Month: August 2012

They think they own the military

by digby

This, to me, is far creepier than Wes Clark’s lame TV show that nobody’s going to watch:

The message, put up earlier this month, was paid for by We the People of Marshall and Fulton counties, a tea party group. The head of the organization, Don Nunemaker of Plymouth, said late last week that the message was meant as a call for action at the ballot box on Election Day, Nov. 6.

He was vague about the threat voters are to “remove,” saying it’s up to individual voters to glean what they will from the message. He didn’t immediately return a call Monday seeking comment on the demonstration plans.

First, it’s easily construed as a call for a military coup, which is as un-American as if gets. Second, these people believe they own the military and use it as a weapon against the rest of us. It’s a very creepy dynamic.

That ad is by the same people who insisted that the Democrats are trying to keep military voters in Ohio from voting. This stuff is going on under the radar so far. This election won’t be a national security election so I suppose it may not rise to the surface. But these wingnuts are keeping their partisan military fetish alive (as opposed to the more mainstream rah-rah of the Democrats which is bad enough) and it will come roaring back as soon as an opportunity presents itself.

If people think that Obama ordering bin Laden’s death along with the rest of his tough national security policies have forever retired the advantage Republicans have on these issues, they need to ask Bill Clinton whether balancing the budget and leaving a surplus resulted in the Democrats never having to face the “tax and spend” label again.

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A few simple questions

by David Atkins

Since Mitt Romney and other conservatives are so enamored of claiming that the country’s economic problems are somehow the result “debt” and “deficits”, it would be nice if a journalist or debate moderator were to ask bluntly:

“In what specific way has the deficit harmed the American economy over the last four years? Can you name a specific business that has been directly affected by it, and how? Also, do you believe that the Bush Administration’s deficit spending after the Clinton surplus was the cause of the near economic collapse of 2008? How did the Bush Administration’s deficit spending directly cause the economic slowdown?”

Part of the reason conservatives get away with such extremist rhetoric is that the press doesn’t even display the rigor of a high school teacher asking basic questions of her class. Conservative economic policy is babbling, incoherent and hypocritical nonsense when held up to even the slightest scrutiny. All it would take to expose that is a few simple questions, directly and consistently asked.

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Whose hate speech is it anyway?

by digby

From TPM:

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins took to Fox News Thursday to say groups that oppose his organization are responsible for creating the atmosphere that led to the shooting at its headquarters Wednesday.

“Let me be very clear here that Floyd Corkins was responsible for the wounding of one of our colleagues and friends at the Family Research Council,” Perkins said. “But I believe he was given a license to do that by a group such as the Southern Poverty Law Center who labeled us a hate group because we defend the family and stand for traditional orthodox Christianity.”

… In the wake of Wednesday’s shooting, which was allegedly perpetrated by a man who was opposed to the group’s politics, Perkins said the SPLC needs to watch its words.

This is more right wing “I know you are but what am I” politics, most recently used to great effect when they called anyone who uses the words racist a racist. (It’s working quite well, by the way.)

But here’s the thing. Even if the shooter is an angry gay man, why would they think he shot at them because the SPLC called them a hate group rather than because of the FRC’s rhetoric itself? Here’s just a brief example of the kind of talk that might set off an angry nut with an agenda and a gun:

FRC: Homosexuality Is Unnatural And Harmful To Society. According to its website, the “Family Research Council believes that homosexual conduct is harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at large, and can never be affirmed. It is by definition unnatural, and as such is associated with negative physical and psychological health effects.” [FRC.org, accessed 10/1/09]

FRC’s Robert Knight: Acceptance Of Homosexuality Will Result In More Unwanted Pregnancies. In his 2008 work, Chaos, Law, and God: The Religious Meanings of Homosexuality, Jay Michaelson wrote, “many critics claim that homosexuality forfeits or betrays the masculine gender role, a critique sociologist Dana Briton calls a form of ‘boundary maintenance.’ For example, the Family Research Council’s Robert Knight has predicted that the acceptance of homosexuality will reduce the value of masculinity, which will then lead to further societal decay: ‘[A] s man is reduced in stature, all hell will break loose. We’ll see a breakdown in social organizations, with more drug use, more disease, more unwanted pregnancies. You’re mainstreaming dysfunction.'” [Michigan Journal of Gender & Law, Chaos, Law, and God: The Religious Meanings of Homosexuality, 2008]

FRC’s Sprigg: I Would Prefer To Export Homosexuals. According to Andrew Sullivan, the Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg said, “I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society.” [The Atlantic, “The Daily Dish,” 3/20/08]

How about this:

FRC: “One of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to… recognize pedophiles as the ‘prophets’ of a new sexual order.”

In a Nov. 30, 2010, debate on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews” between Perkins and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mark Potok, Perkins defended FRC’s association of gay men with pedophilia, saying: “If you look at the American College of Pediatricians, they say the research is overwhelming that homosexuality poses a danger to children. So Mark is wrong. He needs to go back and do his own research.” In fact, the college, despite its hifalutin name, is a tiny, explicitly religious-right breakaway group from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the 60,000-member association of the profession. Publications of the American College of Pediatricians, which has some 200 members, have been roundly attacked by leading scientific authorities who say they are baseless and accuse the college of distorting and misrepresenting their work…

Elsewhere, according to AMERICAblog, Knight, while working at the FRC, claimed that “[t]here is a strong current of pedophilia in the homosexual subculture. … [T]hey want to promote a promiscuous society.” AMERICAblog also reported that then-FRC official Yvette Cantu, in an interview published on Americans for Truth About Homosexuality’s website, said, “If they [gays and lesbians] had children, what would happen when they were too busy having their sex parties?”

I’m not excusing the shooter, obviously. He’s another in a long line of Americans with a grievance who are packing heat and shooting at people lately. I don’t care what his cause is, it’s horrific to shoot guns at human beings to make a point.

But Tony Perkins’ crocodile tears about “hate speech” are just a bit hard to take considering the kind of profit he makes at it himself. Of course he doesn’t deserve to get shot at for it. But blaming the SPLC is an attempt to deflect attention from their own hate speech. Certainly, if it’s “irresponsible” for the SPLC to accuse the FRC a hate group, it seems to me that it’s doubly irresponsible for the FRC to accuse them of attempted murder. You can guess what the outcome of that might be.

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Boehner says Ryan isn’t a knuckle-dragger

by digby

Wow. Boehner must have had a few too many Merlots before he went on Greta Van Susteran’s show yesterday:

VAN SUSTEREN, FOX News: People think of him as hawkish on the budget, on expenses, but he voted for TARP. He voted for the auto bailout, voted for two stimulus in ’08, voted against the ’09 — February ’09 President Obama stimulus. How does — I mean, how does he explain those, or I mean, how does — politically, how does he sell that?

BOEHNER: I mean, I think that he’s a practical conservative. He’s got a very conservative voting record, but he’s not a knuckle-dragger, all right? He understood that TARP, while none of us wanted to do it, if we were going to save — save our economy, save the world economy, it had to happen. I wish we didn’t have to do it, either, but he understood that.

So those who were against the TARP are knuckle draggers? How interesting> Howie gives us this reminder today:

On September 29, 2008, Boehner, Cantor, Ryan, and the rest of the GOP leadership tried to get their party to back the TARP bailout. Boehner wept in the well of the House about how urgent it was to bailout the banksters. But they lost. 133 Republicans voted NO and the bill failed 205-228. Paulsen and Bush became hysterical and they tasked Boehner, Cantor and Ryan with sweetening the bill with enough pork, reintroducing it and passing it. The other day, we looked at Ryan’s disgraceful role in this episode. He and the other two thugs threatened, blackmailed and bribed enough of their Members to pass it a few days later. On October 3, only 108 Republicans voted NO; they had turned 25 and Bush’s TARP bailout passed 263-171. Ryan, Cantor and Boehner were very well-rewarded by the banksters, who have funneled millions of dollars into their political careers…

In Boehner’s world the “knuckle-draggers” who stood up to Wall Street and Bush were Republicans like Ron Paul (R-TX), Walter Jones (R-NC), Steve Chabot (R-OH), John Mica (R-FL), Darrell Issa (R-CA), Don Manzullo (R-IL), Tim Johnson (R-IL), GOP Senate candidates Dean Heller (R-NV), Todd Akin (R-MO), Denny Rehberg (R-MT), Jeff Flake (R-AZ), and Connie Mack (R-FL), as well as actual knuckledraggers like Bachmann (R-MN), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Steve King (R-IA), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Paul Broun (R-GA), Joe Pitts (R-PA), Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Ed Royce (R-CA).

95 knuckle-dragging Democrats voted against it too — until the Presidential nominee Obama put his weight behind it — and the revised version passed with 33 of those 95 votes making the switch. I would imagine he has some insulting descriptions for the 62 who didn’t come over too. But he’s not idiotic enough to say them out loud.

Boehner knows he can count on Ryan to “do what’s necessary” to serve the masters. And the masters absolutely love Paul Ryan, for some obvious reasons:

Wall Street loves Ryan because he’s bringing back an old idea: he wants to privatize Social Security.

In 2005, Ryan proposed the Social Security Personal Savings Guarantee and Prosperity Act. Under the proposal, workers would have been able to funnel at least half of their Social Security deduction into a private account. The account would have been managed by the Social Security Administration and invested in a portfolio made up of anywhere between 50% and 80% stocks. The rest would have been in bonds.

Again, you may agree with this proposal because you believe like Ryan that it will “save” the program for future Americans. Or, you might disagree with it on the grounds that the program will remain “underfunded.”

Regardless of your position, there’s no denying who it would benefit: big brokerages.

That’s because even though SSA would “manage” the program, it would need Wall Street’s help: brokers, market-makers, specialists, you name it. Suddenly the financial industry would be getting up to $340 billion, half of Social Security’s 2011 revenue, for fees, commissions and other value-added services.

One study predicted that by 2050 every stock and bond in the U.S. market would be owned by Social Security.

You can almost hear Wall Street slobbering.

Oh, and if all the money’s going into the market it won’t be available to lend to he government — another happy side effect of privatization. By that time the baby’s pretty much drowned.

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States rights forevuh

by digby

This isn’t the first time a racist Governor has defied the federal government. But it’s been a while:

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed an executive order on Wednesday directing state agencies to deny drivers licenses and other public benefits to anyone benefiting from President Barack Obama’s ‘deferred action’ immigration policy.

In an executive order, Brewer said she was reaffirming the intent of current Arizona law denying taxpayer-funded public benefits and state identification to undocumented immigrants.

“They are here illegally and unlawfully in the state of Arizona and it’s already been determined that you’re not allowed to have a driver’s license if you are here illegally,” Brewer said in a press conference. “The Obama amnesty plan doesn’t make them legally here.”

Young undocumented immigrants around the nation on Wednesday began the process of applying for federal work permits under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
[…]
After that announcement, dozens marched to the capitol Wednesday night, upset with Brewer’s executive order, according to FOX affiliate KSAZ in Arizona.

But immigration attorney Jose Penalosa told KSAZ he fully expects the Obama administration to trump Brewer. He believes those approved for deferred action will eventually be allowed to get drivers licenses.

“So I believe the Obama administration’s going to come out and say we’re changing the notes and our tones of our directive, and say these kids are here under color of law and protected by U.S. immigration laws and due process, and/or they have a specific non-visa immigrant category that allows them to have a driver’s license,” said Penalosa.

Let’s hope so. But if it doesn’t come to pass, you have to wonder if it will come to this:

The Republican fainting couch is getting mighty crowded

by digby

Bring on the smelling salts:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

I think this whining is purely designed to infuriate people like me. And it works.

Link: The Daily Show
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Jesus and Rand

by digby

Via Atrios, I see that Roy at Alicublog has responded to the hilarious nonsense being spouted by Randroids about the lack of a “left canon”:

[A]t Power Line, Steven Hayward asks, “WHY IS THERE NO LIBERAL AYN RAND?” He’s taking off from Beverly Gage who, slightly less stupidly, asks, “American conservatives have a canon. Why don’t American liberals?” Sure we have a canon — it’s called Western literature. And it beats the snot out of the sad, long-form political pamphlets wingnuts like to name-check. You will learn more about the human condition from the works of novelists, playwrights, and poets than you ever can from a thousand power freaks’ blueprints for the mass production of Procrustean beds.

And frankly, I think these alleged smart guys steep themselves in PoliSci because Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky and the rest confuse them and make them feel bad. They know they’re smart, yet here are all these famous writers making them feel all this stuff their parents told them is wrong and bad. Much better to follow someone who writes with a slide rule.

Very true. It reminds of internet debates I used to have back in the day with conservatives who claimed that it would be impossible to teach children morality and ethics unless they were allowed to teach the Bible in public schools. I used western literature in that argument as well, along with the philosophers going all the way back to Aristotle. Shakespeare alone will teach you almost everything you need to know about human nature and morality.

But this raises an important question: is the Bible still part of the “conservative canon” and, if it is, how do they deal with that when simultaneously worshiping the great atheist Ayn Rand? Paul Ryan has tied himself in knots over it, but he’s a politician who has to pander to the rubes. Everything about his career says that he’s a Rand True Believer. How do sincere conservatives reconcile the idea that the Bible is inerrant while also believing in Randian morality? Which parts do they pick and choose to make that work?

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The static electorate

by David Atkins

Looks like the Paul Ryan VP pick isn’t giving Romney the usual bump:

Mitt Romney garnered virtually no increase in support in the initial days after announcing Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate, according to the latest numbers from Gallup.

In the four days leading up to the announcement, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee had the support of about 46 percent of the registered voters. Over the following four days, that figure crept up only one tick to 47 percent. Obama, meanwhile, held steady at 45 percent in the Gallup polling.

In years past, presidential candidates have received more significant bumps after announcing their running mates: Al Gore lept up by 5 points in 2000, and Bob Dole by 9 in 1996, for instance. That trend didn’t hold in the last election cycle, however, with John McCain gaining a more modest two-point bump immediately after naming Sarah Palin as his running mate and Barack Obama actually seeing his support drop by 2 points after Joe Biden joined the Dem ticket

It’s possible that Romney may still see a delayed bump from the announcement, but the current response to Ryan’s addition to the ticket is overall pretty tepid, CBS News notes. Just 39 percent of Americans described the Wisconsin congressman as an “excellent” or “pretty good” choice, compared with 46 percent who said the same of Palin in 2008.

It could be that this has something to do with Ryan and the dynamics of this race. But it’s much more likely that the country has reached a point where number of undecideds is starting to be very small, even in August of a Presidential year.

That means that electoral polarization is basically baked into the cake already, and the only thing giving centrist undecideds any clout in Presidential races is the electoral college system. Otherwise elections at the Presidential level would be purely base turnout operations at this point.

I suppose purists might say that’s a good thing. But it’s hard to see why the vote of an uninformed undecided in Florida representing a vanishingly small electoral constituency should matter more than that of a much more typical engaged partisan in Oklahoma or Vermont. Let the people rule.

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“She looks guilty about something”

by digby

I happened to see this clip at my vets office this afternoon and the reaction among the other patrons — all strangers — was surprisingly voluble and hostile. One woman made a face and said to her friend, “who does she thinks she is?” A man sitting on the other side of the room said, “if they didn’t do anything wrong, they shouldn’t be worried.” The girl behind the counter said, “she looks guilty about something.”

Ann Romney: No More Returns Will Be Released

AARP is not a fan of the Ryan Plan

by digby

In case you were wondering where the AARP stands on the Ryan Plan, check out the letter they sent to congress about it a few months back. Here are the most relevant excerpts:

While the House Republican budget proposal offers ideas for confronting our nation’s deficits and debt, AARP believes the proposal lacks balance, jeopardizes the health and economic security of older Americans, and puts at risk the bipartisan agreement on FY 2013 discretionary spending levels included in last year’s Budget Control Act…

However, rather than recognizing that health care is an unavoidable necessity which must be made more affordable for all Americans, this proposal simply shifts these high and growing costs onto Medicare beneficiaries, and it then shifts even higher costs of increased uninsured care onto everyone else…By creating a “premium support” system for future Medicare beneficiaries, the proposal is likely to simply increase costs for beneficiaries while removing Medicare’s promise of secure health coverage — a guarantee that future seniors have contributed to through a lifetime of hard work…

The premium support method described in the proposal – unlike private plan options that currently exist in Medicare — would likely “price out” traditional Medicare as a viable option, thus rendering the choice of traditional Medicare as a false promise. The proposal also leaves open the possibility for private plans to tailor their plans to healthy beneficiaries – again putting traditional Medicare at risk. The plan fails to realize the negotiating power of Medicare and its impact on lowering costs for the Medicare program – such as in Part D of the program. Converting Medicare to a series of private options would undermine the market power of Medicare and could lead to higher costs for seniors…

While we appreciate the effort to address the sustainability of the Medicare program, we do not think it is appropriate to subject Medicare beneficiaries to an experimental and unproven health care model. We need to make sure the program remains a viable and affordable option for the over 47 million Medicare recipients that rely on the program for their health care needs…

On behalf of our millions of members and all older Americans, we reiterate our concerns about the harm this budget could cause beneficiaries of the Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security programs.

Seniors are going to be bombarded with propaganda over the next couple of months. They will be looking for validators to help them sort through it. It’s a sort of CW that they are all being brainwashed by Fox News, but it just isn’t true. There are a ton of senior citizens in this country — over 40 million of them and it’s growing every year as more boomers join the crowd. FoxNews averaged 1.868 million total viewers in prime time last year so I’m going to guess that all 40 million seniors aren’t cycling through. It will mean something to them that the AARP came out so strongly against Ryan.

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