Golden Gate Bridge at Night wallpaper

Golden Gate Bridge at Night wallpaper

Right-wing media shamefully try to pin Discovery Channel bomber’s actions on Gore

Lee promoted living “WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children” and “programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility.” In his manifesto against the Discovery Channel, Lee wrote that “[f]ocus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution.” (emphasis in original) Lee demanded that the Discovery Channel promote this goal by creating “programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility.”

Gore promoted “stabilizing” the human population through literacy, access to contraception, and reducing infant mortality. In Gore’s book Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit, he advocated stabilizing the populations of Third World countries to guarantee access to resources. Gore recommended achieving this goal through literacy and education, access to contraception, and reducing the infant mortality rate:

A more careful analysis suggests that rising per capita income is also associated with several of the basic causes of demographic transition. High literacy rates and education levels are important, especially for women; once they are empowered intellectually and socially, they make decisions about the number of children they wish to have. Low infant mortality rates give parents a high level of confidence that even with a small family, some of their children will grow to maturity, carry the family name and genes (and in the belief of some societies, the spirits of ancestors), and provide physical security for their parents when they are old. Nearly ubiquitous access to a variety of affordable birth control techniques gives parents the power to choose when and whether to have children. [Page 311; italics in original]

Lee criticized An Inconvenient Truth for not providing “real solutions.” In a post on his MySpace page, which has since been taken down, Lee reportedly wrote that Gore’s book “was very enlightening” but “he didn’t offer any real solutions”:

Think Progress also noted James Jay Lee’s extremist anti-immigration views. Views not typical of  liberals. It is possible sometimes that a violent gunman defies easy political categorization. TP seems to imply – though they may not mean to – Lee’s politics were right of center. Maybe Lee was just a deranged nut. One realizes that the wing-nuts are in sore need of some political points on the deranged wackos scorecard – they lead liberals by a mile. Conservative Republicans have murdered cops and doctors; with what many consider mainstream Republican political leaders using violent rhetoric to insight their genuflecting followers.  The growth of extremist right-wing groups had been on the rise since Obama was elected.

I thought president Obama’s line “They talk about me like I’m a dog” was a mild joke. A good humored way of making note of the unmerited level of hate speech directed his way.

It’s easy for folks to stir up stuff and turn people on each other, everybody sets their sights a little lower. That’s not who we are. We do not give up. We do not quit. Whenever times have seemed at their worst, Americans have been at their best. Because it is in those times when we roll up our sleeves and remember that we will rise or fall together – as one nation, and one people. That’s the spirit that started the labor movement. Alone we may be weak, divided we may fall, but if we are united, we are strong. That’s why they call them unions. That’s why we’re called the United States of America. I’m gonna make this case all across America.

It was a safe bet that the hate mongers would take offense at being joked about, the Republican lawyer Legal Insurrection ( that is the blog’s real name, not a joke) writes – Demonizer-In-Chief Upset People Demonize Him

The entrepreneurs and workers who built the great technology companies that drive our economy are nowhere to be found.  It is the proletariat of the old economy who live in Obama’s imagination.

Step one in any right-wing extremist post: posit tenuous association between Obama and socialism. Abraham Lincoln once wrote – “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” Workers create wealth. You can have a great idea for a new product or service and all the money in the world – nothing happens without workers.LI was not content to leave it at that,

This truly is another of those windows into his divisive soul.  The Demonizer-in-Chief and the class warfare expert doesn’t like being treated the way he treats others.

Li would know something about demonizing. In January of 2009 he wrote,

Being nice to Obama does not result in Obama or his supporters being nice to you. As I have noted before, Obama is one of the most aggressive politicians ever, and conservatives are kidding themselves if they think a few kind words now and then from Obama reflect a change in agenda.

So should we do unto Obama as Obama did unto Bush? Will the country be better off with a real opposition party? As Sarah Palin would say, “you betcha.”

Obama had not been president for a week and already LI had declared a war of  demonizing. It was to be expected but excuse Obama for making a little joke that spoke honestly to the full-out character assassination the right has engaged in since day one and gee the Right got their little feelings hurt. In December of 2009 LI wrote,

For the record, again, I want to focus on the mountain of paper Obama wants Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to push through the Congress which will wreak havoc on our economy, narrow our liberties, and ruin our health care system.

Bush wreaked havoc on the economy, but like all good right-wing sheep LI has mastered the power of denial and deflection, throwing in some hyperbolic trash about the end of the world while he’s at it. Nothing like looking into that crystal ball and making one’s demonizations early. Someone once said the average person can’t get through the day with out a rationalization. The Right would be dumbstruck and malnourished without their demonizations. They have built a cottage industry out of dehumanizing the opposition and push lies big and small to serve their agenda.

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Black and White Amateur Boxing wallpaper

Black and White Amateur Boxing wallpaper

I guess I should be mad at Ezra Klein for his report President Obama was going to propose a payroll tax cut, but with twenty-twenty hindsight Ezra does get it right today – Wonkbook: Obama proposes $50B for infrastructure, $100B for R&D tax credit; Orszag’s first NYT op-ed

But there’s a $50 billion infrastructure investment program, a $100 billion proposal to make the R&D tax credit permanent, and a $200 billion idea to allow companies to deduct the full cost of the capital investment in 2011. Add in the small business bill that’s sitting still in the Senate, and the anti-business White House has thrown its muscle behind hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts and credits for, well, business.

Speaking of tax cuts and credits, former OMB director Peter Orszag makes his debut in the New York Times this morning with a column arguing that the Bush tax cuts should be extended until 2013 — and then allowed to lapse altogether. Yes, even the middle-class ones. That might be more important than you think: Though it’s true that money can’t buy you happiness (at least not after $75,000 a year), it can buy you a feeling of deep satisfaction.

There is no reason to up taxes on those making below the $250K threshold. What should bother everyone if the reasoning behind keeping the Bush cuts for those making over $250K. Economist Michael Bordo sums up the political dogma that has infested much of economics like bed bugs – Yes, their benefits outweigh their costs

THE Bush tax cuts should not be allowed to expire at the end of 2010. There are two good reasons. The first is that a tax increase, by reducing aggregate demand, would damage the wobbly US recovery. Second, even if taxes were only allowed to rise on the 3% of families earning over $250,000 per year, the higher taxes on those groups—which include many of the nation’s entrepreneurs—would hamper investment and future economic growth.

The potential long run costs of perpetuating the tax cuts in terms of a larger fiscal deficit and higher debt-to-GDP ratio would be less than the costs of lower real activity in the short-run and lower economic growth in the long-run of ending them. Higher output and growth would eventually reduce the elevated deficits and debt ratios.

The Bush cuts were made over the course of 2001-2003. Where was the economic benefit for the middle-class or the economy as a whole. The nation lost three trillion dollars in wealth, but the rich got richer. Bush had an anemic job creation record. The nation’s business and entrepreneurs got richer during the Bush years and are still – despite a real unemployment rate of around 16% – raking in profits. Bordo’s argument must be ivory tower based with the window closed on what is happening in the real world. Business has the money to hire and invest, but have no economic incentive to do so when they can make just as much money by scaling back operations. If we’re going to keep the Bush cuts than at least be honest about it rather than covering up the reasons in economic doublespeak. Ezra’s explanations was closer to the mark – we’ll probably be keeping them, regardless of how fiscally irresponsible they are because those cuts make rich people smile. Robert Reich is a smart guy and an adult, but he obviously doesn’t understand that the nation ain’t in no darn mood for smart adult conversations right now, Why Obama Is Proposing Whopping Corporate Tax Cuts, and Why He’s Wrong

President Obama reportedly will propose two big corporate tax cuts this week.

One would expand and make permanent the research and experimentation tax credit, at a cost of about $100 billion over the next ten years. The other would allow companies to write off 100 percent of their new investments in plant and equipment between now and the end of 2011 at a cost next year of substantially more than $100 billion (but a ten-year cost of about $30 billion since those write-offs wouldn’t be taken over the longer-term).

The economy needs two whopping corporate tax cuts right now as much as someone with a serious heart condition needs Botox.

The reason businesses aren’t investing in new plant and equipment has nothing to do with the cost of capital. It’s because they don’t need the additional capacity. There isn’t enough demand for their goods and services to justify it. Consumers aren’t buying because they’re trying to come out from under a huge debt load, including mortgage debt; they have to start saving because their nest eggs are worth substantially less; and they’ve lost or are worried about losing jobs and pay.

In any event, small businesses don’t have enough profits against which to use these tax credits and deductions, and large corporations are sitting on over a trillion dollars of profits and don’t need them. ( see Newsweek link)

Republicans and corporate lobbyists have been demanding tax cuts on corporate investments for one reason: Big corporations are investing in automated equipment, robotics, numerically-controlled machine tools, and software. These investments are designed to boost profits by permanently replacing workers and cutting payrolls. The tax breaks Obama is proposing would make such investments all the more profitable.

In sum, Obama’s proposed corporate tax cuts (1) won’t generate more jobs because they don’t put any cash in worker’s pockets (as would, for example, exempting the first $20,000 of income from the payroll tax and making up the difference by applying the payroll tax to incomes over $250,000); (2) will subsidize companies to cut even more jobs; and (3) will cost $130 billion — money that could better be spent helping states and locales avoid laying off thousands of teachers, fire fighters, and police.

I’m not changing my position no matter how much sense Robert makes. Let Obama and Democrats slash and burn as much revenue as possible and let the Republican president and Congress in 2012 worry about savaging what’s left of the wreck. Republicans are responsible for the train wreck in the first place. They think drowning government and the lives of millions of people is fun, than they can enjoy trying to resuscitate them.

* I genuinely support the R&D credit. It is direct enough to have some long term benefit especially in moving toward a more progressive energy policy. That said this package is probably dead in the water – The Great Orange Man John Boehner (R-OH) speaks.