Streams Of Consciousness

Since my John Wayne random quote went over so well last night, I found another one-- from the same 1971 Playboy interview-- for tonight. Looks like African-Americans weren't the only ethnic group the right-wing icon had some antipathy for. Even off camera he didn't cotton to Native Americans much-- or at least didn't seem to be able to walk a mile in their shoes:

"I don't feel we did wrong in taking this country away from the Indians. There were great numbers of people who needed new land and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves."

Which circle of hell is that again? The fourth is for avarice. Of course, the seventh (for violence), eighth (for fraud) and ninth (for treachery) are far worse places to spend eternity, according to Dante... but what does he know?

Miss McConnell, Caught In A Deadly Obama/DeMint Pincer, Raises His White Boxers On A Stick And Surrenders On Earmarks

Jerry Lewis (R-CA) must be flipping out but it looks like earmarks will be going the way of the dodo bird. McConnell, a major earmarker from way back, could no longer take the intense pressure from both Obama and DeMint, DeMint backed by whatever power the teabaggers are reckoned to have.

In a floor speech, McConnell said: "There is simply no doubt that the abuse of this practice has caused Americans to view it as a symbol of the waste and out-of-control spending that every Republican in Washington is determined to fight.

"And unless people like me show the American people that we’re willing to follow through on small or even symbolic things, we risk losing them on our broader efforts to cut spending and rein in government," McConnell said. 

McConnell has been a staunch defender of earmarks, arguing that banning them simply cedes spending authority to the executive branch.

He acknowledged in a floor speech Monday that he was “not wild” about the ban, but said the “only way” to turn the corner on spending would be to make “difficult decisions.”

McConnell refused to apologize for his own earmarks. "Make no mistake, I know the good that has come from the projects I have helped support throughout my state," he said. 

“I’m not wild about turning over more spending authority to the executive branch," McConnell added. 

The Senate GOP conference is expected to hold a vote Tuesday on DeMint's voluntary ban.

Maybe This Is A Big Deal For The Kids

Today the Wall Street Journal reported that Steve Jobs is nearing the end of his long and winding pursuit of the Beatles catalog. Apple is about to announce that iTunes will finally be selling Beatles music.

Even as recorded-music sales have plummeted, the Beatles have remained one of the most reliable franchises in the business. In 2009, 39 years after breaking up, they sold the third-highest number of albums of any act in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan, with 3.3 million copies sold.

In the past decade, the Beatles sold the second-highest number of albums of any artist (trailing Eminem by 2 million units), and the second-highest number of albums since SoundScan launched in 1991 (Garth Brooks has sold more), according to SoundScan.

The only significant holdouts left not selling through iTunes are Metallica, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead, and Tool.

I Found A Mistake In Markos' New Book

I'm loving American Taliban and I ration a few pages a day so I can stretch it out. And today I found a mistake. Markos was expanding on the assertion that "The American Taliban's longstanding attitude is that women who wear revealing clothes or unmarried women who have sex deserve the consequences of sexual assault, rape, sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, etc." That's all perfectly true and well reflected in the attitude towards women in both Afghanistan and Alabama. But then Markos let his guard down for a moment to make a point:

Unlike Muslim extremists who want to stone or give public lashings to women who sexually misbehave, our American fundamentalists simply want to let them die.

This is partially true of the American Taliban-- but not for the hardest of the hard core. Take newly elected Florida psychopath Daniel Webster. This fringe maniac is a devout follower of cult fanatic Bill Gothard whose crackpot "religion" specifically does call for stoning-- and stoning to death-- women who misbehave. Let me throw in some B.E. Wilson:

As I've detailed in a recent Alternet story, Daniel Webster's intimate, over three decade long involvement with evangelist Bill Gothard appears similar to a classic guru-disciple or mentor-pupil relationship and has included speaking multiple times at Gothard's conferences, traveling with Gothard to Korea in 1996, using Bill Gothard's material to homeschool his six children, making an instructional video for Gothard's Institute For Basic Life Principles, and, when Webster became speaker of the Florida legislature in 1996, hiring four of Gothard's IBLP employees as high-level Florida State House staffers.

As I describe in my Alternet story, Alan Grayson's GOP Opponent Directly Tied to Christian Group That Wants Permanent Subordination of Women, according to the Vice President of the Chalcedon Institute, before the institute's founder, father of Christian Reconstructionism R.J. Rushdoony, died, Rushdoony nearly struck a deal with Gothard that would have allowed him to distribute Rushdoony's Institutes of Biblical Law book, a template for implementing Biblical law in government.

Rushdoony was a virulently racist Holocaust denier who believed in Geocentrism, the proposition that the Sun, and all the heavens, rotate around the Earth, which is the center of creation.

Although the deal fell through because the two men held clashing positions about divorce (Gothard wanted to ban it altogether) they otherwise were in agreement including, apparently, on R.J. Rushdoony's vision of instituting stoning as a form of capital punishment for murder, adultery, homosexuality, idolatry, apostasy, and witchcraft.  
 
Asked about his 1996 trip to Korea with Bill Gothard, Daniel Webster told the Florida Gainesville Sun, for an August 5th, 1996 story, "I respect (Gothard) as much as anybody. I wouldn't have gone [with Gothard to Korea] but he wanted me there."

Interviewed for a February 16, 1997 story from the Florida newspaper the St. Petersburg Times, Webster stated, on Gothard, "I enjoy the advice he's given. I think it's been a major part of my life. I'm not ashamed of that. What he has said I believe to be the truth."

You see why the new congressman from Orlando is called "Taliban Dan?"

And Ole Steny...


He wasn't just the go-to-guy for the Blue Dogs, particularly the Blue Dogs who voted more frequently with the Republicans than with their own party. Now we find out, courtesy of another member of the Wall Street fraternity, that Steny is the Republicans' favorite Democrat too-- and not just because he and Boehner would rather be golfing. "Steny," says Ryan, "talks to us." Yeah, I bet he does.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the incoming chairman of the House Budget Committee, suggested Republicans get along best with Hoyer, the second-ranking House Democrat who will stay in the No. 2 position in the next Congress.

"I get along pretty well with Steny. He's the only one we really talk to," Ryan said Monday morning on CNBC. "I don't know Nancy Pelosi. I had a 30-second conversation with her about six years ago, and that's about it."

...The Maryland Democrat is seen as an emissary to centrist Democrats in the House. And the incoming Republican majority, Ryan suggested, might see Hoyer as a better option for outreach compared to Pelosi, who will stay on as Democratic leader.