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Taylor Marsh has been writing on line since 1996, with the archives provided here a representation of that work.

Tag Archives | John F. Kennedy

J.F.K., King and the Archives of a Giant

By on 16 January 2012

**UPDATED**

There are nearly a million documents associated with the life of Martin Luther King Jr. These pages will present a more dynamic view than is often seen of Dr. King’s life and times. The documents reveal the scholar, the father, and the pastor. Through these papers we see the United States of America at one of its most vulnerable, most honest and perhaps most human moments in history. There are letters bearing the official marks of royalty and the equally regal compositions of children. You will see speeches, telegrams, scribbled notes, patient admonitions and urgent pleas. This spotlight shows you a glimpse of the remarkable history within this collection. – The King Center – Archives

Oh, the irony, MLK digital archives are brought to the world by J.P. Morgan Chase.

Dr. King‘s rhetoric was forged in fire and brimstone on the altar of confrontation. King was destined to pave the way, not just for Barack Obama, but for another Democratic president back in his day, including J.F.K. Pres. Kennedy impacted my life a great deal through my big brother, which I write about in my new book. It’s why I wrote, produced and directed a one woman show “Weeping for J.F.K.” back in 2005. It took the collision of two great men to dismantle the prejudice of America’s political history, even if civil rights remains a scarred wound that doesn’t take much to rip open.

Dr. King was forever challenging the U.S. media, but there weren’t many in the establishment that didn’t feel Dr. King’s heat. It’s certain that President John F. Kennedy did. But King lived in times of volatility, cataclysmic change and violent national shifts. He was a powerfully effective man of peace in a time of country and cultural wars.

Some believe that President Kennedy’s presidency was owed, at least in part, to Dr. Martin Luther King. In a moment of stunning political pressure inside his own camp, candidate Kennedy reached out to Martin Luther King when he was convicted of a probation violation after participating in a diner sit-in in Atlanta, Georgia. Forever the political pragmatist, Kennedy saw the light, with a big push from Bobby, and interceded on behalf of King to get him released from Reidsville Prison. That, as some tell it, changed history. King as an ally brought out the black vote, helping to defeat Nixon. But there were many other fault lines in 1960, including Texas, Illinois, but especially West Virginia, that played their part, too. So I’ll let you be the judge of whether King helped elect Kennedy. He sure didn’t hurt him. Neither did Kennedy’s pledge to right the wrongs being done to blacks.

However, once president, Kennedy was simply too obsessed with foreign policy issues to turn his attention to the home front. He just didn’t get the importance of King’s fights down south, at first, especially when juxtaposed against the crisis brewing overseas. The challenges escalating between East and West Germany kept JFK’s attention focused on nuclear confrontation, then came the Cuban Missile crisis. But eventually, JFK began to finally understand that the home front matters as much as what’s happening “over there,” especially in the face of horrible prejudice. Kennedy was a man who could change and he did.

Known as the Birmingham Campaign, King altered history and shifted Kennedy’s thinking along with it. His famous Letter from Birmingham Jail” is now legend. It was King’s incarceration in Birmingham that led Coretta Scott King to call President Kennedy, which resulted in him interceding once again on King’s behalf, forcing the Birmingham bigots to allow King to talk to his wife.

The March on Washington and King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” worried President Kennedy at the time. He was understandably concerned about violence breaking out, but eventually King won him over.

Watching the brutality in Birmingham and the subsequent political push from King and other civil rights leaders changed Kennedy forever. Months before King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, on June 11, 1963 (audio), JFK proposed action that would offer “the kind of equality of treatment which we would want for ourselves.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. had gotten through to Kennedy, revealing something from which J.F.K. had once been distanced, a world away.

John F. Kennedy’s address that June:

Good evening, my fellow citizens:

This afternoon, following a series of threats and defiant statements, the presence of Alabama National Guardsmen was required on the University of Alabama to carry out the final and unequivocal order of the United States District Court of the Northern District of Alabama. That order called for the admission of two clearly qualified young Alabama residents who happened to have been born Negro.

That they were admitted peacefully on the campus is due in good measure to the conduct of the students of the University of Alabama, who met their responsibilities in a constructive way.

I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents. This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was rounded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

Today we are committed to a worldwide struggle to promote and protect the rights of all who wish to be free. And when Americans are sent to Viet-Nam or West Berlin, we do not ask for whites only. It ought to be possible, therefore, for American students of any color to attend any public institution they select without having to be backed up by troops.

It ought to be possible for American consumers of any color to receive equal service in places of public accommodation, such as hotels and restaurants and theaters and retail stores, without being forced to resort to demonstrations in the street, and it ought to be possible for American citizens of any color to register and to vote in a free election without interference or fear of reprisal.

It ought to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color. In short, every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated. But this is not the case.

The Negro baby born in America today, regardless of the section of the Nation in which he is born, has about one-half as much chance of completing a high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day, one-third as much chance of completing college, one-third as much chance of becoming a professional man, twice as much chance of becoming unemployed, about one-seventh as much chance of earning $10,000 a year, a life expectancy which is 7 years shorter, and the prospects of earning only half as much.

This is not a sectional issue. Difficulties over segregation and discrimination exist in every city, in every State of the Union, producing in many cities a rising tide of discontent that threatens the public safety. Nor is this a partisan issue. In a time of domestic crisis men of good will and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics. This is not even a legal or legislative issue alone. It is better to settle these matters in the courts than on the streets, and new laws are needed at every level, but law alone cannot make men see right.

We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.

The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?

One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.

We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is a land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except Negroes; that we have no class or cast system, no ghettoes, no master race except with respect to Negroes?

Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise. The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased the cries for equality that no city or State or legislative body can prudently choose to ignore them.

The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South, where legal remedies are not at hand. Redress is sought in the streets, in demonstrations, parades, and protests which create tensions and threaten violence and threaten lives.

We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and as a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is a time to act in the Congress, in your State and local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives.

It is not enough to pin the blame on others, to say this is a problem of one section of the country or another, or deplore the fact that we face. A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all.

Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality.

Next week I shall ask the Congress of the United States to act, to make a commitment it has not fully made in this century to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law. The Federal judiciary has upheld that proposition in a series of forthright cases. The executive branch has adopted that proposition in the conduct of its affairs, including the employment of Federal personnel, the use of Federal facilities, and the sale of federally financed housing.

But there are other necessary measures which only the Congress can provide, and they must be provided at this session. The old code of equity law under which we live commands for every wrong a remedy, but in too many communities, in too many parts of the country, wrongs are inflicted on Negro citizens and there are no remedies at law. Unless the Congress acts, their only remedy is in the street.

I am, therefore, asking the Congress to enact legislation giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public–hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments.

This seems to me to be an elementary right. Its denial is an arbitrary indignity that no American in 1963 should have to endure, but many do.

I have recently met with scores of business leaders urging them to take voluntary action to end this discrimination and I have been encouraged by their response, and in the last 2 weeks over 75 cities have seen progress made in desegregating these kinds of facilities. But many are unwilling to act alone, and for this reason, nationwide legislation is needed if we are to move this problem from the streets to the courts.

I am also asking Congress to authorize the Federal Government to participate more fully in lawsuits designed to end segregation in public education. We have succeeded in persuading many districts to de-segregate voluntarily. Dozens have admitted Negroes without violence. Today a Negro is attending a State-supported institution in every one of our 50 States, but the pace is very slow.

Too many Negro children entering segregated grade schools at the time of the Supreme Court’s decision 9 years ago will enter segregated high schools this fall, having suffered a loss which can never be restored. The lack of an adequate education denies the Negro a chance to get a decent job.

The orderly implementation of the Supreme Court decision, therefore, cannot be left solely to those who may not have the economic resources to carry the legal action or who may be subject to harassment.

Other features will be also requested, including greater protection for the right to vote. But legislation, I repeat, cannot solve this problem alone. It must be solved in the homes of every American in every community across our country.

In this respect, I want to pay tribute to those citizens North and South who have been working in their communities to make life better for all. They are acting not out of a sense of legal duty but out of a sense of human decency.

Like our soldiers and sailors in all parts of the world they are meeting freedom’s challenge on the firing line, and I salute them for their honor and their courage.

My fellow Americans, this is a problem which faces us all–in every city of the North as well as the South. Today there are Negroes unemployed, two or three times as many compared to whites, inadequate in education, moving into the large cities, unable to find work, young people particularly out of work without hope, denied equal rights, denied the opportunity to eat at a restaurant or lunch counter or go to a movie theater, denied the right to a decent education, denied almost today the right to attend a State university even though qualified. It seems to me that these are matters which concern us all, not merely Presidents or Congressmen or Governors, but every citizen of the United States.

This is one country. It has become one country because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents.

We cannot say to 10 percent of the population that you can’t have that right; that your children can’t have the chance to develop whatever talents they have; that the only way that they are going to get their rights is to go into the streets and demonstrate. I think we owe them and we owe ourselves a better country than that.

Therefore, I am asking for your help in making it easier for us to move ahead and to provide the kind of equality of treatment which we would want ourselves; to give a chance for every child to be educated to the limit of his talents.

As I have said before, not every child has an equal talent or an equal ability or an equal motivation, but they should have the equal right to develop their talent and their ability and their motivation, to make something of themselves.

We have a right to expect that the Negro community will be responsible, will uphold the law, but they have a right to expect that the law will be fair, that the Constitution will be color blind, as Justice Harlan said at the turn of the century.

This is what we are talking about and this is a matter which concerns this country and what it stands for, and in meeting it I ask the support of all our citizens.
Thank you very much.

It took constant campaigning from King, but JFK came to understand that action was required. Kennedy became the first president since Truman to trumpet the cause of civil rights. President John F. Kennedy’s civil rights legislation was met with fierce opposition by the southern delegations of Congress. He was assassinated before it became law.

The legislation LBJ finally signed was Kennedy’s hope for a new America. Had John F. Kennedy lived, his civil rights actions would have been met hard in the south during his 1964 campaign. JFK never lived to fight this fight. The legislation LBJ signed was Kennedy’s final vision, and the words LBJ spoke upon the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 encapsulized the moment for history: “We’ve lost the south for a generation.”

King’s eulogy upon JFK’s death proved the respect each man had won from the other and that politicians can change to forge great hopes for those oppressed. He said that John F. Kennedy lived his life to “move forward with more determination to rid our nation of the vestiges of racial segregation and discrimination.”

King made the men of the 1960s come his way, see the overwhelming injustices. Like many great men, history has given evidence that he was wholly human and flawed. His life force was gargantuan. His courage unbounded. His faith guided his life, because he knew his soul would live on and on. His memory has as well.

It’s not many a man who could change the course of John F. Kennedy’s life and his philosophy. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had the power to do just that and it changed America forever.



Edited from post first published 1.15.07, re-posted once again on this Dr. King holiday.

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MSNBC Needs Ann Coulter as a Permanent Contributor

By on 29 November 2011

Ms. Coulter pronounced it Democratic, not Democrat, so what’s the problem?

Adults watch “Morning Joe,” not children. “Sesame Street” it is not. So the audience can handle the likes of Ann Coulter, otherwise why book the bombastic right wing bandleader?

There’s also the reality that no one articulates right wing primary voters’ plight better than the screed merchant from the right.

Coulter’s presence led to a spectacular segment, adding more energy and relevancy on today’s conservatism than anything Peggy Noonan could ever bring to the show.

Then the inevitable happened, though Politico blasting out Coulter being bleeped was more about driving web page hits (glad to help on this one) than it was about anything that happened as a result, because after a moment of unnecessary awkwardness, the segment continued.

While talking about the Arizona senator, Coulter’s audio was bleeped by the show, cutting in and out three separate times, for a total of about 13 seconds.

After the sound returned, Coulter paused, realized that something had happened, and then could be heard asking others on the show, “What did I say? Oh, douche bag.”

“Just blur it all out,” host Joe Scarborough responded, apparently talking to the control room.

Mika Brzezinski looked away, acting like she couldn’t bare to look at Coulter. She is far more adept than to simply play the scold to Coulter’s fire breathing partisanship, which anyone booking this woman knew was going to erupt, because her volcanic style is not only legendary, but also why she’s invited on to cable. Mika could just as easily have said, “Now, that’s not necessary,” following what Mike Barnicle had done a few minutes earlier when Coulter laid into former Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Meanwhile, post bleep, Joe Scarborough tried to speed up time.

Coulter’s brand of acidity has become a tonic amid the hypocrisy of the Republican parade of wannabe candidates, the latest being Newt Gingrich’s move to the spotlight as this opportunistic K-Street resident hawks conservative credentials he doesn’t have. Her endorsement of Mitt Romney and her reasoning priceless. To paraphrase, Mitt’s flipped to her position, the conservative one, so what’s the problem?

What’s not to love about that?

Mr. Scarborough’s op-ed today for Politico is a perfect backdrop for Coulter’s decision to endorse Mitt Romney. An excerpt of the quiz he offers:

2. Who bragged about being a moderate with this comment, “There is a new synthesis evolving with the classic moderate wing of the party, where as a former Rockefeller state chairman, I’ve spent most of my life”? A. Mitt Romney B. Newt Gingrich C. Jon Huntsman

3. Who starred in a 2007 global warming commercial with Nancy Pelosi that was sponsored by Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection? A. Mitt Romney B. Newt Gingrich C. Jon Huntsman

5. Who was paid $312,000 by ethanol interests and then said ethanol is good for national security and for the economy? A. Mitt Romney B. Newt Gingrich C. Jon Huntsman

9. Which candidate went on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and called Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan “radical” and “right-wing social engineering”? A. Mitt Romney B. Newt Gingrich C. Jon Huntsman

15. Which candidate was ranked by Cato Institute in 2008 one of the most fiscally conservative governors in America? A. Mitt Romney B. Newt Gingrich C. Jon Huntsman

16. Which candidate was cited by the Pew Center for running the “best-managed” state, hailed by Forbes magazine as the “most fiscally fit” and ranked first in the country for job creation? A. Mitt Romney B. Newt Gingrich C. Jon Huntsman

17. Whose economic plan does The Wall Street Journal consider the most impressive and conservative of the Republican presidential field? A. Mitt Romney B. Newt Gingrich C. Jon Huntsman

Mika Brzezinski tried to get Coulter to name Huntsman as the most conservative candidate running, however, what Mika misses is that Coulter’s neoconservative hawkism doesn’t consider avoiding foreign misadventures a conservative principle. That’s the problem with conservatives today, as they remain afflicted with Cheneyism.

Coulter rightly eviscerating Newt Gingrich is also something only she and Joe Scarborough have gone out of their way to do, with Scarborough bringing more focus to Mr. Huntsman lately as the real conservative than anyone else.

Joe should have Coulter back. Regularly. MSNBC should also make her a contributor. They can attach a rider to her contract on language and decorum if they’re that squeamish.

Love her or hate her, no one represents the way through for the Republican right wing primary voter better than Ann Coulter. She can articulate crazy better than any other conservative, she’s articulate and a consummate entertainer, something that MSNBC is sorely lacking.

Never before has the right needed Ann Coulter more desperately. Up is down this year. Insanity is now sane. Republicans need to provide Ann Coulter with a renaissance and with it she needs to up her game and leave “douchbag” behind her. Because in a year where Republicans can’t find any core at all, Ann Coulter is providing a compass for 2012.

The only thing that’s important is to win.

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BARNES & NOBLE Chooses THE HILLARY EFFECT in ‘NOOK First’ Featured Authors Campaign

By on 14 November 2011

It’s incredibly exciting to announce that The Hillary Effect has been selected as one of two non-fiction e-books in the Barnes and Noble “NOOK First” featured authors campaign, just launched.

Being selected as part of this “NOOK First” Barnes and Noble project was an incredible honor and opportunity. Now you know why we waited until this week to publish.

This is a tremendously exciting moment for the entire team that made this happen, beginning with Thomas Ellison and Hutch Morton of Premier Digital Publishing.

What a stunning send off they’ve given my e-book.

So, Barnes and Noble is the only place you can buy The Hillary Effect until December 15th.

Pop the champagne! …just don’t spill it on your NOOK.

NOTE: Aps for your pc, MAC and iPad are available for free at Barnes and Noble.

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Update on the The Hillary Effect

By on 08 November 2011

Today’s not going to be the day we publish, but I promise we’ll have a big send off for the publication next week! It will be worth the wait.

Some book PR to give you a little more on what it’s all about.


Spanning nearly two decades of American politics, The Hillary Effect is the provocative and insightful story of the first viable female presidential candidate in history to win a primary and do so in spite of her campaign team’s mistakes. And the galvanizing impact that her loss represented for both women and men, in and out of Washington. It revolves around media coverage that treated her differently as first lady, senator and then presidential candidate – not only because she was a woman, but because she was Hillary Clinton.

Candidly written by veteran political analyst, Taylor Marsh, it is the view from a recovering partisan, someone who the Washington Post called a “die hard Clintonite” in their profile of her in 2008.

The Hillary Effect began when Hillary, as first lady, dared to challenge China’s treatment of women. A countless number of women have and will benefit from her presidential loss, the most famous being Sarah Palin (the Tea Party queen of 2010 and first female on a national Republican presidential ticket), who weaves throughout this story as the anti-Hillary. The Hillary Effect also sees Michele Bachman as a player, as the first Republican female to win a straw poll, primary or caucus.

The male leads in this stunning tale are Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama (someone who turned out to be very different from candidate Obama), with David Plouffe and Mark Penn making appearances. The story includes a host of media personalities and their outlets, but also new media and progressive voices, and famous names like Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Sally Quinn, the late Tim Russert, Richard Wolffe, Laura Ingraham, Liz Cheney, Peggy Noonan, Maureen Dowd, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and even Bill O’Reilly, who offered Hillary the best interview she would do during the 2008 season.

All of this is seen through the economic and political crises of today, health care, women’s individual freedoms being challenged by the right, Afghanistan, women’s rise around the world, the debt ceiling debate, tax cuts for the wealthy, Occupy Wall Street and an American public disenchanted with Republicans and Democrats, just as the race for 2012 revs up.


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About the Book Cover

By on 25 October 2011

The party’s over.
The view from a recovering partisan.

My e-book is scheduled to be published two weeks from today, November 8th. It will be available on Amazon, to download on Kindle, or on Barnes and Noble, as well as your iPad. It’s a busy, exciting time in my world.

Since I announced my book two weeks ago, I’ve had a lot of feedback on the cover. Continue Reading →

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Lady Gaga Serenades Bill Clinton

By on 17 October 2011

Gaga — who also crooned a Marilyn Monroe-esque version of “Happy Birthday” to the former president, who celebrated his 65th in August — suggested that the audience should get “caught up in a little Bill romance.” She then launched into her 2009 hit as she slipped off a skirt that covered the lower half of her nude-colored bodysuit, wiggling her booty as she did so. As the video below reveals, Bill and Hillary Clinton both had a good laugh … – Lady Gaga serenades Bill Clinton with ‘Bad Romance’

I’m a huge Lady Gaga fan. Only she could take a page from Marilyn Monroe and not only add to it, but obliterate it.

This should wake you up and get your week started.


More from the concert is below. (Gaga at around 22 minutes then serenades Hillary, too.)

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Taylor Marsh Authors The Hillary Effect – Politics, Sexism and the Destiny of Loss

By on 11 October 2011

Due out in November. Available on Amazon.com, on your Kindle, Barnes & Noble, Nook, and iPad.

Spanning nearly two decades of American politics, The Hillary Effect is the provocative and insightful story of the first viable female presidential candidate in history to win a primary and do so in spite of her campaign team’s mistakes. And the galvanizing impact that her loss represented for both women and men, in and out of Washington. It revolves around media coverage that treated her differently as first lady, senator and then presidential candidate – not only because she was a woman, but because she was Hillary Clinton.

Candidly written by veteran political analyst, Taylor Marsh, it is the view from a recovering partisan, someone who the Washington Post called a “die hard Clintonite” in their profile of her in 2008.
The Hillary Effect began when Hillary, as first lady, dared to challenge China’s treatment of women. A countless number of women have and will benefit from her presidential loss, the most famous being Sarah Palin (the Tea Party queen of 2010 and first female on a national Republican presidential ticket), who weaves throughout this story as the anti-Hillary. The Hillary Effect also sees Michele Bachman as a player, as the first Republican female to win a straw poll, primary or caucus.

The male leads in this stunning tale are Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama (someone who turned out to be very different from candidate Obama), with David Plouffe and Mark Penn making appearances. The story includes a host of media personalities and their outlets, but also new media and progressive voices, and famous names like Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Sally Quinn, the late Tim Russert, Richard Wolffe, Laura Ingraham, Liz Cheney, Peggy Noonan, Maureen Dowd, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and even Bill O’Reilly, who offered Hillary the best interview she would do during the 2008 season.

All of this is seen through the economic and political crises of today, health care, women’s individual freedoms being challenged by the right, Afghanistan, women’s rise around the world, the debt ceiling debate, tax cuts for the wealthy, Occupy Wall Street and an American public disenchanted with Republicans and Democrats, just as the race for 2012 revs up.

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Emails from ‘Christian Conservatives’ Begin: ‘Mitt Romney Belongs to a Cult’

By on 10 October 2011

The “Values Voters” Summit hit Washington this weekend and the religious bigotry hit the fan along with it. Politico runs down the whole sorry faith competition that’s erupted inside the Republican right.

Texas evangelical leader Robert Jeffress, the megachurch pastor who introduced Rick Perry at the Values Voter Summit, said . . . he does not believe Mitt Romney is a Christian.

Jeffress described Romney’s Mormon faith as a “cult” and said evangelicals had only one real option in the 2012 primaries.

“That is a mainstream view, that Mormonism is a cult,” Jeffress told reporters here. “Every true, born-again follower of Christ ought to embrace a Christian over a non-Christian.”

Asked by Politico if he believed Romney is a Christian, Jeffress answered: “No.”

The Christian leader warned that in a general-election race between Romney and Obama, he believes many evangelicals will stay home and leave the GOP nominee without their votes.

Jeffress said that he himself would vote for Romney.

He also said that he had not spoken with Perry about his views on Romney’s faith and was “in no way speaking for him.”

What’s happening to Mitt Romney is reminiscent of what Barack Obama went through when rumors about his religion became fodder for email smear campaigns. Romney’s people are hitting back hard at Rick Perry, with a supporter of his, Robert Jeffress, starting the brawl. The difference is that Obama is not a Muslim, while Romney is a Mormon. What the hateful screeds have in common is exalting anyone’s religion over another in a political race that shouldn’t be about anyone’s personal religious faith.

It’s simply un-American to pit one religion against another in a quest for the presidency.

Taking off on what Robert Jeffress has said, emails about Mitt Romney’s religion have begun slamming my email inbox, the latest under the subject heading: Mormon Bishop’s Daughter Agrees With Jeffress, Mitt Romney Belongs To A Cult. It’s from a woman named Kay Bell who is pimping an alleged Mormon Bishop’s daughter, who evidently agrees with Jeffress.

Kay Bell, in her email, is trumpeting Tricia Erikison’s writing, which has at its heart a despicable premise: Can Mitt Romney Serve Two Masters? The Mormon Church Versus The Office Of The Presidency of the United States Of America.

Mormonism is a religion to which I became exposed when I met my husband, a recovering Mormon. As old timers around here know, I also had a head on collision with the tech team taking care of my site at the time when they took it upon themselves to alter links in a piece about Mormonism I did many years ago. Back in 2007, “Censored by Two Mormons” revealed the lengths two people of that faith would go when anyone writes about the intricacies of it.

Personally, I cannot relate at all to Mormonism. But I have the same problem with Catholicism that depends on a pope to connect with God, not to mention the misogyny embedded in this faith. However, I wouldn’t genuflect to my husband either, which is what Southern Baptists believe, while other alleged Christian churches won’t acknowledge the civil rights of gays. The notion that only men are worthy to lead any church is something I reject out of hand, which is why I’m a rebel Episcopalian. What brought me to that religion was a female reverend who once guided it (All Saints Parish in Beverly Hills), my bond solidified when I met and heard speak Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first bishop ever of the Episcopal church, though now I make daily meditations my connection to our intelligent universe.

Religious zealots of any religion, especially the bigoted version from wherever it rises, have a lot in common, whether they’re Mormons, evangelical Christians or Muslims.

A candidate’s religion and his faith has no place in U.S. politics. But you can thank Ronald Reagan for giving “Christian conservatives” like Kay Bell power they haven’t earned and don’t deserve.

Below is a snippet of just one of the emails I have received. It’s despicable.

It also proves that Mitt Romney, if he’s going to win the Republican nomination, just may have to do his version of J.F.K.’s religion speech and reach out to the crazies in his party if he is to prevail.

According to the Random House dictionary, a cult is a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies; a group or false sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc; a religion or sect considered to be, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader; the members of such a religion or sect.

Let us break down each section of the definition of a cult, as it relates to the religion of Mormonism:
“A particular system of religious worship, exp. With reference to its rites and ceremonies;”:
Mitt Romney has participated in the secret Mormon Temple ceremonies throughout most of his life. In these ceremonies, he has

• made physical signs of slashing his throat by placing his right thumb to his left ear, dragging it around his neck to the right ear, symbolic of “suffering his life to death” if he reveals the secret blood oaths, covenants and rites he agreed to therewith.
• made physical signs of holding his right hand up, clasping a symbolic knife and taking the knife down to the left of his abdomen, violently pulling the knife to the top of his right shoulder, then holding the knife out to his right side, turning his hand downward allowing it to fall to the ground, then holding both of his arms out to the sides and bending his body forward symbolic of his guts spilling on to the ground if he revealed the secret blood oaths, covenants and rites he agreed to therewith.

There were many more frightening secret handshakes and blood oaths taken by Mitt and his wife, Ann. To see the full authentic version of the secret temple ceremonies they attended, participated in and made blood oaths in agreement to, you may go here: http://packham.n4m.org/endow84.htm. It is also important to note that these ceremonies have been changed several times due to their exposure on the internet. Mitt Romney started going through and participating in these ceremonies at the very young age of 19 as he embarked on his two year mission for the Mormon Church.

“a group or false sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc; a religion or sect considered to be, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader”
• The Mormon Church has experienced a steady succession of charismatic leader “prophets”, starting with the founder of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith. Joseph, as the founder of this massive religion could not seem to muster even one truthful outcome of his prophecies. The second prophet of the Mormon Church, Brigham, Young, suffered the same plight. Please go here for proof of the false prophecies of the founders of the Mormon Church: http://www.irr.org/mit/wdist/false-prophecies.html.
• These same founders practiced polygamy under this Mormon principal.
• The Mormon Church to this day has a “prophet” at the head of the church. The leaders of the church are the Prophet and his two counselors, the 12 apostles and the council of the 70’s.
“the members of such a religion or sect”
• Mitt Romney is a member of such a religion or sect.

The most outrageous fact the media is not bringing to the American people is the reality that Mitt Romney truly believes that when he dies, if he has kept his blood oaths and covenants to the Mormon Church, he will become a literal GOD in his next life. He also believes that he will be given his very own planet/kingdom in which he will call his wife, Ann, into by her secret name given to Mitt in the temple ceremony. On Mitt’s planet, he and Ann will have relations to populate it with spirit children.

Mitt Romney has sworn in the secret Mormon Temple Ceremonies to the Law of Consecration: “to consecrate yourselves, your time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed you, or with which he may bless you, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the building up of the Kingdom of God on earth and for the establishment of Zion.”

This is extremely important because if Mitt Romney absolutely must obey the religion of Mormonism and the Prophets of the Mormon Church first, before his allegiance to our country. His very eternal exaltation to godhood depends on it.

Furthermore, the Mormon Church teaches that the Kingdom and Government of God will be enacted from the Garden of Eden, located in Jackson County Missouri. Mormon Prophet Bruce McConkie stated “During the millennium the church will have the rule and the government of the world given to it”.

I think we can all agree that it is important that the leader of the free world possesses the ability to discern fact from fiction. Otherwise, if he has lived a life of deception, we can conclude that he will continue to be deceived and that his judgment may be distorted. Because the wisdom, judgment and discernment of our President may be crucial to our survival, would it not be prudent to examine his fundamental foundation and beliefs? And if his beliefs are distorted, why would it not be critical to our existence to protect our country from being placed in the hands of such a person?

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Obama and His Base, Mitt and Rick

By on 30 August 2011

Way down at the bottom of the latest CNN poll:

Meanwhile, the survey indicates that number of Democrats and independents who lean towards the Democratic party who would like the party to nominate someone else besides President Barack Obama has topped out after months of steady growth. Seventy-two percent of Democrats want to see Obama re-nominated, with 27 percent wanting a different candidate. That’s virtually unchanged since early August, although it is higher than in June.

The 27% isn’t a problem unless come November 2012 these people stay home, which could be a real issue. If almost 30% are disgruntled now with Pres. Obama, what could he do to entice them to come out to vote?

Is Rick Perry’s candidacy enough to make that happen?

Mitt Romney thinks it is, because he’s convinced Perry’s motor mouth will be a problem for Republicans. Guess what? He’s correct and in the coming weeks we may see that reality in action.

From Mark Thiessen:

Why should Romney attack Perry directly when the Democrats, the liberal media and Michele Bachmann will do it for him? Romney’s strategists note that Perry will have to survive five debates in six weeks — ample opportunity for Bachmann to “rip his eyes out” (as she did to Tim Pawlenty) or for Perry to blow himself up.

Well, “Romney’s strategists” also have to know that even if their candidate ultimately prevails, he’s going to need the Tea Party voters who prefer Perry, but also Bachmann and Rand Paul.

Romney also wouldn’t be the first presidential nominee out of Massachusetts who needed a Texan to help him win the White House, though the resemblances end there.

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What Would Teddy Think Today?

By on 04 August 2011



Depends on which Edward M. Kennedy you’d ask.

Teddy Kennedy of 1978, who stood up to challenge Jimmy Carter no matter the cost, he might have one opinion of Barack Obama’s presidency.

I remember that Kennedy, while I stood in gas lines in New York City and watched how helpless America looked during the Iranian hostage crisis.

Today we can’t even talk about something as bold as a primary challenge to Pres. Obama, no matter that he’s earned it. The money juggernaut of Obama reelect is one reason, but with even progressives proclaiming no one can challenge Obama because he’s the first African American president, as Markos Moulitsas did with Keith Olbermann recently, it puts Barack Obama in a very special class of his own; one that elevates the politician over policy prescriptions that shore up our country’s overall health.

The Tea Party crazies wouldn’t be interested in this type of political etiquette, if you will. They want to win the argument through legislation, while managing to change the entire economic debate by taking on the GOP establishment and forcing an outcome the insiders couldn’t have come close to getting on their own. Tea Party outsider muscle helped Republicans beat Pres. Obama and his entire economic and political teams combined.

The Kennedy who endorsed Barack Obama in the star studded media extravaganza, covered by cable with full fanfare that would have been embarrassing to Edward R. Murrow, what would he think today of Obama’s presidency?

Sen. Kennedy proudly passed the torch, but Obama’s presidency as it stands today, well, it’s hard to imagine this is what Teddy had in mind.

Things aren’t getting better because the administration doesn’t even recognize that they are – that their boss is – the problem. – John Aravosis

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Obama’s Lost Moon Shot on Energy

By on 20 July 2011

“… We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.” – President John F. Kennedy (September 12, 1962, at Rice University, Houston, Texas)

On this date in 1969, we landed the first man on the moon, and part of this adventure concludes for the United States tomorrow, with the final space shuttle mission set to land at 5:56:58 a.m. EDT at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

I cannot begin to express the joy I’ve had in watching this American passage, remembering the wonder of this visionary journey and accomplishment. Betsy Mason over at Wired has an amazing piece and photo gallery on what NASA did to train the APOLLO astronauts. Thanks to everyone at NASA and all the supporters of this amazing feat, as we all await the next journey, provided Congress understands that investment, research and development is critical for America’s future. There’s absolutely no evidence at this point our politicians get this fact.

Thinking about the anniversary of the moon landing today, I’m reminded of what is required to make the seemingly impossible manifest.

When Pres. Bill Clinton ruminates about the wondrous explosion of economic growth in the ’90s he experienced as president, he never forgets to cite the amazing technological expansion of the internet that helped make it happen. He often says how he just put the pedal to the metal and exploited every aspect to help it work for America as he led the country to peacetime prosperity and a booming economy that left George W. Bush a record surplus.

Thinking of both Pres. Kennedy’s vision and Clinton’s initiative to harness what was happening in technology, is something that leads me to be unforgiving of the wasted opportunity for what Pres. Obama’s presidency might have meant to this country.

When Pres. Obama won the presidency things had turned sour economically, so what he inherited was a horrendous mess, including wars waged off the budget and a country whose leaders were disrespected around the world. His presidency held the hope that all that was about to change.

With the American people behind him wholeheartedly when he was inaugurated, the press cowed and the world waiting for greatness, Barack Obama had a once in a generation opportunity to do big things, really big things. Like tackle our energy challenges, which would impact us domestically, as well as our foreign policy and military priorities, a situation that has bled this country dry of resources we’ll never recover. He could have harnessed business leaders of industries, mayors and governors to commit to having their cities be bullet train depots, so we could finally get high-speech rail from New York to the Midwest to the Pacific Coast, from north to south and across this country, creating jobs by the thousands along the way, including side industries of workers and support, with the results manifesting a new way to travel, at least for America.

People in Europe have been traveling this way for years.

All of a sudden a tax on gas wouldn’t be so onerous. “Drill, baby, drill” a bad memory of bankrupt celebrity politicians and their fans.

But to imagine, implement and sell a nationwide building extravaganza focused on changing our energy focus Mr. Obama would have had to have had a vision. He did not. Instead he doubled down on military actions, reneged on campaign pledges to remove the stench of the Bush-Cheney legacy by doubling down on drone attacks, starting another war in Libya and continuing rendition and allowing “secret” prisons to continue. If you want to see the final gasp of “hope and change” read Jeremy Scahill’s article about Somalia. Our Nobel Peace Prize President now turned to ash.

So, as we all trudge into another presidential election cycle we’re stuck dealing with meager men and women running for the highest office in the land and the world, people who talk to interest groups, factions and fans, without having the core character to speak about a larger human purpose.

John F. Kennedy spoke of choosing to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, but then he did something about it at a time when American limitations didn’t exist. When leaders dreamed of big things and stuck their own neck out to sell them for the good of the country, not because it would help them win the Independent vote.

We are still a great nation, but we are now led by smaller men. …and women, because you can’t have a country in the mess it is today without a collapse of leadership from all quarters, including We The People. At some point the American public has simply got to walk away from the current political class to say enough is enough.

Last View This image of the International Space Station was taken by Atlantis' STS-135 crew during a fly around as the shuttle departed the station on Tuesday, July 19, 2011. STS-135 is the final shuttle mission to the orbital laboratory. Image Credit: NASA


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HIT PIECE: Michele Bachmann’s ‘Stress-Induced’ Headaches ‘Incapacitate’

By on 19 July 2011

Aw, come on, boys. If John F. Kennedy can do it on all the drugs he chugged, so can Michele Bachmann.

The Daily Caller headline is the tell:

Stress-related condition ‘incapacitates’ Bachmann; heavy pill use alleged.

It cannot possibly be a coincidence that with Rep. Michele Bachmann surging we now are privy to a potentially devastating report about the presidential candidate allegedly popping pills to alleviate pain.

Women have worked for over one hundred years to be taken seriously and considered as strong candidates for commander in chief. One has to wonder if this was leaked to make voters question her health, but also her strength. Headaches are not considered by most to be something serious, maybe even a frivolous complaint by someone with a weak constitution.

With such incredible details, it seems obvious Mrs. Bachmann has a very serious problem:

The Minnesota Republican frequently suffers from stress-induced medical episodes that she has characterized as severe headaches. These episodes, say witnesses, occur once a week on average and can “incapacitate” her for days at time. On at least three occasions, Bachmann has landed in the hospital as a result.
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“She has terrible migraine headaches. And they put her out of commission for a day or more at a time. They come out of nowhere, and they’re unpredictable,” says an adviser to Bachmann who was involved in her 2010 congressional campaign. “They level her. They put her down. It’s actually sad. It’s very painful.”

As someone who has worked tirelessly to cure myself of migraines, I find this report alarming.

There is something horribly wrong with a professional person who isn’t dealing with deeper issues that trigger a migraine. As the Daily Caller reports, she’s been hospitalized and had to recuperate at home, away from her job, because of them, after having been incapacitated by them. Being treated with medication is dealing with the symptoms and staving off the results of something in your life that precipitates the event.

You cannot get rid of any health issue without finding the root of the cause of your problem, whether it’s diet, lifestyle, maybe a spouse or even your job.

Now, I don’t pretend to know any specifics about Mrs. Bachmann’s debilitating pain issues, but as someone who once had to live with migraines from the time I was a kid, had to perform while throwing up off stage between numbers because of them, as well as having my long ago past riddled with 24-hour vomiting over 3 days before they broke, I sure as hell know the answer isn’t medication, which offers no definitive solution. Thankfully, I cured myself. Solving the riddle of pain means discovering what in your life is causing the stress that leads your brain to the pain seizures of migraines.

But if you don’t, can’t or won’t, pills it is. At least today there are new drugs that make the days of injections a memory.

Of particular concern to some around her is the significant amount of medication Bachmann takes to address her condition.

The former aide says Bachmann’s congressional staff is “constantly” in contact with her doctors to tweak the types and amounts of medicine she is taking. Marcus Bachmann helps her manage the episodes.

Sources who spoke to The Daily Caller said they did so because they are terrified about the impact the condition could have on Bachmann’s performance if she actually became president. They also worry that the issue could blow up in the general election campaign, giving President Obama an easy path to re-election.

The drugs that kept Pres. John F. Kennedy alive went well beyond migraine medications, as historian Robert Dalek wrote in “An Unfinished Life,” which was just one of the hundreds of sources I relied on for my one woman show on J.F.K.  If he had run for office today, let alone been president, there is no way he could have kept his double digit list of medications a secret. He had his women, his doctors and all the drugs that kept him alive:

  • Anesthetic procaine, for his Addison’s disease
  • Cytomel, for thyroid deficiency
  • Lomitil
  • Metamucil, now there’s a commercial for you
  • Paregoric
  • Phenobarbitol
  • Trasentine, to control his colitic diarrhea
  • Testosterone, to increase his energy and boost his weight after bouts of colitis
  • Penicillin, for urinary tract flare ups
  • Fluorinef, to increase his salt absorption due to Addison’s
  • Cortisone
  • Tuinal, for insomnia – a side effect of the cortisone
  • Antihistamines, for an array of allergies
  • Codeine
  • Steroids… Oh, and Vitamin C and calcium.

J.F.K. also had lots of doctors who gave him his “vigah,” including injections. They also led to rumors that Nixon tried to steal his medical records. He had an allergist; an endocrinologist for his Addison’s disease; a gastroenterologist for his colitis; a urologist, because he’d gotten a urinary tract infection from venereal disease; an orthopedist for his degenerative spine, but no one knew.

What this report is meant to conjure up is Rep. Bachmann’s physical frailty. It’s a political attack by “former aides” trying to take the bitch out.

There’s a reason Tim Pawlenty had a former aide of Bachmann do an op-ed hit piece in Iowa. A reason Rick Perry is being pimped by the conservative boys’ club. It’s not that he’s got anything Michele Bachmann hasn’t. He’s chock full of crazy, too. But at least he’s not a f*#!ing girl.

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We Don’t Build Anymore, We Privatize

By on 11 June 2011

… Today’s intellectual consensus thus fiercely opposes public infrastructure. For example, while it’s always nice to talk about repairing bridges, in 2009, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) pointed out the truth of the Obama administration’s stimulus program: “Larry Summers hates infrastructure. And some of these other economists — they don’t like infrastructure. … They want to have a consumer-driven recovery.” – Public pays price for privatization

If Pres. Obama is going to change the current economic trajectory he has to do something concrete, literally.

Matt Stoller wrote about it this week, linking to a piece by Laura Tyson. From Stoller:

[...] We need to look to the political coalitions behind our immense public works and ask which coalitions today support the current infrastructure rhetoric. Seen through that lens, the real trend in infrastructure today is not building more of it but privatizing what exists.

After all, building infrastructure implies the ability to build things here and being able to use the power of taxation to finance them. Privatizing infrastructure requires the ability to securitize revenue flows. Which one do you think modern America does better?

Privatization takes inherently governmental functions — everything from national defense to mass transit and roads — and turns them over to the control of private actors, whose goal is to extract maximum revenue while costing as little as possible.

Republicans have long advocated this in the name of free markets — saying that privatizing government services reduces the size of government. Democrats express more mixed support, but they sometimes go along for the privatizing ride.

Yet it isn’t true, as a general rule, that privatization shrinks the public sector. When investor demand for high returns is combined with the natural monopolies of public assets, what often results instead is citizens finding themselves saddled with high fees and poor service.

Even more perniciously, selling infrastructure such as toll roads puts the coercive power of the state in the hands of private actors. We have great public assets built by prior generations. We should and could be building a better country for our children, rather than liquidating what we have. [...]

In response, Cato comes down on the side of no art, applauding Gov. Sam Brownback for eviscerating the Kansas art budget.

It’s not J.F.K.’s country anymore.

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Weiner Wrap, with Barbara Walters

By on 10 June 2011

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

The elite D.C. media, new media, talking heads, gleeful Republicans, and spineless Democrats all weighed in… and then New Yorkers had their say, including Barbara Walters.

According to the one-day poll, conducted Wednesday, just 33 percent of voters in New York’s Ninth Congressional District think Weiner should resign from the House, while 56 percent do not think he should resign. – Poll: Weiner’s Constituents Don’t Think He Should Resign

Rep. Weiner is not resigning, in spite of the chattering class calling for it.

An ethics investigation may reveal more, though I doubt it because they take too long and even Charlie Rangel survived his, but there’s no reason to jump unless there is something indictable. Again, see David Vitter. The worst is over for Mr. Weiner, regardless of what may ensue from the Democratic establishment.

If John F. Kennedy had been held to today’s standards he would never have been president, with his White House behavior something the press would have ravaged him over today, perhaps rightly so:

Since they had not lived together before marrying, Jackie was unprepared for what she called Jack’s “violent” independence — by which she meant not just his habit of going off with his male friends but, more important, his thinly disguised promiscuity. … “I don’t think there are any men who are faithful to their wives. Men are such a combination of good and evil.” … Jackie’s unhappiness was no inducement to Jack to restrain himself. In the summer of 1956, while she was int he late stages of a pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage, Jack went on a yachting trip with George Smathers in the Mediterranean, where he enjoyed “a bacchanal, with several young women getting on and off the boat at its ports of call.” … In 1958, when younger brother Ted got married, Jack was caught on tape whispering to him “that being married didn’t really mean that you had to be faithful to your wife.” – An Unfinished Life, by Robert Dallek (pgs. 194-195)

The bad news is Rep. Weiner’s campaign to keep his job and weather his stupidity isn’t going to be easy.

The good news about the revelatory photos is, congratulations, Tony, and Barbara Walters agrees.

Walters acknowledged that she had seen the picture “days ago.” As the women discussed the authenticity of the picture, Elisabeth Hasselbeck offered a theory: If Weiner hasn’t denied it was his, then it must be flattering.

“It is,” quipped Walters.

… “What he did was unfathomable,” she added. “I just heard a statistic which is 56% of his constituents want him to remain in office. And he’s been, if you’ve followed him, a very effective, outspoken, sometimes angry, certainly passionate congressman … the personal stuff is between him and his wife.”

Classic statement on Weiner from Democratic grand dame Diane Feinstein, “I just view it with great surprise and dismay. That’s all I can say.”

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Sen. Patty Murray, said “of course” Weiner’s actions make it tough for Dems in ’12. That’s malarkey, especially in the Senate, where Dems were in trouble long before Weiner’s wiener went wide.

Thanks to Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare-ending budget scheme, the House could be in play for Democrats.

Pres. Obama’s problems are economic not moral, with any trouble he’s getting from Democrats who think he’s compromise and capitulated of his own making.

We can now also put to sleep any notion that Breitbart was going to uphold his words on the “Today” show, where he said he’d hold the photo as insurance in case Weiner went after him.

In fact, two nights ago, Andrew Breitbart went out drinking with Anthony and several others — and according to Anthony, showed the picture to numerous people, even leaving his laptop computer unattended with the picture on the screen for long periods of time. One of those people was right wing flamethrower Ann Coulter. Here’s Anthony’s photo of Coulter reacting to the picture; notice that his computer is apparently there, but Breitbart is nowhere to be seen. – Charles Johnson

Johnson goes on to allege Breitbart handed his phone around the studio. As I tweeted yesterday, did Breitbart actually believe that talk radio shock jocks wouldn’t leak the photo?

Breitbart and the shock jock statements now sound laugh out loud hilarious. Needless to say, neither Breitbart or Anthony “regret” the release of the photo.

The Washington political establishments of both big parties are not hip. But they deliver verdicts differently. Republicans are permanently self-righteous and allow disgraced politicians like Vitter to keep on keeping on. Democratic self-loathing doesn’t allow for that and with so many Blue Dog Democrats now holding sway it will take the strength of Huma Abedin and the dogged tenacity Weiner’s has exhibited on the House floor to weather the party’s wrath, which they both are intent on doing.

In fact, much of the defense of Weiner is actually for Abedin, who is respected as a “substantial” woman of great substance and character. She’s the one encouraging her husband to dig in, which contrary to Roger Simons and Jay Newton-Small and others, does not require she make an appearance.

“She loves her husband very much. She is committed to her husband and her marriage,” the close friend said. She’s adamant that her husband does not resign, and is optimistic that he can continue his career as an elected official. “I think people have weathered worse,” said the source. “They are still talking all the time about what to do [to survive the scandal],” the source said, adding that they plotted his political comeback while at the hotel. – Weiner on wife support, Huma has his back

The calls for resignation were a mistake, especially looking at new generations of potential politicians waiting in the wings. Social media mistakes will be common to many good people coming up the ranks in politics, which Krystal Ball represented in 2010. But it shouldn’t be a deal breaker, nor should we continue to expect what never can be delivered: perfection in our politicians.

Weiner’s no Jack Kennedy and he’s no Bill Clinton. But at least his wife Huma is carrying his child and his cheating is virtual (at this point, though it really doesn’t matter if it crossed over after his X-rated exposure). You can’t say that about Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Edwards, David Vitter or the scores of other politicians who’ve been unmasked.

If Weiner had only paid a prostitute he wouldn’t be in this trouble. The Washington political establishment, including the media, can handle the oldest profession pitfall; they just can’t wrap their heads around virtual sex.

Originally posted at TMV.

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Old Fogie Justice and Breitbart Lies

By on 09 June 2011

“She loves her husband very much. She is committed to her husband and her marriage,” the close friend said. She’s adamant that her husband does not resign, and is optimistic that he can continue his career as an elected official. “I think people have weathered worse,” said the source. “They are still talking all the time about what to do [to survive the scandal],” the source said, adding that they plotted his political comeback while at the hotel. – Weiner on wife support, Huma has his back

Ed Rendell proclaimed today on “Morning Joe” that Rep. Weiner is a dead politician walking, my words not his. If he is, Democrats better understand who wins here and it isn’t them or progressives. So far DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has kept quiet, even amidst RNC chair’s Reince Priebus’ hypocritical judgment, which only applies to Weiner, not Vitter or other Republicans who have been caught up in scandals, with Vitter’s solicitation of prostitutes actually a crime.

As both Rendell and Mike Barnicle know but are conveniently fogetting, if John F. Kennedy had been held to today’s standards he would never have been president, with his White House behavior something the press would have ravaged him over today, perhaps rightly so:

Since they had not lived together before marrying, Jackie was unprepared for what she called Jack’s “violent” independence — by which she meant not just his habit of going off with his male friends but, more important, his thinly disguised promiscuity. … “I don’t think there are any men who are faithful to their wives. Men are such a combination of good and evil.” … Jackie’s unhappiness was no inducement to Jack to restrain himself. In the summer of 1956, while she was int he late stages of a pregnancy that ended in a miscarriage, Jack went on a yachting trip with George Smathers in the Mediterranean, where he enjoyed “a bacchanal, with several young women getting on and off the boat at its ports of call.” … In 1958, when younger brother Ted got married, Jack was caught on tape whispering to him “that being married didn’t really mean that you had to be faithful to your wife.” – An Unfinished Life, by Robert Dallek (pgs. 194-195)

Classic statement on Weiner from Democratic grand dame Diane Feinstein, “I just view it with great surprise and dismay. That’s all I can say.”

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Sen. Patty Murray, said “of course” Weiner’s actions make it tough for Dems in ’12. That’s malarkey, especially in the Senate, where Dems were in trouble long before Weiner’s weiner went wide.

Thanks to Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare-ending budget scheme, the House could be in play for Democrats.

Pres. Obama’s problems are economic not moral.

Now, giving Andrew Breitbart control over your life because you were stupid is Rep. Weiner’s own fault. But any notion that Breitbart was going to uphold his words on the “Today” show, where he said he’d hold the photo as insurance in case Weiner went after him, should be at the very least questioned, while I admit to believing he leaked it on purpose, no matter what he says.

In fact, two nights ago, Andrew Breitbart went out drinking with Anthony and several others — and according to Anthony, showed the picture to numerous people, even leaving his laptop computer unattended with the picture on the screen for long periods of time. One of those people was right wing flamethrower Ann Coulter. Here’s Anthony’s photo of Coulter reacting to the picture; notice that his computer is apparently there, but Breitbart is nowhere to be seen. – Charles Johnson

Johnson goes on to allege Breitbart handed his phone around the studio. As I tweeted yesterday, did Breitbart actually believe that talk radio shock jocks wouldn’t leak the photo?

Breitbart and shock jock statement from yesterday, which is laugh out loud hilarious at this point:

Earlier today, a photograph resembling one that I had withheld from publication in the Weinergate saga was released without my knowledge or permission.

Prior to the publication of our story on BigGovernment.com and BigJournalism.com this past Monday morning, it was necessary to show the pictures I had received from our source to several news producers, including several at major news networks, to prove that the additional material I described really did exist, which some have continued to doubt.

This morning, I showed a photograph, which our source claims Weiner sent her, to radio hosts “Opie and Anthony” of the Sirius XM radio network on my mobile device. Somehow, without my knowledge or permission, apparently a picture was taken of my mobile device, and subsequently published by Opie (Gregg Hughes) on Twitter.

His co-host, Anthony (Anthony Cumia), stated today:

“In regards to the photo of Anthony Weiner that was leaked by members of The Opie And Anthony show on 6/8, I want to make it clear that Andrew Breitbart had no knowledge that this photo was being made public. A phone with the photo was being displayed and a camera in the studio caught it. It was then uploaded to twitter [sic], again, without Andrew Breitbarts [sic] knowledge.”

I regret that this occurred.

Needless to say, neither Breitbart or Anthony “regret” the release of the photo.

The Washington political establishments of both big parties are not hip. But they deliver verdicts differently. Republicans allow disgraced politicians like Vitter to keep on keeping on. Democratic self-loathing doesn’t allow for that and with so many Blue Dog Democrats now holding sway it will take the strength of Huma Abedin and the dogged tenacity Weiner’s exhibited on the House floor before to weather the party’s wrath that continues to build.

The calls for resignation remain a mistake, especially looking at new generations of potential politicians waiting in the wings. Social media mistakes will be common to many good people coming up the ranks in politics, which Krystal Ball represented in the last cycle. But it shouldn’t be a deal breaker, nor should we continue to expect what never can be delivered: perfection in our politicians.

Weiner’s no Jack Kennedy and he’s no Bill Clinton. But at least his wife Huma is carrying his child and his cheating is virtual (at this point, though it really doesn’t matter if it crossed over after his X-rated exposure). You can’t say that about Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Edwards, David Vitter or the scores of other politicians who’ve been unmasked.

If Weiner had only paid a prostitute he wouldn’t be in this trouble, as David Vitter proves. The Washington political establishment can handle the oldest profession pitfall; they just can’t wrap their heads around virtual sex.

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Progressive Notes: Humphrey at 100, and Latest Happenings

By on 28 May 2011

Texan4Hillary offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.

Humphrey speaks at 1948 Dem convention on civil rights:

This past January the media swooned for Reagan’s 100th birthday. Well this week we progressives are the ones recalling the 100th birthday of one of the greatest liberals of the 20th century: Hubert Humphrey.

Humphrey was known as the “happy warrior” because of his famous 1948 speech at the Democratic National Convention. He was 37 and mayor of Minneapolis at the time. The party was split over civil rights for blacks. He told the party:

“To those who say this civil rights program is an infringement on states’ rights,” he thundered from the convention podium, “I say this: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.”

The motion carried. The Southerners walked out and ran Strom Thurmond for president. When Harry S. Truman won nonetheless, Democrats were on their way to becoming the party of civil rights. Hubert Humphrey catalyzed that change.

The New Deal liberal lost a brutally close 1968 election against Nixon for POTUS. Many say if given a few more weeks Humphrey would have won. Imagine how different this nation would have been had Humphrey not lost.

With his loss he returned to the Senate. He pushed for New Deal policies to get people to work. But some Democrats like Carter moved away from New Dealism. From FDR. Truman. LbJ. And so, faced with opposition from top DC Dems on jobs programs he tried another tact:

In 1976 he joined Representative Augustus Hawkins, a Democrat from the Watts section of Los Angeles, to introduce a bill requiring the government, especially the Federal Reserve, to keep unemployment below 3 percent — and if that failed, to provide emergency government jobs to the unemployed.

… 70 percent of Americans believed the government should offer jobs to everyone who wanted one. However, Jimmy Carter — a new kind of Democrat answering to a new upper-middle-class, suburban constituency, embarrassed by industrial unions and enamored with the alleged magic of the market — did not.

“Government cannot eliminate poverty or provide a bountiful economy or reduce inflation or save our cities or cure illiteracy or provide energy,” President Carter said in his 1978 State of the Union address, a generation before Bill Clinton said almost the same thing, cementing the Democrats’ ambivalent retreat from New Deal-based government activism.

And here we are today. Reaganism has brainwashed a generation. Reagan is Obama’s hero. From 1968 came Nixon, Watergate, Carterism, Reagan, and of course today’s moderate Republican Democrat Obama. We owe alot to Humphrey. He did so much.

Champion of the middle class Elizabeth Warren faced nothing but pure disrespect when she answered questions to GOP congressmembers. Right wing Congressman McHenry (R-NC) called Warren a liar. These men treated her like dirt, and Warren’s face said it all:

Hey- women are tired of being treated like garbage by the guys in our political system! In Texas the spirit of Ann Richards is alive and well among many. State Rep. Senfronia Thompson of Houston (D) had quite the event on the House floor this week. She:

…delivered a riveting speech condemning a flyer handed out on behalf of the Texas Civil Justice League that used a graphic picture of a child nursing at a woman’s breast to question whether pending legislation would create “a nanny state.”

In a session in which the House “has spent 30 to 40 percent of its time kicking the reproductive organs of women down the road,” Thompson took issue with lobbyists using a picture of a breast in calling attention to legislation.

“I am really disgusted,” she said. “I am really ashamed. Some of you may find these funny. I find these hateful. They foster violence and disrespect towards women. I am appalled that the Texas Civil Justice League would go so low to get at a piece of legislation.”…

Thompson pounded the podium as she finished her speech with an admonition: “Men, if you don’t stand up for us today, don’t you walk in this chamber tomorrow.” She received a standing ovation.

House Speaker Joe Straus, who by coincidence had scheduled a reception for the women lawmakers Thursday evening, said he “did a lot of listening” as women trickled into the event. ” He agreed the flyer was in “beyond poor taste.”

“I do think all of us need to be mindful of how we treat each other,” he said, adding that it had been an extremely stressful session. “People are away from their families for 140 days and we have worked hard with a lot of challenging tasks.”

Lee Parsley, president of the Texas Civil Justice League, apologized for the flyer, which he said was disseminated without his approval. “I am very sorry the offensive piece exists at all and that you had to see it,” Parsley said in a letter distributed to lawmakers.

We have video of her awesome speech :

The result? The formation of the Women’s Caucus in the Texas House. Top Democratic and Republican representatives will now join forces to try and put a lid on the defamation of women .

PPP partnered with Progressive Change Campaign Committee to do polling in key battleground states where Democratic senators face tough races. They polled in Missouri, Ohio, Montana and Minnesota. The results were the same in every state: touch Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security and the voters will punish you. Senator McCaskill in Missouri has been running around with a plan to slash the budget worse than Ryan. Wake up McCaskill and others:

In Missouri, a poll conducted by PPP, a Democratic-aligned polling firm, showed that cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security would be especially unpopular.

The poll in Missouri of 1,050 likely voters found that 19 percent would support reducing Medicare expenditures while 77 percent opposed Medicare trims.

The survey question was phrased this way: In order to reduce the national debt, would you support or oppose cutting spending on Medicare, which is the government health insurance program for the elderly?

A similar question on Medicaid found that 32 percent would support cuts to reduce the national debt while 63 percent would oppose them. For Social Security, 17 percent would support cuts; 76 percent oppose them.

Florida’s Governor Scott is boosting Dem fortunes in the state. Austerity never wins votes with the electorate. Last week red Jacksonville elected its first Dem mayor in 20 years, and to boot he is their first African American and the guy is also a former aid to President Clinton. Minorities poured out to vote, enraged by the cold hearted governance of Scott.

A new poll Scott at a 28pct approval rating. Yikes. Why? :
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My $0.02/Saturday: Cerebral Is as Cerebral Does

By on 09 April 2011

Hillary at Blair House, April 4, 2011 (during a bilateral with Shimon Peres).

Morning, news junkies.

First up… a personal note of congratulations to my blogger friend, Lake Lady, who on Wednesday was elected mayor of her small town in MO. Mayor Lake Lady, you are a true inspiration! Throughout your campaign, I’ve been reminded of this quote from Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Now, onto my Saturday reads…

Once the politics are over, we can assess the policy with clear eyes. And I think you’ll find that the failure to put the 2011 budget to bed in the last Congress cost the economy $60 billion.

  • ABC News asks the $64,000 question: Where were the women in the budget debate? Here’s the other $64,000 question, the one that the MSM–as well as most of the prog blogs for that matter–won’t ask: What happened when Nancy Pelosi and “This is what a feminist looks like” Obama were at the Stupakistan table? (The war on women didn’t start with the Republican midterm gains…it just got an upgrade from easily ignored tropical storm to Cat 5 hurricane.)
  • The Atlantic’s James Fallows has a couple of posts up on the “uncertainty tax” that the possibility alone of a government shutdown has imposed on government operations, particularly at Hillary Clinton’s State Department… the first post is called Third World on the Potomac, followed up by Government-Shutdown Watch: An Inside View. The good news: Whether or not there was a shutdown, Hillary’s meeting with the highest-ranking woman in the Chinese government, State Councilor Liu Yandong, got the okay to proceed as planned next week. The not-so-good news: According to a reader whose wife works at the State department and wrote in to Fallows (see the “Inside View” link above), “it seems as though the government has been doing nothing this week other than preparing for the shutdown.” Another interesting tidbit from Fallows’ reader:

A semi-hard news tidbit: the disagreement over Planned Parenthood is a smokescreen to hide the fact that they can’t agree on the numbers. What I find so troubling about this is that the WH has met the Republicans about 70% of the way, yet Boehner keep moving the goal posts. Why the WH can’t this storyline into the media is beyond me. But then again, as Dan Balz observes today, we are seeing perhaps yet another example of a cerebral leadership style that is still not working.

  • I’d also like to say that when it comes to the kind of intelligence that matters, cerebral is as cerebral does. It’s not mere lack of ideas that is plaguing our politics, nor is it as benign as the sanitized “cerebral style” meme would like you to believe. What is plaguing our politics is lack of action and political will. Simple and reasonable ideas like ones on closing the corporate tax loopholes only get floated by the Bernie Sanders in our political class, precisely to be designated as outside the realm of what’s achievable in our current political system.
  • Speaking of political bankruptcy, and to link to James Fallows again… he has written an excellent takedown of the “brave and serious” Mr. Ryan, in which he elaborates on his contention that Ryan’s budget proposal is neither brave nor serious but rather “partisan and gimmicky,” which — as Fallows notes — would be par for the course as far as these sorts of plans go, if it weren’t for the laudatory way it has been received.
  • Meanwhile, here are the two descriptors Krugman uses for Ryan’s plan: Ludicrous and Cruel. From the link:

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Saving ‘Rawhide’

By on 30 March 2011

**UPDATED**



It came very close for “Rawhide,” Pres. Reagan’s Secret Service code name.

A remarkable report from CBS News adds to the history of this day.

At 2:27 pm EST, thirty years ago today, Pres. Ronald Reagan was shot and critically wounded, though the American public didn’t know how grievously at the time.

John Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity and is still confined, but is working hard to increase his unsupervised furloughs.

Hinckley’s visits to Williamsburg also trigger notification to Sarah Brady, whose husband James, was critically wounded during the assassination attempt. James Brady was the White House Press Secretary at the time. Sarah Brady is an alumna of the College of William and Mary.

“Every time he gets out for a 10-day period,” Davis quoted Sarah Brady saying of Hinckley, “I get a call so I know to not go to Williamsburg then. I love going there. But I obviously don’t want to cross paths with John Hinckley.”

Jim and Sarah Brady went on to be champions of gun control.

“If it hadn’t been for them, we would not have passed the Brady Law, and then the ban on assault weapons, and on cop-killer bullets…How many people are alive today because of Jim and Sarah Brady? How many? Countless.”

New audio recordings, which you can hear on the video above, reveal just how close Reagan came to having his life ended.

“I hope you’re all Republicans,” Reagan quipped with the GW trauma surgeons who saved his life. Their response: today we’re all Republicans.

The assassination attempt bonded the American people to Pres. Reagan, which is likely one reason why Reagan had no problem getting a second term, but more importantly, escaped impeachment hearings over Iran-Contra, a convoluted scheme which would have revealed real crimes and misdemeanors.

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John F. Kennedy, 50 Years Ago Today

By on 20 January 2011

The mystique of the Kennedys, J.F.K.’s presidency cut short, along with Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy’s brilliant stroke to create the myth of Camelot after Pres. Kennedy’s assassination, is all part of why John Fitzgerald Kennedy remains our nation’s most popular president in modern times, the last 50 years. It was also the ability he had, through Ted Sorenson‘s brilliant wordsmith carvings, to make his rhetoric cut a swath through history that reminds us of his soaring vision.

It’s at moments like these I reflect that if John F. Kennedy were running for president today he could not be nominated let alone elected. His health would have come into focus, with the prescription drugs and injections he utilized to keep functioning simply something today’s American purists wouldn’t have accepted. Kennedy was targeted by the Right plenty (including Human Events and right-wing radio), but his secrets, including his serial womanizing, would never have been kept quiet today. There are also no journalistic giants that a president would dare have as an open confidante.

Today is also the 30th anniversary of Ronald Wilson Reagan’s inaugural, who placed third in the CNN poll, behind William Jefferson Clinton. George W. Bush ranks well below Jimmy Carter.

What Reagan got for his coming centennial is his two sons, Michael his step-son, quarreling over whether he had Alzheimer’s in his second term, which Ron Reagan has asserted is possible. He’s hardly the first, but he is the closest eye witness to history he claims proves it. However, the question that should haunt Reagan’s legacy is why wasn’t he impeached for Iran-Contra? If ever there was an impeachable offense this had the potential.

It seems the Nixon resignation and Ford’s disastrous presidential pardon led to squeamish Democrats who didn’t want to “put the country through it,” so they worked hastily to wrap it up, but inadvertently paved the way for William Jefferson Clinton’s railroading and impeachment over consensual sex, because Republicans know how to hold a grudge. If Nixon had been impeached we might have actually seen what real crimes and misdemeanors meant and the pain of proving it in the well of the Senate, instead of reducing impeachment to a sex police action by Republicans bent on revenge.

John F. Kennedy lived in a different era and his short presidency with its iconic photographs, historic changes that coincided with the tumult of the 1960s, all of it, juxtaposed against the smallness of today’s politicians and the timidity of their vision, assists J.F.K. in standing alone. He may also be the last war hero president, of a justifiable war, this country will ever see.

The screen captures below are from the Guardian.

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Dr. Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy

By on 17 January 2011


more at Huffington Post

Dr. King’s rhetoric was forged in fire and brimstone on the altar of confrontation. King was destined to pave the way, not just for Barack Obama, but for another Democratic president back in his day, which is why I run this piece I wrote years ago every year on this day. It took the collision of two great men to dismantle the prejudice of America’s political history, even if civil rights remains a scarred wound that doesn’t take much to rip open.

Dr. King was forever challenging the U.S. media, but there weren’t many in the establishment that didn’t feel Dr. King’s heat. It’s certain that President John F. Kennedy did. But King lived in times of volatility, cataclysmic change and violent national shifts. He was a powerfully effective man of peace in a time of country and cultural wars.

Some believe that President Kennedy’s presidency was owed, at least in part, to Dr. Martin Luther King. In a moment of stunning political pressure inside his own camp, candidate Kennedy reached out to Martin Luther King when he was convicted of a probation violation after participating in a diner sit-in in Atlanta, Georgia. Forever the political pragmatist, Kennedy saw the light, with a big push from Bobby, and interceded on behalf of King to get him released from Reidsville Prison. That, as some tell it, changed history. King as an ally brought out the black vote, helping to defeat Nixon. But there were many other fault lines in 1960, including Texas, Illinois, but especially West Virginia, that played their part, too. So I’ll let you be the judge of whether King helped elect Kennedy. He sure didn’t hurt him. Neither did Kennedy’s pledge to right the wrongs being done to blacks.

However, once president, Kennedy was simply too obsessed with foreign policy issues to turn his attention to the home front. He just didn’t get the importance of King’s fights down south, at first, especially when juxtaposed against the crisis brewing overseas. The challenges escalating between East and West Germany kept JFK’s attention focused on nuclear confrontation, then came the Cuban Missile crisis. But eventually, JFK began to finally understand that the home front matters as much as what’s happening “over there,” especially in the face of horrible prejudice. Kennedy was a man who could change and he did.

Known as the Birmingham Campaign, King altered history and shifted Kennedy’s thinking along with it. His famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” is now legend. It was King’s incarceration in Birmingham that led Coretta Scott King to call President Kennedy, which resulted in him interceding once again on King’s behalf, forcing the Birmingham bigots to allow King to talk to his wife.

The March on Washington and King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” worried President Kennedy at the time. He was understandably concerned about violence breaking out, but eventually King won him over.

Watching the brutality in Birmingham and the subsequent political push from King and other civil rights leaders changed Kennedy forever. Months before King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, on June 11, 1963, JFK proposed action that would offer “the kind of equality of treatment which we would want for ourselves.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. had gotten through to Kennedy, revealing something from which J.F.K. had once been distanced, a world away.

John F. Kennedy’s address that June:
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