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Responding to Stupid. Republicans ‘correcting’ Democrats need a clue

Special post-SotU Edition

Listening to Bush’s Budget Director… Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels… lecture President Obama on the size of the deficit was like being lectured to on political ethics by Richard Nixon. When President Bush took office, he had a budget surplus and the government was on track to pay off the Debt by 2014. Instead, the Debt exploded as we gave a massive tax cut to the wealthiest people in America while embroiling the country in two (arguably unnecessary) wars.

Size of National Debt before Mitch Daniels became “Budget Director”: $5,662,216,013,697 (2% smaller than the year before).
Size of the National Debt after Mitch Daniels: $10,699,804,864,612 (an increase of 189% in just eight years.)

When Republicans attack President Obama for “creating a $1 Trillion annual deficit”, they are including the 2009 Stimulus. If Republicans get to include the $800 Billion dollar Stimulus as part of Obama’s Debt, then I get to include Bush’s $800 Billion Wall Street bailout as part of HIS Debt.

Next: While President Obama was delivering his State of the Union speech, Republicans were already Tweeting about the rejected “Keystone XL Pipeline”, claiming Obama “can’t be taken seriously on job creation” when he vetoed the “KXL”.

Fact: Even the most optimistic estimates are that Keystone would of created no more than 21,000 low wage construction jobs spread over two years, all for oil marked for EXPORT that would not only NOT reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but would drive gasoline prices UP in this country as we shift refinery capacity from making gasoline for OUR use to making diesel for EXPORT.

President Obama spoke of promoting GREEN energy, which would create MORE jobs… and better PAYING, longer lasting jobs FASTER than Keystone. Jobs with a FUTURE (you don’t run out of renewable energy) that would actually REDUCE our dependence on foreign oil (not to mention being FAR better for the environment.) Anyone complaining about the rejection of Keystone while criticizing the more sane solution of promoting Green energy aren’t worried about “jobs”. They’re worried about oil company profits.

And last (but certainly not least), ThinkProgress reported on a local Fox News Director upset of their campaign to pressure Right-Wing TV Weathermen to stop pushing anti-Climate change pseudo-science (because more people get their knowledge of the weather & climate from local weathermen than any other source). Both the news director and their meteorologist dismiss Climate change science by saying “Predicting the weather in the long range is an impossible feat the farther out in time you go”. Clearly, these morons don’t understand the difference between “weather” and “climate”. The science of “climate change” is not “predicting it will rain on May 23rd, 2182.” Climate is the knowledge that if you set your house on fire, the temperature inside is going to go up. That’s not rocket science.

But these guys aren’t exactly Rocket Scientists either.

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Boehner Called out on “Do-Nothing” Congress. “Jobs” Plan is exactly what you think it is… and less.

When will these people figure out they’re not fooling anyone? Speaker of the House John Boehner appeared on Fox “news” Sunday yesterday and received (what qualifies as) sharp criticism from host Chris Wallace on the abysmal record of this “Do-Nothing Congress”:
 

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Right off the bat he starts with a lie: “It’s the presidents policies that have made our economy worse.” Actually, our economy has improved since unemployment hit it’s peak of 10.0% in October of 2009. And despite unprecedented obstruction by a record number of GOP filibusters in the Senate, followed by repeated nuclear brinksmanship in the House since the GOP took it over last year, unemployment is currently down to 8.5%. I remind you that in Bush’s final year in office, as Wall Street collapsed and the Big Three automakers went to Washington looking for a bailout, unemployment SOARED almost THREE FULL PERCENTAGE POINTS IN ELEVEN MONTHS from 4.9% to 7.8% (ibid). That number continued to climb two more full points to 10.0% by October (FIVE FULL POINTS in 20 months) before the Obama White House stopped the bleeding with The Stimulus. On what planet has Obama “made our economy worse”?

So I see Boehner holding up this “jobs plan” pamphlet to Wallace to demonstrate that The House “has passed over 30 jobs bills” that would create jobs and revive our economy. Curious what those “30 jobs bills” might be, I Googled the pamphlet (pdf) to see for myself.

First off, the obvious: the GOP’s entire “Jobs Bill” can be summed up in a pamphlet??? Maybe they used really tiny type and packed it full of text? Nope.

Imagine my (lack of) surprise to find out The House Jobs Plan does NOT list Boehner’s “30 jobs bills”. Boehner’s pamphlet is only 10 pages long (including cover), and every other page is half taken up by a giant illustration. And… of course… surprise, surprise… it’s almost all calls for more tax cuts, deregulation, and “Drill Baby, dill!”… oh, and page six calls on President Obama to sign a Trade Deal with “Columbia, Panama and South Korea that President Obama already signed into law last October. Apparently, the GOP either couldn’t be bothered to update their “Jobs” pamphlet since October, or they were afraid to make the pamphlet ^{_{even smaller}} by cutting out the now outdated text. (Now I just KNOW I reported on this before, but damned if I can’t find it.)

So just what exactly ARE those “30 jobs bills passed by the House” that Speaker Boehner suggests would start to “create jobs and revive the economy” tomorrow? Speaker Boehner’s website directs readers to this list on Eric Cantor’s website. The first thing you’ll notice is the list is 36 bills long, not 30, so I can’t be entirely sure which of these are the “30 jobs bills” Boehner was referring to, but at least three have already passed, and #36 is not an issue-bill at all but an entire budget:

Deregulation:
 
1. H.Res. 72 – Review of Federal Regulations – Taking an inventory of all existing Regulations, but not changing anything.
2. H.R. 872 – Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act
3. H.R. 910 – Energy Tax Prevention Act
4. H.J.Res. 37 – Disapproval of FCC’s Net Neutrality Regulations
5. H.R. 2018 – Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act
6. H.R. 1315 – Consumer Financial Protection & Soundness Improvement Act – Amend Dodd/Frank
7. H.R. 2587 – Protecting Jobs from Government Interference Act
8. H.R. 2401 – Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on The Nation – Yes, they call this a “jobs” bill.
9. H.R. 2681 – Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act
10. H.R. 2250 – EPA Regulatory Relief Act
11. H.R. 2273 – Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act
12. H.R. 3094 – Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act – An anti-Union bill
13. H.R. 3010 – Regulatory Accountability Act
14. H.R. 527 – Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act
15. H.R. 10 – REINS Act – The “Regulations From the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act” of 2011
16. H.R. 1633 – Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act

 
Tax cuts & loopholes:

17. H.R. 4 – Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act – Renamed the “Comprehensive 1099 Taxpayer Protection and Repayment of Exchange Subsidy Overpayments Act of 2011″.
18. H.R. 674 – 3% Withholding Rule Repeal – Repeal a 1986 3% Withholding tax on government contractors.
19. H.R. 3630 – Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act – Renamed the “Temporary Payroll Tax Cut Continuation Act of 2011″. Yep, a call to extend the payroll tax cut.

 
Four Free Trade Agreements (three of which have already been signed into law)

20. H.R. 3078 – U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement Implementation Act – Signed into law last Oct.
21. H.R. 3079 – U.S.-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement Implementation Act – Signed into law last Oct.
22. H.R. 3080 – U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act – Signed into law last Oct.
23. H.R. 1904 – Southeast Arizona Resource Utilization & Conservation Act – Open public land to private mining.

 
Loans to Small Business

24. H.R. 1249 – The America Invents Act – Patent Reform
25. H.R. 2433 – Veterans Opportunity to Work Act
26. H.R. 1070 – Small Company Capital Formation Act
27. H.R. 1965 – Small Banks’ Access to Capital Act – Shareholder registration
28. H.R. 2930 – Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act
29. H.R. 2940 – Access to Capital for Job Creators Act – Deregulating the sales of certain Securities.
30. H.R. 3012 – Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act

 
Drill Baby, drill!

31. H.R. 1230 – Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act
32. H.R. 1229 – Putting the Gulf of Mexico Back to Work Act
33. H.R. 1231 – Reversing President Obama’s Offshore Moratorium Act
34. H.R. 2021 – Jobs and Energy Permitting Act of 2011
35. H.R. 1938 – North American-Made Energy Security Act – Keystone

 
And The Debt

36. H.Con.Res. 34 – Budget for Fiscal Year 2012

I plan on going through these one-by-one at a later date, but it is difficult to see how still MORE tax cuts and deregulation will suddenly spur job growth any better than the Bush Tax Cuts and deregulation insanity of the past decade failed to do in eleven years. And the “Farm Dust Regulation Prevention Act”? That’s among your 30 best “job creation” ideas? We already know three of the “Free Trade Agreements (20, 21 & 22) were already passed last year, and I’m CERTAIN that when I look into it, I’ll find several more of these bills have either already been signed into law or are being obstructed by Senate Republicans, not Democrats.

Oh, and it might interest you to know that while Speaker Boehner is accusing President Obama of obstructing Congress, Boehner himself suggested yesterday that he may hold extension of the Payroll Tax Cut Extension hostage (I refer you back to #19 above) over approval of the Keystone XL pipeline (which is NOT a serious job creator, would do NOTHING to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, would be CATASTROPHIC for the environment and would actually INCREASE gas prices here at home as we cut into our own refinery capacity to refine tarsands crude into diesel fuel for export… further depressing our economy and costing still more jobs.)

This is your “very serious Republican” alternative to President Obama.

(ADDENDUM: Karoli of Crooks & Liars has produced a more in-depth review of these bills than I’ve had time for myself. Worth checking out.)
 

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The unspoken subtext of Gingrich and Perry’s attacks on Romney: THEY KNOW Cannibalistic Capitalism is Wrong.

They KNOW. And it’s clear now that they’ve always known but didn’t care. In an all-out effort to stop Mitt Romney from locking up the GOP nomination almost before the race has even started, fleeting former favorites Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry have taken to criticizing just how Romney made his fortune: as a Corporate Raider that bought out successful profitable businesses, raided their pension funds, dismantled the company, and sold off its assets for a huge profit while laying off thousands of workers. Perry labeled this method of doing business: “Vulture capitalism”. And on Sunday’s “Meet the Press”, Gingrich… Newt Gingrich… said it was “fair to question the values, character & behavior” of someone that destroyed lives for personal gain. Having your “values, character & behavior” questioned by Newt Gingrich is like having your eating habits questioned by Chris Christie.

But the subtext of what’s going on here that no one seems to be talking about is the fact that Perry and Gingrich are acknowledging what Democrats have been saying for decades: that Conservative economics are antithetical to creating jobs and improving the lives of the Poor & Middle-Class. AND they KNOW it! They’ve always known it. This wasn’t some sudden epiphany they had the night after the New Hampshire primary. They’re acknowledging that… despite what the fictional Gordon Gekko told us and they’ve long defended… Greed is NOT good. That there’s value in altruism, and that destroying the lives of others for personal gain… in Newt’s own words… brings your “values, character & behavior” into question. My question then is… how come no one else has pointed this out?

Okay then, I will. It wasn’t the objective of “Bain Capital”… the firm Romney co-founded… to “create jobs” or run successful corporations. They did whatever was necessary to boost the value of a company as quickly as possible for the least investment as possible so they could then extract as much wealth out of it as possible before shedding themselves of the liability. Rarely did that entail making a financially unhealthy company financially sound again. So, after draining the company for all its worth, “Bain Capital” closed factories and sold off their assets for a profit. And in at least one case (“Steel Dynamics”), that entailed the state and local government investing millions of tax dollars to increase the value of the company, at which point Romney’s firm sold it for a handsome profit.

Another curious fact is that Newt & Rick’s critics quickly compared their attacks on Bain to “the 99% movement”, NOT “the Tea Party”. The GOP establishment is furious with Gingrich and Perry over their criticism of how Romney made his fortune, saying they “sound more like the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ crowd than Conservatives (SEE 99%’ers? You may think your movement is “non-partisan”, but the GOP has clearly deemed you “anti-Conservative”, and that “concentrated wealth” is a Republican value.) Republicans LOVE to conflate #OWS with the “Tea Party” to suggest that ALL protesters are protesting “President Obama’s policies”. Yet, once again, it is clear that they KNOW the difference between the two movements and that #OWS does NOT support the policies that made Mitt Romney rich. There IS a difference, and there’s no more denying that they don’t know that there’s a difference. They know cannibalistic capitalism is wrong too and that we WANT companies doing business in a moral & ethical manner. They KNOW!

Yet no one else seems to have noticed.

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Romney said WHAT about Insurance? This one will make you angry. (video)

Sometimes someone says something so bizarre… so disconnected from reality… that it makes you stop dead in your tracks and shout “WHAT???” Such was the case Tuesday as NBC’s Andrea Mitchell chased after GOP front-runner Mitt Romney the day of the New Hampshire Primary to ask him about his “I like to fire people” gaffe. Romney’s response was SO disconnected from reality, I nearly threw a brick through my TV:
 

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(TRANSCRIPT)

Mitchell: “…Do you think you can get around that?”

Romney: “I was talking about, as you know, insurance companies. We all have to get rid of our insurance companies. We don’t want Obama to tell us we can’t.“

WHAT??? HE SAID WHAT??? I can’t tell if Romney is saying “ObamaCare” is going to “make everyone get rid of their private insurance” against their will, or that “Republicans WANT to get rid of the insurance companies” but can’t. The logical assumption would be the former, but his follow up… “We don’t want Obama to tell us we CAN’T” suggests it’s the latter… that (according to Romney) Republicans actually WANT to get rid of the insurance companies.

Holy crap is that 180′ from reality! These people really do live in their own little world. The fact is, Obama endorsed the idea of “The Public Option” (think “Medicare for All”) to compete with private insurance, and it was the GOP that screamed bloody murder and put a stop to it because they feared it would put the insurance companies out of business. The reaction from the Right to a Public Option? They had an absolute conniption. The Insurance Companies created citizen action groups that bussed in Tea Party morons to every Town Hall across the country to call President Obama a “Marxists, Socialist, Nazi, Kenyan” that was out to turn the American health care system into Soviet Russia with government-run “Death Panels” deciding whether or not to “pull the plug on Grandma”. With the aid of a few Blue Dog Democrats, the GOP was able to kill “The Public Option” and ensure that Private insurance is your ONLY option. And if you don’t want insurance, fine! Pay the tax/penalty! The MANDATE that Mitt is decrying was HIS idea. “ObamaCare” is modeled after craptastic “RomneyCare”. And now he’s so desperate to distance himself from it, he’s claiming “ObamaCare” is something completely different than what it is.

Republicans want to “get rid of the insurance companies”??? What planet do these people live on???

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Santorum? Really? Nope, I guess not. NH primary will reveal what we’ve all known.

Tuesday will be the first “race that counts” of the 2012 Election… one in which actual delegates are awarded to each candidate. And the first to 1144, “wins”. So every primary for the next six months is a big deal. And the closer the race, the longer it will take for any delegate to clinch the nomination. So it was sort of a big deal when former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum exploded from behind (sorry, couldn’t resist) to a statistical tie with Mitt Romney (and if you’re the untrusting type, there are a number of eyebrow-raising questions about Romney’s last second come from behind victory over Santorum (hey, the jokes just write themselves folks.) But for me, the biggest surprise: “Santorum? Really???” And now, judging by the polls in New Hampshire, it looks like my skepticism wasn’t unwarranted. Romney at 42%, Paul in second at 18%, and Santorum falling back to third at 13%. (Huntsman and Gingrich at 12%, Perry at 1%.) So much for that Iowa Bounce. And suddenly, I feel vindicated for not taking him seriously.

When I started compiling “The List”, no one considered Santorum a serious candidate, including myself. And when I finally got around to posting his List, I lumped him in with other single-digit stragglers with no chance of winning. After all, this was a man whose entire political life was as a moral-crusader focused primarily on two issues: condemning “teh gays” and pushing the Pro-Life Agenda. And his failed reelection bid in 2006… losing by 17 points… was one of the worst defeats for ANY incumbent of EITHER party in decades. So the very idea he could go from “historic defeat” to “Presidential front-runner” six years later is the stuff of fantasy… Rick’s fantasy. Then suddenly, with the barkeep shouting “Last call!”, Santorum got his bounce. (Please note that Santorum… a single-issue Evangelical nut that suffered one of the worst defeats in recent memory… was STILL preferable to the Iowa GOP than former Obama Ambassador Jon Huntsman. – ADDENDUM: Did Huntsman’s Sunday morning debate performance earn him the next “Not-Mitt” ticket?)

So, naturally, I was wondering if I should of taken him more seriously? And now that he’s in the spotlight and people have started asking him questions, his List has grown by leaps & bounds to the point where I started debating giving him his own page. But fortunately, reason seems to have prevailed and it looks like New Hampshire isn’t rallying around “The Last Not-Mitt Standing”.

Neither Iowa nor New Hampshire have particularly good records when it comes to picking Republican presidents (NH has slight edge picking the GOP nominee, but that nominee typically does not go on to win in November. Only four since Reagan… and two of those, the incumbent president ran unopposed.)

Rick Santorum will learn in 48 hours what we’ve all known for the last 48 days: Santorum was just the last “Not-Mitt” left in the deck, and didn’t win Iowa because of any ground-swell of support for his political philosophy. By the end of January (and the Florida Primary), there will be no question who will be the Republican nominee (and the name of the next man to lose to Obama.)

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Sign my petition for GREEN JOBS TOMORROW fast & cheap. Use those $4 Billion in oil subsidies to put Solar Panels on the roofs of 40,000 government buildings, or order 100,000 hybrid mail-trucks. Not only would this INSTANTLY CREATE JOBS, it would spark ENTIRE INDUSTRIES with a future, reduce our dependency on oil, reduce greenhouse emissions, and quickly pay for itself (and cut future expenses) with the energy savings. We need 5,000 signatures by December 20th (extended to January 20th).

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BREAKING: Santorum and Romney tie for first. Some observations on last nights’ bizarre Iowa Caucus

Last night marked the end of the first “official” Presidential contest of 2012. And when the smoke cleared, Rick Santorum… who didn’t break out of the single digits one month ago, eked out a 34 vote victory to beat Mitt Romney in the final moments of the Iowa Caucus (a statistical tie of less than 0.06% of the vote). It’s the third time in three Caucus’ that Evangelical Iowa Republicans picked an Evangelical nut to be the GOP presidential front-runner (choosing George W. Bush in 2000 and former minister Mike Huckabee in 2008, with PTL huxter Pat Robertson coming in second in 1988. No caucus’ in ’04 with incumbent George W. Bush’s still in office.) And now Rick Santorum. Ron Paul came in at an extremely close third after holding first place most of the night early on (Paul, Santorum and Romney swapped places all night, with each holding First, Second & Third place at one time or another.) With 99% of precincts reporting, the race was still “too close to call” by the time coverage ended at midnight. A few interesting observations:
 

o Mitt Romney’s second place finish at 25% was lower than the 25.5% finish he placed four years ago. Romney seems to have hit a ceiling in his support.

o In Ron Paul’s third-place concession speech, he took a bizarre swipe at Milton Freedman’s 1966′s claim: “We’re all Keynesian’s now”, saying, “I look forward to the day we can say: “We’re all Austrians now”. This is an obscure reference to Austria recently auditing its own Federal Reserve in an effort to rebuild its economy. For people not familiar with the reference… like me, who had to look it up… it seemed a disturbingly Aryan thing to hear from a candidate who’s recently been accused of having racist views. Paul might want to choose his words more carefully in the future.

o Gingrich’s 4th Place concession speech (with 13% of the vote) focused almost entirely on attacking third-place winner Ron Paul, questioning “trusting Iran with a nuclear weapon” because “you can’t trust any culture that would strap on a bomb and become a suicide bomber”. Actually, I’m not familiar with a single Iranian suicide bomber (there probably were some, but not enough to single them out). The majority of suicide bombings we saw were in Iraq, committed by Iraqi’s against Iraqi’s. Newt also attacked Mitt Romney while praising Rick Santorum, seen by all as as a defacto endorsement of Rick Santorum, yet staying in the race simply to attack Romney to ensure he doesn’t get the nomination.

o Bachmann came in last with 5% of the vote (not counting Huntsman, who had less than 1% of the vote w/o even running in Iowa), making her the first candidate ever to win the Ames Iowa Straw Poll, only to come in dead last in the Caucuses four months later. In her concession speech, she decried “We will repeal Obama’s [imaginary] socialized medicine” and bragged how she “rejected Obama’s request to raise the Debt Ceiling” last year (which would of put the U.S. in default and destroyed our economy.) Later, Bachmann noted how… while she was out campaigning yesterday… Marcus “was out buying doggie sunglasses” to lift her spirits. O.M.G.

o Perry declared he would be “reassessing his campaign”… though not officially dropping out.. and “going back home to Texas”. Stick a fork in him folks.

o In Santorum’s “victory speech”, he said he’d institute “a 28% top income tax rate” because “if it were good enough for Ronald Reagan, it’s good enough for me.” The top tax rate under Ronald Reagan was 50%, not 28%. Santorum ranted how all of President Obama’s assistance programs for the poor “only create dependency upon the government” (so, if you fall on hard times, don’t expect any government assistance under a President Santorum.) Ricky also called to “repeal ALL regulations. Repeal them ALL!” because they are “crushing business”. Check the DOW Ricky, businesses are hardly being “crushed”. That would be the other 99%.

o Romney spent a portion of his speech to criticize President Obama for “doing nothing to stop Iran” whom he says “is about to have nuclear weapons soon.” Shades of George W. Bush threatening Iraq over its “WMD’s” one month after his own victory in Iowa. Romney went on to repeat his ridiculous accusation that “President Obama is on track to increase the Debt more than all previous presidents combined.” No, that would be Bush. Last I checked, the National Debt is nowhere near $22-Trillion dollars… which is what it would have to hit to be greater than “all previous presidents combined”, including Bush, who doubled the Debt to $11-Trillion by the end of his eight years. Romney answered his own question as to what he would cut to balance the budget, saying he would “start with ObamaCare”… which the CBO actually says REDUCES the deficit, not increase it. As to what Romney would replace “ObamaCare” with, he’s never said.
 

• Total number of people who “voted” in Iowa yesterday: “Approximately” (because MSNBC coverage ended with 99% of precincts reporting): 122,000.

 

• Number of registered voters in Iowa: 2 million.

 
So roughly 6% of all registered voters in Iowa turned out to vote yesterday in the Republican caucus. Can you say, “Enthusiasm gap”? In 2008, 17% of all registered voters turned out to participate in the Republican AND Democratic Caucus’ (combined). Take from that what you will.

Final standings with 99% of the vote counted:

Santorum: 29908 – 25%
Romney: 29874 – 25%
Paul: 26097 – 21%
Gingrich: 16161 – 13%
Perry: 12536 – 10%
Bachmann: 6058 – 5%
Huntsman: 742 – <1%

This is going to be a fun year.

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Why the economy is so bad. And why Obama should be trusted to fix it.

Happy New Year. I hope all my readers had a safe and happy holiday. A friend of mine asked me recently about my “Lists” of reasons not to vote for any of the Republican candidates for president, wondering if perhaps “someone other than Obama might do a better job” at fixing the economy? The big question though: “Why are things so bad?” To answer that, we have to go back a few years.

As I’ve pointed out here on M.R.S. many MANY times before, oil was selling for a mere $37.83 a barrel (currently over $100/barrel) the week before the invasion of Iraq… roughly within 50% of where it had been for the prior 20 years. As long as I could remember, gasoline had always hovered around the “$1-and-change” mark for years. I remember in 2000… Bill Clinton’s final year in office… independent truckers threatened to go on strike when the price of diesel fuel went up to an “intolerable” $1.49/gal, complaining that the cost of fuel was destroying their take-home income. But it was an election year and Bush & Cheney were doing their best to talk the economy into a recession. The economy had been going gang-busters up until then and the Stock Market hit a record high of 11,722 in January of that year. Then the economy started to tank as Bush & Cheney kept repeating at every campaign stop that “the economy isn’t as good as they’re saying” in order to downplay the Clinton economy and prevent Al Gore from being elected. People started to save their money and spend less. The economy contracted and the claim of a bad economy became a self-fulfilling prophecy. By the time they took office in January of 2001, the DOW had fallen over 1,000 points (to 10,678) and Bush & Cheney were telling everyone how they had “inherited a recession”. One of Bush’s first actions as president was a massive tax cut tilted heavily in favor of the wealthy (the “job creators”) in order to spur job growth. On September 10th, the economy was already in the toilet, with the DOW closing down 1073 points lower than the day Bush took office. And you know what happened next.

But the price of oil still remained in that mid-30′s sweet-spot for the next year, and the price of gasoline only rose slightly, hitting a record high of only $1.72/gallon the week before the invasion of Iraq.

As the war dragged on and the economy continued to tank, gasoline prices broke the $2.00, $3.00, $4.00 a gallon thresholds, sucking TRILLIONS out of the economy. Things people might otherwise of been spending their money on were now going to pay for gas. And to make matters worse, higher gas prices meant the cost of manufacturing went up, as did the cost of shipping those goods to the store, so prices had to go up to compensate. So not only did people have less money to spend on goods & services, but they were buying less when they did. And when people buy less, companies need fewer employees, so they start laying people off. People out of work buy even less, resulting in a vicious cycle.

To make matters worse, with rapidly rising unemployment, suddenly people couldn’t afford to make their mortgage payments anymore, so people started defaulting on their mortgages left & right. And more people HAD mortgages than ever before thanks to a “housing bubble” resulting from the Bush Administration cutting interest rates to zero in order to encourage spending to boost the economy after 9/11. Everyone was investing in real estate as home prices soared. People were “flipping homes” (buying cheap properties, fixing them up and reselling them) to make quick cash. So when people started defaulting and the housing bubble popped, it took the BANKS down with it. And here we are.

The problem has improved only slightly because the very thing we need the government to do to fix the economy… which is SPEND, SPEND, SPEND to inject money into the economy and give businesses a reason to start hiring again… Republicans won’t let President Obama do, citing the rapid growth of “the Deficit” (note they NEVER say “the DEBT“) as “bankrupting our economy”. (President Bush tried to do the same thing by giving everyone $250 “Stimulus checks” to “spend, spend, spend”, but instead, they paid off old debts and saved the rest, doing nothing to help the economy while ballooning the Debt.) Funny, Republicans didn’t seem to mind when President Bush nearly DOUBLED the National Debt in just six years (before Democrats retook Congress) thanks to cutting taxes at the same time we were spending Billions fighting two wars (last I checked, up until last month, we were STILL fighting “TWO wars”. So why was it okay for Bush to spend like a drunken sailor to fight two wars, but Obama is “bankrupting the country”?)

Gas prices are still up over $3.00 a gallon… money consumers could be spending elsewhere. And it’ll take a very long time for the economy to adjust to gas prices being that high. Republicans would have us believe that this supports their argument that we must “drill MORE” to bring down the price of gas/oil. The problems with that ridiculously simplistic “solution” are: 1) If you started drilling today, any oil you find wouldn’t reach our gas tanks for TEN YEARS, doing nothing to improve our economy NOW. 2) Any amount of oil that we find here would automatically go into the WORLD MARKET, knocking no more than one percent [ibid] off the per-barrel price of oil. 3) There just isn’t that much oil left to be found in our country. Even the most optimistic estimates for drilling in ANWR (the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) would only produce TWO years worth of oil… and that’s if we didn’t sell it on the world market… which we would.

No, the solution to high gas prices is to make gasoline less necessary… not to make us EVEN MORE dependent by drilling for more. And the benefits of needing less gasoline would be felt FAR faster than the benefits from increased drilling temporarily increasing the world’s supply of oil several years from now. If we increased the gas mileage of every new car, replaced oil-burning electricity generators with wind, solar, tidal and geothermal generators, not only would the global price of oil plummet as demand plunged, but we wouldn’t need to import a drop of oil from countries that hate us. And it’s a long term solution, not a temporary fix (not to mention good for the environment.)

President Obama knows all this (or at least should, and if he doesn’t, would be receptive to the idea), while ALL the current GOP candidates think the solutions to our economic ills are to give Millionaires & Billionaires more & even bigger tax cuts (because the tax cuts of the past eleven years have worked so well) and to “Drill Baby, drill!”

That’s a recipe for disaster, not economic revival. That’s how we got here, and why you don’t vote Republican in November.

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Mugsy’s predictions for 2012: “The apocalypse never comes when you want it” Edition (UPDATED)

Where to start? Every year since 2006 I’ve dug deep into my toy-chest, pulled out the turban from my “Ancient Secrets Magic Kit”, rubbed my lucky penny for good luck, and concocted my annual “Predictions for the coming year”. And by the end of that year, I always expect to find I did really poorly… but my track record is surprisingly good. Even the dismal 20% I scored my first time out in 2006 was still (arguably) better than average compared to all the “psychics” out there. Oh, that’s another tradition of mine: mocking all the “professional psychics” and economic/trend forecasters that did worse than me. I’d never wager any money or bet the Stock Market based upon any of my predictions, but I must be doing something right. Of my predictions:

o in 2007 (no longer online), I achieved the aforementioned 20% (2 out of 10).

o by 2008, I learned from my mistakes and went “7 for 12″ (arguably 9 for 12 with partial credit.)

o …in 2009, I went 11 for 15 (again, with partial credit). 73%. Not too shabby.

o …in 2010, the trend reversed. Even with partial credit, I only scored 4-1/2 out of 10 (45%). Almost 50% and still more than twice as good as I did my first time out, so hell…

And now, a review of last years’ predictions for 2011. Last year, I threw caution to the wind and (recklessly) made 19 predictions (in 16 items):

1] Following a series of reports of the McCain’s (John vs wife Cindy and daughter Meghan) differing on a host of issues… most notably in support of the right of Gays to marry, and repeal of DADT, I predicted the McCain’s would separate (in lieu of a divorce): Bzzzt. I clearly got that one Wrong. The McCain’s are still a happily married couple, and (as far I or anyone else knows) are still living in one of their eight mansions. That prediction was a bit out of my field anyway, so I’m not surprised I got it wrong.

2] Despite a slew of Tea Party GOP candidates running for Congress promising to “shut down the government”, and the GOP then winning control of the House, I predicted they would NOT in fact “shutdown” the government, having learned their lesson in 1996 when Newt Gingrich’s Congress shutdown the government thinking the American people would “rally behind their principled stand.” They didn’t. They were inconvenienced and turned their anger on the GOP. Lesson learned, but rather than leave empty handed, Republicans would instead demands deep budget cuts while repeatedly bringing the nation to brink of default: Could I of been any more correct on that one?

3] Unemployment won’t fall below 8.6%: Wrong (revised) Correct. I first marked this as “wrong” because I felt I was including “exactly 8.6%” in that figure. But, as it was pointed out to me, unemployment did NOT fall “below” 8.6% as I predicted (falling to exactly 8.6%), so I’m upgrading this prediction to “Correct”.

4] National Debt tops $15T: Correct. The Debt broke the $15T mark in November.

5] Gold would peak at $1,600/oz: Correct. Gold closed last week at $1611/oz, and shouldn’t fluctuate much beyond that in these final five days.

6] Senate Democrats do NOT reform the filibuster (Correct), opting to ban “secret holds” instead: Correct.

7] I predicted there would be more filibusters in 2011 (48 out of 235 for 20%) than there were in 2010 (90 out of 299 for 30%): Wrong. I failed to take into account the need for a filibuster plunges when Senate Republicans know a GOP controlled House won’t pass anything they oppose anyway (fewer bills even made it to a vote).

8] No “official” action would take place on health care reform (neither “repeal” nor “expansion”). Correct. And ALL of the GOP candidates would campaign on promising to “repeal HCR”: Correct. Every single GOP candidate has promised to “repeal ObamaCare”.

9] Gas prices would crack $4/gallon again: Correct. As a result, I also predicted Chevy Volt sales boom as a result (Wrong). Volt sales were respectable, but the continuing sluggish economy has stifled ALL car sales in the U.S..

10] Palin would NOT run for the GOP nomination: Correct, but would toy with idea of 3rd/Tea Party candidacy: also Correct. As I wrote, “the GOP frontrunner right now is the Mittster, but ‘RomneyCare’… which ObamaCare mirrors… will hurt him badly. There will still be no clear ‘runaway frontrunner’ for the GOP nomination by years end.” Spot on. “No Democratic challenger to Obama”: Correct. “Ron Paul won’t run again.” Big Wrong. I would of thought Paul would of have figured out the last time he ran in 2008 that the GOP establishment would NEVER support him no matter what. Clearly, Paul’s ego (or ambition, or both) are far bigger than I imagined.

11] All troops would be out of Iraq by years end as promised: Correct. A token withdrawal of 5,000 troops from Afghanistan (wrong) to satisfy Obama’s July-2011 deadline did not come to pass because Congress voted it down, but Obama’s promise to pull “10,000 troops out of Afghanistan by years end” DID come to pass, pulling out all 10,000 in one fell swoop just last week. (23,000 more are supposed to be out by next September. We’ll see.)

12] Gitmo will still be open and in operation, despite 2008 campaign promise: Correct

13] “Michael Steele will be reelected as head of the GOP”: Wrong (Steel was pressured to drop out before the GOP vote took place.) I argued that, despite Steele’s incredible incompetence, the GOP would keep him on as the Face of the GOP to avoid reinforcing their image as the “Old Rich White Men” Party. Clearly, the GOP doesn’t mind that perception at all.

14] (quote) “Will Congress raise the Debt Ceiling over the protests of the Tea Party? They’ll hem. They’ll haw. They’ll drag it out for weeks, and flirt with shutting down the government over it, but in the end, they pretty much have no choice. Tea Party candidates that think it is unnecessary and say they’ll vote against it, will be allowed to vote “No” knowing that Democrats will give them cover, allowing teanuts like Rand Paul to take “a principled stand” from which they can safely lob grenades at responsible Democrats.” Couldn’t of been more Correct.

15] “will we see significant inflation in 2011? I say No.” Correct.

16] Osama bin Laden will not be caught or release another video: Wow was I wrong on that one… or was I? He wasn’t “captured” and didn’t release another video, did he? Okay, that’s pushing it. I honestly thought that would be the only “safe” prediction I made, guaranteeing me at least one right. Never been so happy to be wrong for a prediction.

Final tally: 12 13 out of 19 correct (63% 68%). I’ll take it.

And now for my favorite part: How did I fare against “professional” prognosticators?

Cable TV “Celebrity Psychic” Janet Russell went 0 for 11 (unless you count “predicting” Universal Health Care passing… which passed in 2009. And as far as I’m aware, Atlantis did not resurface. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

And clearly, Rick Perry isn’t the only person having trouble with three item lists:

Mentalist/futurist/”psychic” Sidney Friedman sees good news coming, including a dropping unemployment rate, an Oscar for Colin Firth, and a gropey three-way for Justin Bieber.

Los Angeles psychic Judy Hevenly sees an increase in work-from-home jobs, strong markets for oil and gold, and a special steel pendant that repels common cold germs through ionic means.

Is it just me, or do they seem to go totally off the rails on those third predictions?

A “loose organization” of Christians led by notorious End-Times crackpot “Harold Camping” predicted May 21st would be “the end of the world”. In case you didn’t notice, we’re all still here. When May 21st came and went, Camping claimed a “spiritual Rapture” had indeed taken place on that date (so everyone was running around with no soul’s? Where did he live? D.C.?) and that the “physical” (or “bodily”) Rapture would actually occur on October 21. Another swing and a miss.

Famed psychic Sylvia Browne predicted the tsunami that hit Japan last March! Wow! Mmmm, no. No she predicted an “Asian tsunami in 2009″ and… as famed “debunk artist James Randi” points out, Browne predicts an Asian tsunami just about EVERY year. And while Browne was IN Hawaii the day before the earthquake hit giving a TV interview, the famed “psychic” never once mentioned the earthquake that was about to strike, nor the tsunami to follow (or the nuclear disaster after that.) Instead, she talked about her planned (foreseen?) visit to Japan “next year”. Gee, you’d think a “real” psychic would detect impending doom of that magnitude, no? Compared to these people, I’m freaking Nostradamus.

Being a major election year, 2012 is a great year for “predicting”. So here are MY predictions for 2012:

1. The first one is easy: President Obama will win reelection. Handily. I’d say by roughly the same margin he beat John McCain (around 5% of the popular vote). I’ve been saying this for nearly a year, and I’m more sure now than I’ve ever been. I kept waiting for Republican’s to tire of trying desperately to find someone… ANYONE… other than Mitt Romney to run against President Obama, but here we are at the end of the year and “Family Values” Republicans actually rallied behind Newt Gingrich of all people. And as the Iowa Caucus draws near, Newtie’s poll number have begun to slip as Conservatives remember just what a turd-in-the-punchbowl he really is. And this leads to two more “predictions”…

 

2. Romney will be the GOP nominee. That is clear. Other candidates have peaked & vallied around him all year long, but Romney has steadily polled in the mid-20′s all year long. Challengers may come and go, but Mitt has remained in the “Top Tier” the whole time. Evangelical voters will NEVER vote for a Mormon out of fear of “legitimizing” a religion they perceive to be a “cult”. And that’s a BIG problem for Romney since Evangelicals make up THE most fervent, motivated and reliable voting block for the GOP (“Dubya” could never have “won” without the Evangelical vote.) That “enthusiasm gap” will ensure Romney never draws the support he needs to win.

 

3. And with disappointed, unenthusiastic Republicans not motivated enough to get out to the polls and pull the lever for Mitt Romney, coupled with angry motivated Democrats annoyed by endless GOP obstruction in Congress delaying any recovery simply to score political points, expect Romney’s “enthusiasm gap” to have an effect “down ballot”, with Democrats making big gains in the House and picking up holding onto at least five seats in the Senate. (I modified this prediction on Dec 30 upon realizing Democrats are giving up 7 of the 9 Senate seats that will be up for grabs in 2012, making any gain incredibly difficult. Democrats would have to run the table, winning every single Senate race in order to gain two seats. Unlikely. 2012 hasn’t started yet, so I’m invoking Authors’ Privilege here and changing this prediction.)

 

4. The “Arab Spring” uprisings will finally reach Iraq now that all American troops have left the country. I’m going to go out on a limb here and disagree with most pundits predicting a civil war in Iraq next year. I think that after eight years, the Iraq’s feel they’ve had enough war disrupting their lives and will instead focus on demanding the services expected of an effective modern government… like more than just one-hour of electricity per day. I DON”T expect Shia & Sunni’s to protest together in the streets… not at first anyway. Maybe separate demonstrations made up of like tribe members. IF the protests go on for more than a month, the two groups may actually decide there is strength in numbers and protest together, greatly increasing their numbers, all fighting for a common cause. If so, the positive repercussions could be incredible, bringing some much needed stability in that region of the world.

 

5. Gas prices will hit a new record high momentarily next Summer (over $4.25 nationally) as the protests in the Middle East grow, but will come back down to nearly $3/gal in time for the November election.

 

6. Syria’s King Assad won’t still be in power by the end of 2012, and out even earlier if the Arab League gets involved… which they may feel they have no choice but to do if the Syrian government continues to massacre its own people. The United States will NOT get involved in the war or the removal of Assad.
    
   UPDATE: Not even 2012 yet, the Arab League has already sent 60 Monitors into Syria, resulting in the government withdrawing tanks and “suspending military operations” against protesters.

 

7. After doing well in Iowa, the charges of “racism” surrounding Ron Paul will hurt him badly in early primary states as Paul fails miserably to explain his involvement with his racists “newsletters” from the early 90′s. If Paul wins a primary after April, he will run as an Independent, eroding the Romney vote even more.

 

8. Since both Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry failed to collect enough signatures to get on the ballot in time for the Virgina primary, Romney will win the state easily (but with low voter turnout). Gingrich will take the VA Elections Commission to court challenging their decision not to place him on the ballot. Perry, on the other hand, after doing poorly in previous states, will drop out of the race BEFORE the Virgina primary, rendering his “not appearing on the ballot” feux pas moot.

(Follow-up: 1/19/2012 – Perry, still polling in the single digits in South Carolina, drops out of the race and endorsed Newt Gingrich following a failed challenge of the VA Elections Commission to get on the ballot.)
 

9. The 99% movement will gain strength in the lead up to the November election. Republicans will continue to mock & ignore them while President Obama actually holds a rally addressing them specifically. GOP candidates will counter by addressing “Tea Party” rallies, finally confirming what we’ve always known: that the Tea Party and the “Occupy Wall Street” protests are polar opposites of one another.

 

10. The Supreme Court will finally rule on the legality of “ObamaCare” and the Federal Governments’ power to make you buy something. The court has already indicated that they agree such power is well within the purview of the Federal government. The fact is, “ObamaCare” does NOT force you to buy insurance like its critics claim. The government has simply created a new tax to offset the cost of covering the uninsured, which you’re exempted from paying if you purchase insurance. Your choice. I expect AT LEAST a 5-3 victory upholding the constitutionality of “ObamaCare”, resulting in the GOP candidates campaigning on the need to appoint “much more Conservative” judges to the Supreme Court that would never have agreed with this Court’s decision, promising to appoint judges that will “overturn” the offending decision. (Sub-prediction: Democrats will AGAIN fail to point out the utter hypocrisy of Republicans promising to appoint “activist judges” to overturn legislation they don’t like.)

 

11. Someone will FINALLY get around to asking the GOP candidates that “if they repeal ObamaCare, what would they replace it with?” “Nothing” will not be seen an acceptable answer. Whatever response the GOP candidate(s) give will be used (effectively) in campaign ads against them.

 

12. Surprisingly, the return of soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan won’t strain the job market as much as expected. Instead, the sudden influx of tens of thousands of consumers still receiving their government paychecks pouring money into the economy will create an unexpected “mini-stimulus”.

 

13. Despite a rise in Republican obstruction in the House (as prospects for a GOP victory in November grow ever more bleak), Unemployment will be under 8% in time for the election.

 

14. Gitmo will still be in service by the time of the November election. Military tribunals will resume in the Summer.

 

15. The planned removal of 23,000 additional soldiers from Afghanistan by September 2012 will hit a snag as my predicted protests rise in Iraq and unrest in Syria continues to climb. House Republicans will do everything within their power to scuttle a vote on that withdrawal. The extraction should still take place, but not on schedule.

 

16. Thanks to incredibly tight security, the London Olympic Summer Games will go off without a hitch.

 
(UPDATED DEC, 31… EDITORS’ PRIVILEGE)

17. I forgot to include: If Mitt Romney does win his Party’s nomination as predicted, Virgina Governor Bob McDonnell will be his running mate.

So that’s it. Another 16 17 predictions, one more than last year. I think out of all my predictions, the ones about unemployment and the state of our economy are the most volatile, depending heavily upon just how badly Republicans in Congress are willing to tank the economy just to hurt the president by November. But it’s a Kamikaze mission because a bad economy hurts ALL incumbents, including the GOP Controlled House. Are they all dumb enough to think they can damage the economy (and by extension, Obama) and emerge unscathed? Are they really… as my grandmother used to say of herself… “sharp as a whip”?

Happy New Year folks! See you in January. It’s going to be quite a year.

(Reminder: I’ve posted direct links to my “List II” reviews of the remaining GOP candidates in the righthand column under “ELECTION 2012″. Be sure to recheck them frequently as they are being undated constantly.)
 

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SPECIAL REPORT: PolitiFact, FactCheck.org and the problem of “false equivalency”

SPECIAL REPORT:

After a flurry of controversy erupted over “Politifact” rating the Democratic claim that the “Ryan Plan will kill Medicare” as their “Lie of the Year”, I went looking to see if FactCheck.org agreed. They do (link below). BUT… in their explanation, they concede that “starting in 2022, people would be required to purchase private insurance” under the Ryan Plan. But they still count the claim as a “Whopper” because it doesn’t end Medicare instantly, keeping the current system in place for people currently “55 and over”.

This “corroboration” comes from “FactCheck.org”s “Whoppers of 2011″. Their “bi-partisan” list is quite pathetic, struggling to find one Democratic “Whopper” for every Republican “Whopper”, playing the “false equivalency” game.

Also in their 2011 list, FactCheck cites President Obama exaggerating the claim that his mother had to fight the insurance company to cover her cancer (a claim he made in 2009 during the HCR debate, not 2011). FactCheck justifies including this 2009 statement in their 2011 list because that’s when “[they] learned about it.” They correctly note his cancer-stricken mother had to fight the insurance company over a different issue, not cancer coverage specifically. They mention that “this is not the first time Obama embellished” a claim to defend Health Care Reform (HCR), citing another 2009 claim regarding a man that died after being denied coverage. In fact, that particular man actually “had his coverage reinstated and lived another four years”. The problem here is that… while the stories of these two specific individuals turned out to be half-truths, the fact is those specific problem DO exist and happened to people every day under the old system. Attributing these problems incorrectly to two “specific” people, hardly makes them “Whoppers”. And, I remind you, neither claim was actually made in 2011.

Compare those Democratic “Whoppers” to their Republican “Whoppers”:

o HCF won’t in fact cost “many” jobs (and most of those are low-paying).
o Most millionaires affected by HCR aren’t “job creators”.
o Bachmann’s “HPV vaccine caused mental retardation” claim, and
o Cain’s “Planned Parenthood is targeting black babies for abortion” claim.
et al.

Back on “PolitiFact”, after receiving “about 1,500 emails, most of them negative” criticizing their choice, the staffer that made the claim, Bill Adair, posted a whiny childish commentary “defending” his decision, bemoaning “the [partisan] echo chamber” and calling some of his critics (including Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman) “ridiculous”, while not citing even ONE fact or justification for why he’s right and everyone else is wrong. Adair was able to cite PolitiFact’s competitor, “FactCheck.org”, as “coming to the same conclusion” as he. And he dare bemoan “the echo chamber”???

PolitiFact polled their readers for THEIR choice for “Lie of the Year”. Coming in at #1 with 24% of the vote: The claim the economic Stimulus created “zero” jobs. The Ryan “Lie” didn’t even make the list (meaning it came in below even “Republicans have proposed zero jobs legislation” polling at 1%.)

One has to wonder if both PolitiFact and FactCheck aren’t struggling to find “false equivalency” where there is none in a desperate attempt to maintain a reputation as “non-partisan”. One has to wonder how they’d critique “The Spanish Inquisition” (“Yeah, but heathens DID practice science and claim there were no such thing as witches”)?

ADDENDUM: Richard Eskow over at “Crooks & Liars” noticed the same thing and came to the same conclusion: Mr. Adair’s whiny rant destroys any future credibility he might have as a “fact checker”.
 

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The List II: Santorum, Huntsman, and The Rest.

This week raps up our review of the remaining “also-rans” in the GOP primary… the candidates that have never polled out of the single digits and never will: former Senator Rick ”Don’t Google My Name” Santorum of PA (Oops! Shortly after posting this op/ed, Santorum became the last “Not-Romney” standing to finally break out of the single-digits into the Top Tier as we headed into Iowa. – Mugsy), former Utah Governor Jon ”The Other Mormon” Huntsman, and Louisiana Governor Buddy ”Who Dat?” Roemer (two more GOP candidates are “technically” in the race: Former NM Governor “Gary Johnson” and political consultant and gay rights activist “Fred Karger”, but neither are currently polling outside “the margin of error”, so I have absolutely NO information on either of them.) For each of the Top Four GOP one-time front-runners (all except for Ron Paul), I was able to produce a LONG lists of links to their general insanity and extremist positions. But the longer a candidate stays out of the spotlight, the more difficult that becomes. (I also had a nice long list for former pizza mogul Herman “Libya? 9.9.9.” Cain until he dropped out after it was discovered he’d been topping more than just pizzas for the past 15 years.)

There is very little danger of any of the remaining GOP candidates in this sixth and final list of ever becoming president, though there is always the possibility that one of them might be chosen as a running-mate or (heaven forbid) a cabinet position. So it’s not a complete waste of time listing why none of these remaining candidates should ever be be considered “Presidential” (or anything else) material.

The remaining GOP field looks like a bad Gilligan’s Island spin-off:
 

(Click to Enlarge)

(Clockwise from top: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum and Jon Huntsman.)

Rick “Don’t Google My Name” Santorum

Of the remaining candidates, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum has about the best chance of actually pulling off an upset in one or two state primaries, but almost no chance of winning the nomination (much less the presidency). Vegas odds put Santorum as a 30:1 shot… miserable odds, yet (surprisingly) ahead of one person: BSC^* Michele Bachmann… someone that has actually seen double-digit poll numbers… now coming in at 35:1. A horse with a busted leg has a better chance at winning a race than these whack-a-doodles.

Rick Santorum’s is probably the biggest Holy Roller in the GOP race. Bigger than even Michele “Jehovah God” Bachmann or Rick “Prayed for rain, God sent wildfires” Perry, Santorum’s entire campaign is based on bedrock GOP “Family Values” Conservatism. Not the “Family Values” of Herman ”I Never Told My Wife About Her” Cain or Newt ”Married His Mistress After Handing His Cancer Stricken First Wife Divorce Papers in Her Hospital Bed” Gingrich (whom he later left for Mistress #2). No, Ricky is obsessed with the “Family Value” of “God Hates teh Gays”. Ricky seems absolutely obsessed with gay sex (read into that what you will.) Before Googling Santorum’s name became a workout for your PC’s profanity filtering software, the former Senator was most commonly known as Rick “Man on dog” Santorum… a reference to him comparing Gay Marriage to Pedophilia or Bestiality in a 2003 interview. So angry was AP’s sex columnist and gay rights activist Dan Savage, that he started a contest amongst his readers to come up with something offensive that could be labeled “Santorum”, in protest of the senator’s bigoted ignorant comments. Once the winner was chosen (if you don’t already know, it’s REAL easy to find out), Savage created a website defining the term and asked all his listeners to Google-bomb his site (click on his site when Googling the Senators’ name), making his website/definition the #1 result when Googling the senator’s name. Pretty clever. So many people have since searched just to find out what the new contrived definition is, that the term is now permanently affixed at the top of any search of the former senator’s name.

Jon “The Other Mormon” Huntsman

Then there’s former 2-Term Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, former Ambassador to China under President Obama. Huntsman is easily the sanest, most moderate GOP presidential candidate… which instantly disqualifies him amongst today’s far-Right GOP ideologues. Like Romney, Huntsman is a Mormon, which instantly disqualifies him amongst Evangelical GOP voters. Huntsman has also said he believes in “Global Warming” and “Evolution”, which… all combined… makes Huntsman totally unacceptable to 98% of all Republicans. But before any Democrats think Huntsman might be worthy of their support, he IS still a Republican, believing in most all the remaining GOP insanity: “tax cuts for the wealthy”, preemptive war with Iran, and deregulation to aid Big Business. To make matters worse, stuck at the bottom of most polls since the day he entered the race, unable to break out of single digits, knowing how unpopular his “pro-science” declarations have been with GOP voters, Huntsman has walked back his belief in Climate Change, saying of the global consensus of over 8,000 climate scientists: “the onus is on the scientific community to help clarify the situation.” (translation: it’s THEIR fault Republicans are confused, not the GOP Misinformation campaign to discredit the science.)

And the Rest…

As I mentioned in my opening, there actually ARE other candidates running for the GOP nomination. One such candidate is former Louisiana Governor Charles Elson ”Buddy” Roemer III. Every bit as Conservative as his colleagues on the economy, Roemer’s lead issue is the toxic effects of Corporate money in politics. “Buddy” hasn’t appeared in ANY of the televised GOP debates, where the “minimum requirements” for inclusion are to have polled above 5% in any state/national poll, and have raised several million dollars ($5 million IIRC). Roemer has rejected all PAC money, accepting only donations of “$100 or less” from individual donors. His most high-profile interviews to date have been his appearances on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show”, where he called for an end to “tax loopholes”, “no special interests”, and “energy independence” that includes “wind, solar and nuclear power” as well as additional drilling “in non-environmentally sensitive areas”. Like Huntsman, Roemer shows signs of sanity that instantly disqualify him for the GOP nomination.

Links for the remaining GOP candidates are as follows:

Rick Santorum:

1. Rick Santorum Borrows Campaign Slogan From Pro-Union Poem Written By Gay Rights Advocate
2. VIDEO: Rick Santorum Says He Has ‘Nothing To Do’ With His Own Campaign Slogan
3. Santorum: Ryan Is ‘Wrong’ Because He Doesn’t Force Current Seniors Into Medicare Privatization Scheme
4. Santorum Pledges To Reinstate Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
5. Rick Santorum’s Greatest Hits – 12 Most Offensive Statements
6. Santorum: Poor History Scores A Result Of ‘Conscious Effort’ By ‘The Left’ To Keep Students Uninformed
7. Inside Rick Santorum-Linked Universal Health Services Facility: Herpes, Porn and Drug Dealing
8. Santorum’s Message To People Who Can’t Afford Health Care Costs: Lower Your Cell Phone Bill
9. Santorum: Iran ‘Tramples The Rights Of Gays’
10. Santorum Says Criticism Of His Views On Homosexuality Is ‘An Act Of Bigotry’
11. Santorum: I Stand By My 'Man on Dog' Comment
12. Rick Santorum Endorses Pennsylvania Election Scheme Because It Will Rig Presidential Election For Republicans
13. Santorum: Honoring God Is Essential To National Security
14. Rick Santorum Advocates Getting Rid of All Public Sector Unions
15. Forget 9-9-9, Santorum Unveils 0-0-0 Tax Plan
16. Santorum Flip-Flops: Protesters Were A ‘Fringe Group’ In The Morning, But He ‘Understands’ Them In The Afternoon
17. Santorum Pledges To ‘Fight In Every State’ To Outlaw Marriage Equality
18. Santorum: Homosexuality 'Is a Behavioral Issue'
19. Santorum Compares His Fight Against Marriage Equality To Lincoln Fighting Slavery
20. Rick Santorum wants to take away your contraception to ensure sex for procreation only
21. Santorum: 'I'll Die' to Stop Same Sex Marriages
22. Santorum: Dead Foreign Scientists a 'Wonderful Thing'
23. Santorum: Americans Should Suffer
As incentive to get off their butt and find a job.
24. Santorum: ‘Our Country Will Fall’ As A Result Of Same-Sex Marriage
25. Santorum: Insurers Should Discriminate Against People With Pre-Existing Conditions
26. Santorum doesn't understand science (Wants Schools To Undermine Evolution)
27. Santorum Is Outraged That Gay ‘Sexual Activity’ Is ‘Being Seen As Equal’ To Heterosexual Sex
28. Santorum: Obama 'Doesn't Deserve Credit' For Killing Bin Laden
Yet, if raid had gone badly, whom do you think Ricky would of blamed first?
29. Fun Fact: Santorum Represented The World Wresting Association
30. Santorum: We Don’t Need Food Stamps Because Obesity Rates Are So High
31. I forgot about this one: Fox Radio host Alan Colmes reminds everyone how, in 1996, when Rick Santorum’s wife Karen gave birth prematurely at just 20 weeks, upon the death of the child, the Santorum’s wrapped their dead son in a blanket and brought him home to meet what would of been his siblings, ages 6, 4 and 1 1/2, for them to cuddle and kiss. (Reported by the Washington Post in 2005.)
32. In 2006, Fox “news” reported that Senator Santorum excitedly pointed to the discovery of 500 discarded “Gulf War I” era (1991) munitions found buried in Iraq thusly: “We have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, chemical weapons,” Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., said in a quickly called press conference late Wednesday afternoon.
33. Rick Santorum’s Top 10 Most Outrageous Campaign Statements:
1. ANNUL EXISTING SAME-SEX MARRIAGES on the grounds that gay relationships “destabilize” society.
2. ‘I’M FOR INCOME INEQUALITY’: Saying, “I think some people should make more than other people” because some people “work harder”. That’s not what “income inequality” is about, Ricky. It has nothing to do with everyone being paid exactly the same no matter the job. Santorum is an idiot.
3. CONTRACEPTION IS ‘A LICENSE TO DO THINGS’: Santorum wants to outlaw contraception because he thinks it encourages “immoral behavior”. These are your “Small Government Republicans” folks. Deregulate business, but regulate personal behavior.
4. GAY SOLDIERS ‘CAUSE PROBLEMS FOR PEOPLE LIVING IN CLOSE QUARTERS’: The repeal of DADT has been an unqualified success resulting in NO problems. Santorum wants gay soldiers back in the closet.
5. “OBAMA SHOULD OPPOSE ABORTION BECAUSE HE’S BLACK”: Because blacks should understand more than anyone what it means to not be considered “a human being”.
6. “WE DON’T NEED FOOD STAMPS BECAUSE OBESITY RATES ARE SO HIGH”: Rick doesn’t get that “cheap” food is also the least healthy.
7. ABORTION EXCEPTIONS TO PROTECT WOMEN’S HEALTH ARE ‘PHONY’: Flat out calls exceptions to protect the life of the mother, “Phony”.
8. “HEALTH REFORM WILL KILL MY CHILD”: Claims his disabled child would of died under in a country with “socialized medicine.” (like Great Britain or France?) Conservatives think “socialized medicine” = rationed care under the bankrupt “Soviet Union”.
9. UNINSURED AMERICANS SHOULD SPEND LESS ON CELL-PHONE BILLS: Average monthly cost of a cell phone? $40. Average monthly cost of health insurance? $600.
10. INSURERS SHOULD DISCRIMINATE AGAINST PEOPLE WITH PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS: Like that disabled child of yours, Rick, whom you believe would have died if you lived in Canada?
34. Santorum’s Racist Welfare Rant: ‘I Don’t Want To Make Black People’s Lives Better’ With Taxpayer Money. Santorum seems to equate “black” with “welfare recipient”.
Santorum’s response the next day? “I didn’t say ‘black’ people, I said ‘blah’ people.”
35. Last May, when Sen. John McCain denounced the use of torture to interrogate terror suspects, Santorum said of the former POW: “he doesn’t understand how enhanced interrogation works. I mean, you break somebody, and after they’re broken, they become cooperative.”
36. Santorum: There is no Middle Class in America – Claims a distinction between “Middle income” and “Middle Class“. Still think these are serious candidates?
37. Santorum Tells Kids With Gay Parents: You’d Be Better Off With Parents In Prison. – Cites “a study” that claims a child whose father abandoned then and goes in prison is better off than a child with two same-sex parents.
38. Santorum Accuses Obama Of ‘Elitist Snobbery’ For Wanting Every Child To Go To College. – “Elite” is GOP-speak for “Reader”.
39. Before running for President, Santorum was best known for his pro-Life activism. How obsessed? Santorum’s Obsession: As Senator, He Mentioned Abortion 1,014 Times.
40. After Supporting Health Care Mandate In 1994, Santorum Now Says He Never Supported Mandates.
41. Rick Santorum Lies About Calling for Congressional Intervention in Terri Schiavo Case.
42. After this racist old crone supporter of Rick Santorum says to him that President Obama is a “devote Muslim” that’s “not legally president” (aka: foreign-born), rather than reprimand nor even correct his befuddled supporter the way John McCain did in 2008, Santorum instead just smiles and tells her he’s “doing his best to get Obama out of office.” (When asked the next day why he didn’t correct her, Santorum simply said he “doesn’t feel any obligation” to refute every Birther out there.
43. Santorum believes it is a BAD thing that ‘Obama Wants Every Kid to Go to College” because it is part of a secret plan to “indoctrinate” kids into becoming Liberals. – College’s don’t “convert” students into becoming Liberals, it’s just something that happens once you become educated. Santorum is basically admitting that the only way to stay keep your kids Conservative is to keep them stupid.

Jon Huntsman:

1. Huntsman In 2007: ‘I’m Comfortable’ With Individual Mandate, Would ‘Make System More Efficient’
2. Issue for Jon Huntsman: His family's Iran business – Glenn Thrush and Kasie Hunt – POLITICO.com
3. Six Ways Jon Huntsman Would Hurt The American Economy
4. Huntsman Campaign Fundraising Off Civil Unions Legislation He Never Signed
5. Huntsman Bows To Right Wing, Reverses Position On Climate Science
6. Huntsman Says He'd Launch A Ground Invasion To Prevent Iran From Getting Nukes
7. PolitiFact rates “Mostly False”: Jon Huntsman says U.S. natural gas in greater supply than Saudi Arabian oil.
Huntsman equated “one cubic foot of NG to one barrel of oil.” It actually takes about 5-THOUSAND cubic feet of NG to equal one barrel of oil.

Buddy Roemer:

1. Buddy Roemer says “Senator Joe Lieberman has a reputation as a reformer and a man of integrity, unrivaled in American politics.”
Instant disqualification.

Creating and updating these list has been a lot of work, but it’s worth it if it keeps these insane, duplicitous, clueless, amoral bastards out of the White House… a more terrifying end to this country I could not imagine.

And if you missed any of the prior lists (which I have continued to update and will do for as long as each candidate is in the race), you can find them here:

Mitt Romney

Newt Gingrich

Michele Bachmann

Rick Perry

Ron Paul

Be sure to bookmark and revisit those links in the coming year as I intend to continue to update them for as long as each is in the race.

Next week: My annual, year-end “Predictions for 2012″! Until then, Happy Holidays!
 

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The List II: The Strange Case of Dr. Ron Paul.

It is extremely difficult to summarize the very complex platform of Texas Rep. Dr. Ron Paul without getting too deep into the weeds as to why he’s often a clueless… even dangerous… presidential candidate that no one should ever seriously consider voting for. The Texas Libertarian is extremely popular among young voters (mostly Conservative & Libertarian)… reminiscent of my days as a HUGE Ross Perot supporter in 1992. so I get it. Republicans that like Ron Paul’s economic policies cringe at his foreign policy, and vice versa; Liberals that like Paul’s foreign policy, cringe at his domestic policy. But just as I was with Ross Perot 20 years ago, most Paul supporters seem to have blinders on when it comes to his other “peccadilloes”. It’s not until you look at Paul’s platform (and personal history) in detail that you realize this man shouldn’t get any closer to the White House than he already is down the road at the Capitol.

Besides foreign policy, Paul is also extremely popular with the “audit the Fed” crowd… another position that appeals strongly to both Liberals and Conservatives (for different reasons). Most “Paulies” confuse this with an opposition to “Big Money” (aka: “Wall Street”) Paul even expressed “support”… but not “praise”… for the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters, calling the movement “legitimate” and “very healthy”, but with misplaced anger. Remember, Paul started the “Tea Party” movement that blames the government for everything, not Big Business. One of the prime benefits of being an “unexamined” candidate like Ron Paul (or Ross Perot for that matter) is that everyone projects their own desires as to what they think the candidate believes w/o any authoritative source to set them straight. I’m here to be that source.

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

Ron Paul’s platform has a lot of cross-Party appeal. The Good: Paul is best known as being staunchly anti-war, opposed the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and calls for an immediate end to the war in Afghanistan (and the only Republican candidate to approve of President Obama removing all troops from Iraq this past week); favors limiting the use of military force around the world; ending the pointless and expensive “War on Drugs”; and leads the call to audit the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States. Paul also thinks it’s no business of the Federal government whom a person marries or why. The Bad: Paul is also a “Free Trade” zealot that believes there are no “good” government Regulations, no services that can’t (and shouldn’t) be privatized, and no government program that can’t be eliminated (most of which serve the Poor) and turned over to for-profit corporations. Paul also believes “Global Warming is a hoax” and abolishing the EPA would allow oil companies to drill whenever & wherever they want, spurring “economic growth”. The Ugly: Paul has a nasty record of making racist & anti-Semitic remarks. In 1990, Paul “published” a series of “Newsletters” (that many of his supporters today try to claim were not actually written BY him, but instead just published in his name. But Paul has never made that claim himself nor disavowed them Now that Paul is leading in Iowa, scrutiny over those newsletters now has Paul saying that one of his 7-8 staffers wrote them, but he’s not going to bother to find out who.) making wildly inflammatory remarks about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., blacks in general, and Israel (all links below). Paul is a cryptic candidate that has gotten as far as he has by staying out of the Media spotlight (not by choice, but by being publicly shunned by most outlets) and avoiding repeating some of his more questionable past remarks while on the campaign trail (eg: Paul denies being a “9/11 Truther”, but refuses to denounce the Truther movement, only saying that he “understands” how people can be so distrustful of their government.)

So why exactly does Ron Paul want to audit the “Federal Reserve Bank of the United States”? His website explains why here (emphasis his):

The Federal Reserve is the chief culprit behind the economic crisis. Its unchecked power to create endless amounts of money out of thin air brought us the boom and bust cycle and causes one financial bubble after another. Since the Fed’s creation in 1913 the dollar has lost more than 96% of its value, and by recklessly inflating the money supply the Fed continues to distort interest rates and intentionally erodes the value of the dollar.

Okay, here is where I keep getting into trouble. As culpable as the Fed was/is in our current economic crisis, they are by no means the cause or “chief culprit” as to why our economy crashed. Without going into too much detail, the Fed did nothing different in 2007-2008 that they hadn’t already been doing for decades. I am definitely NOT defending the Fed here, nor am I suggesting they don’t need to be audited, but the cause of the economic crisis wasn’t the Fed “creating fiat money”. It was the deregulation of Banks, Wall Street Commodities traders, and CREDIT RATING institutions, that took ENORMOUS gambles that failed to pay off when rising unemployment (due to $2/$3/$4 gasoline sucking BILLIONS out of the economy) resulted in a record number of mortgage defaults. And the failure of Paul to recognize that simple basic fact means he’ll be running around half-cocked trying to fix things that would do nothing to solve our current economic crisis nor prevent it from happening again.

Paul’s solution for the economy? Put us back on the “Gold Standard”… a windmill he’s been tilting at for over 30 years now. And anybody that thinks we can do that today is completely clueless as to how money works in the computer-age. I could (easily) go on for paragraphs explaining why this idea is ridiculous (and I did, painfully deleting a half dozen paragraphs), but just trust me, Paul’s understanding of economics is not unlike when your grandmother mails you a $5 birthday check to “buy that new video game you said you wanted”.

Just to give you an idea of how ridiculous Paul’s wish to return to the Gold Standard is, recently, Bank of America dumped $75 TRILLION (with a “T”) dollars worth of Derivatives on U.S. taxpayers. How do you cover that debt with gold? Paul believes “we have plenty of gold” to back all the currency in the United States if we simply adjust the value of our currency to match the amount of gold we have. This is insane. (Damn, I started going back into the weeds explaining why). Paul descries “currency manipulation” when The Fed prints money “out of thin air”, but then makes the case that you could increase your money supply (and you must to keep up with a growing economy) by manipulating the value of your gold supply… aka: “currency manipulation”. Is your head spinning yet?
 

“The government that governs least governs best.”

The foundation of Paul’s Libertarian ideology is: “the government that governs least governs best.” In Libertarian World, government regulations don’t “keep you safe” or “protect you from harm”, they serve only to “restrict your freedom”. And that includes the freedom to harm yourself, or allow companies to gamble on just how much harm they can get away with while maximizing their profits… until the number of people dropping dead hits the evening news. And because government services cost money (unlike the private sector?), the fewer government services there are, the less you’ll need to pay in taxes. Of course, with the government no longer providing those necessary services, that means massive wholesale privatization… which means paying FAR more to corporations (with stock holders, executive salaries, bonuses and profit margins) to provide those same services. But don’t worry about THAT! The “Free Market” will control prices! (Unless they have a monopoly or collude to fix prices. And with no more government regulation, what’s to stop them?) Paul is one of those “Free Market” utopians that truly believes companies will always do what’s in the best interests of their clients and would never do anything to hurt anyone, out of fear of losing customers. Just ask owners of the Ford Pinto in the late ’70s, or parents today about the amount of arsenic in their child’s apple juice, if corporations always have the best interests of their customers at heart. Ask Roughnecks from the “Deepwater Horizon” how concerned BP was with “safety”. Back in 1993, some people got very sick and three children died from undercooked “Jack-in-the-Box” hamburgers. Since then, incidents like this have only become more common in the era of a GOP obsessed with Deregulation. More recently, there have been 14 deadly e.coli outbreaks in just the past six years that have killed dozens more thanks to a food safety inspection system that has been trimmed to the bone by cut-crazy Conservatives. The “deregulate everything” crowd believes incidents like these result in greater “self-policing”. Rational human beings like myself think it’s better if these deaths never happened in the first place. Call me crazy, but I’d rather not have to worry if my hamburger will kill me before the drive home in a car with no seat belts does.

While Paul claims to oppose the hugely unpopular NAFTA, he is a huge proponent of “Free Trade”. Kind of like opposing Chevy’s while calling yourself a supporter of GM. How does Paul reconcile this? Paul says NAFTA isn’t “true” Free Trade but simply “managed trade”. So the problem with NAFTA, according to Paul, is that NAFTA isn’t “free enough” [ibid]. So, if you hate NAFTA and think it has destroyed jobs in this country (that “giant sucking sound” that Ross Perot warned us about), Paul is not on your side. (When ABC News pointed out to Congressman Paul last August that his campaign T-Shirts were not “Made in America”, Paul was unapologetic, saying only that that’s “the free market” at work.)

Paul’s “small government” zealotry would mean MASS PRIVATIZATION of every government function except for the military and the police (“security is the only legitimate function of government”, according to Paul). A campaign ad entitled “Big Dog” that plays more like the trailer for an action movie, explains how Paul would “save $1 Trillion dollars on Day One”:

 

 

…by eliminating FIVE government agencies. The Departments of: Education (we’ll still need to educate our children though, so that gets privatized. And you thought four years of college was expensive), The Interior Department (Land Management, National Parks, and the EPA), Energy (drilling permits, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and toxic site clean-up), Housing & Urban Development (home loan assistance, fair housing enforcement, regulating utility bills), and Commerce (Economic Development, the Patent Office, NOAA [the Weather Bureau], and the Census.) You know, useless stuff like that.

I like this parody of the Paul ad much better:

 

 

Paul would also “get rid of the IRS” (an idea everybody loves) and replace it with… well… nothing. According to Paul’s website: “‘a heavy [sic] progressive or graduated income tax’ is Plank #2 of the Communist Manifesto“. You read that right, paying more because you earn more, is Communist. According to Paul, with government cut to the barest of essentials, we could cover the cost of running the government with just “excise taxes and non-protectionist tariffs” [ibid]. “Excise Taxes” are a tax on production, which I’m certain Paul defines as a National Sales Tax… something I’m highly ambivalent about. On one hand, a National Sales Tax would erradicate the problem of “tax cheats” and collect revenue from many sources currently missed, like criminal activity, gambling proceeds, people being paid under the table, etc. I would support a NST that exempts most staples (food, clothing, etc), but the tremendous downside of taxing production is that people will simply buy used items whenever possible to avoid paying the taxes on a new item, dramatically hurting sales and costing millions of jobs (Herman Cain was roundly criticized on this very point, refusing to exempt staples yet suggesting the poor can just “buy used” items to reduce their tax burden… never explaining where they’d buy “used food”.) Paul has not said whether he would exempt any items from his “FAIR Tax”… once again allowing his supporters to project their own beliefs as to what Paul wants rather than hearing from the man directly.

What “excise taxes” fail to reap, “non-protectionist tariffs” will have to cover. I’m having a hard time understanding the logic of “non-protectionist tariffs”. The point of “protectionist” tariffs are to raise the prices of cheap imported goods that complete with goods made in THIS country, making American goods more competitive with cheap imports. “NON-protectionist tariffs” would be tariffs on items we DON’T make/grow in this country. So if you want something you can’t get anyplace else… like a computer or new TV… you’ll pay more for it. Sounds like an opportunity to start making those items here! Great! Except that the moment you do, goodbye “non-protectionist tariff”, and suddenly that imported item gets a LOT cheaper, putting the American manufacturer out of business. That’s a recipe for a new “Boom & Bust Cycle” every five years. More fiscal cluelessness from the 76 year old grandfather.

Dr. Paul appeared on The Tonight Show last Friday night, giving some of the most direct answers I’ve heard to date on just what he wants to do. Eliminate the IRS and implement a (roughly) “15% sales tax on companies that do business overseas”. This is different from his “excise tax” mentioned above, and he was not firm on the “15%” number. “Maybe higher, maybe lower. Can’t say for sure.”

Like Rick Perry, Paul said he would scrap “all foreign aid”. Republicans seem to think we’re spending between 10%-15% of our budget on “foreign aid to countries that hate us.” Nonsense. Eliminating foreign aid is a popular idea until you realize it’s barely 1.2% of our Federal Budget, and pays for things like fighting the spread of AIDS in Africa, humanitarian aid in disaster zones like Haiti, and securing loose nukes in the Ukraine. Foreign aid buys “loyalty” (as with keeping Egypt from threatening military action against Israel) and buys us some good will in countries that might otherwise seek to do us harm. I think we get a lot of bang for our buck with that 1.2%. Eliminating ALL foreign aid would do a lot of harm simply to save us very little money.

Paul on “Legalizing” Drugs

Another policy position that makes Paul very attractive to both Liberals like myself and Libertarians, is his call to “legalize” marijuana and all recreational drugs, an idea “Family Values” Republicans are truly aghast at. Most “young” people (younger than the “Baby-Boomers”) have seen the ridiculous waste of lives and money spent fighting a “War on Drugs” that we’re no closer to winning today than we were when Richard Nixon coined the term in 1971. The Drug War has filled our jails and turned our streets into warzones, all because Moral Crusaders seeking to endear themselves to “Values Voters” know they can’t win if they appear to be “soft on crime”. This country learned what an abysmal failure “Prohibition” was in the 1920′s/30′s. Not only did people not stop drinking, but alcohol-related crime created a Rogues-Gallery of famous crime bosses whose names will still know today (Al Capone, Meyer Lansky, “Bugsy” Segal, et al.)

Paul created quite a Media stir in the first GOP debate last May when he drew applause for his call to “legalize heroin”, remarking that “we don’t need the government to tell us not to do heroin.” Uh, actually, we kinda DO. It was the skyrocketing use of heroin in the 1970′s that gave birth to the “War on Drugs”. But here is where the doctor and I part ways. More than a concern with “Big Nanny”^©, there’s a BIG… HUGE in fact… difference between “legalizing” something like heroine (a Schedule-1, Class-A narcotic) and “decriminalizing” it; and it’s a subtlety I don’t think Paul gets. If you “decriminalize” a drug, it’s still illegal, but you don’t go to jail if you’re caught using it. But if you “legalize” it, companies can legally make it an ingredient in other products (like Coca-Cola), or sell “new & improved” versions, increasing the addictiveness of their product. And in Paul’s Deregulated Utopia, who’s around to stop them?

100 years ago, cocaine was a “toothache remedy”:

“Decriminalize” growing your own marijuana for personal use inside the home, thus depriving drug dealers of a market, but the last thing you want is the wholesale “legalization” of “all” drugs… unless you like the idea of “Coco Puffs… Now with Real Coca!” in your child’s breakfast cereal.

Which brings me to the one single biggest factor as to why a Paul presidency wouldn’t work: The president isn’t a king, and Congress makes the laws. If Paul thinks for one moment that Congress is going to abolish the FDA, DEA and IRS simply on his say-so, he has a big dose of reality coming. How would the 77 year old “President Paul” handle a Congress that refuses to give him everything he wants? Not well, I’d bet.
 

Ron Paul’s History of Racist Remarks.
 

Ron Paul is also known for one other thing: a long history of racist statements. You’ve heard his moron son Senator “Rand” Paul (named after Libertarian hero, author Ayn Rand) and his idiotic statement that… while he agreed with the move to end segregation in the public sector, he wouldn’t have voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act on the grounds that government has no business telling private industry who they must serve or how. Well Rand’s racial insensitivity didn’t come from nowhere. Daddy said the same thing himself in 2004. The 76 year old elder Paul still carries around the “subtle racism” left over from growing up in a segregated society and decades upon decades of stereotype-conditioning during his formative years that blacks are somehow “physically & intellectually different” from “the rest of us”.

A mild example of this a few years back was when Dr. Paul suggested young black purse-snatchers were “more likely to get away” than young white purse-snatchers because blacks are “naturally swifter” than whiles, pointing out that that is why there are so many of “them” in professional sports (most of the links I found for these quotes link to some rather offensive racists websites, so I’m not including them.) Note to all the racists supporting Ron Paul (and there do seem to be a lot of them): A stereotype doesn’t have to be “mean” to be racist.

Back in the early-to-mid 90′s, Dr. Paul wrote a slew of “newsletters” (caution, that’s one of those racist websites I warned you of) that pop-up every election year. In them, Paul protested the passage of “MLK Day” by Reagan, calling it “Hate Whitey Day”, and suggested alternative names for New York City: “Wellfaria, ZooVille, RapeTown, Dirtburgh, and LazyApolis” in response to MLK activists that wanted to rename the city after the Civil Rights Leader.

But Ron Paul’s stereotyping of blacks is nothing compared to his disdain for Israel and those of the Jewish faith. During his 2008 campaign, Paul refused to return a $500 campaign donation from a noted White Supremacist, with his campaign manager defending keeping the money on the grounds Paul “could not be influenced for just $500″. Paul had already set fundraising records at the time and hardly needed the money. He could of made a bigger statement by returning the money and disassociating himself with those who donated it, but he didn’t. Those “newsletters” mentioned above? Filled with anti-Semitic rhetoric, where Paul called the Israeli government “evil”, and even suggested the 1993 World Trade Center bombing may have been carried out by the Mossad (the Israeli CIA):

“tens of thousands of well-placed friends of Israel in all countries who are willing to wok [sic] for the Mossad in their area of expertise.” [...] “Whether it was a setup by the Israeli Mossad, as a Jewish friend of mine suspects, or was truly a retaliation by the Islamic fundamentalists, matters little.”

I put people who think Israel was behind any attack upon the U.S. in the same category as conspiracy nuts that think 9/11 was an “inside job” perpetrated by Bush (aka: “The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight”.)

There is a lot of talk this week about Ron Paul moving up in Iowa. Could Paul win Iowa? Back during the 2004 Democratic Primary, second-place Dick Gephardt viciously attacked front-runner Howard Dean in an ad worthy of Karl Rove the week before the Iowa Caucus. Dean fired back with an attack ad of his own, severely weakening both candidates and allowing third-place John Kerry to shoot up the middle to win Iowa. Could it happen again as Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney slug it out for first place? You never know.

One thing I CAN say about Ron Paul is that his immense popularity proves this is a center “LEFT” nation, not center “Right” the way Conservatives repeatedly claim. Paul’s anti-war, anti-big bank platform is right in line with the Liberal LEFT. For any “Republican” to make such inroads into the GOP electorate on a platform like his proves there are more of us than there are of them.

Here is my “List” for Texas Rep. Dr. Ron Paul. Paul hasn’t been in the spotlight as much as the other candidates, which means I have fewer links for him than the other Top-Tier candidates, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less objectionable (as you can clearly see from my rant above).

1. Paul’s 2008 Online Campaign Strategist Died Broke from lack of insurance, Friends Couldn’t Raise Enough in Donations to save his life.
Consider this in light of Paul’s “personal responsibility” response to a debate question on whether to allow a willfully-uninsured person to die. Paul’s answer: “Let the churches take care of him.”
2. Ron Paul: ‘Why Not?’ Abolish FEMA, Government Should Not ‘Take Care Of Us When We Do Dumb Things’
3. Ron Paul On Hurricane Irene: Response Should Be Like It Was In 1900
4. As Irene Devastates, Ron Paul Says We Need To ‘Come To Our Senses’ And Abolish FEMA
5. Ron Paul Feeds Right-Wing Conspiracy Theory That Government Could Turn U.S. Into A Concentration Camp
6. Ron Paul Suggests We’d Be ‘Better Off’ Without The Civil Rights Act
7. Ron Paul Calls Social Security and Medicare Unconstitutional, Compares Them to ‘Slavery’
Son Rand also compared ObamaCare to “slavery”… for doctors.
8. Ron Paul: A Long History of Racism and Anti-Semitism – International Business Times
9. Ron Paul: Africa Has Famines Because They Aren't Capitalists
10. Ron Paul and Mitt Romney's Nuclear Waste Disposal Plan: Free Markets!!!
11. Ron Paul: 'It Wasn't Lack of Regulation That Caused the Enron Scandal'
12. Ron Paul Blames 9/11 On Government Prohibiting Guns On Airplanes
If only the passengers of had guns. But then of course, the terrorists would of had guns too. Gunfight in a metal tube @ 30,000 feet?
13. Ron Paul: Greater Access To Birth Control Makes A ‘Mockery’ Of Christians
14. Rep. Ron Paul Argues States Can Ignore Constitution By Nullifying Federal Laws
15. This Blog is Not Ron Paul Friendly
One simple paragraph doubles the number of links I’ve provided you here.
16. Ron Paul newsletter: LA riots ended because blacks went “to pick up their welfare checks.”
17. Ron Paul: People Call Me Racist Because My ‘Policies Are Winning’
You might remember this was the same reason Herman Cain gave for all the accusations of sexual misconduct emerging once he entered the spotlight. So much for “the Party of personal responsibility.”
18. Video of 1995 C-Span interview with Ron Paul discussing his “series of newsletters”.
Paul says he didn’t write his own newsletter and doesn’t know who did. Bull.
19. As DailyKOS reports: “Got AIDs? Your fault, says Ron Paul. Boss can’t keep his hands off you? Switch jobs, says Ron Paul.”
20. Ron Paul: ‘Entitlements Are Not Rights’. – Actually includes “the Right to your money” as an example, yet your right to receive repayment of money you paid into an entitlement is NOT a “right”. These guys keep commenting on words they clearly don’t understand.
21. The “Small-government” ultra-Libertarian Ron Paul that wants the government out of your personal life, thinks government-mandated, medically unnecessary ultrasounds for women seeking an abortion in Texas is just peachy.

Paul owes much of his success to staying out of the spotlight and not being seriously challenged on any of the issues. If there’s even the slightest chance Ron Paul might win his Party’s nomination (or win the presidency in a third-party three-way split), someone needs to start asking him the hard questions.

Thursday’s Sixth and final list: Santorum, Huntsman and The Rest. And again a reminder to check previous lists for Romney, Gingrich, Bachmann and Perry for updates.

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Sign my petition for GREEN JOBS TOMORROW fast & cheap. Use those $4 Billion in oil subsidies to put Solar Panels on the roofs of 40,000 government buildings, or order 100,000 hybrid mail-trucks. Not only would this INSTANTLY CREATE JOBS, it would spark ENTIRE INDUSTRIES with a future, reduce our dependency on oil, reduce greenhouse emissions, and quickly pay for itself (and cut future expenses) with the energy savings. We need 5,000 signatures by December 20th (extended to January 20th).

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The List II: Rick Perry

Dumb. No other word better sums up Texas Governor and “George W Bush wannabe” Gov. Rick “Good Hair” Perry. Not just ANY kind of dumb, but that special kind of Palin-dumb found only amongst rural Evangelical governors from oil-producing states. This is a man that threatened Texas might secede from the union if Congress passed “ObamaCare”. And the reason he believed Texas could even do such a thing was a faint childhood memory of an obscure clause in the Texas Constitution from when it agreed to join the Union in 1845. A “factoid” most Texas school-children learned in third-grade Texas History class. But as any (pre-Bush) Texas school child could tell you, that clause doesn’t give Texas the right to “secede”, only the right to “divide itself up into as many as five separate states” at any time if it so chooses. When this little technicality was pointed out to the Texas Governor, rather than admit his error, he concocted a convoluted Palin-like excuse that “he knew it all along, but was arguing that Congress would rather “kick Texas out of the union before giving it six more Senators” (pardon the lack of a link. It’s such as obscure quote I’m going off memory). Riiiight! As if the GOP wouldn’t LOVE six more senators from Texas. If you buy that excuse, you probably also think we won the Battle for the Alamo. (And as I’ve heard others say: “Nothing like a candidate for President of the United States who’s not hung up on that whole ‘United’ part.”) Having lived in Texas almost my entire life, I have more familiarity with the Texas governor than most. Perry was George W. Bush’s Lieutenant Governor before Bush became president, and has been governor ever since thanks to high Evangelical voter turnout and Perry’s history of avoiding debates (and we can all see why now). The worst kind of conspicuous Evangelical, Perry exemplifies the very kind of person Mathew-6:5 denounces.

Perry’s claim to fame that catapulted him onto the National stage was “The Texas ”Miracle”… a wildly misleading claim that Texas was responsible for creating “37″… “45″… “nearly 50 percent of all jobs created in the United States since Obama became president.” (notice how the number kept rising everytime someone new was asked?) It was, of course, total horseshit. It was quickly pointed out that the bulk of Perry’s jobs were “at or BELOW Minimum Wage, in the oil industry, and bolstered by a massive increase in government hiring paid for with STIMULUS DOLLARS from the Federal government. The population of Texas also exploded by more than 2 million people in those two years, only 10% of whom actually found jobs, but account for 200,000 of the jobs in Texas’ “phenomenal job growth”. With the “jobs” advantage all but gone, a string of miserable debate performances, an unpopular and highly criticized attack upon “Social Security, calling it “a massive Ponzi Scheme”, and coming out as supporting both a health care mandate in his home state (HPV vaccines for young girls) and compassion for the children of illegal immigrants (BOO!!!), this “anti-Mitt Savior” Conservatives once begged to get into the race thinking this Evangelical record-setting-executioner and multiple-term governor with great jobs record, that looked unbeatable on paper, quickly fell into the single-digit basement, where he has been stuck ever since.

Last October, Perry finally released his much awaited “Jobs Plan”. Everyone was eager to see how the governor with the best job-creation record in the country was going to revive the economy and put Americans back to work. What we got instead was a 39 page “Creating domestic jobs” Plan where the ONLY industry mentioned was The Energy Sector… 90% of which focused on increased oil & natural gas production… which should have come as no surprise to anyone since Energy is almost entirely responsible for the bulk of Perry’s “Texas ”Miracle”. So if you work in the High Tech industry, are a civil servant, or even a simple farmer, Perry’s “Jobs Plan” has no plan for you. A “Birther” and a “Tenther”, Perry’s only move left is to wink at the camera during the next debate and say, “You betcha!”

So, without further ado, Perry’s “List”:

1. 10 reasons why the Texas economy has nothing to do with Perry (Houston Chronicle:)
2. REPORT: Perry's Texas Ranks Dead Last In Total Job Creation, Accounting For Labor Force Growth
3. After Claiming Government ‘Doesn’t Create Any Jobs,’ Perry Brags: ‘I Helped Create A Million Jobs’
4. List: Perry is Bush + Tea Party
5. Top 10 Things Texas Gov. Rick Perry Doesn’t Want You To Know About Him
6. Despite Perry’s Tough Budget Talk, Texas’ Debt Growing Faster Than The Nation’s
7. Rick Perry Doubled Texas’ Debt, Then Balanced Budget Through Accounting Gimmicks
8. Perry's Budget Cuts Force Texas Town To Lay Off Entire Police Force
9. As Perry Bashed Recovery Act, Texas Relied Most Heavily On Recovery Act Funds To Fill Budget Hole
10. Ten Reasons Why Rick Perry Shouldn’t Take Credit For Texas’ Economy
11. Texas Public Employee Rick Perry: ‘Government Doesn’t Create Any Jobs’
12. Perry: Texans Don’t Like Me Because ‘A Prophet Is…Not Loved In Their Hometown’
13. Rick Perry Wants To Leave Government ‘In God’s Hands,’ Says ‘God, You’re Gonna Have To Fix This’
14. Rick Perry's Prayer Rally Loaded With Radical Right Wing Preachers
15. PROFILE: The Outlandish Beliefs Of Rick Perry’s Prayer Rally Endorsers
16. Perry Prayer Rally Dwarfed By Texans Who Flock To Nearby Convention Center, Desperate For Free School Supplies
17. Rick Perry: ‘I Don’t Have Any Idea’ How Old The Earth Is; Evolution’s A ‘Theory’ That’s ‘Got Some Gaps In It’
18. Rick Perry Is Trying To Make Climate Denial A Faith-Based Issue ("evolution is a hoax")
19. Perry Wants Constitutional Amendment Allowing Children to Pray at School
Uh, Governor Perry, children ARE allowed to pray at school. There’s NO law “prohibiting it”. School SPONSORED prayer is illegal. Moron.
20. Anti-Government Spending Crusader Rick Perry Accepted More Than $80,000 In Farm Subsidies
21. Perry’s Jobs Miracle: From 2009 To 2010, Texas Had Largest Growth In State, Local Government Jobs
22. Rick Perry opposes direct election of United States senators
23. Rick Perry: ‘I Don’t Think The Federal Government Has A Role’ In Education
24. Former Bush Aides Slam Perry’s Bernanke Comments: ‘Inappropriate And Unpresidential,’ Too ‘Cowboy’
25. Perry Reveals Plan For Total U.S. Anarchy: ‘Put A Moratorium On All Regulations’
26. Perry Proposes Economically Impossible State Takeover Of Social Security
27. The Ten Weirdest Ideas In Rick Perry’s ‘Fed Up’

28. Perry Claims Federal Stimulus ‘Didn’t Create Any Jobs,’ Ignoring The 50,000 It Created In Texas
29. Rick Perry Sought State Profits from Selling 'Dead Peasants Insurance' on Teachers
30. BREAKING: Perry Says He Hasn’t ‘Backed Off Anything’ In His Book, Still Thinks Social Security Is Unconstitutional
31. Perry Says Social Security Is No Longer A ‘Retirement Program’ But Simply A ‘Tax’
32. Rick Perry stands by his book, says Social Security is a Ponzi scheme
33. Citing his book, Rick Perry tells Iowans that 'there's not going to be a Social Security and Medicare program' in the future
34. Perry Ditches Idea That Social Security Is Unconstitutional, Adopts Privatization Plan The Public Already Rejected
35. Rick Perry Asked Why More Kids Are Getting Pregnant in Texas
36. Rick Perry’s Execution Record Includes The Deaths Of Juveniles And The Mentally Disabled
37. Hunger Rate Spikes In Rick Perry’s Texas, Even As National Rate Holds Steady
38. Gov. Rick Perry Dragged His Feet On Cleaning Up TX Youth Facilities Where Children Were Raped
39. Rick Perry says he regrets saying it's 'heartless' to oppose education for children of immigrants
40. Perry Repeatedly Cut Child Abuse Prevention Funding As Texas Battled Rising Levels Of Abuse
41. Rick Perry blocking Texas media on Twitter
42. Top 5 Examples of Perry’s Anti-Gay Agenda
43. Over The Last Decade, Half Of Rick Perry’s $102 Million In Fundraising Came From Just 204 ‘Mega-Donors’
44. Perry welcomed Chinese firm despite security concern
45. PolitiFact report card on Gov. Rick Perry
46. Rick Perry Wants To Frack Iowa
47. Rick Perry Can’t Defend His Claim That Social Security Is Unconstitutional Because He’s ‘Got A Big Mouthful’
48. Perry Flip-Flops On Immigration Policy: We Must ‘Clearly Stay Away’ From A Pathway To Citizenship
49. Perry Calls For Even Bigger Corporate Tax Repatriation Giveaway Than Corporations Have Asked For
50. Bruce Bartlett: Rick Perry is an idiot
51. One Week Into Campaign, Perry's Book does not reflect Perry's views
52. Corporate Cronyism: Perry Rewarded Hundreds Of Top Contributors With Government Jobs, Contracts
53. Rick Perry Compares Civil Rights Movement To GOP Fight For Lower Corporate Taxes ("freedon")
54. Perry gutted Womens healthcare. Medicare picks up $20million slack.
55. Rick Perry: Extending Private Health Insurance To Everyone Is ‘A Huge Problem’
56. Rick Perry automatically deletes all staffer emails after seven days (state law violation?)
57. Perry Proposed A Bi-National Health Insurance Plan With Mexico In 2001
58. Perry Courts Radical Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Continues Rightward Move On Immigration
59. Perry Admits Higher Taxes On Millionaires And Billionaires ‘Isn’t Going To Affect Anything'
60. Before Wildfires, Perry Cut Volunteer Fire Department Funding by 75% in 2011
61. Perry: It's the feds' fault so many Texans are uninsured
62. Rick Perry’s ‘Washington Kickoff’ Fundraiser Hosted By Longtime (HPV) Merck Lobbyist
63. Perry Wants To Build Afghanistan’s Infrastructure, Opposes Obama Plan To Build America’s
64. Perry’s Muddled Stance On Afghanistan: Bring The Troops Home…But Not Now…And Maybe Leave 40,000
65. Perry Used Taxpayer Money To Subsidize Family Vacations, Presidential Campaign Events
66. Rick Perry's College Transcript: A Lot Of Cs And Ds
67. Rick Perry Rewrites His Own History Again, Claims He Never Considered Secession
68. Anita Perry Defends Her Husband’s Job Creation Record: ‘People Are Hungry For’ Minimum Wage Jobs
69. Rick Perry’s Revisionist Take On The Original Tea Party
70. Rick Perry’s Budget Cuts Will Leave 49,000 Teachers Without A Job And 43,000 College Students Without Financial Aid
71. Cain Calls Perry ‘Insensitive’ To Black People For Not Changing Racist Name Of Family’s Hunting Camp
72. Perry subsidized subprime lenders
73. Top 10 Giveaways To Big Oil In Rick Perry’s ‘Jobs’ Plans
74. Ignoring World Wars And 9/11, Perry Says ‘The World Has Never Been As Dangerous As It Is Today’ Because Of Obama
75. Rick Perry Voted Against Apartheid-era South Africa Sanctions
76. Perry On Whether His Tax Plan Gives Millions In Tax Breaks To The Rich: ‘I Don’t Care About That’
77. Rick Perry Shows Why He Got a D in Economics (flat tax windfall for rich)
78. Perry Touts Reductions To Safety Net Health Programs, But Says He’s ‘Not Ready’ To Cut Defense
79. Perry Campaign Owes $230,000 More for jets leased at BELOW legal rate.
80. Full video of Perry's bizarre "Cornerstone" speech (Syrup cuddler)
81. Perry’s Tax Plan Would Cost More Than $500 Billion A Year While Increasing Taxes On Most Of The Middle-Class
82. A Closer look at the Perry tax plan
83. Perry: Ending The Iraq War Is ‘Irresponsible,’ ‘Putting Our Kids’ Lives In Jeopardy’
84. Chris Wallace to Rick Perry: Your Jobs Plan Is 'Terrible'
85. ANALYSIS: Warren Buffett Would Pay As Little As 0.2 Percent Tax Rate Under Rick Perry’s Tax Plan
86. Perry Says Aid To Israel ‘Would Start At Zero’ In His Administration: ‘Make Your Case’ For U.S. Assistance
87. Perry to Federal Workers: 'Share My Vision' or Get Punished
88. Rick Perry Issues Nasty Statement Condemning Obama’s Push To Protect LGBT Human Rights
89. Perry Admits His Tax Plan Slams Low-Income People And Lets The Wealthy Pay Nothing
90. After Meeting With Trump, Perry says ‘I Don’t Know’ If Obama’s Birth Certificate Is Real
91. After Calling It ‘A Good Issue To Keep Alive,’ Perry Says Birther Conspiracy Is ‘One Of The Biggest Distractions’
92. Rick Perry Tries to Walk Back His Remarks on Secession
93. Gov. Perry Talks Secession for Texas at Tea Party: "Texas Can Leave Union If It Wants To"
94. Perry places Date Of American Revolution in "16th Century".
95. Perry Speechless When Asked If He Agrees With Occupy Wall Street (moron)
96. Rick Perry: ‘I Don’t Have Memorized’ The Names Of All 9 Supreme Court Justices
97. Rick Perry Forgets the US Voting Age, Election Date
98. Rick Perry Fails Govt 101: Claims Executive Orders Can Repeal Laws Passed By Congress
99. After watching a pro-life movie produced by Rightwing Activist group “Citizens United” just after this Christmas, pro-life Perry declared that he “no longer supports exceptions for victims of rape or incest.”
100. Perry: U.S. Should Buy More Canadian Oil So ‘We Don’t Have To Buy From A Foreign Source’
The man is dumb as a stump. Seems Perry only considers “brown people” to be “foreign”.
101. Perry Vows To Openly Defy Any Supreme Court Decision Striking Down Any Anti-‘Personhood’ Law.
From the same people that openly weep when talking about the Constitution. Theocrats like Perry only enforce those laws that support their beliefs.
102. Perry: “I Would Re-Deploy Troops [back] To Iraq” To Prevent Iran Moving In “At The Speed of Light”.
103. Just in case you were thinking his support for the racist Sheriff Joe Arpaio was another Perry-gaffe: Perry Selects Sheriff Joe Arpaio As AZ Campaign Chair.
104. Oops, Rick Did It Again: Perry Forgets The Three Federal Agencies He Wants To Abolish. – Names three, but not the SAME three as last time.
105. Perry calls Turkey… U.S. ally and largest democracy in mid-East… “run by Islamic Terrorists” and should be kicked out of NATO. – Would this be BEFORE or AFTER they pull their troops aiding us in Afghanistan?

– When given the opportunity to recant calling our allies “terrorists” the next day, Perry instead doubles-down & repeats his insult.

Yes, those of you keeping count, Perry does indeed have the most links so far. The man is just THAT disconnected from reality.

Next “List”, Ron Paul, Monday.

(PS Reminder: Be sure to go back and check out the updates to past lists for Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Michele Bachmann.)

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Sign my petition for GREEN JOBS TOMORROW fast & cheap. Use those $4 Billion in oil subsidies to put Solar Panels on the roofs of 40,000 government buildings, or order 100,000 hybrid mail-trucks. Not only would this INSTANTLY CREATE JOBS, it would spark ENTIRE INDUSTRIES with a future, reduce our dependency on oil, reduce greenhouse emissions, and quickly pay for itself (and cut future expenses) with the energy savings. We need 5,000 signatures by December 20th.

	Please REGISTER to post COMMENTS and be notified by e-mail every time this Blog is updated! Firefox/IE7+ users can use RSS for a browser link that lists the latest posts!