Republicans are Stubborn: James Arness Edition

RIP: James Arness.

Held the record for the longest continuous role portrayed by a single actor (20 years) on prime-time television (for Marshal Matt Dillon on the CBS western "Gunsmoke" (1955)), until Kelsey Grammer (Dr. Frasier Crane on "Cheers" (1982) and "Frasier" (1993)) tied the record in 2004 (at 20 years).

Why is it that the two actors who've played the same character on TV the longest are both Republicans?

James Arness "...had the pleasure of knowing Ronald Reagan before he became Governor of California." Before becoming governor of California, Ronald Reagan was President of the Screen Actors Guild.

Side note: I once listened to Kelsey Grammer bad mouth unions while I was placing a mic on him, and my reply was, "Well, we can't all be rich Republicans."

Flaming Feces: Romney Lies about the Bush Economy

Republicans don't care about facts. One of the important facts of economics is that a lot of economic indicators, like unemployment and food stamp use, are lagging indicators. That means they get bad AFTER an economic disaster.

What Romney calls the Obama Economy is really what's left of the failed Republican experiment in supply-side bullshit undertaken during the Bush Administration, in which we had massive tax cuts for the rich that were supposed to create jobs that resulted in an economy shedding jobs to the tune of 750,000 per month when Obama took over.

Furthermore, the debt, which Romney and his magic underwear are trying to also blame on Obama, was mostly created by the Bush tax cuts, two unpaid for wars, and a Medicare prescription drug benefit the total cost of which the Bushies lied about, and for which we have not paid.

That's a lot of failure under Bush that Romney, of course, wants to put in a paper bag, light on fire, and place on Obama's doorstep. So, there's Obama, stomping out the shit fire, and Romney sitting back saying it's Obama's shit, when it's really George W. Bush's.

Wonder Who Bush and Cheney Left Burrowed in the Food Regulation Bureaucracy

Molly Ivins used to say that if you really want to see the difference between Republicans and Democrats, look at food safety.  Republicans were in charge of the federal government for 8 years and now the Democrats for a little over two. In the game of staffing the federal bureaucracy, Obama has a long way to go to even undo the damage the Cheney administration did.

Like unemployment and food stamp use, a lot of what comes out of the government in terms of regulation is a kind of lagging indicator. So, yes, we are still seeing results of the Bush/Cheney administration.When you inherit a government that Bush/Cheney had de-fanged when it comes to regulatory prowess, what's a guy supposed to do?

With that in mind, this piece in the NY Times tells me that even a basic thing like food identification has become a difficult thing for the government to enforce. And with austerity becoming the buzzword in Washington, I don't expect Obama to be able to do much to reverse the damage any time soon. Even a lot of Democrats are suckling on the Big Ag teat, and it's hard to regulate businesses when they basically buy the politicians and write the laws.

I recently read about meat glue that they use to put pieces of lesser cuts together into a T-bone. There's all kinds of food safety horrors that evolved during lax regulatory years of Republican corporatocracy. Fits right in with the lax environmental regulation, financial regulation, and all the other things that government is supposed to do that Republicans would rather do away with.

These are things that happen because George W. Bush and Richard Cheney hated regulation and did everything they could to make sure the government either didn't do it, or did it badly. And the Bushistas had 8 years to put cronies in charge regulating their old frat buddies' businesses.

Generally speaking, Republicans are from rural areas that produce food and giant ag companies that want to slip shit past the consumer, and Democrats are from cities, where the consumers are. So, there's that.

The Bushies (i.e. Cheney) were especially adept at putting foxes in charge of hen houses, and then the industries that got helped hired the very people who helped them.

Some people even got left behind, so-called "burrowing" that Cheney was doing at the end of that nightmare.

Additionally, before leaving office, the Bush administration aggressively placed political appointees into permanent civil service positions as part of a process known as “burrowing.” Some of the burrowed former political appointees have close ties to Cheney, such as Jeffrey T. Salmon, who was a speechwriter for Cheney when he served as defense secretary. In July, he was named deputy director for resource management in the Energy Department’s Office of Science.

So, yeah, Cheney's dark forces really did a number on a lot of things like this, especially for energy companies. Remember, these are the boys that brought you everything from Enron to Iraq to most of the debt they're trying to blame on Obama.

Follow the money.

Does Jesus Know Everything?

Perhaps a better question is: why do so many Christians ignore their own book?

in reference to:

"13:32 But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father."
- SAB, Mark 13 (view on Google Sidewiki)

Argument from Ignorance

Ezra Klein makes the argument that there's no evidence that higher taxes on the wealthy hinder growth. In fact, there is evidence to the contrary, as Ezra points out with this graph:

When has the absence of evidence (or even evidence to the contrary) ever stopped a Republican from doing (or not doing) something (See: Iraq, Global Warming, et al)?

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." --Donald Rumsfeld

To wit:

"Appeal to ignorance -- the claim that whatever has not been proved false must be true, and vice versa (e.g., there is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore UFOs exist -- and there is intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. Or: there may be seventy kazillion other worlds, but not one is known to have the moral advancement of the Earth, so we're still central to the Universe.) This impatience with ambiguity can be criticized in the phrase: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." -- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: (Chapter 12 - The Fine Art of Baloney Detection)

Herein lies the rub. Republicans don't care about facts.  They are not constrained by reality or science. They make up whatever they need and ignore everything to the contrary. So why do we try to reason with them logically? Seems like a waste of time.

One answer is that they must be mocked, ruthlessly and endlessly, for ignoring facts. This is why Stephen Colbert is so funny and necessary. Under Citizens United, facts mean even less, and money even more, which benefits the party that is weak on facts and strong on money. 

George Bush is Responsible for the High Rate of Food Stamp Consumption

As someone who's depended on food stamps a few times in his life, I'll start by saying it's a great program that really helps people who most need it. It is a valuable stitch in a safety net Republicans love to unravel and denigrate. And Newt Gingrich, who has certainly studied his Lee Atwater, certainly knows that the mere mention of food stamps conjures up, for many white Americans, images of black people taking advantage of the program (young bucks buying T-bones is the racist image here). Here's Atwater quote:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

So when Newt Gingrich calls Obama the Food Stamp President, he knows damn well he's blowing the dog whistle.

But it's more than just racism here. This is Newt's shifting of the blame for the economy on Obama. Newt knows damn well what most Americans don't: food stamp consumption is the Ultimate Lagging Indicator in a bad economy.

Have a look at the ebb and flow of food stamp consumption and you'll see that the economic lag can be 2 to 4 years. It actually makes sense for this number to begin peaking at this moment, 7 quarters from the trough of business activity. It probably gets worse before it gets better, but it holds no sway over the prospects for our recovery.

Fact is, a whole lot more people are hungry (and homeless, broke, without health care, unemployed, and all the other bad things that happen during recessions), because Republican ideology, implemented by President George W Bush, ruined the US economy. Tax cuts for the rich didn't create jobs, and deregulation led to the Inside Job that was the Wall Street Fiasco.

Watch for Newt and the rest of the Insane Clowns to keep trying to shift the blame for Bush's debt, and Bush's economy, onto Obama. And note that under the dog whistle of the southern strategy, the GOP's got a whole lot of blame shifting going on.

So much for the party of responsibility for your actions.

Rand Paul Doesn't Care About Slavery

Rand Paul has equated a right to health care with enslaving doctors. For an eye doctor, he really doesn't see things very clearly, so I'm going to spell it out for him in a way he can understand.

Under universal health care, doctors still get paid. They are also free to leave the profession if they find obeying their hippocratic oath too much of a burden in exchange for making very good money. They would also be entitled to receive said health care, as they are people too.

Contrast that to, say, some black men from Africa coming to his house, capturing him, shipping him and a bunch of other white guys in a torture chamber of a ship to Africa where he is treated as property, tortured daily, and forced to work (of course, working as a doctor is much better than working in the fields or mines). Oh, and he would barely be fed enough to keep him alive, be forced to live in a shack, his wife and daughters regularly raped, and his children could be bought and sold by his master.

That Senator Paul would make such a grotesque comparison proves that he has forgotten what actual slaves went through (assuming he believed it when he was taught it, which assumes that he was taught about slavery), and that his argument against health care as a right has reached a point of such strained metaphor that it is revealing his true perspective on matters of race.

Because, really, could he be so ignorant of the history of slavery? Doubtful. Even dumbasses know what real slavery is like. Senator Paul is just pushing his usual bullshit hyperbole, and he doesn't care if it's insulting to the descendants of slaves, or anyone else who cherishes human rights. He only cares about getting and keeping everything he can into the hands of rich people (who happen to mostly be white).

So, if you're stuck working for next to nothing with no health care, living in a shack, getting beaten by cops for no reason, or thrown in prison on a bullshit charge that white people get away with all the time, Rand Paul thinks it's your own damn fault, and that if you dare suggest, as the Pope does, that basic health care is your right, then you are just trying to enslave him.

It takes a special kind of assholedness to argue something like that, the kind that apparently makes the good people of Kentucky vote for you. Which, of course, proves that southerners really do want to see the south rise again.

in reference to:

"I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to health care. You have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be."
- ThinkProgress » Rand Paul: If You Believe In A Right To Health Care, ‘You Believe In Slavery’ (view on Google Sidewiki)

IOKIYAR is Pretty Common

Oh, and Ted Nugent sucks.

in reference to:

"As it turns out, Common could apparently dispose of this part of the controversy rather inexpensively. Departed NWA rapper Eazy-E, for whom violent rhetoric about police constituted a pre-breakfast warmup, scored an invite to an event headlined by then-President George H.W. Bush on the strength of some charitable donations. The National Republican Senatorial Committee’s then-Director of Communications, Wendy Burnley, said of E’s appearance, “Democrats, eat your hearts out!”"
- Sean Hannity | Common | Ted Nugent | Mediaite (view on Google Sidewiki)

Children Suing to Protect the Future

I've always wondered why our children haven't sued over what we're doing to the planet. We're leaving them an environmental mess. Once upon a time, even conservatives thought the government should protect the environment.

Those conservatives are long gone. They've been replaced by a party of vicious thugs (Ayn Randians who think the poor, gays, minorities, and even the old are parasites) funded by richer thugs who tell them what to do.

They pass laws gutting regulations, appoint their own regulators, and control the courts, so they can go on polluting, pillaging, and accumulating wealth, while shifting the real costs on to future generations.

And yet the Republicans seem so smug when they, the ones who created most of the debt, suggest that we shouldn't pass that down to the kids. Sorry, but there goes your future retirement and health care, kiddos. You keep paying in now, and all you'll get back when you're old is a coupon for something you can't afford.

Sorry kids. Some of us are trying to do the right thing, but this is a corporatocracy. And the corporate class is winning the class war.

You have one hope: sue us. Law suits sometimes attract corporate attention. If the legislature won't get you justice, your only hope is with the courts.

Of course, this is the most corporate Supreme Court in history. So, good luck with that.

Oh, yeah, and if you'd really like to make an impact on protecting the environment and the economy? Don't vote Republican, and be sure to vote in every election (even those mid-terms).

in reference to:

"Attorneys representing the children and teenagers filed yesterday, or are preparing to file, 52 separate lawsuits and petitions based on a novel legal theory: that the government has failed in its duty to protect the atmosphere as a "public trust" for future generations."
- Young Activists Sue U.S., States Over Greenhouse Gas Emissions - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

These are the people Republicans want to leave behind

It's small change by US budget standards, of course, but this is the kind of "bleeding heart" stuff Republicans hate, and would cut, leaving these people to die in the streets. Go read the whole thing and note the numbers on veterans who are homeless--is this the way we treat people who fought for our freedom? It is if your support of the troops ends with putting a bumper sticker on your car.

in reference to: Homelessness Is Not Just About Housing (view on Google Sidewiki)

Racism by Inference

Michael Eric Dyson nails The Donald with this devastating fact that Trump can never understand, followed by a body blow to the gasbag's ego. Ouch. Welcome to the big leagues, Trumpies. Good luck in the primaries!

in reference to:

""Skepticism about black intelligence and suspicion about black humanity have gone hand in hand throughout the history of this country in feeding the perception that black people don't quite measure up." "The reality is that Barack Obama has been called to account by a man who has nothing near the intellectual credibility or the social standing that the president has,""
- Dyson: Trump propagating "racism by inference" - Face The Nation - CBS News (view on Google Sidewiki)

More Anti-union Crap from Republicans

Republicans hate unions, and will stop at nothing to get rid of every last collective bargaining agreement in America.

The fact that so many union workers vote Republican is evidence of how easily duped people can be.

in reference to:

"But lost in all the media hysteria vilifying the TSA was the appalling story of labor abuse against the agency’s screeners, a consequence of Republican anti-union policies. If anyone is wondering why collective bargaining rights are so important to public sector workers, look no further than the TSA, whose employees suffer the lowest morale and highest attrition rates of any federal agency, year after year."
- Did You Fall for It? America's Outrage Over TSA Naked Body Scanners Was Right-Wing PR to Prevent Workers from Unionizing | | AlterNet (view on Google Sidewiki)

Republicans Turn to Wall Street for Protection from Angry Voters

Are Republicans so stupid that they have to be fed talking points from Wall Street in order to get questions they actually want to answer at town hall meetings? Or are they such pussies that they have to have their Wall Street bulliles step in and protect them from the voters who are asking tough questions?

It's obvious that the tea party, which was supposedly pissed off about using tax dollars to bail out Wall Street, has no idea that they are actually being controlled by a bunch of rich fucks from Wall Street.

It amazes me how ignorant Republican voters are about this kind of thing. They are being used by the very people they were angry at, and they don't even know it. It must be willful ignorance, too, because when confronted with the facts, they will only get angrier and threaten to "take it outside"--because we know that violence is the ultimate answer for conservatives.

That's how we wound up spending trillions on the Iraq war--a massive federal welfare program to defense contractors.

But, hey, if you're a conservative, every dollar spent on war is one less dollar to spend on food stamps or health care for the poor and old.

So, if you've got the balls to go shout at your congressman, remember, you're going to get shouted down by a bunch of violent shills who were bussed in with Wall Street money and Karl Rove talking points.

in reference to:

"American Action Network, a relatively new conservative front group founded by a group of Wall Street bankers, is loading up conservative activists with softball questions and talking points to bolster Republican lawmakers on the Ryan plan"
- ThinkProgress » Wall Street Front Group Loading Up Conservative Activists With Soft Ball Questions For GOP Town Halls (view on Google Sidewiki)

Excess People

I've been lucky. I'm white. I was smart enough to get scholarships, a degree, a good union job, a great wife, great kids... Even though I'm retired on disability now, I have a safety net holding me up. I do a little work running websites for people. So while I was sitting here this morning drinking my organic Kona coffee, I finally read this terrific interview of David Simon by Bill Moyers.

Bill Moyers: I was struck by something that you said. You were wrestling with this one big existential question. You talked about drug addicts who would come out of detox and then try to steel-jaw themselves through their neighborhood. And then they’d come face-to-face with the question—which is…?

David Simon: “What am I doing here?” You know, a guy coming out of addiction at thirty, thirty-five, because it often takes to that age, he often got into addiction with a string of problems, some of which were interpersonal and personal, and some of which were systemic. These really are the excess people in America. Our economy doesn’t need them—we don’t need 10 or 15 percent of our population. And certainly the ones who are undereducated, who have been ill-served by the inner-city school system, who have been unprepared for the technocracy of the modern economy, we pretend to need them. We pretend to educate the kids. We pretend that we’re actually including them in the American ideal, but we’re not. And they’re not foolish. They get it. They understand that the only viable economic base in their neighborhoods is this multibillion-dollar drug trade.

Great way to start the day: a healthy dose of cynicism with my coffee and now I'll have that slightly pissed off quality for the rest of the day as I read story after story that oozes from the ether confirming every doubt I have that the oligarchy can make the trains run on time, much less find something constructive for the "excess people" to do in this country.

Bill Moyers: After all these years do you have the answer?

David Simon: Oh, I would decriminalize drugs in a heartbeat. I would put all the interdiction money, all the incarceration money, all the enforcement money, all of the pretrial, all the prep, all of that cash, I would hurl it as fast as I could into drug treatment and job training and jobs programs. I would rather turn these neighborhoods inward with jobs programs. Even if it was the urban equivalent of FDR’s CCC—the Civilian Conservation Corps—if it was New Deal–type logic, it would be doing less damage than creating a war syndrome. The drug war is war on the underclass now. That’s all it is. It has no other meaning.

I've been writing a lot about race lately, and Simon touches on race in the interview, pointing out that the people most affected by the drug war are black, brown, and poor. But the more I watch politics in this country, and the more I see polls that show that nearly half of Republicans in Mississippi would ban mixed race marriages, the more I realize that a huge part of the problem is racism. It's what drives the birther shit, it's what drives the Ayn Randian let-the-parasites-die mentality, and it's what drives the drug war.

This is why I like to read Dennis G. at Balloon Juice. His essays on the Republican Confederate Party consistently point out that the real desire of modern conservatives is to steal the labor of the underclass, especially the minority underclass. They are mostly chicken-hawk racists these days, afraid to come right out and say what they know a large portion of the Republican base is thinking, but it's all there, right under the skin. No matter how debunked The Bell Curve has been, they still believe it, and they will keep right on doing whatever it takes to keep their boot on the neck of the excess people in this world.

The federal government should spend when times are bad...

...and cut when times are good.

I'm so dismayed that otherwise progressive people (like some of my union brothers) are calling for cuts in federal spending in the middle of a huge recession. The fact that Republicans are saying we should cut should give us pause, as they are so often wrong, especially on economic questions (this is a Bush recession, after all).

The fact is that we are suffering from lack of demand while borrowing costs are extremely low. This is the perfect time to spend billions of infrastructure, which will pay big dividends in the long run, while employing lots of people in the short run.

And yet, here we are again buying into the Republican framing of the debate, that we need to cut, cut, cut, when, in fact and as usual, the exact opposite of what Republicans are saying is true.

The one exception I can think of to prove the rule is that some, and I mean very few, Republicans are actually calling for cutting the Pentagon's budget. Of course, when the time comes to actually vote to cut defense, it's a safe bet that we'll see just how serious they are.

For more, see:

Yglesias » Senator Bob Corker Holds Debt Ceiling Hostage To Arbitrary Spending Ceiling

and many recent postings to my recommended reading list.

Chicken hawk racists

Not only are a lot of Republicans racists, they're afraid to say so to non-whites.

This article makes me think there are still a lot of Bell Curve believers out there who hide their racism. So, in polls showing how racist the GOP is (see the last post), the numbers are probably actually higher.

in reference to:

"When a nonwhite researcher was administering their study, research subjects were amenable to changing their minds about the president's religion and updating incorrect views. But when only white researchers were present, GOP survey subjects in particular were more likely to believe the Obama Muslim myth than before. The subjects were using "social desirabililty" to tailor their beliefs (or stated beliefs, anyway) to whoever was listening."
- The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science | Mother Jones (view on Google Sidewiki)

Racist Idiots

The large percentage of Republicans who think Obama wasn't born in the US doesn't really surprise me, considering that these same people don't believe in evolution or global warming. But, ignorance of evolution and succumbing to the millions of dollars of misinformation that comes from climate deniers is one thing. Refusing to believe the President was born in the US is, simply put, racist bullshit. No amount of ignorance could explain the seething hatred the birthers have for Obama.

Their hatred expresses itself through attempts to delegitimize him, to paint him a darker, more African shade of black. A recent poll showed that 46% of Republicans in Mississippi were opposed to mixed race marriages. President Obama is the child of a mixed race couple, so, right there, you've got half of Republicans who are openly racist. I'd be interested in seeing what percent of Iowa Republicans feel the same way.

I'm willing to bet that the percentage of Iowa Republicans who are against mixed race marriage is about the same as the percentage that thinks Obama wasn't born here.

In fact, I'm willing to bet that those percentages are the same for Republicans everywhere. Because they are, as a group, about half racist assholes, and the other half just pure assholes.

in reference to:

"A whopping 48 percent of Iowa Republicans said they don’t believe that Obama was born in the United States, according to the automated survey by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling out Tuesday. Another 26 percent said they weren’t sure whether or not the president was born in America as the Constitution requires to be eligible to serve in the nation’s highest office."
- Poll: Half of Iowa Republicans don't believe Barack Obama was born in U.S. - Juana Summers - POLITICO.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

The Confederate Party is Busy Rewriting History

"Our new government is founded upon … the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition."— Alexander Stephens, "vice president" of the Confederacy, March 21, 1861

Seems the majority of people "remembering" the Civil War for its 150th anniversary are really rewriting history. 

The South would change its view as well. It would begin to spin grand, romantic fables of a "Lost Cause" that had been fought for 'state's rights" or constitutional principle, or any other reason it could invent, so long as it was not slavery. Jefferson Davis, who before the war had flatly declared "the labor of African slaves" the cause of the rebellion, would write after the war that slavery had nothing to do with it.

Like Davis before them, the current Confederates want people to think that the Civil War was about state's rights. Well, yeah. State's rights to keep slavery legal, and to expand slavery into the territories (see Bleeding Kansas). They want you to think the south fought a valiant effort to restrain an out-of-control federal government, with, of course, parallels to today's socialist Muslim Kenyan's government.


What a crock of shit.


These people who want you to think the Civil War was about states rights are, quite simply, racists. To forget that slavery was the cause of the civil war is to paper over this country's racist past. Why would anyone want to do that? To perpetuate the practice of racism. Ask any Teabagger/Republican/Confederate party member of today why they want to gut government spending on social programs, they'll tell you we're broke, and that welfare is for parasites--mainly lazy minorities. 


There will be no mention of corporate welfare. No mention that Michelle Bachman's family farm got over a quarter million in farm subsidies in between 19995 and 2006. No mention of George Bush's idiotic war in Iraq. No mention of Bush's unfunded Medicare prescription drug benefit (corporate welfare to big pharma). Complete ignorance that the TARP bailout was Bush's. If you do manage to corner them on GW's drunken-chicken-hawk-spending ways, they'll be happy to tell you that they didn't approve of Bush's spending either.


Liars.


It's what they do. During the Bush administration, those same people would have told you that Bush's tax cuts for the rich were going to spur the economy to new Galtian heights. We all saw how that worked out. Some of us actually remember the Clinton Surplus that Bush stole from our children in typical reverse-Robin-Hood fashion.


It's one thing to listen to them rewrite the history of Bush. It's another thing to listen to them claim that the Civil War was not about slavery.  Those fighting for the south were racist traitors (and the modern Confederates still want to aid and abet the theft of labor). Those fighting for the north were heroes. And we should never forget, or allow others to obfuscate, why.

The GOP War on Reality

My big problem with Obama's budget is that he fails to take into account that the majority of Republicans think evolution and global warming are myths.

How on earth do we expect some sort of Grand Bargain with people who, when faced with facts, stick their fingers in their ears and scream "LA LA LA"?

They want to teach the controversy and the media wants to report it, without ever telling you that one side is completely insane and will not listen to facts.

That is the context upon which we got Senator Kyl's statement that his previous statement (a lie about Planned Parenthood) "was not intended to be a factual statement."

Republicans just lie. On purpose. And now they are going to be lying to kids about science.

in reference to:

""There is virtually no scientific controversy among the overwhelming majority of researchers on the core facts of global warming and evolution," said Alan I. Leshner, the chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which publishes the leading journal Science. "Asserting that there are significant scientific controversies about the overall nature of these concepts, when there are none, will only confuse students, not enlighten them,""
- Teaching of evolution under siege - CBS News (view on Google Sidewiki)

The Answer to the Debt Ceiling Fight

This (link below) is the best strategy for dealing with the Republicans on the debt ceiling fight. Let the GOP's constituents suffer the consequences. Use the fight to make it clear just what the GOP wants to do to the middle class.

Unfortunately, I doubt anyone at the White House reads Yglesias. What a shame. This fight could be just what we need to show what a cruel bunch of sadists the GOP are for wanting to pay for tax cuts to the rich by screwing the middle class and poor.

in reference to:

"So the right strategy is to start stiffing people Republicans care about. When bills to defense contractors come due, don’t pay them. Explain they’ll get 100 percent of what they’re owed when the debt ceiling is raised. Don’t make some farm payments. Stop sending Medicare reimbursements. Make the doctors & hospitals, the farmers and defense contractors, and the currently elderly bear the inconvenient for a few weeks of uncertain payment schedules."
- Yglesias » A Debt Ceiling Hostage Rescue Strategy (view on Google Sidewiki)

Republicans are Liars, Jon Kyl Edition

After being caught blatantly lying about Planned Parenthood, Republican Senator Jon Kyl,'s office responded with a statement that says "his remark was not intended to be a factual statement..."

No surprise. Republicans rarely intend to make factual statements. They intend to say whatever they think will help their side punch the most hippies, force the most births, spread the most ignorance, pollute the environment, and create the most wealth for the already filthy rich.

in reference to:

"Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) defended Republicans’ willingness to shut down the government over funding for Planned Parenthood by falsely claiming that abortion is “well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does.” In reality, just three percent of its work is related to abortion."
- ThinkProgress » Kyl Walks Back Planned Parenthood Claim: It ‘Was Not Intended To Be A Factual Statement’ (view on Google Sidewiki)

GOP Government Shutdown is All About Beating Obama

The GOP's government shutdown will hurt the economy. The only way a Republican can beat Obama in 2012 is if the economy is in the shitter. Ergo, a standing ovation for shutting down the government.

What does this say about Republicans? That they care more about defeating Obama than they do about a strong American economy. Besides, who does a bad economy affect most? Not the rich people, who are the only people the GOP cares about. They have record amounts of money to sit on. They can ride out the bad times.

I guess I'm an optimist, but it seems like the whole thing is going to backfire on Republicans. Poor and working people (who are more and more poor) can only take so much sadistic bullshit from the Confederate Party that wants to steal their labor.

But beyond that obvious take on the whole thing, lurking under the skin of this GOP shutdown are the real reasons Republicans won't compromise: riders. Democrats may be a pretty spineless bunch, but apparently there's a whole bunch of GOP shit (PDF) they just won't eat attached to this "spending" bill. So, it's good to see them refusing to compromise on Planned Parenthood and the EPA.

Of course, all those riders would actually increase the deficit. But Republicans have never been big on letting any facts or hypocrisy get in their way.

The bottom line though, as always, is the economy. A recovering economy pretty much assures Obama of reelection, so the Confederate Party is going to do everything they can to tank the economy.

Don't worry. Donald Trump will still have millions to spend on his campaign marketing.

Budget Quiz

I'd love to hear how conservatives do on this quiz, but, alas, they would just lie. I got two wrong.

in reference to:

"Recent polls suggest that Americans are woefully in the dark when it comes to balancing the federal budget. Test your budget IQ by taking the Center for American Progress’s quiz below."
- Interactive Quiz: Think You Know Our Nation’s Budget Problems? (view on Google Sidewiki)

In Response to an IRS Hating Email

Think of how less hated the IRS would be if we had universal health care, good roads, better public transportation, great colleges that were free, good retirements, a well-funded science program, alternative energy, clean air and water, and all the rest. Instead, we get to pay for Bush's $3 trillion worth of war, and even more for tax cuts to the rich, while working people get screwed.

If Union Members Knew Their History...

They would never vote for Republicans.

Tomorrow is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. If you've never heard of it, you should read this story. There is nothing like the history of unions in America to convince people that Republicans want to take us back to the days before unions won victories for the working people of this country.

Any union member who votes Republican should be ashamed of themselves. They are traitors to their fellow workers.

in reference to:

"It was unions -- led by the International Ladies' Garment Workers (now Workers United) in league with the Women's Trade Union League -- that began harnessing public outrage in the wake of the fire to demand the regulations regarding worker health, well-being, and safety that protect many workers to this day, whether or not they belong to a union. Think workers' compensation, unemployment insurance, the 40-hour workweek, weekends, holidays, sick pay, employee benefits, and safety standards."
- Preserving the Triangle Factory Fire's Lessons, 100 Years Later (view on Google Sidewiki)