Oh dear, Sarah Palin has a book coming out – with words; the Newsmax says a military coup to oust the President is not out of the question; one congressman calls Obama "an enemy of humanity"…

…Democratic senators Baucus, Lincoln and Conrad vote with Republicans to defeat a public option health care plan in the Senate Finance Committee.

…and, apparently, some Republican leaders would rather see the Olympics in Madrid or Rio than in Chicago.

Good grief. Up is down and down is up and literally hundreds of right-wingers seem to be jumping down that rabbit hole just as fast as they can!

And if all that isn't enough, brothers and sisters, Starbucks is now selling instant coffee. WTF? Instant coffee? At STARBUCKS?

This must be yet another indication President Obama is moving the country toward socialism.

The funniest part, though, are commercials on the TeeVee Box for the new Starbucks instant coffee. Angry town hallers stand up to scream, "I can't tell the difference!"

I'm sure it's only a matter of time before some moron puts up a poll on the Facebook asking, "should Starbucks be killed for selling instant coffee?"

That was, of course, a reference to the D.B. who put up a poll on the Facebook asking, "Should Obama be killed?" This was NOT Facebook, mind you, but an independent programmer no doubt working in his pajamas out of his mother's basement. Readers were given four choices: yes – no – maybe – only if he takes away my health care.

The poll was first noticed by the insightful bloggers at The Political Carnival (www.thepoliticalcarnval.blogspot.com) who promptly mentioned it to the Secret Service (which does not, apparently, monitor the Facebook on its own) and they promptly sent ACORN to take away the guy's voting card.

Okay, just made up that last part. But the Secret Service has indentified the moron. Stay tuned.

Looking forward to Sarah Palin's book debut in November. Should be a thriller. It's called, Going Rogue, and describes the evolution of the Republican Party from the majority party to a fringe element in American politics. Or is that, Going Rouge? Not sure. Will check.

And then, of course, there is Arizona Congressman Trent Franks (not named for a commercial line of cylindrical meat and meat by-products) who in a speech Saturday to a conservative group called the President of the United States "an enemy to humanity."

He clearly didn't want to be outdone by South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson.

When the expected outrage ensued, Congressman Franks was forced to walk back a bit from that plank and explain the President is only an enemy to "unborn humanity." Okay. That's better.

And, of course, the Republican leadership is jumping all over the President for traveling to Denmark on behalf of his hometown Chicago's quest for the 2016 Olympics.

The White House countered by explaining bringing the Olympics to Chicago would increase the chances for America to become a socialist nation – and put most of the good Olympic events in TeeVee prime time where we could actually see them live.

It all just gives me the blues, brother!

Bless their hearts, you gotta love how the few intellectuals left in the Republican Party keep trying to lasso the crazies and bring 'em back to rationality.

I hope they keep tryin' because we really do need a thoughtful minority to keep the majority from jumping the tracks.

But right now, it's the minority that is so far off the rails and into the woods we're just not sure if they'll find their way back.

Henry Olsen, one of the right-wing think tank American Enterprise Institute's intellectuals tried again, over the weekend in the piece for RealPolitics, to lay out a blue print for the recovery of the Republican Party. The only problem – and one of the major problems for Republicans these days – is the piece tended to look back rather than forward.

Olsen called up on the GOP to return to its Reagan roots and adopt as its own what he called, "Reagan's Children:" building on the white, southern, Christian evangelical suburbanite who catapulted Reagen to the White House and established – for a time – a majority in thought, word and vote. To that mix, Olsen argues should be added what he calls the "non-white vote," which if population estimates hold will constitute 30 percent of the electorate by 2016.

There's only one problem with that strategy: the core of the so-called "southern strategy" first given voice by Kevin Phillips for Richard Nixon way back in 1968 is based on fear and paranoia built on racism.

Fear and paranoia – particularly in this particular nation-state the fear and paranoia that people of color will outnumber and subsume white folks – can really only take a movement so far. Fear and paranoia over people of color just doesn't play very well in communities of people of color.

Hope and love will eventually overcome fear and hate. It must because it is based in justice for all.

Both former President Bill Clinton and his chief strategist, the always colorful James Carville, also pointed out over the weekend how the Republican Party and its old Southern Strategy is now being hoisted on its own petard.

Stripped of any real policies or objectives – other than winning elections at any cost – the Republican Party has nothing at the moment to offer except more fear and more paranoia and more hate and, yes, more racism.

"Republicans know they're out of ideas, so now they not only encourage shouting, smears, and distortions -- they actually reward it," Carville wrote. "But when you join hands with people who don't believe President Obama is an American citizen...or think he's the anti-Christ ... or compare him to Hitler and his policies to Nazi Germany, don't be surprised when they drag you and your party down the rabbit hole into a reality-free zone."

There really is only one destination for fear and paranoia: that delusional place that leads to irrational actions.

It's really in the best interests of the country for the Republican intellectuals to assert themselves and take back the GOP from the fear-mongering Glen Becks and Rush Limbaughs. Or they may finds themselves going the way of the Whigs.

As long as we have hope we can move forward. As long as we settle for fear we will retreat.

It's Friday and all the world's eyes will be on Pittsburgh.

What? PITTSBURGH?

Yea, yea: Pittsburgh. That's because the former city is playing host to the G-20 BINGO! Summit.

You know the G-20 BINGO! group of nations. They used to be called the G-8 BINGO! group of nations – just the rich, western nations – but they discovered the cost of summits was going up so they decided to expand the dues-paying base to cover the extra costs and, in that way, continue to exploit the poor nations by taking more of their money and while making them think they've arrived.

Gee, what a concept. The same kind of money pool is shrinking here at home for Medicaid. I wonder why no one is thinking of expanding the base of Medicaid to pay for the increased costs. Gee, that could give decent health care to everyone in America while at the same time making Medicaid solvent for generations to come.

Naw…way too obvious a solution and there's no money in it for insurance companies.

Oh well, back to the G-20 BINGO! Summit…Not to worry that the west will lose its grip on the world's economy. Just to show they're still in charge, the U.S., Britain and France announced today they know Iran has a secret underground man-cave where they're building nuclear stuff. HRUMMPF!!

The G-20 BINGO! Summit will focus on three broad issues: rebalancing global growth, giving poorer nations more representation at the IMF and more tightly regulating the world's financial industries.

But in Pittsburgh? Yea, Pittsburgh. I kid the former capital of the rustbelt but actually Pittsburgh is booming, these days, and is making its way back as a shiny city…no thanks to the Pirates or Steelers, by the way.

Pittsburgh became a laboratory of sorts for a group of economic brainiacs at Carnegie-Mellon University, led by a guru named Richard Florida.

Really, that's his name: Richard Florida and, no, when shortened to the diminutive his name is not meant to a declarative sentence used to describe what George Bush and Dick Cheney did in 2000 to get elected. His name used to be Tony New Jersey but he changed it to be more hip.

No, none of that is true.

The nut of Richard Florida's economic thesis is that society is currently undergoing one of the great economic shifts like others occurring throughout history: hunter-gatherers to agrarian; the industrial revolution; the dawn of the informational age. You get it.

Florida says the old economy- the one based on making money off money – is gone and will be replaced by what he calls the "creative economy" – an era which will value creativity and the transfer of information in all kinds of creative ways, some of which we haven't even dreamed yet.

For communities to thrive in the new creative economy, Florida says, they must have what he calls the "three Ts": Talent, Technology & Tolerance.

By "tolerance," he means providing a safe environment in which wild and crazy and creative people can thrive. He points out communities already succeeding in the creative economy have significant "Bohemian quotients." Communities such as Austin, TX, Athens, GA, Asheville, NC, come to mind.

There's no indication the G-20 BINGO! Summit will culminate Saturday night in a big drum circle with Hula-Hoopin' and fire dancin'.

But, hey, we could hope!

Oh sure, it would be easy enough – and cheap enough – to say the Congress is full of twits.

But according to Politico and the Congressional Research Service, the Congress is filling up more every day with Twits.

No, no, that's not an indictment of the intellectual capacity of our nation's lawmakers (although if the shoe fits…). Twits, in this case, refers to users of the mini-blogging social network called Twitter.

Twits – users of Twitter – send messages of no more than 140 characters – called Tweets – to people who have signed on to "follow" them – Tweople – on the social networking service. See how it works? Twits send Tweets on Twitter to their Tweople.

Well, needless to say, something as bright and shiny as this is bound to attract the attention of members of Congress and, indeed, the Twitscape is ever expanding on Capitol Hill.

According to the Congressional Research Service and TweetCongress.com, a website encouraging more Twits in the Congress, there are currently 158 of the 535 members of Congress Tweeting with some regularity. (It's important to be regular with one's Tweets.)

And Republicans are out-Tweeting Democrats by a nearly two-to-one margin (twot to twone margin) and they are more effusive (tweffusive) and Democrats more taciturn (twaciturn). The CRS told Politico Republicans sent 932 Tweets during two week-long stretches in July and August compared to only 255 Tweets sent by Democrats. Interestingly – or not – members of Congress send out more Tweets while Congress is in session than when it is in recess.

Over 1.7 million Tweople across this great land (and, presumably others), are signed on and following the Tweets sent by members of Congress.

Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, leads the pack with the most followers – Tweople…or TwSheeple – but Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-CA, and Claire McCaskill, D-MO, are among the top five Tweeting Senators. Of course, President Barack Obama leads all politicians with just over 2.2 million Tweople.

More and more politicians are seeing the benefits of the new technology and social media to connect with constituents. Facebook and Twitter seem to be the Twools of choice. Few politicians make their way onto MySpace and hardly anyone in the world anymore uses FriendFinder…whatever that was…and, perhaps, they find LinkedIn way too complicated.

Of course, there is always the problem of quality of messages being sent.

"While in St. Joseph, I made a second stop at the Stetson outlet store to get a second pair of Levis," Tweeted Rep. Roy Blunt, R-MO.

"Stoked that the triplets stood up on a surfboard and road (sic) the wave for the first time today," Tweeted Rep. Dana Rohrabacker, R-CA. I guess there wasn't' room left in the Tweet for, "Dude."

Still in all, politicians of all stripes and colors are finding ways to use social media. And it offers great promise for participatory democracy to become even more effective, granting immediate two-way communication between elected officials and voters.

Lord knows the telephone doesn't work so well, nor email. And the Pony Express takes weeks to get a message to Congress.

One state representative in Florida recently held a TweetTownHall meeting, which gathered nearly 300 old, white people into a room to wonder out loud, "what the hell is Twitter?"

Oops…BREAKING NEWS…this just in, Tweeted from a White House reporter: "In a book last year, (new Japanese Prime Minister) Hatoyama's wife, Mikio, wrote ' While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a UFO and went to Venus'."

You just don't get that kind of insight on the phone or the TeeVee Box evening news.

One can tell fall is just around the corner.

Football is in the air; thin, chilly air is blowing from the Faux News; the military is girding for a tough winter in Afghanistan and squirrels are gathering nuts – or at least some squirrels are tenaciously going after one big ACORN.

The nation's top military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, warns in a confidential memo somehow obtained by the New York Times that he needs a whole bunch more troops or the war in Afghanistan will be lost.

Curiously, this confidential memo finds the light of day – and the NY Times – less than a day after the President expresses his doubts in a round of interviews that sending more troops to Afghanistan is the answer to the quagmire.

Oops…did I say, "quagmire," out loud?

Hmmm…let's see: eight years later, God only knows how many deaths, still fighting the Taliban, al Qaeda is still operating – somewhere in the neighborhood.

Yea, maybe quagmire IS the right word.

Vietnam…Afghanistan…Iran. Gee, things have not gone so well in major military incursions over the past nearly 50 years.

One can't help but think of President Dwight Eisenhower's departing warning of the power and strength of what he called, "the military industrial complex."

Could it be – could it possibly be – these wars were just not really necessary and once launched became unwinnable?

Vietnam, we know, was based on a flawed political-diplomatic theory called, the Domino Theory. It held that if Vietnam fell to the communists the rest of Southeast Asia would follow and before you knew we'd have Soviet tanks on San Diego.

Turns out, not so much.

We know the invasion of Iran was based on lies, lies and more lies.

But that brings us to Afghanistan.

We are now fighting what we once called "the Soviets' Vietnam." The Soviets discovered, as did countless invaders over the centuries, Afghanistan is no place to be "conquered." The nation of Afghanistan is really a nation at all, not in the modern sense, but rather a collection of tribes and groups who fiercely defend their territory against all foreign invaders.

In retrospect, perhaps it might have been better – as many suggested at the time – to pursue the international criminals of al Qaeda as a police investigation and action: track down the criminals and bring them to justice.

Nation invading isn't working out so well.

Czar, czar everywhere a czar…blocking out the scenery, breakin' my car…do this, don't that…can you scream about the czar?

With apologies to the Five Man Electric Band, this is yet another screaming hissy-fit thrown by old, fat white people in response to yet another Faux News effort to bring down democracy and restore the Imperial Russian throne.

Or something like that. Hell, they don't even know what they're talking about, anymore! (If they ever did in the first place.)

U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, late a candidate for governor of Texas (or is it President of Texas?), took the floor of the most august body in the world to decry Imperial Russians in the White House.

Hutchinson said – on the floor of the Senate – the Obama Administration has an "unprecedented" 32 "czar" posts (special advisors to the President on various topics or issues).

"This represents a clear and dangerous affront to the separation of powers," said Sen. Hutchinson.

Um…'xcuse me, Senator…but the Bush Administration had 46 "czars" or special advisors.

But, please, as we've learned, the extremists never let the facts get in the way of a good gripe.

The Week magazine ran a photo of teabaggers holding a large sign which read, "Who are the Commie Czars?"

Clever. But score zero for historical accuracy…not that it should matter.

To begin with, you see, it was the commies who overthrew the Russian Czar way back in 1918…so, "commie" and "czar" is like oil and water.

And, second, every administration since Zachery Taylor has had special advisors. "Czar" is not a real post in American administrations. It's just a name – a poor one – made up by unimaginative journalists to describe these special advisors.

If memory holds correctly, the term was first applied when President Reagen appointed a special assistant to head up the newly created Office of National Drug Policy. Journalists referred to the post as the new "drug czar" and hoped it would mean free drugs for everyone!

But that was not to be. All the drug czar really did was develop the "Just Say No" campaign, which was a big hit and completely stopped the illegal importation of drugs into this country, turning over to the drug trade to pharmaceutical manufacturers where it belonged!

But none of this matters when it comes to angry old white people. All they know is what they're told on the Faux News and all they know is President Obama doesn't look like them and he has these crazy notions about wanting everyone in Amurka to have adequate, affordable health care.

What a revolting notion!!

Racism is a very ugly thing.

It is – far and away – the ugliest and worst part of this great country we love.

It is so contrary to the vision and mission of this great experiment in democracy as "the last best hope" and, yet, so endemic to our existence that the man who first uttered those immortal words was himself the owner of slaves; human beings considered property because of the color of their skin.

More than that, it is contrary to the vision given us by our God, our Yahweh, and our Allah.

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s accomplished many goals and served as a cleansing of sorts for our moral conscience. Rooted in deep spirituality, among its many noble deeds was to mute the outright expression of racism as something best left to back-rooms and muted voices.

Make no mistake. The Klan didn't go away and people didn't suddenly see the light and begin to love each other more for the content of their character and less for the color of their skin. But most folks thought better of expressing their racism out loud.

The election of Barack Obama was – among many other achievements – a watershed moment for this nation. The majority of us finally agreed to judge a presidential candidate by content of his character.

But many others refused to look past the President's skin color and now those on the extreme and dangerous right-wing of our American family have become bolder in their use of racism to oppose him.

In the last week alone, the voices of extremism have turned up the racist rhetoric promoting some kind of egregious fear that the election of Barack Obama has signaled a rising tide of African-American boldness that threatens the safe existence of white people. They look at the jackass actions of Kanye or the outburst of Serena Williams and assign that individual anger to a wider demographic.

Drudge headline: "White student beaten on school bus; crowd cheers."

Limbaugh on the radio: "In Obama's America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering."

No matter that police said the school bus incident was not racially motivated.

Lou Dobbs on CNN: "Some Mexican-Americans have formed a group to see states like California and New Mexico turned over to Mexico…It's the reconquista movement."

Glen Beck: "President Obama has a deep and abiding hatred of white people."

It's no wonder, then, that a backcountry congressmen and son of the Confederacy from South Carolina would feel emboldened to shout, "you lie," at this particular president during a speech to a joint session of the Congress.

Racism is a learned behavior and it's a behavior – an evil – that grows in fear and fear has its seed in basic human insecurity. People who suffer from this spiritual malady – and it IS a spiritual sickness – are afraid. They're afraid of losing something they have or not getting something they want. They're afraid of what they don't know. They are lurking in the deep shadows of a hole in their souls.

Free speech is something we take seriously in our great nation. It is a cornerstone of our republic. But the Supreme Court has set a standard for free speech. It has said First Amendment rights do not extend to the privilege of shouting, "fire," in a crowded theatre because such an action could lead to riot, mayhem and death.

Drudge, Limbaugh, Dobbs, Beck and others are shouting, "fire," in a crowded theatre.