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.

A Jack, a Hack, and a Quack

Getting lost in the spin-coverage of Sarah Palin, Jan Brewer and Rand Paul is the essence of what they allegedly stand for.

In common, they espouse theme positions that at best do not make sense and at worst are hateful and bigoted. Two of those themes are “the outsider” and “anti-establishment”. Before I get to specifics, let me ask a few questions for clarity. Please, pardon my pronouns.

What is this being “an outsider” supposed to mean other than you have not been elected yet? How does being an outsider benefit your constituency that elects you to office? What is in it for them? How are you going to get what your constituents elected you to get? Do you work well with others? Can you collaborate and negotiate on your constituents’ behalf, especially since that will be with the “insiders” – you know the people who actually run things?

What is this anti-establishment “no more politics as usual” rhetoric supposed to mean? Does that include anarchy? Does that mean other than usual or abnormal politics? Isn’t normal politics as usual really what voters elect a person to do in the first place? Isn’t the conduct of legislating so that the electorate does not have to what normal politics is about? How is being different from other people who successfully do politics for a living a valid qualifier to hold an elected position?

The Tea Party backed son of big-time insider, the rookie Rand Paul’s opinion on the Civil Rights Act did not get the coverage it deserved. The deniable plausibility defense that his comments were taken out of context is a cover-up story. The story is the Tea Party connection and an unconscionable position that supports invalidating parts of the Civil Rights Act. And even if Paul did not mean it, it is tooth paste out of the tube – hard to get back.

His dad called to coverage “unfair,” as if fairness is a high priority to establishment Republicans and their Libertarian cousins like Ron Paul. That Pops Paul is incumbent is because he plays well with others and has for years deserve noting. His official website proclaims that he is “America's leading voice for” among other things “. . . a return to sound monetary policies.” It does not say when such sound monetary policies existed, although presumably it was sometime before the Civil Rights Act, you know like the “I Like Ike” era. I digress.

Both Paul and Palin espouse positions on off-shore drilling that get incomplete or disconnected coverage. Sarah Palin says she remains a "big supporter of offshore drilling" despite the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, according to AP. She says it’s safer to dig in Alaska. Of the oil spill Paul says that “. . . sometimes accidents happen.” Each excuses the environmental catastrophe BP created. The Tea Party likes drilling. Never mind the pesky environment or conservation.

Meanwhile, Arizona’s governor has new propaganda that is both evocative and shallow. Jan Brewer is Rosie the Riveter, “Doing the Job the Feds won’t do.” That used to be called codswallop. The Feds are the only ones who can do anything about immigration. Arizona’s racial profiling law is being taken to court by no less than the NAACP and is also a matter of presidential inquiry by the Justice Department. Palin’s contribution is the Tea Party connection.

Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act in 1921. President Warren G. Harding signed the law which established national quotas for immigrants, although Latin Americans are not mentioned. It became the Immigration Act of 1924 and lasted until 1965, when it was replaced by Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. After President Lyndon B. Johnson signed that law it went into effect in 1968 and is pretty much at the core of US immigration law today.

Johnson said of Immigartion Act of 1924, "This system violates the basic principle of American democracy, the principle that values and rewards each man on the basis of his merit as a man. It has been un-American in the highest sense, because it has been untrue to the faith that brought thousands to these shores even before we were a country." LBJ signed the Civil Right Act. He was not a lawyer.

Neither Palin or Brewer or Paul is a lawyer so they might not recognize that while their speech may produce resonance with populist sentiment, it espouses segregation. They might not know that the 1896 Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson endorsed "separate but equal" racial segregation. It might be unclear that the law remained until the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka renounced it 58 years later. They are not lawyers, alright..

The Tea Party and its spotlight-celebrities do like to cheerlead when they play in their ideological theme park -- “limited government, lower taxes, less spending.” If they really want to cut government size, reduce the tax burden and spend less, so much as they say, how come they do not call for ending the Iraq War and bringing our troops home? That would be all three rides in the Tea Party theme park.

The answer is that they are big supporters of the military, never minding that the military is a huge part of the government and is ridiculously expensive. The Tea Party loves guns, the 2nd Amendment and wants to "take the country back." It is anyone's guess how far back they want to take it.

Being the anti-establishment outsider for limited government who gets elected makes a great movie theme, like Frank Capra’s classic Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But it ends there. The rhetoric is codswallop. The Tea Party connection of Palin the Jack, Brewer the Hack, and Paul the Quack has a segregationist tilt. The essence that is lost due to inadequate coverage is the disingenuousness of the themes being peddled with such Tea Party pandering.

Rube-Rhetoric

It was only a matter of time before Sarah Palin and Jan Brewer united. In solidarity they unveiled a new website and launched the call for a petition against boycotts. Those pesky boycotts by such cities as Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, San Diego, St. Paul, West Hollywood, Florida, El Paso, and Boulder must smart. Before considering boycotts, however, let me first congratulate Sarah Palin’s producers for giving for giving her the best chant she has had to date.

The “…do your job” bit is great rube-rhetoric. After telling the NRA that president Obama and his administration want to take away their guns and ammo, while they “gut the 2nd Amendment,” last week, she took her pseudo-event show on the road again. “We are all Arizonan” goes perfectly with the show because it’s so easy to say. However, this grandstand is not just a show as it seems.

One understands that this ubiquitous it is serious and on purpose. However, the outcome might not be what Palin and Brewer think it will be, assuming they think anything. What they think they are standing for is contrary to what it really is. Neither of them ever says anything about equal justice under law. American flags and a call for female grizzly bear protectionism cannot disguise what that stand is.

Their stand does two things.

First, it sets back women elected as governors or to other high office to Geraldine Ferraro’s time. Second, it sets civil rights back to the Kennedy Administration’s time. They are not standing for border protection. They are standing for an unconstitutional law and the suspension of habeas corpus. Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, legal segregation existed in the name of protection too.

A boycott is a show no less than the Tea Party Movement, which is show business. If boycotts seem only symbolic it is because they lack show business and aside from San Francisco mayor Newsom, they lack star-power in the articulate spokesperson position. However, unlike the tea folk’s show, the boycott has monetary impact on the red ink state of Arizona as well as its national appearance. NY Daily News reports that “backlash from Arizona's law could also cost the Phoenix area at least $90 million in revenue.”

Palin brings bright lights with her. Whether or not, as the Associated Press insists, she is a potential 2012 candidate for president aside, she has the phrase that pays rube-rhetoric and all. Brewer needs all the help she can get. It just has not dawned on anyone that voters will have these heady moments to look back upon as they recalibrate who their elected officials are going to be. Ask John McCain how that is working out.

The best of Palin's rube-rhetoric goes to blaming the president for the immigration law that Brewer signed. The president was being kind when he called the law “misguided.” In the 1980s Arizona initially rejected officially observing Martin Luther King’s Birthday as a holiday. Boycotts changed that.

Targeting Ethnic Studies

Arizona’s governor is a Republican, a white, and a woman. Keep that in mind even though it is obvious. If you thought that her attack on civil rights was bad form, get ready. Another measure has come before her for signature and the ink is dry. The measure targets an ethnic studies program in Tucson and has been condemned by a United Nations panel. The Associated Press is a little vague on the condemnation part of the story.

"The governor (Brewer) believes ... public school students should be taught to treat and value each other as individuals and not be taught to resent or hate other races or classes of people,” according to a spokesperson. That does not sound like anything that United Nations human rights experts would condemn in a report, but they did. The measure suggests that Arizona students were being taught racial resentment and hatred as well as being taught to devalue individuality. But what do UN experts know about Arizona?

State schools Chief Tom Horne, a Republican running for attorney general, “has been trying to restrict the [Tucson Unified School District Ethnic Studies] program ever since he learned that Hispanic civil rights activist Dolores Huerta in 2006 told students that ‘Republicans hate Latinos.’" That is incorrect. Huerta only personified and personalized the objective of Republican hatred. Republicans do not hate Latinos. Republicans hate truth.

Additionally, the Associated Press reports “The measure prohibits classes . . . that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government.” That suggests that on top of everything else Arizona public school students are taught, they have classes in sedition.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said of signing an unconstitutional piece of legislation into law a couple of weeks ago that she "firmly believed it represents what is best for Arizona." Evidently that includes invalidating the Civil Rights Act and suspending habeas corpus.

That legislatures and governors cannot elect whether or not their state is part of the Federal Union is just an inconvenience. I would have thought that a Republican white woman governor would know that. But as I say, Republicans hate truth.

Last Frontier of Sedition

One of the drawbacks liberals face is the fact that although we may find the words of such rousers as Sarah Palin distasteful, we will still defend her right to say those words. What we need to remember, however, is that our defense of the right to free speech does not extend to seditious speech. Palin and the Tea Party have entered sedition’s last frontier.

The recent pseudo-event with Sarah Palin headlining the Tea Party Express' Showdown in Searchlight, she addressed a throng of 9-thousand and attempted to sell a negative message to the disenfranchised of that crowd. Her disingenuous rhetoric aside, Sam Adams would have been proud of her. Sam knew a thing or two about pseudo-events and inciting a crowd. He headlined the original Boston Tea Party and proved that when you win a war, your thugs become patriots. Sedition is what gets things going.

Here is the short version. Sedition is “any act, writing, speech, etc., directed unlawfully against state authority, the government, or constitution, or calculated to bring it into contempt or to incite others to hostility, ill will or disaffection; it does not amount to treason and therefore is not a capital offense.”

After Palin posted the rifle scope cross hair target map on her Facebook page, she entered the frontier of sedition using Twitter. “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!” And on national television, in U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s hometown of Searchlight, Nevada, Palin proclaimed to the crowd that the big-government, big-debt spending spree of the Senate majority leader, Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is over. “You’re fired!” she said.

The Donald Trump tag line is from the hit TV show "The Apprentice,” produced by Mark Burnett who also produces “Survivor.” Burnett is about to produce “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” The Learning Channel is said to be paying more than $1 million per episode for that Palin business. We will see what other words are loaded to her lips. Having loaded lips will be an audience pleaser since Palin gets $100 thousand per appearance.

Sarah Palin is like Anna Nicole Smith with glasses – known for being known and not standing for anything. It is fine to be a celebrity of a rally circuit in tertiary US metro-markets. It seems a bit much for the 6 figures pay for her to declare to the multitude “We're not going to sit down and shut up. Thank you for standing up." You’re welcome, but what are we supposed to do now that we are standing? In the frontier of sedition, this is where they pass out hoods for us to wear.

Palin Scopes Targets

I expect the Associated Press writing to be plagiaristic. Take the story headlined “Palin, Tea Party Take On Reid, Health Reform. “ Referring to a Tea Party rally in Arizona “that's been called a conservative Woodstock” is an example. Who called it that? The Woodstock comparison was first articulated on PBS Frontline about Karl Rove and it pertained to the Republican Convention of 1964 that nominated Barry Goldwater for President. But who needs editors when there is spell-check?

The “Tea Party movement” and Sarah Palin deserve lots of derision. The codswallop that they perpetrate is infectious to bigots. Using the posting graphics of rifle scope cross-hairs of a map to “target” Democrats up for re-election on her Facebook page and sending the tweet “Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!" pander a demographic with disingenuous rhetoric pretending to be rogue conservativism. Barry Goldwater must be turning.

When a pop star backs a cause or a purpose, it is self-aggrandizement. Representing oneself is what pop stars do best. As a political pop-star, Palin is a Twitter natural. What better way to disseducate people than with Twitter, where one can use non-words to say virtually nothing of any import to everyone all the time. Pop stars have staffs of people and lots of fans to create image and manage media. The Betcha-Gotcha Palin staff appears to have hateful people on it who must be really irked by having to play nice with the Retiree-To-Be McCain staff and especially Cindy McCain.

The Boston Tea Party is one of those historical tales that has long lost its integrity. We never hear about Sam Adams and his bully boys, as they’ve been called. When you win a revolution, your thugs become known as patriots. The name Tea Party looks and sounds better than Loose Coalition of Conservative Groups Opposed to Anything Democratic.” Actually, the name Loose Cannons is more to the point.

It must be galling for John McCain to face a re-election bid so tough that his staff had to get with the Palin staff to bring the two electoral and popular vote losers together for a maverick reunion for camera lenses. George W. Bush’s staff doubtless said “Not at this time. We’re doing a presidential makeover with the Big Dog (Bill Clinton).”

Truly, a political off-season -- not being an elected official -- can be fickle. McCain is a handful of votes from having his off-season. Palin will make it so. Remember what Palin did for the last McCain campaign? Imagine what she can do for the GOP, the country for that matter.