Bloomberg has already claimed that his charitable foundations have removed thier support for anything to do with fred newman and the newmanite psychotherapy-sex-politico personality cult.

oh, yeah and fred newman thinks the Jews in weimar germany deserved to be killed by hitler because they were the tools of the capitalists.

uh, what would that make bloomberg and all his customers and supporters?

yeah, screwing the guru is always claimed to be the way to enlightenment. newman and the maharishi mahesh both have that in common.

when will anyone ever learn?

What does that make Bloomberg? An opportunist. His clearest road to the election was as a Republican, so he switched parties from Democrat to Republican — and thus was borne — Republican Mike Bloomberg. Democrats outnumbering Republicans by a large margin, he needed to get onto another line of New York’s ballot, thus he needed the ballot spot for the “Independence Party”, a faction of which concerns Fred Newman and his… um… psychotherapy-sex-politico personality cult.

This item of government patronage is (was?) simply the most bizarre part of Bloomberg’s political machine. I imagine Bloomberg granting the Newmanites their “All Stars Program” their charity, and then wishing to be done with it. Further, I don’t see this affecting his presidential bid much, for the sheer audacity of Newman’s pugnance sort of tossed into the realm of disbelief, and because Bloomberg himself has a step or two of removal.

But the gift the Newmanites receive is the waving around of Michael Bloomberg’s name within their cult. Hold on a minute! Name the person referred to with this sentence!
In a loft in downtown Manhattan scattered with mementos of Che Guevara, Dr. Fred Newman paid tribute to a new revolutionary hero, a man he would like to see in the White House next January.

This is 1996, and the answer is Ross Perot.

As for the Weimer Republic references: I realize that Hitler was dismissed as a crank, but I have a difficult time imagining Newman’s cult doing much of anything in Greater America, beyond their immediate fantasy realm, beyond their immediate reality realm.

Incidentally, a muse of mine — the very odd 2000 Reform Party Presidential nomination campaign — at wikipedia. I think it only scratches the surface of the worms floating around that strange brew. Pat Buchanan, Lenora Feluna representing Fred Newman, John Hagelin representing Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Question: which one of those is the parasitic organization?

The big question right now among Republicans is how to remove Vice President Cheney from office.

And We’re off!

Even before this week’s blockbuster series in The Post, discontent in Republican ranks was rising.

I like how the Washington Post refers to their series as a “blockbuster post”, a series which — incidentally — only tells us what anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear and noses to smell have either known or suspected all along.

That leaves Fred Thompson. Everybody loves Fred. He has the healing qualities of Gerald Ford and the movie-star appeal of Ronald Reagan. He is relatively moderate on social issues. He has a reputation as a peacemaker and a compromiser. And he has a good sense of humor.

I hate this article.  I am reminded of seeing speculation from 1971, laying out the scenario where this would happen, that a Democratic Presidential Nominee Edmund Muskie may select a black running mate.  You will note that he did not.  More recently, in 2004, peak oil enthusiast Michael Ruppert was one of many, both off the edges of the political scene and around the center, that Cheney would be thumped as vice president in preparation for that race.  The idea was a bit incredulous seeing as, we all know, Dick Cheney is more powerful than George W Bush.

Actually my favorite speculative boohaahee of recent vintage was the presidential bid of Condoleezza Rice.  Based on what information, no one knows, except that the idea made various peoples (Dick Morris in particular) hot.
Who wrote this speculative article anyways?

The writer is co-host, with John Meacham, of On Faith, an online conversation about religion.

Who’s that?  I’m not saying he is necessarily wrong — maybe Cheney is being given the boot — though I imagine the triumvarte of Romney-Giuliani-McCain would be a bit peeved by Fred Thompson’s ascension to vice-president– but why would he have any insight that you or I do not have on the issue of Cheney and the churnings of Republican politics?

From Wikipedia.

In January 2002, students were released from Juneau-Douglas High School to watch the Olympic torch pass by. Frederick, who had not attended school that day, joined some friends on the sidewalk across from the high school, off of school grounds. Frederick and his friends waited for the television cameras so they could unfurl a banner reading “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.” (Frederick was quoted as saying he’d first seen the phrase on a snowboard sticker.^[2]) When they displayed the banner, then-principal Deborah Morse ran across the street and seized it.

Morse initially suspended Joseph Frederick for five days for violating the school district’s anti-drug policy, but increased the suspension to 10 days after he refused to give the names of his fellow participants and quoted Thomas Jefferson on free speech.^[3] Frederick administratively appealed his suspension to the Superintendent, who denied his appeal but limited it to the time Frederick had already spent out of school prior to his appeal to the Superintendent (eight days). Frederick then appealed to the Juneau School Board, which upheld the suspension on March 19, 2002. On April 25, 2002, Frederick filed a §1983 lawsuit against Morse and the school board in the United States District Court for the District of Alaska claiming they violated his federal and state constitutional rights to free speech.^{[citation needed]}

The United States District Court for the District of Alaska ruled in favor of the School Board and Deborah Morse.^[4]9th US Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the federal district court’s decision. Regarding the circuit court’s decision, Juneau school district superintendent Peggy Cowan expressed, “My concern is that [the court’s ruling] could compromise our ability to send a consistent message against the use of illegal drugs.”

And today the Supreme Court reached it’s decision. 5 to 4, the 5 you would expect to go with the School Board going for the School Board, and the 4 you would expect to go with the “Bong Hits for Jesus” group went with the “Bong Hits for Jesus” group.

And so it goes. Score one for the Prison Complex of Modern Schooling, as often or not conceivable simple warehousing of the youth so that they don’t spend their days smashing in your cars. In propelling my way through some of those opinion-sters approving of the Holy 5 of the Supreme Court, I see comments to the effect of they’re not debating on the criminalization of drugs, they’re just doofuses looking to get on tv. So much the better, really. I remember high school stoners talking about drug legalization, and it was never a pretty site.
From the Ruling of the Holy 5:
At the outset, we reject Frederick’s argument that this is not a school speech case—as has every other authority to address the question. See App. 22–23 (PrincipalMorse); App. to Pet. for Cert. 63a (superintendent); id., at 69a (school board); id., at 34a–35a (District Court); 439F. 3d, at 1117 (Ninth Circuit). The event occurred during normal school hours. It was sanctioned by Principal Morse “as an approved social event or class trip,” App. 22–23, and the school district’s rules expressly provide that pupils in “approved social events and class trips are subject to district rules for student conduct.” App. to Pet. forCert. 58a. Teachers and administrators were interspersed among the students and charged with supervising them.The high school band and cheerleaders performed. Frederick, standing among other JDHS students across thestreet from the school, directed his banner toward the school, making it plainly visible to most students. Under these circumstances, we agree with the superintendentthat Frederick cannot “stand in the midst of his fellow students, during school hours, at a school-sanctioned activity and claim he is not at school.” Id., at 63a.

Hm. The “in the direction of the school” does not follow, but the rest is of some use. So, what, was this a field trip across the street? Those wacky students thought they were cutting class, but nope — here they are — dropping back into class!
In one sense the case is tedious, the Truant juvenile antic, the principal, and the Holy 5 Majority of the Supreme Court. In another sense, say, this rant that careens into “Fire in a Crowded Theater” is even more tedious, and it does not follow. Seriously? There’s a parallel between yelling “fire” in a crowded theater — the creation of an emergency where there is none — and waving a thought-de-voking banner?  No. There is not. Resume that part of the spiel for when something is provoked. Beyond that, they didn’t do this because of lack of love from Mother — but go down the list a bit further of cliched adolescent reactive causes and you’ll eventually find their motivation… beyond raging hormones, of course.

I can’t say I was ever where these kids are, except perhaps in the narrowest of terms.  I suppose, by the terms of the Supreme Court ruling, and in terms of their desired effect of bemusing themselves, they would have been better served flying their banner — a little bigger, I suppose — from the roof-top of a house located across the street — still in the direction of the school. Then we’d have to see what develops from there.

There is a side-splitting degree of sheer chutzpah with Dick Cheney and his brushing away of the National Archives that the vice presidency is not part of the Executive Branch.  He is daring the opposition to do something about it, which… nobody will.  Except, I suppose, record the incident for posterity.  Understand, there’s not much new here — this is the m’o for Bush as well, though he’s slid under various signing statements and procedures of “Executive Privilege”.
But while we’re on the subject, I now ask to open up Dan Quayle’s archives to see if he was part of the executive branch, or if this is a Cheney exemption, and there is a question of whether Dan Quayle’s archives include anything important enough to open up to the public.

A comment from elsewhere:

I think that either Obama or Clinton will be our next president. I also think that both have a very high probability of being assassinated–especially Obama. I would be surprised if he doesn’t have several attempts before the campaign is over.

Personally, I like Obama and would vote for him. He has a great deal of old-school class and dignity about him.

It’s sort of striking how ubiquitous that statement is.  The reason people come to that conclusion is obvious, and I note that all youtube submissions on Barack Obama are loaded to the gills with nasty racist comments.

I am wondering if this feeling — Obama = Assassinated — might find its way into voters’ minds, either at the primary or general election end.  The feeling that we would be unable to deal with this gut-feeling quasi-inevitable assassination, and as much as I personally would like to vote for him that factor forces me to vote for the Other Guy.   It’s a heightened version of the line against interracial marriage, or these days Homosexuals adopting: surely I’m fine with it, but the children are in for a lot of abuse, so might as well not put them through the abuse.
In the meantime — is Rush still doing that “Obama Osama” “gaffe”?

From xlcrer: The REAL understanding of Larouche is from the numerous scam artist outside security people who know how to use Larouche’s delusions and thievery against him. […]  Bunko artists themselves become victims to better bunko artists by playing up the greed and delusions of the mark.  

Some of that story came out in the Fraud trial in 1987, I guess.  The relationship between Larouche and the KKK?  Apparently what was going on was that the Ku Klux Klan was bilking money out of Larouche, providing false intelligence services, in order to get money to attend Star Trek conventions.

No, seriously.  Cue New York Times!  December 9, 1987!:
A neo-Nazi hired for security by Lyndon H LaRouche Jr., the political extremist who frequently runs for President, bilked and ridiculed Mr. LaRouche and his associates, according to testimony and statements in the man’s trial for conspiracy to obstruct justice.

The man, Roy E Frankhouser Jr., was sent by Mr. LaRouche to Boston in November 1984 to check on the progress of a Federal investigation into possible credit card fraud by LaRouche campaign workers.  But Mr. Frankhouser, a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, and two other members of a “security” team apparently went instead to a convention of fans of the television series “Star Trek,” being held in Scranton, Pa.

Well, I broad-swiped my description of… um… The KKK bilked money out of Lyndon Larouche in order to attend Star Trek conventions.  Just individual members.  And just one reported Star Trek convention.  The KKK did not, as an organization, make the organization choice to charge Larouche for fraudulent services, using the funds to attend Star Trek conventions, as my statement to that effect implies.
How did I miss this when I read through media history of Larouche in December and January.  It must have been that I read a few articles, understood the gist — sure: Larouche describes the conspiracy against him; the Prosecution goes to great lengths to say this has nothing to do with his politics — his organization’s just been bilking the elderly out of their credit card savings.  Throw in the ignoble quotation from one of those famous Larouche briefings about how this is for the victims’ own good, and some KKKers taking Larouche’s money and running off to a Star Trek convention gets lost in the mix.

I stumbled upon this looking for a very specific news item… a whimsical piece on life in Washington, as so happens during the great Stock Market Tumble of 1987.  I could not find the piece.  I was going to post the lines about Larouchies marching, singing and chanting to the effect of “We Told You So.” — the economic crisis that dear old Lyndon Larouche has gone about has come, darneditall.  Next to that, I was going to post a passage from Jeff Durstewitz’s part of Younger Than That Now, concerning his wild ride on the stock market at the time where he looked straight in the eye of whether to pay out his margin call or to sell his stocks and cut his losses.  He chose the latter, and noted that had he met the margin call, he would have become rich by the end of that year.

It was to be a simple lesson for the crisis-enfused denziens of the LYM, regarding perspective.  1987 is now 20 years ago, about the age of a LYMer one has to figure.  I remember the stock market calamities of the time merely because my birthday happened on that weekend — my age moving to one more finger on my second hand — otherwise I would not recall that.

Some financial bubbles are going to burst.  It is not an Economic Crisis that is the End of the World.  But Larouche will play it, and any slight occurrences — real or imagined — as such for the benefit of further tightening his control over a LYMers’ being.

Anyway that was going to be the purpose of this blog post.  Along with that last Larouche post I did, it would have pretty well closed the book on my “Purpose #2”.  But I couldn’t find that brief commentary.  But I found that KKK — Star Trek story when looking for it.  KKK Trekkies.  I suppose there’s no reason they shouldn’t exist.