Al Franken, Lizard People And The 2014 Midterms

On Monday, August 4, 2014 the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will announce its endorsement of GOP businessman Mike McFadden in the Minnesota Senate race.

The race is emerging as potentially competitive, despite receiving less attention than other battleground contests. This week, University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato moved the Franken race into the "Leans Democratic" category, calling it a potential sleeper contest.  Unlike other targeted Democratic senators in 2014, Franken has maintained a solidly liberal voting record, rarely breaking with President Obama on high-profile issues. 

Sabato notes that six years ago, Franken won by the barest of margins (312 votes) against incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman (R) only after a lengthy recount process.  The process was derailed when it was discovered that Lucas Davenport had sullied the voting process by casting a write-in vote for Lizard People.

In an interview with MPR News Davenport said, "I don't know if you've heard the conspiracy theory about the Lizard Men.  A friend of mine, we didn't like the candidates, so we were at first going to write in “revolution”, because we thought that was good and to the point. And then, we thought the Lizard People would be even funnier, and there was kind of a running inside gag between some friends and I."

“Lizard People” refers to the conspiracy theory that there's a race of shape shifting lizards masquerading as humans who rule the world, but Davenport doesn't consider himself a believer.

McFadden still faces an Aug. 12 primary opponent in GOP state Rep. Jim Abeler.  McFadden talks about “unshackling the energy industry” by voting for the Keystone Pipeline and permitting the fast-tracking of 24 LNG plants.  He also favors limiting the stifling effects of government regulation.

He advocates “abolishing the Affordable Care Act and replacing it with a market-based system that provides coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. On immigration, he says he would first secure the borders and then implement a multistep path to citizenship. He says he will oppose any effort to change Social Security and Medicare benefits for those at or near retirement.”

Dear Minnesotans, in 1998 you elected a pro wrestler your governor.  In 2008 you elected Stuart Smalley your senator.  Howze about ya take 2014 seriously?

UPDATE:  A big ‘ol “Thank You” to Diogenes’ Middle Finger for linking to this post.

We Won’t Have His Nostrils To Kick Around Anymore

His ears remind me of a bat’s ears, his bald head is scaly, his nostrils so ginormous you could drive a Mack truck through them and his moustache was the model for Mr. Potato Head.

Rep. Henry “Nostrildamus” Waxman, the 20-term monument to government overreach and overregulation announced on Thursday that he won’t run for re-election.

One of Nancy Pelosi’s closest allies is calling it quits.  Good riddance you lying sack-o-shit and take the hedge clippers you use to trim those gnarled nose hairs with you.

Sit Quietly And We Will Control All That You See And Hear

When I was just a kid there was a TV show I loved to watch.  That show was The Outer Limits.

Each episode would open with a “Control Voice” warning the viewer, “There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image; make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to—The Outer Limits.”

Throughout history, compassionate minds have pondered the dark and disturbing question:  what is society to do with those members who are a threat to society, those malcontents and misfits whose behavior undermines and destroys the foundations of civilization? Different epochs have found different solutions to this disturbing problem.

Peggy Noonan, in her Op-Ed for The Wall Street Journal writes, “The security age began on Sept. 12, 2001. The enormity of the surveillance state since has grown. Americans, in the shock after 9/11, didn’t mind enhanced security, and in fact were mostly grateful for it and supportive of it. But built into that support, and the acceptance of the surveillance mentality’s intrusions, was I suspect, a broadly held assumption that we’ll just do it now, and down the road we can stop it. It’s just an emergency thing. We can make it go away when we no longer want it. But can we? Do government programs tend to remain static, or wither? Or do they tend to grow?”

The web is ablaze with debates about government surveillance of ordinary citizens.  The focus is on the Fourth Amendment and the FISA courts, the NSA and the recently revealed Code Name PRISM.

The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution reads, The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Back to The Outer Limits.  One episode, O.B.I.T., opens with this narrative:

“In this room, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, security personnel at the Defense Department's Cypress Hills Research Center keep constant watch on its scientists through O.B.I.T., a mysterious electronic device whose very existence was carefully kept from the public at large. And so it would have remained but for the facts you are about to witness…”

The Outer Limits was a science fiction anthology created in 1963.  Science fiction then.  Now, not so much.

There is another electronic device with which we became familiar.  The “telescreen” in George Orwell’s 1984 enables “the Party” to monitor its members almost all of the time. In Orwell’s dystopian novel, technology (the telescreen and microphones) are generally perceived as working toward moral good but can also aid and abet the most diabolical evil.

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen,” is the first line in 1984.

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

These are the official slogans of “the Party” and are referred to as “doublethink”.  They are illogical but are central to the psychological control of the masses—the low information voter, if you will.

If the government’s constant propaganda induces fear and doubt then its citizens will accept anything.  A common enemy keeps the people united.  The man who is independent is doomed to fail and the man who accepts the collective is free from want and danger.  The powerlessness of the people to recognize the contradictions bolsters the power of the authoritarian regime. Every citizen lives to serve the nurturing mother state.

Keith Koffler at White House Dossier opines, “President Obama and his fully politicized White House have shown their contempt for the Constitution, the rule of law, the other branches of government and the watchdog institutions of our society time and time again.”

“Laws are meant to be circumvented. The Supreme Court is to be vilified for making the ‘wrong’ decisions. The press is to be bullied and intimidated. Opponents in Congress are cynical, politically motivated extremists who want to oppress Americans they don’t like.”

In the dark and brooding video below, a totalitarian propaganda world is ruled from above.  A young girl witnesses the fate of a tortured worker and the murder of her protesting mother.  The girl rises up and confronts the dehumanized regime occupying her Motherland.

She can be all it takes to spark off a revolution…