Say It, Bernie!

Courtesy of Meteor Blades at Daily Kos, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont writes Fight for Our Progressive Vision:

As I look ahead to this coming year, a number of thoughts come to mind.

First and foremost, against an enormous amount of corporate media noise and distraction, it is imperative that we not lose sight of what is most important and the vision that we stand for. We have got to stay focused on those issues that impact the lives of tens of millions of Americans who struggle every day to keep their heads above water economically, and who worry deeply about the kind of future their kids will have.

Yes. We make no apologies in stating that the great moral, economic and political issue of our time is the growing level of income and wealth inequality in our nation. It is a disgrace to everything this country is supposed to stand for when the top one-tenth of 1 percent owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, and when one family (the Waltons) owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent. No. The economy is not sustainable when the middle class continues to disappear and when 95 percent of all new income generated since the Wall Street crash goes to the top 1 percent. In order to create a vibrant economy, working families need disposable income. That is often not the case today.

Yes. We will continue the fight to have the United States join the rest of the industrialized world in understanding that health care is a human right of all people, not a privilege. We will end the current dysfunctional system in which 40 million Americans remain uninsured, and tens of millions more are underinsured. No. Private insurance companies and drug companies should not be making huge profits which result in the United States spending almost twice as much per capita on health care as any other nation with outcomes that are often not as good.

Yes. We believe that democracy means one person, one vote. It does not mean that the Koch Brothers and other billionaires should be able to buy elections through their ability to spend unlimited sums of money in campaigns. No. We will not accept Citizens United as the law of the land. We will overturn it through a constitutional amendment and move toward public funding of elections.

Yes. We will fight for a budget that ends corporate tax loopholes and demands that the wealthy and special interests begin paying their fair share of taxes. It is absurd that we are losing more than $100 billion a year in tax revenue as corporations and the wealthy stash their profits in the Cayman Islands and other tax havens It is a disgrace that hedge fund managers pay a lower effective tax rate than teachers or truck drivers. No. At a time when the middle class is disappearing and when millions of families have seen significant declines in their incomes, we will not support more austerity against the elderly, the children and working families. We will not accept cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, nutrition or affordable housing.

Yes. We believe that we must rebuild our crumbling infrastructure (roads, bridges, water systems, wastewater plants, rail, airports, older schools, etc.). At a time when real unemployment is 11.4 percent and youth unemployment is almost 18 percent, a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure would create 13 million decent paying jobs. No. We do not believe that we must maintain a bloated military budget which spends almost as much as the rest of the world combined and may lead us to perpetual warfare in the Middle East.

Yes. We believe that quality education should be available to all Americans regardless of their income. We believe that we should be hiring more teachers and pre-school educators, not firing them. No. We do not believe that it makes any sense that hundreds of thousands of bright young people are unable to afford a higher education while millions leave college and graduate school with heavy debts that will burden them for decades. In a highly competitive global economy, we must not fall further and further behind other countries in the education we provide our people.

Yes. We believe that the scientific community is right. Climate change is real, is caused by human activity and is already creating devastating problems in the United States and throughout the world. We believe that the United States can and must lead the world in transforming our energy system away from fossil fuels and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy. No. We do not believe that it makes sense to build the Keystone pipeline or other projects which make us more dependent on oil and other fossil fuels.

Let me conclude by relaying to you a simple but important political truth. The Republican right-wing agenda—tax breaks for the rich and large corporations, unfettered free trade, cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, nutrition and virtually every other program that sustains working families and low-income people—is an agenda supported by Fox TV. It is an agenda supported by The Wall Street Journal. It is an agenda supported by Rush Limbaugh and the 95 percent of radio talk show hosts who just happen to be right-wing. It is an agenda supported by the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable and much of corporate America.

It is not an agenda supported by the American people.

By and large, poll after poll shows that the American people support a progressive agenda that addresses income and wealth inequality, that creates the millions of jobs we desperately need, that raises the minimum wage, that ends pay discrimination against women, and that makes sure all Americans can get the quality education they need.

In the year 2015 our job is to gain control over the national debate, stay focused on the issues of real importance to the American people, stand up for our principles, educate and organize. If we do that, I have absolute confidence that we can turn this country around and become the kind of vital, prosperous and fair-minded democracy that so many want.

"Reagan's Radical Rhetoric"

Click here for an article by Michael Lind at Salon entitled "Reagan's Radical Rhetoric." He fleshes out quotations from Reagan such as this excerpt from his keynote address at the 1964 Republican National Convention which nominated Barry Goldwater:

"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done."

On Vietnam:

"It’s silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas."

Lind says:

The greatest damage done to American political culture by Reagan’s extremist rhetoric has been its effect on public perception of the legitimacy of government—any government, at any level, in any situation.  It is true that Reagan, after being elected as president, did not seriously try to repeal the New Deal.  It is also true that he reluctantly consented to tax increases when supply-side tax cuts blew a hole in the federal budget.  But his moderation in office had less effect on American society than the decades of vilification of the public sector that he pumped like toxic waste into public discourse.

Here are some Reagan quotes on the subject of government:

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away.

One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay would be to let the government run it.

Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

Lind says:

No American president or prominent public figure, including champions of small government like Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, has ever demonized government as consistently and crudely as Ronald Reagan did. In three decades as a commentator, political candidate and politician, Reagan told the American people that government at all levels was a hostile alien force seeking only to steal their money and eradicate their freedom.

50 Million Americans Below The Poverty Line

This is nearly incredible. According to an article posted at Crooks & Liars, 49.7 million Americans are below the poverty line; 80% of the total U.S. population is below or near the poverty line. Last year, food stamps helped 5 million people "barely reach above the poverty line." Poverty rates are 27.8% for Latinos, 25.8% for African-Americans, 16% for Asians, and 10.7% for non-Hispanic whites.

“The primary reason that poverty remains so high,” Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan economist said, “is that the benefits of a growing economy are no longer being shared by all workers as they were in the quarter-century following the end of World War II.”

Click here for the post by Susie Madrak at Crooks & Liars entitled Most of the Population Now Needs Government Assistance to Make Ends Meet.

The Gray Lady On Dick Cheney

 Wow. Just -- wow. (Ten years too late, but still ...)

On the heels of the Senate Intelligence Committee's blistering report on the CIA's brutal handling of prisoners after 9/11, the New York Times is calling for a criminal investigation of former Vice President Dick Cheney and other members of the Bush administration for conspiring to commit torture and other crimes prohibited by federal and international laws.

Click here for the NYT story.

You Don't Receive Fox News? Watch This.

I know a lot of people who don't receive and therefore don't watch Fox News, and they don't understand what goes on there. I don't receive it either, and I'm not going to pay extra to get it. But it was part of my cable package when I lived in Singapore, so I know what it's about.

When I first watched it, I knew what to expect from the opinion pieces -- O'Reilly, Hannity, Greta van Sustren. What I didn't realize until I watched it was that Fox News is a 24/7 attack on Obama and his administration.

Here's just an example of Fox & Friends -- Steve Doocy, the blonde, and not-Steve-Doocy -- with a regular Fox contributor, a psychiatrist (?!) named Keith Ablow.

Here's the story from Wonkette (Nasty Vile Little Snark Mob):

Fox News resident Psychopath psychiatrist Keith Ablow has Thoughts on the murder of two policemen in New York City this weekend. (We’re quite certain you were waiting to hear from him before deciding what you think of the horrific killings.)

In addition to calling on New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio to admit his personal responsibility for the murders, Ablow also insightfully diagnosed calls for police to be equipped with body cameras and to be trained in methods for de-escalating tense situations as signs of a sick society, calling it insulting to the good judgment of Our Protectors, who have done such an excellent job of protecting us from whatever criminals aren’t in blue uniforms.

On Fox & Friends this morning, Ablow called on de Blasio to own up to his crimes of calling for violence against police, explaining that because de Blasio suggested to his son that young black men need to be careful around police officers, he was quite literally stirring up hatred of cops: [The] mayor has to, just out of intellectual honesty, assume responsibility for launching a hate offensive against New York police officers, and, by the way, the judiciary […] And if the mayor says I don’t think I’m responsible in any way for someone that took murderous revenge on officers then it is unbelievable. This guy has to go or the city is in bad hands.

Brian Kilmeade then jumped in, incredulous that de Blasio and police commissioner Bill Bratton had agreed to retrain “the finest police force ever” to try to de-escalate interactions with the public: “What an insult that is,” Kilmeade complained. “The whole policing program with wearing body cameras and the rest of it is an insult to police officers,” Ablow agreed.

Ablow didn’t have time to elaborate on how body cameras — which early studies suggest may lead cops to be less violent and may also prevent unwarranted complaints of police misconduct — are insulting; presumably, the way to show someone respect is to let them bash all the heads they want and then load the grand jury with liars.

We would say a lot more about the weirdness of finding it insulting that cops should learn ways to avoid going to DefCon Four whenever anyone looks at them wrong, but we’re still trying to wrap our minds around Keith Ablow calling on another human being, anywhere in the known universe, to demonstrate “intellectual honesty.”

Col. Jessup -- Or Dick Cheney?

This passage from A Few Good Men neatly presents Dick Cheney's worldview (except, of course, that Cheney got five deferments and never served in the military; he is just a chickenhawk who sent others' sons and daughters to die for a lie):

Kaffee: I want the truth!

Jessup: You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know, that Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives! You don't want the truth, because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like "honor", "code", "loyalty". We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said "thank you", and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to!

George Washington On Torture

“Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.” - George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775.

Seems pretty clear.

Digby:

He was nothing but a lily-livered coward who didn't understand the nature of an existential threat. We should blast his face from Mt. Rushmore.

Reagan On Torture

"The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today. The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called 'universal jurisdiction.' Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution." – Ronald Reagan, President of the United States, 1984 Address to the Nation upon signing the UN Convention On Torture

Hockey - Jane Siberry

Part of Charlie Pierce's tribute on the death of Jean Beliveau (his Favorite Canadian).

Winter time and the frozen river
Sunday afternoon
They're playing hockey on the river
Rosy
He'll have that scar on his chin forever someday his girlfriend will say hey
Where
He might look out the window or not
You skate as fast as you can 'til you hit the snowbank that's how you stop
And you get your sweater from the catalogue
You use your rubber boots for goal posts
Ah walkin' home

Don't let those sunday afternoons
Get away get away get away get away
Break away break away break away break away

This stick was signed by jean belliveau so don't fucking tell me where
To fucking go
On sunday afternoon
Someone's dog just took the puck-he buried it it's in the snowbank your turn
They rioted in the streets of montreal when they benched rocket richard it's
True

Don't let those sunday afternoons
Get away get away get away get away
Break away break away break away break away

The sun is fading on the frozen river
The wind is dying down
Someone else just got called for dinner
Rosy
Hmm sunday afternoon

Gas Prices Are Down? Dodd-Frank!

This is copied-and-pasted from an article at Smirking Chimp. I think it's by wizard2000, but it's hard to tell:

"A couple of weeks ago MSNBC host Chris Hayes had an oil industry expert on as his guest to ask him a simple question, "Why are gasoline prices going down?"

"Haven't you noticed? Fuel prices have dropped quite significantly over the past several months, not as much (yet) as when they plummeted in late 2008 and early 2009 following the crash and disruption in trading on the stock market, but still by a substantial amount. So, Chris Hayes wanted to know why.

"I expected the usual answer, oil glut, refineries up and working at full capacity, etc etc, but I was surprised when Hayes' guest said that certain provisions of Dodd-Frank (passed by Democrats and signed into law by President Obama in 2010) had finally kicked in a couple of months ago (after years of delay by Republicans suing Dodd-Frank in court and right-wing commissioners on the Commodities Futures Trading Commission refusing to enforce Dodd-Frank anti-speculative provisions). And then Hayes's guest said that these long-delayed Dodd-Frank provisions that restricted oil futures trading had caused Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan (and probably Koch Industries, and other speculators in oil futures) to shut down their oil futures trading desks.

"Now, you might ask why restricting oil futures trading would lead to lower oil barrel and gasoline prices? Well, just look at what happened in late 2008. The stock market crash (from an index over 12,000 to about 6,000, with 401-Ks taking a major hit) affected fuel prices (oil barrel prices fell from $150 to about $30 a barrel, while gasoline prices at the pump fell from over $4 to under $2 a gallon). Wow!! And all because trading on Wall Street was disrupted, including oil futures trading by the speculators.

"But I thought oil futures trading on the commodities exchange was primarily for heavy fuel users like airline companies, so they could lock in lower prices due to high volume purchases to keep ticket prices lower? Oh, this was the case until former U.S. Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) inserted a speculator-friendly provision into a 1999 bill which deregulated completely oil futures trading, opening the door to billionaire/millionaire speculators. Over the past 15 years, their speculative activity has driven up and kept high the fuel prices hitting hard the middle class in America. Several years back, someone did a study showing that in the 1990s, oil futures trading was 70 percent heavy fuel users (airlines companies, etc) with only about 30 percent of the trading being done by speculators. After Gramm's bill was signed into law, this percentage reversed over the years with over 70 percent of oil futures trading being done by the speculators (J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Koch Industries, etc) leaving the 30 percent or so to the heavy fuel users. In other words, U.S. car drivers and long-haul truckers have been pumping billions of dollars into the pockets of the speculators every time they've pumped gas into their vehicle...just the way the greed-driven speculators planned.

"Dodd-Frank in 2010 (along with other provisions) was meant to address this theft from Americans and America's middle-class by rapacious Republicans, which of course explains why Republicans tried every trick they could think of to stop it from being implemented and enforced, even though the Dodd-Frank restrictions are far less stringent than those in place during the 1990s regarding oil futures trading. This obstruction of Dodd-Frank is the same as Republicans trying to restrict the Affordable Care Act even before it went into effect.

"So, what can we expect from Republicans starting in about a month when they take charge of Capitol Hill? In between numerous House impeach hearings of President Obama (who has hardly done anything approaching "high crimes and misdemeanors," just like President Clinton before him never got close to "high crimes and misdemeanors"), Republican will no doubt try one trick after another to repeal (in part or whole) the Affordable Care Act AND also repeal Dodd-Frank, so that price-gouging Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan and price-gougers like the Koch brothers can return to speculating (rigging) the oil futures trading market like before, artificially driving up fuel costs in the process, making billions more for them and the other insatiable 1 percenters.

"And the Democratic Party better make this the central message of the Democratic Party over the next two years (and beyond), whether addressing rural or urban audiences, because anyone that drives a car has been paying enormous amounts of gas money over the past 15 years to a bunch of anti-American greed-driven thugs, domestic and foreign, with Repubilcan politicians and speculator front groups doing their dirty work. Hey, these Republican politicians and front groups are just another "investment commodity" in the eyes of the insanity insatiable 1 percenters, the best puppets their money can buy.

Frank Serpico

Click here for an article at Politico written by 78-year-old Frank Serpico, entitled The Police Are Still Out Of Control. I Should Know. Some quotes:

Forty-odd years on, my story probably seems like ancient history to most people, layered over with Hollywood legend. For me it’s not, since at the age of 78 I’m still deaf in one ear and I walk with a limp and I carry fragments of the bullet near my brain.

A few years ago, after the New York Police Museum refused my guns and other memorabilia, I loaned them to the Italian-American museum right down street from police headquarters, and they invited me to their annual dinner. I didn’t know it was planned, but the chief of police from Rome, Italy, was there, and he gave me a plaque. The New York City police officers who were there wouldn’t even look at me.

Times have changed. It’s harder to be a venal cop these days. But an even more serious problem — police violence — has probably grown worse, and it’s out of control for the same reason that graft once was: a lack of accountability.

Today the combination of an excess of deadly force and near-total lack of accountability is more dangerous than ever: Most cops today can pull out their weapons and fire without fear that anything will happen to them, even if they shoot someone wrongfully. All a police officer has to say is that he believes his life was in danger, and he’s typically absolved. What do you think that does to their psychology as they patrol the streets—this sense of invulnerability?

In some ways, matters have gotten even worse. The gulf between the police and the communities they serve has grown wider. Mind you, I don’t want to say that police shouldn’t protect themselves and have access to the best equipment. Police officers have the right to defend themselves with maximum force, in cases where, say, they are taking on a barricaded felon armed with an assault weapon. But when you are dealing every day with civilians walking the streets, and you bring in armored vehicles and automatic weapons, it’s all out of proportion. It makes you feel like you’re dealing with some kind of subversive enemy. The automatic weapons and bulletproof vest may protect the officer, but they also insulate him from the very society he’s sworn to protect. All that firepower and armor puts an even greater wall between the police and society, and solidifies that “us-versus-them” feeling.

All a policeman has to say is that “the suspect turned toward me menacingly,” and he does not have to worry about prosecution.

Many white Americans, indoctrinated by the ridiculous number of buddy-cop films and police-themed TV shows that Hollywood has cranked out over the decades—almost all of them portraying police as heroes—may be surprised by the continuing outbursts of anger, the protests in the street against the police that they see in inner-city environments like Ferguson. But they often don’t understand that these minority communities, in many cases, view the police as the enemy. We want to believe that cops are good guys, but let’s face it, any kid in the ghetto knows different. The poor and the disenfranchised in society don’t believe those movies; they see themselves as the victims, and they often are.

As for Barack Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder, they’re giving speeches now, after Ferguson. But it’s 20 years too late. It’s the same old problem of political power talking, and it doesn’t matter that both the president and his attorney general are African-American. Corruption is color blind. Money and power corrupt, and they are color blind too.

Christopher Walken

As Hook in Peter Pan:



In the Fatboy Slim video, Weapon of Choice:

Strange Fruit (Billie Holiday)

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

 Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Bernie Sanders For President!

Click here for an article by Heather at Crooks & Liars entitled Sen. Bernie Sanders Unveils 12-Point Economic Plan.

Nostalgia - Dial-Up Internet

Bobby Kennedy's Speech On The Assassination Of Martin Luther King

"I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee."

Read This Post!

This is an extremely important article by Mike Lofgren at Bill Moyers & Co. Lofgren was "a congressional staff member for 28 years specializing in national security and possessing a top secret security clearance ..."

His description of "The Deep State" would have been considered 30 years ago to be the raving of a wingnut conspiracy theorist; today, it's a harsh and unpleasant reality.

Click here for his article, entitled "Anatomy of the Deep State."

The Fox's Agents In The Henhouse

The Republicans have a long and unillustrious history of appointing chairmen of committees and heads of agencies who are bitterly opposed to the ostensible purpose of those committees and agencies. I recently came across the following article about the 2010 appointment of Spencer Bachus as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

The Republicans recently routed the Democrats in the 2014 Midterms, taking control of the Senate, where they will now appoint committee heads. Scheduled to be chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is one James Inhofe (R-OK), author of the 2012 book "The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future."

Bachus's Alabama colleague Richard Shelby (R-AL) is set to become Senate Banking Chairman. He has lambasted the Obama administration’s Dodd-Frank financial law and is expected to push to roll back powers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

John McCain (R.-AZ), on the other hand, is in line to lead the Senate Armed Services Committee. Far from being opposed to anything to do with the armed services, McCain is expected to seek to pursue new and exciting military ventures all over the globe.

Click here for an article by Mary Orndorf Troyan at blog.al.com/sweethome entitled "Spencer Bachus finally gets his chairmanship." Some illustrative quotes from the article:

House Republicans on Wednes­day promoted Bachus to chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, which has wide juris­diction over banks, capital markets, housing, consumer credit and the overall health of the American fi­nancial system.

Bachus, in an interview Wednesday night, said he brings a "main street" perspective to the committee, as opposed to Wall Street.

"In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks," he said.

He later clarified his comment to say that regulators should set the parameters in which banks operate but not micromanage them. [Yeah, right.]

Influenza Season

Cover up!

Jon Stewart v. Koch Brothers

Krugman Hits Another One Out Of The Park

Click here for a recent NYT article by Paul Krugman entitled "Ideology and Investment."

John Oliver's Canine SCOTUS

John Oliver's canine take on SCOTUS:



And then the additional time on the web:

Eisenhower: Military/Industrial Complex

Video clip and transcription of Eisenhower's "military/industrial complex" speech.


Good evening, my fellow Americans.

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time, and as required, make swords as well.

But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. How to do this? Three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment.

Now, this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development, yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.

We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Shep Smith Goes Off The Fox Reservation Again

Say it, Shep! (But I frequently fear for your future employment at Fox.)

For the next few minutes, I'm going to give you the facts on Ebola. It'll take just three minutes.

But first, today, given what we know, you should have no concerns about Ebola at all. None. I promise. Unless a medical professional has contacted you personally and told you of some sort of possible exposure, fear not. Do not listen to the hysterical voices on the radio and the television or read the fear-provoking words on line. The people who say and write hysterical things are being very irresponsible.

Here are the facts. A man contracted Ebola overseas. Tragically, he was dying in a Texas hospital. He was at his most contagious while showing the most severe symptoms; that's how Ebola works. And a healthcare worker at the hospital got the virus from him. She is doing well, she says, Skyping with her family from isolation just yesterday, saying she's blessed to have so much support and such great medical care.

The CDC director told us, all of us, yesterday, that he did indeed expect other health care workers at that hospital who treated that one dying patient to contract the virus, and that's now happened. Another health care worker at that same hospital now has Ebola. They tell us they're transferring her to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

Now, before she showed symptoms, she flew from Cleveland to Dallas on Frontier Airlines. They say she should not have done that, but she did. But as we all now know, if you don't show symptoms, you are not contagious. She did not show symptoms, according to the doctors. Still, medical professionals are contacting everyone who was on that plane to make sure each person is okay. The CDC director says chances are very slim that any of those passengers is sick.

Now, big picture, and this is important: You have to remember that -- in the middle of all of this, you have to remember that there is politics in the mix. With midterm elections coming, the party in charge needs to appear to be effectively leading. The party out of power needs to show that there is a lack of leadership. So the president has canceled a fundraising trip and is holding meetings, and his political opponents are accusing his administration of poor leadership.

For the purpose of this fact-dissemination exercise, those matters are immaterial. Again, these are the facts. We do not have an outbreak of Ebola in the United States, nowhere. We do have two health care workers who contacted the disease from a dying man. They are isolated. There is no information to suggest that the virus has spread to anyone in the general population in America: not one person in the general population in the United States.

Suggestions have been made publicly that leaders and medical professionals may be lying to us. Those suggestions are completely without basis in fact. There is no evidence of any kind of which we at Fox News are aware that leaders have lied about anything regarding Ebola.

I report to you with certainty this afternoon that being afraid, at all, is the wrong thing to do. Being petrified -- and that's a quote -- is ridiculous. The panic that has tanked the stock market and left people fearful that their children will get sick at school is counterproductive and lacks basis in fact or reason. There is no Ebola spreading in America. Should that change, our reporting will change. But there is nothing to indicate that it will.

Best advice for you and your family at this moment: Get a flu shot. Unlike Ebola, flu is easily transmitted. Flu, along with resulting pneumonia, killed 52,000 Americans last year alone. A flu shot will reduce your chance of getting flu. So get one.

Britain Votes (274-12) To Recognize A Palestinian State,

Click here for an article by Susie Madrak at Crooks & Liars entitled British Parliament Votes Overwhelmingly In Favor Of Recognizing Palestine State, 247-12.

According to Labour member Andy Slaughter, Israel has engaged in a new “barbarism”:

I think that the British people have been on the same sort of journey as the Right Hon. Member for Croydon South [Conservative Sir Richard Ottaway] described. It is certainly true of the Labour movemen -- from being very sympathetic to Israel as a country that was trying to achieve democracy and was embattled, to seeing it now as a bully and a regional superpower. That is not something I say with any pleasure, but since the triumph of military Zionism and the Likud-run governments [Netanyahu] we have seen a new barbarism in that country.

Madrak says:

One lawmaker says that the occupation is “much worse” than apartheid in South Africa. Another says that the Balfour Declaration of 1917 now seems like a “sick joke,” because it never guaranteed freedom to Palestinians. Many members offer frank descriptions of Israeli detention of children and unending settlement expansion. Several describe Israeli actions in Gaza as war crimes. One mentions the use of terrorism by Mandela and Begin long before Palestinians used the tactic. Labour and Conservative members alike speak about the role of the Israel lobby in the United States.

I seldom read comments to blog posts, but here's just a quick sample of the first of the comments:

* Chris L'Hommedieu • a day ago
So here's how I look at it. You go to war. You win. You put the losers in a very small box. No-one else helps them out either. You build walls. You occupy every inch of their box. You periodically make their box smaller as "settlers" move into the box. You prevent them from either moving around inside the box, or ever leaving the box. Every now and then the people in the box get really really pissed and throw things at you, but don't do much actual damage. But its scary as hell when they do it. So you blow the crap out of the box, killing piles of them. Then you send in more settlers and take more of the box.

And you're shocked, amazed, and appalled that the people in the box hate you and want to kill you.

Repeat. Decade after decade.

* Bill Lumbergh • a day ago

And the sick thing is that Israeli/U.S. govt. propaganda asserts that it's Israel that's in the box.

* Gil Randall • 12 hours ago
It was, but only in the earliest years.

By the mid-50s or so, after Egypt got the Soviet Union to support them, that was when Israel got the US involved to back them and, initially anyway, Israel and the Arab states were just more countries used by the US and the Soviet Union to fight proxy wars as a dick-waving contest against each other for the next forty years.

But as soon as the "religious" people got involved in the 60s, that's when the politicians (and Israeli leaders) starting merging more and more so that even after Egypt made peace (1979), then the Soviet Union collapsed (1991), then Jordan made peace (1994), they still look at Palestinians with contempt.

By today's standards, with the Soviet Union gone, two of the Arab state former antagonists out of the equation (including the largest and strongest one, Egypt), Syria and Iraq too embroiled in chaos and/or civil war, and Lebanon having absolutely no chance on its own if they even think about trying anything, there should be no reason for the US to be SO closely tied to Israel anymore beyond just allies (much less billions of dollars in equipment and such), and religious dogma is really the only reason.

FOX NEWS FLASH: Obama Will Give Iran Nukes In Exchange For ISIS Help!

Kathleen Troia "KT" McFarland (born c. July 24, 1951) is an American communications consultant. She served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs under President Ronald Reagan from 1982 to 1985. She also served as a speech writer to Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate Republican nomination in New York in 2006 and is currently a Fox News contributor on foreign policy and national security issues.

McFARLAND: Or, I think the more likely, he's going to partner with Iran and he's going to say, you know, you, the pro-Iranian, Iraqi army, the Shiite militias,we're all going to work together to get rid of ISIS and Iran will have a price tag on that, and that will be nuclear weapons.

As karoli says at Crooks & Liars:

That's right, folks. After spending years on delicate negotiations and heavy sanctions on Iran to keep them from developing nuclear weapons, KT McFarland actually thinks the most likely scenario is that President Obama will sign over a few nukes in exchange for their participation in the eradication of ISIS.

Jon Stewart v. Hank Greenberg (AIG)

When's the last time you got good and angry about the financiers that tanked the world economy in 2008?

Want to?

Helping The Little One ...

Reagan + China = Economic Disaster

Click here for an article by Dave Johnson at Crooks & Liars entitled "Reagan Set Up The Death Of The Middle Class, But China Was The Clincher."

Reagan directed the flow of power and money into the hands of a few; they used that power and money to outsource the American economy to China. Germany, though, with stronger labor unions, followed a different economic model where the wealth was more evenly distributed, and thus has a much stronger middle class today.

LBJ's War On Poverty - 50 Years Later

Click here for an article by Mark E. Andersen at Daily Kos from 2008, entitled "The Counteroffensive on the War on Poverty." That counteroffensive was launched by Ronald Reagan. When Johnson announced the "War on Poverty" in 1964, the poverty rate was 19%; today it's 15%. Not really astonishing improvement for 50 years, is it?

Well, when Reagan took office in 1980, after only 16 years, the rate had fallen to 11.4%. But after Reagan's counteroffensive "War on the Poor," it had risen to -- 15%, the same as it is today.

The Kochs' Criminal Enterprise

Click here for an article by Charles Pierce in Esquire entitled "Criminal Minds."

Thanks to Harry Reid's recent efforts, a lot more people have become aware that Charles and David Koch are a couple of America's richest men who are trying to buy state and federal governments: House members, senators, and judges at both levels -- not to mention the U.S. presidency. But a lot of those people are not aware that Chuck and Dave are the sons of Fred C. Koch, a prime mover behind the radical John Birch Society (hell, a lot of them are probably not aware of what the John Birch Society is).

Nor are a lot of those people aware of just how big a polluter Koch Industries is:

Under the nearly five-decade reign of CEO Charles Koch, the company has paid out record civil and criminal environmental penalties. And in 1999, a jury handed down to Koch's pipeline company what was then the largest wrongful-death judgment of its type in U.S. history, resulting from the explosion of a defective pipeline that incinerated a pair of Texas teenagers. The volume of Koch Industries' toxic output is staggering. According to the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Political Economy Research Institute, only three companies rank among the top 30 polluters of America's air, water and climate: ExxonMobil, American Electric Power and Koch Industries. Thanks in part to its 2005 purchase of paper-mill giant Georgia-Pacific, Koch Industries dumps more pollutants into the nation's waterways than General Electric and International Paper combined. The company ranks 13th in the nation for toxic air pollution. Koch's climate pollution, meanwhile, outpaces oil giants including Valero, Chevron and Shell. Across its businesses, Koch generates 24 million metric tons of greenhouse gases a year.

Good Links

Jon and Stephen both hit this one out of the park. I hope I can add this when I have more time.

Sock It To Me??? Richard Nixon On Laugh-In, 1968

Obama: Best Economic President Of Modern Times?

Click here for an article by Adam Hartung at Forbes, that bastion of liberal progressivism, entitled "Obama Outperforms Reagan on Jobs, Growth, and Investing."

Hartung discusses various ways in which economic performance is measured, and the article concludes:

Economically, President Obama’s administration has outperformed President Reagan’s in all commonly watched categories. Simultaneously the current administration has reduced the deficit, which skyrocketed under Reagan. Additionally, Obama has reduced federal employment, which grew under Reagan (especially when including military personnel,) and truly delivered a “smaller government.” Additionally, the current administration has kept inflation low, even during extreme international upheaval, failure of foreign economies (Greece) and a dramatic slowdown in the European economy.

Ben Carson: U.S. Could Be Like Nazi Germany ...

Black tea party conservative darling Ben Carson (h/t Driftglass):

"You can't dance around it," Carson told The Washington Post's Ben Terris. "If people look at what I said and were not political about it, they'd have to agree. Most people in Germany didn't agree with what Hitler was doing…Exactly the same thing can happen in this country if we are not willing to stand up for what we believe in."

In February Carson suggested that liberals could turn the country into Nazi Germany...

After which comes Driftglass's devastating reply:

But you know what? I actually agree with what Dr. Carson said, although not in any way that would make him happy.

The despair and rage and paranoia of post-WWI Germany that made the rise of Nazism possible -- an overpowering sense of betrayal and lost greatness... an obsession with race and purity... a berserk hatred of impure outsiders and immigrants... a willingness to believe the most paranoid conspiracies about fifth columns and internal enemies ... the relentless scapegoating of (among others) minorities, foreigners, intellectuals, unions and Liberals ... the round-the-clock raving of demagogues -- are precisely the same toxic conditions which prevail within the Republican Party and the Conservative Movement today.

And, just as in Germany, all of it is being purposefully orchestrated and bankrolled by wealthy industrialists, propagandists, amoral opportunists, con men and various other psychopaths and scumbags.

John Kenneth Galbraith:

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

Exxon Hates Your Children - And The World

Bob Rankin - Microsoft Fix It Solution Center

Click here for a Bob Rankin article entitled "Microsoft Fix It Solution Center." Bob claims that at the time of writing this article, Microsoft had 270 Fix It Solutions to common computer problems. There is a one-click option, "Run Now," that simply solves the problem you've selected, or you can click "Learn More" to find out exactly what steps will be taken. (I wish I'd had this a couple of weeks ago, when a Microsoft patch or update bricked my computer -- of course, it wouldn't boot, so I couldn't have accessed it anyway.)

"Demote Reagan From Hero To History"

Click here for an excellent op-ed in the NY Times by Boston College history professor Heather Cox Richardson, entitled "Bring Back the Party of Lincoln." Can the Republican party reorganize itself, as it has twice in the past, to serve the needs of the general public rather than the wealthy? I like the closing sentence:

The same rebranding is possible today, if Republicans demote Reagan from hero to history and rally to a leader like Lincoln, Roosevelt or Eisenhower — someone who believes that the government should promote economic opportunity rather than protect the rich.

Margaret Thatcher On Global Warming

Taken from Youtube:

Published on May 17, 2012

Recently, the Heartland Institute, a hotbed of Climate Contrarianism, posted a billboard near a Chicago freeway. The Billboard suggested that those who accept mainstream science in regard to climate change, are like Ted Kaczinsky, the Unabomber. Heartland promised to follow up with similar billboards featuring Fidel Castro, Osama Bin Laden, and Charles Manson.

When a scathing barrage of internet protests and parodies went viral, Heartland was forced to withdraw the billboard, and post a defense on its website. Even then, they continued to maintain that "the most prominent advocates of global warming are not scientists, they are murderers, tyrants, and madmen."

Margaret Thatcher thought different -- and she had a chemistry degree from Oxford and experience as a researcher.

Elaine Breaks Bad

It's Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bryan Cranston, and Aaron Paul -- bitch!

Auburn v. Alabama - Crazy U.S. College Sports

Auburn Tigers v. Alabama Crimson Tide: The Iron Bowl, one of the most passionate rivalries in college football. The name comes from the fact that the game used to be played annually in Birmingham, Alabama, with its strong connections to the steel industry. Now the game, played on Thanksgiving weekend, alternates between Auburn and Tuscaloosa (home of the Crimson Tide). The two teams first played each other in 1893; they met sporadically in following years until the game became an annual fixture starting in 1948. In 2014, Alabama leads the series, 42-35-1.

Alabama is a major force on the national college football scene, having won the South East Conference title 23 times. But Auburn, a much smaller school, is no slouch; it has won 8 SEC titles over the years. Auburn claims two national titles, in 1957 and 2011, while The Tide claim 15. (The word "claim" is used because there is no actual playoff to determine a collegiate national champion; the teams are ranked and voted on by sports writers, so sometimes a "title" can be disputed or controversial.

The video clip is of a British visitor's experience of the game. (He seems to find the flyover a bit of a surprise.)

ISIS? Take Care Of It Locally

Click here for an article by kos, at Daily Kos, entitled "Islamic State is a threat, so let the neighbors deal with it," Turkey, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia have military forces that are bristling with U.S.-supplied aircraft and armaments.

Hey, guys -- time to step up in your own defense.

Mitch McConnell Caught On Tape

Here's the entirety of an article from the editors of the New York Times entitled "No Comment Necessary: The Gosh Darn Minimum Wage."

The Nation magazine obtained an audio tape of Senator Mitch McConnell discussing strategy with wealthy donors at a conference convened by the Koch brothers. He said he would seek to shrink the federal government “across the board” and explained what the Senate would look like if he were to become majority leader.

Via The Nation

And we’re not going to be debating all these gosh darn proposals. That’s all we do in the Senate is vote on things like raising the minimum wage (inaudible)—cost the country 500,000 new jobs; extending unemployment—that’s a great message for retirees; uh, the student loan package the other day, that’s just going to make things worse, uh. These people believe in all the wrong things.

He also shared his opinion on money in politics:

So all Citizens United did was to level the playing field for corporate speech….We now have, I think, the most free and open system we’ve had in modern times. The Supreme Court allowed all of you to participate in the process in a variety of different ways. You can give to the candidate of your choice. You can give to Americans for Prosperity, or something else, a variety of different ways to push back against the party of government.

Click here for the article, which also includes an audio clip.

UPDATE: Here's Daily Kos's take on McConnell's comments made to wealthy donors, not realizing he's being recorded, by Joan McCarter, in a post entitled "Mitch McConnell exposes Kochs' extremist agenda, and just how committed to it he is":

The audio leak from this summer's Koch brothers secret confab has provided a treasure trove of information about just how deeply Republican Senate candidates are embedded in the Koch brothers' pocket. Iowa's Joni Ernst credits the Kochs with her political life. Arkansan's Tom Cotton votes Koch rather than Arkansas. And Colorado's Cory Gardner was blatant in his begging to have his race bankrolled by the Koch cabal.

But it's Mitch McConnell that takes the cake, and who demonstrates as clear as can be the really extreme agenda Republicans are buying into. After declaring that "in the House and Senate, we own the budget," McConnell describes how he can shut the government down.

"We can pass the spending bill, and I assure you that in the spending bill, we will be pushing back against this bureaucracy by doing what’s called placing riders in the bill: No money can be spent to do this or to do that. We’re going to go after them on healthcare, on financial services, on the Environmental Protection Agency, across the board.

"And we’re not going to be debating all these gosh darn proposals. That’s all we do in the Senate is vote on things like raising the minimum wage—cost the country 500,000 new jobs; extending unemployment—that’s a great message for retirees; the student loan package the other day; that’s going to make things worse. These people believe in all the wrong things."

That means defunding Obamacare, cutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (which has saved Americans nearly $13 billion annually just in lower fees and interest charges for credit cards), and slashing the budget of the oil-baron Kochs' nemesis, the EPA. It means being willing to shut down the government for that agenda. It means going against the political will of the nation—74 percent support raising the minimum wage, 69 percent support extending unemployment benefits—to do the Kochs' bidding.

Laura Clawson pointed out earlier that McConnell's public justification for blocking all action on anything the American public wants is because of Harry Reid's totalitarian control over the Senate. Clearly, that's hooey. This has nothing to do with principle, and everything to do with representing the interests of Charles and David Koch and friends.

Blacks Are Inferior, Says Black Preacher - h/t Ted Nugent

Click here for a racist rant by black preacher James David Manning, a clip which gets the comment "“TRUER LOVE THERE HAS NEVER BEEN" from racemonger Ted Nugent. It's from a clip entitled "Ted Nugent Loves Insane Pastor James David Manning's Racist Rant" by Brian Tashman at Right Wing Watch:

“You niggas are crazy,” Manning says about black voters who supported Obama in the sermon posted by Nugent. “We’re not going to ever get anywhere until we get in the mind of a black man. He doesn’t think correctly. He can be doctor, he can be an astrophysicist; the nigga ain’t got no sense.”

“The worst thing that ever happened to South Africa was when they gave it to Nelson Mandela and black folk,” he added. “Black folk don’t know how to run no nation.”

There's a whole lot more; Manning's "sermon" is six and a half minutes of self-loathing and hatred. How can these charlatans sleep at night? It's like the question "How can you shoot women and children who are running for their lives," asked of a Vietnam War-era helicopter gunner: "Easy. You just don't lead 'em so much."

Pat Robertson Finds His Nurse Too Intrusive, Calls For Revolution

Click here for a post on Right Wing Watch, Pat Robertson demanding revolution because his nurse asks him too many questions.

ROBERTSON: (A nurse is asking him too many questions) We need a revolution in this country to change this stuff ... A doctor working for $12 an hour and his wife working for a couple of dollars an hour --

BIMBO: Socialism.

ROBERTSON: it isn't right.

Ladies and gentlemen, we need a revolution to stop these so-called progressives from destroying this country any more, but they're getting pretty close to the tipping point. It is not a pleasant scenario. And -- I didn't vote for him, and maybe you didn't vote for him, but the American people voted him into office twice, and this is the result. We -- we -- you know, get what we -- you know, reap what we sow.

Paul Krugman: Mea Culpa

Click here for a Paul Krugman article dated September 1, 2010, in which he confesses to mistakes he has made (two, that he considers to be of significance).

Will this force me to resile from my former position that Paul Krugman is God?

Not yet. I'll get back to you.

I'm reminded of the joke: Have you ever made any mistakes?

Yes. Once I thought I had made a mistake.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Political Figure

Click here for an article in Time entitled "The Coming Race War Won’t Be About Race," by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (ne Lew Alcindor).

First, some information about Kareem. Time's blurb says:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a six-time National Basketball Association champion and league Most Valuable Player. He is also a celebrated author, filmmaker and education ambassador.

Wikipedia goes into a little more detail. Here's a section on his basketball career:

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor, Jr.; April 16, 1947) is a retired American professional basketball player who played 20 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA) for the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers. During his career as a center, Abdul-Jabbar was a record six-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), a record 19-time NBA All-Star, a 15-time All-NBA selection, and an 11-time NBA All-Defensive Team member. A member of six NBA championship teams as a player and two as an assistant coach, Abdul-Jabbar twice was voted NBA Finals MVP. In 1996, he was honored as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History. NBA coach Pat Riley and players Isiah Thomas and Julius Erving have called him the greatest basketball player of all time.

I was aware that he was more than just possibly the best basketball player ever; I was even aware that he was a pretty good writer. He's also been expressing his political views for a long time, as Wikipedia says:

Alcindor boycotted the 1968 Summer Olympics by deciding not to join the United States Men's Olympic Basketball team that year, protesting the unequal treatment of African-Americans in the United States.

I first noticed his writing during the notorious L.A. Clippers/Donald Sterling controversy. Here's an entry from an ABC News blog at the time:

Basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said today that Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s derogatory remarks about blacks are more evidence that racism is still part of American culture, but “things have to change.”

“This is a problem. I did a little bit of research, more whites believe in ghosts than believe in racism… That’s why we have shows like ‘Ghostbusters’ and don’t have shows like ‘Racistbusters,’” Abdul-Jabbar said today in an interview with George Stephanopoulos. “It’s something that’s still part of our culture and people hold on to some of these ideas and practices just out of habit and saying that, ‘Well, that’s the way it always was.’ But things have to change.”

In the linked article, Kareem says the roots of the present class conflict can be found in May of 1970. Everyone knows about the killing of four student protesters at Kent State, Ohio, on May 4, 1970; who knows about the events ten days later, on May 14, at Jackson State University, Mississippi? Kareem:

On May 14th, 10 days after Kent State ignited the nation, at the predominantly black Jackson State University in Mississippi, police killed two black students (one a high school senior, the other the father of an 18-month-old baby) with shotguns and wounded twelve others.

There was no national outcry. The nation was not mobilized to do anything. That heartless leviathan we call History swallowed that event whole, erasing it from the national memory.

Past Wingnuttery

Click here for "A Brief History of Wingnuts in America; From George Washington to Woodstock," an article at Daily Beast by John Avlon, part of the latest update of his book, "Wingnuts: Extremism in the Age of Obama." Even the presidents considered by historians to be the best -- Washington, Lincoln, FDR -- had their over-the-top detractors. Avlon says:

American political history has been marked by periodic eruptions of the “heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy” that Richard Hofstadter famously characterized as “the paranoid style in American politics.” Wingnuts have masqueraded under different names and causes at different times, but they have always been committed to an “us against them” framing of domestic debates while inflaming group hatred in the name of politics and alleged principle. They prey on fear and ignorance.

Survey Wingnut rhetoric through the ages and the usual suspects keep surfacing: appeals to religious suspicion; ethnic and racial divisions; foreign subversion of sovereignty; and perhaps the oldest conspiracy theory of them all—accusing the president of the United States of being a tyrant and a dictator bent on destroying the Constitution.

Deliberate Destruction Of Congress's Effectiveness

Click here for an article at Washington Monthly entitled "The Big Lobotomy: How Republicans Made Congress Stupid," by Paul Glastris and Haley Sweetland Edwards. It's a long one, but well worth the read.

It describes how, since Newt Gingrich's congressional revolution, congressional staff have been experiencing "brain drain": Conservatives under Gingrich and in the years since have drastically cut funding for, and numbers of, congressional staffers who accomplish the day-to-day work done in Washington.

A quick refresher: In 1995, after winning a majority in the House for the first time in forty years, one of the first things the new Republican House leadership did was gut Congress’s workforce. They cut the “professional staff” (the lawyers, economists, and investigators who work for committees rather than individual members) by a third. They reduced the “legislative support staff” (the auditors, analysts, and subject-matter experts at the Government Accountability Office [GAO], the Congressional Research Service [CRS], and so on) by a third, too, and killed off the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) entirely. And they fundamentally dismantled the old committee structure, centralizing power in the House speaker’s office and discouraging members and their staff from performing their own policy research.

And:

Today, the GAO and the CRS, which serve both House and Senate, are each operating at about 80 percent of their 1979 capacity. While Senate committee staffs have rebounded somewhat under Democratic control, every single House standing committee had fewer staffers in 2009 than in 1994. Since 2011, with a Tea Party-radicalized GOP back in control of the House, Congress has cut its budget by a whopping 20 percent, a far higher ratio than any other federal agency, leading, predictably, to staff layoffs, hiring and salary freezes, and drooping morale.

Later, the article says:

When Newt Gingrich became speaker of the House in the fall of 1994, he set about almost immediately creating “the most controversial majority leadership since 1910,” according to longtime Congress watchers and political scientists Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein in their 2006 book, The Broken Branch. Under his leadership, backed up by seventy-three conservative Republican freshmen who swept to power that year, the goal was not to reform, but to destroy; not to compromise, but to advance a highly conservative agenda no matter the means. The shift in culture was palpable almost immediately, with freshman lawmakers eschewing bipartisan freshman orientations in favor of partisan ones, and the vast majority joining what’s known as the “Tuesday-Thursday Club,” flying in on Tuesday evening and out Thursday afternoon so as to reduce the likelihood of contracting “Potomac fever.” “There was a total contempt for the institution,” said Scott Lilly, who served as a high-level staffer in Congress for thirty-one years before joining the Center for American Progress in 2004. John Dingell, who will have served in the House for fifty-nine years when he retires this year, said it succinctly: “The place just got meaner.”

Gingrich’s strategy, as he explained it to Mann and Ornstein, was simple: Cultivate a seething disdain for the institution of Congress itself, while simultaneously restructuring it so as to eliminate anything—powerful chairmen, contradictory facts from legislative support agencies, more moderate Republicans—that would stand in the way of his vision.

In conclusion, the article says:

Regardless of how it’s organized or what new technologies can be brought to bear, what’s clear is that members of Congress need the institutional capacity to help them make sense of it all. As the issues facing members of Congress become increasingly intertwined and technological in our complex global economy, what we need is not fewer people in government who understand the implications of, say, the international derivatives market; what we need is more. And we need them, whether they be knowledgeable committee chairs or long-serving professional staff, to be experienced, well paid, and appreciated so they want to stick around for a while.

The problem, however, is that conservatives as a rule don’t see this lack of expertise as a problem. Quite the contrary: they’ve orchestrated the brain drain precisely as a way to advance the conservative agenda. Why, when your aim is less government, would you want to add to government’s intellectual capacity?

The answer, as some conservatives are beginning to realize, is that making Congress dumber has not, in fact, made government smaller. As the conservative but independent-minded Senator Tom Coburn wrote in his 2012 report, cuts to the GAO budget and declines in Senate and House committee oversight activity have resulted in billions of dollars in unnecessary, duplicative, and wasteful government spending.

Disposable Email Address

Click here for Bob Rankin's article, "Do You Need A Disposable Email Address?"

Yes, I do, because Microsoft is doing its best to drive me away from using outlook.com by some ridiculous "verification" nonsense that forces me to jump through a series of hoops once a month or more just to access my own account.

Tea Partier Beseeches God's Help -- Against Establishment Republicans

Click here for an article at Salon by Elias Isquith entitled "Tea Party leader asks God to 'be violent against' GOP establishment in opening prayer." Mississippi Tea Party chairman Roy Nicholson delivered an opening prayer at a rally in Flowood, Mississippi, in which he asked Almighty God to "be violent against” establishment Republicans:

We ask for your blessing upon the conservatives in this state, that they might stand strong and firm. Father, we even ask for you to bless our enemies, and Lord they are truly our enemies that head the Republican Party and the whole political establishment.

We’re asking, Father, for two things. We’re asking, Father, that you would expose them, set division amongst them, set them one against another, bring confusion and fear into their camp, into their thinking, for the purpose of pulling them down, for casting them down out of their high offices and reducing them, Lord, to having no power in this state. So, Lord, that you might raise up and seek the righteous in the positions of power that this state might once more be a state that honors you in all that it does.

Father, we’re asking that in all of the tribulations were asking you to bring upon them, that it would work change in their heart — that you would use it to bring true Godly sorrow, that they might truly repent for their iniquity and their wickedness, for that they would be restored to you, that you would have honor in the state of Mississippi for the great works that you’ve done in correcting and purifying the government and rescuing and saving the worst of us.

That's his appeal for the Almighty's help in dealing with establishment Republicans -- how would he word an address referring to progressive Democrats, I wonder?

Anyway: "... expose them, set division amongst them, set them one against another, bring confusion and fear into their camp, into their thinking, for the purpose of pulling them down, for casting them down out of their high offices and reducing them, Lord, to having no power in this state." Thy will be done.

Tea Party Losing The Battle? Maybe Not ...

Click here for Digby's article at Salon entitled "Tea Party’s horrifying cousin: Here comes 'constitutional conservatism,'” subtitled "The sad club of dupes known as the Tea Party is not the real problem. This scary ideological undercurrent might be."

She quotes Ed Kilgore at Talking Points Memo:

Yesterday’s winner Pat Roberts, who already sported lifetime ratings of 86 percent from both the American Conservative Union and Americans for Prosperity, went far out of his way to propitiate the ideological gods of movement conservatism as he fought for reelection. He voted against an appropriations measure that included a project he had long sought for his alma mater, Kansas State University, and opposed a UN Treaty banning discrimination against people with disabilities over the objections of his revered Kansas Senate predecessors Bob Dole and Nancy Kassebaum.

Kilgore also pointed out in his blog at Washington Monthly on the eve of the Obama/Romney election:

Yes, years from now conservatives will sit around campfires and sing songs about the legendary internecine battles of late 2012, when father fought son and brother fought brother across a chasm of controversy as to whether 98% or 99% of abortions should be banned; whether undocumented workers should be branded and utilized as “guest workers,” loaded onto cattle cars and shipped home, or simply immiserated; whether the New Deal/Great Society programs should be abolished in order to cut upper-income taxes or abolished in order to boost Pentagon spending. There’s also a vicious, take-no-prisons fight over how quickly to return the role of the federal government in the economy to its pre-1930s role as handmaiden to industry. Blood will flow in the streets as Republicans battle over how to deal with health care after Obamacare is repealed and 50 million or people lose health insurance. Tax credits and risk pools or just “personal responsibility?”

In short, there's no cause for liberals to be jubilant at the apparent rout of the tea party crowd in the 2014 primaries; they've won by pushing Republican mainstream political thought so far to the right it cannot possibly be called moderate.

Double Dutch!

Remember the skipping game, Double Dutch, with two ropes? Have a look at this one!

Free College Textbooks (And Courses)

Click here for a post by Bob Rankin on free college textbooks; there are also links to free college courses.

Fancy Farm Picnic In Kentucky

Alison Lundergan-Grimes, the Kentucky Secretary of State who is challenging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for his Senate seat (which he has held for 30 years), had some red meat for the raucous Republican crowd at the annual Fancy Farm Picnic. (My favorite of her zingers: "If Mitch McConnell were a TV show, he'd be Mad Men -– treating women unfairly, stuck in 1968, and ending this season."

In the 2010 census, it was determined that Fancy Farm, Kentucky, had a population of 458. But since 1880, once a year -- and particularly in election years -- this tiny community has some political clout, as it hosts a crowd of up to 15,000 people for the annual Fancy Farm Picnic. Ever since the 1930s, the Fancy Farm Picnic has been traditionally a venue for Kentucky politicians to show up and make political speeches. It's pretty much required that candidates for political office in Kentucky show up at Fancy Farm -- when Senator Jim Bunning didn't, in 2007, he took a lot of political heat for it. Watch Lundergan-Grimes vs. McConnell, 2014:

USAID - A Chilling View

Click here for an article by Mark Ames at pando.com entitled "The murderous history of USAID, the US Government agency behind Cuba’s fake Twitter clone."

Click here for the Wikipedia entry for USAID, described as "... the United States federal government agency primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid," an organization I have always taken to be pretty benevolent, administering useful aid programs around the world. I was once involved in an arbitration concerning a USAID project in Egypt which involved the expenditure of several hundred million dollars in the development of an irrigation project. the article quotes Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research as saying:

In a number of countries, including Venezuela and Bolivia, USAID is acting more as an agency involved in covert action, like the CIA, than as an aid or development agency.

While Ames says:

It’s important to note that not everything USAID does is patently evil — in fact, there are many programs that could even be described as good.

He also says:

But USAID, as with any agency of American power, is fully capable of and will continue to be an instrument of geopolitical and corporate force.

There's some pretty ugly stuff in this article. See more after the break.

Michael Peroutka, GOP candidate for county council in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, speaking at the 2012 national conference for the League of the South, gives a speech about reinvigorating the culture with a biblical understanding of law and government, and invites the crowd to stand and join in as he plays "the national anthem" on guitar:

George Washington On Torture And Abuse Of Prisoners Of War

George Washington on the subject of the abuse and torture of prisoners captured by his army:

“Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.”

- George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775

Women's 600 Meters - Inspirational

Heather Dorniden, women's 600-meter race, 2008 Big 10 Indoor Track Championships. The race is three laps of a 200-meter track. She's second most of the way but takes a slight lead after the second lap. Keep your eye on number 170, in black and yellow.

Obama's Trip To India - $200 Million A Day! (And Rachel Maddow Is A Vampire!)

It's true! It's on the Internet!

I'd forgotten about this; it's an oldie but a goodie.

Ring Of Fire, A Cappella

By the a cappella group, Home Free:

Colbert "Hijacks" Palin's New TV Channel Website

Sarah Palin has started a new TV channel with an associated website, sarahpalinchannel.com. Unfortunately for her, she didn't buy associated domain names such as thesarahpalinchannel.com -- which was bought by Stephen Colbert.

At Colbert's site, you find that the site bills itself as: "The only Sarah Palin Channel on the internet with a definite article in the address!" It invites you to "Check out today's exclusive content!" -- a link which takes you to a collection of clips of Colbert's many satires of Palin.

Here's how he covered it:

"I have always been a huge fan of Sarah Palin. She's a strong leader with a proven history of selflessness. I mean, in the midst of her 2008 campaign, she took the time to help out a struggling senior with severely impaired judgment."

Sarah Palin Is Just Amazing!

She's the best thing that ever happened to American politics! Don't think so? Listen to her introduction from this guy (but you may not want to hear Palin's actual speech):

Bob Rankin, Dropbox Plus

Click here for Bob Rankin's article on advanced uses for Dropbox.

Taxes Will Keep Democracy On The March! (1943)

Once upon a time, it was considered patriotic to pay your taxes, as shown in this Donald Duck film clip from 1943, "The Spirit of '43," in which Donald is torn between the "thrifty" and the "spendthrift" aspects of his personality. Spend, for the Axis -- or save, for taxes? Guns, guns, all kind of guns -- to blast the aggressors from the seas! Taxes -- to bury the Axis! Economizing during wartime was the rule until Bush accompanied his invasion of Iraq with enormous tax cuts -- and an exhortation to celebrate freedom by continuing the great American pastime of shopping!

New Rule: Stop The Search For ET

New Rule: Creationist Ken Ham, who runs the Creation Museum and said this week that we should call off the search for extraterrestrial life because aliens haven't heard the word of Jesus, and thus are going to hell anyway, must listen to this alternative point of view from Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson ...

The Simpsons: Seamus Romney

Republican campaign commercial, 2012:

Paul Ryan's Compassion For The Poors

Click here for an article by xaxnar at Daily Kos entitled "Paul Ryan Poverty Scam Eviscerated."

Paul Ryan, who was the beneficiary of generous social programs when, as a child, the death of his father left his family in difficult circumstances, and who then, once he had become successful, quickly pulled up the ladder behind him, is attempting to portray Republicans as being gravely concerned with the plight of the poor (also known as the 47%, or the looters and moochers).

The article cites Paul Krugman (Krugtron the Invincible!) as follows:

...and what the whole Beltway media crowd has done – is to slot Ryan into a role someone is supposed to be playing in their political play, that of the thoughtful, serious conservative wonk. In reality, Ryan is nothing like that; he’s a hard-core conservative, with a voting record as far right as Michelle Bachman’s, who has shown no competence at all on the numbers thing.

What Ryan is good at is exploiting the willful gullibility of the Beltway media, using a soft-focus style to play into their desire to have a conservative wonk they can say nice things about. And apparently the trick still works.

The Krugman quote is from 2012, and is still golden today.

Rule By The Elites

Click here for an article by Tim Donovan at AlterNet entitled "Clueless Rich Kids on the Rise: How Millennial Aristocrats Will Destroy Our Future."

The article is about the increasing concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, and mostly the spiralling trend of inherited wealth. It refers to a recent survey:

The survey, which polled 680 Americans holding at least $3 million in investable assets, unearthed a troubling trend — the birth of a new American aristocracy. As the survey notes, “Nearly three-quarters of those over 69, and 61% of Baby Boomers, were the first generation to accumulate significant wealth. Among the younger Millennial generation, inherited wealth is more common. About two-thirds are from families in which they are the second, third or fourth generation to be wealthy.”

Click here for an article by Luisa Kroll in Forbes entitled "America's Richest Families: 185 Clans With Billion Dollar Fortunes."

The top three are the Walton family (Wal-Mart), with $165 billion; the Koch family (Koch Industries), with $89 billion; and the Mars family, with $60 billion -- Mars bars, Snickers, M&Ms, but also Uncle Ben's rice and pet food brands Pedigree and Whiskas.

But what about the concentration of political power in family dynasties? George H.W. Bush was elected president in 1988; his son, George W. Bush, was president from 2000 to 2008. Bill Clinton was president from 1992 to 2000; his wife, Hillary, is the frontrunner in the race for the presidency in 2016. If she were to be elected and serve two terms, that would mean that the U.S. presidency would have been controlled by members of just two families for 28 years out of 36 (Barack Obama's eight years being the lone outsider intrusion). But let's not forget that brother Jeb Bush has been -- and may be again -- a prominent Republican candidate for 2016. If he can fight off Tea Party attacks, the choice in 2016 may be: Clinton or Bush?

If Hillary or Jeb should be elected in 2016 and serve two terms, what would be the prospects in 2024? Well, by then perhaps the country will be ready for Jeb's son (and W.'s nephew), George Prescott Bush, who recently won an easy victory (75/25) in the Republican primary for the office of Texas land commissioner, and who is strongly favored (in deep red Texas) to defeat his Democrat opponent in November. Or how about Chelsea Clinton? She's active in the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative; with degrees from Stanford (Highest Honors and a B.A. in history), Oxford (Ph.D. in International Relations), and Columbia (Master in Public Health), she sits on a number of boards of corporations and foundations, and has worked at NBC since November 2011. She was born when her father was Governor of Arkansas, and she moved into the White House for eight years at the age of 12; a political future, perhaps?

That's just the Bushes and the Clintons, but there are a number of other prominent American political families.

Al Gore, Clinton's vice-president and winner of the popular vote for the presidency in 2000, spent 16 years in the U.S. Congress and the Tennessee Senate, and he's the son of U.S. Senator Al Gore Sr.

Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachussets and Republican candidate for the presidency in 2012, is the son of George Romney, who was chairman of American Motors, Governor of Michigan, and initially a frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president in 1968.

Rand Paul (Aqua Buddah), Tea Party darling and Senator from Kentucky, was elected in the Republican wave of 2010, and is a potential candidate (in some polls considered the frontrunner for the Republican nomination) in 2016. His father, Ron Paul, was a Texas congressman for 23 years, and ran for president three times.

Jason Carter, a Georgia State Senator, is running for Governor in November; his grandfather is James Earl Carter, better known as Jimmy, U.S. President 39. Michelle Nunn, daughter of the influential Democratic Senator Sam Nunn, is running for the U.S. Senate. Andrew Cuomo is Governor of New York, the position his father, Mario Cuomo, held for three terms, and he is often the subject of speculation about a position in federal politics.

The name "Landrieu" is a prominent one in Louisiana. For eight years, Moon Landrieu was mayor of New Orleans, a position now held by his son Mitch; Mitch's sister Mary is U.S. Senator from Louisiana. Mark Begich, Senator from Alaska, is the son of Nick Begich, who died in a plane crash after serving in the U.S. Senate for eight years -- and who then defeated his opponent, 56/44, in the next election -- posthumously!

Speaking of American political dynasties, has anyone heard the name "Kennedy"?

Under The Right-Wing Rock (Shower After Reading)

Click here for a Digby post at Hullabaloo entitled "Kooky Extremist Cartoon." She says:

After I googled this silly story to get a sense of what this cartoon is I found that it's a series of episodes that are carried all over the internet on Tea party and libertarian web sites. It's a fascinating amalgam of right wing conspiracy theories, libertarian myth and conservative shibboleth. I think it may be the most accurate representation of the ideologically confused, hysterical right I've ever seen.

Further:

There are three "seasons" of this thing, more than any normal person could ever watch in a sitting. And perhaps the most hilarious thing about it is the fact that it bills itself this way:

Conrad the Constitution. Web series that follows Conrad, the living breathing U.S. Constitution.

I'm going to guess they're unaware that the concept of a "living" Constitution is the hallmark of liberal jurisprudence.

Here's another right-wing blog's explanation of the cartoon:

"Tim Fox is a graduate of San Diego State University where he studied film and television production. Having worked on many projects since graduation, Tim has focused his talents on exposing the errors in American politics today. Tim, along with his older brother Jay, are the creators of a new animated web series called Conrad the constitution. The series follows Conrad, the friendly constitution next door, as he guards his amendments from frequent molestation;in Washington DC. Meant to educate and entertain its audience, Conrad pulls no punches, and leaves no stone unturned.

Not surprisingly, Tim Fox received a visit from the Secret Service. The editors of a sympathetic blog, 21stcenturywire.com, put it this way:

The episode in question depicts the cartoon character, Conrad the Constitution (image, left), after passing out on paint fumes, falls in a dream sequence where he traveled six years into the future only to discover an America in tatters and under Marshal Law [sic] – with Obama still in the White House. Conrad then engineers a plan to set the nation free from dictatorship by assassinating the President. When Conrad finally awakens from his nightmare, he realises it was just a dream after being brought around by friend Ron Paul.

After the break, see the complete comment section from that site -- warning: It isn't pretty -- and the animated video itself.

Tyranny!

Jose Antonio Fernandez was given two minutes to address a public meeting of the Miami-Dade County Commission, and he didn't do himself any favors. He ran a plant nursery, and in 2011 was ordered to pay $316,000 in restitution for environmental damage he had caused to wetlands. He hadn't paid any of it, and his house was being seized to help pay. From Wonkette:

And so Fernandez showed up at the commission meeting in his best “No to United Nations Agenda 21″ T-shirt and let the commissioners know that he was not going to stand for being treated like a victim of Castro’s Cuba.

“I dare you to sell my house,” Fernandez told commissioners Tuesday. “You have become tyrants. You have become a corrupted government. You have destroyed my family. And hundreds of families. And I said: enough. I am the people. And the time that you sell the house, my constitution gives me the right to shoot every one of you,” he concluded, pointing at the dais. “Shoot ’em.”

However, things have degenerated to such a state of tyranny in Obama's America that he was arrested and is being held on 13 felony counts for threatening public servants. Video below:

Playful Platypus

I Miss Keith Olbermann

Whatever became of Keith Olbermann? Here's a vintage clip:

A Rational Argument From The Right (?)

Jim Gilchrist, right-winger extraordinaire, compares a southern border fence to the D-Day landings. He's a cofounder of the Minuteman Project, and he wants "another major, massive assembly of minutemen and women along the entire border -- not just the Arizona border this time, but the entire 2,000-mile border from San Diego, California, to Brownsville, Texas. I would need 3,500 volunteers to spend 30 days in certain areas, the unprotected areas, along that 2,000-mile border."

By all means, we must defend ourselves against those brown people trying to cross the desert and ford the rivers to join this wonderful free nation, because they'll destroy America as we know it. (He acknowledges that there'll be a 2% cohort of crazies they'll have to deal with; nice call, Jim, but maybe your estimate is a tad low.)

All this is presented on a "news" channel, "The Daily Ledger," the money-making brainchild of a Southern California newscaster named Graham Ledger. He (Ledger) helps along the interview with comments such as "Just to be clear, for detractors, you're not vigilantes, you're not down there to spur on violence; you're down there as red-white-and-blue Americans to try and plug a hole in a sinking ship. Correct?"

Why yes, that is correct, Graham, and furthermore, liberty and freedom.

Ledger: Yadda yadda yadda, complete violation of our sovereignty, lawlessness.

Gilchrist: "Yes that's the conduct du jour of America, a nation that -- well, once, not so long ago, was heralded as a nation governed by the rule of law. It is now a nation that in short order will be governed by mob rule."

Oh, noes. Please save us from the brown hordes, the nannies and gardeners who threaten the existence of our nation.




Click here for a great article in more depth on this subject by David Niewert.