Romney had to downplay his Mormonism in '08, so the recent criticism that the LDS church is a non-Christian cult, from people like Texas Mega-preacher/Rick Perry supporter Robert Jeffress, is not surprising.

You remember Bryan Fischer from the American Family Association? They helped put together Rick Perry's day of willful ignorance fasting and prayer. Anyway, this guy's under the impression that the First Amendment doesn't apply to Mormons.

Via Right Wing Watch:

This guy has a pretty shaky grasp on constitutional law, and reality in general. And while this is just identity politics at its most base, it demonstrates how very peculiar we are regarding what kinds of crazy we're OK with.

It's perfectly acceptable to believe that the crucified, human son of an ill-conceived deity resurrects after a three-day dirt-nap, physically flies up to heaven, and Voltrons up with his dad and some ghosty fella to make a Holy Trinitron. But if you believe that the same human son takes a little North American detour after magically coming back to life, and hangs out with some Jewish native Americans, before heading to dad's gated community in the clouds...that strains credulity.

Mormons don't even go in for the Voltron thing, which puts them on more plausible theological ground, in my opinion. But I don't want to get into a crazy-off here, which is to what all theology invariably amounts.

Instead of Mormon Jesus, ponder another quintessentially American hero of myth: Arthur Herbert “Fonzie” Fonzarelli. “There was a certain mysticism to his control over women and Arnold's jukebox,” says pop culture wonk/shiftless lay-a-bout Ken Huss. “The town believed in the Fonz. Their belief fueled his legend, and gave him confidence.”

Everyone was fine with the retro Italian/Jewish/baptized greaser possessing the supernatural ability to manipulate technology. But the guy jumps over one little shark on water skis, and that's just ridiculous; I'm never watching this crap again.

Jumping the shark is meant to be the moment a storyline really slips. The writers are out of ideas. They grasp at desperate dramatic straws, stunts, and last-ditch nonsense. Nonsense. To keep the plot rolling and the studio dough rolling in. As the skis part with the sea, the phrase conjures a break with believability.

That happened to me with Battlestar Galactica when Starbuck just...came back to life?! No. That's lazy, implausible writing. That's not good enough, Mister Man! You're just gonna have to write it again! That's when BSG jumped the proverbial ancient killing machine, for me. Suspension of disbelief: shattered. Because people don't just come back to life.

And once your suspension of disbelief is gone, the whole series pales in the glaring light of reflection. All of the other nonsense I was willing to – or able to overlook: the 12 colonies business, the cylons, the search for the mystical planet Kobol...it all seemed so silly. And you're telling me Saul Tigh's a cylon now? No way! Sorry, but this isn't entirely a geeky digression.

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Just when you thought gay was the new black, it looks like the posh country club set has taken to discriminating against people without religious faith.

Infamous atheist, and evolutionary biologist, Dr. Richard Dawkins was slated to appear at the Wyndgate Country Club, outside of Detroit, for an event organized by the Center For Inquiry (CFI) Michigan and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Science and Reason. But, according to the CFI Web site:

The Wyndgate terminated the agreement after the owner saw an October 5th interview with Dawkins on The O’Reilly Factor in which Dawkins discussed his new book, The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True.

In a phone call to CFI–Michigan Assistant Director Jennifer Beahan, The Wyndgate’s representative explained that the owner did not wish to associate with individuals such as Dawkins, or his philosophies.

Jesus. Well, it's a private facility. They can legally discriminate, right? Not necessarily so, according to CFI:

Although privately owned, The Wyndgate facilities are open to the public for special events and occasions. According to Title II of the Federal Civil Rights Law of 1964, “open to the public” means “all persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.”

So in summation, behind every oppressive force in modern history is golf. There, I said it. You're welcome, Internet.

Wednesday night, broadcasting from Liberty Square in lower Manhattan, MSNBC's Ed Schultz rhetorically asked his guests if the Democrats were the biggest winners of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The crowd laughed a little at the myopic spin.

Thursday, Rush Limbaugh – citing an unnamed, likely imaginary “friend” – said that Obama's actually behind Occupy Wall Street, and, laughably, that the President's been planning “riots” for months. Riots. Planning. For months.

Although I can easily imagine both of these guys ending up in the same ICU for similar gasket-blowing ailments, I'm not playing the false equivalence card. These individual acts of stupidity are not equal, but they are both incredibly wrong.

El Rushbo's lying. No one told him this. And if they did, that person (Herman Cain?) was lying. He's a leaky bucket of bile; these are known knowns.

Schultz isn't lying. But he is off by a mile. This movement is rooted deeper than America's shallow, money-infested political dichotomy, but, indeed, it's been fertilized by this Democratic Administration's bullshit.

Rush is right: a good number of these kids turned out for Obama. Some of the protesters I talked to last weekend will hold their noses and vote Obama in 2012. Some will not. And all of them are painfully aware that despite Limbaugh's – and other insane right-wing – charges of “socialism,” Obama is Jeb Bush with a better jump shot. They know Dodd-Frank is a watered down bowl of nothing. They know that both parties are bought and sold by the same moneyed interests. They know recessions are worsened by so-called “austerity” measures. They know this pay-to-play political paradigm must crumble, for democracy to function properly.

If the Democrats gain from this movement it will be by embracing the populist sentiment of the now nationwide occupation, and making good on it if elected. No doubt Dems will co-opt the message. But will they deliver? Will we see this real populist movement translated into policy, as we saw the fringe tea party set affect the national dialogue?

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Wall Street was an actual wall once. In the 1600s, Dutch occupiers needed to keep out the natives, pirates, and unwanted dregs. You learned the Dutch stole the island for $24, but they really paid 60 guilders, which is over $1,000 in today-money. Still a steal, for Manhattan. In 2011, the rent is too damn high...unless you're willing to sleep in the park.

I boarded a Greyhound in Buffalo on Friday night. Sleep didn't happen. (It's my theory that their seats are designed by cheap extraterrestrial laborers who have no knowledge of human anatomy.) Hopped the A train to Fulton St. and found my way, past the brightly lit WTC construction, to a rain-soaked Zuccotti Park by about 4 am.

Dubbed “Liberty Square,” the park is home to Occupy Wall Street. And it's not a park. It's got a few small trees and a couple flowerbeds, but not one soft blade of grass. The concrete was lined with roughly 150 mummified protesters, rolled up in tarps, ominously looking like a fresh crime scene. Cops in raincoats, walking the perimeter. The gatekeepers.

I don't want to say this, but my first impression – after rolling up in my own tarp and failing to sleep for a few hours – was that the place looked, and smelled, like the parking lot of a Phish concert. Patchouli does not a movement make. And as much as I want to say reports, like this much-derided New York Times piece, have cast an unfair light on these young occupiers, they're not entirely inaccurate.

My first contact was with a woman named Chris. “You want a vitamin? You want a chewable Airborne?” I took them, not having the heart to tell her that Airborne cold “remedy” does absolutely nothing. Was Airborne a perfect metaphor for #OccupyWallStreet? I cynically wondered.

Chris was a medic volunteer. The medic station is accompanied by the kitchen, the media area, the comfort area (dedicated to sleeping bags, socks, etc.), and the General Assembly. There are other volunteer duties, such as sanitation and security, which consist of walking around with a garbage bags and walkie-talkies, respectively.

You've no doubt heard about the General Assembly. It's how the protesters communicate, organize, and reach something resembling consensus. “Mic check!” someone will call. “Mic check!” the crowd responds. They communicate this way because the police cracked down on the use of sound amplifiers. It's an elegant, albeit annoying, solution.

The press has generally portrayed the protest as disorganized. Some protesters even expressed their frustration over the disorganization to me during the weekend. But without any sort of hierarchical structure, it's amazing and inspiring that anything gets done at all. People are being fed, clothed, sheltered (as much as the no tent law allows), live-streaming speeches and Tweeting the latest developments, and receiving medical attention if they need it. It's a real ground up grassroots thing, powered by personal responsibility to participate in the democratic process.

“The lack of focus is unfortunate,” a woman named Christine told me, “but I think if we stay here long enough, other groups will be pulled in.” That's essential, and it's happening as I type. Hippies thrive in protest environments, and they can even be useful in procuring humus, for instance, but the face of this movement can't be obscured with dreadlocks. It's what wonks call “bad optics.”

“It would appear to a lot of people that it's disorganized,” said Mark Jacobs, the head of a nonprofit from Santa Fe, “but it's not.”

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LIBERTY SQUARE, NY--despite the early morning rain, morale is high. A reported 100,000 copies of The Occupied Wall Street Journal have just arrived. The young occupiers are busy handing out the four page broadsheet to curious passersby and the protest tourists, who linger on the outskirts of Zuccotti Park, snapping photos of signs and the occasional blue-haired hippie.

"The Revolution Begins at Home" reads a headline. "Learning from the World" reads another piece about Americans taking lessons from the spontaneous Arab Spring. In anticipation of an Oct 5th student walkouts and union marches, a caption reads, "New York Unites!"

The rained on, camping crowd of about 200 has swelled to a respectable 400--or so--with a march planned for 3 pm, which is said will attract more.

Some clothes are wet. Most clothes are wet. Everything is a little wet. Still. I'm told protesters could benefit from blankets, jackets, tarps. Anything to keep people warm and dry tonight, and into the coming...weeks?

The on-sight media people -- the only media to be found today, aside from freelancers -- are in need of large external storage devices. They're recording a lot of data.

The first aid people say they need non latex gloves, roller gauze, medical tape and general supplies.

Food is adequate, but storage containers would help organize the supplies and keep the damn pigeons off my bread.

And I need Vicodin. Send Vicodin. Now.

EDITOR'S NOTE: We sent New York occupiers some pizzas yesterday. And by "we" I mean you guys. We raised over $4000 yesterday (Friday) to feed the ground swell of solidarity demonstrations.

If you want to send these guys a slice all amounts are welcome and appreciated!

Whether he's issuing Fatwahs on South American leaders, blaming natural disasters on reproductive rights, or claiming he can leg press 2,000 pounds with the aid of his eponymous "age-defying" protein shake, Pat Robertson never makes sense.

Well, with a big h/t to Right Wing Watch, I've learned to never say never:

Answering a 700 Club caller's question, Robertson says, “Halloween is Satan’s night, it’s the night for the devil. It’s All Hallow’s Eve but it's time when witches and goblins--”

Preach, Brother! Preach! Halloween has its roots in pagan traditions predating Christianity. Just like Easter. It's, therefor, under the sway of dark and nougaty forces. Just like Easter.

Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network has warned us about the evils of Halloween before. In a now-expunged article from '09, writer Kimberly Daniels reported that “most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.”

Of course! How else do you explain those talking M&Ms? I pretended to email Mars, Incorporated about this, and I pretended they answered by sending me a shrunken head in the mail. And all this time, you thought Mars, Inc. was only evil because they use child labor in Africa.

Wait a minute...Côte d'Ivoire produces roughly 43 percent of the world's cocoa; 95 percent of people in that Sub-Saharan Republic personally believe in witchcraft; Robertson staunchly defended their illegitimate, Christian President/Thug Laurent Gbagbo...this is all making a lot of sense, in a very convoluted Da Vinci Code sort of way.

According to Daniels, "Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference.” That's why I make my own chocolate with my own African kids.

In CBN's most recent spiritual assault on Satan's Night Halloween, Robertson adds, “It's skeletons and all this, like the dead rising. Churches shouldn’t do that, you should do something else besides having a haunted house.”

He's so right; the only haunted houses churches should be involved with are hell houses – the often graphic and horrifying vignettes depicting the sins of abortion, alcohol and drug use, suicide, and teh gay. You know, for the kids.

And churches should definitely have nothing to do with walking skeletons. There's simply nothing less Christian than the risen dead.

Murphy is the evil editor of The BEAST. If you follow him on Twitter, he might start using it.

“I will always err on the side of life.”
Rick Perry, signed off on 234 executions

Dearest Web Log,
This virtual space has, so far, been dedicated to my slapstick encounter with the American police state. But with the execution of Troy Davis, a few false charges and a potential year in jail seems like such a white thing to complain about. Like my socks and sandals don't match my cargo shorts or something.

Davis's murder (may read differently depending on your politics) brings to light a profoundly darker comedy called American Morality. It's funny in the way that absurd non sequiturs can be, like monkey pajamas, or Fox News.

As a nation, we don't have a real good handle on the whole morality thing.

For instance, and this is not a joke, some people profess to know with absolute certainty that our moral code was dictated by an all-powerful space ghost, who sculpted us out of magic clay, and transcribed on stone by a mountain-climbing desert-hobo who looked a great deal like Charlton Heston.

The people who believe these things are called idiots. Maybe you've seen them infesting our politics and poisoning our culture...at last week's Fox News #googledebate.

Bachmann and Perry are both – to varying degrees – Dominionists, which means they're trying to conquer the “seven mountains” of cultural power by conducting “strategic level spiritual warfare” against the “higher level demons” who currently control eastern religions, witchcraft, Freemasonry, and the heathen souls of all non Christians around the globe, like PZ Myers.

Romney and Hunstman are Mormons, which means they ostensibly believe that God lives on the planet Kolob and, if they're extra good Mormons, they'll become Gods themselves in the afterlife. And don't get me started on the Golden Tablets or the Jewish Native Americans.

Even Newt Gingrich has to pretend to be a good, God-fearing non-sack of walking excrement.

Ron Paul says he believes that life starts at conception, and that evolution is just a theory, but he only genuinely worships at the deregulated altar of Ayn Rand.

Herman Caine is a Baptist minister. And his 999 deal means that he's is definitely not the pizza-slinging Antichrist.

And Rick Santorum is so religious he's an obvious homosexual.

Troy Davis didn't come up at the debate, which, in this blogger's opinion, was a huge missed opportunity for the candidates to connect with the base by singing another patriotic rendition of “Let him die!” The crowd did boo a gay soldier, so there was that rare moment of Republican honesty – and when Mitt Romney said, “There are a lot of reasons not to vote for me.”

And that's what morality ultimately boils down to: honesty. Intellectual honesty about what makes what moral and why. (Or about global warming, vaccines, etc.) It's no longer good enough to say it's in the Bible. In Psalms, God bestows his blessing on those who smash babies against rocks. We all know it's wrong to do that, so the religious minded are forced to cherry-pick the Bible, for passages that justify their inherent ethical character – whether it's giving to the poor or dreaming of stoning homosexuals to death while they masturbate.

It's a real grab bag, across America's political-religious spectrum, but the Republican field is on record as being firmly against giving to the poor.

Our economic morality, or intense lack thereof, is a nice example of religious thinking based on intellectual dishonesty. This is Ron Paul's altar of Rand – not the Aqua Buddha guy.

All we ever hear about, and are impoverished by, is supply-side bunk. I mean, when's the last time you heard something about demand-side economics? You shouldn't have to because that phrase is redundant. The sad thing is that people don't know that...word.

(Just a side note: I bought a $5 pizza the other day using Groupon. It was so cheap because enough people signed on to the deal, and lowered the price by buying in bulk. Apply this capitalist principle to government-negotiated prescription costs or single-payer health care, however, and God will punish the U.S. for being evil, atheist socialists. Probably with a hurricane. OK?)

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Previously on The Jersey Shore my C&L blog, the Situation ate a steroid-infused meatball sub I recalled the events of my unlawful arrest at a National Organization for Marriage anti-gay marriage rally.

And now the stunning continuation...

To say that I sweated through the night is no metaphor. The air conditioning was on the fritz and, although there was a temporary system pumping in air from a semitrailer outside, the cells were hot enough to give Sheriff Joe Arpaio a spring in his step.

I did some metaphorical sweating, too. This was the Erie County Holding Center. Although it's a relatively quaint 680-cell facility, its “suicide” rate is five times the national average. And although it's recently been dropped, the ECHC was the focus of a two-year DOJ investigation, which alleged such constitutional violations as “elevator rides” (guards taking inmates to a floor without cameras and beating them senseless) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome-style inmate-on-inmate combat – done, apparently, for the guards' amusement.

“Who run Bartertown?” I softly whispered to myself throughout the night. “Master Blaster.”

Rachel Maddow even did a segment on this place a while back. While Erie County Sheriff Tim Howard refused to let the Feds inspect the jail, he had no problem opening up the door to Keanu Reeves. He was researching a role – like he wasn't just going to play Keanu Reeves. I'm not kidding:

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Previously on Hell's Kitchen my C&L blog, I cooked an absolutely stunning beef wellington wrote about the disturbing trend of Americans being arrested for filming cops.

I happen to be one of the unfortunate saps who's been put in the slam simply for pointing a camera at police. So without further ado, here's the second installment of my own private police state...

“They got me on some straight-up bull----, son!” exclaimed the kid sitting next to me in the bullpen at the Erie County Holding Center. “What they get you on?”

“I shot a cop,” I growled, shooting him an icy stare. “And I’d do it again.”

“Son?!” His face froze in delighted dismay. “Real? That f----- dead?!”

“I really doubt it.”

“Jablaow!” he mimicked a gunshot, aiming his hand at the mucus-encrusted, blood-smeared brick wall.

“What’d you use–a nine, forty-five…”

“A Sony Handycam,” I said with the unflinching nerve of a coldblooded videographer. “It’s the same kind James O’Keefe uses; he told me himself.”

“James who, f-----?” he balked. “Pfft! You on some f-----’ camera shit, son?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I shot a video of a cop.”

“Pfft! That ain’t no law, son. Somebody need to tell them motherfuckers!” he hollered, slapping the cold, metal bench. “We all in here on some bull----!”

***
Bunting swung by my place at about 2pm and we headed to the demonstration downtown. The New York Marriage Equality Act went into effect the previous evening, and the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) was protesting gay marriage throughout the state, for reasons of a religious and hate-filled nature. We wanted to cover the event properly, so we brought along a video camera, a couple bibles, and a massive latex dildo/microphone. The jiggly kind is best for serious journalism.

We circled the block a few times, parked and walked over to the growing crowd at Niagara Square. To our surprise (and because most had been bused in from out of state), the delusional NOM bigots totaled about 250. The righteous counter-protesters were only about a dozen strong. As press, we moved among both factions, asking questions.

“The bible says nothing about gay marriage,” I told a NOM supporter, “and marriage invariably results in less sex, so wouldn’t it stand to reason that, as a Christian, you should support gay marriage?” He was confused.
“Would it be fair to say that you’re doing The Lord’s work here today?” I pressed him. After much squirming, “Yes,” was his answer. I pointed to the bible, politely informed him that he shouldn’t be working on the Sabbath, and told him he was going to hell. It’s in the bible.

We also talked to this hayseed who subsists, ostensibly, on moneys derived from the Tooth Fairy. In a hill-folk whistle, he claimed to be “a low-level politician.” He had glossy, moonshine eyes. And dementia, possibly. “They took our rights!” he claimed. I didn’t bother to ask how.

“Your pants are clearly a poly-cotton blend,” I informed him. “You’re going to hell. It’s in the bible.”

The crowd started chanting, “Let the people vote!” Because social conservatives are not allowed to vote for governor or state legislature. Then they started singing; it was pretty gay. “How great is our God?” went the seemingly endless refrain. Not great enough to stop gay marriage which, for an omnipotent being, should have been pretty easy. One would imagine.

“This here’s a chocolate protest,” I heard one woman say to another. Indeed, most of the NOM supporters were black and, apparently, incapable of detecting the historic irony in their prejudice.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” I beckoned one lady. “Are you menstruating?”

“Well, this is what this is all about,” she inexplicably answered.

I was like, “Whaaaa?”

“He’s trying to say you’re unclean,” her husband chimed in.

“It’s in the bible,” I said. “You’re going to hell.”

She then claimed that the New Testament was her guiding principle. I quickly shot back that in Matthew 5:17-20 Jesus said he didn’t come to change the law. Bunting had made a note of this in anticipation of her predictable nonsense. He spends his spare time studying apologetics. I prefer to stab at my eyes with needles. But to each his own–unless it impinges on the rights of others.

We lingered on the outskirts of the protest. Bunting taped while I interviewed. I snagged a beardy bible-humper, but the noise of the rally was ruining our audio, so I broke out the dildophone. “How do you define marriage?” I asked him, waving the wobbly latex member near his face.

“I hope someone does this to your child,” he said, slowly slinking away.

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“Just to clarify, for anyone – the FBI or whatever --who may be recording this conversation, we're not discussing illegal activity.”
– C&L Managing Editor Tina Dupuy

So I had this conference call thing with C&L head honcho John Amato and Tina Dupuy the other night. Tina introduced me to John as “the fake Koch brother.” She always does that, like I've done nothing else worthwhile in life except prank call Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. One hit wonder. Chumbawamba. It hurts because it's true.

Anyway, John was musing on the possibility that his phone may have been tapped at one point. It was half joke, half liberal paranoia and, if my math is correct,100 percent possible. It happened to Antiwar.com; the Feds also spied on a raided peace activists in Chicago; it's not unheard of. It's how Patriots Act! This sort of 4th Amendment violation is one of the legacies of 9/11 – along with the illegal murder of hundreds of thousands. And bumper stickers.

The amount spent on Homeland “Security” is staggering – $75 billion a year according to the LA Times. $205,000 of that went toward a nine-ton Bearcat armored vehicle – complete with gun turret – to protect the Dreamworks Animation studio *. The terrorists hate us for our Kung Fu Pandas. And via creepy sounding programs like “If you see something, say something,” our ode to capitalist gluttony, the Mall of America, has transformed itself into a vigilant shopping gestapo, ready to detain any and all shoppers who happen to be too brown – er, um, suspicious.

Those are just a few examples of thousands, in which, under the guise of the Homeland Security, local police departments and security firms acquire the tools they need to do their jobs – because you definitely need a nine-ton armored vehicle to bust meth cooks. Haven't you seen Breaking Bad? Walter White will stop at nothing to protect his family. And you just can't trust that Pinkman kid.

The Military Industrial Complex now includes the Surveillance Industrial Complex, with cities installing cameras on every corner with federal grant money, and drones flying over the borders to protect us from yet more brown people. And in what appears to be the last wall in the American Panopticon, there's currently a bill in Congress called the “Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011.” Of course, we all want to protect kids from pedos, but the bill calls for your internet provider to record all your internet activity for an entire year. Yes, even your totally adult & consensual porn, the Asian midgets, the transsexual dominatrixes. The S! and the M. You just don't deserve privacy, you sick bastard.

It's with all this domestic spying, surveillance and domestic mission creep in mind that I'd like to talk about a disturbing trend: the arrest of citizens for recording police officers. If I knew what band the kids were listening to these days, I'd say it was as big as that...Chumbawamba?

One instance of a journalist being arrested for filming cops...let me think...oh yeah, ME! I know I'm a journalist because I've been condemned by the Society of Professional Journalists. And I know I was arrested because I was arrested.

But there are plenty of others under similar circumstances:

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