Friday, May 27, 2011
The GOP Clown Sideshow
The clownish sideshow ring mastered by the fringe GOP candidates is a textbook Catch-22 for the GOP. If party leaders publicly badmouth, marginalize, or ostracize them than that almost certainly will blow the very slender chance they already have of making Obama a one term president. This would be the GOP’s nightmare and Obama’s dream. The GOP thankfully is stuck with its clowns.
Palin, Bachman, Trump, Cain, Perry and Paul know that any utterance, no matter how silly and irrelevant, will be picked up, played up, and endlessly talked about in the mainstream media. Their idolatrous followers love every word from them.
Monday, May 23, 2011
Conservative Radio Is Tanking
Right-wing talk radio may have worn out its welcome, at least for now,” reports Crain’s New York Business.A new Arbitron report shows Rush Limbaugh’s ratings down 33% from a year ago and Sean Hannitty down 28% over the same time period. Meanwhile, more centrist personalities — Don Imus in the morning and John Batchelor at night — were both up from a year earlier.
Nice to see that stupidity is losing it’s appeal.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
GOP: Speak The Truth, Get Snuffed
Newt and I are considered political opposites, but I couldn’t agree more with what he said Sunday about the plan to end Medicare. He acknowledged that it is right wing social engineering. It was refreshing to hear such candor from a top Republican. Gingrich was saying what everyone knows to be true: The plan is extreme.... He is the Republican canary in the coal mine. When that canary speaks truth, he is snuffed out. What Newt seems to realize is that it would be impossible to win the White House if they embrace the Ryan plan. If Republicans make endorsing the Ryan plan the standard in the Republican primary, it will make the nominee unelectable. -- Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Debt Ceiling As Historical Relic
Before 1917, Congress needed to approve each and every debt issuance. But when World War I hit, the legislature decided to make the process easier, setting an overall debt limit and letting Treasury issue as many bonds as it needed to stay within it. A century ago, the ceiling made more sense. The government was smaller, with discretionary spending a bigger portion of the federal budget. Having the additional check helped to keep appropriations under control. But now, the debt ceiling does little to encourage smarter budgeting. Most of the country’s debt stems from spiraling mandatory spending on programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security anyway.” - Anne Lowrey
Annie Lowrey calls it “the budgetary equivalent of the appendix”
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Republicans Hate Medicare
"Republicans … hate Medicare because it represents everything they are philosophically opposed to: a government-run program that works and is popular across the political board. It’s tough to shout about the dangers of universal health care when the two greatest protectors (if not creators) of the elderly middle class are those pillars of 20th-century progressive change, Social Security and Medicare."Tim Egan
Monday, May 16, 2011
Get To Know Mitch Daniels
Mitch Daniels: Architect Of The Bush-Era Debt Crisis
In other words, the “fiscal conservative” Daniels oversaw the federal budget as it was making its precipitous dive from a $236 billion surplus – then on a trajectory to eliminate the entire federal debt in a decade – to a $400 billion deficit by the time he left in June 2003.
Plus, because of proposals developed on Daniels’s watch – such as tax cuts favoring the rich and unpaid-for projects, including the invasion of Iraq and a new prescription drug plan – the fiscal situation of the federal government continued to sink over the ensuing years, plunging to a trillion-dollar-plus annual deficit by the time Bush left office in 2009.
This is the next Republican savior-in-waiting?
Vermont Going Universal
On May 26, Gov. Peter Shumlin of Vermont is expected to sign legislation that will create universal coverage in the state—eventually. Vermont will use subsidies from the Affordable Care Act to help create a Canada-style system. And its system, or so the theory goes, will become so popular and cheap that the rest of America will want to copy it.
(Source: Slate)
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Libertarianism is every spoiled college kid's dream.
Libertarianism is every spoiled college kid’s dream. Fortunately like most college kids’ dreams, it will never come true.
Libertarianism is the biggest load of bullshit, rivaled only by Ayn Rand and her Objectivist “philosophy”. I like the civil aspect of it - the idea that each person can do what they want as long as it doesn’t violate the rights and privacy of others - it’s the other parts of libertarianism that I don’t care for. Libertarians don’t believe in any kind of regulation of the private sector, they envision a world where corporations can do whatever they want without fear of the government stepping in, as long as it doesn’t violate anyone’s rights. Because as we all know, corporations love nothing more than to respect and uphold the rights of people.
Then there’s their view on national government, which is basically “FUCK DA GUVMENT!” They believe the government’s only function should be national defense and protecting people’s rights, so in their vision, the government would only be comprised of a Department of Defense, a Department of State, a watered down Congress and a weak presidency. Maybe, there might be a Department of Justice, but who knows. Even then, the federal government would have little-to-no actual power or influence, which means people would be at the mercy of their state governments and corporations.
Libertarians like Ron Paul think this is all hunky dory, but let me paint you a picture of what a libertarian America would look like: State governments would be owned by corporations and the rich, like what happened in Wisconsin, but taken to the extreme. The South would be nothing but a series of Christian theocracies where if you’re black, gay or anything else disagreeable, you’ll be imprisoned, run out of the state or just straight up lynched on the spot. If you’re a worker, then you’re so totally fucked, it’s not even funny. No minimum wage, no union, no kind of aid from the state or federal governments. If you’re not rich, you are basically fucked in a libertarian society.
Of course, you could move to one of the better states (if there are any), but traveling would be long and difficult, because without federal money, all the highways, interstates and transportation infrastructure in general is just gone. State governments can’t afford to maintain all this stuff on their own. Hell, it was the federal government that fronted the money to build all that in the first place! Oh sure, there’ll be nice, well maintained roads, but those will only be for the rich who can afford it. You won’t be able to, because the meager salary you’ll be making (remember, no minimum wage in a libertarian society!) will go towards trying to pay your rent or food.
Actually, scratch the rent part, you’ll never be able to afford it. Don’t worry, you won’t be living on the street alone, you’ll have plenty of company, what with all the low-income families! No government assistance means no low-income housing for the poor. State governments would immediately sell all that property to corporations who, in turn, would evict the tenants, bulldoze the houses and build a mall or a gated community or something.
Speaking of selling government-owned property, say goodbye to national parks and state parks as well. What? Those places are full of trees and other resources and denying free enterprise to strip mine those parks for all their lumber, oil and precious metals is so very anti-libertarian!
Welcome to the Libertarian States of America.
(Source: corruptpolitics)
Friday, May 13, 2011
Ate Your Lunch
"I was eating souffle at Rise Restaurant with Laura and two buddies. I excused myself and went home to take the call. Obama simply said ‘Osama Bin Laden is dead.’ … I told Obama, ‘Good call.’"— George W. Bush, on how he learned of bin Laden’s death.
No need to finish his souffle, Obama just ate his lunch.
CGI Of Bin Laden Raid
CGI recreation of Bin Laden raid reveals new details.
The leak on details happened within 24 hours. Bradley Manning, how did you do that?
Monday, May 09, 2011
When You Remove Republican Rhetoric, You Get Things Done
Obama 2012!
Friday, May 06, 2011
Right-Wing Labels Translated
Political correctness: When a liberal gets offended.
Treason: When a [right-winger] gets offended.
Constitution: The Second Amendment.
The little guy: Business.
Small business: Big business.
Big government: Government.
Freedom: Doing what I want.
Security: Keeping you from doing what you want.
Reform: Government programs I like.
Socialism: Government programs I don’t like.
Tax reform: Tax cuts.
Job creators: Rich people.
Gay agenda: Being gay.
Competition: When I win.
Corruption: When I lose.
Pro-life: Pro-embryo.
Soft on crime: Pro-innocent.
Tax increase: Expiration of “temporary” tax cuts passed under President George W. Bush.
Birthers: People who refuse to believe that President Obama was born.
War fighters: Soldiers.
War on Christmas: Saying “happy holidays.”
Democrat Party: Democratic Party.
Illegals: Undocumented workers.
Family values: The Gospel according to Ozzie and Harriet.
So-called science: Science.
Unions: Teachers, police, and firefighters.
Main Street: Local strip mall.
Scripture: The parts of the Bible I like.
God: The deity who founded America and who happens to agree with me on everything.
Jesus: Me, when I don’t want to talk about myself.
America: High-income Caucasians who live in the former Confederacy or wish they did.
I can’t remember a grimmer time for the Republican Party
"I can’t remember a grimmer time for the Republican party in my lifetime. Now that Bin Laden is dead, the 2012 election seems like a formality. The setup is all wrong for the Republicans from almost every conceivable angle, with some of that being bad luck and some of it being poor strategy.
First of all, for the next eighteen months, Obama is going to respond to every single foreign-policy question by holding up Bin Laden’s head and swinging it in front of him like a lantern (metaphorically speaking, of course). It doesn’t matter what the question is: ask Obama about the Irish debt crisis, he’ll answer, “The Irish have been important allies in our fight against terrorism, which as you’ll recall resulted recently in the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden …” Things are so bad for the Republicans on this front that their only strategy left is to adopt an antiwar platform and complain about such things as the brutalizing of Afghan citizens by American troops and the illegality of the Bin Laden operation, things that would have been celebrated by the likes of Karl Rove had they occurred during a Bush presidency.
And from a domestic-policy standpoint the Republicans are similarly screwed, absent a new financial crisis, which of course is far from unlikely. A year or two ago anxiety about the economy and deficits was at an all-time high and the Republicans smartly rode public discontent by bashing Obama’s spending habits. But in following that path the party went a step or two too far, unleashing Paul Ryan on the budget; now, for the next eighteen months, Barack Obama can walk into Florida and Arizona and California and explain to every person over 50 that the Republicans want to eliminate the Medicare program as they know it. The Republicans meanwhile are already running sideways away from Ryan’s program, or at least are clearly concerned about having to enter 2012 owning Ryan’s Medicare-voucher program. Couple that with dropping unemployment levels and the stabilized capital markets (stabilized of course by massive ongoing government spending, but the casual voter knows little of this), and Obama can now waltz into 2012 claiming that while he was busy rescuing the wrecked economy left to him by George Bush, Republicans were using the financial chaos as an opportunity to launch long-planned attacks against Medicare and Social Security."
Matt Taibbi
The Party Of No continues: No Future
