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.