I don’t know what I am wanting with the Republican Alaska Primary, currently in recount mode.  Surely a “Joe Miller” upset of Lisa Murkowski gives an opening for that Democratic candidate — mayor of what counts for a large town in that state.  But the betting odds still tilt heavily toward the Republican.  Better for Murkowski to pull through, end that delusional dream which might be a reality in the last two electoral cycles but not this one, and let stand a tepidly reasonable Republican who likes to legislate a tad.   Alaska is only shade shy of Utah in terms of the no-lose proposition of a “Tea Party Movement” in taking out Republicans in the primary.

There are two more opportunities left for a Tea Party to smite the Republican picked candidate.  Understand, you have to be leery of the whole phenomenon.  It is not just that their incursion discombobulates the “Overton Window”, it is also that the positive upside for the Democrats is limited.  They remain likely to win in this election cycle, occasionally even more likely than the Moderate to Conservative they banished.  But in the case of New Hampshire and Delaware, it converts a likely Republican victory to a likely Democratic victory, and a sure Republican victory to a sure Democratic victory.  For Delaware, it is as the state Party Chair puts it:
“a perennial candidate who lacks the standing in Delaware to get elected to anything.”
For New Hampshire — well, it is interesting to note that the Tea Party Insurgent is endorsed by (according to wikipedia) — FORMER VICE PRESIDENT DAN QUAYLE!!!!

In a previous dias, I could look at the electoral map and see the distinct possibility of a sort of victory of vaguely reasonable Republicans who would anger the Republican base on occasion but whose electoral guide ahead rests on finding ways to assert that they “worked with” the other side and the Democratic President.  Massachusetts gave us Scott Brown.  Absent New Hampshire and Delaware, the only new Republican Senator to join this set of Mainers would be the one that would come out of Illinois.  The Center falls ashunder.

The generics portend a Republican Party thumping.  If this were 2008, Joe Miller in Alaska would lose.  Likewise these other screwballs.

Rand Paul in Kentucky?  He will probably win.  Wouldn’t have won in — certainly not 2006.  The one solace with Rand Paul is the Entertainment Value that the Land of Alex Jones is giving us — every time someone digs apart Paul for criticism, they report on a Thwarted Establishment Conspiracy.  Newspaper Endorsement time should be fun in this regard.

Sharron Angle in Nevada?  She might win, she might lose.  Polls show about two thirds of her voters wish they weren’t voting for her.  But the same might be said about Harry Reid.  Certainly Harry Reid has a lot to tee off in his Negative Campaign ads.  But I suggest he toss in a positive word about himself along the way.  Looking back at other Republican landslides, it may be that Angle falls where Oliver North and Mike Huffington did in 1994 — a Bridge too far.

Ken Buck in Colorado?  Who knows?  You would think that his calling birther conspiracists “Dumb Asses” would be an asset, but it appears he had to walk that comment back a tad.
It is hard to believe that a Wisconsin pol who spoke of global warming as “just sunspot activity” or “just something in the eons of time” could be electable.  But sometimes we falter against Reality.  Study this poll result.  There is no basis in Reality.  It is the basis for the impending series of pointless investigations to hamper anything Obama might do — destructive politics, but your basis of thought comes from the President being Illegitimate just Because he is there, you have nothing else to work with.

Whatever else you can say about Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, he is more “Club for Growth” than “Tea Party”.  But then again, so is the “Tea Party” — except for a pancrea of rightwing populist symbols.
Florida is a weird cluster-f.  Charlie Crist is playing a lot of footsy in party identification, hoping he can amass that nebulous sphere of non-partisan partisans.  Kendrick Meek is running to push away any of Crist’s Democratic supporters.  The problem is that question of how Crist would keep any of his Republican supporters if his Democratic support collapses — his “Center Holding” rests on the center believing the other part of the center will hold with him.  So it is Marc Rubio.

How about that Glenn Beck “9/12 Movement” Tea Party Rally thing at the Washington Monument, where with Sarah Palin in tow he channeled the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr!

He “restored honor“, and his supporters bought up lots of trinkets and took lots of photographs with people in Abraham Lincoln costumes.

It is impossible to overstate Beck’s assessment of the importance of his events. Toward the beginning of Divine Destiny, he stated , “this is the beginning of the end of darkness. We have been in darkness a long time.”  Saturday’s rally, he said, would be a “defibrillator to the spiritual heart of America.” Near the end of the program, he emphatically declared, “We are 12 hours away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America. It has nothing to do with this city or politics, it has everything to do with God Almighty.”

The things on my mind when looking about this event.  Let’s take it as a given, and it is an imprecise comparison, that Glenn Beck is at once the reincarnation of Father Charles Coughlin.  These are types of comparisons bandied about for various figures who use the intimate and emotionally driven nature of radio for certain messianicly delivered political courses.  I haven’t really heard a whole lot of Charles Coughlin — did he do that slow emptypause Drama filled delivery?

Coughlin held mass rallies for the faithful, with various allies of Popular Political Discontent.  Would this make Sarah Palin Huey Long?
To this day, Huey Long has his supporters — people who take his “Share the Wealth” program and argue that it spurred Roosevelt to Action.  It is propped alongside a favorable argument for Hugo Chavez.  It is sort of weird.  The concept of Huey Long’s “Every Man a King” and his brand of “wealth redistribution” essentially having him take $100 from the rich, dispense $50 of it to the poor, and pocketing the rest.  Now that’s Socialism!

Thinking about the “Union Party” effort which had been scearing Roosevelt in adance of his 1936 re-election.

The Union Party was a short-lived political party in the United States, formed in 1936 by a coalition of radio priest Father Charles Coughlin, old-age pension advocate Francis Townsend, and Gerald L. K. Smith, who had taken control of Huey Long‘s Share Our Wealth movement after Long’s assassination in 1935. Each of those people hoped to channel their wide followings into support for the Union Party, which proposed a populist alternative to the New Deal reforms of Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression.

A forgotten figure in that effort was the actual Presidential Candidate, North Dakota Representative William Lemke.  An electoral concept would have Coughlin a man with an impressive following amongst, in particular, urban Catholics, Huey Long with a following in the South, and Townsend an elderly contingent.  Lemke would bring in the “Farm Belt”.  His break with Roosevelt coming around here:

While in Congress, Lemke earned a reputation as a progressive populist and supporter of the New Deal, championing the causes of family farmers and co-sponsoring legislation to protect farmers against foreclosures during the Great Depression.
In 1934, Lemke co-sponsored the Frazier–Lemke Farm Bankruptcy Act, which would have provided for government refinancing of farm mortgages. PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt refused to support Lemke on that issue and ultimately sank the bill.

Personality wise, this contraption fell apart before Election Day.  A lot of huge egos, all striving for their own personal fame and fortune.   There is something puzzling about this group, or at least with Long and Coughlin.  Upon Huey Long’s death, Gerald LK Smith looked around for a movement to jump in front of, and found Francis Townsend.  After his break with him, he went on to a long hate-filled public speaking career publishing newletters with a circulation in the thousands and saying his mission was to “Teach the People How to Hate”.   Various enterprises, jumped to the Isolationist Movement before World War 2.   He blasted away at the Jews and the Communists.  He also built an impressive bible theme park in Arkansas.  Coughlin, of course, came back to radio after the loss (he had promised that if this bid were unsuccessful, he’d quit radio) — whereupon he quit blaming the Bankers for everything and started blaming everything on the Jews.
Something that doesn’t follow with Smith in particular, but also Coughlin.  They blasted away at Communism, finding it under every rock — a Redistribution of Wealth.  The most public part of Gerald LK Smith’s career, when he was most important and influential, came under the tutelege of Huey Long — advancing a  “Share the Wealth” program — the goal of which is right there in the name — and then with Francis Townsend seeking a rather ludicrous pension program.

I guess these things have a way of tripping past left and right.  Consider this, tellingly un-specified reference to Barack Obama — an attack from his Left by a Adolph Reed, Jr. published in the Village Voice in late 1996.
In Chicago, for instance, we’ve gotten a foretaste of the new breed of foundation-hatched black communitarian voices: one of them, a smooth Harvard lawyer with impeccable credentials and vacuous-to-repressive neoliberal politics, has won a state senate seat on a base mainly in the liberal foundation and development worlds. His fundamentally bootstrap line was softened by a patina of the rhetoric of authentic community, talk about meeting in kitchens, small-scale solutions to social problems, and the predictable elevation of process over program—the point where identity politics converges with old-fashioned middle class reform in favoring form over substance. I suspect that his ilk is the wave of the future in U.S. black politics here, as in Haiti and wherever the International Monetary Fund has sway.

Today, the biggest named media figure spelling out a collection of “foundations” that Obama was “hatched” in is Glenn Beck, doing so at a chalk-board.  (The latest mocking tribute from Jon Stewart had him flip over the chalk-board to reveal, simply “News Corp. — $1 Million — Republican National Committee” — well, worth a gander, as is the more complicated earlier marathon performance).  Of course, Beck spells it out the “vacuous to repressive neoliberal” connections with the labels of Left Wing, Radical, or Communists.

There is something in first the Illinois Senate, and than the US Senate, that leads to an item of sympathy with Obama against the professional state Senators and US Senators observing and scoffing at the “Young Man in a Hurry”.  Consider first this exchange as Obama spoke on the floor of the Illinois Senate selling a low watt and entirely appropriate Community College booklet.

HENDON: Senator, could you correctly pronounce your name for me? I’m having a little trouble with it.
OBAMA: Obama.
HENDON: Is that Irish?
OBAMA: It will be when I run countywide.
HENDON: That was a good joke, but this bill’s still going to die. This directory, would that have those 1-800 sex line numbers in this directory?
OBAMA: I apologize. I wasn’t paying Senator Hendon any attention.
HENDON: Well, clearly, as poorly as this legislation is drafted, you didn’t pay it much attention either. My question was: Are the 1-800 sex line numbers going to be in this directory?
OBAMA: Not—not—basically this idea comes out of the South Side community colleges. I don’t know what you’re doing on the West Side community colleges. But we probably won’t be including that in our directory for the students.
HENDON: . . . Let me just say this, and to the bill: I seem to remember a very lovely Senator by the name of Palmer—much easier to pronounce than Obama—and she always had cookies and nice things to say, and you don’t have anything to give us around your desk. How do you expect to get votes? And—and you don’t even wear nice perfume like Senator Palmer did. . . . I’m missing Senator Palmer because of these weak replacements with these tired bills that makes absolutely no sense. I . . . I definitely urge a No vote. Whatever your name is.

One.
Interestingly, the concept of “one” has been broached by Larouche in a number of ways.
In both Houston and San Francisco, the campaigns have been speaking in many classrooms, announcing the campaigns, and directing people to the NAWAPA maps on the website. In all three locations, what is most impressive is the total sweep of activity, centered around the “One” of LaRouche’s forecast, and LaRouche’s solution. Beyond the agitation they are tapping into directly, it’s clear there is an even higher level of response which is “unseen,” as people meet us and then discuss what the campaigns are doing at home and at work.
Well, it fits Bono’s vision and message more clearly than this one did.
In adolescence — middle school and high school — whenever a program of one sort warning us on the dangers of drugs, promiscuous sex, or gangs was inserted into the class, we’d invariably hear that line.  “If I reach just ONE student here, it will be worth it.”  So we enter wikipedia, and see — admist what has been referred to as a “Herschle Kurstofsky Sockpuppet spree”:
(Seriously, if the silly banner alerts just one reader to the exploits of the exceptionally loathsome POV warrior Will Beback, that’s probably the best outcome one could hope for)
As you’d expect, “Paths of Change” has been banned.  In honor of his memory, I have increased the chances that that ONE PERSON will be affected — and will know the horrors of the WIll Beback administration in the Larouche related items on wikipedia.

Other wikipedia sockpuppet deletions this week — a “Dern Tootin“, who wanted to get the bolded part of this into the “Citizens Electoral Council” entry:
The CEC also includes the ”’Australian LaRouche Youth Movement (ALYM)”’, the Australian branch of the International LaRouche Youth Movement.  It was founded in August 2002, and focusses on the economic thought of Lyndon LaRouche as well as what they regard as Australia’s republican tradition, including figures such as John Curtin, King O’Malley, and John Dunmore Lang.
Do the estates of John Curtin, King O’Malley, and John Dunmore Lang object?

(from factnet):  PS. Since I’m posting, I probably should check the election results from this weekend. The CEC got 0.07% of the lower house vote (that’s a swing of -0.15%) and 0.13% in the senate (swing of +0.06%). An unsuprisingly pathetic result, given that this election is significant for it’s swing away from the “major” parties, and given that the financial crisis should have been a dream come true for an organisation who’s been saying “the economic sky is falling!” for so long.Once the numbers are finalised I might look a bit closer (and laugh a bit more) at their election performance now and in the past, if anyone is at all interested.

Captain Boycott edited Kit Coleman in August 2009, remained dormant for a year, then re-emerged with “previous wording implies that the views are universally held, which I don’t believe the case.”  Universal enough, I guess.

We’re galloping straight forward to the Massachusetts primary Day.  Rachel Brown versus Barney Frank.  The Big Mystery that surrounds the Rachel Brown for Congress Campaign is … whatever happened to the One Year Anniversary “Weenie Roast”?  It disappeared off the schedule before the day it would be held, and — even though it was mentioned on the website “wonkette.com”, increasing the chance of “Citizen’s Journalism” of blogging or flickr pointing a camera to bear witness — never showed up again.  Is it buried in one of the LPAC campaign reports?  Or do things like this come into the picture?

The Rachel Brown for Congress campaign asked selectmen to allow a political rally on the town green, but selectmen were hesitant to allow a political rally least it open the green up to other, less suitable, requests.

“There’s a big difference between letting the COA or the Boy Scouts use it and letting a political campaign use the green,” Selectman Kim Roy said. “It opens us up to all kinds of distasteful things.”
Chariman Troy Garron worried that saying no would open up the town to a First Amendment lawsuit, but hesitated to say yes because he agreed with Roy.

Other news from the Rachel Brown for Congress Campaign — she has challenged Barney Frank to a debate.   Eh. As we can see from Barney Frank’s not accepting a debate, he is “chicken” or “ducking” the debate.  And now here I turn to advising the Rachel Brown Campaign on campaign tactics.  Turn to the classic itemes of political theater, tied and true.  Have someone in a chicken costume and someone in a duck costume chasing after Barney Frank.
WITH A HITLER MUSTCHE!!!
Damned it, I should bill them for Political Consultant fees.”
It should be noted that had Larouche been invited to any of the presidential debates, he would surely have won and gone on to become President.  Eight times.  In perpetuality.  As it were, we’re stuck with a hypothetical vice presidential slot:

I’d love to see a RP/LL successful ticket, but I don’t think Lyndon has recovered enough political clout yet.

The campaign, as always, continues:

Join the Rachel Brown campaign for classical concerts of a complete choral work by J.S. Bach (Jesu Meine Freude) and American Patriotic Songs. Let’s defeat that moral degenerate Barney Frank on Sept 14th, and bring beauty and optimism back into politics.

Point / Counterpoint!

This time around, Frank has a completely irrelevant primary challenger, Rachel Brown  whom he will utterly defeat.

Curious

Why wasn’t this titled
“One on One with Democrat Crazy Woman Rachel LaRouche Brown”
I’m confused,there is no thought forming opinion cleverly placed in this report.
Oh, you’re not a cheap,petty,hardcore ideologue,partisan hack liberal.
The two “one on one”s are synonymous?

We turn now to the Kesha Rogers for Congress camapgin.  Rogers has added “NASA” to the NAWAPA formulation, and is running with “NAWPA + NASA = VICTORY!”  Or, she should be.
Okay, nothing’s happening with her campaign.  Let’s turn to the Post Office Campaign.
Mound, Minnesota!

“That is what Hitler and Obama have in common, they believe in killing what they call the end of life years,” a woman seated by the poster told WCCO, before hurling epithets at the camera operator. “You are full of lies and treason. You are the reason we are at war, you are the reason we are bankrupt and the reason Obama is president,” the unidentified woman shouted.
See too!

When further questioned by WCCO-TV, the couple working the booth then called the police and became combative, yelling obscenities at the camera.
“You are full of lies and treason. You are the reason we are at war, you are the reason we are bankrupt and the reason Obama is president,” the unidentified woman shouted. […]
Nick Johnson, a college student from Mound, stopped by the booth to disagree. […]Rick Lenkki of Mound, was passing by and refused to accept the literature.
“I don’t care for Obama either, but the Nazi symbolism is overblown, too far,” said Rick Lenkki.

And over the Rust-belt Tour!

Billington said the group been traveling all over Pennsylvania and New Jersey with their message. He said they go to post offices because it’s a “good place to talk to people.”

See too in the comments:

Sign the petition and get a free snack.

There’s chaos going on in Alaska, but I haven’t had a time to focus in on it.  Watch my comments for a linking and reporting.

On to the Summer Shields Campaign:
where he redefines his campaign as the NAWAPA candidate, and also a town hall meeting with Basement leader, Sky Shields. AND

In San Francisco, rallies with a 30-foot-by-8-foot banner (one might say it is also bigger than Texas!) are causing eyes to bug, tempers to flare, and excitement to flow. The head of an engineering department at a local campus said he wants to be part of an organizing committee for NAWAPA, and we are activating decades’ old LaRouche networks at the area’s scientific labs, who are enthused about NAWAPA.

Don’t discount Rachel Brown yet!

“You’re all talking about a Stevenson victory this second time around. Ah but there is one thing that can reelect Thompson. As you know, Lyndon Larouche has a field of candidates running in the Democratic party against Stevenson’s slate. If some of those candidates were to get through—particularly the candidate for lieutenant governor, Mark Fairchild—Stevenson would be in a terrible bind. He would have a choice of either running with a decided nut for lieutenant governor…someone who says that the Queen of England is engaged in a lesbian love affair with Golda Meir, the prime minister of Israel…or having to leave the Democratic party and run as a third party candidate which would surely cause him to lose to Thompson.”

We all sat transfixed at the theory but were highly skeptical.. Most of the supposedly alert media was reporting that Stevenson’s choice for lieutenant governor, State Rep. George Sangmeister of Frankfort was unopposed. He was a fine lawmaker and his name was well-known to Illinois Democrats. Similarly, Stevenson’s choice for secretary of state was Aurelia Pucinski, the daughter of Roman Pucinski a longtime congressman and alderman and a leader in the Polish community. We dismissed Phil’s analysis as fatuous.

Or, you know.  Do.

This is Gerald Pechenuk; I was the Campagign Manager for the LaRouche Democratic Candidates in the 1980′s and 1990′s.
Phil impressed me as a wise person in the times I heard him speak in various settings, so your report on his forecast of victories by LaRouche candidates certainly shows he had his ears to the ground, and detect a pulse that others, such as David Axelrod, Stevenson’s Campaign Manager at that time, could NOT “SEE,” or “HEAR!”
One irony to be noted in light of a recent trial of an impeached Governor.
Suppose, let’s just suppose for a minute, Adlai, who is still alive and kicking, could add to this picture, suppose Adlai had taken the advice of Sen. Alan Dixon, and Cook County Democratic Chairman Ed Vrodolyak and STAYED ON THE TICKET of the Democratic Party in 1986. HE WOULD HAVE BEEN ELECTED GOVERNOR!!!! (I know some would disagree with that, but I KNOW EXACTLY HOW HE WOULD HAVE ELECTED).
Then Jim Edgar, and George Ryan, and Rod Blagojevich WOULD NEVER HAVE BECOME Governors of Illinois!!!!
And, probably most consequential of all, Adlai Stevenson would have been the Democratic Nominee for US PRESIDENT in 1988 or 1992, and probably gone on to become PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!!!!

So, the threats that were delivered to Adlai to drop off, by Sen. Paul Simon, among others, (again Adlai could be asked to fill in more of the picture here) changed the course of US and World History.

I wonder if Phil Krone can ask a few people from his present vantage point about that!!!!
Or, if not president, Adlai Stevenson III would have become a laughingstock.

“(Hic)
Not Again.”

All right!  The Quayle Family Dynasty is ON!  Time to bring out your old Dan Quayle jokes.

Or, start with the Ben Quayle jokes.

It is another pseudonym, however, that may have a greater effect on Mr. Quayle’s chances of following his father into politics. He was hammered in the primary when the owner of a local risqué Web site said that Mr. Quayle had been an occasional contributor, commenting on the physical attributes of women and using the name Brock Landers, a porn star character in the movie “Boogie Nights.”

Mr. Quayle’s Democratic challenger, a lawyer and businessman named Jon Hulburd, was quick to pounce on Wednesday, issuing a statement saying, “This election is now between Jon Hulburd and Brock Landers.”

Mr. Quayle brushed off the attacks. “You build thick skin being a Quayle,” he said, noting that his father had been giving him this advice: “Don’t let the sideshow get you down.”

There was a strange denoument to this primary campaign — sometime after Ben Quayle, and by extension Dan Quayle, eked a bit into national conciosuness by calling Obama the “Worst President Ever” —   Dan Quayle stepped up to the plate to protect the integrity of his son.

Dan Quayle sent Ben’s supporters an e-mail Monday night, Politico reports, in which he addressed the allegations, writing, “With the recent turn of events, I cannot, in good conscience, remain silent.”

Ben Quayle’s leading opponent, businessman Steve Moak, ran an ad hammering Quayle for his association with the site.

“I took my fair share of outrageous slams in politics, but Steve Moak’s vicious smear against my son is over the top and unprecedented,” Dan Quayle wrote. “I have never in my 35 years of politics seen such an ugly, slanderous assault in the closing days of a campaign against a fellow Republican.”

Now, granted — there is a heck of a lot of Political Nepotism in play in politics, and a lot of people voting essentially for the prefigures of the “jr” running in various seats of influence, and a lot of trading off of names.  But shouldn’t Dan Quayle just be standing there in the background of your Ben Quayle rally?

Skim the comments section and see how many references to a “potatoe” you will find.  Note the Christian Science Monitor article on the “Worst President” comment.  It’s right there in the headline.  “Potatote”.

The Quayle apologists always point to this or that gaffe made by Senator Al Gore during the 1992 presidential campaign, and point out he was elected in Indiana several times.  Which is just as well.  There is no particular point in Quayle jokes these days.  They all morphed into Bush jokes in the last decade — when email chains were passed out that rolled through a bunch of mis-attributed quotations from one that actually belonged to the other.

In today’s climate, we have Palin — who takes the jokes and slings more stridently and seriously than Quayle ever did– and makes war with David Letterman.

A curious thing about Palin.  We keep swerving with a storyline about whether her endorsements are going anywhere.  She endorsed Clint Didier in Washington, and look how that campaign flamed out!  Well, she has a new nomination under her belt in her home state.  Joe Miller tripped up Incumbent Lisa Murkowski off the strength of Palin.  The Democratic National Committee wants to make believe that this is to the Democrats benefit.
I want to believe in the Democratic candidate’s chances.  But really, they don’t believe their words either.

The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday released a memo characterizing the Alaska GOP primary as an example of the “ongoing fued” between the Tea Party movement and the Republican establishment.Meanwhile, questions arose about whether the Democratic party was ready to get behind their candidate — McAdams. As mentioned above, in an interview on Wednesday, DNC spokesperson Brad Woodhouse could not remember his name.
At a press conference that same day, McAdams dismissed speculation that the party may want to replace him with a more well-known candidate, the Alaska Dispatch reports.
One thought for McAdams: supposedly polls show Palin unpopular in her homestate, though apparently still with an edge with her homestate Republican Party.  You’re running against her.  Still probably not going to win with that, but you’re going with your best shots.

But, is Sarah Palin again a “King Maker” once again — never mind Didier?  Well, she’s collecting her chits for whatever it is her national political ambitions are.  I don’t know what we can say about Utah and Alaska trading in their one party Republicans for “Tea Party”ers — at least Florida is giving us a three party choice (eventually Democrats are going to have to take a plunge and make a gut choice, select the Bob Dole backed Crist en masse or hope Meeks can edge in with 40 percent of the electorate), and Pennsylvania is giving two party choice, and from there you down-shift to incumbents not being taken out so much as one given the edge over the other — the lesser Paul in Kentucky, the Nevada question.

I do not know what this is.  It is the type of something that gets placed onto telephone poles and bulletin boards.  But those things tend to direct you to something — a lecture held at some place or other.  This is “Educational Material”, I guess.

“The back of the $2 bill has an engraving of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.  In the image is a man who has dark skin and wearing a powdered wig while sitting at the table just to the left of the man standing in the center of the engraving.  The dark skinned man John Hanson in his position as president of the Continental Congress.  In the original painting hanging in the US Capital Rotunda, the dark skinned man does not appear.”

They Masons are playing tricks with the 2 dollar bill, just as they do with all the less obscure currencies.

Your black Nationalist-ish conspiratorial history runs forward.

“A ‘Black Man’, a Moor, John Hanson was the First President of the United States!  1781-1782 AD???  George Washington was really the 8th President of the United States!”

Yes, I am aware of this lumping of the Continental Congress presidents in with the presidents schtik.  Don’t buy it — one weak chain was replaced by a stronger lineage.  A clean break happened at the launch of President Washington.

The design is cluttered and I don’t understand the placings of MLK, MLK with Malcom X, Nat Turner — I suppose the JFK harks back to the Assassination somehow.

“By Dr. Leroy Vaugn, MD, MBA”  Dynamic, Honest and Powrful View of Black History.

Ah, here we go.  A reference to this.  The author chimes in with the wikipedia article here, in all caps.

AFTER 1865 — SLAVERY

That the title of the book that this flier is sort of but not quite promoting?

The Five Black Presidents of the United States of America
Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge.

We have here a picture of Harding and Coolidge.  And Obama.  I know about the “black” Harding, and how that scandal rolled around the 1920 presidential election.  I can’t say anyting about the supposed others.  Interestingly, the wikipedia article slides Eisenhower into this mix.  And the picture of Obama without mention seems to suggest something like — they claiming he not black?

For the sake of diversity, I could probably gain something to gain a small foothold in the ways of this avenue of “forgotten” “hidden” junk-“history”.

Newsmax aims its vitrol at Bob Dole:
The statement came the same day Washington Examiner columnist Timothy P. Carney revealed that former senator and Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole contributed $1,000 to Crist’s Senate campaign against GOP nominee Marco Rubio. Carney provided the Federal Election Commission record documenting Dole’s cash donation.

Bob Dole is busting out all over!

Chuck Hagel is endorsing Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania.  This will surely galvanize the Nebraskans who live in Pennsylvania around Sestak, a crucial swing vote in the state.  It is telling that the coverage on Hagel’e endorsement runs to the “what is he trying to purchase” route — a job in the Obama Pentagon? — as opposed to something about favoring Sestak.

Meantime, the culture war was declared dead a few months ago by Mitch Daniels, if I recall.  Oddly, a hub-ub over a mosque in New York City.  Another one in Kentucky, somewhere quite far from “Ground Zero”.  I grow weary.  Either we’re making distinctions about Islam in the “War on Terror”, or we’re not.  Either… Either…

Actually that last link posits an interesting point.  We’ve two Republican “star” Indians — soon to be Governor Haley, and Governor Jindal.  Bobby Jindal proved his converted Christian bonafides — though by way of Catholicism, in Catholic state of Louisiana — by performing an exorcism.  Haley had to do this.

So we have Jeff Merkley, Senator of Oregon.  We have Al Franken, Senator of Minnesota.  Neither are Reid, Schumer, or Durbin — the Democratic Leaders in the Senate — both kind of marginally deigned by our political conventional wisdom.

Today’s Primary day.  I’ll be closely watching the meaningless Republican run-off in Oklahoma to decide who loses to Representative Boren in November.

Overheard this weekend:

“Du-u-u-u-de”.  As in five syllables.  Or maybe better called the “Rolled ‘u'”.  I look over to the person who said it.  He looks like you’d expect, and fits the stereotype.

#2: “Way!”
“No Way!”
I think this a progression from Bill and Ted over to Wayne and Garth.  I do not believe the people who had this dialogue fit the stereotype quite as well.  It might have been done with a sense of irony.

A few days ago, I was trying to find the words to a monolouge from the movie “Jaws”.  The bit about a Shark’s eyes being like a dog’s eyes, soulless, and all of that.  I could not find it, and still cannot — my transcript precision is off just enough.
Interestingly, Jaws was played by the Parks and Recreations Summer Movie “Flicks on the Bricks” series, part of the “Movies on the Parks” series.  Of the five or so movies played this summer, the two that caught my eye, that might be worth attending for the movie and ambiance, were “Muppets Take Manhattan” and “Jaws”.  I went to the Muppets one early, didn’t like the general ambiance — a few too many wee ones — and left.  The reality is the only reason I took to Jaws as against this “problem” was that probably I came late for this one.
I did see something interesting there.  I watched a family walk by.  The 15 or 16 year old daughter was wearing a “Kiss” tank-top.  The father had on a Radiohead t-shirt.  The mother — I think Joan Jett, maybe?  “That’s one Rocking Family!”, I thought.  The only one not in proper attire was the pre-teen son, who I’m going to assume is rebelling by focusing all his musical tastes on Beethoven and Bach.

Other less common denominator snuck through at other parks.  This, I assume, came in from a completely different cultural organization.  I meant to see that one, but somehow missed it.

The “Shark’s eye” dialogue popped up in Jaws, toward the end.  The thing is, my reference point for it is topsy-turvy.  I know it less from Jaws and more from a parody on the Chris Elliott tv show “Get a Life”.  Such is the way of things.  Several years back, I read an essay from a teacher (college professor, I assume) who watched a reference point for his classes for a particular pop culture item shift from Tom Cruise in his underwear lip synching “Old Time Rock and Roll” in Risky Business to Alf in underwear lip-synching “Old Time Rock and Roll”, not knowing fully the source material.  I’m temtped to suggest that if he’d waited a few years, everyone would know it from Homer Simpson, and lose the belief that the Simpsons was parodying Alf.

These things have supposedly warped into hyperdrive.  Take something like this, for instance.  These things have proliferated, warping pop cultural points of reference.  It also takes new dimensions to the old debates — if the creatives that are creating these things were to channel their energy into something more substantial, would we have a new generation of Shakespeare?  Or, perhaps these disposable (more so than ever) diversions are just what we need — and the alternative is turgid didactic overhype.

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Other things seen: “I’m on Team Jacob” Twilight bag.  I assume there’s a “I’m on Team” Whoever the supernatural creature that is not Jacob bag.  I give props to the Republican Candidate in 2012 who runs against Claire McCaskill if they bring the Supreme Court question up in the course of the campaign.  Hard to say if I’m being sexist with that — throw me an equally inane male dominated pop cultural Senate item and I’ll see if my reaction is the same.