LET’S USE BOY SCOUTS TO SECURE THE US-MEXICAN BORDER

Published in this week’s Tri City News

There’s been a great deal of talk about the Boy Scouts lately, due to a leak late last month which uncovered plans for the organization to review its “no gays allowed” policy. I’m still not clear as to what the Boy Scouts do exactly. I know it has something to do with “character building” and tree forts and selling Christmas wreaths…but none of that seems particularly useful to me. What are the Boy Scouts doing for America?

On Super Bowl Sunday, President Obama called on the Scouts to lift their ban on gay members. Still, they have decided to delay their final decision until May. Because April showers bring gay flowers or whatever. 

“Not so fast, Obama” have said Right-Wingers. More than 40 conservative organizations ran an ad in USA Today pressuring the Boy Scouts to “stay true to their timeless values and not surrender to financial or political pressures by corporate elites on the issue of homosexuality.” 

“That’s some pretty heavy stuff,” sighed 9 year old Tommy who said he was “really just in it to learn how to build a pinewood derby car.”

So what are the Boy Scouts doing for America? Assuming the answer to that is nothing, It must be asked: If the Boy Scouts don’t actually do anything, why don’t we use them to secure the border? I mean physically use their bodies as a human fence… “The Boy Scout Fence,” if you will. 

I know, I know, that’s crazy! But is it really? Think about it. 

The Boy Scouts of America love America. The word “America” is right in there in their official name. As of February 8th, the Boy Scouts of America have been loving America for 103 years. According to conservative logic, to love America is to loathe illegal immigrants who march into town looking to steal the jobs nobody else wants to do. So why not really stick it to Obama by not only supporting the Boy Scouts in their doubling down on “timeless values,” but by doing what he won’t do by securing the border with “The Boy Scout Fence”?

I say we line them up and let them get the job done, armed with their Swiss Army knives and can-do spirit. There are 2.7 million members and over 1 million adult volunteers in the Boy Scouts. And with the US-Mexican border at an estimated 1,933 miles long, that means we could have 1,914 Boy Scouts per mile, with each Boy Scout (or adult volunteer!) protecting his own 2.75 foot space. 

After serving as part of “The Boy Scout Fence,” vets can go to college for free or get into theme parks or whatever kids are into. Free Netflix subscriptions for life! A date with Kate Upton! America will be better than ever after taking care of Issue No. 1: illegals, so life will be sweet for the Boy Scouts who scarified their lives to make it happen. 

Many great Americans have been Boy Scouts. Maple syrup enthusiast, Texas Governor Rick Perry; Convicted war criminal Donald Rumsfeld; Painter and convicted war criminal George W. Bush; Kim Kardashian’s stepdad Bruce Jenner.

And many not-so-great Americans have been Boy Scouts. The Kenyan President, Barack Obama; George Takei (this must have been a mistake); Celebrity President John F Kennedy; Hairy Lizard King Jim Morrison. 

The fact is, for good (Bush) or evil (Takei), The Boy Scouts of America are as American as America gets.

As if anybody needs further convincing that this is a terrific idea, let me point out that it’s much easier to get a feel for how normal The Boy Scout Fence will seem to us once implemented if we consider the headlines likely to emerge about our wholesome border patrol:

“Half of the Boy Scout Fence collapsed today when news of the arrival of Girl Scout cookies sent troops running.”

“After 157 years, Congress allows Girl Scouts to serve and secure the border in the historically all-male Boy Scout Fence.”

“Rush Limbaugh arrested late Monday evening after hurling his body at The Boy Scout Fence in Arizona.”

“Members of a Mexican drug cartel blow off little Timmy’s head and run over Bobby and Mikey’s bodies while charging through The Boy Scout Fence.”

There’s nothing sensical about a group dedicated to “character building” being comprised of a bunch of homophobes, but there is something very sensical about employing an already organized army of 2.7 million bored kids (and over 1 million adult volunteers!) to protect the United States of America from scary illegals. 

Originally published in the TriCityNews the week of September 10th, 2012

With both conventions now belonging to the ages - or at least mercifully in the rearview mirror - whose speeches proved to have any shelf-life at all?

Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, a fan of Dirty Harry or a booster of Bubba, your list is likely to be pretty short and likely to include all or some of only these names: Clint Eastwood, Clint Eastwood’s Invisible Friend, Clint Eastwood’s Chair, Bill Clinton, Ann Romney, Julian Castro, and maybe, maybe, the two candidates.

Not two weeks since the Republicans belatedly banged the gavel in Tampa, most of the other speakers at both events have already vanished without trace into the vast void of convention history. They and their verbiage float in some timeless gulag of political purgatory along with the Democrats’ keynote speakers in 1996 and 2000 (any idea who they were? We’ll get back to them later).

And while Condoleezza Rice and Representative Kelly Ayotte and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka may be just coming to the realization that their remarks amounted to little more than a fist punched into a pail of water, none of them were expected to vault on to the stage, command a convention arena with their presence, win a permanent place in the political dialogue of a country, and then do double somersaults on the way out.

Chris Christie was.

The damage isn’t necessarily permanent: Bill Clinton was essentially booed off the stage at the 1988 convention by many of the same Democrats who orgasmically embraced him just four years later, and who last week dreamed of repealing the 22nd amendment and nominating him again in 2016. But for a big, resounding, shoot-yourself-in-the-foot missed opportunity, it’s hard to compare anybody’s failure to the one achieved by New Jersey’s bombastic governor.

Republicans who were willing to enthusiastically buy Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin in the same convention in 2008 just didn’t seem to be able to make anything out of Christie’s Keynote in 2012. It’s not that they disliked him. They weren’t like the Democrats of 24 years ago pointing at their watches as Clinton droned on and on. They were just inert in his presence.

It may have been that Christie’s by-now familiar Phineas T. Bluster routine just doesn’t work on a stage that is either figuratively or literally larger than a press conference (or the now just-as-familiar deranged outbursts at passersby). For all of the transformation of politics by television and the internet, there is still a lot to the theory that it shares way too much with the stage. 

The same stuff that kills them in New Haven may lay an egg on Broadway, and you can easily substitute “Trenton” for that city and “The Convention” for that street. The national audience - even one made up of Republicans - may just not be willing to buy bromides about “politicians who care more about doing something and less about being something,” and “the people of New Jersey stepped up: they shared in the sacrifice,” from a governor whose job growth rate is only 45th best, and whose unemployment rate is not only at 9.8%, but is the farthest his state has been above the national average in 30 years.

Republicans like their nonsense. But even they have a hard time accepting it from a guy telling them “we believe that if we tell the people the truth, they will act bigger than the pettiness we see in Washington, DC,” while his own petty behavior - like referring to one colleague as “numbnuts” and suggesting the press “take a bat out” on another - is designed to hide the truth about New Jersey’s dismal economic performance. At a political convention, you don’t have to tell anybody the truth about anything. But you can’t reek of lies while you speak of honesty.

Again, it’s possible that coming out of the Republican Convention ranking on the speakers’ list well behind an empty chair and the guy showing significant symptoms of hallucinations may not be fatal to Governor Christie’s obvious ambitions for 2016 and beyond. As noted above, Bill Clinton survived the psychological equivalent of being showered with thrown alarm clocks. But it was an opportunity not just missed, but completely missed, and it was the biggest one Christie has yet been offered.

And though Clinton (and others) have returned, swinging and missing on these biggest of stages can indeed destroy not merely national hopes, but entire careers. The aforementioned Democratic Keynoters in 1996 and 2000 should provide sobering warnings to Christie that he may already be descending the mountain. The first was a rising star named Evan Bayh, who would shunt himself off on to a dull and seldom-traveled track and serve a dozen listless years in the Senate. The second was Harold Ford, who was supposed to be Barack Obama before anybody knew who Barack Obama was. He not only faded out of politics, but he slept-walked through three university teaching positions, and two television commentating contracts, and wound up at Merrill Lynch.

So, our Governor should consider Sen. Bayh and Rep. Ford and beware. This might’ve been his big break. And instead of taking his own advice by being a politician who cares “more about doing something and less about being something,” he did everything in his power to be safe and likable… and he was upstaged by an empty chair. 

By Olivia Nuzzi

Originally posted on Saywhatnj.com

As if President “the private sector is fine” Obama wasn’t doing enough to help the Left-Wing self-destruct. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has extended himself to the cause by making liberals look like overbearing know-it-alls. 

This month, it was announced that Bloomberg (I) plans to ban sugary soft drinks larger than 16 ounces. Many say the decision screams “Nanny State” while others contend that this is just another example of the billionaire-mayor-with-a-Napoleon complex tossing his power around.

Bloomberg is not a liberal, though he does tend to stand on the left side of the aisle regarding social issues. However, healthful eating has, perplexingly, become a liberal cause. Liberals are quick to point out that our government subsidizes the wrong things: meat, dairy, soy, corn and sugar. Those ingredients make up the basis of the processed American diet, and that diet makes us fat, which makes us sick, which costs taxpayers money in almost every way imaginable, from healthcare to public transportation. 

It would seem contradictory for Republicans to be in favor of consuming - or at least having other people consume - products which exist because of or are promoted by the government. The USDA recommends that anyone over the age of 8 consume three cups of dairy products a day. The USDA sells you dairy with “Got Milk?” ads and by awarding substantial funding to milk researches who, coincidently, always tend to arrive at the conclusion that dairy is necessary for your general health. Never mind that humans are the only animal who drinks another animal’s milk and the only animal that drinks milk in adulthood. If there were any consistency in the Tea Party’s “logic”, Anna Little and Nikki Haley would be dumping milk into the Gulf of Mexico and shooting yogurt over the border with American Flag-emblazened cannons. 

Instead, when reports claimed that Pennsylvania’s State Board of Education was considering ways to limit sweets in classrooms, Sarah Palin stomped into town, dozens of cookies in hand. “I look at Pennsylvania, and I think of sweets - I think of Hershey. Then I think, how dare they ban sweets from school here,” said Palin. The half-term Alaska Governor went on to make her real point, “who should be deciding what I eat? Should it be government or should it be parents?” 

Indeed, what you do or do not put in your mouth (hey, I’m talking about nutrition here) is a personal decision that only you have control over. That’s why Republicans sound so much more sane on this issue than those who want to take away your enormous soda. For the GOP, the Soda Ban is the same issue as the incandescent light bulbs ban and Obama requiring citizens to purchase healthcare. 

Bloomberg’s decision has made it possible for the Right-Wing to herd people to the polls in November thinking that their vote is the only thing that stands between freedom and having Nancy Pelosi force-feed every American citizen steamed broccoli.

Liberals criticize Republicans for campaigning on small government while advocating policies which would control what we do in our bedrooms and who we let hang out in our uteruses. Liberals attacked former presidential prospect Rick Santorum for wanting to ban pornography. Liberals condemn anyone who is anti-marriage equality. So, if liberals don’t band together to denounce Bloomberg for his Soda Ban, we can add “hypocrites” right next to “can’t figure out how to orchestrate a protest” on the list of reasons why the Left Wing is it’s own worst enemy. 

We can start by loudly wondering if Bloomberg is an even more dedicated attention-whore than Governor Chris Christie, seeing as this Soda Ban isn’t actually going to do anything except garner him press. Even with the ban, dedicated New Yorkers are going to consume unhealthy portions of sugary drinks. My dog can problem solve when I ask her to roll over if she wants a treat, so I’m pretty sure people are going to realize that even if you’re not allowed to buy a soda the size of a six month old, you can still buy multiple sodas at a time and consume them if you feel so inclined.

We can then question why, if Bloomberg actually did want this action to do something other than get him trending on Twitter, he didn’t just place a substantial tax on soft drinks and bar the use of food stamps to purchase them. The Institute of Medicine says that sugary drinks are the largest contributor of added calories to the American diet, so they are a huge (har har) contributor to the obesity epidemic. Taxing soda would reduce obesity and all of it’s subsequent costs. 

Bloomberg’s Soda Ban is antithetical to his goal. When has banning something ever worked anyway? The last time I checked, Congressmen were still paying for sex and sex workers were still paying for coke (the other kind).

Perhaps someone should let Mr. Bloomberg know that Prohibition wasn’t exactly a roaring success. If he starts drinking heavily, he may stop trying to “help.”

By Olivia Nuzzi

Originally published in this week’s TriCityNews. If you live in Monmouth or Ocean County, NJ - pick up a copy! 

As the two year anniversary of health care reform approaches, women shouldn’t ask themselves what made Republicans hate us so much (the answer to that is stayed away in droves.) But we should ask what life would be like if our health was left in their hands. 

The Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Obama two years ago next week, has prioritized women’s health despite efforts from Republicans who seem to be working out their mommy issues on every woman in America. Their counterproposals not only suggest that they don’t care about women’s health, but that they believe women should be punished for the fact that their healthcare is inherently sexual.

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies can no longer discriminate by charging women premiums 150% higher than men of the same age and health status. This reads as either “good news” or a “threat to our freedom” depending on whether you believe in equality or align yourself with the increasingly radical GOP. 

The law places a cap on what insurance companies can force women to spend in co-pays and deductibles. Beginning in 2014, women who can’t afford comprehensive insurance will be provided with tax credits. That’s a great relief for over one-half of women in America who delay seeking life-saving care because of costs and the other one-third who must give up basic necessities to receive urgent care. For a first-world country, that’s a third-world reality. 

The Affordable Care Act also eliminates lifetime limits on insurance coverage. And it forbids them from dropping women from coverage when they get sick. 

Preventing insurance companies from preying on the weakest among us? President Obama might as well have burned the flag on the White House lawn while eating escargot and blasting the Dixie Chicks. 

Republicans have spent the better part of the two years since the Affordable Care Act became law fighting for regressive change. Instead of focusing on the job creation they allegedly care so much about, they have favored policing uteruses - introducing over 45 bills on abortion alone.

Recently in Virginia, the State Senate passed a law which forces women to have medically unnecessary ultrasounds before an abortion. Though proving chivalry isn’t completely dead, the provision to require an intrusive - and again, medically unnecessary - vaginal probe was left out.  

I suppose it’s not surprising that a policy which benefits women so greatly doesn’t have the support of Governor Christie, who has declared that he is “not a fan” of the Affordable Care Act. Doing his part to be the best Regressive he can be, Christie himself eliminated $7.4M for women’s reproductive health services in 2010. 

Beyond legislative assaults on women’s health and reproductive rights, there have been gross verbal attacks.

Rick Santorum, that theocrat in the sweater vest who is somehow taken seriously as a presidential prospect, would like to outlaw birth control entirely. Rick Santorum is also against abortion in all cases including rape and incest. You read that correctly: someone who is vehemently anti-abortion is also vehemently against the one thing which is sure to prevent abortion. 

Foster Friess, Rick Santorum’s top donor - yes, Santorum has donors - recently stated “you know, back in my days, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.” 

In an attempt to one-up Friess, this past week Rush Limbaugh took a break from popping Oxycontin and looking for his 5th wife in order to attack Sandra Fluke - a Georgetown University law student and witness at the Nancy Pelosi-convened Democratic Steering and Policy Committee’s unofficial hearing on birth control. The hearing served as a response to the all-male panel hearing held by the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. 

Limbaugh stated that Fluke was a “prostitute” and a “slut” before going further to suggest that the “sluts” who expect their contraceptives to be covered under their health insurance should be forced to tape themselves having sex and post the tapes online so that “we can all watch.” 

After devoting multiple days of his radio program to personally attacking Sandra Fluke, Limbaugh issued an apology for his “word choices”, adding that the episodes were an “attempt to be humorous.” Limbaugh is probably more likely sorry that nobody told him misogyny doesn’t sell well: he’s lost 5 sponsors and counting.

Considering that nothing makes me want to hold an aspirin between my knees more than seeing or hearing Rush Limbaugh, It’s not impossible that he has decided to selflessly employ himself as a means of contraception. What a guy.

Sure, the Affordable Care Act isn’t perfect. A lot of liberals like myself were disappointed not to see the inclusion of a public option. Still, it’s difficult to feel dissatisfied when cogitating the sort of health care reforms Right-Wingers deem acceptable.

It seems when they say want to “take our country back!” they mean to the 1800s specifically. 

By Olivia Nuzzi