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Name ONE thing the Tea Party stands for that helps People more than Corporations

Last Saturday was Glenn Beck’s “I Have a Scheme” rally (credit to Wonkette for the pun). Though it was dubbed “not a political rally”, no question that the 99% white crowd consisted almost entirely of Tea Party teanuts with politics on their mind. The theme of the rally was “Restoring Honor”. Restoring honor? This is new. From what TO what? President Obama has been “dishonorable”? To whom? The troops? No, if there is one thing Conservatives support him on, it’s the war. Is he “dishonoring” the office of President? There hasn’t even been a hint of scandal coming out of this administration. Has America itself lost its honor? Why do Beck’s followers hate America? What did America do? Elect Democrats following Hurricane Katrina, $4/gallon gas, two incompetently managed wars, and a looming economic crisis? In the end, Beck’s rally was a LOT of whining, whose ONLY solution was to “hand it over to God” (apologies to “Billy ‘Sol’ Hargis”). Assuming that America, in their tiny minds, “lost its honor” upon the election of Democrats, then clearly, the way out of this mess is theocracy! Fox “news” Sunday’s host Chris Wallace asked his lone guest Beck about calls for a “Beck/Palin” ticket in 2012. Can you imagine a stupider presidential ticket? The Quitter & The Crier. They’d certainly win the “mental patient” vote, which would include a not-insignificant number of teanuts.

As I noted two weeks ago in my continuing list of “reasons to keep Republicans from regaining power”, the Tea Party came out against “Net neutrality” and in favor of corporate restrictions on Internet traffic, arguing that “Net neutrality”… what we have NOW… “would result” in increased government control over the Internet. I repeat, we have Net-neutrality NOW, and HAVE had it since the opening of the Internet in 1993, so using future-tense to describe what “would result” if we passed net neutrality is beyond ignorant. Tea-baggers hate the government and want turn as much of it over to corporate America as possible. Health care? “Death Panels!” Social Security? “Privatize it!” Ditto for the military. Then they print up their “Obama/Hitler” signs and complain about the government bailing out Wall Street… which destroyed the economy playing fast and loose with our money thanks to a decade of deregulation that Tea-Partiers think we need MORE of.

So I find myself wondering (as do you, I’m sure), “What exactly does the Tea Party stand FOR” that helps the bottom and middle 90% of Americans more than the top 2%? We know what they are against: anything & everything involving the government. How is that agenda any different from that of the GOP?

Well, first off, the teanut agenda varies mostly from the GOP’s agenda primarily in their extremism on all fronts. Think of a Conservative trait and multiply it by a factor of two (or more). Republicans want to mix politics & religion. I think most Tea-Partiers… who claim the mantle of “true Americans” while champing at the bit to run the Bill of Right through a Word Processor… think an all-out theocracy wouldn’t be such a bad idea. One need look no further than Nevada’s “Sharron Angle”… (who is SO nutty I don’t even bother to include her latest insane comment in the weekly link-list because it would be beating a dead horse) who thinks “prohibition” was a good idea and “gambling” is evil, all while asking to represent the home of Las Vegas and Reno, campaigning on “lost jobs” (in a state that depends heavily on people who love to drink & gamble to provide jobs). Good luck with that Sharron. If Nevadans elect her, they deserve what they get.

I’ve talked to a lot of Conservatives (no avoiding it in Texas), and their unshakable belief is that “the rich create the jobs”, so it is our duty to make them rich enough to expand their businesses and start creating jobs. But as I’ve said repeatedly, DEMAND creates jobs, not tax cuts for the rich. Conservatives don’t get this. Teanuts REALLY don’t get this.

A little “thought experiment”:

If I gave a millionaire a huge tax cut hoping he’ll use it to make “widgets”… that no one can afford… do you think he’s going to start making widgets, or do you think he’s going to sock the money away for a rainy (rainier) day?

If I gave a bunch of poor people tax cuts (or “refund checks” like Bush did), hoping they’ll start buying the widgets they need, there might be a slight increase in demand that leads to increased production and (eventually) more jobs. But as we saw under Bush, when times are bad, most of that money will go to pay off debts for past purchases, or socked away for rougher times ahead. Only a fraction actually feeds back into the economy.

If, instead, THE GOVERNMENT places an order for 100 million widgets, factories will start hiring to produce them, putting people back to work. “BUT”, Conservatives will argue, “the government can’t be their lone customer forever”. True, but if you build “high-tech widgets” for which there’s a global demand, soon the rest of the world will be your customer (sign my petition).

Conservatives call this “Socialism”. Teanuts call this “Marxism”. Neither are right. This is “Keynesian economics”. Capitalism-101. Think of Sharron Angle (the teanut running for the Senate in Nevada) and the situation I described earlier (a state heavily dependent upon casinos for employment). A perfect metaphor here would be like trying to save the casinos by giving them huge tax cuts (which is EXACTLY what the Republican-Plan would do). That’s not going to bring customers through the door. How many Blackjack dealers must Vegas casinos hire to man empty tables before it “trickles down” into jobs for the average person?

Conservatives controlled both the WH & Congress for six years from 2001 to 2006. They CUT taxes for the rich, SO WHERE ARE THE JOBS? Not only did it NOT create jobs, but it exploded the deficit and tanked the economy. When you ask “why”, they blame 9/11 (their universal “get out of jail free” card under Bush). If tax-cuts for the “rich” couldn’t stop the economic meltdown that occurred over the next five years on their watch, what are the chances they’ll solve the EVEN-BIGGER economic crisis we have NOW? Tax cuts create jobs? Really? The Bush tax cuts haven’t expired yet! They don’t end till the end of this year. So where are the jobs? The Tea-Party’s Grand Marshall Dick Armey believes it is “the uncertainty of not knowing what their taxes will be like after this year” that is discouraging corporations from spending money and creating jobs. So “we must extend the Bush Tax Cuts” to end that “uncertainty”. Uncertainty? What uncertainty? President Obama has always vowed to end the Bush tax cuts, and the Democratic Congress agrees. The only people creating “uncertainty” is the GOP. Maybe THEY should get on board with Democrats to end that “uncertainty”. That would make things a whole lot more “certain” than betting on winning majorities large enough to over-ride a presidential veto. If “uncertainty” is all that stands in the way of an economic recovery, it’s the GOP’s fault, not ours.

Teanuts also question Global Climate Change in greater numbers than even the GOP, and don’t want the government spending a dime on it. Climate Change deniers come in two stripes: those who actually believe GCC is indeed a possibility, but fighting it “interferes with Gods Plan” that we were given permission (according to the Bible) to use up all the Earth’s resources, at which point we would see the “end of the world” and the second-coming of Christ.

And then there is the faction that thinks GCC is “a hoax” perpetrated by “environmentalists” (like those kooks over at NASA) to… uh… because they… uh… well, I’m not quite sure why. I’ve pondered that question hundreds of times in my head. Just what exactly do they hate about “the environmentalists agenda”? Is it that they want everyone to give up their SUV and drive more fuel-efficient cars that reduce our dependence on oil from countries that hate us, all while making our air cleaner to breath? Environmentalists want to make you sort your trash so that we stop tossing everything in the garbage and filling up our landfills? Environmentalists want us to spend millions of dollars developing the technologies of the future for which there will be a global demand, promising millions of new well-paying high-tech jobs of the future? What exactly do “hoaxers” think is so bad about “the environmentalists agenda”?

A few years back, I dared anyone to name a single Republican “policy” that improved the lives of the middle-class more than “the rich”. Grand Prize: a DVD of their choosing. After two years, the best response I got was the sinking of a decommissioned barge in the Pacific to create an artificial coral reef. I disallowed the answer, 1) because it wasn’t GOP “policy” to create artificial reefs, and 2) because you can’t quantitatively prove the reef benefits the middle-class over the rich. After about a year with no winners, I ended the contest.

I’m thinking of a new, revised contest: If anyone can name ONE thing the Tea Party stands for that the GOP doesn’t, that puts the interests of the general population ahead of Corporations… AND prove why… I’ll buy you that DVD. Post your answer in the Comments section below.
 

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This weeks list of reasons to keep Republicans from regaining power:

1. NY’s Tea-bagger candidate for governor believes we should convert “underused” State prisons into “Welfare Camps” for the homeless and people on public assistance, saying, “Instead of handing out the welfare checks, we’ll teach people how to earn their check. We’ll teach them personal hygiene…”. Could these guys BE any more insulting? If you lose your job and can’t get another one, you must be a bum, lacking in personal hygiene & social skills. Interesting suggestion coming from the crowd that decries the “Nanny state” and “government intrusion in personal lives”. Remember their paranoia over “FEMA Concentration Camps”?
2. GOP candidate for TX-17, Bill Flores, repeatedly refused to say if he’d support House Minority Leader John Boehner to be reappointed to his leadership role if he (Flores) is elected. But before anyone praise Flores for his disapproval of Boehner, know it is only because Flores… an anti-government Tea Party favorite… thinks Boehner isn’t wingnutty enough. Only Republicans would elect “anti-government” people to run the government. That’s like electing an arsonist to be the Fire Chief.
3. Last week it was New Hampshire. This week we learned all four GOP candidates in New Mexico are Global Warming deniers, believing instead that it is “scientists engaged in a conspiracy by to ruin our economy” (those evil anti-economy scientists!) Have I mentioned lately these people are nuts?
4. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) tells a Town Hall attendee that if the GOP retakes the House, all they will do for the next two years is “frame the 2012 election”. Not fix unemployment, the housing crisis, Wall Street or health care reform; they’ll simply use that time to focus on the next big election. Remember Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) said all they should do if they win “is issue subpoenas” for the next two years, while Peter King (R-NY) refuses to say anything at all prior to the election about what they will do, for fear of making it “a campaign issue”.
5. Texas Governor Rick “secede from the Union” Perry, now wants the Federal Government to rescue his state from growing violence just across the border in Mexico’s drug war. After capitalizing on bad-mouthing the Federal Government for the past year as a cheap political ploy, as soon as reality sets in, Perry is first in line to beg it for help.
6. When asked to name something… anything… besides “tax cuts” that Republicans can do to improve the economy, the only thing Mike Pense (R-IN) can come up with is more tax cuts for the rich.
7. Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) assures fill-in host Laura Ingraham that if Republicans retake control of Congress, “Absolutely” he pledges “to repeal ObamaCare… which prevents insurers from denying people coverage based upon “pre-existing conditions” and stops “lifetime caps” on how much coverage insurers will pay if you get sick.
8. Texas Senator John Cornyn thinks people are starting “to look back on the Bush Administration’s economic principles ‘with a little more fondness’”. Do you NEED any more evidence these people, not only live in their own little dream-world, but wouldn’t hesitate to re-implement the economic policies that got us here?

Be afraid. Be very afraid. And get to the polls in November.

 

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Katrina devastation five years later shows folly of relying on Corporate America for recovery

Five years ago next Sunday, Hurricane Katrina made landfall just East of New Orleans. Despite warnings, the levees protecting the city gave way (thanks in part to the Bush Administration slashing funding for levee reconstruction). The city was devastated. Five years later, the New Orleans suburbs look like a ghost town, vacant lots overgrown with weeds & brush. Think about how much was lost… not just in property damage, but in lost lives as well… due mostly to the Bush Administration trying to save a few bucks by scrimping on rebuilding the levees (aka: “infrastructure”). But I’m not here to relitigate the failures of the Bush Administration or the local government that day. I’m here to point out the stupidity of leaving such a huge economic recovery project up to the private sector… a mistake President Obama seems to be repeating.

The reason so much of New Orleans still looks as though the hurricane struck yesterday is because the Bush Administration decided to leave the reconstruction of New Orleans up to big business. Nearly two weeks after the storm had passed, President Bush, promising “one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen”, proposed creation of a “Gulf Opportunity Zone” that would grant new and existing businesses $200 million in tax breaks, loans and loan guarantees through 2007, while offering little to nothing in the way of reconstruction and reinvestment funds for the general population. When it comes to helping the poor, with no taxes to cut, the only thing Republicans can think to do is hand out cash (remember “$300 Stimulus Checks”?) rather than… gulp… create a government job (“That’s Socialism!”). So they came up with the “FEMA Credit Card” program, and naturally fraud ensued, cutting the program short. And rather than pay rent to house the now-homeless, they purchased tens of thousands of toxic, sub-standard “FEMA trailers” that the government was stuck with once they had been condemned or were no longer needed. Brilliant. Instead, damaged homes were torn down and replaced with low-rent apartments. Parks, libraries or other infrastructure? Forgedaboudit. The Bush Administration… much like Herbert Hoover at the dawn of the Great Depression… decided that “private industry” and “free enterprise” would eventually rush in to save the day, expand, create jobs, and put the country back to work. But what Conservatives don’t get is that people with no jobs and no money means “no business” to justify the expansion that Republicans stubbornly believe will create jobs. It failed in 1929, it failed in 2005, and it’s continuing to fail today.

I’ve pointed out previously that “some things are just too big for Corporate America to do on their own”. The Internet, for one. A global computer network that has transformed not only commerce, but the free exchange of information, and the entire world. No one private corporation, nor even a global conglomerate, could of laid down the infrastructure that makes up the Internet. During the Great Depression, FDR believed it was the role of government to put people back to work so that they’d have money to put back into the economy. Republicans love to claim “World War II ended the Depression, not FDR’s programs!” This… of course… is an assertion pulled directly out of their butt with NO evidence to back it up. But to them, if it “sounds right”, and it denies Democrats of a victory, it MUST be true. It’s not. For all intents and purposes, the Depression was over by 1939 (two years before we entered the war and the same year Hitler invaded Poland.) I’ve written about this cockamamie assertion on numerous occasions over the years. And I’m (slowly) working on a video this holiday season that debunks the claim in a rather unique way.

The Stock Market Crash of 1929 didn’t cause The Great Depression. Initially it was “land-speculation”… people buying cheap property only to resell it for a quick profit, compounded by people buying stock in shadow corporations… existing almost solely on paper… to turn a quick profit in the stock market. Sound familiar? The Crash was more of a high-water mark (pun not intended) in the growing economic crisis just months into Herbert Hoover’s presidency. (The very first Marx Brothers movie, “The Coconuts”, premiered just before the ’29 Stock Market Crash and deals with the subject of “a get rich quick scheme via land speculation”.)

A strict Conservative, Hoover decided to leave the monumental task of fixing the economic crisis up to the very people who caused it in the first place, Corporate America and Wall Street. The result was an economic meltdown similar to what we are seeing today. Businesses don’t spend money to produce goods & services if there’s no one out there to buy them, and people without jobs weren’t buying enough to create a demand. Stalemate. It wasn’t until the election of President Franklin Roosevelt nearly four years later that his WPA (“Work Program of America”) started putting people back to work, putting money into the hands of consumers so they could start buying things and get the economy moving again.

George W. Bush mimicked Herbert Hoover in many many ways, but chief among them was his response (or lack there of) to rebuilding (or NOT rebuilding) New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina… deciding to leave it up to the “private sector”. And now, I fear, we are seeing President Obama repeat those same mistakes, offering little in the way of Government Work Programs. Hiring a few teachers and repaving a few roads is not NEARLY enough to revitalize a $12 TRILLION DOLLAR ECONOMY. This country needs a massive infrastructure program like the WPA to not only put people back to work, but build infrastructure that adds value to our cities and neighborhoods for decades to come.

At the time the government completed the building of the Brooklyn Bridge in 1883 (connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan), it was the tallest structure on either side. 113 years later, it is dwarfed by the skyscrapers it helped to create (by providing easy access to the city). Still traveled by some 125,000 vehicles a day, there is no question that Manhattan… now the largest city in the U.S…. would not be the business mecca that gives “The Empire State” its name today if not for the Brooklyn Bridge. The ROI (“Return-On-Investment”) from building it is incalculable.

When this country spends money investing in our infrastructure and its people, it always either saves money or even turns a huge profit. Trying to do things “on the cheap” by simply giving tax cuts to people who ALREADY have hoards of cash…
 

 

…out of some absurd belief that “if they have just a little more money, they’ll start hiring people to fill a demand that doesn’t exist”, is ridiculous. It doesn’t work. It has never worked before and it won’t work now. Sorry to be so repetitious, but DEMAND creates jobs. No one ever created a job there was no demand for simply because they had a few extra bucks in their pocket.

I criticize President Obama in this way only because I think he has the capacity to wise up & “change”. I hold out no such hope should he be replaced with a Republican successor.

(Again, if you haven’t signed my Green Jobs petition, please do so now. If you have, please be sure to forward it on to your friends using the “Share This” tool on that page.)
 

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This weeks list of reasons to keep Republicans from regaining power:

1. Republican Senate candidate for Washington State Dino Rossi believes that 1/3 of his state is in the Top 2% making over $200,000 a year.
2. 19 of the 22 states suing ObamaCare are taking money appropriated by the new Obamacare law. – Doh!
3. GOP House candidate Allen West (R-FL) believes people calling for peace and religious tolerance via ‘Coexist’ Bumper Stickers on their cars Want To ‘Give Away Our Country’.
4. Indiana’s Republican Senate candidate Dan Coats admits that he has no idea how much his “job creation plan”, which slashes tax on corporations and the rich, will cost. They rant & rave over the size of the Deficit, then propose budgets that slash tax revenue without any investigation into what effect those policies will have on the deficit.
5. Rep. Marsha Blackburn: If The GOP Takes Back Congress, Our Priority Will Be To Repeal Health Reform – Blackburn isn’t alone. She’s referring to a petition circulated by NY Rep Peter King. To date, all but seven House Republicans have signed the pledge.
6. Every single Republican running for the U.S. Senate seat from New Hampshire is a global warming denier. – And they’re not too sure about Gravity either.
7. For the fourth week in a row, Sunday talk hosts pushed Republicans to explain how they intend to pay for making the Bush Tax Cut on the Top 2% permanent while screaming about the Deficit. This week, it was “Meet the Press” host David Gregory’s turn, pushing Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell on how they intend to pay the cut, with Mitchy asking “Why” all of a sudden are tax cuts “something we have to pay for?” Because you made the Deficit an issue, asshat.

 

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Anatomy of a One-term President. A cautionary tale.

A litany of dumb moves, failures of leadership, kowtowing to Conservatives while fighting with his base, a military situation with no end in sight, a stalled economy, high unemployment where no ones job feels safe, and an inability to convince people of the urgency to get off foreign oil. A good man elected to replace his corrupt, power-abusing, war criminal Republican predecessor in hopes he would restore honor and dignity to the office.

Barack Obama? No. Jimmy Carter.

On Tuesday, WH Press Secretary Robert Gibbs complained to “The Hill” about “The Professional Left” for their criticism of President Obama’s leadership style. The so-called “Professional Left”… of which I consider myself a member… took great umbrage from Gibbs’ remarks (the fact he refuses to take back his sentiments, apologizing only for how “inartfully” he expressed them, doesn’t help). We are tired of this President trying to “make nice” with people that don’t even think he was born in this country, starting negotiations from a point of weakness and then bargaining down, co-opting some of the worst policies of the Right (like offshore drilling), and selling out 58 Democratic Senators and the House on health care to win the votes of just two Conserva-Dems that represent 1/100th of the constituency of those other Democrats.

Gibbs’ comment isn’t so much the issue as how symbolic it is of a far greater, over-reaching problem this WH has with trying to please Conservatives at the expense of its base. The electoral vote for Obama was more than 2-to-1 over McCain (8-1/2 million more in the popular vote), which SHOULD of sent a loud & clear message to this Administration that the LAST thing we wanted were more Conservative “solutions” to every problem. And despite a few “socially progressive” moves, this WH tends to track Conservative on economic issues… the worst possible track any Democrat could take, and a blazingly stupid move at a time when the Republican economic policies were about as popular as George W. Bush as he headed out the door.

I find it more than just a tad condescending when Gibbs wonders aloud why “Liberals” aren’t more appreciative of “everything this president has done for them.” (“Here’s a cookie. Now go away.”) I think what made me angriest was Gibbs using a “Republican” characterization of “the Left” as being satisfied with nothing less than “Canadian health care” and “closing the Pentagon”, all on the order of “President Kucinich”. What a load of self-pitying crap (pardon my French). All I ever asked from this president was for him to fight for the “Public Option” the way he himself endorsed before a joint session of Congress last September, enact some sane economic policies to get the economy moving again, and end the abuses of his predecessor. Gibbs suggested those who compared President Obama to Bush were “on drugs”. Certainly, Obama would have a long way to go to even begin to approach the criminality and abuses of power of his predecessor. But it seems Mr. Gibbs forgot that President Obama asked his supporters to “push” him to bring about “change” immediately upon entering office.

In 1974, President Richard Nixon resigned from office rather than subject himself to an inevitable impeachment, leaving his second Vice President, Gerald Ford in charge. Ford, who was brought in to replace VP Spiro Agnew after he resigned rather than face prosecution, was at best an inept president. Gas lines, rampant inflation, and an economy that created only 1.5 million jobs in three years (worse than even Bush-43, but George had almost three times as long to create just 2.5mil jobs), voters weren’t exactly lining up to put the Republicans back in charge in 1976.

But voters have terrible memories, and despite three reasonably successful years as president and the creation of nearly 10 million jobs, everything turned in Carter’s fourth year. The Iranian Hostage Crisis resulted in dueling embargoes between the U.S. and Russia, compounded by an angry OPEC that jacked up oil prices, resulting in an economic mess, rapidly rising unemployment and a president appearing impotent to bring a year long hostage crisis to an end. In just four short years later, the country was ready to trust a Republican president once again.

WAY back, at the very start of the 2008 Presidential campaign, Fox’s Bill Kristol was already comparing Barack Obama to President Carter. Not over his proposed agenda, but based upon his choice of advisers:
 

 

I hear some of my favorite Talk Radio hosts, like Progressive Talk’s Randi Rhodes saying, “President Obama has always said he was for nuclear power and sending more troops to Afghanistan, so we shouldn’t be complaining now for doing what he always said he’d do!” No. Sorry. nearly 70% of us didn’t support Barack Obama before the Iowa Caucus BECAUSE of those positions (he ended up with more than 30% only after opponents with too few votes told their supporters to caucus for Obama out of fear of Hillary becoming “unstoppable” if she won.) Me, I was a Richardson supporter (a career Ambassador turned governor of a state with a strong green jobs program, second only to Kucinich on his rate of pullout from Iraq.) And now that Obama is President, I see him making one foolish mistake after another, while trying to please two or three Blue Dog Democrats and a Republican Party that knows all they have to do is “say ‘No’ to everything” to stifle the recovery long enough to win re-election.

This Administration is quickly running out of feet to shoot. Some recent boneheaded decisions the “Professional Left” could of steered this WH clear of:

• A little girl once said, “If you want a puppy, start out by asking for a pony.” If you wanted a Public Option like you said, you should of started out by asking for “Single Payer”.
• Those raging “heath care town halls”… had you of proposed simply opening up Medicare to anyone that wanted to buy in, you would of left two of the Tea-baggers biggest arguments withering on the vine: the “government mandate” and “government takeover” of health care.
• After telling Americans the Gulf is okay to visit, your first vacation is to Maine? And now you find you must visit the Gulf simply to avoid looking at best tone-deaf and at worst a complete and total hypocrite.
• Michelle’s expensive trip to Spain – Yes, she paid for it. But in a time of economic crisis, is a lavish European vacation really the kind of publicity you want? FDR actually replaced his first three inaugural balls with concerts during the Depression, and canceled inaugural ball #4 during WWII altogether, sending a message to voters that he recognized how desperate things were and how inappropriate lavish events are while people are struggling.
• Appeasing partisans on every issue – From caving in to lies over the hardship of closing “all those oil wells”, reopening offshore drilling before the BP well has been killed (only reinforcing the “Republicans know better” meme), failing to stand up for the Public Option, to firing Shirley Sherrod before getting all the facts, out of fear of what Glenn Beck might say that night, this Administration is in desperate need of a spine-transplant.
• No green jobs program. – This Administrations’ view on how to promote “Green Jobs” does not vary one iota from how Republicans would do it (if they believed in Climate Change)… a completely privatized solution fostered through tax credits. REMINDER: If you haven’t already, sign my Green Jobs petition.
• They attacked Democrats and Unions that opposed incumbent Blue-dog “Democrat” Blanche Lincoln (who favors extending the Bush tax cuts and opposed The Public Option), who is now 20 points behind her GOP opponent.
• Stop using the Republican “frame” on every issue. For example, the proposed “mosque” in NYC isn’t a “mosque” at all:
  
  

  This is a mosque	THIS is not a mosque

  
  I’m tired of the Islamic equivalent of a YMCA (“Young Mens Christian Association”) with gymnasium and a pool being referred to as a “mosque”.

(UPDATE: Compare to the Manhattan YMCA:)

 

Some of the misinformation the Right relies on to push its agenda that I’d like to see this Administration stand up and CORRECT:

1. A 35% tax rate doesn’t tax 35% of ALL your income. – I run into this a LOT. You’d be surprised how many conservatives think the old 91% income tax rate on the richest Americans all the way up through the Eisenhower Administration meant millionaires paid $910,000 a year in taxes. No, we use “marginal taxation”, so a 91% top tax rate on anything over $1,000,000 means someone who made $1,000,001 would pay just 91¢ (91 cents) on that one dollar over a million. Still, Republicans scream bloody murder over “high taxes” like the government is out to bankrupt “the rich”.

 

2. Republicans who never uttered a peep while George Bush turned a projected quarter trillion dollar annual surplus into a trillion dollar annual deficit, and more than doubled the National Debt in just six years with NOTHING (positive) to show for it, are now out there screaming bloody murder over “deficit spending”. What Republicans don’t realize is that not all spending is bad. I compare Republicans to the guy who pays for dinner with a credit card vs the guy who makes investments using a credit card. After the Republican eats, he has nothing to show for his money. The investor has a chance at making his money back plus a nice profit. After spending $5 Trillion on lunches, Republicans are screaming about Democrats wanting to build a kitchen.

 

3. EVEN IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE IN GLOBAL WARMING, you would be a fool not to want to invest in the next big growth industry and want to be a world leader in Green Technology (again, sign my Green Jobs petition.)

 

4. For 200+ years before Ronald Reagan, a family of four could live comfortably on a single income. A house, two cars, and still afford to send Bobby & Sally to college. The miracle of “Reaganomics” was to cut everyone’s taxes and make up the balance by putting it on the National Credit Card, so people could have all the benefits of a well funded government by sticking their grandkids with the bill… which is coming due right about now.

Jimmy Carter tried (futility) to convince Americans that we needed to get off foreign oil, advocated energy conservation, brokered a landmark nuclear arms treaty with Russia (SALT) and an even more remarkable peace treaty between Israel & Egypt that holds to this day, created 10 million jobs in his first three years in office, and restored honor to the office of President following the scandal-ridden Nixon Administration. But all it took was a bad economy and rapidly rising unemployment in an election year to turn what started out as a surprisingly successful presidency into the Conservative epitome of “disaster presidency” (yet another Republican poll puts Carter in the #1 spot of “25 Worst Americans in History”, edging out the likes of OKC Bomber Timmothy McVeigh and (Soviet spy) Alger Hiss. Even beating out Barack Obama (#2) and FDR (#3). The only Republican on the list? Richard Nixon (#13) in a tie with Al Gore, both barely edged out by John Wilkes Booth (#11). Bush/Cheney? Forgeddaboudit. You don’t get much wing-nuttier than that.

In a race between George Bush and Barack Obama, I would vote for Obama from now until the cows come home. But I expect more from my Democratic candidates, and a weak Democrat that thinks “Republican-light” will save this country from the problems we currently face doesn’t deserve a second term.

Obama does have one advantage Carter didn’t… time to change course and set things right.
 

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This weeks list of reasons to keep Republicans from regaining power:

1. GOP Repeats Balanced Budget Amendment Farce – Why is this bad? Because they are still insisting on extending the $700B budget-busting Bush Tax cut for the wealthiest 2% while (almost comically) steadfastly refusing to explain how they’ll pay for it. (Can you say “Draconian spending cuts on the Poor & Middle Class”?)
2. Back in college, Tennessee Senatorial candidate Rand Paul reportedly kidnapped a female student and forced her to worship the ‘AQUA BUDDHA’ (a bong) as part of a secret society. (Update: Paul denies kidnapping, but not the ‘bong worship’ part.)
3. Serial adulterer and potential 2012 presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, who spends an inordinate amount of time preaching “Family Values”, dismissed his hypocrisy in a discussion with ex-wife #2 with a ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ defense.
4. McCain Promises He Won’t Work With Democrats On Immigration If He Is Re-Elected. – Do you get it yet? They don’t WANT these made-up “problems” (ie: “campaign fundraising issues”) fixed. That’s why they never challenged Roe v Wade the six years they controlled all three branches of government. There’s gold in them thar race-baiting issues!
5. “Terror Babies!” – Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert went on Fox Business Channel to make the wild claim that pregnant Middle Eastern women are traveling to the U.S. to have babies who will automatically become U.S. citizens and later return here when they are older to “blow us up.” – The FBI debunked him, but he continues to insist it’s true.
6. Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio thinks the way to balance the budget is to ban earmarks (which make up 1% of the budget) and putting every government expenditure OTHER than Defense) up for reapproval by Congress every ten years (are you ready to risk a Republican Congress reapproving Medicare and Social Security every ten years?) Oh, Marco? Every dollar of discretionary spending already has to be reappropriated every year.
7. A recent CNN poll finds that 27% of Americans and 41% of Republicans overall… still believe President Obama was either “probably” or “definitely” born in another country.
8. The Tea Party came out AGAINST ‘Net Neutrality’ on the grounds that ”Net neutrality” (what we have NOW) would result in “GREATER government control” and “MORE government regulation” over the Internet. (Corporations oppose “Net Neutrality”, wanting instead to regulate the flow of traffic, providing optimal bandwidth only to those willing to pay for it.) I think this speaks VOLUMES about just how misinformed and easily manipulated the “Tea Party” is by its corporate sponsors.)
9. Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ) thinks Social Security… which just celebrated its 75th anniversary… is “unconstitutional”. Of course, if he had actually READ the Constitution… say Article 1, Section 8… he’d know otherwise. Despite spending the Summer of ’09 accusing Democrats of wanting to “destroy Medicare”, never doubt for a minute that these people want to privatize Social Security, Medicare, and every social safety net there is. Remember, these guys even blocked extending unemployment benefits.

 

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More “Party of Jeff Davis” evidence: Move to Repeal/Rewrite “GOP’s” 14th Amendment.

Credit where credit is due, last week the DailyKOS’s Jamison Foser pointed out the over-looked fact that the 14th Amendment that Republicans are suddenly so hot to repeal/rewrite was a Republican Amendment (passed in 1866, the year after Lincoln’s assassination and the end of the Civil War) that the GOP website proudly touts touted as a GOP Civil Rights accomplishment… a fact reported on both Meet The Press and ABC’s ThisWeek yesterday (A quick search of GOP.org produces two links to the 1866 Amendment. Clicking on either now takes you back to their homepage. Gee. I wonder why? Fortunately, DailyKOS archived the photos.)

I almost feel stupid for not picking up on that fact immediately upon hearing the date. Mea Culpa.

In the wake of this frenzy over “rampant unchecked illegal immigration” that in fact isn’t happening, GOP members of Congress… smelling a way to raise money, incite anger (amongst their typically mellow relaxed followers), and rally their racist hoards to the polls… are hopping on the “illegal immigration” crazy train, hoping to ride it to victory come November.

Specifically, their problem is with the first line of the first section of the 14th Amendment:

Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Constitutional scholar/eye-doctor/Teanut Rand Paul thinks the “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” qualifier provides a loophole, saying the children of foreigners are “not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” but instead under the jurisdiction of, quote, “Mexico” (even the children of Europeans, Rand? Why might anyone think this a racist issue?) So if a foreign terrorist commits a crime inside the United States, we don’t have “jurisdiction” to prosecute? Is that what you’re saying, Randy?

The Party that constantly decries “judicial activism” and claims to only want judges who will “defend the Constitution” (update 8/10: Fox analyst criticized GOP for forgetting oath to uphold Constitution), always seem disturbingly eager to run it through the word processor and “tweak” the parts they don’t like… when they’re not ignoring it altogether. Under George Bush, the Bill of Rights alone (the first Ten Amendments) saw “Free Speech Zones”… a First Amendment violation… that quarantined protesters often blocks away from the events they were protesting; illegal wiretaps that violated both the Third Amendment right to privacy and the Fourth Amendment right against illegal search & seizure; Military Commissions for American citizens declared “enemy combatants” violates the Fifth, Six AND Seventh Amendments; denial of Due Process circumvents the Eighth.

The Second (guns) and Tenth (states rights) Amendments are Conservative favorites… though even those rely upon some “creative interpretation” (ignoring the “militia” qualifier in the Second, or the “prohibited by [the Constitution]” qualifier of the Tenth that says the Constitution supersedes state law). Only the Ninth Amendment (no Amendment shall be passed that violates any other) from the first ten remains unscathed, and that’s only because the Bush Administration never attempted to pass any new Amendments… though I’m sure if they had, it would likely of violated the Third (abortion, DOMA, wiretaps, warrantless searches, etc, all subject to the right to privacy… from a Party claiming to be big on “privacy”).

With no more rights left to undermine among the first ten, our Jeff Davis Republicans have moved on from the Bill of Rights to later Amendments. This week, it’s the Fourteenth… a Republican Amendment passed under a Republican president with an overwhelmingly Republican congress (House: 77%; Senate 79%), meant to settle the question of the citizenship of slaves (because Southerners didn’t want slaves to have any rights), but is now being targeted to deny citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants (because today’s GOP doesn’t want the children of immigrants earning slave wages to have any rights). The full Amendment also lays out the apportioning of Representatives; no one convicted of “giving aid & comfort to the enemy” can hold public office (remember, this was right after the Civil War); no paying off the debt of states that declared war on the United States; no compensation to slave owners for Emancipation; and codifies Congresses power to enforce any of the above. But it’s that first section that keeps “Republicans” up at night. Problem is, I really don’t think these guys have thought things through.

My parents were citizens when I was born here, so I am a citizen. And if my parents hadn’t been citizens at the time of my birth, then I wouldn’t be either according to what Republicans now want to do. So how far back do we go? What if my grandparents hadn’t been citizens at the time my parents were born? Then my parents too would of not been citizens, and ultimately, neither would I. How many Founding Fathers were the children of Royal Subjects of the British Throne? Descendants of the Mayflower? Jamestown? If an immigrant becomes “naturalized” AFTER having kids here, do those kids automatically become citizens… even if those kids are now in their sixties? And if you suddenly find you are now an “illegal”, despite being born here, can you be deported to a country you may have never visited and don’t speak the language?

And here’s the kicker. Be on the lookout for this one: What if only ONE of your parents is a citizen? Is that enough? I mention this because of the BIRTHER movement, which would love nothing more than to declare President Obama an “illegal immigrant” because his father wasn’t a citizen. Be on the lookout for that one, because I’m sure it’s out there. (Note: Mitt Romney’s father wasn’t a U.S. citizen when the Mittster was born either.) What if your only American parent dies? Do we deport you with your “illegal” parent? Or do we take you from your one surviving parent and put you in Foster Care until your one parent can return legally?

And if this is intended to deal with a “crisis” we are supposedly having now, isn’t a Constitutional Amendment that takes YEARS to get through Congress an incredibly inefficient way of dealing with the problem?

Ultimately, what would a massive deportation program like this cost? We already can’t round up and deport the 11 million illegals here already. Multiply that by two or four and we’re talking some serious money and consumption of police resources. No, I really don’t think these guys have thought this thing through.

(ADDENDUM: I wonder if this has anything to do with their confusion? – Abraham Lincoln totally looks like Jefferson Davis.)
 

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And now, Week-2 of reasons Republicans have no business being put back in charge:

1. Sharon Angle – The Tea Party’s pick to replace Nevada Senator Harry Reid is too BSC for even Fox News.
2. Cantor Admits Extending Bush Tax Cuts Would ‘Dig The Hole Deeper’ on the Deficit — and can’t name a single program he’d cut to pay for it.
3. But that’s not the first time a Republican admits the truth about the effect of tax cuts on the Deficit: GOP Lawmaker Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) Slips Up, Admits Tax Cuts Will ‘Increase The Debt’
4. Not convinced yet? Contradicting His Earlier Denial, Marco Rubio (R-FL) Admits ‘Tax Cuts Don’t Pay For Themselves’
5. Don’t ask these guys how they’ll pay for extending the Bush Tax Cuts. Either they don’t know or won’t say before the election because they know you won’t like it (can you say “cut Social Security & Medicare” after they spent all of last Summer vowing to protect it?)
6. The man in charge of rewriting the history of the Bush Administration, Rove Invents Fantasy World In Which The Bush Tax Cuts Led To The Most Government Revenue Ever (So how did they double the National Debt in six years if they had all that revenue coming in?)
7. Tea Party Senate candidate Rand Paul (R-TN) claims mine safety regulations are unnecessary because ‘no one will apply’ for jobs at dangerous mines. – So mines will simply go out of business after 100% of them deregulate and workers choose to starve rather than work for them? (They can just live off their Trust Funds until a better job comes along, right Rand?)
8. Further proof the Tea Party is to the Right of the Far Right: Tea Party candidate Ken Buck on abortion: ‘I don’t believe in the exceptions of rape or incest.’
9. Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) Can’t Think Of Any GOP Ideas That Are Different From Bush. Says Simply: We Are ‘Pro-Growth’
10. Senate Minority Leader McConnell Filibusters DISCLOSE Act After Decades Of Demanding Campaign Finance Reform – As recently as 2007, McConnell was still defending his 23 year effort to require candidates to disclose who was donating to their campaigns.
11. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow takes note of McConnell’s flip-flop, producing video proof of numerous Republicans now vehemently opposed to programs & policies THEY themselves invented. (can you say “Cap & Trade”?)
12. And WHY would Republicans now obstruct their own solutions? Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) says the answer is obvious: Republicans ‘Don’t Want People To Get Jobs Before The Election’ . I think he’s right.
13. People that think like this have no business being in charge of ANYTHING: Carnival offers shoot-the-president game.
14. On Sunday’s Meet the Press, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) called for more deregulation to jumpstart the economy, then IN THE SAME BREATH, blamed a lack of regulation for the crisis on Wall Street and the oil disaster in the Gulf:

 

Boehner calls for more deregulation then blames deregulation for crisis’

 

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Is BP preparing to reduce presense in Gulf as soon as well is killed?

Last May, barely a month after the “Deepwater Horizon” exploded off the coast of Louisiana, Right Wing cranks were already dismissing the expected environmental impact of the “spill” (see my video: “Where’s the oil?”). Now that the well has been capped (but not plugged or killed) and all that toxic dispersant has reduced the appearance of oil in the Gulf, despite all the TV commercials promising to stick it out “as long as it takes”, stories are already emerging of a company ready to get the Hell out of Dodge at the first opportunity… an opportunity that’s being handed to them by Republicans and a Conservative media again asking “Where’s the oil?”

We watched in agony for weeks as attempt after attempt to plug the well failed, until just two weeks ago when the well was finally, successfully capped… but not before nearly 175 million gallons of oil… almost SIXTEEN TIMES the Exxon Valdez spill… had leaked into the Gulf.

Almost from Day One, BP started spraying the oil with “Corexit 9500″, a chemical dispersant that “breaks down” the oil, supposedly to reduce the amount of crude that reaches shore, minimizing the spill. But Corexit is highly toxic to marine life, and has *never* been used in this quantity before. Likewise, the quantity of oil isn’t reduced by using dispersants, it is simply spread out over a greater area. It also causes much of the oil to sink below the surface of the water so you can’t see it, creating (in essence) a second spill as large or larger than the spill we could see, just below the surface. And oil that has been thinned out spreads across a larger area and is harder to clean up. People like myself started to question the wisdom of allowing BP to use dispersants at all.

Once the well was capped and the remaining oil was either floating towards shore or had been thinned/sunk with Corexit, the water started to look “clean” again. And almost instantly, my “Where’s the oil?” video started receiving Comments pronouncing “Rush was right!”. You see, whether it’s Global Warming, evolution, or oil in the Gulf, if Republicans can’t see it, it doesn’t exist (“God” being the exception that proves the rule). They don’t “see” the oil in the Gulf, ergo, the Gulf must have “absorbed” it. Clearly, it had nothing to do with the 1.8 Million gallons of toxic chemicals dumped into the Gulf, or the millions of gallons of oil that had already washed up on shore. No, to Conservatives, if it “looks” okay, it must be okay. Well, not so fast:
 

Dispersants greatly increased toxicity of oil spill

 

Now, I was predicting that as soon as they had “capped” the well and were collecting the oil coming out of it, BP would slow-walk killing the well entirely as they tried to drain it of as much oil as they possibly could before they plugged it forever. Fortunately, that doesn’t seem to be happening, as they appear to be on target to plug the well as early as next week. But my mistrust in human nature being what it is, I won’t be satisfied until they actually kill the well. We’ll see.

In any case, with Conservative nut-burgers like Limbaugh already declaring “victory” over environmentalists concerned with that toxic soup once known as The Gulf of Mexico, BP is already licking its chops over the possibility of an early exit out of the Gulf that saves them billions in clean-up costs. As the Republican governors of the Gulf Coast states are quick to reopen once restricted fishing areas, BP is pulling up “boom”… those tube-like spongy floating oil barriers… in protected fishing areas. Remember, the well has not been killed yet, and they will be attempting a procedure called the “static kill” this week that pumps mud & cement directly into the cap, plugging up the well. What happens if this fails and they can not recap the well? Oh, and how do they know the seafood in these areas is now safe to eat? The ‘smell’ test. I kid you not.

Crooks & Liars posted a video over the weekend from CNN asking Billy Nungesser, President of Plaquemines Parish, LA about reports that BP may try to pull up stakes early as a result of early signs of clearing water in the Gulf. Nungesser finds he must remind people that there are still millions of gallons of oil coating a thousand miles of beaches that still need to be cleaned up. Oil just below the surface, sunk with dispersants, either still remain to be washed up on shore, or will coat the bottom of the ocean, killing off plant life and any sea life that crawls along the ocean floor. That toxic soup in the Gulf is going to change the ecology of those waters for decades. But thanks to Republicans like Rush Limbaugh, if they can’t physically see the danger, it must not exist… not only meaning BP can leave the party early, but (expect this just after the mid-terms) Republicans will begin arguing that BP shouldn’t be forced to pay so much for a spill “that’s taking care of itself”.
 

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Extra: From now until the mid-term elections, I will be ending each post with links to news stories reminding you what to expect if Republicans regain control of Congress in November, and/or why they shouldn’t be allowed to do so:

1. Gingrich Suggests Taking Out The Remaining ‘Axis Of Evil’ Members: ‘We’re One Out Of Three’
2. Department of Defense can’t account for 96 percent of money administered in Iraq reconstruction fund (between 2003-2007, $9.1 Billion just vanished).
3. Deficit Fraud Shadegg (R-WI) Can’t Name A Single Program He Would Cut To Reduce The Deficit
4. The “Let Them Eat Want Ads” Caucus (a look at all the Conservatives claiming people on unemployment are “lazy” and are simply “putting off looking for work”.)
5. Speaking of which: Wamp (R-TN) Suggests Unemployed Are ‘Just Sitting Back Waiting’

Do we REALLY want these people back in charge?
 

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The Party of Lincoln has become The Party of Jefferson Davis

Two years ago next month, I wrote one of my most referenced Op/Eds: “Time to put this ‘Party of Lincoln’ nonsense to bed.” I pointed out at the time that present day Republicans take enormous pride in reminding minority voters that Abraham Lincoln… the founder of their Party… “freed he slaves”… the most intrusive, anti-big business, LIBERAL, socially activist pieces of legislation this country has ever seen… with his “Emancipation Proclamation”. I also pointed out that this monumental act of social engineering wasn’t nearly as Progressive as they would have us believe, with a Proclamation that was SO full of loopholes & exceptions that one could easily question just how dedicated President Lincoln was to Emancipation (freeing only SOUTHERN slaves in territories unfriendly to the North, a military strategy designed to throw the Confederacy into chaos).

But I’m not talking about “racism” this time around.

Flash forward 147 years to the election of the first African-American president. Within months, Texas governor Rick Perry was threatening succession over the new presidents belief in health care for all. Activists, consisting primarily of uneducated white Southerners (often using “racism” and McCarthyite paranoia to justify their fears) citing the 1775 “Boston Tea Party” as their role-model, sprang up across the U.S., waving vitriolic signs like torches & pitchforks, threatening armed rebellion against the government if the President didn’t kowtow to their paranoia. The irony, as radio host Thom Hartmann likes to point out, is that the original “Boston Tea Party” was in protest of a massive corporate tax CUT that allowed the British East India Tea Company to under-cut American tea retailers. By contrast, today’s bass-ackwards Tea-baggers came out full force in defense of tax cuts for big corporations that destroy small business, putting them squarely on the side of the British in their deluded metaphor. Today’s “Tea Party” members like to compare themselves to the colonists of the American Revolution breaking free of the British Empire. When in fact, today’s “Tea Party” has FAR more in common with the Southern Confederacy of the Civil War breaking free of a government they saw as Socially activist and anti Big-Business (aka: “anti-plantation”).

The ‘Party of Lincoln’ has become The ‘Party of Jefferson Davis’.

Jefferson Davis, former Secretary of War under Franklin Pierce turned Senator from the state of Mississippi, resigned in protest following the election of President Lincoln and was unanimously declared President of the Confederacy… 11 states (out of 33), all in the South East that seceded from the rest of “the Union” in protest of the government in Washington. These “Rebel states” were outraged over the election of a president they saw as anti Big Business (the Southern economy had only one major industry… agriculture, most notably “cotton”… all of which depended heavily upon cheap slave labor), out of touch (aka: “elitist”) with the concerns of the South, a social activist (outspoken Abolitionist) more concerned for the rights of minorities than “decent hard-working Americans”, and believed that the power of the Federal government superseded “states rights”. Many Founding Fathers believed a strong federal government was all that held the nation together, a power that Lincoln knew he would need to restore The Union. Rebel states believed they had the right to “nullify” any Federal law they disagreed with. You know them today as “Tenthers”… referring to the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution:

The 10th Amendment: 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.

Much the way the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms) is interpreted differently depending upon who’s reading it, Tenthers read that Amendment as reinforcing the idea that the states have the right to “nullify” any federal law they don’t like. But just as the “militia” provision of the 2nd Amendment is frequently ignored by the gun-lobby, Tenthers ignore the “delegated by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it” portion of that particular Amendment, which clearly states that any power given to the Federal government by the Constitution supersedes states rights. That is why you frequently hear Tenthers saying: “Show me where it says in the Constitution…”

On Friday, Tennessee Representative Zach Wamp suggested in an interview that strong voter turnout in 2010/2012 may be all that stands in the way of “states [being] forced to consider separation from this government.” This is not your fathers’ GOP. The Tea Party… a holding-pen for Republicans upset with the free-spending, big government, economic nightmare of the Bush-43 Administration, lovingly tended to by the Republican Party out of fear they’ll leave to form a third Party that will only steal votes away from Conservatives… has become a classic case of the tail wagging the dog. A vocal minority of political neophytes that are dragging the GOP farther and farther to the extremist fringe out of some fictional vision of an America that never was.

Siding with Big Business over the interests of the majority in some misplaced belief that what is good for Big Business IS what’s good for the little guy (aka: “trickle down”), threatening to secede if Washington continues to push its socially Progressive agenda, and a willingness to invoke armed conflict against their fellow Americans should that need arise. And yes, as I’ve pointed out over the past two weeks, this group of mostly white Southerners frequently use “race” (whether it’s the race of the President or those lazy Mexicans flooding over the border) as a rallying cry to get their supporters to the polls, today’s GOP is repeating history. And just as in 1860, a fractured split in the Party over ideology is dividing them, ensuring neither side has a majority (the 1860 Democratic Presidential Convention ended with NO one candidate being nominated to lead their Party in the next election.) It all sounds way too familiar.

Today’s “Party of Lincoln” is a pale imitation of the 1860′s Confederates: An entire class of misinformed, reactionary, mostly white Southerners whose every instinct puts them squarely on the wrong side of history. And just as the Dixie-crats faded away into obscurity for being wrong on every issue, so should today’s GOP and their splinter-group, the “Tea Party”.
 

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The sudden acceptability of racism on the American Right, part 2

Back during the 2008 Presidential campaign, one couldn’t help but notice the sudden surge in racist attacks/jokes/slurs against presidential candidate Barack Obama without a hint of shame. It seemed I would receive about three racist emails a week over the last few months before the election. Suddenly, there was no shame in being a mouth-breathing racist pig, and forwarding racist cartoons was now acceptable behavior. The incidents were becoming SO ubiquitous and SO outrageous, I felt compelled to create a stand-alone page (archived copy here) documenting all the racist crap that was going around about Senator Obama… the Witchdoctor photo, the Watermelon patch on the WH lawn, a “presidential portrait” of a black canvas with just two white eyes and a smile, etc.

Last weeks Op/Ed regarding Arizona’s controversial immigration law SB1070 created a bit of a dust-up on my Facebook page, where I post a link for my friends most every week. Naturally, my Right-wing friends rejected the idea that there was anything even remotely racist about Arizona’s new SB1070 immigration law, and it was only after repeatedly hammering away at the idea that creating a new “anti-immigration” law while citing “drug crime” as your justification, is inherently racist… especially while both illegal-immigration AND drug crime are both down, did it finally seem to sink in. I explained, “if your goal is to fight drugs, pass a new drug law. Targeting immigrants to fight drugs is like targeting carpoolers to fight getaway cars.”

But a few other people inserted some angry racist slams that took me by surprise. Maybe it’s the “anonymity” of the Internet… despite the fact people post these things on their Facebook page next to their photo and email address. It reminds me of how aggressive some people can get behind the wheel, doing and saying things they’d never do face-to-face.

We’ve always known the Republican Party has become the preferred Party of racists. Decades ago it was the “Dixiecrats”. But LBJ pushing through the 1965 Civil Rights Act changed all that, to where today, “the Party of Lincoln” is whiter than New Hampshire in February.

For some inexplicable reason, the election of the first black president has made racism seem less abhorrent to them. They perceive the election of a black president to be such a huge lunge to the Left, that appearing to be a racist Cracker simply balances things out. Always terrified (as I wrote last week), frighted white Conservatives have declared war on anything that isn’t white middle-class America… ie: blacks, Mexicans, Muslims, Europeans (their health care mostly), gays in the military and the Poor. The blacks want to kill Whitey, the Mexicans want to live on the dole AND steal your job, the Europeans want to force their beloved (yet oppressive) Socialism upon the rest of the world, gays want to rape fellow soldiers in the shower, the Poor would rather live on $183/month unemployment than get a job, and the Muslims just want everyone dead so they can get their 72 virgins in the Afterlife.

Suddenly, I’m seeing stories nearly everyday of “mainstreamed” racism, so many in fact that I can fill an entire page with links from just the past few months:

First, Florida Tea Party To Host ‘Radical Islamophobe’ Who Said Muslims Shouldn’t Hold Political Office. Don’t go mixing government with your religion! That’s OUR job!

Read some of the comments to “Crazy Right Wing Reaction To Arizona Immigration Law” by TYT’s Cenk Uygur. Racist and Stupid is no way to go through life, son.

As noted in “Part 1″, Tea Party leader Mark Williams writes racist screed attacking NAACP on his Facebook page.
 

Think Progress compiles examples of Tea Party racists:

 

CNN’s Eric Erickson of “RedState.com” recommends the GOP Forget about African-American voters and start running new “Willie Horton” ads.

Rush Limbaugh, who has a history of racist remarks, has been pouring it on since the election of the first black president. Besides coming out as a “birther” and singing “Barack: The Magic Negro” during the 2008 campaign, his latest rants just this week: “If Obama weren’t black he’d be a tour guide in Honolulu” and saying the recently departed George Steinbrenner was “a Cracker that made a lot of African-American Millionaires!” Clearly, their skill & talent had nothing to do with it.

The “we’re not racists” Tea Party candidate Ryan J. Murdough is campaigning not on change so much as similarity. His message: Keep New Hampshire white. Seriously.

Always good for an unhealthy dose of BSC, MN Rep. Michele Bachmann called the U.S. a “Nation of Slaves” to that Socialist task master Barack Obama.

After some RW loon writes a story claiming the Obama Justice Department is refusing to prosecute “black-on-white” crime, Fox resurrected the tired “New Black Panthers voter intimidation” story from 2008… back when Bush was still President. Oh, and as Bill O’Reilley points out, the “New Black Panther Party” consists of a whopping EIGHT members.

Always good for a laugh, Senator David “Diaper” Vitter comes out as a Birther. You’d think someone who has been cited as wearing “diapers” might want to stay away from the term “Birther”.

The North Iowa Tea Party put up a billboard comparing President Obama to Hitler and Stalin. The caption at the bottom? “Radical Leaders Prey on the fearful and naive.” Could they BE any more clueless?

Back when Tony “I want my life back” Hayward was still in charge of the Gulf disaster, Glenn “Obama hates white people” Beck said Obama Hasn’t Met With BP’s Tony Hayward Because He’s ‘White’ after “apologizing” for claiming President Obama “has a deep seated hatred of white people and white culture“.

I don’t know why, but suddenly the Right seems less concerned about being seen as the racists we’ve long known them to be. They’ve “come out of the closet” of their racism. They’re here! They live in fear! Get used to it!

UPDATE (7/20): NAACP receives racist death threat: ‘The streets will run red with your blood.’

Washington Times Runs Another Picture Of Kagan In A Turban To Claim She Will Impose Shariah Law On America.

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The Shirley Sherrod story broke just hours after this post went live. If you are unfamiliar, Andrew Breitbart, the same Fox hack that promoted a heavily edited and willfully deceptive hit-piece against ACORN to get them defunded, did it again, hyping a heavily edited clip of a USDA employee giving a speech on how she overcame prejudice by helping a white farmer (the first white farmer ever to come to her for help) save his farm back in 1986, to appear as if an Obama employee is currently denying help to whites in favor of aid to blacks. Breitbart needs to be sued for defamation.

 

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Mainstream Racism, part 1 – the Bush/Obama/Hitler false-equivalency

This past week, the NAACP passed a resolution demanding that leaders of the Tea Party denounce all the racists signs, statements and activity that appear at Tea-bagger events on a regular basis.

Not only have Tea Party leaders (and most Republicans) denied that there are any racists involved with the Tea Party movement, but the former chairman and current recently removed spokesperson for “Tea Party Express”, Mark Williams, followed up his absurd claim that it was “impossible” for “civil rights loving” Tea-baggers to be racists (attributing racist photos and video to anti-Tea Party saboteurs) with an entry on his personal blog of a mock letter from “Coloreds” to President Lincoln requesting he promptly “repeal their Emancipation” because it means they would now have to work for a living. Surprisingly, Williams doesn’t try to claim some Left-Wing saboteur logged into his blog with his secret password and posted the racist screed in his name, instead he PROUDLY defended his comments, arguing that his use of the word “Coloreds” shouldn’t be considered “offensive” by a group that calls itself “The National Association of Colored People”… founded 101 years ago when the phrase “colored people” had yet to be turned into a racial slur. If racist were sensitive enough to recognize racism, they probably wouldn’t be racists, don’tchathink?

As the late/great Richard Pryor once proved, just because black people use a word, doesn’t mean you can use it too:
 

“Word Association Test”, Saturday Night Live (1975)

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

 

Anywho…

The most common defense of Tea Party racism is that “the Democrats did it too!” When CBS News did a report on the NAACP complaint last week, they included the now-infamous clip from MoveOn’s 2003 “Bush in 30 Seconds” ad contest from our archive entitled “Lies Fuel Fear”. CBS News did NOT note however that MoveOn themselves did not produce the ad, and it was quickly yanked when people reported it as improper, prompting me to go in and add an annotation to the frames in question, helping to ensure no one ever again uses the clip without the inclusion of its history:
 

Annotation added to “Lies Fuel Fear”

(click to enlarge)
 

So THAT is their best example of “Democrats do it too”? That ad was yanked from MoveOn SO quickly that 99.99% of people who’ve ever seen it, only saw it when the TV news replayed it as an example of “Democrats do it too”.

So I decided to hunt down some of those photos of Democratic protesters comparing Bush to Hitler. A simple Google Image Search on the words “Bush Hitler”, turns up quite a few graphics created by bloggers and such comparing Bush to Hitler, but when it comes to the signs actually being used in public protests, you find very few:

Below are nearly all of the examples (15) found in the first TEN pages of a Google Image Search for “Bush Hitler” signs appearing in public, comparing a man that “used lies to launch an unprovoked attack against another country” to George Bush (note how tame the imagery is, compared to the gun-toting “Don’t tread on me” demeanor of the Tea-baggers):
 

 

And a large anti-war protest in San Francisco in February of 2006 contained a number of Bush/Hitler signs:

 

After ten pages of Google images, that was nearly all I could find of Bush/Hitler signs actually being used in public protests in America. Among those images, I also found:

The Conservative website “Atlas Shrugs” has this photo on their website:

It is impossible to tell just by looking at the photo where it was taken. But I wouldn’t cite the two men in black turbans as your typical democratic voters.

CNN included this shot in a story, but again, there is no way to tell where it taken, nor IF the figure was even used, since it does not appear in context (this could, conceivably, have come from a story noting the float had been yanked.):

This photo from 2004 even includes John Kerry in the equation:

 

Then there are all the photos taken in foreign countries:

From Ottawa, Canada:

Two from a massive anti-war protest in Brazil:

And no surprise, Cuba:

You’ve probably seen this closely cropped image dozens of times:

But when we back out, we can see that the photo was not taken in the U.S.:

Note the Bus schedule above the photo. That’s not the U.S.. That’s Helsinki, Finland :

(click to enlarge)
 

Compare that to the almost ubiquitous Obama/Hitler/Nazi/Stalin/Marxist/Communist/Socialist signs found at nearly every Tea Party event (one person even editing the above-noted infamous Bush/Hitler banner to replace Bush with Obama.)

Number of Obama/Hitler photos taken in other countries: ZERO. Not even in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. “Democrats did it too”? Unlike anti-war protesters AROUND THE GLOBE, lunatic Obama/Hitler comparisons over health care and economic stimulus are a uniquely Right-Wing phenomena.

(Later this week, in Part 2 of our look at The sudden acceptability of racism on the American Right, I have a laundry list of links in just the past few months demonstrating an unashamedly growing willingness on the American Right to be openly racist since the election of the first African-American president.)
 

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Conservatives Conflate Immigration with Drug War

Supporters of Arizona’s draconian new Immigration Reform bill (pdf) repeatedly cite ONE reason for the need to clamp down on illegal immigration: Drug crime. And so, they target ALL immigrants (or people who just look Hispanic) in fighting America’s failed “War on Drugs”. This is like passing laws against “automobile passengers” to fight “getaway cars”. FAR more innocents will be affected while having little or no effect on the actual problem.

Flipping through the channels Sunday morning here in Texas, I happened across one local program featuring a panel of five women discussing the AZ bill. While one of the five women questioned the scope of the bill, all five seem to agree that a bill was needed and that there is an “illegal immigration problem in this country”. This is… of course… Conservative nonsense. The sole dissenting panelist noted the fact that crime is in fact DOWN in Arizona, as is the number of people coming across the border. The response of the other women: “that’s because of the economy. No jobs.” My response to that: So? What does it matter WHY crime and illegal immigration are DOWN? The fact is, THEY ARE. Supporters of this new immigration bill are defending it on the grounds that “illegal immigration and border violence are on the rise” to the point where it is becoming “a serious problem”. But both claims are absolutely false, so why are they pushing so hard for this new law? Why do Arizonans heavily support the bill? Violence is not up along the Arizona border despite the drug violence in Mexico.

America is addicted to cheap Mexican labor. I’ve heard from more than a few ranting/raving Right-Wing lunatics in hysterics over “how much money illegal immigration is costing us”. Somehow, people with no identification, living in constant fear of deportation, most of whom don’t even speak English, have discovered an American utopia of “free health care”, “free money from the government”, and the skills to take “all our good jobs” (yes, I did actually have someone claim illegal immigrants were taking “all our good jobs”. I kid you not. My response: “Hey, if you want to pick lettuce all day in 110′ heat for 5cents head, apply for the job! I’m sure they’ll hire you!”)
 

“A Day Without a Mexican” movie trailer

(entire movie available online via “FREE Movies” link on left)
 

Whatever perceived costs illegal immigrants are costing the American taxpayer, it is a pittance compared to the cost of rounding them up, prosecuting & deporting them, followed by the cost of fruits & vegetables going through the roof, new homes becoming even more unaffordable as construction costs rise, and $250 a night to stay at the Motel 6 because the cost of maid service just went through the roof. Janitorial services in office buildings, loading dock crews, the guys that mow your lawn on weekends, the list goes on. Anywhere people are doing menial work for next to nothing, you’ll find illegal immigrants. You think immigrants are costing you a lot of money now? Just wait until you start going after them en masse.

The genesis of the AZ bill was the March 27th murder of cattle rancher Robert Krentz living near the AZ border. Footprints at the murder scene show the killers fleeing 20 miles on foot across the border into Mexico. Whether the killers originated in Mexico is irrelevant to the hysterical masses in that state (because criminals fleeing to Mexico is so exceedingly rare, the killers MUST have come from there, no?) The motive for the murder? To this date, it is still unknown, but the explosion of drug violence just across the border in Mexico leads many to believe the murder is drug related. Nothing was stolen from the Krentz home, and he was shot using a 9mm handgun stolen from a neighboring ranch the night before. Just who shot Krentz is unknown. Whether or not the murderer was here illegally is unknown. Whether the murderer was even Mexican is unknown. Yet the Republican governor is race-baiting her state for political gain. I say that because I can find NO other justification for it. Crime is down. Illegal border crossings are down. And we know NOTHING about the person who murdered Robert Krentz except that they fled on foot to Mexico. But as I’ve said on here a dozen times before, I’ve never seen a bigger bunch of frightened pussies in all my life than Republicans. These people live in constant fear that the rest of the world is out to get them (according to Glenn Beck, the Muslims have even infiltrated the White House with the election of President Obama). The government wants to round them all up and put them in “FEMA concentration camps”, or prison if you refuse to buy health insurance. And we can’t hold terrorists trials anywhere inside the United States for fear of terrorists attacking any town agreeing to hold said trial. They love war, but don’t serve themselves. They aren’t (yet) asking to live in a hermetically sealed bubble, but remember Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars missile defense shield”? What do you think that was?

Just across the border in neighboring “Cananea“, Mexican police have found themselves in massive gun battles with Mexican drug cartels, armed to the teeth running drugs across the border into the United States to feed our insatiable desire for illegal drugs. In Piedras Negras, four young men (Mexican college students) were found decapitated and left on the hood of a car at a Mexican shopping mall (presumably as a message to the locals). Last week, Arizona governor Jan Brewer claimed people had been beheaded “IN Arizona”, without a lick of evidence, clearly intended to whip up further hysteria over illegal immigration. Brewer’s claim was likely based on the aforementioned story from Mexico. Racists just can’t help themselves, can they?

As all these reports clearly show, Arizona doesn’t have an “illegal immigration” problem, if it has any problem at all (remember crime is down), it has a “drug violence” problem. But Republicans wouldn’t be Republicans if they passed up the chance to harness hate and racism to blame “dirty Mexicans” rather than point the blame at American drug users… many (many) of whom are rich white folks that can afford to buy illegal drugs even in a sinking economy. And we all know who rich white folk vote for, right?
 

2006 Federal Reserve study finds “Illegal immigration does NOT increase crime”.

 

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GOP to Steele: Don’t give our war away to Democrats!

Last week we heard from a parade of Republicans denouncing RNC Chairman Michael Steele’s absurd suggestions that Afghanistan is “a war of Obama’s choosing”, that the majority of the country is now opposed to the war there, and that “Obama’s decision” to send “ground troops” into a region known as “where empires go to die” despite being “a history professor” (actually, he taught “Constitutional Law”, not history), was one gaffe too many, calling for the RNC Chairman to step down voluntarily (with few actually calling for him to be fired).

Listening to all these Right-Wing pundits excoriate Steele throughout the Sunday talk shows yesterday, you’d of thought Steele had called FDR a “Republican” or Ronald Reagan a “Democrat” (which he once was). One thing was clear, Republicans LOVE their war in Afghanistan. They take full credit for it “in response to 9/11″ and are loath to see it end (with Lieberman, Graham and McCain, all three together in Afghanistan, yet appearing separately on three different shows: Fox, CBS & ABC respectively, all decrying the proposed “July 2011 pullout date”.)

So I’m listening to all these Republicans blast Steele, and I’m wondering to myself, “Just what did Steele do/say that, to them, was so unpardonable that he should resign?” He was only doing what Republicans for the past 30 years have always done… blame the Democrats when their policies start going bad. (Bush economy in the crapper? “It’s Bill Clinton’s fault!” 9/11? That was Clinton’s fault too! The current economic crisis and collapse of Wall Street? That happened after the entire country, “for no apparent reason”, suddenly up & decided to hand control of BOTH houses of Congress over to the Democrats in 2006.) Only this time, the buck being passed was SO ludicrous, it was only serving to make the GOP look totally disconnected from reality (ie: spotlight the truth).

Steele suggested the war in Afghanistan is going badly. It is. Since Obama’s “surge” last year, the violence has picked up and the death toll is reaching “Iraq heydays” levels. A growing number of people are now opposed to continuing the war in Afghanistan for much longer. Also true now that Afghanistan has (questionably) become “America’s longest war”. And “ground wars have a LONG history of failure in Afghanistan”. True again, as a parade of Liberal organizations like MoveOn have been saying from almost day one, as well as Liberal members of Congress ranging from Dennis Kucinich to Bernie Sanders. So Chairman Steele is in some good company… unless you are a Republican who believes invading Iraq and Afghanistan makes Bush worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize.

To Republicans, the decision to invade Afghanistan was “heroic”, and symbolizes “another mess left behind by a Democrat that they had to clean up” (because Clinton didn’t get bin Laden when he had the chance – remember “Wag the Dog“?. And they DON’T need Michael Steele going around the country implying that the decision to invade Afghanistan was not only a mistake, but the “Democrats” idea.

Sigh (every week, I seem to note some Republican stupidity that makes me sigh). In any case, despite Steele being a reliable gaffe machine and constant embarrassment for the GOP, ABC’s Cynthia Tucker was dead-on when she predicted Steele is unlikely to be fired. “Steele is a product of Republican-Affirmative action gone wrong. I find it amazing that a Party SO opposed to affirmative action would appoint someone to lead their Party just because he is black, to avoid looking like ‘the old white men Party’… which they are” (not an exact quote, but close). The GOP can’t fire Steele without looking like “the White-Peoples Party” all over again. They chose Steele to lead the GOP because Democrats elected the first black president, and they needed a black guy of their own. There isn’t another black Republican waiting in the wings to step in should Steele get canned, and replacing him with another White-guy would be a disaster. They can’t “fire” Steele without looking like they are chasing all the black people out of their Party (when you can count the number of black Republicans on one hand, the loss of even one is a huge percentage), so they’re stuck with him.

If I had to guess, I predict the GOP is going to pressure Steele into “voluntarily resigning for the good of the Party” sometime this week because (Steele will announce) that he’s “become a distraction”. Steele will quickly be replaced with “the first female head of a major political party”… a white woman, still a “minority”… and yet another “affirmative action” appointment to head the GOP.

If history were to repeat itself, I’d say they’d replace Steele with Sarah Palin… another BSC Republican gaffe machine. She’s not really doing anything right now. A perfect pick. But Palin is the Tea-Bagger queen, that has actively campaigned against Republican incumbents. That’s an unpardonable sin in GOP-Land, so don’t expect to see Palin fill Steele’s squishy shoes anytime soon (damn-it).
 

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VIDEO: Sen. Robert Byrd on Iraq invasion – Mar. 13, 2003

Senator Robert Byrd passed away this morning at the age of 92.

Here is Sen. Byrd’s prescient speech warning against the invasion of Iraq on March 13, 2003… six days before the invasion (40 min):
 

While I highly encourage you to watch the entire 40 minute speech, here are a few highlights:

 
• “The cost of occupying Iraq has been estimated to be between one and four Billion dollars a month!” … “That’s one to four dollars for every minute since Jesus Christ was born!” … “and these costs do not include the cost of rebuilding Iraq!”

 

• “What if Saddam goes on the lam?” We could be tied up in Iraq for months hunting him down.

 

• “It will be up to the US to support 23 million Iraqis” after we leave them without a functioning government.

 

• There’s the cost of reconstructing Iraq. … “Building roads just to deliver humanitarian relief.” “Providing electricity for hospitals.” “Drinking water.” “Phones.” etc.

 

• General Shinseki, “who refuses to back down on his estimate of three to five hundred thousand troops needed to secure Iraq. “Now there’s a man who doesn’t break & run!”

 

• “Gen. Barry McCaffrey estimated the occupation would take five years.”

 

• “We risk becoming the next Colonial Power to occupy Iraq. Those who greet us as ‘Liberators’ in 2003 may come to view us as ‘interlopers’ in 2004, 2005, 2006, and beyond.”

 

• “We will have to rearm and rebuild the Iraqi army so they can protect themselves from neighboring nations once they have been weakened. … The Arms Industry must be salivating at the prospect of rebuilding the Iraqi Army from scratch.”

 

• 4:12:55 – “Our President [Bush], back when he was Governor running for the office he now holds, said he sought an end to the peace-keeping missions in the Balkans [Bosnia], but we are now staring in the face of a peace-keeping mission that DWARFS that of the Balkans!” … “I am astonished that a President SO opposed to ‘Nation building’ would then LAUNCH military scenarios that so clearly culminates in that very outcome.”

 
Senator Byrd, you will be missed.
 

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Cheney gets himself some more of that Government Healthcare

Last Friday, Dick Cheney was admitted to George Washington University Hospital in DC after experiencing “discomfort” in his chestal area. Though ruled “Not” a heart attack, Cheney has been rushed to the hospital for some of that evil government heath care at least nine times before:

“Mr. Cheney, 69, who has been having heart problems since he was in his late 30s, had a minor heart attack in February. Before that, he had had four heart attacks, quadruple-bypass surgery and two procedures to unclog his arteries.

In July 2007, Mr. Cheney had a defibrillator replaced and received electric shocks to correct irregular heart rhythms. – The New York Times

Where are those “Death Panels” when you really need them?

Speaking of Conservative hypocrisy over health care, the “historic Financial Reform Bill” passed Congress on Friday as well. The bipartisan bill that added sweeping new regulatory powers over the $615 Trillion-dollar Banking industry is nearly 2,000 pages long. Do a Google search for the term “health care over 2000 pages” and count the wails of Conservatives and Tea baggers over the “size” of the health care bill, and how that alone was reason to vote against it. Huh. I guess Republicans have suddenly decided that size really DOESN’T matter.

President Obama returned home from the G20 Summit in Toronto over the weekend. I was more than a bit pleasantly surprised to hear he was at odds with Germany’s Chancellor Markel on how to deal with the Global Recession. President Obama actually (thankfully) argued that “now is not the time to cut spending” and pull money out of an economy struggling to restart itself. Germany, on the other hand, views the economic crisis in Greece as a harbinger of what’s to come if countries don’t get their debt under control. But like most Conservatives, Markel doesn’t seem to realize Greece is not in the position it is in today because it “spent too much”; Greece is in trouble because it invested heavily in fraudulently AAA-rated American mortgage-backed Securities, which became worthless when the housing bubble burst.

So it was almost shocking to hear President Obama taking the advice of Robert Reich and Paul Krugman to heart (see earlier posts for links) that there is a difference between short-term deficits and long-term debt, and you must do some deficit-spending now to get people back to work so that they can start paying off that long-term debt. Maybe President Obama is listening to advice from noted Progressives more than we thought?

Oh, and now that the American soccer team is out of the World Cup, we won’t have to listen to those annoying Vuvuzella horns ever again. I felt like The Grinch having to listen to all that “Noise, noise, noise” wafting up from Whoville every Christmas. By the way Mr & Mrs TV Reporter, it’s pronounced “vu-VU-zella”… rhymes with “Methuselah”, not “vu-vu-ZEY-la”. Listening to people mispronounce the name of the cheap plastic noise-maker for two weeks was every bit as annoying as the horns themselves.

 

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