TSA scanners, terrorism and John Wayne's genitals

One of my favorite columnists is Chris Kelly from The Scranton Times. Chris is smart, funny, irreverent and he and I often seem to share the same common-sense liberal world-view. So I was shocked when he ran a piece on the TSA scanners that basically said "just deal with it".

So I began to write a comment on the site. It grew longer. And longer. And I thought that it belonged here. So read Chris' piece, and then continue on....

The question isn't 'how effective are the scanners?'. The question is 'how effective are the scanners given the time, money and human cost of the scanners?'. Meaning, millions of people have been inconvenienced, embarrassed, delayed and harassed by the scanners, but what have they prevented? How many attempts have been stopped because of this civil-liberties-devouring monster we call the TSA? And more importantly, is it worth the cost?

Like it or not, the threat of terrorism is something we're going to have to live with. The goal of terrorism isn't death, it's fear. And it's the change in our lives that the fear brings. That being the metric, the terrorists have already won. We're a nation living in fear and willing to surrender our basic rights to politicians often-impotent claims to 'make us safe'. Remember what Benjamin Franklin - one of the all-time badasses of history - had to say "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither".

We've come a long way from the Founders. They had the huevos to go toe-to-toe with the greatest military and sea power the world had ever known. We're willing to debase ourselves in the hopes of cutting the already millions-to-one chance of a terrorist striking. Is that rugged Americana? Is that what John Wayne would do when confronted with danger? Ask youself... WWTDD? What would The Duke do? I sincerely doubt that it would involve showing his genitals. Unless it's to Angie Dickinson later in the picture.

The media helps to flog this cultural acceptance that "you're gonna die if you don't let Uncle Sam rub your wee-wee or hoo-hoo". This blind acceptance of TSA procedures - let me see you naked or you have to let me get to third base - sounds like Humbert Humbert, not a governmental agency. Future people will laugh at us, at how simple and stupid we've become, living in constant fear of incredibly long odds. Why don't hand out noise-makers to passengers and have them all blow them at take-off to ward off any geese that might bring down the plane? It's happened.

In reality, the odds of dying at the hands of a terrorist are long. As tragic and terrible as 9/11 was, more people died of preventable cancer that day - and every day since - then died in the attacks.

I can say this as a semi-regular air traveler. I'd rather take the chance that figurative lightning will strike rather than debase myself to someone else's ideological goals. Which brings me to those polls. Are those polls of frequent air travelers or is it a generic poll that gets less frequent travelers and more scared moms, holding junior tight to her bosom, who haven't been on a plane ever? I'm guessing its the later.

Is terrorism a threat? Yes. Is it a real threat? Yes. Is it worth changing your life over? Is it worth giving up some of the things that make us Americans over? I'll answer very strongly: NO!

Holding the GOP accountable, part 4: economic sabotage

Steve Benen via Matt Yglesias

(Benen)

Consider a thought experiment. Imagine you actively disliked the United States, and wanted to deliberately undermine its economy. What kind of positions would you take to do the most damage?

You might start with rejecting the advice of economists and oppose any kind of stimulus investments. You'd also want to cut spending and take money out of the economy, while blocking funds to states and municipalities, forcing them to lay off more workers. You'd no doubt want to cut off stimulative unemployment benefits, and identify the single most effective jobs program of the last two years (the TANF Emergency Fund) so you could kill it.

You might then take steps to stop the Federal Reserve from trying to lower the unemployment rate. You'd also no doubt want to create massive economic uncertainty by vowing to gut the national health care system, promising to re-write the rules overseeing the financial industry, vowing re-write business regulations in general, considering a government shutdown, and even weighing the possibly of sending the United States into default.

You might want to cover your tracks a bit, and say you have an economic plan that would help -- a tax policy that's already been tried -- but you'd do so knowing that such a plan has already proven not to work.

Does any of this sound familiar?

(Yglesias)

..I know that tangible improvements in the economy are key to Obama's re-election chances. And senior administration officials know that its key. So is it so unreasonable to think that Mitch McConnell and John Boehner may also know that it's key? That rank and file Republicans know that it's key? McConnell has clarified that his key goal in the Senate is to cause Barack Obama to lose in 2012 which if McConnell understands the situation correctly means doing everything in his power to reduce economic growth. Boehner has distanced himself from this theory, but many members of his caucus may agree with McConnell.

Which is just to say that specifically the White House needs to be prepared not just for rough political tactics from the opposition (what else is new?) but for a true worst case scenario of deliberate economic sabotage.

(Benen)

Maybe now would be a good time to pause and ask a straightforward question: are Americans O.K. with this?

For months in 2009, conservatives debated amongst themselves about whether it's acceptable to actively root against President Obama as he dealt with a variety of pressing emergencies. Led by Rush Limbaugh and others, the right generally seemed to agree that there was nothing wrong with rooting against our leaders' success, even in a time of crisis.

But we're talking about a significantly different dynamic now. This general approach has shifted from hoping conditions don't improve to taking steps to ensure conditions don't improve. We've gone from Republicans rooting for failure to Republicans trying to guarantee failure.

If that's the case, though, then it's time for a very public, albeit uncomfortable, conversation. If a major, powerful political party is making a conscious decision about sabotage, the political world should probably take the time to consider whether this is acceptable, whether it meets the bare minimum standards for patriotism, and whether it's a healthy development in our system of government.

This is truly scary. It's something that many of us have been suggesting for over a year, and yet the nation is more focused on the possibility Dancing With The Stars is being tainted by Palin voters.

This is a major charge of not just negligence but outright sabotage, and the most amazing part is that neither the GOP itself or it's high-powered noise machine has seen fit to address it.

Is America still so racist that they're tacitly OK with this? Why does the media ignore this?

Holding the GOP accountable, part 3: health care edition

Ezra Klein

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.) introduced the “Empowering States to Innovate Act.” The legislation would allow states to develop their own health-care reform proposals that would preempt the federal government’s effort. If a state can think of a plan that covers as many people, with as comprehensive insurance, at as low a cost, without adding to the deficit, the state can get the money the federal government would’ve given it for health-care reform but be freed from the individual mandate, the exchanges, the insurance requirements, the subsidy scheme and pretty much everything else in the bill.

In general, giving the states a freer hand is an approach associated with conservatives. On Wednesday, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) sent a letter to the Republican Governors Association advocating exactly that. “The most effective path to sustainable health care reform runs through the states, not Washington,” he wrote. If it’s really the case that the states can do health reform better, Wyden and Brown are giving them a chance to prove it.

One state that wants to prove it is Sanders’s Vermont. “As a single-payer advocate,” he says, “I believe that at the end of the day, if a state goes forward and passes an effective single-payer program, it will demonstrate that you can provide quality health care to every man, woman and child in a more cost effective way. So I wanted to make sure that states have that option.” Vermont’s governor-elect, Peter Shumlin, is on the same page. “Vermont needs a single-payer system,” he said during the campaign.

Single-payer, of course, is even more objectionable to conservatives than the existing health-care law. But that’s the beauty of this option: It allows the liberal states to go their way, the conservative states to go their way, and then lets the country judge the results.

This is excellent. It's a put-up or shut-up plan. No more rhetoric, no more theory, put your ideas into action and let the nation judge what works. If Vermont's single-payer system proves to be the least-costly with the best benefits, it will be adopted by the other states. If a consumer-based system like Tennessee wants proves to be more workable, it will win adoption by other states.

This is democracy in action and should be acceptable to conservatives as it puts health care in the hands of the states, the market and the people.

I've grown tired of the dishonest arguments coming out of the right and I'm very much in favor of proving to them that progressive ideas work. Let them do the same. In the same way that I'm in favor of letting Rick Perry try to secede and see how that works out, I'm also in favor of letting the states be the laboratories of democracy.

Holding the GOP accountable, part 2: automotive industry edition

Think Progress notes: This morning, a rejuvenated General Motors made its initial public offering of stock, hoping to raise $23.1 billion. As a result of the offering, which is the largest in the nation’s history, the federal government’s ownership in the auto company was halved “and billions of dollars in bailout money was returned to the federal government.”

With that in mind, let's go back to Think Progress who has collected quotes from leading members of the GOP from the spring and summer of 2009 about the actions to save GM:

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH): “Does anyone really believe that politicians and bureaucrats in Washington can successfully steer a multi-national corporation to economic viability?”

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL): “It’s basically going to be a government-owned, government-run company. …It’s the road toward socialism.”

RNC Chairman Michael Steele: “No matter how much the President spins GM’s bankruptcy as good for the economy, it is nothing more than another government grab of a private company and another handout to the union cronies who helped bankroll his presidential campaign.”

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC): “Now the government has forced taxpayers to buy these failing companies without any plausible plan for profitability. Does anyone think the same government that plans to double the national debt in five years will turn GM around in the same time?”

Rep. Tom Price (R-GA): “Unfortunately, this is just another sad chapter in President Obama’s eager campaign to interject his administration in the private sector’s business dealings.”

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX): The auto company rescues “have been the leading edge of the Obama administration’s war on capitalism.”

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ): When government gets involved in a company, “the disaster that follows is predictable.”

Even today, despite evidence to the contrary, wingnut secessionist Texas governor Rick Perry doubled down on the stupid and claimed the bailout of GM was a failure. Even today, despite evidence to the contrary, wingnut secessionist Texas governor Rick Perry doubled down on the stupid and claimed the bailout of GM was a failure. There's your incredibly prescient Republican leadership. Congratulations America.

Holding the GOP accountable, part 1: Nuclear treaty edition

Steve Benen

EUROPEAN ALLIES BACK OBAMA ON NEW START.... Officials hoping to see the Senate ratify the pending arms control treaty with Russia, New START, considered retiring Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio the kind of Republican who might be amenable to good-faith outreach. Getting to 67 is proving to be far more difficult than it should, but if eight Senate Republicans are to be found, Voinovich seemed like the kind of member who might be reasonable.

It was terribly disappointing, then, to see Voinovich speak on the Senate floor on Wednesday, insisting that the treaty might imperil "captive nations" in Eastern Europe. The Ohio Republican added that he would need assurances that our "allies throughout Europe" would benefit from the policy.

I have no idea if Voinovich was being sincere, or if he's looking for an excuse to oppose a worthwhile policy, but if Voinovich meant what he said, I have good news.

Nations on the front lines of the old Cold War divide made clear here Saturday that they want the Senate to ratify the new U.S.-Russia nuclear treaty, and said that Republican concerns about their well-being were misplaced.

In an unannounced group appearance at the end of an administration background briefing on Afghanistan, six European foreign ministers took the stage with a message for Congress.

"Don't stop START before it's started," Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nickolay Mladenov said.

Danish Foreign Minister Lene Espersen emphasized not only his support, but his conservative bona fides. "I'm also the chairman of the Conservative Party of Denmark," Espersen said. "Nobody can ever accuse me of being soft on security." He then enthusiastically endorsed the treaty, to "at least make the Republican Party [aware] of how important this is."

Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Martonyi added, "We advocate ratification of START. It is in the interest of my nation, of Europe and most importantly for the trans-Atlantic alliance." He then added his ideological stamp of approval: "We're all conservatives."

Leaders from Poland, Bulgaria, and Norway also threw their support behind ratification.

And if all of those countries is a little too far west in Europe to impress Republicans, also note that leaders in Latvia and Lithunia are also anxious to see Republicans do the right thing on New START.

So, Sen. Voinovich, what do you say? If you were worried about European reactions, and Europe's on board, can we count on your "yes" vote?

If you support Rush Limbaugh, you're a racist. No doubts, no excuses.

This appeared on Rush Limbaugh's blog this week...


...after the following quote from his radio show.

This guy is an utter wrecking ball all by himself on the world stage to the point now of getting embarrassing. This presidency of Obama's, it doesn't take much to irritate the left. Try this: "Barack Obama's presidency is graffiti on the walls of American history." That's what his administration is. No more than graffiti on the walls of American history. We have a juvenile delinquent for a president who has ruined so much public and private property, not even his gang is making much of an effort here to protect him. It's an utter disaster.

If you support this horrible racist windbag, you're a racist yourself. No two ways about it. This isn't a policy discussion, this is race-baiting.

via Andrew Sullivan

GOP ready to kill nuclear arms treaty over politics

MSNBC

President Obama’s hopes of ratifying a new arms control treaty with Russia by the end of the year appeared to come undone on Tuesday as the chief Senate Republican negotiator moved to block a vote on the pact, one of the White House’s top foreign policy goals, in the lame-duck session of Congress.

The announcement by the senator, Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican point man on the issue, blindsided and angered the White House, which vowed to keep pressing for approval of the so-called New Start treaty. But the White House strategy had hinged entirely on winning over Mr. Kyl, and Democrats, who began scrambling for a backup plan, said they considered the chances of success slim.

The treaty, which would force both countries to pare back nuclear arsenals and resume mutual inspections that lapsed last year for the first time since the cold war, is the centerpiece of two of Mr. Obama’s signature goals: restoring friendly relations with Russia and putting the world on a path toward eventually eliminating nuclear arms. A failure to ratify the treaty could freeze both efforts and, some analysts said, undermine Mr. Obama’s credibility on the world stage.

“Failure to pass the New Start treaty this year would endanger our national security,” Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has led negotiations with Mr. Kyl, said in a statement. It would mean “no verification regime to track Russia’s strategic nuclear arsenal,” Mr. Biden said, and would sour a relationship that has helped open a new supply route to troops in Afghanistan and increase pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear program.

Aren't the Republicans supposed to be the party of national security? If so, why try to kill a treaty that makes us, and the whole world, safer? Is this the "damage Obama" strategy? Don't let him have any accomplishments to point to in 2012, especially one that will appeal to women. Is the GOP so morally bankrupt that they'll sabotage anything to hurt the President?

On Mike Vick

As usual, my much-younger brother Mike (known on Tumblr as Hammerito) puts it much better than I could have.

Here's his original post:

Ray Lewis, arrested on suspicion of murder in 2000. Charges dropped.

Adam ‘Pacman’ Jones, arrested on charges of assault and felony vandalism in 2005. Arrested on charges of marijuana possession and obstruction of justice in 2006. Arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and public intoxication. 2 months later (also 2006), arrested on charges of misdemeanor assault. Arrested on charges of felony coercion, misdemeanor battery and misdemeanor threat-to-life. Charged with 2 felonies in 2007, he accepted a plea deal of misdemeanor conspiracy to commit disorderly conduct. Accused of hitting a stripper in 2008. Charges dropped. Got into a fight with the bodyguard whose job it was to keep him out of trouble in 2008. Jones currently plays for the Cincinnati Bengals.

Ben Roethilisberger, arrested on suspicion of rape in 2010. Charges dropped.

Michael Vick, arrested on suspicion of dogfighting in 2007. Pled guilty, spent 18 months in prison, lost $130 million dollars, $1 million of which was set up in a fund to care for Vick’s dogs for the rest of their lives. Filed for bankruptcy in 2008. Signed with the Eagles in 2009. The contract included $0 of guaranteed money. Vick struggles through 2009 season. Vick is mentored by Donovan McNabb. He turns his life around, develops a work ethic he never had, gives his time and money to local charities, speaks out against the lifestyle that he used to lead, and has now, 40 months after accepting responsibility and being sent to federal prison, turned everything around through hard work for the first time in his life.

He did his time. He lost everything. He took responsibility. He apologized, over and over again. He made amends. He earned his way back. What else would you like him to do?

A commenter than added in: You forgot Donte Stallworth and Leonard Little, who both killed people and got off scott fucking free.

Mike adds: And Leonard Little, who not only killed someone while driving drunk, but then was arrested for driving drunk AGAIN a year later.

Another commenter chimes in with: I just don’t get how that’s an insult. The fact that people continue to root for murderers and rapists says a lot about what they value over people, too.

To which Mike replies: Then what is the purpose of having a justice system? Why not just throw everyone who has ever been convicted of anything into an active volcano?

One of the very, very, very rare times someone manages to turn their life around, the rest of the world is standing there to remind them that they’re a terrible, awful, no good, very bad person.

NEW RULE: everyone should always be remembered for the worst thing they did. No exceptions.

----

Bravo, sir. I abhor what Mike Vick did, but nothing can change it. The Earth only spins in one direction, forward. I hope that this change is sincere, real and lifetime. As a human being, I'm rooting for him. I work with kids, many of whom find themselves on the wrong side of the law. I believe in punishment, but for the good of society I have to believe in rehabilitation and redemption as well. If Vick can be a force for good, well, it will never erase the evil he did. But it might keep some future evil from happening. Isn't that a good thing?

Jon Stewart on John and Cindy McCain's flip-flops on Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Rachel then takes the media to task for still lavishing attention on John McCain while not highlighting his constant shifting opinions.

Red-state welfare: the hypocrisy of the tea party

The New York Daily News has done an incredible piece about how the states governed by Republicans, the anti-handout, bootstraps crowd, actually gets more federal money back then they pay in taxes. Should anyone be surprised at this point? It's more hypocrisy from the Paliners, and the Paulers and the Teabaggers.

At this point, my suggestion to them is this: leave. Go. Try and make it on your own and see how quickly you become an impoverished third-world hellhole.

But to stand up and scream about how repressive the federal government is when you're reaping the benefits of the work of the blue states is startlingly stupid. Or as they call it, Monday.

Alaska gets $1.84 in federal spending for every dollar it pays in federal taxes. We in New York get just 79 cents on the dollar.
Which means we subsidize Alaska even as it enjoys a $2 billion-plus budget surplus.

Even as New York faces a huge deficit that will require ever more painful cuts.

[...]

Maybe there will be more reality shows featuring other big names in the Tea Party who call for cuts in government spending even as their home states are subsidized by the rest of us.

There could be Sen. Jim DeMint's South Carolina, which gets $1.35 on the dollar.

There could also be Sen.-elect Rand Paul's Kentucky, which rakes in $1.51.

Compare those states to two that are in financial crisis and suffer an even worse balance of payments than we do in New York.

California receives only 78 cents on the dollar.

And New Jersey gets just 61 cents, though it does have a hit reality show.

h/t Cesca

Anti-healthcare freshman demands his free government health care

This is brilliantly, gobsmackingly hypocritical. Welcome to GOPLand, America.

Politico

A conservative Maryland physician elected to Congress on an anti-Obamacare platform surprised fellow freshmen at a Monday orientation session by demanding to know why his government-subsidized health care plan takes a month to kick in.

Republican Andy Harris, an anesthesiologist who defeated freshman Democrat Frank Kratovil on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, reacted incredulously when informed that federal law mandated that his government-subsidized health care policy would take effect on Feb. 1 – 28 days after his Jan. 3rd swearing-in.

“He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care,” said a congressional staffer who saw the exchange. The benefits session, held behind closed doors, drew about 250 freshman members, staffers and family members to the Capitol Visitors Center auditorium late Monday morning,”.

“Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap,” added the aide, who was struck by the similarity to Harris’s request and the public option he denounced as a gateway to socialized medicine.

Here's some more health care hypocrisy from John "Hey, nice wife... how much?" Ensign, via Bob Cesca. Ensign hates government health care so much he's demanding money from the pot:

Sen. John Ensign (R-NV), one of DeMint’s anti-earmark supporters, appears to have been playing “Santa Claus” by demanding money from the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s health care reform law enacted early this year. Over the summer, Ensign sent a letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius requesting grant money authorized by the law for the University of Nevada School of Medicine for “Primary Care Residency Expansion.”

Koppel vs. Olbermann: "death of real news" vs. "where was real news during Iraq invasion?"

Koppel:

We live now in a cable news universe that celebrates the opinions of Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly - individuals who hold up the twin pillars of political partisanship and who are encouraged to do so by their parent organizations because their brand of analysis and commentary is highly profitable.

The commercial success of both Fox News and MSNBC is a source of nonpartisan sadness for me. While I can appreciate the financial logic of drowning television viewers in a flood of opinions designed to confirm their own biases, the trend is not good for the republic. It is, though, the natural outcome of a growing sense of national entitlement. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's oft-quoted observation that "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts," seems almost quaint in an environment that flaunts opinions as though they were facts.

...Much of the American public used to gather before the electronic hearth every evening, separate but together, while Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, David Brinkley, Frank Reynolds and Howard K. Smith offered relatively unbiased accounts of information that their respective news organizations believed the public needed to know. The ritual permitted, and perhaps encouraged, shared perceptions and even the possibility of compromise among those who disagreed.

It was an imperfect, untidy little Eden of journalism where reporters were motivated to gather facts about important issues. We didn't know that we could become profit centers. No one had bitten into that apple yet.

Olbermann:

(I)n 2002 and 2003 and 2004 and 2005 Mr. Koppel did not shine that same light on the decreasingly coherent excuses presented by the government of this nation for the war in Iraq.

(T)he utter falsehood and dishonesty of the process by which this country was committed to the wrong war, by which this country was committed to dishonesty, by which this country was committed to torture – about that Mr. Koppel, and everybody else in the dead “objective” television news business he so laments, about that Mr. Koppel could not be bothered to speak out.

Where were they?

Worshiping before the false god of utter objectivity.

The bitter irony that must some day occur to Mr. Koppel and the others of his time was that their choice to not look too deeply into Iraq, before or after it began, was itself just as evaluative, just as analytically-based, just as subjective as anything I say or do on MSNBC each night. I may ultimately be judged to have been wrong in what I am doing. Mr. Koppel does not have to wait. The kind of television journalism he eulogizes, failed this country because when truth was needed, all we got were facts - most of which were lies anyway.

House Republicans Name An Already Expired Program As First Spending Item They Would Cut

Wonk Room

One program upon which House Republicans have consistently seized upon to bolster their budget-cutting bona fides is the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Emergency Contingency Fund, a successful program that created 250,000 jobs in 37 states via subsidized employment programs for low-income and unemployed workers. And according to National Journal, Republicans are once again railing against the program:

House Republicans have targeted one of the first programs they would like to ax: the $25 billion emergency fund for people who lose their jobs, part of last year’s stimulus bill. Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, said the program encourages states to increase their welfare caseloads “without requiring able-bodied individuals to work, get job training, or make other efforts to move off of taxpayer assistance.”

As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out, Price’s characterization of the fund is completely inaccurate. The program also had the staunch support of many Republican governors, including Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS), who said it provided “much-needed aid during this recession by enabling businesses to hire new workers, thus enhancing the economic engines of our local communities.”

But the crux of the issue is that eliminating the TANF emergency fund will save exactly zero dollars, because the program has already expired! It was funded at $5 billion for two years, and ended on September 30, 2010. It’s over, and there is no money for Price to save.

Note several things here. One, the GOP has spent months ignoring the question "What specifically would you cut?". The answer was a variant on 'we'll see when we get in there'. Now that they're there, the first answer is to cut an already expired program.

Point number two is that they were planning to cut a program that provided relief to unemployed workers.

Read that last sentence again.

I wonder how many unemployed workers voted Republican two weeks ago? I wonder how many just stayed home? Why? There's not much else to say, just "why?". By not turning out for the Democrats, you've cut your own economic throat. and it's not like you can say you didn't know. The GOP promised to cut unemployment benefits, they consistently voted against them.

If you're not in the richest 2%, prepare for the hard times to get worse because the GOP has made it clear that they don't care about you.

From Senator to lobbyist screwing America out of millions in taxes... and back to the Senate

How is this what the Founders intended? How is this defensible, even if it is legal? Where is the indignation?

New York Times

When Cooper Industries, a century-old manufacturing company based in Texas, moved its headquarters to Bermuda to slash its American income tax bill, it had to turn to a Washington insider with extraordinary contacts to soothe a seething Congress.

Dan Coats, then a former senator and ambassador to Germany, served as co-chairman of a team of lobbyists in 2007 who worked behind the scenes to successfully block Senate legislation that would have terminated a tax loophole worth hundreds of millions of dollars in additional cash flow to Cooper Industries.

Now Mr. Coats, a Republican from Indiana, is about to make a striking transition. He is spinning the revolving door backward.

As part of the Republican wave in this year’s midterm elections, Mr. Coats will join the Senate again and is seeking a coveted spot on the Finance Committee, the same panel that tried to shut the tax loophole and that the Obama administration has pushed to again consider such a move.

More about the Obama job growth that America voted against

direct re-post from the incredible Bob Cesca

Job growth over the last 12 months:

Government takeover! Run away! Look at all those government jobs --- wait. Uh.

Reminder: Americans, specifically self-identified independents and conservatives, voted against the policies that created over a million private sector jobs and the policies that shrunk the number of government jobs.

(ht Sullivan)

Adding... American voters also rejected the people responsible for this:

Middle-income Americans are now paying federal taxes at or near historically low levels, according to the latest available data. That’s true whether it comes to their federal income taxes or their total federal taxes.

Americans are smart people.

Obama's disasterous economic plan continues to add more jobs

Washington Monthly

In October, the economy added 159,000 private-sector jobs, far exceeding expectations. It's the best private-sector total since April, and the second strongest report since the start of the Great Recession in late 2007. It was also the tenth consecutive month of private-sector growth -- a streak unseen in more than three years.

All told, the economy has added more than 1.1 million private-sector jobs in 2010. For comparison purposes, note that the economy lost nearly 4.7 million private-sector jobs in 2009, and lost 3.8 million in 2008.

Private sector jobs since January 2008


via Cesca

Nice job America. Let's see how you enjoy rolling back the policies that are slowly digging us out of Bush's disaster.

Stop listening to the American people on fiscal policy. They have no idea what they're talking about.

I suppose I'm becoming a bit of a political elitist. I wonder, over and over again, why we listen to the American people on matters of the economy? Don't get me wrong, I'm not repudiating democracy. I'm just wondering why we're listening, or pretending to listen, to a factory worker in Gary, or a housemom in Olympia, or a farmer in Luverne on fiscal policy.

In the wake of the elections, Republicans are trumpeting that Americans have rejected the stimulus, rejected government spending on bailouts and TARP, rejected the notion of government intervention, rejected all deficit spending.

First, I'll argue that they have not done so. What the American people have said is that they want the economy fixed. They want jobs and stability at home. This interpretation about what the electorate has supposedly said comes from politicians who want to believe that the nation shares their fiscal vision.

They don't. They want jobs. It's as simple as that.

Secondly, even if one can make the argument that "the people" have delved into fiscal policy nuance, rather than a more simple expression of "we want jobs", why would government possibly listen to them? What makes a mom from Olympia any kind of an expert on what it takes to jump start an economy?

The obvious parallel is having the hubris to tell your surgeon how to do the operation. When we go to the doctor, all we're really saying is "I want to feel better, but you've got the training, so fix me up." Using that rationale, why would we believe that a farmer in Luverne has any real notion of how macroeconomics works? I'm pretty sure Paul Krugman would take the farmer's word for it when he's told how to milk a cow, so it would make sense for the farmer to trust a Nobel winner when it comes to fixing the economy.

Polling consistently tells us that the American people don't care about the deficit right now, not when it comes to jobs. But the Republicans have ginned up this argument to support their goals of reversing progressive social policy. And as a side note, we'll see how the mom in Olympia feels when Mitch McConnell and John Boehner try to cut funding for the pre-K that's teaching her child how to read.

Americans aren't making statements about fiscal policy, they're saying "give us jobs".

I'd love to see a poll ask, "If you can have a lower deficit and less jobs, or a higher deficit and more jobs, which would you prefer?". You and I both know what the answer is, and pretending otherwise is stupid, obstinate, or ignorant.

We've got to get past the idea that we're all experts on everything. We're not, and when push comes to shove, we'll admit it. Everyone might think they can fly a plane, but how many would actually take the controls and try to land a 747? Why can't we do the same with our economy? Ask the electorate what they want and who they trust to deliver it, and then get out of the way and let it get done.

Secondly, we have to have a measure of patience. A mess on the scale we have cannot be fixed in 18 months. Obama's biggest mistake was suggesting it would be. But when one is in a sinking ship, the first thing that has to be done, before bailing out the water, is stopping the leak. We've clearly passed that point. In our instant gratification society, that's not enough. We want it all to be great, and be great now, despite the fact that it took us a decade of gorging at the trough to get us here.

We got into this position by not listening to experts who were warning us about overspending, Wall Street malfeasance, easy credit and the housing bubble. We just didn't pay attention. At some point, we're going to have to stop pretending that we can all fly the plane and let the guys with the training take the controls.

Do you want jobs or not?If the answer is yes, then let the experts do what they have to do to create them and stop messing in partisan political theory. Jobs are not a partisan issue. Continuing to humor the Tea Party with the idea that we can create jobs whithout government intervention and continued spending is absurd.

Why do people hate Nancy Pelosi?

Dana Goldstein

A few weeks ago, a friend returned to New York City from a visit to her family in suburban Ohio with the following query: “Why do people hate Nancy Pelosi so much?”

It’s a good question. By any measure, Pelosi has been one of the most effective House speakers in American history, especially given her relatively short tenure. At Salon, Steve Kornacki offers a helpful recollection of her many accomplishments, from health care to student loan reform to the credit card bill of rights to cap and trade. Pelosi consistently delivered legislation that became law, as well as legislation that the Senate then stalled on and failed to pass. As Kornacki writes, Pelosi is unpopular less because of what the House has done or failed to do — most Americans have little idea of those particulars — but because the economy is bad and voters wanted someone to blame.

But there’s another factor that makes Pelosi that much easier to scapegoat: She is a woman — the highest-ranked woman ever to hold elective office in the United States.

Pelosi never shied away from what it meant to be the first woman to hold such an important job. She spoke openly about the sexism Hillary Rodham Clinton faced while running for president, noting matter-of-factly: “I’m a victim of sexism myself all the time, but I just think it goes with the territory. I don’t sit around to say, ‘but for that.’”

So as her political career likely draws to a close, let’s raise a glass to Nancy Pelosi. Her legacy as the first female speaker of the House will, I believe, be vindicated by history, which will also remember her as a tough and effective leader of the Democratic caucus.

Bravo Dana.

Bravo Madam Speaker.

Here you go America, here's what you voted for: GOP-led combat and all-out war

Notice what's important to Mitch McConnell, extending the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy, repealing health care and defeating Obama. 1, 2 and 3.

Notice what's not in there: JOBS. The jobs you said you wanted will apparently not be a part of the Republican plan in the House. They're going to spend 2 years trying to defeat the President.

Now, whether or not you like Obama is irrelevant, because in order to defeat them, the economy HAS to stay bad. If it improves, the president will likely be re-elected. So it has to stay bad. How does the GOP help to ensure Obama is kicked out on a tidal wave of anger over a lack of jobs? Simple, don't introduce legislation designed to improve the economic climate. Focus on tax breaks for the rich. Start endless investigations (if you think you've heard the last of birtherism, you're nuts).

Here you go America. You're about to get the government you deserve.

Not the government that cut the deficit by $120 billion. Not the government that gave tax breaks to 95% of the population. Not the government that saved the economy with the same policies you voted against.

You're going to get a government that doesn't want the economy to improve, so that Mitch McConnell can get his number one goal: defeating the president. Here's to hoping your job loss or foreclosure isn't one more step to McConnell's goal, because you're not even in his top 3.

Olbermann brilliant Special Comment: If the Tea Party wins, America loses

ABC tries (poorly) to explain affiliation with Breitbart, who proves point by lying about ties to ABC

Following the explosion from progressives on the internet and the reported aggravation from the ABC newsroom for hiring Andrew Breitbart to provide election night coverage, Andrew Morse, executive producer of ABC News digital, released a statement defending the move:

Since conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart announced on his website that he was going to be a participant in ABC's Town Hall meeting at Arizona State University, there has been considerable consternation and misinformation regarding my decision to ask him to participate in an election night Town Hall event on ABC News Digital. I want to explain what Mr. Breitbart's role has always been -- as one of our guests at our digital town hall event:

Mr. Breitbart is not an ABC News analyst.
He is not an ABC News consultant.
He is not, in any way, affiliated with ABC News.
He is not being paid by ABC News.
He has not been asked to analyze the results of the election for ABC News.

Mr. Breitbart will not be a part of the ABC News broadcast coverage, anchored by Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos.

He has been invited as one of several guests, from a variety of different political persuasions, to engage with a live, studio audience that will be closely following the election results and participating in an online-only discussion and debate.

While this clarifies things, it also proves the point, as Breitbart's Big Journalism site gave a decidedly different impression:

ABC announced their election night coverage early on and Big Journalism Editor Dana Loesch will join the network in studio for 6 p.m. – 2 a.m. election night; Bigs founder and head of the Breitbart empire Andrew Breitbart will be bringing analysis live from Arizona.

He lied. Again. His own site jumped the gun on ABC and announced he was providing analysis in-studio. He never said he was part of an off-site, on-line only discussion.

This is the damn point. ABC hired an already-proven liar and he's caused more controversy by lying about his hiring, forcing ABC to spend the weekend in damage control. Doesn't ABC get it? Breitbart is a PROVEN liar, and he just did it again. What did they expect?

Why does ABC think it's a good idea to give this man ANY platform, no matter how controlled they think that platform is?

When will we stop the false-equivalency and admit the right wing has become increasingly violent? When someone dies?

The American media have been playing the "both sides are equally radical" card since the 2009 Town Hall fiasco. Every time someone on the right says something outrageous, they go looking for a similar quote from the left, often not finding it. So they do the next best thing: try to compare two actions that are not equal, but in an effort to appear non-partisan, equate them anyway.

False equivalency.

Recently, Howard Fineman published a piece on Huffington Post trying to equate an assault with a comedienne making a barbed quote.

Even though [Arianna Huffington is] backing Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity," and even though I now work for her, I had dismissed the event this Saturday on the Mall as self-indulgent, time-wasting comedy.

Until now.

The reason is that I watched two videos: one, of a thug named Tim Profitt pressing his shoe onto Lauren Valle's skull; the other, of Joy Behar calling Sharron Angle a bitch who's going to hell.

That was enough.

Seriously Howard? Joy Behar making a rude comment is exactly the same as an assault where someone gets thrown to the ground and stomped on by a group of men because of her views?

Really? That's the same?

The left has taken heat over the recent firing of Juan Williams from NPR, saying that they're stifling his freedom of speech. What's been ignored in NPR's ham-fisted handling of the dismissal is that he wasn't fired for the content of his comments per se, but because he had repeatedly violated NPR standards prohibiting analysts from engaging in partisan discussion.

"Infringement of free speech", the nabobs of the right cry, completely misunderstanding the meaning of the first amendment it's protection of speech.

However it's become plainly obvious that this has moved beyond words; the right has gotten violent. Consider the following:

1) Tim Profitt's curbstomp assault on a protester at a Rand Paul rally.

2) Charles Wilson, sentenced to prison for threatening to kill Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), was, according to his relatives, "was under the spell that Glenn Beck cast".

What happened later with Charlie is something I think I can understand. He became basically housebound due to illness and his small world became even smaller. His brother got him a computer and he was able to stay connected with family. And he watched television and found Glenn Beck.

3) 72-year-old Victor Philips was arrested for allegedly assaulting a 23-year-old activist protesting about 40 feet from the entrance to Dino Rossi's Republican campaign office in Washington state.

4) Richard Poplawski, the man accused of gunning down three Pittsburgh police officiers, was a big fan of FOX News host/right-wing cult leader Glenn Beck.

5) The white supremacist charged with the deadly shooting at the national Holocaust museum last year originally wanted to kill White House senior adviser David Axelrod, Time magazine reported Thursday.

James von Brunn, who died in January in a prison hospital awaiting trial, reportedly viewed Axelrod as a priority target who was easier to reach than President Obama.

"Obama was created by Jews," he wrote, according to Time. "Obama does what his Jew owners tell him to do." (Fox News)

6) Andrew Stack crashed his airplane into an Austin, TX, office building where nearly 200 employees of the Internal Revenue Service worked, leaving behind a rant against the government, big business and particularly the tax system.

7) The moderator and the organizer of an Illinois congressional debate who were criticized for not allowing the Pledge of Allegiance to be recited said they have received death threats and plan to go to law enforcement authorities to file complaints.

Each also blamed Fox News host Glenn Beck for stirring up opposition to their work by criticizing the incident and attacking them by name on his Fox News program, which they say has sparked an increase in hateful e-mails and phone calls since then.

"Our webmaster has stopped forwarding the e-mails to me because they have become so ugly," said Jan Czarnik, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Illinois, which sponsored the Oct. 20 forum in Evanston. "I am getting death threats and I am taking it to our local FBI. There are postings on Fox News' Facebook page that include threats on my life." (Media Matters)

8) Law enforcement authorities are investigating the discovery of a cut propane gas line at the Virginia home of Rep. Tom Perriello’s (D-Va.) brother, whose address was targeted by tea party activists angry at the congressman’s vote for the health care bill.

An aide to the congressman confirmed to POLITICO that a line to a propane tank behind his brother's home near Charlottesville had been sliced. (Politico)

Now, if we want to have this "both sides" argument, then show me 8 incidents of serious left-wing violence in the last 20 months. Show me, because these aren't the only 8, they're just the most prominent.

When are we going to stop pretending that both sides are equal? Does someone else have to die? How many? Right wing violence is out of control.

Let's blow up Fox News' voter fraud tipline

Fox News has set up a voter fraud tipline to alert them of suspected voting by unintimidated democrats voter fraud.

I think we should get as many people as possible to (e)mailbomb them. One, it will be fun. Two, it will overwhelm them, making it harder to gin up stories.

Here's one good entry to start with. Perhaps add in George Soros or ACORN, just to make Hannity's head explode.

voterfraud@foxnews.com



Image via Gawker

DJ Andy Reid and the QB Auto-Tune Shuffle

Dear Tim Profitt, you bitch-stomping manly man *guest commentary*

by the future Mrs. Archimedes

Dear Tim Profitt,

Did we date once? You seem a little—ah—mature for me, but then again, the camera makes everyone so larger than life.

Ah, Tim, if only I’d done a better job of sharing the lessons you taught me! We chicks should really know by now what mouthing off will get us, right? After all, you see how that whole 150-year-campaign for suffrage is working out for us, don’t ya?

Hey, look, I get it. If Lauren had done something better with her time last night, you wouldn’t have had to leave a sneaker mark somewhere around her temples. (I do hope that they were kinda new sneakers and you didn’t wear them while wading in manure….oh wait….never mind.) Silly girl! She seems like one of those bookish types, what with those glasses and all, but she could always try a hobby, like stamp collecting.

Now, I know that people are appalled that you thought that she looked dangerous. It’s the glasses thing, completely. After all, she is a 23-year-old with short hair….oh yeah….a BOY cut. She may not even BE a chick, or she may be one of those girls who like girls, and you know, what they do in private is their business but REALLY, they’re not women like our MOMS were women. If everyone was more realistic about this whole thing it would put this violence-towards-women thing completely in perspective.

But hey, Tim! I see that you kicked in $1900 for Rand. Pretty sweet that you have that kinda cash to invest. Times have been good to you, I see. I like a man who’s a big spender, Tim. I wouldn’t worry too much about this little incident….keep dropping dough like that and the women will be ALL OVER YOU.

Hugs,
Bootsie

Here's the guy who stomped a woman's head at a Rand Paul rally posing with.... *gasp*

MSNBC

The volunteer with Rand Paul's Republican U.S. Senate campaign who stepped on the head of a liberal activist and pinned her face to the concrete said Tuesday the scuffle was not as bad as it looked on video and blamed police for not intervening.

His name is Tim Profitt and here he is with Rand Paul.



This sounds a lot like Joe Miller's Goon Squad illegally detaining a reporter two weeks ago.

Is this the America the Tea Party envisions?

Ken Buck doesn't believe in separation of church and state; inadvertantly solves deficit problem

Huff Post

Colorado Republican Senate candidate and Tea Party favorite Ken Buck last year said he "strongly" disagrees with one of the bedrock principles of American society: the separation of church and state.

"I disagree strongly with the concept of separation of church and state," said Buck at a forum for GOP Senate candidates last year.

EXCELLENT! If this is now the accepted view, then it goes both ways. We can tax churches on their land and buildings and generate hundreds of millions in new tax revenue.

THANK YOU! Ken Buck, financial wizard.

Obama and Dems poll numbers shoot up.... DISASTER LOOMS! AIIIIEEEEEE!!!!!!

In the latest Newsweek poll, President Obama's job approval ratings have jumped, crossing the 50% mark. The poll shows his approval rating at 54%, with a 40% disapproval rate.

Further, although neither party in Congress gets favorable ratings, Democrats in Congress have a 10% approval advantage over the GOP - 41% to 31%.

How does this figure in the midterms? It's too early to say, but it seems that Democrats and progressives are starting to engage. Given the steam that the Tea Party has had, they've gained a significant media presence but it seems too early to translate that into wins, especially in districts where Tea Party candidates are going down to the wire with the crazy, and in many cases, upping the ante.

Sept. job numbers: more private sector jobs in 2010 than in 8 years of Bush/Cheney

Cesca

The September jobs report was just released and demonstrates that America is on a far slower path to recovery than anyone originally predicted. Despite this, the shedding of government jobs cloaks a glimmer of hope: more private sector jobs have been created this year than during the entire Bush administration. Read that again: 2010 has had more private job creation than during the entire 8 year tenure of George W. Bush.

This is the 9th straight month of private sector job growth in the midst of a devastating recession that has put a serious strain mostly on the poor and middle class. There has been a total of 863,000 private sector jobs created in 2010, exceeding the total created under the Bush/Cheney regime.

In no way am I saying that these numbers are great. What I am trying to figure out is why Americans, who say they're going to vote GOP because of jobs, don't understand that this preisdent IS creating jobs? Why don't they understand that Obama has cut the deficit by over $100 million in 2010, in the middle of a recession?

Obama has created more jobs in 2010 than Bush did in EIGHT YEARS. He has cut the deficit more in one year than the last Republican administration ever did. That has to count for something. But it doesn't seem to, and here are three thoughts as to why:

1) Americans don't seem to understand that before you can heal a wound, you have to stop the bleeding. The stimulus and other actions that Obama has taken have stopped the bleeding. That is, and always was, goal number one.

Our "instant culture" of I-want-it-now doesn't give us the patience to see this through. We're tryintg to work our way out of the worst economic situation in 80 years, one that took 10 years to create, and we expected it done in 12 months.

We're unrealistic.

2) The GOP noise machine drowns out the facts.

3) Issue number 3 is that the Democratic party sucks at getting the message out. From our media wing to our leadership, there's no "there" there. The GOP has John Boehner, Sarah Palin and Eric Cantor. The Democrats have Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Reid and Pelosi are incredibly gifted legislators - especially Pelosi - but they can't communicate with middle America.

Add to that a huge right-wing media machine that's unable to be embarrassed and willing to engage in massive intellectual fraud and hypocrisy on a giant scale and it's not hard to understand how they're selling a message of fear and hate to a scared populace.

We're a nation with a raging case of Teh Stupidz.

The Tea Party/GOP noise machine

Watching Bill Maher last week, he confronted his guest, St. Louis Tea Party radio host Dana Loesch guest with the following indisputable facts, all of which she denied were true or claimed were in dispute:

1) the stimulus cost less than the war in Iraq. Her response: "those numbers are in dispute"

2) the stimulus contained almost $300 million in tax cuts that were demanded by Republicans who then opposed it. Her response: "no it didn't"

3) the stimulus saved 3 million jobs. Her idiotic response was "then why is unemployment still at 10%?" to which John Legend responded (barely concealing his disgust) that without the stimulus, unemployment would be at 13%. Loesch responded that that was in dispute.

4) the bailouts worked, it saved GM and millions of jobs, and we got our money back plus some, making a profit. Her response: 'why does the government get to decide who survives?'. She sidestepped the truth that didn't support her assertions and asked her question in a manner that suggested that saving a million jobs is somehow worthy of derision.

Interestingly enough, she got upset when Maher used the term "teabagger" (even though the teabaggers are the ones who called themselves teabaggers first), yet she had no problem, and Maher raised no objections, when she used the backhanded-slur "Democrat party".

This illustrates the fundamental problem with debating the functions of government in this Tea Party era: they have no sense of truth or fact. It's all subjective reality. Present them with numbers from the CBO and they'll scream that those are "government numbers" and therefore ought not to be trusted. Present them with fact and they'll sidestep, or cry conspiracy, or deflect ('remember 30 years ago when...'), or just scream "lamestream media... AIIIIEEEEEEEE!!!!".

There is no reality with them, other than the shifting constructs of the day-to-day. Yesterday they were supporting Juan Williams and complaining (erroneously) that his First Amendment rights were violated. Yet when real First Amendment rights are being violated by Joe Miller's hired goons illegally detaining a reporter for asking questions of the candidate, they claim that the reporter deserved it.

How does one debate a group of chronically lying hypocrites?

Bravo Mr. President. Obama reaches out to bullied gay teens: it gets better

Things like this remind me why I love this man and why I'm still inspired by him.

The gun industry has no oversight? Really? It polices itself? Does that seem like a good idea?

CNBC has an article about problems at the Remington Firearms Company. It seems that their signature weapon, the model 700 bolt action rifle may have a defect that the company has known about for 60 years.

A 10-month investigation by CNBC has found that at least two dozen deaths and more than 100 injuries have been linked to the signature product of an iconic American company.

The Remington Model 700-series rifle - with more than 5 million sold - is one of the world’s most popular firearms. Famous for its accuracy, the rifle is now the target of a series of lawsuits claiming that it is unsafe and susceptible to firing without pulling the trigger.

Of course they claim that there's nothing wrong. Few companies will admit to a design flaw in a product. That's not unusual. But over 60 years, there's bound to be a paper trail and the stunning part is what it would have cost Remington to fix the flaw-that-doesn't-exist-but-has-been-alleged-for-decades.

The documents reveal that on at least two occasions, the company considered – and then decided against – a modification of the original trigger design intended to eliminate inadvertent discharges. One of those proposed fixes would have cost Remington 5.5 cents per gun, according to the company’s own calculations.

5.5 cents. They declined to spend less than 6 cents per rifle to ensure that their weapons would be safe. 5.5 cents was too much to protect lives.

So the government will step in, right? Right?

Wrong.

(F)rom the very beginning, the company looked at ways to fix its bolt-action rifle, even contemplating a nationwide recall. But on more than one occasion, Remington decided against a recall.

And it turns out that decision is Remington's, and Remington's alone.

For most products – cars, toys, food, even BB guns - the government can order a recall. In 2010, for example, the Eagle 5 Rifle crossbow made by Master Cutlery was recalled after regulators found it could fire, without pulling the trigger, when the safety is switched off.

But the Consumer Product Safety Commission cannot recall guns. Nor can the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms or the Justice Department.

Guns hold a special place in American life - and American law, says Dallas attorney Jeffrey Hightower.

“Remington polices itself,” he said. “The gun industry polices itself.”

A federal law, passed in 1976 and upheld repeatedly in court, specifically bars the government from setting safety standards for guns, because of the Second Amendment.

While some estimates now say that the cost is as much as $100 per rifle, I'd be interested in seeing the new calculation. Even accounting for super inflation, 5.5 cents in 1960 isn't $100 now.

This is a wonderful repudiation of the Tea Party and their 'get the government off my back' mentality. This is why the Tea Party is wrong when it claims that regulations aren't necessary. This is a perfect example of an unregulated company doing exactly the wrong thing - or more correctly, behaving like a business.

There's nothing wrong with a business behaving like a business, but let's not pretend that business interests always coincide with public interests. They don't.

Remember why we came out in '08, and ask yourself if you'll really be better off with a GOP majority

We need to take a serious look back at the absolute disaster that was the Bush Administration and the mess that it created - a mess that we're still trying to deal with today.

This leads to a question for the progressives like Jane Hamsher and FireDogLake that spent the summer leading a charge against the president because he didn't go far enough... do you really think that rallying the troops against Obama has had a positive effect? Do you think that the causes that you care about are going to benefit from the GOP surge? Do you really think, now that the Bushies are on their way back in to power, that Obama is "just like Bush"? Do you think that you'll make gains under a GOP Congress?

To the middle... watch and remember. And think.

If you correct teabagger ignorance, you're a condescending elitist

via Hammerito

"I give up. I fucking give up.

When I first started hearing right-wingers claim that separation of church and state is a liberal myth, I wondered why no one sat them down, shoved the document in their face, and made them read those three lines out loud. Now I see that it doesn’t matter.

Something like 30% of the country has gone mad. That’s the only explanation I can think of. This is not an exaggeration. They are literally standing there pointing at the sky and saying “the sky is red” and when you try to convince them that it’s blue and bring them a color chart and other blue things for comparison they stare at you blankly for a few seconds and then go back to repeating “the sky is red”. And even if you convince them for a moment that it is indeed blue, you were being condescending while you did it. So you’re an elitist. And therefore you’re wrong. The sky is red.

No, I’m done with the appeals to bipartisanship, the platitudes that we all share a common dream, that people are just frustrated with government. A country where this kind of thing constitutes mainstream political debate is not worth fighting for. I’ll stay on the coast where it is relatively safe, but I’ll be ready to jump ship at any moment. I suggest anyone with half a brain do the same."

Gawker commenter on Christine O’Donnell not knowing, and then NOT BELIEVING that the first amendment contained the provision of separation of church and state during a debate with Chris Coons. Coons recited the text of the amendment “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”, to which she responded “That’s in the first amendment…?”

Seriously, nearly every time I hear a Teabagger open his/her mouth, I feel like I’m back in second grade and being made fun of for knowing the right answer to the teacher’s question.

So much truth. In a world where Republicans can make headway by being completely disingenuous, what's left of real political debate?

Disingenuous? Absolutely. How about we just call it hypocrisy? Or outright lies. They advocate that we have to reduce spending while simultaneously arguing for an unfunded $4 trillion extension of tax cuts that primarily benefit the top 2%.

They scream for getting government off of our backs while they move to allow the greatest government intrusion in our personal lives ever. Using the most extreme positions on abortion by trying to disallow abortion even in the case of rape and saying that the government should root out teachers who are gay or straight and co-habitating, they're inviting the government into our homes in ways that have never been allowed.

When they say that they're against the stimulus because it didn't create jobs, and yet write letters asking for stimulus money to create jobs in their states, they are at best prevaricators. At best.

The party that trumpets the Constitution doesn't know the First Amendment or the Establishment Clause, doesn't believe in freedom of the press, refuses to talk to them and uses their own private security goons to illegally detain a reporter asking difficult questions

What's worse, they live in a factless reality. Everything is relative. When proven wrong by facts, they ignore the facts or decry them as creations of the lamestream media.

Where are we headed when there are no objective facts and the media has completely abdicated its role as gatekeeper and fact-checker?

Speaking of anti-colonial worldviews

Sestak nails it with the best political ad this year

Pennsylvania senate candidate Joe sestak takes it to Pat Toomey in an ad that's true, snarky (but not too snarky) and hits just the right tone. Go Joe!

Dylan Ratigan with the single most sane, coherent political diatribe about terrorism ever

Sure Dylan loses his mind every once in a while, but this is a series of brilliant observations about the nature of the war on terror and cognitive dissonance.

Mor lik dis plz.

The America of Glenn Beck and the tea party

This is the America that the tea baggers "want back". The post WWII, pre-Vietnam days, where everything was fine. Just ask the Cleavers.



Which of these aspects of Beck's World is most offensive in a 2010 context?
A) A woman's place is in the home, and if they're in the home, why not be in the kitchen? Giving me a blowjob.
B) Women do alright with modern conveniences, but if you take away the blender, they're shit.
C) Women can't handle the rugged outdoors, where us cavemen peel pre-pressed burgers off of wax paper?
D) That "less government regulation" will allow a return to the time when asbestos gloves could be sold?

Here's what else was happening in Beck's hunky-dory post WWII period: thalidomide babies because of a lack of government oversight of medicine, civil rights protests for basic rights, beatings and dogs being turned on protesters and lots of other good nostalgic stuff.

It was a great period, if you were a white man.

Yeah, let's go back.

Republicans are illogical asshats

Richard Shelby is blocking the nomination of Peter Diamond to sit on the Fed board of governors.

Why?

Shelby says Diamond is unqualified.

Diamond is a professor of economics at a little school called MIT.

Diamond won the Nobel Prize for economics.

Diamond was Ben Bernanke's teacher!

"While the Nobel Prize for economics is a significant recognition, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences does not determine who is qualified to serve on the Board of Governors," said Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Senate Banking Committee.

via Cesca

Right. He's unqualified. Notice Shelby didn't say he disagreed with him - he said that he's unqualified.

This is stupidity for stupidity's sake.

Family Research Council tacitly advocates bullying gays under guise of religion

The Washington Post should be embarrassed to print this editorial by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. In it, he displays the hypocrisy inherent in his Christian position of 'love the sinner, hate the sin', the reason that Christians like him are causing homosexuals such mental and social problems, as well the untenability of his position.

He begins:

The media has recently been filled with reports of several recent suicides by teenagers who are reported to have been victims of "anti-gay" bullying. Some homosexual activist groups lay blame at the feet of conservative Christians who teach that homosexual conduct is wrong, as well as pro-family groups such as Family Research Council which oppose elements of the homosexual political agenda, such as same-sex "marriage."

The Christians and pro-family leaders I know are unanimous in believing that no person, especially a child, should be subjected to verbal or physical harassment or violence--whether because of their sexuality, their religious beliefs, or for any other reason. Such bullying violates the Christian's obligation to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and receives no support from the pro-family political movement.

Yay! Excellent! On this we agree, bullying is wrong. However, he then lays out the groundwork, if not the claim, that it's not only okay, but it's incumbent on Christians to create a climate where bullying can fluorish.

However, homosexual activist groups like GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) are exploiting these tragedies to push their agenda of demanding not only tolerance of homosexual individuals, but active affirmation of homosexual conduct and their efforts to redefine the family.

So according to Perkins, although bullying should not be tolerated, it's necessary to oppose a climate where homosexuals are accepted and can live their lives out of the shadows. After all, we don't want to affirm that being gay is acceptable. We have to make sure that people know that being gay is wrong in the eyes of the Lord and that Christians have a duty to make sure that gays don't make social strides towards acceptance and equal rights. Just don't hit them.

So to sum things up to this point, bulling gays is bad, but so is accepting them. They shouldn't be physically harmed, but under no circumstances should they feel they're normal.

Read on:

There is an abundance of evidence that homosexuals experience higher rates of mental health problems in general, including depression. However, there is no empirical evidence to link this with society's general disapproval of homosexual conduct. In fact, evidence from the Netherlands would seem to suggest the opposite, because even in that most "gay-friendly" country on earth, research has shown homosexuals to have much higher mental health problems.

Ahhhh! Homosexuals are mentally defective. Yes, of course. So they should know that they're abnormal in both conduct and mental make-up. In fact, everyone should know this. So it's OK to advertise that gays are aberrant, even though we know that society tends to terrorize it's outcastes.

Some homosexuals may recognize intuitively that their same-sex attractions are abnormal--yet they have been told by the homosexual movement, and their allies in the media and the educational establishment, that they are "born gay" and can never change. This--and not society's disapproval--may create a sense of despair that can lead to suicide.

Again, the use of the word abnormal. Even though we know that homosexuality is part of the animal kingdom, right-wingers want to paint this as "abnormal". But it's not the condemnation that Perkins wants heaped on gays that leads to their suicide, it's the knowledge that they're defective - even though it's people like him heaping these thoughts of abnormality on them.

'It's not our fault that we tell them what they do is an abomination. Our scorn doesn't lead to their problems, it's their internalization of their abomination that leads to problems.

How do we fix this, Tony? How?

The most important thing that Christians can offer to homosexuals is hope--hope that their sins, just like the sins of anyone else, can be forgiven and their lives transformed by the power of Jesus Christ.

OHHHHH! The invisible ghost in the sky can fix all of their problems. If they just embrace our fairy tale, things will get better, they'll stop being abominations and we canall live in the clouds with Invisible Man.

Perkins belives in fairy tales and yet it's homosexuals who are delusional?

Doesn't Perkins realize that - while he calls for an anti-bullying stance - taking the position that gays are "abnormal" and "suffering from mental health problems" in being gay IS BULLYING. Bullying isn't just what happened to Matthew Sheppard, bullying is living in a climate where you're told that you're less than fully human. You're told that you made a choice to be an abomination, but that by accepting a farcical notion of the spirit in the sky, you can be made whole.

The climate that Christians are trying to create IS bullying.

the Post should be embarassed to print this on National Coming Out Day - the one day that homosexuals should feel some measure of support. And the Post publishes this guest editorial from a bigot.

Stewart and Colbert on Indecision 2010

Midterm report card contradictions... GOP gets lowest grades

We're told that Obama is politically dead, but he polls better than either party in Congress, especially Republicans. How does this reconcile with the dire predictions for election day in three weeks? There are only two real explanations. One is that the pundits are listening to a vocal minority of loudmouths and over-extrapolating. The other is that Americans are schizophrenic.

Either is possible.

Also look at the variation in grades between generic members of Congress (about 1.75) and the respondent's own Congressperson (2.22). It seems to say that we hate pork and spending, unless it gets brought back to my district.

There are also some interesting stats on who likes Obama and who doesn't and it suggests that targeted turnout will be critical in 2012 (duh, I know...).

Graph via Cesca

Matt Taibbi on the nucleus of the Tea Party

Brilliant. The whole thing is brilliant. There is no better commentator on the state of America than Taibbi. read the whole thing at Rolling Stone.

The dingbat revolution, it seems, is nigh.

"We're shaking up the good ol' boys," Palin chortles, to the best applause her aging crowd can muster. She then issues an oft-repeated warning (her speeches are usually a tired succession of half-coherent one-liners dumped on ravenous audiences like chum to sharks) to Republican insiders who underestimated the power of the Tea Party Death Star. "Buck up," she says, "or stay in the truck."

Stay in what truck? I wonder. What the hell does that even mean?

Scanning the thousands of hopped-up faces in the crowd, I am immediately struck by two things. One is that there isn't a single black person here. The other is the truly awesome quantity of medical hardware: Seemingly every third person in the place is sucking oxygen from a tank or propping their giant atrophied glutes on motorized wheelchair-scooters. As Palin launches into her Ronald Reagan impression — "Government's not the solution! Government's the problem!" — the person sitting next to me leans over and explains.

"The scooters are because of Medicare," he whispers helpfully. "They have these commercials down here: 'You won't even have to pay for your scooter! Medicare will pay!' Practically everyone in Kentucky has one."

A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can't imagine it.