Pussy Riot, Jamel Mims Hooliganism and Freedom

Reading about the arrest of the Russian women band members of Pussy Riot, as they sang a satirical protest song in a Russian Orthodox church, denouncing the support of the Russian clergy for Vladimir Putin, who has become increasingly powerful and autocratic, Mad Dog said to himself, "The Tea Party may give us headaches, and the Party of No may frustrate us and make us despair of whether or not a democracy can survive their obstruction, but at least we have the freedom to say what we think, even if what we hear is manifestly inane. "

But then, the Mad Dog thought of the case of Jamel Mims and that warm, fuzzy feeling of superiority began to stiffen and chafe.

Last October, Jamel Mims was arrested at the 103 Precinct station house in Queens, New York for protesting the Stop and Frisk policy of the New York City police department, which was undertaken to detect concealed weapons on the persons of citizens walking down the street in New York, in hopes of preventing gun and knife violence.

Problems soon emerged, both philosophical and practical with Stop and Frisk. The philosophical problem is how does one reconcile an offensive action by police, throwing a man up against a wall, demanding he spread his legs, feeling his body, emptying his pocket with a free society?  The presumption of innocence, the right against unreasonable search, all of this thrown out the window.  The police may say, the search of any one on a city street in a high crime area is reasonable. The only "probable cause" needed in a high crime area is your physical presence in that area.  The practical problem is this tactic was aimed not against every passing citizen, as, for example stopping every car on a road for a sobriety check, but selectively: Somehow 85% of citizens selected for this search turned out to be Hispanic or Black.

The police responded, essentially, that 85% of the violent crime is committed by members of that group, so the police had right to search the most likely offenders.

Jamel Mims took exception, marched to the gates of the station house, and found his way blocked by shut doors, until the doors were opened by the police,  and Jamel passed through to register his opinion a the station house doors and was promptly arrested and threatened with two years in prison. After much protest, letters to Mayor Bloomberg, and general tumult in Quees, Mims got 5 days in jail. For seeking a redress of grievance, a right promised explicitly in the Constitution, along with the right to free speech and the right to assemble. How many Constitutional rights did Jamel Mims find violated in this single, simple episode of non violent protest? 

How different were the New York City police from those Southern police during the Civil Rights protests of the 1960's? It is true, there were no dogs, no fire hoses, no blows to the head with police batons. New York City is not Little Rock, Birmingham, Memphis or Montgomery or Moscow, for that matter.  

But we have the same instinct operating:  Rather than tolerance of protest and disagreeable speech, rather than a bunch of bored police, lounging around, chewing gum and watching with detached amusement, you have a strong man, whether he is Putin or Bloomberg, who is not amused. And as the strong man, he has the power to throw the objects of his displeasure into an unpleasant cell and keep them there.

 Jamel Mims  grew up in a dangerous, poor part of Washington, DC, Anacostia, but he attended the very swank and privileged Sidwell Friends School--where President Obama's children are, where Chelsea Clinton and where the children of innumerable members of the Washington power structure were schooled.  Mims was on the Sidwell wrestling team,  and after a tournament ended, some white father would load a half dozen kids into his minivan and drive kids home, usually around midnight.  The father felt obligated to drop off each wrestler, and to watch him get into his house, before driving away, but Mims would have none of that.  He would not allow the father  to get any closer to his neighborhood than the Eastern Market Metro stop. He refused to be driven home, deep in the black ghetto.  "I'm fine," he would say, "But my white friends in the back seat, not so much. Not here."  And  he would slip away into the night, down into the subway. Mims--even as a teenager--sought to protect people from the dangers in the shadows. 

Compare that instinct to the instinct of a Putin, who would send the mother of a four year old boy to Siberia, separating mother from child, because the mother had the effrontery to sign a satiric song in a church.

When Mims was still at Sidwell, a group of seniors rose to read a parody of "The Night Before Christmas," at a Christmas assembly. Mims was not among this group, but he was at the assembly, where younger students and teachers listened, first with smiles, only to be scandalized  by the mildly racy lyrics recited by the cheeky seniors. The eleven seniors who took part in the reading were accused of "blasphemy" by the head of school, and threatened with expulsion, their dreams of matriculating at Harvard, Yale and Princeton threatened. Blasphemy, now that's quite a charge at a Quaker school, among the Society of Friends.  Even in this setting, a school which held weekly "meetings" where members of the community were encouraged to speak their mind, freedom of speech had its limits. 

The moral of this story is likely that the will of the powerful, whether his name is Mayor Bloomberg, or Vladimir Putin is a force found in most societies. In America, we like to think that inclination to crush the subversive under the authoritarian thumb is resisted and there are institutional, Constitutional mechanisms to resist it.
 In Russia, the only force comes down from above, and there are fewer countervailing forces.
In America, we think we have more protection from the authoritarian impulse--but our own Supreme Court failed to protect the young from that same abhorrence of insolence by the authority figure in the Bong Hits for Jesus case.  Our enjoyment of the freedom of speech is only as strong as our will to defend it.

The Man Who Calls Obamacare Fascism

Do you have to go off the deep end to become a multimillionaire in this country or does the process do it to you or are normal people simply unlikely to become millionaires, because they are , you know, normal?

So I'm listening to this interview with John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods, a store I like a lot, and cannot find in New Hampshire and he observes, without vehemence,  the strains any business like his has to face. He says this matter of fact, just to enumerate what every corporate CEO has to balance and face:  "Customers want lower prices and higher quality. Employees want better benefits, and higher wages and better working conditions. Suppliers want to give you fewer discounts and want you to pick up more of their products. Communities want more donations. Governments want higher taxes. Investors want higher dividends and higher stock prices. Every one of these stake holders wants more. They always want more."

From that rather dispassionate appraisal, he then launches into his opinion that Obamacare is fascism, whereas he had formerly called it socialism. But, he informs us,  in socialism the government owns the means of  production, in fascism it does not , it just controls the products produced by private means.  This strikes Mad Dog as an opinion bereft of real understanding--but like so many libertarians, Mr. Mackey is not encumbered by  much formal education--he is (like Bill Gates) a college drop out.

He considers unions a herpes on the genitals of capitalism.

He has read Milton Friedman, who advocated allowing the free market to control drugs  by lawsuits, after they had done their damage, who advocated abolishing the FDA and allowing the drug company  which produces the next thalidomide to simply be sued out of existence, after  the babies with no arms get born. Who needs an FDA, when you've got personal liability lawyers? Who needs prevention when you have lawsuits?

He also believes climate change is a hoax and there is too much hysteria about global warming. 

On the other hand, he has instituted caps on executive pay, advocated for the humane treatment of the animals whose meat he sells in his stores and he has moved his stores away from selling endangered species of fish.

And why do we care what this confused white man thinks? Because he is rich, possesses $100 million dollars and is still the CEO of a chain of very nice food stores and he employs a lot of (non unionized) people. The same can be said of Donald Trump, another rich man who says things people listen to, no matter how bizarre. After all, he is rich. He must be smart.

For Mad Dog, the intriguing thing is how beguiled one can be listening to someone who sounds so reasonable, who, when you question him long enough, about enough topics,  you find yourself  backing out of the room, keeping a path to the door well cleared.

Which is probably how people get elected to Congress and other deeply disturbed people look and sound pretty normal, until they open up with their AR-15's.

School Shooters

If we use this threat assessment model judiciously--and we

must, because the risk of unfairly labeling and stigmatizing

children is great--then we will be able to fight, and win, the

war on two fronts. We will be in a position to help those

children who show a propensity for violence, before they scar

themselves (and others) forever. And we will be in a position to

protect innocent school children before they become senseless

victims.

--Janet Reno, Attorney General

And all the King's horses and all the King's men,

Could not put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

The Columbine High School shootings occurred in 1999, almost 14 years ago.

The Attorney General of the United States, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, various Presidents, virtually every senator and congressman have made statements, issued authoritative reports, consulted experts, exhorted the public to place faith in PhD's and MD's and Doctor Phil and we are no closer to preventing a maniac with a gun from shooting the next batch of children in their schools, on a playground, in a swimming pool, at an amusement park, anywhere children or, for that matter, adults gather.

The National Rifle Association has not saved us. The Federal Government has been clueless.

What is wrong with this picture?

Perhaps we ought to consider the concept of "expert" when it comes to destructive human behavior. Perhaps we ought to, in humility, admit we do not know what to do and then do what seems to make sense at the time.

The Sort of Democrats Who Give Government a Bad Name

Full Disclosure: Mad Dog does not drink alcohol much. He prefers O'Douls and Kaliber, which are non alcoholic, but on a trip to Ireland he did learn to drink Guinness without adverse effects, although his intake seems to be limited by some unforgiving gene.  And, beer had something, indirectly, to do with bringing Mad Dog to the Seacoast.  Having been lured to Portsmouth by the promise of a job, Mad Dog wandered the streets with his wife, on a snowy February night in 2008,  and they happened to take refuge in the Portsmouth Brewery, where people were happy, lively, engaged in conversation. 

Taking our seats on the upstairs balcony, we looked down to the brick wall facing us and noted the framed, iconic poster of Mr. Obama, the Ferry poster, hanging quietly on the wall, just as the 2008 campaign was beginning to percolate up, making a quiet, courageous statement about the sympathies of the Portsmouth Brewery, saying something about the value its owner placed on his deeply held political and social convictions,  as opposed to what might be best for business   And Mad Dog looked at his wife and she at him, and they both looked at that poster on the wall and they said, almost in unison, "We could live here."

Now we learn Mr. Peter Egelston, owner of the Portsmouth Brewery, and owner of the Smuttynose Brewing Company which is building a new place in Hampton, employer of waitresses and brewmasters, purveyor of good pub food and general all around good citizen, is facing a 10 cent per gallon hike on beer, a bill put forward by Democrats, a Mr. Charles "Chuck" Weed (D-Keene) and Richard Eaton of Greenville.  

But get this, these two members of the legislature are saying the dollars collected will be used for "alcohol treatment programs."

Now Mad Dog is not an expert in alcoholism, drug addiction or taxation. Nor has he read widely in the pathways to ruined lives followed by alcoholics, but he does remember taking care of alcoholics on the wards of big city hospitals. When they talked about their friends, sitting around the ward with their failing livers, their bleeding esophageal varices, their bouts of pancreatitis, their hypogonadism and their rapidly progressing dementia, they would say, "Oh, Jim, he liked his Chivas," or "Sally, VAT-69 Sally, when she could afford it."  They knew each other by what they drank and I cannot recall anyone ever referring to a fellow drunk as a "Bud Johnny" or "Coors Sammy." Real drinkers did not, at least in those days, waste their time on beer.

Over the years, Mad Dog has know people who drank a 6 pack a night and likely were harmed by that, but the real alcoholics, if they drank beer usually used that as an appetizer and moved quickly on to harder stuff.

So the idea of beer as a sort of crack cocaine to any significant part of the population strikes Mad Dog as a rather odd expression of concern--rather like trying to launch an attack on prostitution by outlawing Victoria's Secret franchises in New Hampshire.

And the idea devoting the income from this new tax to alcohol treatment programs is even more revealing--as if the whole idea is not to punish the beer maker but to rescue the victims of this dreadful thing called beer. As if such programs actually work. 

Talk about sanctimonious. Let us put a picture of Mr. Weed and Mr. Eaton next to that word in the dictionary.

Mad Dog wonders: What are these men thinking? 

It surely can have nothing to do with a burning desire to fund alcohol treatment programs.

If the state of New Hampshire needs to raise money, and the people of New Hampshire like beer and spend lots of money on it and beer seems like an attractive target, as opposed to say, gasoline, well, okay let's just say we need the money.

Actually, If Mr. Weed and Mr. Eaton had real guts they would place that 10 cent tax on gasoline and then we'd see some real money, and maybe less driving or a shift to more fuel efficient cars. Or maybe we could put the money into twelve step programs for drivers who are addicted to unnecessary or overly long car trips.

Personally, Mad Dog would prefer the legislature to legalize marijuana and tax that at a very high rate and we'd all be happier.

If you really wanted to get progressive, Mad Dog would vote for legalizing and  licensing prostitution.  That way we could do monthly HIV and sexual transmitted disease testing, and we could protect the sex workers from violence with more efficacy, and we might do the public health some good. Mad Dog realizes with this paragraph he has lost most of his readership, but that's what a blog is for--float new ideas and see what comes back. So, Maud, pick yourself up off the floor, and fire away. Mad Dog can take it. His love for you will never die--certainly not over this.

Mad Dog is ready for the slings and arrows.

But leave Mr. Egelston alone.  He runs good businesses, employs a lot of people, and does the state of New Hampshire a lot more good than harm. How many of us can say that?

He was, eventually, moved to replace the Obama poster with a parody, using the Smutty nose seal in place of Mr. Obama, but we still remember Mr. Egelson's courage when it really counted.

Duck Hunting in New Hampshire: The Killing Fields

On New Year's day, I took my dog for a walk in a lovely strip of woods hard by a body of water which extends out from Route 1 and runs perhaps 3/10 mile along Elwyn Road called "The Urban Forest." It's the Portsmouth,  New Hampshire version of New York City's Central Park, but only 1/100 as large; but it's a refuge from the roads and noise of the city, as the name implies.  
We were quickly greeted by gunshots coming from the direction of the water, and were met by streams of hikers, dog walkers, all streaming out of the woods, in a great, somewhat breathless hurry to get back to the parking lot and be gone. "Somebody's shooting," a woman told us. "I saw a man with a gun on the shore."

It turns out, it was two hunters, firing from the shore and from an island in the water,presumably at ducks, not school children or dogs. They were standing less than 100 yards from the busy traffic of Route 1, and as the crow flies, I imagine, less than mile from the North Church at Market Square, Portsmouth. It was a cold, quiet day and I can imagine their rifle fire may have been heard along Market Street.

The city is powerless to prevent the discharge of fire arms within its limits if such a law violates state law permitting it.  The court case most relevant, from June, 1960 is Fred v Jenkins, in which a law passed by the town of Durham, prohibiting hunting or the discharge of firearms within town limits unless the owner of land gave permission for such firing, was struck down.

New Hampshire state law says you can shoot your gun within 15 feet of a road, and within 300 feet of an occupied building, and you can walk on "improved land of another" without permission and discharged your firearm, unless the owner has posted no hunting signs. 

So, here we have an interesting resolution of the tension between what it means to own private property in New Hampshire, to wit, land, and the rights of hunters to roam freely and shoot things dead.  In New Hampshire, Mad Dog's back yard, which extends to one acre and is wild woodland, home to wild turkeys and who knows what else, can be used by anyone with a gun, as long as he is hunting.  Mad Dog's neighbor's children do not walk on his lawn without asking permission, but a hunter is protected by the state and allowed to trespass without permission, as long as he has a gun. As you can imagine, Mad Dog has made a quick trip to the hardware store and will nail signs on trees, "No Hunting."  

But if Mad Dog is tardy in doing this, a hunter can stand 100 yards from Mad Dog's house and shot at a turkey or duck or squirrel and put a bullet through the back window of Mad Dog's kitchen, or, for that matter, Mad Dog's head.

This is something only the state legislature can change. The towns are powerless. 

I wonder what the laws of other states are.

It is curious, however, how important protecting the rights of hunters is, as this is reflected in the laws of the state. 

In New Hampshire there are 9 roads specifically mentioned in New Hampshire law which are roads a hunter cannot shoot across: These include Rout 95, Route 93, Route 101, all of which are 6-8 lane highways with median strips and speed limits of 65 miles an hour. The legislature felt it had to tell hunters they could not shoot across these highways to hit a deer on the other side of the road, as special exceptions to the laws of the state, which, by implication, are fair game.  That is, you can be driving down Route 111 or Route 1  and a hunter can shoot from one side of the road, across the road at a deer on the other side of the road, perfectly legally.

Wow! 

You can hunt in the salt marshes, pictured above, in front of the Seabrook Nuclear Power plant, and on the Hampton side of the marshes are houses, right down to the boggy shoreline. You can shoot your rifle 100 yards from the people watching the Patriots game inside.

Golly!

We are sending a new group of legislators to Concord this year.

Do you think they will be willing to face down the NRA and who knows what other groups in this state to make this state less of a free fire zone?

The Cold Dead Fingers of the NRA

I should say, at the outset, I am not one of those who is convinced that banning the sales of assault rifles will prevent any of the many sorts of gun violence we have in this country, either the garden variety ghetto hand gun murders of drug dealers and patrons or the schoolyard/movie theater massacres. 

But as a confused white man, I am struck by the vehemence with which gun owners (some gun owners) meet any suggestion they may have to register/license their guns or be unable to buy new guns.

Take their sons from them with a draft, and send them around the world to bleed and die--no problem. Take away the Medicare they've paid for for years, well, we need to do something to balance the budget.  Drag their neighbor's son or daughter into the local police station and strip search them for having rolled through a stop sign--well, only criminals are ever arrested.  Tell them they cannot form a union, or break the union they have at work, well unions are for losers, who needs 'em? Pay their wives half of what their male co workers make? Well, women are lucky to get out of the house and have any job. Tell your wife and daughter they should not have contraception or abortion--well, that's just morality.

But as soon as you mention any sort of gun control: Explosion. It's as if you have struck the deepest blow against the integrity of the human being you can strike. 

In Arizona, a gun buy back program was set for a parking lot near where Congresswoman Giffords was shot, on the anniversary of her shooting and local NRA members launched a lawsuit to prevent it. The idea was to reduce the number of guns floating around--a fool's errand, I suspect, but a symbolic gesture--and the symbolism struck home in the NRA heart. The law says if you seize property, you have to put it up for public sale, so the guns would have to be marketed back to the public once the police acquired them, NRA members argued. 

It's the old, "You will take my gun away from me when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers." 

What is it about gun owners that this object is so vehemently defended? Why is the response some form of verbal violence? You will start a revolution, you ever try that! There will be blood in the streets, you try that!  You come for my gun, you better dig two graves, first, buddy! I'm going down blazing! 

One gets the feeling you could take their newborn babes from their arms with less complaint than you'd get than if you try to take away their Glocks, Sig Sauers, AR-15's and AK-47's.

Drag my wife and daughters off to human traffickers; burn down my house; drive my pick up truck off a cliff, I can forgive you and I can live with that, but just don't even think about taking my gun or I will slit the throats of your entire family, blow up your home, set fire to your body and desecrate your family tombstones. 

Is this violent verbal response a marker for an underlying pathology?  Are the individuals who brandish the threat the very people who should never be allowed to lay hands on weapons of significant destruction?

Tea Party Scalawags and Swabs

Consider a pack of jackasses. Now, consider the United States Congress. But then, I repeat myself.

--Variously attributed, Mark Twain, Sam Rayburn,  Hampton Mad Dog Democrat, 

Mad Dog admits defeat. He had intended to patiently read through the biographies of each of the 50 Tea Party members of the current 113th Congress's House of Representatives, in an effort to understand these people, from whence they come, what they think, how they have come to their beliefs. 

But, after the first ten, he has been laid low. They are just so boring. Their lives follow a pattern of early defeat, usually in the setting of failure to distinguish themselves in school, but undaunted, they seek out whatever school will accept them, and usually find comfort in a religious college, only to be drawn to a strong, evangelical teacher, who tells them they are not unworthy; they are merely mistreated and disrespected by arrogant elitists, for no reason other than the elitists are atheistic, narrow minded, left leaning snobs. They find a salaried job, often after failing in the free market economy, but though they have sucked at the government or big corporate teat, they rail against big government. 

They love guns, and consider the right to own an AK-47 one of the most important rights an American citizen can claim; they own guns and the guns make them feel big and powerful. They loathe abortion, think it's murder, plain and simple. They don't like foreigners much, and see in them only evil possibilities. They believe global warming is a liberal lie, as is evolution, and the teaching of evolution in our godless schools is a  sin against God, who created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th. They are fine with strip searching the low life who get arrested on the streets--until their own daughters gets hauled off to the station house for rolling through a stop sign. They are very offended by homosexuality, same sex marriage, which they consider a threat and affront to heterosexual marriage, and they like the idea of stuffing a transducer up the vaginas of women seeking abortions to do a fetal sonogram. They want government out of every place but, apparently, they are willing to make an exception for vaginas. They love the idea of drilling, baby drilling, off the coasts and in wildlife habitats, and in Alaska and anywhere where the bufallo roam. They like burning good black American coal, and they hate the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Education. (They have a pretty deep problem with education, as will be seen. They like it local, small, religious and preferably orthodox.)

As a prototype of this ilk, Michele Bachmann sets the mold. At the other end of the spectrum, there is the wily Joe Barton, of Texas.

Like many Tea Party acolytes, Ms. Bachmann comes from a large family, raised with 9 children, a melded family following a divorce. She has, in her adult life, done foster care for 23 children in addition to her own five children.  Barton also likes family large--with four children and two step children.  Big families. Go figure.

They also like local schools. Typically, they do not seek out a college far from home, where competition may be stiff and ideas new. Bachman went to Winona State U, Barton to Texas A&M, where a lot of students dress in soldier uniforms and the biggest project on campus every year is the building of a huge bonfire of logs which can be seen from outer space and possibly, from the great wall of China.

There is often a little quirk in the personal history which gives one pause, makes you say, "What was that all about?" In Bachmann's case, it was that year after she graduated from Anoka High and hopped a plane for Israel and worked on a kibbutz.
Dream on that one. She must have looked fetching in those khaki shorts, but she came back and went to college, like a more or less normal Midwestern girl.

Mr. Barton's little quirk has to do with his outrage about light bulbs. Seems he is against the new light bulbs. Considers this effort at energy conservation emblematic of government over reaching. "People don't want Congress dictating what light fixtures they can use." Apparently, this is the 21st century version of fluoridated water. Don't let the government put something in your body which might fight cavities, and don't let them in your home with funky light bulbs.

Then there is the mentor thing: Bachmann's was John Eidsmoe, who wrote, Christianity and the Constitution, an inspirational history which shows these United States were founded as a Christian theocracy and should return to its Christian roots.
In Barton's case, it was James B. Edwards, Secretary of Energy, from whom Barton learned about oil companies and how much money you could make by learning to love them.

Bachmann, like many of her Tea Party colleagues, did not stop with a college degree, but sought higher degrees at really sketchy places, in her case, the O.W. School of Law, of the Oral Roberts University.  She was a member of its first graduating class and it was there she received the truth about the Christian nature of the Constitution. She then married and moved to Minnesota, where with her husband she ran a Christian counseling center. (Mad Dog can only imagine the conversations in this center. Probably a lot of What Would Jesus Do endings.)

Then there is the wheeler-dealer aspect of the personality: Bachmann's husband became a Swiss citizen which afforded automatic citizenship for Michele. This is another one of those things, like the year on the kibbutz, which just sets your imagination soaring. What could they be thinking? When the black helicopters swoop in, the Bachmanns are off to the happy valleys and soaring mountain passes. Or, is it more about Swiss bank accounts?  After a long career as an oil company consultant, Barton accused President Obama of trying to "shakedown" British Petroleum over the Gulf Oil spill. Although Mad Dog is not privy to the details, he was impressed Mr. Barton made Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)'s Most Corrupt list. Now, there's a distinction. This resulted, at least in part, from Mr. Barton's failure to disclose his interest in a gas company, which was purchased for him by a fan. The $100,000 which came Mr. Barton's way apparently had nothing to do with his chairmanship of the House's Energy Subcommittee. As a good family man, he has hired his wife, daughter and mother and paid them, using campaign funds, salaries totaling almost $80,000. So, perhaps, Mr. Barton earned his position on the CREW list, fair and square.

But, for Mad Dog's money, the best story of all, occurred after a candidate's debate, when Ms. Bachmann averred the HPV vaccine causes  mental retardation. She knew this, she said, because a woman outside the auditorium had stopped her and told her so.

There’s a woman who came up crying to me tonight after the debate. She said her daughter was given that vaccine,” Bachmann said on Fox News. “She told me her daughter suffered mental retardation as a result. There are very dangerous consequences.”

Bachmann repeated the allegation on the “Today Show” this morning, adding, “It’s very clear that crony capitalism could have likely been the cause, because the governor's former chief of staff was the chief lobbyist for this drug company.”

This is a story, sublime on so many levels, Mad Dog just cannot let go of it.  It warms the cold cockles of Mad Dog's black heart. He has looked for it on Youtube and elsewhere, but cannot find it.  It is just so, Michele.  Of course, Ms. Bachmann was scandalized on two accounts: 1. "The Human Tragedy"  account--think of that poor mother and her retarded child.  2. What this story tells us about the perfidy of Rick Perry, who as governor of Texas had a rare moment of moral clarity and decided protecting Texas girls and boys against the HPV virus, which causes cervical cancer and genital warts, is a worthy goal of government.  But, of course, as Ms. Bachmann immediately appreciated, he had no virtuous motivations at all--he was just trying to cash in with the company who made the vaccine.

What really was bothering Ms. Bachmann, is the titilation of the sexual undertones of this story. We are talking about a sexually transmitted disease here, and the connection between sex and mental retardation via a vaccine. I mean, Mr. Perry was just trying to vaccinate young boys and girls so they would start thinking about sex at a young age, and then, very possibly, start engaging in sex in the fields, on the prairies, in the kibbutzim of Texas.  Oh, it just gets Ms. Bachmann red in the face. 

Tea Party In Congress: Profiles from the Fringe

Mad Dog is trying to understand where the 50 members of the House of Representatives who will caucus with the Tea Party come from.  Who are these people? What are they like?

Picking from Roll Call's list of newly elected Republican likely Tea Party members, I landed on Kerry Bentivolio, first by alphabetical order.

Scanning through his official biography and what has been written about him on line, I think I got a sense of the man. 

This will be the first in a series of  "Get To Know Your Tea Party" presented by Mad Dog.

Mr. Bentivolio was elected from Michigan's 11th district. Like so many Tea Party acolytes, Mr. Bentivolio decries taxes, emphasizes the importance of cutting government spending and government programs.  He is staunch in his support for the idea the 2nd amendment guarantees any American citizen complete freedom to own and use guns. He is against abortion.

Born in 1951, he went to Vietnam rather than college, although he did later get an associate's degree from a community college, and eventually a BA in social studies and a M.A.  

According to remarks on line from a brother, Mr. Bentivolio's early life was marked by some dysfunction, including a proclivity for glue sniffing and he wound up in and out of many jobs, back and forth in and out of the military.
He remained in the National Guard and was served in the first Gulf War, rising to the rank of a Master Sergeant, in the military police.

Like so many of our elected leaders who extol the Ayn Randian notion of the independent man,  who creates his own business and asks nothing from government, Mr. Bentivolio's work history is one of being an employee, first in the military, then as a teacher and he worked as a "design engineer" in the "automotive industry," although exactly what that means, and for whom he worked is not clear. His education mentions nothing which suggests any engineering training. At any rate, he has been supported by large organizations and he has drawn a pay check for most of his life.

He did take a run at a construction business, but apparently did not pay his bills, and when he was scheduled to appear as Santa Claus at a White House function in the George H.W. Bush days, disgruntled creditors got wind of this from local newspaper reports and apparently they raised a howl, called the White House and he was disinvited. A newspaper reporter for a local Michigan paper writes that Mr. Bentivolio sued him and his paper for publishing a story Mr. Bentivolio considered slanderous. A settlement was reached, the reporter says, for nuisance money.

There are several references to Mr. Bentivolio's speckled career as a teacher: Apparently, there were some explosions of temper in the classroom, during which he slammed his fist  on his desk and after newspaper reports of his outbursts and his upsetting students, resulting in several kerfuffles he ultimately resigned his teaching positions.

During his service in the Gulf, Mr. Bentivolio injured his neck and was sent to recover at a facility in Kentucky, where, driving around in a rented car, he happened on a Tea Party rally, where Rand Paul was speaking and he was much impressed.

I'm not sure if a pattern will emerge here, but I do see some similarities in Mr. Bentivolio's profile and that of, say, Rush Limbaugh, in a desultory and sputtering  academic history, a failure at private enterprise, while extolling the superiority of the capitalist system. There is also the evidence of pugnacity and the story of being captivated by a political sales pitch rather than by rigorous debate and thoughtful analysis. 

One also gets the strong intimation being a Congressman is the best job this man could ever hope to land, the steady pay, the check, the level of pay.  


We'll see, as we look at other Tea Party types, what sort of patterns may emerge.

Hunters' Rights

When I was a student, I was lucky enough to be invited, along with a few other students, for a weekend in the Adirondacks. One of the deans was married to a Vanderbilt, and when we arrived, they showed us around the main lodge, which had soaring wood paneled walls lined with the heads of big game shot by one Vanderbilt or another. The Vanderbilts were, apparently, enthusiastic hunters.  The estate bordered the Rockefeller estate, had its own private railroad line, its own gasoline station and a map on one wall made it look about the size of the county I came from in Maryland.

One thing I distinctly remember was the perimeter around the lodge and the smaller cabins surrounding it, which was marked clearly with blazes on trees. That's where you left your guns, and the help would come by and pick them up. No loaded gun was allowed closer than a mile and a half from the lodge. You left the guns, unloaded, and the help came and got them and brought them to a cabin. The guns were left unloaded, I presumed, for the safety of the gun bearers and, I thought darkly, to be sure the gun bearers could not use the guns on the Vanderbilts or their guests.

My wife's father was a life time member of the NRA.  His father gave him his first rifle at age 12, and he hunted in the fields and woodlands of Utah. When, years later as an Army colonel  he was appointed assistant commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., he arrived at the house assigned him, in a wooded area of the campus and spotted squirrels scampering around the grounds. He quickly retrieved, not a gun, but his bow and arrow and promptly nailed a squirrel for lunch.  Within minutes, his house was surrounded by M.P.'s, one of whom ran up to his door and the colonel stepped out on to the porch, smiling, curiously.

"Colonel, stay inside until we give you the all clear."

"Problem?" 

"We had reports of an man with a bow shooting arrows."

"Oh, certainly. Carry on," my father in law said, and he went back in to the kitchen to prepare his squirrel lunch.

Walter Reed, in those days, was just off 16th Street in Northwest Washington, D.C. It was one of those enclaves within a city which had deer, squirrels, even the occasional fox. But the military was very vigilant about weapons. 

My father in law mentioned that soldiers returning from firing ranges on base had to present the empty shell casings, which were then counted. If you had taken 24 rounds, you had better come back with 24 shell casings. The Army did not want you using a live round on a drill instructor, officer or fellow soldier. That's how careful the Army was about ammunition, guns and the potential for mischief by the mixture of the two.

All this is by way of introduction to events of January 1.  Walking along the Urban Forest in Portsmouth, which is bounded by Elwyn Road, Route One and the salt bog, I heard gunfire. Long volleys, then silence, then more shots. The Urban Forest was teeming with walkers and dogs that day, and many of them came streaming out along the trails near the water, through the woods, trying to get away from the firing. Somebody said she had seen a man with a rifle firing in the direction of the high school, across the bog.  An off duty policeman, walking his dog, called the station house in Portsmouth to send out a squad car, but as he looked out across the bog, fifty yards from the entrance to the park, he saw two men on an island just offshore, a boat, and they had rifles.

"They might be hunters," he said. "They might be within their rights. It is the Live Free or Die State."

Sure enough, the Police Log in the Portsmouth Herald the next day said these were legal hunters in duck season.

Legal, but why is this legal?

From where those hunters stood, Route One was about 0.3 mile across open bog; the high school is screened by scrub trees and brush, but less than a mile, and the walking trails of the urban forest within twenty yards, and Elwyn Road less than 0.2 mile. 

Stray shots could have hit motorists along either road, walkers, dogs and there were precious few ducks to be seen that cold New Year's day.

The question is: What is so sacred, important or necessary about hunting that hunters should be allowed to hunt so close to their fellow citizens, to unsuspecting motorists or people just out for a walk with their dogs?

In Hampton, one of my neighbors grabs a gun and goes shooting in the salt marshes off Route One, in sight of the Seabrook/Hampton Falls Nuclear power plant and within yards of occupied homes, and within easy rifle shot of cars along Route 1.

"It's perfectly legal," he says.

Well, if we are a democracy, if we elect local government, why should this be legal?

Why can we not do what the Vanderbilts did, what the Army does, with respect to limiting and controlling lethal weapons when it comes to protecting the places we actually live?
We ought not conflate the control of hunters in populated areas with the events at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I have no doubt, seeing those hunters on the bog, all decked out in their hunting gear, they had no blood lust for human beings. They were enjoying the great outdoors, hunting ducks. 
But I do argue their enjoyment does not trump the enjoyment of all the walkers, motorists and joggers who were out that day.
In some ways, it reminds me of the debate over loud motorcycles: The man on his Harley likes the roar of his bike, but those around him are offended. 
The hunters enjoyed shooting off their rifles, but I can say with considerable certainty, they offended dozens of citizens that day.
Isn't democracy about the rights of the majority? We need to balance the rights of the minority, but isn't the greatest good for the greatest number still a reasonable principle of governance?
I might like the idea of a windmill in my backyard, but the noise and the sight of a sixty foot windmill might understandably upset my neighbors. Do they have no rights to low noise levels and a decent view?
Somehow, I do think, all of this may be of a piece:  the NRA has zero tolerance for any sort of limitation on the reasonable use, possession and display of guns. The NRA has lots of money and they use that to terrorize elected officials. That is perfectly legal, and that is the way the Supreme Court says we must play the game: Money is speech and Organizations enjoy the right of free speech as surely as individuals. 
But where, in all of this, is reason?

Peter King, Krauthammer and Republican Bile

Peter King, R-NY

Dr. Krauthammer

McConnell, R-Ky

Nick Anderson, Houston Chronicle

Representative Peter King, of New York was livid. The House of Representatives is where the money bills have to come from, and his state was promised money to help rebuild from the devastation of hurricane Sandy. But the House of Representatives, still captive to the Republican Tea Party has refused to provide promised relief. Congressman King sputtered: "They can find New York when they need campaign contributions, but when New York needs them:  Drop dead. I would not contribute another cent to Republican candidates."  
That got the attention of the Republicans. They did not vote through the bill, but they called in Mr. King and promised to vote this week and send New York its money. 

Thus is it ever so, the Republicans are against government, which is to say, they are against taxing and spending, until they need government: Then they are self righteous.

Another face of the 21st century Republican party: Charles Krauthammer, expostulated that Hiliary Clinton's failure to appear before a congressional investigating committee was malingering, was "Benghazi allergy" had Rush Limbaugh and all his dittoheads smirking and cat calling. They loved it in Limbaughland. Hiliary is a' fraidy cat. Won't come out and testify.  Hiding behind a phony injury.

Ms. Clinton, meanwhile,  has an MRI which shows a clot in the transverse sinus, an injury which can be lethal, and requires anticoagulation in hospital.

Does Dr. Krauthammer (MD, Harvard Medical School) or Mr. Limbaugh, (no academic degree of any sort) have decency to say, "Oh, well, sorry about that?"

This is the nature of the men on the other side of the aisle. From Eric Cantor, to John Boehner, to Mitch McConnell, to John Kyle down to the last drawling good ol' boys from Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina to Texas to Arizona, these are the vile boys. These are the Sheriff Arpaio crowd, for whom Kelly Ayotte has expressed her affection, with whom she votes in lock step, whose backing she covets for her national ambitions.

We have seen this sort of nastiness over the course of this nation's history. Certainly, the men who snarled across the aisle from Thaddeus Stevens were no different. These embittered men, hate dripping from their lips, were outraged at the idea of black men voting, women voting, a multiracial society in which white men would have to compete with women, blacks, Hispanics, Asians. 

It frightened them to think what might happen, if their white sons had to compete with other people.

So how do we deal with people like this? We are not going to change them. 
We can only expose them. 
Sunlight, a powerful disinfectant. 

When Martin Luther King described George Wallace, standing on the school steps, "Hate dripping from his lips," it was a powerful image, an image we had seen on TV and the power began to drain away from Wallace and his racist throng. When TV cameras caught images of fat, white policemen, with dogs, beating black men and women and dragging them down the streets of Selma, revulsion set in, not in Selma, but everywhere from the hamlets of New Hampshire, to the beach towns of California, and things began to change. 

The best we can do is to show these Republicans for what they are. Jon Stewart does some of this, every night. Steven Colbert lampoons them. But we need to do more.  We need to show Republicans, Fox News Republicans, Congressional Republicans, Tea Party Republicans, and yes, even Blue Dog Democrats, to the nation.

We need to quote them, show them, put their images before the nation.

Then, and only then, will the tide turn.

Dysfunctional Democracy: Can It Long Endure?

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure... that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

The Agents of Hope and Change: Of different minds and sometimes a single purpose

Obama

Chris van Hollen D-Md

Dick Durbin D-Illinois

Tom Harkin D-Iowa

Steny Hoyer  D-Md

The Opposition: Striving Every Day to Keep the Rich Rich And The Poor in Their Place

Eric Cantor R-Va

Grover Norquist Unelected 

Mitch McConnell R-Ky

John Roberts R-Bush

Antonin Scalia R-Spanish Inquistion

 When fascism comes to the United States, it will come wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross. 
--Sinclair Lewis

This morning, the New York Times published the first paper of 2013. On the same page, a summary of the "Tentative Accord" ran over an article about a message from Chief Justice John Roberts to the Executive and Legislative branch.

What confused Mad Dog mightily is the phrase "Tentative Accord." What is this thing? A law?  Apparently, no bill was passed into law. The bullet points were neatly outlined, but they are not law. And is this an agreement between departing lame duck Congress and Mr. Obama or does it automatically get enacted by the new Congress? What is this "accord" exactly? 

Whatever it is, the Democrat Tom Harkin said Mr. Obama had given away the store.
 For Mad Dog, giving away the store would mean two things: 1. Mr. Obama gives in on taxing the rich at higher rates--and by rich 400K strikes Mad Dog as drawing the line in the Republicans' favor, but Mad Dog could life with this, having seen the movie and realizing political deals are always sullied  2. Not reducing or endangering Medicare or Social Security, not in premiums or financing. 

So Mad Dog still does not know what to think has happened, what has been swapped for what, until there is a bill to vote on.

As for the Chief Justice's message: He tells us the Judiciary can be a model of financial virtue, while "No one seriously doubts the country's fiscal ledge has gone awry."  
Actually, Chief Justice, Mad Dog seriously doubts this. Or if there is red ink, it flows from the wounds of two wars we can quickly end, if we chose.

Mr. Roberts  then extols his own thriftiness: "For each citizen's tax dollar only two tenths of one penny goes toward funding the entire third branch of government!"
(Exclamation point!)
Well, that's very impressive (!!! )considering the judiciary does not fund programs which provide for the nation's health care, financial security, defense, Coast Guard, border defense or manufacturing or infrastructure. The only expenses the judiciary incurs have to do with salaries,  building maintenance, and computer expenses. 
The Chief Justice tells us how hard working the judges are, "Hearings in Lower Manhattan the day after the storm hit, working in a building without heat or hot water that was only sparsely lit by gas-fueled emergency generators." And the Supreme Court, we are told heard arguments when the rest of official Washington was closed after Hurricane Sandy.
Oh, three cheers for the intrepid judges!  Perhaps they had to wear sweaters under their robes. 
None of these judges were hanging from helicopters on ropes, reeling in the drowning. Oh, don't get me started. I would love to see Mr. Roberts tell any of my New Hampshire neighbors, electricians who work on generators in the snow, builders who plow their way into construction sites, ship yard workers who get up at 4 AM to make their shift twenty miles from their homes, power line workers, plumbers, pipe fitters, auto mechanics, power plant workers, garbage collectors, men with weather beaten faces, thick shoulders and callused hands, or doctors who operate, frequently, through the night. 
These men, and women, would tell Mr. Roberts he does not know what hard work is.

What Chief Justice does not mention is that "retired" judges can pull their full salaries if they continue to hear one case a year, and if they agree to hear a few more, they can be provided with a secretary and an office, at government expense, while they draw their full salaries.
Oh, this is very thrifty, thank you very much.
This is the essence of the privileged life:  Justice Roberts likely studied very hard, in his warm dorm room and his library heated partially by the public dollar, on his way to becoming a justice. And he thinks he is a paragon of virtue because he goes to work when the lights are dim.
That is how far men like those who sit on the Supreme Court are from the lives of real hard working Americans.