Life Begins on January 3rd

For me, at least.


The Holidays were good. Better than could be expected, in fact: I didn't spend them in a 12'x12' SRO on 6th Street which is where some people wanted me to be. I still have my cats, Katie Scarlett and Chloe Anastasia. I have sex occasionally - not as much as I want, but I'm working on my social skills. 


So what do I do now, after the Holidays? 


I live. No, I LIVE. I schedule. I write. I work out. I take my meds. I cook. I socialize. I become involved in people's lives. I try to help people. I work on my book. I look for writing gigs. I work on my 4x4 community garden plot. I read more facebook. I go to therapy. 


I make sure that all is well with my world. Well, as best as I can. 


Yes, life began today. 


It's all I've got. Its all I can give. 

Driving The Clown Car: A (Serious) Look At GOP Campaign Managers With Nonetheless HILARIOUS UDATES!es

BREAKING: Herman Cain's defection didn't quell the laugh riot.

When the clown car opens and spills its laugh-laden contents, the last one out is usually the driver, and with the GOP circus in full swing, it's time to stop and think about who the hell is actually running the show. Of course, so many aides and managers bailed out in the last 6 months, that the resulting confusion only adds to the hilarity: these guys are willing to throw their candidates under the clown car by continuing with the blunders. What do they have to gain, you may ask? Possibly a future position as ringmaster for another circus: the next GOP campaign pandering to Tea Partyers and the Christian Right.

Then again, all the buffoonery may be the fault of the candidates, hurling themselves through their campaigns without giving a second thought to what their managers think giving rise to the question: why did they hire these guys at all? As nannies, perhaps? And who, exactly, is running the show? 

Experience, dealings with the Christian Right, odd endorsements procured, campaign issues tackled and the latest events: all might shed some light on these politicos and the clown campaigns they manage.

Joe Allbaugh (Rick Perry)

Joe Allbaugh's wikipedia biography stops mysteriously at 2008, not mentioning any connection to Perry. Perhaps it was removed out of embarrassment, because Allbaugh's political and lobbying career shows a marked intelligence peppered with ruthlessness. He was, after all, George Bush's campaign manager for the 2000 election and head of FEMA until the ill-fated "Brownie" took over. And before that, presided over then-Governor Bush's "Fomalde-gate" scandal (involving the funeral industry).It also shows no significant connection with the Christian Right. So, does Allbaugh have any say in Perry's campaign, or is he just window dressing?

It's odd to think that Allbaugh had anything to do with "The Response" (Perry's call-to-prayer for the state of Texas), his ineptitude during the debates, or his fatal campaign ad, "Strong." But remember that Perry is of the same mold as George Bush - and Bush seldom listened to advisers. Then again, Joe Allbaugh may be jettisoning Perry out of the clown car while secretly feathering his own nest: his firm, Allbaugh Company, has operated with, Halliburton, Ecosphere Systems and  Dilligence, Iraq (a security/mercenary company).

Rick Perry doesn't seem to know (or care) what his campaign manager is all about. Figures.

Endorsements: 

Dean Cain, actor, of Lois and Clark (Superman) fame. Couldn't Allbaugh get Chuck Norris? 

Steve Forbes - of course, a "corporate personhood" donor.

The Latest: Rick Perry's taxpayer-paid security detail costs continue to skyrocket. Perry insists that his campaign travels are beneficial to the state of Texas. Right.

Mike Krull (Newt Gingrich)

Trying to look for Newt Gingrich's campaign manager under Google is like looking for a needle in a haystack: most of the coverage of his campaign management has been how his staff deserted him en masse. But a look in an article on his wife Calista reveals that it's HER friend, Mike Krull who has filled the crucial gap. 

Calista Gingrich may, in fact, be the REAL manager of Newt's campaign. Her "column" on his website titled "Calista's Canvass" reveals just how much more involved she is with the campaign. Is it she or Krull who were instrumental in getting endorsements from the American Family Association and homophobic hate monger, pastor Jim Garlow?

But looking at Krull: at first glance, he seems to suffer from the GOP malady of inept vetting. Not vetting your own candidate properly, that is. A campaign manager MUST know absolutely EVERYTHING about the candidate's past. Period. In effect, he must know the candidate better than the candidate knows himself: he has to ward off any criticism and have an answer for any peccadillo or indiscretion. 

Endorsements:

Columbia Tea Party

Tea Party Nation

Des Moines Tea Party

These endorsements may be indicative of Calista's influence, not Krull's.

The Latest: Newt Gingrich has lied about his first divorce: his website says that first wife Jackie Gingrich, requested the divorce, but CNN has uncovered documents stating not only that Gingrich instigated the procedures, but that he was negligent in child support and owed three months in support of Jackie and their two daughters, teenagers at the time. Mike Krull's/Gingrich's campaign's insistence that the opposite was true only makes Krull look inept in the face of legitimacy: Gingrich's mea culpas become more disingenuous as time goes by, weakening his support by the Christian Right.   

The Latest II: When it was discovered that Gingrich did not make the ballot on the Virginia primaries, his response was to compare the event toe Pearl Harbor (?!?): 

“Newt and I agreed that the analogy is December 1941: We have experienced an unexpected setback, but we will regroup and refocus.” 

Did they agree on what to do if the analogy was ridiculed? For Krull's sake, we hope not.

John Tate (Ron Paul)

As with Newt Gingrich's campaign manager, googling for John Tate presents a problem: most of the articles are on the demise of Kent Snyder, his former campaign manager who died uninsured and whose estate owed $400,000 in medical bills as a consequence. The (now) infamous interview with Wolf Blitzer pointed out how many people of Paul's ranks would just "let them die" if people elected not to have health insurance. Although Snyder's case was a bit different (he was denied health care because of a pre-existing condition), it put Paul in  an embarrassing position after he had stated that "our neighbors, our friends, our churches would do it." Paul's lobbing of compassion over to the churches, however, is quite misplaced: they can't handle the volume of people with needs, nor do many of them accept people with needs in a totally compassionate (non-qualifying) way.

So how is his new campaign manager, John Tate, looking at Health Care Reform? Tate's history as a Paul supporter and president of Campaign for Liberty (a libertarian - no government group) can unearth Tate's stance on health care (see video below). Total free enterprise in terms of health care basically reiterates the former physician's stance that the only good uninsured American is a dead uninsured American. 

Endorsements:

John Stossel

Chuck Norris (yes, instead of endorsing Rick Perry - maybe it was the Brokeback Mountain jacket that turned off Norris)

Andrew Sullivan. Not. Sullivan withdrew his support after further investigation into Paul's foreign policies.

Latest: In a FOX News update concerning the racially charge newsletters under Paul's name back in the 80's, total denial is the name of the game.

"These things are really nasty, and he didn't know about it? Wasn't aware of it?" Gingrich said at a stop in South Carolina.


Paul has since denied writing, and in some cases even reading, some of the newsletters that bore his name. But the issue could continue to haunt him as he rides a wave of support in Iowa at just the right time.

Again, this looks like a case of not knowing the candidate's history inside-out.

Keith Nahigian (Michele Bachmann)

It's probably fitting that Keith Nahigian was responsible for Dan Quayle's infamous "potatoe" gaffe: Bachmann is so prone to gaffes that spin comes from the chin. In any case, Nahigian has had over twenty years to learn from the mistake in thinking that politicians are intelligent. 

Then again, Nahigian's own gaffes (or rather, unfortunate quotes) have not given Bachmann's campaign additional dignity:

Michele Bachmann’s campaign manager lashed out at a CBS executive after he was accidentally cc’d on a network email detailing a plan to marginalize the Minnesota Congresswoman at Saturday night's Republican debate.
"John Dickerson should be fired," the Rep.’s political handler Keith Nahigian told reporters after the debate, CNN and Fox reported. "He is a piece of sh---. He is a fraud and should be fired."

The overspill from the Santorum scandal (Vander Plaats asked Bachmann to 'merge" with Santorum) did nothing to deter Nahigian from taking strategies for Iowa from Santorum's campaign:

Earlier in the week, Bachmann’s team announced that they were taking a page from Santorum’s playbook and would make campaign stops in all 99 counties in Iowa before the caucus on Jan. 3. Bachmann will start this campaign swing in Northwest Iowa on Friday and continue throughout the weekend.

Great. Taking it's cue from a tanking campaign so it can pander to the Christian Right is very, very smart thinking. 

Endorsements:

Phyllis Schafley. Even though she didn't send her gay son to Marcus Bachmann's pray-away-the-gay clinic.

Wayne Newton. He didn't go to Bachmann's clinic either. 

Latest:



Nahigian himself sounds as vague and clueless as Bachmann. Witness his response (below) to a question on Isreal (referring to Ron Paul's remark that he wished Israel was not a state)

Mike Biundo (Rick Santorum, 

New Hampshire and Beyond)

The former aide to Pat Buchanan's primary effort in Iowa back in 1996 should know better about reining in a candidate, but Mike Biundo has worked on Santorum's campaigns so long that he can't seem to see the forest from the trees. 

Biundo on key New Hampshire endorsement going to Newt Gingrich. 

“Rick is running a traditional New Hampshire style, door-to-door, town-hall-to-town-hall grassroots campaign,” said Biundo, a New Hampshire native. “We are looking forward to a positive result on January 10th here in New Hampshire.”

Door-to-door at this point, when Santorum is only maintaining the 5% slot is, at best, a weak excuse for a weak campaign. True, Santorum never had the entertainment appeal of Rick Perry, whose calls to Christianism have sparked debate and parody, but Santorum's moralizing overshadows all aspects of his persona. His demonization of Islam, the possibilities of Sharia law and implications that Muslims are terrorists, have become rallying cries to a few right-wing bloggers.

Endorsements:

Bob Vander Plaats. Cost: $1 million. Scandal: Priceless

Brad Thor. The thriller author's book, The Last Patriot, pandered to extreme fears of takeover by Islamic terrorists.

Latest: Biundo has tried to play down the Vander Plaats "pay for play" scandal by saying that Santorum was never really approached byVander Plaats. Santorum says differently, contradicting Biundo.  

Matt Rhoades (Mitt Romney)

Matt Rhoades has been with Mitt Romney since 2008, after being director of "opposition research" for George Bush's campaign in 2004.

His colleagues would later tell National Journal that his opposition research work helped discredit Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) on national security issues in particular, or as The Hotline put it in 2006, "Campaign officials credit him with doing more than just about any other staffer to define John Kerry as weak, wimpy, French and flip-floppy -- an unacceptable Commander in Chief."

So it seems that Rhoades is dealing with the very same type of character he "exposed" which, if he can turn overturn the perception of Romney as "flip-floppy" he is an extremely good manager indeed. He also has an extremely good relationship with Matt Drudge (The Drudge Report). But how has he dealt with the Mormon issue?

He hasn't. Probably because he's allowing the Christian Right to hang itself on the issue. "Mormonism is a cult" is a meme that has worn itself thin and Rhoades, being the opposition analyst that he is, knows that this kind of push-back can actually work in Romney's favor. Be he weak or flip-floppy, Romney needs an underdog persona. Rhoades is already concentrating on the "kill Romney" attack strategy that the Obama Administration flatly denies. Rhoades knows the validity of hanging on to a persecution campaign.

Endorsements:

JP Morgan Chase
Former First Lady Barbara Bush. Pearls notwithstanding.


Latest:


The recent tele-town hall Florida apparance by Romney didn't seem to quell fears of elitism and flip-flopping. Rhoades can't seem to get Romney into that "everyman" mode he so desperately wants - and needs.

Either the clowns are running the circus or the campaign managers are - it's tough to decide: from ruthless right wingers like Allbaugh, to clueless politicos such as Nahigian, campaign managers look to be throwing their candidates under the clown car for purposes only they know. Perhaps, instead of the driving the cars, they decided early on that it would be best if they just sat back and enjoy the ride and its ensuing slapstick chaos along with the "suckers born every minute."


Who will be laughing after the primaries?

Is Calista Gingrich from MARS?

Somehow, in the deep recesses of my mind, I get the strange feeling...

Have Yourself A Merry Little Scandal: Pandering To The Christian Right Is VERY Expensive ($1M) For Rick Santorum's Campaign

Bob Vander Platts doesn't come cheap.  In 2010, Newt Gingrich gave Vander Plaats' campaign to unseat Iowa judges $350,000. The Family Leader's leader also demanded a cushy paid position on Mitt Romney's staff back in 2008 in exchange for an endorsement (he didn't get it, and backed Huckabee instead).


Now word is out that Vander Plaats has received $1 million to endorse Rick Santorum and others, after which he told Michele Bachmann to bow out of the race.

Earlier this week, Santorum admitted that Vander Plaats approached the campaign with an indirect solicitation of money to help promote his support, but now other sources familiar with the talks between Vander Plaats and GOP candidates are characterizing the tactics as “corrupt.”

Of course, "pay for play" is not new in the political Christian-Right arena: it was disclosed last week that Newt Gingrich's campaign had donated $125,000 to American Family Association Action (a PAC), after which he resoundingly received an endorsement from the American Family Association itself. And it was rumored back in 2010, that Mike Huckabee sold an endorsement in the Florida gubernatorial campaign for the princely sum of $250,000. 



POWER CORRUPTS


Ever since the Christian Right re-invented itself as a voting block, its power has been unmistakable: Tony Perkins' Values Voters Summit has now been a lightning rod for Right Wing candidates courting the "social conservative" group (est. up to 25 million - or almost half of Republican votes in a Presidential election). And with pulpits jeopardizing their tax-free status in daring to endorse candidates, their power is flaunted with a righteous arrogance that almost exceeds comprehension. Indeed, it is quite amazing that the same group cries "persecution" whenever a law is passed endangering that power. Their opposition to hate crimes bills, for example only demonstrates just how much they value the control they have over their congregations. Witness the outright lies "historian" David Barton promotes in his polemic about evil "homosexual activists" in the video below.


And Vander Plaats' pronouncements about gays, Muslims and "activist judges" have sparked controversey - the kind that Vander Plaats' shrugs off as "persecution."*


So power in the Christian Right corrupts people into telling lies for the sake of control. But in the case of Vander Plaats, we now see financial gain afoot, with candidates and their campaigns willing to pay the price of endorsements and support. 


With all the "pay to play" shenanigans going on, it begs the question: where are the campaign managers in all of this? Sources referring to the $1 million in contributions to the Family Leader imply that Santorum was one of several candidates who contributed for endorsements. In a forthcoming article, we'll look at the role these pivotal figures have as drivers of the clown car we now call the GOP Presidential campaign. And as it turns out, Mike Biundo, Santorum's campaign manager, may look to be as inept as his candidate: both Vander Plaats and Santorum said that Santorum did not know about the endorsement until well after the announcement by Vander Plaats, even though Biundo was present during the announcement.*


Bachmann's Dickerson


There is no word yet on how John Dickerson, Michele Bachmann's campaign manager reacted to the story that Vander Plaats suggested that she "merge" with another faith-based candidate but it's clear that the "merge" story came after Bachmann shot out that she was asked to "quit" the race by Vander Plaats. Dickerson must have a helluva time reining in his mistress, especially since he has enough on his hands trying to formulate enough effective ads in Iowa to propel Bachmann from fourth place to the position her straw poll win put her in. 


From where we sit, John Allbaugh (Perry), Michael Krull (Gingrich) and the aforementioned Biundo probably have more to say about donations to Vander Plaats.


Whither will they fly?






*Santorum said he heard it from a blind man who, in turn, heard it from someone "in the kitchen" of the convention hall. Real good coordinating, gents.  



* From Think Progress:

The FAMiLY Leader has its own long history of anti-gay and anti-Muslim rhetoric. An early version of the group’s fidelity pledge suggested that children were better off under slaverythan they are under Obama, and the document likens homosexuality to polygamy, adultery, or polyandry, attacks gays as a public health risk, and foments the non-existent “Sharia” threat to America. Vander Plaats himself led a successful campaign to oust three state Supreme Court justicies who overturned Iowa’s anti-gay marriage law and played in instrumental part and leading Mike Huckabee to victory in Iowa in 2008.

Newt Gingrich Ninja Marriage Protector - LOLOLOL!

I love the sneeze!

Transcending Christmas: The Final Chapter?

It was a happy day when Christmas transcended and became, in part, the Spirit of Christmas. We don't know exactly when it was. Perhaps it was that day in 1914 on the battlefields of France when the Christmas Truce occurred sans overt religiosity. Perhaps it was the time when "Happy Holidays" began to take hold simply because inclusion in the Spirit of Christmas was more important than the declarations of whom Jesus called the Pharisees:

"The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not." (Matt.23;2-3 KJV)

Whatever. The point is that Christmas DID transcend itself - morphing, if you will, into the embodiment of humanity: "Good Will Towards Men" - that being  helping others to survive as best they can. For what is "Good will towards men" other than making sure your neighbor has enough to eat, to drink, to stay healthy, to... survive. What is it other than seeing that your neighbor is not oppressed and that his rights are protected and upheld? What is it other than helping your neighbor protect all the freedoms he has and help him achieve the ones he should have but doesn't? What is it other than making survival truly equitable?


"Good Will Towards Men" has no qualifiers either. "Men" means everyone. It means humanity. "Men" is not judgmental. "Men" does not classify. "Men" does not discriminate.


So the Spirit of Christmas, that part of Christmas that originated from something spiritual (The Creator, perhaps), that Spirit which permeated humanity a long time ago can be everywhere we want it to be, especially in ourselves.


There are those who negate our humanity and what it contains because they wish to control us. The "ownership" of Christmas, for example, is hotly contested these days by people whose beliefs are qualifiers: "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" narrows and quantifies one religious belief and states that it is the only identification we must recognize.


Control. It's all about control.


Luckily, trying to control the Spirit of Christmas is like trying to catch the wind and box it up, put a ribbon on it and keep it in a stronghold to be used only as one wishes. Oh, the Spirit can be dampened and weakened to the point that it seems never to have existed, but it is never completely wiped out. That's why we sometimes laugh at the folly of  the Christian Right in trying to lay exclusive claim to it. They may be able to lay claim to Christmas, but not the Spirit of Christmas. 

To remind the Christian Right of this fact it is sometimes necessary to chide them for their righteous arrogance and their lack of Spirit in the face of social injustice. To date, no one has done it better than Christ Hedges:

Were you there to halt the hate crimes, discrimination and violence against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and those who are transgender? Were you there when Matthew Shepard died on the cross? Were you there to halt the abuse and at times enslavement of workers in the farmlands of this country? Were you there to halt the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocent Vietnamese during the war in Vietnam or hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan? Were you there to halt Israel's saturation bombing of Lebanon and Gaza? Were you there when Rachel Corrie died on the cross? Were you there to halt the corporate forces that have left working men and women and the poor in this country bereft of a sustainable income, hope and dignity? Were you there to share your food with your neighbor in Liberty Square? Were you there to become homeless with them?

Where were you when they crucified my Lord?

I know where I was.

Here.

With you.

(From Where Were You When They Crucified My Movement? - OpEdNews, Dec. 5, 2011)

The Final Chapter?

But dwelling on the lack of Spirit does little to propel the Spirit forward and grow, as it should, exponentially. What encourages and nurtures the Spirit is a combination of endless and all-inclusive hope, determination and compassion. Endless. All-inclusive. The Spirit should be meted out to everyone and everything on earth ...forever.

There should be no Final Chapter.

So it is with the Spirit of Christmas that I bid everyone:

Mary, Joseph & Jesus BEAT Rick Perry In The Iowas Polls!!

And they'll be big in all of the corn-fed states.