A synoptic history of the Constitutional principle of the separation of church and state (updated for 2012*):
James Madison, 1791:Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Thomas Jefferson, 1802:The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment guarantees Americans a wall of separation between church and state. John F. Kennedy, 1960: The separation of church and state is absolute. My church will not dictate my policy decisions.
Rep. Bart Stupack2009: The separation of church and state is a fairy tale. My church will show up at the Capitol steps in a limo to dictate policy.
Rick Santorum, 2012:The separation of church and state is an abomination. "Earlier in my political career, I had the opportunity to read the speech [by JFK to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960], and I almost threw up."
Minute's up.
*Originally published in shorter form in 2009, when I thought the process had probably already reached its lowest point. Now it appears I may have stand ready for further revisions from time to time, as the exigencies of Republican electoral politics require it.
Here's a first-form syllogism offered up by a right-wing blogger to demonstrate why liberal opposition to attacks on women's reproductive freedom is, by definition, unjust:
It is always possible that a liberal will have a just cause to hate something, but if it is a just cause, then a conservative will hate it, too.
Since conservatives don't hate limiting women's reproductive health choices -- in fact, they loves it a whole lot -- this is incontrovertible proof that liberal opposition to such limits is not a just cause.
Quod, as they say, Erat Demonstrandum.
Yeah, and how did the that Civil Rights Act thing work out for you guys?
The quote is via Roy Edroso at , who had the mental toughness to track down representative instances of right-wing bloggers' thoughts on the subject from the last couple of weeks. (Better you than me, sir.) No way I was ever going to link to the original source.
Last week was (possibly) the final GOP presidential primary debate of 2011-2012 -- an event notable, like the earlier debates in the series, for the utter absence of any mention of the 43rd President, George W. Bush.
The neoconservatives (and to a lesser extent [...] the fundamentalist right) are positioning themselves to cut loose of Bush and his ambitions for a "legacy," if it becomes necessary, by denouncing Bush as not a "real neoconservative" (or "real fundamentalist wacko," whichever).
(The fundamentalists are about to get their most fevered wet dream of the last thirty years--the evisceration, if not flat-out overturning, of Roe v. Wade--so they may not be ready to cut Bush adrift yet. Yet.)
But the "movement conservatives," always more loyal to the movement than to the utensil the president, can smell trouble.
Also from p3 in February 2006, a five-part series on “Republican Corruption by the Numbers,” preserving voter-owned elections in Portland, the Bush administration's very-public code of omerta, and an appraisal of Portland's prospects for hosting the 2008 GOP national convention.
Today's toons have been selected by an all-male panel of self-proclaimed experts who have never seen a political cartoon even once in their lives, but firmly believe they know why it's God's will that you should never ever see one yourself, from the week's pages at Slate, Time, Mario Piperni, About.com, and Daryl Cagle:
Bastards. Last August I shared the story of Syrian political cartoonist and caricaturist Ali Ferzat, who was beaten -- specifically including his hands -- for daring to raise pointed questions about the regime of Bashar Al-Assad. Ferzat is an active force on the internet, including Facebook. I recommend that you follow him. And meanwhile, here's a translated statement made during his recovery from the state-sponsored beating. It's not pretty, so use your judgment.
Ann Telnaes asks: Should Lincoln have given his Anti-Contraception Proclamation in 1863? There are those who say that would *really* have freed the slaves . . . ?
The White Seal is the third Rudyard Kipling story that Warner Brothers golden animator Chuck Jones produced in the 1970's. (The others are Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and Mowgli's Brothers.) Their very un-Disneyness is enough to recommend them, apart from Jones's legendary talent at visualizing and story-telling.
If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here.
Last week, FedEx delivered a framed montage of photos from bike touring adventures with long-time p3 correspondent and muse Doctor Beyond, who I'm sorry to say won't be coming back anymore.
Keep every photo. Save every sandwich.
If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here.
The Christianist wing of the GOP has never considered banning abortion as the line in the sand on womens' health care (and personal autonomy); for the right-wing camel train, that's always been a mid-desert oasis stop on the way to banning contraception.
That's now become so clear as to be irrefutable.
Remember a scant three weeks ago, when the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, under the leadership and guidance of former Bush II apparatchik Nancy Brinker and former anti-abortion plank Georgia GOP gubernatorial candidate Karen Handel, cut off SGK funding for Planned Parenthood's breast cancer screening to attack their (budgetarily unrelated and comparatively microscopic) support for legal abortions?
Remember thinking that the right would pay a heavy price for a move that would so obviously put them crosswise with a majority of American women?
Guess what.
In a matter of a few days, the debate has moved beyond that to something that most Americans -- women and men alike -- thought was so thoroughly settled that they may not yet have grasped what it means that it's suddenly in play again: Thanks to the collaboration of the otherwise-issueless Republican party and the Catholic Church, it appears we're actually going to debate -- in America -- in 2012-- with a straight face -- whether contraception should be legally available to adults.
Heaven help us.
Do you cling to the quaint but abruptly outmoded notion that you have a right to control your own body? Hah. Silly goose (or whatever livestock species you prefer). Somewhere, in the poorly-lit basement of the ALEC headquarters, Koch brothers-funded functionaries are pounding away on model legislation to revive the iron maiden and the rack. (Don't laugh; the Obama administration has officially confirmed America's position among the nations who torture. It's essentially the same principle: your own body is not your own if there's a political expedient that requires otherwise.)
This has been my concern about the 2012 GOP presidential primary clown college: Yes, as they move farther and farther into the extreme whackjob right, the odds of a GOP president taking the oath of office next January fades and fades. But even if Obama coasts to an easy re-election, we'll be living in a country where the right to contraception -- which most people thought was settled in 1965, in Griswold v. Connecticut -- is suddenly up for grabs again. And the same with a lot of other issues, where the “center point” will be dragged to the right, through a combination of right-wing intransigence, Obama accomodationism, and news media timidity. And with scarcely measurable damage to the GOP.
And all the while moving jobs back off the radar screen again. How convee-ee-eenient.
Well, fine. Let's press ahead. (Oh yeah -- and can everyone please just shut the hell up and let Jeremy Lin play really good basketball?)
Today's toons have been grudgingly selected by the U.S. Council of Bishops, who would prefer you have no political cartoons at all, from the week's pages at Slate, Time, Mario Piperni, About.com, and Daryl Cagle:
Attention Will Farrell: When even Taiwan's Next Media Animation knows you peaked a decade ago, as a late-night TV sketch comedian (and in fairness, you were good on SNL, but -- dude!), it's probably time to cash it in and wait until they call you for your Comedy Central Roast.
Last week, several newspapers declined to run Doonesbury, for the flimsiest excuse imaginable. By the way, DonorsChoose.com, the nonprofit that was at the center of the brouhaha, was a favorite of long-time p3 correspondent and muse Doctor Beyond, so if you've got a couple of bucks sitting around for a very worthy cause and you appreciated the classy tone that DB lent this operation, you know what to do.
The Comic Curmudgeon offers an insight on high school reunions that confirms my belief I never want to go to one.
Just so: A couple of weeks ago, we featured the first of three Chuck Jones 1976 animated retellings of Rudyard Kipling “Jungle Book” stories. Unlike the Disney version a few years earlier, these hew pretty closely to the original Kipling stories, as you'll see in the second of the series: Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. (Note: It's a 30 minute production, and the embed below is just the first 10 minutes of it. After that just follow the in-screen links to parts 2 and 3.)
If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here.
Our seventh president, Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson, was famous for a number of things: Challenging the plutocrats who were already cozying up to American legislators by 1828; dismantling the National Bank, on much the same logic; and (lest you fear Old Hickory was a little too much “of the people”) forcibly relocating most of the native American tribes in the South to somewhere across the Mississippi.
But the line on his resume that amuses me the most is that he decisively defeated the British at New Orleans -- about two weeks after the Treaty of Ghent had already ended the War of 1812. (Did I mention that Twitter had not been invented yet?)
And for all of you who learned “how a bill becomes law” from Schoolhouse Rock: Chances are pretty good that your parents learned a lot of what they know about American history from Johnny Horton (who also recorded “Johnny Reb,” “Sink the Bismark,” and “North to Alaska,” among others).
From 1959, here's the Grammy-winning “Battle of New Orleans,” written by Jimmy Driftwood and performed by Horton:
If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here.
Here's Charlie Pierce on Booby Prize Senator Scott Brown about to be on the receiving end of a can of whoop-ass from the Dana Scully of 21st century American politics, Elizabeth Warren:
He's still behind, but the race is still tight enough to produce at least 250 strange Texas euphemisms from Dan Rather.
"A good cause is often injured more by ill-timed efforts of its friends than by the arguments of its enemies. Persuasion, perseverance, and patience are the best advocates on questions depending on the will of others." -Thomas Jefferson (1826)
A synoptic history of the Constitutional principle of the separation of church and state (updated for 2012*):
Here's a first-form syllogism offered up by a right-wing blogger to demonstrate why liberal opposition to attacks on women's reproductive freedom is, by definition, unjust:
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