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If I somehow twisted the arm of a politician to stand up in front of microphones or on the House floor to say that elephants are really Martians, the media would find some way to turn that into a headline which said "Are Elephants Martians? Experts Weigh In." The experts would then parade across the screen, but because the Martian-Elephant Liberty Think Tank (MELTT) already had white papers written which proved that Martians do indeed exist and fuzzy images seem to indicate there might be some resemblance to elephants, that expert would also take his seat at the pundits' table and so it would come to pass that we all be asked to accept as fact that it is not entirely insane to believe that elephants are Martians.

Next, they would commission a poll to see how people feel about elephants being Martians so they could get some experts to come on television and tell you why they're Martians.

Oh, the Sacred Polls, how we do worship them.

Just as opinions are placed into the mainstream via the highest, holiest institutions of thought -- think tanks -- so too are those opinions hardened by the pollsters, who in some cases, admit they use their data-gathering efforts to shape ideas. Instead of asking questions which then elicit responses, they take data and form a narrative, which is then pushed along by the linguists and thinkers, while some pollsters then convert the poll itself into the narrative.

This is how it works. Don't believe me? I swear to you this headline actually exists on a mainstream newspaper website: A third of Earthlings believe in UFOs, would befriend aliens.

Not only does it exist on that major website, it was a trending item on Memeorandum's Political News Page. No lie, and look where it is:

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For the past three decades, we've been fed this line about retraining for "the jobs of the future." It started under Reagan, who did an amazing job shifting the expectation (and the costs) that your employer would train you for the job, to putting the onus on local school districts to prepare job-ready graduates, and on job seekers to make themselves "employable."

So with that campaign, Reagan successfully planted the seeds we see blossoming today into full-blown insanity: If you're not employed, it's your own damned fault!

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have enrolled in federally financed training programs in recent years, only to remain out of work. That has intensified skepticism about training as a cure for unemployment.

Even before the recession created the bleakest job market in more than a quarter-century, job training was already producing disappointing results. A study conducted for the Labor Department tracking the experience of 160,000 laid-off workers in 12 states from mid-2003 to mid-2005 — a time of economic expansion — found that those who went through training wound up earning little more than those who did not, even three and four years later. “Over all, it appears possible that ultimate gains from participation are small or nonexistent,” the study concluded.

In the last 18 months, the Obama administration has embraced more promising approaches to training focused on faster-growing areas like renewable energy and health care. But most money has been directed at the same sorts of programs that in past years have largely failed to steer laid-off workers toward new careers, say experts, and now the number of job openings is vastly outnumbered by people out of work.

“It’s such an ugly situation that job training can’t solve it,” said Ross Eisenbrey, a job training expert at the Economic Policy Institute, a labor-oriented research institution in Washington, and a former commissioner of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission. “When you have five people unemployed for every vacancy, you can train all the people you want and unfortunately only one-fifth of the people will get hired. Training doesn’t create jobs.”

Are you ready for a flame-thrower? The Washington Post gives Over The Cliff a quick hit and review:

Over the Cliff: How Obama's Election Drove the American Right Insane

By John Amato and David Neiwert

PoliPoint. 284 pp. Paperback, $16.95

The gist: In November 2008, the right wing lost its mind and has yet to recover: Extremists prowl the land, fill the airwaves, preaching that America is doomed under Barack Obama.

In its own words: "The American Right's descent into madness, embodied in its takeover by right-wing populists, was more than a problem just for serious conservatives who understood that it would ultimately prove to be their destruction. The very nature of the insanity that was being unleashed posed a larger problem for the nation at large -- namely, the implicit threat of violence and extremist unrest, represented most vividly by the revival of the militia movement.

After we wrote our book there were many other violent outbursts that we obviously didn't cover. You know, like a pesky Mosque bombing or the father and son act of Jerry and Joe Kane. There are many more issues we take up in the book, but at least he got some of it right.

We're selling this book mostly through the prism of our online brothers and sisters. So far it's going very well. David and I didn't write this book because we hoped to cash in on it. Seriously, that was the last thing we thought about and it won't happen; but we thought it was important to document what we have all just witnessed and have a public record all gathered in one place.

We were interviewed last week by Mike Panantonio of Ring Of Fire, and he marveled that when he read everything in the book -- some of which he knew, some of which he did not -- it brought a new appreciation to the severity of the problem and what has unfolded before our eyes and he thanked us.

Please support your liberal authors. You can grab a copy here.

You can find it in other formats and book stores here.

One of the reasons John and I are extremely proud of our new book, Over the Cliff: How Obama's Election Drove the American Right Insane, is that while we tried to make sure it was entertaining and amusing and insightful, we above all wanted it to be a resource for progressives in coping with the nonstop deluge of disinformation, lies, and smears that have been the stock in trade of movement conservatives in the past year and a half.

We especially conceived it as a resource for progressives who have to deal with friends, family members, and workmates who succumb to irrational siren song of movement conservatism and their nonstop shouting heads. We believe that, even after you're done reading it, you'll be able to turn to it over and over for information that puts their insanity in perspective.

This is embodied, we think, in official Over the Cliff website we've created for the book. Among other things, we'll post all the book-related information there, as well as posts reporting on continuing right-wing insanity.

But first and foremost, the site is the home of our complete documentation for the book. And as such, we think it will prove to be an incredibly useful resource for progressives.

Online documentation is an important innovation in itself, and one we readily embraced, rather then placing the Notes at the book's end -- because when the referenced material is also online, readers using online notes, unlike traditional notes, can click over and actually read the article in question themselves, to see if it is cited accurately.

We took this innovation a step further: Because so much of Over the Cliff is derived from video material, when you click on links to Crooks and Liars posts -- and there is a high percentage of them in our documentation -- you can actually watch them saying it. It provides a much richer and stronger context than the snippets we can provide in book form.

This is an exciting new chapter in the evolution of publishing, and we're proud to be in the forefront. Most of all, we're proud to have built such a resource for our fellow truth-tellers.

As Rick Perlstein put it in his blurb for the book:

John Amato and David Neiwert have produced a book that should stay on shelves for 50 years—long enough to remind us that at least some people understood the strange and vile energies consuming the social contract at the beginning of the third millenium. As a record of what is happening to American conservatism in the year 2010, Over the Cliff is unmatched.

While all of us are focused on the Texas School Board insanity, it's really important to remember it's not limited to Texas. There are a lot of "off the cliff" school districts, boards and administrators out there. Norfolk, Virginia is a shining example.

Via PilotOnline:

Oakwood Elementary's principal was placed on administrative leave Friday as school officials investigated why life like, 4-inch-long plastic fetus dolls were given to dozens of third-, fourth- and fifth-grade students.

On Thursday, the school staffer thought to be responsible for handing out the dolls was placed on leave.

I read this twice to be sure I wasn't imagining it. Seriously? I cannot imagine my reaction as a parent to my child coming home with such an atrocity.

Even though the article didn't mention it specifically, I would be willing to bet the students receiving these "gifts" were girls, not boys, too. That's what we need...to intimidate and indoctrinate the girls at a young age while giving boys a pass. Good job, Virginia.

This followed a blast aimed at the very same school by the ACLU for the principal's invitation to students and teachers alike to participate in prayer and Bible study.

Both of these incidents point to shameless efforts on the part of the extreme religious right to indoctrinate children rather than educate them.

Editorial comment follows:

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I have a confession to make...

I am insane. I have to be. Yes, I did turn on the live stream of the Texas Board of Education curriculum standards meeting at 9AM Thursday morning and yes, I stayed with it until 6pm, live-tweeting the whole thing until I could stand it no more. Still not content with the assault on my sensibilities, I came back for more at around 8pm, until it finally adjourned at 10pm my time, 1am Texas time.

I did it for you, all for you...

Bless their hearts....

Here's my biggest takeaway, and I mean this with all sincerity and respect: These people should not be doing this. They just shouldn't be. Not because they're evil. They're not. Well, maybe some of them are just a little bit, but more fundamentally they don't have the first clue as to how absolutely screwed up these curriculum standards are getting. Forget the textbooks, no teacher -- not even one with a masters from Harvard or University of Texas or ANYWHERE -- could possibly teach what they've put together.

It's incoherent. It makes no sense. They've created something that I should be able to define without resorting to NSFW terms, especially a compound word that begins with the word "cluster" and ends with an additional four letters, but really, that's what they've made. A colossal one, even.

Some highs (or lows, or you'll wish you were high)

Don't acknowledge truth without a tinge of pettiness

While it was certainly big of them to include a standard acknowledging the 2008 election of the first black President of the United States, it was not without moments. One of the conservative members thought that would be fine as long as he was included as "Barack HUSSEIN Obama". There was a bit of a verbal tussle over this as the more reasonable members suggested that might be just a little bit petty. Ultimately, the Henry Cabot Lodge false equivalency failed, and they agreed to Barack H. Obama. Grudgingly.

What's a little eugenics between friends?

After tonight, there is an extra word nestled in the following standard:

analyze causes and effects of events and social issues such as immigration, Social Darwinism, race relations, nativism, the Red Scare, Prohibition, and the changing role of women; and...

It reads this way now:

analyze causes and effects of events and social issues such as immigration, eugenics, Social Darwinism, race relations, nativism, the Red Scare, Prohibition, and the changing role of women; and

That's right. Our kids in Texas will possibly learn about eugenics. Why do I say possibly? Because there are two ways to word a standard. One is to use the term including, which means everything may be on a standardized test and therefore must be covered. The other is to use the term "such as", which means the teacher must teach the concept but has the option to use some or all of the terms.

It sounds like a benign enough compromise until you begin to consider the insidious ways it was used to denigrate in some cases and slide references into the material in others. Like eugenics, for example. Or to downgrade the elevation of our first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor, to a "such as" when the original list without her was an "include". But, they did manage to remove Phyllis Schlafly from that same list, so there's that, anyway.

Speaking of Phyllis Schlafly...

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If anyone doubts the insanity of the right, this should convince you. Eric Cantor gives a speech to the Heritage Foundation bashing the Obama administration's record on national security, particularly the nonproliferation strategy and ends to a rousing chorus of booes and disapproval.

Cantor went wild over the White House’s nonproliferation agenda, vowing to “turn back harmful treaties like START.” What I'm sure Cantor doesn't realize is that eliminating a pillar of the nonproliferation regime would be tantamount to turning over what has historically been a major conservative rallying cry, led by none other than President Reagan himself (whom Cantor reverently invokes in the preamble of this speech). As Reagan’s own Secretary of State, George Schultz recently said, “[President Obama] is doing an excellent job. He has put the vision out there and keeps it out there. The nuclear posture review shows he is being careful about American national security at every step. The conference of world leaders on securing fissile material is the right thing to do. Who is going to disagree with that?” Eric Cantor, apparently. Read more...

After Cantor stirred these neocons into a froth over nukes, Iran, Muslim-hate and the kitchen sink, the Q&A session was spirited.

Steve Benen:

The seriousness of Cantor's event at the Heritage Foundation was captured nicely by an exchange during the Q&A. An attendee asked why the president should not be considered a "domestic enemy," to the delight of the assembled far-right crowd.

Cantor smiled, but responded that "no one thinks the President is a domestic enemy." The comment generated boos from the Heritage audience.

I'd like to thank Eric Cantor, the Koch brothers and Richard Mellon Scaife for confirmation that they have all lost their minds. The problem, of course, is that they want to take a good chunk of the electorate with them and will stop at virtually nothing in this 2010 cycle to do exactly that.

The Koch PAC, defense PACs, health, pharma and financial PACs are smoking with the smell of big bucks being spread over Republican PACs. They like insanity. It puts them in control, or so they think. They will stoop as low as they need to and stop at nothing to defeat our current President. But "domestic enemy"? Give me a break.

A heads-up to Republicans: You guys need some serious therapy. Remember now, this is the anti-abortion, love-the-children, wave-the-flag and raise-'em-Republican party. Duncan Hunter, one of our lovely Congressman from down south where the politics get distinctly weird, actually stood in front of a group of people and said that American citizens should be deported, too.

Okay, what he actually said was that the debate wasn't about immigration; it was a national security issue. A "real, serious national security issue." When pressed to expand and provide some specifics, especially about those children of immigrants born in the United States. Those children are, of course, United States citizens.

“Would you support deportation of natural born American citizens that are the children of illegal aliens?” a man in the audience asked.

“I would have to, yes,” Hunter said.

“You can look and say, ‘You’re a mean guy. That’s a mean thing to do. That’s not a humanitarian thing to do.’ We simply cannot afford what we’re doing right now.

Hunter then blames immigrants for California's budget crisis. I'd argue that tax-dodging rich folks have more to do with the budget crisis than immigrants.

Is there a problem and costs associated with illegal immigration? Sure, but most of them have been created by the xenophobes who hate government regulation until it is used to exclude or otherwise discriminate against immigrants.

Yes, there's a problem with immigration. But to listen to the Duncan Hunters of the world, it's all the fault of Mexico, the only bad immigrants are Mexican immigrants, and the only real US citizens are those American children born to parents who aren't brown.

As to national security, just give me a break. The 911 crew was in the US legally, not illegally. The guy who flew into the Austin IRS building? A genuine white US citizen. There's more of a national security threat from citizens who descend from Mayflower families than there is from Mexican immigrants.

(h/t Alan Colmes)

Hoffmania! John McCain vs POWs - Cindy and Swift Boater win big.

Open Left: FISA cave-in imminent

The Big Picture: Foreclosures up 48% in May

alicublog: Old America-New America

The Impolitic: Idiotic AP vendetta

Vagabond Scholar: Batocchio looks back at the whole nomination process, focusing especially on all the insanity of the last few months.

The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks! As we see it..."Boy in the Bubble" Edition

that colored fella: Let me make my prognostication very clear here – Obama is running for the Vice-Presidential nomination of his party in ’08.

AlterNet: The Chamber of Commerce, run by corrupt lobbyist Tom Donahue, has turned into a pay-to-play vehicle for right-wing causes and corporate dishonesty.

David E’s Fablog:  Sue the bastards!

Angry Bear:  How much does this murderous insanity cost?

GRAB BAG: At least 14,000 Muslims held illegally by US government and allies...This T-Shirt will get you banned from flying...Inside view of an Oval office photo op...Two-Minute Townhall... Trotted out, but still uncharged as a dirty bomber...How can anyone trust the judgement of these clowns?