Newest Smear: 99-Percenters are Secretly Rich

When you're running a smear campaign, you're not going to want to let things like facts or logic or math get in the way. You're just going to make stuff up. But the trick is to make things up that are as close to the truth as possible. That way, you can throw out numbers and statistics that -- while being either meaningless or actually undercutting your argument -- can be made to seem to support your smear.

And consistency isn't very important here -- especially if your target audience has the attention span of the common house fly. One criticism that contradicts a previous criticism is A-OK, just so long as the criticism sticks. If there's one thing a smearer can count on, it's cognitive dissonance among a significant portion of their audience.

So it should be no surprise that the latest smear against Occupy Wall Street contradicts the previous smear that they're all uncouth rabble (i.e., "smelly hippies"), made poor by their own bad choices in life, clamoring for a government handout.

Daily Caller:

Many "Occupy Wall Street" protesters arrested in New York City reside in more luxurious homes than some of their rhetoric might suggest, a Daily Caller investigation has found.

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Giving the Center Finger to Centrism

Paul Krugman identifies a problem around which many other problems orbit. I hesitate to call it a "philosophy," because it's too reactionary to really qualify. But the correct word escapes me, so "philosophy" it is. It's the philosophy of those who believe with all their little hearts that the grass is always literally greener on the other side of the fence. It's a philosophy born of wishful thinking.

Watching our system deal with the debt ceiling crisis -- a wholly self-inflicted crisis, which may nonetheless have disastrous consequences -- it's increasingly obvious that what we're looking at is the destructive influence of a cult that has really poisoned our political system.

And no, I don't mean the fanaticism of the right. Well, OK, that too. But my feeling about those people is that they are what they are; you might as well denounce wolves for being carnivores. Crazy is what they do and what they are.

No, the cult that I see as reflecting a true moral failure is the cult of balance, of centrism.

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Paul Ryan Cooks Up Electoral Disaster

Paul Ryan's plan to replace Medicare with a voucher system is bold. It's courageous. It's serious. At least, if you ask various talking heads and pundits -- something you should probably avoid doing. It's one of the great failings of the media that they avoid calling a spade a spade at every opportunity. If some pundit were to tell the truth about the Ryan budget -- what it really does, what it really costs, how necessary it actually is -- this would be "bias." And it would be bias because it would suddenly look very, very bad. TV journalism has now reached a low formerly occupied only by "entertainment news" shows, where they report movies' press packets nearly verbatim and pretend the movie studios aren't writing their "news" for them. Journalists report what people say about a policy proposal and somehow manage to avoid telling you what's in the proposal. Dems hate it, Republicans love it. Let's watch the fight! What's the fight actually about-- who cares?

In these cases, the only people you're going to get the skinny from are those who are paid to be biased -- or, at least, paid to be unafraid to appear biased. In this case, Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman fits the bill.

What I hope regular readers of this blog understand by now is that the Ryan plan is, in fact, a self-serving piece of junk. It doesn't add up -- in fact, it would probably make the deficit bigger not smaller. And far from representing some kind of sacrifice of political interests in the service of the greater good, it’s a right-wing wish-list on steroids: sharp tax cuts for corporations and the rich, savage cuts in aid to the poor, and a gratuitous privatization of Medicare. And again, it's technically incompetent along the way.

So nobility and seriousness had nothing to do with it.

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Democrats for Rudy?

I'm going to start this post with an admission; I was wrong about Rudy Giuliani. Back in February of this year, I wrote, "Rudy Giuliani doesn't stand a snowball's chance of getting the GOP nomination."

It's not the first bad call I've made and not the last, I'm sure. I'm learning to stay out of the prediction business. In my defense, my reasoning was sound -- just about everyone on the right thought he was a horrible, horrible candidate at that time. A lot of them still do. But people are getting caught up in early polling and, since Rudy's doing well, are deciding that it's time to be pragmatists. This includes many on the Evangelical right -- who I thought would sink Giuliani's chances for sure. Seriously, anyone making a February prediction that religious conservatives would become pragmatic would've been taking an extremely wild guess. That's not their history.

So, in our moment in time, Giuliani looks like the nominee. The first primary vote hasn't even been cast yet, so things could shake out very differently very easily. But Rudy's out front at the moment.

So let's look at Giuliani.

Rudy has one major problem -- his entire campaign is about 9/11 and his reputation for leadership during that event is BS. Take that away and the Giuliani campaign isn't about anything at all. Photos of "America's Mayor" walking the streets that day weren't taken because Rudy needed to get out and lead the people, he was out on the street because an incredibly boneheaded decision left him with no place else to go. Most people don't know that the World Trade Center was referred to as "Ground Zero" before 9/11, because history showed that the complex was the most likely target of a terrorist attack. Despite this, Giuliani insisted that his "command bunker" be built in 7 World Trade -- because it was convenient for him. Rudy and staff were out on the street, looking for a place to set up an impromptu command center.

Like I say, boneheaded.

Giuliani also knew that the radios that police and firefighters used were useless in the towers. This was a problem that had been identified in the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993. Newsday reported in 2006 that Giuliani had equipped first responders with "incompatible radios from a politically wired vendor." The radios, useless as they were, stayed. A spokesperson for New York's Uniformed Fire Officers' Association says, "He had eight years to solve that problem."

He didn't solve it. It was much more important that his buddy the vendor get the sales.

This isn't the only reason that firefighters aren't Rudy's friends. When recovery efforts were taking too long, Giuliani switched the purpose of the work at ground zero from finding bodies to cleaning up. As a result, many remains would be scooped up, put into dump trucks, and hauled to a landfill. Hardly a dignified burial. Rudy put this as a safety issue, but firefighters -- not without cause -- considered themselves both safety experts and uniquely qualified to deal with the dangers. Giuliani was unmoved. Firefighters were outraged and, in an incident that most people don't seem to remember, pretty much rioted.

The Guardian, November 2001:

Hundreds of firefighters had gathered with their unions at the site where 343 firefighters and 23 police officers died, carrying banners saying: "Mayor Giuliani, let us bring our brothers home."

The firefighters had worked virtually non-stop at the scene since the towers collapsed. But a few days ago, Mr Giuliani said he wanted no more than 24 firefighters and 24 police officers at Ground Zero at any one time. Spotters would be used to look for bodies.

The firefighters said the cutting back would turn Ground Zero into a "full-time construction scoop-and-dump operation". Michael Carter, vice president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, said: "That site, besides containing roughly 250 firefighter bodies, also contains many civilian bodies."

Recovery efforts were still being successful and were far from over -- teams pulled 12 bodies of first responders from the rubble that very week. The group marched to ground zero, where they overturned barricades and clashed with police.

In response, Rudy held a press conference and totally miscast the issue, claiming the firefighters were the ones lying about the facts. "...we would love to recover [the remains], but none of us standing here can possibly justify seeing a human being die in this effort if it isn't handled with great discipline and great responsibility. And that's the spirit with which this is being done," he said.

"And I feel really, really bad that there are certain people who tried to mischaracterize that. And I feel bad about that. But the part that I will not tolerate are people violating the law. Whether you're the mayor, a policeman, a fireman or a regular citizen, you don't get to violate the law. You don't get to punch New York City police officers. For that, you go to jail..."

And firefighters did go to jail. Guardian reported that "senior firemen, including a captain, a retired captain, a fire marshall and a lieutenant" were arrested, along with three union leaders.

There's plenty of other problems with Rudy phony history. His claim that he was responsible for a decrease in crime in NYC is one -- crime went down nationwide as the economy surged. In fact, Giuliani's record here actually sucks compared to other cities. According to Johann Hari, writing in Independent, "San Francisco chose to lavish cash not on chasing petty crime but on programmes to divert juvenile delinquents into job training, drug treatment and counselling. The result? Their crime rate fell by 33 per cent, compared to 26 per cent in NYC during the same period."

Rudy's "tough on crime" stance didn't actually work. In fact, comparatively speaking, it sucked at reducing crime.

All of this would be brought up by any Democratic opponent. Comparing polls at this point between presumptive nominees is pretty much meaningless. A primary campaign and a general election campaign are two different things. The other Republican candidates are treating Giuliani with kid gloves right now, so far honoring Ronald Reagan's 11th Commandment -- "Thou shalt not speak ill of a fellow Republican." A dem opponent won't be so easy on him.

Nor will a possible third party candidate rising in response to Giuliani. As I said earlier, people are treating a Giuliani nomination with pragmatism, including "many on the Evangelical right." The key word here is "many." Not everyone plans to take a Giuliani nomination lying down.

Salon reported yesterday, "Key conservative and religious leaders will continue discussing a mass defection from the Republican Party in a private meeting at a Washington hotel Saturday afternoon, just hours after the pro-choice presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani speaks before thousands of pro-life voters." A third party candidate would sink the GOP's chances in '08.

And GOP insiders are taking the possibility very seriously. Political op Bobby Eberle blogs at GOPUSA.com, "We should be out there working and campaigning hard for the candidate that most reflects our values. These candidates will battle it out in state primaries and caucuses. When the dust settles, one will emerge as the Republican nominee. I will support that nominee. Supporting a third party candidate in 2008 will ensure that Clinton wins. The country can not afford the damage that will be done if the Democrats hold the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives."

Whether or not he's right that Clinton will be the nominee, he's right otherwise. A third party conservative would screw the party.

FOX News:

When a third party Christian Conservative is considered in the race for the White House, the candidate captures one of four Republican votes and a small minority of the overall vote. That significantly decreases support for Republican Rudy Giuliani and increases Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton's lead to double digits, according to a FOX News poll released Wednesday.

Add to this that Republicans are already less than excited about candidates and you can pretty safely predict that a lot of them will stay home on election day, regardless of who the nominee is.

All in all, a Giuliani nomination could be the best thing that's happened for Democrats in a long, long time.

--Wisco

Technorati tags: politics; elections; 2008; Republican; Hillary Clinton; 9/11; religious right; Rudy Giuliani and third party religious nut might be just what Democrats need

Mom Loses Custody Because a Judge Thinks She's not Funny

It's a blurb on Boing Boing that has renewed interest in the case of Rachel Bevilacqua and her son Kohl. Unfortunately, the blurb isn't entirely accurate.

The story about Rachel Bevilacqua (a.k.a. Reverend Mary Magdalen) lost custody of her son after a conservative custody judge was outraged at the fact that she is a member of the Church of the SubGenius. As a result of appearing in a adult-rated parody of Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," custody of her son was taken from her and awarded to the boy's father (the couple was never married). Rachel and her husband have fought a long, expensive battle to win custody of their son, while her ex-boyfriend's legal costs have been entirely been handled by a pro-bono lawyer (who is a friend of his). Legal costs have exceeded $70,000 as of March 2007.

The Church of the SubGenius is a satirical church that exists to ridicule organized religion. The blurb's mostly accurate and comes from someone who's been following the case closely, Modemac. To be fair, Modemac has been doing a great job of following this case and has condensed the story, rather than cover the same ground again and again on his blog. The blurb above is basically an update to the full story, which appears in full on the same page. But if all you have is the blurb on Boing Boing to go by, you really get the wrong impression of the case.

Kohl wasn't taken from Bevilacqua because she appeared in a joke video. He was taken because the birth father lied and told the court that she was homeless. I covered this story last year and quoted this from the Cleveland Free Times. The link to that piece has since expired.

Rachel Bevilacqua is a long way from homeless. She's back in Spencerport, New York, where she grew up, and where her parents still live in a modest frame house, nestled among trees on the banks of the Erie Canal. Sitting in the tiny office there, she talks while her father blogs, while her sisters play, and her mom cleans the kitchen after dinner, periodically stopping to show off family pictures.

Bevilacqua — known as Mary Magdelen to thousands of "worshippers" in the Cleveland-based, satirical Church of the SubGenius — has come home to get her son.

She's been in Spencerport since January, attempting to prove herself innocent so that 10-year-old Kohl can live in her house again, back in Georgia, with her husband, Steve Bevilacqua, whom her son has been forbidden in court orders from calling "dad." It's the family Kohl has lived with, except for vacations that roughly coincide with the school year, for most of his life, until he went to visit his biological father, Jeff Jary, for Christmas in 2005.

When Rachel took Kohl to the airport on December 18, she had no idea that a few days later Jary would tell a judge in Orleans County, New York that Rachel was homeless. No idea that without checking on the claim — without even sending a perfunctory notice of a hearing — the court would grant her son's father sole, temporary custody.

Now we're seeing how 'temporary' that custody is. Bevilacqua found herself in front of a small town judge with a tiny little mind, James Punch of Orleans County, New York. Punch was much more interested in her connection to the Church of the SubGenius than he was in the particulars of the case. In fact, transcripts show that neither Bevilacqua nor her son were the issue in his mind. It was the fact that her hobby was making fun of religion.

JUDGE PUNCH: Can I interject a question? Could you hand her the exhibits and just show me one thing in those exhibits that's funny to you? Would you just pick one out for me just so I, because the sense of humor is elusive to me I guess, and maybe you can help with that, OK?

RACHEL BEVILACQUA: Okay.

JP: Why don't you just the first thing you come to that's hilarious, pull it out and explain it to me?

RB: As I'm sure you realize, it's very difficult to explain humor.

JP: So why don't you just stop talking and just do what I ask you to do, OK?

RB: Yes sir.

JP: You're passing by a lot of pictures that apparently aren't funny then, is that correct?

RB: I'm passing them by because I'm not sure how to explain to your honor the humor value of them.

JP: They are all funny to you?

RB: The pictures themselves are not, but the events were.

JP: Okay. We will keep going until you can find something that's just going to knock my socks off with the humor of it, and we'll proceed. Since you have such a big organization devoted totally to humor, I would really like to learn more about it, so find the funniest picture and then explain the joke to me. How about the Barbie doll that's being crucified with the swastikas on the nipples, is that a pretty good one?

Hey Punch, here's a question; which one of the photos looks illegal to you? Of course, none of this had any bearing on the case whatsoever. Was the reason that Bevilacqua lost custody -- that she was homeless -- factual? No.

What happened was that Punch didn't like her attitude toward religion and the way she used her First Amendment right to expression. She lost her son to a man who'd lied to the court and the judge sided with the father because he disapproved of the mother's sense of humor. The government has the right to revoke custody if some moron on a backwater court doesn't think you're funny.

That this case has taken this long to straighten out is outrageous in itself. Punch has since recused himself, rather than face judicial review -- Bevilacqua filed a complaint with New York's Judicial Review Board. But, once you get your finger caught in that machine, it sucks you in and chews you up in the bureaucratic gears for a while. Punch managed to get the case into the system by ignoring the fact that the father's argument was false.

But how far away is having the wrong attitude about religion from just having the wrong religion? The belief that religion is worthy of ridicule is in itself a religious belief -- by association, anyway. Punch focused on whether or not Rachel Bevilacqua took religion seriously enough. Having the wrong attitude about religion isn't all that logically dissimilar from having the wrong religion.

When a court has the ability to deny custody because the judge doesn't like your opinions about religion, the court has the ability to deny custody because the judge doesn't like your religion.

--Wisco

UPDATE, 3/12/07: Rachel Bevilacqua left a comment at my other blog, Griper News.

Rachel Bevilacqua said...

Hello, I'm Rachel Bevilacqua.

You and Modemac both have parts of the story correct - the original accusation was that I was homeless, but I was able to disprove that through affidavits on January 17, 2006, our first court appearance.

However, the judge continued the case to February 3, 2006 and beyond, in order to allow my ex to "amend his petition" to include the photos of my performance art, which then became the focus of the case. The classic bait and switch, if you will.

This is why I originally thought I would have my son back within a few weeks without needing a lawyer - it's very easy to prove you're not homeless, but much harder to prove that your artwork does not "degrade family values" as Judge Adams (the second judge to get involved after Judge Punch recused himself) put it in his recent decision, which is under appeal now.

If anyone has any questions or anything, feel free to email me - I've been forbidden to update my own blog by a court order and so can only update people one at a time by email or commenting on other blogs.

Technorati tags: politics; law; New York; religious right; Judge James Punch didn't think Rachel Bevilacqua's opinions about religion were funny -- so he punished her for them