YOU READ THAT RIGHT, DEAR READER: This is the 50th posting of Your Correspondent into this his new blog, The Exaggerator--committed to not being quite the worst blog online, but trying hard to create a healing time and space beyond reality for you.

@ least it's attracting some traffic, thanks to BlogMad; however, I'd welcome your greater support. Especially so by recommending this to your online friends as are into blog reading.

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ARE THESE THE REMARKS OF A SANE MAN, OR ARE THEY DANGEROUS FUEL FOR INCITING the mentally-disturbed towards Notorious or Infamous Crimes? (WAARSKUWING: The following video contains disturbing content which Mrs. Grundy would disapprove of:)

• Wyeth Consumer Healthcare (as in Advil, Centrum and Robitussin)
• Stamps.com
• GEICO Insurance
• TurboTax
• Chattem, Inc. (as in Gold Bond, Icy-Hot and Garlique)
• ITT Technical College

(Please visit NoSavage.org for contact links and freecall numbers for the aforementioned.) 

Continuing in this series of public service dedicated to challenging certain arguments of the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right as seek to challenge the legality, as much as the constitutionality, of free public education by way of actual clauses from the several State Constitutions which:

• mandate systems of free public education; and
• prohibit use of public funds for religiosectarian instruction.

We will now continue as follows:

ILLINOIS:

• A fundamental goal of the People of the State is the educational development of all persons to the limits of their capacities.
  
  The State shall provide for an efficient system of high quality public educational institutions and services. Education in public schools through the secondary level shall be free. There may be such other free education as the General Assembly provides by law.
  
  The State has the primary responsibility for financing the system of public education. (Article X, section 1, Illinois Constitution, 1970)
• Neither the General Assembly nor any county, city, town, township, school district, or other public corporation, shall ever make any appropriation or pay from any public fund whatever, anything in aid of any church or sectarian purpose, or to help support or sustain any school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other literary or scientific institution, controlled by any church or sectarian denomination whatever; nor shall any grant or donation of land, money, or other personal property ever be made by the State, or any such public corporation, to any church, or for any sectarian purpose. (Article X, section 3, op. cit.)

INDIANA:

• Knowledge and learning, generally diffused throughout a community, being essential to the preservation of a free government; it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to encourage, by all suitable means, moral, intellectual, scientific, and agricultural improvement; and to provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all. (Article 8, section 1, Indiana Constitution)
• The principal of the Common School fund shall remain a perpetual fund, which may be increased, but shall never be diminished; and the income thereof shall be inviolably appropriated to the support of Common Schools, and to no other purpose whatever. (Article 8, section 3, op. cit.)

KANSAS:

• The legislature shall provide for intellectual, educational, vocational and scientific improvement by establishing and maintaining public schools, educational institutions and related activities which may be organized and changed in such manner as may be provided by law. (Article 6, section 1, Kansas Constitution)
• No religious sect or sects shall control any part of the public educational funds. (Article 6, section 6c, op. cit.)   

KENTUCKY:

• The General Assembly shall, by appropriate legislation, provide for an efficient system of common schools throughout the State.  (Section 183, Kentucky Constitution, 1891)
• No portion of any fund or tax now existing, or that may hereafter be raised or levied for educational purposes, shall be appropriated to, or used by, or in aid of, any church, sectarian or denominational school. (Section 189, op. cit.) 

LOUISANA:

• The legislature shall provide for the education of the people of the state and shall establish and maintain a public educational system. (Article XIII, section 1, Louisana Constitution, 1974)
• The legislature shall appropriate funds to supply free school books and other materials of instruction prescribed by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to the children of this state at the elementary and secondary levels.(Article XIII, section 13(A), op. cit.)
• Local funds for the support of elementary and secondary schools shall be derived from the following sources:

  First: Each parish school board, Orleans Parish excepted, and each municipality or city school board actually operating, maintaining, or supporting a separate system of public schools, shall levy annually an ad valorem maintenance tax not to exceed five mills on the dollar of assessed valuation on property subject to such taxation within the parish or city, respectively.

  Second: The Orleans Parish School Board shall levy annually a tax not to exceed thirteen mills on the dollar of the assessed valuation of property within the city of New Orleans assessed for city taxation, and shall certify the amount of the tax to the governing authority of the city. The governing authority shall have the tax entered on city tax rolls. The tax shall be collected in the manner, under the conditions, and with the interest and penalties prescribed by law for city taxes. The money thus collected shall be paid daily to the Orleans Parish School Board.

  Third: For giving additional support to public elementary and secondary schools, any parish, school district, or subschool district, or any municipality or city school board which supports a separate city system of public schools may levy an ad valorem tax for a specific purpose, when authorized by a majority of the electors voting in the parish, municipality, district, or subdistrict in an election held for that purpose. The amount, duration, and purpose of the tax shall be in accord with any limitation imposed by the legislature. (Article VIII, section 13(C), op. cit.)

• For the effects and purposes of this Section, the Central community school system and the Zachary community school system in East Baton Rouge Parish, and the municipalities of Baker in East Baton Rouge Parish, Monroe in Ouachita Parish, and Bogalusa in Washington Parish, and no others, shall be regarded and treated as parishes and shall have the authority granted parishes. Consistent with Article VIII of this constitution, relevant to equal educational opportunities, no state dollars shall be used to discriminate or to have the effect of discriminating in providing equal educational opportunity for all students. (Article VIII, section 13(D)(1), op. cit.)

MAINE:

• A general diffusion of the advantages of education being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people; to promote this important object, the Legislature are authorized, and it shall be their duty to require, the several towns to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the support and maintenance of public schools; and it shall further be their duty to encourage and suitably endow, from time to time, as the circumstances of the people may authorize, all academies, colleges and seminaries of learning within the State; provided, that no donation, grant or endowment shall at any time be made by the Legislature to any literary institution now established, or which may hereafter be established, unless, at the time of making such endowment, the Legislature of the State shall have the right to grant any further powers to alter, limit or restrain any of the powers vested in any such literary institution, as shall be judged necessary to promote the best interests thereof. (Article VIII, part first, section 1, Maine Constitution, 2003 Arrangement)

***TO BE CONTINUED*** 

FOR SOME REASON OR ANOTHER AS IS BEYOND YOUR CORRESPONDENT'S GRASP, there seems to be a general lack of what can best be called Common Courtesy on the part of scam artists pushing questionable or misleading offers through "spam" or junk faxes.

As in failing to disclose a verifiable postal address by which one can quickly identify the promoters of the offer, the better so one could check its repute with the Better Business Bureau without needlessly jumping through hoops; I say this because too many scam offers so promoted quote only an e-mail or website address, or a freecall telephone number, making identification of the advertisers rather difficult.

(The likely patsy such would have: Having to reveal their trading name and address would "violate their rights to privacy and commercial free speech," the which are likely to be seen as intertwined.)

Hence, might I be the first to recommend contacting your Congressman and State Legislators to insist that certain advertisements be required to include the advertiser's trading name and stylee and a verifiable postal address (as opposed to mere mail drops which could be perverted by the Unregistered Business Movement's droogs for misguided delusions of privacy).

It's my understanding that in Great Britain, @ least, "work from home," "home business" and mail-order advertisers are required to disclose their names and office addresses under the relevant advertising codes--never mind that such disclosures are more than likely appearing in flyspeck type.

So what prevents us of the "morally superior" United States from asking for such a simple Common Courtesy as the true trading name/stylee and postal address (preferably an actual, physical office as opposed to a post office box or Private Mail Box facility, the latter having potential for abuse)?

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HISTORICALLY, IT'S A PROVEN FACT THAT SWINDLERS AND CARPETBAGGERS are usually the first to cash in on the real or imminent likelihood of mass unemployment and/or major socioeconomic dislocation, especially when the vulnerable and marginalised of society come into the equation.

The current socioeconomic situation, aggravated by the collapse of the "sub-prime" mortgage market and its byproducts (complicated all the more by the warped ideology of His Fraudulency's Great Within seeking to excuse same), is no exception.

Your Correspondent, in fact, would like to illustrate by example the kind of things that the Great Unwashed especially can expect to look for in their e-mails within measurable distance (presented, for the most part, as originally received, with the necessary redactions):

This is a  Elite Gifting Program.If anyone would like to join please
click the link way below.
Elite Gifting Programs were starting a while ago,to help people help
other people. Call it pay
it foward. Remember that movie. This is better I think because the more
people get involved
the more people it touches and passes on to. To Get involved you must
send a $10 amount to every persons email listed below. Once you do that
move your name to the top of the list
and the other names down one. The person last on the list has already
received alot of money trust me. He/she won't mind trust me. Don't cheat
and be Honest. Pass the email
forward to as many as you can find.

Remember to Join the Elite Gifting Program you must have a PAYPAL
account,or you can get one by just click the link below. Remember you
must send $10 to each of the four email addresses listed below in order
to Join the Elte Gifting Program.

[e-mail addresses and original link redacted]

(BTW, PayPal's abuse team was alerted to this Ponzi scheme, and it's safe to say that approriate measures are being taken.)

WITH HIS FRAUDULENCY'S GREAT WITHIN LACKING ANY SENSE OF REALITY over the consequences of what they brought about in encouraging development of a Classless Ownership Society (especially so among the Lower Classes vis-a-vis owner-occupancy housing, never mind their lacking decent credit histories), they must, methinks, secretly be regretting all manner of failed opportunities to push for "new and innovative" mortgage lending products to cater in particular to "chronic and habitual" welfare cases and others with problem credit as usually mean "sub-prime" mortgages.

(Industry-speak, as it were, for such mortgages with higher-than-necessary interest rates and all manner of fees having nothing to do with one's credit history being established.)

One "new and innovative" mortgage product they would have loved to see pushed wholesale upon Kankerdom: "Self-liquidating" mortgages as are, in theory, non-repayable by the borrower, instead (in theory) paid from the proceeds of (in theory, again) investments made by the lenders (styling themselves as a "foundation" to gain an aura of credibility, howbeit misguided) in the likes of "High-Yield Investment Programmes" (HYIP's) based, more than likely, offshore "for tax reasons" and making (yet again, in theory) investments in "philanthropic projects" in developing countries or otherwise unavailable to stateside investors (blame that on "wasteful and unnecessary" securities laws).

Or, for that matter, schemes in the vein of "Metro Dream Homes" out of the Washington, DC area, whose business concept was explained by The Washington Post last summer thus:

Metro Dream Homes says it will invest that cash in various businesses, including automated teller machines, video advertising and other Web-based ventures that are under the umbrella of its parent group, Metropolitan Grapevine, headquartered in Laurel. Then, according to Metro Dream Homes, the profit from these businesses goes to fund the monthly mortgage payments for the homeowners, on an accelerated schedule that pays off the house in five to seven years. The company also says it will make sizable contributions to charity. After five to seven years of payment-free living, the homeowner is supposed to sell or refinance the house, with the homeowner and Metro Dream Homes sharing the equity.

Good concept, but no sense.

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AS SEEMS TO BE COMMONPLACE HEADING INTO THE MARTIN LUTHER KING, JNR., HOLIDAY, racist and white-supremacist propagandists will once again push the stock line of theirs which held that the Civil Rights Movement's father figure was a Communist or otherwise Communist-influenced, and citing FBI records in "evidence."

Which, to Your Correspondent, begs the question of whether this means that the only "real Americans" are those who see the defence of racism, white supremacy, segregation, xenophobia and intolerance as necessary to that of America's "antient and pecuilar soverignty and soverign identity."

Which, methinks further, is flawed and faulty logic.

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AND SPEAKING OF FLAWED AND FAULTY LOGIC, conservative propagandists and so-called "news" portals like NewsMax and WorldNetDaily are undisputed leaders. Especially so the variety best described as The "Depiction=Endorsement" Fallacy, itself based on a flawed misreading of the "silence=acceptance" doctrine applied mostly in business law.

Try to find anything remotely resembling Depiction=Endorsement in the following ur-book review as appeared in a recent "WaiWai" item from the Mainichi Daily News out Tokyo way (whose credibility, as per usual, is @ best dubious):

Junior high school libraries across Japan are about to get their first-ever books explaining in graphic detail the, er, ins and outs of the adult movie industry, according to Asahi Geino (12/6).

Headed for school library bookshelves is "Hito Mina Hadaka ni Naru (All People Get Nude)." The book was written by Baksheesh Yamashita, a 40-year-old veteran of 17 years working as an adult movie director.

"This book is not a sex education textbook," Yamashita tells Asahi Geino. "It's a book that explains what's going on in the adult video world now because I want junior high school pupils to know about these kinds of things."

Yamashita has written his book in nitty-gritty detail and will provide copies of the work to junior high school libraries across the country.

"I think it's better to give an honest appraisal of the situation," he says.

Yamashita has certainly not pulled any punches in letting the young teens know what happens behind the cameras of movies they're not legally allowed to view.

"If it's a really top actress, they'll get paid about ¥1 million per movie, but if the actress [is] a relatively [sic] unknown, they can only expect a sum about one-tenth of that," Asahi Geino quotes Yamashita's book as saying.

The lowbrow weekly goes on to quote how the industry deals with actresses' dislikes in a particularly graphic passage.

"There is a fine line between what actresses are prepared to do and what they won't do. Incidentally, the three major dislikes of adult video actresses are anal sex, scatology and hardcore sado-masochism," Yamashita's book says, going on to give detailed explanations of what all three practices are and the reasons why women normally give for disliking them.

Yamashita's book also provides careful commentary on such practices as shiofuki--the art of inducing female ejaculation--and simulated sex.

"This book is for junior high school pupils, so of course I don't want them to watch adult videos. That's why I never mention any particular movie. I don't want to hide the industry, but teach people about it in the correct manner. Kids won't lose anything by learning that sex is not all pure and there is this other side to it. They need to know about it to be able to cope with it," Yamashita tells Asahi Geino. "There's a message I want to send to junior high school kids: 'Don't watch adult movies, don't appear in adult movies, but learn what adult movies are all about.' "

We continue, dear reader, with our series started just yesterday of such clauses from the actual Constitutions of the several States as mandate:

• a system of free public education in such states; and
• proscription on the use of public funds for religiosectarian instruction.

The which is offered as a public service to dispute certain contentions of the Pseudoreligiopolitical Right and their droogs who question the legality, let alone Constitutionality, of free public education based on what may best be called illogical arguments.

Now, we will cover the states Connecticut to Idaho, inclusive:

CONNECTICUT:

• There shall always be free public elementary and secondary schools in the state. The general assembly shall implement this principle by appropriate legislation. (Artcle 8, section 1, Connecticut Constitution of 1965)
• The fund, called the SCHOOL FUND, shall remain a perpetual fund, the interest of which shall be inviolably appropriated to the support and encouragement of the public schools throughout the state, and for the equal benefit of all the people thereof. The value and amount of said fund shall be ascertained in such manner as the general assembly may prescribe, published, and recorded in the comptroller's office; and no law shall ever be made, authorizing such fund to be diverted to any other use than the encouragement and support of public schools, among the several school societies, as justice and equity shall require. (Article 8, section 4, op. cit.)

DELAWARE:

• The General Assembly shall provide for the establishment and maintenance of a general and efficient system of free public schools, and may require by law that every child, not physically or mentally disabled, shall attend the public school, unless educated by other means. (Article X, section 1, Delaware Constitution, 1897)
• No portion of any fund now existing, or which may hereafter be appropriated, or raised by tax, for educational purposes, shall be appropriated to, or used by, or in aid of any sectarian, church or denominational school; provided, that all real or personal property used for school purposes, where the tuition is free, shall be exempt from taxation and assessment for public purposes. (Article X, section 3, op. cit.)

FLORIDA:

• (a)  The education of children is a fundamental value of the people of the State of Florida. It is, therefore, a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders. Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education and for the establishment, maintenance, and operation of institutions of higher learning and other public education programs that the needs of the people may require. To assure that children attending public schools obtain a high quality education, the legislature shall make adequate provision to ensure that, by the beginning of the 2010 school year, there are a sufficient number of classrooms so that:

  (1)  The maximum number of students who are assigned to each teacher who is teaching in public school classrooms for prekindergarten through grade 3 does not exceed 18 students;

  (2)  The maximum number of students who are assigned to each teacher who is teaching in public school classrooms for grades 4 through 8 does not exceed 22 students; and

  (3)  The maximum number of students who are assigned to each teacher who is teaching in public school classrooms for grades 9 through 12 does not exceed 25 students.
  
  The class size requirements of this subsection do not apply to extracurricular classes. Payment of the costs associated with reducing class size to meet these requirements is the responsibility of the state and not of local schools districts. Beginning with the 2003-2004 fiscal year, the legislature shall provide sufficient funds to reduce the average number of students in each classroom by at least two students per year until the maximum number of students per classroom does not exceed the requirements of this subsection.

  (b)  Every four-year old child in Florida shall be provided by the State a high quality pre-kindergarten learning opportunity in the form of an early childhood development and education program which shall be voluntary, high quality, free, and delivered according to professionally accepted standards. An early childhood development and education program means an organized program designed to address and enhance each child's ability to make age appropriate progress in an appropriate range of settings in the development of language and cognitive capabilities and emotional, social, regulatory and moral capacities through education in basic skills and such other skills as the Legislature may determine to be appropriate.

  (c)  The early childhood education and development programs provided by reason of subparagraph (b) shall be implemented no later than the beginning of the 2005 school year through funds generated in addition to those used for existing education, health, and development programs. Existing education, health, and development programs are those funded by the State as of January 1, 2002 that provided for child or adult education, health care, or development. (Article IX, section 1, Florida Constitution, 1968, as amended)

• The income derived from the state school fund shall, and the principal of the fund may, be appropriated, but only to the support and maintenance of free public schools. (Article IX, section 6, op. cit.) 

GEORGIA:

• The provision of an adequate public education for the citizens shall be a primary obligation of the State of Georgia. Public education for the citizens prior to the college or postsecondary level shall be free and shall be provided for by taxation. The expense of other public education shall be provided for in such manner and in such amount as may be provided by law. (Article VIII, section 1, Georgia Constitution of 2005)

• School tax funds shall be expended only for the support and maintenance of public schools, public vocational-technical schools, public education, and activities necessary or incidental thereto, including school lunch purposes. (Article VIII, section 6, paragraph 1(b), op. cit.)

HAWAII:

• The State shall provide for the establishment, support and control of a statewide system of public schools free from sectarian control, a state university, public libraries and such other educational institutions as may be deemed desirable, including physical facilities therefor.  There shall be no discrimination in public educational institutions because of race, religion, sex or ancestry; nor shall public funds be appropriated for the support or benefit of any sectarian or nonsectarian private educational institution, except that proceeds of special purpose revenue bonds authorized or issued under section 12 of Article VII may be appropriated to finance or assist:

       1.  Not-for-profit corporations that provide early childhood education and care facilities serving the general public; and

       2.  Not-for-profit private nonsectarian and sectarian elementary schools, secondary schools, colleges and universities. (Article X, section 1, Hawaii State Constitution of 1968, as amended 1978)

IDAHO:

• The stability of a republican form of government depending mainly upon the intelligence of the people, it shall be the duty of the legislature of Idaho, to establish and maintain a general, uniform and thorough system of public, free common schools. (Article IX, section 1, Idaho State Constitution, 1890)
• Neither the legislature nor any county, city, town, township, school district, or other public corporation, shall ever make any appropriation, or pay from any public fund or moneys whatever, anything in aid of any church or sectarian or religious society, or for any sectarian or religious purpose, or to help support or sustain any school, academy, seminary, college, university or other literary or scientific institution, controlled by any church, sectarian or religious denomination whatsoever; nor shall any grant or donation of land, money or other personal property ever be made by the state, or any such public corporation, to any church or for any sectarian or religious purpose; provided, however, that a health facilities authority, as specifically authorized and empowered by law, may finance or refinance any private, not for profit, health facilities owned or operated by any church or sectarian religious society, through loans, leases, or other transactions. (Article IX, section 5, op. cit.)
• No religious test or qualification shall ever be required of any person as a condition of admission into any public educational institution of the state, either as teacher or student; and no teacher or student of any such institution shall ever be required to attend or participate in any religious service whatever. No sectarian or religious tenets or doctrines shall ever be taught in the public schools, nor shall any distinction or classification of pupils be made on account of race or color. No books, papers, tracts or documents of a political, sectarian or denominational character shall be used or introduced in any schools established under the provisions of this article, nor shall any teacher or any district receive any of the public school moneys in which the schools have not been taught in accordance with the provisions of this article. (Article IX, section 6, op. cit.)

***TO BE CONTINUED***

THOUGH THIS BLOG MAY BE BARELY A MONTH OLD, READERS, Your Correspondent still finds it necessary from time to time to tweak things around for the sake of trying to attract notice.

Even if it means, for starters, using BlogMad as a way to get the blog noticed within the blogosphere through traffic swapping and banner exchanges.

Search Engine Optimisation, howbeit within the constraints of the limited resources @ my disposal, dictating the need for using free submission sites.

Even adding what could be called a decent logotype @ the top of the page, and a new motto of sorts--which, in case you're asking, is the Afrikaans for "...creating a healing time and space beyond reality for you...." (I admit to having this fondness for Afrikaans, a close relative of Dutch used widely in South Africa.)

Another promotional tool I use: None other than the good old letterposts; besides, "spam" (never mind attempts @ lily-gilding by using such pseudo-euphemistic terms as "bulk e-mail marketing") is not an effective online marketing tool, and what's more, the Terms of Service (ToS) prohibit its use. Besides, the Postal Service needs the work.

So, do excuse the virtual dust, readers, as things get tweaked around.

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MEMO TO WOULD-BE "FREEPER" TYPES: In case you have any designs on flooding the comments section of the current series of essays showing actual clauses of the several State Constitutions mandating systems of free public education and proscribing use of schools-fund monies for religiosectarian instruction with "swift-boating" attacks in the Freeper stylee: Don't think about it.

Especially considering where the comments section requires the entry of a "captcha" code prior to posting; the better to prevent "comment spam" and automated postings of identical-sounding messages in answer to "freeping" campaigns.

As well, I will not tolerate comment postings containing especially the Seven Dirty Words (you know what they are) and variants thereof, other tasteless language, appeals to racist or bigoted feelings generally, and comments sounding practically identical in tone and nuance. On the other hand, I would prefer a rational, sane sort of discussion on this or whatever other topics I have to discuss.

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THE NEXT CUBAN REVOLUTION WILL BE COMING within measurable distance.

And will be telecast exclusively by Fox News to distract the attention of Kankerdom from the "unhealthy attention" of Indecision 2008, the failings of the ur-RAHOWA Against International Terrorism, the near-collapse of the socioeconomic status quo and its potential exploitation by weird and unwholesome types and other so-called "junk food" news.

I say this in the wake of news that Cuba's longtime Communist leader, Fidel Castro, has acknowledged where he is now too frail and weak to even address the masses all the more ahead of the forthcoming Parliamentary elections--as if nearly two years in hospital recovering from abdominal surgery wasn't good enough for the Communist regime, Havana just had to use Fidel as a means to an end.

The end being National Unity and Cohesion against the likelihood of Fidel's decease, and such providing opportunity for "patriotic" paranoia about the United States exploiting the ensuing circumstances to launch "insurrection" and install what turns out being a corporatist regime under the guise of "restoring democracy" to the Cuban People and Nation.

Keith Rupert Murdoch just can't wait....

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WITH THE GOP PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES AND CAUCUSES TO DATE NOT PRODUCING a clear front-runner who can carry forward the GOP's agenda for Indecision 2008 ahead of the nominating convention in the Twin Cities later this summer (especially with Super Tuesday's primaries and caucuses not that far behind), it's enough for the Right-Thinking Americans to start reconsidering whether the GOP is still worthy of their vote come November.

As in the Iowa caucuses giving victory to an amen-snorter of dubious repute, especially as details of his part start becoming clearer all the more....

The New Hampshire primaries giving the victory to a senator with known connexions to a major figure in the savings-and-loan industry's meltdown in the late 1980's....

And the Michigan primaries giving the victory to a homestate boy chosen more out of homestate loyalties than anything else.

Too, you've also got a reconstructed(?) Libertarian using the GOP to make his message more mainstream, a whiz in the fundraising department but now facing charges that several newsletters published in his name and behalf contained racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, homophobic and neo-Confederacist content which he denies having written, let alone allowed to appear under his name and behalf.

In any case, whether the results out of Super Tuesday's caucuses and primaries make the picture more clear for the GOP's Presidential chances or no is best left to the Fates, methinks.

*************

DECEPTION, THY NAME IS FUNDRAISING BASED ON FEAR AND LOATHING OF THE VULNERABLE: Item from People For the American Way's "Right Wing Watch" blog about fundraising appeals by the conservative fearmongering machine resorting to trick or deceit:

It looks like The Traditional Values Coalition's front-group, the Christian Seniors Association, is again mailing out its bogus "U.S. Taxpayer Census" forms in an attempt to extort donations from confused senior citizens:

Local seniors who contacted this newspaper said they found the letter they received from the Christian Seniors Association confusing, saying at first glance it appears to be a government mailing of some kind.

On the front of the document, in large block letters, are the words "U.S. Taxpayer Census" and a seal similar in design to the U.S. official seal. (The official seal of the United States, which features an eagle holding arrows in one claw and olive leaves in the other, differs in detail from the design on the letter).

Also printed on the front of each letter are the words, "Census Document #" (followed by a 11-digit number) and the words "assigned to:" (followed by the recipient's name).

Inside, the form further identifies itself as a "U.S. Taxpayer Census on the Social Security Preservation Act (HR 219).

In smaller print at the bottom of the first page of the document, the mailing is identified as "a special citizen action project of Christian Seniors Association, a division of Traditional Values Coalition."

[***]

The monetary appeal portion of the letter has check boxes next to suggested donation amounts of $15; $25; $50; $100; $250; $500 and "other."

Alternatively, seniors are invited to donate $8 to cover the "cost of tabulating my census and delivering results to Congress," if the recipient feels they are unable to make "a substantial contribution" in the amounts suggested above.

It is no surprise that TVC would stoop to this sort of fundraising tactic considering that, according to their most recent tax filing, their "total net assets" are -$4,288,151.

And Another Thing:

Postal Service regulations require that mailings sent out in simulation of United States Government-agency mailings (the latter usually sent out with "Official Mail--Penalty for Private Use $300" indica in lieu of regular postage such) must be prominently labelled on the front of the envelope THIS IS NOT A GOVERNMENT DOCUMENT and, in the covering letter, a disclaimer explaining that the mailers have no official connexion with the United States Government or any of its agencies.

Are the Postal Inspectors becoming asleep @ the switch, as it were, for ideological reasons vis-a-vis His Fraudulency's Great Within, never mind the Postal Reorganisation Act 1970 (which replaced the cabinet-level Post Office Department with the quasi-corporate United States Postal Service) removing politics from the mails in favour of a corporate, profit-based model?   

As a public service for such among you Zealots and True Believers (Good Christians All, besides) who want to pick a fight with the courts about the "legality" or "constitutionality" of free public education based on pseudoreligiopolitical arguments, The Exaggerator has decided to offer, as a public service, aide-memoire over the next four days of such clauses in the several State Constitutions as mandate a system of free public education in the several States, and proscribe use of public funds for religious or otherwise sectarian instruction.

(Clauses from the constitutions of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa on these subjects were discussed previously in this space.)

For starters: As a reminder that educational policy is the sole domain of the several states, may I call your attention to the Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution (a/k/a the "States' Rights Amendment"):

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

This time around, I will cover the constitutions of the several states Alabama to Colorado, inclusive.

FYI, all clauses referred to are from such sections of the respective websites of the several states given over to the State Constitution, and come from such Constitutions currently in force; so you can look it up for yourself, the specific section and clause are noted by reference.

Let's begin:

ALABAMA:

• The legislature shall establish, organize, and maintain a liberal system of public schools throughout the state for the benefit of the children thereof between the ages of seven and twenty-one years. The public school fund shall be apportioned to the several counties in proportion to the number of school children of school age therein, and shall be so apportioned to the schools in the districts or townships in the counties as to provide, as nearly as practicable, school terms of equal duration in such school districts or townships. Separate schools shall be provided for white and colored children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a school of the other race. (Section 256, Alabama Constitution, 1901)

• No money raised for the support of the public schools shall be appropriated to or used for the support of any sectarian or denominational school. (Section 263, op. cit.)

ALASKA:

• The legislature shall by general law establish and maintain a system of public schools open to all children of the State, and may provide for other public educational institutions. Schools and institutions so established shall be free from sectarian control. No money shall be paid from public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution. (Article VII, clause 1, Alaska Constitution, 1959)

ARIZONA:

• A. The legislature shall enact such laws as shall provide for the establishment and maintenance of a general and uniform public school system, which system shall include:

  1. Kindergarten schools.

  2. Common schools.

  3. High schools.

  4. Normal schools.

  5. Industrial schools.

  6. Universities, which shall include an agricultural college, a school of mines, and such other technical schools as may be essential, until such time as it may be deemed advisable to establish separate state institutions of such character.

  B. The legislature shall also enact such laws as shall provide for the education and care of pupils who are hearing and vision impaired. (Article 11, section 1, Arizona State Constitution, 1912)

• No sectarian instruction shall be imparted in any school or state educational institution that may be established under this Constitution, and no religious or political test or qualification shall ever be required as a condition of admission into any public educational institution of the state, as teacher, student, or pupil; but the liberty of conscience hereby secured shall not be so construed as to justify practices or conduct inconsistent with the good order, peace, morality, or safety of the state, or with the rights of others. (Article 11, section 7, op. cit.)

ARKANSAS:

• Intelligence and virtue being the safeguards of liberty and the bulwark of a free and good government, the State shall ever maintain a general, suitable and efficient system of free public schools and shall adopt all suitable means to secure to the people the advantages and opportunities of education. The specific intention of this amendment is to authorize that in addition to existing constitutional or statutory provisions the General Assembly and/or public school districts may spend public funds for the education of persons over twenty-one (21) years of age and under six (6) years of age, as may be provided by law, and no other interpretation shall be given to it. (Article 14, clause 1, Arkansas Constitution, 1874)

• No money or property belonging to the public school fund, or to this State, for the benefit of schools or universities, shall ever be used for any other than for the respective purposes to which it belongs.  (Article 14, clause 2, op. cit.)

***TO BE CONTINUED***