Frankenstein's Monster and the Tea Party

"It's Alive!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H3dFh6GA-A

Frankenstein

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1mV_5-bRPo

Tea Party

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVzyGQPgVN8

Teabaggers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y

   Remember the good old days when Tom "The Hammer" Delay, ruled the House of Representatives as Republican Majority Leader during the Bush (George W) years?  He would cajole, bully, and threaten members of his own party to get bills passed, often just by one vote (in the 108th Congress, a preliminary Medicare vote passed 216-215, a vote on Head Start passed 217–216, a vote on school vouchers for Washington, D.C. passed 209-208, and "Fast track", usually called "trade promotion authority," passed by one vote as well. Both political supporters and opponents remarked on DeLay's ability to sway the votes of his party, a method DeLay described as "growing the vote" -Wikipedia) He would have lobbyists help write bills. He would threaten other Republican House members with primary challenges for those members if they would not vote the way he wanted. He would force members to take turns voting on bills that might be unpopular in their home districts in order to garner enough votes to get that bill passed.  And he raised a lot of money for his fellow Republicans candidates.

   As biological anthropologist and science communicator Greg Laden points out:

   "An anchor was pressing the two guests about this difference in strategy, challenging them with the idea that the Republicans were better at this sort of thing because they were coordinated and in lockstep. The word “lockstep” was used. Every single Republican will vote the same exact way on the health care reform bill (against health care). The Democrats, on the other hand, will be more diverse in their voting patterns and are currently more diverse in their arguments and positions on various aspects of each issue.

   I made the point in an earlier post (Discordant Democrats vs. Republican Dittoheads) that Republicans work in lock step and simply do whatever they are told. I’m not talking (necessarily) about the average Joe the Plumber Republican. I’m talking about elected officials with law degrees. The average United States Senator or Representative who happens to be a Republican needs not think, read, or consider."

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2009/08/28/lockstep-republicans-stoopid/

      Personally I find Mr. Delay an incredibly loathsome individual, barely above "monster" status (I don't care how well he can dance ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aGZ9-l2GNM )) due to his work in 2000 regarding human rights offenses toward workers in the Northern Mariana Islands.

   Nationally known columnist and commentator Mark Shields,  wrote for CNN:

   "Moved by the sworn testimony of U.S. officials and human-rights advocates that the 91 percent of the workforce who were immigrants -- from China, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh -- were being paid barely half the U.S. minimum hourly wage and were forced to live behind barbed wire in squalid shacks minus plumbing, work 12 hours a day, often seven days a week, without any of the legal protections U.S. workers are guaranteed...

   Because they were produced in a territory of the United States, garments traveled tariff-free and quota-free to the profitable U.S. market and were entitled to display the coveted "Made in the USA" label.

   DeLay traveled with his family and staff over New Year's of 1997 on a Jack Abramoff scholarship endowed by his client, the government of the territory to the Marianas, where golf and snorkeling were enjoyed.

   DeLay fully approved of the working and living conditions. The Texan's salute to the owners and Abramoff's government clients was recorded by ABC-TV News: "You are a shining light for what is happening to the Republican Party, and you represent everything that is good about what we are trying to do in America and leading the world in the free-market system."

   Conservative Republican Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Frank Murkowski wrote a bill to extend the protection of U.S. labor and minimum-wage laws to the workers in the U.S. territory of the Northern Marianas, which the Senate unanimously passed, but which Delay shot down for consideration, and later blocked a fact-finding mission planned by Rep. Peter Hoekstra by threatening him with the loss of his subcommittee chairmanship.

   Nice guy.

   Currently he is appealing a conviction for money laundering and a three year prison sentence and free on bail. He was indicted in 2005, found guilty in 2010, and still free. For some Texas justice is very slow.

   I'll celebrate when they finally get around to locking him up.

   But I digress.

   Well the good old days seem to be long gone, at least for the Republican leadership in the House, thanks to the Tea Party.

   Polls tend to show Tea Party supporters as being mainly white (as a matter of fact it was considered exceptionally difficult to find any people of color at the early Tea Party protests) and slightly more likely to be male, married, older than 45, more conservative than the general population, and likely to be more wealthy and have more education (although slogans on signs at rallies like "Keep your government hands off of my medicare" tend to discount the later). The idea was a grassroots movement advocating some type of strict constitutionalism (I guess they didn't think the Supreme Court was doing a very good job), reducing the size of government, its spending, lowering taxes, and it was definitely against Obamacare (although reducing the federal deficit should be a stated goal, which the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will accomplish (The 2011 comprehensive CBO (Congressional Budget Office) estimate projected a net deficit reduction of more than $200 billion during the period 2012–2021. CBO estimated in March 2011 that for the 2012–2021 period, the law would result in net receipts of $813 billion, offset by $604 billion in outlays, resulting in a $210 billion reduction in the deficit).

   Since its inception the Tea Party has been usurped by groups like Americans for Prosperity, funded by the Koch brothers ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdeSsnjuS0Y ) and FreedomWorks (also funded by David Koch), so it's claim to be a movement of and by the people is dubious at best.

   The Occupy Wall Street movement is a grassroots group, of and by the people, but unlike the Tea Party it had, and has, seemingly no political agenda. The Tea Party however, almost totally identifying with the Republican Party, sent it's members to Congress.

   In the 2010 midterm elections Tea Party endorsed candidates upset established Republicans in several primaries, such as in Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Nevada, New York, South Carolina, and Utah. 138 candidates backed by Tea Party support ran for Congress, 129 were running for the House and 9 for the Senate, with 32 percent winning seats, which gave them approximately 14 percent of the seats in the House, a significant percentage.

   The newly seated Tea Party candidates first made themselves nationally known during the mid -2011 debt ceiling crisis, in which these elected officials refused, under principle, to extend the governments ability to borrow funds to keep the government running and paying it's debts. Then Presidential candidate and Tea Party Caucus founder, Michelle Bachmann, actually advocated for the House to let the government default on its payments for the first time in the nation's history, and it almost did, causing  Standard & Poor's credit rating agency to downgrade the long-term credit rating of the United States government also for the first time in its history, from AAA to AA+, leading to the Sequestering agreement that has led to our current so-called Fiscal Cliff  crisis.

   This wasn't exactly the outcome the established Republican leadership, in the form of Speaker of the House John Boehner, was hoping for.

   What he was hoping for was some measure of control over his supposedly party membership that other speakers had enjoyed up until then. But he had none. What he had was 14 percent of the House that were complete ideologues pursuing their own agenda without regard to their party or the country as a whole. If the country went down the financial tubes, so be it, as long as taxes were not raised and the government's ability to borrow money was curbed, and subsequent spending by said government was lowered. They considered no actual real world consequences to their actions. They were like little kids, completely and totally irresponsible. What Boehner had was 61 identified Tea Party Representatives (25% of Republicans), out of 242 Republican seats, with 193 Democrats who were unlikely to help him very much

   What he had was a Republican Frankenstein's Monster, created from a frustrated and angry Republican electorate, which once brought to life, turned against its master, creating nothing but chaos and turmoil within its wake.

   I doubt that even Charles and David Koch anticipated this happening. As a matter of fact I know they didn't, considering the lowering of the countries credit rating wasn't good for their own bottom line.

   Since the last election the Tea Party has lost influence ( http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/us/politics/tea-party-its-clout-diminished-turns-to-fringe-issues.html?emc=eta1&_r=0 ), but it can still screw up the Speaker's plans.

   A week ago Speaker Boehner was trying to pass his "Plan B" resolution to the Fiscal Cliff problem we're still facing. It was a mostly symbolic attempt to place the onus of solving this issue back on the Democrats because once sent to the Senate it had absolutely no chance being taken up, let alone passing.

   But he couldn't even get his own Bill passed through his own Republican controlled House.

   " House Republican leaders abruptly canceled a vote on the bill after they failed to rally enough votes for passage in an emergency meeting about 8 p.m. Within minutes, dejected Republicans filed out of the basement meeting room and declared there would be no votes to avert the “fiscal cliff” until after Christmas. With his “Plan B” all but dead, the speaker was left with the choice to find a new Republican way forward or to try to get a broad deficit reduction deal with President Obama that could win passage with Republican and Democratic votes.

   What he could not do was blame Democrats for failing to take up legislation he could not even get through his own membership in the House." -Jonathan Weisman, New York Times.

   Plan B apparently called for ending the Bush (George W) tax cuts for those earning more than $1 million, which the Tea Party members of Boehner's party could not stomach, so they refused his entreaties to get it passed, turning on their leadership, and putting the Speaker's job at stake when he comes up for reelection next Thursday.

   Like the monster in Mary Shelley's Gothic novel, the Tea Party may cause the death of its own creator, or leader.

   And it certainly isn't doing the country any good either.

Further Up Yonder, A Message from the International Space Station to All Humankind

NASA Television shares this inspiring production by Italian videomaker, Giacomo Sardelli, about the International Space Station, its inhabitants, and its role in space exploration. Sardelli writes of the video, "I'm not the first one to use NASA's pictures taken from the International Space Station to craft a Timelapse video. You can find many of them on the Internet, that's where my inspiration came from. What I wanted to do, though, was to look beyond the intrinsic beauty of those pictures, and use them to tell a story and share the messages sent by the astronauts who worked on the station in the last 11 years."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AmS20epgSOY

Lions, and Tigers, and Fiscal Cliff... Oh My!

Young Turks from last June

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQUaUt7QMwM

Jon Stewart

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/30/jon-stewart-bashes-fiscal-cliff_n_2217580.html

President Obama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emRKsFglVJ0

Entitlement: noun: The fact of having a right to something. The amount to which a person has a right.

   I saw the new "Lincoln" movie the other night... I had no idea that our 16th President was a  vampire killer.
   Well someone's got to do it I suppose.  
   Sadly, this may be the very last post here at Joyce's Take, as tomorrow marks the end of the Mayan 13th b'ak'tun of the  Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, which of course will trigger a huge solar flare, which will spew huge amounts of massless neutrinos at our planet, which will cause the huge core of the Earth to heat up, which will cause the end of the world (except for those lucky enough to get on those damn arks in Tibet).
   On the off chance that this doesn't happen, and we somehow survive... we'll continue with this post.
   I suppose we should discuss all of the manufactured brouhaha surrounding this so-called fiscal cliff that's been in the news since the election.
   What is the fiscal cliff? Glad you asked.
   The actual term (popularized by chairman of the Federal Reserve and fear monger Ben Bernanke) refers to automatic cuts in federal revenue (taxes) and spending (in defense (yes, yes, yes!) and domestic programs (everything except Social Security, Medicaid, federal pay (including military pay and pensions), and veterans' benefits)  to the tune of about a trillion smackaroos.
   What are the consequences of this happening if it were to occur? Good question!
   Our country would go a long way toward reducing the federal deficit and balancing the budget, which the Republicans claim to be oh so concerned about ("It's the single greatest problem our nation faces," they are always saying. But they seem to only care about it when a democratic President is in office, because they sure didn't care about it when Bush was around. Wonder why?).
   Well, isn't that a good thing?
   Yeah, I guess so. I mean that's what the Republicans say they want more than anything else, so of course, the Democrats let them frame the debate and follow them along like little doggies (although most real economists state the deficit is not the greatest problem our nation faces. What is? Lack of economic growth (i.e., jobs)).
   But there is one little problem... and this is where the "cliff" part comes in, those pesky economists also claim that such a rapid reduction in revenue and spending at the same time will throw the country into a minor recession.
   Oh my!
   But that's unlikely to happen for a number of reasons that we'll go into a little bit.
   As the Jon Stewart clip above suggests, when you listen to the corporate media about the Republican House of Representatives and the Democratic Senate can't coming up with a deal to avoid these automatic cuts you would think the world was ending (could this be tied in with the Mayan doomsday scenario somehow? Coincidence or no? We'll see tomorrow, won't we?)
   So how did we get into this predicament? Another good question!
   The lovely but brain dead Sarah Palin blamed Obama for the fiscal cliff just yesterday, as she cried about him being named Time's Person of the Year ("What has he done?! Please tell me?! What has he done to deserve this!?")
   Well President Obama didn't have anything to do with it. The present fiscal cliff situation we find ourselves in is a direct result of Congress not doing it's job.
   You're not hearing that in most media outlets right now I bet. Oh no, they'd like everyone to forget about that little fact.
   Yeah, it's true. Last year during the debt ceiling debacle their answer to the deadlock between the House and Senate (with the support of the President) was to set up a Super Committee to come up with a bipartisan  resolution to the problems like the very same issues we're talking about now, revenue vs spending cuts. This Super Committee (not a regular committee mind you, but a Super one) was created with this stipulation; if they couldn't come up with a solution to the problem, said problem would be kicked down the road in the form of the fiscal cliff we now face, and therefore giving Congress permission to do what it loves to do the most... nothing.
    The Super Committee, being bipartisan, failed completely, and now we have the fiscal cliff.
   If we were to fall over this cliff what exactly would happen, and who would it happen to?
   The Bush tax cuts would expire, for one thing. Not just for the wealthy but for everybody, and as President Obama pointed out in the third clip above, a family making $50,000 a year would wind up paying about $2,000 more in taxes. But everything is negotiable, and even if we were to fall over the cliff, tax hikes for the middle class don't have to happen.
   "If the nation goes over the so-called "fiscal cliff" and tax rates return to what they were under Bill Clinton, Democrats can then introduce a tax cut for everyone earning under $250,000 and make it retroactive to the start of the year.
   They can combine it with a spending bill that makes up for most of the cuts scheduled to go into effect in January. Republicans would be hard-pressed not to sign on." -Robert Reich
   Mr Reich, economist and former Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton, wrote the above today wondering why it was that the President and democratic members of Congress are considering offering a cut in Social Security benefits (the first time Social Security has been offered up as a bargaining tool since it's creation, which in itself represents a troubling precedent, considering Social Security has been the greatest and most successful social program ever created and does not add a single penny to the national deficit) in the form of reduced cost of living increases that occur each year for beneficiaries (this is what the Republicans like to call "Entitlement Reform." As the definition of the word "entitlement," seems to be connected to a "right," that is bestowed upon us by a bestower. But this isn't the case with Social Security. Social Security is an insurance program that workers pay into throughout their working lives. It's an insurance policy against becoming disabled or getting old. One of the two are probably going to happen to us as time goes by. Now I don't know about you, dear readers, but I wouldn't call a similar program, such as collecting on a health insurance, or life insurance policy an entitlement)
   Mr. Reich continues: "Even Social Security's current cost-of-living adjustment understates the true impact of inflation on elderly recipients, who spend far more on health care than anyone else - including annual increases in Medicare premiums."
   Who would benefit the most by avoiding the fiscal cliff? Defense contractors, the health industry, companies that pay large dividends, financial services companies... in other words the entities that control Congress.
   Still, even with all the concessions the Democrats seem willing to make at the expense of the middle class (it's unlikely the President or people in Congress will ever have to rely on Social Security), the Republicans in the House are so screwed up they can't even pass their own budget plan, let alone compromising with their Democratic counterparts to stave off the cliff that's coming.
 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/us/politics/house-moves-toward-vote-on-boehners-backup-plan.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20121221&_r=0
   I think we're going to go over, and you know what, I don't care. I'm tired of the games and BS. They'll have to come to some compromise early next year. Will see what happens then.
   Of course if the President and the members of Congress really wanted to fix the budget deficit and balance the economy, there are many other actions that could be applied to help do just that. Below is a list of 10 things that Zach Carter, the Huffington Post's Senior Political Economy Reporter, came up with, along with some comments of mine, and the odds that they'll be put into effect:
1. Prison Reform. Releasing elderly convicts unlikely to commit crimes, offering treatment or counseling as an alternative to prison for non-violent offenders, slightly shortening the sentences of well-behaved inmates, and substituting probation for more jail-time -- Savings = Approximately $68 billion a year. Probability of it happening: It depends. State run facilities have a higher chance of initiating reform than private prisons like Corrections Corporation of America where the incentive is to house as many prisoners as possible. The cost/benefit ratio of using private prisons has not proven to be beneficial to state governments.
2. End the Drug War. The federal government spends more than $15 billion a year investigating and prosecuting the War on Drugs. As drug war budgets balloon, drug use escalates. In addition to saving all the money spending investigating, prosecuting and incarcerating drug offenders, the government could actually regulate and tax drugs like marijuana, generating new revenue. It is estimated that California alone could earn $18 billion a year in American dollars by fully legalizing pot and taxing it. If the federal government reversed it's nonsensical stance on marijuana it's tax revenue increase would be even greater, not to mention the effect this policy would have on foreign drug cartels. Probability of it happening: In the current political environment... 0%.
3. Let Medicare Negotiate With Big Pharma. This is a no brainer. Medicare currently spends about $50 billion a year on prescription drugs. According to economist Dean Baker, Americans spend roughly 10 times more than they need to on prescription drugs as a result of our unique intellectual property standards.
   These savings for the government, of course, would come from the pockets of major pharmaceutical companies, currently among the most profitable corporations the world has ever known. They also exercise tremendous clout inside the Beltway. President Barack Obama even guaranteed drug companies more restrictive -- and lucrative -- intellectual property standards in order to garner their support for the Affordable Care Act. Probability of it happening: 0% during the remainder of President Obama's second term.
4. Offshore Tax Havens. Estimated savings of tax revenue approximately $500 billion a year by some. Mr. Carter estimates... $100 billion. I don't care who is right. That's a lot of money. Probability of it happening: 20% during the remainder of Obama's time in office.
5. De-privatize Government Contract Work. Over the past decade, the federal government's staffing has held steady, while the number of federal contractors has increased by millions. On average, contractors are paid nearly double what a comparable federal employee would receive for the same job, according to the Project On Government Oversight. Probability of it happening: 0% during the remainder of President Obama's second term.
6. Print More Money. Inflation -- isn't such a bad idea during periods where much of the citizenry is drowning in debt. Since the United States borrows money in its own currency, the government always has the option of printing more money to finance its deficits. This can ultimately lead to inflation.  Today, when 10.8 million homes are underwater -- meaning borrowers owe banks than their houses are worth, moderate inflation could ease that debt burden. By effectively reducing monthly bills, moderate inflation could actually put more money in the pockets of these homeowners to spend elsewhere, thus stimulating the economy.
   This may be one of the reasons that folks like Rick Perry of Texas got so upset with the idea of the federal government printing more cash last year. He must of realized that policy just might work, and thus hurt his, and the Republican's chances to gain the White House. Probability of it happening: The Federal Reserve can do this anytime it wishes.
7. Print Less Money. The government prints a lot of $1 bills. But it turns out that minting $1 coins is much, much cheaper. Over the course of 30 years, the government could save $4.4 billion by switching from dollar bills to dollar coins. Probability of it happening: 0% during the remainder of President Obama's second term.
8. Immigration: Less Detention, More Ankle Bracelets. The government spends $122 per person, per day [that's almost like $44,530 a year. Considering 369,000 immigrants are detained annually these days, and let's say the average time of detention equals six months, that adds up to approximately $82,165,785,000 a year in annual costs] detaining immigrants who are considered safe and unlikely to commit crimes. The government has plenty of other options available to monitor such people, at a cost of as little as $15 per person [which comes to an annual cost of $1,010,137,500, a savings of $81,155,647,500.27]
   For the first 205 years of America's existence, there was no federal system for detaining immigrants. The process began in 1981. Under who? Ronnie Reagan. Just one of the wonderful things he did to screw up this country.  Probability of it happening: 0% during the remainder of President Obama's second term.       
9. Financial Speculation Tax. Some estimate revenue might be between $350 billion and $1.5 trillion a decade. Mr. Carter estimates about $150 billion a year, which is almost exactly $1.5 trillion every ten years. Who is right? Again, who cares?! That's a lot of money!  And money that's not coming from the middle class, social programs, and Medicare and Medical, or Social Security. Probability of it happening: 0% during the remainder of President Obama's second term.       
10. Carbon Tax. Taxing greenhouse gases would generate $80 billion a year right now, and up to $310 billion a year by 2050, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution. It would also help avert catastrophic ecological and economic damage from climate change. It might help, but it looks like we've already passed the point of no return concerning climate change. We'll discuss this in more detail shortly, but for now here's a harrowing article by Chris Hedges:
Stand Still for the Apocalypse (and not Mayan):
http://truth-out.org/news/item/12949-chris-hedges-stand-still-for-the-apocalypse
   Probability of it happening: 0% during the remainder of President Obama's second term.   
   Here's a link to Mr Carter's article:   
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/30/fiscal-cliff-10-ways-obama-congress-_n_2215099.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
   And as myself, and Mr Reich, and Paul Krugman, and a host of others have repeatedly stated, here's Mr. Carter's argument for stimulus spending:
   There's an old axiom in the investment business that applies to the federal government, as well: You have to spend money to make money. Paradoxically, the U.S. fiscal position would likely be better off if the government simply spent more money. When the economy is booming, government spending can easily be wasteful. But when the economy is not meeting its capacity, the government needs to step in to give it a boost, according to several schools of economic thought. At a time when there are more than four job applicants for every job opening, the economy is clearly not meeting the demand for work, and the government can productively step in by spending money to hire people and get things back on track. By boosting long-term economic growth through short-term spending, the government could actually ease the deficit by ponying up money right now.
   Oh, another idea. Reform business subsidiary entitlements (true entitlements that businesses think they are entitled to), as in ending them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/us/how-local-taxpayers-bankroll-corporations.html?emc=na
   Oh yeah, we could lift the cap on taxing Social Security payments, taxing all income, not just the first $100,000. That would solve the entire budget deficit problem right then and there.
   But it seems that Congress and the President aren't really interested in doing that.
   They say they are.
   But they lie.

Happy Birthday Ray Walston!

"My Favorite Martian" Theme Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccd7sVSpDzI

   Ray Walston's Death
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNUQm5TKGgI

AT&T Commercial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAohs_EElnw


Picture Legend:
1. Ray
2. In 1957's "Kiss Them For Me," with Cary Grant and Jane Mansfield
3. In "South Pacific"
4. As the Devil in "Damn Yankees"
5. As Uncle Martin, in "My Favorite Martian"
6. "The Sting," with Newman and Redford
7. Mr Hand, in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"
8. As Candy, in "Of Mice and Men"
9. As Glen Bateman, in "The Stand"
10. As Judge Henry Bone, in "Picket Fences"
11. As Boothby, In "Star Trek, Voyager"

   It is my great pleasure and honor to celebrate the birthday today of one of my favorite character actors who for over 60 years entertained us on stage, television, and screen, Mr. Ray Walston!

   This is what he said though about character actors: "I'm an actor and that's it -- period. Producers and studios have thrown many things at me over the years: comedy, tragedy, drama, drawing-room comedy. I've managed to keep my head above water in most of these genres, but I don't put myself in any one category like "comic actor" or "musical-comedy" actor."

   I agree. Mr. Walston was exceptionally versatile and proficient in whatever role he found himself in. If I were to chose one common trait that shined most consistently in his work through the characters he portrayed, it had to be an air of wisdom... let's make it two traits... and humanity. Wisdom and humanity, not only the talk, but the walk as well.

  Like many of us Ray started his long career at an early age as a relatively small infant, being born in New Orleans, Louisiana which was named after Philippe d'Orléans, Duke of Orleans, Regent of France (some say Laurel, Mississippi, which was named after Stan Laurel, of Laurel and Hardy fame). He wasn't born with the first name of Ray though. Herman was his first first name. Later he would change it to Ray, which was my own father's first name.

   Good choice.

   His parents, Mittie and Harry Norman Walston were working class people of modest means. Harry worked with lumber I'm told.

   I'm going to call Herman Ray from now on. I hope you don't mind.

  When Herman grew up a little he often attended the local movie house, where silent films intrigued him, and he became passionate about acting. It was hard times though during the Great Depression. Still he started acting at an early age as an extra on productions at many New Orleans theaters. He mostly played small roles with stock companies, and he scored a job in a movie theater, selling tickets and cleaning up.

   The family moved to Dallas, where Ray's dad wanted him to get involved in the oil business. But Ray wanted to act, and he joined a repertory theater company under Margo Jones, an influential American stage director and producer best known for launching the American regional theater movement, and for introducing the theater-in-the-round concept in Dallas. Ray debuted in 1938. For almost four years he performed in a play every month. In 1943, he left Houston with Margo, who was going to the Cleveland Playhouse to direct Tennessee Williams' first play, "You Touch Me." Now 29 years old he made his professional stage debut in that play, and  worked under contract at the Cleveland Playhouse for three years, acting in 22 other plays.

   In November of that year he married the love of his life, the actress Ruth Calvert, with whom he would remain married until his death in 2001. They had one daughter, Katherine Ann Walston.

   Ray and Ruth then traveled to New York City, where he made his Broadway debut in a 1945 production of "Hamlet."

   He continued to get work on the Broadway stage and a few years later, in 1948 he won a Clarence Dewart Award for his performance in another Margo Jones directed production of a Tennessee Williams play, "Summer and Smoke." In 1950, he took a job playing Luther Billis in Rogers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific," and eventually brought the role to a production at London's Drury Lane Theatre for nine months. Returning to New York, he appeared in another Rogers and Hammerstein production, "Me and Juliet," as well as a musical written by Truman Capote, "House of Flowers."

   The year I was born, 1955, was a good one for 41 year old Mr.Walston. He played the devil.

   "Damn Yankees," opened on Broadway at the 46th Street Theatre on May 5, 1955, transferred to the Adelphi Theatre on May 17, 1957, and ran for a total of 1,019 performances. It was directed by George Abbott, scenery and costumes by William and Jean Eckart, and dances and musical numbers staged by a guy named Robert Louis Fosse, the second play which he choreographed. His friends called him Bob, and he would be the only director of musical films I would ever like ("Cabaret," "Damn Yankees," "All That Jazz"). Ray would work opposite the actress and dancer, Gwen Verdon. She initially refused the role, preferring to assist another choreographer, but finally agreed. Fosse insisted on meeting her before working with her, and after meeting and working for a brief time, they each agreed to the arrangement. They would marry in 1960, would separate in 1970, but remain married until Bob's death in 1987.

    In 1956, Ray won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical, for his performance in "Damn Yankees," After 12 years on the New York stage he sought new challenges, and turned his attention toward Hollywood.

   Where he got a lot of work, starting out with Cary Grant and Jane Mansfield in 1957's "Kiss Them for Me." He reprised two roles the next year, in "South Pacific," and "Damn Yankees," again starring with Gwen. This would be the vehicle to which I first became aware of Mr. Walston. I thought he was great. Very devilish.

   I liked Gwen too. "Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets..."

   Anyway, here's the trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNZd7F8Y-Ys

   Ray would continue a successful movie career with films like "The Apartment," in 1960, with Jack Lemmon and Shirley McClain, 1963's "Who's Minding the Store," with  Jerry Lewis, and then 64's "Kiss Me Stupid," with Dean Martin and Kim Novak, "Caprice," in 1967 with Doris Day, "Paint Your Wagon," with Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood in 1969, a musical western I still can't bear to think about let alone watch. In 1973 he appeared in the Best Picture winner, "The Sting," the second vehicle for the popular team of Robert Redford and Paul Newman.

   But it was back in 1963 that Ray won the television role that would become his greatest success and possibly the greatest hindrance to his future career.   

   Along side Bill Bixby (who would later go on to become Eddie's dad in "The Courtship of Eddie's Father," and "You don't want to see me when I get mad" TV's "The Incredible Hulk") Ray would star as the shipwrecked Martian in "My Favorite Martin," a 30 minute comedy running from September of 1963 until May of 1966, for a total of 107 episodes (75 in black and white, 32 in color).

   "In creating a role for which there had been no prior model on a prime-time television series, Ray Walston skillfully crafted the character of the Martian into a classically original interpretation of a space alien from a superior civilization who becomes stranded on Earth. Mixing a blend of intellect with his flair for dry humor, Mr. Walston’s portrayal of a Martian (with the Earth alias of Martin O’Hara) captured the imagination of generations of TV viewers." -- JH Harison

   Here's what Ray had to say about it:

   "I never should have done "My Favorite Martian."  I didn't work in TV or film for three years after. Everyone thought of me as a Martian. Do you know what it's like to go to Madrid, Spain, on vacation and have a guy yell out, 'Hey, Martin!' and put antennas behind his head? When that happens, you know your career is dead." -- "USA TODAY," 1995

   I watched "My Favorite Martian," when I was a kid. I liked it. Ray and Bill's performances sold it and made it good.

   During the 1970s and 1980s, he appeared as a guest star in numerous shows, such as "Custer," "The Wild Wild West," "Love, American Style," "The Rookies," "Mission: Impossible," "Ellery Queen," "The Six Million Dollar Man," "Little House on the Prairie," and "The Incredible Hulk" with Bill Bixby (in which he played Jasper the Magician in an episode called "My Favorite Magician"), among many others.

   He also had a small but important part in probably my favorite television show of all time, "Star Trek, the Next Generation," playing Boothby, a gardener for the Star Fleet Academy on Earth, and a mentor to the future Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

   During the 1980's and early 90s Ray starred in 14 films. In 1982 Ray introduced himself to a new, younger generation of movie goers playing the dedicated and stringent history teacher Mr. Hand, opposite a very young Sean Penn in his second film (and starring one of my very favorite actresses, Phoebe Cates, but that's another story).

   Here's a clip where they first meet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMtdrKIdDgE

   In 1992, Mr. Walston played the role of Candy in the third remake of my favorite author John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men," with Gary Sinise and John Malkovich. He would work alongside Sinise again two years later in the miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's "The Stand," one of my favorite novels of that particular author (should have got Jack Nicholson as Flagg! Jamey Sheridan sucked... but Laura San Giacomo was the best thing about that movie!).

   In 1984, Ray played a judge on an episode of the comedy sit-com, "Night Court." Six years later, he would work with David E. Kelley while guest-starring on "L.A. Law." This work led to the part of Judge Henry Bone on "Picket Fences," which began production in 1992 for CBS. His character proved to become quite popular, and in his late 70s he was nominated for an Emmy Award for the first time.

      Ray was nominated three times for an Emmy in the Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series category for his work on "Picket Fences," winning twice, in 1995 and 1996.

   His last screen appearance was in the Oct. 15th, 2000 season premiere of "Touched by an Angel"  as a wealthy entrepreneur who disinherits his materialistic son to teach him that there are more valuable things in life than money.

   Walston died at the age of 86 on New Year's Day of 2001 (he died on the first day of the third millennium, becoming the first well known figure to die in the 21st Century) in Beverly Hills, California, after a 6-year battle with the autoimmune disease lupus.

   He was survived by his widow, Ruth, his daughter, Katherine Ann, and two grandchildren.

   He was truly a great actor and human being. His work has influenced my life and those of many others, and will continue to do so. He was another of those rare actors that made every project he worked on a little better just because he was in it. He will always remain one of my favorites, and on this, what would have been his 97th birthday, all of us here at Joyce's Take wish him and his family a very happy birthday.

   Happy birthday Ray!

Bigfoot and Talking to God

Pat Robertson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PNhrNqS0lyE

Michelle Bachmann

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/38802_Video-_Michele_Bachmann_%28R-Mars%29_Says_God_Told_Her_to_Run_for_Office

George W Bush

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dFTpJCEn8A

God Got It Wrong

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QF14lBHrQaU

God usually refers to the single deity in monotheism or the monist deity in pantheism. God is often conceived of as the supernatural creator and overseer of humans and the universe. Theologians have ascribed a variety of attributes to the many different conceptions of God. The most common among these include omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence. -Wikipedia

   I was just watching The Young Turks on Current TV. They were doing what they called a "light' story concerning Bigfoot,  also known as Sasquatch, which are supposed hairy ape-like creatures that some think inhabits forests, mainly in the Pacific Northwest region of North America (Bigfoot of course has a cousin, the Yeti's of the Himalayan region of Nepal, and Tibet. They get together for family reunions once a year in Paramus, New Jersey).

   They ran a clip in which a Dr. Melba Ketchum has conducted a study in which she claims Bigfoot is not only real and exists, but that they are closely related to humans.

   This claim is made after studying the DNA of Bigfoot, and Dr. Ketchum would be an appropriate specialist to make this claim being the only staff member listed at the company she directs,  DNA Diagnostics, Inc. d/b/a Shelterwood Laboratories, which states: "DNA Diagnostics is a multi-species molecular genetics laboratory specializing in human and animal DNA testing for individuals, law enforcement, attorneys, breed associations, private investigators and state regulatory agencies."

   The five-year-long DNA study claims to confirm Bigfoot is a human relative that arose about 15,000 years ago as a hybrid cross of modern Homo sapiens with an unknown primate species, which would be a form of some hot interspecies ag pumpáil (Irish for having sex).

   Here's one link to the story:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/11/prweb10166775.htm

   Dr Ketchum, of Nacogdoches, TX., is a veterinarian by training, and is listed as having 27 years experience in research in genetics and forensics, and having been published as a participant in mapping the equine (horse) genome.

   She and her team began testing the Sasquatch hair samples some five years ago.

   "Our study has sequenced 20 whole mitochondrial genomes and utilized next generation sequencing to obtain 3 whole nuclear genomes from purported Sasquatch samples. The genome sequencing shows that Sasquatch mtDNA is identical to modern Homo sapiens, but Sasquatch nuDNA is a novel, unknown hominin related to Homo sapiens and other primate species. Our data indicate that the North American Sasquatch is a hybrid species, the result of males of an unknown hominin species crossing with female Homo sapiens.

   Sasquatch nuclear DNA is incredibly novel and not at all what we had expected. While it has human nuclear DNA within its genome, there are also distinctly non-human, non-archaic hominin, and non-ape sequences. We describe it as a mosaic of human and novel non-human sequence. Further study is needed and is ongoing to better characterize and understand Sasquatch nuclear DNA."

   Dr. Ketchum has called on public officials and law enforcement to immediately recognize the Sasquatch as indigenous people: "Genetically, the Sasquatch are a human hybrid with unambiguously modern human maternal ancestry. Government at all levels must recognize them as an indigenous people and immediately protect their human and Constitutional rights against those who would see in their physical and cultural differences a 'license' to hunt, trap, or kill them."

   Okay, I know what you're thinking (because I'm telepathic, another scientifically proven ability), "There is no such thing as Bigfoot." "Where did Ketchum aquire these Sasquatch hair samples (why from the Sasquatch Barbour Shop of course)?" "This so-called study has not been reviewed by qualified peers, so it does not meet the standards of the basic scientific method, as of  yet, so the claims made by Dr Ketchum are at best premature." "There is no evidence supporting the survival of such a large, prehistoric ape-like creature." "The evidence that does exist points more towards a hoax or delusion than to sightings of a genuine creature." "Bigfoot is alleged to live in regions unusual for a large, nonhuman primate, such as temperate latitudes in the northern hemisphere, wherein all species of primates and apes are found in the tropics of Africa and Asia." "As with other proposed megafauna cryptids, climate and food supply issues would make  Bigfoot's survival in the reported habitats unlikely." "No Bigfoot remains have ever been found." "The current scientific consensus is that the breeding population of such an animal would be so large that many more purported sightings would have been reported than currently occur, making  it's existence almost certainly impossible."

   Well, first off I have to compliment you all on your critical thinking and skeptical capabilities. Wow, you're pretty good. I had no idea.

   So what are the odds that we have hairy and extremely shy relatives who live in the forests of the  the Pacific Northwest region of North America?

   Fortunately we don't have to speculate. Here is incontrovertible proof that they do indeed exist:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOIKQ2ff7kI

   And I wouldn't worry too much about people getting a "'license' to hunt, trap, or kill them," as they seem to be perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, and if indeed they are part human their propensity for violence will only escalate. 

   Seriously now... they do exist. I spent 11 months in Portland, OR., in 1981 when my ship was in dry dock and some of my best friends were Sasquatchs.

   But I was drinking heavily in those days. Everybody looked like a Sasquatch to me.

   But really seriously now, unless more evidence is presented which substantiates Dr. Ketchum's hypothesis, and which is subjected to the rigors of the scientific method for testing theories, then it seems unlikely Bigfeet are related to us, or even exist.

   And the burden of providing further proof is all on her. It's not us making the claim, and it's not our job to prove that she is wrong.

   My sister and I watched all ten episodes of HBO's and Aaron Sorkin's "The Newsroom" when I visited her recently (in the interest of full disclosure my sister slept through episode 8. 

   She did stay awake the next night for episode 9, "The Blackout Part II: Mock Debate." In this episode we saw the lovely actress, Alison Pill, who plays associate producer Maggie Jordan, who made this argument:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGtLP7uSxZs

   I agree. Why wouldn't that be the first question? According to Maggie, Michele Bachmann claimed that God instructed her to run for President of the United States.  That's quite an endorsement! Considering the last time Gallop polled Americans on this issue (June of last year) more than 9 out of 10 people believe in God in this country. That alone, without God having to intervene in some way, should have insured that Michele Bachmann got 90% of the popular vote in the general election.

   And another thing, I for one want to know what God sounds like. Why don't some of these people who profess to talk with God have tape recorders?

   Anyway, so what's up with the American people?  90% of them believe in God, Bachmann had God's backing... so why was she the first to quit the the race during the Republican primaries?

   No, I really want to know! Please tell me.

   I mean, if God wanted Michele Bachmann to run for President I assume he/she/it wanted her to win. Being a omnipotent being that really shouldn't have been very difficult, don't you think? I mean if you can make the universe and the Earth, and all of the creatures that live on Earth including a man and a woman in 6 days, then fixing an election shouldn't be all that hard. Hell, the Republicans did it in 2000 and 2004, for his/her/it's son's sake!

   It's difficult to explain if you take Ms Bachmann's story and view at face value.

   Marion Robertson, better known as Pat, Chancellor of Regent University and Chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network, and a former candidate for President himself, says he talks to God too. In that first clip above he clearly states that God told him who was going to win the presidency, but he couldn't talk about it.

   "I spent the better part of the week praying and saying, ‘God show me something,’” Robertson shared on CBN’s "The 700 Club," January 3rd of this year.. “I think He showed me the next president, but I’m not supposed to talk about that so I’ll leave you in the dark.”

   Pat knows he was hearing from God because he took notes.

   "I'm going to read just as I wrote down, as if I’m hearing from the Lord these words,” he said.

   "Your country will be torn apart by internal stress. A house divided cannot stand. Your president holds a radical view of the direction of your country which is at odds with the majority. Expect chaos and paralysis. Your president holds a view which is at the odds with the majority -- it's a radical view of the future of this country, and so that's why we're having this division. This is a spiritual battle which can only be won by overwhelming prayer. The future of the world is at stake because if America falls, there's no longer a strong champion of freedom and a champion of the oppressed of the world. There must be an urgent call to prayer."

   Okay, God didn't exactly say who would win the election... why not? Why be coy about it? God is after all omniscient, which means he/she/it knows freaking everything! Everything! There is nothing that God does not know. So why didn't he/she/it tell Pat who the next President was going to be since he was feeling so chatty?

   I don't know why.

   Let's talk about what God did talk about.

   "Your country will be torn apart by internal stress.." As far as I know the United States is still in one piece. And internal stress? Well we do have the tea party, yet we still get by.

   "A house divided cannot stand." Golly, God is either misquoting or paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln. How Godish of him/her/it.

   "Your president holds a radical view of the direction of your country which is at odds with the majority." Obama's average approval rating is 49% for the last year according to Gallop, which is in the margin of error for being above 50% which is at odds with his views being discordant with the majority of Americans. God declined to clarify which of Obama's views were radical, and in what way. Health care for all? Is that a view that God would declare radical? Fair pay for women? Ending a war?

   And so what if his views were not those of the majority. Being the president is not a popularity contest. If asked most Americans would probably vote not to go to war with anyone, yet we're almost constantly at war!

   "Expect chaos and paralysis." He/she/it got Republican obstructionism right.

   "Your president holds a view which is at the odds with the majority--" God is repeating himself/herself/itself.

   "it's a radical view of the future of this country, and so that's why we're having this division." We've discussed radical views, and this country is divided because it is racist, ignorant, and half of it listens to Rush Limbaugh and Fox so-called News.

   "This is a spiritual battle which can only be won by overwhelming prayer." I'm glad God brought up the subject of prayer. This is what the late Dr. Carl Sagan had to say about prayer, in his book "The Demon Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark:"

    Does prayer work at all? Which ones?

   There's a category of prayer in which God is begged to intervene in human history or just to right some real or imagined injustice or natural calamity -- for example, when a bishop from the American West prays for God to intervene and end a devastating dry spell. Why is the pray needed? Didn't God know of the drought? Was he [she, it] unaware that it threatened the bishop's parishioners? What is implied here about the limitations of a supposedly omnipotent and omniscient deity? The bishop asked his followers to pray as well. Is God more likely to intervene when many pray for mercy or justice than when only a few do? Or consider the following request, printed in 1994 in "The Prayer and Action Weekly News: Iowa's Weekly Christian Information Source:"

    Can you join me in praying that God will burn down the Planned Parenthood in Des  Moines in a manner no one can mistake for any human torching, which impartial investigators will have to attribute to miraculous (unexplainable) causes, and which Christians will have to attribute to the hand of God?

     We've discussed faith healing. What about longevity through prayer? The Victorian statistician Francis Galton argued that -- other things being equal -- British monarchs ought to be very long-lived, because millions of people all over the world daily intoned the heartfelt mantra "God Save the Queen"  (or King). Yet, he showed, if anything, they don't live as long as other members of the wealthy and pampered aristocratic class. Ten of millions of people in concert publicly wished (although they did not exactly pray) that Mao Zedong would live "for ten thousand years." Nearly everyone in ancient Egypt exhorted the gods to let the Pharaoh live "forever.

   By making pronouncements that are, even if only in principle, testable, religions, however unwillingly, enter the arena of science. Religions can no longer make unchallenged assertions about reality -- so long as they do not seize secular power, provided they cannot coerce belief. This, in turn, has infuriated some followers of some religions.

   ""The future of the world is at stake because if America falls, there's no longer a strong champion of freedom and a champion of the oppressed of the world." Champion of the oppressed? I guess God means people like American Indians, the poor, the elderly, minorities, babies once they are out of the womb, and people in other countries that the government doesn't like. I guess God is speaking about those people.

   "There must be an urgent call to prayer."" Prayer again.

   I don't know about you, dear readers, but the statement sounds more like something that would emanate from the consciousness of a political hack, much like Pat Robertson himself, then the words of an entity that is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent.

   You know what I think? I think this is all a big scam to get people to vote for Republicans (I haven't heard a single Democrat say God told them to run for office) to vote for them. That's what I think.

   I think they are using God to manipulate religiously orientated gullable people.

   I could go on and on. If you're talking to God, then it's your job to first prove that God exists in the first place. That God's messages to right wing politicians seem to always benefit those same politicians. That hearing voices telling you to do things is a recognized symptom of schizophrenia (a mental disorder that makes it hard to tell the difference between what is real and not real... oh wait a minute... that's Fox News).

   On and on.

   I don't think much about people who order God around either, which both Democrats and Republicans do all of the time.

   "God bless America." Why should God favor America over other countries? God created all of us. We are all his/her/it's children, so I don't really believe God would be an adherent of American Exceptionalism.

    Alright, I've ranted enough for now. I must prepare for the upcoming Mayan day of apocalypse.

   And so should you.

6th Grade Atheist debate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhDPrP-tpeo&feature=player_embedded#!

John McCain is an Angry Guy

The Angry John McCain Song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-ymHdbd_tU

Susan Rice 'This Week' Interview: U.S. Ambassador to UN Discusses Muslim Protest (09/2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxf77xQ_NLU

McCain: 'Will Do Everything in My Power' to Block Susan Rice

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoBrl52k1Go

Ambassador Rice Defends Benghazi Remarks

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/21/susan-rice-benghazi-mccain_n_2174223.html

“There would seem to be little connection between Nate Silver and Susan Rice, but hear me out. The New York Times electoral savant was said to be "controversial." No one adduced a lick of factual evidence for why he should have been thought to be so, but people on the right just didn't like his electoral predictions, so they tried to make him controversial. With respect to Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, much the same is true. In reality land, she's done nothing that ought to be considered all that controversial. But again, conservatives don't like the outcome-Democrats having the upper hand on foreign policy and national security-so they're trying to make her controversial.” -Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast, Nov 22, 2012

   Okay, I think I've recovered sufficiently from the jet lag I incurred from my trip back from Arizona on Amtrak, so let's get to work... again.

   I'm surprised this is still a major story in the media (despite the constant hyping from Fox so-called News: ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbUz3pIPmTY  ). It must be a slow news fortnight.    

   Most likely as a result of the “Arab Spring,” revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt in 2011, Libya experienced a full-scale revolt beginning on February 17th. Muammar Gaddafi, the strongman leader of Libya since 1969, instead of capitulating and fleeing the country like his Tunisian and Egyptian counterparts, fought back, using his extensive military and security forces, foreign mercenaries, all of which allegedly killed rebelling civilians (In June 2011, an investigation carried out by Amnesty International found that many of the allegations against Gaddafi and the Libyan state turned out to either be false or lack any credible evidence, noting that rebels appeared to have knowingly made false claims or manufactured evidence). In March the UN declared a no fly zone to protect the civilian population of Libya. On March 19th, a multi-state coalition began a military intervention in Libya, and military operations began, with US and British naval forces firing over 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles, the French Air Force, British Royal Air Force, and Canadian Royal Canadian Air Force undertaking missions across Libya and a naval blockade by Coalition forces. On March 24th, NATO agreed to take control of the no-fly zone, while command of targeting ground units remained with coalition forces. NATO flew 26,500 sorties since it took charge of the Libya mission on the 31st of March.

    Eventually Gaddafi was forced into hiding, and on September 16th, the National Transitional Council was recognized by the United Nations as the legal representative of Libya, replacing the Gaddafi government.

   On October 20th, Muammar Gaddafi was found in a culvert west of the city of Sirte and captured by National Transitional Council forces, and subsequently beaten to death by those forces.

   Former Minister of Justice under Gaddafi, Mustafa Abdul Jalil led the National Transitional Council, and served as the NTC's de facto head of government from March 5th, 2011 through the end of the civil war.

   Fighting in Libya ended in late October following the death of Muammar Gaddafi. On October 27th, my birthday, NATO’s Security Council voted to end NATO's mandate for military action on October 31st.

   So, one can easily make the claim that the United States was instrumental in Libya’s liberation, and accordingly, the Libyan people should look kindly on our country.

   Last September 11th, a Tuesday, the 11th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, demonstrations raged throughout the Muslim world. A 14-minute trailer for a supposed full-length anti-Islam feature called “The Innocence of Muslims,” was broadcast on Al-Nas TV, an Egyptian Islamist television station two days previously, and in what appears to be the customary reaction to criticisms of their religion (remember the fatwā (the limited use of this term being that a death sentence has been dealt to someone or some group of people) on Salman Rushdie issued by Ayatollah  Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran in 1989, after the "The Satanic Verses," was published?) mass demonstrations erupted in Egypt, Yemen, Greece, Sudan, Tunisia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, in Africa, the western hemisphere, Asia, Europe, and everywhere else.

    In Cairo, Egypt the U.S. diplomatic mission  was overrun by protestors. A group scaled the embassy wall and tore down the American flag to replace it with a black Islamic flag.

   On September 11th, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, was in the city of Bengazi (the main American consulate in Libya is located in Tripoli), where there were no demonstrations. After nightfall, 120 to 150 heavily armed attackers killed the Ambassador and three other Americans, U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and U.S. embassy security personnel Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods. Two other Americans and seven Libyans were injured.

   Some U.S. officials, speaking under anonymity, said that they believed the Benghazi attack was coordinated and planned in advance, and not prompted by the film. Considering the weapons  used during the attack included rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades, AK-47 and FN F2000 NATO assault rifles, diesel canisters, mortars, and heavy machine guns and artillery mounted on gun trucks, items not usually brought to spontaneous demonstrations, that conclusion would be a pretty safe bet.

  The terrorist group (to the American point of view at least) Al-Qaeda indicated responsibility for the attack and said it was in revenge for a U.S. drone strike which killed Libyan Abu Yahya al-Libi, one of their leaders.

   The attack was strongly condemned by the governments of Libya, the United States, and other countries around the world.

   The next day, September 12th, President Obama stood with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the White House Rose Garden, and said, "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for."

   Despite this statement from the President, five days later, on September 16th, a Sunday, UN Ambassador Susan Rice made visits to all of the Sunday morning talk shows and said what she was told to say given the talking points the CIA had provided to her (considering the UN Ambassador has no jurisdiction over foreign embassy personnel or security, why didn't Sec State Clinton make the talk show rounds? Apparently because she didn't want to) which did not brand the attack in Benghazi as caused by terrorists, but rather like the demonstrations that day in Egypt, a reaction to the “The Innocence of Muslims,” video.

   "As a senior U.S. diplomat, I agreed to a White House request to appear on the Sunday shows to talk about the full range of national security issues of the day, which at that time were primarily and particularly the protests that were enveloping and threatening many diplomatic facilities, American diplomatic facilities around the world, and Iran's nuclear program."

   "The attack on our facilities in Benghazi was obviously a significant piece of this," Rice said.

   As it happens Susan Rice is being considered to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State once she quits her job at the end of Obama's first term in office.

   Also, the attack in Benghazi and the administration's reaction to it as voiced by Ambassador Rice was before the general election on November 6th.

   This gave the Republicans, and Fox so-called News, plenty to bitch about.

   Fox immediately claimed the Obama administration was involved in a cover up of some kind (in retrospect, I don't know what kind of cover up they were claiming, or the purpose thereof. No one was disputing that the attack caused the deaths of four Americans, including our  Ambassador in Libya, so what exactly was being covered up? Still, Fox proclaimed the "controversy" surrounding the attack as "being worse than Watergate.").

   House Republicans just couldn't understand how the State Department and Obama let this happen by not providing for sufficient security in a country that had not stabilized after its revolution. Why were Marines not stationed there they asked. They got really indignant!

   And they also forgot to mention that for the past two years, House Republicans had deprioritized the security forces protecting State Department personnel throughout the world. In 2011, the Republican House shaved $128 million off of the administration's request for embassy security funding. They cut off even more money in 2012 -- cutting back on the department's request by $331 million.

   Alright, the attack in Bengazi was tragic, and it seems to have been a coordinated. Al-Qaeda may have been involved, although that is not for certain. No witnesses saw any attackers wearing "Al-Qaeda" T shirts. Investigations are continuing and ongoing, by Congress, and the CIA and FBI. We may eventually find out exactly who was responsible for the attack, and they may eventually be brought to justice. Let's hope so.

   Now, as to the title of this post, Arizona Senator John Sidney McCain III is an angry guy. There's even a song about that which proves so (above).    

   John McCain lost the Republican primary to George W. Bush in 2000. This pissed him off. He lost a presidential bid to Barack Obama in 2008. That really pissed him off.

   He has said absolutely nothing nice at all about President Obama and his policies since the President has been in office.

   He's complained about the end of the Iraq War. He's complained about winding down the war in Afghanistan .

   He's complained about Obama's foreign policy in general, saying it has been the worst in recorded history (I guess starting two unfunded and unnecessary wars as George Bush did is good foreign policy).

   Now he's been at the forefront of bashing poor Ambassador Rice, saying she is "not qualified for the job," and calling her "not very bright."

   What job? Why Secretary of State, if President Obama were to nominate her. Remember, he may not nominate her, so all of this brouhaha regarding Ambassador Rice may be for nothing. 

   Why does McCain (and his butt buddy Lindsey Graham, and others (all Republicans of course)) believe Rice is not qualified, and not very bright (Susan Rice attended Stanford University, where she received a Truman Scholarship, and graduated with a B.A. in history in 1986. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and awarded a Rhodes Scholarship. She attended New College, Oxford, where she earned a M.Phil. in 1988 and D.Phil. in 1990. The Chatham House-British International Studies Association honored her dissertation titled "Commonwealth Initiative in Zimbabwe, 1979-1980: Implication for International Peacekeeping" as the UK's most distinguished in international relations. John McCain... well he ranked 894th out of a class of 899 at the  United States Naval Academy)?

   Because she said this: "Well, first of all, Chris (she was talking to Chris), we are obviously investigating this very closely. The FBI has a lead in this investigation. The information, the best information and the best assessment we have today is that in fact this was not a preplanned, premeditated attack… Obviously, we will wait for the results of the investigation and we don’t want to jump to conclusions before then. But I do think it’s important for the American people to know our best current assessment."

   Because she repeated the talking points given to her by the CIA on those Sunday talk shows. That's it! Never mind that she also repeated that she was giving the most up to date information available, and that this could be subject to change as the matter was further investigated. Never mind that the UN Ambassador has absolutely nothing to do with U.S embassies, or their security. No they say. She purposely mislead the country for some reason and must be punished.

   President Obama has stood up for Ambassador Rice on numerous occasions, stating McCain and all of the others should come after him rather than Rice, and indeed that would be more appropriate, considering he's Hillary Clinton's boss, but no, the Republicans still go after Rice. What are they doing to her exactly? They say they will do everything in their power to block her from becoming the next Secretary of State (remember, she hasn't been nominated).

   McCain was asked by CBS host Bob Schieffer if he was willing to reconsider Rice if she were nominated.

   “I think we give all nominees the benefit of a hearing process,” McCain replied. “Maybe she could start out by publicly coming back on this show and saying, ‘I was wrong. I gave the wrong information on your show some weeks ago.’ That might be a beginning.”

   “But until then, you remain opposed to her nomination?” Schieffer pressed.

   “Under the present circumstances until we find out all the information as to what happened, I don’t think you could want to support any nominee right now,” McCain replied. “It really goes to heart of this — quote — light-footprint policy that this administration has been perusing and all of the failures throughout the Middle East.”

   “The chickens are now coming home to roost.”

   The chickens are now coming home to roost?! WTF does that mean? Please tell me. I really want to know.

   And this coming from a man who introduced Sarah Palin to the world and who would have placed her within a heartbeat from the Presidency. This from a man who voted for two unnecessary wars which caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands, not just four. This coming from a man who neglected to investigate what the Bush Administration knew about a possible attack by Al_Qaeda before September 11th, 2001. This coming from a man who said this: "We can disagree on policy and we disagree on a lot of things, but I think it is very clear that Condoleezza Rice is a person of integrity. And yes, I see this, some lingering bitterness over a very tough campaign." Condi Rice, a war criminal. A lady who lied about weapons of mass destruction, who lied  about Iraq accumulating high-strength aluminum tubes, and  the tubes "are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs," who lied about mushroom clouds, and who lied is into war.

   According to the progressive media no one can make sense of the Republican's argument concerning Ambassador Rice. That makes sense as the Republican argument against Ambassador Rice doesn't make any sense. Not in the world of reality at least. It does in the bubble of Republican Land apparently.

   I have to agree with Michael Tomasky's November 12th assertion in the The Daily Beast, that:

   "John McCain, I'd bet, knows all the above and isn't even really mad at her. He's mad at two other things. Well, three other things. First, he's mad he's not the president, and the president's the president. Second, he, and many Republicans, are pissed off that Obama paid no electoral price for the Benghazi attack. This is all but inconceivable to them because in the ecosystem in which they thrive, Benghazi is bigger than Watergate, Waterloo, and waterboarding combined. They can't understand or accept that many middle Americans don't share their outrage.

   But most middle Americans recognize Benghazi for what it was-a terribly sad tragedy, but the kind of thing that, in a dangerous world, happens. And yes, many middle Americans would consider it a smudge on the administration's security record, but most middle Americans also know that record is otherwise rather impressive. It seems to me someone just ran for president trying to argue otherwise, and he lost pretty handily.

   And finally and maybe most of all, McCain and others are furious that the Republicans have lost their "natural" advantage on national-security issues. They are desperate to change that, and the quickest way to start doing so is to get Rice's scalp."

   I also believe the Republicans are trying to define the debate, as they always try to do, and I think the media is allowing them to continue doing this by their constant coverage of this nonsensical... I don't even know what to call it, this fake outrage, this ploy, this BS.

   Ambassador Rice consented to meet with McCain, and Lindsey Graham. She said she respects Sen. McCain, who has been critical of her, but says "some of the statements he's made about me have been unfounded, but I look forward to having the opportunity at the appropriate time to discuss all of this with him."

   And by golly, afterwards Republicans said stuff like this:

   "I continue to be troubled by the fact that the U.N. ambassador decided to play what was essentially a political role at the height of a contentious presidential election campaign by agreeing to go on the Sunday shows to present the administration's position," Sen Susan Collins of Maine said after her meeting with Rice. "I would need to have additional information before I could support her nomination."

   Graham: “I’m more disturbed now than I was before that the sixteen September explanation about how four Americans died in Benghazi, Libya by Ambassador Rice, I think, does not do justice to the reality at the time and in hindsight clearly was completely wrong,” Graham explained. “But here’s the key, in real time, it was a statement disconnected from reality. If anybody had been looking at the threats coming out of Benghazi, Libya it was jump-out-at-you that this was an Al-Qaeda storm in the making.”

   Really? It was that obvious huh?

   McCain said he had about 50 more questions that needed to be answered.

   And again I say WTF!? They were with her for the very purpose of having questions answered. Why didn't they ask all of these so-called important questions? Please tell me. I really want to know.

   As Rachel Maddow said tonight, "this is getting, excuse the language, stupider and stupider, to the point that it's turning into a special kind of stupid."

   The lovely Rachel Maddow and I think there may be another explanation for all of this Republican madness. It seems Senator John Kerry is also a leading contender for the job of Sec State (as well as Sec Defense, if Leon Panetta decides to step down). If he were nominated for either of those jobs, and confirmed by the senate, then he wouldn't be a senator in Massachusetts any more, leaving a seat open, which may go to a Republican... like Scott Brown, who narrowly  (comparatively) lost his reelection bid a few weeks ago to Elizabeth Warren.

   Could this be?

   "I think John Kerry would be an excellent appointment and would be easily confirmed by his colleagues," Senator Collins said.

   Huuum, we shall see.