Sanford's Sexual Lemonade Stand

This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story. A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day. ~ Mark Sanford

Why do I get the feeling that Sanford has started juicing up his Argentine paramour story because he is trying to sell it as a Lifetime movie?

White Folk Empathy

I think I'm beginning to understand Republicans. Empathy is bad if it is held by a olive-skinned woman judge. Empathy is good if it is held by a white-skinned male judge.

I have always thought the Ricci case was a close call where empathy suggests to overturn the ruling in favor of Frank Ricci, a dyslexic firefighter who has overcome his handicap, while a cold, dispassionate reading of the law would support the city of New Haven. The Supreme Court decision (I'm thinking I have too much time on my hands) and especially Alito's concurring opinion (way too much time) is light on the law and heavy on empathy for the white firefighters denied promotions.

I don't mind the SCOTUS ruling on Ricci, I'd just like more consistency on empathy from the conservative justices.

Power Corrupts

President Obama has fully settled into the office. The promise to close Gitmo was just empty words; he has now committed to keeping that hellhole open permanently. He has resurrected the illegal military tribunals for captive prisoners of war. He has discovered the "signing statement" that allows him to simply ignore any law he doesn't like. What happened to the concept of the veto? Authorizing torture can't be far away now.

President Obama is in the process of Bushifying himself.

Justice Pubic Hair Dissents

Why am I not surprised that Clarence Thomas sees nothing wrong with stripping a 13 year-old girl down to her nubile flesh to search for Ibuprofen?

While there are no good, juicy quotes in Thomas' 22-page dissent (yeah, I read that piece of shit) it is easy to see that Thomas would not only approve of school adults searching the underwear of young girls he would, by the content and logic of his arguments, also approve of full cavity searches of students as well.

Judging from the length of Thomas' dissent, which is almost twice as long as the opinion it is responding to, I feel certain that he spent many nights contemplating this case, picturing the various searches he would allow, seeing in his mind's eye all these budding young women standing in shy nudity for inspection, perhaps even imagining these girls bending over for finger searches of their vaginas. I am certain that Thomas found repeated satisfaction and relief in considering this case.

I'm curious. Did he ask to see pictures?

When I Disappear I Always Go to Argentina

As lies go, Mark Sanford's is an unbelievable whopper. He disappears for days telling no one, not even his wife, where he was going. Upon returning he claims he had a nice, long, relaxing drive on a Argentina coastal road that is only two miles long. Yeah, right.

I will grant Mark this much, Buenos Aires women are rated the third most beautiful in the world. And, it would be nearly impossible to discover exactly whom he had his liaisons with. When a politician needs to "relax," Argentina seems an ideal choice for a secret getaway.

An Additional Thought: If you think about it, the most embarrassing part about Mark Sanford scooting off to Argentina for some off-the-radar boning is how badly he covered it up. Here is a trained, life-long politician, a man bred to the bone with the ability to lie with a disarming smile, and he couldn't fabricate a better cover story than that. His cover fell apart faster than a Korean missile. Lesson: if you can't keep an affair in Argentina under wraps you are not qualified to manage a Burger King.

Where Iran Goes From Here

Now that hob-nailed boots repression has stifled, although not ended, the street protests there are three paths that Iran can head down.

The Constitutional Alternative
The Assembly of Experts overturns the obviously fraudulent election and deposes both Ahmadinejad and Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Within Iran's constitutional hierarchy the Assembly of Experts is above Guardian Council which has already certified the stolen election. I don't hold out high hopes for this alternative.

The Pinochet Alternative
Backed by the army and the Basij militia, Ahmadinejad engages in a Reign of Terror to solidify his hold on power. While some people are murdered on the streets many thousands more simply disappear into torture chambers or shallow graves.

The Gdansk Alternative
The protests move from the streets to the economy. Strikes, worker slowdowns, sabotage, and foreign boycotts brings Iran's government to its knees. Faced with having to kill a third of its population to maintain order, the government capitulates to the public.

I don't know Iran well enough to lay odds on any particular outcome. My guts says that Ahmadinejad is willing to go the route of mass murder and willing to turn his entire country into a massive Abu Ghraib prison.

Where in the World Was Mark Sanford?

The governor of South Carolina went AWOL for four days last week. No one, not his security detail, not his aides, not the lieutenant governor, not even Sanford's wife knew where he had gone or what had happened to him.

As Darlene Ensign can testify, when a middle-aged Republican politician (Sen. John Ensign is 50, Mark Sanford is 48) goes walkabout it is usually for a Side Project with his blond* Relaxation Assistant. Sanford's wife is not concerned, meaning he has disappeared like this before. The official reason given is he's "taking time to recharge" which pretty much admits he's with a bikini-clad Relaxation Assistant.

*Republicans usually screw blonds; Democrats prefer brunettes.

The Devil Gets His Dues

Goldman Sachs' manipulation of the TARP has paid off big. Employees can expect the largest bonuses in company history as the company has accumulated massive profits from the global economic collapse. It's sweet to work at a company which has the entire United States Treasury Department in its back pocket.

See also Bargaining With the Devils at Goldman. Hat tip to Booman Tribune.

Standard Disclaimer to Goldman Sachs lawyers: I love Goldman Sachs and worship nightly at an altar (seen below) to its greatness. Please don't sue me.

The Great Satan

The slaughter of innocents has begun in Iran, massacred by their own government. Ahmadinejad may go down in history with Pol Pot as a mass murderer of his own people.

The world weeps.

Stupid Lawyer

I don't want a future vice president to say, 'I'm not going to cooperate with you because I don't want to be fodder for 'The Daily Show.' ~ Justice Dept. lawyer Jeffrey Smith

I don't have any proof, mind you, but judging from the extreme silliness of the above argument presented to a federal judge in open court I'm guessing that Jeffrey Smith is one of those Bush hires to the civil service.

You know, one of those gapped-toothed Monica Gooding yahoos with a freshly minted law degree from a conservative Christian diploma mill like Regents University. From the above evidence, my guess is that Smith's legal education didn't extend much past Leviticus.

Probably not Jeffrey Smith (r).

Innocence Is No Defense

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that innocent people convicted and imprisoned by the state have no right to new technology that proves their innocence. Chief Justice Roberts opined that, more important than actual guilt or innocence, is to not "unnecessarily overthrowing the established system of criminal justice." This is what an absence of empathy gets us.

Roberts, in his opinion, refers to the notorious Herrera v. Collins case of 1993. In that case the usual suspects (Scalia and Thomas) found that it was constitutional for Texas to execute an innocent man as long as he was properly convicted.

There is no basis in text, tradition, or even in contemporary practice (if that were enough), for finding in the Constitution a right to demand judicial consideration of newly discovered evidence of innocence brought forward after conviction. ~ A. Scalia

In both cases the Supreme Court's conservative majority has found that the State's goal of maintaining a smoothly running conviction mill is more important than an innocent man's right to freedom.

The Fly

When I first read that PETA was upset over President Obama killing a fly on national television I thought it was a hoax, an Onion headline that got swallowed by a gullible MSM editor. It looks like I was wrong.

When it comes to the sanctity of all life I am probably more respectful than most. If a praying mantis or ladybug is lost inside my home I will carefully catch it and release it back outside. I have to be in a very bitter mood to drown a spider trapped in my bathtub. Usually I help it to get out before I turn on the water. I'm a lousy golfer in large part because I reflexively flinch at cutting a divot because I don't want to scar the Earth.

But even I have my limits. If a mosquito lands on me for a few drops of my blood I'll slap her dead without a second thought. I don't care if she is just trying to feed her children. She can feed off a horse or a pig, but my arm is verboten. I see a cockroach I kill said cockroach. No qualms.

Ants can have their run outside and I won't bother them. But, if one crosses my threshold I execute it. You can't negotiate with ants over appropriate spheres of influence. They just won't listen. I wouldn't mind rats so much except they pee and poop over everything, carry fleas, and track in all sorts of diseases.

Which leads to an entire class of animals that my body is hostile to without even asking my permission. An invading colony of bacteria is certain to face full scale war from my immune system without even considering the social/ethical ramifications of that war.

All this leads to flies. Flies serve a function in the grand scheme of life. They are nature's garbagemen, dealing neatly with excrement and rotting flesh and flora. Without flies we would be up to our ears in shit and carrion. However, none of that can be found inside my house. A fly indoors faces starvation, which is a sad fate even for a fly. The best they can hope for is being a dessicated corpse on some windowsill. They should think of me and my flyswatter as a humanitarian putting them out of their misery.

PETA serves a useful function that is undermined when they defend the right of a fly to buzz the President. Note to PETA: The Katcha Bug is completely useless for capturing a house fly; it is only good for catching crawling insects.

Twitter and Rebellion

A few weeks ago my brother and I were sharing our disdain for and the utter uselessness of Twitter. I'm thinking we were wrong. The Iranian Rebellion would be impossible without Twitter and the conservative mullahs would have to shut down the nation's entire communications network, plunging Iran deeply into the 18th century, to silence the revolt.

Iran's Green Revolution has the feel of the 1979 Revolution. It is deeply patriotic, that is why any attempt at Western support would backfire. Students and the young, bridling under an increasingly repressive and aged regime, are striking out. As has happened so often in history, the Iranian mullahs have become exactly like the Shah they replaced.

They have made an Iran where the young have no voice and no hope. Iran's rapidly declining fertility rate (5.5 children per woman in the year 1988, 2.2 in 2000, and 1.71 in 2008) is a sign of how hopeless young adults feel.

Ahmadinejad can only keep power now if he engages in the mass murder of his own people because a little repression will not work this time. I believe Ahmadinejad is capable of butchering a few hundred thousand Iranians. The only remaining question is whether the the mullahs will sanction the wholesale slaughter of their own citizens.

Stay Out of Iran

One thing that will certainly crush the youth rebellion in Iran is if the United States attacks Iran. Bomb Iranian nuclear facilities and all of the patriotism that is being invested in opposing their stolen election will be refocused against the foreign invaders.

The only exception is if the Revolutionary Guard begins the mass slaughter of Iranians. Then, and only then, can the United States intervene. Not a few hundred deaths, only tens of thousands being killed can justify American intervention.

At no point can Israel act. Any military action by Israel can only insure that Ahmadinejad will be given total control of Iran and unconditional support.

Slavery and Republican Revisionist History

Holocaust deniers are not alone in their fantasy histories. Republicans trying to rekindle talk of secession are redefining the American Civil War to claim that the South seceded in 1861 for "States Rights" and slavery wasn't the reason.

The Revisionist History Claim
According to the Revisionists, the South was simply exerting their freedom from Northern oppression. It was State's Rights, not slavery. Douglas Harper, published here in the Old Virginia Blog, tries a scholarly approach. Hidden behind endless hemming and hawing, Harper states that the Civil War was really caused by the Morrill Tariff. He minimizes slavery as an issue. Harper is answered well by M. Lynch in Past in the Present.

But the Southern confederacy -- that is, the national government of the CSA -- was no more built on slavery than was the Northern Union. ~ Douglas Harper

The revisionists know they have to address slavery. Pat Buchanan claims slavery was really a good thing.

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known....Where is the gratitude? ~ A Brief for Whitey, March 2008

Others make the unsupported by any facts whatsoever claim that the South would have ended slavery itself if the Northern bullies had only left them alone.

Slavery could have been ended within the Confederacy, as it had been throughout most of the Western world by that time. In fact, some have pointed out that if Lincoln had let the Southern states succeed (sic), slavery would have ended rather quickly, as there would no longer have been any voice in Congress to support the fugitive slave laws, and the border states would have become sieves for runaway slaves seeking freedom. ~ Midwest Catholic Dad

To finish the current argument that secession is good, secession is right, the revisionists have to attack Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln, they say, was a horrible president, a tyrant, kind of like Aldolf Hitler.

None of This Is New
Interestingly, the current crop of pro-secessionist Republicans are simply repeating the excuses that ex-Confederates gave in the 19th century. Called the Lost Cause Religion, it was created by General Jubal Early after the Civil War and had all the components of the current crop of pro-secessionists.

The first is political, insisting that the cause of the war was not slavery but the oppressive power of the central government, which longed to tyrannize over the Southern states. The South desired merely to exercise its constitutional right to secede, but was thwarted by a power-hungry Lincoln. ~ The Lost Cause in Retreat

Like their 19th century predecessors, current secessionists believe in States Rights except when they don't. When Northern states used their sovereign right to ignore the Fugitive Slave Act, Southern States Righters were outraged.

In many of these [Northern] States the fugitive [slave] is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. ~ Christopher Gustavus Memminger of South Carolina, December 1860

When Blue States legalize gay marriage, Republican States Righters want the Federal Government to step in.

Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman. ~ Proposed amendment to the United States Constitution

The Truth
In 1860-61, in speech after speech, Southerns placed the reason for secession squarely on preserving slavery.

The day is now come, and Alabama must make her selection, either to secede from the Union, and assume the position of a sovereign, independent State, or she must submit to a system of policy on the part of the Federal Government that, in a short time, will compel her to abolish African Slavery. ~ E.S. Dargan, Alabama, January 1861
[Our government] foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. ~ Alexander Stephens, Vice- President of the Confederate States of America, the Cornerstone Speech, Georgia, March 1861
The systematic, wanton, and long continued agitation of the slavery question, with the actual and threatened aggressions of the Northern States and a portion of their people, upon the well-defined constitutional rights of the Southern citizen; the rapid growth and increase, in all the elements of power, of a purely sectional party, whose bond of union is uncompromising hostility to the rights and institutions of the fifteen Southern States, have produced a crisis in the affairs of the country. ~ Governor Isham Harris, Tennessee, January 1861

I could go on. And don't think for a second that race hatred and this country having an African-American president isn't an unspoken part of the modern secessionist movement.

Civil rights legislation was just the beginning of the government’s involvement in the management of our personal property. ~ State Secession and the Coming Civil War, April 27, 2009

States Rights was a codeword for racism in 1861. It was a codeword for racism when used by Jubal Early in the 1870's. It was a codeword for racism when Ronald Reagan used it in the 1970's. It is a codeword for racism today. White racists, mostly but not exclusively Southern, see their last, faint hope for a return to the good old days ending and they want out.

The return to States Rights and secession is the last gasp of an old philosophy. It is a wish for a country where Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics can be kept in a lower caste. It is a secret longing for a day when Nathan Bedford Forrest can again be called a hero.

Letterman and Palin

There is a story, probably apocryphal, that an art dealer in Boston in the 1880's was overstocked with prints of a rather poor nude painting that he couldn't sell. Reading in the paper that the great moralist and censor Anthony Comstock was delivering a lecture in town gave the art dealer an idea.

The art dealer wrote an anonymous letter to Comstock complaining about how a lewd painting at his gallery was corrupting the youth. The dealer then paid a dozen street urchins four bits each to gather in front of his gallery window where the print was on display. Comstock saw the children and publicly denounced the gallery and the painting, by name, in his lecture that evening. The art dealer sold all of the prints of that painting by noon the next day.

Republicans are calling on CBS to fire David Letterman. The controversy will certainly result in a ratings bonanza for Letterman's show. Unless CBS execs have spines of jelly, if they can let this play out, it will be the best thing to happen to Letterman's show since his Madonna interview.

Domestic Terrorism - Part 2

Don't even try to convince me that Radical Religious Republicans are not actively supporting the terrorist acts we've seen in recent weeks.

Radio Pastor Prays for Death of President Obama

This cracker, Wiley Drake, is a leader of the Southern Baptist Convention. He has made a habit of calling for death to Americans. He is claiming credit for the murder of George Tiller.

Domestic Terrorism

In April when a Department of Homeland Security memo mentioned the rising threat of rightwing extremist violence non-terrorist (I assume) rightwing bloggers were aflame with rage and stood in solidarity with their more bloodthirsty colleagues on the right. How dare the government be interested in even the seamiest parts of their political spectrum. Firedoglake noticed the strangeness of it at the time. Crooks & Liars reviews rightwinger outrage.

Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly anti-government, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration. ~ From the DHS memo

Now that rightwing terrorists have begun killing Americans using the gun rights they defend and in support of the politics they expound those very same bloggers are outraged anyone would associate them with the violence.

Rightwing media voices (Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly) have been and continue inflaming their listeners with siege and war rhetoric. Now there is blood in the water we can anticipate more. More of both rhetoric and bloodshed. There are more Timothy McVeighs out there than Osama bin Ladens.

Why We Need Three Parties

The Virginia Democratic gubernatorial primary is the best argument why a vibrant democracy needs at least three viable political parties. Huh? Take a look at this chart.

When the campaign began Terry McAuliffe had the most money, Brian Moran had more active supporters, and Creigh Deeds was the hopeless doormat. Following the traditional political consultant blueprint McAuliffe and Moran proceeded to smear each other with about 11 million tons of shit. By election day the two candidates had managed to convince the electorate that the two most despicable humans on the face of the Earth were Brian Moran and Terry McAuliffe. Deeds won in a walk.

Modern campaign consultants view elections as a blood sport - sort of like mixed martial arts fighting but with fewer rules. And, they have been vindicated because in head-to-head elections the most ruthless mudslinger generally is the winner. Adding a third viable candidate to the mix changes the dynamics. In a three-way race, mudslinging doesn't work.

Lots of mud blows back on a slinger. In a heads-up race that doesn't much matter because the opponent still comes out covered with more slime. With three candidates the one who manages to keep his hands clean look pretty damn sweet by comparison.

If we had three, or more, viable political parties campaigns would necessarily become far more civil and more focused on the issues. Let's be honest, casually glancing at the election issues would be an improvement. It doesn't mean my side will always win but the more intelligent campaign will have an advantage over the more vicious campaign.

In Virginia, on policies, I preferred either Moran or McAuliffe to Deeds. But both of them ran stupidly injurious campaigns and deserved to lose.

CIA Stink Cannot Be Hidden

Leon Panetta has totally become Jack Bauer's bitch.

CIA interrogators tortured their prisoners and these tortures were far worse than anything revealed at Gitmo or Abu Ghraib. That is the certain conclusion that can be reached by Panetta's statement that releasing CIA interrogation evidence would result in "exceptionally grave damage to the national security" and give al-Qaeda "propaganda it could use to recruit and raise funds."

If the CIA interrogations were less sever than waterboarding or the Abu Ghraib photos revealing it would result in nothing. Indeed, it would go a long way to proving that the United States is no longer the outlaw nation it was under Bush/Cheney. The only reason to keep this information hidden is that the CIA interrogations were orders of magnitude worse than anything we have seen before. The only reasons to hide this are:

• It would show that Abu Ghraib was standard operating procedure.
• John Yoo's torture memos were routinely exceeded.
  
• The evidence would show the rape of men, women, and childern.
• Electronic torture was used.
• There is clear evidence that people were tortured to death.

The "national security" dodge is ludicrous here. We are not talking about nuclear weapons codes or troop movements. These are techniques which, we are told, are no longer being used. There can be no possible damage to national security from revealing the truth here.

Unless the truth is so outrageous that the American people would vomit in their oatmeal if they knew and the truth would threaten to tear the nation apart.
Unless the truth is so vile that the world will demand war crimes trials for every American involved from President Bush to the lowliest CIA gang rapist.

Leon Panetta is revealing more by hiding the truth than he realizes. If President Obama agrees with Panetta then Obama is much less of a man than I thought him to be.

In a Democracy the people have an absolute right to know what has been done in their name.

Addendum: There is one other possibility. The CIA has made a credible threat to assassinate President Obama if evidence of their interrogation tortures are released.

Can Justice Be Bought?

Sometimes it hard for a rational human to understand what conservatives define as "right" and "wrong." Take, for example, the case of Caperton v. Massey Coal. Bribing a judge is wrong; buying a judge outright is legitimate commerce.

Any fair analysis of the election of West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin would conclude that the CEO of Massey Coal, Don Blankenship, bought himself a judge. The purchase was perfectly legal. Blankenship spent over $3 million dollars in donations and independent expenditures to elect Benjamin. This easily eclipsed what everyone else spent or donated on the race, on all of the judicial candidates combined, including Benjamin. It is fair to describe Massey Coal as the majority shareholder of Justice Benjamin.

Benjamin repaid Massey Coal by refusing to recuse himself and leading his court to overturn a $50 million judgment against Massey Coal.

On a 5-4 vote the United States Supreme Court overturned the West Virginia case.

We conclude that there is a serious risk of actual bias—based on objective and reasonable perceptions—when a person with a personal stake in a particular case had a significant and disproportionate influence in placing the judge on the case by raising funds or directing the judge’s election campaign when the case was pending or imminent. ~ Justice Kennedy, Caperton v. Massey Coal

Now, we get to the dissent. Chief Justice Roberts in an opinion shared by Alito, Thomas, and Scalia stated that even if there was bias, even if Justice Benjamin was a bought and paid for toady, that is no reason to overturn an otherwise perfectly legal judgment. It is tough to read through one of Roberts opinions because they are void of legal reference and chockablock full of ad hominem arguments, including his conclusion that Benjamin would have won the election without Massey's $3 million.

Basically, Roberts said that because they can't draw a hard line between buying a judge and merely renting one interfering in this case can only besmirch the rulings of judges who lease out their opinions from time to time.

I am sure there are cases where a “probability of bias” should lead the prudent judge to step aside, but the judge fails to do so. Maybe this is one of them. But I believe that opening the door to recusal claims under the Due Process Clause, for an amorphous “probability of bias,” will itself bring our judicial system into undeserved disrepute, and diminish the confidence of the American people in the fairness and integrity of their courts. ~ Justice Roberts, Ibid.

Who Is More Upset?

Who is more pissing in his twisted knickers, foaming at the mouth angry at this headline, Obama Receives Standing Ovation in Cairo, Osama bin Laden or Rush Limbaugh?

Vanishing Seas

If you don't believe that global climate change is real, explain this video.

The Aral Sea was once the fourth largest saline lake on earth. As late as 1960 it was larger than Lake Huron and supported a vibrant fishing industry. Today, it is a handful of puddles that are, combined, less than one-tenth its former size.
An entire fleet of modern fishing boats rests stranded on its salty dunes. Even if they could be floated the remaining water is so salty that most of the remaining lakes are dead. Winds blowing across the dry salt flats kick up poisonous dust storms.

Want fresh water? Try Lake Chad. As large as Lake Erie in 1960, it is now the size of Lake Champlain. Shallow, with an average depth of less than five feet, by volume there is less water in Lake Chad than Roosevelt Lake behind the Grand Coulee Dam.

"Yeah, but," you say, "them is foreign countries. The Good Ole USA is just fine." For you, I have the Ogallala Aquifer. A huge underground lake that ranges from South Dakota to Texas, it held over 3 billion acre-feet of water before we began seriously tapping it in the 1950's. That's 100 times the capacity of Lake Mead. It supplies water and irrigation for the citizens of eight states.

So much water is being drawn from the aquifer that the groundwater levels are dropping as much as five feet a year. It would take 6,000 years for the aquifer to refill if fully drained. It is being drained at the rate of 18 Colorado Rivers a year. Billionaire T. Boone Pickens plans to accelerate that draw down by pumping water to sell to Texas cities like Dallas.

It may take 25 years, it may take 50 years, farmers hope they can conserve enough water to make the aquifer's life stretch for 125 years. Cut those numbers if Picken's plan takes off. But, the aquifer is doomed. It is only a matter of time before the greatest underground reservoir in the United States is dry. And America's great agricultural heartland will dry up with it.

The Wichita Murder

There is little to add that has not already been written by my betters. We have a Christian jihadist from an active domestic terror cell motivated by the blood hatred that is taught as religion. Mainstream conservatives have condemned the murder and in their next breath said that the victim deserved to die.

I expect more such terrorist attacks against doctors, politicians, and judges. There will be more attacks against apostate (liberal) churches. And as terrorists prefer to attack soft targets, I expect more attacks against innocents perceived as gay or atheist or Democrats or unsubservient women. And as is normal for terrorists, they will call their terrorist killings self-defense.