Ever Wonder Where The Payday Lenders Went?

They're still in that reddest of red states, the state that has the highest consumption of pr0n per capita, Utah.

And they're having an eerily-similar discussion to the one we had before our lege got sane and stepped in:

Representative Laura Black (D) - Sandy, introduced legislation to cap the interest on a payday loan at 100%. That attempt died in committee on Tuesday, March 3, 2009 on a party line vote.

The average payday lender in Utah currently charges more than 500% annually! Who takes out payday loans? Those struggling to make ends meet, that’s who. The rich, or even members of the middle class, don’t take out payday loans. Those living paycheck to paycheck and coming up against a medical or other emergency take out payday loans.

Of course, since Utah is still largely Republican, they're going to have a tougher go.

I wonder if they've thrown out the "freedom of choice in financial services" red herring yet?

Brain-Free Republican Lawmakers

It's what you get when you govern by talking points.

Overparsing Them Is What They Want You To Do

In listening to Thom Hartmann today, I once again remembered something I tell everyone who will listen.

The central thing to being a Republican mover and shaker (that is, the Inner Party as opposed to the Outer Party, if you'll put up with the Nineteeen Eighty-Four reference) is that they love to use language not to communicate, not to bridge the gulf between you and then, but as a very soft weapon.

Every word is a loaded gun, just waiting to have the trigger pulled to cause confusion, misinformation, or damage.

Let's take a very simple, very over-used word. Conservative. It's what they call themselves, from the former boy-wonder Dubya down to the garden level chump who's endless credulity moves them to vote for a Party that's all about screwing them.

Conservative. What does that mean? We know what it means. It means careful, prudent, preserving of everything possible.

So the Conservatives ascend to power, and they start ruining the place, doing everything except conserving, being careful, staying the course on what works. But they keep saying they're Conservative, while all the while they're being the exact opposite ... radical, reactionary. And then sane people start scratching their heads.

"But they say they're Conservative," your bemused self says. And you start to re-analyze what conservative means. And you begin to hold two definitions in your head. There's big-C Conservative, which is what the Republicans are, and little-c conservative, what the thing really is.

You may not know it, but they have you. They hit you upside the head with the C-word and, even if you're pretty smart and hard-to-fool, you have to dance according to new rules. There's now neo-conservatives and paleo-conservatives and this-sort-of-conservative and that-sort-of-conservative and pretty soon you have to qualify everything you talk about so much that it's just not worth the hassle of even discussing anymore.

And now they own the discussion, they own the frame. They have you. You're still sane, you're still a good person, but you can't have a discussion without laying out ground rules. Because you've analyzed a common word, conservative, until it's just a greasy spot on the ground.

We call ourselves liberal and conservative, but what we really mean are sane and insane, respectively speaking of course.

I don't know the answer, really I don't. But some of it must have to do with refusing to play that game, calling stupid stupid and insane insane (and since the Republicans have worked so hard to redefine public debate as a snake pit, it's okay that you do that ... or they'll start calling you you were supposed to be the polite ones and you'll start overparsing that too).

But however it happens, remember, it has to happen little by little and bit by bit.

Because that's how we lost the reasonable expectation to have a reasonable debate and not to have a public arena where winning is the only thing.

We can take it back to them. If they live by Frank Luntz, they'll die by Frank Luntz. But it will take diligence.

You can start by reminding them it's the Democratic Party, not the Democrat Party ... and challenge them to talk not using words from a list of talking points.

I Heard There Was A Speech Today, Given By The Leader Of Our Country. How Fared He?

Actually, I saw it, and I'm glad I did. It was typically brilliant.

It's so good to have a President that talks to me instead of at me. I'd forgotten like that's like.

My favorite part was the views of Republicans sitting there line little kids with stern looks on their faces, still getting used to the fact that someone took their ball away. Nice PR, guys!

In a statement I wish he'd said, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Naturally), stated that "We've had a full airing of the President's policies, and we are sure that we have him right where he wants us."

In a related story, Louisiana Gov Bobby "Teleprompter" Jindal delivered a Republican response that was forgotten about as fast as it was delivered, except by FOX News.

I'd also like to say that I'm in full support of Jindal/Palin 2012 (Or Palin/Jindal, if you prefer. Makes little difference)! You can just hand 'em talking points and send 'em off. They'll save ya money!

All I've got are plaudits, so here's some links I found speaking much more deeply on it than I did:

• Chuck Butcher, who really takes Gov Teleprompter out behind the woodshed
• The Rev Currie, who applauds the speech while raising the bar. I remember when all pastors used to be like him.
• Blue Oregon, where Gov Jindal got his new name and Rep Earl tweets!.
• Preemptive Karma, where they have the text of Senator Merkley's reaction to the President's speech. Not only am I prouder than ever to say I voted Obama and Merkley, it just feels good to say "Senator Merkley".
  

Looking Into The Abyss: The President-Obama-As-Crazed-Monkey Edition

Just when you thought conservative opinion couldn't get any more low-rent and tasteless, comes this cartoon:

Artist Sean Delonas's cartoon for today is highly, highly distasteful, bordering on the absolutely horrid. I link it here not because I like it (the combination of Obama-avatarage as crazed-chimpanzee can have no defense ... who is being given credit for the stimulus bill?). It makes me want to vomit. I provide it at this time not because it's pretty, not because it's insightful, but because it gives us a look into the conservative mind, and neatly explains why we must never let conservatives have the controls of anything, ever again.

The aspersions it casts on our legitimately-elected President who, unlike his disloyal opposition, is actually trying to do something about the sad economic state of our nation are, in my opinion, inexcusable.

And, unless the artist lives in a cave, it has probably occurred to him that this may indeed incite someone to violence against the President.

African-Americans have been pejoratively called "monkeys" in our culture ever since Southerners instituted thier own "guest-worker" program for African immigrants in the antebellum times. What conclusion did the artist wish us to draw?

The New York Post, of course, should be ashamed to run such trash. But they aren't (and we shouldn't be surprised, because this is a Murdoch rag). As a matter of fact, the paper's statement about the cartoon essentially gave everyone who didn't care for it the middle finger:

The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the
shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks
Washington's efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals
himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist.

(note: the defense was in direct response to Rev Sharpton's reactions to it). It's highly ironic that the Post, which apparently took this low-rent approach to get people talking about it, accuses someone else for grandstanding.

If this weren't bizarro world, The Post would be out of business tomorrow over this. But some people are sure to day "yep, they gotta point there!".

If this were the Bush administration, the Secret Service would be on Delonas's doorstep so fast it'd make his head swim.

Well, Mom always said the world wasn't fair.

However, at least we know there's a more idiotic conservative editorial cartoonist out there than Glenn McCoy.

I close this with this letter written by a contributor at Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, which distills down my prolix wonderings very nicely (emphasis added by us):

ok, the cartoon with the dead chimp and the policeman saying that
someone else would have to write the stimulus bill is shameful.
if you're saying the president is a chimp, because people compared a*wol to a chimp, you're not figuring in the race card, which always counts. i don't want it to count, but it does.
if you're being that racist, you should hang your head in sadness over your own ignorance.
if
you're saying that other people are racist, then you're missing your
mark, because my first thought was that *you* should be ashamed for
putting this out there.

please think long and hard about how this insults so many people, at so many levels.

The Problem With Oregon Republicans, Part 3.

• For Part 2 of this white paper series, go here.
• For Part 1 of this white paper series, go here.

In 1953, chafing under the developing Stalinist government of the SED, the workers actually had an uprising.

Just like every mass movement in the people's name only, this was a Bad Thing™. The famous poet and playwright Bertholt Brecht famously, wryly and critically observed thus:

After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had thrown away the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?

Ironically, Brecht moved to East Germany after being targeted by Tail Gunner Joe, and still died one of East Germany's most celebrated cultural treasures, even after that criticism. The people didn't much care for the suppression of the Uprising at all, but the SED government liked it enough to rename one of Berlin's most famous streets–Unter den Linden–Strasse des 17. Juni. Which should surprise us not. But I digress.

Why am I going on about East German and Cold War history? That's about as far away from Oregon Republicans as they are from winning the Mahonia Hall next time out.

I have in the past opined that the Republican party is as addictied to message and symbol as a tweaker is to his or her crystal (no disrespect meant to drug users). This works into it to.

Set the wayback machine to November 2004. Smarting from what was one of the first to be many well-deserved electoral setbacks, Ron Saxton (who would go on to carry the R standard only to lose it to Governor K) decided to go for credibilty by assuming the mantle of Owly Pundit. On a day in November 2004, Ron turned his big, wet compassionate eyes on the citizenry not wise enough to be watching Judge Judy at the time and begged us for a more powerful Republican party.

This was after the Rs recieved a drubbing that should have suggested to them that they were on the wrong track. But Oregon Republicans are incapable of learning the lessons of history.

Come back up to the present. The Oregon Republican party passed a turning point where they refused to turn by electing the past (Mr. T.) to guide them to their future. The national Rs elect renowned black man Michael Steele as chair and Mr T. gloats that this changes the perception of the party as the party of old rich white businessman.

Do you see the theme yet? It changes the perception. They telegraphed thier whole playbook right there and then.

Caught on the wrong side of history and, frequently, the wrong side of brain, the Republican party simply amps up the message.

Just like those ungrateful proles in 1953 East Berlin, today's voter just. won't. go. along. We look around and see our commons crumbling, life being reduced to eat or be eaten, we finally figure out it's because of Republicans, and they start losing elections.

They can't choose another electorate. So, the recode the message. Use different words. WRITE IN ALL CAPS. Let us paint you the picture ... did we use oils last time? Let's try watercolors. Oh, we used those? How about gouache? Tattoos? Igpay atinlay? PUMP UP THE VOLUME! Be "cool". Talk "ubby-dubby" like those kids on Zoom always did.

The Message™ didn't take? Rearrange the Message™. Reboot the Message™. Massage the Message™. Embroider the Message™. Color it green. Fly a gay-friendly flag from it.

Just don't look behind it, because you'll find that the Republican party may have a great message (or at least great production values–kind of like Battlefield Earth) but the message is like (if I may be allowed one more Commie reference) a Potemkin village–party out front, nothing in the back. Such is the addiction of Message™ over actual substance, but this apparently does not bother them at all.

The Republican party looks like a party that's trying to bring itself up from it's past, but in reality, it really is still the party of old, white businessman, terrified with the idea of becoming a Caucasian minority in thier own homeland (which we got by carving a new life out of the American Indian).

But, gosh, if we'd just listen to the Message™, we'd Get On Board™, and elect more Republicans. We'd have to disbelieve our lying eyes about what letting Republicans touch our stuff has done, but it's so important to elect more Republicans.

If only they could dissolve the people, and elect another. That'd be sa-weet!

Blackwater is now "Xe"; There, That's all Fixed Then!

(the AP, via various sources), Blackwater, the great private army, is now ... "Xe":

Blackwater Worldwide is abandoning the
tarnished brand name that has defined the beleaguered company since its
founding more than a decade ago.

Blackwater officials said
Friday its family of two dozen business will now operate under the name
Xe, pronounced like the letter "z."

The decision comes as part
of an ongoing rebranding effort that grew more urgent following a
September 2007 shooting in Iraq that left at least a dozen civilians
dead.

Well, Mom always said if anything'll tarnish a brand name, it's the wanton killing of people.

Oh, the training centers haven't gone away though. They're now called the U.S. Training Centers. And the logo hasn't changed. So, hey, good times.