From Media Matters For America -- September 30, 2010:
Highbrow Birtherism: D'Souza links Obama policies to "the ideology of a Luo tribesman"
Dinesh D'Souza appeared on Fox News' Glenn Beck to discuss how his "anti-colonialist" theory explains the motivations behind President Obama's policy decisions. While doing so, D'Souza invented some facts and mangled others in order to peddle the ridiculous notion that President Obama is "a captive of the ideology of a Luo tribesman from the 1950s."
D'Souza's highbrow birtherism attributes Obama's policy decisions to his African heritage
D'Souza: Obama is "a captive of the ideology of a Luo tribesman from the 1950s." On the September 30 edition of Glenn Beck, after making a variety of false, misleading, or bizarre assertions about President Obama, D'Souza claimed:
Obama is not anti-American in that he wishes ill on America. He wants what's best for America. He thinks it's really bad for us to be a colonial power. And therefore, in his view, he is doing right for America by pulling us out, by knocking us off our pedestal, by in a sense taking us from being the world's arrogant superpower. He wants us to share the wealth. He thinks he's gonna get a better America. The problem is, he's stuck in this theory, he's frozen in this time machine. In a sense, he's a captive of the ideology of a Luo tribesman from the 1950s. It's an incredible idea.
D'Souza myth: Obama returned Churchill bust to Britain to lash out at Chuchill's colonial policies
D'Souza Claim: Obama returned Churchill bust due to hatred of Churchill's colonialist policies. D'Souza claimed that Obama's "anti-colonialism explains" the return of a bust of Winston Churchill to the British government when Obama took office "very well," saying that Obama had returned the bust because of his opposition to Churchill's colonialist actions during his tenure as prime minister.
D'Souza said that the torture of Obama's grandfather and arrest of his father during the British response to the Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya gave Obama "good reason" to hate Churchill.
Fact: Obama never met paternal grandfather, bust was scheduled for return. As Media Matters has noted when Beck has advanced the same theory, D'Souza's explanation is undermined by the facts that Obama never met his paternal grandfather, the bust was scheduled for return to the British prior to Obama's presidency, and other British-based artifacts and gifts remain in the Oval Office during Obama's presidency.
D'Souza myth: Obama administration was "okay" with release of Lockerbie bomber
D'Souza Claim: Letter was sent to the Scottish government saying release of the Lockerbie bomber was "okay." D'Souza said that a letter was sent to the government of Scotland from the Obama administration explaining that the release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, would be "okay." D'Souza said Obama's supposed anti-colonialist point of view justified this release because from that perspective, "America is the rogue element, invading other countries," so "Muslims who strike out against America are 'freedom fighters', they are resisters of American imperialism." D'Souza claimed that Obama saw "a fellow anti-colonialist" in the Lockerbie bomber, and would think, "This guy's like my dad, he's striking against the Western -- the American oppressor."
Fact: Obama administration opposed the release of Lockerbie bomber. On July 26, the State Department released the letter sent from the U.S. government to the Scottish Ministry of Justice regarding the proposed release of Al Megrahi, which made clear that Obama administration supported keeping al-Megrahi imprisoned, but that in the event he was released, they preferred to release him in Scotland rather than send him to Libya. The letter stated:
The United States is not prepared to support Megrahi's release on compassionate release or bail. We understand that Scottish authorities are ensuring that Megrahi receives quality medical treatment, including palliative care, while incarcerated. The United States maintains its view that in light of the scope of Megrahi's crime, its heinous nature, and its continued and devastating impact on the victims and their families, it would be most appropriate for Megrahi to remain imprisoned for the entirety of his sentence. This was the understanding and expectation at the time arrangements were made for his trial in Scottish Court in the Netherlands, were he or his confederate to be convicted and their appeals upheld.
D'Souza myth: Obama administration goal is "to get out" of Afghanistan, as evidenced by him not using word "victory"
D'Souza Claim: Obama's goal in Afghanistan is "to get out" because anti-colonialists view it as a war "of colonial occupation," Obama "defines success with withdrawal." D'Souza said that President Obama's goal in Afghanistan was "to get out" because anti-colonialists view the conflict as one "of colonial occupation." D'Souza cited as evidence that Obama "defines success as getting out" that he "doesn't like to use the word 'victory.'" He added, "I don't think he cares if the Taliban comes in; that's secondary to him. The main issue is: we've got to get out."
Fact: Obama has stated goals in Afghanistan include the elimination of a safe haven for Al Qaeda, opposing the Taliban, and training Afghan security forces. From Obama's remarks at West Point on May 22:
We face a tough fight in Afghanistan. Any insurgency that is confronted with a direct challenge will turn to new tactics. And from Marja to Kandahar, that is what the Taliban has done through assassination and indiscriminate killing and intimidation. Moreover, any country that has known decades of war will be tested in finding political solutions to its problems, and providing governance that can sustain progress and serve the needs of its people.
So this war has changed over the last nine years, but it's no less important than it was in those days after 9/11. We toppled the Taliban regime -- now we must break the momentum of a Taliban insurgency and train Afghan security forces. We have supported the election of a sovereign government -- now we must strengthen its capacities. We've brought hope to the Afghan people -- now we must see that their country does not fall prey to our common enemies. Cadets, there will be difficult days ahead. We will adapt, we will persist, and I have no doubt that together with our Afghan and international partners, we will succeed in Afghanistan.
From "What's New In the Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan", released March 27, 2009 by the Obama administration:
On March 27, 2009, the President announced a comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan that is the culmination of a careful 60-day, interagency strategic review. During the review process, we consulted with the Afghan and Pakistani governments, partners and NATO allies, other donors, international organizations and members of Congress. The strategy starts with a clear, concise, attainable goal: disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens. The President's new approach will be flexible and adoptive and include frequent evaluations of the progress being made.
Military experts including Petraeus agree that a "decisive military victory" in Afghanistan is unlikely. Many military leaders, including commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan Gen. David Petraeus, have said that Afghanistan is not a war "you win." A September 22 Washington Post article quoted Petraeus discussing Afghanistan with reporter Bob Woodward: "You have to recognize also that I don't think you win this war. I think you keep fighting. It's a little bit like Iraq, actually. ... Yes, there has been enormous progress in Iraq. But there are still horrific attacks in Iraq, and you have to stay vigilant. You have to stay after it. This is the kind of fight we're in for the rest of our lives and probably our kids' lives."
D'Souza myth: Moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf is to "decrease U.S. energy consumption" so that "previously colonized countries have more"
D'Souza Claim: Obama supports moratorium on oil drilling in order "to decrease U.S. energy consumption so that we have less and previously colonized countries have more." D'Souza claimed that President Obama's support for a moratorium on oil drilling is due to his desire to "decrease U.S. energy consumption so that we have less so that previously colonized countries have more." D'Souza also said that this justified Obama "subsidiz[ing] oil drilling in Brazil," which Brazil sells to China.
Fact: Obama administration supports moratorium due to environmental safety concerns after the BP spill. A May 28 memorandum issued by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to the director of the Minerals Management Service said that in the wake of "the recent blow-out and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico," "I find at this time and under current conditions that offshore drilling of new deepwater wells poses an unacceptable threat of serious and irreparable harm to wildlife and the marine, coastal, and human environment" and that "[t]herefore, I am directing a six month suspension of all pending, current, or approved offshore dri lling operations of new deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific regions."
A June 16 Washington Post article explained that "the same tiny Texas subcontractor" authored the Gulf spill response plans for BP, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Shell Oil, and ExxonMobil, The same article also indicated that those companies "listed the phone number for the same University of Miami marine science expert, Peter Lutz, who died in 2005" in their spill response plans.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
The Dishonest Republican Pig David Bossie Is Back --- Oink, Oink!
From The Daily Beast --- September 30, 2010:
Clinton Nemesis Now After Obama
By Benjamin Sarlin
Investigative pit bull David Bossie was Bill Clinton's worst nightmare. He's back, telling Benjamin Sarlin about his admiration for his old rivals—and how today's GOP should hogtie the Democrats.
Time has mellowed David Bossie a little. The conservative investigative attack dog—who once lived in a Maryland firehouse, rushing to extinguish Montgomery County fires when he wasn't lighting them on Capitol Hill—has settled down, with a wife and three kids. Indeed, the man best known as a heat-seeking missile aimed at the hull of the Clinton White House has even grown philosophical about his former prey.
"These guys were the best, and I mean that," Bossie says, huddled in his sunlit office not far from the Capitol, reminiscing about the Clinton palace guard—Rahm Emanuel, Lanny Davis, David Kendall, Bruce Lindsey and others—with whom he did fierce battle for years. "I'm not talking about good. I'm talking about the greats. These guys were goooood… incredibly smart,
incredibly dedicated to salvaging the Clintons. They would do anything for their guy."
But Bossie isn't some retired warrior, reflecting on long-gone glory days on the battlefield. He's gearing up for a whole new fight. Now president of Citizens United, the group that persuaded the Supreme Court to open the floodgates to special interests spending unlimited cash on elections, Bossie speaks kindly of the Clinton crowd only in comparison with the Obama team—which he sees as a gang of dangerous radicals. And so today, flanked by a bust of Ronald Reagan decked in a cowboy hat and a portrait of George Washington confidently crossing the Delaware, Bossie readies himself for his new mission—to help advise the resurgent Republicans on how to seize power in November, and use it to tie Obama and congressional Democrats in knots.
"I do talk to members of the [House oversight] committee," Bossie said. "I talk to people who will potentially be chairmen of subcommittees as well and I look forward to having the opportunity to tell them what we did right and what we did wrong, to be candid. There are lessons to be learned."
He learned them the hard way. Bossie burst onto the Washington stage during the 1992 presidential campaign. A top dog at Citizens United even then, he helped put together the group's searing takedown of then-candidate Clinton, a paperback entitled "Slick Willie."
In the run-up to Clinton's election, CBS reported that Bossie aggressively questioned, even harassed, the family of the late Susan Coleman, who killed herself after a (falsely) rumored affair with the then-governor in 1977. Later, Bossie and then-president of Citizens United Floyd Brown led the charge to investigate Clinton aide Vince Foster's suicide—searching for signs of foul play. As a Republican congressional staffer, he helped drive a years-long investigation into the Clintons' Whitewater real-estate investment—a crusade that ultimately failed to yield charges against the White House but earned Bossie an eternal place in Democratic lore as a boogeyman. Clinton adviser James Carville told The Washington Post at the time that Bossie's work on the case was "the greatest political dirty trick in American history."
“These guys were goooood,” Bossie says, “incredibly smart, incredibly dedicated to salvaging the Clintons. They would do anything for their guy.”
Bossie says he was driven at the time by his belief that Clinton was some kind of socialist sleeper agent. "When we looked at his background, we were worried he was a radical leftist who was in essence using that Southern governorship as a vehicle [to the White House]" he said. Today, Bossie freely admits he was wrong, and gives Clinton full credit for working with Republicans to balance the budget and reform welfare.
"I hark back for it," Bossie said of the Clinton years. "I think he was an undisciplined man on one front, but I think he was simply not as strident a leftist as we all thought he was when he came into power."
Bossie enjoyed the chase. Of his own team of House and Senate investigators, he says fondly: "We'd give as good as we got." Well, maybe not quite as good. Clinton went on to survive everything Bossie threw at him—not to mention Ken Starr's impeachment charges—and serve out his term. Bossie lost his job in 1998, forced out by House leaders for releasing interviews with a Whitewater witness that were selectively edited to disparage the Clintons. Bossie, who denied wrongdoing, shows no signs of bitterness over his fate. Newt Gingrich, who reportedly was responsible for the dismissal, now works closely with Bossie to promote Citizen's United films.
"When you're playing the Super Bowl there are no simple and innocent mistakes and I understood that," he said. "I had a really good run considering I thought I'd last about five minutes… where I am today, it might have been the best thing that ever happened to me."
Bossie stayed active during the Bush years. He blasted Al Gore in a book in 2000, wrote an article after the 9/11 attacks slamming the Clinton administration for failing to connect the intelligence dots, and went after the 2004 Democratic nominee in a volume entitled The Many Faces of John Kerry. The 2008 campaign found him focused anew on the Clintons, taking aim at Hillary. Barack Obama, on the other hand, fascinated him—at least at first.
"It was awe-inspiring to watch them even though we were opposed to them," Bossie recalls of Team Obama during the campaign. "They were so smart, they had their finger on the pulse, they know exactly what was going to happen before it happened—whether it was taking on Hillary Clinton or John McCain."
But Bossie's admiration faded swiftly after Inauguration Day. "Then it came to governing, and boy what a difference a day makes. The second he took the oath of office they went from being incredibly smart and savvy to incredibly tone-deaf… then along came the arrogance and they decided it was their way or the highway. And man you get paid back in spades in this town when you do that."
At least this time, the Democrats see Bossie and his allies coming.
"There will be two years of unrelenting investigation of the White House, the staff, the Cabinet," Bill Clinton recently warned at his annual CGI gathering. Many of these concerns are focused on Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the would-be chairman of the House Oversight Committee, based on his proud role as "the chief antagonist to Barack Obama," as his spokesman put it to Newsweek. Profiles of the congressman inevitably bring up Bossie's former boss, Congressman Dan Burton, who used to hold the chairman's gavel on the committee.
"I think there's a real concern that when the Republicans take over it's going to be nothing but various witch hunts to find something to impeach the president for," one longtime Democratic aide told The Daily Beast, citing Burton as the model.
And Bossie will once again be in the thick of it, all the more dangerous for having learned from his past crusades.
Republican investigators eager to dig in after the election should study the Clinton team's "remarkably successful" PR counteroffensive, Bossie recommends.
"What the White House did was make us into the bad guys," he said. "They did it every minute of every day so at a certain point the American people got tired of the investigations even though they were necessary."
He's also wary of letting his opponents define the contours of the playing field. The Clinton crew outmaneuvered him, he says, creating "this belief that it had to meet legal requirements. "Well, guess what," Bossie said, his voice rising notably, "it's never Congress' job to do that! It's the court of public opinion, not a grand jury or a jury of your peers."
As he gears up, he admits to a little Clinton nostalgia. "If you look back now with the benefit of hindsight, oh how I wish he was president today compared to this guy in there now. That guy in there now is truly a radical."
Clinton Nemesis Now After Obama
By Benjamin Sarlin
Investigative pit bull David Bossie was Bill Clinton's worst nightmare. He's back, telling Benjamin Sarlin about his admiration for his old rivals—and how today's GOP should hogtie the Democrats.
Time has mellowed David Bossie a little. The conservative investigative attack dog—who once lived in a Maryland firehouse, rushing to extinguish Montgomery County fires when he wasn't lighting them on Capitol Hill—has settled down, with a wife and three kids. Indeed, the man best known as a heat-seeking missile aimed at the hull of the Clinton White House has even grown philosophical about his former prey.
"These guys were the best, and I mean that," Bossie says, huddled in his sunlit office not far from the Capitol, reminiscing about the Clinton palace guard—Rahm Emanuel, Lanny Davis, David Kendall, Bruce Lindsey and others—with whom he did fierce battle for years. "I'm not talking about good. I'm talking about the greats. These guys were goooood… incredibly smart,
incredibly dedicated to salvaging the Clintons. They would do anything for their guy."
But Bossie isn't some retired warrior, reflecting on long-gone glory days on the battlefield. He's gearing up for a whole new fight. Now president of Citizens United, the group that persuaded the Supreme Court to open the floodgates to special interests spending unlimited cash on elections, Bossie speaks kindly of the Clinton crowd only in comparison with the Obama team—which he sees as a gang of dangerous radicals. And so today, flanked by a bust of Ronald Reagan decked in a cowboy hat and a portrait of George Washington confidently crossing the Delaware, Bossie readies himself for his new mission—to help advise the resurgent Republicans on how to seize power in November, and use it to tie Obama and congressional Democrats in knots.
"I do talk to members of the [House oversight] committee," Bossie said. "I talk to people who will potentially be chairmen of subcommittees as well and I look forward to having the opportunity to tell them what we did right and what we did wrong, to be candid. There are lessons to be learned."
He learned them the hard way. Bossie burst onto the Washington stage during the 1992 presidential campaign. A top dog at Citizens United even then, he helped put together the group's searing takedown of then-candidate Clinton, a paperback entitled "Slick Willie."
In the run-up to Clinton's election, CBS reported that Bossie aggressively questioned, even harassed, the family of the late Susan Coleman, who killed herself after a (falsely) rumored affair with the then-governor in 1977. Later, Bossie and then-president of Citizens United Floyd Brown led the charge to investigate Clinton aide Vince Foster's suicide—searching for signs of foul play. As a Republican congressional staffer, he helped drive a years-long investigation into the Clintons' Whitewater real-estate investment—a crusade that ultimately failed to yield charges against the White House but earned Bossie an eternal place in Democratic lore as a boogeyman. Clinton adviser James Carville told The Washington Post at the time that Bossie's work on the case was "the greatest political dirty trick in American history."
“These guys were goooood,” Bossie says, “incredibly smart, incredibly dedicated to salvaging the Clintons. They would do anything for their guy.”
Bossie says he was driven at the time by his belief that Clinton was some kind of socialist sleeper agent. "When we looked at his background, we were worried he was a radical leftist who was in essence using that Southern governorship as a vehicle [to the White House]" he said. Today, Bossie freely admits he was wrong, and gives Clinton full credit for working with Republicans to balance the budget and reform welfare.
"I hark back for it," Bossie said of the Clinton years. "I think he was an undisciplined man on one front, but I think he was simply not as strident a leftist as we all thought he was when he came into power."
Bossie enjoyed the chase. Of his own team of House and Senate investigators, he says fondly: "We'd give as good as we got." Well, maybe not quite as good. Clinton went on to survive everything Bossie threw at him—not to mention Ken Starr's impeachment charges—and serve out his term. Bossie lost his job in 1998, forced out by House leaders for releasing interviews with a Whitewater witness that were selectively edited to disparage the Clintons. Bossie, who denied wrongdoing, shows no signs of bitterness over his fate. Newt Gingrich, who reportedly was responsible for the dismissal, now works closely with Bossie to promote Citizen's United films.
"When you're playing the Super Bowl there are no simple and innocent mistakes and I understood that," he said. "I had a really good run considering I thought I'd last about five minutes… where I am today, it might have been the best thing that ever happened to me."
Bossie stayed active during the Bush years. He blasted Al Gore in a book in 2000, wrote an article after the 9/11 attacks slamming the Clinton administration for failing to connect the intelligence dots, and went after the 2004 Democratic nominee in a volume entitled The Many Faces of John Kerry. The 2008 campaign found him focused anew on the Clintons, taking aim at Hillary. Barack Obama, on the other hand, fascinated him—at least at first.
"It was awe-inspiring to watch them even though we were opposed to them," Bossie recalls of Team Obama during the campaign. "They were so smart, they had their finger on the pulse, they know exactly what was going to happen before it happened—whether it was taking on Hillary Clinton or John McCain."
But Bossie's admiration faded swiftly after Inauguration Day. "Then it came to governing, and boy what a difference a day makes. The second he took the oath of office they went from being incredibly smart and savvy to incredibly tone-deaf… then along came the arrogance and they decided it was their way or the highway. And man you get paid back in spades in this town when you do that."
At least this time, the Democrats see Bossie and his allies coming.
"There will be two years of unrelenting investigation of the White House, the staff, the Cabinet," Bill Clinton recently warned at his annual CGI gathering. Many of these concerns are focused on Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the would-be chairman of the House Oversight Committee, based on his proud role as "the chief antagonist to Barack Obama," as his spokesman put it to Newsweek. Profiles of the congressman inevitably bring up Bossie's former boss, Congressman Dan Burton, who used to hold the chairman's gavel on the committee.
"I think there's a real concern that when the Republicans take over it's going to be nothing but various witch hunts to find something to impeach the president for," one longtime Democratic aide told The Daily Beast, citing Burton as the model.
And Bossie will once again be in the thick of it, all the more dangerous for having learned from his past crusades.
Republican investigators eager to dig in after the election should study the Clinton team's "remarkably successful" PR counteroffensive, Bossie recommends.
"What the White House did was make us into the bad guys," he said. "They did it every minute of every day so at a certain point the American people got tired of the investigations even though they were necessary."
He's also wary of letting his opponents define the contours of the playing field. The Clinton crew outmaneuvered him, he says, creating "this belief that it had to meet legal requirements. "Well, guess what," Bossie said, his voice rising notably, "it's never Congress' job to do that! It's the court of public opinion, not a grand jury or a jury of your peers."
As he gears up, he admits to a little Clinton nostalgia. "If you look back now with the benefit of hindsight, oh how I wish he was president today compared to this guy in there now. That guy in there now is truly a radical."
The Republican Party Belongs In an Insane Asylum
From The Huffington Post -- September 29, 2010:
Killing The False Equivalency "Both Sides" Meme
By Bob Cesca
Yesterday, Senator Jim DeMint, from the politically loopy state of South Carolina, announced that he intends to summarily block any Senate legislation that he finds personally objectionable, regardless of which party introduced the offending bill. This also goes for non-controversial legislation that would have normally blasted through the cooling saucer with unanimous consent.
Put another way, DeMint is exploiting an increasingly less obscure parliamentary maneuver to, in effect, shut down the United States Senate. And he's taking hostages.
It goes without saying this is inexcusable, and it serves to illustrate with striking clarity the lengths to which the Republicans will go to obstruct the Obama agenda and, more importantly, to sabotage this slow growth economic recovery.
As Rachel Maddow has tenaciously documented for many months now with her "They're Not Embarrassed" series, the congressional Republicans are incapable of feeling self-conscious about their their pandering to the tea party or their grinning photo-ops with giant stimulus checks they once violently opposed with threats of secession.
They're simply not ashamed to be the political equivalent of grade school recess spoil-sports. Hurling the kickball into the pricker bushes instead of sacking up and playing the game. No more deference to compromise -- even heated partisan debate that eventually leads to compromise. The Republicans of 2010 are all about childish breath-holding and ear-plugged "Lalalala! Can't hear you!" loud noises.
There aren't any grown-ups on that side of aisle anymore.
Conversely, while many of us on the left have excoriated the Democrats for capitulating to the Republicans on certain bits of legislation, objective distance along with continued observation of the post-Bush Republicans has offered a more positive perspective on the current majority party, specifically regarding how the Democrats behaved during the Bush years. Yes, they can be ineffectual, frustrating, disorganized and self-loathing -- too willing to repeat a Republican frame than to invent a uniquely Democratic one. But they're mostly adults.
The Democrats by and large have a record of compromise with Republicans, even though their comparative generosity hasn't been reciprocated by the Republicans. The Democrats understand that voters want to see legislative accomplishments and not idle grabassery. As the minority party, the Democrats compromised in the name of getting work done -- but, since leadership changed hands in 2007, the Republicans have filibustered twice as often. And since the inauguration, the Republicans have tried to filibuster nearly every piece of legislation that's brought to the floor for a vote. Middle class tax cuts, small business tax cuts, the healthcare reform bill, the recovery bill, military spending, unemployment benefits. All of it.
So it seems laughable on its face that otherwise smart people are going around these days and repeating this bullshit meme about how "both sides" are to blame for the insanity that's overtaken American politics.
The DeMint one-man choke hold on the entire Senate is unmatched on the Democratic side. The filibustering is unmatched. The brazen, hubristic flaunting of obvious hypocrisy is unmatched.
But still it's "both sides." Somehow. And I'm directly referencing here left-of-center writers, pundits and, disappointingly, guys like Jon Stewart, who's Rally to Restore Sanity is directed at "both sides."
It seems as though whenever Democrats control Washington, liberals shift focus from attacking conservatives and Republicans to attacking "both sides," perhaps out of some kind of hipster intellectual craving to seem fair-minded (falsely fair-minded in this case). Or maybe it's out of a desire to not appear subservient to the majority party. I don't know for sure.
Regardless of the motivations, an equivalency between "both sides" simply doesn't exist. But by being all-inclusive with criticism, the shotgun effect of the "both sides" meme taints the left with the far-right's exponentially crazier stink. A handful of trespasses on the left become inflated to and conflated with the the group-session-from-Cuckoo's-Nest meltdown happening on the right. Some legislative flailing on the Democratic side becomes incongruously magnified to the size of the all-out strangling of the U.S. Senate by the Republicans. To employ a metaphor here, I certainly hope that if I'm ticketed for rolling through some stop signs along an abandoned road, I'm not lumped in with drunken drivers who t-bone school buses filled with children. Sure, everyone breaks the law sometimes, but there are, of course, various levels of malfeasance -- levels that are deserving of different degrees of punishment and scorn.
Perhaps I'm missing something. But show me where there's equal and precise equivalencies between "both sides." Show me a TV pundit on the left with the same audience reach and capacity for wackaloon conspiracy theories as Glenn Beck. Show me a traditional media outlet on the left as massive as Fox News Channel or Clear Channel.
Sorry, "both sides" fetishists, but one viewing of her show proves that there's no comparison between Rachel Maddow's fact-based analysis and Sean Hannity's Republican talking point hootenanny.
Code Pink isn't anywhere near the size and influence of the tea party. Show me a left-wing radio personality as popular and well-financed as Rush Limbaugh, or a liberal radio personality as explicitly racist as Mike Savage.
Show me the photo ops in which Democrats proudly take credit for legislation they vocally opposed. Or show me someone at the highest level of Democratic power who still can't spell or speak coherent English -- who's nothing more than an overrated reality show grifter -- as Sarah Palin.
Show me Democratic obstructionism on the level of the Senate Republicans in the 111th Congress, or a Democratic senator who blocked every piece of legislation from coming to a vote. Show me a Democratic politician sex scandal with the same degree of flagrant hypocrisy as a Christian conservative "family values" Republican sex scandal. (It's worth noting here that the "both sides" meme can also be found among certain far-right whites who insist there's "racism on both sides" -- as though 13 percent of the population can be equally as racist as 70 percent of the population.)
Here's a real world example of the danger inherent in taking this shortsighted "both sides" view of the political spectrum. Ten years ago, the course of American history was irreversibly skewed, partly because too many liberals believed that Al Gore and George W. Bush were equally as lame. I remember it all quite clearly. Many of us thought both candidates were controlled by the same corporate benefactors. We thought they were both more or less indistinguishable on the issues. We yawned at the "lock box" droning and debate sighing from Gore, and we laughed at the verbal nincompoopery of Bush, and, at the end of the day, the glitches canceled each other out. And so, without seeing the forest for the trees, scores of us voted for Ralph Nader or stayed home altogether. Embarrassingly enough, I was one of those Nader votes. And those protest votes were enough to make the election nail-bitingly close, allowing the Supreme Court to ultimately tip the scales in favor of Bush.
It's almost overwhelming to recall how wrong we were, considering each candidate's polar opposite record over the subsequent decade. But we convinced ourselves that "both sides" were the same, when, in fact, history has proved this analysis to be resoundingly wrong. Devastatingly wrong.
While it's our duty as citizens to hold the government accountable, it's also necessary to operate within the bounds of reality when levying blame for a lack of sanity, or a lack of civility, or a lack of decent legislation. Ask yourself whether Republican obstructionism and contradictions are equally matched on the Democratic side. If the answer is "no," then decide which party ought to be appropriately spanked. Meanwhile, anyone who continues to employ the "both sides" meme, especially given the DeMint stunt, needs to seriously reevaluate their judgment criteria and wise up.
Killing The False Equivalency "Both Sides" Meme
By Bob Cesca
Yesterday, Senator Jim DeMint, from the politically loopy state of South Carolina, announced that he intends to summarily block any Senate legislation that he finds personally objectionable, regardless of which party introduced the offending bill. This also goes for non-controversial legislation that would have normally blasted through the cooling saucer with unanimous consent.
Put another way, DeMint is exploiting an increasingly less obscure parliamentary maneuver to, in effect, shut down the United States Senate. And he's taking hostages.
It goes without saying this is inexcusable, and it serves to illustrate with striking clarity the lengths to which the Republicans will go to obstruct the Obama agenda and, more importantly, to sabotage this slow growth economic recovery.
As Rachel Maddow has tenaciously documented for many months now with her "They're Not Embarrassed" series, the congressional Republicans are incapable of feeling self-conscious about their their pandering to the tea party or their grinning photo-ops with giant stimulus checks they once violently opposed with threats of secession.
They're simply not ashamed to be the political equivalent of grade school recess spoil-sports. Hurling the kickball into the pricker bushes instead of sacking up and playing the game. No more deference to compromise -- even heated partisan debate that eventually leads to compromise. The Republicans of 2010 are all about childish breath-holding and ear-plugged "Lalalala! Can't hear you!" loud noises.
There aren't any grown-ups on that side of aisle anymore.
Conversely, while many of us on the left have excoriated the Democrats for capitulating to the Republicans on certain bits of legislation, objective distance along with continued observation of the post-Bush Republicans has offered a more positive perspective on the current majority party, specifically regarding how the Democrats behaved during the Bush years. Yes, they can be ineffectual, frustrating, disorganized and self-loathing -- too willing to repeat a Republican frame than to invent a uniquely Democratic one. But they're mostly adults.
The Democrats by and large have a record of compromise with Republicans, even though their comparative generosity hasn't been reciprocated by the Republicans. The Democrats understand that voters want to see legislative accomplishments and not idle grabassery. As the minority party, the Democrats compromised in the name of getting work done -- but, since leadership changed hands in 2007, the Republicans have filibustered twice as often. And since the inauguration, the Republicans have tried to filibuster nearly every piece of legislation that's brought to the floor for a vote. Middle class tax cuts, small business tax cuts, the healthcare reform bill, the recovery bill, military spending, unemployment benefits. All of it.
So it seems laughable on its face that otherwise smart people are going around these days and repeating this bullshit meme about how "both sides" are to blame for the insanity that's overtaken American politics.
The DeMint one-man choke hold on the entire Senate is unmatched on the Democratic side. The filibustering is unmatched. The brazen, hubristic flaunting of obvious hypocrisy is unmatched.
But still it's "both sides." Somehow. And I'm directly referencing here left-of-center writers, pundits and, disappointingly, guys like Jon Stewart, who's Rally to Restore Sanity is directed at "both sides."
It seems as though whenever Democrats control Washington, liberals shift focus from attacking conservatives and Republicans to attacking "both sides," perhaps out of some kind of hipster intellectual craving to seem fair-minded (falsely fair-minded in this case). Or maybe it's out of a desire to not appear subservient to the majority party. I don't know for sure.
Regardless of the motivations, an equivalency between "both sides" simply doesn't exist. But by being all-inclusive with criticism, the shotgun effect of the "both sides" meme taints the left with the far-right's exponentially crazier stink. A handful of trespasses on the left become inflated to and conflated with the the group-session-from-Cuckoo's-Nest meltdown happening on the right. Some legislative flailing on the Democratic side becomes incongruously magnified to the size of the all-out strangling of the U.S. Senate by the Republicans. To employ a metaphor here, I certainly hope that if I'm ticketed for rolling through some stop signs along an abandoned road, I'm not lumped in with drunken drivers who t-bone school buses filled with children. Sure, everyone breaks the law sometimes, but there are, of course, various levels of malfeasance -- levels that are deserving of different degrees of punishment and scorn.
Perhaps I'm missing something. But show me where there's equal and precise equivalencies between "both sides." Show me a TV pundit on the left with the same audience reach and capacity for wackaloon conspiracy theories as Glenn Beck. Show me a traditional media outlet on the left as massive as Fox News Channel or Clear Channel.
Sorry, "both sides" fetishists, but one viewing of her show proves that there's no comparison between Rachel Maddow's fact-based analysis and Sean Hannity's Republican talking point hootenanny.
Code Pink isn't anywhere near the size and influence of the tea party. Show me a left-wing radio personality as popular and well-financed as Rush Limbaugh, or a liberal radio personality as explicitly racist as Mike Savage.
Show me the photo ops in which Democrats proudly take credit for legislation they vocally opposed. Or show me someone at the highest level of Democratic power who still can't spell or speak coherent English -- who's nothing more than an overrated reality show grifter -- as Sarah Palin.
Show me Democratic obstructionism on the level of the Senate Republicans in the 111th Congress, or a Democratic senator who blocked every piece of legislation from coming to a vote. Show me a Democratic politician sex scandal with the same degree of flagrant hypocrisy as a Christian conservative "family values" Republican sex scandal. (It's worth noting here that the "both sides" meme can also be found among certain far-right whites who insist there's "racism on both sides" -- as though 13 percent of the population can be equally as racist as 70 percent of the population.)
Here's a real world example of the danger inherent in taking this shortsighted "both sides" view of the political spectrum. Ten years ago, the course of American history was irreversibly skewed, partly because too many liberals believed that Al Gore and George W. Bush were equally as lame. I remember it all quite clearly. Many of us thought both candidates were controlled by the same corporate benefactors. We thought they were both more or less indistinguishable on the issues. We yawned at the "lock box" droning and debate sighing from Gore, and we laughed at the verbal nincompoopery of Bush, and, at the end of the day, the glitches canceled each other out. And so, without seeing the forest for the trees, scores of us voted for Ralph Nader or stayed home altogether. Embarrassingly enough, I was one of those Nader votes. And those protest votes were enough to make the election nail-bitingly close, allowing the Supreme Court to ultimately tip the scales in favor of Bush.
It's almost overwhelming to recall how wrong we were, considering each candidate's polar opposite record over the subsequent decade. But we convinced ourselves that "both sides" were the same, when, in fact, history has proved this analysis to be resoundingly wrong. Devastatingly wrong.
While it's our duty as citizens to hold the government accountable, it's also necessary to operate within the bounds of reality when levying blame for a lack of sanity, or a lack of civility, or a lack of decent legislation. Ask yourself whether Republican obstructionism and contradictions are equally matched on the Democratic side. If the answer is "no," then decide which party ought to be appropriately spanked. Meanwhile, anyone who continues to employ the "both sides" meme, especially given the DeMint stunt, needs to seriously reevaluate their judgment criteria and wise up.
Better a Bush "Capitalist" DJIA 6,000 than an Obama "Socialist" DJIA 11,000
Thank you, my dear little Tea Party buddy, for sending me a lovely anti-Obama cartoon about the American economy crashing -- on a day when the stock market is up nearly 100 points, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is about to close over 11,000 for the first time in years.
I realize you're nostalgic for Bush DJIA 6,000, and are doing everything in your power to bring back those Good Old Days.
I know exactly how you feel. I can feel your pain. "Better Dead Than Red".
It's much better for America to have a Bush "Capitalist" DJIA 6,000 than an Obama "Socialist" DJIA 11,000.
Right On, bro'.
Keep on drinking your tea.
I realize you're nostalgic for Bush DJIA 6,000, and are doing everything in your power to bring back those Good Old Days.
I know exactly how you feel. I can feel your pain. "Better Dead Than Red".
It's much better for America to have a Bush "Capitalist" DJIA 6,000 than an Obama "Socialist" DJIA 11,000.
Right On, bro'.
Keep on drinking your tea.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Since Two-Thirds of Americans Favor Gays Serving Openly in the Military, Why Are Republicans Blocking the Repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell?
From The Washington Post -- September 29, 2010:
Two-thirds of Americans support allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, according to a new poll released Wednesday.
Sixty seven percent of respondents to a new CNN survey favor permitting openly gay or lesbian people to serve in the military; 28 percent of respondents were opposed. Support for repealing the law dropped 2 points since a similar CNN poll in February.
(Note/Remember: CNN asked "Do you favor or oppose permitting people who are openly gay or lesbian to serve in the military?" That's very different than asking whether respondents favor/oppose repealing the military's "don't ask, don't tell" law. So if you see groups in favor of or opposed to ending the ban twisting these numbers to their advantage, carefully check how they characterize the new numbers.)
Support for repeal cuts across gender, age groups, income levels, geographic location and political persuasions. Depending on how respondents identified themselves, 80 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of independents, 51 percent of Republicans, 52 percent of conservatives, 80 percent of liberals and 78 percent of people who considered themselves "moderate" in the survey approve of gays in the military. A majority of respondents who are tea party supporters and a majority of those opposed to the tea party also support them.
Two-thirds of respondents to a February Washington Post/ABC News poll also supported openly gay people serving in the U.S. military.
But the Senate last week delayed an up or down vote on repealing the law known as "don't ask, don't tell" when Republicans blocked attempts to begin debate on the annual Defense policy bill. The House repealed the gay ban in May by passing its version of the Defense bill. Senate Democrats anticipate reconsideration of the bill will occur after the midterm elections.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, who supports repeal, told reporters Wednesday that he hopes the Senate waits to vote again until after a Pentagon study of how the military would repeal the law is submitted to President Obama in December.
"If I could pick, and I can't, the way this would happen, I would like to finish the review and have the review then inform the legislative process," Mullen told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. "I'm not in charge of the legislative process. It has, and I have said this many times, it is very difficult to predict that and it is really up to Congress to move that through."
The CNN survey of 1,010 adult Americans was conducted Sept. 21 to 23 and has a 3 percent margin of error, the network said.
Two-thirds of Americans support allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, according to a new poll released Wednesday.
Sixty seven percent of respondents to a new CNN survey favor permitting openly gay or lesbian people to serve in the military; 28 percent of respondents were opposed. Support for repealing the law dropped 2 points since a similar CNN poll in February.
(Note/Remember: CNN asked "Do you favor or oppose permitting people who are openly gay or lesbian to serve in the military?" That's very different than asking whether respondents favor/oppose repealing the military's "don't ask, don't tell" law. So if you see groups in favor of or opposed to ending the ban twisting these numbers to their advantage, carefully check how they characterize the new numbers.)
Support for repeal cuts across gender, age groups, income levels, geographic location and political persuasions. Depending on how respondents identified themselves, 80 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of independents, 51 percent of Republicans, 52 percent of conservatives, 80 percent of liberals and 78 percent of people who considered themselves "moderate" in the survey approve of gays in the military. A majority of respondents who are tea party supporters and a majority of those opposed to the tea party also support them.
Two-thirds of respondents to a February Washington Post/ABC News poll also supported openly gay people serving in the U.S. military.
But the Senate last week delayed an up or down vote on repealing the law known as "don't ask, don't tell" when Republicans blocked attempts to begin debate on the annual Defense policy bill. The House repealed the gay ban in May by passing its version of the Defense bill. Senate Democrats anticipate reconsideration of the bill will occur after the midterm elections.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, who supports repeal, told reporters Wednesday that he hopes the Senate waits to vote again until after a Pentagon study of how the military would repeal the law is submitted to President Obama in December.
"If I could pick, and I can't, the way this would happen, I would like to finish the review and have the review then inform the legislative process," Mullen told reporters at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. "I'm not in charge of the legislative process. It has, and I have said this many times, it is very difficult to predict that and it is really up to Congress to move that through."
The CNN survey of 1,010 adult Americans was conducted Sept. 21 to 23 and has a 3 percent margin of error, the network said.
The Lying Smearing Right-Wing Slander of ACORN
From Media Matters for America -- September 29, 2010:
The Lies of James O'Keefe
CNN reports that conservative activist James O'Keefe attempted to "punk" a CNN reporter by luring her onto a boat "filled with sexually explicit props" and recording the encounter, a charge O'Keefe denies. If true, the alleged deception would be the latest in a string of lies and falsehoods O'Keefe has used to push his ideological agenda.
James O'Keefe: A history of lies, falsehoods, and deception
O'Keefe falsely claimed that ACORN tapes were a "nationwide ACORN child prostitution investigation" that implicated many ACORN employees. Discussing the ACORN videos created by O'Keefe and fellow conservative activist Hannah Giles, O'Keefe falsely claimed that the video campaign was a "nationwide ACORN child prostitution investigation" implicating many ACORN employees. But in at least six of the eight heavily edited videos produced by O'Keefe and Giles and distributed by Andrew Breitbart, either the activists did not clearly tell the ACORN employees that they were planning to engage in child prostitution; or the ACORN employees refused to help them or apparently deliberately misled them; or ACORN employees contacted the police following their visit.
Law enforcement officials criticize O'Keefe's "highly selective editing of reality." Three separate investigations cleared ACORN workers of any criminal wrongdoing, and a December 22, 2009 report by the Congressional Research Service stated that California and Maryland criminal laws may have been violated by the undisclosed taping done by O'Keefe. California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown, Jr. pointed out that the videotapes were "severely edited by O'Keefe." In a statement, Brown said, "The evidence illustrates ... that things are not always as partisan zealots portray them through highly selective editing of reality. Sometimes a fuller truth is found on the cutting room floor." Likewise, a March 1 New York Daily News article reported that "a law enforcement source" said of O'Keefe and Giles: "They edited the tape to meet their agenda." A March 2 New York Post article, headlined "ACORN set up by vidiots: DA," reported of O'Keefe and Giles' ACORN tapes: "Many of the seemingly crime-encouraging answers were taken out of context so as to appear more sinister, sources said."
Breitbart and O'Keefe withheld exculpatory LA ACORN video for two months. For more than two months after Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com website began posting videos in which O'Keefe and Giles posed as a pimp and prostitute in ACORN offices, O'Keefe and his cohorts withheld video that directly contradicted what they said the videos showed. In September 2009, Giles and Big Government editor-in-chief Mike Flynn had both falsely claimed that every ACORN office O'Keefe and Giles visited had offered to help them. Also during September 2009, both Breitbart and O'Keefe were asked directly by reporters whether any ACORN offices had refused to help; Breitbart and O'Keefe chose not to disclose the existence of a tape that showed at least one ACORN worker who refused to help. In a video released November 16, 2009, O'Keefe finally acknowledged that a Los Angeles ACORN worker they filmed in August 2009 "would not assist us obtain a house for our illegal activities."
O'Keefe pleaded guilty to misdemeanor criminal charge of entering Senate office under false pretenses. As reported by The Times-Picayune on May 26:
The four defendants who were arrested in January in Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in the Hale Boggs federal complex in New Orleans pleaded guilty Wednesday morning in federal court to entering real property belonging to the United States under false pretenses.
Magistrate Judge Daniel Knowles III sentenced Stan Dai, Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan each to two years probation, a fine of $1,500 and 75 hours of community service during their first year of probation.
James O'Keefe, as leader of the group and famous for posing as a pimp in ACORN office videos, received three years of probation, a fine of $1,500 and 100 hours of community service.
O'Keefe's BigGovernment video omits relevant clip in claiming that "Census supervisors" were "systemically encouraging employees to falsify information on their time sheets." In a ten-minute video posted on BigGovernment.com, O'Keefe stated that he had been hired as a Census worker and attended two days of training. He said, "What I found were Census supervisors systematically encouraging employees to falsify information on their time sheets." The video includes clips of census leaders, who according to O'Keefe, "didn't seem to have a problem with the discrepancy" of the hours recorded on his time sheet versus the hours he claimed to have worked. O'Keefe omitted a clip that was later aired by ABC, which shows a census leader emphasizing the importance of accurately reporting on miles driven by census enumerators.
Friend of O'Keefe reportedly objected to past transcript distortion. A September 18, 2009, New York Times article reported that Liz Farkas, a college friend of O'Keefe's while at Rutgers University, said she "grew disillusioned" after O'Keefe asked Farkas to help deceptively "edit the script" of a video involving a nurse at the University of California at Los Angeles.
The Lies of James O'Keefe
CNN reports that conservative activist James O'Keefe attempted to "punk" a CNN reporter by luring her onto a boat "filled with sexually explicit props" and recording the encounter, a charge O'Keefe denies. If true, the alleged deception would be the latest in a string of lies and falsehoods O'Keefe has used to push his ideological agenda.
James O'Keefe: A history of lies, falsehoods, and deception
O'Keefe falsely claimed that ACORN tapes were a "nationwide ACORN child prostitution investigation" that implicated many ACORN employees. Discussing the ACORN videos created by O'Keefe and fellow conservative activist Hannah Giles, O'Keefe falsely claimed that the video campaign was a "nationwide ACORN child prostitution investigation" implicating many ACORN employees. But in at least six of the eight heavily edited videos produced by O'Keefe and Giles and distributed by Andrew Breitbart, either the activists did not clearly tell the ACORN employees that they were planning to engage in child prostitution; or the ACORN employees refused to help them or apparently deliberately misled them; or ACORN employees contacted the police following their visit.
Law enforcement officials criticize O'Keefe's "highly selective editing of reality." Three separate investigations cleared ACORN workers of any criminal wrongdoing, and a December 22, 2009 report by the Congressional Research Service stated that California and Maryland criminal laws may have been violated by the undisclosed taping done by O'Keefe. California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown, Jr. pointed out that the videotapes were "severely edited by O'Keefe." In a statement, Brown said, "The evidence illustrates ... that things are not always as partisan zealots portray them through highly selective editing of reality. Sometimes a fuller truth is found on the cutting room floor." Likewise, a March 1 New York Daily News article reported that "a law enforcement source" said of O'Keefe and Giles: "They edited the tape to meet their agenda." A March 2 New York Post article, headlined "ACORN set up by vidiots: DA," reported of O'Keefe and Giles' ACORN tapes: "Many of the seemingly crime-encouraging answers were taken out of context so as to appear more sinister, sources said."
Breitbart and O'Keefe withheld exculpatory LA ACORN video for two months. For more than two months after Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com website began posting videos in which O'Keefe and Giles posed as a pimp and prostitute in ACORN offices, O'Keefe and his cohorts withheld video that directly contradicted what they said the videos showed. In September 2009, Giles and Big Government editor-in-chief Mike Flynn had both falsely claimed that every ACORN office O'Keefe and Giles visited had offered to help them. Also during September 2009, both Breitbart and O'Keefe were asked directly by reporters whether any ACORN offices had refused to help; Breitbart and O'Keefe chose not to disclose the existence of a tape that showed at least one ACORN worker who refused to help. In a video released November 16, 2009, O'Keefe finally acknowledged that a Los Angeles ACORN worker they filmed in August 2009 "would not assist us obtain a house for our illegal activities."
O'Keefe pleaded guilty to misdemeanor criminal charge of entering Senate office under false pretenses. As reported by The Times-Picayune on May 26:
The four defendants who were arrested in January in Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in the Hale Boggs federal complex in New Orleans pleaded guilty Wednesday morning in federal court to entering real property belonging to the United States under false pretenses.
Magistrate Judge Daniel Knowles III sentenced Stan Dai, Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan each to two years probation, a fine of $1,500 and 75 hours of community service during their first year of probation.
James O'Keefe, as leader of the group and famous for posing as a pimp in ACORN office videos, received three years of probation, a fine of $1,500 and 100 hours of community service.
O'Keefe's BigGovernment video omits relevant clip in claiming that "Census supervisors" were "systemically encouraging employees to falsify information on their time sheets." In a ten-minute video posted on BigGovernment.com, O'Keefe stated that he had been hired as a Census worker and attended two days of training. He said, "What I found were Census supervisors systematically encouraging employees to falsify information on their time sheets." The video includes clips of census leaders, who according to O'Keefe, "didn't seem to have a problem with the discrepancy" of the hours recorded on his time sheet versus the hours he claimed to have worked. O'Keefe omitted a clip that was later aired by ABC, which shows a census leader emphasizing the importance of accurately reporting on miles driven by census enumerators.
Friend of O'Keefe reportedly objected to past transcript distortion. A September 18, 2009, New York Times article reported that Liz Farkas, a college friend of O'Keefe's while at Rutgers University, said she "grew disillusioned" after O'Keefe asked Farkas to help deceptively "edit the script" of a video involving a nurse at the University of California at Los Angeles.
FOX NEWS is BAD NEWS for America
From Media Matters for America -- September 29, 2010:
Economists agree with Obama: Proposals pushed by Fox News bad for long-term growth
Fox has opposed every major effort to stimulate the economy -- despite economists' support. Since Obama took office, Fox personalities have opposed every major package proposed to stimulate the economy, despite support from a consensus of economists and economic analysts. Recent opposition has included Obama's newly proposed infrastructure plan, the extension of unemployment insurance, aid to states, and food stamps, all of which have been shown to stimulate the economy.
Fox's campaign to extend tax cuts for the wealthy would add debt, do little to stimulate growth. Over the past few months, Fox has launched a campaign aimed at extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich. However, economists and financial analysts agree that those cuts will cost $700 billion and would be much less effective at stimulating the economy than extending unemployment insurance, food stamps, and providing direct aid to states - all proposals which Fox personalities have repeatedly opposed.
Fox opposed the stimulus and since bill's passage, have repeatedly falsely claimed that it failed. In covering the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly referred to as the stimulus, Fox News consistently advanced false and misleading claims about the economic recovery package. Since the bill's passage, Fox News figures have repeatedly advanced the false claim that the stimulus "failed," despite the fact that independent and private analysts agree that the stimulus boosted GDP and increased employment.
Economists agree with Obama: Proposals pushed by Fox News bad for long-term growth
Fox has opposed every major effort to stimulate the economy -- despite economists' support. Since Obama took office, Fox personalities have opposed every major package proposed to stimulate the economy, despite support from a consensus of economists and economic analysts. Recent opposition has included Obama's newly proposed infrastructure plan, the extension of unemployment insurance, aid to states, and food stamps, all of which have been shown to stimulate the economy.
Fox's campaign to extend tax cuts for the wealthy would add debt, do little to stimulate growth. Over the past few months, Fox has launched a campaign aimed at extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich. However, economists and financial analysts agree that those cuts will cost $700 billion and would be much less effective at stimulating the economy than extending unemployment insurance, food stamps, and providing direct aid to states - all proposals which Fox personalities have repeatedly opposed.
Fox opposed the stimulus and since bill's passage, have repeatedly falsely claimed that it failed. In covering the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly referred to as the stimulus, Fox News consistently advanced false and misleading claims about the economic recovery package. Since the bill's passage, Fox News figures have repeatedly advanced the false claim that the stimulus "failed," despite the fact that independent and private analysts agree that the stimulus boosted GDP and increased employment.
Tea Parties, Liberty Leaguers, John Birchers, Arkansas Project and Other Right-Wing Crazies
From Mother Jones -- September 28, 2010:
Tea Party: Old Whine in New Bottles
Memo to Obama: Bill Clinton, LBJ, and FDR know how you feel.
— By Kevin Drum
IN A WIDELY READ essay about the tea party movement published earlier this year in the New York Review of Books, historian Mark Lilla provided a now-familiar explanation about what motivates the tea partiers. They are, he reckoned, angry about the recession; angry about health care reform; angry about President Obama; and angry about educated elites forever telling them what to do. "A new strain of populism is metastasizing before our eyes," he said, and he described the movement this way:
It supports with worshipful intensity the Constitution of the United States; it places itself on the side of the individual and of liberty in opposition to an encroaching government bureaucracy; it respects the judgment of the founding fathers who had so wisely incorporated the separation of federal powers and the rights of the states into the great national document; it defends the American right to enjoy the sweat of one's own labor and the rewards of one's ability.
Actually, Lilla didn't write that last bit. Another historian did. This passage comes from Frederick Rudolph, writing in 1950 about the American Liberty League, a group formed in 1934 in reaction to FDR's New Deal. But it sounds pretty familiar, doesn't it? All I did was change the verbs to the present tense, and it might as well have come from a portrait of the tea party written the day before yesterday.
And that's a problem. It's a problem because too many observers mistakenly react to the tea party as if it's brand new, an organic and spontaneous response to something unique in the current political climate. But it's not. It's not a response to the recession or to health care reform or to some kind of spectacular new liberal overreach. It's what happens whenever a Democrat takes over the White House. When FDR was in office in the 1930s, conservative zealotry coalesced in the Liberty League. When JFK won the presidency in the '60s, the John Birch Society flourished. When Bill Clinton ended the Reagan Revolution in the '90s, talk radio erupted with the conspiracy theories of the Arkansas Project. And today, with Barack Obama in the Oval Office, it's the tea party's turn.
From FDR to JFK to Clinton, something like the tea party fluoresces every time a Democrat wins the presidency.
There are, of course, differences between each of these movements. The Birchers were single-mindedly obsessed with communist infiltration, a fear that's largely gone out of style; the Arkansas Project crowd seemed motivated more by cultural issues and a burning personal hatred of the Clintons than by policy matters. And there are structural differences, too. The Liberty League and the John Birch Society were formal groups with formal leadership. The anti-Clinton brigade was chaotic and leaderless. And the tea party movement is somewhere in between: funded and inspired partly by formal organizations (FreedomWorks, the Tea Party Patriots) and specific personalities (Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck), but with a membership that, in practice, is an agglomeration of hundreds of local groups that often compete with each other and hotly insist that they take direction from no one.
But these differences are superficial. The similarities are far more telling, and the place they start is a shared preoccupation with the Constitution. The Liberty Leaguers, as Rudolph wrote, spoke of it with "worshipful intensity." The John Birch Society—which is enjoying a renaissance of sorts today—says of itself, "From its earliest days the John Birch Society has emphasized the importance of the Constitution for securing our freedom." And as Stephanie Mencimer reported in our May/June issue "One Nation Under Beck"), study groups dedicated to the Constitution have mushroomed among tea partiers.
Other shared tropes include a fear of "losing the country we grew up in," an obsession with "parasites" who are leeching off of hardworking Americans, and—even though they've always received copious assistance from business interests and political operatives—a myth that the movement is composed entirely of fed-up grassroots amateurs. Take, for example, this description of Pam Stout, the star of a seminal tea party profile written earlier this year by David Barstow of the New York Times. After Obama took office, he writes, "Mrs. Stout said she awoke to see Washington as a threat, a place where crisis is manipulated—even manufactured—by both parties to grab power. She was happily retired, and had never been active politically. But last April, she went to her first tea party rally." Compare that to the description of Estrid Kielsmeier in Suburban Warriors, Lisa McGirr's history of '60s-era right-wing activism in Orange County, California. Kielsmeier, a resident of my hometown of Garden Grove (my mother acidly recalls PTA meetings at my elementary school as hotbeds of John Birch Society activism), was a homemaker who ran the local gubernatorial primary campaign headquarters of ultraconservative oilman Joe Shell against Richard Nixon in 1962: "Her baby played in a playpen next to her desk while Kielsmeier participated in what she later called her first real involvement in politics. 'Up to that time...it was education and just kind of...networking, really.'"
Above all, though, is the recurring theme of creeping socialism and a federal government that's destroying our freedoms. In the '30s this took the form of rabid opposition to FDR's alphabet soup of new regulatory agencies. In the '60s it was John Birch Society founder Robert Welch's insistence that the threat of communism actually took second place to the "cancer of collectivism." Welch believed that overweening government had destroyed civilizations from Babylonia to 19th-century Europe, and he said his fight could be expressed in just five words: "Less government and more responsibility."
Three decades later, Newt Gingrich rode into the speaker's office on the Contract with America's small government promises and promptly shut down Washington in a fight with Clinton that mostly revolved around conservative desires to slash a laundry list of social programs. And today, tea party rhetoric is shot through with charges both that the president is a closet Marxist ("Obama isn't a US socialist," thundered Fox News commentator, Steven Milloy at a tea party convention earlier this year, "he's an international socialist!") and that the federal government has become a multitentacled monster that needs to be crushed before it enslaves us all. In an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review, the Times' Barstow diagnosed the "idea of impending tyranny" as the tea partiers' deepest and most abiding nightmare: "I was struck by the number of people who had come to the point where they were literally in fear of whether or not the United States of America would continue to be a free country."
Finally, there's the weaving, kaleidoscopic thread that binds these groups together: their insatiable appetite for conspiracy theories. Robert Welch—in addition to his famous belief that water fluoridation was a communist plot—believed a shadowy group of "insiders" ran the world, stretching back to the founding of the Illuminati in 1776 and continuing through the French Revolution and The Communist Manifesto, and on to the UN, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission. In like fashion, the anti-Clinton zealots developed a colorful and ever-growing bestiary of shadowy plots. They believed, among other things, that Clinton had Vince Foster murdered; that he conducted a drug-running operation out of Mena airfield in Arkansas; that he'd fathered a black child out of wedlock; and that he had allowed dozens of big-time donors to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Richard Mellon Scaife, the primary funder of the Arkansas Project, called Foster's death "the Rosetta Stone to the Clinton administration" and told George magazine, "Listen, he can order people done away with at his will...God, there must be 60 people who have died mysteriously."
Today's conspiracy theories are different in detail but no less wacky—and no less widespread. Some 30 percent (PDF) of self-identified tea partiers believe that Obama isn't a natural-born citizen, according to an April New York Times poll. Some tea partiers are worried about internment camps for conservatives, an echo of a theory peddled by the Birchers in the '60s. As Canadian conservative Jonathan Kay bemusedly wrote in Newsweek after attending a tea party convention last winter, Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers are also frequent obsessions, "the idea being that they were the real brains behind this presidency, and Obama himself was simply some sort of manchurian candidate." And of course there's ACORN, the centerpiece of a baroque theory in which the now-defunct organization ran the Democratic Party, forced banks to make loans to minorities and poor people via the Carter-era Community Reinvestment Act, crashed the economy, and got Obama elected president. Robert Welch would be proud.
Ideology and paranoias aside, there are also more concrete connections between the generations. Some are unsurprising. Industrialist Fred Koch, for example, was one of the early supporters of the John Birch Society. His son, David Koch, helped launch Citizens for a Sound Economy, which later split into two organizations, FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, both of which are major funders and organizers of the tea party movement.
Other links are almost charming: One of the most popular tracts among Birchers in the '60s was W. Cleon Skousen's The Naked Communist; 50 years later, Skousen has been rediscovered by Glenn Beck, who relentlessly hawks Skousen's 1981 book, The 5000 Year Leap. And still others are simply bizarre: Welch was convinced that the 17th Amendment, which affirms the direct election of senators, represented a poisonous concentration of power in the federal government. Today this obscure fixation has made a comeback among the tea partiers.
All of this points in one direction. The growth of the tea party movement isn't really due to the recession (in fact, polling evidence shows that tea partiers are generally better off and less affected by the recession than the population at large). It's not because Obama is black (white Democratic presidents got largely the same treatment). And it's not because Obama bailed out General Motors (so did George W. Bush). It's simpler. Ever since the 1930s, something very much like the tea party movement has fluoresced every time a Democrat wins the presidency, and the nature of the fluorescence always follows many of the same broad contours: a reverence for the Constitution, a supposedly spontaneous uprising of formerly nonpolitical middle-class activists, a preoccupation with socialism and the expanding tyranny of big government, a bitterness toward an underclass viewed as unwilling to work, and a weakness for outlandish conspiracy theories.
Is this good news or bad? Some of both, I think. Let's start with the worst news: These right-wing fluorescences are, unfortunately, getting more potent over time as they learn from their mistakes. Raw numbers tell part of the story. The Liberty League topped out at about 75,000 members, and even that number may have been exaggerated. They simply weren't good enough at concealing the fact that they were little more than a group founded by rich industrialists who disliked the government interfering with their business. The Birchers did better, attracting support from 5 percent of the population and claiming a core membership of more than 100,000.
The anti-Clinton forces did better still, boasting a following of millions, though there was no formal organization to compare to the Liberty League or the John Birch Society. And the tea party has done even better: An April New York Times poll suggests not only that the movement attracts support from 18 percent of the population, but that as many as 5 million people have attended tea party rallies and perhaps a million core supporters have donated money to a tea party group.
Beyond sheer numbers, though, right-wing extremist groups are also becoming more effective. The Liberty League withered after it failed to make even a dent in FDR's 1936 reelection campaign. The Birchers improved on that record, winning lots of local campaigns and eventually helping Barry Goldwater win the Republican presidential nomination in 1964, before collapsing under the weight of Robert Welch's increasingly bizarre rants. The '90s activists were more successful yet, helping Gingrich take over Congress in 1994, impeaching a president in 1998, and eventually sending George W. Bush to the White House.
And the tea partiers? Their history hasn't been written yet, but they have, for all practical purposes, already trumped every previous generation of activists by successfully taking over the Republican Party almost entirely. And this is, at last, something that really is new: The Liberty League was rejected by the GOP almost from the start, the Birchers were all but spent as a political force after the 1964 election debacle, and even during the '90s there were still moderate factions in the GOP. But today, there's virtually no one left in the party leadership who doesn't at least claim to adhere to tea party principles. Recent polls by both Gallup and the Mellman Group (PDF) find that the views of self-identified tea party supporters are nearly identical to the views of self-identified Republicans across the board. Gallup's analysis may go a little too far in saying that the tea party movement is "more a rebranding of core Republicanism than a new or distinct entity on the American political scene," but not by much.
In 1961, Time condemned the John Birch Society as a "tiresome, comic-opera joke"; in 2009, it called Glenn Beck "tireless, funny, self-deprecating."
How did this happen? Partly it's a reflection of the long-term rightward shift of the Republican Party. Partly it's a product of the modern media environment: The Birchers were limited to mimeograph machines and PTA meetings to get the word out, while the tea partiers can rely on Fox News and Facebook. Beyond that, though, it's also a reflection of the mainstreaming of extremism. In 1961, Time exposed the John Birch Society to a national audience and condemned it as a "tiresome, comic-opera joke"; in 2009, it splashed Glenn Beck on the cover and called him "tireless, funny, self-deprecating...a gifted storyteller." And it's the same story in the political community: The Birchers were eventually drummed out of the conservative movement, but the tea partiers are almost universally welcomed today. "In the '60s," says Rick Perlstein, a historian of the American right, "you had someone like William F. Buckley pushing back against the Birchers. Today, when David Frum tries to play the same role, he's completely ostracized. There are just no countervailing forces in the Republican Party anymore." Unlike the Birchers, or even the Clinton conspiracy theorists, the tea partiers aren't a fringe part of the conservative movement. They are the conservative movement.
So where's the good news? Part of it is that the movement's 15 minutes could be nearly up. The tea partiers may have expanded faster than the Birchers thanks to Fox News and talk radio, but the same media echo chamber that enabled this has also shortened attention spans and provided 500 channels of competition for the Glenn Becks of the world. The speed of the tea partiers' rise may foreshadow an equally fast decline as their act begins to grow stale.
Likewise, the sheer size of the tea party movement may be as much a curse as a blessing. An insurgent movement can retain its vigor if it remains limited to true believers, but once it takes the reins of power, it has no choice but to offer a winning platform if it wants to keep its influence. The tea partiers are thus likely to be victims of their own success: When everyone's a tea partier, then no one's a tea partier. Right-wing extremism may win majorities in Arizona and a few other basket-case states, but it doesn't win national elections, which means the tea partiers will either move to the center or die.
In fact, there's already evidence that this is happening. There are only a handful of genuine tea party candidates running in November—folks like Nikki Haley in South Carolina, Sharron Angle in Nevada, and Rand Paul in Kentucky—and plenty of evidence that tea party affiliation might not help them much. Tea party favorite Doug Hoffman, for example, accomplished nothing in New York's 23rd congressional district last year except splitting the GOP vote and handing the district to a Democrat for the first time since the Civil War. And tea party darling Scott Brown, who came from behind to win Ted Kennedy's Senate seat earlier this year in Massachusetts, has turned out to be a pretty moderate Republican. The tea partiers, it turns out, love these candidates for taking on the establishment—not necessarily for being able to win, or even (in Brown's case) for toeing the purist anti-tyranny party line.
The tea party movement is likely to provide plenty of drama this November, but if the historical record is anything to go by, it won't last long after that. As with the earlier incarnations, its core identity will slowly fade away and become grist for CNN retrospectives, while its broader identity becomes subsumed by a Republican Party that's been headed down the path of ever less-tolerant conservatism for decades. In that sense, the tea party movement is merely an unusually flamboyant symptom of an illness that's been breeding for a long time.
Tea Party: Old Whine in New Bottles
Memo to Obama: Bill Clinton, LBJ, and FDR know how you feel.
— By Kevin Drum
IN A WIDELY READ essay about the tea party movement published earlier this year in the New York Review of Books, historian Mark Lilla provided a now-familiar explanation about what motivates the tea partiers. They are, he reckoned, angry about the recession; angry about health care reform; angry about President Obama; and angry about educated elites forever telling them what to do. "A new strain of populism is metastasizing before our eyes," he said, and he described the movement this way:
It supports with worshipful intensity the Constitution of the United States; it places itself on the side of the individual and of liberty in opposition to an encroaching government bureaucracy; it respects the judgment of the founding fathers who had so wisely incorporated the separation of federal powers and the rights of the states into the great national document; it defends the American right to enjoy the sweat of one's own labor and the rewards of one's ability.
Actually, Lilla didn't write that last bit. Another historian did. This passage comes from Frederick Rudolph, writing in 1950 about the American Liberty League, a group formed in 1934 in reaction to FDR's New Deal. But it sounds pretty familiar, doesn't it? All I did was change the verbs to the present tense, and it might as well have come from a portrait of the tea party written the day before yesterday.
And that's a problem. It's a problem because too many observers mistakenly react to the tea party as if it's brand new, an organic and spontaneous response to something unique in the current political climate. But it's not. It's not a response to the recession or to health care reform or to some kind of spectacular new liberal overreach. It's what happens whenever a Democrat takes over the White House. When FDR was in office in the 1930s, conservative zealotry coalesced in the Liberty League. When JFK won the presidency in the '60s, the John Birch Society flourished. When Bill Clinton ended the Reagan Revolution in the '90s, talk radio erupted with the conspiracy theories of the Arkansas Project. And today, with Barack Obama in the Oval Office, it's the tea party's turn.
From FDR to JFK to Clinton, something like the tea party fluoresces every time a Democrat wins the presidency.
There are, of course, differences between each of these movements. The Birchers were single-mindedly obsessed with communist infiltration, a fear that's largely gone out of style; the Arkansas Project crowd seemed motivated more by cultural issues and a burning personal hatred of the Clintons than by policy matters. And there are structural differences, too. The Liberty League and the John Birch Society were formal groups with formal leadership. The anti-Clinton brigade was chaotic and leaderless. And the tea party movement is somewhere in between: funded and inspired partly by formal organizations (FreedomWorks, the Tea Party Patriots) and specific personalities (Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck), but with a membership that, in practice, is an agglomeration of hundreds of local groups that often compete with each other and hotly insist that they take direction from no one.
But these differences are superficial. The similarities are far more telling, and the place they start is a shared preoccupation with the Constitution. The Liberty Leaguers, as Rudolph wrote, spoke of it with "worshipful intensity." The John Birch Society—which is enjoying a renaissance of sorts today—says of itself, "From its earliest days the John Birch Society has emphasized the importance of the Constitution for securing our freedom." And as Stephanie Mencimer reported in our May/June issue "One Nation Under Beck"), study groups dedicated to the Constitution have mushroomed among tea partiers.
Other shared tropes include a fear of "losing the country we grew up in," an obsession with "parasites" who are leeching off of hardworking Americans, and—even though they've always received copious assistance from business interests and political operatives—a myth that the movement is composed entirely of fed-up grassroots amateurs. Take, for example, this description of Pam Stout, the star of a seminal tea party profile written earlier this year by David Barstow of the New York Times. After Obama took office, he writes, "Mrs. Stout said she awoke to see Washington as a threat, a place where crisis is manipulated—even manufactured—by both parties to grab power. She was happily retired, and had never been active politically. But last April, she went to her first tea party rally." Compare that to the description of Estrid Kielsmeier in Suburban Warriors, Lisa McGirr's history of '60s-era right-wing activism in Orange County, California. Kielsmeier, a resident of my hometown of Garden Grove (my mother acidly recalls PTA meetings at my elementary school as hotbeds of John Birch Society activism), was a homemaker who ran the local gubernatorial primary campaign headquarters of ultraconservative oilman Joe Shell against Richard Nixon in 1962: "Her baby played in a playpen next to her desk while Kielsmeier participated in what she later called her first real involvement in politics. 'Up to that time...it was education and just kind of...networking, really.'"
Above all, though, is the recurring theme of creeping socialism and a federal government that's destroying our freedoms. In the '30s this took the form of rabid opposition to FDR's alphabet soup of new regulatory agencies. In the '60s it was John Birch Society founder Robert Welch's insistence that the threat of communism actually took second place to the "cancer of collectivism." Welch believed that overweening government had destroyed civilizations from Babylonia to 19th-century Europe, and he said his fight could be expressed in just five words: "Less government and more responsibility."
Three decades later, Newt Gingrich rode into the speaker's office on the Contract with America's small government promises and promptly shut down Washington in a fight with Clinton that mostly revolved around conservative desires to slash a laundry list of social programs. And today, tea party rhetoric is shot through with charges both that the president is a closet Marxist ("Obama isn't a US socialist," thundered Fox News commentator, Steven Milloy at a tea party convention earlier this year, "he's an international socialist!") and that the federal government has become a multitentacled monster that needs to be crushed before it enslaves us all. In an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review, the Times' Barstow diagnosed the "idea of impending tyranny" as the tea partiers' deepest and most abiding nightmare: "I was struck by the number of people who had come to the point where they were literally in fear of whether or not the United States of America would continue to be a free country."
Finally, there's the weaving, kaleidoscopic thread that binds these groups together: their insatiable appetite for conspiracy theories. Robert Welch—in addition to his famous belief that water fluoridation was a communist plot—believed a shadowy group of "insiders" ran the world, stretching back to the founding of the Illuminati in 1776 and continuing through the French Revolution and The Communist Manifesto, and on to the UN, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Trilateral Commission. In like fashion, the anti-Clinton zealots developed a colorful and ever-growing bestiary of shadowy plots. They believed, among other things, that Clinton had Vince Foster murdered; that he conducted a drug-running operation out of Mena airfield in Arkansas; that he'd fathered a black child out of wedlock; and that he had allowed dozens of big-time donors to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Richard Mellon Scaife, the primary funder of the Arkansas Project, called Foster's death "the Rosetta Stone to the Clinton administration" and told George magazine, "Listen, he can order people done away with at his will...God, there must be 60 people who have died mysteriously."
Today's conspiracy theories are different in detail but no less wacky—and no less widespread. Some 30 percent (PDF) of self-identified tea partiers believe that Obama isn't a natural-born citizen, according to an April New York Times poll. Some tea partiers are worried about internment camps for conservatives, an echo of a theory peddled by the Birchers in the '60s. As Canadian conservative Jonathan Kay bemusedly wrote in Newsweek after attending a tea party convention last winter, Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers are also frequent obsessions, "the idea being that they were the real brains behind this presidency, and Obama himself was simply some sort of manchurian candidate." And of course there's ACORN, the centerpiece of a baroque theory in which the now-defunct organization ran the Democratic Party, forced banks to make loans to minorities and poor people via the Carter-era Community Reinvestment Act, crashed the economy, and got Obama elected president. Robert Welch would be proud.
Ideology and paranoias aside, there are also more concrete connections between the generations. Some are unsurprising. Industrialist Fred Koch, for example, was one of the early supporters of the John Birch Society. His son, David Koch, helped launch Citizens for a Sound Economy, which later split into two organizations, FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, both of which are major funders and organizers of the tea party movement.
Other links are almost charming: One of the most popular tracts among Birchers in the '60s was W. Cleon Skousen's The Naked Communist; 50 years later, Skousen has been rediscovered by Glenn Beck, who relentlessly hawks Skousen's 1981 book, The 5000 Year Leap. And still others are simply bizarre: Welch was convinced that the 17th Amendment, which affirms the direct election of senators, represented a poisonous concentration of power in the federal government. Today this obscure fixation has made a comeback among the tea partiers.
All of this points in one direction. The growth of the tea party movement isn't really due to the recession (in fact, polling evidence shows that tea partiers are generally better off and less affected by the recession than the population at large). It's not because Obama is black (white Democratic presidents got largely the same treatment). And it's not because Obama bailed out General Motors (so did George W. Bush). It's simpler. Ever since the 1930s, something very much like the tea party movement has fluoresced every time a Democrat wins the presidency, and the nature of the fluorescence always follows many of the same broad contours: a reverence for the Constitution, a supposedly spontaneous uprising of formerly nonpolitical middle-class activists, a preoccupation with socialism and the expanding tyranny of big government, a bitterness toward an underclass viewed as unwilling to work, and a weakness for outlandish conspiracy theories.
Is this good news or bad? Some of both, I think. Let's start with the worst news: These right-wing fluorescences are, unfortunately, getting more potent over time as they learn from their mistakes. Raw numbers tell part of the story. The Liberty League topped out at about 75,000 members, and even that number may have been exaggerated. They simply weren't good enough at concealing the fact that they were little more than a group founded by rich industrialists who disliked the government interfering with their business. The Birchers did better, attracting support from 5 percent of the population and claiming a core membership of more than 100,000.
The anti-Clinton forces did better still, boasting a following of millions, though there was no formal organization to compare to the Liberty League or the John Birch Society. And the tea party has done even better: An April New York Times poll suggests not only that the movement attracts support from 18 percent of the population, but that as many as 5 million people have attended tea party rallies and perhaps a million core supporters have donated money to a tea party group.
Beyond sheer numbers, though, right-wing extremist groups are also becoming more effective. The Liberty League withered after it failed to make even a dent in FDR's 1936 reelection campaign. The Birchers improved on that record, winning lots of local campaigns and eventually helping Barry Goldwater win the Republican presidential nomination in 1964, before collapsing under the weight of Robert Welch's increasingly bizarre rants. The '90s activists were more successful yet, helping Gingrich take over Congress in 1994, impeaching a president in 1998, and eventually sending George W. Bush to the White House.
And the tea partiers? Their history hasn't been written yet, but they have, for all practical purposes, already trumped every previous generation of activists by successfully taking over the Republican Party almost entirely. And this is, at last, something that really is new: The Liberty League was rejected by the GOP almost from the start, the Birchers were all but spent as a political force after the 1964 election debacle, and even during the '90s there were still moderate factions in the GOP. But today, there's virtually no one left in the party leadership who doesn't at least claim to adhere to tea party principles. Recent polls by both Gallup and the Mellman Group (PDF) find that the views of self-identified tea party supporters are nearly identical to the views of self-identified Republicans across the board. Gallup's analysis may go a little too far in saying that the tea party movement is "more a rebranding of core Republicanism than a new or distinct entity on the American political scene," but not by much.
In 1961, Time condemned the John Birch Society as a "tiresome, comic-opera joke"; in 2009, it called Glenn Beck "tireless, funny, self-deprecating."
How did this happen? Partly it's a reflection of the long-term rightward shift of the Republican Party. Partly it's a product of the modern media environment: The Birchers were limited to mimeograph machines and PTA meetings to get the word out, while the tea partiers can rely on Fox News and Facebook. Beyond that, though, it's also a reflection of the mainstreaming of extremism. In 1961, Time exposed the John Birch Society to a national audience and condemned it as a "tiresome, comic-opera joke"; in 2009, it splashed Glenn Beck on the cover and called him "tireless, funny, self-deprecating...a gifted storyteller." And it's the same story in the political community: The Birchers were eventually drummed out of the conservative movement, but the tea partiers are almost universally welcomed today. "In the '60s," says Rick Perlstein, a historian of the American right, "you had someone like William F. Buckley pushing back against the Birchers. Today, when David Frum tries to play the same role, he's completely ostracized. There are just no countervailing forces in the Republican Party anymore." Unlike the Birchers, or even the Clinton conspiracy theorists, the tea partiers aren't a fringe part of the conservative movement. They are the conservative movement.
So where's the good news? Part of it is that the movement's 15 minutes could be nearly up. The tea partiers may have expanded faster than the Birchers thanks to Fox News and talk radio, but the same media echo chamber that enabled this has also shortened attention spans and provided 500 channels of competition for the Glenn Becks of the world. The speed of the tea partiers' rise may foreshadow an equally fast decline as their act begins to grow stale.
Likewise, the sheer size of the tea party movement may be as much a curse as a blessing. An insurgent movement can retain its vigor if it remains limited to true believers, but once it takes the reins of power, it has no choice but to offer a winning platform if it wants to keep its influence. The tea partiers are thus likely to be victims of their own success: When everyone's a tea partier, then no one's a tea partier. Right-wing extremism may win majorities in Arizona and a few other basket-case states, but it doesn't win national elections, which means the tea partiers will either move to the center or die.
In fact, there's already evidence that this is happening. There are only a handful of genuine tea party candidates running in November—folks like Nikki Haley in South Carolina, Sharron Angle in Nevada, and Rand Paul in Kentucky—and plenty of evidence that tea party affiliation might not help them much. Tea party favorite Doug Hoffman, for example, accomplished nothing in New York's 23rd congressional district last year except splitting the GOP vote and handing the district to a Democrat for the first time since the Civil War. And tea party darling Scott Brown, who came from behind to win Ted Kennedy's Senate seat earlier this year in Massachusetts, has turned out to be a pretty moderate Republican. The tea partiers, it turns out, love these candidates for taking on the establishment—not necessarily for being able to win, or even (in Brown's case) for toeing the purist anti-tyranny party line.
The tea party movement is likely to provide plenty of drama this November, but if the historical record is anything to go by, it won't last long after that. As with the earlier incarnations, its core identity will slowly fade away and become grist for CNN retrospectives, while its broader identity becomes subsumed by a Republican Party that's been headed down the path of ever less-tolerant conservatism for decades. In that sense, the tea party movement is merely an unusually flamboyant symptom of an illness that's been breeding for a long time.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Republican Kamikazes Fire-Bomb America
From The Washington Post -- September 27, 2010:
Obama blasts 'irresponsible' GOP policies
By William Branigin
With the midterm elections approaching, President Obama lashed out Monday at what he called the "irresponsible policies" of Republican leaders and said he welcomes a national debate over their proposals.
In an interview on NBC's "Today" show, Obama took aim at the "Pledge to America" put forward by House Republican leaders last week, questioning the seriousness of the proposals.
Toward the end of the interview, which was largely devoted to education issues, Obama was asked whether he plans to push back against the GOP in the coming weeks, especially in view of some Democrats' recent criticism that he has not been rigorous enough in countering Republican attacks.
He said he has "very sharp differences" with the Republican leadership "on a lot of issues," although some GOP critics and independents recognize that "we've got to be serious" and must base decisions on facts in addressing major national problems.
"What I'm seeing out of the Republican leadership over the last several years has been a set of policies that are just irresponsible," Obama told interviewer Matt Lauer. "And we saw in their Pledge to America a similar set of irresponsible policies."
Although the GOP leaders "say they want to balance the budget," Obama said, "they propose $4 trillion worth of tax cuts and $16 billion in spending cuts, and then they say we're going to somehow magically balance the budget. That's not a serious approach."
He added: "So the question for voters over the next five weeks is who is putting forward policies that have a chance to move our country forward - so that our schools have improved, so that we have world-class infrastructure, so that we're serious about helping small business, we're serious about getting a handle on our spending - and who is just engaging in rhetoric. And I think that if that debate is taking place over the next five weeks, we are going to do just fine."
In response to a question from a woman who was watching the live interview, Obama acknowledged that his two daughters could not get the same quality of education from Washington, D.C., public schools that they get from the private school they attend in the District.
Asked about the nation's increasing poverty rate - recently pegged at 14.3 percent, with 44 million Americans living at or below the poverty level - Obama said that "we're still in the midst of the aftereffects" of the worst recession since the Great Depression. The recession, which officially ended more than a year ago, left 8 million people unemployed, with many more underemployed, and jobs have been slow to return, Obama noted. He said a bill to help small businesses that he plans to sign Monday should help.
"The single most important anti-poverty program we can initiate is making sure there's enough job growth," he said.
Obama disputed the characterization of the current recovery as a "jobless" one, however, saying that private-sector job growth has increased for eight months in a row. "The problem is we just lost so many jobs . . . that we've got a much bigger hole to fill."
Obama pivoted to a defense of his plan to let tax cuts for wealthy Americans expire as scheduled at the end of the year, arguing that the rich are not likely to spend the proceeds of additional tax cuts and thus spur the economy. What America needs, he said, are tax cuts for middle-class people who are "struggling" and are more likely to spend the money.
"We can't spend $700 billion on a tax cut that is not going to spur job growth," Obama said, referring to the estimated cost of extending the Bush administration's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
Obama also dismissed the suggestion that he has lost touch with the average person's struggles. Asked about a supporter's comment to him at a town hall meeting a week ago that she was exhausted from defending him, he said there is widespread sentiment that the recovery is "just not happening fast enough."
Obama said, "Everyone feels that frustration right now. I feel it -- acutely." He added that "all I can communicate to the American people is that every single day, the thing that I wake up with and the thing that I go to bed with is the fact that there are too many Americans out there who are . . . still having a tough time in this economy. We are doing everything we can to make sure that they have an opportunity to live out that American dream."
Obama blasts 'irresponsible' GOP policies
By William Branigin
With the midterm elections approaching, President Obama lashed out Monday at what he called the "irresponsible policies" of Republican leaders and said he welcomes a national debate over their proposals.
In an interview on NBC's "Today" show, Obama took aim at the "Pledge to America" put forward by House Republican leaders last week, questioning the seriousness of the proposals.
Toward the end of the interview, which was largely devoted to education issues, Obama was asked whether he plans to push back against the GOP in the coming weeks, especially in view of some Democrats' recent criticism that he has not been rigorous enough in countering Republican attacks.
He said he has "very sharp differences" with the Republican leadership "on a lot of issues," although some GOP critics and independents recognize that "we've got to be serious" and must base decisions on facts in addressing major national problems.
"What I'm seeing out of the Republican leadership over the last several years has been a set of policies that are just irresponsible," Obama told interviewer Matt Lauer. "And we saw in their Pledge to America a similar set of irresponsible policies."
Although the GOP leaders "say they want to balance the budget," Obama said, "they propose $4 trillion worth of tax cuts and $16 billion in spending cuts, and then they say we're going to somehow magically balance the budget. That's not a serious approach."
He added: "So the question for voters over the next five weeks is who is putting forward policies that have a chance to move our country forward - so that our schools have improved, so that we have world-class infrastructure, so that we're serious about helping small business, we're serious about getting a handle on our spending - and who is just engaging in rhetoric. And I think that if that debate is taking place over the next five weeks, we are going to do just fine."
In response to a question from a woman who was watching the live interview, Obama acknowledged that his two daughters could not get the same quality of education from Washington, D.C., public schools that they get from the private school they attend in the District.
Asked about the nation's increasing poverty rate - recently pegged at 14.3 percent, with 44 million Americans living at or below the poverty level - Obama said that "we're still in the midst of the aftereffects" of the worst recession since the Great Depression. The recession, which officially ended more than a year ago, left 8 million people unemployed, with many more underemployed, and jobs have been slow to return, Obama noted. He said a bill to help small businesses that he plans to sign Monday should help.
"The single most important anti-poverty program we can initiate is making sure there's enough job growth," he said.
Obama disputed the characterization of the current recovery as a "jobless" one, however, saying that private-sector job growth has increased for eight months in a row. "The problem is we just lost so many jobs . . . that we've got a much bigger hole to fill."
Obama pivoted to a defense of his plan to let tax cuts for wealthy Americans expire as scheduled at the end of the year, arguing that the rich are not likely to spend the proceeds of additional tax cuts and thus spur the economy. What America needs, he said, are tax cuts for middle-class people who are "struggling" and are more likely to spend the money.
"We can't spend $700 billion on a tax cut that is not going to spur job growth," Obama said, referring to the estimated cost of extending the Bush administration's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
Obama also dismissed the suggestion that he has lost touch with the average person's struggles. Asked about a supporter's comment to him at a town hall meeting a week ago that she was exhausted from defending him, he said there is widespread sentiment that the recovery is "just not happening fast enough."
Obama said, "Everyone feels that frustration right now. I feel it -- acutely." He added that "all I can communicate to the American people is that every single day, the thing that I wake up with and the thing that I go to bed with is the fact that there are too many Americans out there who are . . . still having a tough time in this economy. We are doing everything we can to make sure that they have an opportunity to live out that American dream."
The New Republican Agenda
The New Republicans make Sarah Palin sound measured and reasonable.
They're wholly-owned by corporate special interests, they're spending a mountain of campaign cash from right-wing shadow groups, and they're unleashing a torrent of smear jobs to elect the most radical roster of candidates ever.
The Republicans want to undo everything the Democrats have done for the American people. They want to repeal health care reform, privatize Social Security, end Medicare as we know it, give tax cuts to billionaires, and preserve tax breaks for corporations that ship American jobs overseas.
You won't find any of that on bumper stickers, but the New Republicans have said clearly that's their agenda.
They're wholly-owned by corporate special interests, they're spending a mountain of campaign cash from right-wing shadow groups, and they're unleashing a torrent of smear jobs to elect the most radical roster of candidates ever.
The Republicans want to undo everything the Democrats have done for the American people. They want to repeal health care reform, privatize Social Security, end Medicare as we know it, give tax cuts to billionaires, and preserve tax breaks for corporations that ship American jobs overseas.
You won't find any of that on bumper stickers, but the New Republicans have said clearly that's their agenda.
President Obama Is No Jimmy Carter
From The Daily Beast -- September 27, 2010:
Obama: More Nixon Than Carter
by Melik Kaylan
Publication of Jimmy Carter’s White House Diary have pundits comparing him to Obama. But 44 is nothing like the incompetently messianic Carter—and has more in common with Tricky Dick.
No doubt the parts of President Obama's U.N. speeches in recent days will make the usual bloviators on the political right ratchet up the comparisons–always intended as derogatory–between the Obama and Carter presidencies. Even though Obama devoted at least half of his Thursday morning speech to blunt words about violence, terror, Islam, Pakistan, Iran, and the like, followed by praise of free markets and American leadership, nevertheless he did mention helping Africa and, yes, ended by talking about world peace. Any talk of solving the world's problems wholesale, especially those of the third world, is a gift to the comparison-mongers. They've had ample fresh incitement lately with the publication of President Jimmy Carter's White House Diary. Carter never misses the chance, it seems, to remind America of its moral turpitude while talking up his own joyless, grandiose do-goodery. But the Obama-Carter trope has a long pedigree, going back to the days of candidate Obama's jousts with his opponent Senator McCain, who warned that the country would get “Carter's second term” under Obama.
Let us, for argument's sake, take the comparison at face-value and examine its message and veracity. Historically, there has always been a tendency for a war-weary electorate to vote in a new leader to get on with the business of peace.
Postwar Britain astonishingly voted in Clement Atlee over Winston Churchill. In the U.S., voters chose Jimmy Carter to heal the country's post-Vietnam fissures, and one could argue that Bill Clinton was elected partly out of Cold War weariness as the country wanted to focus on the economic benefits of victory. The danger during such interludes is that the new administration neglects to keep defenses up and the nation strong against foreign rivals while over-agonizing about social injustices at home.
This has certainly been the traditional verdict on Jimmy Carter's term in office. The world sensed his weakness, the narrative goes, and enemies felt emboldened. While Carter defunded the CIA and the military, the Soviet Union felt free to invade Afghanistan and the Shah of Iran was toppled and replaced by the Ayatollah Khomeini. In short order, American embassy staff got taken hostage, a helicopter-borne rescue team ignominiously failed to reach its target, and all the while oil prices skyrocketed in the U.S. as OPEC grew in strength. There's a good deal of truth to the narrative: the facts speak for themselves.
But the narrative doesn't end there. The suggestion is that Carter's weakness was derived from his naïve idealism and messianic belief that he could change the world with good intentions, a weakness arguably connected to his particular brand of unworldly Christianity. It was generally held that Carter's worldview also included a puritanical sense of disgust over his own country's shortcomings and inequities. Hence his famous Independence Day, 1979, “malaise speech” in which he intoned drearily about “the growing doubt over the meaning of our own lives.” The combination of pessimism, Hamlet-esque agonizing, and doubt about American virtues all projected a fatal image of weakness abroad. They found an exact antidote in the character of Ronald Reagan–a sunny, optimistic extrovert with a faith in the moral strengths of the American system.
Apply this scenario to the Obama presidency and you can see where it leads. There are a few–only a few—points of similarity. President Obama is certainly trying to curb the military's expenditures—how could he not? He started out his tenure by talking directly and idealistically to the Muslim world. He has placed a great deal more emphasis on talk and diplomacy than the Bush administration did. He has put pressure on Israel to try harder with the Palestinians. On the domestic front, health-care reform furnished ample evidence, for those in search of such, of too much concern with grievances and not enough with national greatness. Above all, the president's dourness, his apparent pessimism—he would not use the word 'victory' in relation to Iraq—chimes with that of Carter. Ergo, Obama is Carter redux.
And yet it won’t hold up. On matters of substance the comparison falls apart. Unlike Carter, Obama is no outsider to the establishment bearing a grudge against the insider elites. Nor is he an incompetent idealist. Witness his tendency to appoint the likes of Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers to top posts around him. Nor is he an impractical idealist. If anything, he has disappointed his more purist supporters with a problem-solving realpolitik approach to pressing issues at home and abroad. Think the TARP bailouts passed by Bush but fully implemented under Obama; think the “reset” button with Moscow that has brought the Russians onboard with regards to the embargo against Iran.
In Afghanistan, he ordered precisely the surge requested by the military while promising withdrawal down the line.
The Obama era, so far, is all about repair and retrenchment. In that way, it bears a greater resemblance to the Nixon presidency than to the incompetent messianism of the Carter days which, in turn, seem more akin to the faith-based over-reaching visions of the Bush era. Both Bush and Carter succeeded only in underlining the limits of American power. President Obama is still trying to locate where those limits lie. We don't have a clear snapshot moniker for his tenure yet, but a second Carter he isn't.
Obama: More Nixon Than Carter
by Melik Kaylan
Publication of Jimmy Carter’s White House Diary have pundits comparing him to Obama. But 44 is nothing like the incompetently messianic Carter—and has more in common with Tricky Dick.
No doubt the parts of President Obama's U.N. speeches in recent days will make the usual bloviators on the political right ratchet up the comparisons–always intended as derogatory–between the Obama and Carter presidencies. Even though Obama devoted at least half of his Thursday morning speech to blunt words about violence, terror, Islam, Pakistan, Iran, and the like, followed by praise of free markets and American leadership, nevertheless he did mention helping Africa and, yes, ended by talking about world peace. Any talk of solving the world's problems wholesale, especially those of the third world, is a gift to the comparison-mongers. They've had ample fresh incitement lately with the publication of President Jimmy Carter's White House Diary. Carter never misses the chance, it seems, to remind America of its moral turpitude while talking up his own joyless, grandiose do-goodery. But the Obama-Carter trope has a long pedigree, going back to the days of candidate Obama's jousts with his opponent Senator McCain, who warned that the country would get “Carter's second term” under Obama.
Let us, for argument's sake, take the comparison at face-value and examine its message and veracity. Historically, there has always been a tendency for a war-weary electorate to vote in a new leader to get on with the business of peace.
Postwar Britain astonishingly voted in Clement Atlee over Winston Churchill. In the U.S., voters chose Jimmy Carter to heal the country's post-Vietnam fissures, and one could argue that Bill Clinton was elected partly out of Cold War weariness as the country wanted to focus on the economic benefits of victory. The danger during such interludes is that the new administration neglects to keep defenses up and the nation strong against foreign rivals while over-agonizing about social injustices at home.
This has certainly been the traditional verdict on Jimmy Carter's term in office. The world sensed his weakness, the narrative goes, and enemies felt emboldened. While Carter defunded the CIA and the military, the Soviet Union felt free to invade Afghanistan and the Shah of Iran was toppled and replaced by the Ayatollah Khomeini. In short order, American embassy staff got taken hostage, a helicopter-borne rescue team ignominiously failed to reach its target, and all the while oil prices skyrocketed in the U.S. as OPEC grew in strength. There's a good deal of truth to the narrative: the facts speak for themselves.
But the narrative doesn't end there. The suggestion is that Carter's weakness was derived from his naïve idealism and messianic belief that he could change the world with good intentions, a weakness arguably connected to his particular brand of unworldly Christianity. It was generally held that Carter's worldview also included a puritanical sense of disgust over his own country's shortcomings and inequities. Hence his famous Independence Day, 1979, “malaise speech” in which he intoned drearily about “the growing doubt over the meaning of our own lives.” The combination of pessimism, Hamlet-esque agonizing, and doubt about American virtues all projected a fatal image of weakness abroad. They found an exact antidote in the character of Ronald Reagan–a sunny, optimistic extrovert with a faith in the moral strengths of the American system.
Apply this scenario to the Obama presidency and you can see where it leads. There are a few–only a few—points of similarity. President Obama is certainly trying to curb the military's expenditures—how could he not? He started out his tenure by talking directly and idealistically to the Muslim world. He has placed a great deal more emphasis on talk and diplomacy than the Bush administration did. He has put pressure on Israel to try harder with the Palestinians. On the domestic front, health-care reform furnished ample evidence, for those in search of such, of too much concern with grievances and not enough with national greatness. Above all, the president's dourness, his apparent pessimism—he would not use the word 'victory' in relation to Iraq—chimes with that of Carter. Ergo, Obama is Carter redux.
And yet it won’t hold up. On matters of substance the comparison falls apart. Unlike Carter, Obama is no outsider to the establishment bearing a grudge against the insider elites. Nor is he an incompetent idealist. Witness his tendency to appoint the likes of Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers to top posts around him. Nor is he an impractical idealist. If anything, he has disappointed his more purist supporters with a problem-solving realpolitik approach to pressing issues at home and abroad. Think the TARP bailouts passed by Bush but fully implemented under Obama; think the “reset” button with Moscow that has brought the Russians onboard with regards to the embargo against Iran.
In Afghanistan, he ordered precisely the surge requested by the military while promising withdrawal down the line.
The Obama era, so far, is all about repair and retrenchment. In that way, it bears a greater resemblance to the Nixon presidency than to the incompetent messianism of the Carter days which, in turn, seem more akin to the faith-based over-reaching visions of the Bush era. Both Bush and Carter succeeded only in underlining the limits of American power. President Obama is still trying to locate where those limits lie. We don't have a clear snapshot moniker for his tenure yet, but a second Carter he isn't.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Christine O'Donnell, GOP Senate nominee and Tea Party favorite: "Evolution is a Myth" "
From The New York Daily News -- September 25, 2010:
Christine O'Donnell, GOP Senate nominee and Tea Party favorite: 'Evolution is a myth' in 1990s clip
BY ALIYAH SHAHID
The hits just keep on coming for Christine O'Donnell.
A 1990s clip of the Republican Delaware Senate nominee and Tea Party favorite declaring "evolution is a myth," was released by comedian Bill Maher on Friday night.
O'Donnell had appeared as a conservative Christian activist and was a frequent guest on his "Politically Incorrect" show.
Maher replayed the segment on his HBO show "Real Time."
On the Oct. 15, 1998 clip, O'Donnell challenged the theory of evolution.
"Evolution is a myth," she said, starting to elaborate before Maher interrupted.
"Evolution is a myth?" he asked. "Have you ever looked at a monkey?"
"Well then why aren't they, why aren't monkeys still evolving into humans?," O'Donnell countered.
It isn't Maher's first jab against the candidate, who was endorsed by former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
After her recent upset victory against nine-term Rep. Mike Castle, Maher played a 1999 tape in which O'Donnell said she dabbled in witchcraft while in high school. Maher threatened to replay more old clips of O'Donnell unless she appeared on his show.
Additional embarrassing footage has since surfaced leading up to her race against Democrat Chris Coons. The most often cited is her 1996 MTV campaign against masturbation, saying it was akin to adultery.
Christine O'Donnell, GOP Senate nominee and Tea Party favorite: 'Evolution is a myth' in 1990s clip
BY ALIYAH SHAHID
The hits just keep on coming for Christine O'Donnell.
A 1990s clip of the Republican Delaware Senate nominee and Tea Party favorite declaring "evolution is a myth," was released by comedian Bill Maher on Friday night.
O'Donnell had appeared as a conservative Christian activist and was a frequent guest on his "Politically Incorrect" show.
Maher replayed the segment on his HBO show "Real Time."
On the Oct. 15, 1998 clip, O'Donnell challenged the theory of evolution.
"Evolution is a myth," she said, starting to elaborate before Maher interrupted.
"Evolution is a myth?" he asked. "Have you ever looked at a monkey?"
"Well then why aren't they, why aren't monkeys still evolving into humans?," O'Donnell countered.
It isn't Maher's first jab against the candidate, who was endorsed by former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
After her recent upset victory against nine-term Rep. Mike Castle, Maher played a 1999 tape in which O'Donnell said she dabbled in witchcraft while in high school. Maher threatened to replay more old clips of O'Donnell unless she appeared on his show.
Additional embarrassing footage has since surfaced leading up to her race against Democrat Chris Coons. The most often cited is her 1996 MTV campaign against masturbation, saying it was akin to adultery.
Obama and Ahmadinejad at the UN -- Where President Obama Really Stands on Iran
President Obama rips Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, saying shame on you for your 9/11 lies
BY SAMUEL GOLDSMITH AND KENNETH R. BAZINET
New York Daily News -- September 25th 2010
President Obama said it's 'inexcusable' for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to spew theories on 9/11 just blocks from where tragedy occurred.
President Obama ripped into Iranian strongman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Friday for his "offensive, hateful, and inexcusable" rant at the UN blaming America for the 9/11 attacks.
"For him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost their loved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation, for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable," Obama told the BBC.
The U.S. delegation walked out of the United Nations General Assembly Thursday in protest when Ahmadinejad began spewing venom about the U.S. role in Al Qaeda's Sept. 11 attacks.
Ahmadinejad spat out more of the same hate-laced anti-American rhetoric yesterday during a press conference near Ground Zero, where he called on the UN to find the "true reason" behind the attacks.
"Don't you feel that the time has come to have a fact finding committee?" the outspoken leader asked.
"An event occurred, and under the pretext of that event two countries were invaded and up to now hundreds of thousands of people have been killed as a result. Don't you feel that that excuse has to be revised?" he added.
"Why do you assume that all nations must accept what the U.S. government tells them?"
Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad met with Sarah Shourd, one of three Americans arrested last year while hiking near the Iran-Iraq border. Shourd, freed 11 days ago, pleaded for the release of her friends.
BY SAMUEL GOLDSMITH AND KENNETH R. BAZINET
New York Daily News -- September 25th 2010
President Obama said it's 'inexcusable' for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to spew theories on 9/11 just blocks from where tragedy occurred.
President Obama ripped into Iranian strongman Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Friday for his "offensive, hateful, and inexcusable" rant at the UN blaming America for the 9/11 attacks.
"For him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost their loved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation, for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable," Obama told the BBC.
The U.S. delegation walked out of the United Nations General Assembly Thursday in protest when Ahmadinejad began spewing venom about the U.S. role in Al Qaeda's Sept. 11 attacks.
Ahmadinejad spat out more of the same hate-laced anti-American rhetoric yesterday during a press conference near Ground Zero, where he called on the UN to find the "true reason" behind the attacks.
"Don't you feel that the time has come to have a fact finding committee?" the outspoken leader asked.
"An event occurred, and under the pretext of that event two countries were invaded and up to now hundreds of thousands of people have been killed as a result. Don't you feel that that excuse has to be revised?" he added.
"Why do you assume that all nations must accept what the U.S. government tells them?"
Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad met with Sarah Shourd, one of three Americans arrested last year while hiking near the Iran-Iraq border. Shourd, freed 11 days ago, pleaded for the release of her friends.
Friday, September 24, 2010
The Republican Plague on America
From The Huffington Post -- September 24, 2010:
By Rep. James E. Clyburn
GOP Agenda Is a Plague on Americans
As we head towards the midterm elections, the choice facing the American people that will shape the future of our country could not be clearer. Will we chose to go back to the policies that led to the worst recession since the Great Depression, the loss of eight million jobs, exploded our deficit after years of record surpluses, and put the financial security of our nation's seniors in jeopardy?
President Obama has likened the management of the economy by my Republican colleagues and President Bush to having driven a car into the ditch, and then asking for the keys back. Well, while the driver got off scot-free, some of the passengers suffered blunt force trauma, and for the last two years we've been trying to stabilize them with various remedies, some of them unprecedented.
Now that our economy is showing signs of life, the Republicans want to go back to those "exact same" failed policies that drove our economy into the ditch in the first place. They have unveiled a new Republican pledge to America -- filled with the same old ideas. And I am convinced that if their plan is implemented it would be a plague on America.
TheRecovery Act that the Democrats passed and President Obama signed into law has stopped the hemorrhaging. It has saved or created at least 3.2 million jobs to date, is still making critical investments in our nation's infrastructure and is laying the groundwork to create 21st century jobs in green technology sectors. Just as jobs are coming back to industries that were once written off, Republicans are demanding that we defund the Recovery Act and give up on our investment in the future of America.
Yesterday we passed a small business jobs bill that does not add one dime to the deficit and will offer tax credits, provide access to capital and free up much needed credit for small businesses around the country so they can create jobs and continue driving our economic recovery. After rolling out their agenda at a small business in Northern Virginia, House Republicans cynically came back to Capitol Hill and all but one of them voted against providing tax relief and increased lending for small businesses.
The GOP plan also abandons the middle class by holding hostage tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires, increasing the deficit by $700 billion. Republicans have repeatedly voted against closing tax loopholes that encourage shipping jobs overseas, while the Democrats' Make it in America agenda has focused on creating high-skill, high-paying jobs in our communities and increasing the competitiveness of home grown, American owned companies.
The Republicans want to inflict a plague on the American people by repealing health reform and the Patient's Bill of Rights -- a package of common sense reforms that will allow kids to stay on their parent's insurance until age 26, prevent insurance companies from revoking your coverage if you get sick, prevent children from being denied coverage based on a pre-existing condition, and remove lifetime limits on what insurance will cover. If they get their wish and repeal health reform, millions of seniors would see an increase in their out-of-pocket expenses, Medicare premiums will increase, prescription drug costs will go back up and insurance companies will regain control of your health care decisions.
The GOP plague on Americans even includes putting retirement security in the hands of those who ruined our economy, and would turn Social Security from a guaranteed benefit, to a guaranteed gamble. Even though the American public rejected their privatization schemes during the Bush Administration, the GOP wants to repeat.
I believe the choice before the American people is clear. While we still have a lot of work to do to get our country back, all signs indicate that we are moving in the right direction. And recent history has shown us exactly what will happen if Republicans are allowed to reinstitute their failed ideas from the past.
By Rep. James E. Clyburn
GOP Agenda Is a Plague on Americans
As we head towards the midterm elections, the choice facing the American people that will shape the future of our country could not be clearer. Will we chose to go back to the policies that led to the worst recession since the Great Depression, the loss of eight million jobs, exploded our deficit after years of record surpluses, and put the financial security of our nation's seniors in jeopardy?
President Obama has likened the management of the economy by my Republican colleagues and President Bush to having driven a car into the ditch, and then asking for the keys back. Well, while the driver got off scot-free, some of the passengers suffered blunt force trauma, and for the last two years we've been trying to stabilize them with various remedies, some of them unprecedented.
Now that our economy is showing signs of life, the Republicans want to go back to those "exact same" failed policies that drove our economy into the ditch in the first place. They have unveiled a new Republican pledge to America -- filled with the same old ideas. And I am convinced that if their plan is implemented it would be a plague on America.
TheRecovery Act that the Democrats passed and President Obama signed into law has stopped the hemorrhaging. It has saved or created at least 3.2 million jobs to date, is still making critical investments in our nation's infrastructure and is laying the groundwork to create 21st century jobs in green technology sectors. Just as jobs are coming back to industries that were once written off, Republicans are demanding that we defund the Recovery Act and give up on our investment in the future of America.
Yesterday we passed a small business jobs bill that does not add one dime to the deficit and will offer tax credits, provide access to capital and free up much needed credit for small businesses around the country so they can create jobs and continue driving our economic recovery. After rolling out their agenda at a small business in Northern Virginia, House Republicans cynically came back to Capitol Hill and all but one of them voted against providing tax relief and increased lending for small businesses.
The GOP plan also abandons the middle class by holding hostage tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires, increasing the deficit by $700 billion. Republicans have repeatedly voted against closing tax loopholes that encourage shipping jobs overseas, while the Democrats' Make it in America agenda has focused on creating high-skill, high-paying jobs in our communities and increasing the competitiveness of home grown, American owned companies.
The Republicans want to inflict a plague on the American people by repealing health reform and the Patient's Bill of Rights -- a package of common sense reforms that will allow kids to stay on their parent's insurance until age 26, prevent insurance companies from revoking your coverage if you get sick, prevent children from being denied coverage based on a pre-existing condition, and remove lifetime limits on what insurance will cover. If they get their wish and repeal health reform, millions of seniors would see an increase in their out-of-pocket expenses, Medicare premiums will increase, prescription drug costs will go back up and insurance companies will regain control of your health care decisions.
The GOP plague on Americans even includes putting retirement security in the hands of those who ruined our economy, and would turn Social Security from a guaranteed benefit, to a guaranteed gamble. Even though the American public rejected their privatization schemes during the Bush Administration, the GOP wants to repeat.
I believe the choice before the American people is clear. While we still have a lot of work to do to get our country back, all signs indicate that we are moving in the right direction. And recent history has shown us exactly what will happen if Republicans are allowed to reinstitute their failed ideas from the past.
Republicans Are Set to Kill America
From The Huffington Post --September 24, 2010:
The Super Rich Get Richer, Everyone Else Gets Poorer, and the Democrats Punt
By Robert Reich
The super-rich got even wealthier this year, and yet most of them are paying even fewer taxes to support the eduction, job training, and job creation of the rest of us. According to Forbes magazine's annual survey, just released, the combined net worth of the 400 richest Americans climbed 8% this year, to $1.37 trillion. Wealth rose for 217 members of the list, while 85 saw a decline.
For example, Charles and David Koch, the energy magnates who are pouring vast sums of money into Republican coffers and sponsoring tea partiers all over America, each gained $5.5 billion of wealth over the past year. Each is now worth $21.5 billion.
Wall Street continued to dominate the list; 109 of the richest 400 are in finance or investments.
From another survey we learn that the 25 top hedge-fund managers got an average of $1 billion each, but paid an average of 17 percent in taxes (because so much of their income is considered capital gains, taxed at 15 percent thanks to the Bush tax cuts).
The rest of America got poorer, of course. The number in poverty rose to a post-war high. The median wage continues to deteriorate. And some 20 million Americans don't have work.
Only twice before in American history has so much been held by so few, and the gap between them and the great majority been a chasm -- the late 1920s, and the era of the robber barons in the 1880s.
And yet the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, which conferred almost all their benefits on the rich, continue.
Democrats have decided to delay voting on whether to extend them for the top 2 percent of Americans or for the bottom 98 percent until after the mid-term elections.
Democrats have thereby given up a defining issue that could have enabled them to show the big story of the last three decades -- the accumulation of almost all the gain from economic growth at the top -- and to make a start at reversing it.
When will they ever learn?
The Super Rich Get Richer, Everyone Else Gets Poorer, and the Democrats Punt
By Robert Reich
The super-rich got even wealthier this year, and yet most of them are paying even fewer taxes to support the eduction, job training, and job creation of the rest of us. According to Forbes magazine's annual survey, just released, the combined net worth of the 400 richest Americans climbed 8% this year, to $1.37 trillion. Wealth rose for 217 members of the list, while 85 saw a decline.
For example, Charles and David Koch, the energy magnates who are pouring vast sums of money into Republican coffers and sponsoring tea partiers all over America, each gained $5.5 billion of wealth over the past year. Each is now worth $21.5 billion.
Wall Street continued to dominate the list; 109 of the richest 400 are in finance or investments.
From another survey we learn that the 25 top hedge-fund managers got an average of $1 billion each, but paid an average of 17 percent in taxes (because so much of their income is considered capital gains, taxed at 15 percent thanks to the Bush tax cuts).
The rest of America got poorer, of course. The number in poverty rose to a post-war high. The median wage continues to deteriorate. And some 20 million Americans don't have work.
Only twice before in American history has so much been held by so few, and the gap between them and the great majority been a chasm -- the late 1920s, and the era of the robber barons in the 1880s.
And yet the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, which conferred almost all their benefits on the rich, continue.
Democrats have decided to delay voting on whether to extend them for the top 2 percent of Americans or for the bottom 98 percent until after the mid-term elections.
Democrats have thereby given up a defining issue that could have enabled them to show the big story of the last three decades -- the accumulation of almost all the gain from economic growth at the top -- and to make a start at reversing it.
When will they ever learn?
The FOX NEWS Republican Propaganda Network Strikes Again
From Media Matters for America -- September 24, 2010:
Fox News lavishes 2 1/2 hours on GOP's "Pledge to America"
Fox News devoted at least 2 hours 33 minutes on September 22 and 23 to promoting, discussing, and reporting on House Republicans' "Pledge to America," their legislative agenda for the next Congress.
Fox spent more than two and a half hours of coverage on days of preview, release of "Pledge"
Fox News devoted at least 2 hours 33 minutes to "Pledge to America." On September 22 and 23 -- the day the document was released, and the day before, when the document's release was anticipated -- Fox News spent two hours and thirty-three minutes in on-air discussion, reporting, and promotion of the Republican "Pledge to America."
Fox News coverage of the "Pledge to America," in minutes (September 22-23, 2010):
Program
Time
America Live
0:10:29
America's Newsroom
0:30:02
Fox & Friends
0:23:33
Fox Report
0:02:33
Glenn Beck
0:01:03
Hannity
0:24:57
Happening Now
0:18:34
On The Record
0:19:53
Special Report
0:18:47
Studio B
0:02:36
Your World
0:01:01
Total
2:33:28
America's Newsroom, Hannity led the way in coverage of "Pledge to America." America's Newsroom featured roughly 30 minutes minutes of coverage of the "Pledge to America," while Hannity devoted nearly 25 minutes to the issue.
Fox "Pledge" coverage featured adulation and factually inaccurate reporting
Hannity and guests on "Pledge": "Incredible," "excellent" On September 22 and 23, host Sean Hannity and his guests praised the "Pledge to America". On September 23 Hannity said, "The preamble was incredible. The preamble is everything the Tea Party Movement and this conservative ascendancy is calling for." Fox host Mike Huckabee said it was "wonderful" that the proposal said, "they have to have a constitutional impact statement for the bills that they pass." Conservative pundit Ann Coulter said the proposal was "good" though she had "about another 3,000 items I'd like to add to it" (via Nexis). On September 22, after detailing the major bullet points of the "Pledge," Hannity asked Fox News political analyst Karl Rove for his take. Rove responded, "I like it".
Fox & Friends coverage of "Pledge" almost entirely Republican. Fox & Friends' September 23 coverage of the "Pledge" consisted almost entirely of conservatives who endorsed the pledge and Republicans who promoted it. The program featured three Republican supporters on tape and an on-camera interview with supporting Rep. Mike Pence, with only an on-air reading of a statement by Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer in opposition. Fox & Friends also hosted conservative pundit Michelle Malkin, who said the pledge showed Republicans are "clearly listening to the grassroots base."
Varney falsely claimed "Pledge" would reduce the deficit. Appearing on America's Newsroom, Fox Business host Stuart Varney claimed the pledge would lead to "less debt." In fact, a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts, as called for in the pledge, would reportedly cost $3.9 trillion over the next decade. The proposal offers no remedy to offset that cost.
Fox News regularly promotes Republican issues and candidates
Fox News has close associations with the Republican Party, and promotes Republican candidates and issues. News Corp., the parent company of Fox News Channel, donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association. Republican candidates regularly appear on Fox for softball interviews to launch their campaigns and promote fundraising, while Fox News hosts and contributors often raise money for Republican candidates and causes.
Fox News lavishes 2 1/2 hours on GOP's "Pledge to America"
Fox News devoted at least 2 hours 33 minutes on September 22 and 23 to promoting, discussing, and reporting on House Republicans' "Pledge to America," their legislative agenda for the next Congress.
Fox spent more than two and a half hours of coverage on days of preview, release of "Pledge"
Fox News devoted at least 2 hours 33 minutes to "Pledge to America." On September 22 and 23 -- the day the document was released, and the day before, when the document's release was anticipated -- Fox News spent two hours and thirty-three minutes in on-air discussion, reporting, and promotion of the Republican "Pledge to America."
Fox News coverage of the "Pledge to America," in minutes (September 22-23, 2010):
Program
Time
America Live
0:10:29
America's Newsroom
0:30:02
Fox & Friends
0:23:33
Fox Report
0:02:33
Glenn Beck
0:01:03
Hannity
0:24:57
Happening Now
0:18:34
On The Record
0:19:53
Special Report
0:18:47
Studio B
0:02:36
Your World
0:01:01
Total
2:33:28
America's Newsroom, Hannity led the way in coverage of "Pledge to America." America's Newsroom featured roughly 30 minutes minutes of coverage of the "Pledge to America," while Hannity devoted nearly 25 minutes to the issue.
Fox "Pledge" coverage featured adulation and factually inaccurate reporting
Hannity and guests on "Pledge": "Incredible," "excellent" On September 22 and 23, host Sean Hannity and his guests praised the "Pledge to America". On September 23 Hannity said, "The preamble was incredible. The preamble is everything the Tea Party Movement and this conservative ascendancy is calling for." Fox host Mike Huckabee said it was "wonderful" that the proposal said, "they have to have a constitutional impact statement for the bills that they pass." Conservative pundit Ann Coulter said the proposal was "good" though she had "about another 3,000 items I'd like to add to it" (via Nexis). On September 22, after detailing the major bullet points of the "Pledge," Hannity asked Fox News political analyst Karl Rove for his take. Rove responded, "I like it".
Fox & Friends coverage of "Pledge" almost entirely Republican. Fox & Friends' September 23 coverage of the "Pledge" consisted almost entirely of conservatives who endorsed the pledge and Republicans who promoted it. The program featured three Republican supporters on tape and an on-camera interview with supporting Rep. Mike Pence, with only an on-air reading of a statement by Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer in opposition. Fox & Friends also hosted conservative pundit Michelle Malkin, who said the pledge showed Republicans are "clearly listening to the grassroots base."
Varney falsely claimed "Pledge" would reduce the deficit. Appearing on America's Newsroom, Fox Business host Stuart Varney claimed the pledge would lead to "less debt." In fact, a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts, as called for in the pledge, would reportedly cost $3.9 trillion over the next decade. The proposal offers no remedy to offset that cost.
Fox News regularly promotes Republican issues and candidates
Fox News has close associations with the Republican Party, and promotes Republican candidates and issues. News Corp., the parent company of Fox News Channel, donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association. Republican candidates regularly appear on Fox for softball interviews to launch their campaigns and promote fundraising, while Fox News hosts and contributors often raise money for Republican candidates and causes.
Republicans' Hooey to America
From The Washington Post -- September 24, 2010:
The GOP's Hooey to America
By Eugene Robinson
The Republicans were doing pretty well as the Party of No. So why did they decide to rebrand themselves as the Party of Nonsense?
With their 'Pledge to America,' Republicans are the new Foundering Fathers
All right, I'm being slightly disingenuous. Inquiring minds demanded to know just what the GOP proposed to do if voters entrusted it with control of one or both houses of Congress. But if the "Pledge to America" unveiled Thursday is the best that House Republicans can come up with, they'd have been better off continuing to froth and foam about "creeping socialism" while stonewalling on specifics.
The problem with the pledge is that the numbers don't remotely add up. The document is such a jumble of contradictions that it's hard to imagine how it could possibly pass muster with anyone who survived eighth-grade arithmetic -- unless, perhaps, the Republicans have something in mind that they're not prepared to talk about quite yet.
The pledge bills itself as a plan to "create jobs, end economic uncertainty, and make America more competitive." These sound like worthy initiatives, but the GOP also promises to "stop out-of-control spending and reduce the size of government." Most economists would contend that right now, given the level of economic distress throughout the nation, those goals are mutually exclusive. No matter, I suppose, since the pledge wouldn't really do either.
To create jobs, the Republicans vow to make all of the Bush administration's tax cuts permanent -- as opposed to the Democrats' position, which is to make the cuts permanent for the middle class but allow taxes to return to Clinton-era levels for households making more than $250,000 a year. The GOP also would give small-business owners a new 20 percent tax deduction on their business income. The pledge also tosses in the perennial Republican promise to curb "excessive federal regulation."
But on the spending side, the party would take a number of actions that would immediately destroy jobs. Republicans propose a hiring freeze for federal employees -- exempting the defense and security sectors. Since the private sector isn't hiring, a public-sector job freeze would only ensure that unemployment remains higher than it otherwise would have been. The pledge also proposes embargoing any funds from last year's stimulus bill that have not already been spent -- money that is meant to keep construction workers, teachers, firefighters and others on the job.
If Americans who might have been hired by the federal government or paid with stimulus funds are out of work, they won't have money to spend on goods and services -- and businesses, facing lower demand for their goods and services, won't hire workers or invest in new facilities. Do Republicans actually want to send the economy back into recession, or have they just not read the document issued in their name?
There's much more. I'm just coming to the most dishonest -- or, charitably, most insincere -- of the pledge's many promises. Republicans claim to want to reduce the "massive" federal deficit. That is, indeed, a noble aim. But the plan is riddled with measures that would make the deficit grow, not shrink.
Perhaps the biggest is not just extending the tax cuts, but making them permanent. Over the next decade, this measure would add an estimated $4 trillion to the deficit. The Republicans' notion that cutting the federal budget will somehow make up the difference is laughable. The pledge exempts defense, entitlements and debt service -- the biggest components of the federal budget -- and focuses on "discretionary" spending, which Republicans would cut by "at least $100 billion in the first year alone." Yeah, right.
Sucking that much money out of discretionary programs would require draconian cuts in programs, such as education grants, that both red states and blue states have come to depend on. It won't happen. And even if it did, the impact on the deficit would pale in comparison to that of the tax cuts.
One funny thing: The "Pledge to America" mentions the phrase "Social Security" just twice in passing. If the GOP were somehow to enact its full plan, one of the only conceivable ways to keep the country out of bankruptcy would be to make radical changes to Social Security -- perhaps privatizing the program, which George W. Bush tried and failed to accomplish. Is that what Republicans have in mind?
That would be a question to ask before November. I think more than a few people would love to know the answer.
The GOP's Hooey to America
By Eugene Robinson
The Republicans were doing pretty well as the Party of No. So why did they decide to rebrand themselves as the Party of Nonsense?
With their 'Pledge to America,' Republicans are the new Foundering Fathers
All right, I'm being slightly disingenuous. Inquiring minds demanded to know just what the GOP proposed to do if voters entrusted it with control of one or both houses of Congress. But if the "Pledge to America" unveiled Thursday is the best that House Republicans can come up with, they'd have been better off continuing to froth and foam about "creeping socialism" while stonewalling on specifics.
The problem with the pledge is that the numbers don't remotely add up. The document is such a jumble of contradictions that it's hard to imagine how it could possibly pass muster with anyone who survived eighth-grade arithmetic -- unless, perhaps, the Republicans have something in mind that they're not prepared to talk about quite yet.
The pledge bills itself as a plan to "create jobs, end economic uncertainty, and make America more competitive." These sound like worthy initiatives, but the GOP also promises to "stop out-of-control spending and reduce the size of government." Most economists would contend that right now, given the level of economic distress throughout the nation, those goals are mutually exclusive. No matter, I suppose, since the pledge wouldn't really do either.
To create jobs, the Republicans vow to make all of the Bush administration's tax cuts permanent -- as opposed to the Democrats' position, which is to make the cuts permanent for the middle class but allow taxes to return to Clinton-era levels for households making more than $250,000 a year. The GOP also would give small-business owners a new 20 percent tax deduction on their business income. The pledge also tosses in the perennial Republican promise to curb "excessive federal regulation."
But on the spending side, the party would take a number of actions that would immediately destroy jobs. Republicans propose a hiring freeze for federal employees -- exempting the defense and security sectors. Since the private sector isn't hiring, a public-sector job freeze would only ensure that unemployment remains higher than it otherwise would have been. The pledge also proposes embargoing any funds from last year's stimulus bill that have not already been spent -- money that is meant to keep construction workers, teachers, firefighters and others on the job.
If Americans who might have been hired by the federal government or paid with stimulus funds are out of work, they won't have money to spend on goods and services -- and businesses, facing lower demand for their goods and services, won't hire workers or invest in new facilities. Do Republicans actually want to send the economy back into recession, or have they just not read the document issued in their name?
There's much more. I'm just coming to the most dishonest -- or, charitably, most insincere -- of the pledge's many promises. Republicans claim to want to reduce the "massive" federal deficit. That is, indeed, a noble aim. But the plan is riddled with measures that would make the deficit grow, not shrink.
Perhaps the biggest is not just extending the tax cuts, but making them permanent. Over the next decade, this measure would add an estimated $4 trillion to the deficit. The Republicans' notion that cutting the federal budget will somehow make up the difference is laughable. The pledge exempts defense, entitlements and debt service -- the biggest components of the federal budget -- and focuses on "discretionary" spending, which Republicans would cut by "at least $100 billion in the first year alone." Yeah, right.
Sucking that much money out of discretionary programs would require draconian cuts in programs, such as education grants, that both red states and blue states have come to depend on. It won't happen. And even if it did, the impact on the deficit would pale in comparison to that of the tax cuts.
One funny thing: The "Pledge to America" mentions the phrase "Social Security" just twice in passing. If the GOP were somehow to enact its full plan, one of the only conceivable ways to keep the country out of bankruptcy would be to make radical changes to Social Security -- perhaps privatizing the program, which George W. Bush tried and failed to accomplish. Is that what Republicans have in mind?
That would be a question to ask before November. I think more than a few people would love to know the answer.
To All Those Infantile Tea Party Bird-Brains
From The Huffington Post -- September 24, 2010:
Who Are We?
By Evan Handler
So, we've killed a woman with an IQ of 72. Does that mean we've prevailed? Has justice prevailed?
"Who are we?" I wonder at a time like this. Who have we become?
And, according to many polls and many media outlets, the populace is "fed up," "angry," and we're going to get a new set of leaders - perhaps a newly (redundantly) minted party in power - come November. Because "the country" doesn't like "the direction" we're "headed in."
But "the country" didn't like "the direction" we were "headed in" in November of 2008. That's why "the country" elected Barack Obama, along with a Democratic majority (not that a majority means anything anymore). So, "the country" still doesn't like "the direction" we're "headed in," even though it's a very different direction than we were headed in two years ago. And, as a result of not liking this direction either, "the country" seems ready to head us right back where we were headed before.
This, my fellow Americans, is insanity.
What people don't like, I think, isn't so much "the direction we're headed in," as where we've arrived at. Yet, here we are, just the same.
I have a few questions for those who are disappointed enough to crave a reversal of course after less than two years of different tactics (less, because though elected in November 2008, the current administration didn't officially take the reins until January 2009).
1) Did you really think that undoing eight years of viciously one-sided, often inept, and largely misguided governing could be accomplished, painlessly, in less than 24 months? (Even with a fractious ruling party, and relentlessly obstructionist opposition? Really?)
2) Did you think that the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression could be skipped over, and rebounded from, with little cost, and less pain than has already been suffered, in less than 18 months?
3) Do you really think that anyone, anywhere, could solve the most crucial problems so understandably bothering you - horrific unemployment, outrageously bloated deficits, and a massive government bureaucracy designed to feed itself before serving you - any more quickly?
4) Did you really think that any new leader, or administration (without a 2/3 majority needed to overpower filibusters) could attack unprecedented problems without making compromises, without making any errors?
If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, I think you're either an infant, or a fool. (My guess is that most fall into the former category.)
My answer to the first question I posed, "Who are we?", is that we are a nation comprised significantly of children. (My working definition of "child" being "one who lacks maturity, patience, and understanding beyond his or her immediate needs and desires.") And my message today is, "Grow up."
We have one of the lowest tax rates of any westernized, industrialized nation - yet you think your taxes are too high.
You want your nation to be at war (at least most of you did when the wars started) - but you don't want to have to pay for those wars.
Many of you were delighted to buy houses that you had no realistic way to afford - but you don't want to be kicked out of them when you can't make the payments.
Many of you are angry at your neighbors for buying those houses they had no way to realistically afford, and you're angry at the government for offering assistance to them - but you also wouldn't tolerate watching the value of your own house plunge even more than it already has, which is what inaction would have allowed.
You want all the services your government provides, when you need them - but you don't want to be taxed for them; and you don't want anyone else to have them, before you get them yourself.
You want your groceries to be inexpensive (and they are among the least expensive in the world) - but you don't want any of those "illegals" in your area.
You want all the services your government provides, when you need them - but you also want your taxes to go down every single election cycle (and you'll vote for whoever promises that to you).
You want your government "out of your pocket," and "out of your life" - but as soon as someone or something bigger than you comes along to squash you (like a corporation spewing toxic material, or an insurer who won't provide coverage, or a terrorist organization targeting your airline), you want to be protected.
You're enraged that more jobs haven't been created - yet you've already called the president a socialist, and he didn't even create a government funded, WPA-style work program. (Which would put a lot of people back to work.)
And let's not forget, we (still) have one of the highest rates of infant mortality and avoidable adult deaths - but you believe the health care you have access to is "the best," and that it shouldn't be changed.
These are delusional contradictions. They are contradictions that exist only in the minds of children, and madmen.
Which one are you? Really. I'm curious today, America. I'm curious Americans, as (some of) you herald the newly hatched "Pledge to America." Which one are you?
Of course, there'll be anger at these statements and questions. There'll be those who leap to accusations of insensitivity. "Easy for you to say," some will contest. "You've got a good paying job, while we work ourselves to the bone (if we're lucky enough to have work) and are still unable to make our payments."
I don't mean to be insensitive to anyone, individually. But, as a group, I have to ask, what did you expect? Many of you voted for an insincere and incompetent administration two times in a row. Many of you wanted to be led into war in two separate, mindbogglingly distant destinations simultaneously. And many of you insisted on having your taxes cut, and your bosses' taxes cut (and his or her bosses' taxes cut) at the same time. Many of you want all those taxes cut again.
Did you think those things you voted for could be accomplished free of charge? Just how low did you imagine the cost would be, when you were told there would be a cost? How naive were you allowing yourself to be, if you thought there would be none, or that it would be paid by someone else? Who else, exactly, other than you and your friends and neighbors, did you think would be picking up the tab? The Bush family? The Cheneys? Blackwater? Halliburton? No, they were the providers of the services you ordered. On credit. The providers got paid long ago. Now the creditors have arrived to collect the bill. From you. With interest. That's the way it works in a grown up world. You pay for the goods you've received.
If you're unhappy with the cost today, I'd suggest you protest more strongly the next time someone wants to sell you a war. And a tax break. Simultaneously. Which is what the wretched "Pledge" is now offering, again.
Any buyers?
The 2008 presidential campaign contained at least some talk of difficult times ahead. I wonder what that means to most Americans. Apparently, if the current election predictions come true, it means less than 10% unemployment, for less than two years. I'm not an economist, but I've got got a prediction I feel pretty confident about. Things are not going to improve economically, to any significant degree, for many more years to come. And bouncing back and forth between the reasonable (though debatable in its details) emergency economic actions recently taken, and the same insane measures that led us into our recent disasters, isn't going to make it happen any more quickly. Of this I am certain.
Let's talk about that word I just used. Disaster. Do you agree that's what we've been through recently? A disaster? A series of them? (If not, please take a seat in the back of the room.)
If you do agree, then how severe, and how long lasting, do you think the repercussions of a disaster are likely to be?
If you said, "Hmmm... probably quite a number of years. Maybe even a couple of generations," then please stay where you are.
If you said, "Oh, a few months at most!", then please join the people in the back who don't think we've even been through a disaster in the first place.
Okay, where are you sitting?
If you're in the back, I think you've still got some growing up to do.
For God's sake, America. The bombs you wanted to drop (which were bought with credit cards), but don't want to have to pay for, are raining down on civilians across the globe from you. But you're crying because your very new president bailed out General Motors - saving the jobs of tens of thousands of your neighbors. (There were two choices: bailout with controlled bankruptcy, or uncontrolled bankruptcy. Do you think things would be better if they'd gone the other way?)
Your fury is uncontainable over the stimulus money spent. But, without it, we'd be in a depression right now.
You're irate that the government has "taken over" your health care. But yesterday was the first time in your life, or your children's lives (or your parents' lives, or their parents' lives), that you can't be denied health insurance on the basis of a preexisting condition; that your kids have the right to stay covered on your policy until they're 26; and that there will be no lifetime maximums for reimbursements of your condition. It's the first time insurers are required to cover your costs for colonoscopies, mammograms and immunizations without copayments. Is it free? No. But you are now better protected from further disaster.
I'm not claiming any of these things are perfect, or were accomplished perfectly. I've got plenty of complaints and disappointments of my own (someone please give the Democrats a few lectures on Salesmanship 101) . But does no one remember that the difficulties facing any new administration in 2008 were considered to be nearly insurmountable? Are you really going to claim, because oceans of problems still exist, that nothing has changed, or that change hasn't come fast enough? Are you really going to conclude that the new solution is to go right back to the same old ways? Or, to sit home on election day, and allow that to happen?
The fact is, as a nation, we have sustained. We have not thrived. Many have suffered. Many will continue to. But the country has not sunk. That, in itself, is a remarkable accomplishment.
Is it a good campaign slogan? "We Didn't Sink!" Will it be enough to get a majority reelected? Maybe not. But only children direct fury at those who've performed admirably, if imperfectly. All because they didn't get what they want, no matter how unrealistic their wishes might be.
Who Are We?
By Evan Handler
So, we've killed a woman with an IQ of 72. Does that mean we've prevailed? Has justice prevailed?
"Who are we?" I wonder at a time like this. Who have we become?
And, according to many polls and many media outlets, the populace is "fed up," "angry," and we're going to get a new set of leaders - perhaps a newly (redundantly) minted party in power - come November. Because "the country" doesn't like "the direction" we're "headed in."
But "the country" didn't like "the direction" we were "headed in" in November of 2008. That's why "the country" elected Barack Obama, along with a Democratic majority (not that a majority means anything anymore). So, "the country" still doesn't like "the direction" we're "headed in," even though it's a very different direction than we were headed in two years ago. And, as a result of not liking this direction either, "the country" seems ready to head us right back where we were headed before.
This, my fellow Americans, is insanity.
What people don't like, I think, isn't so much "the direction we're headed in," as where we've arrived at. Yet, here we are, just the same.
I have a few questions for those who are disappointed enough to crave a reversal of course after less than two years of different tactics (less, because though elected in November 2008, the current administration didn't officially take the reins until January 2009).
1) Did you really think that undoing eight years of viciously one-sided, often inept, and largely misguided governing could be accomplished, painlessly, in less than 24 months? (Even with a fractious ruling party, and relentlessly obstructionist opposition? Really?)
2) Did you think that the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression could be skipped over, and rebounded from, with little cost, and less pain than has already been suffered, in less than 18 months?
3) Do you really think that anyone, anywhere, could solve the most crucial problems so understandably bothering you - horrific unemployment, outrageously bloated deficits, and a massive government bureaucracy designed to feed itself before serving you - any more quickly?
4) Did you really think that any new leader, or administration (without a 2/3 majority needed to overpower filibusters) could attack unprecedented problems without making compromises, without making any errors?
If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, I think you're either an infant, or a fool. (My guess is that most fall into the former category.)
My answer to the first question I posed, "Who are we?", is that we are a nation comprised significantly of children. (My working definition of "child" being "one who lacks maturity, patience, and understanding beyond his or her immediate needs and desires.") And my message today is, "Grow up."
We have one of the lowest tax rates of any westernized, industrialized nation - yet you think your taxes are too high.
You want your nation to be at war (at least most of you did when the wars started) - but you don't want to have to pay for those wars.
Many of you were delighted to buy houses that you had no realistic way to afford - but you don't want to be kicked out of them when you can't make the payments.
Many of you are angry at your neighbors for buying those houses they had no way to realistically afford, and you're angry at the government for offering assistance to them - but you also wouldn't tolerate watching the value of your own house plunge even more than it already has, which is what inaction would have allowed.
You want all the services your government provides, when you need them - but you don't want to be taxed for them; and you don't want anyone else to have them, before you get them yourself.
You want your groceries to be inexpensive (and they are among the least expensive in the world) - but you don't want any of those "illegals" in your area.
You want all the services your government provides, when you need them - but you also want your taxes to go down every single election cycle (and you'll vote for whoever promises that to you).
You want your government "out of your pocket," and "out of your life" - but as soon as someone or something bigger than you comes along to squash you (like a corporation spewing toxic material, or an insurer who won't provide coverage, or a terrorist organization targeting your airline), you want to be protected.
You're enraged that more jobs haven't been created - yet you've already called the president a socialist, and he didn't even create a government funded, WPA-style work program. (Which would put a lot of people back to work.)
And let's not forget, we (still) have one of the highest rates of infant mortality and avoidable adult deaths - but you believe the health care you have access to is "the best," and that it shouldn't be changed.
These are delusional contradictions. They are contradictions that exist only in the minds of children, and madmen.
Which one are you? Really. I'm curious today, America. I'm curious Americans, as (some of) you herald the newly hatched "Pledge to America." Which one are you?
Of course, there'll be anger at these statements and questions. There'll be those who leap to accusations of insensitivity. "Easy for you to say," some will contest. "You've got a good paying job, while we work ourselves to the bone (if we're lucky enough to have work) and are still unable to make our payments."
I don't mean to be insensitive to anyone, individually. But, as a group, I have to ask, what did you expect? Many of you voted for an insincere and incompetent administration two times in a row. Many of you wanted to be led into war in two separate, mindbogglingly distant destinations simultaneously. And many of you insisted on having your taxes cut, and your bosses' taxes cut (and his or her bosses' taxes cut) at the same time. Many of you want all those taxes cut again.
Did you think those things you voted for could be accomplished free of charge? Just how low did you imagine the cost would be, when you were told there would be a cost? How naive were you allowing yourself to be, if you thought there would be none, or that it would be paid by someone else? Who else, exactly, other than you and your friends and neighbors, did you think would be picking up the tab? The Bush family? The Cheneys? Blackwater? Halliburton? No, they were the providers of the services you ordered. On credit. The providers got paid long ago. Now the creditors have arrived to collect the bill. From you. With interest. That's the way it works in a grown up world. You pay for the goods you've received.
If you're unhappy with the cost today, I'd suggest you protest more strongly the next time someone wants to sell you a war. And a tax break. Simultaneously. Which is what the wretched "Pledge" is now offering, again.
Any buyers?
The 2008 presidential campaign contained at least some talk of difficult times ahead. I wonder what that means to most Americans. Apparently, if the current election predictions come true, it means less than 10% unemployment, for less than two years. I'm not an economist, but I've got got a prediction I feel pretty confident about. Things are not going to improve economically, to any significant degree, for many more years to come. And bouncing back and forth between the reasonable (though debatable in its details) emergency economic actions recently taken, and the same insane measures that led us into our recent disasters, isn't going to make it happen any more quickly. Of this I am certain.
Let's talk about that word I just used. Disaster. Do you agree that's what we've been through recently? A disaster? A series of them? (If not, please take a seat in the back of the room.)
If you do agree, then how severe, and how long lasting, do you think the repercussions of a disaster are likely to be?
If you said, "Hmmm... probably quite a number of years. Maybe even a couple of generations," then please stay where you are.
If you said, "Oh, a few months at most!", then please join the people in the back who don't think we've even been through a disaster in the first place.
Okay, where are you sitting?
If you're in the back, I think you've still got some growing up to do.
For God's sake, America. The bombs you wanted to drop (which were bought with credit cards), but don't want to have to pay for, are raining down on civilians across the globe from you. But you're crying because your very new president bailed out General Motors - saving the jobs of tens of thousands of your neighbors. (There were two choices: bailout with controlled bankruptcy, or uncontrolled bankruptcy. Do you think things would be better if they'd gone the other way?)
Your fury is uncontainable over the stimulus money spent. But, without it, we'd be in a depression right now.
You're irate that the government has "taken over" your health care. But yesterday was the first time in your life, or your children's lives (or your parents' lives, or their parents' lives), that you can't be denied health insurance on the basis of a preexisting condition; that your kids have the right to stay covered on your policy until they're 26; and that there will be no lifetime maximums for reimbursements of your condition. It's the first time insurers are required to cover your costs for colonoscopies, mammograms and immunizations without copayments. Is it free? No. But you are now better protected from further disaster.
I'm not claiming any of these things are perfect, or were accomplished perfectly. I've got plenty of complaints and disappointments of my own (someone please give the Democrats a few lectures on Salesmanship 101) . But does no one remember that the difficulties facing any new administration in 2008 were considered to be nearly insurmountable? Are you really going to claim, because oceans of problems still exist, that nothing has changed, or that change hasn't come fast enough? Are you really going to conclude that the new solution is to go right back to the same old ways? Or, to sit home on election day, and allow that to happen?
The fact is, as a nation, we have sustained. We have not thrived. Many have suffered. Many will continue to. But the country has not sunk. That, in itself, is a remarkable accomplishment.
Is it a good campaign slogan? "We Didn't Sink!" Will it be enough to get a majority reelected? Maybe not. But only children direct fury at those who've performed admirably, if imperfectly. All because they didn't get what they want, no matter how unrealistic their wishes might be.
The "Corporatocracy" Is Taking Over America Aided by its Tea Party Serfs and Vassals
From Common Dreams -- September 24, 2010:
Why Say Yes to the Party of No?
By Ralph Nader
How does the Big Business-indentured Republican Party get away with expectations of a runaway election victory this November? If such a victory should occur in Congress and for many governorships and state legislatures, it will be due to a ten percent or so shift in voters who voted Democratic in 2008 and are expected to vote Republican this year or stay home in despair or disgust. The rest of the voters who do vote will still stay with their hereditary Republican or Democratic candidates.
So what is accounting for a possible ten percent shift? Let’s briefly review some of the Congressional Republicans’ voiced positions:
1. They want to do nothing about unfair Chinese trade practices that lure jobs away from our country though huge factory subsidies, and where workers are repressed and counterfeit products abound. Imagine, Republicans coddling a communist regime, luring the auto parts, electronic, solar and drug ingredients industries away from America, often in violation of the World Trade Organization rules. And, in turn, China is exporting to the U.S. impure food, faulty tires, toxic drywall, lead-tainted toys and medicines which are contaminated, defective or harmful. Don’t forget the dumping violations.
2. Republicans, led by Senator Richard Shelby and his banking friends, declared their adamant opposition to Professor Elizabeth Warren becoming head of the new consumer financial regulation agency. (To avoid a confrontation with them, President Obama made her a special assistant to organize this consumer watchdog.) Ms. Warren has a solid record of exposing and communicating clearly to families the tricks and traps of credit card companies, mortgage firms, and intermediaries that have taken so many billions of consumer dollars with impunity.
3. The Republicans led by their House leader, John Boehner (Rep. Ohio), a total toady of the gouging student loan companies, opposed the Democrats successful reform of this taxpayer boondoggle that guaranteed obscene profits and had the taxpayers absorb any student defaults. Boehner’s lobbying should upset millions of parents who had to foot the bill for so many years.
4. The Republicans are opposed to raising the federal minimum wage to what it was, adjusted for inflation, in 1968!! They opposed an adequate budget for health and safety enforcement by OSHA to diminish the 58,000 American workers who die every year from workplace toxics and trauma. They are now blocking protections for coal miners pending in the Senate after the Massey mine disaster.
5. Republicans oppose doing anything about “too big to fail” even after Wall Street’s reckless, avaricious collapse of the economy, costing 8 million jobs and trillions of lost pension and mutual fund dollars.
Moreover, they do not support genuine enforcement of the anti-trust laws which are supposed to break up monopolization efforts, monopolies or oligopolies like Monsanto (seeds) or the big five banks—bailed out by taxpayers and secure in their domination of well over 50 percent of all bank assets, deposits and the credit card business. This is by far the highest concentration of financial power in modern U.S. history. With few exceptions, the GOP want very few federal cops on the corporate crime beat.
6. Fighting for the last billionaire and multimillionaire, Republicans are blocking ending Bush’s tax cuts on incomes beyond $250,000 per year. Yes, Republicans want to reduce the deficit yet they want to end revenues of over 700 billion dollar over ten years of restored super-rich taxes. They are blocking renewal of the estate taxes after their expiration on Dec. 31, 2009 left no taxes this year on the estates of the super-rich. (Over 99 percent of estates were already exempt from the federal estate tax.)
7. No matter that Republicans caved to the health insurance companies getting over 30 million new covered customers, starting in 2014, they supported the industry’s blaming the federal government, no less, for this month’s latest sharp hike in insurance premiums by Aetna and others largely on the policies of individuals and small business. The Republicans did this after blocking the “public option” that would have given consumers both a choice and the benefit of some competition to the big insurance firms.
8. Have the Congressional Republicans ever challenged the bloated, wasteful, contractor-corrupt military budget that makes up half of the entire government’s discretionary budget?
Even the Congress’s own auditing agency—the Government Accountability Office (GAO) declares the Pentagon budget unauditable. Many Pentagon audits document the abuses of Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater and other firms in the deficit-driving, bloody Iraq and Afghanistan wars (both Republican espoused.) The Pentagon’s burgeoning budget, now nearing $800 billion a year, is deemed untouchable. (A few Republicans, like Charles Grassley and John McCain sometimes object to contracting abuses.)
9. President Obama wants a counter-recessionary public works program renovating airports, bridges, highways, rail and mass transit, drinking water and sewage treatment facilities and other infrastructures. Republicans sneer at this local job creation for much needed facilities.
10. Unlike any Republican Party since its creation in 1854, it has misused the filibuster threat, and any one of its Senators misuse the rules and block even going to a floor discussion or a nomination vote. The Party is earning its moniker as the Party of NO. Republicans have turned the U.S. Senate into America’s graveyard.
There is much more, but enough has been cited to ask again—how are Republicans seen by the polls as front runners in the upcoming election?
The answer my friends, is not in the stars. The answer is in the clueless and spineless Democrats, busily dialing for the same corporate campaign dollars.
The other answer is in the ten percent of the actual voters who need to seriously avail themselves of the facts and a modicum of thought. For if they don’t, they will continue to pay bills handed to them and their children by their ruling corporatists in Republican clothing.
Why Say Yes to the Party of No?
By Ralph Nader
How does the Big Business-indentured Republican Party get away with expectations of a runaway election victory this November? If such a victory should occur in Congress and for many governorships and state legislatures, it will be due to a ten percent or so shift in voters who voted Democratic in 2008 and are expected to vote Republican this year or stay home in despair or disgust. The rest of the voters who do vote will still stay with their hereditary Republican or Democratic candidates.
So what is accounting for a possible ten percent shift? Let’s briefly review some of the Congressional Republicans’ voiced positions:
1. They want to do nothing about unfair Chinese trade practices that lure jobs away from our country though huge factory subsidies, and where workers are repressed and counterfeit products abound. Imagine, Republicans coddling a communist regime, luring the auto parts, electronic, solar and drug ingredients industries away from America, often in violation of the World Trade Organization rules. And, in turn, China is exporting to the U.S. impure food, faulty tires, toxic drywall, lead-tainted toys and medicines which are contaminated, defective or harmful. Don’t forget the dumping violations.
2. Republicans, led by Senator Richard Shelby and his banking friends, declared their adamant opposition to Professor Elizabeth Warren becoming head of the new consumer financial regulation agency. (To avoid a confrontation with them, President Obama made her a special assistant to organize this consumer watchdog.) Ms. Warren has a solid record of exposing and communicating clearly to families the tricks and traps of credit card companies, mortgage firms, and intermediaries that have taken so many billions of consumer dollars with impunity.
3. The Republicans led by their House leader, John Boehner (Rep. Ohio), a total toady of the gouging student loan companies, opposed the Democrats successful reform of this taxpayer boondoggle that guaranteed obscene profits and had the taxpayers absorb any student defaults. Boehner’s lobbying should upset millions of parents who had to foot the bill for so many years.
4. The Republicans are opposed to raising the federal minimum wage to what it was, adjusted for inflation, in 1968!! They opposed an adequate budget for health and safety enforcement by OSHA to diminish the 58,000 American workers who die every year from workplace toxics and trauma. They are now blocking protections for coal miners pending in the Senate after the Massey mine disaster.
5. Republicans oppose doing anything about “too big to fail” even after Wall Street’s reckless, avaricious collapse of the economy, costing 8 million jobs and trillions of lost pension and mutual fund dollars.
Moreover, they do not support genuine enforcement of the anti-trust laws which are supposed to break up monopolization efforts, monopolies or oligopolies like Monsanto (seeds) or the big five banks—bailed out by taxpayers and secure in their domination of well over 50 percent of all bank assets, deposits and the credit card business. This is by far the highest concentration of financial power in modern U.S. history. With few exceptions, the GOP want very few federal cops on the corporate crime beat.
6. Fighting for the last billionaire and multimillionaire, Republicans are blocking ending Bush’s tax cuts on incomes beyond $250,000 per year. Yes, Republicans want to reduce the deficit yet they want to end revenues of over 700 billion dollar over ten years of restored super-rich taxes. They are blocking renewal of the estate taxes after their expiration on Dec. 31, 2009 left no taxes this year on the estates of the super-rich. (Over 99 percent of estates were already exempt from the federal estate tax.)
7. No matter that Republicans caved to the health insurance companies getting over 30 million new covered customers, starting in 2014, they supported the industry’s blaming the federal government, no less, for this month’s latest sharp hike in insurance premiums by Aetna and others largely on the policies of individuals and small business. The Republicans did this after blocking the “public option” that would have given consumers both a choice and the benefit of some competition to the big insurance firms.
8. Have the Congressional Republicans ever challenged the bloated, wasteful, contractor-corrupt military budget that makes up half of the entire government’s discretionary budget?
Even the Congress’s own auditing agency—the Government Accountability Office (GAO) declares the Pentagon budget unauditable. Many Pentagon audits document the abuses of Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater and other firms in the deficit-driving, bloody Iraq and Afghanistan wars (both Republican espoused.) The Pentagon’s burgeoning budget, now nearing $800 billion a year, is deemed untouchable. (A few Republicans, like Charles Grassley and John McCain sometimes object to contracting abuses.)
9. President Obama wants a counter-recessionary public works program renovating airports, bridges, highways, rail and mass transit, drinking water and sewage treatment facilities and other infrastructures. Republicans sneer at this local job creation for much needed facilities.
10. Unlike any Republican Party since its creation in 1854, it has misused the filibuster threat, and any one of its Senators misuse the rules and block even going to a floor discussion or a nomination vote. The Party is earning its moniker as the Party of NO. Republicans have turned the U.S. Senate into America’s graveyard.
There is much more, but enough has been cited to ask again—how are Republicans seen by the polls as front runners in the upcoming election?
The answer my friends, is not in the stars. The answer is in the clueless and spineless Democrats, busily dialing for the same corporate campaign dollars.
The other answer is in the ten percent of the actual voters who need to seriously avail themselves of the facts and a modicum of thought. For if they don’t, they will continue to pay bills handed to them and their children by their ruling corporatists in Republican clothing.
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