Niki Kelly, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, has a political notebook piece about Eric Miller’s “Sneak Attack” Youtube video. According to the breathless narration, shadowy forces will push through unspecified legislation having to do with sex and kids. From the Advance America blog:
A sneak attack could take place on Tuesday, November 17th at the State House to pass a bill that will harm the families and children of Indiana – your children and grandchildren!
This sneak attack is being orchestrated by the political establishment at the State House and powerful special interest groups and corporations that have millions of dollars to spend to control the legislative process! This sneak attack must be stopped!
(There is more information about the sneak attack that you need to know)
Be watching for more information in the coming days about this sneak attack and the bill that could be introduced at the State House on Organization Day – November 17th.
Legislative leaders deny that they are up to anything sneaky having to do with sex & kids or otherwise — that this rumor could have been cleared up with a phone call. Just the sort of thing you’d expect them to say if they were organizing a Sneak Attack! ™.
Unrelated: I once read where the grifters of the Nigerian prince genre purposefully made the text of their pitches ridiculous. Sure, most people aren’t going to take such awful writing seriously. But – and here is the key – the people who do respond to the poorly written, unbelievable e-mail are necessarily going to be pre-screened for you as among the most gullible members of the population; much more easily parted from their money.
Sneak Attack!
The Conspiracy lives! (At least in someone’s mind.). Maybe this isn’t the best way to go about getting legislation passed, or keeping it from getting passed, but it sure makes them look real different.
I wonder if the Sneak Attack video asks for donations to help “Advance America” combat protect Hoosier kids from sexual depradation from Indiana legislators, shadowy special interests and godless corporations.
This is a relatively long video for it to be run on the media, as well as expensive. A boring explanation of the legislative process and the claim that they are about to be left out of it, despite the contention that the “new” law is about “sex and children”. Right. I’m sure this legislature is about to pass a law approving child pornography. There is a real groundswell for that. More likely a discussion about protecting homosexuals from being lynched so that the state won’t lose any more business than it already has. Assuming that will even occur.
I think this is another one of those misguided self-destructive events from the right that shows they get check out their ideas with like-minded people rather than sensible ones. One of those “let’s take a stand” situations, where they don’t realize that they are standing in quicksand. I tend to get some evil satisfaction from this sort of thing, because they are spending their hard-earned dollars to look bad to the sane world, just to satisfy their base. Don’t seem to understand that a public act is in front of the entire public.
Eric Miller is an excellent propagandist. Only way he can sell his snake oil. Sad that it works with so many people.
Eric Miller has never let the facts stop him before and it’ll never stop him now. Besides, he’s got to keep the funds coming in so that his law firm can profit.
My gut tells me that Pence and the business wing of the Republican Party have come (or will come) to some sort of deal in which Pence would back and sign legislation that the business wing wants to make clear Indiana is welcome to all.
What Pence gets out of the deal is no challenge in the Republican primary by a candidate backed by the “millions of dollars” behind the business wing of the Republican Party.
That sort of deal sure make it hard for Miller, Curt Smith, and Micah Clark to fund raise. When a “social conservative” governor can’t accomplish anything, why put your money into the system by giving to those three?
Joe, a great question. Why support Pence when he can’t support the minority on their stuff, won’t support the majority on their stuff, and is blind to the common good on all the stuff?
This is some interesting, and correct, analysis, At every juncture, the “main street wing” of the Republican party sells out theire far right christian base. Yellow dogs vote as yellow dogs are told. Until the yellow dogs can understand that their bowls are seeded with tranquilizers, they will follow the feces stinking rectum of their masters into the voting booth.
As someone who attends a church that shares many a religious belief with many of the folks behind this tomfoolery (and even once had Eric Miller himself show up to ask for funds), I simply don’t understand what they’re thinking in the political realm.
I personally think they’re making things worse for “their side” and they’re not exactly appealing themselves to younger churchgoers but their immediate financial futures seem to depend on having a very short term view of things.
Joe, actually, I think that the christian right has a very long view of things. They are wishing for a day that is defined by their mythology as an apocalypse. They would trade the world, as generally good as it is, for the end of the world that creates untold sorrow and untold billions.
And they are busy making the current world as close to the abomination they desire as they can.
If someone has a truly apocalyptic view of reality, that view will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. They can be expected to act in self-destructive ways, if not destructive in other ways. When they run out of enemies outside themselves, they turn on one another, questioning ideological purity. These people are usually authoritarians, and there is a huge literature on those folks. I think we see that ongoing scenario in national politics, and the state level is no different.
They fundamentally misstate the regular order of legislation, as this General Assembly is loathe to pass things without the due process of committees, etc. And yet, there may well be a piece of legislation passed this Organizational Day – but it will deal with putting a pause on the “accountability” use of ISTEP scores on teacher performance pay and evaluations due to the disastrous mess the legislature has made itself.
So wait, you’re telling me that the more uninformed and unacknowledged legislators get involved in education, the worse things get?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgttPt_1IG0