Conservatives Learned Nothing From Katrina or the Bush Years

Conservatives Learned Nothing From Katrina or the Bush Years

FOR Barack Obama’s knee-jerk foes, of course it was his Katrina. But for the rest of us, there’s the nagging fear that the largest oil spill in our history could yet prove worse if it drags on much longer. It might not only wreck the ecology of a region but capsize the principal mission of the Obama presidency.

Before we look at why, it would be helpful to briefly revisit that increasingly airbrushed late summer of 2005. Whatever Obama’s failings, he is infinitely more competent at coping with catastrophe than his predecessor. President Bush’s top disaster managers — the Homeland Security secretary, Michael Chertoff, as well as the notorious “Brownie” — professed ignorance of New Orleans’s humanitarian crisis a full day after the nation had started watching it live in real time on television. When Bush finally appeared, he shunned the city entirely and instead made a jocular show of vowing to rebuild the coastal home of his party’s former Senate leader, Trent Lott. He never did take charge.

The Obama administration has been engaged with the oil spill from the start — however haltingly and inarticulately at times. It was way too trusting of BP but was never AWOL. For all the second-guessing, it’s still not clear what else the president might have done to make a definitive, as opposed to cosmetic, difference in plugging the hole: yell louder at BP, send in troops and tankers, or, as James Carville would have it, assume the role of Big Daddy? The spill is not a Tennessee Williams play, its setting notwithstanding, and it’s hard to see what more drama would add, particularly since No Drama Obama’s considerable talents do not include credible play-acting.

But life isn’t fair, and this president is in a far tougher spot in 2010 than his predecessor was in 2005.

When Katrina hit, Bush was in his second term and his bumbling was not a shock to a country that had witnessed two-plus years of his grievous mismanagement of the Iraq war. His laissez-faire response to the hurricane was also consistent with his political DNA as a small-government conservative in thrall to big business. His administration’s posture toward the gulf region had been telegraphed at its inception, when Dick Cheney convened oil and gas cronies, including Enron’s Ken Lay, to set environmental and energy policy. The Interior Department devolved into a cesspool of corruption, even by its historically low standards, turning the Bush-Cheney antigovernment animus into a self-fulfilling prophecy and bequeathing Obama a Minerals Management Service as broken as the Bush-Cheney FEMA exposed by Katrina.

Obama was elected as a progressive antidote to this discredited brand of governance. Of all the president’s stated goals, none may be more sweeping than his desire to prove that government is not always a hapless and intrusive bureaucratic assault on taxpayers’ patience and pocketbooks, but a potential force for good.

He returned to this theme with particular eloquence in his University of Michigan commencement speech 10 days after the Deepwater Horizon blowout. He reminded his audience that under both parties the federal government helped build public high schools, the transcontinental railroad and the interstate highway system, engineered the New Deal and Medicare — and imposed safety and environmental standards on the oil industry. Quoting Lincoln, Obama said that “the role of government is to do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves.”

We expect him to deliver on this core conviction. But the impact on “the people” of his signature governmental project so far, health care reform, remains provisional and abstract. Like it or not, a pipe gushing poison into an ocean is a visceral crisis demanding visible, immediate action.

Obama’s news conference on Thursday — explaining in detail the government’s response, its mistakes and its precise relationship to BP — was at least three weeks overdue. It was also his first full news conference in 10 months. Obama’s recurrent tardiness in defining exactly what he wants done on a given issue — a lapse also evident in the protracted rollout of the White House’s specific health care priorities — remains baffling, as does his recent avoidance of news conferences. Such diffidence does not convey a J.F.K.-redux in charge of a neo-New Frontier activist government.

Long before Obama took office, the public was plenty skeptical that government could do anything right. Eight years of epic Bush ineptitude and waste only added to Washington’s odor. Now Obama is stuck between a rock and a Tea Party. His credibility as a champion of reformed, competent government is held hostage by video from the gulf. And this in an election year when the very idea of a viable federal government is under angrier assault than at any time since the Gingrich revolution and militia mobilization of 1994-5 and arguably since the birth of the modern conservative movement in the 1960s.

This is why the more revealing strand of Rand Paul’s post-primary victory romp may have been his musings about BP, not civil rights law — although they are two sides of the same ideological coin. He called out Obama and his administration for sounding “really un-American” in their “criticism of business.” He asked that we stop the “blame game” over the disaster and instead just accept the fact that “accidents happen.” Much as Paul questioned the federal government’s role in ordering lunch counters to desegregate, so he belittled its intrusion into BP’s toxic private enterprise. But unlike the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the role of government in corporate regulation is a continuing battle, not settled law.

Hardly were those words out of Paul’s mouth than the G.O.P. gave him the hook. He dropped his scheduled appearance on last Sunday’s “Meet the Press.” Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader and Paul’s newly self-appointed minder, declared that his fellow Kentuckian had said “quite enough for the time being in terms of national press coverage.” Establishment conservatives have scrambled to portray Paul as either an innocent victim of a liberal media game of “gotcha” or an inexperienced citizen-politician who made the rookie mistake of conducting campaign interviews as if they were classroom seminars in Libertarian theory. We were told he really didn’t mean what he was saying, and that he certainly didn’t represent the G.O.P. or the Tea Party movement.

Whom are they kidding? Paul rightly described his victory as “a message from the Tea Party” that it was on the march “to take our government back.” And if he doesn’t represent the G.O.P., who does if not his most powerful supporters and ideological fellow travelers, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin? Aside from saying no to Obama, the Republican Party has no ideas except Tea Party ideas, Rand Paul ideas. And as The Economist, hardly a liberal observer, put it, Paul’s views are those of “a genuine radical who believes in paring government down to the bone.”

The president of the American Enterprise Institute, the conservative think tank, codified the mission in apocalyptic terms last weekend. The new American “culture war,” Arthur C. Brooks wrote in The Washington Post, is not “over guns, gays or abortion” but pits “the principles of free enterprise” against the “European-style statism” he accuses Obama of fomenting. It’s a war that takes no prisoners: the A.E.I. purged the former Bush speechwriter David Frum after he broke with the strict party line.

The stakes are high. To win this culture war, the right must rewrite history — and not just that of the Bush response to Katrina. In his jeremiad, Brooks held only “government housing policy” responsible for the 2008 economic meltdown and gave a pass to what he regards as an already overregulated Wall Street. Palin has brazenly accused Obama of being in financial hock to Big Oil when it’s her own “drill, baby, drill” party that has collected three-quarters of Big Oil’s campaign cash for decades.

The Tea Party is meanwhile busy rewriting America’s early history under Beck’s tutelage by enforcing a vision of the Constitution tantamount to the Creationists’ view of Genesis. We must obey the words of the founding fathers literally — or what the Tea Partiers think those words to be. (Many Tea Partiers seem unaware that Medicare is a government entitlement postdating Tom Paine.) There can be no evolution or amendments. Any Obama initiatives are sacrilegious. All previous add-ons are un-American and must be pared away, from the Department of Education to the Americans with Disabilities Act. Michael Steele, the party chairman, attacked Elena Kagan for joining Thurgood Marshall in finding the original text of the Constitution “defective” because, among other defects, it countenanced slavery.

The only good news from the oil spill is that when catastrophe strikes, even some hard-line conservatives, like Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, start begging for the federal government to act, and act big. It’s the crunch moment for government to make its case — as Obama belatedly started to do on Thursday. But words are no match for results. As long as the stain washes up on shore, the hole in BP’s pipe will serve the right as a gaping hole in the president’s argument for expanded government supervision of, for starters, Big Oil and big banks. It’s not just the gulf that could suffer for decades to come.

Bush Probably a Sociopath. What Does That Say About the People Who Voted For Him Twice

Bush Probably a Sociopath. What Does That Say About the People Who Voted For Him Twice

Argentinas former president: Bush once claimed, the best way to revitalize the economy is war

Legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone is by no means done exploring the administration of George W. Bush.

While producing new material for his upcoming documentary "South of the Border," which explores the history of political and social movements in Latin America, Stone sat down to interview former Argentina president Néstor Kirchner.

The subject inevitably turned to George W. Bush, the subject of Stone's creative nonfiction feature "W". In front of a film crew, Kirchner confided to Stone that the former U.S. president once directly told him, "The best way to revitalize the economy is war."

"We had a discussion in Monterrey. I said that a solution for the problems right now, I told Bush, is a Marshall Plan," he claimed to have suggested. "And he got angry. He said the Marshall Plan is a crazy idea of the Democrats. He said the best way to revitalize the economy is war, and that the United States has grown stronger with war."

Asked to clarify, Kirchner added: "He said that. Those were his exact words."

Bush and Republicans put the bill for the invasion of Iraq on future generations of America. Dubya and Republicans invented generational theft. Every Republican president since Nixon has left the economy in various degrees of shambles.

Oops! Legal Expert Tells Jamie Colby Fox’s “Breathless” Coverage Of Sestak Is “Much Ado About Nothing”

A professor specializing in election law visited On The Record last night (5/28/10) and told substitute guest host Jamie Colby that no statutes were broken in the Sestak affair, that the statute Fox News personnel keep obsessively citing, Section 600 of the U.S. Code was not designed to prevent the kind of political deals that might have been made between the White House and Sestak and, for good measure, added, “The coverage on your network sounds pretty breathless. It seems to me that this is really much ado about nothing.”

Rupert Murdock's propaganda channel for morons is found distorting the facts. Not a big surprise at this point, Fox is like the fantasy channel for conservatives who live in a mental bubble.

If Obama Can Be Impeached for Sestak Then We Can Retroactively Impeach Reagan

Morris fabricates "impeachable offense" out of alleged Sestak job offer

Reagan adviser reportedly offered CA senator a job with the administration "if he decided not to seek re-election." A November 25, 1981, Associated Press article (from the Nexis database) reported that President Reagan's political adviser Ed Rollins planned to offer former California Sen. S.I. Hayakawa a job in the administration in exchange for not seeking re-election.

After we retroactively impeach Reagan we can impeach Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), Sestak "bribe"-gate: Judd Gregg did it first

If that's the case, we should probably appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether Sen. Judd Gregg committed extortion when he demanded that the White House force a Democratic governor to appoint a Republican to his seat if they wanted him to be their commerce secretary.

Republican weasels, aware of how horrible their response was to Katrina are despareto have the public think of BP's Gulf spill as Obama's fault.

Sean needs a refill on his meds again, Sean Hannity And Fox News Give Credibility To Conspiracy Theory Accusing The Left Of Working With Muslims To Instate Sharia Law And Sabotage America

Most Republicans are not racist. Its just that conservatism is the last refuge of racists - O’Reilly tells African-American Columbia University professor that he looks like a ‘cocaine dealer.’

Health Reform and Taxes Rumor

Health Reform and Taxes Rumor

As the Administration works to implement the Affordable Care Act, it is critically important to ensure that consumers across the country have accurate information about their new rights and benefits under the new health insurance law. Throughout the Congressional debate on health reform, Americans were bombarded by the opponents of reform with rumors, misinformation and false claims. Unfortunately, those efforts persist.

For example, there is now an email circulating with false information about the W2 form. The email states that because consumers will now see the value of their employer provided health care on their W2 form, their taxes will go up. Here’s what part of it claims:

“Starting in 2011 (next year folks) your W 2 tax form sent by your employer will be increased to show the value of what ever health insurance you are given by the company. It does not matter if that's a private concern or governmental body of some sort. If you're retired? So what; your gross will go up by the amount of insurance you get. You will be required to pay taxes on a large sum of money that you have never seen. Take your tax form you just finished and see what $15,000 or $20,000 additional gross does to your tax debt. That's what you'll pay next year. For many it also puts you into a new higher bracket so it's even worse. This is how the government is going to buy insurance for the 15% that don't have insurance and it's only part of the tax increases.”

Don’t believe it. This claim is simply false.

Here are the facts: Next year, your W2 form will only change to show the value of the health care benefits that you have received so you can know more about your benefits and you are an empowered consumer, but you will absolutely not pay taxes on these benefits.

Would Conservatives who bask in the glow of holier than thou values circulate false e-mails about Democrats. It appears they would. Republican are the party of fear and smears. It works for them so we can all expect more of the same. With Republicans its alway party first and America last on their agenda.

Estimated Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Employment and Economic Output

Looking at recorded spending to date as well as estimates of the other effects of ARRA on spending and revenues, CBO has estimated the law’s impact on employment and economic output using evidence about the effects of previous similar policies on the economy and using various mathematical models that represent the workings of the economy. On that basis, CBO estimates that in the first quarter of calendar year 2010, ARRA’s policies:

* Raised the level of real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 1.7 percent and 4.2 percent,
* Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.5 percentage points,
* Increased the number of people employed by between 1.2 million and 2.8 million, and
* Increased the number of full-time-equivalent (FTE) jobs by 1.8 million to 4.1 million compared with what those amounts would have been otherwise. (Increases in FTE jobs include shifts from part-time to full-time work or overtime and are thus generally larger than increases in the number of employed workers.)

Didn't tea party pretty boy Scott Brown (R-Mass) say the stimulus had not created even one job. That's sad. Not in Congress for even a year and already in over his pretty little head.

Obama Leads America Into the 21st Centruy as Republicans Jeer and Snarl

A Progressive Agenda to Remake Washington

With the Senate’s passage of financial regulation, Congress and the White House have completed 16 months of activity that rival any other since the New Deal in scope or ambition. Like the Reagan Revolution or Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, the new progressive period has the makings of a generational shift in how Washington operates.

First came a stimulus bill that, while aimed mainly at ending a deep recession, also set out to remake the nation’s educational system and vastly expand scientific research. Then President Obama signed a health care bill that was the biggest expansion of the safety net in 40 years. And now Congress is in the final stages of a bill that would tighten Wall Street’s rules and probably shrink its profit margins.

If there is a theme to all this, it has been to try to lift economic growth while also reducing income inequality. Growth in the decade that just ended was the slowest in the post-World War II era, while inequality has been rising for most of the last 35 years.

It is far too early to know if these efforts will work. Their success depends enormously on execution and, in the case of financial regulation, specifically on the Federal Reserve, which did not distinguish itself during the housing bubble.

Already, though, one downside to the legislative spurt does seem clear. By focusing on long-term problems, Mr. Obama and the Democrats have given less than their full attention to the economy’s current weakness and turned off a good number of voters.

After months of discussion, and with the unemployment rate hovering near a 27-year high, Democratic leaders said Thursday they had finally reached agreement on a bill that would send aid to states and take other steps to increase job growth. Congress plans to vote on the bill next week. But some of the money will not be spent for months and may not be enough to affect voters’ attitudes before November’s midterm elections.

Still, the turnabout since Jan. 20 — the first anniversary of Mr. Obama’s inauguration and the day after Scott Brown, a Republican, won a Senate seat in liberal Massachusetts — has been remarkable. Then, commentators pronounced the Obama presidency nearly dead. Today, he looks more like a liberal answer to Ronald Reagan.

“If you’d asked me about this administration after Scott Brown was elected, I’d have told you it was going to fizzle into virtually nothing,” said Theda Skocpol, the Harvard political scientist. “Now it could easily be one of the pivotal periods in domestic policy.” But, Ms. Skocpol added, “It will depend on what happens in the next two elections.”

The recent period surely will not match the impact of the New Deal. Nothing is likely to, notes David Kennedy,a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, because the New Deal created much of the modern American government. “These are not as dramatic as the foundational moments,” Mr. Kennedy said, “but they’re significant changes.”

Alan Brinkley, a historian of the Depression, added: “This is not the New Deal, but it’s a significant series of achievements. And given the difficulty of getting anything done under the gridlock of Congress, it’s pretty surprising.”

The last 16 months seem most similar in scope to three other periods in the last 80 years. After World War II, the federal government helped build the modern middle class with the G.I. Bill, housing subsidies, the highway system and incentives for employers to offer health insurance.

Republican achievements? They've picked their collective noses. They have fought for the right of insurance companies to cancel the insurance of sick children. They have fought for the interests of Wall St at the expense of Main Street. Republicans have held up racists signs. They have called people names. Have gone into rages over issues they didn't bother to fact check. Republicans have trashed American ideals aspirations, hopes, dreams and the Constitution. Than Republicans have had the gull to call themselves patriots.

Bush lied about his military service, and so did Reagan

Lurking beneath the Paul family's libertarian politics is a strategy of pandering to "populists" like Pat Buchanan

The Fox News Witch Hunt Against Asst. Secretary Of State Posner Continues

NRSC Calls Dem Condemnation Of Paul Civil Rights Act Statements 'Ironic' - This funny. Republicans really should pick up a good history book once in a while.

Conservative Guru Newt Gingrich is Not The Least Bit Insane

Gingrich: ‘Of Course’ Gov. Barbour Should Encourage Tourists To Visit Oil Contaminated Gulf Beaches

Weeks after the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Newt Gingrich still continued his “Drill Here, Drill Now” mantra, writing that “human progress is not without risk” and that “[o]ffshore drilling is no exception.” But given the fact that the oil leak at BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig continues unabated, pouring more than 200,000 gallons of oil into the Gulf every day and is “already far larger” than the Exxon Valdez crash, Gingrich is holding firm.

At the NRA’s annual conference in Charlotte, NC, yesterday, ThinkProgress asked Gingrich if he still accepts this level of risk to continue offshore drilling:

TP: So given the scale of the oil spill in the gulf, do you still think that it represents an acceptable risk to continue offshore drilling?

GINGRICH: Yes. … One oil spill since 1969 with 4,000 wells. If the Coast Guard had a reasonable research program, we’d be much further down the road to solving this kind of thing.

ThinkProgess also asked the former GOP House Speaker if he agrees with Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s (R) recent campaign to encourage tourists to visit gulf beaches despite oil and dead sea animals washing ashore. While Gingrich hesitated for a moment, he replied, “Of course.”

While it’s unclear which “4,000 wells” Gingrich was referring to, his claim that there has only been one spill since 1969 is not accurate, as the Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson has noted:

Between 1992 and 1998 there were 319 failures of blowout preventers found in US offshore drilling, an average of 45 a year. [MMS, 1999] Between 1992 and 2006 there were at least 39 blowouts off the US coastline, 38 of them in the Gulf of Mexico. [MMS, 7/07] From 2007 to 2009 there were 19 blowouts, all in the Gulf of Mexico. [MMS]

Moreover, the largest accidental oil spill in history was a Gulf of Mexico exploratory rig blowout in 1979 and other major offshore spills have occurred elsewhere around the world. In “one of Australia’s worst oil disasters,” a PTTEP oil rig blew out in the Montara deepwater oil field on August 21, 2009.

Coast Guard "research program" - so Newt wants government to use taxpayer funds to do private industry's job for them. Let this be a lesson kids - head injuries and weird political beliefs can be dangerous.

Chevron's 'Crude' Attempt to Suppress Free Speech

How Rand Paul became the Tea Party's Obama

As Voters See Benefits of Health Care Reform, Republicans Backs Against the Wall

GOP's "Second Opinion" on Health Care Same as First

Back in March, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced his party's fall campaign to undo health care reform, declaring, "I think the slogan will be 'repeal and replace', 'repeal and replace.'" But a funny thing happened on the way to November. Surveys from Kaiser and Deloitte showed Americans strongly supported individual provisions of the new law, while Republicans' own polling revealed independents hated "repeal and replace." This week, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed Americans want to give the new law a chance by a 55% to 42% margin. So the GOP is rolling out a new slogan on health care: "Second Opinion." Unsurprisingly, it's the same as their first.

Also covered at the link and here is the Republican lie that health care reform will cost more then planned. And the pitiful plan by Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) to balance the budget with a gimmick called YouCut - which will save less than one percent of federal spending. President Obama's health care plan will save workers and business a trillion dollars. Maybe Eric's adding machine is broke.

Hannity's double whammy: falsely claims Obama is cutting troops' pay and military spending. Sean, you keep trying some day you'll find your integrity - try looking in back of the refrigerator - and you'll start acting like you have a shred of honor and genuine patriotism.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) Defends Using Tax Funds for Political Agenda

Pawlenty Hypocritically Supports Chamber Using Taxpayer Bailout Funds To Lobby Against Wall St Reform

Historically, the Chamber’s role is to help big business achieve its goals — fighting the minimum wage, opposing health reform, pushing for outsourcing — while hiding the corporate identities of its funders. As ThinkProgress originally reported, many backers of the Chamber with a stake in financial reform are banks that were bailed out by taxpayer TARP funds. For instance, CitiGroup is a Chamber member that was bailed out by taxpayers and still has not repaid the money.

ThinkProgress recently caught up with Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) to ask him about firms who are using bailout money to lobby against financial reform. Pawlenty became defensive when asked about this, eventually arguing that the Chamber has a right to use taxpayer money in lobbying ....

Day in and day out conservatives are for strict free market principles except when they're not - as in this case where Pawlenty thinks tax payers should pay for the Chamber's lobbyists. Yep, vote Pawlenty in 2012 for president so we can bring back Bush's crony corrupt capitalism.

President Obama saved America's ass

President Obama: Did what moment required

President Barack Obama said Thursday that economic growth will continue next year, but he warned the nation will face hard choices as it tackles the federal deficit.

In a town hall appearance at a manufacturing plant in Buffalo, New York, Obama prompted applause when he declared: "We can say beyond a shadow of a doubt today we are headed in the right direction."

"Next year's going to be better than this year," Obama said.

At the same time, Obama warned of tough choices ahead as the nation faces its unsustainable deficit.

"The truth of the matter is that we're going to have to spend the next couple of years making some very hard decisions getting our deficit and spending under control," he said in response to a question about tax reform. "It's not going to be fun."

The visit was part of Obama's continuing "White House to Main Street" tour. He grabbed some wings for lunch at a local joint and then toured a metal fabrication plant, where he held a town-hall-style event to talk about the economy.

Buffalo suffers from one of the country's highest poverty rates, with nearly 30 percent of its population living at or below the poverty line.

The city has struggled in recent decades with the loss of industrial employers such as steel and auto-related manufacturers, but has weathered the most recent recession a little better than the nation overall.

The unemployment rate in Buffalo currently stands at 8.6 percent while the national average is 9.7 percent.

Poking fun at the political clamor of Washington, Obama said he liked escaping to places like Buffalo so he can hear the voices of the American people.

"No matter what the economists say, it's not a real recovery until people feel it in their own lives," he said.

Obama cited steps his administration has taken in response to the economic recession - including what he called unpopular ones such as bailing out banks and automakers - as necessary to bring about the growth and job creation of recent months.

He also heralded assistance to small businesses like Industrial Support Inc., the plant where his speech took place, noting the company received a loan via the stimulus bill that helped it weather the recession and buy new equipment.

In particular, Obama told how a woman at Duff's Famous Wings - where he had lunch - thanked him for the tax credits in the health care reform bill passed this year that help small businesses provide health insurance for workers.

"She offered me some of her wings ... but I had already ordered," the president joked.

In response to questions from the audience of more than 200 people, including plant employees and local officials, Obama said he wants to work with Congress to create a sustainable source of funding to improve the nation's highways, rail links, ports and other infrastructure.

He also reiterated his support for strengthening the education system. Known as a basketball and baseball fan, Obama made a rare hockey reference in the city considered a hockey town.

"We've got to make sure that our young people are trained and prepared for the future," Obama said. "I know Buffalo's a big hockey town. Now [pro hockey great Wayne] Gretzky wasn't your guy, but what did they used to say about Gretzky? ... He didn't think about where the puck was, he thought about where it was going to be."

Before his appearance, Obama also met privately with families of the 50 people killed in February 2009 when a Continental Connection commuter plane crashed while flying from Newark, New Jersey, to Buffalo Niagara International Airport. Afterwards, he wore a red bracelet on his left wrist commemorating the victims of the crash.

Unlike most conservatives Obama did what had to be done to save the economy. Unlike Republicans that voted for TARP, claim credit for federal funds going to their districts, but have no ideas except saying that everything Obama does is wrong.

About those rumors the very conservative Elena Kagan is a socialist - they're just more lies spread by Republican gas bags with no honor or integrity - Right seizes on false claim that Kagan's thesis shows she's a socialist

Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck have falsely suggested Elena Kagan's college thesis shows she is a socialist or radical. In fact, Kagan's thesis did not express support for socialism or radicalism, and regardless, conservatives -- including Hannity -- previously said that nominees' political views are irrelevant to the confirmation process.

James Inhofe (R-OK) is a one man conspiracy against intelligence and decency

Inhofe's twisted bigotry

What an embarrassment James Inhofe (R-OK) is to humanity. Here's his argument against repealing "don't ask, don't tell."

For those of us — and I’m one of them — who have gone through the military, gone through basic training, and you stop and think — it just doesn’t make any sense. Second of all, it’s just not working. You have women, men, then you have a third group to deal with, and they’re not equipped to do that.

And you know — you hear the stories all the time. A military guy — I happen to be Army, and Army and Marines always feel that when we’re out there, we’re not doing it for the flag or the country; we’re doing it for the guy in the next foxhole. And that would dramatically change that.

Inhofe needs to stop projecting his own bigotry on others:

A survey commissioned by Vet Voice Foundation has found that an overwhelming majority of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would be accepting of gays and lesbians serving openly in the armed forces ...

• 73% of all surveyed veterans said such open service would be acceptable, including 42% who said it would be acceptable without reservations and 31% who would find it acceptable even though they would not personally like it. Only 25% said they would find it unacceptable.

Inhofe was in the military one whole year - which makes him an expert? president Obama and Congress are taking things slow and letting everyone get their two cents worth in and for everyone to get used to the inevitable progressive change the military itself says it is ready for.

Please Help! We're in Search of an Issue The Tea Party Has a Legitimate Right to be Angry About

Tea Parties Rage as Taxes Hit Lowest Level Since 1950

For almost a year and a half, furious Tea Party protesters have been chanting "Taxed Enough Already." But as it turns out, "taxed enough" actually means "at the lowest levels since 1950." That's the word from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which found that Americans paid the smallest overall tax bill since Harry Truman was in the White House. Of course, that inconvenient truth for Tea Baggers is tied to another: their plummeting payments are due in part to the tax relief delivered by President Obama.

More details and evidence at the link. Job growth is also the best it has been since 2000 - which seems to be a big disappointment to the Orange Congressman from Ohio John Boehner(R).

Senator Hatch(R-UT) who could not win re-election if he was running this year gets one thing almost right -

HATCH: A lot of these Tea Party people are angry, and I’m angry too. … I mean my gosh, They’re mad. They have a right to be mad and I think these Tea Party people are doing the country a service. But when they don’t have an open mind and they won’t listen, that’s another matter and that’s something I think anybody would find fault with.

The American electorate is always angry about something. The problem with the Tea Party - who are just the rabid Right rebranding of ultra conservatives - is they cannot find justification for their anger. The tea baggers are simply conservatives who are too hard headed to learn the Republican policies of 2000-2008 failed and they want to turn conservatism even further Right. Health care reform was budget neutral, taxes on the vast majority of Americans are down, the economy has picked up some steam. Tea baggers keep whining like petulant little brats.

Republicans think everyone to the left of Hitler is a socialist and every event which occurs while Obama is in office is his Katrina

Republicans think everyone to the left of Hitler is a socialist and every event which occurs while Obama is in office is his Katrina. Maybe Republicans are dolts who do not have the intelligence or imagination to come up with better metaphors. More here - AP Reverses Course, Refutes "Obama's Katrina" Talking Point

Adding weight to the timeline offered by the White House, the AP report found that President Obama moved quickly to address the unfolding catastrophe in along the Gulf Coast. For example, two days after the fire, Obama convened an Oval Office meeting and mobilized federal resources even before first word of the growing spill...

Of course Republicans feel deep in their twisted and uninformed imaginations that Elena Kagan is a socialist. Probably because, unlike Sen. Mitch McConnell(R-KY) and most Senate Republicans, Kagan does not act like a puppet for Wall St. - Myths and falsehoods about Elena Kagan's Supreme Court nomination

Another Reason to Vote Republican. They're Good With Money and They Have Consistant Values

RNC fires top finance officials as scandal fallout continues

Chairman Michael Steele on Friday fired the Republican National Committee's two top finance officials, the Ballot Box confirmed.

Steele asked for the resignations of finance director Rob Bickhart and his deputy, Debbie LeHardy. In a memo sent to committee members, Steele said the move came as part of an effort to "restructure the department."

The RNC has been reeling from poor fundraising numbers and reports that it spent donors' money at questionable locales, including at Voyeur, a "bondage-themed" nightclub in Los Angeles.

Republicans ran up the largesy deficit in America's history. Voters turned them out in 2008. Now - in between "bondage-themed" club visits they make speeches about "freedom" and values and swear they'll get it right this time if you'll just send them more money to get back into power so they bring back the values and money management skills they have never had.

Republican anti-gay activist Dr. George Rekers tries to cover up gay prostitute scandal by inventing new terms for the worlds oldest profession, Cover Up Your Sex Scandal With A New Batch Of Euphemisms (VIDEO)

Addressing the George Rekers fiasco, Jimmy Kimmel mockingly applauded the well-known anti-gay crusader for coming up with a new euphemism: "Carrying his luggage." It's perfect for covering up gay prostitute sex scandals. Running with it, Kimmel introduced a whole new batch of euphemisms, all perfect for misleading the public.

I feel a little sorry for Dr. George Rekers. he should so the right thing - come out of the closet and try to make amends for the damage that he has done to his fellow gay Americans. Self loathing and deception are all too common in the Conservative movement.

Republican Bloggers Spin Times Square Car Bomb Story

Media Ignore The Fact That Man Who Alerted Police To Failed Times Square Bombing Is A Muslim Immigrant

The chief suspect in the case of the failed Times Square car bombing is Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad, who has confessed to the plot. Much of the media has latched onto Shahzad’s Muslim faith and his Pakistani identity, making inflammatory remarks and suggestions about Muslims and Pakistanis:

– CNN contributor and Redstate.com blogger Erick Erickson complained that the words “muslim” and “Islam” are “not mentioned” enough in stories about Shahzad. He wrote, “It really is pathetic that you’re more likely to see the words “racist” and “Republican” together in the newspaper these days than “terrorism” and “Islam.” [5/4/2010]

– Hate radio host Neal Boortz tweeted, “OMG! The Times Square Bomber is a Muslim! Shocker! Who would have believed it?” [5/4/2010]

....Yet one fact being ignored in the American media’s sensationalist narrative about the failed bombing is that the man who was responsible for police finding the bomb was Muslim. The UK’s Times Online reports that Aliou Niasse, a Senagalese Muslim immigrant who works as a photograph vendor on Times Square, was the first to bring the smoking car to the police’s attention

Rep. Cantor's Foreign Policy Address Was Full Of Distortions

Cantor Wrongly Claimed The Administration Is Only Paying Attention To Terror Threat "In Limited Spurts"

Rep. Cantor(R):

Yet with each close encounter, my fear is that the country goes on heightened alert only as long as the media tend to cover it. All too often, that means hours and days rather than permanently. Equally concerning is that the administration and other elected officials tend to give these warnings due attention only in limited spurts.

In reality, President Obama's commitment to fighting Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other terrorist threats has produced a series of successes at home and around the world.

Failed Times Square Attacker Quickly Arrested, Charged: As reported by the Associated Press:

It was just over 53 hours from the moment the authorities say Faisal Shahzad left his failed car bomb in the heart of Manhattan until the moment he was taken off a plane at JFK airport and charged with trying to kill untold numbers of residents and tourists. [...]

Shahzad, a Pakistani-born US citizen, was taken off a flight to Dubai and arrested late on Monday. The authorities say he has admitted plotting the attack. He was charged yesterday with terrorism and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. [Associated Press, 5/5/10]

Christmas Day Bomber Cooperated With Authorities. According to the New York Times:

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a jetliner bound for Detroit on Dec. 25, started talking to investigators after two of his family members arrived in the United States and helped earn his cooperation, a senior administration official said Tuesday evening.

Mr. Abdulmutallab, 23, began speaking to F.B.I. agents last week in Detroit and has not stopped, two government officials said. The officials declined to disclose what information was obtained from him, but said it was aiding in the investigation of the attempted terrorist attack.

"With the family, the F.B.I. approached the suspect," the senior administration official said, speaking to reporters at the White House on the condition of anonymity because of the pending legal case. "He has been cooperating for days. [New York Times, 2/3/10]

Taliban's Top Military Commander Captured. The New York Times reported:

The Taliban's top military commander was captured several days ago in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence forces, according to American government officials.

The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by American officials as the most significant Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban's founder and a close associate of Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks. [New York Times, 2/16/10; emphasis added]

Since President Obama's Inauguration, U.S. Forces Have Killed 20 Al Qaeda And Taliban Leaders.

Cantor has taken the sacred vow of all modern Republicans - integrity and honor are to be sacrificed in the cause of right-wing conservatism. And these creeps call themselves patriots.

RightPundits, Limbaugh, Gateway Pundits - Liars All. Faisal Shahzad Not A Democrat

RightPundits, Limbaugh, Gateway Pundits - Liars All. Faisal Shahzad Not A Democrat.

Right-wing media have falsely claimed -- citing no evidence -- that alleged Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad is a registered Democrat. Media Matters for America has contacted the offices of the registrar in Shahzad's hometowns and confirmed that he is in fact not a registered voter in those towns.

Media Matters confirmed registration status with Bridgeport, Shelton offices of the registrar. According to media reports, Shahzad -- who became a naturalized citizen in 2009 -- has lived in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and Shelton, Connecticut, for the past several years. Media Matters contacted the office of the registrar in both locations, and each confirmed that Shahzad is not a registered voter.

To have values one must have integrity and credibility. The UnAmerican proponents of soft-fascism RightPundits, Limbaugh, Gateway Pundits, prove once again they have no integrity or credibility. They have no allegiance to the United States and it's honorable ideals, their allegiance is to the cause of extremist right-wing ideology - the antithesis of enlightened democracy.

The Tea Party Takes After Barry Goldwater

History's Mad Hatters: The Strange Career of Tea Party Populism

Goldwater, the Arizona senator and 1964 Republican candidate for president, an "insurgent"? Yes, if you keep in mind his condemnation of the too-liberal elite running the Republican Party, who, in his eyes, represented a clubby world of Ivy League bankers, corrupt politicians, media lords, and "one-worlders." Or consider the way he flirted with the freakish John Birch Society (which called President Dwight Eisenhower a "dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist Party" and warned of a Red plot to weaken the minds of Americans by fluoridating the water supply). Or the Senator's alarming readiness to threaten to push the nuclear button in defense of "freedom," which could be thought of as the Cold War version of "Don't Tread on Me."

Above all, Goldwater was the avatar of today's politics of limited government. In his opposition to civil rights legislation, he might be called the original "tenther" -- that is, a serial quoter of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which reserves for the states all powers not expressly granted to the Federal government, with which he justified hamstringing all efforts by Washington to rectify social or economic injustice. For Goldwater the outlawing of Jim Crow was an infringement of constitutionally protected states' rights. Moreover, he was an inveterate enemy of all forms of collectivism, including of course unions and the welfare state.

As the Goldwater opposition sank its grassroots into the lush soil of the Sunbelt, its desire to restore an older order of things was palpable. At a time when New Deal liberalism was the reigning orthodoxy, the senator's reactionary impulses seemed startlingly adrift from the mainstream, and so strange indeed.

It is odd after eight years of Bush 43 - an administration that believed the presidency had unlimited powers - suddenly the Rightie tea baggers have discovered the 10th Amendment. The tea nut interpretation of the 10th would be the one Lincoln buried with all the traitors who fought for the Confederacy.

Upping the ante: Limbaugh and Hannity's falsehood about oil spill response keeps growing - When the numbers get larger than 3 Sean and Rush cannot keep up even when using their fingers to count.

Speaking At Trade Association Funded By BP, Gov. Perry Claims Rig Disaster Is An ‘Act Of God’

Perry questioned whether the spill was “just an act of God that occurred” and said that any “politically driven” decisions could put the U.S. in further economic peril. “From time to time there are going to be things that occur that are acts of God that cannot be prevented,” Perry said.

As Climate Progress’ Joe Romm has noted, BP cut corners by violating numerous safety regulations and refused to install “a remote-control shutoff switch that two other major oil producers, Norway and Brazil, require.” In fact, the Chamber, which is one of BP’s many trade associations and lobbying fronts, has worked aggressively to oppose regulations and fight for more offshore oil drilling.

Texas, a beautiful state with a complete nut-bag as governor.

Republicans Have Better Values. Or Do They.

Do 'Family Values' Weaken Families?
If you want to find stable two-parent families, bypass Palin country and go to Pelosi territory.

The paradox is this: Cultural conservatives revel in condemning the loose moral values and louche lifestyles of "San Francisco liberals." But if you want to find two-parent families with stable marriages and coddled kids, your best bet is to bypass Sarah Palin country and go to Nancy Pelosi territory: the liberal, bicoastal, predominantly Democratic places that cultural conservatives love to hate.

The country's lowest divorce rate belongs to none other than Massachusetts, the original home of same-sex marriage. Palinites might wish that Massachusetts's enviable marital stability were an anomaly, but it is not. The pattern is robust. States that voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in both 2004 and 2008 boast lower average rates of divorce and teenage childbirth than do states that voted for the Republican in both elections.

Red states also receive more federal funds per individual than blue states. Not unsurprising. Conservatives have convinced a large portion of middle and lower income whites to vote against their own best interests.

Right wingers fuel outlandish Obama, SWAT takeover theories

Perhaps the right is rattled by the SWAT team they believed had been called up to disperse a tea party demonstration in Quincy, IL, but which turned out to be local police in body armor clearing the street to enable President Obama's motorcade to pass through. But whatever the cause, they're now seeing the specter of SWAT teams everything.

On Friday afternoon, for example, a headline at the Drudge Report proclaimed, "Obama Sends SWAT Teams to Oil Rigs..."

It linked to a CBS News story from the previous day which reported, "Mr. Obama, speaking at an event for the 2010 National Teacher of the Year, said he had been receiving frequent briefings on the situation and that he is prepared to use the resources of the Department of Defense if necessary to deal with the oil spill. ... Mr. Obama said SWAT teams were being dispatched to the Gulf to investigate oil rigs and said his administration is now working to determine the cause of the disaster."

Rush Limbaugh had already pounced on this story and woven it into a conspiracy theory . He told his audience on Thursday, "I didn't hear this myself, but I have been informed that President Obama is sending SWAT teams to the Gulf oil rigs. SWAT teams? I'm waiting on audio sound bite confirmation of this, but why in the world would you send SWAT teams to Gulf oil rigs? Oh, I know! Obama probably thinks the tea party blew up the rig. That's what it is. (laughing) ... We had this call from a guy out there who said nobody's talking about whether this was an act of sabotage because I guess they can't prove it, but they're going to send SWAT teams down there?"

Drudge did not link to any more current story to provide a better explanation of the president's remarks, but a Friday column by Ed O'Keefe at the Washington Post, which explains, "The department deployed SWAT teams from the Minerals Management Service to inspect 30 drilling rigs operating in the deepwater sections of the Gulf of Mexico. Inspections should be completed within the next week, according to an Interior Department spokeswoman. Inspectors will check to see whether the rigs have conducted blow-out preventer tests and inspect related records."
Story continues below...

The key here is that the teams were sent out by the Minerals Management Service, a section of the Department of the Interior which "plays a key role in America’s energy supply by managing the mineral resources on 1.7 billion acres of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). This includes managing Renewable Energy Programs as well as Offshore Oil and Gas Leasing in Federal waters."

Although ithe acronym is not entirely clear, "SWAT" in this context could simply stand for "Swift Action Team," or it might represent something similar to the "soil and water assessment tool" used by the Department of Agriculture to monitor complex watersheds.

There are also references online to the Obama administration creating a "SWAT team" within the Office of Management and Budget to set performance improvement targets.

Limbaugh, still the talking head of conservatism, has become a Gulf Oil Spill Truther - telling his listeners its probably an inside job coordinated by environmentalists and the gov'mint.