Category Archives: Justice

The Reality Show I’d Pay To See.

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I despise virtually all of the so-called “Reality” TV shows. But there is one show I’d love to see: “Sheriff Joe’s Prison Term In Tent City.”

For years, “America’s Toughest Sheriff” has, in reality, been America’s Most Corrupt Sheriff. He has ignored court orders and enforced laws as he sees fit. He has racially-profiled Latinos. He has failed to investigate hundreds of sexual assaults in Latino communities. He has ignored the dehumanizing and dangerous conditions at his Tent City. (You know, the tents in the desert where prisoners are warehoused without heat, air conditioning, toilets and running water.) He has profited from donations to his far right wing PAC. And he has cost the taxpayers of Maricopa County more than $145 million in legal costs and misspent funds.

Now, faced with a contempt of court hearing for willfully ignoring a judge’s orders, he has admitted to guilt in hopes that he will avoid the hearing and the potentially harsher penalties that could come with it.

Let’s hope the judge sees his plea for what it really is: An attempt to settle for a slap on the wrist and a stern warning. Let’s hope the judge sentences him to time in his own Tent City. And let’s hope the judge allows cameras in the prison so we can all watch his detention officers place the sheriff in a holding area with no shade from the sun as they have done to so many others; so we can watch him eat the same gruel he has forced on prisoners for years; so we can watch him stand in line for one of his own portable toilets; so we can watch him wrinkle his nose at the stench coming from the toilets and the dump next door.

Now that’s a “Reality” show I’d watch!

No One More Deserving Of Contempt.

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On Thursday, January 15, a United States District Court Judge called for a contempt of court proceeding against Joe Arpaio, the self-proclaimed “nation’s toughest sheriff.” It’s a development for which I have only one question: What took so long?

The oh-so-tough Sheriff Joe has a long history of deeds that are deserving of contempt. The courts have found him guilty of racially-profiling Latinos, costing the county tens of millions in unnecessary court costs and court judgments. By my admittedly incomplete accounting, Arpaio has, thus far, cost Maricopa County taxpayers at least $81.125 million in legal fees and settlements. And that doesn’t even include the tens of millions of county funds he has misspent on a variety of law enforcement toys and other unapproved items.

In addition, Arpaio’s office failed to investigate sexual assaults in a predominantly Latino area of the county. He has profited from his own political action committee. And, according to the American Friends Service Committee, his Tent City jail, which was ballyhooed as a way to save the county money, costs more per prisoner than any other prison in the state. This despite the fact that it has no heat, no air conditioning and its only bathrooms are portable latrines located next to a dump. (Of course, that is a perfect image for a prison that has one of the highest recidivism rates in the nation. Like our trash, the prisoners are dumped in the desert, surrounded by razor wire, covered with fabric and largely forgotten.)

In reality, the terrorists housed in Gitmo have better facilities. Indeed, an Amnesty International report that found that Tent City is not an “adequate or humane alternative to housing inmates…”

Despite his excesses and failings, for unexplainable reasons Joe is still admired by those who would otherwise demand accountability and fiscal restraint from their elected officials. That’s because Joe is a master of fear-mongering. Over the years, he has scared enough Maricopa County residents into voting for him that he has been elected to six terms by portraying all Latinos as drug-running, human-trafficking, murdering criminals who have crossed our borders illegally and are taking our jobs. He has also successfully pandered to his right wing base by devoting time to try to prove that President Obama is not a US citizen.

So are these the reasons why Arpaio is now facing contempt charges? No, Joe is facing contempt for simply failing to follow court orders. In other words, the get-tough sheriff who claims to pursue any and all lawbreakers is himself accused of ignoring the legal system.

If there is any justice, the highly-contemptible Sheriff Joe will be found guilty and assigned to his own Tent City where he can enjoy the odors coming from its portable toilets, which are frankly less disagreeable than the stench of corruption coming from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and his political friends.

The Sad State Of Arizona (2015 Edition)

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Before the GOP-created Great Recession, Arizona’s state economy was based on the fantasy that construction could continue until the entire Sonora Desert was covered by homes, shopping malls and golf courses. So since the housing market crashed, Arizona’s economy has languished.

While other states were trying to mend their losses by diversifying, stimulating their economies and raising taxes, Jan Brewer and the GOP-dominated legislature chose, instead, to make cuts. Deep, desperate budget cuts. Yet, despite facing a large deficit, they chose to further reduce revenue by cutting taxes for corporations. At the same time, they put teachers out of work by cutting the funding of public schools. Indeed, since 2009, only Oklahoma has cut more from student funding than Arizona. As a result, the state’s per student funding is now just 69 percent of the national average and its student performance stands at 47th out of 50 states and the District of Columbia. Only 1 in 18 students who enter an Arizona high school will receive a degree from a college or technical school, and those who do earn a degree will likely be buried in student loan debt.

Not content with destroying schools and jobs, the GOP also did what it could to destroy tourism, the state’s 2nd-largest industry, by closing state parks and highway rest stops. And to make the state even less appealing to tourists, they passed the anti-Latino law, SB1070, which made tourists and conventions spurn the state costing us tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue.

It was as if the GOP was intent on pushing our citizens into its ideological clown car and driving us off a fiscal cliff.

Now along comes the new GOP governor, Doug Ducey, who must have frozen his brain while peddling questionable franchises for Cold Stone Creamery. During the campaign, he and his supporters ran millions of dollars in misleading attack ads accusing his Democratic opponent of raising tuition to the state’s universities. But, now that Ducey has been sworn into office, he has presented a budget that would cut $75 million in funding for post-secondary education. And, though he pledged to increase K-12 education funding during the campaign, he is attempting a shell game in which he proposes to take as much from the already stressed school administration and operations budgets as he would add for classrooms. Moreover, his budget completely ignores the hundreds of millions of dollars a court awarded public schools as the result of previous cuts to education in violation of the state constitution.

Of course, one budget item that will increase is the money allocated to corrections. True to the GOP’s commitment to line the pockets of private prison corporations, Ducey proposes building yet another privately-operated prison at a cost of $5.3 million. But there is no money for the education and rehabilitation of prisoners, so after they serve their time, they are all too likely to commit more crimes. And since the privately-operated health care system for prisons doesn’t track or treat infectious diseases, they are also likely to spread infectious diseases into our communities.

In their obviously delusional minds, Ducey and the Teapublicans still seem to believe that, by further cutting the state’s already low corporate taxes, they will be able to attract corporations to relocate to Arizona bringing with them thousands of high-paying jobs. Anyone who has ever consulted with corporations seeking a place to expand or relocate knows that’s a fantasy.

Corporations, at least good corporations, look for places to expand that offer quality transportation, abundant resources, an abundant high-skilled and well-educated workforce, abundant and low-cost energy, a high quality of living, and affordable taxes…usually in that order. Arizona’s approach will only result in the relocation of corporations that offer low-skill, low-paying jobs or gun manufacturers who are drawn to the state by our heavily-armed population and our virtually non-existent gun laws. Even then, they will only come to Arizona if the state is willing to pay for changes in needed infrastructure, provide further tax cuts and pay for other incentives. All of which explains why, when high tax states like California and Minnesota are thriving with low unemployment and budget surpluses, Arizona has failed to emerge from recession and faces annual budget deficits of $1 billion or more.

In the competition to build a sustainable, thriving economy, it would seem that Arizona can only compete in a contest of Biggest Loser against other red states like Kansas and Mississippi. And the biggest losers of all will be our students.

MLK Day: An Update.

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As we celebrate Martin Luther King Day, it seems appropriate to look at King’s legacy in the area of civil rights. By the time Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968, he and his movement had made great strides. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been signed into law making it illegal to discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. In addition, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had been enacted guaranteeing all citizens the right to vote as protected by the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.

It seemed that segregation and racism in the United States were coming to an end. However, that has not been the case.

According to recent studies, the US is more segregated today than it was in 1968. The white flight from the inner cities to the suburbs and the end of forced busing of school children has led to nearly lily white, well-funded suburban schools and mostly black, underfunded schools in the inner cities. More and more children from wealthy white families have been enrolled in virtually all-white private schools. And, to further accelerate segregation, Teapublican legislatures and Congress have passed new laws authorizing the redistribution of funding from public schools to charter schools, private schools and religious schools.

With regard to voting rights, Teapublicans have enacted restrictive voter ID laws in numerous states to suppress the black vote. They have limited polling hours making it more difficult for poor, working people to find time to vote. They have reduced the number of polling stations in poor, black neighborhoods creating long lines of voters. And the conservative-dominated Supreme Court has eviscerated the Voting Rights Act to make it more difficult for the Justice Department to prevent voter suppression.

On the positive side, the GLBT community has won the right for same sex marriage in 36 states. Yet, with the Supreme Court agreeing to review a lower court decision to uphold same sex marriage bans in four states, the gains in other states are now in limbo.

The opportunity for poor black students to have access to a college education is also in doubt following a 2013 Supreme Court ruling which limits affirmative action. Yet another Supreme Court decision has created special rules for religious organizations, and numerous state legislature bills have opened the door for further religious discrimination as if it isn’t already bad enough. (A recent study found that atheists are marginalized and subjected to discrimination. For Muslims, the situation may be even worse.)

Finally, racism is on the rise, made worse by the events in Ferguson, Missouri, Cleveland, Staten Island, the Bronx and elsewhere. And the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, has noted a tremendous rise in the number of hate groups since the election of our first black president.

It’s clear that much of what Martin Luther King, Jr. lived for and died for is in jeopardy. It’s up to all of us to ensure that he did not die in vain.

What’s A Black Man’s Life Worth?

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In recent weeks we have seen a number of unarmed black men and children killed by police. We have seen video of a non-violent black man being choked to death in Staten Island for failure to pay cigarette taxes. We have heard testimony of a black teenager in Ferguson gunned down by 12 shots even though many eyewitnesses testified that he had raised his hands in a sign of surrender. We have seen a young father shot to death in a WalMart for carrying a pellet gun he intended to purchase. We have seen a 12-year-old murdered by two cops for playing with a toy gun. We have seen a mentally-ill black man armed with a small knife gunned down by two cops who opened fire within seconds of arriving on the scene. (A small knife is no threat to two police officers in a squad car who are wearing Kevlar vests and armed with Tasers, pepper spray, batons and guns.)

We have seen reports of police shooting unarmed black men and children in Arizona, California, Missouri, New York and Ohio.

These are not isolated incidents. They represent even more than a pattern. They represent an epidemic…a failure of law enforcement training and tactics, and a breakdown in the relationships of people of color with law enforcement. At best, it indicates a sense of fear and mistrust of any male of color. At worst, it indicates deep-seated racism within police departments combined with a shoot-first mentality intended to prevent any testimony that would conflict with police reports. (Dead men tell no tales.)

Likely, both are at least partially true.

In fairness, the proliferation and ever-increasing lethality of guns in our country has made the job of law enforcement more difficult. This causes police to draw their guns instead of relying upon less lethal options. But that is no excuse. Law enforcement has long assumed that citizens are armed. That fact hasn’t changed, but the reaction of officers has.

Before Darrell Wilson, the officer who shot Michael Brown, was hired by the Ferguson Police Department, he had been trained in a nearby city by a police department so inherently racist that it was disbanded by the city. Other officers involved in the shootings have been found to have posted blatantly racist comments on the Internet. Some police departments have been tied to the Ku Klux Klan and other racist organizations.

Given the distrust of police by minorities and the attitudes of some police officers, the unnecessary shootings are going to be difficult to stop. Body cameras may help restrain some behaviors and build trust, but they alone are not the answer. Videos of police violence taken by independent witnesses have resulted in few convictions. Grand juries are too likely to believe that there is more to the incident than meets the eye. They are too likely to prioritize police testimony over that of eyewitnesses. They are too likely to excuse police abuse because they understand that police work is dangerous. (It’s actually less dangerous than working as a logger, miner, fisherman, farmer, or laboratory worker. Police work is the 9th most dangerous profession in the US.) Moreover, the public is likely to excuse police excesses because they are frightened as a result of political fear-mongering. They expect the police to protect them from the bad guys and, if the police make some mistakes in doing so, they believe that’s better than the alternative.

The truth is that police seldom protect anyone. They usually arrive on the scene after the crime has already been committed. They are no longer the deterrent they once were. I believe they can only regain their effectiveness if they, once again, become a real part of the community; if they get to know the citizens they have been hired to serve; if they become a less threatening presence that encourages cooperation within the community to help prevent crimes and build trust. The police need to reflect the communities they are sworn to serve and protect. They need to rethink their training and apprehension techniques. They need to lose the military attitudes and equipment and focus on non-lethal controlling techniques.

They need to be reminded that guns are the weapon of last resort. Not a weapon of convenience.

Why US Must Prosecute Its Architects Of Torture.

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When President Obama took office, he and Attorney General Eric Holder declined to prosecute crimes committed by the Bush administration…the fraudulent case for the Iraq War, the illegal detention and treatment of the prisoners at Gitmo, and the failure of government agencies to regulate the gambling addiction of Wall Street. The feeling was that the nation needed to heal…that, in the midst of two wars and an economic calamity, the prosecution of crimes would only make the festering wounds worse. As a result, Bush administration officials were given a pass for war crimes and Wall Street bankers were given a “stay-out-of-jail” card for massive financial fraud.

It’s time for Obama and the Department of Justice to revisit that decision.

The Senate report on the Bush-led torture program chronicles the depravity of our extraordinary renditions and enhanced interrogations. It shows that, under the Bush administration, our nation sank to new lows, placing us among the world’s worst actors. Instead of claiming the high ground in our war on terror, in many ways we joined the so-called “Axis of Evil” as decried by former President Bush himself.

We cannot ever again claim to be the “beacon of hope” or that “shining city upon the hill” as described by Ronald Reagan if we refuse to seek justice against those who committed war crimes in our name. That means an open, and very public, trial of Bush, Cheney, former CIA Director Michael Hayden, former Attorneys General John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales, former Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, former NSA Director Condoleezza Rice and anyone else within the Bush administration who authorized and ordered torture. We should demand that Richard “The Dick” Cheney repay his share of the reported $39.5 billion in profits made by Halliburton from the Iraq War. We should also reclaim the $81 million paid to the two psychologists who recommended the various forms of torture and, if they refuse to repay their “consulting” fees, we should arraign them on criminal charges.

“But what about the political divisiveness such actions would create?” you may ask.

That ship sailed long ago. It left port on the day of Obama’s inauguration when Mitch McConnell and his Teapublican cronies plotted to make Obama a one-term president by obstructing his nominations and every aspect of his agenda. It gained speed when Senate Teapublicans used the filibuster a record number of times and the GOP House voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act more than 50 times. And it sped out of sight when the GOP House voted to sue the sitting president of the United States.

Despite the president’s best efforts, there has been no healing of the wounds opened by the Bush administration. And there can be no healing of the US reputation unless those who chose to torture prisoners in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the UN treaty against torture are held accountable. Moreover, without a proper accounting, our own citizens and troops will be more vulnerable to torture in conflicts around the world. Does that mean a former president, vice-president, CIA director and assistant attorney general should go to prison? If we were to follow the precedent established by the Nuremburg trials of former Nazi leaders, the answer could very well be yes.

We cannot be a true democracy unless every crime is prosecuted fairly and equally under the law, and unless everyone is held accountable for criminal actions.

Tales Of Our Torturer-In-Chief.

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The Senate Committee on Intelligence (Yes, I know, there are many who would question if there is any intelligence in Washington) has released its report on torture and its insights into the actions of the CIA under the Bush administration is not pretty. The report shows that waterboarding was only one of the methods used, and not even the worst at that.

Among other things, the report shows that we abducted suspected terrorists, many who were innocent and held at least 119 captive. 26 of the captives were illegally held. The captives were subjected, not only to waterboarding, but to numerous other forms of torture, such as sleep deprivation and sustained eardrum-piercing noises. Some were shackled in “stress” positions. Some were held in complete darkness with only a bucket to use as a toilet. Many were threatened with rape by objects such as a broom handle. Some, who tried to end their misery through hunger strikes, were fed rectally. And at least one died.

These are not descriptions of POW abuse committed by North Vietnam, North Korea or WWII-era Japan. These are descriptions of prisoner abuse by the good ol’ US of A.

And what did we accomplish from our violations of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners? Nothing. According to the report, we gained no information that was useful or that hadn’t already been gained from humane interrogations. Yet our Torturer-In-Chief, Richard “The Dick” Cheney, says he stands behind the program of “extraordinary renditions” and “enhanced interrogations” (aka torture), and he would do it again.

Keep in mind, this is a man who bravely avoided the military draft through a series of 5 deferrals. A man who ignored the advice and counsel of military heroes who had themselves been subjected to torture as POWs. A man who outed a CIA agent as payback for her husband revealing information that blew a hole in the administration’s case for war in Iraq. A man too cowardly to dirty his own hands. Instead, he stood behind the dark curtain pulling the puppet strings of the torturers.

We vilified some low-level military officers for their role in the abuses uncovered at Abu Grahib. We published pictures of them holding prisoners on dog leashes. We showed them threatening prisoners with dogs. We showed them holding naked, blindfolded men in stress positions. We dishonorably discharged them. And we sent some of them to prison. Yet the puppetmaster who authorized and encouraged their actions not only walks free. He has become a celebrity on Fox News Channel and conservative hate radio. And he continues to support one of the most embarrassing chapters in US history.

I believe Richard “The Dick” Cheney is an international war criminal. He, and all of his co-conspirators should be tried for war crimes and, if convicted, sent to prison where, unlike his victims, Cheney can rest assured that he won’t be subjected to torture.

Scandals That Weren’t.

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Since Teapublicans took control of the House in 2011, Rep. Darrell Issa, Rep. Paul Gosar and other extremists have conducted a barrage of hearings with the intent of exposing the misdeeds of the Obama administration. They began by examining government loans made to administration “loyalists” at Solyndra, a start-up manufacturer of solar panels. They moved on to the failed ATFE “gun-running” program in Arizona. After that it was Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi, interrupted briefly by IRS scrutiny of conservative “non-profits.” Finally, they turned to the Ebola crisis.

After dozens of hearings, numerous investigations and millions of dollars in expenses, here’s what they found:

The loans to Solyndra were initiated during the George W. Bush administration and finalized during the first year of the Obama administration. The company failed when faced with competition financed, in part, by the Chinese government. And, instead of losing millions as Teapublicans claimed, the government actually made a $5 billion profit on the sale of Solyndra’s assets.

Though Issa and his Teapublican investigations found that Fast & Furious resulted in hundreds of guns being trafficked across the border into Mexico; and though Teapublicans blamed the Department of Justice, calling for the resignation of Attorney General Eric Holder; the facts show that the blame was entirely misplaced. Yes, the ATFE allowed guns to cross the border with hopes of tracking them to the leaders of Mexican drug cartels. But, thanks to Arizona’s loose gun laws, guns have been trafficked across the border for decades. Fast & Furious was created out of frustration with the courts’ refusal to allow charges against so-called straw buyers. The hope was that, by tracking the guns, the ATFE would be able to disrupt the pipeline of illegal weapons.

With regard to Benghazi, contrary to an endless stream of Teapublican propaganda, 7 non-partisan investigations have found absolutely no wrongdoing by the administration or anyone else. There were no orders for rescuers to stand down. And absolutely no evidence of an administration cover-up. It was simply an unexpected and spontaneous attack by terrorists resulting in the deaths of 4 Americans…the kind of attack that led to many more deaths in American embassies under previous administrations. Yet, despite the findings of 7 investigations, Teapublicans are still insisting on spending millions more for yet another investigation by a “select” committee of Teapublican fools.

As for the IRS scandal, there is little evidence of wrong-doing. Yes, Lois Lerner and her IRS colleagues compiled a list of watch words indicating a political committee disguised as a charitable non-profit in order to ferret out those intent on skirting election laws to flood political campaigns with dark money. Yes, that list included numerous words used by Teapublican groups. And, yes, more Teapublican groups were subjected to extra scrutiny by the IRS. But it is also true that, thanks to the Koch brothers and other right wing billionaires, more Teapublican groups had applied for non-profit status than Democratic groups. Moreover, following a series of questionable Supreme Court decisions, Lerner’s IRS department was overwhelmed with such requests. And none of the groups affected were denied such status.

Finally, the Teapublican’s weakest attempt to scaremonger was the Ebola “scandal.” So far, only two people have died of the disease in the US. And though it appears that the Dallas hospital was ill-prepared to deal with the disease, the CDC and NIH quickly responded. There have been no further events and no “epidemic” despite the fact that Teapublicans dramatically cut the budget for the Center for Disease Control, making it unable to conduct necessary research.

And what were the Obama administration’s failures in all of these scandals? None. Yet, thanks to Teapublican control of Congress, the investigations, and the propaganda, will continue.

UPDATE: It is estimated that the direct costs of investigations by Issa’s committee have exceeded more than $26 million to date. The indirect costs of the time needed to provide thousands of documents in compliance with the committee’s demands may have exceeded $1 trillion.

Greed Versus Poverty.

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“For the first time in history it is now possible to take care of everybody at a higher standard of living than any have ever known. Only ten years ago the ‘more with less’ technology reached the point where this could be done. All humanity now has the option of becoming enduringly successful.” – Buckminster Fuller, 1980.

I recently spotted this quote on Facebook and it made me think: What is the true state of the world in 2014? How far have we come since 1980?

Well, here are the sobering statistics:

– According to the human rights group, Walk Free, 36 million people live in slavery worldwide.
– In the US, approximately 250,000 women and children are held as sex slaves.
– In the US, nearly 2.5 million children were homeless at some point in 2013.
– In the US, 48 million people live in poverty.
– Worldwide, more than 3 billion people – nearly half the world population – live on less than $2.50 per day.
– In the US, 1 in 6 children don’t have enough to eat.
– Worldwide, 1 in 8 people suffer from chronic malnourishment and approximately 5,000,000 children die of malnutrition each year.
– Worldwide, many millions of people don’t have access to clean water.
– Worldwide, billions of people don’t have access to modern medical care.
– In the US, approximately 12 million people don’t have access to affordable health care even after implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
– Worldwide, climate change causes 350,000 deaths each year and that number is certain to grow.

As Fuller stated, it is now possible to solve these problems. Yet too many voters still believe in the fraud that is called “trickle-down economics”…a trickle that never comes. Too many politicians would rather give the wealthy and large corporations another tax cut than help these “freeloaders.” Others are too busy campaigning for office to be troubled with real problems. And the political problems aren’t just in the US. The rest of the industrialized world is not much better. Much of Europe has fallen back into recession as the result of economic austerity programs. In response, their populations have taken a nasty turn toward fascism.

We should all strive to avoid blaming others for our lack of progress and, instead, look for solutions.

Imagine what could be done to improve lives if the US corporations that have $2.1 trillion stashed in offshore tax havens paid just 10 percent in taxes on that money. Imagine if corporate CEOs devoted just a portion of their multi-million dollar annual salaries to pay their employees a living wage. Imagine if all of the world governments agreed to cut in half the $1.75 trillion in annual military spending and dedicated it to giving people access to health care, food and clean water. Imagine if our politicians weren’t bought and paid for by corporate lobbyists who are rewarded with billions in government contracts…more than $4 trillion between 2007 and 2012. Imagine if the billions dedicated to lobbying was used, instead, to help end human suffering.

We certainly have the means to achieve Fuller’s vision. All we need is the will (and the heart) to demand it.

How Teapublicans Cheat. Let Me Count The Ways.

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1 – Lies: People tend to think that all politicians lie. To some degree, that’s true. In order to make a point that can be used as a 20-second sound bite in the news, most politicians stretch the truth or take things out of context. But a recent study shows that Republicans lie much more than Democrats. And many of their lies have absolutely no basis in reality. By comparison, Democrats are more likely to simply stretch the truth than blatantly lie.

2 – Fear: Every election cycle Teapublicans raise issues intended to generate fear. In 2010, it was “death panels,” “dangerous criminals” crossing our southern border, our “out of control” national debt and ACORN. In 2012, it was again brown people entering our country illegally in addition to “Benghazi,” “Obamacare,” “bankrupt” Social Security and Medicare, election fraud, and the “takers” who make too little to pay income taxes. In 2014, it’s immigration, ISIS and Ebola. Be afraid…very afraid…and remember only Teapublicans can save you!

3 – Divisiveness: Teapublicans delight in turning different groups against one another. The “job creators” versus the “takers;” corporations versus environmentalists; the rich versus the poor; whites versus African-Americans and Latinos; pro-life versus pro-choice; men versus women; Christians versus Muslims; the old versus the young; the uneducated versus the educated; rural versus urban…the list is very long.

4 – Religion: Teapublicans have co-opted Christianity for political gain. Beginning with the anti-abortion movement, they have fomented paranoia (particularly in the South) that Christianity is under attack. They have led the devout and the gullible to believe that religious freedom only pertains to Christians. And contrary to Christ’s teachings, they are intolerant of others, especially the weak and the poor.

5 – Gerrymandering: In the early half of the 20th century, Democrats changed legislative and congressional districts to make it easier for their candidates to be elected. But as Republicans were elected in southern states, beginning in the 1970s, they took the art of gerrymandering to extremes. In states with Republican-controlled legislatures, they’ve created district maps that look like a Rorschach test. Areas with a preponderance of Democratic voters have been so divided they can no longer elect candidates representing their own views.

6 – Voter Suppression: In an increasing number of states, Jim Crow is back. In 2000, Florida’s governor, Jeb Bush ordered his Secretary of State to purge voter lists of felons. If a John Smith was a felon, all those named John Smith in the state were purged from the voting rolls. As a result, more than 10,000 voters in Democratic districts were denied the right to vote. In 2014, Teapublican-controlled legislatures have implemented strict voter ID laws intended to suppress the votes of minorities, college students and the elderly. In Texas alone, it’s estimated that 600,000 voters will be denied their constitutional right.

7 – Intimidation & Dirty Tricks: If Nixon and his campaign staff perfected political dirty tricks, the rest of his party must have been taking notes. For example, in many minority districts, the number of polling locations have been reduced and early voting times cut, making it more difficult to vote. Since 2004, some minorities have had to stand in line for up to nine hours to vote. In some areas, armed white Teapublican bullies calling themselves “poll watchers” have challenged minority voters with the intent to prevent them from voting .

8 – Dark Money: The Supreme Court cases which ruled that money equals free speech and that corporations have the same rights as individuals were initiated by Teapublicans. Why? They knew that the conservative court would open the floodgates of political contributions from corporations and billionaires benefiting Teapublican candidates. They have created an enormous network of non-profits with which to launder money and funnel it to Teapublican campaigns. To make matters worse, the three Republicans on the Federal Election Commission have blocked any and all attempts to control it. As a result, dark money groups have been able to run ads for candidates and attack their opponents without fear of reprisal.

9 – Absentee Voter Fraud: Though it has been proven that in-person voter fraud is virtually non-existent, fraudulent absentee ballots have long been an issue. In the 2000 presidential election, an estimated 10,000 unsigned absentee ballots were counted for Bush…more than enough to change the outcome of the election. Interestingly, the strict voter ID laws pushed by Teapublican legislatures do not cover absentee ballots. Wonder why?

10 – Dysfunctional Governance: Republican author P.J. O’Rourke famously said, “The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.” That has certainly been the case since 2011. Republicans in the Senate have used the filibuster to bring Washington to a standstill. They have blocked every Democratic initiative while offering few of their own. And the Teapublican-controlled House has done little else than vote more than 50 times to repeal “Obamacare.” The result is to make Congress less popular than cockroaches. Yet they stand to benefit from their sabotage because they can count on uniformed voters to vote for change, not realizing who is responsible for the problem in the first place.

11 – Hate Radio: Since the end of the Fairness Doctrine, more than 92 percent of talk radio has been devoted to conservative hate. The constant drone of attacks against the government and Democrats has had the effect of hundreds of millions of dollars in political advertising promoting Teapublicans.

12 – Corporate Media: While the so-called “mainstream” media are not so blatantly political, they have contributed to the Teapublican cause by leading with crime and fear. They have blown the threat of Ebola out of proportion while ignoring issues that have a real impact on our citizens. Worse, they tell us what we want to know…which celebrity is screwing who…versus telling us what we need to know. The media’s willful ineptitude has played into the hands of Teapublican strategists by magnifying the issues of fear and divisiveness.

Yes, Democrats are guilty of some of the same things. But saying both parties do it is a false equivalency. Teapublicans have mastered the art of lying and cheating. Of course, they wouldn’t be so successful at it if not for Democratic incompetence. Though I believe that Democrats are generally better at governing, especially for ordinary working people, the party is woefully overmatched when it comes to marketing and communications. The party is so diverse that it has difficulty taking a stand on anything, except that they don’t like Teapublicans.

Worse, few Democratic candidates have the strength of conviction to stand up for what they’ve accomplished. One need only look at how Democratic incumbents have run away from their votes on “Obamacare,” the 2009 economic stimulus, and Dodd-Frank, despite the fact that these things were needed and highly successful.