And here's that missing bullet from yesterday...

When it comes to the politics of religion, I generally remain silent because the fallout just isn't worth it. Even when I make a simple observation on the topic with no opinion whatsoever, it seems I end up with hate-mail or nasty comments. And it's not just here on Blogography. I once made the following comment on Facebook...

"Separation of church and state only seems to work one way, and that's to the sole benefit of the churches. They are given tax-exempt status so that their financial operations are kept separate from the government, as interpreted by the First Amendment, and that's fine. That's the law. But more and more we are seeing churches being actively involved in politics and government. They use their monies to sponsor candidates for public office, back legislation, contribute to lobbying efforts, and otherwise influence or control matters of the state. They are clearly not maintaining a separation from their side of the bargain. And yet there are no repercussions for them doing so. Get caught stepping over the line and you should be getting your tax exempt status revoked. But how often do we hear of that happening? Our government is tasked with upholding The Constitution and protecting the religious freedoms of the people they serve. Apparently this doesn't include protecting a person's freedom from religion. Which is why I want to vomit every time I see somebody claiming that they're being persecuted because they can't put Jesus on top of a post office... or same-sex couples can get married... or somebody says "happy holidays"... or whatever. Clearly, they have no fucking clue what "persecution" even means. Some churches have evolved into tax-free political action committees operating outside the law, and nobody does shit about it. The truth is that the only people being persecuted in this scenario are people wanting to live their lives free from religious rule and have a government free from church influence."

I ended up having to de-friend two Facebook "friends" and completely blocked a third over it.

And so I try to avoid the subject entirely, even though I think things are far worse now than they were when I wrote that five years ago. As churches and people of faith... namely, the Christian Right... feel more and more threatened by things they don't like (e.g. marriage equality), they've stepped up the persecution rhetoric to an all-time high. Many times I've wanted to write about this grotesque mockery of people who are enduring actual religious persecution... and the height of hypocrisy fueling it... yet I have resisted.

But now I don't have to write about it because somebody has written about it for me: News Flash to Christian Right: Religious Freedom Doesn't Give You the Right to Control Other People. So thank you, Robert Boston.

The only reservation I have over endorsing articles like this is the same one I always have... it does not apply to all Christians. I'm guessing it doesn't apple to most Christians. Not only that, but it could equally apply to any religious organization which feels their beliefs should dictate how other people live their lives in a society built on freedom of religion.

Or Freedom from Religion, as the case may be.

As expected, today was a lovely Spring day with gorgeous blue skies and warm temperatures. Which means the brief snow we got on Wednesday has evaporated.

For now. I'm guessing Winter... what little of it we're going to get... is still ahead. Hopefully the mountains are fairing better, or else we'll be in the middle of a drought come Summer.

In other news...

Literally in other news...

If you hadn't noticed, the whole Chris Christie Bridge Scandal exploded this week. The gist of the story is this...

• Back in September, on the first day of school, three lanes were closed on The George Washington Bridge in New Jersey... the busiest bridge in the world, linking Fort Lee, NJ to Washington Heights, NYC.
• The closure caused horrendous traffic jams in the city of Fort Lee, which was a nightmare for commuters and badly delayed emergency services for the area.
• The bridge closure was said to be a "traffic study." But when no evidence of a "traffic study" could be found, it was suspected that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had shut down the bridge in retaliation for Fort Lee's mayor, Mark Sokolich, not endorsing Christie during his campaign.
• When asked if the bridge closure was retaliation, Governor Christie was a raging fucking dick in his denials.
• Fast forward a couple months and, SURPRISE! Communications surfaced which confirmed Christie's deputy chief of staff, Bridget Anne Kelly, had arranged the "traffic problems" in collaboration with David Wildstein, a Christie appointee to the Port Authority.
• YESTERDAY, Chris Christie had to eat shit and apologize for being a raging fucking dick, AND the heinous abuse of power by his people. He also tells everybody that Bridget Anne Kelly had been fired, and he had no idea all this was going on.
• TODAY, even more documentation has surfaced, showing a ruthless campaign of intimidation and full-on threats to cover-up the scandal by Christie's people in the Port Authority and his own office staff and campaign committee.

The million dollar question remains... How much did Chris Christie actually know about the closure, and was he the person behind it all? He denies it, of course, but he's a fucking politician. They don't know how not to lie.

But whatever. For me, whether Christie was or wasn't behind everything is secondary to his disgusting behavior as the scandal unfolded. THIS was a top contender for the office of President of the United States?

And it got me to wondering. Are there ANY contenders for President out there that I would actually want in office come 2016? So I started looking into the top people rumored to be in contention for the job. And the answer was not at all surprising...

No. No there are not.

I think of politicians like Paul Ryan, Hilary Clinton, Joe Biden, Bobby Jindal, Andrew Cuomo, Ted Cruz, and (God help us) Marco Rubio as President of the United States and I feel like I'm going to vomit then crap my pants and die. These people are PRESIDENTIAL material?

No. No they are not.

Which means somebody has got to step up to the plate and captivate the country Real Soon Now. Preferably somebody who's not a polarizing, divisive figure. And somebody who can be tough but fair. And supports personal freedoms. And has a brain in their head.

Somebody like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

But, you know, real.

Not that blood-sucking vampire hunting skills wouldn't be handy in Washington DC.

In the 1992 movie The Distinguished Gentleman, Eddie Murphy plays a con artist who figures out that the most profitable con jobs of all can be found in American politics, so he bluffs his way into Congress.

The movie was widely panned by critics. They just couldn't say enough bad things about the film, and most movie-goers seemed to feel the same way. Not me. Yes, it felt like Eddie Murphy was making the shit up as he went along, and the movie would have benefitted greatly from a tighter script... but, overall, it's a pretty funny film.

And a very disturbing film as well...

Early in the movie Eddie's character, Thomas Jefferson Johnson, has just arrived in Washington and is meeting with a lobbyist representative named Terry Corrigan who matches lobbyists to politicians who share their views. Terry asks Thomas how he feels about sugar subsidies. Thomas doesn't know how he feels about sugar subsidies, so he asks Terry whether he should be for them or against them. Terry says something like "Shit, it doesn't matter to me... I can get you money on both sides." This kind of shocks Thomas, who says "Terry, tell me something. With all this money coming in from both sides, how does anything ever get done?" Terry's reply? "It doesn't. That's the genius of the system!"

The rest of the film is how Eddie and his friends try to maximize the money they can get out of the system, all while being in a constant state of shock at just how fucking easy it is for a Congressman to rake in absurd amounts of cash. At the end of the movie, Eddie's character makes a statement about how all his con-jobs in the past are nothing compared to the massive cons going on every day in the US government, except with Congress it's all perfectly legal.

The movie is as relevant today as it was when it was made twenty years ago, and I still think it's worth checking out. And here's why... As crazy and as exaggerated and as outrageous as the situations are in The Distinguished Gentleman, I am absolutely certain that what goes on in real-life Congress is a thousand times worse. And the more I read about what's happening with the assholes we elect into office today, the more I'm convinced that has to be true.

At least in the movie version I can have a laugh while getting fucked by Congress. Reality is not quite so entertaining.

And so President Barrack Obama has been reelected for another term. To all his supporters, I offer my congratulations. I guess I can kind of congratulate myself here, though I am more of a reluctant supporter. In my mind, the president was merely the "least worst" candidate, which is how I seem to cast all my votes now-a-days.

To Mitt Romney supporters, I offer my condolences. How you are feeling right now is how I felt when President Bush got a second term. And I sympathize, I really do. Because I know exactly what it's like. I thought (and continue to feel) that George W. Bush was the worst president in the history of this country. He was horrendously inept at all facets of the job. He was supposed to be a Conservative, but did stupid shit like passing the prescription drug entitlement and doubling spending, which sent us on the road to bankruptcy. He was a terrible Commander in Chief, getting us into wars with no planning (and no financing)... even worse, he sent our brave soldiers into battle, then turned around and made a joke of it. Bush was laughably bad at foreign policy, and managed to reverse the entire world's support after 9/11 into a seething hatred of America by even some of our most dedicated allies. His leadership was woefully lacking, with him coming across as more of a puppet with Karl Rove's hand up his ass than a president... and his constant caving to special interest and far-right rhetoric only confirmed it. He would pander to most anything that had even a hint of political up-side, and I lost track of the number of subsidy programs he financed with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. And don't get me started on his crazy-ass delusions that convinced him God was telling him what to do. The list goes on and on. With each passing day of the Bush administration, I grew more embarrassed for his clueless presidency, and increasingly fearful for the fate of this country.

So yeah, I get it.

But, in truth, Republicans really have nobody to blame but themselves that Obama got a second term. Mitt Romney was an abysmal choice for a presidential candidate, even by their own standards (don't take my word for it, listen to what his fellow Republican candidates had to say about him during the primaries... it's brutal). And if you can't get your own party base to get excited for your candidate, you're fucked no matter how you slice it. I mean, seriously, how can you get people excited about Romney when it's impossible to know where he stands? He condemned ObamaCare, but he also created the blueprint for it (RomneyCare!). He said humans contributed to global warming, but also said nobody knows what's causing climate change. He says he supports guns, but also passed significant gun-control legislation. He's voraciously anti-abortion in all cases, but also said he was pro-choice. He pandered to both the Tea Party crazies and moderates, then ended up pissing them both off. His non-stop parade of mind-boggling flip-flops and outrageous lies made him a complete joke (though I'd argue Obama wasn't much better). Pile it all up, and Mitt Romney was a disaster waiting to happen.

But, to many people, he was their least-worst choice, so he got a lot of votes.

Just not enough votes.

And it didn't help Romney that there were so many dumbass Republican politicians driving people away from the party. Idiots like Todd "Legitimate Rape" Aikin. And Richard "Rape is a Gift from God" Mourdock. And Bob "Governor Ultrasound" McDonald. All these dipshits (and so many more) seem to forget that Republicans are supposed to aspire to Conservative ideals... such as smaller, less intrusive government. Which brings me to this...

HELPFUL NOTE TO REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP: Give us a presidential candidate that a rapidly growing number of party-indifferent people like me can actually vote for. Give us somebody that's going to balance the budget, keep us safe, be mindful of our place in the global community, represent all citizens fairly and equally, AND SUPPORT PERSONAL LIBERTIES LIKE A GOOD CONSERVATIVE SHOULD! Stop condemning Americans for wanting personal choice when it comes to things like religion, abortion, and marriage. Because clinging to the belief that it's your business to dictate the most personal aspects of a person's life is going to motivate people alright. Motivate them to vote for Democrats like they did in this election.

It certainly motivated me.

And, yes, I realize this is a simplistic assessment, but it's not exactly a bad start. Because if the Republicans don't ditch the extremist Tea Party nutjobs and make some critical changes real soon, they're going to become increasingly irrelevant to a growing number of people who might like to vote Republican for a bit more fiscal responsibility and less government dependency in this country... but can't do so because they want control over their own damn lives.

If the Republican Party is to have a future, they need to embrace the future.

And if you need a role model for your survival, look no further than Maureen Walsh from my great state of Washington.

You probably recognize the name because of this...

Talk about motivation. She's not even in my district and I donated to her reelection campaign (she's a class act too... I got a handwritten thank-you note!).

And boy how I hope she aspires to State office one day.

The question is whether or not she'd be able to run as a Republican. Because if the party stays mired in the backwards-thinking past it would be like hitching her campaign to a boat anchor, and that would be a shame. This is one Republican that wants to sail free.

And if this year's election results are any indication, so do the majority of Americans.

Meh.

I called the presidential election the minute Mitt Romney emerged as the Republican candidate.

Unless President Obama strangled a puppy while kicking Betty White in the face after wiping his ass with the American flag during an episode of Dancing with the Stars, the election was his to lose. Sure it was a little closer than I had first imagined... but I just couldn't come up with a scenario where Romney got 270 votes out of the electoral college. My best-guess as of yesterday was this...

I started with the 2008 election map and took Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida from President Obama. I waffled on Colorado, but ultimately gave it to him.

In the end, the President managed to keep Virginia. That surprised me. He may even (eventually) keep Florida. I wasn't counting on that. It also looks like he may win the Popular Vote, which was something else I wasn't sure he'd do. So... a bigger victory than I projected... but not the runaway success he enjoyed for his first term.

And so...

It will be an interesting four years. Again.

But what I am really waiting for is news on Washington State's Referendum 74 for marriage equality. It is currently winning approval at 52% vs. 48% with just half of the votes counted. Whether this trend continues and puts my home state on the right side of history... or whether we continue to rail against the inevitable... is unknown.

Oh well. We just legalized marijuana, so I guess anything is possible.

It was a night of performance art tonight. Here are some of my favorites...

   
• Gabrielle Giffords "The Pledge of Allegiance" at the DNC. Tell me this isn't one of the most amazing things you've ever seen. The woman survives a frickin' assassination attempt... a gunshot to the head... says "fuck you" to the bullet, and is on-stage leading the DNC in the Pledge of Allegiance a year-and-a-half later. I don't care what your politics are, this kind of raw courage demands respect. There wasn't a dry eye in the house, making Gabrielle Giffords the performance to beat tonight.

   
• Pink "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" at the MTV VMAs. I have yet to see Pink in concert so every time I see one of her beautifully orchestrated live performances, I'm a little pissed-off. Tonight's VMA blow-out has her singing yet another amazing track from a string of amazing tracks... "Blow Me (One Last Kiss)" and it was fantastic. Once I got past her dopey hair-do, Pink had me completely captivated as she did her whole "Cirque du Soleil" act better than Cirque du Soleil.

   
• President Obama "Acceptance Speech" at the DNC. My candidate for the upcoming election was Jon Huntsman. I thought he was smart in all the right ways, and the person most likely to bridge the icy divide between Republicans and Democrats to fix our fucked-up country. But Republicans seemed to truly hate the guy because he wasn't bat-shit-crazy-Right, and you can't get anywhere when your own party doesn't support you. So Huntsman was shoved off the stage and we got... Mitt Romney. Who has the personality of a wooden board wrapped in a wet blanket. He does not inspire me in the least, and I abhor most of his politics when it comes to personal liberties... an area TRUE Conservatives should be getting the fuck out of in the name of less-invasive government. Oh well. So Barack Obama it is then. His acceptance speech was good. Very good. And as the consummate politician, our president delivered it in a way Romney can only dream about. He makes me forget that he wasn't my first choice. He makes me forget that he did some things I am really upset about. He makes me remember that he is a good man, a true patriot, and a decent president who is doing his best to get us out of a horrible situation. And while Obama is not my dream candidate, his speech makes me feel better about voting for him in November, which is what it's really all about.

   
• Jennifer Granholm at the DNC. Talk about your rousing performances... Granholm descended on the DNC like a tsunami and belted out a speech that was so unabashedly pro-Obama that it made other speakers look like they lacked support for the president. And I'm including Barack Obama. She waxed so poetically about the president's auto-bailout that it almost made me forget that it was President Bush who got the ball rolling by approving monies that would keep our auto-makers in business until Obama got in office. Granted, this was probably at least partially inspired by the Obama transition team laying groundwork for the new president... but it's still a glaring omission in giving credit where credit is due. Whatever. Granholm was there to rally for the president, and she got the job done by delivering a wake-up to the convention that was a much-needed slap in the face.

   
• Taylor Swift "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" at the MTV VMAs. In stark contrast to some of her previous televised live performances which were, for lack of a better word, "bad"... Taylor had a terrific (and impossibly cute) performance of her latest hit that brought down the house.

   
• Zach Wahls at the DNC. Zach is a great kid with a great story and a speaking presence that is really going to take him places. When I first saw his speech in defense of marriage equality at the Iowa House of Representatives, I was blown away. The guy is 19, but connects with an audience like a seasoned pro. The only problem is that all his speeches and talk show appearances are starting to sound the exact same. He's got two moms. His family is as normal as any other. Yadda yadda yadda. I know that's why he was at the convention, but Zach needs to mix it up a bit. Still, he did a great job, and you really have to admire his tireless efforts to get people onboard the equality bandwagon.

   
• Eva Longoria at the DNC. Seriously... who knew?

   
Annnnnd... after traveling all day, it's time to unwind and prep for a busy day tomorrow.

One shitty wank-fest of a political convention down, one to go.

I just hope that the Democrats don't end up with Clint Eastwood acting like he dropped acid before talking to a chair on their last day. How nuts was that? I mean, I know the Republicans felt they had to do something to top Sarah Palin, but this?

Though, I have to admit, President Obama's response was frickin' hilarious...

   
But his real response will come five days later at the next shitty wank-fest of a political convention.

I sure wish that the people who schedule these things would give me at least a month between events. It would be nice to recover a few sanity points before jumping straight into the next one.

Yesterday I returned home only to find that the air conditioner stopped working while I was in Portland. A day later and it's still not working. Which means I'm typing this in 94° heat. Which wouldn't bother me so much if I were lounging by a pool or getting ready to swim in the ocean... but at home? Teh suck.

So continue at your own risk, because I may be suffering from heatstroke and unable to form coherent sentences. Guess that's as good excuse as any to talk about politics.

And so this happened...

Bwah! Ha! Ha! We're rich and white... how can we lose? — Photo by Photo by Jim Lo Scalzo - EPA/Landov

   
If you're into the news, Mitt Romney choosing Paul Ryan as his running mate is being hailed as a "bold choice."

Which could be true, if all you're wanting to do is make a bold statement. But, if you are actually wanting to win the presidency, I'd be more likely to hail it as a "crazy choice." But wait wait wait... before anybody starts stepping up to defend Ryan and call me nasty names... I am talking about perception here. I fully admit that I don't know much about Ryan yet (other than he voted for massive government spending under Bush, then changed his mind and now hates government spending under Obama) so I'm not going to comment on what he's about until I actually know what he's about.

Fortunately, internet memes popped up almost immediately after the announcement, so it should be easy to get a handle on Ryan's politics...

Oh dear.

Yeah, I know that the conservative-leaning crowd have the same kind of thing for President Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, et al... but they are usually humorous commentary on known quantities or old gossip (Obama is a secret Muslim!). But this? This is commentary of a different kind. Issues like the economy are a toss-up because they're such a big mess that, deep down, everybody knows there's no magical fix, and it doesn't matter whether the candidate is Republican or Democrat. Politicians are politicians on both sides of the fence, and Americans are used to getting screwed over by politicians. We are conditioned to expect that we will get screwed over by politicians. So whatever, because it's all the same.

But start telling women how Paul Ryan is going to take away their birth control and right to choose? Tell seniors that Paul Ryan is going to take away their medicare and social security? Tell gays that Paul Ryan is going to take away (even more) of their rights? Tell the middle class that Paul Ryan is going to take away affordable health care? Tell the poor that Paul Ryan is going to take away the programs they need to survive so he can give tax breaks to the wealthy? Oog. Nothing mobilizes voters faster than telling them that a politician is going to take something away that matters to them. Just ask the gun lobby when they told everybody that Obama was going to take away their guns.

Ryan's problem (which is now Romney's problem) is that he's quickly emerging as the guy who is going to take away that thing you like. This is going to be exploited by every single political opponent the Republican presidential ticket has, because it's just too easy. This is not some esoteric thing that people can't really wrap their heads around (like the budget)... this is real.

When it comes to politics, perception becoming reality is nothing new.

Now we get to see if Paul Ryan is a strong enough politician to shift the perception people have to create the reality he wants. In the end, that's all that ever seems to matter any more.

Here in the wilds of Redneckistan in Eastern Washington, nice surprises do happen.

Though, in the political arena, this is quite rare. We are the Red half of the state by a wide margin, and Conservative politics dominate the region. Heck, I usually end up voting Republican locally, because it's nice to have some representation in the state I live in. Otherwise, we would be completely forgotten as the Democratic-dominated politicians over on "The Coast" pander to their mostly-liberal voters...

My biggest problem with political representatives in this country is that a good chunk of them don't actually represent all all the people they are supposed to represent. They choose to represent only those people who think and believe the same as they do. A lot of the time, that's what got them elected, that's what is going to get them re-elected, and they don't really give a crap about anybody else. You can't really blame them for their attitude since it keeps them alive politically... except I most definitely do because that's NOT the way it should be.

And yet, as I said, there are surprises.

Like when Representative Maureen Walsh, a Republican from Walla Walla in Washington's very Conservative 16th District, made a rather touching speech in support of our state voting to legalize marriage equality...

Unsurprisingly, her support (fueled largely by her daughter, I'm sure), put her on a political hit-list here in Redneckistan. She's now running against an opponent whose opposition to marriage equality is the cornerstone of their campaign.

And then something interesting happened. Rep. Walsh started getting contributions to her campaign from gay donors that were not only out of her district, but out of the state. This has sparked strong criticism from her opponent, Ruth Edwards, who says taking money from out-of-staters shows that Walsh is out of touch with her district. A district who reelected Walsh after she supported extending benefits to domestic partners in 2009, even though the measure itself failed miserably in that same district. Surprise!

I guess we'll see if Edwards stands on the same principles if an organization like the equality-haters from "National Organization for Marriage" decide to dump money on her campaign.

In any event, even though I don't agree with all her politics, I just made a contribution to Walsh's re-election bid. She seems to be one of those rare politicians who makes representing the rights of all the people in her district a priority... even if supporting their right to equality may not be politically in her best interest. Because, with all due respect to Ruth Edwards, it's not just people out-of-state that want to see Washington on the right side of history.

So... I worked straight through all day and have been completely out of touch with the world. Anything happen while I was gone?

Well, other than Olive Garden's 2 for $25 Italian Dinner Special... WITH UNLIMITED SALAD AND BREADSTICKS!

I just wish they didn't mandate that you have to pay for the dinner in order to get the unlimited salad and breadsticks. Why should I be forced to pay for something I don't want just to be able to get unlimited free access to something I do? I mean, it's nice they made it cheaper and easier to get, but who knows when I'm going to eat that breadstick... I may end up never eating it! And that means I was forced to pay for dinner for nothing!

Sure, I still get all the benefits of dinner that will get me all the salad and breadsticks I need if I ever end up needing some... and, yeah, it wouldn't be fair to just wander into Olive Garden and demand unlimited salad and breadsticks when I didn't pay for any dinner... and, certainly, it's the money that's coming in from the dinners that allows Olive Garden to provide the unlimited salad and breadsticks in the first place... but forcing people to buy something is totally un-American! It's like a socialist plot invented by... oh, dunno... the Italians or something!

I should be able to refuse to buy dinner and instead fucking starve to death because I can't afford to pay the $200,000 for a salad and breadstick emergency... which is how much something like that costs when you didn't purchase the dinner plan. I mean, it's my right as an American to gamble my life away! That's why we're the best country on earth and leaders of the free world!

And it's also my right to decide I don't want to die... and to change my mind at the last minute if an unexpected salad and breadsticks emergency happens... and to then shame this country for killing its citizens just because they made the mistake of not getting dinner when they had the chance. Would Jesus allow a man to die just because he had no dinner and couldn't afford emergency salad and breadsticks? I think not!

I dunno. I just don't get it. What's next... is Olive Garden going to force me to buy Justin Bieber albums? Or force me to do some other random thing that sounds crazy but has absolutely no bearing what-so-ever on Americans' access to unlimited salad and breadsticks?

Probably.

Bad enough that I am forced to buy dinner... but the fact that some of my dinner money is going to provide salad and breadsticks for the poor is what really pisses me off. Because they're poor. They should just be allowed to starve to death because feeding the poor is socialist. I'm pretty sure that's in The Bible.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go eat AT TACO BELL. Where real Americans eat American food like American Nacho Burrito Supremes... just like our American Founding Fathers did.

U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!