"the warm heart of the Republican party"

Had to use that quote for the post title because it's not the sort of idea I would ever see expressed anywhere.

They can't admit it. It goes against all their conditioning, all their training. They simply cannot admit that, for going on 40 years now, the warm heart of the Republican party—namely, the conservative movement and the fundamentalist Protestant right, both of which rose to power in the late-70's—has converted that party into an identity-based cult, and now the reactor's gone super-critical and nobody can remember which buttons to push and which dials to spin. At this point, their identity is their ideology—an ideology of victimhood, and of the fantasy oppressors that people outside the cult see merely as evidence of a changing world. They look at the country's shifting demographics the way that the Heaven's Gate people looked at the Hale-Bopp comet. It's going to take something seriously awful to shake them to their senses and, frankly, I'm not sure I want to live through whatever that has to be.

Thanks for writing me a post, Mr. Pierce. Might as well steal the rest of it. I feel like DD doing this.

 It's because they've become moronized by the weaponized ignorance that spews forth every day from their favorite radio hosts and their favorite TV news stars, and their crazy drunk uncle who can't stay off the Internet, and Alex Jones, and the prejudices and meanness that every human heart is heir to and to which Frank Luntz has made a career of appealing, and the awful journalistic malpractice that has allowed the ignorance to run unchecked simply because it wins elections and the country gets worse, and there's always somebody else to blame.

That's how professionals write. 

They Tax Food In Kansas?

Yes, they really do.

Kansas lawmakers agreed to balance the budget by raising sales taxes, but that means some struggling families will have to pinch pennies even more.

Last week, Kansas lawmakers agreed to raise next month's sales tax from 6.15 percent to 6.5 percent.

Low-income residents will especially feel the hike when paying their grocery store bill.

My heart goes out to people who live in these red-state hellholes. 

My Big Problem With The Opposition To The Iran Deal

And I owe thanks to Senator Rubio for being the subject of an article pointing it out.

After Rubio reiterated that he’d abandon the Iran deal in favor of new sanctions, Inskeep pointed out that those sanctions wouldn’t really work without support from our allies. Here’s how Rubio responded:

RUBIO: Yes, it wouldn’t be as effective, obviously. We would, ultimately, I think, the Europeans are going to have a test anyway because the Iranians are going to violate the sanctions at some point. They’re going to evade it either by trying to take advantage of loopholes in the deal, or they’ll just flat out evade it because they’ve always had a secret component to their, to their program. And at that point, they’re going to have a huge test on their hands, which is, are they willing to live by the agreement that they even signed on to? But from the United States’ perspective, while we want our allies to join us in this endeavor, and certainly sanctions against Iran would be more effective were they in conjunction with our allies around the world, we have to look out for our own national security concerns.

That’s a departure from his previous position that the unilateral sanctions would be “crushing,” and in that way he’s at least showing a little deference to reality. 

Wouldn't be as effective? They would be non-existent. In addition the five countries joining us in these negotiations, what's to stop Japan, South Korea, India and whoever else that wishes to trade with the evil Persians from doing so. The main people being punished are American farmers and producers who will be restrained from trading with them. 

And here's a link to a WashPo piece pointing out that Scott Walker also over-estimates the power of the US.

SYKES: You have said that you would cancel any Iranian deal the Obama administration makes. Now would you cancel that even if our trading partners did not want to reimpose the sanctions?

WALKER: Absolutely. If I ultimately choose to run, and if I’m honored to be elected by the people of this country, I will pull back on that on January 20, 2017, because the last thing — not just for the region but for this world — we need is a nuclear-armed Iran. It leaves not only problems for Israel, because they want to annihilate Israel, it leaves the problems in the sense that the Saudis, the Jordanians and others are gonna want to have access to their own nuclear weapons…

These are the adults in the responsible party. Making that vote for Hillary look easier and easier. 

How Did Ron Reagan Deal With The Evil Persians?

Secretly.

I suppose a young pup like Rand Paul might not remember that.

In announcing his candidacy for president, Sen. Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky said: “I believe in applying Reagan’s approach to foreign policy to the Iran issue.”

Huh?  In late 1986, we learned that the Reagan administration had sold arms to Iran and diverted the proceeds to Nicaraguan anticommunist rebels called the Contras. At one point, the national security adviser secretly brought the Iranians a key-shaped chocolate cake to mark the anticipated “opening.” The Iran-Contra affair was a fiasco that humiliated the United States and led to talk that the House might impeach Reagan.

Yeah, it was in all the papers at the time. After it was exposed, I mean. Other Republicans getting history wrong includes Tom "All Godwin All  The Time" Cotton.

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) asserted that the United States could destroy Iran's nuclear infrastructure in a several day bombing campaign.

Well, if that is true, then why should he get lathered over the Iran Nuclear Agreement Framework? 

With the agreement, we have inspectors on the ground, centrifuge limitations in place, and uranium enrichment capped. Without the agreement, we have none of those.

And, with or without the agreement, if Iran cheats, we can destroy their infrastructure with a few days of bombing, according to Cotton.

If Cotton is right, then the risks associated with the Iran Nuclear Deal have largely vanished.

He's not so good on risk assessment either.

Cotton needs to explain how, with the firepower he says we have, the Framework Agreement with Iran is a risk.

Just shut up and cower, that's why.

And yes, you can trust the evil Iranians when they're words fit your talking points.

But in a bizarre twist, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) seemed to endorse the Ayatollah’s credibility over the U.S. Secretary of State’s. “I think you’re going to find out that they had never agreed to the things that John Kerry claimed that they had,” McCain said Friday. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) made similar remarks.

To put it mildly, it was an unexpected development. For months, Republicans insisted, “We can’t trust Iranian leaders.” And yet, on Friday, McCain and Graham suggested rhetoric from Ayatollah Khamenei should be accepted at face value – while arguments from the American White House should not.

The president's response:

“When I hear some, like Senator McCain recently, suggest that our Secretary of State, John Kerry, who served in the United States Senate, a Vietnam veteran, who’s provided exemplary service to this nation, is somehow less trustworthy in the interpretation of what’s in a political agreement than the Supreme Leader of Iran – that’s an indication of the degree to which partisanship has crossed all boundaries. And we’re seeing this again and again. We saw it with the letter by the 47 senators who communicated directly to the Supreme Leader of Iran – the person that they say can’t be trusted at all – warning him not to trust the United States government.

“We have Mitch McConnell trying to tell the world, ‘Oh, don’t have confidence in the U.S. government’s abilities to fulfill any climate change pledge that we might make.’ And now we have a senator suggesting that our Secretary of State is purposely misinterpreting the deal and giving the Supreme Leader of Iran the benefit of the doubt in the interpretations.” 

Dodged a bullet in 2008.

Tom Cotton Cares

I saw the movie, "The Imitation Game," recently and was thinking of mentioning it here. I had heard of Alan Turing, but knew nothing about him. I'm going by the movie in all that I write here. He was instrumental in the construction of what was an impressive computer used to break Germany's coded messages during WWII. After the war, he was arrested for homosexual acts and given a choice between imprisonment for 2 years or "chemical castration." He chose the latter and committed suicide subsequently.

It was not until 1967 that homosexuality became decriminalized in England. And it was likely because of caring pols like Tom Cotton.

 Be grateful, gays of America. Instead of being potentially denied services at your local restaurant, you could be living in Iran, where they execute gays.

That warm comparison comes from freshman Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the defense hawk who set off a firestorm of criticism last month when he authored a letter to the leaders of Iran warning them that any deal struck over its nuclear program could be revoked by future U.S. presidents or members of Congress.  

Yes, Cotton is being hard-ass on the nuclear deal because he cares about homosexuals in Iran. Of course. No statement from Rick Santorum on horse marriage in Indiana yet.

Dusty Dionne, High Priest and High Summoner of the Aquarian Tabernacle Church of Washington State told The Daily Beast that, while he is horrified by the notion of RFRA being used against the LGBT community, he supports RFRA’s power to free Wiccans from religious oppression.

“Many of us believe that love is the law. Though it is not a quote-unquote Wiccan tenet to have polyamorous marriages, it is under Wiccan law that love is the law,” Dionne told The Daily Beast. “Whatever we want to do with marriage we can do. Carte Blanche. If I want to marry a horse, I can marry a horse.”

I'd Really Love To Get Mark Frost's Reaction

Fuck it, I'm just going to link to Charles Pierce.

The United States assists Israel in bombing the living isotopes out of two uranium-enrichment plants and a reactor. Leaving aside the pre-emptive nature of the attack, it unleashes a public health catastrophe with untold ongoing consequences on a country where the public-health system is rudimentary at best. Which results in a population that is so excited about being bombed and sickened that it rises up and overthrows the government and installs one more likely to be friendly to the powers that have bombed and sickened them.

That quote is from Pierce, though you would be excused for any confusion.They must be competing with the WashPo for Mark's love. Liberal media? It must suck to be on the same side of an issue as the pathologically insane.  

Salon sees the Times as doing a reverse end around of some sort. I'll go with that, the devious bastards. 

The New York Times editorial page pulled a fast one on Iran hawks today by publishing an op-ed from the most indiscreet member of their rank, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton. While some Times readers may have been aghast to see the venerable paper publish Bolton’s ravings — under the headline “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran” — the editorial decision should be cheered. Here we have a leading conservative hawk plainly admitting that the alternative to the deal currently under negotiation is not a “better deal,” but is a bombing campaign followed by some hazily defined efforts at “regime change.” Meaning, ultimately, war with Iran.

Well, it is the paper of record. And Bolton as a member in good standing of the neocon crowd is now on record calling for mass murder. 

Send Money To The Tea Party Liberty Freedom America-Lover Express Constitution Jesus Train

That's my new group that supports all that stuff. I'm obviously not going to give money to any wingnuts, but the groups that purport to, don't either. Yeah I know, if you're a liberal you've been hearing that for years. Maybe the righties have, too. But, they didn't believe it.

“The problem with the articles that have come out so far is that most of them have come from liberal outlets and have only discussed limited aspects of a few organizations,” wrote John Hawkins, of Rightwing News. “That naturally led people to wonder if they were reading hit pieces.” 

The bad news for my new scam freedom supporting money raising enterprise is that possibly the grifted are getting smarter.

Hard times have arrived for the Republican Party and particularly for right-wing pressure groups like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, Heritage Action and the one-time lavishly funded tea party PAC, FreedomWorks. According to a report in Politico, heavyweight Republican donors are frustrated and “horrified” that their money is going to wrong-headed politicians and groups that appear to have no effect on election outcomes. 

Bad news for Republican candidates, too. Always love a silver lining. Of course, it wasn't doing them any good anyway.

Crossroads spent $300 million in 2012 and saw nearly every single one of its candidates lose that November. 

Everyone knows what a great lover of irony I am. The irony I find in this is that the same people who have been successfully conned by these groups are also in a tizzy because the IRS either did or didn't target these groups. Nihilist that I am, I don't care. 

This does pierce my little nihilist heart, though. Move America Forward, and isn't that a great  name, was scamming the hoi polloi with calls for donations "for the troops." 

Yet an examination of its fundraising appeals, tax records and other documents shows that Move America Forward has repeatedly misled donors and inflated its charitable accomplishments, while funneling millions of dollars in revenue to the men behind the group and their political consulting firms.

In several instances, the charity has taken images and stories from other groups and from veterans themselves without permission to use in fundraising appeals.

I believe most liberals have a functioning bullshit detector. Conservatives, not so much. 

Over the years, Troopathons have featured live and taped appearances by conservative stars from entertainment, media and politics, including actor Gary Sinise, rock idol Gene Simmons of KISS, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Rush Limbaugh andSean Hannity. The charity counts all the money raised in the month of the broadcast as part of Troopathon.

If they did have one, they would look at that big groups of scam artists and run in the other direction. I'm going to turn over the closing prayer today to Mike Huckabee. 

“Let me tell you, diabetes can be reversed,” Mr. Huckabee says. “I should know because I did it. Today you can, too.”

Amen.

This From The Liberal Washington Post

So, I know that Mark Frost is reading the WashPo now because it's not as lieberal as the lieberal NYTimes. He did say that the WashPo was coming around to those good Conservative values (such as genocide). I'm sure this psychopathic opinion piece, by someone whom I'm sure moonlights as a serial killer, made his day.

What if force is the only way to block Iran from gaining nuclear weapons? That, in fact, is probably the reality. Ideology is the raison d’etre of Iran’s regime, legitimating its rule and inspiring its leaders and their supporters. In this sense, it is akin to communist, fascist and Nazi regimes that set out to transform the world. Iran aims to carry its Islamic revolution across the Middle East and beyond. A nuclear arsenal, even if it is only brandished, would vastly enhance Iran’s power to achieve that goal.

And sadly yes, it gets more insane from there.

Otherwise, only military actions — by Israel against Iraq and Syria, and through the specter of U.S. force against Libya — have halted nuclear programs. Sanctions have never stopped a nuclear drive anywhere.

Does this mean that our only option is war? Yes, although an air campaign targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure would entail less need for boots on the ground than the war Obama is waging against the Islamic State, which poses far smaller a threat than Iran does.

Some might make the case that sanctions stopped a nuclear drive in Iraq. Of course, it didn't do any good because psychopaths like Joshua Muravchik helped to impel us into war there, too. And since we obviously don't have an army capable of taking on a country 3 or 4 times the size of Iraq and aren't going to have any allies, we'll just drop bombs on them. That won't cause any unintended consequences. 

Fuckin' asshole!

And since I'm here, do Democrats equal Republicans in this instance, Matt?

Since Frost recently said he was a fan of The Atlantic as well as the WashPo, I hope he caught this post by James Fallows (bless his heart).

Right, repeated bombing raids "as necessary." What could possibly go wrong with that approach? Yes, "surely the United States could best Iran." Surely we could polish off those backward Viet Cong. Surely invading Iraq would work out great. (I haven't taken the time to see if the author was a fan of invading Iraq, but I have a guess.) Surely the operational details of these engagements are a concern only for the small-minded among us.

How would we think about a "scholar" in some other major-power capital who cavalierly recommended war? How would we think about some other capital-city newspaper that decided to publish it? The Post's owners (like those of the NYTand other majors papers) have traditionally had a free hand in choosing the paper's editorial-page policy and leaders, while maintaining some distance from too-direct involvement in news coverage. Jeff Bezos, behold your newspaper.

Hat tip to Scott Lemieux at LGM for the Fallows link and for "The Answer is always War."

More On Republicans Getting Involved in Foreign Policy

Two from Andy Borowitz:

First up, Iran:

Stating that “their continuing hostilities are a threat to world peace,” Iran has offered to mediate talks between congressional Republicans and President Obama.

It's sweet that they would offer to do that. Maybe the Goopers will bake them a cake. Better bake one for Little Kim, too. He haz a sad:

The North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un said on Tuesday that he feels “snubbed” by the decision of forty-seven Republican senators to write a letter to Iran but not to him, the official North Korean news agency reported.

Unlike Borowitz, I believe this is not satire. Lindsey Graham's first action as president will to declare an autocoup.

And here's the first thing I would do if I were president of the United States. I wouldn't let Congress leave town until we fix this. I would literally use the military to keep them in if I had to. We're not leaving town until we restore these defense cuts. We are not leaving town until we restore the intel cuts.

The good news is that he may or may not have been speaking literally, depending on the meaning of literally.

Update: Graham's spokesperson has clarified to Bloomberg that when Graham said "I would literally use the military to keep them in if I had to," that statement was "not to be taken literally." Glad that's been cleared up.

I'm beginning to see why these people are wishing for the Rapture. It's just to quiet the voices in their heads.

This is Better Than Having Palin Run

Guy who plays a billionaire on TV (not as well as Jim Backus) Donald Trump has declared he might deign to lead our great nation.

"I am seriously thinking of running for president," Mr. Trump said as he took the stage at the Iowa Freedom Summit. "We have a presidential election coming up. We have some good people – nobody like Trump, of course."

He can't be for real. Half of these Republicans are just performance artists. Aren't they? Back in the real world, Trump offered his services as nominee for the Republican Party in its efforts against the evil King Andrew of (New) York. the stipulation was that Teh Donald not have a primary opponent. What's hilarious in the video (go there and see it, you have to) is that he trashes Bush and Romney are the crowd goes wild, as they say.

What may be most telling is that this audience seemed to agree with Trump, especially of his assessment of Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney. 

Nor did Trump stop at criticizing the competition; he slammed Republicans in Congress as well, saying, “I'm very disappointed by our Republican politicians, because they let the president get away with absolute murder.”

Whatever the Democrats are paying him is not enough.

Other speakers at the summit included Republican hopefuls such as former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Alaska governor. Sarah Palin, and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who received a warm welcome.

I don't know how they all fit in the clown car.

Neither Bush nor Mr. Romney were in attendance.

Good idea? Bad idea?

Go here and see Charlie Pierce write about it:

There were too many groups with too many agendas driven by too many fears and grievances for anyone to unify them all in any meaningful way. There were the anti-immigration people, the goldbugs, the pro-lifers, and the ever-expanding universe of free-range activists driven by the ever-expanding odd-lot of causes and issues.

Yes, today's Grand Old Party. 

Rich Guy For Romney

Hard to believe as it may be Sheldon Adelson was at one time a Democrat. Yeah, that's right but the "party left him." Apparently because they don't bow low enough to our Israeli overlords:

A sobering Gallup poll from last March asked: "Are your sympathies more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinians?" Barely 53% of Democrats chose Israel, the sole liberal democracy in the region. By contrast, an overwhelming 78% of Republicans sympathized with Israel.

I know I should wake up everyday and think about the well being of Israel before I do the US at least in Sheldon's world. I was afraid he had given all that support to Romney (at least after he beat out some of the even more extremist loons in the primary) because he was a greedhead who wanted his taxes cut to 0%. But no:

My critics nowadays like to claim it's because I got wealthy or because I didn't want to pay taxes or because of some other conservative caricature. No, the truth is the Democratic Party has changed in ways that no longer fit with someone of my upbringing.

There isn't a caricature strong enough for this guy. He's out of a Bond movie. Think Auric Goldfinger. Personally I think that as much as Sheldon LOOOOOVES the Israelis he might be trying to buy a "Get Out Of Jail Free Card" with a Romney win.

The WSJ wrote that the U.S. Attorney’s office in Las Vegas is looking into whether Sands and its executives violated U.S. anti-money laundering laws by failing to report suspicious activity by two big-spending gamblers.


The investigation involves Zhenli Ye Gon (who has been indicted on counts of trafficking methamphetamine ingredients) and Ausaf Umar Siddiqui, (a former executive of Fry’s Electronics who went to jail on bribe charges) who wired tens of millions of dollars to the Sands Venetian casino in Las Vegas during the mid-2000s.

In fairness this article does say that Adelson is not under investigation though God knows why.

For an alternate Republican viewpoint on Israel see Andrew Bacevich.

Peace means different things to different governments and different countries. To some it suggests harmony based on tolerance and mutual respect. To others it serves as a euphemism for dominance, peace defining the relationship between the strong and the supine.

GOP Convention News

That's if there is a GOP convention.

Tropical storm Isaac, which is gathering strength in the Caribbean, could strike Florida, hurricane forecasters say, triggering concern it might force a postponement or cancellation of the Republican National Convention in Tampa next week.

We'll see if God really is on their side. Worst case scenario for them is if Romney and Ryan get washed out to sea and they have to run Ron Paul because he isn't there because they didn't allow him to speak.

Comes this news that the Obama campaign is going to "disrupt" the convention which I see as a huge mistake. I really think the last thing you want to do is distract from the climate change denying, birth enforcing, granny killing, Kenyan Muslimming, birth certificating, God fearing all around craziness of the Republican convention.

Bucking protocol, President Obama and the Democrats are planning a full-scale assault on Republicans next week during their convention.
Presidential candidates have traditionally kept a low profile during their opponent's nominating celebration, but Democrats are throwing those rules out the window in an attempt to spoil Mitt Romney’s coronation as the GOP nominee.

It's so unfair. But Obama is from Chicago.

And just to prove that right-wingers don't "get" irony comes word that the theme of their convention is "we built this." This is in a stadium that was built with 62% of the funding coming from the public.

However, the stadium where the GOP will be announcing “We Built This!” was financed primarily by the government. The Tampa Bay Times Forum arena, which houses the Tampa Bay Lightning, was built in 1996 as the “Ice Palace” with 62% government funds. The total budget for the project was $139 million, of which public money accounted for $86 million and team money accounted for $53 million.

Hopefully no one in the nasty mainstream media will  point that out. Chances are. Not.

Et Tu Stockman

It's one thing for Romney and Ryan to have Paul Krugman telling them they're full of shit.

 Ryan has a completely undeserved reputation in the media as a bluff, honest guy, in Ryan’s case supplemented by a reputation as a serious policy wonk. None of this has any basis in reality; Ryan’s much-touted plan, far from being a real solution, relies crucially on stuff that is just pulled out of thin air — huge revenue increases from closing unspecified loopholes, huge spending cuts achieved in ways not mentioned. See Matt Miller for more.

It seems like quite another to have David Stockman doing so.

Thirty years of Republican apostasy — a once grand party’s embrace of the welfare state, the warfare state and the Wall Street-coddling bailout state — have crippled the engines of capitalism and buried us in debt. Mr. Ryan’s sonorous campaign rhetoric about shrinking Big Government and giving tax cuts to “job creators” (read: the top 2 percent) will do nothing to reverse the nation’s economic decline and arrest its fiscal collapse.

Mr. Ryan professes to be a defense hawk, though the true conservatives of modern times — Calvin Coolidge, Herbert C. Hoover, Robert A. Taft, Dwight D. Eisenhower, even Gerald R. Ford — would have had no use for the neoconconservative imperialism that the G.O.P. cobbled from policy salons run by Irving Kristol’s ex-Trotskyites three decades ago. These doctrines now saddle our bankrupt nation with a roughly $775 billion “defense” budget in a world where we have no advanced industrial state enemies and have been fired (appropriately) as the global policeman.

And this from the Matt Miller link.

Ryan’s revised plan, passed by the House in 2011, wouldn’t reach balance until the 2030s while adding $14 trillion in debt. It adds $6 trillion in debt over the next decade alone — yet Republicans had the chutzpah to say they wouldn’t raise the debt limit!

 Over time, Ryan’s “vision” would decimate most federal activities beyond Social Security, Medicare and defense.

More Sanity From the Right

Both of these stolen from Salon.

A bullet scarred billboard:

And a clip that reminds me, at least, of Jason or Freddie Krueger or something that goes bump in the night:

Also note the reflection of teleprompters that have been inserted by the lamestream media to make Sarah Reagan look Obamaesque.

And since I’m pillaging Salon here’s an interesting article from Peter Kramer who’s a professor of psychiatry at Brown. I don’t believe the right is directly responsible for Jared Loughner. Maybe there are some who do. I do believe there are those on the Right who have created a poisonous atmosphere with conspiracy theories, slurs and veiled (and not so veiled) threats.

Respected colleagues and columnists have been quick to say no. Shall we give Fox News, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and the others a quick pass? It is true that the biology of mental illness has its own imperative. But along with most other people, I do imagine that in a general sense social forces can mute, inflame or redirect impulses. That's what the time in the clinical office is about, in part: the use of interpersonal influence to moderate or channel emotions. Much political speech has the same aim.

The work that I do makes me suspect that creating a hysterical political environment has its costs. Many writers have commented on the corrosive effects of casual references to violence, along with the demonization of public figures and the glorification of gun ownership. I want to add a further consideration, implicit in the others, but worth separating out: tolerance, in the public sphere, for paranoia itself.

"The Dutch are Known in the Norwegian for Dikes"

Hasn’t this idiot used up her 15 minutes yet?

Grand Old Party’s Over

Chris Currey writes today as another member of the GOP who no longer feels at home there. I’ve said before at this blog that I welcome a Republican Party that comes back to sanity and back to Conservative principles. May they soon shed the Neo-cons and the Cheney-ites and all the other Bush League players.

I know that without a strong opposition party, the Dems will soon become as stupid and venal as the GOP has. No good to try to have a yin without a yang.

I grew up with -– in fact voted for the first time for –- Eisenhower. In 1956, he ran a campaign of dignity. A campaign that acknowledged that there are certain projects better suited to be handled by the government. See, business thinks in the short term, as he said. That’s the imperative of the marketplace. I invest and I expect that in a few quarters, I garner the fruits of my investment. Government, on the other hand, has the luxury to wait a few years, maybe decades, for a return on a given investment. As a former businessman, I know that first hand. Am I a Marxist for thinking that?

Yes, I’m afraid that you are now an official DFH.

I did not like Medicaid and Medicare when they were passed. I was opposed to them. Maybe I was too young, too strong, and too ideologically confined. Yet, over the years, I saw how Medicare helped millions of elderly Americans. I saw how Medicare helped my mom in her final years battling emphysema caused by years of smoking. You have to be blind to oppose those programs. You have to be blind to wish for the suffering of millions of Americans just because you believe in personal responsibility.

This contains much of what I don’t understand about the opposition to, basically, all government by the right wing yahoos today. Are they just so confident that they will never need help? Are they confident that the government will always be there to give them that hand up despite their opposition? Medical bills are a very quick route to bankruptcy. Has there been a call on the right to bring back debtor’s prisons? Only a matter of time.

During the fight over the impeachment of President Clinton, the ugly face of the Republican Party was brought to the surface. Empty rhetoric, ideological intolerance, vengeance, and religious zealotry became the common currency. Suddenly, if you are pro-choice, you could not be a Republican. If you are for smart and sensible taxes to balance out the budget, you could not be a Republican. If you are pro-civil rights, you could not be a Republican.

It started with minorities: they left the party. Then women; they divorced the GOP and sent it to sleep on the couch. Then, the young folks; they left and are leaving the Republican Party in droves. Then, someone stood up and told my niece and my grandchild that they are not fully Americans — just second class Americans because they are homosexual.

Turn out the lights, the Party’s over:

We shrank it by kicking out those who believe that an $11 trillion economy, like ours, needs a strong government, not a government that can be drowned in a bathtub. We shrank it when we sanctified Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, and canonized Sarah Palin. These are the leaders of my party nowadays. How did we go from William F. Buckley to Glenn Beck? How did we go from Eisenhower and Nixon to Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann? I do not know. What I do know, however, is that these leaders remind of me of the leaders of the Whig Party. And if they continue on their nonsense, they will bring the collapse of the GOP.

Not that he’s going to see it, but I want to wish Mr. Currey the best of luck in any and all efforts to bring sanity back to his party. It needs to be there as a counterbalance, not a laughingstock.

Where Have All the GOP Leaders Gone?

Frank Rich in the NYT recaps some of the descent into chaos of our fellow citizens on the right end of the spectrum:

But the laughs evaporated soon enough. There’s nothing entertaining about watching goons hurl venomous slurs at congressmen like the civil rights hero John Lewis and the openly gay Barney Frank. And as the week dragged on, and reports of death threats and vandalism stretched from Arizona to Kansas to upstate New York, the F.B.I. and the local police had to get into the act to protect members of Congress and their families.

How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht.

He notes the reaction to the passage of this bill as compared to the passage of Medicare, Social Security and the Civil Rights Bill:

But there was nothing like this. To find a prototype for the overheated reaction to the health care bill, you have to look a year before Medicare, to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Both laws passed by similar majorities in Congress; the Civil Rights Act received even more votes in the Senate (73) than Medicare (70). But it was only the civil rights bill that made some Americans run off the rails. That’s because it was the one that signaled an inexorable and immutable change in the very identity of America, not just its governance.

And of course, the gutlessness of those in the Republican party to do anything to tamp down emotions, in particular the most recent candidate for the Oval Office:

After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, some responsible leaders in both parties spoke out to try to put a lid on the resistance and violence. The arch-segregationist Russell of Georgia, concerned about what might happen in his own backyard, declared flatly that the law is “now on the books.” Yet no Republican or conservative leader of stature has taken on Palin, Perry, Boehner or any of the others who have been stoking these fires for a good 17 months now. Last week McCain even endorsed Palin’s “reload” rhetoric.

Are these politicians so frightened of offending anyone in the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base that they would rather fall silent than call out its extremist elements and their enablers? Seemingly so, and if G.O.P. leaders of all stripes, from Romney to Mitch McConnell to Olympia Snowe to Lindsey Graham, are afraid of these forces, that’s the strongest possible indicator that the rest of us have reason to fear them too.

Go. Read.

And if you want to, and I wouldn’t recommend it, go from the sublime to the stupid head on over to powerline. They haven’t quite claimed that John Wilkes Booth was a Democrat, but give it time.

Tea Party Know Nothings

DFH Bruce Bartlett has an article up in Forbes suggesting that the Tea Partiers might not be the sharpest tools when it comes to actually being aware of any facts about how much Americans pay in taxes. They likely don’t even have a good idea about how much they themselves pay. For the record, mine were actually pretty low this year. Hail Obama!

Tuesday's Tea Party crowd, however, thought that federal taxes were almost three times as high as they actually are. The average response was 42% of GDP and the median 40%. The highest figure recorded in all of American history was half those figures: 20.9% at the peak of World War II in 1944.

Automatons that they are the Tea Party folks seem to think that because Obama is a socialist Democrat liberal tax lover then taxes must have gone up since he was inaugurated.

Tea Partyers also seem to have a very distorted view of the direction of federal taxes. They were asked whether they are higher, lower or the same as when Barack Obama was inaugurated last year. More than two-thirds thought that taxes are higher today, and only 4% thought they were lower; the rest said they are the same.

And:

According to the JCT, last year's $787 billion stimulus bill, enacted with no Republican support, reduced federal taxes by almost $100 billion in 2009 and another $222 billion this year. The Tax Policy Center, a private research group, estimates that close to 90% of all taxpayers got a tax cut last year and almost 100% of those in the $50,000 income range. For those making between $40,000 and $50,000, the average tax cut was $472; for those making between $50,000 and $75,000, the tax cut averaged $522. No taxpayer anywhere in the country had his or her taxes increased as a consequence of Obama's policies.

Bartlett refrains from saying it, so I will, “Get a clue, morans!”

Whatever the future of the Tea Party movement in American politics, it's a bad idea for so many participants to operate on the basis of false notions about the burden of federal taxation. It only takes a little bit of time to look at one's tax return to see what one is actually paying the Treasury, calculate the percentage of one's income that goes to taxes, and compare it with what was paid last year and the year before.

Et tu, Wall Street Journal?

It’s Over

I’m afraid the neocon crush on General David Petraeus is likely to come to a crashing halt. I seems the general is just not that into Israel. God, I love realism!

In a lengthy statement offered to the Armed Services Committee earlier this week, Petraeus ticked off a long list of problems in his AOR -- AfPak, Iran, Iraq, Yemen -- and then turned to what he called the "root causes of instability." Ranking as item No. 1 on his list was this: "insufficient progress toward a comprehensive Middle East peace." Petraeus continued:

The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the AOR. Israeli-Palestinian tensions often flare into violence and large-scale armed confrontations. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel. Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples in the AOR and weakens the legitimacy of moderate regimes in the Arab world. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda and other militant groups exploit that anger to mobilize support. The conflict also gives Iran influence in the Arab world through its clients, Lebanese Hizballah and Hamas.

If only the neos could discover reality and get their heads out of Israel’s butt. No entangling alliances.

And  whether she was right or wrong, Rachel Corrie deserves to be remembered.

Congratulations CNN

I’d like to post this little clip in order to honor CNN for their heroic decision to hire Erick Erickson. May his star burn as brightly and as long as Savage’s did at MSNBC:

Looking at and listening to the Weiner, I can’t help but think he might be Erickson’s dad.

For a more thoughtful take than my BS please see Steve Benen:

This is the same Erickson who recently called retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter a "goat f--king child molester," referred to two sitting U.S. senators as "healthcare suicide bombers," praised protesters for "tell[ing] Nancy Pelosi and the Congress to send Obama to a death panel" (he later backpedaled on that one), and described President Obama's Nobel Prize as "an affirmative action quota."

Another quote from Erickson:

"At what point do the people tell the politicians to go to hell? At what point do they get off the couch, march down to their state legislator's house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot?”

And here we have the village idiot neocon from Long Beach weighing in:

Check Benen's post for a long hissy fit on how awful is Erick Erickson. Gee, he said bad things. Can you say extremist? Wake up, Steve Dunderhead.

He abhors irrationalism in debate. Can you tell? He and Erickson both seem to be cut from the Savage cloth.