Republicans Ass Kiss Them

Hey, income inequality is too in part caused by the tax code, and we can make it more fair!  So says this article in Business Insider:

"It conclusively found that the wealthy benefitted from low tax rates on investment income, which in turn caused their wealth to grow faster.
Essentially, taxing capital gains as ordinary income would make the playing field more fair, and reduce over time income inequality.
Even more, such a move would serve as a deficit reduction measure..."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/study-income-inequality-capital-gains-tax-rate-2013-2#ixzz2Lv8RG16l

 It's only money that keeps the Republicans from seeing that it is time to take on the big pockets, not ass kiss them.  

Advice for the Republicans

Grand Old Planet - NYTimes.com
Krugman tellin' it like it is!  Repubs should listen, but they won't.  A shame.

Political Opinion From 'Friends' on Facebook

I don't bother commenting on this guy's many, many, many posts on Facebook, I think he's doing a good enough job tearing down the party he supports, and he needs no additional help from me.  I left out the names, I just want to show an example of what's out there.  Here's the pic he posted and the only 3 comments.

commenter: Agreed. Muslims are a cancer to the planet. We should not tolerate a religion that rewards INSANE behivor anymore than we tolerate satanic cults sacrificing 13 y/old virgin women in america. Both "Religious beliefs" of radical muslims and satan worshipers must dealt with an iron fist.
Yesterday at 12:52pm · Like

poster: They are one in the same!!!
Yesterday at 12:54pm · Like

commenter: Two Words "Carpet Bomb"
Yesterday at 1:01pm · Like

Now let me be sure to clarify that I don't agree with this graphic or those sentiments.  In any way.  

Please check out the rest of my blog if you doubt me.  I am pointing out "what is out there", and if this is what you want, well, then I guess you should vote for the candidate they support? 

That's Mitt Romney.  These guys love Mitt Romney.

Alternate or Parallel Universe?

Bill Clinton delivered the greatest convention speech I've ever seen in Charlotte last week.  What a performance.  (that's a link to a terrific column in The New Yorker that details the performance.  example: "He improvises, in the sense that Miles Davis or Beethoven would come up with an enduring work of art on the spot.")

Flip to 3:30 and hear the maestro deliver the 'alternate universe' line.   If you watch for 2 minutes, you'll get to see Chelsea's hot friend!




Perhaps the maestro read Robert Reich's August 28th blog post:

"The third mechanism is by using its own misinformation outlets – led by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and his yell-radio imitators, book publisher Regnery, and the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, along with a right-wing blogosphere – to spread the lies, or at least spread doubt about what’s true.

Together, these three mechanisms are creating a parallel Republican universe of Orwellian dimension – where anything can be asserted, where pollsters and political advisers are free to create whatever concoction of lies will help elect their candidate, and where “fact-checkers” are as irrelevant and intrusive as is the truth."

I think President Obama may need to get Walter on the team.

Huckabee Invokes the Bono

Oh no he di'n'.  Mike Huckabee invoked the name of the Bono at the tumultuous conclusion of his "sermon of negativity" to the masses gathered in Tampa last night.  Bono, one, if not the only non-partisan figure in Washington, had his good name and extra-ordinary words dragged through the mud last night by the increasingly hostile Huckabee.  This was a breach of their "friendship" and I'll be interested to see if Bono has something to say about it.  I'll try to link the video later, but for now, enjoy the text from Bono's friend, and notice how he never ends the "quote" from Bono.  Ass-hat.  To turn Bono's "extra-ordinary" quote into a political attack on Obama is an outrage!! 

"Sometimes, we're so close to the picture, we can't really see it clearly. I've worked with Bono for the past few years in the ONE campaign to fight AIDS and hunger and disease around the world.

He's an Irishman and a great humanitarian who told me of his admiration for America. He said we're more than a country; we're an idea.
He reminded me that we are an exceptional nation with an extraordinary history who owes it to the generations coming after us to leave them an extraordinary legacy.
If we don't change the direction of our nation now, our bequest will be nothing but an extraordinary shame.

But we can do better.

President Obama is out of gas; Americans are out of patience, and our great Republic is almost out of time."

Is Krugman Wrong?

In this article, Paul Krugman says that Republicans don't want social security and medicare anymore. Is this right?

One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state — a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net — morally superior to the capitalism red in tooth and claw we had before the New Deal. It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate.

The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty.

There’s no middle ground between these views. One side saw health reform, with its subsidized extension of coverage to the uninsured, as fulfilling a moral imperative: wealthy nations, it believed, have an obligation to provide all their citizens with essential care. The other side saw the same reform as a moral outrage, an assault on the right of Americans to spend their money as they choose.

This deep divide in American political morality — for that’s what it amounts to — is a relatively recent development. Commentators who pine for the days of civility and bipartisanship are, whether they realize it or not, pining for the days when the Republican Party accepted the legitimacy of the welfare state, and was even willing to contemplate expanding it. As many analysts have noted, the Obama health reform — whose passage was met with vandalism and death threats against members of Congress — was modeled on Republican plans from the 1990s.

A Tea Party takeover of the Republican Party has made these decades-old agreements (SS, Medicare, Unemployment Insurance, etc.) into arguments again. They want to roll it back to pre-1930. Just listen to the books Glenn Beck recommends. Heck, his whole show last night was about Freud's nephew and advertising to control people's minds. But I digress.
The question remains... do Republicans still support Social Security/Medicare, etc? Do they just not want to fully fund it? Do they want it, but don't want to pay taxes for it? WHAT is the deal?

Tax & Spend Conservatives

Joshua Holland has an interesting piece on Alternet about the "9 Biggest Conservative Lies About Taxes and Public Spending". They do try to confuse the public about the numbers, and this article hopes to clear up some of those misconceptions. It shall therefore be ignored. So, here are the 9 points, click through to the article to see them explained in glorious detail:

1. Cutting Taxes Leads to More Money for the Government
2. Conservatives' Favorite Economist Proves the Point
3. Taxes on the Rich Keep 'Wealth Producers' from 'Creating Jobs'
4. The Opposite: Tax Cuts for Upper Earners Spur Job Growth
5. Only Half of American Families Pay Taxes
6. Americans Are Taxed to Death
7. We're Being Killed by Runaway Government Spending
8. Conservatives Favor Low Taxes and Limited Government
9. Taxes on Top Earners Are Actually Taxes on 'Small Businesses'

Republicans to Cut Spending. Or not.

It's a big fake-out. They're not going to touch spending on Defense, and they probably won't even try to fix Medicare and Social Security. Unless the Republicans are ready to "man up" and get behind 95% of the Simpson/Bowles plan, they can just save it with the "we'll cut spending" thing. It reminds me of the ol' Dick Cheney adage, "Deficits Don't Matter". Just show us where you want to cut... we're all ready to deal with the big problem. Here's the "leadership" on the issue:

"Speaking to a crowd at the annual convention of the Federalist Society, an influential organization of conservative and libertarian lawyers, McConnell is among friends. They are happy to hear him declare, "Americans want less government, less spending and less debt."

Then the senator tells them what his party is going to do to bring the runaway federal budget under control. "We will vote to freeze and cut discretionary spending," he vows.

What is important is not so much what is said but what is omitted. The four biggest items in the federal budget are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and defense. And those programs escape any mention from McConnell.

They make up about 60 percent of the federal budget. Domestic discretionary outlays, by contrast, account for only about 16 percent. If Republicans focus entirely on those, they will be sending a clear and quite believable message: We're not serious."

Tread on This, Tea Baggers

Tea Party folks, you need to wake up. You're being sold a false bill of goods. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce does not share your interests. From John Aloysius Farrell at US News:

"I see snakes in the Tea Party’s Eden. Its members are being played, like foolish rubes and codgers, by the slick beltway Republicans, and seem doomed to crushing disappointment in the coming years.

For proof, look no further than the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that big marble temple across the street from the White House, which Glenn Beck and other TPR champions have been hailing as a wonderful defender of the good old America that existed before the evil elites hollowed out the industrial base, stole our money to bail out Wall Street insiders, and allowed those awful immigrants to wreak havoc on our culture.

Because the Chamber is in a squirting match with President Obama over whether its secret donors represent foreign interests, the TPR types have rallied to its defense. After all, as any good Islamic terrorist will tell you: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

But have Beck and the others looked at what the chamber stands for? Have any of you read the policy priorities on its Web site?"

Some examples:

Immigration:

"The chamber promises to use the Republican Congress to “push for comprehensive immigration reform” with an “earned pathway to legalization for undocumented workers already contributing to our economy” and a “guest or essential worker program to fill the growing gaps in America's workforce.”"

Keep Jobs in US? Naaaah:

"the chamber supports new trade talks toward “a commercially meaningful Doha Round agreement” and some more of those NAFTA-like trade agreements with South Korea, Columbia, and Panama and “investment treaties with China, India, and Vietnam” and the welcoming of Russia to the World Trade Organization."

Wall Street reform:

"it’s for all sorts of Wall Street plums--like “customized OTC derivatives at a reasonable price and without the burden of margin requirements” and a continuation of the big bonus system for Wall Street executives, “which promotes long-term shareholder value and profitability” and “does not constrain reasonable risk taking.”

Sometimes the enemy of your enemy is not your friend.

McIntyre Deserves Our Support

I was upset with Mike McIntyre when he didn't vote for the Health Care Reform Bill... how could he call himself a Democrat after that? But he judged his district well... District 7 does lean conservative. I'll save my ire for his opponent for another blog post. Republicans ought to support McIntyre.... that's what this (conservative-leaning) US News article by Mary M. Shaffrey says:

"McIntyre is a pro-defense, pro-life, fiscally conservative Democrat. Not to mention one of the most sincere members of Congress to currently serve.... While John McCain carried the conservative southeastern district with 52 percent of the vote, McIntyre easily won with 69 percent. He ranks third on the House Agriculture Committee and also serves on the House Armed Services Committee.

But he votes for Pelosi and she sets the agenda, so Republicans have targeted him. What happens if he loses, but Republicans fail to capture the House? And if they win, wouldn’t it be nice to have a moderate Democrat who would likely support a fair amount of the Republican agenda around, so Republicans could be bipartisan in a way Democrats never were, or even tried to be?

Pantano has many strong qualities but perhaps should wait until McIntyre is ready to step aside. He still has work to do and has done an admirable job representing a district that is not as sexy as Charlotte or Raleigh.
...
He is the type of member who literally can talk your ear off about the district he represents but never seeks the microphone or camera. He actually apologizes when he is late. Imagine that, a congressman who apologizes and means it.

“Throw the bums out!” is a laudable cry and, sometimes, a worthwhile aim, but McIntyre is not one of the bums. There are Republicans from North Carolina I wouldn’t vote for if they were running for dog catcher, but I would trust McIntyre to watch my son. And right now, as the country tries to right itself from the worst economic collapse in generations and fight a war half a world away, we need people we can trust in Washington."

I got polled last night

Well, sorta. It was more of a "misinformation" campaign call from....somebody.

Guy says he's going to ask me five questions. On question 2 he has enough information to determine my political leanings (I said I thought our state was going in the right direction, and that I planned on voting for a democrat for NC legislature). So, question 3, he tells me to state whether I agree with the following statement on a scale from 1 to 10. He then goes on to read a very misleading paragraph of a statement (about Medicare and taxation) that no reasonable person would agree with. In fact, it was complete misinformation and hogwash designed to confuse the average voter. So I told him to stop right there. I asked him who he was polling for, and he told me it was for a Republican website. I then asked for and got a supervisor.

The supervisor explained that it was a "non-partisan" poll, despite what the original caller had said. I got the company name and told him that I was reporting the call to the elections commission. And I told him that he knew what he was doing. And that he had to live with himself.

The company does not exist according to Google, and the 877 number that called me has been used before for collections, random hang-ups, and other nasty stuff (according to the internet).

Basically, I can't find them and they're getting away with this crap.
So if you're in North Carolina and get a call from a "poller", be aware that it may actually be a misinformation campaign.

Nancy & Barry's Latest Success

Once again, the Democrats have managed to pass a reasonable bill without the help of Republicans. A shame they should sit this one out, as most all of the benefits are for small businesses. "They" (tea partiers or republicans? hard to tell the difference...) would have you believe that the expiration of tax breaks for the richest 2% will hurt small businesses, but in reality, only 3% of small businesses would be effected, the ones with the biggest profits.

Here's a sampling of what the Democrats (the only working party) passed:

Starting today, millions of small business owners will be eligible for up to eight new tax cuts, and within weeks, thousands of businesses will finally have access to the credit they desperately need.

The bill also includes key provisions the President has fought for since the beginning of this year:

-- Small businesses receive a tax write-off on the first $500,000 of new equipment investments;
-- More than a million eligible small businesses will be able to make key long-term investments that are subject to zero capital gains taxes;
-- Entrepreneurs who take a chance on a new idea can deduct the first $10,000 of start-up costs; and
-- The self-employed can deduct 100 percent of the cost of health insurance for themselves and their families from self-employment taxes.

I really like that last one, and added the emphasis.

What's the Republican/Tea Party alternative? Stop taxing the rich so much and deregulate everything. Oh, and starve all social programs (Social Security/Medicare), so that eventually they won't be sustainable, because they don't like the government "giving" benefits in the first place. But I digress.
What I really want to do is congratulate the Democrats on passing this bill, and the health care bill, and the finance reform bill. Nancy Pelosi may be vilified by the "right", but you gotta hand it to her... she has passed legislation that Democrats have wanted for ages, with almost zero participation from "the other side". That's why they hate her, because she has been successful. She's no crazy liberal, she won't even support legalized marijuana in her home state. She's reasonable, and willing to compromise to get most of what she wants, a real politician in the best sense of the word.
It makes me long for a Republican Party that would compromise on Social Security, and make a plan that keeps it strong for the long term....you know, like Reagan did with Tip O'Neil back in the 80's. Why is Reagan always the hero, unless he did something "today's conservative" doesn't agree with, in which case it's whitewashed over. Reagan helped save Social Security.... Reagan gave amnesty to illegal aliens.... Reagan ran up the biggest deficit ever.... Reagan ran from a fight in the Middle East. He was a great president, in large part because he was willing to compromise when the time was right, and make pragmatic decisions. Today's Republicans would rather "stop everything up" than get anything done, and I think that's a disservice. I hope they will once again consider the possibility of compromise, after all, compromise is the heart of politics, and the only way to get things done in a democracy.

More info on small business jobs bill.

Update: Despite the election returns, Obama's first 2 years were an outstanding legislative success, and it was worth it to lose!

The Winter of Hate

You remember the Summer of Love? Well, we have a new counterculture on our hands, and Glenn Beck is the new Abbie Hoffman. Check out Michael Lind's piece in Salon. A fascinating look at how the tables have been turned and the right is now the counterculture. And they're even stupider than the left was when they were the counterculture.... it's like they don't even know it!
I think Glenn Beck is crazy, sloppy with his facts, and he clings to a reality that is different from yours & mine. He's a PT Barnum-style huckster for 21st century politics. A Merry Prankster?

Lindsey Graham Gets a Taste of Tea Bag

SC Senator Lindsey Graham (capital R) got a taste of the tea-bagger medicine at a recent town hall meeting. Lunatic fringe anyone?
From Alternet:

"Angry attendees in the crowd interrupted Graham with cries of, 'You're a country club Republican,' 'Sotomayor!,' and 'You lie.' Outside the event, right-wing activist Julliet Kozak picketed the town hall with a sign decrying all 'Unconstitutional Anti-Christ Socialist Federal Deficit Spending Programs.'"

Brad Johnson, meanwhile, collected reactions to Graham from prominent far-right blogs, where the South Carolinian has been called a "fake Republican," "RINO" (Republican in name only), a "traitor," "disgrace," "asshat," "democrat in drag," and a "wussypants, girly-man, half-a-sissy."

It's worth taking a moment to acknowledge Lindsey Graham's voting record here. The right is livid about his vote to confirm Sotomayor and his support for reforming U.S. energy policy, among other things. But given the apoplexy, one might think Graham had suddenly moved to the center. He hasn't.

In the always-helpful VoteView analysis, Graham is the 83rd most conservative senator in the current Congress, meaning only 17 senators are to his right. Graham is not only more conservative that most of the Senate, he's more conservative than most Republicans."

Crazy for God

I've been wanting to read Frank Shaeffer's book "Crazy for God", especially after reading an article like this on Alternet (read the whole thing):

"We might actually be able to change the conversation in America about religion.

Is that important? Yes, like it or not religion will not go away. It motivates the worst in the American psyche and some of the best too. It is Joe Wilson's religion of hate but it also motivated Martin Luther King Jr.

Perhaps a generation from now the image of a typical Christian won't be a hate-monger like James Dobson but rather a lover of peace such as Bishop Desmond Tutu, or a literary giant like John Updike, and yes, a President Obama.

The only real answer to the hijacking of Christianity by the Religious Right, the longevity of religion-based racism, and the backward and inward looking movement we now call "American Christianity" is not to talk everyone out a having faith but rather to fight for the humane and ancient thread found within the Christian tradition. Blaming everything on race is too easy."

The Party of McCarthy

Here are a couple of snippets from an interesting article by Neil Gabler titled "The GOP's McCarthy Gene":

...there is another rendition of the story of modern conservatism, one that doesn't begin with Goldwater and doesn't celebrate his libertarian orientation. It is a less heroic story, and one that may go a much longer way toward really explaining the Republican Party's past electoral fortunes and its future. In this tale, the real father of modern Republicanism is Sen. Joe McCarthy, and the line doesn't run from Goldwater to Reagan to George W. Bush; it runs from McCarthy to Nixon to Bush and possibly now to Sarah Palin. It centralizes what one might call the McCarthy gene, something deep in the DNA of the Republican Party that determines how Republicans run for office, and because it is genetic, it isn't likely to be expunged any time soon.

The basic problem with the Goldwater tale is that it focuses on ideology and movement building, which few voters have ever really cared about, while the McCarthy tale focuses on electoral strategy, which is where Republicans have excelled.

...

Reagan's sunny disposition and his willingness to compromise masked the McCarthyite elements of his appeal, but Reaganism as an electoral device was unique to Reagan and essentially died with the end of his presidency. McCarthyism, on the other hand, which could be deployed by anyone, thrived. McCarthyism was how Republicans won. George H.W. Bush used it to get himself elected, terrifying voters with Willie Horton. And his son, under the tutelage of strategist Karl Rove, not only got himself reelected by convincing voters that John Kerry was a coward and a liar and would hand the nation over to terrorists, which was pure McCarthyism, he governed by rousing McCarthyite resentments among his base.

Republicans continue to push the idea that this is a center-right country and that Americans have swooned for GOP anti-government posturing all these years, but the real electoral bait has been anger, recrimination and scapegoating. That's why John McCain kept describing Barack Obama as some sort of alien and why Palin, taking a page right out of the McCarthy playbook, kept pushing Obama's relationship with onetime radical William Ayers.

And that is also why the Republican Party, despite the recent failure of McCarthyism, is likely to keep moving rightward, appeasing its more extreme elements and stoking their grievances for some time to come. There may be assorted intellectuals and ideologues in the party, maybe even a few centrists, but there is no longer an intellectual or even ideological wing. The party belongs to McCarthy and his heirs -- Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Palin. It's in the genes.

I don't agree with every sentiment in this article, but my Republican friends might want to perk their ears up for this one. I always liked the intellectual conservatives like William F. Buckley and to a lesser extent George Will, but voices like those have disappeared from the Republican Party altogether. I used to think of Republicans as smart folks, economic intellectuals even. Now I have a hard time arguing with responses to the article like this one from voxclamantis:

I have begun to suggest to my Republican friends that they might be happier if they would buy some bib overalls and move to Mississippi, the spiritual center and demographic redoubt of paranoid conservatism in America. In our southern swamplands you don't have to make subtle racist jokes or defend preposterous tales about how liberals are to blame for the Bush disaster or try to convince everybody that Mexican immigration is polluting our culture. Down there in GOP Hollow you can relax, get yourself some spider web tattoos, shave your head, marry your sister, set crosses afire and drink homemade whiskey with like minded people.

Friends, this article offended me too.... I have often considered myself a Reagan Democrat, and Gabler put me in my place, too. I do think he makes many valid points, and I think the good Republican Party is doomed if they continue down the McCarthy/Palin route. Maybe this will be the way to get to a 3 party system? If so, it will be SO worth it. I encourage the intellectual wing of the Republican Party to stand up, do something, lest snake handlers take control.

Republican Perspective

P.J. O'Rourke spells it out for the Republicans in his latest on CATO:

"Let us bend over and kiss our ass goodbye. Our 28-year conservative opportunity to fix the moral and practical boundaries of government is gone--gone with the bear market and the Bear Stearns and the bear that's headed off to do you-know-what in the woods on our philosophy.

An entire generation has been born, grown up, and had families of its own since Ronald Reagan was elected. And where is the world we promised these children of the Conservative Age? Where is this land of freedom and responsibility, knowledge, opportunity, accomplishment, honor, truth, trust, and one boring hour each week spent in itchy clothes at church, synagogue, or mosque? It lies in ruins at our feet, as well it might, since we ourselves kicked the shining city upon a hill into dust and rubble."

Oh, he goes on from there. Republicans owe it to themselves to read this one.