Last week Stephen Colbert had a good segment that dealt with the National Defense Authorization Act that Congress and the White House rushed through during the holiday season with little or no discussion of its dangerous features. I wrote before about how it authorizes the military to detain anyone to be held indefinitely without trial.

The New York Times an interesting profile of Colbert and a look behind the scenes of his show.

Iranian nuclear scientists are getting murdered, the latest case being reported today. Glenn Greenwald asks the right question: Why is this not denounced here as terrorism?

Does anyone doubt that some combination of the two nations completely obsessed with Iran’s nuclear program — Israel and the U.S. — are responsible? (U.S. officials deny involvement while pointing the finger at Israel, whose officials will not comment but “smile” when asked; the CIA has “targeted” Iran’s scientists in the past, several of whom have disappeared only to end up in U.S. custody, including one who “resurfaced in the United States after defecting to the CIA in return for a large sum of money”). At the very least, there has been no denunciation from any Obama officials of whoever it might be carrying out such acts.

I have always been interested in politics and still am but as time goes by my focus has shifted from electoral politics to mass movement politics. I simply cannot get too interested in the 2012 presidential and congressional elections, except insofar as they shed some light on the state of the nation. I still follow the process, but cursorily and with detachment and amusement, the way that I follow sports. I will check the results and the standings but the outcomes do not stir in me the passions they once did. It is mass movement politics on which I pin my hopes of creating a more just society.

Matt Taibbi captures my feelings almost exactly in this article, saying many of the things I have been saying, but more interestingly. In a single essay he lays bare the corrupt reality that elections in the US have become. He notes that in 94% of the races, the candidate who raises the most money wins. And then he shows that the same groups of investment banks and legal firms that serve those banks, basically the one-percenters, contribute heavily to both presidential candidates.

The article is excellent, if depressing. I started to excerpt some key passages but they got so long that it is best if you read the article for yourself. I will restrict myself to just one quote.

The 1% donors are remarkably tolerant. They’ll give to just about anyone who polls well, provided they fall within certain parameters. What they won’t do is give to anyone who is even a remote threat to make significant structural changes, i.e. a Dennis Kucinich, an Elizabeth Warren, or a Ron Paul (hell will freeze over before Wall Street gives heavily to a candidate in favor of abolishing their piggy bank, the Fed). So basically what that means is that voters are free to choose anyone they want, provided it isn’t Dennis Kucinich, or Ron Paul, or some other such unacceptable personage.

If the voters insist on supporting such a person in defiance of these donors – this might even happen tonight, with a Paul win in Iowa – what you inevitably end up seeing is a monstrous amount of money quickly dumped into the cause of derailing that candidate. This takes overt forms, like giving heavily to his primary opponents, and more covert forms, like manufacturing opinions through donor-subsidized think tanks and the heavy use of lapdog media figures to push establishment complaints.

And what ends up happening there is that the candidate with the big stack of donor money always somehow manages to survive the inevitable scandals and tawdry revelations, while the one who’s depending on checks from grandma and $25 internet donations from college students always winds up mysteriously wiped out.

Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald gives his take on the US elections in the pages of The Guardian, explaining why the Republican race has become so bizarre. Because Barack Obama is governing as a centrist Republican, he has forced the Republican candidates to take extreme right-wing positions, merely to contrast themselves to him.

The Republican presidential primaries – shortly to determine who will be the finalist to face off, and likely lose, against Barack Obama next November – has been a particularly base spectacle. That the contest has devolved into an embarrassing clown show has many causes, beginning with the fact that GOP voters loathe Mitt Romney, their belief-free, anointed-by-Wall-Street frontrunner who clearly has the best chance of defeating the president.

In a desperate attempt to find someone less slithery and soulless (not to mention less Mormon), party members have lurched manically from one ludicrous candidate to the next, only to watch in horror as each wilted the moment they were subjected to scrutiny. Incessant pleas to the party’s ostensibly more respectable conservatives to enter the race have been repeatedly rebuffed. Now, only Romney remains viable. Republican voters are thus slowly resigning themselves to marching behind a vacant, supremely malleable technocrat whom they plainly detest.

In fairness to the much-maligned GOP field, they face a formidable hurdle: how to credibly attack Obama when he has adopted so many of their party’s defining beliefs. Depicting the other party’s president as a radical menace is one of the chief requirements for a candidate seeking to convince his party to crown him as the chosen challenger. Because Obama has governed as a centrist Republican, these GOP candidates are able to attack him as a leftist radical only by moving so far to the right in their rhetoric and policy prescriptions that they fall over the cliff of mainstream acceptability, or even basic sanity.

US elections have two stages. In the first, known as the primaries, any candidate who threatens the status quo of rule by oligarchy is ruthlessly weeded out by a coalition of oligarchy, party leadership, and their allies in the major media. This ensures that some major issues will never be discussed seriously in the second stage of the general election.

But in this second stage, the two pro-oligarchy party candidates will be portrayed as radically different in order to give voters the illusion that we really have a choice and that democracy is thriving. It is not that there is no difference at all between the two candidates but that the differences involve largely social issues that I call GRAGGS issues (god, race, abortion, guns, gays, sex) that the oligarchy does not much care about either way. This is why I think that real challenges to oligarchic control will only come about because of real anger in the streets, similar to that spawned by the Occupy Wall Street movement, at the way that the country is run.

I think that this is why it is important for people to realize that they should never give their total allegiance to candidates. Support them on those issues you agree with but be willing to also harshly criticize them on those that you don’t.

Most people have probably heard that Rick Santorum was given a hard time by a group of college students in New Hampshire because of his opposition to same sex marriage, which resulted in him being booed and jeered at the end. You can see the video at the bottom of this news story. What people may not have been noticed is that this was a group of college Republicans, which shows how the younger generation across the political spectrum views giving gays equal rights much more favorably than the old. Homophobia is dying, and dying quickly.

In responding to the question of why he opposed same sex marriage, Santorum exploited a debating trick in which one shifts the point of discussion ever so slightly away from something that is hard to defend against to something else that is easier to defend. The students were not prepared for this and though they sensed that they were getting a non sequitur, they could not quite put their finger on the flaw at that moment. This is not a good thing for Santorum because the students will figure out later what he did and why he was wrong and it will make them angry that he tried to snooker them. I think the jeers at the end were from those who already realized what he was doing but did not get the chance to make their case.
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Most people have probably heard that Rick Santorum was given a hard time by a group of college students in New Hampshire because of his opposition to same sex marriage, which resulted in him being booed and jeered at the end. You can see the video at the bottom of this news story. What people may not have been noticed is that this was a group of college Republicans, which shows how the younger generation across the political spectrum views giving gays equal rights much more favorably than the old. Homophobia is dying, and dying quickly.

In responding to the question of why he opposed same sex marriage, Santorum exploited a debating trick in which one shifts the point of discussion ever so slightly away from something that is hard to defend against to something else that is easier to defend. The students were not prepared for this and though they sensed that they were getting a non sequitur, they could not quite put their finger on the flaw at that moment. This is not a good thing for Santorum because the students will figure out later what he did and why he was wrong and it will make them angry that he tried to snooker them. I think the jeers at the end were from those who already realized what he was doing but did not get the chance to make their case.
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A good indicator of how degraded the political discourse has become in government is the absurd fuss over the recess appointment by president Obama of Richard Cordray to head the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency that Elizabeth Warren designed and which she was considered too controversial to lead. She is now running for the US Senate seat in Massachusetts.

The US Senate, that has blithely ignored or gone along with all the major violations of the law and the constitution that presidents have committed over recent years, has taken umbrage over a minor issue of procedure and privilege, illustrating once again my point that it is not the issues that they fight over in Washington that one must watch closely, it is what they don’t fight over.

The Daily Show comments on the latest absurd fuss. I find it impressive how, in a few short minutes, they manage to explain precisely what is at issue, with all its munitiae, while overlaying it with humor.

On New Year’s eve, a time when no one is paying much attention to politics, president Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act. This was a bill that funded the US military for the rest of the fiscal year. But within that legislation was a provision that allows the US government to indefinitely detain without trial even US citizens, by making the entire world, including the US, part of the ‘battlefield’ which means that anyone can be picked up anywhere and declared to be an enemy combatant and thus stripped of their rights. The administration claims it has the right to indefinitely detain anyone that they, and they alone, assert is ‘at war with the United States’, whatever that means. This continues the whittling away at habeas corpus, one of the bedrock protections of individual liberty.
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Despite his strong showing in Iowa, there is absolutely no chance that Rick Santorum will get the Republican nomination because the party establishment will shoot him down before he rises too far. The only question is how long it will take before he is crushed. This is because his social views are too out there even for a party that likes to see itself as the guardians of morality. His obsession with sexual issues, especially his reservations about the right to contraception, is too creepy and extreme for even the oligarchy and its media allies and they will never let him get the nomination. For a sample of his positions, see here.

Furthermore, he is already the butt of relentless humor about his name as a result of Dan Savage’s efforts and The Daily Show also had fun with him.

Santorum’s daughter Elizabeth has complained about it, saying that “It’s disappointing that people can be that mean.” In her father’s defense, she says that she has gay friends who support her father’s candidacy based on his economic and family platforms.

One of the telling signs that a particular bigotry is on the way out is when those bigots go out of their way to insist that they do not hate the victims of the bigotry but in fact have such people among their friends. The statements “Hate the sin, love the sinner” and “Some of my best friends are black/Jews/gays/(fill-in-the-blank)” have now become jokes because they are such obvious attempts at hiding their prejudices. Major changes in social attitudes tend to be accompanied by this kind of hypocrisy just before the new attitudes become accepted.

Dan Savage notes that this stage has arrived for gays. As Savage says, “[W]hat does it tell us about this moment in the struggle for LGBT equality that even homophobes like Elizabeth and her dad perceive a political risk in being perceived as homophobic?” Rick Santorum, his daughter Elizabeth, Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, Donny Osmond, and Sarah Palin all insist that they have gay friends, though those friends are mysteriously invisible. Either they are made up or they exist but do not want to publicly identify themselves and have to explain to others how they could be friends with homophobes. Savage says that reporters should ask who these friends are. Whatever the case, the very fact that such affirmations of friendship are now obligatory is a good sign.

Savage also says that reporters who listen sympathetically when such people complain about how others are being mean to them about their homophobia are not doing their job. What they encounter is nothing compared to the meanness of the policies that they would like to inflict on gay people. It is a good article, and the short video at the end about a gay couple that waited in vain for forty years to get married is very moving.

All those who predicted dire warnings of the collapse of the US military as a fighting force as a result of the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ (yes, you, John McCain) should apologize because the military has not fallen apart. Even the celebrated public kiss of two navy lesbians aroused little more than curiosity and celebration, the first kiss on shore being a navy tradition whenever a ship returns to port. Note that a similar photo was also featured on the official website of the US Navy.

We now have had multiple states give equal rights to gay people (at least as far as marriage is concerned), all of which were predicted to signal the end of civilization as we know it. And what has happened? Nothing. Life goes on just as before, as all rational people knew it would. Meanwhile the governor of Washington state is introducing legislation to legalize gay marriage which, if it passes, will make it the seventh state to do so, after New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, Iowa and the District of Columbia.

We should just give gay people equal rights now in all areas of public life and be done with it. They are going to get them eventually anyway because it is the right thing to do and rights have always been expanded to include more groups of people, never reduced. The people who fight this trend are going to lose and lose badly and will be looked back in history as villains. And they will deserve it.

In the meantime, we can enjoy all the Santorum jokes that will fill the airwaves in the next few days before he fades off into well-deserved oblivion.

Oh that god, such a tease! After promising Michele Bachmann that she would pull off a miracle in Iowa, he unceremoniously dumped her to sixth place, exactly where she was predicted to be, resulting in her ‘suspending’ her campaign, which is translated as ‘dropping out’. I thought that she would lash out at god for making her look like a fool, but she held her tongue. That’s perhaps a wise move since we know how god gets riled for the most petty things and can lash out, like the way he had forty two children attacked by bears merely because they called his prophet Elisha ‘baldy’.

It looks like god also abandoned another devoted fan Rick Perry, who came in fifth and has decided to ‘reassess’ his campaign, which also translates as ‘dropping out’, although he may have changed his mind and decided to stick it out a little longer.

It looks like god decided, like with Tim Tebow, to throw his weight behind his third string quarterback Rick Santorum, the latest candidate to enjoy the anti-Romney surge. I must admit that I did not see that coming. I thought that the anti-Romney forces would be exhausted after the collapse of their previous hopes Bachmann, Perry, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich.

I think god dumped Bachmann because he is a sexist and prefers to hang out with the guys, especially football players. Via Gawker, I learn that he has also been spending a lot of time with his old buddy Pat Robertson, telling him all that will happen in 2012, including who will be president, though Robertson said he will keep that particular bit of news to himself, probably so that he can make a killing betting on the outcome on Intrade.

It looks like Robertson took notes of what god said during these chats because he gives us direct quotes. Imagine: Direct quotes from god! How cool is that? I don’t know why this has not got the entire media to pay attention. Even the woman Robertson is telling all this to does not seem to get all that excited. What a jaded people we have become when god’s actual words are ignored.

Did you know that Robertson also only came in second in the Iowa caucuses in 1984 when he ran for president, even though he is so tight with god? So Rick Santorum should not be disheartened that god left him just eight votes shy of first place. It looks like god has this habit of holding back just a little bit. He did go all the way with Mike Huckabee in 2008, only to crash and burn his candidacy soon after. I think god just gets a kick out of messing with his fans’ minds.

God truly does work in mysterious ways.

We all know that god personally told Michele Bachmann to run for president and made sure that she won the straw poll in Iowa last August. But god is somewhat promiscuous in his affections and also told Rick Perry and Rick Santorum that he wanted them to run too. Then god let his attention drift away from politics and wander to other matters, such as helping Tim Tebow get the Denver Broncos into the Super Bowl playoffs. As a result, the three candidates started tanking in the polls and Bachmann is now predicted to come in sixth in today’s Iowa caucuses.

But now that the playoff picture is set and god has done right by Tebow, Bachman is sure that god is paying attention to her campaign again and is ready to stun the masses, saying, “We’re going to see an astounding result on Tuesday night — miraculous.” How does she know this, you ask? Because “We’re believing in a miracle because we know, I know, the one who gives miracles.” Yes, god has her on his speed dial and is ready to roll.

So Michele is planning on a successful Hail Mary play today, since god seems to have directly assured her that Jesus will haul down the pass in the end zone. Then god can go back to his main interest and guide Tebow to a win over the Steelers on Saturday.