Piss Poor and Other Expressions

Ever wonder where the term “piss poor” comes from? Here is your lesson.

Animal skins used to be tanned with urine. So families used to all pee in a pot and then once a day take it and sell it to the tannery. If you had to do this to survive you were "piss poor". But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot. They "didn't have a pot to piss in" and were the lowest of the low.

Welcome to the 16^th Century.

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell, brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor: hence the custom of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all came the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it: hence, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water!"

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof: hence, "It's raining cats and dogs."

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed: hence a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection: hence, canopy beds.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt: hence, "dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh [straw] on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way: hence, a thresh hold.

What Else Was Cooking?

In those old days, people cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while: hence the rhyme -- "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

By the way, those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing death by lead poisoning. This happened most often with tomatoes. Thus for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They [the dead drunks] were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait to see if they would wake up: hence, the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night -- the graveyard shift -- to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.

There will not be a quiz.

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This unsolicited piece was edited by Tommy Mack McEldowney without permission from an email that circulated without attribution. Seasons Greetings.

Political Post Hoc and Other Fallacies

The sedentary post-Obama election electorate has been aroused to a state of apathy. Consider the hasty generalization fallacy that Americans are frustrated and angry with government. Earlier this month Gallup reported, “Americans' frustration with Congress is directed at both sides of the aisle -- with job approval ratings of 33% for the Democrats in Congress and 32% for the Republicans in Congress.” Gallup also admits, “What is not clear, however, is why the ratings are so low.” It is not anger. It is boredom. Rhetorical fallacies make politics dull.

The post hoc fallacy gets its name from the Latin phrase "post hoc, ergo propter hoc." The translation is "after this, therefore because of this." Put another way, because B comes after A, A caused B. Try "President Obama was elected to fix the economy, and then the budget deficit went up. Obama is responsible for increasing the budget deficit."

My personal favorites are the ad hominem and tu quoque fallacies. What a combo. They sound naughty and translate "against the person" and "you, too!" Here is how cool Latin is. “The reason you cannot believe Obama is that we don’t really know who he is (ad hominem) or he is an elitist (tu quoque).

Rhetorical fallacy is not just a tea party Republican gambit. Lynn Forester de Rothschild, a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter and member of the Democratic National Committee said of Obama, “… frankly I don’t like him. I feel like he is an elitist. I feel like he has not given me reason to trust him.” Elitist derides elite as elitist. But I digress.

Back to fallacies in English, Republicans seem particularly fond of the false dichotomy fallacy. In essence they set up a situation and offer only two choices. They eliminate one choice so that only their preferred choice remains, never minding any other choice for consideration. “This country is in terrible shape. Either we defeat the Democrats and take over congress, or we continue to threaten our children’s future. Clearly no one wants to threaten our children’s future, so we must take over congress."

Robert Kennedy said, “One-fifth of the people are against everything all the time.” That could describe the tea party, if I used the RFK quote to base my case that midterm election rhetoric is rife with fallacies. Actually, I just did and I used the appeal to authority fallacy for that feat.

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originally published at Blogcritics.org as "Political Post Hoc and Other Fallacies"

Opinion Polls Don’t Vote

I have calculated that individual public opinion occupies a space of 334,540,800 cubic inches: 1 mile wide times I mile long times 1 inch deep. Our problem is that the over reporting of polling data is too much with us. The statistical size of the undecided vote suggests that there is no huge shift in public opinion. The much touted anger and rage being recited to us every minute, should we listen, is exaggerated on purpose and exacerbated by advertising based visual media. The reason is the contrary of what is being reported -- the midterm races are not that close. However, if they appear to be close, then the more beer, cars and pills to treat erectile dysfunction can be sold.

Money is flowing into media to go after the undecided vote to be sure. A flood of money will be spent on negative advertizing. But I question just how undecided voters really are. Depending upon which group of pundits one hears or which newspaper opinion page one reads, the rhetoric tends to fall along For-Obama or Against-Obama lines. Yet neither of those arguments convinces anybody of anything.

Washington Post columnist David Broder notes, “The history of midterm elections shows regular gains for the opposition party, and so far all the polls look upbeat for the GOP.” However, the flaw in the polling argument is that of voters not aligned to either political party. They are not undecided. They are nondecided. If they vote, it will probably be across a previous party affiliation they had, grudgingly or not. As a result the survey numbers are rendered ambiguous -- a best guess.

Furthermore, voter turnout is low in midterm elections. FairVote.org says, “Turnout in midterm elections is far lower, peaking at 48.7% in 1966 and falling as low as 39.0% in 1978,1986, and 1998 remaining below 50% in midterm elections.” What that suggests is that so long as the election rules are consistent, “the same electorate can result in 60% turnout in one election and 2% in another depending on what is on the ballot and whether the election has essentially already been decided.”

“It ain’t over until it’s over.” Yogi Berra also said, “Baseball is 90% mental -- the other half is physical." So it goes with polling. The non-closeness of the elections, I contend, accounts for the weakness of the Republican candidates from amateurs such as Rand Paul, Meg Whitman, and Carly Fiorina to political hacks like Jan Brewer and Sharron Angle.

In California for example, the Fiorina senate campaign is reported to be statistically close to that of 3-term incumbent Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer. If elected, Fiorina will have to work with incumbent Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein. If not elected, as a former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, she will still be a former CEO either looking for a new big-corporation gig or living off of her new celebrity, like Sarah Palin who endorsed her. If nothing else, Palin has proved that celebrity pays better than public service.

Once non-incumbents are elected, they become junior members of a governing elite and are obliged go to knife-and-fork school to be trained in their new positions. They have no influence. They do as instructed if they want to return. They are obliged to work for their constituency by making deals, especially with other legislators of their state and of other states.

Because of my Irish heritage, I am anti-incumbent by nature. I am for term limits on congress. However, I cannot support candidates who have never shown any interest or participation in public service. By the way, one never hears the tea party Republican candidates speak about public service. To them the very concept is foreign, probably even socialist.

Theodore Roosevelt said, “A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.” The deficit is not a real issue for the mid-term elections, which are state elections. The deficit, part of the economy, is an issue of federal elections. Employment, two wars and immigration are “real issues,” as they were in TR’s time.

With an alarming dearth of policy, the present GOP is content with merely opposing everything and anything that the President does or supports. The argument goes like this: it took the GOP seven years to destroy the US economy and to create the deficit out of a surplus. The Democrats have not fixed it in the first 19 months of the Obama presidency. It is kind of like saying “We screwed it up. Only we can unscrew it.”

The War in Afghanistan has not ended. The War in Iraq is slow going. They are both products of the Bush Administration and each is astronomically costly in terms of the 3-Ms – the men, the material and the money. And somehow it is all Obama’s fault. He should have wrapped those two wars up by last Christmas. He is, after all, the Commander-in-Chief.

Immigration to a land of immigrants is the purview of the Federal government. It was a major Ku Klux Klan issue after WWI, although the Klan had little interest in Latinos except for their tendency to be Catholic -- like being a Communist or a homosexual or, say, a Muslim. Yet, somehow the Obama administration has failed to protect the Arizona border, as its tea party governor has said.

For the record, the court found Arizona Law SB 1070 to be unconstitutional [that pesky 14th Amendment, again]. Arizona legislators passed it four times when Janet Napolitano was governor and each time Napolitano vetoed it. She became the head of Homeland Security and the governorship went to Jan "headless corpses" Brewer who signed it. Unconstitutional is unconstitutional no matter what state or by who’s signature.

We tend to believe things that support our opinions and disbelieve the things that do not. With such human nature in mind, it is easy to understand the popularity of public opinion polls. The data that polls generate is enormous and critical to estimating what a well defined target audience is going to favor or reject. Survey data is the life blood of marketing and fund-raising.

It is important to remember that the public can change its mind on any issue and it does. Consider off-shore drilling. The Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico seems to have changed the opinion of Californians by a 16% swing, from a small majority that favored it to 59% who oppose drilling off the California coast. We know this because it is what the survey said.

No one surveyed me. “Undecided” is not a choice I would make anyway. “Prefer not to say” maybe, but no one asked me. And well they should not have asked me. I do not poll well. Most likely the reason is because I did not go to a mall, or did not answer my phone, or did not click on an online pop-up box. Somehow, I eluded the surveyors. But you can bet I will vote.

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Article first published as "Opinion Polls Don't Vote" on Blogcritics.org.

Marginalizing Dr. King's Dream

While the GOP and Fox have been trumpeting how bad President Barrack Obama’s approval ratings are, as the midterm elections approach, they either bury or ignore the fact that President Ronald Reagan’s were worse. In understatement Gallup says, the “public's view of the economy remained sour.” It sounds familiar. “The 1982 midterm elections were not good ones for Reagan and for the GOP.” Republicans lost about 25 seats in the House. Neither the GOP nor Fox are confused by facts because the make up their own. So of course they will deny the following indictment that they openly hostile to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and seek to repeal it.

Fox News owner recently gave the Republican Governors Association a million bucks. Two of Fox’ celebrities star in an outdoor Washington event at the Lincoln Memorial. The date is the 47th anniversary of the most famous plea for racial equality in this country since President Abraham Lincoln. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech to the more than 200,000 people who participated in the "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom." Swathed in the US flag and bunting, the Fox celebrity emcees host an attempt to marginalize the struggle for civil rights for which Dr. King was gunned down and killed.

Sarah “Reload” Palin gets paid to speak at events. She and Glenn “Just Behind Rush” Beck are the event spokespeople – hired guns representing the bullies inside the GOP. Her “Reload” rhetoric is already exposed. She posted a rifle scope-sight cross-hairs graphics on a map to target Democrats up for re-election on her Facebook page. She sent the tweet “Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!" Likewise she defended radio host Laura “N-word” Schlessinger and told her, "Don't retreat . . . reload!"

Martin Luther King III said of his father, in the Washington Post, “But his dream rejected hateful rhetoric and all forms of bigotry or discrimination, whether directed at race, faith, nationality, sexual orientation or political beliefs.”

Marginalizing Dr. King and the civil rights movement must have a reason, since the GOP is not run by stupid people -- mean-spirited but not stupid. Successful bullies, such as the Ku Klux Klan, are always mean-spirited and rarely stupid, as the Klan is an example. The KKK became infamous for killing people while fellow Klansmen burned Christian crosses, dressed in costumes and recited Biblical scripture all in front of their own children. The Ku Klux Klan championed the 2nd Amendment and hated the 14th Amendment, as does the GOP.

What is the reason? Glenn Beck gave it away when he said, “This is a moment, quite honestly, that I think we reclaim the civil rights movement. It has been so distorted and so turned upside down. It is an abomination." There it is. The civil rights movement is an abomination. When Beck says “reclaim the civil rights movement”, he means “repeal the Civil Rights Act.”

There is one hurdle in the way, however. It is the 14th Amendment -- the basis of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, not to mention the subsequent Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Fair Housing Act of 1968. That is why the GOP is busy trying to rewrite or repeal the 14th Amendment. It’s in their way.

Enter the Republican’s immigration bandwagon, a Fox regular attraction. With a midterm election looming, the out-of-power GOP has aimed its bigotry-mongering directly at Mexican immigrants, somehow segregating them from immigrants of other countries such as Russia or Pakistan. The GOP argument to repeal the 14th Amendment is based on the “citizenship” clause. They seek to segregate a group of people for punitive purposes by singling out Mexican babies as enemies of the country, who deserve to be punished for the crime of being born in the United States.

The GOP immigration bandwagon harkens back to a time when discrimination and segregation were legal. Stirred up by the unsubstantiated plight-claim of Arizona, whose immigration issues are peculiar to all four of Mexico’s border states, such prominent Republicans as Senator Lindsey Graham (SC), Senator Jon Kyl (AZ), and Senator Mitch McConnell (KY) are on board. While far from being tea party types, they share the same contempt for facts.

For example, there have been over ten thousand attempts to amend the United States Constitution, but only 27 attempts have succeeded and one of them repeals another one – Prohibition. The Birthright Citizenship Abolition Amendment proposed on April 13, 2005, failed. So did the Federal Marriage Amendment, proposed on May 21, 2003.

H.R. 1868 -- Birthright Citizenship Act of 2009, “To amend section 301 of the Immigration and Nationality Act to clarify those classes of individuals born in the United States who are nationals and citizens of the United States at birth” languishes in committee. The bill’s text is found in 69 other proposed bills of the 111th Congress, also stuck in committees.

President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A year later LBJ signed the Immigration and Nationality Act. At that time the issue of Cuban immigration riled Republicans. Cubans sought refuge and got it. Mexicans are not mentioned. Mexico has never been a communist country.

None the less, Senator Graham argues that the 14th Amendment no longer serves the purpose it was designed to address and that Congress should reexamine granting citizenship to any child born in the United States. “I'm looking at the laws that exist and see if it makes sense today,” Graham has said. “Birthright citizenship doesn't make so much sense when you understand the world as it is.”

Senate Minority Whip Kyl also supports hearings on repealing the 14th Amendment. "The Fourteenth Amendment [has been] interpreted to provide that if you are born in the United States, you are a citizen no matter what," Kyl has said. What the 14th Amendment says is “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” How else would one interpret?

Senator McConnell says Congress should reconsider the 14th Amendment citizenship guarantee and joined the immigration bandwagon. “Regardless of how you feel about the various aspects of immigration reform,” McConnell said, “I don't think anybody thinks that's something they're comfortable with."

Evidently these Senators have forgotten their high school civics. Before an amendment can take effect, it must be proposed to the states by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress or by a convention called by two-thirds of the states. Then the amendment must be ratified by three-fourths of the states or by three-fourths of conventions. For the record, no convention for proposing amendments has been called by the states and the convention method of ratification been employed only once.

Even as a long shot, which would require super majorities for the GOP in both houses of congress and a Republican administration, there is so much more to gain by repealing the 14th Amendment. It would set the stage for reversal of a treasure trove of Supreme Court decisions. Ones that the GOP has long targeted include: Plyler v. Doe , protecting all children born in the US, Brown v. Board of Education , ending “separate but equal” , and the prize of prizes, Roe v. Wade , extending the right of privacy to abortion.

In Plyler, a “citizenship” case, the Court’s ruling says the statute it found unconstitutional imposed “a lifetime hardship on a discrete class of children not accountable for their disabling status. These children can neither affect their parents' conduct nor their own undocumented status.” Furthermore, “Use of the phrase ‘within its jurisdiction’ confirms the understanding that the Fourteenth Amendment's protection extends to anyone, citizen or stranger, who is subject to the laws of a State, and reaches into every corner of a State's territory.”

In Brown, the landmark “equal protection” case, the court concluded ". . . the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment."

In Roe, the contentious “due process” case, the court held “State criminal abortion laws, like those involved here, . . . violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman's qualified right to terminate her pregnancy.”

Reversing Roe has been the ultimate objective of anti-abortionists and the GOP since 1973. All previous attempts to reverse the decision have failed because of that pesky 14th Amendment.
Now there is one more case destined to go before the Supreme Court. It is a civil rights case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger overturning the California ban on same-sex marriage.

The U.S. District Court ruling in Perry said that the voter initiated measure to amend the California State constitution was "unconstitutional under both the due process and equal protection clauses [of the 14th Amendment] because it “disadvantages gays and lesbians without any rational justification."

The immigration bandwagon may get many more passengers on board on its way to the midterm elections. After all, a bandwagon is a bandwagon. It sounds best when it is standing still. The GOP/Fox/Beck rally is a major stop. I hope they do.

Still, what the GOP immigration bandwagon has put forth, that the 14th Amendment needs to be reviewed in context of today’s laws and society, is worth consideration. Using that logic, we should equally review their sacred Second Amendment. “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State”, to quote Senator Graham, “doesn't make so much sense when you understand the world as it is.”

The Second Amendment allowed a reload to assassinate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The Fourteenth Amendment protects his dream. It protects us.

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Article first published as "Marginalizing Dr. King's Dream" on Blogcritics.org.

Assault on the Fourteenth

The founding idea of “Equal Justice Under Law” is literally carved in stone above the entrance to the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. The Republican Party wants that idea changed. They want exceptions. They want “Equal Justice Under Law Except For Immigrants From Mexico. “ It’s like saying, “Liberty and Justice for Almost All.”

The Republicans won and Congress enacted the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1868. Times have changed. Republicans have changed, too. Now they want to repeal the Fourteenth Amendment. With a midterm election looming, the out-of-power GOP has found its bandwagon in immigration. Its’ bigotry-mongering is aimed directly at Mexican immigrants, somehow segregating them from immigrants of other countries, like Russia or India.

Since its passage in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment is the basis of all Supreme Court decisions having to do with our Civil Rights. Thus, the Republican assault on the Fourteenth Amendment is an assault on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, not to mention the subsequent Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Fair Housing Act of 1968. Their argument to repeal it singles out Hispanic babies as enemies of the country who deserve to be punished for the crime of being born in the United States.

Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment to counter what was at that time called the "black codes," such as depriving citizenship to children born of former slaves. To make sure that the States could not legislate against it, the Fourteenth Amendment requirement is that “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States... [or] deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, [or] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The GOP has created an immigration band wagon that harkens back to a time when discrimination and segregation were legal. Ginned by the plight of Arizona and immigration issues peculiar to all four of Mexico’s border states, on board are such prominent Republicans as Senator Lindsey Graham (SC), Senator Jon Kyl (AZ), and Senator Mitch McConnell (KY). Eliminating the so-called “birthright clause” is intentionally aimed at Hispanic children by discriminating against them and not children born of undocumented aliens from countries other than Mexico.

Senator Graham argued that the Fourteenth Amendment no longer serves the purpose it was designed to address and that Congress should reexamine granting citizenship to any child born in the United States. “I'm looking at the laws that exist and see if it makes sense today,” Graham said. “Birthright citizenship doesn't make so much sense when you understand the world as it is.”

Senate Minority Whip Kyl also supports hearings on repealing the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Kyl said that he opposes allowing children of undocumented immigrants to be granted U.S. citizenship and wants Congress to hold hearings on the matter. "The Fourteenth Amendment [has been] interpreted to provide that if you are born in the United States, you are a citizen no matter what," Kyl said. "So the question is, if both parents are here illegally, should there be a reward for their illegal behavior?"

Senator McConnell says Congress should reconsider the Fourteenth Amendment citizenship guarantee and joined the immigration bandwagon. "I think we ought to take a look at it -- hold hearings, listen to the experts on it," McConnell said. "I haven't made a final decision about it, but that's something that we clearly need to look at. Regardless of how you feel about the various aspects of immigration reform, I don't think anybody thinks that's something they're comfortable with."

The Republican immigration bandwagon claims that children of undocumented aliens will overburden a State’s resources cannot be justified and such an argument has already been held by the Supreme Court to be unconstitutional. What this Republican assault on the Fourteenth Amendment does is to attack “citizenship” by renaming it the “birthright clause.” It also attacks “due process” and “equal protection.” Its’ cynical purpose is to set the stage to reverse three Supreme Court decisions that Republicans have never liked that are on its to-do list.

· Citizenship: Plyler v. Doe (1982) protecting all children born in the US
· Equal Protection: Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ending “separate but equal”
· Due Process: Roe v. Wade (1973) extending the right of privacy to abortion

Here is what the Supreme Court held in those cases that you will find in the links above.

Plyler v. Doe

A state statute “which withholds from local school districts any state funds for the education of children who were not ‘legally admitted’ into the United States, and which authorizes local school districts to deny enrollment to such children, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

The Court’s ruling says, the statute “imposes a lifetime hardship on a discrete class of children not accountable for their disabling status. These children can neither affect their parents' conduct nor their own undocumented status.”

Furthermore, “Use of the phrase ‘within its jurisdiction’ confirms the understanding that the Fourteenth Amendment's protection extends to anyone, citizen or stranger, who is subject to the laws of a State, and reaches into every corner of a State's territory.”

The immigration band wagon may get many more passengers on board on its way to the midterm elections. A band wagon is a band wagon. It sounds best when it is standing still. But it is going to play hell getting by Plyler, which will make the band wagon moving anywhere after the election a no-go from the git-go. Amendment 14 says so.

Brown v. Board of Education

"We conclude that, in the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated for whom the actions have been brought are, by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment."

Under the guise of a “birthright” reward, being deprived of protection by reason of segregation is the effect. The GOP program is not about “separate but equal”; it is all about “equal protection.” Here is the prize.

Roe v. Wade

“State criminal abortion laws, like those involved here, that except from criminality only a life-saving procedure on the mother's behalf without regard to the stage of her pregnancy and other interests involved violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman's qualified right to terminate her pregnancy.”

Reversing Roe has been the ultimate objective of anti-abortionists and the GOP since 1973. All previous attempts to reverse the decision have failed because of that pesky Fourteenth Amendment. Now there is one more case to add to the list of decisions that the GOP would like reversed. It is a civil rights case.

· Civil Rights: Perry v. Schwarzenegger overturning the California ban same-sex marriage

Perry v. Schwarzenegger

The appeals are filed on this latest civil rights case that rests on the Fourteenth Amendment. The case overturns California Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage. U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker ruled the measure was "unconstitutional under both the due process and equal protection clauses" of the Fourteenth Amendment. "Because Proposition 8 disadvantages gays and lesbians without any rational justification," Judge Walker ruled the ban bombs.

Both the Proposition 8 gay marriage ban and the Arizona SB 1070 Immigration law have two things in common. First, they seek to segregate a group of people for punitive purposes. Second: they attack the Fourteenth Amendment, which establishes protection of “citizenship” to children, grants “due process of law” to everyone, and “guarantees equal protection of the laws.” Because of that, both Proposition 8 and SB 1070 have been overturned, each measure being held to be unconstitutional.

Let us accept the offer that the Republican immigration band wagon has put forth, that the Fourteenth Amendment needs to be reviewed in context of today’s laws and society. Using that logic, then let us equally review the Second Amendment in the same context. The acclaimed GOP birthright to guns says, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State”, to quote Senator Graham, “doesn't make so much sense when you understand the world as it is.”

The Fourteenth Amendment issue is about the Constitution, not some election show. It is about Equal Justice Under Law.

What the Survey Says

We tend to believe things that support our opinions and disbelieve the things that do not. With such human nature in mind, it is easy to understand the popularity of polling, also known as public opinion polls. The data that polls generate is enormous and critical to estimating what a well defined target audience is going to favor or reject. Survey data is the life blood of marketing and fund-raising. It is what the survey says.

Since George Gallup in the 40’s and 50’s engaged scientific method to public opinion polling in an analogue environment, polling today resembles a science of itself in our digital environment. Depending on the sampling size, surveys may boast a 2% to a 4% margin of error. The smaller the margin is, the better the chances are that the prediction results are accurate. Prediction is the key.

In politics it can be dangerous because events shape public opinion. The pesky public can change its mind on any issue and it does. Consider off-shore drilling. The Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico seems to have changed the opinion of Californians by a 16% swing, from a small majority that favored drilling to 59% who oppose drilling off the California coast. We know this because it is what the survey said.

CBS5/AP reports that the Public Policy Institute of California's poll “surveyed 2,502 California residents from July 6 to July 20 and has a margin of error of 2 percentage points. The margin of error was 2.7 percentage points for the 1,321 likely voters.” The poll also showed more than 22% of likely voters remain undecided.

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No one surveyed me. “Undecided” is not a choice I would make anyway. “Prefer not to say” maybe, but no one asked me. And well they should not have asked me. I do not poll well. Most likely the reason is because I did not go to a mall, or did not answer my phone, or did not click on an online pop-up box. Somehow, I eluded the surveyors.

It is hard to sell a ticket to a sure thing. Sure things lack chance. There is no book to be made, except on long shots, when there are no odds. Sure things have no competition involved. That is why the emphasis on the polling data as it relates to the midterm elections has got to be reported as too-close-to-call. As a group the so-called undecided vote has obfuscated the data. So it is not necessarily the case that races are too close to call because of the margin of difference. They cannot be statistically determined. The data is unclear.

However, what is abundantly clear is abundance itself. The candidate who has the most money to spend to influence the undecided likely voters typically wins. That Public Policy Institute’s poll I referred to shows 39% of likely California voters support Democratic incumbent Senator Barbara Boxer for reelection, while 34% support Republican challenger Carly Fiorina. More than one-fifth of voters told pollsters that they are undecided.

Silicon Valley’s Mercury News reports that Boxer’s campaign “finished the first half of the year with $11.3 million in her campaign account. Fiorina had $953,000 in the bank.” Enter the RNC. “The National Republican Committee has committed to make a $1.75M television media buy for GOP Senate candidate Carly Fiorina in the final week of her race to unseat Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer,” reports the AP. Most of that money will be spent in Los Angeles. Boxer’s campaign manager, Rose Kapolczynski, said “the Republicans were dumping money into California to try to remake Fiorina, who was fired from HP in 2005.”

In the California governor's race, Democrat Jerry Brown has support from 37% of likely voters. Republican Meg Whitman has support from 34%. That could be considered close except for the 25% of likely voters who are undecided. Incidentally, California voters are heavily registered as Democrats compared to voters registered as Republicans. Whitman has been spending loads of money in advertising statewide. Brown has not, yet.

Regrettably just what the electorate is given to help them decide is ugly. Attack advertising will get uglier, especially in California, where media costs dwarf those of most other states. At this posting, the californiawatch.org Politics Verbatim [weblog] has found a total of 363 ‘candidate attacks.’ Candidate attacks include any statement in which either the Brown or Whitman campaign takes a shot at each other or another political target.” In the next three months, the count will rise.

Money is flowing into media to go after the undecided vote to be sure. But I question just how undecided voters really are. Depending upon which group of pundits one hears or which newspaper opinion page one reads, the rhetoric tends to fall along For-Obama or Against-Obama lines. Yet neither of those arguments convinces anybody of anything. A Floridian associate of mine recently put it this way. “I think Obama is evil . . . not that I know of a Republican I would love to send to White House.” People like that are very hard to convince.

Washington Post columnist David Broder notes, “The history of midterm elections shows regular gains for the opposition party, and so far all the polls look upbeat for the GOP.” However, the flaw in a polling argument is that of voters not aligned to either political party. They are not undecided. They are nondecided. If they vote, it will probably be across a party affiliation, grudgingly or not. As a result the survey numbers are rendered ambiguous, a best guess.

Furthermore, voter turnout is low in midterm elections. FairVote.org says, “Turnout in midterm elections is far lower, peaking at 48.7% in 1966 and falling as low as 39.0% in 1978,1986, and 1998 remaining below 50% in midterm elections.” What that suggests is that so long as the election rules are consistent, “the same electorate can result in 60% turnout in one election and 2% in another depending on what is on the ballot and whether the election has essentially already been decided.”

“It ain’t over until it’s over.” Yogi Berra also said, “Baseball is 90% mental -- the other half is physical." So it goes with polling.

Robert Kennedy is quoted, “One-fifth of the people are against everything all the time." Here is what we know about those folks. They are decided voters. No further convincing is needed. Never mind facts, minds are already made up. They will turn out and vote. Results depend upon turnout. We know this because (I can just hear Richard Dawson's voice on TV’s Family Feud) “ survey says.”

Tyrants Start Somewhere

Can we follow them on Twitter and Facebook as they make their way into what Jefferson referred to as a swamp? These un-incumbent mid-term election challengers who say the darndest things and spend lots of money may seem populist enough to get them elected, if voters of conscience take a pass. The answer is you betcha. Tweet this.

There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.
Niccolo Machiavelli

Sarah Palin posted on Twitter, "Doesn't it stab you in the heart, as it does ours throughout the heartland? Peaceful Muslims, pls refudiate.” And with that the professional media, blogosphere et al focused on the invented word, a presumable contraction of repudiate and refute. Palin reposted the message, “Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand. Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in the interest of healing.” Unanswered is, a provocation for what?

For those who missed the bigotry of her post, replace the word “Muslims” with the word “Catholics” or the word “Jews.” For one thing to notice, her statements are consistent with the rhetoric of the Ku Klux Klan at its height in 1923, infamous for all of its out-and-out bigotry. For another, it satisfies what Osama Bin Laden has sought for Al Qaeda recruitment – a publicly stated contempt for the Muslim religion by a person or persons who appear to represent the will of the US by saying that Muslims are the enemy of America. Palin, appearing to represent people other than herself, delivered. Her words make Muslims victims of the terrorist attacks of September, 2001.

Bin Laden must be pleased.

Why it is that Palin has any interest in a New York City issue may be puzzling to some, but for the conservative evangelizing work of Bill Kristol, who waxed ridiculously about Palin with George Will and Michael Gerson a couple of years back before she got picked to disable the McCain campaign. Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, is probably her muse on the topic since opposition to the Mosque is also a tea party election stance in New York. Palin displayed her bigotry and hid it behind her cute new word. Unnecessary provocation and heart stabbing are superfluities to her rube rhetoric.

One-fifth of the people are against everything all the time.
Robert Kennedy

I have calculated that individual public opinion occupies a space of 334,540,800 cubic inches: 1 mile wide times I mile long times 1 inch deep. Our problem is that the polling data is too much with us. The fact is, there is no huge shift in public opinion. The much touted anger and rage that is reported is exaggerated on purpose and exacerbated on television. The reason is that if the truth be told, the mid-term races are not close. However, if they appear to be close, then more beer, cars and pills to treat erectile dysfunction can be sold.

The non-closeness of the elections, I contend, accounts for the weakness of the Republican candidates from amateurs such as Rand Paul and Carly Fiorina to political hacks like Jan Brewer and Sharron Angle. For example, in California, the Fiorina senate campaign is reported to be statistically close to that of 3 term incumbent Senator Barbara Boxer. Fiorina has $4M. Boxer has $14M. There is a reason: Fiorina is a former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, and after the election she will remain a former CEO either looking for a gig or living off of celebrity. If elected she would have to work with Dianne Feinstein. In such cases, celebrity pays.

Because of my Irish heritage, I am anti-incumbent by nature. I am for term limits on congress. However, I cannot support candidates who have never shown any interest in or participated in public service. By the way, one never hears the Republican/tea party candidates speak about public service, because, to them, the concept is foreign, probably even socialist.

A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.
Theodore Roosevelt

The deficit is not a real issue for the mid-term elections, which are state elections. The deficit -- part of the economy -- is an issue of federal elections. Employment, the two wars and immigration are “real issues,” as they were in TR’s time.

With an alarming dearth of policy, the present GOP is content with merely opposing everything and anything that the President does or supports. The argument goes like this: it took the GOP seven years to destroy the US economy and to create the deficit out of a surplus. The Democrats have not fixed it in the first 18 months Obama has been President. It is kind of like saying “We screwed it up. Only we can unscrew it.”

The War in Afghanistan has not ended. The War in Iraq is slow going. They are both products of the Bush Administration. Each is astronomically costly in terms of the 3-Ms – the men, the material and the money. And somehow it is all Obama’s fault. He should have wrapped those two wars up by last Christmas. He is, after all, the Commander-in-Chief.

Immigration to a land of immigrants and the controversy that comes with it is the purview of the Federal government. It was a major KKK issue after WWI, although the Klan had little interest in Latinos except for their tendency to be Catholic, like being a Communist or a homosexual. Somehow, the Obama administration has failed to protect the Arizona border, says the tea party. Their recent Arizona profiling law is in court, where it will end.

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!

Ronald Reagan

Reality does not care. Ronald Reagan, the spiritual head of the GOP, is better known for his quips than anything else. “Honey, I forgot to duck” is one of them. But on the pragmatic matter of bureaucracy, the Gipper was right on. Bureaucrats who suffer a cut in budget have arrived at the terminus of their career. Thus the rhetoric of smaller government can only succeed if the present government is overthrown and replaced.

If only there were books to burn.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson

Once non-incumbents are elected, they become junior members of governing elite and are obliged go to knife-and-fork school to be trained in their new positions. They have no influence. They do as instructed if they want to return. They are obliged to work for their constituency by making deals, especially with others of their state. This was all new in Jefferson’s time because there was no incumbency.

But tyranny was not new. Tyrants start somewhere and they are characterized by their bigotry. Silence in November would be the electorate, Jefferson's “people of good conscience,” taking a pass on their right to vote and letting Robert Kennedy’s 20% of the people “against everything all the time” have their sway. That is where tyranny begins.

McChrystal and Steele: Please Fire Me

The tendency of the professional press has been to focus on the content of speech rather than its context. I refer to the Stanley McChrystal and Michael Steele speeches – the General’s in a Rolling Stone story by Michael Hastings and the Chairman’s on amateur video. While quite different in the content of what each man said, the speeches have much in common. Taken in the context of what each man meant, each man effectively pleads “Please, fire me.”

It takes tremendous ego to hold jobs such as there’s. General McChrystal’s job was taking the fight to our enemies in hot pursuit with overwhelming firepower. Chairman Steele’s job was to conduct overwhelming fundraising for national campaigning. Egos notwithstanding, insubordinate opinion made public compromised their competence in each of their positions. The issue is not the content of what each man said. The issue is competence in their positions.

US Army Commanding Generals have command staffs. One of those command staff positions, G5 or S5, is called a Civil Affairs Officer, who is in charge of public or civil information. General McChrystal’s Civil Affairs Officer failed to keep his commander’s private opinions private. Additionally, McChrystal knew that generals get fired for insubordination, like General Douglas MacArthur did sixty years ago. That is incompetent command. Given what Stanley McChrystal has been through as a professional military bad-ass, his comments may be understandable. But it is the kind of behavior, as reported in the Hastings article, that one sees when witnessing burn-out. The General left the President no option but to relieve him of his command and replace him in that position.

The conduct of the War in Afghanistan, started under President Bush and inherited by President Obama, is now in the hands of General David Petraeus. As Tim Egan writes in the NY Times, General Petraeus is “perhaps the only public figure to emerge from the Bush years with his reputation for competence intact.” He took command over the 4th of July holiday, saying “we are in this to win.” That is something he is obliged to say. He has staff to see that he does.

The issue of having interviews and stories approved comes up from time to time, as it did when the US Army invaded Grenada and again in the first Gulf War. It will not under Petraeus. His boss, Secretary of Defense Gates says so. Besides, Petraeus knows how to successfully utilize command staff. For example his Civil Affairs Officer will not hesitate to step on an interview with his commander, like start coughing loudly or getting between the reporter and his boss. Reporters will hear the magic words, “That is all the time the General has for you” and the interview is over.

The Army is all about organization and structure. Not surprisingly, there is nothing magical about how things are to be conducted. There are field manuals like FM 41-10 that includes the topic of press relations in peace and in war times. There are rules and service schools that teach those rules. The Defense Information School (DINFOS) is where Public Affairs Officers are taught how to perform in their G5/S5 staff positions.

The Republican National Committee has an organizational structure that is headed by a Chairperson. Not unlike a CEO to a board of directors, the Chairperson serves at the pleasure of committee and is responsible to it for increasing the value of the RNC. The committee is responsible to registered Republican voters nationally for getting Republican candidates elected. Donations have decreased significantly under Mr. Steele’s chairmanship, a decrease in value. CBS News reports that “donors who were once reliable RNC fundraising sources are now looking elsewhere, prompted by fears that Steele will not effectively manage their contributions.” While his contrary and inaccurate public opinions are interesting, devaluing the RNC is the result of poor stewardship. Mr. Steele has demonstrated that he is incompetent in that position.

The committee should have no choice. For Steele to remain as Chairperson is an example of the elite hypocrisy the committee has allowed. It is also quite cynical because it sets up Mr. Steele to take the fall for the results of the upcoming November elections. It is not the case that he cannot be touched because he is black. Affirmative action notwithstanding, incompetence knows no race, color, creed, gender or sexual orientation distinction. Incompetence is equal opportunity.

If being a party of business is supposed to mean something, the committee needs to behave like a business. Steele’s chairmanship demonstrates that the RNC has or is an incompetent board of directors who are not looking out after the best interest of their stock-holders, the registered voters I mentioned. To allow for Steele’s lack of competence in his position reflects poor governance. As such, the board needs to be replaced as well.

The November elections feature a cast of candidates endorsed by the tea party and Sarah Palin. They all denounce the President and blame the Obama administration for Bush administration failures. Many are as incompetent as Mr. Steele, like California millionaires Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman. Some are crackpots, like Nevada’s Sharron Angle and Kentucky’s Rand Paul. They all appear to rally around Arizona’s Jan Brewer and pander to the white-right wing of the Republican Party over the immigration issue.

The problem is that they offer nothing in the way of platform and divide the GOP. As the Michael Douglas says in lines from The American President, “We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them.” With two substitutions the next line says, “And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, [the Republican candidates are] not the least bit interested in solving it. [They are] interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it.”

The mid-term elections will not be the referendum on the Obama presidency that the GOP proclaims for just that reason. The electorates who show up to vote want solutions, not platitudes. If there is a referendum, it will be on bigotry and hopefully the bigots will lose.

As to the future for the General and the Chairman, they will both be welcomed and probably quite competent as highly paid network television commentators. McChrystal is will be a retired General who may or may not keep his fourth star. Now he can eat more than one meal a day and get some therapy for the post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) he likely suffers. After reviewing the “War of Obama’s choosing” tape, Mr. Steele is well suited to be successful with a multi-level marketing company (MLM) such as Amway or Pre-Paid Legal Services. Imagine the down line he could create.

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About the author: I am a graduate of the Defense Information School. My last active Army duty assignment stationed me at Hunter Army Airfield in the Public Affairs Office of the 24th Infantry Division under the command of (then) Major General Norman Schwarzkopf.

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POST SCRIPT: General McChrystal has retired after 34 years of service. According to AP, "The White House is allowing McChrystal to keep his four stars in retirement, even though Army rules would have required him to serve another two years at that rank." (July 24, 2010)

Oooah-oooah!

A New Republican Brand

The “O” in GOP stands for “Old.” So does the Republican brand. I recommend retiring the GOP brand and the absurd Elephant logo. Put them both on display either in the Smithsonian in D.C. or in every Applebee’s nationwide. I can venerate the GOP for what it once was in my father’s time. But today the brand is as old time religion, significant to a former time, just not this time. It is in this vacuum created by a paucity of morality, principle and credible spokespeople that neo-bigotism grows as the political celebrities vie for money.

The mission is to create a Republican brand for this century. By the way, it’s going to cost a lot of money, so much money that when Forbes reports it, even Democrats will blush. But I digress. Here is the short version of what the Republican Party has to grip in order to contend and win.

This is the best of times to be a Republican.

As the removed-from-power party, they have the luxury of time. Besides, there is a presidential precedent. It took Richard Nixon six years to reinvent the Nixon brand that worked for his presidential quest. Having said that, which is as far as I want to go with Nixon, here are a few things that require immediate attention.

Replace Michael Steele with a real executive the caliber of a Timothy Geithner.

For Steele to remain is an example of the elite hypocrisy the old brand allowed. It is the same kind of sleaze that spent money on porno websites to advertise McCain-Palin in the 2008 campaign. It is not the case that he cannot be touched because he is black. Incompetence knows no race, color, creed, gender or orientation. If being a party of business means something, the party needs to behave like a business. Steele’s chairmanship demonstrates that the party has an incompetent board of directors who are not looking out after the best interest of its stock holders. To allow for Steele’s lack of competence in his position reflects poor governance. So while we are at it, the board needs to be replaced as well.

Co-opt progressivism by reclaiming it as a Republican platform piece.

Then the party can hearken to Theodore Roosevelt, a progressive and environmentalist. Conservation of energy and air and water benefits society but more importantly gives the renewed Republican brand at least a patina of respectable care taking responsibility. It will take practice and courage.

Distance the new brand from Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh.

They are unelected, thus unofficial, as is anything associated with the Tea Party. Decry those people as the seditious bigots that they are. They may have reach and audience, but as spokespeople they lack substance. It must be hard to be both phony and shallow. They are highly paid political celebrities who are famous for being famous and that is all there is. They do not stand for anything. They represent only themselves. An audience is not a constituency.

Deride the theme of “take the country back.”

That piece of rube rhetoric can have more than one connotation. Does it mean taking the country back to another time, such as before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as floated by Rand Paul? I ask because there is not anyone or anything from which to take the country back. Neither the Congress nor President is a foreign occupier of our government. Tell the country of the the Tea Party, “We understand that you’re pissed off because you and your folks lost the most important election of our time big time. It must suck to be you.” And, oh by the way, “No, you are not prepared to die for your country.” Dress up in a military uniform all you want. It does not make you a soldier.

Distance the new brand from the Bush administration.

Dick Cheney and Karl Rove in particular ruined the GOP brand at home and abroad. To some extent getting over Bush et al will be kind of like going through a rehab-program -- admitting powerlessness over stupidity and greed and then making amends to everyone you hurt, like the American people. Seeking some forgiveness is no longer an option. Repudiation is in order, such as bringing criminal charges against Bush, Cheney and Rove. Charge them with the treason, high crimes and misdemeanors that could have been brought to impeachment.

Remember, W has an MBA.

The failure of the GOP brand allows for the candidacies of people who are woefully ill-equipped to perform any useful legislating. California millionaires Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina are examples. A Chief Executive Officer (CEO) is responsible to a Board of Directors for the Return on Investment (ROI) to the stockholders. As business people, neither Whitman nor Fiorina performed well as a CEO because under their stewardships each company lost significant value. They invest in running for public office because they cannot get hired in a private office as a CEO anywhere else. Nevada’s Sharron Angle at least has 6 years legislative experience as a Republican member of the Nevada Assembly. While that barely qualifies her candidacy, her policy positions are preposterous.

Get some serious policy.

Griping about everything the president does or doesn’t do is no substitute for a lack of policy on issues such as civil rights, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and immigration reform. The Rovians drove Hispanics and Blacks from the party to appeal to the white Christian right. To redefine the Republican constituency will require courage and conciliation. It will have to for the new brand to become inclusionary, to end obstructionism and to become a loyal opposition.

Don’t scrimp.

Hire a top dollar advertising agency for a new logo. The party will have to live with it for a century or so.