Just a quick one to fill us all in on how stupid conservatives are by going over some of the latest memes in the conservative world. By happy coincidence, they come together today.

First off, it’s the way the government is taking over the national communication system. Oh, did you miss that? Maybe that’s because if you noticed it at all you just heard that there was a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System today. For a whole thirty seconds the government broadcast an alert signal on television and radio, all channels, all stations.

To hear the wingers, though, it was going to be like this, posted by our friend Kestrel:

 Nateas by kestrel9000

Here’s just one of the comments by right wingers at a site I frequent:

Will this warning system warn us about our internal enemies? I understand that TSA is asserting jurisdiction over our highways, waterways, railroads, and bus terminals. They assured us that the searches are necessary to protect us from terrorists!

If I remember correctly, they have started random searches in Tennessee already.

First the IRS, then BATF, now TSA. I don’t think we need to worry to much about foreigners!

Or this:

This coming test is obnoxiously STUPID! Good grief, each state of this nation cares for its own. We have alarm systems in place, regular tests, etc. So, what is the reason for it? A national alert system and with WHO doing the announcing?!

Well, news at the start of this year was that our peculiar president was going to put his own voice over the alert systems! Oh, good grief, joke about conspiracy nuts all ya want, this is insanity.

Yeah, way back in time I know I saw a movie of a Communist leader announcing in hypnotic fashion, telling all of the citizens of his nation what to do, where to go…etc.

Rather damn Orwellian, indeed since this is the same “peculiar” president that wants a “Civilian Security Force” that he said will be “as big, powerful and well funded” as our current military forces.

Meanwhile, Homeland Security is doing some checkpoints on roads? highways? in Tennessee for Halloween?!

At any rate, it’s over now, so if the black helicopters didn’t arrive this afternoon to drag you out of your house you’re probably safe.

Next up: Christmas trees. Or rather, how President Barack Hussein is waging War on Xmas(TM). Either that or how he’s breaking his promise not to raise taxes on people who make less than $250,000 a year.

What’s the real story? Just like the campaigns for “The Other White Meat” or the Beef Council, the Christmas tree growers came up with a plan a few years ago to assess a fee of $0.15 (yes, that’s a total of fifteen cents, people!) to fund marketing efforts for natural grown Christmas trees, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has just released the final rule approving it.

Take this from the Heritage Foundation:

Acting Administrator Shipman had the temerity to say the 15-cent mandatory Christmas tree fee “is not a tax nor does it yield revenue for the Federal government” (76 CFR 69102).  The Federal government mandates that the Christmas tree sellers pay the 15-cents per tree, whether they want to or not.  The Federal government directs that the revenue generated by the 15-cent fee goes to the Board appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture to carry out the Christmas tree program established by the Secretary of Agriculture.  Mr. President, that’s a new 15-cent tax to pay for a Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/…

Or this:

Originally Posted by Mr. Mon View PostYou’ve been paying small extra taxes on all kinds of agricultural products to fund similar campaigns for years. Why is this a big deal to you now?

Its always a big deal , look at the federal goverment , it looks OK to you ?

Or:

I am concerned. will i have to pay an extra tax when its time to dye easter eggs?

the sooner obama goes the better. its going to be a long year.

Or even:

Why is obama getting away with taxing non-muslims yet again?

So yes, take your pick. Today was just Bonus Conservative Insanity Day. I don’t promise a double dose of conservative insanity every day (but I could).

No elections in Vermont today, but there are a couple of important ones elsewhere.

In Ohio, voters have overwhelmingly voted to throw out the anti-union law that right-wing governor John Kasich pushed through the legislature this year. You may recall that this is the race that Mitt Romney got his fingers burned in recently because of jumping into the fight without clearly picking a side. Another profile in courage for the Mittster, but more importantly, the voters of Ohio have come out to support the rights of public sector workers.

In Mississippi voters have rejected a constitutional amendment that would have counted zygotes and embryos as complete human beings from the moment of conception, immediately outlawing all abortions and some forms of birth control, while at the same time forcing pregnant women to pay double admission to the movies and allowing them to drive in the car pool lane. This was considered a risk to pass, particularly since both gubernatorial candidates supported it.

In Maine the voters have approved a proposal for same-day voter registration, even though the Republicans used scare tactics against it, including ads claiming that the measure was supported by “the gays”.

And on a more personal note, in the town I grew up in, voters in Glen Rock, New Jersey stayed true to a pattern established back in 1896, rejecting a Democratic candidate with new ideas for mayor in favor of the Republican establishment. The candidate was my brother Mark, running for the same office that our father ran unsuccessfully for forty-five years ago. Consistency isn't always a good thing, but the family tradition of working for Democratic ideals remains strong. Congratulations on the effort, Mark!

Is Scott Brown afraid of Elizabeth Warren? He should be.

Sure, we know all about Scott Brown. He defeated perhaps the weakest candidate for U.S. Senate since Jack McMullen, who ran for Senator from Vermont from his vacation home and lost the Republican primary to Fred Tuttle, a man with such a thick Vermont accent that they needed to run subtitles even when he appeared on the radio, but Brown was the beneficiary of an even worse candidate. That was, of course, Martha “What do you expect me to do, stand outside Fenway Park and ask people to vote for me?” Coakley.

Scott Brown has all the qualifications for Senate–he’s posed naked in a magazine and he owns a pickup truck–but he may find Warren a bit more of a challenge.

At the beginning it was tempting to see her as merely an academic, or, as the latest dirty word in the Republicans’ vocabulary, a technocrat. She is showing us, though, that she has the goods to get out there and campaign.

Exhibit A is the video of her talking about the nature of wealth and success in this country. It was great reading the transcript, but it’s phenomenal when you see it.

Then we also saw pictures of her recent volunteer rally. Very impressive that she was able to motivate such a big crowd of volunteers.

https://motherjones.com/files/…

Finally, just last night, she had to contend with a deranged heckler from the Tea Party who called her a “socialist whore”.

Her response:

“I actually felt sorry for the guy. I really genuinely did,” Warren later told the Huffington Post. “He’s been out of work now for a year and a half. And bless his heart, I mean, he thought somehow it would help to come here and yell names.”

She also added: “I’m not angry with him, but he didn’t come up with the idea that his biggest problem was Occupy Wall Street. There’s someone else pre-packaging that poison – and that’s who makes me angry.”

As I say, she can handle herself, and I think she’s a problem for Naked Scott.

At the conclusion of a months-long process the Taser study committee established by the Montpelier City Council has issued its final report and has recommended that the City Council not authorize the capital city police to acquire Tasers for its officers.

The report finds that there is a lack of evidence that Tasers are needed, disputes the claim that Tasers save lives and reduce costs, and finds that crisis intervention training would be more effective to deal with the volatile situations for which Tasers are often suggested as a panacea. The committee report refers to the evidence for Taser use “hypothetical scenarios”.

There is a minority report by Nick Marro, who argues that Tasers can be a useful tool to avoid injuries to police officers. 

The report is thorough and well-researched, and should give the Council a major impetus to reject the Taser proposal. Meanwhile, there is still time for your voice to be heard. The Council will receive the report at its regular meeting on Wednesday, November 9. If they haven't already heard from you, that would be a good time to appear and express your opposition to this dangerous instrumentality.

John Bauer, a longtime Democrat from Jeffersonville, has started a petition to get serious news outlets to stop with the Kardashian divorce business.

In case you've missed it, Kim Kardashian is a true celebrity: a person who is famous for being famous. Apparently a little while ago she got married and collected big bucks for it (endorsements, I guess).

Now she's getting divorced. As you might guess, this has been big news, with CNN covering it every day. How big? Well, if you google kim kardashian divorce you get 160,000,000 hits.

If you happen to think that CNN has more important things to do than cover divorces of the rich and famous, hop over and sign the petition.

Our national jobs problem is nearly solved.

True to his promise, the House of Representatives, led by John Boehner, is poised to pass legislation that is guaranteed to solve the jobs deficit plaguing the American economy.

From The Hill:House Republicans on Tuesday will try to pass a resolution  reaffirming that “In God We Trust” is the national motto of the United  States.

The concurrent resolution,  sponsored by Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), would not have the force of  law, but instead is aimed at “supporting and encouraging the public  display of the national motto in all public buildings, public schools  and other government institutions.”

Expectations are high that in addition to creating millions of jobs, this new measure will resolve the real estate and foreclosure crisis, which will, in turn, generate trillions of dollars to balance the federal budget and eliminate the national debt.

Almost four hundred years ago, John Milton published Areopagitica, a treatise in opposition to censorship of the press. Although he was not entirely in favor of unfettered expression, he argues that a regime of censorship gives power to the narrow-minded type of men who will fear and try to suppress any expression that threatens their world view.

As Vince Blasi, one of my Con Law professors puts it: The lowly wisdom of Areopagitica is considerable. Milton insists, for example, that the policy of licensing cannot be assessed without taking into account the capacities, incentives, working conditions, loyalties, and temperaments of the persons who will serve as licensers. “There cannot be,” he says, “a more tedious and unpleasing journey-work, a greater loss of time levied upon [a man’s] head, than to be made the perpetual reader of unchosen books and pamphlets, ofttimes huge volumes .. . and in a hand scarce legible, whereof three pages would not down at any time in the fairest print.” With such a job description, “we may easily foresee what kind of licensers we are to expect hereafter, either ignorant, imperious, and remiss, or basely pecuniary.”

Our Founding Fathers rejected the rule of this type of person by permanently enshrining the freedom of the press as the paramount value of the Bill of Rights. Among other things, and subsequent case law embodies this, freedom of speech and of the press are vital to the polity because of their consequences: they enable a democratic populace to govern themselves.

What the mind of the censor, as described by Milton, fails to understand is that censorship doesn’t work.

Take the book I’m reading now, The Black Banners by Ali Soufan. You’ve probably heard of it because of Soufan’s argument and demonstration that torture doesn’t work in general, and in particular was counterproductive in investigating the truth behind the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Another topic, though, is the ridiculous examples of censorship to which Soufan has been subjected. Here are a couple of examples:

Again [1 word redacted] was going with my instinct. [1 word redacted] didn’t know that they were friends, but [1 word redacted] guessed that, given Abu Zubaydah’s knowledge of KSM’s role in 9/11, they must be-and again [1 word redacted] wanted to make Abu Zubaydah think that [1 word redacted] knew all about their relationship.

And: As [1 word redacted] was drawing up an interrogation plan, at around 3:00 AM, the CIA medic tending to Abu Zubaydah came to my room. “Hey, Ali, how important is this guy?” he casually asked. He knew nothing about Abu Zubaydah and was only at the location because of his medical skills. “He’s pretty important,” [1 word redacted] replied.

There are other examples. I’m reading the book on Kindle, so the censorship is turning up as a notation of the number of words redacted. In the print version it is different: black marks covering up the words, as had previously been done with Victor Marchetti’s The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, so commentators have observed that the redactions are ineffective because the reader can tell, for example, that the word redacted consists of a single letter.

In the quoted portions above, it is obvious that the redacted word is “I”. For instance, what other word would make sense in “[1 word redacted] was going with my instinct”?

There are longer redacted passages, where the content isn’t obvious, but it seems likely to me that in context, to someone who has read other sources, like the various investigation and government reports on the attacks, there wouldn’t be much that you couldn’t figure out.

Coming out of the Bush Administration’s criminal activities, including torture and unprovoked war of aggression, free debate is essential. The redactions in The Black Banners demonstrate that the mind of the censor is directly and always opposed to such free debate.

The reprehensible Harold Ford once again comes down on the side of Republicans today. He has an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal about jobs, or allegedly about jobs, and he takes the opportunity to parrot the Republican myth that regulations are the obstacle to job creation.

Former U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln has argued forcefully in favor of an independent review process for proposed regulations. If the costs outweigh the benefits, they shoulhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifd be eliminated. In the meantime, a moratorium on new regulations that don’t immediately protect public safety is a reasonable step that could be taken until our economy gets back on its feet.

I don’t know why Ford doesn’t just make it official and stop pretending to be a Democrat.