What's the Limit on Saying Here We Go Again?

Perhaps you've heard that Arizona is in somewhat dire straits. The state is wrestling with--and losing to, badly--an epic budget crisis that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of low-income people (we have more than any state in the nation) being kicked off of state-provided healthcare (including a few people who have died after being removed from the organ transplant list), mental health services being slashed, aid to developmentally disabled people being gutted, public schools closing, state universities eliminating departments and not hiring new staff to fill positions left vacant (250 university professors were just offered a year's pay to retire early and go away), and state parks being shuttered (leaving priceless Native American sites vulnerable to looting). The private sector economy is just as bad, with high unemployment (in fact, we just added to our worst-in-the-nation trophy case on Monday, when we found out that we have the highest rate of teenage unemployment in the country, a whopping 31%).

So, naturally, the Republicans and tea partiers who were freshly elected or reliably re-elected on the strength of campaigns touting them as fiscal saviors have gotten right down to business. With a slew of bills restricting abortion even more than it already is.

First up is Steve Montenegro (R-Litchfield Park), offering a pair of nifty bills intended to crack down on the rampant practice of sex-selection abortions. Well, both bills ban sex selection. One also tacks on a race-selection ban.

HB 2443, crafted by Rep. Steve Montenegro, R-Litchfield Park, would require a woman to sign an affidavit she is not seeking an abortion because of the child's sex or race. Montenegro has a separate measure, HB 2442, dealing only with abortions based on sex selection.

Any doctor who performed an abortion knowing race or sex selection was the reason would face felony charges. And the legislation would permit the father of the unborn child, if married to the woman having the abortion, to sue the doctor for damages.

This must be a significant problem in Arizona for Rep. Montenegro to have taken the time to write two separate bills addressing it, no? Oh.

Neither Montenegro nor independent searches of state records and the Internet provided any information indicating a significant number of women are seeking abortions for those reasons.

Montenegro promised supporting data when interviewed initially last week, but as of late Wednesday had provided none. He said he will have more specifics to back those claims today.

I will, of course, stay glued to the Daily Star today so that I can bring you those specifics just as soon as they hit the wire. He at least had the courtesy to give us a little tease.

But Montenegro said he has information "that there are targeted communities that the abortion industry targets." He said for the purposes of his ban, an abortion based on race would include situations where the parents are the same race as the fetus.

OMG TARGETED COMMUNITY IS TARGETED. And no more aborting because you're white and were really hoping to save on the plane fare by popping out an Asian baby. Or because you're Mexican and were hoping to change things up a little with a Norwegian. Or a puppy. Or something.

It becomes slightly more ominous, though, when Montenegro explains his "targeting" claim by pointing out that abortion rates are higher for nonwhites than for whites. Which makes it hard to read his proposed ban on situations where parents are the same race as the fetus as a particular ban on nonwhite women having abortions.

Our other entry comes courtesy of Rep. Kimberly Yee (R-Phoenix), co-sponsored by only 34 other Republicans, which brings Oklahoma-style mandated ultrasounds to our fair shores. Doctors would be required to (a) explain what the ultrasound shows, (b) show the woman a picture of the ultrasound, and (c) play audio of the heartbeat if one is audible before the woman can give her final consent for the procedure. No word on if the woman will also be required to sit in a rocking chair with an appropriately flesh-toned plush fetus-doll and read it Goodnight Moon before the abortion can take place. All of this is completely necessary, of course, for a very simple reason.

Yee, who said she opposes abortion, believes some women do not have a full understanding of what they are doing.

But the girls who want to keep the baby because then the guy will finally love them and the baby will love them and sit quietly all day and not bring any undue disruption or hardship to their lives? They totally fully understand what they're doing.

It's morning in Arizona. And it sucks.

In Which Arizonans Baffle Me By Being Even Stupider Than I Feared

Jan Brewer verbally stumbled, went silent and mangled her grammar during last week's televised debate.

The result of her performance, a new statewide survey indicates, is that she is even more popular.

Pollster Scott Rasmussen found 60 percent of the 500 likely Arizona voters questioned in the automated telephone survey on Tuesday said they intend to vote for the incumbent. That's up three points from a survey taken a week before the debate.

Just as soon as I finish banging my head against this nice big rock I found, I will remind myself that polls conducted via landline calls disproportionately sample old people, and that old people in Arizona disproportionately think good thoughts about reanimated corpses (see: Jan Brewer, John McCain).

Meanwhile, the Arizona Green Party is trying like mad to get rid of the Democratic vote-diluting fake candidates Log Cabin Republican Steve May recruited from a pool of homeless street performers in Tempe. I need to stop going to bed thinking the sun has just set on the stupidest day possible, because it keeps coming up the next morning, dragging even more idiocy along with it.

What the Whuh?

The health care conference/summit/roundtable convenes in a few minutes, with President Obama pushing for comprehensive changes in the current system rather than the incremental approach favored by many Republicans. It should be fascinating, assuming Lamar Alexander speaks for the Republican contingent as a whole when he says

The White House seems to be obsessed with this idea that a bunch of professors sitting around a table can come up with a comprehensive bill and change one seventh of the American economy all at once. We're not that smart. We don't do comprehensive that well.

Seriously? News flash for Republican senators and potential presidential candidates: you're supposed to be smarter than the rest of us. You're fucking running the country, and that's not a job for the average American schlub who can't think critically enough to figure out that a subprime adjustable rate mortgage is a bad idea. Professors are smart. People running the country are also supposed to be smart. You don't do comprehensive? Your job sorta requires it. If you're not smart enough to do comprehensive, then get the fuck outta the way and let somebody with half a brain do it. Jesus.

Today in Religion

The first thing Imma do when I get home today is take some measurements and then file for a patent on the magical miracle transporter chamber that must exist somewhere in the vicinity of my pillowtop Serta, because I went to bed in Arizona and swear I woke up in Alabama.

Saying the minority must be tolerant of the majority, Republicans who control the Senate Appropriations Committee voted Tuesday to require a copy of the Ten Commandments to be erected in front of the old state Capitol.

Tempting as it may be to suspect Roy Moore of taking over the bodies of several state legislators in Phoenix, at least Ol' Roy was straightforward with his motivation when he erected his own two-ton block of granite in front of the Alabama state courthouse. In contrast, the AZ Republicans are falling over each other to see who can be the most disingenuous.

Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, who crafted the measure, said it's wrong to think of the Ten Commandments as religious. Instead, he called them "10 little rules," saying that if everyone honored them, "boy, what a better place this would be."

Anyway, Pearce said it is clear the United States was founded on those principles. And he said the intent of the First Amendment, providing freedom of religion, is not to keep the government from displaying symbols like this but to keep the government from interfering with religious worship.

What, the Ten Commandments are religious? Shoooooot. Them's just ten little rules! Not religious at all! Oh, those first four little rules about I AM THE LORD THY GOD, BITCHEZ, SO DON'T GO WORSHIPPING ANYBODY ELSE OR BOWING DOWN TO STATUES, AND YES, CATHOLICS, I AM LOOKING AT YOU you can probably just ignore. Or don't ignore, actually, because anyway, the United States was founded on religious principles and the First Amendment doesn't say the government can't display religious symbols, which you should not think of this particular religious symbol as. Religious, that is. Because it's just ten little rules.

"Tolerance works two ways," responded Sen. Sylvia Allen, R-Snowflake. "People need to be tolerant of the majority's beliefs as well as the majority needs to be tolerant of the minority's beliefs.

"I don't know why it would be that offensive," she continued. Allen said anyone who doesn't believe in what the Ten Commandments say is free to ignore the words, even if they are posted next to a government building.

"There are many things on TV that I'm offended by," she continued. "Everybody says, 'Just turn it off.' "

Because a commercial TV broadcast is exactly the same as a government-sanctioned (and, in this case, government-mandated) display of one particular religion's rules on the grounds of the state Capitol.

Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, said his colleagues are worrying too much about running afoul of the First Amendment. It says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

"The 'establishment' clause of the United States Constitution doesn't apply to the states," he said.

Gould said states such as Virginia actually had state religions before the formation of the federal government. He said the deal that resulted in the Constitution was designed to let states continue down that path with a promise Congress would not get in the way.

Yes, colonies and states did have their own religions, and that worked so well--say, in Massachusetts--that Roger Williams ended up creating Rhode Island so that non-Puritans could live without worrying about paying state taxes directed to churches, or being jailed for not going to church, or, you know, being executed for heresy. Not that such things are likely to happen now, at least not the jailing and dying bits, but once a church is made an official organ of a state, it gets state funding. Interesting as it might be to watch the resulting mental gymnastics on the part of legislators who firmly oppose taxation in Arizona for anything but Joe Arpaio's pink tent jail--and that only grudgingly--it's really not a road I would like to see any state try to travel.

The revisionist history of Christian Reconstructionism has been thoroughly debunked (Chris Rodda has done most of the heavy lifting; go here when you have a few evenings to devote to reading), leaving Pearce's assertion that the US was founded on the principles of the Ten Commandments in the dust. Even if that were true, however, he's forgetting that the US was at its core founded on the principles of individual liberty with minimal interference from the government, and as we have evolved into a pluralistic nation of more belief systems than the founders could have imagined, government cheerleading on behalf of a single creed doesn't wash. Pearce is free to post a monument with "little rules" he thinks would improve life. Shit, make it a ten-ton block of granite inscribed with "don't kill" and "don't steal" and "don't be a dick." I'm all over it. Just don't include appeals to a deity, or reminders of that deity's jealousy and the generations of hurt promised to anyone who breaks on of its rules.

Let's review the past couple of weeks in Arizona. We have had the Take an Extra Four Months to Get Divorced bill, the No Booze or Cigarettes if You're on Public Assistance bill, the No Gay Adoptions Married Straight Couples Get Dibs on Adoptions bill, and now a Ten Commandments Are Required but They're not Religious Honest We Mean It bill. Oh, in case you forgot, we also have a governor who thinks God picked her to be governor and relies on team prayer to address state business. I can't wait to see what they come up with today in the legislature in lieu of addressing the state's squintillion-dollar deficit.

Arizona Yet Again Fails to Disappoint

And here we go again. Rockstar Arizona state representative of the day (we don't say du jour in these parts) is Judy Burges (R-Skull Valley), who earned her tally mark in the GOP locker room in Phoenix by preparing legislation requiring presidential and vice presidential candidates to prove their natural-born US citizenship before they'll be allowed on the ballot in our fair state. In fact, they'll have to double secret probation downward dog prove it, which should make the AZ secretary of state just thrilled about his job.

The kind of certification Burges wants, though, could be more difficult than simply checking for a valid birth certificate, as the arguments about his legal qualification go beyond whether he was actually born in Hawaii.

A lawsuit filed in federal court in Pennsylvania charges, among other things, Obama lost his U.S. citizenship when his mother married an Indonesian man and moved there, and he failed to reclaim it as an adult. But Judge Barclay Surrick threw out the case without ruling on the issue, saying the plaintiff did not have standing to sue.

Oh, in case you need to ask? This is about the integrity of the electoral process. It isn't about Obama.

Burges said the measure is not necessarily about Obama, though she admitted she doubts he was born in Hawaii as he claims or that he can show he is a U.S. citizen.

No, honest, it's not about Obama, necessarily.

Still, she acknowledges she is not an Obama fan.

"When someone bows to the king of Saudi Arabia and they apologize for our country around the world, I have a problem with that," she said.

Totally not about Obama!

The two-term lawmaker said her concerns remain about having a president whose citizenship — and, as she sees it, loyalty — is not clear.

"We want to make sure that we have candidates that are going to stand up for the United States of America," Burges said.

Clearly not about Obama in any way at all!

Got anything else for us, Judy?

"Obama has a book, and it said, when it came down to it, he would be on the Muslim side," Burges continued. "Doesn't that bother you just a little bit?"

What bothers me, actually, is legislators--even of the state-level Republican variety--functioning as human equivalents of forwarded e-mails from right-wing relatives. What Burges just told us right there is that she didn't read the book herself, but knows somebody somewhere this one time said Obama has this book saying he loves Muslims and hates America. She probably isn't sure which of Obama's two best-sellers contains this information, although when it comes down to it, they both probably do, so it doesn't really matter.

The quote comes from Obama's book, "The Audacity of Hope," where he writes about conversations with immigrant communities following the 2001 terrorist attacks, especially Arab and Pakistani Americans. Obama said they were fearful over detentions and FBI questioning and were concerned about the historical precedent.

"They need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction," Obama wrote.

It remains unclear, then, why Burges chose the comparatively more difficult route of writing legislation and hustling votes when she could have just busted out the markers and posterboard for some where's the birth certificate or, better yet, Obama secret muslin signs. Maybe she thought her bill would be a more subtle approach, assuming this is what passes for subtlety in Skull Valley.

An ugly direction indeed. Hey, Arizona statehouse Republicans: can we at least see a little more originality out of you lot next time around? Even Glenn Beck will think you're nuts on this one, and that is just never a good sign.

Boggle.

O_o. While I was away ripping out chicken wire and catclaw and building new fences and baking the wrong cookies and half-assedly dusting, the Republican leadership officially went batshit crazy.

Wow. When did Hulk Hogan get a second job as a mouthbreathing evangelist? And where is his spandex? I was originally going to slice this up and deal with the little bits piece by piece, but it's taking longer to scrape my jaw off the floor than I thought it would. Just watch the whole thing, maybe three times, and explain to me if I'm wrong in concluding that these witnessing chowderheads have finally conclusively demonstrated that they have abandoned any pretense of rational thought. Who is the Logic: Ur Doin It Rong poster boy here? Jim DeMint (R-Leviticus)?

If we have the government making decisions about the most personal and private part of our lives, it is so naive to think that that coverage is not gonna include a number of things that cause people of faith a lot of heartburn, whether it's funding abortions... whether it's funding medical marijuana...

Or Sam Brownback (R-James Dobson's Pocket)?

The Democrat [sic] leadership wants to fund abortion in this bill. And it's real tragic, because abortion's not healthcare!

Nice effort there by Brownback, but then DeMint brings it home with the simplest and only summation you really need.

We cannot fall for this idea that we need to keep our faith in the closet and let the country go its own secular way.

Congratulations, Jimmy D, for that spectacular bit of fail. Pardon me for not sticking around to join the jesusjesusjesus mumblers around you, but I need to get shopping for a bigger hat if y'all are calling down so much wrath from heaven.

Somebody's Mama Fell Down on the Job

And I don't mean Obama's.



Stay classy, jerks.

The Personality Cult of Dear Leader

No, not him. The other guy, who came before him. Thank god Glenn Greenwald is around to do the heavy lifting on a day when I have a headache and a deadline.

I'm always amazed -- even though I know I shouldn't be -- at people's capacity simply to block out events, literally refuse to acknowledge them, when they are inconsistent with their desire to believe things.

Just click over to Salon and read, and weep, and then print it out and roll it up into a tube for whacking upside the head the next person you hear muttering about how creepy it is that President Obama would dare tell your kids to pay attention in school and do their homework.

In other news, there's a good chance Obama ate breakfast this morning, which is exactly what Kim Jong-Il does every morning himself, and which Mao and Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin and Charles Manson were rumored to do as well. Eeeeeeeevil!

Shameless Saturday Morning

As in shamelessly repackaging from Americablog, but it's only to streamline your viewing experience. I was laughing too hard yesterday to find these videos myself.

The Republicans are protesting bailouts, taxes, and Obama in general with tiny little remixes of the Boston Tea Party, but rather than dressing up like Native Americans, stealing onto ships at anchor in the dead of night, wrenching open large wooden crates of tea, and dumping the contents overboard in protest of taxation by the Crown without representation, they're... well, I'm not sure what they're doing, but I think it involves slitting Lipton's bags open and sprinkling the contents lightly on the ground. Or setting them on fire. Or something. That would be worthy of only a shrug and a meh if not for the really unfortunate name they decided to adopt for their neo-Boston Harbor antics.

With a completely Tobias Funke level of cluelessness, the Republican opposition is protesting in a park near you. And they decided to call it teabagging.

Rachel went to town on this Thursday night, and the impressive thing is that she only lost it once, while Ana Marie Cox kept a straight face throughout.

My right-wing brother has yet to invite me to one of these events. I cannot wait.

Barry, Object Lesson. Object Lesson, Barry.

Okay, Mr. Bipartisanpants. You made a big deal about wanting to reach across the aisle and work with legislators from both parties to solve this giant economic disaster that both Democratic and Republican lawmakers contributed to, and that both Democratic and Republican voters are suffering from. That's great and noble and a wonderful example for our nations children and, apparently, fairly short-sighted.

You agreed to strip funding for Medicaid family planning from the package because it got John Boehner's purity-drenched undies in an uncomfortable knot (in fact, it gave him such a whopping case of the vapors that he totally accidentally said the program would cost 100 million dollars rather than actually saving 70 million dollars over the next ten years and providing comprehensive healthcare to thousands of women who can't afford it otherwise). You did this because both sides have to compromise and sacrifice certain things in the spirit of cooperation, right? And because poor women are so used to taking it in the teeth anyway, the Medicaid family planning was the easiest symbolic sacrifice to make in order to win Republican support for a stimulus plan that was guaranteed to pass the House anyway due to the Democratic majority, right? Right?

The vote was 244-188, with Republicans unanimous in opposition despite President Barack Obama's pleas for bipartisan support.

Oh. Well, that was totally worth it, then. It was also totally worth it to commit $275B to tax cuts and only $90B to infrastructure projects. Because it's far more important to give individuals $500 tax breaks that will most likely go either straight to a credit card bill or to China, via Wal-Mart, than to fix bridges that will, say, allow millions of people to drive over the Mississippi River for the next forty years without winding up sandwiched between cement and dirty water.

Yes, you signed the Ledbetter Act, and that's both way awesome and way overdue. That makes me happy, and I'm still happy you won. But for fuck's sake, stop giving away shit when--remember this?--you won, and when you already have the votes you need lined up, and when you know the other side will sit on their hands no matter how much woman- and minority- and gay-repressing stuff you cede to them in the name of "bipartisanship." They know they're losing the war, but they'll happily posture all day to wring every last concession out of you they can. You think you're being cooperative. They think you're being a pussy and are ready to jump all over that six ways to Sunday.

Bush never quite got the "fool me once" saying down. You need to make it your mantra.