Poor People and Fair Shares

Think Progress reports that Sen. Hatch (R-UT) thinks that the tax system is unfair because it doesn’t tax poor people enough.

Of all the Stupid, Horrible, Idiotic Things That Excrementous Republicans Say (which you can find under the label SHITTERS on this blog) this has to be one of the most horrible and offensive.

Poor people do not pay income tax for a reason: they have no money to pay income tax. In fact, income tax is the one tax they do not pay, but they do pay withholdings on their paycheck for Social Security and Medicare, not to mention sales tax on everything they buy. They may be too poor to buy health insurance but not poor enough to fall under Medicaid. They are paying near $4 a gallon for gas, they pay car registration and other fees as the richest among us, and they eat crap that will kill them more quickly because it's all they can afford.

So, yes, the poor have it made. Let's tax them a bit more, so we can continue subsidies for the oil companies and pass tax breaks for yacht owners. Because, as every good Republican knows, a rising tide lifts all boats, including the yachts owned by minimum wage earners.

Fuck you, Sen. Hatch. I mean it.

Pet Peeves: One or Two Spaces After a Period?

Could it be that I found the definitive article about the fact that it is wrong to use two spaces after after a period?

And this reply to "a marine" from the Chicago Manual of Style is pretty funny as well.

The Irreparably Frivolous American Newsmedia

Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post, a news organization that in many ways defines frivolous, caught another news orgnization red-handed when it comes to senseless news and polls. It really is no surprise Americans are a duped bunch, when the supposedly serious alternative to Fox News wastes its time on such idiotic pursuits.

Photos Of OBL Not To Be Released

President Obama has announced that photos of dead Osama Bin Laden will not be released. Good for him.

If you believe the U.S. has killed Osama, good for you. If you do not, then no photo is ever going to convince you otherwise. You will claim that the photos have been doctored, that the men killed by the Navy SEALs was a lookalike or a human-clone. Whatever. If you are the Orly Taitz type who believed for years that the President is a Kenyan-born Muslim and still do, no matter what the evidence to the contrary is, no amount of visual evidence will convince you.

But in order to believe that OBL is still alive, you would have to also believe that the Navy SEALs are an incompetent bunch, and a lying one, too. So then don't go around calling yourself a patriot who supports our troops. Short of finding OBL yourself, nothing will convince you. So go ahead, go look for him in the caves of Tora Bora. And don't come back.

Juan Cole on the Death of OBL

You will be hard-pressed to find a better analysis of the life of Osama Bin Laden and of what his death means, or should lead to.

I Wonder

I am glad that Osama Bin Laden was killed. I would have been happier if he had been caught alive. I am sure he would have had some interesting things to say about his relationship with America, which started many years before 9/11, but I have always suspected that the "alive" part of "dead or alive" was just a formality.

But no matter how glad I am (I am not really relieved, since I do not think that the death of this man means an end to the resentment that many Muslim extremists feel about their treatment by the West) I am not taking to the streets to celebrate. There is a difference between being glad that justice has been meted out, however summarily, and showing enthusiasm that a man, however ill-intentioned and evil, has been killed. Perhaps I would feel different if I lived near Ground Zero. But I doubt it.

Over the years, Americans (Westerners in general, but Americans in particular) have been quick to exploit the images of flag-burning, animated Muslim crowds after successful attacks on the West and Israel, in order to incite animosity towards those "who hate hate us for our freedom", to show that it is right to hate "them" because we are different from them, we are better, we are human, and "they" are not. I wonder if today Arab televisions were showing images of Americans in the street of New York and in the seats of a baseball stadium exulting at the news of the death of their enemy.

The whole situation only goes to show that there are some things that appeal to the worst nature of people, regardless of their creed, their upbringing, and their education, and that we humans are an interesting mix of good and evil, but far from a perfect one. And if we spent more time focusing on our similarities rather than on our differences, on common interests instead of special ones, and on what makes us human, we would live in a much different world.

Obama Did Not Kill Osama, The Navy Seals Did. Yes, But...

Over his time in the White House, and even before as a candidate, President Obama has been accused by right-wing characters of dubious expertise on foreign matters of being an appeaser, of being sympathetic to terrorists, of not understanding the threat of terrorism; why, even of catering to terrorists.

Today, some are silent after the killing of Osama Bin Laden in an operation approved by the current Commander-in-Chief.

If and when they speak, they will give credit to President Bush for yesterday's success, and will diminish the import of what has been achieved under the Obama presidency. They will gloss over the fact that Obama made getting Bin Laden a priority, and Bush did not (in his own words, saying that he did not worry about him much, even though after 9/11 he had declared Osama Bin Laden was wanted "dead or alive.") Let them live with their silence. They were wrong, whether they will admit it or not.

So Very Predictable

It is so predictable I hesitate to take credit for it, but what the heck.

Yesterday I wrote: "Fox News will say George W. Bush was right for starting the Iraq War and deserves all the credit for the killing of Bin Laden, in spite of the fact that in a famous press conference then President Bush said, "you know, I don't think about Bin Laden much."

This morning Think Progress wrote (emphases added):

Now, Obama has fulfilled his campaign promise to capture the terrorist leader, so did Fox News give credit where is due? This morning, Fox and Friends approvingly played a clip of Bush from shortly after 9/11, saying, “President George W. Bush promised to the nation that Osama bin Laden would be caught any way possible.” “We did finally get him,” host Brian Kilmeade said after the clip.

In what is likely to become a chorus on the right, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s president wrote this morning that “Bin Laden’s elimination vindicates U.S. strategy in the region, started under President George W. Bush.”

In fact, the killing of Bin Laden vindicates nothing because U.S. strategy in the region included a war on a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and posed no threat to the United States. This last statement is in fact indicative of the dishonesty and the bias of The Heritage Foundation, which is consistently on the wrong side of history and supports interests that have nothing in common with those of the overwhelming majority of Americans, which is also why it qualifies for our new SHITTERS (Stupid, Horrible, Idiotic Things That Excrementous Republicans Say) category.

Why Didn't Barack Hussein Obama Show Us The Body (UPDATED)

If you don't know which body, you live in a cave, and if you don't know who will utter those words you have not been following the "birther controversy".
I also predict that Donald Trump will claim credit for the fact that Osama Bin Laden has "allegedly" killed, that Sarah "Hannity" Palin will say something like "people don't care about Osama Bin Laden, they want jobs", and that Fox News will say George W. Bush was right for starting the Iraq War and deserves all the credit for the killing of Bin Laden, in spite of the fact that in a famous press conference then President Bush said, "you know, I don't think about Bin Laden much."

UPDATE
Think Progress reports the following headline: Meet The Deathers: Andrew Breitbart Website Pushing Conspiracy Theory That Osama Might Not Be Dead. I can't say that Breitbart is idiot-in-chief, because there are so many on the right-side of the political spectrum, but he is certainly one of the most deceitful and disingenuous around, so it does not surprise me that his website should be (one of) the first to pursue this line of criticism.

The Daily Kos on Osama Bin Laden's Death

Someone else already did the work for me, so I thought I wouldn't reinvent the wheel.

Unemployed = Lazy, Alcoholic, Drug Addict

The entries for the new SHITTERS (Stupid, Horrible, Idiotic Things That Excrementous Republicans Say) category don't stop coming. The latest is from GOP representative Blake Farenthold (R-TX). Via Think Progress.

Drug testing for recipients of various welfare programs, I really think that’s something that needs to be considered. We’ve gotta, you know, nobody wants to starve anybody. Everybody wants to help folks out. But we’ve got a system where you can stay on unemployment for an awfully long time. And I think we need to create a system of decreasing benefits over time to encourage you to get a job. I think anybody who’s had an alcoholic in their life or somebody with a drug problem, realizes that until things get bad enough there’s no incentive to change. I think that we’re so generous in some of our social problems that people are unwilling to get a job outside in the heat. Rather than get 15 dollars to go get roofing they’d rather get 9 or 10 dollars in benefits. I think drug testing is not an unreasonable requirement to get benefits.

Think Progress does an excellent job of breaking down the many ways in which this is an idiotic statement, so I invite you to click the link above to see for yourself.

Douche Tuberville

Another entry for the SHITTERS (Stupid, Horrible, Idiotic Things That Excrementous Republicans Say) label. A conversation between two great American minds: Sean Hannity, host of Hannity on Faux News, and his guest Tommy Tuberville, Texas Tech football coach. Via Think Progress.

HANNITY: He (Obama) could just get the birth certificate and it’d all over and I’m just curious why he wouldn’t do that?

TUBERVILLE: We’ve got enough controversy in this country, I don’t know why he wouldn’t just step up and say here it is.

HANNITY: Move on.

TUBERVILLE: Obviously there’s got to be something on there that he doesn’t want anyone to see. I don’t understand it. I’m an American. I don’t understand why we just go through this. I think it just continues to divide the country. [Emphasis added]

I agree, the birth certificate controversy continues to divide the country. It divides it between sensible people with better things to do (like fixing the country after 8 year of reckless Bush policies), and racist, hateful, and IQ-depleted sore losers who will not accord to the president the legitimacy that the record number of votes he earned in 2008 would have accorded to any white Republican.

P.S. I should say that Mr. Tuberville's political affiliation is uknown to me, but I am willing to take a leap of faith and chalk him under "Republican" since this "birtherism" is a predominantly Republican endeavor and because if you, a sport coach, choose to be a guest on Hannity, chances are you are a Republican.

Tom Tancredo: Obama Withheld Birth Certificate To Make Republicans Look "Nuts"

According to former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, President Obama withheld his birth certificate to make the Republican Party look "like nuts".

Tancredo's theory omits one important and self-evident fact: many Republicans in Congress or running for office do not need anyone's help to look nuts. All they have to do is move their lips, and something nuts will naturally flow.

Think of Sarah Palin's saying that she was fit for foreign policy because she can see Russia from her house. That of course is like saying that I am fit to be an astronaut because I can see the moon from my apartment.

Or think of The Donald, the bankruptcy expert who would be president if he can find enough nut-job Republicans to vote for him, who basically said that America needs a man with the balls to call 1 billion plus Chinese "motherfuckers" because of their unfavorable trade policy to America (while neglecting to mention that part of his clothing line is made in... yes, China.)

But if two examples are not enough for you, go to this YouTube gallery of Republican horrors, ten minutes of hard-to-endure, inane, offensive, and bat-shit crazy statements by a variety of Republican characters, including common folk.

The Townhall Protests No One Is Talking About

Remember all the folks that showed up at townhall meetings across the country in 2009 to protest against "Obama-care"? Of course you do, because the so-called liberal media covered them like a heating blanket on a hypothermia patient.

Well, there is similar backlash now against Republican representatives who voted for the "Ryan budget", a budget proposal so extreme that it would end Medicare and cut the top marginal tax rate for the wealthiest Americans by 10% percent (down to 25%). In townhalls across America, constituents are showing up to express their displeasure with their elected representatives, often grilling politicians who are totally unprepared for the barrage of tough--and sensible--questions. But have you heard about it? I doubt it, because the so-called liberal media--with a few notable exceptions like Cenk Uygur and Rachel Maddow, is covering these protests not "like" a blanket but "with" a sheet. The sheet usually reserved for corpses in a morgue. Because, after all, you don't bite the hand that feeds, do you?

The protests are also aimed at Republican support for subsidies to oil companies, which keep posting record profits quarter after quarter.

Well, here is a list of such townhall protests that Think Progress has reported on:

Freshman GOP Rep. Hultgren Dumbfounded After Constituent Grills Him On Oil Subsidies

Town Hall Citizens Confront Rep. Grimm Over Vote To Kill Medicare And Give More Tax Cuts To Rich

GOP Freshman Ends First Town Hall After Tough Questions On Tax Cuts For The Wealthy: ‘We’re Done’

Constituents Challenge Rep. Huizenga: ‘Your Party Has Become Of The Rich, By The Rich, For The Rich!’

Town Halls Spawn Main Street Movement Pushback On Republican Ideas

14-Year-Old Challenges Rep. Frank Guinta On Privatized Medicare: ‘What Am I Going To Do?’

Rep. Barletta Laughs At Constituents Who Question His Support For Oil Subsidies

Town Hall Attendees Tell GOP Rep. That Ending Medicare Is ‘Unconscionable,’ Demand ‘Tax The Rich!’

And that is just a partial list.

Be incensed, the situation demands it. And act upon your rage in November 2012. Vote th bums out that were voted in in 2010. It did not take them long to show their true colors.

Stupid, Horrible, Idiotic Things That Excrementous Republicans Say

I am going to start using a label named Stupid, Horrible, Idiotic, Things That Excrementous Republicans Say, or SHITTERS for short. At any point, you will be able to go to the list of labels on the right side of The Daily Fuel to bring up all the stupid, horrible, idiotic things that excrementous Republicans have said. I promise you it will be a veritable gallery of horrors.

If you would like to contribute a submission to this gallery of horrors, use the comment feature. (Please source your comments.)

We begin with Sally Kern, Oklahoma GOP lawmaker:

We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that’s tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don’t want to study as hard in school? I’ve taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn’t study hard because they said the government would take care of them.” (via Think Progress)

Ezra Klein Hits The Nail On The Head

Shortly before President Obama hopefully put the birther controversy to rest by making his original birth certificate public (but don't count on it, more conspiracy theories will surface), Ezra Klein correctly identifies the birthplace of Obama's policies in an astute analysis of the President's work in his first two years at the White House.

Those Who Elected This Other Douchebag Should Also Be Ashamed

Douchebaggery is a favorite Republican trait that some Democrats seem eager to embrace. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL) embodies Republican douchebaggery to a tee. To understand what I mean, just watch these two clips from last night's The Daily Show.

The Daily Show - Friends Without Benefits
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire,The Daily Show on FB

The Daily Show - Friends Without Benefits - 9/11 Responders
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire,The Daily Show on FB

Sensible people often decry the fact that too many politicians waste a lot of time tackling non-issues, such as the birthers who claim that President Obama has not released his long-form birth certificate. But the real problem is that there are as many politicians who proudly come up with crackpot ideas, like Congressman Stearn's, that do affect the lives of Americans in dramatic and destructive ways. The fact that even a usually sensible politician like Rep. Waxman (D-CA), who has often been on the right (left) side of many issues, are quick to jump on the bandwagon of stupidity is demoralizing to say the least. How Rep. Waxman could be so wrong about such a ridiculous idea as the Stearns amendment to the Zadroga Bill is a question the congressman will have to answer to his conscience and to those who voted for him.

Those Who Elected This Douchebag Should Be Ashamed

Douchebag is probably not a strong enough epiteth for this piece of work who goes by the name of Paul LePage, Governor of the crazy state of Maine. What did he do to deserve me calling him names? For starters, LePage is in favor of relaxing Maine's child labor laws. Yes, because at a time where unemployment is still rampant, what the country needs is for children to enter the workforce and the clock being turned back to the 19th century.

But perhaps I misunderstand LePage. Perhaps he is a humanitarian and a realist who knows that if Republican wish-list policies are implemented, only the children of patrician class will be able to afford private school 20 years from now (there would no longer be any public schools), and everybody else had better get ready for a life of toil that should begin at 14 or earlier and end at 75 or later, since Republicans are also hell-bent on destroying Social Security.

LePage belongs in hell, but not the imaginary one that Christians believe in; a real one, where he should lose everything he has earned so far and has to make ends meet for the rest of his life on minimum wage, with no benefits, no Medicaid, and no Social Security to boot. Let him experience in the present a little taste of the future he wants to help build for future generations of Maine children.

The Only Serious Plan To Cut The Deficit

Paul Ryan and President Obama are both demagoguing on how to address the deficit. I don't say so, Paul Krugman does. I don't have a Nobel Prize, he does.

In Let's Take a Hike, Krugamn also says that the only serious plan to address the deficit and balance the national budget comes from... are you ready? The Congressional Progressive Caucus. Yes, progressives, a.k.a. liberals, the very people accused by Fox and by Republicans marionettes in Congress of wanting to destroy America. Imagine that.

Refute Ted Rall... If You Can

Someone had to say it, Ted Rall did it: "The family budget talking point is a fascinating meme that reflects a rarely considered national blind spot." Like their government, Americans live on debt.

The Truth About Taxes According to the Wall Street Journal? Yeah, Right.

The opinion of the Wall Street Journal is given way too much weight in discussions about the economy. I have often heard the distinction made that the WSJ has excellent reporters and a daft editorial board. Perhaps it is so. But the reporting will suffer if the editorial board is populated by idiots in service of the rich who write the kind of idiocies that Jeffrey Sachs exposes in this short op-ed for the Huffington Post.

Jon Kyl's Factually Depressing Behavior

Jon Kyl is the moron from Arizona, a U.S. Senator no less, who less than a couple of weeks ago entertained millions of discerning Americans with his naked lie or error (not intended as factual statement, according to a spokesperson) about the percentage of Planned Parenthood's business which is categorized as abortion: 90% according to Sen. Kyl, 3% if you let boring things like facts bog your rhetoric down.

Well, now Kyl has expunged his not-so-factual statement from the Congressional Record. Jason Linkins of the Huffington Post explains how, and what it says about lawmakers.

Krugman: Patients Are Not Consumers

It's a distinction that nowhere else in the civilized world would need to be made, but in the United States it takes a Nobel Prize winner to remind us: Patients are not consumers, and to nonchalantly use the two words interchangeably shows the level of corruption that big finance has brought upon us.

Medicare Isn't The Problem: It's The Solution

Robert Reich reminds the President, and all of us in the process, that Medicare is part of the solution in fixing America's fiscal problems. The only problem is that the right-wing echo chamber is fine-tuned to make Americans believe just the opposite.

Framing the Budget Debate

Robert Reich, with a much needed reminder that Paul Ryan and the Republicans' idea of how to fix the deficit is radical and extreme, and that much, most of America--in fact, is in line with the Democrats' suggestions for righting the financial course.

Tax Day Is Gone, But Not The Silly Rhetoric

Republicans like to pretend that they know how to fix the deficit and budget problems: just slash taxes and spending, and tax revenues will grow and the deficit will decline. That is their recipe for fiscal success. Except that it omits facts: yes, slashing spending could reduce the deficit (at the expense of the neediest Americans, including children--because the culture of life... well, you know all about that holy crap) but the if the revenue side continues to falter, largely because of Republican fiscal policy, then how much exactly needs to be slashed.

NPR had a more realistic take of things yesterday, on Tax Day. You can read it or listen to it. The report is called Looking At Who Pays What In Taxes.

Frankly, I am fed up with Republicans telling me that taxes for the rich need to be cut, when the amount of taxes they actually pay has declined from 26 to 17% over the last 20 years and their income has grown more than that of any other income group. You should be too.

Oh, By The Way...

I'm back. :-)

One of the Most Interesting Discussions on Anthropology You'll Ever Hear

From today's edition of NPR's Science Friday: Richard Leakey Reflects On Human Past--And Future. After you click the link, you can stream audio from the top left corner of the page.

Note how the first comment on the page (currently) reads: "How does Richard Leakey discount the Bible? Genesis chapter 1 verse 26? Or all other passages of the Bible? How about the other guy with language evolution.... Genesis chapter 11 verses 1 --9??????? There is no way to leave God out of creating the universe. God caused the Big bang and He will take us out with a big bang........ Any one else believe this too????????????". Oh dear.

Bring Out The Dunce Caps

As the political season is heating up in view of the upcoming presidential election cycle, our old friend The Constructive Curmudgeon has picked his front runner for the Republican Party.


Looks like it's gonna be another fun election season!

Oh, and check out Michele Bachmann's PolitiFact file. I can already savor the Bachmann/Kyl 2012 ticket!

CEOs v. Teachers, as Seen Through The Talking Asses of Fox News Corp

Courtesy of The Daily Show.

Tax Breaks in Bizarro World

If by Bizarro World you mean the United States, that is. But wait: isn't Bizarro World suppose to be the opposite of what earhtly things? That may not be a bad idea, given how ass backwards we earthly things are doing things (at least in the U.S.=

Read how Tom Cruise, Gov. Hickenlooper (D-CO) and a host of tax dodgers pay close to nothing in taxes on their 200+ acre properties.

Then, also from Think Progress, read how Gov. Scott (R-FL) is seeking to slash teachers' pay to fund corporate and property tax breaks.

Anti-gay Marriage Bill Goes Down in Wyoming

Apparently not all Republicans are seeking to meddle with the private lives of Americans. So kudos to the Wyoming legislature for rejecting an attempt to pass a law that would have caused civil unions sanctioned by other states of the Union to be voided once a gay couple entered Wyoming.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

.
Don't get me wrong: the people who introduced the bill were also almost entirely Republican, so we still have a long way to go in bringing about the equality that everybody deserves. Still, it's an encouraging sign.

Media News

Keith Olbermann is back! Non on TV yet, but he has his own website, called FOK News Channel (FOK = Friends of Keith). His logo looks a lot like Fox News Channel's, it'll be interesting to see if they sue him. But he is pretty smart, isn't he? So my hunch is that before putting the logo on the website he probably got good legal advice.

In other media news, Frank Rich is moving to New York Magazine after 31 years at the NYT.

Boycott and Defeat Koch Industries

Boycott Koch Industries. The Koch Brothers are a truly destructive influence on American politics. You can read more about them here (scroll down the page to see a list of products you should boycott) and here.

Yes, my money is but a drop in the ocean of billions that go to Koch Industries everywhere, but why should I support their regressive political activities with my money? Resistance has to begin somewhere. So vote with your dollars.

Fox News Lies, It Cannot Broadcast in Canada

Good for our neighbors to the North: They refused to change a law which prohibits broadcasting licenses to be issued to organizations that lie and deceive their listeners, which for all effects and purposes practically closes the door on Fox News-like organizations.

One has to wonder why such a law does not exist in the United States. Yes, I know, the First Amendment goes a long way in granting people the right to misinform. The question is: should it?

What's At Stake, in Wisconsin and in the U.S.A.

George Lakoff, the progressives' ethical response to Frank Luntz, spells out exactly what Wisconsin public employees are fighting for, and what will likely happen to all of us if they don't succeed in their fight.

Shock Doctrine, U.S.A.

If you have been following the national news at all lately, you know that protests against Gov. Walker of Wisconsin, the man who is trying to abrogate collective bargaining rights for state employees, have been getting all the attention for the last few days.

As Paul Krugman wrote in his post in today's New York Times, titled Shock Doctrine, U.S.A., collective bargaining is not the only target of Gov. Walker's budget plan: privatization by edict of the state's resources is another, just as worrisome target.

Please stand with the protesters in Wisconsin, as the International Association of Fire Fighters has done. It's not their future alone that is at stake.

The Attack on Unions and Corporate Tax Dodgers

Read Stop the Corporate Tax Dodgers, a timely post by Chuck Collins, co-author with Bill Gates Sr. of Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes and director of Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies.

What Took Him So Long?

President Obama has finally seen the light, on equal rights for gays and lesbians at least. He has come out against the indefensible Defense of Marriage Act, an attack on the rights of fellow human beings that anyone with a conscience not ruled by their belief in the supernatural has considered unjust and unjustifiable for a long time.

Better late than never.

The situation could be FUBAR, We Could Have Had President McCain

You know, I am no big fan of President Obama. I think he is duplicitous and weak, and just another president in a big line of corporate water-carriers that goes all the way back to Reagan. (I called Obama a water-carrier and not a "corporate slave" lest the sensitive ones around take offense and cry shame, though if we were white I would have no problem doing so.) But I do recognize that things could always be worse. For example, we could have had President McCain. How bad would that have been? Take this as a telling example:

Right now there’s a certain amount you pay into Social Security, and then after that it’s not taxed. There’s a number of things you can do to that are pretty simple and are pretty gradual keep the system from going bankrupt which basically it already is, because we’ve already spent the money that’s in the Social Security trust fund. It’s a Ponzi scheme that Bernie Madoff would be proud of.

As Zaid Jilani quickly and correctly pointed out in his post on Think Progress,

A Ponzi scheme involves fraudulently manipulating investors’ money without being able to pay them back; meanwhile, Social Security is a program that has successfully managed Americans’ money since its inception and has guaranteed them safe retirements.

Indeed, it must be that Republicans are only capable of viewing any program that treats Americans as if we were all on the same boat, rather than a few on yachts and most of the rest on rafts, as a "Ponzi scheme". (You know the analogy that a rising tide lifts all boats, the disingenuous argument Republicans love to make to justify trickle down economics, don't you?)

Take Ponzi scheme as a synonym for socialism, or "redistribution of wealth" in the Republican vocabulary. It is really a very good/bad sign of which side Republicans are on. When it comes to making sure that Ponzi schemes are not possible, they obstruct any attempt at regulation of the financial industry, but when the issue is to make sure that Americans can retire with some peace of mind they have no trouble calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme. They are truly evil.

Stephen Colbert Skewers Justice Thomas

With his usual wit, Stephen Colbert (and his writing crew) does a number on Justice Clarence Thomas, a man who would be laughable if he were irrelevant.

The Colbert Report
Tags: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Not Really News, But...

Media Matters, the media analysis organization that Bill O'Reilly considers hateful, perhaps because its reporters and analysts seem to hate the distortions perpetrated on an unsuspecting public by pretend-news organizations like Fox, makes a very good point: Fox Slams [Wisconsin] Protests But Cheered Tea Party Protests.

Of course Fox does not like the Wisconsin protests: They mostly feature peaceful union members, teachers and students; not true patriots like, you know, teabaggers.

The Great 401k Hoax

A while ago I read a book titled The Great 401(k) Hoax: What You Need to Know to Protect Your Family and Your Future, in which the authors fall barely short of calling 401k's a swindle. I am pretty sure that the title of the book was setteled in concert with the publisher, and that Wolman and Colamosca, the two authors, would have preferred to go with swindle or some other stronger connotation of how 401k's really work.

And now, years later, the Wall Street Journal has an article in which--surprise surprise!--we learn that baby boomers who are starting to retire are getting the short end of the 401k stick. Keep both in mind, the book and the article, when some Laffer Curve, trickle-down, supply-side Republican economist tells you that the way to fix the wholly imaginary "Social Security mess" is to let workers invest into private retirement funds. Think Enron, think Lehman Brothers, think mortage securitization and subprime mortgage crisis, then tell them to go *!@$ themselves.

Perception Problems: Sad

This is quite sad.



Yes, it is a non-scientific CNN poll. But CNN polls usually bend slightly left of center, so the fact that so many respondents have a negative view of unions may underestimate the actual sentiments of the general population.

What is so sad about this is the fact that it is quite likely that many of the respondents *profited* from the work of unions, via better working hours, safety measures in the work place, health benefits they did not have, higher wages for both union and non-union jobs, and so forth.

Certainly unions bear some of the responsibility for this perception problem that causes unions to be viewed negatively by such a large number of people; and the mainstream media rarely present a balanced view of the positive work that unions have done and continue to do.

But the perception is also a product of the assault that conservatives have waged against unions for the last forty years, which peaked in the Reagan years and has steadily continued ever since. The fact is that Republicans know that at least two things are true: unions are a barrier and a safeguard against a number of destructive business practices aimed at maximizing profits to the detriment of everything and everybody; and, unions are one of the best answers Democrats have to the crushing supremacy of Republican moneyed interests in election cycles, due to the organizing and mobilizing work that unions do to bring voters to polling places.

Demean and fight the ever dwindling power of unions at your peril.

Obama, Friend of the Poor?

President Obama, which by a fortunate coincidence, rhymes with "Oh, mama!", a friend of the poor? Yeah, right.

As Amy Goodman of Democracy Now points out, the President's budget priorities may--quite literally--cause poor people to freeze. More literally than figuratively.

Robert Reich on the Need for Strengthening Progressive Taxation

Looks like this is Robert Reich's week. Here is another post, from last Sunday, in which Reich advocates lower tax rates for all those making less than $250,000, and higher taxes for everybody else. Or, as he puts it, "It's called progressive taxation.".

Soon after his Sunday post, his proposal found a few critics. Here is Reich's response to them.

Robert Reich's Trick Question

Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich asked a trick question in a recent post:

Which of the 2012 presidential aspirants delivered the following words at the Conservative Political Action Convention, now underway in Washington?

"We have seen tax-and-tax spend-and-spend reach a fantastic total greater than in all the previous 170 years of our Republic.

Behind this plush curtain of tax and spend, three sinister spooks or ghosts are mixing poison for the American people. They are the shades of Mussolini, with his bureaucratic fascism; of Karl Marx, and his socialism; and of Lord Keynes, with his perpetual government spending, deficits, and inflation. And we added a new ideology of our own. That is government give-away programs….

If you want to see pure socialism mixed with give-away programs, take a look at socialized medicine."

So, do you know? I bet you are wrong, and you can see I am right if you read Reich's entire post.

Right-to-Work, Brought to You By the Republican Ministry of Plenty

It never ceases to amaze me how much of the Republican Party agenda seems to come right out of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the famous novel that George Orwell conceived to indict totalitarianism of all flavors.

We can recognize several key constructs of Nineteen Eighty-Four in the daily operations of the Republican party, such as double-think, newspeak, a state of perpetual war, constant surveillance, and a war against sexuality come to mind.

So it really comes as no shock that the party of adulterous sanctity of marriage defenders, of Muslim-hating freedom of religion soldiers, and of wealthy trickle-down economics proponents, is a staunch defender of Right-to-Work legislation. It is on this very subject that Laura Clawson has written an illuminating post at the new (and improved?) Daily Kos. The post's title is So-called right-to-work and the assault on the middle class, and it's a must-read.

Rooney's Spectacular Winner

It's not often you get to score a goal like this, let alone a derby-winning goal. Enjoy.

The Rev. Wallis Speaks of Egypt

Though I do not share his religious beliefs when the Rev. Jim Wallis speaks, I listen. Others would do well to do the same. He says it's the Egyptian people's turn to lead.

Here is the most important passage from Wallis's short post:

My government, which still calls itself the beacon of freedom, has sacrificed democracy in your region of the world (and many other places) for American "interests." And our foreign policy around the globe has put our interests before our principles. But they are not really the interests of the American people, but of oil companies, big banks and corporations, and rich and powerful people. Their interest in stability is very different from ours in democracy. So don't be fooled, don't listen to the so-called "wise" voices that have been part of the old reality and want to now thank you for your service to democracy, but are offering to take it from here.

It's Official: Fox News Is A Propaganda Organ

How ironic that the people that made it their bread and butter to rail against socialism have adopted the tactics of the Pravda, the official "information" organ of the USSR.

Here are a few notable excerpts from a Fox news insider, you might call him a whistleblower if you like, who has come clean about the Fox News operation:

• "They’re a propaganda outfit but they call themselves news."


• "We were a Stalin-esque mouthpiece. It was just what Bush says goes on our channel. And by that point it was just totally dangerous. Hopefully most people understand how dangerous it is for a media outfit to be a straight, unfiltered mouthpiece for an unchecked president."


• "They were in search of these points of friction real or imagined. And most of them were imagined or fabricated. You always have to seem to be under siege. You always have to seem like your values are under attack. The brain trust just knew instinctively which stories to do, like the War on Christmas."


• "I don’t think people understand that it’s an organization that’s built and functions by intimidation and bullying, and its goal is to prop up and support Republicans and the GOP and to knock down Democrats. People tend think that stuff that’s on TV is real, especially under the guise of news. You’d think that people would wise up, but they don’t."

And there you have it: the outfit that calls itself Fox News is actually a propaganda machine that makes stuff up as it goes. Not shocking for anyone who has an IQ over 100, but it's nice to have confirmation from an insider, and you can read it all about it on Media Matters.

Robert Reich Is Wrong (This One Time)

Robert Reich has a post on his blog in which he calls Republican attacks on job-killing regulations dumb. You won't hear me say it often, but this time I say Reich is wrong: the attacks are not dumb, they are clever. It is the people who give credit to the notion that regulations are stifling employment recovery, media figures and gullible members of the public alike, who are dumb. And the more they amplify this totally meritless message, the dumber they are, and the dumber they risk making the rest of us.

The Republican attacks against regulations are par for the course for the Republican establishment: they are dishonest, unsupported by facts, pulled out of the ass/mouth of some Republican strategist or other. In other words, another day at the office for Republicans.

The Republicans's wet dream is a return to what Paul Krugman called the Long Gilded Age, a period of not so distant American history (pre-New Deal) in which the public had nary a protection against the wealthy who wanted to raid the commons and enrich themselves even more at the expense of the working class and inequality ruled supreme. And the way the media are paving the road for them, they are not far from achieving their destructive goal.

Gee, I Wonder Where They Got The Idea...

Frank Luntz, Republican spin-ster in chief, led a panel of Republican voters in Iowa earlier this week for Hannity, and guess what? Half of them believe that Obama is a Muslim.

Aside from the fact that I'd have absolutely no problem if he were a Muslim, after 43 Christian presidents, I wonder where they got the idea...

"Reagan" on HBO (or HBO on Reagan?)

Eugene Jarecki, documentary-maker extraordinaire, has directed "Reagan", a highly-recommended analysis of the life of the president that Republicans would like to name everything after, including things that Reagan contributed to gut or destroy. The documentary adds is a much needed reality-check against the Reagan mythology that has grown since he left the White House.

"Reagan" premiered last night on HBO. You can catch it next tomorrow, at 4 and 7 p.m. EST on HBO2 East and West respectively.

In the meantime, you can watch Laura Flanders interview Eugene Jarecki on GritTV.

From the Small Consolations Dept.: At Least I Called It Right

I am not a statistician, nor a labor analysts, so the fact that I was right in my interpretation of the latest unemployment figures from the Dept. of Labor is not a sign of how smart I am, but of the lousy job that the media is doing, with a few exceptions, in analyzing unemployement data.

Nonetheless, when I saw the article by Dave Lindorff titled America's Happy Talk Media: No Jobs Is Good News!, I confess I felt vindicated (and kind of hopeless, too, about the state of the mainstream media).

Ronald Reagan's Unvarnished Legacy

So you think Ronald Reagan was the greatest president, or at least the greatest one in the 20th century. That's because you don't know your history. And you know what they say about those who don't know history, right? Doomed to repeat it. With gleeful satisfaction, no less. So do me and yourself a favor, read this analysis of Reagan's legacy. Then we can talk, if you wish.

Go Steelers! Climb That Stairway To Seven!

Alas, I do have one thing in common with Rush Limbaugh and, less damningly, with Howard Fineman: I am a Steelers fan!

I am indeed in strange company, but as a football fan only, although on Sunday I will be suffering with millions of Steelers fans around the world. And when I say suffering, believe me, I know what I am talking about.

I am a relative newcomer to football, meaning that I started following it in the 1980's, though I am a bit older than that. But I only started following football with a passion only when I came to the United States and fell in love with a Pittsburgher. And, I have to say, it was love at first sight. And I don't mean just with my soon-to-be wife. I mean the city that I landed in was nuts about its Steelers. Black and gold everywhere you went, even though the Steelers' best years seemed a bit distant, with memories of the Dynasty starting to yellow somewhat.

Never mind the fact that the Steelers' quarterback when I moved to Pittsburgh was Neil O'Donnell, a guy with the mobility and the athleticism of a post, who got screamed at by home fans every game for holding on to the ball for so long that even my dead grandmother could have sacked him. His second interception to the Cowboys' Larry Brown on a busted slant play to Andre Hastings cost the Steelers their 5th Super Bowl ring and one of the most improbable comebacks in the history of the game.

And never mind that to get to Big Ben's era we had to endure a few years of Kordell "Slash/Crybaby" Stewart's antics and Tommy Maddox's limited ability.

We had to wait ten years for the next chance at "one for the thumb", and did not blow our chance against the Seahawks in the last game of the Bus's career, in his hometown no less. Three years later we got the sixth ring, to start "dressing" the other hand. Today the Steelers will try to successfully climb the "Stairway to Seven", which for anyone who has ever listened to FM radio in the 'Burgh, particularly to DVE, is a sweetly humorous reference to the fact that Pittsburgh is still, in many ways, stuck in the 70's.

No one, in my opinion, epitomizes the spirit of the Steelers of the last 10+ years than Hines Ward, who has dished out and absorbed some of the hardest hits in football lore. Whatever happens to him, no matter what brutality he has to endure, Hines does it all with a smile on his face, a fact that has earned him the well-deserved nickname of "Psycho 86". It is no wonder that Steelers fans love him and everybody else hates him.

I don't expect today's game to be a cakewalk, for either team, and I don't think anyone does. Suffering is in the DNA of the Steelers organization. The players, coaching staff, owners, and all fans know that Steelers glory does not come easy. I am still reeling from the rollercoaster ride that was Super Bowl XLIII, when the Steelers clinched a game we had already won--and then were on the way to losing--against the Arizona Cardinals captained by coach Wisenhunt, a former Steelers offensive coordinator, only thanks to the magic concocted by Big Ben and Santonio Holmes with 35 seconds left in the game.

No matter how things go today, and no matter who ends up lifting the Lombardi trophy around 10 pm EST, the Steeler's legend can only grow because of today's game. If it is a Rooney or coach Tomlin, then the Steelers' place in the history of world sports will be further consolidated and I will have millions of happy Steelers fans around the world to celebrate with. If on the other hand, it is a Packer who gets to do it, I know they will have deserved it, and that it will not have been for the lack of effort on our boys' side. Because one thing's for sure: nobody can accuse anyone who has had the good fortune of wearing a Steelers jersey of not having left everything they had on the field.

Beck's Street Corner Conspiracy Theories

Will Bunch, author of Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy, a highly readable book about Ronald Reagan's distorted history, nailed it when he compared Beck's conspiracy theories about the revolts that are raging in several Islamic countries to the work of street corner loons.

Celebrate Ronald Reagan's 100th Birthday, With The Truth

Ronald Reagan would be 100 if he were still alive today (give or take a few days, I don't really care what is birthday is). What I care about is the fact the conservatives revere him as the greatest president and always pray--literally, given the religiosity of many in the Republican Party--that all Republican candidates for office will shoot (figuratively, not in the Second Amendment sense) for the greatness of their prime icon. Except that, predictably, they ignore the facts about their ideological messiah.

Facts tell a very different story on the policies and principles of Ronald Reagan than his hagiographers would have you believe. Alex Setz-Wald lists a few such facts about Ronald Reagan in a post published at Think Progress. It is well worth a read, particularly for those whose view of Reagan is so distorted as to render it virtually unrecognizable from a historical perspective.

Unemployment Down, Fewer Jobs Created: Hooray? UPDATED

Look at the Employment Situation Summary, released today. It says: "The unemployment rate fell by 0.4 percentage point to 9.0 percent in January, while nonfarm payroll employment changed little (+36,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today."

And also:

"The unemployment rate (9.0 percent) declined by 0.4 percentage point for the second month in a row. (See table A-1.) The number of unemployed persons decreased by about 600,000 in January to 13.9 million, while the labor force was unchanged."

36,000 jobs added
13,900,000 unemployed
36,000 / 13900000 = 0.002%

0.4 - 0.002 = 0.398

See the problem?

If unemployment declined by 600,000, or 0.4%, and there were 36,000 new jobs, as the report says, doesn't that mean that we stopped counting some people as unemployed? Does that mean that .398% of the workforce retired or died, or what?

I'd say that these feel-good figures mean nothing, but I am not an economist. Could someone explain?

Administrations, Republican or Democrats like to put a favorable spin on crap, but what does that say about the health of the economy?

UPDATE:
So, then, I am not as bad at math as I feared. It's easy to show that unemployment has decreased if you stop counting the unemployed. Most politicians, spin-meisters, and statisticians deserve all the contempt that they usually get.

The Attacks Against Journalists in Egypt

Nicholas Kristof, New York Times journalist, has it exactly right in his tweet: "Govt is trying to round up journalists. I worry about what it is they're planning that they don't want us to see. #Egypt."

Egypt is on the brink of a most violent repression. Civil war next?

Republican = Hypocrite, More Examples

Think Progress asks an interesting question: Why Has Every Pro-Repeal GOP Lawmaker Given Their Congressional Staff Taxpayer-Funded, Gov Health Care?
Answer: Because Republicans are hypocrites. I do hope their voters catch on. I have no hopes that they will start changing their vote, but it would be nice if they stopped giving it to the party whose behavior underscores its hypocrisy at every opportunity.

The Neocons' Smear Campaign Against El-Baradei

The neocons are sharpening their knives. They are after Mohamed El-Baradei, the Egyptian leader that many Egyptians (and foreign observers) would like to see lead Egypt in the post-Mubarak era.

The reason for the neocons' hostility towards El-Baradei is that he was the Director General of the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency during the days that led to the Iraq War. El-Baradei, along with Hans Blix, his predecessor at the IAEA, stated that IAEA inspectors had not found any evidence of WMDs in Iraq. Remember that the danger of WMDs was cited by the Bush Administration as the original pretext for the invasion of Iraq. The IAEA, of course, was right and, the neocons never forgave the agency for interfering with the U.S. criminal war plans on Iraq.

To make matters worse, El-Baradei wrote this in an op-ed published by the New York Times in February 2004:

We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security -- and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use.

In other words, if the U.S., Russia, Israel, France, etc., all have nukes, it is harder to tell Iran or North Korea, or other countries that are considered dangerous by the international community, to discontinue their nuclear weapon programs. Seems reasonable to me.

In 2005, El-Baradei and the IAEA were the joint recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, for their "efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy, for peaceful purposes, is used in the safest possible way". As El-Baradei's entry in Wikipedia says, ElBaradei donated all his winnings to building orphanages in his home city of Cairo. How dangerous.

The shameful thing about the attacks on El-Baradei is that even conservatives who cannot strictly be labeled as neocons are joining in the bashing. As Think Progress reports, Sen. McCain and former House Speaker Gingrich have respectively accused El-Baradei of not being a friend of the United States and of being a figurehead for the Muslim Brotherhood.

Both accusations are unfounded. As Think Progress points out, to say that he is not a friend of the United States ignores the fact that El-Baradei has lived and taught in the United States (at New York University) and that he has no history of anti-American rhetoric. But I guess that what Sen. McCain is saying about El-Baradei's not being a friend of the U.S. is true, if you live under the assumption that a friend should never tell you that you made up the reasons to launch a war on another country, and that true friends should go along with your criminal plans instead.

As for Gingrich's accusation that El-Baradei as president of Egypt would be a "disaster", I guess what he is saying is that it'd be better to have a ruthless dictator in charge for U.S. interests in the region. However, that doesn't make his prediction that El-Baradei would be a disaster any more true than my prediction that Gingrich will turn into a pillar of salt if he does not stop making unfounded statements.

Lastly, the frenzy to condemn the Muslim Brootherhood as a dangerous Islamist organization is ludicrous. In fact, after the recent bombing of a church in Alexandria, Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood condemned the terrorist act as an attack on all Egyptians. Why, they even offered to stand in front of churches to protect them against further attacks. Dangerous, eh?

Of course, that won't keep Christian fundamentalists in this country, and the neocons who pander to them, from painting them as the most dangerous enemy of the United States, one so powerful that the group it has infiltrated the U.S. government, presumably with the goal of bringing Sharia Law to our shores. I guess I side with Gov. Howard Dean on the subject of dangerous radicalism. Dean rejects the right-wing's attempts to single out "radical Islam" as a threat, and reminds us instead that "radical anything is what's bad". And that, my friends, includes Christians, politicians, and all of those who are quick to exploit falsehoods for their cause.

The War-rus Is At It Again

John Bolton, the man that George W. Bush appointed to be the U.S. Ambassador at the United Nations in spite of the fact that Bolton had famously said that "[t]here are 38 floors to the UN building in New York. If you lost 10 of them, it wouldn't make a bit of difference" (you know, a true diplomat--of sorts), has been known to advocate bombing things and places (Iran in particular) for no apparent good reason. His biggest regret in life must be that he was not with John McCain the day the senile Senator from Arizona sang "Bomb Iran" to the tune of "Barbara Ann".

It should come as little or no surprise, then, that the man I affectionately like to refer to as the "war-rus" (re: his moustache and his known penchant for wanting to bomb places and things) has come out in favor of bombing Iran as soon as possible because--ready for it?--Mubarak's dictatorship in Egypt has apparently come to an end.

Naturally, he made his opprobrious statement on Hannity, the show hosted by the man who is to TV interviewers as home-run derby pitchers are to Randy Johnson. This is how the exchange went down:

HANNITY: Do you think that the Israelis are going to have to strike — they are going to have to take action. … As you pointed out, El Baradei, you know, ran cover for the Iranians for all those years that he was with the IAEA. And, I just don’t think the Israelis have much longer to wait…they’re going to have to act in fairly short order.

BOLTON: I think that’s right. I don’t think there’s much time to act. And I think the fall of a Egyptian government committed to the peace agreement will almost certainly speed that timetable up.

Notice Hannity's soft pitch, right down the middle of the plate, an easy target for Bolton to hit out of the ballpark.

Truly, after witnessing Obama pussyfoot around the economy, health care, and basically anything he touched in his first two years, you have to give it to Bush: all of his appointment were a big, giant "fuck you" to the rest of us, why, the rest of the world, and even human decency, all aimed at furthering crony capitalism and the U.S. stranglehold over energy resources in the Middle-East. No brains, no spine, all huevos.

Of Francis Scott Fitzgerald and the Abundance of Second Acts in America

Earlier tonight I spent some time looking for e-books on Amazon, and I came across this forgotten gem: Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting From the Coming Rise in the Stock Market. [Insert your own joke here]

What is truly remarkable is what became of the two co-authors of this book.

Here is Kevin A. Hassett's biography, posted on the website of the American Enterprise Institute, where Hassett is Senior Fellow and Director of Economic Policy Studies.

Before joining AEI, Mr. Hassett was a senior economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and an associate professor of economics and finance at the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University, as well as a policy consultant to the Treasury Department during the George H. W. Bush and Clinton administrations. He served as an economic adviser to the George W. Bush 2004 presidential campaign and as Senator John McCain's chief economic adviser during the 2000 presidential primaries. He also served as a senior economic adviser to the McCain 2008 presidential campaign. Mr. Hassett writes a weekly column for Bloomberg.

James K. Glassman's biography, from Wikipedia, is not nearly as impressive as his co-author's. However, he can boast a couple of feathers in his cap, too:

On December 11, 2007 Glassman was nominated by President George W. Bush to replace Karen Hughes as the Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy. [...] Earlier he founded The American, the magazine of ideas for business leaders, published by the American Enterprise Institute, and was its editor-in-chief and from 2005 to 2007. [...] On September 3, 2009, it was announced that Glassman will head the George W. Bush Institute, a public policy institute at the George W. Bush Presidential Library.

So, to recap: in 1999, Hassett and Glassman have co-authored a book that can only be described as the most colossal failure of intelligence in the field of economic predictions. Both co-authors have associations with the American Enterprise Institute. And, most importantly, both have served the most dimwitted president in the history of the nation, though in different capacities, years AFTER they had published their colossal dump of bullshit.

Francis Scott Fitzgerald was wrong. Second acts, even wholly unwarranted ones, are as American as apple-pie. Not even colossal failure is enough in America to be consigned to shamefully earned oblivion, as the case of Hassett and Glassman proves. And it is exquisitely fitting that they received their second chances from a man, President W., who received more than his fair share of undeserved second chances himself. Which goes to prove that no incompetent deed will go unrewarded, as long as you are on the side of free market rhetoric and of the imaginary rewards of supply-side economics.

Ross Douthat's Intelligent Take on the Egyptian Crisis

If you read this blog often enough, you might have the distinct impression that I am unnecessarily harsh with conservatives. I am harsh, just not unnecessarily. The reason is that there are few sincere conservative thinkers around, and by sincere I mean that they are expressing their honest personal opinion, instead of the opinion of their puppet masters. The conservative world is full of hacks, like Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, Hannity, Boehner, McConnell; or of innocently misguided individuals, who regurgitate the Right's talking points without understanding them or appreciating the gravity of what they are saying and the dangers inherent in the world view they propose.

So when a conservative says something intelligent, it is worth highlighting it. It shows other conservatives that you can be a conservative without being either a puppet-master or a puppet; and it shows liberals that we can have a civilized conversation about policy and the direction of the country, even though we certainly will disagree on many things, if not most of them.

Enough of the introduction. Ross Douthat is a conservative, he is intelligent, and he is often a good read, so kudos to the New York Times for bringing him into their fold to replace the stunningly incompetent and dishonest William Kristol. The piece I am recommending to you is The Devil We Know. Rather than giving a knee-jerk and ideological assessment of the situation in Egypt, as conservatives are wont to do in pursuit of an ever more manifest imperial foreign policy, Douthat acknowledges that U.S. meddling in foreign crises often leads to undesirable and unintended results. "History", he says, "makes fools of us all."

What We Could Learn From Egypt

For days now, Egyptian protesters have filled the streets of their nation to protest against a 30-year long dictatorship and rising economic inequality. Considering that income inequality is much higher in the United States of America than in Egypt, one might wonder why U.S. citizens have not taken to the streets like their Egyptian counterparts. Better TV choices?

Robert Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect Magazine, also wonders Where's the Protest at Home? (Clue: Methinks a comma is missing in his title.)

The USA, Like Sarah Palin

Has the US of A become a nation of quitters, like the half-a-term Governor of Alaska? Apparently. "U.S. researchers will soon abandon their search for the most coveted particle in high-energy physics because of a lack of funding", reports Science magazine in an article picked up by Laurence Lewis of the Daily Kos.

Sadly, as Lewis points out, "we've been spending more on the war in Afghanistan just over every six hours than is needed to continue searching for the most coveted particle in high-energy physics. For a year. Does this sound like a nation looking toward the future, or a nation in decline?"

A Splendid Call To Action for U.S. Liberals

William Greider wrote an extraordinarily profound analysis of the current political situation titled The End of New Deal Liberalism. In it, he exposes Barack Obama and the Democrats' fecklessness--even better, their complicity--with the ruling class, denounces their allegiance with corporate interests to the detriment of society, and insists that change must come from the bottom, from the disenfranchised and exploited, from those whose future opportunity is being hijacked, destroyed. He warns that substantive change will be a long time coming, that it will be a decades-long project, and that it will almost certainly involve connecting with groups (like the Tea Party) who are enemies of liberalism, at least conceptually, but whose base and whose grievances have more affinity with the bottom of society than with the top.

Greider's article is insightful and intelligent, and it should be essential reading for those who want to build a different America and a different, better future for the generations that will follow ours.

Cast of Characters in the 2012 Republican Primaries

It is increasingly likely that the following individuals will all run in the 2012 presidential primaries:

• The 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate, half-a-term former Governor of Alaska, beauty pageant contestant, and one-season reality-TV wonder, Sarah Palin.


• Sharron Angle, the Asian, serial press-avoider, autism-care basher, and fervent Second Amendment [remedies] supporter who lost her 2010 U.S. Senate bid in Nevada against incumbent Sen. Harry Reid.


• McCarthy impersonator Michele Bachmann, who also has the unique and unflattering distinction of having been called balloonhead by Chris Matthews for showing her utter ignorance on the subject of the Founding Fathers, slavery, and the 3/5ths clause of the Constitution, just a couple of months after being derided by the Hardball host on live television as having been hypnotized, since she kept answering his questions with talking points that had nothing to do with the questions being asked.

Add to the mix the incomparably vacuous, anti-masturbation, witchcraft-following Christine O'Donnell, and you would have the tetrafecta from hell, at least for the GOP.

These three (or four) women are kryptonite for gray matter, and could very well be the quicksand that gobbles up whatever part of the GOP is left standing after 2 years of attacks by teabaggers.

If these ignorant, ignorance- and prejudice-peddling women are the really the best that the right has to offer in the 2012 presidential primaries, the right may be in more trouble than anyone could have imagined after the shellacking they inflicted on Democrats just two months ago. And if one of them does well enough to approach to the finish line as a real contender, then the whole country is in more trouble than we can fix in the span of a few elections.

It will be a bipolar primary season.

Football, Baseball, and Socialism

Check out Bill Maher's analysis of what makes football competitive and baseball, frankly, boring. Say what? Socialism?!?

Pinheads and Nazis

Pinhead is how Bill O'Reilly refers to people who do not have the intellectual capacity to understand the things that are obvious to him. So, with thanks to Jon Stewart, it is with particular pleasure that I present to you the latest instalment of Bill-O' the Pinhead (one of many to come, I am sure).

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Bill O'Reilly Defends His Nazi Analogies
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Civility, Schmivility

David Michal Green, bless him, is not interested in being civil to those who are "seeking to take what we have so that they can live ever wealthier lives while ours are short, nasty and brutish because of their institutionalized and legalized theft."

Hopefully the number of people who see things with his clarity will rise as he keeps publishing his thoughts at The Regressive Antidote.

This is America

Ronald Flanagan's two cents? He believes his private health insurer "does not value human health, but rather, the bottom line." Hard to disagree, since Ceridian Cobra Services cancelled Mr. Flanagan's policy because he underpaid his bill by two cents. $.02, that's right.

Now, Mr. Flanagan, a cancer patient scheduled to have a biopsy before his policy was cancelled, is left with no coverage, fighting for his life.

This is America, where Republicans are fighting to repeal the health care bill that Democrats passed last year, which would prevent exactly this kind of gross injustice from taking place.

One word for the Ceridian executives and managers who designed and enacted the policy that resulted in Mr. Flanagan's coverage being dropped for an accidental underpayment of two cents: I hope you will live long enough to regret your decision and to suffer the consequences of it if you don't mend your murderous ways. Needless to say, the same words apply to all the politicians who are fighting to put corporate interests ahead of the lives of Americans, and all those who support them.

Nouriel Roubini: U.S. Headed For Deficit Train Wreck

Ignore Dr. Roubini's predictions at your peril. This is the man who rang the alarm bell in 2006 about the housing and credit crises that were about to hit the U.S. and world economies.

Today, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Dr. Roubini warned that the U.S. is headed against a Eurozone-like financial disaster, unless the deficit is addressed seriously. Think the clowns in Washington are the right people to do anything seriously and, more importantly, equitably?

SOTU in a Nutshell

A condensed analysis of last night't State of the Union address (based on what I read about it since I refused to watch it).

Obama: "The future is ours to win."
Translation: Hope! [Again? Who does he think we are? Bush voters?]

Republican response by Paul Ryan: "[insert lies here] yadda yadda yadda... Our day of reckoning is around the corner."
Translation: Fear for your lives and the lives of your children, and your soon to be communist grandchildren.
[And yet, the incomparably douchy Frank Luntz managed to call Paul Ryan the star of the night and his speech positive.]

Tea Party response by Michele Bachmann: Seriously, who gives a fuck what Bachmann has to say?

My Take On The State of the Union Address

I guess the president gave another great speech: what makes us great is that we are all Americans... State of the Union is strong... cut spending... painful... preserve Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid... strengthen... sacrifice... reduce waste... wealthy 2% ... do their part... thank the military... cut more waste... salmon... reform Government... blah blah blah.

It's 7:27 P.M. Mountain Time. The President is not even halfway through his address. I am watching the NFL Replay of the Steelers - Jets game from Sunday. First time in 18 years I am not watching the State of the Union. Tired of great speeches, followed by too many broken promises. Right now, I feel like an abused, battered spouse.

Nothing good will happen with a Republican House and a Democratic President. Please do not write that the best things happened when Presidents had to work with a Congress in the hands of the opposition. It's the holy schmible, it just ain't true.

All the greatest American achievements of the recent past have come with a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress: The New Deal and The Great Society set the tone for the prosperity that endured until the 1980's, when Republicans started The Great Repeal Project, by which I mean Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin's refudiation of the evils of socialism.

Leave the levers of power long enough in the hands of Republican Presidents with a Republican Congress (or with the Democratic majorities we have grown accustomed to, where a few spineless and/or corrupt representatives and senators can tilt the balance in their opponents' favor) and they will soon manage to re-segregate schools or cut aid to public education (which would achieve the same result), privatize Social Security, destroy Medicare and Medicaid, do away with the EPA (which Gingrich suggested today, again), eliminate most regulations in the financial and insurance sector (including health care), all to the benefit of those who need no help. Need I go on?

Republican Propaganda Organ Is Populated by Hypocrites?

Shocking news from Comedy Central! Fox News is populated by hypocrites!

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Bipartisanship Is Where the (Republican) Heart Is

Mitch McConnell (KY-R), Senate Minority Leader: "If the president is willing to do what I and my members would do anyway, we’re not going to say no." In other words, the art of Republican negotiation. Sadly, President Obama seems to be an admirer.

As Bill Maher said in last week's Real Time (and I am paraphrasing), Democrats can find common ground where Republicans are already standing. One of these days, Democrats will catch on just as surely as the sun rises. Right?

Republican = Hypocrite

I think it's about time the Merriam-Webster added Republican to the list of synonyms for hypocrite.

Here is the latest proof.

And here is more proof, with visuals.

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[Clarification: the poor dude in the video with Dylan Ratigan is a journalist, not a Republican]

Should Clarence Thomas Be Impeached?

In case you haven't heard, we have a couple of Supreme Court Justices who have been involved in fundraisers and political activity for the right wing organized by some of the biggest corporate interests in the world. The two are Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas. It is rather ironic that they would let themselves get involved with corporation-sponsored political retreats and events since they like to call themselves "originalists", and many of the Founding Fathers considered corporations the greatest threat to the democracy they had founded. In fact, the Founding Fathers would probably be shocked to know of Citizens United, which further affirmed the concept that corporations are human too (see "corporate personhood").

Justice Thomas was recently in the news when his wife, Ginni Thomas, left a voice mail for Anita Hill, asking the poor woman why she has not apologized to her husband in all these years for smearing him during his Senate confirmation hearings with accusations of sexual harassment. That is not the kind of publicity that a SCJ might have wanted, but alas, Ginni had different ideas for her husband.

As it turns out, Ginni Thomas has again become a source of trouble for her husband. Scratch that. She may not be a source of trouble, but she features in the latest Clarence Thomas fiasco.

As Politico reports,

Like all federal judges, Thomas must file annual disclosure reports on his personal finances, but he had omitted details of his wife’s earnings in what he wrote was a “misunderstanding of the filing instructions.” He also had checked a box marking no spousal income.

After this discovery surfaced, Justice Thomas had to amend 13 years' worth of financial disclosures, to include his wife's income from sources like the Heritage Foundation and the Republican leadership in the House.

Common Cause, the watchdog organization that made the discovery about Ginni Thomas's undisclosed income, says that Justice Thomas explanation for the omission is implausible, as the Daily Kos reports:

“Justice Thomas sits on the highest court of the land, is called upon daily to understand and interpret the most complicated legal issues of our day and makes decisions that affect millions,” said Common Cause President Bob Edgar. “It is hard to see how he could have misunderstood the simple directions of a federal disclosure form. We find his excuse is implausible.”

As Jed Lewison correctly points out in his Daily Kos post, "[i]f Clarence Thomas violated the public trust, he has no place on the Supreme Court -- he ought to be impeached and removed from office."

I'd say so, wouldn't you?

I'm Just Saying...

Obviously, the fact that a person chooses to be a soldier does not free him from the responsibility of paying his or her debts. In fact, you might even say that the military has a stronger culture of repayment of debts than the rest of society. For example, "outstanding debts or bad credit can lead to a revocation of security clearances, because a service member could be viewed as susceptible to bribes from foreign governments", reports Chris Kirkham for the Huffington Post.

Continues Kirkham:

"The thing with the military is the paychecks aren't large, but they're absolutely guaranteed twice a month," Petraeus told HuffPost. "And the military has a culture that says, 'You will pay your bills.' Definitely troops are well-aware of that, and they're afraid of the consequences if they don't. So that gives real leverage to lenders who will sometimes threaten them, or take advantage of their fear of getting in trouble with their units."

So, it seems that there are many out there who are ready to prey on the weaknesses and the circumstances of American soldiers. Actually, they are ready to prey on anyone, not just soldiers. And our Congress and our President allow this to happen because, after all, this is the country of personal responsibility (but not of corporate responsibility; that is never at issue).

And before you jump to conclusions, since my political bias is well known, I am not pointing fingers at Republicans. There is, in fact, enough blame to go around.

"Change you can believe in" and "Country First" were just slogans, I guess.