Sunday, October 31, 2010
Americans' Incomes Sank After Bush Tax Cuts
From Fight For Better US:
On Sunday, House Minority Leader John Boehner called Democrats' refusal to hold a pre-election vote on extending the Bush tax cut windfall for the wealthy the "most irresponsible thing that I have seen since I have been in Washington, D.C." And in one sense, he's right. After all, the national debt doubled during Bush's tenure. His was the worst eight-year economic record of any modern president. Worse still, by 2007 the U.S. reached levels of income inequality not since 1929. And now, it turns out, Americans' incomes dropped ominously after the tax cuts Bush bragged "meant people had more money in their pocket."
That latest indictment of the reckless Bush tax giveaway to the rich comes from tax expert David Cay Johnston. Just days after the Census Bureau reported a jump in poverty during even before the start of the December 2007 Bush recession, Johnston reported, "Total income was $2.74 trillion less during the eight Bush years than if incomes had stayed at 2000 levels."
After asking, "So how did the tax cuts work out?" Johnston paints a grim picture of economic failure:
Even if we limit the analysis by starting in 2003, when the dividend and capital gains tax cuts began, through the peak year of 2007, the result is still less income than at the 2000 level. Total income was down $951 billion during those four years.
Average incomes fell. Average taxpayer income was down $3,512, or 5.7 percent, in 2008 compared with 2000, President Bush's own benchmark year for his promises of prosperity through tax cuts.
Had incomes stayed at 2000 levels, the average taxpayer would have earned almost $21,000 more over those eight years. That's almost $50 per week.
And to be sure, the Bush tax cuts which have already drained the Treasury of $2.3 trillion were a major contributor to the record U.S. income gap:
In only two of the eight Bush years, 2006 and 2007, were average incomes higher than in 2000, but the gains were highly concentrated at the top. Of the total increase in income in 2007 over that in 2005, nearly 30 percent went to taxpayers who made $1 million or more...
One of every eight dollars of the tax cuts went to the 1 in 1,000 taxpayers in the top tenth of 1 percent, the annual threshold for which was in the $2 million range throughout the last administration.
The horror story hardly ends there. Despite Republican supply-side mythmaking that "every major tax cut we've had in history has created more revenue," Johnston revealed that despite a 10.1% increase in the number of taxpayers, inflation-adjusted individual income tax revenues declined by 11.8% between 2000 and 2008. By then, average adjusted gross income slumped to $58,005 from $61, 517 eight years earlier when, you guessed, the top Clinton-era tax rate was the same 39.6% to which Barack Obama wants to return.
And as Congress - and voters - ponder the Republican pledge to deliver another $700 billion, 10-year windfall for the richest 2% of taxpayers, Johnston highlights the free ride President Bush already gave them:
The number of people reporting incomes of $200,000 or more but legally paying no federal income taxes skyrocketed in the second Bush term. A decade ago it was fewer than 1,500 taxpayers; in 2000 it was about 2,300. This high-income, tax-free group jumped to more than 11,000 in 2007 and then doubled in 2008 to more than 22,000.
In 2008 nearly 1 in every 200 high-income taxpayers paid no federal income tax, up from about 1 in 1,500 in 1998.
The share of high incomes that were untaxed increased more than sevenfold to one dollar of every $166.
As should be clear, the side winning the class war is the only one fighting it. To quote would-be Speaker Boehner, to perpetuate that massive upward redistribution of income is indeed "irresponsible." Or, as David Cay Johnston rightly concluded:
This is economic madness. It is policy divorced from empirical evidence. It is insanity because the policies are illusory and delusional. The evidence is in, and it shows beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts failed to achieve the promised goals.
Original article from Perrspectives
On Sunday, House Minority Leader John Boehner called Democrats' refusal to hold a pre-election vote on extending the Bush tax cut windfall for the wealthy the "most irresponsible thing that I have seen since I have been in Washington, D.C." And in one sense, he's right. After all, the national debt doubled during Bush's tenure. His was the worst eight-year economic record of any modern president. Worse still, by 2007 the U.S. reached levels of income inequality not since 1929. And now, it turns out, Americans' incomes dropped ominously after the tax cuts Bush bragged "meant people had more money in their pocket."
That latest indictment of the reckless Bush tax giveaway to the rich comes from tax expert David Cay Johnston. Just days after the Census Bureau reported a jump in poverty during even before the start of the December 2007 Bush recession, Johnston reported, "Total income was $2.74 trillion less during the eight Bush years than if incomes had stayed at 2000 levels."
After asking, "So how did the tax cuts work out?" Johnston paints a grim picture of economic failure:
Even if we limit the analysis by starting in 2003, when the dividend and capital gains tax cuts began, through the peak year of 2007, the result is still less income than at the 2000 level. Total income was down $951 billion during those four years.
Average incomes fell. Average taxpayer income was down $3,512, or 5.7 percent, in 2008 compared with 2000, President Bush's own benchmark year for his promises of prosperity through tax cuts.
Had incomes stayed at 2000 levels, the average taxpayer would have earned almost $21,000 more over those eight years. That's almost $50 per week.
And to be sure, the Bush tax cuts which have already drained the Treasury of $2.3 trillion were a major contributor to the record U.S. income gap:
In only two of the eight Bush years, 2006 and 2007, were average incomes higher than in 2000, but the gains were highly concentrated at the top. Of the total increase in income in 2007 over that in 2005, nearly 30 percent went to taxpayers who made $1 million or more...
One of every eight dollars of the tax cuts went to the 1 in 1,000 taxpayers in the top tenth of 1 percent, the annual threshold for which was in the $2 million range throughout the last administration.
The horror story hardly ends there. Despite Republican supply-side mythmaking that "every major tax cut we've had in history has created more revenue," Johnston revealed that despite a 10.1% increase in the number of taxpayers, inflation-adjusted individual income tax revenues declined by 11.8% between 2000 and 2008. By then, average adjusted gross income slumped to $58,005 from $61, 517 eight years earlier when, you guessed, the top Clinton-era tax rate was the same 39.6% to which Barack Obama wants to return.
And as Congress - and voters - ponder the Republican pledge to deliver another $700 billion, 10-year windfall for the richest 2% of taxpayers, Johnston highlights the free ride President Bush already gave them:
The number of people reporting incomes of $200,000 or more but legally paying no federal income taxes skyrocketed in the second Bush term. A decade ago it was fewer than 1,500 taxpayers; in 2000 it was about 2,300. This high-income, tax-free group jumped to more than 11,000 in 2007 and then doubled in 2008 to more than 22,000.
In 2008 nearly 1 in every 200 high-income taxpayers paid no federal income tax, up from about 1 in 1,500 in 1998.
The share of high incomes that were untaxed increased more than sevenfold to one dollar of every $166.
As should be clear, the side winning the class war is the only one fighting it. To quote would-be Speaker Boehner, to perpetuate that massive upward redistribution of income is indeed "irresponsible." Or, as David Cay Johnston rightly concluded:
This is economic madness. It is policy divorced from empirical evidence. It is insanity because the policies are illusory and delusional. The evidence is in, and it shows beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts failed to achieve the promised goals.
Original article from Perrspectives
Sunday Talk Show Lineup
Sunday's Talk Show Lineup from the NY Times:
Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, and his Democratic counterpart, Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, appear on ABC’s “This Week.”
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” David Gregory interviews Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, and former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, and his Democratic counterpart, Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, appear on ABC’s “This Week.”
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” David Gregory interviews Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, and former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
There is Hope.......
Haven't figured out how to embed videos yet........ copying and pasting embed code doesn't work. Anywho.... this is from Rachel Maddow's page. The most hopeful thing I've seen today.
http://vimeo.com/16294950
http://vimeo.com/16294950
Saturday Morning Coffee Time
Friday, October 29, 2010
Friday Night Reading Roundup
66 Reasons Not to Vote for Pat Toomey
"Quarter Billion Spent" Club Not Doing Well in Polls
Mr. "I'm Sorry, BP" Wants to reclaim his position as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee
The Peaceful Many and theViolent Few
Jointheteaparty.us Connected to Data Mining Firm
Pay No Attention to Marco Rubio Behind the Curtain, Making Deals in the Back Room
The Macaca Awards: Outstanding Achievement in Race Baiting
Home Again Home Again Jiggity Jig.....
I worked out of town this week. I stayed in a beautiful new motel. My room had a view of the waterway leading out to the ocean. Beautiful. One problem. The hotel just opened and they're still working out the bugs, including their wireless connection. OH MY GOD....... I think I need rehab for internet junkies. Of course, I could have gone down and used the computer in their business center, but my traveling the internet reading newspapers and blogs from coast to coast is a very private thing for me. I like to do it in my jammies. Or ratty shorts and a tank top.....and it's against my religion to wear a bra or shoes after work unless absolutely, positively necessary. Glad to be back home, where the laptop works anywhere I want it to and undergarments not needed. Some whackadoodle Rand Paul campaign worker stomps on a woman's head, wants an apology from her........ and I have no access to the internet. Oh the pain of it......Back to it now...... much catching up to do. Hope you all had a good week.
P.S. The house still seems soooooo odd without my Mom in it. Picked her ashes up today. Kind of a sad day.
P.S. The house still seems soooooo odd without my Mom in it. Picked her ashes up today. Kind of a sad day.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Sunday Morning Hot Links and Coffee
IAVA 2010 Congressional Report Card
Massive Stretches of Oil Found by Fishermen
Someone Show This to Juan Williams
The Apprentice: Jeb Bush, the Man Behind Marco Rubio
Wingnut of the Day
Glenn Beck Fundraises for Chamber, Chamber Buys Ads
Republicans Ramp Up Sexist Attacks on Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
Just......WTF?
UN Calls For Probe on US Inaction on Torture
Sunday Talk Show Lineup
• ABC, This Week: DNC Chairman Tim Kaine, Retired Army Gen. Hugh Shelton
• CBS, Face The Nation: Karl Rove, DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).
• CNN, State Of The Union: Florida Senate candidates Marco Rubio (R), Kendrick Meek (D), Charlie Crist (I).
• Fox News Sunday: Senate candidate Pat Toomey (R-PA), Senate candidate Joe Manchin (D-WV).
• NBC, Meet The Press: RNC Chairman Michael Steele.
• CBS, Face The Nation: Karl Rove, DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).
• CNN, State Of The Union: Florida Senate candidates Marco Rubio (R), Kendrick Meek (D), Charlie Crist (I).
• Fox News Sunday: Senate candidate Pat Toomey (R-PA), Senate candidate Joe Manchin (D-WV).
• NBC, Meet The Press: RNC Chairman Michael Steele.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Wingnut of the Day
This is just too easy........ there must be alot of really ignorant people in this country, because otherwise they would have figured out who the party of nuts is and stop electing them.
Texas Republican congressional candidate Stephen Broden stunned his party Thursday, saying he would not rule out violent overthrow of the government if elections did not produce a change in leadership.And really.......they are stunned? Really? I think not.....
In a rambling exchange during a TV interview, Broden, a South Dallas pastor, said a violent uprising "is not the first option," but it is "on the table." That drew a quick denunciation from the head of the Dallas County GOP, who called the remarks "inappropriate."
Friday Morning Wake Up Call
Wall Street's tea party
NPR's Fed Funding Questioned After Firing
Voters Don't Seem to Care That Auto Bailout Worked
What Was Really Going on With the Anita Hill Story?
American Crossroads Rakes in Half It's Haul From a Single Donor
Why Won't Obama Take on the FEC?
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Wingnut of the Day........
GOP congressional candidate Vicky Hartzler: “We just want the government to leave us alone here in Missouri’s 4th."
Problem is...... Hartzler and her husband’s farm outside Harrisonville, Missouri, has “received $774,325 in federal subsidies from 1995 to 2009.
I'm so sick of these whacked out hypocritical assholes. And there's certainly no lack of them.
Problem is...... Hartzler and her husband’s farm outside Harrisonville, Missouri, has “received $774,325 in federal subsidies from 1995 to 2009.
I'm so sick of these whacked out hypocritical assholes. And there's certainly no lack of them.
Wingnut of the Day
If Republican Cory Gardner hadn't already heard that knowing thy opponent is a significant piece of any good campaign strategy, I thought he might be best served with a little note from this Betsy Markey fan. Gardner's latest attack ad is a desperate attempt to hit Betsy, but he completely missed the mark -- or Markey. Gardner's ad confuses our Congresswoman Betsy Markey with the Congressman from Massachusetts with whom she happens to share a last name.
Mr. Gardner, I'm sure that in the many months since you announced your campaign, you have learned all the amazing things that Betsy Markey is: a small business owner; an advocate for women and families; a mother; a public servant. She is many things, but she is not Cong. Ed Markey of Massachusetts.
The irony here is not lost on us. The Republican's ad cries to voters of CO-04 that "we deserve better". Yes we do, Mr. Gardner -- yes, we do
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Wingnut of the Day
Did Ginni Thomas bump her head or what? She calls Anita Hill out of the clear blue and wants an apology for ....... what? Did she read something in her tea leaves that we don't know about?
"Good Morning, Anita Hill. Its Ginni Thomas. I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray on this and hope that one day you will help us understand why you did what you did. OK, have a good day."Whackadoodle!
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
High Level Talks to End Afghanistan War
One can hope........
Talks to end the war in Afghanistan involve extensive, face-to-face discussions with Taliban commanders from the highest levels of the group’s leadership, who are secretly leaving their sanctuaries in Pakistan with the help of NATO troops, officials here say.
Talks to end the war in Afghanistan involve extensive, face-to-face discussions with Taliban commanders from the highest levels of the group’s leadership, who are secretly leaving their sanctuaries in Pakistan with the help of NATO troops, officials here say.
The discussions, some of which have taken place in Kabul, are unfolding between the inner circle of President Hamid Karzai and members of the Quetta shura, the leadership group that oversees the Taliban war effort inside Afghanistan. Afghan leaders have also held discussions with leaders of the Haqqani network, considered to be one of the most hard-line guerrilla factions fighting here; and members of the Peshawar shura, whose fighters are based in eastern Afghanistan.
Dumb Things Republicans Say.....
There's just no topping this one today.......
Christine O'Donnell: "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?"
Christine O'Donnell: "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?"
Racist Republican of the Day
From Rachel Maddow's blog:
The chair of the Virginia Beach Republican committee has reportedly stepped down after a racist e-mail allegedly sent from his account in March ended up all over the Internet on Monday.
Gary Byler, GOP chair in the state's 2nd Congressional District, tells the Washington Post:
The chair of the Virginia Beach Republican committee has reportedly stepped down after a racist e-mail allegedly sent from his account in March ended up all over the Internet on Monday.
Gary Byler, GOP chair in the state's 2nd Congressional District, tells the Washington Post:
"Let me make it clear David Bartholomew does not tolerate racism. He never has. David would never knowingly forward racist material.''That leaves unclear whether someone else secretly forwarded the e-mail under Barthlomew's account, or whether Bartholomew forwarded the e-mail without realizing it was racist. And if that's true, wow, because here's the text as posted first by Blue Virginia:
MY DOG
I went down this morning to sign up my Dog for welfare.
At first the lady said, "Dogs are not eligible to draw welfare".
So I explained to her that my Dog is black, unemployed, lazy, can't speak
English and has no frigging clue who his Daddy is.
So she looked in her policy book to see what it takes to qualify...
My Dog gets his first check Friday.
Is this is a great country or what?
Today's Must Read
From America For Purchase
An open letter to conservatives Written by Russell King, March 22, 2010
Dear Conservative Americans,
The years have not been kind to you. I grew up in a profoundly Republican home, so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now. You’ve lost me and you’ve lost most of America. Because I believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, I’d like to give you some advice and an invitation.
First, the invitation: Come back to us.
Now the advice. You’re going to have to come up with a platform that isn’t built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from your own; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fasc-ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more. But you have work to do even before you take on that task.
Your party — the GOP — and the conservative end of the American political spectrum has become irresponsible and irrational. Worse, it’s tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred. Let me provide some examples — by no means an exhaustive list — of where the Right as gotten itself stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred.If you’re going to regain your stature as a party of rational, responsible people, you’ll have to start by draining this swamp:
Hypocrisy
You cannot flip out — and threaten impeachment - when Dems use a preliminary procedure (deem and pass) that you used repeatedly (more than 35 times in just one session and more than 100 times in all!), that’s centuries old and which the courts have supported. Especially when your leaders admit it all.
You cannot vote and scream against the stimulus package and then take credit for the good it’s done in your own district (happily handing out enormous checks representing money that you voted against, is especially ugly) — 114 of you (at last count) did just that — and it’s even worse when you secretly beg for more.
You cannot fight against your own ideas just because the Dem president endorses your proposal.
You cannot call for a pay-as-you-go policy, and then vote against your own ideas.
Are they “unlawful enemy combatants” or are they “prisoners of war” at Gitmo? You cannot have it both ways.
You cannot carry on about the evils of government spending when your family has accepted more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts.
You cannot refuse to go to a scheduled meeting, to which you were invited, and then blame the Dems because they didn’t meet with you.
You cannot rail against using Teleprompters while using Teleprompters. Repeatedly.
You cannot rail against the bank bailouts when you supported them as they were happening.
You cannot be for immigration reform, then against it .
You cannot enjoy socialized medicine while condemning it.
You cannot flip out when the black president puts his feet on the presidential desk when you were silent about white presidents doing the same. Bush. Ford.
You cannot complain that the president hasn’t closed Gitmo yet when you’ve campaigned to keep Gitmo open.
You cannot flip out when the black president bows to foreign dignitaries, as appropriate for their culture, when you were silent when the white presidents did the same. Bush. Nixon. Ike. You didn’t even make a peep when Bush held hands and kissed (on the mouth) leaders of countries that are not on “kissing terms” with the US.
You cannot complain that the undies bomber was read his Miranda rights under Obama when the shoe bomber was read his Miranda rights under Bush and you remained silent. (And, no, Newt – the shoe bomber was not a US citizen either, so there is no difference.)
You cannot attack the Dem president for not personally* publicly condemning a terrorist event for 72 hours when you said nothing about the Rep president waiting 6 days in an eerily similar incident (and, even then, he didn’t issue any condemnation). *Obama administration did the day of the event.
You cannot throw a hissy fit, sound alarms and cry that Obama freed Gitmo prisoners who later helped plan the Christmas Day undie bombing, when — in fact — only one former Gitmo detainee, released by Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, helped to plan the failed attack.
You cannot condemn blaming the Republican president for an attempted terror attack on his watch, then blame the Dem president for an attempted terror attack on his.
You cannot mount a boycott against singers who say they’re ashamed of the president for starting a war, but remain silent when another singer says he’s ashamed of the president and falsely calls him a Maoist who makes him want to throw up and says he ought to be in jail.
You cannot cry that the health care bill is too long, and then cry that it’s too short.
You cannot support the individual mandate for health insurance, and then call it unconstitutional when Dems propose it and campaign against your own ideas.
You cannot demand television coverage, and then whine about it when you get it. Repeatedly.
You cannot praise criminal trials in US courts for terror suspects under a Rep president, and then call it “treasonous” under a Dem president.
You cannot propose ideas to create jobs, and then work against them when the Dems put your ideas in a bill.
You cannot be both pro-choice and anti-choice.
You cannot damn someone for failing to pay $900 in taxes when you’ve paid nearly $20,000 in IRS fines.
You cannot condemn criticizing the president when US troops are in harm’s way, then attack the president when US troops are in harm’s way, the only difference being the president’s party affiliation (and, by the way, armed conflict does NOT remove our right and our duty as Americans to speak up).
You cannot be both for cap-and-trade policy and against it.
You cannot vote to block debate on a bill, then bemoan the lack of ‘open debate’.
If you push anti-gay legislation and make anti-gay speeches, you should probably take a pass on having gay sex, regardless of whether it’s 2004 or 2010. This is true, too, if you’re taking GOP money and giving anti-gay rants on CNN. Taking right-wing money and GOP favors to write anti-gay stories for news sites while working as a gay prostitute, doubles down on both the hypocrisy and the prostitution. This is especially true if you claim your anti-gay stand is God’s stand, too.
When you chair the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, you cannot send sexy emails to 16-year-old boys (illegal anyway, but you made it hypocritical as well).
You cannot criticize Dems for not doing something you didn’t do while you held power over the past 16 years, especially when the Dems have done more in one year than you did in 16.
You cannot decry “name calling” when you’ve been the most consistent and outrageous at it. And the most vile.
You cannot spend more than 40 years hating, cutting and trying to kill Medicare, and then pretend to be the defenders of Medicare
You cannot praise the Congressional Budget Office when its analysis produces numbers that fit your political agenda, then claim it’s unreliable when it comes up with numbers that don’t.
You cannot vote for X under a Republican president, then vote against X under a Democratic president. Either you support X or you don’t. And it makes it worse when you change your position merely for the sake obstructionism.
You cannot call reconciliation out of bounds when you used it repeatedly.
You cannot spend tax-payer money on ads against spending tax-payer money.
You cannot condemn individual health insurance mandates in a Dem bill, when the mandates were your idea.
You cannot demand everyone listen to the generals when they say what fits your agenda, and then ignore them when they don’t.
You cannot whine that it’s unfair when people accuse you of exploiting racism for political gain, when your party’s former leader admits you’ve been doing it for decades.
You cannot portray yourself as fighting terrorists when you openly and passionately support terrorists.
You cannot complain about a lack of bipartisanship when you’ve routinely obstructed for the sake of political gain — threatening to filibuster at least 100 pieces of legislation in one session, far more than any other since the procedural tactic was invented — and admitted it. Some admissions are unintentional, others are made proudly. This is especially true when the bill is the result of decades of compromise between the two parties and is filled with your own ideas.
You cannot question the loyalty of Department of Justice lawyers when you didn’t object when your own Republican president appointed them.
You cannot preach and try to legislate “Family Values” when you: take nude hot tub dips with teenagers (and pay them hush money); cheat on your wife with a secret lover and lie about it to the world; cheat with a staffer’s wife (and pay them off with a new job); pay hookers for sex while wearing a diaper and cheating on your wife; or just enjoying an old fashioned non-kinky cheating on your wife; try to have gay sex in a public toilet; authorize the rape of children in Iraqi prisons to coerce their parents into providing information; seek, look at or have sex with children; replace a guy who cheats on his wife with a guy who cheats on his pregnant wife with his wife’s mother;
Hyperbole
You really need to disassociate with those among you who:
If you’re going to use words like socialism, communism and fascism, you must have at least a basic understanding of what those words mean (hint: they’re NOT synonymous!)
You cannot cut a leading Founding Father out the history books because you’ve decided you don’t like his ideas.
You cannot repeatedly assert that the president refuses to say the word “terrorism” or say we’re at war with terror when we have an awful lot of videotape showing him repeatedly assailing terrorism and using those exact words.
If you’re going to invoke the names of historical figures, it does not serve you well to whitewash them. Especially this one.
You cannot just pretend historical events didn’t happen in an effort to make a political opponent look dishonest or to make your side look better. Especially these events. (And, no, repeating it doesn’t make it better.)
You cannot say things that are simply and demonstrably false: health care reform will not push people out of their private insurance and into a government-run program ; health care reform (which contains a good many of your ideas“socialist utopia”; health care reform is not “reparations”; nor does health care reform create “death panels”. and very few from the Left) is a long way from
Hatred
You have to condemn those among you who:
So, dear conservatives, get to work. Drain the swamp of the conspiracy nuts, the bold-faced liars undeterred by demonstrable facts, the overt hypocrisy and the hatred. Then offer us a calm, responsible, grownup agenda based on your values and your vision for America. We may or may not agree with your values and vision, but we’ll certainly welcome you back to the American mainstream with open arms. We need you.
An open letter to conservatives Written by Russell King, March 22, 2010
Dear Conservative Americans,
The years have not been kind to you. I grew up in a profoundly Republican home, so I can remember when you wore a very different face than the one we see now. You’ve lost me and you’ve lost most of America. Because I believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, I’d like to give you some advice and an invitation.
First, the invitation: Come back to us.
Now the advice. You’re going to have to come up with a platform that isn’t built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from your own; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social/commun/fasc-ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more. But you have work to do even before you take on that task.
Your party — the GOP — and the conservative end of the American political spectrum has become irresponsible and irrational. Worse, it’s tolerating, promoting and celebrating prejudice and hatred. Let me provide some examples — by no means an exhaustive list — of where the Right as gotten itself stuck in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred.If you’re going to regain your stature as a party of rational, responsible people, you’ll have to start by draining this swamp:
Hypocrisy
You cannot flip out — and threaten impeachment - when Dems use a preliminary procedure (deem and pass) that you used repeatedly (more than 35 times in just one session and more than 100 times in all!), that’s centuries old and which the courts have supported. Especially when your leaders admit it all.
You cannot vote and scream against the stimulus package and then take credit for the good it’s done in your own district (happily handing out enormous checks representing money that you voted against, is especially ugly) — 114 of you (at last count) did just that — and it’s even worse when you secretly beg for more.
You cannot fight against your own ideas just because the Dem president endorses your proposal.
You cannot call for a pay-as-you-go policy, and then vote against your own ideas.
Are they “unlawful enemy combatants” or are they “prisoners of war” at Gitmo? You cannot have it both ways.
You cannot carry on about the evils of government spending when your family has accepted more than a quarter-million dollars in government handouts.
You cannot refuse to go to a scheduled meeting, to which you were invited, and then blame the Dems because they didn’t meet with you.
You cannot rail against using Teleprompters while using Teleprompters. Repeatedly.
You cannot rail against the bank bailouts when you supported them as they were happening.
You cannot be for immigration reform, then against it .
You cannot enjoy socialized medicine while condemning it.
You cannot flip out when the black president puts his feet on the presidential desk when you were silent about white presidents doing the same. Bush. Ford.
You cannot complain that the president hasn’t closed Gitmo yet when you’ve campaigned to keep Gitmo open.
You cannot flip out when the black president bows to foreign dignitaries, as appropriate for their culture, when you were silent when the white presidents did the same. Bush. Nixon. Ike. You didn’t even make a peep when Bush held hands and kissed (on the mouth) leaders of countries that are not on “kissing terms” with the US.
You cannot complain that the undies bomber was read his Miranda rights under Obama when the shoe bomber was read his Miranda rights under Bush and you remained silent. (And, no, Newt – the shoe bomber was not a US citizen either, so there is no difference.)
You cannot attack the Dem president for not personally* publicly condemning a terrorist event for 72 hours when you said nothing about the Rep president waiting 6 days in an eerily similar incident (and, even then, he didn’t issue any condemnation). *Obama administration did the day of the event.
You cannot throw a hissy fit, sound alarms and cry that Obama freed Gitmo prisoners who later helped plan the Christmas Day undie bombing, when — in fact — only one former Gitmo detainee, released by Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, helped to plan the failed attack.
You cannot condemn blaming the Republican president for an attempted terror attack on his watch, then blame the Dem president for an attempted terror attack on his.
You cannot mount a boycott against singers who say they’re ashamed of the president for starting a war, but remain silent when another singer says he’s ashamed of the president and falsely calls him a Maoist who makes him want to throw up and says he ought to be in jail.
You cannot cry that the health care bill is too long, and then cry that it’s too short.
You cannot support the individual mandate for health insurance, and then call it unconstitutional when Dems propose it and campaign against your own ideas.
You cannot demand television coverage, and then whine about it when you get it. Repeatedly.
You cannot praise criminal trials in US courts for terror suspects under a Rep president, and then call it “treasonous” under a Dem president.
You cannot propose ideas to create jobs, and then work against them when the Dems put your ideas in a bill.
You cannot be both pro-choice and anti-choice.
You cannot damn someone for failing to pay $900 in taxes when you’ve paid nearly $20,000 in IRS fines.
You cannot condemn criticizing the president when US troops are in harm’s way, then attack the president when US troops are in harm’s way, the only difference being the president’s party affiliation (and, by the way, armed conflict does NOT remove our right and our duty as Americans to speak up).
You cannot be both for cap-and-trade policy and against it.
You cannot vote to block debate on a bill, then bemoan the lack of ‘open debate’.
If you push anti-gay legislation and make anti-gay speeches, you should probably take a pass on having gay sex, regardless of whether it’s 2004 or 2010. This is true, too, if you’re taking GOP money and giving anti-gay rants on CNN. Taking right-wing money and GOP favors to write anti-gay stories for news sites while working as a gay prostitute, doubles down on both the hypocrisy and the prostitution. This is especially true if you claim your anti-gay stand is God’s stand, too.
When you chair the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, you cannot send sexy emails to 16-year-old boys (illegal anyway, but you made it hypocritical as well).
You cannot criticize Dems for not doing something you didn’t do while you held power over the past 16 years, especially when the Dems have done more in one year than you did in 16.
You cannot decry “name calling” when you’ve been the most consistent and outrageous at it. And the most vile.
You cannot spend more than 40 years hating, cutting and trying to kill Medicare, and then pretend to be the defenders of Medicare
You cannot praise the Congressional Budget Office when its analysis produces numbers that fit your political agenda, then claim it’s unreliable when it comes up with numbers that don’t.
You cannot vote for X under a Republican president, then vote against X under a Democratic president. Either you support X or you don’t. And it makes it worse when you change your position merely for the sake obstructionism.
You cannot call reconciliation out of bounds when you used it repeatedly.
You cannot spend tax-payer money on ads against spending tax-payer money.
You cannot condemn individual health insurance mandates in a Dem bill, when the mandates were your idea.
You cannot demand everyone listen to the generals when they say what fits your agenda, and then ignore them when they don’t.
You cannot whine that it’s unfair when people accuse you of exploiting racism for political gain, when your party’s former leader admits you’ve been doing it for decades.
You cannot portray yourself as fighting terrorists when you openly and passionately support terrorists.
You cannot complain about a lack of bipartisanship when you’ve routinely obstructed for the sake of political gain — threatening to filibuster at least 100 pieces of legislation in one session, far more than any other since the procedural tactic was invented — and admitted it. Some admissions are unintentional, others are made proudly. This is especially true when the bill is the result of decades of compromise between the two parties and is filled with your own ideas.
You cannot question the loyalty of Department of Justice lawyers when you didn’t object when your own Republican president appointed them.
You cannot preach and try to legislate “Family Values” when you: take nude hot tub dips with teenagers (and pay them hush money); cheat on your wife with a secret lover and lie about it to the world; cheat with a staffer’s wife (and pay them off with a new job); pay hookers for sex while wearing a diaper and cheating on your wife; or just enjoying an old fashioned non-kinky cheating on your wife; try to have gay sex in a public toilet; authorize the rape of children in Iraqi prisons to coerce their parents into providing information; seek, look at or have sex with children; replace a guy who cheats on his wife with a guy who cheats on his pregnant wife with his wife’s mother;
Hyperbole
You really need to disassociate with those among you who:
- assert that people making a quarter-million dollars a year can barely make ends meet or that $1 million “isn’t a lot of money”;
- say that “Comrade” Obama is a “Bolshevik” who is “taking cues from Lenin”;
- ignore the many times your buddies use a term that offends you and complain only when a Dem says it;
- liken political opponents to murderers, rapists, and “this Muslim guy” that “offed his wife’s head” or call then “un-American”;
- say Obama “wants his plan to fail…so that he can make the case for bank nationalization and vindicate his dream of a socialist economy”;
- equate putting the good of the people ahead of your personal fortunes with terrorism;
- smear an entire major religion with the actions of a few fanatics;
- say that the president wants to “annihilate us”;
- compare health care reform with the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a Bolshevik plot the attack on 9/11,or reviving the ghosts of communist dictators (update: it’s also not Armageddon);
- equate our disease-fighting stem cell research with “what the Nazis did”;
- call a bill passed by the majority of both houses of Congress, by members of Congress each elected by a majority in their districts, an unconscionable abuse of power, a violation of the presidential oath or “the end of representative government”;
- shout “baby killer” at a member of Congress on the floor of the House, especially one who so fought against abortion rights that he nearly killed health care reform (in fact, a little decorum, a little respect for our national institutions and the people and the values they represent, would be refreshing — cut out the shouting, the swearing and the obscenities);
- prove your machismo by claiming your going to “crash a party” to which you’re officially invited;
- claim that Obama is pushing America’s “submission to Shariah”;
- question the patriotism of people upholding cherished American values and the rule of law;
- claim the president is making us less safe without a hint of evidence;
- call a majority vote the “tyranny of the minority,” even if you meant to call it tyranny of the majority — it’s democracy, not tyranny;
- call the president’s support of a criminal trial for a terror suspect “treasonous” (especially when you supported the same thing when the president shared your party);
- call the Pope the anti-Christ;
- assert that the constitutionally mandated census is an attempt to enslave us;
- accuse opponents of being backed by Arab slave-drivers, drunk and suicidal;
- equate family planning with eugenics or Nazism;
- accuse the president of changing the missile defense program’s logo to match his campaign logo and reflect what you say is his secret Muslim identity;
- accuse political opponents of being totalitarians, socialists, communists, fascists, Marxists; terrorist sympathizers, McCarthy-like, Nazis or drug pushers; and
- advocate a traitors act like secession, violent revolution , military coup or civil war (just so we’re clear: sedition is a bad thing).
If you’re going to use words like socialism, communism and fascism, you must have at least a basic understanding of what those words mean (hint: they’re NOT synonymous!)
You cannot cut a leading Founding Father out the history books because you’ve decided you don’t like his ideas.
You cannot repeatedly assert that the president refuses to say the word “terrorism” or say we’re at war with terror when we have an awful lot of videotape showing him repeatedly assailing terrorism and using those exact words.
If you’re going to invoke the names of historical figures, it does not serve you well to whitewash them. Especially this one.
You cannot just pretend historical events didn’t happen in an effort to make a political opponent look dishonest or to make your side look better. Especially these events. (And, no, repeating it doesn’t make it better.)
You cannot say things that are simply and demonstrably false: health care reform will not push people out of their private insurance and into a government-run program ; health care reform (which contains a good many of your ideas“socialist utopia”; health care reform is not “reparations”; nor does health care reform create “death panels”. and very few from the Left) is a long way from
Hatred
You have to condemn those among you who:
- call members of Congress n*gger and f*ggot;
- elected leaders who say “I’m a proud racist”;
- state that America has been built by white people;
- say that poor people are poor because they’re rotten people, call them “parasitic garbage” or say they shouldn’t be allowed to vote;
- call women bitches and prostitutes just because you don’t like their politics ( re - pea -ted - ly );
- assert that the women who are serving our nation in uniform are hookers;
- mock and celebrate the death of a grandmother because you disagree with her son’s politics;
- declare that those who disagree with you are shown by that disagreement to be not just “Marxist radicals” but also monsters and a deadly disease killing the nation (this would fit in the hyperbole and history categories, too);
- joke about blindness;
- advocate euthanizing the wife of your political opponent;
- taunt people with incurable, life-threatening diseases — especially if you do it on a syndicated broadcast;
- equate gay love with bestiality — involving horses or dogs or turtles or ducks — or polygamy, child molestation, pedophilia;
- casually assume that only white males look “like a real American”;
- assert presidential power to authorize torture, torture a child by having his testicles crushed in front of his parents to get them to talk, order the massacre of a civilian village and launch a nuclear attack without the consent of Congress;
- attack children whose mothers have died;
- call people racists without producing a shred of evidence that they’ve said or done something that would even smell like racism — same for invoking racially charged “dog whistle” words (repeatedly);
- condemn the one thing that every major religion agrees on;
- complain that we no longer employ the tactics we once used to disenfranchise millions of Americans because of their race;
- blame the victims of natural disasters and terrorist attacks for their suffering and losses;
- celebrate violence , joke about violence, prepare for violence or use violent imagery, “fun” politicalhints of violence, threats of violence (this one is rather explicit), suggestions of violence or actualsuggesting anal rape with a hot piece of metal is beyond the pale); and violence, violence (and, really,
- Incite insurrection telling people to get their guns ready for a “bloody battle” with the president of the United States.
So, dear conservatives, get to work. Drain the swamp of the conspiracy nuts, the bold-faced liars undeterred by demonstrable facts, the overt hypocrisy and the hatred. Then offer us a calm, responsible, grownup agenda based on your values and your vision for America. We may or may not agree with your values and vision, but we’ll certainly welcome you back to the American mainstream with open arms. We need you.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Dumb Things Republicans Say.......
I'll be posting dumb things republicans say on a daily basis, time permitting. Shouldn't be too damn hard to come up with new ones daily......
Georgia's Republican State Rep. John Yates: He wants US border agents empowered to "shoot to kill."
Asked to justify his position, Yates recently told a reporter in Atlanta that illegal immigrants are enemies of America who must be dealt with severely. "Stopping Hitler was worth the price," the 89-year-old lawmaker said.
Nevada's Republican U.S. Senate Nominee: Sharron Angle: "So that’s what we want is a secure and sovereign nation and, you know, I don’t know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me. I don’t know that. [Note: it's the Hispanic Student Union. The whole room is Hispanic teenagers.]
Georgia's Republican State Rep. John Yates: He wants US border agents empowered to "shoot to kill."
Asked to justify his position, Yates recently told a reporter in Atlanta that illegal immigrants are enemies of America who must be dealt with severely. "Stopping Hitler was worth the price," the 89-year-old lawmaker said.
Nevada's Republican U.S. Senate Nominee: Sharron Angle: "So that’s what we want is a secure and sovereign nation and, you know, I don’t know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me. I don’t know that. [Note: it's the Hispanic Student Union. The whole room is Hispanic teenagers.]
Right Wing Sexism
They eat their own......from Media Matters:
This Sunday saw the right-wing launch some nasty attacks on one of their own after Meghan McCain spoke out against Christine O'Donnell -- and was basically told by conservative pundits, "Sit down and shut up, woman."
During her appearance on ABC's The Week on October 17, McCain said O'Donnell is "seen as a nutjob," and explained, "I speak as a 26-year-old woman. And my problem is that, no matter what, Christine O'Donnell is making a mockery of running for public office. She has no real history, no real success in any kind of business. And what that sends to my generation is, one day, you can just wake up and run for Senate, no matter how [much] lack of experience you have."
What did her political discourse earn her? Misogynistic attacks from right-wing pundits. Blogger Doug Powers kicked off the mud-slinging with a post on Michelle Malkin's blog Sunday morning. He began his post with a photo of McCain that spurred controversy after she posted it on Twitter a year ago and commented, "Disregard the above photo. I'm only putting it there to remind myself to check my tire pressure later this afternoon."
Later that day, conservative blogger Dan Riehl on his blog Riehl World View referred to McCain as "Meggie 'Big Mac' McCain" and wrote that "this self-indulgent set of mega-breasts doesn't belong anywhere near a TV studio commenting on anything."
Jeff Poor, a staff writer for the Media Research Center's Business & Media Institute, rounded out the evening by re-tweeting a conservative blogger's comment that "I swear, if Meghan McCain gets any dumber she'll be drooling on her boobs" with the remark: "Haha."
Wow. All of these commentators would throw a fit -- rightly -- if sexist attacks were launched on Sarah Palin, Christine O'Donnell, or Sharron Angle. If they disagree with the substance of McCain's remarks, why are they going after her body instead?
This Sunday saw the right-wing launch some nasty attacks on one of their own after Meghan McCain spoke out against Christine O'Donnell -- and was basically told by conservative pundits, "Sit down and shut up, woman."
During her appearance on ABC's The Week on October 17, McCain said O'Donnell is "seen as a nutjob," and explained, "I speak as a 26-year-old woman. And my problem is that, no matter what, Christine O'Donnell is making a mockery of running for public office. She has no real history, no real success in any kind of business. And what that sends to my generation is, one day, you can just wake up and run for Senate, no matter how [much] lack of experience you have."
What did her political discourse earn her? Misogynistic attacks from right-wing pundits. Blogger Doug Powers kicked off the mud-slinging with a post on Michelle Malkin's blog Sunday morning. He began his post with a photo of McCain that spurred controversy after she posted it on Twitter a year ago and commented, "Disregard the above photo. I'm only putting it there to remind myself to check my tire pressure later this afternoon."
Later that day, conservative blogger Dan Riehl on his blog Riehl World View referred to McCain as "Meggie 'Big Mac' McCain" and wrote that "this self-indulgent set of mega-breasts doesn't belong anywhere near a TV studio commenting on anything."
Jeff Poor, a staff writer for the Media Research Center's Business & Media Institute, rounded out the evening by re-tweeting a conservative blogger's comment that "I swear, if Meghan McCain gets any dumber she'll be drooling on her boobs" with the remark: "Haha."
Wow. All of these commentators would throw a fit -- rightly -- if sexist attacks were launched on Sarah Palin, Christine O'Donnell, or Sharron Angle. If they disagree with the substance of McCain's remarks, why are they going after her body instead?
More Tea Party Hilarity
Matt Taibbi writes again on the Tea Party:
Quelle surprise! So it turns out that one after another of the Tea Party candidates is in one way or another mooching off the government. The latest series of hilarious disclosures center around Alaska’s GI-Joe-bearded windbag Senatorial candidate, Joe Miller, who appears to have run virtually the entire gamut of government aid en route to becoming a staunch, fist-shaking opponent of the welfare state.
Miller’s pomposity and piety with regard to government aid programs has all along been in line with the usual screechingly hysterical self-righteousness Tea Party candidates bring to such matters, railing against Obamacare and other “entitlement” programs and promising to end the “welfare state.” That makes it all the more delicious now that he and his family have been exposed for taking state medical aid, unemployment insurance, farm subsidies, hell, even for using state equipment to run a private political campaign.
Quelle surprise! So it turns out that one after another of the Tea Party candidates is in one way or another mooching off the government. The latest series of hilarious disclosures center around Alaska’s GI-Joe-bearded windbag Senatorial candidate, Joe Miller, who appears to have run virtually the entire gamut of government aid en route to becoming a staunch, fist-shaking opponent of the welfare state.
Miller’s pomposity and piety with regard to government aid programs has all along been in line with the usual screechingly hysterical self-righteousness Tea Party candidates bring to such matters, railing against Obamacare and other “entitlement” programs and promising to end the “welfare state.” That makes it all the more delicious now that he and his family have been exposed for taking state medical aid, unemployment insurance, farm subsidies, hell, even for using state equipment to run a private political campaign.
Back in June, Miller was saying this about his Republican primary opponent Lisa Murkowski, blasting her for supporting a state health care program:
As you are aware, just last week the Anchorage Daily News reported that the Denali KidCare Program funded 662 abortions last year. Senator Murkowski has been a champion of this program, voting against the majority of her Republican colleagues for CHIPRA (HR 2) in January of 2009.Full article at Rolling Stone
Fish Story
A woman was bitten Sunday by a barracuda that jumped into her kayak in the Florida Keys, the U.S. Coast Guard said Monday.
According to the Coast Guard, the 45-year-old woman and her male companion said they were in a two-person kayak near Big Pine Key about 5:15 p.m. Sunday when a barracuda jumped into the vessel, bit her in the chest and then jumped back into the water.
The attack left the woman with an apparent punctured lung and broken ribs, the Coast Guard said.
A rescue vessel from the Coast Guard station in Marathon worked with the private company TowBoatU.S., which launched a small boat carrying a paramedic that was able to maneuver into the shallow water where the kayak was.
According to the Coast Guard, the man in the kayak was unable to row to shore without causing further harm to the woman.
Once aboard the TowBoatU.S. vessel, the woman was taken to Dolphin Marina and then airlifted to Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital, where she is listed in stable condition, according to the Coast Guard
Don't Worry About Proposed Florida Immigration Law if You're a Whitey......
because it just targets brown people..........
Florida state Rep. William Snyder, the slow-drawling ex-Miami-Dade Police officer who has drafted Tallahassee's version of the hotly debated Arizona immigration bill, is adamant that his law would not lead to racial profiling.
"Race, ethnicity, and national origin cannot be used in making arrests. It's immoral, illegal, and unconstitutional," he said in a recent interview.
So why does his bill explicitly offer a free pass to Canadians and Western Europeans, who need only show a passport to be "presumed to be legally in the United States"?
"That language makes it clear that police are targeting only a specific minority," says Susana Barciela, policy director at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center.
If you've somehow missed the months of heated bickering over Arizona's bill, called SB-1070, it allows Grand Canyon State cops to demand papers from anyone detained lawfully whom they have "reasonable suspicions" of being an illegal alien.
Critics ask how anything other than skin color or a Hispanic name could lead to such "reasonable suspicions." But constitutional questions aside, the bill's appeal to xenophobes has led politicos nationwide to craft their own states' imitations.
Snyder drafted his homage in August, and Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott last week pledged to support the bill if elected.
What few observers seem to have noticed, though, is a bizarre clause Snyder included on page 3. Even if an officer has "reasonable suspicions" over a person's immigration status, the bill says, a person will be "presumed to be legally in the United States" if he or she provides "a Canadian passport" or a passport from any "visa waiver country."
What are the visa waiver countries? Other than four Asian nations, all 32 other countries are in Western Europe, from France to Germany to Luxembourg.
In other words, Snyder's bill tells police to drop their "reasonable suspicions" of anyone hailing from dozens of countries full of white people. How is that not racial profiling?
Snyder backed out of an interview with Riptide, but here's what he recently said on immigration advocate Subhash Kateel's radio show, "Let's Talk About It," on 880 AM:
"What we're doing there is trying to be sensitive to Canadians. We have an enormous amount of... Canadians wintering here in Florida," he said. "That language is comfort language."
Comfort language, eh?
If Scott wins and Snyder's bill becomes law, we're sure the thousands of Latin Americans who spend their summers in Miami will be ever so comforted.
Check out the proposed bill for yourself:
Immigration Bill Draft
Florida state Rep. William Snyder, the slow-drawling ex-Miami-Dade Police officer who has drafted Tallahassee's version of the hotly debated Arizona immigration bill, is adamant that his law would not lead to racial profiling.
"Race, ethnicity, and national origin cannot be used in making arrests. It's immoral, illegal, and unconstitutional," he said in a recent interview.
So why does his bill explicitly offer a free pass to Canadians and Western Europeans, who need only show a passport to be "presumed to be legally in the United States"?
"That language makes it clear that police are targeting only a specific minority," says Susana Barciela, policy director at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center.
If you've somehow missed the months of heated bickering over Arizona's bill, called SB-1070, it allows Grand Canyon State cops to demand papers from anyone detained lawfully whom they have "reasonable suspicions" of being an illegal alien.
Critics ask how anything other than skin color or a Hispanic name could lead to such "reasonable suspicions." But constitutional questions aside, the bill's appeal to xenophobes has led politicos nationwide to craft their own states' imitations.
Snyder drafted his homage in August, and Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott last week pledged to support the bill if elected.
What few observers seem to have noticed, though, is a bizarre clause Snyder included on page 3. Even if an officer has "reasonable suspicions" over a person's immigration status, the bill says, a person will be "presumed to be legally in the United States" if he or she provides "a Canadian passport" or a passport from any "visa waiver country."
What are the visa waiver countries? Other than four Asian nations, all 32 other countries are in Western Europe, from France to Germany to Luxembourg.
In other words, Snyder's bill tells police to drop their "reasonable suspicions" of anyone hailing from dozens of countries full of white people. How is that not racial profiling?
Snyder backed out of an interview with Riptide, but here's what he recently said on immigration advocate Subhash Kateel's radio show, "Let's Talk About It," on 880 AM:
"What we're doing there is trying to be sensitive to Canadians. We have an enormous amount of... Canadians wintering here in Florida," he said. "That language is comfort language."
Comfort language, eh?
If Scott wins and Snyder's bill becomes law, we're sure the thousands of Latin Americans who spend their summers in Miami will be ever so comforted.
Check out the proposed bill for yourself:
Immigration Bill Draft
Monday Morning Links
What's spiking your attention today?
Poliiticaldog101: Tea Partiers a Bunch of Moochers
Frank Rich: The Rage Won't End on Election Day
Alternet: More Dobbs Hypocrisy
Patricia Cohen: 'Culture of Poverty' Makes a Comeback
FDL: Tale of Two Parties
Mudflats: Joe Miller's Alaska Militia
The New Republic: The Koch Bros.: Ok, Maybe We Fund the Teapaty...A Little Bit
Think Progress: Fiorina Can't Answer How to Cut Spending
Poliiticaldog101: Tea Partiers a Bunch of Moochers
Frank Rich: The Rage Won't End on Election Day
Alternet: More Dobbs Hypocrisy
Patricia Cohen: 'Culture of Poverty' Makes a Comeback
FDL: Tale of Two Parties
Mudflats: Joe Miller's Alaska Militia
The New Republic: The Koch Bros.: Ok, Maybe We Fund the Teapaty...A Little Bit
Think Progress: Fiorina Can't Answer How to Cut Spending
Sunday, October 17, 2010
My Reading List
I haven't read this book yet, but I'm looking forward to it.
Excerpted from the book, Dismantling the Empire by Chalmers Johnson
During the last years of the Clinton administration I was in my mid-sixties, retired from teaching Asian international relations at the University of California and deeply bored by my specialty, Japanese politics. It seemed that Japan would continue forever as a docile satellite of the United States, a safe place to park tens of thousands of American troops, as well as ships and aircraft , all ready to assert American hegemony over the entire Pacific region. I was then in the process of rethinking my research and determining where I should go next.
At the time, one aspect of the Clinton administration especially worried me. In the aftermath of the breakup and disappearance of the Soviet Union, U.S. officials seemed unbearably complacent about America's global ascendancy. They were visibly bathed in a glow of post–Cold War triumphalism. It was hard to avoid their high-decibel assertions that our country was "unique" in history, their insistence that we were now, and for the imaginable future, the "lone superpower" or, in the words of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, "the indispensable nation." The implication was that we would be so for an eternity. If ever there was a self- satisfied country that seemed headed for a rude awakening, it was the United States.
I became concerned as well that we were taking for granted the goodwill of so many nations, even as we incautiously ran up a tab of insults to the rest of the world. What I couldn't quite imagine was that President Clinton's arrogance and his administration's risk taking—the 1998 cruise missile attack on the al- Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, for instance, or the 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Serbia, during the Kosovo war—might presage an existential crisis for the nation. Our stance toward the rest of the world certainly seemed reckless to me, but not in itself of overwhelming significance. We were, after all, the world's richest nation, even if we were delusional in assuming that our wealth would be a permanent condition. We were also finally at peace (more or less) after a long period, covering much of the twentieth century, in which we had been engaged in costly, deadly wars.
As I quietly began to worry, it crossed my mind that we in the United States had long taken all of Asia for granted, despite the fact that we had fought three wars there, only one of which we had won. My fears grew that the imperial tab we were running up would come due sooner than any of us had expected, and that payment might be sought in ways both unexpected and deeply unnerving. In this mood, I began to write a book of analysis that was also meant as a warning, and for a title I drew on a term of CIA tradecraft. I called it Blowback.
The book's reception on publication in 2000 might serve as a reasonable gauge of the overconfident mood of the country. It was generally ignored and, where noted and commented upon, rejected as the oddball thoughts of a formerly eminent Japan specialist. I was therefore less shocked than most when, as the Clinton years ended, we Americans made a serious mistake that helped turn what passed for fringe prophecy into stark reality. We let George W. Bush take the White House.
He was a man superficially well enough qualified to be president. The governor of a populous state, he had also been the recipient of one of the best—or, in any case, most expensive—educations available to an American. Yale College and Harvard Business School might have seemed like a guarantee against a sophomoric ignoramus occupying the highest office in the land, but contrary to most expectations that was precisely what we got. The American public did not actually elect him, of course. He was, in the end, appointed to the highest office in the land by a conservative cabal of Supreme Court justices in what certainly qualified as one of the most bizarre moments in the history of American politics.
During his eight reckless years as president, Bush, his vice president Dick Cheney, his secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, and the other neoconservative and right-wing officials he appointed, war-lovers all, drove the country as close to the precipice as was humanly possible. After the attacks of 9/11, he would have been wise to treat al-Qaeda as the criminal organization it was. Instead, he launched two wars of aggression in close succession against Iraq and Afghanistan. The irony was that had he done absolutely nothing, the political situations in both countries would likely have resolved themselves, given time, in ways tolerable for us and our allies based on the constellation of forces at work in each place. Instead, his policies entrenched Shia Muslims in Iraq, repeated all the mistakes of other foreign invaders—particularly the British and more recently the Russians—in Afghanistan, and enhanced the power of Iran in the Persian Gulf region.
As a result of his ill-informed and bungling strategic moves, President Bush left our armed forces seriously depleted, with worn-out equipment, badly misused human resources, and staggering medical (and thus financial) obligations to thousands of young Americans suffering from disabling wounds, including those inflicted on their minds. Meanwhile, our high command, which went into Afghanistan and Iraq stuck in the land war doctrines of World War II but filled with dreamy, high-tech, "netcentric" fantasies, is now mired in the failed counterinsurgency doctrine of the Vietnam era. That's what evidently passes for progress in the Pentagon these days. Its officials still have hardly a clue as to how to deal with nonstate actors like al-Qaeda.
At the same time, the Bush administration paved the way for, and then presided over, a close to catastrophic economic and financial collapse that skirted national and international insolvency. Fueled by huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, profligate spending on two wars (as well as future wars and the weaponry to fight them), the appointment of Republican ideologues to critical positions of trust, and accounting and management practices that exacerbated just about every other problem, the Bush administration plunged us into the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
As if these failures weren't bad enough, during Bush's tenure the armed forces were authorized to torture Muslims captured virtually anywhere on earth; the Department of Justice turned a blind eye to the clandestine electronic surveillance of the general public; and the Central Intelligence Agency was given carte blanche to kidnap terror suspects in other countries and transfer them to regimes where they could be interrogated under torture, as well as to assassinate supposed terror suspects just about anywhere on the planet. From Afghanistan and Iraq to Lithuania, Thailand, and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the United States set up an offshore system of (in)justice, including "black sites" (secret CIA prisons) that put many of its most outrageous acts beyond oversight or the reach of the law—any law. In the meantime, the United States also withdrew from many important international treaties, including the one banning the production of antiballistic missiles.
The history books will certainly record that George W. Bush was likely the single worst president in the history of the American republic. Nonetheless, they will also point out that he merely accelerated trends long under way, particularly our devotion to militarism and our dependence on the military-industrial complex.
In 2008, faced with a truly dysfunctional government, the American people unexpectedly demonstrated that they got the message. The presidential candidacy of Barack Obama reignited a long-dormant idealism, particularly among those who believed, on the basis of their own lives, that the political system had been rigged against them. The national outpouring of enthusiasm for this African American presidential candidate led many around the world to believe that the American people were ready to abandon their infatuation with imperialism. They assumed that we were exhibiting a desire for genuine reform before the trends of the Clinton-Bush years became irreversible.
During his campaign Barack Obama promised to close our extrajudicial detention camp at Guantánamo Bay; restore legally sanctioned practices, particularly within the Department of Justice; provide nearly all citizens with health insurance and other life support systems that are routine in most advanced industrial democracies; take global warming seriously; and implement any number of laws that were being honored only in the breach, including those protecting personal privacy. Obama's proposed reform program was massive, long overdue, and popularly welcomed.
Conspicuously absent from this lengthy agenda, however, was one significant sector of American life. Only those of us who had long watched this area noted Obama's silence and were alarmed for what it suggested about his future presidency. This omission concerned the massive apparatus that enables what I have called our global "empire of bases" to exist and function. In the campaign, he said little about the armed forces (other than that he would like to expand the Army and Marines), the military- industrial complex, the Pentagon's failure to account properly for the vast sums it spends, the growing clandestine role of our proliferating intelligence services, or the subcontracting of extremely sensitive national security tasks to the private sector.
Given the degree to which, as this book emphasizes, the Pentagon and the powerful forces that surround it have played such a crucial role in leading this country to the edge, this campaign omission was anything but auspicious. It is undoubtedly true that a presidential candidate determined to take on these forces might have had a difficult time cutting the Pentagon, the "intelligence community," and the military-industrial complex down to size. Unfortunately, Obama did not even try. The evidence already suggests that huge vested interests in the status quo blocked this president from the start—and, no less important, that when it came to our national security state and our global imperial presence he acquiesced.
I have written elsewhere that on his first day in office every president is given a highly secret briefing about the clandestine powers at his disposal and that no president has ever failed to use them. It is increasingly clear that while pursuing his agenda in other areas, Obama, who made James Jones, a retired Marine Corps commandant, the head of his National Security Council and Robert Gates, a former Cold War CIA director and holdover from the Bush years, his secretary of defense, is going along with what the militarist establishment in Washington recommends, while offering little in the way of resistance. As commander in chief, he must be supportive of our armed forces, but nothing obliges him to take pride in American imperialism or to "finish the job" that George Bush began in Afghanistan, as he seems intent on doing.
The essays in this volume were, for the most part, written over the last three years. Although some look back at the recent past, most focus on our limited resources for continuing to behave like an empire and what the likely outcome will be. We are not, of course, the first country to face the choice between republic and empire, nor the first to have our imperial dreams stretch our means to the breaking point and threaten our future. But this book suggests that among the alternatives available to us as a nation, we are choosing what I call the suicide option. It also suggests that it might not have to be this way, that we still could move in a different direction.
We could begin to dismantle our empire of bases. We could, to offer but one example, simply close Futenma, the enormous Marine Corps base on Okinawa much disliked by the new Japanese government that took office in Japan in 2009. Instead, we continue to try to browbeat the Japanese into acting as our docile satellite by forcing them to pay for the transfer of our Marines either to the island of Guam (which can't support such a base either) or to an environmentally sensitive area elsewhere on Okinawa.
Seldom has an incoming president been given greater benefit of the doubt than President-elect Obama. When, for no apparent good reason, he decided to retain President Bush's top military appointment in our war zones, CENTCOM commander General David Petraeus, hang on to Secretary of Defense Gates, and later reinforce the large American expeditionary force already fighting in Afghanistan, Republicans spoke of continuity and some Democrats explained it as a brilliant ploy to shift blame for an all but certain American defeat to Republican holdovers. But Obama certainly had other options. For secretary of defense he might have turned to someone like retired Army lieutenant colonel Andrew Bacevich, author of the best- selling book The Limits of Power. Nor were generals Petraeus and Afghan war commander Stanley McChrystal, who had previously run counterterror operations for Bush in both Iraq and Afghanistan, inevitable choices. But these were the people Obama appointed. They, in turn, have devised policies that have allowed him to continue the war in Afghanistan in the face of grave public doubts, just as they did in Iraq for Obama's predecessor.
Whether or not becoming a war president is what Obama truly intended, the greatest obstacle to his war policies is that the United States cannot afford them. The federal deficit was already spiraling out of control before the Great Recession of 2008. Since then, the government has only gone more deeply into debt to prevent the collapse of critical financial institutions as well as the housing industry. It is not clear that Obama's measures to overcome the Great Recession will do anything more than take resources away from necessary projects and leave the country that much closer to bankruptcy. It is absolutely certain that the estimated trillion dollars a year spent on the defense establishment will make it almost impossible for the United States to avoid the ultimate limit on imperialism: overstretch and insolvency.
In December 2009, the United States had its best and perhaps last chance to avoid the suicide option. After a three-month review of our activities in Afghanistan, when he might have found a way to disengage, Obama instead decided to escalate—at a cost he estimated, in a speech at West Point explaining his decision, at $30 billion per year but certain to go far higher, not to mention the costs in human lives—American, allied, and Afghan. Although by then a majority of our population believed we had done everything we could for a poor central Asian country led by a hopelessly corrupt government, President Obama chose to continue our imperialist project. As Hamlet said, "It is not, nor it cannot com e to good."
None of this was inevitable, although it may have been unavoidable given the hubris and arrogance of our national leadership.
Excerpted from the book, Dismantling the Empire, Published by Metropolitan Books. Chalmers Johnson, president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, is the author of the bestselling books Blowback, The Sorrows of Empire, and Nemesis, which make up his Blowback Trilogy.
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