Weirdo Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake in Tiny Minority as House Votes 405-6 to Recognize the Importance of Home Ownership

Last week the House of Representatives had one of those routine votes to honor or recognize some event, person, program, whatever -- the kind of vote that both Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, support unanimously, or close to it. This vote was on "Recognizing National Homeownership Month and the importance of homeownership in the United States." It passed, 405-6.

Arizona's weirdo Rep. Jeff Flake is often among the two to seven "No" votes on these kind of roll call votes. Mostly he's just calling attention to himself or trying to make some kind of point about how government shouldn't do anything. Do-nothingism is basically his philosophy, and he's done a good job of getting nothing done in his eight years in Congress.

On very rare occasions he's right, as he was last week when he was only one of eight House members to vote against Iran sanctions. Weirdo Jeff Flake was one of the few House members not to take their marching orders from AIPAC.

If Rep. Flake's "no" vote on recognizing National Homeownership Month and the importance of homeownership in the United States was based on trying to make the point that successive U.S. administrations (partiularly those of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush) have over-emphasized the importance of owning a home - or that American culture generally makes a fetish of homeownership - then we think he may have been right.

As a lifelong renter who's never owned a house (for the past four years this Green candidate hasn't owned a car either), we thought it was crazy when the government started pushing everyone to buy a home. That's how we got into the boom that inflated housing prices in Arizona and most everywhere beyond reality; how we let greed and financial double-dealing and outright fraud run rampant; and how we ended up with the inevitable crash and the resulting nightmare of foreclosures, homes underwater, financial catastrophe, panic, recession, unemployment, etc.

Unlike Jeff Flake, we'd like to see the removal of the tax deduction for interest on mortgages. Some people should not be homeowners. It makes no sense to subsidize the homeownership of irresponsible wealthier people while financially prudent poorer people sensibly rent their dwellings.

Here's an excerpt from a review by Steve LaFleur of a new book about our current economic crisis that we recommend, The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity, by the startlingly brilliant Richard Florida:

Florida’s most interesting contribution is his speculation on how cities will evolve in response to the current reset. His fundamental point is that the culture of home and car ownership will inevitably decline. This is because young people today are more mobile than ever before. He points out how home ownership is negatively correlated with income, since young people need mobility to take advantage of scattered employment opportunities.

Florida claims that home ownership ties people down, preventing them from taking advantage of job opportunities outside of their commuting range and thus car ownership is also not part of the new lifestyle. The average American family spends 25% of its income on transportation. Those who live in walkable neighbourhoods spend just 10%. Florida sees the decline of car and home ownership as an opportunity to free up large amounts of capital for savings and new investment. In an age that necessitates austerity, the decline of home and car ownership could be just what we need to rein in personal debt.

So this time the weirdo Jeff Flake may be right, but we're waiting to see if he will vote for a resolution "Recognizing National Home-Renting Month and the importance of home renting in the United States."

Sensible, Politically Unfeasible Ideas for Financial Regulation

The current financial regulation bill that's scheduled to pass Congress this week - with free-market fanatic Rep. Jeff Flake voting no a thousand times if he could - is better than nothing, though an economist as shrewd as MIT's Simon Johnson has called it a failure. It does improve consumer protection a bit, restrict some speculative investment by banks with their own money and establish limited federal oversight of derivatives.

But, as Paul M. Barrett's New York Times Book Review critique of Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance, the new book by the prescient Nouriel Roubini ("Dr. Doom") and Stephen Mihm indicates, this bill - however well-intentioned - is disgustingly inadequate, a mere halfway measure. Barrett says Roubini's proposals for real reform "aren't all politically feasible, but that doesn't make them any less sensible."

So, let's talk sense to the American people even if the voters in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District wouldn't recognize sense if it bit off their moronic heads. From Barrett's review of Roubini and Mihm (emphasis ours):

Roubini begins with an indisputable paradox. The government’s emergency rescue plan — the distasteful but necessary Wall Street bailouts and deficit-­enlarging stimulus spending — staved off global depression and brought about a dramatic stock market recovery. It also drained whatever fleeting political will existed to rein in Wall Street in a serious way. The surviving megabanks have brazenly paid out record bonuses, even though they owe their very survival to taxpayer largess.

Let’s start with those fingernails-on-the-blackboard bonuses. Roubini notes that the main problem isn’t their size, grating as that may be. The real trouble is that investment bank traders are paid huge bonuses for making reckless bets that yield short-term returns. They aren’t penalized when their gambling ultimately costs their employers money (or drives the firms out of business). This leads to a casino culture lacking common-sense caution. One potential remedy: put bonuses into a pool held in escrow for several years. If a trader’s record proves solid, he or she gets a payout. If not, the bonuses are nullified. Greater prudence would kick in, and, not coincidentally, overall compensation would shrink.

Only government could impose across-the-board pay reform. Since Wall Street would have collapsed without the ­taxpayer-financed rescue, Roubini says, Congress should have mandated a ­bonus-escrow system as a condition of the bailouts. Mesmerized by Wall Street campaign dollars and terrified of being branded “socialists,” lawmakers never seriously considered the idea. It didn’t help that President Obama surrounded himself with bank-friendly economic advisers like Lawrence Summers and Timothy ­Geithner.

The sorry performance of the three major private credit-rating agencies — Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings — played a critical role in the financial mess. Over and over, they stamped AAA ratings on the sausage-like securities made up of poisonous minced mortgages. Congress has debated imposing modest new requirements that the rating agencies make their operations more transparent. Roubini demands more drastic action. He would have government end the tradition of the sausage-making investment bankers paying the raters for their grades, a whopping conflict of interest if ever there was one. Roubini recommends that the agencies should be limited to accepting pay from investors in securities. Further, he urges a smart deregulatory move: removal of the agencies’ certification by the Securities and Exchange Commission as “nationally recognized statistical rating organizations.” This publicly blessed oligopoly, intended to maintain high standards, has only inhibited competition that would bring down the price of security-rating services.

Lawmakers have been debating provisions that would shed some additional light on the opaque market in derivatives. Those are the voluminous Wall Street deals that were supposed to dilute risk by spreading it but instead contributed to a risk epidemic. Heck, Roubini writes, let’s just identify the most dangerous ones and ban the suckers. He nominates credit default swaps, the quasi-insurance policies sold by American International Group, among others, which paid off when designated bonds went bad. Since we don’t allow people to insure their neighbors’ houses against fire, for fear of encouraging arson, why allow traders to bet on bonds blowing up? We shouldn’t.

Eliminating all bad loans will never happen. Since banks will always make mistakes, Roubini argues, they should be required to retain more capital and maintain higher levels of liquid assets (cash and securities that can be sold quickly). The legislation under consideration by Congress would authorize regulators to stiffen capital and liquidity rules. But the legislation would leave it to regulators to provide specific numbers. Roubini wouldn’t give the civil servants so much discretion.

Capital requirements are connected to Roubini’s most radical suggestion. He would force financial conglomerates to retain capital relative to all the risks posed by their various units. “This requirement would reduce leverage and, by extension, profits,” he writes. “Ideally, sending the message that bigger isn’t better would lead these firms to break themselves up.”

That’s right, break themselves up. Unfortunately, the implicit assumption that some banks have grown “too big to fail” has become explicit. Roubini maintains that we should pressure the biggest of them to contract, until they’re small enough that their demise wouldn’t bring down the rest of Wall Street.

With the federal safety net removed, an organization like Citigroup would act more prudently. Repeatedly rescued by the government since the Great Depression, Citigroup shouldn’t continue in its current unmanageable form, Roubini asserts. “Any bank that needs that much help doesn’t deserve to exist.” If Citigroup’s board of directors doesn’t share this view, the N.Y.U. economist advocates legislation that would authorize regulators “to break up banks and other financial institutions that are so large, leveraged and inter­connected that their collapse would pose a danger to the entire financial system.” The plutocrats might well perk up and do the job themselves.

Dr. Doom operates far beyond the horizon of what most experts consider plausible. Based on his track record, we would be wise to catch up to him.

Free-market fanatics like Jeff Flake and his even more moronic Republican primary opponent (at least Jeff Flake is smart about some things) can't abide any government regulation, even the halfway measures in the current legislation, and even liberals are loath to rein in the financial fat-cats who fund their campaigns (this means you, Senator Schumer). But as a Green Party campaign, we're free to support "politically unfeasible" ideas that actually would work.

Latest Polling Shows Green Party Congressional Candidate Richard Grayson Running Strongly Among Secular Sexagenarians and Sexual Minorities

The Richard Grayson for Congress Green Party campaign in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District is happy to report that our latest internal polling shows Grayson running strongly for the August 24 Green Party primary, where he is the only candidate (a write-in candidate), among crucial groups: secular sexagenarians, sexual minorities, vegetarians, vegans, hipsters, hippies, intellectuals, visual artists, journalists, Sikhs, anti-Zionist Jews, feminists, Vampire Weekend fans, drivers of hybrid cars, yogis, socialists, and the hip-hop and Afro-Punk communities as well as college professors and gang members.

Crazy Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake Uses Anti-Gay Slur on HImself

On August 24, Republican primary voters in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District can decide between two Jeffs: Jeff Smith and crazy incumbent Jeff Flake. Jeff Flake will probably win the primary and then the election. Some people, including many Republicans, say Jeff Flake's worst enemy is Jeff Flake. Read this from Wonkette and you'll know why:

ANTIQUATED SLURS
Rep. Jeff Flake Would Like To Redact That Thing About Referring To Himself As A ‘Pansy’

Republican Arizona congressperson Jeff Flake spent the week on a desert island, literally, and someone asked him how this made him feel. Well, truth is, Jeff Flake hasn’t felt like a man since leavin’ the ranch. Nope, it’s impossible to feel like much of a man at all, with this fancy humans-only society-livin’. “I’ve felt like a pansy, I guess, and this made it feel like I was actually doing something again.” Like, he didn’t feel like such a queer again, on account of all the nature and shit. “Congressman Flake didn’t realize that that word can have a negative connotation. He simply meant ‘wimpy.’ He apologizes if anyone took offense to it,” said his spokesperson. Does this look like the face of a pansy to you?? [Ben Smith]

10:30 AM on Thu October 15 2009
By Juli Weiner
2389 Views

Tagged:

* apologies,
* congress,
* jeff flake,
* pansies,
* antiquated slurs

1.
SayItWithWookies says at 10:33 am, October 15th, 2009
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Looks more like a leg-humper to me.
2.
whiskey tango foxtrot says at 10:35 am, October 15th, 2009
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Did someone redact the linking verb in that there headline?
3.
Lascauxcaveman says at 10:36 am, October 15th, 2009
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As a pure-blodded wimp, I find your apology extremely offensive, sir.
4.
Lascauxcaveman says at 10:37 am, October 15th, 2009
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Heh. “Pure-blooded.”

Wimps can’t spell for shit. And they’re funny looking.
5.
Pop Socket says at 10:37 am, October 15th, 2009
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The question is rhetorical, right?
6.
freakishlystrong says at 10:38 am, October 15th, 2009
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No, that face cold screams “I’m a bottom”…
7.
ph7 says at 10:38 am, October 15th, 2009
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Seeing how he spent his week on the island repeatedly posing for shirtless photos, I think we went in pansy,and came out one, too.
8.
DangerousLiberal says at 10:42 am, October 15th, 2009
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When those kids in 7th grade called me a pansy ’cause I couldn’t play sports for shit, they knew that they really wanted to say “fag.” Which I wasn’t, but still…. So this guy doesn’t know what the word means? Asshat.
9.
queeraselvis v 2.0 says at 10:42 am, October 15th, 2009
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Answer, Jeopardy-style: What is “Hell Yes?”
10.
hobospacejunkie says at 10:44 am, October 15th, 2009
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gay face
11.
Doglessliberal says at 10:44 am, October 15th, 2009
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He didn’t realize the word can have a negative connotation? First: He was using it for its negative connotation. Second: what adult American male doesn’t know what that word connotes? I think it was a requirement for years that coaches of boys’ sports had to scream the word at players. So, if you are going to try to cover your ass after the fact, Flakeboy, do it credibly.

Oh, and Jeff, if you don’t want to be a pansy, have the balls to apologize yourself, OK?
12.
Norbert says at 10:45 am, October 15th, 2009
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Hiking the Appalachian trail = boning an Argentinian lady
Spending a week alone on a desert island = 7 days of nothing but wanking
13.
Doglessliberal says at 10:45 am, October 15th, 2009
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ph7: and he said he was on the island ALONE, with only minimal provisions. So who took the photos, and with what? He MacGyvered up a cocoanut camera on a palm tree tripod?
14.
hobospacejunkie says at 10:45 am, October 15th, 2009
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DangerousLiberal: They couldn’t call you a fag in 7th grade? What a bunch of pansies.
15.
S.Luggo says at 10:46 am, October 15th, 2009
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Jeffy was born in Snowflake, Arizona. End of discussion.
16.
ManchuCandidate says at 10:48 am, October 15th, 2009
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I dunno. He seems rather Flakey to me.
17.
Clancy_Pants says at 10:49 am, October 15th, 2009
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Pitcher or catcher?
18.
PinkyTuscadero says at 10:51 am, October 15th, 2009
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You felt like like something you can buy for 2.99 in the outdoor garden center at the Homos’ Depot? How can that possibly be, given that you hail from that dry-ass clump we call the state of arid zona? At the Depot the miraculous hidden misters administer water from time to time, and that, sir, is how pansies are grown. But in the arid zona, there are no misters. Just missuses. Oh, now I get how you’re a pansy.
19.
Kingbee says at 10:51 am, October 15th, 2009
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The problem is that when at home, he wears his pansy suit — footie pajamas with a big, gorgeous, artificial pansy sewn to the breast. When he was on the island, he was gloriously naked! Flake.
20.
Mustang says at 10:51 am, October 15th, 2009
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He looks like the closeted guy at the party who goes out of his way to look like he’s trying to pick up girls.
21.
WadISay says at 10:51 am, October 15th, 2009
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If you really want to get your manhood back, go to an island where you can hunt “the most dangerous game.”
22.
bfstevie says at 10:52 am, October 15th, 2009
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He probably should’ve said “Nancy boy”. Or, in young people speak, nancy boi.
23.
Marlowe says at 10:52 am, October 15th, 2009
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Does this look like the face of a pansy to you??

Yes.
24.
Woodwards Friend says at 10:52 am, October 15th, 2009
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This is Glenn Beck’s Republican Party. They’re all pansies now. Also they’re all Rush Limbaugh. Whereas.
25.
iolanthe says at 10:52 am, October 15th, 2009
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That is a serious case of gayface.
26.
binarian says at 10:55 am, October 15th, 2009
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“Jeff Flake”? Really? Wow.
27.
WarAndG says at 10:55 am, October 15th, 2009
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Coincidentally Rep. Pansy is trying redact his comment about him being a flake.
28.
Doglessliberal says at 10:56 am, October 15th, 2009
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iolanthe: look at his whole-body shots. Maybe Playgirl will let him do a pictorial with Levi?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/11/AR2009101101760.html
29.
binarian says at 10:56 am, October 15th, 2009
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Oh, and alt text for this pic? “Yeah, kids used to beat me up and take my lunch money in school.”
30.
queeraselvis v 2.0 says at 10:56 am, October 15th, 2009
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Doglessliberal: According to the CNN article, “minimal provisions” included sunscreen (a suggestion made by… wait for it… John McCain), a satellite phone (to call his wife), a desalinator so he could have fresh water, and a snorkeling kit complete with spear and net (to catch him some Chicken of the Sea, presumably). No word on whether or not he brought a soccer ball that he could decorate with a face so he could have someone to talk to.
31.
charlesdegoal says at 10:58 am, October 15th, 2009
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Flake, pansy, what’s the difference?
32.
Mahousu says at 10:59 am, October 15th, 2009
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I wouldn’t call him a pansy. More of a petunia.
33.
ttommyunger says at 11:00 am, October 15th, 2009
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No, he’s not TOO gay! Got to be rough being a little “light” in your cowboy boots when your’re from the “Skidmark State.” You’ll do all kinds of dumb shit to deny it, like spending a week on an island playing wak-a-mole with your wang 24/7. Jeesh!
34.
hobospacejunkie says at 11:01 am, October 15th, 2009
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Jeff Flake has destroyed thousands of lives with his pansy comment. Waiting for news that he hasn’t voted in the past 25 years. Because voting is for pansies.
35.
t_rax says at 11:01 am, October 15th, 2009
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Rep. Matthew McConaughey (R-AZ)
36.
Doglessliberal says at 11:03 am, October 15th, 2009
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queeraselvis v 2.0: what a pansy.
37.
joeybrill says at 11:04 am, October 15th, 2009
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The gray tufted varicose-vein testicle set is HUGE in his area. The have survived circuit parties on less than two bumps and a Snapple. Poor Jeff is dead meat.
38.
teebob2000 says at 11:04 am, October 15th, 2009
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Well, he shouldn’t have spent all that time when he came back in the Tucson Greyhound terminal trolling the men’s room stalls. I know when I do that, I definitely feel like a queer!
39.
progressiveinga says at 11:05 am, October 15th, 2009
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Highlighted hair? Check
Bleached teeth? Check
Plucked eyebrows? Check
Conclusion: Pansy is as pansy does.
40.
Pop Socket says at 11:05 am, October 15th, 2009
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Clancy_Pants: Pinch hitter.
41.
nbawriter says at 11:06 am, October 15th, 2009
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Pansy? I kind of feel a little sorry for the guy if he had to apologize for that.

Do they sell sympathy pairs of Mormon underwear that you can gift for a guy?
42.
nbawriter says at 11:08 am, October 15th, 2009
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queeraselvis v 2.0: (Joe) Wilson!!!! YOU LIE!
43.
qaf says at 11:09 am, October 15th, 2009
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S.Luggo: Shouldn’t he have ten or so slightly-related siblings?
44.
ShiningMathPath says at 11:10 am, October 15th, 2009
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hobospacejunkie: he meant to say “panzy” –like he’d been spending too much time immersed in styrofoam
45.
Aflac Shrugged says at 11:12 am, October 15th, 2009
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It’s not the living amidst the heights of modern convenience that makes you a pansy, Jeff. It’s the intern frosting all over your face.

Just use a wide stance and let your freak flag fly high. It’s only a matter of time before the Republicans elect so many closet cases that they have to back you guys up in public.
46.
qaf says at 11:14 am, October 15th, 2009
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Doglessliberal: To be fair, he was sharing the island with Sally Lightfoot crabs, which seems appropriate somehow.
47.
magic titty says at 11:16 am, October 15th, 2009
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He looks like he masturbates to magazines.
48.
nbawriter says at 11:18 am, October 15th, 2009
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magic titty: So he’s bipartisan?
49.
Doris Ziffel says at 11:18 am, October 15th, 2009
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progressiveinga:Doglessliberal: Not to mention that he apparently works out a lot and wears those skin-tight workout shirts when he’s wearing a shirt at all.
50.
finallyhappy says at 11:18 am, October 15th, 2009
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I guess his constituents are stupid- since the rest of us know he knows what pansy means.
51.
Doglessliberal says at 11:19 am, October 15th, 2009
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Doris Ziffel: not that there’s anything wrong with that
52.
S.Luggo says at 11:21 am, October 15th, 2009
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qaf: Yeah, and they all look like this: http://pbskids.org/teletubbies/noflash/coloring/tinkywinky.gif
53.
Let Me Wet My Beak says at 11:35 am, October 15th, 2009
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The irony is, the pansy is an incredibly hardy flower that blooms amid the snow.
54.
Gopherit says at 11:37 am, October 15th, 2009
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Jake Flake is a delicate flower.
55.
S.Luggo says at 11:39 am, October 15th, 2009
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BTW: Alan Grayson has major hatred for Representative Flake.
http://grayson-for-congress.blogspot.com/2008/04/us-senate-unanimous-against-genetic.html
56.
GayInMaine says at 11:41 am, October 15th, 2009
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Is this the beginning of a sex scandal? Because its been a pretty boring start to Cocktober so far. Just saying.
57.
Come here a minute says at 11:45 am, October 15th, 2009
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I’m offended by ‘wimpy’. Now I’ll never vote for that pansy.
58.
Holden Caulfield says at 11:52 am, October 15th, 2009
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Does this look like the face of a pansy to you??

Not so much the face as the hair. That’s definitely pansy hair.
59.
Barrelhse says at 11:59 am, October 15th, 2009
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Tres Ghey, I’d say.
60.
thefrontpage says at 12:07 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Yes, we guess that working as a federal Congressman isn’t really “doing anything.” Yes, that’s correct, that’s accurate. So please resign from office today, since you’re not really doing anything. And let someone take the office who feels like they are really doing something. Maybe you can write a book about spending a week on an island and eating fish, crab and coconuts. Maybe it’ll even be turned into a movie, starring, maybe, Tom Hanks. But, it should be noted, Tom Hanks is not a pansy.
61.
Humpback says at 12:08 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Ya know, I can see his point. He’s been called a flake all his life and he probably never realized it was an insult.
62.
Monsieur Grumpe says at 12:13 pm, October 15th, 2009
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When I see his photo I envision a Craiglist posting that says:

Will clean your toilet with my tongue for insults and spankings.
63.
house of the blue lights says at 12:27 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Well, he can’t say he felt like “flake” clearly, so what else was left?
64.
Carrie_Okie says at 12:42 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Poofter
65.
chascates says at 12:45 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Hook him up with Meghan.
66.
PuffAdder says at 12:53 pm, October 15th, 2009
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WarAndG: Ahh! Hot miso soup everwhere!! You bastard.

/yeah, he’s a pansy
67.
AnnieGetYourFun says at 1:01 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Hm. I would have said “hockey player on vacation in Hawaii” if you hadn’t gone and ruined it by telling me he’s a politician.
68.
RoscoePColtraine says at 1:17 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Just say “candy-ass” because everyone likes candy.
69.
lawrenceofthedesert says at 1:40 pm, October 15th, 2009
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This entire posting is rampant botanism. Why do animals insist on disseminating devastating caricatures of plants? Is a pansy any less in God’s eyes than a moose? (okay, it’s slightly less funny…) Until plants have equal rights, all of our rights are diminished. Tokenism is no longer enough — electing vegetables like Jeff Flake or Michele Bachmann to Congress won’t suffice. And while we’re at it, let’s change his name to Jeffrey Avalanche for using the p-word.
70.
PsycGirl says at 1:52 pm, October 15th, 2009
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In related news, Congressman Pansy dealt with being a flake.
71.
JSDC007 says at 1:57 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Jack Tripper meets early 90s gay porn set to music by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, i.e., a pussy bottom.
72.
S. Cullen Bonz says at 2:03 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Is that his publicity shot from his tour with “Up With People”?
73.
Vulpes82 says at 2:23 pm, October 15th, 2009
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I wasn’t quite sure based on the portrait, but this picture (http://www.theawl.com/2009/10/congressman-insincerely-apologizes-to-flowers) convinced me: THIS pansy wouldn’t mind being on a desert island with THAT pansy!
74.
Min says at 2:27 pm, October 15th, 2009
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What a flake.
75.
PoignancySelz says at 2:52 pm, October 15th, 2009
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This post was just equal opportunity to all our gay friends, re: Meg’s tatas.
He also looks more excited than a fag in a locker room.
76.
cybervoyeur says at 3:00 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Any pansy or flake that has a worked-out body like that has got to be gay.
77.
Uncle Glenny says at 3:19 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Fuck. As I was skimming my Wonkette I saw that pic before I even read the headling and thought “pansy.”

I mean, how did that guy make it out of high school?
78.
Neoyorquino says at 4:27 pm, October 15th, 2009
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I’m sure he doesn’t feel like a pansy. But I’ll bet you feels pretty. Oh, so pretty. He feels pretty, and witty and . . . well, this is a much easier set-up than a “got a rocket in your pocket” reference. And yes, I enjoy the occasional show tune. What of it?
79.
Violenza says at 8:18 pm, October 15th, 2009
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Closeted weirdo in a wind tunnel!!
80.
Robert Zimmerframe says at 11:02 pm, October 15th, 2009
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“uh, what I really said was chimpanzee, you know, I was climbing the trees and, uh, eating bananas and stuff”.
81.
NYNYNY says at 12:19 am, October 16th, 2009
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Mormon political dynasty scion heiress.
82.
LowerdPeninsula says at 1:41 am, October 16th, 2009
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I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I didn’t know the connotation of the word until I was probably a teen, and played “Smeer the Queer” at recess (a kind of primative football/rugby hybrid for those that don’t know) during my elementary school days thinking of the name of the game as practically one word, and/or having no idea what a ‘queer’ was.

At this guy’s age, however, he’s just bold-facedly lying.


Read more at Wonkette

Arizona Green Party Congressional Candidate Richard Grayson to Boycott Arizona; Campaign Will Leave State to Protest SB 1070

The Richard Grayson for Congress campaign is supporting the boycott of Arizona and leaving the state tomorrow to protest the racist SB 1070. Although it is unusual for a congressional candidate to boycott his or her own state, these are extraordinary times and we think our decision is consistent with Green Party principles. We know it's consistent with what we feel in our hearts.

Our campaign has signed on to this pledge:

I pledge to stand up against Arizona’s new immigration legislation, SB 1070, and boycott intolerance in Arizona until this radical and unjust law is repealed, overturned by the courts, and/or superseded by comprehensive federal immigration.

As a member of this great nation, a nation that prides itself on its diverse makeup, I am extremely concerned about SB 1070, which essentially sanctions racial profiling as accepted police practice to address immigration issues. Latinos will become suspect in their own communities, regardless of their immigration status, and this goes against our nation’s most deeply held principles.

I stand with the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the Asian American Justice Center (AAJC), the Center for Community Change (CCC), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the National Puerto Rican Coalition (NPRC), and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) in pledging to do the following:

• I will carefully consider whether the dollars I spend as a consumer of goods and services could end up supporting, directly or indirectly, the perpetuation of this unjust law.

• As a representative of an organization, I will not hold any conventions, conferences, special events, or major meetings involving significant travel to Arizona from out of state, while this law is in force.

• I will call on all other major American institutions to consider choosing alternative locations for conventions, conferences, special events, or major meetings involving significant travel to Arizona from out of state, while this law is in force.

• Specifically, I call on Major League Baseball to remove its All-Star Game from Arizona, where a significant portion of the players in the game would be at risk of being profiled once they are off the field and out of uniform.

I am aware that, in the short term, these actions may adversely affect some Arizonans who opposed the bill and others who are likely to be its principal targets. However, any short-term adverse impacts on these communities that result from this campaign are far outweighed by the need to combat the systemic profiling and discrimination that will occur as a result of this unjust law.

OUT NOW: Immediate Withdrawal from Unwinnable Afghan War

After our country has wasted nine years, more than a thousand American troops' lives, and billions of dollars in the useless, unwinnable and ill-conceived war in Afghanistan, we're not going to waste any kilobytes on discussing something that's been discussed ad nauseum.

We support immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan. Let's get out now.

Feckless Fanatic Congressman Jeff Flake Calls for "More Pain" for America; Entrenched Arizona Politician Wants New Great Depression to Balance Budget

Today at a Capitol Hill news conference, Arizona Republican Rep. Jeff Flake called on Americans to endure "more pain" and "a new Great Depression" in order to reach his goal of a balanced budget.

"Americans, and Arizonans, have not really suffered at all during this so-called recession," Flake told reporters. "Balancing the federal budget is something we have to do immediately. That's why I've voted twenty-three times against bills that would spend money to help those admittedly unfortunate Americans who've lost their jobs or are facing minor financial difficulties like not being able to afford probably uneccessary spending on items like junk food and needless medical care."

"I'm proud to have voted a total of seventeen times against increasing or extending unemployment benefits, which is a wasteful social spending scheme," Flake replied in answer to a reporter's question asking how the Congressman felt about Arizona's maximum weekly unemployment benefits, third lowest among the states, recently going down to $216 from $241. "The unemployed need to value the free market a bit more and pull in their belts."

"I had no problem surviving a week with no money at all on a desert island for a week," Rep. Flake said, "so I think everyone collecting unemployment benefits or other unnecessary government benefits like food stamps, Medicare or Medicaid need to be a little more self-reliant like me."

Flake derided commentators like Nobel Prize-winning Paul Krugman who've said that imposing financial austerity can cause a new Great Depression. "Maybe we need a new Great Depression," the Congressman told reporters. "It would help voters see that they've been living off the government teat for too long."

Corporate Lackey Congressman & Oily Politician Jeff Flake: Another GO(B)P Apologist for British Petroleum

It's interesting that with all the Republican members of Congress condemning Texas Rep. Joe Barton for his apology to British Petroleum for the U.S. government "shakedown" (haha), there's been only silence from Arizona's laissez-faire fanatic Rep. Jeff Flake, who's never voted once to help the needy but who's voted over 75 times for tax breaks for corporations like BP, which he shakes down to fill his bloated campaign coffers. As Blog for Arizona points out, Jeff Flake is a member of the Republican Study Committee which, even before Joe Barton's comment, also apologized to BP as it called the escrow account "Chicago-style shakedown politics."

That's because extremist Jeff Flake agrees with Barton's lunatic misguided groveling. He's never seen anything government can do right, and he's never seen anything a domestic or foreign corporation can do wrong - even when its gross negligence or willful misconduct (attested to by its own corporate partners) creates an unprecedented disaster with unparalleled suffering, like the one BP's oil spill has caused in the Gulf. Jeff Flake would prefer to keep his fellow long-serving lackeys of the oil industry in charge of the corrupt and incompetent Minerals Management Service. (See the Rolling Stone exposé of Bush and Obama administration misfeasance.)

Rep. Jeff Flake was shrewd enough to make his apology to British Petroleum in private. Until we hear otherwise, we'll assume that this corporate lackey congressman agrees that BP is the real victim in all of this. Check out his record as a Big Oil lackey on energy issues.

Jeff Flake. Out of touch. Out of control. Maybe even out of his mind.

When it comes to foreign corporations like BP, Jeff Flake is one oily ("excessively servile or obsequious") guy.

But this politician's fat-cat-backed career trajectory is running out of gas.

* * *

For an intelligent non-corporate perspective on the issue, far removed from that of the fanatic Flake, check out this blog post, "Oil Spills and Real Change," by our friend Rev. Billy,

last year's Green Party candidate for New York City Mayor.

Ghetto-Fabulous Russell Pearce vs. the U.S. Constitution, Round Two

We see that the neo-Nazi-hugging, undereducated state legislator Russell Pearce is up to his old unconstitutional tricks again and thought we would reprint this blog post from December 5, 2007, when we also were running for Congress in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District (we withdrew after others entered the Democratic primary):

The provocative insider Republican blog Seeing Red AZ reports that term-limited State Rep. Russell Pearce (R-National Alliance) has abandoned his exploration of a candidacy in the primary against U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake in Arizona's Sixth Congressional District. This anti-government activist, of course, will be running for a different public office rather than moving to honest work in the private sector that right-wingers adore.

So right now nothing stands between Jeff Flake and yet another term of do-nothing showboating on behalf of his extreme laissez-faire anti-middle-class philosophy but me.

Scary, huh?

But there are rumors that things might change soon. Stay tuned.

Although I revere the United States Constitution, I am far from being an expert on it. I managed to get only a B+ in Prof. Fletcher Baldwin's Constitutional Law I class in the spring of 1992 at the University of Florida College of Law although I did somehow get an A in both Prof. Charles Collier's Constitutional Law II class that summer and in Prof. Baldwin's Civil & Political Liberties class that fall.

I did just a little work involving constitutional issues as a staff attorney in social policy at UF's Center for Governmental Responsibility and spent only one year as a visiting professor in legal studies at Nova Southeastern University, where I taught just two undergraduate sections each of Constitutional History I, Constitutional History II and Political & Civil Rights.

And while I did supervise teaching assistants in Constitutional Law for three years at Nova Southeastern's Shepard Broad Law Center, I admit that my knowledge of the Constitutional might not match that of the ghetto-fabulous Russell Pearce, who is, after all, a member of the Arizona House of Representatives and presumed candidate for the same seat in the U.S. House of Representatives for which I am running.

But I would respectfully suggest to Russell Pearce that he take a look at the first sentence of Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 had declared that all persons born in the United States were citizens, but the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified a couple of years later, enshrined that in our Constitution.

In U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, 169 U.S. 649 (1898), the Supreme Court held that under the Fourteenth Amendment, a child born in the United States of parents of foreign descent who are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under a foreign power, and are not members of foreign forces in hostile occupation of United States territory, becomes a citizen of the United States at the time of birth.

According to the Wong Kim Ark decision, the citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment had to be interpreted in light of English common law tradition that had excluded from citizenship at birth only two classes of people: children born to foreign diplomats and children born to enemy forces engaged in hostile occupation of the country's territory. Since Mr. Wong, who was born in the U.S. to parents who were not citizens -- and who never could become U.S. citizens due to the racist Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 -- didn't fit in these two categories, he was a U.S. citizen.

U.S. citizenship law since Wong Kim Ark has acknowledged both jus soli (citizenship through place of birth) and jus sanguinis (citizenship inherited from parents). While the Supreme Court has never explicitly ruled on whether children born in the United States to undocumented (so-called "illegal") immigrant parents are entitled to birthright citizenship via the Fourteenth Amendment, it has generally been assumed that they are.

In some cases the Court has implicitly assumed, or suggested in dicta, that such children are entitled to birthright citizenship.

In Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982), the court stated in dicta that illegal immigrants are "within the jurisdiction" of the states in which they reside, and added in a footnote that "no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment 'jurisdiction' can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful."

And in INS v. Rios-Pineda 471 U.S. 444 (1985), the Court referred to a child born to deportable aliens as "a citizen of this country."

This leads me to respectfully suggest to Arizona Rep. Russell Pearce (R-National Alliance) that his bill to take away citizenship from children born in this country, like the proposed Arizona referendum to accomplish the same thing, is patently unconstitional.

I further respectfully suggest that when Russell Pearce claims that the Fourteenth Amendment "has nothing to do with aliens," he is full of shit.

Well, Mr. Pearce is still pretty scary, even if he backed away from what have would been a humiliating defeat by Jeff Flake in the 2008 Republican primary for Congress. In most civilized parts of the country, a Russell Pearce would be widely considered an embarrassing laughingstock. Too bad Arizona is so backward that Pearce and his slimy ilk actually are in charge of the legislature and that the poorly-educated moronic majority of voters of the Cactus State seem to want to keep their own kind in power.

Dummy Jeff Flake is No Einstein: That's Why When US House Voted to Honor Einstein Fellows, 405-5, Science-Hating Jeff Flake Voted No

Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake is no Einstein; on that, even most Republicans agree. We guess that's why Flake has a hatred of Einstein and science and intelligence in general. Uneducated dummies like Flake usually do.

Yesterday the U.S. House of Representatives voted 405-5 to pass an utterly uncontroversial resolution celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellowship Program and recognizing the significant contributions of Albert Einstein Fellows.

Anyone reading this website before knows that when you have any vote as lopsided as that, one of the tiny of minority of morons voting no will be Jeff Flake (shown here in a 2008 photo).

Lazy and undisciplined, unable to work well with his colleagues even within his own party, Jeff Flake has no way to show off but to vote no on resolutions like this. He's like the obnoxious class clown who strives to get attention to deflect from the fact that he can't read. Out-of-step Jeff Flake is so stupid and spiteful, he'll vote against honoring Einstein Fellows:

science teachers who, unlike Jeff Flake, are both hard-working and highly intelligent.

Luisa Evonne Valdez - Green Party - for Arizona State House of Representatives District 15

One of the great Green Party candidates for the Arizona state legislature this year is Luisa Evonne Valdez, who's running for the state House of Representatives in District 15 in central Phoenix. Check out her campaign website and vote for her if you live in District 15 like our very cool friends in the Coronado District.

Here is Luisa speaking two years ago at a rally for marriage equality:

Arizona Green Party Congressional Candidate Richard Grayson Says U.S. Must Increase Support for Iran's Green Movement

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, has a terrific op-ed piece in the New York Times today explaining eloquently why the United States and President Obama must do more to support the Green Movement in Iran:

The Green Movement, which is an upwelling of Iran’s enormous cultural and political transformation, is what America has long wanted to see in the Middle East, especially after 9/11: a more-or-less liberal democratic movement,

increasingly secular in philosophy and political objectives, rooted in Iran’s large middle class and even larger pool of college-educated youth (a college education in Iran, where the revolution zealously opened universities to the poor, doesn’t connote any social status).

The movement is similar in its aspirations and methods to what transpired behind the Iron Curtain in the 1980s. It aims to incorporate the spiritually dispossessed, the free thinkers, the poorly paid, the young (more than 60 percent of Iran’s population is now under 30), the dissident clergy and, perhaps most important, the first-generation revolutionaries of the 1970s who have been purged by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Khomeini’s charisma-free, paranoid successor as supreme leader.

The movement is also the most recent manifestation (the first being Mr. Khatami’s presidential victory in 1997) of widespread anger by women over their second-class citizenship in the Islamic Republic.

The movement is unique in Islamic history: an intellectual revolution that aims to solve peacefully and democratically the great Muslim torment over religious authenticity and cultural collaboration. How does a proud people adopt the best (and the worst) from the West and remain true to its much-loved historical identity?

The millions who voted in 1997 and 2001 for Mr. Khatami, a clerical apostle of cultural integration, were telling us that for them, this is really no longer a big problem. Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who ruled from 1941 until the revolution, failed in his dream of turning Iranians into Germans. Yet 30 years of theocracy have done an astonishing job of Westernizing Iran’s culture and political preferences.

While the riots of last June did not topple the mullahs, the Islamic Republic is now permanently unstable. Every national holiday has the potential of turning into a day of protest, and the regime must send out hundreds of thousands of security forces, as it did in the days leading up to the anniversary on Saturday.

The brutality that Ayatollah Khamenei unleashed against the Green Movement last summer — government forces have been accused of murder, torture and, most shockingly, rape — has probably cost the regime dearly among the country’s devout, the bedrock of the supreme leader’s power. . .

Yet President Obama — who only slowly came to recognize the Green Movement as a protest against tyranny — would probably ignore Iran’s democracy movement completely if Mr. Khamenei would just deign to talk to Washington about his nuclear program. The president seems irretrievably wedded to the idea of “engagement.”

The administration is playing up the sanctions it pushed through the United Nations Security Council last week. In the White House, sanctions are seen as a calibrated and reversible form of pressure tied to Tehran’s actions. Embracing the Green Movement

would be politically and morally much more problematic. The movement is no longer just about liberalizing the state: it is now all about regime change.

But this is an instance in which playing power politics offers the United States tremendous upside. Ayatollah Khamenei is far more likely to compromise on nuclear weapons if he feels he’s about to be undone by the Green Movement.

Common sense — let alone a strategic and historical grasp of what is unfolding in Iran — ought to incline President Obama to back the movement’s repeatedly made request of Washington: communications support. . .

President Obama doesn’t seem to grasp that the United States is unavoidably part of this increasingly violent struggle. And we really do want one side to win: the friends of Karl Popper.