Purging Lake Woebegone

George Soros got the attention of Forbes yesterday when he said that Fox News, Glenn Beck, the Tea Party and Americans' ability to fantasize unrealistically about their political system raise the prospect of dictatorial democracy.

The Late Doug Payne and I in the late 1980s and early 1990s speculated about the same thing. With the global era of democratization occurring at that time, we saw trends of what we called authoritarian democracy in places like Colombia and Russia. That is you could have a formal democracy with the internal reality of a repressive authoritarian regime. This trend seems to have become more prevalent by the late 1990s and early 21st Century.

In the United States, we came very close in the last administration. Their embrace of the unitary theory of the executive had only been practiced in the Mexico of the PRI Party and Hitler's Germany. Also, the United States declared a state of national emergency that exists to this day. The effect of this has been the longest suspension of civil liberties in our history. Now these suspensions are being formalized in a series of court cases. All you have to do is read the Patriot Act and its follow-up to get a clear sense of the voluntary--bipartisan--abridgement of civil liberties. Then we have the record "looting of America" by the corporations and banks.

But the extreme right-wing reaction to the election of Barack Obama and ,to a lesser degree, the economic collapse of our system has unleashed more worrisome portents for our political future. They appear as small signs. The stomping of a protester by a Rand Paul campaign officer. The thuggery in the Joe Miller campaign. The fights against Harry Reid supporters by the Sharron Angle teabag supporters. You have the next Speaker of the House openly meeting with Randall Terry of Operation Rescue, a man who has incited the killings of doctors who practice abortion. Or watch the serial bullying of New Jersey Gov. Chris Chrissie. And the list goes on and you can fill up the blanks better than I can.

Another sign is that Muhammed Ali Hasan, the founder of "Muslims for Bush" and the biggest Republican organizer among American Muslims, has openly switched parties because of the GOP's racism and bigotry about Muslims. We have already experienced a year of anti-hispanic actions, including the infamus Arizona law, which the GOP is trying to replicate around the country.


The scale of this trend can be found by yesterday's move by the Minnesota Republican party. They suspended former Senator Dave Durenberger and former Governor Arne Carlson for two years and prohibited them from going to the 2012 Convention. Both men had a record of decency and honorable political service. The ostensible reason was their refusal to support Republican Governor Bob Emmer. Republicans wanted Emmer to prolong the appeals process against Democrat Dayton so that Tim Pawlenty could remain as Governor in the interim and work with the Republican legislature to finally dismantle the progressive system of government Minnesota has built in a bipartisan way for more than a generation.

To the media, the Minnesota Republicans tried to brush aside their own actions as saying these men were no longer relevant to today's party and members were frustrated by their past actions. So like all small-d democratic parties you purge them. I've never heard of this happening to honest and decent people in either party. Crooks and felons I understand.

This past summer we saw the same thing happened to Maine's Republican Party. The Party of Margaret Chase Smith, who fought Joe McCarthy,was literally taken over by the teabaggers with a platform that made the John Birch Society seem mainstream. Now the governor-elect Tom LePage has already alienated the citizenry and he hasn't taken office yet by appointing the most radical right-wingers in the state, who also don't have any experience at all in government.

Remember first they came for Bob Bennett of Utah, then Bob Inglis of South Carolina, then Mike Castle of Delaware and now Dave Durenberger. They obviously have no shame.

It really might be good news that John Boehner and his cronies have hired industry lobbyists as chief of staffs rather than people known in the Republican party. In other times, I would be appalled but at least they are not that far down on the food chain.

Meanwhile Senator Bernie Sanders channelled Jewish prophets in his scorching jeremiad on the deliberate destruction of the American working and middle-class and Washington's "culture of vultures". In his 8 1/2 hour blast at the American economic system and how Washington enables it, Sanders gave the most detailed and accurate summary of our current economic problems. He scored #4 on Twitter world-wide and was the recipient of a spontaneous money bomb to his campaign. Watch this space, nothing is more tempting for a brownshirt than a Jewish Socialist. It should get vicious for him in Vermont in 2012.

But he missed that President Obama's compromise was probably the last time one could reach any accomodations with the New Republican Party. It might well be that President Obama's strategy was to co-opt the last Republicans standing that have any reality-based politics.

I hope George Soros isn't right. But it does look like the next two years will be very rocky. Look to the states for the real action. We are already seeing states under the new Republicans try to opt out of Medicare and federal programs that assist the poor. Governors in Wisconsin, Ohio and New Jersey has turned down--at a penalty of hundreds of millions of dollaers--over $1.5 billion in federal funds for fast trains. Despite three court rulings against State's challenging the healthcare reform bill, Republican attorney-generals are still shopping for the friendlist judges.

Who Let The Dogs Out?

The Facebook group that prays for Obama's death reached 1 million "friends".

The RNC is accusing Obama of not considering any black nominees for the Supreme Court. This has already gone viral. I guess Judge Sears doesn't qualify as black. She's actually a friend of Clarence Thomas so maybe that disqualifies her.

Kris Kobach, the man who drafted the Arizona anti-immigrant law, is running for Secretary of State in Kansas. An old protege of John Ashcroft, who came out and backed the law,Kobach has secured a contract from the state of Arizona to train police in how to recognize illegal immigrants. He also put in the bill that citizens can sue Arizona if the law isn't enforced. His front group is already set up to act as attorneys for the citizens. The C in Conservative stands for cash.

Republicans are going nuts over the law. Even Johnny Reb, Bob McDonnell, the Governor of Virginia, has condemned it. Former Governor Ridge has condemned it. Karl Rove has condemned it because he knows that his 40-year Reich depended on the Ladino vote. Bob Barr has condemned it for its violations of civil liberties. Barry Goldwater's biographer, Lee Edwards over at Heritage claims Barry would have condemned it. Jeb Bush has dropped everything to race up to Washington to lobby for immigration reform. The GOP sees the fastest growing minority in America escaping from their grasp.

A sign of this was Drudge started the morning with a big photo spread of millions of demonstrators and claiming Hispanics would be marking May 1 in 70 cities. Within an hour everything disappeared concerning the Hispanic marches. Los Angeles is reporting they expect the march there to far exceed the 2007 march when they were demanding immigration reform. I'm hoping they are a rousing success and have demonstrators who are carrying arms in the open. That would make the white open carry geezers have a heart attack. Let's see what kind of coverage they get from Fox--same as teabaggers?

The GOP quickly morphed into Flip Wilson and "The Devil Made Me Do it" excuse. John McCain led the pact with Sarah Palin not far behind saying that it was the fault of the Obama Administration and Congress not to enforce the laws that made Arizona to adopt the statute. When pressed on when is the right time to pass immigration reform, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner said it couldn't be done this year. Lindsey Graham, once a supporter of comprehensive reform, claims it can't be done until 2012.

President Obama in Iowa told a townhall meeting what his basic outline is for immigration reform and said that it had to be done with Republican support. He also thought the will wasn't there in Congress. However, today Senator Harry Reid and Charles Schumer indicated they would move forward, even without Republican support.

ARIZONA ICE TEA wants everyone to know they have nothing to do with the state of Arizona. The CEO of the New York-based company claims they are being slaughtered by the Arizona boycott. So buy one of their Arnold Palmers--half lemonade, half ice tea--to rectify the problem.

The Mayor of Phoenix is suing the state because he says the city can not afford to lose another $300 million like they did during the whole flap over Martin Luther King Day. In 2008, Arizona took in $18.5 billion in tourist dollars and even a drop in a percentage of this will severely hurt the state. Mexican tourists contribute a few billion of this.

Texas Republican Debbie Riddle is introducing an identical law in Texas. Tennessee Republicans are doing the same with a birther bill thrown in. Oklahoma legislators said they will not because their 2007 anti-immigrant law cost the state $1.8 billion in revenues.

Shakira and Linda Ronstadt are showing up for a concert in Arizona and Shakira promises to make statements against the law while there. But remember Jan Brewer says she was chosen by God to lead Arizona during this trying time.

A Texas congressman said that Barack Obama was a judgement of God on the United States. So, I guess that means Mike Huckabee is right,"America is a miracle of God's." So Obama must be the blessing. Abraham Lincoln once commented that he didn't worry about whether God was on his side but whether he was on God's side.

Am I good or not? Ben Nelson did admit today he talked to Berkshire Hathaway about their views on the financial reform bill's regulation of derivatives and they said they were against. Ben was just protecting the $6 million I reported yesterday. Kudos to Ezra Klein, who reported what I said in-house here yesterday--the Republicans caved on filibustering the bill because Mitch McConnell wanted to go to the Kentucky Derby and didn't want late night voting to interrupt his plans. And, if you know the Senate, you know that's true. You have to have a real sense of priorities.

How did "Drill, Baby,Drill" turn out? Actually, quite fantastic, the first such off-coast well has been producing 5,000 barrels a day. The only problem is that it's all leaking into the Gulf of Mexico. This has prompted Governor Crist to reverse his position on off-shore drilling; the President to call the governors of all states near the spill and declaring the Administration might put the whole policy on hold.

You know the Right has gone coco-loco when Glenn Beck criticized President George W. Bush for being a "progressive". He also complained about Arizona being criticized for adopting Nazi-like laws, saying this diminished the crimes of Hitler. It seems to me he does that already by likening President Obama to Hitler.

The financial reform debate is actually just heating up. Goldman Sachs and the banks have unloaded millions to be funnelled through some of the front organizations that handled the healthcare reform debate. So, watch for the teabaggers to get their marching orders soon. Frank Luntz' interim memo is to aim at wavering Democrats by saying the bill is bad for them. We'll wait for the second memo when the debate gets in the open.

There are two things in my mind that one should watch--the regulations of derivatives and the consumer protection agency. There will be a full-court press to water these provisions down. And root for Senator Bernie Sanders' amendment to cap credit card rates at 15% like credit unions. As he pointed out three American banks issue two-thirds of all credit cards.

It's nice to see the head of the AFL-CIO Richard Trumpka out and about. Today's he's marching on Wall Street. But Trumpka has been the most visible AFL-CIO chief since Lane Kirkland and George Meany. It's good to see their public presence.

Barack Obama fled the capital to visit with the white folks in Iowa. After rhubarb pie (my favorite) and coffee, he held a townhall meeting to a thunderous reception. During the long presentation, he flagged the next political debate in the country. He warned the audience that we will be forced to make tough decisions in the months and years ahead. He emphasized that people who want government to do things must be aware of what these activities cost. He pointed out that his three year freeze on discretionary spending and some other measures he's taken will pay for everything during his first term, including the stimulus package. But he warned that the structural deficit he inherited will take years to address. He pointed out why the belief you can cut foreign aid simply doesn't touch a drop of our deficit. He emphasized that the deficit was composed of equal parts Social Security, Medicare and the Defense Budget.

Barney Frank is convening his own study on the deficit and explicitly aiming at the Defense Budget. The problem with the military/ terrorism budget is that it has doubled since 1998 and is considerably higher than during the Cold War when we had conventional enemies. Barney Frank is bragging his group is bipartisan but this means he has included the CATO Institute, which proposes cutting defense in half. At least, it's not the House Republican Plan to privatize social security and Medicare.

Doubts have arisen about the Deficit Commission appointed by President Obama because it is composed of Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats and not progressives. Erskine Bowles, a former Clinton official, said the Commission would be going after social security and Medicare like gangbusters. With the exception of Andy Stern, I don't see anyone including military expenditures in the mix. And that would be dreadfully wrong.

The great state of Oklahoma--where the wind...--is being sued for its mandatory sonogram anti-abortion bill by physicians. For the past year, women's rights have taken a beating in the U.S. of A. where dozens of states have been inching to restricting access to abortion and contraceptives. That's why I thought the Iranian police chief who said he would arrest women with suntans might have been from Arizona. Florida just passed yesterday by three votes a bill that would force women, even those raped, to watch an ultrasound of the fetus before agreeing to any abortion procedure. The feminist should mount up for one last ride--against the American Taliban.

But Oklahoma, home of Dr and Senator Tom Coburn, who opposed the healthcare bill, seems to have set the record for budget shortfall this year. As a result, they have dropped to 49 in healthcare--just one step ahead of Haley Barbour.

Tom Tancredo finally discovered the truth. Obama is deliberately hiding his birth certificate to drive conservatives nuts and make them look like they're crazy to the public.