Red Green Smoke wallpaper

Red Green Smoke wallpaper

Some linkage:

Unsettled Why Israel and liberal American Jews are drifting apart.

One recent study found that only 54 percent of Jews under 35 who aren’t Orthodox are “comfortable with the idea of a Jewish state” (as compared to more than 80 percent of those over 65). Among younger Jews, only 20 percent rated as “highly attached” to Israel in another poll. If you want examples of the shift in sentiment, read just about any Jewish columnist for a major newspaper. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times spent last week arguing that Biden under-reacted to Israel’s announcement about the new housing units in East Jerusalem, comparing Israel’s policies to drunken driving. Richard Cohen of the Washington Post is writing a book arguing that the founding of Israel was a well-intentioned mistake.

Like most arguments that emanate from the Right, the criticism of Israel equals antisemitism, is tiresome. It has become the standard knee jerk reaction anytime someone suggests that some new Israeli settlement is both legally wrong and counterproductive. The Right’s political correctness towards Israel is supposedly aimed at getting the support of American Jews, but it simply is not working.

Dylan Ratigan does not mention Mitch McConnell(R-KY) and John Boehner(R-OH) puppet master and lobbyist Frank Luntz by name, but clearly rips them and Judd Gregg(R-NH) and Ben Nelson(D-NE) a new one

Politicians like Judd Gregg and Ben Nelson are fighting to keep the crooked $600 trillion derivatives market unreformed. The dirty not-so-little secret about derivatives? In their current form, they are basically government insurance where the bailed-out mega-banks get to keep the premiums but the taxpayer pays the claims.

As Ratigan points out the secrecy and avoidance of open exchanges in regards derivatives is clearly unnecessary. When businesses hide transactions that they know are a house of cards capable of crippling the economy there is a reason. The same reason that Scooter Libby lied, to protect their interests and compromise those of everyone else.

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Conservatives have better values. We know this because they tell us all the time.

Conservatives have better values. We know this because they tell us all the time. It does not matter what they do to prove otherwise from sex scandals to crashing the economy to manipulating the nation into a quagmire in Iraq. One thread continues through every course of action, every debacle and every piece of failed policy – the Conservative mind has tremendous powers of denial. Do ‘Family Values’ Weaken Families? – If you want to find stable two-parent families, bypass Palin country and go to Pelosi territory.

But if you want to find two-parent families with stable marriages and coddled kids, your best bet is to bypass Sarah Palin country and go to Nancy Pelosi territory: the liberal, bicoastal, predominantly Democratic places that cultural conservatives love to hate.

The country’s lowest divorce rate belongs to none other than Massachusetts, the original home of same-sex marriage. Palinites might wish that Massachusetts’s enviable marital stability were an anomaly, but it is not.

[   ]…The result of this red quandary, Cahn and Carbone argue, is a self-defeating backlash. Moral traditionalism fails to prevent premarital sex and early childbirth. Births precipitate more early marriages and unwed parenthood. That, in turn, increases family breakdown while reducing education and earnings.

That cycle of self-defeating behavior goes a long way toward explaining why liberals have such a difficult time gaining traction with all their facts, charts and logical arguments. Middle and working class conservatives in the south – where I was raised and still live – feel that they tried to live up to all the traditional cultural prescriptions, but like Palin, they failed. They don’t see themselves as hypocrites because they got married and tried to get a steady job and yet they cannot seem to get ahead. Who is there to tell them whose fault it is that they are living pay check to pay check. Right-wing radio, TV and newspaper pundits who supply plenty of paper dragons. It’s not the economic policies of Conservatives who preached the virtue of unrestrained free trade and unregulated corporations. No it’s liberals. It’s the darn minimum wage. It’s safety  rules for mines and oil rigs. It’s birth certificates. It’s this parade of shiny objects to distract attention. Rather than use the power of the media – owned by oligopolistic corporations – to educate people about fair free trade. Or about the costs and benefits of regulation. BP is now spending $6 million dollars a day because they did not want to be saddled with a regulation that required them to buy a half million dollar valve. The Conservative elite – the right-wing noise machine from the Freedom Works to the The National Review says left to their own devices the business community will do what is in their best interests and that of the country. How many disasters and economic debacles do we have to have before it sinks in with working class red state conservatives that corporations have not and will not think about the interest of working class Americans. They think about quarterly profit statements – damn the consequences in the long-term. The tea nut phenomenon and current polls are indications working class conservatives are unlikely to see the light anytime soon. They are determined to ignore both the Bush and Reagan years.  The tea nuts themselves do not know what they stand for once one gets into detailed policy prescriptions. We seemed doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes over and over because the Right roots operate from a mentality that would rather blame the infamous ‘other’ and spread the gossip of the latest black helicopter myths than take responsibility for their failures. What are Conservatives plans for America’s future? Full speed in reverse back to the days of Bushnomics and the glory days of Reagan – the glory days that never existed.