"Vote Republican" by Roy Zimmerman

... or watch the video on YouTube.

Best book review ... ever.

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves Orcs.”

Read more on The Bonddad Blog.

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

"It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant."

Read the rest on TruthOut.org.

When I was in college in the 1960s I took a couple Political Science courses dealing with American political extremism. The link above is to one of the best articles I've read on the subject since then. If you're at all interested in what's happening in American politics today, I believe this is a MUST READ article and I recommend it very highly.

The Modern Tea Party: An Error of Historical Analogy

Over the last several years I have often marveled at the lack of knowledge and understanding of history that is afoot among self proclaimed patriots dressed in 18th Century costumes claiming to be the rightful heirs to the Founding Fathers of this country.

The original Tea Party was held in Boston Harbor in protest of a tax on tea imported from England. The battle cry was “No Taxation Without Representation”. Parliament in Great Britain unilaterally passed the tax to be levied on colonists living in the American colonies in order to mitigate the costs of a British army sent to America to defend the colonies from the French during the French and Indian War. The British colonists in America resented the tax on the grounds that it was imposed on them while they had no elected representatives in Parliament. They were simply not allowed to vote.

In it’s current incarnation, the Tea Party has currently had all the representation they voted for. “No Taxation Without Representation” does not apply.

As for being the legitimate heirs to the Founding Fathers, they forget that it was the Founding Fathers who drew up a Constitution that established a relatively strong Federal government while reserving some rights for the states (and through the Bill of Rights; the first ten amendments to that Constitution) protected citizens from the power of the central government as well as from the powers of the various states.

In my opinion, the modern Tea Party has little in common with the original Tea Party nor do they have any understanding of what the Founding Fathers intended. However, I do believe that there is a more accurate historical analogy that could be applied.

The current Tea Party is opposed to the duly elected government of the United States. John Wilkes Booth was also opposed to the duly elected government of the United States. The Tea Party of today are strong advocates of states rights, the primary motivation of the Confederacy during the American civil war. John Wilkes Booth, as a strong southern sympathizer, also believed that states rights were more important than a central government. The modern Tea Party believes secession is a valid option for a state within the Union. John Wilkes Booth shared that opinion. There is ample evidence that today’s Tea Party are, at the very least, latent racists. In his strong support of slavery of black people in the south, John Wilkes Booth was a blatant racist. Today’s Tea Party believe it is appropriate to resort to Second Amendment remedies if they don’t get their way in legislation. Again, John Wilkes Booth shared that opinion and took his case to the logical conclusion.

Making the case that today’s Tea Party is somehow related to the original Boston Tea Party patriots and the Founding Fathers is a stretch and requires too many qualifiers. Making the case that the modern Tea Party is more analogous to John Wilkes Booth and his band of conspirators that assassinated Abraham Lincoln at the end of the American Civil War requires far less in terms of intellectual gymnastics.

Retinking One's Values

Over the weekend there was a Neo-Nazi rally in Phoenix in support of Arizon'a SB1070.

When you find that your values are shared by Neo-Nazis ... wouldn't that be a clue that maybe you should start to rethink your values?



or catch the video on Huffington Post after the click ...

Glen Beck Attacks!

The Misdirected Anger of the Tea Party

or The Myth of Conservative Republican Fiscal Responsibility

There are all kinds of things that I hear on the political front that, frankly, I get tired of hearing. When I get tired enough of a mantra, I get the itch to start looking up things that will either substantiate or refute the rhetoric.

One of the things that has troubled me has been the assertion that Conservative Republicans are "fiscally responsible" while Liberal Democrats only want to "tax and spend". Its a mantra that's repeated often but, rarely is any proof offered in the discussion. I thought I'd look up the numbers. Numbers are great. They have sources that we can all refer to so that we're all singing from the same sheet, so to speak.

It struck me that the mounting National Debt (as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product) might be a good measure of overall fiscal responsibility. If we're being responsible, then logically the National Debt %GDP should be decreasing during a given administration. On the other hand, if we're being irresponsible that number should be on the rise ... that is to say, as it goes down, we're living more within our means. If it is increasing, we are borrowing and mortgaging the future of the country and of future generations. So, who has done their part to see that we're at least trying to live within our means and who has been on a spending spree?

Conventional wisdom would have it that Republican administrations, being fiscally responsible, would be the administrations that reduced our collective indebtedness while Democrats, who we all KNOW only want to "tax and spend" would be the ones who are increasing our overall debt.

The surprise is that the numbers don't support that proposition.

The graph below outlines which administrations lowered the national Debt as a percentage of GDP and which increased it relative to the previous administration. The Blue columns represent Democrat (sic) administrations between the end of World War Two (1945) and 2009. The Red columns represent Republican administrations.



The pattern becomes clear when you draw a picture of it! Every single Democrat (sic) administration since the Second World War has managed to decrease the National Debt as a percent of GDP while every Republican administration since Nixon's second term (1973-1977) has managed to raise our level of indebtedness - not just by a little - in most cases by a lot - while at the same time telling us they know how to manage money! Sort of like pissing on your head and telling you that its only raining out!

Now, the Tea Party is angry ... and they have every cause to be angry. We're in deep du-du and there's no easy way out. They're angry about the state of our indebtedness. They're angry that they have to pay taxes (though the ones who seem most angry seem to be the ones who pay the least). They're angry at Democrats because they've been told, ever since Reagan, that Democrats "tax and spend" ... and they're gullible enough to believe it without checking the numbers. They're angry with government because they've been told, ever since Reagan, that "government isn't the solution. Government is the problem!" And they've believed it ... without bothering to check the facts.

If they looked at the facts ... where the national financial problems originated ... they would be taring and feathering Republicans instead of inviting them to their rallys. If anyone is responsible for the current debt situation (touted by Republicans as something on the order of $100,000 per household, at this point) its Republicans! Their ideas about "free enterprise" ... which, as a result of their ideas of deregulation is really a free-for-all bordering on piracy have almost sunk our banking industry and have driven the nation into a deep recession.

Then they say that they know how to create jobs. So, I looked at the numbers ... because it seemed to me that when people are unemployed cutting their taxes dose nothing to put food on their tables. I looked at the Jobs Created numbers to see who, historically, might have a better idea of how to create jobs ... because the only way out of this mess is for us to earn our way out ... and the only way to earn our way out is if people - real, everyday people - have jobs.



Again, the Blue columns represent Democrat (sic) administrations while the Red columns represent Republican administrations. You spend a little time studying the chart and figuring out who might have a better idea about creating jobs, how to do it and what it takes! I won't even bother to give you a hint.

More: Why Republicans Can't Govern (Part III)

from The Washington Post

So, let's review a little history:

The day the Bush administration took over from President Bill Clinton in 2001, America enjoyed a $236 billion budget surplus -- with a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion. When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit -- and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade. During eight years in office, the Bush administration passed two major tax cuts skewed to the wealthiest Americans, enacted a costly Medicare prescription-drug benefit and waged two wars, without paying for any of it.

To put the breathtaking scope of this irresponsibility in perspective, the Bush administration's swing from surpluses to deficits added more debt in its eight years than all the previous administrations in the history of our republic combined. And its spending spree is the unwelcome gift that keeps on giving: Going forward, these unpaid-for policies will continue to add trillions to our deficit.

This fiscal irresponsibility -- and a laissez-faire attitude toward the excesses of the financial industry -- helped create the conditions for the deepest economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. Economists across the political spectrum agreed that to deal with this crisis and avoid a second Great Depression, the government had to make significant investments to keep our economy going and shore up our financial system.

(emphasis added)

Read the full piece in The Washington Post after the click ...

Allen Grayson (D-FL) sums it up nicely

(from the floor of the House - responding to Rudy Gu911iani's memory lapse stating that there were no terrorist attacks during the Bush administration.)



And I realized that I was witnessing the birth of a new form of political discourse from the right wing in this country: The Exception. The Exceptional Exception -- the exception that proves the rule or disproves the rule, as the case may be.

So in the future I'm expecting that we'll hear from the right wing the claim that no cities drowned under the Bush administration -- except for New Orleans. And that there were no wars that were started by mistake under the Bush administration -- except for the war in Iraq. And that the Bush administration added nothing to the federal debt -- except for a half-trillion dollars, which works out to $15,000 for every man, woman and child in this country. And that they respected all of our constitutional rights as Americans -- except when they didn't.

I think we'll hear Republicans claim that the Bush administration managed the economy quite well -- except when they brought it to the brink of national bankruptcy. In fact, they'll claim that the Bush-Cheney administration was a complete success, except for the fact that it was an abject failure -- an abject failure.

In fact, what we learned in Washington for eight years is that the reason why Republicans hate government so much is because they're so bad at it.

This is how conservatives are made

by Ellis Weiner on Huffington Post

The Corner, as my fellow intellectual masochists know, is the daily blog of the formerly-relevant National Review. Like the Jewish resorts in the Catskills--once the site of so much vitality and schpritzaturra, now mostly mouldering ruins in appalling states of neglect--this is where you go to wander around in a haze of alternating depression and morbid fascination.

Two days ago we had a fine opportunity to undergo the latter. Here, in its entirety, is the apercu of John J. Miller--conservative, writer, and proud father:

'They Just Took My Money' [John J. Miller]

That's what my 8-year-old son said about the sales tax on the ride home from Borders a few minutes ago. He had a $10 gift card from Christmas, bought a Clone Wars book for $7.99, looked at the receipt, and wondered why he still didn't have a full $2.01 on it.

This is how conservatives are made.

Truer words were never inputted. This is indeed how conservatives are made, and this is how they come off the assembly line: whiny with victimization, pissy about money, and in full possession of an eight-year-old's understanding of the real world.

... read the rest on Huffington Post after the click!

A Sample of Conservative Republican Logic and Tactics

Phase One: Loudly proclaim that “Government is not the solution; government is the problem”.

Phase Two: Make the case to anyone who’ll listen that “government doesn’t work, its wasteful and corrupt” while neglecting to point out that all systems – governmental, corporate or otherwise – always have a certain amount of waste and that there are always those who’ll game the system. Focus on the existence of this waste and corruption rather than on the proportion it represents. Point out a questionable $200,000 Congressional earmark and make a lot of noise about it while remaining silent about the $6 Billion worth of good in the spending bill associated with the questionable $200,000 earmark. Look at the trees and direct attention away from the forest.

Phase Three: Offer tax cuts as the means to eliminate waste. “If you KEEP more of YOUR money, the government will have less … and that will cure waste and corruption.” Offer to shrink government until it’s so small you can drown it in a bath tub.

Phase Four: Tax reductions lead to infrastructural degradation. Levies, roads and bridges, supported by tax dollars fall into disrepair. Schools are forced to cut budgets and can’t hire teachers or offer pay that competes with other employment options. School buildings begin to fall apart. Parks, once free to all, now must institute entrance fees … and suddenly they are not part of the legacy of American culture but focused on gate income to stay functional. Police departments have cutbacks resulting in increased crime.

Phase Five: Now that everything is falling apart, loudly proclaim “See, We told ya so. Government doesn’t work! Government is not the solution! Government is the problem. Everything is falling apart. It must be government waste and corruption. Cutting taxes will solve everything! Eliminate all that waste and corruption!”

There should be a litmus test. People who believe that government can’t work should be barred from holding public office. If you believe at the core that government doesn’t work, you have no business being a part of it. You have a vested interest in proving that point and, from a position of power in government, you will be doing everything you possibly can to undermine your government to prove yourself right. If you believe that your government cannot and does not work, you will find yourself falling prey to the delusion that your allegiance to an ideology is actually patriotic and just ... while you do everything possible to destroy those things you were sworn to protect and defend.

You cannot believe, on one hand, that we live in the greatest nation on the planet and simultaneously believe that your government doesn’t work. Only one of those things can be true. If we live in the greatest nation on the planet, then your government must be working. If it is not working, then we are not the greatest nation on the planet. You choose ... but you can only choose one or the other. You can't have it both ways.

Mythbusting Conservative Tax Theory

For decades my friends on the right have told me that the best way to stimulate the economy is to lower taxes … particularly for those in the highest tax brackets; those who make the most money. The theory is called trickle down. Those who make the most money, if allowed to “keep” more, would invest in business and that investment would create jobs. The jobs would create income for more people who, in turn, would pay collectively pay more taxes thereby increasing government revenues. The money in the hands of the most wealthy would effectively trickle down to those with more modest means.

I finally got tired of hearing about it so I thought I’d do a little research to see if the numbers might support the proposition. I mapped the tax rate assessed against those in the highest tax bracket (and for the sake of comparison, I mapped the lowest tax rate, too). Then I looked up the unemployment statistics and mapped them as well.

I looked at the period from 1948 to 2009. The post-WWII years are universally recognized as America’s most productive years …. the heyday of our growth. I discount much of the so-called “growth” of the last 15 years or so on the grounds that it was a fantasy based on over valued real estate. The recent real estate “bust”, with home values plunging faster than anyone could track, foreclosures, and the implosion of the over leveraged financial sector is evidence of that fantasy. The value, labeled “growth” by my friends on the right was an illusion. It was a house of cards, propped up by a banking Ponzi scheme that “monitized” bad debt by bundling shaky mortgages sold on the premise that home prices would never go down and repackaged into financial instruments to conceal their flaws.

So, let’s look at the numbers.


Sources: IRS and US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For the sake of this exercise, the Blue line at the top represents the highest marginal tax rate in effect during each tax year. One can read the tax percentage on the scale at the left of the graph. The Red line at the bottom similarly indicated the lowest tax rate and, again, the percentage can be read on the scale at the left of the graph.

The solid green line tracks the rate of unemployment from 1948 to the present while the green dashed line is the linear trend line of the unemployment rate through that period.

What I noticed is that there is a very high inverse correlation between the highest tax bracket rate and unemployment. What I mean by this is generally the lower that tax rate, the greater the rate of unemployment. As one tracks the tax breaks extended to the wealthy versus the unemployment trend line, one gets the distinct feeling that the conservative mantra of lower taxes equaling a stronger economy seems to fall apart assuming the rate of unemployment is any measure of economic strength.

I am a liberal because …

I posted the following in April, 2006. Now, with the bruhaha over Harry Reid's comments on the floor of the Senate about consevatives, I think its appropriate to re-post it. I would caution not to confuse "conservative" with "Republican". Today's Republican Party may be the home of American Conservatism today but it hasn't always been that way. Lincoln was a Republican when he authored the emancipation Proclamation but he was also a liberal.

*************************

In a firefight with several conservative types, I woke up this morning and sent this off to a friend (a liberal) who edits a newspaper out in the world to get his/her feedback and maybe help me sharpen it up a tad:

*************************

I am a liberal because I believe that every child should have a childhood filled with learning and school days and the endless days of summer while conservatives opposed the child labor laws which make that possible.

I am a liberal because I believe that women are equal human beings capable of independent thought while conservatives in the past opposed a woman's right to vote and now to have any say in her destiny.

I am a liberal because I believe no one should be the property of another while conservatives fought a war in this country to preserve slavery and the proposition that people should be property.

I am a liberal because I believe in equality under the law while conservatives worked to preserve "Whites Only" drinking fountains, lunch counters and restrooms.

I'm a liberal because I believe the richest nation on the planet should provide a safety net for its citizens; that it should protect those disadvantaged by social or economic factors or who have been subjected to the ravages of age from the starvation we see in so many other places in this weary world - while conservatives take the position of Cain, who, when asked by God, "Where is Able?" replied, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

I am a liberal because, in spite of failures along the way, liberals have never failed to look for new solutions to old problems while conservatives have never failed to embrace the causes of the problems and label them virtues.

I am a liberal because I believe that by working together we can make a better future while conservatives believe the best future we can hope for looks exactly like the past.

I am a liberal because, throughout history, liberals have consistently supported these ideals while conservatives have, with equal consistency, positioned themselves on the wrong side of history.

***********************

In response, I received the following from my editor friend:

Perhaps you should share this with your liberal brethren, because they seem to be lost these days, unable to work up a moral high ground.

The real reason you're a liberal is that you're not afraid, not in the bone-weary sense that the right is. Fear of change, fear of "others" and fear of oneself create the state in which all things conservative can fester.

I have seen some extraordinarily liberal individuals turn into cowering conservatives when their sense of safety is shattered.

Right now, we have an entire nation of people whose fear outweighs their security. Somehow, the liberals have to push the notion that an open, free nation is not just our imperative, it's necessary if we want to become secure.

That ain't an easy sell. Good luck.

More: Why Right Wingnut Republicans Can't Govern

AND

• don't understand economics
• can't read polls
• can't balance a budget
• support deficit spending when they're in office
  
• can't understand the implications of climate change
• are afraid of the census
• don't get that "tax and spend" is actually "pay as you go"
• think that Medicare for All is a government takeover
• imagine funding war is good and while providing health care (at a fraction of the cost) is bad

My comment: You'd think they'd get it after getting debunked time and time again. No poll has ever represented 120% of the respondents. Only 100% of the people who answer a given question can represent all the people who answer the question. But in Fox-Conservative la-la land, 120% of respondents can answer a question.

Fact checking is a lost art on the right.

Why Right Wingnut Republicans Can't Govern

OR

• don't understand economics
• can't read polls
• can't balance a budget
• support deficit spending when they're in office
  
• can't understand the implications of climate change
• are afraid of the census
• don't get that "tax and spend" is actually "pay as you go"
• think that Medicare for All is a government takeover
• imagine funding war is good and while providing health care (at a fraction of the cost) is bad
  

It's because they think a pie chart can add up to more than 100%!

Faux Noise brings it all together ... one picture is worth thousands of words!

Zombie Reagan Fails The Reagan Test

or watch the video on on YouTube after the click ...

My comment: not since the days of Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler has a political party demanded a loyalty oath to the party before the country ...

The Death Party

David Sirota on Huffington Post

Think about it: On health care, Republicans are arguing that Democrats are "rushing" legislation through Congress - legislation that would bring down the astronomical number of deaths that occur thanks to our broken health care system. At the same time, they are attacking President Obama for not more quickly escalating the Afghanistan War - an escalation that would likely result in a large number of American and Afghan deaths.

Read the rest on Huffington Post after the click.

New Word: Republizombie

by Andy Borowitz on Huffington Post

Republizombie (re-PUB-li-zom-bee) (n)

1. Former GOP office-holder, now undead, unkillable; see Palin, S.; Cheney, D; Delay, T.; Armey, D.; Gingrich, N. A flesh-eater, the Republizombie counter-intuitively eats the flesh of other GOP; see 23rd Congressional District, NY.

2. Former relative of a former GOP office-holder, such as the former fiance of the daughter of a former Governor; like the other Republizombies, the second-tier Republizombie is seemingly ubiquitous, appearing on The Today Show, Tyra, and naked in Playgirl.

Republicans believe strongly in property rights

... unless the property happens to be yours:

Chris Christie Rips Off Monty Python, Risks Copyright Infringement

Jackson Brown v. John McCain

Heart to Sarah Palin: Quit Playing 'Barracuda'

Aerosmith to House GOP: Don't Use Our Song

Satire, Parody, and Copyright: Republican Govs Ape NYT’s Format netting a cease and desist order.

Dont' Worry, Be Happy: The song was used in George H. W. Bush's 1988 U.S. presidential election campaign until McFerrin, who was a Democrat, objected and the campaign desisted.

I guess it's always easier to defennd a lawsuit beg forgiveness than it is to ask for permission?

FACT CHECK: GOP Math Suspect In Stimulus Debate

Beware the math. Some Republican lawmakers critical of President Barack Obama's stimulus package are using grade-school arithmetic to size up costs and consequences of all that spending. The math is satisfyingly simple but highly misleading.

It goes like this: Divide the stimulus money spent so far by the estimated number of jobs saved or created. That produces a rather frightening figure on how much money taxpayers are spending for each job.

On Friday, the White House released estimates that $160 billion in stimulus spending created or preserved 650,000 direct jobs.

By the critics' calculations, that's over $246,000 a job – and a terrible deal for taxpayers. Why spend nearly $250,000 to employ a highway worker or a teacher making a small fraction of that?

The reality is more complex.

First, the naysayers' calculations ignore the value of the work produced.

Any cost-per-job figure pays not just for the worker, but for material, supplies and that worker's output – a portion of a road paved, patients treated in a health clinic, goods shipped from a factory floor, railroad tracks laid.

Read the rest on Huffington Post after the click

My comment: During the 2008 Presidential campaign, then Republican candidate, John McCain, experienced a stunning moment of truth telling when he admitted that economics was not his strong suit. (Presumably "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" foreign policy is his strength.) Republican policies of deregulation on Wall Street, tax cuts for the rich and the off-shoring of American industry drove our economic buss into the ditch. Perhaps it's time for the whole right wing to admit that economics is just not their strong suit.