THE LESSON OF CAMPAIGN 2010? CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM NOW!

The Urgency of Campaign Finance Reform:

A Meditation on Election Day, 2010

 by Elstun W. Lauesen

Let me begin with a little Ginsberg:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix; Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection

to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.

Yeah. Word up.

Here’s what I see. I see the best candidates of my generation destroyed by other people’s madness; people who are well fed and well-dressed, driving through the paved exurbs and hillsides looking for an angry fix; ditto-headed Christers burning for the ancient heavenly connection to explain the random crap in their lives and, in the process, getting manipulated by the political machinery of the Right.

Nationally, the moneychangers, potentates and idol-worshippers that control the political Right purchased the control of the U.S. House of Representatives on November 2nd.

Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, 130 S.Ct. 876 (2010)

The black-robed Justices of the Roberts Court are dominated by an ideology that is structurally anti-human: Capitalism. And the Citizens United case gave voice and standing to corporations in time for this election cycle. The Roberts court had a special sitting to consider Citizens United in September 2009. Most court observers agree that the decision was intended to affect the 2010 election cycle.[1]

The Court struck down a provision of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 § 203 (popularly known as McCain-Feingold) or BCRA that prohibited all corporations, both for-profit and not-for-profit, and unions from broadcasting “electioneering communications.”[2]

Justice Scalia joined the opinion of the 5 Justice Majority making explicit an interpretation of First Amendment Rights that vests the ‘rights of Englishmen’ with corporations. In the fine tradition of Judicial Kabuki, Scalia feigned shock at the Dissenters by asking (in effect) “How can you assert that…

“…the rights of Englishmen did not include the freedom to speak in association with other individuals, including association in the corporate form”[3]

The Dissent in this case was written by Justice Stevens and joined by Justices Ginsberg, Breyer and Sotomayor. The Dissent calls out the Right-Wing Court Majority for their ham-handed treatment of McCain-Feingold. Justice Stevens couldn’t be clearer in his condemnation of the Majority. BCRA § 203 was never at issue in Citizens United!

Stevens writes that the Majority “…changed the case so they could change the law”[4]

Stevens goes on to write:

At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.[5]

Where is all the hand-wringing on the Right about activists Judges? (Crickets)

The Rise of the Moloch, The Grand Acquisitors and Their Tools such as Karl Rove and Dick Armey.

With the Citizens United decision in place, legal breath and speech was bestowed upon the godless and soulless corporation. Like the Moloch of old, the corporation could spew gold from its collective mouth. The black-robed Brethren, via Magister Scalia’s invocation cited above, gave personhood to the (collectively) most powerful creature on earth. Well before the Brethren summonsed the powers of the Undead, the servants of Moloch’s Masters, who I call the Grand Acquisitors, were putting in place the machinery to gather Moloch’s gold for the purpose of directing it against those who were regarded as their enemies. The Grand Acquisitors are those for whom acquisition and accumulation of wealth is the highest religion.  I call it a religion, because “acquisition and management of wealth” is what consumes these people fervently. It occupies their thought and defines their vision of the world. While the obligatory few hours occupying a church pew may give them a religious label, the true religion of the Acquisitors is conducted within the corporate shells that host them. The Grand Acquisitors are a network of the richest and most powerful corporations and their directors. Their cloak of invisibility is the ‘corporate veil’ and their loyalty is to no nation, creed or culture; the growth of Capital is the only function that they serve.

To explore a nice schematic of the Moloch, please click here.

(c) www.npr.org:

There are three components to the machinery that is fed by the Moloch: Aggregators, Taggers and The Horde.

Aggregators are organizations like the ones created by Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie (former Chairman of the Republican National Committee) to take advantage of the Citizens United decision and the end of McCain-Feingold. American Crossroads and CrossroadsGPS are two examples of Aggregators. These organizations function as matchmakers.  They match a pool of affiliates with campaigns whose candidates serve the Capitalist cause. In effect, Karl Rove and tools like Rove are the central nervous system for Moloch. So grateful were the Corporate Masters to Clarence Thomas for his good works on their behalf in the Citizens United case, that they gave Justice Thomas’ wife’s Aggregator, Liberty Central, a million dollars after the decision. [6]

Taggers constitute is the new role for the Party establishment. In the case of the Republicans in the 2010 cycle, they needed to support candidates running against Democrats and the Moloch targeted the most viable of those candidates for support.  There is no dearth of ego and ambition on the Right. Bill Maher famously said that Conservatives campaign on the thesis that government doesn’t work in order to get elected so they can prove themselves right. Being against something is much easier than being for something as observed by the late Democratic House Speaker, Sam Rayburn (D-Tx): “Any jackass can kick down a barn but it takes a real carpenter to build it.” Since the goal of the Moloch and its Masters is to gut and debilitate government oversight, controls and regulations, they actively seek politicians who champion ignorance and suspicion of government. In general the priority of the tagging follows this hierarchy.

1. Tagged for Destruction	Politicians who support strong governmental institutions, oversight and regulations of corporations and who are not easily intimidated, seduced or otherwise compromised
2. Tagged for Neutering	Politicians who are compromisers and subject to intimidation by pressure groups and lobbyists; Evan Bayh is a good example of a malleable member of this class
3. Tagged for Support	Hard Right-Wing ideologues who are hostile to government and feel that their job in public office is to get ‘government out of the way’ of business—which, of course, benefits the Corporate Masters

The horde. For the Moloch to effect the change that the Acquisitors want, it has to have a horde of trolls that will spread out into the land and repeat the litany of the Acquisitors: ‘Government is the problem’.  

The truth is, of course, that the government is “us” and is the only means by which ‘We The People’ can balance the power of giant corporations. As long as ‘We The People’ wage war with our own government, we remain at war with ourselves. Such self-destruction neutralizes the only checks and balances against corporate abuse that exists.

The Horde is critical to the absolute rule of the Acquisitors because “the People” provide ratification for the destruction of strong public institutions. This keeps the billionaires from having to bloody their own hands or the hands of their millionaire agents in congress; the Horde will shamble onto the Commons and do the work for them.

Dick Armey, Friedrich Hayek, Contract on America, Citizens for a Sound Economy, FreedomWorks, The Tea Party Nation and Town Hall Health Care Massacres.

Few have had more of an impact on American politics than Richard Armey, former Congressman from Texas D-26. Armey is an economist with a PhD from the University of Oklahoma and a proponent of Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek and free market economic determinism. When Armey became a politician (first elected to the House of Representatives from Texas 26^th District), his public policy initiatives reflected those theories. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the influence of Hayek (8 May 1899 – 23 March 1992) seems evident. Dr. Hayek became entangled in the foundational debates over Great Britain’s Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party, just a few years before Armey himself decided to enter politics.

 In 1978 Hayek came into conflict with the Liberal Party leader David Steel who claimed that liberty was only possible with "social justice and an equitable distribution of wealth and power, which in turn require a degree of active government intervention" and that the Conservative Party were more concerned with the connection between liberty and private enterprise than between liberty and democracy. Hayek claimed that a limited democracy might be better than other forms of limited government at protecting liberty ".[7]

Then in an ironic foreshadowing of what could describe ‘Tea Party Democracy”, Hayek adds: “…but that an unlimited democracy was worse than other forms of unlimited government because "its government loses the power even to do what it thinks right if any group on which its majority depends thinks otherwise”[8]

Dick Armey helped to deliver the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, otherwise known as Bush Tax Cuts 1.  Through his connections with the Koch Brothers, conservative funders of ‘think-tanks’ that provide intellectual fodder and talking points for their allies, Armey was hired to run the Citizens for a Sound Economy, which was funded by the Koch Brothers with millions of dollars to hire academic mercenaries to produce hundreds of white papers on every subject important to the Acquisitors.

 

Under Armey’s leadership, Citizens for a Sound Economy developed a novel method of boosting its membership and revenues. Through an affiliation with a Republican businessman named J. Patrick Rooney, purchasers of insurance policies also paid for membership in Citizens for a Sound Economy. This practice carried over to FreedomWorks, when CSE changed its name. Only after Rooney and FreedomWorks were sued in a class-action lawsuit that was settled out of court, did the practice end[9].

 

In his service to his Masters, Armey helped lobby for Bush Tax Cuts 2 and then, in the shell of FreedomWorks, Armey push for tax reform, School choice, Welfare Reform, Social Security privatization, and the Flat Tax.

 

But the real organizational hand of Dick Armey has been seen in this election cycle in association with the Tea Party Patriots. Army recycled his Contract FOR America and called it Contract FROM America. FreedomWorks organized boot camps for the Tea Party movement, spent $10 M on materials and support targeting town hall protests against the Health Care reform. This latter activity cost Armey his job with the lobbying and legal firm DLA Piper, whose clients had hired the firm to lobby FOR health care reform. Leaving DLA Piper was no big deal to Armey; it left more time for his real job: deliver the Horde for the Moloch.

 

The handbook distributed by FreedomWorks to the Tea Party network includes instructions on disrupting meetings: "Pack the hall. Yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early. Get him off his prepared script and agenda. Stand up and shout and sit right back down." The memo continued, "The Rep [representative] should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the agenda of Washington."[10]

 

After CNBC Editor, Rick Santelli’s  ‘Rant heard round the world’ on February 19, 2009 from the Floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange bitching about the Obama Administration’s plan to refinance home mortgages, FreedomWorks’ Eric Odom just magically created a facebook page and a website taking up the clarion whine of Santelli and the rest, as they say, is history. ChicagoTeaParty.com came into existence 12 hours later and by February 20^th, Fox News was all akimbo over the ‘Tea Party Rallies’

FreedomWorks was involved in the financing and support of the April 15, 2009 Tax Day protests, and scores of Tea Party rallies around the nation between April 15 and July 4, 2009 including the Independence Day Rallies around the nation. FreedomWorks was involved in the training and planning for the protests held during the Town Hall meetings on Health Care reform. They were involved in the Taxpayers March on Washington in September, 2009 and the first Tea Party Convention in January 2010.

As these gatherings and protests matured, the scope of the attacks fell generally along the lines of Mr. Army’s Contract From America: “Less Government, lower taxes, more freedom.” This is, indeed, the litany of the Acquisitors.

Come Together Right Now, Over Me…

As 2010 rolled on, the political season took on greater importance in the minds of all. The Tea Party movement despite general public misgivings embraced the Citizens United decision. The FreedomWorks and Tea Party Nation networks lauded the opinion in a briefing paper. This despite the obvious fact that the decision had the potential to conflict with the very ‘liberties’ that the ‘movement’ made its priority.

Here in Alaska, even the Wasilla Patriots sent a letter in February of this year to all the media, and local governmental politicians demanding unlimited political speech in the April, 2010 municipal election in which they were planning to support like-minded candidates. They must have gotten their memo from Dick Armey that Citizens United is good for liberty-loving Americans (LaLas). Now LaLas can attack all levels of government at will and clean house and replace them with patriots!

Anyway, the Taggers were at work and FreedomWorks endorsed Marco Rubio in Florida, Pat Toomey , Mike Lee and Rand Paul. Moloch took note. Crossroads USA immediately gave $250,000 to Rubio[11] and similar levels of support are expected from the others, post-election reporting.

The horde has been unleashed and they supported all of these candidates, all of whom won, raising the Republican gain in the Senate to 5.

The total estimate of money spent during this election cycle will be $4 Billion. Much of that money spent on negative ads attacking opponents. Nearly corporations hiding under the cloak of Citizens United will have spent 30% of that money. Next year the totals will be even greater. This year, we learned about Target and Best Buy contributing to a Republican candidate supporting anti-gay positions. We learned about it because the corporations donated to a traditional PAC with reporting requirements. Next year they will be smarter, they will donate through an aggregator with an IRS (c) 4  status and they won’t have to disclose.

The lesson Learned.

Kill Moloch. Destroy the godless, soulless corporate influence in our elections. It is the popular thing to do[12] it is the moral thing to do (all speech is not equal) and it is the sane thing to do (corporations are not human). We have learned the power of the unlimited corporate money in political campaigns to bait, bully, browbeat and boggle the consciousness of the average citizen. Brilliant manipulators like Karl Rove and Dick Armey who serve the interests of the corporation over the citizen will continue to lie cheat and steal elections with impunity as long as they have the power to control the media.

How else can we explain a plastics manufacturer’s ability to convince a majority of the good citizens of Wisconsin that he is a better guardian of their civil liberties than Russ Feingold? Feingold was the only Senator to vote against the USA-PATRIOT Act that conservative and liberal scholars both agree violates our civil liberties. So what is the greatest danger to freedom and liberty—even greater than terrorism--  from which Feingold’s opponent will protect the Badger State? You guessed it: Health Care Reform.

There is no other priority greater than campaign finance reform. That is the lesson from Election 2010.

---

[1] See http://electionlawblog.org/archives/014890.html and http://volokh.com/2009/12/14/where-is-citizens-united/

[2] http://tinyurl.com/2fq2g9f

[3] http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZC1.html

[4] http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZX.html

[5] Justice Stevens, et al, ibid.

[6] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/09/us/politics/09thomas.html

[7] ^ secured from Wikipedia Entry at ^ "Letters to the Editor: The dangers to personal liberty", The Times (11 July 1978), p. 15.

[8] ibid

[9] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/22/AR2006072200683.html

[10] ^ Debates Turns Hostile, New York Times, August 8, 2009

[11] http://floridaindependent.com/9065/karl-rove-affiliated-billionaire-backed-committee-gives-246k-to-support-marco-rubio

[12] In a Washington Post-ABC News poll in early February 2010 it was found that roughly 80% of Americans were opposed to the January 2010 Supreme court's ruling. The poll reveals relatively little difference of opinion on the issue among Democrats (85 percent opposed to the ruling), Republicans (76 percent) and independents (81 percent)

How Many Votes Will Lisa Murkowski Get in Kivalina

 >NOTE: This article originally appeared in the October 15, 2010 edition of Mudflats Blog

How Many Votes Will Lisa Murkowski Get in Kivalina

By Elstun Lauesen

William Takak from Shaktoolik understands the impact of climate change. The Alaska Native Science Commission quotes him in a survey of the impact of climate change[1]. “Last Spring we only got six walrus because of the weather and the ice moving out to quick. A long time ago it used to be real nice for weeks and even sometimes for months. Now we have a day or two of good weather and this impacts our hunting. The hunters talk about the ice getting a lot thinner. It is going out too quick.”

Hannah Miller of Nome: “The seasons are getting very fast and are all mixed up. The last few years my grandmother was living she said that there was not enough time to put things away like there used to be. When we are done with the willow leaves then comes the sourdocks. These seasons are in too much of hurry now.”

In 2006, the Alaska Legislature established The Alaska Climate Impact Assessment Commission. In March 2008, the Commission delivered its report[2]. Among other findings, the Commission notes:

“In Kotzebue, the Commission recorded insights into coastal erosion in the region, relocation issues at Kivalina and Shishmaref…”

The report talks about the challenges of community relocation while techniques such as the use of armor rock are evaluated, citing “…As many as twenty other Alaskan Villages may suffer from similar strategic shortcomings”

While the Villages struggle with the consequences of global climate change, politicians in Washington DC have been struggling for years to develop a public policy to deal with the issue. Lisa Murkowski has changed on this issue in a dramatic way.

LISA THE GOOD. 2006-2008

In an article for Mother Jones Magazine[3], Journalist Kate Sheppard documents this change. Sheppard notes that in 2006 Murkowski broke from her Republican colleagues and stated that she not only believes that global warming is a fact, she also believed “…it is a reality that man is contributing to the current warming trend. Accordingly, it is appropriate and, quite frankly, our responsibility to take steps to curb the growth of greenhouse gases”

For the next year, Lisa worked with Senators like Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) on the issue and became a co-sponsor of Bingaman’s cap-and-trade bill, the Low Carbon Economy Act.

During this period Lisa was aware of and moved by the plight of rural communities. In her introduction to the REFRESH Act aimed at reducing manmade impacts of climate change she noted “In Alaska, we have certainly seen firsthand the effects of a warming climate in recent years.”[4]

With this kind of profile it is little wonder that Environmentalists were encouraged by Lisa Murkowski The Good to believe that, with the election of Barack Obama and a strong Democratic Majority in congress, real progress could be made on climate change policy. But sometime after the inauguration of President Obama, Senator Murkowski turned bad.

LISA THE BAD

The turning of Lisa Murkowski was just one-more by-product of John McCain’s appointment and ruination of Sarah Palin (I have written elsewhere that I thought Sarah was a pretty good socialist governor). When McCain-Palin lost the election, Sarah returned to Alaska as a celebrity with a national following and fund-raising power. The punditry at the time widely speculated that Sarah would have an easy shot at Senator Murkowski in the Republican primary. As a senator, Sarah would establish her bona fides (the lack of which helped pull down McCain’s candidacy) for a run against Obama in 2012 or perhaps 2016. The victory of Mark Begich over Ted Stevens provided additional trauma to Lisa who was suddenly ‘on her own’ as a Senior Senator. Lisa assumed a leadership role with the McConnell team (no doubt facilitated by Uncle Ted) and, according to the rules of that structure, she had to play ball and, in turn, would face any potential Republican challenger with a strengthened hand of plum committee assignments and national gravitas.

Unfortunately, the playbook the McConnell team was running was obstructionism and Lisa had to move hard to the Right. That meant no more maverick Global Warming stuff. While Lisa was increasing her health and armor, as a gamer might put it, she still lacked the weapons and kill points to fend off an assault by Sarah and her Troll Army. This required money—and lots of it. Sarah, after all, now had a national cult following.

So Lisa turned to the only source for amassing a war chest that she knew: PACs, industry PACs including the ever-willing energy PACs. But PACs also mean quid pro quo. For Lisa, who came to the game equipped with both brains and a conscience, this had to be framed in terms of some ‘greater good’ rationalization. Given the narrow set of options open to her, it is easy to guess how her self-justification worked: oppose my own values in the short run and I can do good in the long run; an earmark here, a bill there.

But as the anti-Obama rhetoric stepped up, the McConnell team had to match that heat with political initiatives that fed raw meat to the political mob. For Lisa, her actions were defined according to both her leadership and her committee assignments. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee, for example, became the venue for hitting the “undo” button on the very cap-and-trade bill that she had co-sponsored.

Most shocking to the liberals and moderates who had followed her political career was her direct assault on the regulation of the very greenhouse gases that she once said had to be reduced. Most notable was Lisa’s amendment to bar the EPA from using the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide. The Los Angeles Times[5] noted at the time,

Those lobbyists, particularly one named Jeffrey Holmstead, were major facilitators of campaign donations to Lisa for her re-election.

A Washington Post Story[6] also notes working relationship between Lisa’s staff and the lobbyists:

“The maneuvering comes as The Washington Post has confirmed that two Washington lobbyists, Jeffrey R. Holmstead and Roger R. Martella, Jr., helped craft the original amendment Murkowski planned to offer on the floor last fall…In an interview, Holmstead said of the Murkowski amendment, “I certainly worked with her staff” on the exact phrasing of the measure in September.”

Politico[7] was even more descriptive of the working relationship:

“Jeffrey Holmstead, head of the environmental strategies division at Bracewell & Guiliani, and Roger Martella Jr., a partner at Sidley Austin, walked Senate staffers through the details of the amendment, via speakerphone, during a meeting held at 8:45 a.m. in Room 370 of the Hart Senate Office Building on Sept. 23, 2009…”

LISA THE UGLY, AND THE CASE OF KIVALINA

Lisa Murkowski filled her war chest with $124,500[8] from the clients of the lobbyists who helped her staff draft the so-called “Dirty Air” amendments to the Clean Air Act. Ultimately, of course, Lisa ended up facing not Sarah Palin, but a much weaker surrogate, Joe Miller, who, despite Lisa’s Right-Wing correctness makeover, beat her. Obviously the base didn’t buy it.

Let’s be clear, Lisa Murkowski sold out rural Alaskans on the global warming issue, and she did it for both power and money. The question Alaskans, particularly Alaskans living in the villages along the coast have to ask is if Senator Murkowski--who sold them out at least once--will sell them out again? A Government Accountability Office report found global warming was immanent and threatening as many as 31 Alaska villages because of coastal erosion flooding and climate change. The cost of relocation of those villages could be as high (in current dollars) as $2.4 Billion. These are public costs that will be borne by state and federal governments because, in part, the companies who so generously donated to Lisa Murkowski’s political reelection have been polluting for decades and wish to continue to do so.

What is particularly ugly about Lisa’s write-in is the manner by which it cleaves Alaskans into opposing camps and pits them against each other in service to her hunger for power. An example of this cleaving can be seen in the example of the Village of Kivalina, a community located within the NANA region. Many of the residents of Kivalina are shareholders of NANA Corporation, an ANCSA Corporation now committed to the write-in campaign of Lisa Murkowski.

A super-PAC of ANCSA corporate donors has been formed to plow a million dollars of advertising on Lisa’s behalf. I doubt that the Corporation discussed this with their shareholders in Kivalina.

In 2008, the Village of Kivalina filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil, BP and more than 20 other oil and power companies alleging that their contribution to global warming is threatening to destroy the village [Kivalina v. ExxonMobil et al (2008)]. Some of the defendants, including Duke Energy, are clients of Jeffrey Holmstead. The lawsuit, from what I can tell, was dismissed in September 2009 at the District Court level in California for a lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The Village tried to appeal to the 9th Circuit Court but was turned down. Ironically, the argument by the defendants (in part) was that the lawsuit violated the Article III prohibition of federal Court jurisdiction over matters of politics. The issues in contention, Global Warming and its causes and solutions, were matter to be decided by Congress and not the Courts. The Court agreed. The Irony, of course, is that once the federal District Court in California agreed with the defendants, Mr. Holmstead et al began working to stanch Kivalina in congress. They blocked their liability in court but now they had to wound any congressional urges in the same direction as Kivalina and Lisa Murkowski became their vehicle. She was perfectly suited for all of the reasons discussed above, past credibility on the issue and facing political jeopardy from her conservative base. The political assault on clean air and global warming policy was perfectly aligned with the anti-government sentiment ignited by the corporate-funded tea party insurgency. Lisa could benefit greatly by climbing aboard and she did. In a word: Lisa threw Kivalina under the bus.

Since Lisa got donations from most of the defendants in that lawsuit, including Duke Energy, one of Holmstead’s clients, I wonder how many votes she will get in Kivalina?

[1] www.ser.org/files/ppt/Elaine%20Abraham%20PPT.pdf

[2] www.housemajority.org/coms/cli/cli_finalreport_20080301.pdf

[3] http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/lisa-murkowski-climate-change-double-agent

[4] http://murkowski.senate.gov/pressapp/record.cfm?id=267610

[5] http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/01/murkowski-greenhouse-gas-emissions-epa.html

[6] http://views.washingtonpost.com/climate-change/post-carbon/2010/01/murkowski_and_her_lobbyist_allies.html

[7] http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/15/politico-lobbyists-led-meeting-on-murkowski-epa-amendment-alaska/

[8] http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=341F1A70-18FE-70B2-A8834AE647A29686

__________________________________

Elstun Lauesen is a lifelong Alaskan who has worked for 30 years as a rural develpment specialist, including in Western Alaska.

Eric Boehlert: Glenn Beck's Incendiary Angst Is Dangerously Close to Having a Body Count

Eric Boehlert: Glenn Beck's Incendiary Angst Is Dangerously Close to Having a Body Count
This is the critical point to those conservatives who bother to discuss Beck. He is fostering violence. He is a terrorist Ayatollah of the Right in America!

Bilin Journal - In Village, Palestinians See Model for Their Cause - NYTimes.com

Bilin Journal - In Village, Palestinians See Model for Their Cause - NYTimes.com
"The Palestinian village of Bilin lost half its land to the settlement of Modiin Illit and the barrier and took its complaint to Israel’s highest court. Two years ago, the court handed it an unusual victory. It ordered the settlement to stop building its new neighborhood and ordered the Israeli military to move the route of the barrier back toward Israel, thereby returning about half the lost land to the village.'The villagers danced in the street,' recalled Emily Schaeffer, an Israeli lawyer who worked on the case for the village. 'Unfortunately, it has been two years since the decision, and the wall has not moved.' "

World Music Blog | Link TV

World Music Blog | Link TV

-Photo by SoulVision

Never Let Me Go.

the wind lofts me
from the yellow dying heart
of the Mother.

three sisters together
in the air
with memory only of clinging

now that we are naked
& aloft without pod or soil
keep us close

silky strands that bind us must
never pull apart lest terra incognita
smother me in strangeness all alone

but forces are cleaving us
even as the sun dries my tears
and I let go

and fall into strangeness and rebirth.

Louisiana renews request for mental health funding from BP | NOLA.com

Louisiana renews request for mental health funding from BP | NOLA.com
[Louisiana DHHS Director] Levine's letter explained his concerns over an "emerging behavioral health crisis" -- Louisiana Spirit counselors embedded in the impacted communities have already begun to report increased anxiety, depression, and alcohol consumption in their patients, an observation that community-based organizations have corroborated.

The reminds me of what happened after the Exxon-Valdez disaster. The EVOS Spill Fund was set up as a Trust and the Trustees consisted of scientists, academics and agency bureaucrats. A shadow team of industry lawyers vetted each request, initially denying them until the Trustees themselves got "whipped into shape" and became an effective filter for projects. They did not allow "indirect impact" funding, for example, and preferred projects with strict metrics. So the EVOS Trust became a fund for very narrow biological studies that really benefited the industry--the kinds of studies that the industry would be required to do in connection with "Findings of Facts" related to its impact on biological species. Meanwhile, the human and community toll on Natives and Fishers mounted. All of those issues were regarded as "indirect" or "secondary" impacts from the spill. As a result: the Eyak language program that had begun prior to the spill, was swept away by all the attention in the villages with the immediate consequences of so-called "clean-up" and fisheries recovery. The last Eyak speaker died in 2006.

Touchdown Jesus meets the Cult of Palin | Ekklesia

Touchdown Jesus meets the Cult of Palin | Ekklesia
A nicely drawn article relating Sarah to kitsch.

POLITICO: Palin allies launch new legal defense fund, citing 'witch hunt' - Ben Smith - Palin allies launch new legal defense fund, citing 'witch hunt'

More manufactured victimization to enrage and inspire the weak-minded members of her Cult. This ought to be good for a few hundred thousand. "Look, there's Sarah on that crushed velvet cross looking so hot and martyry...Ok...pout...*click* Perfect, Sarah, now dismount from the cross and go shopping for some new shoes!"

Gulf oil spill: Boat captain, despondent over spill, commits suicide

Gulf oil spill: Boat captain, despondent over spill, commits suicide

Conservative media defend BP against “shakedowns,” “show trials,” and environmentalists at least 62 times « The Fifth Column

Conservative media defend BP against “shakedowns,” “show trials,” and environmentalists at least 62 times « The Fifth Column

The Republicans, rather their 'Conservative' media echo chamber, are proving themselves to be like the Price Regent in the Blackadder series, oblivious to the most obvious of things that concern the rest of us. After years of 'riding shotgun' in the gold-plated National Security stretch-Hummer whilst regarding environmental concerns as so much political road-kill, Conservatives are failing to adapt to a 'New Reality' on the political ground. On 4.20.10 Americans suddenly woke up to another enemy attacking our shores and 'National Security' and the 'Environment' suddenly converged. Tone deaf conservatives need to park the Hummer and get out and walk. This is a new war and a new Reality.

Great Anti-Meg Whitman Ad..."A" for Creativity.

KWAN,Tainted love

Rahm: Want To Know The Difference Between Republicans & Democrats? Look At Joe Barton!

Rand Paul Offers Sympathy For Joe Barton: I Know What A Pile-On Feels Like

Rand Paul Offers Sympathy For Joe Barton: I Know What A Pile-On Feels Like
Sarah Palin Endorsed Him; Now She Owns Him!

CALL "SORRY" JOE BARTON!

Thank you for contacting me. If you need immediate assistance please call my Washington office at 202.225.2002

Reporters clash with Coast Guard, BP security - Yahoo! News

Reporters clash with Coast Guard, BP security - Yahoo! News
It is becoming a battle for information--literally!

Shades of Exxon V Baker: Transocean Invokes Maritime Law To Limit Liability

[Image to left by Carolyn Kaster / The Associated Press of Steven Newman, president and CEO of Transocean Limited, testifies during a House subcommittee hearing on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.]

The article below ran May 13, 2010 and I missed it. I wrote an article that ran in the Anchorage Daily News a couple of years ago objecting to the Supreme Court's decision in Exxon v Baker to permit the Circuit Court decision to stand that allowed Exxon attorneys to introduce ex post facto a new argument in the case: this very same limitation of liability now being requested by Deepwater Horizon Ltd. Will BP's attorneys be far behind in invoking this same precedent set by Exxon? I think not. All the while, of course, their PR shop will be telling the world that they will 'do the right thing' for the victims of the disaster. In the Exxon case, Professor Arthur Miller of the New York University School of Law, an expert in court procedure, filed an amicus brief objecting to the action of the Circuit Court in allowing the introduction by Exxon attorneys after the deadline for such new or amended legal argument had passed. Miller asked the SCOTUS to set aside the limitation on liability based upon the very argument now being advanced by Deepwater Horizon. Of course the Roberts Court ignored Professor Miller's plea and reduced Exxon's liability to a dime on the dollar of the original jury award.

It does not take a law degree or much of a legal imagination to guess where the Roberts Court's thumb will be applied upon the scales of justice when the BP gangsters and their consigliore finally reach their SCOTUS safe-house and the motherly embrace of Mama Scalia.
_____________________________________________
SCOTT HIAASEN, McClatchy Newspapers

MIAMI -- Reaching back to an 1851 law, the legal push to limit liability for the 2010 oil spill has begun. Transocean, Ltd., the Switzerland-based offshore contractor that owned the Deepwater Horizon floating drilling rig, has asked a federal court in Houston to limit its liability from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to less than $27 million.


Invoking a little-known maritime law passed in 1851, the company said it should not have to pay any more than the salvage value of the charred oil rig and its freight, all of which sank in 5,000 feet of water after the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers. Before the accident, the Deepwater Horizon was valued at more than $500 million.

In a statement, Transocean said the court petition was filed at the request of its insurance companies, and the petition will allow the company to consolidate all outstanding lawsuits before a single federal judge in Houston. The company said it now faces more than 100 lawsuits over the spill in several states.

Lawyers for those injured in the blast said the petition could also prevent any claims filed more than six months after the accident.

"It's very unfair," said Matthew Shaffer, a Houston attorney who represents a handful of Transocean employees injured in the blast. "It's a slap in the face to anyone who has been injured because of their negligence."

Transocean's filing comes as the Obama administration and Congress seek to retroactively raise liability limits that would cap the cost BP, the runaway well's owner, would have to pay. The current limit is $75 million. Some members of Congress have proposed raising that to $10 billion.

Shaffer said Transocean must prove it did nothing wrong to cause the accident in order to successfully limit its damages.

"I think it's hard to believe they didn't have any knowledge of what was going on on their own rig," Shaffer said.

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(c) 2010, The Miami Herald.

Huge Mineral Find in Afghanistan

Maybe Pebble isn't so attractive anymore.

Riki Ott: From the Ground: BP Censoring Media, Destroying Evidence

Riki Ott: From the Ground: BP Censoring Media, Destroying Evidence
BP and the "North To The Future" Foundation gave the University of Alaska a million dollars to archive Ted Stevens' boxes of papers. Thank you, BP. I wonder why they liked Ted Stevens so much? Anyway...interesting report from Dr. Ott.

The Next Stage of Human Evolution: A Unitary Consciousness

Let's picture an orb.

We can travel around it like a sun, but this orb is so dense that the equilibrium of the escape velocity of light equals v(1/v+1), meaning that the quantum of resistance is some factor greater than the velocity of light. Gases and the elemental layers are divided by their specific gravity and compressed so greatly that isotropic static from electrons in excess of the quantum equilibrium of each layer form rings at the borders between the layers. This means that light is refracted along these layers with the effect of a venetian blind. As we travel around, glimmers of light fractals--colored by the spectral characteristics of the isotropic layers—offer sparkling contrast to the dominant bands of absolute blackness.

The other thing we notice is that 'matter' from nearby satellites is being drawn like so many dust devils into the orb. The base of the dust devil being somewhere in the black bands and the top edge of the vortex roughly the diameter of the individual satellites that are getting sucked in.

A graphic novelist might imagine Aunt Hattie’s house and all of its furnishings ‘falling upwards’ toward the sky, along with that beautiful grove of poplars that we remember climbing as a child…up by their roots and into the swirling vortex toward the orb. Dear Aunt Hattie, herself, might be pictured by the artist in the foreground holding her Sunday hat in place looking somewhat like the model for Edvard Munch’s The Scream. Oh my, Auntie, we might cry out, you are falling into a great big hole! And there you have the most important visual clue to understanding our universe and how it ticks. Holes are geometric orbs suspended in space, not flat holes in the ground like the one into which Alice fell.

The geocentrism and biocentrism of us humans are revealed when we read about black holes; we habitually think of the simple gravity model of earth rather than envision the complex gravity of space. Yet we know that a black hole isn't a hole torn through our space when we can actually see the penumbra of a black hole through Hubble optics. The existence of a galactic backdrop tells us that back holes aren’t like holes in the boat; they are orbs suspended in space.

Doctor Robert Lanza’s observations about the “biocentrism” of the human observer are profound and liberating. Our biology provides a limited and imperfect lens through which we understand the universe. Even wonderful devices like the Hubble telescope, merely make our imperfections more precise. Philosophers have examined this issue of how we know and whether we can know since ancient times. They call this field of analysis epistemology. Dr. Lanza adds to that ancient discussion.

I believe the limits of our own biocentrism argue for the role of the artist and the poet in the fields of deepest scientific inquiry. Transcendent vision and intuitive leaps come from outside the biological lens. Carl Jung once wondered if the ecstatic visioning of the mystics might presage an evolutionary development of human consciousness when a unitary and not a fragmented awareness of the universe will be “normal”.

Maybe one day we will have a ‘technology of the sacred’ and ‘visionary’ engineering to aid in our survival and happiness.

Perhaps that day is closer than we dinosaurs may suspect.

Abby Sunderland is alive and apparently safe aboard her damaged sailboat

Abby Sunderland is alive and apparently safe aboard her damaged sailboat
Great news!

BP Logo Redesign Contest (PHOTOS)

BP Logo Redesign Contest (PHOTOS)

I LOVE this!

Abby Sunderland Feared Lost At Sea

Abby Sunderland Feared Lost At Sea

This is terrible. If you believe in it, pray for her...

~e

BP's Continued Denial Of Underwater Plumes Provokes Ridicule

by Dan Froomkin

An oceanographer just back from two weeks of taking water samples in the Gulf of Mexico told a House panel on Wednesday that BP officials are utterly wrong to keep saying there are no large masses of oil lurking below the surface.

"I think part of the problem is that it depends on what the definition of 'large' is," said Samantha Joye, a senior marine scientist at the University of Georgia. "I don't know what their definition of large is, but I'll bet it's not the same as mine."
Joye's instruments, deployed from a University of Miami research vessel, the Walton Smith, detected both the presence of oil and the depletion of oxygen in very deep water -- 900 to 1200 meters below the surface -- in a plume five to eight miles away from the leak site. As she explained in an interview: "All of the sensors we have to pick up oil and its various components go crazy in the plume."

Lab results from one of the first research vessels doing subsurface tests found only minor concentrations of oil, but Joye, who is expecting test results back shortly, said her samples will inevitably show more than that. "These stank to high heaven," she said. "They smelled like creosote, asphalt and diesel.""These plumes are real," she said, "and it's not just oil." Joye, who blogged her research, said she is also very concerned about the concentrations of methane and other gases, such as ethane, propane, butane and pentane, in the water.

BP officials have routinely tried to wave off the notion that much of the oil spewed from their blown out well is suspended in the water column, killing wide swaths of sea-life in the short run, and possibly endangering coastlines for decades to come.

The latest denial came Wednesday morning as BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles told NBC "we haven't found any large concentrations of oil under the sea, and to my knowledge no one has."
But Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey, whose House Energy subcommittee held Wednesday's briefing, said afterward in a statement to the Huffington Post: "It's said that sound travels for miles underwater, yet BP continues to be completely deaf when it comes to warnings from scientists about these underwater plumes. NOAA has found them. Independent scientists have seen them, even smelled them. When will BP finally listen?"
Another witness before Markey's subcommittee had actually taken a swim through underwater oil -- though much closer to the surface. Philippe Cousteau, the grandson of the famous oceanographer, showed members of Congress video of his dive through "swirls of this orange, toxic soup" that he described as "one of the most horrible things I've ever seen underwater."

The Obama administration, while at long last officially confirming the presence of some underwater oil, is still not exactly going out of its way to contradict BP, either. At a press briefing yesterday, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen insisted that, rather than plume, "a cloud is a better term."

Joye dismissed the distinction between clouds and plumes as "semantics."

In her presentation, she pointed out that the deepwater oxygen depletion caused by the plume could well be a much longer lasting problem than oxygen depletion close to the surface, which can be replenished by photosynthesis and fast currents. Deepwater "dead zones" could last for years -- "likely decades."

And Joye called on NOAA to get more resources out onto the gulf to measure subsea oil. "I think they need dozens of ships."

But more than anything, she said, what scientists need to know is precisely how much oil and gas has leaked. Neither BP nor the Obama administration have been forthcoming on that front. Joye wrote:

It is virtually impossible to understand or quantify the ecological consequences of the BP blowout on the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem without knowing how much oil and gas has leaked from the wellhead. These numbers need to be estimated and corroborated independently based on available observational data. Unfortunately, the leak rate was not quantified robustly during the first month of the spill (at least that information has not been made publically available). Unless we know how much oil is leaking from the wellhead, we cannot gauge the full extent of the ecological consequences in deepwater or surface water environments. For example, how much deepwater water column oxygen consumption will be fueled by this influx of oil and gas? Which water column microbial communities will be stimulated by oil and gas? What is the time scale of this response? How will surface water microbial communities respond to surface oil and gas inputs? Potential fishery, marine mammal, and wildlife consequences of the BP blowout cannot be properly predicted until we know the magnitude of the disaster. To put it bluntly, the scientific community is hamstrung until we know precisely how much oil and gas has leaked and is leaking from the wellhead.
Or, as she put it to HuffPost: "We need to get that number!"
© 2010 Huffington Post

John Lundberg: Physicist Decodes a Walt Whitman Poem

John Lundberg: Physicist Decodes a Walt Whitman Poem

Mayor Dan & The Wing Nut: Moves on the Political Chessboard

David William Bronson has a profile that the profiler in "24" would say screams of Right-Wing nuttery.

Bronson was born in Wisconsin, as famous for its "treaty beer" and militias as it is for great football and a top flight State University system. Wisconsin has given birth to the good, the bad and the ugly. The good is Fightin' Bob LaFollette the founder of the progressive wing of the Republican Party. The GOP was founded in Ripon, WI. The Ripon Society is a centrist think-tank with roots in the progressive era. The bad is Joseph McCarthy who defeated LaFollette in the 1946 Primary for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. Joseph ("Have-You-No-Decency-Sir") McCarthy who will forever be associated with political witch hunts and scurrilous tactics was a pure Wisconsin product. And finally, the ugly: racism. The mash-up of rural parochialism and the urban blue-collar class led to racial clashes as the post-WWII in-migration of non-white groups occurred. The hard-cobbled Scandinavian, Scot and German farm folk were alienated by the events of the 60s and early 70s. The appeal of the Nixon-Agnew politics of polarization was intense and the racial and class resentments that simmered just below the surface burst forth in the 1970s and 1980s over Native American Treaty Rights. My own Tribe, the Lac du Flambeau Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa in Northeast Wisconsin was right in the middle of the conflict. The LDF Band was asserting their spear-fishing rights on the lakes contiguous to their Reservation. This activity was consistent with the Treaty of 1857 and the LDF did not recognize the right of the State of Wisconsin to regulate a Government-to-Government Federal-Tribal fishery. The acrimony by the Whites was shocking. The demonstrations by White hunters and fishermen were particularly violent. Shots were fired at spear fishers. Boats vandalized and sunk, cars damaged, tires slashed. Physical threats and intimidation were used against Tribal members. Wisconsin Tribal members were called "Tree-N*gg*rs" by the protesters and anti-Treaty organizers were funded by outside hunting and fishing groups who saw the exercise of Tribal Treaty Rights as an assault on their freedoms and liberties.

It was in this ugly period of racial confrontation and political polarization that Mr. Bronson, Dan Sullivan's nominee to the School Budget Advisory Commission came of age, graduating from high school in 1976 and from college in 1981. Hunting and fishing are listed on his resume as his principal interests. I just wonder how he feels about Alaska Natives and Alaska History and School Within Schools and Bi-Lingual Bi-Cultural Education.

Better be careful with any word that begins with "Bi" because one thing we do know about Mr. Bronson is that he opposes the civil rights of Bisexuals, along with Gay and Transgendered citizens.

There is nothing in David Bronson's resume that reveals an interest in education. What it does tell me is that this guy has a clear political agenda; his educational agenda is not so clear. According to Mudflats Blog, Bronson home-schooled his children, meaning that his relationship to public education has been exclusionary.

So why does a person whose interests are hunting and fishing, whose civic activities have been focused on opposing civil rights for Gay citizens, whose political engagement is church-based and whose relationship to education has been home schooling suddenly gets the itch to be on the School Budget Advisory Commission?

And why did Dan Sullivan suddenly get an itch to plug a political commando from the Anchorage Baptist Temple into a Commission whose subject he has no interest or expertise?

Ahhhh, politics. Sullivan is as obvious and crude a player at the art of politics as they come.

The person Mr. Bronson will be replacing on the School Budget Advisory Commission is Elizabeth Valesquez. Last month Ms Valesquez was appointed to the Mayor's Municipal Budget Advisory Commission. Republican friends have told us that Dan Sullivan is positioning Ms Vasquez to run against Harriet Drummond, the popular West Anchorage City Assembly Member who has been a thorn in the side of the Mayor. Political observers recall how much mileage Adam Trombley got out of HIS stint on the Municipal Budget Advisory and Republican friends say that the Mayor intends to do the same with Valesquez.

The Republicans and Mr. Sullivan have their eye on the School Board for a couple of good reasons. First, they want more control over the School District Budget. The District Budget is larger than the City's and real control by the Mayor's pals over the hundreds of millions of dollars spent for goods and services in the city can't be asserted until the School District is brought to heel. Second, the political reality of the School District is that it is disciplined and well-managed meaning that the anti-government types who fester in the swamps of Republican LaLa Land have a hard time getting elected. Don Smith's election was a fluke, which is obviated by the nearly 2:1 number of votes that his two progressive opponents got in that contest. The decision by well-liked retired educator Tommy O'Malley to jump into the race after James LaBelle signed up and split the sane voting block is one that will touch raw nerves for years to come.

Nevertheless, conversations with some school board members reveal a general concern with Don Smith's agenda: make trouble, raise Hell, stir the pot, obstruct and basically disrupt School Board meetings until he can get fellow Right-Wing ideologues on the Board to make an effective minority. Smith's refusal to sign a conflict of interest pledge because he wants to oppose School Budgets before the Assembly makes him a hero to Sullivan and the Mayor wants to send in fresh troops to help Don Smith. Up next Spring are a few seats on the School Board and we can expect to see Don Smith's political locker partner, Bob Griffin, to be on tap. One School Board Member who is up next time told me that Bob Griffin is a "horrible ideologue" and part of the Pulpit-driven team fielded by the Anchorage Baptist Temple and ChangePoint-Alaska. Griffin lost, but he will be back. Mayor Sullivan wants to make sure, through this appointment, that David William Bronson will on the ballot as well.

The following is a list of 2 years of notes and commentary that I have posted on Facebook. In going over this list--as part of my garage cleaning in preparation for shutting down--I realize a few things: I have a lot to say and I put in a lot of work saying it and Facebook sucks as a medium of serious expression. The fact that FB notes does not permit rich text is one example of FB's limits. I pasted the formatted text into this box and voila! no formatting, unless I want to waste an hour putting in html tags. No thank you. :(

My very first post on FB was a note about our servile relationship to technology and the law; in this case: leaf blowers. I had some photos of contract lawn maintenance workers at Wells-Fargo leaf-blowing in the rain! And there were no leaves! WTF? I asked. Response: it's in the contract. In other words: we are legally obligated to behave stupidly.

My favorite post was April 2009 on When Life Is Only Sacred In The Womb: The Folly of Life as a Political Abstraction. Harriet and I attended a Planned Parenthood Awards Banquet at the Hilton and we had to negotiate a picket line from the Fetus Cult. This post constituted my thoughts on the matter.

My bravest post was on September 13, 2008 when I stood outside the newly opened Dena'ina Center at 7 AM facing hundreds of Palin Supporters welcoming their favorite daughter home after two weeks of non-stop media exposure. I was alone, holding a sign next to the entrance where people had to file past me to get in. My sign said STOP THE McCAIN-PALIN LIES! I memorialized my experience.

My dumbest post was an attempt to rally my friends for International Talk Like A Pirate Day using the likeness of Sister (Mother) Angelica, a Nun wearing an eye-patch and a snarl. I was later informed that Sister Angelica had suffered from a stroke, lost her sight in the eye with the patch and snarl was muscular atrophy. I ate a HARRRty dose of humble pie for that one.

My most frustrating piece was a December 8th post--on my Birthday--countering a Compass piece by Dan Sullivan. I was frustrated that no one in the opposition seemed to be aggressively challenging Sullivan. He is wrong on the economics and wrong on the history and simply wrong on the budget assumptions that was driving what promised to be a disastrous fiscal plan for the City. Bringing in a budget $10 M under the cap was just plain wrong. Of course history has proven me right. Woop-de-doo.

My least understood note was 12 Dialectical Precepts for a Meditation on the Future of Alaska that I posted October 2009. Silly rabbit.

Most fun was had with a piece simply titled "Mosquitoes" that ran July 3, 2009.

But the best post is this one. My last one.

Miigwetch y'all

*********************************************************************************
2010
Goodbye to Facebook...Jun 6, 2010 My Sympathy Note to Jill Burke of "Palin Watch" (Alaska Dispatch)May 15, 2010 Comments on KTVA website accompanying Sarah Palin's Fox video feed, which they dutifully post Apr 28, 2010 On Muster, McVeigh, Bullies, & Chutzpah Apr 20, 2010 Letter in support of Assembly Resolution No. AR 2010-92 (independent legal counsel investigation of Sullivan Trust matter) Apr 13, 2010 The Full Indictment of David Brian Stone et al Mar 29, 2010 "Big Earl" & The Alaska Media-Cartoon Circa 1979 Mar 24, 2010 PLEASE READ & PASS ON: The Benefits of Health Care Reform In Alaska! Mar 22, 2010 IMMEDIATE BENEFITS UNDER THE ACT THAT JUST PASSED! Mar 21, 2010 E-Mail From A Citizen On The Sullivan Insurance Boondoggle Mar 7, May 15 My Sympathy Note to Jill Burke of "Palin Watch" (Alaska Dispatch) Apr 28 Comments on KTVA website accompanying Sarah Palin's Fox video feed, which they dutifully post Apr 20 On Muster, McVeigh, Bullies, & Chutzpah Apr 13 Letter in support of Assembly Resolution No. AR 2010-92 (independent legal counsel investigation of Sullivan Trust matter) Mar 29 The Full Indictment of David Brian Stone et al Mar 24 "Big Earl" & The Alaska Media-Cartoon Circa 1979 Mar 22 PLEASE READ & PASS ON: The Benefits of Health Care Reform In Alaska! Mar 21IMMEDIATE BENEFITS UNDER THE ACT THAT JUST PASSED! Mar 7 E-Mail From A Citizen On The Sullivan Insurance Boondoggle Feb 20 RAY METCALF TO PAUL LAIRD & DAN FAGAN: LET'S DEBATE, ANYTIME; ANYWHERE! Feb 17 Excerpts From "The Power Elite" C. Wright Mills (c) 1956 Feb 2 A Note on Republicans and Obama Hatred. Jan 22 THE CONSERVATIVE PATRIOTS OF WASILLA MAKE SCOTUS 'FREE SPEECH' DEMANDS--OF THE ALASKA PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION! Jan 21 Note to Erick Cordero's 'Future of Politics' Mock-Up; Enterprise Concept-CASH-IN ON SCOTUS UNLIMITED CORPORATE SPEECH DECISION! Jan 21 Summary of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission Jan 20 THE WORLD-WIDE WEB IS AT WAR! Jan 15 Senator Lisa Murkowski: Give Back The Money! Jan 4 A CURSORY REVIEW OF PARNELL PRESS RELEASES & ASSOCIATED QUESTIONS FOR TOMORROW'S "TALK OF ALASKA" CALL-IN WITH SEAN PARNELL Jan 4 SAVING THE ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS: A TECHNOLOGY-BASED PARADIGM SHIFT FOR NEWSPAPERS

2009
Dec 29 Come To Harriet's New Year's Eve "Pre-Party" Before You Seriously Rock Out of 2009 Dec 21 All Hail Queen Esther: Ruler of America's Pity Party Dec 20 The Prayer for Attracting Auspicious Signs Dec 15 When Life Is Only Sacred In The Womb: The Folly of Life as a Political Abstraction Dec 13 90 Days of Shazaam Tags: The List Dec 8 RESPONSE TO DAN SULLIVAN'S COMPASS PIECE, December 8, 2009 Dec 7 Obama, the anti-Churchill? Dec 3 Count down to Copenhagen ... 4 days! Contact Andrea Sanders (FB Message) Dec 3 A Clash Of Visions for Anchorage Nov 26 Thanksgiving and Juanita Nov 19 ADP: MOTIVES BEHIND CITY ATTORNEY’S REPORT ANALYSIS QUESTIONABLE Nov 19 On Playing the "Beating Your Wife" Game Where The Puck Isn't: A Mixed Metaphor For Stupid Political Games Nov 17 Time for some Palintology Nov 10 JUANITA LAUESEN HELMS- Obituary Nov 3 Ambassador Alvarez's Visit to Alaska Nov 2 Mother of all Carry Trades Faces an Inevitable Bust Nov 1 Winter Poetry Oct 19 Public Option Vs "Private" Insurance Made Easy... Oct 15 Response To The Sender of An Anti-Obama 'Viral' Email *UPDATE* Oct 7 12 Dialectical Precepts for a Meditation on the Future of Alaska Oct 6 BRING BACK THE STATE INCOME TAX, RESTORE REVENUE SHARING & CUT RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY TAXES! Oct 6 CLEANING OUT MY BACKPACK... Sep 29 Flowers of Spring Do Die Sep 29 Editor, The Arizona Republic Sep 28 Republicans Wink At Potential Domestic Terrorism While Falsely Accusing Obama of Weakness Abroad! Sep 21Questions You Are Asked When Applying To The Benedictine Order of White Robed Monks... Sep 20The Year in Hate: Number of Hate Groups Tops 900 Sep 20 A Tribute To Sister (Mother) Angelica and My Foolish Use of Her Photo... Sep 17Autumn Splendor Sep 16 Texas State Board of Education Wants To Mandate A Conservative Historical Revisionism Sep 10 COMMENT DEADLINE: 5 YEAR PROGRAM FOR OUTER CONTINENTAL SHELF DEVELOPMENT Sep 7 My Synopsis of President Obama's Speech To America's School Children in 8 Brief Paragraphs... Sep 7 Now You, Too, Can Argue Like A Conservative Pundit! Sep 6 Alaska's Apartheid Sep 2 Right-Wing Inspired Hate Crimes Against Latinos; I Wonder About the Identical Type of Violence Against Native Alaskans Here Sep 1 "Can You Hear Me Now?" A Few Studies on Cell Phone-Induced Cancer and Related Phenomena. Aug 28 My Letter to the Editor of Rex Rammell's Hometown Newspaper Aug 21 Message from Eric Seitz, attorney regarding Leonard Peltier's Parole Denial Aug 21 Peltier Parole Denied! Aug 14 meng's mountain Aug 12 Letter to the Editor: Investors Business Daily Aug 2 The Parable of the Water Tank (1897) Jul 24 Advice on Friends (Facebook and otherwise) Translated by Erick Sherab Zangpo. Jul 21 Leonard Peltier Solidarity Broadcasting Live and Streaming Jul 17 Thinks Conservatives Should Quit Complaining About "Cap and Trade " & Apologize For Their "Tax Cap" Disaster! Jul 3 BEWARE THE HUBRIS-NEMESIS COMPLEX Jul 3 On Mosquitoes Jun 29 IRS Issues Tribal Economic Development Bond Guidance Jun 25 Friends of Sanford: The Club For Growth--Right-Wing Ball Busters Jun 4 A Contrarian's Take On Ronald Reagan... May 31 It's All About Balance: The 'White Guy' Fulcrum Vs A Latina Fulcrum May 28 Attacking Judge Sotomayor Apr 30 When Life Is Only Sacred In The Womb: The Folly of Life as a Political Abstraction Apr 27 2004 Story on Computer Modeling Viral Epidemiology Apr 24 A Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth? Apr 13 Sarah To Alaska: "SCREW YOU!"; Campaign Trip During Closing Days of Legislature Slammed by Dems & Mat-Su Leaders Apr 8 Ted & Justice: Reflections on the Reign of Terror of Ken Starr Apr 1 Ted & God Mar 31 From The American Prospect: WHOSE AFRAID OF THE NEW MEDIA? Mar 29 The Anonymous Political Blogger in Alaska V Doogan's Thin-Skin Mar 28 Sarah's Shameless Sham: Rhetoric Trumps Human Need, Response To Presidential Candidate Palin's ADN Column Mar 28 Which Is Rep Eric Cantor (R-VA)'s Fave Britney Song? Mar 27 Legislature & Denali Commission Step In to Fill Alaska's Leadership Void as Palin Runs for President Mar 25 Municipal Assembly Takes A Pound of Flesh From School District Last Night Mar 17 AIG Capitalist Conundrum Nothing New To Victims of the Exxon-Valdez Oil Spill Mar 16 Alaskans Experience Don Young... Mar 5 "I have never seen such ineptness in our GOP leadership" RNC Member on Michael Steele Mar 3 ALASKA STIMULUS-PRELIMINARY Feb 26 Clarence Dullman Thomas & Pope Scalia and the Conservative-Doms of the Supremicist Court, Rule Against Tribes... Feb 25 Look At This Upcoming Agenda for the Conservative Political Action Committee Feb 23 Even as The Daily News Declines, There is Great Writing to be Found! Feb 21 The History of the Internet Feb 21 Blaine woman trying to get anti-evolution initiative on state ballot Feb 15 Resurgent Republicans Are Beltway Hallucination.... Feb 4" Begich says stimulus bill could create 8,700 Alaska jobs" by Dermot Cole Feb 4 My Email To Rachel Maddow Feb 2 House GOP’s Stimulus Plan Would Actually Raise Taxes For Many! Feb 2A Semi-Defense of Blagojovich Jan 22 Statement of President Obama on the 36th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade Jan 4 A Balanced View of Isreal's Actions Is Badly Needed! Jan 2 Republicans to flee D.C. for Inauguration

2008
Dec 23 Review Minnesota Senate Ballots for Yourself! Dec 19 Some raw thinking about the value of labor and Union contracts Dec 13 Memo to Sarah Palin: Here is how a real Governor acts... Nov 5 What I Thought About Listening to Barack Last Night... Sep 18 A Viral eMail Worth Posting Sep 13 My Solo Protest! Sep 12 Obama and the Palin Effect by Deepak Chopra Aug 18 Professor Calvin Broadus, Jr... Aug 16 Did I mention that I HATE leaf blowers. All-Ages & Edited Version