Rahm Emanuel's Incompetence Finally Catches Up With Him

The advice President Obama got from his former Chief of Staff hasn't exactly been cause for rave reviews. As you know, I am not a fan of Rahm Emanuel. But we may now have evidence that not only did Emanuel give the President all the wrong advice, he is also incompetent: an Illinois Appellate Court has ruled that Emanuel's name, who left the White House to join the race to become the next Mayor of Chicago, must be taken off the ballot because Emanuel has not been a resident of Chicago for the past year. Ooooops!

That gives me a certain kind of guilty glee, although I fear that he might now return to the White House in some capacity. What's good for Chicago may be bad for the rest of us. I am torn.

Now That Keith Olbermann Is, How Much BS Will Go Unchallenged?

I fear that in the wake of Keith Olbermann's sudden exit from MSNBC there will be a deluge of comparisons between his rhetoric and that of personalities on Fox News. I have not called them personalities by chance: none of them are journalists. Nor, necessarily, is Olbermann. But the difference is macroscopic, it does not require in-depth analysis. Even at first glance, Olbermann was a giant of journalistic ethics compared to his charlatan "counterparts" at Fox or most of the insipid reporters and pundits at CNN.

I could go on to write a whole new post about false equivalences, the abysmal treatment of reality and facts by Fox News compared with the strong factual basis for Olbermann's rants (his "Special Comments" or his "Worst Persons" segments), or the void that Olbermann departure will leave, a void that can only be filled in part by the superlative Rachel Maddow.

Instead, I will link to A Tribute to Olbermann: Why He Is Different From the Pundits at Fox News. It sums up everything I would have come up with, and does so with more clarity than I could have mustered.

Eighth Trip to the Super Bowl!

Go Steelers! You never make it easy on the heart, but we love you!!!!

Gleeful Republican Idiots: the WSJ's Very Own Stephen Moore

Last Friday, Stephen Moore, member of the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, appeared--again!--on Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO. I consider Stephen Moore as a fairly typical pro-establishment, pro-corporate rule Republican, only with a much higher ability to be annoying than the average representative of that group, which makes Moore the recipient of my very own first Gleeful Idiot Award.

In quick succession, Moore stated that Americans don't like "Obamacare" because it is a "government takeover" of the system. Challenged by host Bill Maher and guest Rachel Maddow about that claim (which was selected by Politifact as Lie of the Year in 2010), he corrected himself and said that well, it is leading to government health care.

Then he forcefully denied that the individual mandate requirement was originally a Republican idea, until Maddow pointed out to him that it was part of the Republican's response to Bill (and Hillary) Clinton's health care reform plan in 1994.

Next, Moore expressed his support for President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, and idea which deserved all the ridicule it ever got, and continues to get to this day.

The last idiotic statement he made before I stopped keeping score of the idiotic things Moore said, all in the space of roughly 25 minutes, was the claim that the Reagan tax cuts benefited the people at the bottom more than the people at the top, which Maddow promptly debunked, WITH FACTS (the number of poor increased under President Reagan, and the tax cuts overwhelmingly favored the top 1% of earners, with measly benefits for average Americans--well-below inflation). David Stockman, former Budget Office Director-under Ronald Reagan,no less--offered his own rebuttal to Moore on the goodness of Reagan's tax cuts, saying that the United States has yet to recover from the disastrous deficit consequences they caused.

It looks like the number of "expert economists" who still believe the kind of crackpot ideas that Stephen Moore believes in is so small that the WSJ had to ask, well... Stephen Moore himself to be on the WSJ's Editorial Board. Keep that in mind when anyone recommends to you a "good read" from the WSJ, particularly if penned by Stephen Moore.

Let's See How Far This Goes (Likely, Not Far)

The citizens of Vermont, bless them, are rising against "corporate personhood". Good for them.

State Sen. Virginia Lyons will be bringing to the Vermont legislature a resolution that proposes "an amendment to the United States Constitution ... which provides that corporations are not persons under the laws of the United States." According Christopher Ketcham, whose article appeared recently on Alternet, "[s]ources in the state house say it has a good chance of passing."

It is unlikely that corporate personhood will be revoked by amendement any time soon, if ever, but we owe Sen. Lyons and the people of Vermont a big thanks for trying to bring back sanity to a system in which corruption has become institutionalized thanks to corporation's overwhelming power on the political stage. The process needs to start somewhere, and Vermont is where it starts.

Life Without Olbermann

Last night, Keith Olbermann announced that last night's Countdown was to be his last. The reasons for his departure are not known, but it was pretty obvious that his relationship with MSNBC executives, Phil Griffin in particular, had become strained to the point of rupture, which is what happened.

Where Olbermann goes from here is unknown at this point. We do know that he won't be back on the TV any time soon, due to contractual restraints. He could take a radio show, write op-eds or books, (be a guest on other shows?), or go into politics. Who knows. As far as I am concerned, I would vote for Olbermann for President. How good would an Olbermann/Maddow ticket be? Though they are journalists, not politicians, that would be precisely the source of their appeal.

All we know for now is that we have lost a voice of clarity and truth in an increasingly bullshit-chocked news panorama. It's a sad departure and it will be made sadder by the gloating of his enemies at Fox News, who will now have one less formidable opponent to worry about.

I will end this post with DarkSyde's excellent farewell, from the pages of the Daily Kos:

I know we we're all disappointed to hear Keith Olbermann announce his last show last night. And I dearly hope to see the entire Countdown production staff grace my screen again. But on the off chance he is reading this, Mr. Olbermann and the entire crew, I consider myself lucky to have been among your viewers. You have withstood years of non stop threats, ugly mis-characterizations, and abuse from the usual suspects, you battled unending internal corporate bullshit and ended the suffering of countless thousands with your focus on healthcare clinics and the injustices of for profit insurance. You stood for the middle class when few did, when it would have been so much easier, and so, so much more profitable to just go along. And sir, you did it with the satirical wit of Jon Stewart and the piercing clarity of Edward R. Murrow that made you the number one slot on your entire network. That you did all this while losing both your mother and father brings tears to my eyes but hope to my heart.

If you want to take a break for the rest of your freakin life and compile baseball stats or scout the minor leagues for talent, you have earned it many times over.

Well said. And now, good night, and good luck.

See? Americans Do Agree on Something!

Joan McCarter of the Daily Kos draws attention to a New York Times article that shows that a majority of Americans want to protect Medicare and Social Security from cuts, and agree that the first thing Congress should cut is military expenditures.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI, http://www.sipri.org/), the U.S. government spends as much on military expenditures as the next 15 countries combined. The second country in the world is China, which spends about 8 times less than the U.S. Russia, the once great foe of the United States, spends one tenth as much as the U.S. Methinks we can cut the military budget a bit (waddya say, by half?) and still be the dominant force in the UNIVERSE, even if it means launching a war every 50 years instead of every 25.

So good for you, America! Maybe you're smarter and not as divided as pundits make you out to be.

Recommended Entertainment

I just came across this website, Flame Warriors. Have fun with it. (Thanks to Steve Schuler for "leading" me to it.)

The One Year Anniversary of a Shameful Ruling

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Citizens United v. FEC ruling, in which the conservative judicial activists of the Supreme Court decided to sweep away decades of settled law and restrictions on corporate contributions to political campaigns instead of just issuing a ruling limited to facts of the case.

I regret that at the time, caught as I was in the frenzy that followed the Citizens United decision, I was a bit too quick to announce that the Supreme Court had spelled the death of democracy with its ruling. A few days later, Ed Brayton wrote the following on his blog, Dispatches from the Culture Wars:

I know a lot of liberals are very upset by yesterday's Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v FEC, but frankly I think it's much ado about little. The standard reaction seems to be: "Oh my god, corporations can now spend tons of money to influence the outcome of elections." But I've got news for you: They already do that. They always have. And the campaign finance laws did not prevent it.

And also this:

The fact is that the campaign finance law that the court struck down was never really intended to reduce corporate influence over elections in the first place. It was designed to give the illusion of reducing corporate influence over elections.

In a world where the haves have many hundred times as much as the have-nots do, and where the profits of corporations are expressed in billions of dollars, Brayton is absolutely on point when he says that "campaign finance laws were designed to give the illusion of reducing corporate influence over elections." Who are we kidding?

Nevertheless, the ruling did two notable things: Instantly, it destroyed the notion that judicial activism is a prerogative of the left, which is a well-known talking point of the right. Also, as I wrote at the time on this blog,

[Citizens United] further reinforces the opinion that money is a natural means of securing free speech, and that corporations are entitled to the same free speech protections in the political arena as individuals do without being exposed to the same liabilities that are attached to physical persons. Corporations cannot be put to death, they cannot be imprisoned, they do not have post bail, and so forth. This creates a class of supercitizens that the Founding Fathers would not conceivably have endorsed. In fact, all evidence points to the contrary: Founding Fathers feared the rise of corporation against the interest of the nascent Union. How supposed originalists like Scalia and Thomas failed to see this is a testament not to their dedication to preserving the original intent of the Constitution but to the degree of their subservience to the particular interests they represent.

Still, I have to agree not only with Brayton's assessment, but with what Chris Hedges wrote on Truthdig, when he called democracy in America "a useful fiction". In that article, Hedges said

The coup is over. We lost. The ruling is one more judicial effort to streamline mechanisms for corporate control. It exposes the myth of a functioning democracy and the triumph of corporate power. But it does not significantly alter the political landscape. The corporate state is firmly cemented in place.

I recommend that you read Hedges's article in its entirety, as it contains a clear insight of how American democracy has been deprived of any substance.

Whereas campaign finance laws certainly contributed to the death of democracy, what really did democracy in is the advent of media conglomeration, as well as the repeal of the fairness doctrine under President Reagan. Though in different guises, many have expressed the concept that, to function properly, democracy requires an informed electorate. A correctly informed electorate, I would say. How well-informed can our voters be when there are "news" organizations like Fox News, the Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal, to name a few, and when the airwaves are filled with the incoherent, hateful, and lie-filled rants of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Sarah Palin's, and many others (including the occasional liberal)?
In retrospect, I have to admit that news of the death of democracy because of Citizens United were greatly exaggerated: How many times can you kill a corpse?

Health Care And the Cost of (Republican) Freedom

Republicans are forcing their hand on health care. Short of repealing the Affordable Care Act, which they cannot do--at least while there is a Democrat in the White House, they are seeking to defund the law that Congress passed last year. That is a real threat, one that angers me and those who, like me, suffer from chronic illnesses (not to mention those who suffer from illnesses that will lead to their death if not adequately treated).

I know my case is not exceptional, and that there are many who are in a much worse predicament. And that is exactly what is so frightening about my case: it is so typical.

Currently, I enjoy fairly decent health insurance coverage via my employer, and--as long as I remain employed--the worst things I have to worry about are the yearly increase in premiums, increasing co-pays, and declining benefits (at least until I find out otherwise). However, whether I like my employer or not, and for the most part I do, I do not have the leisure to quit and take a better offer. Why? Because I suffer from two chronic illnesses and pre-existing conditions are, in this country and in this country alone, a curse that never goes away. Even now, after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, this is what the law provides for in the area of pre-existing conditions: [emphases added]

For most plans starting on or after September 23, these rules stop insurance companies from imposing pre-existing condition exclusions on your children; prohibit insurers from rescinding or taking away your coverage based on an unintentional mistake on an application; ban insurers from setting lifetime limits on your coverage; and restrict their use of annual limits on coverage.

Starting July 1, Americans locked out of the insurance market because of a pre-existing condition can begin enrolling in the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP). This program offers insurance without medical underwriting to people who have been unable to get it because of a preexisting condition. It ends in 2014, when the ban on insurers refusing to cover adults with pre-existing conditions goes into effect and individuals will have affordable choices through Exchanges – the same choices as members of Congress.

(Source: The Affordable Care Act’s New Patient’s Bill of Rights)

That sounds like a fairly decent deal. However, notice a couple of things in the preceding paragraphs: annual limits on coverage are restricted (but not banned until 2014, when they finally will be). This may sound reasonable, depending on the limits or the condition a patient suffers from, but it does not offer total peace of mind for the chronically or gravely ill. Also, refusal to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions for adults is not outlawed until 2014. In the meantime, people can enroll in the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP), which comes with its own set of concerns.

First concern: PCIP is not available in all states. For example, it is not available in my state of Colorado, because Colorado has opted to run the PCIP program itself. That's fine now, the rates seem pretty reasonable. But as states face growing budget shortfalls, guess what might happen to premiums, deductibles, co-pays, etc.? What then?

Also, note that in order to be eligible for PCIP enrollment a) you must have been uninsured for at least the last six months; b) if you currently have insurance coverage that doesn’t cover your medical condition or are enrolled in a state high risk pool, you are not eligible for the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan; and c) you must have a pre-existing condition or have been denied coverage because of your health condition. (Source: Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan home page)

The rules that limit to PCIP enrollment are disturbing for the following reasons: first, access to PCIP is limited to those who meet strict eligibility rules; second, even those who are eligible to enroll are subjected to a waiting period of at least six months. Tell me: who pays for medical expenses during those six months?

Overall, the changes introduced by the Affordable Care Act are far from comprehensive or adequate, at least until 2014; they still leave a lot of gaps and a lot of questions to be answered. And yet, they are a step in the right direction because they start addressing the uniquely American system deficiencies that cause people to go without adequate care, or to go bankrupt while they are fighting for their lives, and because they unchain many Americans from the yoke of unhappy employment, allowing them to look for better opportunities elsewhere without the threat of being exposed to loss of health care or unreasonable costs (and you would think that Republicans, who always pose as friends of opportunity and free enterprise, would love that).

These changes seem like a step in the right direction for everyone, except for Republicans. In fact, Republicans are so unhappy with them that they would rather destroy a law which has the potential to improve the lives of countless Americans. Why? Because it is a government takeover of health care and, with it, the government is taking away your freedom. You heard me right: Republicans are STILL painting their opposition to the new health care laws as a principled stand for freedom, against a government takeover.

Leave aside the fact that the so-called government takeover of the health care system (the lie of 2010, according to the independent fact-checking organization Politifact) is set to deliver 40 million new customers in the hands of... insurance companies. What freedom exactly is the Affordable Care Act taking from us? The freedom to be sick and die without care? I guess Republicans think that I should thank them because they are fighting to preserve my freedom to die, or to go bankrupt while I try to get better.

The word freedom, in the mouths of Republicans, has lost all meaning. It has lost its uplifting nature and has been disfigured into a scare-word, the dog-whistle that the Republican Party successfully uses when they want the American people to willingly give up something that many generations have had to fight for, or that they are on the verge of achieving. Conquests that have worked for decades like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schools, are all under assault. How could it be? Because, say Republicans, they are an assault on your freedom. Say what?!?

A crazy gunman loads an extended magazine, capable of holding over 30 rounds, into a Glock and kills 6 and injures 18, so someone says "let's ban extended magazines". Not guns, mind you, just extended magazines. And Republicans scream "Freedom is under attack!", and nothing ever changes, nothing ever improves, nothing ever gets done. And people, increasingly apathetic and dumb, and outFoxed, fall for that trick every single time.

Make no mistake: The Republican Party is no friend of freedom. It is more and more like a tyrannical power that seeks to stifle dissent using patriotism as a pretext, that seeks to destroy critical thought (see their proud, avowed anti-intellectualism) and any criticism of its "pure" motives. Its only interests are never-ending wars and total deregulation. They do not care about you, they do not care about me, and they will not be happy until we are at the complete mercy of the corporations that they pave the road for.

There is no doubt that the Republican Party has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and of the corporations that the Chamber represents. It is obvious that their god is not the Christian god they profess to worship but Mammon. It is obvious that the only language they hear and respond to is the language of political corruption and bribery. And, for these reasons, it is not surprising that they are hell-bent (and I do hope that it is not just a figure of speech) on dismantling any and all improvements in access to and in the cost of health care services, just as they are hell-bent on destroying Social Security (under the pretense of strengthening it, no less), just as they have successfully fought to weaken unions to the point of irrelevance, just as they have started to starve our public education system by introducing charter schools, which are just the Republican Trojan horse to eventually reallocate all public funds to private schools.

The Republican Party's assault on everything public, everything good, is despicable enough when it does not directly lead to the death of Americans. But when it rises to the homicidal level of denying care to the sick it is not just despicable, it is outright criminal. And those who support Republican policies aimed at achieving the total depletion of the Commons to the sole and reckless advantage of the private sector are accomplices, who should be exposed and treated as such. They are, intentionally or not, acting against the Constitution that are supposedly defending from "the enemy within" (liberals, homosexuals, immigrants, "the Washington elite"). A Constitution, let's not forget, designed in such a manner as to make it possible "to form a more perfect Union", "[to] insure domestic Tranquility," and to "promote the general Welfare" of its people. Sure enough, the Constitution was also established to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity." Liberty, you know, freedom. The Founding Fathers could hardly have envisioned that the word liberty, freedom, would have become little more than a dog-whistle in Republican hands.

Not one Constitution-loving Republican has yet been able to explain how the Union is made more perfect by leaving people to die without care, how domestic tranquility is promoted by creating millions of angry survivors who know that their dear one's life might have been saved anywhere else in the civilized world, or by creating an ever growing underclass of have-nots, or by egregiously and willfully failing to promote--scratch that: consciously sabotaging--the general welfare of its people.

I will patiently wait for an answer. Until one pre-existing condition or another mercifully finishes its job.

At Least Moderate Americans Are Catching On

Public Policy Polling: Public Trust In Fox News Is Plummeting

A highlight from the report: "moderates and liberals have both had a strong increase in their level of distrust for the network- a 12 point gain from 48% to 60% for moderates and a 16 point gain from 66% to 82% for liberals." Note that the increase is in distrust, a negative sign, then.

Scalia, Thomas's Role in Citizens United Questioned

Hot off the presses, the group Common Cause issued the following statement on its website:

Common Cause is asking the Justice Department to investigate the apparent involvement of Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in political strategy sessions hosted by Koch Industries, the nation’s second largest privately held company. Common Cause contends that these activities, if substantiated, constitute a conflict of interests that would require the Court to vacate its judgment in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a landmark ruling that ended restrictions on corporate and union political spending.

Read the full letter that Common Cause sent to the DOJ.
And by the way, did you notice how cries of judicial activism from the Right were conspicuously absent in Citizens United?

Correlation is Not Causation, But...

Economist Mike Kimel has a very interesting post about what happens to various economic indicators as the top marginal tax rate varies. For example, writes Kimel, "higher top marginal tax rates have been associated with faster, not slower real economic growth. Conversely, lower top marginal tax rates have coincided with less economic growth."

This is not new news, but it is a good reminder that when conservative think-tanks and conservative media predict that higher tax rates are bad for employment and the economy they are at best using data that are unsubstantiated by facts to scare you and, at worst, intentionally deceiving you.

A Douche 'til the Very End

Sen Lieberman is retiring, good riddance Sen. Lieberman.

In his "exit" interview on MSNBC, Sen. Lieberman insisted that Saddam had WMD's contrary to all evidence, and even to his "daddy's" (W's) words, and he condescendingly referred to Arianna Huffington, with whom he had just had a contentious discussion on the subject of WMD's, as "sweetheart". To put things in perspective, it's as if Arianna had addressed him as "genius" at the end of the interview.

Kudos to Arianna for saying this: "Well, based on this completely unfounded assumption [that WMD's existed], I sincerely hope for the sake of the country that you do not become Secretary of Defense." Well done, Arianna!

And, in related news, a more than adequate look by Keith Olbermann at Sen. Lieberman's career.

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Moral Law

There is law, and then there are morals. Sometimes the two overlap, sometimes they greatly diverge. One good example of that is health care in the U.S. of A. Plenty of laws, not enough morals.

It is immoral to let people die because they lack access to basic health care services, the type of services that are commonplace in other industrialized and civilized countries. It is also immoral to say that we cannot afford the cost of closing the health care gap in this country while billions of dollars are wasted on military enterprise, on bailing financial institutions out of the mess they created, and on tax loopholes for corporations that seek shelter under foreign law, or that outsource living-wage jobs to countries that employ modern forms of slavery. It is immoral, but not illegal, mind you. Just immoral. But immoral for whom?

Christians believe that without God there would be no morals. They speak of God as the source of the moral law, of moral obligation, and of the virtues and goals necessary to morality, without which mankind would be lost in a sea of relativity and subject to the law of the jungle. For them "evil opposes the moral will of God."

Since Republican elected officials are for the most part devout Christians (they like to trot out their Christian faith at every opportunity), it is hard to reconcile their indubitable sense of moral superiority, a sense that descends from their acceptance of and belief in a god which is supposed to be the source of morality, with their unanimous vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The Affordable Care Act is not perfect, in fact it was lacking in many respects, and--as much as it did to close the gap with civilized countries on health care--it fell short of providing the safeguards and protections from discrimination by health insurance companies and providers that civilized nations offer. However, without it, people will die. Not two, or three, or three hundred: 32,000 according to some estimates, more based on others. Not even that knowledge prevented 242 Republicans and 3 Democrats in the House from voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Since Republicans are the party of Country and God, we can presume that in casting this symbolic vote these good Christians were guided by the moral principles acquired through the belief in their God, the source of moral law.

Prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the law did not prevent insurance companies form dropping patients that had become to risky or too expensive to cover. It did not prevent them from denying customers coverage for pre-existing conditions. It didn't even prevent them from denying people coverage altogether. The Affordable Care Act closed some of those gaps, though not all. It was a step, a baby step, in the right direction. It was an attempt to reduce the gap between what the law provides for and what is moral.

But for Republicans, paladins of morality that they are, the Affordable Care Act is too expensive, too intrusive into the freedom of Americans (presumably the sacred freedom to be sick without care), and too hard on poor insurance companies because it might push them out of business (in reality all it would have done is to cut into their gargantuan and ill gotten gains.) Is it immoral also? Well, unless you are thinking about the part of it which provides for abortion paid for with public funds (you know, the part of it that does not exist), it would have been hard to call immoral a piece of legislation that attempted to reduce the ever increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots (and the have-not-so-much-as-they-think-they-do-until-they-need-it). And so, with the exception of the non-existent abortion clause mentioned above, Republicans threw everything but the kitchen sink at the law but stopped short of calling it immoral.

And there you have it. The Republican/Christian hypocrisy on health care reform is so thick you could cut it with a knife. It is at least as egregious as the claim that God is the giver of moral law. Either there are no precepts that a good Republican/Christian will not ignore, or the existence of such God-given precepts and their godly origin is highly questionable. Because it is hard to believe that a morally perfect being would pass down to his followers such crappy moral laws that they could be interpreted so as to make the ability of insurance companies to make a profit a higher priority than, say, taking care of the sick and the infirm.

Colbert Gem From Last Night's Show

No intro required. Just watch. Make sure there are no valuable fragile objects in your vicinity as you roll on the floor laughing.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Mika Brzezinski Experiences Palin Fatigue
www.colbertnation.com
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Sorry Does Not Cut It

Meet Alabama's Governor, Robert Bentley (R):

[I]f you have been adopted in God's family like I have, and like you have if you're a Christian and if you're saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister.

[...] Now I will have to say that, if we don't have the same daddy, we're not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother.

Even worse, Gov. Bentley made these statements at the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, just after his inauguration, as part of Martin Luther King holiday observance. Way to honor King's message of equality.

That is a problem with so many Christians, Evangelicals in particular, that they do consider those who do not share their beliefs lesser, less moral, unfit for leadership or public office, not worthy of the same rights and privileges. They may say this is an untrue generalization, but--really--it isn't. Can you name 10 openly atheist members of the House or Senate? 5? 2? 1? OK, so there is one. And did you know that about 50 percent of Americans would not vote for a well-qualified atheist for president?

Whether religious people are going to discriminate based on their beliefs or not is of course a matter of individual sensibility and intelligence. But, as my wife is wont to tell me, what comes out of one's mouth is in his heart. It is a general statement, and, of course, generalizations have a lot of room for error. Nevertheless one has to wonder if what's in Gov. Bentley's heart--worse, his brain--will translate into any discrimination against those whose world view he does not share, or if it already has. Time will tell, as it always does.

A Twofer? Really? On the Same Day?

Sen. Kent Conrad and Sen. Joe Lieberman announcing that they are not running for re-election in 2012, on the same day? Boy, some days are indeed better than others!

For the untold damage they have done to this country in the last couple of years, I say: good riddance, both of them! All you need to do is check out the comments at the bottom of each article to see that my sentiments are largely those shared by other progressives.

On the other hand, as a couple of folks said in their comments, two bad things are going to happen: 1) We won't get the satisfaction of voting either one out of office. 2) There is going to be a fire sale on a few Senate votes: Lieberman and Conrad's votes are now up for grabs for the highest bidder (not that they have not always been).

The one thing I am not too worried about is losing their seats to Republicans. They were not ours to begin with. (Kent Conrad has been mentioned many times on this blog, for his corrupt pussyfooting on and/or active obstruction against meaningful health care reform. Sen. Lieberman has too. You might particularly enjoy the two posts in which Stephen Colbert skewers the old idiot.)

Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Republicans

Guess what? The job killing (job crushing, job destroying, whatever Republicans wanna call it) Affordable Care Act does not kill, crush or destroy jobs. On the contrary.

Sen. Sanders (I-VT) Releases Statement on Protecting Social Security

In a letter to President Obama, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) pleads with the President to keep his 2008 campaign promises about Social Security (PDF reader required) and to defend Social Security against Republican and Conservadem attacks. Every honest Democrat should sign this letter and support Sen. Sanders in his campaign to save Social Security as we know it. Let them stand up and be counted, so we know who deserves re-election when his or her time is up.

Stop The Presses: Pre-Existing Conditions Exist for Nearly Everybody, Study Finds. Duh.

Seriously, guys. Did we need a government study to tell us that pre-existing conditions affect everybody, sooner or later?

Well, ok, so now we have a study that proves what every person of average intellect already knew. So now let's use it to influence public opinion, right? Yeah, right. I am sure, somehow, Democrats will find a way to screw this pooch, too.

Majority of American Support Tougher Firearm Restrictions

Via the Huffington Post: Majority Of Americans, Including Gun Owners, Support Tougher Restrictions. In case you didn't read that accurately, the headline says "including gun owners."

Fat chance the NRA will go along with it, which means that the politicians who rely on NRA scorecards to get votes will likely also reject tougher restrictions, which means... You know what it means.

The Gaping Hole In the Second Amendment Rationale

Currently, there is a number of weapons that U.S. citizens are not allowed to own. They include: machine guns; RPG launchers; mortars; cannons; explosive time bombs; anti-tank guns; and, Molotov cocktails. So, you see, Americans already accept restrictions on the types of weapons they are allowed to own.

Most Americans are fine with the above-mentioned limitations, and most Americans also support certain restrictions on their Second Amendment rights to own and bear less sensational and theatrical arms. President Obama, like his predecessor, President Bush, supports a ban on assault weapons. Many members of the House and Senators are in favor of a ban on large capacity (extended) clips, like the one used by Jared Lee Loughner in the January 8th Arizona shootings. Many, but alas not all.

The "not all" camp includes people who regard the Second Amendment as the people's last defense against tyranny. Perhaps in earnest, or perhaps disingenuously and only to protect the interests of gun manufacturers, they say that the Second Amendment grants people unlimited rights, precisely to grant them the ability to defend themselves against a tyrannical government. And so Rachel Maddow takes their argument to its logical conclusion: If you and I should be allowed to bear arms in order to overthrow a tyrannical government, should American citizens be able to own nukes? If not, shouldn't it be in our best interest as a people to limit the power of the weapons the U.S. Armed Fores possess, so as not to be overwhelmed in case of an armed conflict against the government of the United States?

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There is a point beyond which Second Amendment defenders become simply ridiculous in their obstinate refusal to allow any kind of restriction on the right to own arms, don't you think?

Michael Moore with Rachel Maddow

On tonight's Rachel Maddow Show Michael Moore discusses America's obsession with guns and what measures could be taken to reduce the harm guns do.

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Obviously, Not Everybody Watches Countdown

Nine days after the Tucson shootings, it seems pretty obvious that not many Republicans watch Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

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Martin Luther King Jr., In His Own Words

From Democracy Now.


Also, in case you have not heard it recently (or worse, at all) please check out the I Have a Dream speech, which Dr. King gave from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial less than 50 years ago. Less than a year later, President Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

On the day when the nation celebrates Dr. King's birthday (January 15th), and life, it is a necessary reminder to those who think that the nation has conquered its tendency to condone racial discrimination, and all kind of discrimination based on an individual's unchangeable traits, that fewer than 50 years have passed since the United States has started closing the most horrendous chapter in its young history. If we are to honor Dr. King's memory, we cannot act, nor should we speak, as if there did not exist pockets of obstinate resistance to the end of racial discrimination that Dr. King helped bring about.

And, as Bill Moyers reminded us in an episode of his inimitable Journal, Dr. King was against the Vietnam war, for it subtracted funds that would have been better spent on social programs. An important reminder, at a time when some have the gall to say Dr. King would have supported the war in Afghanistan. Dr. King was also for social justice, not just racial justice. Another important reminder, at a time when one party is hell bent on denying Americans health care as a right, and the other is complicitly obliging.

Learn about Dr. King's ideas and life. It is the only way we can make sure that no one can twist the facts and mangle Dr. King's legacy beyond recognition.

More Football

Go Bears! Go Jets!

Right-Wing Madness

I find that calling Iowa's Supreme Court who will not be theocrats "open enemies of God" is appalling, blood-chilling, and incendiary rhetoric, but then again I am a godless liberal (actually I like progressive better, for a long list of reasons), who thinks that all religion should be put in its place in the court system: that means outside of it.

While we are on the subject of religious madness, I hope this pharmacist goes to jail.

Football!

No politics today, just football. Go Steelers!

For the Umpteenth Time

Let's Get This Straight: There Is No Progressive Equivalent to the Right's Violent Rhetoric. Period.

You should also go to a bookstore or library and get yourself a copy of The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right, a timely and informative book.

Poverty Among the Elderly in the USA

Sad news, for the elderly of present times, and for the elderly of the future if we don't change course: According to new calculations by the U.S. Census Bureau, poverty among those 65 or older has risen to 16.1% in 2009.

If you remember nothing else from the article I linked to, remember this: "What the numbers show is that rather than Social Security benefits being too generous, they are too meager to keep one in six old folks out of poverty." And they, whereby I mean most Republicans, blue dog Democrats and, to a great extent, the President and his advisers, want to weaken Social Security, either by making you work longer (and pay you less in benefits as a result), and/or by reducing your Social Security payments. So, you see, bipartisanship is not a dream. It still happens, when the goal is sticking it to the little guy.

In the meantime, let's keep cutting taxes for the wealthiest 1% of the country, since 30 years of evidence that doing so does not produce the desired effect, i.e. an increase in the standard of living for everybody else, are not enough. We need to keep experimenting with the Laffer curve and Reaganomics until the number of the poor decreases so much (not because of an improvement in living conditions, no: we'll just stop counting them, like we do with about 50% of the unemployed) that the per-capita income for those who remain in the U.S.A. will rise.

How a country treats those who are closer to the end of their lives, those who have already contributed the most, at least in number of years and effort, is a good indicator of what those in power think of the rest of us. Increasingly, we are becoming expendable annoyances to the plutocrats and the ruling class, the pampered ones. Those who need the least get ever more, while those who are the neediest and least powerful are left to their devices, to whither away.

Duelling Idiots

This man's an idiot,



just like this woman.

What a Wonderful World It Could Be

Sen. Udall (D-CO) came up with a good idea for the upcoming State of the Union address: mixed seating.

Surely, it is only a "cosmetic gesture" (it would be as if, on this blog, I buried the hatchet and started calling them Republicans again), and surely it will not keep Repuglycans from voting for the repeal of "Obamacare" as scheduled. But sometimes, if rarely, symbolic gestures can lead to a change in tone between adversaries and to meaningful changes So kudos to Sen. Udall for a simple and thoughtful idea.

The Lie of 2010 and the Sack o' Shit Who Came Up With It

Lie of the Year 2010: "Government Takeover". On that, more at the bottom of the post. But first things first: Let's talk about the sack o' shit first.

If you are very good at a job that requires you to be ready to lie at the drop of a hat, are you a brilliant professional of an unethical sack of shit? I pick the latter option.

The sack of shit that I refer to is Frank Luntz, an unethical douche of a pollster and opinion maker who has helped Repuglycans come up with some of the most doublespeak-ish expression in our recent political lives, as I showed in a post entitled One of America's Most Dangerous People Is Back. When I say "unethical douche", I am expressing an opinion only as far as the word douche goes. On the adjective unethical, I am backed by the opinion of The Executive Council of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, who found that Luntz had "violated the Association's Code of Professional Ethics and Practices." And that was a formal violation of ethics, not to count all the deceitful and leading phrases that Luntz engineered over the years, of which you can find a few examples in my post referenced above.

Luntz, who always appears as a reasonable individual, a mask that hides the true intellectual mercenary sleazeball he is, also engineered what Politifact, an independent fact-checking organization, chose as the Lie of the Year for 2010: the phrase "government takeover" aimed at scaring people away from supporting health care reform.

It is my unshakable conviction that people like Luntz are both instrumental and complicit in the preventable deaths of thousands of Americans who will die for lack of adequate health services, services that in fact should be a pillar of any civilized country. But not in the United States of America. Where is hell when you need it?

Can we retire the "if everyone has guns, no one will need guns" theory now?

Every time there is a mass-murder incident, gun advocates tell us: It would not have happened if everyone had a gun. If an armed law-abiding citizen had been at the scene, they could have fought back and stopped the shooter. I heard this reasoning time and time again: after Virgina Tech, and after the many incidents of multiple shootings in schools and malls around the country. However appealing the theory may be to some, it always sound suspect to me (not to mention a bit crazy. The thought that we should promote the presence of armed teachers, janitors, students, and mall guards is something that only Americans would accept as worth considering.)

Now, after Tucson's shootings, Karoli at Crooks and Liars has this excellent question: "Can we retire the if everyone has guns, no one will need guns theory now?" That is a very good question indeed, reinforced by Karoli's impeccable arguments for it.

As Karoli says, "Arizona is an open carry state. It's not unusual at all for citizens to be carrying their guns, even to the supermarket." Besides, as many have pointed out, Arizona has very relaxed laws about getting and licensing guns. So, if everyone in Arizona can easily obtain and carry guns, how come the people who stopped Jared Lee Loughner's shooting spree did not use guns to do so, but their bare hands?

I would suggest that the solution to the firearm violence which plagues the United States more than any developed nation is not going to be solved with more firearms, but with more sanity. The problem is: How do you make, or keep, people sane in a country that thrives on (and rewards) instilling fear in its inhabitants, and that considers health care, particularly mental health care services, a luxury and a privilege instead of a right?

Jonah Goldberg's And His Batshit Crazy Liberal Fascism Theory

I just discovered this interesting post by David Neiwert, Historians vs. Jonah Goldberg, on the truly batshit crazy book by Jonah Goldberg entitled Liberal Fascism, in which the hopelessly inept would-be historian wastes 496 pages in an attempt to to make the point that fascism is a phenomenon not of the right, but of the left.

Because the book has become a favorite of the Tea Party's right, in spite of--or, more likely, just because of--its fantastic interpretation of facts and history, Neiwert has sought "a serious response from academics to Goldberg's traduced version of history", a version of history that Goldberg himself has hailed as "a very serious, thoughtful, argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care."

Not everyone, particularly real historians, agrees with Goldberg's ass-essement of his own work, and a few historians responded to Neiwert's request to answer the book's batshit theory.

Here is a link to the History News Network website, which hosts the critiques and ensuing discussion of Goldberg's work of fiction. Below the Introduction by Neiwert himself you can find links to the critiques of Liberal Fascism by, among others, historians Robert O. Paxton (the author of The Anatomy of Fascism, one of the definitive books on the subject), and Matthew Feldman.

Wendell Potter, Health Insurance Expert, on the "Repeal Obamacare" Movement

If you read nothing else on this blog, you have to read this remarkably insightful and clear piece by Wendell Potter, former health insurance executive turned whistleblower, on the real goals of the Repeal Obamacare movement in Congress.

And before the right-wing nuts start protesting that Potter uses the phrase "deadly spin" to describe conservative efforts to change the law, hence liberals are guilty of the same behavior they accuse right-wingers of, consider this: 45,000 people or more die in the United States every year of preventable or curable illnesses because they are uninsured or underinsured. So, tell me, how's that for deadly, and for false equivalences?

Oh Dear! The Curmudgeon Is At It Again! - UPDATED

The Curmudgeon's latest post is a defense of intelligent design against god of the gaps accusations. Says the Curmudgeon:

Many have responded to this old canard, such as Bill Dembski in The Design Revolution and myself in my forthcoming book, Christian Apologetics. "God of the gaps" just presupposes that naturalism can explain everything; if it faces an explanatory problem, it refuses to consider a non-natural explanation involving original, intelligent causation. That is dismissed as "god of the gaps." It is an air-tight strategy that begs the question in favor of naturalism. Yes, some theistic explanations have failed, but not all. Moreover, many naturalistic explanations have and continue to fail.

Rather than go into a full-fledged, futile diatribe with Dr. Groothuis (as Upton Sinclair said "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"), I would suggest that you read this long and detailed but very informative reply by Prof. Myers (a biologist, I should add) to a fairly typical creationist plea that ID, a.k.a. creationism, should be taken seriously.

The reply contains some important points, such as the fact that weaknesses in evolution do not in fact represent evidence for intelligent design (as Myers says, "[a]rguing that there are weaknesses in evolution--which are typically bad arguments, anyway, but that's another matter--does not mean that Genesis is right"), or the fact that supernatural explanations are subject to the evidentiary tests of the scientific method, and that scientist should not get involved in debates with creationists because a) they are an eminent waste of time and b) they are just attempts by creationists to gain legitimacy through the credibility of their opponents (scientists).

In fact, you should also read How to respond to requests to debate creationists.


UPDATE:
Since Groothuis mentions Bill Dembski's The Design Revolution, you might be interested in reading what a couple of scientists think about it:

The design revolution?
A review of Dembski's The Design Revolution

Worst Persons In The World

Keith Olbermann said last night that he is, once again reconsidering the format and name of his "Worst Persons in the World" segment. Here's my suggestion: Call it "Piece of Shit du-jour" and make Rush Limbaugh (henceforth "Limpballs") its sole feature. The man is a sewer-mouthed piece of shit anyway, so chances the segment will upset anyone with a brain more developed than a fly's are next to none.

This is what the piece of shit du-jour said today, talking about the perpetrator of Tucson's slaughter of the innocents:

"Mr. Loughner... has the full support of a major political party in this country... the Democrat party is attempting to find anybody but him to blame." On behalf anyone who is not a rabid consumer of the shit peddled daily by the likes of Limpballs, Hannity, Sarah Beyond the Palin, and other esteemed Fox News contributors, I say to Rush Limpballs: Fuck you, you piece of shit du-jour.

I already expressed this thought on this blog, in this post, and I will unashamedly do it again here: "My wife tells me that it is not good to wish for people to die, but I will take Rush Limbaugh as my mulligan. Let's be unequivocally clear: I am not advocating for anyone to kill him, but an oxycontin overdose?" Never underestimate the evil power of an evil individual on the psyche of the feeble-minded. This country, this planet, will be better off the day Rush Limbaugh croaks.

---

P.S. I understand that calling Rush Limpballs "a sewer-mouthed piece of shit" makes me sound sewer-mouthed myself (and in some people's eyes, no doubt, also a piece of shit.) If that's the case, stop reading here, because it's gonna get worse.

There is a difference between calling a spade a spade, as I did in calling Rush Limpballs a piece of shit, and using one's mouth, as Limpballs does day after day after day, to regurgitate evil and--most importantly--patently false shit, about your political opponents. Limpballs will twist facts until they are unrecognizable, indistinguishable from the smoking lump of human excrement that Limpballs himself is.

A Good Definition of Violent Rhetoric

I came across a post which does a good job of defining violent rhetoric, on the Daily Kos.

And, while you read about violent rhetoric, please also read this post by the always incisive Joan McCarter of the Daily Kos, which highlights a few examples of violent rhetoric and why it almost certainly contributed to the actions of Saturday's killer in Arizona.

Social Security in the Cross-hairs, Again

While the news has been monopolized over the last few days by Rep. Giffords's failed assassination attempt, another assassination attempt is going on, this one in the rooms of Washington D.C.. The target in the cross-hairs? Social Security.

I use words like assassination and cross-hairs fully aware of their incendiary power, but using blander, more politically correct words would not render justice to truth, because there is a large number of politicians, not all of whom are Republicans, who are intent on killing Social Security as we know it, eager as they are to transfer its huge wealth to the coffers of private corporations.

The slashing of Social Security benefits, or the proposed increase in the retirement age, are just the first steps in the dismantling of a system that has served American seniors well for almost four decades, the real intent being the ultimate death of the publicly financed system and its replacement with a fully-privatized one.

In utter disbelief, progressives have seen President Obama, the supposed paladin of the middle-class, steadily retreat to the position of those who would destroy Social Security as we know it. He did so first by instituting a fiscal commission with the responsibility to find ways to balance the budget; given its highly tilted composition, the commission unsurprisingly came up with cuts to Social Security as a a preferred method for achieving the desired result. Then, under the protection offered him by his commission's findings, the President has been moving ever more to the right on Social Security reform, to curry the favor of deficit hawks and his Wall Street uberlords. As Austan Goolsbeee, the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers said in reply to a question by CNN's Wolf Blitzer on the future of Social Security: "[T]he president has always said, let's not automatically rule everything out before we even begin." How does that sound to you for making a stand against the attempt to kill Social Security?

For more on the assault on Social Security, read Robert Kuttner's Zero Hour for Social Security.

Making a Living Making Shit Up

Thanks to outlets like Faux News, it has become possible for an incredibly large number of ignorant asses to make a living making shit. This includes the experts, pundits, and hosts that spew falsehoods and misinformation to their complicit and ignorant audience, as well as politicians who would have been laughed out of any congress in any serious nation in the world.

Anyway, one of the individuals who best exemplify this situation is--you guessed it!--Glenn Beck. So it is always nice when someone finds the time to debunk Beck's inane statements for what they are: the ignorant rants of a man who makes a living by making shit up that people are eager to scarf down in their infinite gullibility an ignorance.

This time it's University of Pennsylvania history professor Rick Beeman who gives Beck a well-deserved and humbling lesson after Beck said that the 3/5ths clause in the Constitution was a step TOWARDS the abolition of slavery. Beeman's reaction? "My Goodness -- Glenn Beck got it completely wrong." Media Matter's takedown of Beck's ignorant bleating is well worth a read.

One Man's Killer Is Another Man's Disturbed Individual - UPDATED

Much has already been said to try and explain Jared Lee Louhgner's evil actions last Saturday in Arizona, and many theories have been advanced on what might have driven him to commit multiple murders. The theory that prevails on the left is that the vitriolic political climate might have had an effect on Loughner's actions, while the right has immediately coalesced around the "very disturbed individual" explanation. I admit that I am in the former camp, so I put my bias in the open. But I have one question for those who advocate the "very disturbed individual" explanation: Who, if not disturbed individuals, commit actions like Loughner's? And why does being disturbed immediately disqualify toxic influences as an explanation?

People who are not disturbed on some level do not walk into a Safeway with a semi-automatic weapon with the intent of killing as many people as possible, including a congresswoman. Sane people do not say: "Honey, I am going to Safeway to pick up some groceries and to commit multiple murders, I'll be back by lunch."

Alas, being disturbed and being prone to being incited by hate-speech to commit heinous acts are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, it is quite likely that people who suffer from some kind of mental illness characterized by aggression against others are particularly susceptible to incitement to commit violent acts. If this is true, then does it not follow that those who promote the demonization of their adversaries and violent imagery against them are complicit, even indirectly so, with the actions committed by the disturbed amongst us?

No one can seriously contend that Jim Adkisson, the man who shot and killed two congregants at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, was not a disturbed individual. But could books found on Adkisson bookshelf, like "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by Michael Savage, or "Let Freedom Ring" by Sean Hannity, have had an effect on Adkisson's disturbed psyche? Is there a point where mental illness and violent rhetoric meet, pushing a disturbed individual to act out his evil ideas?

And not all those who commit heinous acts of violence can be indisputably accused of acting out of being disturbed. Take Scott Roeder, for example: he is the man who shot and killed Dr. George Tiller, the Kansas doctor known to many anti-choicers (there is a different between being pro-life and being against abortion) as "Tiller the Killer", because he provided abortion services. Roeder may be a despicable individual, and in many's opinion a greatly disturbed individual, but he did not carry out murder because he was clinically or temporarily insane; he did it because he wanted to "protect the unborn." Therefore, saying that there is no link between the anti-choice rhetoric that portrays abortion as the destruction of a life and not as a legal medical service, or that speaks of murder instead of the voluntary termination of a pregnancy protected under Roe v. Wade, and the actions of Dr. Tiller would be disingenuous.

Was Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the perpetrator of the 2009 Fort Hood killings, simply a disturbed individual, or was he acting out his rational but violent response to "the refusal of Hasan's superiors to process his requests that sought to have some of his patients prosecuted for war crimes based on statements they made during psychiatric sessions with him"?

Actions, and words, do have consequences, however unintended and unpredictable. The Right's denial of any link between acts of violence and what people say or do, and the dismissal of such acts as the work of disturbed individuals do not invalidate the cause-and-effect relationship that often exists in these violent incidents.

We may eventually learn what led Loughner to act as he did last Saturday. Do not be surprised if a link can be established between his actions and the words of professional hatemongers on the right.

UPDATE:
Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, makes many of the same points I made above in his typically impatient and acerbic way, and establishes a direct link between Loughner's killings and the right-wing's violent rhetoric.

Krugman, Kos On Political Climate and Arizona Killings

Rather than acknowledging that too much toxic talk--most, in fact--comes from the right wing of the political spectrum, the righties are circling the wagons and dusting off their Bill Ayers references to demonstrate that liberals are just as violent. They are calling the shooter a madmen and rejecting any link between his actions and the inflammatory rhetoric peddled mostly by conservative talking heads and politicians.

Two important posts about Arizona's killings.

One by Paul Krugman, Climate of Hate; the other one by Kos, Manufacturing false equivalencies.

Keep these two posts in mind when you hear conservative talk about how there is no link between violent rhetoric and killings, and how both sides are guilty of inflaming the instincts of crazy people.

Second Amendment Insanity

It would be nice if, once in a while, heinous acts like yesterday's killings in Arizona were committed by sane right-wing individuals, aided and abetted by proud right-wing radio instigators. Alas, no suck luck.

Right-wing talk show hosts, even those who jokingly condone or blatantly advocate violence against liberals, always deny any involvement in the violent acts of those who take their words without the required grain of salt.

Worse, the perpetrators are never sane individuals. As right-wing hosts are always ready tell us, the perpetrators are always deranged individuals, detached from their surroundings and from the vitriol they would be exposed to if only they were not dangerous schizophrenics with no connection to the external world.

In the right-wing world, where violent rhetoric is inconsequential, where there is no cause and effect relationship between the words of an instigator and the actions of a madman, violence is always inexplicable, surely the result of individual folly.

The problem is that right-wingers think that everyone in the world is sane when it comes to the protection of Second Amendment rights. It is only AFTER those rights have been abused that we find out that the supposedly sane gun owner was in fact an insane perpetrator.

Keith Olbermann's Special Comment on Arizona Shootings

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Dripping Irony

I don't doubt that the man's intentions are good, but when Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik said that Arizona has "become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry" [emphasis added], did he miss the prejudice and bigotry in his own statement?

The Second Amendment Remedies Loons

It appears now clear that the shooter in today's spree at a Safeway in Tucson is a loon of the second amendment remedies kind. His My Space and You Tube pages seem to bear that out.

Whether the primary motivation for today's shooting spree is political or not (and the circumstantial evidence suggests that it is), this episode once again calls for a stop to the violent rhetoric employed by the right-wing, no longer just fringe but becoming mainstream day after day.

Think of the calls to second-amendment remedies invoked by Harry Reid's opponent, Sharron Angle, in the November election. Think about the rhetoric of people like Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, all of whom demonize their political opponents, often suggesting the very essence and future of America is in jeopardy and that liberals must be stopped at all costs.

The curtain of denial erected by right-wing extremists and endorsed by respectable conservatives (a class seemingly going the way of dinosaurs) must fall.

The anti-intellectualism that many right-wingers boast of leads to ridiculing civil discourse and to the less balanced elements on the right-end of the political spectrum literally thinking that they must take up arms to defend the Constitution (which they do not understand), the nation (against anyone who has a different opinion) and the idea of an America so retrograde as to induce horror in those of a progressive mind. Their ideal of America is so fantastic as to elicit sympathy for those who have conceived it, and so out of touch with the actual past that the likely future invoked by demagogues seems all too real to the extremist wing of the conservative movement. Because, after all, those who know nothing of the real struggles, the real injustices and the real horror of the real past are doomed to repeat it.

Congresswoman Giffords (D-AZ) Shot In Tucson

Chilling news from Arizona. A gunman shot Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford (D-AZ) in the head at a Safeway in Arizona. Ms. Gifford is reportedly still alive and undergoing surgery. It is now also known that a federal judge was also shot and killed during this incident, and several others were injured (18 people, according to the Sheriff's office at a press conference).

A 22 year-old man has been detained for the shooting. The motive is still unclear, but Ms. Gifford's office was vandalized last year hours before the House vote on health care reform, so it is not inconceivable that this might be a politically motivated crime.

Newly-elected Speaker of the House, Rep. John Boehner said: "Acts and threats of violence against public officials have no place in our society." True, and before the motive is ascertained we all would do well to withhold judgement on this violent act. Still, the Tea-Party and the Republican Party have raised the violent rhetoric in recent years (think of the McCain-Palin rallies of 2008 and of the anti-health care reform rallies last year). Obviously right-wing politicians and activists carry a lot of the blame for the current violent climate, and for episodes such as the killing of Dr. Tiller, death threats to the President, and so forth, no statement to the contrary notwithstanding.

It's Not The Number of Jobs, Stupid!

I hear a lot of talk from Repuglycans about fostering a business environment that will result in millions of jobs being created, and I find it insulting: The type of jobs Republican policies lead to creating is minimum wage jobs, or only marginally better.

When your philosophy, like the Republican Party's, is that unions are evil, that any type of market regulation is noxious for business, that you should cave in to big business--scratch that: that you should pave the way for business to exploit workers in America in exchange for jobs not being shipped to India, then the jobs you are seeking to create are not living wage jobs: they are modern-day slave jobs. Hence, when you say that you are trying to create millions of jobs for American workers you are not being square with the American people.

The Repuglycan philosophy about jobs is summarized in the headline of the latest post over at the Daily Kos: Low-wage jobs lead in new hiring. In other words, get ready to work more, for less money and with slimmer benefits than you had before. And since the money you make now determines your social security benefits in the future, prepare to work for a very, very long time, since retiring is out of the question. Oh, and try to stay healthy, or--as former Representative Alan Grayson said last year--if you get sick the Repuglycan health care plan for you is this: die quickly (i.e., keep the costs for your employer to a minimum.)

You want proof that Repuglycans see you as modern slaves? They just renamed the Education and Labor Committee as Education and Workforce Committee. What's in a word? Says the WSJ: "Workforce is a term employers are likely to use, while labor is more evocative of the union movement—after all, they call it the American Federation of Labor." A minor shift in words, but a major shift in attitude.

It's Complicated

There is a new keyboard out for the Android OS, called 8pen.

The premise is correct: QWERTY keyboards where created for the typewriter/computer, so they lead to clumsy typing and many errors. But the droid solution seems worse than the problem it's trying to solve.

Watch the 8pen demo (that's the name of the new keyboard). If you are not dizzy by the end you are a more adaptable animal than I am.

My bet? It will be a flop, though it might eventually lead to better typing systems for smartphones than the one we currently endure.

America, The Brainwashed

On a recent trip to Italy, I spoke with a friend who works for a large Italian insurance company. We discussed health insurance. He is an intelligent, well-educated man, one year older than I am. He expressed his bewilderment that any country would place the health care needs of its citizens almost entirely in the hands of for profit entities whose first and foremost concern is dividends for shareholders. I agree: No civilized country would leave so much little regulated power over its citizens' lives in the hands of insurance companies.

If you live in the U.S. and years of pledging allegiance to the flag, chanting "number one" in the face of the obvious, and getting up for your national anthem before sport events have left you under the false impression that you live in a civilized country then read this: Blue Shield of California seeks rate hikes of as much as 59% for individuals. Then, for good measure, read this: 2nd person denied Arizona transplant coverage dies.

Death panels, socialist medicine, government between a patient and his doctor, insurance companies will go out of business, I pledge allegiance to the flag..., God Bless America, America is a Christian nation... that lets the poor die un- or under-insured, too far gone to come to its senses, and deserving of what's coming.

Journalistic Malpractice

In Fiscal Shock renowned economist and Nobel Prize Winner Paul Krugman calls out the media on the pass they regularly give to Republicans, who rail against deficits and yet epitomize fiscal irresponsibility.

Scathingly, Krugman writes: "Republicans have, after all, been the party of fiscal irresponsibility since 1980; the GW Bush administration confirmed, if anyone was in doubt, that unfunded tax cuts are now in the party’s DNA."

The Proof Is In The Pudding (UPDATED)

You think Washington works with your best interest in mind?

Get this: Fed Moves To Gut Predatory Lending Regulation.

You and I don't matter. Money for the oligarchs does, only money for the oligarchs.

UPDATE:
It seems the Fed has now reversed its opposition to tougher rules against foreclosure abuses.

Talking The Talk? Then Walk The Walk.

Sen. Schumer (NY) is right: Those politicians who oppose any form of government-funded health care should give up their own government-funded healthcare.

You Cannot Be Both

You can be a republican politician with presidential ambitions or you can be serious but, as Keith Olbermann deftly showed last night, you cannot be both.

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Ralph Nader, via Chris Hedges

Read this important piece by Chris Hedges on the necessity of making a stand and on rejecting the political status quo, the two-party system.

It rather reminds me of this quote, the attribution of which is uncertain: "The United States is also a one-party state. But with typical American extravagance, they have two of them."

Let The Circus Begin

Darrell Issa, the richest representative in the House and likely House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chair, wasted no time in calling Obama "one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times."

This type of judgement is particularly bewildering coming after Issa's silence on the most corrupt and corrupting Republican administration in recent history at least, the W. administration.

Robert Reich on the Political Parties' Narratives

Robert Reich has the usual insightful take on the situation of the American economy, and American politics, in the latest issue of the American Prospect. Below are some highlights.

For three decades, an increasing share of the benefits of economic growth have gone to the wealthiest 1 percent. Thirty years ago, the top got 9 percent of total income. Now they take in almost a quarter.

[...] The vast middle class no longer has the purchasing power to keep the economy going. (The rich spend less of their income.)

[...] As income and wealth have risen to the top, so has political power. Money is being used to bribe politicians and fill the airwaves with misleading ads that block us from hearing this story.

[...]This is the story Obama, Democrats, and progressives must tell. Stop talking policy. People don't think in terms of policies. Policies make sense only to the extent they illustrate a larger story. Obama's biggest failure has been an inability to connect the dots.

I disagree with Prof. Reich that Obama's biggest failure has been the inability to connect the dots. It is not that Obama has been incapable of connecting the dots, it's that he has not been willing to do so, for reasons that--I suspect--are much less excusable than inability. We are living through yet another smokescreen presidency, on the inevitable road to the destruction of the American middle-class. Obama is not a victim of his inability, he is an accomplice in for-profit spinelessness.

Also, in addition to the rise of income to the top that Reich highlights in his article, another thing that has risen at the same pace as the influence of money in politics is the influence of right-wing evangelicals on the American landscape. Instead of decrying the corrupt influence of money in politics, most evangelicals have been trained on the idea, which they are spreading uncritically, that government--not corrupting wealth--is the cause of most or all societal evils, that the current embodiment of the free market, free in name only, is essential to the prosperity of Americans, and that salvation lies in believing in a gospel that denies science, progress, and the need for social justice and that promotes and rewards the cult of the mavericky individual and uncritical submission to irrational ideas.

In any case, and in spite of some negligible flaws, you should read the whole article, Telling Tales, to educate yourself against Republican misinformation, which is a 24/7 business.

And while you are at it, read Reich's predictions on what 2011 has in store for us. The first concerns the political strategy of the Tea Party in 2011; the second one is about the outlook for the U.S. economy in 2011.

Happy New Year

May 2011 bring a spine to your congressman/woman AND SENATOR.