Black and White Rain Drops Leaf wallpaper II, Why Aren’t We Hearing Demands for Sen. Richard Shelby’s (R-AL) Resignation

Black and White Rain Drops Leaf wallpaper II

Let’s imagine the following interview is taking place back in 2006 with a senior Democratic Senator,

Earlier this month, Sen. Democrat (D-AL) quietly and selfishly put a blanket hold on dozens and dozens of President Bush’s pending nominees in order to secure pork for his state. Some of the nominees who were caught in Democrat’s hold included the candidates for “the top Intelligence officers at the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security as well as the number three civilian at the Pentagon.”

In a new interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Democrat is unapologetic about placing the holds, saying that he wanted to get the “attention” of the administration and was, ironically, concerned about the “lack of transparency and openness and fairness” in the tanker contract affecting Alabama. “I don’t think I abused the rules,” said Democrat defiantly.

Democrat has released most of the holds, but they remain in effect on three Air Force positions. Democrat dismissed the Pentagon’s statement that these holds are inhibiting the agency’s work, and admitted that he has no idea whether they are qualified:

BASH: I spoke with Geoff Morrell over at the Pentagon and just asked him what the impact is of not having these three people in place — one of whom, as you know, is the number two at the Air Force. He said, “Without these people, we’re not firing on all cylinders.” And he also said, “It does adversely affect the organization.”

Are you worried about that? This is a time of war –

DEMOCRAT: The Pentagon is a big place. I don’t think one or two will affect anything except on the margins.

BASH: Do you think that the nominees you have holds on are qualified?

DEMOCRAT: Oh, I don’t have any idea. I looked at them closely and we’ll see. Sometimes that’s not the issue.

The reality is that every place it says Democrat replace with Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL). Shelby is bragging that he does not know or care about these command positions at the Pentagon as we still have troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. It happens that in 2006, as the previous five years, pompous hypocrites like Shelby were constantly using using any petty excuse to accuse Democrats of being less than patriotic in their support of the infamous “war on terror”. Bush said in one speech “There’s a group in the opposition party who are willing to retreat before the mission is done,” he said. “They’re willing to wave the white flag of surrender. And if they succeed, the United States will be worse off, and the world will be worse off.” And recently Republican bedwetters were so afraid of terrorists that they were diving under their beds at the idea of trying terrorists in courts – you know just like Bush did. So what does that make Shelby for placing holds on national security related positions for no other reason than petty spite. A friend to terrorists that is ready to rise the flag of surrender. Maybe its time for the Republican fake patriot from Alabama to turn in his resignation.

Multi-millionaire drug addict draft dodger Rush Limbaugh and multi-millionaire loon Glenn Beck who used to make fun of people’s miscarriages think its fun to make fun of people struggling to survive. Let Them Eat Applesauce: Right-Wing Media Mock The Uninsured

If Glenn Beck’s hateful incendiary rhetoric sounds familiar, that is because it is, It Is Happening Here

In a melting-pot nation of slave descendants and immigrant refugees haunted by ancestral memories of despotic violence, Beck is deliberately employing coded and menacing language, warning his opponents not to believe Sinclair Lewis’ refrain that such horror “can’t happen here.” Beck wants adversaries to know that it can and it will — to them, and at his movement’s hands.

Really, the threat isn’t even veiled. To understand it, just ponder comparisons. For instance, ask yourself: What is the difference between Beck’s decree and that of Rwanda’s genocidal leaders in the 1990s? The former broadcasted a call to “eradicate” the “cancer”-like progressives; the latter a call to “exterminate the cockroaches.” Likewise, what separates Beck’s screed from a bin Laden fatwa? They may employ different ideologies and languages, but both endorse the wholesale elimination of large groups of Americans.

Some if not most days conservationism seems not so much a political ideology as a cult.

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Curved Blue Skyline wallpaper, Right-wing Media Sing Chorus of Lies About Budget Reconciliation

Curved Blue Skyline wallpaper

The culture of corrupt conservative media – Fox, Drudge, Townhall.com, Michelle Malkin, The drug addict draft dodger Limbaugh, Andrew The pathological liar Andrew Breitbart  and the voice of conservative inanity Glenn Beck have all covered the “nuclear option” and using reconciliation to pass health-care reform. Not one of the kool-kids of konservatism has gotten the story straight. Conservatives whine about a lot of things, but two items always make their top ten list of complaints – liberals portray conservatives as dumb and the conservative corporate media is the only media that can distinguish fact from fiction. All of these pundits combined are not dumb enough to get the health-care/reconciliation story wrong so utterly. That leaves their personal and professional ethics in question. OK, not in question, the facts are available and they have all been caught in yet another chorus of lies. Confused By ‘Nuclear Option’ Spin, Right-Wingers Claim Obama And Biden Called Reconciliation A ‘Power Grab’ and here – Conservative media revive “nuclear option” falsehood to accuse Democrats of reconciliation hypocrisy

Reconciliation process is part of congressional budget process. The budget reconciliation process is defined by the U.S. House Committee on Rules as “part of the congressional budget process … utilized when Congress issues directives to legislate policy changes in mandatory spending (entitlements) or revenue programs (tax laws) to achieve the goals in spending and revenue contemplated by the budget resolution.”

Republicans repeatedly used reconciliation to pass former President Bush’s agenda. Republicans used the budget reconciliation process to pass Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts as well as the 2005 “Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act.” The Senate also used the procedure to pass a bill containing a provision that would permit oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (The final version of that bill signed by Bush did not contain the provision on drilling.)
Reconciliation has been used to pass major changes to health care laws

Reconciliation has repeatedly been used to reform health care. On February 24, NPR noted that many “major changes to health care laws” have passed via reconciliation. These measures include COBRA, which allows laid-off workers to keep their insurance coverage, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program

NPR has some more detail,

A History Of Reconciliation

For 30 years, major changes to health care laws have passed via the budget reconciliation process. Here are a few examples:

1982 — TEFRA: The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act first opened Medicare to HMOs

1986 — COBRA: The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act allowed people who were laid off to keep their health coverage, and stopped hospitals from dumping ER patients unable to pay for their care

1987 — OBRA ’87: Added nursing home protection rules to Medicare and Medicaid, created no-fault vaccine injury compensation program

1989 — OBRA ’89: Overhauled doctor payment system for Medicare, created new federal agency on research and quality of care

1990 — OBRA ’90: Added cancer screenings to Medicare, required providers to notify patients about advance directives and living wills, expanded Medicaid to all kids living below poverty level, required drug companies to provide discounts to Medicaid

1993 — OBRA ’93: created federal vaccine funding for all children

1996 — Welfare Reform: Separated Medicaid from welfare

1997 — BBA: The Balanced Budget Act created the state-federal childrens’ health program called CHIP

2005 — DRA: The Deficit Reduction Act reduced Medicaid spending, allowed parents of disabled children to buy into Medicaid

McCain: Obama Suspended His Campaign Too! – Maybe its just something about campaigning that makes Maverick McCain act like someone just poked him with a cattlle prod then held him down and jacked him up with an extra dose of crazy.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), under fire in a GOP primary for his support for the bailout, is now claiming, inaccurately, that Barack Obama joined him in suspending his presidential campaign to address the 2008 financial crisis.

McCain lied about his actions back in 2008 and he is lying now. McCain did support and vote for the original TARP and managed to run around looking like a lost dog at a bus station – documented here. In his current race against tea bagger loon J.D. Hayworth, McCain will probably pull out one last Senate term, but it will not be because McCain has a great record, is steady in a crisis or is capable of having great public policy insights. His victory will be because enough voters believe in the fairy tale version of McCain that he and the media have created to carry him over the threshold.

Fox News Suggests Missile Defense Agency Logo Combined Obama Logo With Symbol Of Islam. MDA is also building lasers that can zap people through their TV sets and turn them into liberals.

One last glimpse of crazy for today. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush dissing Sarah Palin. Jeb making fun of anyone’s intelligence is like the Three Stooges making fun of Yogi Bear. No one really cares except the members of the cults of personality that surrounds Jeb and Sarah. Makes for good reality TV, but no rational person would lend either of them the keys to their car.

Spring Creek wallpaper, The Conservative Noise Machine is Still Sleazy

Spring Creek wallpaper

Giles Admits O’Keefe, Breitbart ACORN ‘Pimp’ Story was a Lie: ‘That Was B-Roll, Purely B-Roll’. Andrew Breitbart continues to defend a bogus story and a fellow kool-aid drinker, who would have thought.

Right wing runs wild with Fox News and CBN reports on dubious Fort Jackson “terror” plot

Right-wing media seized on Fox News and Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) reports and claimed that in December “five Muslim soldiers” were “arrested for trying to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson,” often while fearmongering about a “jihadist” plot against the base or speculating that the delay in reporting on the allegations was due to a “Fort Jackson cover-up.” The right wing has made these claims despite the fact that military officials have said “there is currently no credible evidence to substantiate the allegations.”

Fort Jackson officials said, “[T]here is currently no credible evidence to substantiate the allegations“

Breitbart and Fox seem to share the same dedication to shoddy journalism.

At CPAC Glenn Beck and crowd embarrass their high school history teachers, bark like dogs and then both cheer and boo George W. Bush. As usual Glen has it backwards, its conservatism or right-wing fanaticism that is the cancer eating away at the United States and its ideals. More here, Beck brings the Crazy.

The far Right National Review and Commentary have been pedaling their tricycles so fast trumpeting the DOJ report about war criminals John Yoo and Jay Bybee they left out a few highly pertinent facts. Kind of par for the course for rabid right-wing journalism, The flailing falsehoods of America’s war criminals

Just think about that for a minute.  Margolis said that whether Yoo “intentionally or recklessly provided misleading advice to his client” when authorizing torture — about the most serious accusation one can make against a lawyer, as it means he deliberately made false statements about the law — “is a close question.”  That’s the precise opposite of what Burck and Perino told National Review readers about Margolis’ conclusion (“This shouldn’t have been close — and it wasn’t, on the merits”).

Moreover, Margolis repeatedly adopted the OPR’s findings that the Yoo/Bybee torture memos — on which the entire American torture regime was constructed and which media elites now embrace in order to argue against prosecutions — were wrong, “extreme,” misguided, and the by-product of “poor judgment.”  As Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin so clearly explained, the only thing that saved Yoo in Margolis’ eyes was that attorney ethical rules have been written by lawyers to protect themselves, and the bar is therefore so low that it basically includes only “sociopaths and people driven to theft and egregious incompetence by serious drug and alcohol abuse problems.” As a result, Margolis could not ultimately conclude that Yoo — as shoddy and misleading as his torture authorizations were — purposely lied because Yoo “was an ideologue who entered government service with a warped vision of the world in which he sincerely believed.”  Does that remotely sound like exoneration?

The Sheer Brilliance of the ‘Mount Vernon Statement’

Conservatives Unveil ‘Mount Vernon Statement’ — Declare That America’s ‘Founding Ideas’ Are ‘Under Sustained Attack’

Some excerpts from the Mount Vernon Statement versus the reality of conservatism.

We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding. Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law.

Waxman Probes Iraq Contracting, Missing $12 Billion

Representative Henry Waxman, kicking off hearings on government contracting, questioned former Ambassador L. Paul Bremer today on what happened to as much as $12 billion in unaccounted-for cash spent when he was in charge of rebuilding Iraq.

The Founders believed in no bid contracts to multi-national corporate interests whose former President was Dick Cheney? Halliburton’s no-bid contracts for work in Iraq get FBI scrutiny

CREW Calls for Investigation of Bush administration’s Attorney General John Ashcroft and Possible Campaign Finance Violations

Republican staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee were investigated for stealing thousands of confidential memos from Dem computers

Treasongate – Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Scotter Libby betray identity of CIA NOC agent. In response conservatives rise money for Libby defense and lie about Rove and Libby’s involvement.

President George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condelezza Rice lie, exaggerate, and distort intelligence they used to drum up support for invading Iraq. Maybe “Mount Vernon” is conservative code for they hope the American public has a very short memory about all that “rule of law” stuff.

Bush administration successor to Ashcroft at the Department of Justice, the far Right Alberto Gonzales brought us the U.S. attorney scandal. Concurrently with the Republican vote caging scandal – the scandal where they tried to stop Americans from exercising their right to vote.

The conservatism of the Constitution limits government’s powers but ensures that government performs its proper job effectively. It refines popular will through the filter of representation. It provides checks and balances through the several branches of government and a federal republic.(‘Mount Vernon Statement’)

Education Dept. paid commentator to promote law

Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.

ENRON’S COLLAPSE: THE STRATEGIST; Associates of Bush Aide Say He Helped Strategist Win an Enron Contract

Karl Rove, President Bush’s top political adviser, recommended the Republican strategist Ralph Reed to the Enron Corporation for a lucrative consulting contract as Mr. Bush was weighing whether to run for president, close associates of Mr. Rove say.

World Bank Chief Paul Wolfowitz Resigns – Iraq War ‘Architect’ Leaves Bank Amid Controversy Over Girlfriend’s Raise. Paul was at a bank and there were checks and balances of a sort.

Ex-Aide To Bush Found Guilty – Safavian Lied in Abramoff Scandal

A federal jury found former White House aide David H. Safavian guilty yesterday of lying and obstructing justice, making him the highest-ranking government official to be convicted in the spreading scandal involving disgraced former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Some more “checks and balances” – House Panel Grills GSA Chief on Republican Briefing

Another federal agency, and another appointee of President Bush’s, is stuck in the klieg lights of ethics allegations. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform asked Wednesday why Lurita Doan, administrator of the General Services Administration, allowed a White House aide to brief her managers on the Republican Party’s prospects for 2008.

Doan calls herself an “unabashed entrepreneur.” She has also raised $200,000 for the Republican Party. GSA is the government’s landlord and office supplier.

In her testimony, Doan preferred to emphasize her entrepreneurial efforts. But Democrats were interested in other things: a contract that she tried to award to an old friend; negotiations with Sun Microsystems, in which she became involved; and, more especially, the briefing. In January, Scott Jennings — the top aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove — talked to GSA political appointees about the 2006 election results and the Republican goals for 2008.

Another snip from the “Mount Vernon” statement,

It encourages free enterprise, the individual entrepreneur, and economic reforms grounded in market solutions.

A new IRS report on the richest 400 taxpayers shows their income rose an average of $81 million — in a single year

So most of those middle-class Americans who flock to the tea party demonstrations were big losers during the Bush era. So who were the winners? According to David Cay Johnston, America’s premier tax journalist, newly released IRS data shows that the country’s very wealthiest citizens — the top 400 — marked enormous income gains while paying less and less in taxes. For purposes of comparison, Johnston notes that the bottom 90 percent of Americans saw their incomes rise by only 13 percent in 2009 dollars, compared with a 399 percent increase for the top 400.

In a single year, between 2006 and 2007, the income of those top 400 taxpayers rose by 31 percent — from an average of $263.3 million to an average of $344.8 million per year. Meanwhile, Johnston writes, “Their effective income tax rate fell to 16.62 percent, down more than half a percentage point from 17.17 percent in 2006, the new data show. That rate is lower than the typical effective income tax rate paid by Americans with incomes in the low six figures, which is what each taxpayer in the top group earned in the first three hours of 2007.” He also notes that the IRS data probably understates the income of the top 400, because of deferral rules enjoyed by hedge fund managers (at least three of whom earned $3 billion or more in 2007).

Yet it cannot be said enough – who do the tea baggers blame – not the wealthy corporations that posess powers disproportionately to their numbers and contrary to the Founders ideals of government for and by the people, but the poor and liberals – who are at the bottom of the ladder in terms of wielding power.

More MV,

It supports America’s national interest in advancing freedom and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that end.

Bush floated the costs of  not just Iraq and Afghanistan, but much of the U.S. economy on communist China’s credit plan. Some of those merely suspected of having terrorist association were renedered by the Bush administration to authoritarian regimes such as Syria. Conservatives that were and still are in economic bed with some of the world’s worse despots “oppose” tyranny. That part is either a sick joke or worse, these tea baggers are so delusional they actually believe it. The Abu Ghraib scandal was conservative’s gift to the terrorists recruiters.

More MV,

* It informs conservatism’s firm defense of family, neighborhood, community, and faith.

If we are to succeed in the critical political and policy battles ahead, we must be certain of our purpose.

Family? The Republican party has had so many sex scandals involving prostitution, children and rape they’ve turned the word into a kind of warning – hear a conservative start talking family values and its time to run, not walk to safety. Republicans have well established record of looking out for the average American’s economic interests? – Economists say black Americans suffer more during recession, Census: Income Gap Widens with Bush Recession

The recession has hit middle-income and poor families hardest, widening the economic gap between the richest and poorest Americans as rippling job layoffs ravaged household budgets.

Newly released census figures show the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans – those making more than $138,000 each year – earned 11.4 times the roughly $12,000 made by those living near or below the poverty line in 2008. That ratio was an increase from 11.2 in 2007 and the previous high of 11.22 in 2003.

Bush- Cheney and the neocons were not the sudden reversal of established conservative “values” they were a continuation of Republican values and public policy such as those under Ronlad Reagan who has 138 members of his administration charged with federal crimes. To Reagan;s credit he saw that his slash and burn approach to federal spending and revenue(voodoo economics) was heading the economy toward disaster so he did raise more revenue, i.e. taxes – What the new literature on the Gipper won’t tell you

In the 90s conservatives had a Mount Vernon statement, only it was Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America. That was filled with simlar hot air and a foundation of corruption and crony captialism, A Scandal for our Time: Republicans ruled; ergo, Enron – and –  Newt’s New Con

The trend is obvious enough. From Reagan to Bush 41 to Newt to Bush-Cheney to the tea baggers, conservatives keep reinventing themselves. They sell the public on their new improved image, which always turns out to be an even worse iteration of the last reinvention.

Glen Canyon Utah wallpaper, Leading Republican Pundit Disappointed at Capture of Terrorist

Glen Canyon Utah wallpaper

TOP TALIBAN MILITARY COMMANDER CAPTURED…. Even the most rabid Republican partisans should find it difficult to disparage a success story of this magnitude.

The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by American officials as the most significant Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s founder and a close associate of Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mullah Baradar has been in Pakistani custody for several days, with American and Pakistani intelligence officials both taking part in interrogations, according to the officials.

That isn’t partisan chest-thumping; it’s just reality. Baradar’s capture comes just two weeks after U.S. forces took out Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban and extremist with close ties to al Qaeda. In August, Baitullah Mehsud was killed. In September, U.S. forces took out Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, the ringleader of a Qaeda cell in Kenya and one of the most wanted Islamic militants in Africa.

And Republican whining notwithstanding, these successes have come without torture, with civilian trials on U.S. soil for suspected terrorists, and while attempting to close the detention facility at Gitmo.

Steve apparently doesn’t read much of Michelle Malkin’s intellectually sleazy and corrupt doggeral. As one reads this it’s not difficult to imagine she sprayed some rabid right-wing spittle all over her keyboard. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar: Captured – By Michelle Malkin  •  February 16, 2010 07:48 AM

Two quick questions:

What would Eric Holder say?

And if capturing this jihadi in a violent raid is worth trumpeting and celebrating, why doesn’t the Obama administration free the Navy SEALS who are accused of far less in their battle against terrorism in Iraq?

Wait, one more question. Check this out:

The New York Times learned of the operation on Thursday, but delayed reporting it at the request of White House officials, who contended that making it public would end a hugely successful intelligence-gathering effort. The officials said that the group’s leaders had been unaware of Mullah Baradar’s capture and that if it became public they might cover their tracks and become more careful about communicating with each other.

The Times is publishing the news now because White House officials acknowledged that the capture of Mullah Baradar was becoming widely known in the region.

Fancy that. The terror-tipping NYT blabbermouths who repeatedly undermined national security during the Bush years by disclosing sensitive/classified information about many key counterrorism programs are now sensitive to ongoing counterterrorism operations. The paper that went to court to force the government to release classied information about jihadis and has shown reckless disregard for the consequences of disclosure is now delaying reports at the request of White House officials.

Not wow this is great that a terrorist scum bag was captured – a lynch pin of terrorist operations in Afghanistan – that will have far ranging consequences for the future of radicalism in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, but the pouty “What would Eric Holder say?”, clearly Malkin is disappointed with the victory. And when in yet another morally vacant snit always take time to put up some factless demagoguery about the NYT. The NYT disclosures she is referring – she offers no proof what so ever the NYT endangered our national security – is the disclosure of two illegal activities perpetrated by the Bush administration – the torture and murder of detainees and the NSA spy program that treated every America as a terror suspect. The later one assumes, the dream come true of the Founding fathers when they wrote the 4th Amendment and in clear violation of FISA. The revelation of the spying program evidently did not do much harm as President Obama continues the same policy and per the original story, we’re still capturing, much to Malkin’s consternation, terrorists. Malkin, never one to be bothered with being fair and accurate, as befits her professional lack of ethics, fails to mention that the NYT was one of the media cheerleaders that helped sell the American public on shocking and awing Iraq. Malkin is a example of the kind of blind morally corrupt world view that defines rightwing “journalism” which never lets subtlety, detail, context and the facts get in the way of catapulting the twisted partisan propaganda.

There is a global warming hoax/conspiracy. It just happens to be coming from Conservatives, IPCC errors: facts and spin. I’m tempted to say its ironic that the same people who sold America that pack of deranged  lies about Iraq are largely the same people claiming global warming is a hoax; but it is not ironic, it simply typical.

Good riddance to Evan Bayh, who set out to be every Republican’s favorite Democrat — and mostly succeeded. My one complaint about Bayh leaving is why isn’t he taking Ben Nelson(D-Nebraska) with him.

Single Water Drop wallpaper, Marvel and the Tea Baggers

Single Water Drop wallpaper

Marvel backs down to Tea Party activists over Captain America comic depicting a right-wing protest

In Captain America issue 602, the patriotic hero is investigating a right-wing anti-government militia group called “the Watchdogs.” Hoping to infiltrate the group, Captain America and his African-American sidekick, The Falcon, observe an all-white anti-tax protest from a rooftop. The Falcon tells Captain America, “I don’t exactly see a black man from Harlem fitting in with a bunch of angry white folks.” Captain America explains “that his plan entails sending The Falcon in among the group posing as an IRS agent under the thinking that a black government official will most certainly spark their anger.” The signs the protesters are carrying are “almost identical to those seen today in Tea Party rallies”

Marvel apologized, but I’m not sure why. Their impression of the tea party is one the tea baggers themselves created. There are various portions of racism, eliminationism, xenophobia mixed with a tremendous ignorance of how our government works. Its generous to say they are like kids having a temper tantrum. They do not care that democratically held election have consequences – they should still be in charge anyway. Its is a little overly simplistic to say the tea bagger Right is anti-government. They are very much pro Big Right-wing Government. The tea baggers are not all ten year olds, they are chronologically speaking, adults. They were largely silent for the decade that proto-tea baggers such as George, Dick and Newt ran and enlarged the federal government’s size and power.

After all, the reason the winger crowd can’t find a way to be coherently angry right now is because this country has no healthy avenues for genuine populist outrage. It never has. The setup always goes the other way: when the excesses of business interests and their political proteges in Washington leave the regular guy broke and screwed, the response is always for the lower and middle classes to split down the middle and find reasons to get pissed off not at their greedy bosses but at each other. That’s why even people like [Glenn] Beck’s audience, who I’d wager are mostly lower-income people, can’t imagine themselves protesting against the Wall Street barons who in actuality are the ones who fucked them over. . . .

Actual rich people can’t ever be the target. It’s a classic peasant mentality: going into fits of groveling and bowing whenever the master’s carriage rides by, then fuming against the Turks in Crimea or the Jews in the Pale or whoever after spending fifteen hard hours in the fields. You know you’re a peasant when you worship the very people who are right now, this minute, conning you and taking your shit. Whatever the master does, you’re on board.

That about says it. The tea partiers might mention AIG bonuses or be right about being screwed over, but who are they angry at. African-Americans, Latinos, low waged working class ( the poor), Muslims, women, gays. None of those people as a group are responsible for the mess the country is in. Many of us on the liberal spectrum wanted President Obama to seize the large financial institutions – like Saint Ronnie did the S&Ls – and break then up into smaller banks and holding companies. Yet Obama simply rebuilt the structural framework that will/is doing well and will continue to reap windfall profits while riding the backs of the average American’s labor. Most of America does not know what tea baggers stand for because the movement is so contradictory and eliminationsit; the tea baggers themselves have made it impossible to be perceived as truly populists – they exclude most of the population from joining via the eliminationist hate mongering and they continue to jump when their corporate masters say jump.

Marvel image

Tea Party rally sign

Some more signage from the tea baggers here. Marvel could have chosen a much more compelling and honest sign to portray the tea baggers.

Black and Blue Rain Drops wallpaper, Republicans Believe Their Own Bull

Black and Blue Rain Drops wallpaper

It’s genuinely difficult to find anything positive to say about the modern soft fascism movement conservative movement, but there is one thing they should be given credit for. They can spin like a top in a hurricane, House GOP document: We won showdown with President Obama

House Republicans won their televised debate with President Barack Obama last month, according to a GOP document distributed to lawmakers on Thursday.

The document, obtained by The Hill, notes that Obama’s job approval ratings have dipped since the Jan. 29 meeting while Republican numbers have soared.

Obama traveled to Baltimore to attend the House Republican retreat and engaged in testy exchanges with several members. Many political observers said Obama came away victorious.

The Hill notes Republicans, and Democrats for that matter, are using popularity polls to prove their point. Those weekly pools that show a point or two shift back and forth and frankly do mean have any substantive value since they rely so much on perceptions rather than real metrics. Judging the Baltimore Republican retreat solely on the facts discussed between Cons and President Obama. The president won. The American people also won. They saw some real give and take democracy in action, in addition to seeing Republicans act like irresponsible airheads. Fact-checking Obama and Republicans at GOP retreat.

• Rep. Jeb Hensarling did some extreme cherry-picking to suggest that deficits have ballooned under Obama. But using the Hensarling technique, you could also say they were bigger under President George W. Bush. Hensarling earns a False.

• Rep. Tom Price complained that Obama and his aides have repeatedly said that Republicans “have no ideas and no solutions” on health care. We rated that True.

• Obama again cited numbers to complain that he inherited a budget mess when he took office. We rated that Mostly True.

• Another point Obama and the House Republicans sparred over was health care reform. Republicans told Obama they did have positive solutions to improve the health care system, but their efforts were ignored. Obama replied that he is always willing to look at Republican ideas, but those ideas have to be realistic and effective.

“There’s got to be a mechanism in these plans that I can go to an independent health care expert and say, ‘Is this something that will actually work or is it boilerplate?'” Obama said. “It can’t just be political assertions that aren’t substantiated when it comes to the actual details of policy, because otherwise we’re going to be selling the American people a bill of goods.”

Actually President Obama shot himself in the foot with the spending numbers he cited. He said we have had to spend a trillion dollars to rescue the economy, but actually that figure is below $800 billion. I know when we get into numbers that large $200 billion may not seem like a lot, but rounding off to the next trillion is a goofy political misstep.

President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) delivered on their threats and it worked, SENATE GOP BACKS DOWN AFTER RECESS APPOINTMENT THREAT

Mike Allen reported that the president “won” the showdown with Senate Republicans, and last night’s breakthrough was the result of a “tense exchange” between Obama and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Apparently, the president explained that he could no longer tolerate the “unprecedented” holds. When McConnell said Dems did the same thing to Bush that Republicans are doing now, “Obama disagreed, saying that when Bush made his first recess appointments, a handful of nominees had been waiting for more than a month. Obama had more than 60 waiting.”

Some of the Democratic blogs like Steve’s have some comments about President Obama not going far enough and there is some legitimate debate to be had since there are still dozens of appointees not available to perform the essential day-to-day running of the government – it’s like running a big company without enough accountants or marketing experts – the government limps along without them. Just a few examples of the appointments Republicans were holding up – Robert A. Petzel, of Minnesota, to be under-secretary for health of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Caryn Wagner to be Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security and Richard S. Hartunian, of New York, to be United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York.

As outrageous as these holds were and continue to be, consider Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky). We have all come to expect the strange fact-less assertions and conspiratorial ass whistles from right-wing bloggers and pundits such as Limbaugh and Beck, but here we have the Senate’s Republican leader in a face-off with the President of the United States, citing and believing the same bogus garbage about appointees and holds during the Bush administration spread by rabid rightie loons. That’s Conservative leadership. An empty suit utterly oblivious to recent history and the actions of his own party. Sometimes I wonder if the far Right believes its own bull. Thanks to Mitch McConnell we have the answer.

Jet Airliner Sunset wallpaper, Republicans to Meet Their Waterloo

Jet Airliner Sunset wallpaper

In pass past week we’ve all probably read a few blog posts and pundit columns from the Democratic perspective that if only President Obama would bring his governing savvy up to the level of his campaign expertise. Its an interesting meme and one the White House should consider, but they may have already caught on. First, according to some analysis, that should have been self evident, by Nate Silver, President Obama enjoys quite a bit of public support on the issues ( and its mostly liberals versus liberal in regards to a poor showing in the health care debate). The public does give Obama credit for his sometimes exasperating attempts at bipartisanship. Republicans do remain struggling to regain public trust. Many may not think President Obama is doing enough to create jobs or keep people from losing their homes, but the fact is the public has those problems primarily because of conservative economic polices that put the interests of Wall Street ahead of Main Street. We can debate all day about whether Democrats are doing enough to correct the situation, but Republicans dug the hole. Its a testament to the screwball mindset of conservatives that they seem to have taken to National Review- Glenn Beck style attacks on Obama, i.e. he is too liberal. Let’s remember that it was Republicans back in the 80s that caused the savings and loans crisis and it was Reagan that seized those institutions. All Obama has done it try and rebuild the house of anything goes deregulated financial institutions Republicans built. So if conservatives truly believe Obama is the second coming of Mao, that indicates Republicans have moved further toward the soft fascism that has been their fetish for fifty years. What have Republicans learned from the last eight years in particular? That they did not curtail more freedoms, make government even more a surveillance state that panders to their bed wetting fears and working class Americans should learn their place in the plantation style wage slave economy of Republican dreams. First up on the policy agenda for Republicans in their great push back to regain power in 2010 is to turn over Social Security to companies like bank of America, AIG, and Goldman-Sachs – see Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). Kit and Marsha were part of the car wreck and wants all the Americans that have been thrown through the windshield to cut up their safety belts and throw them away. When it comes to conservatism getting older does not mean getting wiser it means polishing your jack boots to give the United States of America another swift kick of social darwinism. That recent forum with Republicans seems to have been a learning moment for Obama. He is not dealing with principled opposition, but empty suits with ideas from the days of the Robber Barons and Mussolini’s trains. They easily knocked off their game when confronted with actual facts. The health care summit might be what one Republican called health care, a Waterloo, but it will be conservatives laying in the trenches battered and bloodied. The president has the biggest soap box and hollow bumper sticker slogans that go over so well at the tea smoker conventions will not cut it as America looks for actual answers. Considering the history of Obama’s constant reaching out to Republicans and having an administration with Republicans appointees, its clear that Obama’s goals for bipartisanship are for real. But its also going to be the fine art of political jujitsu. As the presidents listens and the Republicans try out their national debut as the remade conservative tea baggers that had nothing to do with tanking the economy and spending a trillion plus dollars to invade and rebuild Iraq, Obama gets to slice and dice. Limbaugh says its all a trap. No, its what happens when Republicans have to stand up and be made accountable for their lame warmed over policy proposals. Its that moment on the witness stand when the perpetrators are shown to to liars and unhinged political ideologues. When the American people, the jury, gets to see the breakdown of that hollow loathsome rat tailed thing called conservatism laid bare.

Some indications that liberals may not be getting their dream president, but an Obama 2.0 – Recess Appointments: Obama Prepares to Implement “Yes We Can!” and Obama Won’t Drop Potential Use Of Reconciliation On Health Care.

update: The health care summit has not happened yet and Republican leadership is already doing their weasel act, Boehner: How Dare Obama Televise The Health Care Debate After I Demanded He Televise The Health Care Debate! (VIDEO)

After slamming the Obama administration for “secret deliberations” and going back on his campaign promise to televise the health care debate, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) criticized the President yesterday for televising the bipartisan health care summit on Feb. 25, asking “is this a political event or is this going to be a real conversation?”

Boehner had been a rather vocal supporter of C-SPAN’s request to televise the earlier negotiations, writing to the network in January that “House Republicans strongly endorse your proposal and stand ready to work with you to make it a reality.”

Well now, it seems, the idea of televising the health care summit has Boehner a bit squeamish.

Tranquil Blue Lake wallpaper, The Grand Old Boring Tea Bagger Awakening

Tranquil Blue Lake wallpaper

As The World Turns or the continuing saga of treading lightly in the Bizarro World of Republican Political Correctness. Palin uses her child as a political prop, yet again. Says that White House Chief of Staff  Rahm Emmauel should resign forthwith for using the word retard and then says yea that includes you too Limbaugh. Oops, Palin forgets that Jabba the Hutt Limbaugh is not to be criticized, so walks back the including Limbaugh. Republicans now have the permission of Mrs. Palin to call anyone they chose retard, but any Democrat that uses the r-word should turn into a pillar of salt. To be fair – all, some, none or half of what M’s Palin says could be her own thoughts or they could be the thoughts of her husband who was at least half the governor of Alaska before she resigned.

During the 2 1/2 years that his wife, Sarah, was governor of Alaska and then a vice presidential candidate, Todd Palin inserted himself into a host of state decisions, including judicial nominations and gas pipeline bids, according to e-mails released Friday.

Before Sarah Palin resigned her office in July, the “First Dude,” as Todd Palin became known, weighed in on appointments to state boards, labor disputes and the use of government aircraft, according to the documents, which were obtained by MSNBC.com under Alaska’s public records law.

MSNBC are the ones that filed the request for the e-mail records,

* The governor coached her staff on how to disguise the $3,252.35 cost of electrical work at the mansion to hook up her new tanning bed.
* Palin and her staff stewed over the refusal of the state Public Safety Department to provide a plane so their children could fly to Todd’s family’s home in Dillingham; after all, they were going to attend a bill signing, so the travel requests could be justified. Sarah Palin called the decision “outrageous,” and an aide said it provides “a great excuse to privatize” the governor’s jet service.
* The manager of the Palins’ travel schedule searched for a public event to use as justification (“I just need one”) to charge the state for an airplane flight for Palin’s daughter, Willow, who had already made the trip but missed the event given as its justification.

Some of this news about Todd Palin and his “First Dude” status is not new. Mike Madden had a first rate report on Todd’s unusual degree of influence back in 2008, Sarah Palin’s powerful “First Dude”. It is reasonable to ask if Todd wants to play politics why doesn’t he run for office rather then governing through his wife. Sarah has somewhat plausible deniability since she never registered with – though she did attend an event with Todd, but Todd did belong to an Alaskan political party that advocated secession. That might go over great with the tea bagger crowd, but there are still a few relatively moderate Republicans left that are not thrilled about the idea of voting for a secessionist. And elections still being won by relatively small margins, Todd would lose most independents. Together those moderate Republicans and independents make the difference between winning a primary or election.

According to Sarah’s Rule we cannot call Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds the r-word. We could say his candle wick seems to be missing, he’s a few bricks short of a full load, the lights are on, but his brain is in cold storage or he’s a half wit missing the other half or he is proof that conservatives can still navigate the river of denial and delusions, Glenn Reynolds: Nashville Shows Tea Party Is America’s Third Great Awakening

I attended this past weekend’s National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Tennessee, and I came away feeling that I had seen something important.  The Tea Party movement is part of something bigger:  America’s Third Great Awakening.

No doubt there are some average Joes and Janes that participate and believe in whatever it is the tea baggers believe in. Though it is an amazing coincidence this “Great Awakening” also parrots the talking points of some very wealthy and powerful right-wing lobbyists, corporations and power players. The Immaculate Convention

And to be sure, the ersatz revolution wasn’t just televised by the organs of the Republican Party, but funded by their donors as well. As ThinkProgress documented here, here, here and here, Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks and other of the usual suspects among Republican moneymen showered cash and organizational expertise on the Tea Baggers.

The tea baggers movement will be joined by the new American Action Network. Which is yet another  nutroots campaign to save supposedly save America by the same grand old grumps and schemers of the conservative movement Robert K. Steel, Kenneth Langone, lobbyist and John McCain alum Ed Gillespie and convicted felon Fred Malek. Glenn also writes from the inner sanctum of his delusions, “It’s America’s politicians and parties.  They’ve grown corrupt, venal, and out-of-touch with the values, and the people, that they’re supposed to represent.  So the people, once again, are reasserting themselves.” For those that have not received their right-wing secret decoder ring, what Glenn means is the tea baggers and the same old rabid rightwingers plan to further erode the middle class, make sure science is buried in an avalanche of ignorance, that the white male power structure remains intact, that we have a permanent under class of Americans to clean their houses and let Wall St run Social Security. And of course expect them to throw in a heavy dose of of good old fashioned racism and xenophobia.  More here, Palin and the tea-party “movement”: nothing new