It'll be a grand night for Drinking (Liberally)

That's tonight, August 18th, from six to nine at the 331 Club, 331 13th Avenue N.E. in Minneapolis; that's the corner of Broadway and 13th Avenues N.E.

See you there.

Shameless self promotion

Nah, it isn't a post about Bradlee Dean or even Michele Bachmann.

It's about voting for your friends here at the Cucking Stool. You see, we've been nominated as the 2011 Most Valuable Blogger in the local affairs category by CBS Minnesota (think WCCO).

You can vote for us or one of the other nominees here. You can vote once a day.

Vote early and vote often, as Mayor Daley Daly used to say!

It is an honor to be nominated, of course, but it would be a lot more fun to win.

If you like what you read here, please vote for us. Thanks.

Heretics in Grand Rapids

Here's the lede from an article in the online InsideHigherEd.com:

Readers of The Banner, the publication of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, reacted instantly to the news in January that two religion professors at Calvin College had written scholarly papers suggesting that evidence of genetics and evolution raised questions about the traditional, literal reading of Genesis about creation, the story of Adam and Eve, and the fall of humanity out of an initial idyllic state.

The professors were not disavowing the role of God or of their church, but were arguing that modern science challenges traditional, literal readings of the Book of Genesis in ways that may require theological shifts

The results were entirely predictable:

[Comments calling for the professors' head and maintaining the inerrancy of the Bible] weren't just posted on The Banner website, but were also sent to college officials, where the two professors were investigated. One -- John Schneider -- has now left the tenured position he held for 25 years, as part of an agreement with the college. The other religion professor, Daniel Harlow, remains at the college, and is refusing to back down from his views.

You really can understand the problem.

If you tug on that loose thread in Genesis, pretty soon you're standing there with a pile of yarn and no sweater. This is the central problem of the fundamentalist church. It will spend endless time, money, bile, and even blood to bulldoze anybody who points it out.

The funny -- well, tragic -- thing it that all Christian sects are "pickers and choosers" of the parts of the Bible they want to believe or follow. Just one example that I mentioned recently is the law in Deuteronomy that requires non-virgin brides be stoned. Commenters to that post mentioned the rule that says God thinks it's an abomination for women to wear men's clothes, but that it is not an abomination -- in fact, it's required -- if a man rapes an unmarried woman, he has to pay fifty shekels and then marry her (she has no say in the matter).

(So just a word to the young bucks out there at Calvin College: pick out one you like, figure out the exchange rate, and go get yourself a wife!)

And let's not forget there are at least two accounts of creation in Genesis.

There is little or no chance of moving people like these on many issues of the day, including gay marriage. Science, schmience. There is utility in illuminating their illogical and anti-science views in trying to persuade the persuadables.

Meanwhile, the slogan at Calvin College is Minds in the Making.

Update: And in the credit where credit is due department, Roger Ebert tweeted the link to the story about Calvin College and The Banner earlier today.

Two Dominionists and a Mormon walk into a bar

[insert your own joke here]

But what if the question is: What are two Christian dominionists and Mormon? Then the answer is: The leading contenders for the Republican nomination for president in 2012.

Michelle Goldberg has been following the Christian dominionist angle for quite a while. A lot of the flat-out crazy stuff that Michele Bachmann says, hard as it is to believe, doesn't sound crazy to her:

Dominionism derives from a small fringe sect called Christian Reconstructionism, founded by a Calvinist theologian named R. J. Rushdoony in the 1960s. Christian Reconstructionism openly advocates replacing American law with the strictures of the Old Testament, replete with the death penalty for homosexuality, abortion, and even apostasy. The appeal of Christian Reconstructionism is, obviously, limited, and mainstream Christian right figures like Ralph Reed have denounced it.

If Ralph Reed in agin' it, you know it's gotta be crazy. As Goldberg relates:

But while Rushdoony was a totalitarian, he was a prolific and influential one—he elaborated his theories in a number of books, including the massive, three-volume Institutes of Biblical Law. And his ideas, along with those of his followers, have had an incalculable impact on the milieu that spawned both Bachmann and Perry.

Rushdoony was the original home schooler, attacking people like Horace Mann and John Dewey; public education was an anathema to Rushdoony. That ought to seem familiar to anyone with a passing familiarity with Michele Bachmann and how she got her start in politics.

Bachmann is also in the thrall of the poisonous (St. Olaf grad) John Eidsmoe (again, quoting Goldberg):

One could go on and on listing the Dominionist influences on Bachmann’s thinking. She often cites Francis Schaeffer, the godfather of the anti-abortion movement, who held seminars on Rushdoony’s work and helped disseminate his ideas to a larger evangelical audience. John Eidsmoe, an Oral Roberts University professor who, she’s said, “had a great influence on me,” is a Christian Reconstructionist. She often praises the Christian nationalist historian David Barton, who is intimately associated with the Christian Reconstructionist movement; an article about slavery on the website of his organization, Wallbuilders, defends the institution’s biblical basis, with extensive citations of Rushdoony. (“God's laws concerning slavery provided parameters for treatment of slaves, which were for the benefit of all involved,” it says.)

Some of you will remember the right wing nut job manifesto of Bob Vander Plaats that Bachmann was the first in line to sign. Here's a part of it:

Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.

Bachmann was forced to walk that one back, saying that she didn't mean that part, but it's pretty clear she did, or she didn't think it was a big deal, anyway.

It should be remembered that another branch of the Calvinists, the Afrikaner Dutch Reformed, thought that apartheid was just hunky dory, too.

Where does the moderate Republican go to restore sanity to his party?

The Hobbit King bids Tim Pawlenty "Au Revoir"

A saddened Mitch Berg pens an affectionate goodbye note to the humiliated Tim Pawlenty, who recently faded in the face of 4,800 Tea Party Republicans in Iowa.

Tim's a good man, sighs Mitch, but just not what the current crop of Republicans wants. And how. About half-way through this video, watch Mitch describing Tea Party membership. Mitch often speaks at Tea Party rallies, as does Michele Bachmann, who phones it in. Pawlenty has never made an appearance, as far as I know.



John McCain recently called the Tea Party members in Congress "hobbits." If they are the hobbits, Mitch is the local Hobbit King. I didn't know that Hobbit Kings shed crocodile tears, but apparently they do.

Tim Pawlenty should have figured out after working for John McCain's campaign for a couple of years and then being dumped for Sarah Palin that he needed a heap 'o crazy to have a chance. Timmy just didn't have it in him.

The graphic is by Avidor, more or less of course.

FIFO

It stands for "first in first out." It's an accounting term referring to a method of inventory valuation. But it also describes the tortured presidential campaign of the hapless Tim "Dwarfed by Corn" Pawlenty.

Like the deer he gut shot in the Minnesota woods and then abandoned to flounder and die, he has been abandoned to the same fate by Republicans in Iowa. Good riddance.

Dan Burns has another warm recollection of the boy we all call TeaPaw.

The cartoon is by Avidor.

Update: Returning to the theme for a moment, I have always thought that gut shooting the deer was one of the more revealing acts of Pawlenty's odious career. It was a bad and ill-considered shot. It undoubtedly caused great suffering by his quarry. But rather than taking personal responsibility for his action, he abandoned the deer and left the job to others.

So he could go to a fundraiser in Iowa. If you believe in karma, I think it's at work here.

Searching for wounded game is part of the ethic of hunting; it is penance for your failure to make a clean kill. This is why you cannot delegate responsibility for the search. We learned more about the scrub TeaPaw on that occasion than any other I can recall.

Tim Pawlenty's behaviour that November day is a blot on his escutcheon that he will have to wear to the end of his days.

Zometimes, a corn dog

Siggy says, Zometimes, Liebschen, a corn dog iss just za fried, battered frankfurter.

Or as Spot might say, Just give it a rest.

Update: Or, let s/he who has never eaten a corn dog cast the first stone.

Although six bucks for a hot dog is unconscionable.

The photo is from the U.K. Telegraph.

Being dwarfed by corn

I don't know who took this photo; I got it at Minnesota Progressive Project.

We can speculate whether the picture was taken before or after Governor Gutshot dodged down a row to take a leak.

But this is a cool visual metaphor for last night's candidate "debate" of the Iowa straw pols.

Update: As commenter Dan says, the photo is, um, a composite shot. It's still a good metaphor.

TPaw's Sharia Law

Given the level of islamophobia in the conservative base being courted by Republican presidential candidates, anything relating to Sharia (Islamic) law is nuclear. Tim Pawlenty took fire earlier this year because of the existence of a Sharia-compliant lending program in the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency when he was Governor. When asked for comment about the lending program, Pawlenty's spokester was clear:

But a Pawlenty spokesman told me that the governor has no intention of defending the program -- and that in fact, he shut it down himself as soon as he learned of it.

"This program was independently set up by the Minnesota state housing agency and did not make any mention Sharia Law on its face, but was later described as accommodating it," the spokesman, Alex Conant, said. "As soon as Gov. Pawlenty became aware of the issue, he personally ordered it shut it down. Fortunately, only about three people actually used the program before it was terminated at the Governor's direction."

Pawlenty's objection: "The United States should be governed by the U.S. Constitution, not religious laws," Conant said.

But Pawlenty has a much more direct connection to Sharia law through his authorship of a 2001 bill to regulate the labeling and sale of halal meat. If you aren't familiar with halal, it is the designation given to meat that is slaughtered in accordance with Sharia law. The existence of a tiny lending program was threatening enough to lead to headlines like "Does Pawlenty Have a Sharia Problem?" It's pretty amazing that his sponsorship of the halal labeling law hasn't attracted the attention of Pam Geller and the islam-bashing fringe.

Minnesota's halal labeling law is good policy, was a bipartisan bill and passed unanimously (with one exception - bonus if you guess who before you click to find out.) If anything, Pawlenty's sponsorship of it speaks well of him as a legislator. But like most of Pawlenty's reasonable moments, it's probably something that will be a mark against him as he seeks the GOP nomination.

Follow me on Twitter @aaronklemz

Where's Michele Bachmann from again?

Iowan Grant Wood provides L.K. will some inspiration.

Remember, the stoning will begin at ten AM sharp!

There is a new photo caption contest here at the Stool. Here's the photograph:

Here's my entry, at least the first one:

Remember, if she isn't a virgin, the stoning will begin tomorrow at ten AM sharp. Michael, Mary Liz, and I will cast the ceremonial first stone, but there will be plenty of fun for everybody! Deuteronomy 22:13-21

If you are one of the "the Bible is the inerrant word of God" types, this is where you have to be: pitching stones with Michele, Mary Liz, and Michael. If you're not, you're just a picker and a chooser, like everyone else.

And if you are a picker and a chooser, you have no real basis for claiming that your choices are the "real" word of God; that you're the True Picker and Chooser. Because friends, that's like claiming that you're God; trust me, you're not.

The next time you tell me that God hates gays because it says so in Leviticus, or because Paul said so, I'm going to hand you a rock and tell you to have at it.

The photograph is of hazy provenance.

Update: Because many of you - and you know who you are - don't read the comments, I am going to put Ken Avidor's contest entry, currently in a comment, in the body of the post. It's really good, especially the old guy on the right who apparently forgot to take the necessary precautions.

The presidency of Michele Bachmann

It's a cartoon, but that goes without saying. You must go to City Pages to see the whole thing, but here's one panel, just for a taste.

While I have a moment and I have the attention of at least some of you, I have an observation about the Bachmann Newsweek cover kerfuffle. Jill Burcum at the Strib huffs and puffs about it in a op-ed that went online Monday afternoon.

Let's be direct: the cover not an especially flattering picture of Bachmann.

But neither is this one:

Go ahead and blow it up a little; you'll see the same glittering eyes as in the Newsweek cover.

Here's a more recent picture of Michele Bachmann from the campaign trail in New Hampshire, I think. Blow it up, too, and tell me what you think.

No one who is criticizing the Newsweek cover ever seems to explain - at least that I've read - how exactly the photo was manipulated to make Bachmann look bad. Maybe someone has; I'd appreciate a link to it.

Michele Bachmann has hired the best cosmetic illusionists that money can buy, but hey, people, they aren't miracle workers. It just seems that flaws in Bachmann's appearance are so grave because, well, she is not.

I am at this late date unable to identify the photographer of the last photograph.

What this blog needs is some Wisconsin content

This is my mother. She will not be voting for Alberta Darling. Smart Mom.

Attention Wisconsinites!

If you cannot connect the dots between Eric Cantor, Scott Walker, the Koch "We've never missed a meal in our lives" brothers, Mother Harsdorf's Snuff (and the rest of the Republican snuff sellers facing recall tomorrow), and the giant sucking sound on Wall Street, well then, you are simply not paying attention.

Since, however, Wisconsin has been in a perennial three-way race with Iowa and Minnesota for the best-educated kids in the nation, I am sure you are paying attention, and that you will turn the snuff sellers out.

Sheila Harsdorf: Snuff Princess

Why would Wisconsin State Senator Sheila Harsdorf offer a bill to change the tax treatment (lower it, of course) of moist snuff? Was it because as a mother she had to make tough choices? That's a line from one of her campaign commercials.

It's doubtful that even Mother Harsdorf thinks that a bill to help moist snuff in its quest to breath free is good for kids. Well then, what could be her motivation for offering such a stinker?

It is pretty easy to figure out, really, when you know that Harsdorf is a legislative zombie: she's an ALECian. Altria (which used to be Philip Morris, until that name became moist, um, "snuff"), WalMart, the Koch brothers, ExxonMobil, and the Coors family, and the like, who "sponsor" ALEC, do Mother Harsdorf's thinking for her.

Her poor kids.

(Be sure to read Aaron's post at the link about moist snuff and Reps. Mary Liz Holberg, Jenifer Loon, and Speaker Kurt Zellers in Minnesota, too.)

MPR photo (at least that's where I got it)

I smoked, but I did not inhale!

That's Kurt Zellers' comment about ALEC. I'm a member but I'm not active.

AP photo

Alas and ALEC

The American Legislative Exchange Council has received a lot of ink in recent days. One of ALEC's hot button issues is "voter ID," or more accurately voter suppression. It is an initiative aimed directly at poor people, seniors, students, and minorities. There is plenty of Republican dog whistling about not wanting the wrong people to vote, but it's couched in terms of preventing "voter fraud," when only a handful cases have ever been unearthed, and even those are mostly mistake or inadvertance: a felon votes before being "off paper," for example. There was a guy who voted for Norm Coleman in that situation in 2008.

The voter suppression bill that Governor Dayton vetoed was SF 509; it's companion in the House was HF 210.

Mary "Jesus is in my conference room" Kiffmeyer was a chief author in the House; I think she actually carried the bill. Kiffmeyer is even as I write this at an ALEC conference in New Orleans.

Warren Limmer, chief author and carrier of the bill in the Senate, is also an inteesting ALEC case. I emailed his office a couple of times a few weeks ago to ask if he was an ALEC member. After not receiving a response, I called and left a voice message asking the same question.

Some time later, when I was out, Sen. Limmer's LA called an left a message saying that he "had been" a member of ALEC, but was "no longer." The LA didn't say how "had been" his membership was, meaning it could be a long time, maybe the LA licked the envelope shut and mailed the termination of the senator's membership just before placing the call to me. Perhaps someday we'll find out.

In any event, voter suppression efforts in Minnesota do owe a lot to ALEC.

Get in line, sluts

Tom Prichard, grand scold over at the Minnesota Family Council has penned an editorial over at Minnesota Public Radio's website entitled "Best poverty-fighting tool isn't a government program; it's marriage." It's an insidious little bit of stuff and nonsense parading as a reasoned argument.

His premise is this: The poor aren't really poor, but even if they - and by "they" we mean those slutty welfare queen unwed mothers - are, they ought to just get married.

But before he gets there, he can't help but bash the poor along the way, albeit with a little help from his friends at the Heritage Foundation. Whether the poor are "deserving" enough has long been a debate in this country, but suffice it to say that Prichard comes down on the side of Steven Colbert: "If you have the strength to brush the flies off their eyeballs, then you really aren’t poor." I'm sure his Jesus would agree.

But that's not Prichard's main premise (or so he says). Rather, it's that the problem with the poor is that they really just ought to be married.

it's important to realize the best poverty program isn't a government program, but a marriage. A family with children headed by a married couple dramatically reduces the incidence of poverty. A study of Minnesota data by the Heritage Foundation found that 33.2 percent of single-parent, female-headed families with children were living in poverty, compared with only 3.8 percent of married-couple families with children.

The commentary here almost writes itself. A noted anti-gay-marriage activist extolling the economic benefits of marriage without saying anything about how hard he works to deny that right to a large section of the population? A man who tut-tuts about the poverty of single mothers while ignoring the obvious role of the gender wage gap when comparing women-headed households to those headed by a couple with a man in it? A zealot scolding unmarried women who follow his anti-abortion and anti-birth control beliefs and face the obvious end result: motherhood? A man who believes that the poor aren't all that poor because they have refrigerators, but then claims that poverty rates haven't changed in 45 years? A man who pretends to speak for Minnesota families but opposes live saving vaccinations?

That cognitive dissonance must burn late at night in the Prichard body politic.

ALEC's Lackeys: Snuff Edition

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) pushes legislation that benefit the corporations that fund it, and there are no shortage of lackeys in Minnesota to help them carry out their goals.

If you're not familiar with ALEC yet, you should be (here's a very comprehensive primer.) ALEC is primarily funded by corporations that want to push their agenda. They draft legislation that benefit those interests, and "educate" state legislators who share their mission of advancing "Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty."

The corporate interests that bankroll the operation read like a who's who of big Republican donors; the Koch Brothers, ExxonMobil, the Coors family, the Scaife-backed Alleghany Foundation. ALEC's corporate members join (overwhelmingly conservative Republican) legislators on task forces, craft and vote for legislation that they want to see enacted. Then ALEC's lackeys take them home to introduce them in their state legislatures. ALEC brags that over 1,000 bills are introduced by members every year. More than a couple came home to Minnesota this legislative session. Over the next couple of weeks, we'll introduce you to a few of these lackeys and what they are pushing.

The assortment of bills that ALEC has approved and is pushing is breathtaking; covering everything from taxes to torts to telecommunications. ProPublica and ALEC Exposed have put together a handy assortment of tools that you can use like I did to find bills that are being carried on behalf of the corporate interests that fund ALEC. Let's start with a little tiny bill that demonstrates how this operation works.

Bill: HF 1079
Subject: Taxation of Moist Snuff Tobacco
Lackeys: Reps. Mary Liz Holberg, Jenifer Loon, and Speaker Kurt Zellers (and a special BONUS lackey - see below)
Corporation: Altria / Philip Morris

HF 1079 didn't go anywhere this session, it didn't even attract a companion in the Senate. But it's part of a wave of moist snuff legislation sweeping the nation, including our neighbor Wisconsin. Why is that?

Well, it seems that Altria (parent company of Philip Morris and member of ALEC) sells higher priced snuff than its competitors. If the tax on moist snuff is based on price, lower priced snuff is "tax preferenced." If states shift to taxing snuff by weight, then more expensive snuff would be taxed at the same rate. ALEC approved a resolution supporting taxing moist snuff based on weight in 2006. In 2011, Minnesota Republicans were more than happy to help Big Tobacco. The sudden revival of interest in the esoteric issue of ad valorem taxation of snuff couldn't have anything to do with Altria's presence on ALEC's corporate board, could it?

The Center for Media and Democracy focused on the connection between Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and ALEC and noted the moist tobacco legislation as an example. Walker did veto this provision, despite an appeal from an ALEC staffer, Courtney O'Brien. (O'Brien herself is an instructive example of how ALEC works - according to a cached LinkedIn profile, O'Brien moved directly from the Koch Foundation to ALEC.) I promised you a bonus lackey, so here she is: the provision was co-sponsored by Sen. Sheila Harsdorf, facing a recall election on August 9th.

Holberg, Zellers, Loon, and Harsdorf are carrying water for Big Tobacco, through a bill drafted and shared by ALEC. This is how the corporate governance model works when Republicans are in charge.

That's not even close to the end of the story. Minnesota's Republicans have more ALEC bills introduced and ready to move when the Legislature comes back into session.

Follow me on Twitter @aaronklemz

"No New Taxes" loses its cachet

Scott Rasmussen's polling is notoriously unreliable and slanted. Rasmussen polls often feature leading wording, crosstabs require a subscription, and they call landlines only. But if you dig deep enough, some days the leading and the slanting is unintentionally revelatory. Today is one of these days. The revelation? "No New Taxes" has become a losing frame for Republicans.

Today's clumsy headline is "Voters Divided Between Candidate Who Promises Debt Reduction With Only Spending Cuts and One Who Calls for 'Balanced Approach.'" Here's their slant on the results of the poll:

Forty-six percent (46%) of Likely U.S. Voters are more likely to support a candidate for Congress who says the federal debt should be reduced with only spending cuts, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Forty-eight percent (48%) are more inclined to favor a candidate who thinks a balanced approach including spending cuts and increased tax revenue is needed to reduce the debt.

But when you pull the veil back, the news is really bad for Republicans. The poll shamelessly primes respondents to dislike Congress. Here's the questionnaire up to the headline question:

1* How confident are you that your representatives in Congress are actually representing your best interests?
2* Suppose you could vote in the next election on whether to get rid of the entire Congress and start over again. Would you vote to keep the entire Congress or get rid of the entire Congress?
3* Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: No matter how bad things are, Congress can always find a way to make them worse?
4* Suppose in the race for Congress you had a choice between a candidate who said the federal debt should be reduced with spending cuts only and another candidate who said that a balanced approach including spending cuts and increased tax revenue is needed to reduce the federal debt. Other things being equal, which candidate would you be more likely to support?

A plurality of likely voters expressed support for tax increases on the heels of "no matter how bad things are, Congress will make it worse?" That's a testament to how strong the sentiment is in favor of increasing tax revenue among the electorate.

Even more interesting is that this is the second whack at a version of this question that Rasmussen has polled in the last week. Only the version on July 25 returned unwanted results:

Fifty-six percent (56%) of Likely U.S. Voters would be more likely to support a candidate for Congress who said that a balanced approach including spending cuts and increased tax revenue is needed to reduce the federal debt. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 34% would be more likely to favor a candidate who promised to vote against all tax hikes.

Here's the questionnaire for the 7/25 version:

1* Suppose in the race for Congress you had a choice between a candidate who promised to vote against all tax hikes and another candidate who said that a balanced approach including spending cuts and increased tax revenue is needed to reduce the federal debt. Other things being equal, which candidate would you be more likely to support?
2* Suppose at some point in the future that the federal budget is balanced and even produces a small surplus. There would still, however, be a huge federal debt accumulated from earlier years. If there is ever a federal budget surplus, should the money be used to pay down the federal debt, to cut taxes, or to increase government spending?

Notice something missing? Oh, yeah, the three priming questions that encourage respondents to hate on Congress.

So, let's review what we learned from Scott Rasmussen today. First, if you don't like the results in your polling, try again with more slanted questions. Second, the "no new taxes" frame is a loser for Republicans. This can't be good news for 2012, since the extension of the Bush tax cuts was supposed to be the centerpiece issue in the campaign against Obama. Even Scott Rasmussen admits this:

“These results suggest that focusing exclusively on opposition to tax hikes rather than solutions to the federal deficit crisis is a losing position for Republicans,” says Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports. “At a time when the nation has more than $14 trillion in public debt and $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities, voters want to hear how we can limit the burden we are passing on to future generations. Spending cuts are preferred over tax hikes, but the primary objective right now is to reduce the debt.”

In 2012, you may see Democratic candidates labeling their Republican opponents with "No New Taxes" and Republicans shying away from the label. Democrats should focus on the need for new revenue and tax reform; voters are with them on this issue. The "pledge of allegiance to the Grover" that seemed like such a good idea at the time may prove to be an albatross around the neck of some Republican incumbents.

Follow me on Twitter @aaronklemz