It is difficult not to notice that the two Washington Senators were amongst the ten Democrats who joined the Republican Caucus in voting for a Lincoln – Kyl Amendment to lower the Estate Tax, the first of the two votes I note here.  The other senators here I can explain broadly in the predictive manner as being rougly predictive with “Ten democrats voted with the republicans on something.  Name the Democrats” — a measuring stick that might capture Cantwell from time to time, but wouldn’t be predictive with Murray.  With that, I’m forced to say there’s something concerning Washington State and the protection of legacy estates.

Here, some commenters at prospect weigh some possible influences, but hit an error at the end:

Yes, I think it becomes silly when the poster explainins the vote as coming from the political clout of Eastern Washington — which I’ll believe has basis when the state finally elects a Senator Doc Hasings.  And, yes, “mocasdad” pretty well covers that.  Though, I suppose you can suggest that the farmers and ranchers of Eastern Washington should pay heed to Cantwell and Murray’s vote, as per the explanation for Jon Tester of Montana’s vote.:

Open the Weekly Standard’s April 6th edition, on stands now — one week back in the harper on the website — and on the inside cover you will see that Fox News has an advertisement.  It is a dandy of an advertisement, and needs to be seen.

Waves of red, white, and blue — thin stripes and starts — emit from a central map of the US — and I haven’t a clue why some of the shapes are cleared and others put in white… it looks like it would be a presidential electoral college configuration, but it resembles no election year I’ve ever seen or can comprehend happening in the foreseeable future.  Another image of the US map overlays this background map of the nation — actually this one resembles an Air America logo — with the bold words “The FOX NATION” atop it.

At the top of the ad, it reads:

IT’S TIME TO SAY NO
TO BIASED MEDIA
(underline)
AND SAY YES
TO FAIR PLAY AND FREE SPEECH

On bottom, it reads

Be a part of the REAL NEWS of America and join
the online community that believes in the right to
express your views, your values, your voice.

And then, the web address and

SEE THAT YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

It’s all very schizophrenic messaging, isn’t it?

The issue itself features the usual article declaring Obama’s Presidency a failure, and another usual article which suggests the 2010 race in Connecticut as being the start of the Republican Comeback.  To be fair, I don’t really have any item of sarcasm to throw at the rest of the issue, which is decent enough political criticism, but I must point to the concluding paragraph of Matthew Continetti’s “A Big, Fat Failure” (I think it’s the weekly standard’s weekly standard article) and mock it by pointing to the manner this thing has been mocked:

Americans of all political stripes, as well as the non-Americans who hold U.S. bonds, are voicing concern. May-be that will be enough to make Obama change course. If not, conservatives have a real opportunity to introduce a truly responsible vision of a welfare state that maximizes efficiency and growth. The budget outline that House Republicans released last week is a start, but it sure could use some work. And if the president persists in giving America a big and slothful government rather than a limited and energetic one, then it will be incumbent on Republicans and sensible Democrats in Congress to stop him.

Yelp.

Worth noting — Senate votes affecting the state of the “Estate Tax”  (or, as Grover Norquist has us saying, the “Death Tax”) –are seen at this and this  spot.  

“To create a deficit-neutral reserve fund for estate tax relief.”, hence passed 51 to 48, with the Republicans plus these Democratic Senators.

Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Tester (D-MT)

Doubly so, to narrow down the “Blue Dog” types even more:   “To provide that no additional estate tax relief beyone that which is already assumed in this resolution, which protects over 99.7 percent of estates from the estate tax, shall be allowed under any deficit-neutral reserve fund unless an equal amount of aggregate tax relief is also provided to Americans earning less than $100,000 per year.” — passed 56 to 43, with the Democrats minus these Senators.

Landrieu (D-LA)
Nelson (D-FL)

Okay?

Enough shifts have taken place in the perpetually shifting line-up — largely out of their control — that it is worthwhile for me to take stock of the state of KPOJ 610 — “Portland’s Progressive Talk”.  We are awasy from their original incarnation five years ago — a bastion of rank radio amateurs, British voice-overs, and advertisements hawking bad commercial projects, and a certain flavor of over-done insurgent rebellion that didn’t quite match.  Notable today is that KPOJ didn’t float that commerical campaign regarding their anniversary — “They said we wouldn’t make it, etc., but we’re still here” — but perhaps that’s just because KPOJ’s hired voice talent recently passed away.  (Note, for instance, that their new 3 pm program is introduced with a generic introduction that does not mention the name Nancy Skinard.)  Also apparently gone is the most recent incarnation where they seemed to stuff every syndicated liberal programming out there somewhere in the line-up — notably Stephanie Miller is now back on 970 AM weekdays 6 am to 9 am, her Saturday slot here replaced by 3 hours of Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC rejiggled to radio program — a good freeing for both of them, I suggest.

So, to blast through this.  Bill Press is on at 3 am to 6 am.  Like him?  Not particularly, but it’s 3 in the goddamned morning.  6 am to 9 am: Carl Wolfson.  I do not like the woman who replaced Heidi Tauber — annoying yes – cheerlead “yay”s that to hear makes one cringe.  Other than that, decent bastion for a variety of media editors and politicans — hence, worth flicking past, turning on and off, changing the station around, and etc. 

Thom Hartmann…  Ed Schultz is still on 12 pm to 3 pm… the last man standing from the original line-up.  As terrible as ever, I presume.  Does this guy blow or what.  Well, anyway, he’s got himself an MSNBC program — the cable network’s Fox News counter-program prime-time line-up of Keither Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and I guess Chris Matthews counts if you must.

Nancy Skinner replaces Randi Rhodes, and — OHMYGOSH — Randi Rhodes has been blotted away and thrown off like a bad fungi infection!  Though, I guess, that’s a bad thing… she was a stablizer here, for all my negatives opinions of her.  Nancy Skinner, I have no strong opinion toward.  Competent enough, and preferrable to 6 pm to 8 pm’s Ron Reagan — and I gather you get slotted to the front of the line if you’re the sone of the former president and want a talk show gig.  I find him only slightly tedious.

Mike Malloy remains a god-send… 8 pm to 11 pm.  Air America kicked him off, Nova M busted apart, something replaced Nova M for roughly 15 minutes and then fell apart too.  Mike Malloy is the personality that would bravely self-distribute where your Randi Rhodes wouldn’t.  Actually, Malloy veers toward a bizarro- Glen Beck, but I guess that’s a necessary antidote.

There’s some guy named Jon Elliot who sort of tells the story: this is all beginning to be trangely indistinguishable.

Peter B Collins used to be on weekends at 4 pm , but has disappeared — I assume his show no longer exists because I doubt re-runs of Ron Reagan count for much.  But anything you can get from Peter B Collins you can get from a few websites, so I don’t suppose I’m missing much from him.  Lionel followed at 7 pm and remains, and he’s either great or horrible depending on the moment.  I think they were trying to farm him out to other radio stations, unsuccessfully.  They’ve slotted a Ron Kuby on Sunday mornings at 10 AM, and he is pretty horrible.

How much of it can be placed on the background?  Much of it.  How much of it is worth tuning in on?  A lot less than much of it.  How much should be shunned at all costs?  Not too much of it.  What I want to know is:  Who should be the next voice-over, and how uncomfortable a transition would that re-imaging have to be?  (The voice-over was there for 2 formats ago, for Pete’s sake.)  The general manager is shifting through the tapes now, I guess.

Okay.  Can somebody explain to me what the hell “Howie G” is talking about here, because I’m not entirely sure.

Seriously.  Which is it:  Does Howie G
(a) believe that “European” is a fictional entity — anti-Larouche agents set up this blog and factnet poster , or
(b)is this his way of saying that his personality was “created” by the anti-Larouche agents?

This is not a rhetorical question.  ‘Tis one or the other.  The former would be a literal reading of his words, the latter a figurative reading.  The latter would make some sense of some kind, the former is completely nuts.  I simply do not know which side of the coin I fall on, but get the feeling that to solve this problem is to have the key to a few locks.

Next question.  What is this?, from October 2008 — and from someone who evidentally heralds from Montana:

It’s common knowledge in the conservative community that William Ayers recruited Barack Hussien when he was 8 years old. In addition to being used to deliver bombs to the homes of American Patriots in The Heartland, the young boy was also converted to a life-long homosexulist by the all-pedophile Liberal class and he spread this deviancy throughout the many madrasses he attended during his religious indoctrination. As a member of a ring of Muslin call-boys, Barack Hussien was able to infiltrate the Defense Department, where he entrapped, blackmailed and eventually assassinated Texas Senator John Tower, all on Ayers orders. This was only one of a long string of murders Ayers directed the boy to commit, all in an attempt to bring down our Democracy in order to replace it with a Stalinist-Muslamo hybrid state of repressive religious influence and strange food.

Ayers continues to control him. In the early 1970’s, the radical bomber put together a devious plan to take out Lyndon LaRouche’s printer, Ken Kronberg. The genius of the plan was the length of time it would take to execute, which would in turn, leave Ayers off of the list of suspects. He finally concluded his devious machinations on Aprill 11, 2007 by having Barack Hussien run Kronberg over with his own Toyota Corolla, making it appear to be a suicide. Curiously, all records of this event have been lost and the FBI has refused to make any statement on it.

Barack Hussien is the ultimate ….ummm…….what was the name of that Frank Sinatra movie where the guy gets brainwashed and then he gets elected? The Stepford Wives? Well, he’s the ultimate Stepford Wife, ready to go insane as soon as the layer cake is frosted, speaking metaphorically. You LIE-brals need to get your heads out of the sand and recognize that John McPalin is the only thing standing between us and a life of eating chick peas and pita bread for the rest of our lives, wearing a turban the whole time under the threat of the Muslin clothing police.

Okay.  I recognize this as a partisan Democrat mocking a Republican tying candidate Barack Obama to Bill Ayers more tightly than real — but in this rambling of conspiratorial tropes, WHERE DID KEN KRONBERG COME INTO THAT PICTURE?  Maybe I was wrong after all in saying that I don’t think Kronberg should have a wikipedia entry, except that the whole Larouche villa of wikipedia entries is screwy.  Apparently he’s lodged into the popular psyche somewhere.

Such matters tend to be pretty strange.  But everything is strange hereabouts.  Case in point:  In December, I ran into this list of British Jews.  Um… “a list of most of the Jews that occupy top positions in our country, some are very influential in many areas of our society while others in the list are not, at this stage of the investigation it is impossible to determine which Jews are guilty and which Jews are innocent.”  Interesting starting supposition.  Jeremiah Duggan made the list, which struck me as just a little bit weird.  Well, here’s another list of Jews that Duggan made, a tad more positive a purview.

And there’s this comment — which brings me back to the Howie G question — “Prove to me you’re real and not composite.”:

The Geithner/Paulson/GoldmanSachs plan is so bad even Lydon LaRouche makes sense ranting against it!

Couple that one with this guy, who last week I spotted at his blog wading into the tide of Larouche in having done a tad of research to convince him that there is “FAD” about him swarming about — but anways:

I am bracing myself for those dismissive comments that often arrive immediately after I point to a thought provoking video, article or speech that happens to reside on a site supported by Lyndon LaRouche or his various organizations. However, I have learned to base part of my judgement about thinkers and leaders by the people that they have influenced. If LaRouche can convince people like Portia that he is no “nutter”, then it seems to me that he has passed a very important test of legitimacy.

With a statement like that, it demands what he is requesting, hence comment #1:

The Introduction which stated “it is time to listen to the wise words of Lyndcn LaRouche,” got to me. A definate turn off. LaRouche once said:
“America must be cleansed for its righteous war by the immediate elimination of the Nazi Jewish Lobby and other British agents from the councils of government, industry, and labor.”

At least LaRouche has an original explanation for his anti-Semitism, the Jews are the agents of the Queen of England, who is the real ruler of the United Kingdom. The Jews are not the only tools of the British monarch, “Adolf Hitler was put into power in Germany on orders from London.”

I could not watch anymore.

Is this Ron Rod Adams a real person, or just a composite?

At least he didn’t cite Ramsey Clark:

… but Ramsey Clark is now working to free the remains of Geronomo from the Skull and Bones secret society, so that makes up for all that, right?

In truth, the “so bad even Larouche makes sense” entity linked to something where Larouche’s thoughts are corraled well enough that it makes sense of a sort — it could have been worse for him.  Might have linked to this all:

“This is fascism combined with insanity. It is a case of the criminal mind going insane.” […]

Perhaps no recent event better proves the point that the United States, and the Obama Presidency in particular, is under a vicious assault from an apparatus that, a half century ago, would have been openly called what it is—a bunch of lying Fascists—than the forced resignation of Ambassador Chas Freeman from his designated post as head of the National Intelligence Council (NIC).

Not that I’m going to call anyone who disagrees with the dumping of Chas Freeman as anti-semitic, but for the love of Gawd, really?  Half a century the “Israel Lobby” would have been called “fascist”?

And here’s your Webster Tarpley accolade fix!

Webster does an outstanding job articulating our collective reality and the way back from the brink of a new dark age. I suggest we listen and learn………..

Indeed.  He crafted that Venetian Conspiracy that Larouche is still using, didn’t he?   See also this list of evil-doers.

It’s worth noting what the Korean Central News Agency of DPRK has to say on this historic day where they send rockets out into the ocean, thereby freaking the world:

Item:  Pyongyang, April 3 (KCNA) — Daniel Alvarez Celi, chairman of the Ecuadorian Committee for Supporting Korea’s Independent and Peaceful Reunification, released a statement titled “The imperialists’ sophism on the DPRK’s projected just satellite launch can never be pardoned” on March 25.

Noting that use of outer space is not a privilege only for some countries, the statement stressed that all sovereign states in the world have rights to make a free use of outer space, whether they be big or small.

It further said:

Nevertheless, the U.S., Japan and the south Korean puppets are raising a hue and cry over the quite legitimate satellite launch projected by the DPRK. Such behaviors can never be allowed as they are a wonton violation of the international law on free use of outer space and a smear campaign against the DPRK.

ITEM: 

Pyongyang, April 3 (KCNA) — General Secretary Kim Jong Il Wednesday sent a birthday spread to Ri Song Su, a resident in Ryongsong District, Pyongyang, on the centenary of his birth.

Born as a son of a farm hand, he was subject to maltreatment and contempt as a member of a stateless nation. It was not until President Kim Il Sung liberated the country that he could lead a happy life under the care of the motherland.

He did farm work with all sincerity to repay the country’s benevolence. He has kept himself busy even since he became a pensioner. He likes bean paste and vegetable, never allowing himself to have unbalanced diet. He is moderate in living, never smoking and drinking.

He still cultivates his family garden and prepares with sincerity the aid materials to be sent to servicepersons of the Korean People’s Army.

AND, ITEM:

Round-table talks were held in the Czech Republic on March 19 and 24 on the occasion of the 16th anniversary of General Secretary Kim Jong Il’s election as chairman of the DPRK National Defence Commission.

Displayed at the venues of the talks were works authored by Kim Jong Il.

The chairman of District No.10, Prague City, Committee of the Communist Party of Czech and Moravia said that the DPRK is advancing, holding high the banner of socialism under the leadership of Kim Jong Il. This gives great encouragement to us struggling for social justice, he added.

Noting that the DPRK is now invariably advancing toward socialism despite the changing world situation, he said that this is thanks to the powerful self-reliant military capability for defending the sovereignty of the country and the nation the Korean people have built up under the leadership of Kim Jong Il, chairman of the National Defence Commission, true to the behest of President Kim Il Sung.

And he expressed support for the just cause of the Korean people for national reunification, saying that Korea would be reunified without fail under the leadership of Kim Jong Il.

The chairman of the Rokycany City Committee of the Communist Party of Czech and Moravia said that Kim Jong Il’s election as chairman of the NDC was an event of weighty significance in the history of the Korean people’s struggle to defend Korean-style socialism and spoil the U.S. imperialists’ ambition for domination over the world.

Referring to the situation of the Korean Peninsula growing tenser due to the moves of the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean warmongers, he hoped that Korea would be reunified at an early date without intervention of outsiders, thus carrying into a brilliant reality Kim Il Sung’s behest and Kim Jong Il’s policy of love for the country, the nation and the people.

A congratulatory message to Kim Jong Il was adopted at the talks held by the Rokycany City Committee.

Ten years ago this week the world of conspiracy theories found their pop cultural reference point: The Matrix was released to theaters.  And with it, the question for hacks looking down at the masses who aren’t following the shadows closely enough on the video for a 9/11 trade tower falling:  Red Pill or Blue Pill?

It was a world with a recently impeached President.  There was great uproar when he bombed a chemical lab in Sudan — an aspirin factory, the collection of Republican hacks and Left-wingers roared.  There was greater uproar when he accidentally bombed a Chinese Embassy.  The nation was readying itself for a new baseball season with the homerun champions who had broken a half-century old single season record, to be broken a couple times hence with the same chemical diet — I wasn’t fooled: Steroid Addled Freaks.

Clinton was readying a bombing raid of Kosovo to oust Slobodan Milosevic.  With that, a taunt rang out against one of my high school’s graduating Seniors, entering the reserves:  “[Name] to Kosovo!  [Name] to Kosovo!”  Not the war he’d end up in, obviously, but it was good to keep current.  Today, Bill Clinton is heralded as a hero in Serbia, as he is in Northern Ireland for brokering the peace treaty with Britain — only now showing the tiniest of cracks of a few disgruntled IRA Nationalist acts of violence, somewhat easily lumped to the bad economy.  Too bad things didn’t work out as well in Palestine / Israel.

MP3 players had eked into circulation.  We were still a couple of months away Napster.  Which only meant that the file-sharing was un-coordinated: unfortuantely, whatshisname was filling his with that hot new act, Limp Bizkit (a rise to prominence aided by the old method of Radio Payola.)

When The Matrix came out, the computer geeks in my class started wearing the sunglasses — uniformly.  I can’t say it looked cool, nor can I say it looked dorky — it just sort of was.  It was a good thing they didn’t cotton to the rest of Keanu Reeves’s outfit, I gather — we’re a couple weeks away from Columbine and they’d probably want to shuffle away from the Trench-coat as quickly as possible.

There is a discussion at play at this moment of economic disaster which focuses on the rise of various types of conspiracy theories as a reaction to economic bad times.  At the end of the 90s, economy humming along albeit with certain cracks, the X-Files was the major water-cooler show, and people were bracing themselves for such a thing as the “Y2K” breakdown.  I don’t think anybody quite believed that one, honestly.  Another facet of the economic troubles coming to sway — particularly in line with yesterday and today’s events — the cracks of mass violence incubated with growing societal stress.  Never mind in the “dot com economic bubble” in the middle of 1999 we can count a particularly nasty mall shooting spree and Columbine, from my memory.

All of which, I guess, is supposed to be part of The Matrix we must free ourselves from, from the grip of some puppet-masters throwing us on the red pill (or is it the blue pill?) — a giant plot, all of it.  In an alternative universe, where a completely different set of events unfolded over the next decade — nothing to do with the wars we ended up fighting or the terrorist attacks we ended up having or the financial crises we ended up having– those wanting to use The Matrix as a metaphor would have had still had this movie to slam everything into.

I take the purple pill, thank you very much.  The red pill takes you ignorance, and the blue pill just takes you into a fantasy world — two sides of the same coin — or two dyes to the same pill.

For the first time, like — Ever — I think a gay marriage court ruling would end up benefiting Democratic electoral chances and throw a monkey wrench into Republican electoral strategy.  Iowa won’t be able to get a referendum for a constitutional amendment against this ruling and to sanctify “one woman and one man” until into 2012.  Hence, considering the first in the nation Iowa Caucus dominated by the population that gave its nod to Pat Robertson and Mike Huckabee, the news coming out of the first Republican State Nominating will be “Fill in the Blank Scary Guy” Wins.  Or, maybe Sarah Palin?

Of course, the actual victor for the Republican Party who might deign to try to win the election in November might do well to go with the New Hampshire strategy, and skip Iowa.

When the co-chair of a White House conference, “To Fulfill These Rights,” scheduled for June 1966, asked him what kind of session he wanted, the president replied:  “In the hill country in the spring, the sun comes up earlier, and the ground gets warmer, and you can see the steam rising and the sap dripping.  And in his pen, you can see my prize bull.  He’s the biggest, best-hung bull in the hill country.  In the spring he gets a hankering for those cows, and he starts pawing the ground and getting restless.  So I open the pen and he goes down the hill, looking for a cow, with his pecker hanging hard and swinging.  Those cows get so Goddamn excited, they get more and more moist to receive him, and their asses just start quivering and they start quivering all over, every one of them is quivering, as that bull struts into their pasture.”  As his distinguished visitors gaped at him in stunned silence, Johnson smacked his hands together noisily, then continued.  “Well, I want a quivering conference.  That’s the kind of conference I want.  I want every damn delegate quivering with excitement and anticipation about the future of civil rights.”

— The White House Looks South, William E Leuchtenburg 2005, page 336