial crisis. Zero interest rates alongside rising prices means you're getting a negative return on your money and over time your capital is being eroded.
The situation of many younger people is even worse. In order to acquire the skills you need, you'll have to go into debt. Since at some point you'll have to retrain you should try to save, but if you're indebted from the start that's the last thing you'll be able to do. Whatever their age, the prospect facing most people today is a lifetime of insecurity.

Markets are a volatile business

At the same time as it has stripped people of the security of bourgeois life, capitalism has made the type of person that lived the bourgeois life obsolete. In the 1980s there was much talk of Victorian values, and promoters of the free market used to argue that it would bring us back to the wholesome virtues of the past.
For many, women and the poor for example, these Victorian values could be pretty stultifying in their effects. But the larger fact is that the free market works to undermine the virtues that maintain the bourgeois life.
When savings are melting away being thrifty can be the road to ruin. It's the person who borrows heavily and isn't afraid to declare bankruptcy that survives and goes on to prosper.
When the labour market is highly mobile it's not those who stick dutifully to their task that succeed, it's people who are always ready to try something new that looks more promising.
In a society that is being continuously transformed by market forces, traditional values are dysfunctional and anyone who tries to live by them risks ending up on the scrapheap.
Vast wealth
Looking to a future in which the market permeates every corner of life, Marx wrote in The Communist Manifesto: "Everything that is solid melts into air". For someone living in early Victorian England - the Manifesto was published in 1848 - it was an astonishingly far-seeing observation.
At the time nothing seemed more solid than the society on the margins of which Marx lived. A century and a half later we find ourselves in the world he anticipated, where everyone's life is experimental and provisional, and sudden ruin can happen at any time.
A tiny few have accumulated vast wealth but even that has an evanescent, almost ghostly quality. In Victorian times the seriously rich could afford to relax provided they were conservative in how they invested their money. When the heroes of Dickens' novels finally come into their inheritance, they do nothing forever after.
Today there is no haven of security. The gyrations of the market are such that no-one can know what will have value even a few years ahead.

Austerity measures to reduce Greece's debt have sparked riots

This state of perpetual unrest is the permanent revolution of capitalism and I think it's going to be with us in any future that's realistically imaginable. We're only part of the way through a financial crisis that will turn many more things upside down.
Currencies and governments are likely to go under, along with parts of the financial system we believed had been made safe. The risks that threatened to freeze the world economy only three years ago haven't been dealt with. They've simply been shifted to states.
Whatever politicians may tell us about the need to curb the deficit, debts on the scale that have been run up can't be repaid. Almost certainly they will be inflated away - a process that is bound to be painful and impoverishing for many.
The result can only be further upheaval, on an even bigger scale. But it won't be the end of the world, or even of capitalism. Whatever happens, we're still going to have to learn to live with the mercurial energy that the market has released.
Capitalism has led to a revolution but not the one that Marx expected. The fiery German thinker hated the bourgeois life and looked to communism to destroy it. And just as he predicted, the bourgeois world has been destroyed.
But it wasn't communism that did the deed. It's capitalism that has killed off the bourgeoisie.

and so it goes:

Jimmy Stewart Lives!

This morning, while driving to work completely frustrated because the alarm on my phone apparently doesnt work and I woke up ten minutes before I had to be there, I happened to hear Mitch McConnell making the suggestion that if Warren Buffet feels guilty about paing lower tax rates he should send in a check.

I just spent a fair amount of time trying to upload the sound file to this blog and it doesn't work, so if you want to hear the reincarnation of Jimmy Stewart go here to listen:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/mcconnell-on-buffett-if-he-feels-guilty-about-his-tax-rate-he-should-send-in-a-check/

The complete preposterous-ness (is that a word) of his suggestion is beyond ridicule.  The GOP's favorite line right now is that we "shouldn't tax job creators."


What job creators?  I've personally been looking for a job for over two years and I'm still on the breadlines.  If companies are making money right now, and prices  and CEO salaries indicate that they're doing pretty damn good, they're keeping it to themselves!!!  And the people who can no longer afford to support the rest of the country, i.e. the middle class are getting squeezed from both directions they can't find jobs, and they can no longer afford to pay the prices that things cost. 

Either the conservatives don't hear what they're saying and for reasons completely passing human understanding can't see what's happening out there, which in their case is entirely possible, or there's a plan to eliminate the middle class and make us all serfs again. 

It has to be one or the other, else we're being led to the slaughter by incompetents in which case we can all just throw up our hands and surrender.

On an entertainment note, I also heard this morning  on NPR that Steven Levitan co-creator of Modern Family  had an encounter with a gay couple who congratulated him on "making the world more tolerant."

I have mixed reactions to this statement, because he follows it with a hilarious tag, but if it's true I say  hang  that gay couple from the highest tree, because tolerance is the last thing I want from this world.  I barely tolerate most people I'd never ask them to "tolerate" me.  It's just insulting to think that someone would have to tolerate my gayness.  I long ago past the age of needing the approval of anyone, and I cannot see the need to increase tolerance.  Acceptance, understanding, recognition, perhaps, but tolerance, no thank you.  It implies there's something wrong with us and that we need to be tolerated because we're different.  Well I am different and that's not to be tolerated, it's to be celebrated.

BTW Levitan's tag to the statement was:
 "we are showing the world that there's absolutely nothing wrong in a relationship between an old man and a hot young woman. Looking around this room, I see many of you agree."

So kudos to him for making a mockery of such a ridiculous idea as tolerance.

And so it goes:

thanks to Polt's Palace for the photo, no idea where he gets them but he's good at it, I hope he appreciates the homage.

a eulogy long overdue

My adoptive father was not physically abusive, he was not an alcoholic, he was not a drug abuser, He was by all accounts a man who did what was right by his family and saw to it that to the best of his ability his family was provided for.
But in thousands of ways, big and small, he was an abuser. He tore us down verbally, mentally and emotionally. He was distant, he was dismissive of our emotional needs, and through what I will call sins of omission he taught us nothing about how to live. We never got the birds and the bees discussion. We had no concept of what money was nor how to handle it,. When I was 12 I solicited a few neighbors for lawn mowing jobs. When he got wind of this development Daddy sat m e down and said, "Son, you're going to have to go to work one day and for the rest of your life. So don;t start any sooner than you have to. If you need money just come to me."
We were informed as often as possible that we would never amount to anything, and often we lived down to those expectations. Did he do this intentionally, no. Did he do this out of some inveterate need to keep us under his thumb, no. Did he do it because he was unable to express feelings, to help us understand our own, and out of a complete lack of understanding that what we would need most in this world is self-confidence? Yes, I believe that to be the case.
In my particular case I believe it to have been a case in which he was of the opinion that he had two children, a boy and a girl, and that his child rearing years were getting close to being behind him. Then the girl next door to his in laws got pregnant when she was 16. And his wife decided that since she was unable, she was going to adopt that child. Me.
He raised his two biological children very differently from my experience. There was a bit of a iron fist policy where they were concerned. Not so for me. There was direct and physical punishment for their transgressions. Not so for me. There were familial expectations. Not so for me.
From what little I was able to glean from the stories when those in the know were alive, he was told early on that I was not to be physically abused (i.e. spanked). That I was not to be told to sit quietly on the floor and speak only when spoken to. His reactions to such demands were seldom meek. It seemed that early on after my arrival there was a sort of armed truce between them that very infrequently boiled over, but was noticeable none the less.
We're settling his estate this month and all these things have been discussed in the process. He could have been considered by most to be "well-off", and though that's true, he wasn't rich in the things that matter most.
He wasn't rich in love, he wasn't rich in healthy emotional experiences, which is where our discussions ultimately end. We don;t sit around and talk about that the time that Dad did this or that, or about our time playing catch in the backyard, (never) and sadly we don't have fond memories to carry with us and give to those we will leave behind one day.
I will come away from my experience with my adoptive family with all the material things I always expected. I will have a comfortable retirement. I will have a home and likely a vacation home. I will want for none of the worldly possessions that seem to matter in our culture.
But I will always have a certain envy for those whose father's who put forth an effort no matter how big or small to share at least part of themselves with their children.
Don't hold your children at arm's length, hold them in your arms. Teach them who you are and allow them to learn and grow at their own pace. But without fail, no matter what they do, want to do, or what they think, remind them daily that they are loved and that they are a valuable part of your life.
Those of us who have no experience with such things highly recommend it.
And so it goes.

Crazy is as crazy does

Bobby Jindal, he of the louisiana governorship, is endorsing Rick Perry.

He of the "Government response to Hurricane Katrina was atrocious" response to Obama's first state of the union address.

Rachel Maddow's response is hilarious: This is the guy who's endorsing the GOP front runner. I wouldn't want this guy endorsing me for dog catcher. But here we go, the Presidential race is getting underway. Email Share (Newser) – Tim Pawlenty might think Mitt Romney's the guy for the job, but Rick Perry just scored a key endorsement of his own in his quest to be president: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is headed to tonight's Tea Party Republican Debate to give Perry his blessing, reports CNN. Jindal will be Perry's guest, and is expected to make the announcement prior to the debate. Quo Vadimus?

Being a teacher

I have held over 100 jobs in my lifetime. I have worked as a janitor, a fry cook, a soda jerk, V.P. of an executive search firm, theatrical producer, actor, customer service specialist, compliance officer for a brokerage firm, and most importantly...a teacher.

I came to teaching because I had good teachers. I came to adulthood knowing and interacting with people who I admired because of their need of and their respect for learning. From Sister Imelda, my first grade teacher who inspired confidence I never knew I had, to Mrs. Patty Busenbark, who though she felt sorry for me in adolescence, and who doesn't need a little sympathy through that horror, taught me that I had worth, and that holding my head high would serve me better than almost anything I'd learn from a book.
There was Colette Denihan, who taught me that music and art nourish the soul, and the ubiquitous Buddy Zimmer, to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for sharing with me his love of the theater, and for being my friend and traveling companion for more than 20 years.
Jan Sheeran who saw that not only did I have the willingness to do the work necessary to be an actor, but thoroughly enjoyed watching me learn the process. Chuck Gorden who saw in me the intelligence and talent that at that moment (and many times since) I couldn't see.
There are many more, who have helped me on this journey to teaching. I thank each and every one of them.
Had I known how much I was to love teaching I'd have skipped all that other stuff and gone directly there. But I think I had to learn some things about life before I was ready.
The intelligence of my decision came to me one day quite by accident. I was working with an actor who was having a difficult time with a character in a play I was directing. What I said I don't remember, but at that moment a light came into his eyes, and a smile to his face. He understood and his character took on a fullness and a life of its own he should be proud of, I hope he is anyway. That was when a chill ran down my spine, and I knew I was where I needed to be.
As we discuss the methodology we intend to employ to begin the massive task of repairing our terribly broken education system let us remember that we need to help people develop their entire intellect, not just the side of their brain that processes facts and figures. And here on the 10th anniversary of the most personal attack on our shores, let us remember that eventus stultorum magister.

Reach.

Why liberal arts matter

By Michael S. Roth, Special to CNN

May 21, 2011 12:26 p.m. EDT

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Michael S. Roth says his parents sent him to a liberal arts school to broaden his world
• He says postwar America valued well-rounded citizens to create vibrant culture, economy
• Now many make mistake of narrowing focus to science, engineering for competitive edge
• Roth: Education helps develop new skills, connections, ability to seize opportunities

Editor's note: Michael S. Roth is president of Wesleyan University. He is a historian, curator and author. His latest book, "Trauma, Memory and History: Essays on Living With the Past" (Columbia University Press), will be published in the fall. A native of Brooklyn, New York, he is in the first generation of his family to attend college. CNN's"Don't Fail Me: Education in America" examines the crisis in the public education system. It airs at 8 ET Saturday night.

(CNN) -- When my parents arrived at Wesleyan for my graduation, they were very proud -- of themselves and of me. They hadn't known much about college when they had first sent me off to school. My father (like his father) was a furrier, and my mother had given up big band singing to raise a family. She sold clothes from our suburban basement to help make ends meet.
Sending me to a prominent liberal arts school meant something special to them because it represented access to opportunity. This wasn't only economic opportunity, but the chance to choose work, make friends and participate in a community based on educated interests rather than just social and ethnic origins.
Since I am now president of Wesleyan University, I guess we all got more than we bargained for.
My parents were part of a wave of Americans after World War II whose confidence in the future and belief in education helped create the greatest university sector in the world. Students from all walks of life began to have the chance to acquire a well-rounded education, and it was on this basis that Americans created a vibrant culture, a dynamic economy and a political system that (after many struggles) strove to make equality before the law a fundamental feature of public life.
A well-rounded education gave graduates more tools with which to solve problems, broader perspectives through which to see opportunities and a deeper capacity to build a more humane society.
In recent years university leaders in Asia, the Mideast and even Europe have sought to organize curricula more like those of our liberal art schools. How, they want to know, can we combine rigorous expectations of learning with the development of critical thinking and creativity that are the hallmarks of the best American colleges?
But in our own land we are running away from the promise of liberal education. We are frightened by economic competition, and many seem to have lost confidence in our ability to draw from the resources of a broadly based education. Instead, they hope that technical training or professional expertise on their own will somehow invigorate our culture and society.
Many seem to think that by narrowing our focus to just science and engineering, we will become more competitive. This is a serious mistake.
Our leaders in government, industry and academia should realize that they don't have to make a choice between the sciences and the rest of the liberal arts. Indeed, the sciences are a vital part of the liberal arts.
The key to our success in the future will be an integrative education that doesn't isolate the sciences from other parts of the curriculum, and that doesn't shield the so-called creative and interpretive fields from a vigorous understanding of the problems addressed by scientists.
Already at liberal arts schools across the country there is increasing interest in the sciences from students who are also studying history, political science, literature and the arts. At Wesleyan, neuroscience and behavior is one of our fastest growing majors, and programs linking the sciences, arts and humanities have been areas of intense creative work.
Students and professors aren't crossing departmental boundaries to be fashionably interdisciplinary. They join forces to address specific problems or in pursuit of particular opportunities.
Dr. Joseph J. Fins, a history-literature-philosophy major at Wesleyan, is now the E. William Davis, M.D., Jr. Professor of Medical Ethics and chief of the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College.
Joshua Boger, a philosophy and chemistry major at Wesleyan, founded the biotech chemistry company, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, to "transform the way serious diseases are treated."
Diana Farrell, an interdisciplinary social science major at Wesleyan, helped restructure the U.S. auto industry as a deputy director of the National Economic Council.
Government officials and academic administrators should realize that innovation in technology companies, automobile design, medicine or food production will not come only from isolated work in technical disciplines. Effective vaccine delivery programs, for example, require technical expertise, but they also require cultural understanding, economic planning and ethical reasoning.
Similarly, scholars in the humanities must recognize that some of the most interesting work in history, art and philosophy now involves the active participation of scientists. The growing field of animal studies, for example, brings together interpretative and analytic skills along with contemporary scientific research.
A pragmatic, broadly based education that encourages bold inquiry and regular self-reflection recognizes the increasingly porous borders among disciplines and departments.
We should look at education not as a specific training program for a limited range of mental muscles but as a process through which one will generate some of the most important features in one's life. It makes no sense to train people as narrowly as possible in a world going through cataclysmic changes, for you are building specific strengths that leave you merely muscle-bound, not stronger and more flexible.
We should think of education as a kind of intellectual cross-training that leads to many more things than at any one moment you could possibly know would be useful. The most powerful education generates further curiosity, new needs, experiences to meet those needs, more curiosity and so on.
Education isn't just an object that you use to get started in a career; education is a catalytic resource that continues to energize and shape your life. Education enhances your ability to develop new skills and capacities for connectivity that allow you to solve problems and seize opportunities.
I hope that parents across the country can still believe in this form of education as they attend graduation ceremonies across the country. America should not retreat to a narrow, technical education in hopes that it will make us tougher in global competition.
We should have confidence, as my parents did, that a broadly based, liberal education will help our young people lead lives of creative productivity, lives in which they can make meaning from and contribute to the world around them.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Michael S. Roth.

And so it goes

September 11

and kansans censor free speech again...

via kmbc.com-
TOWANDA, Kan. -- A Kansas high school teacher is apologizing after parents complained because she stepped on an American flag while discussing free speech rights in her class.Officials at Circle High School in Towanda said Jennifer McKinsey, a U.S. government and history teacher, stepped on the flag this week while discussing controversial behaviors that are protected by the First Amendment.

Cherie Davis, a parent of a Circle student, complained to school officials.Circle principal Todd Dreifort said McKinsey has apologized for offending anyone. She has used the lesson in the past but Dreifort said it will no longer be allowed.The Wichita Eagle reported that Davis said she didn't want McKinsey to be fired but did want her to understand that the lesson would offend many people.

morons.

it's a shame that America no longer exists, and that our citizens are too ignorant to know that.  Now we have to start all over making a whole new one, and morons will be involved.

pity.

Qou Vadimus? 

hgf

There's only two things I don't like about Rick Perry...his face.

Last night Rick Perry called for the U. S. Government to respond quicker to the needs of Texas citizens who have been affected by the recent wildfires. 


Exactly what makes them more important than residents of Louisiana, Missouri, ppl who need health care, seniors who count on social security and Medicaid? Exactly the people Perry would deny ANY help.

Am I mistaken, or didn't he just send back a bunch of money the feds gave Texas to spend on health care.

It seems to me that Texas wants to be the decider of what it can do under states rights until they decide they should get to stick their snouts in the federal trough.

Perry is the worst kind of special interest representative we could ever hope to see. 

Qou Vadimus?

And so it goes:

Let's get more stupid!

Michele Bachmann ponders some tough questions. Obviously she's clueless that her husband is a big Nelly, and it's also apparent that she has no problem using government services like Medicaid, and Fanie Mae, since her husband accepts medicaid at his clinic, and apparently  she financed her house through Fannie Mae.  AND she seems to have no problem with her son joining Americorps. 

It's just when the rest of us want to get medical care and have no money, and buy a house and obain a mortgage, or go out and work with organizations that help people, of Gods forbid be one of those that needs help. 

So when she asks today's question I am not a bit surprised. 

I mean really, why would we want educated people in this country considering the fact that if we had them she'd have been laughed off the national stage long ago. 

So here you have it:

Bachmann: Why is there a Department of Education?

By: CNN's Ed Hornick

(CNN) - Painting herself as a "constitutional conservative" Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann told Sen. Jim DeMint's forum Monday that if elected president she would look to get rid of the Department of Education, among other things.
"Because the Constitution does not specifically enumerate nor does it give to the federal government the role and duty to superintend over education that historically has been held by the parents and by local communities and by state governments," she said, responding to a question by DeMint, a popular figure among the tea party movement.

Another item on the chopping block: The Affordable Care Act.
People "see that the current government is acting outside the bounds of the Constitution. Probably the most obvious would be this, Obamacare and the individual mandate that is unconstitutional and is currently contained in Obamacare," she said.
Throughout the question and answer, Bachmann highlighted her understanding of the Constitution and the need to return to a limited federal government.
"And when I'm working with the Congress of the United States, my guiding principle will be that the government works best when it acts within the limitations of the Constitution," she said. "The current president of the United States has failed to demonstrate an understanding."
When asked about her jobs program, Bachmann pointed to her past as a tax litigation attorney and small business owner.
"(I) believe in profit and actually believe profit is a good thing and that we should encourage that in this country," she said. Bachmann called for a restructuring of tax rates for businesses – highlighting her experience in that area.
When asked if she would try and overturn Roe v. Wade, which gives women the right to an abortion, Bachmann said she would put forth a human life amendment and do everything in her power to restrict abortions. 

So let's celebrate stupid.  Without it Michele Bachmann would actually have to go out and get a real job and n ot be living off the dole like she apparently does.  

Quo Vadimus?

And so it goes: