Betrayed - By the Middle

One odd thing I've noticed about Scott Walker vs. Tom Barrett is the polls.  Poll numbers prior to Tom Barrett winning the Democratic Party nomination showed him leading, or nearly leading Walker.  After he won the nomination, suddenly he dropped several points, and Walker suddenly held a greater than 50% margin - something he never had. What's going on, here? Who did this bait-and-switch in the poll numbers, and why has this lead for Scott Walker apparently stayed put ever since?

The answer has to do with the people who are normally the smartest cookies in the bunch: the Wisconsin Moderates. These are the balanced people, the swing voters, the brilliant few who bother to see both sides. Their apparent take on the recall is that there shouldn't be a recall, not because they like Scott Walker, but because they are against partisan fights causing the early loss of a job. Theirs is a protest vote. They're not voting for Walker, they're voting against the recall.

I understand their thinking. Wisconsinites are supposed to be the cool people, the ones who can lay back, enjoy the good life, and not get uptight about things. (Unless it's a Packer game.) To this view, hauling off and firing a governor for being extremist is an extremism in itself, and just as bad. Walker won in 2010, and that's that. We'll sort it out in 2014 as part of the due process.

And there's Walker's margin of victory for you. 7% of people who dislike Walker, but also dislike the recall.

Well, this is proof that even the most balanced of us can fail to keep their eye on the ball occasionally. Recall elections are part of the "due process" as well.  The signatures were legit, the will of Wisconsinites was heard, and the recall is taking place.  That's just plain legit. And if you don't like Walker, and you have a second chance at voting for the right guy, why not get it right this time?

Let's remember that Walker won in 2010 because the majority stayed home. They figured it was typical laid-back Wisconsin politics-as-usual. The Obama-haters then took the day. In other words, it was EXACTLY the same recall mentality the center opposes, just directed to the right-wing. They couldn't recall Obama, so they got out the vote during a low-turnout year and elected Walker instead. The governor became someone to the right of Joe McCarthy. And now, after likely as not failing to vote at all, these stay-at-home folks are going to vote against the recall because it's - what? Not the Wisconsin way? Because it undoes this mistake? They're going to oppose the "extremism" that could erase the extremism? They're going to oppose healing the Dairy State? Oppose teaching extremists that they can't get away with it once we start paying attention?

Some of us feel that Walker hasn't done enough to warrant being fired. But if igniting a near-revolt in the very first two weeks of office and turning Wisconsin politics into a modern-day version of the Hatfields and McCoys isn't bad enough, what the FUCK does it take? Does he have to illegally use Milwaukee County staff members to wage a gubernatorial campaign? (Something which he very likely did!) Does he have to get a blow-job by an intern? Drive a girlfriend off a bridge? Does the governor have to be a convicted pedophile?

Nah, even that wouldn't work. We Wisconsinites are such a forgiving lot. Punishing a criminal is such a damned chore, such a needless hassle, we'd rather let the crook get away with it. It' s so much easier. It's the Wisconsin laid-back way.

Walker has become the Republican's Kennedy - he can get away with anything. He can do no wrong.

When Walker wins on Tuesday (and I predict that tragedy will happen), I suppose I could blame these 7% in the middle who swung in  his direction. But I can't. Not when 35% believe that right-wing extremism is actually an option. Not when these self-same will vote for any Republican, no matter how covered in shit he is. It's their fault. They swarmed the ballots during an off-year, and then convinced enough of the center that they're actually entitled to their victory, even if they trash the place.

Well played, my dear extremists. Well played.

Eric

Help A High School Kid Graduate

I drove through a Taco Bell last night, which is not my usual habit, but I wanted an uncomplicated meal. After I placed my order, the friendly guy on the drive-through speaker asked me if I wanted to contribute $1.00 to help a high school child graduate.

I turned it down.

Don't get me wrong, 99.9% of the time I don't mind spending the extra buck for whatever charity just happens to surprise me at the drive through to rudely jack up my final total. I don't even mind having to write my name in felt-tip on some silly piece of paper so that one of the employees can stick it up with the thousand other names on pieces of paper all over the restaurant knowing full well that even in the unlikely event that someone reads it no one will suspect it was me and not the Eric who changed their oil last week. No, such shock-and-awe guerrilla tactics for philanthropy are among the things I'm willing to tolerate, and even go along with. What rubbed me the wrong way this time was the charity itself.

You see, the whole fight in Wisconsin politics right now is basically this: should schools be slashed in funding or not? The argument has been that greedy teachers are hoarding the money in the form of salaries, but if so, why are stores like Taco Bell playing the role of East Side beggar asking for a handout? Isn't slashing school funds working? Aren't those wonderful school vouchers bringing the costs down through competition?

Apparently not. And what's worse is, this particular Taco Bell was in Waukesha, which is contemplating changing its name to Scott Walkerville. I'll just bet nobody else who drove through, or even made contributions at, that drive through even made the simple connection that maybe Taco Bell wouldn't need to worry about our kid's education if our governor bothered to give a damn!

Okay, to be fair, maybe I'm assuming too much. Maybe helping a kid graduate means helping to buy the gown. Maybe it means paying for the ceremony. Maybe it helps to buy corrective lenses for the ones with dyslexia. Who knows? But more than likely, it's money needed to make up the huge gap which has been chopped out of the funds in education needed to ensure our nation's economic future.

Call me crazy, but I don't want our nation's fast food restaurants to be entrusted with funding our kids' educations.

I guess I refused to contribute, only because I didn't want to reward the behavior.

Eric

How to Calculate WI Job Numbers

There’s a huge shift in the job numbers between what Scott Walker has recently published vs. earlier numbers.  Previously, the Bureau of Labor Statistics stated that Wisconsin had lost about 30,000 jobs in 2011, more than any other U.S. State. Naturally, Barrett is shouting this from the rooftops.  Now, new BLS numbers are showing that 23,000 jobs were added in 2011. And, of course, Walker is beating that figure like a drum.  Quite a difference between the two numbers, isn’t there? WTF?!?! Anybody know what’s going on, here?

I do.

First, let’s understand, there are TWO kinds of surveys the BLS uses.  Monthly and quarterly.  Got that?  Monthly gave the negative job numbers, quarterly gave the positive ones.  Keep that in mind, because it’s important.

The previous numbers come from the monthly survey.  It polled some 1,400 employers in the state. In other words, an actual employer was contacted and asked how many jobs his/her business added or lost.  The quarterly numbers, showing much more positive results, was done by tabulating the unemployment insurance payouts of 160,000 employers. Unemployment insurance payments indicate, by deduction, whether jobs are being added or taken away based on how many are collecting unemployment over a given period.  So the more recent numbers are bigger, and thus presumably more accurate, but they rely on an indicator rather than direct numbers given by the employers themselves. They instead count the exact number of people collecting unemployment.  Also, it should be noted that big business owners favor Walker, and knowing that he was in trouble would likely cause them to fudge their numbers UP, if at all.  Instead, the numbers were abysmally LOW. Go figure.

Now, the trend regarding these two forms of job census-taking has always been that the monthly numbers are much lower than the quarterly ones.  Got that? Monthly = low, quarterly = high. This discrepancy comes from a number of different reasons. For example, not everyone looks upon collecting unemployment as an option. Many among the unemployed either consider it dishonorable or simply don’t bother to collect it. There may be college graduates living with parents, or those who live off the income of a spouse. So the numbers based on unemployment insurance always look better than the reality.

So if you’re Scott Walker, you know that these better numbers are out there, likely to come from the quarterly results.  The problem?  The numbers won’t be verified until June 28, and the recall vote takes place on June 5! So, what do you do? Why, you release the numbers BEFORE they’re verified, that’s what you do!

Illegal? No. Unusual? Fuck, yeah!

The Walker campaign is trying to say that releasing these numbers early wasn’t done to influence the election.

Riiiiiiight! And if you believe that one…

We can’t fault Walker for trying. Nearly all of us would have done the same in his position. What we CAN fault him for is campaigning on numbers which have not yet been verified. Numbers are fine, if they’re accurate. But these numbers are only preliminary! For this governor, however, accuracy is secondary to victory.

Will the numbers prove accurate after the recall is over and the dust settles? Well, based on past history of such polls, the numbers will probably show some positive job growth, but less than Walker is claiming. On top of that, the truth is obviously in between the monthly and quarterly results even after that point. In other words Wisconsin is almost certainly stagnant – few losses, but few gains, either. Walker isn’t sinking the state, but neither is he benefiting the state.  Wisconsin’s only doing okay. But it should be improving.

Upward trends are being seen in the preliminary numbers in Minnesota, Pennsylvania and nearly all other states. Wisconsin could be on board with this upward national trend, courtesy of Obama. It seems to me that Walker is in the way.

Eric

Top Ten Reasons Why Tom Barrett Is Awesome

Okay, as promised, it's time to deliver the pros for your hero and mine, Tom Barrett. I see a lot of "I Stand With Walker" signs and bumper stickers. I also see a lot of "Recall Walker" signs and bumper stickers, too.  But frankly, I don't see a lot of "Elect Barrett" signs or stickers. Beats the hell out of me as to why. Barrett's one hell of a gem! Have we forgotten all his positives? Apparently. Personally, I feel that the best endorsement I can give of the man is that I'm scared to lose him.  Seriously, he's been a damn fine mayor, and I'm terrified of who might wind up taking his place. Still, it'd be worth it to see him as governor. Best thing since sliced bread? No. He's the best thing since before sliced bread. How cool is Milwaukee's mayor? Let us count the ways:

10. He’s NOT in the back pocket of the unions. He jumped into the race only when the unions pressured him not to run so that they could ensure Kathleen Falk would win the  nomination. Way to go, Tom!

9. He didn’t declare his candidacy until the very day the recall became legitimate. In other words, he didn’t jump the gun out of partisan hatred. Boy, do we need some of that kind of attitude right now!

8. He puts himself in harm’s way to fight for the oppressed.  Remember when, in 2010, he saw a mugging take place outside State Fair Park?  He ran over and faced the mugger – unarmed!  The thug he faced down was carrying a pipe, and when it was over, Mayor Barrett suffered a head wound and a broken hand.  Walker calls himself “courageous” because he merely put his job on the line.  Barrett laid his very life down.  Whatever else you say about Barrett, you gotta admit, the man has BALLS!

7. Relating to the above, Barrett is humble! Any other politician would be beating the above act of heroism like a drum all the way to becoming the next president. Not Barrett! He barely even talks about it when asked directly about the incident. What a difference compared to Walker’s boundless narcissism!

6. Barrett held the line on property taxes, and actually lowered the property tax rate a bit. I know, I know, you’ve heard that Barrett raised taxes every year but one, right? Wrong. PolitiFact settled that one weeks ago. The actual taxes collected did increase over a span of several years, but only because the property values went up – which they’re supposed to if the Mayor is doing a good job!

5. Here’s a statistic for you: Under Mayor Barrett, crime rates have dropped like a lead zeppelin! When he became mayor in 2004, he inherited an awful police chief named Nan Hegarty, appointed to the post by then-Mayor John O. Norquist.  Somehow, Hegarty managed to be even worse than her predecessor, Art Jones (who was a racist incompetent, to put it mildly). Barrett had the city buy out the remainder of Hegarty’s contract, and then shell out even more money to lure Chief Edward Flynn to Milwaukee. Some critics said he was wasting money at the time, but you get what you pay for.  Flynn and Barrett brought crime in Milwaukee down 26.7% between 2007 and 2010 (according to police statistics). Based on numbers from the FBI’s table of offenses known to law enforcement, crime will be down in 2012 yet again from 2009 numbers. Good job, Tom!

4. Barrett may have the highest I.Q. of any politician in the Midwest! No joke!  He graduated from Marquette High School, then went on to achieve a B.A. in economics from UW-Madison in 1976, Magna Cum Laude! He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa (an academic honor society which only accepts straight-A students).  He achieved a J.D. (juris-doctorate) from UW Law School in 1980.  (Walker, by contrast, is a Marquette College drop-out.  Were he not in politics, he just might land a job at McDonald’s.)

3. Tom Barrett is a job creator! Yeah, yeah, you’ve probably been told about how many jobs the city of Milwaukee has lost.  But have you compared those job losses to the cuts that Walker imposed on the city as Governor?  If you subtract the teacher layoffs, public worker layoffs, and the (literally) derailing of the Milwaukee/Madison pre-bullet train, nearly all of the jobs lost in Milwaukee came straight from Walker’s desk, or came about due to the economic pressure placed on Milwaukee because of those cuts. A better way to evaluate Barrett is to ask if he’s been effective at luring businesses to Milwaukee.  The answer to that is an unqualified yes! He’s brought business to Milwaukee from Ingeteam, Helios, Talgo, C&D Technologies, Cargill, Palermo’s Pizza, the Ironhorse Hotel, and the Harley-Davidson Museum. (Which had nearly abandoned its plans in Milwaukee before Barrett got elected and brought Harley back to the bargaining table. Remember that?) The only non-Madison-induced failure under Barrett came from Frontier Airlines stabbing us all in the back by failing to keep its promises. But they lied to Walker, too (since he was county Exec at the time). The Menomonee Valley now supports some 4,000 jobs, where it previously held zero.

2. Want to see how Barrett’s done as mayor? Just drive through Milwaukee and LOOK.  The city just plain looks better! (And five bucks says most Waukesha politicos haven’t bothered to do this for a long while.) The aforementioned Menomonee Valley used to look like Beirut.  Now it looks like the perfect spot for a picnic!  The corridor between Miller Park and the Harley Museum, going past the Potowatomi Casino, looks great!  The bad neighborhoods surrounding Marquette and UWM are getting slowly beaten back.  Old train corridors have stopped being gang-havens and started being bike trails.  Riverwest is a great area for young college kids to live in again. Bay View is now probably the best place to live in the entire state.  Norquist really hated cars, and so let the budget for road and bridge repair go to hell.  Barrett turned that around.  Now the river crossings at McKinley, at State Street, and soon Wisconsin Avenue will be landmarks we can be proud of.  Been to Milwaukee’s riverfront lately?  An Edelweiss or Iroquois boat tour used to show the ugly side of Milwaukee.  Now it shows it’s best side! Milwaukee, you’re a much more handsome town to live in! Thanks, Tom!

1. He’s just a plain ol’ nice guy! He could be out there calling Walker a control-freak. (True.) He could also be out there calling him a mad extremist, a Tea-Party lemming, a fat-cat's scratching post, or a squeaky-wheel brat. (Also true.) In fact, he could legitimately call Walker all kinds of nasty names. Instead he’s saying that they’re both nice guys (!), but that Walker started an ideological civil war. (VERY true. No getting around that one!) That level of patience and forgiveness is reminiscent of our current President (and that’s a LOT of patience and forgiveness these days!).

In short, I shouldn't have to remind anyone about these virtues. I should also not have to sit in befuddled amazement as the governor who threw the entire state into near-revolt within two weeks of taking office actually leads in the polls, and actually gets an endorsement from the myopic editors at the Journal-Sentinel.

But now that I've said it, let's try not to forget it -- again. 

Eric

Top Ten Reasons to Recall Scott Walker

Okay, the recall is underway, and everybody is hurling confusing accusations at each other.  Which way is up?  As usual, most people can’t tell, and so choose to rely on A.M. radio show hosts who are even more clueless than they are.  For now, according to the polls, it looks as though Scott Walker will survive the recall effort, and retain his office.  (Interesting.)  So, I thought now might be a good time to remind us all about why exactly we are bothering to spend all this money on removing this silly ass in the first place (tax money that will be wasted if we fail).  You’ll notice that I’m highlighting the fact that we can’t recall him for breaking the teachers unions.  That might just accidentally have been a positive thing – time will tell.  We have to remember that teachers unions have been BEGGING for their rights to be taken away for decades.  And as much as I support the teachers unions, I have to admit that they have been run by hordes of nincompoops who have deliberately protected incompetent teachers from the unemployment status they so richly deserved for decades.  Sooner or later, the spoiled brat has got to get spanked, and if he cries, too bad.  Still, while it’s fair that the blood-sucking insects finally got swatted, it’s unfortunate that Walker chose to swat them with a sledgehammer – one that hit us all in the foot.  THAT, we CAN recall him for.  Also, we have to remember that teachers need union representation – so long as it’s with new and better leaders.  I’m also not arguing that Walker should be removed for job losses.  Two years isn’t enough time to change a job market in a State, especially when national trends have a greater impact than State governments ever could.  (Sure, he’s claiming new numbers showing job gains, but just wait!  Republicans will almost certainly revert to the OLD State numbers when attacking Obama in November.  Just you watch!)  So, here’s the laundry list of Walker’s faults.  Remember, any ONE of these ten is more reason enough for him to be gone.  I’ve listed ten, and this is only the short-list.  Here it is:

10. First act of Walker: an end to the Milwaukee-to-Madison pre-bullet commuter train.  An immediate loss of thousands of jobs!  Penny-wise, but pound foolish!  Because as surely as death and taxes, America will someday soon have a network of transcontinental bullet trains.  The Milwaukee-Madison commuter would have set the stage to link Chicago with the Twin Cities and Seattle via Wisconsin.  These trains will now NEVER go through the Dairy State, choosing to go through Iowa instead.  This will cost all future Wisconsinites BILLIONS in jobs and tourism revenue, for countless generations.  Stupid, just stupid.  (Remember: State Senator George Petak of Racine was recalled for voting for the .01% tax levy that built Miller Park.  This wasted only the tiniest percent of money that Walker wasted with this one move alone!  If Petak is gone, Walker must be gone as well, especially if you live in Racine!)

9. Walker broke the teachers’ unions, not to improve education, but because he’s generally anti-union.  He proved this by trying to break the unions of police and firefighters as well.  Only when he saw that his ass was in deep shit unless he reneged on that point did he let police and firemen off the hook.  But he’d shown his hand as an irresponsible political ideologue.

8. Relating to the above, he attacked collective bargaining rights for ALL State workers.  What on earth did the doctors, nurses, policemen and firefighters ever do to offend anybody with their collective bargaining rights?

7. (This is the BIG one, I say.) After igniting the collective bargaining controversy, he could have separated the budget bill in question into two bills, one dealing with collective bargaining, the other dealing with the State budget, ON DAY ONE.  Instead, he let the State be divided into near-revolt status, and left it that way.  The only reason he did this was because he desired his will be absolute.  Only when the impasse dragged on for a second month did he finally divide the single bill into two bills and end the stalemate.  We still feel the sting of this needless partisan divide.  Even simple weddings or chats in bars now degenerate into all-out brawls over LOCAL political discussions!

6. He took federal money, meant to be paid to homeowners who had their mortgages foreclosed upon during the collapse of the housing crisis, and raided it, using it to bridge the State deficit instead.

5. Regarding the above raid on many of the neediest of his citizens, he actually dared to campaign on his deficit-reduction as a positive to his administration!  Seriously?!


4. Even though women’s reproductive healthcare has ALWAYS been the #1 way to ensure economic growth, he has attacked the funding for Planned Parenthood, putting anti-abortion ideology above economic common sense.  So much for jobs, jobs, jobs!

3. As shown by his own words and actions, Walker sees himself as the State’s C.E.O., and therefore supreme leader.  WRONG!  He was NOT elected as emperor!  He is not king, czar, dictator or any other sort of totalitarian despot!  Other people get their say-so, and if he can’t see it that way, he’s out on general democratic principle.

2. Walker is, without a doubt, a textbook control freak.  So if he wins, his megalomania condition will go from bad to unbelievably worse. It will be analogous to Hitler surviving the bomb blast.  There will be NO living with the bastard from then on!  If Big Brother arises, it might well be Scott Walker.

1. I hear he's a fan of Ted Nugent.

Next week: The top ten reasons Barrett would make the best governor in history.  (No, I'm not just using hyperbole!)

Eric

Attack of the Surveys!

Ever notice that you can't seem to go anywhere or do anything lately without being asked to fill out some annoying survey?  "How are we doing?"  "Please take a minute to let us know how to better serve you!"  "We appreciate your feedback."  Apparently they do, because those little feedback forms are sitting on the pillows of our hotel rooms, scrawled on the back of our grocery receipts, and tucked in our checkout bags along with our new undershirts and bluejeans.  One can't even go through a Taco Bell drive through without finding such a survey, waiting there to jump out from its hiding place on top of your bean burrito to proposition you.  What's up with that?  Why are these things popping up everywhere?

Essentially, this is Big Corporate looking to improve its customer service.  They're often disguised as discounts and coupons, because they know that only really happy or really pissed customers fill out surveys.  But if they can be induced to fill them out by being a coupon or including a special offer, they can get a good feel for how individual business locations are doing.

Without ever having to visit.

Yes, folks.  The survey spares the company executives the bother of having to come down from on high and actually mingle with you peons.  After all, if they already have quantifiable data, why should they have to get on a plane to go get it?  Sure, they give up a little bit here and there to coax you into the survey with coupon discounts, but that's better than the occasional plane ticket, isn't it?

Actually, this is the latest incarnation of a trend that began decades earlier.  The "mystery shopper" would occasionally visit various locales and shop there, evaluating the service of employees clandestinely, making sure that they did their jobs right.  This was an effective tool, and often made sure that employees treated everyone well, because you never knew when or where that mystery shopper would show up.  It also gave a service-based business the latitude to be able to deal with unruly customers.  After all, if some tramp or hobo started making a fuss, the manager could simply kick him out, no muss, no fuss.

But no.  Here comes the Customer Survey.  Now, the unruly and unreasonable customer can simply retaliate by filling out a survey form, and Corporate thinks that there is a problem.  So much for accuracy in reporting!  And by customers filling these out, companies suddenly don't have to even pay the salary of the mystery shopper in order to spare themselves the hassle of dealing with the harsh realities of the daily lives of those who are less lucky than they.  Thus, some luckless bastards end up losing their $40K mystery shopper jobs, and executives can pretend they're doing a good job or giving us great service.

I've got a better idea.  Fuck the surveys!

Ignore the discounts, to hell with the coupon.  Let's have those Corporate Clods come down from their Ivory Towers and actually talk to us for a change!  We're not so bad, are we?  We don't even stink like we once did back in the days when the feudal system they're trying to reinstate was in full force.  We use fluoride!  Isn't that worth the occasional conversation?

Don't get me wrong, customer surveys have resulted in a few positive changes.  For example, checkout lanes are more prone to open up when lines grow long, because everyone from butcher to bagger can operate a register in a pinch - all to avoid the negative on the feedback form.  And your local McDonald's has an automated system which pours drinks based on the order screen data, so you'll never again get a regular soda when you clearly ordered a diet.  (And we're not far from the day when a robot will ask if we'd like fries with our order.)  And again, all because companies quake in fear at the negative survey feedback.  Still, it seems to me that if a corporation gets too big, it deserves to lose money through poor customer service.  Why should we, who aren't even employees, have to behave as though we were in exchange for some silly discount that isn't really worth the time or trouble?  Was it worth it to kill jobs of all those mystery shoppers who were just trying to support their families?

Sorry.  I'm going to ditch the damned surveys.  I see no reason I should check any boxes just so that bigger companies can drive what's left of the mom & pop operations into extinction.  I ask that you join me.  Vive la revolucion!

Eric.

Rush Limbaugh Needs Namenda

How interesting.  This fracas over women's reproductive healthcare would be just the sort of discussion our nation needs -- if anybody were doing any discussing.  Instead, as usual, everyone's entrenching, listening only to those pundits they want to hear, and thinking that their positions couldn't possibly be wrong.  Well, they are.

Everyone's making a big deal about Rush Limbaugh's recent gaff in insulting Sandra Fluke, the woman who recently testified to congress about how difficult it is for broke college students to obtain contraception.  Rush called her a "slut," saying that she wants, in essence, to get paid to have sex.

Well, as usual, I was the only one to go back and listen to Rush's entire broadcast segment in context to find out just what exactly was going on, here.  What had Limbaugh's hackles up was the fact that public tax dollars are being used for college kids getting contraception.  He pointed out that it was hundreds of thousands, and then focused in on Georgetown, making it seem like that one University alone was wasting all that money, and leaving listeners to wonder just how much more money was being wasted everywhere else.  Inaccurate, of course, the hundreds of thousands includes ALL universities, and that means we're talking one grain of sand at a beach, in terms of the percentage of money being spent.  Strike one.

He then equated this to students getting paid to have sex.  Never mind that getting a free condom hardly comprises "getting paid"!  If you were told you would be getting paid to have sex, and then were handed a condom, ("Here's your payment!") you'd feel swindled!  Yet so extreme is the anti-sex agenda of the radical right that they still see basic protection as a permission slip.  Strike two.

With these two misgivings in place, he called the advocate of them a slut, and this isn't surprising given his myopia about the first two points.  The REALLY interesting part came afterward, however.  Rush said she was a slut, a prostitute, and that made us the "Johns."  He then barked, "No!" realizing that this was a mistake, and tried correcting it by saying that that made us the "pimps."  Then he realized that this metaphor didn't work, either, and confessed that he wasn't sure what exactly it made us.

He seemed then to realize that he'd crossed the line (even Rush has his moments of clarity), and tried to backpedal again.  "No, she's not a slut," he corrected.  "She's round-heeled."  As if that euphemism from the Victorian era were much better!  Strike three.

The way Rush goofed on this made it seem to me that he was unfocused, almost rambling.  Could it be that he's losing his marbles?  I would say yes.  Maybe nobody's willing to say it to his face, but he's showing the earliest signs that he's going the way of Reagan.  It's time for him to go see a doctor.

My mother, who suffers from late second-stage Alzheimer's, is currently on a new drug called Namenda, which is supposed to slow the progress of the disease.  Maybe it's time that Rush got a prescription for it.

This all stems from the whether insurance companies should be made to pay for contraceptive care.  Really, it comes from the debate on whether or not a vendor can dictate to a customer what they can or can't buy!  Isn't this exactly  the OPPOSITE of what conservative values espouse about the free marketplace?  Of course it is!  Yet, as I've pointed out in the past, as soon as the subjects of sex, drugs, religion or war come up, conservatives become in favor of big tax-and-spend intrusive government.  It's their particular brand of hypocrisy.

Example:  What if the pharmacist were a Christian Scientist.  Could that person deny all medications and demand the customer try prayer?  Ridiculous, of course.  But what's the difference between that and someone denying contraceptive medication?  Isn't it the same sort of thing?

Here's another example:  Is it wrong for Muslims to deny freedom of speech on the airwaves in blaspheming the name of Allah?  Of course it is!  But they will claim EXACTLY the same sort of violation of religious freedom if a court decision sides with freedom of speech, and the blasphemer.

Sometimes, you have to see another religion screwing up to know that your religion is doing the same, damned mistake.

Not that I'm insensitive to what it must be like for a health care provider.  If a Christian pharmacist is made to support something he or she feels is murder, that person will feel made an accessory to the fact.  I understand! Really!  But then what needs to happen is for that person to get a coworker to distribute the contraception, or else go find another job!  The day we allow a businesses' employees to dictate to customers what they can and cannot buy based on their religious preferences is the day we've lost religious freedom!

Isn't it amazing?  Take away a religious person's ability to force other people to acquiesce to his religion, and the reaction is that HIS religious liberties are being trounced!  Sorry, dude, but religious freedom doesn't mean you get to force others to your religion.

We knew it would happen this way: Religious freedom will be lost under the banner of fighting for religious freedom.  Ironic.  So fuck you too, Santorum!

Maybe all conservatives need Namenda.  After all, they can't get anything up anymore, mentally or physically.  No wonder they oppose contraception -- they can't fuck us without denying it!

Eric