Goodby,Rubio Tuesday.

++Sam Wang posted his SuperTuesday analysis from Hong Kong. He was serious about getting out of town. Wang says all tope three Republicans over performed and Trump is still on track to win the nomination. He along withy Nate Silver scoff at the idea of a brokered convention in Cleveland.

++The GOP billionaires have given Rubio until the Florida primary to get his act together or …they will draft Mitt Romney.

++The Koch Brothers announced they would not be putting money into a Stop Trump campaign.

++Ed Kilgore has written two pieces for New York magazine that says it's Rubio who is splitting the GOP party. He pointed to Rubio's #NoTrump campaign and his delusional sense that his Minnesota victory was a vindication of calling Trump a "con"artist. We just have to wait,I guess. Kilgore points out that all GOP candidates had to sign a pledge to support the nominee. Right now, Rubio is the one violating the pledge.

++I know you have been waiting. Willard "Mitt" Romney will address the 2016 GOP primary race tomorrow in Utah and is expected to attack Donald Trump.

++Rupert Murdoch is now saying that Trump is the unity candidate. Not that he likes it.

Who's Going to Make The GOP Debate?

++The first GOP debate is to be held on Thursday in Ohio. The RNC ceded the selection of the participants to Fox News. Allegedly,the participants will be chosen by the first ten in national polls. However, this gets dicey with hometown candidate John Kasich not getting up there and Carli Fiorina not qualifying. The only minority is Ben Carson.

++Fox said they will be having a kid's table debate prior to the first major debate. 

++Even FOX admits that it is mayhem trying to decide who is going to participate. Jon Stewart said it succinctly that is whomever Roger Ailes decides.

++Teetering on the edge is Chris Christie, who attacked the owner of my hometown paper The Asbury Park Press because he funds the Monmouth University polls, which say that--yes--the people of New Jersey believe Christie would be a bad President.

++The Donald is romping in all polls with 20+% and double digit leads over the nearest competitors--Jeb! and Scott Walker.

++Today the owner of the Chicago Cubs gave Walker $5 million. 

++Earlier next week the Koch Brothers will be hosting their cattle call with Jeb!,Marco Rubio, Scott Walker and Ted Cruz. The Koch Brothers say their campaign will center on the message that our economic policies should help the "unfortunate". 

++The Donald says that he may give Sister Sara Palin a cabinet post.

Lunch

++One fact that tells a lot about the United States. 
     68 million Americans do not have checking or savings accounts.

++This fact emerged in the discussion of Senator Warren's proposal that the Post Office provide paycheck cashing and same day loans to Americans. It is estimated that poorer Americans spend over $2,200 on checking cashing privileges and interest on same day loans per year. Her proposal would put a huge dent in the usury business.

++Elizabeth Warren's idea dates back to Theodore Roosevelt's view of the function of the Post Office.

++Meanwhile,for the strict constitutional Teabag crowd, if you really want smaller government, why not wait until 2017 when one third of Federal employees are eligible for retirement. They are demoralized as of now.

++John Boehner said this morning the United States will not default. If he let the whole house vote, they would pass a clean debt ceiling bill. I doubt it.

++The Speaker of the House also announced the House was creating a new website and releasing all the documents on Benghazi--since this will be an issue in the 2014 election for the right-wingers.

++Unlike the Washington Post and commentators on the Left,I support Obama signing the Farm Bill because a veto would plunge Congress into a morass. The Bill actually took 3 years to do.

++Dana Millbank has a column in the Post about his attending the House hearings on Obamacare and another on the IRS. He says the GOP are still devoid of reality.

++But that doesn't seem to matter much. The Koch Brothers' created Americans for Prosperity have already spent $20 million in ads against vulnerable Democrats.

++James Carville has now signed up as a Fox News Contributor. 

++kos of the Daily Kos beat the drum again today that the Democratic base outnumbers the GOP and should vote this year. It is actually true and Democrats really become fatalistic on off-year elections. But Virginia should feel them that a mini-Obama coalition can be organized in an off-year and win.

++Harry Reid wants President Obama to sign an executive order to end discrimination in federal hiring. Unfortunately he can't override restrictions in the majority of the States.

++In Georgia,the big rumor is that the federal government created the snowstorms that hit Atlanta.

++The Great Dictator Obama has signed the fewest executive orders of any President since FDR, who was the King of executive orders.

Gonzo GOP

++I can't tell anymore the difference between the Republican congresscritter and Bryan Ferry of the Religious Right Talk Shows. I simply could not tell you why they shut the government down and why they believe there would not be an economic collapse if they breached the debt ceiling. Today, they were even more confusing. The House has offered sort of a clean debt ceiling bill, but would keep the government closed down while the Administration and the Democrats would talk--about what? Paul Ryan earlier in the day suggested a clean debt ceiling and the House immediately negotiate a budget with the Senate, who has been waiting since March. This seems fine ,except how does the government open. The Senate Republicans tonight are urging a one-year clean debt ceiling and a CR, which would eliminate the tax of medical devices and verify the income of Obamacare recipients. But it is unclear whether the House would pass that.

++Today, House Republicans said they were giving up on defunding Obamacare, while Heritage and the Club of Growth urged a clean debt ceiling but keeping the government closed so as to negotiate over Obamacare. Eric Erickson of Red State threatened the Republicans with the creation of a third party because they failed to defund Obamacare.

++It does look like the bankers, the Koch Brothers and the Chamber of Commerce did bring the hammer down on the GOP over the debt ceiling.During the day, you could feel the tension go out of the Capitol and Wall Street rocketed back up over 15,000.

++I have written about President Obama using the 14th Amendment to raise the debt ceiling but it suddenly dawned on me that Congress would be violating the 14th Amendment by breaching the debt ceiling. Does anything happen to them?

++I have a tendency to be obsessed until I can make sense out of something. The  polls--the latest from the Wall Street Journal--show the GOP at 24% approval, while President Obama's rising to high 40s and Rasmussen to 50%. The GOP is 7 points lower than their lowest point, which was the day they impeached President Clinton. What gives?

++Personally, I think the GOP was out to destroy President Obama's Presidency but got so tangled up in their story that they  showed their "Tell". Basically, the GOP was committed at the time of Obama's swearing in to not only obstruct the Presidency but to fundamentally re-orient our democracy. The imperial presidency, which they created and sought to make the unitary executive as envisioned by Dick Cheney, is of no more use to them.

++Why was there such a lack of response to President Obama's request for armed force in Syria among a party that thrilled at war? It was not because the anti-war factions in each party triumphed, while that was partly true. Instead, the GOP has become isolationists. Notice how they don't even comment on the destruction of the Syrian chemical weapons. They floated the idea that this was some sort of Potemkin Ruse but reality shows differently. So move on. What is their response to the cutting of aid to Egypt? John McCain is the only one who has commented but the GOP just doesn't give a damn.

++Why? After Reince Preibus issued his paper on the need for GOP outreach,the party has gone in reverse direction. Even during the shutdown, there was talk about attaching more anti-abortion language and anti-contraception language in the CR. Despite a rally of thousands for immigration reform,there is no response from the House. And the continual attacks on President Obama are not meant to win the hearts and minds of the African American community. The "Cooch" went out of his way to reinstate the anti-sodomy laws in Virgina to no avail. Chris Christie appealed the court's decision to allow same-sex marriage in New Jersey. If anything, the whole Out Reach issue has gone into reverse.

++Today, the press revealed that the House changed their own rules on September 30 that prohibited any law from reaching the floor unless it was approved by the Speaker. That's why we had the shutdown. Also, the House today suggested that a clean bill on the debt ceiling would prohibit the Fed from using the powers of exigency to loan the Treasury money. The Center for American Progress actually hailed this as giving some certainty to the actual time of the debt ceiling. But it would erode an executive privilege, which would save a financial meltdown. 

++The net effect is that the Republican establishment has collapsed and it sees itself only as a congressional party and ,I believe, abandoned any serious ambitions to seize the White House. So the idea is to strip this President, especially, but all other Democratic presidents of the overwhelming power of the presidency. Basically,the Tea Party and the Business Community would dictate to the President the direction of the country.

++Many have called this neo-confedaratism and it is. The Art Popes and the Koch Brothers will continue to buy up states like North Carolina and Wisconsin and set the agenda for those states. The House Republicans from gerrymandering and voter suppression will retain their majority and hope they can take back the Senate. But even in the Senate,Mitch McConnell has set the tone of their behavior forcing 60 votes until a bill can reach the floor. This in essence blocks all Democratic initiatives. 

++They got into any Presidential election too far behind on the electoral votes. Changing how these votes are counted has been tried but in its most flagrant manner been dismissed by the courts. Even with voter suppression, they know women will remain about 61% of the vote and African-Americans and Hispanics will continue to rise.But any real outreach would jeopardize their congressional lock.

++The bizarre spectacle we have seen in the last week has been a full-blown civil war among Republicans with the potential that the rest of us would pay considerable collateral damage. When the dust settles, do not expect any moderation from Republicans or that they will stop this nonsense until Barack Obama leaves office.

++Finally, I guess  you should expect it. The Right is now going after Janet Yallin. Their campaign is against her because she is soft on inflation--something that hasn't been around for the last 6 years. 

More Union Thuggery

That's right. The evidence is at www.first-draft.com at Scout's Madison Vids. No one ever expects---the Polish polkas. Unions dragooned a Polish Polka band to play Roll in the Barrels at the Wisconsin capital. Not since Al Shanker dropped the A-bomb have unions resorted to such low tactics. With the snow storms in Wisconsin, the unions only managed to get out between 70-100,000 demonstrators. Even Peter Yarrow showed up with winter clothes to sing "Which Side Are You On?"

Nationwide rallies for public sector unions across 50 states numbered in the 100s of thousands. Yes, you can become an honorary union member by signing up at the AFL-CIO website.

At the Tea Party Convention in racially tolerant Arizona, everytime Scott Walker's name was mentioned he received a standing ovation. Word from Wisconsin is that Walker is not backing down on the law to bust the unions. Michelle Bachmann likened Walker to Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan.

Teabagger Governor Le Page of Maine suddenly decided that he should try to pass a right-to-work law for the state. He admits it may be an uphill battle since he never thought of it before. Could he sense some funding coming his way? The same day he opined that climnate change was not man-made--a position he never expressed before. We all know the number one climate change deniers are the Koch Brothers, who actually fund every American think tank which counters climate change science. They fund this at a greater level than Exxon-Mobil.

Still waiting for the end in Libya. Appearing for his record breaking appearance on the Sunday Talk Shows, McCain urges Obama to get tough with Libya. I guess John was in a coma for the last few days. The only thing Obama hasn't done is invade--at least overtly. Press reports have American, French and British special forces there already. In the past I have always been sympathetic to humanitarian interventions to prevent further crimes against humanity. Having been bit a couple times during the Bush-Cheney regime I am more hesitant. Libya is basically heading rather rapidly to a civil war and with a decentralized power structure direct American intervention might just exacerbate things further.

I agree with Tom Friedman of the New York Times that the unrest in the Middle East will be with us for years to come. Demonstrators still press for the resignation of Yemen's dictator and now are aiming at Oman. Apparently Facebook has been instrumental in new uprisings in Mauretania. In case you missed it--100s of thousands of Iranians are protesting throughout Iran's major cities.

Bob Gates, speaking at West Point, seemed to slap down Rummy and Dick Cheney saying that any future Secretary of Defense who advocated a ground war in the Middle East should have his head examined.

Bing West, a 70-year old military historian, has just written a book on Afghanistan where he concludes it's the wrong war, in the wrong time and in the wrong way. He embedded himself with our troops and went out on operations to evaluate the enemy. He contacted cholera and had to be airlifted out of country. A good read.

Anonymous promises to target the Koch Brothers and their holdings. They are currently looking for vulnerabilities in their various businesses. Boycotts are beginning against Koch products. You can look them up on line.

Some people think I was too rough in pointing out some of Koch's more unsavory relatives. For balance, Harry Reid always refers to one ancestor as a champion horse breeder. That person was actually arrested for horse rustling and hung. I know that isn't quite the same as someone making lampshades out of skin. But we all have our crosses to bear.


MY OSCAR PICK: Randy Newman for the song for Toy Story 3.

Ian's Pizza and Tom Morello in Wisconsin

It has not been confirmed that Ian's Pizza in Madison, Wisconsin received an order for a pizza from Egypt for the protestors. But they did get orders from 38 states and over a dozen countries for the pizzas in solidarity with the demonstrators.

But Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine did get a letter from one of the leaders of the Egyptian uprising in support of the Wisconsin demonstrators. Last I watched he read the letter twice --once outside with the demonstrators and again inside the capital rotunda.

Rasmussen thought he was quick to produce a poll which showed support for Governor Walkers' position against union. Unfortunately, this was quickly debunked by an AFL-CIO poll that showed 67% support for public workers,62% for the demonstrators and 59% for unions in the state. Greenberg polling's results mirrored those of the union polling.

The Tea Party Express issued a memo to members to try and infiltrate the demonstrators and alter the "optics" of the rallies by appearing to make provocative statements to the press and taking actions to bring criticism on the demonstrators.

This must have been a raging success because the State Police wrote a thank-you letter to the demonstrators for their conduct and stated there had not been a single arrest the whole week while they were protesting.

Our own mainstream press has been slowly getting around to understanding that this demonstration is against union-busting and that it's not about budgets. The Diane Rehm show had a discussion on NPR yesterday with a CATO Institute writer, the economist for the AFL-CIO and the head of ASCFME. It was no contest--the CATO institute guy kept referring to himself as working in the private sector--the non-profit--and claimed that public workers earned more than workers in the private sector. He also claimed that public workers were the "new elite" of the country with a monopoly. Even the callers to the show didn't buy his argument. The AFL-CIO economist just eviscerated his arguments and raised the issue of who did create the deficits in the country. In my mind, the argument was won by the President of ASCFME who reminded the audience that the average pension of one of his union members is a whopping $19,000.

Even the Washington Post and New York Times finally caught on to the Wisconsin scam. And scam it is. Buried in the same budget bill is a little clause that the Governor can sell its heating and cooling plants to the private sector on a no-bid basis. Bubbling up from the leftwing blogs was an analysis of how this was tailored made for the Koch Brothers, who already own alot of the state. Now this story has moved to the Huffington Post and hopefully will make the mainstream media. Don't hold your breath.

As I noted around election time, Walker won because of a concentrated voter suppression campaign run by the tea party. Also in this session's bills are attempts to tightened the requirements for Voter IDs so as to further restrict the voting base. Wisconsin had started a same-day registration process ,which also will be rescinded.

Walker, who had a whopping 41% approval rate just after the election, also wants to throw 1.5 million off Medicaid and the programs like Badgercare, etc.

What Wisconsin highlights in dramatic form is the New Republican agenda. Even a Walker friendly newspaper commented that the whole deficit could have been wiped out with an additional 6 cent a keg tax on beer! Instead, this is the full scale ideological shock therapy. If we were talking about states like California with massive budget issues, the situation would be more confused as such a state would be fighting for its financial survival. But Wisconsin is not. Walker did the nation a great favor by letting it all hang out. This has fueled the labor demonstrations in Indiana and Ohio.

What's interesting is that newly elected Michigan governor Snyder, a Republican, has been forced to make at least two speeches saying he would not do the same thing. Like-wise Chris Chrissie of New Jersey faced with a Democratic legislature has also said he would not engage in union-busting.

While the Wisconsin demonstrators have captured the imagination of the nation, let's be honest--Democrats and Independents together compose an overwhelming majority in the state but they did not come out to vote in 2010 like the Republicans and the results we see today. You get the government you don't vote for. Now all the non-Voters are responding to the disaster they allowed to happen.

OMG! They Killed Elmo!

John the Ripper Boehner and his radical Right nihilists zeroed out public broadcasting as part of their blood revenge for Juan Williams. But they did keep the Pentagon's sponsorship of a NASCAR racing car.Democratic representative Barbara Lee's amendment to keep the Pentagon's budget at 2008 levels was defeated. Instead,Republicans opted to kill Elmo, Big Bird and the Cookie Monster.

The House budget is as crazy as you could get in a once developed country. Significant cuts in the Social Security Administration will affect several hundred thousand recipients of disability and first-time social security recipients. The GOP zeroed out funding for the Consumer Protection Agency, implementation of health care reform,severely cut SEC funding so more Madoffs can be created,and cut funding for the EPA so they can not monitor the pollution from Koch Industries. There were also deep cuts in all programs aimed at alleviating the situation of the poor. But they kept the $42 billion of tax credits for the oil and gas industries and all the farm subsidies. They did kill the spare jet engine project located in Ricky Cantor and John the Ripper's district.

A first glance at the budget says that the healthcare provsiion alone will deepen the deficit by another $280 million and some 1 million jobs will be lost. Foreign aid was drastically cut, particularly humanitarian aid. The State Department, which was just trying to comeback in foreign affairs, was cut by 19%.

The Planned Parenthood vote was predicated on the idea that PP receives federal funding for abortion--Apparently, none of its $334 million goes to abortions. But the number figure is interesting. I was watching Frontline's "Bush's War", a two-part series on the Iraq War. In it, military officers spoke on camera that the United States paid Muqtada al-Sadr $330 million in cash to get him and his militia to stop fighting.

Maybe our domestic spending should be linked to our foreign policy bribes. Our Highway Fund--which the GOP also zeroed out-- should be at least equal to the amount our military is spending on the Afghanistan infrastructure.Maybe PP's funding should be pegged to the largest bribe to a foreign personality--apparently it tracks pretty closely.

Everyone says that we are heading to a budget standoff and the government will shut down. Government bureaucracies are already preparing for this eventuality. Coupled with the need--almost as immediate to lift the debt ceiling--we are walking into a volatile time. The Beltway wisdom is that Democrats have wiggle room to compromise but the Republicans don't because they are held hostage by the teabaggers. But remember this could all be a charade. Rep. Ryan was given totalitarian control of the House Budget and maybe the sole arbiter of what actually gets proposed in counter to the almost certain Senate rejection of the looney-tune budget.

Just an aside--I would love one of the remaining conservatives in the Republican party to explain to me how a budget that actually increases the national debt and costs 1 million jobs be considered conservative.

BACK IN WISCONSIN. I have been waiting today for the arrival of the teabaggers who are being bussed into the state for free to hold their Stand By Walker Rally. I think they came because they thought it was Stand By Johnnie Walker Rally. Hermain Cain of Godfather Pizza fame is supposed to go,along with Andrew Breibart for more of his pimping videos. Special guest star is Joe the Plumber, who isn't named Joe and is not a Plumber. 1,100 signed up on Facebook and they expect 4,500 to arrive.


All of this is being paid for by the Koch Brothers. What is actually surprising is that not only are the Koch brothers directly the main contributors to Walker's campaign but they actually own most of the state. The Koch brothers own the gas and oil pipelines in the state as well as the paper mills. Last year they reduced their employees in order to increase their profit margin when demand actually had increased. The reason was that the Koch Brothers feared that President Obama would raise the tax on the top income earners and they wanted to suck $11 billion more out their businesses.

One interesting trivia point--The Koch Brothers are one of the few Americans to have financially benefited from the Molotov-Rippentrop pact between Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia. Fred Koch went to both countries after having his patents stolen in the United States and applied his oil technology in both countries, building the first stage of their massive fortune. Koch actually favored Mussolini at the time and grumbled later that Stalin purged all the engineers in Russia. Apologists have said the United States were allies with the Soviets at that time and therefore old man Koch did nothing dubious. False,this was the United States even considered entering WWII.

A Wisconsin judge refused to order the teachers back to work in Wisconsin. Democrats are now targeting 8 of the Republican senators for recall. Walker can be recalled next January. The law says the office holder must have served at least a year before recall. The teabaggers are planing to recall the democrats.

Two polls of Wisconsin reveal the majority of the state oppose the Budget Repair Bill.

Our media basically frames the issue as a budget crisis. Governor Walker even talked about the budget repair bill today without mentioning all its union-busting elements. Leave it to Pat Buchanan to say that the average teacher in Wisconsin earns $100,000. False--it's $42,000. Ed Schultz has done a superb job covering the demonstrations on the ground but I wish he would knock off the anti-Obama rhetoric. John the Ripper has already blasted Obama for sending his Organizing for America out to Wisconsin to help out. Rumors have Bill Clinton going out to speak to the demonstrators.

Fox and others are circulating rumors that the Governor's life is in danger. I notice they never report on the thousands of death threats to President Obama from their viewers. And the right-wing pundits are denouncing "labor goons". I guess they mean the bagpipe playing firefighters marching in their kilts into the capital and the fact that demonstrators unveiled a huge American Flag in the rotunda. Definitely scary people.

Leave it to Fox News,jr.--CNN--to give the teabaggers publicity for their misspelled signs. If the demonstrators are goons, then why can they spell and the teabaggers can't?

Fox news has reported that the White House is behind the demonstrators--meaning having organized the demonstrators. Their are no grass-roots except the astro-turf groups.

Oh, by the way, the AFL-CIO has offered to agree to the benefit cuts and other budget reducing measures but wants all the union busting stuff dropped from the law.

Sunday in the Park with George

Congressional Quarterly has posted their House and Senate ratings as of now. On the House side, Democrats are now at 219 and the Republicans are at 180 with 36 toss-ups. This falls back into my view that Republicans must sweep the 40 targeted Democrats--a really high goal.

The Senate--CQ has Democrats now at 48 and Republicans at 40 with 12 seats at toss-up. Yesterday I saw a CQ projection that Republicans would take the Senate with 50-49. But this would mean taking 10 out of 12 toss-ups.

The teabaggers are going for the gold in New Hampshire and Delaware. In New Hampshire,the Manchester Union-Leader has endorsed the teabagger.

The phony doctor's association which counts Rand Paul as a member has issued a statement that Barack Obama won the 2008 election by mass hypnosis. Jack Conway should raise this in the Kentucky Senate race.

The Tan Man said today that he would be open to Obama's tax plan for the middle class, and the possibility of foregoing the tax cuts for the wealthy. It's no coincidence that a raft of polls came out this week showing that close to a majority want those tax cuts to lapse, and another 15% want all tax cuts to lapse. This accounts for the Republican hesitation.

The progressive think tank NDN broke down the Tan Man's Economic Plan for House Republicans and concluded Boehner's plan would increase the national debt by $3.781 trillion. His dandy idea of going back to 2008 level spending on non-defense discretionary spending would only save $36 billion next year and nothing the following two years because Obama already declared a freeze on discretionary spending.

No one burned any copies of L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics yesterday. There were Qurans burned by individuals at the 9/11 commemorations in New York and one lone wolf tore up pages from the Quran in front of the White House. I was thinking of burning Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy because Al Qaeda took its name from it right after it was published in Arabic and became a best-seller among young Muslims. If Dune had been published then, it would have become the name of Bin Laden's group and been more appropriate.

Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin's celebration of 9/11 with their boozefest was preceded by prayers from the "Christian" fringe pastors, one of whom said that Obama was too much of a coward to declare America a "Christian" nation. Maybe it really is because it's historically not true.

Islamophobia seems to be breaking out around the country and fueled by even the moderate Right. 9 years after the fact, this seems strange but remember the Republican leadership at the time of 9/11 was heavily tied to the Saudis and had to put a lid on any reaction. The Right always believed we are in a holy war against Islam and now they can become full-throated about it.

But one interesting fact remains-- the last Gallup poll shows that only 1% of Americans believe terrorism is the number 1 issue facing the country, compared to 46% right after 9/11. And now all these people exist in the burning remains of the neoconservative movement and among 2012 presidential aspirants who need the radical Christian Right to survive the primaries.

Speaking of which, Newt Gingrich speaking at a Values Summit meeting ,along with other presidential wannabes, flashed onto Dinesh D'Souza's strange comment in the National Review that Obama had the "Kenyan anti-colonial mentality". Newt said that was the most brilliant thing he had heard in six months. I distinctly remember that Kenya was a most reliable African ally in the Cold War and actually supported us out of principles, not bribes.

Dinesh's remarks reflect the rhetoric against Obama coming from London during the Presidential campaign. Ancient conservatives, who resented losing the colony, claimed that Obama's father was a terrorist. They linked him to the Mau-Maus. This got some traction in the states but then wiser heads prevailed knowing that Jomo Kenyatta, the head of the Mau-Maus, had been a long-time friend of the United States. So Newt is just recycling fourth-hand nonsense. Newt even said that Obama had learned Saul Alinsky's trick of disguising one's true self to deceive people into supporting your radicalism. That must account for Obama's sly endorsement of small businesses and corporate tax breaks.

If you actually want to read about Saul Alinsky, Nicholas Von Hoffman has a new memoir out recalling his lifelong friendship with Saul Alinsky and recording what Alinsky actually said about his work. Saul Alinsky's son must thank Glenn Beck everyday when Beck highlighted Rules for Radicals as the Bible of Barack Obama. All the teabaggers have to learn and use these principles so that old tired book is getting a second life and probably will sell more this time around.

Republican candidates are openly campaigning on closing down the Government if they win the House. That would have the sole benefit of them not passing anything. But think about that for a minute. The United States is in two wars, in the midst of a borderline Depression, and your political platform is to close down the Government. This is not a random statement but is emerging as a real idea among House candidates.

Forget about the external world but the immediate effects would be Social Security and Medicare payments would not be made, Veterans' benefits would cease, Unemployment iinsurance payments would stop. The last time this happened under the Clinton Administration there was a firestorm of reaction against the Republicans and their leader, Newton Leroy Gingrich.

Chris Van Hollen issued a statement on behalf of House Democrats on this subject, warning all voters what this would mean in practical details.

Elizabeth Warren has drawn over 250,000 supporters on petitions demanding Obama appoint her. Amen!

Governor Moonbeam has emerged with a new ad with Peter Coyote providing the narration. Meg Whitman had gambled that her spending $120 million by Labor Day would create a 10-15 point lead, which Brown could not erase by election day. Brown for his part didn't spend any money but now has started his campaign around California, challenging Whitman to appear with him at 15 townhall meetings. So far she's refused. The Race is basically tied so it's going to cost Whitman about another 75 million of her personal wealth.

Speaking of wealth, the Koch brothers are fighting back against the Jane Mayer expose in the New Yorker with their minions writing op-eds and letters to the editors. Even Howard Hughes maintaned his anonymity better than these guys. Should teabaggers really be named Koch suckers?

The war the Koch Brothers are waging against Barack Obama is reminiscent of their Dad going against Ike "the Kike". Dad helped create the John Birch Society, which encouraged the smears of General Marshall by Joe McCarthy. So it's interesting to recall that Ike passed the Federal Highways Act to create the interstate highway system. In today's dollars it would cost $179 billion. Barack Obama's infrastructure rehabilitation plan costs a paltry $50 billion. But to pay for it might require eliminating some of the oil industry's tax loopholes. Poetic justice for the Koch Brothers, the owners of the world's largest private oil company.

Instead of 9-11, I am heading to Halifax, Nova Scotia this week to visit the memorial to the 10,000 American prisoners of war that died at the hands of the British in the 1812 War. Lest we forget the Brits sent 300,000 white folk to America as slaves before the Revolutionary War. Interestingly, black slavery followed, only when the British companies realized it was more cost effective and profitable to use blacks, rather than whites. While this blog has had to defend Thomas Jefferson from the lies told about him by the Texas Schoolboard and David Barton, I have to admit Thomas Jefferson tried to paper over this aspect of our history and minimize the number of white folks who had actually been slaves or former criminals.

Political Mayhem and HooHaw

Nate the Great Silver at www.fivethirtyeight.com at his new digs at the New York Times has his new Senate model up and running. He called all 35 Senate races in 2008 correctly. His finaly tally today is Democrats lose 6 to 7 seats. Democrats 52.4; Republicans 47.1 and Other .5 I love the fractions. In future posts, we'll get to the specific races. Next week Nate promises the House predictions--I shudder.

One observation I have is that earlier this week Beltway pundits wrote op-eds predicting a possible Republican take-over of the Senate. Somehow no one cares to base any of this on empirical evidence. To do that, the Republicans would have to win all of the 10 seats, where they seem to have a possibility. So a Republican take-over of Congress would mean the GOP would have to win all 10 Senate seats that are possible and all 40 of the Democrats vulnerable seats. If they did that, be very scared. It would mean that the political universe of the United States had radically changed within the last 18 months and that we face a fascist threat--which we may anyway.

Usually mild-mannered Norm Ornstein of AEI, after John "The Tan Man" Boehner's exposition of the Republican economic program yesterday commented that Tan Man and Eric Cantor are the Homer and Bart Simpson of Congress "merely content to play adolescent antics and games". From the neoconservative Kingdom, that smarts. Norm also mentioned that all of the Republican moderates in the House could have caucused in Mike Castle's closet. He said that the politics of Congress after this election will be worse. The moderates on both sides will be obliterated. He mentioned that Castle would be going on to the Senate.

After beating the drum on deficit and the national debt, the GOP has scared its own base. A CNN poll suggest that only 50% of Republicans want to extend the Bush tax-cuts for the rich. As for tax-cuts for those making under $250,000, 69% of liberals support that approach, 53% of moderates and only 36% of conservatives. More conservatives want to extend the tax cuts for the very rich than for the middle and lowe-income brackets , even though all economists agree that the reverse positions would actually stimulate the economy.

Just to play the Devil's Advocate, let's say the Republicans take back the House. How much trouble would new members cause for the Tan Man? Particularly if they come from the two dozen African-American members recruited by Michael Steele? While we see the ethics problems with Rangel and Waters on the Democratic side, the whispers around town say that the Tan Man has several serious ethics problems with Republicans but he said he deals with those "privately." If in the majority, these would not be private any more. How long under these circumstances would a majority actually survive? Boehner has frequently had to tell the "Family Values" members to stop partying with women lobbyists.

I urge everyone to read Jane Mayer's piece "Covert Operations" in the new New Yorker on the role of the Koch Brothers in trying to undermine the Obama Administration. Both Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow last night had segments on their show about how the Koch brothers bankroll the Tea Party and organize fake astro-turf groups to lobby against regulations and anything that might affect climate change so as to protect their financial interests. As the book Radicals for Capitalism describes, the Koch brothers are self-proclaimed radical libertarians, who not only want to eliminate the social welfare state but also the government itself. They differ slightly from their father, who was a founding member of the John Birch Society and was involved in the FDR as a socialist campaign.

Washington awaits Glenn Beck's Dishonor Valor rally, where he will unfold his Mormon Libertarian vision of America which will reclaim the Civil Rights Movement for white supremacists. One organizer has printed out a helpful map of Washington warning attendees where black people hang out and what metro lines to take to avoid people of color. There are also addresses of Democratic leaders of Congress, which you may want to call or shoot. Martin Luther King's son had a classy op-ed in today's Washington Post reminding readers of his father's commitment to social justice and hinting that Beck's rally was a sign of disrespect.

Beck will racially heal the country with voices of tolerance . Sarah Palin has just supported Dr.Laura after her Tourette's rant of the "N" word. Ted Nugent , who hailed Dubuque as a "real white city", will join them on stage. And Michelle Bachmann, Christianist from Minnesota, wants her followers to be "armed and dangerous". This is sort of like Hitler trying to co-opt the message of Mohatma Gandhi.

Political conservatives are growing disenchanted with Glenn Beck for abandoning the 9-12 project, which he started. The Christian Right is getting a bit dispturbed by people like David Barton, Christian revisionist, for defending Beck. What the fundamentalists have been noticing and average viewers wouldn't get is that Beck is increasing introducing themes of Mormon theology into his shows.

This is most evident when he started a spontaneous rant on American Indian civilization. He accused the Smithsonian of covering up the true facts of a discovery in the Ohio mounds of the Ho-Ho-Kum culture. Beck claims that a piece of pottery was found there which was inscribed with bold printed Hebrew. This piece he says contains the Ten Commandmants. Then he quotes approvingly from Thomas Jefferson's speculations of where the Indians came from. All interesting stuff but you would have to know that Mormon theology says that the American Indians were descended from an Israelite tribe, who travelled to North America before Columbus. All of what he said about the Ho-Ho-Kum mounds is nonsense but widely believed by Mormons.

Beck says his address will be based on some talking points because he doesn't want to interfere with the "Spirit". Now remember the Koch industries' front-ground Americans for Prosperity are providing cut-rate packages for people to attend the Beck rally. There will be Tea Baggers there. Now Beck in his last shows suggested that William Penn's method of dealing with American Indians may be a model for our racial cooperation. I think there may be some suprises for Beck's free-market fundamentalist fans on Saturday. He's going to weave a Mormon interpretation of the origins of America together with a homily on the Founding Fathers and suggest America never was the same after the first generation of revolutionary founders. By the end you might see steam come from the fundamentalists ears. By the end , Beck may just piss everyone off.