Time For Racheting Down The Rhetoric Is Over

House Republican Study Group has issued its plan to cut $2.5 trillion from the federal government over ten years. In my day, the House Study Group was where the GOP would put the radical right-wingers that didn't have the social skills to be hired as congressional aides. Among its suggestions is to defund USAID, the National Endowment for the Humanities, The National Endowment for the Arts, Public Broadcasting,all state aid forcing states to cut more government employees, AMTRAK and all funding for High Speed Rail, among other things.

But never fear the House Republicans said their agenda was to create jobs. So after the repeal of healthcare, now they are after global warming. This just edged out a new House bill to oppose all federal funding for abortion even though it doesn't exist now and to provide a "conscience clause" for all medical practitoners opposed to abortion. Randall Terry of Operation Rescue plans to run in the Democratic primaries against Barack Obama to make him answer questions on abortion. His past answer has been abortion should be "legal but rare." What more does Randall want? Rick Santorum blasted Obama--who has not said anything on abortion for over a year--for being a black man who condones abortion. Rick is suggesting that African-Americans are most likely to get abortions and that threatens their race. But since Rick is a member of the Christian Right, his main concern is the demographic winter coming for white people in the U.S.

Down in Tucson, the Arizona Tea Party wants to remove Sheriif Dupnick for his comments that the political rhetoric of the country trigger the slaughter. In Arlington, Massachusetts, a right-wing blogger who said "1 down and 537 to go" was arrested for keeping a large stockpile of weapons on hand. Teabaggers were quick to defend him and also are posting blogs arguing that revolutionary violence is OK because the Catholic Just war doctrine applies.

While most Americans supported President Obama's Tucson speech and the ceremony there, Franklin Graham resented the lack of references to Jesus Christ. Since the target of the assassination attempt was a Jewish Congresswoman, you might think references to Jesus might be inappropriate. I did and that's why I thought Eric Holder's long quotes from II Corinthians, which talked more about Jesus Christ than the usual prayers was wrong. I think Franklin was trying indirectly to defend his soul sister Sarah Palin.

The former Navy Chaplain says that the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a threat to national security and is actually a war on God. I always thought the repeal finally made the Navy legitimate."In the Navy..." The only military service represented in the Village People.

Talk about making money, the President's Midas Touch even concerns DADT. The repeal actually saves the American taxpayer $200 million. From TARP to the BP Oil Spill to DADT, Obama just coins money. That's what "Grand Theft Auto" Issa should be investigating. How come a socialist can make so much money?

Meanwhile,in the States, there is an ominous pattern of governments withdrawing Medicare from single Adults. That doesn't sound like anything significant but we are dealing with one of the few parts of the social nets, which supports the mentally ill. Are we going to rehospitalize the mentally ill? Maybe we could privatize mental asylums.

President Obama again betrayed his socialism by appointing GE's CEO Immelt as the head of his economic council, which has been renamed to emphasize jobs. Arianna Huffington seems to be hysterical that Obama ordered a government-wide effort to eliminate unnecessary regulations on business as a way to quietly stimulate the economy. Since this was also done during the Clinton Administration,I really don't see the great danger.

More dangerous is the effort by House Republicans to defund the new Consumer Protection Agency being created by my Sweetheart of the Rodeo, Elizabeth Warren. All she has to do is get it to July and the FED will fund it.

Rep. Peter King wants to start his investigations into American Muslims as part of the intelligence committee. No doubt he will ask Frank Gaffney, Washington's Go-To Islamophobe, to provide scholarly cover. I think we should encourage a widescale witchhunt. How about targeting Kareem Abdul Jabbar for the Muslim plot to corrupt basketball? Cat Stevens for introducing Sufi themes in his music. How about we go after Salmon Rushdie for a change? Why let Iran have all the fun? The possibilities are endless. Then the accused could be waterboarded to see whether they tell the truth. It would be like combining the Inquisition with the Salem Witch Trials and add a little Joe McCarthy. It would be boffo box on Fox News. This is an opportunity the country can't miss. We can then invite Franklin Graham to testify on how evil Islam is and how the Pentagon's National Prayer Committee kicked him off for his position.

Under They envy us our freedom department. I want to thank the Christian community in the United States for their great support for the Chaldean Christians in Iraq, who are being exterminated in the democracy we created. The last Christian left Anbar Province yesterday. Those who haven't been "disappeared" have gone into exile, making the Iraqi refugee flow the largest in the history of the Middle East. Hopefully, our Christians will come to the defense of the followers of John the Baptist, who still live in Iraq but are keeping a low profile. At least those awful Muslims came to the defense of Egypt's Coptic Christians, who had been subjected to suicide bombers and police brutality. The Muslim community in Egypt provided thousands of people to act as human shields against further attacks on the Coptics as they celebrated their Christmas.

Common Cause is taking aim at Supreme Court Justices Fat Tony Scalia and Chuckles Thomas claiming both men have a conflict of interest in the Citizens United case because they attended and participated in the Koch Brothers secret campaign conferences. If it were proven that both men had a conflict of interest, then Citizens United would have to be tried again. My problem is how does the Supreme Court actually regulate conflict of interest issues among justices. We know Elena Kagan recused herself from a series of cases when she got on since she had argued the government's case as Solicitor General but what if she hadn't. What mechanism exists to ensure this aside from impeachment which never will happen?

Rachel Maddow continues to report on the Spokane Martin Luther King bomb. The FBI has said it was the most sophisticated device they have seen in the States. They also claimed its positioning was very professional and that the damage done would have been profound. Federal authorities are already talking about this as "domestic terrorism". White supremacist groups aiming to push for the secession of the Pacific Northwest have been commmenting on this but not claiming credit. We should look back at the Belfast, Maine "dirty nuke" case, which disappeared from the media. There a neo-Nazi, who actually collected Hitler's kitchenware, had all the ingredients for a dirty bomb in his basement. He was upset by the election of Barack Obama and wanted to set the bomb off around Washington,D.C. He was only captured because he had abused his wife once too often and she ratted him out. I would imagine if we probe deep enough in Spokane we'll find some of the white supremacists from Idaho involved.

Speaking of secessionists, the National Enquirer, which gained credibility by exposing the Edwards'affair, reports that Todd Palin may be canoodling with a massage therapist. That's what a member of the Alaska Independence Party might do.

Glenn Beck has returned to his bipolar form. After displaying a slight contrition on Tucson, he is warning the American public about a "Reichstag". Glenn, it already happened, the Republicans took the House.

Paul Ryan has been chosen to respond to President Obama's State of the Union Address. Ryan's Blueprint for America has been buried with all the new GOP craziness. If this surfaces,people will have a field day. Ryan blasted the CBO for actually costing out his Blueprint, which they said would run massive deficits for decades and render the United States a type of Albania. Ryan has been given the most power any Budget Chairman in the House has ever had. He has veto on any budget proposals submitted in the House and also by the Senate in any reconciliation. It should be interesting if he talks about his ideas to privatize Medicare, Social Security and raise taxes on the middle class. Trust me he won't.

Conservatives are panicking over the rise of China. Even Mitt Romney believes the United States has to increase its military spending to compete because "the Chinese army works for very small pay." Of course, Republicans might pass funding for high-speed railso we can compete with China in this and other areas. What is it about economic development that the New GOP doesn't understand?

Personally, I am very skeptical that China will surpass the American economy anytime soon. And I also do not believe they manage capitalism better. I don't believe China can maintain its growth rate at 8% for the foreseeable future, which they claim they need to. Also by the time they are scheduled to surpass our economy, they will have a greater percentage of elderly in their population than we would. What terrifies the Chinese is the prospect of internal instability and their own military strategy suggests that.

Yesterday the Chinese leader tried to reassure Americans that they are playing a mature role in the global system. He pointed to the issues of Iran,Afghanistan and economic issues where the United States and China are cooperating closely. While Americans should be concerned about human rights issues, the preponderance of concern here in Washington is that China is about to surpass us. First, we have to drum up the Islamophobia. Then we can generate the fear of the Yellow Peril. We don't have energy for both right now.

I found it ironic that the Uighurs demonstrated here in Washington against the Chinese government. Under the previous administration, the Uighurs ended up being tortured in Gitmo and interrogated by the Chinese. When President Obama started releasing them, Congress made sure they could not be repatriated to the United States, despite having host families volunteering to take care of them.