Republicans Cannot Comprehend English

Gulf Cleanup, Foreign Assistance, and Jones Act Confusion

A 1920 maritime law is not blocking foreign vessels from helping in the Gulf oil spill cleanup, according to the Coast Guard.

We’ve gotten a few questions from readers about the Jones Act of 1920, which according to some lawmakers, conservative commentators and news reports is a maritime law that has blocked foreign vessels from helping in the Gulf oil spill cleanup.

That’s not true. At least, not so far.

According to Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, 15 foreign vessels are already working on cleanup, and so far waivers haven’t been needed. Here’s what he told reporters on Friday:

If the vessels are operating outside state waters, which is three miles and beyond, they don’t require a waiver. All that we require is an Affirmation of Reciprocity, so if there ever was a spill in those countries and we want to send skimming equipment, that we would be allowed to do that, as well, and that hasn’t become an issue yet, either.

To the extent that there is a waiver required and they come to us, we’re more than happy to support it in making that request to CBP [Customs and Border Protection]. But to date, since they’re operating outside three miles, no Jones Act waiver has been required.

Steps have already been taken to expedite the waiver process should they actually be needed.

It should also be pointed out that many offers of foreign assistance are actually offers to sell supplies, and consideration of domestic inventory goes into the decision to accept them. Here’s the Associated Press:

“These offers are not typically offers of aid,” said Lt. Erik Halvorson, a Coast Guard spokesman. “Normally, they are offers to sell resources to BP or the U.S. government.”

Only Mexico offered the U.S. anything for free. It said it would give the U.S. government some containment boom. BP separately bought 13,780 feet of boom and two skimmers from Mexico in early May, according to the State Department.

Why is there any misunderstanding about the Jones Act. Because right-wing bloggers and pundits have been lying about it for the past two weeks. It is part of their talking points campaign to shift the blame for the BP spill from BP to president Obama.

BP Slick Reached Mississippi While Haley Barbour Went Fundraising In Washington

Fox News is BP oil spill misinformation clearinghouse
Myths and falsehoods on the Gulf oil spill

Republicans are Undercutting National Economic Recovery

Republicans are Undercutting National Economic Recovery

The same old story happens again and again. Dems in the House pass reasonable legislation, and Senate Dems dicker with centrists and Republicans over "compromises," weakening the legislation step by step over many weeks, only to find zero Republican support in the end.

The public has no idea what is going on, and just blames Democrats, who appear to be in charge in DC. Now it is happening gain with vital public spending for national economy recovery -- state aid, unemployment relief, and adjustments in taxes and Medicare payments. This legislation is not just important to this or that group. It matters for keeping any semblance of national economic growth going, for creating and saving hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The President, Congressional leaders, and Democrats of all stripes should be yelling day in, day out, that REPUBLICANS ARE SABOTAGING NATIONAL ECONOMIC RECOVERY. AND PREVENTING JOB GROWTH, JUST FOR POLITICAL ADVANTAGE. That should be the message all the time, led by the President. Stop the murky compromises and the whining about "helping the unemployed." Stop pretending this is about the deficit -- nothing will hurt the deficit more than delayed economic growth. Say what it happening in terms of the national interest.

Republicans are not "compassionate" toward the unemployed, complain Democrats and bloggers. Sorry, folks, that is not what is happening here.


Republicans have figured out that if they undercut economic recovery and increase unemployment rates, they will gain in the 2010 elections -- and probably have a much better shot in 2012. They want to repeat the old cycle: Republicans undercut the economy and run up debt to pay for reckless wars and upper class tax cuts, then hand the mess to Democrats just long enough for them to take a few small steps and get the blame, then Republicans get back in office as the economy recovers. Repeat same recipe after that. It works! So why should they stop doing it?

Conservatives see the role of government now, just as they did during the Bush years, as a welfare agency for corporate America. It is the conservative philosophy that any thing which goes wrong in in the economy should not be paid for by those that cause the problem, but by working class Americans. A form of socialism where the rich never pay for their mistakes, but collect the same benefits regardless.

Low IQ? Apply to Fox News.

Brian Kilmeade Provides Fox News Entertainment By Embarrassing Himself

Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade has been embarrassing himself more than usual over the last few days on Fox & Friends. Yesterday, after news broke that the cap BP placed on its leaking oil well had to be removed because one of its robots bumped the well’s venting system, Kilmeade had some harsh words for the robot. “I’d love to talk to that robot that knocked…the top off the cap that was in the bottom of the Gulf yesterday,” Kilmeade said. “What was that robot thinking?” he asked in disgust.

Then today, as Media Matters notes, the Fox co-host had had this dim-witted question for President Obama:

KILMEADE: The President took a matter of hours to pick a commander in Afghanistan so why is it taking months to plug the leaking oil?

It’s unclear how Kilmeade believes that appointing an individual to lead the war in Afghanistan is comparable in difficulty to plugging an oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico.

Brian also thinks the moon is a lot like cream cheese.

Sen. Jon Kyl's (R-AZ) Walks Back Immigration Lie

Sen. Jon Kyl 'taken a bit out of context' ... by Jon Kyl

Earlier this week it was being reported that Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) was making a rather serious accusation against the President:

... the Arizona Republican is seen telling supporters in North Phoenix that in a private meeting in the Oval Office, Obama said “the problem” with border enforcement measures is that “if we secure the border then [Republicans] won’t have any reason to support comprehensive immigration reform.”

White House communications director Dan Pfieffer flatly denied it:

The President didn’t say that and Senator Kyl knows it.

... but Kyl stood firm.

Kyl spokesman Ryan Patmintra said the senator is not backing down from his assertion, despite the White House’s denial.

And today, Kyl is backing down:

Kyl tells us that the comments were “taken a bit out of context,” and that the “they” he was referring to was the Left, “the president’s base,” and not the administration.

Basically what we have is Jon Kyl claiming that Jon Kyl's words were taken out of context by Jon Kyl.

How can this be. The right-wing conservative media has vouched for Kyl's truthiness - Right-wing media vouch for Kyl's honesty despite his history of false claims

More on serial liar Kyl and the right-wing conservative media here - Lying in Washington: how it’s done

Republicans Continue to Lie About Obama amd Gulf Spill

Conservative twit Thomas Sowell writes in Is U.S. Now On Slippery Slope To Tyranny? that President Obama somehow extorted the escrow fund from BP. Tom must be getting old or he's just a big a liar as he ever was. BP set up the escrow account on their own.

As a GOP representative from Houston, Barton should be expected to act like an oil industry rent-boy. That is his essential identity and purpose in life, and that is why he apologized to BP chairman Tony Hayward for the “shakedown” perpetrated against the company by President Obama. But there was no shakedown nor was there, as some conservatives have suggested, any violation of the corporation’s constitutional rights. The president has no power to prevent BP from defending claims in court, nor can he prevent the Justice Department from indicting BP executives on criminal charges if sufficient evidence exists to do so. The establishment of the escrow fund was entirely voluntary, and indeed many observers believe that the decision to create it was motivated as much by self-interest and public relations as by compassion or guilt.

Sen. Jon Kyl's (R-AZ) has no integrity or honor as proved by his recent lie about Obama and immigration enforcement - Right-wing media push Kyl's flatly denied claim that Obama said he won't "secure the border"

Two conservative 'intellectuals" think Obama should stop killing so many terrorists - Is McCarthy Secretly A Genius?

Republicans Deserve Your Vote. They Are The Smart Party

Top 10 Ridiculous Oil-Spill Quotes From Congress

9. Joe Barton (R-Texas), 6/15, at an Energy and Commerce hearing: "Chinese oil companies are drilling off the coast of Cuba, which means they are drilling off the coast of Florida."

8. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), 6/15, at an Energy and Commerce hearing: "If this hearing is not about stopping the leak, then why are we here?"

5. Ralph Hall (R-Texas) 6/15, at a press conference: "It’s a shame we can't drill ANWR. It’s a shame we don't get that energy off the coast of Florida."

4. Parker Griffith (R-Ala.), 6/15, at an Energy and Commerce hearing: argued that the treatment of oil executives has been "disrespectful."

More at the link.

Conservative media: BP was "persecuted" at "Stalinist," "witch trial" hearing

Right-wing media have complained that BP was "persecuted" at a congressional hearing on the company's role in the Gulf oil spill and compared the hearing to a "Stalinist show trial," "Inca ritual slaughter," the Salem witch trials, the McCarthy hearings, and the Romans feeding Christians to lions.

Does O'Reilly think protecting barge workers is an "amazing screw-up"?

On his Fox News show tonight, Bill O'Reilly opened his Talking Points Memo by declaring that there had been an "amazing screw-up in the Gulf cleanup." He went on to relay the details of an ABC News report about 16 oil-collecting barges in the Gulf that had been called back to shore because of questions about safety measures aboard the ships.

(O'Liar screwed up and lied as usual) -"The Coast Guard is not going to compromise safety ... that's our No. 1 priority," Coast Guard spokesman Robert Brassel told The Daily Caller.

[...]

Brassel said the barges are now "back in operating order."

On Thursday night, the Incident Commander in Houma, Roger Laferriere, decided with the captain of the port in New Orleans to inspect the barges when they realized the ships did not have a certificate of inspection to demonstrate safety equipment on board. Thursday morning, the ships were inspected and grounded because they did not have the proper fire-fighting and life-saving equipment. There were also concerns about the stability of the barges. During the day Thursday, the problems were fixed, and the barges are back out on the water today.

O'Reilly appears to have some kind of death wish for anyone working in the Gulf - hey why not add a few more deaths to the 11 that have already died because safety doesn't matter to conservatives. No wonder Fox is the channel of choice for conservatives.

Texas Can’t Afford To Buy New Far-Right Textbooks, But Rick Perry Still Resists Federal Aid

For the past year, far-right members of the Texas Board of Education have been overhauling the state’s textbook standards. The changes include “pushing for inclusion of more…Confederate glorification,” re-naming the Atlantic slave trade the “Atlantic Triangle Trade,” prioritizing “a suggestion that the anti-communist witch-hunt by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s may have been justified,” and raising doubt about climate change.

However, the Texas Observer now reports that the state can’t afford to buy the new books:

The state normally replaces textbooks on a rotating basis every 10 years. With Texas facing a budget shortfall of at least $11 billion in 2011, the money isn’t going to be there. Textbooks covering the new science standards would have cost $400 million, and the Legislature is already expecting a bill of $888 million for textbooks already ordered.

To ensure that students can still be exposed to “proof, supposedly, of evolution’s fallibility,” the Board is trying to secure funding for special “supplements for science classes from fifth grade through high school.” Social studies textbooks aren’t up for replacement until 2013 — by then, Texas might have enough money to teach their students about Phyllis Schlafly and the Moral Majority.

The lack of textbook funding underscores Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s (R) constant compulsion to oppose federal funding that could help his state. At the beginning of June, he refused to let Texas compete for Race to the Top funding for education reform because he falsely claimed the program would weaken the state’s school standards. That allegation was even refuted by a fellow Republican governor, Sonny Perdue of Georgia.

Marc Thiessen - Head Conservative Cheerleader for Torture Hides Behind Manufactured Facts

Republican is Just Another Word For Malicious Idiot

Rep. Joe Barton Likes BP -- and the Company Likes Him Back with Cash

After BP Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward had expressed his contrition to members of Congress for the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a long-time friend of the oil industry, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), today issued an apology to Hayward for his harsh treatment at the hands of the White House.

Barton, speaking at a congressional hearing, called the $20 billion escrow account set up by BP to pay for claims related to the spill, a "shakedown" on the part of the Obama administration.

Individuals and political action committees associated with BP have donated $27,350 to Barton's political campaigns since the 1990 election cycle -- eighth among members of Congress, the Center for Responsive Politics' research indicates. (Barton might find it ironic that the man he said so mistreated BP, President Barack Obama, received more than $77,000 from BP employees during his political career.) Contributions from PACs made up 94 percent of Barton's donations.

Individuals or PACs associated with the oil and gas industry as a whole have been Barton's biggest patron since he entered Congress, donating more than $1,448,380 since the 1990 election cycle. The figure puts him at No. 1 among all House members for donations from the industry, fifth among members of Congress and fourth among active members of Congress.

The same people that complain the loudest about how government doesn't work vote to reelect corrupt Rethugs like Joe election cycle after election cycle.

ACORN leader says critics mounted ‘McCarthy-era war against the poor’ after report clears organization of wrongdoing. Where are the apologies from the right-wing nuts that conned the public with doctored video to show ACORN guilty of something they did not do. Stalin would have loved America's Republican party, they have the same values.

AP-GfK poll: Public thumbs up for Obama health law

Conservative U.S. Christians Help Uganda 'Kill-the-Gays' Bill Stay Alive

Conservative U.S. Christians Help Uganda 'Kill-the-Gays' Bill Stay Alive

It may have receded from the front pages of the nation's newspapers, but despite stern words from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama, Uganda's extraordinary Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2009 -- which provides the death penalty for certain homosexual acts -- is still alive in the Uganda parliament, with the apparent blessing of Christian-right groups such as the Family Research Council, which was revealed last week to have lobbied Congress to soften a House resolution condemning the murderous bill, even though FRC says it opposes Uganda's anti-gay proposal.

Others, such as the New Apostolic Reformation movement and Lou Engle's TheCall, have also tried to have it both ways, saying they oppose the Uganda law while simultaneously making common cause with its supporters. And a new documentary from "In the Life," a program seen on most PBS stations, details the role, also reported by AlterNet, of the Family (a secretive religious group also known as the Fellowship) in creating the conditions that made the bill possible. (Full disclosure: I make a cameo appearance in the documentary, which you can view at the end of this article.)

Conservatives are pro life? Sure, once in a while when they're in the mood.

How Dare Sarah Palin and Other Anti-Woman Conservatives Call Themselves Feminists

Funny or Tragic That Florida May Make Crminal Rick Scott Governor

Florida gubernatorial candidates Bill McCollum and Rick Scott(extremist right-winger) battle of the ads

Hillsborough County residents can’t help but notice the attack ads launched by gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum against fellow Republican Rick Scott and vice versa. After Bill McCollum aired his ad featuring former governor Jeb Bush’s endorsement and pointing out the McCollum has recovered more than $200 million in Medicare fraud, he promptly launched his attack on Scott. Bill McCollum pointed out that Rick Scott was head of a hospital company that paid a whopping $1.7 billion in Medicare and Medicaid fraud fines. If the tactic was supposed to intimidate Scott, it failed.


Rick Scott launched his counter-attack using the method, “Yes, I did. Now, let’s talk about you.” After admitting that he was guilty and saying he had learned from his mistakes, Scott launched his own ad (you may see the videos in the player below) calling on Bill McCollum to state the donor’s names associated with the Alliance for America’s Future, who are behind the campaign attacks on McCollum. and even created a website: Truth about Rick Scott

Well Floridians did elect Jeb Bush and seemed to forget or forgive his history as a savings and loan thief. So electing Republican criminals to office to office has become a tradition.

Rand Paul On Mountaintop Removal: ‘I Don’t Think Anyone’s Going To Be Missing A Hill Or Two Here And There’

Crazy Sharron Angle candidate for senator from Nevada: I'm Not An Oath Keeper, But I Do Like Keeping Oaths (AUDIO)

Sharon Angle Trying to Hide Her Fascist-lite Policies

Nevada GOP Extremist Angle Tries to Hide ‘Issues’ Page

New GOP Senate candidate from Nevada Sharron Angle is apparently trying to quietly toss the online records of her extreme nativist and John Birch Society-inspired positions down the memory hole.

Sharron Angle—Tea Partier, Oath Keepers supporter, anti-fluoride crusader, and new GOP candidate for Senate from Nevada—is already demonstrating her solidarity with party luminaries like Ted Stevens, George W. Bush, and the entire House Republican caucus by staging an epic Web fail of her own. In a possible bid to play down her more right-leaning, less mainstream views—which are bound to be a liability in a general election fight with Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid—Angle’s campaign website has been scrubbed of its spiciest material. Previously, her site featured an “issues” page, where Angle champions nuclear waste while deriding the UN, the Department of Education, “Obamacare,” “illegals,” and “an unscientific hysteria over the man-caused global warming hoax.” That web page is now inaccessible.

Unless, that is, you search for the cached page.

UPDATE:

Sharron Angle also has several connections to Scientology, and has worked to promote a Scientology prison program.

Glenn Beck Endorses Pro Nazi Book

Glenn Beck Endorses Pro Nazi Book

On his radio show today, Glenn Beck heralded and promoted the work of Nazi sympathizer Elizabeth Dilling, who spoke at rallies hosted by the leading American Nazi group and praised Hitler. Today, Dilling is heralded by White Supremacists and White Aryans who revere her "fearless" work against Jewish people.

As Media Matters' Simon Maloy noted, Beck had kind words for Dilling's 1934 anti-communist book, The Red Network, saying: "This is a book -- and I'm a getting a ton of these -- from people who were doing what we're doing now. We now are documenting who all of these people are. Well, there were Americans in the first 50 years of this nation that took this seriously, and they documented it." Maloy noted that Dilling has a long history of rabid anti-Semitism, such as calling President Eisenhower "Ike the Kike" and labeling President Kennedy's New Frontier program the "Jew frontier."

Professor Glen Jeansonne and writer David Luhrssen note in the encyclopedia Women and War that Dilling wasn't only anti-Semitic, but a sympathizer and supporter of the Nazis and Hitler:

When World War II began in 1939, Dilling was part of the national network of anti-Semitics, anti-Communists, and Nazi sympathizers such as Father Charles Coughlin, Reverend Gerald L. K. Smith, Reverend Gerald Winrod, and William Dudley Pelley. Material generated by Nazi organizations in Germany to inspire race hated and exploit dissatisfaction in the United States found its way into Dilling's publications. She spoke at rallies hosted by the leading U.S. Nazi organization, the German-American Bund, and had traveled to Germany, pronouncing the country as flourishing under Hitler.

Dilling called for appeasing Germany; she blamed the war on Jews and Communists and accused the Roosevelt administration of being controlled by Jewish Communists. ... After Pearl Harbor, Dilling resisted wartime rationing and denounced the Allies.

Glenn Beck's fetish for calling anything he disagrees with as Nazism has always been pure projection of his own fascist-lite ideology.

Doctors group says Bush Administration conducted medical experiments on detainees

Liz Cheney Sticks Up For Halliburton: ‘I Don’t Know What Planet You Live On’

Second of all, Halliburton became notorious for its malfeasance in Iraq. It allegedly tried to cover up the gang rape of one of its contractors, knowingly exposed U.S. troops to deadly toxins, and ignored warnings of unsafe electrical wiring that led to the death of U.S. soldiers. In 2007, federal auditors told the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that the government had wasted $10 billion on “overpriced contracts or undocumented costs.” Of that amount, $2.7 billion was charged by Halliburton.

Liz's ideology and personality disorder is remarkably like the worse vice-presdient in U.S. history - Dick Cheney.

American History. Conservative's Contempt for America Shows in Their Grasp of History

American History. Conservative's Contempt for America Shows in Their Grasp of History

You hear them say, for instance, that we live under "tyranny" because one side lost a health care vote in an elected legislative body. And that, in all seriousness, the president is a communist. For many Tea Party members, the word is not just a vile epithet; it's a realistic political description. Check out this clip in which Tea Party "celebrity" spokeswoman Victoria Jackson flatly tells a flummoxed Fox News host, "The president's a communist." When the host (the Fox host!) starts to object, she responds that Glenn Beck has taught her that progressive is a code word for communist. (Time to put that ugly hammer and sickle logo inside the "O" on your I-hate-Obama T.P. protest sign!)

Unless of course Obama is really a "fascist," as some T.P.ers have it, because he's a liberal, and liberals are fascists (as we all know from that magisterial work of history, Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg). So instead of the hammer and sickle, draw a little Hitler mustache on Obama's face on your T.P. hate signs. Or better yet, parade around with a swastika! (The Tea Partiers seem to get a special kick out of this, for some reason.)

Of course Obama is also probably an evil "socialist" which is apparently, in the Tea Party worldview, pretty much the same as a fascist or a communist. (One gets the impression that some T.P.ers have had major, life-changing, "aha!" moments when they first learned that Hitler's party was the National SOCIALIST German Workers Party. Slam dunk!)*

And if Obama's not a socialist fascist communist, he may be—ooh, scary, kids!—a "progressive," which, as Victoria Jackson learned from the erudite Glenn Beck, is really a secret "code word" for communist.

And they believe him! That's the thing. The recent New York Times study of T.P.ers reported that party members are "better educated" than most Americans. But educated in what? Clearly, they—or at least a significant, influential portion of them—are utterly uneducated in history. One can get a college degree without taking a single class in world history and thus still be ripe for the idiot distortions of a Glenn Beck.

Most people with a basic grounding in history find Tea Party ignorance something to laugh about, certainly not something to take seriously. But I would argue that history demonstrates that historical ignorance is dangerous and that it can have tragic consequences, however laughable it may initially seem. And thus the media, liberals, and others are misguided in laughing it off. And educated conservatives are irresponsible in staying silent in the face of these distortions.

The muddled Tea Party version of history is more than wrong and fraudulent. It's offensive. Calling Obama a tyrant, a communist, or a fascist is deeply offensive to all the real victims of tyranny, the real victims of communism and fascism. The tens of millions murdered. It trivializes such suffering inexcusably for the T.P.ers to claim that they are suffering from similar oppression because they might have their taxes raised or be subject to demonic "federal regulation."

The media for the most part has shown itself afraid to challenge the insidious distortions of language and history Tea Partiers promote. In the last few weeks, several news outlets have been propagating the meme that Tea Partiers are "just regular folks." And certainly some are. But if you examined the ideology that shows its face, the one that is apparent in sign carriers and blog commenters and cable spokespersons, you find something disturbing.

Consider this CNN report, which attempts to give a smiley face to the Tea Party's underlying ideology. Even Fox News recognizes Tea Party dogma as a seething cauldron of deranged and vicious lies about history. Look at the guy in the photo in this report and how proud he is of his illiterate swastika sign.

These swastika nuts look ridiculous. But words matter, sometimes in a life-and-death way. Take for instance the Tea Party demonization of "federal regulation" as the instrument of the tyranny that's been imposed on them. I would like every Tea Partier who has denounced federal regulation to write a letter to the widows and children of the coalminers in West Virginia who died because of the failure of "federal regulation" of mine safety.

Tell the weeping survivors that such regulation is tyranny, that their husbands and fathers had to die, but for a good cause: lowering federal spending so the T.P.ers could save a few pennies on taxes. That's worth 29 lives snuffed out in a mine blast, isn't it? They either don't see the connection or don't care.

Indeed the demonization of "federal regulation" could prevent cowardly legislators from strengthening protections for miners and other workers imperiled by unsafe conditions. But the happy T.P.ers will still go out with their swastika and Hitler-mustache signs, whining about tyranny. Wouldn't it be great if there were a liberal politician who, in the wake of the mining catastrophe, had the courage to stand up and say that federal regulations are often a very good thing? Don't hold your breath.

This is just one example of the toxic effect of Tea Party ignorance on the lives of their fellow citizens. But the damage done by the injection of fraudulent history into the body politic by Tea Party ignoramuses and their enablers will be more profound and lasting than one tragedy.

That's because ignorance of this sort isn't inconsequential. Historical fraudulence is like a disease, a contagious psychosis which can lead to mob hysteria and worse. Consider the role that fraudulent history played in Weimar Germany, where the "stab in the back" myth that the German Army had been cheated of victory in World War I by Jews and Socialists on the home front was used by the Nazis to justify their hatreds.

It's a historical lie, but it caught on, and Hitler rose to power on it, asking Germans to avenge the (nonexistent) stab in the back! It may be true that the Tea Party will disintegrate before it acquires any real power, as more and more of its leaders are revealed to be fanciers of racist jokes and bestiality videos. But one can't be assured of it. It's important to expose the lies for what they are before they further debase the language with their false use of words.

By the time of my serendipitous used-bookstore discovery—more on which in a moment—I was already troubled by the Obama/Hitler/socialist/fascist comparisons. But it was the ignorant trivialization of the Holocaust—the identification of Hitler as a "socialist"—that really got to me.

It took me back to the month I spent in Munich's Monacensia library archives a decade or so ago, looking through the original flaking and yellowing copies of Munich's anti-Hitler Social Democratic Party (socialist!) newspaper, the Munich Post. I devoted a chapter of my book Explaining Hitler to the courageous efforts of the Munich Post reporters to investigate the nature of Hitler's evil in the years before he came to power. Their investigation led to a kind of war with the Nazi Party: The Socialist reporters produced revelation after revelation, were met with vicious reprisals, and then produced new, more disturbing revelations.

One of the things these reporters were obsessed with was disproving the "stab in the back" myth, because they knew its sinister propaganda power. They even provoked one of Hitler's cronies who was propagating the "stab in the back" myth to sue them for libel. They called him a "political poisoner" and added that "if he were only an idiot his writing would make him look ridiculous, but he's worse than idiot." (If only some politicians and pundits would have the courage to say something like this about the T.P. poisoners of history.) They wanted him to sue so they could lay out the evidence against the "stab in the back" in court. In the end, they won the argument but lost the suit because the judge was a Nazi sympathizer.

These reporters lost a lot to the Hitler-friendly police and legal establishment in Munich, including a lot of their own blood. But they finally reached the heart of darkness, the ultimate hidden Hitler truth, when they were able to obtain and publish a secret Nazi Party plan for the disposal of the Jews after a takeover, a plan that contains the first known use of the phrase "final solution."

Few paid attention, but they got to the truth. And they were Socialists fighting the Nazis, you might recall. Listen up, T.P.ers: The Nazis were not Socialists. The Socialists were not Nazis. They were blood enemies. In fact, the Socialists fought the Nazis, while conservatives and nationalists stood by and thought Hitler would be their pawn. Hitler, need it be said, was not a Socialist. He hated the Socialists. Had thousands of them murdered as soon as he came to power.

I think this is why it bothers me so much when Tea Party ignoramuses put swastikas on their anti-Obama posters. They disgrace themselves, they insult the dead martyrs to the truth, by lumping socialism with fascism and Obama with Hitler. They not only disgrace themselves; they be-clown themselves, they distort the historical consciousness of everyone they spread the comparison to.

As for lumping Obama in with communism, and communism with liberalism, that's where the bookshop pamphlet comes in.

It was just a stroke of good fortune that a yellowing, 50-year-old pamphlet caught my eye as I was browsing the $1 bargain bin outside the Strand, New York's justly legendary used bookstore.

The title of the pamphlet was "Crimes of the Stalin Era: Special Report to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union."

It was Nikita Khrushchev's "secret speech." This 1956 speech denouncing mass murder and torture under Stalin's regime was one of the most important and influential historical orations of the past century. Delivered to a closed session over two days, it didn't stay secret for long, later circulating throughout the globe.

Yes, Khrushchev himself was a murderous thug and accomplice of Stalin, but his sickening revelations couldn't be dismissed as the product of Western propaganda by Communists and Communist sympathizers. His speech had a shattering effect on many of them throughout the world. The first crack in the monolithic façade of communism. It was a factor not only in the Hungarian and Polish uprisings of 1956 but began the process of internal and external disillusionment in the Soviet Empire itself, the slow creation of further cracks and then crevices that would eventually culminate in its disintegration.

Now, I'd read a lot about the secret speech, but I'd never actually read it. The full text of the speech—nearly 60 pages in my edition—is not widely available in print, and reading it for the first time, even after all the revelations about Stalin in books like Robert Conquest's pioneering work The Great Terror, Solzhenitsyn's novels, and more recently Gulag by Slate's Anne Applebaum, I still found it shocking.

And it suddenly occurred to me that Tea Partiers really should read this pamphlet, because it would teach them something about what "tyranny" is actually like. It would teach them something about what "communism" was really like. It would make them ashamed of themselves for whining about a health care bill turning America into a tyranny, for slandering liberals as communists who want to impose tyranny on them. It might snap them out of the intoxicated hysteria they whip themselves into.

The secret speech is also relevant to Tea Party slanders about liberals. The 1956 publication of the secret speech served to shatter the illusions of a significant portion of those on the left in this country who still harbored sentimental feelings about the Soviet Union. And helped cement the victory of anti-communist liberalism in America's Democratic Party, an important struggle that the Tea Partiers who think liberals are communists seem to be ignorant of.

“When Fascism Comes to America, it will be Wrapped in the American Flag and Carrying a Cross.”
SInclair Lewis

Gulf Spill Will Cost Billions in Economic Activity - Conservative Defend BP

Gulf Spill Will Cost Billions in Economic Activity - Conservative Defend BP

Led by Fox News, right-wing media have attacked Attorney General Eric Holder over his announcement that the Justice Department has begun civil and criminal investigations into the Gulf oil spill. Their attacks echo previous criticism from Fox and right-wing media figures over SEC charges and congressional hearings into Goldman Sachs and hearings into a Toyota vehicle recall.

Fox News, right-wing media attack Holder, administration over investigation into oil spill

Kilmeade suggests criminal inquiry into oil spill "just tank[ed] the market," asks, "Was that smart?" On the June 2 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Brian Kilmeade stated, "The Department of Justice is probing for a myriad of reasons, it looks like, into BP and what they've done and what they could have violated." He then suggested that the announcement of the investigations "drop[ped] BP's stock 15 percent" and "just tank[ed] the market," and asked, "Was that smart?" Co-host Steve Doocy replied, "Maybe not, because if they're facing all these lawsuits, suddenly, where's that money going to come from?"

Johnson Jr.: "This prosecution is becoming a distraction." Also during the June 2 Fox & Friends, Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson Jr. stated that the administration's response was "a little bit delayed" and that "[t]his prosecution is becoming a distraction."

Krauthammer: "[D]eclaring war on the oil company, at this time, and in a criminal way, I think is really distasteful." On the June 1 edition of Fox News' Special Report, Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer stated of Holder's announcement: "I think what the attorney general did today is somewhat over the line ... I might have missed it but I didn't hear a syllable about what evidence he has of criminal activity here." Krauthammer later said: "So they want to make it look like they are doing something, but declaring war on the oil company, at this time, and in a criminal way, I think is really distasteful. It's not going to help anybody."

Does this twit have a clue what he's talking about - Peter Johnson Jr. stated that the administration's response was "a little bit delayed" . The administration started its response immediately upon hearing the Horizon rig had exploded. And since when is prosecuting a company that has stolen tens of billions of dollars in income from the American people a "distraction". Looking for morals and values? Skip the right-wing conservative punditry.

Dear Sarah Palin your home planet called and thinks you should return home, Sarah Palin’s Facebook Blasts Environmentalists for Oil Spill

Palin insists that those those darned hippy environmentalists are the ones influencing public policy enough to keep oil drilling away from “safe” places like the Alaska Natural Wildlife Reserve that would finally break America from its dependence on foreign oil.

Yes, the blame lies solely with the activists who are clearly causing the plumes of oil to gush into the waters of the Gulf, and certainly not the failure of a blowout preventer mechanism that was allegedly shrugged off weeks before the catastrophe by an official from the drilling company, Transocean. It could not have been the decision not to employ or require an acoustic switch as a backup to the blowout preventer’s breakdown. And of course, any alleged negligence on the part of Transocean, BP and the Minerals Management Service, which is responsible for regulating offshore drilling of this type, doesn’t even come into play.

Palin's point of view holds such contempt for American values it's no surprise the conservatives love her.

Sarah Palin - Backtrack, Baby, Backtrack

Sarah Palin lies about "drill, baby, drill"

....Fox News analyst Sarah Palin would lie about the mantra that came to define her ill-fated run for the vice presidency: "Drill, baby, drill!"

And lie she did -- here's Sarah Palin on Twitter wagging her digital finger at the "Extreme Greenies" regarding the Gulf oil spill: "[S]ee now why we push'drill,baby,drill'of known reserves&promising finds in safe onshore places like ANWR? Now do you get it?"

The message is clear: "drill, baby, drill" was never about dangerous offshore drilling like the Deepwater Horizon site, it was about safe "onshore" locations like ANWR.

And here she is the day before in Loveland, Colorado:

PALIN: And whether Joe Biden approves it or not, we will develop clean coal technology and we will safely drill for the billions of barrels of oil that are warehoused underground, including our offshore sources. We will drill here and drill now. (Cheers, applause.) Drill, baby, drill. Drill, baby, drill.

Palin's Tweetering and Facebook posts are a way for her to lie, unfiltered by any questions about accuracy, to her genuflecting fans that will be making death threats against anyone that disagrees with her.

Our Conservative loon of the day - Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) caught lying about his military record

James O'Keefe Commits another crime and bogus video with census escape. Gets cheered on by smiley faced-fascist Andrew Breitbart.

We Can Always Count on Republicans to Be Thoughtful and Reasonable

Paranoid ‘Hatriot’ Group Attempting Takeover of Local Sheriffs’ Offices

Today, a rather credulous Associated Press article reports on a movement to replace local sheriffs with proponents of a particularly virulent form of “tentherism“:

The retired police officer and investment adviser intends to make that a reality, joining at least a dozen candidates in other states running for office on an intepretation [sic] of the Constitution they say means the sheriff is the highest law enforcer in the land, even above federal agents.

[ ]...Absent from the article, however, is a discussion of the Oath Keepers’ overactive fantasy life. The Oath Keepers’ website is riddled with paranoid rhetoric about government officials “disarm[ing] the American people,” “confiscat[ing] the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies,” and “blockad[ing] American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.” In early 2008, the Oath Keepers’ founder warned that a “dominatrix-in-chief” named “Hitlery Clinton” would impose a police state on America and shoot all resisters. After primary voters chose a different candidate, the Oath Keepers simply rewrote their paranoid fantasy to include a taller, African-American lead.

At a Center for American Progress Action Fund event remembering the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, former President Clinton described the Oath Keepers as a “hatriot” group that embraces the same violent rhetoric that fueled Timothy McVeigh. If they get their way, this delusional group will soon be given a badge and a gun.

The hatriot Oath Keepers do indeed have the right to have their guns. There seems to be no shortage of gun shops and gun sales are at an all time high - thus many rational folks wonder about their paranoia over gun control. Do we need people that are following in the ideological footsteps of the Oklahoma City bombers playing sheriff. These far right Republicans are not patriots, they are hate mongering nationalists.

Republicans Criminalizing Politics over Sestak Affair

While Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has deemed the Sestak no-pay-for-no-play non-scandal an "illegal quid pro quo" and "Obama's Watergate," the overwhelming consensus of legal opinion had concluded otherwise. While Bush White House ethics officer Richard Painter told his fellow Republicans to "move on," Steve Bunnell of the firm O'Melveny & Myers announced, "There is nothing inherently bad about it unless you think politics and democracy are bad."

Issa is like a rabid little attack dog that has found a dirty sock to clinch in his teeth. No amount of rational debate is likely to sink in.