Category: Politics

Propaganda

Raise your hand if you think your net worth is over a million dollars!

If your hand is up, you are in a very, very small minority.

It’s been some years since I have had the occasion to say anything about the estate tax. However, now the temporary rollback of that tax is about to expire and all of a sudden we are seeing little pieces in the news designed to make us panic. It’s part of a scheme to blame Democrats for “tax hikes” that are really nothing more than letting the disastrous, deficit fattening Bush tax cuts expire. Today’s salvo from USA Today is titled “Estate tax to return in 2011, and it could hurt ordinary folks.” Of course, it’s mostly wrong.

A $1 million exemption would affect a lot of families that are well out of Steinbrenner’s league. “You take a home, an IRA or 401(k) retirement account, some other savings and you get to $1 million pretty easily,” says Richard Behrendt, senior estate planner for Robert W. Baird and a former IRS attorney.

Let’s take this apart a little bit. According to the National Association of REALTORS, the median price of a single family home in May of 2010 was $166,100. Currently, HousingTracker.net does not report any metropolitan areas with a median price above $500,000.

As for retirement savings, a report that came out earlier this month suggests that most people, even many wealthy people, will run out of retirement savings. It’s hard to find an estimate of just how much money people have saved up. This 2006 item suggests that even the best off of us had less than $100,000 savings in their retirement accounts, and that way before the Great Recession. Considering what stocks have done, it’s not likely that these accounts doubled in value. Even if they did, many were raided by their unemployed owners in the interest of keeping the bills paid.

As for other savings, this Washington Post article, also from 2006, says that we only had $3800 in the bank on average.

In fact, the Wall Street Journal says that at the end of 2009, the average net worth of an American was only $175,600, down from a peak in 2007 of $218,650. And that’s without accounting for mortgages or credit card debt! Even somebody with 4 times the peak average net worth wouldn’t be touched by a tax on estates over $1,000,000. Certainly, somebody with a median priced home, median IRA/401K accounts, and median savings is nowhere near being at risk of owing estate taxes.

It’s pretty easy to see that the expert cited by USA Today is in no way connected to reality as you and I know it. The truth is that fewer in one in ten Americans will receive any inheritance whatsoever.

Of course after pointing out the truth of this statement, opponents of the Estate Tax will do two things. First, they will revert to calling it a “death tax,” just because it sounds scarier and like it will effect more people. Second, they will start talking about how it could [in some alternate reality] effect small businesses and farms. This point applies to so little of the population that George W. Bush couldn’t find a single “victim” of this tax consequence to put in the gallery at the State of the Union Address in the 8 years of his Presidency.

Seriously, if you’ve got a million dollars of net worth and can’t afford some estate planning, you’ve got bigger problems than what happens after you are dead.

And how fascinating that this issue comes up just as some on Capitol Hill are saying Social Security is too expensive and needs to be cut. Talking out of both sides of their mouths as usual.

In closing: Tony Horton Goes to Italy; “Improving neighborhoods is a desirable goal, but it’s not education reform”; 13 reasons the economy really sucks; Darn, I agree with Glenn Reynolds again (this is becoming an annoying habit).

Nevada Firestorm

And no, I’m not talking about the two multi-acre blazes within 4o miles of Las Vegas.

Well, the internet has been all abuzz over the latest from Sharron Angle. Everybody and their dog has already had something to say about her latest interview, including the guy who interviewed her. No wonder she does so few of them! Ezra Klein points out that the choice should be fairly simple, given that Nevada has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, Angle thinks all those unemployed people should get up off their lazy asses and find a [nonexistent] job, and Reid keeps trying [and failing] to get unemployment benefits extended to at least try and prevent all those unemployed people from becoming homeless too. At least her website has been updated with a little less crazy. She still does think it’s unreasonably hard to get a ballot initiative up in Nevada. I have long urged people to Just Say NO to all voter initiatives, so this is just fine with me.

But wait! Let’s not forget that The Other Reid (he’d prefer to just be known as “Rory“) is in an election too, and his opponent Brian Sandoval has also been campaigning. This week he announced a plan for Nevada schools. It includes giving a “grade” to each school and allowing kids in poorly graded schools to transfer to better schools. Now, there’s 2 problems I see with this. First is that No Child Left Behind already allows the same freaking thing; why reinvent the wheel? The second problem is geography. Nevada is a big state with a small population, and 73% of the population is in one county. While the idea almost makes sense in the Las Vegas Valley, the Reno area, and the Carson City area, it makes no sense in the rural areas where the next school might be an hour or two away.

His second plan is the popular idea of making teacher pay dependent upon student performance. Well, here’s the thing. Teachers can only control what happens in their classroom, and even then only most of the time. When you’ve got kids worried about living on the street, kids stealing ketchup packets so they can have dinner, gang violence, child abuse, parents who don’t give a damn, official curricula that still use sight words*, limited ability to discipline students who are out of line, a bureaucracy that would make any government proud, and a half dozen impediments to learning in the classroom, merit pay is a sick joke.

And idea three is to outsource non-educational services. That would include janitorial services, human resources, and food service. It makes me wonder what firms I would find if I were to look closely at Mr. Sandoval’s investments! There is just no way that it’s cheaper to have a cleaning crew come in at night than to have one or maybe two people on hand all day to clean messes as they occur. Hiring a for-profit catering service to put the cafeteria ladies out of work is just madness. This is aside from the concern some parents will have over whether the employees of these firms might maybe have some desire to harm a child. As much as I would like to dismiss this as tinfoil hat lunacy, the fact of the matter is that Clark County School District has had incidents where non-teachers are accused of harming students.

* I was just horrified to learn what constitutes homework for a first grader!

In closing: A tangible Good Thing from health insurance reform starts today; mortgage rates at record lows, why aren’t we borrowing? (because unemployment is around 10% and most homes are worth less than what is already owed, duh); a financial reform package passed the House and is headed for the Senate, let the hunt for loopholes and political favors begin (it’s ok, banks will ignore what they don’t like anyway); fiscal austerity still doesn’t work; Real Socialists beg the wingnuts to stop calling Obama one of them; a bit of follow-up, the list of countries Van Der Sloot can be extradited to for more charges grows; both of these statements are logical, but both cannot be true; 100 Yen shops, the Japanese Dollar Store; vaccinate your kids!; smart pet tricks; flying cars; and libertarians.

The Internet Ate My Homework

In the last 24 hours I have switched cell phones and had my RSS reader suddenly stop working. As a result, I’ve spent much of the last day digging out and trying to organize things — and that’s no easy task. So as much as I would like to write something deeper, I’ll be talking briefly about the group of cowards and self-centered blow-hards in Washington DC who are our elected Representatives and Senators.

Thanks to our elected officials preferring the company of insurance company lobbyists to that of citizens that can actually vote for them, we still have a health care system that costs too much and does too little. At least we will soon have certain “rights” when dealing with these companies, but some warn that these “rights” will translate into even higher costs. The House of so-called Representatives did get up off their collective asses to fix a looming slashing of what doctors would be paid under Medicare. Why is this important? First, your doctor’s costs of doing business have not gone down. Second, most major insurers base what they will pay on what Medicare pays. So this would within a year put some doctors out of business.

The House also managed to pass a campaign finance reform bill that would force candidates and political parties to disclose the identities of most big donors. Except of course for the biggest and most powerful donors. They are still free to own their own Congresscritters. Now the bill is ready for slaughter in the Senate.

A couple of Senators are actually trying to do something for children — odd in an election year since they can’t even vote. It seems that an unintended result of some immigration raids is that there are kids whose parents have been taken away. Those kids are often American citizens thanks to the clarity of the 14th Amendment. The bill in question would allow the parents to arrange care for these little Americans, make sure that they have resources and can report abuse, and prevents authorities from involving the kids in interrogations. Think what you want about the parents, but the kids did nothing wrong and deserve the protections of law. The end.

But what could our elected officials not be bothered to do? They couldn’t be bothered to protect servicemen from predatory car salesmen, not even for Mrs. Petraeus. They couldn’t be bothered to extend unemployment benefits for a million people, despite the fact that there are at least 5 unemployed Americans for every available job opening. And no, Sharron, people aren’t living a life of luxury in Las Vegas on unemployment benefits.

So Remember Come November. Vote for those few who have been taking care of your business in Washington, and against those who have been trying to obstruct your business. In the meantime, click here to figure out how to contact your Senators, and here to find your Representative. You’ll need to know your Zip+4, so dig out some mail first.

In closing: fat people don’t walk (an essay on urban design); a “silly” lady who desperately needed the 911 operator to listen (need help? these people can help); they hate us for our electricity; what would Jesus do?; it’s not your typical state dinner — don’t tell Michelle they split an order of fries; and your dose of Japanfilter, the Pepsi Strong Shot.

Heeeere Firedoglake! Go get the Cluestick! Good Doggie!

A few minutes ago I read a seriously wrong post on Firedoglake called Reid Seeks Bubble Re-Inflation. The author accuses Senator Harry Reid of trying to reinflate the housing bubble by extending the home buyer tax credit, presumably saving the Las Vegas economy and ensuring his re-election this fall.

Let’s step back and look at the facts.

First, he doesn’t want to extend the credit for new contracts. The purchase contracts had to be signed by April 30. All that paperwork is safely in the files of 2 brokerage offices, an escrow company, and mortgage office. So wrong thing one, this will do nothing, repeat, zilch, nada, to “re-inflate the housing bubble.”

What he does want to do is extend the time those buyers have to close on those homes. As it stands, the transaction must close by the end of June. Under normal circumstances that’s no problem, but we don’t have normal circumstances.

The author says this extension is “ostensibly because of application processing” and warns that this could start a cavalcade of tax fraud! Wrong. First, all my mortgage experts are telling me to plan on a minimum of 45 days from contract signed by all parties to close. That’s because of certain changes in the mortgage process implemented at the first of the year. That makes June a tight squeeze for anybody whose contract is dated April 30, even before you consider the problems of distressed property.

For bank owned properties — which currently account for 19% of available Southern Nevada properties and 38% of recently sold properties — there is the wrinkle of waiting a week to 10 days for the signed contract to come back from the bank. It’s a pain in the butt, and simply the way it is.

And then we have the short sale. A short sale is when the buyer owes more than the home is worth; to sell it, the bank will be “short” money at the end of the deal so they get to approve it. Since roughly 65% of Vegas homes are underwater, there will be a lot of short sales for the foreseeable future. Right now we’ve got over 10,000 properties that have signed, accepted contracts and are waiting for that approval. In the last 30 days, just under 1100 short sales actually closed.

Think about that. At the current pace, it will take 9 months to get through just the short sales with approved contracts, to say nothing of the 4600 short sales that don’t have accepted contracts yet and any others that come on the market. New short sale rules requiring 2 week approval be damned, because they don’t apply to most borrowers.

Heaven help me, I’m defending Harry Reid…

Harry’s not trying to “re-inflate the bubble” and he’s not trying to create a place where mortgage fraud can run rampant (expect mortgage fraud arrests this week, by the way). He’s trying to give all those short sales time to get approved and close.

Candidates “R” Us

Lisa Benson

Today I’ll be doing a little follow up on Tuesday’s Nevada Primaries, specifically the Republican nominees. If you aren’t curious about who Harry Reid is running against, scroll down to In Closing.

Harry Reid will be running against Sharron Angle, who has been endorsed by at least one “tea party” group. But it seems that some of the stances that got her that coveted support might not sit too well in the general election. Her website has been cleansed of some of her more… controversial positions. Apparently the teaching of phonics is way too hot an idea to be confessed now. But she also thinks the Department of Education should be abolished, so who exactly will be insisting on phonics at the Federal level? She also ran for the nomination on saying global climate change is a hoax (tell it to a Las Vegan this week, honey), “free market” retirement alternatives should replace Social Security (maybe some sort of defined benefit pension plan?), we should drill everywhere, to hell with regulation, and she’s eligible to have a concealed carry permit. How impressive.

So, did the GOP discuss these minor changes to her site for greater electability, or did a brain cell go off in her campaign headquarters?

Meanwhile, voters in the Northwest side of Las Vegas have the opportunity to vote for incumbent Dina Titus, or challenger Joe Heck. Dr. Heck is an ER Doc who did a tour in Iraq and therefore thinks he has all the answers to our healthcare, economic, and security problems. As I’ve mentioned before, Vegas is a mighty small place when it comes to our medical community but I don’t know the man. Even though we have a Republican Governor, Dr. Heck brags about having the endorsement of Tim Pawlenty and Mitt Romney, the Governors of 2 states that are not Nevada. Heck had originally planed to run for Governor himself, so it’s quite understandable that he doesn’t exactly have Jim Gibbon’s backing. His platform seems to be classic Reaganomics: “a fair and predictable tax system and the elimination or reduction in some taxes, including estate taxes and long-term capital gains taxes, to encourage business growth. He argues for bringing back manufacturing jobs to bolster the economy, too.” No word on how to bring back those jobs. A really big lasso, perhaps? You can read a lot more about his views in this interview, which shows that he has a remarkable amount in common with Ms. Angle.

The more radical elements of the Republican party might have started as a made up movement, but it’s gotten momentum of it’s own. In the words of Pearl Jam, “Oh, but we unleashed a lion.”

In Closing: It is surely a sign of the apocalypse that I mostly agree with Glenn Reynolds, but he’s not the only one who wonders if “everybody ought to go to college” is what we really ought to be telling high school students; Massachusetts health insurance reform win and fail; bankruptcy filings back up to pre-“reform” levels; why the economy isn’t getting better; do negative calorie foods exist?; Afghanistan is now officially the longest war in American history; on teaching and poverty among children (who, you may recall, don’t have jobs and aren’t really responsible for their own poverty, conservative think tanks notwithstanding); the good news is there will be 400,000 new jobs driving trucks in the next 18 months, but the bad news is those jobs will be as long haul truck drivers; terrorists don’t even need real bombs anymore; don’t buy something just because the lady in the vitamin store says it’s good for you (pro-tip, do research at home, heavy on scientific papers as references, and take a written list of what you want!); economic opposite day; good advice; Congress can’t be bothered to make sure your Doctor gets paid properly; as if you didn’t know that retirement savings were endangered; on metabolic syndrome; on solar power; and it turns out that GTA doesn’t corrupt every soul that plays it.

Reid and Reid

Among states having a Primary election today is Nevada. Nevada voters were faced with two big decisions today in addition to a couple dozen local level races. The electronic ballot in some precincts was 9 pages long. While the nation has one eye on our race, it turns out that the majority of Nevadans won’t even bother showing up at the polls.

The headline star of the show here and across the country is of course the race for United States Senate. Majority Leader Harry Reid has been a fixture of Nevada politics for decades, having even been portrayed in the movies. Today he had 3 Democratic challengers in addition to a full dozen Republican candidates vying for his seat. It would appear that in terms of campaign finance, Reid has the ability to outspend all of them in the general election combined. A new front runner has emerged in that race, Sharron Angle, following Sue Lowden’s infamous chickens-for-doctors gaffe. The race itself is still close to call. Angle has a Tea Party endorsement, so it will be interesting to see how that plays in her campaign should she win today’s race.

Meanwhile, Senator Reid has laid out an ambitious summer agenda for the Senate. His “business as usual” approach is welcome considering the problems facing the nation, and the number one most important issue to most Americans is unemployment and the lack of health insurance that goes with it. It would appear that his campaign revolves around getting things done.

Of course the elephant in the room for the Senate race is Yucca Mountain. Reid has been using his influence to thwart the nuclear waste dump just 90 miles from Las Vegas for decades. If Reid loses the fall election, his successor will most likely not have the political clout to keep the site closed. While Nevada’s other Senator, Republican John Ensign, also opposes Yucca Mountain, he has bigger things to worry about.

Of course Harry isn’t the only Reid on the ballot today. His son Rory hopes to be the Democratic nominee for the upcoming Gubernatorial race. Rory Reid only faces one other Democratic challenger, and in addition to name recognition, he’s a County Commissioner in Clark County. Las Vegas is in Clark County, which is home to roughly 80% of Nevadans and in fact has a bigger budget than the State of Nevada. Embattled Governor Jim Gibbons faces 4 primary challengers and the aftermath of a viscous divorce; despite his confidence, he is unlikely to win the primary. In addition to trailing the front runner by 14 points, his campaign is low on money. Most likely, Rory Reid will face Brian Sandoval in the Fall.

Rory is only 47. From the Governor’s Mansion, he can name a replacement for a resigning or deceased Senator and more. He can build towards a Senate run or even a Presidential run. And that makes Rory Reid a man to watch.

Cross-posted at The Moderate Voice, one of Associated Content’s Top 3 Centrist Websites!

Arizona Follies

I hate to put up a “me too” post of “Arizona’s Papers Pleez Law is Bad mmkay,” so I prefer to consider this a roundup post of things others have said. I’ll start by reminding you that just last week I said “By the way, ‘reasonable suspicion’ means the cop doesn’t like you and/or you’re brown. I don’t think most people appreciate that most people don’t carry proof of citizenship in their pockets….”

So I can’t express any real shock that before the Arizona bill even hit the Governor’s desk, an Arizona trucker was asked to present proof of citizenship at a routine weight stop. Hell, I predicted such things would happen, I just didn’t think it would be a matter of days.

So frankly, it seems obvious for conventions to want to meet someplace other than Arizona, particularly if they have a lot of “brown” people who are planning to attend. After all, the last thing you want is for your attendees or speakers to be detained and possibly deported to unknown places for the “crime” of not slipping a birth certificate in their luggage! Boycotts are already underway, and an interesting array of figures have come out against the bill. Even Mexico is warning its citizens against travel to Arizona, despite the fact that surely Mexican tourists would come armed with legitimate passports.

Arizona authorities even have the unmitigated audacity to ask Federal officials for help training cops to harass Americans suspected of being non-Americans. But then again, this is the land of Bully-in-Chief and perennial civil rights defendant Sheriff Arpaio.

Just the same, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that this whole exercise boils down to race. Specifically, they want to discourage “brown” people from showing up to vote in November. Notice that all this came down right after those Census forms went back? Arizona cronies want the Congressional seats and other goodies that come from having all those Hispanic votes with no risk that those Hispanics will show up and vote… Democratic.

In closing: I am embarrassed for my local paper that they printed this “proof” that women prefer Democrats not because of say, policies that support women’s rights and needs but rather because they are “fickle“; speaking of local issues with national implications, don’t lose track of this lawsuit!; more local-is-national news, Harry Reid gets real; Japanfilter comes to you from the continuing controversy of American troops at Okinawa; loopholes in the health insurance reform bill; Haven’t I been telling you for 7 years that we never really had a recovery from the 2001 recession?; after all these years, rubella is a serious but preventable disease; stricter financial reform now; don’t let political adversaries define the problem you are trying to solve!; 30 years of sticky-notes; PowerPoint has its place, just not on the battlefield; I’m not sure I agree with the idea of a top tax bracket at 90% (which it was pre-Reagan), but it’s an interesting argument; and 6 important things humanity forgot.

Knitting Things

There was a witch who knitted things:
Elephants and playground swings.
She knitted rain,
She knitted night,
But nothing really came out right.
The elephants had just one tusk
And night looked more
Like dawn or dusk.

–Karla Kuskin

So much stupid has been committed by various Republicans in the last day that I thought about adding to yesterday’s post. But then I realized that things had merely come full circle.

Oh sure, it’s easy and fun to figure out how many chickens you should take with you to the doctor’s office for various services! Just punch it into the Lowden Plan Chicken Calculator! But please don’t forget to scroll all the way down. The amazing thing is that she’s not backing down one inch from her chicken-barter statement. She could have said she merely meant that we need to be flexible and think outside the box for solutions, anything other than suggesting it was really desirable to show up at Doc’s place with a truckload of chickens.

Of course it’s almost obligatory to point out that if the Democrats have a single functional brain cell, they will line up behind Senator Dodd and insist that every Republican choose to stand either with reform or with corruption on financial services reform (heck, we may have to make the Democrats do it too).

I suppose I did gloss over GOP Chairman and token “black man” Michael Steele admitting that African Americans really have no reason to vote for the Grand Old Party today. Why did I put “black man” in quotes? Because if he were either one he would have told *ahem* people like these where to shove their signs.

Right there is where we start knitting. We’re in the process of transcending mere Stupid Republican Tricks and tying them back to the racist, sexist claptrap that I railed about — with some resistance I might add — a few weeks ago. Racism? Check! Sexism? Huh, let’s see… sexism, sexism….

Oh here! I personally think it’s pretty freaking objectionable to send out a newsletter to your base suggesting “Let’s take [Congresswoman] Betty Sutton out of the House and put her back in the kitchen.”

Yeah. Since her previous job was not as a chef, that is offensive as hell. Can she at least keep her shoes, or would they like to see her barefoot and pregnant too? And [expletive] them for trying to make it somehow acceptable to say this. Oh, says the local official who approved the mailing, we haven’t gotten any complaints! And so, then, the donations are rolling in on that crap? What do his wife and daughters think of that rhetoric? Are they proud of what Daddy said?

Obviously this man doesn’t speak for the entire party. There are women Republicans. Former Secretary of State Condi Rice for example. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Senate Candidate Sue Lowden of Nevada.

Here’s some free advice to the Republican Party. You can’t continue to alienate the 51% of Americans who are women and the 12% of Americans who are black and actually keep winning free and fair elections. If they continue on their current path, they will more and more resemble a misshapen toy elephant made of yarn scraps, with only one tusk.

In Closing: on airlines; surely nobody expected the SEC to investigate anybody; I hope this movie doesn’t suck; speaking of movies, Food, Inc. streaming free for a limited time; Orcas are more than one species; what part of the Americans with Disabilities Act didn’t the school understand?; Japanese mechanical dolls; and Worst Person in the World, 33 AD.

Stupid Republican Tricks

Seriously, there has been so much stupid that I don’t know where to start.

I could start close to home with Senate candidate Sue Lowden, who thinks we should be able to barter with our doctors and pay with, for example, chickens!

I could go down the road a bit to Arizona’s new racial profiling illegal immigration law, which “requires state and local police to determine the status of people if there is ‘reasonable suspicion’ that they are illegal immigrants and to arrest people who are unable to provide documentation proving they are in the country legally.” By the way, “reasonable suspicion” means the cop doesn’t like you and/or you’re brown. I don’t think most people appreciate that most people don’t carry proof of citizenship in their pockets — NO a Driver’s License is NOT proof of citizenship! Never has been, shouldn’t ever be.

But wait, maybe that’s what Senator McCain was getting at when he said that illegal immigrants are deliberately causing car accidents! I certainly can’t think of any rational reason that anybody — particularly someone here illegally — would cause accidents. Insurance fraud?? What a dangerous way to make money!

It’s OK though, because Representative Bilbray says a cop can tell if somebody is illegal just by looking at their clothes! So tell me, what exactly is the difference between the shirt I buy at Target and the shirt that an illegal immigrant buys at Target? I don’t want to accidentally get the wrong one. And certainly you’d better not dress up for any ethnic festivals in Arizona without sticking your birth certificate or naturalization papers in your pocket!

Then again I could go to the horse’s mouth — Washington D.C. — and examine the party of NO!’s “Just scrap it and maybe start over” strategy on almost every initiative. Oh, and let’s not forget that it is at least partly thanks to the Republicans that the newly passed health insurance reform bill still allows rescission and still has no way to control wild increases in premiums.

Not that the Democrats are innocent, but certainly no wonder people are “fed up with political incivility.” Anybody who wants to be re-elected had better pay attention to public sentiment now.

In Closing: Freezing a 787 for science; look, putting twins in different homerooms to see which one learns to read better doesn’t prove that reading skills are 82% genetic, just that the teacher and classroom aren’t 100% to blame/praise for the results!; Homelessness, it’s not just for addicts and the mentally ill anymore (sadly, for some people, it’s what’s for dinner); a scathing truth about “successfully” parenting a crowd; high schools preparing kids for college without a thought of preparing them for work; if the Fed is going to print money, do you suppose they could send some my way?; congrats to GM on paying back the TARP money to the Feds; green Navy vessels on the ocean blue; the various watch lists and no-fly lists aren’t just an annoyance, they divert attention from real threats; on long term unemployment; oh waah, companies are having a hard time raising prices; let’s see how far the rotten banking practices extend; and school lunches have officially become a matter of national security.

Musings of a Part-Time Feminist

I’m not very good feminist. I’m happily married and there’s very little I can’t do because of mere gender stereotypes. I’m no Amanda Marcotte. However, I know when I have to stand up for the fact that I am human even though I have no penis.

I recall being at work and a supervisor informing me that I should wear high heels. I politely asked if the guys would be wearing them as well. He made no reply and I never heard another word about it.

I do bristle when I get the “honey” and “little lady” treatment (it’s ShortWoman, Mrs. Magnus if you’re nasty!). I don’t like being told I’m a “smart cookie” and that “you’ll figure something out” when I ask for advice. I can detect a virtual pat on the head from a patronizing tone whether it is written or vocal. (Yeah, I’m talking to you, Senator Ensign’s office!)

Nevertheless, I am reluctant to ascribe to patriarchy what might just be stupidity.

However, that being said, I have to call stuff out when I see it. Consider this: in one week, two different men were arrested for making threats against two different members of Congress that both happened to be female. First, it was Senator Patty Murray — for whom I have had the pleasure of voting. Then mere days later it was Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Anybody see a pattern here? Anybody? Bueller?

I am forced to concede that the rambling idiocy of the ultra-conservative, far right wing, “wing nut” and/or “teabagger” communities can only be explained by misogyny and racism. It isn’t particularly that they have a problem with health insurance reform, or taxes, or “freedom”, or gun rights, or the global climate change “myth”, or whatever they are on about this week. If it was ever about those things, those days are gone. Their problem is that there’s a negro in the White House and that a damn broad is the Speaker of the House. And to be honest, I don’t know which pisses these highly insecure people off more.

Consider also the double standard about what women are allowed to discuss publicly, including on their blogs. A great number of normal, natural things are NSFW. Discussion of breast feeding — the most natural way to feed a baby, even condoned in the Bible — even becomes about sex and gender. We can’t show that! We can’t even discuss that! “Can’t baby have his dinner in the toilet??”

Variations of this also permeate every discussion of “pro-life” ideals that condemns contraception. When you scratch the surface, it rapidly turns into “if you don’t want babies, don’t have sex, slut!” Or in this case, “How dare poor women on public assistance want to have sex but still control the size of their families.” Indeed, shame on them for wanting contraceptives, then double shame on them for bringing children into this world that they can’t afford to feed.

As I said, I’m not much of a feminist, but when the bullshit is heaped this high, even I can smell the attitude of men who think women aren’t as good and certainly don’t deserve nice things like recreational sex and seats in Congress.

In Closing: $200,000,000 per air marshal arrest; I hope you never need the first contact help sheet; for that matter I hope you never need these emergency tips; many of us were Pheobe Prince; Cash for Clunkers worked??; and the Jobs Report has nothing to do with that new operating system for the iPhone.