Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!”

And in an epiphany in which he understands the changes that the visits of the three spirits have wrought in him, Scrooge exclaims:

“I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope! … I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!”

And of course in the happy ending we all know and love, old Scrooge bought a goose, gave Bob Cratchit his job back, and was relieved that Tiny Tim would live on. “God bless us everyone!”

And so we embark upon 2012, the year the ancient Mayan calendar declared was our last. In the spirit of full disclosure – and respecting the fact-driven nature of this publication – the Mayan prediction of 2012 being doomsday is totally apocryphal, an example of pop culture gone Foxian (as in viral Fox news – style disinformation); the December 21, 2012 “doomsday” indicator in the Mayan calendar merely reflects the end of a particular cycle, not the end of the world (at least, not like in the movie). This might all be a good laugh for the Mayans, had they not ended themselves in the 16th century, victims of some greedy corporatist 1-percenters, known as the Spanish conquistadores. It is uncertain whether the Mayans predicted their own demise.

But in many ways, as some of us more cynical progressives conjure up, Scrooge-style, disturbingly plausible horrifying scenarios via the Ghost of Election Yet To Come. We sometimes wake up screaming, foreseeing a de facto end of the world, (or at least of Middle Class America as we have known it since we liked Ike and Father Knew Best) every bit as devastating and cataclysmic as the Mayan calendar might have predicted. Up to now we have only gotten a preview. The worst is yet to come. Or the best, depending upon what side of Wall Street you tread.

Only this isn’t Dickensian fiction or the musings of ancient shamans.

Already the news of the retirement of the bluest dog of the blue dog Democrats, Ben Nelson, giving up his seat in Nebraska, is conjuring in doomsday visions; immediately the consensus among progressives is good riddance – but also that, automatically, his seat is going to a Republican, a real one this time, ’cause, you know, Nebraska is so bright red, like the U of N football team.

But if the absolution of Ebenezer Scrooge and the election of 2010 and the Arab spring and the Wisconsin summer and Herman Cain fall (pun intended) have taught as anything, it’s that we are in the middle of bizarro world.

There are 12 or so Democratic seats “up for grabs” in 2012. Are they, too, goners? With the propaganda of Fox and Frank Luntz, plus a lot of Koch and Rove dough, will the Republicans succeed in wrecking the economy in front of our faces – and blaming Obama for it, reaping ballot box gold?? If you listen to not just Hannity but half the pundits Chris Matthews puts up, it’s a done deal… never mind all the bizarro stuff going on.

So even if the Mayans weren’t really predicting a doomsday in 2012, we keep saying they did… so, do we make that happen? And what completes the Citizens United doomsday scenario more splendidly than a Republican-run Congress, Senate AND White House? No doubt the Mayans had in mind tsunamis or alien invasions, or at least the hand of an outer god, not destruction by our own ballot box (with a little help from Scott Walker and his merry band of vote suppressors).

But is it all written in stone, as Scrooge plaintively asked? Or is it something that MIGHT happen and could be avoided?

Can America get in touch with its inner Dickens and sing an upbeat Christmas carol? Can we buck the millennia and forestall the Mayan prediction we made up – and simply move to another cycle of benevolence and liberalism?

It is a puzzlement, and seems to come down to information. Or misinformation. And disinformation. Or no information at all.

There have been awakenings. The great right-wing overreach of several governors in 2011 definitely got people going, especially in Wisconsin. Yeah the sweep of 2010 was fun, aided by whining, disenchanted progressives staying away from the polls; that’ll teach Obama to give up on a public option and not arrest Dick Cheney. The “big government bums” were kicked out. The tea party spoke.

Then almost as soon as the Dick Armey dick army started to govern, or anti-govern, almost as quickly buyer’s remorse set in. I do NOT want this ugly sweater I got for Christmas. Dear God how fast can I return it?

John Kasich, the corporatist, oilest and former Fox blabbist got elected governor of Ohio and, like his pal Scott Walker and other ALEC adherents, wasted no time setting about dismantling the power of public service unions. And voters. But thanks to the bare knuckle quasi-fascism – perhaps a blessing in disguise – it soon became clear that people had figured out the tea party ethos was really just a Koch Brothers ethos. Not only was big government NOT staying out of our lives, it was kicking our asses.

So in Ohio, as happened in Wisconsin, the populace said, Scrooge style, “Holy shit! What did we do?? But, wait, we can change this!” And Ohio’s union busting law was repealed – sheer power of the people.

And then my joy was tempered when I saw a Presidential poll comes out in Ohio soon after the law was rescinded: Gingrich 43%, Obama 42%.

HUH?

What is the matter these guys? Didn’t these guys just do a number on you, and you want MORE? It’s like Scrooge getting freaked by the ghost, and, instead of a reformation, he simply becomes nicer about firing Bob Cratchit.

Or is it “let’s prove the Mayans right”.

But rather than being moved by fiction or myth, more information was obviously required. Or desperate more measures that have been well used by Gandhi, by the civil rights freedom fighters — by our very own founding fathers who the right wing constitution shredders purport to revere so much.

And so there was “Occupy”. That was easily written off as latter day hippies, jealous of rich people. Until the cops started pepper spraying. That was violence, and that became news, and the movement got famous. Well, of course. It happens every time.

Overreach is the right wing addiction, and thus its weakness, and our lifeline.

But still we have the likes of Michael Moore declaring “this is not a partisan movement!!” And so the neo-Nader ethos started setting in. “They’re all the same!”

Shit.

And so it goes. Is this the election that WILL BE, or can it be changed?

Is 2012 the year of doom, or is it just a misread of ancient hieroglyphics?

Like Ebenezer, we can take the power to shape our future. Is Ben Nelson’s seat automatically going red? Well aren’t there houses underwater in Nebraska? Don’t Republicans use Medicare and Medicaid in the Cornhusker State, and miss these programs if they are Ryanized? Are there not unemployed folks in dire need of benefit extensions in Johnny Carson’s home town?

Nobody’s happier to see Ben Nelson go than I. And there are a few others who should join him. But why not just replace his “D” with another one? We can occupy Nebraska, too, can we not? They voted in a faux Democrat before, because presumably liked some of his more liberal ideas. Never mind a REAL Republican, why can’t they elect a REAL Democrat?

It’s all about information: who’s really doing what to who, and who’s doing what FOR who? Who wasn’t born in Kenya and who was born at Goldman-Sachs? Who’s obscenely taxing who and who are paying themselves obscene bonuses? Who is protecting Medicare and who says they are but aren’t?

The world does not have to end in 2012 – read the Mayan calendar properly. And how big do the spirits of “elections past” and “elections yet to come” have to be to spook one into realizing” the Koch-driven world is serving us ill?

Who the hell knows? All I know it’s in our hands to preach and do and work and fight.

And listen to Tiny Tim: “God bless us, everyone.”

Happy New Year.

Robert Illes

Valley Dems United Newsletter, Margie Murray, Editor

Newtron alleges that the big “O” has designs on destruction of the Catholic Church by requiring it to sell insurance to Gays, lesbians and other socially “unacceptable” individuals of other religions and reprobates who do not meet his definition of a good Catholic person. In addition, oh yes, he does not believe the Church should be required to follow the law by issuing health insurance that covers contraceptives! He believes American “Catlickers” want to play monthly roulette about pregnancy or as I call the child, Chevrolet!

Newtron signals the beginning of this war by asking people to go and talk to the “Bishops” and hear for themselves that the Catholic Church is being destroyed by these edicts. Wait, ask the BISHOPS!?! The people who allowed priests to rape and sodomize us and our children, and allowed nuns to beat us and our children in schools? Many of these Bishops knowingly allowed criminals to be transferred to new parishes and out of the country as need be to protect them from our legal and criminal system. Newtron wants us to ask the people who denied that the secular law applied to their sodomites!?! Oh, I get it. It is the old double standard. “The law only applies the way I want it to apply!” When it comes to money and the Church is paying for silence, the secular law does not apply.

Sadly, along with wanting to imprison judges who disagree with his view of the Constitution, Newtron also wants Americans to ignore the separation of church and state. This country was founded on one basic premise — that the President of the United States would not be the head of the “Church of the United States”….something that apparently Newtron now wants to establish. As an historian, he should know that John Williams (Puritan) got the first charter from England to establish a secular commonwealth. That very charter became the basis for the United States Constitution.

Author with son Steven Jr. and wife Jessica

Moreover, he wants all “Christian” churches to receive Federal funds and have the right to discriminate against any person in violation of the 13th, 14th and 1st amendments in order that these churches are able to continue their historic discrimination against anything and anyone that doesn’t fit the mold of what a “Christian” church finds acceptable. I guess Newtron does not realize that there are bunches of Christo fascists out there who don’t recognize Catholicism as “Christian”. These same people don’t recognize Mormonism as an offshoot of the basic beliefs of Christianity. (It is, after all, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints…looks pretty Christian to this Buddhist.)

Let us go back to the issue of federal funding and the separation of church and state (and, no, President Jefferson was not a Christian. If anything he was a deist). Do your homework. Jefferson did not believe in the almighty god who watches over us and controls our lives. You should really read the Jefferson bible someday.

However, I digress, so by example let me make my point. My wife and I adopted a beautiful baby boy newborn. You can see him on my Facebook page. He is the joy of my old age — Social Security and all.

I was concerned that he would grow up without the benefit of brothers and/or sisters, so I went to the Latter Day Saints’ family services offices and inquired if they did adoptions for non-Mormons. The answer was a succinct, “NO”. I was not offended and proceeded to try other places. (We are still waiting, so if you have a newborn, I would love to give my son a sibling.)

The point is this, unlike the example that Newtron shot out there, about how Catholic social services had to close their adoption offices because the big “O” made them stop discriminating against gays and Lesbians, the Mormons simply don’t take federal money and get to keep true to whatever ideals they have. We are not saying that the Catlickers do not get to be racist sexist homophobes. Au contraire; we are saying they just cannot be paid by my tax dollars to be racist sexist homophobes!

This is not about the Catholic Church or any other “Christian” church, it is about riling up the Mexicans and other Catholic Latinos against the Obama presidency.

Newtron and the others know they has no legal ground to stand on. The Constitution is clear about the secular nature of American law.

We do not swear on the constitution to uphold the bible. We may or may not take an oath on a Bible or some other book to uphold the Constitution.

Newtron thinks he is a demigod, plain and simple. However, he is truly a fearmonger in the worst sense. He wants to defeat Obama and will take any path to do so. If Newtron thinks that we as Mexican Americans and Latinos are so shallow as to fall for this trick, then wait until November when the “Republicants” get less than 10 percent of our vote. Keep in mind they only got 15% last time.

So it is now “Mittens’ ” time to take the gloves off and make the Republican Party one of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, not Himmler and Goebbels.

We know that if you really want to protect one’s right to religious freedom, one needs to be a Democrat — because the current Republicants won’t do it.

Steve Ybarra

Official White House Photographer: Pete Souza

Because the Supreme Court majority launched a direct attack on American democracy in the Citizens United decision by allowing unlimited and undisclosed campaign donations, which reversed more than a century of judicial precedent and directly violated the pledge to respect precedent by Chief Justice John Roberts during his confirmation hearings, and which followed private presentations by two justices in the majority to interested parties, this is a call to arms to the wealthy Democrats and liberals of America.

I strongly agree with the decision by President Obama to support large donations to super-PACs after a Supreme Court decision that deforms our democracy more than any acts since blacks and women were denied the right to vote. I believe the highly unpopular and profoundly unwise decision in the Citizens United case was the most reprehensible, anti-democratic and un-American decision by any court since an earlier Supreme Court gave judicial blessing to slavery.

What super-wealthy conservative donors and factions that Madison and Hamilton warned us against in the Federalist Papers understand, in ways that many wealthy liberals and Democrats do not, is this:

Citizens United destroys the American notion of citizenship by creating separate and unequal classes of Americans. It creates a de facto American House of Lords in which the wealthiest 10 percent of the wealthiest 1 percent are given unlimited financial power to attempt to buy our democracy in secret, while all other Americans are relegated to second-class citizenship.

My advice to Obama and Democratic leaders is to launch a national and aggressive full-court press to overturn the Citizens United case through constitutional amendment, legislation and state ballot initiatives that will rally the nation against this highly unpopular decision while, simultaneously, asking wealthy liberals and Democrats to make large donations to balance the scales in a fist-flying battle for the future of the nation that must not be a one-sided war.

Obama, like all presidents, has the huge advantage of the Teddy Roosevelt bully pulpit that is unique in American politics. He can explain to the nation, as only a president using the bully pulpit can do, why the Citizens United decision must be reversed and why, until it is, both parties should compete on fair and equal terms.

This is why I opposed the Citizens United decision from the moment it was decided, yet supported and urged wealthy Democratic and liberal donors to support super-PACs such as the Majority PAC that supports Senate Democrats, the House Majority PAC that supports House Democrats and Priorities USA, which supports Obama.

I suggest Obama, all Democrats, liberals, centrists, independents, populists, the Occupy Wall Street movement and the large majority of voters who oppose Citizens United to wage a national crusade against this heinous Supreme Court decision on the floor of the House and Senate, in state after state and across the nation.

I do not begrudge wealthy conservative donors such as Sheldon Adelson, the Koch family and others from exercising legal powers so unwisely given to them by the Supreme Court.

But let’s be clear: They are willing to spend enormous sums of money to achieve their ideological and special-interest goals. They seek one-party control of the presidency, the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court for a generation. Their project is a one-party state of the right that controls the executive, legislative and judicial powers of government.

Today we witness in real time how superwealthy conservative interests finance super-PAC machines of slander, pander and defamation against other Republicans. This is a modest preview of the general election.

When the super-PAC money from the right totals $250 million, $500 million or $1 billion the question becomes:

Will men and women of the center and left fight as hard for their vision of America, or will they surrender from the sidelines? If they surrender, I tremble for the future of the nation.

Brent Budowsky
The Hill 

The common wisdom is that Romney has the money, the organization and the GOP establishment support to eventually secure the nomination.  But the possibility of defeat remains a risk he can’t afford to ignore.  If Santorum does well on Super Tuesday, things could get very interesting.

Here’s what Nate Silver has to say:

Mr. Romney has had deep problems so far with the Republican base, going 1-for-4 in caucus states where turnout is dominated by highly conservative voters. Mr. Romney is 0-for-3 so far in the Midwest, a region that is often decisive in the general election. He had tepid support among major blocks of Republican voters like evangelicals and Tea Party supporters, those voters making under $50,000 per year, and those in rural areas. Instead, much of his support has come from the wealthy areas that Charles Murray calls Super ZIPs — few of which are in swing states in the general election.

And so Romney and his uncoordinated Super PACS must continue to devote their resources to slapping down Santorum and Gingrich, rather than honing in on President Obama.

In addition, the interminable primary battle (remember when Michele Bachmann won something in Iowa and Rick Perry was taken seriously?) with its 50 or so debates (but who’s counting) has not sparked much excitement from the Republican faithful.  On the contrary, as Silver notes, “polls show that a large number of Republicans have tepid enthusiasm for their field. And this has been reflected in the turnout so far, which is down about 10 percent from 2008 among Republican registrants and identifiers.”

Bill Clinton once said that “Democrats fall in love, while Republicans fall in line,” but the distaste among the Republican rank-and-file for Romney has got to be deeply worrying to the Grand Old Party.

Greg Sargent wonders “whether Romney’s weaknesses as a general election candidate have been papered over by the far more glaring weaknesses of his rivals.”  And really, if Romney can’t handily beat these clowns, how does he have a chance against Obama?

President Obama phoning servicemembers (White House photographer Pete Souza)

It has been said there is no high ground in American politics since any politician who claims it is likely to be gunned down by those firing from the trenches. That’s how the Obama team justifies its decision to endorse a super PAC that can raise and spend unlimited sums for his campaign.

Baloney. Good ends don’t justify corrupt means. I understand the White House’s concerns. Obama is a proven fundraiser – he cobbled together an unprecedented $745 million for the 2008 election and has already raised $224 million for this one. But his aides figure Romney can raise almost as much, and they fear an additional $500 million or more will be funneled to Romney by a relative handful of rich individuals and corporations through right-wing super PACS like “American Crossroads.” The White House was surprised that super PACs outspent the GOP candidates themselves in several of the early primary contests, and noted how easily Romney’s super PAC delivered Florida to him and pushed Newt Gingrich from first-place to fourth-place in Iowa. Romney’s friends on Wall Street and in the executive suites of the nation’s biggest corporations have the deepest pockets in America. His super PAC got $18 million from just 200 donors in the second half of last year, including million-dollar checks from hedge-fund moguls, industrialists and bankers. How many billionaires does it take to buy a presidential election? “With so much at stake” wrote Obama campaign manager Jim Messina on the Obama campaign’s blog, Obama couldn’t “unilaterally disarm.” But would refusing to be corrupted this way really amount to unilateral disarmament? To the contrary, I think it would have given the President a rallying cry that nearly all Americans would get behind: “More of the nation’s wealth and political power is now in the hands of fewer people and large corporations than since the era of the robber barons of the Gilded Age. I will not allow our democracy to be corrupted by this! I will fight to take back our government!” Small donations would have flooded the Obama campaign, overwhelming Romney’s billionaire super PACs. The people would have been given a chance to be heard. The sad truth is Obama has never really occupied the high ground on campaign finance. He refused public financing in 2008. Once president, he didn’t go to bat for a system of public financing that would have made it possible for candidates to raise enough money from small donors and matching public funds they wouldn’t need to rely on a few billionaires pumping unlimited sums into super PACS. He hasn’t even fought for public disclosure of super PAC donations. And now he’s made a total mockery of the Court’s naïve belief that super PACs would remain separate from individual campaigns, by officially endorsing his own super PAC and allowing campaign manager Jim Messina and even cabinet officers to speak at his super PAC events. Obama will not appear at such events but he, Michelle Obama, and Vice President Joe Biden will encourage support of the Obama super PAC. One Obama adviser says Obama’s decision to openly endorse his super PAC has had an immediate effect. “Our donors get it,” the official said, adding that they now want to “go fight the other side.” Exactly. So now a relative handful of super-rich Democrats want fight a relative handful of super-rich Republicans. And we call this a democracy. Robert Reich Robert Reich’s Blog 

In my last column, “A Tale of Two Romneys,” I suggested that George Romney, a great governor and auto-industry CEO, would have supported President Obama’s successful policy and deplored the vulture-capitalist alternative offered by his son, Mitt.

The Hope America Fails Republicans cannot handle the truth that the auto policy worked wonders. What is good for American auto companies is good for President Obama. What is good for American auto workers is good for President Obama. What is good for America is good for President Obama. The Republicans can’t handle the truth, because they are so negative that what is good for America is bad for Republicans!

Now the Hope America Fails Republicans are unhappy with Chrysler and Clint Eastwood for telling the truth about the good news for America. Isn’t it funny how certain Republicans and their voices in the media are to facts what Pravda was to covering the Soviet Communist Party? They pretend facts and opinions they do not like do not exist. Well, the American auto industry is back. If Republicans do not like this, tough luck for them.

The Blame Americans First Republicans cannot handle the truth, either. Remember how they blame workers? Unions? And poor people? The Blame Americans First Republicans claim that jobless Americans want to be jobless, and poor Americans want to be poor. Pravda during the Brezhnev years would be proud of this nonsense!

The American auto industry is back. The American autoworkers are back. The American jobs market is coming back.

Let the Hope America Fails Republicans quote the atheist Ayn Rand, Austrian economists or creative-destruction theorists so popular in Mitt Romney’s circles.

My answer to them is: There is good news for America. As Clint Eastwood would say: Make my day!

Brent Budowsky
The Hill 

Okay, so there’s this:

Recently the big “gotcha” question for Newt Gingrich was about his supposed request for an “open marriage” with his 12th wife. Never mind that Newton Gingrich is all that is unholy in the human race.  Lets focus on this old life detail, right?

I’d say Gingrich exemplifies venality and hot buttered graft better than the actual dictionary definitions. Well, I’m not sure hot buttered graft is in the dictionary, but you know what I mean. “But, but I’m a historian who does reenactments of all the great moments of greed and corruption from the past.” That’s what Newt sputters. “I teach living history—wanna see me do a Teapot Dome with a squirt of lime or maybe a Benedict Arnold reverse half nelson?—I‘m that good – did I tell you I’m a historian? You know, an intellectual, read stuff. Wanna get married or give me some money, you know, for talking, either is good…..”

Really, my only issue with a Newt Gingrich open marriage would be an assurance that I, as an American, would not have to participate. Sadly, deep in the bowels of the recent NDAA I’m pretty sure that it includes the option to force us into a Newt Gingrich open marriage. Obama assures us he will never use that part of the law during his administration, and that is supposed to calm us. But it’s all just moot until you find out Newt has an open account not only at Tiffany’s, but at the Open Marriage Costume Store – sorry they weren’t very creative with their name. It’s located just behind the coat closet in the Senate — knock twice and show a congressional sized roll of abdominal blubber.  Then they will know you are one of them and give you entry. In the dark, dystopian future, Newt will have you dressed up like a Geometry teacher faster than you can say “just take me to Gitmo, please.”

The media wanted to make this a story, though, but, you know, the folks who normally love this stuff aren’t having it. They want the media to focus on the real issues like Mitt’s Mormon underwear with the little fertility symbols on his willy or whatever. It really is obvious that the people who gave us the witch trials reproduced a lot of offspring. Their descendants have exploded exponentially and they still like killing (or at least they enjoy the smarmy thrill of supporting Empire) and, of course, they still love to judge. But you get a pass on their judgment if you are one of their own. Like a crying televangelist, you are still in the fold. It’s a mathematical truism, really.  The more sanctimonious you are in this nation, the more of a pass you get when caught with any personal dirt or perceived sketchiness.

It’s all fairly amusing to watch the perpetually red faced outragees of the right stew in these issues without the slightest bit of self-reflection. They will move on quickly to argue against people who love each other, but happen to be gay, or they will denigrate Romney’s religion without noticing the idiocy of their own.

If only these incidents opened up a dialogue in their own minds about the rigidity of their world, and the unyielding pronouncements that fall upon those they view as “others”. But that sure ain’t gonna happen.

Alas, I get away from myself, again. The nonsense seems well scripted, just enough batshit crazy pepper to make Obama appear as the dignified and elder statesman (don’t look too close at the blood under his nails, though). A level of distraction in the nation, and the Wall Street Rainmaker will stay in office. Who writes this damn script?

And they caught me up in it again….Bastards!

Well, see you all at Newt’s — and don’t forget your protractor.

Kathleen Peine
Dissident Voice 

Consider poor Newt Gingrich.

The guy takes some electoral blows and within moments his “friends” blame everyone for killing him. It’s the media. It’s his second wife. It’s the Super PACs. It’s Romney’s willingness to lie. It’s the debate formats. It’s the crowds — both NBC’s silent audience and CNN’s more raucous attendees.

It’s everything, in other words, but Gingrich taking responsibility for himself. Newt is a victim despite the fact that he’s had the benefits of $10 million from a single donor; a rapt national media rooting for him to prolong the race; a slew of nationally-televised debates which have twice catapulted him into the GOP primary lead; and, in Mitt Romney, a spectacularly tone-deaf front-runner who shortly after his Florida Primary triumph added “I’m not concerned about the very poor” to his laundry list of rhetorical gaffes.

Of course, Romney himself is no piker when it comes to feigning victimhood. When his “poor people” comments went viral, he played the “out of context” canard, as he’s done to distance himself from such earlier flubs as “I’m unemployed too,” “self-deportation,” “I like to fire people” and the evergreen “Corporations are people, my friend.” But when you put them together, these comments are the context. (In this most recent case, Romney compounded his mistake by adding, “You can focus on the very poor — that’s not my focus. My focus is on middle-income Americans.”)

The Newt as “victim of a coordinated attack” narrative was pushed by Rush Limbaugh and other Tea Party types who blamed the media for talking about Newt’s inexcusable behavior toward his second wife. This put Gingrich in solidarity with ex-pizza magnate Herman Cain, who pretended to be similarly maligned after he was accused of serial sexual harassment. Cain had recently made “breaking news” with his “unconventional endorsement” of “the people.” But just before voters went to the Florida polls, he pulled a 180 by switching his endorsement to Newt. No one cared.

Leave it to Sarah Palin, working from her logic-free Facebook comfort zone, to definitively link Newt’s victim status to the lefty media. She blamed Romney’s “tactics of the left” for Newt’s decline, concluding that, “What we saw with this ridiculous opposition dump on Newt was nothing short of Stalin-esque rewriting of history.” No rewriting of history for our Sarah!

The trouble for Newt and his ilk is that the victim strategy has no exit strategy. Having embarked on the trail of “You started it, Mitt”/”you’re a big bully, Mitt,” Newt has had to project his own massive flaws onto others ever more hyperbolically. It will be tough even for the verbally gifted Gingrich to match his ludicrous self-identification with Holocaust survivors, whom he claimed were victimized by Mitt’s policy on kosher kitchens in Massachusetts.

Howls from conservatives notwithstanding, the truth is that neither the left nor the media lifted a finger to hand Newt his comeuppance. His fellow Republicans did that all by themselves. The irony that an attack dog like Gingrich would play the victim card was too rich even for right wing screamer Ann Coulter, who literally wrote the book on Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America; she explained to Bill O’Reilly that there was no liberal media fingerprint at work in the anti-Newt onslaught.

That’s not likely to change Newt’s tactics. Look to see the Pillsbury Doughboy candidate set himself on fire and then blame the oil companies for supplying the gas — that is, the oil companies and their friends on the left.

Michael Sigman

Republished with the author’s permission from Huffington Post.

In addition to summarily destroying the heretofore stellar reputation of a favorite childhood game, the GOP field has managed to maintain a unified position in one other key issue: Big Government.  It’s big, it’s bad and it’s coming to get you.  And yet there’s very little substantive argument  on what exactly “Big Government” is, and how exactly it’s going to hurt you.  We hear the recycled mantra of “Repeal Obamacare” on a daily basis, and yet the arguments that the Affordable Care Act‘s mandate for citizens to buy private health insurance, is some sort of red-scare government-take-over of health care is…well, dumb.

I heard a dumb person being interviewed on TV earlier today saying that Romney would defend Medicare, unlike Obama who wants us to have “government-run-healthcare.”  The reporter didn’t bother to inform the individual in question that he was dumb, since as most of us who can read have already noticed, Medicare “is” government run healthcare.  He also didn’t bother to point out that Mitt Romney early endorsed the Paul Ryan budget, which would effectively turn Medicare into a privatized voucher system - something that most Medicare advocates would argue is by definition no longer “Medicare.”  And finally neither did the reporter have the heart to inform this particular voter that Obamacare is the bouncing brawny baby of Romneycare - how proud is papa Mittens of that?

In the end there’s a lot of rhetoric thrown around, designed to get people’s waders in a winch about the dangers of “Big Government” in our lives, and frankly I don’t know that I want “Big” anyone peering over my shoulder when I’m eating my evening Cheerios. But there’s another important point that is oft overlooked.  Lately the media has begun to take note that all of the Presidential candidates who rail incessantly against Big Government, are in fact rich people (one of them being much richer than the rest combined…and their ancestors…and their kids).  The thing no one is bothering to point out is simple:

In the absence of Government, Rich people ARE the government.

I know it sounds simplistic but think about it historically: who ever heard of the King of France, the Queen of England or the Sultan of Brunei struggling to make their horse & carriage payments? No one.  Why?  Because they got PAPER son (or as Ron Paul prefers it, they got Gold for every rainy day in the almanac).  If they were broke their kingdom would eventually be taken over by the army of some other rich person, and they would either be sent to meet their maker (as Mittens would love to do to Castro), or they’d be turned into some sort of sub-king or duchess in the interests of saving face.  But the bottom line remains, historically, rich people have run things.  Over time they became clever enough to say, “I run ish because God said so,” rather than the proverbial “I run ish because I got guns n scimitars” which always frightened the children.

I can’t even pretend to be a proponent of government largesse, as I think there are a world of sensible reasons to curtail the power of the State.  That said, the next time some multi-millionaire candidate tells you he or she is here to protect you against the ravages of Big Government, take a moment and ask yourself: after Richie Rich has finished drowning “government” in his golden bidet, who will protect you from him?

Derrick N. Ashong
DNA 

So the key to getting your issue on the map is to ask the candidate in public, with voters and media in the room.  Even if you are creating your own media, the key is to get them “on the record.”  Wait in line for the microphone and ask away.  Obviously this is easier to do in a local race than a big national one, but those interactions are going to have more impact anyway.  People need to see that the president is, in many ways, inconsequential because there is little difference between candidates.

Go look in the mirror and practice how to load up a question.  Here, try these on for size:

“With prison spending exceeding education spending, and legal discrimination against 200,000 people in our state due to their felony record, where they are barred from employment, where computers are deleting applications that reflect a felony record, where public housing is denying the reunification of families… do you think we should continue to use prisons as a solution for mental illness, homelessness, and substance abuse?  Or do you think we should find an alternative?”

 Check out the tactic of leading in with some facts.  Frame the question.  Make it so they must agree… in public at least.

“Considering that education is the oldest form of self-empowerment and the only known pathway for stability, not only for an individual but for a community, do you think prisoners and former prisoners should be allowed to get an education?”

Follow-up:

“And what do you say to the person who feels that a former prisoner’s education is taking a classroom seat away from someone who was not in prison, and more deserving?”

Who can be against education?

“In a society where defense attorneys are sometimes earning millions of dollars each year defending drug clients, do you find any conflict of interest for a legislator, who has ties to the defense attorneys through their own firm or their close associates, to make laws that create more clients?”

“With all the failed results from rehabilitation and re-entry programs designed without the input of those who have direct experience, do you think it is time to listen to former prisoners (those who are truly the primary stakeholder in rehabilitation) about what works and doesn’t work… or should we keep giving money to so-called experts and the politically connected entities?“

“Do you think people released from prison should be encouraged to get more involved in their community by voting, holding jobs, and raising their children… or should they be pushed into the shadows of an underclass where drugs and violence are essential for survival?”

Here’s one I have for Attorney General Eric Holder, who is coming to do a talk on voting at my law school.  Let’s see if he selects it, and answers….

“In Louisiana there are 66,000 people on probation and parole who cannot vote, and over 10% of New Orleans is barred from voting.  Considering as Felony Disenfranchisement laws have a disparate impact on People of Color, do you believe theJustice Department should consider enforcing Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in states, such as Louisiana, that are covered under Section 5 of the Act?”

Film it, post it, share it.  Let the follow-ups begin, and let the candidates show their knowledge, intelligence, leadership, and compassion for all their constituents shine… or not.

What question would YOU ask?

Bruce Reilly
Unprison