Things We Learned on Twitter Today- GOP Scare Tactics Not Accurate

We saw this interesting tweet from Virginia state Senator Creigh Deeds (D-Hot Springs) who was easily re-elected over Charlottesville attorney T.J. Aldous on Tuesday, though since Republicans were able to brand conservative, pro-life Democrat state senate incumbent Roscoe Reynolds as a 'liberal,' his opponent Bill Stanley won the highly-contested seat in the Martinsville area and gave the state senate to Republicans by an extremely narrow margin.

In his tweet this evening, Deeds, whom I volunteered for when he ran for state attorney general in 2005 and endorsed in 2009 against his opponent Bob McDonnell, a fervent right-winger who is now governor, said the following: "Does government regulation really kill jobs? Economists say overall effect is minimal-Washington Post."

His tweet comes at a time when I saw several militant anti-Obama billboards, including two in Beckley, WVa, the heart of coal country, which said that every state from Indiana to South Carolina was in Obama's 'job-killing zones.' Interestingly, all these states, which included Virginia, were highlighted in red, the color used by the electoral college when it has voted Republican in the presidential election.

Though West Virginia was one of the eight states that selected Michael Dukakis in 1988, it has gone Republican for the last three presidential races. But, Obama won four 'Bush states' in Ohio, Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina during the last cycle.

There have been a number of dubious anti-Obama billboards paid for by far-right groups. One near Orlando, Fla., actually said "Please Don't Vote Democrat" which an image of the Twin Towers from 9-11. Another one in Grand Junction, Colo., which was eventually removed, compared our president to a terrrorist. Others have shown Obama wearing a turban while another one put a Soviet Union flag beside the president. And, these shameless people assuredly call themselves patriots.

Special Quote of the Week- Albert Camus

Today, we conclude with a spillover entry from the month of May, in which we posted quotes from famous novelists, with a quip from the late French writer Albert Camus
(1913-1950). Like the subject of our other entry on our other blog who was George Orwell (1905-1950), both writers were born abroad and died at age 46. While Orwell was born in India, Camus was born in Algeria. He often wrote about the plight of the north African country which remains an area of concern today given the political upheveal in neighboring Libya. Prior to the Libyan mess, there were earlier uprisings in neighboring Tunisia, which lead to the 'Arab Spring."

In addition to his criticism of colonialism, Camus was an outspoken critic of the death penalty, saying that it would never deter perspective murderers because 'the instincts that are warring in man are not, as the law claims, constant forces in the state of equilibrium.'

Alas, the likes of Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-Va) and Gov. Rick Perry (R-Tex.) and others on the anti-intelllectual right will assuredly always find a way to dismiss any logic that challenges their self-righteous Christian hypocricy.

McDonnell will be speaking at the Virginia United Methodist Assembly Center in Blackstone, Va. on June 11th, according to Eskii Kebede of "The Collegiate Times," the Virginia Tech student-run newspaper in Blacksburg, Va. The topic will be the faith of the founding fathers. Assuredly, any arguments about how a man who sees himself as an upstanding Christian can support the morally inconsistent pro-death penalty argument will not be brought forth.

Camus, who recieved the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, is known for three novels "The Stranger" (1942), "The Plague" (1947) and "The Fall" (1956).

Surreally enough, the much-heralded Turkish film director Zeki Demirkubuz loosely adapted "The Stranger" into his well-recieved 1999 film "Yazgi" ("Fate). I'm sure Camus would have been proud; here is his quote:

"An intellectual is someone who mind watches itself."