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).

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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.

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

[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.

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!!!!