I don’t usually copy/paste a whole post without editorial comment, but this one is too good not to share and there is nothing that I can add to it – so with credit to the Grouch at Right Truth by way of The Last Refuge. enjoy…

The Obama administration is urging both houses of the congress to pass sweeping legislation that will provide new benefits to many Americans: The Americans with No Abilities Act (AWNAA). President Obama said he will sign it as soon as it hits his desk.

The AWNAA is being hailed as a major legislative goal by advocates of the millions of Americans who lack any real skills or ambitions.

“Roughly 50 percent of Americans do not possess the competence and drive necessary to carve out a meaningful role for themselves in society.” said California Democrat senator, Barbara Boxer. “We can no longer stand by and allow people of inability to be ridiculed and passed over. With this legislation, employers will no longer be able to grant special favors to a small group of workers simply because they have some idea of what they are doing. We are legalizing another protected class of Americans.”

In a Capitol Hill press conference, House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, D-CA. and Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, D-NV. pointed to the success of the U.S. Postal Service, which has a long standing policy of providing opportunity without regard to performance. Approximately 74 percent of postal employees lack any job skills, making this agency the single largest US. employer of persons of inability.

Private sector industries with good records of non-discrimination against the inept include retail sales (72%), the airline industry (68%), and home improvement warehouse stores (65%), as well as your local Radio Shack (98%). At the state government level, the Department of Motor Vehicles also has an excellent record of hiring persons of inability (a whopping 83%).

Under AWNAA, more than 25 million “middle man” positions will be created with important sounding titles but little real responsibility, thus providing an illusory sense of purpose and performance.

Mandatory non-performance based raises and promotions will be given so as to guarantee upward mobility for even the most inept employees. The legislation provides substantial tax breaks to corporations that promote a significant number of persons of inability into middle management positions. and gives a tax credit to small and medium sized businesses that agree to hire one clueless worker for every two talented hires.

Finally the AWNAA contains tough new measures to make it more difficult to discriminate against the non-abled, banning, for example, discriminatory interview questions such as, “Do you have any skills or experience that relate to this job?”

“As a non-abled person, I can’t be expected to keep up with people who have something going for them,” said Keri Cox, who lost his position as a lug nut twister at the GM plant in Flint, MI, due to his inability to remember “righty tighty, lefty loosey”. “This new law should be real good for people like me,” Cox added. With the passage of this bill, Cox and millions of other untalented citizens will finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Said Senator, Dick Durbin, D-IL, “As a senator with no abilities, I believe the same privileges that elected officials enjoy ought to be extended to every American with no abilities. It is our duty as lawmakers to provide each and every American citizen, regardless of his or her inadequacy, with some sort of space to take up in this great nation and a good salary for doing so.

If you have to cheat to win, you probably aren’t really winning. If you have to cheat to come in third, you really aren’t winning.

Ken Miller released the results of a poll conducted for his campaign today in an email that had more spin than a Maytag washer.

Here’s an excerpt from the actual press release from Magellan Strategies:

Louisville, CO – Magellan Data and Mapping Strategies today released the results of an autodial survey of 676 likely 2012 Montana Republican primary voters. The survey finds former two term Congressman Rick Hill with 24%, former State Senator Ken Miller with 13%, former State Senator Corey Stapleton with 5%, businessman Neil Livingstone with 3%, and Chouteau County Commissioner Jim O’Hara with 3%, and 52% undecided. Among senior voters (65 or older), which we project to be 37% of the total primary vote, Rick Hill leads Ken Miller by 11 points, 26% to 15%. It is no surprise that half, 52%, of respondents are undecided at this very early stage of the campaign…

These results will come as no surprise to anyone following the gubernatorial contest with even the slightest interest. Rick Hill is obviously the strongest candidate in the field – name recognition, favorability, and the all important fundraising. Miller may be in second place now, but when Neil Livingstone floods his campaign with enough money to buy God – and this is a matter of when, not if – Ken Miller won’t even know what ran over him.

What is kind of jaw-dropping about today’s “news flash” is the way Miller brags about the fact that it took some really serious push polling to get better results. Push polling is usually a last-ditch tactic for a failing campaign in the final, waning moments of an election. And the candidate rarely claims any knowledge – let alone credit – for having resorted to such desperate efforts. To be touting the need for such tactics so loudly and so early is certainly a unique strategy. But when a candidate has been on the stump for over a year and still has less than 60% name recognition within his own party that’s not a sign of a strong campaign. It’s even worse when less than a quarter of the voters who recognize the candidate’s name have a favorable opinion of him.

I know, candidates have to focus on the positives in order to keep the campaign afloat. Gotta keep the troops upbeat and optimistic and all that. But when you have to fudge the facts so deliberately and obviously, the smell of desperation indubitably permeates the carefully constructed meme.

I guess I can understand why Ken has to try so hard to put lipstick on the pig, but no matter what shade he chooses, it’s still a pig. With less than a year to go to the primary, Miller seems to have peaked in second place. Apparently he’s using that new definition…

Guest Post by Loki

Recently the Helena Independent Record replaced their editor and did some ‘restructuring’. I had wondered if this was going to be a step backwards toward a more liberal bias. We may now have an indication.

On July 18, 2011 a letter was published in the printed paper from a writer in Missoula. It was a missive of vile hate towards all conservative radio and TV talk shows hosts. It accused conservatives of being intolerant and not listening to other opinions. Interestingly though the letter was not published in their on-line edition to allow opposing comments. So it was a one-sided attack against conservatives. The obvious irony was missed by the IR.

On the same day they published an opinion piece from the noted extreme liberal Paul Krugman. This was the second article from Krugman for the month.

The IR began a ‘Civil Dialogue’ policy to tone down the rhetoric for comments. But they are not updating comments very often making real discussions difficult. And occasionally they are shutting off comments. And not having access to who they actually ‘moderate’ I can not know if there is a bias in the moderation.

So in my opinion it looks like the IR shakeup was a not too subtle left turn.

Ed. Note: Here’s the letter published by the Missoulian. Judge for yourself.

Reality reveals the self-righteous indignation of people like Bill O’Reilly, Denny Rehberg, Glenn Beck, Scott Walker, Jeff Essmann, Paul Ryan and Will Deschamps as symptoms of untruth. These individuals are hostile and angry precisely because they do not feel confident in their own truth. When someone is intolerant of listening to others, the more certain you can be that they do not know what they are talking about.
As honest, fair and truly intellectual debate degrades before our very eyes, the quality of American democracy degrades along with it.

– James Minckler, Missoula

Guest Post by Loki

The coming election year promises to be the most caustic hate filled Presidential race in my lifetime. This will be a vicious fight with cries of racism, lies, hate and cheating. I even expect a few deaths.

Let me lay out my premise. Obama’s presidency has been a failure. Unemployment is up with prediction of unemployment to be as high as 8.75% at the time of the election. His stimulus plan has failed and the backup plan is more stimuli. Housing prices continue a lackluster flat line. Household consumable prices continue to rise. High gas prices are remaining steady. Obama will not be able to run on his one great success. Obamacare’s popularity was nonexistent and fallen since. Waivers for Obamacare approach 1,500. With the printing of more money inflation is starting to show its ugly head. The Middle East now hates us more than when Bush was president. The voting public projected their hopes on Obama with his simplistic campaign of ‘Hope and Change’. Instead we got the same old politics with some added Chicago style thuggery. The election shine has been tarnished, his popularity and electability are falling. He can’t run against Bush anymore. His own mark is on the White House and the blame-game is not working anymore. He can’t continue his comparison of himself to Lincoln and Regan because nobody sees any connection. His only resort is dirty politics.

We have already seen some of that on this blog. Either paid or volunteer supporters of Obama have harassed this site possibly because of an article on Sarah Palin. The dumpster diving media has started to do hack reports on even potential presidential candidates. Rep. Jackson Lee (D) on the House floor claimed racism for anyone not supporting Obama’s debt ceiling. Bill Clinton claims Republicans are using ‘Jim Crow Laws’ to stop minorities from voting. And we are still over 16 months from the election.

Leaving Obama with nothing to run on but dirty politics I am afraid we are about to witness the dirtiest election of our lifetimes.

The gubernatorial campaign of erstwhile Helena native, Neil Livingstone, is evidently trying to go to the next level, but it seems that he’s learning the hard way that the trail has a few bumps.

His neighbors must have been thrilled to wake up this morning to see their quiet street decorated by a huge political billlboard. Out in front of Livingstone’s Westside mansion was this decked out RV prominently featuring the handsome face of former Navy- SEAL, Ryan Zinke. standing proud of the campaign headliner.

Before a crowd of about two, not counting family, groupies, and a reporter who had nothing more exciting to report on a beautiful summer day and when most people have any number of more enticing things to do besides listen to a politician ramble, Livingstone made his long-awaited much-anticipated expected announcement that Zinke would be his running mate and they were kicking off their big statewide tour. Yawn. Someone might want to clue them in that the visual impact of a non-existant crowd is generally not a hallmark of a healthy campaign – and Sunday afternoons aren’t great times for pressers or political rallies. But the brand-new Lt. Gov. candidate did liven up the event when he started the rig up and rear-ended a vintage 1964 Chevy Camaro convertible.

According to Zinke, the RV was a gift from his wife and he is loaning it to the campaign for travels around the state. Apparently in the excitement over such a timely and useful present, no one bothered to check out how the wrapper would be situated in relation to the whatchamacallits that stick out on the side of the vehicle. Having the vent-thingys going across Livingstone’s face isn’t very flattering. Nor does having that Pacman-like reflector sitting on his shoulder making his suspender look like a long black tongue cascading down his shirt look all that well thought out. But those are all picky details and only affect one side of the bus – the prominent use of the State Seal, however, is a problem:

One element of the Secretary of State’s job is to serve as keeper of the Great Seal of the State of Montana. The office grants permission for organizations or individuals who want to use the seal on materials. That permission is typically not given for political campaigns because it would imply that a campaign already had the endorsement of the people of Montana.[Emphasis added.]

Not only is the Great Seal on the RV, but it’s also pasted all over the candidate’s website. His campaign finance reports show that he has already paid about $15,000 to some fancy consulting group in Washington DC and staffers in Florida and DC – who ought to be slapped upside the head for incompetence for not knowing the Montana political practices laws, including those about reporting deadlines. What IS he paying them all that money for anyway?????

It’s not clear what the fundamental reason for Livingstone’s campaign is. Maybe he will find a narrative as he rolls around the Treasure State. That is, of course, as long as he and his intrepid running-mate, “Crash” Zinke, don’t hit any more bumps on the road.

Or more appropriately – Who said this?

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.

Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.

Americans deserve better.

Your guesses, please…

Quarterly campaign finance reports were in the news today and for Montana political junkies there wasn’t much of a surprise in any of the numbers. The candidates who were in the lead with the dollars were the same ones leading in the polls. Duh.

Which, of course, will not prevent me from making a few observations:

Observation 1. Rick Hill is meeting and/or exceeding all expectations for running an aggressive, smart campaign, and has pretty much taken an insurmountable lead for the primaries. In addition, he has caused his general election opponents to shoot off all their ammo already. The liberal bloggers have gone all Rambo with every attack they can think of, fairly effectively turning “old news” into “regurgitated, recycled old news”. By the time the primaries are over next June, there won’t even be any arrows left in their quivers, let alone nukes in the warheads.

Observation 2. Ken Miller will never be the governor of this state. While he has a “devoted” following, it consists of the very uber-religious, albeit small, group that has chosen to ignore his history of fiscal irresponsibility (he left the state GOP budget in a huge deficit after his term as Chair of the party) in an election cycle where fiscal history is critical to a candidate’s success. The rest of the party not only remembers his history, they still hold him responsible for the election of Brian Schweitzer in 2004. This isn’t the year of the Religious Right. Trust me on this one, it’s not Miller Time in Montana.

Observation 3. Neil Livingstone is not a viable candidate. He may be smart. He may have a resume that impresses the hell out of some people. He may have access to more money than God. Doesn’t make a tinker’s damn worth of difference. He has no base in the party and he obviously doesn’t take the race seriously. Credible candidates don’t miss the deadline for filing campaign finance reports because their staff doesn’t know what the rules are. They also don’t show up at the State GOP Convention without a clue as to what’s-going-on-when, and at least one volunteer whi knows even a dozen delegates. If this were the 2008 senate race, maybe Livingstone could pull a Kelleher, but this year, this race, there’s not much chance that this primary election will come down to “eeney, meeney, miney, moe” at the ballot box.

Observation 4. Cory Stapleton remains an enigma. He certainly brings out strong emotions in people – not all of them positive. He’s running a really d-i-s-t-a-n-t second and stands to lose the most if Jeff Essman follows through on his plans to jump in the gubernatorial sandbox. He has some interesting ideas and certainly does bring a younger, fresher look to the race. Hard telling if he’ll play the role of spoiler or spoiled.

Observation 5. Jim O’Hara, a current county commissioner from Chouteau County rounds out the field – or brings up the rear, as it were. Of course, there’s no guarantee that Jim will actually come in last – a couple of the others certainly have potential to win that distinction.

So what’s so tough about that choice, you ask? Nothing. The tough choice is the one that Democrat Steve Bullock has to make.

Observation 6. Poor Steve. The D’s are hard-put to come up with an heir to Schweitzer’s throne in ’12 except for Steve – and rumor has it, that’s not for lack of trying. Practically every conceivable candidate has been asked, cajoled, wheedled, begged, bribed – okay, maybe not bribed – and/or strong-armed to consider entering the race. The only ones who have stepped up to the plate so far – Dave Wanzenried and Larry Jent – seem to be generating about the same level of enthusiasm as a three-day-old bucket of warm spit. Conventional wisdom (a/k/a political gossipmongers) confidently expects Bullock to suck it up and come to the aid of the party.

But it can’t be an easy decision for the guy. He’s young and has a long future ahead of him – if this election doesn’t cut it off at the knees, so to speak. And it could do just that.

The 2012 governor’s race is no sure deal for either party’s nominee, because a lot of the momentum will be dependent on the presidential and senatorial races and those are total crapshoots at this point. So Steve is confronted with a dilemma: He can keep his current job as Attorney General – he could easily whip the only announced Republican candidate, Jim Shockley. Or he can throw caution to the wind and go for the East Wing. Call it a 50/50 gamble. At best. Not that he’d be out on the street with nothing to do if he loses, but the family budget would be taking a big hit – not an insignificant factor to a father of three youngsters. More importantly – career-wise – if he runs and misses, it will likely be eight years before he could take another shot at the brass ring, because in four years it would be a rematch – not a very desirable situation, and 2014 looks to be a Baucus – Schweitzer headliner . But if he chooses the safe race this year, then his options in four years still aren’t so shiny when he’s termed out as AG and would most likely face an incumbent in the governor’s race. Not an easy choice.

Rock meet Hard Place.

Not generally thought of as one of America’s great musicians nor historians, comedian Steve Martin performed his new blue grass ballad, “Me and Paul Revere” on the Mall at the annual Capitol Fourth Concert in Washington DC. Martin tells the story of that famous ride from the perspective of the horse who carried the dedicated patriot through the countryside that fateful night…

Apparently Sarah Palin got it right and even that bastion of Hollywood liberals, Steve Martin, acknowledges it (although begrudgingly at best in his introduction to the song tonight): After being captured, Revere warned the British that the rebels in Lexington were armed and ready to fight for their freedom. Who knew? Evidently not many of the liberal intelligentsia who learned everything they know about that episode of American history from a nineteenth century poem.